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The Future of the 'The future of the..(if any)' title-meme

...on serious topics that don't fit anywhere else at present.
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thundril
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Re: The Future of the 'The future of the..(if any)' title-me

#41 Post by thundril » November 8th, 2015, 6:20 pm

Latest post of the previous page:

animist wrote:"context is vital". A good phrase no doubt, but it takes no account of real life.
:puzzled:
What do you suppose 'context' means?

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Dave B
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Re: The Future of the 'The future of the..(if any)' title-me

#42 Post by Dave B » November 8th, 2015, 6:44 pm

animist wrote:
Dave B wrote:animist wrote:
...I would have thought it pretty predictable that the sex which has to penetrate, in some way, the other sex in order to achieve procreation would have the stronger sex drive.
And, in most "gregarious" animal species a tendency towards males having multiple mates - thus needing a strong mating drive, superior energy/strength, mostly larger size etc. It is often said that in basic functions we are not that far from our ancient relations.
I think that insofar this is true, it is part of the problem, and that male domination is largely due simply (well not really simply, but ultimately and complexly) to greater physical size and strength. Just imagine otherwise: that human males were actually somewhat smaller and weaker than females, but of similar intelligence and with - I believe inevitably - a higher sex drive consequent simply on the fact of being male. I believe that exchange of sex for money or some other inducement would probably still take place, but that it would lack all the dreadful characteristics which so offend thundril (and rightly so)
Yeah, it's a complex problem with so many variables - be nice if everyone kept to an ethically moderated attitude. I have met women who complain about "loutish" blokes . . . Then ooh and ah over the next rough and tough looking character who swaggers along. I have met women who seek men whom they can dominate.

Takes every kind and you cannot really judge without knowing the whole story from both sides - short of the total socio or psychopath anyway.
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

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animist
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Re: The Future of the 'The future of the..(if any)' title-me

#43 Post by animist » November 8th, 2015, 6:56 pm

thun, I don't know whether you like "Big Bang Theory" but one episode seems pertinent. Penny, the girlfriend of nice nerd Leonard, is also "nice", but she is also impecunious and sexually active. Leonard asks her whether she has ever paid for a meal out, and she replies, roughly, "no, at least not with money". The line is funny and is indicative of her situation: she is not exploited and is in a relationship, but clearly, her morals, which do exist, do not exclude paying for sex with a friend in order to get a good meal. Do you condemn her?

thundril
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Re: The Future of the 'The future of the..(if any)' title-me

#44 Post by thundril » November 8th, 2015, 9:36 pm

I have reached a point in life where I hardly ever condemn anyone for anything. Saying some behaviour is harmful to others is not the same as saying a person who indulges in that behaviour is a bad person. I don't have enough belief in free will, (or in my own capacity to judge, FTM) to go around 'condemning' people.
Prostitution harms a lot of girls and women. All I can do is tell you that this is the case. Whether that helps you to avoid the harmful behaviour is not really within my power.

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animist
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Re: The Future of the 'The future of the..(if any)' title-me

#45 Post by animist » November 10th, 2015, 5:17 pm

thundril wrote:I have reached a point in life where I hardly ever condemn anyone for anything. Saying some behaviour is harmful to others is not the same as saying a person who indulges in that behaviour is a bad person. I don't have enough belief in free will, (or in my own capacity to judge, FTM) to go around 'condemning' people.
Prostitution harms a lot of girls and women. All I can do is tell you that this is the case. Whether that helps you to avoid the harmful behaviour is not really within my power.
well, I suppose I triggered this by use of the wrong word, ie "condemn", with its connotation of extremism and punishment; and anyway to condemn someone for a particular behaviour should mean only that one condemns that behaviour. But you did use the word "betray" earlier, which is pretty well as judgmental as "condemn". Going back to the three-way discussion some time ago between you, me and Emma W, I came to the conclusion that anyone who denies free will and moral responsibility (which are essentially two sides of the same coin) cannot really act this denial out; when they engage in some material topic, like the present one on prostitution, they use words which involve assignment of moral responsibility. Yes, prostitution does harm many women and girls; the challenge is to make it cease to do so

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animist
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Re: The Future of the 'The future of the..(if any)' title-me

#46 Post by animist » November 10th, 2015, 5:24 pm

thundril wrote: I used the word sisters in a particular sense, which I assumed you would recognise and accept. I assumed wrong. I'll withdraw it so as not to upset you unnecessarily
?
thundril wrote:
they know little about the lives of other women outside their own circles, and neither do the men . . . know much about the disgusting behaviour of other men in other places
I get the impression that some do, and some don't. Where do you derive your information?
I agree with your first statement, but more do not know than do know; and even if they do, I doubt that they relate to them - why should they? Only if there were a strong causal link between their own behaviour and the less free and fortunate situation of these "sisters" would this matter, and I guess this is the crux of our disagreement - you seem to believe that people's behaviour, in this respect, because it apparently in some way creates a "social context", strongly affects that of a multitude of others. I see this as very questionable, and to use one of your favourite retorts - where is your evidence? As to your question, it is a bit fatuous; there are so many people in the world that each of us knows of the condition of only a tiny fraction of these others, and I don't need special information sources to know this
thundril wrote:
even if they do know a bit, there is no real connexion between their lives and these other lives.
Many men and women believe their lives are disconnected from other lives. Modern consumer culture depends on that degree of alienation.
oh eck, bringing in alienation. Actually consumer culture depends on globalising of taste and behaviour in many ways, surely, and we are all connected much more intensely (eg via the internet) than we were; you are kind of arguing against your own case here, ISTM
thundril wrote:
. . . the nugget of my "vision" is for a more open and benign attitude to sexuality which recognises that the worlds of sexual contact and commerce need not be rigidly separated.
I have nowhere proposed that they should be 'rigidly separated'. I have merely alluded to the suffering which is involved in their present, and historical, juxtaposition.
actually I think you do demand that they be rigidly separated and if you don't, I am not sure what you do demand. You are right about the suffering which often does result from their juxtaposition, and so my vision is that commercial sex must be made purely consensual, for the benefit of both supplier and consumer; having said this, I don't actually think that prostitution is a "good thing" or a career choice, and anyone who gets involved in the sex industry as it now exists is taking big risks

thundril
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Re: The Future of the 'The future of the..(if any)' title-me

#47 Post by thundril » November 11th, 2015, 3:03 pm

animist wrote:actually I think you do demand that they be rigidly separated and if you don't, I am not sure what you do demand.
I am not demanding anything at all. At your invitation, I set down why I think a sex-for-money transaction 'between equals' is not really possible in a world where
a. money is a prime means of expressing power and exercising control;
b. men almost always have more money than women;
c. the oppression and subjugation of girls and women is near-universal.
You are right about the suffering which often does result from their juxtaposition, and so my vision is that commercial sex must be made purely consensual, for the benefit of both supplier and consumer; having said this, I don't actually think that prostitution is a "good thing" or a career choice, and anyone who gets involved in the sex industry as it now exists is taking big risks
Glad we actually agree on the main point, then. Perhaps we still have different concepts of the conditions that would be necessary to make such transactions 'purely consensual'. But that's good enough for now. All best. Jax

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animist
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Re: The Future of the 'The future of the..(if any)' title-me

#48 Post by animist » November 21st, 2015, 6:33 pm

as this has become the prostitution (future of) thread, may I mention the recent death of that fine campaigner for responsible prostitution, Cynthia Payne? She showed up the hypocrisy of conventional attitudes to the oldest profession when she was prosecuted for keeping a "disorderly house", which was in fact very orderly, yet her "respectable" male clients, who included clergymen and other pillars of the establishment, were allowed to go free. Not that I am advocating prosecution of men who consort with prostitutes, anything but

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