This is because NLP is a completely subjective type of practice. The whole idea is that one has no control over what one may sense or witness, only how one chooses it interpret and respond to it.
Which highlights my point, a response does not indicate that any signal was sent. Communication is usually directed, it has meaning and an intended recipient. Purely decorative things such as paintings, lawn gnomes, and clothes don’t work this way. Some may agree that there are cues, but these pure interpretation by the observer. And there is not anything especially sexist about it either. I had a job where people’s minds were blown because some days I would wear breakcore t-shirts with crazy graphics, other days I might wear fine linen dress shirts. The controversy about which were really me really bothered some people, it became a bizarre exercise in class consciousness. I didn’t “identify” with either, I thought they were just some clothes. What my clothes “say” about me all depend upon who is listening, and what their assumptions may be.
My guess is that this is a big “if”. Exposure does not equal sex. I’d even go so far as to say that people encouraging others to explore their body doesn’t imply sex either, although it might encourage a repressed person to get really excited. What seemed unambiguous IIRC the article is that she specifically invited them to touch her breasts, which avoids the neurotic ambiguity you were complaining about. The whole situation sounded kind of drunk and stupid, but like ultimately nobody did anything they weren’t comfortable with, which is the important thing.
Why are the two of you arguing about whether breasts are sexual, when there is the oral sex which is a less ambiguously sexual, and which is in the province of statutory rape laws?
Marshall McLuhan did say that the internet would dissolve traditional
values by way of re-tribalizing culture. The global village if you will. By
tribal McLuhan was using the anthropological term.
Privacy, modesty, and other traditional cultural values would become
un-necessary as we become more directly connected via technology.
Ten years ago people in my town were picketing adult shops. Now there are
billboards advertising them at the same intersection.
If you really wanted to know why, I would assume you might read the discussion and decide for yourself. Instead, it sounds like you pose a bogus question as a way of suggesting that statutory rape laws are more interesting or relevant. If you noticed, I said that IMO consent is everything, and I that I think statutory rape laws are unhealthy because they deny consent. It’s another version of “just say no” rather than education and informed decisions.
Culture(s) have always been tribal. But instantaneous global communication makes this reality more obvious. More drastically, it allows people to ally with other tribes who they would not have known about. As McLuhan also said - now all times and places coexist.
Not only that, but it’s easier to realize that there are different sets of traditions, cultures, and values to choose from. So we are more likely to encounter situations where some people in the same area consider modesty a virtue, while others consider nudism a virtue. We have gone down the multicultural rabbit hole.
Even just this speaks volumes about people’s insecurities - that the defining characteristic of sexual behaviors is that they are/should-be “adult”. They aren’t, and they never have been. Apparently, this realization terrifies people, so we encounter an increase in euphemism. The kind of sexuality most associated with such shops is masturbation - sure, some use videos and vibrators with partners, but most don’t. Can people honestly say that masturbation is unknown to children? Of course not, but they like to go blue in the face trying.
I don’t think that sexually-related shops are truly indicative of a culture of open sexuality, they are made possible by trying to make sex separate from normal life, so that it can be hidden away. People being ashamed about sex may be statistically normal, but this doesn’t suggest that it is healthy. The other effect which results from this is that it makes sex easily commodified, leading to the very depersonalization and objectification people complain about.
15 is not a child any way you slice it. They are an adolescent. The age of consent for most states in the US is 16. In most of western Europe, it is 15 and in a few places, 13 (!) or 14.
Unfortunately for this yoga instructor, it is 18 in Arizona. Still it is sad she’ll have to go on a list for the rest of her life and never be allowed to live near a school for something that would have been ignored in France.
Not so much “more interesting”, but more related to the situation as it has been reported.
Anyway, in the defense of statutory rape laws, they provide a clear unambiguous legal line. There are definitely people who are so young that the rest of us should not be having sex with them. At age seven, even if someone says “yes”, that’s not meaningful consent. Are we not on the same page with this one?
The actual age at which a person is mature enough to give consent varies from person to person, but if if the courts were stuck in the position of having to determine that on a case by case basis, it would be a bad situation. Without statutory rape laws, any attempt to reign in predatory behavior would have the defense lawyers effectively putting the younger person on trial.
You could make an argument that 18 is the wrong age to set the limit at, but I think it would be quite problematic to get rid of the age limit altogether
I feel like you were on a track there to argue that the mouth wasn’t a sexual organ and therefore the very idea of oral sex was a social construct. Or something.
Look, I get that you are vehement in your position about what you consider unhealthy sexual attitudes. But I also think you’re painting yourself in to a strange, illogical, and frankly kinda creepy corner.
Oh for fuck’s sake are you kidding me here? Fine. An ADULT shouldn’t be raping an adolescent. Stop with this disgusting pedantry and game of semantics. You know what I meant.
And “unfortunately”? Are you kidding me?
This entire thread makes me sick.
At least i know which one of y’all are totally okay with adults RAPING “adolescents” now.
Also, something being legal doesn’t make it suddenly okay. Slavery was legal, and still is legal in some places. STILL NOT OKAY. Child brides are legal in some places. STILL NOT OKAY. Maybe France needs to take a look at its laws, not the other way around.
For fuck’s sake.
It AMAZES me the mental gymnastics you and people like you in this thread are going through to defend AN ADULT WOMEN SEXUALLY ASSAULTING A FIFTEEN YEAR OLD BOY.
I don’t really find this a joking matter. That ship sailed. At this point it’s just become a pathetic display of rape culture in our society. And, no, I won’t get a sense of humor about this.
But those laws do not apply only to the rest of us, in which case it would not be so bad. The current laws in the US mostly do not accept kids consent in having sex with people of their own age. There have increasingly been cases where both parties are minors, and both become registered as “sex offenders” for having consensually “raped” each other. The sexual activity of a seven year old is quite healthy and necessary for their development, and it is their needs the laws need to be tailored for. Not the prudish parents who are too embarrassed to handle it. A seven year old streaking or playing doctor is not likely to be charged in the current climate, but the laws still make their actions a felony, and serve to criminalize normal behavior. Have you actually read the sex laws in your state? Your average person might be surprised to learn that they would spend a thousand years in prison for normal sex they’ve had. Will they need to? Probably not. But it still demonstrates a deep legal/government bias against sex.
Like I keep saying, if people had healthy outlets for their sexuality, this would not even be a problem. But the law prevents kids from being recognized as having any sexuality, which is delusional and harmful to them.
Sounds like it’s easier to frame what I am saying as a personal problem, but I am trying to point out an institutional bias. It’s not too hard to point out the institutional mechanisms of racism or classism. but sexual oppression seems to still be difficult for many discuss. It concerns me that people often can’t even discuss the possibility without it being a minefield of emotional hotbuttons.
Ah, that makes more sense and seems fairly reasonable without going into too much discussion. Then I’m not sure why someone even brought it up since that is NOT WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT (not yelling at you, but fuck I hate this dishonest shit). Argh.
However, while I do know that France and other parts of Europe are far more relaxed about breasts than we are here in the US, I find it hard to believe that it would still be thought of as “normal” or “totally okay” for a woman to just whip them out like this while teaching an exercise class. Even in France there are certain contexts to nudity, I am sure. “As for exposing breasts-- that’s normal.” seems to over simplify the difference of how breasts are viewed in France compared to the US, especially n this particular context that we are discussing.
I’m sure a woman in a professional environment isn’t going to whip out her breasts, for example. Maybe at the after party when they are all chilling at the pool, but not at the board meeting. Context is still important.
What gets me about this conversation going on right now is none of these “what ifs” have anything at all to do with what happened in this article. The woman didn’t “just” flash the kids. It’s more involved than that. And, this isn’t about two teenagers having sex. This is about a very clearly adult woman sexually assaulting teenage boys.
In France daytime TV will regularly show breasts, usually in ads for shower gel or shampoo and the like; breastfeeding in public will not cause outrage. In Spain, vulgar language is normal in daytime tv and radio, and spanish vulgarity often takes a pretty extreme sexual form, nobody bats an eyelid.
I think that there are (at least) two flaws in American sex laws that could be better served by looking to another more “enlightened” state such as mythical france or mythical sweden-- I say “mythical” because the Sweden is still thought of by many in America as a socialist state, and I’m sure that Americans have misconceptions about France’s libertine ways as well.
One is the nudity laws, which can cause problems with breastfeeding in public. The other is the criminalization of sex between minors.
But frankly, oral sex on a fifteen year old is pretty much beyond the pale, and “enlightened” sex laws would still criminalize Radomski’s behavior.
Okay. I already knew most of that and even eluded to that in the comment you just replied to, but thanks for the pointless explanation. It still has nothing to do with what we’re talking about. I repeat: France’s more relaxed attitude about boobs has nothing to do with an American adult woman sexually assaulting a young teenage boy.
I don’t disagree with you, but this has nothing to do with any of that. And the derailing is really gross, and just feels like rape apology (“well, you know, minors have sex and that shouldn’t be criminalized, so therefore an adult woman giving oral sex to a teenage boy is totally cool!”). (Not accusing you. But there is a lot of that going on upthread.)
But frankly, oral sex on a fifteen year old is pretty much beyond the pale, and “enlightened” sex laws would still criminalize Radomski’s behavior.
So why are we still talking about France? Why was it even brought up in the first place, except to derail the very horrid detail of a woman raping a teenage boy?
No need to get snarky, I just thought some extra context might be helpful to this particular strand of the discussion. Most people are surprised by those two bits of information, I certainly was (rather pleasantly so as a teenager holidaying in France in the first instance).
As to the main point, I pretty much agree with you. What she did was certainly wrong and regretable at a minimum, but I don’t really know enough of the details of what happened to fully know the real severety of the crime. It could be that what popobawa4u is talking about has some relevance here.
