A pornographer (and atheist) explains why the science guy’s shirt crash-landed

[Ravenna44]

100. Thanks for a polite response

Well as far as the inverse relationship between scanty clothes and woman's rights - that's a pretty sticky issue, and I think more complex than you are making it.

The Egyptian woman who is ordered to cover herself is controlled by men. She is dressing this way for them, because they have made the culture to suit themselves, and they have all the power, and she has to fit into it and be what they want.

But the Western woman in revealing clothes: if she's dolled herself up, worked an hour on her outfit, undone the top three buttons of her shirt, done her hair and makeup, and jammed her feet into high heels - she is also dressing this way because it's what men want. No, it's not open coercion as in Egypt - but whether you are talking about a high-fashion woman of Milan or a streetwalker in Berlin, she has worked hard and suffered discomfort to create the look men want her to have. Left to her own devices, wouldnt she choose what was cheap, fast, and comfortable - a grungy t-shirt and sneakers, and her hair cropped short as a boy's?

(Fact: both the German woman and the Egyptian woman will insist they are dressing exactly as they please and are very happy this way. Each will criticize the other in order to reassure herself that she is the truly free one.).

So I don't conclude that sexy-dressed women are liberated from misogyny. Yes, they suffer less misogyny than covered-up women in the Muslim world, but that's because the Muslim world happens to be really big on both treating women terribly and jamming them into big swaths of cloth. You can probably find counterexamples of mountain people in the Andes or Alps where women are just as well-covered as in Egypt, but are also decently respected.

So a man displaying pictures of sexy half-naked women in public doesn't say "liberation!" to me. Surely you understand that, right? - you've seen rap videos, you've watched TV, you've flipped through magazines, you've lived in the world for more than six minutes, you've stepped into the building super's office and seen his dartboard with a porn-mag pic of a bound, gagged woman pinned to it, legs spread and hundreds of dart-holes in her, and darts in the bulls-eyes of her nipples. And so on.

Was it immoral of him to wear the shirt? Well if he was just clueless, then no - but I am still entitled to be as offended as I want, and to say so. "Offended" is a feeling and If I feel it then I feel it, and if you don't feel it, fine - but obviously that is because we have lived different lives. The fact that many female-type people are also offended suggests that I am not crazy.

I think you are saying I simply should not feel offended when I see a man displaying naked women on his shirt. Is that it?

But, why are you the person to decide what I should be offended by? Each of us can decide that for herself. And if a whole lot of women - who have had experiences you have not had - agree that something is offensive, it seems to me that the normal thing is to accept it. And maybe learn from it. But that's optional, of course.