Guilty pleasures

[noracharles]

I don't understand the concept of the "guilty pleasure". What does it mean? Is it something only or primarily women have?

Sometimes I do things I've resolved not to do, or fail to do something I've resolved to do, and sometimes it's serious enough that I feel guilty about it. And then I don't tell anyone, because, you know, I feel guilty. I might tell an especially close friend under implicit condition of silence if we're discussing guilt and feelings of inadequacy and how we deal with it, but generally speaking, I don't go around telling people what I feel guilty about.

There are things I like and enjoy which have flaws. For example I like the Star Trek reboot! I like it a lot. And I think it has way too many dicks on the dance floor, and I think it uses its female characters in sexist ways. So when I talk about Star Trek I might say "Even though I have some reservations about its sexism, I loved the new Star Trek, it was true to the spirit of the original series and it was funny" just so no one thinks I'm ignorant of or approve of the sexism. But I don't feel guilty for liking it. Does anyone think I should? If I should, does admitting my guilt publicly mean I deserve a lesser punishment?

If people are so worried about being judged for stuff they like, why don't they talk about the problems with what they like, instead of just using the vague "guilty pleasure"? Does this have to do with Impostor Syndrome? Does this have to do with the thing where you're not allowed to criticize anything you like, or to like anything you criticize?

Comments

[laughingrat]

Lots of good points here.

Guilt is...troubling...to me. It seems like there's a lot of it floating around, and for the wrong reasons. (Then again, I'm seeing this through the lens of my experiences; not everyone has had quite so much guilt!) But I also wonder, like you and I think at least one other person who's posted about this "guilty pleasures" meme, that maybe "guilt" is not the right word for what they're talking about. Or maybe guilt's involved, but what kind of guilt, and are there other emotions at play too, and what shadow motivations do people have for discussing or not discussing their guilt?

This comment makes no sense, probably, but I liked your post.

[noracharles]

Oh no, have I inadvertently entered into dialog with an ongoing meme?! O_o

That's awful. I was actually responding to something quite unrelated on ffr, where someone referred to a certain genre of manga as a guilty pleasure in what was obviously a humorous way.

Your comment makes perfect sense, and I like the questions you raise. There's something to ponder. I wish it were something I understood better, because I can't help feeling that for a lot of people it's not just a turn of phrase.

[laughingrat]

Oh! No, maybe they were responding to the same thing? I could swear that someone else on DW, someone in our shared circle, was talking about guilty pleasures lately, too. Maybe it's just a thing lately.

[noracharles]

I hope no one in our shared circle thinks I'm writing this to judge them personally. But I guess not, if they were also skeptical of guilty pleasures :-)

If it has been a thing lately, that must be why I suddenly felt compelled to write about it when I saw the term used. It must have been swimming around in the depths of my subconscious.

[laughingrat]

Ffft, even so, people respond to stuff in their circle all the time. Is not for JUDGING. Er, sorry, I slipped into rat-speak. Next I'll be saying LESS JUDGMENT MOAR PUDDING, or some other rattish phrase.

But it's always nice to allay any worries people might have, just in case. That is considerate of you. But me, I mean, I didn't perceive you as picking on anyone, or even as being adversarial. We encounter ideas, explore them, respond to 'em...that's what's been so interesting about hanging out on the internets lately, for me. Fandom seems especially prone to that kind of ongoing conversation between multiple people. It can be a little scary, but can also be really cool.

[noracharles]

Pudding! \0/

I don't know, I love exploring ideas, and I love a good discussion, but I hate accidentally stepping on people's toes. If I disagree publicly with someone it has to be on purpose and deliberate and when I'm ready and willing to deal with the consequences, otherwise wank and hurt feelings can grow uncontrollably.

[laughingrat]

O, I agree with you. Yes. I just meant that for what it's worth, I didn't perceive you as doing anything snarky or judgmental here. But those perceptions vary so much from person to person, so it's nice that you made explicit that that's not what you intended.

[noracharles]

Considering that I've been accused of trolling because I participated in a debate I was formally and politely invited to join, I've decided to err on the side of caution ;-)

[princessofgeeks]

imho the term "guilty pleasure" has to do with liking things that someone outside yourself, an authority figure or institution of some kind, has labeled or judged as wrong or bad.

chocolate is called a guilty pleasure because it is high in calories and unhealthy to eat, yet it tastes so good and we want it anyway. we want it even though we know we shouldn't.

that's a kind of a trivial example, because there are things that aren't truly bad or unhealthy that are yet judged a guilty pleasure... fluffy romance, perhaps, or porn.

The judgment may be internalized, but it comes at first from outside. Someone or some institution has told us we shouldn't like something; that likeing something is wrong, and yet we like it anyway.

that's my understanding, anyway.

[noracharles]

Yes, that is my understanding of it as well. But I get the impression that many people who do not agree that they shouldn't like whatever use the term defensively. They feel bad for being told to feel guilty, but they don't feel guilty. So why claim they do? To give the impression of conformity while knowingly transgressing norms?

And if they do feel guilty because they have internalized the judgment of the powers that be, why do they so cavalierly admit to liking it anyway? In that giggle, giggle "I'm just a weak and impulsive woman, don't judge me too harshly" way? Is that supposed to be charming and sexy?

[princessofgeeks]

i think if they are truly using the term defensively and not humorously, they are caught in that long-running and difficult place some of stay in for years, of rejecting certain judgments of society or authority figures and yet not being able to totally break free of them and say, fuck you, i'm liking this anyway, forget it.

i've heard it said as kind of a beacon that in order to be in the erotic porny parts of the fanfic world we have to make a vow to suspend all shame! which can be hard, scary, liberating or all three at once.

but this fearlessness in rejecting society's judgment on what we are doing here doesn't come overnight. so perhaps that defensiveness is part of that... wishing there was not that guilty attached, wishing it wasn't risky, wishing not to be an outsider. that sort of thing. i don't see it as an attempt at charm, but maybe i'm missing something.

and of course for some people sexy=bad and forbidden, period. so there can be that flavor woven in, I guess....the forbidden having an intrinsic appeal. kind of like that tongue in cheek saying from the fifties... "Everything I like is either illegal, immoral or fattening."

just armchair psychology here.

[noracharles]

Good point! It had not occurred to me at all that it could be a naughty pleasure thing. That explains so much. Thank you :-D

[princessofgeeks]

glad if my vague tentative ramblings provided a bit of a lightbulb! :)

[noracharles]

Definitely. I enjoy getting a fresh/different perspective, and I often have difficulty making that jump myself.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

My experience with the term is that it is to signal that you know something is lowbrow, ephemera, or otherwise tacky/trashy. So authors might use it for formulaic reading they partake in while sipping drinks with way too many umbrellas, or someone that likes to flip through the plot updates of daytime soaps, or even someone that buys a can of readymade frosting just to eat on graham crackers.

"Guilty Pleasure" seems to be a way of saying "this area is not open for debate" since 'don't harsh my squee' had yet to be introduced into the language.

[noracharles]

a can of readymade frosting just to eat on graham crackers

LOL, awesome! :-D

Yes, that makes sense to me as well. I don't understand the you can't criticize something you like thing, but that explains why they feel the need to preemptively point out something is flawed, while at the same time not saying what they think the flaw is. Thank you!

[zvi]

Hmm, it's very interesting to me that you're processing "guilty pleasure" as such a fraught and weighty term. TBH, I most often hear it in the context of professional entertainment writing, like Entertainment Weekly or other TV/movie/music reviews.

In those contexts, it tends to be used to signal, "I recognize that this thing which I am enjoying is a poorly constructed example of its medium, but despite/because of its insufficiencies as an example of its medium, I get pleasure from it." (Sci Fi channel's Saturday monster movies work on this "so bad it's good" principle.) Or, alternately, it is a story whose narrative enjoyment is primarily derived from one's pleasure at not being the poor schlubs depicted/described plus some epicaricacy. (A number of reality shows work on this principle.)

Personally, I've stopped describing such things as guilty pleasures, and started just saying, "I like this, but I can't recommend it." I suspect that my entertainment news media are never going to do that, since they are in the business of recommending or not recommending things. (Although I have noticed that, of all the various types of cultural critics I read, music editors are the most likely to unapologetically like songs/albums/bands which dare to be stupid, unskilled, meaningless, or offensive.)

[noracharles]

Ahaha! I can and do interpret anything as a fraught and weighty term. The word "co-ed" tends to raise my blood pressure alarmingly because of its unconscious implication of men as the natural and obvious college students.

Words matter very much to me, and I find the word "guilt" very strong and evocative, and I find the use of the term "guilte pleasure" gendered.

I've also seen it used very often regarding low-brow/"bad" culture, and I don't like it. "Stand by your taste! Don't be such a self-conscious snob" is my usual reaction to that usage. If you have reservations, say what reservations you have, otherwise it's useless to me, and won't make me respect your taste and discernment more.

[jesse_the_k]

I'm with you re: co-ed. Women have outnumbered men in post-secondary education for almost two decades.

[noracharles]

Ugh, that word.

I'm in a "female dominated" field, which is to say there are far more women than men, but even so female students tend to defer to male students in class room discussions, and male students and teachers often react as if it's not their ideas being challenged but their ego and status when a woman contradicts them.

I prefer the classes where there are only women or only women and confident men who don't need or want others to defer to them because of their gender. But tptb are brainstorming how to get more men into post-secondary education.

I agree that I don't want a whole generation of young men to lose out on an education because they don't know how to handle themselves in an environment where verbal ability is that important. But I think the problem is in the way we teach our children. We teach boys that everything they say or do is an extension of their ego and must be praised. We teach girls that everything they say or do should be submitted for critique and approval, and that they should have no ego.

The boys grow up into men who learn that others will contradict them, but they only allow it from their betters, so there! The girls grow up into women who learn that they have the right to have an opinion and state it, but only as long as they argue for it convincingly, and only as long as they're Good.

I see the "guilty pleasure" thing as a symptom of this. "I know that I'm not allowed to have a preference if I can't argue for it convincingly, and I accept full responsibility for my poor taste. Please don't contradict me, because then I'd have to submit or be Bad."

I don't think everyone who says "guilty pleasure" thinks like that, and many people in this discussion have explained that they don't. It's just a convenient term. But convenient terms have baggage.

[blnchflr]

For me, there are different kinds of guilty pleasures - I had forgotten the "bad for me, but I like it anyways", until seeing princessofgeeks mention chocolate above. There's also "I really ought to be doing something else" guilty pleasures, like surfing instead of cleaning.

In fandom, most of all there's "I think this is of bad quality, but I still enjoy it". I have ambivalent feelings about this: I have totally used this expression, myself, and will most likely continue to do so. But like for you, it can also illicit a response of "oh, for fuck's sake, own your taste!" in me when I see others use it.

And someone's guilty pleasure may be someone else's "I like this and don't think it's of bad quality". I once mentioned in a forum that I loved Lone Wolf McQuade (1983), and someone chimed in with, "Lol, yeah, it's so bad it's good". I don't think it's the pinnacle of film-making, but it's also not "so bad it's good" to me. It has flaws, but it has things that I like and think are excellently done in that film. But I realize most people will think Lone Wolf McQuade is a travesty of a movie, right down to the Morricone-ripped-off score, so I do consider it something of a guilty pleasure :o)

[noracharles]

I think where I get confused is that for me "guilty pleasure" is an oxymoron, but I'm getting that that's not the case for others. You can feel both guilt and pleasure about something. A "guilty pleasure" is like sweet and sour sauce, and it is not like enjoyable shame or happy self-contempt.

I've never felt guilty about indulging myself, and I get all defensive and offended at the thought that someone thinks I ought to. Coupled with my observation that it was a term used mostly by women, I saw some very skeevy dynamics in it, but I could be wrong in my perception! Maybe I just notice it more in women's language because I pay more attention to women.

I once mentioned in a forum that I loved Lone Wolf McQuade (1983), and someone chimed in with, "Lol, yeah, it's so bad it's good".

Ahaha, that sucks. I've noticed that reaction in people who have a hard time going against majority opinion or good taste. There probably are things which are enjoyable because they're bad, but I can't think of any. Unless you use "bad" to mean "thing I enjoy which is not Good Taste."

[blnchflr]

I agree it seems mainly a female thing, and that that part undoubtedly is related to women feeling guilty about feeling pleasure (of any/various kinds), when by rights we ought to be scrubbing floors or working towards a mighty career or whatever.

[noracharles]

Which reminds me I ought to scrub my floors and work towards my might career, heh. But the internet is fun!

[blnchflr]

And GIMP! I love that I'm all excited about text effects others learned 5-10 years back, *g*

[noracharles]

GIMP is fun! But it keeps using technical words in Danish I don't understand D-:

[blnchflr]

That's why I like tutorials with screenshots - so I can see what people are clicking on to make the magic happen :oD

[noracharles]

Yeah, that's a good idea. The other day I was asking an American friend how to get it to show me the layers toolbox, which for some reason keeps disappearing, but she couldn't explain it to me. I finally found it in recently closed windows, but I don't know how to get to it otherwise.

It really annoys me a lot that GIMP won't allow you to change the language settings. If I change the language setting on the computer, then the keyboard won't work right ;_;

But I suppose it's just inconceivable that someone could live in a country where the language is not their primary language, grumble, grumble.

Anyway, yeah, GIMP! It can do what I want it to do, and it's free! :-D

[blnchflr]

I once lost the layers toolbox, too, and it took me forever to find it again, and now I can't remember how I did it :o)

[noracharles]

LOL
Oh well, I'll just have to keep trying.

[pseudo_tsuga]

I've always used it as shorthand for "I know this has no merit whatsoever and going by objective quality alone it's horrible, but it pings me in such a way that I enjoy it and I don't want to discuss all the ways it fails (artistically or morally) right now. Let me squee in peace!"

[noracharles]

That's very interesting. Others have also told me that it's a signal to others not to "educate" them on good taste.

I suppose you primarily choose to use it because it's an established, practical short-hand, but why do you prefer to say "This manga is a guilty pleasure for me" which implies you are at fault for liking it against common Good Taste, rather than say "This manga has flaws but I love it"?

Is it only the convenience of the short phrase, or is it that you think that if you don't preemptively say "I'm wrong and you're right" people will try to lecture you?

Does "This manga has flaws" open the door for people asking what flaws that might be? I've seen people write "This is a squee post" in their journals, but that doesn't really work when you're talking face to face with your friends.

"This is a squee statement: Did you see the new Sherlock Holmes movie? Kick ass!"

On the other hand, I think they'd be able to pick it up from my nonverbal communication.

[pseudo_tsuga]

It's pretty much as you say: if I declare "The manga/music/movie has flaws but I love it" in face-to-face conversations, many will try to tell me I'm worng and why in great detail, or cast aspersions on my taste in an often obnoxious way so it's much easier to simply say it's a guilty pleasure. It's usually gendered too, with my male friends trying to mansplain to me why I'm wrong and it irritates me enough that I usually don't feel up to defending my position.

[noracharles]

Huh. Thank you for explaining :-)

[nacbrie]

I agree that 'guilty pleasure' is problematic. With 'lowbrow' entertainment, it's a cop-out from saying "yes, it's crap, but I like it," or admitting embarrassment in liking something which you might publicly lambaste (for example, constantly going on at how reality shows are ruining television, but secretly loving Big Brother). In terms of 'things which you love but are bad for you', so often it plays into nasty tropes - I'm thinking of the example above of chocolate as a guilty pleasure: you're going from "chocolate is bad for my health" to "chocolate will make me fat". And that's not even going into the implications that the only pleasure women can experience is guilty, because God forbid we enjoy things.

I do use the term 'guilty pleasure', but usually to refer to things which I like or enjoy but genuinely make me uncomfortable or which contradict some of my personal morals and standards. Reading Go Fug Yourself, for example, is a guilty pleasure not because it's about fashion and celebrities, but because its main premise is to put up pictures of people and make fun of their clothes (like this). It's hurtful and unpleasant and has all sorts of misogynist tropes going on. The writers don't usually make fun of people's physical features (focusing more on 'you really should know better' comments) and do sometimes have pictures of celebs 'doing it right', and on some level I suppose those featured have put themselves forward for media scrutiny, but these seem like rationalisations of something which is inherently spiteful and damaging. Doesn't stop me from finding it hilarious and entertaining, though, just makes me feel ashamed at doing so.

(Completely off topic, but regarding the 'force user icon to default' suggestions (your post here, and mine here), it's been filed as a bug!)

[noracharles]

This is fascinating. Thank you for telling me about how you perceive "guilty pleasure", and how you use it. It makes sense to me to use it about something like Go Fug Yourself.

I used to read that too, and while I did find it funny I also don't really care enough about clothes and celebrities to continue getting my snark there. It would be nice if I could claim to have stopped reading it because it offended me, but I am willing to compromise my morals for entertainment.

I think that from now on I will use "guilty pleasure" exactly for that. I don't feel guilty about eating raw cookie dough straight from the mixing bowl or for enjoying low culture, but I do feel guilty for supporting certain morally objectionable movies and shows financially, and I want people to know it.

Hurray force user icons! Once again, thank you very much for coming up with a solution that addressed the "twisting or concealing a user's true message" problem.

The wonderful and clever and soon to be full time employed by dreamwidth afuna did explain how to do it on an individual basis using CSS so it won't make much of a difference for me personally, but I very much want it to be an option for other users as well.

[nacbrie]

Oh, no problem. I actually made a suggestion which was pretty similar to yours, and it was politely rebuffed with a link to your post and a '...but if you have a suggestion which takes care of the issues raised there, go for it!' at the end. Hence the hideously TL;DR suggestions post. There were quite a few comments along the lines of, "but even if a forced default is flagged as such, I *still* don't want my communication altered", which is a little bit disingenuous: surely, if someone has chosen not to interpret any communication from an icon (which they'd have to, to pick that setting), then changing it (to something the user's selected as a general representation of themselves anyway) is about as significant as using style=mine on their journal? TBTB do seem to want to help with the issue, though, which is comforting.

I usually read GFY in spates - nothing for a few months, and then a load of posts at once. On one level, I keep on thinking if I really want to feed the 'all women are bitches who stab each other behind the back' trope and how horrific it would be if it involved 'real' people ... but on the other hand, my God, it's like the offspring of a My Little Stegosauras and Catwoman (via the Statue of Liberty) wrapped in a bubblegum pink condom. With hooves.

Hope you don't mind me friending you - I find your meta discussions in particular interesting and informative. Consider youself invited to friend back if you wish :)

[noracharles]

I must admit I not only found the protests a bit disingenuous, they actually filled me with irrational rage. I understand logically that these people find posts so easy to process that it must seem like cutting out huge chunks of their message just for our convenience, which I would not want done to my posts either. But emotionally I just hear "You're lying about processing things differently, you're just not trying hard enough."

And I wonder if they scold blind people for reading the alt text instead of looking at the images they post, or refuse to provide an alt text because "then people would just disable images even if they weren't blind, because they think the images are ugly or they break the layout".

Well, if nothing else, this discussion has been good for me, because I now understand the "warnings should be obligatory in personal journals" people much better. If they say that they do not ever feel a fic is spoiled by warnings, and they are not ever able to make an informed decision about whether to read a fic if there are no detailed warnings on it, then they're probably telling the truth. My experience is different, but we must process headers and other clues to what a fic might be like differently.

Okay, that GFY quote is hilarious, and a spot on description of the clothes!

Thank you for adding me to your reading list, I'm honored :-)