"The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
***
A friend of mine got forwarded the same, old, tired, nonsensical and fatally flawed chestnut about the atheistic Professor (and I've been personally forwarded that at least once in the past).
The following infinitely more plausible and sensible version has been floating around for a while, so it behooves me to repost it here:
The Atheist Professor's Brain, Redux
"DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Dr. Jeff Jones -- a philosophy professor at a Midwestern University with a chip on his shoulder. He claims to be an atheist, but acts more like a Christian's caricature of one.
Tom Moyner -- an atheist since age 17, he is a sophomore at this University and doesn't particularly like Dr. Jones, whom he considers the personification of everything Christians find wrong with atheists.
Richard Jackson -- a young Christian freshman who is easily befuddled by even the simple arguments of the supposedly experienced atheistic Professor.
Phil Bredlin -- also a sophomore, a more experienced Christian than Richard Jackson and is more aggressive and not so easily intimidated by the likes of Dr. Jones. His arguments, however, are not much better than those of the atheistic professor he so despises.
Patricia Munroe -- a freshman, and an atheist, studying philosophy for the first time. Though the professor's antics were legendary and she knew his reputation, his actions on this day, and his inability to handle the challenges of an uninformed Christian student, was going to spur her to activism in the areas of freethought, church-state separation, and the evolution-creationism controversy.
* * * *
"Let me explain the problem science has with Jesus Christ."
Tom had been reading his philosophy book; but now his attention was riveted to the front of the room where the professor stood, and Tom noticed he had that peculiar smile on his face. Tom sensed that the professor was not about to engage in any intellectual argumentation but rather in intimidation and ridicule. Tom, an atheist, had already heard from other students of the professor's reputation to bait weak Christians in his class and try to humiliate them with foolish arguments. Tom felt that an educated atheist should guard his integrity by avoiding such silly nit-picking attacks and instead use good solid reasonable arguments in an atmosphere of fairness.
The atheist professor of philosophy paused before his class and then asked one of his new students to stand.
Tom recognized the student as one he had spoken with before. His name was Richard; he was from Iowa, and was relatively new to the Christian faith.
He was very zealous, and he could be seen often around campus reading his bible or sharing with others about what Jesus had done for him. Tom had "debated" him once or twice already; Tom knew Richard was no match for the professor, but a small part of him hoped to see this arrogant and silly professor knocked down a few sizes. Some humility would do him some good. Atheists had enough problems overcoming the negative stereotypes of the likes of Madalyn O' Hare. They didn't need this idiot teaching philosophy to do more damage.
"You're a Christian, aren't you, son?"
"Yes, sir," Richard said. Tom could tell Richard was nervous; yet he had that hopeful look of a Christian who thought he may be getting his chance to make a stand for the Lord.
"So you believe in God?" the snotty professor asked.
"Absolutely." Richard replied immediately.
"Is God good?" the professor continued.
"Sure! God's good."
Richard appeared uncertain as to where this was leading. Tom knew the professor was going to use the argument from evil in an attempt to confuse the new Christian.
"Is God all-powerful? Can God do anything?" the professor pressed.
"Yes.” Richard said. He sensed a trap, but he just didn't have the experience to answer quickly and surely on his feet.
"Are you good or evil?" smiled the professor.
"The Bible says I'm evil." answered Richard.
Tom remembered well the verse in the Bible that stated that "all our righteousness is as filthy rags." He remembered sermons on mankind's general unworthiness and how they didn't deserve to even breathe the air that God had made. He remembered how he was taught in sermons they should constantly praise Yahweh for being good enough to let them live another day. They were worms in the sight of Yahweh, but out of the goodness of his heart he would spare those who accepted his love.
The professor grins knowingly. "Ahh! THE BIBLE!"
He considered for a moment, looked around the room, then back to Richard:
"Here's one for you. Let's say there's a sick person over here and you can cure him. You can do it. Would you help them? Would you try?"
"Yes sir, I would." replied Richard with conviction.
"So you're good . . . !"
"I wouldn't say that." Richard shook his head.
Tom winced. One of the things that he felt so detestable about the Christian message was it made mankind out to be totally unworthy of life itself, a detestable thing. Tom thought again that many a sermon had been preached to him when he was a boy growing up in North Carolina telling how mankind was totally unworthy to "even breathe the air God had given" and how man should grovel before the throne of the Almighty if he is fortunate enough to wake up in the morning. Such messages usually told of the horrors of an everlasting torment in hell that awaited those who would not accept this God's love.
Tom hated to see this intelligent young man, not only sucked in by a demeaning religion that devalued the good in man and him being harassed by the so-called atheist professor, but also for him to take this self-loathing attitude that could only be the product of childhood abuse or the religion of fundamentalist Christianity.
"Why not say that? the Professor asked, as he shuffled some books on his desk. You would help a sick and maimed person if you could . . .in fact most of us would if we could. I know I would. Yet . . . God doesn't."
The professor folded his arms and waited.
Richard was totally nonplused. He just stood there, baffled. Tom looked behind him and saw Phil, another Christian and an outspoken critic of atheism, liberalism, and a strong advocate of putting prayer back into the public schools, leaning forward intently, with the look of someone who was just itching to jump into the fray.
Tom had spoken with Phil before. Phil was a veteran Christian. He had been one for 10 years; he knew the secret handshake, the party mantra and some of the objections to evolution which usually consisted of the tiresome "second law of thermodynamics" objection heard so often from creationists.
Once Tom had asked Phil how many laws of Thermodynamics there were and grinned inwardly when he saw Phil was stumped. Phil had merely been repeating what he had read from a Christian group out in San Diego, California. He had done no formal studies in either biology or physics.
Tom knew Phil could be a real jackass sometimes but maybe he would be the one to embarrass this sorry excuse of an "atheist" standing before them. He almost hoped so.
The professor broke the silence, still gazing down at Richard.. "He doesn't, does he?" He then added something that Tom did not know, something that may have revealed why this sorry excuse of an atheist was the way he was . . .
"My brother was a Christian who died of cancer even though he prayed to Jesus to heal him . . . How is this Jesus good? Hmmm? Can you answer that one?"
Silence.
Richard was obviously an unhappy camper at this point.
The elderly professor was sympathetic. "No, you can't, can you?"
He took a sip of water from a glass on his desk to give the student time to relax. In philosophy, you have to go easy with the new ones.
Tom though Mr. Jones didn't realize he was only making himself look foolish and providing Christians with negative views of what atheists were really like; just normal people who wanted to live life like everyone else; people with hopes and dreams and families that they loved with just as much passion as Christians who loved their families.
"Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?"
"Er . . . Yes."
"Is Satan good?"
"No." Richard shifted his feet, uncomfortable. Tom just shook his head and thought to himself how fortunate he and his atheist friends on campus were that they did not have this idiotic self-proclaimed atheist showing up at their freethought meetings. Mr. Jones would be an embarrassment too them all.
"Where does Satan come from?"
The student faltered. “From . . . God . . ."
"That's right. God made Satan, didn't he?"
The elderly man ran his long fingers through his thick grey hair and turned to the student audience.
"I think we're going to have a lot of fun this semester, ladies and gentlemen."
Why? thought Tom, to watch you ridicule others whose beliefs you do not share; to try to make fools out of them and yourself, giving atheist people a reputation they did not deserve?
The professor turned back to the Richard. "Tell me, son. Is there evil in this world?"
"Yes, sir."
"Evil's everywhere, isn't it? Did God make everything?"
"Yes."
"Who created evil?" the professor asked.
Tom knew the answer to that one. He thought of his own bible studies he had done over the years and remembered Isiah 45:7 and other passages as well. He remembered reading how Satan was totally unable to do anything without Yahweh's explicit permission. He remembered how Yahweh brought natural calamities and war upon people and whole nations, sometimes for trivial offenses that they or someone else had committed.
Meanwhile, Richard had given no reply. He stood there, pale and disoriented. Tom thought Mr. Jones was just being spiteful. In fact, Tom was just beginning to feel maybe Mr. Jones wasn't really an atheist at all; he just claimed to be one so he could fight with Christian students in his class. Tom wanted to learn philosophy; not how to argue with and intimidate someone who was obviously outmatched.
"Is there sickness in this world? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness. All the terrible things - do they exist in this world? "
Richard squirmed on his feet. "Yes." He had finally spoken again.
Tom was thinking Richard should just tell the professor to piss off and leave the classroom. No one, no matter what their religion (or lack thereof) was, should have to just stand there and take this.
"Come on man" Tom muttered to Richard under his breath, "you don't have to take this shit."
"Who created them? "Richard didn't reply.
The professor suddenly shouted at his student.
"WHO CREATED THEM? TELL ME, PLEASE!"
Tom was stunned by this outburst. What an asshole, he thought to himself. He couldn't understand why Richard was just standing there and taking it. Maybe he felt by doing so he was being persecuted in the name of Christ and would reap a bountiful harvest in heaven one day.
The professor closed in for the kill and climbed into the Christian's face. In a quiet voice: "God created all evil, didn't He, son?"
Tom was not amused. He made a mental note to report this stunt to the campus authorities.
He looked back at Phil. He could see Phil was angry too. He appeared ready to jump in any moment. Maybe that would not be a bad thing. Although Tom had handled Phil rather easily in a previous "debate" he hoped Phil would jump in and maybe put Mr. Jones in his place; if not, he was about to do it himself.
Meanwhile there was no answer from Richard. Richard tried to hold the steady, experienced gaze and failed. Suddenly the lecturer broke away to pace the front of the classroom like an aging panther. The class is mesmerized, except for Tom, Phil, and perhaps a few others.
"Tell me," he continued, "How is it that this God is good if He created all evil throughout all time?" The professor swished his arms around to encompass the wickedness of the world.
"All the hatred, the brutality, all the pain, all the torture, all the death and ugliness and all the suffering created by this good God is all over the world, isn't it, young man?"
Richard could not reply.
"Don't you see it all over the place? Huh?"
Silence.
"Don't you?" The professor leaned into the student's face again and whispered, "Is God good?"
There was again no reply from Richard.
"Do you believe in Jesus Christ, son?"
The student's voice betrays him and cracks.
"Yes, professor. I do."
The old man shook his head sadly.
"Science says you have five senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Have you ever seen Jesus?"
"No, sir. I've never seen Him." Richard was talking again.
"Then tell us if you've ever heard your Jesus?"
"No, sir. I have not."
At least that's better than those nuts who carry on personal conversations with the Almighty on a daily basis Tom thought to himself.
"Have you ever felt your Jesus, tasted your Jesus or smelt your Jesus . . . in fact, do you have any sensory perception of your God whatsoever?" continued Jones.
Richard gave no reply, but he still refused to sit. Perhaps the overwhelming need to be persecuted for his beliefs kept him locked in place. Tom knew from experience that some Christians actually find affirmation of their beliefs in persecution. Maybe Richard was one.
Tom tossed a wadded piece of paper and bounced it off the wall into the wastebasket. The professor didn't notice.
"Answer me, please."
"No, sir, I'm afraid I haven't."
"You're AFRAID . . . you haven't?"
"No, sir."
"Yet you still believe in him?"
" . . . yes . . ."
"That takes FAITH!" Dr. Jones thundered, conspicuously dramatic.
Tom knew there were two kinds of faith, even in the Bible. There is belief without evidence, and belief that if someone tells you if you do such and such, they will in turn do such and such for you. This faith is based on experience, experience with the individual talking, in a situation where familiarity has been established; in other words, a relationship that is built on trust. The professor was, of course, referring to the first kind of faith.
The professor smiled sagely at the underling.
"According to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your God doesn't exist. What do you say to that, son? Where is your God now?"
Richard did not reply, but Tom knew that it was not science's purpose to demonstrate whether God existed. That was a matter of theology, not science. Science purposefully limited itself to the natural world to find natural explanations for the world around us. It may would prove to be wrong in the future, but so far, science had, through trial and error, found the answer to many things through natural causes. That did not mean Tom believed everything just on science's say-so. One reason he was at the University was to study biology and physics, and he wanted to find answers to some questions he had about evolution and things like the second law of thermodynamics. He already knew a little about them, having studied freethought literature from groups out of California and Wisconsin, but he wanted to get more from the professors, the specialists, themselves.
"Sit down, please." said the professor.
Richard sat, defeated.
* * * *
Suddenly, Phil raised his hand and spoke, "Professor, may I address the class?"
The professor turned and smiled.
"Ah, another Christian in the vanguard! Come, come, young man. Speak some proper wisdom to the gathering."
Richard looked around the room at his friend.
"Some interesting points you are making, sir. Now I've got a question for you."
Interesting my ass, thought Tom. He knew that Phil used this as a come-on, a disarming technique to set up his opponent.
"Is there such thing as heat?"
"Yes," the professor replied, "There's heat."
"Is there such a thing as cold?"
"Yes, son, there's cold too."
"No, sir, there isn't."
The professor's grin froze. The room suddenly grew very cold. Phil could barely suppress a grin. He obviously felt he had really caught the professor in an embarrassing mistake.
Tom, meanwhile, just rolled his eyes and shook his head. He had heard this line of argumentation from Phil before; and even though he had once totally shot Phil's arguments to shreds, here was Phil, again, using the same arguments against the atheistic professor as though nothing had ever been said about them before. How familiar.
The Christian apologists were fond of using the same old worn-out, discredited arguments over and over again, unashamed of their intellectual dishonesty. He did want the atheistic professor humbled; but now, with Phil starting off with such a silly argument as the one he was using with the professor, Tom was beginning to rethink his earlier desire to see the professor humbled, even if was by a Christian.
Looking to his left, Tom saw a Patricia Munroe taking notes -- verbose notes, from the amount of writing she was doing. Tom wondered why.
Phil continued, "You can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat but we don't have anything called 'cold'. We can hit 458 degrees below zero, which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that.
"There is no such thing as cold," Phil pressed forward, "otherwise we would be able to go colder than 458 - You see, sir, cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. "
There was some murmuring in the classroom; indistinct comments that Tom could not make out. Maybe he was not the only student in this classroom who could think clearly. However, seemingly oblivious to that, Phil continued:
"Heat we can measure in thermal units because heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it."
Silence. A pin dropped somewhere in the classroom. Was the silence the result of Phil's stupidity or did the students really think he had cornered the professor? Tom didn't know. He certainly saw the flaw in Phil's logic. Hopefully Mr. Jones would come to his senses and punch a few holes in it.
One problem with Phil's logic was he was using the old bait-and-switch tactic. He was using a word with its most common meaning (as accepted by 99.99% of the American populace); then, when the professor answered his question with the acceptance of the most common definition of cold (i.e. having a temperature lower than the normal temperature of the body), Phil hit him with the thermodynamic definition of "cold". This was an obvious move to embarrass the professor.
However, there were other, more serious problems for Phil, problems that Tom had already pointed out to him when they had has this conversation before. Phil's own holy book, the Bible, seemed oblivious to the fact that cold did not exist. Tom remembered several times the Bible used the word (John 18:18; Acts 28:2; Genesis 8:22; Job 24:7) and he had presented them to Phil then. Phil must have forgotten or otherwise he was counting on the professor's ignorance and Tom's silence. Not to worry! Tom would deal with him later.
"Is there such a thing as darkness, professor?" Phil was asking.
"That's a dumb question, son. What is night if it isn't darkness? What are you getting at?"
"So you say there is such a thing as darkness?"
"Yes . . ."
"You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is not something, it is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light-- but if you have no light constantly you have nothing and it's called darkness, isn't it?"
Tom could hardly believe it. Again, the bait-and-switch. And again, the Bible was full of examples that showed "darkness" was considered every much a thing as light was (Isaiah 45:7; Genesis 1:4,5; Exodus 10:21,22; 2 Chronicles 6:1; Job 28:3; Luke 23:44). Besides, using Phil's logic, there was no such thing as stupidity, since stupidity was only a lack of wisdom and intelligence.
"That's the meaning we use to define the word. " Mr. Jones responded.
"In reality, Darkness isn't. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker and give me a jar of it. Can you give me a jar of darker darkness, professor?"
Tom glared at Phil. He hadn't seen such intellectual dishonesty in a long time. Using Phil's crazed logic we could say there is no such thing as illness -- illness is just the absence of health; or we could claim that there is no such thing as poverty -- poverty is only the absence of wealth, or that pain did not exist -- pain is merely the absence of comfort, etc. Tom knew he could go on and on. And Phil's argument that we could not make darkness darker and put it in a jar of it was laughable. We can not make an empty jar emptier, but does that mean there is no such thing as "empty?"
Would Mr. Jones ever catch on?
Despite himself, Mr. Jones smiled at the young effrontery before him. "This will indeed be a good semester. Would you mind telling us what your point is, young man?"
"Yes, professor. My point is, your philosophical premise is flawed to start with and so your conclusion must be in error--"
Mr. Jones was angry now. "Flawed? How dare you!"
"Sir, may I explain what I mean?"
The class was all ears. Tom listened intently.
"Explain . . . oh, explain . . ." Mr. Jones said, making an admirable effort to regain control. Suddenly he was affability itself. He waved his hand to silence the class, for the student to continue.
"You are working on the premise of duality," the Christian explains, "That for example there is life and then there's death; a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure.
"Sir," Phil went on, "science cannot even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism but has never seen, much less fully understood them. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life, merely the absence of it."
Yeah, Tom thought, if death is merely the absence of life then I suppose this desk I am sitting in is dead. He shook his head in amazement at Phil. Phil was so intelligent in many things; calculus for one. But when it came to defending his faith he could not reason his way out of a paper bag.
Phil held up a newspaper he had taken from the desk of a surprised neighbor who had been reading it. "Here is one of the most disgusting tabloids this country hosts, professor. Is there such a thing as immorality?"
"Of course there is, now look--" the professor tried to answer his opponent.
"Wrong again, sir, " Phil interrupted, "You see, immorality is merely the absence of morality. " Phil paused then asked "Is there such thing as injustice?" No," Phil answered his own question without giving the professor a chance to respond. "Injustice is the absence of justice." Phil handed the tabloid back to the student, turned again to the professor then asked, "Is there such a thing as evil?"
Phil paused. Mr. Jones did not respond. He stared at Phil.
"Isn't evil the absence of good?" Phil pressed him for an answer.
The professor's face has turned an alarming color. He was so angry he was temporarily speechless. Tom hoped he was finally beginning to see the sophistry and intellectual bankruptcy in Phil's arguments.
Phil, reeking with a confidence that Tom could see was really arrogance, the kind of arrogance that he all to often encountered in those who felt they alone were blessed by god and everyone else would fry in hell for all eternity continued, "If there is evil in the world, professor, and we all agree there is, then God, if he exists, must be accomplishing a work through the agency of evil. What is that work, God is accomplishing?"
The professor was silent.
"The Bible tells us it is to see if each one of us will, of our own free will, choose good over evil."
The professor bridled. He wasn't used to getting cornered by a Christian. He had found in his years teaching that they were usually very gullible and easily handled. However, this one was a tough one.
Meanwhile, Tom was wondering who was more stupid, Phil or Mr. Jones. Tom had no hard feelings toward Phil. He actually felt sorry for him. But Mr. Jones gave all atheists a bad name. Phil was just intellectually dishonest, and this was why Tom was angry at him
Besides, although it was true that some verses in the Bible spoke of choice, there were others that plainly showed that some did not have choice at all. Tom recalled the case of the hapless Pharaoh in Egypt whose heart Yahweh hardened, so he would disobey God's command to let the Israelites depart from Egypt. Then, Tom remembered, he and his people were punished for the decision he had made. Tom recalled another passage from the New Testament that promised God would send certain people a strong delusion, that they would believe a lie. Then, of course, there was always Romans, chapter eight.
Patricia was still writing furiously in her notebook. Was she really buying into this? What was she doing?
"As a philosophical scientist," the professor was saying, "I don't view this matter as having anything to do with any choice. As a realist, I absolutely do not recognize the concept of God or any other theological factor as being part of the world equation, because God is not observable."
"I would have thought that the absence of God's moral code in this world is probably one of the most observable phenomena going," Phil replied. "Newspapers make billions of dollars reporting it every week!" He rubbed his hands together, almost gleefully. "Tell me, professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?"
"If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, young man, yes, of course I do."
Tom groaned. What an idiot! Here was a philosophy teacher (certainly not a biology teacher) reinforcing what creationists like the creationist group in San Diego had been saying all along; that evolutionists claim mankind descended from apes. Well, maybe Mr. Jones and his debating partner did; but Tom certainly didn't and he knew Phil knew better because he had set him straight on that issue before. Yet Phil, knowing his prey, was setting him up to embarrass him further.
"Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?"
The professor made a sucking sound with his teeth and gave his student a silent, stony stare. He was losing and he knew it. He didn't like it.
"Professor, since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an ongoing endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you now not a scientist, but a priest?"
Tom knew that evolution had been observed on the HIV virus that leads to AIDS. He also knew that he and Phil had watched this shown on educational TV a few weeks earlier so Phil had no excuse to claim that no one had ever observed evolution in progress.
There were other examples that Tom had shared with him; he had even loaned him several books from the National Center for Science Education which shot his arguments to shreds. Phil was still parroting the same old shit he had learned from Christian apologetics' propaganda. And he was doing it without any embarrassment, for he knew Tom was sitting there listening.
You go boy, Tom thought to himself, You have destroyed your witness and testimony as far as I am concerned. Never try to convert me again.
Tom became aware of the classroom debate again. "I'll overlook your impudence in the light of our philosophical discussion," Mr. Jones was hissing. "Now, have you quite finished?"
"So you don't accept God's moral code to do what is righteous?"
Whose God should we accept? Tom thought. and who decides what righteousness is and who decides for us the criteria we are going to use to determine which God is the God we should follow? Tom shook his head and focused back on the "debate".
"I believe in what is -- that's science!" a flustered Mr. Jones said.
"Ahh! Science!" Phil's face split into a grin, "Sir, you rightly state that science is the study of observed phenomena. Science too is a premise which is flawed . . ."
"SCIENCE IS FLAWED . . .?" the professor spluttered..
The class was in uproar. Tom looked around. Some students were celebrating, others were looking at this impudent Christian and saying things that Tom could not make out because of the tumult.
Phil remained standing until the commotion subsided.
"To continue the point you were making earlier to the other student, may I give you an example of what I mean?"
The professor wisely kept silent. Tom hoped they would both shut the hell up.
The Christian looked around the room.
"Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the professor's brain?"
Many in the class broke out in laughter. The more intelligent ones, like Tom, just shook their heads in utter amazement. They could not believe Phil was actually that stupid to ask such a question. Patricia was only looking at Phil with a raised eyebrow.
Phil pointed toward his elderly, crumbling tutor. "Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor's brain? Felt the professor's brain, touched or smelt the professor's brain?" He asked triumphantly. He seemed very happy with himself.
No one said anything. But Tom knew all the professor would have to do is take Phil to the medical school in town, have an MRI and Phil would actually be able to see the professor's brain in the same way a woman can see her baby with ultra-sound, or in the same way we can see our bones on an X-ray. Better, the effects of the professor's brain could be demonstrated empirically.
Phil shook his head sadly, then with a touch of arrogance he announced, "Since it appears no one here has had any sensory perception of the demonstrable protocol, science, I DECLARE that the professor has no brain."
The class again had a mixed reaction. Some of the students were in chaos, jumping up and down, celebrating. Others were pounding their desks in triumph. But some were silent, and as Tom looked around, their eyes met. Not a word was spoken, but Tom knew that they knew. This class had been a circus from the very beginning.
* * * *
Suddenly, Patricia stood up and faced Phil. Tom wasn't sure what to expect. Was she going to pour more hot coals on the professor's head?
"Phil," she said softly, "Your whole line of argumentation has been flawed from the very beginning."
Phil was startled. He had not expected to be challenged so soon after destroying the professor. He know Patricia, but he never had a clue that she was an atheist, so why would she be challenging him? Maybe she was a believer and in the spirit of love was going to point out some flaws in his reasoning. But why would she do that now, in front of all the other students, in his moment of victory?
He gulped, and waited for her to present him with where he went astray with his argumentation -- although he would never admit this, he had a gnawing sense of dread that it would be the same flaws that Tom had pointed out to him in a earlier debate.
Patricia, known for her quiet demeanor and gentle spirit, had caught the attention of the entire class.
"Phil, she said, you claimed that there is no such thing as cold because we could not measure it. You stated further that it was merely the absence of heat. What you don't seem to understand is there is nothing in the definition of 'cold' that states there can be an infinite amount of it. You are correct in saying it is simply the absence of heat, but the fact that cold does not extend to infinity does not indicate 'cold' does not exist."
Phil started to reply, but Patricia waved him off and said, "Let me finish. You had your say. When I am done and you wish to reply by all means do.
"You stated further that there was no such thing as darkness. You made a . . . I'll be charitable, a rather odd challenge to Professor Jones to present you with a jar of darkness. Your question was whether there was such a thing as darkness. There most certainly is; it is characterized by the absence of light. Just because you cannot have an infinite amount of it does not mean that darkness is a meaningless concept. If a container is completely empty, then we say it is empty. It cannot get any emptier, but it does not thereby cease to be empty.
"You said that death was simply the absence of life. That is hardly the case. A rock is absent of life, yet we would hardly call it dead, would we?"
There were a few snickers from the class. A young man slapped his knee. Patricia continued.
"That word 'dead' carries with it the assumption that whatever is dead was once alive. You continued to persist in such questions, using the bait-and-switch routine, and succeeded in making yourself look silly to those who know better."
Phil was slack-jawed. He was speechless.
Patricia looked around. She had the full attention of the class. Even the professor was watching her closely, yielding the floor as it were, watching the lioness devour her prey.
"Let me explain the problems with your argumentation and your good-evil analogy," she said calmly, with a sense of authority and assurance that can only come with experience,
"First, most of the analogies you attempt to use deal with quantitative states rather than qualitative. Light, for instance, can be measured in photons and wave-lengths; heat in calories and degrees. There is no scale for measuring good and evil.
"Second, evil is not simply the absence of good; it is by definition more than simply a neutral state. A rock is not inherently good; yet we do not say it is evil. There is much substance in evil as there is in good, just as there are equal amounts of substance in the concept of left and right; right is not simply the absence of left."
Tom looked admiringly on Patricia. She was really laying it on the Christian.
Patricia was not finished. "You made a statement to the effect that the Bible tells us God must be accomplishing a work through the agency of evil and it is for the purpose to see if each one of us will, of our own free will, choose good over evil . . . now, could you tell me where in the Bible it says that?"
Some students nodded their heads in approval. Tom just smiled. This was going to be good.
"Uh," Phil stammered, "it would take me a minute to look it up . . ."
Patricia nodded "I'll give you a minute. In fact, if Mr. Jones has no objection, I'll give you--" she glanced at the clock "--forty-eight minutes before the class ends." She looked at the professor, who only nodded in concession. She turned back to Phil. "We will wait."
Phil stammered, "Well, uh . . . I am really not sure where in the Bible it says that . . ."
"Could it be," ventured Patricia, "that it does not say that God values what you say he values anywhere in the Bible?"
Phil was silent.
"I am well studied in Christianity, Phil, and I can tell you for a fact that it does not state anywhere in the Bible that God wishes people to choose good of their own free will. In fact, in many places in both the Old and New Testaments, God is portrayed as actually interfering with people's free wills in order to cause them to choose certain things.
"Also," continued Patricia, "there are natural evils which claim millions of lives every year, which are by no means the result of mankind’s decisions. Did crime and immorality cause the big earthquake last year? Of course not -- yet many, many lives were lost as a result of it. The free will theodicy leaves natural evils unexplained."
Phil seemed to be shrinking with each passing minute. Tom was smiling. This was getting really good.
Patricia took a sip out of her water bottle then continued, "You said that the absence of God's moral code in this world is the most observable phenomena going. I find that funny. Haven't you heard of the Inquisition? What about the Crusades, the witch hunts, the dungeons for those that spoke contrary to Christianity during the dark ages, the persecution of those who went against the church's geocentric and flat-earth world views?"
Phil was already defeated. He knew he had met his match. It annoyed him it was a woman that was doing this to him. She'll burn one day in hell, he thought to himself, and she'll regret every word she ever said to me this day. And I'll look down from Heaven and tell her 'I told you so!'
Patricia caught on to his look. "I know what you're thinking, Phil," she said. "You're thinking that I'm going to burn in hell for my heresy. And you actually look pleased with the thought. What does it say about God's moral code that he would allow me to be physically tortured for anything? And what does it say about your own that you apparently like that idea?
Tom couldn't help it -- he gave a loud chuckle. Patricia glanced at him with a slight grin on her face, before turning back to Phil and continuing:
"Your question about whether man evolved from a monkey just shows your ignorance. Any scientist worth his salt, especially one in the field of biology, would never make that claim. And anyone who has studied one semester in biology -- in fact, one week --would be knowledgeable enough not to ask such a question. I would recommend a course in biology while you are here. It might do you some good. You'll learn, among other things, that monkeys and man both descended from something else entirely -- a common ancestor.
"You also asked Mr. Jones if he didn't accept God's moral code to do what is righteous. I can't speak for him but I do accept many tenents of what Jesus taught, but I do not acknowledge them as being the result of Jesus and the Christian God. The so-called Golden-rule, for instance, predates Christianity by centuries; it is found in Buddhist and Confusianism texts. I also use reason to determine which rules of the Bible I will follow and which ones I will not follow. If it benefits me, my family, and my country, I will use it. If using one of those codes brings pain to me, one of my family members, weakens my country, and even the human race, I will reject it."
"But . . ." Phil finally managed to produce noises from his throat. "You cannot judge God. You cannot just pick and choose which rules you will follow and which ones you will not. God has not left that choice open to us."
"Before I accept any book as God's word," said Patricia, "I must have an external criteria with which I will judge the book before me. I will not just blindly accept any book as infallible and authoritative without subjecting it to reason. If it were valid to accept a book totally on faith without being permitted to judge the author, we could not rightly condemn those who hold the Koran in high esteem, for they use the same approach that you do. And if reason ultimately fails, then it fails. Until I am shown something better than reason, I will stick with it."
Phil started to say something, thought better of it, and let Patricia continue.
"You asked whether the professor had a brain?" Patricia phrased it like a question, wanting to draw an affirmative answer from Phil.
"Yes," Phil said. "I said since we could not feel, smell, or see his brain then he must not have one."
"Well then," said Patricia, "if you had just proven the professor did not have a brain, then why were you talking to him? Did you think you were talking to an inanimate object, perhaps? Would an inanimate object be empowered to give you course credit for this class?"
"That wasn't my point," Phil protested. "I'm not saying that the professor doesn't have a brain; only that science can't prove that he does!"
"And what is a brain?" asked Patricia.
"The brain . . . well, its the thinking center of the body---"
"Well then, " Patricia said with a smile, "I'm afraid you yourself have proven that he does, in fact, have a brain."
"What . . . !" It was the Christian's turn to sputter.
"By talking to him, by attending his class. You assume that he has a thinking center, which is a brain."
"But no one has seen his brain!" Phil protested.
"Nobody has ever seen your brain either, Phil . . . but I'm sure we'll all give you the benefit of the doubt."
The class roared with laughter. Tom laughed so hard he was coughing. This was something to behold.
"You see," she said, "you cannot sense his or my brain with the unaided senses, but the physics department has a device which will, if you'd like, give you a photographic picture of his brain as he speaks to you. This device was constructed through man's reasoning, and, ultimately, from his unaided senses. In other words, science."
A long silence.
Finally, Phil sat . . . because that is what a chair is for.
And the chair collapsed under him.
Phil looked around, startled, as the class started laughing at him. Tom was doubled over. He was laughing so hard it was beginning to hurt. Patricia only smiled and shook her head, a little sadly.
Before she sat down, she turned to Phil and said, "You see what happens when you try to attack science -- you cut your own throat. You affirm the fact that science works every time you sit in a chair, every time you type on a computer, every time you put in your contacts -- every second of every day, your actions betray your words."
The Christian was silent, red-faced among the debris of his chair.
"Let me ask you something Phil," Patricia said quietly. "Do you really think you had scored a big one against the atheists? Do you really think you know more than we do? Your effort was valiant, but it was dead in the water thousands of years before either of us were born.
"You have every right to believe in your deity, and I believe in freedom of religion as strongly as the next person. But when you try to excuse that belief in the name of reason and moral necessity, then you simply insult us, and you insult your own intelligence. You ruin any testimony you may have -- any credibility you have earned goes down the drain.
"The fact is, Phil, there is no God. And if you choose to believe that there is, you do not do so because of Truth, but in spite of Truth."
The class erupted in applause. Some stood, including Tom.
It was going to be a good day."
L'origine de Bert
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Watching sex : how men really respond to pornography (4/10)
"You know what I did before I married? Anything I wanted to." - Henny Youngman
***
Watching sex : how men really respond to pornography / David Loftus
The “Slippery Slope” and the Question of Addiction
"When discussing the effect pornography has on men, its foes often apply a “slippery slope” model. After a while, the theory goes, the friendly nudes of Playboy no longer suit; the viewer must move on to more kinky and violent material...
If the antiporn theory is correct, the men would have used more pornography over time, and its content would have become more vivid and violent. Although most men said there had been times in their lives when they had used pornography more than at other times, high use tended to correlate—as we have seen in previous chapters—with external circumstances: not being in a relationship, being in college, amount of privacy, extra time on one’s hands, or when depressed, under stress, or experiencing relationship troubles.
In reality, only a few men reported that they had gone for the more vivid and kinky over time...
The only change many men cited was toward higher quality. “I look harder for well-produced, more interesting stuff, like Andrew Blake’s films,” said a 29-year-old married man who thought his tastes “haven’t changed radically.” Said a 29-year-old married custodian, “I feel that I’ve become more judicial about what I view now. When I was younger, anything with naked people in it was good enough; now I’m more picky about the performers, directors, and video companies. I tend to go with the ones I know by experience or reputation. With our having a child and my wife getting bored of the ‘same old porn movie junk,’ we rent fewer in a year than we used to in a month.”...
Is Addiction Possible?
A 24-year-old married student drew a clear line between the few who are susceptible and the many who are not:
'I use the analogy of role-playing games and heavy metal music. Some kids have killed people after playing role-playing games, and others have killed themselves after playing heavy metal music. Are these things inherently harmful? No. Many role players develop problem-solving skills through the playing of these games. Most kids listen to such music with no adverse effects.'...
“In true ‘addiction’ terms, I don’t think it is possible to become addicted to porn, just as I don’t believe in the notion of ‘sex addiction,” said a 33-year-old gay researcher. “But that is just my background in psychology speaking. I think it is possible to become a bit obsessed with it—and one can certainly allow it to upset other areas of one’s life. But as a true addiction—no.”
“Pornography is not cocaine or crack!” a 24-year-old engineer exclaimed. “Having lived with a drug addict, I know how consuming true addiction is,” added a 38-year-old homosexual. “I don’t believe a compulsion for pornography—if, in fact, there is such a thing—can in any way be likened to an addiction.”“I don’t get physically ill when I stop using pornography,” a 41-year-old math student dryly observed.
Another man spelled out the differences between truly addictive substances and porn:
'In recent years, it has become fashionable to tag various behaviors as addictive. People will claim that they are addicted to sex, or relationships, or anger, or overeating, or whatever it is in their life that troubles them. The people who exhibit these behaviors may have real problems. In particular, there is often a compulsive component to their behavior. However, these behaviors do not fit the model of real addiction. Someone wrote a book on this subject a few years ago. She suggested that what these people are suffering with is not any true addiction but simply existential anxiety: “the terror of knowing what the world is about.” She felt that it debased the word to call these problems “addictions.” Some people define addiction so broadly that it loses all content and becomes little more than a synonym for “want.” Real addiction generally involves use of psychoactive chemicals. Characteristics of addictive substances include craving, euphoria, tolerance, and withdrawal. Also, use of addictive substances is self-reinforcing: the more you use, the more you want. A few behaviors, such as compulsive gambling, possess some of these characteristics as well. I drank heavily for three years in college. I managed to stop before my life was an utter shambles, but it was a serious problem. I consider myself to have been close enough to real addiction to have some authority on the subject. Pornography is not addictive.'
Reality versus Fantasy: Do Porn Fans Associate Figures in Porn with Real People?
"Contrary to the assertions routinely made by antipom activists, most of the men I talked to were quite clear about the distinctions between pornography and real life. Perhaps those distinctions are what make porn so attractive to men. If so, their taste for porn does not mean they wish real life were more like it, any more than most people would want to live in a D.H. Lawrence novel. The average person is drawn to most entertainment precisely because it is different from life. It provides a temporary respite, a brief thrill, whether it’s a Disney movie or Debbie Does Dallas...
A 21-year-old American student said he never associated the women in porn with girls he knew because “I’m from Illinois, so all we have is corn and fat chicks.”...
Another method of testing the line between the fantasy of porn and the reality of their actual sex lives was to ask the men whether they had ever tried to import something they had seen or read about in pornography to their own sexual practices. Antiporn theorists regularly assert that porn teaches men to use, dominate, and humiliate women. What a man learns to want, they say, are sex acts the woman presumably isn’t going to desire or enjoy—such as fellatio, anal sex, or ejaculation on her face and breasts—and the man has to cajole, negotiate, or just plain impose the practice by surprise or physical force. The underlying assumptions are: Women are never equal parties in what happens in sex; women never want to do the things men become interested in because of pornography; and men don’t really care about women’s sexual pleasure or that they might not wish to do certain things. These assumptions were not supported in any way by the experiences and attitudes of the men in my survey...
Moreover, a number of practices men took from pornography into life were intended to increase their partner’s sexual pleasure more than their own. “I have learned to be much better at cunnilingus by watching it in porn,” a 35-year-old married man said. A 48-year-old widower said porn had given him useful information about “how to sensuously lick nipples and how to perform cunnilingus, both of which I think my wife appreciated.” An unmarried 23-year-old British man said, “My technique for masturbating her by stroking her clitoris has improved since watching ‘educational’ films (barely distinct from mild porn except by the fact that they are introduced by a doctor).”...
A 45-year-old gay man who liked to experiment when he had a long-term partner. “I’d always thought auto-fellatio would be great, but since I’m not that greatly endowed, nor am I very flexible, the act couldn’t be performed. We came as close as possible to it, though, with me standing on my head and cumming in my mouth while my partner held me up and watched. The first couple of times were exciting; after that it became more ridiculous and funny to me until I couldn’t do it at all.”
Whenever men referred to sex acts that antiporn crusaders claim all men are driven to by pornography, it was always in the context of consensual play...
After initial resistance, his wife enjoyed inserting marbles and then a vibrating Ben Wa ball in her vagina at his behest—but fisting, enemas, and sticking metal rods into his urethra and bladder made her sick. At times he traded days of housework for some of the activities she disliked. Although such activities may not be to many people’s taste, it should be noted that most of them involved penetration and manipulation of the man’s body, not his wife’s, so even this doesn’t support the antiporn argument that men force acts on women’s bodies to dominate and humiliate them."
Pornography as Hell, Pornography as Therapy
"Henry also struggled with the unaccountable behavior of some of the women he knew. On occasion, female coworkers seemed to delight in exposing their bodies to their male colleagues. “They would lean very far over while wearing a very low-cut blouse or sit across from me with their legs uncrossed while wearing a very short skirt,”A coworker would come up behind him and make bodily contact with her breasts, either pressing them into his back or brushing them across it...
'At that time I hated my male identity, wished I had been born female, and cross-dressed (privately) for excitement. Girls just seemed to have it so much easier. In the suburban SF Bay area schools I attended, a boy could not show weakness, and school officials did absolutely nothing to keep bullying in check. On the playground, if a bully picks on a girl, those around him will tell him to leave her alone. If a bully picks on a boy, those around him will watch to see if the boy will fight back. When they become old enough to date, girls are not obligated to make the first move. A boy must take the risk of being rejected (a girl who seems very nice can turn out to be very cruel), or he will never go on a date. I felt then, and I continue to feel today, that girls/women have it a lot easier in life.'...
Steve agreed that his experience did not support the notion that exposure to pornography is addictive and leads to ever more violent and kinky obsessions. “On the contrary, the evidence I have is that pornography can be a healing and life-affirming thing, leading to greater self- awareness and self-acceptance.”
For him, pornography “is a part of life, a part of art, a part of the world. It is a major literary genre, and anyone who claims to be literate should have at least a sparse acquaintance with it. Because it is often the honest expression of the human spirit.” Steve recalled Cicero’s quotation of Terence: Homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto. A loose translation might be: “I am human; therefore nothing that is human is alien to me.”
Perhaps the best argument by anyone in the survey that objectionable content may lie largely in the eye of the beholder came from Steve:
'I once met a smuggler of pornography; that is, of banned, disgusting, obscene books. It was on a boat, and he had a case of this stuff. The boat would be met in the night by an accomplice who was a local fisherman, and they would transfer the cargo, take it ashore, and distribute it. For this vile deed, both of them faced the death penalty if caught. The place was the Adriatic Sea; the country in question was Albania; and the dirty book was the Holy Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, according to Saint John. I learned two lessons. One, that “pornography,” or “filth,” or “subversive literature—whatever name you call the dog before you hang It—is a social and political construct. Any overlap between the literary genre of pornography and official smut is mere coincidence. The second lesson was that there are people—organized criminals—who believe in what they do. They aren’t just out to make money. An obvious example from U.S. history is the Underground Railroad—an organized conspiracy for the theft of property and the disposal of stolen goods abroad, to take the viewpoint of the Dred Scott court.'
I suggested a reader of his remarks might object to equating the Bible with pornography. Steve responded:
'I assert the analogy. The Fourth Gospel opens thus: “In the beginning was the Word.” In the ultimate analysis, my support for free speech is religious, for I see all speech as a manifestation of the Logos, the redemptive aspect of the divine. The lesson [of the Adriatic smuggler] has stayed with me. May it always do so.'...
By the age of 19 Gerald became disaffected with Christianity. He saw a pornographic movie that featured Harry Reems and ejaculated without even touching himself. "I ejaculated inside my pants. And it was amazing to me. Because it had never happened." [Ed: !!!]"
***
Watching sex : how men really respond to pornography / David Loftus
The “Slippery Slope” and the Question of Addiction
"When discussing the effect pornography has on men, its foes often apply a “slippery slope” model. After a while, the theory goes, the friendly nudes of Playboy no longer suit; the viewer must move on to more kinky and violent material...
If the antiporn theory is correct, the men would have used more pornography over time, and its content would have become more vivid and violent. Although most men said there had been times in their lives when they had used pornography more than at other times, high use tended to correlate—as we have seen in previous chapters—with external circumstances: not being in a relationship, being in college, amount of privacy, extra time on one’s hands, or when depressed, under stress, or experiencing relationship troubles.
In reality, only a few men reported that they had gone for the more vivid and kinky over time...
The only change many men cited was toward higher quality. “I look harder for well-produced, more interesting stuff, like Andrew Blake’s films,” said a 29-year-old married man who thought his tastes “haven’t changed radically.” Said a 29-year-old married custodian, “I feel that I’ve become more judicial about what I view now. When I was younger, anything with naked people in it was good enough; now I’m more picky about the performers, directors, and video companies. I tend to go with the ones I know by experience or reputation. With our having a child and my wife getting bored of the ‘same old porn movie junk,’ we rent fewer in a year than we used to in a month.”...
Is Addiction Possible?
A 24-year-old married student drew a clear line between the few who are susceptible and the many who are not:
'I use the analogy of role-playing games and heavy metal music. Some kids have killed people after playing role-playing games, and others have killed themselves after playing heavy metal music. Are these things inherently harmful? No. Many role players develop problem-solving skills through the playing of these games. Most kids listen to such music with no adverse effects.'...
“In true ‘addiction’ terms, I don’t think it is possible to become addicted to porn, just as I don’t believe in the notion of ‘sex addiction,” said a 33-year-old gay researcher. “But that is just my background in psychology speaking. I think it is possible to become a bit obsessed with it—and one can certainly allow it to upset other areas of one’s life. But as a true addiction—no.”
“Pornography is not cocaine or crack!” a 24-year-old engineer exclaimed. “Having lived with a drug addict, I know how consuming true addiction is,” added a 38-year-old homosexual. “I don’t believe a compulsion for pornography—if, in fact, there is such a thing—can in any way be likened to an addiction.”“I don’t get physically ill when I stop using pornography,” a 41-year-old math student dryly observed.
Another man spelled out the differences between truly addictive substances and porn:
'In recent years, it has become fashionable to tag various behaviors as addictive. People will claim that they are addicted to sex, or relationships, or anger, or overeating, or whatever it is in their life that troubles them. The people who exhibit these behaviors may have real problems. In particular, there is often a compulsive component to their behavior. However, these behaviors do not fit the model of real addiction. Someone wrote a book on this subject a few years ago. She suggested that what these people are suffering with is not any true addiction but simply existential anxiety: “the terror of knowing what the world is about.” She felt that it debased the word to call these problems “addictions.” Some people define addiction so broadly that it loses all content and becomes little more than a synonym for “want.” Real addiction generally involves use of psychoactive chemicals. Characteristics of addictive substances include craving, euphoria, tolerance, and withdrawal. Also, use of addictive substances is self-reinforcing: the more you use, the more you want. A few behaviors, such as compulsive gambling, possess some of these characteristics as well. I drank heavily for three years in college. I managed to stop before my life was an utter shambles, but it was a serious problem. I consider myself to have been close enough to real addiction to have some authority on the subject. Pornography is not addictive.'
Reality versus Fantasy: Do Porn Fans Associate Figures in Porn with Real People?
"Contrary to the assertions routinely made by antipom activists, most of the men I talked to were quite clear about the distinctions between pornography and real life. Perhaps those distinctions are what make porn so attractive to men. If so, their taste for porn does not mean they wish real life were more like it, any more than most people would want to live in a D.H. Lawrence novel. The average person is drawn to most entertainment precisely because it is different from life. It provides a temporary respite, a brief thrill, whether it’s a Disney movie or Debbie Does Dallas...
A 21-year-old American student said he never associated the women in porn with girls he knew because “I’m from Illinois, so all we have is corn and fat chicks.”...
Another method of testing the line between the fantasy of porn and the reality of their actual sex lives was to ask the men whether they had ever tried to import something they had seen or read about in pornography to their own sexual practices. Antiporn theorists regularly assert that porn teaches men to use, dominate, and humiliate women. What a man learns to want, they say, are sex acts the woman presumably isn’t going to desire or enjoy—such as fellatio, anal sex, or ejaculation on her face and breasts—and the man has to cajole, negotiate, or just plain impose the practice by surprise or physical force. The underlying assumptions are: Women are never equal parties in what happens in sex; women never want to do the things men become interested in because of pornography; and men don’t really care about women’s sexual pleasure or that they might not wish to do certain things. These assumptions were not supported in any way by the experiences and attitudes of the men in my survey...
Moreover, a number of practices men took from pornography into life were intended to increase their partner’s sexual pleasure more than their own. “I have learned to be much better at cunnilingus by watching it in porn,” a 35-year-old married man said. A 48-year-old widower said porn had given him useful information about “how to sensuously lick nipples and how to perform cunnilingus, both of which I think my wife appreciated.” An unmarried 23-year-old British man said, “My technique for masturbating her by stroking her clitoris has improved since watching ‘educational’ films (barely distinct from mild porn except by the fact that they are introduced by a doctor).”...
A 45-year-old gay man who liked to experiment when he had a long-term partner. “I’d always thought auto-fellatio would be great, but since I’m not that greatly endowed, nor am I very flexible, the act couldn’t be performed. We came as close as possible to it, though, with me standing on my head and cumming in my mouth while my partner held me up and watched. The first couple of times were exciting; after that it became more ridiculous and funny to me until I couldn’t do it at all.”
Whenever men referred to sex acts that antiporn crusaders claim all men are driven to by pornography, it was always in the context of consensual play...
After initial resistance, his wife enjoyed inserting marbles and then a vibrating Ben Wa ball in her vagina at his behest—but fisting, enemas, and sticking metal rods into his urethra and bladder made her sick. At times he traded days of housework for some of the activities she disliked. Although such activities may not be to many people’s taste, it should be noted that most of them involved penetration and manipulation of the man’s body, not his wife’s, so even this doesn’t support the antiporn argument that men force acts on women’s bodies to dominate and humiliate them."
Pornography as Hell, Pornography as Therapy
"Henry also struggled with the unaccountable behavior of some of the women he knew. On occasion, female coworkers seemed to delight in exposing their bodies to their male colleagues. “They would lean very far over while wearing a very low-cut blouse or sit across from me with their legs uncrossed while wearing a very short skirt,”A coworker would come up behind him and make bodily contact with her breasts, either pressing them into his back or brushing them across it...
'At that time I hated my male identity, wished I had been born female, and cross-dressed (privately) for excitement. Girls just seemed to have it so much easier. In the suburban SF Bay area schools I attended, a boy could not show weakness, and school officials did absolutely nothing to keep bullying in check. On the playground, if a bully picks on a girl, those around him will tell him to leave her alone. If a bully picks on a boy, those around him will watch to see if the boy will fight back. When they become old enough to date, girls are not obligated to make the first move. A boy must take the risk of being rejected (a girl who seems very nice can turn out to be very cruel), or he will never go on a date. I felt then, and I continue to feel today, that girls/women have it a lot easier in life.'...
Steve agreed that his experience did not support the notion that exposure to pornography is addictive and leads to ever more violent and kinky obsessions. “On the contrary, the evidence I have is that pornography can be a healing and life-affirming thing, leading to greater self- awareness and self-acceptance.”
For him, pornography “is a part of life, a part of art, a part of the world. It is a major literary genre, and anyone who claims to be literate should have at least a sparse acquaintance with it. Because it is often the honest expression of the human spirit.” Steve recalled Cicero’s quotation of Terence: Homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto. A loose translation might be: “I am human; therefore nothing that is human is alien to me.”
Perhaps the best argument by anyone in the survey that objectionable content may lie largely in the eye of the beholder came from Steve:
'I once met a smuggler of pornography; that is, of banned, disgusting, obscene books. It was on a boat, and he had a case of this stuff. The boat would be met in the night by an accomplice who was a local fisherman, and they would transfer the cargo, take it ashore, and distribute it. For this vile deed, both of them faced the death penalty if caught. The place was the Adriatic Sea; the country in question was Albania; and the dirty book was the Holy Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, according to Saint John. I learned two lessons. One, that “pornography,” or “filth,” or “subversive literature—whatever name you call the dog before you hang It—is a social and political construct. Any overlap between the literary genre of pornography and official smut is mere coincidence. The second lesson was that there are people—organized criminals—who believe in what they do. They aren’t just out to make money. An obvious example from U.S. history is the Underground Railroad—an organized conspiracy for the theft of property and the disposal of stolen goods abroad, to take the viewpoint of the Dred Scott court.'
I suggested a reader of his remarks might object to equating the Bible with pornography. Steve responded:
'I assert the analogy. The Fourth Gospel opens thus: “In the beginning was the Word.” In the ultimate analysis, my support for free speech is religious, for I see all speech as a manifestation of the Logos, the redemptive aspect of the divine. The lesson [of the Adriatic smuggler] has stayed with me. May it always do so.'...
By the age of 19 Gerald became disaffected with Christianity. He saw a pornographic movie that featured Harry Reems and ejaculated without even touching himself. "I ejaculated inside my pants. And it was amazing to me. Because it had never happened." [Ed: !!!]"
Post ID: 5495516547302316635
"The world is my lobster." - Henry J. Tillman
***
An email from Hum Sup Guy on HWMNBN's words: "if you think Singaporean girls are materialistic, anorexic, overdress, bitchy, emotional, fond of drama and sexist, it's even worse in Hong Kong. Over there, there's no such thing as going Dutch - the guy always pays":
"Having noted the words of wisdom from He Who Must Not Be Named, I attended a CNY dinner in *** with members of the Hong Kong society, primarily girls, to test out his hypothesis. I am afraid that after lunching with them (whom I consider a fairly representative sample of the typical Hong Kong girl), I am forced to conclude that HWMNBN's hypothesis is indeed precise and accurate. For further precision, I observe that they tend to favour alcoholic binges.
... I would appreciate it very much if you could send me an RGS pinafore for my birthday. It's on *** of November."
HWMNBN's reply: "Should clarify that yoru friend's sample isn't representative - the ones who make it overseas to study are never representative of the actual situation on the ground. He should try some of the home-grown variety... [HK girls in HK]'re far worse. but different genus. differnece between country mouse and city mouse in some ways" [Ed: Unfortunately he did not say more about the topic, even when prodded]
HSG's note: "I shall make it a point to visit Hong Kong in the summer and submit a full length report replete with photographs to sense the situation on the ground."
PS: Anybody who wishes to donate an RGS pinafore to Hum Sup Guy: please email me, thank you.
***
Wth ads:
"Genocide Ringtones
Want Genocide Ringtone? 100% Complimentary - Get It Here!
SG-Ringtones.com/Compliment" (on my blog)
"S'pore Luxury Backpacker
Free broadband, next to MRT station Groovy hip designer budget lodging!" (on 'Asia Travel' aka Streetdirectory.com)
And on Tomorrow.sg:
"Generous scholarships. Available here. Lee Kuan Yew Sch of Public Policy."
***
An email from Hum Sup Guy on HWMNBN's words: "if you think Singaporean girls are materialistic, anorexic, overdress, bitchy, emotional, fond of drama and sexist, it's even worse in Hong Kong. Over there, there's no such thing as going Dutch - the guy always pays":
"Having noted the words of wisdom from He Who Must Not Be Named, I attended a CNY dinner in *** with members of the Hong Kong society, primarily girls, to test out his hypothesis. I am afraid that after lunching with them (whom I consider a fairly representative sample of the typical Hong Kong girl), I am forced to conclude that HWMNBN's hypothesis is indeed precise and accurate. For further precision, I observe that they tend to favour alcoholic binges.
... I would appreciate it very much if you could send me an RGS pinafore for my birthday. It's on *** of November."
HWMNBN's reply: "Should clarify that yoru friend's sample isn't representative - the ones who make it overseas to study are never representative of the actual situation on the ground. He should try some of the home-grown variety... [HK girls in HK]'re far worse. but different genus. differnece between country mouse and city mouse in some ways" [Ed: Unfortunately he did not say more about the topic, even when prodded]
HSG's note: "I shall make it a point to visit Hong Kong in the summer and submit a full length report replete with photographs to sense the situation on the ground."
PS: Anybody who wishes to donate an RGS pinafore to Hum Sup Guy: please email me, thank you.
***
Wth ads:
"Genocide Ringtones
Want Genocide Ringtone? 100% Complimentary - Get It Here!
SG-Ringtones.com/Compliment" (on my blog)
"S'pore Luxury Backpacker
Free broadband, next to MRT station Groovy hip designer budget lodging!" (on 'Asia Travel' aka Streetdirectory.com)
And on Tomorrow.sg:
"Generous scholarships. Available here. Lee Kuan Yew Sch of Public Policy."
Post ID: 1882087448656854957
On NUS charging for plastic bags
"The easiest way for your children to learn about money is for you not to have any." - Katharine Whitehorn
***
"Rebate2Earth. With effect from 4th Feb 08, Plastic bags will cost 10 cents each! Plastic bags don't come for free! They cause pollution, death to marine animals and a strain on non-renewable resources... NUS Fights Climate Change"
So now we're phasing in a scheme where we have to pay for plastic bags used on campus.
As previously mentioned, plastic bags are not all bad, though those given out on campus are unlikely to be used to line dustbins or store food. Also, in Singapore in general, people are less likely to recycle plastic bags. But still.
In any case, linking reducing plastic bag use to all manner of evils, with varying improbabilities.
Pollution? Yes, but only if people throw them around (moral of the story: fight littering instead). Technically they are non-biodegradable, but we burn our rubbish anyway.
Death to marine animals? Only if they end up in the sea. So the solution is to clean our waterways and the sea and prevent people from throwing plastic bags into them (saying we should discourage plastic bag use to prevent marine animals' deaths is like saying banning parangs prevents people from getting chopped up by them).
The most ridiculous is linking it to climate change (even if only implicitly). As Climate Change Denial (which aims to explain why people deny its reality) points out, an average Brit's plastic bag consumption is less than 1/5000 of his climate change impact (measured by emissions).
Well, you might say - cutting emissions by <1/5000 is surely better than doing nothing at all. Yet this is not the case - encouraging people to engage in trivial measures crowds out those which are more effective. We all have limited money, time and energy, so encouraging useless measures is worse than useless - it is positively harmful; even the very rich, free and energetic have tons of other worthy causes in which their efforts would reap much greater rewards (e.g. working with amputees, supporting Taiwanese independence and prancing around in a bunny costume to promote PETA).
To wit:
"People have already acquired a severely distorted sense of priorities. 40% of people now believe that recycling domestic waste, which is a relatively small contributor to emissions, is the most important thing they can do to prevent climate change. Only 10% mention the far more important goals of reducing foreign holidays or using public transport.
This easy tips undermine the wider message on the seriousness of climate change. In its report on climate change messaging, “Warm Words”, the Institute of Public Policy Research argues that simple actions “easily lapse into ‘wallpaper’– the domestic, the routine, the boring, the too-easily understood and ignorable”. The IPPR is especially critical of headlines such as ‘20 things you can do to save the planet from destruction’ and said that putting trivial measures alongside alarmist warnings can lead people to “deflate, mock and reject” the very notion of climate change”.
And there is a greater danger that people might adopt the simple measures as a way to avoid making more challenging lifestyle changes. In regards of recycling MORI concluded that it was becoming “a ‘totem behaviour” and that “individuals use recycling as a means of discharging their responsibility to undertake wider changes in lifestyle”. In other words, people can adopt the simplest solutions as a part of a deliberate denial strategy that enables them to feel virtuous without changing their real behaviour."
The shocking but undeniable conclusion?
"Let’s be clear that voluntary action will never be enough- we will need radical political economic and social change."
***
"Rebate2Earth. With effect from 4th Feb 08, Plastic bags will cost 10 cents each! Plastic bags don't come for free! They cause pollution, death to marine animals and a strain on non-renewable resources... NUS Fights Climate Change"
So now we're phasing in a scheme where we have to pay for plastic bags used on campus.
As previously mentioned, plastic bags are not all bad, though those given out on campus are unlikely to be used to line dustbins or store food. Also, in Singapore in general, people are less likely to recycle plastic bags. But still.
In any case, linking reducing plastic bag use to all manner of evils, with varying improbabilities.
Pollution? Yes, but only if people throw them around (moral of the story: fight littering instead). Technically they are non-biodegradable, but we burn our rubbish anyway.
Death to marine animals? Only if they end up in the sea. So the solution is to clean our waterways and the sea and prevent people from throwing plastic bags into them (saying we should discourage plastic bag use to prevent marine animals' deaths is like saying banning parangs prevents people from getting chopped up by them).
The most ridiculous is linking it to climate change (even if only implicitly). As Climate Change Denial (which aims to explain why people deny its reality) points out, an average Brit's plastic bag consumption is less than 1/5000 of his climate change impact (measured by emissions).
Well, you might say - cutting emissions by <1/5000 is surely better than doing nothing at all. Yet this is not the case - encouraging people to engage in trivial measures crowds out those which are more effective. We all have limited money, time and energy, so encouraging useless measures is worse than useless - it is positively harmful; even the very rich, free and energetic have tons of other worthy causes in which their efforts would reap much greater rewards (e.g. working with amputees, supporting Taiwanese independence and prancing around in a bunny costume to promote PETA).
To wit:
"People have already acquired a severely distorted sense of priorities. 40% of people now believe that recycling domestic waste, which is a relatively small contributor to emissions, is the most important thing they can do to prevent climate change. Only 10% mention the far more important goals of reducing foreign holidays or using public transport.
This easy tips undermine the wider message on the seriousness of climate change. In its report on climate change messaging, “Warm Words”, the Institute of Public Policy Research argues that simple actions “easily lapse into ‘wallpaper’– the domestic, the routine, the boring, the too-easily understood and ignorable”. The IPPR is especially critical of headlines such as ‘20 things you can do to save the planet from destruction’ and said that putting trivial measures alongside alarmist warnings can lead people to “deflate, mock and reject” the very notion of climate change”.
And there is a greater danger that people might adopt the simple measures as a way to avoid making more challenging lifestyle changes. In regards of recycling MORI concluded that it was becoming “a ‘totem behaviour” and that “individuals use recycling as a means of discharging their responsibility to undertake wider changes in lifestyle”. In other words, people can adopt the simplest solutions as a part of a deliberate denial strategy that enables them to feel virtuous without changing their real behaviour."
The shocking but undeniable conclusion?
"Let’s be clear that voluntary action will never be enough- we will need radical political economic and social change."
Post ID: 4223831718196016232
Ditching plastic bags 'no real use'
"For every person who wants to teach there are approximately thirty people who don't want to learn--much." - W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman
***
A previously linked-to article:
Ditching plastic bags 'no real use'
"IT is believed to be one of the simplest ways people can help the environment, but scrapping the plastic shopping bag might not be worth the effort.
The Federal Government's economic advisory body has recommended ditching plans to wipe out more than five billion plastic bags a year, saying the costs may outweigh the benefits.
The plan is supposed to save marine wildlife and reduce litter, but the Productivity Commission argues that not only is the plastic bag not a serious threat to wildlife, but governments have not taken into account the food-safety benefits of plastic bags or their typical re-use as liners for the garbage bin.
Instead, the commission argues that tougher anti-litter laws or harsher fines might be a better way of addressing litter.
The plans to rid Australia of plastic bags within two years may already be in trouble. The supermarket chains Woolworths and Coles have failed to meet a 50 per cent reduction target by the end of last year.
In the report on waste, due for release today, the commission will find there has been no cost-benefit analysis of a decision taken last July by state, territory and federal governments to phase out high-density polyethylene plastic bags by 2009.
It finds the key expected benefits of getting rid of the plastic bag - the reduction in harm to marine wildlife through ingestion or entanglement in litter - is partially nonsense.
"Plastic bags are a highly visible and long-lasting form of litter because they can easily become airborne, are moisture resistant, and take many years to decompose," it says.
But it says the extent of harm to Australia's marine wildlife is far from certain, saying the figure in use of 100,000 marine animals killed a year was based on a Canadian study done over four years in the early 1980s.
It quotes Australian government research estimating that less than 1 per cent of plastic bags become litter, and that they account for only 2 per cent of litter by number.
Instead, the commission argues plastic bags may actually assist environmental impacts in landfill because of their "stabilising qualities, leachate minimisation and minimising (of) greenhouse gas emissions".
As well, they provide "an important task in product and food safety, keeping uncooked meat or cleaning products separate from other foods".
The commission cites research showing that up to 75 per cent of householders re-use plastic bags as garbage bin liners or carry bags. It finds there has been no cost-benefit analysis of the impacts of banning the bags.
"It is clear there would be costs that might well outweigh the claimed benefits associated with banning HDPE shopping bags, and such a ban would only address problems associated with the less than 1 per cent of plastic bags that become litter," it finds.
The report recommends governments do not proceed with the plan unless they conduct a cost-benefit analysis.
Sydney beauty therapist Lesley Greenwell said she was concerned about the damage her plastic shopping bags might do to the environment, but said this did not stop her ploughing through about 10 a week.
Since the 1990s, when plastic bags became an international environmental issue, Ms Greenwell said she had been trying to cut down on the number she threw away. "I do re-use bags, for rubbish or whatever I can around the home," the 27-year-old said.
Ms Greenwell said she was relieved to hear about the Productivity Commission's report as it removed some of the guilt surrounding the use of plastic bags.
Planet Ark managing director Jon Dee said major supermarkets had failed to meet their goal of slashing 50 per cent of bags by the end of last year.
They had only managed to reduce their use by 45 per cent, although he said the bigger problem was that non-supermarket retailers now give away 55 per cent of plastic bags."
***
A previously linked-to article:
Ditching plastic bags 'no real use'
"IT is believed to be one of the simplest ways people can help the environment, but scrapping the plastic shopping bag might not be worth the effort.
The Federal Government's economic advisory body has recommended ditching plans to wipe out more than five billion plastic bags a year, saying the costs may outweigh the benefits.
The plan is supposed to save marine wildlife and reduce litter, but the Productivity Commission argues that not only is the plastic bag not a serious threat to wildlife, but governments have not taken into account the food-safety benefits of plastic bags or their typical re-use as liners for the garbage bin.
Instead, the commission argues that tougher anti-litter laws or harsher fines might be a better way of addressing litter.
The plans to rid Australia of plastic bags within two years may already be in trouble. The supermarket chains Woolworths and Coles have failed to meet a 50 per cent reduction target by the end of last year.
In the report on waste, due for release today, the commission will find there has been no cost-benefit analysis of a decision taken last July by state, territory and federal governments to phase out high-density polyethylene plastic bags by 2009.
It finds the key expected benefits of getting rid of the plastic bag - the reduction in harm to marine wildlife through ingestion or entanglement in litter - is partially nonsense.
"Plastic bags are a highly visible and long-lasting form of litter because they can easily become airborne, are moisture resistant, and take many years to decompose," it says.
But it says the extent of harm to Australia's marine wildlife is far from certain, saying the figure in use of 100,000 marine animals killed a year was based on a Canadian study done over four years in the early 1980s.
It quotes Australian government research estimating that less than 1 per cent of plastic bags become litter, and that they account for only 2 per cent of litter by number.
Instead, the commission argues plastic bags may actually assist environmental impacts in landfill because of their "stabilising qualities, leachate minimisation and minimising (of) greenhouse gas emissions".
As well, they provide "an important task in product and food safety, keeping uncooked meat or cleaning products separate from other foods".
The commission cites research showing that up to 75 per cent of householders re-use plastic bags as garbage bin liners or carry bags. It finds there has been no cost-benefit analysis of the impacts of banning the bags.
"It is clear there would be costs that might well outweigh the claimed benefits associated with banning HDPE shopping bags, and such a ban would only address problems associated with the less than 1 per cent of plastic bags that become litter," it finds.
The report recommends governments do not proceed with the plan unless they conduct a cost-benefit analysis.
Sydney beauty therapist Lesley Greenwell said she was concerned about the damage her plastic shopping bags might do to the environment, but said this did not stop her ploughing through about 10 a week.
Since the 1990s, when plastic bags became an international environmental issue, Ms Greenwell said she had been trying to cut down on the number she threw away. "I do re-use bags, for rubbish or whatever I can around the home," the 27-year-old said.
Ms Greenwell said she was relieved to hear about the Productivity Commission's report as it removed some of the guilt surrounding the use of plastic bags.
Planet Ark managing director Jon Dee said major supermarkets had failed to meet their goal of slashing 50 per cent of bags by the end of last year.
They had only managed to reduce their use by 45 per cent, although he said the bigger problem was that non-supermarket retailers now give away 55 per cent of plastic bags."
Post ID: 8762643569212803862
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Watching sex : how men really respond to pornography (3/10)
"Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach's 'St. Matthew's Passion' on a ukulele." - Bagdikian's Observation
***
Watching sex : how men really respond to pornography / David Loftus
The Image of Men in Pornography
"“They always had a kind of sleazy look about them, always needed a shave,” recalled a 53-year-old who saw 8mm black-and-white films at Idaho Jaycees “smokers” in the early 1960s as well as the first mass-market porn movies of the mid-1970s... A philosophy scholar in France said, “In the late seventies, they were mostly ugly and often looked like bums.”
Several men suggested the unappealing appearance of the men ruined the viewer’s ability to believe in the sex: “Some men in porn are criminally unattractive and it defeats the willing suspension of disbelief: Why is this gorgeous woman having sex with this jerk???” The men struck another viewer as “always ugly, or heavy set” so “I really couldn’t fathom the thought that these lovely ladies were having casual sex with the gross guys.” A third called the men “butt-ugly” and concluded, Those women must be miserable...
'In still shots, the men always seemed sort of phony and posed, with stupid looks on their faces,” wrote another man, adding that “I find with porn specifically (and with any sort of modeling or fashion photography in general), the models usually seem to have the most unappealing expressions, sort of the ‘You killed my dog; now I’m going to have to kill you’ look.'.
An Australian programmer/analyst agreed: “They often don’t seem to be enjoying it much. Also, many of the guys in videos seem to be a bit limp even when they’re supposed to be hard.”
This fact also struck another man as odd:
'I’ve seen so many videos in which the people take their clothes off, and the man still is not fully erect. The woman spends time getting him hard with her hands and mouth. This is nothing like my experience—by the time my clothes came off in most of my sexual encounters, I was hard as a rock. I wonder if having done it over and over for cameras has made sex with almost anybody less exciting for them. Bottom line: it’s unrealistic and it’s a distraction that takes my mind out of the fantasy.'
One man pondered the emotional state of such men:
'They all seem so empty. I’ve found the men a real big turn-off at times. And it’s not really a competition thing for me. It’s not that I identify them as competition and don’t want them in the picture. It’s that I know there is a lot more to being sexy than just having a big dick and keeping it up for an hour. Most of the men in porn lack any kind of subtlety or expression of desire other than grabbing the nearest vagina and sticking it in.'
Some men said the males in pornography were less intelligent or interesting than the females. “The guys were usually dumber than the males,” one man noted. “Most of their roles are so shallow that they ould easily be replaced by dildos,” said another; “Roles for actresses tend to be considerably deeper than those for actors in pornography— though that really isn’t saying much.”
“In general their purpose seemed to be to demonstrate how good the female was,” wrote a 27-year-old married chemical engineer. He added they seemed “devoid of any character or personality, almost like a person who was asleep or drugged or at work, who could do nothing except have sex.”...
John Stoltenberg, a gay antiporn collaborator of Dworkin’s, wrote, “Male supremacist sexuality is important to pornography, and pornography is important to male supremacy. . . . Your penis is a weapon, her body is your target. . . . Because men are masters, women are slaves; men are superior, women are subordinate; men are real, women are objects; men are sex machines, women are sluts.” But not one of the men I talked to said pornography made him believe “that we are just like the
in pornography: virile, strong, tough, maybe cruel,” or that “women want to be raped, enjoy being damaged by us, deserve to be punished,” as Stoltenberg ridiculously asserts."
How Men Use Pornography
"Opponents of pornography routinely assume men use it only to aid misturbation. In Only Words, MacKinnon writes, “Pornography is masturbation material,” and adds this “is an empirical observation,” as if she had actually studied men doing it.
But quite a few other men indicated that MacKinnon’s “empirical observation doesn’t always hold. A 28-year-old editor/publisher, married seven years, who said “most of the time when I look at porn I do not masturbate at all,” explained: “I have on occasion used it with friends as an element of foreplay, and I have also used magazines such is Playboy to demonstrate poses when taking my own pictures.” The latter consisted of “personal pictures we [his wife and he] have taken for our own pleasure, or perhaps something to give to a close girlfriend of my wife.”
A 42-year-old electronic publishing specialist in his second marriage said, “I sometimes look at erotic materials without any intent of arousing myself to orgasm, but this is because I have developed an intellectual interest in the subject.” [Ed: HAHAHAHAHA]...
A corporate manager said after using porn, he felt “ready to go on to something something else, like playing the piano. Music and sex, what else is there?”...
[A] 35-year-old, a married programmer, described his response thus:
'When I use magazines, particularly bondage magazines, I often find that I feel a little bit stupid about the whole thing after I cum. I think what happens is that the magazine starts to deconstruct itself in my hands. Before I cum, I’m wrapped up in my sexual response to the women I’m looking at. After I cum, my sexual response fades, and I’m left with just the women. And then they’re not women, they’re just pictures of women. And then it’s not pictures, it’s just little dots of color on the pages of a magazine. And finally it’s not even a magazine, it’s just an object in my hands. And I paid $8 for it. How stupid. I’m happy to report that this doesn’t happen after I’ve been looking at porn on my computer. I suspect this is because there is no persisting object to deconstruct itself after I cum. Close the window, exit the program, and there’s nothing left.'...
Sharing Porn with Others
"If the story of pornography is men exercising control nver women, then it would make sense if, as adults, men gathered to enjoy the experience and direct one another toward the choicest bits of female humiliation and degradation.
However, half of the heterosexual men in the survey said they never even discussed pornography with other men, let alone perused it in their company...
“Many of the frats would hold Saturday night showings of porn flicks as a way to raise money for the house,” a married science teacher said. [Ed: New idea for Hall Inmates!]...
The most surprising finding about the shared use of porn with a spouse or lover was that just as many men said their wife or girlfriend was totally supportive of their use of pornography as those who said their significant other absolutely hated it...
Several men had seen Playgirl magazines among a lover’s possessions. “My last girlfriend and I actively enjoyed reading erotic materials together and watching videos together,” recalled a 24-year-old audio engineer. “A few actually surprised me,” a Bangladeshi man said. “The didn’t seem the type. You could imagine the expression on my face when this quiet, shy woman pulls out a 12” dildo and a bunch of Playgirl magazines.”...
Many men felt romance novels constituted female pornography. The largest consumers of porn are women, and the best-selling porn genre is written for them,” a 49-year-old British man declared. He asserted further that force is used in this women’s genre more often than in male pornography. “It’s called ‘romance,’ but usually referred to as 'bodice rippers.' The prevalence of rape fantasies in this literature has often been remarked upon. That doesn’t worry me; in fact, it’s a useful thing to cite when hypocritical feminists attack men’s pornography.”
Another Englishman ventured the opinion that “many women are interested in porn and much of what I have recently read in ‘women’s magazines’ is very sexually explicit. I know that recently a U.K. women’s magazine got rid of naked centerfolds because women were not interested in them without erections!”...
'I’d never admitted using pornography to any other girlfriend until my present one. Originally she was rather perturbed by the thought that I needed a magazine to get satisfaction. She felt inadequate and jealous that I would be giving my thoughts to a picture. She finds mental images much more satisfying and hence has trouble understanding why I would need a picture. After some very long and open conversations, I finally got her to realize that I have no kind of mental attraction towards these women. I merely use it as a visual stimulus for masturbation; I have sexual urges and pornography helps satisfy them. While she thinks of the magazines as being very pathetic, she no longer feels jealous or inadequate—it’s just a pathetic guy thing she has to put up with.'...
Of all these examples—men whose partners enjoyed sharing pornography, men whose partners were not as interested but sometimes shared porn use for the man’s sake, and men whose partners tried it once or twice and indicated they did not want to anymore—none conforms to the scenario depicted by opponents of pornography, in which men routinely cajole women into unhappy viewings of porn and force sex acts upon their partners after seeing them portrayed. In nearly all the relationships described by men in this survey, both partners sought to be considerate and discreet...
There are even gay men who accept antiporn ideology, though none that I talked to. A 32-year-old graduate student in the social sciences reported:
'Once in a while, I will take home a guy who believes the Dworkinite crap (not to insult coprophiles with the comparison) about how porn is degrading, un-PC, etc. I try to explain the importance of porn in gay male culture, and how homophobic the antiporn 'feminists' really are. I talk about how antiporn laws have the effect of facilitating government repression of gays - specifically those who are marginalized and most defenseless: rural gays. I cite the ways the Dworkin/MacKinnion legislation in Canada has resulted in confiscations of gay and lesbian political literature by customs. And that I like porn.' [Ed: In a previous chapter, it was revealed that porn is extremely important in helping gays discover their sexuality, and thus to be antiporn is to be antigay.]"
***
Watching sex : how men really respond to pornography / David Loftus
The Image of Men in Pornography
"“They always had a kind of sleazy look about them, always needed a shave,” recalled a 53-year-old who saw 8mm black-and-white films at Idaho Jaycees “smokers” in the early 1960s as well as the first mass-market porn movies of the mid-1970s... A philosophy scholar in France said, “In the late seventies, they were mostly ugly and often looked like bums.”
Several men suggested the unappealing appearance of the men ruined the viewer’s ability to believe in the sex: “Some men in porn are criminally unattractive and it defeats the willing suspension of disbelief: Why is this gorgeous woman having sex with this jerk???” The men struck another viewer as “always ugly, or heavy set” so “I really couldn’t fathom the thought that these lovely ladies were having casual sex with the gross guys.” A third called the men “butt-ugly” and concluded, Those women must be miserable...
'In still shots, the men always seemed sort of phony and posed, with stupid looks on their faces,” wrote another man, adding that “I find with porn specifically (and with any sort of modeling or fashion photography in general), the models usually seem to have the most unappealing expressions, sort of the ‘You killed my dog; now I’m going to have to kill you’ look.'.
An Australian programmer/analyst agreed: “They often don’t seem to be enjoying it much. Also, many of the guys in videos seem to be a bit limp even when they’re supposed to be hard.”
This fact also struck another man as odd:
'I’ve seen so many videos in which the people take their clothes off, and the man still is not fully erect. The woman spends time getting him hard with her hands and mouth. This is nothing like my experience—by the time my clothes came off in most of my sexual encounters, I was hard as a rock. I wonder if having done it over and over for cameras has made sex with almost anybody less exciting for them. Bottom line: it’s unrealistic and it’s a distraction that takes my mind out of the fantasy.'
One man pondered the emotional state of such men:
'They all seem so empty. I’ve found the men a real big turn-off at times. And it’s not really a competition thing for me. It’s not that I identify them as competition and don’t want them in the picture. It’s that I know there is a lot more to being sexy than just having a big dick and keeping it up for an hour. Most of the men in porn lack any kind of subtlety or expression of desire other than grabbing the nearest vagina and sticking it in.'
Some men said the males in pornography were less intelligent or interesting than the females. “The guys were usually dumber than the males,” one man noted. “Most of their roles are so shallow that they ould easily be replaced by dildos,” said another; “Roles for actresses tend to be considerably deeper than those for actors in pornography— though that really isn’t saying much.”
“In general their purpose seemed to be to demonstrate how good the female was,” wrote a 27-year-old married chemical engineer. He added they seemed “devoid of any character or personality, almost like a person who was asleep or drugged or at work, who could do nothing except have sex.”...
John Stoltenberg, a gay antiporn collaborator of Dworkin’s, wrote, “Male supremacist sexuality is important to pornography, and pornography is important to male supremacy. . . . Your penis is a weapon, her body is your target. . . . Because men are masters, women are slaves; men are superior, women are subordinate; men are real, women are objects; men are sex machines, women are sluts.” But not one of the men I talked to said pornography made him believe “that we are just like the
in pornography: virile, strong, tough, maybe cruel,” or that “women want to be raped, enjoy being damaged by us, deserve to be punished,” as Stoltenberg ridiculously asserts."
How Men Use Pornography
"Opponents of pornography routinely assume men use it only to aid misturbation. In Only Words, MacKinnon writes, “Pornography is masturbation material,” and adds this “is an empirical observation,” as if she had actually studied men doing it.
But quite a few other men indicated that MacKinnon’s “empirical observation doesn’t always hold. A 28-year-old editor/publisher, married seven years, who said “most of the time when I look at porn I do not masturbate at all,” explained: “I have on occasion used it with friends as an element of foreplay, and I have also used magazines such is Playboy to demonstrate poses when taking my own pictures.” The latter consisted of “personal pictures we [his wife and he] have taken for our own pleasure, or perhaps something to give to a close girlfriend of my wife.”
A 42-year-old electronic publishing specialist in his second marriage said, “I sometimes look at erotic materials without any intent of arousing myself to orgasm, but this is because I have developed an intellectual interest in the subject.” [Ed: HAHAHAHAHA]...
A corporate manager said after using porn, he felt “ready to go on to something something else, like playing the piano. Music and sex, what else is there?”...
[A] 35-year-old, a married programmer, described his response thus:
'When I use magazines, particularly bondage magazines, I often find that I feel a little bit stupid about the whole thing after I cum. I think what happens is that the magazine starts to deconstruct itself in my hands. Before I cum, I’m wrapped up in my sexual response to the women I’m looking at. After I cum, my sexual response fades, and I’m left with just the women. And then they’re not women, they’re just pictures of women. And then it’s not pictures, it’s just little dots of color on the pages of a magazine. And finally it’s not even a magazine, it’s just an object in my hands. And I paid $8 for it. How stupid. I’m happy to report that this doesn’t happen after I’ve been looking at porn on my computer. I suspect this is because there is no persisting object to deconstruct itself after I cum. Close the window, exit the program, and there’s nothing left.'...
Sharing Porn with Others
"If the story of pornography is men exercising control nver women, then it would make sense if, as adults, men gathered to enjoy the experience and direct one another toward the choicest bits of female humiliation and degradation.
However, half of the heterosexual men in the survey said they never even discussed pornography with other men, let alone perused it in their company...
“Many of the frats would hold Saturday night showings of porn flicks as a way to raise money for the house,” a married science teacher said. [Ed: New idea for Hall Inmates!]...
The most surprising finding about the shared use of porn with a spouse or lover was that just as many men said their wife or girlfriend was totally supportive of their use of pornography as those who said their significant other absolutely hated it...
Several men had seen Playgirl magazines among a lover’s possessions. “My last girlfriend and I actively enjoyed reading erotic materials together and watching videos together,” recalled a 24-year-old audio engineer. “A few actually surprised me,” a Bangladeshi man said. “The didn’t seem the type. You could imagine the expression on my face when this quiet, shy woman pulls out a 12” dildo and a bunch of Playgirl magazines.”...
Many men felt romance novels constituted female pornography. The largest consumers of porn are women, and the best-selling porn genre is written for them,” a 49-year-old British man declared. He asserted further that force is used in this women’s genre more often than in male pornography. “It’s called ‘romance,’ but usually referred to as 'bodice rippers.' The prevalence of rape fantasies in this literature has often been remarked upon. That doesn’t worry me; in fact, it’s a useful thing to cite when hypocritical feminists attack men’s pornography.”
Another Englishman ventured the opinion that “many women are interested in porn and much of what I have recently read in ‘women’s magazines’ is very sexually explicit. I know that recently a U.K. women’s magazine got rid of naked centerfolds because women were not interested in them without erections!”...
'I’d never admitted using pornography to any other girlfriend until my present one. Originally she was rather perturbed by the thought that I needed a magazine to get satisfaction. She felt inadequate and jealous that I would be giving my thoughts to a picture. She finds mental images much more satisfying and hence has trouble understanding why I would need a picture. After some very long and open conversations, I finally got her to realize that I have no kind of mental attraction towards these women. I merely use it as a visual stimulus for masturbation; I have sexual urges and pornography helps satisfy them. While she thinks of the magazines as being very pathetic, she no longer feels jealous or inadequate—it’s just a pathetic guy thing she has to put up with.'...
Of all these examples—men whose partners enjoyed sharing pornography, men whose partners were not as interested but sometimes shared porn use for the man’s sake, and men whose partners tried it once or twice and indicated they did not want to anymore—none conforms to the scenario depicted by opponents of pornography, in which men routinely cajole women into unhappy viewings of porn and force sex acts upon their partners after seeing them portrayed. In nearly all the relationships described by men in this survey, both partners sought to be considerate and discreet...
There are even gay men who accept antiporn ideology, though none that I talked to. A 32-year-old graduate student in the social sciences reported:
'Once in a while, I will take home a guy who believes the Dworkinite crap (not to insult coprophiles with the comparison) about how porn is degrading, un-PC, etc. I try to explain the importance of porn in gay male culture, and how homophobic the antiporn 'feminists' really are. I talk about how antiporn laws have the effect of facilitating government repression of gays - specifically those who are marginalized and most defenseless: rural gays. I cite the ways the Dworkin/MacKinnion legislation in Canada has resulted in confiscations of gay and lesbian political literature by customs. And that I like porn.' [Ed: In a previous chapter, it was revealed that porn is extremely important in helping gays discover their sexuality, and thus to be antiporn is to be antigay.]"
Post ID: 1666703196194967217
Watching sex : how men really respond to pornography (2/10)
"Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so." - John Stuart Mill
***
Watching sex : how men really respond to pornography / David Loftus
I Know What Boys Like:
"Several said pornography is most effective when it is believable. Others wanted to see the participants express genuine pleasure. A plot helped. So did good writing, characterization, decent acting, 'realistic' characters and acts, and a natural progression of events instead of abrupt changes...
Many men expressed annoyance and disappointment over unbelievable settings, stories, and behavior:
'For example, a woman gets out of a swimming pool and is going to have sex with a man, but first must put her high heels on!
I’ve seen amateur videos of sex and masturbation: women usually don’t make much noise when they cum. They squeal a little, or sigh and tremble for a few seconds, then it’s over. Knowing that, it’s disgusting to see women carrying on in paroxysms of shrieking ecstasy. Also, the closeups of the “passionate faces” are sometimes hard to believe. Those contorted faces look more like they’re in pain than in pleasure. Where did porn makers ever get the idea that sex has to be such unpleasant work? And the guys get so athletic, they look like they aren’t enjoying themselves at all. Like it’s just a big show, an athletic event. To me, that isn’t sex, it’s self- abuse.' [musician/writer, 48, married]...
A 40-year-old programmer in Britain. married seven years, had a similar critique but argued that it was an inevitable hazard of the genre:
'The problem is that by being underground, porn his evolved into a totally separate genre. Ideally one could find red-hot sex scenes” in an ordinary drama, or Umberto Eco-quality literary pastiche in a porn novel. In practice, the market has so split that few dare try an in-between work. The literati would sneer at the porn episodes, the pornophiles would be frustrated by the breaks for plot. I’m not trying to sound holier-than-them. I normally say that I like a bit of plot with my porn, but I remember an intensely frustrating Dutch film. Every time the “action” had been going on long enough to “inspire” my partner and I, it would switch back to the plot'...
A number of men in the survey cited the hyper-stylized porn videos of Andrew Blake as a welcome exception:
'What mystifies me is that the other film producers don’t get it—here’s a guy, new on the scene, making money hand over fist, and they make much less. Doesn’t it ever occur to them to try and figure out why he is so successful and duplicate it?'...
The flip side was that if a woman looked like she was not terribly excited, viewers were disappointed:
'The lack of enthusiasm is remarkable. Some women are moaning like they’re having a religious experience, but when they show their faces they look like they’re at an accounting seminar. The looks of boredom are amazingly blatant—so much for acting!' [business owner, 30, married seven years]...
“The biggest problem with the majority of porn I see is that the women are far too similar in body type,” said a 32-year-old bisexual man. “Someone once described the type as ‘the body of an athletic 20-year-old with the tits of a nursing mother.’...
'Some of the women are really stupid, like they couldn’t graduate from kindergarten. They are so frivolous and dorky that even their sexy bodies can’t turn me on. I’m really turned off by uneducated types in porn!'...
If the participants in this survey are any indication, clearly the sex acts men like to see in pornography are incredibly diverse. Very few acts took precedence over the others, and many different permutations were each mentioned by at least a couple of men. By far the most-cited sex act was fellatio: women performing oral sex on men. Said one man:
'I can tell the difference, when a woman “knows what she’s doing” it turns me on a lot more than when she’s clueless. Most lousy videos show clue- less women, who suck a cock by bobbing up and down violently as fast as they can (ouch!).'...
Antiporn activists who think pornography is about men exercising power over women and humiliating them should consider the fact that the number of males in my survey who wanted to see anal penetration of men equaled those who liked to see anal penetration of women...
But most men who mentioned bestiality did so because they were not into it at all. “A friend has a video of a woman having sex with a pig that is repulsive to me,” a 32-year-old public relations man related. Said a swingers club owner who had been a police officer, “I’ve seen some of the bestiality tapes. I’ve always thought: No wonder this stuff’s illegal, or should be illegal. I’ve always thought that was kind of gross. Why would anybody want to have sex with a dog?”
The most unusual example was recounted by an Australian man: “I saw a porn video at work some years ago. It depicted sex with live animals and women using live eels, which disgusted me. As I recall, these women were also defecating into a container which had these live eels. They must have been drugged to do the things that they were doing. I didn’t have to watch much before feeling ill.”
Many men also made a specific point of saying they did not like depictions of violence, and some said they were repulsed by the idea of it. A 32-year-old computer consultant, divorced, described a video scene and his reaction:
'One time I had rented a film that basically featured a guy with a humongous penis just piercing a woman’s anus without warning. Her screaming pretty much convinced me that [1] she wasn’t acting, and [2] she wasn’t crying out in pleasure. I had that video for just one day before I took it back.'...
A couple of men said the most repulsive pornographic images they had ever seen had been circulated by feminists."
The Appeal of "Lesbian" Pornography
"Antiporn activists like Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, Susan Cole, and Sheila Jeffreys have regarded the fact that so many men like this so-called “lesbian” pornography as yet another sign of hatred uward women in general, and lesbians in particular. They see males’ interest in watching chicks get it on as expressing a need to pry into and degrade every aspect of women’s lives, and insist that pornography distorts the truth about lesbians. As Dworkin asserts, such material “does not document lesbian lovemaking; in fact, it barely resembles it.”
Since “lesbian” porn does not provide an “accurate view of lesbian sexual activity,” Mariana Valverde and Lorna Weir have written, “This imaginary and distorted access to lesbianism confirms men in their 'right' to have unlimited access to any and all women, even women who are explicitly uninterested in men [and] . . . undermines all women’s right to say no and erodes the foundations of choice and consent.”
Unfortunately for Dworkin and her cohorts, most of the men in my survey clearly understood the women were not lesbians. In making a distinction between the performers and the characters they play, a 22- year-old Canadian software engineer pointed out that plots that include “lesbian” encounters often take pains to show the characters are not lesbians. “Sometimes it is implicit that they are not, but still interested in sexual experimentation.”...
A 28-year-old heterosexual man who worked for a sex magazine, roomed with a lesbian, and might be presumed to have some knowledge of the subject, declared that many of the women in pornography are, in fact, lesbians:
'Well, from professional experience, I know that a large percentage of sex workers and a high percentage of glamour models (at least on a local level—we’ve never had a big-name star pose for us) are gay. The magazine I work on is pansexual-leaning-heavily-to-the-gay-side, so this may have some impact on it, but nearly everyone I have ever met involved with the sex industry—be it stripping, photography, massage, etc.—are at least bi.'
Pro-porn author Susie Bright agrees that lesbians play a significant role in the industry. “Lesbians and die-hard bisexuals are most definitely in the front ranks of the adult movie business. In true Hollywood style, it’s okay to publicly proclaim you swing both ways, but it’s Closet City when it comes to revealing one’s preference for women.”...
Antiporn feminists like Dworkin and Cole (who also happen to be lesbians) appear to take such pornography at face value—that is, as straightforward depictions of what men believe lesbians do together— but it is clear that many and perhaps most men do not. When men say “lesbian” in this context, it is a kind of shorthand that everyone understands, even if it is not strictly accurate...
There was the wag who, when asked, “Is there anything in particular you like to see two women doing?” replied, “The dishes...
How authenticity is achieved was a matter of some disagreement. Some men put it in terms of urgency or passion. Said one, “I like to see em 69ing, pumping, sweating, really getting involved in the action.” Others thought a slow pace, a romantic approach, was more realistic and therefore more exciting. “Kissing, hugging, oral sex too, yes. But it’s the tenderness that does it for me,” wrote a 27-year-old computer analyst. I do not like to see them ramming big dildos into each other. I’d much rather see them softly licking each other, or deeply kissing.”...
Why Are “Lesbian” Scenes So Popular?
Some suggested it was simply the greater number of female bodies to look at. “If one nude woman is arousing then two are more so,” said one man.. 'My eyes can move from one back to the other and enjoy the differences.'
Men liked to see a woman enjoy sex, so the prospect of seeing two women in a state of arousal was doubly appealing. “I have a theory that most men like scenes with two women because most men like to see women enjoying sex,” wrote one respondent. “It doesn’t matter if the woman is alone, with a man, with a woman, with whatever. The turn-on is watching a woman so into sex, she will do it any way possible. Two women together just doubles the pleasure.”
Some men suggested that not only did women’s bodies present a different physical aesthetic, but there was something different about women's style of lovemaking, too. “Women are more openly sexual than men, and two women joining in their sex is extremely arousing,” one man believed. “There seems to be a greater sense of self-indulgence and enjoyment in them,” another remarked, "and the interaction is not so fixated on genital contact."
... 'I always found it fascinating, and also a turn-on, to watch women make love. I think because of my own makeup, of the harshness of everything about my life, that in the process of looking for love, I had it equating softness and gentleness and that, and somehow I feel that women are capable of giving that to each other. And that was my idea about it.'
Several responses in this vein suggested that “lesbian” pornography conveys a sense of equality, a lack of power relations between the actors, which appealed to them. “Perhaps, simply because seeing an erection is not required for the act of being ‘into it,’ the artifice works here more effectively,” one man observed.
A different physiological response to sex was raised by a 25-year-old grad student as a factor in his fascination with women in general and “lesbian” sex scenes in particular:
'I’ve had some orgasms in my time which are much more deep down, in my gut, than in my penis. And I imagine that’s what it feels like for a woman. I’m in some respects envious that women can have multiple orgasms. And I guess I’m just curious about the varieties of sex that women can have and I’m also turned on by the fact that I think that women are much more sensuous creatures than men.'
A small group of men suggested much of the appeal in “lesbian” pornography lay in the supposition that women know best what arouses and satisfies other women. “I think it is exciting because I think women probably have a better idea how to please one another than a man does. Therefore I guess that lesbian sex is more arousing and sensual for the participants, and that makes it more arousing to watch,” said a married, 24-year-old history student. “I like the way they touch each other,” a mechanic stated; “They claim that one knows how and what the other likes and it shows in their acts.”
This related to credibility: It becomes easier for the viewer to imagne the women in pornography actually enjoy themselves when other women stimulate them. This might have applications in the viewer’s own sex life. As one man said:
'Watching a woman make love to another woman tells you about how that particular woman would want to be made love to. So when female A starts licking and sucking on female B, you can learn, to a great extent, what female A likes to have done to her. So watching two women is often more exciting because you can see what they like doing or having done to them that isn’t often done by guys.'...
“It seems that the women in such scenes are very interested in having sex,
a characteristic that most women in real life don’t expose publicly.”
One man said, “It’s often ‘culturally agreed,’ or was when I was growing up, that women aren’t sexual, or certainly aren’t as much as men. Seeing a woman practically in a trance getting off as she pushes a baseball-bat size dildo in her ass kinda blows that concept out of the water.”
Some men found “lesbian” scenes appealing precisely because there are no men around. As a 40-year-old fan put it: “No hairy men. No stupid cliché cum shots.”...
'A lot of the women portray a certain sensitivity that isn’t there during a heterosexual scene.'
Other men suggested the viewer might enjoy identifying with the players: putting himself in the position of either or both of the women he is looking at. “It doesn’t require you to look at a man and sort out your feelings about that,” said one:
'The appeal of lesbian sex to heterosexual males is that the fantasy of the encounter can be visualized from either partner’s point of view. I find it much easier to visualize myself as a gay woman (I wouldn’t have to change my preference) than a straight woman.'
Of the men who said they imagined themselves as one of the women, only a few specified a role, and it was invariably the passive one. “Maybe I imagine myself in the position of the subservient woman in such scenes,” one man wrote. “Sometimes I imagine myself as one of the women being seduced by the other woman,” said a 33-year-old man whose wife of 8 years had been his only sex partner. This does not accord with the antiporn notion that men go to pornography to see and experience power over women; here, the men not only got off on pretending to be a woman, but expressly chose to be the subservient one.
Some of the men ruled out being one of the women because they did not wish to intrude on the scene. “I never imagined being a woman or being directly with them because I wanted to learn and see what they would do without knowing I was there,” said a 23-year-old bisexual man who preferred women as sex partners. A 43-year-old accountant agreed: “I imagine I am watching them with or without their knowledge.”...
A 27-year-old computer analyst said his preference was highly contextual:
'Sure [I’d like to join them]. But only if I think they’d welcome it. I wouldn’t want to be an unwelcome intruder bothering two true lesbians. But as a partner willingly welcomed into a threesome with two hot bisexual women—oh, my, yes. A “me sandwich” is a very nice idea.'...
The accent on kissing, and the fact that a fair number of men didn’t project any man into a scene with two women, suggests that it is feminine beauty and the sight of women enjoying sexual pleasure— no matter whom they’re with—that thrills most male viewers. That SO many men said they envied women, and wished they could know what it was like to be a woman enjoying sex, flies in the face of the notion that male viewers get off on the domination, degradation, and pain of women."
***
Watching sex : how men really respond to pornography / David Loftus
I Know What Boys Like:
"Several said pornography is most effective when it is believable. Others wanted to see the participants express genuine pleasure. A plot helped. So did good writing, characterization, decent acting, 'realistic' characters and acts, and a natural progression of events instead of abrupt changes...
Many men expressed annoyance and disappointment over unbelievable settings, stories, and behavior:
'For example, a woman gets out of a swimming pool and is going to have sex with a man, but first must put her high heels on!
I’ve seen amateur videos of sex and masturbation: women usually don’t make much noise when they cum. They squeal a little, or sigh and tremble for a few seconds, then it’s over. Knowing that, it’s disgusting to see women carrying on in paroxysms of shrieking ecstasy. Also, the closeups of the “passionate faces” are sometimes hard to believe. Those contorted faces look more like they’re in pain than in pleasure. Where did porn makers ever get the idea that sex has to be such unpleasant work? And the guys get so athletic, they look like they aren’t enjoying themselves at all. Like it’s just a big show, an athletic event. To me, that isn’t sex, it’s self- abuse.' [musician/writer, 48, married]...
A 40-year-old programmer in Britain. married seven years, had a similar critique but argued that it was an inevitable hazard of the genre:
'The problem is that by being underground, porn his evolved into a totally separate genre. Ideally one could find red-hot sex scenes” in an ordinary drama, or Umberto Eco-quality literary pastiche in a porn novel. In practice, the market has so split that few dare try an in-between work. The literati would sneer at the porn episodes, the pornophiles would be frustrated by the breaks for plot. I’m not trying to sound holier-than-them. I normally say that I like a bit of plot with my porn, but I remember an intensely frustrating Dutch film. Every time the “action” had been going on long enough to “inspire” my partner and I, it would switch back to the plot'...
A number of men in the survey cited the hyper-stylized porn videos of Andrew Blake as a welcome exception:
'What mystifies me is that the other film producers don’t get it—here’s a guy, new on the scene, making money hand over fist, and they make much less. Doesn’t it ever occur to them to try and figure out why he is so successful and duplicate it?'...
The flip side was that if a woman looked like she was not terribly excited, viewers were disappointed:
'The lack of enthusiasm is remarkable. Some women are moaning like they’re having a religious experience, but when they show their faces they look like they’re at an accounting seminar. The looks of boredom are amazingly blatant—so much for acting!' [business owner, 30, married seven years]...
“The biggest problem with the majority of porn I see is that the women are far too similar in body type,” said a 32-year-old bisexual man. “Someone once described the type as ‘the body of an athletic 20-year-old with the tits of a nursing mother.’...
'Some of the women are really stupid, like they couldn’t graduate from kindergarten. They are so frivolous and dorky that even their sexy bodies can’t turn me on. I’m really turned off by uneducated types in porn!'...
If the participants in this survey are any indication, clearly the sex acts men like to see in pornography are incredibly diverse. Very few acts took precedence over the others, and many different permutations were each mentioned by at least a couple of men. By far the most-cited sex act was fellatio: women performing oral sex on men. Said one man:
'I can tell the difference, when a woman “knows what she’s doing” it turns me on a lot more than when she’s clueless. Most lousy videos show clue- less women, who suck a cock by bobbing up and down violently as fast as they can (ouch!).'...
Antiporn activists who think pornography is about men exercising power over women and humiliating them should consider the fact that the number of males in my survey who wanted to see anal penetration of men equaled those who liked to see anal penetration of women...
But most men who mentioned bestiality did so because they were not into it at all. “A friend has a video of a woman having sex with a pig that is repulsive to me,” a 32-year-old public relations man related. Said a swingers club owner who had been a police officer, “I’ve seen some of the bestiality tapes. I’ve always thought: No wonder this stuff’s illegal, or should be illegal. I’ve always thought that was kind of gross. Why would anybody want to have sex with a dog?”
The most unusual example was recounted by an Australian man: “I saw a porn video at work some years ago. It depicted sex with live animals and women using live eels, which disgusted me. As I recall, these women were also defecating into a container which had these live eels. They must have been drugged to do the things that they were doing. I didn’t have to watch much before feeling ill.”
Many men also made a specific point of saying they did not like depictions of violence, and some said they were repulsed by the idea of it. A 32-year-old computer consultant, divorced, described a video scene and his reaction:
'One time I had rented a film that basically featured a guy with a humongous penis just piercing a woman’s anus without warning. Her screaming pretty much convinced me that [1] she wasn’t acting, and [2] she wasn’t crying out in pleasure. I had that video for just one day before I took it back.'...
A couple of men said the most repulsive pornographic images they had ever seen had been circulated by feminists."
The Appeal of "Lesbian" Pornography
"Antiporn activists like Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, Susan Cole, and Sheila Jeffreys have regarded the fact that so many men like this so-called “lesbian” pornography as yet another sign of hatred uward women in general, and lesbians in particular. They see males’ interest in watching chicks get it on as expressing a need to pry into and degrade every aspect of women’s lives, and insist that pornography distorts the truth about lesbians. As Dworkin asserts, such material “does not document lesbian lovemaking; in fact, it barely resembles it.”
Since “lesbian” porn does not provide an “accurate view of lesbian sexual activity,” Mariana Valverde and Lorna Weir have written, “This imaginary and distorted access to lesbianism confirms men in their 'right' to have unlimited access to any and all women, even women who are explicitly uninterested in men [and] . . . undermines all women’s right to say no and erodes the foundations of choice and consent.”
Unfortunately for Dworkin and her cohorts, most of the men in my survey clearly understood the women were not lesbians. In making a distinction between the performers and the characters they play, a 22- year-old Canadian software engineer pointed out that plots that include “lesbian” encounters often take pains to show the characters are not lesbians. “Sometimes it is implicit that they are not, but still interested in sexual experimentation.”...
A 28-year-old heterosexual man who worked for a sex magazine, roomed with a lesbian, and might be presumed to have some knowledge of the subject, declared that many of the women in pornography are, in fact, lesbians:
'Well, from professional experience, I know that a large percentage of sex workers and a high percentage of glamour models (at least on a local level—we’ve never had a big-name star pose for us) are gay. The magazine I work on is pansexual-leaning-heavily-to-the-gay-side, so this may have some impact on it, but nearly everyone I have ever met involved with the sex industry—be it stripping, photography, massage, etc.—are at least bi.'
Pro-porn author Susie Bright agrees that lesbians play a significant role in the industry. “Lesbians and die-hard bisexuals are most definitely in the front ranks of the adult movie business. In true Hollywood style, it’s okay to publicly proclaim you swing both ways, but it’s Closet City when it comes to revealing one’s preference for women.”...
Antiporn feminists like Dworkin and Cole (who also happen to be lesbians) appear to take such pornography at face value—that is, as straightforward depictions of what men believe lesbians do together— but it is clear that many and perhaps most men do not. When men say “lesbian” in this context, it is a kind of shorthand that everyone understands, even if it is not strictly accurate...
There was the wag who, when asked, “Is there anything in particular you like to see two women doing?” replied, “The dishes...
How authenticity is achieved was a matter of some disagreement. Some men put it in terms of urgency or passion. Said one, “I like to see em 69ing, pumping, sweating, really getting involved in the action.” Others thought a slow pace, a romantic approach, was more realistic and therefore more exciting. “Kissing, hugging, oral sex too, yes. But it’s the tenderness that does it for me,” wrote a 27-year-old computer analyst. I do not like to see them ramming big dildos into each other. I’d much rather see them softly licking each other, or deeply kissing.”...
Why Are “Lesbian” Scenes So Popular?
Some suggested it was simply the greater number of female bodies to look at. “If one nude woman is arousing then two are more so,” said one man.. 'My eyes can move from one back to the other and enjoy the differences.'
Men liked to see a woman enjoy sex, so the prospect of seeing two women in a state of arousal was doubly appealing. “I have a theory that most men like scenes with two women because most men like to see women enjoying sex,” wrote one respondent. “It doesn’t matter if the woman is alone, with a man, with a woman, with whatever. The turn-on is watching a woman so into sex, she will do it any way possible. Two women together just doubles the pleasure.”
Some men suggested that not only did women’s bodies present a different physical aesthetic, but there was something different about women's style of lovemaking, too. “Women are more openly sexual than men, and two women joining in their sex is extremely arousing,” one man believed. “There seems to be a greater sense of self-indulgence and enjoyment in them,” another remarked, "and the interaction is not so fixated on genital contact."
... 'I always found it fascinating, and also a turn-on, to watch women make love. I think because of my own makeup, of the harshness of everything about my life, that in the process of looking for love, I had it equating softness and gentleness and that, and somehow I feel that women are capable of giving that to each other. And that was my idea about it.'
Several responses in this vein suggested that “lesbian” pornography conveys a sense of equality, a lack of power relations between the actors, which appealed to them. “Perhaps, simply because seeing an erection is not required for the act of being ‘into it,’ the artifice works here more effectively,” one man observed.
A different physiological response to sex was raised by a 25-year-old grad student as a factor in his fascination with women in general and “lesbian” sex scenes in particular:
'I’ve had some orgasms in my time which are much more deep down, in my gut, than in my penis. And I imagine that’s what it feels like for a woman. I’m in some respects envious that women can have multiple orgasms. And I guess I’m just curious about the varieties of sex that women can have and I’m also turned on by the fact that I think that women are much more sensuous creatures than men.'
A small group of men suggested much of the appeal in “lesbian” pornography lay in the supposition that women know best what arouses and satisfies other women. “I think it is exciting because I think women probably have a better idea how to please one another than a man does. Therefore I guess that lesbian sex is more arousing and sensual for the participants, and that makes it more arousing to watch,” said a married, 24-year-old history student. “I like the way they touch each other,” a mechanic stated; “They claim that one knows how and what the other likes and it shows in their acts.”
This related to credibility: It becomes easier for the viewer to imagne the women in pornography actually enjoy themselves when other women stimulate them. This might have applications in the viewer’s own sex life. As one man said:
'Watching a woman make love to another woman tells you about how that particular woman would want to be made love to. So when female A starts licking and sucking on female B, you can learn, to a great extent, what female A likes to have done to her. So watching two women is often more exciting because you can see what they like doing or having done to them that isn’t often done by guys.'...
“It seems that the women in such scenes are very interested in having sex,
a characteristic that most women in real life don’t expose publicly.”
One man said, “It’s often ‘culturally agreed,’ or was when I was growing up, that women aren’t sexual, or certainly aren’t as much as men. Seeing a woman practically in a trance getting off as she pushes a baseball-bat size dildo in her ass kinda blows that concept out of the water.”
Some men found “lesbian” scenes appealing precisely because there are no men around. As a 40-year-old fan put it: “No hairy men. No stupid cliché cum shots.”...
'A lot of the women portray a certain sensitivity that isn’t there during a heterosexual scene.'
Other men suggested the viewer might enjoy identifying with the players: putting himself in the position of either or both of the women he is looking at. “It doesn’t require you to look at a man and sort out your feelings about that,” said one:
'The appeal of lesbian sex to heterosexual males is that the fantasy of the encounter can be visualized from either partner’s point of view. I find it much easier to visualize myself as a gay woman (I wouldn’t have to change my preference) than a straight woman.'
Of the men who said they imagined themselves as one of the women, only a few specified a role, and it was invariably the passive one. “Maybe I imagine myself in the position of the subservient woman in such scenes,” one man wrote. “Sometimes I imagine myself as one of the women being seduced by the other woman,” said a 33-year-old man whose wife of 8 years had been his only sex partner. This does not accord with the antiporn notion that men go to pornography to see and experience power over women; here, the men not only got off on pretending to be a woman, but expressly chose to be the subservient one.
Some of the men ruled out being one of the women because they did not wish to intrude on the scene. “I never imagined being a woman or being directly with them because I wanted to learn and see what they would do without knowing I was there,” said a 23-year-old bisexual man who preferred women as sex partners. A 43-year-old accountant agreed: “I imagine I am watching them with or without their knowledge.”...
A 27-year-old computer analyst said his preference was highly contextual:
'Sure [I’d like to join them]. But only if I think they’d welcome it. I wouldn’t want to be an unwelcome intruder bothering two true lesbians. But as a partner willingly welcomed into a threesome with two hot bisexual women—oh, my, yes. A “me sandwich” is a very nice idea.'...
The accent on kissing, and the fact that a fair number of men didn’t project any man into a scene with two women, suggests that it is feminine beauty and the sight of women enjoying sexual pleasure— no matter whom they’re with—that thrills most male viewers. That SO many men said they envied women, and wished they could know what it was like to be a woman enjoying sex, flies in the face of the notion that male viewers get off on the domination, degradation, and pain of women."
Post ID: 5663142782213116205
Watching sex : how men really respond to pornography (1/10)
"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." - Mae West
***
Watching sex : how men really respond to pornography / David Loftus:
Introduction:
"In a much-quoted 1974 essay, Robin Morgan launched one of the most famous salvos against pornography when she declared: 'Pornography is the theory, rape the practice.' Within seven years, Laura Lederer's Take Back the Night: Women on Pornography, Andrea Dworkin's Pornography: Men Possessing Women, and Susan Griffin's Pornography and Silence: Culture's Revolt Against Nature had all been published...
There was something un-feminist about all this. The women's movement had correctly championed the notion that the individual has the right to define reality for herself. It sought to correct millennia of men defining women's reality. But some women turned around and committed the same offense against men. Their books were filled with peremptory assertions about what happened to men who look at porn, and none of it was good. 'Pornography is often more sexually compelling than the realities it presents, more sexually real than reality,' wrote MacKinnon. Sooner or later, all men want to live out the fantasies depicted in pornography, she asserted. But how could she know this? Where was her evidence?...
Within the last decade, the public debate has shifted. Feminist scholars such as Lynne Segal, Linda Williams, Lynn Hunt, Alison Assiter, Avedon Carol, and Laura Kipnis have supported pornography and explored its history. National ACLU president Nadine Strossen published Defending Pornography, and Canadian activist Wendy McElroy authored XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography. Feminist performance artists and writers such as Susie Bright, Pat Califia, Candida Royalle, and Annie Sprinkle produced their own porn as well as declared their support for it and championed the practice of sadomasochistic sex...
What's wrong with this picture?
There are still no men in it...
I decided to find out by doing something no one had ever done: ask the men themselves. I talked to nearly 150 men, some in person, some on the Internet. Their answers might surprise you. Among other things, they said:
1. They would like to see more plot and romance in pornography.
2. They do not particularly enjoy closeups of genitals.
3. They not only do not find violence against women or domination of women sexy, they are specifically turned off by such behavior... and most haven't even seen any.
4. Though they enjoy looking at women having sex with women, they don't believe the women pictured are actually lesbians.
5. They have not sought ever more vivid, kinky, and violent pornography...
6. They don't like the way men are portrayed in pornography."
Unveilings: Men's First Exposures to Pornography:
"'I think I first masturbated to images of 'ethnic' women in National Geographic. This magazine is more pornographic than many would like to admit.'...
For the most part, the sharing of erotic magazines and pornographic materials was a remarkably free and egalitarian experience. Men rarely reported a boy charging others for a look, for instance. When one boy found something, he either kept it to himself or shared freely...
Of course when porn was brought to school, there was a dynamic of asserting power over other boys - 'I'm better than you because I have this stuff' - but this material was still freely circulated as part of gaining social cachet. The everyday competitiveness and aggression of boys and young men was seemingly put on hold in the face of the mystery of girls and what they looked like under their clothes...
'I didn't know what masturbation was. I looked the word up in the dictionary that came with our '60s Encyclopedia Britannica and it said 'to gratify oneself.' I imagined someone staring into a mirror and saying, 'I'm so great, I'm so great.''...
A few boys were introduced to pornography by girls. This should not be surprising in view of the fact that there was so much of it available for discovery in parents' bedrooms and closets and on the street. Before the great divide of puberty, boys and girls can be similarly inquisitive and nonjudgmental about matters of sex and nudity...
Many men remarked that their interest was captured by the female form and its beauty... Not a single man reported that he felt a sense of dominance over women, or enjoyed seeing them in humilitating positions...
If, as antiporn theorists contend, the attraction of pornography lies in experiencing power over an exposed, vulnerable, degraded woman (as opposed to, say, sexual arousal, delight in the positive attitude of the models, and appreciation of feminine beauty), then one might suppose that even closeted gays would derive pleasure from heterosexual pornography. After all, gay or not, they are still men in a patriarchal society, and women are 'only women.' But even though some gay males wished they could be turned on by heterosexual pornography, most simply were not...
Just as shared consumption of pornography could foster male bonding, so traditional male bonding situations had a tendency to encourage porn consumption. Several men had their first exposure to pornography among Boy Scouts on a campout of paper recyling drive...
What's essential about men's first exposures to pornography is that whatever the context, it never had primarily to do with objectifying or degrading women."
Growing Up: The Social Context:
"Several survey participants accused their parents of hypocrisy. Although his mother frowned on 'pornography and related things,' an audio engineer said she 'reads Harlequin romances which have very steamy sex scenes in them.' Another man recalled that the official parental line was 'we don't want that stuff in our house,' and his mother made it apparent that she considered it 'filth'; but when the boy got his hands on some magazines and a video in eighth grade, they confiscated them... but did not dispose of them...
One of the dangers of vehement opposition from the church, parents, or society was that if a boy concluded they were lying or wrong about pornography, he was more likely to question everything they told him... 'I slowly began to realize that sex was a natural part of human existence, though, which shook my faith in my religion. After all, why would God build such desires within us if they were bad?'"
***
Watching sex : how men really respond to pornography / David Loftus:
Introduction:
"In a much-quoted 1974 essay, Robin Morgan launched one of the most famous salvos against pornography when she declared: 'Pornography is the theory, rape the practice.' Within seven years, Laura Lederer's Take Back the Night: Women on Pornography, Andrea Dworkin's Pornography: Men Possessing Women, and Susan Griffin's Pornography and Silence: Culture's Revolt Against Nature had all been published...
There was something un-feminist about all this. The women's movement had correctly championed the notion that the individual has the right to define reality for herself. It sought to correct millennia of men defining women's reality. But some women turned around and committed the same offense against men. Their books were filled with peremptory assertions about what happened to men who look at porn, and none of it was good. 'Pornography is often more sexually compelling than the realities it presents, more sexually real than reality,' wrote MacKinnon. Sooner or later, all men want to live out the fantasies depicted in pornography, she asserted. But how could she know this? Where was her evidence?...
Within the last decade, the public debate has shifted. Feminist scholars such as Lynne Segal, Linda Williams, Lynn Hunt, Alison Assiter, Avedon Carol, and Laura Kipnis have supported pornography and explored its history. National ACLU president Nadine Strossen published Defending Pornography, and Canadian activist Wendy McElroy authored XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography. Feminist performance artists and writers such as Susie Bright, Pat Califia, Candida Royalle, and Annie Sprinkle produced their own porn as well as declared their support for it and championed the practice of sadomasochistic sex...
What's wrong with this picture?
There are still no men in it...
I decided to find out by doing something no one had ever done: ask the men themselves. I talked to nearly 150 men, some in person, some on the Internet. Their answers might surprise you. Among other things, they said:
1. They would like to see more plot and romance in pornography.
2. They do not particularly enjoy closeups of genitals.
3. They not only do not find violence against women or domination of women sexy, they are specifically turned off by such behavior... and most haven't even seen any.
4. Though they enjoy looking at women having sex with women, they don't believe the women pictured are actually lesbians.
5. They have not sought ever more vivid, kinky, and violent pornography...
6. They don't like the way men are portrayed in pornography."
Unveilings: Men's First Exposures to Pornography:
"'I think I first masturbated to images of 'ethnic' women in National Geographic. This magazine is more pornographic than many would like to admit.'...
For the most part, the sharing of erotic magazines and pornographic materials was a remarkably free and egalitarian experience. Men rarely reported a boy charging others for a look, for instance. When one boy found something, he either kept it to himself or shared freely...
Of course when porn was brought to school, there was a dynamic of asserting power over other boys - 'I'm better than you because I have this stuff' - but this material was still freely circulated as part of gaining social cachet. The everyday competitiveness and aggression of boys and young men was seemingly put on hold in the face of the mystery of girls and what they looked like under their clothes...
'I didn't know what masturbation was. I looked the word up in the dictionary that came with our '60s Encyclopedia Britannica and it said 'to gratify oneself.' I imagined someone staring into a mirror and saying, 'I'm so great, I'm so great.''...
A few boys were introduced to pornography by girls. This should not be surprising in view of the fact that there was so much of it available for discovery in parents' bedrooms and closets and on the street. Before the great divide of puberty, boys and girls can be similarly inquisitive and nonjudgmental about matters of sex and nudity...
Many men remarked that their interest was captured by the female form and its beauty... Not a single man reported that he felt a sense of dominance over women, or enjoyed seeing them in humilitating positions...
If, as antiporn theorists contend, the attraction of pornography lies in experiencing power over an exposed, vulnerable, degraded woman (as opposed to, say, sexual arousal, delight in the positive attitude of the models, and appreciation of feminine beauty), then one might suppose that even closeted gays would derive pleasure from heterosexual pornography. After all, gay or not, they are still men in a patriarchal society, and women are 'only women.' But even though some gay males wished they could be turned on by heterosexual pornography, most simply were not...
Just as shared consumption of pornography could foster male bonding, so traditional male bonding situations had a tendency to encourage porn consumption. Several men had their first exposure to pornography among Boy Scouts on a campout of paper recyling drive...
What's essential about men's first exposures to pornography is that whatever the context, it never had primarily to do with objectifying or degrading women."
Growing Up: The Social Context:
"Several survey participants accused their parents of hypocrisy. Although his mother frowned on 'pornography and related things,' an audio engineer said she 'reads Harlequin romances which have very steamy sex scenes in them.' Another man recalled that the official parental line was 'we don't want that stuff in our house,' and his mother made it apparent that she considered it 'filth'; but when the boy got his hands on some magazines and a video in eighth grade, they confiscated them... but did not dispose of them...
One of the dangers of vehement opposition from the church, parents, or society was that if a boy concluded they were lying or wrong about pornography, he was more likely to question everything they told him... 'I slowly began to realize that sex was a natural part of human existence, though, which shook my faith in my religion. After all, why would God build such desires within us if they were bad?'"
Post ID: 3935650600847676301
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
"A good wife always forgives her husband when she's wrong." - Milton Berle
***
Gender Differences in Preferences
"If women prefer jobs that are less risky, more socially virtuous and less competitive, then this could explain part of the gender differences in the labor market...
This article has reviewed a stream of experimental literature on gender differences in risk preferences, social preferences and competitive preferences. In general, this literature has documented fundamental preference differences between the two genders (with exceptions noted in the text). These differences are consistent with preference-based explanations for the gender gap in wages.
For example, most lab and field studies indicate that women are more risk-averse than men (section 2). This risk-aversion can lead to the attraction of women to jobs with lower mean, lower-variance salaries. This preference-based explanation is consistent with some gender-gap evidence without resorting to discrimination arguments.
A number of studies also indicate that women’s social preferences are more sensitive to subtle cues than are men’s (section 3). This can lead women to choose professions which they think are socially appropriate for women, based on the cues they observe about the workforce (for example, what proportion of women are in this given profession).
Finally, a third stream of literature suggests that women’s preferences for competitive situations are lower than men’s. This can lead women to choose professions with less competition (and again to end up receiving lower wages on average). It can also lead to women earning less or advancing more slowly within a given profession...
One important and interesting question about these differences is whether they are ingrained or taught. By taking a step back and asking what causes the gender difference we can also connect some of the different elements discussed in this paper. For example, a large body of literature in evolutionary biology and socio-biology documents differences in competitiveness between males and females, in many species. This literature argues that the differences in competitiveness arise because, due to differences in the cost of reproduction, competitive males will attempt to mate at every opportunity. Females, on the other hand, are inherently choosy, reserving their favors for the strongest suitor.
Connecting competitive behavior with risk taking, Dekel and Scotchmer (1999) developed an evolutionary model of preference-formation, to investigate to what extent evolution leads to risk-taking in winner-take-all environments (like reproduction). They show that winner-take-all games are related to the survival of risk-takers and the extinction of risk-averters. Since in many species a winner-take-all game determines the males’ right to reproduce, the argument suggests that males will evolve to be risk-takers.
Similar evolutionary explanations are consistent with women being more sensitive to social cues than men. In exercising choosiness about mate selection, women who were sensitive to these cues could, on average, produce more fit offspring than those who were not. In contrast this increased sensitivity did not affect a male’s chance of reproduction, and was thus not selected for.
Indirect evidence on the nature/nurture question comes from the studies with children (before nurture has full impact) and cross-culturally (when nature remains constant but nurture changes). The evidence we have here suggests that gender differences in preferences remain among children and in different cultures, providing support for the nature over nurture explanation. Of course, some cultural differences have been identified, suggesting that nurture has an effect as well."
Finally - something to throw at those who ask me to justify my observation that women are more risk averse.
Nothing yet about irrationality, paranoia or gullibility, though (then again, paranoia is an extreme form of risk averseness).
***
Gender Differences in Preferences
"If women prefer jobs that are less risky, more socially virtuous and less competitive, then this could explain part of the gender differences in the labor market...
This article has reviewed a stream of experimental literature on gender differences in risk preferences, social preferences and competitive preferences. In general, this literature has documented fundamental preference differences between the two genders (with exceptions noted in the text). These differences are consistent with preference-based explanations for the gender gap in wages.
For example, most lab and field studies indicate that women are more risk-averse than men (section 2). This risk-aversion can lead to the attraction of women to jobs with lower mean, lower-variance salaries. This preference-based explanation is consistent with some gender-gap evidence without resorting to discrimination arguments.
A number of studies also indicate that women’s social preferences are more sensitive to subtle cues than are men’s (section 3). This can lead women to choose professions which they think are socially appropriate for women, based on the cues they observe about the workforce (for example, what proportion of women are in this given profession).
Finally, a third stream of literature suggests that women’s preferences for competitive situations are lower than men’s. This can lead women to choose professions with less competition (and again to end up receiving lower wages on average). It can also lead to women earning less or advancing more slowly within a given profession...
One important and interesting question about these differences is whether they are ingrained or taught. By taking a step back and asking what causes the gender difference we can also connect some of the different elements discussed in this paper. For example, a large body of literature in evolutionary biology and socio-biology documents differences in competitiveness between males and females, in many species. This literature argues that the differences in competitiveness arise because, due to differences in the cost of reproduction, competitive males will attempt to mate at every opportunity. Females, on the other hand, are inherently choosy, reserving their favors for the strongest suitor.
Connecting competitive behavior with risk taking, Dekel and Scotchmer (1999) developed an evolutionary model of preference-formation, to investigate to what extent evolution leads to risk-taking in winner-take-all environments (like reproduction). They show that winner-take-all games are related to the survival of risk-takers and the extinction of risk-averters. Since in many species a winner-take-all game determines the males’ right to reproduce, the argument suggests that males will evolve to be risk-takers.
Similar evolutionary explanations are consistent with women being more sensitive to social cues than men. In exercising choosiness about mate selection, women who were sensitive to these cues could, on average, produce more fit offspring than those who were not. In contrast this increased sensitivity did not affect a male’s chance of reproduction, and was thus not selected for.
Indirect evidence on the nature/nurture question comes from the studies with children (before nurture has full impact) and cross-culturally (when nature remains constant but nurture changes). The evidence we have here suggests that gender differences in preferences remain among children and in different cultures, providing support for the nature over nurture explanation. Of course, some cultural differences have been identified, suggesting that nurture has an effect as well."
Finally - something to throw at those who ask me to justify my observation that women are more risk averse.
Nothing yet about irrationality, paranoia or gullibility, though (then again, paranoia is an extreme form of risk averseness).
Post ID: 4971250665995658219
Meditating on the words of the Lord (specifically Deuteronomy 32:35) to help cope with a current existential dilemma have put me in a righteous fervour, thus I am inspired to help prop up Gabriel's defence against the face of blustering stupidity of people who don't realise that putting your image voluntarily on the net can haunt you forever without adequate control (to Gabriel: Now you understand my paranoia)
For the uninitiated, the post below refers to a little fracas Gabriel had when putting up semi-gravure kawaii pics of a NTU academic that were on a public website/blog and simultaneously linking to her NTU profile. Below are excerpts from the conversations quoted on the deleted post without the photos/urls (Gabriel is either too cowardly or too lazy to only take down the photos - readers who know him should be able to guess which).
I also think Asst. Prof Xu Rong should count herself damn lucky that Gabriel is both nice enough to accede to her request as well as indolent enough to desire avoidance of confrontation - other parties would have been more belligerent - and rightfully so - in the face of an (implied) threat with no substance.
Convo excerpts follow:
A: i dont know........... im not 100% convinced
Me: ...........and dawn yang didn't have plastic surgery
B: she looks slightly different leh
Me: yah it's called makeup and photography
B: no la i tot its the mouth parthahha
her mouth looks different in both photos
ok la maybe its just the smile i guess
Me: haha modelling must pout mah
MFTTW: Specialization in instrumentation techniques and data interpretation for GC, XRD, FTIR, UV-vis, ICP, EA, TGA/DTA/DSC, in situ TGA-IR, BET, XPS, AFM, SEM, TEM
hahahahhaha that is soooo bogus
that is like saying ... "if you printed a paper and you can't read what is printed on the paper we'll help to "interpret" the data"
...i think sg univs are still quite conservative in their opinions of having professors post bikini photos online
Me: that's why not world class...
MFTTW: actually to be honest i was more ocncerned with her NUS bs-ms-phd credentialsi supose now that NUS is top 20 universiites in the world our phds are considered "world-class"
C: er if she wasn't a prof i'd say ok
Me: hahahaha you don't like smart women ah
C: i got no prob with smart women lajust think tt profs shdn't parade in bikinis. somehow it feels wrong
Cock: sooo....she's a hot bod academicthat isn't actually unusual.questions arise whether or not it would be improved by losing those glasses.but it is fine as it is, as far as i can tell.
Me: not unusual meh
academics are all...
anyway when did you last find an academic who's a model?!
Cock: not many, but many fit and astonishingly intelligent people.exist. in oxford.
D: She is another perfect reason for Singaporeans to hate china women
....Not only do china women seduce cheekopeks at kopitiams, they are starting to target the young 'uns too
And take away our jobs, positions
Foreign talent.
E: chey. i thought you were goingto show me some sex video she featured in or something
F: are they the same person?
Me: am I fat?
F: no
Me: ...
G: who is thislooks like your ex gf
H: oh she's a model?I thought those were personal pictures that someone put up
Me: ...WHO TAKES PERSONAL PICS LIKE THAT
H: I would if I had a girlfriend who looked like that!
I: fake boobs i think
the shape
J: damn gross lol she is prob at least 28and she acts like she is 15
gross cause she acts so young
thats the most offensive...u are suddenly so forgiiving!
jus cause she is hot
tsk tsk
oh well i shd have expected so HA
Me: pls lah who don't I forgive
J: lol dont ask difficult qns
[Gabriel: A very good way of getting most guys to do something is to accuse them of being scared to do it.
Since banks worldwide are in trouble, the paranoia of a person who will never work in a bank is perfectly understandable.]
For the uninitiated, the post below refers to a little fracas Gabriel had when putting up semi-gravure kawaii pics of a NTU academic that were on a public website/blog and simultaneously linking to her NTU profile. Below are excerpts from the conversations quoted on the deleted post without the photos/urls (Gabriel is either too cowardly or too lazy to only take down the photos - readers who know him should be able to guess which).
I also think Asst. Prof Xu Rong should count herself damn lucky that Gabriel is both nice enough to accede to her request as well as indolent enough to desire avoidance of confrontation - other parties would have been more belligerent - and rightfully so - in the face of an (implied) threat with no substance.
Convo excerpts follow:
A: i dont know........... im not 100% convinced
Me: ...........and dawn yang didn't have plastic surgery
B: she looks slightly different leh
Me: yah it's called makeup and photography
B: no la i tot its the mouth parthahha
her mouth looks different in both photos
ok la maybe its just the smile i guess
Me: haha modelling must pout mah
MFTTW: Specialization in instrumentation techniques and data interpretation for GC, XRD, FTIR, UV-vis, ICP, EA, TGA/DTA/DSC, in situ TGA-IR, BET, XPS, AFM, SEM, TEM
hahahahhaha that is soooo bogus
that is like saying ... "if you printed a paper and you can't read what is printed on the paper we'll help to "interpret" the data"
...i think sg univs are still quite conservative in their opinions of having professors post bikini photos online
Me: that's why not world class...
MFTTW: actually to be honest i was more ocncerned with her NUS bs-ms-phd credentialsi supose now that NUS is top 20 universiites in the world our phds are considered "world-class"
C: er if she wasn't a prof i'd say ok
Me: hahahaha you don't like smart women ah
C: i got no prob with smart women lajust think tt profs shdn't parade in bikinis. somehow it feels wrong
Cock: sooo....she's a hot bod academicthat isn't actually unusual.questions arise whether or not it would be improved by losing those glasses.but it is fine as it is, as far as i can tell.
Me: not unusual meh
academics are all...
anyway when did you last find an academic who's a model?!
Cock: not many, but many fit and astonishingly intelligent people.exist. in oxford.
D: She is another perfect reason for Singaporeans to hate china women
....Not only do china women seduce cheekopeks at kopitiams, they are starting to target the young 'uns too
And take away our jobs, positions
Foreign talent.
E: chey. i thought you were goingto show me some sex video she featured in or something
F: are they the same person?
Me: am I fat?
F: no
Me: ...
G: who is thislooks like your ex gf
H: oh she's a model?I thought those were personal pictures that someone put up
Me: ...WHO TAKES PERSONAL PICS LIKE THAT
H: I would if I had a girlfriend who looked like that!
I: fake boobs i think
the shape
J: damn gross lol she is prob at least 28and she acts like she is 15
gross cause she acts so young
thats the most offensive...u are suddenly so forgiiving!
jus cause she is hot
tsk tsk
oh well i shd have expected so HA
Me: pls lah who don't I forgive
J: lol dont ask difficult qns
[Gabriel: A very good way of getting most guys to do something is to accuse them of being scared to do it.
Since banks worldwide are in trouble, the paranoia of a person who will never work in a bank is perfectly understandable.]
Post ID: 5226089314739418290
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
"Marriage is the only war where one sleeps with the enemy." - Anonymous
***
In reference to this post:
Xu Rong:
To Gabriel Seah:
http://gssq.blogspot.com/2008/01/nothing-is-more-admirable-than.html
I am writing this mail to request you to kindly remove my photos and related messages from the above Blog which is owned and managed by you according to the information given inside this Blog. They were re-posted in your blog without my permission. If no action is taken by you, I will consult a lawyer to seek advice for necessary actions.
Thank you and I appreciate your kind help.
Regards
Xu Rong
Me:
Hi Xu Rong,
I can understand that you may have strong feelings (of various kinds, and for various reasons) about this but threatening someone is not the best way to get that person to do something.
Just for your information, I am quite sure that the lawyer will tell you that you cannot do anything, since I was not being defamatory (you put the pictures and text up yourself). A case might be made for copyright infringement, but I did not post many pictures so fair use would probably cover it. In any case, even if a judge ruled in your favour I doubt you would get much in damages.
In any case, since you asked me to take the pictures down (in a fashion), I will. I assure you that it will be useless, though, since once something goes up on the Internet it is there forever.
Personally I don't think there's anything wrong with what you did, especially since the pictures were work-safe. Evidently you didn't think there was anything wrong either (since you linked to your NTU home page in your first blog post).
I think an academic who is not afraid to model, shattering the traditional mold, is something we need to see more of, but then, people are judgmental and closed-minded. You may have heard of Sarong Party Girl/Miss Izzy, who posted nude pictures of herself in the past. I think she's getting along fine now. Of course, she isn't employed by a government-linked company either, but let's hope that NTU is enlightened; a Global University of Excellence should accept that its staff have wide-ranging interests.
I hope this episode has not damaged your life/career.
Good luck.
PS: I will be posting your email and my reply on my blog as an explanation for the post's removal.
omy - 新闻 News: 南大女讲师 网上贴性感照
***
In reference to this post:
Xu Rong:
To Gabriel Seah:
http://gssq.blogspot.com/2008/01/nothing-is-more-admirable-than.html
I am writing this mail to request you to kindly remove my photos and related messages from the above Blog which is owned and managed by you according to the information given inside this Blog. They were re-posted in your blog without my permission. If no action is taken by you, I will consult a lawyer to seek advice for necessary actions.
Thank you and I appreciate your kind help.
Regards
Xu Rong
Me:
Hi Xu Rong,
I can understand that you may have strong feelings (of various kinds, and for various reasons) about this but threatening someone is not the best way to get that person to do something.
Just for your information, I am quite sure that the lawyer will tell you that you cannot do anything, since I was not being defamatory (you put the pictures and text up yourself). A case might be made for copyright infringement, but I did not post many pictures so fair use would probably cover it. In any case, even if a judge ruled in your favour I doubt you would get much in damages.
In any case, since you asked me to take the pictures down (in a fashion), I will. I assure you that it will be useless, though, since once something goes up on the Internet it is there forever.
Personally I don't think there's anything wrong with what you did, especially since the pictures were work-safe. Evidently you didn't think there was anything wrong either (since you linked to your NTU home page in your first blog post).
I think an academic who is not afraid to model, shattering the traditional mold, is something we need to see more of, but then, people are judgmental and closed-minded. You may have heard of Sarong Party Girl/Miss Izzy, who posted nude pictures of herself in the past. I think she's getting along fine now. Of course, she isn't employed by a government-linked company either, but let's hope that NTU is enlightened; a Global University of Excellence should accept that its staff have wide-ranging interests.
I hope this episode has not damaged your life/career.
Good luck.
PS: I will be posting your email and my reply on my blog as an explanation for the post's removal.
omy - 新闻 News: 南大女讲师 网上贴性感照
Post ID: 8455025891970966065
Monday, January 28, 2008
"The time not to become a father is eighteen years before a war." - E. B. White
***
u r wt u wr:
- 'Juicy girl next door'
- 'Everybody loves a brunette' (This was an artificial brunette)
- 'Cock youth' (???)
- 'I'm huggable'
- 'I just want you to know you're the most available person in my heart'
I got the following all in one day (the first day of school):
- 'So close yet so far'
- 'Float away with me' (I know the girl who wore this)
- 'Sexy is always in style'
- 'I don't want to talk to my pillow anymore'
- 'I ♥ hamburger'
- '[Speech bubble] Gotta get a guy who can drive' (this one walked past me fast, and the weird bosom shape interfered with reading)
- 'Don't interrupt me while I'm talking crap'
- 'Do me in the dark more' (the cardigan blocked the sides)
- 'FLMP' (in Lego design)
- 'Daddy's little expensive girl'
- 'Very huggable' (Contributed)
- 'Death cab for cuties. Pretty girls make graves.' (???)
- 'Life is too short to date ugly people'
- 'Beautiful vegetables' (?)
- 'Save a mouse. *picture of mouse* Eat a pussy' (Guy)
- '*Almost* handsome' (Guy)
Everytime I see someone in a scarf, I feel like pulling both ends. I've done this at least twice.
I saw a girl wearing a V-neck top. Not only was her black lacy bra peeking out the wrong way (there're ways to show off your lingerie - lacking symmetry in display and showing only the top right corner of one cup is not one), but she had a plaster on one breasts. I think I rather see a lovebite there than a plaster.
***
u r wt u wr:
- 'Juicy girl next door'
- 'Everybody loves a brunette' (This was an artificial brunette)
- 'Cock youth' (???)
- 'I'm huggable'
- 'I just want you to know you're the most available person in my heart'
I got the following all in one day (the first day of school):
- 'So close yet so far'
- 'Float away with me' (I know the girl who wore this)
- 'Sexy is always in style'
- 'I don't want to talk to my pillow anymore'
- 'I ♥ hamburger'
- '[Speech bubble] Gotta get a guy who can drive' (this one walked past me fast, and the weird bosom shape interfered with reading)
- 'Don't interrupt me while I'm talking crap'
- 'Do me in the dark more' (the cardigan blocked the sides)
- 'FLMP' (in Lego design)
- 'Daddy's little expensive girl'
- 'Very huggable' (Contributed)
- 'Death cab for cuties. Pretty girls make graves.' (???)
- 'Life is too short to date ugly people'
- 'Beautiful vegetables' (?)
- 'Save a mouse. *picture of mouse* Eat a pussy' (Guy)
- '*Almost* handsome' (Guy)
Everytime I see someone in a scarf, I feel like pulling both ends. I've done this at least twice.
I saw a girl wearing a V-neck top. Not only was her black lacy bra peeking out the wrong way (there're ways to show off your lingerie - lacking symmetry in display and showing only the top right corner of one cup is not one), but she had a plaster on one breasts. I think I rather see a lovebite there than a plaster.
Post ID: 6623665341064081317
"Woman inspires us to great things, and prevents us from achieving them." - Alexandre Dumas
***
Kent Rogowski - Bears - Teddy bears inside out.
cjho 08: Things I miss about Singapore - "2. SG Girls X_X
3. Weather. I miss wearing t-shirt, shorts and slippers everywhere!
4. Knowing for sure which side the cars are coming from.
5. Speaking Singlish.
6. Sweating. (Low humidity here. After exercise, it just feels like I have not perspired at all, and that is so weird.)"
Tim: gah
these are the reasons why i *don't* want to go back
Me: SG Girls wth
idiot
sweating is good?!?!
Searching for a definition of Britishness: Fine, but 'no motto, please' - "It was a lofty idea: Formulate a British "statement of values" defining what it means to be British, much like the Declaration of Independence sets out the ideals that help explain what it means to be American... Nor did it help when The Times of London cynically sponsored a British motto-writing contest for its readers. The readers' suggestions included "Dipso, Fatso, Bingo, Asbo, Tesco" (Asbo stands for "anti-social behavior order," a law-enforcement tool, while Tesco is a ubiquitous supermarket chain); "One Mighty Empire, Slightly Used"; "We Apologize for the Inconvenience"; and - the choice favored by 20.9 percent of the readers - "No Motto, Please, We're British."... The Earl of Mar and Kellie then suggested that the British could use the Scottish motto "Nemo me Impune Lacessit," which he translated as "do not sit on a thistle" (actually, it means "no one attacks me with impunity")... There is also talk of a "British Day," similar to Independence Day; a "museum of Britishness"; and a revisiting of the national anthem, "God Save the Queen," one of whose later verses advocates annihilating the "rebellious Scots," which is not very nice to the Scottish."
Creationists launch 'science' journal - "On 9 January, Answers in Genesis, a Christian ministry run by evangelical Ken Ham, launched Answers Research Journal (ARJ ), a free, online publication devoted to research on “recent Creation and the global Flood within a biblical framework”. Papers will be peer reviewed by those who “support the positions taken by the journal”, according to editor-in-chief Andrew Snelling, a geologist based in Brisbane, Australia."
Female genital cutting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - "One of the four Islamic schools of religious law, the Shafi'i school, rules that clitoridectomy is mandatory. Other sects are adament about the practice. In 1994, Egyptian Mufti Sheikh Jad Al-Hâqq 'Ali Jad Al-Hâqq issued a fatwa stating, "Circumcision is mandatory for men and for women. If the people of any village decide to abandon it, the village imam must fight against them as if they had abandoned the call to prayer." The Al-Azhar University in Cairo has issued several fatwas endorsing FGC, in 1949, 1951 and 1981... In the United States, as recently as 1938, FGC was advocated by Reverend Oscar Lowry as a method of preventing masturbation: "While incest and illicit commerce of the sexes is abominable, there is another even more so—if that be possible—that is, the heinous sin of self-pollution or masturbation... In some cases where there may be impingement of the clitoris, a slight operation may be necessary to relieve the tension and irritation...""
Steve Jobs Announces iSex (Video)
Portal - This modern masterpiece shakes the FPS genre to the very core - "The gun is typically regarded as a phallic symbol of masculine agency, through which power is won and maintained. In any first-person shooter, a power dynamic is reinforced between subject (the player's subjective sense of self) and object (the rest of the game world.) The player is forced to accept militarism and conquest by violence, historically masculine behaviors, as the only course of action. To play a first-person shooter is to enter into a context in which only the male perspective exists, regardless of the gender of the character or player... She acquires a Portal Gun for use in these tests; interestingly, the gun's masculine symbolism is subverted by the fact that it shoots portals rather than bullets. Portals are oval-shaped openings that are visually and spatially connected; go in one and you'll come out the other. The Portal Gun creates connections rather than destroying life. It is through innovative placement of these connections, or portals, that goals are achieved or enemies overcome. A psychoanalytic reading would likely conclude that the portal is an image of the female sex organs: oval and receptive, and also a metaphorical birth canal through which the protagonist is constantly being born into new trials."
2 Girls, 1 Cup, 1 Grandma, 1 Reaction - "Getting old people involved would be the one way you could make cup chicks even worse."
VIOLIN DUEL A DRAW FOR ANTIQUE STRADIVARIUS, NEW INSTRUMENT - ""Some like blondes; some like brunettes. Some like them slim; some like them hefty," Dr. Joseph Nagyvary contended. Hefty in this case was the 300-year-old Leonardo da Vinci Stradivarius violin, valued as high as $5 million, pitted against a slimly played violin that Nagyvary crafted in just six weeks and completed in August 2003. In all scores from the audience – whether among those who considered themselves trained musicians or those who are average concert goers – the new Nagyvary violin ranked slightly higher than the ancient Stradivarius... For those four selections, trained musicians in the audience gave the Stradivarius an average of 8.03 in tone quality and 8.0 for power while the Nagyvary violin got and average of 8.1 for tone quality and 8.33 for power. Other audience participants' votes put the Stradivarius at an average of 7.83 for quality and 7.8 for power while the Nagyvary got 8.03 for quality and 8.23 for power."
Body is found in L.A. tow yard a day after car accident - "The body of an elderly woman was discovered Sunday in the front passenger side of a crumpled car in a San Fernando Valley towing company's yard -- a day after paramedics had removed her son from the same vehicle after a crash, authorities said. The woman, whose identity was not released, had apparently been left in the car at the accident scene in Tarzana even as her son was taken to a hospital, police said... The slightly built woman had been concealed beneath an air bag that had deployed during the accident"
Full Service - Weird News Story Archive - "A new British mall is building in an innovation to attract women shoppers: a day care center — for their husbands. “Some grown-up men are very similar to small children, and most couples have anecdotes of their own to prove it,” said a spokesman for the Bluewater Retail Centre, being constructed in Kent. He added that the idea for the big-baby-sitting area came from “extensive research showing that 50 percent of couples’ shopping trips end in argument.” The creche features video games, televisions showing sports ...and beer."
The Titans In Their Twilight - "Lee, though retired, remains personally more powerful than his peers, continuing to call the shots in his role as "mentor minister." In part, this is because he seems more modern than the other patriarchs; unlike them, he refused to build a cult of personality or patronage. His success, however, was achieved in part by constraining opposition parties and the media. "The idea that Singapore is run by a meritocracy is institutionalized to such a degree that if you argue for checks and balances, you're questioning the integrity of the people at the helm," says Rodan. Some analysts think infighting in the ruling party is a real risk after the elder Lee exits the scene. His son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, "will not have the same hold" over the opaque party structure his father built, says Johns Hopkins's Welsh."
The Straight Dope: Why does the U.S. surgeon general wear a uniform? - "Uniforms had fallen into disuse until C. Everett Koop was appointed surgeon general by Ronald Reagan. Koop conceived of his post as a bully pulpit and thought the uniform (the SG is the equivalent of a three-star admiral and has a similar uniform) would get people to take him more seriously. Instead, at least at the outset, it got them to take him for an airline steward, and Koop good-naturedly hoisted a few bags into the overhead bins for fellow passengers."
Beer had seat belt, injured driver didn't - "Investigators were trying Monday to determine if a suspected drunken driver involved in a single-vehicle crash Sunday night failed to buckle his own seat belt even as the 12-pack of beer on the passenger seat was safely secured."
N.Y. man faces stalking charge - "A 20-year-old man from upstate New York was jailed in Spokane over the weekend for allegedly stalking a 15-year-old girl he claims to have met through an interactive video game... Stetar, whose MySpace page is peppered with Bible verses, said in his last entry, on Dec. 26, that he was depressed. The self-described 6-foot-2 inch, 130-pound "materials handler" for a pallet company wrote that he might want to become a teacher at a Christian school and would like to meet his future wife."
Dean Hrbacek Photoshops Body for Election Photo - "The picture, presented as a true image of the candidate, is actually a computerized composite of Hrbacek’s face and someone else’s figure, in suit and tie, from neck to knee caps. The give-away is a flawed fit of head and collar."
***
Kent Rogowski - Bears - Teddy bears inside out.
cjho 08: Things I miss about Singapore - "2. SG Girls X_X
3. Weather. I miss wearing t-shirt, shorts and slippers everywhere!
4. Knowing for sure which side the cars are coming from.
5. Speaking Singlish.
6. Sweating. (Low humidity here. After exercise, it just feels like I have not perspired at all, and that is so weird.)"
Tim: gah
these are the reasons why i *don't* want to go back
Me: SG Girls wth
idiot
sweating is good?!?!
Searching for a definition of Britishness: Fine, but 'no motto, please' - "It was a lofty idea: Formulate a British "statement of values" defining what it means to be British, much like the Declaration of Independence sets out the ideals that help explain what it means to be American... Nor did it help when The Times of London cynically sponsored a British motto-writing contest for its readers. The readers' suggestions included "Dipso, Fatso, Bingo, Asbo, Tesco" (Asbo stands for "anti-social behavior order," a law-enforcement tool, while Tesco is a ubiquitous supermarket chain); "One Mighty Empire, Slightly Used"; "We Apologize for the Inconvenience"; and - the choice favored by 20.9 percent of the readers - "No Motto, Please, We're British."... The Earl of Mar and Kellie then suggested that the British could use the Scottish motto "Nemo me Impune Lacessit," which he translated as "do not sit on a thistle" (actually, it means "no one attacks me with impunity")... There is also talk of a "British Day," similar to Independence Day; a "museum of Britishness"; and a revisiting of the national anthem, "God Save the Queen," one of whose later verses advocates annihilating the "rebellious Scots," which is not very nice to the Scottish."
Creationists launch 'science' journal - "On 9 January, Answers in Genesis, a Christian ministry run by evangelical Ken Ham, launched Answers Research Journal (ARJ ), a free, online publication devoted to research on “recent Creation and the global Flood within a biblical framework”. Papers will be peer reviewed by those who “support the positions taken by the journal”, according to editor-in-chief Andrew Snelling, a geologist based in Brisbane, Australia."
Female genital cutting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - "One of the four Islamic schools of religious law, the Shafi'i school, rules that clitoridectomy is mandatory. Other sects are adament about the practice. In 1994, Egyptian Mufti Sheikh Jad Al-Hâqq 'Ali Jad Al-Hâqq issued a fatwa stating, "Circumcision is mandatory for men and for women. If the people of any village decide to abandon it, the village imam must fight against them as if they had abandoned the call to prayer." The Al-Azhar University in Cairo has issued several fatwas endorsing FGC, in 1949, 1951 and 1981... In the United States, as recently as 1938, FGC was advocated by Reverend Oscar Lowry as a method of preventing masturbation: "While incest and illicit commerce of the sexes is abominable, there is another even more so—if that be possible—that is, the heinous sin of self-pollution or masturbation... In some cases where there may be impingement of the clitoris, a slight operation may be necessary to relieve the tension and irritation...""
Steve Jobs Announces iSex (Video)
Portal - This modern masterpiece shakes the FPS genre to the very core - "The gun is typically regarded as a phallic symbol of masculine agency, through which power is won and maintained. In any first-person shooter, a power dynamic is reinforced between subject (the player's subjective sense of self) and object (the rest of the game world.) The player is forced to accept militarism and conquest by violence, historically masculine behaviors, as the only course of action. To play a first-person shooter is to enter into a context in which only the male perspective exists, regardless of the gender of the character or player... She acquires a Portal Gun for use in these tests; interestingly, the gun's masculine symbolism is subverted by the fact that it shoots portals rather than bullets. Portals are oval-shaped openings that are visually and spatially connected; go in one and you'll come out the other. The Portal Gun creates connections rather than destroying life. It is through innovative placement of these connections, or portals, that goals are achieved or enemies overcome. A psychoanalytic reading would likely conclude that the portal is an image of the female sex organs: oval and receptive, and also a metaphorical birth canal through which the protagonist is constantly being born into new trials."
2 Girls, 1 Cup, 1 Grandma, 1 Reaction - "Getting old people involved would be the one way you could make cup chicks even worse."
VIOLIN DUEL A DRAW FOR ANTIQUE STRADIVARIUS, NEW INSTRUMENT - ""Some like blondes; some like brunettes. Some like them slim; some like them hefty," Dr. Joseph Nagyvary contended. Hefty in this case was the 300-year-old Leonardo da Vinci Stradivarius violin, valued as high as $5 million, pitted against a slimly played violin that Nagyvary crafted in just six weeks and completed in August 2003. In all scores from the audience – whether among those who considered themselves trained musicians or those who are average concert goers – the new Nagyvary violin ranked slightly higher than the ancient Stradivarius... For those four selections, trained musicians in the audience gave the Stradivarius an average of 8.03 in tone quality and 8.0 for power while the Nagyvary violin got and average of 8.1 for tone quality and 8.33 for power. Other audience participants' votes put the Stradivarius at an average of 7.83 for quality and 7.8 for power while the Nagyvary got 8.03 for quality and 8.23 for power."
Body is found in L.A. tow yard a day after car accident - "The body of an elderly woman was discovered Sunday in the front passenger side of a crumpled car in a San Fernando Valley towing company's yard -- a day after paramedics had removed her son from the same vehicle after a crash, authorities said. The woman, whose identity was not released, had apparently been left in the car at the accident scene in Tarzana even as her son was taken to a hospital, police said... The slightly built woman had been concealed beneath an air bag that had deployed during the accident"
Full Service - Weird News Story Archive - "A new British mall is building in an innovation to attract women shoppers: a day care center — for their husbands. “Some grown-up men are very similar to small children, and most couples have anecdotes of their own to prove it,” said a spokesman for the Bluewater Retail Centre, being constructed in Kent. He added that the idea for the big-baby-sitting area came from “extensive research showing that 50 percent of couples’ shopping trips end in argument.” The creche features video games, televisions showing sports ...and beer."
The Titans In Their Twilight - "Lee, though retired, remains personally more powerful than his peers, continuing to call the shots in his role as "mentor minister." In part, this is because he seems more modern than the other patriarchs; unlike them, he refused to build a cult of personality or patronage. His success, however, was achieved in part by constraining opposition parties and the media. "The idea that Singapore is run by a meritocracy is institutionalized to such a degree that if you argue for checks and balances, you're questioning the integrity of the people at the helm," says Rodan. Some analysts think infighting in the ruling party is a real risk after the elder Lee exits the scene. His son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, "will not have the same hold" over the opaque party structure his father built, says Johns Hopkins's Welsh."
The Straight Dope: Why does the U.S. surgeon general wear a uniform? - "Uniforms had fallen into disuse until C. Everett Koop was appointed surgeon general by Ronald Reagan. Koop conceived of his post as a bully pulpit and thought the uniform (the SG is the equivalent of a three-star admiral and has a similar uniform) would get people to take him more seriously. Instead, at least at the outset, it got them to take him for an airline steward, and Koop good-naturedly hoisted a few bags into the overhead bins for fellow passengers."
Beer had seat belt, injured driver didn't - "Investigators were trying Monday to determine if a suspected drunken driver involved in a single-vehicle crash Sunday night failed to buckle his own seat belt even as the 12-pack of beer on the passenger seat was safely secured."
N.Y. man faces stalking charge - "A 20-year-old man from upstate New York was jailed in Spokane over the weekend for allegedly stalking a 15-year-old girl he claims to have met through an interactive video game... Stetar, whose MySpace page is peppered with Bible verses, said in his last entry, on Dec. 26, that he was depressed. The self-described 6-foot-2 inch, 130-pound "materials handler" for a pallet company wrote that he might want to become a teacher at a Christian school and would like to meet his future wife."
Dean Hrbacek Photoshops Body for Election Photo - "The picture, presented as a true image of the candidate, is actually a computerized composite of Hrbacek’s face and someone else’s figure, in suit and tie, from neck to knee caps. The give-away is a flawed fit of head and collar."
Post ID: 6975271643868836350
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