Sonja & Yo's-
Uh - you're still stuck on superiority/inferiority, which is the nexus of the problem, and generalizes far beyond one's choice of partners and hands.
The latest example is the word "subpar," which means "less than equal."
It may be that _for you_, a hand is "less than equal" compared to your partner. But the way you've been wielding the language is ontological with an imperative tone, rather than personal, starting right here:That statement is radically different to the following: "For me, masturbation is hardly as satisfying as sex with my partner."
"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."
The two statements are as different as "X isn't music, it's animal noise!" vs. "X doesn't appeal to me, I like music that's more Y and Z."
Sex and sexuality, along with religion, politics, and a few other things, are intimately connected to peoples' identities. Saying "My form of sex/sexuality is superior, and yours is inferior," has the same effect as saying "My form of religion is superior, and yours is inferior," and the immediate association, thus implication, is "I am superior, and you are inferior." Whether that association and implication is strictly logically justified is beside the point: it's the natural human response.
Atheists in particular can relate to that example: often being subjected to "if you don't believe in God, you don't have morality," from religious fundamentalists. For that matter, Jewish children have (and still are) often subjected to "if you don't believe in Jesus, you're going to Hell!" from their nominally Christian classmates in school.
Admittedly, bringing the statement down from the level of ontology to the level of personal preference, carries risks. Saying "I prefer my partner to my hand," might get others speculating and gossiping, "does this mean that so-and-so's partner is a super-duper sexual athlete?, or does it mean that so-and-so's autoerotic technique is barely at 'beginner' level...?"
As with religion, saying "My moral code is based on my belief in God," might get others wondering, "does this mean that so-and-so's religiously inspired morality is consistent and uncompromising?, or does this mean that so-and-so only refrains from robbing & murdering because s/he's afraid of going to hell?"
But if anything, those kinds of speculations are more likely when someone proclaims the superiority of their own preferences by using language that makes ontological statements of "what is," rather than personal statements of "my preference."
A statement of personal preference is the more convincing mode of expression: a report of an empirical fact of one's own experience, a small nugget of one's own reality that nobody else can judge or deny. But sweeping generalizations about others' experiences are at high risk of easy refutation, and once skepticism takes hold, the rest of what went along with those generalizations also becomes questionable.
-G.
=====
On 13-05-06-Mon 1:28 AM, Sonja Trauss wrote:
Uh - you're confusing an inferior experience to with an inferior person. You should judge yourself however you like, but it wouldn't have occurred to me to judge myself poorly for experencing something subpar. Like, sometimes I eat mealy apples, I say, 'ew I hate this apple, I will throw it away' it wouldn't have occurred to me to say, 'i am less of a person for having experienced that subpar apple.'
On May 6, 2013 1:19 AM, "GtwoG PublicOhOne" <g2g-public01@att.net> wrote:
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@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:
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.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.
On Sun, May 5, 2013 at 1:58 AM, GtwoG PublicOhOne <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@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/2011/08/01/study-tracks-masturbation-trends-among-us-teens
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@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@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@gmail.com> wrote:
Or less representation of sex altogether. What does anyone need porn for?
On May 4, 2013 7:10 PM, "Andrew" <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@gmail.com> wrote:
Can I get a link for this gonorreah story?
On May 4, 2013 6:42 PM, "GtwoG PublicOhOne" <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:
> 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
> _______________________________________________
> sudo-discuss mailing list
> sudo-discuss@lists.sudoroom.org
> http://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>
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