Poll: Would anyone here object to or be offended by skimpy outfits on male volleyball team members?

[ElboRuum]

16. I was going to go a point by point route with my post...

But that's really the problem with the word empowerment is it? No one seems to be really clear on what it means.

What it means is this: realization that your rights and your choices are yours to take, and once taken, are yours to lose. Empowerment MUST exist in the acquisition of rights. It is the prime mover in the effort. Rights are never given. They are taken.

It is the ultimate arrogance, the idea that the will to see oneself as valuable and purposeful and potent is your responsibility and yours alone. Once realized, the choice is yours what you do with it. Choice is the entire point.

It can't be taken away from you by someone else's actions unless you think it can. No woman was ever disempowered because another woman likes to wear bikinis to the beach. No woman was ever disempowered because another woman dressed in a way to garner male attention. No woman was ever disempowered because another woman desired male attention.

Empowered people don't really think too much of what other people may think of their choices. But that's really what the problem is. Many people who throw the word empowerment around seem to implicate that these things DO disempower women, and what they miss is that empowerment isn't and never was about a group dynamic.

I don't know what to say to the rest other than it sounds like an intrusion of the "ubiquitous male gaze" looking to "disrupt the flow of consciousness" and a deep dismissal of the idea that some women like male attention. This is hard to square with my own personal experience with women which has been almost entirely male positive. So I don't know about this "nausea" you're talking about. Most of them don't find their sexuality or its expression disturbing, either within themselves or their male partners. And where this sexuality is expressed it is by choice and choice alone. And the porn? They are given pay to go nude or to have sex on camera because they choose to have sex on camera for money. They are in a position to leverage their "assets" for a financial payout. Disturbing?... or just good negotiating skills?