Wow… so basically her point is “Ladies of the world. Please stop being pretty or my husband will notice I’m ugly and leave me.”
I love how she defends her point with “I never suggested my husband isn’t responsible for his own eyes and heart {actually, I said he works his butt off to protect those} and I agree that us women are not in control of any man’s thoughts. All I’m saying is we can make it easier for them. ” Which kind of translates to “yes, I know its not your fault, but he’s a man and only human. I’ve got a good thing going here. Why you gotta ruin it?”
A while back in one of my 100 comment long posts about slut shaming that I don’t feel like looking up (I think the one about the girl being kicked out of the prom for wearing “too sexy a dress.” someone said that they didn’t think it was a patriarchy thing, because it was a woman who kicked the girl out and I explained that a woman could be a part of patriarchal sexism.
Yeah… that’s this right here.
On behalf of people with common sense everywhere “Hey lady, if your husband is only not leaving you because he doesn’t know that there are better boobs out there, maybe you need to reexamine your marriage.”
On behalf of straight, married, boob loving men, everywhere… “Hey lady, stop trying to fuck out shit up.”
My Husband Doesn’t Need to See Your Boobs
I can’t believe I’m writing this. I can’t believe I’m writing this. I can’t believe I used the word boobs in the title of this post. I got enough purity lessons in high school to invoke a gag refle…
And if you think your husband only wants to be with whomever has the best boobs, you’re both discrediting straight males.
Dude. That whole post made me cringe. Lady, I am so not responsible for the breakup of you marriage.
Marli: Yeah, i mean, maybe her husband is just really shallow?
I don’t know anything about this lady, but she does seem very Christian Conservative as I randomly peruse her website.
I wonder if she realizes her logic is exactly the same as the rationale for the burkha in Islam. Because I’m thinking that might make her explode.
Ann: Clearly we need to test this scientifically. Show me your boobs and lets see if I end up getting divorced.
There were a few comments that summarized my thoughts.
1. Lady is very insecure and would benefit greatly from therapy.
2. If her husband really is that shallow, she is better off without him.
How is it possible, I mean even remotely possible, that you could miss her point so completely? Seriously, she is doing nothing more than expressing her feelings and not once but 4 times states that she is not judging anyone, that she is in fact, expressing her own insecurity.
I just don’t get the vitriol, there is nothing she said that warrants it. Nothing that accuses anyone of anything. It is just an expression of her thoughts.
This woman and her husband are both shallow. Hell, she’s jealous that there are women without cellulite after talking about her ‘hott with two t’s’ high school bod. I’m jealous that I’m barely a B cup but I gladly admire women with great bodies. I’m not going to forbid my bf from seeing them. If anything, these hotter other women are a motivation for me to get in shape like I want to be.
This might be the saddest thing I have ever read.
Yikes.
Mav, I think you also need a control group. Anyone who shows you her boobs should also show me her boobs and we can see if I end up getting married.
Vic: No one is missing her point. We all see her point, 100%
and we’re saying “the fact that you follow this logic means you seriously need help.”
Only, like in my case I said it way meaner and mockingly because I’m me and I’m an asshole.
“Wow… so basically her point is “Ladies of the world. Please stop being pretty or my husband will notice I’m ugly and leave me.”
Um, if that is the point you think she was making, you definitely missed it LOL. 😛
Slashdotted.
Vic: Dude! That is definitely the point she is making… she is making it because of her insecurities…. but that is what she is saying.
imho, what this comes down to is that this woman shouldn’t put her insecurities on others. She should seek help for her insane amounts of misplaced jealousy and weirdly controlling behavior (how is she “fighting” for her marriage by not allowing her husband on instagram? Like looking at a girl in a bikini is going to end her marriage? Then it needs to end. Sheesh.) rather than ask anyone to not post vacation pictures.
wow…just wow. maybe she should just ban instagram rather than all this drama.
Jameel: Yep. I’m trying to link some of her other stuff here to show Vic that that is in fact what she’s trying to say and I can’t get to them.
I appreciate her sharing her insecurities. So many people suffer from the kind of internal “keeping up with the joneses” struggle that she is talking about, and candor about it is rare.
I object to her framing that other women should alter their behavior or clothing because of her insecurities. If I were her husband, I might also object to her not having faith in me and our marriage.
Basically, I think if you get to the point where you think it’s reasonable to blame other people for your feelings, you should consider getting professional help sorting that out.
If her husband is really so weak-willed that he’ll leave her because there are pictures of hotties on Instagram, then he’s actually kind of a shitty guy she’d be better off without.
“imho, what this comes down to is that this woman shouldn’t put her insecurities on others.”
So, by expressing her thoughts, she has somehow pushed them onto others? That is the part I don’t agree with. Her insecurity, is something that she obviously has a hard time dealing with, and this is one way of doing it.
Are you guys really suggesting that that expression is invalid because denigrates the pretty people? That her desire to be or at least feel like one of the perfect ones somehow detracts from their freedom of expression?
That is just weird.
You say ‘expressing her thoughts’, but she’s directly asking people to do something. She is asking them to change their behavior in order to benefit her.
Falling back on this “LOL you don’t get it that’s just, like, her OPINION, man” schtick you’re doing doesn’t actually address that in any way.
“But would you, could you, keep your boobs out of my marriage?” She is asking other women to take action to keep her and her husband from seeing too much skin. That goes beyond “expressing her thoughts.”
If she were to say “I feel bad when my husband looks at pictures of women in bikinis and I worry that he finds them more attractive than me”, I would sympathize with her and find her candor endearing. What bothers me is when she then tells other women to change their behavior, and when she is controlling of her husband in a way that makes me deeply uncomfortable. Maybe they have the kind of relationship where he gets off on that, but I somehow doubt it.
Vic: “So, by expressing her thoughts, she has somehow pushed them onto others? ” No… she can express her insecurities on her blog all she wants. How she’s pushing them on to others is by giving the solution of, and I quote:
“But would you, could you, keep your boobs out of my marriage? You can have your memories, and we can have our sacred hearts. And we can all get along in beautiful harmony.”
Yes, she’s even welcome to feel that way. But feeling that way is beyond insecurity, it’s insecurity that really needs professional help. Worse, its insecurity that rather than being dealt with is saying “I really and sincerely wish that the world would restructure around my world view so I don’t have to deal with my insecurities.” Which is a a paranoid delusion and SERIOUSLY needs professional help.
And even worse, when combined with another of her quotes:
“Protecting his eyes, protecting his heart.”
shows that has an extremely conservative religious belief which, while I feel she’s welcome to have, *I* feel is harmful to women and in fact the world in general. She is perpetuating a patriarchal gender myth not only of “women need to cover themselves up for my convenience” which is not only controlling, domineering and quite assholeish… but also “men, are powerless to control their penises, and sexual hormones outweigh their ability to think.”
Even outside of what I’m sure you might call my “feminist agenda,” it’s deeply troubling to me that she doesn’t seem to recognize that even having that fear shows a severe lack of faith and trust in her marriage and her god, the two things that her blog is theoretically devoted to.
“men, are powerless to control their penises, and sexual hormones outweigh their ability to think.” – YES – this is a DEEPLY troubling idea. How horribly insulting to her partner to think this way about him — to the point where she equates summer bikini time with “fighting for” her marriage.
Someone write the counterpoint about how looking at naked women with their husband is amazing! Or the counterpoint from the perspective of her husband!!
I really want someone to write this.
Her husband is a doctor? He sees boobs.
I want my husband to look at as many boobs as he wants
Also, if he’s: “is working his butt off to protect his eyes and heart.” as she says then maybe their marriage isn’t exactly worth fighting for.
I won’t say my marriage is perfect, but I certainly don’t need to protect my eyes from boobs in order to not get divorced. Hold on, let me try an experiment, I’m going to google up some topless pics of Rihanna…
Damn, she’s hot…
Huh…. look at that… I still love my wife.
My wife has given me the following very clear directive: look all at other women all you want, but no touching. This, I think works quite well. It balances human nature with having reasonable limits. People who are like “OMG! My spouse looked at someone else!” need to grow out of their middle school mindset.
One of the “advantages” of being gay is that me and my boyfriend can share our appreciation of scantily-clad pulchritude with each other.
“I can’t believe I’m writing this.” I can’t believe she posted it. Bottom line, everyone, is that if you pretty much literally have to keep someone on a leash before you’re satisfied that they’ll stay, the words you ought to be saying don’t have a damn thing to do with the people who distract that doggie enough to make him strain his tether. Basically if “there are better boobs out there than my wife’s” is actually a reason this guy might consider leaving her, it means he’s staying with her out of ignorance and out of being trapped. . . . Why she wouldn’t want him to stay with her out of SEEING WHAT ELSE IS AVAILABLE AND STILL CHOOSING HER is beyond me.
Todd: I’d love to think it was that easy, but I don’t think it’s really a gay vs. straight issue. If they were a gay male couple I think she’d still be all “men, don’t wear tight pants. Because then my husband might realize other guys have nice cocks too.”
I guess I missed the part where she forced people to read her BLOG, or paid frumpy women to be in her anti-pretty person as campaign. Her songs about covering up those boobies. That movie she made where the plain girl got the gut by staying true to herself. Wow, epiphany, you guys are totally right, and I am glad you exposed her insidious plot to express emotion at the expense of hot people. Yeah, shame on her for feeling insecure, or thinking modesty might be a good thing. Sheesh.
Also thanks for the lesson in mind reading. Her words were definitely not enough to know her whole life story or thought process. The projection of your own ideology onto what she actually wrote really helps to clarify. Go you…
Frump-shaming, the new normal
Vic, if you’re going to go with the nobody-forced-you-to-read it angle, can you maybe let the person who’s forcing you to read Mav’s Facebook posts at gunpoint type for a while and explain why he’s subjecting you to this torture?
Vic – She says she’s not judging anyone, but she’s lying. She judged her husband and found him guilty.
Vic: You are missing it, yes. Or more, you’re arguing something that no one cares about. No one thinks she doesn’t have a right to share her feelings. Margaret even said ” If she were to say “I feel bad when my husband looks at pictures of women in bikinis and I worry that he finds them more attractive than me”, I would sympathize with her and find her candor endearing. ”
And yes, you are right to point out that she is aware of her insecurities. The part we all have a problem with is her solution to her inadequacies. Specifically: “But would you, could you, keep your boobs out of my marriage? ” That sentiment is throughout the entire post but specifically it is wrapped up in that sentence right there. She is not upset that women are chasing her husband around and tearing his clothes off. She is not upset that the evil sexy people are slipping rohypnol into his club soda to make him stray. She is not upset they’re hypnotizing her into being fatter or older or wrinklier. She is upset that “I don’t need my husband to see your boobs.” And that is unreasonable of her. It’s fine for her to feel it. But its a problematic and harmful viewpoint to have.
Problematic for her personally, because its clearly (by her own admission) leading her to some very harmful personal inadequacies. And problematic to society because it implies that the fault lies not with her inadequacies, but with the fact that women might express their sexuality.
Think about what she’s saying. Her post is essentially “When my husband looks at other women I feel inadequate.” But her response is not “I should work on my self-esteem” or even “I need to teach my husband that this is inappropriate” (Which I would ALSO disagree with, but less so, because that’s between her and them) but instead that women need to “make it easier for them” by not tempting them. This is a problem. This is the essence of slut shaming.
So let me be really clear. Our issues are 1) Slut shaming is bad. 2) It’s sad that she is unwilling to work on her insecurities. 3) Its a shitstorm of worry when she uses her insecurities as an excuse to slut shame.
No one is frump shaming here. Frump shaming would be if we said “You know what lady, show a little skin, lose some weight, get implants and learn to give a decent blow job and you won’t have a problem.” That would also be a solution, just as valid as hers and I would agree that both that person and the OP have their rights to their opinions.
As Nat keeps saying, you seem to use that as your rallying cry. “People have a right to their opinions.” And I know most of us here actually believe that. Again, Margaret pointed out that it was kind of brave for her to share her vulnerabilities that way.
BUT, as with the slut shaming prom article, you seem to miss that the main reason people publish opinions (and moreover, the only reason anyone else ever bothers to read those opinions) is to bring things into conversation. So no, she didn’t make a movie. And no, I don’t think it’s an insidious plot. What she did do was open a conversation about gender issues.
And her opinion thereof is extremely harmful. That’s what everyone is saying.
Chris: I didn’t mean to imply this is a gay vs straight issue as much as the effect is dimished in gay relationships. “Stop looking,” gets replaced by, “oh, nice!” *nodding in agreement*
What should I do if her husband walks into the strip club? Should I cover myself? What if he wants a lap dance? Am I still responsible in not letting him give in to temptation?
Gail: Are you saying that you expose your boobs in the strip club? HARLOT!!!! HOW DARE YOU?!!?!?!
I expose more than that at the club. We are now nude.
Gail: JEZEBEL!!!! Out of respect for my marriage I demand that you change the policy so that you strip off a layer of respectable clothing to reveal another layer of respectable clothing the way God intended it…
.
.
.
The karaoke can stay.
Careful, you may have given me an idea on my next outfit. LOL
I’m just outraged that the blog post won’t load and so I cannot be legitimately outraged at this person! 😉
Man, how come I didn’t get as edifying of a conversation on my post about this? Probably because I didn’t open it with an intelligent distillation but, rather, “HAHAHAHAHAHHAAAAAA!!” That, or my friends are lame. I’m going with the former.
Intro: people just don’t like to comment in yours because they’re intimidated by your boobs.
Ha! Even I am intimidated by them sometimes. I keep bumping into shit and they seem to grow by the year. I gotz problems.
Intro: I disbelieve! Please post photographic proof of said boobs. I need this to happen so that I can demonstrate the strength of my marriage.
Which reminds me, I’ve been home from work for like 30 mins and my bra is still on. Let my people go!
Plus, you’ve seen plenty of my boobs. Plenty.
Mav if you keep these post up I’m just going to fall more and more in love with you and then Steph is going to hate me even though I haven’t met her yet! 😛
Tiffany: you’ve totally met her! You’re even in pictures together.
I did? Was I drunk? When was this? I swear I’ve only ever met you in person once!
Nope. We’ve met a couple times. But there’s pics of all of us from Kelly’s bday.
It’s ok. I don’t remember meeting Tiffany either. Mav: show us the evidence. I will need to know what Tiffany looks like for when I challenge her to a duel, anyway.
yay I’m not the only one! Is this going to be a proper duel? White gloves, swords?
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=450070585974&set=t.706866653&type=3&theater and there you both are.
To be honest, this would be my first duel, so I’m not quite sure what proper dueling protocol is. I also don’t know how to sword fight or shoot guns. How about tennis!
Hey look it is me… and I was in fact tipsy… I don’t know tennis and if fact have little hand eye coordination. First duel for me as well, I suppose we could make up our own rules. Water guns at the kickball party….
Ladies please… there’s plenty of me to go around…
How about a best out of three triathlon: tennis, water gun duel, and beer-drinking.
and I lose. I don’t drink beer. darn I’ll just have to learn to live without Mav 😛
If you need a sub, I’m in Stephanie. I can do two out of those three extremely well.
I’m kinda into this thing where women are fighting over me. Mabye I need to wear more deep cut t-shrits.
“You say ‘expressing her thoughts’, but she’s directly asking people to do something. She is asking them to change their behavior in order to benefit her.”
She didn’t directly ask anyone anything. She didn’t point to someone specific. She didn’t mention anyone by name. She didn’t post on someone else’s blog. She explained her reasoning and made a general request, Directed at no one in particular.
You are mistakenly, assigning motive to her actions, as is a common theme with people whose ideology trumps objectivity, that you have no way of proving to exist. You believe it exists therefore it is good enough to support whatever half-baked theories you have about what she was trying to accomplish. Or whatever point you may think you are making, relevant or not.
” You are missing it, yes. Or more, you’re arguing something that no one cares about. No one thinks she doesn’t have a right to share her feelings.”
You don’t care about it, because her motive, or the motive of the teen who got kicked out of the dance, or the author of the op-ed piece about her are irrelevant. You look at things and assign value based on your ideological preferences, looking at everything subjectively while ignoring the reality that is before you. You cherry picked the things in her blog that got your panties bunched up and ignored the rest. It is typical of your particular mindset and ultimately the reason for an attempted discussion/debate.
I have been fascinated by these discussions, truly engrossed in how much ideology influences a persons perception of the written word. How it is used to fill in the blanks.
As you have stated, this is your wall, you post what you like, the odd thing is that often, the perspective you present is not indicative of the source material. but rather what you can inject into or extrapolate from said material.
“So let me be really clear. Our issues are 1) Slut shaming is bad. 2) It’s sad that she is unwilling to work on her insecurities. 3) Its a shitstorm of worry when she uses her insecurities as an excuse to slut shame. ”
1. She didn’t slut shame anyone.
2. By expressing her insecurities and addressing the pretty ones on a general level, she is in fact working on them, THAT is the point all of you geniuses missed. She is asking for help. And you decided that was an attack on women in general, which is complete nonsense. She is addressing her fear, he lack of self confidence, and even if it is a small step, the fact that you disregard the courage it must take someone who thinks that little of themselves to speak out, is mind boggling. For people who are all about women power, you seem to come up a bit short when it comes to compassion for a woman exposing herself to the world.
3. Slut shame is hipster douchbag term used to excuse any behavior that may be looked down upon by more conservative aspects of the society. I will acknowledge that her motivation COULD have been to call out and condemn hot girls, if you admit it was just as likely to be her asking for help in dealing with how crappy she feels.
Why bother with something like this? There are clear examples of the things you accuse this woman of, rampant on the internet and TV. Why you would go after something like this is a mystery. Because she is religious? Admittedly plain? What?
“And no, I don’t think it’s an insidious plot. What she did do was open a conversation about gender issues.
And her opinion thereof is extremely harmful. That’s what everyone is saying.”
No she didn’t. You did. That is the point YOU are missing. She didn’t open that door, not intentionally. As we only have her word, and what YOU think she meant is not relevant to a conversation about what she actually wrote, we cannot logically conclude that conversation was her intent.
It is naive to ignore how presentation effects external perception. Everyone claiming it is anti-woman to talk about modesty is ignoring how basic a part of our(people) nature these things are. We define pretty, or ugly, sexy, or bland. And those things have meaning. They are not just words. You can’t say that people should be able to dress/act anyway they like and ignore the realities of how people will percieve them. And while you may judge people for doing so, it is hypocritical to attack someone who exists and reacts based on societal norms.
I guess ultimately I feel there are far better examples of the things you are against than something like this, so I am not sure as to your desire to assign more meaning to her words than was presented.
I’ll call this one done. Thanks
Flounce, Forrest, flounce!
Ok… a mountain of misunderstanding in this one Vic. I will *try* to address them all, one by one. I’ll even break my normal rule and not try to be funny with it so that it’s easier to understand….
“She didn’t directly ask anyone anything.”
Yes she did. Her last point is “But would you, could you, keep your boobs out of my marriage?” Moreover, the title of the article is “My Husband Doesn’t Need To See Your Boobs.” That is asking something of women in general. No, she isn’t asking anything of a SPECIFIC someone. That doesn’t mean she isn’t directly asking. In fact, if she were specific, and had said something like “Stop posting bikini pics on Insagram, Karen!” I wouldn’t have bothered with it. The fact that it is an open letter is what makes it to all women and what makes it relevant.
And it’s good that she did it. That is in fact, the right way to call for cultural change. Futhermore, I will say that as an open letter it is VERY well written. I enjoyed reading it. I think she makes a very intelligent argument and is very well spoken. It is not surprising to me that she has a regular blog following.
But she IS directly asking for something. You’re just empirically wrong there. Whether we agree with her or disagree with her, to say that she’s not calling for something is just foolish. Hell, her entire blog is devoted sharing her message and calling for living according to her ideology. None of us have a problem with that or think she shouldn’t be doing it.
We just think that her ideology is stupid. When you put it out there, you get back counter arguments. Just like you’re arguing against me when I put mine out there.
“You don’t care about it, because her motive, or the motive of the teen who got kicked out of the dance, or the author of the op-ed piece about her are irrelevant. You look at things and assign value based on your ideological preferences, looking at everything subjectively while ignoring the reality that is before you. You cherry picked the things in her blog that got your panties bunched up and ignored the rest. It is typical of your particular mindset and ultimately the reason for an attempted discussion/debate.”
[snip…]
“I have been fascinated by these discussions, truly engrossed in how much ideology influences a persons perception of the written word. How it is used to fill in the blanks.”
No, sorry… let me clarify. We don’t care about the argument you were making “Why can’t she express her feelings.” Actually, that’s not accurate. We do CARE. We just all agree that she should be able to express her feelings. Most of your good arguments basically say “why can’t this woman express her feelings?” and no one is arguing with you, because we all think SHE CAN. But you keep saying that as the defense, which has nothing to do with the main topic in THIS particular forum.
I will agree with you that I cherry picked what I wanted from her argument to talk about. That’s how discourse works. To answer seriously Intro’s question from earlier of why I got more comments than she did, it’s because as silly as I make these things stylistically, I specifically invite discussion in the way that I frame my posts. I think about them a lot. That’s called rhetoric, and I’m damn good at it.
And yes, of course I write my posts to support my ideological preferences. Doing anything else would be stupid. But I don’t ignore objectivity. Actually you are. To be specific, you are essentially arguing FOR this woman’s right to free expression of her ideas and AGAINST the prom teen’s doing so because of where your ideology falls. I on the other hand, support both women’s expression. If you go back and check, I even supported the woman who organized the prom’s rights to set whatever rules of conduct she wanted. However neither thing precludes my framing their pieces in accordance with why I want to write.
“1. She didn’t slut shame anyone.”
Yes, she did. I don’t think you know what the term means. The fact that she says “I’m not judging anyone” repeatedly doesn’t mean she isn’t. It’s like when someone says “I’m not racist. But you have to admit black people do commit more crimes.”
“2. By expressing her insecurities and addressing [snip…] For people who are all about women power, you seem to come up a bit short when it comes to compassion for a woman exposing herself to the world.”
I addressed this in detail above. No one is against her for addressing her insecurities. And we are not ignoring it the way you think we are. In fact, Margaret, Connie, and I have all specifically said we feel bad for her insecurities. Others, including Nat, Barbara, and Marli have referenced her insecurities and said that she should get help for them. The problem we see is that her insecurities are being used as a backdrop for a call for cultural change to SUPPORT rather than CORRECT them. I know you don’t see that. But they are. And that’s what we take issue with.
[to be continued]
“3. Slut shame is hipster douchbag term used to excuse any behavior that may be looked down upon by more conservative aspects of the society. I will acknowledge that her motivation COULD have been to call out and condemn hot girls, if you admit it was just as likely to be her asking for help in dealing with how crappy she feels.”
And THAT is the problem people people are having with you. No, that’s not what slut shaming is. In fact, a quick google scholar search shows 310 academic citations for the term. A quick search on my school’s EBSCO database just gave me 244 academic articles and texts devoted to it in the last 6 years. That’s without me doing any real research or alternate terms. That’s literally just matching on “Slut shaming.”
I will totally admit that her motivation was to to discuss how bad she feels. I said that from the very beginning. That’s easy. She so much as says that’s her motivation. And I believe her. That wasn’t the point. The point is despite her motivation she IS slut shaming. And what she is asking for IS part of the problem that bothers many of us. And it IS a problem. It is not just my ideology. It IS an important issue to me, but it is also a cultural problem. That’s why there are so many articles on it.
“Why bother with something like this? There are clear examples of the things you accuse this woman of, rampant on the internet and TV. Why you would go after something like this is a mystery. Because she is religious? Admittedly plain? What?”
That’s grabbing at straws. Why bother? Because that’s what I do. You know that full well. I don’t just write about random poor little Christian women on the internet. Last week I wrote about Rihanna, the Long Island Psychic and Stephen A Smith. Three days ago, I attacked George Will’s Washington Post article and that’s as mainstream media as you’re going to get. The prom dress teen and this woman are random civilian bloggers and I treat them exactly the same way. Sometimes I even speak out IN FAVOR of someone who’s behavior I disagree with because I support their righs to expression, as I did with the white kids who hung the “NIGGA WE MADE IT!!” sign on their school.
Moreover, I never said she was plain or frumpy. You did. I actually think she’s a perfectly attractive looking woman. Not my type. But neither is Angelina Jolie. I also don’t care that she’s religious. I don’t care about her political stance or her race or her gender. I ONLY care about the argument she makes in that specific article. I do believe that you base your opinions on your ideology, so you assume that I do the same. That’s not correct. If anything I base my ideology on my opinions (this is a huge meta issue but a side track). But in these cases, I’m not even doing that. My issue with this post is her harmful stance towards both HERSELF and SOCIETY. In particular, the manner in which her beliefs perpetuate an unbalanced system that subjugates one gender in favor of another (commonly called “patriarchy”). That is not opinion. That is not ideology. That is my understanding of cultural theory and gender studies.
I decide what I want to write about based on what interests me. She interested me, I wrote about her. That simple. I did not feel the need to talk about the parts of her article I agree with because that would be boring. It’d be like if during the last presidential debates the moderators had sat there and asked Obama and Romney their opinions on Slavery, Nazis, and Taxation to the British Crown. There’s no point in spending much time or effort discussing the things you agree on.
“It is naive to ignore how presentation effects external perception.”
It is… but you’re the only one doing that.
“Everyone claiming it is anti-woman to talk about modesty is ignoring how basic a part of our(people) nature these things are. We define pretty, or ugly, sexy, or bland. And those things have meaning. They are not just words. You can’t say that people should be able to dress/act anyway they like and ignore the realities of how people will percieve them. And while you may judge people for doing so, it is hypocritical to attack someone who exists and reacts based on societal norms.”
And as I’ve explained in detail, I’m not doing that. You accused me of “frump shaming.” and I’m not at all. I don’t care if someone wants to be frumpy. I don’t care if someone wants to be sexy. And I do agree with you that when one makes that choice (or even if their body type precludes them choosing) then they just have to deal with how society treats them. That is a reality. I am disagreeing with her not as a “frump” but as an individual. I am disagreeing not with how she looks or the god she believes in or even her cultural values, but with her perpetuation of an unfair, and harmful cultural hegemony. I am not attacking her for not being countercultural. I am attacking her for her adherence to a problematic and harmful (QUITE HARMFUL actually) stance.
I’m puzzled by the claim that everyone is attributing motives to her that she did not specifically state in her blog entry. She outright states that her motivation is her own insecurities, and then asks that everyone stop doing that thing that makes her feel insecure.
She isn’t being bullied by “hot” people. Her article isn’t about all of the toned hotties PM-ing her husband with explicit nudes. We’re talking about someone who feels insecure when other women show their bare shoulders or their legs on their own social media pages, and asserts that “we’ll all be better for it” if they stop doing that (and no matter how many times she says she’s not judging them for it, that line gives away that she is).
Y’know what I feel insecure about? I feel insecure because I believe all of my friends are smarter than me and better at expressing themselves in these sorts of discussions. I second-guess everything I consider adding to the discussion, and often opt out entirely instead of participating because of that insecurity.
No one would consider it a reasonable standpoint for me to ask everyone in an open letter to stop being so thoughtful, knowledgeable, and articulate publicly because I can’t stop comparing myself to them. And that is exactly what this blogger is doing, only for her it’s about body image instead of debating ability. That it is a request based on a “social norm” (one which is, itself, incredibly subjective) does not somehow make it more reasonable.
“No one would consider it a reasonable standpoint for me to ask everyone in an open letter to stop being so thoughtful, knowledgeable, and articulate publicly because I can’t stop comparing myself to them. And that is exactly what this blogger is doing, only for her it’s about body image instead of debating ability. ”
That was an AWESOME point, Jessi. Seriously. You shouldn’t second guess yourself, because that was very insightful.
Err… I mean… everyone be dumb so Jessi seems smarter.
MA’AM, YOU BEST BE LOOKING AT THESE TATAS!
The problem she is having is that she cannot control his eyes and heart. What she is saying is that she doesn’t need her husband to be able to see other women’s charms, and she has no power to stop him from doing so, so she attempts slut shaming in order to exert control.
I find it interesting that Vic says she is working on her insecurities by expressing them. After many discussions with many friends in the social work/therapy field, I’ve learned that this is simply not true. Saying “I’m insecure” is no more helpful to a person than saying “I’m just a bitch” or “I’m just masochistic.” It’s a shield for many people – avoiding getting at “why,” or “do I need to be.”
I wonder if the husband actually blames other women for his coveting.
Vic, is your argument “why shouldn’t this woman be allowed to express herself” or “why shouldn’t this woman be allowed to express herself WITHOUT CRITICISM”?
Also, you said: It is naive to ignore how presentation effects external perception.
I completely agree, and that is basically the only reason we are even talking about this post. Her framing of “I believe women should dress more conservatively” is …”because it makes me feel insecure and worried about my marriage” is what I think most of us here are responding to. If she had posted “I believe women should dress more conservatively … “because my religious tradition says so” or “because that’s consistent with our society’s cultural norms”, this probably would not have even gotten Mav’s attention.
You have basically just made the argument for us.
After reading the article, she doesn’t give any examples of anything her husband does to make her feel insecure. Sounds like everything is just in her own head, so perhaps she would be better off seeing a therapist rather than attempting to convince others to wear more clothing.
Damn you Mav. Now I have gone on to read yet another piece of her drivel: http://applesandbandaidsblog.com/2014/05/21/husbands-keep-fighting-like-mad-for-us/
yeah…. I was trying to link to some of her stuff yesterday, but like Jameel said, it was slashdotted. As per Connie’s suggestion earlier, reading that one doesn’t so much outrage me like the one I linked to. It instead makes me feel like “oh honey, you’re really insecure. you should see someone about that.” It’s clearly a pattern with her.
I do like that she’s using her writing to talk about her feelings. It’s probably really therapeutic. I just personally wouldn’t want to be married to her. Which is fine. It turns out lots of women, who aren’t Tiffany make their decisions without stopping to think “how can this make Mav love me.” And I’m fine with that. It’s just that that is why Tiffany is better than everyone else.
😛 im pretty sure if my tits havent lured you away yet i should just give up dear Mav 😉