imomus | A judgment of Paris

A judgment of Paris

Today I want to bring together, here on Click Opera, an entry in which you the readers do most of the work, and in which images take the place of text. I'm also interested in how predictable my aesthetics have become. So what I'm proposing is a judgment of Paris; a beauty contest which is also a sifting of values (visual, aesthetic, political, semantic, sexual).

I want to see images of females, girls, women you think are totally my type. They should be wearing clothes, that's important. People without clothes are stripped of cultural referents, and we want those. They should be people who style themselves rather than have professional stylists, and they should be ordinary people, not celebrities. Street style sites like Facehunter might be a good place to source the images, or Flickr feeds. They shouldn't be people I know in real life. Be nice to me in your comments (yes, I am very old, and a bit funny looking) and be nice to the women.

At midnight CET I'll select a winning image -- the person I find most appealing, according to my own personal aesthetic code. I hope I won't have to exclaim "You never knew me!" I think by now you probably do.

Update (midnight CET): What an exciting finish! With about twenty minutes to go before the non-sexist gong sounded, this very beautiful image arrived:

While it looked for a while as if this indie musician would win, the judges -- all right, judge -- decided that she must be excluded as, possibly, a "celebrity", and, possibly, styled (though these things aren't really provable, and we don't know who the woman is).

And so this woman was chosen instead:

The judges (all right, judge) particularly liked the elegant hooded white garment, the expression of intent concentration, and the evidence of creative endeavour (carving) in the picture. Thanks to all who submitted pictures.

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er, what?

last time i checked, nobody's magic pretend friend or surrogate kid (??) was leered at, pawed or hassled on the street in accordance with their (lack of) status as mere (sex) "object".

Should we put all men into the 'leer, paw and hassle' group - because their trigger for fancying someone is still looks? Isn't that like putting women in the 'complainer' basket because they ask for something? No-one is excusing hassle - but you have to put it into the context of the abandonment of men as s*x objects. Beauty can mean cultural and aesthetic beauty with no s*x intent (long debate about this).

The London magazine Time Out recently updated its Adult London section. Apart from s*x shops and strip bars, all the services listed were for the gay and BDSM communities. No straight G*ydar, no "21-hour saunas". Straight s*x is about alienation, paying for it, being told you are naughty. And, I guess, for some idiots, street hassle.

And no one's doing that here, either. I can see it maybe seeming a bit distasteful that Momus wants to judge a beauty contest, but he's specified that it be based largely on the image that the contestants themselves project. It's no different than what any person, male or female, does to any other person they see in normal life. While perhaps you are not claiming victimhood, you are implicating it onto the women whose pictures find their way into this thread, and you assume that they must necesarrily feel the same. Isn't this stance only made possible by the circumstantial privilege you happen to enjoy as person who's become aware of the Click Opera and therefor has a voice in the proceedings? Your privileged gaze has judged them as victims, something they certainly never set out to be, while Momus's has judged them as objects of allure, something that most people attempt to be to some degree, if they are able. Or at least, he would have, if you hadn't hijacked this thread with a lot of emotionally provocative rhetoric.

It's no different than what any person, male or female, does to any other person they see in normal life.
well, i dunno, yer average joe or josephine tends not to demand that they be sent a slew of pictures of strangers to "rank" on a public forum.

Your privileged gaze has judged them as victims, something they certainly never set out to be

er, no. what i am saying is that it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the women whose pictures have been added to this "pool" - pictures that may feature them at work, hanging out with friends, whatever - may not find it at all amusing or flattering that they have been included in this little "contest" where they are to be "judged" against one man's standards of "beauty", and found to be either a "winner" or a "loser".

emotionally provocative rhetoric
because, of course, i should pretend that this doesn't matter, shouldn't i?

Clip Clip Clip, and what were once sentences become much easier to quibble with. It's easy to dispute something if we ignore everything around it.

Your argument seems to hinge on what is for you a given, that to judge someone based on how they look is somehow "appalling", even if, as in this case, you are only judging them as the one from a given set who looks best to you. I was trying to show how what Momus is doing on the internet is constantly done by everyone in real life. Yes I know it's on the internet, and reminding me of that seems to miss my point. Which part is appalling? Stop explaining what's taking place and explain what's wrong with it. Or maybe you find that difficult? Is it the problem that it's on the internet, from whence the pictures came? Photos should not stray from their original context? Is this appalling? Momus airs his sexual preferences, rather than keeping mum about them? This appalls you? Please don't explain to me that these women never explicitly asked to be ranked, I know. We all know what's happening here. If the women did want to be ranked, how would this make you feel? Is it wrong to treat someone in a way that is neither amusing nor flattering? Why don't you try to justify your emotional reactions a bit, not because they're necessarily invalid, only that they're not terribly useful to the discussion in their naked form, as it were.

the woman poster is "emotionally" provocative; and i guess nick is being "calm" and "rational."

it's the 19century all over again !!!

Well, she is, and he is, but the third doesn't really follow. Although imagine what mileage you and your fellow crusaders would get if it did! Too bad an argument requires more than associational logic.

my ass it doesn't follow; this is precisely when such dialectics of the sexes began to permeate the culture. moreover, i think she's being honest and openly expressing her ideas very rationally and with piercing clarity and nick's obfuscating his position; so it's ironically quite the opposite.

Oh, it does follow! Tell me more of your ideas about time travel. What's the magic word that takes us back to the Middle Ages? If I were to say "I just think Germans are the best city planners" would we suddenly find ourselves transported to Cristalnacht? It seems you are right, when words/opinions wield such power over the fabric of time/reality, the potential for oppression is great. Especially the words of educated white males. Oh by the way, "such dialectics of the sexes" permeated Western Civilization from its very origins, they didn't begin to do so in the 19th century. Look up the etymology of the word "hysteria."

Obviously her ideas are expressed with piercing clarity because they seem to amount to "Being who you are, you shouldn't use pictures in this way, it's disgusting!" Not much ambiguity there. But without further explanation this amounts to a declaration of her feelings. Rather than charge the cloth, Momus tried to draw out the rationale of her argument. Obviously asking "Why?" is taking a much less definitive position, and so, I'm guessing, looks obfuscatory to you? But, even thinking this, how is obfuscation inflammatory?

Also talking about "I knocked a bloke on his arse", and using phrases like "reducing living, breathing women" as if somehow their very lives were in jeopardy, I would class as emotionally provocative. But hey, you seem to think that dream logic is logic, so these probably sound like real checks and mates. Anyway, the post is old and you seem pretty dumb so this is really more or less pointless, inn't?

Oh, pipe down would you.
Accept the possibility that you're simply not "getting" what Momus is getting at and move on with your life.

Yes it's slightly crude but that's part of the Momus artist persona (note: not Nick Currie).
I'm a man. I'm raised by my mother and two sisters. I've been active in feminism and openly objected to the objectification of women on numerous occasions. There's a difference between construction workers cat-calling you and appreciating beauty. There's also a difference between considering someone a sexual "object" and considering them a sexual "being".
The alternative to the world that you find so repulsive is a world I would never want to live in.

And please refrain from calling out "hilarious" and being so dismissive. Drop the vitriol. Start capitalizing the first letter of sentences.

haha, dig the "feminist" man giving orders to people about how to respond here, and how to even write their sentences! do this, do that...shooting orders around like a macho dickhead.

lol, "pipe down..." what is this, the 1950s???

"and how to even write their sentences!"

Yes, I can see that this was uncalled for.

I love "pipe down", I find it a lot less rude than reducing her to her genitalia (i.e. dickhead).

- "feminist" man

haha, you're full of it. and you sound like a right fucking square.

As opposed to going on a tirade against the male gaze like Lady Sensitive up there?

Oh, well. I'll concede that I'm a square.
After all, as the old saying goes, arguing on the internet is like bashing your head against a brick wall - it makes your head hurt and eventually you bleed to death.

Accept the possibility that you're simply not "getting" what Momus is getting at

oh, i think i *absolutely* "get" what he is "getting" at - inviting readers to send him pictures of women so that he can decide if they are "appealing" enough to qualify as "his type". which is 100% considering women as "sexual objects", rather than "sexual beings". it's only the pseudo-intellectualism of this little "beauty contest" that marks it out from building-site cat calls. that said, guys on building sites tend to be a lot less vocal with their opinions these days, what with it being 2009 and all. still, how would you know anything about that?

I've been active in feminism
*snort*. yes, i can tell that, just by the way you're speaking to me here. "lady sensitive", "pipe down", "vitriol", blah blah. you're about two more comments from dubbing me "hysterical".

Now, I must interject. By and large I agree with the point you've been making, much despite the vitriol (which I am not here to discuss). And I'm glad someone is making it because momus really stepped in it.

That said, I object to your equating of "appealing", "predictable aesthetics", and "his type" with the notion of sexual objects. I cannot speak for momus' taste, but "aesthetics" and the associated desirability do not necessarily mean sexual attraction. Just because I find someone (or something) aesthetically pleasing does not mean I want to have sex with them. There are countless people I find extremely beautiful and yet have no sexual interest in, both male and female. I speak of myself because I can speak with authority here, but there are many other people (both male and female) whom I know who feel the same. The conflating of aesthetic interest in the human form with the sexual interest in humans is a gross assumption which belies your cultural heritage and privilege therein. And by conflating the two you force sexualist readings on people and situations where it does not belong, which in turn can only serve to reinforce the expression of sexist sexual interest and the embattlement of feminism around the issue of sexuality.

You're hilarious. Lol. Snort. Blah blah.

So by thinking you are coming off foolish (and, yes, "hysterical" as tainted as that word is) I'm automatically referring that ALL women are? You seem to think not only that you speak for all women but that you literally ARE the embodiment of womanhood. That's assuming quite a bit now, don't you think?

angry, angry woman

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A judgment of Paris

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rhetoric just

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LolZ

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