By David Futrelle
Reactionary Canadian fussbudget Jordan Peterson was roundly mocked for suggesting that women wearing lipstick are trying to mimic the look of sexual arousal, when women’s lips apparently all turn dark red or pink or perhaps No. 19 Fuchsia Rouge.
But to his fans his thoughts on the allegedly “provocative” nature of lipstick were eminently reasonable, and the Lobster Boys continue to get mad about the alleged deceptions of makeup on a regular basis.
Earlier this year an actual woman bravely marched into the Jordan Peterson subreddit to inform the gentlemen assembled there that she doesn’t wear makeup to signal her sexual readiness but instead to appear, well, awake, noting that when she doesn’t wear makeup she looks tired, even when she isn’t.
The boys were having none of it.
“[L]ooking nice” is synonymous with looking sexually desirable,” mansplained someone calling himself Vito_The_Magnificent.
You cannot make yourself look nicer, but less sexually desirable. They’re the same thing. …
If one of my eyebrows is bigger than the other, its going to bother me. I’m not thinking of other people when I fix it, but fundementally, I’m fixing it because humans, including me, find symmetry sexually desirable.
Someone called Mexails went on the offensive, accusing the OP of dastardly makeup manipulation.
Come on, looking alert and fresh is obviously == looking more attractive. You put it on to look more attractive, because you prefer to show a fake freshness to people and prefer to hide how you really look. You prefer to manipulate people into treating you differently than they would if they’d actually see how you look for real.
You try to cheat their brain by presenting a more sexually attractive face to them than what you really have.
TheMythOf_Feminism jumped into the fray as well, declaring that sexual provocation is
what makeup is used for. It mimicks for example, the natural female indicators of sexual fertility and sexual arousal.
Of course there are different types of makeup and different amount a woman can use, the point is, generally speaking , a woman wearing makeup is using sex to get things like favor and attention.
But my favorite comment of the bunch comes from an amateur evolutionary biologist called ee4m:
Women become energized when ejaculated into, while men become sleepy. Women use make up to look more awake, to create a sexual freshly ejaculated into vibe. Its evolutionary biology.
I think — or at least hope –he’s joking, but honestly, I don’t know. I spent about a half hour going through his comment history to try to figure out his politics; he calls himself a leftist but thinks “identity politics” is a capitalist plot and has nice things to say both about Christina Hoff Sommers … and Mao. And JBP. So I give up.
If he is serious, I guess I must have missed that day in biology class.
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@Weasel-Rah
Why is there so much padding in suits? On the occasions that I’ve worn suits it’s mostly just made me overheat.
It’s to broaden the shoulders artificially, and give the appearance of a smooth line. Like a girdle, but for masculinity.
@Karalora
You just captured so much of the essence of who I am to the core. With me it’s makeup, hair, clothes shoes and accessories and just my body especially overall that is my art and my art is my power and my joy.
I would never hold someone’s fetishes against them if that person is self-aware enough to know when it’s healthier to keep something as just fantasy and away from real life. I admire and respect that kind of self-awareness.
I am blessed to belong to a wonderful BDSM social group where I get to explore some live action fetish interactions but the reality of it has taught me that creating the scene in real life takes far far more real life planning and set up than maybe your minds would have you maybe believe when you’re just fantasizing.
The real life stuff reminds me of theater! It takes that much set up. What I wear is easier for me because of how I have always dressed for my job but with my BDSM social group it’s almost like studying to be a performance artist. Like I always thought I would look and feel hot with a whip but when I actually got in a position in my group where I get to carry and use a real bullwhip regularly it was a lot of work beforehand just to learn the basic cracks like an overhand flick and then practice. (Not actually on anyone but just for the sound and visual). I did feel amazingly hot yeah but my point is a lot of stuff is sexy in your head but if you want to try it (assuming it’s safe and ok to try to begin with of course) it there are a lot of actual practical things that come up for safety and respect and reality. And when you are trusted with another actual real person to collaborate with that brings on even more responsibilities. But I have a great group with wonderful women in it (and men too) (but I personally only deal with cute handsome ones, because I can. 🙂 )
Why this old argument, Vito (et al)? OF COURSE people can, and do, wear makeup to look more sexually attractive. But also – this is another “of course” – it isn’t the only reason. People have already mentioned a) art, b) perceived formality/professionalism, and c) restrictive beauty standards. I’ll add another:
In my elementary school theatre group, many of the kids (including the boys) got their makeup done for plays. It wasn’t to sexualize preteens! It was to make their faces, and facial expressions, more visible to the audience.
I don’t usually wear makeup; I’m not very organized, and I don’t want another thing that takes time. (In retail or some business environments it might be more expected? I work as an English tutor.) But for an interview or formal party I’d put on some lipstick. (I had a sort of date recently and I didn’t wear any, so apparently I consider makeup more for formality than for sexual attractiveness? Or was I just lazy? Dunno.) 🙂
Edit: StaceySmartyPantsTwiceRemoved – I saw you mentioned theatre just after I posted this. 🙂
@epitome of incomprehensibility
Thank you so much but you were actually the one making the good point about theater!
I’m pretty sure corpse paint doesn’t make people more attractive. Though then again there was an art project (link NSFW) where a photographer took pictures of naked women in corpse paint.
There’s a couple things I think are worth pointing out with respect to this “just so” story of theirs when it comes to women’s makeup. For one, much like incense, textiles and dyes, makeup has a history so broad and contextual that folks have dedicated their lives to its study. Men and women used kohl as an eyeliner in ancient Egypt, so the concepts been around a few thousand years. As you absorb that history, you come to appreciate its arc and how it impacts contemporary use.
Secondly, I’m sure that JeeP fans hanging out on Reddit consume porn. A lot of us do. Well one thing about porn is that makeup is magic. It can entirely transform the look of a person. If you’ve ever seen one of those stories where adult actresses show what they look like before and after makeup, you’d be hard-pressed to recognize them as the same people. And I’d be willing to bet they’d be in the comment sections of those stories casting all sorts of aspersions on their “before” images. So they really shouldn’t be pretending that their idealized woman is naturally even-skinned and long-lashed. Few people are.
Thirdly, plenty of dudes benefit from makeup (or could). Everyone in the entertainment industry uses it before they go on camera. Let’s not pretend cosmetics are a “women-only” thing for a second.
@Katamount
My guess is that JP bros probably watch porn but have very negative views of the women in it. A lot of misogynists do. So that probably doesn’t change how they feel about the makeup. They probably endlessly slut shame those women and fail to see them as anything more than sex objects, and the makeup would just be another part of that Madonna-Whore complex.
I don’t watch much porn because I prefer reading written stuff, but I think it’s very hypocritical to watch porn and not respect the performers. Sadly, I think that’s a pretty common sentiment.
I once had to go on local television for something and due to various allergy issues I have to vet any makeup I’m going to wear to make sure I don’t get hives. I didn’t have time to do that backstage, so I didn’t wear any makeup and looked extremely washed out. Literally every person in entertainment wears it.
A sexually satisfied woman usually feels just as sleepy as a man after sex, so I’d call that last guy’s comment a self-own ? Sex doesn’t end with the male orgasm. If she seems “energized,” you likely still have some work to do. ?
@Dalaila
I don’t think they sees this as a self-own, though. MRAs and the like really don’t care about female orgasms, so to them a partner not orgasming is not something wrong on their part.
I suspect a lot of these guys would be freaked out if they saw some of the things various cultures have considered appropriate “decoration” for women. For example there was the Japanese practice of ohaguro, where women would dye their teeth black. The women of Japan’s Ainu people tattooed their faces. No one is going to mistake either of those practices as being attempts to look sexually aroused, although both were associated with a woman reaching adulthood.
I spend more time on the Lobsterkin Reddit than is probably good for me. Some of the regulars seem like they could watch “Hunchback of Notre Dame” and see Frollo as the hero.
Why are women so in denial of wanting to appear prettier than the are. And compete with other women. And attract alpha males attention. Yes sure there are other aspects to it too. But saying those arent the main ones is a blatant deception.
Uhhh, dude, I don’t wear makeup to compete with anyone. I wear it because I like it. I don’t give two squirts of piss what other people think of it. And I am already pretty. I just really like makeup.
And you know there’s no such thing as an “alpha male,” right? You know that’s not a thing?
Uh, can you even read?
We’re responding to things like this shit:
EITHER there’s no such thing as a 4-year old looking “nicer” one day than another OR this Peterson fan is constantly thinking of fucking four year olds…and so is literally every single other person on the planet. Because there’s no difference between looking “nice” and looking “sexually desirable”.
The people above are idiots with bad ideas. Of course we’re going to oppose those bad ideas. Of course we’re also going to mock them for their idiocy. And of course we’ll use examples from our own lives to do those things. And, finally, of course we easily find examples in our own lives, because people are different, yes, even women.
@Crip Dyke
It’s the second one. These people seem to be obsessed with underage children.