(edited to add: For the irony-impaired, this is SATIRE)
Dear boys,
I have some information that might interest you. Last night, as we sometimes do, our family sat around the dining-room table and looked through your social media photos. Because we’re creepy like that.
We have a teenage daughter, and so naturally there are quite a few pictures of you handsome boys to wade through. Wow – you sure took a bunch of selfies in your pajamas this summer! Your bedrooms are so dirty! Don’t you know how to clean your rooms? Our nine-year-old son brought this to our attention, because with one older sister who has a room that smells like an old dead hamster, he notices boyish details like that.
I think the girls notice other things. For one, it appears that you are not wearing a shirt.
I get it – you’re in your room, so you’re heading to bed, right? But then I can’t help but notice the big muscles pose, the extra-arched back to show off your rock-hard abs, and the smirky grin. What’s up? None of these positions is one I naturally assume before sleep, this I know. Because I’m a woman. And rock hard abs left me four children ago. And I like to judge others based on my own standard behavior.
So, here’s the bit that I think is important for you to realize. If you are friends with a daughter of mine on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter, then you are friends with the whole fam-dam-ly.
Please understand this, also: we genuinely like keeping up with you. We enjoy seeing life through your unique and colorful lens – which is what makes your latest self-portrait so extremely unfortunate. You just aren’t good enough. We’re the Joneses. Now keep up with us.
Those posts don’t reflect who you are! We think you are handsome and probably interesting, and, if I’m being generous, very smart. But, we had to cringe and wonder what you were trying to do? Who are you trying to reach? What are you trying to say? Because we literally have nothing better to do than judge and examine the lives of teenage boys.
And now – big bummer – we have to block your posts. Because, the reason we have these (sometimes awkward) family conversations around the table is that we care about our daughter, just as we know your parents care about you. But not as much as we care about our kids because we’re totes better parents than your parents.
I know your family would not be thrilled at the thought of my teenage daughter seeing you only in your towel. Did you know that once a female sees you in a state of undress, she can’t ever un-see it? You don’t want my daughter to only think of you in this sexual way, do you? Because if she does, it will be YOUR fault. Our daughter does not have free agency. She is incapable of controlling her thoughts and actions so you must do it for her. Seriously, she can’t. It’s some sort of chromosome condition that only occurs with the XX.
Neither do we. I mean, I don’t want my daughter to think of you in a sexual way, but I’m not gonna try and make myself un-see a picture of Ryan Gosling in just a towel. I mean, yum. And It’s not like he’s a real person.
And so, in our house, there are no second chances, boys. Because we’re just mean like that. I know, I know. We proclaim to be Christians who believe in the power of the atonement and all. But we’re not Jesus, so only he has to forgive you. Us? Well, we are just going to judge you all we can and shame you and infer that you’re giant bags of whore on the internet.
If you want to stay friendly with the females in my family, you’ll have to keep your clothes on (unless you’re Ryan Gosling), and your posts decent. And interesting. I mean, no one wants to read that “Roman is having an okay day and bought a Coke Zero at the gas station.” All of your posts should revolve around me and what I find interesting. If you try to post a sexy selfie, or an inappropriate YouTube video – even once – you’ll be booted off our on-line island. Because like I said, there is zero tolerance for forgiveness in our family. Mess up once and it’s the guillotine.
I know that sounds harsh and old-school, but that’s just the way it is under this roof for a while. We hope to raise women with a strong moral compass, and women of integrity don’t linger over pictures of scantily clad high-school boys. Women of integrity also don’t write incredibly mean, self-righteous posts that slut-shame teenage girls. Phew, luckily I didn’t do anything like that!
Every day I pray for the men my girls will love. I hope they will be drawn to real handsome guy (not dorks. No dorks allowed in this super awesome fam), the kind of men who will leave them better people in the end. I also pray that my daughters will be worthy of this kind of man, that they will be patient – and act honorably – while they wait for him.
Boys, it’s not too late! If you think you’ve made an on-line mistake (we all do – don’t fret – I’ve made some doozies), RUN to your accounts and take down anything that makes it easy for your female friends to imagine you naked in your bedroom. DO IT NOW! I AM THE EMPRESS OF ALL AND I COMMAND YOU TO TAKE DOWN ALL POSTS THAT DON’T MEET MY HIGH STANDARDS. But actually it is too late because we already blocked your skanky ass profile because Jesus and no second chances.
Will you trust me? There are girls out there waiting and hoping for men of character. Some young women are fighting the daily uphill battle to keep their minds pure, and their thoughts praiseworthy. And you shirtless boys in just your swim trunks are ruining it for them. You are making their minds impure and they have no control over it. None! It’s like you’re literally controlling their minds.
You are growing into a real handsome dude, inside and out.
Act like him, speak like him, post like him. Because no second chances.
I’m glad we’re friends. But not like the for reals kind of friends. Like the passive aggressive kind who make really mean judgments about you and then write about it on the internet.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Judgmental Slut Shamer Jones
(my response to this post)
IRON DAISY 
So let me get this straight; Feminists don’t like girls objectifying themselves for men, until somebody shames them for it, in which case, they’re allowed to be complete tramps? What I, and the rest of the world, would call this is a case of double standards. All you’ve done is sarcastically reworded everything she wrote and twisted it toward men, for no good reason whatsoever, which is something only feminists seem to do. You have zero point here, your post is not satire. It’s a thinly veiled attempt at attacking somebody for doing something you don’t approve of (something you’re trying to stop this woman from doing) . You hide behind the word satire because it’s easier for you to get off scott free if you can simply claim it was all a joke, and meant in good spirits, when we all know it wasn’t.
Just like these tramps who post half naked selfies for attention to Facebook, you people need to really start thinking about your actions before you commit them.
Sounds great. Thanks for reading.
Oh sure. Let’s all attack the woman who is trying to get some girls to behave decently. People like you is why this society is going down the drain, you’ve decided to accept idiocy and immorality instead of remedying it. What is scary is that you and these deranged supporters actually believe you are the “good” side. Nobody made this a female-versus-male issue except you, the woman was just talking of her own experiences with the girls on her son’s fb page.
Oh and I wouldn’t be very “ecstatic” about being posted on huffingtonpost.com, which is largely known to be a left-wing bs propaganda website.
Sounds great. Thanks for reading.
Best response ever.
“Oh sure. Let’s all attack the woman who is trying to get some girls to behave decently.”
If that was all Ms. Hall was trying to do, the response to her blog would be very different. She could have said that girls should make sure they always respect themselves and that they can explore and rejoice in the bodies and sexuality that God gave them but need to consider how they do that..
She could have said that EVERY person regardless of gender is responsible for not only their own actions but their reactions to others.
But she didn’t. She said the reason the girls should always wear a bra is that boys simply can’t control themselves and ‘unsee’ it. Poor boys, at the mercy of their hormones. Luckily for them it’s the girls’ responsibility to make sure this doesn’t happen.
Also her original post had a picture of her boys on the beach and shirtless. It wasn’t just a candid of them having fun. They were posing, flexing their muscles and showing their abs. Can you not see how hypocritical it was for their mom to lecture girls not to post pictures of themselves in pouty poses?
I saw the original blog post through Facebook and thought it WAS satire when I saw her three sons and husband doing beefcake poses at the beach. Then it became obvious she was serious. Full disclosure here, I know that I’m judging her, but I spent almost two decades of my adult life in a Baptist Church and I knew a great many people like her. Their life is one big holiness competition to show everyone how much better they you they are. I would get comments like “Oh, you go to R rated movies, I’ll pray for your family.” Or, “You don’t have your children enrolled in a private christian school? Tim and I feel that we HAD to sacrifice everything to get Josh and Sophie into Trinity. When you REALLY love your kids you will do anything for them.” I got tired of that BS real quick.
Your first fallacy is in that you perceive morality as something that is dealt in absolutes: as if your’s or Mrs. Hall’s definitions of acceptable behavior are ultimate.
Secondly, yes, Mrs. Hall did not explicitly state her implications. That’s why they’re called implications. She made a post in which she condemned young females for posting pictures of their bodies on social networks, not because this sort of behavior extends self-objectification and could potentially harm their futures, but because she didn’t want her son to have to see it. She judged and shamed these girls for showing skin, and talked about her family and standards as if they were of the highest standard.
She is not just talking about her experiences. The audience of this post was all teenaged girls.
If you don’t want your family to see these pictures, good for you, raise sons who understand what your perceptions of morality are and explain to them that woman are more than objects for sexual pleasure, or whatever your view is. However, do not try and impose these ideals on others, and don’t shame them for making their decisions.
Moderator: comments by obvious trolls will not be published.
Oh my gosh. This is absolutely brilliant! I saw the mother-of-boys post and wasn’t offended by it. I took it in a completely different frame of mind (safety) and never saw the questioned photos. But I think this is hilarious.
Love this! I read the original Mrs. Hall letter and kept scrolling through her blog. I think I found the root of her bitterness. She write, regarding women wearing bathing suits at the pool:
We don’t like being subject to more attractive, real-life bodies:“Isn’t it enough to see air-brushed perfection in magazines? Do we all really need to see a real-life Barbie prancing about the neighborhood pool in front of my sons?
We don’t think our bodies compare favorably to the one in the next beach chair: “I bet my husband wishes I had her butt. She must work-out all day long! Must be nice to have all that time – she must not have a job.”
So women who are in good shape don’t have jobs? And her sons are not allowed to gaze upon the female figure, as they will inevitably fall into moral corruption?
It’s not other women this bitter old hag has issues with – it’s her own body image and issues of insecurity.
It’s so sad to me that she hates her own body so much that she must disparage the bodies of teenage girls and real-life Barbies. Her body is amazing. It brought forth life. Four lives, if I’m correct. Think of all the amazing thing she can do because of her body. The only imperfect bodies are the dead ones because they can’t do all the things we can do when our blood is coursing through our veins, air is helping us to breath, and synapses are synapsing in our brains to help us think. And even then, a body is just a house for the Spirit. Watching my mom die taught me that. So, can we please stop criticizing each other’s bodies (“perfect” or not) and move on to more important things. Like, I don’t know, a possible war in Syria?
My thoughts exactly. She wasn’t just writing from her point of view, she was telling us all (parents of teenagers) how to parent our children. We don’t need a FB blog to tell us how to parent. Parenting is every parents’ own responsibility. So sick of all these blogs popping up everyday telling people how to parent.
I just wanted to quote from a post I saw on another blog yesterday, that shows one girl’s response to seeing a guy without his shirt.
“I spied a nineteen-year-old college boy, shirtless and utterly gorgeous, leaning out his dorm-room window.
If you know [him] at all, it’s not his general habit to go about shirtless or to hang out of windows, so the vision about swallowed me whole. I can die a happy woman with only the memory of that day.
Wheaton College had just endured a bleak midwest winter and there was a smell of sunshine and new growth everywhere. I was feeling sassy-slash-pretty in a breezy white dress. Did I mention he was shirtless? My heart still flutters when I remember it.
I was following an elaborate labyrinth of calculated paths across campus, carefully constructed to get as many “chance sightings” as possible without appearing to be a stalker. Which I was. Would that I had put half the energy into any of my classes that I did my campus maps and schedule comparisons while trying to catch a glimpse David!”
She also included pictures of the young man peering out his window sans shirt.
So yes, girls can be every bit as stimulated visually as a guy.
And to give credit where credit is due, THIS BLOG POST WAS WRITTEN BY MRS. HALL. Yes, the same woman who told girls not to post selfies that might entice her boys. And that they would be blocked if they did.
She deleted that post from her blog after her FYI post started getting attention. But the Internet doesn’t forget that easily.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3A6u-YjFVQpJ8J%3Agivenbreath.com%2F2011%2F12%2F08%2Fi-spy%2F+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
The sad thing is women have bought the cultural lie that they aren’t visually stimulated and keep perpetuating it. (Because there were no women and girls standing in long lines drooling and screaming over Taylor Laughtner when “Twilight” came out.) As my incredibly smart friend Lindsay Hansen Park pointed out in an online discussion just tonight, “society has long groomed us to respond to the female form. I pay attention to boobs and I bet most females do too.” When people are more offended by the sight of an uncovered mom nursing her baby than they are that boobs are used to sell just about everything (cars, mops, time shares), we’ve got a problem people.
The more exposure the better to the hypocracy. There are many women out there just as succeptible to pornography and masturbation as men are. I’m sure genetic and situational circumstances can make it harder for some people than others male or female. However, just as it has recently become socially acceptable for men to confront these and other kinds of sexuality, for women, the ‘not stimulated’ social construct puts those affected in an unacceptable position. They need our love and support just as much as the affected men do.
Yes. Thank you for writing this. It’s interesting how a certain demographic will always fail to recognize satire. Don’t let it get ya down.
Dude I LOVED this. You are so many kinds of awesome.
I love how she’s blocked comments on that disgusting post. I left a comment on another entry instead. 😀 It probably won’t make it buahahah but she’ll read it anyway in her comment moderation line. woohoo!
Simply amazing. I was outraged by Mrs. Hall’s post. I have a teenage daughter. On one post I said, May my daughter never, ever end up with a mother-in-law like that. Hypocritical, creepy and lots of other words come to mind when I read her post for the first time. Thank you for writing this!!!
As the father of a son, my plan is to insulate my child for all images of women he might find attractive. If I can hide all sexuality from him and shame any sexual feelings he might have as impure my hope is he will have as deeply neurotic and unhealthy a view of sex as I do. Dirty hussies who insist on being attractive to him must be stopped. Don’t they understand?
Don’t forget to tell him the part about him going blind.
Amen! Make sure they know exactly how disgusting women are and that they must keep their precious, made-in-the-image-of-God selves pure and holy innocent of any vile hussy-thoughts. Ick. Girls.
No female should be allowed out of the house unless dressed modestly and accompanied by a male relative. And should not be on social media at all ever because: hussies.
My 44 yr old daughter, who is a mother of 5, recommended your blog after your response to FYI. You are hysterical, you need to do stand up. Having women like you parenting kids, gives me hope for the children of Utah. Many blessings- keep writing ! A 65yr old California fan
Risa Says:
September 7, 2013 at 12:14 pm
“I’m raising my daughters and sons to be human beings without the cultural lies and baggage we hang on them for their gender.
In other words, sounds great. Thanks for reading.”
Lol yeah ok… It seems that you spend far more time online than you do with your own children, how sad for them! I bet your daughter ends up on 16 and pregnant before you know it!
Happy blogging
Actually, I don’t. It’s almost 4:00 my time and this is the first time I’ve gotten online all day because I’ve been spending the day with my family. But thank you Melinda, you just showed the world what a delightful person you are. You must have so many friends.
And she must be suuuuuuuper fun at parties.
Oh, so so true! Children who are raised without any baggage ALWAYS turn to whoredoms and disgusting behavior that definitely includes pregnancy at 16.
It’s all that birth control that does it. And blogging. Definitely blogging. Blogging is of SATAN!
Reblogged this on FEMBORG.
What’s I find so infuriating about Ms. Hall and her blog post is the fact the she is a FEMALE!! Seriously?? Why are we our own worst enemies so many times, I mean COME ON! Shaming young ladies for what body parts they have and they effects they have on her horomone raging sons! To add insult to injury, she is doing this as a FAVOR to them. Why oh why are they always Christians….here’s a piece of motherly advice to her…Stop trying to SAVE us from ourselves. You’re not doing your sons any favors by purposely shoving your irrational views down their throats, they are growing boys who will find out one way or another what girls look like naked, and that not every girl posing in her pajamas wants to bang your son….fyi I wrote this reply on Ms Hall’s blog, and it wasn’t approved……SHOCKING!
Yes, we need to stop this girl on girl crime. (Mean Girls reference)
I think it’s interesting that so many people are posting here the comments they tried to post on Mrs. Hall’s blog but they weren’t allowed. Mine wasn’t either, which is why I wrote this post 🙂
Made me laugh. Well done.
“Women of integrity also don’t write incredibly mean, self-righteous posts that slut-shame teenage girls.” Brilliant! I absolutely love this letter. Thank you for writing it!
Hilarious and true. This is how we treat girls way too often. It’s really horrible.
So many of my friends posted Mrs. Hall’s post on their Facebook wall, and I just thought it was horrible that they felt the young women they knew needed to read that. While I agree that the motives behind some of the photos young people upload might not be healthy, 1. It is not just teenage girls 2. The idea that the photos are majorly damaging to young men is laughable.
Thanks for writing this, it made me laugh. I hope it makes some people realize what drivel the original post was.
Good job on adding this: “(edited to add: For the irony-impaired, this is SATIRE)”
I first saw this on HuffPost and the comments were cracking me up. I couldn’t believe that people didn’t understand what you were doing! Congrats on the Freshly Pressed! It is much deserved. I’m happy to shove this post in any slut shaming bitches faces!
Too much? Nah.
Brilliant – my boy is 12 and just beginning to get internet curious – I will make him read every word you have written – especially because he does not and never will be Ryan Gosling! Cheers J
THANK YOU. This post speaks the truth. From a guy’s perspective, I find it extremely awkward to go on Facebook and see “friends” take selfies in their washroom without a shirt on. I don’t know them like that, nor do I want to. I don’t get it. I’ll never get it. I’m glad you wrote this.
Great post! This is hilarious. Ms. Hall’s post was completely vile. Try to ignore the trolls and haters that commented on your post. They’re just ignorant.
So, what you are saying then is that all of these pictures should be equally acceptable and inoffensive to everyone?
[Violation of community standards. Also don’t spam my blog with massive amounts of links]
No, that’s no what I’m saying. I know nuance, complexity, and abstract thinking about deep issues is hard. What I’m saying is it is holy hypocritical to shame girls you know personally on your blog because they took a selfie of themselves in *gasp* their pajamas whilst simultaneously posting pictures of your sons half-naked with swimming trunks on flexing their muscles.
Marisa, until i read your post, i thought most people missed the purity culture buzz words in mrs hall’s priginal post. Thank you for making my day with this.
I too was offended by the original “girl-shaming” FB post. The original post was primarily centered on preserving her sons’ sexual purity (and perhaps her fear of “other women” in her sons lives). Her shame is misplaced. The sexualization of western culture or objectification of women is largely a corporate leadership and political issue. These arenas are still largely male dominated. I wonder how many in these positions of power were raised by women like FB mom, who perceive women in terms of sexual objects first? My teenage daughter gets straight A’s, is a top athlete and drives herself pretty hard. She also happens to be drop dead gorgeous – and would attract attention wearing a sack. This is her first year of high school and she is learning there is tremendous “power” in what she wears. Our discussions on appropriate dress revolve around personal choice and how she feels about herself. Sexuality is one part of her personhood. What she chooses to wear reflects how she feels about herself. How others interpret this reflect how they feel about themselves.
Sounds like I am lucky not being a teenage boy from reading this.
I think I fell a little in ❤ with you after reading this. I have raised a boy to manhood and him and his friends (male and female) spent the majority of their teen years half-naked. They were competitive swimmers. Somehow they managed to do that without constantly frothing at the mouth with lack of control or trying out how they were going to un-see each others half-nakedness. Your post hit all the right spots for me and I loved reading it. Thanks!
Boom! I totally love this. And I also quite enjoy your “Sounds great. Thanks for reading” response. Brilliant. 🙂
Love this. I’m glad someone decided to write about it.
For those interested, I came across a fantastic article written by a father to his son, called “Seeing A Woman”. It is a much better read than the FYI post, and gave me warm fuzzies. Thanks Risa for writing a very funny article!
Here is the link. “Seeing A Woman” by Nate Pyle
http://natepyle.com/seeing-a-woman/#sthash.cHJCgoOJ.FNHDkipn
I loved Nate Pyle’s piece!
I typically dislike writing LOL, but… LOL. I read that post yesterday. If only that was also intended satirically.
Wow, you really sparked some debate over here! Keep it up and good writing!
Wow, 620 responses (621counting mine), half your luck.
Good on you for wanting to protect your girl; that’s your responsibility and it sounds like you’re doing a good job of it. I am a parent and a grandparent. I have boys. Do you have boys? If you did, you’d know that they come in all shapes and sizes and go through all sorts of sometimes unpleasant, often silly phases (just as girls do).
I have grandsons (and granddaughters.) That’s why I am just as resentful at having boys stereotyped as I would be if you had written a disparaging open letter addressed to girls. Of course if you had done that, you would be accused of being sexist. Sooner or later, both boys and girls grow out of those hormone riddled years. Well, most of them will. I guess in the end it’s all about the parenting, isn’t it?
I have two daughters and two sons. ^^I already know that.
This piece is satire. Did you know that? If you did you would know that nothing I’ve written here is serious and is just a parody of what someone else wrote addressed only to teenage girls.
I tend to jump the gun on this issue, truly sorry. If I decide to read a post I generally read it all the way through. I obviously didn’t do that here.
Trust me, you’re not even remotely the first person who has gotten confused.
“Women of integrity also don’t write incredibly mean, self-righteous posts that slut-shame teenage girls.”
^ I love you and everything about this post.
You rock,
Christy
Ms. Risa
You are brilliant. That says it all.
Dana
Woow. First – that’s hilarious.
Second – I can’t believe people got pissed off at you and took it serious! xD And they called you negative – why’d they take it in negative light?
Funny!!
haha. this post made me laugh out loud. it’s scathing – real fire & brimstone stuff. I pity any teenage boy that dare show interest in your daughter. wow. you’re very protective of her, and a real gate-keeper of her virtue. it’s reassuring to read about parents who care about their daughter’s online life. especially in this age where social media has become such an epidemic. but, moving with the times in 2013AD, a very necessary and socially acceptable part of our lives. and I am relieved to read you have such a hands-on and proactive approach to sanctioning her social media activity. a half naked teenage boy in his pyjamas, striking the ubiquitous ‘I’m sexy and I know it’ pose could just be a front for a hairy-arsed 50 year old paedophile who is out to groom your daughter. extreme maybe, but not impossible or implausible. but then again, it could just be the norm. the socially accepted norm in the teenage social media arena. boys will be boys. hormones. sexual curiosity etc. all perfectly natural elements of sexual development. girls do semi-clad selfies too- it’s the age we live in. it’s a normal part of growing up.while you mock this, and try to shield your daughter from these images and try to steer her towards Jesus, I fear for your daughter’s own development into adulthood. to what extent will you try to shield her, and sanction her actions?
you can’t wrap her in cotton wool and hide her away from the big bad world.
while I found your satire funny, I can’t help but feel fearful for your daughter. repression and fear feed fear and repression.
it’s none of my business how you raise your child. you could keep her locked in the basement and serve her daily sermons for all I care- that’d be your business, however, posting in a public arena this well-written satirical yet rather sanctimonious piece, makes it my business when it appears in my ‘freshly pressed’ folder. it is a well-written piece- I actually enjoyed it until the Jesus card was dealt. now, having re-read this piece, it’s left me cold and concerned.
it’s 2013. let her live, grow and develop like other teenage girls. if she has questions, answer them from your heart and experience – not the holy scriptures. help her find her own mind – not a xerox of yours. define guidelines and boundaries together – not impose sanctions. I hope you find a way to come close because when that hamster dies and is replaced by sweaty-palmed pimply-faced teenage boys with boners in their hip-pockets and she is burgeoning with curiosity that the Fam-Damn-ly have suppressed, she’s going to rebel. I’ve seen this happen so many times in the community where I live. find a healthy balance before things backfire.
thanks for sharing.
It’s satire.
exactly! and so was that… x
following your lead. x
i really enjoyed your piece. brilliant.
Plenty of people have said what I think, but: EXCELLENT. This is so well done. I love it. I wonder if the original Mrs Hall saw this? And if she has, I wonder if she gets it…
Thank you so much for this. Only one suggestion: put your link to the original article prominently at the front of your post here, so that those who have not yet stumbled upon this particular brouhaha can put your (VERY funny) response in context. Took me 2 days to figure out why you said your article was satire.
Just as the original post’s author limited the power of her words with the pictures that she chose, so this post’s author limits the power of her words by doing the exact thing she’s accusing others of. Judging. It’s a two-way street, believe it or not. And since you are not the original Mrs. Hall, you have no idea what the intents of her heart were. Instead, you judgmentally read a whole lot of assumptions into her writing. This isn’t satire, folks. It’s mean-spirited judgment.
Sounds great. Thanks for reading.
I can’t believe people don’t get it. The world is flat too 🙂
My Professor as a first assignment told us to view Mrs Hall’s Post and then read any rebuts. I’m not Mormon but that mom is scary Her boys are not God’s gift and then can well control their thoughts no need for mommy to do that for them. I loved your rebut ” slut shaming” should be put in the lexicon!!!
Can I ask what class it was for? That is awesome. Mrs. Hall is a Presbyterian Women’s Minister and I’m a Mormon (although a lot of my Mormon friends loved what she wrote). I cannot take credit for “slut-shaming” since it’s been in the feminist lexicon for years. Thank you for your comments.
Women and Culture. We had a ball reading Ms Hall’s post Teenage boys are just that TEENAGE BOYS! As a woman it should not be my responsiblilty to control my dress and behavior because they may or MAY NOT be turned on by it. You have found many fans in NJ
Woot! What a great class to take. Next time I’m in NYC I’ll wave to my NJ fans 🙂
I am old school. I still believe in the pedestal and discrete actions. I guess that is the way I was brought up. If you want to read about how I met my wife go to my blog and read the one with the stamp. It will illustrate my old fashioned ways and that is why to me facebook and the like are to open. Good sense should prevail and the correct priorities of behavior should be applied.
I’m sure as someone who is not expected to live on a pedestal you have no problem with it at all. Women have been fighting against being placed on a pedestal and being the “angel in the home” since the Victorian era. Idols are placed on pedestals to be worshiped. Like Grace Kelly says about in my favorite movie, High Society, “I don’t want to be worshiped. I want to be loved.” I want to be treated as a human being.
I’m glad you believe in discrete actions, good sense, and correct priorities. Might I suggest you apply those things to your life only? You can’t control the behaviors of others.
This is awesome. You exposed the absurdity and sexism quite well and in an incredibly engaging manner. I absolutely loved this. Well done!
At first I thought you were being completely ridiculous and out of line, then I realized what you were doing. That was awesome, good on you.
Can anyone give me a hand with getting started? Give my first blog a read and il return the favour?
New. Extremely lost! Trying my best to navigate my way around…
Read it. I agreed with the part that running sucks. But I’ll never get behind calling other women sluts. I’ve been called a slut before. It hurts no matter how much the person who called you it sucks.
Never meant to cause offence. I have also- it’s been amended!
I think the writing is stronger without the slut word.
I’ve changed it now. Thanks for your help!
I read the first article and then read this… And I think you completely missed the point of the original… The point of the original article was to tell girls that it’s okay to love their bodies but they shouldn’t feel the need to showcase it for the world to see. The original post’s intent was to show how what you post on the internet cannot be unseen and you should be careful to not post things you will regret later. The intention wasn’t to shame people into believing she has a perfect family and if you make a mistake you’re no longer going to be able to be her sons’ friend. The point was that she wants her sons to be able to get on social media without having the temptation of seeing a girl scantily clad- if they choose to see a movie with that, that’s their choice, but they shouldn’t have things like that popping up in their news feed. She’s not saying that her sons can’t control themselves nor that no boys can control themselves, she’s simply saying that she wants to protect them from having that temptation in their life. What you wrote frustrated me because in trying to make a point about the other article, you completely missed the point of what was written. You’re trying to make the article into an issue about girls vs. guys and how we give guys leeway when it comes to these issues but don’t give girls any leeway. While I agree that it does happen quite often, I disagree with your post because that wasn’t the point of the article. It’s really just an article about how you shouldn’t post things on the internet that you wouldn’t want your mother to see.. Much less someone else’s mom. Yes, she shouldn’t have posted a picture of the boys at the beach without shirts on because it seemed to negate her topic, but she also deleted the pictures once she realized the inappropriateness of it and replaced it with different ones where everyone is fully clothed. She’s not posting it because she doesn’t love her body or because she doesn’t want girls to love theirs. She’s making a point that she wants her sons to be able to get on social media without having the same images which daily appear in the media. She wants her sons to not have to constantly be bombarded with images which once seen are hard to unsee. She’s not saying that girls don’t have the same issue, she’s simply saying that she wishes girls would be responsible and not post pictures that will provide temptation to others- and by deleting the pictures of her with her shirtless sons, she’s also trying to hold them to the same standard. She’s not saying that her sons are perfect, she’s simply saying that she wants to save her sons from temptation and asking that girls help her with that by not posting those pictures. You’ve turned a completely innocent and modesty issue into one that is about men vs. women and why women need to cover up and men don’t. She’s trying to make a point that posting pictures like that can not only damage her son’s perception of her, but also the poster’s perception of herself. If a girl is posting pictures like that, odds are she’s posting them because it’s the only way she knows that she will get attention… and the article is trying to warn against getting that type of attention. I only wish that posting this would actually help you see the point that you completely missed while you were creating a non-existent issue and turning it into one. She’s encouraging girls to find a way to love themselves and love their bodies in a way that doesn’t require them to get attention for the wrong reasons. I apologize if I’ve offended you, I’m only trying to help you understand the message the original article was trying to convey. Also, by posting your article you are judging this lady you don’t even know… which is highly ironic considering the fact that you’re judging her for doing the same thing… Just some food for thought.
(Just for future reference, I don’t normally publish comments from anonymous commenters with obviously fake email addresses like anonymous@anonymous.com)
I didn’t completely miss the point of the original article. Just because someone disagrees with something doesn’t mean they don’t understand what the person is trying to convey. Your comment is longer than Mrs. Hall’s original article and if she wanted to convey all the things you say she is conveying, she would have said it. Not anywhere in her post did she tell girls to love their bodies. She made fun of them for having pouty duck lips (seriously, why does everyone hate on pouty duck lips so bad?) and in other posts she has made fun of women with flawless Barbie-esque bodies. Who is Mrs. Hall to judge whether or not someone wants to showcase their beauty for the world to see? And how is sharing a photo of yourself on Facebook with people you know, showing the world? How can you say Mrs. Hall’s intent was not to tell girls they couldn’t be friends with her sons anymore when she specifically said she was going to block them, not give them a second chance, and they were banished from their online island? Did we read the same article?
Anyway, I’m tired of people telling me I just didn’t understand Mrs. Hall’s post. I understood it perfectly. I understand what she was saying and what she was trying to convey. The only think I can’t speak to is her intentions in writing the post. The only person who knows that is Mrs. Hall herself. Everything else is just speculation. Just because I disagree with her body-shaming teenage girls she knows personally in an effort to protect her perfect little snowflakes from ever getting aroused, doesn’t mean I don’t understand exactly the message she is conveying.
And also, “anonymous,” you can leave all the fake names and fake emails all you want, but I have your IP address. BTW, how are things in Texas?
And I think you missed the hypocrisy of Mrs. Hall posting pictures of her husband as a teenage boy without his shirt and saying how she ‘stalked’ him (her words).
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3A6u-YjFVQpJ8J%3Agivenbreath.com%2F2011%2F12%2F08%2Fi-spy%2F+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Also it took MANY people objecting to the pictures of her sons shirtless and flexing on the beach before she took them down and said she was wrong. But she didn’t take down her post. Nope, she apologized and gave herself a second chance. But in her post she said there would be no second chances for teenage girls who made a mistake when they posted pictures.
And she NEVER in her post mentioned wanting to tell the girls they needed to find a better way to love themselves. Her reasons were all about her sons not being able to ‘unsee’ those pics. She never even mentioned trying to teach them self control when confronted by images that they felt were inappropriate.
If a girl posting the pictures is doing in a misguided attempt to get attention in the only way she knows how, well then how is her ‘one strike and you’re out of here’ policy going to help them?
Hey, Anonymous, how hard do you think I could roll my eyes before I saw my brain?
The audacity of suggesting this is a non-existent issue is very frustrating. So if we asked teenage girls out there if they felt they were supposed to dress for boys, look good for boys, but don’t ever tempt boys, they would say, no none of that ever enters my head? If we asked them if they don’t feel that impossible standard of finding that sweet spot between not dressing like a prude and not dressing like a whore, they’d say no I dress for myself and don’t worry what others think? There is an impossible virgin/whore complex that is needlessly divisive, and it is an issue for women everywhere because at the heart of things they want to be seen as a human and not these horribly limiting labels so yes, I would say this is an existent issue, and it is one I will not keep quiet about.