Is BE sexist?

[Chameo]

moral/ethical dilemmas rarely come into play in eroticism, Consider it a suspension of disbelief

[FireStorm]

Originally Posted by Chameo

moral/ethical dilemmas rarely come into play in eroticism, Consider it a suspension of disbelief

qouted for truth,just make sure you don't demean woman in real life

[tghawk555]

I don't think it's BE that's sexist, but rather bimbofication, as "it makes a woman (or man) into someone's ideal woman". You know what I mean?

[Jumba]

BE isn't sexist, its objective, its shallow and it is borderline perverted but it is not sexist. AT no point would expansion of breasts state one sex is lesser than another. The common storyline linked with such things (nymphomania, bimboing and all that jazz) would be considered sexist as you are making them a lesser being (addicted, dumb, again etc).

This coinage really got out of control more recently. We must always remember being sexist is to think less of the other sex.

[ryantherebel]

Thanks for all of the responses this thread has gotten so far. It's good to see that we can be intellectual about our fetishes.

[Avenger2099]

... He meant if it makes you think that a woman should be a baby maker, not that he himself thinks of women as baby makers.

[TF-Viewer]

Originally Posted by Avenger2099

... He meant if it makes you think that a woman should be a baby maker, not that he himself thinks of women as baby makers.

I'm asking him, unless you share a brain, shush.

[Ninja Jay]

I don't think it is
I mean, it's not as if we all go around telling girls their boobs are too small
THAT would be sexist, but enjoying the female form, altered or un-altered, is not.

[Hooded_Miracle]

'Holes' manga?

Uh, what?

[Prophet Tenebrae]

As people have said - the diversity of interests and people makes it impossible for a simple answer. About as glib as you can be is - there are aspects that are negative and positive.

Obviously, BE's very close ties to more overt means objectification - mind control and bimbofication and to a lesser extent nymphomania (as the first two imply some destruction of the self and/or mindrape...) doesn't do it any favours. I'd challenge someone to come up with a meaningful argument that disputes an inherently misogynistic slant to the majority of MC/bimbo stuff.

In a more direct sense, I've always felt that the actual enlarging of breasts is... ambiguous in whether it represents something positive or negative for the woman. Obviously, we have the sliding scale of the kind of story where the woman becomes little more than a vehicle for a pair of enormous breasts - which are the centre of attention and lead to a very literal objectification (hell, by that point it's getting to straight forward dehumanising) of the woman and that's about as sexist as it gets, you've turned a normal woman into little more a pair of tits.

Then of course you have the other end of the spectrum were breasts aren't an impediment but rather, act as empowering - I think the most literal example of this I can recall is a concept DruulEmpire floated on the Plume which he dubbed as "drums" and breasts were basically not just breasts but doing all bunch of other things, so the larger the breasts, the more powerful the woman. I'm sure we can all think of the scenario where the down on her luck (and flat) heroine is faced with a bitchy antagonist who happens to have the biggest tits around... And of course, it

Even that side of the scale is a bit iffy because while it may present the experience as positive for the girl and she benefits from having larger breasts, the fact is - she needed larger breasts to achieve her goals... and hence, the tacit admission is that certain body types are preferable. Although, I would say if this is tempered with a message that the heroine's personality is the important thing - then it's probably fine... although, that MAY smack of hypocrisy.

I think perhaps the question "Is BE sexist?" is the wrong one. I would probably ask: Is BE (or indeed FTF as a whole) inherently misogynistic? To which I'd say no. Hoorah!

[Rutland43]

I've wondered about this as well, and I think it comes down to how it presents women. Now clearly, as many have already pointed out, this depends hugely on context, but I think we can also consider how the very idea of BE affects our idea of women. Clearly there is an inherently sexual component, but being sexy doesn't inherently demean women (at least, as far as most feminists, including myself, are concerned, though others would disagree). By extension focusing on one characteristic generally considered to be attractive isn't misogynistic per se. Interestingly, according this page (which I arrived through a Google typo), just over a third of breastexpansion.net's audience is female.

Now, just because women do something doesn't mean it encourages a healthy female body image, and I think that if you were to examine it out of any context at all BE you could conclude that since BE encourages a 'bigger is better' view of the female body, it brings an unhealthy pressure on women. And yet, the BE community as a whole seems rather good natured. A couple of people in this thread have already described BE as a 'silly fetish', and it is and we know it as such. We don't actually judge the women we know on their breast size. We know that we fetishise the impossible and the ridiculous, and while we find it titilating, I couldn't think of anything more terrifying, ridiculous, pitiful and off-putting than a woman with the breast sizes we imagine. Large-breasted women complain that their breasts become a large part of the way people identify them and that they are viewed in a more sexual way. Generally, I get the impression (though I'd be interested to hear others views on this) that the BE community doesn't actually want women to have larger breasts in reality; part of the enjoyment is in how far removed from reality it is.

The good-humoured community reflects, I think, the fact that BE is a relatively benign fetish. It makes no inherent statement on power relations between genders. (Although, as others have pointed out, this depends entirely on the way the BE is presented. The best scenarios, in my opinion, are those that take an enlightened view of gender relations; they are after all so much more believable). Since so much of it is imagined in either writing or in drawing, then the sense of unreality is hightened, and in addition there is no such worry as there is with photographic material with regards to what extent the girls are exploited and how they feel about themselves.

Because it focuses on something so patently impossible, BE could actually be argued to be more progressive than most forms of female objectification. Rather than idealising women as they could be and so encouraging an idea of how they should be (in the manner of porn, lads mags, beer adverts and, actually, huge amounts of our culture), BE idealises women as they could never be, and in that way lets real women off the hook, as it were. There is no point aspiring to something that is inherently a fantasy.

Finally, I'd point out that I think men are actually quite good at not associating women they obectify with women they actually interact with. They compartmentalise their experiences; they expect one thing of porn stars, but something quite different from real women. I don't think there needs to be any great fear that BE encourages men to think a certain way; as I keep coming back to, I think it's essential silliness (and the humour the community treats it with) prevents it from having much of an effect.

I never foresaw my feminism and my fetish coming together in quite this way.

[Muhznit]

Originally Posted by Rutland43

Because it focuses on something so patently impossible, BE could actually be argued to be more progressive than most forms of female objectification. Rather than idealising women as they could be and so encouraging an idea of how they should be (in the manner of porn, lads mags, beer adverts and, actually, huge amounts of our culture), BE idealises women as they could never be, and in that way lets real women off the hook, as it were. There is no point aspiring to something that is inherently a fantasy.

First off, I'd like to welcome you to the forum. Second, I'd like to thank you for emphasizing the surrealistic side of this fetish as a means of comforting real women.

As for my points of view on the question, consider this:
If Women were the dominating gender as opposed to women, would they be somewhere on a similar forum, in the "Penis Extension" section, wondering "Is PE sexist?", or "Is PE objectifying towards men?" or whatever the question of morality may be.

The point is, as long as there are two genders, one of which with a more dominating feel over the other, the question will rise, but even if the roles were swapped, again, it would still rise at one point, to which we should probably respond, "If Breast Expansion/Penis Extension is objectifying, or demeaning, to the opposite gender, then shouldn't the other be objectifying or demeaning to my gender?"

I believe the objectification of women is NOT something caused by BE, but caused by the dominance of a particular gender in this world. Why? Because I'm sure that if we were all a bunch of dickgirls we wouldn't be having this conversation.