Questions tempt you to tell lies, particularly when there is no answer. – Pablo Picasso
One year ago today my second monthly Q & A column appeared, and this will be my last regular one; as part of my gradual decrease in workload, I’ve decided to handle questions individually as they appear rather than waiting to share them all together at the end of the month. So don’t worry, I’ll still be answering your questions; I simply won’t be doing it at one set time every month.
What do you think of female sex tourists? There’s a Wikipedia page on it and it’s a phenomenon that’s been going on for a while. Since you’ve pointed out that it’s hard for gigolos to succeed, I thought it was interesting that a whole tourist industry is propped up by horny women.
Female sex tourists A) are not as common as the media would have you believe; B) gravitate to a few specific places, thus concentrating their numbers*; C) are usually just doing it as a one-time fling, and D) are still mostly looking for romance and excitement, which is why they seek this in exotic places rather than at home.
*It’s the same way that the government taking literally a fraction of a cent per dollar on property taxes adds up to millions.
Why are most pimps black? And when Heidi Klum stated that she fell in love with Seal when she saw his penis through his gym shorts, was she telling the truth?
I’m not sure what the two of these have to do with one another, but since the question was presented like this I’ll go with it. Most pimps aren’t black; that’s a Hollywood stereotype further promoted by the rap music industry. Even if black men represent a disproportionate percentage of all pimps (which they may or may not), they still aren’t the majority. As for Heidi Klum, only she knows the truth, but whores (including models who trade on their sexiness) are notorious for using the Myth of the Wanton to drum up business. Every time you hear one do that, just think of the streetwalker in Full Metal Jacket saying “Me so horny, me love you long time.” Same deal. Guys eat that shit up, so hookers capitalize on it. Furthermore, I doubt any sane woman has ever “fallen in love” with a man from seeing his penis; even very visual women aren’t generally attracted to disembodied parts, and only really maladjusted or hopelessly naïve women confuse lust with love.
Do you have any sympathy with the parents (especially fathers) of prostitutes? If you had children, would you want them to work as sex workers? Would it be your first preference? I ask because, ultimately, for something to be ethical, it must be acceptable behavior for anyone, not something that is deemed as acceptable but not for one’s self or one’s own.
I don’t have a right to determine what my children do with their lives, and neither does anyone else outside of royalty. If Denise had wanted to be an escort I would’ve helped her, but she wanted to be a scientist so I helped her to achieve that instead. As for fathers, while I sympathize with a man’s desire to protect his “little girl” he has to let go sometime, and any man who thinks that a modern American girl isn’t having sex with guys is a fool. And if he acknowledges that she’s having casual sex but thinks it’s “better” for her to spread her legs for a lot of penniless nitwits for free rather than to do it for a carefully-screened clientele for big bucks, I honestly can’t help him.
However, I disagree with your final statement; I think recreational drugs should be legal, but I’d still have a fit if I found out Grace, Denise or my husband were doing cocaine. The state has no right to tell people what to do with their own bodies, but that doesn’t mean an individual has to quietly accept what she perceives as self-destructive behavior in a loved one, though she must also recognize that loved one has free will and must ultimately decide the course of her own life. Furthermore, there’s nothing wrong with parents holding their children to what they think of as a higher standard, as long as they understand that A) they only have authority over their own kids, and B) once those kids become adults they may have different ideas. One of the standard maternal replies to, “But Susie’s allowed to do such-and-such” was always “I’m not Susie’s mother, I’m yours.” And the state is not and should not attempt to be anyone’s mother.
I have a blog and have to deal with all sorts of spam comments, but I never see any on yours; how do you stop them all?
In a word, Akismet. It’s a feature of WordPress, and you can also get it for blogs on other domains. I don’t know how it does its magic, but it’s phenomenal; the whole time I’ve had this blog only ONE spam comment has ever made it through, and it still had to go through the same moderation as all comments from new email addresses do, so I caught and deleted it before any of my readers had to be annoyed by it. At the same time, it’s pretty rare that a good comment is flagged as spam (maybe two or three times a month), and that’s usually because it contains multiple links; even then, it’s easy to “unspam” such comments and let them through. I feel for anyone who doesn’t have this useful software; according to my statistics, over a third of all comments are spam (as of today, 8679 spam vs. 11,879 real comments). I recently encountered a blog post with five comments, all but one of which were spam!
In light of the controversy around this topic, I completely understand if you don’t want to answer it in a column, but I read a number of sex worker blogs, and on every single one where the topic has come up, the women have preferred circumcised men. So I have a two-fold question: 1) Is this because the average uncircumcised man doesn’t care for it properly, and therefore the odds of getting a non-gross dick are better if the guy is circumcised? 2) Would you recommend circumcision for ADULT men? OR is the preference minor enough that it won’t matter in practice?
That did create a lot of controversy, didn’t it? But I’m no stranger to controversy, so here goes: I think most women prefer the way a circumcised penis looks; it seems clean and neat, kind of like a shaved face or (to many women including me) a bald head. There’s also the hygiene issue; it’s rare to find an uncircumcised man who keeps it up to female standards of cleanliness. Women are really obsessive about keeping all of our folds, nooks and crannies scrupulously clean, so it’s pretty off-putting when a guy can’t even keep one little easily-accessible spot clean and dry. Even when men do keep it clean, it’s still kind of soft and moist in there (I don’t know if that’s sweat or pre-come or what, but most women find it pretty icky). One very telling aspect of surveys is that women who claim to prefer uncircumcised penises also usually report disliking oral sex; there’s a peculiar taste and unpleasant sensation involved in blowing a “natural” cock, though I discovered it could mostly be alleviated by pulling the skin back, thoroughly cleaning the area with a warm, damp washcloth and then keeping the skin retracted while I worked. But if his skin wasn’t fully retractable, or he complained about my pulling it back, I just put a condom on before blowing him. For professional girls, disease is a big issue; on circumcised men any symptoms are generally clear and obvious, but a foreskin presents a worrisome hiding place for possible nastiness, so there’s a practical concern there as well as an aesthetic one. And then some men have problem foreskins, though that’s fairly rare.
I don’t personally know any men who were circumcised as adults, though I did meet a few professionally and all of those who mentioned it were happy with the decision. IMHO it’s an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” situation; if an uncircumcised man has a good sex life and no foreskin problems, why spend the money and go through the discomfort? But if he has foreskin issues, or frequent bad reactions from chicks, or plans to see hookers very often, it’s probably a worthwhile investment.
On the last question/answer: I was married to an uncircumcised man for 20 years, prior to which I had many lovers, most of whom were circumcised. My experience is that there is no difference between the two when erect, and I never had bad hygiene situations with uncircumcised men (lucky me it would appear). All of that said, esthetically I prefer “au naturel” (i.e. UNcircumcised), perhaps because I grew accustomed to same with my husband…. Now I find circumcised to be… ummmm… to “exposed” for my taste… To each her own I guess.
Well – I’m a “cut” man myself – and commented once on how I escaped a few nasty infections in the field that a few of my uncut military brothers didn’t.
Circumcision also saves tax dollars … LOL … I couldn’t believe this when I read it …
http://cnsnews.com/node/75198
“Would you support your daughter going into prostitution?” typically arises at some point in debates, usually towards the end when most other objections have been refuted.
In my experience, it’s often just a personal attack disguised as a question. If the speaker is opposed then the accusation is of hypocrisy; otherwise it is suggested that one is a bad parent etc.
So, I ask a question of my own, “If my daughter chose prostitution, how would it help her to be persecuted by the agents of state?”
I have two daughters that I’m “hyper-protective” of and I resolved this in my mind long ago.
It’s not the sex act that bothered me. It’s not the “sex for money” part that bothered me – I always thought that was the clever part.
What bothered me – were certain other “risks” or “traits” of the profession – some of which really don’t have a connection to prostitution – but to our warped mental view of it.
For instance – we tend to be told that hookers are desperate, low on self esteem and unhappy. Some are – but that has no connection to their profession and, honestly – most of the hookers and escorts I’ve met were well adjusted and happy people.
Drugs – we tend to be told that hookers are addicted to drugs otherwise – why would the “sell their bodies” in this desperate fashion? That’s a myth – and, during my time as a CMC in the Navy – I saw many unhappy, yet faithful wives who were addicted to some pretty horrific drugs out there.
So – all of these negative things are easily avoided by a well adjusted woman who has a good head on her shoulders – and knows what she’s getting in to.
So I wouldn’t have a problem with my GROWN daughters doing this for a living … but I would tell them one thing …
And that is – as Maggie has related a few times on this blog – there’s a potential for rape and violence. I would tell my daughters they need to be aware of that – and, be prepared to deal with it. I’d also tell them if anyone mistreated them (violence / rape) and they told me about it – the dude(s) would be dead – end of story. Which means I go to jail, etc. I wouldn’t tell them not to tell me about it – but they need that bit of info to decide whether or not they should tell me.
That potential for rape and violence is also present in dating and marriage, of course. This is something young women need to be aware of regardless of participation in the sex industry.
Definitely true.
But I would still assert that a prostitute is at higher risk of violence than any woman who’s not in that profession and also exercises risk mitigation in her daily affairs.
That’s not a slam on the profession though. I was in the military for 24 years and was in a lot of tight situations. I wouldn’t really be enthusiastic if my son chose that profession – but for me, if I had it to all over again I wouldn’t change a thing. I’m, for better or worse, addicted to danger and I’ve never felt more alive than the times I’ve come through a tight spot. I’m retired, but still work for the government doing dangerous and ludicrous things – I love it.
And I think there is an aspect of that in prostitution. The girls who are good at it, and keep at it – are doing so because it’s satisfying something within them. It may be they enjoy the aspect of danger – as I do. It may be that they enjoy the power and for some it may reaffirm their sexual confidence … but there’s some aspect of the job that “gets them off”.
I’ve known used car salesmen and realtors who “get off” in the same manner when they make a sale.
And – there is nothing wrong with that at all. We all need to be passionate about the things we do.
i haven’t come close to finishing reading your post today, maggie, sidetracked by the link to the great post about ‘wanton women’ from last year. i’m surreally enjoying your intelligent, frank, talented writing on relatively taboo subjects/ideas, spending more time reading old posts than newer ones. how long have u been doing this blog, if u don’t mind my asking? it’s very well and thoughtfully done, the writing, pictures, and provocative participants.
i love some of the lines u write. this one from the comments section of the ‘wanton woman’ post made me laugh pretty good:
‘Scorch, surely you don’t feel that most women intentionally lead men into cheating or otherwise getting in trouble? Blaming individual women because Nature has given you a sex drive which often trumps your judgment is like a wolf blaming a bunny for looking tasty!’
Thanks very much, Terry! I started it on July 10th of last year, so I’m nearing the 500 post mark now. I’m really glad when newer readers take the time to look up the old stuff; that’s the reason I include so much cross-referencing, and why I started the “one year ago today” feature. 🙂
Would I want my daughter (if I had one) to choose prostitution? No, probably not, at least not in the USA as things stand today.
Prostitution being illegal makes it dangerous.
The disregard, and disgust so many in society have for professional sex workers can really eat at your soul. Even when you’re in a legal branch of it.
Quite a few of the women I’ve met in my career weren’t really all that suited for it either. Most worked a short time then moved on.
But- Should my daughter choose sex work anyway, I’d try to advise her as best I could. First thing I’d do is hook her up with a good financial adviser. Also someone to give her marketing advice. I wish I’d have had that when young. I’d teach her what I know about minimizing the risks, and taking good care of herself. I’d also teach her than unless she loved the work to get out.
I worked in the sex business for 22 years, and enjoyed my work, despite all the down sides. I regret strongly that getting older, and more arthritic ended my career. Other wise, I’d probably be doing it when I was 80.
“Would you want your daughter to be a prostitute?” is the same kind of question as “Would you want your daughter to be a lesbian?” or “Would you want your daughter to sleep with a Black/Jew/Someone else different from you?” It’s the same old tired idea that a grown woman’s sexual actions need parental approval. Most anti-prostitution feminists reject the idea that a grown woman can’t have any kind of sex mommy and daddy don’t approve of, when it comes to lesbianism or interracial sex, but they reverse that position when it comes to sex work.
Most pimps are black because Hollywood likes it that way. It’s the same reason Indians in the 1950s stuck “-um” on the ends of their verbs. Of course, they only did that in movies and TV, but there you go.
Seal may have a wonderful dick, but it’s hard to believe it’s THAT wonderful.
I don’t have daughters; I have nieces. If one of them told me she wanted to be a prostitute, I’d encourage her to read this blog for a while before finalizing her decision. I’d tell her that there are good reasons to go into prostitution, and good reasons not to, and I at least will feel better if she considers both. I’d tell her that I understand she doesn’t need an uncle’s permission or blessing to go into any kind of work, but hey, she must think my opinion is worth something or she wouldn’t’ve asked me.
If I start a blog, I’ll be sure to check into Akismet. My two Yahoo! groups I keep spam-free through moderating, but then they’re both nearly dead, so that’s easy.
Now that I’ve gotten into H manga, foreskins are an issue. Phimosis seems to be a fetish for some, and I’ve already mentioned the circumcision spell in My Balls.
re. male circumcision, i’ve been told or have read from credible source that male foreskin is loaded with nerve endings, and thus a source of much pleasure when stimulated during sex. i wouldn’t know first hand, having been like so many others circumcised as a baby. so that’s something important to consider, an important reason not to have the operation, since it may significantly reduce sensitivity and pleasure.
maggie, i’ve just read some of your columns where u discuss having maternal feelings for some of the girls u’ve worked with or have had work for u. i wonder if u might share some wisdom with me over a problem i’m troubled by, to introduce it, here’s a comment from alicia in response to your column titled ‘marilyn from last year:
‘This is a good point. Once you think of whores as regular people, it isn’t so hard to extend that to drug users (or vice versa). Being open minded about treating people like actual humans isn’t so hard once you get started.’
i have a problem with perceiving a certain type of person as ‘regular’ or normal or perhaps even human, and that is regarding ‘social conservatives’, or narrow minded, dogmatic religious believers. as i’ve touched on briefly in some previous comments, the christian ideas of (mortal) ‘sin’, divine condemnation, and eternal punishment strike me as profoundly anti-human and thus evil in themselves. taking this further, i tend to think of those who embrace such believes as anti-human, alien, evil. i find it virtually impossible to trust them or treat them as ‘actual humans’, since trust is such a critical component of respect and empathy.
getting to the point, i have a particular relative who i used to be sort of close to before i evolved into a freethinker/freelover well into adulthood, and her dogmatic puritanical faith and ‘morality’ became a huge turn off to me. i’ve tried several times to communicate to her in different ways why i find this central aspect of her character repulsive/contemptible, with little effect i fear. still, i can’t help thinking of her often, particularly when reading stuff like this blog which is or should be so educational, so able to destroy dogmatic delusions that stigmatize so-called ‘immoral’ people like ourselves. i think i should ask her to check out this blog, and reconsider the dogmatic faith which has been a long term addiction of hers, and to also consider how embracing narrow minded views of ‘morality’ causes blowback in that those who are dehumanized tend in turn to dehumanize the dehumanizers. (phew!)
as a wise motherly type, what’s your advice? are lifelong puritanical bigots worth reaching out to in an attempt to broaden their minds (and in the process either destroying or radically altering the ‘faith’ which reinforces their tendency to be dogmatic and intolerant)? or is it better in such cases to admit defeat, admit that some people are hopeless and should be left alone with their sanctimonious prejudices?
i’m thinking of sending this person a link to your blog with a request to read a few posts to maybe expand her mind and get rid of a bit of ignorance and negative stereotypes, but i’m afraid it will do little good. what do u think?
here’s a link to a free on-line book by an academic who specializes in studying authoritarianism and authoritarian personalities of both followers and leaders i think u and some of your readers may find quite interesting:
http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians.pdf
perhaps u’re already familiar with this work. if not, i recommend it, since we’re all concerned with authoritarian oppression. while giving a good deal of insight into what sort of people are inclined to authoritarianism, unfortunately it has no magic answers or cures regarding how to make society and various individuals less authoritarian. besides the fact that it may be of interest to some here, i bring it up because i think this relative of mine is a very typical authoritarian follower. such people are very resistant to reasoned arguments.
I am not religious, yet I find the anti-religious to be some of the most mindlessly bigoted individuals imaginable.
Those who wish to impose their “reasoned arguments” to “correct” the lives and the thinking of others, are, to my mind, the worst of the worst.
The early theoreticians of Marxism provide only the most loathsome example — today’s “progressives” are also unbearably hectoring and self-righteous prigs. It’s good that they have no real power…
It’s something to think about. Often.
Unfortunately, authoritarian thinking isn’t reserved for religious types and “social conservatives”; it’s equally common among soi-disant progressives, especially neofeminists and followers of the American Democratic Party. Read the comment thread on nearly any story on Huffington Post and you’ll see what I mean.
Alas, such people are all too human; people are attracted to hierarchies and tribes, and always want to believe their tribe is “better” than the others. Take a look at the rivalry between fans of Star Trek and Star Wars, for example; to outsiders they’re all members of the “geek” tribe, but among themselves the difference is very real indeed. Freethinking isn’t easy, and even those who subscribe to some part of it (say, women’s rights) may find themselves making dogmatic pronouncements about other parts (for example, whore’s rights). This is because the majority of people are innately selfish and convinced of their own rectitude; authoritarians don’t feel their authority is a heavy yoke because they already think that way; the burden of the order they wish to impose doesn’t fall on them but only on the heathens, theists, hippies, Tea Partiers, pinkos, racists, perverts, prudes, poor people, rich people, liberals, conservatives etc they feel they need to “correct”.
The long-term solution is a strong and rigidly-enforced constitution which strictly prevents ANY law against personal behavior that does not cause physical damage to others without their consent. But the short-term or personal solution is much harder. It’s impossible to reason anyone out of a position he didn’t reason himself into, and that includes your relative; you could send her links to this blog, but as you’ll see in this coming Saturday’s column that won’t work if the reader’s mind is closed (remember the proverbial thirsty horse). If the dogmatist is someone you care about it’s very difficult to accept that she’s that way, but as a freethinker you have no choice; people have the right to accept psychological bondage just as you have the right to choose free will. All you can do is lead by example and hope that one day she wakes up enough to ask questions.
Re: authoritarian v. anti-authoritarian thinking and the Star Trek-Star Wars rivalry. I will try not to geek all over the place.
The two are actually very connected among us ubergeeks who argue about the philosophies behind each of those creations. I’m a fan of both but as I matured, I began to like Star Trek more than Star Wars. SW takes a very black-white view of issues: you’re either for us or against us. Very simplistic approach to social problems that can’t be solved with such one-dimensional solutions. The “good guy” Jedi, especially as seen in the prequels, are authoritarian, rigid, conservative, do far too much moral relativity, which, in my opinion, makes them morally suspect (namely: only free the “talented” slave and encourage him to forget about his mother still trapped in bondage. Nice. And they wondered why he snapped.).
A widely circulated quote from George Lucas in a NYT article has him saying that a “benevolent despot is the ideal ruler”. A lot of people write that statement off but considering the Jedi reflect his personal philosophies and considering how they are portrayed in the prequels (and the point of Luke’s journey in the original trilogy is to redeem his father to make him a “good Jedi” again), I think he was serious. Jedi who buck the Masters’ Council (Qui-Gon, Anakin Skywalker, and to a lesser extent Obi-Wan) are put on their shit list. Yes, the Force is obviously a great power that must be used wisely but I’ve always had a hard time swallowing the idea that what is supposed to be the universal life force can only be regarded in one of two ways. There’s an expanded universe of comics, books, and animated series of varying degrees of quality but I’d rather stick to movie canon.
Contrast that with Star Trek and Roddenberry: “If man is to survive, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. He will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life’s exciting variety, not something to fear.” Science is great but it has its limits but those can be worked on. Organized society and communities are positive but they can’t become static, should be questioned and challenged, etc. The heroes in Star Trek are not infallible and do not rule from on-high. The Federation is held in high esteem, but every captain in Star Trek is seen questioning the government at some point. The Prime Directive is a guiding principle more than a rigid set of rules. David Brin has an excellent run-down of the two geekdoms contrasting each other on this very topic that I found a couple weeks ago.
Of course, there are a lot of fans who like both, but they usually favor one over the other. What I have noticed is that I find a lot more people who hold specific party affiliations, regardless of how much they disagree with those party leaders, among Star Wars fans and more independent thinkers among Star Trek fans. But this is based on posting on fan forums over the past 15 years and the fans I know in real life.
I lost all respect for George Lucas’ notions of “morality” at the age of 16 when he showed that all a genocidal monster who has killed millions, destroyed his own order of knighthood and helped to crush freedom on thousands of worlds has to do to be “redeemed” is to do what any parent would do and protect his own son from being murdered by a man he hates. Sorry, no. That viewpoint is totally bat-shit insane.
Exactly. Including threatening to turn his own daughter into a similar monster. And the prequel trilogy didn’t really do much to make Anakin the “tragic anti-hero” and just made the “good guys” look even more assholish than they already did.
My problem with Star Wars is a little different.
Um, contains spoilers, in case you’ve been living under a rock for the past few decades.
Luke’s friends are being tortured and he naturally wants to go rescue them. Yoda’s advice? Stay and train; caring about others will lead you to the Dark Side.
Luke has demonstrated that while he may feel tempted, his better nature wins out and he will not turn to the Dark Side. What very nearly does turn him? He actually gives a damn what happens to his sister.
Anakin is inevitably drawn to the Dark Side because hey, he loves his mommy. Very bad, that. Later, he actually loves his wife. No wonder he became Darth Vader.
Caring about people is the fastest way to the Dark Side, it would seem.
That’s my other problem with it as well, SB. Anakin was denied the right to go rescue his mother from slavery when he had the resources to and then later, as you said, he falls in love (human emotion) and that supposedly leads to the Dark Side? What a horrible lesson to teach.
To very briefly bring in a couple of books in the Expanded Universe, this Jedi detachment not only from people that should otherwise be close to them (family, friends, lover) but also from the public at large who they are supposed to be protecting, is why they’re not all that greatly mourned after Order 66. They were seen as emotionally detached elitists and, well, they were. Then there was a whole baby ‘napping/”recruiting” incident that was bad PR as well.
And don’t even get me started about the near-total lack of diversity among humans in the original trilogy, which was horribly pandered to in the equally horrible prequel trilogy. But to be perfectly honest, I only like it for Han Solo. 🙂
“But to be perfectly honest, I only like it for Han Solo”
Which girl didn’t???
Now you know there are Luke girls and Han girls. The intra-SW conflict. 🙂
Yes, but the Luke-Leia crowd had to abandon ship.
That’s assuming they aren’t into twincest! And…yeah.
I liked the first two movies chronologically. I thought TESB was the better of the two. Then the third movie came along and my reaction was; “We’re supposed to take teddy bears seriously? Seriously?”
I really wanted the “prequels” to be great. But I think I’ve seen better narratives in saturday morning cartoons. And really – we can generate force fields to constrain balls of plasma? And then we have to use catapults to deliver them? Jeez George! How about you get us a state of the art hospital bed… and then bleed the patient to equalize the body’s humours.
I was hoping that Lucas would come up with something brilliant – where Darth Vader’s metamorphosis would be explained in some reasonable context. Sort of like the Nazgul in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. In other words, they Ringwraiths had made a shady deal; a Faustian bargain but they didn’t know (with the possible exception of the King of Angmar) exactly what the far side of the bargain entailed.
That there would be some explanation that would rationalize Darth Vader’s evils as some loss of volition as was foreshadowed by Obi-wan’s conversation with Luke where he says that “he’s more machine than man, anyway.” That some aspect of free will was compromised by this damage in an analogous fashion to Phineas Gage. And that this kind of short circuiting of free will would justify the unforgivable forgiveness we got in the third installment of the original movies. (At that point, we didn’t know when Vader had embarked on his genocidal rampage.)
But nope! Ol George didn’t even come within megaphone distance of an acceptable explanation.
I think that what frustrates me most about Star Wars is that the universe has such great detail and such promising structure. But George Lucas’ narratives piss all over them.
I don’t think Lucas knows what an actual narrative is. And those prequel trilogies, I completely agree. I was hoping for a lot more and was sorely disappointed. It was nothing more than CGI porn. I can’t appreciate great visuals when they fail at telling a great story. Then there’s that piss poor way Padme died, “of a broken heart”. Aww, how pseudo-Juliet of you. But Juliet didn’t just give birth to two children who needed their mother to live and protect them.
Tolkien was a much better writer. Even if he did go on a bit about trees.
Tolkien was a much better writer. Even if he did go on a bit about trees.
😉
Truthfully I was willing to overlook Vaders redemption, the idea that no matter how corrupt and evil one becomes redemption is still a possibility is a good one, if poorly executed.
The thing that pissed me off was how easily he turned in the first place. One guy tells you your wife is going to die, and rather then check with your friends or mentors you just take him at his word and go out and slaughter hunndereds/thousands of children on the off chance that he might hold a secret that might keep your wife alive becuase she might die from some unkonwalble thing at some unknowable point in one of any infinite number of futures?
And c andrew brings up another good point – the stoneage/future tech merger, wtf was that?
I own the remastered original trilogy, where they cleaned up the effects and took out a few of the wall in cloud city, I refuse to buy the prequels and I refuse to buy the new blue ray’s with even more edits.
How ironic is it that Lucas who once protested movie studioes from reediting and updating movies has become the biggest threat of all on that front?
Agreed. I suppose Anakin didn’t go to the Jedi about this because then he would have betrayed his Big Secret. Although, Obi-Wan clearly knew what was going on and he should have gone to him. Furthermore, I would rather take the chance of getting kicked out of the Force Users Fight Club and saving the life of my wife rather than go “god damn individual”. But Anakin was stubborn. I think this was supposed to be “dramatic” and “interesting” but I vehemently disagree with The Flanneled One on those definitions within a narrative. Georgie-boy and I also disagree on what is hypocrisy, as you bring up, all the re-editing and updating. I have the original 20th anniversary VHS tapes of the original trilogy, my brother has the remastered dvds, so I just take those whenever I want. I was given the prequel trilogy. They make very nice coasters.
“””But if he has foreskin issues, or frequent bad reactions from chicks, or plans to see hookers very often, it’s probably a worthwhile investment.””””
How many guys have got themselves circumcised because they were planning on regularly seeing hookers?
8.
No telling. But you’d be surprised the lengths to which “hobbyists” go to facilitate matters; I’ve even heard of men who rent a separate apartment just to see whores in.
I don’t find that surprising at all. It would keep a man’s homelife separate from his hobby and give him some control. If I could afford it I would do it.
On the rare occasion that the issue of women who buy sex is ever brought up, it’s nearly always in the context of “sex tourism”. But there are escort agencies that cater specifically to women, and women sometimes buy sex from independent female escorts, too. This is an area crying out for more research.
On the “Would you want your daughter to be a prostitute” question, my stock answer is: If my daughter went into the sex industry, I would much rather she did so in a country like New Zealand that protects sex workers than in a country like Sweden or the US that doesn’t.
Hey 🙂
In Germany, being circucised(spelling?) is the exception rather than the norm.
For myself I gotta say, it’s not hard to properly wash, and haven’t had any complaints or anything ever. (also no “I’m not gonna suck an uncircumsized cock).
What I can say, is that there definitely IS pleasure involved with the foreskin, it is indeed very sensible.
My brother got his removed due to phimosis when he was 18. He told me, while sex is still awesome, it’s like a tiny part was missing.
Hum.
I also do not ubderstand the controversy you americans have regarding the topic. Probably in the same trail of thought as the “TMI” episode of southpark.
Hi, Maggie! I’m a New Orleans girl too, here via The Agitator. (By the way, did you see Radley Balko when he was here recently to speak at Tulane?)
The first question in this Q&A made me smile. I recently participated in a group presentation on human sexuality for my sociology class, and my subtopic was prostitution. One of my group members – a man, of course – desperately wanted me to cover female sex tourism. “You know,” he kept reminding me, “that there are places in [exotic Pacific destination] where women go to sleep with male prostitutes. You should talk about that. And there’s a place in [some other exotic location] where they do it, too. Really, it’s true!”
I’d been archive bingeing on your blog for the past week, so I just smiled politely and said, “Yes, that’s very interesting. I’ll be sure to research it.”
Hi, Ashlyn! I moved away from New Orleans about a year after Katrina (June of 2006), but I still visit whenever possible; I was last there the first week of August.
It’s just so very important for some men’s egos to believe that there are lots of women who “need” to pay for sex, and the whole “sex tourism” thing is easily distorted to that end in their minds. Wouldn’t they be shocked if they realize how little the men in those places are actually able to command? 😉
Don’t be coy. I have a dozen relatives still living in Jamaica. The standard price is $10-$20 (if the woman is really “desperate”) for a day’s work. A crackhead earns in 5 minutes what a sanky/”rent-a-dread” has to put in 8+ hours of work to equal.
And if he acknowledges that she’s having casual sex but thinks it’s “better” for her to spread her legs for a lot of penniless nitwits for free rather than to do it for a carefully-screened clientele for big bucks, I honestly can’t help him-sneering contempt for the poor is alive and well. I’m PROUD to help the penniless sexually and always will be. I won’t use the other term for them because they don’t deserve it. The poor deserve sex also and not all of them are poor through their own bad decisions.
Denigrating the poor as stupid and/or of poor moral character means you don’t have to feel badly for not helping them out. Of course, it’s possible to denigrate them and still help them out, but I suspect that it’s still some weird guilt-avoiding technique.
It’s also snobbery. I’ve come up with a name for snobbery of this type: “sexual snobbery”. I’ll go against it any chance I get.
Most prostitutes I’ve been with prefer “clean” (= circumcized).
Sex workers know the “Greek-style” “elephant’s trunk” is dangerous in this day and age and condoms do very little to protect the female sex worker from STDS or HIV. As long as the guy is ‘cut’, the condom has a better chance of working properly. And also condoms tend to break or slip off on un-cut guys.
And the ‘Elephant’s trunk’ is on it’s way out in Europe, due to the large influx of Sunni Muslim migrants flocking into Europe in droves (plus the Christian minorities), whom are practically all circumcized (both male & female).
I’m glad I was done, by my Jewish parents.