Panic Sweeps Nation
Lifted from the comments, an intriguing choice of adjective:
This discovery of general preference, some 71%, is not only deemed “alarming,” but also “startling,” and what’s more, it apparently constitutes a “masculinity crisis within the LGBTQ community.” Says a website quoting a magazine, the front cover of which looks like this.
As Ted S notes in reply, “How dare you gays not like the type of man we think you should like!”
I realise it may be difficult to feel great concern for the kinds of people who base their worldviews on the high and noble teachings of the publications Attitude and Queerty, but still. The unstated contortion required to achieve the indignation that is now social currency – in this instance, a belief that not being aroused by overly effeminate men is obvious and damning proof of “misogynist attitudes” and “toxic masculinity” – is a thing to behold. We’re also informed – quite confidently, yet with no elaboration – that, “[Gay men] enjoy the privilege of being male in a patriarchal society that for some reason values our genitals way above a woman’s.”
Update, via the comments:
The left does seem to spend an awful lot of time telling the rest of us who and what we should find attractive. As, for instance, when student activist and avowed “feminist killjoy” Josefin Hedlund vowed to correct our erotic preferences by steering us away from the “violent norms” of conventional attractiveness and agreeable personalities. Apparently, we should “resist” the “hetero- and cis-normative, patriarchal, capitalist, and hierarchical structures in society” by ogling porn featuring people we don’t fancy. And as when Laurie Penny complained that mild titillation should be shared out fairly, and be inspired by all body types, even ones that are hairy and lumpy in all the wrong places. Because a light-hearted Instagram page about attractive men and their pets has too many attractive men on it. And of course we mustn’t forget the immense, frustrated love machine, Mr Caleb Luna, who believes that men will be drawn magnetically to his unorthodox physique once they’ve been schooled in the politics of intersectional victimhood.
“Universities and colleges can mitigate the negative effects of the physical learning environment. Do they have the courage to listen?”
Brown has a comical misunderstanding of courage, a misunderstanding shared by most “progressives”.
“you “must” change everything to make a few perpetual malcontents happy”
And what “must” be changed will itself change from day to day, so that there is always an excuse to harass and bully everybody.
Brown has a comical misunderstanding of courage,
Courage seems a bizarre word to use. I suppose at a stretch you might apply it to someone who, rather than wallowing in inertia and self-pity, actually does something practical about the weight problem they complain about, which for some people is harder than others. But to frame a co-dependent relationship – which is basically what’s being demanded – as courageous is perverse.
It’s like a religion for idiots.
I’m suddenly reminded of a certain hadith, wherein a follower of Muhammad recollects an infidel he’d met by chance incredulously referring to the Most Perfect Man Ever as, “that fat dwarf”.
Brown concludes by calling upon colleges to make a change.
One of the most appalling things is that this alleged academic actually thinks that listening to, and writing up, the gripes of a non-random selection of 13 women who obviously exceed the 95th percentile for which furniture is designed, constitutes “research”, even if it is published in the esteemed journal, Fat Studies, and that anyone should pay the slightest attention to the farrago that passes for “conclusions”.
I think we need some palate cleansers.
It is Iron Bowl time again, the Tammys and Phyllises are just getting warmed up.
Honey, does this desk make me look fat?
The ghastly parade of the aghast.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/12/aghast-donald-trump-thomas-frank
The ghastly parade of the aghast.
AKA, “How I Recycled Every Tedious Leftist Talking Point Into Yet Another Column, and Yes, I Get Paid By Word.”
Courage seems a bizarre word to use.
“Courage” is being used as a rhetorical bludgeon: It implies that if you do not do what they demand then you are a coward–or worse.
“if you do not do what they demand then you are a coward–or worse”
Because honest and principled disagreement is impossible; leftist theory tells its adherents that there is always a nefarious motive.
The fact that many fat students feel “fat stigma” on their campus may explain why they tend to get worse grades, Brown suggests, arguing that it “is not body weight but rather weight stigma that is a key barrier in learning.”
Or what if — just hear me out here — what if there were no cause-and-effect linkage between body weight issues and grade point averages? What if, instead — please, bear with me — there were a third component that might be the cause of each? Let us posit that there exists some character trait that allows some students to ignore the distractions around them and focus on studying, and that this same trait allows these students to ignore the pint of ice cream they know is in the freezer. Is there a means of measuring this trait? Is there a measurable correlation between this trait and the two issues above? What might be the effects of differing levels of said personality trait? What might be the outcomes for individual students if the strength of this trait could be raised or lowered by some kind of training?
Surely a PhD heading up the Women and Girls Research Alliance has the intellectual curiosity to consider such a possibility, and the research skills to get to the bottom of it.
It has been one year since the US slipped through a hole in the space-time continuum and chose as its leader the most unpopular presidential candidate of all time.
I’m pretty sure you mean the second-most unpopular, Thomas. I’m sure the rest of your column is as well-reasoned and factual as the opening sentence.
Surely a PhD heading up the Women and Girls Research Alliance has the intellectual curiosity to consider such a possibility, and the research skills to get to the bottom of it.
Oh, Squid, you jolly joker.
Well, what do you know? Turns out the university has already made the appropriate investments for dealing with the “undersized desk” situation. Who would have guessed?
Let us posit that there exists some character trait that allows some students to ignore the distractions around them and focus on studying, and that this same trait allows these students to ignore the pint of ice cream they know is in the freezer.
In today’s small appliance news, the rice cooker just sang its little “I’m-done” song so now we can eat!
I always thought instead of playing a song it should yell “Come and get it!” or “Dinner is served!” or “Itadakimasu!” (Japanese for “Let’s eat!”)
@Farnsworth
She’s a hands-on expert in the subject of Fat Studies…
https://womengirlsalliance.uncc.edu/directory/dr-heather-brown
I think the least-popular president in modern times was Hoover.
Surely a PhD heading up the Women and Girls Research Alliance has the intellectual curiosity to consider such a possibility,
And likewise, I wonder if it ever occurs to Dr Brown that these “stigmatised populations” – i.e., a dozen overweight students who expect to be provided with oversized furniture – may in part be stigmatised, insofar as they are, because they expect the world around them to change in order to accommodate their own self-inflicted problems, for which they refuse to take responsibility. And always and forever at some other bugger’s expense. I mean, it’s an attitude that’s hard to like, and one that may repel people who otherwise wouldn’t care about a person’s trouser size.
I think we need some palate cleansers.
Classic science fiction, perhaps?
http://www.unz.org/Pub/ThrillingWonder-1952feb-00010
As you may be aware Mr Thompson, we Down Under had a referendum on weather Same Sex Marriage should be allowed. Early results say the ‘Yes’ vote got up. If this is where we are at as a society where the important issue of unions of those of the same sex rather than say, the economy and being able to defend your borders then let me off this earth. It was a fun ride.
This seems somewhat relevant to today’s topic; get ready for a big fat scolding!
https://everydayfeminism.com/2016/08/sitcoms-tropes-fat-people/
I question that 97% figure because I know too many people who have kept off lost weight; I even know one who went to the other extreme and is now anorexic. Maybe they meant 97% of FEMINISTS revert to their previous weight, rather than 97% of PEOPLE IN GENERAL?
R. Sherman,
Counterpoint: Tammy from Clanton, Alabama.
Oh dear… from the comments:
Barnies? Heh, that’s a new one. Should I assume that’s a mildly derogatory description of country folk?
Speaking of thick, and possibly exaggerated, regional American accents, I bring you the Manitowoc Minute.
Oh hell, that link is all… uh, buggered. I have no idea why it starts near the end of the clip. I’ve never seen that before. Damn it all.
Maybe this one works.
No matter, it’s all pretty funny. I surprised I’ve never seen this guy before.
I have no idea why it starts near the end of the clip. I’ve never seen that before.
If you save the URL by right-clicking on the video, rather than by copying the URL in the browser window, you might accidentally select “copy video URL at current time” instead of “copy video URL”.
Maybe they meant 97% of FEMINISTS revert to their previous weight, rather than 97% of PEOPLE IN GENERAL?
I see you expected something resembling honesty from Mr. Luna, a minor tidbit from the UCLA link that he left out:
Oh. Exercise, a radical notion to be sure.
pst314,
If you save the URL by right-clicking on the video…
I don’t believe that’s what I did, but the URL contains “watch?time_continue=128” so I must have done so without realizing it.