[Humanist]

This is insane.

An artist installed a realistic statue of a man sleepwalking in his underwear on the campus of Wellesley College, a prestigious women's college in Massachusetts.

The students are outraged, saying that the statue of the man is causing apprehension and fear, and is triggering their memories of sexual assault. A student started a Change.org petition calling for the statue to be moved.

Mind you ... the man depicted by the statue is not doing anything other than walking with his eyes closed. But somehow, merely being a man in his underwear is a "triggering" event for these uptight feminists.

One of the women tweeted:

Quote:

@Wellesley @theDavisMuseum In what universe is it acceptable to place a realistic statue of a naked man in a dedicated women’s space?

— Elisabeth (@elisabeth_caron) February 3, 2014

Oh, and guess what word they're using to describe the statue?

Creepy.

         

[Agent 47]

Can somebody enlighten me when this "trigger warning" term came to light?

I honestly have no idea.

On topic.

Just a bunch of pussies unable to control their emotions and not give a shit.

A person does have the choice to be offended or not. These people have illusions of grandeur that every small trivial thing affects them.

This is akin to women saying we have a rape culture. Do these women think that every man is a rapist just waiting to strike?

Bleghhhh..

[Sp5]

Somebody stick a cucumber, zucchini, or banana in that guy's shorts.

[2Wycked]

From the petition:

Quote:

Magdalena Zebracka 1 day ago Liked 6
Ms. Fischman,

Matelli's statue does not speak to the power of art to inspire dialogue but rather to the power of the nearly nude, white, male body to disturb and discomfit. Even unconscious and vulnerable, he is threatening. "Arms outstretched, eyes closed," he lumbers forward, quite literally unable to acknowledge the presence of his (in this context) largely female spectators. What a perfect representation of the world outside of Wellesley, where women and people identifying as women are often subject to a similar ambivalence. "I'm not even conscious that I'm wandering through your lady landscape," the statue says. "I do not have to experience you. I feel about you the same way I feel about the snow. But you have to experience me, and I don't care."

What does this statue do if not remind us of the fact of male privilege every single time we pass it, every single time we think about it, every single time we are forced to acknowledge its presence. As if we need any more reminders.

"Interact[ing] playfully with the statue" is a way of asserting what little control we have over it. By dressing it up, we are moving it away, even a little bit, from realism. A realism which, for me, is reminiscent of countless uncles laughing while I squirmed away from their drunken hugs and kisses during every Christmas and family party that I can't forget. Many of them bear a passing resemblance to the Sleepwalker. A realism which for others might mean the 2008 Fondler or any number of triggering experiences..

I believe art is nothing without empathy. I believe the creation of art should be an assertion, not a denouncement, of our humanity. Your analysis of the statue renders it as an abstraction--just some man wandering through an odd place. Let's call a spade a spade. He is not an abstraction. He is deliberate. He is installed. A willful ignorance of the implications of this very concrete statue only undermine your argument for it.

Then read this quote:

Quote:

Matt Chappel MCKINNEY, TX about 12 hours ago Liked 6
The people complaining about this statue are probably completely oblivious to the irony of the fact that they are attempting to stifle artistic expression free speech at a LIBERAL ARTS school… Granted, these rights aren’t guaranteed on a private campus… But this notion that an inanimate statue could be “harmful”, or a “trigger” to victims of sexual abuse is absurd and asinine, and I think it makes a mockery of people who have been sexually assaulted by, you know, a REAL person.

Besides that… Why are these women so uncomfortable with a man in his underwear? Why do they automatically associate a man in his underwear with “sexual assault”? How can one not see that view as highly offensive and prejudiced? Why all the misplaced hatred for men? (I know… Stupid question, right?)

For a ‘liberal arts’ school, these folks sure do seem to be a bunch of overly sensitive prudes with a lot of bottled up anger toward anything male. To these women I propose: Imagine if some man asked you to cover up your body… Imagine if a nude female statue was being protested as “too sexual”, and that a primarily male audience was demanding it’s removal for those reasons (You know, like in staunchly Muslim countries). Imagine what your outrage would be at such a proposition.

Get over yourselves. You ladies sound like my grandma.

[Rutting Elephant]

If only he'd named the statue "Would-be Rapist Frozen to Death by Icy Wind." Then they'd have loved it.

[LeBeau]

Change.org and White House petitions seem to be yet another attention whoring outlet, over who can take the lead to "register" their offense and hurt first.

Imagine an old school complaint box, but instead of everything being anonymous, you were given the option to tape your complaint to the outside in bright colours, so that anyone subsequently complaining would see your original issue.

A lot of this seems to stem from what I would term "résumé (CV) socialization" among educated young people today.

I've even called girls on their shit about this before, and I use that as a verb: "Don't résumé to me, tell me about what you're actually passionate about.."

Never before have so many young people had to spin and distort what little life experience they've had into "examples of leadership", "courageous development", "community service" or other buzzwords when it comes to applying for jobs, grants, and grad school.

We know feminists make a habit of distorting the "battles" they face and how "hard they've fought" for change, and since so many of them make a career out of academia, writing, media, etc. then it would stand to reason they follow the examples to churn out more bullshit as evidence of activism.

Guaranteed some girl in that college will be using this "controversy" for a personal reflection essay, proof of where they "spoke truth to power" or how it gave them first hand evidence of the patriarchy invading a female safe space.

But of course....she first has to tweet about it.

[soup]

That's a crazy trolling statue. Very funny.

"Triggered" students are going after the $$$ no doubt.

I think "feminists" (in quotes because they aren't even real feminists anymore) are over playing their cards and we are going to see a lot of reaction against what is essentially the curent boy-who-cried-wolf tactics that they employ.

Anyone notice how Lady Gaga is considered lame now. That's where "feminism" is going to be in five years if they don't get their shit together.

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

The statue is creepy, but it has nothing to do with rape. In fact, that feminists associate a nearly-naked man with rape says a lot more about them than about him.

My first association was a combination of empathy "Someone needs to help that guy! He'll freeze to death!" and "Fuck, it's really realistic... kind of creepy that you can replicate human features like that in a statue".

[AnonymousBosch]

These people are too precious to exist.

[Emancipator]

(02-06-2014 01:01 AM)LeBeau Wrote:  

Change.org and White House petitions seem to be yet another attention whoring outlet, over who can take the lead to "register" their offense and hurt first.

Yup, mostly because these ones allow people to write their real name when petitioning (Which is dumb, and signing a petition could very well bite you in the ass 20-30 years in the future if records exists)

There have always been petition sites on the web, but back then it was mostly based around pseudonames with zero importance on people's narcissistic feels. No surprise back then most petition sites focused around such scandals like "Bring back DragonBallZ to Toonami".

And haha Wellesley College, a former classmate went there even though she was accepted into Harvard and Columbia. Of course once she started I stopped following her on FB and IG after viewing some putrid whale specimens start popping up on her feed with caption #wellesleydormlyfe

[germanico]

"My emotions are everyone fucking elses responsibility"

[RawGod]

Hysteria must be in the genes, 150 years ago these women's great-great-grandmothers were campaigning to cover up the legs of pianos...

[Emancipator]

(02-06-2014 03:46 AM)RawGod Wrote:  

Hysteria must be in the genes, 150 years ago these women's great-great-grandmothers were campaigning to cover up the legs of pianos...

Feminism is a religion, Patriarchy = Satan, strong use of rhetoric and shaming tactics alongside strong hysteria from followers.

[Days of Broken Arrows]

(02-06-2014 03:46 AM)RawGod Wrote:  

Hysteria must be in the genes, 150 years ago these women's great-great-grandmothers were campaigning to cover up the legs of pianos...

Excellent point. These women do mirror the ideas of their Victorian Era (or Vatican-obsessed) grandmothers.

The different now is that back then, their male counterparts knew not to take them seriously. Now we give them political power and "equality" in the business world. '

Their irrationality and hysteria isn't the problem. The modern expectation of them to be taken seriously elsewhere is.

[svenski7]

So, bypassing the "is this creepy or not" arguement, what the fuck does change.org have to do with this?

Who on RVF seriously believes that this is an issue for the executive branch of the United States government?

So after 100,000 petitions (or whatever the fuck it is), a secretary of a secretary of a secretary of the Prez looks at this and says, "fuck yeah, that's creepy as fuck."

SO WHAT? Do they own the land?

Seriously guys, even pretending that "change.org" is relevant in this situation is offensive to any private property freedom-loving individual.

If you're a socialist then it's a different story, I guess.

[Ziltoid]

(02-06-2014 03:46 AM)RawGod Wrote:  

Hysteria must be in the genes, 150 years ago these women's great-great-grandmothers were campaigning to cover up the legs of pianos...

In centuries bygone, hysteria actually referred to an exclusively female condition.
I'm beginning to think this premise has a lot of merit.

[Hades]

I think it's an ugly statue but it could be repurposed into a zombie pretty easily.

[Haig]

Hey Ziltoid, that's a good point, when they use the word Hysterectomy it signified the removing of a Women's hysteria.

[j r]

Change.org is actually a pretty ingenious scam. The petitions mean nothing. They are just a way for idiot SWPLs to get their daily fox of outrage and signal to their peers how politically aware and socially involved they are.

However, these petitions get real names and email addresses, which Change.org turns around and sells to other non-profits and companies. If you ever want to sell some overpriced product with a bullshit social consciousness angle, but yourself an email list from Change.org.

[Surreyman]

Why don't they just put some clothes on it?

[j r]

Too bad the artist didn't make it a black dude walking around in his underwear. That would have made for some entertaining leftist status games.

By the way, don't take these people too seriously. All this bullshit identity politics nonsense is a phase. Most of these chicks are going to graduate college, go work for a consulting firm or something, marry some white dude named Chad or Tyler, move to the suburbs and have kids they name Willow or Cheyenne, who themselves will go to liberal arts colleges and do a bit of ideological slumming for four years.

It's the circle of life.

[runsonmagic]

Isn't the point of art to be a little bit triggering?

I want you to feel something when you see my work damnit.

[Andy_B]

As somebody already said, this statue at a women's college is clearly some kind of next level trolling.

[soup]

I define creepy as something haunting the would scare a child. I could see a statue like that scaring a tottler.

[Aliblahba]

That statue is kind of rapey.