He’s smart, so? Smart people have daft ideas all the time. Perhaps more often, as a consequence of having more ideas.
It is exactly appropriate. I would expect no less from Spike Lee, of course, and am glad to see that age and success have not dulled the fire.
For white people and tourists, Chicago is a world-class city well worth visiting and/or living in. A few certain neighborhoods, however, are quite literally like living in a war zone. The vast majority of people in these neighborhoods are trying to live a decent life, but the drugs/gangs are too dominant to overcome in any conventional way. In a way, these neighborhoods are like refugee camps which have been in place for 2 to 3 generations.
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Yes, that’s the organisation. I guess some of it was shared beliefs (and a strong belief in changed lives), the village effect where you knew everyone, an enforced rule system… Still though, it wasn’t all that high security - abuse would have been easy, and you could see that it happened in more regulated environments when you spoke to crew members of cruise ships. Women didn’t get harassed by the other crew members on our ship.
The whole motivation system was different - we did some hard jobs for long hours, but we didn’t get paid. Our leaders had to find ways of getting us to work other than by offering more money or threatening us. It worked, too - we’d sometimes work on our day off or into the night, because otherwise our friends would have to work longer. Even the captain and other officers were unpaid volunteers, but that only increased our respect for them. We didn’t have to be monitored all the time; if you don’t want to work for free, just go home and get a paid job. It didn’t matter that much where you worked, as you didn’t get a raise or better conditions.
We trusted each other, even though some people had some scary pasts. One of the guys from Papua New Guinea had been the strongest man in his group. He had been ordered to rape six women and kill three men as a reprisal against something the other side had done. One of my close friends from Mozambique had been abducted with his class as a young child. The militants made some of the students cut off the hands of some of the others. I knew both of these as peaceful men (although I didn’t know the first guy’s full story at the time). There were rape victims onboard (including my wife) and they also felt safe. As far as people were concerned, they were changed people.
Sometimes it’s difficult to tell how much of this was genius and how much was sheer romantic naivite, but I kind of miss it and I’d like to see ways of applying it outside of a strongly religious environment.
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Despite my intense skepticism of the topic’s title, it gets me seriously wondering about the viability of something which sounds obvious to me - yet nobody seems to do.
Why not start an orgasm ambulance? If people are feeling too tense and desperate to get themselves off, or don’t have hands or whatever, then dispatch a special ambulance of people with the skills and accoutrements to deal with various possible scenarios. In an urban environment, at least, I am more than certain that there would be sufficient demand.
Many people have (as is customary) said, “FFS! Come off it, Popobawa!”, but it sounds like mostly upsides to me, with the main arguments against it being that those who wouldn’t use the service wouldn’t like it, which sounds obviously applicable to most any service.
Because we live in a nation of prudes?
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Specifically for people without hands?
Surely they would have attachments for their stumps.
(I just read back a few comments, I may have just made a joke about a very nasty real life situation… If so, sorry it’s not a very good joke)
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I have indeed had some good friends who are/were amputees, including one involved with sex work. I don’t take offense. But I wanted to illustrate that there might be any number of reasons why some people might need help with this sort of thing, including medical reasons. It is not surprising that most people don’t consider the sex lives of the disabled. So I think well-intentioned jokes at least get people to think, instead of the problems being wilfully ignored.
An interesting comparison between Dutch and US college women’s experiences of sexuality (pdf)
After analyzing the 20 interviews, seven different themes emerged between the American and Dutch sample as they relate to girls’ sexual behaviors. The U.S. college women talked extensively about being driven by hormones and peers and feeling unprepared when they experienced various forms of sexual behavior. They also talked about doing more sexually for their boyfriend’s satisfaction (i.e., performing oral sex on him) and feeling as if he is in charge of the relationship. Interestingly, a few interviewed U.S. college women mentioned how different their brothers were treated by their parents who allowed their sons to have a girlfriend come over and let them be together in the boy’s bedroom. Because of the small number of women (fewer than six) who told about this gender difference practiced at home, it did not form a theme for this study. Sample quotes supporting each of these themes are presented below.
• Driven by hormones and peers: “I was more like thinking with hormones and not really like with my head.… I think you have a lot more hormones going through you and you just want it, it is like a physical need, so I think that is why a lot of people get into trouble.”
• “All your friends are doing it [intercourse], they are talking about it, and if you haven’t, you can’t say anything, and also I was one of the last girls out of my friends to really do anything sexually with a guy, and they sort of picked on me about it.”
• Unprepared: “The first time when we were having sex, it was an accident. It was not supposed to happen, but it did.”
• Satisfying him: “I did not really enjoy it [fingering]. I mean I did it [hand job] because he liked it. Oral sex was with him too. I definitely enjoyed giving a blow job better than receiving it, because I was not really involved.”
• He is in charge: “He was the one when anything sexual was involved; he was always the initiator, and I just kind of went along.”
The U.S. college women’s themes related to sexual behavior are in sharp contrast to those that emerged from the interviews with the 10 Dutch college women. In reflecting back to their younger years, the Dutch college women talked about having sexual experiences in the context of a loving relationship where mutual interest and open communication takes place, having control over their own bodies and desires, and planning ahead and using protection. Sample quotes to support these Dutch themes are presented below.
• Motivated by love: “We always had gone there together by train, so we knew each other very well. I had fallen in love with him, and then we became girlfriend and boyfriend! And after that we made love for the first time.”
• Control of my own body: “I said what I wanted and what I did not want very clearly, and at a certain moment I thought, ‘now I want to.”’
• Ready for sexual intercourse: “It was more something like, what do we want exactly, and then we made a plan together about how far we wanted to go and what protection we would use.”
Despite this difference, US women had sex earlier and with more partners than those in the Netherlands. Both mothers and fathers had a significant impact on attitudes - violent, sexually demanding men and compliant, sexually passive women (along with lack of agency on both sides) are a dangerous myth perpetuated by our cultures and taught to our children. We are all responsible for this to the extent that we support this myth, and we all have some power to change things.
(Read the whole study though. It’s very interesting.)
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Fuck, why do the Dutch have to be so insufferably healthy?
######Stupid Flanders… Except one country further north.
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I love the focus on the social aspects of sex - it isn’t some kind of dangerous thing that will destroy your life, it’s something you can talk about with your partner and your parents. I never went to any sex ed classes, because it was verboten. Conservative religious people can be so obsessed with the mechanical details (they might teach you about different kinds of positions and partners! You’ll end up having a lot of sex, when you should be having no sex until the point of no return!). I’d probably just copy and paste the whole thing, but I love these parts:
• Sleeping openly at parents’ house: “My mom told me, get him over here for the weekend, he can sleep here at our house [in your bed], and I’ll pick him up from the railway station with my car.”
• Comfortable dads: “They [parents] thought it was fine [that we slept together]; dad just always made up a bed for us [me and my boyfriend] to sleep.
• Parents as supporters and educators: “I told this to my mom as soon as I got home (after the first time I had sex), because we talk very open about this. My friend’s mother also asked me how it was, if I had an orgasm and if he had one.”
On the other hand:
Ten U.S. college women said that none of their parents explained anything about sexuality in their younger years. A few mothers warned their daughters about the possible consequences of sex or told them to wait until college to have sex. And that was all. When their mothers asked, the teen daughters affirmed that they already knew everything about sex. The fact that their mothers asked only once if their daughters were well informed gave the 10 interviewed U.S. college women the idea that their mothers were comfortable with the topic. The U.S. fathers seemed completely invisible. They were silent, and a very few could only joke about sex. By silencing the topic of sexuality, these parents desexualized their daughters, denying that the girls were sexually active or wanting to believe that “the pill was for regulating my menstruation.”
Denial is a good word - if you were aiming to create sexually repressed men and women, you could hardly come up with a better strategy.
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Tell me about it. I was given “the talk” by my dad on a long fishing trip. It was 100% mechanical details, and nothing about love, or commitment or dating (he lost his virginity to my mom. They didn’t date. They got married because that’s what they believed god wanted).
It was crap advice. There was no open dialog, so when my girlfriend in high school tricked me into believing I got her pregnant, I hid it. I knew that abortion was completely off the table for my parents. They wouldn’t back me up on that. And all I could think was “if they find out, they’ll disown me”.
Eventually the truth came out, my girlfriend was never pregnant. Never spoke to her again. I told my parents the whole story eventually after years.
It was terrible, living with people who believed and espoused views that having sex before marriage or dating was basically as dangerous as rolling around in medical waste. Then because of their abusive stance when I eventually did have sex the relationship ended up being about as fun as rolling around in medical waste.
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My dad gave me the talk on the day before my wedding. I almost burst out laughing, although it really wasn’t anything more explicit than “be nice”. The only saving factor was that my parents had a healthy relationship and weren’t shy about showing affection or dealing with issues with respect and in front of us.
The whole thing becomes an issue of compulsion. Your parents say that you mustn’t do it, while your peers say that you must. No discussion of what you or your partner might actually want from all of this, or suggestion that it’s your choice.
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Didn’t have that. I’m not sure I’ve even seen my parents kiss. And they only arguing I’ve known them to do is in their bedroom or out in the car intensely whispering and seething with rage. I can only assume that they had make-up sex. But I wouldn’t count on it. You should hear my dad talk about all the “years they wasted trying to have kids” before they adopted me and my brother. “Wasted”. As if unsuccessful procreative sex has no upside.
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Well, the important thing is that they did have kids in the end. Success! /s
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I do sometimes wonder about this issue - so much focus is placed on “the Talk”, almost like the Sinner’s Prayer - have you had the Talk yet? It just isolates this issue from everything else in your life and makes it seem like completely different rules apply. Outside of the Talk, you won’t get much information about sexuality. Your sexual well-being depends on it, and it must go into all details.
Obviously if it’s deliberately avoided, that’s a problem. Quite possibly the parents are not comfortable with their own sexuality and that of their children. However, I think a lot of what you take to this issue relates to other issues. Are you taught to respect and accept yourself and others, and be open about what you need from a relationship? Are the genders presented as fundamentally incompatible with each other, such that actively seeking compromise is not encouraged? How do you handle conflict and when and how do you end a relationship? Are you taught that you and your partner have responsibility and autonomy, and that this should be recognised and respected? Is your body seen as something valuable in itself, or is it compared to an idealised form? Are relationships presented as an authority structure, where one person is more important than the other? Is sex considered dirty or something that one person has to be persuaded to do for the other?
I think a lot of this is the sort of thing you pick up from your parents whatever they say to you. If you force your opinions on your children and never let them change your mind with good arguments or an expression of their will, they will learn that agency is not that important (including sexual agency). If you don’t actively seek their consent, they won’t value it. If you never have respectful disagreements and make compromises with your partner in front of your kids, they won’t learn healthy conflict resolution and may have no idea how to react when they come up against conflict. We try to do this ourselves, and the kids are active participants (suggesting alternatives, telling us that we need to calm down and talk about something else, giving their opinion). I know we’re going to affect our kids to some degree with our faults, but we also have the potential to help them be mature adults.
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All those negative things? Yeah, “god will sort them out for you.” “If god isn’t directing every move, then you’re being sinful and evil.”
All those positive things? “well, obviously god told you to do that! You’re fearfully and wonderfully made. Knit together, like a weirdly shaped sweater, in your mother’s womb. WHICH IS THE ONLY REASON FOR SEX! AND DON’T YOU FORGET IT!”
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Light’s blue touch paper, stands back.
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A solid common sense solution for many, historically speaking. It’s unfortunate (and disgusting) that so many cultures which restrict young men’s access to women are structured so that rape is more psychologically and socially acceptable than a mutually beneficient homosexual relationship.
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No shit!
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