Romany, I was going to leave this one alone - your question was directed at other women. I'm obviously not doing so well at staying away :)

I don't know if this is part of your thinking but it's what came to mind reading your last post.

I think that we are all taught in one form or another that there is something nasty about our primary sexual organs. I'd not realised how much of an issue the fish smell thing was, it's not a comment I've heard often (but I have heard it). The male equivalent is probably males being told how ugly penis's and ball sacks are. A message that is drummed in.

Are the origins of this stuff in attempts to reinforce body taboo's and control human sexuality? The message although delivered differently is to keep those parts of our bodies to ourselves, that they are a source of shame and somehow dirty.

R0bert

As a chick, I honestly didn't feel an undercurrent of embarrassment. I honestly just thought the guy was a d!ckwad. To be gender neutral, I would call him the female equivalent of d!ck, but I think I'd get deleted, even with a masterfully placed punctuation mark. But you guys know what I mean, right?

Just to verify I'm not one of those "feminazis" who doesn't have a "sense" of "humour", I asked my (all male, baby) partner if he thought it was funny. "Look, maybe if you'd never actually talked to a woman in your whole life," he said, "and maybe if your best friend did it, and maybe if you were seventeen years old, it might be funny. Otherwise, if you were in that room when that guy sniffed that chair, you'd pretty much just think he was a d!ckwad."

I think those guys who find it hilarious to sniff chairs and those chicks who make yucky faces when they're talking about d!ck cheese should get together. Do a favour for the rest of us.

I think sexy stuff smells sexy, myself.

ROMANY: I'd say the problem belongs to the politician who sniffed the chair. It doesnt seem like the act of a normal person.

The genitals of women or men have a certain smell and shape. Thats the way nature designed it. Deal with it people. I'd hate to see people who get in a silly tizzy about this deal with something really bad happening to them.

Romany

The behaviour of the WA politician, has ultimately been more of an embarrassment for him - an adult male has 'outed' himself as having all the maturity of an acne ridden adolescent. Take heart that at least these days such behaviour is publicly disapproved of and no doubt at the next election he will receive appropriate castigation.

In an ideal world where we regarded our sexuality and genitalia as acceptable and normal, 'chair-sniffing' wouldn't even occur as an idea, let alone humourous.

At least now we can discuss this 'd1ckwad', whereas not so long ago women would've had to tolerate such behaviour in silence.

As for the school playground, such behaviour starts at home and it is up to the parents to make clear that little boys and girls are not nasty or smelly as I am sure you are doing with your boys.

Cheers

Romany,

I honestlty think it is you who has turned a situation about bad taste in jokes into some sort of a gender issue, and I was attempting to illustrate that this isn't really the case.

'if we protest all the men present are going to tell us that we really do smell offensive and we'll be even more publicly humiliated?
'
This I can understand. It reminds me of the difficulty a guy might have about objecting to the little pinky speeding campaign...

Dear Romany,

I'm sorry that you feel so upset about this issue.

As I said in my earlier post - most women would find the chair-sniffing incident offensive. However the reason very few would actually say anything would be due to the fact that most women would probably feel that the man's an 'A...se hole' and not worthy of much attention. (you know, - a 'Sam Newman' type).

Best ignored.