2014-09-30
2014-09-28
模倣子 Fashion Victims
He does make the point that the discussion does exclude men, i.e., that men are also made to feel bad about their looks and the way they dress by the media. This is absolutely true. Even going only by the fact that men are nowhere mentioned as being "fashion victims" and the "tone" of the discussion is that it only happens to women. That's wrong.
Oh yeah, trying to help women feel "secure" DOES take away from men if men are blamed and demonized in the process or men's same or similar problems are ignored or minimized. Oh wait, that never happens....NOT!
As for being "fat", young men are beaten up and driven to suicide for being the "fat kid" (and that term connotes a boy, not a girl, as I'm sure we know). I don't know if that's what happens to overweight girls. Anybody read "Lord of the Flies"? That's what really happens.
Yes, "Feminism" is meant to be about equality. No kidding. Everybody knows that. Please ease up on the condescension -- they have on-line dictionaries these days, I've heard. It's the current IMPLEMENTATION that is the problem. The Nazis and the Communists were also "about" a bunch of good stuff, and we saw where that went. Just saying you're "about" something doesn't make you that thing, and you have to take a regular spiritual inventory of what you're REALLY doing, and a lot of people ARE being hurt by the actions (and inactions) of self-described "Feminists".
(I have long considered myself to be a feminist, and I take real risks to do real things that help real women, and have for decades, but I've recently started strongly considering for the first time dropping the term "Feminist" since people who use the term are doing some really ugly things that I'm afraid are going to make me start hating women or something, and I don't want that).
===================================================================
its amazing how everything becomes about women only, as if there is no pressure or desire on men to be tall dark and handsome. i see feminisst trying to define themselves as oppressed at every corner. but if you ask a feminist whats the origins of feminism, who are the key figures, who do they for, y was it started, any intellegent being if you look at the fact, feminism hurts everyone. the economy, education, and most of all the family unit.. lets not forget, woman have male children too, its 2013, wake up. feminsm was built to destroy the family, and woman are helping them out. look at feminism ojectiveley and its preety clears its not only discrimanation its of no good to any of us. period. i know you ladies are gonna jump all over this post and i welcome you to do so, i beleive in peoples rights, not just the rights of a gender or a group. and if you would like info and evidence of my claims of how hurtful feminism is i be glad to give you some hard cold facts,
===============================================================
Ahh, you’re one of the ‘feminism hurts everyone’ men. If you want to be taken seriously, you should probably learn to spell. I am now dumber for having read your post. You have contradicted yourself in your post, and your arguments make no sense.
================================================================
If you're going just be gratuitously insulting, you might try making it clever and funny.
Since minor spelling departures seem to make it impossible for you to comprehend a text, I'll take a stab at rephrasing.
Among his points:
1. It's always all about women, and that's amazing.
1.1. Men are not mentioned at all as having body and fashion worries or societal shaming to do with these, and that's simply false.
1.2. This piece implies that that is the case, i.e., that women are somehow "targeted"
Have you ever seen He-Man, Conan the Barbarian, GI Joe, or even "Ken" (Barbie wa Ken yori mo tsuyoshi ;-) ?
2. Feminists seem to define themselves as victims at every corner.
2.1. Isn't this obvious?
2.2. Inveighing about female circumcision in Africa when the same number of men are being genitally mutilated in our own country
2.3. That "misogynist shooting" in which four men were killed and two women, and it's somehow evidence that "misogyny kills" and there's a crisis of hatred of women
2.4. One could go on "post nauseam" (yes, Lucy, before you jump on that one, it's a Latin play on words on the expression "ad nauseam" i.e., "to the point of nausea" changed to "beyond the point of nausea")
2.5. One more classic: Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues" states that the clitoris has 8,000 nerve endings, "twice as many as the penis". She neglects to mention that that's a CIRCUMCIZED PENIS, an intact one having some 24,000 - 30,000 nerve endings, or 3 - 4 times that of the clitoris. This is wrong on so many levels I don't know where to start. Is it lying, is it stupidity, laziness, not caring, bullshitting, poor science, deliberate distortion to further one's agenda / sell tickets...I don't know.
3. Equality is about the rights of all genders, not just one.
3.1. Duh.
3.2. Feminist expositions seem to love to imply that whichever "bad thing" only happens to (white) women, failing to mention the corresponding stats for men (I could tell you stories).
3.3. There's only ONE men's shelter (in southern California, inland) in the whole USA, but men are know to be equally the victims of "domestic violence"). I'm guessing that there are more than one women's shelter, and by my first grade math training, that's UNequal.
4. He said that "Feminism hurts everybody"
4.1. He said that feminism was started for [disingenuous purposes]. An interesting question, I would say, but probably ultimately unanswerable.
4.2. The practice of "Feminism" these days definitely harms men.
4.3. The dialectics bandied about by self-described "Feminists" are often deeply flawed and pose grave potential harm to individuals and society if taken seriously.
5. He said he has "cold, hard facts" -- how about you ask for them instead of immediately hurling insults?
Oh yeah, trying to help women feel "secure" DOES take away from men if men are blamed and demonized in the process or men's same or similar problems are ignored or minimized. Oh wait, that never happens....NOT!
As for being "fat", young men are beaten up and driven to suicide for being the "fat kid" (and that term connotes a boy, not a girl, as I'm sure we know). I don't know if that's what happens to overweight girls. Anybody read "Lord of the Flies"? That's what really happens.
Yes, "Feminism" is meant to be about equality. No kidding. Everybody knows that. Please ease up on the condescension -- they have on-line dictionaries these days, I've heard. It's the current IMPLEMENTATION that is the problem. The Nazis and the Communists were also "about" a bunch of good stuff, and we saw where that went. Just saying you're "about" something doesn't make you that thing, and you have to take a regular spiritual inventory of what you're REALLY doing, and a lot of people ARE being hurt by the actions (and inactions) of self-described "Feminists".
(I have long considered myself to be a feminist, and I take real risks to do real things that help real women, and have for decades, but I've recently started strongly considering for the first time dropping the term "Feminist" since people who use the term are doing some really ugly things that I'm afraid are going to make me start hating women or something, and I don't want that).
===================================================================
its amazing how everything becomes about women only, as if there is no pressure or desire on men to be tall dark and handsome. i see feminisst trying to define themselves as oppressed at every corner. but if you ask a feminist whats the origins of feminism, who are the key figures, who do they for, y was it started, any intellegent being if you look at the fact, feminism hurts everyone. the economy, education, and most of all the family unit.. lets not forget, woman have male children too, its 2013, wake up. feminsm was built to destroy the family, and woman are helping them out. look at feminism ojectiveley and its preety clears its not only discrimanation its of no good to any of us. period. i know you ladies are gonna jump all over this post and i welcome you to do so, i beleive in peoples rights, not just the rights of a gender or a group. and if you would like info and evidence of my claims of how hurtful feminism is i be glad to give you some hard cold facts,
===============================================================
Ahh, you’re one of the ‘feminism hurts everyone’ men. If you want to be taken seriously, you should probably learn to spell. I am now dumber for having read your post. You have contradicted yourself in your post, and your arguments make no sense.
================================================================
If you're going just be gratuitously insulting, you might try making it clever and funny.
Since minor spelling departures seem to make it impossible for you to comprehend a text, I'll take a stab at rephrasing.
Among his points:
1. It's always all about women, and that's amazing.
1.1. Men are not mentioned at all as having body and fashion worries or societal shaming to do with these, and that's simply false.
1.2. This piece implies that that is the case, i.e., that women are somehow "targeted"
Have you ever seen He-Man, Conan the Barbarian, GI Joe, or even "Ken" (Barbie wa Ken yori mo tsuyoshi ;-) ?
2. Feminists seem to define themselves as victims at every corner.
2.1. Isn't this obvious?
2.2. Inveighing about female circumcision in Africa when the same number of men are being genitally mutilated in our own country
2.3. That "misogynist shooting" in which four men were killed and two women, and it's somehow evidence that "misogyny kills" and there's a crisis of hatred of women
2.4. One could go on "post nauseam" (yes, Lucy, before you jump on that one, it's a Latin play on words on the expression "ad nauseam" i.e., "to the point of nausea" changed to "beyond the point of nausea")
2.5. One more classic: Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues" states that the clitoris has 8,000 nerve endings, "twice as many as the penis". She neglects to mention that that's a CIRCUMCIZED PENIS, an intact one having some 24,000 - 30,000 nerve endings, or 3 - 4 times that of the clitoris. This is wrong on so many levels I don't know where to start. Is it lying, is it stupidity, laziness, not caring, bullshitting, poor science, deliberate distortion to further one's agenda / sell tickets...I don't know.
3. Equality is about the rights of all genders, not just one.
3.1. Duh.
3.2. Feminist expositions seem to love to imply that whichever "bad thing" only happens to (white) women, failing to mention the corresponding stats for men (I could tell you stories).
3.3. There's only ONE men's shelter (in southern California, inland) in the whole USA, but men are know to be equally the victims of "domestic violence"). I'm guessing that there are more than one women's shelter, and by my first grade math training, that's UNequal.
4. He said that "Feminism hurts everybody"
4.1. He said that feminism was started for [disingenuous purposes]. An interesting question, I would say, but probably ultimately unanswerable.
4.2. The practice of "Feminism" these days definitely harms men.
4.3. The dialectics bandied about by self-described "Feminists" are often deeply flawed and pose grave potential harm to individuals and society if taken seriously.
5. He said he has "cold, hard facts" -- how about you ask for them instead of immediately hurling insults?
2014-09-27
2014-09-25
2014-09-23
No balls, of course
Did you see the "Californication" where the bald guy's helping his wife at her salon where she's doing
asshole bleaching and vag waxing and when a guy calls in and baldie
yells back, "do we do balls?" He gets told to keep his voice down as
there are female clients present and that of course "we don't do balls".
Given the things that slide by on that show, it's interesting to see where they draw the line.
This is what I have to contend with. The male body is the most frightening and disgusting of all those things and people are free to say so and make jokes about it and nobody (not even the guys) raises a peep of protest.
Given the things that slide by on that show, it's interesting to see where they draw the line.
This is what I have to contend with. The male body is the most frightening and disgusting of all those things and people are free to say so and make jokes about it and nobody (not even the guys) raises a peep of protest.
2014-09-22
Japanese Class (last several weeks)
Comments to follow later. We've been translating the rules to the game So-Soo-Yoo from English to Japanese, which folks have been enjoying.
Crap! One World Cafe doesn't have good light in their group room! I hope Alice has a good copy of this section!
2014-09-21
2014-09-20
Gender-bending
The thing is, I see no difference in this reversal. American
women are just crazy and self-deprecated it seems, probably due to the
"problem of the legions" (as I was relating in my conversation group
last night). Including yourself, women I've been with have had the same
behavior ( been just as "aggressive" or "assertive" -- such terms
should not be applied to sex anyway -- we need new words -- a lot of these CPF so-called arguments turn on mere wrongly-attributed semantics).
Except
for the voyeurism, and I have observed in the right circumstances that
women do it too. Weird anecdote for later about my wedding party /
honeymoon, by the way -- more later and don't freak out. Everything
else looks perfectly "normal" to me.should not be applied to sex anyway -- we need new words -- a lot of these CPF so-called arguments turn on mere wrongly-attributed semantics).
This whole concept of gender reversal reducto ad absurdi arguments gets ridiculous sometimes, as it does here, because it is so rife with question-begging, while, when you look at the actual data, the actual images, there's nothing really novel or compelling there, no real insight, except, in my view, that it looks normal despite this "dramatic switcheroo".
2014-09-19
2014-09-18
2014-09-17
2014-09-16
2014-09-15
模倣子 Another Problem with "Consent"
A good friend of mine was telling me about when she was attending the University of Adelaide with a friend whom we'll call "Carrie". Carrie was a "nice girl," modest, "pious", and my friend said she "didn't even sleep with her boyfriend."
Fair enough.
One morning, Carrie went to the dorm showers, and she may have been a little hung over, not had her morning coffee, didn't have her contact lenses in, or wasn't a morning person, my friend didn't say, and the point I will make is that it didn't matter, and heck, she may even have done what she did on purpose, who knows?
Again, it doesn't matter.
So, Carrie was lathering herself up, hot water coming down, steam all around, and then she realized that she was surrounded by a bunch of wet, naked, burly Australian men who were all doing the same thing she was.
"GET OUT!!!" Carrie immediately yelled.
All of the young men immediately scampered out, falling over themselves, and a chap named Simon even forgot to grab his towel on the way out and ended up standing out in the hallway completely naked with the others.
It may surprise some to learn that a small, naked young woman yelling orders is a compelling and fearsome thing to men of all ages, even Australian rugby players, and men tend not to think but just do what they're told in such cases, and as quickly as possible.
Carrie was alone in the shower. She was faced with the unsavory prospect of having to put on her robe and step out into the hallway and face all of the cold, wet, naked men whom she had sent there, maybe making some of them late for classes, and the crowd of gawkers who had gathered.
But that was all.
It's a good bet that a lot of the young men noticed her when she came into the shower and did nothing until she yelled for them all to leave. She might have been able to have finished her shower and left.
Maybe she could've told them all to line up single file and no shoving and let's get this done properly, and many of them would've complied.
She might have gone into the men's shower by sincere accident. She might have unconsciously wanted to do it, who knows? Maybe she did it on purpose, wanting to see naked men, or a particular naked man, or wanted the thrill of being naked herself in the midst of all of them. Again, who knows? It's even possible that she knew that they would all run out if she yelled for them to do so and she wanted to try it, or she lost her nerve once she got into the thick of it. Again, who knows?
You could say that she "consented" to being in the shower with all those naked young men. Even if it was somehow "a mistake", she still went in there on her own power and free will, and it certainly seems to have taken her a long time and a long way to finally cotton on to the fact that all of the other university-age young people in there with her in various states of undress were all of the wrong gender.
I think we can all agree that the young men behaved rightly in response to what Carrie did.
They didn't think.
We don't want men to think at times like that.
Nobody should be thinking about whether there's "consent" present or not. It's dead simple: it's obviously a sexually-charged situation, the woman is uncomfortable, and she happens to be making a simple request, e.g., "Get OUT", "STOP", "Let GO" etc., so there's no thinking required.
In a "consent-based" model, there's room to think about whether the woman "consented" to what's happening, even if this "consent" is only for the next minute or the next "action" or whatever, and whether, therefore, she "really wants it" or other such digressions.
I reject that.
I say that it's a woman's right to change her mind. As Simone de Beauvoir points out in Le Deuxième Sexe, "coyness" is everywhere in the animal kingdom, and yet we blame human women for it, calling them fickle or irresponsible or such.
I say that's nonsense.
I say a woman never has to give consent. She should never give consent. She always retains the right to call a halt at any moment, regardless of what she said or did in the previous moment. Even if she says "No" she can say "Yes" the next moment and then turn around and say "No" again. It's good for women, obviously, but it's really good for men, too, because it saves a lot of unnecessary thinking and the guilt and fear of getting it wrong.
Even if you wind up dripping wet out in a cold hallway in a crowd of people with your schlong hanging out, all the world sees you as a good guy because you did right by some woman when she needed you to do or not do something.
Even if everything has gone swimmingly up to the point that her gentleman suitor has penetrated her and is a moment from inseminating her, a woman still has the right to call a halt. She has that right from the very start to the kiss goodbye after breakfast, every step of the way.
A woman who is in flagrante should never have to go through the calculus of trying to work out whether she's given "consent" to her sexual partner or partners for what they are doing or are about to do and whether she would be going back on some "agreement" based upon that, and said partner(s) should not base their decisions on any similar calculus, either. Whether she's happy with what is happening right now should be the only factor.
Yes, either side should be able to call a halt. Men should have that right as well, but men have other problems, and those problems will probably never even be addressed unless women succeed in resolving their own.
There are many, many other problems with the concept of "consent" as applied to intimate congress. If we take as a definition of rape as being someone having sex when they don't want to, then there is a real problem with "consenting" to anything, since it's necessarily in the future, whether it's five seconds, five minutes, five hours or five years in the future, it's no guarantee whatsoever that it's going to be a good experience when the time arrives.
If a woman knows that no matter what is happening to her at any given moment that she can call a halt and it will go no further, and that is always respected by all men at all times, I think that puts the focus where it needs to be for men and for women, and rapists have no ambiguïty to hide behind. A man can feel safe once again as well because his job is simple and no matter what's going on between him and a woman he knows that she knows she can stop everything and up until the moment she does that everything he does is fine.
I think that is men's normal disposition. Anything else is conditioned in. We need to return to that. Don't confuse men. Women can be friends and coworkers, but when it comes to sex, there are different rules, which men inherently understand, and unless a woman stops you, you can keep going, and when she does stop you, that's it, but it's also a great thing because it proves that she understands the rules, too. Other cultures, such as Japan and France, seem to be better at switching between the two sets of rules than Americans. The two are not connected, and they can even run at the same time. A consent to have a cup of coffee with you is not a "little bit" or a "little step" towards having sex with you -- they are two different things. Women must be careful not to go overboard, too -- being able to say "no" anytime in sex should not translate into permission to flake out on other responsibilities. By the same token, "consent" is a contractual concept trying to be applied to a deeply intimate, personal, and mercurial thing, i.e., sex. Contracts have their place, and being able to say "Y'know, I just don't feel the same now, it doesn't feel right," has it's place, too. If you want to turn every woman into a prostitute all of the time, and that's precisely what making people agree to sex according to a pre-ordained contract means, then I can kind of get the logic that got you there, but I think a lot of people might disagree with you.
The other thing is that coyness does not extend into other areas of life. It's as if, these days, that women being responsible in business life somehow might mean that they can't be coy in intimate matters. If women can't be coy, then it seems to me that we can't have a concept of "rape", at least not in many or most of the senses it is used in these days. They seem to be mutually exclusive. I don't like the idea of a woman having to prove or disprove some kind of contractual agreement, tacit or otherwise, and California is heading towards it being along the lines of a notarized contract, in court. I don't think anybody should feel it's all right to have sex with a woman based solely upon some previous "consent", even if it's backed up by a strong and clear understanding that she could say "no" at any time. The former undermines the latter, and so we don't need it.
Fair enough.
One morning, Carrie went to the dorm showers, and she may have been a little hung over, not had her morning coffee, didn't have her contact lenses in, or wasn't a morning person, my friend didn't say, and the point I will make is that it didn't matter, and heck, she may even have done what she did on purpose, who knows?
Again, it doesn't matter.
So, Carrie was lathering herself up, hot water coming down, steam all around, and then she realized that she was surrounded by a bunch of wet, naked, burly Australian men who were all doing the same thing she was.
"GET OUT!!!" Carrie immediately yelled.
All of the young men immediately scampered out, falling over themselves, and a chap named Simon even forgot to grab his towel on the way out and ended up standing out in the hallway completely naked with the others.
It may surprise some to learn that a small, naked young woman yelling orders is a compelling and fearsome thing to men of all ages, even Australian rugby players, and men tend not to think but just do what they're told in such cases, and as quickly as possible.
Carrie was alone in the shower. She was faced with the unsavory prospect of having to put on her robe and step out into the hallway and face all of the cold, wet, naked men whom she had sent there, maybe making some of them late for classes, and the crowd of gawkers who had gathered.
But that was all.
It's a good bet that a lot of the young men noticed her when she came into the shower and did nothing until she yelled for them all to leave. She might have been able to have finished her shower and left.
Maybe she could've told them all to line up single file and no shoving and let's get this done properly, and many of them would've complied.
She might have gone into the men's shower by sincere accident. She might have unconsciously wanted to do it, who knows? Maybe she did it on purpose, wanting to see naked men, or a particular naked man, or wanted the thrill of being naked herself in the midst of all of them. Again, who knows? It's even possible that she knew that they would all run out if she yelled for them to do so and she wanted to try it, or she lost her nerve once she got into the thick of it. Again, who knows?
You could say that she "consented" to being in the shower with all those naked young men. Even if it was somehow "a mistake", she still went in there on her own power and free will, and it certainly seems to have taken her a long time and a long way to finally cotton on to the fact that all of the other university-age young people in there with her in various states of undress were all of the wrong gender.
I think we can all agree that the young men behaved rightly in response to what Carrie did.
They didn't think.
We don't want men to think at times like that.
Nobody should be thinking about whether there's "consent" present or not. It's dead simple: it's obviously a sexually-charged situation, the woman is uncomfortable, and she happens to be making a simple request, e.g., "Get OUT", "STOP", "Let GO" etc., so there's no thinking required.
In a "consent-based" model, there's room to think about whether the woman "consented" to what's happening, even if this "consent" is only for the next minute or the next "action" or whatever, and whether, therefore, she "really wants it" or other such digressions.
I reject that.
I say that it's a woman's right to change her mind. As Simone de Beauvoir points out in Le Deuxième Sexe, "coyness" is everywhere in the animal kingdom, and yet we blame human women for it, calling them fickle or irresponsible or such.
I say that's nonsense.
I say a woman never has to give consent. She should never give consent. She always retains the right to call a halt at any moment, regardless of what she said or did in the previous moment. Even if she says "No" she can say "Yes" the next moment and then turn around and say "No" again. It's good for women, obviously, but it's really good for men, too, because it saves a lot of unnecessary thinking and the guilt and fear of getting it wrong.
Even if you wind up dripping wet out in a cold hallway in a crowd of people with your schlong hanging out, all the world sees you as a good guy because you did right by some woman when she needed you to do or not do something.
Even if everything has gone swimmingly up to the point that her gentleman suitor has penetrated her and is a moment from inseminating her, a woman still has the right to call a halt. She has that right from the very start to the kiss goodbye after breakfast, every step of the way.
A woman who is in flagrante should never have to go through the calculus of trying to work out whether she's given "consent" to her sexual partner or partners for what they are doing or are about to do and whether she would be going back on some "agreement" based upon that, and said partner(s) should not base their decisions on any similar calculus, either. Whether she's happy with what is happening right now should be the only factor.
Yes, either side should be able to call a halt. Men should have that right as well, but men have other problems, and those problems will probably never even be addressed unless women succeed in resolving their own.
There are many, many other problems with the concept of "consent" as applied to intimate congress. If we take as a definition of rape as being someone having sex when they don't want to, then there is a real problem with "consenting" to anything, since it's necessarily in the future, whether it's five seconds, five minutes, five hours or five years in the future, it's no guarantee whatsoever that it's going to be a good experience when the time arrives.
If a woman knows that no matter what is happening to her at any given moment that she can call a halt and it will go no further, and that is always respected by all men at all times, I think that puts the focus where it needs to be for men and for women, and rapists have no ambiguïty to hide behind. A man can feel safe once again as well because his job is simple and no matter what's going on between him and a woman he knows that she knows she can stop everything and up until the moment she does that everything he does is fine.
I think that is men's normal disposition. Anything else is conditioned in. We need to return to that. Don't confuse men. Women can be friends and coworkers, but when it comes to sex, there are different rules, which men inherently understand, and unless a woman stops you, you can keep going, and when she does stop you, that's it, but it's also a great thing because it proves that she understands the rules, too. Other cultures, such as Japan and France, seem to be better at switching between the two sets of rules than Americans. The two are not connected, and they can even run at the same time. A consent to have a cup of coffee with you is not a "little bit" or a "little step" towards having sex with you -- they are two different things. Women must be careful not to go overboard, too -- being able to say "no" anytime in sex should not translate into permission to flake out on other responsibilities. By the same token, "consent" is a contractual concept trying to be applied to a deeply intimate, personal, and mercurial thing, i.e., sex. Contracts have their place, and being able to say "Y'know, I just don't feel the same now, it doesn't feel right," has it's place, too. If you want to turn every woman into a prostitute all of the time, and that's precisely what making people agree to sex according to a pre-ordained contract means, then I can kind of get the logic that got you there, but I think a lot of people might disagree with you.
The other thing is that coyness does not extend into other areas of life. It's as if, these days, that women being responsible in business life somehow might mean that they can't be coy in intimate matters. If women can't be coy, then it seems to me that we can't have a concept of "rape", at least not in many or most of the senses it is used in these days. They seem to be mutually exclusive. I don't like the idea of a woman having to prove or disprove some kind of contractual agreement, tacit or otherwise, and California is heading towards it being along the lines of a notarized contract, in court. I don't think anybody should feel it's all right to have sex with a woman based solely upon some previous "consent", even if it's backed up by a strong and clear understanding that she could say "no" at any time. The former undermines the latter, and so we don't need it.
