Is the PHWOAARR thread we have a bit rum?

[Polymorphia]

Is it? Is it not? Is a big thread largely consisting of 30+ men posting 20-year-old sexy women acceptable, or is it sexist, etc? This isn't intended as an attack - I'm frankly just interested in a conversation on this topic. I've seen the odd comment in that thread debating it, but it's usually swamped with sexy pictures of women (and men).

Just bored and getting The Fear, would be good to interrupt it with a little old friendly debate.

My personal opinion is.................. ehhh can't say

[bgmnts]

There's women in it so all fine.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

It's not just 20 something women that get posted. Diana Rigg got posted recently, and she's a corpse.

[BlodwynPig]

There's women in it so all fine.

Mostly half nude. It's lazy and wrong. The days of FHM are long gone, People's Friend is back on the printing presses.

[bgmnts]

Mostly half nude. It's lazy and wrong. The days of FHM are long gone, People's Friend is back on the printing presses.

I mean, in terms of men leering over tits and arse, its relatively inoffensive. At least in my opinion.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

There's women posting in the thread too. I mean, actual CaB members who are women. Well, they claim to be, anyway.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

A thread for archery, for males and females alike. Providing a service. Some of the comments ( invariably about ladies, made by men) can be a bit much on occasion.

I'm not minded to correct the above, as rendered by my lovely tablet.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

What is archery in this context? Wanking?

[pigamus]

I mean, in terms of men leering over tits and arse, its relatively inoffensive. At least in my opinion.

+1

[TrenterPercenter]

Ah a debate is it........

Well does the fact that women post in a thread make something not sexist and is sexism fine as long as it is consented to by a woman (or collection of women)?

Do the women in the pictures posted mind their pictures being looked at and is it sexist to assume otherwise?

Is looking at pictures of women sexist in itself or are there other elements of sexist behaviour that need to exist with the material in which it then becomes sexist?


There you go some debate fodder for the fire whilst we await the inevitable bun fight.

[Cuellar]

Yeah it probably is.

I've posted in it, I've commented in it.

Nevertheless, I think it's rum.

[DrGreggles]

I like the birds with big tits best

[the hum]

Doesn't hold a candle to the "What do you actually look like?" threads.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Most people are sexually attracted to other people's visual appearance, yet also capable of, without any detraction, considering and appreciating their many other values. A lot of the time visual appearance is only one aspect of sex appeal, something which is often apparent from reading that thread with a lot of people discussing people of hardly conventional beauty. It seems to be a frequent misnomer that these are mutually exclusive, when they aren't.

I don't see why this desire to exhibit beauty/sex appeal and understand each others opinions needs repressing to the confines of our individual brains just for the sake of satisfying the neopuritan optics of some well meaning but mistaken protestors.

[JamesTC]

I like the birds with big tits best

I prefer women with quite big tits.

[Emotional Support Peacock]

Thing is, I like rum.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Just bored and getting The Fear, would be good to interrupt it with a mass debate.

Tee hee hee!

I've refrained from posting in the various phwooar threads for some time, out of a general feeling that it's all a bit wrong. I'm hypocritical enough that I still look at it though.

It's an odd impulse, wanting to show off who you fancy. I wonder if it's about seeking confirmation that they're as attractive as you think.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

It's an odd impulse, wanting to show off who you fancy.

Quite an odd one, but we have millennia of evidence backing up that we tend to do it through one means or another.

As for the thread, it's probably just 'oh look, a catalogue of fit people, better name the ones i know of'

[QDRPHNC]

What's wrong with being sexy?

[ZoyzaSorris]

I'm with shoulders on the whole neopuritanism nonsense. Haven't actually checked out that thread though tbh.

[Sherringford Hovis]

What's wrong with being sexy?

It's brought me nothing but misery. 2/10 Wouldn't recommend

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Does anyone want to know who I fancy?

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Is it the lead singer from The Jesus and Mary Chain?

[flotemysost]

I've tried to explain to various guys over the years why I really can't stand Page Three, and they invariably come back with "Ahh but you don't get it, you're a woman, you're not visual" and that's pretty much the polar opposite of why I don't like it.

Absolutely no problem with people getting off on images of people they find attractive, or even just the basic stimulus of seeing a bit of anonymous flesh is probably enough for a lot of people (well, I'm no exception anyway). The thing that bothers me is how it's packaged up as this grubby little nudge-wink secret boy's club, one for the lads and the dads, to be scrunched away when it's time to go back to being a respectable gent, as if we all don't have mucky thoughts countless times a day and aren't capable of compartmentalising them and treating other people with basic decency. Maybe I'm overthinking it just because I really, really hate The Sun, but it's even more frustrating when my dislike is written off as forbidding prudishness.

Anyway, I agree that in comparison the PHWOAARR thread seems on the whole pretty tame and good-natured, from what I've seen. If anything, this might be my fuckawful self-esteem talking but it's quite heartening to see the range of "types" that people consider fanciable, and the only stuff I've noticed that I'd consider a bit unnecessary is the occasional "I don't fancy this woman that someone else fancies because I think she looks a bit weird" (it's hardly like I follow it closely, but I imagine those comments are few and far between). And yes, am aware that it's not just straight blokes that post in there.

On the other end of the scale you've got yer Sluthates and the like that obviously contain such astoundingly vitriolic hatred of women (which, as we've seen, can and does spill over into very real danger and tragedy) - admittedly that might set a depressingly low bar for that sort of discussion online and so I think it's absolutely right to monitor ourselves, but I think on the whole PHWOAARR is fairly harmless.

I have to say, that TV campaign by No More Page Three a few years ago (where the kid sees a pair of fried eggs transmogrify into tits) was one of the most unintentionally hilarious things I've seen, unfortunately.

[rue the polywhirl]

I reckon the OP needs a large dose of unconscious bias training. How do they know that all those posting in the thread aren't their mother.

[flotemysost]

^ big LOL

[Polymorphia]

I have to admit, when browsing the PHWOAARR thread, my least favourite parts of it are where people give negative views of the people posted, be they women or men, that's the dodgiest part, though at least that seems to be relatively far and few between. I'm certainly no puritan, I'm all for open discussion of sex/sexual preference, but when it devolves into sexism (which negative opinions might fall into) is probably where it gets rum for me (though I'm certainly no arbiter on this kind of thing). I'm probably more interested in the opinions of women with regards to this, given they're usually the object of the thread...

I reckon the OP needs a large dose of unconscious bias training. How do they know that all those posting in the thread aren't their mother.

While typing, saw this... I'd be a bit shocked if she posted here, though it wouldn't be totally out of character (she's expressed a liking to Bottom, for instance, and basically raised me on Red Dwarf)...

[Bazooka]

My problem is sometimes the ladies posted in their arent even a 4/10, and some of the men posted there have much better abs than me, but my shoulders are much better so it evens out.

[holyzombiejesus]

I don't really look at it as it makes me feel a bit uneasy. They;re a bit sleazy really. When we used to be able to view the forum stats, (from what I remember) the 10 most viewed threads in C&B history were, by a large margin, the phwooaar ones.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Page 3 is a pretty good example of how a newspaper can take a human urge and commoditise it, sculpt a narrow image of what's attractive through the pursuit of trying to find the most attractive people (in their minds/what their feedback is telling them) possible to sell copy (although I think its cultural impact in this regard is overrated as people tend to correlate it with the paper's sales figures which were for a combination of reasons - otherwise the Sport would have been a serious commercial competitor).

I agree with flotemysost, a pretty good post. It would be better for everyone's body image if nudity was not the reserve of a sad little chronic wank corner like a peep show in 70s Soho, but something that commonly featured in our lives without much ceremony or presentation. There would still be space for that but the taboo/dirty/grubby factor would be less prominent.

Not that the 1970s was exactly a high point for gender politics (or the safety or protection of women or children in general), but for one example cinema went through a trend to naturalism and with that came far healthier attitudes to the presentation of human bodies on screen in mainstream film. 'Nude scenes' as we know them from the 80s, 90s, 00s etc as special 'pause the tape' set pieces for teenage masturbators, were frequently instead scenes where the nudity was incidental and in context, they were not regularly shot with the body parts front and centre; often whatever dangly bit was present was simply there moving because it was attached to the character, and the audience (at least the ones of appropriate age) were trusted to simply deal with it.

If we go down the route of attacking shitty things like Page Three through censorship then you simply heighten the extent to which it is viewed by people as naughty/dirty/grubby. The underlying desire doesn't go away. By pushing bodies to be ever more taboo this has a knock on effect on girls and women's attitudes and makes them less likely to have positive body images and empowered sex lives. We cannot allow either 1) theological loathing of women or 2) liberal capitalist exploitation, to set this agenda, and the answer is not neopuritanism.

Instead it should be overwhelmed by increasing people's exposure to nudity by expressing normality and to an extent, sex lives, in, all shapes, sizes and complexion.