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Katrina Gulliver's avatar

It is an amazing mind pretzel going in that an exposed penis on the subway, or on a work zoom, is criminal exposure, harassment, or rape culture. But actually *in the ladies locker room* it’s something nobody is allowed to be bothered by?

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Warbling J Turpitude's avatar

what then, nobody seems to be asking, is said to be 'public. place exposure' of mostly-hidden-genitals-but-alarmingly pointed to/ostensified by their can i say deluxe pubic façades?

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Warbling J Turpitude's avatar

just trying to point up, however clumsily, that dangle factor or no dangle factor, all human genitalia generate force of *presemce*. Which on closer inspection (sic) is really linguistic presence (the preservation or disruption thereof)

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Filipa's avatar

Firstly, I also hated Promising Young Bore. One of the most misandrist films around. Secondly, I won't be mentioning a new campaign by Mini, where the actor (who I already mentioned one or two times), in one of the promotional photos, has his anatomical details quite...ahem...discernible. The female equivalent are Sweeney's boobies in a tight dress, not Sweeney's vulva in a transparent dress. Thirdly, and seriously, the argument that guy used is awfully similar to the one Laurie Penny used when talking about a young girl who saw a penis when in the women's locker room: that the young girl was rude, and that the penis being there was normal because the men was a transwoman. Thomas had no place being there nor his penis. Or any penis.

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Rob W's avatar
4dEdited

This was great Kat and had the (I assume) unintended benefit of prompting me to rewatch 3-Way from SNL. "To impress a chick, helicopter dick."

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Biscuiteer's avatar

Kat, was this reference intentional or incidental? Also, to be clear, I have never seen this, um, “performance”.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppetry_of_the_Penis

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Kat Rosenfield's avatar

100% intentional!

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Hayden Eastwood's avatar

This is laugh-out-loud brilliant!

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Sean Sakamoto's avatar

Another thing I’ve noticed as a late middle aged man is that there’s a generational difference in the men’s locker room. Older men stroll around completely naked and younger men complain and are disturbed by it. I’m still young enough to pick up on it and use a towel, but old enough to remember when nobody seemed to care.

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Alice Underground's avatar

This seems to be the same in the women's locker rooms.

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Sean Sakamoto's avatar

That’s interesting. I recently joined a gym and all the showers and bathrooms are in completely separate, single rooms. I told the young person who was giving me the tour that I’d never seen non-communal locker rooms, and they said, “Most people are uncomfortable being around others in a state of undress.” I felt like I was in a Victorian novel.

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Alice Underground's avatar

I don't know why, but that seems sad to me. Like it's just one more (literal) wall between people.

I'm maybe a hypocrite because I too feel uncomfortable being naked around anyone except my husband. But in socially appropriate situations like locker rooms (and even on a few occasions a public bath house) I thought it my responsibility to overcome my discomfort.

I could never be one of those eternally naked women in the locker room air drying and their entire body in lotion... but I can at least shower and change my clothes in a reasonably efficient fashion.

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Sean Sakamoto's avatar

I know what you mean. My mom was a nudist. Not super into it, but she occasionally went to a nudist park. She taught me that our bodies are natural and that we shouldn’t feel shame or disgust about the human body. Nobody says that now.

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Alice Underground's avatar

There is, at least among mom groups, a strong movement to discuss body parts and functions in practical terms (i.e. penis, not "wee-wee") and to not create shame around body parts.

The purpose of this, however, seems almost entirely to avoid sexual grooming, not merely a desire to teach children that our bodies are natural.

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Sean Sakamoto's avatar

Interesting! When my son was 5 we moved to Japan. We bathed together as a family until he was 8, which was the custom there. I felt that there was less vigilance about grooming, and I have no idea what the prevalence is there of abuse. Thanks for this discussion. You’ve raised something important, I think. Apart from the disagreements in our culture about gender identity and locker rooms, there isn’t any broader discussion about nudity as a harm vs. a good, etc.

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Dewey's avatar

Completely side-stepping the topic, as these conversations churn along, I wonder how many people have spent time in a bathroom or locker room of the opposite sex. Men's bathrooms have side-by-side-by-side urinals, or in some cases, even a long trough, designs that have fostered certain etiquette (eyes up at all times) to be followed in an effort to keep private parts private. The same for locker rooms, which often have a single large room for changing next to a large room with multiple shower heads. As the topic of public bathrooms/locker rooms continues to be fodder for online opinions, do people realize that mens and womens spaces are not designed in the same way?

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Herbert Jacobi's avatar

I wonder how many of these Tans woman stop taking the drugs and detrains. Christine Jorgensen has his\her penis and testicles removed as did Jenner. Most now seem to not do that. So stop the drugs go back to being a male. Woman who trans to men usually have their breasts and uterus removed. Both risky operations and more or less irreversible.

As for "teeth" you can always buy a set of those plastic chattering teeth and give your signifiant other a surprise.

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Robert Labossiere's avatar

There is an equivalent sort of, stripper tassles. But never-mind, I have a friend who describes the difference between men and women as outies and inies. We need to work on the science of that.

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Mark D.'s avatar

One thing I’ve been wondering but don’t want to Google- did Thomas keep his cock and balls? Kinda sounds like he did. I’m against him swimming against women but I’d be slightly less against it if he’d demonstrated the commitment to chop off his junk and have some Mengele surgeon turn it into a fake vagina.

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Forest's avatar

The genitalia are internal but the vulva is visible, and in baudrillard style that is even better

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Warbling J Turpitude's avatar

i for one was surprised, and not a leetle discomfited, that Our Kat now appears to be sporting Karoline Leavitt's eyebrows?

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Kat Rosenfield's avatar

My eyebrows have always looked like this so I’m pretty sure she’s copying me

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Warbling J Turpitude's avatar

can just see KL now, facing the press in upward dog…

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Laurence's avatar

Dangling comically!#%!!?

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Kat Rosenfield's avatar

Would you rather it dangle tragically?

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Laurence's avatar

Really? Those are my choices; comedy or tragedy? It seems like I've heard that before.

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Dilan Esper's avatar

Using Shakespearean typology, it could dangle historically.

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Luke T. Harrington's avatar

Perhaps it could dangle mysteriously

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Ananda Gupta's avatar

I'm curious as to why you hated Promising Young Woman - I have my suspicions based on your other writing, but I'd love to hear more.

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Kat Rosenfield's avatar

I may have to write longer about this, been thinking about it!

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Robert's avatar

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts as well!

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