Politics, Toleration and Sexual Nonconformists
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RisiaSkye
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As self-confirmed "dust," I find the whole discussion exhausting. I'm sick of being attacked for my sexuality, even here on a freaking adult board. I'm also currently annoyed that someone took it upon themselves to bring up my sexuality in an attempt to invalidate my argument on an entirely unrelated subject. That's exactly the kind of marginalizing, blindly arrogant bullshit that gets old real fast. So, forgive me if I don't have the clear headedness to discuss this in the manner it deserves right now. I'll try to come back later with something reasonably intelligent to say.
But, on at least one level, it's a good analogy: no matter how you feel about it or what you do to eliminate or hide it, dust has, does, and will always exist. Long live the kinks, freaks, queers, whackos, and other cultural "dust."
But, on at least one level, it's a good analogy: no matter how you feel about it or what you do to eliminate or hide it, dust has, does, and will always exist. Long live the kinks, freaks, queers, whackos, and other cultural "dust."
Lost Cause
It's a wrap!
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Why can't it be simply:
Live
Love
Laugh
I get tired of hearing someone else define for me what is right or wrong! If regulating your sex life isn't bad enough, the totalitarian politicians here just passed a law letting a cop pull you over if he/she THINKS you're no wearing a seatbelt. We all have to get together and involved to stop this needless intrusion by goverment into our lives!
Live
Love
Laugh
I get tired of hearing someone else define for me what is right or wrong! If regulating your sex life isn't bad enough, the totalitarian politicians here just passed a law letting a cop pull you over if he/she THINKS you're no wearing a seatbelt. We all have to get together and involved to stop this needless intrusion by goverment into our lives!
Hamletmaschine
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Structural anthropology lite
This parable does a nice job of 'translating' the work of anthropologists like Levi-Strauss (or, more particularly, Douglas--see her classic, Purity and Danger) into a comprehensible little story.
The main point of this is quite simple, really: there can be no (social) system without a series of discriminations. All systems thus create their own 'dirt'---i.e., the things that the system must perforce leave out, leave unexplained, the anomalies that can't fit neatly into the system's categories of meaning. "Dirt" is the evidence, however, that the system is imperfect, and so it is often demonized in one way or another as a way to repress knowledge of the system's own imperfections.
Because the system creates more dirt and it seeks to perpetuate itself, dirt keeps popping up all over the place, and so the system must put taboos around it, develop prophylactic measures of protecting oneself from it, and perform purification rituals to get rid of it if you get any on you.
Hilarious stuff, really--unless, of course, you find yourself accused of being dirt.
This parable does a nice job of 'translating' the work of anthropologists like Levi-Strauss (or, more particularly, Douglas--see her classic, Purity and Danger) into a comprehensible little story.
The main point of this is quite simple, really: there can be no (social) system without a series of discriminations. All systems thus create their own 'dirt'---i.e., the things that the system must perforce leave out, leave unexplained, the anomalies that can't fit neatly into the system's categories of meaning. "Dirt" is the evidence, however, that the system is imperfect, and so it is often demonized in one way or another as a way to repress knowledge of the system's own imperfections.
Because the system creates more dirt and it seeks to perpetuate itself, dirt keeps popping up all over the place, and so the system must put taboos around it, develop prophylactic measures of protecting oneself from it, and perform purification rituals to get rid of it if you get any on you.
Hilarious stuff, really--unless, of course, you find yourself accused of being dirt.
Cheyenne
Ms. Smarty Pantsless
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RisiaSkye said:
I didn't see this, so I'm not sure what you're talking about. My bet is that as a tactic though, it didn't work. Most of us can split the sexual side of people from the rest of their opinions. There is no correlation between the two that I know of.
riff
Jose Jones
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Re: Structural anthropology lite
Wow! I haven't thought of Levi-Strauss in YEARS! Was he post-structuralist or is he structuralist?
Who was the person that was the "original" structuralist? Shit, I am going to my bookcase now.... I suspect it is one of those easy answers that is so close to my face I can't see it.
Hamletmaschine said:
Wow! I haven't thought of Levi-Strauss in YEARS! Was he post-structuralist or is he structuralist?
Who was the person that was the "original" structuralist? Shit, I am going to my bookcase now.... I suspect it is one of those easy answers that is so close to my face I can't see it.
riff
Jose Jones
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Ferdinand de Saussure (by Jonathan Culler)
Back cover:
De Saussure founded modern linguistics....
Along with Freud and Durkheim, Suassure added a new dimension to behavioral studies, seeking underlying systems rather than individual causes. By his methods and prohetic suggestions, he promoted semiology and structuralism, both keys to current anthropology and literary theory.....
Back cover:
De Saussure founded modern linguistics....
Along with Freud and Durkheim, Suassure added a new dimension to behavioral studies, seeking underlying systems rather than individual causes. By his methods and prohetic suggestions, he promoted semiology and structuralism, both keys to current anthropology and literary theory.....
Hamletmaschine
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Re: Re: Structural anthropology lite
LOL--well, his "Structural Study of Myth" essay is a good clue, I think--and The Raw and the Cooked is also pretty straightforwardly 'structuralist', I guess.
But he sort of went "post" on everybody with Tristes Tropiques.
The 'original' structuralist? Hmmm. The linguist de Saussure is who I'd nominate, but I couldn't really say.
riff said:
LOL--well, his "Structural Study of Myth" essay is a good clue, I think--and The Raw and the Cooked is also pretty straightforwardly 'structuralist', I guess.
But he sort of went "post" on everybody with Tristes Tropiques.
The 'original' structuralist? Hmmm. The linguist de Saussure is who I'd nominate, but I couldn't really say.
Cheyenne
Ms. Smarty Pantsless
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lavender said:
Maybe, but mostly on sexual topics I'd think you'd find any correlations. Otherwise, this board is an example of the wide variety of opinions we all have. Conservatives/ liberals/ religious/ non-religious/etc. I meant that if you take all the different sexual fetish categories and tried to match them with certain opinions on many different topics, I'm not sure you'd see any kind of pattern. We're all pretty sexual at Lit, but look at the variety of opinions we have on almost everything!
Hamletmaschine
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Ahhh, yes! Thought so, but thanks for confirming riff. Didn't feel like looking thru the bookcase this a.m.
Culler's Structuralism and Literature (can't remember the exact title, but I think that's close) is outstanding if anyone's looking for an advanced intro to structuralist theory.
Culler's Structuralism and Literature (can't remember the exact title, but I think that's close) is outstanding if anyone's looking for an advanced intro to structuralist theory.
Samuari
Twice Blessed
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I think that there two issues here:
1) Does our sexuality affect the other portions of our lives? I think that it does. While we are more the the sum of our parts, all of those parts contriburte to the whole, and if any of them are missing or changed the whole changes. For example, cym's summissiveness has an effect on how she sees the universe. It is so much a part of who she is that it profoundly influences the rest of her life and becomes one of the filters through which she process the world.
2) Should we alow a person's sexuality to afect how we treat them in other areas of their lives? In the above example, cym is one of the smartest flks around here, excelling in the hard sciences, not to mention an extreamly tallented writer and poet. Except where she is writing about her experances, her sexual persuation dosen't enter into an evaluation of her work in any way. The truly awfull thing is that she sees a need to hide her sexuality from the public at large, because it would destry her teaching career. It prevents her from teaching sexuality the way that it should be taught, amoung other things.
1) Does our sexuality affect the other portions of our lives? I think that it does. While we are more the the sum of our parts, all of those parts contriburte to the whole, and if any of them are missing or changed the whole changes. For example, cym's summissiveness has an effect on how she sees the universe. It is so much a part of who she is that it profoundly influences the rest of her life and becomes one of the filters through which she process the world.
2) Should we alow a person's sexuality to afect how we treat them in other areas of their lives? In the above example, cym is one of the smartest flks around here, excelling in the hard sciences, not to mention an extreamly tallented writer and poet. Except where she is writing about her experances, her sexual persuation dosen't enter into an evaluation of her work in any way. The truly awfull thing is that she sees a need to hide her sexuality from the public at large, because it would destry her teaching career. It prevents her from teaching sexuality the way that it should be taught, amoung other things.
Last edited:
Cheyenne
Ms. Smarty Pantsless
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Samuari said:
Staying with Cym as the example...
We all know Cym is submissive and into BDSM. But she ALSO has so many other sides to her, and so many different opinions. My point was that, as an example, just because Cym is submissive, we have no clue what the rest of her is like. Submissive doesn't automatically mean liberal or conservative, prolife or prochoice, etc. For every submissive you could find with one opinion on something, there are probably 10 more with different opinions. No correlation at all, in other words, to be able to say all submissives believe "x."
Black_Bird
Not Innocent
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The problem just isn't that the creature didn't attempt to communicate with the dust, but the dust didn't attempt to communicate with the creature. This still all comes down to fear factors; those who proclaim themselves "normal" fear what isn't like them, while those who know they are different fear percecution. Out of fear, neither side has words with the other, and so misunderstanding becomes the rule.
Humans are such funny creatures; none of us want to give in to what we fear.
Humans are such funny creatures; none of us want to give in to what we fear.
Black_Bird
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lavender said:
I agree, but it still leaves us with a problem: How do we combat that ignorance if we are afraid to come forward about our unconventional lifestyles? The answer is, we can't.
Right now, however, homosexuality and other "deviant" behaviors are more accepted by the public at large then at any time before. That doesn't make it any easier, but it does show that *something* is being done and it *is* working. In the parabol, there isn't any resistance or change in the creature's behavior; that isn't the reality.
Samuari
Twice Blessed
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kiwiwolf said:
A genetic predisposition to kinkiness? I don't know about that. There is the behavorist's theroy that that given enought time you could teach a horse to do algebra. this is prolly true if you count giving enough time several thousand generatons of selective breeding, but then the product may not be reconizable as a horse, either.
Black_Bird
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lavender said:
Okay... I misunderstood.
Yes, it does require a complete shift in social consciousness and every little bit counts. It's one of the reasons why the internet is so valueable; quick anonymous transfer of information and ideas that can lead to new understanding.
BTW: Great Thread.
kiwiwolf
Gun Totin'
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Samuari said:
Point taken Samurai.... nice AV by the way. I have always been a Belushi fan...
I suppose what I am asking is why sexual preferences are so often reflected in sexual stereotypes. Take your average gay male for instance. Stereotypically he is a limp wristed, lisping, hip swaying, interior decorator who loves to cook and dresses in floral prints. I know a lot of gay men. Most fit the above stereotype to a tee. Is this a product of societies stereotypical expectation or is it an affectation. Genuine or an act?
In no way am I inferring that all gay men are this way. I flatted for 8 months with a gay man who played rugby with me. He was the hardest son of a bitch I have ever come across. He just happened to prefer men to women.
I'm just curious...
cymbidia
unrepentant pervert
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I ask your pardon in advance for the length of this thing. I just got going...
Well, as one of the pieces of dust, i'm way off in Risia's corner: i, too, have enough of being attacked for my sexuality and i'm not taking it anymore at all, here.
Here at Lit, we dust motes have carved a respectable place for ourselves among all the rest of you. Here, we are just like anyone else, and you talk to us and play with us and listen to us, just as we do with and to you. Here we don't get sucked into the vacuum cleaner or pushed off to the side and ignored.
That's just here. Elsewhere in our lives, we are still living in secret and unable to be as open about who we are sexually as can be that lovely newlywed couple who just moved in down the block and everyone smiles and chuckles when they see the two of them kissing on each other in the front yard.
Elsewhere in our lives, in public places, we cannot act with our partners as we would choose. Our Dom/mes, for example, cannot expect our obedience in public places because it would be just a little too odd for the scrutiny we are always under. We bend, we change, we adapt our ways to fit socially acceptable norms in public, but we know we're dust, then, on a shiny and highly visible surface. We know we have to be discreet.
Elsewhere in our lives, if one is a teacher like me, we cannot tell our co-workers about our sexuality because it might get back to the school board somehow. The school board has the power, of course, to fire us under the loosely defined "morals clauses" that bind all public school teachers to fears of accusations of impropriety by district inhabitants.
Elsewhere in our lives we have to learn to blend, we pieces of dust, with the furniture on which we're lying... or we have to become adept at surviving on the fringes of social norms. We cannot be out with our sexuality, except in rare situations. We cannot let most people know what we need and want and crave, what fulfills us as sexual people because of the fear and massive misunderstanding of what BDSM actually entails for the people who claim it for their own.
To most people, we're scary. We'll subvert their kids and steal their babies. We'll whip the skin off the unwilling and sell their useless hulks into white slavery. We'll pierce our private parts (well, okay, that's true for many of us! ~g~) and walk around stark naked except for those piercings.
To most people, everyone is like them. They feel about the same on most issues, they want the same kinda things; they get along with the neighbors because everyone is a lot alike.
We aren't. When our blinds close at night, we don't want you to knock on our door and then come on in. At night, after the door is shut and curtains drawn, we relax in the safety of our homes and we allow all the armor to drop.
No, we cannot all be categorized into one political group or as holding one belief on any one issue due to our being BDSM adherents. No more than all American Indians can be immediately classified as Democrats based on their racial ancestry or all blue eyed blondes can be said to be dumb cuz, well, everyone knows it, right? I mean, where's there's smoke there's fire, right... or are you having a blonde moment?
In a like vein, no one can ever say that all BDSM'ers are going to fit into any one category EXCEPT that i firmly and irrevocably believe that having felt the astonishingly harsh sting of prejudice, most of us are more tolerant of individual differences among people in terms of sexuality, gender, race, creed, identifying marks, etc. Most of us are less inclined to make fun of the flaming fag queen fairy who prances into town looking for a job at the local Dairy Freeze than are those in the mainstream world BECAUSE we know that everyone is as they are and we can appreciate how much guts it takes to be out to the world like that gay man.
Most of us will never be out about our BDSM like that. We can’t. We’re afraid.
This past year, i told my mother and my personal doctor about my being a BDSM masochistic submissive. Here and in my everyday life, some of the BDSM'ers i know are amazed that i did that, that i told. Some can't imagine telling parents or siblings or even their physicians. We're afraid. Afraid it'll get back to our insurance companies and we'll be denied coverage, for instance, or that our mother will stop loving us (or have a heart attack worrying about us).
So we keep quiet. We remain mute pieces of dust.
However, there will come a day when our differences won’t seem as great to the vast majority of nilla folk as they do today. Then we’ll tell our mothers and our doctors just as easily as homosexuals and lesbians tell their mothers and their doctors today.
Like many BDSM’ers, regardless of scholarly debates on the matter, I know I was born with a predisposition to be the way I am sexually. I know it wasn’t a conscious choice but a genetics level need.
In the current Newsweek (March 11, 2002) there’s a discussion of many aspects of schizophrenia, a disease that was medically described and accepted as unique over 100 years ago. Just now researchers are finding genetic markers for that disease, though they’ve suspected for a long time that they would.
Question: How long will it be until someone begins to do that time-consuming and costly research on BDSM tendencies? And what would they look for? Dominant tendencies? Submissive? What about those who Switch? How about us masochists?
Answer: Why should they even begin looking? There’s no money to be made on finding a “cure” so who will fund it?
The answer lies in societal change.
That doesn’t often happen on it’s own and does often involve some really traumatic times (i.e., the mid-60’s through the mid-70’s).
I think you’ll just have to gradually come to know us.
To paraphrase Chey, BDSM’er doesn't automatically mean liberal or conservative, prolife or prochoice, etc. For every BDSM’er you could find with one opinion on something, there are probably 10 more with different opinions. No correlation at all, in other words, to be able to say all BDSM’er believe "x”.
Just let us be. Don’t make fun of us. Don’t let your friends make fun of us. We’re just like you only we do things differently, a little or a lot, in our primary sexual/love relationships.
Is that really such a big deal?
Lavy, where’s this original thread? That engendered good discussion, too, as I recall.
Well, as one of the pieces of dust, i'm way off in Risia's corner: i, too, have enough of being attacked for my sexuality and i'm not taking it anymore at all, here.
Here at Lit, we dust motes have carved a respectable place for ourselves among all the rest of you. Here, we are just like anyone else, and you talk to us and play with us and listen to us, just as we do with and to you. Here we don't get sucked into the vacuum cleaner or pushed off to the side and ignored.
That's just here. Elsewhere in our lives, we are still living in secret and unable to be as open about who we are sexually as can be that lovely newlywed couple who just moved in down the block and everyone smiles and chuckles when they see the two of them kissing on each other in the front yard.
Elsewhere in our lives, in public places, we cannot act with our partners as we would choose. Our Dom/mes, for example, cannot expect our obedience in public places because it would be just a little too odd for the scrutiny we are always under. We bend, we change, we adapt our ways to fit socially acceptable norms in public, but we know we're dust, then, on a shiny and highly visible surface. We know we have to be discreet.
Elsewhere in our lives, if one is a teacher like me, we cannot tell our co-workers about our sexuality because it might get back to the school board somehow. The school board has the power, of course, to fire us under the loosely defined "morals clauses" that bind all public school teachers to fears of accusations of impropriety by district inhabitants.
Elsewhere in our lives we have to learn to blend, we pieces of dust, with the furniture on which we're lying... or we have to become adept at surviving on the fringes of social norms. We cannot be out with our sexuality, except in rare situations. We cannot let most people know what we need and want and crave, what fulfills us as sexual people because of the fear and massive misunderstanding of what BDSM actually entails for the people who claim it for their own.
To most people, we're scary. We'll subvert their kids and steal their babies. We'll whip the skin off the unwilling and sell their useless hulks into white slavery. We'll pierce our private parts (well, okay, that's true for many of us! ~g~) and walk around stark naked except for those piercings.
To most people, everyone is like them. They feel about the same on most issues, they want the same kinda things; they get along with the neighbors because everyone is a lot alike.
We aren't. When our blinds close at night, we don't want you to knock on our door and then come on in. At night, after the door is shut and curtains drawn, we relax in the safety of our homes and we allow all the armor to drop.
No, we cannot all be categorized into one political group or as holding one belief on any one issue due to our being BDSM adherents. No more than all American Indians can be immediately classified as Democrats based on their racial ancestry or all blue eyed blondes can be said to be dumb cuz, well, everyone knows it, right? I mean, where's there's smoke there's fire, right... or are you having a blonde moment?
In a like vein, no one can ever say that all BDSM'ers are going to fit into any one category EXCEPT that i firmly and irrevocably believe that having felt the astonishingly harsh sting of prejudice, most of us are more tolerant of individual differences among people in terms of sexuality, gender, race, creed, identifying marks, etc. Most of us are less inclined to make fun of the flaming fag queen fairy who prances into town looking for a job at the local Dairy Freeze than are those in the mainstream world BECAUSE we know that everyone is as they are and we can appreciate how much guts it takes to be out to the world like that gay man.
Most of us will never be out about our BDSM like that. We can’t. We’re afraid.
This past year, i told my mother and my personal doctor about my being a BDSM masochistic submissive. Here and in my everyday life, some of the BDSM'ers i know are amazed that i did that, that i told. Some can't imagine telling parents or siblings or even their physicians. We're afraid. Afraid it'll get back to our insurance companies and we'll be denied coverage, for instance, or that our mother will stop loving us (or have a heart attack worrying about us).
So we keep quiet. We remain mute pieces of dust.
However, there will come a day when our differences won’t seem as great to the vast majority of nilla folk as they do today. Then we’ll tell our mothers and our doctors just as easily as homosexuals and lesbians tell their mothers and their doctors today.
Like many BDSM’ers, regardless of scholarly debates on the matter, I know I was born with a predisposition to be the way I am sexually. I know it wasn’t a conscious choice but a genetics level need.
In the current Newsweek (March 11, 2002) there’s a discussion of many aspects of schizophrenia, a disease that was medically described and accepted as unique over 100 years ago. Just now researchers are finding genetic markers for that disease, though they’ve suspected for a long time that they would.
Question: How long will it be until someone begins to do that time-consuming and costly research on BDSM tendencies? And what would they look for? Dominant tendencies? Submissive? What about those who Switch? How about us masochists?
Answer: Why should they even begin looking? There’s no money to be made on finding a “cure” so who will fund it?
The answer lies in societal change.
That doesn’t often happen on it’s own and does often involve some really traumatic times (i.e., the mid-60’s through the mid-70’s).
I think you’ll just have to gradually come to know us.
To paraphrase Chey, BDSM’er doesn't automatically mean liberal or conservative, prolife or prochoice, etc. For every BDSM’er you could find with one opinion on something, there are probably 10 more with different opinions. No correlation at all, in other words, to be able to say all BDSM’er believe "x”.
Just let us be. Don’t make fun of us. Don’t let your friends make fun of us. We’re just like you only we do things differently, a little or a lot, in our primary sexual/love relationships.
Is that really such a big deal?
Lavy, where’s this original thread? That engendered good discussion, too, as I recall.
