Crapping All Over Beauty
No, not literally crapping; this isn’t that sort of website.
Over on Figleaf’s Real Adult Sex, Figleaf posted a long entry about folks who come to blogs where there are nekkid pictures, only to leave strongly derisive comments about the nekkid pictures in question. He likened such folks to trolls, and suggested deleting the body-critical comments plus the standard troll cure: ignoring them.
I posted a long comment over there, which this post mostly duplicates, not because I disagree with the prescription (I don’t) but because I don’t think the nasty body-critical comments are really deliberate trolling behavior. A true troll knows he’s a troll; these guys (and they are always guys) are just bringing to the internet their “normal” obnoxious behavior from daily life.
Here at ErosBlog, I’ve always been ruthless about deleting anything that attempts to drag down my attempt at maintaining a body-positive, sex-positive, kink-friendly editorial tone. For example, awhile back I posted some public nude shots of Kirsten Dunst, and attracted a whole host of folks commenting on how ugly her breasts supposedly are. She’s pretty by any reasonable measure, so what’s up with that? I dunno, but the ugly comments I had to delete far outnumbered the ones that remain.
What I’ve learned running a sex blog is that there are a whole host of guys whose only mode of discourse about bodily appearance is to make a negative comment. I think perhaps it originates in adolescent one-upsmanship; one guy says “Sally’s hot, I’d like to do her” and the other guys all say “No, man, she’s a pig, she’s got a huge ass” as a way of belittling the first guy. However it started, the result is a fairly large class of guys whose reflex response whenever they see an erotic picture is to say something mean and ugly about the body depicted.
It’s clearly an act of emotional aggression, some sort of attempt to establish superiority by expressing contempt for that which other people consider beautiful. An extreme form of this (which I’ve seen in various places on the internet) is the “It’s a tranny” game. The way the “game” is played is to post a picture of an unknown but pretty woman, and then wait until other men admit that the woman shown is lustworthy. Then the trap springs, as the original poster (or others) assert “It’s a tranny!” It doesn’t have to be true; the point is merely to score points by belittling another man’s opinions about sexual attractiveness.
I guess the point of all this is to suggest to other bloggers that they not take it quite so personally. If you post your boobs or butt on your blog and some nasty guy makes a rude comment, it’s possible that he doesn’t hate you specifically and didn’t stop by your blog to cause trouble specifically for you. More likely, he’s just a boorish lout who says “fat ass!” by reflex whenever he sees a pretty butt. It’s not aimed at you at all; it’s male posturing aimed at the other men who are admiring your ass.
Sure, delete his comment, just the way you’d evict a stinky drunk who stumbled into your living room from the street. But don’t take the comments so much to heart, any more than you’d worry about the good opinion of the drunk.
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Shorter URL for sharing: https://www.erosblog.com/?p=1020
While I do agree that this kind of behavior isn’t personal to the subject of a posted picture, I have to respectfully disagree about the idea that it’s a “male insulting another male” thing. I suppose it is possible, but I see it as more a reflection of the posters attitude toward women, and possibly sexuality in general. Perhaps he has trouble attracting women, and lashes out against a pretty woman as if to say “ha! I don’t need you, you are ugly!” Sort of a pre-emptive strike against rejection.
Thanks, Bacchus. I’ll repeat my reply to your comment. I agree that the classic internet troll only flames for sport but I think there’s room under that bridge for the kind of… um… orcs you’re talking about. You’re *definitely* onto something though — some guys (and you’re right it’s almost always guys) react to something they can’t have by getting angry or acting as if they wouldn’t want it. I remember this guy in college, a musician friend, who was just so bitter about not being able to get a girlfriend. One day he’s sitting in the rec center in a total blue funk about it and this really, really cute girl stops and says “Oh [X,] you look so sad” and he looks up at her and says “Yeah, well what the fuck are you going to do about it?” I dunno. I guess the point is it’s one thing to contruct your own Hell but it’s beyond senseless to try to drag other people into it. You can’t delete guys like that in real life but whether you want to call them trolls, orcs, or everyday assholes you can sure as hell deep six them online. Unlike the old days it’s not even censoring them — they can always get their own blog and say whatever they want there.
Thanks, Bacchus.
figleaf
For clarification, it’s worth stating that Figleaf’s words accompanied his contribution to ‘Half Nekkid Thursday’ (HNT), which is a warm and generous spirited visual venture for bloggers. One of the most encouraging aspects of this, is that it’s open for everyone and as such is essentially non-judgemental. So many people have mentioned how it’s helped them overcome their negative body image. But that’s a fragile place for many and so it’s easily disturbed and even shattered by a callous comment.
Essentially, such nasty commenters are emotionally immature and superficial idiots but knowing that doesn’t necessarily make it easy to shrug off.
Exposing our sexuality renders us vulnerable, which is why it’s so beautiful but also why it’s easy to cause harm. I agree, delete the post and do your best to put it in perspective.
Thanks for raising this again Bacchus. I think the more aware everyone is of this bullshit, the better we’ll get at countering it.
Ayla, I doubt I’ll change your mind with this, but your comment that you “see it as more a reflection of the posters attitude toward women” goes right to the heart of the argument I’m making. Superficially, insults about women surely do seem to reflect a negative attitude toward women. And, doubtless, such attitudes are present. But that does *not* mean I’m wrong about the reason the insult is offered. What I’m trying to do is explain a dynamic I’ve observed betwixt and among men, which (at least in the real world, as opposed to the internet) is a dynamic few women would ever get to see.
You may have never seen it, and I may never convince you, but by running down a woman that another man has admitted is attractive, you’re insulting that guy. And there are plenty of men for whom that’s enough reason to do it, whatever their honest feelings about the appearance of the woman in question. A lot of times this is ludicrous — the lady can be hot indeed and some jerk will still be saying “She’s a pig”, just because he thinks he’s scoring points on other guys by saying so.
To everyone who has suggested that there’s a sour grapes component, I agree with that in many cases. It’s easy to say “she’s ugly and I wouldn’t have her” when you know you couldn’t get her without a taser and a net. But in real life, I’ve seen guys do this who were happily coupled; in some cases, it’s a (to them) meaningless riff they learned in high school and never outgrew. To these guys, it’s empty humor on the level of accusing a buddy of being pussy-whipped if he dares to call his wife on the cell phone. Nobody thinks he’s truly whipped, it’s just a way to hassle him.
Please understand I’m not trying to excuse or justify the behavior; I find it foul and delete it whenever I can. I’m just sharing a theory about what motivates it.
It is probably several of those things at the same time.
I’d say it also relates to the same motivation that makes bad porn site writers be unable to describe their subjects as anything other than “cumguzzling whores who crave huge man-meat in the ass” or whatever crappy prose they come up with. And what makes many men actually respond to that. The guys who write it are usually otherwise decent fellows who live in Encino and have a wife and kids and a dog, but they can’t quite deal with sexuality in a positive manner. Has to be something dirty, where somebody needs to be put down somehow, and the beautiful, free-spirited women who frolick naked in front of the camera just have to be filthy whores. And that gives lots of men with a repressed sense of sexuality a way of enjoying it, while pretending to put it down. They can slap each other on the back and exchange scathing critiques of what they’re watching, without having to admit they really like it.
Some people are assholes. I don’t let assholes insult me or my friends in my living room and I sure as hell have no intention of doing so at my blog. Insulting and uncivil posts will simply not be approved. I don’t mind disagreement or debate, I don’t mind if people don’t like me, but I’m not giving any airplay to misogynistic assholes who think they’ve got a pair because they’re online and not face to face with the object of their generally incoherent derision.
I don’t feed trolls because I try my hardest to pretend they don’t even exist. Does it get to me sometimes? Sure, it’s hard not to in real life and online. But in the big picture does it truly matter? No.
I think it’s a logical iteration of the time-honored tactic of putting others down to try to appease some insecurity. It also fits snugly within the tendency to objectify. A naked woman is going to incur some degree of objectification almost as a matter of course; some of it is celebratory (“wow! how pretty!”) and some of it is degrading (“boy there’s a pair of tits i’d love to cum on.”). Since there is already a trend to reduce the person to an attractive object, anything that attacks the “attractiveness” is seen as a way to entirely devalue that person (whose only value is in her attractiveness anyway, right?). Le voila! Our insecure orc now feels like there is one less person to compete with in his race to be The COOLEST Person Ever. Even more insidious is how similar this is to fascist propaganda that tries to reduce a group of “undesirables” to some simple set of stereotypes which are then attacked. If you have an enemy, first strip him of his humanity, his human individuality; make him an idol, a caricature, an image. Then destroy the image.
Wow. You’d think i take myself seriously :hehe:
(no, i don’t think orcs are nazis, just assholes)
some people are just small minded and like to belittle others in order to feel good about themselves
well said kali
This is a controversial debate for sure.
Whilst I agree with the idea that for some men, to act with offence towards women, allows them some upmanship with other men, I have to say that like Ayla, I also think that there is an element of misogyny involved.
My experience as a woman writing a sexblog has been that on an infrequent basis I receive both comments and private emails from men that contain offensive, hateful and derogatory language. Much of it is based around typical flaming, ie. ‘You are a slut!’ but some of it – the long, drawn out emails especially – attacks me specifically for being female and being proactive with my sexuality.
Of course I just delete and ignore such stupid communication, but occasionally it does get to me. Like Freya says, I wouldn’t let people insult me in my own home, but continually having to put up with personal verbal attacks on my blog with the use of language I shan’t repeat here, can just be exhausting, y’know?
I have to say though, in defence of the majority of nice commenters on my site, that when an arsehole shows up and spouts some venomous shit, they are really quick to rush to my defence, which is lovely.
That post’s tits are saggy. And it has a fat ass.
You see a lot of that at the VoyeurWeb too. Lots of catty comments and repulsive behavior. They don’t sensor those comments either. I think of the people making these comments as the losers they are, still living with mommy and daddy and having no social skills whatsoever. You KNOW it’s true! ;) :D
Even before there was the web the internet was a place where guys could display aggression they never dare would in meat space.
I don’t run a ‘babelog’ but have a few sites that deal with sexuality and religion. Sometimes I’ve been disheartened when all the mean-spirited folks show up. Though they seem to be around less than they once were.
Don’t recall seeing anything untoward in your comments and I’m sure that like myself you hate having to play comment cop.
They just want attention – they are ignored in their own life and want somewhere they are not.
I once ran a site with an online petition and had to hastily throw up a defense against these morons. Certain keywords together with mass postings identified most of them and the rest were easily spotted and flagged.
Then, because I was feeling particularly sadistic that day, I didn’t remove the flagged messages. I merely changed the display function to show unflagged ones or those originating from the same IP address :laugh:! From their computer it appeared that their messages were still there and on display but nobody else could see them and I got a warm glow watching their increasingly rabid tirade as they wondered why everyone else was acting as if they didn’t even exist!
I’ve just had an experience which I think supports the idea of misogyny being seen as a resource for male bonding.
After helping a removalist move my gear to his van, we strained at conversation, I suggesting he must love driving (he does th ABerdeen-London run). He replied that the only good thing about the job is giving him nights away from the wife. This hardly eased the strain, so he tried backing it up with further insults.
I’m so grateful for this discussion making me think about something I’d usually ignore. It seems such peculiar behaviour because logically a husband who insults his wife is condemning his judgement,lifestyle and future. Of course it was meant as a joke. Maybe far from misogyny this older guy was praising his wife with some weird highland humour – but it didn’t feel like it. It did feel like an attempted friendly gesture. The type of response it was fishing for was another put down of a woman, ideally of my own partner.
I think his joke was not meant to mock himself, but rather to accept the necessity of having women in your life – the can’t live with them…without them idea. This in turn reminds me of the earliest bit of misogyny I know of. In Euripides’ Medea, Jason (of Argonauts fame) picked up the wild heroine on his travels, but dumps her, despite having two kids together, for a younger girl. Not taking such shit, Medea does what will hurt Jason most, kill the kids. (Nice plot yes?) Discovering which Jason whines that the world would be pain free if children were born some other way and women didnt exist.
I stray and ramble in considering the long irrational current of Western man’s insecurity before women.
cheers,
I agree that those sort of comments are usually about men denigrating the opinions of other men. Exactly the same thing happens in real life; at school I remember being terrified of expressing a positive opinion about a girl’s looks for fears that my peers would mock my opinions. It’s not about the girl; it’s about the other guy insulting you by saying your standards are too low, or you must be desperate to fancy her… almost regardless of how attractive the girl actually was.
Maybe it’s a combination of factors with male-to-male put-downs and misoginy involved, but since this is what i’ve reading lately i do think it’s very related and much more likely or maybe even the source of those two: Been reading about the psychological concept of “The Judge”. The concept is too long to be exposed in a post here (look for the book “Shrinking the Judge: Freeing the Inner Child” by Rick and Rosalie Malter, can be gotten used very very cheap and it’s an easy read for those not given to reading much), but these people are posting from the immature point of view of an 8-year old kid who can’t deal with anything without either-or black-and-white rigid, anti-life rules of the universe and wobbly logic designed to put down (and destroy if possible) anything that even looks like it strays off it (like, say, a lively sex life and enough self-confidence to express it openly). Since all this is clearly outside their parameters of “how things should be”, it “obviously” must be stopped and even destroyed if possible. The kicker is that they treat themselves like that, living sad, ultra-stressed, low self-esteem, super limited and increasingly dead lives and trying to turn anything and anyone around them like that. Insightful little book, very recommended (and useful, since we all are like that to a lesser or greater degree, and knowing how to deal with this is very good for you since it tends to manifest in very individual ways and develop into depression, panic attacks and many other things, i think extra knowlegdge is usually good to have around :) ).
You’ve been doing a great job here. Keep filtering so that the rest of us can enjoy an asshole-free zone!
Now bring on the (always pleasing, of course) boobs! :D
Every time fark.com runs a boobies link, you get dozens of knobs saying that the woman is ugly and they “wouldn’t hit it”.
Eventually, someome posts this image, everyone has a good laugh at the stupid people.
http://www.simp...s.jpg
(links don’t work, so copy and paste at will)
I think this sort of thing is probably the best recourse. C’mon most women have *something* attractive about them; you’re telling me you can’t find it?
Ah, forgot to add, the concept is great to deal much much better with those “rather traumatic for a few minutes (ok, maybe hours…)” in a good way that helps prevent it from being traumatic, so it’s great to deal with those asshole trolls.
Marty lived happily ever after.
Serious lack of social skills cause people to have irrational outbursts.
Yes, when one writes in public spaces such as weblogs, a thick skin is necessary. If the writing involves sex or parts of bodies, dress in layers and put on the headphones.
My recent photos had the opposite effect. I posted the photos and people were too shocked to comment. Hell, they were afraid to look at the whole thing.
The only constant in any equation is that you’ll never please everyone. You pretty much need to face reality on that one and move on.
“Only” reason? You made up that word “only”.
I never said this was an “only reason”, I merely argue that it’s a potential reason.
Geez, folks, it feels like half this thread is attacking different arguments than the one I actually made.
I don’t support open flaming by any means, so I always say that if it’s offensive to your site and community, get rid of it. But if somebody thinks a person’s breasts or body aren’t up to snuff and wants to say as much in their comment, I don’t see anything wrong with that, either. I didn’t think her body looked good at all, and I don’t think she’s pretty. Granted, I didn’t say anything and I didn’t read the comments of those who did (I tend to care more about what the regular posters have to say than what the comments have to say about -that,-) but as far as I’m concerned, all opinions are worth the space they take up, so long as they aren’t purely in the spirit of hurtfulness.
Man, I dunno. Seems to me like it’s a little sexist in itself to claim that other men’s feelings are the only reason a man would insult a woman’s appearance. Like, how irrelevant does that render the woman??
As a fairly openly sexual woman, I can attest to a dark part of some men that is compelled to destroy all that jiggly, juicy, uppity, out-of-their-control happy woman flesh. To render it verbally powerless and unimportant. I know that it’s institutionalized somewhat in men bonding over their degradation of women; but isn’t saying that that bonding is the “reason” for the insults, also diminishing to women? Cuz you better believe men talk like that to women, even when other men aren’t around.
Just wondering. I do think it is an interesting idea, as per usual for this blog. :cool:
yuck – criticism is NOT sexy.
I’m a woman who games–you can just imagine some of the guys around me, eh? All I can say is the worst offenders on attacking women’s appearences are the ones who not only aren’t getting laid, but have vitually no chance of ever getting laid. It amazes and amuses me to no end, to hear them critique a gorgeous woman they have no shot at, and then declare equally unacceptable the ones they might, if they weren’t such obvious assholes. Sad, really, because their attitude makes it impossible for them to make a real connection with an average woman, and the women who would accept a realtionship with a lack of connection are going to want money or good looks–these guys lack both. Oh, and they are the same folks who talk about gold diggers, while focusing purely on a woman’s appearence, like that’s not the flip side of the same ugly coin. I dunno, for me, it’s darkly funny to listen to them as they are depriving themselves of so much pleasure. I’d clue them in, but why? It’s funnier to watch them suffer. No woman lets loose with a critic in the bed, at least not for long, assuming she ever lets the critic into the bed to begin with.
If I may jump a little late into the conversation, I wonder if some of this may result from homophobia as well. If a guy is admitting to being turned on by a woman, and another guy agrees and they both admit to each other they are turned on by a woman, then they may see that as having shared a sexual experience. The second guy may lash out in an effort to remove himself from this potentially homoerotic experience.
Just a thought.
Wonderful discussion everyone. I enjoyed reading it.
I realise this is wahaay too late to really count, but I’d like to add a comment on this interesting subject.
I agree that some men may insult an attractive woman as a sideways jab at the men that find her attractive. It can also be partly a manifestation of some frustration – for example, I often find myself looking at a picture of a woman who is simply ‘not my type’, yet other guys may lust after her – and I don’t get it. So my response may be ‘are you serious? Her eyebrows are far too thin’ or ‘her legs are too short’ or some other ridiculously offensive comment which has been exaggerated merely to try and counter the fervour with which other guys are drooling at her. I’m not proud of this, of course, it’s just something I’ve noticed myself doing.
Another issue here, is that some guys (even nice guys like me) really can’t bear the thought of the perfect, confident woman living a perfect confident life and not even giving us a second look. It’s really very sad. So if I see a woman who at first glance is absolutely stunning, everything I ever desired in a woman, every physical and (apparently) emotional attribute I ever found breathtaking, I find myself looking for the flaw. The flaw is the only comfort to me in knowing that this otherwise perfect creature won’t be in my life. I think we (as humans) do it with every missed opportunity, to comfort ourselves that the loss wasn’t so great.
Beautiful women are so desirable to us men that it almost hurts, and to accept the fact that they will probably go off and find handsome millionaires to have children with, and barely even notice we ‘normal guys’ exist, is a constant kick in the guts.
So, if you are a beautiful woman who has been the subject of insults, I implore you, don’t take them personally – they are often born out of our jealousy and sadness. If we met you in the street we would fall in love with you.
re:
Those trolls who didn’t like Kirsten Dunst’s breasts… maybe they were too young and sexually inexperienced to know what natural breasts look and feel like.
What Kirsten was wearing is known as a bandeau top bathing suit. Unlike the over-the-shoulder boulder holder style, the bandeau depends on friction to stay in place. Often they are made with a stretchy lycra or spandex material.
When it slips out of place, as in the photos referenced, the pressure squeezes or mashes the breast(s) into an unnatural shape. If her breasts were unencumbered, they would take a different (unmashed) shape. Surgically enhanced breasts on the other hand, will often stand out from the body, and will not flatten out even when the woman lies on her back.
Or maybe these trolls are jealous women masquerading as male commenters. I’ve even had gay male friends trash attractive women because they were jealous of their ability to draw the lustful attentions of males.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the trolls were going through life trashing ALL beautiful women because their social skills were so poor that they couldn’t draw the attentions of some pretty cheerleader back in high school.
Some people think that they can somehow elevate their own status by attempting to lower the status of others. I can’t imagine why such a person would cherish the admiration of anyone so easily fooled.
If the vast majority of us didn’t agree that Kirsten is an exceptionally beautiful woman, she wouldn’t be getting the parts that she’s been playing, wouldn’t have the successful career that she enjoys, nor would there be paparazzi hanging around trying to get a shot of her magnificent chest.
At any rate, there is nothing wrong with Miss Dunst’s breasts that I can see….