A Must Read For Men | How To Be Hot! You Must Be Hot!
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Congratulations! The goals of women's liberation have been achieved and even exceeded, in an entirely superficial sense. If you spend a little bit of time browsing the Interwebs, you will notice that there's an invasion afoot. An invasion of content regarding the perfect man.
This content is not shy in telling men how to be hot, or in telling women how to find these incredibly hot men. It seems innocent enough if you don't think about it and simply keep humming Miley Cyrus tunes to yourself, blocking out all rational thought.
What these articles are really doing is essentially letting both men and women know that men are the new women. Not in the sense that men can now be sensitive, and cry some times, and get all moody once a month and have priority in escaping a sinking ship, (don't be silly,) no, just in the sense that they can be treated like pieces of meat with breeding potential.
Articles written about women wanting 'hot' men, and spouting shallow rhetoric about what makes a man hot are highly amusing to me. These articles are generally written almost exclusively by women and effectively turn men into semi-functional objects of lust.
Look at the media around you. You'll see plenty of articles about what makes a man sexy, because that is perfectly acceptable. You won't see too many articles about how to find a smart man, or a kind man, or a man who is a nice person, because, heck, who cares? The quiet undercurrent is obvious, it is fine for women to regard men as masculine Ken dolls, but it is in no way okay for men to be portrayed as anything less than testosterone jacked Adonises.
We've actually managed to swing the pendulum of sexism completely in the opposite direction. Where once it was okay for men to openly discuss a woman's assets, men who do this are now regarded as being utter pigs, unfit for the company of any woman. On the other hand, women who oogle men, commenting on their hot bodies and requiring that any potential partner be built like a lumberjack and have the mind of a poet laureate, get away scot free.
The downside of this delusional thinking is that some women actually buy into the illusion and miss out on perfectly good men because these men haven't read the manly man manual of the new millenium, and instead chase the few men who do fit the mold. The men lucky enough to be smart enough to appear to be urbane and witty, and with a genetic profile prone to chiseled features and washboard abdominals welcome these women with open arms, mowing through them, breaking hearts, making mascara run and fathering screeds of illegitimate children (in so far as any human can be considered illegitimate.)
But, I digress. The point here, is that instead of learning how to value women as complete people, all we've actually done is treat men in the same shallow, wrong headed way that men treated women for so long. Two wrongs don't make a right, y'all.
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Awesome comment Shadesbreath, and a good point.
There's a wee problem with the 'men want to be sex objects' thing though. Everyone wants to be wanted and thought of as attractive, but it's not as simple as that, is it? This article wasn't intended to say that there is anything wrong with wanting an attractive man, its saying that there is something wrong with placing shallow and impossible constraints on what can be considered attractive. You see, in order to acheive 'sex object' status under the rule of 'OMG HOT GUYS' you need to be a 5%er to be considered not only attractive, but worthwhile as a person.
Men have been enjoying the ability to be fat, old and ugly and still somehow attractive (case in point, the horrific TV series 'According To Jim), but once the 'OMG HOT GUYS' thinking takes hold, Jim might find himself getting a tummy tuck and a face lift just to keep up.
Hey, I am hawt, ain't I? :P
BTW your new avatar is cute, but I liked the clevage better ;)
Misha is smokin'!
Misha, Goldentoad, I think its time you guys stopped pussyfooting around and got together already.
I like your avatar too Misha, but like you, I'd like to see a little more Misha-cleavage up in there...
Nobody wants to see that.
All it takes is a couple of forties and a few shots of anything, and I'm a ho.
Hey Shades, you are too straight for that :P
But GT, have to disappoint you, I am a devoted lesbian, so no way...
Hope, I'll see what I can do in terms of cleavage, but I am afraid Mark will faint, as he did once :D
Misha you fox, look at you, just working your way through the men of Hub Pages, there should really be a warning on the sign up page before people enter this hunting ground of yours...Lesbian indeed...
Yep, and proud of it :P
Hope, sometimes I wonder if you're actually me, typing in my own thoughts.
Once again you have written an opinion that I have been speaking of for years, yet I have always felt I was the only person on the planet that had these opinions.
It's a relief to hear that someone shares my own thoughts. Even better on topics like this that it's shared by a female.
Thank you for that. I was about to book myself into a shrink.
Hey Komara, I wouldn't worry, I think the opinion is actually pretty widespread, more so than you might think. It's just that guys sometimes get jumped on for voicing it, and so, wierdly, women are the ones left to point out the inequality. Yay women's lib, I don't think.
Hey Hope, very entertaining hub :)
A friend said to me the other day "women are the new men, haven't you noticed?" After some thought (about 3 seconds), I did come to the realisation that a lot of women in my age group are: the main income earner in the family, earn more money than their partners, date/marry younger men without a second thought, are considerable opponents in the corporate world, wear lots of pants :)and casually talk about men as though they are sexual objects (not discreetly either). So when I read your hub, it made total sense. But I do agree, two men, I mean wrongs don't make a right.
BTW, where did you find the photo of that guy? He is very pretty in a brooding kind of way.
Shadesbreath Level 5 Commenter 2 years ago
The difference is, most men want to be thought of as sexual objects. The difference really is in the desire for that. Many women want to be thought of that way I'm sure, but most will get indignant (or act indignant because there are other women who will judge them for selling out the cause) if the conversation gets too objectification-esque. They might even button that top button back up to cover up that line of cleavage they so innocently never noticed was trolling the visual waters all day. But "women" the collective body behind the loudest social reform push, have us convinced that they don't infact want to be thought of as sexual objects.
Men do. We're proudly practicing the golden rule. Please spend every waking hour almost figuring out ways to get us naked. That's what we do to you. And we hate it. I mean, we love it, but we hate the constant distraction, the social rules, the endless debate between body and cultured mind. The being told how we're crude savages and stuff. Come wallow in the biological mud. This is a big fat "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" for everyone.
But I still don't think it will ever be the same. Women just aren't, as a whole gender, ever going to spend as much time lusting as men. Hard body guys or not.