November 01, 2005

• What would scare me is the possibility of guys at the urinals to be guffawing and pointing and staring at the photos instead of aiming properly. And those metal things... look like ice cream cones. I recall a stupid prank on a 'themed' restaurant I attended while still a kid; there was a picture of a lady with a strategically placed cardboard 'sticker' on it, inside the stall. Of course, any male would find irresistible to lift the card. Outside, there was a light bulb that went on as you did your vouyeur thing, so when you came out the bathroom, everybody looked at you. Ha-ha, very funny. *grumbles*
• They could, at least, have placed only images which expressed fascinated admiration! Those depicted would tend to dam the flow!
• Five stars from me only if the have live models to aim the equipment, so to speak...
• s/they/the
• Flattering. The stainless is probably cold after all.
• >instead of aiming properly. This works better for aiming properly, I've heard.
• The pictures wouldn't bother me, but the urinals are just creepy and hard to aim for. Those must require a lot of cleaning to keep them looking all arty and cool.
• So I suppose it's okay, then, to have artwork of men making fun of girls' small tits in the bathroom, or making gestures illustrating that they're fat (and holding measuring tapes in a huge circle to prove it)? I don't like anything that reinforces the male penis size myth -- that women are all secretly size queens, lusting for a foot-long prick. Our vaginal canals can generally accommodate about 7 inches or so, TOPS. And even that will probably make the cock go bumpbumpbump against the cervix (which is generally quite painful if it's done at all hard). A 10 inch dick hurts for the woman and doesn't feel that great for the guy since large portions of his penis aren't being stimulated. Average size penises are average for a reason. If women really hated an average size dick that much, and loooooved big cock, big cock would be an evolved trait and all guys would be walking around with 10 inches swinging in the breeze (and would, inevitably, envy those with even longer, more freakish cocks). Average is a GOOD size. Average is the right size. Reinforcing the notion that penises should be of an unrealistic length is a whole lot like subjecting women to constant taunts that they'll never be skinny enough or have big enough tits to please a man. It's no nicer when it's done to the other sex, so any women saying this is a hoot should think about what cultural beauty norms have made you feel about your own body. Sure, a lot of men are plenty secure in their penis size -- and a lot of women are secure in their bodies. But for those who are not, this is demeaning and cruel.
• from the article: It's the most popular room in the five star hotel. Wouldn't that describe just about any public restroom?
• Well said, musingmelpomene. I got those stupid lines from my ex, "oh all girls care about blah blah blah," when really, I didn't. It was just his rampaging insecurity, made out to be my fault. And no amount of avowals on my part would convince him that it was a bad stereotype and not universal truth. Fine, if you're going to be insecure, be that way. It's a little annoying, but not a big deal. But don't pin your paranoia on me and act like it's "how things really are." Because you made it up; it's all your gig. Making it out to be someone else's fault, and not about your own insecurity at all, sends a minor character flaw into the Really Fucking Annoying stratosphere. /rant
• When it comes to negative self body-image, huge-cocked porn stars are the Barbies for men.
• Well it strikes me as whimsical and fun, these murals. I would have preferred to see *ordinary* women rather than models used, but the whole deal just seems pretty lighthearted and unworthy of too much political parsing. . . Or, as Peter Alsop famously said: It's only a wee wee so what's the big deal It's only a wee wee so what's all the fuss It's only a wee wee and everyone's got one There's better things to discuss
• Tell that to the makers of Enzyte and all the other phony penis-enlarging products on the market, not to mention doctors who perform penis enlargement surgeries. Tell it to the guys who don't end up having a normal sex life because of their insecurities. I've been friends with two different guys who were incredibly embarrassed by their penis size -- one was 5 1/2 inches, the other was 5, which is actually so close to average it's not even funny. Men get the same ideas of inadequacy from porn that women do from magazines. To make matters worse, women see that they're expected to want big cocks, and are often afraid to vocalize "hey, that thing's so big it hurts, can you not pound like that?", leaving them feeling inadequate or abnormal as well. My sister once asked me why her breasts didn't look "right" -- turned out she meant that they weren't perfect half-spheres like crappy implants. It took an hour of work to convince her that yes, she was normal, and no, I wasn't just saying that because I didn't want to hurt her feelings. The notion that everyone's defective is making a whole lot of corporations a whole lot of money. I don't support anyone who supports the idea that playing on media-generated insecurities is a lark or a good joke.
• You make it sound like there's a vast conspiracy by "corporations" and "media" to create body image insecurities in the general population. I don't think that's the case. I think the insecurities are self-generated. The media are just giving the people what they want, and the corporations are using the opportunity to sell products, which is what they do best. In any case, the urinals thing is just a light-hearted chuckle. I'm pretty sure the guys aren't walking out of there with inadequacy issues.
• *looks at 4-month supply of penis-enlarging tablets* *spirals further into pit of self-loathing* *weeps*
• What does this all mean for giant cock-shaped bongs?
• Well put, musingmelpomene. I mean, life is hard enough for the poor fellas who sneak a peak at me when I'm at the urinal, and a wacky mural may only crush the shattered pieces of their self-esteem into even tinier shards... [/Delusional] [/Self-deprecation, because it's actually true... I just don't want anyone to resent Mjolnir & me.]
• I think they need something similar in women's bathrooms with pics of the Holland Tunnel and what not. Maybe some furry animals. A cheeseburger or two. Something flapping in the breeze would be nice as well. That would probably work better than facial expressions on the wall.
• I am not huge. .I actually have no idea because it's silly to measure, but I have intercourse from behind with my wife because it hits her cervix and hurts. So yeah, the whole penis enlargement thing is a mystery to me but I also cannot fathom why a woman would get a boob job. .I mean I *hear* why but I cannot really relate. . .
• MonkeyFilter: Fine, if you're going to be insecure, be that way MonkeyFilter: generally quite painful if it's done at all hard Where's BlueHorse? It's a goldmine in here!
• ... and I tip my hat to musingmelpomene - far too many people are far too concerned about their 'equipment' - wish they could dedicate the time they spend worrying about wee-wee/breast size to something useful for this planet, in much the same way SETI uses free PC time!
• but I also cannot fathom why You don't know any small-breasted women then (and millions envy you). I was harangued to no end because I didn't have the perfect "spherical" (his word) comic-book-heroine DDs that were on ex's List of What I Want in a Girlfriend. I was a D at the time (fucking weight loss, taking away the only good thing I ever had! *wail*), but it wasn't good enough. Nothing I did could ever make up for it. That hurts, and being told you're not sexy - and, in our culture, therefore not valued - hurts, and if a person in that situation doesn't or can't say "fuck that, I am what I am," then... they sometimes do desperate things. That's one reason why. amen to the free PC cycles bit. Really. And damn, the money too.
• (Nothing I did could ever make up for it. Maybe... telling him to fuck off and die? (Maybe you did... you do say "ex".)) I know and have known small-breasted women. Some complain about it, some are happy, some are silent. I still cannot fathom having surgery for cosmetic enhancement. Oh and I'd vote for "absurd", concerning the original question. My reaction is quivering between hilarity and disgust.
• Fishtick, I can hardly know where to start. MonkeyFilter: It's a goldmine in here! MonkeyFilter: Hey,...can you not pound like that? MonkeyFilter: Far too many people are far too concerned about their 'equipment'. MonkeyFilter: Quivering between hilarity and disgust. Have I missed any?
• Didn't tell him to fuck off and die because I knew I couldn't get any better. And it was true, anyway. What am I supposed to say, "no, you're wrong, I am a hot-as-hell Amazon that every woman-coveting person across the earth lusts after, let me get my leotard"? The thing about the measurement stereotype is that it's not true. Women generally don't care, although a few do, and most of those are probably shallow jerks. Men? Well, y'know. I don't blame them and all, but they do care, and it is very important, even to the brightest and most emotionally centered of them. We eventually split because our goals for LTRs were too different - he wanted to be taken care of his whole life by some magical, smokingly hot, perfectly nonemotional and always horny girlfriend who would instantly make all his problems go away, and I didn't want to be that person, let alone struggle to live up to such a ridiculous standard. I'd rather be a cat lady. Which I am. Except for the cat part. He went off, developed schizophrenia and now lives with his parents. THE END.
• Well Wurwilf. . my wife is arguably as flat chested as I am. . .and I find that to be very sexy and *they* seem to work just fine, in a pleasure sense (not to mention nursing a child for almost 4 years). I hate to see women bemoaning how they were put onto this earth. . it's all good.
• You're one in a million, literally. The rest of us just have to cope with being alone. ;)
• I like boobies of all shapes and sizes. I think small is as sexy as large--after all, the sexy thing is not the rack, but the person it's attached to. The thing I do NOT find sexy is the cubist rendering of breasts as over-inflated perfectly spherical beach balls. I'm more of an Impressionist, me. So to all small breasted female monkeys, I say you are beautiful and sexy and I would like to rub all over you. So there. perhaps you could form a committee of some sort?
• Arguing about size and bodytypes some days ago with a friend, we ended agreeing it's an ingrained response to the organic need of reproduction, of securing a viable offspring. We tend to go for the 'healthier, more capable of bearing/inseminating' ones; a strong male with the equipment to do a 'good job', female with wide, ample space for a child to develop, and breasts that will feed it. That was the idea since ever, but now, society has changed the rules. Fake implants, alternative insemination methods and such have left us dizzy, not sure were to turn for. Now it's advertising what guides our expectations and needs; what grades our self-esteem and worth. Sure, some of us may see the smokescreen and care not for such shallow appreciations, but younger people do, they get swept daily on those ideas, keep getting pounded on the expectations of ideal, unreal shapes.
• I wish my breasts were smaller. 'Course, I'm a fella, so...
• Advertisers have one mission...to generate interest in the ad and make a positive connection with the product. They have no desire to shape society's body image ideals. So why do they use thin-waisted and/or large-breasted beauties in their ads? Because that's what get's people's interest. If they used more average-looking models, people (i.e. you and me) would have less interest in the ad and wouldn't connect to the product. In other words, the unrealistic body images aren't "pushed" on us by ad execs and magazine publishers, they're "pulled" by consumers. We demand hot babes in our movies, TV shows, commercials, and magazines. If they don't provide them, we'll choose other movies, TV shows, etc. that do. In the interest of selling us their product (which is the only interest that drives them), they obligingly give us what we want.
• The discussion here reminded me that this story was doing the rounds yesterday: "A woman is judged to be more attractive and feminine by men if she has high levels of the hormone oestrogen, according to research."
• We demand hot babes in our movies, TV shows, commercials, and magazines. If they don't provide them, we'll choose other movies, TV shows, etc. that do. That works for a certain segment of the popualtion. But what about, as I said, young ones? Remember peer pressure? Add to that the media onslaught and you have teen girls literally sick to death of their less-than-ideal waistlines and natural breasts and boys worrying about their manhood if they don't have Greek god bodies and a huge package. They are the future. And just as most people start smoking in their teens not for the smooth, fresh flavor but for the peer bonding and 'mature look' it provides, such attitudes regarding appereances start getting absorbed early, before we can realize we do have a choice.
• Hey, I never said that the media made you that way; I said you just were that way. That said, if you start saying "we evolved to chase 16-year-old girls with huge breasts because blah blah offspring, therefore I have to cheat on you with as many hot chicks as I can, see, it's all evolutionarily correct and you're WRONG AND BLOCKING THE TRUE FLOW OF NATURE by being upset about it" while in a supposedly caring relationship [true story], I'll still think you're a twerp. Sorry. As civilized creatures we mitigate our basic urges with other needs and goals, like emotional connection and the many kinds of compatibility beyond "is it hot and will it bear my young." Or at least that's the idea.
• We demand hot babes in our movies, TV shows, commercials, and magazines. If they don't provide them, we'll choose other movies, TV shows, etc. that do. So explain to me why the daffynishion of a "hot babe" has changed in the last century? Used to be the curvy babes with lots of booty were hot a century ago. Wah happened?
• It's still curvy babes with lots o' booty in my book. Oooooh yeah.
• Although I do like the flapper chic as well. And midgets. And amputees.
• It is still the definition, but it's hard to stay stick thin and keep the relevant curvy bits without surgical help, because you can't control where you deposit fat. How much you have, yes; where it sits, no. That's genetic as far as I know. So when you burn it, it comes from wherever it "wants to," which may include areas you don't want to lose. Guys demand tiny limbs and waists, huge chests and perfect asses and then whine that they hate surgery, too. I guess nobody told them that women don't have magical abilities to direct where their bodies store this stuff, or they don't care. Sooooo we get little tiny stick-girls instead, because they can't help it. Some are genetically blessed to only have that 0.00001% of body fat sit ONLY where it's needed and nowhere else, and they have it good. Everyone else makes do. (And I think the stick thing is aesthetically boring - they look like prepubescent boys to me, blah, I don't want to look like that! - but I understand that it's that or surgery for many.)
• I don't think that there is a neat division between the media pushing the beauty ideal on us or the public pulling it from the media. I think it's more of a cycle that feeds from both sides. I think that people want to see attractive models and actors in their entertainment (however they define "attractive") and I think that advertisers want to maximize profit. That, in a nutshell, is their cultural agenda. They do not like thinness (or giant cock) in and of itself but because they can make the most money off of it. Most people in a media and advertising saturated culture do not fit the ideal body type in at least some way, because the ideal is always exaggerated: it's thinner, more muscular, more shiny, more whatever than most people can attain. This makes sense in a capitalist society, because the advertiser's job then becomes one of selling the ideal to consumers. Advertisers usually sell this ideal by playing on consumers' fears and anxieties: fear about fitting in, about finding love, about keeping love, etc. Some consumers can see this play on their fears for what it is and resist it, some see what it is and still can't/don't want to resist, and others don't notice what's going on. It becomes naturalized and taken for granted. Consumers accept the (exaggerated) ideal and then buy stuff to try and attain it, though they probably know on some level that this will never happen. Celebrities fit into this ideal for two reasons: they become the "proof" that the ideal is, indeed attainable; a type of walking advertisement. They also endorse the products to help all of us "little people" achieve the ideal, too. This is why you see Hallie Berry endorsing more products than Camryn Manheim. We need to buy more stuff to look like Hallie than we do Camryn (who I admire a lot). So, you're right, rocket88, in that the media doesn't endorse the thin (or super buff) ideal because they specifically value thinness. Instead, they value the billions we're willing to spend to attain thinness. In this way, profit margin becomes the god of beauty.
• I was going to say: Advertisers have one mission...to generate interest in the ad and make a positive connection with the product. They have no desire to shape society's body image ideals. Yes but they're not mutually exclusive . . but meredithea already said so very well.