BlogHer - I LOVE Your Blog. Now Take Off Your Clothes. - Comments

I totally know what you

earlgreyrooibos — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 10:49:59 -0500

I totally know what you mean. You can cure cancer! You can walk on the moon! But you also have to be hot. Or else.

It's definitely not a jealousy thing for me because, guess what? If I want to put my boobs on the internet, I can do it myself. I don't need Playboy to do it for me. Furthermore, if I do it, it will actually be a photo of ME, not a made-up, airbrushed version of me. If I'm actually going to put my naked self on the internet, I'm going to show every single "flaw."

This is What a Feminist Blogs Like

How about giving it a thumbs down on Digg?

mamarant — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 19:54:08 -0500

See http://digg.com/odd_stuff/Twenty_Bloggers_We_d_Like_to_See_in_Bikinis. The comments are even worse.

Demeaning to men

Suzanne Reisman — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 10:28:43 -0500

I find it demeaning to men because it indicates that men have no ability to look at any women without sexually fantasizing about them. It promotes the idea that men are just animals, and they can't control their own raging sexuality. In the comments to the post announcing the competition, that is exactly how some men defending the contest. "Well, it's not our fault if we constantly think about boobies!" And while I have no doubt that there are men who are literally unable to focus on anything else once a busty woman walks into a room, it seems to me that if men really were that beholden to fantasizing, not much would get accomplished at work, at home, or anywhere. Maybe men are socially encouraged by contests like these to emphasize their sexual desires more than women are? (At least I think so.) Men are people, too, and seeing them portrayed as lusting beasts is the flip side of the degrading way that women are portrayed as meat or prey.

Suzanne Reisman, Contributing Editor - Feminism & Gender
Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants

what i love about the brave new world

washwords — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 10:15:08 -0500

is the way everyone "covers" or doesn't in their own way. I knew the "men's hottest bloggers" lists would pop up and they did, as did the critiques, the questions, etc.

I think technosailor's point is a good one, too. There could be another way of looking at this. And while I'm not jumping to sign up for the playboy campaign, is there a part of me that wouldn't mind being named hottest blogger, uhhh, helllls yah. Who wouldn't? In real life, I am cute but not hot (yes, you're probably right, I should have more confidence, but that's not my point today) and honestly one reason I don't make my picture more prominent is that if men (or women) want to fantasize I look a different way, works for me. I want to encouage active readers.

washy || http://washwords.wordpress.com || washwords.dc@gmail.com

Help me

technosailor — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:01:39 -0500

I don't follow...

Yes, demeaning for men

Liz Henry — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 16:35:48 -0500

I'm not sure you're getting the ways that it's also demeaning for men!

-----------------
Liz Henry
lizzard@bookmaniac.net
Composite - Tech & poetics
Badgermama - perso

Hey, no worries. I thought

Super Jive — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 15:10:45 -0500

Hey, no worries. I thought it was a great comment. This one is too.

Thanks for the book recs--if you like drawing books you probably know of Ed Emberley as well. He's great!

Your Pop Culture Librarian also writes almost daily at I, Asshole.

We like Girls like Us

technosailor — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 14:11:19 -0500

I'm on record for disagreeing with this whole thing. I think it's a shot at women bloggers.

However, I had a thought when reading this. Yes, there's boobies all over the place. Yes men are interested in boobies. Yes, yes, yes.

However, maybe there's so much attention being paid to this stuff because we DO have an attraction to smart women who are like us. Just a thought, really. If I were single, I think I'd be much more attracted to geeky girls who are into the things I like who also look hot as hell. As opposed to the plastic queen who looks good but has absolutley no substance.

Just a thought. Still think it's kind of demeaning.

Attitudes like this are one

Shannon Des Roches Rosa — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 02:39:48 -0500

Attitudes like this are one reason why I am going to the BlogHer conference panel MommyBlogging: Mirrors: Ours, the Media's, Our Cultures' and Our Kids': More ammo for raising my daughters, and my son. (Even though I'll miss Lisa's writing panel.)

For now, I try to teach my kids that external and superficially-based crap like basing personal worth on "hotness" only has power if you let it. Best to ignore it. Which is not easy in the insta-reaction Blogosphere.

Oy. And....

alyssaroyse — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 00:33:18 -0500

SuperJive nails it: Lookit my words, not MY B...

Lisa Stone — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 23:45:53 -0500

Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder
Surfette

Well, Jason, you just achieved pin-up status at my house...

Lisa Stone — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 23:45:16 -0500

;) Seriously, thanks for joining the conversation.

And do yourself a favor: If your daughters decide to come into our industry, do NOT read the IRC chats when they present, talk in a panel or, hey, even walk into the room.

Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder
Surfette

It's obnoxious as hell

Suzanne Reisman — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:21:42 -0500

I've always hated those issues of Playboy that feature Girls of the Big Ten or Women Firefighers or Whatever Profession because they signify to me that no matter what women are doing, (literally) underneath it all we are still just sex objects to be ogled. This reeks to me of the same problem. Sure, it is nice to be thought of as attractive, but the message in this case is that no matter what you say on your blog, I just want to see your titties and cooter.

I'm sure someone is accusing those of us who object to this sexing up of women no matter what as just jealous that we weren't nominated. I mean, for a second, I did wonder why no one was panting over the idea of possibly seeing the author of the Campaign for Unshaved Snatch in an overly air brushed photo spread and all that, but for reals... it ain't a jealously thang.

Suzanne Reisman, Contributing Editor - Feminism & Gender
Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants

Thanks for the quote!

jshultz — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:14:57 -0500

I was really surprised to see my words come back to haunt me! But in a good way. As the father of two girls, I have tried to teach them that they can do anything a boy can do if they put their mind to it. Both of them love the computer and I've showed them my work to see if it sparks their interest. I buy them toys like legos and that some people believe are "boy" toys because it's good for them I believe. We've bought them drawing books that are designed to spark their creativity. (If you get a chance to get the Scribbles or Doodles books for your kids from Amazon, you definitely should). So, in a nutshell, stupid crap like what Playboy is doing, while not unexpected, is sad because it just hurts the entire industry. It doesn't recogonize these girls for what they've accomplished, it just says, "hey, let's look at your rack." It's sad.

---

Jason Shultz

Open Sky Media, LLC

Pre-filtering hottie effect

Liz Henry — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:05:47 -0500

SO annoying. This sort of thing contributes to the general atmosphere of our society in which women judge their own voices won't be heard and valued unless they are hotties. So there is an effect where if you're not, don't even bother, since you will be exposed to the vilest and stupidest of comments on your appearance.

At some point women tend to figure out that it doesn't matter, since you can never actually be hot, young, skinny, enough to be immune to being called a lot of nasty names based on your fat ugly oldness. There is not enough booby-baring in the WORLD to placate Internet Jerks.

I just think of all the times on Slashdot or at tech conferences a woman talks about something on topic and then most of the response is about whether the guys want to bang her. When it's a pattern, you'd think that men and women in those situations might think twice about their level of irony (since it is so often couched in a giant ironic pose of har har har).

-----------------
Liz Henry
lizzard@bookmaniac.net
Composite - Tech & poetics Badgermama - personal / mommyblog

I LOVE Your Blog. Now Take Off Your Clothes.

Super Jive — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:47:35 -0500

This week, you might have noticed an interesting trend in our mostly text-based medium: popular women bloggers are now, in the case of Playboy, being offered money to pose nude. Urlesque, slightly less choosy about getting the full monty, just ran an article featuring "Twenty Bloggers We Want to See in Bikinis." Is anyone else nostalgic for the days (oh, about six months ago) when "selling out" meant getting a book deal or deciding to put ads on your site? Yeah, me too.

My favorite Big Feminist sites aren't covering this, and I have seen some discussion about whether or not we should "just ignore this," so maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I think it's worth mentioning.

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch calls the Playboy promotion a "step backward" for women bloggers. Arrington's post spawns the funny-but-plausible comment from Jason at OSM:

And this is one reason why more girls don’t go into the technology
field. Because of a bunch of guys who couldn’t get dates in high school
are overly obsessed with boobies even as adults.

Okay, so Jason may be overgeneralizing for comic effect there, but I had kind of the same reaction to this kerfuffle. Many women bloggers amaze me, and many are as high-profile (or more so) as men in the same fields/genres of blog writing. So, to acknowledge our accomplishments, we get rewarded by being allowed to show you our boobies? WUT.

Jane at Jane's Blog says turnabout's fair play.

And ever the optimist, I do see another upside to Playboy trolling the
‘net for the hottest blogger babes… the opportunity for the ladies to
unite and come up with our list of the Hottest Male Bloggers!

Jane is compiling her own list of male bloggers, but interestingly no one seems interested in actually seeing these men naked. Hmm, funny how that works, eh? Ephemerist chimes in with

I cannot think of many male bloggers I’d want to see in a speedo [sic]. Yoinks. Sullivan? Whoa. Yeah that’s a no. Um…I’m stumped.

Some of the women who have been nominated for the privilege of stripping down have responded on their blogs. I love that having a blog means that if someone posts something about you, hours or minutes later you can bat it right back. Michelle Collins, a nominee who writes at Best Week Ever, posted a hilarious retort, but it still reads to me that she feels uncomfortable about the dubious honor of making the bikini list. Can't she just be funny over there? Let her do her thing--BWE is great.

Do sexy bloggers "deserve" to be singled out because they are attractive or appear in photographs with evidence of having secondary sexual characteristics? GASP. I think Jessica Wakeman sums up my feelings the best:

For those of us trying to earn and hold onto respect, hottie roundups
are more of the same-old bullshit where women with impressive lists of
accomplishments are treated with that much less than their male counterparts.

At the risk of sounding like a total pearl-clutcher, aren't there enough boobies on the internet already? Do you, the people who are interested in seeing lady bloggers au naturel, really feel like you need access to MORE boobies? I mean, there is even a fine and respectable tradition of nude blogging. You are no longer satisfied with the nude bloggers? Well, tough luck. How about looking at our WORDS instead?

SJ is probably "jus jellus" over at I, Asshole.