> Having read your two posts, I think this list is not for you and I suggest
> you leave.
>
> Jenny Brown
Oh, I think I'll stay, thanks - just returning a favor here, don't mind me. But why the hostility? Remember, comrade: if we oppress the diversity of other voices, then the terrorists have already won! Perhaps you could take a stab at answering some of the questions rather than making (laughably) ominous statements? There are 38 questions to choose from, I daresay you'll find one that suits you. Given your apparent tastes and bent, I would recommend giving the last four questions of my response to "Education and Sexuality" the old college try:
"Is it surprising that in the presence of such an active distortion of ordinary and traditional sexual mores, that pornography is so actively consumed? What shall be done about this state of affairs? What was the cause of this state of affairs to begin with?", and
"I can think of one sure-fire means of directing men and women to healthier and more productive pursuits - adopt as a cultural habit the Jewish/Christian/Muslim practice of stoning of fornicators and of women who lie about virginity, and reinstating the practice of arranged marriage. That would dry up most of that porn, all right. What do you think of that solution?"
What's your take on those, Jenny? Agree? Disagree?
--- snip ---
Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> I am not saying that it is. Some of the stuff he/she wrote is simply
> laughable, e.g. about fixed sex role in the past (quoting from memory). I
> would like to know when and where such idyllic certitude existed.
I will provide assistance for your memory:
"Conjecture: this is due to a lack of well-defined sexual frameworks in modern times. In previous times, the expected course of life with respect to sexual activity was "childhood -> sexual maturation -> marriage to member of opposite sex -> childbearing/rearing". An elaborate patchwork of rules was set up to cover all of these activities, and that order was not flouted lightly."
"Expected course of life", "that order was not flouted lightly". I did not say that these frameworks were carved in stone, I said that they were well-defined and not lightly avoided. (Examine the old euphemism "confirmed bachelor" in this context, with its attendant connotation of "abnormal". Also examine the traditional Roman belief that a man was still essentially a teenager until he had married, i.e. established a normal sexual relationship.) If you demur, provide me an example of a society that existed before the 1900s that did not have the above as usual expectations (i.e. "the prevailing perception of normal life").
Most of the efforts of the various forms of sexual agitator (feminist, militant queerist, etc.) have been to destroy such frameworks, substituting for them a different framework in which they possess rights out of proportion to those of others.
> But the main thrust of his/her argument is that porn, and for that matter
> human sexuality, is a rather complex phenomenon, socially, ethically,
> legally, economically.
The main thrust of my issue consisted of 38 questions, about half of which were "serious" questions (the other half, of course, meant to entertain), exactly _zero_ of which were answered by any other participant in the thread. Oh well. Hope springs eternal.
> Some of it is certainly exploitative and illegal,
> some of it is legal but may be unethical to some, still some may be both
> legal and ethical but shocking, and some of it simply role playing.
> Clearly, some people enjoy performing sex acts for money and there is
> nothing wrong with it unless it is illegal - in which case the debate is not
> about sex but about law.
Well now, there's an interesting idea. Something is "immoral" if it is "illegal"? While that is certainly a popular view, it reverses the traditional direction of that implication; the lawmaker(s) can make lots of things illegal, but that does not mean that they are of themselves immoral. (In the ideal case, of course, this implication is strictly bidirectional, with the question of morality being fixed.)
> There is a lot of grey areas regarding what
> constitutes consent, age of person capable of consent - both legally and
> psychologically - but this is not unique to pornography and sex.
I think there are fewer grey areas in this context than you suppose; for legal purposes, the traditional presumption in US law is that someone who is not a child (over 18 in the US) and who is not insane, mentally retarded, inebriated or under threat of force is capable of entering into a binding contract with another party. For sexual purposes, the age of consent varies, but is usually "close" to the age at which one may enter into a contract (again, in the US, though it is set state-by-state).
I will agree that this issue has been clouded to the extent that nearly nobody is presumed prima facie capable of entering into a binding contract anymore, that there seems to be a sort of universal presumption of Mongoloidism on the part of certain officially-accepted objects of sympathy. "That's okay, Mommy knows you didn't mean it, you don't have to keep *your* end of this bargain, let me tear up this naughty piece of paper the bad man 'forced' you to sign. No, honey, you don't have to give the stuff back to the bad man, he's just sooooo evil that we'll keep it, he *deserves* to get screwed. Run along and play now."
> If I wanted to discuss the subject, I would start with narrowing it down as
> much as possible and establishing some commonly accepted definitions of the
> key concepts. But I also tend to be of the old persuasion believing that
> what consenting adults do in their bedrooms is their personal matter, not to
> be discussed in public. The exhibitionistic dragging it into the televised
> sphere of pop-kultur is a marketing trick that has little appeal to me.
I'll buy that. Yet what shall be done about it? Exhibitionism rules the day. Ideally, this is the reason for the existence of certain types of place - we'll call our exemplars "the Castro" and, say, "Lynchburg" - such that those who wish to engage in public performance of homosexual pornography may go to a street corner in "the Castro" and be fulfilled, and those who believe that Jesus plans to torture queers for all eternity and who do not even want their children to know what one is may live in "Lynchburg" and likewise be fulfilled. I believe this to be a sane state of affairs, assuming that "tolerance" is the goal of such endeavors, and that the use of force or threat thereof to coerce others into a different set of beliefs is wrong. Do you agree?
--- snip ---
BklynMagus:
>> >These misogynistic ideas arise _because_ he is living
> in a feminist household. Little boys being raised as
> good little girls are (understandably) generally not
> happy about this fact, it confuses them and damages
> their internal sense of "who they are supposed to be".
>
> SD, I believe you are new to our little family and may
> not be aware of how we try (and sometimes fail) to
> discourse with each other.
Actually, I believe I've gotten a fair sample of it, thanks. This is not my first rodeo. But back to the point: I gather, then, that you do not disagree with the statement above, that the raising of a boy in a feminist household does damage to that boy's natural, internal perceptions of who he is supposed to be, that "feminist rearing" is purely value- and effect-neutral?
> Some of us write dense economic posts and some write
> more personal ones. Some even manage to do both.
> But one thing we try to do is not be snarky and
> imperious, especially about members and their families.
I don't know what "snarky" means, but I haven't even twitched the needle on "imperious". When I do, you'll know.
> Those who violate this prohibition (which is, of course,
> socially constructed) tend to get BitchLab slapped from
> several directions at once.
Oh, my. Locked in a room with a hundred people who are ready at a moment's notice to flame my ass to a crisp? Well, fuck me running. I guess it's good to know that I will finally, at long long last, get an opportunity to discover what that feels like.
--
(c) 2005 Unscathed Haze via Central Plexus <hasted at tent.heads>
I am Chaos. I am alive, and I tell you that you are Free. -Eris
Big Brother is watching you. Learn to become Invisible.
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