Can we please get rid of the nasty, sexist, rational responders ad

url is www.rationalresponders.com . I pm'd this earlier and know there was a thread several days ago. Please get rid of this trashy ad.

:popcorn:

:popcorn:

I have the ads turned off so that I don't see them.

Please explain the problem.

which I didn't think could be turned off. In any case it is a barely clad women cop, think stripper cop, saying belive in God we can cure that.

I guess you've never been to the beach or to a swimming pool.

Here she is the only scantily clad person.

:shrug:

This one does sound pretty bad though.

Why don't I see her? x(

unless you think women are disgusting.

Here I think women should be respected for their brains not their boobs.

Seriously? A woman dressed in a satin tank top equals porn to you?

but I think it is pornesque.

Because she has large breasts? Blonde hair? Would you be as upset if they replaced her with one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence?

I wish I could see what everyone's talking about. I'm curious.

below the regular DU content

I've looked for it but can't find it. Now I'M offended.....hurumph!

I would think the text would be more offensive. Especially to a member of DUs "god squad." I think someone is being a little disingenuous.


Edit to add: I think I'll register over there. Hey it worked!!!!!!

if he was working for them. It is a nice site, isn't it?

At least, compared to what I expected when I read the OP.

She looks no different than a girl on a regular billboard or in a regular advertisement.

I was expecting soft-porn, the way the thread-starter reacted.

The problem is the use of a photo that is obviously suggestive of porn (the classic women strippers acting as cop routine) as a sexist marketing tool. (objectification of women for profit)

Blonde hair & large breasts equals stripper. Got it.

It's the camera angle and cropping, plus combination of clothing choice with police hat.

You can play stupid on this all you like, but unless you've been living in a cave, you're aware that's a stereotypical stripper routine, and not so much a standard police uniform.

that I'm offended by DU profiting off the sexploitation of women's bodies because I have a problem with atheists.

:eyes:

That's not where I was going at all with that. I definitely don't have a problem with atheists. :)

dressed up like a popular parody of a cop, aware that her physical attractiveness would draw the eye's attention, in order to redirect that attention to a site in which she would attempt to further her cause using logic and rational thought?

PORNO!

I'm playing stupid. Do you know what I do for a living, M'am?

If that's offensive, I wonder how you make it through an average day.

I will now lose about 40 minutes in idle fantasization of women in satin tank tops. And it's all your fault!

The woman in question seems to be a major member of the site. If you look through the site, she's quite intelligent, and at the same time very secure about using her body to grab people's initial attention. I think there's a world of difference between a stripper and an intelligent woman dressing up like a cop to promote a website dedicated to challenging false beliefs. I don't think it's "nasty" at all.

In fact, the only way I could see calling it "nasty" would be if you think women with large breasts are "nasty."

At our local meetup, one of the women has purple hair, full tattoos, weighs about 250, and wears low cut clothes.

She also has a masters degree, and a razor wit, and is a great mom to her 4 yo. son. She is treated with great respect, which she deserves.

You are too interested in how a person looks. (Me, I favor Catholic school uniforms.) But I think that if it was a shampoo ad, you would not have noticed.

--IMM

and speaking from experience, I have yet to see any "Women With Big Brains" magazines kept discreetly (somewhat), behind the counter.

eta: I see you did. I don't see the ad like you do.

DU gets paid every time you do.

to the ads here. Thanks.

because a call to censor an ad by an atheist wouldn't get the same support around these parts.

At least the last thread about this was honest in that the op admitted she was offended as a theist.

seeing that ad. I suspect you don't like things critical of religion. Just a suspicion.

anyways thanks for posting the link, I wouldnt have known of that site otherwise. it's a great resource!

of which there have been several. This ad is flat out offensive.

more than one person.

I have been on so many gay sites with gratuitous pictures of scantily clad or naked guys in my face all the time perhaps I am jaded and immune to scantily clad or naked bodies in general. :shrug:

it was THERE until you mentioned it.

Maybe you should just treat it like irksome posters -- ignore. :shrug:

That site is beautifully put together. A lot of work has gone into it.

It seems like a very normal atheist site to me. If we have to live with Christian ads every time a discussion of religion or God comes up, then it certainly seems fair that Christians should have to live with atheists ads when believe in rational thought comes up. It's freedom of speech.

She looks like the stripper parody of a cop.

The only way she could be wearing more clothes would be if she'd be wearing a burqua!

For example, there's one attributed to Donatello and thought to have been painted in the early 1400s.

How would you feel if prints of such paintings were advertised on DU?

:eyes:

And as we all know, intelligent atheist bloggers with blonde hair and large breasts are all actually porn stars and strippers.

I could see how someone who believes in the existence of God my find it offensive that someone wants to fix them -- is that the problem?

the wrong way.

They're so much like fundies it's unreal.

It is possible, through persuasion, to change beliefs. It is not possible to change sexual orientation.

The mentality is that other people are broken because of who they are and they need to be "fixed."

They do, but one is harmful, and one is benign.

Refuse to acknowledge their points; deliberately misconstrue their statements."

Your failure to understand why your logic is flawed does not equal my inability to grasp it. I understand where you're going. You're wrong.

The persecution complex of Religionists is hilarious. Believing in supernatural BS or in an invisible man in the sky is NOT equivalent to being gay. Religion is an idea in people's minds, sexual orientation is a biological/instinctual phenomenon.

Read my reply to the other poster.

Apparently you're fine with the idea that people aren't "okay" the way they are, and that they need people to "fix" them. And you don't like the hypocrisy of that idea being pointed out. Tough.

I believe alcoholics ought to be rehabilitated. I also think that telling homosexuals, who cannot change themselves, that they ought to stop being gay is cruel. Is that hypocrisy? Only if you like false equivalence.

As for telling religious people they can be changed? I'd place that between alcoholics and gays.

When someone says the Earth is flat I correct them and thus "fix" that person's error. Why should the idea of religion be put out on a higher pedestal then believing some other assertion? Philosopher Daniel Dennet in his new book Breaking the Spell explains this putting of religious ideas on a higher pedestal that makes it obscene or rude to question said religious ideas as part of a complex of memes he calls "belief in belief," that is, memes that protects a belief from scrutiny.

tells me how atheists don't proselytise.

:eyes:

comes to my door talking about "the good news", I promise not to complain.

And since when is the female body "nasty?" I know I know, I'm only saying that because I want all men to like me. :rofl: (An actual accusation thrown at me when I was defending a woman's right to celebrate her sexuality.)

Typical fundy stance: "I don't want to look at it so you can't look at it either! Niener niener!"

You don't like it, don't look.

You're claiming that the woman is dressed in stripper's garb, yet in reality, if you look at the outfit, she is exposing no more cleavage than a lot of college students, or other females do, day in day out, at school, at work, and out on the town.

Sorry, I don't get your faux outrage.

a service of brains and logic, including those of the woman in the pic. The "rational response squad" badge may also be a clue they are using cop schtick as part of that service.

So in fact we have a women who is objectified only inasmuch as she is (accurately as far as I can tell) represented as the face of a group offering intelligence, reason and logic. Hell I would be proud to be objectified in such a way. I hope she is too.

Because she's an athiest! I think athiests in general are hot because they have brains, and aren't afraid to use them. The brain is, after all, the biggest sex organ in the human body.

Unfortunately, I either cannot see or find the ad, so cannot comment directly, and can only make inferences based upon your characterization, which I will presume is a truthful judgment of perception for you.
~In general~
It is common for advertisers to appeal to a natural sense of sexual desire to create and associate an expectation that if we 'buy', the associated desire will be fulfilled. The important thing to remember is the advertisement is nothing more than a lie wearing a mask of appeal to extract something else from us, without ever giving us resolution toward the associated desire created.

on this subject. I thought I'd share a couple of essays I found today with the group (it may or may not be on topic, if not, my apologies):



It's interesting to view the rise of corporatism, once again, in the timeline of the last quarter of the 1800s, and to tie it in with the creation of false desires.

"pursuit of Happiness", anyone?



Anyway, like I said, probably mostly off topic, but I find these two essays somewhat interesting as a way to understand the lack of happiness that we are constantly subjected to, and that they are products of mass advertising, which happened to arise with the mass manufacturing phenomenon and the early years of corporatism.

Women have breasts. It's not nasty nor sexist.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

--IMM

I'd take it up with the organization being advertised, and not DU.:hi:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2307431&mesg_id=2307444

They can reject them after they appear.

...BUT, it's an ad against theocracy. Given the theocratic influences in our government for the last 27 years, I agree wholeheartedly with the spirit of the website being advertised.

The original incarnation of the ad read: "Believe in God? We can fix that." That has nothing to do with Bush or neocons or RWers, it is a statement that there is something wrong with everyone with religious inclinations.

Now that you have shown yourself interested in this issue, may I point you to some ads that actually do offend women? I am sure you'd want your energy directed toward alerting folks to an ad campaign that actually does insult women, as opposed to this one, which does not.

First, some background. http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/article41.html

# 1 Superiority.
Three common tactics used to establish superiority are size, attention and positioning. Notice how both men and women in the Hanes ad appear subservient because of their positions below and behind their partners. The Gable Film Festival poster lends historical reference to the stereotype that women, like the one in back, fawn over men yet cannot hold their attention.

# 2 Dismemberment.
Women's bodies are often dismembered and treated as separate parts, perpetuating the concept that a woman's body is not connected to her mind and emotions. The hidden message: If a woman has great legs, who cares who she is?

# 3 Clowning.
Shown alone in ads, men are often portrayed as secure, powerful and serious. By contrast, women are pictured as playful clowns, perpetuating the attitude that women are childish and cannot be taken seriously.

# 4 Canting.
People in control of their lives stand upright, alert and ready to meet the world. In contrast, the bending of body parts conveys unpreparedness, submissiveness and appeasement. The Capri ad further exemplifies head and body canting. The woman appears off-balance, insecure and weak. Her upraised hand in front of her face also conveys shame and embarrassment.

# 5 Dominance/Violence. The tragic abuse-affection cycle that many women are trapped in is too often glorified in advertising. Is the Revlon ad selling lipstick and nail polish or the idea that a woman must be kept under control? Note the woman's affectionate reward for her pleasant cooperation in being choked with her own pearls. It's not funny, Frank.


Also take a look here: http://www.jointhemediacircus.co.uk/mediacircus/2007/10/the-best-sexist.html for examples of ads which actually do offend feminists. You might want to check out http://www.umich.edu/~sapac/sia/2007/ too.

Again, as a feminist, I thank you for your concern but I assure you, in this instance, it is misplaced. The image you are worried about shows a woman pretty well covered, and in an assertive pose (in fact, if you clicked through to he site, you'd see that she's pretty much in charge). She isn't poised to serve a man, she isn't shown as ready to strip off her clothes, and she isn't emaciated.

They're sexist.

I see them popping up in gay-themed threads all the time and it offends me.

Well not really, but yeah.

prominent on both the Greatest and the Latest page, that we need to shitcan.

I honestly find this picture quite offensive.

What's up with that?

I guess I understand... oh well.

www.You Go Girl.com add is offensive too.

Bobbi Flekman: You put a *greased naked woman* on all fours with a dog collar around her neck, and a leash, and a man's arm extended out up to here, holding onto the leash, and pushing a black glove in her face to sniff it. You don't find that offensive? You don't find that sexist?

Ian Faith: This is *1982*, Bobbi, c'mon!

Bobbi Flekman: That's *right*, it's 1982! Get out of the '60s. We don't have this mentality anymore.

Ian Faith: Well, you should have seen the cover they *wanted* to do! It wasn't a glove, believe me.

:smoke:

Damn that fiendish firefox!

Scantily clad atheists. Yes, I'm outraged. Outraged, I tell you.

(Away, nasty thoughts....away, nasty thoughts!)

As I said in my earlier thread, they are not my beliefs. But I don't have to believe something to be offended when the beliefs of others are belittled.

Some get that. Others (too many) here don't.

I also wouldn't want an ad on DU admonishing atheists to repent or burn in hell (even if it included a nun showing cleavage).

Neither are appropriate for ths forum. Unless we are no better than any other money-grubbing web-sites who would post anything to make a buck.

:sarcasm:

I am so sick and tired of reading--especially on this "liberal" website--whenever a woman tries to make a protest against the constant degrading exploitation of male capitalism, the immediate, as-if-coordinated bellowing attack against her, until she either submits or leaves. It is "trivial," you are not even smart enough to know what oppresses you or makes you feel abused by the bigoted and the privileged, you are "repressed," you "hate males," you "hate women," you "hate the human body," you are "vindictive," you are "a prude," "What the FUCK, Not THIS AGAIN" as if you do not have a right to protest and this is not your country. Males and anyone bigoted against women are deluding themselves if they believe that women and girls are not angry and fed up at this corporate pseudo-culture that humiliates us, and you would do well to stop your manipulations and browbeating long enough to actually realize, apparently for the first time, that women often do not have the same perspective as males, at all.

The woman is an object, set up as being sold from one male to another male; she is not "celebrating her own sexuality," as males often stupidly put it, any more than the battered Linda Marchiano "enjoyed" making porn movies, as she described it all in "Ordeal." So obstinate are they in their own routine, so unwilling to listen, they they often, (and did again here), actually tell the woman, right to her face, that she has only "faux outrage," that she DOES NOT EVEN KNOW "what insults women"--and all of this, as according to the only experts on women, males! We have been listening to one form or another of this routine from arrogant, self-absorbed males all of our lives: our concerns will only detract from the real issues, why are you so extremist/vindictive/sexually repressed, for not submitting to a male-only standard of public society, etc. You don't even know what's good for you, if women win, we all lose, you should wear a BURQUA--haw! haw! haw!, as if there is no ground at all between male exploitation by semi-nudity and porn positioning, and, male oppression by complete covering and removal from society.

We are apparently only "allowed" to really fight, when males agree with us; when we turn to them and say, "You, too," and try nervously to explain their own bigotry and hypocrisy to them, and their enjoyment of our abuse, and our rage at this endless and unaddressed humiliation, (and if you think it is only this religion-hating website, then you lie again), then you understand the angry, hopeless feeling that millions of women have. Yelling and laughing at us won't make it go away this time either.

:shrug:

Did it ever occur to you that the woman in the ad works for rationalresponders, and CHOSE to dress that way for the ad? In a free, open society, woman can do that.

The only sexist, nasty people here are the ones that expect women to adhere to their strict religious dogma.

The fact that the infidels must resort to images of buxom women in very tight shirts in order to draw sheep from the flock is indicative of the weakness of their position. Unable to make an intellectual stand against the wisdom of God, the Apostles, and the Church Fathers; they must resort to the basest of weapons to inflame the lusts of those weak in the faith and draw them to perdition. May God, having mercy on their souls, move their hearts to repentance, that they may further receive His grace and not be damned.

Benedicat tibi Dominus et custodiat te
Ostendat Dominus faciem suam tibi et misereatur tui
Convertat Dominus vultum suum ad te et det tibi pacem,
JVS