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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Have we become so sensitive that everything offends someone???

34 replies

Whyarealltheusernamestaken · 02/05/2018 00:33

Honestly, at what point do we say enough is enough? We can’t find someone attractive without worrying about their emotions of how they feel about being looked at. If someone is hot, then why cant we say without fear of objectifying them? Not in a creepy way, just in a did you see so and so on tv programme way. On the other hand we can’t find someone unattractive without being told we are not in line with political correctness. People aren’t obese they are happy within their bodies, same as anorexic, it somehow can’t be discussed as it’s just rude, body shaming. Why can’t we just be honest and be able to admit who we find attractive or not and why?

OP posts:

Ozgirl75 · 02/05/2018 03:51

I’m a grown woman and I can’t recall the last time I had a conversation about who is “hot”. Maybe instead of focusing on who you find attractive and spending a lot of time thinking and talking about people’s looks and bodies, you could focus on other things like stuff going on in the world, books, music, maybe a hobby?

pallisers · 02/05/2018 03:56

Is that all you have to talk about - who you find attractive? Weird.

I have conversations every day with people I know well and hardly know and I have no problem with offending people.

Why do you have a problem?

dayinlifeof · 02/05/2018 04:00

I would say try talking about something less shallow but that might offend you.

daphneduck · 02/05/2018 04:02

I know what you mean.

I do think people are very sensitive nowadays.

womanformallyknownaswoman · 02/05/2018 04:03

Facileness is a real turn-off

faithinthesound · 02/05/2018 04:16

Maybe you think things have gone downhill. I think nowadays instead of people just running their mouths we are expected to think of how what we are saying makes other people feel.

This is something we teach children at a very young age at primary school: be careful that what you say doesn't hurt someone's feelings. We don't qualify that with "unless you think their feelings are rubbish in which case have at it".

Is it that you really want to live in a world where you're given carte blanche to say what you like when you like about who you like and devil take the hindmost? Because I feel like your post is petulant, selfish and immature. It's more "I'm not allowed to say anything I fancy" than anything else, and I think that says a lot more about you than about the people who are supposedly too sensitive for your opinions on their appearance-and none of what it says is very good.

I usually hate it when commenters tell the OP to grow up on these threads but I genuinely think you have some growing up to do. That, and some thinking about what's more important to you, the feelings of other human beings, or your "right" to open your mouth and let whatever vile nonsense fall out that you happen to be thinking.

CheeseyToast · 02/05/2018 04:30

For starters I cannot understand why you assert that the obese and anorexic are "happy with their bodies". Where did you obtain this information?

liminality · 02/05/2018 04:44

I think that shite was always offensive, it has only in recent years become okay to call it out

HoldingTheLineWinston · 02/05/2018 05:06

People can be obese and happy with their bodies..or obese and not happy with their bodies..because..you know..they are actual human beings with legitimate and complex feelings..a bit like you I expect OP... I'm not sure why their body shape either cancels out their inherent humanity or would give anyone carte blanche to comment freely and openly on it? I mean can we loudly and proudly do that with all the stuff we find unattractive about you? Or is it a privilege that only rolls downhill from the more "attractive" to the less "attractive"?

ClemDanfango · 02/05/2018 05:13

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Mannix · 02/05/2018 05:36

I don’t get why “political correctness” is a negative term. It just means trying to be nice and not offensive. That’s a good thing.

JAPAB · 02/05/2018 05:53

If someone is hot, then why cant we say without fear of objectifying them?

Because thinking about someone's looks or body at all is objectification.

Whether this is actually wrong or not is another matter. Though clearly the people using the term think it is.

Personally I think there is nothing wrong with finding other people attractive and, depending on context, saying so.

Problem you will have is that other people will infer extra elements that offend them. Elements you neither said nor think.

So a person might say "s/he's hot" and someone else will add in the meaning "and that is their only value" or somesuch.

Stopitjuststopit2018 · 02/05/2018 05:56

I don’t get why “political correctness” is a negative term. It just means trying to be nice and not offensive. That’s a good thing.

It’s normally only dicks who see it as a negative term. Because it calls them out for being dicks saying dickish things

JAPAB · 02/05/2018 05:58

I don’t get why “political correctness” is a negative term.

Doesn't whether it is a negative thing depend on whether the person agrees or disagrees with the specific words or actions that political correctness frowns upon?

When they agree those words are wrong, its good, don't agree, it's bad? :)

AjasLipstick · 02/05/2018 06:01

People aren’t obese they are happy within their bodies, same as anorexic

Wtf?

You sound hysterically ignorant.

CheeseyToast · 02/05/2018 06:04

I suspect this thread is not going the way that the OP intended

Mummyoflittledragon · 02/05/2018 06:13

I think you need to educate yourself before you open your mouth ever again. You’re coming across as rather ignorant.

kirsty75005 · 02/05/2018 06:17

See, I was a child before political correctness. It has always been considered boorish and ungentlemanly to be upfront about the fact that you find someone "hot" because it may be embarrassing or distasteful to the person to know that you are thinking about having sex with them. It has never been acceptable either to call attention to anything unattractive about a person, be that obesity or baldness or a nasty birthmark, because that is very hurtful.

If anything, both of these things were a lot more taboo when I was a child.

RemainOptimistic · 02/05/2018 06:30

Your example is one that has always been offensive.

Next!

frumpety · 02/05/2018 06:59

I don't honestly think if you were having a conversation with a friend about a TV programme and you mentioned that you thought X person was really attractive , there would be any problem surely ? Or is that not what you are talking about ?
I frequently have to resist the urge to tell other women they look fabulous when I see them out and about , mainly because it isn't the done thing to do to complete strangers, I don't find them 'hot' I just think they look great in that days ensemble, I am completely missing the point aren't I

MyotherUsernameisaPun · 02/05/2018 07:25

In all my life I've never found it difficult to navigate the boundaries of attraction without being a creep. That other people find this so hard is their problem.

MilkTrayLimeBarrel · 02/05/2018 09:09

The best way to avoid offending people is to get together with like-minded people and have a good old moan, saying what you like about everything and everyone - it's great!

ShatnersWig · 02/05/2018 09:11

Have to say I never hear men talk about women as hot these days. I do hear lots of women talking about men as hot and more or less drooling when discussing him off Poldark.

Blaablaablaa · 02/05/2018 09:16

The people who view political correctness as a negative concept also seem to be the ones who pass off offensive comments as 'banter'

DougFargo · 02/05/2018 09:21

I don’t get why “political correctness” is a negative term. It just means trying to be nice and not offensive. That’s a good thing

But it isn't. It might have started out that way, but right now we're in a situation where you can lose your job and get arrested for making simple statements of facts like "that man is a man, not a woman".

OP has the wrong focus, but she does have a point. There is a silencing of opinion, and of fact, that is deeply troubling. There is far far beyond the days of "pc gorn mad" on spitting image. Its a real problem.

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