Littermate wrote: "My daughter recently joked that the men who approach her with the line "I find you interesting" are the "big boob lovers." She's figured this out by 21 based on the scores of men who approach her in varying ways (she's been collecting data since she was 14). For her "I find you interesting" means "I'd like to feel you up." The rude glazed-eyed stares that she gets when we walk down the street together have made me want to wear a t-shirt that says "Thank you for not gaping at my daughter's breasts." She said, "Mom, I don't mind if they look at my breasts, as long as at some point they actually look in my eyes and acknowledge that there's a person attached to them."
Even though i joked and jested about your talking about boobs and sexuality, etc i totally get where you are coming from and think this is good stuff.
My heart goes out to your daughter and the countless females like her who have to deal with this on a daily basis. I was struck by her deep insight that the line "I find you interesting" equates to them liking her boobs or physical form, it has nothing to do with her, who she is as a person.
I was equally struck that she accepts that most guys will look at her breasts first, but she would like to be acknowledged at some point as a human being, to be seen as a person at some point, and not just as a object or form. To have them look into her eyes.
All good stuff and she sounds like a wonderful, evolved being just like yourself. Thanks for sharing this.
p.s. - I am still working on this myself, trying to look into womens eyes and see them for who they really are and not just their physical form.
Thank you @dharma1257 for your kindness, reflection and honesty. My experience is our gender conditioning contributes to the dehumanizing. I have long thought that us actually making friends and seeking to understand each other would help in reducing some of the ways that we miss each other or exasperate each other. I love what you wrote. Thank you again.
I also feel and understand the plight of those fortunate enough to have mammary glands. But i do feel people like me are drawn to them visually. I think i do a great job at not focusing on them, i just appreciate them in my heart. If and when i do take a gander to appreciate them fully i try and do that discreetly.
But i also want to point out, i have been a victim of humans checking out my “print”. When it is noticeable it’s really noticeable. It’s really hard to miss someone looking that far down rather than your eyes.
@geoff1000: Yeah... when it comes to stuff that affects my health and safety, I don't think there's any such thing as TMI. I want to know what I'm doing so I don't hurt myself!
@BashfulLoner: I figure there's nothing wrong with appreciating the way things look visually so long as you don't slip over into fantasyland. Maybe it's the length of the look that makes things weird? Or something in the facial expression of the fantasizer? I dunno, but so far as I can tell simple (and brief) aesthetic appreciation doesn't put people off. Which is lucky for everyone!
So.... I tried to follow the comments on this thread (up to a point) and all I got was a headache trying to decipher. However , I do believe I get enough of the "gist". I also noticed quite a few of you checked my profile right after defending the statements of one of the "gruff-members". I'm assuming to see if I was fake or somehow associated... then I see my name grouped up above with said individuals. AGAIN it's.....interesting. I understand that you all have to be very vigilant and protective of your community, but as one of those rare ( from what I hear) and very REAL female enthusiast cuddlers who's fairly new two the scene, I'm watching some of these interactions play out and I'm wondering what the h@ll I'm doing here. Seems like a lot of aggression, combativeness, and unnecessary back and forth. I mean no harm, just calling it as I see it. Maybe I'm just following the wrong threads...
@Brynn and this one is one of the kinder, gentler threads! Occasionally they're downright love-muffin-y, but people can really get going with the aggression, blame, insults, defensiveness, name-calling. So far this one, in my experience, is staying in the discussion realm. There are some folks on here really willing to come out of hiding and disagree in the open but stay respectful, which I appreciate and actually enjoy. It's when it gets nasty that I feel we are doing each other a huge disservice.
And welcome! These forums are like the Wild West.
@littermate , Thanks for the warm welcome! I've watched you navigate through some pretty nasty exchanges and like I mentioned to you before....it's absolutely POETIC to see you in action, LBVS! I just don't have the energy for combat & verbal jousting. I didn't come here for that. I get enough of that being a woman in my field , and I guess I came here expecting the forums and communiity to always feel like a big hug. Naive, I'm learning.
Thanks.
I hear ya. There are many who want that too. There are many types on here who don't like to kick puppies (or see them get kicked) who often get overrun by the ones who can't help but kick them. I'm not even sure they know when they're kicking. I like when @sillysassy asks for no shade in her threads. There are some threads that are pure sweetness. You can start one and I'll be right over with my hugs and puppy pats.
Thanks for that. I won't forget your offer!
@littermate
Didn't follow that on @StoryDoctor1138 but I'd like to... spell it out for the .gif-challenged?
Thanks for the virtual hugs, @Sheena123 & @littermate . Thanks to those who inboxed. @StoryDoctor1138 , I don't get it.
Man, now I'm feeling really old.
Jokes are never as funny when you have to explain them. (sigh)
@StoryDoctor1138 I got it. That movie gave us the term "bunny boiler".
Oh it was still worth it @StoryDoctor1138, it took me awhile to get it but it’s a good one
@StoryDoctor1138 Sorry, still behind in the back of the classroom -- I got that it was from Fatal Attraction, but I don't get how that applies to the discussion?
@littermate you posted bunnies and he posted that lady thinking about boiling bunnies
Oh!!!!! Thanks @BashfulLoner for helping a girl out. I actually never watched it. I just know it's about a crazy woman stalking a guy.
Hi be not even watched it either, but i do know what this crazy lady.
@littermate your comments about your daughter brought out the enraged protective father in me. I recall going to a restaurant with my wife and 16 year old daughter. At a table not to far was a mid-50's couple whom I could see but not my wife or daughter. The man spent a lot of time looking over my daughter and paid very little attention to his wife. At the end of the meal, I sent my family to the vehicle while I approached the couple. I said "you have a lovely wife. Perhaps you should focus more on her than my 16 year old daughter." And i walked off before I blew my top.
Later I wondered how often I may have done the same thing absent mindedly? Surely not in the presence of my family, but just as I go thru life, in a mask, driving around, etc. And I had a thought that had helped my ever since. Every woman is someone's daughter. How do I want my daughter treated? It really has changed my focus at times.
And to all the women who wonder if their body really does continue above their neck line- I sincerely apologise for any way you have been made to feel like a "juicy steak" and nothing more. (I would say 'on behalf of men everywhere' but I don't think some men would ever feel remorse for the way they treat women.)
@creedhands 👏👏👏👏
Thank you @creedhands. That touched me deeply and I appreciate it. I personally am not mad anymore, nor even hurt honestly. I see the whole dynamic and how we're all run through a conditioning machine that more or less shapes us in ways that are largely unconscious, on both sides. I have mercy and understanding for all of us. AND, particularly the part where you apologize above is just so touching. In this place we are mostly used to defensiveness.
It's just kind of rude, no matter the gender of one's dinner mate, to spend the meal gazing off, whatever it is one is gazing at. Within how we feel as women and how the culture so emphasizes that to be worthy of love we must be sexually captivating (who can keep that up after a couple years of being together), it can be really devastating to have one's partner gazing off at the latest eye candy instead of present. It feeds into the whole apparatus of where women feel shitty (and I know men have their own form of this). And it really is the gaping/gazing that hurts (speaking from some very historic experience here). We're all captivated by beauty and we all glance at something lovely, but it's compulsive and transfixed leaving of the togetherness/bond for the shiny thing that hurts.
Then on the 16 year old's part -- and I'm speaking from my historic experience here too -- it's actually quite scary to have men over twice your age gape at your body in that shut down glazey kind of slobbery way, never mind when they do it in groups, or do it and yell, or do it and get out of the car in the middle of nowhere to jog beside you and make small talk (real experience I had in high school), or walk really close to you at night on a street, put their arm around you, etc. Or put a few drinks in them and then it's all that plus no inhibition or judgment. Just all big, sweaty, freaky animal locked onto your body as their meat. Yikes! It's a scary little cocktail to have the objectification plus the physical strength disparity plus the insensitivity plus the entitlement plus the sense that your culture is actually encouraging this in the name of glorious manhood and ready to call you a whore for inciting the whole thing should you be harmed.
Every woman is someone's daughter. Every woman is SOMEONE.
Every man is someone. Most men intend well. Many men don't realize the impact they have simply because of their size, the strength differential and the power of testosterone that makes us the focus of that drive. I could go into a long thingie about how I see men's conditioning dovetail with women's conditioning to literally create this way that we miss each other, but then a novel would turn into a trilogy, so I'll stop.
Thanks for your sincerity and heart @creedhands.
@littermate that’s always so scary to think of. I went out for karaoke last week and a guy I didn’t know just randomly came over, looked at me and put his hand on my thigh. Wth? Do I know you? Do I belong to you? I’ve had a guy drive past me when I was about 14 and yelled out “Nice legs. When do they open?” I just yelled out my age and he drove away. I won’t label every time a guy has decided I’m only meat because I’d break the internet but that’s why when we come across a guy who’s honestly respectful and looks at us like we’re humans with a brain, it’s incredibly special. Thank you to every guy out there who respects women and understands what they go through! You are gems!
Word @Sheena123. If only it was the exception that a woman experienced this.
Creedhands did that guy respond at all to you before you left? Do you regret saying that to him in front of his wife? Do you think there might be a better way of handling this? Just curious and wondering.
@littermate, you stated, " Very few men have the degrading experience of a man staring at one's breasts when one is trying to make contact as a real person with a real mind talking abut real things." I'm wondering how many people realize that the phenomenon of men being obsessed with women's breasts was artificially created by society. In societies where women routinely go around topless, that phenomenon does not exist. Because of this, I stand firmly behind the women in the Top Free movement. I think that getting rid of societal aberrations such as this one would make for a much better world. ♥ Jim
Breasts are a female gender indicator ; and there isn't really a male equivalent, except maybe lack of breasts. Humans cover their bodies to protect themselves from the weather, and for decorum, but the shape is usually detectable, and from a distance. Some women spend a lot of money making them bigger.
What men choose to do about that gender identification, is what matters. A security guard in an art gallery is likely to spend more time around the more expensive paintings, not because they want to stare at the art, or because they would have more regret if it were stolen ; but because that is the art that the bad guys are more likely to want to steal.