be decent and engaging and don't worry about them, and neither will the person you're with.
This is just something hairy people tell themselves to get through the day.
So this is a cultural commonplace that confuses me a lot. Why exactly are hairy men considered so yucky and offensive? As recently as the early eighties this was not the case, or so I infer from old magazines and movies.
(Although, no doubt, variety being variety, someone is thinking that.)
Did someone here link to a cartoon explaining 'quantum fetish theory'? The idea that simply conceiving of a possible fetish was sufficient to call websites devoted to it into existence?
A very good friend of mine routinely says "give me a skinny hairy dude any day." In fact, she places far more emphasis on hairy than skinny, although if given the choice between a bear and a skinny hairy person she would take the skinny one.
Should I give her your email?
2: I think it's a body-building esthetic. Media-pretty men now, since the mid 80's or so, have gym muscles, and body-builders depilate to show their muscles off. So we've stopped seeing approving pictures of hairy men.
Well, and on some guys it does look kinda gross. Very pale with lots of black body hair isn't a good combination.
quantum fetish theory
I've explained that as "if you can think it, someone's doing it," but QFT is much better.
To the limited extent that I swing that way, I find hairy guys more attractive. I have always wished I could grow a fuller beard and have hairier arms and chest, I don't think only out of an impression that the girls would find me hotter that way, though such an impression certainly played into the formation of the wish or its longevity -- sort of my personal vision of what a grown man should look like includes hairy arms and chest and a full beard.
How is "mortify" being used here? Are you saying that you don't believe your exes thought sex with you as something of a hair shirt? Because that I don't believe.
Yeah, I'm sure your general hairiness is no big deal ogged.
But, your back isn't hairy, is it? Because that's just disgusting.
Well, and on some guys it does look kinda gross. Very pale with lots of black body hair isn't a good combination.
And LB's one of the nice, accepting ones. Feel shame and embarrassment, ogged.
-gg-d is Mexican, not pale.
I grow a very full beard, which I think gives me some sort of obligation to grow one periodically just to lord over people like Clownaest, but my wife dislikes it so generally my talent goes unrealized.
Though recently she seems to be warming up to it (though still an absolute prohibition on mustaches, which is a shame).
I don't think the would be such an issue if I didn't hate the fuck out of shaving.
And LB's one of the nice, accepting ones.
Heh. I guarantee my wife's less accepting in this regard. But I have very little body hair, so it all works out.
Beard with no mustache? You could wear a black hat and get a buggy for the full-scale Amish look.
I generally don't like beards much, but Buck's always had one and on him it looks good.
You know what I find interesting? Any time the genital shaving topic arises, some helpful person chimes in with the observation that men who prefer that are pining for a prepubescent vagina. But nobody says that women who prefer a clean-shaven face or chest are pining for underaged boys.
And I'm reasonably satisfied with my body hair overall. My shoulders are perhaps a bit hairy by current standards, but I'm hardly a yetti. Also my pubes, I suppose, but trimming those makes my cock look far too large.
16: Because face shaving has a long history that doesn't seem to have been driven by women's preferences?
I'm also pretty hairy and my experience has been that while backhair is pretty universally disapproved of by women my age, some people quite like the chest hair.
And the rest of them -- ephebophiles seeking a boy-man, one and all -- aren't worth the attention anyway!
Arrrgh, weiner-pwned by Apo in 16.
15- no, silly, just no solo mustaches, which she finds repugnant on general principle, though I maintain they look great on me. A beard with no muchaste would make be weird.
Didn't Lincoln grow a beard because some girl told him it would make him a big hit with the laydeez?
Shaving definitely sucks, and I say that as a person with a low-to-medium level of shavable hair (though with poor luck in terms of wiriness and curliness).
There is more than one typo in the second sentence of 21.
20: You know, I miss Matt Weiner. And all his pwnage.
Can "ephebophile" be used to designate a woman looking to rob the cradle? I thought it referred exclusively to chicken hawks.
this was before the days when I realized that what we enjoy and appreciate in the abstract and on strangers is only tenuously connected to how we react to people we like and interact with.
It's nice to see someone else say this (btw, what's with all these sweetly insightful life's-lessons posts from ogged, anyway? they're very charming, which is not what I come here for). I was really embarrassed about my bland taste in beefcake -- A&F boys, basically -- until I realized that the people I'm attracted to in real life are nothing like that. The biggest crush I've had in recent memory was on a guy who was just not "objectively" attractive; and it wasn't that I got over the back hair because he had such a great personality - his personality made the back hair attractive. No, honest.
Muchaste: facial hair grown in the interests of preserving one's virginity.
If I had about 45 minutes to an hour each day to devote to shaving properly, with all the right products and accoutrements and rituals, it wouldn't be such a big deal. But such is the pace of modern life that having to do it in about five minutes makes it a loathsome chore.
A beard with no muchaste
Ñongratulations!
I mean, how is that even a typo? How is that not your forbidden Brock language coming to the fore?
Mmmm. I have very hackneyed pretty-boy tastes in what I like to look at. Early West Wing Rob Lowe is about right. But men I have fallen hard for have been all over the map physically, and as you say, it hasn't been a matter of settling physically, it's been about finding the person's physical presence attractive because of who they are.
28: Yeah, I've know women like that.
Of course, now that I've put it out there, I realize I'm *still* really embarrassed about my cheezy, bland taste in beefcake. I'm glad these internets are anonymous.
And let me agree that shaving sucks really hard, almost as hard as Christmas.
I'm trying to convince my honey to stop shaving his beard. He lets it grow just to the point where I get fond of it, and then he scrapes it all off. Of course, since it's his chin hair, it's not really my call to make, I suppose.
During the termination of an experiment, I once shaved off just my mustache before shaving off the rest. It made me look decidedly goatlike. Only Lincoln could pull it off.
Does he have a beard trimmer, such that he could keep it right at the point where you get fond of it?
I'm actually hoping he'll let it grow past the Ahmadinejad stage.
Miniver, the trick is to make sure it doesn't look like a chinstrap. This requires the part just under the mouth to be particularly thick, relative to the sideburns and the chin-part, so it sort of looks like there's a mustache there anyway.
Also, I am loving this new posting as presidents thing, lol.
You know who else should just grow a full beard already? Nouri al-Malaki. Every time I've seen TV footage of him, the guy has just looked like he's been up for three days straight, which may in fact be the case.
But men I have fallen hard for have been all over the map physically, and as you say, it hasn't been a matter of settling physically, it's been about finding the person's physical presence attractive because of who they are.
Isn't this the stereotype of women: they care more about who the person is than what they look like? Are you purposely reifying the patriarchy, LB? Thank heavens for women (?) like cerebrocrat, though even she seems a bit wobbly.
38 - Is that acceptable now? Shaving so that it looks like you haven't shaved recently?
LOL-ing is still forbidden, even for presidents.
Miniver, the trick is to make sure it doesn't look like a chinstrap.
Nah, the trick is to have a mustache to go with the beard.
42 gets it right. Let's not reinforce the double standard by implying that men should be less obsessive than women about fitting an unrealistic ephebophilic standard.
Thank heavens for women (?) like cerebrocrat
You're totally hairless, aren't you, estrogen boy?
Also, I am loving this new posting as presidents thing, lol.
Don't think you can write "lol" just because you freed the slaves, Abe.
44: Lollerbation, however, is not only acceptable but encouraged.
What, I'm going to lie about my experiences to avoid feeding the patriarchy? Actually, given (a) Ogged's post, and other things I've heard from men and (b) the fact that most women, despite physical flaws, seem to find men who are happy to have sex with them, suggests that most men are closer to me on this than stereotype would suggest.
it works in reverse too: people I don't like I gradually find less and less attractive. Even with actors, their attractiveness varies somewhat with their talent (it's not the only factor, obviously).
Just a moustache is appalling 90% of the time.
You're totally hairless, aren't you, estrogen boy?
I take the pills for a medical condition, nice guy. I can't help it if it makes my skin glow.
A beard with no muchaste would be weird.
So it's goodbye beard, and adios, muchaste.
the fact that most women, despite physical flaws, seem to find men who are happy to have sex with them, suggests that most men are closer to me on this than stereotype would suggest.
Oh, lord. Now you've done it. You've attacked difference (I think) feminism. B's gonna go bitch cakes. (I more or less agree with you on the similarities here between men and women. And it goes both ways, and changes with age and culture.)
16:
"It is the business of [Satan's lowerarchy] to produce in every age a general misdirection of what may be called sexual 'taste.' This they do by working through the small circle of popular artists, dressmakers, actresses and advertisers who determine the fashionable type. The aim is to guide each sex away from those members of the other with whom spiritually helpful, happy and fertile marriages are most likely. Thus we have now for many centuries triumphed over nature to the extent of making certain secondary characteristics of the male (such as the beard) disagreeable to nearly all the females -- and there is more in that than you might suppose."
Of course, the real question here: Given that this is a post about swimming, at what point will Ogged give in and wax his entire body in a vain quest for a tiny bit more speed?
at what point will Ogged give in and wax his entire body in a vain quest for a tiny bit more speed?
You know, the plan this past summer was to have been to train as hard as I could and enter a Masters meet. Had I done that, I would in fact have "shaved down."
It isn't the body hair that slows you down, Ogged. It's the gonopodium.
But seriously, is that the plan for next summer now? Because if it is, you have to post before and after pictures.
at what point will Ogged give in and wax his entire body in a vain quest for a tiny bit more speed?
An extraneous "p" in there, no?
SCMT: that doesn't make sense. "Oint" isn't a word.
I had my ass waxed one time in college on a lost bet, and it was really unpleasant. The actual waxing wasn't even the worst part, it was the few weeks after -- it just felt really weird to sit around all day with a naked ass inside my pants.
I've gone back and forth on unshaven legs a couple of times, lifetime, and yeah, it is weird how different skin feels with the hair removed.
OT: let me suggest one non-creepy (I think) reason to prefer women who shave -- it makes it easier for clueless guys to find the clitoris when they're going down.
69 is true for trimming in general...actual removal of all the hair is definitely unnecessary and very weird to me.
I last shaved my face completely, as opposed to shaping, on the night of my first date with my wife. She said she liked beards.
At my current age of engrizzlement, hair will grow from nearly every square inch of my head, it seems. But I've never had any hair to speak of on my torso above my waist. This has never bothered me, nor been complained of as a lack, but I definitely thought chest hair would have been desirable when I was growing up. It's odd that that has changed.
I think Lewis—and Chesterton, and Lawrence—are right about this, about where it comes from. And _gg_d and LB and Tim are reflecting the healthy position; it's nice LB isn't suspicious of an opinion just because a majority of men share it.
The change in whether hairy men are conventionally sexy has, as noted before, taken place in the past 20 years or so (and I imagine there have been other cycles). When I was young, it was a sign of manliness (well, except for the hairy back thing, sorry ogged) and it was cool to start getting hair on your chest. Now, those of us with pale skin and black body hair are gross. The good news guys is that eventually it turns gray. Although I assume that that is gross for other reasons.
But since these things are cyclical, I can always hope the the cycle where hairy, graying, obese, old men are sexy will come around soon. I mean, it could happen, right?
I don't know about the other qualities, but the sexual utility of bellies has been touted on these here threads within the last several weeks.
I told my little boy that drinking beer "puts hair on your chest". Then pointed him in the direction of his mother, who was at that time drinking a can of beer while chatting with a couple of her friends, and waited for hilarity to ensue. I think that someone has stolen my £5 book token from the Readers' Digest however.
Probably spent it on more beer.
I'm really hoping that one of these cycles will bring cachet to the hair that grows in a fringe around the edges of my ears. It's a bit astounding, really, how much of it there is--despite desultory plucking, they always seem to come back. Also recently coming out of the canal, too.
And I'm convinced it could be the next big thing with the lasses--dead sexy, if it just had the right, you know, cycle behind it. Marketing and image and all that.
That's alright--I've got time. The less that grows on my scalp, the more that grows on my ears, and the trend is not abating.
i've avoided black-on-pale by having my top hair thin out, and my beard, not quite full enough to wear, is turning red??!?
now i use my trimmer on my legs too, although i can't figure out how to use in to reduce armpit hair.
re: 77. I totally share your pain, and hope.
Also recently coming out of the canal, too.
Isn't this correlated with heart disease?
I feel like 38 is far too young to be joining the ear hair demographic and yet here I am. I tweeze that shit furiously.
Yesterday, everybody seemed wet behind the ears—"Have you seen the lyrics to Brown Sugar and Sweet Home Alabama? Wow! Who knew!"—; Today, everybody's got hair growing out of their ears.
Back hair isn't sexy. Dark hair on pale skin can be okay, but lighter hair looks better.
I think facial hair on men is a mistake when it's too sparse, and I never liked the idea of a man with facial hair, but my fiancé can grow a full beard in a week, and it works on him.
Also, about half of my college guy friends would have dark hair, but if they tried to grow facial hair, it would come in brilliant red. Very strange. Their chins were on fire.
Isn't this correlated with heart disease?
Well, ogged, apparently it's a predictor when coupled with an earlobe crease. This is an earlobe crease.
Yeah, there seems to be a general brown-hair=red-, or at least redder-, beard thing.
80--
yeah, you mean like when the girls see it they clutch their hearts?
a quick google search suggests that creases on the ear-lobes are trouble, and hair in the canals may be, in combination with the creases.
I ain't got creases.
But, look--one thing that is highly correlated with heart disease is age. So if you are just telling me that my chances of getting heart trouble is going up, well, no duh. I'm getting older, as is reflected by my furry ears.
but if you mean some *extreme, unusual* heart disease? Well, I no longer have to worry about getting a heart attack in the prime of my youth, I can tell you that. I think anything that happens to me from here on out hardly counts as evidence of a genetic predisposition to heart disease--it just means I'm old and wearing out.
as is apostropher.
Mr. Cala's hair continues to darken. As a child, he was a very pale blond. When we met, I would have described his hair as dark blonde. Now, some of it is coming in nearly black. Isn't hair supposed to pick a color?
uh, cala?
you don't have any 'blonde' girlfriends?
I think dating someone who waxed his chest/back would be less sexy than someone who was just hairy because that "growing in" phase, with all of the ingrown hairs and such, is just not attractive.
89: Agreed. And the stubbly aftermath of shaving is even worse. So painful.
87: That's pretty standard -- my dad was a white-blond little boy and is now dark brown, Buck the same for what hair he has, and Newt looks to be going down the same trail -- he's blond, but even at five less so than he was at two.
I was very blond as a kid and now have brown hair, though my facial hair is lighter and redder (some hairs are just out and out red).
I just figured it wouldn't be continuing into one's thirties. My hair's a little darker than it was as a kid, but hasn't darkened noticeably in the past 15.
Agreed on the non-shaving, non-waxing of back hair. Stubble is nasty, plus, that's an awful lot of effort.
You know the old behavior wasn't to remember every nonce-change.
87: There's also a dull black that seems to come in on darkish haired people right when they're starting to gray. Might your Canadian be going there?
He better not. I'm too young for him to be going gray. (Sadly, this could be the case. His dad's hair grayed by moving from black to slate.)
In my family, hair tends to lighten, not darken. My brothers and I all had jet black Suri Cruise-looking hair when we were born and then it all fell out and grew in light brown at around 6 months.
I'm 35, and I'm starting. Not so's you'd notice without looking for it yet, but this is the year I have to decide between graying or committing to hair dye. I'm pretty sure the plan is going to be to gray.
My grandfather, a Canadian carpenter, btw, and my dad had the tow-to-dark shift. It always puzzled me that my dad's ID said blonde, because he wasn't. But it's what he always put down, even though wartime pictures show his hair already dark.
Not that there's any disagreement on this thread, but I'd like to chime in as someone who doesn't really give a shit about body hair. I've been with dudes who had a lot, and dudes who didn't have much, and it was all fun times (from the hair perspective, anyway). On most men, I prefer a non-beard look, but hey, it's not my face, so I keep my mouth shut. This is due to my general "treat others how you want to be treated" principle; I know that I don't want any input from dudes about how I'm supposed to look, so I don't give them any. It usually seems to work. Until they break up with me, of course, but that's a different story.
I'm pretty sure the plan is going to be to gray.
**Swoon.**
My father flipped in the Army -- when he went in, his parents still thought of him as a dark blond, and when he came out, his hair was brown. There was apparently a certain amount of 'What did they do to you?" from Grandma. Maybe yours was on a similar schedule, and you're looking at pictures that lag the issuance of the ID by a couple of years?
96- weird, I've never noticed that. But I suppose I rarely pay close attention to other people's hair. My hair started a solid dark brown/black, and never really changed color at all, I just kept growing one bright white strand of hair after another. The salt and pepper thing, which I suppose is still the current state of affairs, although my hair's getting to be a bit salty for my taste. But such is life.
I was blonde until about 14 or 15. Until about 20 or so, my hair was sort of medium brown. Then I realized that it really was going a rather dark brown. So I dyed it red.
My honey has been graying since he was 25, or perhaps younger. It's concentrated in one big splotch by his forehead, though it runs throughout. It looks good on him.
Ooo, skunk-stripe is very attractive.
Gray hair on men and women can be very becoming.
I have tons of gray (white, really) in my beard, but practically none atop my enormous head. My younger brother, who had very dark brown hair before he went more salt than pepper, grows a red beard.
Some men in my family get the skunk-stripe look. I'm told it's adorable when small children call you 'pepe le pew' as a result.
Dr. Oops (and my mother before her) went very gray, very young and on her it looks like a million bucks. I'm hoping to get a similarly appealing effect.
"Oint" isn't a word.
It certainly is -- "v. trans. To smear with oil, ointment, etc.; to anoint. Also intr."
My honey once got chased around in a souk by a man waving henna and offering to "fix" his hair. He thought it was hilarious.
Isn't gray pretty much always attractive? It can suck as a sign of aging/mortality, but I don't know anyone who doesn't think it looks good.
All I know is that no female on the Upper East Side has gray hair.
It depends on the gray. Hair that seems to commit to going gray looks great. Hair that just sort of fades to greyish whitish blondish tends just to look old. (The latter is most likely the genes I have.)
I went from dating a very gray-haired guy (with really interesting mixes of black and white hair all over his body, thick on the chest) to dating someone with, somehow, not a single gray hair in his chestnut-brown hair and full beard. The previous guy thought his body hair was very interesting, manly, and attractive, while the latter is panicked about being seen as a "hairy guy." I often wonder if the full beard wasn't grown in order to distract from the little brown hairs on his shoulders. I'm like, "Dude, you don't know from hairy. I'll tell you about hairy."
I've got a streak, though it's (inadvertantly) hidden by how I wear my hair most of the time...I think all silver-gray is great, but the in between stages are sometimes less so. Looks less shiny, or something.
But roots are clearly worse, and given how lazy I am about stuff like that...
Replying to (and maybe not disagreeing with) 115: Grey looks great on a still-vigorous, healthy body. (Even usually a 60+ year-old body.) On the truly old and frail, it just looks old, and those few who manage to hold onto the coloring of their youth usually look better, more alive.
I have fairly thick, black, graying hair. I'm not really expecting ever to go bald -- although men in my mom's family have generally lost their hair young(er than I now am) and my understanding was that male baldness is inherited from the mother, still my hair seems to be more like that of my paternal relatives. I prefer salt and pepper or gray or white hair in a partner; to my consternation my partner insists on dying her hair black. (Which at least I prefer to what her mother does, which is dye blonde.)
(Also: I recently got my hair cut a good deal shorter than I've ever had it before, and I'm liking it.)
Dude. DUUUUDE. I found a grey chest hair. A GREY CHEST HAIR.
I almost feel guilty about the fact that I don't mind bald at all. It's so offensive to some women that I nearly feel the need to apologize for the fact that I've dated two very balding guys in a row. My mother just doesn't understand; do I have a fetish of some kind? Do I purposefully seek out the follically overclocked? No, I just really don't factor it in, so I suppose I end up with the extremely hot and sexually gifted bald guys all the other ladies have passed over.
It does indicate high testosterone levels. And you can spot your man from a distance by the reflections off his scalp.
125: The same happens to men who date overweight women. One is suspicious, but two makes you a deviant.
Once is cool, twice is queer, as they say.
But seriously, I hadn't realized that bald was that unpopular -- no one gives me a hard time about Buck's chromedomeitude. Balding can be kind of unfortunate, if it's the kind where the hair just sort of gets transparently thin all over rather than receding. But bald looks fine.
The speed of the shift must vary. Here I'm 39, and it's starting at the temples. My driver's license picture, eleven years later, shows the exact same pattern as I still have, a further seven years later than that.
You've attacked difference (I think) feminism. B's gonna go bitch cakes.
Because I'm known for being adamant about how women and men have nothing in common, right.
Ogged, what's with the feel-good Hallmark posting of late? Has the cancer metastasized to your brain?
I like the phrase 'bitch cakes', though.
Trend seems to be shave your head—which might, after all, be a fashion choice—rather than be balding or thinning, the worst look now.
Adds up to 57, which is off by more than two. 10 & 5.
My ex had the fuzzy stuff on top and very wiry hair on the sides and back, so he buzzed it really short so you couldn't tell the texture difference. I thought that was kind of lame and made him look vaguely military (he had a sort of George-C.-Scott-in-Patton look sometimes). The current used to shave it, but now lets his just grow out to a normal boy-hair length, since it's completely gone on top. I like that better, I guess. Insecurity itself is the turn-off.
All this "yay gray" talk is fine as far as it goes. But blond hair turning gray just looks kinda dishwatery, actually. Luckily, my parents *still* don't have gray hair (well, my dad does now, but he didn't until he was in his 60s).
That said, I'm starting to be irked that I probably won't have time to get a cut before the MLA.
I'm starting to have noticable minor streaks of grey, at 30. Given my family history, though, I have good odds of turning it into an Einstein-grade mad white shock. I'm looking forward to that.
My dad didn't start really graying until into his 40s, but I sense my hairline is already starting to recede, and I'm not pleased. I'm retaliating by growing bangs.
Yeah, Einstein crazy hair is teh awesome.
Since you all love me just the way I am, I am going to point out that Ogged's whole "women over 15 are way less attractive" thing is completely at odds with his "hairy men will be loved just the way they are" thing. I call bullshit.
Thank heavens for women (?) like cerebrocrat, though even she seems a bit wobbly.
Sorry to disappoint, but I'm a guy. (Surely I can't be the only homo here?) And I can't imagine what you mean by wobbly.
Aw, come on. He's had a brush with death and regretted his former heartless shallowness. It's like a made-for-TV movie!!
LB, why must you ruin everything?
141 doesn't work. The whole Jessica Biel thing was post-cancer. I'm sticking with the theory that they didn't catch it all, and now his brain is rotting.
140: I think Tim, thinking you were a woman, was pleased that you were defying stereotype by being shallow about your taste in men, but was calling you wobbly (that is, insufficiently shallow) for falling for a hairy guy anyway. And we've got other gay men around here, but gender shows up so poorly through the internet.
gender shows up so poorly through the internet.
Au contraire! Which reminds me I really should be working on my MLA paper.
Well, mine shows up poorly, anyway. I just got the "I had no idea you were female" reaction over in Megan's comments again.
Au contraire!
You're obviously gay, aren't you, sir?
For me, the whole bald thing depends on the attractiveness of the skull. My former shrink shaved his head and was teh hott [much to the disappointment of many women, as he was also gay]. A family member has a bare skull bulging with his big brain, and is nott, except to his wife. However, as the Biophysicist is a mutant whose hair grows so fast that his barber can barely keep pace, I will not see his skull unless he shaves his head. As he doesn't shave his face, this will be unlikely.
Re: shaving of the pubic hair: A friend of mine once admitted that she did this in order to maintain the illusion that she was a natural blonde. The one and only time that she tried to bleach her pubes, she ended up in the ER shrieking in pain.
148: True. You and Digby and Rivka are exceptional in that respect. But by and large, most people's language and content is fairly gendered, I think. Even the gay people.
Although come to think of it, I should admit that I haven't really done a specially focused study on the gay people, so I could be mistaken. (Though of course I don't think I am.)
Phrenology has been discredited, DE.
Re: Gender on the internet: I am frequently accused of being male. 'It's the way you write' is the standard explanation. There was a women-only forum on CIS that I participated in, and new members would constantly impugn my gender. At least one told me that my failure to use emoticons was an indication of the presence of testosterone; another decried my lack of flowery metaphor. As least one loony on the internet decided that I was not only male, but a sexual predator. [Never say that you don't think all pron is exploitative to a radfem.]
153: What does phrenology have to do with it?
Well, some people are stupid. Their opinions don't count.
153: What does phrenology have to do with it?
The idea that you could determine, even in part, whether someone is attractive based on the shape of the skull—balderdash.
Surely I can't be the only homo here?
There's Robust McManlyPants and Rah. Most of the rest of us are just wannabes.
I dunno. I never really thought that LB was a guy. I think gender comes across, though I couldn't point out how.
I think Digby's blog-voice is very male. But what do I know?
159: A lot of the women are bi. I think we may even have some Genuine Lesbians.
So typical to overlook the laydeez.
Plus Stroll, my favorite, shows up from time to time.
156: I keep saying that, yet those people seem to think otherwise.
Of course, mentioning to them that they have the IQ of a senile tortoise probably isn't the best way to get that opinion across.
Like asshole, homo is generally used to refer to fellas.
165: That's 'cause they're afraid of the laydeez. Look at B-Wo, trying to get out of the meet-up just because we've demanded that he show us all of his cock pictures.
Hey, I just got an error message telling me I post too much. I cry "Unfair!"
If you want to reschedule for thursday, I can do that.
Look, Ben, we're scheduling around you. Of course. Just tell us when, and we'll all show up as bidden.
The penis person has spoken. Thursday it is, at the Borders on the Promenade.
Apo, is McManlyPants just not around as much, or is he deliberately not around as a result of finding us tiresome or boring?
God god, first Ogged goes all Readers' Digest, and now Labs is fretting over whether or not he's been doing enough to keep his McManly interested.
We used to be so close. He used to call, and comment, and now it's like none of it means anything to him any more.
Next, FL develops an eating disorder. "If I'm thin, he'll comment!"
154: My experience, too. Reasonably intelligent writing + non 'femme' subject + genderless pseud (not this one) = 'oh, you must be a man.'
You laugh, but I'll do an extra set at the gym tonight just so he'll notice my heaving manbosoms. I hate when commenters I like disappear.
Thursday it is. We can celebrate the Solstice. Or Saturnalia. But then we'll all have to wear funny hats.
It happened to me when I used the name "xhenxhefil". ??
He's probably lost in World of Warcraft. Or, you know, this life thing. I keeping hearing about.
No, I'm sure it's me. I've just been so dull and dreary recently.
177: Hell, I was using a girly name. They just thought I was gender-bending. But yes, declarative sentences, the ability to use the subjunctive and a fondness for semi-colons seems to connote "male" to some folk.
183: So does starting sentences with "Hell, ".
On that note, I'm going to attempt to drag myself out of the time-sink that is Unfogged and go do Things. Like take off my Kid's sweats before he gets home and freaks out that there on Mommie-cooties on his pants.
Well bless your heart (not to unleash any oppressive Southernisms in anyone's presence), FL. I'm around, it's just that I've started a new job and I'm still testing the waters in terms of web-browsing. (The new job is fab.) As such, I've been reading as much as ever, I'm simply doing it invisibly using lynx and that means I can't comment because when I try I get a permission-denied error. (I suspect lynx simply chokes on the CGI or whatever. I consider this in no way the problem of the esteemed Unfogged Star-Siblings and sincerely ask that they waste no cycles even thinking about it.)
Since I'm taking this chance to comment, a couple of brief points:
1) We are totally fucked in Iraq and Bush is going to make it much worse before someone else can make it better, but I don't foresee warheads in our future.
2) No conversation has ever cried out for the soothing pseudonymity of George Washington's hallowed and many-membered name than the back hair conversation. (My personal preference is for men with beards or, at the least, a three-day growth that makes them look all scuzzy and droopy-eyed.) A friend of mine from college, now in his late 20's, only has to shave every week or so and even then it's only his sideburn regions. I consider this unspeakably freakish.
3) If you've not seen Brick you should totally watch it because it is awesome. Turn on subtitles, though, because they are some mumblin' mofos.
Ok, back to blessed and quick-loading and very low-profile text-based browsers. Honest to the gods, this made me blush.
(I suspect lynx simply chokes on the CGI or whatever. I consider this in no way the problem of the esteemed Unfogged Star-Siblings and sincerely ask that they waste no cycles even thinking about it.)
It's because you need javascript in order to comment successfully. It's part of a spam-prevention strategy. I can try making an exception for Lynx users. I assume it reports the user agent as "lynx"?
We will now commence to make out in the comment section.
NPR played 'Bolero.' Man, that's a long song and I can't figure out why I don't get bored with it (but I bet the snare drummer does.)
Maybe because you're thinking of Bo Derek.
What do you know about Bo Derek, sapling?
Ha. No. Torvill & Dean, maybe, but they only excerpted four minutes of it.
You can also try w3m-js or links 2, both of which supposedly support JavaScript. Or it would be quite easy to write a comment shell script.
186: Wow, I'm not the only person who reads Unfogged using lynx.
187: The user-agent is reported as "Lynx".
it wasn't that I got over the back hair because he had such a great personality - his personality made the back hair attractive.
I completely agree. The first time I saw my boyfriend's back I wasn't disgusted; it was more of a shock and awe thing. Now I love to snuggle up against his hairy back. As for his chest hair, that's damn sexy, but I've always been partial to hairy chests.
But nobody says that women who prefer a clean-shaven face or chest are pining for underaged boys.
190: Have you ever seen the music video about Russian history, set to Bolero? It used to play occasionally on public television and on the "ARTS" channel. Good stuff.
See, I knew I couldn't be the only one. The internets are lousy with My People.
Also:
A friend of mine from college, now in his late 20's, only has to shave every week or so and even then it's only his sideburn regions.
I hate this person.
And: Brick was good, and I thought it was going to suck. The subtitles do help a lot.
Furthermore: Wait, is Digby a man or a woman?
Wait, is Digby a man or a woman?
Yes, or at least the odds favor it.
I gather that Digby is a woman, though I don't know this for sure.
To be less annoying, Digby hasn't said. My guess is that she's a woman, but I'm not basing that on more than the fact that she or he has been determinedly non-gendered for quite a long time, and I think a woman would be more likely to do that than a man.
This has proven to be a poor bet in the past.
.... with a margin of error of 100%.
I gather that Digby is a woman
Ogged, you gathered that some dude with a nice unit was a woman, too. Just saying.
Oh, right. Long-haired sweater boy.
I blogged about my Amish beard before reading this comment thread. Really, I did. [/Farber]
I know Digby's gender, but I'm not saying, because I gather Digby prefers it to remain a mystery. So there.
Has anyone heard a song made up of a variety of Doors songs as a medley with their lyrics changed to be about Christmas? It's on the radio right now and is really freaking me out.
201: nyuck, nyuck
Hm, I always thought Digby was a man, I think because of some stuff s/he wrote about his/her father a long time ago. It seems like it's more often guys who have the unresolved issues with their fathers. But it's true, now that I think about it, that Digby is very careful about letting any gender clues slip into the posts.
Zadfrack, how is it you comment? Or do you use a different browser?
You subtitles-needing Brick watchers are teh lame.
As usually happens when my requests for obscure information aren't instantly fulfilled, I've tracked down the The Doors parody/ Christmas medley myself. It's by The Wisemen and called Mr. Mojo's Christmas.
216: I switch to Firefox if I feel compelled to comment. At work, that is. At home I use Firefox all the time.
Here's hoping that the comments have drifted far enough that something on-topic is now sufficiently off-topic to be appropriate.
216: Neato. "Rider on the Sleigh" prompted a guffaw from this listener.
211: Did you correctly guess Digby's gender based on his/her writing?
Also, no one ever mistakes me for a guy online, which disappoints me, for some reason.
What?! redfoxtailshrubsouphandleturtlecarthumidor, I need to rethink some things.
223: I think it's the "fox" in your handle.
shrub, I mistook you for a dude for a while, if it makes you feel any better.
Your home page (assumption! You could be extra sneaky) would appear to give it away.
I wanted to be online-genderless for a while, but it seemed like so much work.
yes, "fox" made me think girl. and "lizard" made me think boy, for our other commenter.
Ned, are you accusing LB of being a mere commenter?
229 - If it makes you feel better, I can pretend you're the sinister artificial intelligence the Mailman (not the Karl Malone version) from Vernor Vinge's "True Names", failing to convince the unfoggeditariat that you're an online-genderless law student.
I think it'll give your comments an extra frisson, especially if they're about sex, baking, or initiating global nuclear holocaust.
No, B, the cool term for it these days is "unit".
228: Well, yes, true, but this was the case even back before I went around linking to such things.
Is it insane for me to link to my homepage here, which includes all that real life information, and yet hope to avoid having this place show up when people go searching on my name? Hm.
I think it'll give your comments an extra frisson, especially if they're about sex, baking, or initiating global nuclear holocaust.
Don't forget conversational democracy.
So I'm curious: is a red foxtail shrub an actual kind of plant? What's the backstory behind your handle anyway?
I assumed its questions regarding redistricting and conversational democracy were part one of a twelve-step plan to destroy America, or provide Labs with a delicious bundt cake.
I can confirm that it's a lot of work.
M/tch is falling behind, and I can't find the thread in which rfts explained her name's origin.
I think it was the band names thread.
I can't find it, either. This is the famed hoohole, I take it.
The story is that I often go by "redfox" on account of my foxred hair. One day a friend decided to opt for a lengthening approach to nicknames, and so "redfoxtailshrub" is short for the well-known affectionate pet name "redtailshrubfishbasketmarble".
Or, rather, "redfoxtailshrubfishbasketmarble."
Thanks for clearing that up. Now I'm off to bed and I'll rest much easier. 'Night all.
Crap, it's a 13-point plan. I'm getting old and my memory is going.
Hence.
That was nicely done.
That was nicely done.
Yeah, it contained a link and everything. You're really getting good at this commenting thing, w-lfs-n.
