this isn't an attempt to seriously defend maid cafes because fuck them too but at least with them there's the sort of like paying for the bourgeois experience? the servant relationship is explicit. It's gross but i can see the appeal in the same way that people want lawns to pretend, you know? but hooters is just kinda like. "Howdy y'all, i'm on display for you pigs!" and there's no pretension to anything more than that. even if, dissecting it thoroughly, it ultimately ends up being the exact same thing if you think about it

My brain ain't workin so great but after typing that out it's like oh huh hooters is just a proletarian maid cafe (crossed with applebees)

Edit: ya that's basically what you said but like i said my brain no worky so good

[–] WhatDoYouMeanPodcast@hexbear.net 2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I've never been, but I guess I just imagined the maid cafe, though it's origin is to be weeb hooters, to be more spectacle than explicit master-servant. I say this because the clips I've seen are things like an embarrassed boyfriend shooting a love-love beam at his milkshake to make it sweeter or the maids dancing and singing. In that sense, I just thought of the fantasy being fulfilled is more like Disney-lite than it is the thrill of lording over someone

[–] Dessa@hexbear.net 4 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

The maid fetish isn't always an explicit master-servant thing, but at some point you have to ask yourself why maids? Real maid outfits have never been sexual in the slightest. Conservative and practical, really. So why were maids chosen as the subject of fetish if not for the fact that they're subservient to someone?

Maybe that original reason has faded away in some contexts, but the maid outfits worn by maid café workers range from cute to sexy, and they're still there to, at the very.least, be gawked at for being pretty and serving you food. Just in a controlled and safe environment.

I really don't see the two as that different, except perhaps that a Maid Café might be more appealing to a femme and female clientele for the fashion element

[–] WhatDoYouMeanPodcast@hexbear.net 2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I see them as different because I see a narrow possibility for an interesting form that these restaurants can evolve into. What if it becomes a worker-owner femme establishment? The appeal is to go in and witness femme on their terms? Like a fuckin embassy for femme? Is that anything? If it's not explicitly exploitative and fetish fulfilling can it be a good staple of a city?

[–] Dessa@hexbear.net 3 points 7 hours ago

It can be but the same could be said for a worker-owned Hooters