Icky shirts

[athenaltena]

I've seen two icky t-shirts as I was walking around Boston in the last few days

Comments

[kawakiisakazuki]

One would hope the guy was thinking of "visual inspection" only when he picked that shirt... Way to make people feel comfortable, dude.

[athenaltena]

It did successfully warn me away from getting too close to him, and I remember having the thought that a shirt like that is a good way to get pepper sprayed.

[meepalicious]

I agree that the woman's shirt was less icky than the man's, because at least it was herself? Like, I know that's completely fucked up in it's own way, but her shirt wasn't a threat to other people's bodily integrity. I'm wondering if she found it ~empowerful or something.

I'd feel less squicked out by a "male body inspector" shirt than the other way around, but only because the likeliness the wearer would feel entitled to act on it is much lower. Women don't have the same kind of access to men's bodies as the other way around. (I'm not saying it wouldn't be gross, just less so.)

Like you said to kawakiisakazuki, if the guy is enough of a douchebag to wear a shirt like that, maybe it's better that he does. He might as well tattoo "misogynist" to his forehead.

[athenaltena]

I think you're right about the one the woman was wearing and why it's maybe less bad, since it is her body and all that, but I do still think it wasn't in the best of taste. Still, they both rely on the same joke (mainly, that it's okay to violate people's personal space and their bodies) and it's not one I'm particularly fond of. The one the woman wears maybe squicks me out a bit because it plays into the whole "she was asking for it" assault-justification bullcrap and I can just see the guy wearing the first one maybe trying to use it as a defense. Or maybe not, now were into hypotheticals, but you get my drift.

[kryptyd]

I usually have a good laugh when people are moronic enough to wear tops like that. Now that I think of it, it is rather creepy, but I still will probably laugh at people going around broadcasting their stupidity in that manner. Although I do consider the male one way worse than the female one. If that's a double standard then so be it.

[athenaltena]

Well, as meepalicious pointed out the one the woman wore only involved her body and not doing anything to anyone else's, so maybe it does deserve to be held to a different standard. I still don't like either and think they're in bad taste, but now that I think about it and have gotten some feedback I guess there is a difference, and it might not solely be based on the genders of who was wearing what.