I’m a huge fan of the silliness which can easily find it’s way into over-literal analysis from a feminist viewpoint.
This is what “Joanna Allan”, the blogger at Your Daughters Will Be Next, had to say about the cover pictured above after spelunking through the Style Section of the Sunday Times for January 13th:
Cover: Photo of a skinny woman who is posing as if she is expecting to be penetrated from behind, penetrated orally and penetrated in her visible cleavage, and who, implicitly, is presently on “the fasting diet”
There is a notable absence of any images of the cover from Joanna’s post. It takes about 45 seconds to find one, and my copy is above.
Could it be because the poor girl on the cover is on roller-skates, thereby making the allegation that she is presenting herself for oral, doggy-style or boobjob sex slightly untenable?
I’ve never tried having sex in these circumstances, but I’m sure it would be an experience.
There’s also this:
p. 37: advert for a car whose seats mimic the curves of an attractive woman
If anyone has the paper, I’d love to know what kind of car it was, as I imagine a pair of foam boobs in my back while driving would hardly help with comfort.
The only car part I’ve ever seen regarded as copying a woman’s anatomy were the headlight covers on a Fiat Coupe, as noted over at fiatcoupe20v.co.uk:
This is going back almost (Ye Gods!) 25 years.
You can read the rest of the ‘snarky and sarcastic’ piece here.
Warning: there are 1100 words of feminist lucubrations.
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Matt Wardman blogs at The Wardman Wire, on media, politics and technology, in addition to writing at the Raccoon Arms. Follow me on Twitter.
{ 42 comments }
“Could it be because the poor girl on the cover is on roller-skates, thereby making the allegation that she is presenting herself for oral, doggy-style or boobjob sex slightly untenable?”
You’ve not seen Boogie Nights, then?
“p. 37: advert for a car whose seats mimic the curves of an attractive woman”
Unless there’s something in the text of the advert to allude to such an association then it would appear that she’s simply referring to a car that has a racing seats where the key design considerations will have been those maximising support where its needed, i.e. the lower back back, neck and shoulders, while keeping the weight of the seat to a minimum.
Could well be a bit of paradolia here.
“…posing as if she is expecting to be penetrated from behind, penetrated orally and penetrated in her visible cleavage…”
Or she’s just got sex on the bloody brain? Maybe she needs to get laid…
I always thought the sign of a true master/mistress was the ability to manage it standing up in a hammock on roller-skates. And remain (relatively) uninjured. Maybe I should get out more (or less).
I always thought “doggy style” was as follows:-
Husband – Sits up & begs…
Wife – Rolls over and plays dead
L O L !
Fair enough, I agree the model is bending but to assume each time a women bends is an invitation to be “penetrated from behind” is a bit Talibani in outlook. As for assuming that everytime a women opens her mouth it is an invitation for “penetrating her mouth” well I was not aware of this rule. One suspects like beauty, sexually deviant thoughts are in the eyes of the beholder.
I cannot see how one could penetrate the cleavage at this angle without hampering the first 2 bloke already in positions 1 & 2 the girl seems too tall, maybe our outraged blogger assumes men are walking about with steps on the off chance they need to ‘diddyride’ tall women on roller scates. I suspect our outraged blogger has been watching a lot of pornography or has first hand experience of such matters from her private life as she has a better grasp of complex positioning than innocent me. I suspect she is outraged on behalf of women assuming all men to be hiding just out of sight ready to pounce on unsuspecting tying laces. The choice of ‘Penetrate’ as her preferred verb is possibly indicative of how she views men & sex. Surprised she did not say ‘violate’.
This blogger has got her dungerese in a twist over a picture I would have at most thought “nice ass” but now thanks to her enlightening expose, I shall now be calculating how many positions and men she might perceive appropriate for penetration for all magazine covers.
This level of over zealous outrage about sex is worrying and possibly due to some repressed emotion or feelings.
I would be concerned if a male friend made such comments from an innocent magazine cover.
I hope the blogger gets help for her sexual obsessions and can start viewing women on roller skates as just that and not see all this dirty sexual stuff going on.
Good luck conquering your penetration phobia
“As for assuming that everytime a women opens her mouth it is an invitation for “penetrating her mouth” well I was not aware of this rule”.
Speaking as a woman for a penchant for opening her mouth on sundry subjects and several times a day, any male in the vicinity who took that as an invitation to engage in penetration would be most unwise. Most, most, unwise. I am equally liable to shut up suddenly and without warning….
Hi Anna,
In my home when a women opens her mouth it is usually followed by an instruction or repetition of previous instruction due to inactivity on my part.
nb. Published twice due to “fail” message. Please delete first as I edited again. Cheers
Reminds me of the sage advice given to me by an old soldier, ‘try to marry a girl with small hands and beware of epileptic girls with hayfever’.
@Anna: Ha!! Ouch!
2Mac makes the point I would have made. If I, as a male, suggested that a woman in that position is necessarily inviting penetration by any or all of the portals mentioned, I am sure the feminists would be down on me like a ton of bricks.
Always a favourite, when a bunch of feminists go down on me…….
Muddy old lads,
What if they were led by one Harridan Harperson?
Doesn’t bear (or bare) thinking about.
Ted, I’ve just lost the will to live.
Maybe it’s just as interesting to ponder what the roller-skating chick might be saying to the average Joe, approaching from behind, deluded into thinking he might get to penetrate from behind.
But if ‘Joanna’ might be right in her interpretation, don’t the sisters have things which might penetrate from behind, orally, or in cleavage; and might it not be that the model is eagerly anticipating such?
Give me strength!
And there I was thinking the mag-cover’s sub-slogan “It’s healthy, it’s easy and it works” was a promotional ad for the featured lady skater and not the fabled diet.
Nice one.
My Auntie Minnie ‘who lived to 103′, famously said to me, during a heart to heart chat, many years ago, ‘I went to the altar the right way, after courting(uncle) for 8 years!….WOW!! really? Advice from her mother was. ‘When courting, keep walking….never sit down’. Her Mother did not take her own advice. As my dad, her eldest son, Minnie’s older brother, was conceived in an alley way in 1903. She was 18, so they were naughty then too!!!! Curiously in the roaring twenties, my aunt was a model of rectitude…..whatever that means. These family snippets were straight from the ‘horses mouth’ I have a feeling we just talk about it more openly. The shame has been leeched out of of sexual congress of whatever sort’……back/front /sideways. They love selling it to nubile young girls because ….well they do.
According to my SPECIAL friend Gildas the Monk, a woman should have curves, and not look like a broomstick. I am pleased to say that my love of Bon Bons and STEAK AND KIDNEY PUDDING ensures that I have some. Indeed, I he rather ROMANTICALLY refers to me as his very own “1968 Jaguar Mark 3″. As a mere girl I know nothing of cars, but I understand that THIS is a very curvy AND CLASSIC machine!
Ms Smudd would say that you are thoroughly out curved m’dear.
If I, as a male, suggested that a woman in that position is necessarily inviting penetration by any or all of the portals mentioned, I am sure the feminists would be down on me like a ton of bricks.
That’s the point. THEY may say it and it’s incisive feminist analysis. YOU say it and you’re a sexist and pervert.
Never thought we’d reach the point where a feminist is saying a girl’s asking for it.
\\ I’ve never tried having sex in these circumstances, but I’m sure it would be an experience.\\
Nor have I – but it seems probable that having the simultaneous support of THREE gentlemen would reduce the risks of “Slips,trips and falls” inherent in attempting any of the suggested activities one-on-one on skates?
You’d need a sturdy pair of chocks, that’s for sure…
Gives new meaning to the phrase “Chocks Away.”
Probably leading to the equally impressive “Wizard Prang!”
I too cannot claim that experience – standing up in a hammock was enough of a challenge.
There was an American psychologist who expounded a theory about high functioning psychopaths who were utterly devoid of any logic, who could sound normal and even intelligent on the right subject but were utter loons in reality. He stated that people with this condition could attain high office and it would go unnoticed because they sounded plausible, however they could easily be spotted if asked a simple logic question, ie Captain Cook circumnavigated the globe three times and he was killed on one of his voyages, which one? I have known this question catch people so it isn’t as stupid as it sounds, apparently an extremely high ranking member of the current US administration couldn’t answer it. This woman writing here might be one too.
“Captain Cook circumnavigated the globe three times and he was killed on one of his voyages, which one?”
One is tempted to say the fourth voyage, but based strictly on the information given, all you can really say is that he was killed on his last voyage. Not as simple as it sounds, since he may also have made local voyages that didn’t go round the world.
[In the real world he was actually killed on the third of his epic voyages, having circumnavigated the world two times, once in each direction, on prior voyages. (His wife complained he was not much help around the house.) His crew completed the third circumnavigation without him.]
Having given above the off-the-top-of-my-head response to this, I spent a few minutes doing a bit of research and found another version of the question as below
Captain James Cook made three trips around the world, and died during one of them. In which trip did he die?
Answer
The third.
Note the slight difference of “trips around the world”, a less precise measure than “circumnavigations”.
The question seem unfair as a test of logic for a number of reasons.
Firstly it is not clear if this is a puzzler or a test of general knowledge. Cook actually made 2 circumnavigations of the globe. I wondered if there was a catch and perhaps he had circumnavigated the globe two times on one voyage, but not so. Here is a list of circumnavigations that puts that one to rest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_circumnavigations
Secondly, whether we call it a circumnavigation or a trip round the world, we must conclude that it is not such until it is completed, that is a return to the point of origin in England. For all we know, on the last voyage in which he died in Hawaii, he might have returned home by retracing his steps rather than by circumnavigation. Hence at the time of his death he had only made two “trips around the world”. What was left of his remains was buried at sea, too, so you cannot really argue that he completed the third trip while dead.
Hence this is not a very fair test of logic, because the premises are ambiguous and can reasonably be interpreted in different ways. For example, if we accept the premise that he circumnavigated the globe three times and made no other voyages, then he died on his fourth (uncompleted) voyage. However if we accept the general historical sense that Cook just made three voyages, the last of which would probably have been a circumnavigation, and just ignore previous voyages he had made when exploring North America with the British Navy, then we could say he died on the third voyage, but that is not really very satisfactory.
Johnathan Mason,
I think the circumnavigated bit is just thrown in to trick us, and the question is really which of his ‘voyages’ was he killed on?
Which would have had to have been the last, unless the person asking the question requires more information than that? lol
Bunny,
Re: “Captain Cook circumnavigated the globe the times and he was killed on one of his voyages, which one?”
I take they just want to know whether it was the 1st, 2nd or 3rd and nothing else?
Bunny,
Re: “Captain Cook circumnavigated the globe three times and he was killed on one of his voyages, which one?”
A: He was killed on his last voyage.
…expecting to be penetrated from behind…
No, but clearly the intention is to imply that if you take this diet, you will look more sexy. The way the model is posed, it is clear that she is not just adjusting her roller skate, and this picture would look out of place in a skating magazine. You would not see Jessica Ennis posed like that.
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02299/ennis2_2299090b.jpg
Jonathan Mason,
You’d of thought anyone could deduce that if you fast for long enough you’ll loose weight, lol
I never would have thought much about her pose before reading that but now, after reading that, I think I can kind of see what the woman is talking about.
Perhaps that’s what the photographer had in mind when they asked her to pose like that…?
“The only car part I’ve ever seen regarded as copying a woman’s anatomy were the headlight covers on a Fiat Coupe, ”
C’mon Matt, every car has got an exhaust pipe. Some are even equipped for group sex
Exhaust pipes exude hot air – definitely a male attribute.
\\ The only car part I’ve ever seen regarded as copying a woman’s anatomy \\
Obviously never seen the Ford Edsel – or heard of the ‘somewhat adverse comments’ (about a certain aspect of the front grille) that accompanied its launch
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1658545_1657867_1657781,00.html
Sorry to come back for ‘A third bite at the cherry’ (can I say that?)
2Mac said \\maybe our outraged blogger assumes men are walking about with steps on the off chance they need to ‘diddyride’ tall women \\
The concept was outlined in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld story “Witches Abroad”.-
Giamo Casanunda’ is a dwarf, His card reads “The World’s second greatest lover – I try harder” – and he always carries a step-ladder.
Sir Terry is the most inventive of the current crop of authors and an absolute joy to read. A complete tonic in literary form to ward off the horrors of modern life.
”One suspects like beauty, sexually deviant thoughts are in the eyes of the beholder.”
Indeedy. Methinks they doth protest too much.
I’m no fan of much of the over-sexualised hype that passes for women’s media but there are far worse examples than this on every news stand.
“Cover: Photo of a skinny woman who is posing as if she is expecting to be penetrated from behind, penetrated orally and penetrated in her visible cleavage, and who, implicitly, is presently on “the fasting diet””
Right. So how are we to negotiate the young lady’s shorts in order to effect penetration? Also, her knee is rather dangerously located for any chap athletic enough to access her cleavage, and those teeth look to be in very good condition…
No, feminists. This is a picture of a pretty girl tying the lace of her roller skate. Reading more than that into it suggests you have a rather unhealthy obsession with copulation. Try a cold shower, or if that doesn’t work, a good J. Arthur Rank.
The mass-media seems obsessed with cultivating insecurity amongst their viewers/readership. The fear mongering about crime and infantilisation really annoy me and perhaps I become so sensitive to it that I see nuances of it everywhere in the media. This blogger seems overly conscious of the beauty anxiety (and linked sexual objectification) promoted in the media, and perhaps comes to see a little too much. Having said that the cover picture is sexually suggestive, and the tagline does sound like a how-to guide to developing a serious eating disorder. So the line “Photo of a skinny woman who is posing as if she is expecting to be penetrated from behind, penetrated orally and penetrated in her visible cleavage” is over the top, but the general thrust (fnar) of the piece is valid and a fine thing to be complaining about.
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/420432/VINTAGE-WEIGHT-GAIN-AD.jpg
“Don’t let them call you skinny”
I can only dream if what that problem must be like…
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