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emilia, i'll try to find some good things on sociobiology for you to read, sorry i've been really busy the last few days at work. i'm onto it though!

Much appreciated. Was just about to PM you! :)

Oh arse, what a time for a typo! I meant 'penes', of course.

Isn't that a type of pasta?

Hah. Reminds me of a joke in Tabori's Mein Kampf, where the young Hitler asks "what's fellatio?" and is told "a type of pasta".

Can you please stop arguing about VP andjust aprecieate a hot woman who is really good at something.

We're not really arguing about VP any more. The conversation's moved on. Thread drift, and all that.

gender politics are complictaed, but i think we should all really just get over it. regardless of gender we are all just people, and i think there are many things that make us individual outside of our physicality. we should all do what we want and feel makes us happy,

This is pretty much my approach too, but I really don't think it's as simple as just getting on with it. I DO try to live my life exactly as I want to, without worrying about my gender, but I find myself constantly fighting against society's (and my own) expectations, prescriptions and assumptions. Plus, we are brought up as a particular gender from the moment we're born (typical first words about us: 'it's a boy!', 'it's a girl!') and, rightly or wrongly, it becomes a central part of our identity. I completely agree that we should 'just get over it', but I think the struggle to do so needs to be made more visible.

Incidentally, if anyone's interested, there's a very good Pro-Feminist Men's Group in London, that I think is on the look-out for more members...

I wouldn't advocate a return to Victorian values, but my experience of other cultures (Canada and the Netherlands in particular) is that they have a much healthier approach to sex and nudity, and while we do have some very visible sexualisation in the media in this country, it still feels very forced and uncomfortable to me. The problem is that the very reason those countries appear to be doing so well is because they have such a liberal approach to sex in the first place - such as sex education in schools from an early age. 'We' as a nation would be rioting in the streets, bemoaning the end of moral values and teenage pregnancies.

I look at it in a similar way to alcohol - in most other countries where you'd expect there to be more alcohol abuse because young people are given more access to it, you actually find much healthier attitudes. Take France - lots of children are given wine and water with their food, and grow up not to abuse alcohol when they're legally able to buy and consume alcohol. For us we never see the stuff until we're in a position to abuse it - the result being a binge-drinking culture.

I'm sure I haven't put my points across at all well, but I think what I'm getting at is that we're still too controlled - and we certainly don't have the liberal society that BlueQuinn speaks of.

I agree! We keep invoking the example of the Victorians - but they had a huge pornography industry underneath all that prudery, and something like one in 1000 houses in London was a brothel. So I don't think repression is the answer. I DO think that a much more liberal approach would help. In fact, I already have a very detailed masterplan for how sex education will work in schools, when I finally take over the world.

Have a nice cup of tea. And treat yourself to a chocolate hobnob or two.

I agree with this too! :-D

attractive naked bodies are actually natural, very nice to look at, and we'd all live in a healthier society if we were a whole lot less uptight about showing them and allowed ourselves to appreciate our humanity a bit more.

But I agree with this slightly less. I mean, I do think naked bodies are wonderful and beautiful, and I love hanging out in places like Hampstead Ladies Pond and seeing them in all their glory. But the attractive naked bodies we most often see aren't natural. They're in films, on billboards, and all over the print media. A significant proportion have been airbrushed (even the 'real beauty' Dove ads), and those that haven't have usually been selected for their svelteness or flawlessness.

I've never seen any body remotely like mine in a magazine, advert or film. I'm very fit, but I still have visible stretchmarks and cellulite, a very flabby tummy, saddlebags, saggy breasts, and hair in places where girls aren't supposed to have hair. None of these 'flaws' is really a problem to me (except in occasional moments of paranoia), but the fact that people aren't used to seeing them means that they're shocked when they do, and consider them ugly or freakish.

Back in the days when I used to act, I observed that when an older, or larger woman takes her clothes off onstage, she somehow looks a lot more naked than a young, slender, pretty one would. We're used to seeing 'pretty' nudity - but exposing the kind of body that's normally kept hidden and private strikes us as shocking and even faintly obscene (and much more artistically interesting, but that's another story...).

Now I'm not a man comfortable with my own body image. I'm overweight, I'm losing my hair, what there is left is too ginger, I'm too pale, I'm too short, I hate my nose and I have no neck. Nevertheless I don't think that any of the depictions of (male) perfection that you see in adverts and editorials are the cause of these feelings.

That's good - and I hope it stays that way. I've read a few things lately about eating disorders and exercise addiction increasing in men, and on the odd occasions when I flick through Men's Health et al, I'm really disheartened by how much they seem to be going down the route of women's magazines in promising 'a new you!' every single month, and churning forth endless diets and exercise regimes.

But I've come across loads of women who are explicitly aiming to make themselves as thin as a specific celebrity, or who will point to some airbrushed fashion shot and say 'that's what I want to look like'.

To give just one example (and then I'll shut up - I know I'm going on and on), I once walked in when my landlady was watching I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, and couldn't help but comment on how ridiculous one of the contestants looked - she had massive bosoms, but then rest of her was very small, and her legs! They were really skinny, absolutely straight up and down (no curves whatsoever), and about four inches apart, so she looked kind of bandy-legged. But my landlady said 'are you kidding? I'd LOVE legs like that!'. And yes, she's on a permanent diet. She's very pretty, and a perfectly reasonable size, and has loads of suitors, but she'd much rather weigh about three stone less, and have no body fat whatsoever. It makes me sad.

Oh no. That is NOT what I meant. I meant to ask S. Ed if the courier that was in his office was small, grey haired, and theatricle.

Or was singing opera. Mad as a hatter.

Oh, that guy. What's his name? He intrigues me.

his name is Pawel.

if you step into the road without looking he will neither slow down nor swerve to avoid you.

and he weighs quite a lot

This made me chuckle (and resolve to do the same).

1. Clefty
   
2. miss_socks
   
3. VeeVee (for the morning part)
   
4. EM
   
5. PicKle
   
6. habbi
   
7. nadia
   
8. TIKA
   
9. Sol
   
10. girlyattack
    
11. jayloo
    
12. gina
    
13. Cajeta
    
14. Stix
    
15. marie
    
16. diapo (...let's play girlie for one day)
    17.Wozza
    18.Epifania
    
17. tricitybendix
    
18. won't-do-hills
    
19. emmajean
    
20. scarysneeze (for the afternoon part)
    
21. Tash
    23.Van Damage
    
22. Teapots
    
23. Ada Place
    
24. Emilia (though I'm sure I have another engagement...)
    

That was a good read Emilia

Thanks! I logged in steeling myself to find another couple of pages of vitriol. I'm not sure what to do with myself now...

Ooh - and would anyone be able to link me to the FHM article? I'd be very interested to read it (and make sure I'm condemning her with due cause), but I don't really want to buy the magazine.

Do you really see the world like this? It's not the 70s. Surely nobody in modern Britain thinks that strong successful women are in any way a threat to the status quo. The're part the status quo and have been for decades. Men are attracted to strong powerful and successful women - there's no struggle between this and femininity.

I've thought long and hard about whether I actually mean this. It's maybe not as straightforward as it sounds, because of course there's far more than just one status quo. People see the world in different ways. And don't be so quickly to assume that the problem lies with men. The examples I've thought of all seem to be of women comforting their own insecurities. (Or at least that's my reading of it.)

The interview that accompanied VP's last naked photoshoot (last year sometime - the Observer?) also had her slagging off her 'unfeminine' competitors, and dwelt on the fact that she's really into baking and sewing. I gave her the benefit of the doubt then (I'm really into baking myself, so it would have been a bit hypocritical not to), but this most recent feature just confirms my doubts. (But of course - VP may have been misportrayed, or may feel that her enactment of femininity is very empowering, or something else entirely. I just don't like the way she comes across.)

Another example: I've seen loads and loads of women who, shortly after coming out as gay, rather than doing the stereotypical head-shaving thing, actually become more conventionally feminine, as if to prove that being a lesbian hasn't turned them into a raging bulldyke. I did it myself.

Another example: Some article I read in the last couple of weeks (would have been either the Times or the Guardian) about employment, glass ceilings and women's management style. Apparently women are less likely to be promoted if they're single or childless, because they're seen as being not so good with people, and lacking empathy. (Rather than being women's own insecurities, this is an example of other people's suspicion of women who don't fulfil a certain set of roles.)

Another example: a woman I was a university with - extremely successful in her career, but one confided to me that she was always worried she came across as far too masculine. It actually made me laugh, because she was one of the most feminine (and least masculine) people I knew.

I'm not saying it's a universal pheonomenon - but I've seen it enough to consider it a reasonably prevalent trend. Either you haven't experienced it (in which case, lucky you), or you haven't noticed it - or you just see these things differently. I'll admit that all the cases I've cited could be interpreted in different ways, and I always welcome a change of perspective.

And no, it wouldn't be better to get rid of nice photos of beautiful people wearing not much. It would be indescribably worse. I don't need a return to puritan Victorian moral prudishness thank you. A society which is comfortable with nudity is one which is comfortable with its own humanity and sexuality. A mature society with high level of respect, tolerance and freedom. This is a healthy thing. The opposite can be found wherever Islamists hold power.
I'm afraid I'm with Mitre_Tester on this - and I don't think most of the nudity in our society is healthy. Far too many people are growing up thinking that the only way for a girl to be successful in life is for her to be goodlooking and semi-naked. I try to rise above it, but I ride past god knows how many billboard-sized bikini-clad women every day, and yes - it does sometimes make me feel paranoid about my body.

I'm not a prude... hmmm, just thought about it, and actually maybe by definition I am, but I'm certainly not a puritan. I wholeheartedly approve of nudity, sex and all the rest of it - but I do think it would be a lot more exciting if we saw slightly less of it in public. Only slightly less - I'm not advocating Victorian censorship or anything. But I reckon some people would get a lot more excited by their partners' bodies if they hadn't already seen about 200 pairs of breasts by the time they get home from work.

And I really do object to the way that almost everything these days seems to be sexualized (recently read something in which a man claimed not to change his daughter's nappy 'because I'm a bloke and that would be a bit wrong'), and would like it if it were kept in its place a bit more. But that's probably a whole different discussion...

Nice to meet you too, managed to get home mostly uninjured...........then i discovered my phone's also completely fooked!
Apart from that a great night, lovely to meet you, looks like you got home pretty quick!

Hah - I knew you had to be on here! Hope you get the chain sorted. I'm feeling rather smug that I managed to bodge my other wheel on, even though for some reason it didn't want to go into the drop-outs (brute force and ingenuity).

Nice bloke with a Rourke Frame, walking over Herne Hill just now (broken chain) as I was (also) walking home with buggered bearings. Hope you got home without too many blisters.

BUT i still think you should go and do some more reading. you might even find it interesting. Srsly.

Could you give us a couple of names or something, to start me off? I'm not sure if I agree with your points, but I've read and thought far too little about this side of things to be sure.

The biggest issue for me is the broader one of why it is that so many female athletes feel there is this need to validate themselves by stripping off for lads' magazines, when male athletes seem to be appreciated purely for their skills or athletic ability. It's the disparity that bothers me - not the fact that she's done it. Very few women are able to stand on their own merits, which is a shame.

Me too. I was flicking through a book about the 1948 Olympics the other day, and found a photo of a British high jumper, jumping over the washing line on which she'd hung out her child's nappies. It was a rather cute photo, but it reminds me of these VP ones, in that it seems to assure the world (men? people?) that no matter what this woman's athletic achievements - don't worry, she's still conventionally feminine (and therefore not a threat to our precious status quo). Which is a shame, because female athletes are in such a good position to extend our ideas of what is 'feminine'. And god, we're in need of that.

(Mind you, I remain unconvinced that we even need the principles of masculine and feminine. Biology aside, can someone tell me why they're so important?)

Oh, and the fact that there are now a few pictures of air-brushed half-naked men knocking around (Beckham et al) doesn't really fill me with hope. For a start, there are far fewer of them. (I keep meaning to count how many scantily-clad women I'm bombarded with every day (adverts, etc.), but suspect it would just depress me.) And it's the wrong sort of equality - surely it would be better to get rid of these things altogether, rather than just trying to increase the number of men who hate their bodies?

Rightly so. It's bollocks.

And strangely, when women come out with the 'sorry - it was PMT' argument, they're written off as unstable and irrational. Hmmm.

Edit: Or do you mean men are led by their bollocks, rather than their penes?

'Penises' or 'penes', actually.

Oh arse, what a time for a typo! I meant 'penes', of course.

(Oh, and the plural of penis is 'penies'. God knows why I know that.)

what a bunch of wank-lads. i wonder if she'd be good fun to hang out with or whether she'd be really competitive and dull?

Emilia, please try to remember that us boys carry the burden of owning peni. it renders us completely idiotic if we let it. it's a constant battle. i apologise on behalf of mine and those of my fellow forumengers. We might be civilised but we have not yet found a way to overcome this biological fact that belongs back in the wild from whence we came. it skews the way we see women a bit sometimes. sorry.

I don't really have the energy to wade into this whole sorry debate, but I would like to point out that I'm not blaming men. A lot of the time I blame women. Most of the time I just blame people. In this particular case I'm blaming Victoria Pendleton. Realistically I don't think anyone should be blamed.

(But I am very suspicious of the I-can't-help-it-it's-my-penis argument.)

I just... oh fuck it. Why does it even matter if someone's pretty? What has it to do with anything? And can't someone be 'feminine' AND have meaty thighs, a deep voice and facial hair? Or does feminine just mean 'hairless, high-pitched and skinny'? (No wonder most women have such screwed up body images.) And for that matter, why do women need to be feminine? What's so disastrous about being 'unfeminine'?

Fuck it. I've had this argument too many times.

Ohhh, I'm so disappointed. :(

Apparently the interview (which I haven't read) also involved her slagging off other female trackies for being 'masculine', and having 'deep voices' and 'facial hair'.

Sounds to me like someone's stoking a very fragile ego...

Haha good idea! Anyone under 80kg wears a sumo suit :)

Or has to carry weights (i.e. everyone else's cake). I kind of like it - puts paid to the delusion that all cyclists are skinny blokes in lycra. Ooh, or we could make it an alleycat, and then maybe I'd win a prize for once...

Where are all the other fatties on this forum?
It's time to unite, eat cake and sit on the skinnies!

...and there's our next themed ride!

embarrassment

Bloke riding through Brixton at 7.45ish this morning, on red and white frame, with familiar-looking spoke cards, and a *human hand *(hopefully presumably fake) sticking out of his bag.

And Fluff's young man (Bleddyn...?) riding east along Southwark Street at commute o'clock this evening. Possibly. I wasn't sure enough, or close enough, to yell.

He's signing books in Waterstones on London Wall, 12.30-1.30pm on Wednesday, if anyone's interested. (I'll drop in if I'm in the area, but knowing my luck it'll be another W1-W1-W1-W1-W1-W1-W1 day.)

Spotted: a courier on a unipack. Poor guy's going to have a such a miserable life. My bike breaks at least every other week, and it's a Condor. I give him about 15 minutes.