Yes, I thought people did ask questions of Blahblah, was he referring to exploitation of Thai prostitutes, or multiple partners per se, or transactional sex per se. There is an early post by lb, which lists these queries. So I don't think a ton of people crashed in saying, sure having multiple prostitutes a day is bracing.
In Blahbah’s position, I would have been pretty shocked too.
Firstly, there is the exploitation. You can also add on something which no one has mentioned yet, which is what looks to me like some truly appalling racism. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that the man in question is white. And that his comfort in treating his fellow human beings like cheap exotic commodities comes at least in part from the fact that they are not white. There are all kinds of assumptions about young Asian women in there that I am very squeamish about.
Indeed. It does seem to me unlikely that once you take flights and accommodation into account you would make much of a saving on the actual sex, so I wonder if there's some element of 'It doesn't count if it's in Thailand' ...
A weird thread altogether. I really don't care about the dirty old man wanting cheap sex. I do care about people of any age or sex being treated as a commodity, and not just in the sex industry.
You know, I DO have a problem with transactional sex, and it is exactly the same problem I have with transactional kidney donors.
I am not comfortable with transactional sex. I used to think it was inherently exploitative until I had conversations with sex workers. Some of them do not feel exploited and they defend their customers. According to them, it is not a black and white thing.
I still have issues with it, but if the workers are OK and not in an exploitative situation, then it is their business.
In some sense, I do see what you're saying - I mean, if a person straight-up tells you they don't feel exploited, then it's...paternalistic at best, to tell them that, well, they are, anyway. But the thing is, the issue of prostitution is so much wider than any one situation, any one client/sex worker pair, and thus I'd argue that it isn't wholly satisfactory to just say, well, so long as no-one is being exploited here, then that's their business.
I'm not saying sex work, as it exists now, is on the whole OK. That is part of why I have issues with it. I was referring to their interactions.* Sorry, I should have been more clear.
The sex industry has problems with how it can reduce its workers to merely being objects. But the conversations opened my eyes. At least a bit.
*It was a thoroughly mad experience. Prostitutes, strippers, cam girls, porn actors...I think of myself as sex-positive, but that convo really twisted my melon.
Is there really a conversation to be had about exploitation? I don't see anyone saying exploitation is good. So not sure how that can be spun as a Hell thread. Maybe go to Purgatory to try to divine the fuzzy edge of opportunity vs exploitation of sex work, or All Saints for organizing a way to help economically depressed people at risk of exploitation.
What we do have, though, is someone saying:
large and not very attractive
having as many sexual partners as they can
Which I'm willing to snark about, as that seemed to be original crux of @whathisfuck's rant was about.
One of the first things you notice if you ever crawl out of your echoey prude-hole is that there are people for every body type. What's not attractive to you, or media brainwashing, can still be attractive to someone else. And, coincidentally, it just so happens that people mired in lower socio-economic situations are more likely to find larger body shapes attractive because of the associated resources - and that can be linked to the very destination mentioned. Gosh.
Then there's the eye-rolling aspect of the promiscuity comment, that's classic western zealot virtue-signalling. Thing is, humans are all mammals and we all have physical urges - and we don't have to listen to them. But if there's nobody being harmed¹ by listening to those urges, why not enjoy ourselves? And if you posit that you don't have any of those urges, you're just fucking lying and everybody knows it. Virtue signalers will deny this, but that's a special liars club for liars who lie to themselves - so fuck them.
¹ Really not kidding about this condition. It is absolutely possible to be promiscuous without hurting people.
¹ Really not kidding about this condition. It is absolutely possible to be promiscuous without hurting people.
For me this is one of the key areas in which it will be difficult to find common ground.
People, based on their values and beliefs by which I mean 'What do I find worthy?' and 'This is how the world should work' will ascribe differing status to sex.
For some, they may consider it sacred or a deepening of relationship. For others, a more mechanistic pleasure or biological urge. And many others will have views in between.
So RooK, I would alter your quote to read 'For some, it is absolutely possible to be promiscuous without hurting people.' And appreciate that some others will have their world understanding challenged or offended, even by acknowledging this view.
And then there is a the whole can of worms of fair payment for services etc, whilst acknowledging I buy many goods from overseas...
¹ Really not kidding about this condition. It is absolutely possible to be promiscuous without hurting people.
For me this is one of the key areas in which it will be difficult to find common ground.
To be clear: "it is possible" does not necessarily mean "it is possible for you". The central idea is not about encouraging free fucking for all via a moral loophole; it is about not judging the sexual proclivities of others that cause no harm besides making you blush.
I still maintain that what Whoosywhatsis is really upset over is having been made extremely uncomfortable by a distateful (to him) conversation with an unattractive (to him) stranger in a public place. He felt threatened and contaminated. ("Good God! What if somebody supposes we're buddies?!") The rest is all flutterbusty to avoid having to admit to discomfiture.
I think he felt uncomfortable, which is a perfectly reasonable reaction to that level of breach of social boundary, and he therefore implicitly assumed the man was a creep, likely to do unpleasant things to people with arguable consent. But had probably not articulated all of that explicitly to himself when he posted the op.
Re unattractiveness, if your implicit assumption about life is that sexual conversation belong to the category of things that are part of your sex life - being bounced into such a conversation unwillingly by someone you are not romantically interested in is likely to feel somewhat disgusting.
If it were a woman were reporting being creeped out by such a conversation would folk be second guessing to this extent ?
I'd be disturbed if someone had this conversation around me. I know some pretty marginal characters (drugs, alcohol, homelessness, mental illness, prison) and, from what I know of them, I think they'd be disturbed too. I didn't know people did what is suggested in the OP, so I learned something and the thread had a purpose for me. Just sayin'.
If it were a woman were reporting being creeped out by such a conversation would folk be second guessing to this extent ?
If it was a man saying it to a woman I don’t think people would be responding this way. If it was a woman saying it to a woman I suspect the response would be equivalent.
But why ? A stranger suddenly info dumping about their sex plans is not normal.
Gender roles and the like. And the fact that men often think talking about their sexcapades in front of women is somehow enticing.
This. Unless there is previous history of talking about sex, it would feel like there was an agenda or possibly ill intent.
Plus women are statistically at far greater risk of being sexually assaulted by men than men are. So something displaying a gross lack of boundaries sets off alarms.
It would be a much more worrisome incident for the OP if it were actually real. Which, based on a subsequent very similar example presented, screams of "mostly fabrication".
But, whatever. We have limited ability to verify some facts, but considerable bandwidth to explore opinions and ideas. So I don't really want to argue against anyone's very reasonable assertion that such an encounter would be really fucking creepy, if not full-on distressing. Instead I focus on @babblefuck's insistence on morally-obligated squickiness. Because pragmatism.
Whoa, dude! Way to make a whole load of assumptions. As it happens, I hold different opinions about the various random cases you mentioned from those held by probably half of this thread's denizens. There is no cookie cutter, all-believe-the-same-things profile.
Besides, Hell never goes according to schedule. If anything, you ought to be yelling because we're too Purgatorial.
Just out of curiosity, are you possibly posting drunk?
I didn't have your comments in mind LC.
But I'll bet that my objections to the kind of grotesque misogyny expressed in your "spoiler" had in fact occurred to you.
Whoa, dude! Way to make a whole load of assumptions. As it happens, I hold different opinions about the various random cases you mentioned from those held by probably half of this thread's denizens. There is no cookie cutter, all-believe-the-same-things profile.
Besides, Hell never goes according to schedule. If anything, you ought to be yelling because we're too Purgatorial.
Just out of curiosity, are you possibly posting drunk?
I didn't have your comments in mind LC.
But I'll bet that my objections to the kind of grotesque misogyny expressed in your "spoiler" had in fact occurred to you.
yes, I did have your opinion in mind Ross when I put the word in spoilers, and the opinions of many other shipmates. My first draft had a warning on the top of the post and the word uncovered. Would that have been a better way to do it?
It would be a much more worrisome incident for the OP if it were actually real. Which, based on a subsequent very similar example presented, screams of "mostly fabrication".
But, whatever. We have limited ability to verify some facts, but considerable bandwidth to explore opinions and ideas. So I don't really want to argue against anyone's very reasonable assertion that such an encounter would be really fucking creepy, if not full-on distressing. Instead I focus on @babblefuck's insistence on morally-obligated squickiness. Because pragmatism.
I see. Someone says something you don't like, therefore the events didn't happen.
The thing you are missing is imagining that I give a single shit about a troll whose previous interaction involved an insult (in fact, something which was probably supposed to be read as a sexual insult) relating to my mother.
Rock on, batman. I'm sure you have many more insults to create from the depths of your parents basement.
One of the first things you notice if you ever crawl out of your echoey prude-hole is that there are people for every body type. What's not attractive to you, or media brainwashing, can still be attractive to someone else.
True. But some body types appeal to a small number of people, and then there's also the question of what the person who doesn't attract a lot of people likes. I have a friend who attracts a small subset of people and who in turn is attracted to a small subset of people. As he doesn't live in a major metroplex, he goes online and then drives what I consider quite a long way to have sex. He does not as far as I know pay for it, but he does have to spend the money to travel, and he is very unlikely to find someone living nearby with whom he can have sex on a regular basis.
And this is before he turns 60. The whole "there's someone for everyone" thing sounds nice, but none of the older people I know who want someone to love and/or fuck and don't have anyone would agree with it.
But why ? A stranger suddenly info dumping about their sex plans is not normal.
Gender roles and the like. And the fact that men often think talking about their sexcapades in front of women is somehow enticing.
Well, wrong again...
I thought Blah blah was a bloke. If such a thing was said to a casual female acquaintance or work colleague, the issue of harassment comes to mind.
My point was that it’s still harassment when a bloke does it to a bloke.
It is the kind of place where people generally say what is on their mind without much of a filter.
But I was surprised that I had two conversations which were about the same thing within a couple of months.
I don't know whether the person who went on about it would do so in front of a woman; I suspect that it is a much repeated conversation he has with other men that usually provokes only laughter.
The place where we meet happens to have a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses around, so it might even be that he lets rip with particularly coarse conversations when he thinks the listeners are not JW or women.
That's just speculation, it might be that he is exactly the same with everyone. Having said that, I know his mother a bit and it seems unlikely that he talks like that with her.
@Crunt, your point about sex workers sounds a bit like ‘Not all men’... however, I get your point, and if the context of the sex tourism was a European country with some protection for workers, at least, I wouldn’t have bothered with posting, but the context is Thailand. I really doubt if the majority of Thai sex workers, of either gender, are there because they chose that life style, or had other options. And while some of them may enjoy their work, I doubt it is the workers at the poorer end of the market. I think it was @Doc Tor who asked if someone would be happier if they were paid more than the price of a cup of coffee for their services - I actually would, because it would suggest that the worker has at least some extrinsic value to the client, which levels the playing field a little. A sex worker whose body is worth less than a cup of coffee has no power in the transaction, no protection and no form of redress. As I said, they are effectively disposable. And that is not ok.
@RooK, I am assuming you were serious when you said it is possible to be promiscuous without harming others. You may be right, but I would ask, as a genuine question, who decides whether harm has been done, and how do they know? I imagine Epstein would have claimed that no harm was being done, and physically he would have been right. I know abusers who have also used the same excuse - I didn’t hurt her/him, so what’s the problem. If the person in power gets to decide if harm is being done, that’s a pretty good indication that what’s happening is wrong. And, then, when do people become aware of harm that has been done in the past? Adam Brand is on record as saying that his porn addiction has damaged his ability to have meaningful relationships. He didn’t feel that accessing porn was harming him at the time, but now feels that it did.
To remove the context from sex: children were removed from their single mothers not that long ago. Most of those children were not physically harmed - many were adopted out to be raised by ‘good’ families, and the authorities responsible would have said that no harm was being done. We now know that a great deal of emotional harm was done through this practise. So, who gets to decide if someone is harmed, and how do they know?
I think he felt uncomfortable, which is a perfectly reasonable reaction to that level of breach of social boundary, and he therefore implicitly assumed the man was a creep, likely to do unpleasant things to people with arguable consent. But had probably not articulated all of that explicitly to himself when he posted the op.
Yeah, that was my reading. I think it's fairly common to be repelled by something, and for that thing to be genuinely repellent, without your being wholly able to articulate why.
This reminds me of an incident in my gym, a year or so ago. Getting changed after a workout a conversation about tatts sprang up, as several of us had them. The talk soon went in a direction I didn't like, so I stopped participating and no one seemed to notice. The last thing I did was put on my dog collar, said, "Goodbye lads", and left to silence.
... @RooK, I am assuming you were serious when you said it is possible to be promiscuous without harming others. You may be right, but I would ask, as a genuine question, who decides whether harm has been done, and how do they know? I imagine Epstein would have claimed that no harm was being done, and physically he would have been right. I know abusers who have also used the same excuse - I didn’t hurt her/him, so what’s the problem. If the person in power gets to decide if harm is being done, that’s a pretty good indication that what’s happening is wrong. And, then, when do people become aware of harm that has been done in the past? Adam Brand is on record as saying that his porn addiction has damaged his ability to have meaningful relationships. He didn’t feel that accessing porn was harming him at the time, but now feels that it did.
To remove the context from sex: children were removed from their single mothers not that long ago. Most of those children were not physically harmed - many were adopted out to be raised by ‘good’ families, and the authorities responsible would have said that no harm was being done. We now know that a great deal of emotional harm was done through this practise. So, who gets to decide if someone is harmed, and how do they know?
In a situation where there are two adults, the balance of power between them is equal, others aren't being deceived and both are happy to indulge in "scenes of an adult nature" then @RooK is correct. No harm has occurred and it's no one's business but their's. Hindsight may tell them differently but it might not.
Equating that situation with the abusive behaviour of Epstein or comparing it to the treatment of single mothers in previous times etc seems a bit of a leap to me.
But some body types appeal to a small number of people
...
The whole "there's someone for everyone" thing sounds nice, but none of the older people I know who want someone to love and/or fuck and don't have anyone would agree with it.
I hear that. There's an undeniable fuck-tonne¹ of evolutionary biology skewing what is generally attractive, too - which further accentuates your point.
Which leads me to want to comment in two ways.
That is an endorsement of the conjectural fat/ugly person's interest in the OP for excessive travelling for sex, similar to your non-metroplex-dwelling friend.
The "older people you know" who might disagree would do well to investigate modern dating apps. My mom, ex-mother-in-law, and ex-step-mother-in-law have all been having serial sexcapades² in their 70's that are hard to keep track of³.
¹ metric
² Also stabilizing into long-term relationships, it seems.
³ Not that I want to. Quite the opposite. But I have a strong philosophical aversion to appearing judgmental in that way, so put up with their enthusiasm.
This reminds me of an incident in my gym, a year or so ago. Getting changed after a workout a conversation about tatts sprang up, as several of us had them. The talk soon went in a direction I didn't like, so I stopped participating and no one seemed to notice. The last thing I did was put on my dog collar, said, "Goodbye lads", and left to silence.
hehe. That was a very funny story. I think a mic drop is something you do on the way out. President Obama did it, but I'm not sure where it comes from beyond that.
A Mike Drop is when you get a fork lift, pick up Mike Huckerbee and chuck him over Niagara Falls.
hehe. That was a very funny story. I think a mic drop is something you do on the way out. President Obama did it, but I'm not sure where it comes from beyond that.
A Mike Drop is when you get a fork lift, pick up Mike Huckerbee and chuck him over Niagara Falls.
I interpreted the collar affixing and “Goodbye lads” as the mic drop. It’s also perhaps not the best descriptor, but I think it basically fits the bill.
Oh, is that what a mic drop is? I had been wondering.
A mic drop is where one says (or does) something that effective ends the need for further words. Hence dropping the microphone because it is no longer useful.
Your collar moment was one of those things.
the United Nations considers Thailand a key trafficking destination as well as a source of forced labor and sex slaves, who are trafficked at home or abroad.
Pope Francis on Thursday appealed for greater international commitment to protect women and children "who are violated and exposed to every form of exploitation, enslavement, violence and abuse." He called for ways to "uproot this evil and to provide ways to restore their dignity."
I don't agree with the pope on lots, but do agree about this.
We're all going to get nauseous from all the synchronized head bobbing if we want to talk about denouncing slave trafficking. It's objectively a bad thing because it hurts people.
But, here's the thing: rational moral arguments are not going to change the fact that this market exists. It exists because, in part, there is a sufficient demographic of patrons who are willing to bypass rational moral considerations to get some perceived wants and/or needs met.
So what can we do if rational moral arguments don't work? People more worldly and wiser than I have suggested that a possible thing to address is how much stigma and pressure we put on sex in our privileged western cultures - exactly so that people can have a chance to have those reason/moral-overwhelming desires addressed without resorting to some exploitative recourse. Some things are just right out (anything that is fundamentally about harming others), and can only be addressed with therapy. But we can ease the fuck off doing things that effectively assert that "fat" or "ugly" or "awkward" people don't get to have relationships.
TL;DR - push back against the scheiße spewed by the OP to try to make things better.
Pope Francis on Thursday appealed for greater international commitment to protect women and children "who are violated and exposed to every form of exploitation, enslavement, violence and abuse." He called for ways to "uproot this evil and to provide ways to restore their dignity."
I don't agree with the pope on lots, but do agree about this.
Sure and we can all agree on that quoted sentence, but the point is that not everyone (including not every sex worker) will agree that sex-work is necessarily characterized by those four things.
TBH I think this kind of moral indignation can sometimes serve as cover for other situations in which combinations of those four things occur.
But I'll bet that my objections to the kind of grotesque misogyny expressed in your "spoiler" had in fact occurred to you.
yes, I did have your opinion in mind Ross when I put the word in spoilers, and the opinions of many other shipmates. My first draft had a warning on the top of the post and the word uncovered. Would that have been a better way to do it?
Why even use a term that you know very well is offensive and triggering to other Shipmates? Is it for the shock value? Do you get a kick out of coming across as a misogynist?
And after just wading through all four pages of men whining because they don't have a special day all for themselves...
But I'll bet that my objections to the kind of grotesque misogyny expressed in your "spoiler" had in fact occurred to you.
yes, I did have your opinion in mind Ross when I put the word in spoilers, and the opinions of many other shipmates. My first draft had a warning on the top of the post and the word uncovered. Would that have been a better way to do it?
Why even use a term that you know very well is offensive and triggering to other Shipmates? Is it for the shock value? Do you get a kick out of coming across as a misogynist?
And after just wading through all four pages of men whining because they don't have a special day all for themselves...
I disagree with your characterisation of the word as mysogynist. I am not alone in this. A great many people disagree with that characterisation, including Hannah Gadsby and Samantha Bee. Indeed, I was recently surprised to learn that the word rape required a warning in a youth left facebook group I found myself a member of, but the word you object to does not. I since left the group because I was worried my membership might impact upon my ability to enter the USA... (some of them were IS Trots*).
Nevertheless, we have had this out before, and having regard particularly to people who have flashbacks to experiences of sexual violence when they see or hear the word, I used spoiler tags. I also had regard to your opinion and the opinion of other shipmates to the effect that they are offended or triggered by the word. Perhaps my method can be criticised as not a sufficient warning to these people. That is why I asked your opinion about that aspect.
I included the word because I was referencing that earlier discussion. I also mildly resent having to censor a swear word in everyday use in many circles in my country, and I think writing something like
c@nt
makes no sense if you are triggered by the word.
*International Socialists, a hard-line anti-democratic group that try to keep moderate left wing groups out of power by joining the group and undermining it unless they adopt their policy programme (trotskyite policy purity).
I think this Outrage Purity Test should be applied more widely. For instance, it's obvious that if someone on the driving thread complains about tailgating, but doesn't accompany it with a long essay on safe stopping distances and momentum, then they don't care about safe driving at all but are just being snobbish about BMW drivers. And as for those people who moan about Boris Johnson without explaining the evolution of the British Constitution since 1066 - well, words fail me.
Pope Francis on Thursday appealed for greater international commitment to protect women and children "who are violated and exposed to every form of exploitation, enslavement, violence and abuse." He called for ways to "uproot this evil and to provide ways to restore their dignity."
I don't agree with the pope on lots, but do agree about this.
Sure and we can all agree on that quoted sentence, but the point is that not everyone (including not every sex worker) will agree that sex-work is necessarily characterized by those four things.
TBH I think this kind of moral indignation can sometimes serve as cover for other situations in which combinations of those four things occur.
I'm not convinced that anyone actually aspires to "sex work" as a career. Working in health care, perhaps it's seeing only those who need something for a problem biases my understanding. The general received wisdom in medical contexts is that people engaged in selling use of themselves for sex have a much higher proportion of early sexual victimization, experience of violence, poverty, low education, addictions, mental health issues. The comparative data where prostitution is legal shows that some of these negatives are ameliorated - which suggests that criminalizing is it unwise public policy - but that the same patterns exist among those who are prostitutes/do sexual work.
Comments
Indeed. It does seem to me unlikely that once you take flights and accommodation into account you would make much of a saving on the actual sex, so I wonder if there's some element of 'It doesn't count if it's in Thailand' ...
The sex industry has problems with how it can reduce its workers to merely being objects. But the conversations opened my eyes. At least a bit.
*It was a thoroughly mad experience. Prostitutes, strippers, cam girls, porn actors...I think of myself as sex-positive, but that convo really twisted my melon.
What we do have, though, is someone saying:
Which I'm willing to snark about, as that seemed to be original crux of @whathisfuck's rant was about.
One of the first things you notice if you ever crawl out of your echoey prude-hole is that there are people for every body type. What's not attractive to you, or media brainwashing, can still be attractive to someone else. And, coincidentally, it just so happens that people mired in lower socio-economic situations are more likely to find larger body shapes attractive because of the associated resources - and that can be linked to the very destination mentioned. Gosh.
Then there's the eye-rolling aspect of the promiscuity comment, that's classic western zealot virtue-signalling. Thing is, humans are all mammals and we all have physical urges - and we don't have to listen to them. But if there's nobody being harmed¹ by listening to those urges, why not enjoy ourselves? And if you posit that you don't have any of those urges, you're just fucking lying and everybody knows it. Virtue signalers will deny this, but that's a special liars club for liars who lie to themselves - so fuck them.
¹ Really not kidding about this condition. It is absolutely possible to be promiscuous without hurting people.
People, based on their values and beliefs by which I mean 'What do I find worthy?' and 'This is how the world should work' will ascribe differing status to sex.
For some, they may consider it sacred or a deepening of relationship. For others, a more mechanistic pleasure or biological urge. And many others will have views in between.
So RooK, I would alter your quote to read 'For some, it is absolutely possible to be promiscuous without hurting people.' And appreciate that some others will have their world understanding challenged or offended, even by acknowledging this view.
And then there is a the whole can of worms of fair payment for services etc, whilst acknowledging I buy many goods from overseas...
Re unattractiveness, if your implicit assumption about life is that sexual conversation belong to the category of things that are part of your sex life - being bounced into such a conversation unwillingly by someone you are not romantically interested in is likely to feel somewhat disgusting.
If it were a woman were reporting being creeped out by such a conversation would folk be second guessing to this extent ?
If it was a man saying it to a woman I don’t think people would be responding this way. If it was a woman saying it to a woman I suspect the response would be equivalent.
Gender roles and the like. And the fact that men often think talking about their sexcapades in front of women is somehow enticing.
Plus women are statistically at far greater risk of being sexually assaulted by men than men are. So something displaying a gross lack of boundaries sets off alarms.
But, whatever. We have limited ability to verify some facts, but considerable bandwidth to explore opinions and ideas. So I don't really want to argue against anyone's very reasonable assertion that such an encounter would be really fucking creepy, if not full-on distressing. Instead I focus on @babblefuck's insistence on morally-obligated squickiness. Because pragmatism.
yes, I did have your opinion in mind Ross when I put the word in spoilers, and the opinions of many other shipmates. My first draft had a warning on the top of the post and the word uncovered. Would that have been a better way to do it?
I thought Blah blah was a bloke. If such a thing was said to a casual female acquaintance or work colleague, the issue of harassment comes to mind.
I see. Someone says something you don't like, therefore the events didn't happen.
The thing you are missing is imagining that I give a single shit about a troll whose previous interaction involved an insult (in fact, something which was probably supposed to be read as a sexual insult) relating to my mother.
Rock on, batman. I'm sure you have many more insults to create from the depths of your parents basement.
True. But some body types appeal to a small number of people, and then there's also the question of what the person who doesn't attract a lot of people likes. I have a friend who attracts a small subset of people and who in turn is attracted to a small subset of people. As he doesn't live in a major metroplex, he goes online and then drives what I consider quite a long way to have sex. He does not as far as I know pay for it, but he does have to spend the money to travel, and he is very unlikely to find someone living nearby with whom he can have sex on a regular basis.
And this is before he turns 60. The whole "there's someone for everyone" thing sounds nice, but none of the older people I know who want someone to love and/or fuck and don't have anyone would agree with it.
My point was that it’s still harassment when a bloke does it to a bloke.
It is the kind of place where people generally say what is on their mind without much of a filter.
But I was surprised that I had two conversations which were about the same thing within a couple of months.
I don't know whether the person who went on about it would do so in front of a woman; I suspect that it is a much repeated conversation he has with other men that usually provokes only laughter.
The place where we meet happens to have a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses around, so it might even be that he lets rip with particularly coarse conversations when he thinks the listeners are not JW or women.
That's just speculation, it might be that he is exactly the same with everyone. Having said that, I know his mother a bit and it seems unlikely that he talks like that with her.
@RooK, I am assuming you were serious when you said it is possible to be promiscuous without harming others. You may be right, but I would ask, as a genuine question, who decides whether harm has been done, and how do they know? I imagine Epstein would have claimed that no harm was being done, and physically he would have been right. I know abusers who have also used the same excuse - I didn’t hurt her/him, so what’s the problem. If the person in power gets to decide if harm is being done, that’s a pretty good indication that what’s happening is wrong. And, then, when do people become aware of harm that has been done in the past? Adam Brand is on record as saying that his porn addiction has damaged his ability to have meaningful relationships. He didn’t feel that accessing porn was harming him at the time, but now feels that it did.
To remove the context from sex: children were removed from their single mothers not that long ago. Most of those children were not physically harmed - many were adopted out to be raised by ‘good’ families, and the authorities responsible would have said that no harm was being done. We now know that a great deal of emotional harm was done through this practise. So, who gets to decide if someone is harmed, and how do they know?
Yeah, that was my reading. I think it's fairly common to be repelled by something, and for that thing to be genuinely repellent, without your being wholly able to articulate why.
Some men think other men want to hear about these things as well because they're all lads together. It's bantz.
In a situation where there are two adults, the balance of power between them is equal, others aren't being deceived and both are happy to indulge in "scenes of an adult nature" then @RooK is correct. No harm has occurred and it's no one's business but their's. Hindsight may tell them differently but it might not.
Equating that situation with the abusive behaviour of Epstein or comparing it to the treatment of single mothers in previous times etc seems a bit of a leap to me.
Which leads me to want to comment in two ways.
- That is an endorsement of the conjectural fat/ugly person's interest in the OP for excessive travelling for sex, similar to your non-metroplex-dwelling friend.
- The "older people you know" who might disagree would do well to investigate modern dating apps. My mom, ex-mother-in-law, and ex-step-mother-in-law have all been having serial sexcapades² in their 70's that are hard to keep track of³.
¹ metric² Also stabilizing into long-term relationships, it seems.
³ Not that I want to. Quite the opposite. But I have a strong philosophical aversion to appearing judgmental in that way, so put up with their enthusiasm.
Excellent mic drop.
A Mike Drop is when you get a fork lift, pick up Mike Huckerbee and chuck him over Niagara Falls.
I interpreted the collar affixing and “Goodbye lads” as the mic drop. It’s also perhaps not the best descriptor, but I think it basically fits the bill.
Your collar moment was one of those things.
https://www.dw.com/en/pope-in-thailand-urges-action-against-sex-tourism/a-51347626 I don't agree with the pope on lots, but do agree about this.
We're all going to get nauseous from all the synchronized head bobbing if we want to talk about denouncing slave trafficking. It's objectively a bad thing because it hurts people.
But, here's the thing: rational moral arguments are not going to change the fact that this market exists. It exists because, in part, there is a sufficient demographic of patrons who are willing to bypass rational moral considerations to get some perceived wants and/or needs met.
So what can we do if rational moral arguments don't work? People more worldly and wiser than I have suggested that a possible thing to address is how much stigma and pressure we put on sex in our privileged western cultures - exactly so that people can have a chance to have those reason/moral-overwhelming desires addressed without resorting to some exploitative recourse. Some things are just right out (anything that is fundamentally about harming others), and can only be addressed with therapy. But we can ease the fuck off doing things that effectively assert that "fat" or "ugly" or "awkward" people don't get to have relationships.
TL;DR - push back against the scheiße spewed by the OP to try to make things better.
Sure and we can all agree on that quoted sentence, but the point is that not everyone (including not every sex worker) will agree that sex-work is necessarily characterized by those four things.
TBH I think this kind of moral indignation can sometimes serve as cover for other situations in which combinations of those four things occur.
Yeah, bad @RooK . I mean, nice use of the eszett (that ß is pronounced -ss) but really should have translated that.
DT
HH
I just read it again. The thing complained about in a post I read as an emotional outpouring is going on a sex holiday to Thailand.
I imagine that Blah Blah was quite surprised when the reaction he got was not synchronized head bobbing.
And after just wading through all four pages of men whining because they don't have a special day all for themselves...
Actually we have a day. The whining is women saying we shouldn't.
I disagree with your characterisation of the word as mysogynist. I am not alone in this. A great many people disagree with that characterisation, including Hannah Gadsby and Samantha Bee. Indeed, I was recently surprised to learn that the word rape required a warning in a youth left facebook group I found myself a member of, but the word you object to does not. I since left the group because I was worried my membership might impact upon my ability to enter the USA... (some of them were IS Trots*).
Nevertheless, we have had this out before, and having regard particularly to people who have flashbacks to experiences of sexual violence when they see or hear the word, I used spoiler tags. I also had regard to your opinion and the opinion of other shipmates to the effect that they are offended or triggered by the word. Perhaps my method can be criticised as not a sufficient warning to these people. That is why I asked your opinion about that aspect.
I included the word because I was referencing that earlier discussion. I also mildly resent having to censor a swear word in everyday use in many circles in my country, and I think writing something like
*International Socialists, a hard-line anti-democratic group that try to keep moderate left wing groups out of power by joining the group and undermining it unless they adopt their policy programme (trotskyite policy purity).
A slightly distracting image on a thread like this!
Best.Thing.Ever