Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

I liked helping friends move. It felt so useful! "Why yes, I have a truck." I'd much rather move other people's stuff than my own. But also I was in my 20s, pizza and beer was plenty of enticement.

I actually didn't mind it very much. Or at all, really. Most of the time.

My wife would love one of those little 90s pickups, but the monstrosities they make now terrify her.

They terrify me on the road every day. The kind of rolling masculinity we need less of amirite.

i had a t-100 back in the day but the first time the radio asked me "have you seen this boy" i got rid

out here monster pickups are, like, this really expensive form of flagging. you can tell who the fascists are because they're all driving bright shiny pickups with "88" stickers or something on the back.

...though maybe they're just grand pianists

When it pours in Florida, as it often does, flooding's a problem, and there's no getting around the fact that trucks help; but trucks existed before behemoths like F-150s, and they didn't come with Blue Lives Matter stickers.

lol deems

i will hasten to add that not all pickup trucks are driven by fascists. there's a pickup truck down the street from me with a sticker of a cowboy saying

YEE HAW
FUCK THE LAW

around here at least that's pretty clearly Not Fascist

me personally i listen to classical music, which is popular with fascists, but i do put in the work to make it clear that i am not, personally, a fascist.

it's pretty interesting. it definitely is true that if you're a cishet white guy, a lot of people are going to be scared of you. and cishet white guys, i mean, they're on this whole "that's not fair!" thing, like they're not being respected as individuals. i mean i genuinely think they got the right to feel that way. people get to feel how they feel. i mean it's _not_ fair. from my perspective it's tempting to look at it and say "yeah everybody else gets stereotyped on their race and/or gender, there's no reason you should be an exception", and i also feel like that's... not helpful. like when i first came out and transitioned and there's all this misogyny everywhere and i talk about how it sucks and cis women would just sigh and say "welcome to being a woman". like it's legit to be upset at misogyny. it's legit to be upset at patriarchy. and i say patriarchy specifically because patriarchy is the reason cishet white guys are getting stereotyped. they're pushing this narrative that _requires_ cishet white guys to be toxic, to be Alpha Males, or else they're not real men, they're putting all this pressure to conform, and it's bullshit but a lot of guys don't have access to alternative messaging. i can sit here and say that it's easy, it _looks_ easy to me, but the fact is that i wasn't able to do that before i transitioned. it literally did take me transitioning and getting treated like a woman all of a sudden to really understand a lot of things about why cishet white men get treated the way they do.

anyway yeah it's not fair that people distrust guys, that women often cross the street when we're alone and a guy walks in our direction. and. and, getting mad about it and saying "that's not fair" isn't... i mean of course. if someone's angry and resentful, particularly if their response is to be angry and resentful at _me_ for not trusting them, that's not going to make me trust them.

that's not the bit that's interesting to me, y'all have heard it a million times. it's really easy to talk about how a lot of guys get it wrong. what's interesting to me are the _positive_ role models, the people who get it right. like one of my friends, they got a dad, and he's a cishet white guy. big guy. intimidating. people do get nervous around him, do get intimidated. and that's why he dyes his hair blue. well also he dyes his hair blue because he likes it, because that's what he wants to do. people doing things they don't want to just so other people won't be scared of them, that sucks and i don't recommend it, though i also don't judge people if they feel the need to do that. that helps, my friend tells me. people are less scared of him and trust him more.

it's things like that. just those little things. it encourages me when i see guys doing things like that. it's difficult and it's rare but i appreciate it.

omg this thread

Kyle Kinane has a great bit about raised truck guys always gendering their trucks as "she" even after they hang truck nuts from it. He finally concludes that a raised truck is sometimes useful and the guys driving them aren't as easily stereotyped as he had thought.

Swen, you might like this thread, which took a very different direction: maleness

i don't even know how to talk about being a woman who's attracted to guys. there's a word now for women who are attracted to women, sapphic. it does have a different connotation from bisexual or pansexual to me... bi or pan, that talks about the _diversity_ of someone's desires. sapphic is specifically saying, you know, i'm a woman, and i like girls.

and there's no equivalent term that i know of to talk about me specifically liking guys. andric? i don't know. sounds like a shit doctor who character.

talking about liking guys, to me that's important because there's this sense i get that people think my liking guys is categorically different from the way cis women like guys. it's not. of course not everybody who likes guys likes them in the same way, there's diversity there. in terms of categorical difference, though? no, not really.

for me, a lot of liking guys is hormonal. i'm not saying that sexuality is a hormonal thing, but i wasn't physically attracted to guys before i started estrogen, and i am now. i had, you know, "man crushes" or whatever, i guess what you might call homoromantic feelings. but i didn't have any physical attraction to guys the way i do now. it's normal for women to have desires. it's normal for women to have _sexual_ desires. that's not something i was ever really taught.

the main frustrating thing for me is the stigma against men being _objects of desire_. like guys complain about being single and are afraid to do anything that might make women _want_ them. because that would be _effeminate_. because that would be _gay_. i got complicated feelings about being an object of desire. in certain contexts, though? it's great. i don't know where this idea that being _wanted_ is a effeminate or queer thing came from.

Aimless my mind is being blown left and right

being wanted is feminine because it implies a lack but men are supposed to have the full package - a man who puts his desire out there is symbolically castrating himself. the logical conclusion of this is that all male desire is gay and effeminizing as some of these nazi influencers (fuentes? I can't keep track) have explicitly claimdd. there are echoes of the masculinist anti-queer brownshirt school of homosexuality to this line of thinking

this is tapping into a different (though related) tradition to that represented by the heterosexist ladies man who always gets the girl - those men are both (primary or secondary) objects of desire to the incel but also tainted by their proximity to women and femininity. the incel hates himself for being unable to reconcile these conflicting desires and prejudices and for betraying himself by making his lack so central to his identity that he can never be the man he so desires and resents

I struggle to sympathise with the men who make themselves islands of their own misery but maybe that's because they have always been peripheral in my life compared to the people they hurt and they were never taken seriously as the only authorities and role models by the people around me as I believe tends to happen in male homosocial spaces

*claimed

as for being an object of desire - it feels a lot better when it's mutual and when the desiring party doesn't also want to destroy you because they can't reconcile their desires with their ideology

me specifically liking guys

“straight” iirc lol

being wanted is feminine because it implies a lack but men are supposed to have the full package - a man who puts his desire out there is symbolically castrating himself.

so is this like a mgtow thing? guys doing the "i am a rock, i am an island"?

i mean there's nothing really i can say about those folks. mazel tov.

i wouldn't say i so much _sympathize_ with men who make themselves islands of their own misery as much as i am _frustrated_ by them. a lot of these guys are attractive and i have desires. i just want to be able to get with a guy without hating myself because of how he treats me, but no, they gotta keep buying into this patriarchal bullshit that makes the utterly ludicrous claim that the "woke left" is opposed to people looking at boobs.

i mean i do ok as a lesbian. i like the stuff i do with other girls. i don't feel like i'm "making do" in any way, shape, or form. i have a good time and i have emotionally fulfilling relationships. relationships with other women are more important and central to my life than relationships with men, and i don't expect or want that to change.

i still do want to get with guys sometimes. and what i often find is if i want to get with a guy, he's too busy talking about how feminism is standing in the way of girls liking them to, like, notice me. and it's like. my dude all i'm looking for is someone who doesn't also hate me and who will take "no" for an answer. and that maybe seems paradoxical, so i'd say look at the counterargument there. "if she wants me, why does she need to say no to me?" at that point the answer _is_ obvious. if a guy can't answer that question for himself, then he's off the table.

yeah, i have found that putting your desire out there is seen as symbolically castrating oneself. it made the decision to get an orchi a lot easier for me. and yeah, incels do really, really fucking hate themselves. and i _do_ have a lot of empathy for that. i _did_ hate myself for a long-ass time. learning to not hate myself and learning to like myself _wasn't_ something that just happened when i started putting estrogen into my veins - it was just something that became necessary as a result of my transition. i couldn't get away with hating myself anymore. and i guess these incels... i guess self-loathing is a privilege they have. i do try to avoid getting with people who... aren't at least _working on_ their self-hatred. if someone isn't at least _trying_ to not hate themselves, it's not reasonable to expect them to not hate me, to not treat me like someone they hate.

and again, this is a very practical concern for me. this isn't just agonistes. i like men.

me specifically liking guys

“straight” iirc lol

― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand)

if a woman likes guys and describes herself as "straight", whoever she is, i'm down with that, i think that's cool

i would not describe myself as "straight"

there's a joke queer women tell, "i'm bisexual, that means i'm into all women and three men". that's kind of the way in which i'm bisexual. and for the "all women", the term "sapphic" exists. for the "three men", though... i really don't think "straight" is the right word for that.

Kate, I've been thinking about saying this for a while and maybe it would be more meaningful as a private message, but fuck it. I absolutely love reading your posts. There is so much good stuff in them. I don't have the attention span to read everything you write, but there is consistently so much gold in what you write here. I want to thank you for being here. You are amazing. I would love to meet you some day in person.

all of this stuff, right here:

like it's legit to be upset at misogyny. it's legit to be upset at patriarchy. and i say patriarchy specifically because patriarchy is the reason cishet white guys are getting stereotyped. they're pushing this narrative that _requires_ cishet white guys to be toxic, to be Alpha Males, or else they're not real men, they're putting all this pressure to conform, and it's bullshit but a lot of guys don't have access to alternative messaging. i can sit here and say that it's easy, it _looks_ easy to me, but the fact is that i wasn't able to do that before i transitioned. it literally did take me transitioning and getting treated like a woman all of a sudden to really understand a lot of things about why cishet white men get treated the way they do.

anyway yeah it's not fair that people distrust guys, that women often cross the street when we're alone and a guy walks in our direction. and. and, getting mad about it and saying "that's not fair" isn't... i mean of course. if someone's angry and resentful, particularly if their response is to be angry and resentful at _me_ for not trusting them, that's not going to make me trust them.

that's not the bit that's interesting to me, y'all have heard it a million times. it's really easy to talk about how a lot of guys get it wrong. what's interesting to me are the _positive_ role models, the people who get it right. like one of my friends, they got a dad, and he's a cishet white guy. big guy. intimidating. people do get nervous around him, do get intimidated. and that's why he dyes his hair blue. well also he dyes his hair blue because he likes it, because that's what he wants to do. people doing things they don't want to just so other people won't be scared of them, that sucks and i don't recommend it, though i also don't judge people if they feel the need to do that. that helps, my friend tells me. people are less scared of him and trust him more.

I think about this stuff a lot. I try to do my own balancing act with it. I really like looking manly. I think a lot about what that means to me. Sometimes I flirt with harder looks but the toxic stuff never feels right to me. Like approaching a rut that leaves me feeling dull. It's tricky. My blue hair is a big turquoise triangle ring. I'm thinking about a necklace. I'll probably never dye my hair :( and I shave it :|. But I think I look like I don't play by the rules just enough that people don't mistake me for a chud.

Did you ever check out bell hooks book about masculinity? What you're saying in the quote above makes me think that maybe you have.

i really don't think "straight" is the right word for that.

how about "versatile"?

thanks map... honestly it's more meaningful seeing it here. i really appreciate it. i believe in myself more than i used to but sometimes i do feel like i'm not "reading the room", writing at cross-purposes to the thread, talking over other people who have important things to say. so it's nice to occasionally hear that someone finds my posts valuable!

i haven't actually read a lot of bell hooks... i like what i've read of her work a lot, i haven't read a lot of theory overall tho. i think a lot of the stuff i've learned ultimately does come from sources like hooks... i've just kind of picked it up from other people, as lore, through experience. it's a hard way to learn but i find i learn more from lived experience than i do from reading, for better or for worse.

how about "versatile"?

― more difficult than I look (Aimless)

see to me talking about this is really illustrative of the limitations of language, the limitations of framing... that's something i'm acutely aware of, both as a transgender woman who didn't have access to the concepts signified by "transgender" when i was younger, and as an "asexual" person who doesn't currently have access to a word that can communicate my actual relationship to sexuality.

in terms of "versatile", that just makes me think of "vers", which is another term that didn't exist when i was young... "switch" meant both switch in the current sense and what "vers" means now. and then there's the whole idea of "side", the idea of intimacy that doesn't require top and bottom.

there's that whole thing they used to ask lesbians, "which one of you is the man" (to which the joke answer is "bernie sanders, always bernie sanders"). it's frustrating and it's also, like, the way "man" stands in for "top" stands in for "masc" stands in for "dom", the way all of these things are assumed to be the _same thing_. if i'm a woman and i like men and i want to express that attraction, the first word someone suggests (incidentally, i wasn't asking for suggestions, this is one of the hardest things about communication, understanding when someone does or doesn't want someone to give advice... not interested in judging people who _are_ giving advice, it's a good thing for me to riff on at least)...

the first word someone suggests is "straight", which, like, just gets to the heart of the problem, doesn't it? i'm a woman, and i like men, but in a gay way. before i transitioned my ex-wife used to say to each other all the time "i'm gay for you", which was a 'joke' except it wasn't because it turns out we actually were gay for each other.

the other thing about all these clustered correlations is that they do _correlate_, in kind of the same way "trans" and "neurodiverse" _correlate_, and in a lot of cases i think there are good reasons for those correlations. part of the struggle for me, and for other people i think, with queerness is that there is, in a lot of intimacy, this idea of "subject" and "object", and it is highly gendered.

i mean, this is my background, so i kind of do want to talk about it here... "subject" and "object" expressed as "dominant" and "submissive". dominant men and submissive men. what the norms are. how they behave. i'm a switch now, just like i was a switch before transition, but before transition i was afraid to express myself either as a dominant or as a submissive. in large part that's because i'm not a man, so presenting myself as a "dominant man" or a "submissive man" just doesn't feel _right_. now that i don't understand myself as a man, though, now that i recognize myself as a woman who likes men... i have the same discomfort with the male norms of "dominant" and "submissive".

the stereotypical dominant.. the name he goes by these days is "big dick daddy dom". i'm not even going to get _into_ the daddy bit. i don't have daddy issues, i have mommy issues.

-

side trip actually, one of the thing that frustrates me is the essentialization of abuse, the duluth model, the model that sees men as abusers and women as victims. i've been involved in three significant abusive relationships in my life, and in all three of those cases the abuser is/was a woman. this is another instance where patriarchy hurts men... everything AMABs get taught about abuse is how to not be an abuser. to the extent we're taught that, we're typically taught it quite badly. the idea of men as victims, that doesn't get taught. the only time anybody seems to bring it up is when someone tries to talk about the systemic way women are abused, at which point somebody brings it up as a "gotcha". which is frustrating to me. it does a real disservice to men who are victims of abuse. it _is_ important to talk about the ways in which men are abused _in a gendered sense_, just like it's important to talk about the ways in which women are abused _in a gendered sense_. men who are victims of abuse deserve their own conversation.

to be clear i'm not saying that in an exclusionary sense, because god knows i've spent my whole life being told "this is a Women's Space and you don't belong here". it's more like... there's a difference between "men" and "normal people". it's so hard to talk about men _as men_. if i try to say "i like men", the word that comes up is "straight", "normal". my liking men isn't _normal_. it's intrinsically queer. everything i do is intrinsically queer, because _i'm_ intrinsically queer. i queer everything i touch. that's a good thing in my book.

i talk about this sometimes... in the late '90s i was involved, i did go to a weekend retreat for the mythopoetic men's movement, the movement that evolved into jordan peterson, my gender-confused ass showing up at a retreat filled with middle-aged men with daddy issues doing cultural appropriation.

-

and we're back to the daddy stuff. i really can't talk daddy stuff. i don't think my dad was a woman - it's not something i can ever know for sure - but he was distinctly _unmasculine_. he was small, soft, weak. he spoke with a high-pitched voice. his mannerisms were effete. he didn't get along with men, wasn't able to do the things men were supposed to do. my mom browbeat him into becoming the troop master of my boy scout troop and it was a disaster. he was horrible at it. he couldn't _do_ that kind of manhood. he was born a man and died a man, but he wasn't ever very good at whatever "man" was supposed to be. he was an abuse victim too. i don't know if he was a dominant. you can never tell, really. there's no correlation. in a factual sense i guess he wouldn't have been a "big dick daddy dom". apparently he had a small penis, which i know because my mom made fun of his penis size to her kids after they got divorced.

and it's so fucking silly. the penis thing. like, daddy issues are _very much_ a woman thing, a lot of women i know have daddy issues. the big dick thing? the whole prevalence of dick size in popular culture? what i go back to is how Swolesome talks about... the patriarchal stereotype of a masculine gay man _isn't_ someone created to appeal to the female gaze. it's created to appeal to the _male_ gaze. the whole idea of the "chad", i mean, i know at this point it's a meme but the idea that _women_ would find this guy attractive... i mean, i guess there are _some_ women who are into roided out dudes, but it sure as hell isn't the norm. i mean even when you look at... i'm old, so my point of reference would be someone like chris hemsworth. he _is_ a big, rugged, handsome, stubbly man. that's attractive. but when i see the stuff about him that goes viral, it's about him being _sweet_. someone like pedro pascal, he's hot, but he also loves his sister (and me personally i think his sister is hotter, but i definitely do think he's hot). like that's an essential component there. are there guys who can't tell the difference between pedro pascal and andrew tate?

and of course the chad has a big dick, which is ridiculous. if you're on roids you're not gonna be packing a monster schlong. even if you were, though... the term "size queen" wasn't termed to refer to _women_. like i'm sorry taking nine inches down my throat doesn't seem like a good time to me. is that something women are supposed to, like, normally want? that seems weird. that seems actively unpleasant to me. i mean if you're into that, totally cool, i'm not saying i'm not into, like, breathplay or whatever. choking (why do people keep spelling it "chocking"? is that, like, how you spell it in british english or something?) on a monster cock just isn't my idea of a good time, is all.

the big dick daddy dom, though... to them the dick is super important. they're the ones going out on the dating sites sending unsolicited pics of their schlongs to women. am i supposed to believe that they think we want that? because i don't. i don't believe that. they're not looking to be dominants. they're digital flashers. they don't want to dominate women - they want to abuse us. that's the _norm_. that's the _norm_ among "dominant" men.

like there's this whole new subtype of dom that's around, the "soft dom". which is, like. a dominant who is sweet and kind and affirming. who uses the velvet glove rather than the iron fist. you ask me, i'm more into being caressed with a velvet glove than i am into being iron fisted. (although even fisting, from what i've seen and heard that's, like, actually a soft, gentle, intimate act. you can't just ram your fist into somebody's bottom and expect that to work.) and to me, i'm just... thank god that's even being _recognized_.

-

because submissive men, that's way more problematic. first off a lot of these guys... they just want to be pegged. i mean if you want to be pegged that's fine, but it's not the same as being submissive. a lot of these guys are rude and bossy and demanding... i mean, there's "topping from the bottom" and there's just being an _asshole_.

aaaaaaaaaaand then you have the sissies. at this point... i asked this a lot earlier, but at this point it does make sense to me, it makes sense that submission should be associated with effeminacy. one becomes an object, one becomes objectified, one becomes the _beheld_ rather than the _beholder_, and it makes sense for someone in that position to be _pretty_. it just gets all mixed up with the trans thing. wearing a dress doesn't make you a woman, i insisted, over and over and over again, and to prove it i wore a dress and...

and it _didn't_ make me a woman, i just wasn't able to _access my own gender_ until and unless i could _perform femininity_. which is, to me, "femininity" and "effeminacy" are distinct concepts, like, being a woman versus being "girly". in my case, recognizing my own womanhood required me to do "girly" things. these days i'm really only situationally "girly", but i'm always a woman.

it just complicates things. it complicates things so much. i want so much for there to be girly men and for that to be accepted and welcomed. the prejudices, the biases at stake though...

it's fraught. men submitting is fraught. it's a conundrum.

-

i think about... william moulton marston, the creator of wonder woman, he had some interesting ideas about gender. he said that women were superior to men because they submitted to men. that's complicated and paradoxical and i kind of understand where he's coming from. i think it's important for men to have the freedom to submit. to have the freedom to be soft. sexually, in terms of power exchange, and in every other conceivable sense. being able to do that - _contextually_, _sometimes_ - i think that is important. hard men are also brittle men. hard men are prone to cracking. i think a lot about how it's the most patriarchal institutions that seem to give rise to proportionately more transfems. catholicism. mormonism. live under those pressures for long enough, and someone might crack. crack like an egg.

I don't know if this is the place for this, but I find it truly weird the way a certain population of online right-wing masculinity people has adopted the idea that people enjoying looking at Sydney Sweeney is some kind of rebuke of "wokeness" or a revival of "allowed to be male" -- are there really highly online 18-year-olds who are going to be convinced that just prior to 2024 there was a whole era where men didn't find pretty young women with large breasts attractive & were formally or informally forbidden from watching movies starring pretty young women with large breasts or from trying to date pretty young women with large breasts in their social circles? Who's going to believe that Sydney Sweeney represents a breakthrough of a "type" that was barred from the airwaves by the woke prudes until the day before yesterday?

― Guayaquil (eephus!)

update: i just caught up on the memes channel on my lesbian server

we are all _highly entertained_ at the idea that sydney sweeney showing off her boobs at the GLAAD awards constitutes a critique of the "gay agenda"

i like boobs so much i grew my own. checkmate, fascists.

I'm sorry but Hanania is back to elaborate on his point

"Sydney Sweeney's boobs are anti-woke because they cause physiological reactions in men that make leftist delusions impossible. The repression of normal heterosexuality is very important to left-coded spaces."

Where does this idea come from that it's impossible to be liberal with a hard-on

"The repression of normal heterosexuality patriarchy is very important to left-coded spaces."

How tiresome. It's just so uninteresting to me, and as someone who despite deep soul-searching continues to be attracted to men, I kind of despair.

This quote is obviously a joke.

I think that just reveals more about how right-wingers think - there's no such thing as accomodation or empathy, everything is a zero sum game. if you acknowledge that some people don't like big jugs it's a blow to straight men everywhere. it's all a bit weird I think given how prudish these people are, I think they just want to go back to the time when you could openly ogle celebrities. I mean when I was growing up you had women like Pam Anderson and Cindy Crawford who were kind of shorthand for "really attractive women". like when you namechecked them everyone knew what you were talking about. who was the last celebrity who was primarily known for being really attractive?

most celebrities

I mean

like as their primary thing. all the really hot ones have like big movie roles and stuff. look I probably don't know what i'm talking about here just kinda thinking back to like the heyday of Britney Spears and how you couldn't even mention her name in mixed company because people would get real horny. I don't see that sort of thing too much anymore. I blame wokeness

sweeney is in loads of really big and good stuff!

frogs its not that deep yr poat and premise are just prob wrong man its ok

the discourse around her ending wokeness just by being hot is still deeply weird and confusing

And stupid.

i can only think that she is hot in a very """"obvious"""" way but like

christina hendricks wasnt that long along, alexandra dadarrio had a real moment with tru detective, kim broke the internet

obviously hot ppl never went away at all imo?

long /ago/

Hot people still walk among us but this premise is more like "women who could be objectified/sexualized to the exclusion of anything else about them" and also it requires you to accept as true that there was a past where everyone was totally fine with that and it didn't have any social or cultural consequences for the speaker. It was never okay, it was always wrong, and plenty of people already knew that and conducted their lives and friendships accordingly. Let's please not give into to the totally garbage premise at all or be confused by it.

Hi I just got back and I'm already regretting it.

nah I get there are loads of hot people still out there, maybe more than there has ever been in human history. do I do think the concept of celebrity as someone who's entire image revolves around wearing skimpy outfits and making sexy faces and groaning noises has gone out the window. I remember Britney's big hits obv but like every video and high profile appearance revolved around her doing something sexy. I mean I don't see Taylor Swift appearing with a giant snake looking like she wants to fuck it. Sidney Sweeney def ain't one of them. in retrospect this is still wrong because we have Nicki Minaj. Megan thee Stallion too. I wonder why right wingers find them so obscene.

look if you wanna understand where I'm coming from you need to watch all 22 minutes of this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQlfGt6J14s

I mean, I didn't, but clicking around half of it is not understanding women and thinking they are dumb and brain damaged and then a bunch of stuff about fishing. in between segments there are boobs everywhere. this show was incredibly famous when I was growing up. my Dad let me watch it for some reason. now check out the comments, half of them are whining about Jimmy Kimmel going "woke" (which is hilarious, he's still pretty crass for a late night comedian, he just makes fun of Trump a lot), the other half are whining about how you can't make this kind of show anymore. well yeah you probably couldn't because it fucking sucks. this is the time they want to go back to.

also a sign of the changing times: Adam Corolla asks women in a mall if they would take a pill that made them smarter but also made their ass bigger. the women say no. oh how things have changed. in 2024 we call that a win/win.

"girls gone wild" and maxim magazine also existed

i am not sure what the point is.

Just as one can justify any moral position by selectively quoting the Bible, it seems to me a person could prove anything they want to about social attitudes of the recent past by selectively citing youtubes of past cable television programs.

wait. -- is this it? the other half are whining about how you can't make this kind of show anymore. well yeah you probably couldn't because it fucking sucks. this is the time they want to go back to.

keep whining whiners

in retrospect this is still wrong because we have Nicki Minaj. Megan thee Stallion too. I wonder why right wingers find them so obscene.

Partly because they are "ethnic"; partly because they are so conscious and in command of their sexuality. The right-wingers prefer "Aryan" women who appear to be unconscious of their beauty and sex appeal (think classic Britney or Hannah Montana-era Miley Cyrus).

in retrospect this is still wrong because we have Nicki Minaj. Megan thee Stallion too. I wonder why right wingers find them so obscene.

But back to big trucks… I have one of those mini-SUVs with raised wheels and unlike the stereotypical suburban/rural person in this thread … the value of the “lift” is better navigating the immense potholes of my neglected urban city. Seriously the potholes here are no joke

The right-wingers prefer "Aryan" women who appear to be unconscious of their beauty and sex appeal (think classic Britney or Hannah Montana-era Miley Cyrus).

actually I hadn't considered that, like you're right there isn't anything too overtly sexual in Britney's lyrics

I was thinking of the more obvious reason though

At this point you might be saying “Come on, CHH, it’s not like being a real human actress is illegal now. What about Jennifer Lawrence? Taylor Swift? Margot Robbie?” Of course, all of those women are beautiful and talented, but—and I can’t really explain this—it feels like they are here for the girls. Maybe that’s why I like them. Sydney feels like she’s here for the guys, and in a way that feels completely unironic. I don’t mean to say that “hot blondes have gone woke” or anything, but lately I have noticed that popular actresses are expected to couch their hotness and femininity in a blanket of irony

https://www.cartoonshateher.com/p/are-we-sunsetting-ass-and-entering

I think the above put into words something I felt but couldn't really articulate about why the 'Sydney Sweeny's boobs mean wokeness is over' takes have a grain of truth (though I don't really agree with all the examples of that 'irony' she gives - "posing in a magazine eating pizza out of a greasy box" seems like it would fit in fine with a The Man Show era sex-symbol). I agree with frogbs, SS's celebrity persona and vibes feel reminiscent of an earlier era where the media was less self-conscious or coy about ogling famous actresses, or when it was more taken for granted that the media was 'looking' from the pov of a hetero man, I think? Like those magazine profiles of actress from the pre-2010s where the author is just openly horny in a way that you don't see so much nowadays. (idk to what extent this is something intrinsic to how Sweeny presents herself or to what extent it's something that is just being projected onto her)