The Disgusting Reason So Many Men Ask Women To ‘Show Bobs And Vagene’ On Facebook
Men. What will they ever think of next?
All it really takes to start a viral meme is a typo and some seriously messed up racist and/or sexist sensibilities. Yeah, I know. Isn't it nuts? At least, that's what I thought when I found out that all those memes I was seeing with men asking women to "show bobs and vegene" weren't actually typos, but rather a vehicle through which white men could be low-key racist while also making women on the Internet feel extremely uncomfortable via an overt form of sexual harassment.
Charming, right?
People dedicate their entire careers to figuring out how to make something catch on or go viral online. Yet, with just the click of a couple of buttons, these random men feigning to demand that a woman display her body for their entertainment in a way that manages to be both frighteningly hostile and painfully annoying somehow became an Internet sensation many people seriously adore, despite (and unfortunately, sometime because of) its clearly racist origin.
In June of 2015, a post about the “Top 10 Sexiest Female Olympic Athletes Ever” was published on the Indian Celebrities Facebook page. Facebook being what it is, it was only a matter of time before people started commenting, and the comments were pretty much what you would expect if you've ever been online.
One gem that stood out from the crowd was the comment “Ausaaam bobs,” which someone quickly took a screenshot of and promptly shared on subreddit r/indianpeoplefacebook.
Redditors, being the sophisticated people they are typically known to be (rolls eyes), simply loved it and the phrase caught fire.
In April of 2017, another Redditor shared a Facebook Messenger conversation in which a man, whose profile indicated he was in Banagalore, India, asked the recipient of the message to share nude photos with him. When she ignored his advances, he replied with the simple but curious statement, "b*tch lasagna."
You can imagine how much the Internet loved that. Hell, I love that!
If a man wanted nudes from me and he randomly messaged me "b*tch lasagna," you know what? He might just get those nudes.
Trying to clapback at a woman with two completely random and unrelated words is inherently hilarious because it makes no sense. It's offensive sure, but it also evokes images of comfort food.
You know, until you factor in the fact that white men turning already offensive messages to women they don't know into jokes is rooted in both sexism AND racism.
Digging back a bit further, YouTuber Mensutra offers these reasons his fellow men from India write the offensive comments in the first place:
1. Sexual repression.
"India is a huge country with many subcultures and traditions and regional cultures, all having one thing in common: sex is bad. That does not mean there is a punishment, it is simply something you shouldn't talk about, you don't do, nobody does, your parents haven't done it and nobody wants to do it either because it is bad."
2. Fascination with fair-skin.
"Indian fascination with white skin, which blew up with white people telling us for 200 years that they are superior than us by the virtue of being fair-skinned. This inferiority complex would have been avoided had all Indians been brown, but because there are Indians who too are fair skinned, this became complicated, as the philosophy that fair skin is better was adopted by a lot of these fair-skinned Indians as well. So when you see your own people discriminating against you, it sucks."
3. The belief that Western women are "easy."
"For decades, Bollywood movies and TV shows have propagated the idea Western women are loose, naked and easy. And this goes back to the Bollywood classic era too, in which largely the association of white women was made with partying, drugs and shaky morals. And with time, this has gotten worse."
4. A misunderstanding of Internet privacy.
"Indians are very much afraid just as any sane person would be of the law. The reason why it happens is because those Indians sending sexual messages don't understand how privacy works on the Internet. You have to understand a great part of India is still very new to the Internet, because a great part of India is dealing with poor education, low literacy rates, low opportunities and zero awareness, which would explain the broken English. India is not only a few cool cities, the actual India is highly behind in comparison to the modern world. And suddenly almost everybody has high-speed internet on which they can message girls from all around the world. So with limited knowledge, these people think that inbox is something very private, so whatever they type will never be disclosed to the world, hence they can do anything on it. They clearly are completely wrong. It never occurs to them that women can take screenshots and share them with the world, send it to the police, take legal action, shame you online or simply laugh at your ass, making it a worldwide meme."
His full explanation is in the video below.
Just how widely did this trend spread? Let me tell you: there are Kardashians involved.
When a Facebook page called Ideal Girl shared a photo of Kylie Jenner in July of 2017, one user commented, "Your bobs very big I’m kiss your bobs.”
As you can imagine, this was quickly shared over at the aforementioned subreddit, despite the fact that the commenter in question was actually from Pakistan.
If right about now you're thinking to yourself, "Wow, even though the Indian men writing these comments to women are being creepy and offensive, white men making their comments into memes mocking them for their lack of 'play' seems super racist," the founders of r/Indianpeopleoffacebook disagree with you.
Here's how they describe their mission on their page:
"Screenshots of Indian people being hilarious on social media, it doesn't need to just be facebook but obviously that is best. Indian culture has a unique way of examining the everyday and we are here to showcase that."
There's just one small detail these fine folks seem to have forgotten.
Even if you compose an explicit disclaimer saying that your true purpose is to celebrate the unique wit of a particular group of people, when what you are actually running is a forum dedicated to using an entire demographic as the butt of YOUR joke, your "mission statement" doesn't mean diddly. You are laughing AT them, not with them. And yes, your are a racist behaving as racists do.
And as memes featuring variations in this theme, such as "bobs and vegana" have spread across social media, they have also become a favorite tool in the arsenal of Internet trolls everywhere.
White men all over the world have embraced the bobs and vegene movement beyond the inner sanctum of Reddit by creating and sharing memes galore across all forms of social media. And they've now begun taking it even further, trolling unsuspecting women's photos and videos with comments like "open bobs", "show me your vagene", and "send nudes" — because why not kill one sexist bird with two racist stones when the opportunity presents itself, right?
As it turns out, you can be racist AND sexist AND a total a**hole all at the same time. Wheeeeee!
Unfortunately, the trend doesn't currently show any signs of letting up. If anything, it just keeps getting bigger, like that tumor on your Uncle Ralphie's taint.
I think it's safe to say that posting these words on photographs of beautiful women online as a way to "prank" men of color and remind women of just how inferior they should feel to ALL men is officially a thing, and has been for far too many eons to recount here.
Of course, if you don't believe me, I have only two words for you — b*tch lasagna.
Rebecca Jane Stokes is a sex, humor and lifestyle writer living in Brooklyn, New York with her cat, Batman. She hosts the sex, love, and dating advice show, Becca After Dark on YourTango's FacebookPage every Tuesday and Thursday at 10:20 pm Eastern. For more of her work, check out her Tumblr.