Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

Sometimes mocking can actually work, in the right scenario, like "Holy shit, the waitress is a woman and has breasts, so cool!"

treating a person like an object
i am against "the waitress is beautiful" fwiw -- it is objectifying

i think it's the same mentality that leads to phrases that end with a woman being called a "thing" (pretty little thing, sweet young thing, delicate precious thing) i loathe being called a thing and i've even had women call me a thing and it feels really condescending.

i'm kind of uncomfortable w/even that low-level flirting with women working at restaurants because they're not there to be flirted with, they're doing a job and as a part of the job they feel pressured to put up with it. i know a lot of people who do that, which doesn't rise as obviously to the level of objectifying but it's still something i'm not really into.

it IS objectifying

yeah I never publicly comment on shit like that and it's extra shitty to do in a service context

I've worked in bars and restaurants and I can count the number of bartenders and servers who enjoy being hit on at work on no hands

yeah I think especially in service industry jobs it's good to operate under the assumption that "this person is being nice to me because they have to, so I'm not going to abuse that relationship even a little bit." If you chat with a waitress and you actually like her, you can ask her, nicely, if she'd like to meet sometime, and she can say no. Just commenting that she's hot or whatever *is* objectifying, even if you say "beautiful" because it's like she's there for you to look at.

yeah and the other weird thing about it is um why do they feel the need to comment on it to another man? Like, what do they expect me to do - agree and chuckle? Why would you need my validation? what's next, a circle jerk? Like Marcos, I would just be stunned and feel awkward and maybe say "I didn't notice" or "keep it to yourself" or something.

xp

i guess what i mean by that is sort of when someone comes to your table, there's this very male tendency to extend the conversation, to flirt, to joke, to touch on the arm, etc.

i think it's rare in this day and age to ever have anything rise to the level of something outwardly inappropriate but i find it very awkward...

and i'm sure i find it much less awkward then the servers!

If you chat with a waitress and you actually like her, you can ask her, nicely, if she'd like to meet sometime

i don't know about that : [

maybe (maybe!) if you're a regular somewhere and you've become friends with someone who's serving you. or if you see them in a social setting outside of their workplace.

Definitely don't ask out the bartender.

i guess what i mean by that is sort of when someone comes to your table, there's this very male tendency to extend the conversation, to flirt, to joke, to touch on the arm, etc.

Not this male!

don't ask out servers for the love of christ

save it for tinder

I agree that hitting on service industry people is not a good luck, but a friend of mine did meet his fiancee that way. He wasn't gross about it though (and it didn't work out in the end, but that was years later).

luck = look

I would tolerate someone at my table telling me they thought our server was attractive much more than I would tolerate someone at my table asking our server out on a date.

Well, I guess I could see the argument for having a blanket rule to just not do it too. I asked a barista out once when I was in college and she said yes, and that's the only time I've ever done such a thing. It's sort of a hard balance to strike between "we don't stop being human beings just because someone is working" and "this might be a context where the person doesn't want the attention because they're getting too much of it already." I guess it would be better if men were just better at reading situations as to when attention is wanted and when it isn't, but since we're not so good at that, maybe it's better to just not do it.

I think there has to be some way to do it that isn't gross, but maybe as said above it needs to be a situation where you've talked to the person a few times already, not just like "you're pretty wanna go out?"

Sometimes I think I am too friendly or jokey to people without even realizing it. I have no problem talking to a stranger about some current events shit, especially lately when there is WTF news on a daily basis. Maybe I should keep it to myself. But it's also not a gendered thing. I'll talk to a dude about Txxxx or hurricanes while I order my beer; I'll ask someone how their day is going. I dunno, I hope it doesn't come across as weird. Especially before I was married, I was always cautious about even like, complimenting female friends cuz I didn't want ppl to think I'm a creep.

my first interaction with my partner of almost 20 years was as his waitress
he paid literally no attention to me -- we wound up talking at a show but he did remember me

Like, you keep those thoughts to yourself, I don't need or want to know about your preferences.
i call this "absorb your boner" -- a valuable skill if you want to interact with people

you can talk about whatever you want -- be friendly, it's nice! i like friendly people.
just keep your boner to yourself!

lol "absorb your boner" so otm

I dunno I feel like the benefit of apps/sites like OKC, Tinder etc is that there are dedicated spaces for this. In reality, let women take the lead and eat your fucking dinner.

i am against "the waitress is beautiful" fwiw -- it is objectifying

Unfortunately I've got a tendency to comment on people's good looks because my mother used to do it all the time! Still does. I think a 'fine looking man' is one of her all-time favourite expressions. Generally about Rock Hudson or Bryan Ferry or whoever, not about waiters or random men in the street though.

I feel like that is something I very much learned to do, to "turn off the vibes" as it were. Now it feels easy to do, there are all kinds of ways you can change your body language, eye contact, tone of voice etc. to take the horny connotations completely out of things.

I dunno I feel like the benefit of apps/sites like OKC, Tinder etc is that there are dedicated spaces for this. In reality, let women take the lead and eat your fucking dinner.

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Thursday, October 12, 2017 3:41 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

FWIW I was married before Tinder came out, so I never experienced the world of "dedicated spaces for this." I think it's probably better in a lot of ways.

make no mistake they are also terrible

i think it's the same mentality that leads to phrases that end with a woman being called a "thing" (pretty little thing, sweet young thing, delicate precious thing) i loathe being called a thing and i've even had women call me a thing and it feels really condescending.

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Thursday, October 12, 2017 4:28 PM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there is something about the "little" that so often accompanies phrases like that that is infantilizing and awful

And I think there is probably some social confusion on the part of people who did a lot of dating in the pre-Tinder world, because, like, you needed a way to meet people, and that meant asking people out, often strangers, and that's harder to navigate.

so nerve-wracking, I don't miss dating at all

I don't see the problem with complimenting men and women in a non-skeevy way. I love objectifying men.

The least sexist office I ever worked in was when I edited a porn magazine in the early 2000s. Yes, it was porn, and we looked at photos and watched videos all day long, but actual women who showed up in a professional context were treated with courtesy and respect, and I don't remember anyone ever telling a "dirty" joke that devolved into actual misogyny. Most of the non-pornography-related conversations were about music (I burned a copy of the Steely Dan box set off a co-worker) or ridiculous pop culture (another co-worker was mildly obsessed with movies about animals playing sports - Air Bud, MVP: Most Valuable Primate, etc., etc.). Even when we all went out for drunken lunches after closing an issue, the product we were putting out never seeped into our interactions with each other, or how we treated live human women in the world.

Before I worked there, I worked in an auto parts warehouse, and there was this super-embarrassing try-hard guy there who was always talking about going out on the weekend and doing coke with girls and screwing them in a limo, etc., etc. I used to try to be busy whenever he came around, because he'd try to rope everyone else into a conversation explicitly so he could do his whole Andrew Dice Clay act, and it was just weird and sad. Like, the way he talked about women made me doubt he'd ever actually had a conversation with one go beyond the third sentence.

But as others have said above, I'm not gonna hang out with dudes like that just so I can tutor them in how to lift their knuckles from the sidewalk and become human. Life is too short.

so nerve-wracking, I don't miss dating at all

― Οὖτις, Thursday, October 12, 2017 3:46 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Total aside, but I was 18 when I asked that barista out, and it turned out she was like 23 or 24 -- we were both "in college" but I was a freshman and she had gone back to school. This fact came out at the beginning of our date, she was visibly displeased, and that made for a very awkward dinner and movie. Yeah, dating sucked.

"but if some guy you know makes you feel uncomfortable when he (for example) objectifies the waitress, what are you going to do?"

i am definitely taking tips from my 12 year old son who when he sees something on t.v. that is inapropriate/sexist says out loud: "that is SO innapopriate/sexist!" and this is what i plan to say to anyone who says anything like that to me in real life. for years i just rolled my eyes and didn't say anything. because i figured people after a certain age were beyond hope. now i don't care if they are beyond hope i just want them to know that not everyone agrees with them and that some things aren't cool/right.

but this would be some random person. nobody in my life would ever say anything like that about the waitress.

non-skeevy way

the danger lies in where this line is drawn

yeah, gay men objectify other men all the time. Don't hate us. xxxxp

i don't see the problem with complimenting men and women in a non-skeevy way. I love objectifying men.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, October 12, 2017 4:47 PM (thirty-six seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ya alfred/morbz otm, that's something i want to reconcile bc i honestly do think that objectification, to some degree, is an inherent part of sexual attraction

I just want my friends to know that if I say "Hey, that's an awesome skirt", I am not trying to sleep with them.

yeah, gay men objectify other men all the time. Don't hate us

I consider this yr own problem, I'm not getting involved! lol

yeah I restrict my edict to my fellow straights / people who are attracted to women.

i worked with an editor who enthused about all the times he'd go to Vegas and hook up with women, and how at a recent bachelor party he and his pals "ran a train" on a stripper. he would tell this to the a producer when it was just the two of them working on a show. i mean this is a married, middle-aged guy.

anyway he was later fired because someone walked in on him watching porn on his laptop, and he had a problem taking editorial direction from the woman who was the supervising producer. : /

complimenting what someone's wearing is fair game imo, there's nothing inherently sexual about that (although you easily *can* make it sexual if you're an asshole)

yeah, I also feel kind of unresolved about the objectification thing. I guess part of the problem is that objectification of women in particular has gone wayyyyy too far in one direction so there's some need to push back against that. xp

yeah and the other weird thing about it is um why do they feel the need to comment on it to another man? Like, what do they expect me to do - agree and chuckle? Why would you need my validation? what's next, a circle jerk? Like Marcos, I would just be stunned and feel awkward and maybe say "I didn't notice" or "keep it to yourself" or something.

xp

― Οὖτις, Thursday, October 12, 2017 9:32 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

xps this seems odd to me, surely women and gay men also discuss the attractiveness of wait staff/work colleagues etc? (not talking about to their face or within earshot here, that seems like a different kind of thing) I can see the argument that context means it's problematic for straight men to do this and so they should avoid, but the I don't get being baffled that it's a subject that could even be of interest?

Also an aside but the waitress in my above anecdote later opened her own restaurant, which still later closed in part because certain kitchen staff and business partners had huge issues being told what to do by a woman. :(

i think w/anything it's just that you have to read the situation appropriately and yes: absorb your boner!

friendly interaction is great, flirting is also great, but i think there are times where the latter isn't welcome and i think it's just about reading when that time is..

sexism is a MASSIVE problem in kitchens particularly.

You've got p bad male friends groups, if the OP cluster holds true for ilx

If I think that may be a function of the typical make ilxor idk