The Politics of Ogling

Hold my calls.
Ah, but mild titillation must be shared out fairly and directed towards all body types, even the ones that are hairy and lumpy in all the wrong places. And if popular taste leans towards younger, fitter people, then, clearly, something must be done.
It does rather capture the insincere nature of Laurie’s politics.

This page about attractive people has too many attractive people on it.

Can I suggest a possible Instagram project entitled “Dudes With Hotdogs”, which might well eventually make up for the shortfall in pictures of lardarses bemoaned by Laurie?

hairy and lumpy in all the wrong places.
You’ve been speaking to my wife then…

I find Hot Dudes with Dogs to be highly problematic, and here’s why that’s a problem:
“Man’s best friend?” Uh, hello? 1950 called and wants its patriarchal cissexism back. Also, nobody asked the dogs if they want to be “man’s” best friend. This is what human colonialism looks like, people! And that’s not OK.
Anyway, cats are our true best friends. Dogs are just loveable idiots who go with the flow.
Cats, on the other hand, are constantly judging you and finding you wanting.
For example: you may be allowed to tickle kitty’s belly five times, no more and no less. Should you foolishly attempt to pet her a sixth time, she will be forced to remind you that kitty has claws. Razor sharp, groin-seeking, adamantium claws.
The number of belly scratches kitty will permit may change without warning. But what is life without risk?
And in the end, isn’t that what you really want in a pet? Why live with a boring, predictable, eager-to-please mutt when you can have fifty shades of grey tabby?

I do love how Laurie and her peers can take an otherwise unremarkable fact of life – that some of us will turn heads less often than others – and make this into some political issue and source of ostentatious tutting. As if one could legislate for people who aren’t sufficiently attractive.
Oh wait. Silly me.

3 Grauniad columists were among those harrasing Nigel Farage’s (PBUH) Family.
I wonder will they be sacked?

@Steve,
Normally, I agree with your comments, though I’ve still not forgiven you for the Krankies key party reference some months ago which still gives me nightmares.
Nonetheless, I must rise to defend the honor of dogs. My malamutes are my hench-beasts and are completely loyal. Having a cat is like inviting Vidkun Quisling into your home. Take the wife out for a nice dinner and the next thing you know, the cat has sold off your Amex card number to someone in Vladivostok.
No, thank you.

@ Steve
And try getting a cat to deliver Diphtheria vaccine to Nome in the dead of winter. You don’t want to have sick children on your soul, do you? Tolerating cats means you don’t care about sick kids. < / Progressive Argumentation >

3 Grauniad columists were among those harrasing Nigel Farage’s (PBUH) Family.
According to the link, Mr Glass is a Guardian Youth Climate Leader
That is every bit as frightening as it sounds.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/dec/10/youth-climate-leaders

OK, OT yet kinda on…And since none of my meat-space acquaintances appreciate such things, I thought I’d share what I learned today about the movie “Fight Club”:

The hero of Fight Club is a young white collar professional who is stuck doing debilitating office work for a major auto company not to be named. Being an insomniac, he literally sleepwalks through his life while serving as a drone for the consumerist ideology propagating a boring but comfortable lifestyle for moderately privileged white middle class men. He dwells in a state that Lacan called alienation, an existence without agency and freedom, subordinated to the social symbolic order. Throughout the film, after a series of breaks with his former lifestyle, the hero’s subjectivity is forged in the homosocial environment of fight clubs and terrorist cells. What makes this tale of a young guy’s becoming a man interesting is its anti-identitarian framing. Not only does the film’s character development not follow the classical ideology of Hollywood masculinity which Kaja Silverman identifies as the disavowal of male castration, its downright celebration of self-humiliation and disintegration resembles Leo Bersani’s masochistic queer politics. The enigma of the film’s ending, however, is that despite of its rejection of phallic masculinity, the assumed queerness of the main character nonetheless is presented not only in heteronormative but also homophobic terms. The conclusion, on the one hand, echoes Michael Kimmel’s thesis about modern masculinity being constructed through homophobia, but also seems to refute the central element in his theory, namely that this homophobia is nothing but a “flight from the feminine”. My paper explores the development of a non-phallic yet homophobic gender performance through the figure of Fight Club’s Tyler Durden, and shows how it can be seen as a new form of hegemonic masculinity.

http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/gender-and-sexuality/femininity-and-masculinity/project-archives/1s/session-1-from-bromance-to-homophobia-male-relationships-in-film-and-tv/
Personally, I think Leo Bersani blows chunks. To question Michael Kimmel, however…

According to the link, Mr Glass is a Guardian Youth Climate Leader
Regarding the Farage saga, this made me laugh:

Nothing will make people considering voting for UKIP change their mind less than a coachload of inner city dwelling, unemployed drama graduates and soap dodgers intimidating him and scaring his kids while he is out for a Sunday lunch. These arsehats have probably done more to increase the UKIP vote than a front page picture of a Romanian eating a swan while shitting on a Princess Di commemorative tea towel.

It’s certainly a vivid mental image.

Michael Kimmel’s thesis about modern masculinity being constructed through homophobia,
So, if a guy says “I know I’m a dude because I see chicks as Teh Exotic Other,” that’s problematic.
OK, I know that gay dudes don’t use that formulation, but how about we not problematize the fact that heteros do?

“Cat’s rule and dog’s drool”…nuff said. Way to hang in there Steve in an increasingly passionate debate…but…ummm you do realize that SDA has some rather obvious pro-dog tendencies? Maybe best to let ’em win the chew toy tug’o war and find a high perch to survey all that falls under the subtle subliminal control of the feline world. 🙂

These arsehats have probably done more to increase the UKIP vote than a front page picture of a Romanian eating a swan while shitting on a Princess Di commemorative tea towel.
Shouldn’t everybody shit on Di commemorative tea towels?
(Sorry, but I found the whole Didolatry that erupted after her death retch-inducing.)

Ex-squeek me?
What’s this anti-Di stuff?