Comments on: I’m Not Dead Yet

By: Second quote of the day: Objectification « Anti-Porn Feminists

Second quote of the day: Objectification « Anti-Porn Feminists — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 10:11:49 +0000

[…] Another from the ever-brilliant Twisty Faster […]

By: Ms Kate

Ms Kate — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

Hey! I resemble that statement.

Butch isn’t a dirty word in my book, but then I come from a long line of butch hetero women who rarely wore skirts, whacked bears with brooms and welded liberty ships and fixed cars. My mother wears army boots? Of course she does!

By: nicky

nicky — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

Twisty: I’m so glad you’re not dead yet.

By: Tony Patti

Tony Patti — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

The problem of beauty is vast and mysterious. Men have these deep and seemingly objective illusions about what they consider beautiful and what it means to the way they categorize the world.

Here’s my attempt at trying to cope with my own love of beauty, and trying to distinguish real beauty from sexist objectivication (sp?): Beauty is literally everywhere if you open up and see it. If you do, then weighing the difference between one beautiful thing (ie one of those wonderful bugs Twisty captures) and another (a middle-aged woman with red hair who loves me) is impossible.

I’ve learned to love bodily defects like sagging and cellulite dimpling from looking with rapture on Rubens, and for seeing the person, human and beyond aesthetic judgement, behind the trembling flesh. My sexist right to patriarchal approval has been rescinded, and in its place, I see more beauty every day, the further I get from it.

I still love to see young beautiful women in the incredible holy glow of youth and fullness too, but I can’t value them more highly than the people I love who are far older, trapped in the prisons of our aging flesh, whom I love.

The average male victim of the patriarchy would never give up his right to judge the outward appearances of women, and lives in a much uglier world as a result. It’s small wonder to me that these lives are filled with an inexplicable murderous rage, since they walk among phantoms that allure them constantly with illusions they can never capture and control.

Men are such sick fucks when they live in a patriarchy. And nobody’s telling them that life could be much better if they stopped acting like they deserved what can only make them crazier and crazier.

By: Mandos

Mandos — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

“An unchecked Mandos proliferation,”

You’re welcome.

By: Mandos

Mandos — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

BTW, your entire argument rests on the “quality of being human” as being meaningfully different from being a “material thing.” This is interestingly metaphysical—not that there’s anything *inherently* wrong with this. But we are all material things, what makes us human is a material thing, and the very act of perceiving a human being inherently includes the power to judge someone as more or less “human,” given that it includes the power to ascribe characteristics to entities.

In fact, the use of “human” here is not very meaningful either. Since humans are material things in every observable aspect, and since “beauty” is a character that perception ascribes to material objects including humans (and some non-material objects, like mathematics), then it follows that it possible to judge a human being on beauty.

So you can’t really handwave away the problem like that.

By: robin

robin — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

I’m not completely sure who Ron S., Mandos, and Tony are, but
it’s nice to see men ( I assume they’re men? one can never actually know online) giving these subjects some serious thought, and attempting to deconstruct the construct of patriarchy to a certain extent.
I will even go as far as to say, “intelligently written comment, Tony P.”
A disconcerting note of the subject of beauty: babies prefer to gaze longer at images of “attractive” women than those with “less” attractive features, such as asymmetry, blemishes, or unevenly proportioned faces.. We are a victims of our physiology to a certain extent, but it is to hoped that with maturity and insight, and a deeper exploration of our humanity, we can see the beauty in people and things that transcends the superficial.
Also, yes to Twisty’s definition of objectification. Very well put.

By: Mandos

Mandos — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

I believe that Ron is female. Tony is definitely a man, as am I. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, since characterizing certain aspects of perception is of, let’s say, professional interest to me.

By: bitchphd

bitchphd — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

Isn’t it fun how every time you turn your back on a blog, ppl go nuts? Hence the concept of the blog babysitter ;)

I, too, am glad you’re not dead yet.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

I FUCKING LOVE TWISTY
& im drunnk