From: rdonahue@spdcc.com (Bob Donahue)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Ah, Fashion.
Date: 2 Oct 92 02:26:38 GMT
Article-I.D.: spdcc.1992Oct2.022638.26209
Organization: insert anything here

mike@gordian.com (Michael A. Thomas) writes:

	[Here we go again --- take out your Logic 101 texts...]

>rdonahue@spdcc.com (Bob Donahue) writes:
>> richard@Apple.COM (a flying squirrel) writes:
>> >What's in Fashion?  For Men, Smooth Look Goes Integral

>> 	Gross.

>	Laden value judgement #1, more to follow...

	Um, yes that is a value judgement...  Very good.
But for the exact opposite reasons you try to defend below.

>> 	As if we needed more people being "told" that if they
>> don't look like X their worth is diminished.
>> 	Beauty is internal, not external.  Fashion is
>> a way for people to make money off of other people's insecurities.
>> When you "go in for fashion" you're buying this demoralizing
>> and dehumanizing crap lock, stock and barrel.


	(Mike.  Please use two spaces after a sentence.  It makes it
easier to pick apart your postings sentence by sentence...)

>  Oh. There's nothing to fashion at all? 

	Sure there is.  Money.  A LOT of money.

>A person's desire to look
>good can only be because of insecurity? 

	No, that's not what I said - in fact I said that people look
good without having to cowtow to fashion.  In other words, fashion
is not necessary for people to "look good".

>It has nothing to do with
>trying to achieve a personal goal of beauty? 

	See above.

>Shouldn't a person's
>view of beauty factor into how they think they should dress/look
>to give themselves self esteem? 

	Of course.  That's why there is a problem with fashion: people
are always being told what amounts to unrealistic goals about what 
*is* beautiful, etc.  There are lots of beautiful things in the universe.
Fashion distorts this by hyping one thing trying to get as many people 
as possible to emulate it (in order to feel they are part of the "beautiful
people") and then change onto something else, rendering the object 
"unfashionable".  What was once used to make someone "beautiful" no
longer has the opposite effect... (How often do you wear polyester
suits these days?  Bellbottoms?  you know the litany...)  

	In other words, those that "create fashion" try to change
what people's "view of beauty" is.  People then try to obtain that,
instead of looking for the beauty that was already (and always) there.
A gross misuse of energy.  More often than not, for a lot of people
it results in insecurity, lower self-esteem, spent $$$, etc.
We can all laugh at the sitcom character who goes out and buys a horrible
toupee, but whsy is that any different than the person running out
to get X, Y< and Z that are in all the ads this year?  How will X
Y or Z transform him into someone else (presumably the models for
X Y and Z).

	And what's a "goal of beauty"?  All a person X can do is
look like the best X there is, or be comfortable with ones own
good features.  Anything else is not possible - the great lie is
in being told that it is possible - if only you'll do X Y and Z.

>What about beards and mustaches?

	What about them?  Some people like them, some people don't.
I myself prefer them.  But it would be silly of me to suggest that
anyone who didn't have one is somehow "not as good" as someone who did.

>If I shave am I "demoralized and dehumanized"? 

	Of course not.  But let's say that all of a sudden body hair 
was in *in* *IN* **IN**.  Are you going to run down to a salon and have
something glued on?  That would seem to me to be as ridiculous as what I 
read.  

	On the other hand, I do know people who had facial hair and
did shave because "well, that's in now".  When asked, no they really
didn't want to do it, and preferred the facial hair, but (shrug)
"that was in now".  Gack.  Now I also do know people without facial
hair (and for the most part with facial hair inertia :-) who identified
with the bears community.  I would say it is equally stupid to lay
judgement on people who felt they wanted to be part of the community
because they did or didn't have "the right kind of face fur".
I have never felt that way about people, and I can enumerate a lot 
of people I consider bears who have no beards, and other without
beards or moustaches.  Why they do or do not have them is up to them,
but they're not any less beautiful.

>What about cleaning my fingernails?

	What about it?  

>  Does this fit in with art at all?  
> Does that mean that an artist
>who discriminates about what they paint based on fashion and beauty
>is "insecure" is "demoralizing" and "dehumanizing"? 
>  If not, what is the difference?

	Why is purple more red than green?

	The difference is the message.  The artist is saying "I am
conveying X with Y (X doesn't have to be beauty - X can be any
emotion or message).  But let's take the limited case where the
object can be something to represent beauty.  The artist will
choose some subject that in her/his mind fits the role
for that single work.  Certainly there is no pressuree in art
to depict a single archetype.

	Fashion/advertising has a different motif.  The idea is
to link some trait to a model giving you a pattern to emulate.
"If I smoke Marlboro cigarettes I'll be macho like that cowboy."
"If I buy Grey Poupon, I'll be more classy than using generic
yellow mustard."  "If I buy these hair products, and clothes, and
X Y and Z, I"ll be sexy and people will lust after me."  The reality
is that smoking Marlboros invites medical problems, Grey Poupon
gets spread on hot dogs, and X Y and Z aside you're still the same.

	It's the somewhat arbitrary decision that only some
set of qualities are "good" that is the problem.  And as we
well know last years fashions that were to die for are an
absolute sin once they;ve gone out of style.   Sheesh.
If there were such a thing like fashionability that somehow
got into a group of things one year, then leaked out and into
a different group of things the next year, why not just bottle
it and put it in spray cans?  "That's why I use Insta-Fashion
by Vidal Sassoon --- I just spray it on my underarms and 
(BOING! --- three scantly-clad objets d'armour spring up out of
nowhere desperately trying to get to you!)".

>> 	Don't.

>> 	You don't *need* to wax to look good, sexy, interesting, etc.
>> You don't *need* to be thin, tan, blond, smooth, muscular, young
>> to have self-worth and to be found attractive by other people.
>> These things are *traits* not requirements or conditions.

>  Says who? 

	Duh - like says *logic*.  

> In your opinion this may be true, but I don't think that
>the world of taste revolves around your world view. 
> In fact, I suspect
>that you are probably in the minority, but no matter. 

	Oh?  Gee if we say that I'm patently wrong or in the extreme
minority then we are saying that unless we bow to the fasions of 1992.8
we can't be beautiful.  How *EVER* did Mona Lisa get along?

	Let's write it out in deference to you Mikey in simple terms.

	FASHIONS CHANGE ALL THE TIME WHILE TRUE BEAUTY DOES NOT

>  Just because it is not necessary for *you*, implies that the people
>they are trying to attract (either inward or outward) are *just*
>*like* *you*. This, I'm afraid, is a rather self-centered attitude.

	[Can you believe this yet?]

	Actually re-reading this - it makes no sense whatsoever, warped
logic or no.  Oh wait I think I have it now.  "Even if I don't have
a problem with lookism, other people might."  Yes, I know Mike
THAT'S THE POINT.  The *solution* dear, is not for me to start
buying into the system but for the system to go away.  That's not
self-centered (although couched in this language and taken out of context,
I'm sure you'll try very hard to make it look so) at all.

	If we stopped putting so much stock in it there would
be a lot of happier (and financially independent probably) people
around.

>In fact it may be just *opposite* of you. Why is your view preferential?

	Well, for starters it is more positive - people have more intrinsic
"worth" in their appearence.  It's more diverse - it allows many many
subjective interpretations of beautiful to occur, and gives people
more freedom to express themselves without having this strict (but
constantly changing) false "standard" to check oneself against.
That's for starters.  And it isn't *my* idea - it's Mother NAtures.
[If we were all supposed to look the same, we would.  We don't.]

>> 	It's time our community started casting off these things
>> in favor of liking each other for who we are, not who we're told to be.
>> We dont' like it when the phobes treat us as things, why are we so 
>> willing to let GQ/IM/EL/LLBean/etc. to do the same?  

>  My. Shall we elect a fashion czar for the gay community? Shall
>I offer your name in nomination?

	Duh (look he missed it again.)  What we don't need is
a fashion czar.  Try reading for comprehension.  I wonder what
sort of hot button I could have hit?  Do we have stock in some
companies or something?  I can't understand how you can find fault with
a statement that says that people are inherently good, if they
look for it within themselves...  Perhaps you've been trying and
can't get to that point - I know it took me some time to.  But
that's for you to work out.  No one and certainly no thing can do it for you.

>> 	The next time you find yourself judging someone because
>> of how they look/dress/etc... ask yourself: who is telling me
>> to come to this conclusion?  Then next time you see/hear/read
>> something telling you "you really want to look like THIS" ask
>> yourself is that the *only* possibility there is?  The model may
>> be beautiful, sexy, hot, and wonderful, but so are you.

>  I suggest that you should apply this line of reasoning to 
>your own attitudes.

	????!  Which part of "duh" eludes you?  The entire
text above this which you take great exception to, is the same
stuff re-worded...

>> 	We as a society (mainstream) are too fashion-addicted.
>> We feel we can't "function" without our apparel "drugs", that
>> we'll only be OK if have them, and without them we are doomed,nothing.
>> What crap.  Isn't it time we flushed?

>  Says who? Just because you find it unattractive does not extrapolate
>to the rest of the world. I find this attitude of yours shockly
>intolerant.

	(Can anyone BELIEVE THIS?)

	Intolerant?  Comapred to - the fashion industry?
Oh c'mon this is a joke posting right?  You're not actually
serious......  Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.  OK Mike - go for the kill.
Show in a series of 1992 fashion media the *diversity* of models.
Show me ALL THIS TOLERANCE for differing archetypes that apparently
I'm trying to squash by suggesting that people do not need to conform
to fashion in order to be beautiful.  

>  This being said, I am hardly any sort of fashion slave or clothes
>horse myself, but the thought of making such a sweeping pronouncement 
>over other's is on very thin ice. I've come to expect that sort of 
>tunnel vision from GM, but it truly suprises me coming from you Bob.

	Meaning what?  There are people who are disposed to spend
a lot of money on clothes or whatever because they want to.  It's
like why some people buy different cars.  OR houses.  Or computers.
But there is a different message put out for people-at-large that
says you are incomplete unless you do these things or aspire to
do these things.  That is what I am addressing here.  Some people
choose a big car because they hope that people will think their successful.
Some people mnight be fooled, but it doesn't make them successful.
(Were it so I'd be behaving like Donald Trump and checking under
my pillow for $1B$ from the Tooth Fairy.)  The same is true for
most people about fashion.  Purusing the latest fad in the (false)
hopes it will somehow magically transform you into a sex god is
not a done deed.

	I am not saying that for people who desire to get their
bodyhair waxed off it is wrong to do so.  Go for it - have a ball.
(Hey maybe Estee Lauder for an extra price will turn it into a whole
leather fantasy thing...).  But because it has become an "in"
thing it is *not* necessary for people to do it to achieve beauty.

	This is very very very very simple to comprehend.

	The first rule is that you have to like yourself.  Most
of the people who chase after fashion don't and see fashion as the
external source of validation.  Maybe you can fool yourself for
a short time.  But when the fashion changes again you have a closet full
of X and your VQ (validation quotient) has dropped to zero.

	I have no interest in dragging this out into some flame-thing.

	Someone posted something- I responded to it, IMHO, properly.
You have some other take on it (somewhere I guess, what your thoughts
are on the topic apart from BBC is wrong wrong wrong were never stated),
and I'd like to say I care what it is but honestly, I don;t.

BBC