kim, thinking more about your posts on this and i'm agreeing a bit more.

I think it matters what the person's dress, appearance, mannerisms are saying because those things preceed the intellectual part of the personality. So if the first thing the person is 'saying' by way of dress, mannerisms, etc. is "Look at me as a gender" (sex object) then it can detract from the exchange of ideas that follow.

Over-charicaturized, a person who comes off as flirty, sexual first then attempts to move to an intellectual excange of ideas is likely to not be taken as seriously as someone who doesn't first present themselves as a kind of exaggeration of their gender.

I don't know it that makes sense.

I have to think of my T here. She is so intelligent, articulate, professional. Yet she dresses how she chooses, and in a very feminine way. She isn't young or slim. But she doesn't downplay any of her anatomy. Of course I live in the sub-tropics and the dress is casual, cool for comfort, and includes low cut dresses and tops and bare-legged, barefooted sandals. It's much different from where I came from and took some time to get used to and to accept as normal here.

idk. Does the person who wants to accentuate her body in the way she dresses making a statement--positive or negative--about how she feels about her sexuality or about sexuality in general, I wonder.

I envy and admire a woman who has it all... smart, funny, and comfortable with her sexuality. Men, on the other hand, may be so intimdated they may have to reduce it to just sexuality and something they can court, win, control.

I love this discussion!