Masculism Series #2 – Male Desire/Fantasy

I believe that there is a relationship between social taboo and law forbidding inter-age romance/sex and the images which mass media portrays as “sexual.”

Part of me wonders if it is precisely the fact that female children are forbidden (to the heterosexual privileged male classes) that creates our (the media’s (their)) obsession with versions of female beauty that are childish – clear skin, large eyes, waifishness. This male obsession (belonging not only to males) desires silly, childlike women – c.f. Victoria’s Secret (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pq31zWMRjw).

Can we expect anything else? Society forbids X. This forbiddance generates frictions. These frictions take the form of fantasies of indulgence in X.

Let’s be concrete here. There are men who are not allowed to date or have sex with women they are attracted to, because they are too young. Because they have a desire (id) which is forbidden by society (super-ego), fantasy/death-drive is generated. The capitalist media-machine feeds on this death drive by creating images which fixate the target, and then sells to he/she/it.

This obviously does not suggest a solution. I’m not proposing that “we” “allow” 45 year old men to date 13 year old girls. What I am saying is that it is precisely the impossibility of this interaction that creates the fantasy in the mind of the 45 year old man (and probably the mind of the 13 year old girls).

The interesting phenomenon that I predict will occur is that, as young, illegal women become virtually accessible through 18-year-old that look like them, there will be increasing pressure for more and more childish women. Thereby the standards (and so the genetics and cultural frame) will shift to create more of these. In fact, we can already see this happening:

http://www.listal.com/list/girls-look-like-doll

This is some terrifying nightmare shit going on here. The frictions caused by material privilege rubbing against legalization of arcane morality are causing demon creatures to proliferate on both sides of the divide.

Theory $$$ cultural dynamics $$$

You can generalize this pretty easily. E.g. black men are sexualized in some white media because they are forbidden by corresponding white cultures. Black women are not overly sexualized in these white cultures because they aren’t forbidden (since said culture asserts that white females are “better”).

Just think of anything that’s forbidden, and you’ll see corresponding fantasies:

Selling drugs -> dexter, weeds, GTA, etc.
Murder -> horror films, slasher films, news reporting of murders, violent video games
Theft -> heist films, GTA, etc.
Promiscuity -> objectification mags (cosmo, etc.), romance novels, etc.
Incest -> MILF porn, incest porn, etc.
Rape -> Rape porn, tucker max, max hardcore, etc.

etc. etc. etc.

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My conjecture (and here’s where shit gets really controversial) is that these “dreams/nightmares” (if you’ll allow me the metaphor) arise out of the frictions caused NOT at the extremes, but at the margins. Behaviors that are “rape-like” (rough sex, aggressive sex, etc.)  but which are forbidden generate the fantasy to perform these. Media is generated to support/reinforce these fantasies, and so they are pushed deeper into the reams of actual rape.

This is the basis of my belief that if, for instance, we were to legalize murder ALMOST NO ONE WOULD MURDER. For support of this idea, please look at Argentina and the Netherlands. Legalizing drugs in these countries caused usage rates to plummet. It is specifically the inability to perform the action, the taboo, that creates the release for many (though don’t get me wrong, drugs are fucking great, and I’m sure I’d still trip & shit even if it were decriminalized/legalized).

—

So wtf do we do? Can we lift the restrictions? It’s scary. But do you believe the restrictions are really protecting you?

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There is more depth here than I am suggesting, however. This is where the masculist criticism comes in. I believe that men are to blame for the stalemate that we’re in. Here’s the issue –

Though these “dreams” are created partly to satisfy desires that cannot be actualized, there are also viewable by people who don’t have these desires. I know what it’s like to have extreme violent desires. I know what it’s like to have extreme sexual desires. However, some people don’t – and when they watch “violence porn” (e.g. horror/action movies) they might be disgusted/scared. Moreover, they might be scared of the people who are viewing them. “What type of people could possibly enjoy this?” They associate those who desire the image with those who desire the actuality.

My claim is that it is the responsibility of men to remove this scary-ass shit from our minds/media/etc. OUR responsibility. Not for the children – for US. It is leading us down dark paths, and it scares the shit out of people.

Fuck – this is so hard to say. Cuz I fucking love scary porn + horror movies + victoria’s secret fashion shows + ultraviolence +c. UGH.

My claim is that there’s a deadlock here, though. Without getting rid of the images of desire, we cannot claim that we are above those desires (so we cannot remove the taboos that prevent their concrete realization). Without getting rid of the taboos, the images will continue to be generated.

We must do the responsible thing. We must get rid of the images and we must wait for the wounds to heal. Can’t we just stop raping + murdering + shit for a LITTLE WHILE GUYS!?! COME ON!!!

Diane Cluck

If you don’t know Diane Cluck then you SHOULD. She is this lovely folk poet songstress just fucking amazing. The lovely miss C. introduced me to her (one of the many blessings she has bestowed unto my frail mortal form). Here are some good ones:

I was in the coal mine picking up diamonds that the miners had left behind behind behind
And I admired their cold shine simple and bright and I pocketed many in the cavernous night
Clear when held up to the light
You belong to no one
You are easy to be around because
You belong to no one
You are easy to be around cuz
You belong to no one
You are easy to be around
And I scattered them on the ground…

In the wake of your eyes
It decays, you despise any weight
And because, and because, and because
You give it up
You are easy to be around
I like to walk beside you
You’re so easy to be around
It’s like I’m not even walking beside you
We are rolling along the ground, one shadow made of mercury
We were two til we melted down
Now you’re easy to be around…

Oh since my teacher died
I am a student now
Of whom I cannot tell
Of what I cannot tell

I read his books for years
I’ve gone all through them how
I wanted one last fix
But he’s not writing, now

Oh, my teacher died
I was sorry, but I wasn’t sorry

The night we said goodbye
I felt a crumble skull
My skin was sensitized
To wear that brushed-in cool

My teacher’s eyes were gentle
As any man’s had been

There are no superstars
There is no superman
There’s only everyone
I learn (I learn from whom I can)

Oh, my teacher died
I was sorry, but I wasn’t sorry…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP1r6IJmwXI

All my delight
Came out like a hawk coughed up in the morning
Saw in the light
What colors I didn’t know hot should I call them

Saint someone said
To die daily, die daily, implies you’re born daily
Open my head
A phoenix and doves fly out in the morning

Ooooohhhhh

Out in the day now
What bird dog sussed me out in the field yo
Up from the ground how
I hear them snapping up at my heels yoooo

Hot on my head
What light makes the heat makes the fire makes the ash (oh I)
Thought I was dead
A phoenix and doves fly out in the morning…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NPmsLFGAlY

Do what you do
I don’t mind
I’m not afraid to be kind
I follow through
And I find 
I’m not afraid to be kind
Do what you do
You are you
Though if you’re scared
Be prepared
That here that fear won’t be shared
One must be brave to unwind
And I’m not afraid to be kind
Do I know? Yes I do
How pain follows you
When you won’t give in to
Gentler ways shown to you…
Swing like a door
Really wide
Past yourself
Flow outside
What frames you hanged in your mind
That kept your safe for a time
Yet so afraid to be kind…

 

Sex/Beauty/Value

I’m very interested in how Beauty relates to Sex. I am also interested in how Sex relates to Value. By transitivity I am interested in how Beauty relates to Value.

Anarchism – Brutal Vestiges

At the Dharma talk I attended last weekend the Zen instructor spoke about global warming and suggested that we sign a petition to President Obama urging him to make changes which would help the environment. During the Q&A session I told her that her ideas made me feel alienated, because I believed that Zen Buddhism (and Buddhist philosophy in general) espoused a point of view which rose above conceptual understanding. Beside the philosophical inconsistency of her beliefs, on a pragmatic level her faith in Obama and the establishment gave me a nasty feeling. I argued that her attempts at fixing the problem were precisely the type of action which caused the problems we’re experiencing.

During lunch, a group of 30/40-somethings approached me and asked me to eat with them. During the lunch, I told them that I was an anarchist and explained some of my beliefs. There was a man named Rand with them, and he asked me the following question:

“Suppose you were living in an village, that you had five children, and that someone came into your house and murdered one of your children – wouldn’t you want them to be punished?”

I told him that no, I wouldn’t want the murderer to be punished. I would want to collectively discuss the murder in a conversation which included the murderer and come to a conclusion about why it happened.

He pressed, “well, what if it happened again? When do you stop and make a rule?”

Let me first say that I believe that if we are to have any hope at all in the decency of humans then we must have faith in the decency of all humans. Love is the only rule that I live by – it is hard, but it is my struggle.

I posed a counter-question:

Suppose that this man murders my child and I call the community together and ask for a Rule to be established – ‘thou shalt not murder’ – and for a system to be created to punish those who murder, to separate them from society. Now do you see the damage that we have let this man do? Not only did a child die, but we have burdened ourselves with the memory of this death in the form of a system which sets brother against brother, sister against sister.

Suppose that, after such a system is established, you begin to have murderous thoughts. Because murder has been established as an “outside activity” and thus murderers as “outsiders” you would rightly think that you should keep these thoughts to yourself. But perhaps these thoughts then grow in the darkness of their repression.

You see, by calling murder “wrong” or, equivalently, creating a system to punish murder, you have nullified the question of “why does murder occur?”

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This idea that a trauma causes the creation of an oppressive system is critical to a constructive understanding of the mechanisms of law in a capitalist system. There are many examples – ranging from cases of drugs becoming illegal to the much more recent buckyball toy recall.

There has been a great deal of interest among critical theorists in the question of what happens to cultural systems once they’ve outlived their usefulness. What are the brutal vestiges of our conceptual entanglement in the practical?

One brilliant example is found in Tools for Conviviality by Ivan Illych, in which he describes the fallout from the establishment of a “healthcare system” in the United States. While at first the system did some good in the form of fixing basic problems in public health – curing various illnesses such as polio, increasing public sanitary conditions, etc. – after all of the low-hanging fruit were culled we had a class of educated folks with nothing to do. Never a good thing. This is his explanation for big pharma, etc. – basically, once the machine outlived its practical usefulness it became a force unto itself, unleashed on society.

Another example is found among the ranty ravings of lunatic-philosopher Slavoj Zizek. He talks at extreme length about how Capitalism itself has become a kind of meta-monster which feeds on the corpses of social systems. “Resistance is Surrender” means precisely that any way you attempt to resist the system must be in some way systematic/conceptual – but that the system feeds on systematic/conceptual resistance. Thus, there is no way to prevent the system from growing except for (paradoxically) doing nothing.

—

Perhaps my analysis is a bit off, as this Simpsons quote proves:

QUIMBY
For decimating our pigeon population, and making Springfield a less oppressive place to while away our worthless lives, I present you with this scented candle.

Skinner talks to Lisa.

SKINNER
Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.

LISA
But isn’t that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we’re overrun by lizards?

SKINNER
No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They’ll wipe out the lizards.

LISA
But aren’t the snakes even worse?

SKINNER
Yes, but we’re prepared for that. We’ve lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.

LISA
But then we’re stuck with gorillas!

SKINNER
No, that’s the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.

—

The point I’m trying to make here is that humans are pretty bad at judging the nth-order results of their actions. Make a law – go ahead – but don’t claim that you have any idea what that law is going to do. My anarchism rests in a reading of history in which we cannot prove that any law has lead to positive outcomes. As with anti-depressants, we have no FUCKING clue what they do, yet we keep creating them, at great expense.

Fuck that shit. In the immortal words of Tyler, the Creator: 

KILL PEOPLE BURN SHIT FUCK SCHOOL
KILL PEOPLE BURN SHIT FUCK SCHOOL

KILL PEOPLE BURN SHIT FUCK SCHOOL

KILL PEOPLE BURN SHIT FUCK SCHOOL

I’M FUCKIN RADICAL, NIGGA, I’M FUCKIN RADICAL

I’M FUCKIN RADICAL, I’M MOTHERFUCKIN RADICAL

I’M FUCKIN RADICAL, NIGGA, I’M FUCKIN RADICAL

I’M FUCKIN RADICAL, I’M MOTHERFUCKIN RADICAL

Getting Laid is Hard

Fuck you. Fuck me.

It’s basically impossible to have sex, nowadays. Do you know anyone who has had sex in the past year when they were not:

1. Drunk

2. In a relationship

????

Well!?!

I know exactly zero people who score sober, while not in a relationship.

The issue is that modern society gives us no common language for discussing/negotiating sex. I suppose I’m talking about all of this in the context of SF, so you’ll have to forgive me if you live somewhere with functional gender/sexual relationships.

I mean, really. Really! What am I supposed to say? I don’t want to fucking romance a woman. Fuck that! You know why fuck that? Cuz I don’t want to be in a fucking relationship. I don’t want a woman to become attached to me, and I don’t want to become attached to a woman. Maybe it’s the borderline-aspy-weirdo-whatever in me, but I’d really like to have a conversation like this:

“You are attractive, I want to have sex with you.”

“I find you attractive as well, I want to have sex with you.”

Why can’t this happen? Why do we have to dance around the subject like fucking pre-teens? I’m 27. When do I get to ask directly for snuggle-time?

And what about the fact that I am aspy? That I can’t pick up on subtle signals? That I basically never know when someone is interested in me? I’m slowly slowly learning the signals, but they’re bullshit and you’re bullshit and )@)%(*@)#(%*@%()

Really I’m just pissed because no one has touched me, physically, in months.

Go fuck yourself. I know I will.

CHRIS BISIGNANI FOR CONGRESS, BRING THE PARTY

Continuing down the path of EXTREME NARCISSISM. I actually really like these videos and would be extremely honored if you watched them!