If porn creates negative unrealistic expectations of women to men, are there media forms that create the unrealistic expectations of men to women, and are there examples?

This is a good thread. Most are accurate. I’d add (others in that thread say this too) that a lot of women now expect you to have a chiseled, perfect body with a six pack (à la Hugh Jackman in the later Wolverine films) while they look like a crack-smoking dumpster orangutan themselves.

I don’t think that women realize what it takes to get jacked like that, especially if you don’t inject any steroids or other hormonal enhancements.

I’m just at the edge of that sort of physique and I’ve worked out ~six days a week for an hour-ish or more every day for six years to get there. And to actually look like Hugh Jackman in a shirtless scene, completely ripped abs and all, I’d have to starve myself for a month and dehydrate myself for three days beforehand (that’s what he does).

That is a hugely unrealistic expectation that more and more women seem to have.

I remember those days; a very different time and social mores.

I hate to criticize people’s sincere and earnest efforts. But this video shows what it looks like when you have someone trying their best and not just being good at filmmaking. And not knowing what they are doing. The lighting is terrible and unflattering. The color grading is atrocious and also unflattering. The pacing is all wrong and the shots are alternately too static and too rushed, and not variable enough. The editing is also amateurish. There’s a million things they could done to make this better even with the footage they already have. Other than fixing the color grading as it’s really fuckin’ bad, if I could have shot this with roughly their budget and at that location, I’d have started with a very close, still shot of the woman’s eyes and gradually, very slowly, pulled back until you could see her whole face as she sings.

Then, as the song picks up the pace I would’ve pulled back a bit more quickly and started interspersing shots of the snake, the moss, the waterfall. Then at the the bridge of the song I would’ve had a shot of the camera racing down the stream until it reaches the woman banging on the drum (half-body shot here) and done a focus pull from the drum to her face again as the faster part kicks in.

To end the video, I’d done a long follow shot with her actually going down to the rocks and laying down, then shot her directly from above, zooming in again (to close the loop) right on her eyes.

The end. And my version would’ve been way better and more compelling.

I mean, it takes a real lack of skill to take an extremely beautiful woman with gorgeous red hair and make her look cadaverous and unappealing while making a bad video at the same time. But they managed it.

Is it fair to say that men are generally more comfortable around men and women are generally more comfortable around women? Or is it just me?

I’m much, much more comfortable around women partially (but not wholly) because I am extremely, almost comically, terrible at intra-male standard competition rituals and ways of relating.

Anything to do with that I both do not understand and am horrific at so being around other men is difficult for me. Being a paratrooper was ok, though (mostly men), as there’s a lot less of having to prove yourself as compared to men with no accomplishments. Funny that.

What exactly is the difference between being controlling and having boundaries?

My unpopular answer is that most people’s boundaries are designed to control others. And sometimes, it’s to control one’s self. And by that I mean having all those boundaries is a way to cop out on living life. That can be seen in Gen Z and their extreme prudishness and lack of social skills. Their “boundaries” are just fear and trepidation in another mask.

It’s not that boundaries aren’t good, in many cases. Rather, it’s just that “boundaries” became like content warnings: another way to avoid dealing with the world as it is. And to avoid a better one, as there could be risk there. But you know what they say about risk….

The culture of the future should be a billion-year-long quest to conquer the galaxy and defeat death.

Anything that doesn’t violate the laws of physics we can do, given time¹. Let’s get the fuck started.

1. No matter what the liberal naysayers claim.

Women often feel that they are reduced to a sex object where only their surface matters. Men often feel that they are seen only as an emotionless wallet for which any deviation from stoicism is a gross violation.

Both are correct.

Social media is poison and since women use social media a lot more than men, women are more poisoned by it. QED.

It doesn’t have a thing to do with the (non-existent) inherent terribleness of women, just the demographics of who has experienced more of the most mind-rotting “innovation” of the past few decades.

What About Pizza Hut Are You The Most Nostalgic For?

That it was a treat, mainly. Something special. My immediate family was poor; we did not go to restaurants pretty much ever. Pizza Hut was something that was affordable and pretty good for a small town. It was one of the rare times I had food I actually enjoyed rather than just tolerated. When I knew I was going to get to go to Pizza Hut, I looked forward to it all week.

Their restaurants also used to be vastly better; they had salad bars, higher-quality food and better service.

And I personally always liked that they were very dimly-lit compared to other places. Made them feel kind of mysterious inside.

To be perfectly clear, the problem with feminism’s implicit contention that women should be treated like children when it benefits them and not when that treatment does not help them is that a child is a child at all times; once you’ve declared yourself to be in need of protection even from yourself, there is no longer any choosing where that applies.

Feminism must allow women to be fully mature. There is no second choice.