What now makes you uncomfortable that didn't at the time

[drinkingwineoutofamug]

As a teenager I like listening to a certain rock band.
Just found their album on iTunes, downloaded and listened.
I was shocked. One of the songs - sung by grown men - ' she's a 13 yr tease , with bleach blonde hair. Let me eat your cookies , let me see your cookies '
Sat in the bath gob smacked. When I was 15 , this never made me question.

Has anyone else come across something that as a younger person it never crossed your mind but now it's a wtf moment

@sar302

PE knickers. Big up and over ones that you wore with nothing but a gym T-shirt. In the winter. For cross country. Funnily enough the boys got to wear proper shorts 🤔

When we were in yr 9 they had a shake up of the pe staff and two younger female staff joined. They immediately added shorts to the girls PE uniform.

I was a bit "whatever" about it at the time. I was a "good girl" and just did and wore what I was told. But thinking now about how many women my age were put off exercise in their teens - well of course they bloody were. They were made to run around in a pair of knickers, at the start of puberty and periods, in front of hundreds of boys and male PE staff.

Why? Why on earth where those sodding knickers even considered an item of external clothing?

I went to an all girls school that only had 3 male teachers When it came to end of term gym displays they had to leave the room as the girls were in white vests and navy blue knickers Why didn’t they just make the girls wear our box pleated navy shorts on top that we wore for hockey and netball?

At least the teachers had enough consideration for the girls sensitivities

I’d love to back in time and do my school with 2021 vision
I think it was a lot better than I realised

@SirVixofVixHall

Why was Bill Wyman not prosecuted for that ? The revolting comment “she was a woman at 13” No she wasn’t Bill, she was a child. I have a DD this age, she has just turned 14. She is still sleeping with teddies, has a lot of growing to do, she is in no way “a woman” . My 16 year old isn’t “a woman” either. I remember their wedding, she was 18 and he was in his fifties. Mandy all frills, huge eyes and masses of rollered blonde hair, next to this ageing man who looked like her Dad. She reminded me of a doll I’d had when I was little, Mary Quant Daisy. She looked so fragile, the whole thing really horrible to witness.

Absolutely agree with you It was just revolting My Dd was just 11 at the time of the wedding Sickening

wyman's son ended up marrying mandy smith's mother!

@alloverthecarpetagain

Yes - I had to switch channels. 🌹

@JaniieJones

Communal showers after PE in the 80s with battleaxe teachers standing watching!! allegedly to ensure people showered. I hope there are lots of retired PE teachers ashamed of this gross invasion of privacy.

At our school it was a male teacher who used to stand in the girls’ changing room to ’make sure they had a shower’. Girls were 11-12 at the time 🤮

Even at the time we were all a bit WTF, but no-one ever complained because ‘that’s just how it is’. I hope girls nowadays would feel they have more agency.

Late to this and only read about half the thread!

I’ll probably be alone in this one but I really hate The Simpson's. I was born in 91 was we watched this everyday after school. It’s like everywhere I looked was full of useless male stereotypes who treated women like crap (including my Mum and her various boyfriends.)

The time travellers wife creeped me out after rewatching the other week. Plus all the usual ajd actually relatively new stuff like pretty little liars where Aria marries her teachers, 50 shades and so on.

I also remember when I was starting one of my first jobs in a hotel when I was about 20. Was in the office with the HR lady getting everything ready and there were all these older men around looking in. She said ‘and if you wonder why they’re all staring at you it’s because you’re new, young and pretty’. Urgh. That basically set the tone for my whole time working there too. It was 10 years ago but still horrendous.

@SirVixofVixHall

Why was Bill Wyman not prosecuted for that ? The revolting comment “she was a woman at 13” No she wasn’t Bill, she was a child. I have a DD this age, she has just turned 14. She is still sleeping with teddies, has a lot of growing to do, she is in no way “a woman” . My 16 year old isn’t “a woman” either. I remember their wedding, she was 18 and he was in his fifties. Mandy all frills, huge eyes and masses of rollered blonde hair, next to this ageing man who looked like her Dad. She reminded me of a doll I’d had when I was little, Mary Quant Daisy. She looked so fragile, the whole thing really horrible to witness.

I suppose the straightforward answer to "Why wasn't he prosecuted?" is "He was a famous and very rich man." If he'd been on a modest wage, it might have been a different story. But not necessarily. (I can image the angle any defence lawyer would have taken. "This was a very precocious and provocative young lady" etc. Ugh).

I remember that wedding too. She has said in interviews since that they had sex exactly twice after the wedding. Sounds like it was, for him, all about the chase. And about her being extremely young.

Also, why wasn't her enabling mother also prosecuted? She knew full well what was going on and, in fact, encouraged it from the beginning. Not that that makes Wyman any less of a creep, obvs.

@Bookloverjay

Did anyone watch the documentary Allen Vs Farrow? I was shocked at what he got away with, how much power and influence he had. But what was astonishing is what the media did. Protraying Mia as the scorned woman. The one who couldn't let go.

Yes I watched it - it was a bit long (4 parts) but I stuck with it and the last 2 were more interesting. Yes, I agree with you - she was portrayed as hysterical and jealous! In fact I'm sure I read an article at the time which wondered why she was surprised as she had based her career on playing "young" parts so it was only to be expected that when she got "too old" he would look elsewhere. However, the testimony of the now grown up 7 year old daughter was compelling

I also thought it was chilling when she said, towards the end, that she was worried about what he would do when the documentary was released. She was still frightened of him. He had (allegedly) abused her children and cancelled her career but she felt he still had all the power.

The Argos catalogue in the 70s and 80s.

Naked women with their bottoms clearly visible posing in shower cubicles. WTF??

Did anyone explain the comments regarding Depeche mode earlier in the thread?

@bendmeoverbackwards

The Argos catalogue in the 70s and 80s.

Naked women with their bottoms clearly visible posing in shower cubicles. WTF??

Gosh I don't remember that at all and I always perused the Argos catalogue.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Although not one of the more overtly nasty programmes, I don't think anybody has said Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em yet.

I used to love it, but if you watch it back now, it's very 'convenient' that the quirks and behaviours that made Frank 'stupid' and a ridiculous object of derision could very easily correspond with a far-from-unusual diagnosis of learning difficulties, ADHD, ASD and/or other recognised conditions these days.

Even back then, nobody would have thought of shouting for comedy purposes at a wheelchair user for 'irritating' or 'getting in the way of' those who can walk, but abusing a man who was almost certainly non-NT was apparently the only reasonable, expected way to respond to him

I suppose the only slight saving grace was that Betty saw him for the loving, honest man he really was - but she was widely pitied and considered a fool for her patience with him by everybody else.

I see I'm not the only one!

Frank Spencer clearly has some learning disabilities, is dyspraxic (so am I, you'd never get ME even attempting to do a driving test!), and quite likely has those other issues too. He's also painfully mother-dominated. It's painful watching his struggles being played for laughs.

Similiarly, rather later on (early 90s?), there was The Brittas Empire. The main character is very clearly on the spectrum. That terminology wasn't so widely used then but, even so, it's clear that he has some kind of inherent problem. Which is also played for laughs. As is the understandable frustration of his wife.

And in "Ever Decreasing Circles" with Richard Briers plays a bloke who almost certainly has OCD, to a degree that is disabling. It has a much better script and better acting (inc Penelope Wilton as his driven-to-distraction wife). In one episode the Briers character meets someone at a party who turns out to be a psychiatrist. How hilarious.

I suspect this is why these programmes are hardly ever shown now.

What's the perviness of Depeche Mode?

Master and Servant?

@Pineappleheart I'm sure it does all those things as long as the people "helped" are, or are prepared to come, "good Catholics"

This has been a really interesting thread and I'm only about halfway through it. I left secondary school aged 16 in 2002. We didn't have gym knickers or forced communal showers thank god!

A boy in my year ended up marrying and having kids with our science teacher. I don't think they're together now but it must have lasted from him being 17ish to early - mid 20s I'd say. All the blokes congratulated him but although he was almost an adult by the time they got together it always seemed wrong to me.

A lot of friends episodes have aged like milk, although I still love the majority of them.

Something that made me uncomfortable then and still does now was when I was about 17 I got a job in an office and the guy who was showing me the ropes was probably mid 20s. Anyway. He seemed really interested in me and I was a little flattered to begin with, but then I'd see him in the mornings driving past my bus stop staring at me. Whixh on it's own isn't too strange, except he lived right near the office and I lived a 20 minute drive in the opposite direction. Perhaps it was innocent and he was dropping his partner or a friend off but he used to ask quite personal questions about my weekend etc too and it just felt off, you know?!

The first guy I messed around with sexually also messed around with all of my friendship group. I felt left out that I was the last one, which says a lot about my self esteem at the time! We also all used to go to his flat that he shared with a friend and get drunk and dabble in drugs while doing sexual things. We were 15/16 and he was mid 20s. I don't know why it never felt weird or wrong because now every single part of it makes me cringe and feel gross!!

Also agree a lot of Eminem's stuff. I thought he was so cool and edgy back in the early 00s but listening again some of his lyrics make me deeply uncomfortable

A lot of sexist remarks that were thrown at me in a time that I was an insecure young woman and looking for validation and took them for compliments.

Now I look back and and some stuff makes me highly uncomfortable- definitely have another definition of what compliments are now.

[quote Rosehip10]@Pineappleheart I'm sure it does all those things as long as the people "helped" are, or are prepared to come, "good Catholics" [/quote]
Indeed. The whole thing feels very manipulative, targetting as it does the goodwill of children.

There are lots of causes of poverty globally but one of the main ones is overpopulation. Yet the Catholic Church continues to insist that artificial contraception is immoral. In predominantly Catholic countries (all of Latin America, the Philippines, etc) this stance affects social policy. Result: not nearly enough family planning clinics. The official teachings of the Catholic Church are a CAUSE of poverty.

(Ex-Catholic here, before I'm accused of ignorance or bigotry.)

Oscar Pistorius. I thought he was an amazing, inspirational athlete, watched him at competitions, cheered him on - and then he shot his girlfriend

Not so long ago - I can remember 'respectable' radio DJs counting down until Charlotte Church would be 16 & therefore legal...remember cringing at this...

Naked women in art. The National Gallery has hundreds of years of nicely painted tits. But hey it's okay because it's art.

But naked men in art is ok? The National Gallery has hundred's of years of nicely painted male bums, pecs, and willies too.

We're rewatching Monty Python's Flying Circus and the peripheral treatment of women is a little bit uncomfortable and the (fortunately quite rare) moments of people in blackface is really uncomfortable.

Not to mention the "are you a poof"? stuff - including shooting dead someone who was gay just because they were (in the Biggles Sketch?) - in the name of comedy is hard to watch.

@legosnowqueen Also charlotte church being "rear of the year" at 16 with "appropriate official" photos in all of the tabloids.

‘Position of the fortnight’ in More magazine. I was only about 13/14 when I used to buy this magazine and it made me feel under pressure that I should be doing things I wasn’t comfortable with.

Ross in Friends and his horrible controlling and manipulating ways towards Rachel.

@TheSandman

We're rewatching Monty Python's Flying Circus and the peripheral treatment of women is a little bit uncomfortable and the (fortunately quite rare) moments of people in blackface is really uncomfortable.

Not to mention the "are you a poof"? stuff - including shooting dead someone who was gay just because they were (in the Biggles Sketch?) - in the name of comedy is hard to watch.

It's weird given that Graham Chapman was gay and the other Pythons all knew.

@x2boys

Regarding Rita ,Sue and Bob too ,the writer wrote it about her own experiences growing up on that estate ,she had a terrible life and died tragicallyyoung

I think this is a point worth noting. The original stage play by Andrea Dunbar is a really gritty analysis of the exploitation of women which pulls few punches and is very clear the man is a scumbag. When it was turned into a film with a different emphasis Dunbar was horrified.