February 6, 2014

Irate Wellesley feminists v. annoying po-mo Plop artists

Richard Serra's "Tilted Arc"
In the early 2000s, the Caltech administration hired celebrated sculptor Richard Serra to deface the only large open lawn on the tightly-packed campus with another of his massive rusting iron walls running diagonally across the greensward. Eventually, the nerds got themselves organized enough to defend their main frisbee-tossing site and the administration backed off. But that kind of victory over ugly, stupid, hostile post-modern institutional art was hard for even the high-IQ students of Caltech to pull off since they didn't have handy identity politics categories to deploy. 

Fortunately, the feminists of women-only Wellesley College appear better equipped to defend their nice-looking campus since they can frame it as a macro-aggression against their sense of comfort. From the NYT:
BOSTON — When Sruthi Narayanan, a Wellesley College senior, first saw a nearly naked man who appeared to be stumbling on campus, she assumed he was a drunk, about to be arrested.  
Art (the snow accidentally improves it)
He was actually a new work of art. 
The sculpture, “Sleepwalker,” is 5 feet 9 inches tall and made of epoxy, fiberglass and paint. The figure, with a bit of a paunch, is clad only in tight white briefs. His arms are stretched out in front of him, his face reddened and miserable. The work, by the Brooklyn artist Tony Matelli, was commissioned by the Davis Museum at the college as part of a solo exhibition of Mr. Matelli’s work, called “New Gravity.” 
The appearance of “Sleepwalker” along a busy thoroughfare on Monday stoked anger among some of the students at this all-women’s college in Wellesley, Mass. They swiftly took to the Internet to petition the school to move the statue indoors. By Thursday afternoon, the petition had more than 500 supporters.  
An explanation of the petition, which was started by two students, Lauren Walsh and Zoe Magid, calls the sculpture “a source of apprehension, fear, and triggering thoughts regarding sexual assault for some members of our campus community.”

What if it were a sculpture of a black man? Would the students have dared mention it "triggering thoughts regarding sexual assault?" Fortunately for the feminists, it looks like a drunk fraternity boy from MIT, so that's not a problem. Here's the petition against the piece of Plop Art:
The sculpture of the nearly naked man on the Wellesley College campus is an inappropriate and potentially harmful addition to our community that we, as members of the student body, would like removed from outdoor space immediately, and placed inside the Davis Museum. There, students may see the installation of their own volition.

Within just a few hours of its outdoor installation, the highly lifelike sculpture by Tony Matelli, entitled “Sleepwalker,” has become a source of apprehension, fear, and triggering thoughts regarding sexual assault for some members of our campus community. While it may appear humorous, or thought provoking to some, the “Sleepwalker” has already become a source of undue stress for a number of Wellesley College students, the majority of whom live, study, and work on campus.

As the sculpture was placed in a highly trafficked location, it is difficult for students wishing not to see the “Sleepwalker” to travel to the campus center and the residential and academic quads.  
While the sculpture may not trigger, disturb, or bother everyone on campus, as a community it is our responsibility to pay attention to and attempt to answer the needs of all of our community members. For those among us who find the sculpture triggering, daily activities that require moving about the campus may be seriously impeded by the nature, location, and context of the sculpture.  
In signing, we assert that the undue stress that the “Sleepwalker” causes some of us is enough reason to move it inside the Davis Museum. We also stand firm that art, particularly outdoor art installations, are valuable parts of our community. 
We welcome outdoor art that is provocative without being a site of unnecessary distress for members of the Wellesley College community. Further, we ask that in the future, the Davis Museum and the College notify us before displaying public art, especially if it is of a particularly shocking or sensitive nature.

Back to the NYT:
In an interview, Ms. Narayanan, who signed the petition, said on Thursday, “I know people who have had triggering responses to the statue.” She added, “The statue was put in a public place without students’ consent.” 
The reaction has pitted students concerned with their peers’ discomfort against the college administration, which has focused on the sculpture as a catalyst for discussion. 
“The community is debating everything from compassion to censorship, to freedom of expression and the significance of safe spaces,” said H. Kim Bottomly, the college’s president, in a statement on Thursday. She said the students who led the petition were going to meet on Thursday with Mr. Matelli and Lisa Fischman, director of the Davis Museum. 
Ms. Fischman said she intended to keep it on public view until the exhibition ends in July. She wanted the sleepwalker to be male, she said, partly because she thought a female sculpture would seem too exposed.  
“I was completely taken aback by this response,” said Ms. Fischman, who hopes to use the discussion around the work as “a teachable moment” on “creative freedom and what it means to honor that on campus.” 
The reaction to the sculpture also surprised Mr. Matelli, who said he intended the sculpture to be a vulnerable depiction of a man, in contrast with the aggressive, monumental figures that are more typically wrought in statues of men.  
“What they see in the sculpture is not in the sculpture,” said Mr. Matelli, who added, “If you have bad feelings toward this and it’s triggering you, you need to seek sympathy, you need to seek help.” 

Dude, to say stuff like that, Tony Matelli better be some kind of Hispanic rather than Italian name, and you better be wearing a dress or at least be gay.

So, I went to Google to find out about Mr. Matelli and this immediately came up:

Oh, that's convenient of Google. They've taken to putting up a rainbow symbol to instantly tell you who's gay or not. So, Mr. Matelli's got that going for him in his war with the Wellesley feminists, which is nice.

But then it occurred to me to test my assumption:

So, this rainbow flag is not a handy new feature to confirm your gaydar, it's just Google demonstrating World War G solidarity against all those homophobic Russian figure skaters, or something.

Anyway, Mr. Matelli doesn't wear a dress, looks like a white guy, and specializes in really ugly sculptures.

The NYT gives the feminists the last word:
Ms. Narayanan said she was frustrated that students’ concerns about the work’s impact on students have not been addressed. “It sort of feels like the big point here is that students’ emotions to [sic] the statue are being pushed aside in favor of having a discussion about art,” Ms. Narayanan said.
 
I'm betting on the feminists over the postmodernists in this scrap. But we shall see. There may be trump cards yet to be played. The feminists have the jargon, but the modern art promoters have the money (what are the odds that a major Wellesley donor is also a major Tom Matteli collector?), plus the big money art collectors are hardly hurting when it comes to hiring academics to make up jargon for them (e.g., "transgressive"), either. So we shall see.
    

58 comments:

Anonymous said...

Poogle.

Anonymous said...

"Ms. Fischman said she intended to keep it on public view until the exhibition ends in July. She wanted the sleepwalker to be male, she said, partly because she thought a female sculpture would seem too exposed."

So many BS all around. She's for free expression but thought it would be inappropriate to have an 'exposed' female sculpture--and may well be one of the protesters if another artist had put up a female figure. (Otoh, I'll bet she was on Lena Dunham's side on the issue of Dunham flashing her flabby body all over the idiot panel.)

The grand narrative on the history of art is that modernism was cool because it upset bourgeois respectability and tastes(though, to be sure, the main patrons were the bourgeoisie), but now, college students don't want their sensitivities to be offended. The girls who take classes that celebrate 'subversion' and 'irreverence' want their feelings to be revered.



Anonymous said...

Did Israel hire Richard Serra by any chance along the borders in the Occupied territories? Well, Jews seem to appreciate it.

I think Serra would be great too along the US-Mexican border. I'm all for more state funding for the arts for such a project.

Anonymous said...

"triggering," "trigger," etc.

MMMM, this seems to be something of a new buzzword in multiculti circles. I wonder how long before it hits the MSM?

For that matter, how is cis-gendered going? Has it grabbed any mainstream traction?

Anonymous said...

Wow, right now Google has a skier, a hockey player, a figure skater, etc. superimposed on the segments of the rainbow flag.

I know that in Russia everyone is looking forward to a Russia-Canada hockey showdown, preferably in the final. I wonder how the Canadian players' morale will be affected by the suspicion that in the eyes of the worldwide media and of their opponents they will be essentially fighting for the rainbow flag. It's fun to imagine the trash talk on the ice.

Anonymous said...

Interesting, Tony Serra (of TRUE BELIEVER fame) is Richard Serra's brother.

Anonymous said...

instead of linking to the olypimcs google's graphic is linking to the charter and news that it will include sexual orientation...

When I saw google 'celebrating' the olypmics that we're not supposed to like, i knew something was up

countenance said...

You mean "Wellseley lesbians."

It’s not surprising to me that this would generate outrage at an all-lesbo school. Women at a coed school are used to this — After all, guys wearing this much in the dorms during certain hours are overdressed.

fish said...

New season of "The Walking Dead" starts in a few weeks....are we sure that this isn't just guerrilla advertising?

TheLRC said...

A culture that produces an 'intellectual' who says 'It sort of feels like the big point here is that . . .' is doomed anyway.

Space Ghost said...

The whole "trigger" concept is fascinating. For some reason, some people now think it's appropriate that all discourse be dumbed down to a level that does not offend the most emotionally disturbed / unbalanced / immature people in the audience.

peterike said...

Ahhh it's a pity that people didn't rebel back in the day when those homicidal Serra sculptures were going up everywhere (contra his name, Serra's mother was a Russian Jew; shocking, I know).

That sort of hostile, deadening art was actually promoted heavily by active KGB measures at the time. Hence, while normal people were repulsed by those grotesque monuments to statist repression, the "intellectuals" pronounced them oh the very thing you know! And of course the hoi polloi were shouted down and the sculptures raised (and never razed).

In fact, Serra is very possibly the most dreadful artist ever to achieve his level of fame. If there's a hell, then there's a sheet metal cell in it waiting for his arrival.

So as twee as the little dykes at Wellesley may be, I'm actually on their side in this. That sculpture is horrendous. It is not art of any kind. It should be removed because it's an offense to taste. You go grrrrrllllllsss!

Svigor said...

What if it were a sculpture of a black man?

Then it would flatter the subject and Wellesley students would only be able to object to it being male. Leftoids are nothing if not well-trained. Sit, roll over, beg, play dead...

Contrariwise, there's always the Chi-com MLK statue in DC.

Anonymous said...

“It sort of feels like the big point here is that students’ emotions to [sic] the statue are being pushed aside in favor of having a discussion about art,”

Bring back the chaperones. Poor poor babies need to have their feelings looked out for them.

Anonymous said...

Is Serra post-modern or the last of the moderns? His humorless commitment to such stuff seems more in the spirit of late modernism than pomo-ism that tended to be lighter and more playful.

Anonymous said...

"That sort of hostile, deadening art was actually promoted heavily by active KGB measures at the time. "

Stalin and Khruschov ranted against modernist, abstract art. From the Wikipedia:

"That renewed thaw ended on December 1, 1962, when Khrushchev was taken to the Manezh Gallery to view an exhibit which included a number of avant-garde works. On seeing them, Khrushchev exploded with anger, describing the artwork as "dog shit",[146] and proclaiming that "a donkey could smear better art with its tail".[147] A week later, Pravda issued a call for artistic purity. When writers and filmmakers defended the painters, Khrushchev extended his anger to them."

The Wikipedia doesn't mention the fact that during his tirade at the Manezh Khruschov asked one of the avant-gaede "painters" if he had served in the war and if he was a homosexual, implying by his tone that he knew the answers already.

The Soviet state only promoted abstract art when it really was Communist, i.e. before the war. It promoted realism after the war.

slumber_j said...

Well, I'm really glad none of these students were around back in the Eighties when certain friends of mine and I used to swim naked in Wellesley's Lake Waban...

Svigor said...

So many BS all around. She's for free expression but thought it would be inappropriate to have an 'exposed' female sculpture--and may well be one of the protesters if another artist had put up a female figure. (Otoh, I'll bet she was on Lena Dunham's side on the issue of Dunham flashing her flabby body all over the idiot panel.)

Seems like Wellesley students are for free expression, too; they're freely expressing that they hate the statue and want it gone.

The girls who take classes that celebrate 'subversion' and 'irreverence' want their feelings to be revered.

The bit about how leftoids consider themselves iconoclastic, independent, irreverent, rebellious, etc., juxtaposed with the fact that the leftoid regime has now erected all the icons, crushed independence, demands reverence, extirpated rebellion, and ossified into a caricature of the Puritanical just never stops being delicious. It's "who-whom?" in a sentence. It's also fun to consider that, lacking a set of principles (and having only a Narrative; a giant playbook), leftism is even less free-thinking than most other ideologies. Real political ideologies impart principles and let adherents apply them to different sets of circumstances that arise, but not leftism.

Samson J. said...

I wonder how the Canadian players' morale will be affected by the suspicion that in the eyes of the worldwide media and of their opponents they will be essentially fighting for the rainbow flag.

You may or may not know that Canadian culture has made a fair amount of hay out of the 1972 hockey series where we beat the Soviet Union. Truly that was a great victory, but I weep for what my country has become, and have been in earnest prayer about Scott Lively's "rainbow belongs to God" strategy.

Anonymous said...

God do I hate modern sculpture. Hate.

Unlike the Caltech guys, they put up some twisted metal garbage in some of our beautiful lawns. They were perfect. Just grass, paths to walk across. Students playing frisbee (as you noted), reading, enjoying the sun. You could enjoy the fresh air, watch the sun go down over the hills to the West...

Nope! Like some wacko hoarder we've got giant rusty crankshafts and hub caps on our lawn. Open space is wasteful. What's it good for?

(I'm not going to say where I went to college. I am ashamed.)

Anonymous said...

Peterike:"(contra his name, Serra's mother was a Russian Jew; shocking, I know)."

Since Serra is his father's name, how is it contra anything?

For a fuller ethnic breakdown:

"His father, Tony, was a Spanish native of Mallorca. His mother, Gladys, was a Russian Jewish immigrant from Odessa" (WIKIPEDIA)


MMMMM, wonder if he has managed to leverage the fact that his Dad is a Spaniard from Mallorca? Sure, everyone on this blog knows that Spain is a European country full of White people, but I'm sure that he could grab some of that "Hispanic" affirmative action mojo if he really tried.

kaganovitch said...

Really high IQ (as at Caltech)may get in the way of dealing with university admins., The optimum is probably 125-140 as is common in good political operatives. Betting on the feminists is definitly the way to go in Wellesley.

Hunsdon said...

"Afflict the comfortable, comfort the afflicted."

Auntie Analogue said...


Wellesley Twits: A Simple Peremptory Fillip Ick.

CMB said...

The way the artist prevails is by saying that the sculpture is of a female-to-male transsexual and that anyone who complains about it is a transphobic bigot.

Reg Cæsar said...

Matelli's primary influence is clearly George Romero.

My advice to the girls is to counter with a dose of Jackson Pollock. Ladies, to your cans!

Hunsdon said...

What’s lost in the Wellsely kerfluffle is the thrill obscenity can create. It’s the sharp dangerous edge of anarchy and when used effectively, it can BLEEP up the most carefully planned cocktail party, smashing all propriety to BLEEP.

a woman said...

Rich girls with nothing else to so but claim their psyches have been put in danger.

Why not just declare, "The damn thing is plain ugly" instead of pretending it gives them anxious dreams? (Oh, yeah, then they wouldn't be able to garner attention).

Having once visited the campus on a summer's day, I can say that it IS a most beautiful campus which doesn't deserve that crap placed on it.

Of course, it doesn't deserve some of the idiots that attend it either.

as said...

Eventually, the nerds got themselves organized enough to defend their main frisbee-tossing site and the administration backed off.

MIT has the Stata Center. Nerds are not good at organizing I guess.

Oswald Spengler said...

Anonymous said...

"Poogle."

2/6/14, 4:20 PM

------------------------------------

"Gaygle"

Anonymous said...

The way the artist prevails is by saying that the sculpture is of a female-to-male transsexual and that anyone who complains about it is a transphobic bigot.

A brilliant ploy. Someone should tell the artist.

Anonymous said...

At the campus I was at years ago, some big rock, fresh from the quarry, was plopped down and referenced as "art". The price was 250,000 dollars, but apparently it was donated. Since it was unobtrusive, I didn't care, but the whole thing stank of a complicated scam. Money laundering? Tax evasion?

As Tom Wolfe noted (in The Painted Word), top schools attract kids who can sculpt and paint, in a technical sense, much like Michelangelo, but are forced into making pointless rubbish. The simplest explanation: Real art can be dangerous.

Rex Little said...

In certain circles, this is seen as a statue of John Scalzi.

Big Bill said...

I don't see why the artist didn't say the sculpture was of a homosexual man, oppressed by homophobia and therefore the women have nothing to be afraid of. Indeed there very complains (now they know the sculpture is homo and not hetero) showing their "fear" is really "anger" at homo men.

Or, alternatively, some of the wags at MIT could dress the sculpture in a pink tutu, lipstick and and a wig and say that "he" is actually a "she"--a transexual--"dream walking through a transphobic world". Then they could hold encounter groups to discuss the heterosexist Wellesleyans and their hatred and intolerance of transexuals.

They could have so much fun with "The Painted Word" if they just wished to.

Where is Hunter Thompson or PJ O'Rourke when you need them?

Big Bill said...

"Why not just declare, "The damn thing is plain ugly" instead of pretending it gives them anxious dreams? (Oh, yeah, then they wouldn't be able to garner attention)."

Ahh. That is precisely the problem.

Modern art is not "ugly" or "pretty" it just "is". To say it is ugly is to say you are a Philistine. Unsophisticated. They cannot be upset at its ugliness.

Ugliness is the heart and soul of modern art. In fact, the uglier and more pointless the better.

Consider DuChamp's famous Pissoire (aka "Fountain").

Do read Tom Wolfe's "The Painted Word". Short, sweet and to the point.

Rifleman said...

countenance said...

You mean "Wellseley lesbians."

It’s not surprising to me that this would generate outrage at an all-lesbo school.


It's not an all lesbo or all female or all White school.

I'm pretty sure Wellesley is where Rupert Murdock's blond daughter met her African boyfriend, future husband and now father of some of Rupert Murdock's grandchildren.

They are now divorced, surprisingly. Mission accomplished.

Anonymous said...

In my day triggering was a reaction drawn out of a sexist male and it was definitely a bad thing. As in, her short skirt and halter top triggered an erection in Joe.

Anonymous said...

They hate the mannequin, sorry sculpture, because it is ugly but hating post-modern art on the grounds of ugliness (or stupidity or pointlessness) is not acceptable. Only primitives and Tea Party Republicans hate post modern art on the grounds of ugliness. Or stupidity. Or pointlessness. Hence the nimble fall back to feminism. Anti-Feminism equals upsetting women for any reason, including bad art now. But the most interesting part of this is that they brought out the "teachable moment" defense so early. That does indicate a certain weakness in the Wellesley position. That is a last ditch defense.

Anonymous said...

Man, feminists regard Michelangelo's sculpture of David as "threatening."

At least the Cal Tech nerds had a legitimate beef.

Anonymous said...

I'm female and that statue gives me the creeps. If you want some perspective, imagine that statue on the grounds of your kid's grade school.

Any normal women upon seeing a live man outdoors looking like that would call the cops.

Harry Baldwin said...

I think Serra would be great too along the US-Mexican border. I'm all for more state funding for the arts for such a project.

Okay, but he would have to charge $5 million per 100 feet.

And of course the hoi polloi were shouted down and the sculptures raised (and never razed).

Richard Serra's execrable "Tilted Arc" was in fact removed from the Foley Federal Plaza due to popular outrage and a law suit. Serra remains smug and defiant.

BTW, at a Southern university students would know what to do with Matelli's "Sleepwalker." After a few days it would be peppered with buckshot and within a week someone would hook chains to it and drag it off behind his pickup.

Anonymous said...

slumber_j said...
"Well, I'm really glad none of these students were around back in the Eighties when certain friends of mine and I used to swim naked in Wellesley's Lake Waban…"

Swimming in Lake Waban, naked or not, is now forbidden, allegedly because of the metal sediments from a paint shop a century ago. But probably because the sensitive dyke souls didn't want males swimming in "their" lake (though fat cats, such as the Red Sox owner Henry, live on a posh lakeside road on the opposite side). People still swim and fish there, though.

Btw, not everyone at Wellesley College is a dyke - they have a shuttle bus that runs between MIT and Wellesley, colloquially known as "the fuck truck".



Luke Lea said...

transphobic bigot

nice phrase, CMB

Rifleman said...

Oh, that's convenient of Google. They've taken to putting up a rainbow symbol to instantly tell you who's gay or not. So, Mr. Matelli's got that going for him in his war with the Wellesley feminists, which is nice.

Switch to -

http://www.bing.com/

notsaying said...

"I'm female and that statue gives me the creeps. If you want some perspective, imagine that statue on the grounds of your kid's grade school.

Any normal women upon seeing a live man outdoors looking like that would call the cops.

2/6/14, 8:51 PM"


I am with her.

This "man" looks like a real man.

College campuses are full of newcomers and short-term visitors -- including high school students and their parents.

How would any of you like to walking on a sidewalk at a place you've never been to before and suddenly see, in the distance, what looks like a guy in his underwear stagging down the sidewalk? The nighttime reaction for most people would be the daytime shock, times 10.

Plus remember how often college kids are dead tired, drunk, high, etc. and not processing information as well as they should be.

Even if you realized was a sculpture and not a person, it is still not something I'd want to see around my campus.

I sure wouldn't want it in front of where I live.


Anonymous said...

Rapey
A guy who's creepy, and hugs or kisses inappropriately. He has a rapist lure. You don't think he would do it but definitely gives off that vibe. i.e. creepy hugger at the office.

"Rapey" This, "Rapey" That. Enough.

All of a sudden, everything is “rapey.” I blame Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” which conjured the adjective so many times that even the Wall Street Journal deployed it (surely a sign of the apocalypse). Gawker thinks YouTube pranksters who give unsolicited hugs are rapey. Monday, New York attached the term to a frat bro’s how-to guide for bedding drunk girls, and last month, Jezebel used it to describe graffiti that denigrated victims of sexual assault on college campuses. The list goes on.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115070/we-need-replace-rapey

Can this Matelli guy do a giant cat? I bet the Welleseley girls like cats.

CJ said...

The snow really does improve it! That's unlikely to have been intended by the artist, as there's been an unusual amount of snow in the northeast. To me it makes the statue less real and lessens the desired sleepwalking effect, but rather gives the effect of a moment in time before the vulnerable subject dies of exposure.

Steve Sailer said...

"Is Serra post-modern or the last of the moderns?"

Yes, modernism.

It's odd how post-modernist academics are so self-serious while post-modernist artists (e.g., Warhol, Koons), whatever their other failings, do tend at least To Get the Joke.

5371 said...

Can both sides lose?

Anonymous said...

I'm with the students. Whatever language they have to use to get rid of this piece of crap art is fine with me.

Sequester Grundleplith said...

"Emotions toward"? College students today can barely speak; nobody should be surprised that they can't think.

Does anybody else imagine that the emotions triggered might have been a bit different in quality if the man depicted had been a physical specimen rather than a homely, balding, pudgy and shortish fellow with flabby limbs and terrible taste in underwear? Ironically from their point of view, the young ladies of Wellesley have lent support to one of the critiques of feminist sex regulation: it's not harassment if he's hot.

Jeff W. said...

Artist Tony Matelli defends his work here:

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2014/02/06/artist-defends-wellesley-college-statue/

Excerpt: "This is a person who is an outsider, he’s displaced So I thought the reaction would be empathy.”

Maybe we can get Whiskey to weigh in on how much empathy women are likely to feel toward a statue of a beta male.

The girls might have liked a big statue of Rasputin.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2553577/The-sexual-obsession-drove-Rasputin-death-Countless-myths-woven-But-dazzling-book-using-private-diaries-reveals-new-details-self-styled-Christ-miniature.html

Silver said...

I'm female and that statue gives me the creeps. If you want some perspective, imagine that statue on the grounds of your kid's grade school.

Any normal women upon seeing a live man outdoors looking like that would call the cops.


But would you still say that if the sculpture was of a black man?

Silver said...

Can both sides lose?

Yes, pomos and fems and the rest of the lunatic brigades all deserve each other, just as members of the hate-whitey coalition do. In a sense they're already 'both losing' simply by duking this thing out. Their side has so many weak spots to attack it's almost criminal that there are only a handful of rightist critics like Sailer who play these losers off against one another. This might be because rightists value harmony so they want to avoid a society where everyone is at each other's throats, but since the left has made it abundantly clear that they're not interested in playing fair it's time for the gloves to come off.

Jon said...

It's part of a conspiracy. To tear us from our spiritual moorings. To gaslamp us. To have us turn to consumer goods for what we once got from art (as much advertising art is beautiful by comparison).

Whiskey said...

If the figure had been alpha, no probs.

Anonymous said...

I'm a woman, I've been raped before, yes, the sculpture is scary.

Men are stronger than women; that's the simple biological reality. A man my same size is still stronger than me. A man with a weight and reach advantage only more so. I'm not even 5'3. A guy who looks pitiful or nonthreatening to a man, is still a physical threat to a woman.

No, I'm not liberal. Yes, I'd object if the statue were black.

Anonymous said...

BTW, I've been lurking here for awhile and the "alpha male" complaint comments are starting to sound a little sour-grapey, guys. Using alpha males as breeding studs may make bizarro-world sense in the matriarchal/willy-nilly ghetto cultures of the world, but it doesn't in the culture that I'm assuming most of you belong to.

After awhile you start to sound like the guys I knew in college who were strictly average-to-endearingly-funny-looking, who refused to consider dating any girl who was larger than a size 4 and less than an 8 on the 1-10 scale.

Newsflash: 8 girls date lvl 6-8 guys, or 4 guys with lvl 10 money. If you don't have that, then cope.

If what you're interested in is solid family formation, then have a look at the lvl 5 girls around you.

Speaking of, despite what they preach, the SWPL types who often dominate colleges like this one are interested in solid family formation. That means going for nice, steady beta types.

Which this statue happens to depict. So perhaps now you see why he looks like more of a threat to college women; he's more their type.

Honestly, the way some of you guys go one about alpha males, I'd think you're all whining at a bar in the Tenderloin district...