Jan 26·edited Feb 3Liked by sympathetic opposition
An alternative: what people really want is the bad thing packaged with plausible deniability. The stop dressing for male gaze was not aimed at feminist eyeballs at all. It was all hot outfits, all the way down: the consumers just wanted to be able to tell a story it was about something else.
It's like how news channels will try to run tape of attractive people in little clothing if it can possibly get away with it.
I think your dating for people on the spectrum post sort of gets at this idea: the bit about how looking unattainable gives more license to women to dress sexier. I think the plausible deniability might be a sort of epistemic hygiene thing that people value. Or you know some illicit, forbidden appeal. I can totally see that as being hot in a rape fantasy style.
I knew a girl who did a bunch of Instagram stuff while she was a model. Her raciest post by far was ostensibly a story about how a photographer propositioned her metoo style and she said no but was uncomfortable. But it was (especially in the context of knowing her irl) very clearly just an excuse to post the lingerie.
Jan 26·edited Jan 26Liked by sympathetic opposition
Algorithmically mediated reality tends to make people forget about the mediation and we end up with what you're describing: narrative inconsistencies which are obvious once someone points them out but invisible when one is immersed in the algorithmic presentation of "reality".
I often can't tell what is being presented as irony and what is supposed to be sincere because most infinitely scrollable algorithmic feeds blur these distinctions when performing A/B tests to pinpoint an advertising/engagement bucket for the user. It's like a digital mental stroboscope and is equally as disorienting as the real version.
An alternative: what people really want is the bad thing packaged with plausible deniability. The stop dressing for male gaze was not aimed at feminist eyeballs at all. It was all hot outfits, all the way down: the consumers just wanted to be able to tell a story it was about something else.
It's like how news channels will try to run tape of attractive people in little clothing if it can possibly get away with it.
I think your dating for people on the spectrum post sort of gets at this idea: the bit about how looking unattainable gives more license to women to dress sexier. I think the plausible deniability might be a sort of epistemic hygiene thing that people value. Or you know some illicit, forbidden appeal. I can totally see that as being hot in a rape fantasy style.
I knew a girl who did a bunch of Instagram stuff while she was a model. Her raciest post by far was ostensibly a story about how a photographer propositioned her metoo style and she said no but was uncomfortable. But it was (especially in the context of knowing her irl) very clearly just an excuse to post the lingerie.
I've somehow managed to never be exposed to the stop dressing for the male gaze thing oO
In what way is the post in this newsletter still dressing for the male gaze? It doesn't seem flattering to me 😅
I really enjoy reading your newsletter btw!!
Algorithmically mediated reality tends to make people forget about the mediation and we end up with what you're describing: narrative inconsistencies which are obvious once someone points them out but invisible when one is immersed in the algorithmic presentation of "reality".
I often can't tell what is being presented as irony and what is supposed to be sincere because most infinitely scrollable algorithmic feeds blur these distinctions when performing A/B tests to pinpoint an advertising/engagement bucket for the user. It's like a digital mental stroboscope and is equally as disorienting as the real version.
side A 🤝 side B
legitimizing
the A/B
dialectic
I'll take the use of capital letters as a win. ;)