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There’s a certain difficulty here

Yamauchi said that the campaign is “exploitative, demeaning, sexist, regressive rubbish”. “Of course the intended audience is men,” she added. “Portraying women as sex objects will not encourage teenage girls into sport.”

Perhaps not. And perhaps the portrayal should be different and all that. And possibly even not “objects” and all that.

But it is true that teenage girls are considered sexy by humans. Which is that difficulty. Those changes at puberty are exactly what signal to other humans about sex. Sure, sure, we can run with all sorts of societal controls – not until 16, or 18, or until marriage, or she wants to or whatever. But the base thing really is that tits, hips n’hairy pudenda are sexy simply because that’s what signifies looming fertility in humans.

Which is that bit of a problem.

33 thoughts on “There’s a certain difficulty here”

  1. Adult women in their undies are “exploitative, demeaning, sexist, regressive rubbish” potentially harmful to teenage girls.

    A shame that society doesn’t show the same level of concern for younger children taken to drag queen shows or to pride parades where they are forced to watch butt naked (although it’s not the butts that concern me) blokes waving both flags and far worse things.

  2. BiND in Schwerin

    I wonder what she makes of ovulating pole dancers receiving bigger tips than those that aren’t?

    Thinking about it further, isn’t that transphobic? Or can men now declare themselves to be ovulating?

  3. Don’t be so hasty, Yamauchi, looking at young women’s social media, it appears that getting your tits out is a favourite pastime and route to fame, so why not have it spread to sport as well?

  4. Women like being sexy, just as men like having power & status. They aren’t sex objects for men to ogle; they’re sex status symbols for women & girls to look up to.

  5. I can’t be the only bloke here who read ‘Portraying women as sex objects’, clicked on the link, and was somewhat disappointed.

  6. Until a few minutes ago, I expected to die having never had cause to use the word ‘semiotics’ outside a sentence beginning ‘What on earth are …’? Also, ‘What are otics?’

  7. ‘“Of course the intended audience is men,” she added. “Portraying women as sex objects will not encourage teenage girls into sport.”’

    If the intended audience is men, it’s probably for them to fantasise about whether they are as masculine-looking as those women. In a world saturated with images of women, and with the clock ticking, I wouldn’t waste too much time on female rugby players.

  8. Bloke in Germany

    Interested,

    Martina Navratilova doesn’t have the same taste in women as men? Shocked.

  9. ‘“Of course the intended audience is men,” she added.

    I sincerely doubt that. This ad campaign is hardly sexualised. I’d say it is designed to sell underwear to the women who will wear it.

    Regardless, what is her problem? Sportsmen and women are used to sell stuff, including pants. Emma whatersface, the tennis player, does a ton of advertising, all far more sexed up than this, but I don’t remember Navratilova complaining.

  10. decnine: It’s one of those words that should be put back quickly into the OED’s leopard-protected filing cabinet. Besides {over|mis}using the word ‘semiotics’ the post-modernists have perpetrated countless other crimes against language. I guess I have done a small one too – sorry about the regular expression…

  11. The whole point of ladies’ rugger is watch big lezzers rolling around in the mud. Angel Delight would be a better alternative, but there are practical issues.

    This collection really doesn’t suit those girls, it is not at all flattering.

  12. Dennis, A Vast Reservior of Toxic Masculinity

    Back in the day, I made it a point to avoid asking out women who looked like they could take me in an arm wrestling match or sounded like they could sing the bass baritone parts of a Gilbert & Sullivan opera.

  13. There was a (male) football player the face of some (male) underwear company some years ago. That one married to that singer. Was Yamauchi up in arms about that?

  14. “Of course the intended audience is men,” she added.

    Good grief, does she know any men?

    I’m sure they’re wonderful women, and if I had any interest in rugby they might be interesting to discuss the game with over a few pints. But when it comes to looking at them, I’d rather do so if they had a few more clothes on. If I was looking for sex objects, I wouldn’t start in a rugby club.

    notinmyname

  15. Elsewhere in the Torygraph:

    Labour ‘will launch £15bn tax raid’ if it wins super-majority

    But don’t worry, taxes won’t go up if Labour only wins a majority of 80 seats, because as we know that’s not enough to do anything in Parliament.

  16. Theophrastus (2066)

    1. Being ‘an object of sexual desire’ is not the same as being a ‘sex object’. The former is normal; the latter reduces the person who is the object of desire to a thing. Feminists have never understood the difference.

    2. hairy pudenda are sexy Not sure about that. It depends on custom and personal preference. Many rug-munchers don’t like hair between their teeth…

  17. 80 isn’t enough if half your party are batting for the other side. Smarmer isn’t a pit bull and neither will be his likely chief whip, so he will have much the same internal discipline issues as the Tories. Effectively that’ll just be gnat bites though. Itchy but not dengue-inducing.

  18. Marius – Yarp, the entire Tory campaign is now about trying to stop Labour winning a “supermajority”.

    Not, as the Tories claim, so they can “hold Labour to account” (lol), but so they can keep claiming expenses and head off voters with funny ideas about the government doing what they want.

    TG – eh? Labour doesn’t have the same problem the Tories do. Most Tory MPs were ready to revolt when Boris suggested mildly reducing our deficit spending on foreign aid.

  19. Theophrastus (2066)
    “‘hairy pudenda are sexy’ – Not sure about that. It depends on custom and personal preference. Many rug-munchers don’t like hair between their teeth…”

    Wasn’t Ruskin thought to have been horrified on his wedding night by his wife’s pubic hair?
    (I know there’s some dispute about that, but he definitely liked them young)

  20. . . . a majority of 80 seats, because as we know that’s not enough to do anything in Parliament.

    Hundreds vs dozens, or the technical minimum working majority, does make a difference in getting the rest of government and the country to go along with your mad plans, assuming there is actually some will behind the mad plans (see Tory twats).

    Irregardless, only a day and a half to know the numbers . . .

  21. “Women In Sport claims 64 per cent of secondary schoolgirls drop out of all sport because of insecurities about their bodies during puberty.”

    But nearly all women (defined as post-puberty) have insecurities about their bodies. This isn’t “during puberty”, it’s post-puberty. It’s your 40 year old wife who think’s she’s fat. And it seems to me that below some neurosis, this is healthy. Women who want to breed will do better caring about their bodies than women who don’t as they’ll attract more men.

  22. PJF – Hundreds vs dozens, or the technical minimum working majority, does make a difference in getting the rest of government and the country to go along with your mad plans, assuming there is actually some will behind the mad plans (see Tory twats).

    No it bloody doesn’t, that’s magical thinking, as Debbie told Paul about post-marital blowjobs.

    See: every Labour government we’ve ever had. Tbf they also have the considerable advantage of the fact that the civil service, quangocracy, academia, BBC and the legal profession already agree with whatever it is the Twats and Ponces Party decides to do next.

    Javier Miliei (sp?) has shown us The Way. Slash and burn the public sector jungle, drain the swamp of parasitical entities gnawing at the taxpayer’s teat. Very much like the “bonfire of the quangos” Fat Dave promised us 14 years ago, before the Tories, like some rapey taxi driver, deliberately took us on a detour down a dark and ominously diverse alley to Continuity Blairism and even conspired to overthrow the Prime Minister who gave them a landslide majority.

    Only mugs are falling for this Tory “supermajority” meme, from people who have deliberately frustrated every single thing you ever wanted from our government. Don’t be a mug.

    No flowers.

  23. With 450 Labour MPs, 50 LibDems and a dozen hangers-on, there’ll be a 350+ majority for pushing through all sorts of stuff.

  24. “putting up taxes is one of the few things the Tories managed to do”

    Since they’ve spent the last 14 year imitating Labour, what they actually did was to deliver a negative reduction in tax (© G Brown).

  25. @BiND in Schwerin – “ovulating pole dancers receiving bigger tips than those that aren’t?”

    So that’s what was meant by “go to work on an egg”!

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