I see sex becoming more and more normalized, and before long 15 year-olds, with the knowledge of their parents, will be typically engaging in protected intercourse, with the caveat they 'care' for each other. If we look at the centuries of forced pre-marital virginity as necessary strictness to avoid unsupported motherhood, technology rather negates the need for sex to be such a taboo subject or act.
I am not condoning anything here, but I foresee technology...birth control, texting, sexting, television in overdrive...leading us far from Leave it to Beaver.
h/t EBL
143 comments:
deborah, the birth control technology needed to avoid unwanted pregnancy has been has been around for decades now. But more and more such pregnancies happen every year. I just don't think this is going to a good place.
Thanks for the hat tip.
Sexuality is part of the Olympics (it always has been). Clair Bidez is 26 years old, is a professional model (as well as a snow boarder). I personally would not call this "soft porn"--unless you consider virtually all modeling with semi nudity soft porn.
Most Olympians have a narrow window of performance (just based on age) and unlike professional sports have limited opportunities for financial gain. They are limited to endorsements, modeling, and speaking engagements.
But as for the future of our society where teens are preyed upon by their teachers and other adults...yeah, I have some worries about that.
One problem is that there is no acceptable moral code these days except acceptance. There is no way to build a new moral framework today.
Do you seriously believe 15 year olds getting the go-ahead to have casual sex will not be badly screwed (pun both intended and not intended) by 21? The girls especially. The only way to believe adolescent promiscuity doesn't seriously destabilize the adolescent psyche is if you believe that sex is just a matter of mechanics.
Interesting topic in many ways.
Perhaps this is one way. When everyone is being encouraged by society to have sex at an early age, some will place a premium on those who have chosen to not have sex.
Case in point: I red an article about a small group of college frosh women who decided that they were not going to have sex until they either married to graduated. It began as a bet as to who could hold out the longest. Interesting thing was, each girl in the group wound up with a full dating calendar.
A few men simply wanted to be the one who broke the cycle, but others wanted to be with a non-slutty girl. There was an element of self-respect not present with other girls the guys had dated.
The outcome was that two of the group did indeed hold out until marriage, most of the others waited until they were engaged with a wedding date set.
And all of them noted that as a group there was far less heartache about bad dates and anger over breakups and next-morning regrets.
When the trend goes heavily in one direction, those who are contra-trend will be valued.
That skater who unzipped her suit, by the way, had a very attractive sternum.
Not a whole lot of body fat going on there.
I'm guessing she doesn't eat a lot of cheesecake.
Ice:
"deborah, the birth control technology needed to avoid unwanted pregnancy has been has been around for decades now. But more and more such pregnancies happen every year. I just don't think this is going to a good place."
Yes, but I think over time, as technology increases and more pressure is put to abort in the first trimester...with pills, rather that suction...the birth rate, and over time, the abortion rate will fall.
I think I read that the abortion rate was down last year?
Evi, I called it soft porn because of the semi-nudity in the first pic, but even more so because of two pics; one where she was pulling the string of her bikini bottom down suggestively, and the other she was pulling her pants down on the side to reveal a bikini bottom(?)
Yes, it's the rash of teachers...tons of them female, preying on teens. Who knew women were so over-sexed?
I'm just a dirty old man, so thanks for that.
I have very powerful memories of sex as a teenager, and it was not something I would want to have missed. It was wonderfully exciting and new. Now in my fifties it's no less so, and that is a complete surprise to me. I think we should be very cautious about telling anyone else to forgo sex as long as you are careful to avoid pregnancy and do it with fun, love, and respect. Under those conditions, it's always good, and as long as everyone affected is reasonably respected, then it's also appropriate.
It does seem like sex has gotten to casual with young people today, but it certainly seemed that way to adults when I was young too.
I know young people around 20 years old who have sex with people who are openly nothing more than friends. They have no intentions of taking it farther than booty calls when they urge arises. That just seems a little sad to me. It's not very fulfilling, and you know someone will get hurt, but these people do still fall in love and have a different sexual relationship when they do, so what do I know.
"Who knew women were so over-sexed?"
Where?
Icepick, exactly. An ancient framework is disintegrating, and except for Haz's great example, and some religious people, a new paradigm is coming into being.
Vegas.
ricpic:
"Do you seriously believe 15 year olds getting the go-ahead to have casual sex will not be badly screwed (pun both intended and not intended) by 21? The girls especially. The only way to believe adolescent promiscuity doesn't seriously destabilize the adolescent psyche is if you believe that sex is just a matter of mechanics."
I'm looking at how things will be in maybe 20-30 years. I'm sure it happens now, but by then it will be like a rite of passage.
In other word, when it's a common occurrence, and everyone does it, it won't be psychologically damaging.
Did anyone of you gals behold the muscular booty on the male skaters and cross county skiers? Holy cow. Mamma needs to sit down.
No selfies or anything. Just spandex.
Mama digs some Plushenko.
Leading us to the beaver? What?
oh - I get it.
Porn shouldn't make you soft. Just sayn'
Plus porn has never recovered from Kay Parker's retirement.
"Vegas".
I don't know. It sounds like the ladies here might be getting a little over-heated. You do realize that those athletes are too dedicated to their sport to even consider sex, and they're all gay anyway.
Sex sex sex - it's everywhere all the time. I would find it challenging to raise a child in our over-sexualized culture. I'm no prude, but it's refreshing when more is left to the imagination. In this day and age, it's less. Problem is, now that's dull.
Is the Olympic village a raging hot tub of hormones? Probably. All sorts of young sexy athletes thrown together, un-chaperoned in many cases. Then again, in order to perform their sport at top notch, some/most probably choose to go to bed early and keep their genitals free of STD.
And yes- so many are gorgeous. Not a surprise to see young nubile healthy super athletic bodies cross over to modeling. It would be nice if they kept it classy.
Mama digs some Plushenko.
He's cute. Did you see his performance? Splendid. and he's 31 now or something.
"Leading us to the beaver? What?"
Consider it the Moebius strip of beaver.
Yes, I saw him last night and last Olympics. He's a hoot. Skating with an artificial spinal disc, or some such.
" It would be nice if they kept it classy."
Not a prude either, classy is nicer than trashy.
Bags, I said Vegas 'cause that's where you've been taking your lady.
Troop, you'd better keep an eye on Evi. I think he's giving you a run for your money :)
Thinking of oversexed and out of control:
I have really noticed that Amanda is getting, not just prettier, but actually more ravishing, with each trial and conviction. Although it's not fair, I almost hope there will be a 4th trial just to see if it's possible she can get better looking.
I should be more sympathetic, but I'm a guy and we have much baser emotions.
Arguably social mores are more conservative (at least in regard to teenage sex and drug use) now than they were in the 1970s and 80s, but we have these technological twists (such as sexting) that did not exist back then.
"Porn shouldn't make you soft. Just sayn'"
That should be a motto or something!
n other word, when it's a common occurrence, and everyone does it, it won't be psychologically damaging.
Based on what can you write that so confidently?
And maybe one should look at the meaning / value sexual intercourse has for males and females. It appears it is different.
I'm with ricpic at 2:29.
Plus, I am looking forward to the Playboy edition on "Girls of Italian Prisons"
If you are a dirty old man, or dirty Old Dawg like me, you would have noticed that the young girls are leaving their beavers hanging out all over the web.
Evi:
"Arguably social mores are more conservative (at least in regard to teenage sex and drug use) now than they were in the 1970s and 80s, but we have these technological twists (such as sexting) that did not exist back then."
I don't know, John, I think things are as bad, probably worse. In my area in about the mid-2000s, a girl was discovered giving oral sex to a boy on the bus. The girl was probably a middle schooler at the time. Lots of booze, several fatal drunk driving fatalities.
Meant Evi, above.
Half the time, this place is soft porn. Not that I'm complaining.
JAL:
"Based on what can you write that so confidently?"
I'm going on what's considered normal at the time. For example, if you grow up poor and everyone around you is better off, you may have self-image issues. If everyone around you is poor, you feel normal.
"Half the time, this place is soft porn. Not that I'm complaining."
I think we're pretty tame, it's Troop who's the Hugh Hefner of the intertubes :)
"I'm no prude, but it's refreshing when more is left to the imagination. In this day and age, it's less. Problem is, now that's dull."
Only the dullards find it difficult to leave things to the imagination.
One of the women skiers is going with Tiger Woods.
That's not soft porn anymore ;)
From a Daily News article...
Along her journey of self-discovery the pro skier found love again, this time with pro golfer, Tiger Woods, 38. Now the pair leans on each other through the ups and downs in their respective sports and life in general.
lol.
They're all in amazingly great shape and for most of them this is their one shot at fame after years of hard work and training. So, yeah, how bizarre that they pose hard for the cameras. Not sure I'd call this soft porn which I more associate with absurdly unsexy Skinemax efforts. The story about that one skier (?) who put his phone number on his helmet and got a lot of naked texts ... hilarious. Rock star for a day.
"it won't be psychologically damaging."
Damaged becomes the new status quo.
Lust and Gluttony have switched places in our cultural perspectives.
Which means we excuse sexual dysfunction but get to be puritanical about what everyone else is eating.
The lack of boundaries is damaging to people.
Slow decline at the edges, then advancing to the center, leading to the kind of communities seen in Detroit and St. Louis, where sex is just another animal urge like defecating and no more meaningful.
Worse, the outcome is on equal footing: feces and fetus, both unwanted detritus.
Uh, hello...Lindsey Vonn, tiger Woods current flame, dropped out of the 2014 Olympics weeks ago. Re-injured knee ligaments.
I don't really feel it, nor can I find any way to describe myself as damaged. Am I just lucky again?
O.T. and predictable:
I just got news from my insurance brokers that the ACA employer mandate has been moved back another year to 2016. That's great news for us, but I wonder why Obama hates Obamacare so much. It's like he doesn't really want it to happen. I get the feeling he regrets not voting for Romney. I think Michelle did.
O.T. and predictable:
O.T. and deluded. As a personal favour spare me your obsessions or save them for an open or on-topic thread.
I don't think sex itself is much more prevalent than in the 70's, but there is just more technology spreading some of the more classless versions. Back in the 70's there was a lot of women in bikinis on TV just as enticing or more than that photo spread. Ever watch "Laugh-In"? Much more sexy, in prime time, broadcast nationwide. Goldie Hawn made that montage look Amish by comparison.
Prime time soft porn 1968 - 73
phx, I know you have no appreciation for how much obamacare is hurting people, but I do. I have to explain it to them face to face. I have to explain to them why you did what you did to them. It's not easy. Give me a little space the smile at our temporary, and totally inadequate relief. And it's important news, so bite me. I don't submit to your totalitarian control fetish.
And it's important news, so bite me.
I get the feeling he regrets not voting for Romney. I think Michelle did.
Important news! Ha ha ha ha! Give it a rest.
Dry out, Topic Hall Monitor. Go watch the Olympics or something.
Thanks Bagoh. I've got a Blue Shield PPO so I'm doomed next month. Getting all my healthcare now.
Please, Amartel. If you had 1/2 of bagoh's brains you would be tolerable. You're just a very unoriginal person who always rides on someone else's coattails to swipe at me. It's your m.o.
Learn your place.
Uh oh. Somebody needs a HUG!
If everyone around you is poor, you feel normal.
In your example "poverty" may be "normal." That doesn't say anything about how the individuals "feel." Or their mental health. Or anything about psychological damage. (The definition / description of that would take more posts and comments.)
In other word, when it's a common occurrence, and everyone does it, it won't be psychologically damaging.
Apples and oranges.
phx -- I think you forget that Baghs has real people whom he employs. So he has skin in this game in a serious way.
I don't mind bagoh20 going on, and on, and on, about Obamacare, or Obama. It's what he does.
It was off-topic here, it wasn't really a good worthwhile anti-Obamaacare rant, just kind of phoning it in, and he stepped on my post doing it.
You could argue my post wasn't great either but it was on topic. I got annoyed.
My bad.
Sooner or later, it will get old.
That is the lesson of history.
Uh oh. Somebody needs a HUG!
If you want to argue with me, talk with me, or discuss something with me try showing me a modicum of respect first, the same respect you would want from me. But instead of engaging me as an adult, even one you strongly disagree with, you suddenly come out of nowhere with these nasty remarks to me. Let's not do that. Substantive disagreements where you respect me and I respect you are far more interesting.
" But instead of engaging me as an adult, even one you strongly disagree with, you suddenly come out of nowhere with these nasty remarks to me. Let's not do that. Substantive disagreements where you respect me and I respect you are far more interesting. "
Again, read the thread. You started the person attacks, and most of it is you. This is what you do. You attack people as much as you want, and then demand respect from them. You can attack all you want, but it's the insisting on being respected for it that's unseemly and a bit deranged. Still, I think I love you. You put a face on the dementia of how we got here.
Prudery built this cunt-e-ry!
In the '70s though people were more laid-back and that made women less likely to think that their vaginas were family heirlooms to be protected with the same sense of care and rare treatment as the family china.
My dad once told me he got a woman proclaiming herself to be a feminist to sleep with him by challenging her to act as equally as a man would in actively making her sexual overtures.
Lust and Gluttony have switched places in our cultural perspectives.
Which means we excuse sexual dysfunction but get to be puritanical about what everyone else is eating.
Lol. You are funny, Paddy O. Get back to me when the epidemic morbid obesity (and just plain ole regular obesity) is overtaken by rampant STDs.
Again, read the thread. You started the person attacks, and most of it is you. This is what you do. You attack people as much as you want, and then demand respect from them. You can attack all you want, but it's the insisting on being respected for it that's unseemly and a bit deranged. Still, I think I love you. You put a face on the dementia of how we got here.
You went on an insulting rant about Obama and Obamacare in a thread that had nothing to do with it. I pushed back because I disagree with you and characterized your rant as deluded, and told you you were off topic. What's your bitch?
I'm no prude, but it's refreshing when more is left to the imagination.
And tell me, Dear April, of what sorts of things do you imagine?!
The other Latin word here is communication. We have a more open culture. If imagined things are communicated more openly then I think it defeats the purpose of the likely quieted imagination that some feel to be superior to simply communicated imagination.
I was never given oral sex in a bus.
In a car, in a theater, in a bedroom, in a club. But not on a bus.
Buses are too, you know, public. They're dirty.
The consideration of sex and the olympics together gives suggestion to new sorts of competitions. Spectated competitions.
"What's your bitch? "
You are.
I told you. Attack all you want, but stop being a whiny bitch demanding respect and telling people what they can discuss or not. Who do you think you are, the President?
In other word, when it's a common occurrence, and everyone does it, it won't be psychologically damaging.
Lol. You're damaging my social psychology, bro!
Oh Jesus. Can anyone tell me what phx and Bags are even arguing about?
After all these years, you'd think I could predict who will grudge match with whom. But this one seems too opaque to even sort out. I feel that there must be some type of gonzo interview Ali G thing going on, with one just psyching the other out and simply pretending to argue, but really not.
Attack all you want, but stop being a whiny bitch demanding respect and telling people what they can discuss or not.
Baghos Dictionary:
Whiny bitch = disagrees with ME
I never demand respect from anyone - you can give it or not. I make it a precondition if you want me to treat you as an equal.
Honestly, I think young women in this country are screwed up enough as is. Behold the Kardashians et al. But it's interesting to see ricpic play the adolescent psychologist here and say that it's not about the narcissistic entitlement, it's about girls not putting their pussies on pedestals high enough to be proud of the lofty heights from which their nether regions shine their glittering gold down upon us males (and other lesser mortals).
Ritmo, I'm resiting the fascist control aspirations of mini-me dictators on this blog and across this nation. I'm wearing tights and a cape right now, and I'm suspended from a pulley system above my keyboard that allows me to soar around the room.
Ok, it's actually a modified sex swing, but it works for this too.
I do not expect you to treat me as an equal. You will have to earn that.
No YOU have to earn that. Nyah nyah nyah.
I feel that there must be some type of gonzo interview Ali G thing going on, with one just psyching the other out and simply pretending to argue, but really not.
Fair enough.
I think that as many kids who know less than we do, are as many as those who are smarter than us. If that makes any sense.
There are dumbasses in every generation. But I seriously think there are some things that a good number of twenty-somethings can teach us. Heck. A few of them are damn billionaires already. They understand technology. Maybe we shouldn't always be so quick to assume that we're the ones who have something to teach them.
Is all this Olympics coming across as sexed-up because of the locale? You have to understand that in Russia sexuality is a very permissive thing. I read this fascinating Salon article yesterday on how randy they've were allowed to be, even at the height of Stalinist repression in other domains. Worth a very fascinating read.
Hey. Just cause I feel like saying it: BALLS!
"Am I just lucky again?"
I think that you're definitely lucky. Not just in not being damaged.
The sex damage stuff is like smoking, some people can do whatever they want, smooth sailing. But, for most, smoking is a way of death, full of damage.
Maybe like some people just are genetically able to put up with smoking, you're just genetically designed for rampant teenage sex, bagoh.
It's also the case, I think, that we aren't just the results of one set of decisions. You've talked about your discipline and resolve that characterizes your life. That offsets.
Meanwhile, the overall trend leaves the mass of people dealing with psychological and social damage: single parent homes, teenage pregnancies, addictive behaviors.
Working my way backwards up through the thread, I think Evi's right about the historical sexualization of the Olympics. I mean, the Greeks fetishized male forms with the fervor that we put Pam Anderson's tits up on billboards nowadays, and competed nude. I wouldn't doubt at all that it was a sexied-up event.
American puritanism is a relatively new invention. Even when continental Christianity started treating sex as something that belonged in a sacred straightjacket, Europeans were still less shy about basic body functions and such. The Puritans took this impulse into overdrive.
I don't see why America should feel compelled to maintain it. We got rid of those damn bonnets, gowns, hats and drab colors, anyway.
"overtaken by rampant STDs"
Did you miss the whole AIDS thing? How many billions of dollars are spent on funding medicine and research and care for such diseases when in the majority of cases simply abstaining is a sure fire cure.
That's why they ask about sex for blood donations. STDs were and are a huge, yet almost entirely preventable problem. Think of all the children we could feed with the funding if people just were disciplined about their sexuality.
Sexual non-shamedness doesn't lead to broken homes. Europe doesn't have broken homes. Just because we let a very small genie out of a bottle doesn't mean it can go back in. People have to be free to know what they like to know who and what they can love. Maybe it was socially traumatic to take so long catching up, like for Tevye the milkman in Fiddler on the Roof. The upheaval of his daughters marriages was traumatic because his existence was too cloistered to anticipate it.
America is one big Tevye the Milkman and Lindsay Lohan is a Fiddler on the Roof.
And tell me, Dear April, of what sorts of things do you imagine?!
Less twerking.
Elvis
Did you miss the whole AIDS thing?
Miss it? Medically significant obesity probably afflicts a third of the country. Current prevalence of AIDS (after all these years) is less than 0.3%.
How many billions of dollars are spent on funding medicine and research and care for such diseases when in the majority of cases simply abstaining is a sure fire cure.
Is this a question? Other than the judgment of people who got it before medical science knew of it, the at-the-time death sentence was hardly as irreversible as is obesity. Why they judgment, man? Are you really trying for the Jerry Falwell tack of looking at AIDS as divine retribution? Dear Ryan White, I apologize for what you're seeing now.
That's why they ask about sex for blood donations. STDs were and are a huge, yet almost entirely preventable problem.
So is obesity, man. It's behind cancer, heart disease and just about the bulk of every other aggregate medical cost. We don't tell healthy people though that they're eating too much. Healthy people seem to know how to eat.
Think of all the children we could feed with the funding if people just were disciplined about their sexuality.
In this country? Are you kidding? The Big Judgment crowd just got their congressional allies to cut SNAP. And good luck getting those same purse-string pullers to increase foreign aid. We're in a recession, and the anti-Keynesians are in control.
"Maybe like some people just are genetically able to put up with smoking, you're just genetically designed for rampant teenage sex, bagoh. "
I wish! I didn't have rampant teenage sex. Well, maybe I did, but it was with one girl though nearly all my teen years. I've been a long term serial monogamist for the most part with relationships usually lasting over a decade, except in college, because that's what college is for, isn't it, learning?
I just enjoyed the exploration I was lucky enough to fall into, and most people I know who were less than monogomous turned out just fine, male or female. Most ended up settling down in marriage, even the ones who were promiscuous early on. I think the women might have some regrets about some of that, but in general they do not regret most of it. It was part of life growing up. I know people want to have such people be regretful as some kind of justice, but that's just an unseemly fantasy, frankly. It's just not how life really is anymore, if it ever was.
...and the anti-Keynesians are in control.
Are you high?
The Keynesians are in control. They've stimulated us with debt and money-waste - to no avail.
@ Paddy O
Lust and Gluttony have switched places in our cultural perspectives.
Which means we excuse sexual dysfunction but get to be puritanical about what everyone else is eating.
That's a fact.
Today April tried to teach me that the T. Partiers running Congress and its purse-strings are Keynesians who are showering tremendous stimulus upon the economy and I regret that I never learned this valuable lesson before.
T partiers are a small fraction of the house. The dems control the white house and the senate.
Did you bump your head again?
Shovel ready.
The last 5 years never happened.
Wherein April's too focused on Elvis hips and skater asses to remember that the House cannot just delegate its budgeting authority to the president and senate alone. Or that the Republican-controlled house can do much without T. Party approval.
I guess sexual thoughts are damaging after all, Paddy. To April. But her understanding of U.S. government was already questionable to begin with.
It's weird how you have to place words in other's mouths in order to make your incorrect, incoherent and tortured arguments, Ritmo.
I never read that plank in the T. Party platform where they abdicated authority over the budget and decided to give the president and senate carte blanche over all spending. Soon they will dissolve the CBO, and the U.S. House Committee on the Budget that drafts the budget resolutions in the first place. Which must come as a huge surprise to Paul Ryan.
Are you a local T. Party leader, April, or just a follower? To take over the government and be in a permanent state of war against it it might be a good idea to understand how it actually works.
It's weird how you have to place words in other's mouths in order to make your incorrect, incoherent and tortured arguments, Ritmo.
It's weird how many ways of avoiding saying that you simply didn't know what you were talking about when crafting your otherwise oh-so-clever riposte.
STD's and obesity aren't comparable in many ways. For instance, the onset of obesity is slow and over time; while the onset of or initial infection of HIV could be the simple consequence of one mistake.
Obesity doesn't make one an evolutionary dead-end: witness all the overweight parents. Who wants to mate with an HIV positive person? It's unspeakable now, but I can envision a future in which the right of the HIV positive to procreate with the uninfected is championed.
"Are you high? "
I never considered that explanation, but it might be all you can suspect of someone who thinks we have not been spending money like drunken sailors. We have been spending money faster than we can print it, and Ritmo thinks were in some kind of Tea Party controlled austerity mode.
I want what he's smoking.
Obesity doesn't make one an evolutionary dead-end: witness all the overweight parents.
Dude, you make a mistake common among non-biologists: One generation is not the same as thousands. It could be that 1,000 lb people will be reproducing in the future. In any event, much obesity results from a mismatch between the modern abundance of refined sugar and the historical rarity of it. Evolution to find it irresistible is at odds with a future where too much of it is available to be resisted.
Who wants to mate with an HIV positive person? It's unspeakable now, but I can envision a future in which the right of the HIV positive to procreate with the uninfected is championed.
Oy. They already can and do. The fascism in this is unspeakable. You were aware that it's not a genetic illness, weren't you? (Despite the ironically genomic-integrating action of a retrovirus… But I don't think that occurs in germ cells. Point being, therapy suppresses levels low enough to reduce mother-child transmission dramatically).
We have been spending money faster than we can print it, and Ritmo thinks were in some kind of Tea Party controlled austerity mode.
I'm sorry to hear that you think ending SNAP and unemployment benefits is a form of stimulus, Bag. And all that $700 billion must still be spent. TARP is on full bore. We haven't finished spending the $700 billion that was spent 3 years ago because Bag sez it was a "forever stimulus". It's still being spent, even after there was no more of it to spend. Or something.
Oy. They already can and do. The fascism in this is unspeakable. You were aware that it's not a genetic illness, weren't you? (Despite the ironically genomic-integrating action of a retrovirus… But I don't think that occurs in germ cells. Point being, therapy suppresses levels low enough to reduce mother-child transmission dramatically).
Sure it's possible R&B, but the time, the expense, the effort -- and the blase argument that it's not somehow avoidable.
Answer me this R&B: why is unfettered, unsafe sexual practice beyond reproach?
Honey, they cancelled our credit cards and are repossessing the house.
But we stopped spending when we maxed out all the cards. Doesn't that make our credit rating much better now?
Ritmo, you embarrass yourself.
Whose reproach? The government's? Those who believe Puritanism or Vaticanism should dominate American life?
Anyone can be "messy" in their sex life. I just don't understand how you think that's a matter for some institution to define instead of the individual. Why do all these efforts to control others center around the genitals?
Myself, I don't see why sexual exploration and enjoyment is somehow worse or less meaningful or less didactic than any other way of learning about the world. It's more fun. It's more social. And it's physical. I think the risks are worth preventing, and pills and latex and vaccines lower those risks even more. But the only sexuality that needs to be controlled is parent/authority figure to non-consenting adult. Everything else I see no judgment to make on it - again, unless one is being especially risky.
But you guys go beyond that. Sure, everything is good in moderation. Extreme behavior and lack of self-control isn't good. But I keep picking up on this nagging voice in you guys that will look the other way around a thousand different types of destructive indulgent (consumer!) behavior, while jumping off your rockers to condemn the most innocent of social/affectionate indulgent behaviors, and I have to ask why. Why am I the odd one? Why is sexual apprehension or nervousness supposed to be more normative than sexual enjoyment?
Oh stop being the schoolmarm, Bags. Didn't you get all that nagging out of your system with phx? Just admit that you found it inconvenient to differentiate between spending levels four years ago and spending now. Admit it. Chick's wants us to embrace restraint.
Restrain your urge to exaggerate.
Stop digging, Ritmo. If spending all your money didn't work, then spending it again is pretty stupid, and nobody wants to lend it to you anyway. This is first grade math. Need a tutor? I graduated the 4th grade, so I can probably help.
Anyone can be "messy" in their sex life. I just don't understand how you think that's a matter for some institution to define instead of the individual. Why do all these efforts to control others center around the genitals?
@R&B: it's just society deciding how best to survive... whether it's normal and efficient to propagate the species the traditional way or to enable and encourage lots of furtive unprotected spurting so long as there is cure for the consequences. It's not rocket science.
Chick's wants us to embrace restraint.
Self restraint, yes. If people can't control themselves, the government will. If the government can't control itself, another government will.
There's no need to graduate to the government control stage, let alone the third stage.
Bags - you're not worth debating when you get this way. Someone made you cranky and now you believe that the Grand Recession couldn't have gone much worse. Your imagination is limited, as is your history. Now go tell the medal-makers at Walmart what your specs are for the cheap phony plastic Fields Medal and Nobel in econ that you somehow feel you deserve - because you're a "winner" and winners get to do what they want, like make up their own economic history for instance.
Chick, where is the assumption that these activities are leading to pregnancy? They don't. Are you aware that the decrease in abortion over the decades tracks to increased contraception? Are you against the pill, the prophylactic, the hand-job, and other sensible measures? You're starting to remind me of Abe in that Discovery series about the Amish kids that go to NYC.
Evolution goes hand-in-hand with speciated innovations, including those we make. Our evolution is different after learning how to ferment wine, stitch clothing, roast meats, and yes, make sex more fun and less haphazard in its risks.
Sorry Ritmo, you're just a dummy. Nobody actually believes that bullshit. Politician, and those who court them just use it gain political power and access to tax and borrowed money. A simple obvious scam and you can't see it.
BTW, my economics education exceed the President's substantially, and like I said, that's with a 4th grade education.
It doesn't exceed Krugman's, nor the majority of economists', and everyone knows that the scam is you saying you need more attention and money from the government because you're a big rich, insecure asshole who's simply not content with his currently substantial wealth and power (obviously, you're losing politically) and resents the fact that people don't like being insulted by your plastic idol Romney when he says half the country's lazier than the people who work less and make more.
Your 4th grade education is showing. Even worse, so is your 4th grade ego. It's not pretty, but then, your big, huge feelings were hurt by your country and your government so yes, go ahead and take them out by insulting me (and the majority, those who didn't vote for Governor Doghouse-on-Car-Roof).
Go whine about it with him. I heard he's in La Jolla now. Go talk about finding new ways of abusing your dogs together, now that you failed in your attempt to abuse the poor, the middle class and everyone else who's lifting the load that you watch.
A little known fact is that Bags once tried to tattoo a dollar sign on his penis, but it was too small to fit the "S" portion and would have looked like a "cents" sign instead.
Bags was not happy about the idea of advertising that much smaller a stash of booty. Or they could have shrank the "$" to fit, but Bags has Gatsby-levels of ostentatiousness - minus the charm and interest in others, of course.
...go ahead and take them out by insulting me"
Oh, you don't need my help with that. You are doing just fine all by yourself. Hey, you have any 5-star leftovers you can spare me, Mr. Charity?
BTW, Romney only put that dog on the car in hopes of preventing a drone attack. He knows the President wouldn't ruin a good meal.
Dude, you're the one who feels insulted. Your democracy has turned its back on you and your robber-baron buddies. You know it. The retrograde restoration will not be televised. It won't even happen. Now elephants just want to negotiate over how to limit the scope of the ACA. And the scope of the tax increases. The days of dancing on democracy are gone. Your political gains will be marginal at best from now on, and only for a limited time. Stealing opportunity from the people and stuffing it down your gullet is about to end.
Go and cry to your 4th grade teacher about it and apologize to her for not paying enough attention to do better in school and learn how to become a civilized person.
You could still be Carnegie and not a Rockefeller (if only you made a fraction what they did) if you chose to, but it's clear you love your money more than you love your country. Which is the best advertisement for confiscating or restricting it that could ever be made. Oh well, at least you won't reproduce. Will they bury your belongings in your grave once you're gone? Just like they did with the pharaohs? Lord knows you don't want anyone else to benefit from it.
Q. What's the difference between Bill Gates and Bag O' H2O?
A. A huge amount of talent, success, and generosity. Maybe those things go together.
It's not possible to insult me, and I've never been insulted in my life. I don't need anything, and all my wealth is already willed to my employees. I do however care about people around me and their opportunities. They are being destroyed, and it's people like you Ritmo who are doing that, because you are dumb. I forgive you for that, but ask that you please wise up.
"Q. What's the difference between Bill Gates and Bag O' H2O?
A. A huge amount of talent, success, and generosity. Maybe those things go together. "
So about the same difference as between me and you.
You haven't said anything wise. Just selfish. Somehow your employees have more intrinsic value than anyone else in their position? That's fucked up. Didn't they have any worth to you before you hired them?
It's like Bill Gates saying that only Microsoft employees should be spared disease, rather than all the Africans he's vaccinating. He understands that the sicknesses of society (morally and physically) can't just be cured by those owned by his corporate operation. You don't. You forsake America and only care about the parts (human or otherwise) that are integrated into the operation you OWN.
The American people are wise enough to not vote for people who hate them, who have contempt for them, who only care about them to the extent they can make them money. That is why you would never become president for long. That is why people with whom you identify would never be president, either. The people don't hate themselves as much as you would like them to. They don't think you're better than them, either.
You are not an American. Your country is your company. You have no nation beyond it. Thus, America doesn't care about you. All those 53% who have the self-respect that you resent will see to it.
Goodbye and fuck off for tonight. Talk to me again when your political butt-hurtedness wears off. It's so damn boring to hear about, already. As easy as you make it for me to make fun of. You don't get it, but the voters do. They think you're an ass.
Someday you might actually get bored of these games and learn to be good to people regardless of the dollar amount they accrue to you. I doubt it, but you're actually tolerable when you actually manage to forget about your self-involved corporate identity for minute.
So about the same difference as between me and you.
Not really. I define success differently than you do. I think there are many ways to define it, actually. But that's because I have a soul. You just have an account balance. Boring.
" Somehow your employees have more intrinsic value than anyone else in their position?".
I know this might be foreign to you, but THEY created everything I have. We created it together, it's ours, and we will decide how it gets used. At least the 50% left after we pay for the common good every year, and then what's left over from that after the lion's share taken in the transfer via death tax (double taxation).
You see, the majority of the fruits of our work goes to supporting the common good, while only a minor share of yours does. That's how it works for successful "robber barons". If you want to be less selfish yourself, try being more successful, dude. But, it's really rude to call people who give much more than you "selfish". I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and just make the safe bet that you don't know any better. You aren't demonstrating much understanding of these basic principles, so save this for later reference in case you ever do become successful.
" that's because I have a soul."
Well at least you have that going for you. It's high bar you set for yourself.
I know this might be foreign to you, but THEY created everything I have.
And with this you show that you STILL don't get it. NO ONE cares about YOU. They vote for their fellow Americans without regard for some one, unknown CEO and his company specifically. They vote for the well-being of the country and its people regardless of their involvement in YOUR fucking company, or any single company, but simply due to the fact that they're Americans. You don't understand that concept.
You see, the majority of the fruits of our work goes to supporting the common good
And pretty soon, it will be even more. But it's not "the majority", anyway. Not at the federal level. That's just you whining.
That's how it works for successful "robber barons". If you want to be less selfish yourself, try being more successful, dude. But, it's really rude to call people who give much more than you "selfish". I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and just make the safe bet that you don't know any better. You aren't demonstrating much understanding of these basic principles, so save this for later reference in case you ever do become successful.
More insults, more "you're better than me" bullshit. So I have no interest in voting for you and your interest. Voting in your supposed (declared) interest created lower overall wages, less opportunity, a horrible near-depression (the second time your interest did that), and a bunch of other destruction. So until you learn to wise up and turn those things around, my interest is in voting against your interest, in checking it, and in making sure others learn about your selfish, lying game.
And so far, that largely seems to be what they're doing. There's more to do, since your worst nightmare would be a failure to make all you oppose a failure. But these are Americans you'd like to fail. So fuck you and fuck your anti-patriotic interest, you America-hating bastard. Shove the money that isn't taxed up your ass. No one cares about you because you don't care about them.
Good night.
" that's because I have a soul."
Well at least you have that going for you. It's high bar you set for yourself.
To someone as empty as you are it sure is.
XX OO
JAL:
"In your example "poverty" may be "normal." That doesn't say anything about how the individuals "feel." Or their mental health. Or anything about psychological damage. (The definition / description of that would take more posts and comments.)"
My example was meant more along the lines of the PJ O'Rourke(?) line, 'we didn't know we were poor, we just thought we were broke.' Or maybe still PJ, 'Poor Americans don't think of themselves as poor, but temporarily embarrassed millionaires.'
But my line of reasoning in this thread is about far-reaching possible societal evolution. Way back when, in the Middle Ages(?) children were thought of as little adults. An adult would think nothing of saying something ribald to a child.
I'm saying that over a great amount of time, at what age and under what circumstances sex will occur may change drastically. In the Fifties, living together was an outrage, by the Seventies it was grudgingly accepted, by the Eighties it was socially acceptable.
That is not to say there won't be a societal conclusion that it's best to marry and have kids for financial and kid-positive reasons. It just seems to be going the other way with blended families and serial monogamy.
Patrick:
""it won't be psychologically damaging."
Damaged becomes the new status quo."
Please see my reply just above.
"Lust and Gluttony have switched places in our cultural perspectives.
Which means we excuse sexual dysfunction but get to be puritanical about what everyone else is eating."
That is an interesting conclusion. The rise of obesity and 'free sex' occurred in tandem. Do greed, sloth, wrath, envy, or pride factor into any of this?
Ari, haven't you had your coffee yet, or do you need to switch to decaf ;)
Pogo-is-a-live-wire:
"The lack of boundaries is damaging to people.
Slow decline at the edges, then advancing to the center, leading to the kind of communities seen in Detroit and St. Louis, where sex is just another animal urge like defecating and no more meaningful.
Worse, the outcome is on equal footing: feces and fetus, both unwanted detritus."
Powerfully spoken, but I think unkind to people who have never risen to the level of moral culpability (in the Catholic sense). A a society we are only as strong as our weakest link.
phx:
"...he stepped on my post..."
As I recall your post said that you didn't have a problem with sexy pics of Olympians per se, but with materialism. But these sort of photos are the very face of materialism, branding, mass culture, etc.
As I recall your post said that you didn't have a problem with sexy pics of Olympians per se, but with materialism. But these sort of photos are the very face of materialism, branding, mass culture, etc.
I agree with that. I think car commercials on television are every bit as bad - maybe worse. They're manipulating you in so many ways for their financial gain. She's manipulating you too, but for your libido. And you definitely see more sexist images than that on television - the constant propagandist who never seems to leave us.
The internet is sleazier and sleazier. Huff Po runs stuff all the time worse than this girl. Most of the network web sites do.
From where I stand the deal is we are all being manipulated in ways that we can't escape - using sex, greed, selfishness, what have you. But it's really not so much for our benefit, it's always someone else's.
I think the American public has been weakened and devastated through manipulation. I'm pretty sure that's happening in Europe and other places as well.
What are you gonna do?
Isn't "soft porn" exactly the opposite of the, uh, point?
Post a Comment