we went to a gay pride carnival

YY

Having said that I once de-haired a boyfriend's back for him before he went on hol. There is a certain level of male hairiness that qualifies for a flinch from many observers on the beach, and younger men are responding to that. But where has that come from? Men taking the piss out of each other, and on TV and stuff, male comedians wearing excessively hairy chest wigs and the like. It's prob a bit racist as well - white northern europeans being less hairy generally and so propogating their look as the norm.

Media is what influences and that's run by blokes. That's the point, surely?

I do think that men get pressure to look one way or another - my very hairy ex, and now DH who would struggle to grow a beard which he's slightly sensitive about... But it's not kind of linked into everything else, it's not so important as the female stuff.

Like the 2 managers on my team (male) eye me from time to time in quite an obvious manner. I don't even think they know they're doing it. And it's always been that way, for me and most women/girls I think. It makes girls and women feel self-conscious, and hyper-aware of how they look, hence the constant preening and checking. I eye men, because I personally have a keen and interested eye for male beauty and have never been looking for power or money. But I don't leer. That's the thing that gets on my nerves, that men think it is OK to look at women and girls like that. I would never look at a bloke like that at work or generally really. It's just a rude and insulting thing to do. Why can't they subtely look out of the corner of their eye like women do? Rather than a full slow up and down sweep just before a meeting or something? Gah!

God specialsubject. that's a bit simplistic. Most people don't want to stand out - that's human nature. Maybe we're more sheep than ape?

...so don't follow the women's rules. There isn't pressure to wear a stupid 'swimsuit' that doesn't work. Wear a rash vest and boardies, and keep the sun off into the bargain. There isn't pressure to wear heels. etc etc.

peer pressure only works on sheep.

Kim - But that's my point. Women's rules are enormously complex. Enormously expensive. Enormously time consuming.

I worked at Leicester Sq station on Saturday and half our "traffic" was from Pride.

Gay and straight friends came by, or straight family members supporting gay family members, and I also saw children of gay families.

I think its a great opportunity for LGBT folk to socialise, campaign, and stick two fingers up at prejudice.

Sorry, I mean they will seek to normalise this form of male grooming - removing hair.

This is also influenced by porn culture, where everyone is hairless.

I think male grooming will get far more prevalent as the marketing people realise it's a largely untapped market.

I had a lover a while ago who shaved his pubes and waxed his back. I was sort of astounded and disconcerted by this (and ever so slightly repelled, but that's by the by), but he said all his friends did it too, except one who wasn't naturally hairy (though he had pubic hair.)

And of course, it's because the people who produce the wax and the shaving cream, have a market to grow. So they will seek to normalise male grooming in order to sell their product

Yes society does put a premium for women to look attractive and puts premium/pressure on men to be successful.

However society is run be a FEW men and everyone else is just pawn, that's easily replaced.

Yes Nice, I agree. I was thinking the other day about the variety of female clothing and how we have to dress 'to the occasion' far more than men.

A man's grey suit, shirt and tie will take him to work (if he works in that kind of environment)/job interview or a wedding. Women will dress very differently.

DH has a pair of swimming shorts he could wear to walk to the beach, to swim in or to go to the local swimming pool at the leisure centre. I have a 'sports' costume for proper swimming and a 'beach' costume. Which in turn is so revealing (i.e. tight, cut like pants at the bottom) that it needs another item - e.g. shorts, a sarong - to walk down the road to the beach.

There is massive pressure on girls/women to conform to complex social rules about clothing.

Society is run by heterosexual men, but women participate in it. Naturally enough most people conform - so girls will police each others looks as much as guys will. But it's not for them.

In my simplistic opinion - guys judge in terms of hotness, girls judge in terms of status/competition.

Not saying that men fancy little girls obv.

But that "feminine beauty" is considered in a very positive light in a way that masculine beauty, well, isn't. In fact men aren't encouraged to try too hard with their looks - because that is considered effeminate which is bad according to society because a. being "feminine" is a bit crap and b. homophobia much.

I am always stunned when people don't see this stuff as kind of just in-your-face obvious.

You don't hear the N word a lot because most people are not racist.
Same as most men don't wolf whistle women.

Anyway those men where not dressed for straight MEN, but some of the men where scantily clad for gay MEN!

Men preen

They just don't have such a high standard to try to meet.

It starts young - DD (5) was at a party the other day. The boys were all running around in what I imagine was their normal weekend clothes. The girls all had proper party frocks on and their hair done up with clips with flowers on and stuff. Apart from my DD who had track suit bottoms, a t-shirt and "boys" sandals. Which was fine. But I suddenly realised that the boys would have just come to the party as they were while the girls had been "dressed up" and had their hair done and everything. So it starts early. Why? Because society puts a premium on females looking attractive, and coincidentally society is run by heterosexual men.

It's not even 25 years ago Kim. My uni photos are 15 years old and it's the same.

I'm another one who thinks that the ridiculous way women preen and overgroom themselves has more to do with what other women expect than what your average run of the mill bloke wants.

And at Pride you can't really avoid all the drag queens in their porn star get-ups. That's all a bit bloody insulting to women isn't it, if you take it to its logical conclusion?

My brother told me this hilarious story about being stuck behind a young man in some shop in Camden, who had to sort of pigeon-jump up each stair sideways because his trousers were so far down his thighs that he couldn't actually reach one foot up in a straight line. It took ages to get up the stairs.

I have my hair shaved at the sides and the top is bright pink, often swept up into a Mohawk / pompadour type thing. I'm also short, fat and wear bright pink boots (totally outed myself to anyone who knows me).

My look is apparently not pleasing to some men, who feel they need to tell me how unfuckable I am. However my look was pleasing to a drug and drink addled man in the corner shop last week. I know this because he said "I like your hair, now come here cheeky chops and giz a kiss" before lunging at me, slobbering.

I think I'd be very happy at a gay pride event.

Enough of them do though Kim to make it something that most females have had (unwanted attention of one sort or another) and are aware of when they are out and about. It doesn't take more than a significant minority of men / boys behaving that way to quite heavily affect most females. IYSWIM.

Yes I think you're right Kim - men are still judged on appearance, it's just that that judgement doesn't carry over to all the other areas of their lives, as it does for women.

As with everything else in life, whether your appearance is a serious threat to progress in other areas of your life, is dependent on where you are in the social heirarchy. So being fairly plain has had no impact on Princess Anne whatsoever, being ugly doesn't matter if you're Wayne Rooney and can kick a football around a pitch competently; but if Anne had been born into a much lower social group and Rooney hadn't been good at football, their appearance would have been much more significant in terms of how they were able to function in all areas of their lives.

The average man is higher up the heirarchy than his female counterpart, so his appearance will have less impact on the rest of his life.

Trousers falling down = making out you're "hard" = related to impressing other males.