6 May
2013
6 May
'13
1:19 a.m.
Sonja & Yo's-
Not absurd, it's in the language you used: "thoroughly inferior" and
"classed with it." Those are strong words, and unequivocal words.
Translate to housing and it sounds like the way home-owners often put
down apartment-renters. Speaking of which:
"There are lots of reasons people in single-family homes don't have
gardens or don't have them much, and ways that apartment-renters can
have gardens, although having a garden is easier if you have a house...."
In context, that sounds like an attempt to back out of a dead-end in an
arguement, but as long as the "thoroughly inferior" statement is not
repudiated, the subsequent statement also comes across as condescending.
The problem here is with "superior/inferior" and "class." You can
call
this a class-struggle.
One thing we ought to do here is break out the subject matter: porn and
masturbation and relationship status ("status" in both senses of the
word, heh) are not the same things. It's good that porn is starting to
evolve in a direction that's more appealing to women, and less engaged
with sexual power-dynamics. It would also be a good thing if there was
a reasonable balance between genders and sexualities in terms of
percentage of people who play with themselves (I don't have the numbers
offhand). And it will be a great day when "relationship status" isn't
equivalent to "status."
But the fact is that we live in a culture of sexual phocomelia. For
those who don't know the word, it refers to the (otherwise-rare)
congenital disability that was famously caused in large numbers by
thalidomide, whereby people were born with no arms or legs, their hands
and feet attached directly to their trunks. Someone with phocomelia has
a uniquely difficult time eating, because they can't reach to pick up
their own food and put it in their own mouth. One way to solve this is
with a partner, where each person picks up the food for the other, and
puts it in the other's mouth.
Our sexual culture is like that: it starts from the assumption that you
require another person to meet a basic physical need. From that
assumption, applied to sexuality, comes all of the weird power-dynamics
around sex. And while it may be true for reproduction (plus or minus
cloning), it's not true for love (which has avenues of expression other
than sex), and for the neurochemical benefits (read: pleasures) and
other health benefits (such as reduction of risk for prostate cancer in
men) of sexual stimulation and orgasm.
The Abrahamic religious traditions, originating in cultures that were
harshly oppressed at the hands of the powers-that-be of their times, had
to conflate reproduction, love, and pleasure, and seek to control the
latter to ensure the former, else they would not have survived. That
conflation persists in the mainstream culture to this day, where it's
the equivalent of a state of civil emergency after the hurricane has
long since passed.
-G.
=====
On 13-05-05-Sun 11:43 PM, Sonja Trauss wrote:
No that's absurd. There are lots of reasons ppl in relationships don't
have sex or don't have it much and ways single people can, although it
is easier if you have a partner.
Also, comparing options means you must have them - if you don't have
access to sex then you don't have access to it. Comparing it to
masturbation, or comparing it to camping, or to pie, or to music, it's
moot.
The whole conversation hinges on the notion that you have access to
both, which I think more people do than realize it.
On May 5, 2013 10:00 PM, "GtwoG PublicOhOne" <g2g-public01(a)att.net
<mailto:g2g-public01@att.net>> wrote:
Sonja, Andrew, Et. Al.-
So now the implicit assumption goes explicit:
"Masturbation is a thing too thoroughly inferior to sex to be
classed with it."
The necessary and inevitable corollary to that is, "Single people
are thoroughly inferior to coupled people." Care to argue that point?
It wasn't long ago that us queerz were also subjected to
"Homosexual sex is a thing thoroughly inferior to heterosexual sex."
Inferior by way of "immoral," and for the longest time (and still,
in many places), illegal. In a wide swath of the world, I can go
to prison for who I love, and in a slightly less wide swath of the
world, I can get beheaded in the public square or hanged by the
neck at the end of a crane borrowed from the Public Works
Department (as is the custom in Iran, 16-year-old queer guys
included, go search BBC.com for that story).
Comparisons based on assertions of one's own superiority and
others' inferiority, are the last refuge of the will-to-power
mentality that is exploitative, oppressive, and ultimately
insecure of its own niche in the human social ecosystem.
In any ontological sense, arguements about the superiority and
inferiority of personal matters of taste among consenting adults,
are groundless, pointless, and ultimately meaningless.
Would anyone care to argue whether rock is better than rap or
vice-versa, or whether jazz is better than country & western or
vice-versa, or whether playing a piano, harmonica, guitar,
saxophone, or banjo is better? Any such assertion of "better"
(and its necessary corollary, "worse"), is nothing more than a
linguistic confound of the phrase "I prefer."
I prefer music X, sexuality Y, and pizza with Z on it.
I have no need to prove to anyone, that any of those things are
"better than" music Q, sexuality R, and pizza with S on it. And I
will fight for the right to full equality among people who prefer
music X or Q, sexuality Y or R, and pizza with Z or S on it.
It will be a great day when people stop seeking to dominate each
other over matters of personal choice and personal taste. It will
be an even better day when people stop seeking to dominate each
other altogether, aside from consenting adult dom/sub play;-)
-G.
=====
On 13-05-05-Sun 12:29 PM, Sonja Trauss wrote:
mmm according to conservative readings of the
bible, all
non-reproductive sex is sinful. masturbating and pulling out are
both sins, and in that way equivalent. So if you want to throw
around the 'puritanical' label, it would have to stick to the
idea that masturbation and sex are interchangeable, and not the
idea they they are two pretty different types of activities.
Other women should pipe up here, but the only people who have
ever tried to tell me that "masturbation is a type of sex" have
been men. No, masturbation is not sex. In the same way that
vitamin pills are not food. Masturbation is a thing too
thoroughly inferior to sex to be classed with it. I guess, from a
male pleasure point of view, they are equivalent, if you cum from
sex or you cum from jerking off, you cum, who cares, but they are
not equivalent from your gf's pov. I would 1000% prefer my
partner to cum from fucking me than from jerking off. I get
nothing out of him jerking off, if he fucks me I will almost
surely cum.
The idea that we should make more porn (for women!) has always
struck me as an example of men thinking women should be more like
men. Maybe women aren't that into porn, not because there's not
that much porn that women like, but because porn is lame and
boring. Maybe instead of women going against their natures and
learning to enjoy passively watching other people have sex, men
should go against their natures and learn to enjoy closing the
laptop, picking up the phone, waiting 15 minutes for your girl to
come over, and then fucking her.
On Sun, May 5, 2013 at 1:58 AM, GtwoG PublicOhOne
<g2g-public01(a)att.net <mailto:g2g-public01@att.net>> wrote:
Sonja, Andrew, and Yo's-
Whoa there! All this about "masturbation replacing sex"
reinforces an artificial duality that's ultimately founded in
puritanism, in which masturbation may not be "sinful" but
it's "not real sex."
To paraphrase an old Campbell's Soup ad, "It's Sex for One
and that one is you!"
What I personally find bizarre as hell, is the degree to
which our culture is so couple-normative, and the degree to
which sexual coupling is normalized and expected as the
primary axis on which lifetime relationships are based. This
when there's a near-infinite range of potential upon which
humans could base their relationships.
Have you ever seen a couple that appeared to you to be either
overtly dysfunctional or just plain weird in the manner of
"what the hell could s/he possibly see in him/her?!" The
answer usually turns out to be "in bed," as in: they may be
totally incompatible in all other ways, but they have some
unique kink in common, or just screw like mad weasels, and
apparently that's enough to keep them together.
Under all of this is the genetic competition algorithm, that
dates back to bacteria but seems remarkably incapable of
producing humans with the intelligence needed to overcome
war, climate change, and all the other forces of our own
making that threaten our near-extinction. In an era where
"the cybernetically-enhanced human" is a common cultural
meme, surely we can do better!
Anyone who thinks that their precious genes are something
special (or that there is any such thing as a superior race),
is in for a rude awakening: we share well over 99% of our
genome with chimpanzees and bonobos. Selfish genes helped us
get from our birth as a species to the point where our
survival was assured. Since that time we have overpopulated
and overconsumed the planet, threatening our own continued
existence within our lifetimes.
It's time to move beyond obedience to algorithms that no
longer serve us.
-G.
======
On 13-05-05-Sun 1:22 AM, Sonja Trauss wrote:
That study says nothing about whether masturbation does or
doesn't replace sex. It says that teens who masturbate more
have more sex, which makes perfect sense. These are things
that you expect to see together, like umbrellas and rubber
boots, but you would never say that the umbrella caused the
boots, or vice versa. And this study says nothing about
whether sex causes masturbation or the other way around.
It also doesn't say anything about masturbation with or
without porn (although I wish it did).
Masturbation is all well and good, of course, but that's not
sufficient to explain why porn is well and good.
I'm super curious. I can't experimentally not watch porn and
see what happens because I already don't, but if any of you
do, then you will be able to tell me what you would be missing.
On May 5, 2013 12:43 AM, "Andrew" <andrew(a)roshambomedia.com
<mailto:andrew@roshambomedia.com>> wrote:
Sonja,
I disagree with your views on masturbation. For one, I
don't think that masturbation causes people to have less
sex. Here's a study a found by googling I'm sure there
is more data to back up the fact that masturbation does
not reduce the amount of sex someone is having.
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/womens-health/articles/2…
It is also just, in general a healthy practice.
second, I can masturbate without porn, and with porn (as
can most people).
I really believe that part of being sex positive is also
being accepting of masturbation as natural and healthy.
--Andrew
On Sun, May 5, 2013 at 12:25 AM, Sonja Trauss
<sonja.trauss(a)gmail.com <mailto:sonja.trauss@gmail.com>>
wrote:
Yeah .... so what if you didn't have anything, and
you couldn't concentrate. Would you give up? Maybe
the first day. Maybe even the 2nd day, but
eventually you would be able to masterbate on your
own I bet.
I'm a girl and never encountered very much porn I
liked at all. I *guess* a solution could be to make
porn a girl would like, but my solution was to have
sex instead, which has been overall great. It's
forced me to get in contact, and stay in contact,
with people I otherwise wouldn't have. Making porn
that girls like, so they can join men in having an
activity that allows them to have less sex, seems
antisocial and a step backwards.
Yeah the more I think about this the more absurd it
seems that a crowd that is interested in expanding
the audience for porn would overlap with a
'do-acracy' hackerspace crowd. Watching porn is
watching, not doing.
On May 4, 2013 7:53 PM, "Andrew"
<andrew(a)roshambomedia.com
<mailto:andrew@roshambomedia.com>> wrote:
People want porn for somthing easy to focus on
while masturbating. Masturbating being a natural
part of life. I also dont think that all people
who can have sex with others, but don't , are
doing so because they don't have the "skills"
On May 4, 2013 7:20 PM, "Sonja Trauss"
<sonja.trauss(a)gmail.com
<mailto:sonja.trauss@gmail.com>> wrote:
Or less representation of sex altogether.
What does anyone need porn for?
On May 4, 2013 7:10 PM, "Andrew"
<andrew(a)vagabondballroom.com
<mailto:andrew@vagabondballroom.com>> wrote:
When i ran an erotic event in oakland
our crew made it a point to balence
genders as much as possible. We had male
and female co-hosts and male and female
strippers.
Also. Somthing to keep in mind is that
there are more than two genders. In my
mind objectification is not the issue.
Representation is. Porn is mostly filmed
from a hetero-cis-male perspective and
because of that, taken as a whole, is
exploitive. There is porn that fights
this perspective and representation of
sex and there needs to be more.
On May 4, 2013 6:55 PM, "Sonja Trauss"
<sonja.trauss(a)gmail.com
<mailto:sonja.trauss@gmail.com>> wrote:
Can I get a link for this gonorreah
story?
On May 4, 2013 6:42 PM, "GtwoG
PublicOhOne" <g2g-public01(a)att.net
<mailto:g2g-public01@att.net>> wrote:
Romy & Yo's-
Re. "womens' bodies with their
faces cut off."
Wow. Thanks for pointing that
out. I never noticed that
before (OTOH
attempts to do "sexy" in
advertising generally don't get
my attention),
but I vaguely recall seeing ads
like that somewhere.
I agree, a torso minus a face is
depersonalizing and objectifying as
hell, unless there's a very good
reason for taking a photo that way
(e.g. medical contexts). Being
looked at "that way" produces
the creepy
feeling that the looker's
intentions are non-consensual.
The only borderline-legit reason
I could see for doing it in clothing
ads is, "we want you to imagine
yourself wearing this, and we
don't want
to risk putting you off by
showing a face that's
substantially different
to yours, so imagine your face
on this person's body." But it
would be
foolish to think that's what's
intended every time that
photographic
method is used.
This brings up the question of
what people find sexy in
photography.
For me (gay male), a photo minus
a face is a non-starter: there's
no cue
for communication with the
person. Nudes in general don't
do it either:
all the usual contextual cues as
to someone's personality are
missing,
so why would I even begin to
imagine being in an intimate
context with
someone I don't really know?
I've always felt that way but
now we have
the HIV pandemic to reinforce
it: in general it's not a good
idea to get
intimate with someone you don't
know very well, because the outcome
could be a life-threatening illness.
For that matter, now that
massively-drug-resistant
gonorrhea is loose in
the USA, which is hella' easier
to catch than HIV and can kill
you in a
matter of days through a raging
bacterial infection, it's probably a
darn good idea for everyone to
"get smart & play safe" ALL the
time,
zero exceptions, even more so
than with HIV. In which case
photography
that portrays an objectified
sexuality without communications
isn't just
gross and exploitative, it's a
public health hazard that reinforces
attitudes that put people at
risk for their lives.
-G.
=====
On 13-05-04-Sat 10:34 AM, Romy
Snowyla wrote:
http://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
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--
-------
Andrew Lowe
Cell: 831-332-2507 <tel:831-332-2507>
http://roshambomedia.com
It's interesting to me how porn a
Nd erotica always advertise
with women's
bodies with their
faces cut off
American apparel digs this etc
Lots of art theory discusses this
I would love for any Sudo room
event to break
the mold and show
men's bodies in any erotic theme
as well ... Also would love to
see the male body as the focus
of any erotic film or dance to
balance out the Imbalance and
unnatural obsession with t and a
we see on the porn industry
Sent from my iPad
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