You know, fisting can be fun, but the fisting / Christiantiy combination seriously icks me out. I may now be scarred for life.
Yeah, but that Caravaggio is still pertty sexual. It looks like Thomas is playing wih his nipple.
Ah, the goatse man. No matter how many times you see it, it still gets ya right there.
I'm pretty sure the site is fake. Check out the oral sex page.
John, you are evil. Just because you feel you've been cast out of heaven, you want to take the rest of us down with you. But I reject you, and all your works.
So it's actually fingering that echoes Thomas's doubt. Fisting is still good because of the Fist of Might, though.
4: I meant about finger vs. fist.
You can't just haul off and sock your fist up there, jeez, eb.
Jesus was a feminist:
(1) To avoid the impropriety of male homosexuality, a heterosexual couple should not under any circumstances form a threesome with another man.
Ben si so converting to Christianity:
A BDSM relationship between a dominant husband and submissive wife is actually the ideal of marriage set out in Ephesians 5:22-26 taken to its logical conclusion!
Baudelaire has a poem - one of the banned - where he takes a similar analogy to sickening levels.
14: I suspect that that quotation actually pretty much nails it. Fuckin' fundies.
Check out the question-answer section.
EWWWWWWWWW
Fisting period is pure ICK.
(I know that 19 is obvious. I'm just drunk enough that I figured I needed ot say it to remind myself.)
If there really were a type of Christianity like this, though, I would totally be in favor of other people practicing it.
It's not too off the wall though. i mean, is their "oral sex is OK as long as she swallows" really all that different from the Catholic "oral sex is OK, but only as foreplay"?
The woman doesn't have to swallow, though; read the first question and answer in the Q&A page. If the man swallows, that's cool too.
Ah, i missed that. Just don't get any on your clothes.
22: Yeah, it's really not, and a lot of it is actually nearly identical to traditional Judaism. So like I said, I would be okay with Christians following these rules.
27: I think that by and large these rules do sum up a lot of unarticulated Christian practice. They're sexist, though.
Becks, your typing has improved dramatically.
#23
Just one of those things that for me scores too high on my arbritrary plot of dangerous vs. gross.
i'm starting to sober up a bit. I still have to pack tonight.
Vaginal fisting is gross? I can see the fear of danger, but the yuck factor?
I think that by and large these rules do sum up a lot of unarticulated Christian practice.
Perhaps. They do seem to go against a lot of traditional Christian teachings, though.
They're sexist, though.
Well, duh. If you want non-sexist religion, you're looking at the wrong tradition.
Just seems to be a disturbingly large object to be cramming up there.
Yeah, but on the sexist grounds I'd have a problem with (do have a problem with) people practicing them.
34: Okay, fair enough. I was just wondering.
35: Sure, but they seem like a definite improvement over the status quo among practicing Christians. Still bad, but not as bad. It's kind of a moot point, though, since no one's actually doing this stuff.
Bah. You all sure aren't commenting fast enough to help me procrastinate from packing.
And maybe it's because I'd feel like I was crossing the line from lover to puppeteer.
39: Y'all are determined to just ruin everything, aren't you?
(Come on, Becks wants us to pick up the pace.)
There's a "puppet master" joke around here somewhere but I can't find it.
Well, you're the one saying you've got no problem with sexist sex rules.
For my next trick I will make a woman orgasm while I drink a glass of water.
Well, you're the one saying you've got no problem with sexist sex rules.
I don't recall saying that.
Like most commencements, mine was pretty unremarkable. Except for the class poem about fisting.
Oof. I'm going to bed and am going to pack in the morning. This is probably a Very Bad Decision.
This is the night of Very Bad Decisions. Don't mix gin and tonics, dark and stormys, Burgundy wine, and sketchy, ill-gotten absinthe.
Basically, all my statements are made in comparison with the sex rules contained in Christianity as it is actually practiced right now, and my conclusion is that these rules would be better. Not much better, but better.
This is the night of Very Bad Decisions. Don't mix gin and tonics, dark and stormys, Burgundy wine, and sketchy, ill-gotten absinthe.
Words to live by.
52: You may have a point, but that fails to justify being "okay" with those rules, no?
(I'm really just arguing out of idleness. In case that's not clear. I don't actually have much of a dog in this fight.)
I'll concede that my phrasing in 27 was suboptimal.
Right. Well, neither am I, depending on who you ask.
Not to, um, ruin your fun, but I can't resist the temptation to relate what is my favorite interpretation of this doubting Thomas business. I have a friend who, as a student of religion, was aghast that everyone takes this as a reproachment to doubt. I.e. "Doubting Thomas!" is a epithet of disdain and dismissal. His interpretation is that it should be one of honor, and that what Jesus was saying was, "Yes, if you doubt, test your doubt as the opportunity presents itself and see if the faith that is asked of you holds up. Don't be an unbeliever when you have the opportunity to be a believer who has come by his faith honestly." So yes, sometimes you have to take faith on pure faith. But when the opportunity is offered to you, test it---don't miss out on the chance.
I'm afraid I know nothing of fisting, and so cannot add that to the equation, but I always liked my friend's interpretation.
Don't worry, I was just about out of things to say in that conversation. Your friend's interpretation is interesting; is there a lot of support for it in the exegetical tradition?
If there really were a type of Christianity like this
Actually, you might want to check out the Free Spirit heresy.
My father -- a non-believer but who was raised as a Catholic -- has always been quite proud of his name (Tom) for precisely the reasons given in 59. That Thomas, the doubter, is a figure to be admired rather than disdained.
The interpretation of Saheli's friend might not be orthodox one (and I really wouldn't know whether it is or is not) but it's not a totally uncommon one either, it would seem.
A wife may even anally penetrate her partner with a strap-on dildo if he enjoys this, and if their respective roles as husband and wife are secure outside of the bedroom.
Wisdom of Our Fathers and Words to live by.
When a woman performs oral sex on her partner, she is symbolically enacting drinking the living water of Christ.
I'm going to church Sunday, but only so that I can catch the rest of you there.
i like saheli's friend's interpretation. but also feel compelled to point out that the doubting thomas business is almost definitely slander, an attempt to discredit the author of the Gospel of Thomas, which is older than most of the gospels accepted into the bible (cf. Nag Hammadi scrolls). This Thomas was the brother of Jesus (his name literally means "twin"). He was Peter's rival for passing down the teachings of JEsus. Where Peter reinterpreted a lot of stuff in the light of Jesus' apparently shameful death on the cross, bringing in the heavy emphasis in christianity on sacrifice, sin, jesus' gruesome suffering and notions of an afterlife as reward, thomas' text sticks to the actual sayings and teachings of jesus rather than focusing on his life & miracles - which was almost definitely a distortion of the historical jesus' teachings. for thomas, jesus is a prophet in the tradition of prophets, who teaches that the kingdom of god is HERE AMIDST us, not in another world, and it's better to give up possessions and attempt to realize it emotionally & spiritually now, instead of bothering about an institutional church...
just thought i'd get that off my chest.
at while i'm at it, has anyone heard radio ads directed towards evangelical christians whose faith has been shaken by the Da Vinci Code movie? my mother has and says it's been a serious threat to the faith of a lot of holy rollers. which was interesting to me because i thought stick-your-head-in-the-sand faith like that couldn't be threatened, from any angle, because it is too ideological.
clearly somebody needs to make a movie with that new Gospel of Judas that national geographic is hawking.
re: 66
That's Elaine Pagels, interpretation is it not? Rather than widely accepted fact.
well, you can't speak of "accepted fact" when it comes to bible philology -- educated deductions is more like it. that said, the sayings and parables common to the gospel of thomas, the gospels accepted into the bible, and the source most people call Q, are all almost certainly contemporaneous to the historical jesus. the interpretations you see added onto those parables were almost certainly added on at a later date, and support later evolutions of church structure and institutionalization.
i wasn't thinking of elaine pagels particularly, though i like her work. all serious bible scholars and philologists agree that enormous changes and additions and distortions were made as christianity transitioned to becoming an institution after jesus' death. just think of the famous and well-established mistranslation of the hebrew word for "maiden" as "virgin" in early texts, leading to official church dogma of a virgin birth.
how did we get off fist-fucking again?
should have been: "the interpretations added onto parables that jesus spoke, transcribed in the new testament bible text," are almost certainly later interpolations.
re: 68
The specific claims you made in 66 - vis a vis Thomas as actual rather than metaphorical twin, and the claim that the gnostic interpretation of Christ as teaching that the kingdom of God is here among us was the 'original' teaching and that the later Catholic tradition is a modification, etc. It's my understanding that that's roughly Pagels' view and the view of others who share a similar perspective rather than anything like orthodoxy.
Of course, as you say, the whole field is confused and there is no *one* orthodox interpretation. I just wanted to point out that the 'Pagelian' sort of a view is only one among many. There's some Jesuits who might disagree.
Anyway, as you say, it's a side issue.
Early Christian history is confusing but fascinating stuff even for a non-Christian like me. I do wish I knew more about it.
Now, back to fist-fucking ...
Fist-fucking is not nicely bouncy.
It's got to be a parody site, obviously.
72: Yeah, but what about the one in the link?
IIRC, there still exist old Christian groups who honor St. Thomas, in India (Kerala).
What we think of as Christianity was put together over the period of centuries, ending in certain councils around 500 AD, and then heavily revised to fit German culture around 800 AD or so, and then heavily revised again during the Reformation period.
On the other hand, who cares what the original Jesus said? The only reason he's a big deal is because his name has been used by the various other, later people. It's not like we know he was a great teacher any other way.
32: Most people are very accepting of anal fisting, but have serious reservations about vaginal fisting.
re: 70
that the historical jesus' teachings were not preoccupied with sin, sacrifice, and an afterlife, --that these things are a later modifications based on jesus' biography--is pretty well attested.
it's also pretty well attested too that jesus said the kingdom of god is amidst us -- though scholars argue whether he said it's within us or around us. paying attention to records of jesus' sayings that predate the biblical gospels don't necessarily = gnosticism. Q isn"t gnostic text - it's earlier than the biblical gospels and a lot of the gnostic texts too.
otherwise i agree: whether or not thomas is literally the twin of jesus, or his brother but not twin, or a disciple with fancy rhetoric, is much more up for debate.
is fist-fucking bouncy?
It's not like we know he was a great teacher any other way.
Where are Jesus's teaching evaluations, eh? I'd like to see those found in a clay jar in the Sinai somewhere. "Cool guy, but grades too hard." "Nice haircut." "Too much assigned reading, exam questions not clear." "Plays favorites with some disciples."
Plays favorites with some disciples.
Teh funny.
"Too much prostletyzing. I am not paying to hear his personal opinions!"
You weren't aware of this popular term for prostatic depilatation?
Goddamnit. I knew I should have looked that shit up. I hate you people.
You sound irritable, like someone who's tired of shaving her prostate. Do I have just the thing for you.
I hate it when I join conversations late with something slightly OT, and you hate it too, I'm sure, but I highly recommend God's Gym, a wonderful book on homoeroticism and God's relationship with various ancient Jewish dudes. It makes an excellent case for the possibility that King David, the "man after God's own heart," was actually getting schtupped by YHWH, and that the dance celebrating the return of the Ark was an erotic private dance (with a big fake phallus) for God's titillation, and so forth. God also sodomizes and gives VD to a huge population of unbelievers at one point.
And don't even get me started about Secret Mark and Jesus having sex with a rich gay zombie boy!
I hate it when I join conversations late with something slightly OT, and you hate it too, I'm sure
God, that White Bear, always nattering on about something.
It's true, Bitch! I'm always like, "Funny you should mention it; I have a relevant anecdote that detracts from the fun of conversation!"
Oh for god's sake. Fisting is great. You don't have to want to do it, but I don't see why it has to be dangerous if you take it slowly and don't force anything.
OT: Unfogged sighting!
I'm pretty sure I saw IDP at the Loyola stop this morning. I hate it when you get that "I know that person" feeling, but the realization of who doesn't hit you until five minutes later when it's too late to say hi.
even more OT: Is "you take things too seriously" as bad as "I think you're reading too much into it"?
90: Have you met before, or did you just feel it was IDP, in your bones?
Sadly, no, I don't have those kinds of powers. I have met him before.
Although one time, I was on the train, and recognized this guy that I had corresponded with a couple times (and seen a picture of) but had never met, and went up to him and was like "hey, I'm so-and-so."
That was awkward, especially when we both got off the train at the same stop and ended up walking the same direction to our houses which were one block apart, and so what I meant to be a "hi" ended up being like a 20-minute awkward conversation.
Now I see him everywhere.
Hey, White Bear, I'm going to join you in offering educational reading material that's only slightly on topic. (Well, it kind of responds to w-lfs-n's post.)
Anywho, if you want to read all about Christ and his wounds as feminized, read medieval theologians or mystics, or just skip to the secondary material that pulls it all together for you and read Caroline Walker Bynum's Jesus as Mother, wherein his wounds are not just vagina-like, but his blood is also breast milk.
Or, if you prefer your Christ more masculine and, potentially, homoerotic, read Leo Steinberg's The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and Modern Oblivion. (Lots of pictures where Christ has a hard-on. No fisting, I'm afraid.)
Serious question Tia. What's the attraction?
It's exactly the fact that you would have to be very slow, careful and deliberate that makes it seem a whole lot more like a gyno exam than a sex act.
More power to you. But I don't get it. Unlike, for instance, anal sex, which also doesn't much appeal to me, but at least I get it.
If the receiver is really, really aroused, it doesn't have to be that slow. The attraction? Being penetrated by something really, really big. Being totally full.
Also, there's just something about the focused attention. When a guy is fucking you with his dick, he is (of course) somewhat distracted by how good it feels to him. With fingers, hands and/or mouth, it's all about you. Extra bonus if your arousal is making him hard. It can be a nice li'l feedback loop.
Ok, guys, we've gotta clean it up—my mom's hip to the game.
Oh, Ben, I'm sure your mom knows all about fisting.
Should have come up with a better pseudonym, Ben.
Fair enough answer I guess Tia.
Though I still don't get it. Feeling "full" is one thing, but, for instance, guys like tight spaces and I've never heard of sticking your dick in a vice becoming much of a trend. Seems overkill to me.
Incidentally, if that's the level of attention you're used to receiving from a guy, you REALLY need to throw that dork who wouldn't get you a cab or throw an orgasm your way to the curb! :)
What an education thread for naive little me. :-)
I'm talking about the gnostic interpretations of course.
It's exactly the fact that you would have to be very slow, careful and deliberate that makes it seem a whole lot more like a gyno exam than a sex act.
Anal sex is also "very slow, careful, and deliberate," at least in the early stages. Both anal sex and, I suspect, fisting (haven't done the latter) can have a sexily ritualistic quality, precisely because there's no such thing as an anal/fisting "quickie." As Bitch Ph.D. says, the fuckee has to be the focus of the fucker's attention. (Hegel's master/slave bit comes to mind of course.)
I'm not seeing it (the lord/bondsman thing). Expound?
106: Just in the loose sense, common to S/M, that the bottom appears to be dominated/"losing" but in significant respects is in control/"winning."
Not suggesting a close reading of Lordship & Bondage as S/M treatise, tho when I was reading "Story of O" the same semester as the PhG, the idea of a porn version of the PhG *did* seem like a good one. "Story of G"?
Ick. I resist the idea that it has anything to do with S/M. Not all sexual acts that involve attention and care are about dominance or submission.
I was curious because an important characteristic of the lord in that section seems to be that he lacks self-consciousness, while the fister must be careful and, in that respect, fully aware of the implications of his actions.
I resist the idea that it has anything to do with S/M.
Not necessarily, of course, but YMMV. I would only point out that some of the S/M dynamic permeates a lot of plain vanilla sex, but I'd hope to dodge the less than fruitful on/off-our-backs debates ....
Similarly, as for care/consciousness, *playing* at a lack of same can be part of the dynamic. Just as the (bottom's? but that invokes Bitch Ph.D.'s objection, & "receptive partner" is so legalistic ...)fuckee's "control" is in fact mutually consented to. In Hegel, people really are being enslaved, which is just another reason the PhG does not actually work so well as a sex manual.
. . . the bottom appears to be dominated/"losing" but in significant respects is in control/"winning."
Wait a second. You mean Michael's been winning? All this time??? That sneaky little bastard!!!
Eh, I'm not convinced by the whole "some of the S/M dynamic permeates a lot of plain vanilla sex" claim. I mean, sure: sex involves exchange, aggression, reception, passivity, activity, etc. etc., in various combinations and at various times. But I think the connections can be overstated.
But I think the connections can be overstated.
Well, we tend to overstate the connections that work for us, & avoid dating people who overstate the one's we'd rather understate .... Obviously the S/M resonances work for me--I'm a lawyer ....
LOL. Fair enough. And kudos for a good-humored response. :)
I would only point out that some of the S/M dynamic permeates a lot of plain vanilla sex
This gets it exactly right.
What constitutes "plain vanilla" is a bit subjective. I resist your efforts to paint the rest of us with your brush of freakiness.
I resist your efforts to paint the rest of us with your brush of freakiness.
Oh, come on, you know you WANT the brush of freakiness to be dragged lingeringly across your bare torso ...
No, gswift wants the barbed brush of freakishness, and he doesn't want it slow. Speaking of tingling, burning sensations (maybe this should go in the VD thread?), my idiot roommate nearly killed us all. He left something in the oven and left the oven on. Apparently we do not have a smoke detector. I just tried knocking vigorously on his door to tell him about this, but he's not answering even though I'm pretty sure he's in there. Maybe he's asleep. Oh well. I flooded the apartment a week ago. But I cleaned it up before anyone got home.
Yeah -- it was actually a little weird to read Bitch Ph. D.'s 108 -- it seems to me like I have read her arguing before that a key property of subtext is that you do not have to be conscious of it for it to affect you -- and it seems to me like S/M (to which I hasten to clarify, I am entirely a stranger) is at least in part a vocalization* of a subtext that is present in sex.
*Right word? I am trying to say "this subtext is there but unspoken; in practicing S/M somebody is giving it a name, bringing it out into the open and playing with it".
108 does open with 'sure'. I don't think she's denying that you can look at it that way; just asserting that the importance of S&M as a tool for understanding all sex can be overstated.
No, not "sure," "ick."
Of course the argument MK puts forward in 121 is there to be made. I think I'm still reacting to the Great Blow Job debate, which in part hinged on the question of whether bjs are inherently submissive/degrading.
Hey did I mention my friend's client, who is trying to use his inherited wealth to open a BDSM B & B in the city?
123 -- yeah, I'm pretty agnostic about the merits of the argument. Just that it seemed like 108 was denying that it could possibly exist or have any merit in a way that seemed uncharacteristic coming from you.
I read that thread. In fact, I felt a kind of evil satisfaction that a vanilla ox was being gored. I certainly don't think bj's are inherently submissive anyway; on the contrary, they often make you feel powerful. But that goes back to the idea that power, aggression, exchange, &c. are present in vanilla sex.
But I oscillate constantly between insisting that there is no fixed meaning and dogmatically asserting the Way Things Are! Maybe it's been too long since my last absolutist declaration. I'll have to come up with something.
By the end of the thread I was just pissed off at everyone for confusing 'I feel powerful' with 'I am empowered.'
Leaving the Sex Police aside, I'm pretty sure in a world where men and women were equal, people would continue to go down on each other.
Umm...where is the Great Blow Job Debate?
The great blow job debate was boring, Tim. Be glad you missed it.
I dunno. Where are all the women bloggers?
No, seriously, where is it? Just so I feel fully informed on the subject. Should it come up. And maybe most importantly, is "great" modifying "debate" or "blow job"?
Here's the reference. It was going on at Twisty's, Pandagon, and Feministe over the weekend.
Toilet seat: up or down?
136 - B, that's more tired than the BJ debate. Don't tell me that next we're going to go into "if all sexual relationships have D/S dynamics, is marriage institutionalizing blah blah blah." If we're going to talk blowjobs or BDSM, make it good.
Fine, Tia, but what I'd like to know is, where are all the women bloggers?
I can't hear you, I have a banana in my ear.
There aren't any women bloggers because they're too busy making submissive eye contact while giving blowjobs that to the uneducated eye look like sexual assault and fantasies from porn, but to the educated eye are what's really going on in every bedroom.*
*Unless it's BDSM. Because then it's an ironicblowjob.
I can't hear you, I have a banana in my ear.
Mmm...hott. Do you feel degraded or empowered?
Do oo huuh huh houwou oud?
Louder, sonny. Banana.
"I'm pretty sure in a world where men and women were equal, people would continue to go down on each other."
Absolutely. I'm almost as sure that there would continue to be S/M. I think, at least much of the time, the origins of masochism are damaged trust in one's childhood, and difficulty trusting in adulthood. It's erotic to be forced into a position of near-absolute trust in someone, even if it's only pretend near-absolute. About sadism, I'm much less sure. For one, it's less common (tops are hard to find) and for another I'm sure many tops aren't actually sadistic, but take vicarious pleasure through their bottoms.
And things like that don't go away when everyone is equal. They go away when parents stop fucking up their children.
Ben has a watermelon in his ear because he likes to feel totally full.
Huh. I didn't get to pet the kitty, but my comment still didn't register in the sidebar. Usually when that happens it's when I've pet the kitty.
150: I've also noticed that happening lately.
Ben has a watermelon in his ear because he likes to feel totally full.
If men can't be feminists, then isn't feminism itself sexist?
Also, is that "watermelon" thing some kind of racist crack? Hmm?
OK, I've only just found one of the Great Blow Job debate entries, so maybe it sucks, and I'll realize that shortly, but so far it looks like sister-shaming is worth the price of admission.
pdf23ds, I'm inclined to agree with you about the impulses leading to bdsm, but I'm not sure there would be bdsm if there were no patriarchy, because I think patriarchy may be what makes sex the kind of crazy fantasy heal our booboos space it is. But I'm not wedded to any opinion.
Words I don't identify with w/r/t sex: "masochist," "irony," "game."
Becks, you have betrayed the sisterhood for the amusement of the Patriarchal Oppressors. Your membership is being revoked.
Oh fuck, that was me. Time for a self-criticism!
Also, the first google result for "Twisty's" is neither the appropriate blog, nor SFW.
when parents stop fucking up their children
Yeah, well: this be the verse, bain't it?
Wait, I think I'm on to something.
If relativism is true…
Then the Unhappy Consciousness is due to emerge?
156: You may be right about that. On the other hand, S/M play doesn't necessarily have anything to do with sex. I imagine the humiliation and slut-shaming aspects would disappear from S/M play (and I imagine many feminists wouldn't be into those aspects currently), but there's plenty to BDSM besides that.
Also, I don't use the word "masochist", since "bottom" is there and much better. But I don't believe "bottomism" makes a great neologism.
159: I had that in mind while writing my comment. I hesitated to write "fuck the children", though.
Relativism didn't really stand a chance, did it?
Let's do materialism next.
Actually, rereading that, it does say "fuck up". Huh. I wonder why I misremembered.
159: but that's not what "fuck up" means there, as I thought I'd ably demonstrated elsewhere.
I wonder why I misremembered.
I'm going to resist the cheap shots.
Forgive me for my stubbornness, but what is so submissive about the mid-blowjob eye contact? I can understand the argument that the blowjob itself is submissive/degrading (although I do not agree), but why does the submission reside/get intensified by the eye contact?
ably demonstrated
I loved that post, Ben, but "ably" isn't the word I'd use.
171: Dude, don't ask me. I suppose if the argument is that bjs are degrading, then being sure you can watch someone watching you degrade yourself is doubly degrading.
I'll let slol's use of praeteriteo pass without comment.
171: I was wondering that myself. Here I am, someone who actively seeks out submissive feelings, and I've never experienced eye contact that way. It's always more like "Hey there, baby." A way to increase intimacy and connection.
I won't explain that I feel entitled to praeteritio, as a safer indulgence than drinking oneself blind, once in a blue moon.
171, 175: Honestly, it never occurred to me, but the impressions I got from the Twisty/Pandagon threads was that the eye contact request originated in porn cinematography, so a guy requesting it is like him requesting you to be his porn star (submissive, attendant to his needs, etc.)
175: Yeah, it's just like a communication substitute. You can't exactly say anything, because, well, you're busy.
That's an odd use of the subjunctive, teofilo. Or maybe you're a pirate?
Also, there's praeteritio, and then there's laziness.
174: Wow, that is one obscure term. Thankfully, the rosy-toed Alameida comes to the rescue. And only one other page? Wow.
Also, wouldn't an avoidance of eye contact somehow signal shame?
slut-shaming aspects would disappear from S/M play (and I imagine many feminists wouldn't be into those aspects currently)
I don't know that that's true. One's conscious beliefs and one's subconscious desires often aren't aligned all that well, right? (See, TMK? Back to normal!)
Or did SB misspell it? I'm so confused.
Although I agree that the slut-shaming thing would go away if the concept of sex being shameful did.
I remember suddenly that someone's kitty was struck and killed by a car today, and I am so sad for that kitty, and for that someone who had to find out.
that is one obscure term
I o-earnestly, fervently believe that if all voting Americans understood praeteritio, litotes, and a few other rhetorical devices, all our political problems would vanish.
To be replaced by other, far more sophisticated ones, of course.
Anyway, 175 accords with my experience.
186: You don't know if my parenthetical remark is true, or whether the first part is true? Because of course the second part isn't always true--many people come to feminism after being brought up in grossly misogynistic environments, well after their psychosexual development is more or less finished. But I stand by the first part.
Slut-shaming! I was pretty excited about reading that book, The Myth of the Teenage Slut or whatever it was called, but then it sucked. Absolutely horrible writing and organization.
Someone wrote that I was a slut in the girls' bathroom in 7th grade. Good times.
Someone wrote that I was a slut in the girls' bathroom in 7th grade.
Jeebus. Isn't that a sort of serious charge in Egypt?
192: The second. The first I agree with.
189: Sad!
190: Okay, now I feel ignorant and unqualified for suffrage.
190: Okay, now I feel ignorant and unqualified for suffrage.
I wouldn't worry too much about not knowing what litotes is, though it's true it's played a not unimportant role in rhetoric historically.
197: By which I mean that I'm glad that there were (I assume) lesser consequences to such a charge. Not that the charge was made.
I'll just go shoot myself now, shall I?
OK, I've become a little bored by the GBJD. I haven't read anywhere near all of the comments, but it seemed mostly like people were neither overly earnest or o-earnest. Pretty fun, and a few laugh-out-loud funny moments along the way. It reminded me a bit of here.
So, Tim, what you're saying was that it started out really fun, then you got kind of tired, and then a little bored, and then wished it would just finish up already?
That site is awesome.
The mormons need their rhetoric to convince people of crazy shit. Go figure.
205: Yeah, roughly. And despite the boredom, I'll still be going back for more, later.
205 is brilliant. I only wish I'd thought of it at the time.
Holy shit. I just killed a 3 inch grasshopper in my bathroom.
202: Cataphasis is, and it appears to be a close synonym.
Wouldn't help someone who didn't know what it meant, though.
209: And that's not a euphemism.
127–n-1 (where this comment is n) are an interesing snap shot of male-female dynamics on Unfogged.
A couple of months ago I was talking to somone in a conversation that ended with him saying to me, "who the fuck are you talking to that you frequently need to look up the names for rhetorical forms?" And my answering, "my invisible blog friends."
132: I wish I had listened to your advice. I'd like those brain cells and that part of my night back.
Serves you right for being lured by the words "blow job" instead of listening to Becks.
Actually, B, what lured me was the word Twisty, because every thread I've ever read there had a yet-more-unbelievable explosion of stupid from Pony. And this one was no different. She might be my favorite commenter in all of the world.
216: That is such crap, Apostropher. Pony isn't a particularly noteworthy commenter on the Twisty's thread. (At least through the point which I've read.) She doesn't have any particularly great lines. And Puffin's the one who appears to have ruined everything, not Pony.
Tim, she goes from "I've never given nor received oral sex" to "I was a prostitute, so I'm one of the few who actually knows what blowjobs REALLY are about." And it only takes a few dozen comments to travel that entire distance. Now that's some kind of special.
Past jewels include "Porn is to women what Auschwitz was to Jews." And my personal favorite, after she was plainly shown to have never read a book she had just recommended:
I'm recommending it because it's going to inform us on this subject. Did you think recommended means "I've read this and believe it and agree with it"? That veers into religion.
The quotes in the first paragraph there aren't actual quotes, but paraphrases.
That doesn't square with what I've read, but really? You've probably read more than me. If so, that makes it even funnier.
Oh, she hasn't claimed to be one. But I'm finding the oscillation between 'old woman who lived before blow jobs' and 'former sultry prostitute' and 'omg I hate porn' to be someone's parody of what he thinks a feminist poster should be saying.
Pony's a troll, no? You see the name, and you keep on moving. No one seems to be actually responding to her (FWIW, I also assume s/he is really a guy). Puffin is, to the point I've read, clearly Womyn of the Match.
I remain disappointed that no one seems to have used the phrase "shame spiral." That seems like a gimmee.
If Pony is a troll, why doesn't Twisty ban him/her? Are not her comments aggressively moderated?
Also, people there did respond to Pony, made reference to Pony's blog, inquired about Pony's welfare. P may be an agent provocateur, but I don't think the other people there know it if so.
Huh. I thought it was only one or two people who kept responding to Pony, and most of her comments were one line sentences. But I don't know anything at all about that blog beyond that thread.
Sounds like another future denizen of the... Troll Blog (cue scary music)!
I know a million other people have said stuff like this, but I feel like saying it anyway: the thing that's so impoverished about twisty-esque ideologies is that they don't offer a way to live in the world. They're so convinced that we [the set of women who enjoy things they believe constitute obeisance to patriarchy] don't understand how much politics and ideology structure our actions and choices. But in fact, a lot of us do understand that, but further understand that politics and ideology are not the only things that give us desires and beliefs; we have lives as individuals; we have relationships with individuals. We can look at certain things we want and recognize their troubling origin but still find a way to make them our own. We all have our own interpretive faculties. If I spend an hour curling my hair on a Saturday night, I know tricksy patriarchy is rubbing its hands together in glee that I'm expending so much effort. So that means I should rob myself of the pleasure of self adornment? Shear my hair? Because it's not like patriarchy ever demanded that women looked plain. It seems to me that defending my freedom, paying attention both to what I want and how what I want was constructed, and being compassionate to others is the best way to be a person in the world, instead of an ideological construct on paper. Also, writing a post that was explicitly intended to pit people against each other unconstructively? Kind of patriarchal.
What strikes me about reading many of Twisty's commenters is the following: My experience is X, therefore the universal experience is X, and any non-X experience is invalid.
Or, I've read about X in a book and it was bad, therefore the universal experience is X and bad, and therefore, if you say X isn't bad, you obviously are a poor deluded soul who hasn't thought it through.
To piggyback on 229: It's probably also worthwhile to note that if one did try to live by explicitly rejecting the 'patriarchy' (god, I hate that term) at every possible instance, it would have just as much control over your life as if you were marching in lockstep with the fashion mags.
I mostly agree with 299, but I love Twisty because she fuckin' takes it to the next level, you know?
Also, one thing I don't like about the hard-line ideologies is that you simply can not maintain them without a twinge of sister-shaming. Because sometimes one makes choices that constitute, as Tia said, obeisance to the patriarchy, and either a) one knowingly made that choice, in which case, sister-shaming, or b) one didn't knowingly make the choice, in which case, seriously insult to one's intelligence.
Patriarchy is all about making women slaves to the approval of others, in this case, this dubious expectations of men. The hard-line on marriage, hetero sex, blowjobs, poses the danger of women again making choices for the approval of an entirely different set.
The other night, I had a strange dream that I was in a lovely relationship, and that the dude in question proposed to me (wtf?!). I remember that my first thought in the dream was "how will I ever tell my friends?"
I have to say that I'm sort of fond of the hardline ideological patriarchy blamers, because they expand the universe of discourse.When you've got unreasonable people on one side of an issue, you need them out on the other side to balance, or you end up with:
Person A: I get all the cake.
Person B: No, let's split it equally.
Honest Broker: If you can't agree, we'll have to compromise. A gets 3/4, B gets 1/4.
Reasonable as B is, the end result would be a lot more reasonable if B were a little less so. (Not that this applies literally to the BJ debate, which I got bored with fairly quickly.)
because they expand the universe of discourse.
I guess that's true, but I think they might also restrict the number of people, and in particular, women, who take that discourse seriously. I sometimes come across anecdotes that suggest such restriction. I don't know how much of that is "Modern Love" stories, though.
On what thread is this comment #299 that you guys are all agreeing with? I'd like to partake in the comity myself.
It's a sunny day today.
Posted by: Tia | Link to this comment | 06-20-06 09:00 AM
________________________________________________
299
The Modesto Kid wants the barbed brush of freakiness on his chest. And he loves a watermelon in his ear.
When you've got unreasonable people on one side of an issue, you need them out on the other side to balance
Absolutely. My negotiation skills are not as refined as to put it so eloquently as your example, but I've thought that same thing about, say, Dworkin. You need people all the way on the other side from where the status quo is to pull you to reasonable. Reasonable people won't pull you to reasonable, they'll pull you halfway between batshit crazy and reasonable.
On the other hand, this same justification for the hardliners seems to imply that there's some merit to playing devil's advocate for its own sake, which I think is fuckin' bullshit and people who love to play devil's advocate without acknowledging that they are doing so and then later when you try to attack their premises say "oh, I'm only playing devil's advocate" annoy the fucking piss out of me.
234 -- So rather than blow jobs all the time or never, we can get them in moderation? Sounds good.
Oh there it is! Yeah I can dig 299 too.
Patriarchy is all about making women slaves to the approval of others, in this case, this dubious expectations of men.
Except it doesn't, really. The discussions tend to go two ways:
1) Patriarchy is slavery, therefore we must resist it by doing the exact opposite.
As Tia and silvana noted, this leads to sister-shaming and just as narrow a range of options as the patriarchy devotee.
So, we conclude it's not prescriptive, but
2) Patriarchy is slavery, therefore we must resist it by thinking about it really really hard before we put on our corsets.
And that doesn't seem to be much better. If it's really slavery, then promising to think about it really hard and acknowledge the underlying conditions isn't really an improvement. ("I've decided I like these chains. No, really!") Witness: Hirshman's opting-out moms, who are probably claiming they've thought really hard about dropping out -- but it's still not a choice that promotes equality.
2) doesn't seem to stand up to intellectual scrutiny.
1) does - which is why Twisty's argument was a lot of fun - but then you've got an even narrower range of acceptable choices and we get into nasty sister-shaming.
So, while I'm not going to deny that culture shapes expectations of gender roles, because I'm not retarded, I'm wondering if the concept 'patriarchy' should be relegated to the scrap heap with 'choice feminism.'
they expand the universe of discourse
Because god knows the universe of discourse needs more predictably dreary vitriol.
and people who love to play devil's advocate without acknowledging that they are doing so and then later when you try to attack their premises say "oh, I'm only playing devil's advocate" annoy the fucking piss out of me.
You betcha.
I seriously lost a friend over the devil's advocate thing. I was like, either have a fucking opinion and own it and take responsibility for it, or shut the fuck up and stop telling me that "it's fun to make people think." It's unbelievably condescending.
Not that I'm bitter or anything.
1) does [stand up to intellectual scrutiny]
Eh, I'm not convinced. It strikes me as analogous to "We must do the opposite of whatever Osama bin Laden wants, regardless of what that is." Osama is opposed to cancer, everybody smoke up!
Another good example of the shaky legs of 1) was the roller derby thread, which basically boiled down to "you can't dress however you like because men might look at you."
I think a "devil's advocate" can be a good thing, as long as the advocator doesn't just drop the argument whenever he or she gets bored with it, but follows it through the whole way to admitting defeat.
But I would generally only use a devil's advocate tactic in argument with someone whose conclusions I agree with but whose reasons I think are weak. A devil's advocate argument can show why they need to adopt better reasons.
236: That was the joke I was making in 233.
246: Yeah, but I think it's disingenous to pretend that you believe something you don't just to rattle someone else. I prefer full disclosure: "In principle agree with you, but [group of people who disagrees with us] would say that [counterargument]. What would you say to that?"
And I found that people tend to pull the whole "I'm playing devil's advocate thing" when they see that you've bested them, or you're at least starting to. This would happen to me in college all the time with men who were used to intellectually intimidating 18-year-olds into agreement and/or silence.
Another reason you might play the devil's advocate is if you think someone hold some position to unreflectively or vehemently--that they're not justified in being so sure of their position.
I agree, though, that being contrary solely for the sake of being contrary can be a big pain in the ass.
245: To the extent that, say, if I really believe high heels are slavery, really believe it, and then I reject them, I'm being consistent. A view can be crazy while being intellectually defensible. This is why we have philosophers.
And I think devil's advocate is fine as long as the person playing devil's advocate steps up to the plate and digs in when challenged (and admits defeat when defeated) rather than going 'ooh, don't hate me, it was only devil's advocate.' Because arguing isn't about making people like you or cheerleading for your side.
Ack. "... holds some position too ..."
I think Twisty acknowledges that constant resistance is another form of response to the p word. She thinks you can't step outside it. I just think she's wrong that the only way to interpret everything you do is political. If a woman's giving a man a blow job, it's true that one of them is a member of dominant class A, the other a member of subserviant class B, but they are also two individuals who have a relationship not outside of that, but in addition to it. That's the thing she'll never credit. And it's reductive and deeply confused about how people live their lives. Symbols and acts can mean more than one thing.
Yeah, but I think it's disingenous to pretend that you believe something you don't just to rattle someone else. I prefer full disclosure: "In principle agree with you, but [group of people who disagrees with us] would say that [counterargument]. What would you say to that?"
I think that people tend not to believe one thing about a subject. Rather, they might know of two opposing views, and find one or the other conditionally more convincing. So sometimes devil's advocate is a way to test that the view you hold is still the one that convinces you. Partly, this reflects my suspicion that at least half of the time, people aren't arguing to convince the other person, but for some other purpose, especially where the various attacks and counter-attacks are well-rehearsed and well-known.
I'm not really familiar with Twisty's ouevre but the snarky tone in http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/2006/06/16/patriarchy-defeated-by-fellatio-we-can-all-go-home-now/ is a bit annoying.
250 -- but believing that high heels are slavery, and rejecting them, is different from believing that the patriarchy is slavery and rejecting all of its facets. Because "the patriarchy" is broad, and two people can easily enough disagree about whether some specific item falls under the rubric -- Person 1: "Blow Jobs are an avatar of the patriarchy, and we hates them!" Person 2: "No way dude, blow jobs are fun and liberatiing!"
From now on, I'm setting some limits to my cramming, like a videocassette or two once a month and maybe a raccoon on my birthday.
I swear I've never written for nor been interviewed by The Onion.
the snarky tone...is a bit annoying.
Why all of the friggin' fuss about tone? Seriously.
Don't you take that tone of voice with Matt, young lady!
258:
What? The tone is annoying. That's it. I prefer not to read things that annoy me.
There are a fair number of blogs that annoy me for the same reason. Quite a few of which I'd otherwise find congenial -- what with largely agreeing with what they have to say, etc.
Wasn't supposed to be some huge value-judgement on what she has to say, or on her blog, which as I say, I don't read.
258: Are you talking about McGrattan's comment, or such complaints (as with Hirshman) more generally?
Why all of the friggin' fuss about tone?
It must be congenial.
260, 261: Yeah, I was referring also to the Hirshman discussion.
I personally think there are not nearly enough snarky women in the world, and Twisty's snark is excellent and skillful, regardless of what one thinks about her position on patriarchy.
I will allow that all-snark-all-the-time is tiresome, but I, for one, could learn a thing or two about it, and I enjoy reading Twisty for exactly that purpose.
I like well-crafted snark as much as the next person. That particularly snark was kind of irritating to me as it was a 'people who disagree with me are idiots' snark without much of teh funny. Funny 'people who disagree with me are idiots' snarks, on the other hand, rock.
without much of teh funny
Fair enough. But I though "bible-thumping zipper cunt" was awesome.
As well as "No woman was ever so free as the woman with a mouth full of throbbing gristle."
Twisty's first post was delicious and perfect. Best of all was the footnote. A lot of the people on that thread seemed to feel the same way, and liked the post. But some people don't like snark for a similar reason that some people don't like others playing devil's advocate--it doesn't take seriously the counter-position. (This is not your problem, as I take it, with people playing devil's advocate.) Hirshman is talking about a serious subject, and is enjoining specific behavior. It seems like she should treat seriously the counter-argument.
"No woman was ever so free as the woman with a mouth full of throbbing gristle."
Well if that's what women's liberation is all about, I'm willing to dedicate my gristle to the cause.
I don't mind people playing devils' advocate as such.
Sophomoric contrary-for-the-sake-of-it or cowardly back-tracking devils-advocacy -- where someone pretends they were only advocating something as a devils-advocate *after* they've been comprehensively pwned -- as alluded to by silvana in 248 are really annoying.
But more generally, attacking people's ideas/arguments even when you agree with them because you see a problem with their argument, or with the language or terminology used, seems like a good rather than a bad thing. That kind of argument is carried out with sincerity though. It's not about being a poseur but rather taking the argument and its conclusions seriously and wanting to ensure the best possible end product.
256: But if 'patriarchy' covers things both good and bad (in fact, it's like Santa Claus, it's everywhere), some of which we should reject and some of which are acceptable, it makes it sort of useless as a concept, doesn't it?
I liked Twisty's first post because it was straightforward snark: No one likes blowjobs, because face it, they're gross. The second post wasn't as strong, especially since it seemed to confuse "I like blowjobs because I feel smugly powerful' with 'A blowjob is empowering'... no one made the second claim, just the first, but all of her snark was aimed at the second claim.
makes it sort of useless as a concept, doesn't it?
Huh? There are lots of useful concepts that encompass both good and bad things. Ever heard of the Yin and the Yang?
You know what? I now really, seriously regret having sent you all over to Twisty's place.
Her snark is funny, and it's intended to be funny, in a bleak, black humor kind of way. If you don't like it, fine. It's not for you.
The point of radical feminist examination of things isn't to say "well then, do the exact opposite!" Radical feminists are not five-year olds, thankyouverymuch. The point is to push people past pretending, or believing, that it's an even playing field--that "symbols can mean all sorts of things" or that "you can't dress however you like because men might look at you." Does anyone *seriously* believe that, absent sexism, women would "like" to wear short shorts and tight t-shirts and men just wouldn't, for some reason? C'mon.
As to "what good is it just to say this stuff on paper"--well, I thought we all agreed that thinking is a good thing to do.
273: Are you kidding? Some of us liked the snark. That post, and some of the comments, are awesome. And some of the follow-on posts are pretty fun, too.
273: My comments weren't aimed at Twisty, but at her commenters.
Does anyone *seriously* believe that, absent sexism, women would "like" to wear short shorts and tight t-shirts and men just wouldn't, for some reason?
I believe some men and women would and some men and women wouldn't.
except that symbols an acts can mean all sorts of things. they can't exclude any meaning that naturally adheres to them, but they can take on others, and often the others aren't secondary to, and perhaps preceded, the patriarchal meaning. I don't know who you think you're addressing.
As to "what good is it just to say this stuff on paper"--well, I thought we all agreed that thinking is a good thing to do.
Oh come on. No one's said not to think, or that thinking is bad, or that feminism is just an academic enterprise.
I'm suggesting that as a tool for provoking thought, the concept 'patriarchy' isn't particularly useful because it encompasses too much. If someone says 'X is part of the patriarchy' I don't know whether I'm supposed to respond with measured indifference (hairstyles), arguments on how I know it's part of the patriarchy, but it's okay (high heels, blowjobs, colorful clothing) or outrage (telling girls not to do math.) You might as well say "X is on planet earth" for all it helps in framing decisions.
And my remarks are aimed at Twisty. I don't think that post was awesome at all. I think it, well, sucked. I don't particularly like being told that I've never enjoyed a sex act I perform, even if it's chain yanking for some obscure purpose, and her followup post was laughably dishonest for all it related to what she said in the original post.
I think 273 and 277 are not incompatible.
276, 277: But what Twisty is doing is pointing out the manner in which conventional behavior supports the patriarchy, and that analysis is useful. Blowjobs aren't necessarily a tool of the patriarchy. But if your sex life involves performing acts which you personally find boring and unpleasant, it is worthwhile thinking about it - huh, does patriarchy have something to do with this?
Same with high heels, etc. Making yourself attractive is a natural, human thing to want to do. But if you're uncomfortable, or burdened, or annoyed, by the way you feel you have to dress, then it's worth thinking about how the patriarchy plays into it, and how that affects what you really want to do.
silvana, where is that link supposed to be going?
Well, I took her at her word that she was being deliberately provocative in order to watch the fur fly in the comments. That, I can understand and agree that it can result in teh funny. I don't get the feeling, however, that most of her commenters were in on the joke, assuming it was a joke and not just condescension dressed up as such. But really, casting judgements on people's private sexual behavior is just so completely Taliban-Falwellian that I find it hard to swallow. As it were.
Shorter LB: Jeez Tia, don't take it so personal!
if your sex life involves performing acts which you personally find boring and unpleasant
See comment 230.
281: to comment 198 of this thread.
Well, as someone who defended blowjobs on that thread, I also have to admit, that in all honesty, I've often found them boring and/or unpleasant. And it's worth asking, why do them, then? And it's also worth asking, where does this cultural expectation that women *should* give bjs come from, and what does it mean? And if we *do* enjoy it, does that necessarily mean that we're doing so free of political/cultural baggage? And if we're not, is that really something we have to be offended about? And if so, is our offense properly directed at the messenger?
280: All that's true, LB. But that isn't actually what she said. Anyone who's reading her with enough familiarity to understand the context of her remarks also has thought about the fact that doing something they find onerous for a man might be in service of the patriarchy. It says right in her about page that IBTP is not a feminist primer. So why condescend so to her readers? They don't need to be told something so obvious.
She has zero harsh words for slut shaming comments like "Is there a woman with a soul so dead..." but a ton for people who suggest that maybe it's not actually impossible to enjoy a blowjob, all while she totally misrepresents the content of those objections in a followup post.
But really, casting judgements on people's private sexual behavior is just so completely Taliban-Falwellian that I find it hard to swallow.
But apo, I thought you told me you wanted feedback on your fellatio skills.
284: I don't think that's what LB meant. I think that it's a worthwhile endeavor to push people to question, for particular actions, "do I really enjoy this?" Tia says that women spend a lot of time thinking about the patriarchical implications of their actions, but I don't think that is true of Every. Single. Choice that we make. Particularly the small ones, like high heels or blowjobs or whatever. Particularly when we're young.
If the answer to "do I really enjoy this?" is "yes," then fine. But what if it's not? Isn't the rhetoric valuable for the sole reason of leading some people to question and/or examine their preference, regardless of the ultimate result of that examination?
287: all of that is worth saying. it's not what she said.
this cultural expectation that women *should* give bjs come from
We live in very different worlds.
I give you three and a half stars, by the way.
Blowjobs aren't necessarily a tool of the patriarchy. But if your sex life involves performing acts which you personally find boring and unpleasant, it is worthwhile thinking about it - huh, does patriarchy have something to do with this?
See, what you're saying is a good argument. But it bears little resemblance to that thread. This is where the total lack-of-arguing-in-good-faith part is important. The conversation was pretty much:
A: All blowjobs are nasty.
groups of Bs: No, indeed they are not. Here are some reasons why I enjoy blowjobs.
C: Well, I found them nasty, and since you don't, you must be deluded by the patriarchy, because who would enjoy being forced to kneel in the back of the bus in order to gain status in the patriarchy?
Bs: Um, my blowjobs aren't like that....
A: All of you women who said you were being empowered by blow jobs, are you out of your fucking minds? Patriarchy is EVERYWHERE. He is getting YOU to suck HIS COCK, and he's got YOU thinking it empowers you.
Pony: Back in my day, women didn't talk about sex. Or have oral sex.
Bs: Only two of us mentioned the word 'power', and we weren't saying it 'empowered' us.
C: And what about kneeling, so your knees bruise, with him grabbing your hair and forcing you to deep throat even though your mouth is tired and hitting you if you don't do it properly..
A: WTF?
Lindsay Beyerstein: Here I cast my pearls before swine, but I'm making a good point here if you care to read it.
Pony: I used to be a whore!
According to the thread it seems I'm supposed to say. Blowjobs are nasty. If I think otherwise, it's because I've been brainwashed by the patriarchy. There's just not any room in here for me, say, not agreeing with the original premise.
I find it hard to swallow
Sigh, apo, you've got to practice, ok? How many times do I have to tell you?
I feel bad that ppl are taking offense at *my* taking offense. I'm sorry to be offensive. Please understand, I feel kind of responsible for exposing someone whose thinking and feminism I have enormous respect for to what seems to me some problematic dismissals of the seriousness of her argument and the way she makes it, and I'm kind of bothered about that.
So, that said, I think I'm gonna stay out of this one.
It's certainly not lack of familiarity with the argument that leads me to reject (not dismiss) it. If you take her so seriously, B, you ought to want to expose her to people, and she ought to be able to withstand some scrutiny.
Speaking only for myself, I'm not offended by any of it and especially not by you, B. I just marvel that the starting premise (perhaps jokingly) was "no woman [...] has ever actually enjoyed this submissive sexbot drudgery," and that a raft of commenters went on to defend that very statement, in very non-ironic language.
Similarly, I don't understand how anybody finds putting mushrooms into their mouth anything but a nasty, disgusting experience, but I realize that's not the universal mushroom experience.
George W. Bush is the bestest president ever!
Having had a look again at what Twisty wrote, 293 gets it largely right.
LB, silvana and BPhD have all made good points in favour of a version of what she says but, as Tia and Cala point out, they look more like 'what Twisty might have said in some ideal world' rather than what was *actually* said.
301: Wow, it's like the Hirshman discussion all over again.
Similarly, I don't understand how anybody finds putting mushrooms into their mouth anything but a nasty, disgusting experience, but I realize that's not the universal mushroom experience.
Have you tried this one, apo? I would think it would remind you of an experience that you at least told me you enjoyed.
re: 303
What the flying fuck is that supposed to mean?
297: The point being, mushrooms aren't loaded with a ton of social and cultural symbolism the way blow jobs are. Silly analogy.
301: Twisty is expecting a certain baseline set of premises from her audience. (I run into the same problem sometimes on my blog.) I think in all honesty that what I'm doing--and Silvana and LB, too--is unpacking her rhetoric a bit to expose the underlying premises. I think what I'm explaining *is* what she's saying, just phrased with less snark and less expectation that the audience will understand my code. So it bugs me to have people say, in effect, "well, what you're saying (politely and carefully) is okay, but what she's saying (essentially the same thing, but less politely and carefully) isn't."
Anyway, I've dived back in b/c ppl aren't mad at me after all. And b/c you all knew I was going to anyway. Didn't take long, did it?
304: You may have misheard me, M/tch. Sometimes it's difficult to make out what I'm saying when my mouth is almost full.
306: Exactly what it says? That wasn't meant to be hostile. In the Hirshman discussion, LB, B. and I were all arguing things that other people (namely Tia and Cala, and others) thought were idealized interpretations of what Hirshman actually said.
That's all.
Tia, you only think that because the groceryarchy has a vested interest in your delusion that you enjoy fungus. NASTY fungus. fungus that grows in SHIT. They've got you thinking that things that come out of SHIT are GOOD to eat.
And here you stand claiming it's your own preference. False consciousness, I say!
306: It means that you're a sexist oppressor, Matt, and we all hate you.
Silly analogy.
Not as silly as it may seem. I'd offer that the personal symbolisms of blowjobs are immensely more important to any given blowjob than all the social and cultural symbolism in the world. That thread is full of people stamping their feet and insisting that blowjobs are X, goddammit, when blowjobs are many different things to many different people, and many different things to an individual person.
But then, that's not much different than your own comments there.
I'd offer that the personal symbolism of blowjobs are immensely more important to any given blowjob than all the social and cultural symbolism in the world.
Ah, but the thing is, is it really that easy to abstract one's personal attitudes, especially about something that's so obviously culturally constructed as sex practices and norms, from the broader culture? Isn't it a bit naive, kind of like saying, "well, I chose to stay home, so my doing so has nothing to do with my being oppressed as a woman"?
306: Um, to be concilliatory, and all that, but I was thinking the same thing, sorta kinda. Hirshman and Twisty are both getting a strong reaction because they're saying shit harshly, and without fully considering and valuing the experiences of people who feel differently, and without worrying about injuring the feelings of those with different perspectives, etc. And, you know, fine.
I think both of them make points worth thinking about -- while Twisty is rude about it, a possible takeaway from her posts is something pretty close to my 280, or Silvana's 289, or B.'s 286, and it's one worth making -- it may seem condescending, but a lot of people aren't there yet. And if you don't like the way she makes the point, no one's twisting your arm to make you read it. People get all wrecked when a woman is rude, or nasty, or unpleasant; everyone should just back off policing tone.
So it bugs me to have people say, in effect, "well, what you're saying (politely and carefully) is okay, but what she's saying (essentially the same thing, but less politely and carefully) isn't."
It. Is. Not. The. Snark. That. Bothers. Me.
Let's be clear about that. The snarky, breezy declaration in the first post? Didn't bother me at all. I read Twisty's blog regularly and her style is usually a lot of fun.
But in the second post, where she expands her first post ('In a world without patriarchy no one would suck cock') she pretty much ignores or twists everyone's counterexamples. Including yours, I think. (You were 'not physically but psychologically enjoyable, right?')
It's not just a matter of 'polite.' There's a big difference between "Women who enjoy blowjobs are obviously deluded by the patriarchy" (Twisty) and "If you don't enjoy blowjobs and feel bad that you don't, it's worth examining why you think you should enjoy them" (LB). And it's not because Twisty is being too snarky and I'm pro-women-being-demure-flowers. It's because she's making a different argument than LB.
Now, if she meant to be making LB's argument, then fine, she wasn't being careful. But I don't think she was. There's a lot going on behind that 'essentially.'
308: Well played, sir.
Um . . . uh . . . if your technique weren't so lousy then it would have been bigger and more filling?
This is all absurd.
She says: "No one enjoys giving blow jobs. They're objectively disgusting. Sexbot drudgery, every one."
You say: "Women should consider that if they're doing something onerous for a man it might be in service of the patriarchy."
You're not unpacking her rhetoric; you're making an entirely different point. Politeness has nothing to do with it, although humaneness and compassion are good features in argument. But care is darn important. It's saying what you mean, instead of some other thing that is not what you mean.
But let's just say for the sake of argument, that she was just kidding. Frankly, I think it's kind of cowardly to bury whatever your argument actually is in so many layers of irony it's impossible ever to reproach you for something you said, because you'll have this no, no, you didn't understand my deeper point retreat. But let's say she's just kidding.
A bunch of people echo: yeah, what kind of a soulless sexbot would like a blowjob?
A bunch of other people respond: actually, people do enjoy giving blow jobs under the right circumstances.
In your next post you smack everyone who stood up to being called a brainwashed sexbot around, saying they were pretending that sexism had no influence on them, that patriarchy didn't have anything to do with sex.
Except that's not what they said at all! They were responding to a specific claim of yours: no one enjoys blowjobs, ever.
And if you were just kidding the first time around, it's pretty telling that you don't have anything bad to say to the people who echoed you seriously. Maybe you weren't so kidding after all.
Leon Kass and Larry Summers make provocative points that I wish wouldn't be dismissed because of their condescension.
something that's so obviously culturally constructed as sex practices and norms
Well, given that this sex practice almost certainly dates back to the beginning of time across every culture, I'd say that yes, one's personal experience of it counts for more than the academic deconstruction of it.
I don't think she *was* just kidding. I think she was serious in a humorously snarky way.
Maybe the crux of the issue is around the word "enjoy" (or "like," or whatever it was). I said this somewhere else, so I'm being redundant. But if by "enjoy" you mean "sucking cock is not, in and of itself, *physically* pleasant, then I think that is true: we don't generally go around stuffing, say, joysticks in our mouths because doing so feels good. Now, a lot of people said, "I *do* enjoy giving bjs," but I think that a big part of the enjoyment of *giving* bjs is, indeed, psychological.
And there's nothing wrong with that. But if it's psychological, then it seems reasonable to say that that psychology might very well be conditioned by sexism. Since so much of our psychology is. Yes?
almost certainly dates back to the beginning of time across every culture
Okay, see, I would need evidence of that. Because it actually seems counterintuitive to me. Honestly.
318: Summers's actual argument relied on unsupported guesses, if you recall.
And anyway, men's condescension has totally different political effects than women's anger.
You know, though, you don't have to agree with her about blow jobs. Hell, I certainly disagree with the 'No one's ever enjoyed giving one'. As a fact claim, it's absolutely incorrect. That doesn't make the post useless -- it supports a useful and interesting train of thought.
Now, it does so by being rude, unpleasant, and insulting to all of us out there with non-oppressive sex lives that involve giving blow jobs, but who gives a damn -- if bloggers being rude and wrong were reason enough not to read them, I'd never get any work done at all.
People get all wrecked when a woman is rude, or nasty, or unpleasant; everyone should just back off policing tone.
Do you really find that people say, "Well, he's rude, but he's a man, so that's OK"? Don't people normally get irritated when someone, of either gender, is rude?
323 -- Do you mean, "If bloggers being rude and wrong were reason enough not to read them, I'd get a lot of work done"?
Well, given that this sex practice almost certainly dates back to the beginning of time across every culture,
I actually have a theory that the modern normalization of oral sex as an ordinary vanilla practice rather than something perceived as significantly deviant and perverse is a function of modern bathing practices. Oral sex got to be normal right around the same time that most people started bathing several times a week at least.
we don't generally go around stuffing, say, joysticks in our mouths
I don't go around flicking lightswitches with my tongue either, but I very much enjoy performing oral sex on women (and M/tch). Also, I walk around with pens in my mouth all the livelong day and they die from being chewed long before they ruin out of ink.
Do you really find that people say, "Well, he's rude, but he's a man, so that's OK"? Don't people normally get irritated when someone, of either gender, is rude?
IME, they react very differently.
325: Yup, dropped a negative.
Yes, and that's reasonable. But again, not what Twisty said. I'm beginning to feel like I'm supposed to make up a sane argument for her and attribute to her, instead of thinking she's making a rhetorical point, not an argument. (or 'You knew what I meant to say. Can I have an A?')
A: No one likes blowjobs. They're nasty.
B: I'll admit that they're not physically fun, but psychologically, they can be a lot of fun for reasons X, Y, Z.
Okay, so far so good. Premise, counterexample. What can A say to save her argument, class?
BPhD&LB: Don't you think that reasons X, Y, and Z might be themselves conditioned by sexism? i.e., do you think you'd get off on being powerful if the 'normal' role for you in sex was being submissive?
Good, a defeater for the counterexample.
Twisty: When A argues that she is empowered by a blow job, she is ignoring that such 'empowerment' is just a patriarchal smoke screen to get you to suck cock.
I'm not being mislead by tone, she's just saying something different and not actually responding to anything on the table.
How much work am I supposed to do to get at what she 'really' said?
I walk around with pens in my mouth all the livelong day and they die from being chewed long before they ruin out of ink.
There's a migratory "i" in that sentence. More seriously, there is actually an attested phenomenon known as oral gratification, in which people get a certain comfort from having things in their mouths.
Do you really find that people say, "Well, he's rude, but he's a man, so that's OK"? Don't people normally get irritated when someone, of either gender, is rude?
Perhaps a counterexample from ancient scripture.
I very much enjoy performing oral sex on women (and M/tch).
Aha! So you did enjoy it!!!
298-300: If I wasn't at lunch, you never would have gotten away with that.
Graham is always coming over to me telling me to spit out the piece of plastic or hunk of paper I've been chewing on. When I was a teenager, my friends would observe my unconscious sucking on bottle necks with amusement, and speculate as to my future talents.
327: Sure. But that just demonstrates that at least part of the pleasure of oral sex is psychological rather than purely for the joy of flicking things with your tongue. Quite apart from the question of whether a bj is more awkward/uncomfortable than cunnilingus, which I'm not even going to get into since I haven't compared the two.
298-300: If I wasn't at lunch, you never would have gotten away with that.
Don't think being at lunch excuses you from using "wasn't" there, young man.
such 'empowerment' is just a patriarchal smoke screen to get you to suck cock.
I honestly don't see how that is substantively different from
Don't you think that reasons X, Y, and Z might be themselves conditioned by sexism?
a function of modern bathing practices
It shows up in ancient Greek, Roman, Indian, and Chinese literature. That covers a whopping lot of the recorded history of that time period.
re: 311
Oh, that's OK then! I was worried something nasty was being insinuated.
337 doesn't really get around the "patriarchy" thing, though, does it?
Because no one claimed they were being 'empowered' by sucking cock. People were talking about how they found it physically enjoyable, or not-physically-but-overall enjoyable.
It's one thing to say, I acknowledge you enjoy it and let's look at why, and another thing to say you guys aren't really empowered when no one was seriously claiming that they were.
I was worried something nasty was being insinuated.
Leave your oppressively puritanical Scottish views out of this, McGrattan.
340: Oh, I see. Emphasis on the empowerment argue, rather than on "feeling powerful" or just "enjoying."
Fair enough, they are different things to say. But I don't think that that's *substantively* such a huge distinction in terms of the real argument--the "empowerment" angle is just one of many possible reasons/rationalizaions for cock-sucking. Even if that one detail is wrong, the primary thrust of the thing still stands, no?
Wow. Somebody publish this thread in book form, okay?
Two thoughts:
(1) An act where a man places his penis between someone else's teeth needs to be carefully analyzed for where the power balance really comes to rest. ;)
(2) We are "always already" (drink!) in/of patriarchy. Okay. But if patriarchy never existed, would power imbalances and their sexualization not have existed?
--I tend to think that patriarchy is one (unjust, natch) way of organizing power relationships that are inevitably going to (i) exist and (ii) be unjust ... because, what would a society with fundamentally just power relationships look like? Has there ever been one? Would we even continue to be recognizably human in such a society? (Arguing that being recognizably human is something to overcome is, of course, a fair move.)
Now, if it weren't for patriarchy, would *sex* be such a field for power fantasies and roleplay? I suspect yes, b/c I can't imagine sex without vulnerability and (perhaps misplaced) trust, to name just two.
It shows up in ancient Greek, Roman, Indian, and Chinese literature.
The Greeks and Romans had good bathing habits. I don't know about Indians and Chinese but it wouldn't surprise me.
Why am I only just now seeing the kitty? And realizing what the fuck y'all kitty-seers have been talking about?
337: All of those fit fairly well into 'reasonably bathing-intensive cultures by modern standards' don't you think? I'm just saying that there's a reason why Europeans before the last 50 years or so regarded oral sex as significantly more deviant than they do now -- they were foul and bad-smelling.
339: Don't see that it matters, really. The specific point being addressed was whether it was a relatively new practice or one that has pretty much always been part of the human sexual repertoire. We're intelligent, pleasure-seeking animals and have been as far back as our history records. The math seems easy enough there.
LB, your mention of "foul and bad-smelling" bodies is really giving me a psychological aversion to blow jobs.
In other words, it's not true that there's no such thing as physical enjoyment that comes from a blow job.
Anyway, I don't recall anyone saying that it was impossible that sexism had anything to do with what they enjoyed. And if someone did, it really behooved Twisty to take care to specify who she was replying to, because her followup was a broadbrush inaccurate characterization of what people objected to. In any case, there can be some kind of sexist "please your man" aspect in a blow job at the same time as there is an excitement about your partner's pleasure, and about your own concentration on it, that exists in addition to political power structures, and a sense that in fact he is vulnerable because you have him in your teeth and he's so transported--lots of things can be happening at once. Pointing out the possibility of the first element is fine; saying it automatically trumps everything else is just dumb. Anyway, I basically think my entire psychosexual architecture has been created by various unmet needs, patriarchy, etc. I enthusiastically cop to that. I just think reenactment is fine in art, fine in therapy, and super fine in sex.
they were foul and bad-smelling
They were also used to it.
347: Fair enough, I concede the novelty argument. I'll shift it to what I actually should have said, which is that I'm not sure blow jobs are a "natural" and therefore universal sex practice.
B, I think a real argument can be made, and it is one worth engaging. But it's not just one detail; she ignored every point that people actually made and went after one that no one did.
And that's fine if you're just 'trolling your own blog', which is why I read Twisty as mostly joking or playing around for rhetorical effect. It's not so fine if you actually want to have a discussion.
When a person misrepresents a counterargument in order to attack the counterargument, I'm not obliged to fill in what she really meant and then say she wasn't tilting at straw windmills.
348 -- LB, Stop! Are you mad? Think of the humanity!
I just think reenactment is fine in art, fine in therapy, and super fine in sex.
Can I get a T-shirt of that?
I have a friend who was seriously bummed for a long period because of the advice to always use a condom during blow jobs (before the very low to non-existent HIV transmission rate via oral sex was discovered). He said something like, "That's like asking me to go down on a roll of saran wrap. And I don't want it to taste like strawberry, I want it to taste like cock." It wasn't about not getting any semen out of the experience either, as he didn't particularly like the ejaculation part of the job.
So at least in his case he seemed to genuinely physically enjoy the experience of sucking on an unwrapped penis. He could presumably have gotten the being submissive part of it or the pleasing his partner thing with or without a condom.
re: 314
Seriously, I didn't at any point in the discussion of Hirschmann make a point about her tone. Not once. If you think I did you are totally misremembering what i wrote. Feel free to go back and look again. Every single thing I said had to do with the substance of her prescriptions or with what I saw as their (lack of) wider importance.
I think she's either wrong or irrelevant but that's because I tend to see these issues through the lens of class rather than gender.
My concern (crudely) with the upper-middle classes isn't with how they choose to negotiate the work-life balance but rather with how we can more effectively confiscate their shit.
To repeat, nothing I wrote re: Hirschmann was a complaint about tone.
Re: Twisty, I have to hold my hands up and confess that what she wrote struck me as snarky in an unfunny rather than unfunny way. That is all. You can take that as symptomatic of some wider rejection of snarky or fierce women, but you'd be wrong. Obviously, you can only take my word for that. I could be a lying patriarchal scumbag!
If I may,
This is a wizard cocksucker thread.
And that's fine if you're just 'trolling your own blog', which is why I read Twisty as mostly joking or playing around for rhetorical effect.
Well, yes. Of course that's what she's doing.
354: Sure! It comes with the Baby Tee that reads "My psychosexual architecture was created by my unmet needs" across the boobs.
355: It may just be that latex is really, really foul-smelling and then it tastes like licking a balloon. Skin is at least neutral tasting.
don't go around flicking lightswitches with my tongue either,
I missed this, but this is brilliant. I'm imagining a how-to manual. 'Like a lightswitch, but with your tongue'
356: Seriously, I didn't at any point in the discussion of Hirschmann make a point about her tone. Not once.
I don't recall that you did -- other people did, though. I commented on David Weman (who, you know, is not the personal devil. He just said something quotable, so I'm picking on him. Generally a good guy) here. Conversations about women's writing just have a tendency to make the courtesy or kindness of the woman an issue if she is anything but impeccably restrained.
361: No but seriously, he really really enjoyed the physical experience of sucking cock.
Also, that reminds me of a great song that an acquaintance of mine made up back in the early days of safe(r) sex. It's sung to the tune of "Delta Dawn", and the only line I remember is:
Dental dam
What's that flavor?
Is it yam?
. Conversations about women's writing just have a tendency to make the courtesy or kindness of the woman an issue if she is anything but impeccably restrained.
I don't see that as something that correlates with gender, but our experiences probably differ.
And this:
My concern (crudely) with the upper-middle classes isn't with how they choose to negotiate the work-life balance but rather with how we can more effectively confiscate their shit.
Yeah, I can agree with the latter (although I would be the confiscatee rather the confiscator). But until the revolution comes, there are other justice issues.
re: 363
Re: the wider phenomenon that "Conversations about women's writing just have a tendency to make the courtesy or kindness of the woman an issue if she is anything but impeccably restrained." I agree.
Also in non-written areas too. I have friends who express their opinions with some force and who have been described in fairly nasty ways because of it and where they clearly wouldn't have been if they'd been male.
I just hope I, personally, don't make that same mistake.
352: Of course not. But b/c I like Twisty, and I think she is smart as hell, and I think that even where I disagree with her (e.g., about the relationship between children and feminism), that it's well worth my time to make the effort to try to understand the logic of what she's saying.
two points:
1. "And it's also worth asking, where does this cultural expectation that women *should* give bjs come from?"
but more importantly than where it came from, we need to ask where it went, and whether Ryanair do cheap flights there.
2. There is something wonderfully apt about reading a whole big monster bad-tempered thread about oral sex and concluding "these people on that blog, they're happy enough to dish it out but they really don't want to take it".
Conversations about women's writing just have a tendency to make the courtesy or kindness of the woman an issue if she is anything but impeccably restrained.
Oh please. Of course this happens on occasion, and should never happen, but you have turned it around to be a universal excuse for unclear, obnoxious or just not well thought out writing by women.
Not every criticism of a women is a complaint about "tone," and not every complaint about the tone of a woman's argument is a sexist response to a strong woman speaking truth to power. Somethimes women (just like men) write or say things that are ill thought out, untrue or otherwise subject to criticism, and sometimes women (just like men), say things obnoxiously and offensively. Are you taking the position that unlike men, women are not subject to criticism in such situations? It sure is beginning to sound like it.
Not every criticism of a women is a complaint about "tone," and not every complaint about the tone of a woman's argument is a sexist response to a strong woman speaking truth to power
true, but that's the way to bet.
Are you taking the position that unlike men, women are not subject to criticism in such situations?
Nope.
Boy, is Idealist on the rag or what?
Give him a BJ, JD, that'll cool him down.
I think the "pure snark" style of bloggers like Twisty and Amanda Marcotte is only really valuable for those people who have the patience and insight to use their posts as a starting point for free-association, which can occasionally yield new insights. They're not valuable for people who don't want to approach it with that attitude, and they can be harmful because they present a caricature of rational positions to people who don't understand what's going on. On top of that, they breed pretty much worthless comment sections.
I used to read that sort of thing, but I got tired of it.
I don't actually have a problem with Twisty's tone. I took Becks' advice and didn't read the comments, though.
That was very sensible, eb. I read the comments and got so angry that I didn't trust myself to comment over here.
re: 309, Incidentally, sorry if I interpreted what you wrote.
re: 378
Crap - can't even type. I meant misinterpreted.
(Goddam patriarchical tool thinks typing is beneath him. Probably has some oppressed woman he usually dictates his blog comments to.)
(I heard he outsources his interpretations overseas to poor Indian women who only make three cents a comment.)
381: Please. Oppressed women make crappy Indian manservants.
And they only get paid pennies for each crappy Indian manservant they make!
The oppressed woman is off feeding the bat-winged monkeys. Even here in the Patriarchal Secret Base deep under the Vatican Library we don't believe in working people too hard.
Yeah, re. comment threads. There's a real difficulty in writing a site that has a clear political agenda or point of view without ending up with comment threads that are like a cariacature of the pro/con "sides" of whatever that viewpoint supposedly represents. I have a hard time with it. I think Twisty has the devil of a time with it, and people like Drum and Kos seem, in my mind, to have completely given up even caring.
In other words, I don't think it's a function of snark; I think it's a function of trying to talk about things on which a lot of people have pretty entrenched (and often unexamined) ideas.
Eh, I think if Twisty had wanted a good thread on that post, she would have written a rather different one.
Also, I meant to say:
but who gives a damn
Some of us who don't like being slut-shamed, for one.
I don't think that a snarky site will be able to have good, serious comments. Because if the posters are snarky, then why shouldn't the commenters be able to be snarky? And if you have snarky commenters, then they drive out the serious commenters.
On the other hand, a site isn't either snarky or not snarky. Individual posts are either or, but a site can be both, and a site that's both can have plenty of serious commenters. They'll just avoid the snarky threads.
But besides the snarkiness of the comments, there's also the intelligence of the commenters, and that's also important. Snarky posts are more enjoyable for less intelligent people, because they're more humorous, and it takes less thought to enjoy a humerous post, and comments come from the people who read and enjoy the post. Serious posts are only interesting to people that really know what the posts are talking about, or think they do, and so the only people that will comment are those who are interested by the substantive points of the posts. And the more difficult the language used in the post, the more literate the commenters will be.
Twisty's humor is actually has subtly and sophistication, as well as crassness and hyperbole. But since those latter elements are present, many of the commenters will only appreciate the latter elements, since they're enjoyable on their own.
And all this is apart from moderation policy and other ways the posters can give pushes to the way their body of commenters develops.
Hey, I got that one right once. You're going to make me cry. I bet you would you like that, wouldn't you apo?
Oh, and "is actually has" s/b "actually has"
Frigate -> "Horatio"
-> "Oratorio"
-> "succubi"
My succubus is not a slut
But a demon.
Serpentine, gauzy
I'm way late to this thread, because I wasn't that interested in the original discussion about fisting and only came back when I saw that everyoen was continuing to comment.
1.) 326: I actually have a theory that the modern normalization of oral sex as an ordinary vanilla practice rather than something perceived as significantly deviant and perverse is a function of modern bathing practices. Oral sex got to be normal right around the same time that most people started bathing several times a week at least.
Christopher Hitchens posited the same theory in this month's Vanity Fair. He also has some theory about the gay riskiness/transgressive quality being mainstreamed or something. I didn't read the whole piece--it was Hitch, after all--but he goes from Lolita to grooming in about 60 seconds.
I think that the cover says something like, "What Sex Act is as American as Apple Pie?" I'm not up on my comparative sex practices literature, but he says that European women will only perform oral sex if they know and really like the guy whreas in America it's practically like a good night kiss, or so he says anyway. Ahem.
2.) I forget the Latin word, but in Catullus there's a word for cock-suckee.
3.) pdf23ds in 148: I think, at least much of the time, the origins of masochism are damaged trust in one's childhood, and difficulty trusting in adulthood... And things like that don't go away when everyone is equal. They go away when parents stop fucking up their children.
Does anyone know anything about the histpry of BDSM? And psychological theories about it? I have a suspicion that it does relate to messed up childhoods and would like to learn more about it. I'm not comfortable saying why; it's not that I'm personally interested in getting involved in this scene. In fact, on a visceral level these practices make me very uncomfortable. I am so very plain vanilla. Please don't make jokes just now. This is a serious request.
Oh crap, tha last one (396) was I.
The Christopher Hitchens VF article referenced in 396.
Snarky posts are more enjoyable for less intelligent people, because they're more humorous, and it takes less thought to enjoy a humerous post
Umm, fuck you, I think.
(Also: humorous. Nyah.)
399: I should change that. Snarky posts are probably just as enjoyable, or moreso, for intelligent/openminded people. But for less intelligent/openminded people, snarky posts will be much more enjoyable than more serious posts.
And I should also say that I think the only writing quality factor that directly attracts/repels readers based on intelligence is argument rigor, and even that's modulo ideological background.
396: I was just pulling psychological theories out of my ass (don't ask how they got there. I'm trying to quit. don't look at me like that), so I'm no help.
The Great Blow Job Debate arrives at Salon.
I have to say I'm a bit baffled by The Great Blow Job Debate. It seems to me that the obvious and feminist response to any question about the significance of blow jobs is three words: "Cunnilingus, cunnilingus, cunnilingus."
If everyone were getting as much as they're giving, then it wouldn't much matter whether oral sex is submissive or empowering, right? And isn't it better for everyone if any account balances are settled by more cunnilingus instead of fewer blow jobs?
I forget the Latin word, but in Catullus there's a word for cock-suckee
Just going on (old) memory, but there's that Catullus poem that starts off something like:
pedicabo et immurabo
And if I remember correctly, the second verb means something along the lines of "make you suck my dick".
Ah yes, and I think cinaedus basically means "cocksucker".
Like much of wikipedia, this isn't a bad start on the subject of profane Latin.
Another translation, excellent, with a fetching likeness.
Bostoniangirl, I hear ya, but I just don't know anything about the history of BDSM that isn't in Wikipedia or somesuch.
I suspect it would be hard to be into it without having a messed-up childhood, but frankly, what childhood is *not* messed up in some respect or other? "Got issues? Oh yes you do," as Dan Savage puts it.
This J & B thread on (among other things) Catullus XVI includes the observation by Another Crazy Medievalist, "fellatur qui irrumat, irrumatur qui fellat" -- which I take to mean, "a person who gets fellated is irrumating, a person who gets irrumated is fellating."
Oops sorry, it is Mad Latinist who makes that observation.
403: The debate includes some people (possibly many people) with the belief that blow jobs and cunnilingus are important in relevant ways.
Now that we're back to BDSM, another thing I meant to say:
tops are hard to find
not for straight women.
414: I wouldn't say they're hard to find, but I think even among straight men, s is more common than d within those who are into BDSM.
Totally anecdotal and unsupported assertion, though.
Twisty got 230 responses, many of them from women who argued that giving head is an empowering act.
Oh good. Salon can't fucking read, either.
I think the messed up childhood vs. patriarchy argument is a false dichotomy. Assuming that there will always be people who are messed up, surely the symbolic forms in which people understand or express their messed upness will vary depending on what symbols are available. Like, you can express domination issues through, say, a messiah complex or sadism or by imagining yourself as the king of Patagonia, depending. No?
I don't think anyone was posing it as an either/or in this thread, although perhaps they do elsewhere.
417: Is that addressed to me? I though we agreed that a lack of patriarchy would change many specific S/M practices, but my whole 148 is saying that BDSM wouldn't go away, because it's rooted in childhood issues that are not dependent on the patriarchy. (Although, as far as the patriarchy makes life worse for many mothers, it can certainly exacerbate the problems.)
414, 415: I read it on the internet, so it must be true.
Is there a similar verb corresponding to "fellate" meaning "to receive somebody's penis into your ass"? ie fellate:irrumate::x:pedicate? Also be interested to know if there is an active-voice verb for receiving somebody's penis into you cunt.
No, no, that was my attempt to answer BG's question.
Or at least, to address some of the premises of it. I think.
Is there a similar verb corresponding to "fellate" meaning "to receive somebody's penis into your ass"? ie fellate:irrumate::x:pedicate? Also be interested to know if there is an active-voice verb for receiving somebody's penis into you cunt.
From the wikipedia link: Ceveo (cev?re, cevi) and criso (crisare &c.) are basic Latin obscenities that have no exact English equivalents. Criso referred to the actions of the female partner in sexual intercourse; as in English, futuo, "fuck", primarily referred to the male action. Ceveo referred to the similar activity of the passive partner in anal sex.
421 -- yeah, I've been reading over there but not finding what I'm looking for. Excellent other stuff though, e.g. the graffiti written by prostitutes in Pompeii: Felix bene futuis ("Felix, you have fucked well"); Victor bene valeas qui bene futuis ("Victor, best wishes to one who has fucked well.")
Ah, this looks like it might be it: Criso referred to the actions of the female partner in sexual intercourse; as in English, futuo, "fuck", primarily referred to the male action. Ceveo referred to the similar activity of the passive partner in anal sex.
I understood TMK to be asking if there are such verbs in English.
Not that I know of, it seems we usually rely on a passive construction, e.g. "get reamed".
Everyone is either pwnd or wrong, and thus banned.
if there are such verbs in English
pitching/catching
415: I wonder though, if there are more straight sub women than straight dom men, because that's not the vibe I get, although my vibe is similarly uninformed. Maybe there are more men into BDSM in general.
429: Sort of. But I'm thinking of an active verb that could replace, for example, the passive construction "be/get + verb" in the following type sentence:
"Boy howdy I got cornholed something wicked last night!" said Michael breezily.
Well, we're all cunning linguists here. I'm sure we could coin a worthy phrase.
Michael whispered breathily in M/tch's ear, "irrumate me, baby!"
"I really slid up him last night." Could also be "down" if you were the receiver but were also on top.
Just to be obnoxious, I turn back to the GBJD for a moment. I just came across this comment in a LiveJournal post about it: "if you can't leave your smartypants feminist bullshit out of your own bedroom, then you're probably not much good in bed, and nobody wants your toothsome, conflicted blowjob anyway."
There's a man who doesn't know what 'toothsome' means.
Perhaps the opposite of "to bugger" could be "to buggee," or just "to bugg."
I could have bugged all night
And still have begged for more.
I could have spread my cheeks
And done a thousand things I've never done before.
I'll never know what made it so exciting,
Why all at once my heart took flight.
I only know when he
Began to bugger me,
I could have bugged, bugged, bugged all night!
438: Actually, there's a woman who doesn't know what toothsome means.
It's true, I suck at blowjobs. But I'm really good at smartypants feminist pillow talk.
I apologize for this in advance:
I stained his wood mahogany.
441: My how low your fruit doth hang.
442: Why apologize, Tia? That's f&*king brilliant.
I suck at blowjobs
Too easy. At least try to give us a challenge.
I'm really good at smartypants feminist pillow talk.
You wanna come upstairs and see my dialectic?
439: I think "bugg" is a winner.
Or: "Look at that number walkin downa street -- she could stain my wood mahogany any
446: There's a lovely potential etymological link from bugg to bung that escaped my notice upon proposing it.
449: That just shows what a natural genius you are at these things, apo.
Also, that famous Onion article could be renamed:
Why Do All These Gay Men Keep Bugging Me?
Why Do All These Gay Men Keep Bugging Me?
Awesome.
In addition to "bugg" (which is a great word, but why not have more?), how about "assage" (rhymes with "massage")?
"assage" would be better as a noun, I think: "Tonight? No, I can't do it -- M/tch is going to be giving me an assage."
I'm this close, despite all his good work on the Tribute Bands thread, to switching my habitual ire from Michael to TMK.
In an attempt to assuage me, he assaged me with his sausage.
457 is incorrect usage.
In an attempt to assuage him, Saiselgy assaged his sausage.
I am easily ass-immolated.
Love is a burning thing
and it makes a fiery ring
bound by wild desire
I fell in to a ring of fire...
459: I stand corrected. I'm obviously new to assaging and don't yet know the ins & outs of it.
Don't be so modest, MAE, I've seen you assage with the best of 'em.
MAE, I have reams of evidence to the contrary.
I admit, I have studied Swedish assage and shiatsu assage.
I'm told those require years of practice to get right, MAE.
I hope that someone gets my,
I hope that someone gets my,
I hope that someone gets my
Assaging a bottle.
466 -- what about assupuncture?
There is also a burgeoning movement within the aromatherapy community which you might want to consider joining.
470: Is it true then that it's hard out there for people such as you, TMK?
Yo when you bugg out
You usually have a reason for the action
Sometimes you don't it's just for mere satisfaction
Just butting in semi-seriously for a moment to give one book reference to Bostoniangirl: Giles Deleuze had a book on Masochism that I found quite interesting. His basic thesis was that sadism and masochism were in no respects the two sides of a dichtomy, that the true masochist in no way would like to find a sadist, that masochism is relational while sadism is individual.
Oh, and then Steven Marcus's The Other Victorians is a great read--it's dated now, but it has this wonderfully restrained, ironic style, and lots of archival work.
Extending the parallelism, would one who practices the art of assage be an asseur? (Or an asseuse, if female?)
No, the proper term is rumprangee.
I thought the entire point of this exercise was to give the receiver some transitive verbs they could be the subject of. Now you're back to forcing them into linguistic passivity?
You're just saying that to bugg me, Tia.
Forgive me if I missed this above, but Atrios observes that Ann Coulter appears haunted by "the spiritual and sexual power of fisting."
As an alternative to "assage", how about "inculcate"? The etymology would work out nicely.
Joe suggested assimmolate above. Perhaps they could be a pair.
Buttress?
I should note "integrate his log" and "add his stick to the pile" from the other thread.
After a long night of [insert approved term], this product is essential.
And actually, as long as we're noting things, I wanna say that Ann Coulter is wrong that fisting is just what it sounds like, unless other people do it differently than I do. You don't actually make a fist; that makes your hand way wider at the knuckles than it has to be. I wonder if thinking you really make a fist contributes to the perception of it as painful or excruciatingly difficult.
I think 483 is the correct verb only if the actor is a Dalek. (Do Daleks Dream of Cyborg Cock?)
You don't actually make a fist
There's a funny joke about this and boxers, but it's visual.
There's a funny joke about this and boxers
Underpants?
I should note "integrate his log" and "add his stick to the pile" from the other thread.
What other thread?
Please respond quickly or it will really start to bugg me!
I almost forgot about "rectify".
Slut! Shame, shame, shame on the slut!
At least you weren't offering a blow job.
I totally sphinxed him last night. Over and over. He couldn't get enough.
Tia has solved the riddle of the sphinx!
"Riddle of the Sphinx" would now make a great title for a porn film.
"Riddle of the sphincter" gets 100 hits but none of them, oddly, appear to be pornographic. Here's a nice 'un.
Sphinx is brilliant, Tia.
But now that my appetite for that is sated, tell me about this other thread.
Then we'll go to the bath and try to scrub all that sticky shame off of you.
Oh wait, shit, I think apo in 496 was talking to me!
M/tch, I know how you men are. No matter how often I put on a raccoon suit, if I kill the mystery, no more bugging. So why isn't it in my interests to play my cards close to my chest?
Playing your cards close to your chest obscures your lovely and bouncy raccoon teats, silly.
How did our brilliant hive mind not come up with "colonize"? How is that possible???
We were too traumatized by the thought of bouncing raccoon teats.
509: "traumatized" s/b "tittylated"
"Traumatized" s/b "I can't believe I'm even in this thread again."
FOR THE LOVE OF COCKS NO
SB, you seem awfully excitable this evening. Maybe you should try switching drinks.
But Standpipe, don't you see? w-lfs-n's gone! He can't hurt us now!!!1!!
Oh come one. We can't possibly be done here. I mean, this thread has everything: raccoons, buttsex.
Don't make me take this thread to four digits on my own!
515: He's not gone! He's NOT! We're just spending a little time apart.
That's just democratic-party syndrome, apo. He can't possibly win on this thread!
I'm actually not gone yet. I don't leave until Tuesday. At the moment I'm chillin' in Irvine.
Well, you missed out on all the fun. So you might as well be gone.
Yes, w-lfs-n, you're already dead to us.
But of course we still luv u!
