"Because it's warm out" vs. "because it's within my rights".

[ScienceNostalgia101]

A spiritual successor to my Canada's Too Cold thread.

 

Before I proceed, I want to make as clear as humanly possible; because you know there are some people out there who will strawman anyone who dissents from conventional wisdom; that I am fully aware that it's within one's rights, under the law, to dress how one chooses absent literal violation of public decency laws.

 

However.

 

One thing that has bugged me a little; in the context of whether to make said laws more restrictive or less so; or alternatively, whether to make it more restrictive in a school context than in the broader one (as also applied to other free-speech limitations like "young man, that shirt is way too racist to wear in this school") is that one of the most common claims for why one shows so much skin is not to deliberately show off one's figure to entice potential sexual partners or anything like that, but to beat the heat.

 

Now, it's possible this may be sincere; certainly, the fact that it is also invoked to refute fan theories about fictional characters faking their body image issues based on what they're wearing suggests it at least sometimes is; but it leaves behind a few questions.

 

1: Wouldn't white clothing reflect away more sunlight than pink (at the very lightest) skin, therefore keeping oneself cooler? Isn't that why white clothing is worn in many Middle Eastern societies? Or does the humidity determine which is more effective at beating the heat? If so, why?

 

2: Wouldn't, if the heat bothers them, the notion that "Canada's too cold" make Canada more appealing to them instead of less?

 

3: Why aren't they instead arguing for "warm weather exceptions" wherein the dress code's restrictiveness depends on what is the maximum temperature forecasted for that day?

 

4: Last but not least, why if it is sincere do some of the people pressed on talking points like the above and others then backpedal to "well it's within my rights anyway"? As true as the latter point is, wouldn't someone who is sure of themselves that it's about beating the heat prefer to continue defending that notion? I suppose it's possible that they're just tired of arguing, but is there any objective metric whatsoever of whether that, or not having meant it in the first place, is there reason? How would anyone prove it either way?

 

In theory, all of this probably looks on the surface like it's none of my business. In practice, who is right or who is wrong about this is our first clue as to who is of sound judgment on the issue and who is not, and in turn, who is most likely to be right or wrong about whether it is to blame for distraction, unwanted arousal, etc. Indeed, I used to like the fact that some of my classmates dressed that way until I saw those defending it paint anyone who dissents against them as a guy who gets hardons in class or couldn't multi-task glancing at the girls with thinking about the material. It made me wonder what else they could be wrong about, and have a new sense of pity for those whose self-control is lesser than my own.

 

I'm guessing the reason it's such a sensitive topic is because it's not just blamed for lesser issues like the above but by a vocal minority even blamed for sexual assaults as well. For the record I think those with that little self control probably belong in an asylum or something. But still, a question of sincerity, even on a matter that is theoretically none of our business, could be a "canary in the coal mine" to who to believe on other things.

Edited October 30, 2021 by ScienceNostalgia101

[swansont]

23 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

Before I proceed, I want to make as clear as humanly possible; because you know there are some people out there who will strawman anyone who dissents from conventional wisdom; that I am fully aware that it's within one's rights, under the law, to dress how one chooses absent literal violation of public decency laws.

 

However.

 

One thing that has bugged me a little; in the context of whether to make said laws more restrictive or less so; or alternatively, whether to make it more restrictive in a school context than in the broader one (as also applied to other free-speech limitations like "young man, that shirt is way too racist to wear in this school") is that one of the most common claims for why one shows so much skin is not to deliberately show off one's figure to entice potential sexual partners or anything like that, but to beat the heat.

This is unclear to me. Are you asking about dress code rules? It seems like that where you’re going but there’s no actual question I can parse. Also you’re discussing laws but posted this in psychology. Please clarify.

”revealing clothing” rules are generally applied to women/girls, which is sexist. There’s an implied expectation that the men/boys can’t just refrain from bad behavior. (i.e. women are temptresses and men can’t help themselves) But this is both misguided and it doesn’t seem to be applied the other way around.

[Peterkin]

31 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

Wouldn't white clothing reflect away more sunlight than pink (at the very lightest) skin, therefore keeping oneself cooler?

Yes, loose light-coloured cotton garments are best for heat. Far better than bare skin because of the UV's.

 

32 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

Wouldn't, if the heat bothers them, the notion that "Canada's too cold" make Canada more appealing to them instead of less?

I don't think anyone moves to Canada for the weather.

33 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

Why aren't they instead arguing for "warm weather exceptions" wherein the dress code's restrictiveness depends on what is the maximum temperature forecasted for that day?

Why would anyone need to argue that? Most uniforms already come in summer in winter variants; most indoor workplaces are heated and cooled artificially.

35 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

Last but not least, why if it is sincere do some of the people pressed on talking points like the above and others then backpedal to "well it's within my rights anyway"?

Because they mistakenly believe that two arguments are stronger than one. Is this the psychological component of your topic?

Or is this:

41 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

In practice, who is right or who is wrong about this is our first clue as to who is of sound judgment on the issue

The first one is debatable; the second is not. There can't be any right or wrong in the matter of clothing. There are social rules, norms, conventions and expectation; there is challenge and change to those rules; there is scientific evidence for the health and safety benefits/detriments of specific items of apparel; there is institutional and religious stricture; there is fashion and individual proclivity. Each of those frames of reference can provide a standard of rightness or wrongness - in any given debate over clothing, you have to chose one frame - if you ever want a resolution.  

As for what students wear in school, that's up to the school. Their house, their rules. Maybe segregated high schools were not such a bad idea. Maybe school uniforms were not such a bad idea. I'm up for discussing the merits of different approaches to education - but not in psychology.

In any case, I don't think a discussion of who wears what where why can productively include a response to sexual assault. 

[TheVat]

Dress codes in schools should address distraction,  a universal human malady,  not stereotypes about unbridled libidos.   

Pretty sure my GPA in middle/highschool would have dropped a point or two if students had worn swimsuits,  but I would guess after a semester or so I would have adjusted to the new norm.  

[Peterkin]

It's partly a question of POV. When everyone is wearing a swimsuit, or nothing, no big deal. If everyone is weirdly or partly clad, it's just another Saturday night in la-La land - but not appropriate for work or school. If everyone is naked or nearly so, while you alone are fully dressed, you're a pasha - and that should feel wrong. If everyone else is fully dressed while you alone are naked, you're in a nightmare or on display - if that doesn't feel terribly wrong, seek help asap. 

Whatever people get used and accept as normal soon becomes unremarkable. I'm told it takes no more than a couple of hours for someone  (with a reasonably healthy self-image) who always wears clothes in ordinary life to get accustomed to a nudist colony. What a young man most fears before entering is his response to naked women; in fact, the biggest obstacle is self-consciousness about his own nakedness. (That of course, is because he's seen lots of female bodies exposed in glossy magazines, on screen and probably on a live stage, where they were on display, but this is his first experience of being himself publicly exposed.)

But it's mostly a question of norms. What is the current generally accepted standard of decency?  The limits can be poked, bent, stretched, challenged and changed - but there is an unavoidable process and an unpredictable price.

Edited October 30, 2021 by Peterkin
forgot to insert link

[ScienceNostalgia101]

46 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Dress codes in schools should address distraction,  a universal human malady,  not stereotypes about unbridled libidos.   

Pretty sure my GPA in middle/highschool would have dropped a point or two if students had worn swimsuits,  but I would guess after a semester or so I would have adjusted to the new norm.  

Our evolutionary cousins, the bonobos, were surrounded by bare flesh all the time. Instead of "adjusting to the norm" they had massive group orgies. Which sounds fun until you realize that among humans (many of the) broken condoms would end in STDs and/or pregnancy; and we have more to lose from either than the bonobos did.

 

Ironically, I say this as someone who in my teen years was more excited by my crush in her lifejacket on a boat trip than by the other girls in their swimsuits at the subsequent trip to the pool, but maybe that's because puberty was at the time incomplete. And the fact that those who say we'd "adjust to" it were precisely the people who expected me to be the same kind of horndog I figured other guys were.

 

Just so I'm clear, I'm referring to the concept of scantily clad clothing as a whole, with dress codes and public indecency laws alike in particular just being more specific examples of things in which this kind of reasoning is invoked. I get that it's not gender-neutral, but human nature isn't gender neutral. A guy who wears something that shows off his chest hair isn't going to be offended when a woman stares at it.

1 hour ago, Peterkin said:

As for what students wear in school, that's up to the school. Their house, their rules. Maybe segregated high schools were not such a bad idea. Maybe school uniforms were not such a bad idea. I'm up for discussing the merits of different approaches to education - but not in psychology.

But isn't psychology the field most relevant to what the effects of scantily clad attire would or wouldn't be? Or would this have been better for the biology forum?

 

The problem with segregating the sexes is that then what the school has to say about the effects of the opposite sex is no longer tested by personal experience. This isn't to say personal experience is always interpreted to reflect the big picture; ironically, because of reasoning like the kind I invoked earlier in this thread, personal experience has contributed to me seeing myself as the opposite of others in some respects. But it still needs to compete with personal experience lest whatever curriculum will convince parents to vote for a particular school board trustee that week be allowed to fly in the face of reality.

 

Also, being around girls and discovering for myself what it's like to have a crush on one was still a fun memory, whether I took the right or wrong lessons from who was wrong about it or not. It's always a delicate balance between the medicine that is the learning outcomes and the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down.

Edited October 30, 2021 by ScienceNostalgia101
Forgot qualifier

[Peterkin]

38 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

But isn't psychology the field most relevant to what the effects of scantily clad attire would or wouldn't be?

That's not about principles of education or the administration of educational facilities; teenage psychology is about cultural norms, stages in social maturation, mating rituals and sexual taboos. The co-educational public school has a whole lot more to its social dynamics, as well as its standard of pedagogy, than what students are wearing. So do segregated, parochial, vocational and specialized schools. 

 

45 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

Our evolutionary cousins, the bonobos, were surrounded by bare flesh all the time. Instead of "adjusting to the norm" they had massive group orgies.

What??? Please vet your source for that.

[ScienceNostalgia101]

Regarding bonobos: https://www.thedodo.com/sex-girl-power-empathy-and-int-712460354.html

 

More generally: But it is still down to biology and/or psychology whether or not showing as much skin as bonobos did would induce in us a bonobo-esque response, is it not?

[Peterkin]

3 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

More generally: But it is still down to biology and/or psychology whether or not showing as much skin as bonobos did would induce in us a bonobo-esque response, is it not?

I just didn't know that bonobos had ever worn clothes to begin with, or that covering whatever skin was not already covered by fur had ever been a concept known to their culture.  Nor was I aware of a close biological or psychological connection between bonobo and H. sapiens. Still, if having more consensual sex served to blunt some of our more destructive aggression, then by all means, Make Love, Not War. 

[ScienceNostalgia101]

Which is why I already mentioned that we have more to lose from the resulting pregnancies and STDs (for instance) than bonobos did. In addition, we also have more to lose from distraction, from unwanted arousal in a context that thinks more ill of it than they do, etc...

 

I never claimed bonobos "ever wore clothes" in the first place and I'm not sure where you're getting that. On the contrary, I'm arguing that clothes might, for all we know, be the only thing holding bonobo-level horniness back.

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

I never claimed bonobos "ever wore clothes" in the first place and I'm not sure where you're getting that

I don't see how there can be a concept of 'nakedness' without a corresponding concept of 'clothedness'. That's the whole point of the Eden story: as long as they were innocent, they didn't know they were naked.  None of our ancestors did, and it simply wasn't an issue. When they ventured far enough north to need covering against the cold, clothing stopped being optional - eventually stopped being seasonal or protective. Only after that did they begin to make a fetish of dress; use it to display social rank and affluence, to denote tribal identity, to enhance their appearance and attract mates.

1 hour ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

On the contrary, I'm arguing that clothes might, for all we know, be the only thing holding bonobo-level horniness back.

On the contrary, types of clothing, the selective covering and uncovering of body parts etc. are specifically designed to elicit sexual response. 

And we didn't descend from the bonobo branch of the family, but from the chimpanzees, who are far more prone to sexual aggression, and whose behaviour is not modified by the clothes we put on them sometimes - but is substantially modified by the training to which we subject some of them.    

Edited October 30, 2021 by Peterkin

[ScienceNostalgia101]

Source on the more closely related to chimps than bonobos part?

 

Saying nakedness "wasn't an issue" for our ancestors leaves out whether or not they had as much to lose from pregnancy or STDs as we did.

 

The idea that clothing "enhances" desirability instead of impeding it leaves the question of what sort of clothing enhances it, how, or why. Have you been to the mall lately? Everything from conventionally-feminine dresses to tomboyish tattered jeans have been seen on women who go to the mall with their boyfriends. Which of those were meant to "enhance" it to a supposedly even greater extent than the parts underneath?

[Peterkin]

57 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

Saying nakedness "wasn't an issue" for our ancestors leaves out whether or not they had as much to lose from pregnancy or STDs as we did.

Besides their lives? But why do you think that's relevant anyway? Why do you think those risks made any more difference to their behaviour than to that of all non-human species? Death from disease and birthing was as much part of life for apes as for every other animal, as it is for all humans with no access to modern health care. Clothes - except for that one little raincoat - make zero difference to the transmission of AIDS or perinatal complications.  

57 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

The idea that clothing "enhances" desirability instead of impeding it leaves the question of what sort of clothing enhances it, how, or why.

Of course. Once clothing was invented and generally adopted, it could be designed for all kinds of different functions, from battle gear to beach-wear, from bridal train to safety boot, from evening gown to hijab, from papal vestments to the exotic dancer's feather boa.  That's not down to the wearing or not-wearing of clothes, but to the conventions of society, what function is associated with what attire. 

 

57 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

Everything from conventionally-feminine dresses to tomboyish tattered jeans have been seen on women who go to the mall with their boyfriends. Which of those were meant to "enhance" it to a supposedly even greater extent than the parts underneath?

All of them. Fashion is never all of a logical piece; isn't just about body parts hidden or revealed - it's an aspect of culture. 

 

57 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

Source on the more closely related to chimps than bonobos part?

None to hand, sorry. It may be incorrect. IIRC, the DNA of both are very close to a 99% match with humans. The kinship of human to chimpanzee is suggested by their size (bigger than bonobo) and prehistoric range (wide overlap with early hominids). But of course, we're all descended from the same common ancestor(s), so if you think bonobos are most like humans and I think chips are, I guess it's because we reference different human interactions.

None of which has any bearing whatsoever on the effect of clothing on human behaviour.  No other species has invented clothing or anatomical taboos or schools and churches where sexual mores and taboos are impressed upon the young.   

Edited October 30, 2021 by Peterkin

[swansont]

4 hours ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

Our evolutionary cousins, the bonobos, were surrounded by bare flesh all the time. Instead of "adjusting to the norm" they had massive group orgies.

So what? We aren’t bonobos.

 

4 hours ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

Just so I'm clear, I'm referring to the concept of scantily clad clothing as a whole, with dress codes and public indecency laws alike in particular just being more specific examples of things in which this kind of reasoning is invoked. I get that it's not gender-neutral, but human nature isn't gender neutral. A guy who wears something that shows off his chest hair isn't going to be offended when a woman stares at it.

So we’re talking about being offended?Are you sure about the guy not being offended by staring? Do women who wear less get offended in this way?

Do you have any evidence to offer here, or are we just going with assertions?

[MigL]

I envy ScienceNostalgia101.
Must be so nice to live in a world where clothing norms, and fashion sense are your biggest concern.

Just kidding SN101 😀 .

[ScienceNostalgia101]

3 hours ago, swansont said:

So what? We aren’t bonobos.

 

So we’re talking about being offended?Are you sure about the guy not being offended by staring? Do women who wear less get offended in this way?

Do you have any evidence to offer here, or are we just going with assertions?

The phrase "stare rape" comes to mind. One sex is non-ironically comparing being looked at by the wrong guy to being raped (or at the very least, tending not to actively criticize such talk) while the other sex has never been known to take a woman staring at him as anything other than a compliment. (Well, so long as she's smiling sweetly, that is. A frown might make him worry that it could be a stare of hatred.) I'm guessing it all leads back to evolution; one sex, for much of evolution, needed to be picky enough about partners to deal with 9 month consequences, the other to deal with one night's consequences. (STDs notwithstanding; and would that even have been as significant a risk before international travel anyway? Surely if a community keeps their orgies within the community, they can keep the STDs out...)

Edited October 31, 2021 by ScienceNostalgia101

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

The phrase "stare rape" comes to mind.

Hyperbole. (We have to phrase everything in the crudest possible terms now, to get any attention on social media.) It used to be called "undressing with the eyes" - welcomed from some suitors, unwelcome from others.

1 hour ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

while the other sex has never been known to take a woman staring at him as anything other than a compliment.

I very much doubt that's true. Much depends on the nature of the stare, the cause of the stare* and the power of the starer to do damage to the staree.  

1 hour ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

I'm guessing it all leads back to evolution

What doesn't?

The only connection i can see here to attire is that your guy in the example unbuttoned his shirt, voluntarily and for some reason - unless he's in the middle of a hasty costume-change, the only one that comes to mind is baring his chest. There are only two probable reasons for that: relief from heat and display. If he was doing it for the heat, odds are, nobody else in the room is wearing more than they have to and they're all sweaty and wilted, which is not particularly alluring, even if they had the energy to waste on libido. If he's doing it for display*, he hopes a person of the appropriate gender will pay attention. In either case, he could not do it at all if clothing didn't exist, and he wouldn't think of doing it if clothing were not significant in his culture. A woman, on the other hand, could not do it in polite western society without drawing down on herself legal, or at the very least social retribution.... unless, of course, she were doing it professionally in a designated commercial venue, for the purpose of titillating male customers. Because, in their culture female chests are considered sexual objects while male chests are not; the uncovering of genitalia is acceptable in some contexts unrelated to love and procreation and forbidden in others. 

We're a species very, very conflicted about reproduction, mating, carnal relations and sexual attraction. Our attitude to clothing reflects that conflict.   

Edited October 31, 2021 by Peterkin
neglected asterisk

[ScienceNostalgia101]

8 hours ago, Peterkin said:

Hyperbole. (We have to phrase everything in the crudest possible terms now, to get any attention on social media.) It used to be called "undressing with the eyes" - welcomed from some suitors, unwelcome from others.

So you're accusing them of being disingenuous for attention? If so, have you said as much to them?

 

In a world with weapons, anyone has power to do harm to anyone. This was never about women's supposed inability to harm men and always about men's supposed inability to feel offended by sexual attention from a woman.

 

. . .

 

What if an individual guy feels warm more easily than others? I know at the office I'm often the one always cranking up the thermostat the lowest in winter and the A/C the highest in summer. (Luckily, I have an office room to myself.) How much biological variance, typically, is there in the extent to which you "feel" the heat?

. . .

 

Anyway, coming back full circle to the notion of "it's warm out" as a reason vs. excuse, what of the aforementioned in the OP example of fan theories on fictional characters? Is speculating from certain attire that such characters and/or their real life counterparts are faking their body image issues more valid than blaming it for distraction and arousal, or less so?

Edited October 31, 2021 by ScienceNostalgia101

[swansont]

14 hours ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

while the other sex has never been known to take a woman staring at him as anything other than a compliment

Citation needed

[Peterkin]

5 hours ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

So you're accusing them of being disingenuous for attention?

Nope: I'm commenting on the tenor of our times.

 

5 hours ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

In a world with weapons, anyone has power to do harm to anyone.

Indeed. Assuming a bunch of givens about both participants.

5 hours ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

This was never about women's supposed inability to harm men and always about men's supposed inability to feel offended by sexual attention from a woman.

Where did you get this? Not from me. Not from anyone in this discussion, other than your own preconceptions.

5 hours ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

What if an individual guy feels warm more easily than others?

What about it? That still only leaves two probable reasons for baring his chest in public. The first - cooling - might be achieved though other means: thermostat, damp towel, open window, fan, stepping outside, taking a cold drink.... Which is probably what most white-collar workers would do at their place of work, while some manual workers would be free to strip of their shirts and uniformed personnel would not.

The second - display - cannot be achieved without the removal of covering. In Victorian times, such display was strictly forbidden, and even for cooling, he could do that only in a sporting venue, or at some plebian work places, but not anywhere  ladies might be  present. Whether it's appropriate and socially acceptable for him to bare his chest in public is a matter of social convention, in either case. Whether he's offended about being looked at, and why he's being looked at, doesn't depend on his reaction to the weather; it depends on the current social climate.

5 hours ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

Is speculating from certain attire that such characters and/or their real life counterparts are faking their body image issues more valid than blaming it for distraction and arousal, or less so?

Speculation about another's sincerity and motives is never more or less valid - it's never anything more than speculation.

Can you explain what is meant by

On 10/30/2021 at 9:20 AM, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

faking their body image issues based on what they're wearing

? Start with a definition of 'body image', if you please. Then explain what its "issues" might be and how a fictional character can have a real and a fake body image.

Edited October 31, 2021 by Peterkin

[ScienceNostalgia101]

On 10/31/2021 at 12:35 PM, swansont said:

Citation needed

I've already cited girls claiming to have a problem with being leered at by guys. Do you have an example of guys having a problem with being leered at by girls? If you presume said leering doesn't happen (even though the gender-flip of things often compared to it; like catcalling; have been known to happen) doesn't that still count as "human nature isn't gender neutral" even if in a different way?

 

As for the body image thing, I'm talking about the (possible) contradiction between wearing the aforementioned types of revealing attire and fretting over one's weight, etc... you see this more in analyses of fictional characters than of real people, but that might be because of the taboo against singling out specific real life women to insinuate they are fishing for compliments. (Although it also bugs me a bit that women doubting the sincerity of guys' attraction to them is fair game, but guys doubting the sincerity of their insecurities is unthinkable.)

Edited November 3, 2021 by ScienceNostalgia101

[swansont]

9 hours ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

I've already cited girls claiming to have a problem with being leered at by guys.

That’s not a citation, but it’s not hard to find examples of such. And this wasn’t included in the quote where I asked for a citation.

 

9 hours ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

Do you have an example of guys having a problem with being leered at by girls?

It’s not my burden of proof. You made the assertion. “the other sex has never been known to take a woman staring at him as anything other than a compliment”

There are slices of personalty categories that might not. Introverts might not. There could be others, who are uncomfortable with attention being paid to them. There’s a wide spectrum of people.

Staring isn’t always sexual, either. If I spill my lunch in my lap, I doubt I’m taking being stared at as a compliment. If I have some physical irregularity, I doubt I’m taking being stared at as a compliment.

 

9 hours ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

If you presume said leering doesn't happen (even though the gender-flip of things often compared to it; like catcalling; have been known to happen) doesn't that still count as "human nature isn't gender neutral" even if in a different way?

I didn’t know this was the point you were going for, because you haven’t explained what your point is and been consistent in supporting it. You started with a vague discussion of dress code and body image. Now it’s “human nature isn't gender neutral”

You need to clearly state a thesis and not wander off into tangents.

 

[ScienceNostalgia101]

Actually, I'd been making "human nature isn't gender neutral" a central plank of my reasoning since this early in the thread.

 

I wasn't referring to "every" guy in my reasoning, I was referring to the average guy. Obviously a guy who is exclusively homosexual isn't necessarily as likely to feel flattered as a guy who is straight or bi. (Putting aside whether or not they are otherwise aware enough of how much straight guys enjoy it to not blame her or judge her for leering in the first place.)

 

How would you even prove a guy is being leered at AND doesn't enjoy it? We know one sex has been more often known to object to it, the only question is whether because they're the only sex that doesn't enjoy it or because they're the only sex it happens to. How would a guy prove he's actually been leered at and he isn't just making it up to sound sexy? How would a girl prove a guy didn't enjoy her leering at him and that she isn't just fishing for compliments/sympathy? (Putting aside that I don't even know where to start looking for either type of anecdote.) There are 4channers who claim to be upset by their ex-girlfriends using them for sex, as if being sexually desired by her was not enough in his eyes if she didn't love him at all. Should their word be accepted as proof? If not, why is this any different, and if so, why has it not made a dent in males' reputation for only wanting sex?

Edited November 3, 2021 by ScienceNostalgia101

[CharonY]

47 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

We know one sex has been more often known to object to it, the only question is

There are a lot of questions, actually. Is it because they are expected to (i.e. social norms); is it because of risk assessment (education/social norms), is it frequency, intensity, all of the above?

I think the issue is that the initial assumptions are to simplistic as they do not take, say cultural practices into account and try to frame the questions into simple either/or situations. It would also help if the actual argument that OP tries to refute would actually be highlighted more as I have trouble figuring out what the overall point is.

[Peterkin]

47 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

Actually, I'd been making "human nature isn't gender neutral" a central plank of my reasoning since this early in the thread.

How is that about the justification of transgressing dress codes?

Are you just rabbiting on about girls being mean to guys, or what?

48 minutes ago, ScienceNostalgia101 said:

was referring to the average guy.

That's an easy fictional character to hang anything on, as is "the average gal". They can't object to your generalizations, because they don't exist.