"Fear" of men

[ComradeJing]

I have a question that relates to two recent threads so apologies for thread about a thread.

Allhailtheaubergine (hope you don't mind - it's your thread I'm referring to) said that she was worried when she walked on the beach and when a man came between her and her exit she became nervous.

Another poster in AIBU said she was unhappy about a male nursery worker taking her daughter to the bathroom.

The OP in AIBU was completely torn to bits over this. Allhail was given support and most people (including myself though I didn't post) agreed that they would have felt scared and validated her response.

Now my question is why is one response valid and rational and the other one not? Is it because one is a person in a job and the other could be "anybody?" I would imagine you're more likely to be attacked by someone in a job (ie taxi driver, gas man, builder or someone else you would invite into your home) than just some stranger off the street but I could well be wrong.

I suppose I was thinking that if one is a feminist issue then the other one must be too as they are both about a fear of men and what men can do to women.

But who decides? You? I must admit I don't understand your version of feminism. A man sneezes, to me it is a sneeze, to you it seems that it is an expression of the superior force a man can exert and a re-expression of the overarching male hegemony.

Who's to say that Freud's wank fantasies aren't the fat woman next door showing him her genitals, and the old guy spreading his legs for a clothed artist?

I think you have heard of Freud so are less frightened of him, but a man you have never heard of must only be a f**king pervert.

You are warped woman, not a contemporary feminist! I personally think being 'convential' - looking as a women need not subtract from strength, you eviudently think strength is directly proportional to ugliness or being overweight, that just isn't true at all, that is just bullying by fat women, which is something I had all through school and something I don't want to see lauded in adulthood as something of virtue.

I'm a female artist, and I've painted the naked male form, so I wonder what that makes me.

Not really - I see different things in these images than you do - women naked but with steel in their eyes, the contrast of a seemingly fragile pose and aspect next to someting physically hard - when I see his images where there is a rope for example , the nudity makes the rope actually feel rough to me where it wouldn't if it were a picture of a rope. In fact real people under subdued light look much more like Neil's work and much less like the exaggerated lumps that Freud produces. I think you are equating rough, ugly overweight nudes with 'real' and more slender, beautiful wistful uimages as false. I happen to be quite slender, don't have massive fleshy bulging lumps nor irregular patches of redness that Freud seems to depict, I don't think that makes me irrelevant as a human being (Less 'real'). I think you miss the rationale completely because of your prejudice, and I think this is quite sad.

two very different artists. one concentrating on the animalistic, reducing identity to genitalia (interesting given that one of his favourite models was trans - fascinating), and a completely different 'less real' style. less gruesomely, in your face 'real', and more fantasy, but not necessarily in a wanktastic fashion tbh. i see more symbolism and imagery, crucifixion and early biblical type stuff, and emaciation (some of the more emaciated pics are atually quite close to freud though in terms of their insistence on reality - sagging breasts, paunches and wrinkles). the size of the models protrayed in both artists work is interesting. freud preferring larger than life to emphasise his point, and moore preferring the opposite end of the spectrum to emphasise his. nothing right or worng in either - two completely different artists and styles.

i don't see the ropes as bdsm either, sorry. more symbolic of 'ties' and freedom. although i'm slightly freaked out by the dangling feet everywhere... love the confetti one though. interesting to compare to freud's bride and bridegroom. totally different. but the moore looking over the shoulder one is easily as depressing as the disappearing bride in freud.

def not an art critic though. as moore himself said, it's up to the voyeur to see what they want to in his art work - death of the artist indeed. it's interesting to hear what mners see. i'm guessing the same pic would inspire different thoughts in lots of people.