This week marks another turning point in gay rights (go Maine, and we’re hoping New Hampshire’s Governor signs, too). A little reminder that there is still a lot of opposition from certain quarters, but with friends like John Stewart I’m certain things will continue to work out!
I'm a technophile with an enduring interest in almost anything real or imagined. I suffer fools badly, and love trashy science fiction, plot-free action movies, playing guitar, and baking (especially scones. You haven't lived 'til you've eaten my scones). My wife & I are Scottish, living north of Atlanta, GA, with two children, one dog, and a growing collection of gadgets. I work for a living.
Some do, but this is one of ironies of “freedom”—people who have can’t understand why people who are oppressed just don’t walk away from their oppressors.
For instance, talk to conservative, anti-feminist women who fail to “get it” when you say that many women have little or no choice in their lives. Odds are, the woman who doesn’t understand this either (a) has always had all the choice she can handle or (b) honestly can’t understand why anyone would want more than she has. Certainly, when it is explained carefully, some will understand. They may continue to refuse to act on it, but they will understand. Many, though, will look at you like you’re speaking Mandarin. Because their lives aren’t like that, they can’t understand how anyone else’s life can be otherwise except by—wait for it—choice. (Well, they must like it, or, well it’s her own fault because she didn’t do XY or Z.)
It is the most frustrating form of ignorance and those you’re talking about, who do understand, rely on it to make their cause.
Nicklaus wrote:—”Are you equating gay marriage with pedophilia? Not the same. The first usually involves rape, and the second is between consenting adults.”
Nicklaus, I think you got that backwards. You did mean pedophilia is rape and not gay marriage, right?
You know, in a way this reminds me of the mid-70s when there was a movement in the Catholic Church to permit priests to marry.
On one of those retrospective programs about the Seventies, I recall John Ritter saying: “In the Seventies, no one wanted to get married—except priests, and the Pope wouldn’t let them!”
Karl’s response earlier gives me a very clear picture of what he believes. He believes that people are only gay because older gay people “recruited” them by victimizing them when they were young. He DOES equate being gay with pedophilia; he’s stirred that pot time and time again. No matter how many times he has been corrected, he goes back to that.
I would like to say to Karl only that sexual victimization is (a) much more emotionally damaging than physically, and (b) happens heterosexually far more often than homosexually.
This particular argument of yours is getting really old. Gay marriage, as someone pointed out, is the result of gay people wanting to publicly commit to monogamous relationships. How you can keep hammering that it somehow equates to rape is beyond me. Move on.
Mark you are perfectly correct with your comment that many people can’t understand why people who are oppressed just don’t walk away from their oppressors.
To expand upon your comment - I honestly think a lot of the ‘happy to be oppressed’ is a matter of programming.
People have always been programmed. Religions are in the business of programming - their dogma relies upon the impression of certain ‘truths’ as being unalterable from the earliest age. If you’ve ever encountered the ‘Young Trotskyists’ (a fixture of every British University student union) you’ll have seen such ‘programming’ first hand.
Perceived oppression is a cultural thing. I have many Indian colleagues, almost all of whom have arranged marriages. One knew nothing about his bride, other than her name, until the actual wedding. When I’ve spoken to my colleagues and their wives I’ve often been incredulous — asking the women, “don’t you find it demeaning?” Most think it perfectly ordinary and normal. They told me various reasons why this is a better approach to marriage. All of them struck me as post hoc justifications, but none of the women suggested that the system should change. “Husbands are not for love - husbands are for family” was the general consensus, and most of them thought they had done reasonably well from the practice. I’ve had similar responses from my male colleagues, in general.
Cultural memes are not always as deeply and broadly ingrained (or as obvious) as arranged marriages, but all traditions have staying power. They all have the same general effect. Of course this is the proper way to do, act, live, speak, work. It is how it has always been. Why should we change?
Innovation is harder for some people than for others (we all exist on yet another bell curve with regards to adaptability and comfort with innovation and change).
Some of us are perfectly happy (indeed thrive) with constant flux. We can change homes, change jobs, change countries and we are still intact, and still very much the same person (although new experiences do help us grow)
Others are frozen into immobility and panic by even the thought of such change.
So I’m not surprised at all that some people (even ‘many’ people) wish to remain ‘oppressed’ and that they don’t even see the oppression. We are all experts at post-hoc justification for our actions and our choices. (see New Scientist - Choice blindness: You don’t know what you want)
I do want (and try) to work towards a society where such oppression is seen as abnormal, rather than an everyday fact of life.
Many excellent points here. Thanks, Tony and Mark.
Tony, I hadn’t before heard of “choice blindness.” Such a clever set of experiments! Wow . . . I do like this excerpt from the article you cited:
With choice blindness we drive a large wedge between intentions and actions in the mind. As our participants give us verbal explanations about choices they never made, we can show them beyond doubt - and prove it - that what they say cannot be true.
“Normal” people are thus confabulators far beyond what I had ever suspected.
Karl wrote, “…when young people are used as “property” of older people who feel somehow prividged to show others how to “grow up,” it difiles the rights and personal will of the one that ends up being forced/lured/seduced/educated…”
Mindy responded that: “Karl…believes that people are only gay because older gay people “recruited” them by victimizing them when they were young.”
The amusing thing about Mindy’s observation, and about Karl’s earlier comment, is that while sexual preference is rarely the result of older people “recruiting” young people, most *religious* preference clearly IS the result of older people “recruiting” young people. And just as Karl says, “when young people are used as “property” of older people who feel somehow prividged [sic] to show others how to “grow up,” it difiles [sic] the rights and personal will of the one that ends up being forced/lured/seduced/educated….” Indeed, Karl, when young people are used as ‘property’ of older (religious) people who feel somehow privileged to show others how to ‘grow up,’ it defiles the rights and personal will of the one that ends up being forced/lured/seduced/educated. Sadly, most of the world’s organized religions (especially Christianity) have a long history of forcing/luring/seducing/educating young children. Perhaps Karl’s misplaced accusations about homosexuals are merely a projection of his own rights and personal will being defiled in childhood by some older religious zealot. Perhaps Karl experienced first-hand the horrors of being forcibly indoctrinated into a particular belief.
Grumpy: I agree entirely that there is an authority-driven top-down component to much religious education. Even further, that “education” often takes the form of raw indoctrination, with children being made to endlessly repeat stories and ideas they don’t understand and being made to feel morally inferior if they dare speak up that these ideas don’t make sense (e.g., Jesus walking on water or Mary being a virgin and a mother).
Further to my previous comment, it has always amused me to see people like Karl declare their belief that sexual preference is *always* a learned behavior for homosexuals, but is *never* a learned behavior for heterosexuals. Given that children are bombarded from birth with examples of heterosexual behavior, the suggestion that only homosexuality could be a learned behavior seems patently absurd. Far more rational is the notion that human sexuality is essentially inborn, and that social learning merely informs the *manner*, but not the direction, in which people express their sexuality. Indeed, given the persecution that homosexuals face in most western societies (mainly due to bigotry from people who claim to be followers of Karl’s religion), the notion that homosexuality is merely a lifestsyle choice seems, again, ridiculous. It simply makes no sense for so many people to choose to endure so much hostility from their neighbors, religious leaders, politicians, etc., just to have sex with a partner of the same gender, unless homosexuality is more than merely a lifestyle choice.
But, but, but, Grumpy - if we allow that “social learning merely informs the *manner,* but not the direction” of aspects of life like sexuality, we have to admit that it’s all complicated and messy and can’t be crammed into RIGHT and WRONG boxes and judged accordingly.
Do you know how hard that makes it? Life, and stuff?
Sheesh. I’d really rather just allow that everything is taught, or not, because then we can CONTROL the thoughts and dreams and ideas and urges and desires of our children, and they will all grow up to be perfect, just like us. Please? Can’t we do it that way?
Animals do not need to be conditioned or taught how to reproduce. On the contrary, those that learn other uses for sexual gratification emulate the behaviors of others. Reproduction is an instinctive behavior that occurs without formal conditioning. Humans however do enable themselves to condition themselves into finding ways to prevent reproduction and then pass that along as an admirable quality for emulation.
Chances are those of the the animal world that carry on sexual behaviors that can not lead to reproduction of their own species are higher order animals which can take active roles mental rolls in their own conditioning. When the sexual drive becomes misdirected away from reproductive issues it renders the participants socially forced to seek approval for their actions and behaviors.
I am not saying there isn’t some degree of experiential conditioning in the human sex drive, but I am saying that when it is totally separated from matters of reproduction, this shouldn’t be hailed as the next level of our progression towards a perfect society.
So what that this behavior actually encourages individuals a drop out from the natural selection process, its progressive
I guess we should be happy that parts of the gene pool are being severed from the human race.
I guess we should agree with atheists that they are doing no harm to anyone else.
I guess we should assume that the survival of the fittest will simply become matters of rationality and human altruistic compassion.
I don’t agree to such mindsets.
A social emphasis upon sex for “the experience” first and only secondarily if ever for reproduction will be the undoing of any worldview as this runs directly in opposition to what is needed for the shear numbers and variation that make survival a possibility.
Karl: I’m amazed at how you are not embarrassed to just make things up, without any substantiation. I don’t have the energy to rewrite the dozens of posts and comments previously published at this site that have refuted the many points you’ve raised here.
Karl, are you really concerned about the survival of our species due to sexual gratification being considered a “goal” apart from reproduction? Your post sounds very much like you view sex as having that one purpose only. How sad for you. So if we only had sex to reproduce, and never used birth control to manage the number children each couple created, and the world continued toward bursting at its over-populated seams, what, then, would be your solution, as more people died of starvation, the resources disappeared at an ever-increasing rate - - I guess that would be us catapulting ourselves toward the End of Days? Or would your God intervene somehow and “fix” everything?
Did it ever occur to you that maybe your God has already done that? Already intervened in managing out-of-control population growth by making certain not everyone strives for reproduction only? That perhaps your God created all those erogenous zones all over our bodies not to give us something to deny and fight against, but to allow us pleasure and connection without actually making babies every time we get close to one another? And don’t forget the brains He gave us with which we’ve developed the science to manage the number of children a family might have.
Just supposing, if I believed in your God, that you might have His intentions all wrong.
Karl writes:—”but I am saying that when it is totally separated from matters of reproduction, this shouldn’t be hailed as the next level of our progression towards a perfect society”
Why not? We’re moving toward seven billion on this one little planet and most of those don’t have the resources to sustain much of a life. It would seem to me anything that would “condition” people to stop making more (we’re not Lays potato chips, after all) at the expense of the environment would go a long way toward ameliorating many of the resource-driven problems we face.
As for what we would then do with sex, well, obviously I think sex for mutual pleasure is the best use of it. It wouldn’t bother me if it were the only use of it. I believe people should screw more and fight less. One may be contingent on the other, providing the reproductive aspect be dealt with effectively.
“Well, I’d much rather have a frog in my throat,
Or a porcupine stuck to my face.
I’d much rather have a bug in my ear,
Than a dog making love to my leg. ”
“Don’t pet the Dog” - Pinkert and Bowden
Homosexuality has been documented in several species. (dogs and sheep just to name two) And if they practice sex only out of a reproductive instinct, what kind of puppies will result from the union of Fido and someones leg?
Oral sex is rarer (probably because of all those sharp teeth) but apparently is common enough to be documented in goats, primates, hyaenas and sheep (see Wikipedia:Animal Sexuality, and is, of course the preferred approach for those humans who choose abstinence (along with anal sex) - see here, here, or here.
Many wait from Obama immediate recovery and resolution of all problems they had through many years so far. It's unfair. During a year in White House Obama has done a lot. Here's a brief summary of major accomplishments of Barack Obama during his presidency:http://myhowtoos.com/en/red-hot/93-growing-list-of-barack-obama-accomplishments »
HiJust so you know in future, and can let your neighbour know. When a baby crow is fully feathered like this they naturally leave the nest. They have to one day. They take a few days then to learn to fly around with confidence. But you 'must' 'never' take the bird if the mother is around. This is normal crow behaviour and happens to 'all' cro... »
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Jay, I agree. A lot of the house bill, particularly where Medicaid reform is concerned, references specific paragraphs in the Medicaid laws. Understanding the full effect of the changes wil require reading those as well. I've often thought it would be fun to get an amendment to repeal or suspend an obscure law of physics, such as the chandrasekha... »
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Niklaus: I admire your determination. There are probably only a few hundred people in the entire country who have read the first 1,000 pages. When you finish, I'll invite you to read the Senate version too, so that you can do a comparison. »
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Hey, Get Over It,What do we do if someone actually happens to BE stupid? I suppose we could say they're rationality challenged.But seriously, I don't for a minute think this woman is stupid. I think she's opportunistic and such a thorough-going politician that she'd use just about anyone, including her family, to win.BTW, American Right To Life (... »
Ya'll need to get over it. Name calling conservatives will never get independents like me. Try to be more balanced and analyze Sarah's actions/remarks to the same degree as your beloved Obama. Also, please stop judging people to be stupid just because they don't agree with you! This elitism in the liberal party is just sickening. »
Aw, bugger! I'm in a "fight?" Who do I punch in the nose? My faith there is a God means I cannot accept that others don't believe as I do? Or that some might believe that I'm delusional and believe in mythical beings?There's some unforseen armageddon between theism and science which will result in the inevitable destruction of theism? Dammit, I gue... »
I've been working hard to not post anything on Sarah Palin, who continues to gather publicity for reasons I can't fathom. I must say, though, that I am aghast at her recent position on the illegal Jewish settlements. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/11/palin-on-israel.html »
Tony,
Some do, but this is one of ironies of “freedom”—people who have can’t understand why people who are oppressed just don’t walk away from their oppressors.
For instance, talk to conservative, anti-feminist women who fail to “get it” when you say that many women have little or no choice in their lives. Odds are, the woman who doesn’t understand this either (a) has always had all the choice she can handle or (b) honestly can’t understand why anyone would want more than she has. Certainly, when it is explained carefully, some will understand. They may continue to refuse to act on it, but they will understand. Many, though, will look at you like you’re speaking Mandarin. Because their lives aren’t like that, they can’t understand how anyone else’s life can be otherwise except by—wait for it—choice. (Well, they must like it, or, well it’s her own fault because she didn’t do XY or Z.)
It is the most frustrating form of ignorance and those you’re talking about, who do understand, rely on it to make their cause.
Nicklaus wrote:—”Are you equating gay marriage with pedophilia? Not the same. The first usually involves rape, and the second is between consenting adults.”
Nicklaus, I think you got that backwards. You did mean pedophilia is rape and not gay marriage, right?
You know, in a way this reminds me of the mid-70s when there was a movement in the Catholic Church to permit priests to marry.
On one of those retrospective programs about the Seventies, I recall John Ritter saying: “In the Seventies, no one wanted to get married—except priests, and the Pope wouldn’t let them!”
Karl’s response earlier gives me a very clear picture of what he believes. He believes that people are only gay because older gay people “recruited” them by victimizing them when they were young. He DOES equate being gay with pedophilia; he’s stirred that pot time and time again. No matter how many times he has been corrected, he goes back to that.
I would like to say to Karl only that sexual victimization is (a) much more emotionally damaging than physically, and (b) happens heterosexually far more often than homosexually.
This particular argument of yours is getting really old. Gay marriage, as someone pointed out, is the result of gay people wanting to publicly commit to monogamous relationships. How you can keep hammering that it somehow equates to rape is beyond me. Move on.
Mark you are perfectly correct with your comment that many people can’t understand why people who are oppressed just don’t walk away from their oppressors.
To expand upon your comment - I honestly think a lot of the ‘happy to be oppressed’ is a matter of programming.
People have always been programmed. Religions are in the business of programming - their dogma relies upon the impression of certain ‘truths’ as being unalterable from the earliest age. If you’ve ever encountered the ‘Young Trotskyists’ (a fixture of every British University student union) you’ll have seen such ‘programming’ first hand.
Perceived oppression is a cultural thing. I have many Indian colleagues, almost all of whom have arranged marriages. One knew nothing about his bride, other than her name, until the actual wedding. When I’ve spoken to my colleagues and their wives I’ve often been incredulous — asking the women, “don’t you find it demeaning?” Most think it perfectly ordinary and normal. They told me various reasons why this is a better approach to marriage. All of them struck me as post hoc justifications, but none of the women suggested that the system should change. “Husbands are not for love - husbands are for family” was the general consensus, and most of them thought they had done reasonably well from the practice. I’ve had similar responses from my male colleagues, in general.
Cultural memes are not always as deeply and broadly ingrained (or as obvious) as arranged marriages, but all traditions have staying power. They all have the same general effect. Of course this is the proper way to do, act, live, speak, work. It is how it has always been. Why should we change?
Innovation is harder for some people than for others (we all exist on yet another bell curve with regards to adaptability and comfort with innovation and change).
Some of us are perfectly happy (indeed thrive) with constant flux. We can change homes, change jobs, change countries and we are still intact, and still very much the same person (although new experiences do help us grow)
Others are frozen into immobility and panic by even the thought of such change.
So I’m not surprised at all that some people (even ‘many’ people) wish to remain ‘oppressed’ and that they don’t even see the oppression. We are all experts at post-hoc justification for our actions and our choices. (see New Scientist - Choice blindness: You don’t know what you want)
I do want (and try) to work towards a society where such oppression is seen as abnormal, rather than an everyday fact of life.
Many excellent points here. Thanks, Tony and Mark.
Tony, I hadn’t before heard of “choice blindness.” Such a clever set of experiments! Wow . . . I do like this excerpt from the article you cited:
“Normal” people are thus confabulators far beyond what I had ever suspected.
Erich - and how much easier to confabulate, when your choices are already constrained by tradition.
Roy Zimmerman is at it again:
Karl wrote, “…when young people are used as “property” of older people who feel somehow prividged to show others how to “grow up,” it difiles the rights and personal will of the one that ends up being forced/lured/seduced/educated…”
Mindy responded that: “Karl…believes that people are only gay because older gay people “recruited” them by victimizing them when they were young.”
The amusing thing about Mindy’s observation, and about Karl’s earlier comment, is that while sexual preference is rarely the result of older people “recruiting” young people, most *religious* preference clearly IS the result of older people “recruiting” young people. And just as Karl says, “when young people are used as “property” of older people who feel somehow prividged [sic] to show others how to “grow up,” it difiles [sic] the rights and personal will of the one that ends up being forced/lured/seduced/educated….” Indeed, Karl, when young people are used as ‘property’ of older (religious) people who feel somehow privileged to show others how to ‘grow up,’ it defiles the rights and personal will of the one that ends up being forced/lured/seduced/educated. Sadly, most of the world’s organized religions (especially Christianity) have a long history of forcing/luring/seducing/educating young children. Perhaps Karl’s misplaced accusations about homosexuals are merely a projection of his own rights and personal will being defiled in childhood by some older religious zealot. Perhaps Karl experienced first-hand the horrors of being forcibly indoctrinated into a particular belief.
Grumpy: I agree entirely that there is an authority-driven top-down component to much religious education. Even further, that “education” often takes the form of raw indoctrination, with children being made to endlessly repeat stories and ideas they don’t understand and being made to feel morally inferior if they dare speak up that these ideas don’t make sense (e.g., Jesus walking on water or Mary being a virgin and a mother).
Further to my previous comment, it has always amused me to see people like Karl declare their belief that sexual preference is *always* a learned behavior for homosexuals, but is *never* a learned behavior for heterosexuals. Given that children are bombarded from birth with examples of heterosexual behavior, the suggestion that only homosexuality could be a learned behavior seems patently absurd. Far more rational is the notion that human sexuality is essentially inborn, and that social learning merely informs the *manner*, but not the direction, in which people express their sexuality. Indeed, given the persecution that homosexuals face in most western societies (mainly due to bigotry from people who claim to be followers of Karl’s religion), the notion that homosexuality is merely a lifestsyle choice seems, again, ridiculous. It simply makes no sense for so many people to choose to endure so much hostility from their neighbors, religious leaders, politicians, etc., just to have sex with a partner of the same gender, unless homosexuality is more than merely a lifestyle choice.
But, but, but, Grumpy - if we allow that “social learning merely informs the *manner,* but not the direction” of aspects of life like sexuality, we have to admit that it’s all complicated and messy and can’t be crammed into RIGHT and WRONG boxes and judged accordingly.
Do you know how hard that makes it? Life, and stuff?
Sheesh. I’d really rather just allow that everything is taught, or not, because then we can CONTROL the thoughts and dreams and ideas and urges and desires of our children, and they will all grow up to be perfect, just like us. Please? Can’t we do it that way?
Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Grumpy,
Animals do not need to be conditioned or taught how to reproduce. On the contrary, those that learn other uses for sexual gratification emulate the behaviors of others. Reproduction is an instinctive behavior that occurs without formal conditioning. Humans however do enable themselves to condition themselves into finding ways to prevent reproduction and then pass that along as an admirable quality for emulation.
Chances are those of the the animal world that carry on sexual behaviors that can not lead to reproduction of their own species are higher order animals which can take active roles mental rolls in their own conditioning. When the sexual drive becomes misdirected away from reproductive issues it renders the participants socially forced to seek approval for their actions and behaviors.
I am not saying there isn’t some degree of experiential conditioning in the human sex drive, but I am saying that when it is totally separated from matters of reproduction, this shouldn’t be hailed as the next level of our progression towards a perfect society.
So what that this behavior actually encourages individuals a drop out from the natural selection process, its progressive
I guess we should be happy that parts of the gene pool are being severed from the human race.
I guess we should agree with atheists that they are doing no harm to anyone else.
I guess we should assume that the survival of the fittest will simply become matters of rationality and human altruistic compassion.
I don’t agree to such mindsets.
A social emphasis upon sex for “the experience” first and only secondarily if ever for reproduction will be the undoing of any worldview as this runs directly in opposition to what is needed for the shear numbers and variation that make survival a possibility.
Karl: I’m amazed at how you are not embarrassed to just make things up, without any substantiation. I don’t have the energy to rewrite the dozens of posts and comments previously published at this site that have refuted the many points you’ve raised here.
Karl, are you really concerned about the survival of our species due to sexual gratification being considered a “goal” apart from reproduction? Your post sounds very much like you view sex as having that one purpose only. How sad for you. So if we only had sex to reproduce, and never used birth control to manage the number children each couple created, and the world continued toward bursting at its over-populated seams, what, then, would be your solution, as more people died of starvation, the resources disappeared at an ever-increasing rate - - I guess that would be us catapulting ourselves toward the End of Days? Or would your God intervene somehow and “fix” everything?
Did it ever occur to you that maybe your God has already done that? Already intervened in managing out-of-control population growth by making certain not everyone strives for reproduction only? That perhaps your God created all those erogenous zones all over our bodies not to give us something to deny and fight against, but to allow us pleasure and connection without actually making babies every time we get close to one another? And don’t forget the brains He gave us with which we’ve developed the science to manage the number of children a family might have.
Just supposing, if I believed in your God, that you might have His intentions all wrong.
Karl writes:—”but I am saying that when it is totally separated from matters of reproduction, this shouldn’t be hailed as the next level of our progression towards a perfect society”
Why not? We’re moving toward seven billion on this one little planet and most of those don’t have the resources to sustain much of a life. It would seem to me anything that would “condition” people to stop making more (we’re not Lays potato chips, after all) at the expense of the environment would go a long way toward ameliorating many of the resource-driven problems we face.
As for what we would then do with sex, well, obviously I think sex for mutual pleasure is the best use of it. It wouldn’t bother me if it were the only use of it. I believe people should screw more and fight less. One may be contingent on the other, providing the reproductive aspect be dealt with effectively.
Karl, BEING GAY IS NORMAL!!!
“Well, I’d much rather have a frog in my throat,
Or a porcupine stuck to my face.
I’d much rather have a bug in my ear,
Than a dog making love to my leg. ”
“Don’t pet the Dog” - Pinkert and Bowden
Homosexuality has been documented in several species. (dogs and sheep just to name two) And if they practice sex only out of a reproductive instinct, what kind of puppies will result from the union of Fido and someones leg?
“Homosexual behavior has been observed in close to 1500 species, ranging from primates to gut worms, and is well documented for 500 of them.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_animals
Normal sex in most animals appears to be -
(1)find a hole.
(2)fill it.
(3)repeat from (1).
Oral sex is rarer (probably because of all those sharp teeth) but apparently is common enough to be documented in goats, primates, hyaenas and sheep (see Wikipedia:Animal Sexuality, and is, of course the preferred approach for those humans who choose abstinence (along with anal sex) - see here, here, or here.