Comments on: The Science Of Being A Bitch To Sluts http://popsych.org/the-science-of-being-a-bitch-to-sluts/ The Internet's Best Evolutionary Psycholo-guy Wed, 03 Jan 2018 01:05:13 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 By: Suzanne http://popsych.org/the-science-of-being-a-bitch-to-sluts/#comment-494 Suzanne Sun, 10 Feb 2013 18:07:32 +0000 http://popsych.org/?p=139#comment-494 Now I think I understand where our fundamental disagreement is: you seem to equate emphasis on physical attractiveness to men with sexualization. A woman who is sexy and is dressed sexy does not communicate to me that she has more sex or is willing to have more sex, because in my experience there is somewhere around zero correlation between how sexy a woman dresses and how many people she sleeps with. What it might communicate is that she makes more of an effort than the average woman in that context to be perceived as attractive to men. (That is kind of a fucked up assumption as well. But in my experience at least more probable than the former.) Since just about every woman is affected by how much more women are judged by our attractiveness than men, and that's a source of resentment, stress and low self esteem, she could be seen as encouraging these attitudes and "caving to pressure". If you reall wonder where many women's hurt feelings and anger at unachievable feminine ideals being portrayed as the norm comes from, you have to take a genuine interest in how it feels for many to become a teenage girl. Take the resentment from some women and feminist-leaning men against the way female comic book heroines are conceived. It's not like women are resenting superheroines because they're portrayed as actually getting laid a lot, or as being really horny. Some women probably would resent that, but not many, because like men we identify with the protagonist in our imagination, we don't picture being their ugly best friend. The resentment is that to some of us, the characters we get to identify with don't feel liberating in the way we would want them to. There are aspects of anyone's identity that can't be sacrificed for the fantasy to be appealing. That's why girls even want superheroines, ethnic minorities like to see superheroes of their ethnicity, why Spider-Man is a nerd, why there are gay superheroes. Technically we could all just as well imagine that we're straight white WASP jocks, it's not a greater leap than x-ray vision. But it's not as satisfying to imagine conforming to what we feel society already grants power, as it is to imagine being powerful in many ways while still breaking the norms of what's considered powerful. For many women, having a certain body shape, huge boobs, certain features, and wearing things that hugely emphasize all this, is not a sign of sexual agency, it's the ideal we feel we have to conform to to have any agency at all, or at least to not be greatly hindered in whatever it is we want to pursue. Sexiness is not power for female artists, it is neutrality, a necessary baseline. (Tiny example: I know a man who worked in the music industry and witnessed record company guys listen to a young unknown K.D. Lang and tear their hair at what to do with her - she was amazingly talented, but those looks just could not be worked with. Not that she was outright ugly, she just wasn't in any way attractive to straight males. A story with a happy ending since K.D. is now K.D., but I think we can agree she breaks the mold, and that male singer-songwriters just don't present that issue.) Given that, a lot of us perceive all those ways we don't live up to the feminine ideals as a part of our identity we don't want to have to compromise away to be granted power. A liberating fantasy to many of us is to be an average looking, immensely powerful and indeed very sexual superheroine. And the complete lack of anything resembling that anywhere in mainstream and most indie pop culture is a source of grief to many of us. Now I think I understand where our fundamental disagreement is: you seem to equate emphasis on physical attractiveness to men with sexualization. A woman who is sexy and is dressed sexy does not communicate to me that she has more sex or is willing to have more sex, because in my experience there is somewhere around zero correlation between how sexy a woman dresses and how many people she sleeps with. What it might communicate is that she makes more of an effort than the average woman in that context to be perceived as attractive to men. (That is kind of a fucked up assumption as well. But in my experience at least more probable than the former.) Since just about every woman is affected by how much more women are judged by our attractiveness than men, and that’s a source of resentment, stress and low self esteem, she could be seen as encouraging these attitudes and “caving to pressure”. If you reall wonder where many women’s hurt feelings and anger at unachievable feminine ideals being portrayed as the norm comes from, you have to take a genuine interest in how it feels for many to become a teenage girl.

Take the resentment from some women and feminist-leaning men against the way female comic book heroines are conceived.
It’s not like women are resenting superheroines because they’re portrayed as actually getting laid a lot, or as being really horny. Some women probably would resent that, but not many, because like men we identify with the protagonist in our imagination, we don’t picture being their ugly best friend. The resentment is that to some of us, the characters we get to identify with don’t feel liberating in the way we would want them to.

There are aspects of anyone’s identity that can’t be sacrificed for the fantasy to be appealing. That’s why girls even want superheroines, ethnic minorities like to see superheroes of their ethnicity, why Spider-Man is a nerd, why there are gay superheroes. Technically we could all just as well imagine that we’re straight white WASP jocks, it’s not a greater leap than x-ray vision. But it’s not as satisfying to imagine conforming to what we feel society already grants power, as it is to imagine being powerful in many ways while still breaking the norms of what’s considered powerful.
For many women, having a certain body shape, huge boobs, certain features, and wearing things that hugely emphasize all this, is not a sign of sexual agency, it’s the ideal we feel we have to conform to to have any agency at all, or at least to not be greatly hindered in whatever it is we want to pursue. Sexiness is not power for female artists, it is neutrality, a necessary baseline. (Tiny example: I know a man who worked in the music industry and witnessed record company guys listen to a young unknown K.D. Lang and tear their hair at what to do with her – she was amazingly talented, but those looks just could not be worked with. Not that she was outright ugly, she just wasn’t in any way attractive to straight males. A story with a happy ending since K.D. is now K.D., but I think we can agree she breaks the mold, and that male singer-songwriters just don’t present that issue.)

Given that, a lot of us perceive all those ways we don’t live up to the feminine ideals as a part of our identity we don’t want to have to compromise away to be granted power. A liberating fantasy to many of us is to be an average looking, immensely powerful and indeed very sexual superheroine. And the complete lack of anything resembling that anywhere in mainstream and most indie pop culture is a source of grief to many of us.

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