There can be no outrage, methinks, against our common nature,–whatever be the delinquencies of the individual,–no outrage more flagrant than to forbid the culprit to hide his face for shame. – Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (Chapter 2)
I sometimes wish I could be as optimistic as Gene Roddenberry was. The creator of Star Trek truly believed that as Man’s technology evolved, so would his nature. But even though I’ve been a Trekkie since the first time I watched the show, I find the premise of a galaxy filled with humanoid races far more believable than I do the idea that human nature will change in anything shorter than many millennia, if ever. My experiences, reading and studies have done nothing to convince me that the average human being of today is any different from the average human of medieval times, ancient Sumer or the Aurignacian period. Our technology has advanced, our social systems have become more complex and our ability to communicate with one another is vastly greater than ever before, but if a human infant of today were swapped via time machine for one of ancient Catal Huyuk like some science-fictional changeling, I doubt either set of parents would ever know the difference. Take away the synthetic clothes, the modern hygiene and the lifelong indoctrination and the modern man is no different from his 300x great-grandfather squatting in front of a campfire and imagining monsters out there in the dark.
One ancient behavior which is still clearly evident in humans is tribalism; there is a deep need to separate everyone into “us” and “them”, and to treat “them” as subhuman, monstrous, and unworthy of even the most basic sympathy one would give to a stray dog. Though many of us strive to treat those we perceive as “other” with tolerance, many others react like the villagers in old Universal horror movies, hunting the “other” down with torches, pitchforks and baying dogs. And if the outsider isn’t killed outright he is driven from society, forced to live on the outskirts of civilization, and often branded so that any stranger he encounters will shun him just as violently as his original tormenters do. The only thing which has changed is the basis for the determination of “otherness”; the most widespread criteria were until recently race, national origin or religion, but for the past two generations people have been conditioned against such prejudices so they are much less common than they once were and those who openly display such feelings risk social censure themselves. In modern American society, the major acceptable and state-encouraged criterion for “otherness” is violation of sex laws, and perhaps it’s because there are so few other socially acceptable targets for hatred that the rhetoric against whores and “sex offenders” has become so incredibly violent in the last two decades.
“Sex offender” registration was originally justified on the premise that “everybody knows” the rate of recidivism among child molesters is very high; need I remind you that “everybody knows” the vast majority of prostitutes are pimped, drug-addicted streetwalkers? As it turns out, the recidivism rate among sex offenders is only 3-5%, which is actually lower than the rate for most crimes. But as with so many government actions inspired by moral panics, the facts don’t matter and once such registries were established they took on lives of their own and soon these modern pariahs were not only labeled, but forbidden to live virtually anywhere in populated areas. The list of crimes which result in “sex offender” status has of course grown; in Louisiana it includes some forms of prostitution as we’ve discussed before, and in states flirting with the “Swedish model” it could soon include men caught in prostitution “stings”.
Even in states without such laws, men thus entrapped may have their names and faces illegally displayed on billboards, sentenced to public censure without due process because they have not been convicted of any crime, merely accused of a misdemeanor which isn’t even illegal in civilized countries. Likewise, women accused of misdemeanor prostitution have their names and (always unflattering) pictures featured in news stories as though they were convicted murderers. I can’t think of another misdemeanor which is even considered newsworthy; we don’t see feature articles on people accused of public drunkenness, trespassing or littering. But bring sex into it, and suddenly the accused becomes the “other” despite the fact that the hypocrites condemning him are very likely to be guilty of some version of the same “offense,” and probably real evils as well. Kelly Michaels recently told me that when a friend of hers was arrested for prostitution at her home (after the big heroic police bravely tricked her), she had to endure being publicly dragged to the car in handcuffs while jeering neighbors taunted her and vowed to expel her from the neighborhood (a so-called “gated community”) via petition. Are these the actions of evolved minds? They might as well be wearing white hoods and threatening to tar and feather her, or perhaps to burn her at the stake.
I don’t think Roddenberry or anybody else ever suggested that we would change on a biological level. I always got the impression that what he was advocating was social evolution, and that human beings, being social creatures, would be changed behaviorally by that.
So you’re right, but so is Roddenberry.
Agreed, Sailor. Major Trekkie/Trekker here. Check out coolerthanmymom. com. That’s me!
Yes, I even have a uniform.
And I drink my coffee out of a mug that says First Officer. Off topic, but it seriously chaps my ass that it is perfectly OK for men to be First Officers, but when women give up the dream of total command (I dream I never had in the first place), we are deluded tools of the patriarchy. I LIKE being the First Officer in my home. I like having a Captain who assumes all major decisions and has final command. He takes my advice and direction seriously, but he is ultimately the Captain of our ship and bears final responsibility for our well-being.
It gives him a role, and we both know our places very well. We are both happier this way.
Absolutely! Neofeminists have this very masculine, black-and-white way of thinking; either you’re totally in command or you’re a “doormat”. Over the past few days I’ve seen a number of these men’s rights sites, and many of them have the same attitude. It’s pure bullshit.
When my husband (the Captain) asks for my input I give it to him; if he decides to ignore it he bears final responsibility. If he makes a decision without consulting me first I’ll point out problems with it; no yelling or screaming, just my considered opinion (which he respects). Sometimes he changes his mind due to my input and sometimes he doesn’t; it’s his decision. But I wouldn’t want a man who put me in charge, and I couldn’t respect a man whose ego was so fragile that he couldn’t listen to advice.
He wouldn’t be much of a Captain if he didn’t take his First Officer seriously.
As for a woman’s right to be Captain herself: yes, if that is what she wants. But not every woman (and by Grabthar’s hammer, not every man) wants to be Captain. Some want to be Chief Medical Officer, or Navigator, or Sensor Battle Coordinator. Or whatever, and if she is able to determine her own destiny (which was supposed to be the point of feminism), then she should be free to be any of those things, and more, or to live out her life as a civilian. She shouldn’t have to be what other women want her to be any more than she has to let ME tell her what she can be.
And for all the Starfleet terms, I mean this all metaphorically as much as or more than militarily.
Back at UNO I used to tell feminists “If I don’t let men tell me what to do, why the hell should I let you tell me what to do?”
Exactly Sailor! Captain Janeway ROCKS and her first officer seems pretty damn pleased to be her right hand man, but that’s how SHE wants it. Feminism made it ok for women to be Captain, and that is very cool, but it denies the reality that the VAST MAJORITY of women do NOT want that.
Most women, especially mothers, want to be at home, with their children, being taken care of. Want to find out if this is true in the US? Offer paid maternity leave. Every where in the world (including Canada, where we have 50 weeks of paid leave) where maternity leave is offered, and the overwhelming majority of women take it.
Women will give up the Captain’s chair we were told was the ONLY important thing in life for a highchair, provided we don’t have to starve to do it.
There’s another problem there – how women working when they have chidren has driven down the wages of men who would be happy to support their families if they could earn enough money to do so.
It’s complicated. Feminism has made such a fucking mess of things.
I talked about that in my column of January 11th; the (female) author of the study I discussed pointed out that governmental efforts to force companies to put equal numbers of women in management are counterproductive because most women don’t want to be there.
“One law for the lion and ox is oppression.” – William Blake
I don’t believe that feminism and the large-scale entry of women into the workplace is what drove down male wages, but I do think it’s what let employers get away with it. Yes, Daddy alone should be able to work outside the home and support his family like Ward Cleaver or Mike Brady (including the real-life analog of June or Carol). For that matter, Mommy alone should be able to work outside the home and support her family (yes, including her Ward or Mike). If Mommy and Daddy both work, the family should be twice as rich; not millionaires, but upper middle class.
But the truth is that employers, generally, will pay as little as they can get away with, and they can get away with paying you half of what it takes to support your family, if another family member is earning the other half. And since wages weren’t actually cut, but were raised more slowly than the rise in the cost of living, it was gradual enough to not stir up too much protest.
It’s more complicated than that, of course. Minimum wage laws, other regulations, unions and declines in union membership, tax laws, and really too much for me to keep up with. But while I don’t think women in the workplace caused it, I do think it’s one thing that helped employers get away with it.
I’m sort of annoyed that those seem to be the only “respectable” options for women: career oriented or family oriented. I’m really not interested in either as being the CFO of a Fortune 100 company is no more appealing to me than changing diapers.
Well…if it was my own business, that’s a different story, but in terms of climbing the corporate ladder and navigating office politics – no thank you.
Some women want a job outside the home, but don’t want to do the whole corporate climbing thing. And again, neither does every man. Some women want to turn on, tune in, and drop out (that sounds familiar). So do some men.
I know a former topless dancer who told me that she didn’t mind being naked (well, almost naked), and she didn’t feel degraded to have men looking at her. She didn’t like obnoxious customers, but then who does. She enjoys dancing so much she does it alone in her room for no reward save the pleasure of dancing (she’s pretty good). But she was surprised to learn just how much office politics there was in topless dancing, and that she did NOT like.
It’s probably not so much a case of “men want THIS and women want THAT” as it is “men tend towards THIS in a general sort of way, and women tend towards THAT in a general sort of way, with numerous exception for both sexes.”
Laura brought up what I thought was a good point in the comments on your March 27 column. She mentioned how tact, manners and empathy seem to be disappearing from our public discourse or seen as weak. I found this particularly insightful given our political climate today where critical thought processes seem to have vanished.
Maggie, I think the internet is a perfect example of what you are talking about. The net has made so much knowledge possible and been an amazing force for change but it also has a dark side as a perusal of youtube comments will show. The fact is that it’s also a lot easier now for bigots to create echo chambers for themselves on the web. Annonymity on most sitrs at times makes this worse as societal pressures are lessened and true feelings come out. This has also led to the rise of that most interesting of creatures, the troll. I believe that there will just always be a hateful, angry subset of humanity for a variety if factors that change over time. I’m reminded of what one of my history professors (semi facetiously) said at the conclusion of a late Roman Empire course. “The barbarians always win in the end.”
I am constantly horrified by the pure nastiness some people feel perfectly comfortable spewing out on the internet.
As for your professor’s comment, it reminds me of a quote I can’t quite remember, something to the effect that “No matter how bright the day, darkness eventually falls.” 🙁
I have to disagree that our debate has gotten nastier. I was recently reading 19th century history, especially before the Civil War and the things people said about each other in print were truly vile. Among men, fistfights and brawl were considered acceptable ways for everyone to settle differences. And women could have their reputations destroyed and end up starving to death. Spewing openly racist and sexist rhetoric was applauded by the general public.
What the internet has mainly done is upped the volume.
So what has happened is that things really are better, but what isn’t better is more visible.
Maggie,
“I am constantly horrified by the pure nastiness some people feel perfectly comfortable spewing out on the internet.”
Us men (and I am starting to get the feel that it applies to prostitutes too) get this nastiness every day.
Case in point. On the relationships blog of the Sydney Morning Herald I noted that my wife and I had dinner parties regularly. (We had kids and all our friends had kids so dinner parties were MUCH better than going out on our meagre budgets.)
I would regularly see women demean their husbands and speak poorly of them right in front of me. This was UNHEARD OF 30 years ago where I came from. Speaking poorly of your wife/husband was absolute TABOO. Anyway. Some women claimed I was full of shit and making this up.
One commenter said he had been to a dinner party and the women got drunk. The wife of the host got so drunk that she started bragging about he she had put her husband on a 6 month ‘sex ban’ and she rubbed his nose in it right in front of his guests. (ALL us married men have either been on a ‘sex ban’ or know mates who have been.)
And then the BOMBSHELL. The wife had apparently confided in one of her ‘friends’ that because she was horny but didn’t want to give in on the ‘sex ban’ she had been screwing some other guy for a couple of months. The ‘friend’ spilled the beans in her drunken stupor. And it all came out in front of this man who was the commenter that his friends wife had put him on a ‘sex ban’ and then been screwing around because she was horney.
I can’t imagine how this husband felt to be so humiliated in front of his friends he had invited to dinner. I am amazed more men simply don’t kill women who do this.
This comment was posted by this man reporting this situation. Guess…..what… NO other woman commented on it. So I finally posted something like ‘well, my experience is nothing unusual, eh?’
You want to see ‘pure nastiness’? Be a western man who is a divorcee. But I am starting to think prostitutes might experience the same. I never really thought about.
I’m floored all the time by the evil I see online! I had to threaten legal action against 1 ###*** this past year when IT said I’d made threats online. IT then backed off and hasn’t said it again. I think 1 reason it’s so bad online is how people can hide so well. Comments that they can make anonymously allow this especially. But, there’s also many great people online. I’ve made friends I consider family and hope to meet 1 day. I’ve really had to learn how to control my reactions to all the ###*** online. But, they also motivate me. I’ll never quit speaking out against the 1’s that spew the stereotypes, etc., about the people who have murderers for family members, etc. This reminds me of a dear Internet friend I consider family who’s been savaged for being a friend to a man on death row for murder. 1 thing I love about her is she won’t shut up and go away! Anyway, thanks to you for your kind words about my earlier post.
I find it interesting and very telling that only certain kinds of sexuality are pathologized. I can read my bodice ripper rape fantasy novel in fucking Church – and no one bats an eye. The hero can be seventeen and the object of his lust sixteen (lots of historical fiction features underage characters) and no one screams “child pornography”.
It is very specifically men’s lust for teenage girls that we are talking about, and I don’t know about the other women on this site, but I lost my virginity when I was 16 and would have KILLED to land me an older boyfriend who could actually PAY for things.
Most of the so-called “sex offenders” were fucking young women 14 – 17 years of age. Many of them were barely of age themselves. We’re talking a 19 year old man with a 15 year old girlfriend. These are not “children” My nine year old is a child. Fuck her and I will kill you, but when she is 15, wearing a pair of heels and some fishnets she stole from Mom, done up with make-up in a skin tight dress, that is not “child abuse”. Bullshit.
As for policing prostitution, I am in Canada, where we are working through some interesting laws. Prostitution is not illegal, but solicitation is. I think the law is evolving to address exploitation of unwilling women by others, rather than attacking all prostitution as if it were the same.
I think we should reserve Scarlet Letters for the fuckers who cause banks to collapse. Now there is some real harm.
I lost my virginity on my 15th birthday to an 18-year-old university freshman, and until I entered harlotry it was extremely rare for me to ever have a sex partner less than three years older than I was; most were 7-10 years older and some old enough to be my father. And considering I was at university myself for over two months before I turned 17 (the age of consent in Louisiana) and lived in New Orleans with my cousin for three months before school started, there are quite a few men whom I allowed to commit “rape” under Louisiana law without their knowing it. Whenever I read nonsense about teenage girls being helpless innocents, I can’t help thinking of my past (and that of Traci Lords) and wondering how stupid the people who spread that kind of propaganda think we are. :-
Yep…when I was 16 I really liked this girl. She told me ‘I could never date you, you are like a brother to me’. She also told me, and many other girls did, ‘I don’t date any boy without a car’. I pointed out ‘what are us 16 year old boys to do? Try and date 14 year old girls’?
My first serious gf was actually 3 months older than me. She was from, by my standards, a very well to do family. She had her OWN car at 17! This was UNHEARD of. So boys with money could not impress her. She had her eye on me for more than a year before, quite literally, throwing me on the couch and jumping on me, to explain she really liked me!! LOL!! I had been totally oblivious. She was my friend. I really liked her as a friend. Indeed I partnered her in her debut. She asked me. I was totally clueless about girls at 16…and I was totally clueless about women at 43. Sigh. Women do themselves a real dis-service to not educate men on the wiles of women. After all. Every girl from a young age is told ‘some boys will take advantage of you so be careful out there’. Us boys are not told this.
So yes. The pattern of the girls always wanting the ‘older boys’ or the ‘jocks’ as you americans call them and leaving the younger boys in the dust. It’s pretty common.
Have you noticed that the people who are screaming about these “crimes” NEVER mention what I call the “good old days” when people married VERY young because of the short life spans and other reasons? I think 1 great thing about that time was childhood wasn’t prolonged like it is now. Also death wasn’t hidden from young people like it is now. The kids in the family were part of the process of mourning, weren’t kept from the funerals, etc. I wonder how many REAL perverts are still free thanks to police going after the couples where 1 is 18 and the other 16? I imagine that # of real perverts who are free isn’t small.
I would imagine so as well, considering the number of them in public office! 🙁
Here’s information on a pervert case that was real and covered up by ###***:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edK2h5_1b3g
http://www.amazon.com/Franklin-Scandal-Story-Powerbrokers-Betrayal/dp/0977795357/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1302386066&sr=1-1
When I posted the link to 1 of the books about the “Franklin case” I had no idea it would show up as an actual ad. Sorry about this. I thought is was just going to link to the book’s page on the website. Next time I’ll just put the name of the book/author.
Laura, that’s something WordPress started doing recently which annoys me to no end. I keep meaning to ask them how to turn it off!
“NAMED AND SHAMED!!”
That’s the slogan the police in my metro area use for what happens to men who are busted in their prostitution stings. The guys get their names and addresses printed in both the daily paper and community weeklies.
I like your post. But instead of seeing an “us vs. them” mentality behind all of this, like you do, I see something different. For years, we were a majority Christian country and we’d socially “shame” people for religious transgressions (i.e. divorce, adultery, homosexuality). Now that the church has largely lost its influence (replaced by science), the police have stepped in to do the job of “shaming.”
This, I believe, is downright scary and reminiscent of what happened in the old Soviet Union in its heyday. It’s one thing to have a priest dress you down or have the townspeople despise you — because you could always move. But when the police start “cracking down”* on so-called moral transgressions, we’re living in an Orwellian nightmare police state. Not good.
* — I’ve noticed “cracking down” is a catch-all buzzword you see a lot in newspapers which means police and government officials will overstep boundaries. As soon as I see these two words, I know trouble will follow.
Argh, I absolutely HATE when cops use asinine “cute” phrases to describe their persecutions of ordinary citizens for victimless crimes. A few years ago it was “click it or ticket” to promote their social-engineering seat belt laws.
I am SICK. TO. DEATH! of being threatened by scowling cop faces on billboards, gas pumps, signs, etc every time I go into a city; I’m really glad I don’t have television because I’m sure there are commercials like that as well.
Talk about Orwellian: “Big Copper is watching you!” 🙁
And I feel exactly the same way as you do about the word “crackdown”; it’s essentially a synonym for “violate civil rights in order to spread fear.” State-sponsored terrorism rationalized so the hoi-polloi will swallow it.
“bodice ripper rape fantasy”
I will not rest until I find a way to reuse that phrase.
The strategy for anti-sex crusaders is to invoke poor defenseless children as victims, then portray the worst case of that as the average case, broaden the definition so that the number of occurrences is as high as possible, conflate consensual adult activities with child victimization, and finally declare that the reported cases are just the tip of the iceberg.
Oh, did I say anti-sex crusaders? Oops. I should have said all morality crusades.
The sex offender registry is nothing more than a list of people that are safe targets for persecution and if humans like to do anything, it’s persecute people. Morality laws are about forcing everyone to be like us or suffer the consequences. It’s the codification of persecution.
And, no, I’m not a big fan of manners and tact when I talk about this. Crusaders are using this kind of morality play to destroy ordinary people’s lives, so I think raw anger has a perfectly legitimate place in the discussion.
“Codification of persecution” is just as good a phrase as “bodice-ripper rape fantasy”. 🙂
Just to play devil’s optimist here: I actually see these insane anti-prostitution efforts as the last stand of a losing ideology. This sort of progressivism has come in waves to the US, but after each one recedes, the tide goes further out. It’s frustrating because a lot of it is so obviously stupid and destructive. And it takes so long for people to realize that.
It’s very difficult to predict the tide of history. With the advent of modern communications, we assumed this would empower the police state. In fact, the opposite happened as citizen cell phone cameras were able to expose terrible abuses by public officials. I see a similar narrative developing in the sexual sphere. Right now, we have a bunch of people running around trying to jail people for sexting and warning women that they’ll ruin their lives by posing for a website in their underwear. But this sort of thing is becoming so ubiquitous, the puritans simply won’t be able to keep up. If you ban everyone who has done something stupid involving their body, a camera and the internet, there will be on one left. The only solution will be to see such things as youthful (or not-so-youthful) indiscretions.
If the prohibitions really start clamping down on prostitution, they’re going to find they’ve bitten off more than they can chew. They’ll discover that sex work is not what they think it is and they’ll end trying to jail millions of otherwise good citizens (not that this has ever stopped them). They’ll have no choice but a series of surrenders. Right now, they have a critical edge — there’s no shame in being a prohibitionist but being anti-prohibition gets you branded. That will change.
Anyway, that’s my optimistic take for the day. 🙂
Actually, Mike, I think you’re probably right; I just worry that you might be wrong. These moral panics do come periodically, and as I’ve said in other columns these things do tend to get worse before they get better. The only problem is that once bad laws are made, it generally takes an act of the Supreme Court to remove them even if public opinion is overwhelmingly against them.
Since we’re on this subject, I’d to interject with this bit of humor:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/asian-teen-has-sweaty-middleagedman-fetish,2649/
Ha! The Onion…
So can I get away with saying men who are willing to give me money for sex is a fetish of mine? LOL… well it is…
Ooh, don’t go there; it’s one of mine as well, but we’re not allowed to feel that way because neofeminists say it’s “wrong”. You know, kind of like homosexuality used to be “wrong”. 😐
Ah, if only. I’m in the right age bracket, and I could put on a little weight and work up a sweat for a cutie like her.
But then, I guess that’s the point.
And you know what Sailor? That’s ok. Who has been harmed in the making of this movie? I, every once in a while and near often enough for my taste but it does happen, will get what I consider to be a ‘hot young stud’ hiring me. My first thought is usually WTF ad was he looking at (because I make no bones about my age or body type). I get told “I like older curvy women”. Well allrighty then sweetcheeks. Get your cute little tushie naked and on the bed! Do I care if it is a fantasy, fetish, or outright lie. NO. I’m not gonna marry the boy for chrissakes and it makes me (yes ME) feel special for an hour (or however long I decide to keep him trapped hehe).
I’ve been known to go for older curvy women, too.
Now of course as long as it’s fantasy, anything is harmless: older curvy women, half-bloomed adolescents, my girlfriend’s cat, a bevy…
Uh, just pretend you didn’t read that last one… 0_0′
The point of that thing seems to be that while plenty of chubby, hairy, sweaty, middle-aged white American men fantasize about teenaged Japanese girls, few teenaged Japanese girls want to make it with chubby, hairy, sweaty, middle-aged white American men. Well duh! That’s why it’s a fantasy. I’m never going to get to make it with Taarna, either, but that doesn’t keep it from being a hot daydream.
Sometimes, the reality is good too, so I hope you keep getting hot young studs.
Hey Maggie, I learned about your blog from Satoshi and I’m loving it so far.
I hope you don’t run out of things to say because I’m learning sooooo much.
Thanks for running this blog.
Thank you, Alek! There’s little chance of my running out of something to say because I’ve been chattering since I learned to talk over 40 years ago, but I hope I don’t run out of interesting things to say! 🙂
A Joe Rogan quote that applies to this theme:
“we’re really monkeys who spend all their time trying to convince themselves that they’re not monkeys”.
Ok this is the second reference I’ve seen to Satoshi. Who what where can I find this persons blog or whatever?
I wrote about my interaction with him on March 12th, and he recently published a column in which he talked about our correspondence from his perspective. 🙂
AH Gracias mi amiga! Some days I have time to click on every blooming link I see and some days I don’t (which are the days I miss the good stuff) 😀
Good article there. Thumbs up!
Yeah, I was pretty flattered! 🙂
bdevereaux: You are really a curvy older lady making money?
alas! We could use the cash! I wonder if hubby would go for it….hmmmm!! I have just been on the sidelines for so long, I would have no idea how to begin…
I am 38 with great boobs, and a KILLER mouth, lol! I just thought I was a bit long in the tooth and a touch thick for such work these days 🙂
The internet is a wonderful thing, Domi; I retired before I hit 40 because I figured I was getting too old for it, but there are many ladies in their 40s and even 50s making a good income as independents on the hooker boards. And even girls who are “thick” as you put it have an audience! 🙂
I hope this is a sign that the evil ageism in the US is dying out some! It’s great to know that bigger women are getting business also! I’m big (smaller than I used to be, thank God, and working on getting the rest of the extra weight off) and learned when I had sex only friendships that my weight wasn’t bad to at least some men. That really helped my self-esteem as I was scared that no one would answer my ads when I listed my weight. There ARE men who won’t go out with/have sex with big women, but in my experience they’re a lot smaller % than the 1’s who will.
Oh and yes, fabulous point about the “bodice ripper rape fantasies”. Its fine for us ladies, but not the men? I am sorry, a 17-year old is not a child.
And I wonder when they start putting photos of “horrible and dangerous” marajuana smokers on billbords next? Jeez.
“But even though I’ve been a Trekkie since the first time I watched the show”
Now THAT explains a lot! LOL!
Um. Do you know Roddenberry was a 33rd degree mason and that Star-Trek was ‘future programming’ for the sheeple to accept one world guvment and ‘gender is a social construct’?
I really loved star trek until I found out it’s true purpose. Just like U2. I loved them until I realised they were part of the scam.
I was in London about 8 years back getting a visa to Saudi Arabia from the Saudi Embassy that was near Hyde Park. I came out of the tube to see massive tents set up on Hyde Park for a star trek exhibition. It was bitterly cold, being january or maybe it was early feb, but I spent two days in the exhibition. I could just have peed my pants! I had such a ball!!! They had a million exhibits from the shows and movies.
When I got back home and told my wife I had sat in PICKARDS chair and seen all this so cool stuff? She was like ‘why would you waste your time going to a star trek exhibition?’.
And YOU know how much THAT cuts us trekkies!!
I think Roddenberry had an idea of what he wanted the future to be, and that he promoted that with Star Trek and with Genesis II and such. But I’m not buying the idea that Star Trek was part of some secret mass media agenda. If that was the case, why did the show get canceled before the “five year mission” was finished?
Sorry, but that is not… logical.