Proposed amendments to the rules of lawn-tennis

[Mr Pee]

Are you not able to make a connection between the publication of that photograph on this forum, your fantasies and the recent outrages against women in India?

Well, let's see. First of all you have no idea about my "fantasies", as you put it. Most of them revolve around winning the Lottery/being a Formula 1 driver/ visiting Bayreuth. Not necessarily in that order. if you honestly think that a bit of naked flesh- you can't see much more than you do in a typical tennis match anyway- is relevant to the recent horrific attacks in India, then you need to take a reality check. As you usual you are applying your sledgehammer "logic" to make the argument suit your own agenda.

Back in the 1970s, practically every male student pad in the country was decorated with the famous Athena poster of the tennis girl raising her skirt and showing her bottom. (We all have them, you know. ) What is the difference? I don't believe that everyone who had that poster on their wall then went out and committed a sexual assault.

I think the people who need to "grow up" are those who are so offended by a teeny-weeny bit of bottom.

[amateur51]

I don't believe that everyone who had that poster on their wall then went out and committed a sexual assault.

I'm pleased to have punctured your smug indifference and caused you to think for a moment.

Not everyone, Mr Pee? How many would be unacceptable then?

[Thropplenoggin]

I'm pleased to have punctured your smug indifference and caused you to think for a moment.

Not everyone, Mr Pee? How many would be unacceptable then?

I have to say, amateur51, pornography is as old as mankind. It seems the majority of men are hard-wired to find images of naked females stimulating. Conversely, women aren't generally aroused by naked pictures of men. In Steven Pinker's How The Mind Works, he mentions prehistoric cave drawings of genitalia and how even in "foraging cultures young men make charcoal drawings of naked female bodies on rocks". He goes on to explain why this might be.

"Men see nude women as a kind of invitation, women see nude men as a kind of threat", he states.

This is not to condone the objectification of women, but to state that it's always been there - at least, since marks have been daubed on walls.

[Mr Pee]

I'm pleased to have punctured your smug indifference and caused you to think for a moment.

Not everyone, Mr Pee? How many would be unacceptable then?

Oh for God's sake, to use your own parlance, "grow up." Pathetic.

Some males commit sexual assault. The vast majority do not. All or none may have had that rather lovely poster on their wall.

Perhaps you would like to go back to Victorian days, when of course sexual assaults were completely unknown. As they are in societies where women wear the Burka.

[Nick Armstrong]

This has wandered completely off topic.

For what it's worth, my view is that few people are in any way bothered about the sight of a woman's bare bottom - that would be prudish. But this was an example of what is generically described as "glamour photography" (she is not playing tennis in that outfit!)- posed photos designed to titillate, and what makes some women, and indeed some men, uneasy is the public display of such photos of women and the sight of a load of appreciative men ogling them. Old Master paintings aren't in the same category because on the whole, where publicly displayed, the viewers are general art lovers.

I would feel uneasy in a factory works canteen, with a load of men silently chomping and attentively studying the photos of Page 3 girls, adorning the walls. It is not prudery. It feels like sexism.

And, with all due respect to Flossie, his male photo isn't "glamour photography" and is humorous. That is the intention. I suspect men took both photos(?). So no calendar girlie pics here, please.

While we are bouncing along off-road, can I add a question to the debate? A (female) colleague was an enthusiastic Olympic volunteer last summer, and a particular fan of the GB swimming and diving team. She received a Tom Daley calendar for Christmas and proudly hung it next to her desk in the office. Being January, the relevant page was on view: the large one here:



She returned from a sickday to find that her calendar had been taken down, and an 'anonymous' complaint made that it transgressed the 'diversity' policy in the firm and that it would be 'taken further' if she displayed it again.

What do folk think of that? I think it's dumb. (Sorry if 'girlie' in your final sentence included 'laddie', ff )

[amateur51]

Oh for God's sake, to use your own parlance, "grow up." Pathetic.

Some males commit sexual assault. The vast majority do not. All or none may have had that rather lovely poster on their wall.

Perhaps you would like to go back to Victorian days, when of course sexual assaults were completely unknown. As they are in societies where women wear the Burka.

Can you not see that one culture that expects women to be covered up and another one that expects women to be displayed for publc titillation are in fact not very far apart? They both seek to control women and images of women for their own purposes, and women all over the world (and on this Board) have said that it makes them feel uncomfortable.Men who attack women in puiblic frequently cite the apparently provocative nature of how their victim was dressed as a mitigating factor.

I'm not seeking to curtail your freedoms; I'm seeking to engage your brain.

[french frank]

Caliban,

I suppose I wouldn't complain, but I would think it out of place.

At the paper where I worked, one sub kept a photograph of his wife on his desk. As an unstated comment, another one placed a photo of his chest of drawers on his.


I feel a bit as I do about music(?) in shops which is supposed to be for the sales assistants' enjoyment.

[Richard Tarleton]

Back to tennis for a moment - squeaky shoes, or should that be squeaky courts. Just seen a clip from the Aus. Open. Sets my teeth on edge.

[JFLL]

While we are bouncing along off-road, can I add a question to the debate? A (female) colleague was an enthusiastic Olympic volunteer last summer, and a particular fan of the GB swimming and diving team. She received a Tom Daley calendar for Christmas and proudly hung it next to her desk in the office. Being January, the relevant page was on view: the large one here:

......................................

She returned from a sickday to find that her calendar had been taken down, and an 'anonymous' complaint made that it transgressed the 'diversity' policy in the firm and that it would be 'taken further' if she displayed it again.

What do folk think of that? I think it's dumb. (Sorry if 'girlie' in your final sentence included 'laddie', ff )

Maybe the requirements of 'diversity' would have been satisfied if the calendar had been a mixture of male and female pin-ups?

[Flosshilde]

prehistoric cave drawings of genitalia and how even in "foraging cultures young men make charcoal drawings of naked female bodies on rocks". He goes on to explain why this might be.

"Men see nude women as a kind of invitation, women see nude men as a kind of threat", he states.

I would hope that we might have grown up a bit, & realised that nude women, or even women wearing revealing clothes, are not issuing an invitation. 'She was asking for it' is the excuse of the man abusing women (& that might extend from wolf-whistles to rape).

This is not to condone the objectification of women, but to state that it's always been there - at least, since marks have been daubed on walls.

It seems to me that that's exactly what the un-highlighted text does do - condone it.

[Mr Pee]

It seems to me that that's exactly what the highlighted text is doing - condoning it.

Yes, if you choose to conveniently not highlight the first part of the sentence.....which you seem to be ignoring. It's a historical fact.

It seems there are some here who wish to airbrush out of human nature the basic fact of life that put us all on this earth in the first place.

[amateur51]

Yes, if you choose to conveniently not highlight the first part of the sentence.....which you seem to be ignoring. It's a historical fact.

It seems there are some here who wish to airbrush out of human nature the basic fact of life that put us all on this earth in the first place.

Which was what exactly, oh fabled seer and wise one?

Professor Brian Cox will be mightily impressed

[Flosshilde]

While we are bouncing along off-road, can I add a question to the debate? A (female) colleague was an enthusiastic Olympic volunteer last summer, and a particular fan of the GB swimming and diving team. She received a Tom Daley calendar for Christmas and proudly hung it next to her desk in the office. Being January, the relevant page was on view: the large one here:

She returned from a sickday to find that her calendar had been taken down, and an 'anonymous' complaint made that it transgressed the 'diversity' policy in the firm and that it would be 'taken further' if she displayed it again.

What do folk think of that? I think it's dumb. (Sorry if 'girlie' in your final sentence included 'laddie', ff )

I would agree with ff that male & female pin-up calendars are inapropriate in the workplace. However, there is a subtle difference between the two; the relative power positions of men and women. It's not the pictures in themselves that women object to (if I might be forgiven for speaking for them), but their representation of men's view of the role of women. Male pin-ups don't have the same threat to men (although that is changing, as men become more commodified & objectified through their portrayal in advertising & television programmes - & on calendars)

[Flosshilde]

Yes, if you choose to conveniently not highlight the first part of the sentence.....which you seem to be ignoring. It's a historical fact.

Mr Pee, I've edited my post to highlight the first part of the sentence rather than the second. But I doubt that you will understand any better.

It seems there are some here who wish to airbrush out of human nature the basic fact of life that put us all on this earth in the first place.

What, sexual assault?

[Mr Pee]

Which was what exactly, oh fabled seer and wise one?

Professor Brian Cox will be mightily impressed

Oh dear- did Mummy or Daddy never tell you about the birds and the bees? Do you still think babies are delivered by storks?