Men and paraphilias

A few months back, Debbie Hayton had to be disabused of the notion that the size of a woman's breasts indicate the extent of her social cachet amongst her peers. Debbie thought that bigger breasts pushed women further up the social hierarchy amongst other women.

I had to google Debbie Hayton to find out why she would think that, and .. oh.

Examples of why it relates to women labelling etc.

The fantasy is that women's primary innate fundamental driver is to CONSCIOUSLY and deliberately be viewed as sexually desirable to men in general. Not ones they fancy even. Just any. Most. All.

Older women who express things they don't like.
Bitter because men don't fancy them. Hairy. Ugly.
Young women who express things men don't like. Or reject their advances more bluntly than required.
Lesbians.
Women who don't enjoy / speak out against things like catcalling, pat on the bum in the pub, lecherous comments from car, sexualised 'banter' at work.
Prudes / frigid / humourless bores who 'don't get it'.

And so on.

Deciding that the fantasy that it's the norm for women to be constantly angling for male sexual attention. And that's because they are just sexy all the time naturally.
Is a very useful and flattering idea.

The male gaze is rewritten as women's desire to draw the male gaze. It's not their fault if they look, that's what women want!

Yep new thoughts for me all fitting together!

And of course men know that's not what woman are like. That's not how they are. How they feel. Even if sometimes feel bath sensual. Or think these tights make my legs look nice. It's not a 24/7/365 irrepressible fundamental part of any woman's life. Even those who do those things do not keep it up at home. Always slinking out of shower with carefully minimal towel hair wet but good. Etc.

Men know this. All men know women aren't actually like this. They know it's a fantasy. And they know it's a male fantasy however much they try to ignore that knowledge.

They want it to be true. It makes women easier for them to... Navigate? Deal with? Makes it easier to dismiss them, see them as totally different to men. Label them. Decide the reason some do things they don't like.

Do I need to namalt at this point? Probably. IME though most men I've known even the nice ones. If you get to know them well and they're nice blokes etc. Will let slip something related to this in some way.

Sexualised imagery like that has been around for yonks.

Women in bubble bath eating flake as if it's turning her on.
Adverts for tights and before that stockings with woman looking admiringly at her leg in pose to look nice with pointed toe. Stroking her leg. (I suppose she's supposed to be feeling how nice the tights are but bizarrely. Having never thought about it before and just having passively consumed those images thinking that's bizarrely sexualised. And no further. I just thought woman stroking leg. Never tights. Interesting realisation!).
Women emerging from the shower with a towel that covers not quite all of breasts and just below groin.
In my memory. Goes back further though.

On ads TV film often women tend exhibit certain behaviours repeatedly. And often they are sexy while doing their jobs etc. Depending on progs. Women wear very high heels and tight clothes as standard in many jobs esp in USA. From high court judge to head of criminal organisation to plain clothes detective to assassin. Not always. But still ubiquitous. Often sashaying is involved. Plenty of shots from behind or in front of her walking a fair way down a corridor.

It's insidious.

Even in due to circumstances in post apocalyptic/ thrown back to prehistory/ action story in jungle.

Most women still wake up, get clean, makeup, fab hair. Shave legs and armpits. And keep an eye to tops which sometimes show a bit more cleavage, short shorts to show legs, and not forgetting to stand/ walk in a 'sexy' way during the day.

It's hardly new!

They'll never, ever get it.

‘I wonder if the male gaze is so much the default and universal that it would actually be a world shaking moment for some men to realise that this is not the reality for women.’

Omg I think you’re right. It has never occurred to them that women see themselves any differently to how they see them.
I was discussing this the other day with a friend who is on Tinder and gets lots of messages saying ‘nice tits’. We were thinking men must think she is actually proud to have DD boobs if they think that’s a good way to start a conversation with someone you don’t know.

Men with AGP have been saying for yonks that women have it too. It's patently bollocks, if you'll forgive the expression.

Women do not masturbate to the idea of themselves as women, or putting on tights and skirts. Christ, we'd never never get to work.

A bra fitting video I watched the other day seemed exclusively designed for the male gaze. Utterly ridiculous as no male is out there trying to understand why M&S still tells women to add 4 inches to their underband. Not even a male with a boob job.

I wonder if the male gaze is so much the default and universal that it would actually be a world shaking moment for some men to realise that this is not the reality for women.

[quote FindTheTruth]Norms exist for a reason and should not be erased
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1464548294693203973.html[/quote]
That is an excellent post.

The "AGP is the same as women feeling sexy" stuff is surely just taking women's requirement to self-objectify under a patriarchy and using it against us to claim it's an innate part of being a woman?

I started having sex before I became aware of porn and porn culture requirements. I can remember the before and the after.

But now it's inescapable. A bra fitting video I watched the other day seemed exclusively designed for the male gaze. Utterly ridiculous as no male is out there trying to understand why M&S still tells women to add 4 inches to their underband. Not even a male with a boob job.

I could spend hours responding to any one of a single claims made by the woman in the thread linked by the OP

Just for starters

35. We frequently see hedonism and unrestrained male sexuality accompanying the end of an Empire or period of history.

It is my understanding that false and true allegations of hedonism, by men and by women, are a common feature of revolutionary forces and also disinformation campaigns by hostile states.

These issues are explored in the excellent documentary Sex and the Swastika which can be viewed here
NSFW not suitable for minors, includes potentially traumatising accounts of sexual abuse

The history of the Roman Empire was rife with various true and false allegations of hedonism that were used politically and aimed to undermine various emperors and their wives and associates.

Catherine the Great of Russia had various false allegations made against her in an attempt to undermine her position and rule.

This is all standard stuff and should be a suprise to nobody.

35. We frequently see hedonism and unrestrained male sexuality accompanying the end of an Empire or period of history.

This may be true however it is also true that when an empire falls the victorious forces typically set about defaming the deposed ruler. Statues are defaced or destroyed and history books rewritten to include salacious accounts of depravity.

36. There are powers that wish the Western experiment with liberal democracy to end.

Not sure about the word "experiment" but I agree with the rest

37. Hostile forces may have supported the progression of paraphilliac acceptance in Western democracies, as one front in a secret war; part of a long-held political aim to undermine our position in the world

I would change the word "supported" to a more robust word such as "promoted" or even "bankrolled".

The missing part of the last statement is that that the hostile forces also promote and bankroll extremist far-right networks to create a backlash against the promotion of the paraphilliac networks. A kind of idealogical pincer movement if you like.

@CheeseMmmm great posts. Thankyou. Fucked if I know, either.

Ah just looked not sure if anything goes but it's pieces by anyone by the look of things.

I just read the rest of that article.

It's got it all.

I mean seriously it's worth it esp if you have doubts about or don't think A*P exists.

How pieces like these get published not infrequently. That shows something as well.

If a female woman wrote such explicit things as this then she would have considered it and decided whether the gains outweighed the negativity, assumptions people would make, it would stay with her for life.
Would it be published in something fairly well known? Not sure about medium general things posted although read articles linked to a fair few times.
The fact is it would be seen as erotica, soft porn, loads of men will find it arousing to read. Pic combined with text like that = for sure some will knock one out thinking about her face body and the things she describes.

If a male man wrote a piece like this it would make most women feel yuck put it away FFS. We don't want to know. And most men would be just, not impressed.

How is content by a certain subset of a certain group getting stuff like this in the press do often? Whether it's about how they love running down stairs because the sexy feeling of new breasts. I think it was jiggling.

I mean there's so many things like this and in mainstream media as well.

Why do they think, the publishers. That this is something that people will find useful? Interesting? Enlightening? Fucked if I know.

🤮🤮🤮

Excerpt

'Something magnificently euphoric happened to me next. It’s fairly common for me to watch pornography while I masturbate. It excites me, and it also allows me to escape into a fantasy — a beautiful vacation home, two young, fit and beautiful bodies, perfect curves. It’s a vicarious experience — I project myself into the girl on screen. Then I happened to look down, and my eyes found my boobs. It was a delightful sight. The girl on the screen had a nice rack, and I had a nice rack as well. We matched. It was so happily congruent. It filled me with happiness. Not even a sexual happiness, just a feeling of calm, serene joy. Truly meaningful moment.'

Trying to find some more examples as remember a couple of yikes ones.

First thing came up
medium.com/empowered-trans-woman/my-new-boobs-757009dab75d

Long. But holy moly. Only half way through. It's a piece that covers most of the thing that often gets deleted on here.

In their own words so fine and probably not to comment on the thread much.

The fact this was written for online publication in a pretty well known site is also... Interesting.

Don't know how to get archive

www.telegraph.co.uk/family/life/like-new-boobs-neat-round-dont-sag/

'I was puzzling my head about AGP today. A TRA was claiming that most women have AGP - it's just 'feeling sexy'.'

It's a totally male perspective. Images for yonks women in fancy underwear looking 'come and get me fellas'. Body posed in certain ways etc. Has embedded the notion that wearing underwear like that means a woman is feeling sexy. The underwear itself becomes a prompt for sex even when not on an actual woman. When you wear it you feel sexy.

Same as the common male thing if I had breasts I'd never stop playing with them. Breasts are sexy. Women have breasts. They must feel like that.

That person in I think it was telegraph expressed that merrily. That's how confident women are sexually excited but just by having breasts.

It's all male perspective, male sexuality being assumed to be how women actually are.

It's also similar to what goes on with exhibitionism, which is a fairly common turn on and one that seems more common among women than some of the other behaviors of this kind. We don't always think of it this way, but for a person to be aroused by the idea of being watched, they have to in some sense put themselves in the mind of the person watching them. They are imagining the other person being aroused or even disgusted or shocked. So there is a kind of reflection there.

But in that instance they are imagining the person seeing them as themselves. And I think that it is the desire of the other person that is basically what they find arousing. Whereas with AGP, as I understand it, it's seeing themselves from outside, but they are the desirable object to themselves. So in a certain sense they are both the watcher and the watched.

But if you didn't have a lot of insight, I can see that someone might think of it as "feeling sexy". and think it's the same And lots of people just aren't very insightful about their own inner processes.

It's an interesting set of points. I broadly agree with them, though I think I'd have been slightly universal in saying things like men will go to great lengths to pursue the path of paraphilia. That's not quite true, most men don't and wouldn't want to.

The important point is that male sexuality is vulnerable to this sort of problem, and it begins generally without any intent or real awareness, often in quite young men and boys. One they are on that path it becomes more and more difficult to interrupt and it also becomes more and more difficult for them to have a satisfying sex life and relationship.

If the culture wants to minimize that kind of thing they need to minimize triggers and the things that further entrench the paraphilia (porn, overt public sexuality all over the place, for example) and maximize the things that lead to a more stable sexual person, whatever they are.

We've created the opposite, maximizing the chance of triggers, making it easy practically and psychologically to carry on, and actually rather difficult to get off the train early on. The worst thing being some sort of psychologist telling a young man that yes, he really is a lesbian and society should back that idea up.

I was puzzling my head about AGP today. A TRA was claiming that most women have AGP - it's just 'feeling sexy'.

But there's a difference between feeling like you're sexually attractive or you fancy sex, and being attracted to yourself. Especially if the image of yourself that you're attracted to is of you with the body of the opposite sex, or wearing clothes/carrying out activities associates with the opposite sex.

Would anyone seriously claim the average bloke gets turned on by thinking about his own body, imagining himself in shirt and trousers, or carrying out stereotypically 'manly' activities like DIY? It sounds ridiculous, right? So why would the average woman be any different?

Was there ever a woman who was out in public wearing a dress, who thought, 'I'm a woman, this is so arousing'?

Another related (shorter) thread:

mobile.twitter.com/wwwritingclub/status/1465031652187549696