• 01:42 🚺 The politics of cleavage involves women flaunting their sexual power over men and then shaming those who look, especially if they are considered less attractive or unwanted.

• 03:25 🤔 Feminist movements have pushed the idea that women can dress as they like without any responsibility for their behavior, absolving them from acting sensibly.

• 05:56 👙 The attempt to desexualize the nipple by equating women baring their chests with men doing the same ignores the essential biological differences, particularly the sexual signaling function of breasts.

• 07:35 😡 While it's reasonable to start with the premise that provocatively dressed women aren't asking to be raped, it's not reasonable for women to exploit men's rightful constraint in the face of extreme provocation.

• 11:42 🔄 Men's constant titillation and sexual frustration, coupled with rejection, contribute to confusion, irritation, and insult when confronted with provocative behavior, impacting relations between men and women.

As an admirer of the romantic, I think he makes a good point, though I think this will be a progression. Sex or romance may have been a distraction to the main point--we can have good stories with a female main character who is strong, independent, determined. As that becomes more normalized, we can ad romance and sex. Seems reasonable to have the progression.

Warning: This piece contains inappropriate language for children.  This isn’t an easy piece to write, for reasons that will shortly become clear, but I know it’s time to explain myself on an issue surrounded by toxicity. I write this without any desire to add to that toxicity. For people who don’t know: last December I tweeted […]

The Bechdel test (/ˈbɛkdəl/ BEK-dəl) asks whether a work of fiction features at least two women or girls who talk to each other about something other than a man or boy.