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Cover up your ten year olds!


The Kurgan
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Grade four girls are not permitted to wear tank tops and shirts that reveal bare shoulders. Lest you wonder where this is, it's not in the Islamic world nor even in the southern U.S bible belt, but in Regina, Saskatchewan. Up here in the supposedly laid back Great White North.

Eagle Thom's daughter, who's in Grade 4, told him she can't wear half the clothes in her closet because of the school's dress code. The principal visited her class recently and told students they had to have their shoulders covered.


Mr. Thom took exception to this, and went to the media. "Shouldn't we be policing the people who are looking at [girls] that way rather than the girls themselves," Thom asked on CBC Radio's The Morning Edition, "Rather than telling them that their body is not theirs; that they are at the whim of somebody else?" Good question.

In answer, "Regina school board Spokesperson Terry Lazarou told CBC that while grade four girls may not be sexualized by wearing tank tops at this age, it can become a problem as they get older.

"There's no issue with shoulders," Lazarou said. "I think it's an issue of not allowing revealing clothing."

He also points out that the rule also applies to male students. They may be prudish, but at least they're fair.

Response to this, I've observed, falls into one of several categories:

  • The "Girls don't respect themselves these days" crowd defended the board's decision and attacked the prevalence of "provocative" clothing in young girls.
  • The "Boys need to control themselves" crowd had no problem with what girls wore to school. They did have a problem with boys noticing it.
  • The "rules are rules" crowd suggested that dad and daughter just STFU and follow orders like good little soldiers. This is just good preparation for the business world, after all.
  • The "uniforms will sort this all out" crowd takes it a step further and suggests that school uniforms do away with controversies like this and should be adopted.
  • The "what's the big deal" crowd thought the dress code and the whole matter a silly waste of time. Who cares what kids wear to school?

I did mention we're discussing ten year olds here, right?

 

Weird. Your thoughts?

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My son (well, me) are flagrant abuses of his school's dress code. It was mentioned once, and I told them if there was any sort of incident based on the fact he didn't wear a blue shirt they could talk to me then. Otherwise, they can stuff it. It's a public school and they have to take him!

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Dress codes are ridiculous. Not that I don't believe that public schools should maintain some sort of standard when it comes to dress (no vulgar or offensive t-shirts is a good rule), but the way they're policing them has gotten out of hand. I don't believe schools should be subtly making the point that girls' bodies are shameful, but I also don't believe that young girls should be dressing like hookers. There's a line between dressing for comfort and dressing to provoke sexual attention, but I don't think there's a specific way to define the difference. It's more of a "know it when I see it" sorta thing.

 

But what do you expect? It's hard to find non-sexualized clothing in stores. (Especially Halloween costumes!! OMG DON'T GET ME STARTED ON COSTUMES!!)

 

Plus, I believe all of the attention that these types of stories receive almost kinda force you to view these children as a sexual object. I'm sure if you were to see some of these outfits on a girl at the park about 99% of us would never think a thing of it, but when it's national news, now the entire country is basically looking for the sexiness or revealing nature of an otherwise mundane outfit. They MUST be scrutinized to determine if her butt is being framed or if you can detect a hint of cleavage there.

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My son (well, me) are flagrant abuses of his school's dress code. It was mentioned once, and I told them if there was any sort of incident based on the fact he didn't wear a blue shirt they could talk to me then. Otherwise, they can stuff it. It's a public school and they have to take him!

I was always in trouble as a result of dress code violations in school. Apparently, Slayer T-shirts were frowned upon in Catholic schools. Who'd have guessed?

 

Plus, I believe all of the attention that these types of stories receive almost kinda force you to view these children as a sexual object. I'm sure if you were to see some of these outfits on a girl at the park about 99% of us would never think a thing of it, but when it's national news, now the entire country is basically looking for the sexiness or revealing nature of an otherwise mundane outfit. They MUST be scrutinized to determine if her butt is being framed or if you can detect a hint of cleavage there.

Exactly. It's a manufactured issue designed to get all the usual partisans to comment and share the story.

 

But what do you expect? It's hard to find non-sexualized clothing in stores. (Especially Halloween costumes!! OMG DON'T GET ME STARTED ON COSTUMES!!)

Too true.

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I shared something on Facebook awhile back about a girl who was sent home for being dressed inappropriately, and responded with flyers stating that telling her she needed to cover up meant that it was more important for boys to be distraction-free than it was for her to get an education. Girl was right on.

 

So, we're talking about this in grade 4, but I already have moms commenting on how I dress my 3-year old. I went shopping with a friend who told me the shorts I picked out for her was too short. Another mom (who only has boys) commented on how I always dress my daughter in leggings. Part of me thinks the first mom was a bit jealous, because my daughter is thin (got daddy's genes), and her daughter comes from bigger stock and has a little thicker thighs. I see rants about short shorts for little girls at Target, that we're teaching them that modesty is not important and that they're already sexual creatures. I think that's going a bit far. My daughter is thin, leggings are about the only thing that will fit her waist. The second mom has complained about other women at work dressing in a matter that is "distracting" to male colleagues. In that case, I think she's again jealous that this particular woman is generally admired for her beauty by the other male engineers, but honestly, they'd drool over her in a garbage bag. It doesn't help that my daughter is a giant tomboy and her favorite outfit is a Batman shirt with black leggings (because Batman wears black, thanks Lego Movie). There is nothing remotely sexual yet about my little girl. If someone is admiring her body already, they're a perv, quite frankly, and that's on them, not on her.

 

I was a junior in high school when Columbine happened. The administration used it as an excuse to implement dress codes in the name of safety. No more jackets, unless they were Letterman jackets. I'm sure you can imagine the stink that caused about favorability with "the jocks". The other one was no shorts shorter than where your fingertips laid lying naturally by your side. The first day of senior year, the quietest, most awkward girl in school was sent to the Principal's office because she had gorilla arms that were awkwardly long. Poor girl was as quiet as a mouse and never sent to the Principal's office in her life. As you can imagine, the cheerleaders were allowed to wear their dress-code violating uniforms all the time. (And to be fair, I do understand why cheerleaders have short skirts. It's pretty much turned into acrobatic gymnastics, you don't want something that interferes with movement.) No more strapless shirts on girls, no "tank tops" but shoulders were allowed. This meant that one of the guys protested by wearing his girlfriend's tube top. We all realized the ridiculousness that was being promoted in the name of "safety". I'm really glad that was my last year of high school. I rarely violated this dress code before it was implemented, but I did see it as very hypocritical and transparent, and I was one of the groups that was generally exempt (the jocks), but as a female, I thought it was sexist. There is nothing "unsafe" about a tank top. And this was before the term "wardrobe malfunction"!

 

I think I'm in the "what's the big deal?" camp, with a splash of "is it really that distracting"?

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This all just reminds me of that crazy lady who said that she would no longer wear yoga pants because it's not nice to tempt men. Now, as a stay-at-home mom, I practically LIVE in yoga pants. My life now is much more active than it was when I was working in an office. I'm all over the place doing all sorts of things. I can't imagine trying to do it all in jeans or shorts or a skirt (especially not a skirt). Yoga and athletic wear are essential.

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Part of me thinks the first mom was a bit jealous, because my daughter is thin (got daddy's genes), and her daughter comes from bigger stock and has a little thicker thighs.

I won't lie. I buy my kid skinny jeans and cool t-shirts cause he is physically cool without trying and I was ALWAYS awkward.

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Caring how much skin is exposed then requiring less skin to be exposed and/or caring how skin gets covered and with what unrelated to environmental concerns are empty resolutions to empty arguments. All of which avoid confronting why the person thinks too much skin is wrong and tackling that social issue.

 

This isn't to say I let my children walk around naked, wear speedos or dress like Madonna (not the Madonna, obviously conservatives would favor that dress code). I hold to a balance of environmental practicality, social decorum and fashionable relevance.

 

eg. My 10yo daughter likes Daisy Dukes, they are back in fashion. I allowed her to have some as long as they actually covered her butt and she wore them when it was actually warm outside. She also wants a bikini, but I didn't allow her to have one she adored as the boy shorts don't fit right on her and the top may as well not even be worn. We found a different swimsuit with the boy shorts she likes, but these fit right and with a tank like top which gives her the fashionable look she was going for. Obiviously swimwear isn't a school thing, just an example of balancing fashion with function and decorum.

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This all just reminds me of that crazy lady who said that she would no longer wear yoga pants because it's not nice to tempt men. Now, as a stay-at-home mom, I practically LIVE in yoga pants. My life now is much more active than it was when I was working in an office. I'm all over the place doing all sorts of things. I can't imagine trying to do it all in jeans or shorts or a skirt (especially not a skirt). Yoga and athletic wear are essential.

I loooooove yoga pants and capris. But, during the summer, I really like a skirt if I'm leaving the house. I'd much rather wear that than shorts. Mostly because it feels like you're not wearing pants, which is even lazier than yoga pants.

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Pretty dumb. I am fine with dress codes regardless of age, but I don't believe them to some sort of panacea. Also, who cares at 10 years old?

Also, this statement:

"Shouldn't we be policing the people who are looking at [girls] that way rather than the girls themselves,"
This is intriguing. On one hand, he's 100% correct that it is the responsibility of the looker not to behave badly toward the lookee. No question about that. On the other hand, it's absolutely ****ing absurd to act like a high school girl dressed in revealing clothes is doing it just to "be comfortable" and that it -- even if the girl is 100% naive and innocent in intention -- isn't a distraction. I.e. that it's distracting to the teenage boys who immediately think about humping her when she walks by (regardless of how well they are behaving otherwise), and to a lesser extent, the teenage girls who are jealous cuz they know all the boys are thinking about humping her (one of the best girl fights I ever saw in high school had to do with one girl dressing "slutty" in front of the other girl's boyfriends. It was fantastic!).

 

I mean, sure, you can train a dog not to beg when you walk by with a juicy rare steak, and that is how it should be, but don't pretend that dog's brain isn't utterly fixated until your last bite. YES I JUST CALLED WOMEN JUICY MEATS.

 

And now cue some dumb sensitive guy: "Durrrr I was never driven to distraction by girls in short skirts/exposed shoulders in high school!"

 

No one named Eagle is allowed to have an opinion.

Oh, they can have one. Nobody is going to take it seriously, though.

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Part of me thinks the first mom was a bit jealous, because my daughter is thin (got daddy's genes), and her daughter comes from bigger stock and has a little thicker thighs ... In that case, I think she's again jealous that this particular woman is generally admired for her beauty by the other male engineers, but honestly, they'd drool over her in a garbage bag.

I can't help but wonder how much jealousy and insecurity factors into controversies like this. Such people tend to prefer the idea of carpeting the whole of the earth to shoeing their own feet.

 

Caring how much skin is exposed then requiring less skin to be exposed and/or caring how skin gets covered and with what unrelated to environmental concerns are empty resolutions to empty arguments. All of which avoid confronting why the person thinks too much skin is wrong and tackling that social issue.

I wonder if in Islamic world, is just that little bit of flesh you can see around the eyes of a veiled woman the absolute most alluring thing a guy can see? And I think that's the problem. It's kind of relative. There will ALWAYS be a way to push the limits of any dress code, to make it at least that little bit more risque or provocative than usual. Even school uniforms ... this things are fetishes for many. You want sexed up cos-play, there it is.

 

Just as stupid is the idea that boys simply shouldn't notice at all, and that if they were just taught to respect women more, those exposed shoulders, eyes, school uniforms and so on would not stimulate dirty and degrading thoughts. Of course it depends on how old the pupils in question are; it's a different matter for nine year olds than for sixteen year olds. This is a different way of expressing the same underlying view. One camp suggests that women "respect themselves" by representing themselves in an asexual manner. The other camp suggests that men "respect women" by thinking of women in an asexual manner. This apparent inability to reconcile the concept of "respect" with sexuality, especially in women, seems to me to be the underlying issue here that, surprise surprise, nobody talks about.

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And now cue some dumb sensitive guy: "Durrrr I was never driven to distraction by girls in short skirts/exposed shoulders in high school!"

Sure enough ...

 

 

 

 

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It must be comforting to young Earth Creationists that they're not alone in completely rejecting science in favor of ideological purity. I do expect better from so called liberals, mind you. I'd quite expect the usual female posturing of "women NEVER EVER dress for men" and the implications that all women are just too classy to ever act like complete dolts around hot guys, especially in high school. (HINT - half the reason I turned out the way I did was because of just how crazy the hormonal girls were when I was in school. What a gong-show.) This is the internet, after all, so such flagrant refusal to accept facts that countermand the official social media narrative of feminine purity does not surprise me. Anyway ...

 

That said, I always believed in decorum where stuff like this goes. I remember a guy I worked with years ago, who'd lose his cool around women. Pictures of pin up models and so on would make him giddy. We all looked down on this, and the boss even called him a "walking hard-on" one day when they got in a fight (it was his last day working there, it goes without saying). None of us were puritans - we DID have pin up girls on the walls after all. But it's more a question of whether you master your passions or do they master you? Ditto for cat-calls, leering and so on. I always really looked down on guys who did that. I was about 13 or so when I figured out that if you really want a girl, acting like a gentleman was the way to go. Boors bored me. Grow up and grow a pair.

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I wonder if in Islamic world, is just that little bit of flesh you can see around the eyes of a veiled woman the absolute most alluring thing a guy can see? And I think that's the problem. It's kind of relative. There will ALWAYS be a way to push the limits of any dress code, to make it at least that little bit more risque or provocative than usual. Even school uniforms ... this things are fetishes for many. You want sexed up cos-play, there it is.

There is definitely some truth to that. I was in a faux "house band" for a strip joint for several months at one point, and can say even full-on, in-your-face nudity doesn't phase me much. The only question is how much was due to overexposure to nudity itself, and how much was it the people who were nekkid? I know generalizations are unfair and mean and all, but generally speaking the strippers I've known have been a sad, uninteresting lot, who are more often than not saddled with harsh, if not tragic emotional and substance abuse issues.

 

On the other hand, I can think of a few happy, interesting ladies, unladen with emotional/substance abuse issues who I'd probably have a hard time keeping eye contact with if they just to showed a bit of cleavage, sooooo....

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The exposed shoulders kind of kill me. Are shoulders sexy? Is there something I'm missing here, guys? PLZ TELL ME UR SEKRETS.

 

I agree that it's unreasonable to expect people to completely turn attraction off. I mean, my husband and I even notice when people of the same sex are attractive. We had a conversation this weekend about a guy we knew from college who I admitted was very attractive before he got in a bad car accident that he was lucky to survive (no horrible burns or anything, just scarring and some big weight loss from being laid up instead of spending half his time at the gym). My husband has admitted to me that one of my college roommates was one of the prettiest girls at our college (and I agree with him!). But if it's distracting, I do think that's very much on the person who is distracted. There was an advice column run by a female scientist that went into this earlier this week. The post-doc said her new (married) adviser kept looking down her shirt, but she loved her job. The advice columnist said to suck it up and maybe even be flattered, and mentioned another male colleague who admitted he was unable to concentrate on a beautiful professor's presentation because he was so distracted by her beauty. I thought that was pretty lame advice. Like Kurgan's former co-worker, these guys couldn't concentrate on their work because there were BOOBS or whatever. Really? Is it that hard to actively not attempt to look down your co-worker's shirt? For whatever reason, the men's bathroom door is always open at our office, you think I'm looking in there every time I pass by to get a shot at some wang? To be fair, I've worked with a legit pervert, so I might be a little less tolerant of this (extreme) behavior, especially in the work place. But the professor who couldn't concentrate on the colleague's presentation especially saddened me? Really, her beauty was all that was valid about her? Her brain/work/research can't be fascinating? That sort of stuff just makes me sad.

 

I don't think it should be that hard to acknowledge that someone is good looking and then get back to work. The dog/steak analogy Pong used is a good one. Then again, if my dog is anything to go by, she'll go for the steak the moment you have your back turned.

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I don't think it should be that hard to acknowledge that someone is good looking and then get back to work.

For adults who have jobs, for college students who are wanting to keep their scholarships (or who are paying a fortune to get an education), heck yeah. I think an important part of being of an adult is the ability do your jobs even if there are distractions. I think the advice that woman got was revolting. I mean, I can understand if it's hard to keep the eyes "up there" from time to time, but if that guy was actively looking down her shirt, he's not acting like an adult, and it's on him. Tell him to grow up and knock it off.

 

But I think in high schools, where you aren't dealing with adults, where you have a lot of kids who hate being there who are interested in anything but their studies, and there are tons of hormones -- NEW hormones -- in the air, I don't think it is at all unreasonable to disallow things that you know are going to be distracting to at least some of the kids. Some of the clothing we had banned in my school was freakin' ridiculous, but looking back, if I'm being completely honest, most of the banned accoutrements were distracting and worn specifically to provoke (not necessarily sexually -- more often extreme gore, religious or political messages, clever phrases or statements about popular culture, etc.). I hated the rules back then, but if I were running a school as a stuffy ol' adult, I'd probably send those kids home myself today.

 

you think I'm looking in there every time I pass by to get a shot at some wang?

LOL I certainly hope so!

 

This isn't meant as a criticism, but I think a lot of women have a hard time wrapping their minds around just how visual men (generally speaking) are when it comes to sexuality. Like, they can read one of those audio/visual studies and "get it" intellectually, but they really just have no freakin' idea. So when a woman say "But they're just bewbs! I like looking at men, but I'm not gonna lose my **** if some guy walks by with a huge bulge in his pants!" I say to myself "Yeah, true... but you still have no idea." Of course, this isn't to say all men are highly visual when it comes to their sexuality or that all women are less visually driven, or that culture doesn't play a role in how we express our feelings (e.g. encouraging men to be more visual, discouraging women).

 

IMO, it's kind of like how when a guy talks about women being cat-called, saying "It means yer hot! You should appreciate it!" 'cause they can't imagine not appreciating it themselves -- but they aren't able to picture it as a loss of sovereignty, or understand that if the roles were truly reversed, they'd be getting cat-called by some grotesque, hairy monster who outweighs them by 80lbs who perhaps stands/walks too close, and who could easily hurt them in the right circumstance. There is never a sense of the lack of respect and the potential threat in those guys' minds, cause it's just not a pair of moccasins they have ever walked in.

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I think it would be really interesting to go back to the very beginning.

 

There's a bit of a leap in the logic in the article, where there's a dress code that's applied to all and then it's suddenly about sex.

 

What does that say about a person who hears "young kids have to wear some type of sleeve" and immediately thinks about sex? Probably that his name is Eagle.

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This isn't meant as a criticism, but I think a lot of women have a hard time wrapping their minds around just how visual men (generally speaking) are when it comes to sexuality. Like, they can read one of those audio/visual studies and "get it" intellectually, but they really just have no freakin' idea. So when a woman say "But they're just bewbs! I like looking at men, but I'm not gonna lose my **** if some guy walks by with a huge bulge in his pants!" I say to myself "Yeah, true... but you still have no idea." Of course, this isn't to say all men are highly visual when it comes to their sexuality or that all women are less visually driven, or that culture plays a role in how we express our feelings (e.g. encouraging men to be more visual, discouraging women).

 

IMO, it's kind of like how when a guy talks about women being cat-called, saying "It means yer hot! You should appreciate it!" 'cause they can't imagine not appreciating it themselves -- but they aren't able to picture it as a loss of sovereignty, or understand that if the roles were truly reversed, they'd be getting cat-called by some grotesque, hairy monster who outweighs them by 80lbs who perhaps stands/walks too close, and who could easily hurt them in the right circumstance. There is never a sense of the lack of respect and the potential threat in those guys' minds, cause it's just not a pair of moccasins they have ever walked in.

I actually do understand, even if it didn't come across as that. My husband and I talked about the teenage girl being told to cover up and he told me it was a pipe dream to hope that men wouldn't always look at women as sexual objects. (My husband is compassionate, but he's also a realist.) My point is that if I walked around ogling all the guys at work, I would be a creeper. The same goes for either gender/sexual orientation. Like you said, the hallmark of being an adult is being able to concentrate on work despite some distractions. (And if this makes any sense, I think proximity matters to women. I don't know about men. I have a lot harder time dealing with attraction if I'm in close quarters with the person. I usually try to put some distance in there to ease my discomfort.)

 

But yes on cat-calling. Ugh.

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(And if this makes any sense, I think proximity matters to women. I don't know about men. I have a lot harder time dealing with attraction if I'm in close quarters with the person. I usually try to put some distance in there to ease my discomfort.)

Did you mean if you are attracted to somebody, or if you know somebody is attracted to you?

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The one school topic I will not touch with a 10 foot pole. I have never enforced female dress code. I leave that to the female teachers.

 

The only policing I do is the boys who want to wear the sagging jeans showing off their underwear which I simply solve by telling them to pull it up and if I see it again I will use zip ties to keep them pulled up.

 

Dress codes are only as good as the ones which are consistently being enforced and not having selective enforcement. The moment I see selective enforcement I do not bother dealing with it any longer.

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Heh. In this Canadian town how often is it hot enough to justify nekkid shoulders? Summer lasts like 2 weeks. So most of the time those tops are layered under shirts, sweaters and jackets.

 

In my high school back in the 80s boys had to shave, girls had could wear tanks but no spaghetti straps and shorts were two inches above the knees. I work in a school district that requires a polo in a choice of three colors: red, blue or white and either kahki's or blue pants or skirts. Tank blows my mind with his California-ness concerning his sons dress. It seems almost callous or something. Or maybe I'm just used to a certain dress code for kids. We've had it for years for many reasons but one of them is to avoid gang colors and help parents with an affordable option for clothing their children besides a easy dress code. Your kid doesn't get sent home if he comes not dressed correctly. He gets provided the correct uniform and asked to change and sent back to class.

 

I would like to address the saggy pants thing. But that's up there with the weird driver position of putting your seat all the way back and driving where you barely see above the window and your hands have to stretch to rest inside the steering wheel or muffin top in squishy low rise pants for girls. I see the kids in my school change to this as soon as they get home. But that's once they get home.

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This isn't meant as a criticism, but I think a lot of women have a hard time wrapping their minds around just how visual men (generally speaking) are when it comes to sexuality. Like, they can read one of those audio/visual studies and "get it" intellectually, but they really just have no freakin' idea. So when a woman say "But they're just bewbs! I like looking at men, but I'm not gonna lose my **** if some guy walks by with a huge bulge in his pants!" I say to myself "Yeah, true... but you still have no idea." Of course, this isn't to say all men are highly visual when it comes to their sexuality or that all women are less visually driven, or that culture plays a role in how we express our feelings (e.g. encouraging men to be more visual, discouraging women).

 

IMO, it's kind of like how when a guy talks about women being cat-called, saying "It means yer hot! You should appreciate it!" 'cause they can't imagine not appreciating it themselves -- but they aren't able to picture it as a loss of sovereignty, or understand that if the roles were truly reversed, they'd be getting cat-called by some grotesque, hairy monster who outweighs them by 80lbs who perhaps stands/walks too close, and who could easily hurt them in the right circumstance. There is never a sense of the lack of respect and the potential threat in those guys' minds, cause it's just not a pair of moccasins they have ever walked in.

I actually do understand, even if it didn't come across as that. My husband and I talked about the teenage girl being told to cover up and he told me it was a pipe dream to hope that men wouldn't always look at women as sexual objects. (My husband is compassionate, but he's also a realist.) My point is that if I walked around ogling all the guys at work, I would be a creeper. The same goes for either gender/sexual orientation. Like you said, the hallmark of being an adult is being able to concentrate on work despite some distractions. (And if this makes any sense, I think proximity matters to women. I don't know about men. I have a lot harder time dealing with attraction if I'm in close quarters with the person. I usually try to put some distance in there to ease my discomfort.)

 

But yes on cat-calling. Ugh.

 

I could be arrested for the stuff I think when I look at women. But I keep my mouth shut and don't oogle.

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The exposed shoulders kind of kill me. Are shoulders sexy? Is there something I'm missing here, guys? PLZ TELL ME UR SEKRETS.

Two possible schools of thought on that:

 

1. With each extra millimeter of shoulder revealed, it increases the chance that a dude might catch a glimpse of an errant bra strap creeping out from under the shirt. OOH, HAWT.

 

2. For every body part ever invented, somewhere out there are dudes with a fetish for it.

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IMO, it's kind of like how when a guy talks about women being cat-called, saying "It means yer hot! You should appreciate it!" 'cause they can't imagine not appreciating it themselves -- but they aren't able to picture it as a loss of sovereignty, or understand that if the roles were truly reversed, they'd be getting cat-called by some grotesque, hairy monster who outweighs them by 80lbs who perhaps stands/walks too close, and who could easily hurt them in the right circumstance. There is never a sense of the lack of respect and the potential threat in those guys' minds, cause it's just not a pair of moccasins they have ever walked in.

I probably get it better than most males do, 'cause I've actually experienced it. I'm one of the odd gender flipped exceptions. Not so much recently - not since social media come along to tell us all what monsters we are for thinking other people "hot", but in my younger days. You couldn't be more right, Pong. It wasn't so much a case of a "hairy monster who outweighed me by eighty pounds" in one instance, but she was older and bigger than me. Another time it was a case of being vastly outnumbered by an obsessive crush and her allies. A real rabbit boiler, this one was. On top of that, I constantly heard from older women of all sorts how I needed to cut my hair and dress in business suits (as a teenager) so as to look like eye candy for their benefit. My father's girlfriends, my own friend's older sisters and such. Nary an inquiry into my point of view on things either. It was always just "suit up and keep your wallet handy, 'cause I or someone I know likes ya!" All in all, it drove me from simply being a young kid who didn't want a girl friend to a steaming, seething cauldron of hate that abominated everything to do with love, warmth and affection. Here's a clue people - think of the object of your affection as a sovereign human being in their own right, rather than just as something to use for your own benefit. Factor what THEY WANT into the relationship, and you'd be really surprised at how much better results you'd get, most of the time.

 

Probably not what you expected out of me, but you know what they say: It took Nixon to go to China.

 

I actually do understand, even if it didn't come across as that. My husband and I talked about the teenage girl being told to cover up and he told me it was a pipe dream to hope that men wouldn't always look at women as sexual objects.

I wouldn't even think of it as "sexual objects" as much as just the way sexual attraction works. For both sexes, to degrees that vary more by person than by gender, physical characteristics are a big part of it. This is the other side of the coin, and something I eventually had to come to accept. We all do it, so demonizing it doesn't do any good. Usually, I find accusations of "objectification" are thrown about when attraction is not reciprocated or comes from a subcultural quarter we look down upon. Frankly, I think the idea has become weaponized and used as a means of muzzling other people's right to peacable sexual agency. I'm sure I don't have to mention the guilty parties here, and this irks me, because the real thing is damaging.

 

2. For every body part ever invented, somewhere out there are dudes with a fetish for it.

Ha ha! - a corollary to rule 34?

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