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-   -   Towards A Virtual Williamsburg! (http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=868)

sebastian_dangerfield 03-20-2013 02:52 PM
Re: So
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 477713)

So, people keep asking for a solution. It's easy to say that parents need to be more responsible or to raise their children right. Never happen. It's easy to say that we shouldn't make tits and ass commodities. Never happen. Maybe the answer is required sex education classes that cover these topics. Maybe police need to speak to children at schools about these types of crimes and how they destroy people. There are no hard and fast answers to this shit.

But I'll tell you this: The next person that says, "These boys' lives are ruined," should have their face smashed in, because they forfeit their futures when they assaulted that girl, talked about pissing on her unconscious body for money, sent videos and photos of her around to everyone and laughed their asses off while doing it.
I recommend Sex at Dawn. It's a great book that nails the problem with sexuality in Western culture: That we make too much of it, and that we have made it a resource to be traded for things. The book's theory is that sex was more of a social thing before we switched to a landowner, agrarian society. That since that point, we have viewed women as property, and accepted a twisted, scientifically incorrect narrative about humans being naturally monogamous, and women and men being engaged in a cynical barter arrangement (she gives sex in return for his provision of resources).

In truth, humans are not monogamous (shocking, I know), and sex was traditionally not a taboo subject, or even a terribly private thing. Group, or sharing, sexual behaviors persisted for millions of years, and people got along fine. Then we decided to view sex as a commodity, and women as opportunistic gatekeepers. This has led to an adversity between the sexes that's not real. Women are called whores for following natural urges naturally, sought to be controlled, and when in vulnerable situations, raped by cretins who see them as deserving of no respect, as an enemy of sorts.

Pretty Little Flower 03-20-2013 02:52 PM
Re: Towards A Virtual Williamsburg!
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 477716)
help an old man out..... my kid smokes, umm, tree (?), but his car never smells of smoke. Instead I find half empty bottles of musty smelling water. Is there some new bong replacement thing?
No idea. I only smoke blunts.

Hank Chinaski 03-20-2013 02:54 PM
Re: Top 20
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 477717)
You post how you want to post. You always have. The only thing I've seen change is that you care how your posts come off. And you're not quite as "vocally" mean and opinionated, which we all miss.

TM
2. and you are still a valuable part of the board. we need you fringey.

Hank Chinaski 03-20-2013 02:58 PM
Re: So
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 477718)
I recommend Sex at Dawn. It's a great book that nails the problem with sexuality in Western culture: That we make too much of it, and that we have made it a resource to be traded for things. The book's theory is that sex was more of a social thing before we switched to a landowner, agrarian society. That since that point, we have viewed women as property, and accepted a twisted, scientifically incorrect narrative about humans being naturally monogamous, and women and men being engaged in a cynical barter arrangement (she gives sex in return for his provision of resources).

In truth, humans are not monogamous (shocking, I know), and sex was traditionally not a taboo subject, or even a terribly private thing. Group, or sharing, sexual behaviors persisted for millions of years, and people got along fine. Then we decided to view sex as a commodity, and women as opportunistic gatekeepers. This has led to an adversity between the sexes that's not real. Women are called whores for following natural urges naturally, sought to be controlled, and when in vulnerable situations, raped by cretins who see them as deserving of no respect, as an enemy of sorts.
Cavemen hit women on the head and dragged them somewhere, and wild animals mate w/o much regard to consent, so I"m not sure how our root or original instincts fit into behaving in society.

The Steubenville thing strikes me as a locker room bullshit/bragging culture getting the opportunity to actually act out the bullshit guys talk about in a high school locker room. it certainly isn't the first time that has happened.

sebastian_dangerfield 03-20-2013 03:13 PM
Re: So
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Adder (Post 477699)
I've not read up on the details of the whole Steubenville thing. From the bits I've gathered, two football players did terrible things to an unconscious girl, documented it on their cell phones, and then a whole bunch of people talked about it without reporting it.

Whatever, that's not really the point. The point I want to get at is where Jezebel goes in talking about some thoughts on the case from Henry Rollins (which are generally good).

Where I think Doug Barry, writing for Jezebel goes a bit off the rails is in stating the issue in terms of female actors being "reduced to a mere assemblage of sexualized body parts." Anyone who has relationships with women, for example, can tell you that a woman can be both a sexual object and fully respected and empowered at the same time. Anyone who has clicked on Thurgreed's links can tell you how an image of a woman can be "commodified" and "sexualized" without women being commodified and sexualized.

I think it's convenient to blame "the media" and "sexualized culture" but I think that misses a big part of the problem, and, by assigning primary blame to amorphous and unaccountable forces, let's a lot of people off the hook. What is it about kids like the rapists here or their environment that allows them to (apparently) miss half of the equation? Why do they get only the object part and not the respect part?

And maybe it's just another manifestation of our sex-negative culture that teaches young people like these rapists that sex is a thing that is shameful rather than respectful.

Or maybe, as Rollins suggests, it's really about power and control, in which case, what does sexualized media have to do with it?
Sexy women in bikinis are not "commodified." Their bodies, which men appreciate, are commoditized. But that's not the commoditization that causes problems like Steubenville. It's the commoditization of sexual release that causes problems. If these kids had been raised in a culture where women having sex weren't derided as whores (see the cell phone video of the kid after the rape saying the "whore" deserved it), they'd have had a better attitude toward sex. If they hadn't been raised by idiot conservatives who treat sex as a taboo issue, they'd have respected women, and women would have felt more comfortable being women (i.e., having healthy sex, instead of withholding sex for fear of being ostracized or violating ludicrous religious strictures... except when drunk out of their minds).

These boys viewed sex as a commodity. They viewed women engaging in it as a commodity. When able to take it forcibly it as they were, they did, reprehensibly. Maybe-- just maybe, if we could as a culture discuss sex as adults and, God forbid, drop our silly religious views, and our archaic belief women must be "chaste" (and scorned if she's not) we'd have a lot fewer teens who view sex as a relationship where the man is the aggressor trying to take something from a woman, or manipulate her into doing something.

No shock this crap happens most in backwashes like Ohio. Moronic, ancient values hold strongest in those parts. Jezebel would have us believe football players are mungheads who use words like whore with abandon. It's got nothing to do with sports. It's got everything to do with strange, frustrated people making a sex into a very scarce commodity - something women are afraid to engage in, and angry young men think must be aggressively cajoled from them. "Traditional values."

sebastian_dangerfield 03-20-2013 03:28 PM
Re: So
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 477721)
Cavemen hit women on the head and dragged them somewhere, and wild animals mate w/o much regard to consent, so I"m not sure how our root or original instincts fit into behaving in society.

The Steubenville thing strikes me as a locker room bullshit/bragging culture getting the opportunity to actually act out the bullshit guys talk about in a high school locker room. it certainly isn't the first time tha thas happened.
Except that's not how people evolved at all. If you read even The Naked Ape, or Sperm Wars, you see our real communal sexual history has been removed from the record. A scientist who admitted humans were up until a couple thousand years ago anything but monogamous was drummed out of the academy for uttering heresies.

Being gay was a mental disorder until a few decades ago.

Our original instinct is to fuck a lot of people, often in overlapping relationships, or just flings, and that goes for men and women. That's not me. It's not science of the '60s. It's not alternative theory. It's fact. Lifelong exclusive pair-bonding and rigidly enforced sexual mores are political, societal structures we've inflicted on beings with exactly opposite biological urges.

But people don't want to hear that, despite the overwhelming of it. So the solution to sexual violence which might include more sex, and more aggressive liberation of female sexuality, is shunned. Better to keep the sexes at odds with one another than getting along. What sort of a message would sharing send to a culture so dependent on people trading with one another in what they think is a series of zero sum games for resources and wealth?

Hank Chinaski 03-20-2013 03:34 PM
Re: So
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 477723)
Except that's not how people evolved at all. If you read even The Naked Ape, or Sperm Wars, you see our real communal sexual history has been removed from the record. A scientist who admitted humans were up until a couple thousand years ago anything but monogamous was drummed out of the academy for uttering heresies.

Being gay was a mental disorder until a few decades ago.

Our original instinct is to fuck a lot of people, often in overlapping relationships, or just flings, and that goes for men and women. That's not me. It's not science of the '60s. It's not alternative theory. It's fact. Lifelong exclusive pair-bonding and rigidly enforced sexual mores are political, societal structures we've inflicted on beings with exactly opposite biological urges.

But people don't want to hear that, despite the overwhelming of it. So the solution to sexual violence which might include more sex, and more aggressive liberation of female sexuality, is shunned. Better to keep the sexes at odds with one another than getting along. What sort of a message would sharing send to a culture so dependent on people trading with one another in what they think is a series of zero sum games for resources and wealth?
Actually in great ape tribes one alpha male breeds, the others sulk and maybe plot to kick alpha's ass.

I'm not sure how the relatively constant "heat" that evolved with man changed that, if at all, but I don't think Neanderthal camps looked too much like Plato's retreat.

sebastian_dangerfield 03-20-2013 03:35 PM
Re: Towards A Virtual Williamsburg!
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower (Post 477709)
For Christ's sake, man, it doesn't take a pro. You can receive fellatio, properly stir the reduction, and have a glass of scotch. Hell, with a little practice, you can receive fellatio, stir the reduction, take a vaporizer hit of sticky chronic, and wash it down with a little cask strength Laphroaig. It's time for you to stop dwelling on the inadequacies of your past. From now one, you should exclusively look forward to the limitless possibility of the future.

"He broke the mirrors off his Cadillac, 'cuz he doesn't like it looking like he looks back."
You are the Dennis Miller of indie rock references. (That is a compliment. [Miller analogies can go either way.] <Particularly since he's been doing O'Reilly's show> *I don't watch O'Reilly... I just know he does it.*)

Tame Impala is the shit.

sebastian_dangerfield 03-20-2013 03:38 PM
Re: So
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 477724)
Actually in great ape tribes one alpha male breeds, the others sulk and maybe plot to kick alpha's ass.

I'm not sure how the relatively constant "heat" that evolved with man changed that, if at all, but I don't think Neanderthal camps looked too much like Plato's retreat.
Gorillas are not the closest to us genetically. Look up bonobos. See how they treat sex.

Neanderthal camps didn't look like a series of row homes of frustrated, narrow minded, sexually repressed, religiously/culturally bullshitted rubes out of Archie Bunker, either.

Greedy,Greedy,Greedy 03-20-2013 04:12 PM
Re: So
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 477722)
Sexy women in bikinis are not "commodified." Their bodies, which men appreciate, are commoditized. But that's not the commoditization that causes problems like Steubenville. It's the commoditization of sexual release that causes problems. If these kids had been raised in a culture where women having sex weren't derided as whores (see the cell phone video of the kid after the rape saying the "whore" deserved it), they'd have had a better attitude toward sex. If they hadn't been raised by idiot conservatives who treat sex as a taboo issue, they'd have respected women, and women would have felt more comfortable being women (i.e., having healthy sex, instead of withholding sex for fear of being ostracized or violating ludicrous religious strictures... except when drunk out of their minds).

These boys viewed sex as a commodity. They viewed women engaging in it as a commodity. When able to take it forcibly it as they were, they did, reprehensibly. Maybe-- just maybe, if we could as a culture discuss sex as adults and, God forbid, drop our silly religious views, and our archaic belief women must be "chaste" (and scorned if she's not) we'd have a lot fewer teens who view sex as a relationship where the man is the aggressor trying to take something from a woman, or manipulate her into doing something.

No shock this crap happens most in backwashes like Ohio. Moronic, ancient values hold strongest in those parts. Jezebel would have us believe football players are mungheads who use words like whore with abandon. It's got nothing to do with sports. It's got everything to do with strange, frustrated people making a sex into a very scarce commodity - something women are afraid to engage in, and angry young men think must be aggressively cajoled from them. "Traditional values."
This isn't isolated or limited to conservatives. Or athletes. Or backwaters.

My solidly boring upper middle class heavily degreed eastern establishment town had a teacher at the middle school, the son of the principal, charged with multiple sexual assualts and rapes against minors (12 year olds in many case), yet had sizable parts of the town come to his defense because he "came from a good family". While he was under a court order to stay away from the schools, the chief of police, who has a business on the side that maintains the town's playing fields, hired the rapist to take care of the girls soccer fields. There were more supporters for the rapist and pederast than for the girls affected. Maybe they were just accustomed to being pro-pederast after supporting frocked rapists for so many years.

I have no idea WTF this is all about, and am just amazed at the idiots among us. Everywhere among us. It is just obscene.

By the way, our local rapist got three fucking months.

It's really time to turn this shit over to the vigilantes and tort lawyers.

Pretty Little Flower 03-20-2013 04:37 PM
Re: Towards A Virtual Williamsburg!
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 477725)
You are the Dennis Miller of indie rock references. (That is a compliment. [Miller analogies can go either way.] <Particularly since he's been doing O'Reilly's show> *I don't watch O'Reilly... I just know he does it.*)

Tame Impala is the shit.
Thanks! (Although I am not really sure what it means to be the Dennis Miller of indie rock references. ^And I had no idea about the whole O'Reilly show thing.^ ***I mean, what the fuck is that all about?***)

ThurgreedMarshall 03-20-2013 04:41 PM
David Brent returns
 
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/...ter_video.html

TM

Fugee 03-20-2013 04:42 PM
Re: So
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Adder (Post 477699)
{Adder's long Steubensville post}
I don't think the sexualized media is to blame -- thought it probably doesn't help. I wonder if the problem isn't broader than sex.

Maybe it's because we had a sermon on bullying in church this week** but what they did to her feels a lot like the same thought process that goes on in bullying, just to an extreme degree and in a sexual context. It makes sense if you think of rape as about power and control, not about sex.

I think there are a lot of teaching moments to be had for parents, teachers, coaches, etc. out of this case. I hope they'll go broader than just the conduct of the rapists to the kids who I understand knew what was going on and didn't say anything. The H.S. principal who spoke as part of the sermon talked about how "bystanders" can be an important part of stopping bullying.

Anyway, I could be all wrong on this but that's my $.02








**Yeah, that's not the usual Sunday sermon. The related Bible verse was the "Do unto others..." Golden Rule.

Adder 03-20-2013 04:52 PM
Re: So
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 477718)
I recommend Sex at Dawn. It's a great book that nails the problem with sexuality in Western culture: That we make too much of it, and that we have made it a resource to be traded for things. The book's theory is that sex was more of a social thing before we switched to a landowner, agrarian society. That since that point, we have viewed women as property, and accepted a twisted, scientifically incorrect narrative about humans being naturally monogamous, and women and men being engaged in a cynical barter arrangement (she gives sex in return for his provision of resources).

In truth, humans are not monogamous (shocking, I know), and sex was traditionally not a taboo subject, or even a terribly private thing. Group, or sharing, sexual behaviors persisted for millions of years, and people got along fine. Then we decided to view sex as a commodity, and women as opportunistic gatekeepers. This has led to an adversity between the sexes that's not real. Women are called whores for following natural urges naturally, sought to be controlled, and when in vulnerable situations, raped by cretins who see them as deserving of no respect, as an enemy of sorts.
I've been planning to read that for awhile, but will have to move it up the list.

Adder 03-20-2013 04:55 PM
Re: So
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 477722)
Sexy women in bikinis are not "commodified." Their bodies, which men appreciate, are commoditized. But that's not the commoditization that causes problems like Steubenville. It's the commoditization of sexual release that causes problems. If these kids had been raised in a culture where women having sex weren't derided as whores (see the cell phone video of the kid after the rape saying the "whore" deserved it), they'd have had a better attitude toward sex. If they hadn't been raised by idiot conservatives who treat sex as a taboo issue, they'd have respected women, and women would have felt more comfortable being women (i.e., having healthy sex, instead of withholding sex for fear of being ostracized or violating ludicrous religious strictures... except when drunk out of their minds).

These boys viewed sex as a commodity. They viewed women engaging in it as a commodity. When able to take it forcibly it as they were, they did, reprehensibly. Maybe-- just maybe, if we could as a culture discuss sex as adults and, God forbid, drop our silly religious views, and our archaic belief women must be "chaste" (and scorned if she's not) we'd have a lot fewer teens who view sex as a relationship where the man is the aggressor trying to take something from a woman, or manipulate her into doing something.

No shock this crap happens most in backwashes like Ohio. Moronic, ancient values hold strongest in those parts. Jezebel would have us believe football players are mungheads who use words like whore with abandon. It's got nothing to do with sports. It's got everything to do with strange, frustrated people making a sex into a very scarce commodity - something women are afraid to engage in, and angry young men think must be aggressively cajoled from them. "Traditional values."
That's more or less what I was thinking. That there is no hope in asking society not to be titillated by sexualized images and content, nor to stop looking at it.

That the hope has to be in demystifying and removing the judgment from sex.


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