So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Stearmen]

I think it's just part of a decades-long trend (with the last fifteen years seeing an acceleration) toward overt sexuality in dressing (and conversation and actions) becoming, not only acceptable, but prevalent in society.

It goes back a whole lot longer then that! Just look at upper class women's clothing from the 18th century. Every thing being forced up and out of the dress! Talk about two eyes full. I don't know about you, but, I'm really glad the codpiece went out of style!

 

[GHT]

For triviality this takes some beating: American writes to the Queen, asking her to take back the USA. And, he got a reply from the palace. As you Americans might say, awesome.
Check out the comments.

 

[LizzieMaine]

​You’ve Come a Long Way Jeanie !

You can pretty much see the point where jeans moved from "work clothes" to "casual playclothes" to "fashion wear."

Interesting fact -- fashion designer/radical journalist/union organizer Elizabeth Hawes routinely wore blue jeans on the street in New York in the early forties, raising many eyebrows in the process.

 

[dh66]

It goes back a whole lot longer then that! Just look at upper class women's clothing from the 18th century. Every thing being forced up and out of the dress! Talk about two eyes full. I don't know about you, but, I'm really glad the codpiece went out of style!

Yeeeeaahh!!!!!

Wait..........codpieces went out of style?

[emoji20]

 

[Bamaboots]

Boy, Dale you make me long for the 80's.:eusa_doh:

 

[2jakes]

Trivial? Yes.
Tick me off? ...meh ! [huh]

“Her talent may have been tiny, but she made up for it with masses of front-
in every sense. Brassy & brazen, she married early & often, consorted with
gangsters, boxers, band-leaders & never, she maintained, ever wore knickers
or a bra, on or off screen.” - Daily Mail on Harlow.

 

[swanson_eyes]

Would I be committing Lounger heresy by admitting that I don't possess a single pair of jeans? Worse, I don't really want a pair either.

I have a pair. I rarely wear them. Denim is just so uncomfortable to me. I prefer sailor pants (any wide-leg pants, really) and longish skirts. I will wear chinos if they are boot-cut and made of stretch twill, but I'm phasing them out of my wardrobe.

 

[dh66]

There should be 'parental discretion advised' disclaimers for commercials these days. I was watching the Saturday night scary movie ("The Cat and the Canary" - with Bob Hope, for crying out loud) with my 7 year old daughter and every other ad was for some libido enhancing drug. I don't think she needs to know so much about e.d. at this point in life. Nor how sexy a pair of genie slim jeggings will make her feel. It's a sad state of affairs when the content of the advertising is more objectionable than the content of the movie.

Jeez.......I sound old.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^

I've made similar observations to parents of young children.

I was driving past a "gentlemen's club" (which is a term of art for "strip joint") as Mother's Day was approaching. On the joint's big flashing LED sign, alongside a well-travelled road, was the announcement of their big Mother's Day MILF Strip Off. Plain as plain could be.

The sight prompted me to ask a MILF of my acquaintance, who has a couple of young kids, just how the hell parents such as herself navigate their way through such a world. What do you say if your 7-year-old asks you what "MILF" means?

This friend says that for now she feigns ignorance. "I don't know, honey," is how she says she responds to questions she would rather not entertain. I'm a believer in not lying to kids, but I'm also a believer in sparing them certain truths they aren't yet equipped to understand.

 

[2jakes]

^^^

I was spared certains truths when I was about 5 or 6yrs.

Until I started elementary school.

Then nothing was spared.

And it wasn’t from the teachers .

Kids can be very mean at times.

So I pretended I understood the words or jokes about “life”.

I had no clue or idea that grownups would do such things. :eeek:

 

[Zombie_61]

Yeeeeaahh!!!!!

Wait..........codpieces went out of style?

I prefer my codpieces a little older and somewhat more traditional.

There should be 'parental discretion advised' disclaimers for commercials these days...Jeez.......I sound old.

Actually, you sound like a responsible, caring parent who wants to let his children be children for as long as they can before they're corrupted by certain realities of adulthood. Well done! :yo:

 

[swanson_eyes]

I agree. Our society is extremely over-indulgent.

 

[GHT]

So I pretended I understood the words or jokes about “life”.

As a small boy, I can remember sitting in a classroom, being taught the ten commandments.
"Thou shalt not commit adultery."
Not a clue, and I didn't dare ask in case I appeared stupid. But then I cracked it. Adult is in adultery, therefore it must mean:
Becoming an adult too quickly. Which in a roundabout sort of way, it is.

 

[Fading Fast]

Trivial? Yes.
Tick me off? ...meh ! [huh]

“Her talent may have been tiny, but she made up for it with masses of front-
in every sense. Brassy & brazen, she married early & often, consorted with
gangsters, boxers, band-leaders & never, she maintained, ever wore knickers
or a bra, on or off screen.” - Daily Mail on Harlow.

If that was her, if that is how she truly enjoyed living life, then more power to her. That said, from what I've read, her life seemed sad: over-bearing mother, obsessive fear of gaining weight and failed marriages that seem to reflect a immaturely thought out, but sincere, search for love. As an actress, the only times I really enjoy her is when she is playing down, not up, her sexuality - it isn't often, but when she does, she comes across as an complex actress and not simply an in-your-face, light version of Mae-West. Had she lived, found some piece in life and settled into more dramaticly driven roles, I think she had real potential.

To tie it back to the thread, what ticks me off is not that some women today want to be Jean Harlows - overtly sexual all the time (if they are happy that way, then so be it) - it's that it feels as if today's cultural norm is forcing many younger-generation women to play that roll in life and I question if that many of them really want to. Real freedom is not overt sexuality - it is doing what you want (without hurting or forcing yourself on others) - and I really wonder if that many women today really want to go to strip clubs, really want to engage in casual sex with many partners at very young ages and really want to dress extremely proactively.

A culture that pressures women to be prudish - and, hence, forces all women into one cultural norm - is no more restrictive than one that pressures women to be licentious.

 

[LizzieMaine]

As I do whenever this subject comes up in the PR, I recommend reading Ariel Levy's "Female Chauvinist Pigs -- Women And The Rise of Raunch Culture." It's a very hard-hitting book on how the Boys -- and I use the term "Boys" specifically here -- have gone beyond selling women useless crap and have thoroughly hijacked their sexuality for their own purposes.

 

[tonyb]

In the world in which I passed my early years, sex, when it was mentioned at all, was mentioned obliquely and euphemistically. This, alas, was a no more healthy or realistic expression of sexuality than "Girls Gone Wild" or the Mother's Day MILF Strip Off at the "gentlemen's club" on Colorado Boulevard.

Generations of such tightly wound peoples passed their lives ashamed of themselves for their perfectly natural impulses. And, such reluctance to confront these matters straight-on had the effect of giving cover to those who sexually exploited children and other vulnerable people. My wholly anecdotal observation is that a large percentage of women my age with whom I have discussed the matter -- perhaps a majority, even -- were sexually abused as children, usually by family members. Some say that part of their reluctance to mention it to other adults was their own shame, as though they were somehow to blame for the abusers' behavior. That, and their fear that they wouldn't be believed. How many millions (billions?) of mothers knew, or at least strongly suspected, that the husbands on whom they were dependent were molesting their own daughters?

 

[Harp]

A more chaste note-Harvey's domination last night in New York against Chicago. Ahh...

Lester's loss to Lackey against the Cards and Harvey follow misfortune; and at the plate 5th inning, with men on 1st/3rd,
he struck out-no squeeze (or step into pitch get-on-base any way). A king turned pawn; add stolen base thievery.

 

[Harp]

Arietta-ditto. Cubs are on the ropes.

 

[LizzieMaine]

So were the Bosox in 2004. Miracles do happen.

 

[HudsonHawk]

So were the Bosox in 2004. Miracles do happen.

Do any of the Cubs have a bloody sock? Or at least a red Sharpie?