The chimp who thought he was a boy

[compared2what?]

That's because the dolphin does not have to be neurotic about eating more than a lettuce leaf.

The dolphin doesn't feel the need to shave its nether parts. Nor is it wearing a bathing suit bottom that is strangely twisted, so that the area with the most fabric is not over her mons (note where her navel is), but several inches away. What the hell is it with her left leg? It seems to be coming off her hips at the wrong place.

"I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained."Whitman

Op Ed, I hate to break your heart for the second time on one picture, but in real life, no one, including supermodels, looks like that. It's not that uncommon to see a picture that has not yet been to the photo department that's actually kind of scary. But even if they are not pictures of women whose apparent extreme ill health is made even more apparent by assorting so strangely with the implants, it's a little unsettling to see them when they still have pores, and signs of eye socket, and all the other things even young, healthy beautiful women have on their faces, not to mention that they may have thin hair at their temples that needs to be artfully digitally enhanced in order to conceal the fact that women have scalps, or whatever.

I don't find that picture offensive, because it's not. Though neither is it pleasing, from my point of view, as there is not much life to it one way or the other, and it doesn't quite reach the diorama levels of lifelessness that would make it interesting. In short, fwiw, while I think there's nothing wrong with a little sexual aggression, that's exactly what seeing that picture posted in the middle of this thread feels like (to me, anyway). I'm not saying that as a protest. I'm just telling you because otherwise, how could you know?

Ladies with opinions, feel free to endorse, oppose or ignore my totally tolerable and objection-free reflexive response of: Huh. Wasn't expecting that here.

[chiggerbit]

Ladies with opinions, feel free to endorse, oppose or ignore my totally tolerable and objection-free reflexive response of: Huh. Wasn't expecting that here.

Heh!

[Penguin]

I'm not exactly what you'd call a lady if you saw me, but Ill still say Huh!
Know what you're saying.

[compared2what?]

I'm not exactly what you'd call a lady if you saw me, but Ill still say Huh!
Know what you're saying.

I meant "ladies" in the sense of "those who love the free, fresh wind in their hair, life without care" sense of the word.

Also those who don't like dice games with sharpies and frauds.

[Penguin]

I have no hair

[FourthBase]

It's little known fact that one of the core principles of Scientology is animal liberation. Ron wrote that certain technologies are being repressed that allow human / animal communication at a very basic level. One of the difficulties they found with these (alleged) translation machines, was that symbolic concepts could not be put across to the animal. Nevertheless, Ron felt they were capable of learning symbology and envisaged a future paradise where animals had similar rights to humans.

Hitler was a vegetarian, too.

[Avalon]

Compred2what?, I wasn't expecting it here either, and I too thought it sexually aggressive. While we don't know whether the dolphin is male or female, the phallic nature of its beak leads to an titillating assumption of maleness, and from there the unspoken reminder that male dolphins are often very sexually agressive with human women.

I felt that that the forum was not served by letting the male gaze be the only perspective available. Nekkid ladies or half-nekkid ladies per se are not an issue. While I haven't been photographed in the swimsuit cheesecake style, I have been photographed nude in the past myself. In the context of this thread, in a forum where the women are bright and articulate and engaged in dialogue, I saw this young woman as being placed more on the trained chimp entertainer part of the monkey to fully-human continuum. And that aspect is entirely relevant to the thread.

Those who wish to read further on the subject of the male gaze might want to look at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaze
http://www.uvm.edu/~tstreete/powerpose/index.html

What? Not heard of refraction!?
Does noone know how to look at things any more!?

I was referring to what was above the water (i.e., non-refracted), in which her left leg, the one outstretched, appears to be a third leg, coming off the hip too high, with a suggestion of a more normally placed left thigh going down in front of it to straddle whatever she's sitting on.

I wasn't being sarcastic, he (or she?) looks quite happy

Uh, that's how dolphins beaks always look, whether they are thinking of goosing a model or giving a shark internal injuries.

I hunger for your porpoise mouth
And stand erect for love.
The sun burns up the winter sky
And all the earth is love
----- Country Joe and the Fish

[FourthBase]

I wasn't being sarcastic, he (or she?) looks quite happy

Uh, that's how dolphins beaks always look, whether they are thinking of goosing a model or giving a shark internal injuries.

It was more about the gleam in his eye.

[compared2what?]

I wasn't being sarcastic, he (or she?) looks quite happy

Uh, that's how dolphins beaks always look, whether they are thinking of goosing a model or giving a shark internal injuries.

It was more about the gleam in his eye.

That's why they call him Flipper, Flipper. He's a lover. You will discover, when he steals your heart!

Or, to quote from the admittedly very opinionated website of the World Society for the Protection of Animals, an organization I know nothing about:

The dolphin's toothy grin masks its suffering and contributes to the myth that dolphins in theme parks enjoy a happy life. In truth, dolphins cannot move their facial muscles to communicate inner feelings like humans can. Dolphins appear to smile even while injured or seriously ill. The smile is a feature of a dolphin's anatomy unrelated to its health or emotional state.

Animal charities should be checked before endorsed, I'd like to emphasize. Just trying to get roughly back OT. (Animals; anthropomorphizing of). Flipper was actually played by a lady dolphin, with several lady dolphin body-doubles -- basically, an aquatic anti-Lassie. In character, he helped the Ricks family apprehend thugs and bad guys, and was extraordinarily intelligent, perceptive, and communicative.

The lead Flipper was also a lady for whom having no hair was a good look, as it is for some, whether by choice or no, I have noticed. I don't enjoy the beauty of women undergoing chemo who also happen to look good bald, obviously. But that doesn't mean it's not beauty, just that it's not significant in that context. I should really return to that Hair as a Political Issue for Women thread someday.

[Endomorph]

Thanks for that semiotics article, Avalon. I found it really enlightening. One more way of peeking behind the representations that we usually take for reality... in different contexts and with different insights than one usually sees on RigInt!

[compared2what?]

I love getting older, but the few moments when I have a true understanding of myself as an organic life form that has a natural lifespan, on the downslope of which I now am are always those such as when I realize that everyone doesn't know about the male gaze, which was to my early adulthood much as bobby socks were to teens in the 1940s. Very trendy.



Do I dare to eat a peach, and so forth.

[Endomorph]

Well, I'd heard the phrase before, but I'd never had someone sit down and tell me exactly what was meant by it. (Not that it's completely opaque just from the wording, but still, with terms like that you're never sure if it means exactly what it sounds like it means.)

I managed to miss out on most cultural criticism stuff except for Umberto Eco's semiotics books, which I enjoyed partly for the sheer challenge of trying to understand them when I didn't have the background necessary to understand most of the jargon.

[compared2what?]

Well, I'd heard the phrase before, but I'd never had someone sit down and tell me exactly what was meant by it. (Not that it's completely opaque just from the wording, but still, with terms like that you're never sure if it means exactly what it sounds like it means.)

I managed to miss out on most cultural criticism stuff except for Umberto Eco's semiotics books, which I enjoyed partly for the sheer challenge of trying to understand them when I didn't have the background necessary to understand most of the jargon.

Forgive me, I meant to mock myself, and didn't stop to think it might read as a reflection on you, which it sincerely wasn't. Discussion of the male gaze was indeed ridiculously trendy at a time when I was also ridiculously trendy. But it is definitely a concept worth knowing, and one that should not be left to the ridiculously trendy of another era. Because, you know, we are prone to quickly losing interest, and following a brief period of trendy ennui, to return with loud assertions that some other (preferably French) theoretical concept is the new black.

Or so it used to be. I'm too old now to know.

[FourthBase]

What exactly would the unpolluted female gaze look like???

[Penguin]

Thats pretty gay.