Nipples on the A train
Armani Exchange might be playing a trick on your eyes. I walked onto the subway car of the A train and while scanning for a seat my eyes were pulled to the sight of two nipples hoovering above my head. Double take. I see these two breasts glaring at me but then I’m able to see the torso it’s attached to: muscular and male. But still, something looks feminine about it and after a few moments I have concluded (with C-mixto concurring as a male) that the breasts seem too pendulous, the shading under them dark so as to shape them as circular as in curvaceous. The lighting on them looks enhanced too, so that they seem to bulge out softly (not hard like a muscle). So coupled with the fact that there is no head, I conclude that Armani is playing on using the female body, sex and hermaphroditism via photoshop in its ad. No surprise, just noting it struck me in this ad. You judge.
Further reading: Camile Paglia, Sexual Personae.
2 Comments
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It is probably caused by advanced photoshopitis combined with the fact that “Male breast growth is linked to traces of the contraceptive pill in water and other food hormones used in farm animals.” In addition, your observation raises other gender bending fashion-related questions such as:
1. How come gay male fashion designers dictate women what is sexy, feminine and elegant?
2. Why the more masculine and sexy a male model is, the less interested he is in the opposite sex? (former female coworker made this observation)
3. Are we, as a species evolving into a single body type in order to render absolete politically incorect phrases such as: “she looks like a woman” or “he looks like a man”.
I guess I can try to answer #1 by saying that straight man don’t care what ladies wear as long as it can be easily taken off and women dress up only to make other women jealous LOL
I can take a crack at #3 by proposing that we begin using “personly” instead of “manly” and “personine” instead of feminine
you ask good questions. I am not a basher of gender- it is fun to have choices though I get that stereotypes should not work in our disfavor. Perhaps I am dated for our times and the world will be different rendering this preference obsolete, but I still think there should such a word as feminine and masculine in some basic sense, though evolving.