Freebase Dali

While that's all well and good, I'm sure you can't speak for everyone exposed to it in the public and how they feel about it. It's more a matter of respect for those around you than simply bumbling about in life concerned for only your own desires and no concern for who you may be offending. Especially children. If I was at that game with my kids, I'd have something to say.
Again, it's a matter of respect and decency, not conforming.

You're assuming that everyone who doesn't anti-conform is afraid to or even wants to. If it is to be reasonably asserted that proactive non-conformists do what they do simply out of being unafraid to do so, why can't ordinary people be held under the same standard? Why can't I, for instance, dress in a non-flashy way simply because I like to regardless of how many other people do the same thing? I would have had a different opinion when I was a teen and all that anti-conformity crap had some illusory bearing in my life, but I'm an adult now and I honestly can't place any more importance on making some kind of statement with my clothing than I could on deciding which side of the toilet paper to wipe my ass with.

And the whole "if you don't like it, don't look" argument fails when lines are crossed. The mistake people make is thinking they themselves define that line individually, but when you're sharing a world with the rest of society, the lines are drawn by all and are wide enough to be obvious.

Yea, and people don't take their children to Bourbon Street to watch boobs. Obviously, their are some shitbag parents out there... but you get the point.

VEGANGELICA

I disagree...I think what pisses people off is that Lady Gaga is *not* conforming to your or other people's view of decency and respect. I feel people should be able to dress in a conforming fashion (jeans, T-shirt, baseball cap, red neck) or non-conforming fashion (such as Lady Gaga's attire), as they wish.

The lines...she was within legal lines, I assume, in what she wore? As for social lines about what people should wear, as long as the clothing isn't dangerous (jagged points), then I feel complaining vocally with hostility about what someone else is wearing is MUCH worse than the offending clothing itself. If she wore those pointed breast covers that could gauge out a person's eye, then probably even *I'd* complain!

Yes, I think you are right...she wants people to feel she's unique...though I think she intends the fashion to blend with the music as one whole entity.

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Urban Hat€monger ?

I find it funny that she feels the need to be non conformist in a stadium full of people and a television crew.

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Freebase Dali

Scenario: Relatives are having a funeral for their recently departed loved one. Do you:
A) Run through the graveyard screaming and yelling with barely any clothes on, disrupting the entire funeral?
B) Quietly and reverently show up to the funeral with barely any clothes on, disrupting the entire funeral?
C) Put some fucking clothes on and have a little empathy and respect for someone other than yourself?

If we're going to get down to respecting lines drawn by society, we can go all the way. Do you think rapists are just non-conformists? What's so different from a rapist forcing his will on a woman than a woman forcing her will on someone else who may not want to be exposed to it? Why is relevance to law the only thing you apparently think matters in the scheme of society?

If you think I'm blowing it all out of proportion, you're perfectly correct.
I am. Wouldn't want to conform to your sensibilities or anything...

Goblin Tears

Well at least you realize that those comparisons are completely out of proportion...they're also kind of useless...and if you were joking, it's terribly distasteful.

She wore a bra to a baseball game, not a funeral, it's an acceptable non-conformity that only upsets those of delicate temperments. I don't think any of the guys there will be rushing to a rape support centre anytime soon.

Freebase Dali

You're missing the point.

The comparisons weren't meant to prove a relationship between being almost naked at a baseball game vs a funeral. I didn't think I'd have to spell that out.
I'm talking about placing a general importance on what affects other people when you have to share a planet with them, and not calling it 'conformity' when it's damn well not.

Goblin Tears

Yes, but you used two much more extreme situations to illustrate that point, and then tack on the whole ''Im not conforming. I'm just as inconsiderate as GaGa'' thing, when really, that doesn't compare either.

Anyway, I've been to some sports matches, and a lot of guys go topless, some showing just as much skin as GaGa. And yes, people should be aware of what impact they have on others, but people are responsible for their own emotional reactions to non-harmful behaviours. This shouldn't be a one way street either, the guys who are booing GaGa are honestly far more immature and inconsiderate than she is. I recently read about a lesbian who was denied access to her prom because she wanted to wear a tuxedo; were the organizers of that event considering the feelings of the girl in question? No.

Freebase Dali

What do I have to do for you to stop critiquing a comparison we already established wasn't the point of the discussion?

About that poor lesbian, that's just wrong.
But if we want to get into ridiculously non-comparative comparisons again, which I don't....


Look. I just think GaGa looked like a trailer ho at that game, and I personally thought she could have maybe put aside her whole "individuality" act aside for at least (but obviously didn't because she really did want the attention) long enough to actually be at a ball game to watch the ball game and not cause a ruckus and probably offend multiple people and their children who paid for a fucking ball game and not a pair of fucking Lady GaGa tickets.

VEGANGELICA

Meh...maybe there were all sorts of women wearing bikinis at the game, but only GaGa got the attention because she is famous. I see ads all the time on TV for Victoria's Secrets lingerie...and even here in our tiny Iowan mall, they've got a Victoria's Secrets with gigantic pictures of women in panties and skimpy bras...so I don't know how "non-conformist" wearing a bikini to a ballgame really is.

And anyway (like Goblin Tears says) a lot of men go completely topless and no one gets their undies all in a wedgie over that. Or maybe they do, depending on who it is going topless!

B. I also wear running shoes when I go visit people's churches, because running shoes are the most comfortable, and I don't like this "dress for respect" idea. If the dead person felt, when alive, that I needed to dress up to please him or her or to prove that I liked him or her, then probably that person wasn't much of a friend, anyway.

The difference between me showing up in my skimpy bikini at a ballgame, forcing the sight on people who look in my direction, and a man raping me is that in the former case I cause no direct physical damage or physical harm to anyone. They may be shocked, even horrified...but not a hair on their head will be damaged (if their heads have hair).

Yes, rapists are non-conformists, because they are violating our society's strongest line that we are not supposed to cross: they are physically violating someone, crossing the boundary of space and physically manipulating and handling someone against the victim's will. They are also conformists, conforming to the tired and ancient notion that men "should have power over women."

I actually don't think the law *is* the most important thing, Freebase. I disgree with the laws in the U.S. that allow a man but not a woman to go topless at a sports game. The law is unfair and sexist.

If people are offended by someone wearing something scanty in public, and berate the person, this is no different than people being offended by and targeting someone who is homosexual or bi or transgender and wears "non-conformist" clothing. (And GaGa *was* kissing a woman). I side with people's right to freedom of dress.

Bingo! Yes, yes, and yes, Goblin! I agree with you completely. I also read about the girl denied access to her prom. The school district ended up canceling the prom, and a federal judge said that not allowing Constance (the girl) to go with her female partner was a violation of constitutional rights.

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