#metoo hysteria claims yet another victim!

[Derec]

This time, it's Miss America.
Miss America Ends Swimsuit Competition, Aiming to Evolve in ‘This Cultural Revolution’
The use of "cultural revolution" (direct quote by Carlson) is fitting. There is more than a hint of Maoesque totalitarianism in all this.

Miss America and swimsuits have been synonymous since its first contest in 1921 on the Atlantic City boardwalk. But what started as contestants wearing one-piece bathing suits, conservative by today’s standards, became women in revealing bikinis and high heels parading around for a leering television audience.
Now under mostly female leadership, the Miss America Organization said Tuesday that it was scrapping the swimsuit competition, starting at the national contest in September, in a sweeping change that will also reshape local and state contests.
[..]
The organization, confronting its own harassment scandal and searching for its place in the #MeToo era, had worked on the new format for several months. The nine members of the board of directors — seven are now women — unanimously approved the change in March. It was kept a secret until two days ago, when state directors and former Miss Americas were informed.
[..]
“We are not going to judge you on your outward appearance,” Ms. Carlson, who was Miss America in 1989, said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Tuesday. “We are moving it forward and evolving it in this cultural revolution.”

If Miss America is not to judge women on appearance, and is now a "competition" and not a "pageant", what's the point? There are plenty of competitions, incuding televised ones like "America's Got Talent". And if it is no longer a beauty pageant, what's the justification of having it only open to women? If Boy Scouts have changed their name and now accept women, shouldn't Miss America change its name to "Person America" and accept guys?

The whole thing reminds me of the Greendale Community College mascot:

And there is a bigger picture: there is a very worrying trend of increasing prudishness in our society. Going from banning commercials featuring scantly clad women as "sexist", banning grid girls from motorsport and now this. I predict that by the end of the decade, feminists will join forces with religious conservatives to try to seriously ban porn like they tried to do in the 80s.

P.S.:
Scrapping the "swimsuits" would have meant this in a sane world:

Show

 

[laughing dog]

Private groups and associations are make choices - no one in the USA is banning anything. Anyone is free to start a new pageant or competition that emphasizes any skill, character or body part(s) they wish.

 

[Derec]

Private groups and associations are make choices - no one in the USA is banning anything. Anyone is free to start a new pageant or competition that emphasizes any skill, character or body part(s) they wish.

Did I say they were not legally free to do that?
But likewise I am free to say that it's a dumb idea and a sign of a worrying increase in prudishness in our society. And totalitarian impulses do not necessarily have to come from the government.

 

[laughing dog]

Private groups and associations are make choices - no one in the USA is banning anything. Anyone is free to start a new pageant or competition that emphasizes any skill, character or body part(s) they wish.

Did I say they were not legally free to do that?

What on earth are you babbling about?

[
But likewise I am free to say that it's a dumb idea and a sign of a worrying increase in prudishness in our society.

Of course you are free to decry the gradual decline of treating women as sexual objects. If this really is an issue, you (or someone else) is free to remedy the situation by instituting a pageant that focuses on women wearing swimsuits or whatever you think will attract people.

And, of course, people are free to point out that your opinion is dumb.

 

[Derec]

What on earth are you babbling about?

I am asking myself that about you every time you type something.

Of course you are free to decry the gradual decline of treating women as sexual objects.

Men are visual beings and most of us like looking at beautiful women, preferably with not much clothes on. There is nothing wrong with that, radical feminist rants notwithstanding.

If this really is an issue, you (or someone else) is free to remedy the situation by instituting a pageant that focuses on women wearing swimsuits or whatever you think will attract people.

That sadly might not be possible in this era of #metoo totalitarianism. But I sure hope somebody tries it when the cultural revolution is over and we can start to recover.

And, of course, people are free to point out that your opinion is dumb.

But they would be wrong if they did that.
How anybody can find any fault with this image is beyond me.

 

[laughing dog]

I am asking myself that about you every time you type something.

Given your penchant for illogical reasoning and rants, I am not surprised at all.

Men are visual beings and most of us like looking at beautiful women, preferably with not much clothes on. There is nothing wrong with that, radical feminist rants notwithstanding.

And if you can find beautiful women without much clothing on, you can look at them. Are you under the illusion, women ought to be available to satisfy your wishes in this regard?

That sadly might not be possible in this era of #metoo totalitarianism

You are babbling again.

 

[Derec]

Given your penchant for illogical reasoning and rants, I am not surprised at all.

You are the one who has nothing but illogical rants and personal insults in his repertoire.

You are babbling again.

Wrong. If you want to hear babbling, just listen to yourself.

 

[Arctish]

What is the purpose of the Miss America competition?

If it's to make money, then the competition needs to change. It has been losing viewers for years. The old formula isn't working any more.

Advertisers and sponsors buy time slots in the Pagent broadcast in order to reach consumers. Women drive 70-80% of all consumer purchasing. They're the consumers advertisers are trying to reach. If women don't care for the swimsuit competition (and for the most part they don't), then at best the ad time is not well targeted. Worse, women might lose interest and change the channel. That would be a waste of advertising dollars. And at the very worst, women might come to associate the product with their negative feelings for the 'meat market' part of the competition.

If advertisers hawking products for men don't pick up the slack then it's in the best interests of the Miss America organization to cancel the swimsuit competition and go with something more generally appealing.

^This^ has almost nothing to do with the #MeToo movement.

 

[Derec]

What is the purpose of the Miss America competition?

To find out who is the fairest in the land, presumably.

If it's to make money, then the competition needs to change.

Well in a sense, that is the purpose of all commercial entertainment. That doesn't mean that every show must avoid offending those easily offended. "A woman in a bikini - oh the humanity!"

It has been losing viewers for years. The old formula isn't working any more.

Do you really think converting it to a "competition" rather than a beauty pageant will draw more viewers? Really?

Advertisers and sponsors buy time slots in the Pagent broadcast in order to reach consumers.

Yes, but that does not mean that every show must cater to the same segment of viewers. Quite the contrary. And by dropping the "physical attractiveness" aspect, they lose what uniqueness they had to begin with. I suspect that the New and Not Improved Miss America will not last too long. Either they will revert or shut down.

Women drive 70-80% of all consumer purchasing.

This is an opinion piece that doesn't really source that claim. I am quite skeptical of it.

They're the consumers advertisers are trying to reach.

So every show on TV should cater to women only?

If women don't care for the swimsuit competition (and for the most part they don't),

There are lesbian and bi women too.

then at best the ad time is not well targeted. Worse, women might lose interest and change the channel. That would be a waste of advertising dollars.

Because only female viewers matter.

And at the very worst, women might come to associate the product with their negative feelings for the 'meat market' part of the competition.

Actually, this idea that has been pushed by radical feminists that women should be offended by any scantly clad female form is what I have been arguing against for a while. This neo-prudishness pushed by the feminist left.

If advertisers hawking products for men don't pick up the slack then it's in the best interests of the Miss America organization to cancel the swimsuit competition and go with something more generally appealing.

I do not generally watch Miss America, but which part of it do you think would be "generally appealing"? It's a beauty pageant - it's about beautiful women. To pretend otherwise is quite silly. If they should do away with any aspect of it, it would be the questions:


Again, if they want to make it a general competition unrelated to physical beauty, how is it any different than any of the competition shows on TV other than that it excludes men - and by dropping the "physical attractiveness" part of it, what's the warrant for excluding men anyway?

^This^ has almost nothing to do with the #MeToo movement.

Your argument in this post does not. The Miss America decision most certainly does.

 

[bilby]

This has three-eighths of bugger-all to do with #MeToo

The decline in the revenue raising ability of scantily clad women is entirely due to the huge increase in public availability of pictures and movies of scantily clad women. Miss America, Grid Girls, and all the other mild titillation services provided at the cutting edge of pre-Internet media content rules imposed by puritanical censors, have become irrelevant due to the flood of uncensored images of any kind now freely available to all. #MeToo is not to blame for the decline of Miss America; PornHub is.

Expensive and low quality moonshine has a market during prohibition; But if you can buy quality liquor for less, why would you expect there still to be a market for a sub-standard product?

If you want women as individuals, doing stuff that is not related to looking at their barely-concealed sexual characteristics, then you don't care that they are wearing lots of clothes.

If you want women as sex objects, doing stuff that is mostly related to their sexual characteristics, then you don't need them wearing swimsuits and pretending to be part of some kind of culturally acceptable pageant - you can dispense with the bullshit and watch porn, which is not in short supply, nor at any risk of being effectively censored anywhere where there is an Internet connection.

Why bother with the pretense of the former, to disguise the latter any more? It's needless, there's no market for it - and so it is going to fade away.

If swimsuits or bikinis are your fetish, there are plenty of places on the web that will fulfill your desire to see women in swimsuits or bikinis. Or indeed, pretty much any other desire you can imagine (and likely some you can't).

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

If all this prudery bothers you, there is still the Nude Miss America Pageant. Google for that at Porn Hub.

 

[Toni]

I am asking myself that about you every time you type something.

Men are visual beings and most of us like looking at beautiful women, preferably with not much clothes on. There is nothing wrong with that, radical feminist rants notwithstanding.

If this really is an issue, you (or someone else) is free to remedy the situation by instituting a pageant that focuses on women wearing swimsuits or whatever you think will attract people.

That sadly might not be possible in this era of #metoo totalitarianism. But I sure hope somebody tries it when the cultural revolution is over and we can start to recover.

And, of course, people are free to point out that your opinion is dumb.

But they would be wrong if they did that.
How anybody can find any fault with this image is beyond me.
View attachment 16002

I was always under the impression that very few men actually watch beauty pageants. Do you watch? Why? Isn't it pretty easy to see a lot more skin on other media or in person?

 

[Underseer]

So, someone said something mean to Miss America, therefore it is wrong to complain about sexual harrassment and sexual assault?

Really?

That's your argument?

Remember, the #metoo movement is about the fact that society has a tendency to turn a blind eye to sex abuse and sexual assault, to not believe the victims and blame the victims. So whatever argument you make, "therefore people should not complain about sex abuse and sex assault" gets appended to the end of your argument.

I don't know if it's possible to come up with an argument that makes this coherent, but I'm pretty sure that what you said isn't it.

 

[Underseer]

I am asking myself that about you every time you type something.

Men are visual beings and most of us like looking at beautiful women, preferably with not much clothes on. There is nothing wrong with that, radical feminist rants notwithstanding.


That sadly might not be possible in this era of #metoo totalitarianism. But I sure hope somebody tries it when the cultural revolution is over and we can start to recover.


But they would be wrong if they did that.
How anybody can find any fault with this image is beyond me.
View attachment 16002

I was always under the impression that very few men actually watch beauty pageants. Do you watch? Why? Isn't it pretty easy to see a lot more skin on other media or in person?

If someone shows lots of T&A on TV, it usually means someone made a terrible TV show or movie, and they're hoping I won't notice how awful the show is if they flash enough boobies in my face. Showing lots of T&A basically sends the message to men: "We don't have to make a show that's actually good. You're just a stupid man who thinks with his pants and you'll watch whatever we show if we put enough boobies in it."

Being objectifying to women certainly doesn't help.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Poor Derec.

 

[laughing dog]

You ...

Instead of addressing my points, a pathetic "no u r". There is plenty of scantily clad women available in the media and the internet. So, your complaints seem driven by something other than the facts.

That sadly might not be possible in this era of #metoo totalitarianism is pure babble because there is #metoo is not even close to totalitarianism. Really, get a grip.

As others have pointed out, this has nothing to do with metoo movement or prudery - it is a business decision. But don't let the facts get in the way of your "arguments".

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

If Miss America is not to judge women on appearance, and is now a "competition" and not a "pageant", what's the point?

Hey, you’re up to speed with the adults. Congrats. There never was any point. It was nothing more than soft core pornography all along. It should not only have been banned decades ago, it should never have been created in the first place.

 

[Patooka]

Can we please bring back systemic predatory sexual abuse/harassment with zero fear of consequences because Derec wants to perv at women in swimsuits and has yet to discover this particular website. #fuckmetooandfuckBLMaswellwhilstwe'reatittwobirdsonestone

 

[Lion IRC]

Derec, why can't we just use liberal left 'look-away' logic?

If you don't like abortions err...I mean same sex marriage err...I mean beauty pageants...
Simple- don't have one.

 

[Lion IRC]

Politically correct, SOGI sensitive, beauty pageant right here.