How can we welcome more women here & to Lili?

[Deepwaters]

Originally Posted by wasabi622

I don't get why you're so caught up the nipple business. That happened once, and yet you're acting as if that's all we do here.

No, I'm acting as if that and similar things are a problem.

I don't remember me commenting about nipples

I don't remember accusing anyone by name. In fact, I don't remember who did it. I could go look it up I suppose.

What happened was that someone posted a black and white picture from the live-blog photoshoot as a favorite shot obviously because it showed a nipple and for no other reason. Several other guys jumped on the same bandwagon. At some point, a mod took the pictures down. (If not for the discourteous posts that went with it, I would see no reason to do that. I mean, I would have no problem if Her Grace wanted to pose in the nude. But considering the likely reaction, probably she shouldn't. )

Anyway -- was that you? I don't remember. You're the one that jumped in all defensive. I didn't accuse anyone by name.

BTW it wasn't the "Roman armor" picture I was talking about. It was a black and white where she was wearing the thick black glasses and had a ponytail, wearing some sort of t-shirt top, looking to the right side. Her nipple was outlined in the cloth, due to the way the light fell.

If you get a picture of me with my fly unzipped, or while I'm picking my nose with a weird expression, go for it.

No, I won't, because it would be rude. The fact that you say you wouldn't mind merely reinforces the problem. Whether you mind or not, it's reasonable to expect that someone else would.

[wasabi622]

Originally Posted by Deepwaters

BTW it wasn't the "Roman armor" picture I was talking about. It was a black and white where she was wearing the thick black glasses and had a ponytail, wearing some sort of t-shirt top, looking to the right side. Her nipple was outlined in the cloth, due to the way the light fell.

Oh, wrong picture.. my bad.

Originally Posted by Deepwaters

No, I won't, because it would be rude. The fact that you say you wouldn't mind merely reinforces the problem. Whether you mind or not, it's reasonable to expect that someone else would.

So me not being uptight about what people say reinforces the problem?
I mean, what you just said works both ways. Whether you mind or not, it doesn't necessarily mean that someone else would either. I mean then why not go politically correct too? Someone out there might be sensitive to that too.

[CFHollister]

Well, back on the topic of how (or whether) AAm should try to close the gender gap of it's membership...

Becoming a fan of anyone of anything kinda has a general process: 1) you are exposed to the person or material serendipitously or by another person, to such first exposure you have some sort of immediate reaction, based on surface qualities, of whether this person or thing interests you; 2) if you are interested, your curiosity drives you to learn more about the subject, to learn about deeper qualities, and if you remain impressed then you are well on your way to becoming a fan. The point is, that before you become a fan, you have this initial barrier, this initial gut reaction, of "ooh, I like this (I wanna know more)."

Let's consider how most Americans learn about Alizée and through what channels as opposed to, say, France. I think it's safe to say that the majority of Alizée fans became fans prior to Psychédélices (even the historically recent surge in Mexican fans predates Psychédélices and much of Alizée's response to Latin America was a reaction to it), with new recruits in the minority in the fan community as a whole. With Mylène's Alizée albums, Alizée attracted a wide range of fans: carryover fans of Mylène herself (which included a lot of adult men and women) but also the music and Alizée appealed to many young and teenage girls. So much of the original fan base, and the core of what there is today was formed from quite a diverse range of genders across a wider age range. It is also important to note, that Alizée's initial audience not only learned of her through visual media like televised performances, but in large part through purely audio ones like the radio.

The situation in America was quite different. For one, it generally lagged behind France and Europe by several years because the media featuring Alizée were not mass media (television or radio) nor were they contemporaneous (they were recordings of television that slowly filtered their way to English-language sites on the internet). Because the majority of Americans who were exposed do not speak or understand French, the lyrics of the songs were largely denied as the avenue of the initial perk of interest that leads to curiosity and fandom, and that largely denied the music itself as serving that purpose. Therefore the initial perk for American would-be fans would come from some video discovered on the internet. Now, given that Alizée is a very beautiful woman, and that the majority sexual orientation is heterosexual, there is a certain biological predisposition for the people to have that gut reaction of interest (the first step in the chain leading to fandom) would be overwhelmingly male in the Americas. I'm not saying people are fans of Alizée because of her looks, I'm just saying that it is often the initial seed, esp. for American fans, that leads to deeper investigation and fandom.

So I think the larger skew of male fans at Alizée America is a natural function of what Alizée media make it the America, when it reaches here, and who is most likely to respond to those kinds of media. I think try to actively fight the natural trend may be futile. And in principle, I don't like the idea of segregating the fan community any more than it already is.

[Brent]

water i dont understand how you are being respectful to the subject... you told us not to talk about it... then you called her nipples yummy LOL

[Deepwaters]

Originally Posted by wasabi622

So me not being uptight about what people say reinforces the problem?

(Sigh.)

Wasabi, here's the only advice I can give you at this point.

Get a girlfriend. Listen to what she tells you. Try to understand it. Especially, try to understand why when she gets mad.

There might be a shortcut if you have a big sister or an older cousin, or can talk about such things with your mother. (That last is unlikely, I realize.) Ask some older girl how she would react if you got hold of a picture of her, say in her underwear, and posted it on the internet with a nasty little caption. The answer might be very enlightening. (But if I may offer another suggestion, make sure you're talking to her on the phone, not in person, or at least that she isn't carrying anything that could serve as a weapon.)

Hollister, you may be right that a lot of the balance among U.S. Alizée fans is due to the fact that initially people would be attracted to her for her looks, and only afterwards for the music, because she sings in French. It may be that UEDS will change that.

I still think that the locker-room atmosphere that sometimes shows up here makes it worse though.

Originally Posted by brent

you told us not to talk about it

No, I didn't. But at this point I don't know how to explain the difference between something she's doing on purpose and something that was a mistake. All kinds of phrases come to mind: "Catching someone with their pants down." "She bent over and we caught a panty shot." "Her boobs fell right out of her dress."

The key about all this is that it's catching someone in something they didn't intend to happen. It's against their will. It's like the difference between seducing a woman and raping her. (Although of course I'm not saying it's anything like as serious as rape.)

It lacks respect. That's what I mean.

[CFHollister]

OK... gentlemen. Let's try to stay on topic.

[VVVACCPLPNLY]

Originally Posted by Deepwaters

(If not for the discourteous posts that went with it, I would see no reason to do that. I mean, I would have no problem if Her Grace wanted to pose in the nude. But considering the likely reaction, probably she shouldn't. )

This surprised me, coming from you deepwaters. I imagine she would have a gorgeous body nude. But I am split on whether I would want to see her nude. Part of me obviously would, and part wouldn't. This is an odd discussion, and almost deserves it's own thread. Well, maybe not. I love Alizée, but seeing her nude may or may not make me love her more or less. I see it never happening, and am glad for that. That way I will never have to worry about it affecting my opinion of her, for better or worse. And for the fact that she would gain legions more fans, interested only in whatever nude pictures she produced. They would probably not care at all for any of her music. Some would, yes, but at least 50% wouldn't.

[FanDeAliFee]

Originally Posted by Deepwaters

Perhaps it might also be a good idea simply to acknowledge that this is not, in fact, always a women-friendly place. I have winced sometimes... The kind of comments I'm thinking of are these:

Giggling and finger-pointing over photos with nipples visible through the fabric of clothing.

Claims that a photo makes Alizée look like a penis, or like she has one. (Those left me bewildered; maybe a certain latent homosexuality emerging?)

Actually, doc, there have been a few times when YOU posted some things that I thought were a bit over the line, although at least yours were well-written. (I suspect it was the lure of the clever words themselves, too hard to resist -- I know that one well.)

I am fond of humor (and especially puns, so you can imagine how I ate up some of the lyrics of Alizée's songs). Freud offered the theory that a key M.O. of humor is to offer a CLANDESTINELY ambiguous description of something which, upon the addition of one critical detail, is suddenly revealed to be a tabu concept. How seriously one takes the transgression of normal etiquette will determine whether one finds the putative joke funny or offensive. The boundaries hazarded can include things like religion, politics, ethnicity, health, ability and yes, even gender.

As an example of edgy humor, <i>The Onion</i> recently carried an audio article in which the teenage ghost of Anne Frank bitterly complains how everyone has been reading her diary all these decades, full of her personal, private secrets!

I think Alizée is very smart and I cannot for a microsecond believe she was not fully aware of how Mylène Farmer used her burgeoning sexuality as a young teen to touch deep within the psyche of people, BOTH men and women, who remember the emergence of their own full adult sexuality and the social difficulties which it brought forth.

By the time Alizée was 19, even her "improvisational" antics on stage could be highly erotic in a way in which I compare (I think very appropriately) to the singer Prince <a href="http://alizeeamerica.com/forums/showpost.php?p=158670&postcount=20">here</a>. Lest an Alizée tyro think these mocked masculinity alone, I would cite some of the (synchronized group) dancing in <i>Je Pas Vingt Ans</i> as the height of female eroticism. And I say this not as someone who hung out swapping stories with unwashed tweenage boys in some sorry neighborhood, but as an undergraduate social science minor in psychology, whose curriculum included a course in animal behavior. But don't trust me - ask your favorite professional zoologist.

In a wide-ranging <a href="http://alizeeamerica.com/forums/showpost.php?p=150366&postcount=10">post</a> which began simply as a naive inquiry into Alizée's non-Corsican heritage, but burgeoned on account of coincidence and imagination, (and my affection for puns) I intimated that much of Alizée's entertainment persona descends from similar (literal or nom-de-plume) "Lilys" and "Lolas", including Marlene Dietrich:

<i>A fashion icon, Dietrich's frequent gender-bending attire and smoky singing voice let her stand out alone among all the famous femme fatales of her era. Her aura endures even today. with her official memorial site noting:<blockquote>What she did not appreciate, perhaps, was the vast success of the indelible quality of that image. People copy it mercilessly, some with great talent (Madonna)...</blockquote></i>I recently found reason to allude to this well-attended influence of Dietrich, using an exemplary video I embed <a href="http://alizeeamerica.com/forums/showpost.php?p=157899&postcount=29">here</a>. One cannot say what may be in Alizée's opaque pants, but the persona she assumes shows more than passing interest in another woman.

I have never found reason to compare Alizée to a penis, but a great many people think a near-decendent of her most famous fellow Ajaccian was being compared in that way, of which I was reminded when I had jocular reason to cite the artillery expertise of <i>Le Petit Caporal</i> <a href="http://alizeeamerica.com/forums/showpost.php?p=150867&postcount=22">here</a>. (Aside: Do they make jocular straps which folks like me can don for protection?)

On the other hand, Alizée's nickname of Lili/Lily/Lilly can reasonably remind one either of the <a href="http://alizeeamerica.com/forums/showpost.php?p=155361&postcount=458">female genitals</a>, or even <a href="http://alizeeamerica.com/forums/showpost.php?p=151480&postcount=13">sex in general</a>.

As for Alizée's breasts, they certainly were on the recent agenda (something most unusual for her) both when she posed for the Tekart cover as Madonna and on her blog with a suggestively undone blouse (which led you to offer an opinion on the popularity of incestuous thought.)

I'll also remark that the various recent discussion threads which focus on Alizée's hair, feet, nose and other body parts seem to echo a dimension of the Dietrich image, with her Wikipedia article noting: <blockquote><i>A significant volume of academic literature, especially since 1975, analyzes Dietrich's image, as created by the movie industry, within various theoretical frameworks, including that of psycho-analysis. Emphasis is placed, inter alia, on the "fetishistic" manipulation of the female image.</i></blockquote>Under the Victorian ethic, where sexual relations between husband and wife was a "sacrifice" the woman made on behalf of Platonic love for the man, no "decent" woman was supposed to think of sex any more than necessary, and certainly not frankly chat about it. The etiquette which follows from this would make the discussion of sex by men a socially hostile environment for women.

I do not live in such a world. In mine, the women of <i>Sex and the City</i> long ago let their vibrators come out of the closet, and now the enthusiastic female focus groups of <i>CherryTV</i> provide frank education on the social, psychological and recreational aspects of modern female sexuality in <i>21st century America</i>.

In summary, I think it is hard to separate a lot (but not all) of Alizée's work to date from sex, and so discussion of it reflects this fact. If this per se makes the Web site female unfriendly, then our feminist, often gender-bending friend Alizée is female-unfriendly.

Being singled out for relentless teasing by a group makes a place unfriendly for the victim of it, whatever the victim's identity or the abuse vector, sexual or otherwise. Thus, in a callous environment. perhaps amplified by the frequency of iconoclasm and recklessness among youth, any contingent of people who are few in number are at enhanced risk of social hostility. Women are not unique is facing such a hazard at this Web site.

P.S. When will some women post in this thread?

[wasabi622]

Originally Posted by Deepwaters

(Sigh.)

Wasabi, here's the only advice I can give you at this point.

Get a girlfriend. Listen to what she tells you. Try to understand it. Especially, try to understand why when she gets mad.

Who do you think you are?

Don't act like you know me.

And please, your whole "I'm above you" attitude wears me out.

[lefty12357]

Well it would be nice if our female members would comment on this topic.