Link between lack of women's rights and feminine grooming?

Or that women are socialised out of being comfortable being seen to buy such items. Fact is most visual erotica is aimed at men. Playgirl from memory was cheesy and coy. You only have to look at teenage girls bedroom walls to see tat women do have a visual component to their arousal, we're just less likely to be as obvious about it.

But of course, as a man you are obviously an authority on female arousal

degrading images of women are another topic slug, i refer you to my earlier post:-

((a number of posters have said, that women react the same way to a naked man as men react to a naked woman, i dont think so.
'playgirl' went out of production, it's small male gay following were quite upset.
'for women', another erotic magazine aimed at women lasted months on the shelves after a blaze of publicity on it's launch.
one of the big differences between the sexes is the fact that men are more visual than women in this area, men dont tend to read erotic literiture, they want images.))

this is what i mean when i say men are more visual than women.

You do realise the 'erotic magazine' market is created solely for the male market don't you chairman meow? The images of women in submissive and degraded poses is a bit of a turnoff for many women, visually stimulated or not.

messy, i'm not suggesting physical attraction isnt inportant for women, the 'wedding photos cut in half experiment' prooves that, woman are not above the flesh. just that when it comes to arousal men are very visual, and women well, i dont want to pidgeonhole women here, but maybe women need a connection? a mood? . if women were as visual as men in this regard wouldnt some women at least buy erotic magazines like some men do?

as for the witch hunt, i belive ( as do some historians) that sexuality was at the very core of it. whiches were blamed for making men impotent.

i have a morrocan freind who genuinly belives that the mother of a potential bride for him back in morrocco made him impotent for a week or so for not chosing her daughter. i tried to tell him it was all bollox and between his ears not his legs, but he was adamant.

Chairman, the "brazen and wild" trope is more of a thread through history rather than a day to day reality. It's well documented as a central theme to Christianity's view of women and was at least part of the rationale behind the witch-hunt.

With ref to the whole "men are more visual than women" thing - yes I've heard that a lot, but I can never really buy it whilst there is so much cultural indulgence of men's visual appetites and so little for women's. Social conditioning is such a huge factor and I would say that IMO girls are brought up to believe that judging men solely on their looks is shallow.

To give an example, I went out with a complete minger for years!! I wasn't attracted to him physically whatsoever but I felt so guilty about my shallowness that I carried on going out with him. It annoyed me that he expected a higher level of looks/grooming from me that he was prepared to give, but I never really told him, cos I didn't want to be rude. It was only when he turned out to be a bit of a dickhead that I finally finished it.

My point is that IMHO women are attracted to men physically. The physical attraction may contain a more psychological aspect to it, which is why looks alone doesn't do it but it's still pretty strong. It's just it's socialized out of us more out of us.... IME of course

You expressed doubt that the boy was 'damaged'.

I really hope you do not put into practice what you seem to support. It is a crime and an abuse of trust. I'm not interested in spending my Sunday morning talking and thinking about it.

as i'm not a woman, i cant claim to have the same expertise as you to judge how woman react to anything.

51% actually.

did i condone underage sex? where? all i'm saying is that teacher is different from a peodofile. you may disagree.

chairman - the point about what you refer to as 'brazen and wild' (nasty terminology) sexuality is, as my reference to the virgin/whore trope indicates, a trope. A stereotype. Not a reality.

And no, funnily enough, I don't agree that the way men react to women is 'more the point'. Occasionally, it's quite good to think about women's reactions, too. We're a whole 50% of the population, you know.

As has already been pointed out, women might dislike stripping for all sorts of reasons having nothing to do with disliking naked men (though I am interested that you're such an authority of how women feel when they watch men strip, as I wasn't aware it was a terribly common pasttime).

It is quite amusing (as well as stunningly arrogant) to hear a man insisting he knows how women feel about naked men. I am biting my tongue here, or I would suggest your response may well be based on something several women have told you, that it's really ok - women just don't react much to naked men. Honest. And we actually prefer it when you leave the toilet seat up as a sign of rampant masculinity. Oh, and the moon? Green cheese.

Sorry, but, well, I don't think you've much clue.

Obviously you're on the wind up with that comment pretending to condone underage sex, I assume. It's a pretty disgusting wind-up, but from previous experience I know MNHQ won't delete.

LRD
ok, mabye women dont think 'seen one seen them all' but do you really think it's the same for men and for women? look at how women behave when they watch a stripper, lots of shouting and so on, then look at the men as they watch a stripper, stareing, gazeing , trying not to blink incase they miss a bit.

did you hear about the american pretty school teacher a peodofile! who was sent to prison for the affair she had with a pupil? males and females of course must be treated the same under the law, but is it really the same? was that boy really damaged? or was he the envy of all his classmates?
do you really think this is the same as a male teacher having an affair with a female pupil?

a number of posters have said, that women react the same way to a naked man as men react to a naked woman, i dont think so.
'playgirl' went out of production, it's small male gay following were quite upset.
'for women', another erotic magazine aimed at women lasted months on the shelves after a blaze of publicity on it's launch.
one of the big differences between the sexes is the fact that men are more visual than women in this area, men dont tend to read erotic literiture, they want images.

i'm not attall sure about the brazen and wild female sexuality that must be tamed. i know what your talking about, something freud was obsessed with maybe, but i've encounterd very little of this in my life and when i have i have put it down to the fact that the girl has worked out her reputation gets her lots of attention from the boys rather than her unweldy libido pushing her to find satisfaction i would guess it has more to do with male fantasy than fact, the idea that a woman would be just as driven for casual sex as a man is mabye quite a turn on. i'm not saying some women dont have high sex drives it's just men seem to be better at walking away from casual sexual encounters with a spring in their step.

the way men react to women is more the point here, if a woman only has to undress to make him feel different she must be oozing with lust herself , it doesnt make sense that such arousal-inducing beauty could be inert . also, if she can do that to us what other powers might she have? she might be a witch, burn her! or maybe wrap her in a burqua so we dont have to deal with these complecated overpowering sentiments. our overtly sexualised society where a confused guy can say "why would you want to diminish a girls sexual desire" has it's advantages, it's got to be better than some of the more conservative societies on this planet where sexuality is repressed.

the issue of men talking about having sex with a woman as a punishment, is very complecated, i make no excuses for this behavoir but in an attempt to try and explain it......
sorry i've sat here at the pc for 10 minutes wondering how to begin and i dont think i can explain it, is there something submissive about the sexual act for a woman? does this mean for a female you dislike you still have an emoitional hold over her? a way of winning the feud, by winning her over so she consents to sex? actually i dont know.

I mean, I think you have to have two opposing assumptions because it is such an effective catch-22.

Yes - but is that not virgin/whore? Gail Dines also had this theory I heard (I hope I'm getting it right), that at various times people have developed this polarized idea of the animalistic woman (and it's tied up with racism in the US, she says), who is sexually uncontrolled, and the sexually contained women who're 'suitable' wives and mothers.

I think that binary is such a nasty - but effective - tool for controlling women, because inevitably you make women walk this very fine line, between knowing that if they don't satisfy their men, other women who are sexually uncontrolled will do so, and on the other hand, if they seem to enjoy it too much or want to step outside of monogamous relationships with men, they're judged as 'sluts' or whatever.

LRD - re. your West Wing digression. What confuses me is that in various cultures/times there seems to have been 2 opposing assumptions at work: on the one hand, women have been seen as lacking the same sex drive as men, on the other the idea that women's sexuality is wild and dangerous if not controlled, and that it's somehow malevolent.

messy - yes ... and I wonder if some of that stuff with boys talking about sex with girls they hated, it's also part of that nasty idea that you can punish women like this.

So it's not just about the separation of appearance and emotion, I mean.

Forgive me - this is a bit digressive but I have to post it because I love it so much.

There's a bit in the West Wing where Donna's been reading about nineteenth-century attitudes to seamstresses, and how men thought the motion of the peddles might arouse them, so they recommended that these women sip bromide because it would diminish their sexual desire. And Josh replies, 'why would anyone want to diminish a woman's sexual desire?!'

It is one of the reasons have a teeny crush on Josh. But I assume it's factual about the seamstresses and the bromide, so I think people really did want to control women's sexual desire.

I also suspect that all this guff about fashionable clothes forcing women's bodies into the same physical postures that we (supposedly) adopt when we're aroused - like high heels being meant to push women's feet into the shape we curl them into during orgasm - is conveying a message that, for women, sexual desire is mostly a matter of external appearance rather than what we feel. Which is fairly creepy.

LRD, I think girls are also brought up to be more romantic (all those soppy movies probably). I was always when I heard my BF (a boy) talking to his friend about what they would like to do a certain girl, whom they actually hated. The dawning realization that men wanting to shag you didn't actually mean they liked you as a person was a huge letdown.

"Have women been socially discouraged to hide their sexual desire or is it that sex comes with much more baggage for females"

Maple, I'd say it's probably both. I know I would be way too embarrassed to make remarks to a man on the street about his appearance. I just don't feel entitled to do so.

But you only have to look at boy bands and their screaming fans to know that girls have sexual desire for boys.

I agree, maple. I remember those Cosmo centrefolds of naked blokes and the way a lot of women I knew reacted was that it would be lovely in reality, but in a magazine it was a bit unpleasant because of knowing how creepy it can feel when men leer over page 3 or whatever.

I too think that heterosexual women react to naked men just like heterosexual men react to naked women. However, some don't want to objectify the male body like that, also it could be considered rather tacky to comment on men's physical appearance in an overtly sexual way. You don't tend to get females commenting on the size of mens' genitals like some (most) men feel free and unashamed to comment on the size or shape of womens' breasts. Have women been socially discouraged to hide their sexual desire or is it that sex comes with much more baggage for females (risk of rape, assault, pregnancy, left with bringing up babies etc. or even just risk of not physically enjoying the sex?)

As to grooming, there is natural selection but there is also sexual selection when by and large people choose mates who are healthy and likely to procreate, or is that all popular science rubbish and not based on facts?

sorry unlike = until

Well I guess we'll just have to disagree nicely chairman cos the problem with trying to look for reasons in evolutionary history is that no one will ever properly know, unless of course we find some cyrogenically frozen caveperson who can settle the dispute!!

I guess both sides will always think the other has more power because everyone is aware of their own lack of choice and the images each sex portray to each other is not always honest.

Anyhoo, I will always believe that women's attention to their appearance is down to culture because using myself as my own anthropological evidence I know that I didn't give a crap about what I looked like unlike I was told I should!

I still find it hard to get worked up about fashion even though I constantly feel rubbish about myself when I watch TV and adverts, and think I should "sort myself out". But I like food and too much so I guess that's wishful thinking!

Can I blame Queen Victoria?

There really was a tipping point in men's fashions in Britain on the death of Prince Albert and the prolonged period of mourning which followed. Look at male fashions earlier - say restoration to very early Victorian: colourful, impractical, uncomfortable (with heels, hose, corsets and padding). Then that long period of mourning took out all colour and most embellishment, and men's fashion never really recovered its former verve.

Really, really, trust me, women do not think 'seen one penis, seen them all'.

Heterosexual women react to naked men just like heterosexual men react to naked women.

It still doesn't explain anything at all about grooming!

hello again messy
well, no women dont have an equivalent of a peacocks tail but if a woman undresses that will have a big impression on most men, such as impression that the very sight may introduce chemicals into his bloodstream. where as women are possibly more likely to say "seen one penis, seen 'em all". yes, the youthfull bronzed adonis male may be nice to look at but i doubt it has the same effect of women as a female nude does on a man, thats just evolotionary hardwireing.
but i take your point, my peacock analogy is floord in this way.

flamboyant males in the 1700's are certianly down to culture i agree with you, just like cravated blue velet trouserd dogey hippies and new romantics, there a cyclical thing going on there, but i dont dismiss culture , it's also clearly evedent with womens fashions , it's whats left of us as a species when all that is stripped away thats interesting.

where i fully disagree with you is the element of who choses.

the very fact that men are physicaly bigger than women, usually, is down to sexual selection, women chosing stronger men, able to hunt , fight for their property and any possible offspring. in ape species where the males dont compete for the females, bonobos for example the sexes are the same size.
it seems to appear that men do the chasing, but if you take a closer look, they only chase when women are encourageing them to, well some men chase when they are not receiving the right signals but that is more like sexual harrassment than flirting.
no, in huiman society women are the chosers, they may not be able to chose whoever they want, the more attractive they look of course the more males they can chose from. this may have contributed to women taking better care over their appearence. but they chose anyway.

one other thing worth mentioning is that when in the savanna and men hunted and women were either gathering or rearing offspring, personal grooming became more inportant for those who were at home, with an end to nomadic lifestyles and a home base being established there was suddenly more risk of bugs, fleas, allsorts .
it's noticable how much easier it is to get a little girl to wash her hands than it is a boy. i know, this is a huge assumption on my part, but no smoke without fire maybe? this may have contributed to the fact that women are more concernd about their appearence.

glad you also like anthropology!

Have to agree with posters who have said this is likely due in some significant part to the "new money" flashiness of Dubai. More to do with that than the rights afforded to women in that country I think