Reading that was predictable and as bad as watching a train wreck (how long would it take till we get into a contest of can-you-top-this stories of I-was-molested-by-a-bad-man-using-porn? Not long at all).

But there are some particular gems buried in there:

quote:

---

The girl next door issue is so that a man can fantasize about women that would otherwise not give him the time of day. The average office worker, librarian, neighbour across the hall would not give the guy the time of day. However, it does not feature "trailer trash" (low income people or minorities) because these women are considered more assessable and a lower commodity.

---

How dare that man want to imagine that an average office worker would actually consider him for his personality or charm! He must be severely chastised and punished for seeking out a simulacrum of a chance at a relationship with women who are clearly out of his league and entitled to be safe from his atrocious and disgusting delusions that he could date them.

quote:

---

They caught me alone in one boy's garage, tied me up and examined me quite thoroughly, trying some of the stuff they saw. I found out later they had done the same to a couple of the other girls. We couldn't tell anyone, we couldn't avoid them. In the early 1050's, the girl was always to blame.

---

Yes, well, everyone else was off fighting the Crusades.

This explains so much about why most feminists look as appealing as they do.

quote:

---

I find it really sad that a majority of males first introduction to sex is through porn. It's film, not real life, portraying sex in an unrealistic fashion.

---

Agreed, and I damn sure wish I'd had real life exposure to sex rather than to porn at 14. The solution, which I'm sure she is ready to endorse, is to require attractive young women to have sex with dorky teenage guys, to save them from having recourse to porn. Because as much as men would rather watch porn than have actual sex, I think that forcing teenage hotties, by law, to show callow young men who can't get a date the ropes (rather than the hotties' hanging out with 30 y.o. bikers) could solve this problem.

What? That's not what she had in mind?

quote:

---

In the 1960's as a teen I spent Friday or Saturday evenings at the Le Hibou coffee house / live music establishment in Ottawa, sometimes staying for the 'after hours' all night jam. Then have to hitch-hike (didn't have a car at the time) back home at 5 or 6 in the morning; virtually every time the guy giving a ride wanted something sexual in return. Grrrr. Always made the driver stop the car and I'd walk a bit before hitching another ride. Finally gave up on going to late night concerts altogether. There were seriously disturbed predators back then. Grrrrr.

---

"Seriously disturbed predators?" Because they paid her the compliment of being interested in her?

Because she was silly enough to keep hitchhiking when she knew that guys logically viewed women out alone at 5 in the morning as statistically likely to be demi-mondaines who might be open to sexual experimentation?

Because they should have known their place and not been so "disturbed" as to think that she might do anything friendly in return for their fulfilling their duty of providing free taxi service to her house in BFE at 5 in the morning?

quote:

---

We have a newstand here in Prince George, next to one of our Starbucks outlets, that provides an interesting clue to how pornography fits into our society. In that newstand, as you go towards the back, you're basically going towards the men's area. You're going past all the fashion and news and home reno and decoration and general sports magazines towards a pair of racks facing each other. On one side is the extreme sports material, hunting, guns, ammunition, weapons, martial arts, mercenary and military magazines. And on the rack facing it are the pornographic titles, the girlie magazines, many wrapped in plastic. What do you suppose this juxtaposition tells us about the men who buy pornography and their wider interests, inclinations, and proclivities? Do you think women have any legitimate cause to be nervous when they see a setup like that, or are they just being intolerant busybodies trying to ruin a guy's fun ... oh, ... and that of his consenting girlfriend/wife as well.

---

Ah yes, and the juxtaposition of the fashion and decoration and Cat Fancy magazines, right across from each other is a chilling reminder that . . . that . . . that . . . lots of women like kittens and also decor, just as lots of men like attractive women and also outdoor sports.

I do however love these dark but non-sequiter-esque drama queen moments that the damzelllls-in-peril adore conjuring up to give themselves that pleasurable frisson of impending victimhood each time they visit the chilling, horror-packed newsstand.

[ 05 May 2005: Message edited by: aguardiente ]

Just the juice of half a lime, a tablespoon of brown sugar, a clove of garlic (crushed or finely chopped), and a 1/4 cup of dark soy. Marinade for half an hour, while soaking a cedar plank in water. (half-inch thick cedar for privacy febcing works great. You'll get a couple of meals out of each 12" length you cut (once both sides char you'll need a new one, but it works out to about 50¢ a fillet for the cedar).

Place the fillet skin-side down on the plank and set it in the BBQ. Once the flesh is firming and has a crust, flip it, and let the skin crisp.

But I need some advice. I don't have a regular BBQ, just a large hibachi. So I'm always cooking just on top, no lid.

I'm having trouble imagining how the cedar plank would work on my arrangement. Anyone have any first-hand experience?

[ 05 May 2005: Message edited by: skdadl ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:

And make sure the cedar planks are untreated. (Rookie mistake )

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lagatta:

They haven't unearthed any Paleoindian porn yet, though. I have seen some raunchy cave paintings done by other early peoples though...

---

Are you familiar with indian temple carvings- they are very erotic- depicting many sexual poses-yet, indian culture is so sexually repressed- what is up with that?

temple carvings

[ 05 May 2005: Message edited by: periyar ]

It is therapy just to look at them. They make sex look so ... restful, and so friendly.

I guess there has been a more puritan development in the culture in subsequent centuries ...

As for salmon, we usually have it once a week. Two recipes:

*marinate for about 45 min in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, bit of real maple syrup, fresh lemon juice, pepper, salt and cook on broil for about 12-15 minutes.

* fried fish kerala style- puree garlic, ginger and curry leaves- add salt, tumeric powder, chili powder, black pepper and some garlic powder- mix
Cut fish into 2 inch pieces and let sit in the mix for about one hour and fry with oil.
I just made this the other day with sambar- like a spicy dhal and vegetable soup I guess, and okra cut very small and thin, sauted with a couple of chopped green chilis and a bit of tumeric, salt and I served it all with rice. One of my favourite meals

quote:

---

in my native language they are two separate words

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bacchus:
Skdadl,

Try putting cedar wood chips (from any pet store) on the coals of your hibachi

---

If you've got a beer going and it's in a glass not a bottle, put it at the end of the BBQ where the smoke is flowing. Wait a few minutes and your beer will have picked up some of that delightful smoke flavour.

No BBQ? No problem, they do have a couple of nice smoked beers on draft at the Cloak & Dagger.

[ 05 May 2005: Message edited by: Drinkmore ]

[ 05 May 2005: Message edited by: Drinkmore ]

In hindi I believe chili hot is 'mirch' and I can't remember the word for temperature hot.

Does anyone know if indigenous central/south american languages have a word for chili hot since it's my understanding that is where chili peppers were first cultivated. I wonder if the portuguese and spanish have a word too?

I knew the Indonesians would have a distinction as should the Thai and Malaysian languages sice their food can be very hot.

[ 05 May 2005: Message edited by: periyar ]

I quite love my hibachi. It's li'l, but it's powerful. It can do almost everything a big BBQ can do, only not for large numbers -- that's true. Large numbers, you gotta cook in batches. That has been done.

quote:

---

for that mental and practical preparedness (youghurt)

---

Or my breakfast, at least.

I remember being taught, years ago, not to drink while I was eating a chili dish. Something about the throat adjusting to the spices, as long as it wasn't being rinsed clear and starting all over again with each bite. I don't know whether that's a fact, as in a scientific fact, but it has worked for me.

Actually, drinking with food is an interesting issue. In some cultures, people seem to drink all the way through their meals, and in others the liquids are reserved to the very end.

Do we know why that is? It has often puzzled me. I grew up never drinking with food, just before and after but never during the meal. And yet whenever I meet friends at restaurants, say, I observe them sipping away between bites.

I just don't drink during.

quote:

---

Originally posted by periyar:

I knew the Indonesians would have a distinction as should the Thai and Malaysian languages sice their food can be very hot.

---

(Should I be apologising for my contribution to serious thread drift? )

Malay does indeed have the distinction also; as I understand it, Indon and Malay are just dialects of the one language; I've heard it said that Indon is just Malay spoken through the nose.

quote:

---

Originally posted by ronb:
Heck, Eeven a single decent food/beer combo can make up for a bad week.

---

I used to work with a journalist who started on drinking at about 10 am. At noon, he'd have wine for lunch (I don't mean with lunch). By 5 pm or so (we did work a lot of long days; this was in the labour movement) he'd be into the cognac. Amazingly, he was efficient at his job, but of course he had a foul temper.

He has taken the pledge since then, by the way.

Younger generations in communications tend to be more health-conscious than the old-timers were ...

[ 05 May 2005: Message edited by: lagatta ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by lagatta:
I used to work with a journalist who started on drinking at about 10 am.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Suzette:

(Should I be apologising for my contribution to serious thread drift? )

---

Gosh, no.

The whole point of this thread, after that strange opening post, has been drift. Keep paddling.

quote:

---

Originally posted by lagatta:
periyar, and the sexy kind of "hot"?

---

For example (in my now rusty spanish):

1. Yo tengo calor! (I am hot, more accurately translated as I have heat).
2. La agua esta caliente. The water is hot.

The second usage caliente does have an application when referring to a person.

quote:

---

Originally posted by aguardiente:
How dare that man want to imagine that an average office worker would actually consider him for his personality or charm! He must be severely chastised and punished for seeking out a simulacrum of a chance at a relationship with women who are clearly out of his league and entitled to be safe from his atrocious and disgusting delusions that he could date them

---

- edited to say -

You must know the old fable, Gir:

Give a troll a fish, you feed him for the day.
Teach him to cook his own damned fish, the lazy sod will likely fuck off...

[ 05 May 2005: Message edited by: sock puppet ]

quote:

---

Agreed, and I damn sure wish I'd had real life exposure to sex rather than to porn at 14.

---

14-year-old guys who can't get any (or grown-up guys too, I suppose) can read the damn Sears catalogue. It's much more respectful of women than porn is, it shows that not just young women can be beautiful, it contains photos of household appliances if you're into that sort of thing, and it's free.

Sorry again. Back on topic. The Penfold's (Australian) Rawson's Retreat 2004 Shiraz Cabernet (76% Shiraz, 24% Cab. Sauv.) is a wonderfully flavoured affordable companion to a variety of meals at only $10.99. Or it is at private liquor stores anyway.

quote:

---

Originally posted by sock puppet:
You must know the old fable, Gir:

Give a troll a fish, you feed him for the day.
Teach him to cook his own damned fish, the lazy sod will likely fuck off...

[ 05 May 2005: Message edited by: sock puppet ][/QB]

---

'Adage?' 'Proverb,' perhaps? 'Maxim,' mayhap?

quote:

---

Originally posted by aguardiente:

Fable?

'Adage?' 'Proverb,' perhaps? 'Maxim,' mayhap?

Not "fable," though.

---

From Ask Oxford:

quote:

---

fable

• noun 1 a short story with a moral, typically featuring animals as characters. 2 a supernatural story incorporating elements of myth and legend. 3 myth and legend.

— DERIVATIVES fabler noun.

— ORIGIN Old French, from Latin fabula ‘story’.

---

Here's a quick and easy way to enhance cream cheese. Add some lemon juice, dill and chopped up capers.

[ 05 May 2005: Message edited by: Drinkmore ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by looney:
In France, people take a bite of food, then immediately a sip of wine, and savour the mixture before swallowing.

---

That's how I eat my oatmeal.

[ 05 May 2005: Message edited by: Drinkmore ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by obscurantist:
14-year-old guys who can't get any (or grown-up guys too, I suppose) can read the damn Sears catalogue. It's much more respectful of women than porn is, it shows that not just young women can be beautiful, it contains photos of household appliances if you're into that sort of thing, and it's free.

---

Yes, I knew that the squib I quoted was advocating (as do you) that men change their desires, interests, and expressions thereof (and was not, as I dryly suggested, implying that women take any responsibility whatever for meeting the unmet sexual desires of the horndog men and dorky boys who resort to porn as a least-worst sex-substitute).

Defensible? Sure, I guess -- women are to have absolute autonomy in defining when, how, how often, and with whom they express their sexual impulses. Women have no obligation to meet men in the middle or fulfill their sexual needs.

If this means that lots of loser men will be shut out, tough; each person is to have full sexual autonomy and choice. But of course, insisting on this from the female side means that the surplus desire of millions of dorky men goes unmet, or that attractive girls next door routinely shun as beneath them the losers who would like to be with them. Okay, I'm still on board, I guess.

Step two is the rub -- the losers are then to be denied the right to have even an ersatz, substitute version of the sex they desire (e.g., girl-next-door porn). Sounds like male sexual autonomy and expression are distinctly less absolute requirements than the female version. But wait! That's necessary because porn inflicts psychic harm and degradation on women! Okay . . . but if there were, say, widespread female shunning of certain men or groups of men, a pattern of women chasing after older, richer, better looking guys, shunning high school dorks, and declining sexual access to perceived beta-males -- could that inflict psychic harm and degradation on men? Apparently, no, or at least the rules of the psychic harm game are to be rigged so as to take no cognizance of the harm that heterosexual men might suffer when women, as a group or individually, or society, thwart their preferred or hoped-for expressions of their sexuality.

That's the danger of defining "harm" and "victimization" broadly -- someone may ask you to notice their ox being gored too . . . .

[ 05 May 2005: Message edited by: aguardiente ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Drinkmore:

That's how I eat my oatmeal.

[ 05 May 2005: Message edited by: Drinkmore ]

---

quote:

---

This explains so much about why most feminists look as appealing as they do.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scout:

You mean out of your league? Then yes, you're very right, you'll never have me and you'll never be smart enough to lick my Jimmy Choo's.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aguardiente:

Dang. Ah well. I'll muddle through, I'm sure.

At the moment I'm having a difficult time understanding why licking some sweatshop-produced overpriced footwear would require "smartness," but maybe that's another one of them thar fables you folk favor.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aguardiente:

That's necessary because porn inflicts psychic harm and degradation on women! Okay . . . but if there were, say, widespread female shunning of certain men or groups of men, a pattern of women chasing after older, richer, better looking guys, shunning high school dorks, and declining sexual access to perceived beta-males -- could that inflict psychic harm and degradation on men?

---

I was going to reply to this, but you did it for me. Those of us guys who don't look like movie stars just "muddle through."

Yes, sometimes that means floundering in a swamp of toxic neuroses. I still don't think that the suffering of sexually frustrated males comes close to being as bad as the coercion and objectification of women that occurs within the porn industry (you know, the porn is usually made with pictures of actual women) and as a result of the unrealistic ideas about sex and female sexuality that men form by viewing large amounts of porn.

We may still "muddle through" into decent relationships, though that's less likely if we complain about how we're sexually oppressed and take cheap shots at women for being feminists or for going out with guys other than us. In the meantime, how is it oppressive for me not to be able to look at pornography? I have an imagination I can use.

[ 05 May 2005: Message edited by: obscurantist ]

[ 05 May 2005: Message edited by: obscurantist ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by obscurantist:

I was going to reply to this, but you did it for me. Those of us guys who don't look like movie stars just "muddle through."

Yes, sometimes that means floundering in a swamp of toxic neuroses. I still don't think that the suffering of sexually frustrated males comes close to being as bad as the coercion and objectification of women that occurs within the porn industry (you know, the porn is usually made with pictures of actual women) and as a result of the unrealistic ideas about sex and female sexuality that men form by viewing large amounts of porn.

We may still "muddle through" into decent relationships, though that's less likely if we complain about how we're sexually oppressed and take cheap shots at women for being feminists or for going out with guys other than us. In the meantime, how is it oppressive for me not to be able to look at pornography? I have an imagination I can use.

---

"Complaining about sexual oppression" is the raison d'etre of feminism, so it can't very well be off limits for men to point out (though I've not favored the word "oppression") areas in which the state of play between men and women significantly disfavors men as in, say, the dating/mating game where women are effectively the gate-keepers to and monopolist dispensers of sex and the terms on which it will take place.

My original point was that pornography was for most men a least-worst alternative to the desperation caused by having a strong libido and a scarcity of sexual options (because the desired women exercise their sexual options in such fashion as to "thwart" (whether the "thwarting" is inadvertent or not is immaterial) male sexual expression). Any model of pornography which views it as motivated primarily by violence or as a preferred form of sexual expression, rather than a placeholder for sex that is not available to a man, is silly to me (but I know such silly theories exist). I just don't know a lot of men who started out saying "You know, the heck with all my opportunities for having sex with nice attractive girls, I want me some two-dimensional masturbatory OPPRESSIVE MEDIA ACTION!"

So yes, it seems harsh to fault men and tell them it is categorically unacceptable to resort to a second-best option, when they're already smarting from lack of the first-best option. You say porn's not a second-best option, or a good option at all? I agree, personally, and I have no strong personal interest in porn (but . . . this is not unrelated to the fact that, unlike when I was a teenager, the match between the amount and type of sex I want and the sex that is available is much closer).

But I hesitate to dismiss as irrelevant the discontents of men who feel they do not have adequate opportunities for sexual expression, or to deny them categorically any alternatives to the sex that women are not giving them, or to give unhelpful advice such as "you shouldn't be visually attracted to pictures of naked women."

Finally, the "suffering" of sex-deprived guys does not have to be "worse" than the presumed suffering of porno actresses or women stigmatized by porn in order for it to be cognizable at all. I imagine a calculus in which (to make up some numbers) being a porn star inflicts ten units of "badness" or harm, being a woman whose husband loves bukakke porn inflicts two units, and being an acne-scarred teenage horndog boy virgin who's laughed at every day by the homecoming queen inflicts a mere (say) .3333 units. I am still not so ready to dismiss utterly the variety (and aggregated quantity) of psychosexual "harm" that the dorkwad guys incur, given that there are millions of them as opposed to tens of thousands (?) of porn stars or bukakke widows. Your calculus would seemingly ignore all harm that flows from the disparities in male and female economic and sexual power (in both directions), unless it is "worse" than that inflicted on women, by porn.

[ 05 May 2005: Message edited by: aguardiente ]

[ 05 May 2005: Message edited by: aguardiente ]

Unfortunately, you started the thread by insulting most of the people here, making a derogatory comment about the appearance of 'most feminists' and all around being an offensive jackass. This is not the way to introduce yourself, nor to initiate a thoughtful debate, and certainly not in a feminism forum.

[ 05 May 2005: Message edited by: arborman ]

quote:

---

You might have been able to make some interesting arguments and contributed to the discussion.

---

Well, I happen to think he has made some interesting arguments and contributed to the discussion in a very witty and amusing style.

quote:

---

This is not the way to introduce yourself, nor to initiate a thoughtful debate, and certainly not in a feminism forum.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by arborman:
You might have been able to make some interesting arguments and contributed to the discussion. There has been some very good, informative and heated discussion about the merits (or lack thereof) of pornography on this board.

Unfortunately, you started the thread by insulting most of the people here, making a derogatory comment about the appearance of 'most feminists' and all around being an offensive jackass. This is not the way to introduce yourself, nor to initiate a thoughtful debate, and certainly not in a feminism forum.

[ 05 May 2005: Message edited by: arborman ]

---

Ah well. It is what is is. The "appearance" comment immediately elicited what I thought it would (a "principled feminist" response based on calling me a loser and telling me I was too ugly and stupid to ever lick her shoe (??? WTF -- why would I want to lick this skank's overpriced shoe???)). All proof of the non-existent divide between the "nah nah nah you're an ugly loser" refrain of the high-school homecoming queens, and the identical shaming tactics of "feminists." So, I considered it an opening well spent.

As far as "offensive jackass" -- who first introduced the f-word? Oh, not me . . . actually, one of the arch fems who was engaged in "plonking" (well, evading) my arguments, and who decided to drop the f-bomb in the course of reciting a "fable" (well, she meant "adage," but maybe we all need to lower our IQ standards) in devastating rebuttal, or rather, total-non-rebuttal, of me. Ca (excuse lack of accent) va bien.

[ 06 May 2005: Message edited by: aguardiente ]

[ 06 May 2005: Message edited by: aguardiente ]

[ 06 May 2005: Message edited by: aguardiente ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by verbatim:
Man, you got issues.

---

"Issues?" And "you got" ([sic] -- maybe you meant "you've got?").

OED: Issue: The point in question, at the conclusion of the pleadings between contending parties in an action, when one side affirms and the other denies.

Yeah. I guess. That being the point of debate on a debate-oriented board.

Or are you using some Friends-era, touchy-feely demotic pseudo-psychological definition of "issues?"

Let me guess.

Got anything to say on the substantive, non-jargon "issues?"

Yeah.

[ 06 May 2005: Message edited by: aguardiente ]

[ 06 May 2005: Message edited by: aguardiente ]

[ 06 May 2005: Message edited by: aguardiente ]

[ 06 May 2005: Message edited by: aguardiente ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by arborman:
Shall we start a pool?

---

On . . . what? When they'll shut the thread down? No matter. My approach: address any serious arguments anyone makes (few, so far) while the thread's open, regret the closed-mindedness that would lead folk to dodge the subject or close it.

Ignore rank idiocy and evasion.

Life goes on.

As you were.

[ 06 May 2005: Message edited by: aguardiente ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by mimsy:
Porn is like having a bag of Doritos and a Coke for lunch. Tasty at the time, but you feel like crap afterwards. Not to mention that you become less healthy and less desirable as a result of consuming it. Despite all that, for some funny reason you crave more of the crap.
On the other hand, erotica is like a nice organic meal that sits well in your stomach for hours afterward. The meal may have less flavor that dazzles the senses on first contact, but it takes time to develop appreciation for such finer things in life.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RealityBites:
Oh my God! Get OVER yourself! All you are saying (in an incredibly snobbish manner) is "If I like it and approve of it, it's erotica. If someone I consider inferior to me likes it, it's porn."

The dish you're serving, organic or not, is nauseating.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by arborman:
Shall we start a pool?

---

Yeah. I'm beginning to wonder whether we've met aguardiente before.

Two points:

1. The utter illogic of aguardiente's argument is obvious. He is confusing women's insistence on control over their own bodies, which is in the first place a basic human desire for security of person and freedom of agency, with men's -- or women's, for that matter -- sexual desire.

He wants to confuse people into believing that women are wielding greater sexual power than the puir wee men can -- just because we object to being raped?

Freedom FROM anyone else's sexual insistency is something that both men and women want. As in, duh. None of us wants to be abused or battered or forced. No human being wants that.

But that is quite a separate kind of freedom from the freedom TO satisfy our desires. Of course we all want that too, but that takes negotiating with an other, yes? Women's sexual desires are disappointed or frustrated just as easily and commonly as men's.

aguardiente is trying to make a woman's No sound like a tool of oppression.

I'd like to say that I'm sorry you're not getting any, aguardiente, but I don't think I'd want to wish a man with your levels of hostility on any woman.

And besides, I'm the treasurer of BWAGA.

Which brings me to

quote:

---

Finally, the "suffering" of sex-deprived guys does not have to be "worse" than the presumed suffering of porno actresses or women stigmatized by porn in order for it to be cognizable at all.

---

Naked we are born, and naked we shall die.

In the meantime though, none of us has any specific right to get naked with anyone else. As noted, any man "suffering" from not getting their ashes hauled should take a Dale Carnegie course.

There are lots of short, balding or ugly men who have glorious sex with lovely women or men on a regular basis.

There are considerably fewer hostile, reactive, enraged men gettin' some.

quote:

---

Originally posted by skdadl:

Yeah. I'm beginning to wonder whether we've met aguardiente before.

Two points:

1. The utter illogic of aguardiente's argument is obvious. He is confusing women's insistence on control over their own bodies, which is in the first place a basic human desire for security of person and freedom of agency, with men's -- or women's, for that matter -- sexual desire.

He wants to confuse people into believing that women are wielding greater sexual power than the puir wee men can -- just because we object to being raped?

Freedom FROM anyone else's sexual insistency is something that both men and women want. As in, duh. None of us wants to be abused or battered or forced. No human being wants that.

But that is quite a separate kind of freedom from the freedom TO satisfy our desires. Of course we all want that too, but that takes negotiating with an other, yes? Women's sexual desires are disappointed or frustrated just as easily and commonly as men's.

aguardiente is trying to make a woman's No sound like a tool of oppression.

I'd like to say that I'm sorry you're not getting any, aguardiente, but I don't think I'd want to wish a man with your levels of hostility on any woman.

And besides, I'm the treasurer of BWAGA.

Which brings me to

2. This thread began with an openly anti-feminist post. At the time, I thought it was just incompetent. Now I'm not so sure.

---

1. As I'm constantly having to tell the gf -- Eye On The Ball.

He wants to confuse people into believing that women are wielding greater sexual power than the puir wee men can -- just because we object to being raped?

WTF? This is the porno thread, not the pro-rape thread. Interesting, though, that you have to respond to the argument I didn't make ("Yay rape!") rather than the one that I did (porno is a not-illogical male response to an imbalance in the male-female supply-demand curves for sex). (I am paying you the compliment of assuming you are not of the silly "all hetero sex is rape" or "ogling is rape" schools -- if I'm wrong, we's gots nothing to talk about). So, since we're talking about porno and not rape, and talking about (alleged) social and economic psychosexual coercion of women involved with or affected by porn (rather than, in most cases, actual physical coercion) -- why is it per se off-limits to discuss the negative experiences that men may have in the psychosexual marketplace?

Or, if you prefer: RAPE IS BAD AND aguardiente loves rape and denying women control over their bodies!!!! It's an easier argument, admittedly, but a bit of a non sequiter in view of what I've actually said.

2. Interesting to me too that you are the second person to resort to sexual shaming as a response to my arguments ("I'm sorry you're not getting any."). I have almost never, no, make that never, engaged a feminist in questioning of his or her premises without, eventually, encountering some variant of "nah nah nah, you're just bitter, you can't get any, you're ugly, you're a loser, I'm too hot for you" viz., exactly what one might have heard from the prom queens back in high school. This isn't about me (although I've also noted the feminist insistence on personalizing every ostensibly-principle-based discussion), and if you'd read my posts you'd have noted that I don't have any particular yen for porn or other sexual-surrogates at this point. Which doesn't mean that I can't view as logical some other men's belief that porn could be a socially-acceptable alternative.

The suggestion in the earlier thread was essentially that men were violating the social contract by looking at porn. I merely suggest that porn is not the tool of male dominance that it was suggested to be -- it is as often as not masturbation fodder for beta males who can't do any better (or do you believe that calling someone a "jerk-off" is a compliment in macho society?). In a world in which men and women have to reach some accommodation, men follow the social contract (mostly) by accepting that they won't always have access to the women or the sex that they want, in the quantities that they want. They don't (for the most part) abuse their (physical or economic) power by insisting on impinging on women with their desires -- even horny 14 y.o. boys mostly understand they can't grope a chick everytime they're horny (which would result in essentially nonstop groping of chicks).

Meanwhile, the social contract and feminism don't seem to say much at all to girls and women about not misusing the power that they have in the dating/mating game. Girls will be girls. Okay, expectations have always been lower -- but to go the extra mile and then argue that not only do men have to restrain and subvert their desires IRL, but also have to refrain from recourse to porn-fueled fantastical onanism -- seems a bit overreaching from a crowd that doesn't seem to feel any responsibility in the overall calculus of male-female sexual dissatisfactions.

[ 06 May 2005: Message edited by: aguardiente ]

[ 06 May 2005: Message edited by: aguardiente ]

quote:

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In a world in which men and women have to reach some accommodation, men follow the social contract (mostly) by accepting that they won't always have access to the women or the sex that they want, in the quantities that they want. They don't (for the most part) abuse their (physical or economic) power by insisting on impinging on women with their desires -- even horny 14 y.o. boys mostly understand they can't grope a chick everytime they're horny (which would result in essentially nonstop groping of chicks).

Meanwhile, the social contract and feminism don't seem to say much to girls and women about not misusing the power they may have in the dating/mating game. Girls will be girls. Okay, expectations have always been lower

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I wasn't talking about porn at all because that isn't the part of your argument that seems a problem to me. You have a problem before you get to your arguments in favour of porn. (I personally don't give a damn about porn, except insofar as some of it seems indeed to rely on a network of enslaved humans.)

But it is again implicit, in what you write about men's desire and men's frustration, that you persist in equating the desiring man on the one hand and the gatekeeping woman on the other.

And I am telling you that that is (1) patently obviously illogical; and (2) deeply sexist.

It implies that men never have security fears and that women never feel desire. It implies that sex is in fact a non-stop power struggle, where men are always just this side of being able to contain their aggressive impulses. You see things that way, and you seem to like them that way.

quote:

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Originally posted by skdadl:
It implies that men never have security fears and that women never feel desire. It implies that sex is in fact a non-stop power struggle, where men are always just this side of being able to contain their aggressive impulses. You see things that way, and you seem to like them that way.

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I honestly cannot imagine how anyone could mistake my description of what I see as the dating/mating game as "liking [things] that way." I'm describing, not endorsing, and in the world in which I live, there are supply/demand mis-matches as between a surfeit of male desire and a comparative paucity of women interested in allaying such desire. The argument is not that "women are evil because they won't put out ever" -- it is that history seems to teach that when women play a de facto rate-determining/gatekeeper role as to sex, there is generally some residual amount of unsatisfied male desire.

It is what it is -- I'd obviously far prefer that as a hyperstimulated 13 year old, I had been able readily to find equally-eager nubile counterparts with the exact degree of testosterone-driven lust I was experiencing and a willingness to requite my callow interests five or six times a day (that would have just about done it). But I didn't, and most men through history haven't, and that's just reality.

That some men choose to deal with this reality (lack of "sufficient" sexual opportunities) by recourse to fake-sex (porn) is (as we seem to agree) not shocking or per se evil.

[ 06 May 2005: Message edited by: aguardiente ]

[ 06 May 2005: Message edited by: aguardiente ]

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when women play a de facto rate-determining/gatekeeper role as to sex,

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Wow.

Now, y'see, I would just say that I was asserting my autonomy and my freedom.

But you look at someone else who is being free, and you decide that she is "playing" "gatekeeper" to you.

You Can Do It: Just Say No To Trolls.

quote:

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Originally posted by skdadl:
Now, y'see, I would just say that I was asserting my autonomy and my freedom.

But you look at someone else who is being free, and you decide that she is "playing" "gatekeeper" to you.

You simply cannot avoid objectifying others. Obviously, women worst of all, but I assume the bad habit spills over.

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