House of Eratosthenes

So let’s see, a recap of the rules we understand so far. There’s a power-and-pulchritude thing; we’re not about to let the women just run off and do whatever they want, here. They can look good if they’re not too influential, and they can have influence if they don’t look good. By the time they get to be Secretary of State, it has to be unthinkable that any sane straight man would ever want to see her naked.

Speaking of which, the unwritten rules insist, there are no sane straight men. There is nothing good you can say about a straight man, especially if he admires a woman in a bikini, thereby providing evidence of his straightness. And we already know there is nothing bad you can say about a gay man. In fact, you can never ever heap enough approving platitudes onto a gay man, or enough snotty derision on a straight man…

Does it go so far as gay men feeling up Scarlett Johansson’s tits, in public, with no consequences at all? You’d better believe it (video auto-plays).

Regarding the women who do not have influence, they can strip down, or not, but if they do strip down to display the busts-backs-shoulders-bellies-hips-gams, as we see here nobody is allowed to notice, let alone say anything about it. You can’t send them home from school to change out of their skimpy shorts. News reporter, I’m guessing, is on the same side of the barrier as schoolgirl here: Not enough real power for anyone to worry, so they can be beautiful. Women aren’t threatened by that. Paradoxically though, if you are selling the pulchritudinous but powerless female the skimpy shorts or bathing suit, or hair products, or makeup, or nail treatment, you can charge her through the roof — and you probably will — because she will pay it. So there is a very high commercial value in grabbing male attention, which then, the males are not allowed to give.

Oh well wait a minute. Then there’s this thing that came my way, via IM from CylarZ, perhaps it can shed some light on things:

Yeah, I think now we’re coming to the heart of the matter. It reminds me of something a young lady said about the “all men are the same” myth: “Let’s be honest girls, all the men we like are the same.” Take a second & third look at a girl’s cleavage, or calves, a good-looking guy is one thing, an ugly guy is another thing. This is a new thing. See, pre-feminism it was the girl’s capital-dee Dad who decided what the ogler was, and what should be done about that. Now, that’s all changed — so, the truth of it is that we first need to know if the leering “gentleman” looks more like Jude Law or Steve Buscemi. And when we find that out, so we can figure out what to think about it, what we’re really doing is anticipating her reaction. So, the sexy guys get away with a bit more.

Actually, a lot more. I’m in a position to say. I’ve been both.

Most guys who possess any sophistication and/or experience at all, know this on some level. Furthermore, we should absolutely expect them to. Our modern society places immense pressure on guys to learn as much as they can throughout their lives, about how to get along with women. We remain lonely if we don’t go far enough, and there are huge penalties to pay if we go too far. We have to cope with this pretty much womb-to-tomb, so it stands to reason, whether society wants to admit it or not, that guys are the experts here.

And what we notice is that the line cannot be drawn until it’s first established whether we ourselves are among the sexy specimens. If we are, it’s over here, if we’re not then it’s over there.

So can you look at a chick in a bikini? It all comes down to whether or not you’re making her feel uncomfortable. Seems to make perfect sense! But, two problems with that. In the news segment, the bikini-reporter didn’t seem to have a problem at all with the leering, it was the jealous co-anchor who was making trouble. That is, we see, the default configuration. One woman speaks for another, and for some reason we all just accept this.

And then there is the question of: Can you look at a picture of her?

The billboard, promoting a tanning salon company, went up Tuesday. By Thursday, it was vandalized when someone covered it with a black tarp and spray painted the words “no porn in our town” on it…

“There is nothing pornographic about the image at all. It shows a beautiful tan on a confident women. It’s a very classy image,” Jeremy McCain, media director for California Sun, the company behind the advertisement, told the Sacramento Bee.

“If you go out to the lake or the beach, women wear bikinis all the time. It’s a very conservative bikini,” he added.

But apparently not everyone agrees. Not only is the vandal obviously upset, but his message must have resonated with others. Thursday afternoon the ad was taken down and replaced with an animal adoption sign…

According to Fox40 in Sacramento, the sign sits near an elementary school.

“My goodness, we are a very conservative family with two daughters and a young son,” California Sun owner Mike Blore told the station.

Now that the ad has been taken down, he’s upset. According to him, it wasn’t his decision to remove it.

“Here’s a company that doesn’t hesitate to put a Viagra ad in a children’s show,” said Blore, referring to CBS Outdoor, the company that owns the billboard. It didn’t return e-mails from FOX40 about why the image was replaced.

What the picture-of-woman-in-bikini story has in common with the news-clip-about-woman-in-bikini story, apart from the beautiful women in bikinis, is this: Sanity would have prevailed, if nobody had said anything at all.

Which just goes to show. We’re turning upside-down. Completely losing our cool and freaking out when gorgeous women display their supple skin and appealing appendages, where they ought to be able to, and enforcing a strict “don’t ask don’t tell” code when they do it in places like schools, where they ought not be able to. We are getting it exactly backward, and pretty much everywhere. Thanks Feminism!

Update: The best example of judgmental commentary on this segment, at least the best that’s come to my attention, is here. Holy smokes. It’s like he’s writing for people who can’t watch the video for themselves, trying to put together a protest of the ignorant.

Jeez, dude. She looks good, he said so. The whole thing was probably scripted anyway.

Lest we forget….
A guy with money (even someone else’s), an illusion of “power”, or an image of “danger”, falls under Good Looking.
- CaptDMO | 06/28/2014 @ 15:44
[…] House Of Eratosthenes goes on the Tarzan ride […]
- Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup » Pirate's Cove | 06/29/2014 @ 06:03
…now someone should cover the animal adoption ad with a black tarp and spray paint “no bestiality in our town!”
- P_Ang | 07/01/2014 @ 13:33

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Anna Looks Good on the Tarzan Ride
Saturday, June 28th, 2014