quote:Originally posted by Katarain: And yeah, guys who find full-figured women attractive are fetishists??
That's got to be the stupidest thing ever said.
Well, no, I'm sure there's stupider, but that really is dumb.
Well, not really. Guys who like women who are overweight or obese aren't necessarily fetishists.
However, guys who purposefully encourage bad eating habits in order to greatly increase the weight of their significant others because they get their jollies out of that kind of control and really find morbidly obese women sexually attractive are fetishists. They're specifically called "feeders."
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posted
Well yeah, THOSE people are fetishists. But my husband finds me wildly attractive, and he's not a fetishist.
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posted
Tom's statement excluded the type of attraction formed based on personal qualities, which is possibly what your husband finds attractive. I'm certainly not at all qualified to judge that, but I just wanted to make sure you saw that statement in Tom's post.
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Sheesh. Is that so hard to believe? I'm a little insulted that it must be my glowing personality that attracts my husband to me. What else COULD it be?
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quote:I'm certainly not at all qualified to judge that
I'm not sure how much more of a disclaimer I needed for you not to take offense. I suspect that it wouldn't have mattered.
It's not at all hard to believe. I just wanted to make sure you didn't think he was saying that it was impossible to find fat people attractive, unless you were a sexual deviant.
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posted
I'm not really angry, I'm just amused... I bet that it didn't mean to come out that way, but it certainly did.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: It seems like you/he ARE saying that it's impossible to find them physically attractive.
I should have you sit down with my wife sometime. She has self image issues. I try convincing her constantly that I find her very attractive.
I didn't start dating her because of her personality, which I didn't get to know untill a little later.
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quote:He excluded "the type of attraction formed based on personal qualities," which only leaves THAT and the fetishists.
That says it.
Right. And that's a quote from Tom. I believe that that is what Tom was saying, but just because I offered a clarification of his statement doesn't mean that that's what I think.
I just misread his original post, and wanted to make sure Katarain hadn't done the same.
I think it's funny that Katarain insists that her husband's attraction to her is purely physical, to the point that she's insulted that I might've thought otherwise, and every girlfriend I've ever had would have been infuriated if I said such a thing about my attraction to them.
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It's not purely physical, I was just making the point that it is also physical. My glowing personality helps, too. <-- Like that.
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quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang: [QUOTE] I think it's funny that Katarain insists that her husband's attraction to her is purely physical, to the point that she's insulted that I might've thought otherwise, and every girlfriend I've ever had would have been infuriated if I said such a thing about my attraction to them.
I can't speak for Katariain's situation obviously, but I think it depends on the stage of the relationship. Unless your friends first, odds are physical attraction is very important at the beginning. After a little while if physical attraction is the only thing, then I agree it could be considered insulting.
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posted
Well, it has nothing to do with my situation, actually. But that doesn't make it true for most "normal" couples out there.
I just want to make it clear that what I found insulting (even though, honestly, I never really got mad about it), was the suggestion that it must be my personality that attracts my husband, as it could never be physical attraction. That's pretty darn insulting and incorrect. It's actually a combination of both types of attraction, working together.
It makes me a tad uncomfortable to use my relationship as the example here, but I know I started it. Oh well... Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:I just want to make it clear that what I found insulting (even though, honestly, I never really got mad about it), was the suggestion that it must be my personality that attracts my husband, as it could never be physical attraction. That's pretty darn insulting and incorrect.
I didn't mean to suggest that, and I apologize if it seemed I did.
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posted
It's okay. I said above that I didn't think it was intentional, that's just the way that it came out.
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posted
Guys, I'm sure Tom just misused the word "Fetish". No need to jump down his throat over it.
Fetish: 1 ... c : an object or bodily part whose real or fantasied presence is psychologically necessary for sexual gratification and that is an object of fixation to the extent that it may interfere with complete sexual expression
Is an obession with thin any less of a fetish than an obsession with fat? Nope.
But I'm sure what Tom meant to say was "Except for a handfull of people who find overweight more attractive than thin."
posted
I said this on another forum, but I think it is relevant here as well:
This whole argument over some problems are worse than others and some people have it worse and some better is pretty useless. We can never really experience someone else's life, so we're better off just trying to understand other people in the best way that we can and trying to get through our own lives which, at times, can be pure hell and sometimes pure heaven.
I really do see no point in measuring pain and trying to quantify it and compare it to other pain. It serves no purpose other than meaningless rhetoric.
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posted
Mrs. M's post reminded me of something I experienced in school years ago, and as it directly relates to this topic I think it might help if I tell you guys about it.
For the record I am not particularly good looking. I had pictures on Madowl to prove this if anyone can find them, but I think most of you will take me at my word. I am only 5'7'', and in high school had very bad acne problems. I had cystic acne all over my chest and regular acne on my face. I wasn't horrible, as most of the bad stuff was out of sight, but not attractive for the most part. I was aware enough to realize how bad it really was though. By high School most of the bad stuff was just scars.
I was also weird. Not scary weird, or dangerous, but different. I played the flute. I liked classical music and hated most popular music. I read 5-6 books a week, just for fun. I was really, really good at all the classes I liked, and barely passed the ones I didn't. I scored incredibly high on every subject other than math, but barely average in math, and was completely unable to do Algebra.
I wasn't smart enough to be a brain, I wasn't odd enough to be a geek. I swam and played tennis, but neither of them were popular sports so I wasn't a jock.
I was just me, and most of the time I liked it that way.
I went to school with a lot of the same people from 1st grade all the way through 12h. I saw a lot of people become popular, and a lot lose popularity, and I never really wanted to be a part of all of that. Sure, there were times when it would have been great, but most of the time it seemed like I wouldn't have been happy even if I was part of it.
The one thing I did do well, oddly enough (other than talking a lot) was that I had a knack, so to speak, of being in the right place at the right time. Not for me though, but for other people. I can't tell you how many times I had really pretty, popular girls, most of whom I had known for years in school, crying on my shoulder. I wasn't friends with them, most of them were people I didn't like very much at all, but I was there when they lost it and my parents had taught me empathy for others, so I listened to them, and tried to make them feel better without lying.
The thing that struck me most about all of this (it happened 6 times just my sophomore year) was that these were the people that most of the school wanted to be, or at least be like. Even my brainy, geeky friends envied them, although they would deny it if asked. They were the elite, the most popular girls (and a few guys, without the crying )in school, and they had no one else to talk to.
Without exception, when they were in distress, they felt alone. Betrayed, at times. Helpless, and distraught.
Just like me.
Most of them got embarrassed, thanked me for listening, and left. A few of them became good friends of mine, respecting the fact that I was who I wanted to be, for the most part. A couple of them even tried to "make" me popular, like some bad teen movie.
But what I learned was one of the most important lessons I have ever learned, and just reinforced what my parents had taught me...that while we may not all be the same, we all feel, and we all hurt.
Just because someone is popular doesn't mean their life is perfect, nor does it mean that if you are not that your life has to suck.
I didn't even buy a yearbook my senior year because I didn't care much about it, and I thought I would be awkward going up to people and asking them to write in it at the end of the year. It just seemed like I would have been begging for compliments, and the though of it made me uncomfortable.
Imagine my surprise when all of the people I mentioned above approached me and asked if they could write something in my yearbook, without me asking. I had some of the most popular people in school asking to say something nice about me, odd as that was. Cheerleaders, the class president, the captain of the football squad......about 20 people I listened to over the years.
It turns out that even the people who never hung out with me afterwards still remembered that I had helped them, even if it was just by listening. Most of them also told me that the fact that I was willing to help, even when most of them weren't my friends, and even occasionally when they had been people who had not treated me very well before that, had changed them and their views. They had learned something, both about themselves and about others, and it had meant something to them as well.
I went to buy a yearbook, but they were sold out. I ordered one, and it never came. I would have liked to have one, after all. I was glad that they had learned something about me as well as sharing something about themselves.
Most of all I was glad that I didn't have to deal with popularity, and that these people liked me for who I was. If they hadn't that was fine too, but it felt good to know that they remembered how I had treated them, even when I didn't like them mostly.
Tom, the fact is that people are judged according to appearances more often than not. Weight is something that you could control, at least partially, but that you choose not to. Beauty can be just as hard to deal with in some ways, socially, and is harder to hide.
I know a lot of people who are just as hurt and offended when they are judged stupid because they are pretty.....and statistics show that women overall, pretty or not, still encounter the "glass ceiling" in the workplace. In many cases my friends have deliberately dressed severe and tried to hide their beauty at work for that very reason, with varied results.
We all feel, and we all hurt. It is what we do with our lives after the hurt starts to fade that matters.
I think Mrs. M's post wasn't a "woe am I" post at all, but was to show that the grass isn't always greener once you get there after all. It just looks like it from the other side.
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quote:Originally posted by Katarain: I really do see no point in measuring pain and trying to quantify it and compare it to other pain. It serves no purpose other than meaningless rhetoric.
quote:I really do see no point in measuring pain and trying to quantify it and compare it to other pain.
I disagree. Not only do I think we engage in it regularly without even realizing it, I think it's necessary. It's the whole principle of triage, for example.
The only reason that emotional pain isn't as obviously quantifiable is that it's harder to point to immediate consequences of emotional harm. If you're bleeding to death, it's easy to tell that you're more harmed than someone who's broken his arm. It's a bit harder to tell whether you've said something that's going to contribute to someone else's suicide thirty years from now.
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quote:I was just me, and most of the time I liked it that way.
I'm envious of this. I'm much more that way now than I was in high school.
So am I, to be honest. Notice that I said MOST of the time.
One of the things that one of those girls told me was that she envied me. I was astonished. She was beautiful, and she was real. She was popular because she was a good person, not one of the posers, and She envied ME?
She used the lunch room as a metaphor, saying I was all over the place. Sometimes I would be here, sometime I was over there, depending on who I wanted to sit with. She said almost everyone else had a set place, and they ate there for years, with the same group of people, for their entire high school experience.
I thought that was funny because I had felt like I didn't truly belong anywhere, and that while I had friends from all over I didn't have any group (other than band) where I really fit in.
What I had felt was a shortcoming she had seen as a strength.
quote:I really do see no point in measuring pain and trying to quantify it and compare it to other pain.
I disagree. Not only do I think we engage in it regularly without even realizing it, I think it's necessary. It's the whole principle of triage, for example.
The only reason that emotional pain isn't as obviously quantifiable is that it's harder to point to immediate consequences of emotional harm. If you're bleeding to death, it's easy to tell that you're more harmed than someone who's broken his arm. It's a bit harder to tell whether you've said something that's going to contribute to someone else's suicide thirty years from now.
Not true at all, Tom. Triage isn't about pain, mostly, it is about who is likely to survive.
Quite a bit of difference, so the analogy doesn't fit at all. Often the person in the most amount of pain isn't the person who needs prompt care the most, medically speaking.
The points you make about emotional pain are the reasons comparing that type of pain is frustrating and mostly pointless, as that type of pain is non-quantifiable.
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quote:The points you make about emotional pain are the reasons comparing that type of pain is frustrating and mostly pointless, as that type of pain is non-quantifiable.
That is currently is doesn't mean we have to treat it as if it should always be. I can say with authority that calling someone "silly" is less painful than calling someone "foolish," assuming all else is held equal; similarly, having to pay $100,000 of taxes on $1,000,000 is less of a problem than having to pay $1,000 in taxes on a $10,000 income. In the same way, being fat is much, much worse from a social perspective than being thin.
Whether that measurement is even useful is outside the scope of this thread, although it's probably within the scope of the other one.
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posted
I've been wondering for the last few days if the definitions of 'fat' and 'thin' aren't holding people up somewhat.
I'm assuming that when Tom says 'fat', he means obese, or 50-100 lbs overweight. Because there are levels of fat, ranging from 'beer gut' to 'installing an extra large front door', each with its own burdens.
A person can only be so thin before dying, so it's a little easier to quantify.
quote: I can say with authority that calling someone "silly" is less painful than calling someone "foolish," assuming all else is held equal; similarly, having to pay $100,000 of taxes on $1,000,000 is less of a problem than having to pay $1,000 in taxes on a $10,000 income.
I don't have any problem disagreeing with both of these examples. Someone who takes themself very seriously and is supremely self-assured would likely rage at being thought 'silly' while dismissing someone who thought them 'foolish'. I know you think having a million bucks makes up for practically every other problem save the death of a loved one, but I stand by my earlier assertion that rich people have problems, just like poor people, and to judge their relative seriousness from the outside is just plain obnoxious.
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posted
Maybe what Tom is saying is that all else being equal having money is better than lacking it and being attractive is better than being ugly.
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quote:I stand by my earlier assertion that rich people have problems, just like poor people, and to judge their relative seriousness from the outside is just plain obnoxious.
I should point out that being obnoxious is not the same thing as being wrong. The rich do have fewer -- and less serious -- problems unique to their condition, and are better-equipped than the poor to deal with the serious problems they share (like health issues). This is why the acquisition of wealth is often considered a goal; having more money facilitates more enjoyable things than having less money does.
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quote:The rich do have fewer -- and less serious -- problems unique to their condition, and are better-equipped than the poor to deal with the serious problems they share (like health issues).
I disagree with this, and think the goal of accumulating wealth is based on the fantasy that money cures all problems, which I don't believe it does.
Is snowskiing more enjoyable than reading? It's certainly more expensive, so by your logic it would have to be, right? Not in my experience.
People like different things, and if people had a better understanding of what it took to actually make them happy I think the dead sprint to get rich would slow to a crawl, the only remaining racers being desperately shallow people.
Some of the happiest memories I have were doing free or dirt cheap activities. The most expensive date I ever went on was not the best. My most expensive car was not the best. My highest paying job was not the best.
I think that you upholding the stereotype that money makes life easier is both obnoxious and wrong (though I thank you for pointing out that you can be one without the other, I admit I laughed when I read that).
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quote:It's certainly more expensive, so by your logic it would have to be, right?
No. I'm not saying that more expensive things are inherently better. I'm saying that having more money makes more things available to you, including expensive things or a greater quantity of inexpensive things.
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quote:Originally posted by blacwolve: But what exactly so you hope to accomplish by belittling other people's problems?
I'm not sure he's "belittling other people's problems" -- Mrs. M started this thread specifically to juxtapose the pain of being beautiful and successful against the pain of being fat. She invited the comparison, and Tom disagrees that being found attractive is anywhere near as horrible as being found repulsive.
For that matter, so do I. Beauty's curse is to have people constantly pay attention to you -- often negative, yeah, but imagine the alternative. If you were ugly, you'd have to pursue men for any sort of romance. You'd often (usually, even) be unsuccessful, and what few times men did settle for you, you'd have to know you're giving up your first kiss, your virginity, your love to men who have at best uncomfortable hesitance at your advances, and at worst utter contempt for your desperation.
Yeah, it's rough to be beautiful. I'd say it's rough being alive in this world. But the alternative to beauty is far more painful.
I know fat women who would give away their virginities in a heartbeat for a moment of attention, but nobody will touch them. They latch on desperately to every smile anyone grants them, and fantasize heartbreakingly about what a good mother they'd be to his kids. Compare them with Mrs. M, who could probably pick whomever she wishes to bestow her attentions upon, and can toss men aside as easily as she can pick up a new one.
It's not the same, could never be the same. It sounds like Mrs. M's had a hard life, and I respect her for succeeding despite it -- but her beauty's hardly a hindrance, and I suspect she would have found her life far worse if she hadn't been born slender and chesty. Perhaps being ugly would have saved her from some few problems, but thousands more would have cropped up in their place.
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posted
Having no money is much harder than having money.
Period.
Everyone has issues regardless of their financial status, but not having to worry about whether or not you can make rent is, frankly, better than having to worry about it.
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posted
There is always going to be someone who has it worse. Someone else's problems are always going to be worse than your own. But we're human, and our problems still hurt us, even if we know they could be worse.
I have great parents, I love them, and they love me. However, my mother has developed a habit of coming to me to complain about the many problems she has with my dad. It makes me very uncomfortable and I hate it.
Of course, things could be a lot worse, she could be abusive, I could not have a mother. Does that mean that I don't have a right to get upset when my mother starts in on what an awful person my dad is? Of course not. Among other things, I'm not capable of that much rationality, no one is.
Everyone who can post in this thread has access to internet, and is probably better off than someone dying of untreated AIDS in Africa. Does that mean that none of us have a right to feel bad?
I realize that almost everyone on this thread is speaking in the context of the fat thread, and I'm not. It was already 8 pages by the first time I noticed and I have neither the time, the inclination, nor the will to read it. But I've seen the attitude of "I've had it worse than you, so you shouldn't complain" time and time again both here and in the real world. And it's impossible, we're human, we're not capable of rationally assessing the good and bad in our lives and deciding that the good outways the bad and so we'll never be sad. If we were, I expect everyone on this forum would be happy all the time.
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quote:Originally posted by blacwolve: I realize that almost everyone on this thread is speaking in the context of the fat thread, and I'm not. It was already 8 pages by the first time I noticed and I have neither the time, the inclination, nor the will to read it. But I've seen the attitude of "I've had it worse than you, so you shouldn't complain" time and time again both here and in the real world. And it's impossible, we're human, we're not capable of rationally assessing the good and bad in our lives and deciding that the good outways the bad and so we'll never be sad. If we were, I expect everyone on this forum would be happy all the time.
I realize you're not speaking in context of the fat thread, but I think you missed that Mrs. M is.
quote:The fat discrimination and rights thread brought up some issues for me and I thought they would be more appropriate for a separate thread.
All my life, I’ve been the object of scorn, ridicule, or envy because of the way I look or the things I have.
This isn't a matter of complaining how difficult it is to be beautiful, but how fat people don't realize that beautiful people suffer, too. And the comparison is asinine.
Yes, you'll receive unwanted attention if you're beautiful. If you're ugly, not only will you have relatively little (if any) attention, but if you ever do have a man, it's not unlikely he'll treat you with contempt and constantly try to "trade up," particularly if there's no binding commitment.
In fact, I might say complaining of beauty at all is a fairly vapid concern. If Mrs. M tires of the trials of beauty, I'm sure there's a Dunkin' Donuts not far from her -- if she wishes to be rid of attention, it's not difficult for her to do so.
I'm not unsympathetic to her plight. I have a beautiful friend who's simply incapable of making friends -- not because she's not hilarious or charming, but because every male friend she makes invariably winds up falling in love with her, and every woman she meets is catty and hostile to her, since men usually ignore her companions for her. I can see how it can be a curse.
But comparing the trials of the beautiful to the neglect of the plain or the abuse of the ugly isn't particularly worthwhile. Mrs. M says she has the best of the possible worlds, and complains about it. I'm unsurprised at a lack of sorrow on her behalf.
For a better analogy, consider a rich person in the United States complaining to a Ugandan refugee about how difficult life is with all this damn money. How many tears do you expect the refugee to weep for the American?
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posted
I don't think anyone is saying that Mrs. M's problems are not legit, it's just that the title of the thread itself begs for comparison. The statement "The Grass Isn't Greener" (... on the other side) suggests that Mrs. M's problems as a beautiful, slender and wealthy women is less green/not greener/somewhat yellower than the problems on the other side of the spectrum-- those faced by the obese, the ugly and the poor.
Some people here are arguing that while the grass on Mrs. M's side is possibly more yellow as opposed to the popularly assumed green, the grass on the other side (obese ect...) may in fact be even more yellow, more withered, or even less green than Mrs. M's side. Or, uh, somewhat less watered.
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posted
How can one say that their grass isn't greener if they've never been on the other side of the fence?
More people strive to be richer than poorer. There are more breast implants than reductions.
Coincidence? Come on.
Your grass is greener, Mrs. M. There may be greener grass yet, but it's not on the lawns of the unattractive and poor.
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quote:Your grass is greener, Mrs. M. There may be greener grass yet, but it's not on the lawns of the unattractive and poor.
So being fat is worse than being abused? How do you know?
If her cousin's friend had been successful in his attempt to rape her, would she have some browner grass then?
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quote:Your grass is greener, Mrs. M. There may be greener grass yet, but it's not on the lawns of the unattractive and poor.
So being fat is worse than being abused? How do you know?
If her cousin's friend had been successful in his attempt to rape her, would she have some browner grass then?
You're confusing being attractive with being assaulted. Perhaps Mrs. M believes one can't be assaulted without being attractive (which isn't true, particularly of children), but I doubt you can argue one can't be attractive without being assaulted.
Rape is a bad thing. Beauty is not.
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quote:You're confusing being attractive with being assaulted.
No I'm not. You read a story in which a person was abused by her father and someone else tried to rape her. You said she wasn't as unfortunate as overweight people - not overweight people who had also faced attempted rape, but overweight people in general.
You're confusing one particular type of good fortune with not suffering at all.
I've repeatedly seen "It would have been worse if you'd been fat." If everything else was the same except that she was overweight and her cousin's friend hadn't tried to rape her, are you qualified to state she would have been better off? How about if we take off the abuse, too? Could she complain then?
quote:Perhaps Mrs. M believes one can't be assaulted without being attractive (which isn't true, particularly of children), but I doubt you can argue one can't be attractive without being assaulted.
Rape is a bad thing. Beauty is not.
Mrs.M stated that IN HER CASE, this was the justification used by the perpetrator of the rape attempt. Again, were he successful, would it be OK for her to regret having been thin and pretty? Maybe you should write out the rules so we know when we have your permission to think our suffering is worth sharing.
If I seem a little touchy, it's because I know at least one person who purposefully got fat after she was raped because she was convinced that being attractive made it her fault.
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