Distinctions drawn by the mind are not necessarily equivalent to distinctions in reality. – Thomas Aquinas
Why do so many modern people imagine themselves to be mind readers? It used to be that we understood that telepathy, if it exists at all, is a rare talent; scientists have tried to measure it and writers of science fiction have used it as a plot device, but nobody has yet succeeded in conclusively proving its existence. And because the wiser leaders of the past understood this, they developed laws which basically said that when the individual or the state accuses someone of wrongdoing, the accuser must present proof rather than guesses; claims of preternatural knowledge of the thoughts of others have been disallowed in Western courts of law since at least the 18th century. But in the past few decades, that’s all changed; the rise of identity politics and pop psychology has convinced the chronically paranoid, the hopelessly narcissistic and the borderline megalomaniacal that they have the ability to know what’s going on in the heads of others with the same level of certainty as that provided by scientific or documentary evidence. And though at one time courts, journalists and most other educated people would have scoffed at such claims, that is no longer true.
As I mentioned in my review of Silverglate’s Three Felonies a Day, federal prosecutors in the United States no longer bother to provide evidence of mens rea (criminal intent); the very fact that the prohibited actions (whatever they might be) were performed is considered proof that the accused intentionally broke the law. Those accused of crimes used to be referred to by police and reporters as “suspects” (thus indicating the presumption of innocence); nowadays they’re called by the ugly word “perps”, short for “perpetrators” (thus indicating the presumption of guilt). “Sexual harassment” laws and codes require courts to analyze the hidden mental states behind otherwise-innocuous acts, and “hate crime” laws officially grant prosecutors the power to read the minds of those accused of violent crimes in order to punish them above and beyond the penalty determined by their objective actions, for the “crime” of having a normal (if ugly) human emotion. Nor are officials the only ones who claim telepathic powers; those who embrace victimhood are always quick to point the finger and shout “racism!” or “sexism!” or “homophobia!” at those who say things they don’t want to hear, even if those things happen to be true. Even in today’s climate of intellectual repression the truth has not yet been banned, so those who wish to suppress that truth seek to criminalize the motivation instead, and claim to be empowered with the ability to discern that motivation with crystal clarity.
Of course, this is nothing new for whores; we’re long-used to police accusing us of crimes without any proof whatsoever, though in the past they at least troubled themselves to lie or to pretend that ordinary objects and actions constitute “evidence”. But now the Utah legislature aims to free police of the inconvenience of having to make things up by criminalizing “acting sexy”, as detailed in this May 20th AP story:
Two escort services have filed a federal lawsuit to halt a Utah solicitation law they fear could lead to the arrest of strippers or escorts who are simply acting sexy. Utah defines solicitation as a person agreeing to sex in exchange for money. A new law that went into effect this month broadened the definition to include any person who indicates through lewd acts, such as exposing or touching themselves, that they intend to exchange sex for money…Andrew McCullough, an attorney representing the escort services…said the law is so broad that it could allow police to arrest licensed employees of sexually oriented businesses, such as escort services or strip club dancers, for doing their job. The expanded law includes language that makes a person exposing their genitals or touching themselves sexually an indication that they are offering sex. Those acts are legal in Utah for private strippers. “Most girls who touch their breasts are not telling you they’re open for sex,” the attorney said. McCullough said the law is “virtually identical” to one struck down by a federal judge as unconstitutional in 1988. The Utah law could be used by police to hassle businesses protected by the First Amendment, McCullough said. For example, he said a semi-nude dancer at a strip club could be arrested for “suggestively thrusting.” [Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris] Burbank said officers would not target anyone who is not a prostitute…
As if it’s not bad enough that normal female behavior is criminalized (technically I’d be in danger just walking down the street in Utah, since I’ve been told numerous times that almost everything I do is sexy), the discretion as to what constitutes “sexy” is left entirely up to the cop. But the police chief promises that not a single one of the paragons of virtue under his command will ever, ever charge women with breaking this law even if they do…unless of course, those women are prostitutes. But wait, doesn’t the law define any woman who acts that way as a prostitute? Shhh, go back to sleep; you weren’t supposed to notice that. What Chief Burbank actually means is that this law won’t be used alone, but rather only after a cop determines that a woman is a prostitute through use of his Super Psychic Mind Probe power; the law is just to provide a convenient excuse in court since mind-reading isn’t technically recognized under Utah law.
But as so often happens with these prohibitionist stories, the reporter saves the best for last: “The intent is to target prostitutes, especially underage ones who are forced into the sex trade and trained to evade arrest, [law sponsor Jennifer] Seelig said. The arrest would be the first step in helping them get off the streets.” How can the state justify literally forcing girls into prison cells as somehow “better” than other unidentified parties allegedly “forcing” them into the sex trade, especially when the act of trying to evade arrest would seem to indicate that the “victims” prefer the latter to the former? Why, because deep down they really want the state’s “help”, that’s why. And how does Seelig know this? By reading their minds, of course.
As we all know, laws exist only to protect us.
Sometimes, even from ourselves.
Or, for example, from doing something that might hurt us. And if we need Mommy to tell us what hurts us, then Mommy has her bludgeons to make sure we get the message.
Because the state is always benevolent. Of course.
Dear Gorbachev, some laws are needed and I say thank God for those. 2 examples are laws against murder and the laws that allow commitment of murderers to mental hospitals who are found mentally incompetent to go to trial. We MVS (the term I use for the surviving family/friends of murder victims) literally have fears at times that murder will be legal. Yes, we know at least part of that is irrational, but too many of us have been ###*** by the “legal” system, the murderers of our loved 1’s and/or friends get out of prison at some point, etc., etc. I really get tired of the mentality that all or nearly all laws aren’t needed, aren’t fair, are just “out to get us”, etc. At least some of the time this talk comes from those who are fortunate to not have had a family member and/or friend of theirs murdered. It reminds me of the people I’ve seen online who say: if I ever had a loved 1 and/or family member murdered I know EXACTLY how I’d act, what I’d do and how I’d feel. RIGHT! The truth is they have no idea UNTIL it happens to them. Every other MVS I know is with me on this and also find this presumption of some non-MVS upsetting and literally funny. Thanks for listening.
Laws against consensual acts, such as two people who are engaged but not yet legally-legal married making love, or somebody growing and eating a certain kind of mushroom, or a grown man who wants sex paying a grown woman who’s happy to provide it, these laws are there to say we the government can take better care of your soul than you can, and by God we will, whether you like it or not and also to give them an excuse to arrest more people for the prison-industrial complex, seize property under asset forfeiture laws, and jack up their arrest and conviction rates so that they can run for office on their “tough on crime” record. This is what these laws are for.
Laws against murder, rape, theft, jaywalking, arson, speeding, child molestation, copyright infringement, assault, and cruelty to animals are completely different in obvious ways. Oh, and littering, vandalism, drunk driving…
There is very little that infuriates me more than some jackass replying to harm reduction arguments with some bit of idiocy like “well, why don’t we legalize murder too, then”, as though consensual “crimes” were even remotely comparable to murder. 🙁
I don’t know if Laura is a jackass – but I don’t think she understand what any of the arguments here are saying.
Just adding a measly $.02
C’mon now Gorb (and you too, Laura); I get that y’all rub each other the wrong way; such conflicts are inevitable when a large number of people congregate in one place (online or off). But I am going to ask y’all to play nice, or else just avoid responding to each other, OK?
Dear Maggie, please note I wasn’t saying “why don’t we then legalize murder”. I was talking about how many MVS literally have a fear at times that we know in our right minds isn’t completely rational. 1 reason we get this at times is because of how many of us haven’t had full justice done in our cases, the murderers in our cases get parole, etc. I also want to point out there’s some of us DO get full justice done in our cases (thank God!), but because we see what our fellow MVS go through we feel for them (we should!), etc. We have that bond of having at least a few things in common with our cases. I’m not the only MVS I know who does what she can do with the limited time she has to sign petitions against the TRULY UNFAIR laws, etc. There’s at least a few of us that fight these unfair laws, etc. 1 of the stereotypes about us is that we all are literally REVELING in the murderers getting the DP; we’re always cheering outside the prisons when an execution is going on and we’re so fanatic about ANY laws we don’t care and/or don’t fight the unfair 1’s. None of this is true in a huge amount of cases. I used the example of the HELLS MVS do go through to show that some laws ARE needed. That doesn’t automatically mean I’m for the unfair laws and neither are many of the MVS. Thanks for listening.
I wasn’t talking about you, love. I was talking about certain smart-asses who seem to appear on almost every message board where the subject of either prostitution or drug decriminalization is discussed.
Besides, I know you’re pro-decriminalization anyway. 🙂
She wasn’t comparing the two; she was going off on a tangent. I’ve run into the “legal murder” thing with her before. It’s difficult for even me to understand, and I’ve known her for a decade and a half. Apparently the prospect of legalized murder occupies the minds of many MVS. It wasn’t prostitution that set her off but the “laws are bad” thing.
Laura, you need to count to ten or something before posting something like that. You know that most people don’t have your perspective on these things.
It would be like (to take a much lighter example) me telling a John Carter of Mars joke at a church dinner or making a Ranma ½ reference at a gathering of Kolchak: The Night Stalker fans. They may all be very smart, but most of them are not going to get it.
Gorbachev, thanks for recognizing that my sweetie isn’t a jackass. She’d have to be a jenny. 😉
Nah, she’s a sweet girl. (Can we still have lunch tomorrow, Laura?)
Not all of us meglomaniacs claim to be mind readers, some of us just want absolute control thru sheer force.
😀
If I just want a little power, mind reading could be a big help. But in my more megalomaniacal moments, I realize that nothing short of mind control will do.
If I had the power of mind control, I would only use it on people who try to force others to do their will. A taste of their own medicine, as it were.
” A new law that went into effect this month broadened the definition to include any person who indicates through lewd acts, such as exposing or touching themselves, that they intend to exchange sex for money…”
Just to be clear, Utah, if I dance like I’m fucking and trade it for a shot of tequila, that’s okay. But if I take $5 from my dance partner and get my own shot at the bar, then I’m a prostitute, and that’s not okay?
So basically, you’re saying men have to buy the drinks always. Just ’cause he’s bigger and better at saving a spot on the floor is no excuse for whoring around.
Gotcha.
Does it matter if the man I’m dancing with is my husband? Can I blatantly trade sex for money with my legally wedded spouse? ‘Cause that happened this weekend.
Him: How abut a blowjob, hon?
Me: How about a hundred bucks? I want to go to the bookstore.
Him: Seventy-five?
Me: One hundred.
Him: What the hell kind of books cost one hundred dollars?
Me: Good ones.
Him: Okay
Why are there any people living in Utah at all? Didn’t it snow there this weekend? That’s God, telling Utah what he thinks, right there.
Jeez, I sure mention church and God a lot for such a devout atheist.
Thank God I’m an Atheist.
– Luis Bunuel
Ooh, that razor across the eyeball. That’s just freaky!
Bear with me, because this is a LONG comment. It also mentions two touchy subjects with me (family and religion).
As some of you know, I was born with Asperger’s Syndrome. I would not be diagnosed until 1990. One of the reasons for my trouble with women was that I could read at a young age.
The reason I mention the above item is that when I was a young boy (about 6 or 7), I read about the mechanics of sex (i.e. the sperm fertilizes the egg. The information source I got it from, a book for young boys, was a bit… ahem, vague as to how it got there).
Because I could repeat that information, people assumed I knew the rest of story. That was their mistake. I knew how sex worked, but not the deep emotional and physical changes.
To use an analogy, imagine that I was completely blind. Now, suppose you want to describe one of Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings, ‘Starry Night’, to me.
I would completely comprehend the concept of darkness, because that is what would be common to my experience. I might understand the word ‘star’ because I would either learn about it or hear you describe it to me.
But I would never completely understand — or comprehend — the interplay of darkness and light or the shades of color within the painting, because as a blind man, I do not have the sense of sight.
That was what sexual emotions — lust, love, longing — were to me. They were alien, confusing, frightening. Because I grew up in a very reserved household (my parents grew up during the 40’s and 50’s), I tried to suppress my intense emotions when I was with my parents. Or I would go off by myself and express them by jumping up and down or some other action.
Because I could not easily talk to my parents about sex, there were only two sources. The first was the Catholic Church. Everyone pretty much knows what they say on the matter.
The second was pornography. I did not consciously realize there was a continuum of appropriateness and levels of intimacy. This would cause my alienation from the opposite sex in high school and college.
So, trying to deal with my emotions and frustration, I went to the closest legal alternative available, a strip club. There were only two problems with my approach.
The first was (back then), I had a mentally confused, trusting nature. I will honestly admit some dancers took (financial) advantage of me.
The second was dealing with my mother’s (and society’s, as I refer to the churches I went to) condemnation.
I could understand why the churches would condemn such an approach, because A) money spent there wasn’t going to their coffers, and B) they projected that those dancers [or anyone in the sex industry] were lures, not realizing that for a lure to work, there has to be a
fish stupid enough to bite it.
I soon realized why my mother hated dancers after we had a bitter argument.
My mother was the youngest of 8 children in 1940’s British Guyana. Her mother was an East Indian who had married a Chinese man. Her shack had a dirt floor. From what I gather from what other family members whispered, my late maternal grandfather did not take his marriage
vows seriously.
Also, my mother went to parochial school run by Irish nuns. Back then, the Church teaching was, “Outside the Church, there is no salvation.”
Or to put it in my crude understanding at the time, “You’re going to agree with us now and forever. If you step off the reservation for a moment, you have a choice of excommunication or hellfire.”
One day, while my mother was playing outside the shack, she noticed a family friend come to visit my maternal grandmother. Curious, my mother listened to the conversation.
The family friend had heard about my maternal grandmother’s financial troubles and made a discreet suggestion. She suggested that Ma (what we called our maternal grandmother) should go to work in a brothel. The money she made would be more than enough to feed,
provide school clothes, and meet other financial needs for her children.
After listening to the suggestion, Ma put down her dishwashing cloth for a moment, as if she was considering it.
Then she said, “I would like to, but I’ve got to set an example for my children.”
Upon hearing that her mother nearly became a prostitute, my mother studied hard to get a job. As you already can guess, she associated all those who worked in the sex industry as lazy scum, not having the self-discipline to work hard. I do not like saying these harsh words here,
but that is honestly how my mother felt.
It would be years later that my mom would eventually say to me, “Now I realize how lonely you are. And I notice that every one of those women you talk to always lift you up, never tear you down.”
The reason I am grateful to the sex industry is that some of those topless dancers realized that I was different from other customers because I saw them as individuals, not as a group.
Or to paraphrase Eliza Doolittle’s quote from My Fair Lady, I treated dancers as princesses because I saw them as princesses. The other customers treated them like dirt
because they saw them as dirt.
It is no exaggeration to say that those topless dancers taught me to temper my intellectual judgements of people with compassion for not knowing the circumstances that brought them to the situation. After all, if things had gone badly for my mom or sister, they might have done that for a living in order to survive. I do not have the condescending pity I had before, but acceptance that I can do some small kindness for them and everyone I meet
on this earth.
Before I close message, I want to tell you of one incident I had with someone.
I used to go to a bible church in Denton. Eventually, word spread to one of the members about my visits
to a topless club in Dallas. A minder came to visit me, if you excuse my slang (i.e. someone sent to check up on me, like someone minding a baby).
After listening to him harangue me with various passages of Scipture and moral law for the better part of ten minutes, I said, “Do you mind if I ask one question?”
“Go ahead,” he said.
“Are those dancers deserving of our contempt because of what they do,” I began, “or are they contemptible because they’re witnesses demonstrating that people like us know better, but we refuse to do or do not care enough to prevent them — and others like them — from getting into that situation in the first place?”
After he heard my question, dead silence reigned.
His mouth dropped open in astonishment for a few moments, before shutting it. The look he gave me when he departed was pure hatred.
I now realize that only God knows the true motives behind a person’s actions. Since I do not have God’s wisdom or vision, I cannot see all the factors that make one person into a saint and another into Jared Loughner. Evil is a continuum of actions.
Or to put it another way, the worst evils are the ones where a person is killed, because the world is much poorer without that person. Rape and slavery are the second
worst, because the rapist (and enslaver) see that person as an object, not someone like them.
I only wish to have sex with a prostitute because I realize that I don’t have the financial resources, the mental aptitude, or the ability to support a wife and children while doing the thing I love most, writing.
But when I have an encounter with a prostitute, I realize that she is a human being as well. If I want anal sex (or something else), but she refuses, I must obey her wishes… because she has other clients that wish to enjoy her and knows the limits of her own body. If I do
something that violates her will, trust, and dignity, I’m no better than a murderer.
After all, the one I follow said, “Love God and love your neighbor as you would love yourself.” And my neighbor is everyone I meet, whether at work, play, or traveling. I am not always successful, but I try to learn from my mistakes.
To take a phrase from an old black-and-white Outer Limits episode, I think the question everyone asks about the sex industry is, “Does the job degrade the person?” or “Does the person degrade the job?”
In my experience, I have found the latter statement to be true, if only because I have met some bad dancers that treat everyone they meet with contempt, but most dancers in that profession are dedicated to making the customer happy and lift the spirits of others.
In my (respectable) city job, there are people like me and my boss who try to provide the best level of customer service to our patrons in the library… and those who think that a civil service job is just loafing around with pay until they collect their pension.
I apologize for this long post. Thank you for your patience.
just a quick note, as my battery is nearly dead, the reply below was only to what maggie wrote Kerr, I didn’t immediately read your reply, as I needed time to tackle its length. I am glad that I did though, thought provoking story. If I do not reply more tomorrow, know that I am contemplating your stories as I fall asleep tonight.
Thanks for sharing those personal things.
Dear KerrAvon, there ARE women in the world who have relationships with men who aren’t rich and/or can’t support them. There’s also women who have relationships with men who have disabilities/health problems, etc. For me personally it’s always been about what’s INSIDE the man, i.e. does he care about goodness, does he make efforts to make the world better, etc.? If he’s not into any of this, he’s not for me no matter how many $’s he has. When I started wanting a relationship years ago I didn’t rule out any rich man or 1 who could support me IF he also had the traits I listed above. But, even if things had worked out that way, I would have kept my job skills up at all times because I know 1st hand you can lose people with no notice in life. I’d also do the volunteer work I’ve always wanted to do if someone paid my bills. 1 disadvantage of working full-time is I don’t get to do the level of volunteer work I’d like to. But, I do what I can and that counts. You may want to check out the movie “Adam”. The lead character in it has Asperger’s. What you said about Catholic Church teaching that people who aren’t members of it are going to hell is an evil lie. This is 1 reason I’m a Protestant, because of this lie of theirs.
Well, Laura, you can’t be TOO hard on the church. It is, like my job, a bureaucracy. It’s just a little older, but a bureaucracy, nonetheless.
Back then, when my mind was out of whack, I took what people said in a literal manner. Also, I have a sense (though exaggerated) of gratitude and honor.
Because I grew up with a mother who had a negative attitude toward prostitutes and was grateful to the church for her education, you can see where some of the bias came from.
But I haven’t told you the rest of my mother’s story. Even though my mother was a staunch Catholic, she never went to church. The reason for her reluctance was that when she went to confession as a teenager, she confessed lustful thoughts.
Normally, this would be a non-story, but what makes this different is that the confessor asked for certain intimate details of what she thought about. Because of his prying questions, my mother felt that most of the priests were lechers that couldn’t be trusted. It would only be when I showed her some of the good people in the church, that she began to soften her views.
To me, every group or organization has good and bad elements. That is due to the fact that everyone comes from a different background. Because of my mental illness, I will have a different set of expectations for people that I know have a mental disorder. A stranger might look down on one of my friends because he does not have that knowledge.
Now as to my beliefs, I believe in what the Catholic Church teaches… but I also believe that if I do commit a sin, God will forgive me if I show proof I want to change. Nobody is completely perfect, IMO. Instead, every person has some compulsion that he or she struggles with. In my case, my compulsions are lust and procrastination (especially when I should be working on my manuscript instead of reading and commeting on this column)!
So I still believe I’m a good Catholic. I’m not a saint, but I’m not irredeemable. It just will take me longer to get where I want to go.
Ha Ha! I mean, what do you even say to that?
Now, when I go to some of the more urban strip clubs that I like to attend, and girls are dancing pointing their fingers in the shape of a pistol, pretend fires it at him, and then blows the imaginary smoke from the tip of her finger, are they going to call that attempted murder next? or is that just an offer of murder for hire? Maybe she is secretly telling the man that she will shoot him if he doesn’t pay her for sex? Trying to forcibly engage in paid sex, that he had to pay for, or clearly her next move was to shoot him… I can see the defense now….
“Are those dancers deserving of our contempt because of what they do,” I began, “or are they contemptible because they’re witnesses demonstrating that people like us know better, but we refuse to do or do not care enough to prevent them — and others like them — from getting into that situation in the first place?”
Beautiful. Just, beautiful. Except – they are contemptible because they show that there are lifestyle choices other than the one your “friend” believes is the only “true” choice.
I live in the SLC area (poor me, lol) – and there is very much a prohibitionist attitude here, covering everything from prostitution (someone PLEASE explain to me why I can’t earn money doing something that’s legal for me to do for free? Anyone?) to homeschooling, to alcohol.
Acting sexy? The way this law reads, I could be arrested for adjusting the way my boobs lay in my bra! (I already go without underwear and carry condoms – I am in so much trouble, and I’m out of the industry.)
If they could mormoms would out law sex outide of marrige entierly
That was uncalled for. It’s not the Mormons, it’s the general attitude in the area among LEOs.
It’s absolutely true that different cities and states develop their own “law enforcement cultures”; that of Texas, for instance, is unusually vindictive and punitive. But I wonder how much such “cultures” are influenced by that of the society in which they’re embedded? In other words, I wonder if it’s possible to predict what the cops and prosecutors in any area are like by observing the general population in that area?
Not really, while you do see this attitude generally in cops and politicians across the country, the church in Utah functions as a fourth branch of government.
And the mormons are rivaled in its fucked up attitude twords sex only by the catholics
Laura beats head against wall…there’s people all over the US who choose to be sexually conservative and also not literally order anyone else around. Speaking of politicans, Congressman Ron Paul is an example of 1 of these people. Just wondering, would you like it if people said how you handle YOUR sex life was ###*** up? At least some Mormons practice polygamy and that’s NOT sexually conservative.
Yeah it is. He can have several wives, sure, but he’s still supposed to keep sex within the bounds of marriage. Instead of there being only one person he can slip it into, there might be four or five or nine, but still, it’s a matter of “with your wife only.” It just happens that he has more than one.
And the wives: they have one man and one man only. Keep your panties up and your skirt down the rest of the time.
Polygyny (more accurate than the oft-used term “polygamy”) is only “NOT sexually conservative” in that it isn’t currently approved of in most of the country. Other than that, it’s just as straight in the laces as Leave It to Beaver.
Yes it is conservite becuase they(the wives) cant have sex with other or even each other
I was raised mormon FYI, did you know they have a plan to take over the country?
They expect the US governemnt to collapse in the “last days” and plan to take over once it does
Dear lujlp, if they’re all out there literally trying to outlaw sex outside of marriage, then what about the polygamist people? The way they live is the opposite of sexual conservatism. There’s at least a few of them in Utah. With a state that has at least some polygamist people it sure sounds like ALL of them in Utah are out there trying to order everyone around. HHMM…
How do you get that? Polygamy is a far older form of marriage than (enforced) monogamy, so those who choose it are not only “conservative” but actually reactionary. The opposite of “conservative” is “liberal”; sexual liberalism might include illegal polyamory, but not legal polygamy.
Which of course demonstrates why labels like “liberal” and “conservative” are useless.
There are two types of ‘mormon’ ploygamists in utah, an both type are condemed by the offical church and excomunicated
Type one takes second and occasionally third wives with the consent of their current wives – all of them being legal adults. Alot of type ones in utah might not even be moromon, just moved there for the near non existant procecution
Type 2 set up their own religion, marry off their daugters in arranged marriges often before they are 16. Most of the men marrying these girls are at least twice their age if not three times. They take as many as they can support. As there are not enough women to go around the younger males are banished, literally banished, from their home and communities on the most specious of charges to prevent competion for sex partners.
You know why the government hates prostitution, Lailah.
All politicians HATE competition, especially around election season where every dollar counts. 🙂
@Andrea ,
Why are there any people living in Utah at all? Didn’t it snow there this weekend? That’s God, telling Utah what he thinks, right there.
Classic.
@Laura,
I never discussed murder.
Dear Gorbachev, I know you didn’t. The truth is if ANYONE on here wrote what you did I would have answered the same way. I wasn’t “out to just get you”. Those of us who have had loved 1’s and/or friends murdered know 1st hand how important it is that there ARE certain laws. We also know that many laws ARE horrible and wrong also.
@ Laura
@ Gorbie
Would you two just shut the fuck up, please? You’re boring the shit out of the rest of us.
Here’s what I say when my kids come screaming:
Is it bleeding?
Is it leaking?
Is it sticky?
No? Then get over it.
Seriously. Get over it. Or get a room
Dear Andrea, I apologize for any upset I’ve caused on here. 1 of my faults IS getting on a high horse at times (as Sailor Barsoom said), but to my credit I’m still working on this fault and do it less over time. I can also use sarcasm too much at times to make points. Could you please not use swear words towards me (shut the f up) and/or towards my beliefs/how I practice certain things in my life (like was done towards the form of “free love” I practice)? Thank you.
We have the 4th and 5th Amendments in our national Constitution to protect us from this kind of stuff. Of course the courts let the government shred those documents all the time in various cases thanks to MADD’s lobbying arm and the government’s desire to collect tax revenue among other things so basic individual rights are essentially irrelevant in many instances.
People who wish to disguise their will to power in a cloak of benevolence must rely on mind reading because if they actually ASKED the Common Man what he wanted, he might well answer “For you to go piss up a rope and then stand under it while it dries.”
I shall play in the pool nicely.
BTW, I was reading your story: Being raped.
Terrifying.
That’s a tale to make you bitter about men.
Unless you’re smart, in which case you learn more about being human and yourself. Or you can become vengeful and hateful.
Eve’s Daughter seems to have absorbed all the wrong lessons.
What was interesting was her seeing images of naked women and pornography as very personal acts of abuse.
I was correct, I think: She dislikes sex, in and of itself: The act of objectification, the feelings of sexual desire, seem to be repulsive to her. And it apparently started young.
She also seems to be maladjusted, and to suffer from several kinds of personality disorder – among them narcissism. Severe narcissism.
It frightens me that these kinds of people – those with difficulties dealing with being human – are the ones often determining public policy.
She’s definitely narcissistic, but neofeminism is an inherently narcissistic viewpoint because it derives from anger at the world for being arranged in a manner the neofeminists find inconvenient. The “you’re selling my sexuality” nonsense and taking porn personally are narcissistic in the extreme.
Eve’s Daughter also appears to suffer from borderline personality disorder, though obviously i’m not a psychologist so I’m not really qualified to make such a diagnosis; it’s just that the demonization of men and black-white duality are pretty indicative of BPD.
See. The internet’s not so bad.
We’re all such nice people.
Preemptive “no homo” alert
Members of the FLDS sub-sects of Mormonism often “release” surplus males into the general population (by release, I mean that they literally take 12-15 year old boys to the closest city and drive away. In some cases, the closest major city is literally 200 miles away from home.) On a monthly if not weekly basis, cities like boulder and Denver can count on having their populations increased by hundreds, all of the new citizens being between the ages of 12-15, functionally illiterate and possessing the survival instincts of a dodo. Now, who among us can guess what happens to a testosterone-laden boy whose been abandoned by his entire family and left to urban life?
Long story short, there’s a reason why “twink” porn is mostly populated by Midwestern farm boys. Those prostitution laws aren’t just designed to entrapp female targets. As a native New Yorker who’s worked in a porn shop, I have the displeasure of being able to admit that I’ve met a few “barely legal” porn stars who got their first shot at the big time by being picked up on the side of the road by a predatory/”concerned” (because he was dumped on the side of the road once) former FLDS reject. IOW, while understanding that women will be disproportionately affected by this law, even the darkest cloud has a silver lining. If the cops could understand the idea of “discretion” (ha!), some people would be saved from a life of sexual degradation. Unfortunately, though, they’ll piss off sluts, take milk out of the mouths of orphaned children, make it even harder to pay tuition and ignore the other crime.