Post: #1

We will soon get to a point where the line between satire and reality will be indistinguishable.

Source

Quote:Couple's Gender-Bending Photo Series Challenges Our View Of Traditional Relationships

When it comes to the roles men and women play in relationships, there exists a very traditional, not to mention heteronormative, mentality that says power and authority should rest in the hands of the male. The opposite characteristics -- fragility, obedience, dare we say, submissiveness -- are the properties of the female counterpart.

Photographer Yijun Liao, exhausted by this outdated way of thinking, created the series "Experimental Relationship," a collection of photos that subverts the ways we view masculinity and femininity in relationships. In her portraits, she takes on the role of the dominant figure, positioning her significant other in compromising poses, often physically and psychologically inferior to her own body.

"As a woman brought up in China, I used to think I could only love someone who is older and more mature than me, who can be my protector and mentor. Then I met my current boyfriend, Moro, who is five years younger than me," Liao stated in an interview with Lenscratch. "I felt that whole concept of relationships changed, all the way around. I became the person who has more authority and power."

Liao began the series after she and her boyfriend, Moro, had been dating for a year. In an email exchange with The Huffington Post, she explained that she wanted to use her significant other as a type of “prop” in the photos, asking him to play dead in the bathtub or get into a suitcase naked.

"I never thought [the series] was weird until my teachers and classmates began asking me how I could treat my boyfriend like that," Liao said. "One of my male friends even questioned how I could choose a boyfriend the way a man would choose a girlfriend. Then I realized what comes out naturally in our relationship is considered out of norm by other people, which is interesting, and problematic at the same time."

To address the problem, "Experimental Relationship" flips the image of masculine power on its head, turning the woman into the purveyor of control through poses, gestures and interactions between two parts of a couple, all caught on film. In the photos, Moro can be seen as the submissive party -- directed, managed and laid bare (quite literally) by Liao.

With captions like "You don't have to be a boy to be my boyfriend" and the seemingly facetious "Relationships work best when each partner knows their proper place," Liao disrupts our gendered expectations and creates a beautiful examination of passion and sexual connection along the way.

Some samples (more on link)

Post: #2

Bet she's getting dick on the side or soon will be.

Btw, what is this wire they're holding in every picture?

Post: #3

Hey, I think the wire may be for the camera.

Post: #4

These pictures 'challenged' nothing about my worldview, and aren't interesting, even as art. Horrible lighting: reflect it off a surface first, you amateur fucks. Terrible composition: the dude in the last picture should be standing in the negative space about two steps to the left. And the friggin' puerile symbolism of the fruit over his dong is, to be frank, insulting to my intelligence.

Post: #5

^^^Uninteresting, social-culturally, artistically, and completely aesthetically unappealing. A total waste of the minute and a half it took to look at them and type this response.

Post: #6

A man that is hardly masculine and a woman that is hardly feminine... You can barely even tell they're "swapping" genders.

Try doing this with a confident guy that religiously lifts and a sweet girl with long hair.

Post: #7

(02-06-2014 04:52 AM)AnonymousBosch Wrote:  These pictures 'challenged' nothing about my worldview, and aren't interesting, even as art.

And will yet get published without a critical challenge.

Female privilege?

Post: #8

Uh huh.....

Post: #9

The idea of "equality" in a relationship is utter bullshit.



These sorts of fools always assume that the male is in power and the that female is the submissive party. Further, they assume that the male in power is necessarily using his power in abusive, unfair and unethical ways. This is why women/feminists/manginas always start bitching when you observe either that most women are in control of their martial relations or that some women are. Since they can't conceptualize of a bad female actor, they throw shit fits because they assume that the dominant partner is inherently a bad actor.

The photos reveal Huffington Post's inability to understand that being a dominant party doesn't mean that the party is going to use that power for ill - unless, of course, you know you will do that if you had the perceived power. The woman they have selectively chosen -- for white, female audiences -- assumes that the dominant party will objectify, demean and not respect the submissive party. Sounds quite like a certain personality disorder that is manifest in American society but I am forgetting it's clinical name...

The fear of submission isn't about an actual fear of submission -- as they already do that with men they sexually desire -- but a reflexive fear of emotional dependence on another. They pursue men that they are sexually attracted to, but intuitively know these men won't commit. They get to publically cry about why Mr. Biker Thug didn't commit and get social reassurance, but they pursued him knowing he was sexually attractive, knowing he won't commit and they can blame him for her emotional distraught - all with social approval.

On a side note -- as we see with the hysterical claims of privilege -- these people don't understand that having power doesn't mean a person is a bad actor. Like I said early, these people project their own belief that they would abuse their power as much as they could, provided they had that power. This a fantasy. If they have power in real life over individuals or by their own designations, they never admit it or recognize it.

Still, this whole concept of relational "equality" is rotten diarrhea. So, if I feel my wife (or husband, ZOMG!) has the power balance shifting in her direction, how to do I deal with it? How the fuck can we even have this conversation when most men are low self-esteem betas, not hyper-masculine, dominant men compensating for their homosexuality? How do you convince another person to re-adjust the power balance in your relationship in a way that means you will be equal? So a person thinks they are dis-empowered - so what? Do personality disorders not exist? Finally, what fire drives these sorts of liberals to think the conclusions they draw from their experiences are inherently true?

It is the narcissistic idea that another person can be everything to you. The idea that a husband or wife is not just a spouse, but a best friend, cooking partner, lover, fellow dream-chaser and this other "togetherness" nonsense. This isn't to say that love doesn't exist -- well, maybe in America that is true -- but that this building up of a fantasy partner means a person will always be disappointed by the in-flesh representation of their fantasy. Narcissus, meet your Echo.

The rhetoric of equality is part and parcel of this, as we are taught to see new approaches to marriage as revolutionary and has opened the floodgates to true love - true connection humans have never experienced before. The floodgates have been opened -- indeed -- into naked self-absorption that is sold as liberating, but only from the people we would seek as our forlorn lovers.

"Gender-bending" or whatever the Left wants to sell us is nothing but a hot mess of mindless bullshit aimed at justifying the precipitous quagmire that is modern relations between men and women.

I've dated a lot of trainwrecks in my life, but the truth is the heart wants what the heart wants. When you start building bridges from your own indecent psychology to politics -- like this Asian woman -- you are stringing up the white flag on your own love life. This stunt IS about challenging "gender," but at the complete expense of positive sexuality between men and women.

I think she is fine with that.

Post: #10

(02-06-2014 06:02 AM)2Wycked Wrote:  The rhetoric of equality is part and parcel of this, as we are taught to see new approaches to marriage as revolutionary

It annoys me that they think a dominant woman / submissive man combo in a relationship is in any form 'revolutionary'. I had friends as a kid whose mothers controlled everything about the household. My great-grandmother was a Doctor in 1910, and, by all accounts, my great-grandfather never said much of anything around the house and left little impression in the family history because of it.

There's always been couples like this through history. There always will be couples like this. It's not some rare occurrence to be documented with awe. Nothing is being 'challenged' or 'overturned'. It doesn't 'mean' anything more than what it is.

Post: #11

^ I'm not going to quote all of 2Wycked's as per usual novel posts but I think he's onto something. I'll take the cultural angle here and say that while the partner/husband role is being undermined to be less than or at most equal to the woman its not like the whole dominant male ideal is being erased. It still exists in fantasy (50 shades), a rich boss or government leaders.

I think the message is becoming "ladies, you should have one man to boss around the house and pay for your things and another outside the home to look up to"

Its like the old male model of having a wife at home and a mistress somewhere else...except in that case no one was looking to the office slut for anything besides her body.

Post: #12

Post: #13

Typical. The Asians sure are a weird bunch nowadays. To think they are descendants of some of the meanest vicious killers of the past is laughable.

Guarantee they bring dishonor to their ancestors. Ol Genghis and Kublai would surely have a field day with these chumps.

Post: #14

Most of these feminists are just angry and bitter that the powerful, dominant men they lust after won't give them attention or, increasingly, don't even exist in their world. Are SWPL chicks really surrounded by strong, masculine men always trying to dominate and control them? Are testosterone-crazed potential rapists lurking behind every corner, forever threatening to objectify them in a fury of dominance and unrepentant male power? The exact opposite is true. These women live their lives in a flaccid sea of fey, mincing betas and manginas. Their relationships are a passionless sequence of "respectful," dull sex, netflix on the couch, and foodie restaurant dates. There are no aggressive, domineering patriarchs anywhere in the picture....except when she breaks out her magic wand and 50 Shades of Grey.

Consider the androgynous looking Asian chick in these crappy photos. Do you think her previous boyfriends were paragons of raw, dominant masculinity? LOL don't make me laugh. She's in college and has the gall and resources to waste her time with stupid shit like this. The powerful men and the natural social roles she's "subverting" are clearly not present already.

Feminists are obsessed with ideas like "sex slaves" and women as property, largely made-up fantasies, because they find them deeply attractive.

Post: #15

What the actual fuck did I just look at?

Post: #16

I knew an asian couple married for over 10 years who was exactly like that. I had gone to their house for business purposes. They had the cutest little 3 y old girl, I felt very sorry for the kid. By chatting with them I learned that the wife had cheated on the husband twice in the year before they got married, and he forgave her. He said "he didn't care it's just sex".

The wife was flirting with me and basically soliciting my dick in front of her husband. On the outside she was a feminist, but you could tell she was desperately hoping her flirting would make her husband angry just for once. But that guy was as robust as an overcooked noodle. There was nothing that could be done. If she gave him AIDS, he would politely ask her "honey, you let them come inside you now?"

Post: #17

(02-06-2014 04:27 AM)draguer Wrote:  Source: Huffington Post

Every.Time.

Post: #18

The Huff Post even uses the word 'gender-bending': that concept was bandied about in the early '70's. It's a quaint notion of what we now consider 'retro-futurism' with a layer of dust on it thicker than a Cronut, and they're still writing about it like it's evidence of modernity.

It's like how women still react to male strippers like it's some kind of political statement. They've been socially-normalised since the mid'70's. Why do they still think attending a strip show is the vanguard of female power?

Post: #19

Gender neutral, art school dropouts who think they are making 'deep' and 'introspective' art. Huffington Toast, Buzz Weed, and XO Jane give a simultaneous masturbation fest promoting it as thought provoking, challenging, and fresh and new. The bullshit cycle begins anew.

I had a hard time figuring out which one was the guy and which one was the girl.

Post: #20

Oh! How challenging. She must be an artist or something.

Whats on TV tonight?