"Why my body does not exist for your viewing pleasure"

when i read this article in the globe this morning the first thing that came to mind was how creepy this guy was.  There's nothing wrong with briefly admiring someone who is physically attractive, but this guy seems to be the leering type. i mean, he wrote an article to try and justify it in a national paper...

it's like he's saying "hey young ladies, when you're like 50, you're going to be BEGGING for all that unwanted attention you get now, so stop complaining and get it while you can!..."

and what prompted this article?  did he just get reamed out by someone for staring at them or something?

a very strange article indeed...

A leering 50 year old man, and...say...an 18 year old female relative of his, perhaps his daughter.  Would the article have been written differently?  What might he say about his daughter's right to step out of her house without being visually dressed down by every greying middle aged male she might encounter on any given day?  Maybe it's a school teacher, someone in a position of authority, the next door neighbor, the bus driver, the repairman he's just hired to enter his house to perform work.

The obvious qualifiers that anyone might put in place where it concerns someone close to themselves, only makes the entire rationale suitable for a toss out of the nearest window, along with everything else wrong with it.

I remember Brown spouting this horseshit on Morningside, with Peter Gzowski jollying it along. Not a huge surprise that a young ogler, enabled and supported by peers to the degree that it's been part of his professional reputation/mythology for decades, has evolved into an old ogler.

A creep at any age.

First a disclosure: i know Ian Brown slightly and generally hold his work in high regard. The article in The Globe and Mail is a piece of seasonal fluff that simply does not support the grim baggage it pleases Ms.Murphy to heap upon it.

But I'm a male and this is the feminism forum. After discussion with my 78 year old mother who had also read both pieces, SHE wrote the following, and I include it with her permission, since my own language was less subtle (the word 'horseshit' featured prominently): 

This blog is really rather sad. All over the world, including in Canada, children, women and , yes, men, are being subjected to extreme forms of sexual abuse. Many good people are aware of it and doing their best to prevent it, or to help the victims of it.
Meanwhile in this country a decent man writes a gentle, truthful, rueful article about the pleasure of looking at good-looking women, - and is immediately subjected to an hysterical torrent of outrage.

Could we have a sense of proportion here? If "a cat may look at a king" surely a man can glance approvingly at a woman, or vice versa? Looking in itself does no harm. We have a choice whether or not to be annoyed by it, to interpret it as we are inclined. That remains in our power. Why give that power away? Why choose to get our knickers in a twist about it?

As an elderly woman I've had my share of appreciative looks, and now have fewer than I used to. Neither the looks, nor the absence of them, ever seemed important. Sometimes they amused me, sometimes pleased me, mostly they were insignificant. Certainly I never felt that my essential sense of self was at their mercy, as this blogger seems to do. Why does she choose to cede her self-possession to something so trivial?

Men and women are likely to go on finding each other's appearance attractive. That's how the species continues, giving rise to a lot of perfectly harmless pleasure along the way. Let's celebrate that harmlessness - there are a lot worse things going on in our world, among which I'm inclined to include that sour puritanism which finds its satisfaction in displays of self-righteous rage.

Another fave: How Ian never noticed a terrorist show evidence of humour. The feature came along with a big image of a very particular kind of "terrorist". Shortly after the twin towers came down. Seasonal, perhaps?

And who can forget the interview (again, on CBC radio!) where Ian claimed women can't deal with risk and danger, which is why they don't like organized sports? Oh, how I enjoyed that gem. 

How this garbage is considered journalism or informed opinion, I will never begin to understand.

Yep, there's no room to cut Ian any slack. This is about male heterosexual erotic entitlement and this is merely one of its many forms. It's a rather nostalgic form, in which simply getting away with sexualizing every woman you see is not enough: no, Mr. Brown must turn erotic entitlement into a social good.

I think this also has to do with the fact that Mr. Brown really, really wishes he had a column in the Times, the Guardian or the Independent and not the damnable Globe & bloody Mail.

If anyone is still wondering what "rape culture" means, the piece by Brown, and the varying defences of it, are perfect examples.

Maysie wrote:

If anyone is still wondering what "rape culture" means, the piece by Brown, and the varying defences of it, are perfect examples.

Indeed. I just made a comment on the blog itself prompted by this comment. The first two comments, now removed, were violently offensive and attacked Murphy personally. The other comments are less violent, but still seek to vindicate Brown in some way and variously accuse Murphy of some other sin: ageism, "bigger fish to fry," etc. See? We're conditioned to attack and criticize those who even expose rape culture, let alone question it.

Yes, it "works" in that Rebecca and I can see the comments from stories and blogs flagged as offensive. Usually our practice is just to remove bad posts and ban the user but we won't intervene the way we do here. So it's likely that more borderline offensive posts will simply go unremarked.

Catchfire wrote:

Yes, it "works" in that Rebecca and I can see the comments from stories and blogs flagged as offensive. Usually our practice is just to remove bad posts and ban the user but we won't intervene the way we do here. So it's likely that more borderline offensive posts will simply go unremarked.

Ok, thanks. I wasn't quite sure how that all worked.

/drift

I do wonder how Ian might react if, say, Scott Thompson or Rufus Wainwright were to write a similar piece about gay men defending their inability to stop staring at straight men's butts, and insisting that, someday, the straight men would miss the attention(obviously, neither Scott nor Rufus would write that, but go with me on this as a hypothetical).

(corrected to remove bizarre grammatical error I just discovered).

Ken Burch wrote:

....neither Scott nor Rufus would write that.

An important point. Or if they did  it would at least be interesting and funny.

It's one thing for someone to not realize or not give a shit about what others might think of his writing. It's quite another for an editor to have the brilliant idea that it might be something everyone wants to read over tea and toast.

Ian Brown is into voyeurism? Well, I suppose that is a matter between him and people who have to deal with it. But if he had any intentions of getting some dark glasses and being subtle about it, this article was not the way to do it.  And if he thinks he is blowing the lid off a dirty little secret all men share he has a way over-inflated opinion of his own brilliance. 

Having to read him getting all sentimental about whatever it is that turns him on is nothing short of embarrasing. I don't need to know that about my family or my friends and I certainly don't need to know it about some geezer I don't even know who is being paid far too much for this self-indulgent crap.

As for the Grope and Flail, I just have to shake my head and wonder what they were thinking, and how they did not realize that it would get the furious reaction from some that it has.

Or maybe they 're trying to get nominated for the Literary Bad Sex award.

(edit)

I have been thinking about what bugs me about this, because it doesn't anger me;  I think of it more as pathetic and ignorant. The fact that he's into voyeurism doesn't actually offend me..

But  there are people who are far more persecuted and who are ostracized even within ostracized groups, and who carry themselves with a lot more dignity and respect.

So to have some fool come along and make out like the most conventional, privileged, and often the most inconsiderate of indulgences - that of the voyeuristic man - is somehow persecuted and misunderstood, is just self-indulgent. Hell, they have a booming industry set up to indulge that fetish. 

What exactly is he complaining about? That some people are offended or don't get how important he thinks his hobby is? Well he can deal with it by not offending others, or if he can't manage that, growing a thick skin. But to expect to have it both ways is petulant.

Speaking of rape culture and guy culture, I can't recommend this highly enough: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYhaodUPqSU

"And often, when I am attracted to a man, I will look at his face and talk to him as though he is human. I don't tend to see them as things which exist simply for me to look at."

And that's what is happening at an accelorated pace.   From a male perspective, sex is becoming a spectator sport.  Something to look at, not something to participate in.  Devoid of human interaction.

That's the curious thing, from a male perspective, on the objectification of women.  It actually leads to less actual real sex.  Masturbation I would guess, ever on the increase.  Kevin Spacey in the shower and the highlight of his day.

And, certainly within most lifetimes here, we are going to have robots, available for sale that are "anatomically correct" with programable personalities.

No joke.  Just like porn drove the internet, so will porn bots drive robotics. 

All because men, for the most part deep down fear women.  Fear the interaction.  Fear the fact that in spite of the special place a guy thought he occupied in the universe, that actual, real human interaction with women will shatter that illusion.

So, best just oggle. 

Ken Burch wrote:

I do wonder how Ian might react if, say, Scott Thompson or Rufus Wainwright were to write a similar piece about gay men defending their inability to stop staring at straight men's butts, and insisting that, someday, the straight men would miss the attention(obviously, neither Scott nor Rufus would write that, but go with me on this as a hypothetical).

 

I understand your point, but there's really no comparison.  The point isn't about the action itself, it's about a power dynamic, patriarchy, socio-historic context of the subjugation of women by men and the sexual objectification of women, by heterosexual men within the same context.

A gay man sexually objectifying or simply appreciating a straight man's ass is a thought/desire process that has a societal "equal" as its object.  There is also the age factor.  Women are deemed less attractive as they age (a thoroughly pervasive societally reinforced idea) whereas men are not.  Examples of such too numerous to list.

What I feel is even more important than these concepts (elucidated by people far more articulate than I) is the fact that this misogynist article was written to be published/disseminated and was in fact published by a major national daily.  It perpetuates something deeply offensive and morally corrupt.