But sometimes is the asymmetry itself that bothers me: when a woman posts pictures of sexy men in underwear on their Facebook wall, I’m not directly offended by that (I occasionally do the gender-reversed version of that myself), but I am bothered by the fact that no-one seems to flinch whereas when a man posts pictures of sexy women in underwear on their Facebook wall (which happens much more often IME) plenty of people boo that.
Hypothesis: Body dysmorphia for men is only starting to become a serious problem. Wait a generation or so.
People get envious when they see a picture of someone much sexier that they ((possibly incorrectly) think they) are? I had thought of that… as a joke, but it hadn’t occurred to me to take that seriously. (Wait, why does my brain think that what’s funny cannot be plausible? It must be that, since if an idea is neither funny nor plausible I forget it shortly after hearing/thinking it, within the pool of ideas I do remember, being funny does negatively correlate with being plausible due to Berkson’s paradox. Or something like that.) I’m thinking of how to test for this. (If this were right, women who think are ugly would object to such pictures more often than those who don’t; also, objecting to such pictures wouldn’t correlate much with religiosity, unless for some reason religious people are more likely to think they’re ugly. Neither of these seems to be the case IME, but the sample size is small, I cannot always be sure whether someone thinks they’re ugly, etc.) I do have a feeling that if I thought I was much uglier than I actually think I am, seeing pictures of half-naked sexy men would bother me much more, but I’m very bad at guessing what my feelings would be in counterfactual situations. (Hey, I do know a version of me with something like body dysmorphia—that’s myself from two years ago! Unfortunately, I can’t remember any specific instance of seeing such a picture back then, and also I have changed in lots of other ways too so even if I could there would still be huge confounders.)
Another hypothesis is that one version is more offensive than the gender-reversed version because it’s more common. Maybe I’m not bothered by pictures of sexy men because I don’t see them that often, but I would get fed of them if I saw them several times a day; and maybe certain women are annoyed by pictures of sexy women because they see them all the time, but they wouldn’t be if they only saw them a couple times a month.
Edit: OTOH, “just because you are right doesn’t mean I am wrong”, i.e. it could still be that each of several causes plays a substantial role. What I’ve observed so far seems compatible with a model where that indignation is caused by:
a cached thought that erotica is undignified, originating from earlier, pruder times, most prevalent among religious/traditionalist/low-Openness people because that’s the kind of people who hold onto cached thoughts from long ago; ISTM that this affects pictures of females more often than pictures of males (but I might be wrong about that). Often played for laughs;
people who think they are ugly getting envious when they see a picture of someone much sexier than they think they are. According to you it’s more common among females, which seems plausible enough to me (though it’s not like males talk to me that often about whether or not they think they’re sexy, so I dunno); and
annoyance of people seeing something they’re not interested in (e.g. sexy pictures of females, in the case of straight females or gay males) popping onto their news feed over and over again. Also happens with other stuff, e.g. football or gossip about celebrities.
Speaking only for myself, I’ve had a bit of a fight to calm down about my appearance—I’m 59 and apparently more or less look it. It’s been work (pretty successful recently) to not feel like a failure because I don’t look like I’m 30. From what I can gather, this isn’t uncommon among women, and frequently in stronger form.
Your frequency argument is relevant, but needs a bit more causality added—the reason the pictures are so common is presumably because they’re what’s preferred.
Your frequency argument is relevant, but needs a bit more causality added—the reason the pictures are so common is presumably because they’re what’s preferred.
I don’t get it… Preferred by whom? Of course straight males would prefer to look at females and vice versa...
Hypothesis: Body dysmorphia for men is only starting to become a serious problem. Wait a generation or so.
“A generation” might be an overestimation. A few hours ago, a Facebook page in Italian about “destroying other people’s dreams by exposing the objective truth” published a status “let’s tell our gym-going friends that it’s cold on Facebook too”, it’s been liked by 81 people so far a sizeable fraction of whom are male, someone (using a gender-neutral pseudonym, but with a male cartoon character as profile picture) commented complaining about an “exponential” increase of pictures and videos of people in underwear, and that comment has been liked by 6 people so far of whom 4 males.
EDIT: I commented “Envy?”, and my profile picture is bare-chested. Let’s see how many flames I’ll get. (For all I’m concerned, if you’re the kind of person who resents cynicism, you do not subscribe a page about “destroying other people’s dreams by exposing the objective truth”.)
Hypothesis: Body dysmorphia for men is only starting to become a serious problem. Wait a generation or so.
People get envious when they see a picture of someone much sexier that they ((possibly incorrectly) think they) are? I had thought of that… as a joke, but it hadn’t occurred to me to take that seriously. (Wait, why does my brain think that what’s funny cannot be plausible? It must be that, since if an idea is neither funny nor plausible I forget it shortly after hearing/thinking it, within the pool of ideas I do remember, being funny does negatively correlate with being plausible due to Berkson’s paradox. Or something like that.) I’m thinking of how to test for this. (If this were right, women who think are ugly would object to such pictures more often than those who don’t; also, objecting to such pictures wouldn’t correlate much with religiosity, unless for some reason religious people are more likely to think they’re ugly. Neither of these seems to be the case IME, but the sample size is small, I cannot always be sure whether someone thinks they’re ugly, etc.) I do have a feeling that if I thought I was much uglier than I actually think I am, seeing pictures of half-naked sexy men would bother me much more, but I’m very bad at guessing what my feelings would be in counterfactual situations. (Hey, I do know a version of me with something like body dysmorphia—that’s myself from two years ago! Unfortunately, I can’t remember any specific instance of seeing such a picture back then, and also I have changed in lots of other ways too so even if I could there would still be huge confounders.)
Another hypothesis is that one version is more offensive than the gender-reversed version because it’s more common. Maybe I’m not bothered by pictures of sexy men because I don’t see them that often, but I would get fed of them if I saw them several times a day; and maybe certain women are annoyed by pictures of sexy women because they see them all the time, but they wouldn’t be if they only saw them a couple times a month.
Edit: OTOH, “just because you are right doesn’t mean I am wrong”, i.e. it could still be that each of several causes plays a substantial role. What I’ve observed so far seems compatible with a model where that indignation is caused by:
a cached thought that erotica is undignified, originating from earlier, pruder times, most prevalent among religious/traditionalist/low-Openness people because that’s the kind of people who hold onto cached thoughts from long ago; ISTM that this affects pictures of females more often than pictures of males (but I might be wrong about that). Often played for laughs;
people who think they are ugly getting envious when they see a picture of someone much sexier than they think they are. According to you it’s more common among females, which seems plausible enough to me (though it’s not like males talk to me that often about whether or not they think they’re sexy, so I dunno); and
annoyance of people seeing something they’re not interested in (e.g. sexy pictures of females, in the case of straight females or gay males) popping onto their news feed over and over again. Also happens with other stuff, e.g. football or gossip about celebrities.
Speaking only for myself, I’ve had a bit of a fight to calm down about my appearance—I’m 59 and apparently more or less look it. It’s been work (pretty successful recently) to not feel like a failure because I don’t look like I’m 30. From what I can gather, this isn’t uncommon among women, and frequently in stronger form.
Your frequency argument is relevant, but needs a bit more causality added—the reason the pictures are so common is presumably because they’re what’s preferred.
See also my edit to the parent, if you haven’t.
I don’t get it… Preferred by whom? Of course straight males would prefer to look at females and vice versa...
“A generation” might be an overestimation. A few hours ago, a Facebook page in Italian about “destroying other people’s dreams by exposing the objective truth” published a status “let’s tell our gym-going friends that it’s cold on Facebook too”, it’s been liked by 81 people so far a sizeable fraction of whom are male, someone (using a gender-neutral pseudonym, but with a male cartoon character as profile picture) commented complaining about an “exponential” increase of pictures and videos of people in underwear, and that comment has been liked by 6 people so far of whom 4 males.
EDIT: I commented “Envy?”, and my profile picture is bare-chested. Let’s see how many flames I’ll get. (For all I’m concerned, if you’re the kind of person who resents cynicism, you do not subscribe a page about “destroying other people’s dreams by exposing the objective truth”.)