House of Eratosthenes

Morgan,

Men are not more visual!!! That is a total myth! Men are allowed to be visual in our culture. Men watch and women watch themselves being watched.

Women are attracted to half naked guys. Not only that, women are attracted to completely naked guys.

Our disagreement is with regard to the statement “5x more skin shown by women than men from G to R rated films,” to which I say, damn straight. Women have better looking skin. We like looking at what they got, more than they like looking at what we got. It’s all about selling the movie tickets, so whaddya expect?

But Margot disagrees emphatically. That’s an awful lot of exclamation marks, I’d better re-think this.

Jessica Simpson I do agree with Margot on the “women watch themselves being watched.” That part is absolutely true. Female superheroes in comic books — they either show copious amounts of skin, or they wear a tight rubber/latex/spandex suit that shows every curve. The boys like seeing that, and the girls, well, this attire might very well be there to attract the girls in the first place more than the boys. Let’s think on this — what could a female superhero wear, that wasn’t either skimpy or skin-tight, that would attract the female readers? A Hillary-Clinton-pantsuit? No. The bod needs to be shown, because a superhero has to do something to exude confidence.

But Margot’s argument, which I see as one of “don’t you dare think men and women are any different” straight out of the 1970’s, falls apart right here. Should Batman exude confidence, fighting Gotham’s crime in a loincloth? No…he already exudes confidence fighting the crime. Us guys have the long end of the stick here. And it wouldn’t work. Nobody, of either sex or any persuasion, wants to see a guy’s butt cheeks sticking out of something.

Exhibit B would be my video game shelf which is crammed full of James Bond and Tomb Raider. Now, one of those franchises has a feature that allows the player to place all kinds of different skimpy outfits on the protagonist as he beats levels and earns “rewards.” It is not the 007 franchise. Once again: Nobody, anywhere, wants to see a guy’s hind end. We don’t even want to pay that much attention to his clothes at all, really. He should look alright…but his clothes? That’s just a way to get him looking alright, nothing more.

Exhibit C is my own flabby middle-aged man-bod. This time of year, with the beer-blogging really showing up and my gut dangling down by my kneecaps, I’m not going to go popping down by the pool and see a bevy of college-age vixens suddenly decide “Oh, hello handsome, I guess it isn’t that nippy after all I want to get an eyeful!” Not happening. Nobody wants to see me in the buff except my girlfriend, and that’s just because she’s a good liar. But let’s say I’m in better shape; let’s imagine I look like…oh, what are they drooling over now. That werewolf kid in the “Twilight” saga I suppose. Here, I can see Margot’s point. The women who crowd into the theaters over this “girl porn” certainly do seem just as stupid and empty-headed as any over-sexed male…

…but I doubt they could be sold anything stupid. See, that’s my definition. I think Margot has underestimated just how badly our judgment can be impaired by our hormones. That’s really where it counts, is in the making of decisions. Of course women like looking at half-naked men now and then…one would hope…but it doesn’t have the same effect. And the half-naked thing isn’t quite as central to the visual experience. A man who wants to wear something selected for the purpose of selling stupid things that the (female) buyer would not otherwise buy, is just as well-off going for a look that is something else. “Professional” seems to be dominant theme. A tailored suit. Get in shape first, take care of the skin around the face, tweeze the eyebrows, pull the hair out of the ears, then spend real money on the haircut and the suit.

Girls have it all over us here. If they want to sell us something we shouldn’t be buying, they just do the primping they’d be doing anyway and then show their legs. We don’t even stop to look at what they’re selling. We will buy up the whole inventory and we won’t look back.

So I think she missed the point, and maybe I should have explained it a little more specifically…but then again, I’m not a brain surgeon. The two sexes are not the same. If a woman does happen to enjoy looking at a half-naked guy somewhere…it stops there. It’s a visual experience and nothing more. No decisions are going to get changed, no purchasing behavior is going to be affected, or very little. James Bond might wear a speedo in one scene — which will make it to the trailer, so that the Lord & Lady of the Manor will agree “yeah we need to go see that.” But that’s it. Star Trek uniforms are always going to be different, with the gentlemen officers consuming more of the starship laundry resources covering up what nobody wants to see anyway. Lara Croft is always going to be doing fashion shows with skimpy swimsuits, for as long as she’s around…and Indiana Jones, and James Bond, will not.

Women just have nicer looking limbs all-around. They’re built to be seen. Even when women look at other women — if the woman who is a spectacle is some icon of fantasy or some other kind of fiction, the woman who’s doing the looking is going to want to see evidence of her fantastic-al-ness. That doesn’t end up being a sexual thing, but it ends up in exactly the same destination: display some evidence that you think highly of yourself. So no, you don’t wear long trousers, a rumpled up shirt and a heavy leather jacket with a bullwhip & a hat. Anything the lady-hero would wear in a crowd, that would get her lost in the crowd, is out of the question. That — near as I can figure, anyway — is the girl-on-girl rule.

Being a female is tough when you get to the costuming-department-of-life. The opportunities are all different, the stigma are different, the expectations are different and the reactions are different. I, for one, wouldn’t survive; I’m more of a “got my tee shirt, got my jeans, I’m all set” kinda guy. But hey, the super heroines who show the skin have it easy when it comes time to buy laundry detergent.

Update: Related: A new feminist movement to make us re-think the pink. Oh my, the more you pay attention to this stuff, the more complicated it becomes…

I gott’a admit, you lost me on the comic book, tv/movie stuff. All I know is that men dominate the nudie magazines and porn industry purchasing -visual.

Men get aroused by scantily clad women, hence the Victoria Secret/lingerie industry -visual. What’s the men’s equivalent?

See the advertisements in magazines and on TV – hot women. Or sure there is some good looking (I’m told) men thrown in occasionally, but is there any doubt what dominates? Hell, check out some of those women mags, their ads are freakin’ hot! And lesbian themed, but I digress…

Women put on makeup, fix their hair and wear nice cloths to go…to the grocery store. For who? Themselves, other women? Don’t give me that crap, homie. They want to be considered attractive by any man who happens by. No I don’t mean they necessarily, even consciously, are trolling for a man, they just need to feed that ego. Women…I’m just gonn’a say it…are generally more self absorbed. It’s not a bad thing, it just is what it is. And I enjoy it, all us men enjoy it. Hell, gay men enjoy it.

And when do I, and other men (it’s been verified), get more attention and or approached by women…nope, not when I’m sporting a suite or some other nice cloths, nope. When I’m in jeans and a tee shirt, having just completed some manual labor, a little sweaty, hair is disheveled…and when I was married, wearing a wedding ring, but again I digress…

Now, back to work, so I can make some cash. Another words, some aphrodisiac…which dovetails nicely if I may say so my bad self. Now that’s truly women’s visual enticement.

BTW, when’s the last time you saw a ugly girl with a good looking guy? Now, flip that around…
- tim | 02/04/2011 @ 11:40
It is important to keep in mind that Margot’s opinion of what’s going on has a conspiracy flavor to it; some artificial force is being imposed to make sure women continue to show off five times as much skin as their male counterparts. Therefore, all these examples do nothing to challenge the point she seeks to make.

I agree with her about the evidence but she’s presented absolutely nothing to make me think this is anything more elaborate than chasing of dollars. Women may find our parts somewhat pleasing, if we have taken the time and effort to stay in shape, but an Adonis with lots of sun-kissed epidermis visible isn’t going to sell any lusty female anywhere anything she wouldn’t have been buying anyway.

The irony is, I’m making the point that they’re somewhat smarter than us here…men are evolved toward the endeavor of shaping a decision around the evaluation of a female’s physical quality. I’m thinking if we behaved in this way exactly the same way women do, many among us would not be here, and it’s likely that none of us would be here. Indeed, the whole thing about men and women being the same, has always impressed me as nothing more than a wishful dogma spending decades in search of some supporting evidence, and failing to find it. Vive l’Difference.
- mkfreeberg | 02/04/2011 @ 12:27
Did you say something Morgan? I was busy staring at whatshername up there, with the short shorts…went out with that asshole quaterback form Dallas. She looks really smart.
- tim | 02/04/2011 @ 13:38
Women’s porn is called ‘Romance Novels’. That aside, women don’t need porn because they can see naked men just about any time they want.

Same thing goes for prostitution. A woman can walk into any bar at any time, pick out a guy, and get laid. Cheap, easy, and quick.

Most men have to buy drinks, dinners, flowers, etc. Expensive, difficult and slow. We are different. It’s wired to procreation. Deny it @ your peril.

And thanks for the shot of Jen. Yum.
- HoundOfDoom | 02/04/2011 @ 15:05
Oops, I mean Jessica. I just have Jennifer Aniston on my mind.
- HoundOfDoom | 02/04/2011 @ 15:11
If Margot is a good friend, I apologize for what I’m about to say, but her statement is the biggest load of Barbara Streisand.

Advertising proves it. The bankruptcy of Playgirl proves it. Women’s magazines prove it.

A good looking guy, meaning a guy who exudes masculine charisma, can get a girl’s attention, but holding a girl’s attention requires more than that.

Are there exceptions? Of course. There are a few women who are nymphomaniacs, but they are few and far between, and even they are far more tactile than visual.

At least 96% of the time, men are very visually stimulated and women are not. It doesn’t mean that they don’t appreciate a good looking guy, but what Margot doesn’t understand, and can’t understand is the power of that stimulation. I think the only thing that she might understand to get the picture would be the female desire for security. Or perhaps the female desire for approval from her peers or friends.
- Moshe Ben-David | 02/04/2011 @ 15:40
I just realized that your picture of Jessica Simpson might make my point.

Many of us men would be willing to tolerate her stupidity for a long time, just like her ex-husband, in order to bed that bod on a regular basis, until the stupidity thing just got to be too much and our self-respect started to suffer.

But a woman would never make a man’s looks or physique any of the top three reasons for staying with him in a relationship. If you could collect surveys from every bride to be across the country on why they are marrying the man, the only way his looks would enter into the mix would be because of how cute the children might be because of him. Other than that, zip, nada, zilch, efes.
- Moshe Ben-David | 02/04/2011 @ 15:49
“…but I doubt they could be sold anything stupid. See, that’s my definition. I think Margot has underestimated just how badly our judgment can be impaired by our hormones.”

I think that’s the heart of it, but you miss the point. What is the stupidest thing we are sold when our judgment is impaired by our hormones? Why, women. Especially this day, this place. As a metaphor, Morgan “buys a beer”. Gets food poisoning. Morgan “buys a beer”. Gets food poisoning. Morgan “buys a beer”. Gets food poisoning. Morgan “buys a beer”. It seems to be working this time, and we all wish him luck. But why on Earth would Morgan be “buying a beer”, if the advertising didn’t make him really stupid? But once women acknowledge how badly mens judgment is impaired by hormones, well, they’re responsible, aren’t they. We’ve left the “Men are Pigs” zone, and are now in a place when women have to step up and fix the problem they’ve caused, and that’s no fun. So much cleaner to pretend that men and women have the same responses to visuals…..
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 02/04/2011 @ 17:00
She’s no acquaintance of mine. I do respect her somewhat, because she’s made it very clear she’s an adherent of postmodern feminist stuff-n-nonsense but when she sees something that clearly is, that goes against the dogma, she’s got the “balls” to go against the grain and give voice to the plain truth she’s seen. I would cite as one example of this her agreement with me about the doofus dad movies, and I know from reading her for awhile she’s been just as ticked about it as I have.

I think where she really wants to rattle the saber — not wanting to speak for her, but — it’s when the differences between men & women are manufactured where they did not previously exist, due to the marketing efforts of private concerns. Where she parts company with me is her presumption that lots of differences we observe fall into this “marketed” category. The impression I get is that if she’s shown twenty behavioral differences between the genders she imagines all twenty to have been implanted by evil corporate marketing efforts…or, fifteen were implanted and the remaining five are crass generalizations without a shred of truth to them. In other words, she isn’t open to a genetic difference. And like I said, she tends to lose me there.

But she’s not stupid. She’s shown herself to be an independent thinker, although maybe some of her conclusions are a little bit…let’s say…rash and premature. Still, give credit where credit is due.

But yeah. There are a lot more Hooter’s restaurants than there are Chippendale’s. It isn’t an evil corporate conspiracy, it’s public demand & lack thereof.
- mkfreeberg | 02/04/2011 @ 17:26
Once again: Nobody, anywhere, wants to see a guy’s hind end. We don’t even want to pay that much attention to his clothes at all, really.

That’s amusing, Morgan. Apparently you haven’t seen that serial drama “Sons of Anarchy” about motorcycle gangs.

As the TV returns from each commercial break back into the program, the viewer is sternly warned that the show is intended for mature audiences, viewer discretion advised. The reasons are that the show is not only violent, but also shows (gasp) nudity.

I can only recall a single instance that we saw any female nudity at all, and it was a three-second close-up of a woman wearing a thong. Contrast that with how the show shows the completely bare butt of at least one male cast member, every single show. I got so sick of it that I turned to my co-worker (yes, we watch the show late at night at work) and asked, “Why do they warn us about nudity, then only show GUYS naked? I don’t want to see that!” He had no answer for me.
- cylarz | 02/06/2011 @ 01:23
SOA? Okay, I suppose that might be an example…I never actually considered it as girl-porn. Seems kind of cold and clinical. Example: You get to see a shirtless guy in the episode about the former member who neglected to have his old SOA tattoo removed, and Clay asks him “fire or knife?” One of the final scenes is of the chunks of dead burned skin being swept from the floor of the motorcycle shop with a broom. But I’m sure nobody found the scenes that led up to that, the least bit sexy…
- mkfreeberg | 02/06/2011 @ 08:46
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The Men-Are-Visual MythFriday, February 4th, 2011

The Men-Are-Visual Myth
Friday, February 4th, 2011