American girl in Italy, 60 years later

@wandeljw,

wandeljw wrote:

I did not react well to Setanta characterizing my concern for Arella and Chai's personal feelings as "shitty and patronizing."

But, you WERE being shitty and patronizing.

2 Replies

@wandeljw,

wandeljw wrote:

I did not react well to Setanta characterizing my concern for Arella and Chai's personal feelings as "shitty and patronizing."

Good lord....

You all but called them damaged goods, and thereby dismissed their opinions.

Yes, that's shitty and patronizing.

2 Replies

@chai2,

Quote:

But, you WERE being shitty and patronizing.

Communication is a process that involves at least two people, you dont get to decide all by your self what is being communicated. You are here being disrespectful towards Wandel.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

No need to get all hysterical over it.

[/sarcasm]

1 Reply

@DrewDad,

Chai is being in intolerant **** here in this tread...it bothers me......

1 Reply

@JTT,

I see that some of the usual A2K chickenshits have been at work.

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Decided to write this in a separate post.

Over the last several pages, I've deleoped a much better understanding of the difficulties some men have with interatcting with women. By that I mean for instance, younger men who can't seem to understand how just to talk to a member of the opposite sex. If I were a young woman meeting some of you as younger men, and this sort of talk was going on, my interest in you would have faded long ago.
I wasn't, and I'm not vacuous, but all this repitition is enough to literally make a person cry from boredom and/or frustration.

All this back and forth over the choice of 2 or 3 words, 2 or 3 phrases. There's absolutley no movement forward from a number of pages ago, in some ways even from page one.

What exactly is being accomplished here?
Is there supposed to be some sort of closure, one side convincing the other?
Obviously that's not going to happen, so what's the point? Nothings been said that's given anyone food for thought. At least if that were happening there'd be some sort of focus.

Jesus.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

Chai is being in intolerant **** here in this tread...

...in your opinion.

1 Reply

@chai2,

Yeah, I'm minded of the old saying about teaching pigs to sing.

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@DrewDad,

DrewDad wrote:

wandeljw wrote:
I did not react well to Setanta characterizing my concern for Arella and Chai's personal feelings as "shitty and patronizing."

Good lord....

You all but called them damaged goods, and thereby dismissed their opinions.

Yes, that's shitty and patronizing.

The shitty and patronizing remark came first. My harsh language was in response.

1 Reply

@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

wandeljw wrote:

I did not react well to Setanta characterizing my concern for Arella and Chai's personal feelings as "shitty and patronizing."

But, you WERE being shitty and patronizing.

I did not feel that I was. My intent was honest concern.

1 Reply

@DrewDad,

I guess you missed Chai's last post, DD, the one immediately before yours.

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@chai2,

Quote:

By that I mean for instance, younger men who can't seem to understand how just to talk to a member of the opposite sex.

By that you of course mean deferencial...Jesus, you women are so spoiled that when a man elects to not kiss your ass you think you have been insulted!

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@wandeljw,

All I want to know is; was she raped? how many times? by all the hyenas present? [why didn't they just eat her - no pun intended] were convictions obtained? can American girls still go to Italy after causing all this trouble?

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@wandeljw,

jw, do you still not understand how your comments were taken by others - and why that happened?

You may not have intended your comments to be condescending and patronizing - but that was the effect/tone that was picked up by a number of posters.

I spent a good part of last week explaining a legal opinion to co-workers. Bottom line - their intent in a contract didn't matter. What mattered was what they wrote and didn't write. Expression/intent can't be seen in those written contracts, just as it isn't available to us here. Intent has little value in a number of settings - art is another one.

We have (for the most part) only written posts to interpret here. Basic communication process tells us that the decoder has to rely on the encoder. We had your words to attempt to interpret. You can see they disturbed some men and some women.

What I still can't figure out in this whether you were deliberately patronizing and pissed off about being called out on it, or whether you are socially tone-deaf. Without meeting you in person I'll never know.

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@ehBeth,

I wasn't deliberately patronizing. I was pissed off about being mischaracterized as patronizing. I guess I am tone-deaf.

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@wandeljw,

Don't you think that future generations is a bit of a stretch from what I posted?

Are you changing what I post to get a stronger reaction, because right now what I feel is slightly puzzled and bemused.

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

Don't you think that future generations is a bit of a stretch from what I posted?

Are you changing what I post to get a stronger reaction, because right now what I feel is slightly puzzled and bemused.

Sorry. I felt your post had a "lofty" tone about how men and women responded to my comments.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

You don't see a political statement here? Most of us, including me, seem to see this picture as creepy. It is men "objectifying" a woman who clearly doesn't want the attention.

But my point is that this picture isn't journalism. It is a work of art that provides an insight into the feelings of a particular artist. There is no context provided. There are no facts to be gleaned from this picture. There is no evidence of anything.

Many people see this picture as a statement of sexual oppression of women. And it is that.

But is an artistic statement, and perhaps a political one. It isn't anything more than that and it certainly isn't a factual statement.

I don't find this photo creepy. I also don't think she's scared shitless or experiencing joy. I have been ogled and hooted at in my youth and I always found it extremely distasteful. To me, she's walking through that crowd of boors as quickly and distantly as she can to get away from the ogling, wolf whistles and ribald comments.

If there is a statement at all, it's damning men. Some men (and women) still act this way. That's what's so disgusting. Things haven't changed all that much in the last 60 years - compare that to how technology has changed, for example.

On the upside, there has been progress but not as much as their could have been. So the only thing creepy that I find about this is that it still exists.

2 Replies

@wandeljw,

I was pleased to see that it wasn't just women who posted about their reactions to your comments.

I've been feeling very not-nostalgic lately. Went to a terrific massed military bands event on the weekend - it was glorious to see all the colours/cultures of the world reflected in the Canadian military. This thread produced a similar reaction in me. Not all men posting one way with all women posting the other. I don't miss the "good old days".

0 Replies

American girl in Italy, 60 years later

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