Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 10:21:30 JST Evan Prodromou

   • Maj - 🇨🇦

   So, I have a lot of thoughts. I was at a restaurant with @maj on Friday night and the men's washroom had this picture on the wallpaper. I think it was meant to evoke some saucy erotic etchings from a bygone age.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 10:23:18 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     It made me think about the double-take I get when I see mermaid pictures. Attractive woman - great! Slime-coated sea creature! No thank you!

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 10:25:23 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     I don't think I'd ever say that a mermaid was ever *more* attractive than a human woman. You really have to love a mermaid to overlook the tail part.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 10:27:39 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     There's also a very immediate inference about the unavailability of mermaids for penetrative sex. I know that's not the only thing that's involved in being sexy and attractive, but it comes to mind pretty quickly when one is considering a mermaid for their sexiness.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 10:30:24 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     There is something kind of sad about the myth of mermaids. It feels like they symbolize the utter alienness of women for sailors who spent so much of their time away from women.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 10:33:58 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     There's a really good, freaky mermaid in the 2019 film The Lighthouse. It's an absolute monster with sharp teeth and a scary, alien body.

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lighthouse_%282019_film%29

   • Embed this notice
     M. Grégoire (mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 10:34:13 JST M. Grégoire

     in reply to

     @evan
     Futurama:
     https://youtu.be/iIx9OLZ-Qug?si=pjHwAPsPAENwRw1m

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 10:34:39 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     So, maybe that's sexy? The Other?

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 10:37:33 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     I think there is some conflation of sirens and mermaids, although I guess the original sirens from Greek mythology were more birdlike.

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siren_%28mythology%29

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 10:40:31 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     But if you think of mermaids as enchanting creatures that entice sailors to crash their ships onto the rocky shore, then the womanly half is more like the lure of an angler fish than anything else. An attractive extrusion to entice prey.

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglerfish

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 10:42:49 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     I might be overthinking all this, though. It might be that mermaids and sirens and tritonesses and so on were just a way to sneak some bewbs into your classical art.

   • Embed this notice
     👩‍🦯The Blind Fraggle (fragglemuppet@fandom.ink)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 10:44:48 JST 👩‍🦯The Blind Fraggle

     in reply to

     @evan Oh, I loved reading this thought process! I don't know about the bygone days, but now I think it is the alienness that is sexy to a lot of people. And as a general rule people throughout the years don't change as much as we think, so the same may have been true then for some people.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 10:49:24 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     There are a couple of other thoughts here. One is that there's a topological similarity between a mermaid and a woman in a long skirt. Both obscure the bifurcation of the legs, uniting them into a single entity. It's hard to imagine that there wasn't some influence of the image of a woman in a long skirt on the idea of a mermaid.

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skirt

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 10:57:35 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     There's also the notion that sailors developed the idea of mermaids from seeing pinnipeds like seals or manatees from far away, and with a bit of longing and loneliness thrown in. I think it is far-fetched to suppose that people who live by the sea would be unfamiliar with everything that lives in the water. I don't think a sailor would not know what a seal looks like.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 11:01:54 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     I mentioned earlier in the thread that there's another thing about some mermaids, like in "The Little Mermaid" or "Splash": they can develop regular human legs when they are on land. It seems unfair to say that mermaids are sexy, but only when they're not in their half-fish form.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 11:03:30 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     So, with all this, do I think that mermaids are sexy? Well, anything that makes me think this much is pretty intriguing, so I'm going to go with Yes, but. Thanks to everyone who replied or responded to the poll.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 11:11:10 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • studio craque 54 🏳️‍🌈

     @dtauvdiodr wow, really gatekeeping the mermaid identity there.

   • Embed this notice
     studio craque 54 🏳️‍🌈 (dtauvdiodr@c.im)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 11:11:11 JST studio craque 54 🏳️‍🌈

     in reply to

     @evan The forked tail / legs thing really makes this unsettling and not mermaid.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 11:15:23 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • tvaughan

     @tvaughan elaborate!

   • Embed this notice
     tvaughan (tvaughan@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 11:15:24 JST tvaughan

     in reply to

     @evan https://youtu.be/r2OTC3lhbWw

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 11:26:28 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     I guess it's also good erotic content for people who are really into upper bodies. If you love big chests and ripped arms, a Triton figure can be really sexy. And the lower body is kind of negated into the background. Same with mermaids, I guess? Although probably more about the breasts or other features than bulging muscles.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 11:28:11 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     Not much there for foot lovers, though! That's got to be frustrating.

   • Embed this notice
     tvaughan (tvaughan@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 11:30:42 JST tvaughan

     in reply to

     @evan You asked if mermaids are sexy. The answer is Daryl Hannah.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 11:33:27 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     Also worth noting is that the poll was not about this particular wallpaper. I mean, that'd be really messed up poll. "Is the wallpaper I saw in a men's bathroom and that almost no other human beings have ever seen sexy? No, I won't post a photo until after the poll is closed."

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 11:35:22 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • tvaughan

     @tvaughan she's not actually a mermaid, though. She's a human actress who played a mermaid in a movie.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 11:47:33 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • May Likes Toronto

     @mayintoronto good question!

   • Embed this notice
     May Likes Toronto (mayintoronto@beige.party)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 11:47:34 JST May Likes Toronto

     in reply to

     @evan What makes a mermaid butt sexy though?

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 14:19:12 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • Scanner

     @scanner that's probably true! There are probably a lot of angles I never got even close to the neighborhood of in this thread.

   • Embed this notice
     Scanner (scanner@apricot.social)'s status on Sunday, 14-Dec-2025 14:19:13 JST Scanner

     in reply to

     @evan all I can say, reading your thread, is you dramatically underestimate the dreams and imagination of people interested in mermaids.