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Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

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Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#551

Post by throwaway8581 »

morsch wrote: post #360
throwaway8581 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sex is not harmless. While it is one of the great human joys, it is also the source of some of our deepest despairs, intractable conflicts, and personal tragedies. This free-for-all free love ethic that you celebrate, which erased almost all of the previous social restrictions on sex, inevitably created the discontent that boiled over into the #metoo phenomenon. It is also fueling the growing incel phenomenon. It is…

Sex is not harmless. While it is one of the great human joys, it is also the source of some of our deepest despairs, intractable conflicts, and personal tragedies. A grand, sweeping statement that's true for quite a few things (wine, fashion, love, child rearing, freedom, your home). All the while nobody claimed that sex is harmless. Whatever that means. This free-for-all free love ethic that you celebrate, which era…

The idea that large numbers of opposite sex are available for casual sex is a modern idea. Not hard to see how that leads to lots of unwanted and harmful sexual attention.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#552

Post by blacktriangle »

xg15 wrote: post #475
_xnmw wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scarcity increases value. We often artificially enforce the scarcity of things in order to preserve its value. That's the reason why patents, IP and copyrights exists, for example. "Marriage" and "fidelity" are a means of artificially enforcing scarcity on sex, in order to increase the value and likelihood of partners bonding for life, which in turn improves the child-rearing situation for society, as single parents…

I think this is an accurate summary of certain conservative or puritanical stances on sexuality. Of course there are also decades of progressive literature that argue why this is essentially bullshit. Also, if you follow this line to its logical conclusion, you end up with inceldom. I think there is also another mechanism at work in why many modern societies seem at the same time oversexualized and prude: By raising…

And decades of progressive values in action that argue why it is not in fact bullshit.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#553

Post by plzbo »

BunsanSpace wrote: post #546

"In the early 2000s, there was a brief period where actresses pretended that their thinness was natural, almost accidental. Skinny celebrities confessed their love of burgers and fries in magazines; models undergoing profile interviews engaged in public consumption of pasta; leading ladies joked about how little they exercised and how much they hated it. It was all bullshit: no one looks like that without calorie res…

What is a PED? You mean performance-enhancing drugs?

I wanted to read the article you linked to, but seems like they have a region lock for EU countries. Its been what, nearly three years since GDPR took effect?

> Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#554

Post by TheCoelacanth »

twic wrote: post #513
saithound wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Others have explained why certain jobs are "segregated", and how sex work could plausibly fit into that category. But even if it does not, there's nothing we can learn about sex work from the reactions described above. Isn't it strange how most programmers think that specialist barista work is not demeaning, but would quit on the spot if they were instructed to serve morning coffee to the management? Oh wait, it's no…

You have missed the point entirely. If a company advertised for a part time programmer, part time barista, how would people react? They might think it was funny, and they probably wouldn't apply, but they wouldn't think that the very existence of such a position was unacceptable.

There isn't generally a common problem with people being coerced into programming or into serving coffee against their will. There is a common problem with people being coerced into sex.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#555

Post by jmarbert »

BunsanSpace wrote: post #546

"In the early 2000s, there was a brief period where actresses pretended that their thinness was natural, almost accidental. Skinny celebrities confessed their love of burgers and fries in magazines; models undergoing profile interviews engaged in public consumption of pasta; leading ladies joked about how little they exercised and how much they hated it. It was all bullshit: no one looks like that without calorie res…

Another example of dehydrating for shirtless shots - Henry Cavill talks about doing just that for The Witcher in an interview on the Graham Norton Show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne5xD5XrzOc

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#556

Post by TheCoelacanth »

necovek wrote: post #418
mavhc wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather be doing something that will lead me to get paid more in the future, learning new skills

I optimize the way I put dishes in the dishwasher, I design my own closets so I'll have the best design for what I do every day (i.e. clothes I use regularly are close by) — eg. I hang my t-shirts because it's faster than folding them — etc. There are things that can be optimized in serving coffee too! And when you had enough, you can just start serving terrible coffee :D

Those things can be optimized, but the payoff for that optimization is pretty low.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#557

Post by bitcurious »

hirundo wrote: post #35

Is this a side effect of normalizing porn, that sexuality is more effectively partitioned? I once had a debate in an online forum about legalizing prostitution, and most participants were supportive of it. Then I asked the same group, what about legalizing partial prostitution, like a receptionist that also has sex with the boss as part of the job description. The participants all immediately switched to revulsion at…

That’s a fascinating question!

I think the answer to it might be in assigning some unscientific statistics to the world.

Starting here: perhaps 5% of people are psychologically capable of sex work. The reason behind legalizing (or decriminalizing) sex work is to maximize the liberty of, and reduce the harm to, this 5%.

Concurrently we must account for the 95%.

If we were to normalize sex work in the context other professions, then the volume of jobs requiring sex would quickly outpace the number of people who would choose that profession in lieu of economic necessity, and so you will have people be sexually exploited. Perhaps the free market will solve this in the long term but in the mean time you’ll have many a hurt persons.

So basically the whole thing is a compromise based on what we believe about the economic incentives and workforce, aiming to please multiple outlooks.

Although the “contractor” point another poster made is maybe more compelling.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#558

Post by nicoburns »

lc9er wrote: post #541
xg15 wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those ideas served civilization for thousands of years. Civilisation also had wars and famines for thousands of years to manage population and "cull off the weak". Do you want to go back to that? > western countries have literally ceased to be self-sustaining, becoming reliant on importing the next generation from conservative Latin (in North America) and Muslim (in Europe) countries. Victory! And yet the same peop…

It has also become almost prohibitively expensive to raise children (in the US).

Was it not always prohibitively expensive to raise children? Seems to me that the main thing that has changed is the invention of (modern) contraception, making not having children but still having sex an option in a way that it wasn't in the past.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#560

Post by globular-toast »

BunsanSpace wrote: post #546

"In the early 2000s, there was a brief period where actresses pretended that their thinness was natural, almost accidental. Skinny celebrities confessed their love of burgers and fries in magazines; models undergoing profile interviews engaged in public consumption of pasta; leading ladies joked about how little they exercised and how much they hated it. It was all bullshit: no one looks like that without calorie res…

Or they actually are naturally thin. Such people do exist and I refuse to believe most people haven't ever met someone like this. Why is it so hard to believe that the tiny fraction of people who make into Hollywood are selected for this trait?

I'm not saying they don't also do unnatural things to their bodies that set unrealistic standards and don't set a good example, but being "thin" is not one of them.

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