professional baseball player wouldn't be the best job ever
Playing bass for Funkadelic would be a better job. Tell me Bootsy Collins doesn't look like he's having more fun than Barry Bonds.
I like the spastically defensive title.
3: Bingo! Thread's over, folks.
"Everything about woman is a riddle, and every riddle about woman has but one answer, and it is called not pressing her for anal sex on the first date." Or words to that effect.
5 is right. Anal sex is for the third date.
I also like how Ogged felt the need to follow the "Ogged as pedophile" thread with an "Ogged's just a regular red-blooded guy's guy, and he talks about tits and beer and anal sex with his regular guy's guy friends all the time, and what're you looking at?" thread.
Kind of like how some people think being a professional baseball player wouldn't be the best job ever.
Is the above meant to signal that the entire thing is fiction? I can't seem to believe you'd be friends with such a person.
squeaky girl voices: Tell me more, tell me more, was it love at first sight?
gruff male voices: Tell me more, tell me more, did you put your wang in her poop-chute?
You really don't want me to read this blog at work anymore, do you? Are you my boss?
three typos in this post. Oddly, two of them are "she" s/b "he" and the other one is "her" s/b "him". funny.
7: He just neglected to mention that his friend is 12 years old.
"Everything about woman is a riddle, and every riddle about woman has but one answer, and it is called not pressing her for anal sex on the first date." Or words to that effect.
I will always love Washintonienne for the sentence "A man who will fuck you up the ass when you're sober does not love you."
Honestly I don't understand what this post is supposed to be getting at.
Honestly I don't understand what this post is supposed to be getting at.
Ogged is trolling that silly "women are people, too" crowd again.
Over and over again, you break your poor mother's heart.
I used to be friends with a guy like this. He identified as a neoconservative as a freshman in college. He wanted to be a military police interrogator but he broke his leg and couldn't go through basic training. Now he's probably the Junior Deputy Assistant to the Associate Undersecretary For Evil in the Department of Defense's Demoralizing Impersonal Imperialism Subsecretariat.
When was the last time you've been on a date, ogged?
Now he's probably the Junior Deputy Assistant to the Associate Undersecretary For Evil in the Department of Defense's Demoralizing Impersonal Imperialism Subsecretariat. hooking up with strange men in public restrooms.
I used to be friends with a guy like this.
I assume we've all known and been friends with guys like this at one point or another. (Excluding stras, obv.) He's not an uncommon type. He tends to age out of a lot of his most troubling positions, in my experience.
I assume we've all known and been friends with guys like this at one point or another
Mine used to ask, 'Did you get your dick wet?'
I assume we've all known and been friends with guys like this at one point or another. (Excluding stras, obv.)
Guys like that used to beat me up and/or make weirdly strained "joke" passes at me in school, and I learned to avoid them.
You're really Nick Hornby, aren't you, Ogged?
squeaky girl voices: Tell me more, tell me more, was it love at first sight?
gruff male voices: Tell me more, tell me more,was her poop-chute real tight?
Guys like that usually stare at my tits. I guess my tits have been friends with guys like that.
26: I can't imagine any Hornby character asking for anal. OTOH, I haven't read the last couple of books. And I can imagine present-day Hornby asking for it. So: maybe.
I had a gay male friend who asked me almost the identical questions whenever I had a date, too (with only a slightly tamer version of the third). "No, I did not have sex with him! We just met for coffee!"
Not the "Maybe I had a threesome with the couple upstairs" roommate?
30: If that's an oblique way of calling stras a raging homophobe, I think that's probably a little unfair.
My Cleveland roommates used to ask, "Did you get righteously pounded?"
Did you ride and rummage her until the roots of her hair turned red?
Stras is so anti-gay. It really undermines the work we've done to make this blog a safe space for all outlooks and orientations.
35: I don't think anyone disagrees with that. I was mainly objecting to Becks's "raging" characterization.
For a minute, I thought that the lines were just the responses of Ogged's friend, and that Ogged was giving us the TV-telephone-conversation-style view of the dialogue. I was trying to interpolate what Ogged could have been silently saying, between each line. Weird.
Why is everything I read about anal sex always about wanting to do harm to a woman? God damn!
Sorry. Ogged's going through a questioning process right now, and sometimes he lashes out a bit. We're hoping he resolves his issues, and finds peace with who he really is, sometime soon.
Are you kidding, LB? That would be a disaster! I hope the process drags itself out indefinitely.
Depends on who he really is, now, doesn't it. If it's someone fun, the blog could get interesting.
38: In Ned's place I suggest "Read the archives." I feel certain there are references to pleasurable anal sex, and to anal sex that is painful for men. Probably more of the latter.
If it's someone evil, we could all be hanging upside-down from meathooks.
You mean you're not already? Someone isn't taking their commenting responsibilities seriously.
43 to the final sentiments of 42, of course.
I had a tense weekend. It'll pass.
No, see, now I wish you continued tenseness.
So this thread is a pretty good example of how much the blog sucks nowadays. The response to something obvious but underdiscussed isn't to discuss it, or even to make funny jokes about it, but to deny it in the most boring and conventional way: anyone who talks about defilement must be engaged in compensatory posturing, or secretly gay, or otherwise damaged, and no decent person would ever think these things, etc. Why even comment if you're not going to say anything interesting?
Ogged, I think you're defiling me right now. And I think I like it.
Ogged, that was very moving; I'm surprised you could type it with my semen all over your face.
49: Seriously? I can't think of a useful response to finding out that someone thinks of a consensual sexual relationship as defiling to the woman involved other than to avoid the person or be hostile to them. I figure you're not all that interested in that response.
What sort of response would you think of as interesting? "Yeah, I feel all inhibited talking about it because of the irrational strictures of PC correctness, but I too think of sex as defiling to women." ? Because I really don't think that's a particularly common thought-process around here.
49: But what, really, is very interesting about it? Some people are intrusive jerks when they talk/ask about other people's sex lives. A lot of people are uncomfortable with the idea of anal sex. Many probably do see it as defilement, and others don't. No doubt some of the people who claim to be horrified by it actually enjoy it. The reasons have to do with homophobia, some prudery, and probably something about how we're supposed to be better than animals.
Now, back to the jokes. (Several of which were rather funny.)
Actually, this discussion reminds me of my best friend in college, an older gay dude (the ex-prostitute). We'd be hanging out with some of our less-interesting friends, and he'd start a conversation about what everyone was giving up for Lent, because he figured, this year, he'd give himself a challenge and say rimjobs.
49: what's the discussion you're searching for here, ogged? Does anal sex "defile" women? Or, why do some people believe that it does? Or, why are some guys crude? What? All of those are boring and trivial questions. I knew you were going to come out with a comment like this eventually; hence my comment 16. I still don't understand. Labs gets it right: I'm surprised you can even type with so much semen on your face.
All this talk of semen is making me hungry.
someone thinks of a consensual sexual relationship as defiling to the woman involved
But that's not what it is; it's the recognition that some fascination with defilement is common and a part of a lot of quite "normal" and "healthy" relationships. That shouldn't even be controversial, but the hows and whys could be interesting to talk about.
Right. Still, your buddy? Isn't actually in a normal healthy relationship with any woman you date who he's never met. He's someone who gets his rocks off speculating about whether women he doesn't know are really dirty sluts. I kind of wish people didn't think that way.
If you want to open up a conversation about what people are fascinated with within normal healthy relationships, why not post about one?
Pretty much what LB said, ogged. You have a friend who gets off on speculating that you defiled your lady friend and knowing about it before he meets her. I'm not really seeing him as normal or healthy, because as described, he sounds really creepy.
58: I think it's a mistake to think ogged is "searching" for any discussion beyond "something interesting." I had a fair number of friends who could have said the same as ogged's friend in college; all of them would have been accounted as pretty good guys by the various women in their lives. All of them were pretty good guys, and have, to the best of my knowledge, continued to be so.
I think it's at least mildly interesting how often that turns out to be true: decent guys who say and even believe horrid things about women. But I can also see why it wouldn't fall into the Interesting category for most women, so there's not much to be done about it. If ogged were really committed, he'd go gay and bring back similar stories.
He's someone who gets his rocks off speculating about whether women he doesn't know are really dirty sluts.
Again with the norming. Instead of "let's follow that thought a ways" it's "this thought must be eliminated."
Listen, I think heterosexuals need to think of the privileges they imagine the other gender has, and claim them for ourselves. I've been thinking a lot about that Pick-Up Artist show, and how a lot of the language is about how women get this great education in how to read body language, how to act like they have something of value, how to subtly signify sexual interest and availability without being threatening, etc. Whether this is true for all women or not, the perceived advantage women have is something these nerdy guys want for themselves.
And so women, too, need to isolate what those things are that a man holds over us (defilement, teasing, seduction, rejection) and decide that we, too, are capable of these things, whether we choose to exploit them or not.
I'm not actually sure if this is true, but I've certainly found it's more achievable to seek the power you resent rather than to wish someone else would stop exercising that power.
Does anyone lese feel like we're all just kind of bored and itching for a fight?
49: Okay, I'll take a crack, so to speak, at this: As a male teenager of the '70s, I can tell you that fellatio had a lot of the same submission/defilement dynamic that I think you are attributing to anal sex now.
The problem is, generally speaking, the more women are convinced that a particular practice is seen by their male partner as degrading to them, the less inclined they are to engage in it, regardless of how they personally feel about it.
So for those interested in fostering female acceptance of the broadest possible range of sexual conduct (a group that includes both men and women), it's important to pretend that degradation isn't part of the dynamic.
Of course, on preview I have to agree with LB's point that it's also nice if degradation actually isn't part of the dynamic.
Like I said, I had a friend like this in college. I never felt his questions were him getting his rocks off like LB describes -- it was more that we both knew he was exaggerating for effect and the ridiculousness of the conversation actually made it easier to talk about other blushworthy topics because saying that the two of you ended up making out in the car or that you really liked him seemed so tame by comparison.
65, cont'd: And that expressing the right to hold a certain kind of power is what upsets the gender-imbalances in a relationship. You don't actually have to go around defiling men. But understanding that you could, that you're capable of it, communicates that you yourself are not an entertaining subject for defilement.
What a coincidence: just this weekend I was looking at an apartment on the corner of Seaman and Cumming.
he sounds really creepy
I guess my point is: you're not living in reality. He's not creepy, he's actually pretty normal and he's only unusual in being more willing than most to say what he's thinking. The thoughts he's having don't make him an outlier and since we're all crushingly familiar with the arguments that these are horrible terrible no good thoughts, it would be more interesting to hear things like "Yeah, I kind of think that too, and my girlfriend/wife kind of gets off on things like that, too." Seriously, the enforcement of orthodoxy is pretty fascinating to watch. I think a lot of y'all believe what you're saying, too. (Patronizing, I realize.)
68 is correct. So is the movie Superbad. Talking as if you're living in a pornographic movie does not mean those are things you actually want. It can be confusing, and it's sticky territory, but most people are a lot nicer about sex than their vocabulary for it would allow. Okay, there are some who are still total dickheads.
most people are a lot nicer about sex than their vocabulary for it would allow
Really? Because it would seem that what ogged is arguing (that this interest in defilement is actually pretty normal) says just the opposite. And also SCMT in 63.
He's not creepy, he's actually pretty normal
in which case I must say he is being pretty poorly served by your selective editing of his conversation.
I don't know. I guess what I'm saying is that, if I were to describe what actually happened while I was having sex with someone, I would only have fairly porny ways of talking about it. It's not that the language wouldn't reflect what I did; it just wouldn't reflect how I felt about it, which was "How fun! What a great time we're having!" Talking about the mechanics of sex is difficult.
...which is why most of us don't do it except with very close friends.
71--
but that's just the claim that your experience of normal is reality, whereas my experience is an artificially-enforced orthodoxy.
crap.
i've actually got a fair bit more experience of normal than you do, and that guy's a creep. those thoughts he's having are no more normal than a desire to eat ground glass. except that instead of having self-destructive thoughts, this guy has misogynistic thoughts.
maybe you attract creeps, maybe you've just had a run of bad luck. but if you think that's normal, you need to get out more often. pretending that the world is a porn movie, and all the people in it players, is just enforcing an ideological orthodoxy. (even if you do sincerely believe it).
Talking about the mechanics of sex is difficult.
Precisely why you should pick up the Eroticon of that amorous Greek, Yoryis Yatromanolakis.
He's not creepy, until you actually find out what he's thinking.
those thoughts he's having are no more normal than a desire to eat ground glass.
Okay, I'm not on ogged's side here, but you and I either use vastly different definitions of "normal" or you run with a very strange crowd.
70: I so wanted to get married in that church, just for the address. Such a shame it's not the Church of the Immaculate Conception.
81: It's an ee cummings crowd. Whether that counts as "weird," I could not say.
Y'know, I only just learned that the Immaculate Conception does not refer to Jesus being conceived.
The point of the whole anal enterprise always seemed to me to get incredibly close to the person you're doing -- close to the point of being inside what's basically the most private part of somebody's body. Defilement, even if you're into that, seems boring by comparison.
We all know there are certain parties here who believe that one never has the right, even among close friends, to discuss what one does in bed and how, because it is always disrespectful. And it's totally probable that Ogged's friend, who cops to being concerned about whether his date has already been defiled by someone else is a dick. What bothers me is not that they sit around talking about whether Ogged had anal sex or not. It bothers me that this dude worries about his women being pre-defiled, which sounds not porny but right-wing prudish.
81--
let's split the difference. the creep is not as abnormal as the glass-eater, i'll grant you that, since more people want to hurt others than to hurt themselves.
but neither one of them is 'pretty normal'.
I have, it's not that great.
Kind of like how some people think being a professional baseball player wouldn't be the best job ever.
Normal's so depressing.
84: I have to admit that this is one of my pet peeves.
basically the most private part of somebody's body
The penetralia, one might say. Though I think the title of "most private part" might be reserved for ventricle-fucking, which does require a very high level of trust.
77, 81: Yeah, I'd say that 'ground glass' isn't all that good a description -- these thoughts aren't uncommon. But being not terribly uncommon doesn't make them normal.
Ogged, I get the feeling that you don't think there's anything important at stake here. I strongly dislike living in a society where participating in consensual sex makes a woman defiled in the eyes of people who are 'normal'. That shit makes people crazy, and not in a fun way.
So, damn straight I'm working at enforcing a norm, just like a whole bunch of other norms you'd call me overblown for comparing this to. Your buddy thinks anyone you date is defiled if you come on her face? He keeps that thought to himself if he doesn't want me to treat him as a misogynist creep. He doesn't like that, he can keep his mouth shut.
85--
i always thought the most private part of somebody's body were their isets of langerhans.
seriously--why more private than the mouth? than the vagina?
do audience members who possess both feel that the rectum is more private than the vagina? (more restricted opening hours, perhaps?)
It bothers me that this dude worries about his women being pre-defiled, which sounds not porny but right-wing prudish.
But I thought that was how defilement worked? You want to be the first to defile someone; if you're not, the defilement is cheapened.
This "defiled" thing sounds like the guys who want to be the one to pop cherries. But cherries are scarce anymore, so he's looking for pure, innocent, virgin buttholes. Probably this could be worked into Catholic schoolgirl porn, with the priest asking the first communicants in detail whether they were undefiled.
I agree with kid bitzer in 77. This guy sounds like what's going through his head is "So did you defile her yet? Did you defile her yet? You gotta defile her! You gotta get the upper hand! Show her who's boss!"
I wouldn't know how to respond. Oh hell, I'd probably respond by laughing along with the idiocy. But it sounds weird.
Penetralia is indeed an awesome word.
why more private than the mouth?
Are you asking seriously?
93--
right, i couldn't tell whether the thought of defilement was *worrying* him or *pleasing* him.
(not that it can't be both, any more than somebody can be porn-ey and prude-y too).
I amend: thinking of a body as defilable, rather than able to receive pain or pleasure, is prudish and conservative.
84, 89: Kind of like 'begging the question'. I do love the way Catholic doctrine is always just a little more complicated than you think it's going to be.
99: Unless we're talking cadavers.
by the way, while Ogged is trying to claim that this sort of talk is normal and OK, in the quoted conversation extract he actually refuses to answer. I therefore submit that he is "maintaining a position at variance with his actual views", but this time specifically in order to destroy his chances with the laydeez. I coin the term "cockablockablogging" for this phenomenon.
Ogged's friend, who cops to being concerned about whether his date has already been defiled by someone else
If I understand the post correctly, Ogged's friend ("Geoffrey", let's say, to avoid pronoun confusions) was not going on a date with this woman. Geoffrey wanted to know about any defilement so that, should he run into this woman at some point, he could properly judge her. Still creepy, but in a different way.
He's not creepy, he's actually pretty normal and he's only unusual in being more willing than most to say what he's thinking.
He can be creepy and normal, y'know. I dunno. I have friends who say things like this to be outrageous and sometimes it's funny when they do and sometimes it isn't. It's less that I believe that this kind of talk shouldn't be permitted, than I agree that with you that lots of people entertain thoughts like these, but also that I think such thoughts are a little like dreams--if you aren't already fairly intimate with someone (for some value of "intimate"), sharing them isn't usually that interesting.
Right then. Who's up for a beating?
LB, I'd say that defilement, power, submission, trust, etc., are always going to be a part of sex and you're not actually doing anyone any favors by trying to pretend they're not, or trying to bring about a state in which they're not. Much better to talk about why it's hot, and, like AWB above, about ways in which it can be mutual.
98: I think once you're talking about defilement, 'both' is going to be the answer. For any woman, you need to know if she's a madonna or a dirty whore, and you want to have the fun of moving her into the latter category and then despising her for it. Chuckles all around.
the rectum is more private than the vagina? (more restricted opening hours, perhaps?)
It's behind a velvet rope. You have to be nominated by an existing member and wait about three months. I am going to open a casino called "The Rectum" in order to give it an air of privacy and exclusivity.
"Only the top people are allowed to play in ... Le Rectomme, Monte Carlo".
105: I've seen, in person, the mouths of tens of thousands of people at a minimum. I've seen, in person, the rectums of fewer than 50.
106: I note again that if you want to talk about mutuality, or the way people relate sexually to each other in a healthy, loving way, you started from a pretty weird point. The woman you're discussing doesn't actually get any lines in the post -- what sort of mutuality are we talking about?
109--
you've *seen*? their *mouths*???
oh god. that's so gross. eww eww eww.
108: "Rectum" was the name of the sex club in the first scene of Irreversible. Shudder.
I am going to open a casino called "The Rectum" in order to give it an air of privacy and exclusivity.
You got that idea from a movie.
108: The ad should show a shot of the roulette wheel from above and a silky voice saying, "Put it all...on brown."
110: Right. What would Geoffrey have said if Ogged's response was "We sodomized each other and it was awesome"?
he is "maintaining a position at variance with his actual views"
Not really; I think this stuff should be acknowledged and talked about, but I wouldn't share private things about specific people.
Now that I'm thinking about it, I've probably seen more than 50. But still.
116: Yeah, see, if you want to talk about the power/submission/defilement/whatever dynamics you think are inherent in any relationship, you need some skin in the game. A post about how your buddies enjoy speculating about whether you've cornholed your dates, while you remain modestly reticient, doesn't really work to get the conversation you want going.
"Put it all...on brown."
Sounds like a great UPS commercial.
This thread was anticipated by The Simpsons in "Itchy & Scratchy and Marge." ("Share, share, share. Love, love love. The Itchy and Scratchy Show.")
Whoops. I still can't spell 'reticent'.
Ogged wrote:
>>
he thoughts he's having don't make him an outlier and since we're all crushingly familiar with the arguments that these are horrible terrible no good thoughts, it would be more interesting to hear things like "Yeah, I kind of think that too, and my girlfriend/wife kind of gets off on things like that, too."
Is Ogged trolling? And would it count as boring to say "I don't think that too-- I've no desire to defile a lover and never have had"? Or that I'm certain my wife doesn't get off on that? I can't speak with certainty of other lovers in the past, but would kind of doubt it.
Anyhow, I think implicit in some of the negative reactions would be that the speakers don't think that way. It isn't boring, either. Actually, the folks who push in the direction of Ogged's friend are more likely boring in my experience.
I've had friends who were expert at saying really, really uncomfortable truths and then enjoyed watching it sink in. That can be interesting in bracing sort of way. Ogged's friend seems much more mundane that that.
I'm furiously totting up rectums. No way I can match Apo.
I hope the word he wanted is "anuses", though. Or does apo whip out his proctoscope at key moments?
Y'know, I only just learned that the Immaculate Conception does not refer to Jesus being conceived.
I'll admit that I didn't know that until this thread. Crazy Catholics.
Further to 118: That is, what I understand you to be saying is:
(1) The desire to defile, and fascination with defilement, is a common, human desire, at the root of everyone's sexuality. We should talk about it, and not be ashamed -- silly prudes, why shut down this sort of conversation?
(2) But I'm not going to talk about it in the context of what I do with, or how I feel about, any actual specific women. That would be an attack on them -- they would be rightfully humiliated by the invasion of their privacy involved in discussing how my desire to explore defilement and power in my own sex life. Women I care about cannot be known to have been treated like this.
(3) So, let's talk about the desire to defile women generally! You know, anonymous sluts. Fun!
the immaculacy of jc's conception presumably far surpasses the immaculacy of mary's.
but the immaculacy of mary's was a precondition for the immaculacy of jc's. otherwise the vessel would have been defiled.
I agree with ogged's [point?] about the degree of frank and open misogyny still present in many all-male sexual discussions (and disturbingly many co-ed discussions, too. perhaps also many all-female discussions, but I'm not privy), but the whole of this particular exchange is especially juvenile. And not just on the part of ogged's friend: "Have you still not had anal sex? I have, it's not that great. Did you come on her face?" doesn't sound like a realistic conversation for anyone out of high school (and really only for the socially backwards there).
I think the problem is that people (including LB) are reading this conversation without catching the tone. Ogged's friend surely has his tongue firmly in cheek. I could see this exact exchange happening in comments between Labs and Ogged or BitchPhD and Apo some drunken night and everyone's reaction just being "Oh Labs!" or "Oh Apo!" like "there they go again!" because we know everyone's kidding.
128: Well, we responded to the post as if it were a put-on, until comment 49. Then Ogged got cross that it didn't spark a serious conversation. He wants a serious conversation about it, here it is.
"furiously totting up rectums" is superb.
77 - Kid B: "Creep" meaning what? Curious about anal sex or where buddy ejaculated? Calling the thoughts abnormal is a bit of a stretch (ssen what is on the porn sites recently?). What makes it abnormal is talking the thoughts out-loud, yes? More of an Aspergers problem (cannot see and conform to conventions) than anything much more serious. And the alleged "creep" did not do the off-color banter for public consumption, one must assume.
131: Yes, of course, it would be wrong to judge the poor man for inability to comply with society's conventions. How could we have been so cruel.
125 is a genuine concern. I think the desire to discuss anonymous, faceless partners (because talking about Real Human Beings would be disrespectful) implies that one's pervy sexual desires are this real thing that is demeaned in the context of actual human beings, which reminds me of high school.
Having sex with Real Human Beings, and having retrospection about how I actually responded in those situations, constantly whittles away at my vague, pervy desires and makes them more accurate and specific. When I was 16, I had some pretty fucked-up ideas about what good sex would be, and one of the reasons I feel more vanilla as I get older is that I've stopped trying to map those vague desires onto the real people I have had sex with.
Ogged's friend surely has his tongue firmly in cheek.
I think that ogged's point is the opposite - that unlike the joshing conversations Becks recounts, ogged views his conversation as illuminating a little-discussed aspect of normal human nature.
Ogged's friend surely has his tongue firmly in cheek. I could see this exact exchange happening in comments between Labs and Ogged or BitchPhD and Apo some drunken night and everyone's reaction just being "Oh Labs!" or "Oh Apo!" like "there they go again!" because we know everyone's kidding.
I don't know, he called the post "Guy Talk", not "Wacky Talk".
You know, anonymous sluts. Fun!
Maybe this is the heart of the problem. I don't see the conversation as misogynistic, nor do I see women who enjoy anal sex or having semen on their face as sluts. Seems y'all are taking "defilement" as always horrible, but one of the great things about good sex is that you can explore (for want of a better word) feelings that the prudes on Unfogged think you shouldn't have.
I can see Ogged's friend's tongue being in his cheek until he says Yeah. I like to know before I meet someone, especially if she doesn't know that I know.... Ogged rightly responds that this is the part that is disturbing, which he now seems to be taking back.
128: Either his friend is being goofy, in which case it's not really about defilement and its relationship to sex, but about the fun of pushing buttons and boundaries, or his friend isn't being goofy, in which case I don't live in reality and must be patronized. Either way, there's not much of a point in bothering with a serious discussion.
"furiously totting up rectums" is superb.
I fastidiously tart up rectums.
I hope the word he wanted is "anuses", though.
I suppose I've used those words interchangeably up 'til now.
And now I see they aren't quite the same thing. Anuses, indeed.
Seems y'all are taking "defilement" as always horrible
Well, gosh. I thought you were talking about "defilement" in terms of one-sided degradation. I didn't know you were talking about defilement in the nice sense. Describe that nice sense for me? How does that work?
"Creep" meaning what? Curious about anal sex or where buddy ejaculated?
It's just sad that he can only enjoy his buddy at second hand, and kind of creepy that he has to disguise his wish to participate in o's sex life with misogynist jokes.
136: Ogged, I think one can play with the idea of mutual defilement with tongue in cheek, with a partner. But it seems like your friend actually thinks those terms are real, meaningful categories.
nor do I see women who enjoy anal sex or having semen on their face as sluts.
Funny, me neither. But I don't think that enjoyment should properly form the basis for strangers to speculate on whether they've been 'defiled'.
Seriously, it takes some incredible chutzpah to say that the misogyny comes from bringing the word 'slut' into the discussion as a synonym for the entirely non-misogynistic concept of 'woman who has been defiled by enjoying or participating in certain kinds of sex.' You see a real sharp distinction there, Ogged?
You've probably been remembering the "Rectum? Fuck, it killed him?" joke
Seems y'all are taking "defilement" as always horrible
I don't think people are doing that. If your friend were talking about it the way the BDSM community does, I think the reaction would be much different. But the way you've presented it, it comes across less as "let's explore some interesting and potentially dangerous territory" and more as "haha, stupid sluts!"
immaculate conception
Me either. I'd like to see who came up with this one.
I find that I either browse old sources, which I often don't get for lack of context (though Origen is great), or go looking through Pagels first. Who else is good for the early church, or for the interplay between politics and doctrine in the middle ages?
I'd say that defilement, power, submission, trust, etc., are always going to be a part of sex
I'd agree with regard to power, submission and trust. Defilement, on the other hand, is only a necessary part of sex if you hold sex to be something dirty or shameful. If one is free of that mindset, defilement is no longer part of the equation.
On preview, I think the definition of defilement implicit in 136 is not the same as that implicit in the conversation recounted in the post.
Seems y'all are taking "defilement" as always horrible, but one of the great things about good sex is that you can explore (for want of a better word) feelings that the prudes on Unfogged think you shouldn't have.
Sure, but really, isn't your friend saying "I would love to know something about this chick that she would be mortified to have me know! It would be awesome to secretly know dirty things about her that I seriously do not know her well enough to know!" Which, hey, it's fine to think that's hot, but it's hardly an example of exploring feelings as part of good sex with some other actual person.
140, 141: Hell, now that I'm informed, the rectum is *even more private*!
Which is to say that I concur with 138 and 139.
First, "defiled" was my word, not my friend's. I chose it partly to needle him, but partly because it does describe what he's talking about.
which he now seems to be taking back
Well, no, I took back the "disturbing" in my conversation with my friend. I called it "disturbing" because that's the expected response and I was needling him again, but the truth is that it's not disturbing.
I think the definition of defilement implicit in 136 is not the same as that implicit in the conversation recounted in the post.
Well, but that equivocation is precisely what makes "dirty" and "hot" go together in sex, right?
Defilement, on the other hand, is only a necessary part of sex if you hold sex to be something dirty or shameful.
Eh, I think a lot of people work through bad childhoods by playing with those ideas as adults. Which is to say I agree, but I think it can be a good and healthy thing, if it's a mutual process for both partners. This is different from exclusively wanting to go around "defiling" people so you don't have to respect them anymore.
Max and I had a phase like that, and it was really rough for both of us, and then we got through it after a few months. It seemed hot at the time, but sex afterwards was so much more interesting and intimate. We both had a lot of ugly stuff in our pasts to process before we could get there.
Defilement, on the other hand, is only a necessary part of sex if you hold sex to be something dirty or shameful.
I wouldn't say necessary, but surely it's pretty common that certain sexual acts are fun because of that aspect of "dirty", or "naughty" or whatever you want to call it.
Have you addressed yet why you didn't tell your friend everything he wanted to know, if his wanting to know was a perfectly normal component of hot sex?
Or, really, any other concerns anyone's brought up? 153 doesn't respond to anything.
Look, the idea of defilement has always been a part of any sex act for males, including getting to second-base in junior high. So sure, ogged is right: This is "normal." Why ogged thinks he's come up with something exotic and unknown here, I'm not sure.
The thing that ogged doesn't seem to grasp is that this defilement thing, it's generally not good. We're better people now that we have, by and large, abandoned Victorian or fundamentalist principles of defilement.
Have you addressed yet why you didn't tell your friend everything he wanted to know, if his wanting to know was a perfectly normal component of hot sex?
Because it's private, because I don't have her consent...is this a hard question? Something doesn't have to be immoral and wrong to have a reason for staying private.
we have, by and large, abandoned Victorian or fundamentalist principles of defilement.
We have?
I have defiled women in my heart.
the immaculacy of jc's conception presumably far surpasses the immaculacy of mary's.
Jesus wasn't conceived you bloody heathen.
surely it's pretty common that certain sexual acts are fun because of that aspect of "dirty", or "naughty"
yeah, but fewer and fewer every generation, and this is generally regarded as a) a good thing and b) probably having something to do with the increasing esteem in which our mates the birds are held.
ps: weak, dude. This is "private information that you don't want to share about specific people" for what reason? and how does that reason differ from the reasons everyone else has for thinking it's not a fit subject for discussion in the general case. It's the difference between saying "dammit those rascally Jews" and "Mr Goldstein down the street is actually quite nice".
Re: what's normal. The acts you are describing would not have been considered normal by people living just a couple of generations ago. Seriously, do you think your great-granddaddy did these things, or even wanted to do these things, with/to your great-grandmother? Wouldn't even have occurred to him, I suspect. On the other hand, or at the same time, it wouldn't even have occurred to him that he wasn't the dominant partner in some respect, and that the sex act wasn't some kind of act of ownership or possession ("to take her" was the usual language).
Emerson gets at it in 94, I think. These porn fantasies seem like a kind of low-rent substitute for a male domination that was once experienced as both real and "natural."
Nothing particularly defiling about anal sex done thoughtfully, or ejaculating all over a partner (with consent). What gets mixed in here, a bit, is the idea of dom/sum relationships and is that sort of role playing ok? No doubt yes, with consent. Hence, the tongue in cheek banter does not obviously violate the Old Testament or make the conversation any sort of off the chart heresy. If the shoe were on the other foot, so to speak, and female friend1 asked female friend2 about using a strap on on boyfriend, or blindfold and handcuffs etc., would that raise LB hackles?
159: Right. "Defilement" as a category most of us were given by our fucked-up parents' generation, is normal for those of us who were raised by sexually fucked-up people. "Sexual assault" is also something so common as to be called "normal." And they affect the ways we comport ourselves as sexual adults.
But there are ways of incorporating those concepts in order to debunk and understand them, and then there are ways of merely passing on the fucked-upedness to others to re-enact our own trauma, usually by mirroring our own past suffering onto the faces of others. Which blows.
160: We have?
Sure, many folks have, and it's all to the better.
Would my statement have made any more sense to you if I had substituted "junior high" for "Victorian" ? You outgrow some stuff, both as an individual and as a society.
Because it's private, because I don't have her consent...is this a hard question? Something doesn't have to be immoral and wrong to have a reason for staying private.
Okay. The problem is that she didn't consent to what he wanted to do (find out about what a dirty slut (the fun, consensual kind) she is in bed). Just like there's nothing wrong with fondling someone's breasts, so long as they consent, but suddenly, if they don't, it's like some kind of federal offense or something.
Are you getting an inkling of what makes the conversation creepy? Maybe?
The acts you are describing would not have been considered normal by people living just a couple of generations ago.
Are you sure, IA? I was just watching some documentary whose name I can't remember that included a segment about the earliest porn reels, and the universal reaction to them was, "We thought they'd be tame, but they were doing everything you see in porn today...."
we have, by and large, abandoned Victorian or fundamentalist principles of defilement.
Leaving the matter to adventurers like the late Marco Vassi.
Nothing particularly defiling about anal sex done thoughtfully, or ejaculating all over a partner (with consent).
Does anyone else think these two examples are not identical?
something obvious but underdiscussed
Maybe because there's a reason this kind of thing isn't discussed.
it would be more interesting to hear things like "Yeah, I kind of think that too, and my girlfriend/wife kind of gets off on things like that, too."
Except that you don't do that either; in the conversation you quote, you make a point of avoiding answering the guy's questions. If anything I think the discussion to be had is more about the difference between the kinds of things that are acceptable to say (or joke about, which is what you guys are doing in the dialogue) in person or in private vs. the kinds of things that are acceptable to say in public--which includes a blog.
170: Well, one requires more lube. Aren't you, like, seventeen or something? You should really be out learning about sex in the gutters someplace.
The acts you are describing would not have been considered normal by people living just a couple of generations ago. Seriously, do you think your great-granddaddy did these things, or even wanted to do these things, with/to your great-grandmother? Wouldn't even have occurred to him, I suspect.
You seriously think all this stuff materialized out of the ether in the last 40 years? No way.
168: Porn in previous generations is just as gross (cf. post-Nazi-era German shit porn, which I have not seen, but which a friend described to me). But I think the impetus to re-enact kinky porny scenes IRL is more mainstream now. That is, there's less perceived difference between mediated reality and reality.
I was just watching some documentary whose name I can't remember that included a segment about the earliest porn reels, and the universal reaction to them was, "We thought they'd be tame, but they were doing everything you see in porn today...."
That sounds familiar, but I can't remember what the hell the show was. Something on HBO I think.
Are you getting an inkling of what makes the conversation creepy? Maybe?
Not from the first part of that comment.
Seriously, do you think your great-granddaddy did these things, or even wanted to do these things, with/to your great-grandmother? Wouldn't even have occurred to him, I suspect.
My great-grandmother, no, never, but people generally? Sure, there's no question. It turns out these things called books exist, some of which are more than a few generations old, which record some glimpses of times and peoples of the past. Kink is old news.
It turns out these things called books exist, some of which are more than a few generations old, which record some glimpses of times and peoples of the past.
Hee.
What makes it creepy has nothing to do with whatever deep point you think you're making about defilement and sex, it's that your friend wants to be able to leer at your girlfriend properly by thinking 'Wow, such a firm handshake for someone who takes it up the ass' if/when they meet.
176: It is creepy to get sexual gratification from an unconsenting partner. To the extent that your friend wants to get a little frisson of sexual excitement from knowing private things about your dates that they don't know that he knows, and would not consent for him to know, he is attempting to get such sexual gratification. That's creepy. Was my point really so obscure?
Well, one requires more lube.
My point was that ejaculating on someone seems to come as close as possible to being inherently defiling.
Cala, he's been my friend for twenty years; he didn't expect me to tell him.
181: Try it sometime. You might be surprised. Semen doesn't burn flesh like acid or something; it washes off.
179 gets it right. It's not creepy without that, it's just somewhat dumb.
On the other hand, yes, I do want to know things about people without them knowing that I know. As a way of feeling that I have power over them. The screwed up thing is that this guy thought you would just give him this information about your lady friend, knowing that he wanted it so that he could feel some sort of power over her the next time they meet. That shows a total lack of respect.
he's been my friend for twenty years; he didn't expect me to tell him
well, you've had this blog for five years and you expected us to tell you.
I actually don't care if my bfs tell their friends about our sex life. I wouldn't date someone who would go around talking about how he "defiled" me anyway, and if he has loser friends who want to reinterpret sex as defilement, that's kind of not my problem.
I wouldn't date someone who would go around talking about how he "defiled" me anyway
You may be surprised.
186: You're also wayyyy more open about your sexuality than anyone ogged would ever date.
Anyone else notice the irony of ogged complaining about an orthodoxy restricting discussion of this issue while saying that only a very specific kind of discussion would meet his exacting standards?
183: Wait, do you mean it actually feels pleasant, or that it's just sort of pleasure-neutral?
182: So, he didn't actually want to know? Like, the conversation was a joking way of saying "Finding out sexual information about women that they wouldn't want me to know would give me a voyeuristic thrill, but I don't actually seek out such information because as we all know, that would be wrong"? Okay, but I don't think that came across in the post.
187: Again, though, what dudes talk about with each other? Not my problem. I have girlfriends, and we don't exactly talk about fashion.
190: That's not irony. I know other people who do similar things for what I suspect are other people, and it's intentional.
194 should read "I know other people who do similar things for similar reasons". Bleh.
The conversation recounted in the post reminds me once again why I generally hate interacting with men.
191: Physically or psychically?
I think this stuff should be acknowledged and talked about, but I wouldn't share private things about specific people.
nor do I see women who enjoy anal sex or having semen on their face as sluts.
The problem is that on the blog we pretend that we *do* see women as sluts for even talking openly about their sex lives, ahem. So you can't really be terribly shocked when people decline, just as you've done, to share private things about themselves or their specific partners even if you think that would be an interesting conversation to have.
Also, I will honest to god say that no matter what freaky shit I might do in bed, I see it as intimacy, not defilement. In fact, even the whiff (hah hah) of any kind of degredation or punishment or anything of that sort is much worse than a cold shower; it'll actually make me blindingly angry.
Except I think once or twice, with people who I had zero relationship with and zero intention of a relationship, in which case I'm happy to play along with whatever script's going on in their mind but have to admit that what I'm actually feeling at the time is a great deal of detatchment. Which is surely itself a power play, just as my willingness to "go along" for the sake of impressing them is. But it's not terribly hot.
So, he didn't actually want to know? Like, the conversation was a joking way of saying "Finding out sexual information about women that they wouldn't want me to know would give me a voyeuristic thrill, but I don't actually seek out such information because as we all know, that would be wrong"?
I'm sure he wanted to know, but he didn't expect to find out. It was basically a way of acknowledging that something is exciting to him; you know, talking about feelings, which I validated in a teasing way. It's a fucking after-school special.
191: I don't have a lot of experience with it, but it's usually been either impressive or mutually funny.
192: Possibility that Ogged's friend just enjoys squicking him out? Very high.
Kibitzing on others' sex lives and asking for details strikes me as weird, but then, what is Unfogged all about if it's not that?
193: You know, the talking about sex, even in lurid detail? Not a problem. The 'defilement' angle, from anyone I have to interact with, but with whom I am not engaged in a mutual sexual relationship involving consensual exploration of power issues? Problem, and problem if someone I care about is participating.
199: Feelings? Really?
Also, I want to hear details about the special after-school fucking.
I also don't see what ogged finds so interesting about people telling him exactly what he wants to hear.
197: Physically. Haven't ever done it, probably never will consentually. Except possibly for experimental purposes.
I'm not saying that people didn't engage in such acts prior to 1968 or so. I'm saying that such acts were not considered normal or mainstream and that the people who engaged in them were seen as deviant.
199: So, you teasingly validated his desire to get sexual satisfaction from women who don't consent and would object if they knew. You didn't help him achieve it, but made sure he knew that it was normal and healthy.
Fun!
Possibility that Ogged's friend just enjoys squicking him out? Very high.
Seconded.
206. *shrug* It's warm sticky translucent fluid. Warm sticky fluids can be fun to play with. Translucent fluids make things glisten interestingly. It washes off. Keep it out of your eyes and ova.
So, you teasingly validated his desire to get sexual satisfaction from women who don't consent and would object if they knew. You didn't help him achieve it, but made sure he knew that it was normal and healthy.
Fun!
Yeah ogged, this was a teachable moment. You should have gotten indignant. I'm at least 25% serious about this.
My point was that ejaculating on someone seems to come as close as possible to being inherently defiling.
I really do not see the logic here. All the guys I've known who were into that seemed to see it this way, but I really just don't get it.
If I wanted that, I'd fist some(female)one.
to get sexual satisfaction from women who don't consent
Honestly, LB. Then we laughed it up about all the people he's raped.
213: I sometimes get the sense that dudes think semen is a magical substance that inscribes itself indelibly into the flesh. It is water-soluble, gentlemen!
215: Yeah, yeah. Overblown, but you weren't so much comprehending the subtler versions. So, which word in the quoted sentence was incorrect?
212: Likelihood that any of Ogged's friends look to him for advice about successful sexual relationships? Nil!
I sometimes get the sense that dudes think semen is a magical substance that inscribes itself indelibly into the flesh.
It does have an effect on the human ovum that few other substances do.
215: Ogged, you're totally overreacting. LB is not accusing you or your friend of being a rapist; she's saying that she's bothered (not unreasonably) by the idea of two men friends talking about the dirty things some girl let one of them do to her (or not) because one of them thinks it's a hot topic of conversation. And you've already agreed that the girl in question probably wouldn't want to be discussed that way, and that therefore you won't answer the question, so you seem to be agreeing with her that there's something wrong with doing so. Presumably you're not assuming she doesn't want to be talked about like that not because you and she have personally discussed it but because of some kind of general sense of what is and isn't seemly, which is the same thing LB's referring to: she's just being explicit about why.
213: Probably the porny associations.
I really do not see the logic here. All the guys I've known who were into that seemed to see it this way, but I really just don't get it.
It seems to express ownership, and almost everyone learns about it from porn, in which it is indisputably done to defile.
213: Just guessing, but I'd assume because unlike anal sex, semen-squirting doesn't seem like it usually or even can be done so that it's directly pleasurable/stimulating to the receiver. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing you could get off on directly. Or even sort of in combation, in the case of combined anal/clitoral stimulation. I suspect getting off from having your clit played with while you have man-goo on your face basically just feels like... having your clit played with. But there's man-goo on your face.
224 has it. I would be bewildered if a woman asked me to ejaculate on her, and I would immediately distrust a man who asked a woman if he could.
Likelihood that any of Ogged's friends look to him for advice about successful sexual relationships? Nil!
Or so the mullahs would have you believe.
Gosh, LB, by this standard Ogged has gotten satisfaction from all of those unconsenting volleyball players. He's banned!
222, 223: Yeah, I guess so re. porn. The ownership thing, eh, I guess. Men are fucked up.
'm going to disagree with 224's guess simply because I think there are an awful lot of things that don't seem obviously directly sexually stimulating that I assume most people know are exciting for psychological reasons, even if they don't think of it that way.
224: "...doesn't seem like it usually or even can be done so that it's directly pleasurable/stimulating to the receiver."
The same can be said of dirty talk, lacey underthings, and elaborate scenarios involving nuns and policemen.
Validation: not very interesting.
But surprisingly addictive. Especially if delivered intermittently.
I would be bewildered if a woman asked me to ejaculate on her
Holy shit, you are all prudes. Uh, some women like it, people. Are the presidential pseudonyms dead? I'm not going to sit here and explain why women like it, just so the rest of you can accuse me of misogynistic projection or somesuch.
224, 227: Think, for men (or lesbians) of getting off on a partner's orgasmic moans -- direct evidence of how you've made them feel. I'm not saying it's a major personal kink, but there's something there.
229: In fact, we've *had* conversations about why some of us are bothered by posting pics of real people on the site and talking about how hot or not they are. LB's not being at all inconsistent or random here.
230: Also, watching someone you like have an orgasm from a small distance is hot.
230: And the only way I can conceive of a woman enjoying it psychologically is as seriously fucked-up self-abasement, because all of the psychological associations are negative and porny.
Obviously there is room for, as in AWB's case, humor or impressiveness, but that is doing it ironically.
233: Ogged, the fact that we're not wired the same way you are doesn't make us prudes. I suppose some women like it, I know some guys do, but the fact that some people find the appeal confusing isn't a sign of prudishness.
elaborate scenarios involving nuns and policemen.
Ick.
I'd be bewildered too. But momentarily.
B, I meant to refer to Ogged's onanistic life; sorry for the ambiguity.
for men (or lesbians) of getting off on a partner's orgasmic moans
Or straight women, or gay men. Not sure why the exclusion. Stop oppressing people, LB!
Okay, we know that FL produces orgasmic moans now.
In fact, even the whiff (hah hah) of any kind of degredation or punishment or anything of that sort is much worse than a cold shower; it'll actually make me blindingly angry.
I guess I see that as part of the reality that makes me somewhat sympathetic to ogged's position (or one once removed from it). It's a bit like (I think) AWB's comment on a prior thread: why is it the assumption that Geoff's true feelings are those expressed to ogged? Or that there are "true feelings" here?
It seems likely to me that ogged's friend is a decent guy who is unlikely to have a doormat of a girlfriend. (A guess, based on a host of things, inc. knowing people who I can imagine saying similar.) I don't much believe that you can want to humiliate or defile or degrade a partner without her knowing it. And it seems unlikely to me that she--being as previously described--would accept it.
Contra ogged (I think), I don't think that Geoff's comments represent something about the way he behaves towards women. I see it as similar to saying something like, "Gawd, I'd like to beat the shit out of some Bush supporter." Sort of true, but not true for very long. Or true, but not likely to be acted upon. Or true, but irrelevant. And therefore weird, and therefore interesting. There are a lot of things like that, no? People talk all the time about how they'd like to do violence to others, or even learn to do violence to others. Seems similar. (And may be the subject of the new J. Foster movie.)
because all of the psychological associations are negative and porny
No, they're not. It's intimate, it's sharing something you don't share with anyone else, etc. And you can have dirty with sweet, all at the same time.
236: Sure. But that's distinct from having someone actually come *on* you. Although okay, I can see the "watching someone come + some kind of physical contact at the moment of orgasm" combo. I am now satisfied, from a distance, with AWB's, uh, brief comment.
229: Oh, don't be silly. Just like getting on the subway implies consent to having people lean on you if necessary, appearing visibly in public on some level implies consent to having people see you and think about what you look like (that is, while I'm sure beach volleyball players aren't necessarily pleased by the fact that thirteen year old boys, and Ogged, are jerking off while thinking about them, it's not an intrusion on them directly.) That's different from having people exchange information about you conventionally kept secret, and to the exposure of which you would not consent if given the option.
It's intimate, it's sharing something you don't share with anyone else, etc.
This could be used to describe nearly any sex act.
241: Labs, how does "men" exclude "gay men"? Straight men don't have orgasmic moans, so "straight women" was a natural carve-out.
Uh, some women like it, people. Are the presidential pseudonyms dead? I'm not going to sit here and explain why women like it, just so the rest of you can accuse me of misogynistic projection or somesuch.
I think most of us can figure out the psychology behind women liking it, we're talking about if it can be divorced from that physically to have it's own positive pleasurableness (ugh!) as an experience.
I guess some women might actually construct it as a power trip (HAH HAH I GOT HIM TO COME!), but I've certianly never met or even heard of any. Same deal with peeing on people: probably there are some people who have a genuine fetish for the smell/sensation in a non-defiling way, but you know, most people seem to get off on it because peed on is degrading.
244: Intimate and sharing do not necessarily = defilement.
243: Look, Tim, you're oversimplifying what I'm saying. I'm not gonna fuck someone who isn't a decent guy or who behaves like a dick towards women in everyday life. But I *have* fucked people who thought it was hot to get all assholish during sex. I'm not saying my reaction to that is some pc thing; it is what it is, and the same act that can be hot coming from someone whose intent I interpret as sweet can be extremely offputting coming from someone whose intent I interpret as defiling or humiliating. I don't know why, it's just how it is.
241: I was addressing a straight man and a lesbian, and offering them an analogy to a partner's ejaculation.
Straight men don't have orgasmic moans
pwnt by 242.
Generally in agreement with LB on the larger conversation, but on the subtopic of not-directly-pleasurable, possibly-symbolic, messy bits of sex? A non-negligible fraction of women I've dated have liked it. One partner suggested that part of the appeal was breaking the taboo around bodily fluids generally that the modern safer-sex movement has been promoting.
Straight men don't have orgasmic moans
Transparent trolling.
HAH HAH I GOT HIM TO COME!
I've seen this, too.
I sometimes get the sense that dudes think semen is a magical substance that inscribes itself indelibly into the flesh.
Those few of us who have masturbated successfully know differently.
Although perhaps rarely with the taunting laughter.
HAH HAH I GOT HIM TO COME!
This phrase will haunt my nightmares.
Whatever happened to "It feels good to make my partner have an orgasm"? It's not necessarily about sneering power; it can be about intimacy, realizing you know someone's body and feeling turned on by that.
238: Self-abasement or not: a man going down on his female partner with the intent of giving her pleasure and demonstrating his prowess, happily coming up for air after her orgasm and not being in any hurry to run to the bathroom and wash her fluids off his face, but rather, uh, savoring them.
Is the symmetric situation all that inconceivable to you?
257: Only female flesh is soft enough to etch, I guess.
256: On the face, specifically? The only way I could see that working is a really weird kind of reverse mindfuck with a domme/daddy/etc with a particularly devoted, really subbish sub who was squicked by the idea specifically because it challenged their role boundaries. And then it's still playing on the defilement stuff.
Which... hey, that's kind of hot. I love that kind of scene.
Right, I think that the problem with the conversation is that the posted dialogue introduced the idea of degredation. (Which some people are doubtless into.) What AWB is saying about intimacy makes a ton of sense: it *is* hot to watch someone masturbate, and it's hot if they're a little embarrassed, but not (for me) because they're being degraded, dear god, but rather because the embarrassment demonstrates an inhibition while the act itself demonstrates trust. That combination is remarkably touching.
250: That doesn't seem very far from (what I think is) ogged's position. And I think
I don't know why, it's just how it is.
is a tag of what someone might reasonably think is a sort of interesting phenomenon, whatever the subject matter.
Man, when did you people all turn into such prudes? Semen is associated with, you know, sex, so it's hot to interact with it. Just like how the smell of sex can be arousing, putting a condom on someone else can be fun, etc. It's not like you suddenly get a fetish for condoms or something, it's just something that's associated with sex, and thus becomes a fun part of sex. If you don't act like semen is radioactive, you're gonna get it on you somewhere, and then after a while, you might want it on you, because hey, slippery and fun.
You people are weird.
261: Bad parallel, inasmuch as semen is generally actively ejaculated whereas girl juice isn't.
239.3: OK, you be the policewoman and I'll be the pope.
268: Look, the prudes in the conversation are a straight male college kid and a lesbian -- having a little trouble figuring out what the appeal is isn't all that unlikely.
262: Women are tender and sensitive and we should protect them and put them on pedestals and etch their skin with our might jism. We're really pretty much forced to, because they hardly ever have cherries any more.
267: I don't think I was attacking Ogged, Tim. Are you making an argument of your own here?
Yeah, I think Ogged may have had some point, but the post didn't get him anywhere near it.
271: "Generally."
270: Costumes are a definite no go.
269: Tell that to Rocky's fist.
Also, are you really saying that the fluid's muzzle velocity is relevant, or are you just taking a contrary position so I'll think you're hot?
Straight men don't have orgasmic moans
was that a joke??
Ever notice how Ogged calls everyone prudes so that there will be a hott, detailed conversation about sex that he will refuse to participate in except as goad, but then later he accuses us of all being sex-obsessed perverts who need a sense of propriety? And all the while, he needs produce no evidentiary content of his own.
Privacy issues are the nub of the problem to me. One simply does not ask friend about what happened in bed with his/her girl/boy friend - who did what to whom.
It is like asking CPA friend about client's tax return AGI, or what lawyer friend's client said about if client did the crime.
Even asking in a joking way is indicative of Aspergers tendencies, absent, perhaps: Ogged and his girl friend are both jointly (and at the same time, in the same place) recruiting the Aspergers sufferer to be the third in a threesome. That was not the case here.
the post didn't get him anywhere near it
The post was the conversation as it happened. I thought y'all could run with the ball, as it were, but I was wrong, so wrong.
Basically, Ogged just needs to go to a Society of Janus meeting already, since after this thread I can no longer believe he moved to the Bay Area for any other reason.
Yes, in 118. Not that it worked to draw him out, but the dynamic is clear.
Baby, we're all wearing costumes.
279: Yup.
277: I'm saying that it seems perfectly coherent that for person A, to whom sexual fluids are *degrading*, forcibly getting them on someone's, say, face, would seem empowering. Whereas for person B, to whom they are also degrading, someone else getting them on their face as a side effect of some other activity would, one imagines, seem significantly less a factor of *power* than of, I dunno, tolerance.
I realize that this is a totally heteronormative and patriarchal way of viewing the difference. What can I say.
279 gets it right.
I thought y'all could run with the ball, as it were, but I was wrong, so wrong.
We ran with a ball. Sorry it wasn't one of yours.
280: That's ridiculous. Everyone who talks with their friends about sex is on the autism spectrum? If I ask a friend if her date was good and how he was in bed, knowing that she cares about that sort of thing, I'm suffering from some kind of social disorder?
279: Well, yeah, I mean, duh. Like I said, if you hang around enough kinky people, you'll see that exact same thing a lot. Nathan Williams and HL should be able to back me up here.
I think Ogged may have had some point
I suppose along the lines of "defilement is part of what's sexy for some non-asshole people," but I'm so whipped from work today, I can't even read through another anal-sex comment thread.
SCMT, that Washingtonienne quote is indeed great, and should be a bumper sticker -- rear bumper, of course.
It turns out, AWB, that some of you are sex-obsessed perverts, and the rest of you are prudes. Take it up with your parents.
Ever notice how Ogged calls everyone prudes so that there will be a hott, detailed conversation about sex that he will refuse to participate in except as goad, but then later he accuses us of all being sex-obsessed perverts who need a sense of propriety? And all the while, he needs produce no evidentiary content of his own.
Ogged is a plot function, not an actual character. Whenever the thread needs to be moved along he shows up and pushes a button. His motives, character, consistency, etc. are not worth thinking about.
289: I have friends who are a lot kinkier than me, and they provide serious content for conversation.
281: You know, Ogged, we aren't mind-readers. It wasn't clear, esp. with the title, if you were posting the thing just to bait people (which your ensuing comments about how you knew this would happen seem to suggest), to try to say something terribly deep about m/f relationships, or what. It honestly did not occur to me, or it seems to anyone, that you actually wanted a serious conversation about sex; and once you said as much, you sort of got one, didn't you?
286, I'm only asserting that a nonzero fraction of semen-ejaculated-on-face incidents are symmetric to the situation outlined in 261; I'm making no claim as to what that fraction is.
I see it as similar to saying something like, "Gawd, I'd like to beat the shit out of some Bush supporter." Sort of true, but not true for very long.
God that gets me hot.
Likewise to 291. Fun post bar-exam vacation, I hope?
296: I'm not going to do math here. I'm too busy trying to keep the spunk out of my eyes.
AWB, you're a autistic pervert. Just admit it already.
Yeah, LeBlanc, you fickle temptress, do you think maybe you'll actually stick around a little bit this time?
It wasn't clear
This looked like pretty obvious trolling to me.
301: Only if we make it nice and slippery.
294: It's possible that Ogged is a nice wholesome boy who likes coming on women's faces in a non-defiling, explicitly consentual, non-power-dynamical ways, I guess. But I'm just saying, I've seen male dom types use the exact dynamic you describe.
(One of them would up basically assaulting a basically straight, slightly kinky friend of mine as the culmination to a long flirtation using those tactics. It happened at a very public, non-scene bondage demo thrown by a local SM group, she was in a pair of cuffs, he tickled her, which she really can't deal with. She had an asthma attack and I had to get her off the floor and out of the cuffs ASAP. I still regret not beating the shit out of the guy.)
This looked like pretty obvious trolling to me.
THOB again? What a pity, Ogged had such promise.
295: I think ogged misread his audience (probably intentionally). But the title's pretty perfect. I don't think there was a "point" as such, just "weird, but true."
303: If it's too slippery, she'll just slide right off. I vote we try crazy glue.
294: It's possible that Ogged is a nice wholesome boy who likes coming on women's faces in a non-defiling, explicitly consentual, non-power-dynamical ways, I guess.
I believe he's explicitly denied this.
in a non-defiling, explicitly consentual, non-power-dynamical ways
My point is, there's no such thing. But defiling, slightly uncomfortable, power-dynamical things can go along, at the very same time, with trusting sweetness. It's precisely this "it's either not defiling or it's wrong" response that I'm objecting to.
Wait, Rocky, I'm starting to think you didn't mean to reference 279 in 289.
309: Do you get that the consent issues around the conversation in the post are a separate thing from the 'defilement' you want to talk about, and that's where at least my, and I think most other people's, problem with the post comes from?
The consent of the person being asked about? Of course I get that, given that I brought it up, goober.
Ogged, what does "defile" mean to you?
310: I've been wondering the same thing, but I don't see another comment that fits for 289 to be responding to. So I'm feeling naive and hoping for a fuller explanation.
309: "Defilement." This word, I'm not sure it means what you think it means. You can play with defilement ironically, or you can actually think you're defiling someone.
Getting someone dirty is different from defiling. Defiling means their inner substance is changed, desanctified, made "unclean," not just unclean. That is, it's a spiritual change, and is therefore bullshit someone made up to oppress people.
Yeah, it's a very strong word. Like "desecrated".
312: Then what the fuck has your problem been with calling your friend creepy? Start a conversation about something consensual if you don't want people to react as if it were creepy.
And, once again, it turns out the key disagreement is about the meaning of a word.
Ever notice how Ogged calls everyone prudes so that there will be a hott, detailed conversation about sex that he will refuse to participate in except as goad, but then later he accuses us of all being sex-obsessed perverts who need a sense of propriety? And all the while, he needs produce no evidentiary content of his own.
This? No, that's what I meant. Seriously. Replace "calls everyone prudes" and "accuses us of all sex-obsessed perverts" with "starts a conversation about what is/isn't acceptable in terms of kinky behavior, and why" and "extrapolates far greater masochism/subbiness/kinkitude and interest in him than he should", but same damn thing, with Ogged's legendary reticence replaced with a bullshit "dom code of honor" thing. Still basically the same dynamic, though.
My point is, there's no such thing.
For facials, or for sex in general?
I thought we agreed somewhere upthread that "defilement" wasn't precisely what we mean, but the word I picked to tease my friend. I didn't want to change it because I didn't want to 1) confuse the issue and 2) be accused of backpeddling or trolling or whatever it is that you horrible people like to accuse me of.
My point is, there's no such thing.
As what, non-defiling, non-power play sex? Hmmmmmm. I think I would go along with the idea that there's no sex that doesn't have *some* aspect of power in it: either one is intimate and open, which involves trust and letting down the kinds of defenses we tend to have up most of the time, or one isn't, in which case one isn't letting down those defenses--either letting them down or not has something to do with power, obviously (even if in the kind of vague and general way you'd usually give me no end of shit for invoking). But I don't get where you think defilement is an inherent aspect of sex.
288 -
"If I ask a friend if her date was good and how he was in bed, knowing that she cares about that sort of thing, I'm suffering from some kind of social disorder?"
Move this around a bit to hetero guy1 asks hetero guy2 how new het girl was in bed.
Yea, I would call that out of line and akin to asking what did your client say about if he did the crime.
Privacy rights of gf trump the gossip rights of guy1 and guy2. Asking for private sex information that guy2 has no business sharing - Aspergers training (teaching good manners) called for.
Suppose with your example she came back with yeah we had a great time, I walked him around with a dog collar, tied him up, dido up the butt, etc. Privacy rights of date not violated?
Not that I think Ogged is an asshole the way the guy in my previous example was, but he was just the first person who came into mind when thinking about "straight male dommish types who like to goad people into talking about sex, but do it in a way where they can beg out of reciprocating".
2) be accused of backpeddling
No one is accusing you of being a pimp, ogged.
Also, even if "defilement" isn't what is meant, it's a bit creepy to think of a woman as either having been defiled/violated/marked/whatever, or not being defiled/violated/marked/whatever yet. It's not like it actually changes anything about her.
320: Okay, then what *do* you mean, precisely?
what does "defile" mean to you?
Mon dieu, you mean we're not talking about parades?
Then what the fuck has your problem been with calling your friend creepy?
There's no harm in asking. It would have been wrong of me to answer. Even so, surely it's possible that I'm in a relationship with a woman who wouldn't mind my telling; in the event, it's that my friend knows I won't answer.
322 sounds right. Most women have a double standard about which gender can talk about its sexual partners behind their back.
Didn't we cover standards of confidentiality a while back? I'm too lazy to check to see if people are being consistent with past positions or with positions taken elsewhere.
Suppose with your example she came back with yeah we had a great time, I walked him around with a dog collar, tied him up, dido up the butt, etc. Privacy rights of date not violated?
The comparison kind of demonstrates that you think that what's wrong with men talking about sex with women is that the women are therefore degraded. Which doesn't necessarily have to be the case, you know.
Pseudonymous president here to declare that he enjoyed a sweet, longterm relationship whose sexual repertoire included many of the naughty acts described herein. I can offer a mixed report. You can indeed have the dirty with the sweet, and we did. Typically, I found that consent surrounding power sex-acts reflected associated societal gender dynamics: for example, I would seek verbal consent to perform a facial, or she might ask for one. Cumshots do have negative associations in porn; consistent consent was our way to indicate that we were negotiating these associations but still enjoying the taboo-breaking nature of the acts. But if she wanted to, say, slap me across the face, she would just do so, assuming a blanket permission--or I might guide her hand to my face, and so on. And we discussed these things frequently over e-mail (which certainly makes the work day go by).
When the relationship ended, though—and because the decision to end it was mine—some of our experiments made her actually feel degraded in retrospect. At least, they did immediately after the breakup; there's no way for me to tell if that's still the case, because you don't get to revisit these things very frequently with exes. I felt like she was speaking more in anger than in sadness, and retconning is an inevitable aspect of breakups: I thought our relationship was like this, but now I think it actually was like this.
321: Wait, what? Of course you can have power-dynamic free sex, with or without intimacy. Hell, I'm kinkier than a hairpin and I do this.
All you people who think you can't are the real dirty perverts.
Hey, y'all. Yes, now that I am gainfully employed (first day of work today!), I suspect that I will be commenting on a more regular basis, although since I am now Fighting For Justice (tm), I hope it wil be less than back when I was lazing my way through law school and/or making buttloads of money at the most boring law firm ever.
So, no, I haven't been doing anything fun, just laying around my internetless house and getting semen on my face and stuff.
Most women have a double standard
Uh huh. Back on the veldt, this double standard was important because . . . oh fuck, I can't even be bothered.
327: If it would have been wrong of you to answer, as something she hadn't consented to, then it's wrong of him to ask.
Even so, surely it's possible that I'm in a relationship with a woman who wouldn't mind my telling;
Wouldn't that kill the thrill, if she's willing to participate in the conversation? There goes the secret knowledge and the 'defilement' if she's there saying: "Sure, I love getting it up the ass. And you know Oggers here likes having his scrotum nibbled on?"
Pseudonymous president here to declare that he enjoyed a sweet, longterm relationship whose sexual repertoire included many of the naughty acts described herein. I can offer a mixed report. You can indeed have the dirty with the sweet, and we did. Typically, I found that consent surrounding power sex-acts reflected associated societal gender dynamics: for example, I would seek verbal consent to perform a facial, or she might ask for one. Cumshots do have negative associations in porn; consistent consent was our way to indicate that we were negotiating these associations but still enjoying the taboo-breaking nature of the acts. But if she wanted to, say, slap me across the face, she would just do so, assuming a blanket permission--or I might guide her hand to my face, and so on. And we discussed these things frequently over e-mail (which certainly makes the work day go by).
When the relationship ended, though—and because the decision to end it was mine—some of our experiments made her actually feel degraded in retrospect. At least, they did immediately after the breakup; there's no way for me to tell if that's still the case, because you don't get to revisit these things very frequently with exes. I felt like she was speaking more in anger than in sadness, and retconning is an inevitable aspect of breakups: I thought our relationship was like this, but now I think it actually was like this.
335 is stupid. When I say "most women" I mean "most women in the society I live in". This is also true when "women" is replaced with "men". Please bookmark my making this statement so that I won't have to add those qualifiers in the future.
Seriously, cfw. I know there are like 5 people here who follow the code that there must be strictest silence about what happens in bed, even among the most intimate friends. That doesn't make everyone else in the world autistic. Call it bad manners (that everyone but you has) if you want, but pathologizing normal human conversation is shitty.
Besides, if people do not have the right to talk about sexual specifics, it means they have less information and input from friends about what is normal/okay/safe/healthy. Community is a good thing, and helps people find healthier sexual situations.
333: Come on, Rocky, I'm trying to work with Ogged here.
Wouldn't that kill the thrill
I'll ask him.
If it would have been wrong of you to answer, as something she hadn't consented to, then it's wrong of him to ask.
Not if, as I said above, he didn't expect me to answer (not that y'all could have known that).
This is also true when "women" is replaced with "men".
For future reference, the simple word "people" will cover both categories.
So, basically, your friend was just fucking with you?
345: Actually, in the society I live in, women and men differ in certain aspects, on a population-wide level.
344: You said before that he wasn't kidding about wanting an answer, whether or not he thought he was going to get one. If the whole thing was a joke, and he would have been put off if you'd actually answered, that's one thing. If he was expressing a sincere desire that you help him get off voyeuristically on your dates without their consent, it's creepy whether or not he was expecting it to work.
See 199 for my description of the conversation, Lunar.
Suppose with your example she came back with yeah we had a great time, I walked him around with a dog collar, tied him up, dido up the butt, etc. Privacy rights of date not violated?
Maybe, but who the fuck cares? Date privacy is strong as "I want to see that person again."
Way to bungle my attempt to set up a joke, O-dog.
So, no, I haven't been doing anything fun, just laying around my internetless house and getting semen on my face and stuff.
Genuinely great to "see" you again.
And I don't see how it could possibly be disrespectful to a partner to have a respectful, detailed conversation with a trusted friend about actual sex. That is, unlike the vague, silly, porny conversations people have about tit size and dick size and crap like that, it is possible to have conversations with friends that can make sex healthier and more enjoyable, and I have been grateful when my partners have picked up interesting ideas or suggestions from their friends, as have my partners been grateful when I've learned something new from friends.
When one feels trapped in a relationship out of which no intimate communication can pass, it's an environment that can very quickly become abusive. I am very wary about people who don't talk about specific instances of sex with their close friends, because it means they want to hide something, whether it be feelings of insecurity, or some feeling of defilement or having been defiled, or even a complete lack of satisfying sex altogether.
dido up the butt
The B-side to No Angel.
341: I don't know if I do or not; what I said was, "I think I would go along with," and I then went on to include intimacy or the lack thereof as inherently related to the idea of power. Not to be a pedantic bitch or anything, really, but when I say stuff like "I think I would go along with" x, it's meant to be pretty tentative, as in, well, I can accept that for the time being.
It seems a little dubious to me--at least, my first thought on reading what I understood as O. saying that power always has something to do with sex was, well, in x and y situation/relationship that hasn't been the case for me. But then I thought, okay, but part of what was special about x or y relationship was that the sex was very intimate and personal, rather than being about bells and whistles and whips and ponies*, and okay, for the sake of argument I suppose I could say that that intimacy/personal thing was partly about giving up defenses and showoffishness so maybe if you wanted to make an argument that power's always there I could accept that premise.
In other words, I was trying to go along with Ogged's argument because I was interested in focusing on the degradation thing instead because I was wondering (in a genuinely non-prurient way, I swear!) what he meant by that.
*Yeah yeah I know these aren't necessarily in separate categories for other people, all right?
I wish to hell I'd had the lot of you to talk to and listen to thirty years ago. Not that I've ever shown any ability to actually learn from advice, but still.
347: So if you're talking about something in which you think there's a genuine difference, say so. If you're alluding to a difference that you believe exists and someone else calls bullshit on it, don't hide behind "men do it too". Try providing, you know, some actual evidence? Because in the specific instance you're talking about, I actually have not noticed a big double standard, say, among the women on this blog about men vs. women talking about their sex lives. Have you?
353: I'm kind of with AWB on this. I think I'd go a bit further: if you don't want to be discussed by jerks--male or female--try not to fuck jerks. And if you accidentally do, rest easy in the knowledge that it's not going to do you much harm: most of us have, and it's survivable. (I suppose that this might be influenced by local conditions. But still.)
I am very wary about people who don't talk about specific instances of sex with their close friends, because it means they want to hide something, whether it be feelings of insecurity, or some feeling of defilement or having been defiled, or even a complete lack of satisfying sex altogether.
Or it could be that they feel embarrassed telling their friends specific details about their sex life with a known person who isn't there to give consent. Or they don't see it as interesting enough to tell stories about. Or the topic doesn't come up in conversations with friends.
All three are true for me. I used to have a friend with whom I'd talk about sexual experiences, but it turned out to be basically an excuse for him to brag nonstop. In fact, there are two guys that this paragraph could be about, one in high school and one in college.
The problem with 355 is: he will never, ever explain coherently.
And a caveat, cfw, I am fairly sure you meant 322 in some attempt to be old-school-gentlemanly, not actively hurtful or pro-suffering, but (a) calling people autistic for being what you would call "rude" is really fucking disrespectful to autistic people, and (b) imposed silence about specific instances of sex has created environments of sexual and domestic abuse in my own life, and I'm sure I'm not the only person here who realized that the right to talk about sex is about the right to be safe, healthy, and happy.
So, you know, we might as well have a discussion about the issues raised in English, as opposed to those raised in Oggednese.
Dammit, I can't keep up with this thread.
321:
there's no sex that doesn't have *some* aspect of power in it: either one is intimate and open, which involves trust and letting down the kinds of defenses we tend to have up most of the time,
This is what becomes exciting beyond mere physical manipulation of the clitoris, say.
Can we let go of the "defilement" term, please. It's already been acknowledged that it doesn't serve properly, as evidenced by the uncontrollable urge by some to read it as degradation.
Scott reminds me that I need to close the laptop for the night.
People, people. Ogged has stated his feelings on facials and degradation before and I think deserves a bit more charitable of a reading in this thread because of it. His friend might be thinking "defilement" but recall his use of the term "bashful offering":
The archives are private! No clicking through!
You shouldn't feel embarrassed about having posted #15 and #18 in that thread, Oggers.
You're the third-best I've ever had, Nedster.
The archives are old news.
I am sorely tempted to offer you all a Cavellian/Wittgensteinian/Nietzschean account of the nature of communication as perpetual teaching, learning, training, dominance/submission and so on. (I speak, you listen; then we reverse the situation. While you are listening, I am master. When we first get to know each other, I am teaching you.)
I would never subject you all to such an account, of course.
A sexual relationship anyone might wish for is going to involve such dynamics, of course. Good sex is a dialogue. No one will argue with that; I suppose the issue at hand is whether it's an open dialogue.
Also, in re 7 of that thread: you can want to tie people up because ROPES AND SUSPENSION ARE AWESOME and also SYMMETRY on PRETTY GIRLS. I am not seeing the hostility to women in this.
Or, you know: physics and boobies, duh.
IA - I have a friend who's an art dealer out in Cleveland who has a collection of old porn from the twenties. It's really great stuff. The women look like old pictures of your granny with curls and rolls of fat, but they are doing acts of incredible, athletic depravity.
Anyway, ogged, mission accomplished: no one has even called into question the likelihood of you actually having had a date, since we've been so focused on sodomy and facials.
w-lfs-n, do you have some kind of bootlegged jury rigged OED querying interface thing?
My error. Ogged's lack of response to 21 is telling, however.
That's so hott. I want to defile you now.
The link should have gone here—the first noun. A narrow gorge between mountains.
She watched the defile through her narrow and embattled streets of band after band of the envoys.
Depraved.
A scrimmage in a Border Station--
A canter down some dark defile--
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail--
The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!
Doesn't "web 2.0" just mean "it involves RSS and people talk about dongs"?
371: Not my granny! Yes, I know about the porn. But this stuff was illicit (in many jurisdictions probably illegal), and large numbers of both men and women never even saw that material. Again, I'm not arguing that these acts were invented 40 years ago. I'm suggesting that it's only very recently that the stuff of porn has gone mainstream, become normalized.
I'm also not arguing that the Victorians were sexually "repressed," by the way. But what counts as normal or natural is to some extent socially constructed, according to standards and criteria which have varied significantly over time.
Oh! Ben! Dirty Projectors are playing on 9/28! I think I'll buy tickets.
Invisible ADjunct is making sense.
I posit that people performing rim jobs in 1940 were possessed by feelings of their own transgressiveness and dirtiness and the possibility that they might go to hell or jail for their actions, whereas most people doing that nowadays have the option of believing themselves to be mainstream.
Doesn't "web 2.0" just mean "it involves RSS and people talk about dongs"?
384: I might agree if I thought you were talking about late-19th and earlier-20th century America, but your earlier comments were phrased as proclamations on all times and all places, including, say, ancient India. Or, like, ancient Babylon. I don't know a lot about the sexual mores of the ancient Babylonians, but that's the point.
whereas most people doing that nowadays have the option of believing themselves to be mainstream
I feel so old.
Have a peach.
YOU WOULDN'T DARE.
That is, unlike the vague, silly, porny conversations people have about tit size and dick size and crap like that, it is possible to have conversations with friends that can make sex healthier and more enjoyable.
This is a good point, and I think it's safe to say exceedingly few such conversations are going to start out with, "Did you sodomize her?"
390: I don't get it. Is that some sort of new sexual code word?
I'm tired.
I might agree if I thought you were talking about late-19th and earlier-20th century America, but your earlier comments were phrased as proclamations on all times and all places, including, say, ancient India. Or, like, ancient Babylon.
My earlier comment spoke of great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers. Who among us had great-grandparents living in ancient Bablyon?
392: I continue to believe that you need not have a therapeutic purpose to justify talking to your friends about your sex life.
Who among us had great-grandparents living in ancient Bablyon?
Emerson. Or so he claims.
394: In that case, I misread you and apologize for the earlier snark.
Who among us had great-grandparents living in ancient Bablyon?
Honkonormative.
379: I'm so disappointed. I was hoping Ogged's friend had a fetish for queuing up or something.
399: I think you mean "ageist." How old are you again, O?
396: You are, of course, right, just like there are more-than-public-health-related reasons to teach good sex ed in public schools. But when you have someone telling you that talking about sex spoils the sanctity of relationship privacy, I'm going to go for the public health argument first.
384:
But what counts as normal or natural is to some extent socially constructed, according to standards and criteria which have varied significantly over time.
Of course.
The thread has become confused between the alleged normalcy of Ogged's friend's overly-open questioning, and the normalcy of certain sexual behaviors (anal sex, so-called facials).
@85
"The point of the whole anal enterprise always seemed to me to get incredibly close to the person you're doing -- close to the point of being inside what's basically the most private part of somebody's body. Defilement, even if you're into that, seems boring by comparison."
Neil the Werewolf is correct. Specifically what is perhaps confusing the issue here is that there are two things that are both called greek sex.
The first is what you see in the porno movies --- the rectum treated as a second vagina. Requires lots of lube, is probably painful when the practioner is unskilled, doesn't seem like it would do much for the woman, and isn't much different from vaginal for the guy.
The second style is something very different --- far far slower insertion of the penis (20/30 minutes or so to get in), no lube needed because the slowness and natural leakage of the penis do the job, very little to no in-out motion, quite possibly does not end with ejaculation. The point of this exercise is attaining an intimacy beyond anything else in the male-female repertoire. Both sides feel the blood ebbing and flowing through the other, and feel a tightness and hold on the other along the entire body of contact.
It doesn't make sense to treat these the same way and to assume that there's in any sense the same dynamic going on.
On the larger topic of defilement, this does seem an oddly fascinating topic to ogged. I can't say I understand it at all; I'd just point out that my relationships with women have never had any such element in them, whether sexual, shouting at each other, passive-aggressive behavior, or anything else, and I, a very much average looking guy of average physique, managed to score a truly hot, smart, kind and funny babe. Maybe there is a class of hot women out there who are best wooed through aggression and humiliation, but there is also a class who are best wooed through kindness, humor, and intelligent conversation.
for the record, though I have no idea what anal sex looks like in porn, rapid insertion of the penis with lots of in and out motion can also be very pleasurable for the receiver. Some receivers, like me, can do this happily with only vagina juice and/or seminal fluid as lube.
anon, Ogged is just stubbornly using the term defilement without really meaning anything any of you seem to mean by it. Just ignore that part.
But that's the whole post! I mean, I accept that he's objecting to what everyone else means by defilement, but he hasn't offered any alternatives.
I'm not going to get all earnest with you bloodthirsty jackals about what I think good sex is.
Anal sex is an effete affectation for which the lubenproletariat have no need.
Have you bitches noticed how good it feels to take the land and wipe out any trace of what was there before you arrived? I have!
I think it comes as no surprise that ogged thinks good sex is like genocidal imperialism.
Good sex? Good sex is a chocolate honey. On the DL.
I believe 413 holds even if 412 was not in fact by ogged.
It figures that the thread would finally become entertaining just when I have to leave.
Now that's the lowest fruit I've seen all week.
Good sex is like good imperialism. You can hesitate all you want, but once you go in, do it with energy, sincerity, and the conviction that God is on your side.
Also it can be rewarding if you do a little role-playing, e.g. pretend your dusky paramour is under attack by wanton Spaniards.
408: I share LB's mystification here. People seem to want to drain "defiled" of all meaning in order to render it acceptable.
And, in fact, I agree: You pretty much have to drain the word of meaning in order to render it acceptable.
Comity !
The Emancipation from Lubrication is truly the greatest achievement of my tragically shortened life.
Is there a rule of thumb for how long a couple should have dated before a guy can ask for anal?
421:
People seem to want to drain "defiled" of all meaning in order to render it acceptable.
sigh. Jesus christ. No. Just drop the word. It was a poor choice. It was chosen in the conversation with the friend, as ogged later said, to tweak the friend.
Look, there are times when we, whoever we are, have a stake in trying to redraw the lines for a given word. When there's a stake in reclaiming it. The word "bitch" is an example we understand.
Ogged speaks for himself, obviously. If he wants to reclaim "defilement" in some way, he can go for it. I consider him to have done a bit of explaining already, but I'm not going to waste time scrolling up to find the references in this thread.
Is there a rule of thumb for how long a couple should have dated before a guy can ask for anal?
Discussed recently.
423: I highlight my wisdom.
Has she done it before? Does she like it when you touch her butt? Figure out what makes your partner happy and do that. Anal, done right, could make your partner very happy. If you haven't played around that way, suddenly asking her if you can fuck her in the ass is going to be offensive, no matter when or where you ask.
Although AWB's advice is really of the "read the signals" variety, which we know is often disastrous. So when should you have anal sex? When she forcibly inserts your member into her anus. And not a moment before!
Oh, poor Ogged. I'm sorry we were all so mean to you.
No, wait, that's not it at all. I enjoyed it, and I'd do it again, goddamit!
But it doesn't have to be. You could be going down on her while tickling her bottom subtly, maybe gently insert a finger if she seems to be getting off on it. That's not a huge violation, and a woman who doesn't want you to will say something or at least clamp her anus (in which case, back the fuck off, man). Afterwards, ask her if she liked it. If she did, ask her if she'd mind if you play with her butt again sometime. (Most women like it, but are nervous the first few times and want to think about it.) Maybe once just put her on her stomach and lightly tickle her butt and asshole until she's crazy-aroused, and get her off.
Then ask her if she is interested in trying anal sex.
If she's had it before with someone else, you probably don't have to do all this, but it never hurts, and it will be fun for her, too.
Oh, and lubricate that finger, dude. Natural lady-juices will be fine, but remember once you've touched the butt, you can't go back to the vaginal area.
once you've touched the butt, you can't go back to the vaginal area
You're such a frat boy.
432 - How do you mean? She's not talking about general squickiness. She's giving this advice so the girl doesn't have to go get antibiotics for a urinary tract infection later that week.
He's making a joke, like "Once you go anal, you'll never go back." I thought it was funny, O.
But Becks is right; it's confusing to mock the Public Health portion of the sex advice!
How do you mean?
The echo of "once you go [whatever], you'll never go back"? Once you touch your cock to the wonder that is the hot, tight girlbutt, you'll discover that you can never return to the dull, quotidian boxhole.
My apologies. Gentleman, nothing that has touched the butt can touch the vagina in the same session. Or you'all all DIE.
There are no atheists in boxholes!
How many more comments before the pegging starts?
440: I don't do volunteer work.
(I don't know what that means; I just always thought it would be a good excuse for not having done a particular sex act.)
Ogged has a friend, he's creepy and dumb,
Ogged has a friend, he's creepy and dumb,
When ogged has a date, all he thinks about is:
Walk right in, walk right out,
Walk right in, walk right out,
Walk right in, walk right out,
Walk right in, walk right out,
That's what this blog is all about!
444 is fantastic. There's a whole series!
353 -
It is like a settlement agreement with a confidentiality clause - it is ok to say the case settled to everyone's satisfaction (everyone had a great time, etc.). Beyond that, one needs consent (express or implied) from the bed partner, yes? I make exception for discussions in a privileged context with MD, lawyer, priest, therapist, etc. Naturally everyone wants to gossip, chat, compare notes, etc. Everyone probably does, a bit. But is it right? Strictly, no, without some consent.
Aspergers is not autism per se. It is on the normal side or autism as you must know. Typical 17 year old male with no manners - about what Asperger was talking about. It is descriptive, in my mind, more than invidious. One might have rapid cycling Aspergers - incidents of bad manners. Who does not (other than perhaps Ann Landers and Miss Manners)?
AWB is so good in, let's see, 426 and following to explain these things.
You guys make me smile. How old are you?
I would say that if anybody with pretty limited sexual experience is going to try the advice later in 430, well, it seems a little calculated. Interrogatory like.
Aside from that, I'm happy everyone knows how to have good sex around here.
Remind me again why this blog is explaining to the general public how to have anal sex? These threads are impossible to follow.
Remind me again why this blog is explaining to the general public how to have anal sex?
Chester A. Arthur asked.
Typical 17 year old male with no manners - about what Asperger was talking about.
No. Not even close.
452 gets it right. I've seen some completely incorrect ideas recently about what "Asperger's" means, but nothing quite that incorrect.
Beyond that, one needs consent (express or implied) from the bed partner, yes?
Fuck that shit. If you don't want someone to talk to her friends about her own sexual experiences, in whatever detail she feels is appropriate, fuck the friendless. Otherwise, trust that the person you just had sex with will be sufficiently decent not to expose you to ridicule or broad gossip. Or do without.
Yeah, cfw, it makes me wonder how much experience you have, personally, with autism-spectrum disorders. It's not "being rude and clueless"; it's actually a disorder, with characteristics.
454: Yeah, while I've been coming down hard on Ogged's friend, I've been doing so on the basis of his apparent and stated motivation, not the fact of a conversation about sexual specifics. Such a conversation with a friend, even if it hadn't been cleared with the other party to the sex, while it might be indiscreet, wouldn't necessarily be anything I'd object to at all.
421: sigh. Jesus christ. No. Just drop the word.
parsimon, you seem to think you are disagreeing with me here, and I can't figure out why. This is exactly the point that I'm making. You even quoted the relevant part of my comment, to wit:
People seem to want to drain "defiled" of all meaning in order to render it acceptable.
So you seem to be merely repeating my point, but your tone suggests that you are correcting me.
As you say, if ogged wants to reclaim the word "defilement" for some other purpose, he can attempt to do so. So what? We're 450 posts in, and he hasn't attempted to do so. When he uses that word, his meaning seems completely clear. What am I missing? What word, or set of words, is more appropriate to this discussion?
Dammit! The first good gender-baiting thread in ages and I missed it.
451:
Chester A. Arthur asked.
Is there a rule of thumb for how long a couple should have dated before a guy can ask for anal?
That was either a joke or a younger person's notion of how relationships that involve sex work.
I'm going to opine briefly, then I'm outta here, but really, while AWB's response was to be lauded, guys shouldn't really need to "ask for anal" in the first place.
This places the agency in the guy's hands, which is ridiculous. AWB's response, while helpful to men who are scared to death of women's nether regions, tends to sign away agency. By the time a couple is ready for anal sex, they both know it.
You people are so backward.
That was either a joke or a younger person's notion of how relationships that involve sex work.
A good friend of Buck's and mine had his much loved wife die when they were in their late forties. He liked being married, and went on to spend the next seven or eight years dating enthusiastically, looking for another relationship (which he eventually found). In the middle of that period, though, he asked Buck once "So, how do young people ask for anal these days?"
Buck, sadly, didn't have much to tell him beyond "So how about some anal?"
I've been assuming that what Ogged means by "defilement" is something more like "Getting my sweet pure young thing all dirty and sweaty and begging for it! Yum!" rather than what his friend seems to have meant by it, which is "Getting your sweet pure young thing to turn into something nasty, the hot little slut!" The difference is subtle, but the attitude is what makes it.
461: Yeah, although I'm still kind of put off by Ogged's demonstrated inability to differentiate between the two.
guys shouldn't really need to "ask for anal" in the first place.
Which I've said before
But young people who aren't comfortable with things are different, and think in those terms. I remember feeling that way, and half of the letters to sex columnists are about "How do I ask my partner to do X?" The answer, of course, is that, if you were really comfortable with it, you would be able to read signals, talk about sex with your partner, know what s/he's up for and not, etc. There is no "How do I ask?" There's only "How do I express my own desires in bed in a way that shows I care about my partner and want our mutual pleasure and intimacy?" And that's easier for some than others.
Parsimon, what do you mean by "you people"? You use this phrase fairly often, and we've had problems with people saying it before (at least, in its unironic sense). Do you mean "everyone here, a pox on the lot of you"? Or whom? Or are you being ironic in some way I can't fathom? I don't see any problem with responding to specific comments. Otherwise, I can't figure out what, exactly, you mean is "backwards."
That is, it puts everyone on the defensive, when you (I'm assuming) aren't just vaguely trying to piss off everyone at once about everything.
461: I think there are other things one might mean by it, and they can't be accommodated on the spectrum you offer.
You all watch pron, don't you? You shouldn't.
Your pron, it'll fuck you up.
The first good gender-baiting thread in ages and I missed it.
I know what you mean. We'll have to wait, like, a week before another anal sex thread.
dido up the butt
'butt s/b 'Aeneas'
I would say that if anybody with pretty limited sexual experience is going to try the advice later in 430, well, it seems a little calculated. Interrogatory like.
That was either a joke or a younger person's notion of how relationships that involve sex work.
The advice from A White Bear in 430 is much better than how I've been asked in the past. Guys in their 20s don't know how to ask for it. Usually the guy blurts out "Can we try anal?" out of the blue [often when you aren't having sex] or he can't even find the courage to do that and will ask if you can try it sometime in an email or over the phone. Sure. I'll put it in my planner. WTF?
466: You all
If you meant, by that, AWB, me, to whose comment you were responding, the answer is no. And neither of those were what I think "defilement" means; I was trying to solve the problem of what Ogged meant by it.
I feel like the way you're responding to people is to say we're all fucked up, and then you laugh about it, because you're so much wiser and more mature than everyone, when you're not even clear about what it is that you think. That is, like Ogged, you're pissed off, but since you won't put your own specific opinions and experiences on the line, it entitles you to sweep in and pathologize everyone.
466: So offer a different spectrum. No one's holding you back.
you people
Isn't this an old Unfogged standard? Lord knows I use it all the time; usually it's directed at the General Will, although if you look closely that usually means two or three people at any given time.
This places the agency in the guy's hands, which is ridiculous. AWB's response, while helpful to men who are scared to death of women's nether regions, tends to sign away agency.
Wait, what?
I use the same approach when interacting with nominally straight and heteronormatively bi chicks in re: fisting. It really has nothing to do with being afraid of lady parts.
Not to be confused with "I hate you all," which is meant literally.
And the way to ask a woman for anal is to hand her a harness and some lube, duuuuh.
471: Yeah, it works okay when it refers to a recognizable version of what the two or three most vocal people are saying at the time. Where it doesn't, it tends to break down.
Not to bring up bad old times, Ogged, but remember that thread when ac came in and started vaguely saying that "everyone" was being offensive, and that "you people" were wrong about things? And LB kept saying, "Please, tell us what you think. Contribute to the conversation. Tell us what, specifically, and with whom, specifically, you disagree" and she said she didn't want to be argumentative. Well, it's fucking argumentative.
On Defilement: it's not really so much what I mean by it as by what I guess my friend means by it, about which I'm not sure in any way. And lord knows I wouldn't explain what I, personally, mean by it to you people (bloodthirsty jackals).
472: I didn't think so, either, Rocky. But I'm not parsimon, so I don't know how everything works all the time in all situations.
I get that, AWB, and maybe parsimon will be along to explain specifically what she meant, but I just took it as something like: "the fact that the question of 'asking for' anal is taken seriously is a sign that those participating in this conversation are thinking about the issue in the wrong way." Which is, you know, true.
Does parsimon have a genetically grown dong? There have been other threads in which I've really wondered, and where the answer makes a difference as to whether hir statements were massively offensive or simply tone deaf. I've asked this before, I think.
Parsimon, what do you mean by "you people"? You use this phrase fairly often, and we've had problems with people saying it before
Ah. Okay. I know what you mean about it being a problem.
I wasn't aware that I use the phrase fairly often. Thanks for mentioning it.
In 459, I meant it to group together a number of commenters who seemed, in their very language, to be granting primary agency to the male in a heterosexual relationship. That is backward insofar as I view it as a throwback to times, say, on the veldt.
477: I do apologize for having come to your home and used the thumbscrews on you until you agreed to break down your natural discretion and put the post up. We all should have known, from the tone of the post and the way you talked about it, that the subject was too sensitive and sacred to discuss.
I find the "you people" to be somewhat argumentative combined with the dismissive statements like in 450. Yes, there is a range of age and experience on this site. If people have knowledge and experience to share, I'd like to hear what they have to say rather than see people who are trying to contribute advice get mocked.
I think that what parsimon was later trying to say about men not needing to ask for anal and giving up agency was an interesting point but delivered in a way that was unnecessarily alienating.
I'm not offended or annoyed, LB, just explaining my reticence.
482c: I think we may have responded that way since the questioning agent in this case is here talking to us. If a woman had showed up saying "How do I get my partner to do X in bed?" we'd probably make recommendations to her (instead of to her partner) about her agency, too.
Ogged, I think the line we're rubbing up against here is not your being offended or annoyed, but offensive and annoying.
485: I figured; I'm just making fun of you for posting on it, and getting huffy that people weren't talking about it seriously, because it's something that really should be discussed openly, and then being too discreet to talk about it yourself.
and to 482: Sure, a het relationship that's about the male partner bullying or cajoling the female partner into sex acts she's not enthusiastic about is both retrograde and kind of awful. But you know, for those of us who aren't telepathic, we do occasionally have sexual desires not anticipated by our partners, and have to communicate them. SO figuring out how to do that tactfully isn't necessarily a sign of a sexist relationship.
Not that we've necessarily crossed the line, but that's definitely the one that warrants more attention.
Brock, stop rubbing up against me, you homo.
But you know, for those of us who aren't telepathic, we do occasionally have sexual desires not anticipated by our partners, and have to communicate them. SO figuring out how to do that tactfully isn't necessarily a sign of a sexist relationship.
Yeah, I haven't figured out how to do it. Every sexual encounter that goes by without my revealing what I'd like makes it seem more difficult.
As they say, I'm sure things will work out once the first kid comes along.
As they say, I'm sure things will work out once the first kid comes along.
Well, occasions when you need to worry about it will be farther apart for awhile, if that's what you mean.
I've found the best way generally to communicate unfulfilled sexual desires to one's partner to be when one is completely hammered and one's partner is completely sober. For maximum traction it is preferable if one's partner must be roused from sleep to initiate the conversation.
493 works on roughly the same principle as 492.
493 should ideally include a song-and-dance number. "What What (In The Butt)" is classic.
Good idea Brock. I need to find some marijuana somewhere. That would probably work. It might also lead to impotence.
"What What (In the Butt)" is a sure mood-elevator, every time.
I should report that this thread has totally freaked out elemund, which in retrospect makes me give the whole project a thumbs up.
getting huffy that people weren't talking about it seriously, because it's something that really should be discussed openly, and then being too discreet to talk about it yourself
Y'all picked a fine time to get civilized.
I suggest we all retire to bed and sodomize our loved ones to the sounds of chirping songbirds and the laughter of squirrels.
Everyone please realize I'm on dialup, and it's a pain to refresh a very long thread even while I'm trying to write a reply.
469:
I feel like the way you're responding to people is to say we're all fucked up, and then you laugh about it, because you're so much wiser and more mature than everyone, when you're not even clear about what it is that you think. That is, like Ogged, you're pissed off, but since you won't put your own specific opinions and experiences on the line, it entitles you to sweep in and pathologize everyone.
This is completely fair. I'm teasing you. There's an odd angle to teasing: it gestures toward truth, but dodges.
I understand what you say about your sexual experiences, and the advice is good, but I also don't feel free to share my own experiences at this time.
If I sound pissed off, it's because there's been a suggestion in this thread that a prurient interest in such things as anal sex or so-called facials is talk that belongs in the gutter. Even those who profess to enjoy these things have called them kinks.
About the pathologizing everyone. I'm thinking. That's way too much hyperbole. Did I do that? I don't think so.
To those who point out that I've been argumentative and alienating: yes, I take it under advisement. Why don't you check in with me tomorrow.
Suck it, Weiner.
If only Weiner were around to suck it.
If I sound pissed off, it's because there's been a suggestion in this thread that a prurient interest in such things as anal sex or so-called facials is talk that belongs in the gutter.
Okay, wait, was I hallucinating when you randomly voiced your objection to Ogged and I making a series of jokes after I typoed something as "cunt"?
Hey! You're all supposed to be off sleeping and sodomizing!
Ogged and I are both (separately) going to bed. No flamewars while we're gone. Or in general.
To everyone: a bit more generosity towards one another, please.
Lunar, go easy on parsimon; she's on dial-up. It's unseemly to argue aggressively with someone who's obviously a bit "slow."
Even those who profess to enjoy these things have called them kinks.
So? Facials and butt sex are okay, and shouldn't be stigmatized, but labelling something a "kink" is out of bounds? I think most of the people here who use the term kink aren't particularly offended by kinkiness, and certainly don't think that talking about sex, kinky or otherwise, belongs in the gutter.
In fact, the problem all along has been the perception that the original conversation was talking about sex in a guttery way, not because of the acts, but because of the attitude.
Ogged and I are both (separately) going to bed.
I hope your relationship gets better. The parents of a friend of mine sleep in separate bedrooms; it seems a bad sign.
By "generosity" I can only assume that Becks means "anal".
I think most of the people here who use the term kink aren't particularly offended by kinkiness, and certainly don't think that talking about sex, kinky or otherwise, belongs in the gutter.
Right. Everyone knows that kink has everything to do with cultural and temporal and religious taboos. It's not like anyone is saying there is a real category out there called "kink" and it's where all non-missionary-hetero sex goes. But there are things that some people get interested in because they were raised to think they couldn't be interested in them, and, for them, thinking of them as "kinky" can be titillating.
I never was exposed to any kind of "facial" porn until I was 20-something, so I don't experience the extra-vaginal emission as kink. It's just something that happens that can be kinda neat for various reasons. But I have my own categories of what seems forbidden to me, and I'm kind of giggly and childish about them.
Moralizing about "childishness" offends me. We were all children once. Some of us are younger than others. Shaming people for not already being 40-something sex gods and goddesses who know and are comfortable with all bodily parts and interactions seems mean.
L'Rock, you should not draw any conclusions from any single comment I make.
I'd wink if I weren't so slow.
Some of us are younger than others. Shaming people for not already being 40-something sex gods and goddesses who know and are comfortable with all bodily parts and interactions seems mean.
Some of us who are younger than others and clueless about certain sex acts (ahem) are neither childish nor prudes, and probably count as sex gods in our own respective realms of sexual interest.
Seriously, just because I've never had semen on my face? Not a prude, not a kid. I could probably win a sexual one-upsmanship contest vs the vast majority of the Unfoggedetariat. I just don't plan on being baited into one because, you know, that would be tacky.
Damn. And here I was, considering brushing up on my dancing.
515: Sorry, you're right, and I should have acknowledged that. (Is there such a thing as bisexual entitlement? It's a phrase I often find myself applying to myself to remind me to be more circumspect.)
No, no, don't apologize! I know what you mean, although frankly the idea of giving it a name other than that bothers me. There are a few good reasons for some of the anti-bi sentiment amongst the dyke community, but most of it is just utter bullshit, and I'm really really really tired of it. No need to give that kind of idiocy further fuel.
518: I know there is idiocy out there, but I can understand where some of it is coming from. Bisexual privilege means a lot of situations that would feel hostile to my lesbian and straight sistren are perfectly comfortable for me. And it's not something to feel guilty about, but it can result in saying/doing dumb things.
Okay, time for this lady to go to bed. Goodnight!
I hate both of you. Sleeping with girls is icky.
Congratulations are in order. Mr. Ogged transformed this thread from a 70- comment musing on ogged's creepy friends to a 500 - comment butt sex extravaganza with only a few choice comments. This is why they pay him the big bucks. Well played, Mr. Ogged.
So this thread is a pretty good example of how much the blog sucks nowadays. The response to something obvious but underdiscussed isn't to discuss it, or even to make funny jokes about it, but to deny it in the most boring and conventional way
This is your fault for welcoming so many feminists into the blog. Of course they use female prissiness and judgementalism to reduce men to silence through embarassment. Feminism, women as the enforcers of Victorian morality. You should have expected the eventual reduction to boring conventionality.
Of course anal sex is defiling, but the glory of sex is that it defiles all equally, men and women both. Men just want to bring women down to their level. Which is fine, since this debunks the myth that women are prissy. It just makes us realize we're all animals together. And thank god for that.
I haven't read the 500+ comments above, perhaps this is alll already worked out. Or more likely for this blog lately, an uneasy cease-fire has been declared.
You know what I love about all you cranky, anti-feminist, "of course defilmement is normal!!!" heterosexual type?
I have fucked an order of magnitude more hot women than you.
(Psst, Rocky: either that's a real troll or it's some local pretending to be a troll just for jollies. In either case, don't let it rile you.)
Order of magnitude more women or order of magnitude hotter?
513:
Moralizing about "childishness" offends me. We were all children once. Some of us are younger than others. Shaming people for not already being 40-something sex gods and goddesses who know and are comfortable with all bodily parts and interactions seems mean.
AWB has gone to bed, as should I.
But I hope I didn't sound as though I was shaming. That worries me, a bit.
Is it the number or the hotness that's an order of magnitude greater?
LR has fucked more women than an abstract type? Total slut.
What starts with P and rhymes with "owned"?
Both, Ben. Both.
And I know, B. I just feel like pointing this out for all the donged Unfoggeders who would make such a trollish comment but are too scared: unless you're really really rich, feminism is probably the only reason you get laid at all, guys. And it's what lets all of us use things like our looks (if we are not extraordinarily attractive femmes of child-bearing age) and personality and intelligence to get mates.
I think the upper middle class would score even without feminism.
Both, Ben. Both.
I believe your claim about the number, but that anyone should be hotter, by an order of magnitude, even, than the beautiful and talented women whom I've fucked is, frankly, hardly credible.
Not as much, or as happily. And certainly not if not heterosexual, or disposed towards heterosexual sex.
532: Bullshit. Feminism is a recent development. Getting laid is necessarily not. And "Ben" s/b "WS', so there.
You're going to have to narrow that down if you want me to engage you, parsimon.
And "Ben" s/b "WS', so there.
Wrongshore may have got there first, but I got there best.
Fun/messy thread but
532: Your biases are showing, LR, and the result is neither accurate nor pretty.
It's the difference between 2x + 2y and 2(x + y). Ben's was more parsimonious than mine, if you'll pardon the expression.
There's a difference between "marry one person and sleep with them, and have affairs on the side and visit prostitutes in accordance with your means" and "have a lot of basically socially acceptable unmarried sex and casual hookups that are not cause for you to be arrested".
Uh oh, Rocky, someone just said you're ugly! And biased. I think the implication is that you . . . hate men.
I bet you don't even shave your legs. Stupid bitch.
Or rather: I was an order of magnitude firster, but you were not an order of magnitude bester.
I'm curious as to what claims can reasonably be extracted from the hyperbole of 532, but I'm off to go have hot, middle-class feminist sex. Or at least to go watch Buffy on the couch.
Bullshit. Feminism is a recent development. Getting laid is necessarily not. And "Ben" s/b "WS', so there.
Enh, on the veldt lots of man-apes went without. To a lesser extent this is true today. Of course, the last time I said this, I got flamed horribly, but whatever.
I think there's been a pretty constant trend away from that, and I think there's fertile ground for argument as to what constitutes "feminism" for the purposes of this discussion, never mind that a lot of the men wouldn't be around to mind not getting laid having died a violent death, blah blah.
But really. "Number of really hot women fucked" is not going to win many arguments.
541: At the risk of annoying BG: lol.
The weird thing is, I totally didn't used to, but I do now because I'm swimming again, and it's kind of freaking me out.
539: Actually, your responses were functionally equivalent. The fact that you get pwned so infrequently, however, lends 531 the sweet sweet taste of schadenfreude.
Actually, symbol for symbol, "2x + 2y" is more parsimonious than "2(x + y)".
542: Feminism is related to, but is most definitely not the same as, the most recent round of sexual liberation. I think there was a lot of socially unacceptable unmarried sex in the late 60s, but if 532 had been offered up at that time, a lot of head scratching would ensue.
"Number of really hot women fucked" is not going to win many arguments.
No, but it's a perfectly reasonable show of temper in response to a cheap shot.
547: I'm in a shaving mode the last few years. But the other day I saw a cute little punk girl with the hairiest legs climb on her bike, and I was momentarily in love.
Actually, your responses were functionally equivalent.
Of course. We both "got there", as I said. But I got there best.
Functional equivalence. As if that's the end of the story. Amazing.
Shouldn't we put this acrimony behind us and listen to Harry Shearer imitating Garrison Keillor?
LR, I think you're conflating the effects of widely-available legal contraception esp. "The Pill" with the effects of feminism. In the late 60's and early 70's there was lots of casual heterosex, but in my experience very few feminists.
Of course, you could counter by citing Margaret Sanger as a feminist.
543: if that referred to me -- my mistake, `pretty' was meant to be applied to the conversational turn, not to any person.
Some of my best friends are dykes, but honestly they don't bat very well with advice about het women, and the het men/women in our extended group would probably just laugh if the dykes pretended to have a good handle on what worked for them (or didn't). Is all.
Maybe it's just me, but then again half the het people I know now a lot of socially acceptable unmarried sex and causal hookups.. .as it was put.
550: Eh, historically feminist(ish) ideas and sexual liberation have gone hand-in-hand, if somewhat uneasily. And yes, women will put out even if they think it's dirty and shameful and they're terrified of getting pregnant. And hey, maybe for some people it's even more fun that way. But I think it's fair to say that most of us would have had a lot less sex, or at least a lot fewer partners, than we have if it weren't for feminism and the pill.
545: Perhaps, but some men must have went with. The novel nature of feminism is inherently at odds with the necessarily ancient nature of fucking. Not a controversial point' I'd have thought, but true nonetheless.
555: I'm a het chick. IME, dykes are a lot more reliable about what I'm thinking a lot of the time than most guys are.
Anyway, perhaps "justpoppingin" is a real username, but it looks like you're just popping in to take a swipe at Rocky for being "biased" against men. Which is the oldest anti-feminist troll in the book.
I'm going to go with feminism = "a bit more sex" and "a lot more fun" and call it a night. Bon soir, mes pretend internet amis!
Perhaps, but some men must have went with. The novel nature of feminism is inherently at odds with the necessarily ancient nature of fucking. Not a controversial point' I'd have thought, but true nonetheless.
True. But some men went with a lot, to make up for a lot going without. Thus: prostitutes!
LR is claiming that none of us trolls would have been in the group going with. May or may not be true.
I wonder who was behind 524.
The novel nature of feminism is inherently at odds with the necessarily ancient nature of fucking.
Silly. First of all, feminism is arguably not all that novel. Second of all, it's ludicrous to say that simply because feminism is new relative to the human race, that it's "inherently at odds with" sex.
If the point is that feminists didn't invent sex, well, duh. Rocky's point, though, that for most young unmarried people easily available sex with consenting partners wasn't easily come by, historically, is a reasonable one. Sure, there were a ton of people who fooled around, and a ton who got caught with unwanted pregnancies. We know this. But it doesn't take a genius to realize that some of the numbers of partners some of us have reported in other threads--assuming that none of those partners were prostitutes--is astronomically high for average people, historically speaking.
Just for the record, I phrased 525 that way because I expected Ben to make the obvious joke, and also because I don't want to get into a sex partners pissing contest and also possibly allow for the possibly that the statement is false or meaningless, at least hypothetically.
And folks, I'm taking a longer eye of feminism than you are. Like, you know, a romantic construction and the ability of many women to (more or less) support themselves. It's not just an argument about how much you'd sleep with, but with whom.
My mom and dad, for example, would have been a whole lot less likely to hook up prior to the 60s. In fact, if they'd been born about ten years earlier I doubt they ever would have met, even without the complicating Catholic/crazy Southern Methodist thing.
558: Ah by my point was het girls are vastly, vastly better than either for that (generalizing).
Not really to take a swipe at LR; I think she allowed a troll to get under her skin and was goaded into saying silly things. The bias i was thinking about seemed obvious to me, about heteronormativity, not `men'. Anyway, was meant in a friendly enough way but I probably overstated. I'm perhaps oversensitive due to proximity; I see it a lot.
Anyway, I see I've not helped. I'll pop back out again now.
LR is claiming that none of us trolls would have been in the group going with.
Were you trolling?
Rocky was making a sweeping hyperbolic statement that's rooted in a reasonable truth, in response to provocation.
I'm going to bed too, but I like Rocky, and having been in her shoes, it's annoying when you get a couple of anti-feminist remarks, you snap back, and then people who know you feel like they have to pick at your snappish remark. It's isolating, and it's crappy, and presumably you know that the anti-feminist baiting was obnoxious, so why the need to tut at Rocky?
I'm probably projecting. For some reason the progress of this thread has become kind of annoying to me as the day wore on. Feel free to ignore me.
563: Ah, okay then. Poor timing was all.
het girls are vastly, vastly better than either for that
Surprisingly not, at least for me. I think probably most of the women friends I really see eye-to-eye with on relationship and sex things are either bi or lesbian.
Errr, for the record Jake, I wouldn't put you in the troll category, unless you've made statements in this thread that I've somehow completely overlooked.
And I'm a dyke, but I'm also kinky, poly, and have two long term boyfriends (one of them being FtM, basically the love of my life, and someone I've been in a relationship with basically since we were both undergraduates). So, because of J and some of my proclivities, I was forced out of orthodox dykery pretty early and into the kinky people/pansexual/trans ghetto, well before it was fashionable. Which means I end up sleeping with an awful lot of bisexual but heteronormative women, who like me and mine aren't always welcome in dyke purist circles.
I wasn't trolling. Or at least wasn't trying to. I regret my second-order troll-feeding. I'll shut up now.
OK, before I shut up, I only made that statement because to the extent that LR's statement was correct, the troll/non-troll distinction would presumably be completely swamped by the rich/non-rich distinction in determining who got laid.
Non-silly. First of all, I'm using a vague and modern definition of feminism, along the lines of "an assertion of a woman's full personhood, with all attendant rights." Mock me if you must for this, but that's what I could come up with in 30 seconds.
Secondly, "feminism" is new. While agitation against the patriarchy must be as old as the patriarchy, the political idea that women are citizens, and institutional recognition of this fact are recent.
Thirdly, LR was claiming feminism was responsible for all non-rich-guy sex. Historically, there haven't been that many, if any, rich guys. Nobody's claiming that feminism is "at odds with sex." I'm just saying that somebody must have been sexing those hott veldt mamas.
Also, for the record, I really was kind of snickering as I wrote 525. Because it's funny, it's true, and as per 498, this thread lead to a long and very amusing but entirely parenthetical discussion amongst me and mine, including one said hot chick. To wit, I was in fact totally not the originator of the "yay for feminism, it means I get to sleep with hot girls!" sentiment. That was in fact elemund, who is male and was born that way.
Thirdly, LR was claiming feminism was responsible for all non-rich-guy sex.
I only was if you read that "order of magnitude" joke very, very literally, and again, a) joke b) that I expected w-lfs-n to do something smart with, and c) typical liberal/sexual minority desire to be tactful about allowing for the possibility of other people's experiences that contradict mine, no matter how hypothetical. Nowhere else in the serious parts of this digressionary part of the thread have I said anything resembling or implying that.
570: We may not care who you sleep with.
It's 532, not 525, that garners any concern or question.
LR, sleep well, whoever you are.
572:
Actually, I was referring to
unless you're really really rich, feminism is probably the only reason you get laid at allNo w-lfs-n expectations or tact were involved. Both have, in this forum, been demonstrated to be futile.
Oh, OK, I was trolling, and half full of shit to boot (don't use strikeout on the "half", that's just lame). My beef isn't with "feminism", which has benefited me plenty, but with what I've experienced as a characteristically female prissiness and self-righteousness which I've seen in evidence around here. So 525 was a perfectly legit response, since whatever it was it certainly wasn't either of those things.
My experience has been that soon after the "ohhh, I had her in the ass!" feeling comes the realization that she got off on it plenty. Then the realization that it takes if anything more balls to get it up the butt than it does to give it. The whole "defiling" dynamic is only sustainable if you don't look at it too closely. The answer to nastiness is more freedom, not less.
I could still be full of it, though. Looking above, the conversation was actually pretty good, which renders my late-appearing comment a bit more trollish than I initially thought (though I knew what I was doing).
573:
fm,
I'm not sure what you're talking about at this point, but yes, I think LR said that, and it was totally ridiculous, so I have no idea what w-lfs-n expectations or tact would have to do with it.
Good night!
568: Actually, wait; that depends on whether we're assuming that the social ineptitude of a guy forced to make those kind of "cock-blocked by feminism again! with their perversion of sexual discourse!" arguments would be socially acceptable amongst the equivalent of Unfogged in the day, or if the social cluelessness translates into the past, which is another country, etc etc.
My point being: when hot, charming, sexually successful straight guys bother to make anti-feminist arguments, the ones in 524 are not the ones they make, and they're usually making them in contexts where they're more socially acceptable (and hence, indicative of the capacity for sauveness) than they would be amongst the Unfoggedetariat at large. So the question is then, do you believe, like so many anti-feminist trolls do, that free of the shackles of evil feminism, you'd suddenly have the social skills (and looks!) to score with many properly disposed non-prostitute women, their eyes free of the scales, etc etc, if the trolls were not in fact very rich?
And I would answer that no, of course not.
Good night, and if it allows you to sleep better, let me proclaim: a: 572 s/b 571!, and, b: I cannot count!
OK, comment #577 was weird. Is the point of Unfogged to have an honest conversation or to get laid? Because if its the former, people should just say what they think, right? Presumably everybody understands that there are plenty of hot, charming, sexually successful straight guys who are way more anti-feminist than I am.
Bottom line, how feminist or anti-feminist a guy is has very little to do with how much he gets. Getting laid is all about whether a woman wants to sleep with you, and for most women that has nothing to do with what a guy says feminism in the abstract. I grant that may not be true for the women who post here, but I'm not on Unfogged for that. Contrary to LR's insinuations, I get plenty IRL.
572: We may not care who you sleep with.
Given that my dykey-ness was explicitly brought up by another commenter, and that 570 was a response to people making the particularly trollish argument of assigning sentiments (specifically, anger or peevedness) to 525 that weren't there, I mentioned the real time conversation I was having as a way of contextualizing the statement as made in humor, your response here is yet another tiresome insinuation of overshare on my part or superiority on yours, and you can shove it up your ass.
Bottom line, how feminist or anti-feminist a guy is has very little to do with how much he gets.
Depends an awful lot on the context, though. But look, if you get laid a lot, why on earth are you complaining about female prissiness?
Getting laid is all about whether a woman wants to sleep with you, and for most women that has nothing to do with what a guy says feminism in the abstract.
This is absolutely true, but that said, I know an awful lot of straight guys, mainly through work, who are basically unsuccessful with women because they effectively have shitty personalities, and they make a lot of anti-feminist arguments, strictly about feminism and sexual discourse, because they are pissed off about not getting laid. Not abortion, not women working, not about motherhood: just about getting laid, basically. So when I see (straight, white/Asian/Indian subcontinent, educated, geeky) guys make that particular kind of anti-feminist argument, I assume they're a) sexually frustrated and b) have shitty social skills, because that's generally correct. I doubt that it's a coincidence that the guys who are married or have girlfriends don't generally whine about it in the same way.
God, I feel like such a troll saying this. But I think that a lot of the people I know through work who are largely unsuccessful with women due to having shitty personalities (and lord are there a lot of them) are indeed filthy rich, and would probably be getting laid a lot more if it wasn't for feminism.
look, if you get laid a lot, why on earth are you complaining about female prissiness?
Women aren't really prissy about sex, they're just prissy when they listen to the way men talk about sex. So I was complaining about the effect of female prissiness on Unfogged comment threads.
I definitely never made any argument that feminism stopped men from getting laid. I'm not pissed off about not getting laid, I'm annoyed about not being able to talk about butt sex enough on Unfogged. Pretty picky complaint, I know.
I'm annoyed about not being able to talk about butt sex enough on Unfogged. meet Of course they use female prissiness and judgementalism to reduce men to silence through embarassment. Feminism, women as the enforcers of Victorian morality.
How exactly does this jive with the fact that A White Bear is, to my mind at least, the foremost advocate of buttsex on Unfogged? And after her, probably B? And after her, probably... I don't know, Hamilton Lovecraft?
Hadn't read the White Bear's contributions when I posted my first comment, reading her comments caused me to write last para of 574. If B is Bitch, Phd then she has her own bizarre thing going, raunchy, prissy, and judgemental all at once.
G'night, good luck with the hot women!
May I just say that a discussion of 'female prissiness' is bizarrely out of place in a discussion in which Ogged is participating (or, rather, being too dignifiedly private to participate). Most of us can't priss on anywhere near that level.
And I'm glad I went to bed when I did last night -- if justpoppingin and Tippecanoe are regulars using pseuds, I would note that we're cool with regulars using pseuds to reveal stuff that they're embarrassed about. Using a pseud to be meaner to another commenter than you'd have the guts to be under your own name is uncool.
Fuck buttsex, let's talk karaoke!
It takes a certain kind of spineless bastard to use a pseudonym to complain that the feminists aren't letting him have the conversation he wants because they're too prissy.
Can I say I'm sick of male prissiness now? Cf. this thread and all others.
That is, someone above suggested using the word "people" instead of "men" or "women" when making absurd generalizations, which often turns out to be right.
People are prissy.
And I am not an advocate of buttsex. I kind of like it. I just think people ought to think about it in clear physiological terms instead of all this "OMG it's like staring up at Jesus from the bottom of a latrine so defilingly hott!!!" And that if they're not interested in the ass as an erogenous zone, they're not really interested in assfucking.
NO, not the karaoke! You just don't talk about that with people who weren't there.
staring up at Jesus from the bottom of a latrine
Why you gotta defile contemporary art, Whitey.
593: I hadn't realized contemporary art was an elaborate argument for assfucking, but now it all makes sense!
I thought Tippecanoe was assembling a coherent personality and narrative for himself, actually. If he is a regular, I can perfectly well see the point in needing an alternative identity from which to say such things.
And since we're sharing, I am puzzled by this refrain about people failing or declining to spill personal details in order to illustrate the general points they're trying to make. Quite a few people here know other people here in real life. It's simply not going to be viable to offer certain kinds of personal anecdotes, and the suggestion that what one has to say is illegitimate without them seems absurd.
Though this thread is very long, maybe someone can explain that to me. I'm having trouble understanding why tempers flare over it.
The prissiest commenters are the ones who won't even comment on these threads, save to reveal their priss.
How prissy? I eat hamburgers and fried chicken and oranges with a fork, because of a phobia about sticky fingers. I don't eat potato chips or popcorn. I have disinfectant wipes and gel alcohol everywhere.
The implications, and the costs, should be obvious.
And since we're sharing, I am puzzled by this refrain about people failing or declining to spill personal details in order to illustrate the general points they're trying to make.
I haven't really seen that here, although it might have appeared in the last 100 comments since the mysterious antagonists appeared while I was asleep.
Quite a few people here know other people here in real life. It's simply not going to be viable to offer certain kinds of personal anecdotes, and the suggestion that what one has to say is illegitimate without them seems absurd.
We need to have a Day of Jubilee when all debts are cancelled and we all take new names.
Mad hilarity may ensue at my expense, if this thread has gotten tiresome. Jokes about masturbation with surgical gloves, for instance.
As if there weren't sufficient reason to despise the Bob already. Sigh.
I'm having trouble understanding why tempers flare over it.
I have problems with being patronized. ogged, if you want a good discussion, 71 is pretty much a good way to ensure it doesn't happen.
I believe parsimon intends, in her inimitably elliptical way, to chastise me for giving Ogged a hard time for being too prissy to participate in a conversation he started other than by complaining that the rest of us are talking about it all wrong. Is that right, parsimon? Or did I misunderstand you?
It's not too absurd, parsimon. I know a lot of people here in real life too, and so there is a cost to my sharing personal experiences. I do so because I think it's important (and nicer) to say why I disagree with some overarching principle someone believes is Truth by offering some crust of personal experience.
The reason I was offended was because people were sharing their personal experiences, and you came in and said we were all "backwards," because of some overarching Truth that you have discovered in your wanderings, without offering any experiences of your own that led you to that Truth. In most cases where you and I have argued, I would not have been offended if you'd said, "That's strange; I tend to find that the opposite is true." If I'm sharing something risky, it is my real experience, for what it's worth, and whether it maps onto your ideas about life and morality or not contributes little to the conversation except insult.
Cripes. People are very weird about sex in all manner of ways. As has been demonstrated on this thread by various commenters. Or, possibly, as demonstrated by ogged's friend. It's entirely possible that, to the women in his life, that Duke guy with the email that disturbed people (flaying the stripper, maybe?) comes off as a really nice guy who is pro-women. And he's probably not "fooling" anyone. He might be a really nice guy, and the pro-women assumptions that women make based on his behavior toward them might be born out. And he might not have been joking in the e-mail. How is that possible? I have no idea. But in my experience, it appears to be true a fair bit. Which is sort of interesting.
But in my experience, it appears to be true a fair bit. Which is sort of interesting.
This is one of those things where there's no way of resolving dueling experiences. As a straight man, you've got a much better sense of how straight men talk to each other when women aren't around. I'm guessing that compared to most women, you've got a somewhat deficient sense of what it takes to come off as a "really nice guy who is pro-women." But that said, my experience differs from yours.
600:
In part, yes. I don't see why it should be deemed "prissy."
But really, no, in this case I'm talking about myself: I think that I was accused last night from several quarters of being, what, oblique, of refusing to back up what I was saying with personal tales. As if what I was saying would be more legitimate were I to do so. That threw me.
Granted, I can be an asshole, and can adopt a snotty tone. I know that. I'm a little unsettled that anyone here cared enough to yell at me for it.
Ha! Thanks, guys, I love you too!
Yes, parsimon, you've demonstrated that if you're unpleasant enough to people, they will respond with annoyance. If this is the sort of caring you want, you've got it.
Sexual defilement is of course only an important subset of the larger phenomenon of corruption. Is Matt Y linking to McMegan's blog because financial incentives, otherwise contradicting his judgement and standards? Matt is asked and adresses the question in comments yesterday or today.
"Defilement" is obviously not in the act, but in the intent and the degree of informed consent. For "defilers", it would be much less fun to come on the face of a porn star, or to pay $500 for the privilege to a prostitute. One cannot really "defile" the truly willing.
It is a variant of rape.
This is one of those things where there's no way of resolving dueling experiences.
That seems right. That might be why the threads turn muscular so quickly. There isn't much argument available, just shouldering for position, etc.
There was a Starz series this year about amateur porn, a different couple per episode. The last episode involved a 20 yr old pixieish woman, divorced with two kids, no skills, education, family or prospects, who had remarried a 50ish potbellied ex-biker. Decent provider for trailer-trash, he was.
"Hey honey, I would really get turned on if you let me film our ass-to-mouth sex and sell it on the internet. You want to make me happy, don't you."
The woman was silent thoughout the program, with many forced smiles. I guess in a sense there was informed consent.
Maybe I have no right to read people's minds, but I remain suspicious & skeptical of relationships, especially sexual relationships, and believe ogged is a thousand times more correct than he himself probably realizes. And I live a "prissy" and fastidious sexual/emotional life, with very little sex or socialization.
It's all fucking domination and power trips. It really is all rape. I disillusion, corrupt. defile you all.
De Sade wasn't about sex.
I care when you hurt my feelings, parsimon. I know that may sound weird coming from a disembodied voice from the internet, but being called childish and ridiculous and absurd and backwards, repeatedly, without any respectful emotional engagement with me as an adult woman, is confusing for me, especially in an environment I've come to trust.
Lots of people here aren't as comfortable with sharing experiences as B and I. That unwillingness is normal, and not, in itself, a problem. But reinterpreting other people's experiences for them, in a way specifically designed to undermine someone's judgment or character, especially without being someone willing to put your own experiences on the line, is just hurtful.
Here's what irks: Repeatedly entering threads and telling everyone they're immature and should tell you how old they are, because adults don't think that way.
Telling me I obviously don't care about having lasting relationships because I wear playful heels on a date.
Telling me I'm backwards when I try, respectfully, to give a little brief advice to someone who doesn't exactly sound ready for what he wants to do in bed (which advice was calculated to determine whether he and his partner are ready for what he says he wants).
Misreading my sharing of experiences as if I'm trying to impress guys here with my sluttiness. As I've shared before, I think talking openly about sex is important for helping people to avoid abusive situations. I'm not writing fucking erotica.
How old are you, parsimon? How about it? What do you wear on dates? What advice would you give to a young person other than "be older"? Is this asking for too much? If so, then stop insulting the people who are trying to provide honest, personal content for conversation and realize that's just not something you personally want to do.
608: I don't know -- this thread didn't go off the rails with people denying that other people's experiences were true, or likely. It's all been about what things mean.
To further talk about what you were saying about the Duke guy -- I wouldn't be surprised if he had a girlfriend, and if she were not obviously an abused doormat. But women who aren't abused doormats end up in relationships with misogynistic guys fairly often, and sometimes make them work on some level. That doesn't mean that the misogyny isn't visible. (In any relationship with issues, and two people in it, responsibility for the issues is shared -- I don't mean to draw a picture of perfectly angelic women suffering through relationships with misogynistic men.)
602:
In most cases where you and I have argued, I would not have been offended if you'd said, "That's strange; I tend to find that the opposite is true." If I'm sharing something risky, it is my real experience, for what it's worth, and whether it maps onto your ideas about life and morality or not contributes little to the conversation except insult.
I apologize.
A couple of things: you sound as if you want me to frame my language in a particular way. I'm not going to do that. We can talk about that further if you like. (Godamnit this comment box is small.) ((Note for possible future conversation: what I would say is that your "That's strange; I tend to find that the opposite is true." is very hedging language.))
AWB, I started to try to write something explanatory to you last night, but real life got in the way. I have no desire to be at odds with you. If you've gotten some idea that I think you're *immoral* for god's sake, please shed that.
I can share risky things here only in moderation. You're brave to do so. I can't and won't, but please know that I, at least, appreciate your honesty. Doesn't mean I won't give you shit sometimes, but it's always with a smile.
Doesn't mean I won't give you shit sometimes, but it's always with a smile.
Saying this does not make unpleasant sniping any less unpleasant, just so you know. The kind of teasing that allows you to say rude things without offense is the kind that's funny to the people it's directed at. If you can't achieve the funny, your intentions aren't terribly relevant.
Just popping in here before I go swimming, but this seems as good at time as ever, but parsimon, what were you on about with your "Distasteful" comment to me and/or Ogged a while back? Having determined you're a woman, I sort of assumed it must have been to the term cunt", which is an objection I'm willing to credit as being constructed in a non-rude, non-school-marmish from other women, but given AWB's posts I'm really starting to think I shouldn't have extended the benefit of the doubt.
I continue to believe that you need not have a therapeutic purpose to justify talking to your friends about your sex life.
I don't disagree. I do, however, think that a discussion of your sex life that starts off with, "Did you sodomize her," seems unlikely to be one that is about respectful sharing.
The trivial powertrips of the last group of comments are just so fucking boring. Parsimon, you have apparently not groveled, exposed your belly and neck, shown proper Beta behavior to the satisfaction of the Alpha females. Grow up and learn your position in the heirarchy.
And now I've just read AWB's 610.
I'm stunned. I'm really sorry. I didn't realize I was being such a jerk.
But Bob, if it's all about domination and power trips, why should a comment thread be any different?
Because randomly inserting "distasteful" with no explanation into a joking thread that uses naughty words isn't a power trip and is telling a dyke that "we may not care who you sleep with" and ending that with "whoever you are" aren't power trips at all.
Actually, no: "we may not care you who sleep with", to me, after a thread where someone else specifically called me out for being unsuitable to speak about things because I'm a dyke goes beyond power trip, that gets pretty close into "homophobic dismissal".
lr's guess in 480 coincides with my guess. just as a matter of prose style and voice.
then again--what do i know.
i'm a group project, characterized by a few typographical affectations.
618:Absolutely
(Tears off shirt and exposes spandex "U", to the clucking of Stan Lee)
This is a job for Uber-troll!!!
I try to retain a sense of humour about human nature, but the rape and wars get in the way.
620: where someone else specifically called me out for being unsuitable to speak about things because I'm a dyke
Just checking -- I kind of did that in 234, 251, and 272. I didn't mean to say anything more than that it was a kink I wouldn't expect you to have, given your orientation, and so missing some of the possible points of it seemed likely. I do apologize for dismissing your perspective, though.
MY THEORY IS THAT LESBIANS ARGUE IN A DIFFERENT WAY AND SHOULD ONLY ARGUE WITH OTHER LESBIANS
But women who aren't abused doormats end up in relationships with misogynistic guys fairly often, and sometimes make them work on some level. That doesn't mean that the misogyny isn't visible.
I'm not 100% sure what that means. At the end of the day, all any of us care about (I think) are outcomes. If he's good to his girlfriend, and she doesn't seem confused about her value as a person, etc., I'm not sure how misogynistic he really is in that relationship. Or if he is, why she would care particularly. And then we do the same for all the women on whom he might have an effect, and we find (by assumption) similar results.
I do, however, think that a discussion of your sex life that starts off with, "Did you sodomize her," seems unlikely to be one that is about respectful sharing.
It seems worth noting that ogged has claimed that he would never answer such a question, and that his friend knows that even prior to asking it.
613:
If you can't achieve the funny, your intentions aren't terribly relevant.
I hear you.
That was different and acceptable, LB: you had a legitimate point to make and I was quite fine with that, parsimon was basically saying something that could quite easily be parsed as "teehee, you overshared, no one wants to hear that, TMI! TMI!". In fact, I don't think you can parse "we may not care who you sleep with" as anything other than unforgivably boorish, whether or not it's homophobic: if you don't care, feel free not to take heed. She was chastising me, you were pointing out a relevant fact.
And now that I have actually found my damn keys, seriously off to swim.
And I have my moments of weakness, when I remember the Gandhis renewing their wedding vows by the Ganges, and say to myself:"There is love, you shit, there it is." The moments pass, like gas.
I need to be dominated by my dogs for a while. Fall has arrived in Dallas. Fuck yeah.
Now that the women have stormed off, I will threadjack to note that I broke a rib last night in a bicycling accident. The accident being the three shots Malik and I did between 11 and midnight. Pity, please.
If he's good to his girlfriend, and she doesn't seem confused about her value as a person, etc., I'm not sure how misogynistic he really is in that relationship.
"Good to", isn't simple or one dimensional, and isn't necessarily incompatible with being somewhat misogynist. To offer a possible example, picture a guy who has a real madonna/whore problem -- treats and thinks of women he perceives as slutty badly, while treating his girlfriend well, but being kind of controlling about her behavior with the implied threat that if he perceives her as slutty, he won't treat her well anymore. Now, in it's most intense version, that sounds like domestic abuse, but you can tone it way down to a whole lot of perfectly ordinary relationships in which women can be reasonably happy. But there's still misogyny going on there.
No pity for someone who assists a Muslim in kafirishly imbibing alcohol.
I broke a rib last night
Time to refocus on your core competencies, Armsmasher.
Fall has arrived in Dallas.
If you could send some of that to NC, we'd be ever so grateful. Also, we'd happily take anybody's excess rain. This has been the most godawfully unpleasant summer I can remember.
630: Oh good. I thought I was okay (wouldn't have said it if I wasn't), but when a thread gets huffy I lose all perspective.
632: Oh, poor Ribsmasher. It's not supposed to be your own ribs, you know.
630, 620:
Actually, no: "we may not care you who sleep with", to me, after a thread where someone else specifically called me out for being unsuitable to speak about things because I'm a dyke goes beyond power trip, that gets pretty close into "homophobic dismissal".
Lunar, I can only say that I was apparently not following the thread at all. I registered a series of your comments as bragging about sexual prowess.
I said that I didn't care.
I don't differentiate between hetero- and homosexual relationships.
If I said something that sounded homophobic, again, I can only say that I was apparently totally not following the thread.
re: 633
I think at some level or other there would be very very few guys who aren't guilty of some mild form of this.
Pity, please
2 Samuel, 1:27. (That hurts like a bastard, take it easy)
re: 632 ouch.
Takes a while to heal. Don't let the bastards make you laugh.
640: Oh, sure, and few women who don't also on some level inhabit the same roles. Having some of this shit going on in your head doesn't make you a bad person, necessarily, it just means that you're a creature of your society.
My experience tends to support the thesis, though, that guys who enjoy the really egregious stuff (the Duke lacrosse player kidding around about how much fun it would be to flay and then ejaculate on a stripper; Ogged's buddy wanting to know if women have been defiled) tend to have it show up more strongly in their behavior even to the women they think of themselves as treating well.
re: 644
Bikes in my experience cunningly avoid harm by having the rider take the impact. Last time I came off mine [cracked/bruised ribs, torn shoulder muscle, no skin on elbows and palms] the bike didn't have the slightest scratch.
What really hurts is lying on the ground listening to the bike giggle at you. I guess that's only happened to me times I haven't been wearing a helmet, though.
I can't move, and the bike is way across the room, but it seems smug and self satisfied. Oh My God, does this ever hurt.
I should probably have breakfast before I say this, but LB, you are so, so wrong. I can't figure out your view of human psychology; it's like you don't believe in imagination, or trying on personas or roles. I regularly have conversations that are more offensive than the Duke stripper emails, about women, minorities, Iranians, animals, and people in general. I joke about rape, murder, genocide, and natural disasters. I'm not doing this joking alone, and the people I joke with have real lives, with strong relationships with real and respectable people, who they care about and are loved by. They also have real jobs, where they behave normally and often admirably, either by going to bat for women and minorities who aren't getting a fair shake, or just in virtue of what they choose to do. Feel free to dismiss or discount my self-reporting in favor of the metaphysical truth that offensive conversations are a sign of a degenerate character, but really, you're wrong.
and isn't necessarily incompatible with being somewhat misogynist.
My claim is, I think, the reverse: misogyny, or at least in the form we care about, isn't a precondition to such language. And the tell is that people we would otherwise trust--competent women who seem not oppressed--are deeply involved with such people. In some sense, you can (it seems to me) re-frame this as a question about the judgment of the woman involved with the guy, as she's best positioned to know whether or not he's a jerk. My own evolving default position (I think) is, in the absence of specific evidence that convinces me otherwise, to assume she's capable of making the relevant judgment. And, by my initial assumption, it's not clear to me that the language at issue is sufficient specific evidence to the contrary.
I'm with Ogged. (Though I don't want to miff LB, as I'm very much interested in a new post about the sorry state of our nation's health care, and people seem to be leaving this thread in droves. You know, writing about art is not as lucrative as many of you might have been led to believe, and I'm uninsured, except for catastrophic cases such that my demise harms someone else's property, so the insult added to injury in this case is substantial, so much so that I considered not going to the ER, though I'm glad I did, as Ficke tells me that splintered ribs are sometimes accompanied by internal injuries that can be very serious when they go undetected.)
648: Ogged, I'm not sure where you get the idea that I've got any sort of problem with joking, even tasteless joking. You brought this conversation up as a source of insight into "the recognition that some fascination with defilement is common and a part of a lot of quite "normal" and "healthy" relationships." I understood you to mean by this both that the conversation wasn't pure kidding, but a joking recognition of an honest desire. And the only honest desire I can see in the conversation is your buddy's honest desire to know, about women he is not in any sort of relationship with, whether they have participated in sexual acts that he finds degrading, so that he could get a thrill out of knowing something about them that they would be ashamed and hurt by having him know. That's ugly and misogynistic.
Now, if that's not his honest desire, but he's just kidding about it, I misunderstood your post. If it is his honest desire, I'm not going to judge him for having it -- everyone has some fucked up stuff in their heads -- but I am going to judge him for acting as if there weren't anything wrong with it, and you for affirming him.
There's a different, and probably interesting, conversation about to what extent mutual exploration of degradation/humiliation/trust/power and so forth goes on in happy sexual relationships, but you're not going to get to it from your buddy's conversation, and if you can't tell the difference between the desire to 'defile' someone who's happily participating, and 'defiling' someone who'd be sad and angry if she knew what you were doing, I worry about you.
I've expressed interest in having the conversation that you seem to regret isn't going on, about mutual sexual relationships, but given that you refuse to participate in it with the jackals who comment here, I don't think it's going to go very far.
I was commenting on this:
My experience tends to support the thesis, though, that guys who enjoy the really egregious stuff (the Duke lacrosse player kidding around about how much fun it would be to flay and then ejaculate on a stripper; Ogged's buddy wanting to know if women have been defiled) tend to have it show up more strongly in their behavior even to the women they think of themselves as treating well.
I have a group of friends from college whose collective humor is riddled with jokes about racism, pedophilia, necrophilia (x-philia really), sexism, classism, homophobia, and so on. If I tell one of these guys that I went on a date, his automatic response will be to say, How'd it go?, followed by, So you savaged her? But for as much as we talk about "sex", we very rarely talk about sex; I know next to nothing about the facts of my best friend's sex life. I do believe that one of these friends harbors authentically misogynist sentiments, but even in that case, he still behaves with propriety vis-a-vis talking with me about his sex life. I think LB and others are confusing a few vectors: Propriety isn't necessarily an indicator, it isn't necessarily correlative, with misogyny. In any case I think there's more (or greater, or better) propriety in a conversation that crudely but generally discusses a sexual relationship than a conversation that is earnest ("therapeutic") and detailed.
In some sense, you can (it seems to me) re-frame this as a question about the judgment of the woman involved with the guy, as she's best positioned to know whether or not he's a jerk.
I would argue that being involved with a guy is not equivalent to a blanket endorsement of his good character, including on matters of misogyny. If there are any other women still reading -- all your past boyfriends/S.O.s/spouses: do you consider the fact that you were in a relationship with them such a blanket endorsement?
so that he could get a thrill out of knowing something about them
If I understand Ogged, and based on my experience I'm just sure this is the case, Ogged isn't expected to provide an answer.
653, 654: I was thinking through the lens of Ogged's buddy, who Ogged has repeatedly characterized as not just kidding. Sick jokes are a different thing completely, and it's possible that the lacrosse thing was just a sick joke -- in the context of someone who'd just left a party where there was an altercation with a stripper, I didn't read it that way, but more as 'kidding on the square.' But that could be wrong.
But if it's pure 'What's the most disgustingly trangressive thing I can say' humor, there's nothing wrong with that, I make and listen to jokes like that all the time. The line for me is when the jokes are supposed to be expressing something we really all feel -- if a joke about flaying a stripper is illuminating some underlying truth about the speaker, then the speaker is someone I'm repulsed by.
656: He's said he wasn't, but that nonetheless the request was expressing a sincere desire. That's still misogynistic.
if a joke about flaying a stripper is illuminating some underlying truth about the speaker, then the speaker is someone I'm repulsed by.
What "underlying truth"? That we all have a fascination with sick things? Or something else? And how could you tell anything about the speaker without other information?
being involved with a guy is not equivalent to a blanket endorsement of his good character, including on matters of misogyny.
I don't disagree. I'm assuming that we do the same with all of the women who are most most likely to be affected by his behavior-- And then we do the same for all the women on whom he might have an effect, and we find (by assumption) similar results. (from 628)--and assuming the result.
The example that immediately suggests itself to me is Bill Clinton. I tell you that I know of someone who cheats on his wife regularly, fucks the odd person well-below him on the corporate chain, and has been accursed of sexual harassment in the past, and you tell me he's a misogynist. I tell you I'm talking about Clinton, and perhaps you retrench a bit, noting that he's been generally good for women and their rights. I think that both reactions are understandable, both might even be right, but that the latter one is the important one.
Look, I'm an outrageous psychopath, a real sick fuck, but I manage to hide it pretty well. Other people do the same, so much so that we don't think of them (and most people don't think of me) as sick fucks. Some people seem not to realize how many truly sick fucks there are out there. That's ogged's point, I think.
But on the the other hand, I recognize those as dark impulses, and while I can be "jokingly" open about them among like-minded friends (of which I currently have none, but have in the past had plenty), at the end of the day I'm not out there trying to defend them as perfectly normal or healthy. Even though some of them are in fact disturbingly "normal", to the extent that means "widespread in our culture." But that's only because our culture is fucked up (as are more or less all other cultures--the patriarchy is indeed widespread). They're not normal, they're not healthy, and to the extent that they infect my attitudes or actions towards anyone, they're damaging and hurtful and wrong and the recipient certainly shouldn't be expected just to sit back and accept them. This is true even though there are certainly plenty of recipients who might be perfectly willing (happy?) to do so, due to fucked up issues of their own, which they got from living in this same fucked up culture. That's more or less what I take to be LB's point, I think.
Comity?
Well, in that case I knew that the speaker had just attended a party where a stripper had performed, and had left in the course of an altercation over payment. It seems like a fair deduction that there was some sincere hostility there. Someone who chooses to express that hostility by saying that it would be sexually exciting to torture and kill a stripper, seems likely to mean it on some level: not that they're particularly likely to carry out such a crime, but that by joking about it, they want it recognized as a normal healthy way to feel. "Of course, wouldn't everybody like to flay a sex worker? We don't do it because there are laws, and it would be wrong, but come on, it's a normal desire."
I could be wrong about that interpretation -- I don't know that much about the lacrosse player in question. It could have been just ordinary "what's the grossest thing I can say" humor, in which case there's not a thing wrong with it. And if that applies to your buddy, too, there's not a thing wrong with it. It's only when it's kidding on the square that I think it's correlated with genuine misogyny.
If he's good to his girlfriend, and she doesn't seem confused about her value as a person, etc., I'm not sure how misogynistic he really is in that relationship.
compare "some of my best friends are ...". Seriously, lots of us are apparently constructing a Gordian Knot of reasoning to explain why this kind of conversation and joke is OK really, in the right context, if it's ironic sexism/racism/homophobia, carried out for laughs, not seriously, and certainly the women/blacks/gays won't find out how we're talking about them behind their backs, or maybe some of them will but not the ones we're talking about, and only in a context where we've all agreed that these kind of jokes are okay and bla blah blah blah ...
whereas the correct and logical approach is to take the Alexandrine approach to this logical knot and say "actually, what this is all telling us is that this kind of conversation isn't OK". And that rather than constructing a load of Ptolmaic epicycles aimed at preserving Axiom 1: that me and all the people I get on with are good people and so what we do can't really be bad, we ought to be simplifying the rest of our worldview by changing our behaviour.
One of the things that interests me is that these days, white people don't make racist remarks and jokes when there are no black people around any more, but men still do make sexist remarks and jokes when there are no women around, and straight people do make homophobic remarks and jokes while there are gay people around. I can see which way the trend is going, and I'm broadly in favour of it and intend to be in the vanguard.
I tell you that I know of someone who cheats on his wife regularly, fucks the odd person well-below him on the corporate chain, and has been accursed of sexual harassment in the past, and you tell me he's a misogynist.
The thing is, I wouldn't tell you that about Clinton, even without the name, unless you shaded the facts. I'd call him slutty, and a jerk to his wife, and I'd need the details on the sexual harassment story, but none of that directly implicates misogyny.
they want it recognized as a normal healthy way to feel.
It might well be a normal healthy way to feel. I have a friend who recently had a kid, and she confessed that early on she occasionally found herself wanting to dash it against the wall just to make it shut up. She mentioned this to a friend, the friend said, "Totally normal," she went on with her life, with no apparent harm to that life or her kid's life.
And that kid grew up to be Paul Harvey.
white people don't make racist remarks and jokes when there are no black people around any more
Accepting your broader point, I note that this very much depends on one's company. Better perhaps to say "relatively fewer white people make racist remarks..."
667: See, one of the points I'm trying to clarify is whether we're arguing about whether misogyny (among other things, the desire to gain sexual gratification from hurting women, either by flaying them, or by invading their privacy in shamefully humiliating ways) is normal and healthy. I say no, but if you or Ogged wants to get out there that the expression of such desires is normal and healthy, I'm all ears.
better a priss than a cunt, mon ami :-)
More seriously, what dsquared is describing isn't analogous that what we've been discussing. Racist/sexist/homophobic jokes that are used to define in-groups and out-groups, or to enforce status hierarchies ,are a totally different kettle of fish from sick fuck joking among friends.
re: 668
I assume dsquared is talking about British people, rather than you racist crackers.
compare "some of my best friends are ...".
I think the comparator is "I'm X and he's one of my best friends." Which is different.
One of the things that interests me is that these days, white people don't make racist remarks and jokes when there are no black people around any more,
Gawd, are you naive. Note that "racist" makes the judgment we're wondering about, and that--while noting that important quibble--we've done it here.
I assume dsquared is talking about British people, rather than you racist crackers.
You are, of course, high, nattarGcM.
672: You know, when I was in eighth grade, I told dead baby jokes. All about the grossout, nothing about a desire to see any harm come to babies, not illuminative of any deeper issue about me, or babies, or anything. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with sick humor, and of course it's going to head for whatever the strongest current taboos are.
Once you're talking about the jokes as providing insight into something deep about people's real feelings, which is where this post and thread started, the 'sick humor' defense doesn't have a thing to do with the conversation.
I assume dsquared is talking about British people, rather than you racist crackers.
Let me elaborate: I have heard persons employed at a fine institution of higher education located very near where you live make such remarks.
if you or Ogged wants to get out there that the expression of such desires is normal and healthy, I'm all ears
Sure, I'll argue for that (I'm not 100% convinced, but I'll argue for it). This seems to me the flipside of B's usual point that we're all sexist, simply by virtue of living in this society (or society, period, if you like). That is, we all find some kinds of sex at least a little dirty or defiling, or however you want to say it, and that's part of what we like about it. Acknowledging that we have some desires that are classified by polite society as dark or strange seems pretty healthy. You might say that we should all be trying to get past the sexism, and that's broadly true, but at a different level of abstraction from personal desire, which I think was my friend's "but that's just who I am" point.
as I say I'm in the vanguard.
btw, the late Bernard Manning used to attempt to defend himself against charges of misogyny by saying that "I love women, my mother was one", so you are in good company. He also had a relative who died in Auschwitz.
re: 677
You can't recognise a joke when you see one?
I'm from a place in central Scotland where people are quite absurdly racist [and bigoted]. I'm not under any illusions. Sheesh.
as I say I'm in the vanguard
Yes, you are: you're a rare sensible anti-misogynist utterly comfortable with deploying the word c*nt.
Further to 680, I'd have thought that I used the epithet 'crackers' [itself possibly racist] was a dead giveaway.
re: 681
Ah, but that IS a British thing [unlike the absence-of-racism thing].
You can't recognise a joke when you see one?
Come on, he's white, give him a break.
678: You really don't want to address the issue that your friend's desires are about non-consent, and involuntary humiliation, and contempt for the person he's getting his jollies from. If you want to talk about 'darkness' in the context of treating people well, that's one thing. If you want me to agree with you that an honest desire to genuinely hurt people is normal and healthy, it's not going to happen.
Note that I'm not being unrealistic -- I'm not denying that your friend does feel the way he does, or saying that he's freakishly unusual. I'm saying that he should be ashamed of himself, and that you should be ashamed of yourself for validating his desires as normal and healthy.
Come on, he's white a cracker, give him a break.
I'm a bit tired of all the Guardian and Radio 4 anti-Americanism. Mote in your neighbor's eye, log in your own, etc.
Once you're talking about the jokes as providing insight into something deep about people's real feelings, which is where this post and thread started, the 'sick humor' defense doesn't have a thing to do with the conversation.
This, exactly. You say your friend was joking. I'm willing to believe that. And, as mentally unequipped as I am to handle this conversation, I can even imagine ways in which the Duke stripper e-mail was perfectly innocuous. I believe I did so once on this very blog, come to think of it.
But that doesn't mean that if someone honestly wants to know (whether he expects you'll tell) so he can leer at your girlfriend, or that the Duke kid actually gets off on thinking about flaying someone, that the desire is normal and healthy. Being fascinated with the relationship between defilement and sex, again, isn't the same thing.
white people don't make racist remarks and jokes when there are no black people around any more
It would be prissy to say that this in no way conforms to my experience. D^2 has spent too long in bien-pensantville.
What I'm saying, LB, is that the desire is normal, and the acknowledgment is healthy. Like I say, we can agree that we'd rather live in a world where that desire doesn't exist, but that's not this world (and I don't think it's any possible world, but that's a different issue). In the meanwhile, acknowledging it seems like the best option.
As a side point: being leered at by assholes imagining you fucking sucks. The bachelor party being held at the hotel where shivbunny and I spent our wedding night, with jackass guys feeling free to make whatever innuendos they wanted, because it was obviously after the reception and I was in my wedding dress.
Does that extend to flaying strippers too, or are there any desires that you don't think should be supportively acknowledged as normal?
re: 686
I don't think I am guilty of Guardian or Radio 4 anti-Americanism. In fact, when criticising the US or Americans, I'm pretty scrupulous about the whole 'mote in eye' thing and the person saying the nastiest things about Britain tends to be me.
I say no, but if you or Ogged wants to get out there that the expression of such desires is normal and healthy, I'm all ears.
I'd say that such expressions are normal (a point on which I think we have comity) and do not necessarily mean that the person has an unhealthy attitude toward women. I don't know if that resolves to the above for you.
I don't think I am guilty of Guardian or Radio 4 anti-Americanism.
Fair enough. I will say British political discourse strikes me as much less hypocritical, especially lately. E.g. I notice Lord Justice Sedley's a sight more comfortable with advocating an explicitly "authoritarian" policy like a universal DNA database than an American figure would be.
I can't tell if that's a good thing or not.
are there any desires that you don't think should be supportively acknowledged as normal?
Of course. We always have to make judgments about how normal the private things that are communicated to us are.
And to quote Martin Luther: "You can't stop the birds from flying overhead, but you can keep them from building nests in your hair." If it would be wrong to fulfill a desire, it's a really bad idea to treat the desire as normal and harmless. Figuring out how to rechannel it into something that isn't wrong is one thing, but straightforwardly accepting it as something that's not wrong at all to feel is moving yourself closer to carrying it out.
One of the things that interests me is that these days, white people don't make racist remarks and jokes when there are no black people around any more, but men still do make sexist remarks and jokes when there are no women around, and straight people do make homophobic remarks and jokes while there are gay people around. I can see which way the trend is going, and I'm broadly in favour of it and intend to be in the vanguard.
I think this is generally true. Although I think joking about sexual matters is not necessarily bad, too often the gay jokes imply that it is bad or shameful to be gay whereas the heterosexual jokes do not.
I'd say that such expressions are normal (a point on which I think we have comity)
Um, no. Not uncommon, but not universal and an indication that the speaker's attitude toward women is fucked up.
re: 694
I think in some respects we are a LONG way further down the authoritarian line than the US is. The political establishment is less obviously corrupt and partisan [I think], and the media is certainly more critical of the state, but in terms of the active infringement of people's liberties, the US has quite a way to go before it reaches the level it already has here.
treat the desire as normal and harmless
Don't get tricky, young lady. Normal yes, harmless, almost by definition in these cases, no. This isn't an "I like ice-cream too!" conversation.
Yeah, you guys started out further down that road. The whole written Constitution thing is good for something.
Normal doesn't mean good. I'd follow up 689 to say that sexism and racism is, in fact, normal. But merely acknowledging it seems like not enough; if we don't think it's good, then pointing that out rather than letting it slide is important.
Also, for what it's worth, I think Oxford academics are not a good guide to the base level of racism in this country. In my experience, older, upper-middle class establishment types are significantly more racist and vastly more anti-Semitic than the mainstream of 'bourgeois' public opinion.
701: See, if the desire is harmful, whether or not it's common, the appropriate response is shame. The reason you're not spreading your feces on the walls is that as a toddler, someone shamed you out of it. Your buddy would be better served to have gotten a similar response from you.
Or what Nathan said more politely.
681:Vanguardists are one small step away from posting pictures of Stalin on their website.
What I'm saying, LB, is that the desire is normal, and the acknowledgment is healthy.
Ogged, are you in agreement with 661, or not? I can get behind this statement if you're using "normal" the way I defined it there ("widespread"), and as long as acknowledgement is just that. Yes, acknowledgement is healthy; we shouldn't try and deny or repress the way we feel. But you seem to be wanting something more, something closer to affirmation, which in this context isn't warranted. Those desires you speak of, widespread though they may be, are, to the extent acted upon, hurtful and damaging. Do you disagree with this?
re: 702
Well, we signed up to the European Bill of Rights. However, the government keeps abrogating from bits of it for 'national security' reasons.
you're a rare sensible anti-misogynist utterly comfortable with deploying the word c*nt
NB above that axiom 1 is "I am a good person", and I've given up on it.
Oxford academics are not a good guide to the base level of racism in this country
Fair point, too.
643 conforms with my experience. Likewise, I've hung with other white people very comfortable with overtly racist language uttered by people who, in their personal relationships, behave quite well toward the objects of their racism. Do their thoughts matter? I think so.
There were two different subjects of this thread that interested me, and LB mentions at least one of them here:
Ogged's buddy wanting to know if women have been defiled
Unlike some, I don't see anything wrong with the wants to know part. I don't even see anything wrong with the asking part.
My problem (perhaps my confusion) is entirely in the word "defilement," and its meaning to ogged and his interlocutor. I'm with mcmanus here:
"Defilement" is obviously not in the act, but in the intent and the degree of informed consent. For "defilers", it would be much less fun to come on the face of a porn star, or to pay $500 for the privilege to a prostitute. One cannot really "defile" the truly willing.
This seems correct and complete to me, and although some have protested that defilement is not the word that ogged really intends to use here, nobody has substituted a concept that I can grasp that has any meaning at all.
I guess I was too slow with 708.
the appropriate response is shame
Now we're getting into judgment calls about specific situations. If you sense that your friend already feels a lot of shame about the feeling, or recognizes its place among the shameful thoughts in contemporary America, you can respond with validation. If you get the sense that he thinks that his ugly thoughts are just fine, you respond with shame. So I don't think he would have been better served with my attempting to shame him. He knows how his thoughts are regarded, and I agree with him that nothing he does and nothing I say are going to change the fact that he finds them hot.
I think this is actually an excellent first step toward moral behavior, but in our culture of self-esteem it's fallen a bit out of favor.
Shucks. 715 should have read:
NB above that axiom 1 is "I am a good person", and I've given up on it.
I think this is actually an excellent first step toward moral behavior, but in our culture of self-esteem it's fallen a bit out of favor.
The reason you're not spreading your feces on the walls is that as a toddler, someone shamed you out of it.
Okay, LB, that was weird.
717: then I can only repeat comment 16, although at this point I think it deserves some bold and perhaps all caps.
713: No, 708 was great and very much appreciated.
714: Eh, if you look around at the society we live in, and think that a problem is that men who's sexual desires are constructed around humiliating women without their consent receive too little support and affirmation for those desires, and so your best courst is to provide that support and affirmation, I don't know what to tell you.
You honestly don't think he'd be better off, like, say, in his dealings with actual women, if he built up a habit of keeping these thoughts inside his head, rather than expressing them?
(Now, Brock's talked about having some of the same stuff going on, and talking about it with his friends. There are circumstances under which I can see this as a sensible, reasonable thing to do. But you seem to be exhorting us all to be more accepting of openly expressed misogynistic desires, and fuck that, it's not going to happen.)
718: Oh, probably weird. Just pointing out that shame is one of the ways that acceptable behavior is constructed, and if we care about the behavior, saying that you shouldn't shame people for having normal desires misses the point.
The reason you're not spreading your feces on the walls
Assumes facts not in evidence.
721: I guess that's right as far as it goes. But is that really the main reason you're not currently spreading your feces on the walls?
722: Hadn't thought of that, but I suppose it's true.
723: Would 'masturbating publicly' be better?
I don't spread feces on the wall because I'm saving up for a monstro trip to Mount Whitney.
It's not degrading if the wall's into it.
Eh, if you look around at the society we live in, and think that a problem is that men who's sexual desires are constructed around humiliating women without their consent receive too little support and affirmation for those desires, and so your best courst is to provide that support and affirmation, I don't know what to tell you.
No, it's that the desire to humiliate isn't talked about in a way that acknowledges that it can be part of a healthy person and a healthy relationship. If you're going to hold up a model of perfectly happy, perfectly trusting, perfectly gentle lovers in perfect bliss, then what I'm saying is going to seem ugly, but I think it's a lot more effective to integrate those thoughts by saying "yeah, everyone thinks that," rather than, "only an asshole would think that."
You honestly don't think he'd be better off, like, say, in his dealings with actual women, if he built up a habit of keeping these thoughts inside his head, rather than expressing them?
No. He's happily married to a kick-ass woman, and saying this stuff is part of his charm.
725: umm, I think so, CLEARLY, although that you've even phrased this as a question makes me wonder whether your and my "natural desires" perhaps differ somewhere. So maybe not "better", just "different". Weirdo.
729: Your kid's not toilet trained yet (barring something very unusual.) I was thinking of the sort of thing that toddlers, sadly, often do.
And 725 really does assume facts not in evidence.
If it would be wrong to fulfill a desire, it's a really bad idea to treat the desire as normal and harmless.
We're talking about the treatment of expressions of a desire, not the desire itself. Such as, for example, the expressions of a desire to do violence to a large number of people in increasingly grotesque ways, as might be found in your finer action films. Whether such expressions are harmless is hard to judge, and I tend to look at what I can see of end effects.
But I'm going to watch for a bit, because ogged appears to have a different, more "Continenta,l" understanding of what's at issue. Much to my shame, I don't have the nipple clamps for such parsing, and trying to reconcile his position with what I initially thought he was saying (and, closely related, what I'm saying) is making my head hurt.
Jeez, what is "sublimation" anyway? Isn't that what you are supposed to do with badthink?
And speaking Freudspeak, I am spreading my feces all over the internet, or at least all over this blog. I am just assuming consent, but I could be defiling Unfogged.
729: It's okay, LB. There's no judgment here.
No, it's that the desire to humiliate isn't talked about in a way that acknowledges that it can be part of a healthy person and a healthy relationship.
I'm repeating myself over and over here, but let me try it again. Affirming the expression of a desire to humilate a non-consenting woman as normal and healthy doesn't get you any closer to acknowledging that it can be part of a healthy person and a healthy relationship. If you want to talk about healthy relationships, you have to talk about healthy relationships, not desires to shame someone who would be angry and hurt if she knew what was going on.
If you brought this up in the context of mutually satisfying relationships, I guarantee you would have gotten a chorus of "Sure. Sounds reasonable. Yeah, lots of hot sex is based on power interchange, and taboo breaking, and feelings of humilation and degradation, either experienced oneself or omposed on one's partner." and a certain amount of "Not me, you guys are all perverts." But mostly the first. It's true, but not all that new to the discourse around here -- AWB says something along those lines approximately every time we talk about sex.
The desire to shame or humilate someone against their will is related, but it's a different thing, and it's a distinction I think is worth maintaining.
728:"No, it's that the desire to humiliate isn't talked about in a way that acknowledges that it can be part of a healthy person and a healthy relationship."
The buttfuck/facial stuff I think distracts from this point, throwing extraneous issues of sexism and misogyny.
Perhaps interrupting your partner in group conversation, or correcting their grammar, or calling them fat, or saying "Darling, your fly is unzipped. Gotcha." would have been better examples.
I remember a conversation when the wife expressed a political opinion, and her husband said:"Dear, remember who pays the rent." Quieted the uppity bitch right down, it did.
More seriously, what dsquared is describing isn't analogous that what we've been discussing. Racist/sexist/homophobic jokes that are used to define in-groups and out-groups, or to enforce status hierarchies, are a totally different kettle of fish from sick fuck joking among friends.
I totally can't keep up with this thread, but even if "fuck joking among friends" isn't always "used to define in-groups and out-groups, or to enforce status hierarchies," I have a hard time reading "Did you sodomize her?" as anything but. Implicit in the question is the idea that she is an object over whom the manly man may exercise dominion.
I think that's "sick-fuck joking" not "sick fuck-joking", but otherwise, yeah, exactly.
No, it's that the desire to humiliate isn't talked about in a way that acknowledges that it can be part of a healthy person and a healthy relationship. If you're going to hold up a model of perfectly happy, perfectly trusting, perfectly gentle lovers in perfect bliss, then what I'm saying is going to seem ugly, but I think it's a lot more effective to integrate those thoughts by saying "yeah, everyone thinks that," rather than, "only an asshole would think that."
I think two ideas are getting convoluted in this. Healthy people certainly do have the desire to humiliate sometimes. It can be healthy to talk about that, too, in a non-shaming way. (I.e., by not saying "only an asshole would think that"). BUT that does not mean that the desire to humiliate is itself healthy or should be treated as such. I mean, you can say, "Yeah, sometimes I have bad thoughts, too," and have a healthy conversation about why that is and why/how it might be changed without saying, "It's totally acceptable to want to humiliate people."
If we have completed this detour, can we get back to whether it would be better to be a professional baseball player or Bootsy Collins?
If you want to talk about healthy relationships, you have to talk about healthy relationships, not desires to shame someone who would be angry and hurt if she knew what was going on.
These aren't different.
I think at this point we're not going to make any headway. Let's just agree to hold each other in contempt. But no masturbating!
I mean, you can say, "Yeah, sometimes I have bad thoughts, too," and have a healthy conversation about why that is and why/how it might be changed without saying, "It's totally acceptable to want to humiliate people."
Agreed. It is natural to want to humiliate people sometimes. It isn't right to do it though, except in a consensual, loving way.
Why is this so hard?
What if it's Bill "Spaceman" Lee vs. Bootsy Collins?
These aren't different.
Except that carrying out one is wrong and the other isn't. Other than that, no difference at all, sure.
Why is this so hard?
Stop playing with it for a while and it will go down.
Back on topic, I reckon he's just being immature. That kind of talk is very much "immature person with no sex life whatsoever smokescreen". Either he'll grow out of it, or else burst out of his chrysalis as a fully fleged bastard.
If you wanted to piss him off, the ideal response would be "well, you certainly didn't..."
Not enough sequins. Bootsy still wins.
Shit, baseball sucks. So it's Bootsy all the way.
Shit, baseball sucks.
Yes, but some of the reasons that baseball sucks (eg, nothing ever happens) make being a baseball player pretty great.
I saw Spaceman pitch. But Bootsy still wins.
re: 752
I can think of better 'do nothing' jobs, though. Some sort of pasha/potentate type setup. Perhaps with a part time funk band, on the side.
Grand Vizier of Funkistan. All-high and mighty poobah of Parliamentadelicasia.
Bootsy had to earn his gig, though. I hear that James Brown was a martinet of a bandleader.
749:Nah. The way I would read that conversation is as mutual testing. Ogged's friend defying him to protest, or tempting him to acquiesce. Ogged refusing to play that game.
It's all fucking cruelty, all the time. I have rarely seen a conversation without it.
I hear that James Brown was a martinet of a bandleader.
It looks like we have a new contender for Whitest Sentence Ever.
Why is Bootsy Collins the go-to funk musician for this question? Why not, say, Bernie Worrell?
And that kid grew up to be Paul Harvey.
[ sprays coffee ]
re: 760
Because of the joyousness of his stage persona? And also, if you are thinking of the funkiest instrument(s), it's bass and/or drums, isn't it?
Maceo Parker is all well and good, but it's Clyde Stubblefield and Bootsy who make the funk.
For me, I don't know jack about the music, but I at least know what Bootsy looks like.
The clavinet is an extremely funky instrument. Bass and drums are important, but the clavinet can really put you over the top.
Only if you take it literally. It's still true in spirit.
re: 764
This is true. The guitar can be funky too [and I'd say this as I play it] but still, bass and drums == funk.
You can type while playing the guitar? That is funky.
No, but he can speak while he plays the guitar. "I'd say" ≠ "I'm saying".
w-lfs-n, WMYBSALB? I was stretching an interpretive point to make a weak joke.
Weak jokes must be eliminated for the good of all, LB.
She was flirting with the Scot, Ben, leave her alone.
It looks like we have a new contender for Whitest Sentence Ever.
How about, "Word on the street has it, James Brown was a martinet of a bandleader."?
In truth, it strikes me that working full-time for an outfit like P-Funk would actually be a bit wearying. That's a lot of wacky people to try to get together on a joint project. Whereas a baseball team has, like, a half dozen coaches to keep 25 fairly straight-laced people on-task. Thus freeing up the second baseman to really enjoy himself.
I bet they were all really businesslike behind the scenes.
Years ago, I saw a clip of James Brown bitching out Keith Richards backstage at some tribute concert. That was pretty awesome. But it must have been before Richards snorted his father and gained supernatural powers.
Well, I'd say this thread moved on quickly, but it took 700 comments. I just missed the good stuff. As usual, dsquared has things pretty well sized up.
Also, it sounds like the Boston meetup that I missed had karaoke, and now I'm kicking myself.
She was flirting with the Scot
You can tell because ordinarily she argues strongly that typing while playing musical instruments isn't funky at all.
Bootsy specifically complained that the Godfather of Soul made everyone in the band wear clean pressed suits at a time when most other musicians let their freak flag fly. I always figured the outfits he wore in P-funk were just making up for lost time.
JB was most famous for fining his musicians for missing a beat. I heard a great clip on NPR of a James Brown show where someone dropped a beat, and JB incorporated an "I head that!" into his usual patter of grunts and wails.
[Also "I heard on NPR that James Brown was a martinet of a bandleader" is the whitest version of the sentence.]
584: How exactly does this jive with the fact that A White Bear is, to my mind at least, the foremost advocate of buttsex on Unfogged? And after her, probably B? And after her, probably... I don't know, Hamilton Lovecraft?
Assuming that Margaret Thatcher isn't either AWB or B, I'm certainly ranked no higher than fourth. (Which, coincidentally, LR, is also my ranking in the CIFB system at $Company.)
a James Brown show where someone dropped a beat, and JB incorporated an "I head that!" into his usual patter of grunts and wails.
Fabulous.
B: 520: I hate both of you. Sleeping with girls is icky. 551: But the other day I saw a cute little punk girl with the hairiest legs climb on her bike, and I was momentarily in love.
Someone more strident than myself could totally get all over your case about claiming bisexual privilege you haven't earned, here.
H-L and LR have to stop these little sub-rosa exchanges, ON PAIN OF DEATH.
How exactly does this jive with the fact that A White Bear is, to my mind at least, the foremost advocate of buttsex on Unfogged? And after her, probably B? And after her, probably... I don't know, Hamilton Lovecraft?
What about Tia?
H-L and LR have to stop these little sub-rosa exchanges, ON PAIN OF DEATH.
Ben gets it exactly right.
If I'm writing a letter of recommendation, would I say "X has gotten A's in both precalculus and calculus" or "X has gotten As in both precalculus and calculus"?
You would say "X earned As in both precalculus and calculus", unless they were gotten by cheating.
ANd I would say "both in" rather than "in both", but I'm not sure one os more or less correct than the other. And really, I think it should be either "X earned an A in both..." or just "X earned As in..."
Thanks. It still looks funny, though.
(Unless he earned multiple As in each.)
Sleeping with the instructor isn't exactly cheating.
I'd work around the question with "X earned an A in precalculus as well as in calculus." And, in the event questions such as Brock raises are a concern, you could take on, "earned by virtue of his academic performance."
788: then go with "earned an A in both..."
Also, it would be unethical to ignore the sad matter of X's D- in post-calculus.
Right, teo, he could have earned it through orgasms and it's still earned. I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. Cheating is different.
More seriously, I don't think there's a standard way of dealing with this issue. I've certainly seen it both ways.
"earned by virtue of his academic performance"
"earned by virtue primarily of his academic performance and secondarily of his skill with a grouting trowel".
the foremost advocate of buttsex on Unfogged
Come on, people. Fontana Labs has posted a photograph of his colon. The rest of you are merely swimming in his wake.
earned by virtue primarily of his academic performance and secondarily of his skill with a grouting trowel
I think it'd throw the scholarship people off if I called Vanessa "him".
It depends on which scholarship shim is applying for.
I've certainly seen it both ways.
The same could be said for, say "its"/"it's", though, right?
ANd I would say "both in" rather than "in both"
Well, Brock, I'm glad you asked that. You basically have two options, which I will present to you in annotated form. You can say either "X earned an A both ((in precalc) and (in calc))", or "X earned As in (both (precalc and calc))".
Remember, only YOU can prevent faulty parallelism!
In retrospect I'm not sure why I have "As" and not "an A" in the second case. The point was really supposed to just be about "both" and prepositions.
bass and drums == funk
Bernie Worrell is as funky as anybody else in that (those) band(s). He played the bassline on a lot of their tracks. Shoot, Bernie Worrell did a solo album (nothing but keyboards) that's funky as all get-out.
X earned A's both in precalalalculus and both in clallcullus, and the reason is because he's a hard worker. Got it. Thanks Mineshaft!
801: yeah, I know that much, I just meant stylisticially I tend to use the former rather than the latter. I know they're basically both fine but don't know whether one is preferred.
X received Bothan As in precalculus and calculus.
X was gotten himself A's in precalculus and both in caluclus.
805 s/b "both basically" not "basically both"
Back to the baseball thing: Even though I pay the sport no mind, my JuvenileGoogleAlert emailed me to say that the director of I'm Keith Hernandez is interviewed in the Village Voice Online, thanks to this quote: "These guys are like blowing lines and banging chicks—and that's baseball to me, not some pituitary case of a guy who can't get his helmet on his head, with shrunken testicles."
So maybe professional baseball player isn't all that bad after all.
Vanessa recieve dcaclculas in both A's and Pre-calculu's.
810: you have a google alert for "pituitary"?
782, 784: Just as soon as you all stop off-blog-communication-sanctity dropping. It's like "OH HAY GUYZ DID YOU ALL KNOW I EXCHANGE EMAIL WITH THE FOUNDER OF THE BLOG? YA ITS TROO"
Both equally exciting for the rest of us, of course.
Hey, arthegall, remember what you were on about last night? I totally see your point.
Ok, I was able to keep reading, in small increments, through part of the 600's, but I just can't get through the last 200 or so comments. So I will refer back to 632 and say -- aagh! Kriston, that sucks. I don't suppose there's much chance you have decent freelance health insurance?
It would be cute to express it in logical notation, something like
(x) [(if x is a pre-calc class) v (x is a calc class) ] . [there is a Vg of x] --> Vg = A.
But I've forgotten how to do that shit, and I don't have all the symbols.
you want to distribute the preposition
X has earned As in ambition, in uglification, and in distraction
math and coding are about concision
english is about using redundancy to eliminate ambiguity
X has earned As in ambition, in uglification, and in distraction
X has earned As in: ambition; uglification; distraction.
What was arthegall on about last night?
What was arthegall on about last night?
Four different drugs.
776: Also, it sounds like the Boston meetup that I missed had karaoke, and now I'm kicking myself.
You can also simulate the karaoke experience by jabbing yourself with a sharp stick.
The same could be said for, say "its"/"it's", though, right?
Sure, but in that case there's a rule telling you which one's correct in a given context, while in this case I'm not aware of any such rule.
The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday—but never jam today.
824: you've never heard some variant of "use an apostrophe and "s" to indicate possessive; use "s" alone to indicate plural"?
There's a further rule about how to apply that rule, but I can't tell you what it is.
I don't know what 827 means. I acknowledge that 826 was badly mangled in delivery. I think its core made it through intact, though.
X earned an A in precalculus, but then went on the juice and cheated to an A+ in calculus.
826 furthers 824. 825 is just confusing.
Do you mean, Brock, that "its" is somehow exceptional because the "rule" for possessive formation is to use apostrophe-s? But we also have "his", "hers", "yours", "theirs", and "ours".
826: Sure, that's the basic rule for apostrophe use, but the question here is whether it applies to individual letters (and, by extension, acronyms and such).
Christ, I think I did hear it on NPR that James Brown was a martinet of a bandleader.
I am a honky.
832: and the answer is that it does!
Yes, it does. B's policy is to give Bs to all students.
Fair enough. I'm just saying that that's not a universal view.
836: who advocates a different rule, teo?
I've certainly seen apostrophes used to pluralize single letters and numerals: the 80's, say? I don't know that there's a rule allowing it, but it's often done (I do it sometimes) and doesn't look illiterate to me.
I think "the 80's" is an illiterate corruption of "the '80s", a valid apostrophical contraction of "the 1980s". IANALingust, though.
Yes, you see it all the time (like many other grammatical errors), but it's incorrect.
Y'all are still padding this thread? Okay, here's a guy talk anecdote: when I was a bike messenger, I was basically invisible to a lot of suits, who gave delivery people and other worthless scum no regard at all, to the point that they would occasionally be totally unguarded. Once at an ad firm, I was followed into the elevator by a couple of guys who exchanged flirtatious but seemingly respectful pleasantries with the attractive receptionist as they passed her desk. The second the doors closed, one turned to the other and said, 'Man, I would love to see those lips wrapped around my cock.'
To go beyond 838, I'll say that not only is it not illiterate, but I was specifically taught in school (4th grade maybe?) that one is supposed to use an apostrophe to pluralize numbers, single letters, and acronyms. The explanation was that it made it more clear that the "s" was not part of the acronym but was there to indicate that it was plural.
Oakland As? Looks completely wrong to me.
837: I don't know of anyone who has a formal rule allowing it (though there may well be someone who does), but as LB says it's not at all uncommon to see letters, numbers, etc. pluralized with apostrophes.
841 is completely and totally different from ogged's story, and while crude are arguably unprofessional, is a perfectly healthy and natural sentiment.
842: Sorry Ned, but you're wrong.
Congratulations Brock, you found all the websites that include both the word "Oakland" and the contraction "as".
I just did parallel Google searches for "Oakland A's" (992,000 results) and "Oakland As" (183,000 results, preceded by the sentence Did you mean: "Oakland A's").
It shouldn't even be a question anyway.
It can serve as a preposition (definition 16).
Do you think I might have been joking, Ned? Of course it's "A's"--that's what's on the caps. Of course, it's also correct that it's "A's", since this is a contraction of "Oakland Athletics".
"Yeah, cfw, it makes me wonder how much experience you have, personally, with autism-spectrum disorders. It's not "being rude and clueless"; it's actually a disorder, with characteristics."
If you have a law client in trouble for saying/doing dumb things, lacking empathy, maybe sexually inappropriate, and you need mitigation or a limited capacity defense, Aspergers is what the professionals suggest (if there is no mental retardation). Think of Rain Man, only less severe.
Wikipedia re Aspergers:
"Asperger syndrome ... is one of several autism spectrum disorders (ASD) that are characterized by difficulties in social communication, interaction and reciprocity."
"appeared to have normal intelligence but lacked nonverbal communication skills, failed to demonstrate empathy with their peers"
"The mainstay of treatment is behavioral therapy, focusing on specific deficits to address poor communication skills,..."
"abnormalities of social interaction and communication,"
"individuals with AS "have considerable verbal ability they fail to utilize language appropriately in social interactions"
"the lack of empathy demonstrated by AS patients is possibly the most dysfunctional aspect of the syndrome"
Naturally, rules about talking about bedroom exploits are different for minors or those with mental handicaps making them effectively minors. Then it is ok (encouraged) to discuss with parents, brothers, sisters, cousins, police in any serious case. The Romeo & Juliet scenario (say both 17 and consenting) would be less serious.
844: Sure, it's different, but what struck me was how quickly -- immediately, really -- they went from relating to her as a coworker and apparent social equal (and person) to an In the Company of Men-type frat-boy interaction in front of a stranger. You'd think that they could least try not to be so vulgar.
If you have a law client in trouble for saying/doing dumb things, lacking empathy, maybe sexually inappropriate, and you need mitigation or a limited capacity defense, Aspergers is what the professionals suggest (if there is no mental retardation).
Again, no. Aspergers is a real, medically definable, syndrome, with effects beyond saying dumb things and lacking empathy.
Pet peeve: amateur diagnosis of Asperger's to excuse boorish behavior. Yes, it is a spectrum disorder. No, that doesn't mean that someone behaving inappropriately or missing a cue during intimate encounters has suddenly developed Asperger's. There isn't a sharp line between normal and atypical, but people can be assholes, aloof, cold, and like science fiction and well with in the range of 'normal.'
The geeks reading Wired probably wouldn't self-diagnose it so much if they realized it would probably eventually condemn them to sexless existences as they would be unable to comprehend sex.
Read some Temple Grandin.
The point of using the apostrophe to form a plural is to avoid confusion, even momentary confusion.
"As" looks like the word "as" and is thus likely to trip someone up. So, use "A's" instead.
The right answer is the one that conveys your meaning without looking illiterate.
assholes, aloof, cold, and like science fiction and well with in the range of 'normal.'
As my friends and loved ones would tell you.
The point of using the apostrophe to form a plural is to avoid confusion, even momentary confusion.
No, the point of using an apostrophe is to announce that an "s" is coming up.
Temple Grandin is actually quite pleasant in person.
Speaking of autism, my daughter is REALLY happy to be back in school.
Related, I look to Wikkipedia to diagnosis people all the time. Isnt that what you are supposed to do? Someone is acting weird? Call them autistic, aspergers or just plain old retarded.
No, the point of using an apostrophe is to announce that an "s" is coming up.
You couldn't blame a Martian for deducing as much.
I look to Wikipedia to diagnosis people all the time
Isn't that what the DSM-IV is for -- classifying one's friends?
858: it is not, however, entirely incorrect to say that somebody who is persistently unable to pick up social cues is "leaning a bit towards the Asperger's end of the spectrum." The dividing line between normal (socionormative?) and Asperger's-diagnosed really is somewhat arbitrary.
An interesting question now being asked: if there is an autism spectrum, what characteristics do those on the other side of normal hold?
Hamilton-Lovercraft is a martian? No wonder!
865: it is not, however, entirely incorrect to say that somebody who is persistently unable to pick up social cues is "leaning a bit towards the Asperger's end of the spectrum."
This seems like a particularly layman-like and (ahem) Wikipedian take on it. For people unfamiliar with actual people with spectrum disorders, the primary characteristic they associate with Auties/Aspies/etc is the social maladaptiveness, but that's definitely not the primary diagnostic criteria or the "point" of the disorder, in the way that the relational problems of sociopaths is the whole "point" of actual, clinically diagnosed sociopaths. The autistic spectrum is one of perceptual, not personality, disorders.
X earned an A in precalculus, but then went on the juice and cheated to an A+ in calculus
and thus was presumably awarded an A+*
I prefer amateur diagnoses of sociopathy to autism spectrum disorders. Also, I favor viewing sociopathy as a spectrum disorder which we should rename "Asshole spectrum disorders"
Properly diagnosed by rectal insertion of a prism. This is also useful in the case of someone believing that the sun shines out of their ass.
I prefer amateur diagnoses of cancer. ("What's this lump?" "Looks like a tumor." "Damn. Got any laetrile?")
The dialogue in 871 ends with a heartwarming road trip to Mexico.
Unwise of me to get involved in the 867-865-and back train of argument, but I do remember a review of a book that made the case that the symptoms of autism were the logical extension of the symptoms of Boy.
867: This seems like a particularly layman-like and (ahem) Wikipedian take on it.
Does it now? I was going off what I learned about the disorder from my neuroscience professor, but perhaps he uses Wikipedia as well? To call autism a "perceptual" disorder is an odd way to put it. It is (as far as people know, which isn't, like, very) a problem of dysfunction in social cognitive ability, which is why I mentioned picking up social cues, which is - when persistent and having certain characteristics, etc. - very much linked to problems with these kinds of cognitive tasks.
But I assume you're a neuroscientist yourself, and I should thus defer?
870--
brava, lb. demonstrating that the issue above is neither about prissiness nor prudery.
866. Which is funnier: "Well, sure, I was born on Mars, but I grew up in the Bay Area" or "Well, sure, I was born in the Bay Area but I grew up on Mars?"
I can't believe y'all are still at it ... wait, nevermind, I can. Anyhow, this afternoon I ran across this, which, given the context, inclines me to the "creepy" side. (Apologies for not reading the, Christ, novel above.)
Will, I know what you mean re: autistic children and school. The lack of a summer routine and the attendant autistic wall-climbing on the part of my sister has been driving my parents up the wall. I think I can hear the screams of frustration three hours away.
More seriously, the Asberger's discussion highlights an endemic problem with this thread: the widespread use of "unhealthy" as a term of condemnation for sexual conduct one disagrees with and/or thinks immoral. First of all, there is an extensive and sordid history of the mainstream deploying rhetoric of health and disease as a mechanism of repression. (e.g. the relationship of psychology and homosexuality) We should be awfully careful about reactivating that machinery, even if we think its for a good cause.
Secondly, it's by and large simply fallacious. Using healthy as a term for good and unhealthy as a synonym for bad is hella cryptonormative and people in this thread (and elseware, for that matter) have been stealing argumentative bases all over the place.
Lastly, it reinforces the connection the other way, in which unhealthiness is thought to indicate immorality. There's still plenty of that around, especially regarding mental health. Lets not encourage it.
In conclusion, if you think a sexual practice/idea/mental phenomenon is bad, just say so. Condemn it! Don't conceal your normative assessment behind medical language by pretending that the conduct somehow makes them unwell. This goes double for practices and ideas that are, for better or worse, thought of as perfectly normal by large portion, even perhaps the majority of society.
(Caveat: There are plenty of instances in which people do in fact engage in misconduct because they are sick. I just think the term is vastly overused, in contexts where it is not an accurate assessment of the situation.)
"Again, no. Aspergers is a real, medically definable, syndrome, with effects beyond saying dumb things and lacking empathy."
Sure, one is also clumsy, etc. Key, interesting point, from a forensic perspective, is off-the-beam in social interaction. Needing manners training, like the 17 year old boy without a clue about manners (spend some time with one and you will get what I mean).
Look back at the discussion of Ogged with his buddy. Imagine showing that to a forensic shrink. Notes coming back saying "rule out Aspergers" for buddy would not shock me. I would expect them. Buddy was half-joking; if Ogged said no way are we getting into that, buddy would claim it was a joke. On the other hand, if Ogged was ready to talk, buddy was all ears.
Rapid cycling Aspergers - my point is when folks are drugged, drunk, under stress, they can act in ways that are off the beam. Forensic psychs will accept and testify to that 'till the cows come in. 28 year old becomes mentally like a 17 year old (or 7 year old) in a crowded party atmosphere when drugged/drunk, under social stress for 3-4 hours. Latent psych disorders of the Aspergers sort can come to surface, at times, under those circumstances. 28 year old can act like an Aspergian 17 year old - then act normal at work the next day. The cure for Aspergers is to teach the subject to adapt - act normally empathetic, etc.
cfw, where does your knowledge of Asperger's and autistic-spectrum disorders come from?
Free your mind and your ass will follow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4U1Ln_X_zo&mode=related&search=
Gary Shider!
This was by FAR the best thing said in this thread:
"Listen, I think heterosexuals need to think of the privileges they imagine the other gender has, and claim them for ourselves. I've been thinking a lot about that Pick-Up Artist show, and how a lot of the language is about how women get this great education in how to read body language, how to act like they have something of value, how to subtly signify sexual interest and availability without being threatening, etc. Whether this is true for all women or not, the perceived advantage women have is something these nerdy guys want for themselves.
And so women, too, need to isolate what those things are that a man holds over us (defilement, teasing, seduction, rejection) and decide that we, too, are capable of these things, whether we choose to exploit them or not.
I'm not actually sure if this is true, but I've certainly found it's more achievable to seek the power you resent rather than to wish someone else would stop exercising that power."
I've certainly found it's more achievable to seek the power you resent rather than to wish someone else would stop exercising that power.
Except the guys on that Pick-Up Show are raging asshats. So it depends if you really want to drive for parity in raging asshat-dom.
884: Reread the final clause of 65.2 and 883.3, will ya?
884, 885: The clarification/addition in comment 69 helps:
And that expressing the right to hold a certain kind of power is what upsets the gender-imbalances in a relationship. You don't actually have to go around defiling men. But understanding that you could, that you're capable of it, communicates that you yourself are not an entertaining subject for defilement.
In other words, it's not so much about actually "seeking" the power you resent, but in recognizing that you could, that you are not some poor powerless creature.
If you have a law client in trouble for saying/doing dumb things, lacking empathy, maybe sexually inappropriate, and you need mitigation or a limited capacity defense, Aspergers is what the professionals suggest (if there is no mental retardation).
I just reread this line, and while I realize I am a bit naive in life, none of the legal professionals I have ever had the pleasure to work with or against have ever advocated adopting psychological diagnoses based upon what might work most effectively in a lawsuit. I imagine there are lawyers who do such things, but I'd be disinclined to refer to them as "professionals."
"I'd be disinclined to refer to them as "professionals.""
Take on a death penalty case or two, say near the clemency stage, where the law calls for zealous advocacy and "leave no stone unturned," then tell me about Aspergers diagnoses one must not explore in this sort of situation.
Naturally one cannot generate a proper diagnosis from an MD or PhD without a medical and social history meticulously developed, plus appropriate testing and a clinical interview. The magic is not so much in the DSM test as it is in the quality of the work-up of the history.
Aspergers is actually a much more scientific diagnosis than say psychopath or sociopath (both not in fact DSM diagnoses). Why? Aspergers people ask what caused this and what will cure it.
Sociopath/psychopath/Anti Social Personality Disorder people (eg, Dr. Martell, follower of Dr. Death), the area where LB seems to want to go, for the prosecution side, simply say this is bad from an Old Testament perspective, sinful, we do not know why he is that way and we cannot offer a cure. Not scientific, in my view.
I feel safe in asserting that forensic psychology is a can of worms.
Can I just say that psychological diagnoses made from a strictly legalistic standpoint are really not what I meant to defend upthread?
So it depends if you really want to drive for parity in raging asshat-dom.
Just popping in to say: yeah. I can't speak for anyone else, but the only kind of male power I've ever resented in a sexual relationship was his power to be a complete dick, and I don't want to imitate that. Maybe other people have other sorts of power they resent.
But the real reason I'm commenting is to thank Ned for acknowledging me as one of the foremost buttsex ambassadors on Unfogged. It makes me feel appreciated and remembered. Thanks Ned!
(But I can't take all the credit. It's in my blood.)
Take on a death penalty case or two, say near the clemency stage, where the law calls for zealous advocacy and "leave no stone unturned," then tell me about Aspergers diagnoses one must not explore in this sort of situation.
One thing I'm proud of in my professional career is knowing the difference between zealous advocacy and pulling shit out of my ass.
(Sifu, re: 890, it was clear that you weren't going this direction.)
I should leave this alone, since the thread has mercifully moved on, but I'm wondering if y'all see an analogy between my friend's desire and James Wolcott's post from a few years ago where he confessed that he roots for hurricanes?
I root for hurricanes. When, courtesy of the Weather Channel, I see one forming in the ocean off the coast of Africa, I find myself longing for it to become big and strong--Mother Nature's fist of fury, Gaia's stern rebuke. Considering the havoc mankind has wreaked upon nature with deforesting, stripmining, and the destruction of animal habitat, it only seems fair that nature get some of its own back and teach us that there are forces greater than our own. Sure, a hearty volcano can be enjoyable. Burning rivers of lava: so picturesque. But a volcano is stationary, like Dennis Hastert after a big lunch. It doesn't offer the same dramatic suspense. Hurricanes are in unpredictable flux. They move, change direction, strengthen, weaken, lose an eyewall, repair an eyewall; they seem to have volition and opera-diva personalities.
So there's something disappointing when a hurricane doesn't make landfall, or peters out into a puny Category One.
It seems to me to be another apparently loathsome sentiment (and that's precisely how it was taken by lots of blogs) that's totally normal and doesn't tell us that the speaker is a terrible person. So, do you also condemn Wolcott, or is there a disanalogy here?
I'm fairly firmly of the 'many psychiatric diagnoses are just pulled out of the ass'* viewpoint.
So in this case, the death penalty advocate isn't doing anything other than normal.
* and many are not, and yadda yadda disclaimers...
There's no disanalogy ban. Only possibly-valid analogies are banned.
896 Except that the death penalty advocate has no qualifications to be pulling diagnoses out of her ass. When a shrink does it, pulling a diagnoses out the ass just means exercising professional judgment in a manner that some would find inadequately supported by a proper scientific foundation. When a lawyer pulls a diagnosis out of his ass, it's called making shit up to win a case, which is frowned upon in legal ethics circles.
895: I'd say there's a real difference between a desire to watch something awful that you have no influence over happen, and a desire to actively do something awful. I'd further say that there's a difference between expressing a random desire to do something awful that's extraordinarily unlikely that you'd ever actually do (say, sitting behind the wheel of a car, watching pedestrians crossing in front, and saying to the passenger next to you, "Do you ever want to just hit the gas and send people flying?") and expressing a desire to do something wrong, but by no means unthinkable.
I agree with Ogged now. Just saying these words or even believing them doesn't make you a bad person. We do want to know secrets about other people, after all.
I'm not sure what the distinction is if the diagnostic classification itself is inadequately supported by the data -- and some are laughably weak* -- then it's more or less making shit up whether the person doing it has a certificate in it or not.
* and of course, many are not.
It's not just a secret, though, it's about secret knowledge that a woman has been defiled or degraded by sex; that she's been lessened or dirtied by voluntarily participating in sexual activity. If feeling that way about women you don't even know is a big deal for you, and you accept it unashamedly as a part of yourself ("that's just who I am"), you're a misogynistic creep. You may have other redeeming qualities, but feeling that way and not recognizing it as wrong is ugly and creepy.
Ogged, I think the comment would be more analogous if Wolcott said something to the effect that he loved watching a hurricane decimate the local children's hospital or something. In the bit you quote, it sounds to me like more of an abstract awe of nature concept, less a direct pleasure in the suffering of others kind of thing.
But then, I obviously read your friend's comments differently than you.
See, I'm not convinced that this guy was legitimately believing in the words like "defiling", and believing that this made the woman a worse person. And I'm not convinced that this guy would not also want to know sexual secrets about a man in order to have something over him before they meet. I think he was making his normal curiosity sound creepy.
I guess I'm relying on the focus on anal and facials, rather than a more generalized prurient "What'd you do? [list of nosy questions not focusing on sex acts conventionally recognized as degrading]," as an indication that it was, actually, about a judgment of the woman involved that the guy recognized the word 'defiling' as describing.
If it's not at all, for the guy, about defilement, or degredation, then I'm misinterpreting, but then also Ogged's post isn't about any deep human desire to experience/impose humilation or degradation, but rather just about nosy prurience, which I haven't got anything against.
901: The difference being that mental health professionals are (ostensibly, anyway) qualified to evaluate whether the diagnosis is adequately supported by the data; lawyers are not.
Beyond that, the initial suggestion was that lawyers recommend Aspergers if it would make for a good defense -- which I read less as amateur diagnosis and more as fabricating a diagnosis to get a guy off.
Yeah, people are entitled to be nosily prurient and I am entitled to tell them to fuck off and mind their own business...
As has come up on other threads in the past, I pretty much think that giving details about what you are doing with the partner you are currently with is pretty much always a skeezy invasion of privacy.
I am not really sure what his point was, but death penalty lawyers can and have certainly met with people and reviewed their history and said, "Wow, how come nobody ever treated him for his malady." Many, many people with no money have not been properly treated for mental illnesses. Sadly, sometimes, this only becomes apparent when the question is whether you kill the person or make them spend the rest of their life in jail.
However, an expert must make the determination.
905: If I'm understanding it correctly, and this is a friend of 20 years who has been asking the same questions after every date without receiving an answer, this isn't really a serious request but rather some equivalent of "...at the Mineshaft".
909: I've said over and over again, that if this is straight kidding, grossout humor, something where he doesn't really particularly want to know and would be put off if Ogged told him, it's no big deal at all -- I've got nothing against vulgar joking (what on earth would I be doing here if I did). Ogged posted on it, and has insisted throughout, that it's an honest expression of a natural human desire. And to the extent that it is, I think it's a natural human desire that should be condemned.
908: Oh, absolutely. And I've raised mental health questions for the first time on direct appeal and in appeals in post-conviction proceedings. But either there's a diagnosis from a qualified practitioner in the record, or the best I can do is say, hey, given all these sundry facts, a proper psychological evaluation should have been done. I don't get to say, "Wow, looks totally like a schizoid to me!"
Of course, even in the appeal I handled where it was patently clear that the guy was batshit crazy, they just affirmed the conviction and said, eh, someone should have brought that up sooner. Which is probably good in the practical sense, because he was violently dangerous batshit crazy. But kind of shitty as far as things like "justice" go.
Ogged posted on it, and has insisted throughout
Well yeah, I find that kinda puzzling.
Yeah. The conversation itself doesn't strike me as all that big a deal -- the guy sounds a little creepy, but I don't have to hang around with him, and it could just be sick humor that's not clicking for me because I wasn't there. All my heat on this has been reacting to Ogged's sense that we're all doing something wrong by condemning the underlying desire to enjoy the degradation of non-consenting women, and I may be misinterpreting Ogged completely -- he certainly hasn't been clear.
it's a natural human desire that should be condemned
So maybe this is the crux of the disagreement. Accept the desire, condemn the behavior, says I. There's a line beyond which one might take the desire to reliably signal something amiss with the desirer's character, but these particular desires don't seem to me to be over that line--maybe I'm taking socialized desires as natural, but wanting a bit of domination in one's sex fantasies just seems like part of being human. As long as two friends are confident that neither one is going to go out and hurt anyone, it seems fine to say, "yeah, me too, dude."
And accepting isn't the same as celebrating, of course. It implies a background understanding that the thing being accepted is in some ways wrong.
Oh, well, since I commented in this thread, here goes:
So I think ogged's friend wants the sexual thrill from power: in this case, the power of knowing something embarrassing, even humiliating, about someone else. I think getting a sexual thrill from having power over someone else, even a non-consenting person, is a comprehensible, common (but by no means universal) feeling. It's also somewhat squicky. If that's the squickiest thing ogged's buddy ever thinks or feels, I think, in the scheme of things, it's not a huge deal--Who knows how many dog rescues he's started? (I'm not clear on whether he'd happily gobble up the information if he could get it, but it kind of seems like, just going by the text of the conversation, that he's taken the opportunity before and would take it again ("I like to..."). That ups the squickiness.)
But it is squicky; it's the desire to hurt another person, and "that's just who I am" is an awfully self-satisfied response to such a desire. For me, it's not the feeling it that's so much the issue, but the self-satisfaction. There's certainly a place for compassionate self-acceptance, but the conversation sounds more breezy than that.
Further, it's squicky in a particular way, in a particular context, in which women, as a class, are presupposed to be humiliated and degraded by sex, and actual women have a lot of experience with men leeringly insinuating things about them, sharing information with the goal of objectifying them (which is different from other kinds of information sharing!). This is, I think, what Cala's comment about feeling grossed out and intruded upon by the men who were obviously wink wink thinking about her fucking in her wedding dress. Asking women in particular not to judge this impulse is a little much. If you say, hey look, sometimes men get off on the power of feeling like he knows a woman's shameful sexual activities, you're going to get some men saying, um, ew, squicky, not me, and some women saying, um, ew, squicky, not me and I actually experience exactly that male behavior in unpleasant ways in my daily life, so a conversation that seems to correctly categorize the impulse as disturbing, but then seems to take that categorization back, sounds a little creepy. Maybe it's not an important representation of the totality of his person; maybe it's not a big deal because of all the subtext between ogged and his friend that ogged just can't communicate, but the conversation, as it can be perceived by bystanders, is gross.
At least of the people who will talk about these things here, I certainly qualify as one of the sickest fucks who's ever commented on this blog, and I never defend my impulses as, like, honey and strawberry jam on toast. They're disturbing. I have to be careful to exercise them in moderation and in appropriate channels. And they don't even involve hurting other people, or non consenting third parties.
(It's also incredibly irritating to hear someone talk about feminist/female prissiness about male sexuality when I'm at least in the top 5, and probably higher, of the bitchiest, most obnoxious feminists who've ever commented on this blog, and more than anyone else who'll talk about such things I've totally embraced the aspect of male sexuality that wants to violate, hurt, and defile, when it's appropriately channeled.)
I don't remember the full Fallows piece, but if it wasn't informed by self-consciousness about the fact that hurricanes hurt people, and the people who they often hurt most don't have quite his means, it was also kind of assholish, although it's meaningless to identify that sentiment with The Left. It's also different when you're actually talking about something you have control over and would like to do.
The thing is that treating 'slutty' women with active contempt is still perfectly ordinary. Someone saying "You ever just want to hit the gas and send pedestrians flying", I don't worry about unless I have good reason to think that they're really really fucked up -- they're idly talking about screwy impulses that float through your head, with no danger of being turned into action. Someone saying "I really like knowing if a woman's taken it up the ass," on the other hand, it doesn't seem improbable at all to me that it reveals an attitude toward women that expresses itself in action -- actions expressing that attitude are perfectly ordinary, and very harmful.
Maybe your buddy has a perfect separation between his misogynistic feelings and his actual treatment of women; I don't know him. But plenty of men don't, and under the circumstances I'd be happier with more condemnation of the misogynistic feelings.
If Ogged had happened to mention before the 500-zillionth comment that his friend didn't expect an answer, thus making it clear that his friend was essentially making a self-deprecating joke about his own skeeziness, the whole conversation might have been a little different. Since this kind of humor is so commonplace, I thought something more must be going on. But no, Ogged just wanted another thousand-comment thread.
But a volcano is stationary....It doesn't offer the same dramatic suspense.
This is true on a macro scale, but on the local level, there's always the thrilling possibility that a new vent is going to open right under your feet. Wolcott: so unimaginative.
Oooh, 917 crossed with 915 and 916, of which Tia's is great. But this, from Ogged:
And accepting isn't the same as celebrating, of course. It implies a background understanding that the thing being accepted is in some ways wrong.
I think gets to the crux of what we've been arguing about. What the conversation in the post looked like to me was ending on agreement that the desire wasn't wrong. What your irritation with the response to the post looked like to me was disagreement with people who wanted to say it was wrong (or creepy, whatever).
Here, what I understand you to be saying is "Of course it's wrong. There is perfect societal agreement about its being wrong. No one would defend the position that it's all right to enjoy the sexual degredation of non-consenting women. This is so agreed upon that we don't even need to mention it, and can move straight on to talking about how one accepts and deals with one's wrongful impulses." At which point I'm less worried about your morals -- that's a perfectly decent position to take -- but I disagree with your facts.
I think there really are plenty of people: the guys who were leering at Cala in her wedding dress, maybe your buddy, I don't know him, who don't buy into the universal societal consensus you see, and think that getting their jollies from degrading women sexually is just a fine and dandy thing to do. Naughty, maybe, but not wrong. And because there isn't consensus on this point, I think the impulse needs to be condemned where expressed to try and build that consensus.
Tia, you're such a prude.
It's a good point that one shouldn't expect women to endorse the sentiment. Yeah, ok. I absolve LB from the charge of thought-policing that I was secretly thinking.
I do wonder though if this is another facet of my "what does what I think of Jessica Biel have to do with what I think of people I know?" bewilderment, which is to say that some of us seem to experience more of a gap between our fantasies and how we act.
Then again, here, as with the barbaric execution business, I seem to way overestimate the darkness of people's desires. I'm about 80% sure that you're all lying to me, but 20% doubt is significant!
I don't think whether or not the friend "expected" an answer is at issue. He's still creepy for expressing the desire, even if the desire itself is understandable.
Heck, the desire -- to know "dirty" things I shouldn't -- is one I've experienced myself. I have, I think, a healthy enough sexuality to be able to keep my fantasies separate from my real life interactions with and attitudes towards women, so I don't judge myself too harshly for it. But if I express it to my friend, about his significant other, then I become creepy. And if my friend joined in, or responded enthusiastically, that would make him pretty creepy (and possibly misogynistic), too.
"degrading women sexually" s/b "degrading women sexually without their consent".
I absolve LB from the charge of thought-policing that I was secretly thinking.
Dude, if that's your idea of keeping a secret, stay out of espionage. No hard feelings at all, of course.
. Someone saying "I really like knowing if a woman's taken it up the ass," on the other hand, it doesn't seem improbable at all to me that it reveals an attitude toward women that expresses itself in action --
I think that's the crux of the difference. I suppose it's an empirical question, but it's not one for which it's easy to get an answer. (Which you noted in 604: "This is one of those things where there's no way of resolving dueling experiences.")
924: Yeah. What it comes down to for me is that I know men who don't express that attitude toward women in their actions, and claim not to talk that way about women (maybe they're all lying, but the fact of lying about it says something.) And I know of men who do express misogyny to women in their actions, and sometimes it's accompanied by misogynistic language. That doesn't exclude the possibility of men who talk misogynistically when women aren't around, but don't express it at all in their actions. Such men certainly may exist, but I kind of doubt that the language is generally completely unconnected to the behavior.
But if I express it to my friend, about his significant other, then I become creepy. And if my friend joined in, or responded enthusiastically, that would make him pretty creepy (and possibly misogynistic), too.
I think you don't become creepy—the whole point is that only a good friend would be in a position to ask that question earnestly but of course he wouldn't in fact ask that of Ogged. He doesn't expect an answer—even if he wants to know these things—so I don't see how you can evaluate the question purely on its face.
Funny, I think we had something like this discussion before when I said that when I hear a guy say "I'm a feminist" I register that as "I'm a closet rapist." (mrh excepted.)
How do you rape a closet?
Are we talking a broom closet?
That conversation did confuse the heck out of me. I get, I suppose, although I hadn't run into it before much, the 'only women can be feminists, men who agree with them are sympathizers or supporters or whatever'. But whatever else everyone was going on about in that one lost me. Not meaning that I disagreed, but I was genuinely having trouble understanding the issues. Do you remember when that was, or what the post was called? Now I want to go back and see if I'm still baffled.
This was the post and thread, but it's too long for me to wade through now.
895:
Thanks for the Wolcott snippet on hurricanes. I've shared his sentiment at times; the last time a hurricane came through here (a rare occurrence), I rather joyously went out into it. Thrilling.
To the extent that there is an analogy, I take it that it would trade on the exercise of sheer power, the helplessness of humankind in the face of Gaia.
Puny humans. I've felt the same way in the southwest of the U.S.: the horizon is endless, the sky huge, the buttes and canyons immense. Of course, they're static.
We spend so much of our daily lives in pursuit of control over our circumstances, small and large; power and control are inevitably part of our narrative. Natural that we would have an interest in exploring such things; "normal," on the other hand, is a bit more fraught a term, given that it's socially constructed, as IA remarked way up there.
He doesn't expect an answer--even if he wants to know these things--so I don't see how you can evaluate the question purely on its face.
It's not so much the wanting or expecting the historical details that I find disturbing so much as the tone/language in which the question is expressed. As I said above, "Did you sodomize her?" is creepy wholly apart from the privacy issues in that it frames the her as an object upon which the manly man can perform his acts of domination. I'm not entirely sure where I come down on the privacy question. I do know that I find "Did you sodomize her?" decidedly more disturbing than if Ogged's friend had just asked, "Was it hot?" or even "So did you guys get kinky?"
'only women can be feminists, men who agree with them are sympathizers or supporters or whatever'
Age thing. For those who were contemporaries of the "second wave", this was the conventional take. It still sounds weird to me to hear a man describe himself as feminist (and even weirder when any women present don't immediately destroy him for doing so).
I kind of doubt that the language is generally completely unconnected to the behavior.
Yeah, there's something of a (at least) triangle on that point. You think there is some connection between language and behavior, I think there is a much weaker connection, particularly with regard to certain contexts, and ogged agrees that there is a significant connection between language and something--desire, I think; not behavior--but that acknowledging it is the only available response as it's a naturally occurring phenomenon.
I do know that I find "Did you sodomize her?" decidedly more disturbing than if Ogged's friend had just asked, "Was it hot?" or even "So did you guys get kinky?"
I absolutely see where this is coming from, but it also makes sense in the general rule of comedy that more specific, especially oddly or inappropriately specific, yields more funny.
The use of the word sodomize is the most disturbing part for me.
Also, I don't want to wade through the entire thread, but maybe he was mocking Ogged's desire to do these things?
As I said above, "Did you sodomize her?" is creepy wholly apart from the privacy issues in that it frames the her as an object upon which the manly man can perform his acts of domination.
I don't think that's so bad. I could see a crass woman asking her female friend extremely similar questions about her sex life.
Funny, I think we had something like this discussion before when I said that when I hear a guy say "I'm a feminist" I register that as "I'm a closet rapist." (mrh excepted.)
Hear that, everyone? I'm not a closet rapist! Ogged said!
Well, come on. Did you see the clothes and shoes in that closet?
could see a crass woman asking her female friend extremely similar questions about her sex life.
As has come up on previous threads you can subsititute 'crass' in that sentence with 'vast majority of'.
Yeah, the double standard here comes, I think, directly from the degradation/defilement issues. It's still so conventional to interpret exposure of a woman's sexual behavior as degrading to her, but not exposure of a man's sexual behavior as degrading to him, that men trying to treat their partners decently are, I think, often a lot more discreet than women trying to treat their partners decently. I'm on record as thinking that it's not degrading, so exaggerated discretion is unnecessary, but in any case the double standard reveals something unpleasant going on.
So this post is just an effort to find out which unfogged women are dirty, naughty sluts?
As this thread barrels toward 1000 comments (and beyond!), I'm once again mystified that we didn't make this list.
re: 944
I think the degradation issues are definitely part of it and an explanation of sorts for some of the double standard. However, I think there are also other things going on too.
I've been party to quite a few of those sorts of conversations [among women but where I have been present as 'honorary woman'] and sometimes what's going on is pretty degrading itself -- in the sense that the intimate information being shared is often information that doesn't show the absent party in a particularly good light.
As this thread barrels toward 1000 comments (and beyond!)
My mouse pointer hovers watchfully over the thread-closure button.
There's also, of course, just people being flatout mean, men and women both. Not a good thing, regardless of how they're doing it.
I'm once again mystified that we didn't make this list.
I don't think "Lawyers against sodomy" can compete with Furrs Fur Christ.
Like I said way back upthread, as did LB, if it's just a joke, it's sick, and that's fine, because part of having friends is the ability to indulge in sick jokes... but then it's not really telling us anything interesting about the relationship between defilement and sexiness. If the guy was serious, then it tells us something interesting, but it is really very creepy.
Intrusive jokes among friends are fine. shivbunny's been out of town for the last month and my goofball college friend spent the three days before he got home messaging me with variations on 'are you excited? did you buy anything new and sexy to wear? you're not going to be able to walk for a week!' (followed by 'my wife says those were rude things to insinuate and that i am to apologize.')
But you can't have it both ways. It can't be a sign of what is genuinely titillating to this guy and then defensible by 'don't you see that it's a joke, GOD, he didn't want to KNOW?' Especially when the claim was 'but it is part of healthy sexual relationships, and I don't want you to judge and you don't live in reality if you don't think everyone does this.' Make up my mind.
I have been present as 'honorary woman'
Did they make you do the turkey tuck?
The description of Second Life in 947 cracks me up.
Bobala, I'm sorry about the "live in reality" crack.
955's NSFWness should be fairly obvious from the URL. You people do read URLs before following links, don't you?
You people do read URLs before following links, don't you?
And yet I feel powerless not to click them.
Man, this all just makes 4 look more and more correct.
