Prior art:
4 Likes
Ah⌠baseline humans and their quaint, non-verbal sexuality. They donât know what they are missing!
1 Like
When Mussolini was still a progressive, and was determined to give the Catholic Church a good kicking, he set up precisely this in State run brothels. The idea was that there was a lot of covert and very unpleasant prostitution in Italy and that this could be replaced by an enlightened system Apparently some of the State brothels were set up right opposite churches, with big neon signs.
I have to say that when I was told this I did think that maybe Mussolini wasnât quite as bad as heâs represented, given the period - but the system apparently failed because people listened to the priests and hypocrisy triumphed. As weâve seen with Berlusconi, Italians (and many others) will tolerate things so long as they are not forced to acknowledge their existence.
As someone who thinks of himself as a feminist I donât know what to think about sex work, except that all the loud campaigners seem to me to want to fit human nature into one particular box and ignore the variety of human experience. It would be nice to think that the right answer is âwhat the sex workers wantâ, but as many of them have presumably had years of being physically or psychologically coerced or groomed, what they want may not be what they need. And yet that goes for almost all of us, because there is no book or standard to say what the ârightâ kind of society should look like.
Iâve never paid for sex though I have seen street prostitutes in London, Hamburg and other places. I live on the outskirts of a small town and there is no visible evidence of sex work but it would surprise me if there was in fact none, and I suspect that people are practising unnoticeably from ordinary houses. I doubt that any laws or regulations would stamp out below the radar work of this kind.
Yeah, I hear you there. And Iâve never paid for nookie either (I swear Iâve been paid not to have nookie :D). My perspective is: it is a high risk trade that will always exist. So isnât it better in the long run to normalize the rules, reduce abuse (physical/mental/substance) and encourage pride in ones work? As opposed to our current demonization and criminalization.
A comparison, Dita von Teese is celebrated. The working woman down the street is denigrated. It isnât right.
5 Likes
1 Like
For those interested in a decent documentary about sex work, I saw one called âScarlet Roadâ last year which I thought was rather good.
It amazes me how weird people get about sex. I think of âromanceâ as basically meaning that, despite sex being supposedly an important facet of peopleâs lives, that they are only supposed to happen upon it by accident. Imagine if people were like this about food! You canât ask people to share it with you, or pay for it, and people will think youâre weird if you grow and eat it yourself. But if you and âspecial someoneâ just happen to come together and chance and feed each other, itâs all cool.
As an autistic child and teen, I was interested in sex work. Mostly as a way to provide something which people feel is needed. But rather than something secret, separate, and hidden away, I think that sex and sexuality is not only personal but also cultural. It is vital, and providing life experience not unlike how other arts do, and so is something to be celebrated. Well, my family were hugely unsupportive of this outlook, yet without any clear rebuttals of it, and have always provided lots of obstacles. But I remain generally supportive of sex work, and sex positive culture.
One in-between area I think could help is local traditions of occasional ritual sex activity, just to get people together and dissipate tensions and anxieties. Like an annual town orgy, for instance, where people can hook up without any strings attached. There is a long tradition of such events, and they seem quite effective at building community and getting people less hung-up.
2 Likes
1 Like
Was I rude or disrespectful in any way? I simply asked not to have to deal with lazy stereotypes about women. I donât think thatâs too much to ask.
3 Likes
Yes, which doesnât need to be made, because, duh, we know not all men are misogynists - even if all women at one time or another have to deal with sexism and stereotyping. I found @shaddackâs comment to be far more sweeping in tone.
1 Like
No, you werenât rude or disrespectful. I was suggesting that you may have mistook the seriousness of his comments.
âŚwhich reminds me, i need to hunt for more gifs for the misandry thread. that thread is comedy gold.
1 Like
He was making a sweeping statement about things men who date women are likely to encounter. Isnât that exactly the complement of what #notallmen is about?
Iâm not sure what point youâre trying to make here?
Where did he say anything about his relationships going bad? He said that women who are not sex workers tend to be more expensive and less reliable. To me, that reads as you can take them out on expensive dates and wind up going home to Rosie Palm (and her five lovely daughters) since itâs not a formal business transaction.
A professional engaging in an explicit transaction is more likely to hold up her end of the deal than a âcivilianâ who hasnât agreed to any deal in the first place. Thereâs nothing about that thatâs stereotyping women.
1 Like
Perhaps itâs one of those words only those to whom it applies should feel comfortable using, while the rest of us show a little more respect, if not for the profession as such, then for the women (and men and transpersons) who by dint or by deed practice it. In an ideal world the profession would be exceedingly rare to nonexistent. The same can be said of soldiering. But it doesnât mean the people who excel at it arenât an integral and valuable part of the social fabric.
Not my intent anyway. But Shaddackâs an adult; I have supreme confidence in his ability to absorb a little criticism and keep on contributing to the community.
3 Likes
Happens. Wasnât even that bad, got way worse.
Heavily implied. Usually not even getting into the point where it could be called a relationship. Usually it ends up with something along the lines of âyouâre nice and now go awayâ. Sometimes sweetened with âyouâll make somebody happy one dayâ. Later spiced up with a wedding invitation (to be sorta appreciated but declined due to self-preservation, such day is better spent with some C code and some Irish Cream).
There is only so much that can be done with no ability t read faces and nonverbal comm and even recognize people (without meeting them for quite many times) with any sort of meaningful accuracy, lousy physical capabilities, shared-interest groups that are male-only, next to nothing in common to bond over elsewhere (even less so since I started to refuse to repair computers for free and to do analysis/consultation job on relationship trouble, sorry I wonât listen to your boyfriend trouble anymore, it is painful to advise on that and double so to âshare the happinessâ, pro tip is to stop before it drives you to antidepressants, guess how I know), and low ability (and increasingly an unwillingness to fake, takes effort and doesnât work anyway) to play confidence where I have none (itâs a bad thing for an engineer anyway, you have to move carefully and if you get too self-confident itâs the mark that The Physics is about to bite you).
Small handful of cases where I got beyond zero, usually with some third-party help. Only to lose to a competition, sometimes annoyingly weak one. Then got wedding photos. Nice, but, ouchie.
Meanwhile the friends one got to tag along with settle down and get families and children and demanding jobs and donât have any time anymore. At least I donât have Facebook to have to see the details.
A quarter century of this will wear one down.
Oh well. Oh fucking well.
Have to sleep. Rocket science to do tomorrow.
6 Likes
Have you tried looking for women that share the same sorts of cognitive space as you, who are also neutral-atypical (is that the right phrase)? It might also help to be upfront about these issues with anyone, but especially women youâre interested in dating.
Why not find interest groups that arenât male only? I know you think engineering is a male activity (or you seem to think so, at least), but there are women who are into just the same geeky stuff and love engineering.
I know⌠thatâs called life and there is something that tears ALL of us down. You canât make that any better by assuming that all women are the same. It really will just add on instead of doing any good for you.
Have fun with the rocket science!
8 Likes
Rare species. One is a close friend who helps me not lose the remains of sanity that fast. For the price of having to travel a thousand kilometers to just get my hand held.
Works well to avoid major trouble. Good strategy. No observable effects beyond that. Still, good strategy.
Jewellery, once ceramics. But was a material engineer specialist and nothing beyond that. But nice even to do on its own, a calm quiet kind of work that lets one forget about things, and with no debugging to trace little annoying faults. Side note, a relatively small propane torch can be used to melt glass beads into earrings or pendants. Itâs also sort of engineering, this technique was born from a test of glass-metal seal for vacuum tech to do sometime in the future.
Itâs not inherently male-only, not in any principle; my own mom was designing some heavy steelmaking machinery. Itâs that all the groups I get to are so, and the exceptions are rare and all already allocated. I am not alone; the supply/demand is not in my favor; assuming a 9/1 ratio Iâd have to score in top 10% of competitors, give or take.
The near-term game is to avoid failure. The price is no hope for now. But hope always led to more pain than it was worth.
Thanks!
It ended up as a test of deployment and recording system. The battery used turned out to be too weak for the igniter so no actual launch. Oops. Still, a good dry run it was. There will be problems with optical tracking due to the camera angle of view. May be solvable.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
