There was a recent example where people got really offended by the idea of female beer servers. And the people behind the ad got punished by sponsors pulling out.
Are men not supposed to find that sexy? Are they supposed to find it sexy, but pretend they don't? Does everyone know it's sexy, but it's just taboo to appeal to this preference in advertisements?
Seems like they are either being asked to change or hide their sexual preferences. And just not talking about it is no solution.
So, should men in general change their sexual preferences? Well, I'm happy to go with "yes" on that one. And women should too, in my view. But that's an advanced topic and I wouldn't expect most people to agree with me without discussing a bunch of philosophy and stuff. (See more details below.)
I think most anti-sexists would not agree with my perspective on this topic. I think most of them have inconsistent ideas. When you're doing advocacy but have inconsistent ideas, it's not going to work out so great.
What kind of inconsistency? Liking regular attitudes to sex in some contexts, but then not liking some of their consequences in some other contexts. And not recognizing that these are linked.
It's not at all easy to divorce sexual preferences from sexism. One of the many consequences of ending sexism is that everyone would be bisexual (or asexual). If you're not bisexual (or asexual) then you're sexist! Maybe you won't agree with that but there are plenty of smaller issues that are pretty easy to agree on. If you look at the large majority of common sexual fantasies, they involve some amount of gender stereotypes like a strong man or a pretty woman. The beer related ad basically communicated "hey guys, we'll have pretty women near you", it was appealing to a very mainstream preference.
Tons and tons of women have rape fantasies. And tons and tons of men have nasty fantasies too. In that context I'm not going to get very mad at men for beer server preferences, it doesn't seem all that important to me.
Do anti-sexists want everyone to give all that stuff up? Drop all gender stereotypical sexual fantasies? Drop most (all?) sexual fetishes? Maybe become bisexual or asexual?
I don't think so. They want to keep some of that stuff but a limited amount.
But rationally you can't just stop half way, arbitrarily, and avoid the full consequences of your ideas. What's the argument for partially rejecting sexism? Some kind of practical argument? Well, that's not so bad but when you look at it that way you'll see it in a new way: the sexists and anti-sexists are both partial sexists, who draw their line in the sand a little different (not even very far apart, from my perspective). Then they fight over where the line should be (they both agree on tons of stuff that is and isn't OK, but then there's a small category where they squabble). And there's no principled arguments to determine this because it's just an arbitrary part-way line determined by practicality, cultural norms, fads, etc... Both sides look a bit dumb to me: mostly agreeing and then arguing over small details with no principles to determine who is right. If you're going to take some "practical", unprincipled approach, at least try to be really tolerant of people who do something similar but not quite the same, since exactly how far you go is arbitrary you really shouldn't start a witch hunt over it.
Most people, including most anti-sexists have no clue how to replace all their sexual preferences with new ones created according to modern rationalistic, progressive standards. More generally, little understanding of how to change their personality (let alone change it safely and rationally). And honestly most people shouldn't try it. They will make mistakes and mostly do worse than the (partially sexist) traditions they're currently adhering to.
Yet the anti-sexists demand the "sexists" change their personalities and sexual preferences, without providing the philosophical knowledge of how to do such a thing, which neither side has.
I also don't think it's fair to blame men in general. All this stuff is part of gender roles and lifestyle traditions that both men and women participate in. Just as one example, many women want the man to take lots of initiative and kiss her without asking. But they don't want to be kissed by men they don't fancy. And they don't want to send clear signals. The woman's passive role and the man's active role go together, and combined with the lack of clear communication on both sides, you get false positives where women get kissed who don't want to be. Men get blamed for this by the anti-sexist crowd, and sometimes fired, but it looks to me like it's a consequence of both the male and female behavior. There's no straightforward way for men to unilaterally fix it: if they act less like "alpha males" and do more "beta" behavior (like asking permission to kiss a woman or passively waiting for a lot more evidence to go by), they will have a worse shot with most women.
Comments
Maybe not exactly what you asked, but:
There was a recent example where people got really offended by the idea of female beer servers. And the people behind the ad got punished by sponsors pulling out.
Are men not supposed to find that sexy? Are they supposed to find it sexy, but pretend they don't? Does everyone know it's sexy, but it's just taboo to appeal to this preference in advertisements?
Seems like they are either being asked to change or hide their sexual preferences. And just not talking about it is no solution.
So, should men in general change their sexual preferences? Well, I'm happy to go with "yes" on that one. And women should too, in my view. But that's an advanced topic and I wouldn't expect most people to agree with me without discussing a bunch of philosophy and stuff. (See more details below.)
I think most anti-sexists would not agree with my perspective on this topic. I think most of them have inconsistent ideas. When you're doing advocacy but have inconsistent ideas, it's not going to work out so great.
What kind of inconsistency? Liking regular attitudes to sex in some contexts, but then not liking some of their consequences in some other contexts. And not recognizing that these are linked.
It's not at all easy to divorce sexual preferences from sexism. One of the many consequences of ending sexism is that everyone would be bisexual (or asexual). If you're not bisexual (or asexual) then you're sexist! Maybe you won't agree with that but there are plenty of smaller issues that are pretty easy to agree on. If you look at the large majority of common sexual fantasies, they involve some amount of gender stereotypes like a strong man or a pretty woman. The beer related ad basically communicated "hey guys, we'll have pretty women near you", it was appealing to a very mainstream preference.
Tons and tons of women have rape fantasies. And tons and tons of men have nasty fantasies too. In that context I'm not going to get very mad at men for beer server preferences, it doesn't seem all that important to me.
Do anti-sexists want everyone to give all that stuff up? Drop all gender stereotypical sexual fantasies? Drop most (all?) sexual fetishes? Maybe become bisexual or asexual?
I don't think so. They want to keep some of that stuff but a limited amount.
But rationally you can't just stop half way, arbitrarily, and avoid the full consequences of your ideas. What's the argument for partially rejecting sexism? Some kind of practical argument? Well, that's not so bad but when you look at it that way you'll see it in a new way: the sexists and anti-sexists are both partial sexists, who draw their line in the sand a little different (not even very far apart, from my perspective). Then they fight over where the line should be (they both agree on tons of stuff that is and isn't OK, but then there's a small category where they squabble). And there's no principled arguments to determine this because it's just an arbitrary part-way line determined by practicality, cultural norms, fads, etc... Both sides look a bit dumb to me: mostly agreeing and then arguing over small details with no principles to determine who is right. If you're going to take some "practical", unprincipled approach, at least try to be really tolerant of people who do something similar but not quite the same, since exactly how far you go is arbitrary you really shouldn't start a witch hunt over it.
Most people, including most anti-sexists have no clue how to replace all their sexual preferences with new ones created according to modern rationalistic, progressive standards. More generally, little understanding of how to change their personality (let alone change it safely and rationally). And honestly most people shouldn't try it. They will make mistakes and mostly do worse than the (partially sexist) traditions they're currently adhering to.
Yet the anti-sexists demand the "sexists" change their personalities and sexual preferences, without providing the philosophical knowledge of how to do such a thing, which neither side has.
I also don't think it's fair to blame men in general. All this stuff is part of gender roles and lifestyle traditions that both men and women participate in. Just as one example, many women want the man to take lots of initiative and kiss her without asking. But they don't want to be kissed by men they don't fancy. And they don't want to send clear signals. The woman's passive role and the man's active role go together, and combined with the lack of clear communication on both sides, you get false positives where women get kissed who don't want to be. Men get blamed for this by the anti-sexist crowd, and sometimes fired, but it looks to me like it's a consequence of both the male and female behavior. There's no straightforward way for men to unilaterally fix it: if they act less like "alpha males" and do more "beta" behavior (like asking permission to kiss a woman or passively waiting for a lot more evidence to go by), they will have a worse shot with most women.