Generational differences in perspective

[EmilyMiller]

I’ve said a few times that Lit (or at least AH) seems to skew older.

A few things recently have got me thinking about this. Do you agree that there are gaps between what older and younger people think about a range of topics?

A few that come to mind include;

1. Non-con seen through the lens of girls being “good” and needing to be seduced (which isn’t so much of an IRL thing nowadays)
2. Interracial being taboo
3. Jokes about sexual orientation
4. Jokes about disability
5. Men crying

I know younger people are sometimes accused of being woke snowflakes, but do we have significant room for misunderstanding each other in areas like the above?

Not seeking an argument, certainly not a political one. Just curious.

Emily

 

[lovecraft68]

I grew up in the late seventies and eighties. We joked about everything from race, to sexual orientation to you name it. What people who are younger don't understand is there was rarely ever any malice to those jokes, we just made fun of everything and everyone including ourselves. I'm Polish/Russian...know how many Polock jokes I heard? And laughed at most of them.

Yeah, if boys or men cried we were little girls, sissies or fags(that's what I was called if I cried...at the age of 5) and its not cool, guys have feelings. But of course its been taken to far and now we live in an age of whiny male victimhood because all women are evil and are the root of all men's issues. Just take a walk down LW comments to see that one.

I don't care what your age is, but if you see IR as taboo, you're the racist most people claim other people are. The entire category is racist BS in its stereotyping of the black men and the white women who are with them. Demeaning to both, and I'll refrain from a rant on the Black Bull behavior in LW. Now racism is a hotbed topic that sadly has been beaten into the ground so badly the last few years that its damaged the cause far more than helped it, and my statement just now would brand me a snowflake despite the fact I'm well older than the group that's usually associated with.

Sometimes the term snowflake fits(along with Karen) when it comes to people who squeal absurdly over the dumbest shit, but it also is an insult doled out to people who have the nerve to have a stance on something. I'm a big proponent of women's rights so I'm often branded a simp, cuck, (back to fag again) and whatever else.

Sometimes an insult, when dealt by certain types is a badge of honor.

ETA I won't touch the Non con discussion.

 

[EmilyMiller]

know how many Polock jokes I heard? And laughed at most of them.

You’ve kinda answered this, but did you feel any initial hurt (and then brush it off)?

Emily

 

[KeithD]

I’ve said a few times that Lit (or at least AH) seems to skew older.

A few things recently have got me thinking about this. Do you agree that there are gaps between what older and younger people think about a range of topics?

A few that come to mind include;

1. Non-con seen through the lens of girls being “good” and needing to be seduced (which isn’t so much of an IRL thing nowadays)
2. Interracial being taboo
3. Jokes about sexual orientation
4. Jokes about disability
5. Men crying

I know younger people are sometimes accused of being woke snowflakes, but do we have significant room for misunderstanding each other in areas like the above?

Not seeking an argument, certainly not a political one. Just curious.

Emily

You're making me feel very young.

 

[VallesMarineris]

1. Jokes about sexual orientation
2. Jokes about disability

In the workplace these days, not just jokes and topics but a lot of vocabulary people once never thought twice about has become inappropriate. "Master/slave" is not longer an acceptable technical term. Even "master bedroom" is being eliminated as a real estate term. Personally, I long ago stopped using the term 'Indian' to refer to Native Americans. I work with too many people who really are from India.

And given how work penetrates all other areas of life, polite conversation is becoming almost Victorian in avoidance of these terms.

On the other hand, while my much older sister once went ballistic when she discovered the fashion brand "fcuk", the word 'fuck' gets used all over. It's lost much of its impact as an F-bomb.

 

[cdstefi]

I grew up in the 1970s and racist/sexist/phobic humour was everywhere, especially from my dad's generation (oddly, although my mum was the same generation I don't associate her with that pervasive atmosphere). It was something I felt instinctively was a bit wrong but didn't have the words or intellectual clout at that age to dissent so like most I went along and laughed with it.

I feel quite blessed to have matured into what's on the whole a kinder, more aware and tolerant society and not felt the need to hang onto my conditioning like many my age (61) do. It probably helps that my (second) wife's 23 years younger than me and not that much older than my grown up kids, so I'm pretty much surrounded by close people who are a healthy check on my sometimes still lazy and antediluvian attitudes.

 

[32aa]

I grew up in the 60s, when people had a sense of humor.

Shows like 'All in the Family'- Archie Bunker and comedians like George Carlin, Don Rickles, and Flip Wilson to name a few. There was no such thing as 'Political Correctness'. It was just Frikking Humor. Nobody got their panties in a wad.

And speaking of the whole "Master/Slave" in the 70s it was popular to for couples to buy "Master/Slave" T-shirts. Oh Well.

 

[SimonDoom]

I know younger people are sometimes accused of being woke snowflakes, but do we have significant room for misunderstanding each other in areas like the above?

Do you mean "misunderstanding" or "understanding"?

There's always room for misunderstanding. It's a permanent feature of the human condition. Understanding, on the other hand, takes some work.

 

[Voboy]

The jokes, yes.

We joked about anything and everything. The more offensive the jokes were, to the largest number of different kinds of people, the better. And nobody did anything but laugh. Might there have been some pain beneath the laughter? Maybe, but not in my case. I never would have known in anyone else's case. And here's the thing: if anyone would have claimed they felt hurt by the joke?

We'd have merely laughed harder. Because we'd have seen that as some funny shit. Imagine! Taking offense at a good joke! It would not have computed.

 

[SimonDoom]

My answer, and I'll try to keep it short, something I often fail at:

1. I'm in my late 50s. Yes, there is a big difference. I feel it more with each passing year.
2. I believe in the widest possible artistic expression, here and elsewhere. Nothing should be prosecuted, banned, or canceled. Here at Literotica, nobody's kinks and fantasies should be shamed. If people want to read and write stories about incest, non-con, BDSM, cuckoldry, or white women having sex with black men with large penises and big muscles, it's fine with me. I truly believe, based on everything I know, that there's no harm in any of it.
3. One's being "offended" is not a form of cognizable harm that I have to care about--at least here at Literotica (as opposed to, say, the workplace). One's offense is no more important than another's pleasure.
4. Everything can be funny, depending on how you look at it. Mel Brooks turned Hitler into a source of comedy with his movie The Producers. If you can make Hitler funny, anything can be funny. Anthony Jeselnik makes jokes about molesting children. He's hilarious. Yes, everything can be the subject of a joke, depending on how you approach it. We would, in my opinion, be a better and more progressive culture to fully understand and appreciate that, rather than constantly to worry about what's offensive. I find the constant concern about taking and giving offense in today's culture to be tedious, Philistine, anti-creative, and, in my opinion, deeply regressive. When it comes to expression and art we're moving backward, not forward, IMO.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I'm 68, so I entered college in 1973. One good thing I noticed about the period between then and the early 21st Century (at least in New York/New Jersey) was that in schools, offices, and volunteer organizations (and I was in quite a few) the relations between the genders was generally more relaxed and low-key than they are now. It seemed that men and women trusted each other more. Any disputes in workplaces were about business, rarely personal. I had a couple of female bosses that I got along very well with (actually three of them if I count the last contract job I had). I certainly never felt any worry if I had to be alone with a woman for a while in some place like an office, a college newspaper office, or a volunteer food van.

That was the experience that I had. Maybe others had different experiences. Much of what I know about the present is based on second-hand accounts.

 

[AG31]

Interesting question. But more complex than agreeing about gaps. I'll be 80 in May, so I'm speaking from that end of the spectrum.

A few things recently have got me thinking about this. Do you agree that there are gaps between what older and younger people think about a range of topics?

A few that come to mind include;

1. Non-con seen through the lens of girls being “good” and needing to be seduced (which isn’t so much of an IRL thing nowadays)

I'm not sure if I ever bought into the need to be seduced thing, but if I were still reading romances, I'd go for the strong man theme.

1. Interracial being taboo

I never thought of personally as taboo. I remember being much affected by a story in the Sunday paper as a child about a woman who "passed" and feared being found out when she gave birth. I think I personally viewed it as exotic and romantic. I was certainly aware that a lot of people thought it was wrong. Needless to say it morphed into a nothing-burger decades ago as far as my own attitudes go.

1. Jokes about sexual orientation

I don't recall any. Thought they must have been around. I certainly never told any such jokes.
But this is one area where my own thinking has changed dramatically. When I was a child I took it for granted that homosexuality was wrong. I don't think I was aware of anyone around me being homosexual, but if I had been, I'm sure I would have accepted them as a fellow human being. By the time I was a young adult and met my first publicly acknowledged gay man I had consigned the "it's wrong" to the category of belief to belief in the Virgin birth. I was amazed at (and affirming of) the swift acceptance of same sex marriage. I can't think of another such change in societal attitudes.

1. Jokes about disability

Never. Not on my part or on the part of anyone I knew.

1. Men crying

I've always thought that was borderline attractive.

I know younger people are sometimes accused of being woke snowflakes, but do we have significant room for misunderstanding each other in areas like the above?

Not seeking an argument, certainly not a political one. Just curious.

Emily

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I'll give one small clue. When I was very young, still in university, it was a criminal offense to seduce a virgin with promises of marriage. Whipping was one of the permitted punishments.

How old do I feel now?

 

[OffNSFW]

The problem is, a lot of unfunny pricks who think they're George Carlin or Archie Bunker or Mel Brooks or Lenny fuckin' Bruce--and they ain't--make what they think is a joke, and get mad when the person who's the butt of it doesn't laugh.

Like, if someone calls me a faggot and makes a joke about it at my expense, they might think it's hysterical. I might feel pressured to laugh with them, because their next reaction might be to kill me.

But that's not a great reason to laugh. If anything has changed about comedy, it's that more faggots feel secure enough in their communities not to laugh along with hacky jokes made at their expense.

I get it. It's comedy, and there isn't really such a thing as subject matter that's off limits. But the touchier the subject is, the more finesse the joke requires. A lot of self-proclaimed comedians can't or won't understand that. They don't understand that the bar has been raised and they've failed to pass over it.

The most offensive thing in the world is a comedian demanding that people laugh at a joke that a middle schooler could have come up with. Or a comedian who skips the jokes altogether and instead simply parrots their audience's prejudices back to them for an hour. Going for "clapter," as Norm MacDonald derisively called it.

 

[NotWise]

You're younger than my daughters, so I'll volunteer for the older end of the age gap. Everyone's situation is different, so you really can't make generalizations and expect them to be very useful.

As to your specific points:

Non-con seen through the lens of girls being “good” and needing to be seduced (which isn’t so much of an IRL thing nowadays.

That hasn't been an IRL thing within my adult life. It might have been prevalent in my parent's generation,

Interracial being taboo

For my parents' generation, maybe it was. Historically, a white woman marrying a black man or a white man marrying a black woman would probably take a social step down, which their families would discourage. But... if they were at about the same social level, then that might not be a problem. I'm not sure that qualifies it as taboo.

Jokes about sexual orientation

I recall insults based on sexual orientation more than jokes. That all went away in my teens when I realized that I had friends whose sexual orientation made them subject to those insults. As an adult, it hasn't been a thing at all.

Jokes about disability

Nope. There was no time in my life when that was acceptable.

Men crying

Men cry. Men crying in public was discouraged in most situations, but I think that might be as true now as it ever has been.

 

[AG31]

I’ve said a few times that Lit (or at least AH) seems to skew older.

A few things recently have got me thinking about this. Do you agree that there are gaps between what older and younger people think about a range of topics?

Are you talking about people on Lit, or people at large? I can't recall anyone in AH having expressed "old fashioned" opinions about the topics you've listed.

 

[SimonDoom]

In the spirit of NotWise's response, I'll respond to each of these items (again, I'm in my late 50s):

• Non-con seen through the lens of girls being “good” and needing to be seduced (which isn’t so much of an IRL thing nowadays

My recollection is that by the late 1970s, when I first would have become even dimly conscious of this concept, it was a thing of the past. I never felt this way, and my friends never expressed this view.

• Interracial being taboo

No. In my high school we had interracial couples. No big deal.

• Jokes about sexual orientation

Some, yes. I can remember "You're so gay" being a middle-school insult. I did not know anybody that I knew was gay until college. It wasn't until later that I found out that high school acquaintances were gay.

• Jokes about disability

People might have said things like, "That's retarded." I don't have a specific memory of this.

Men crying

This, definitely. I never cry in front of other people and never have since I was a little kid, and I can't recall seeing most of my male friends ever crying in front of me, except one, and I remember thinking it seemed strange at the time.

 

[Zootonius]

Keep in mind, those like myself who grew up in the 60s and 70s were adolescents. And adolescent humor is always more crass than society's.

I was growing up during the height of the civil rights movement. So, that for many like me, opened new understandings. Keep in mind, that Guess who's coming to dinner was 1967, so interracial was becoming at least tolerated in some places. And it's interesting to note that was the year laws against interracial marriage were struck down.

 

[KeithD]

I'll give one small clue. When I was very young, still in university, it was a criminal offense to seduce a virgin with promises of marriage. Whipping was one of the permitted punishments.

How old do I feel now?

Reminds me that the third woman I considered marrying (in the late 60s) was third generation Japanese-American. I remember being completely surprised and distressed when someone informed me that I (and she) could go to prison in Virginia if I did marry her. I checked that out, and it was true at the time.

 

[SimonDoom]

To put it another way, in response to Emily's opening thread: I think there's less substantive difference in the opinions that my generation has from Emily's generation on the points listed than there is in the acceptance of being able to treat these different subjects in a wide range of ways in creative writing, including ways that might seem outrageous or offensive.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

I'll give one small clue. When I was very young, still in university, it was a criminal offense to seduce a virgin with promises of marriage. Whipping was one of the permitted punishments.

How old do I feel now?

Is this for real? Where and when was this?

 

[HordHolm]

I've been thinking about this for an hour or so, and no matter which way I think about it my answer is... it depends on more than generation: geography and class are huge factors, too, and I know some people of my generation who might think one way, but are likely to signal another based on their perceived class. Whether someone is urban or rural might make a difference (it absolutely does where I live now, largely due to the often baleful influence of a particular international religious organisation), and this could come down to something as simple as exposure to difference.

The other factor I'd throw in is upbringing - those who come from a more conservative background may be more likely to react conservatively (and yes, some do rebel), whilst those from a more socially liberal household might be more predisposed to look at the contemporary world through that lens (and yes, that isn't always a given).

 

[AlexBailey]

Just some thoughts on the matter and my observations of generational differences:

“Smear the queer” was a common game when I was growing up. Sometimes it was with teams. You’d throw a ball between teammates and the other team would try to tackle them or hit them until they managed to throw the ball off to another teammate. Who ever had the ball was ‘queer’ and it was justification to beat them. Football coaches were particularly into this.

It didn’t just stay in the field. ‘Fag’ and ‘sissy’ were insults, sometimes meant to be funny but some people took it as license to bash femmes and gays. “Boys will be boys.” I had a friend in high school who was beaten bloody when he wore eyeliner one day. Our old math teacher watched it happen and later said something about how he should have seen it coming. The jock got sent home for the day. My friend got stitches.

Getting ‘woke’ to the idea that gender nonconformity isn’t a reason for violence is a good thing in my opinion. Even today many people would disagree but they are rapidly becoming a minority. Still, we get the ‘anti woke’ crowd who are now acting like victims and seeming put upon that they’re being ‘forced’ to accept that it’s okay for other people to be different.

My step brother used to call me ‘fag’ in front of his friends and encouraged them to beat on me. He is still openly racist, sexist, and anti queer and raised his kids that way. When his son (big kid- way bigger than me by the time he was 13) was a teen would try to throw me - his uncle, in the pool at my parents summer family get togethers. This went on for years and at first it was funny. It was a joke that he was coming after his ‘queerbait’ uncle. Even my parents laughed. For years I was able to out maneuver him and send him into the pool. Then one summer when he came after me, instead for trying to push me he grabbed my ponytail and jumped in the pool dragging me with him. Oh, everyone laughed, even me.

The weird thing was after that my nephew had a new attitude. He was aloof and wouldn’t give me the time of day. The only time he has spoken to me since the last pool incident was at my stepdad’s funeral, and it was just to shake hands and offer condolences.

Oh well. My ‘family’ is a mess. So many members don’t talk to each other.

Jokes can be funny but they can also be forms of abuse and validation of prejudices.

 

[lovecraft68]

You’ve kinda answered this, but did you feel any initial hurt (and then brush it off)?

Emily

No, I always saw it as just busting chops. But usually it was among friends, if someone I wasn't friends with said something like "You're a stupid Polock" I'd reply with something to inulst them.

I don't want to do the "kids these days" thing, but in general we were a lot more thick skinned. I'll say that back then if we saw someone was hurt by something most of us would lay off, but of course there were always some bullies who wouldn't. Sad to say bullying has gotten worse for the younger people today because the internet has given cowards a place to say hurtful things with no repercussions.

Back when I was a kid if you shot your mouth off it was going to get settled out of school.

I was a foster kid as was the other girl in that home, She was two years older and we went to the same high school, we would sit together at lunch and a couple times a bunch of kids started chanting "Pound Puppies". Imagine sitting there listening to a hundred kids do that to you? I ended up in juvie for two weeks after I caught up with the kid that started the chant. Good times had by all.

One of many reason the trolls here have no effect on me, or any personal attack here. Perspective.

 

[intim8]

1. Non-con seen through the lens of girls being “good” and needing to be seduced (which isn’t so much of an IRL thing nowadays)
2. Interracial being taboo
3. Jokes about sexual orientation
4. Jokes about disability
5. Men crying

1. I grew up thinking that good girls didn't want to have sex, and girls that wanted to have sex weren't good girls. And I didn't want to date girls who weren't good girls. Girls would do it, but not because they wanted sex per se, but because they wanted a sexual relationship (WTF?). I was never too clear on what those ideas actually meant in combination. And yes, I knew that girls had orgasms, but, somehow, still thought they didn't actually want them. My first serious girlfriend reinforced that. She was terrified of "getting carried away", which didn't mean going too far, it meant enjoying it too much. She was Catholic.

Yeah, pretty fucked up. Oddly, waiting till marriage wasn't really part of that (though if she got pregnant, you got hitched, no questions), which made it all even more complicated. My first girlfriend was a "good girl", but she took a lot of the initiative, without ever being overt enough about it that I knew she was doing it. Which, looking back on some things, I slap my forehead over my obliviousness.

But to your question, yeah, the idea of "seducing" a girl was a thing, but not as a non-con thing, more as a kind of mutual cover story. She would pretend she didn't want to, and he would pretend he had pure intentions. And then, oh, my, look what we did. Now we get to feel guilty and afraid of consequences. Because using birth control meant it was premeditated.

I have a saying that "men need to get permission from the woman; women need to get permission from themselves", but I don't know if that is or ever was accurate.

2. (Interracial) Not exactly taboo any more (70s/early 80s), but very, very unusual. Almost unheard of, and there was an awareness that parents and grands would find it unseemly if it was a white man and black woman, and possibly that it could not ever be consensual between a white woman and a black man.

Part of my understanding of that might differ even from people my age, since I grew up in one of the most segregated cities in the US. Though I moved to the suburbs in middle school, the thinking, while a bit more enlightened, was still carried over in a lot of ways.

3, 4. All the slurs, including racial ones, were not an everyday thing, but it was rare that people batted an eye over it. At worst, some of them were treated as mildly impolite in some circumastances. And yeah, in school, calling a guy a fa**** was a routine insult. I never met an openly gay person till I was years out of school, though looking back, there were a couple of guys that might have been.

5. Not a thing. Guys don't cry. Sulk, but not cry.

Though it has happened in a couple of my stories, and not as a demeaning or weakness thing.

Do you agree that there are gaps between what older and younger people think about a range of topics?

So the above, yes. I believe I'm pretty well in tune with the new normal on all those things, but I know I have vestigages of the way I grew up that at least color how I interpret and process that new normal in subtle ways.

Another one you didn't list was shaving pubic hair. It was basically never done in real life or in porn through my high school years and later. It wasn't even on the radar. I remember a time where in porn and for strippers, it started sometimes being done, but it was a very slutty thing to do. Then all of a sudden, it was basically universal in porn and more common IRL.

I know "hairy" is treated like a fetish now, but part of me still thinks of it as the way I expect normal women to be. I got over thinkiing of shaving as inherently slutty (after a period of being completely turned off by it), and being shaved isn't a deal breaker for me, but I still prefer a nice bush.

All of the above comes with the caveat that this was all layered on top of the normal teenage issues of coming to grips with sex and the fact that understanding of the world in general was not very well formed. So a lot of how I saw things was incoherent, driven by media, and frequently self-contradictory.