Haven't you heard? Backward is the new Forward. I don't mean it as a simple dualism, a contention between opposites. I mean it literally, in terms of linear direction. Conservatives are always calling for a simpler time, (the outright racist, brutally oppressive good ol’ days) Vegans are calling for the abolishment of civilization, (to a time when we killed each other for food and ate raw meat) and so on and so fourth. Progress according to these folk is a path walked backwards. It seems that the elite, trendy, en vogue, and all around arrogant assholes of high school and college have followed suit in regards to this logic, taking huge leaps backwards in the social caste system, while dressing it up as some cutting edge, hip bullshit.
Let's break away for a moment and put on some mini-skirts, three shades of eye shadow, boil some cough-syrup, and listen to music that has 155 BPM. Yes, I know what I'm describing does sound a lot like a typical broadcast of C-SPAN, but in fact I was trying to describe a rave. What the fuck is up with raves, and more importantly when the fuck did they become cool? It is a mystery that has eluded me for days. Don't you recall a time when listening to Trance was a mark of indescribable loserdom? Even that kid who wore math equation shirts knew to stay away from that shit. Obnoxiously flared pant legs, K-Swiss shoes, a metal link necklace, and the worst haircut you can possibly imagine. The same kids who watched Gundam Wing, Dragonball Z, Cowboy Beebop, and instead of watching porn involving three dimensional people they fucking watched Hentai. (By the way there is nothing wrong with watching anime, as long as there is a good story line, you have girlfriend, and you don't dress like the characters in real life.)
Back then Ja Rule was more widely accepted, and I tremble to think what would happen if history repeats itself in that regard. Ja Rule > Raves. Think about it. If I were a rave I'd be embarrassed. So my question is this: When did the attractive, elite, trendy, hipster and wealthy kids decide to go to raves? Why did this happen? When did this happen? This isn't based on some personal beef I have with either the trend-setters, or the pimple-faced ravers of old, it's rooted in complete confusion. Did alcohol not do it for them after a while? We all know they have had access to pot, cocaine, and the like, even E. There have always been clubs to go to even if you were under 21. So why was the transition necessary? Why did they adopt the customs of their social opposites/enemies? It goes against the very nature of the social hierarchy, I cannot even cite another time in history this has happened. Did the Egyptians start adopting the customs of their slaves after a couple of years? Did Queen Victoria Empress of
See it happened so quick that when confronted with it on myspace (thousands of images, of tweaked out girls scantily dressed, along with dim-witted sweaty smiling boys, under beating the pulsating neon lights ) I didn’t even question it! I was like oh, whatever that’s been going on for a while. . .wait what the balls, that’s Alice Deejay and Ferry Costen, when did this happen? My only coherent answer would refer to Amilcar Cabral’s theory of “class suicide.” Actually I’m just kidding that makes no sense at all. Perhaps it was boredom born out of immense abundance, maybe it was a conspiracy designed by house music producers looking to expand their market. Maybe there is some secret agreement between former Ranma ½ viewers, and guys who wear Affliction shirts, I just don’t know!
Whatever the source of this transition is, it is a dangerous force with numerous terrible implications. This is tampering with the very nature of things, the fabric of the universe. What if the elite group of kids move on to something else heralded by outcasts as sacred? What if they start to read comics? What if they start participating in study groups? What if they start watching Akira and liking it? The nerd underclass will be forced to rebel, and then things will get really ugly. I don’t really have a strong feeling of empathy in either party’s case. Nerds for the most part fucking suck and are usually extremely conservative, and the same can be said of the jocks who beat their ass in high school. Don’t get me wrong there are some really awesome nerds, but they usually are associated with the punk scene. Like Marx said in the manifesto,
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.”
I’m voting for the second option.
16 comments:
instead of watching porn involving three dimensional people they fucking watched Hentai.
What difference does it make? Both "mainstream" porn and hentai are perverted, sexist bullshit that promote a fucked-up sexuality, unhealthy images and ideas, and rape culture. It's not like one is worse than the other.
I think their is almost no difference in the actual content between the two, the difference lies in who watches what. I think for the most part what you're pointing out is a moot point. Participating in our modern commodified, class-system, where women are subjugated due to their removal from their original economic position has already produced the fruits of sexism, and rape culture long before "porno" came a long. There's no fucking way I can say that the porn industry is not sexist, or emulates normal sexual relations...but you have to ask what are normal sexual relations....i think human beings have already warped nearly everything "natural" including our nature and sexuality.
This can turn into a long conversation, but just know I'm in agreement with you, however I think you have to consider what makes a man or women orgasm? And not the physiological sense either.
I'm saying it doesn't make sense to distinguish between the two because doing so establishes one as "normal" and the other as unacceptable, when both are unacceptable.
I'm not saying that pornography is the root cause of sexism/patriarchy, but it does contribute to further abuse of women and severely distorts sexuality. Yes, our sexuality is already very warped, but that doesn't mean we should just give up and accept rape culture. Similarly, we live in a society thoroughly infused with racism, but that doesn't mean we should give up on fighting racism.
I don't understand your point about orgasm. I'm saying porn warps people's (especially men's) sense of sexuality and makes it psychologically difficult to orgasm without reproducing the violent, sexist images they've seen in pornography. That's one of the most damaging effects of porn.
Man, there is a world of fucking difference between people who watch normal porn and people who watch cartoons getting violated by tentacled monsters. Hentai watchers are a whole nother class of people who are weirder than shit.
Besides, when did Galindo's first entry on his new blog become the forum for championing women's rights?
That was just a pompous thing to say. Besides it takes someone with a hard drive full of porn to know the difference.
Do you have problems getting off? Have you raped anyone yet? Because you have partaken in "rape culture" more than any of us. Oh no did i forget my agency in the paradigm of the binary opposition of gender studies?
Jalindo's bust was funny as shit and we don't need you to make self-righteous, irrelevant bullshit points.
-Hank McCoy
Don't get all defensive on me, bro. There is no "normal" porn, that's what I'm getting at; it's all the same shit, it's all fucked up. I'm not about fronting on some self-righteous tip. I see something, I'ma call it out, that's all.
You know I quit that shit in 11th grade. I guess that makes you uncomfortable since I know you're still into it. It wasn't an attack on you or the G-man, so you don't need to get hostile. It's something serious to think about, and if you don't wanna think about it, fine.
Don't be a dick,
-AJ
If you're going to be nit picky, I'll folow suit. Hentai (and know I this is true) is reserved for people who have huge illusions about the sexual experience and are very alienated from women in the first place...aka nerds...thus the distinction was born. (Plus it was a cultural reference get over yourself) However my point regarding orgasm, is referencing Darwin's second most famous theory, the theory of Sexual Selection. Though civilized, human beings are not excluded from this.
Sexual attraction is evoked by the physical first and foremost, and the propagation of the species (male orgasm) is stimulated by what? A good personality? A nice set of morals? A brilliant mind? These might play a factor in the courting process, but have little meaning when it comes to fucking. Orgasm is triggered by visual stimulus, we are different from women in this regard. (Women can orgasm by pure physical stimulus, almost no male can, women can also orgasm in numerous ways in numerous places, males have one.)
I find your commentary offensive, it looks over the core of male sexuality. When you masturbate you think of women naked, when you have sex you think of the naked woman you're with, when you see a woman with a nice body you sometimes imagine her without clothes. These are normal things that don't harm anyone. And if you deny that you do any of this you're full of shit, and i cannot take you seriously anymore. This doesn't get in the way of having normal, healthy, respectful, and meaningful relationships with women, in fact it helps. The point is you "objectify" women, and if you don't there's something seriously wrong with you and you should see a shrink. I don't like when people disregard the most obvious aspects of human nature..especially something that should never have any set of ethics and forced morality placed upon it. All this reactionary, anti-sex 3rd wave feminist bull shit, sounds too similar to Christian Culture's objectification of sex, of Muslim Culture's reverse objectification of women, or some buddhist stoic bullshit about how you can't "desire" anything. Fuckin' bull shit. We all no the origins of those viewpoints right? When women became a commodity instead of a producer in the economy, her virginity also became commodified. Marriage was born, and was forced upon people for economic reasons, or political reasons. (arrange marriages for crops, money, trade, strategy) How fucking disgusting is that? That is the origin of monogamy. If she wasn't virgin anymore in some cultures she would be killed, or she would be disowned, or outcast.
And do you have any EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE regarding porn's relation to RAPE?
Ever since I was aware of the term rape, experts, and women's advocates always described it as related to power and domination. . .you may say well you hit the nail on the head because that's all porn is...well I would be careful and just say that NO porn and RAPE are not the same thing...ask a rape victim. Also rape, and sexual perversion, are rooted in the logic placed upon sexual relations since the beginning of class society when religion began to take a larger foothold. When people started moralizing things, like food and sex, there were deviants. Those deviants became outcasts, and along with that grew the strict moral doctrines of major religions. This shit has fucked with people's minds for millenia more so than any fucking petty pile of pixels on a screen. In fact, I say that feminist view points that ignore male sexuality and want to adjust it to some idealistic form is adding to the problem.
(also i am in no way apologizing for scumbag rapists, and child molesters, and I'm just saying there is a structural explanation for their existence, and the structure should be more closely watched then them)
When you force strange things upon the most fundamental aspect of all animal life, you'll get strange, often fucked up results. So why make it complicated, with strange, twisted theories that want to sound different from their conservative counterparts...(even though they share the same conclusions: sex is wrong unless for reproduction, enjoyment of sex means you are enjoying the naked body and thus sinning/"objectifying")
And all this talk of participating and not participating in "rape culture" seems to downplay/contradict the theory itself...( a structural theory based on violence ) it makes it seem it is up to the individual and his choices(not (individualism/egoism).....which is never the case when it comes to truly revolutionizing things. It's like saying to stop the racist power-structure a lot of people need to adopt my morals and view points, or to stop animal cruelty, or to stop sexism, or to stop capitalism, all these criticisms of structures/power-structures get diminished when you lay the solution on an individual's hands. Strategically speaking that wouldn't even work in the long run.
I'm not advocating rape, I'm not advocating sexism. I'm not advocating porn.
Inequality is not a choice, it is forced upon all of us, and the ugly side of humanity comes out with it. Capitalism and class society need to be overthrown. It's not a moral argument, it is a description of reality, which distinguishes Marxism from idealistic and Utopian fantasies about change. Anyways whaddya think brah?
Also I think the "if you watch porn, you contribute to the (insert academic term here)..." argument sounds eerily familiar to the "if you eat meat you contribute to the (insert un-researched, hyper-moralized Peter Singer term here)..." argument.
the idea of raves as belonging to the nerd demographic is outdated, and pretty much unique to american pop-culture. throughout europe and asia raves have been mainstream for years.
but the bigger point is thus: the tens of thousands of yuppie teenagers that filled the stadium at EDC, i'd say about 1/4 of them were "ravers", and the rest were just college kids lookin for a new way to get fucked up, get fucked, or high school teenagers trying to rebel and be cool.
as for why raves are so mainstream? many reasons, one being they are fun as fuck. another being party promoters saw a potential market they could capitalize on, if only they let it be known that raves could be for sexy normal people too. lastly, it just makes sense for the youth of one of the most conservative modernized countries to revel in a modern day tribute to dionysos by getting high off their asses and hooking up with complete strangers. in other words, good clean fun.
"Anyways whaddya think brah?"
I think that this is becoming a much larger discussion than the point I initially tried to make, which is fine, but I'd rather continue it in person if you're down. It's too easy to grandstand and front on the internet, know what I mean? There is one point I want to address, that of pornography being a moralist/individualist issue. It's not about making change on an individual level; it's about individuals needing to take responsibility for their own shit as part of a broader movement that aims to make social change on a large scale. We don't cut racist individuals any slack by saying "it's not a big deal that one person is racist when we need to be attacking the broader racist system." Instead, we call individual people on their racism while maintaining a larger critique of racism/capitalism. See what I'm saying?
I want to recommend some sites for you to check out that address a lot of the other points you made better than I could. They are definitely partisan, staunchly anti-patriarchy and anti-pornography; I think we've moved past the illusion of finding "unbiased" sources, yeah? It'd be great if you could spend some time reading some of these and tell me what you think. I'd be happy to discuss it further with you.
-anti-porn resource center
-againstpornography.org
-why porn isn't cool part 2 (I definitely encourage you to read parts 3, 4, etc. if you're up to it)
Well I'd be down to discuss, as long as we were hanging out before or after. I read parts 3 and 4 and well I still find things problematic.
Galindo did not write a blog defending pornography. He wrote a blog attempting to define the social makeup of a rave and how it has changed over the years. And in describing folks in the most general sense, he takes a real tendency of adolescents (right or wrong) to make that distinction. There are certain types of people who watch Hentai and there are certain types of people who watch pornography involving human beings.
There is nothing wrong about simply making that distinction. Kids that were once considered "ravers" enjoyed anime, ridiculous pants, and Hentai.
These days raves are populated by a a much broader audience: jocks, hipsters, and lindsey.
This broader audience most likely have never watched Hentai and therefore are a distinction from the old.
The comment was pompous, because you weren't calling someone out on their bullshit, much like if someone wrote a racist post, you were going to call them out.
It's as if the mention of pornography automatically legitimizes it.
That is an annoying academic point, meant to bolster your identity as anti-sexist crusader.
Pornography is an abusive, exploitative industry--no doubt. The majority of women are brought in out of poverty, drug use, sexual abuse, or outright slavery.
However, living in a sexist society, one does not need have to consume pornography to objectify women. It obviously in every sphere (even in those catchy top 40 songs you love), and pornography represents one of its most violent extremes.
But to sit and posture like you are above it, is again annoying and self righteous.
If pornography did not exist, we would all still hold sexist ideas of some sort, and if i do and galindo does, then you do too.
When you masturbate (without pornography) you are objectifying someone in your imagination. Because it is entirely fantasy (fantasy based on expectations in a sexist society) you are inherently not attempting to be gentle or loving (otherwise who are you being gentle with?)
Since im including all of us in this, our conceptions of sexuality will be warped until that time when a men no longer remember what it is like to buy a woman's surrender and woman don't remember any other consideration (economic pressure) other than love in her choices.
Since this is the case. It matters less what we think in the privacy of our heads, and its much more important about how we act and what things we fight for.
Yes, sexism obviously permeates every sphere of society, but the point is to avoid what you rightly call one of its most violent extremes. Like when we were all vegan (ha, remember that?), not eating animal products didn't mean that stepping on an ant invalidated the whole thing.
To be honest, all I was thinking when I made my initial comment was "what's the difference, it's all fucked," but I guess deep down I just wanted to stir some shit up. Maybe that's pompous and self-righteous, but the fact remains that I shit roses and am perfect. You should all strive to be more like me. Now if you'll excuse me I have some catchy Top 40 songs to listen to.
Well if you wanted to stir shit up around the fight for women's rights, your time might be more usefully spent arguing with Alex Baird on Hilary Clinton
I want to recommend some sites for you to check out that address a lot of the other points we already made better than you could. They are definitely awesome, staunchly hawt and pro-pornography; I think we've moved past the illusion of finding "unbiased" sources, yeah? It'd be great if you could spend some time reading some of these and tell me what you think. I'd be happy to discuss it further with you.
Argument #1
Second Thesis(you can browse for more if you're up to it ;) )
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