Saturday, February 10, 2007

The Porn Myth II, by Naomi Wolf

The Porn Myth
In the end, porn doesn’t whet men’s appetites—it turns them off the real thing.
By Naomi Wolf
The porn loop is de rigueur, no longer outside the pale; starlets in tabloids boast of learning to strip from professionals; the “cool girls” go with guys to the strip clubs, and even ask for lap dances; college girls are expected to tease guys at keg parties with lesbian kisses à la Britney and Madonna.
But does all this sexual imagery in the air mean that sex has been liberated—or is it the case that the relationship between the multi-billion-dollar porn industry, compulsiveness, and sexual appetite has become like the relationship between agribusiness, processed foods, supersize portions, and obesity? If your appetite is stimulated and fed by poor-quality material, it takes more junk to fill you up. People are not closer because of porn but further apart; people are not more turned on in their daily lives but less so.
The young women who talk to me on campuses about the effect of pornography on their intimate lives speak of feeling that they can never measure up, that they can never ask for what they want; and that if they do not offer what porn offers, they cannot expect to hold a guy. The young men talk about what it is like to grow up learning about sex from porn, and how it is not helpful to them in trying to figure out how to be with a real woman. Mostly, when I ask about loneliness, a deep, sad silence descends on audiences of young men and young women alike. They know they are lonely together, even when conjoined, and that this imagery is a big part of that loneliness. What they don’t know is how to get out, how to find each other again erotically, face-to-face.
So Dworkin was right that pornography is compulsive, but she was wrong in thinking it would make men more rapacious. A whole generation of men are less able to connect erotically to women—and ultimately less libidinous.
The reason to turn off the porn might become, to thoughtful people, not a moral one but, in a way, a physical- and emotional-health one; you might want to rethink your constant access to porn in the same way that, if you want to be an athlete, you rethink your smoking. The evidence is in: Greater supply of the stimulant equals diminished capacity.
“For the first time in human history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn.”
After all, pornography works in the most basic of ways on the brain: It is Pavlovian. An orgasm is one of the biggest reinforcers imaginable. If you associate orgasm with your wife, a kiss, a scent, a body, that is what, over time, will turn you on; if you open your focus to an endless stream of ever-more-transgressive images of cybersex slaves, that is what it will take to turn you on. The ubiquity of sexual images does not free eros but dilutes it.
Other cultures know this. I am not advocating a return to the days of hiding female sexuality, but I am noting that the power and charge of sex are maintained when there is some sacredness to it, when it is not on tap all the time. In many more traditional cultures, it is not prudery that leads them to discourage men from looking at pornography. It is, rather, because these cultures understand male sexuality and what it takes to keep men and women turned on to one another over time—to help men, in particular, to, as the Old Testament puts it, “rejoice with the wife of thy youth; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times.” These cultures urge men not to look at porn because they know that a powerful erotic bond between parents is a key element of a strong family.
And feminists have misunderstood many of these prohibitions.
I will never forget a visit I made to Ilana, an old friend who had become an Orthodox Jew in Jerusalem. When I saw her again, she had abandoned her jeans and T-shirts for long skirts and a head scarf. I could not get over it. Ilana has waist-length, wild and curly golden-blonde hair. “Can’t I even see your hair?” I asked, trying to find my old friend in there. “No,” she demurred quietly. “Only my husband,” she said with a calm sexual confidence, “ever gets to see my hair.”
When she showed me her little house in a settlement on a hill, and I saw the bedroom, draped in Middle Eastern embroideries, that she shares only with her husband—the kids are not allowed—the sexual intensity in the air was archaic, overwhelming. It was private. It was a feeling of erotic intensity deeper than any I have ever picked up between secular couples in the liberated West. And I thought: Our husbands see naked women all day—in Times Square if not on the Net. Her husband never even sees another woman’s hair.
She must feel, I thought, so hot.
Compare that steaminess with a conversation I had at Northwestern, after I had talked about the effect of porn on relationships. “Why have sex right away?” a boy with tousled hair and Bambi eyes was explaining. “Things are always a little tense and uncomfortable when you just start seeing someone,” he said. “I prefer to have sex right away just to get it over with. You know it’s going to happen anyway, and it gets rid of the tension.”
“Isn’t the tension kind of fun?” I asked. “Doesn’t that also get rid of the mystery?”
“Mystery?” He looked at me blankly. And then, without hesitating, he replied: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sex has no mystery.”
http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/trends/n_9437/index1.html

The Porn Myth - by Naomi Wolf

The Porn Myth
In the end, porn doesn’t whet men’s appetites—it turns them off the real thing.
By Naomi Wolf
At a benefit the other night, I saw Andrea Dworkin, the anti-porn activist most famous in the eighties for her conviction that opening the floodgates of pornography would lead men to see real women in sexually debased ways. If we did not limit pornography, she argued—before Internet technology made that prospect a technical impossibility—most men would come to objectify women as they objectified porn stars, and treat them accordingly. In a kind of domino theory, she predicted, rape and other kinds of sexual mayhem would surely follow.
The feminist warrior looked gentle and almost frail. The world she had, Cassandra-like, warned us about so passionately was truly here: Porn is, as David Amsden says, the “wallpaper” of our lives now. So was she right or wrong?
Not Tonight, Honey. I'm Logging On.:
Internet porn is everywhere; even "nice" guys are hooked. So where does that leave their girlfriends? By David Amsden (October 20, 2003)
The New Position on Casual Sex:
The rise of Internet dating has brought a sexual openness (not to mention one-night stands) to the younger generation not seen since the seventies heyday of Maxwell's Plum. But can there be too much of a good thing? By Vanessa Grigoriadis (January 13, 2003)
She was right about the warning, wrong about the outcome. As she foretold, pornography did breach the dike that separated a marginal, adult, private pursuit from the mainstream public arena. The whole world, post-Internet, did become pornographized. Young men and women are indeed being taught what sex is, how it looks, what its etiquette and expectations are, by pornographic training—and this is having a huge effect on how they interact.
But the effect is not making men into raving beasts. On the contrary: The onslaught of porn is responsible for deadening male libido in relation to real women, and leading men to see fewer and fewer women as “porn-worthy.” Far from having to fend off porn-crazed young men, young women are worrying that as mere flesh and blood, they can scarcely get, let alone hold, their attention.
Here is what young women tell me on college campuses when the subject comes up: They can’t compete, and they know it. For how can a real woman—with pores and her own breasts and even sexual needs of her own (let alone with speech that goes beyond “More, more, you big stud!”)—possibly compete with a cybervision of perfection, downloadable and extinguishable at will, who comes, so to speak, utterly submissive and tailored to the consumer’s least specification?
For most of human history, erotic images have been reflections of, or celebrations of, or substitutes for, real naked women. For the first time in human history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn.
For two decades, I have watched young women experience the continual “mission creep” of how pornography—and now Internet pornography—has lowered their sense of their own sexual value and their actual sexual value. When I came of age in the seventies, it was still pretty cool to be able to offer a young man the actual presence of a naked, willing young woman. There were more young men who wanted to be with naked women than there were naked women on the market. If there was nothing actively alarming about you, you could get a pretty enthusiastic response by just showing up. Your boyfriend may have seen Playboy, but hey, you could move, you were warm, you were real. Thirty years ago, simple lovemaking was considered erotic in the pornography that entered mainstream consciousness: When Behind the Green Door first opened, clumsy, earnest, missionary-position intercourse was still considered to be a huge turn-on.
Well, I am 40, and mine is the last female generation to experience that sense of sexual confidence and security in what we had to offer. Our younger sisters had to compete with video porn in the eighties and nineties, when intercourse was not hot enough. Now you have to offer—or flirtatiously suggest—the lesbian scene, the ejaculate-in-the-face scene. Being naked is not enough; you have to be buff, be tan with no tan lines, have the surgically hoisted breasts and the Brazilian bikini wax—just like porn stars. (In my gym, the 40-year-old women have adult pubic hair; the twentysomethings have all been trimmed and styled.) Pornography is addictive; the baseline gets ratcheted up. By the new millennium, a vagina—which, by the way, used to have a pretty high “exchange value,” as Marxist economists would say—wasn’t enough; it barely registered on the thrill scale. All mainstream porn—and certainly the Internet—made routine use of all available female orifices.

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/trends/n_9437/index1.html

Friday, February 9, 2007

Lisa M. Nowak - Astronaut in Diapers and other more deserving kooks

Women, Know Your Limits!
"Look at these venomous habitants. They went to University. Hard to believe they're all under 25. Yes, over-education leads to ugliness, premature aging and beard growth."

Women, Know Your Limits!

Women, Know Your Limits!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=SjxY9rZwNGU

It was the education that did her in.

I've been hearing a lot lately on the radio and news about the lady astronaut who apparently suffered mental fatigue and attempted to abduct another woman in a jealous tyrade over a man... a lot has been said. Every morning as I drive to classes, I hear parodies and skits on the radio station, mocking the woman.

Lisa M. Nowak (CAPTAIN, USN)
NASA Astronaut
PERSONAL DATA: Born May 10, 1963, in Washington, D.C. Married, with three children. Lisa enjoys bicycling, running, skeet, sailing, gourmet cooking, rubber stamps, crossword puzzles, piano, and African violets. As an undergraduate she competed on the track team. Her parents, Alfredo and Jane Caputo, reside in Rockville, Maryland.

EDUCATION: Graduated from C.W. Woodward High School, Rockville, Maryland, in 1981; received a bachelor of science degree in aerospace engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1985; a master of science degree in aeronautical engineering and a degree of aeronautical and astronautical engineer from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, both in 1992.

etc... okay, so she obviously needs help...

Heard yesterday on the news, authors of "He's just not that into you," the male in the middle of this triangle likely did something to lead Nowak on into believing a relationship was possible!

Fatal Attraction
Fatal Attraction
Fatal Attraction
Fatal Attraction
Did anyone learn anything yet, from Fatal Attraction?
Why do men continue to believe they can be a two-timing cheat and get off scott-free.... they want their cake and eat it too.
Oh wait... there's a stereotype alive and well in society that if a woman isn't meek and passive i.e., "submissive and obedient" as ye good book says, something must be mentally wrong with the female. Such females are ostracized in packs of wolves, but that's another story. Even the deranged-looking photo of Nowak can mislead. After hundreds of miles on the road, sitting in a diaper and disguise -- nobody would look that chipper. She may just be a mean, nasty person who is accustomed to getting her own way and succeeding at it and totally incapable of accepting rejection or failure. The photo taken after hundreds of miles driving sitting in a diaper can be extremely misleading on Nowak's "mental" state! Nowak has a past track record of achievement that simply cannot be ignored.

Fatal Attraction

We did an incredibly unscientific poll where we polled twenty of our male friends (ranging from ages twenty-six to forty-five), who are in serious long-term relationships. Not one of their relationships started with the woman asking them out first. One guy even said that if she had, "It would have spoiled all the fun."

What You Should Have Learned in This Chapter

• An excuse is a polite rejection. Men are not afraid of "ruining the friendship."

• Don't get tricked into asking him out. If he likes you, he'll do the asking.

• If you can find him, then he can find you. If he wants to find you, he will.

• Just because you like to lead doesn't mean he wants to dance. Some traditions are born of nature and last through time for a reason.

• "Hey, let's meet at so-and-so's party/any bar/friend's house" is not a date. Even if you live in New York.

• Men don't forget how much they like you. So put down the phone.

• You are good enough to be asked out.

Our Super-Good Really Helpful Workbook

Hey, what's a self-help tome without a workbook? Our chapters will all be so brave and wise that we want to make sure you retain as much of the brilliance as you can. So for all of you who feel the need to get out of your problems and into your crayon box, have at it.

Love,

Greg and Liz

Remember in grade school how they told you not to write in your textbooks? Screw that! Grab a pen and list five reasons why you think you have every right or good reason to call him.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Put the book aside and wait an hour. Or at least ten minutes. Then ask yourself: Do I seem pathetic? Do I sound like someone who doesn't trust my own innate hotness? Yes,you do! Now put your dialing finger away, get out of the house, and go find some fun.

P.S.: You just did a workbook exercise about a guy who hasn't even extended to you the energy of a phone call. Why would you want to chase that down?

Text copyright © 2004 by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo from USA Today


NASA Astronaut Lisa Nowak Charged With Attempted Murder in Bizarre Love Triangle

However, I really don't quite get why the media is making such an ordeal out of this, with all things considered... I've yet heard no wisecracks by Dave Letterman on Robert Pickton, the sleezy greasy pig farmer who is personally responsible for murdering scores of women, one of Canada's most notorious rapists and serial murderers... and we probably never will. The media seems to bias itself on gender.

What I mean is, my friend Ed was called to jury duty on a trial where a guy took his former girlfriend hostage in a grocery store, and put a bullet through her head and killed her. No national headlines, not a peep from satire. But when the woman, Betty Broderick pulled practically the same stunt, it made international headlines. Just this morning, in our local area I heard tale of a man who plotted to hire undercover cops to assasinate a local bar owner, but there will be no national headlines... and just yesterday was filled in on the tragic story of Nyia Page Nyia Page who would not go to sleep and William Page William Page put the baby out in the freezing cold. But nobody in media is making satire, proclaiming him a "kook". Everyone knows we take the crimes of men with more sobriety and even, toleration than the crimes of women. The radio did tell of the last moments of Nyia's life... she evidently got up and tried to find her way around... they found little footprints in the snow.
Nyia Page’s Father Charged With Her Murder

Nya Page’s Father Arrested on Unrelated Charges

Amber Alert Canceled - Pennsylvania - Nyia Page’s Body Found

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Women's sexuality has been and continues to be defined in terms of its relation to male sexuality and male sexual pleasure. This andro- and phallocentrism has caused a great deal of harm to women by denying us the recognition of full sexual expression in hetero sexual relationships, of oppressing lesbian women on the basis of their rejection of male-centred sexuality, and by assuming the importance of male sexual pleasure and dominion over women's bodies, which leads to all sorts of physical and sexual abuses. It is this attitude towards women's bodies as sexual objects for male possession that has prevented women's autonomy as sexual beings and in terms of reproduction.
There is a lot of debate around the issue of abortion involving the question of when life begins. I've said it before, and I'll say it again - it doesn't matter when life begins. Personally, I take the view that life begins at conception. The point isn't about when life begins, it's about when rights attach. This is the difference between "human" and "person", as I outlined earlier - and make no mistake, this is the most important distinction as we can make on this issue. For me, the most important right to protect is that of the woman.
Thinking Girl Blog

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Name:Marcella Chester
I'm a writer and novelist who has viewed the world from a slightly off-center perspective ever since date rape at 15 jolted me from being a rule-following innocent into ...
abyss2hope blogspot

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Ms. Eden uses the song as evidence that women all secretly use sex as a way to secure commitment from men.
If the song is evidence of anything about heterosexual relationships and sex, it's that men manipulate women in order to get sex that would NOT be given to them if they were honest. Implied in the title is that the man has told the woman that he loves her, but the woman has learned that even men who seem to genuinely love them can turn out to be manipulative users. If there is a society-wide moral to this story it's that men are ethically challenged when it comes to sex.

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Would like to know more about the details of the hearing!
Robert William Pictkton
Sleezy pig farmer murdered 49 prostitutes slash women (overlook the pun).

What line of puns and satire will David Letterman roll out with for his skit on the Pig Farmer/Serial Murderer Rapist Robert W. Pickton? Let's wait and see.


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WINDSOR - Convicted pedophile Reverend Charles Sylvestre blames his victims, other clergy and a school principal for the abuse he caused nearly 50 young girls, Ontario Crown Paul Bailey said yesterday. "What we have here is a man who minimized his own involvement, blamed others, showed no [remorse] to the psychological carnage that he caused," Mr. Bailey said. Mr. Bailey told a crowd of about 200 priests, deacons and other religious staff gathered at a sexual abuse workshop that he recently met with Sylvestre in jail to try "to understand what made him tick." Sylvestre was under no obligation to speak to Mr. Bailey, but did so nonetheless, giving the lawyer disturbing insight into the 84-year-old's distorted psyche.
"According to him, these eight-year-old girls planned the destruction of their own lives," Mr. Bailey said.
This is no surprise that a perpetrator of sexual abuse sees himself as the real victim who was powerless to resist the needs those girls created in him.

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We see this thought process as psychological pathology when it is a priest talking about 8-year-old girls, right? Now imagine that the man jailed had met his victims in a bar.

Here's what he'd say, "Those women that come over there every day, they planned it. I could hear them talking and they'd come in and sit on a bar stool and their skirt would be up to their crotch. Well, it was kind of attracting."

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For those who talk about how often alleged rape victims lie, are you truly against all of what this priest believes? Or if you take a hard look at your beliefs will you find that you only reject this priest's rationalizations because he wasn't accused of offending against girls who have reached the legal age of consent?

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Feminism Friday - Killing Prostitutes
In Vancouver, Robert William Pickton is about to stand trial for the first 6 of 26 murder charges. (A date has not been set for the remaining victims.) All of the women Pickton is charged with killing were sex workers. Their remains were found on Pickton's farm in Port Coquitlam. The first 6 victims for which Pickton is being tried are:
Sereena Abotsway,
Mona Wilson,
Andrea Joesbury,
Brenda Wolfe,
Georgina Papin and
Marnie Frey.
The remaining victims are:
Jacqueline McDonell
Diane Rock
Heather Bottomley
Jennifer Furminger
Helen Hallmark
Angela Jardine
Patricia Johnson
Heather Chinnock
Tanya Holyk
Sherry Irving
Inga Hall
Sarah de Vries
Tiffany Drew
Cindy Feliks
Diana Melnick
Debra Jones
Wendy Crawford
Andrea Borhaven
Cara Ellis
Kerry Koski
The total count of missing women in the Vancouver sex trade is 60.
Same thing is going on in Edmonton, by the way. Did you hear? Probably not. 20 women have been killed in Edmonton within the last 20-odd years. Again, mostly sex workers. One man has been arrested for 2 of these killings. His name is Thomas George Svekla. Most of these murders have not been solved, and police think there is more than one murderer involved. The victims in Edmonton are:
Bonnie Lynn Jack
Theresa Merrie Innes
Dolores Brower
Ellie May Meyer
Charlene Gauld
Rachel Quinney
Katie Sylvia Ballentyne
Debbie Lake
Melissa Munch
Monique Pitre
Edna Bernard
Ginger Lee Bellerose
Kelly Dawn Reilly
Cara King
Jessica Cardinal
Joyce Hewitt
Joanne Ghostkeeper
Elaine Ross
Lorraine Wray
Mavis Mason
Bernadette Ahenakew
Georgette Flint
Melody Joy Reigel
Gail Cardinal
Back to the Pickton Trial. This is the largest serial killing in Canadian history. It will be heavily monitored by the media. Pickton will be the focus of hundreds of in-depth profiles, speculation, disgust. The women he killed will be grouped together in bunches, their identities a blur. The character at the centre of this trial is not any of them. It is Pickton. The public will want to know how his mind works, why he killed all those women, why he targeted prostitutes, how he killed them, how long it took him to amass such a collection of killings, how he managed to elude the police for so very long, whether he hates women.
this is a problem.
In my mind, the real story is not this man. It is the story of the women. The story here, really, is that 80 women have likely been killed. In two cities alone. In Canada, a country that doesn't have that high a crime rate. And all of them were prostitutes. No one will ask how they ended up as street-level prostitutes, what drove them to leave their homes and families, what their lives were like. What happened to these women? They were all killed by Pickton, yes, but they all shared something else, and they shared it not just with each other but with millions of women across the world, whose only resource is their body, their sex, in a world where if that's all you've got, nobody is there to help you, but a dozen are there every night to exploit you. The story is about why it took almost 30 years to find out who was making these women disappear, why nobody noticed that 60 women were slowly going missing, slowly ending up on Pickton's farm. These women were not people - they were prositutes, throw-aways, easy prey for Pickton, for Svekla, for other men. No one would notice they were gone. No one would care.

This is how we treat our women. Read about the Vancouver Murders here. Read about the victims here. Read about the Edmonton Murders here.

Anna Nicole Smith

Anna Nicole Smith Breasts
When that's all you've got?

She had it all. Glory. Fame. Perfect face. Big tits. Huge tits, therefore the adoration and worship of millions of men. She was a goddess. How many women were left feeling insecure, compared, and pressured into getting silicone implants. Only 39 and she's already dead. I'm left asking myself 'was this another suicide?' (or at least an extremely careless overdose?) I also wonder if the media is going to string this out like another Marilyn Monroe conspiracy. It doesn't do any good to say, "Ladies and gentlemen, that's not what love is about... um, that's not love... hello, hard glamour bods can't buy happiness... we don't need more 'gods to bow down to, worship and conform our minds and bodies to,' it's a cheap, superficial band-aid to deeper problems... in both women.. and men... in society."

The only reason a girl like Anna Nicole Smith was up in spot lights was to display the work of an educated surgeon (most often men)! Yea, the plastic surgeons who produced this monstrosity, an abnormality, are the true celebrities.
There's lots of nice girls without silicone implants who would never get one foot in Hollywood.

When you're that replaceable you know it down deep, and if you're intelligent, you know that's not much to live for.

Anna Nicole Smith


Here's another woman with fake tits who's dead, coroner states during the autopsy:
Female Autopsy

Female Autopsy

Female Autopsy
Breast implants discovered during autopsy on female.


"The individual whose being examined in this case, um, we suspect that the cause of death is a drug intoxication with anti-tricyclen which is an anti-depressant medication." / REMOVED VIDEO / Female Autopsy - Suicide
Sure a lot of lasting "happiness" and "self esteem" those implants bought.
Other coroners have been documented speaking on the corpses of young women rolled into the morgue, "All dressed up and no place to go." The body is stripped naked and wrapped in a sheet and stacked along with all the other bodies -- bagged and tagged in the morgue for autopsy. I suppose those women thought by killing themself (or, perhaps somebody find them in time, to make it an "attempted suicide"), the guy she's in love with finds out she tried to kill herself, presumably is suppose to feel sorrow and pity - comes riding in on a white horse- and reciprocate the love. Men don't feel sorrow and pity. Wake up. It doesn't work that way in the real world .. I mean the drama.
...life goes on without them. Soon forgotten as shockaholics move on to the newest of tomorrow's porn divas.
just knowing the only value a woman has is her body, is depressing.

Youtube - Extreme Makeovers

Extreme Makeovers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHLpRxAmCrw
Parrot Evolution
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep2xxd-FXEY

Women, Know Your Limits!
"Look at these venomous habitants. They went to University. Hard to believe they're all under 25. Yes, over-education leads to ugliness, premature aging and beard growth."

Women, Know Your Limits!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=SjxY9rZwNGU

Thursday, February 8, 2007

Naked People

"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."
- Mark Twain [US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910)]

I gather Mark Twain didn't live long enough to know of Gandhi's life work. (October 2, 1869 – January 30, 1948)
Gandhi


Nor was Mark Twain familiar with the millions of girls psychologically influenced by the naked women in pornography, lining up for those mega-breast implants... and some, overdosing because of depression...
Breast Implants

why depression... some inexplainable void, lack of true human affection... as our instructor recently told us when lecturing about having shrewd business sense -- people who try to produce a high quality product, often go out of business, good enough, is enough he tells us, much different than the ideals we were taught growing up, wake up to the cynical reality, "there's no love in the world".