> Do you have any evience of this? I don't nor have I heard of any. I think
> there is a reason that both Sadism and Masochism are named after
> thoroughly modern men.
I do not know, that was why I was asking. Women were having sex with women long before the word lesbian appeared. What difference does it make when something gets named? As the Buddha said: don't confuse the finger pointing at the moon with the moon.
> (1) Decades of experience in the kink community is precisely NOT the type
> of evidence which can establish whether kink is based on a genetic
> predisposition. The only type of evidence which can -- scientific rather
> than anecdotal -- is precisely the kind which doesn't exist.
Why is scientific evidence the only kind that can establish a fact? Isn't selecting science as the establisher of facts a choice of your discourse? Is yours the only discourse?
> (2) Your argument seems to rest on the presumption that only those who
> "live kink" can "know kink."
Yup. I cannot know Thailand. I have never been there. I can read what others say, but that is just words on a page. To know/experience Thailand I have to go. To know/experience kink you gotta get to the dungeon. To know/experience meditation you have to practice it. Otherwise all you have are words on a page.
> This is an odious rhetorical device in that it allows you to avoid the
> substantive content of the comment -- and parallel to saying only
> african-americans can analyze racism correctly.
No, it is merely a statement of fact. Anyone can analyze anything -- it is what keeps academia in business. But I find little, if any, value in analysis that has not engaged the subject. As for racism, anyone can analyze it. However, the way it is experienced by a black man is different than the way it is experienced by a white man.
> The desire to ground sexual practices -- especially deviant ones -- in
> genetics is, imho, is grounded in heteronormativity.
Again it is grounded in fact. Genes exist. That is not a discourse. That is reality (unless you believe that all reality is actually a discourse LOL).
> It's akin to saying "My sexuality is as natural as yours!" whereas a
> radical perspective is one which rejects the whole idea of (deviant or
> nondeviant) sexuality as natural. I would like to expand this point
> further, but I'll keep it brief because there is more to respond to.
I do reject the notions of deviant sexual behavior. But that does not mean I also reject the facts of genetics.
> Buddhism is what Slavoj Zizek has called "Buddhism is a kind of negative
> of the ethics of the Good" in the sense that it is aware that every
> positive Good is a lure, and so, in response to this Buddhist insight that
> every Good is actually another source of suffering "it fully assumes the
> Void as the only true Good."
Huh? That is about a bad a misinterpretation of Buddhism as I have ever read. LOL. Again the problem seems to me that you like to read people's interpretation of things (Buddhism, kinky sex) rather than enaging directly with the subject. Secondhand knowledge is not very useful.
> I believe that this is actually quite an accurate understanding of
> Buddhism, as the Four Noble Truths of the Buddha read that "all life
> involves suffering; all suffering is due to attachment and ultimately to
> ignorance; if we could abolish the cause, the effect, too, would
> disappear; the discipline recommended in the Noble Eightfold Path will
> lead to this cessation."
How are the Four Noble Truths a "negative of the ethics of the Good?" Buddhism is a technology to reduce suffering. That is what the Budha said it was, nothing more or less. Buddhism does not assume that the Good (whatever that is) is another form of suffering. It says that attachment and clinging to desire is the source of suffering.
> In this regard, Walter Kaufmann has noted that "Buddhism does not by any
> means place a supreme value on truth, and it certainly does not extol the
> search for truths."
Is that why the Buddha called his first teaching ther Four Noble Truths? LOL
> For Buddha, the supreme concern is not truth but salvation.
Since the Buddha does not believe in the existence of the soul, what is there to save? Buddha spoke of enlightenment, not salvation.
> I think all of the above description of Buddhism can simply be stipulated,
> as it is not controversial.
No, it is not controversial, it is just wrong and unsupported by what the Buddha taught and is to be found in the Pali canon.
> Indeed, I think Brian made the same point when he said "Buddhism realizes
> that existence is ever changing particulars rooted in emptiness."
Huh? I spoke of emptiness, not the void (two very different concepts).
> On this understanding of Buddhism . . .
Which is wrong
> . . . I find Buddhism to be both incompatible with being a self-identified
> queer as well as with being a self-identified radical/progressive in
> politics.
Well, since you had to distort Buddhism to reach this conclusion, so how valid/useful can it be?
Since when is it not radical/progressive to be against capitalism and for the reduction of suffering and injustice as the Buddhist activist Thich Naht Hanh is?
> Slavoj Zizek writes on this topic:
> "It is not only that Western Buddhism . . .
What is Western Buddhism? I am familiar with Zen, Rinzai, Soto, Tibetan, Tendai, Shingon, Pure Land, Mayahana, Theravada, Adayavada, Engaged, Vajrayana, Vietnamese schools of Budddhism, but I have never heard of the school of Western Buddhism. Is this some straw man that Zizek has created in order to discredit Buddhism without actually having to study Buddhist thought?
> . . . have heard this pop-cultural phenomenon preaching inner distance and
> indifference toward the frantic pace of market competition, is arguably
> the most efficient way for us fully to participate in capitalist dynamics
> while retaining the appearance of mental sanity -- in short, the
> paradigmatic ideology of late capitalism.
Buddhism is a pop-cultural phenomenon? ROTFLMAO. Brittney Spears is a pop-cultural phenomenon.
As for inner distance. Wrong again (Zizek is not very bright is he?). Buddha taught the interdependent origination of reality. Simply put: everything is connected -- there is no distance -- inner or outer.
As for particpating in capitalist dynamics, to do so would be to go against the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. How do you/Zizek square capitalism with right action? right livelihood? (to name just two aspects of the Four Noble Truths?).
> One should add that it is no longer possible to oppose this Western
> Buddhism to its 'authentic' Oriental version...
Why not? Because Zizek says so?
> Not only do we have today, among top Japanese managers, a widespread
> 'corporate Zen' phenomenon; for the whole of the last 150 years, Japan's
> rapid industrialization and militarization, with its ethics of discipline
> and sacrifice, have been sustained by the large majority of Zen
> thinkers -- who today knows that D.T. Suzuki himself, the high guru of Zen
> in America in the 1960s, supported in his youth in 1930s Japan, the spirit
> of utter sicipline and militaristic expansion?
But it seems clear that they took part of Buddhist thought and lopped off that which they found inconvenient, namely the Eightfold Path (which seems to be the same thing you/Zizek are engaged in as well).
> There is no conntradiction here, no manipulative perversion of the
> authentic compassionate insight: the attitude of total immersion in the
> selfless 'now' of Enlightenment ... in which all reflexive distance is
> lost .. perfectly legitimizes subordination to the militaristic social
> machine."
What "no reflexive distance" are you/Zizek talking about? How is lopping off the Eightfold Path not a "manipulative perversion" of Buddhism? Buddha said that one should never subordinate oneself to an outside source. He said that people should serve as lamps unto themselves. How do you square his teachings with a "subordination to a militaristic social machine."
> "Zen is very particular about the need not to stop one's mind. As soon as
> flint stone is struck, a spark bursts forth. There is not even the most
> momentary lapse of time between these two events. If ordered to face
> right, one simply faces right as quickly as a flash of lightning... If
> one's name were called, for example, 'Uemon,' one should simply answer
> 'Yes' and not stop to onsider the reason why one's name was called... I
> believe that if one is called upon to die, one should not be the least bit
> agitated."
And? What is the problem here? Not stopping one's mind does not mean not to be reflective/analytical.
> D.T. Suzuki agrees with this spirit, adding "it is really not [the
> soldier] but the sword itself which does the killing. He had no desire to
> do any harm to anybody, but the enemy appears and makes himself the
> victim. It is though the sword performs automatically its function of
> justice, which is the function of mercy."
You will get no argument from me that Suzuki abused Zen concepts to support miltarism. But anything can be abused to produce a harmful end.
> "Nonetheless, it is all too simple either to say that this militaristic
> Zen is a perversion of the true Zen message or to see in it the ominous
> 'truth' of Zen: the truth is much more unbearable -- what if, in its very
> kernel, Zen is ambivalent, or rather, utterly indifferent to this
> alternative?
But how can Zen be indifferent if it espouses the Eightfold Path? That is a contradiction. Zen without the Eightfold Path is not Zen. It is merely a technique of meditation.
> What if... the Zen meditation technique is ultimately just that: a
> spiritual technique, an ethically neutral instrument which can be put to
> different sociopolitical uses, from the most peaceful to the most
> destructive?"
The mistake here is that Zizek is equating Zen with Zen meditation. That is false. Meditation is a technology that is used by Zen, it is not Zen (just as the computer I am writng this email on is a technology I am using to communicate. It is not, however, what I am communicating.).
> When Ichikawa Hakugen the Japanese Buddhist listed the twelve
> characteristics of the Buddhist tradition which prepared the ground for
> the legitimization of militarism in an act of radical self-criticism, he
> had to include pracitically all the basic tenets of Buddhism itself!
> Included in this list-- this is for you Brian --is the Buddhist doctrine
> of NO-SELF!
Sure, if you strip away the Eightfold Path, that could occur. As Vicotria says: "imperial military trainers developed the self-denying egolessness Zen prizes into a form of fascist mind-control." Anything can be used incorrectly. PsychoBoy (one of my ex's) hit me with a skillet. Was he using the skillet as it was meant to be used? No. Did it hurt? Yes. But that doesn't invalidate the usefulness of a skillet.
In the same way, aspects of Buddhism (like anything else) can be used to cause harm. What should be condemned is the morality that dictated the instrument to be used in this way, not the instrument itself.
> (For similar reasons, one can see why Heinrich Himmler's favorite book --
> which he supposedly always had a copy of on his person -- was the
> Bhagavad-Gita).
Huh?
> (The lesson Zizek draws from this, which I wouldn't mind debating, is that
> Buddhist all-encompassing Compassion has to be opposed to "Christian
> intolerant, violent Love... a violent passion to ... privilege and elevate
> some object at the expense of others.")
So the Middle Path is the opposite of extremism?
> More Brian: "But Buddhism demands that any of its tenets be empirically
> provable. Buddhism is not opposed to science, but rather, an ally." Where
> do you get this idea from?
The Buddha said it himself. If you read the Pali canon, you would get a better understanding of what Buddhism is about.
> I think it's wrong insofar as Buddhism, as I noted, is not about the
> search for truth but the search for salvation.
No, Buddhism is a search for truth. Again, Buddha called the first turning of the wheel of the Dharma, the Four Noble Truths. He then taught about the true nature of reality in the second turning.
> Why must you assume any identity to engage in any particular sexual
> practice?
It is not that I assume the identity to engage in the practice, but the byproduct of engaging in the practice causes me (for however long I engage in the practice) to assume an identity. Much like an electron is only a possibility until someone observes it, a human being is bundle of possibilities until action is taken. Once action is taken identity adheres -- it is the membrane in which various technologies available to the person are deployed. When deployment stops the membrane ceases to exist. Problems arise when human beings (in a misguided effort to alleviate the unease they feel over having no-self) cling on to this membrane as if it were an identity.
> The "practical, pragmatic tool" which he invented was a system of thought
> which in the hands of political radicals has become the framework to
> effect a productive analysis of society.
And that framework is?
> It allows for the idea that there is a radical (class) antagonism which is
> constitutive of capitalist society.
But I know that without reading Hegel. All you have to do is look at the world.
> (Besides, for a "buddhist" aren't you a little concerned with what is
> "pragmatic"?)
Buddhism is a very pragmatic technology. What gives you the idea that it isn't?
> You are severely misinformed if you think Hegel was a conservative who
> nationallistically supported the Prussian State.
I guess I am. I had read that Hegel believed that the level of civilization that had been achieved in Prussia was the highest human beings could achieve. See what happens when you read what someone else says rather than the source?
Charles writes:
> Sex acts are mainly about people having orgasms.
Huh? According to whom? I just topped/fisted a boi the other day and I didn't even get an erection, let alone have an orgasm and still it was a wonderfully satisfying sex act.
Maybe you belief that sex acts are about having orgasms is part of your difficulty with bdsm.
Kelley writes:
> That your discourse, in its tendency to speak FOR everyone else is just
> mirroring the discourse of hetnormativity.
But I am only speaking for myself (and since I practice no-self even that is dubious LOL).
> I was annoyed because I've expressed my concerns before and yet you've
> continued to make claims about sexual desire being genetic as if it were
> gospel. It ain't.
My apology if what I wrote came off that way. I will amend my statement: human beings have genes. These genes play a part in constructing a body. This body has a sexual component which is in part determined by the body's genes. For me, I believe that these genes play a part in sexuality/desire as do existing social discourses.
> As the site noted, it tends to be a dominant discourse among gay males,
> while lesbians tend to view sexual identity as more fluid.
But life is more than discourse (isn't it?). There are real bodies, real chairs, real tables, real genes.
Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister