Go stick your head in a pig: Annoyed complaints

[elpollodiablo]

Sexual politics notwithstanding, I think if you're in polite company and someone says to you "Put your clothes on, you're making me uncomfortable," the polite thing to do is to put your damn clothes on. The fact that Anne's friends approached it from a position of moral superiority is what makes it uncool, not the request itself.

[jess]

Saying a comment like "sexual politics nonwithstanding" is kind of just ignoring the whole problem when the issue at hand is that they're being sexist. It's sort of like if someone was being racist or classist, and I said "race politics nonwithstanding..." or "class issues nonwithstanding..." and then tried to make some point about the situation. You'd probably call me out on my privilege and say I was missing the point entirely, and you'd be right.

[elpollodiablo]

...right, but I addressed that in the second sentence of my post.

[jess]

Ok, yeah, sorry, I misread that. Nevermind!

[elpollodiablo]

You wanna see some annoyed creatures?

[jebreject]

Sexual politics notwithstanding, I think if you're in polite company and someone says to you "Put your clothes on, you're making me uncomfortable," the polite thing to do is to put your damn clothes on. The fact that Anne's friends approached it from a position of moral superiority is what makes it uncool, not the request itself.

Agreed, for the most part--but what worries me is that there's bound to be a serious set of double standards here, 'cause I can guarantee that ain't nobody gonna tell a buncha shirtless dudes that they are making them feel uncomfortable so please put your shirts back on, guys.

Also, Marinus - what about if someone were well-intentioned but accidentally racist? Would the best course of action still be tolerate but don't encourage? I think if someone is being a jagoff, they need to be told that they're being a jagoff.

[Good Intentions]

jeb, I respond to those situations by doing something like 'you know, that's not true' and changing the topic. God knows I can live happily for the rest of my days without somebody trying to tell me what they think about Apartheid or racism.

jess -- I don't think we disagree much at all. I didn't want to suggest that you should tacitly accept it happening. I very much think you shouldn't get into somebody's face about it -- that hardly engenders good will, and I've never seen anything useful come from that (and I've seen it happen no end of times). In my experience, though, trying to briefly tell somebody what's wrong carries a danger: anything more than 'whatever, Professor Prudence, they can be trusted with their own bodies' often leads to round-table discussions, which make for bad parties and bad blood. Part of what's going wrong in situations like this are people acting high-handedly, and it's best not to encourage that. No, best to shut that line of discussion down, brutally if needs be. It's quite easy to cut somebody off and give the impression that you consider what they said obnoxious, ill-informed, or whatever, and that's what I suggest you do.

There are situations when somebody's nakedness is your business -- polite company, like pollo says, is one. Anne's situation probably wasn't one of those -- I wouldn't know, I wasn't there -- but each of us certainly, to some extent or the other, should keep the sensibilities of those around us in mind.

[coldforge]

I feel it behooves me to call all of you out for your privilege right now

[elpollodiablo]

It's actually your responsibility

[Anne the Man]

No, best to shut that line of discussion down, brutally if needs be. It's quite easy to cut somebody off and give the impression that you consider what they said obnoxious, ill-informed, or whatever, and that's what I suggest you do.

There are situations when somebody's nakedness is your business -- polite company, like pollo says, is one. Anne's situation probably wasn't one of those -- I wouldn't know, I wasn't there -- but each of us certainly, to some extent or the other, should keep the sensibilities of those around us in mind.

After awhile I tried to cut them off, though me and the other girls did get into an argument about it beforehand, which wasn't wise I guess. And it wasn't really polite company, this was quite a ways into the night so most of us were drunk. The high-handedness of them saying it was a 'respect' thing bothers me, as it's the kind of 'respect' that kept women from voting, or working. For one thing, you suddenly can't respect me when I'm only wearing a bra? then fuck you. For another, if you really respect me then respect my decisions. Respect my words when I tell you 5 times that I'm not doing this for your attention, for fuck's sake.

This may've been slightly repetitive, but whatever. I can't remember all that's been said here.