And how come gay men get the good amount of hatred but women get little.  Then again that may just be me not noticing it as much with women.
 

No, it's true that lesbians are in general more accepted in America than gay men. I think the main reason would be that lots of straight men find lesbian sex "hawt."

 

In fact, I probably shouldn't be calling it a theory, but it's definitely a thought.

Yeah... let's keep this in the "thought" category. XD

 

I hate High School girls that date the asshole guys that cheat on them, but they're still together because the asshole apologized or said that he's changed.  - Wake up and smell the roses girls.

Solution: graduate from high school.

 

I hate people that judge me because of my musical tastes.  I'm guilty of this as well on a few occasions but I still hate it. - People have different interests and likes. 

I listen to almost everything, and frequently encounter such bias. So yeah, I agree.

 

Video Games

This goes more into people that think that violent video games make violent children.  It's bullshit.  I play GTA IV, Saints Row 2, name a violent video game, I've probably played it.  Now, I admit that I have had a few tempers while playing video games, but I don't blame the video games. I blame myself, which is something people don't do anymore.  We always try to blame something else.  Now you're saying well what about School Shootings. They played GTA IV and listened to MM (Marilyn Manson).  Yeah? well so do I.  I haven't shot up a school, I haven't hurt anyone.  In fact when I had my little tempers I only hurt one person.  Myself. . . and a few walls.  These people need to stop blaming material things and look at the person or people.  How do their parents treat them?  What are their parents like? What do they do after school?  Stop blaming the video games and look at their brain / behavior.

 

All of this is pretty true. But the whole Marilyn Manson/Columbine thing happened like... uh... 423590825 years ago. Surely this isn't a huge controversy anymore. I hope?

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wish. But Thompson the fool is still making the rounds. Disbarred or not. It was almost a pre-election issue down there(or whatever you call the race within the parties).

It would probably be even less of a percentage than murderers that are Christian, or of some other religious belief.

Oh, really?  Think about the last time you heard of people trying to get a book banned from school curricula.  Just recently a parent of some student actually managed to get the Toronto Secondary School Board to do a committe review of The Handmaid's Tale and decide upon it's acceptability to be taught, because the parent asks, 'And what about the foul language, the anti-Christian overtones, the violence and sexual degradation.  Don't they violate the Toronto board's policies of respect and tolerance?'

An excellent piece of literature and a great book for literary study being criticised by a parent upset with it's contents.  Look back ~20 years and wonder about the acceptance of homosexual books into Canada.  I don't think books have outlived their detractors.  Far from it.

 

Y'know, I wanted to add more. All I came up with was Catcher in the Rye and Naked Lunch. Why is that lame?

I mean, it seems there should be more, but drunk as I am, those are the only two examples. Fuck,  Die Hard was homoerotic, and very mainstream. Why Can't I come up with others?

http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oif/bannedbooksweek/challengedbanned/frequentlychallengedbooks.cfm 

I've read about half of these, and I always laugh at this chart, especially how Huck Finn has been at the top of the charts forever for racism. People are stupid. Mark Twain would've chuckled at the irony too.

Also, the Golden Compass is challenged for religious viewpoint, LMAO, and homosexuality is an explicit reason for three of these books.

Well, all the reasons from the list above should apply, so, obviously.

Anti-Family (Luke 14:26), Offensive language, Homosexuality, Sex education, Sexuality.

The ethics of the Bible definitely confuses me more than anything. It condemns violence, but features God ordering the Israelites to stone each other for working on Sunday and to slaughter innocent women and children by the thousands. It condemns anything other than heterosexual monogamy within a marriage (actually, I'm not even sure if the OT supports monogamy at this point) but contains incest, adultery, homosexuality, polygamy, etc. While not explicitly mentioned, even Adam and Eve's children obviously had to have sex with each other and their parents to expand the population. It just goes on and on. The Bible, by itself, probably contains more questionable material than all the books in the top ten list combined.

 

You're the second person to say that, thanks.  I want to change it but I always find it hilarious when I see it

You know, this is a valid point. I have been so much happier ever since I stopped reading stupid chick magazines. As I've mentioned elsewhere in these forums before, I suffered from low self-esteem for the majority of my life, and it manifested itself in a number of ways, including eating disorders, depression, and panic attacks. I really question whether the "usefulness" of womens' magazines outweighs the insecurity they can cause.

It starts young, when 14-15 year olds start perusing the pages of Seventeen for fashion tips, boy advice, etc. It's really just like one giant commercial aimed at teen girls to make them go "but daaaaddyyyy I NEED these new shoes! And I promised Lauren that we'd go to the mall this weekend. Can't I have the credit card, pwetty pwease??" I wonder how much certain companies pay to have their products featured in the articles? "Must-have beauty products!" "The hair product you can't live without!" And for teen girls, it's a double-edged sword - there were times in high school that I considered stopping my subscriptions to these magazines. They cluttered up my space, made me feel inadequate, were a waste of paper.... but then how would I know what was fashionable? How would I know if so-and-so liked me or wanted me to be his girlfriend? How would I know what the season's hottest hairstyles were?? I realized the frivolity of the entire practice, but was too scared of becoming a loser if I wasn't aware of all the latest trends.

It continued on into college, when girls grow up and Cosmpolitan becomes their new "bible." Because Cosmo has a few sex articles per month, the implication is that if you are a reader of the magazine, you automatically have sex appeal. Maybe this is just among girls; I'm sure guys probably couldn't give less of a damn about which magazines are on a girl's night table. But still, they lure you in with the headlines - "What He's Dying for you to Do in Bed!" "Flawless Skin Every Day!!" "What his Mixed Signals Really Mean!" Exclamation points, exclamation points, exclamation points!!!1!11!!!

I finally woke up about 2 years ago. I realized a few things:

1) Most girls really don't pay attention to what magazines tell them. Oh sure, they read Seventeen from cover to cover, and they know what the latest trends are. But it doesn't matter whether high-waisted or low-rise jeans are in style, or if green is the hot color of the season... these girls won't actually wear any of it. They just wear their same nondescript uniform of jeans & t-shirts, do their make-up the same way they've been doing it for the last 3 years, etc.

If I made an effort to painstakingly recreate the make-up look featured in a magazine, or went out and bought a green shirt, the compliments I received were never, "hey, I saw that in this month's Seventeen!" Instead I got "I like when you do your eyeliner like that," or "Green is a nice color on you." I got the credit for taking a fashion risk; most of the time people were oblivious to the fact that I had actually been inspired by a magazine. So why did I need some stupid stack of paper telling me what to do? I realized that I like experimenting with what looks good on me, but I can figure out for myself what does & doesn't look good.

2) Girls that have no chance of having a sex life anytime soon buy Cosmo and think they're hot shit. That's nice, but do you tote your Cosmo with you when you go out to parties? No? Then stop flipping through the pages and go fix your hair and buy clothes that actually flatter you. THAT is how you get a guy's attention.

Plus, I soon realized that Cosmo is not as X-rated as they like to think they are. Most of the sex tips are useless or painfully obvious. (Guys like when you give them a blowjob? Gee thanks, I had no idea...) And again, most girls are going to read "How to Spice Up You Sex Life TONIGHT!" and then go have their usual vanilla sex with their boyfriend anyways.

3) Magazines force you to define yourself according to their categories. "If your style is girly, then wear this... if you're a glam girl, wear that..." "Which perfume is right for your personality? Take this quiz and find out!" But what if I fall into different categories? What if I don't like that perfume? I found myself questioning my own traits all the time. Maybe I should look like that model. I wonder if I could go blonde? That girl looks cute with short hair, maybe I should do that... Oh, if only I had legs like that.. Once I stopped bombarding myself with images of other people and stopped worrying about whether I was "cute" or "glam" a funny thing happened. I learned to accept the things that I'm stuck with instead of always pining for things that would never be physically possible given my genetics.

And then after they force you to overanalyze yourself, magazines will talk about "guys," seemingly under the impression that all "guys" behave the same and are the immature frat boys that I try so hard to avoid.

 

Anyways, after being away at college for about a year, my subscriptions to Seventeen, etc. expired. Since they had been delivered to my parents' house, my mom asked if I wanted to renew them, and I said no, since I was rarely around to read them anyways. I also realized how much money I was spending by buying magazines from the drugstore each month, and decided I would no longer purchase any unless it was really worth it. Every 6 months or so, I buy a fitness magazine, or a fashion magazine that has hairstyles I want to try or something. But I find I really don't miss them. I really don't miss worrying about whether I'm normal, or doing things right or wrong. Although I had been treated for my eating disorders, I still had lingering low self-esteem for 3 years after the fact. Once I stopped comparing myself to other people, I was able to accept myself much easier and with no insecurity.

I just don't see the point of magazines, especially those that target teen girls. You do a lot of developing during your teenage years, and a lot of self-discovery. Asking girls to categorize themselves or compare themselves against others during this crucial period is just bound to lead to anxiety and insecurity. And if you are a teen girl who is lucky enough to be secure in her own skin, then you're probably not going to jump on the bandwagon and do things just because some paper said you should. Basically, I don't see any purpose to these magazines other than to exploit the vulnerability of maturing girls during what is by definition an awkward phase of life. In my opinion, that is wrong and unhealthy.

However, several of the magazines that I read during my youth have since gone out of publication. Whether this is due to the bad economy or due to girls finally realizing the stupidity of it all, I'm not sure. But I'm hoping that it's a shift toward the latter, and that women will no longer feel the need to let a stack of glossy paper define them and dictate their lives.

 

I don't mean to sound creepy but when I read this I wanted to give you a huge hug haha.  And pardon myself for feeding the know-it-all stereotype cause I hate being that way, but I'm in a Gender & Communication class where we've been learning about how the media treats men and women differently.  For women it's all about looking slim, doing whatever your man needs to, have big breasts, to be submissive to the dominating male.  You know, sick shit like that.

For men, however, we're taught to be strong, rugged, be ripped with muscles, have a huge penis.  That's all men are now, it's just a huge pissing contest to see who's the best.  How we're supposed to know how to weild, fix cars, hell fix everything.  I don't know shit about cars, and don't care to.  I try my best not to be a competitive male but sometimes I catch myself doing it and I hate it.  Although on the other hand it's good to have some competitive ego so you're not just a big push over like I was my entire High School career.

 

I don't know when magazines started to pick on each sexes self-esteem but it's no wonder teen depression is so high, especially for women.  Dove is doing some wonderful things with their commercials now, I don't have any links right now but you could probably go to dove's site and find some, or even youtube.  I think women are beautiful the way they are, none of this makeup shit, anorexic models cause to me that's disgusting.  I don't want to date a twig.  I also don't want a submissive significant other, I want a women with female cojanes that knows when to speak up.

/rant off

*HUG*

 

It's interesting, but being there for four hours on a monday, it can get extremely boring.