Is BE sexist?

[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.

[TF-Viewer]

Originally Posted by CandyKing

Not sexist unless you use it to demean a woman, or bleeds into your beliefs in what a woman should be (baby maker). Even stories where a woman does it for sex isnt demeaning if written well, because she *wants* it, and you can empathize with the character. Things can only be sexist in certain contexts, but thats the same for damn near everything, BE is not inherently sexist unless you force it upon someone, or ir tarnishes your beliefs in what women should do/be.

Probably a bit repetitive, but I have gotten into a habit of restating my points.

So, are you saying that you think women should just be baby makers? Or did you mean something else by putting that in there?

[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.

[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?

[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.

[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.

[CandyKing]

Originally Posted by TF-Viewer

So, are you saying that you think women should just be baby makers? Or did you mean something else by putting that in there?

No.

What? you wanted more? I was using the statement as an example of what someone who leans towards objectifying women may think that women are FOR, basically not a real role in society but someone to stay home or whatever, just as an example to illustrate my point. I myself have no such compunctions, and I know a couple of women who like BE, and one of them is a complete tomboy, and would kick my ass if I tried to treat her in any such fashion, or even RP in any such fashion with her. She actually ends up leading the RP's along, go figure, she knows what she wants, and she seems to more like the idea of the situations she might get into from BE, her mental status/attitude does not change one bit.

I can't read anything involving MC, or Bimbo or anything like that, or anything involving women "ruling by their breast size", or other such objectifications (is that a word?), it just turns me off to the story pretty quickly.

[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.

[Very_Good_Karma]

Okay, first I'm going to admit that I haven't quite read the entire thread. I tried to but my eyes started to blur on some of the longer posts and I resorted to skimming. So I apologize if I'm repeating someone else's statements. I probably need to go to bed.

What I would consider a reasonable argument that a Breast Expansion Fetish is inherently sexist is this: In a breast expansion story, larger breasts are almost always depicted as a desirable end goal, whether a goal of the expandee, another character instigating the expansion, or the audience getting to watch. Feminine beauty is therefore placed on a spectrum, with women having smaller breasts shown as less desirable, despite breast size having little bearing on a woman's capabilities as a person. That is, BE is bad in a way that mere attraction to large breasts is not because of the way it emphasizes the importance of breast size on the woman so expanded.

My response to this argument is that unreasonable standards of beauty are stupid, and a serious problem, but the unreasonably large breasts of BE are physically unreasonable, not socially unreasonable. BE is about a sexual attraction to large breasts, not a sexual attraction to stupid standards. You're looking for that Humiliation stuff they throw in with BDSM.

If women with large breasts in BE settings also receive considerable social benefits from having them, that stems not from an endorsement of the standards that lead to such benefits but rather from an underlying recognition that such standards are unfair, and a desire to see justice served when the deserving woman is able to attain such benefits through large breasts. In BE large breasts are a means to personal gain, not the justification for it, and any woman is able attain large breasts, often as a result of having the personal merit which ideally would lead to personal gain.

I'm not even going to try and argue why mere attraction to large breasts it not sexist. Somebody else can do that one.

[CandyKing]

personal preference is not sexist, liking large breasts on a woman isnt objectifying the woman, demeaning a woman and liking a woman with a big chest are not the same thing. People seem to confuse finding something attractive and having a preference to objectifying and demeaning women, which is what being sexist is.

Thats about as succinct as it gets, liking a physical body isnt shallow, thinking a woman should "know her place", that is whats shallow and sexist. Never be afraid of your own personal preferences, just because I may not apply my enjoyment of BE to a real relationship, I will prefer a woman with a larger chest, but I will not refuse to speak or interact with small chested women. BE itself actually CANT be sexist, as its a fantasy, and even if your only into other women who like BE, that isnt related to ACTUAL chest size, and is only a shared interest.

Then again, I'm sure theres women out there into being mind controlled or bimbofied, I don't know em, but those are women who enjoy being objectified, its sexist, but in that case, they like it, and then it doesnt really matter, whatever fulfills her own desires in a relationship.