| Humped to Death |
[Aug. 22nd, 2008|03:17 am] |
I've been reading with morbid fascination about Annabel/'Grace' Chong, a pornographic actress who set the Gangbang World Record in January 1995. She attempted to have sex with 300 men, and invited this many. Only 70 turned up.
That fact needs some long, thoughtful consideration performed upon it by chauvenistic males. (Which is to say, most males.) |
|
|
| The Obsolescence of Feminism |
[Aug. 16th, 2008|05:01 pm] |
|
To constantly prattle on about "female empowerment" is, I think, highly insulting to women. The continued obsessive pursuit of the feminist agenda implies that women somehow have need of continuous support, encouragement and fierce representation in all arenas, and that without this they'll collectively lapse, cower and fall back under male dominance. I feel the most respectful thing at this point would be to leave the whole issue alone: the notion and theory of equal rights and gender equality has been established; the rest of the progress to be made is in societal perceptions, which cannot be shaped by the blunt hammerings of banners, protest marches and outraged public speakers. The remaining work to be done must do itself, and feminists should show women the respect of trusting them to look after and promote their gender by action and example, every day, rather than thinking of themselves as figureheads of an oppressed and incapacitated group of people. |
|
|
| |
[Nov. 4th, 2007|05:48 pm] |
 |
|
|
| |
[Oct. 28th, 2007|01:06 pm] |
But the stars that marked our starting fall away. We must go deeper into greater pain, For it is not permitted that we stay. -Dante Alighieri
|
|
|
| Rolling Stoned |
[Oct. 25th, 2007|03:47 am] |
Well, I'm running down the road
tryin' to loosen my load
I've got seven women on my mind,
Four that wanna own me,
two that wanna stone me,
one says she's a friend of mine.
Take it easy, take it easy
Don't let the sound of your own wheels
drive you crazy. |
|
|
| My Favourite Activity |
[Oct. 1st, 2007|07:32 pm] |
You know what I really love? Packing myself into a suitcase. It's great. I can barely contain myself.
-All credit to Reader's Digest-- |
|
|
| Heaven |
[Sep. 30th, 2007|12:20 am] |
It's not easy having yourself a good time...
 |
|
|
| Australia?! |
[Sep. 30th, 2007|12:13 am] |
Credit reluctantly goes to the dramatically-named 'silently--screaming' at deviantart. |
|
|
| If Looks Could Kill... |
[Sep. 30th, 2007|12:03 am] |
Heheh...another random google search, for the above phrase. |
|
|
| Wow... |
[Sep. 29th, 2007|11:56 pm] |
This was tagged in a random google image search with the phrase "...ignorant to true beauty..." |
|
|
| A Pornographic Thought (NOT WORK SAFE) |
[Sep. 21st, 2007|12:20 am] |
Seriously. The links in this article are obscene and pornographic in nature. It's to prove a point, too, so it's not necessarily porn you'll be able to enjoy, if you're usually so inclined.
edit - many of the links are broken or not directly accessible. Can't be arsed to fix them. The whole link-a-line thing is more in honour of Maddox's hate of journal entries full of html links, anyway.
"The only way to achieve a balanced perspective on porn is to step beyond political correctness.
Porn is a billion-dollar industry. In mainstream het porn, women are the primary objects of desire. Porn actresses get paid to do what they do, and I think it's likely they get paid a lot more than porn actors - they're the ones who get the star billing, not the swingin' dicks.
Who buys porn, and why?
The primary consumers of porn are men, and these men generally consume porn because they are sexually unsatisfied or just plain lonely - not because they hate or disrespect women. Porn is generally used to enhance masturbation. Men generally employ masturbation as a substitute for real physical intimacy."
-'Shoulders', beautifulagony.com
This is true - porn does not have a significant impact on grown men's attitudes. My concern, though, is that porn is becoming an educational device used by children to learn about sex. When I hear 12-year-olds shouting, "You wanna suck my cock, bitch?" and "Come on, whore! Bend over!" at a passing woman, I get the distinct impression there's something wrong. And if porn, particularly the ephebophillic, racist, deviant, Freudian, revolting material available to any fool with google, from the weightist and the pseudo-pedophillic to the absurd and the disgusting and the genuinely sad...if this is where our children are learning about their bodies, their sexuality, their gender roles, the balance of society, the meaning of love, the importance of maturity, of role models, of mutual respect and of monogamy, then I think I have a reason to be concerned.
Whether disguised as stylish, art or neo-art, or, inversely, shielding genuine monstrosities behind twisted concepts and legal technicalities, porn is ultimately nothing more than a mixed bag of tasteless mediocrity, lustfulness, moneymaking, exploitation, perversion and cheap gratification.
Porn is a scab on civilisation, yet to heal, that society keeps picking for idle pleasure and profit. Porn is our collective choice to disregard the future and turn a blind eye in favour of short-term comfort and convenience.
Porn is rape behind closed doors, prostitution made legal by paperwork, the secret that everybody knows but nobody speaks.
Because porn's composing element is sex, people think that the rules of secrecy blanketing our sex lives can also blanket porn, excusing us from discussing it. That we have no right to interfere or pry, as we have none with real sex.
Privacy has no place of mention in the same sentence as "porn". Pornography is the abolition of privacy. As much as our society depends on privacy, so we should recognise porn for the total abandonment of privacy that it is. Just as our society ticks smoothly on wheels of discretion and decency, so we should halt and examine the absence of discretion and decency in porn.
As a masturbatory aid for hopeless old men and lonely students, I don't see the harm. When it's typical sexual fantasies, I still don't see the harm. But when we raise kids on it, I suspect there'll be consequences to reap. And honestly, some of the attitudes and practises propagating in porn are becoming difficult to ignore. |
|
|
| Shirley Manson is Hot as Fire. |
[Sep. 4th, 2007|07:08 am] |
 |
|
|
| harry potter 7 |
[Aug. 3rd, 2007|02:25 am] |
"Seventeen, eh!" said Hagrid, as he accepted a bucket-sized glass of wine from Fred. "Six years ter the day since we met, Harry, d'yeh remember it?"
"Vaguely," said Harry, grinning up at him. "Didn't you smash down the front door, give Dudley a pig's tail and tell me I was a wizard?"
"I forge' the details," Hagrid chortled.
I know, I know: Harry's going to die in some convoluted plot twist that simultaneously destroys Voldemort, thereby eliminating the possibility of spin-offs and giving a vaguely happy ending, and there's going to be fighting and serious stuff, and loads of people are going to suffer, and there'll be loads of plot twists, and Snape will turn out to be some unfathomable double-double-crosser, et cetera.
But it's these little morsels of humour that make me really, really appreciate Harry Potter. The combination of cultural parallels, technological metaphors, acute social insights and clear understanding of how people of all ages react to a range of situations and experiences...these things render the ultimate fate of the story's protagonist irrelevant to me. I anticipate the pleasure of reading all 7 books through, my enjoyment unhampered by sudden character deaths and plot twists - because Harry Potter is one of those rare fictional worlds where every angle is given equal weight, granting it the vast, broad audience that is currently has.
For the record, I've only read as far as the above quote at time of reading, so if my guesstimates prove accurate...w00! |
|
|
| The gap between Half-Life and Half-Life 2 |
[Jul. 17th, 2007|08:54 pm] |
I wrote this message in response to a query on the IMDb boards, and was so proud of it that I wanted to save it somewhere - hence the personal tone.
This is a muddy area of fictional history covered in detail by this book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Half-Life-Raising-Behind-Official-Insiders/dp/0761543643/ref=sr_1_6/026-6552962-6366810?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1184698088&sr=1-6
To save you spending a lot of money on postage and extortionist 2nd-hand sellers, I'll summarize:
1: The Vortigaunts.
When the border-world Xen was breached at the beginning of H-L, a large number of the Vortigaunts got stranded here; they were initially hostile to humans, working at the bidding of Nihilanth, the giant baby-demon at the end of H-L. They reappear as friendies in H-L2 because when Freeman kills Nihilanth, he frees them from Nihilanth's telepathic control.
When the Combine come to earth, the remaining Vortigaunts join the human resistance rather than fall under the Combine's rule.
2: the Combine.
The Combine are a space/dimension-travelling race who devour planets' resources and 'recycle' indigenous species (e.g. humans). The soldiers you fight in H-L2 are ALL human - you never actually see the combine themselves, who are only represented in the game by the bizarre assortment of technology they produce.
The gunships and striders, for example, have an insectoid, organic look about them: this is because they're not pure creations of any one species, but previous races from other planets that the Combine enslaved and augmented, genetically and mechanically, to fight for them.
3: the Administrator.
He was the leader during the initial war against the Combine. When they invaded, and everything was going to *beep* he went from being Administrator of the Black Mesa Compound to leading the human resistance. At some point he switched sides and betrayed the human race, though he may simply have done it to save them - there was clearly no way humanity could have won against the Combine.
It's heavily hinted in H-L2, near the end, that he is using all his powers of persuasion to soften the Combine and buy the human race time, rather than betray them completely. Although humans hate him, he is probably the reason there is still a human race at the time of H-L2.
4: the G-Man.
Nobody knows, and nobody's supposed to. He works for 'someone', and has unimaginable power at his disposal - he can alter space-time itself, freezing time, moving through it, etc. He probably works for some kind of mega-advanced race, somewhere - he was working at, or at least visiting, Black Mesa at the beginning of H-L, which suggests he knew what was going to happen and had a vested interest in how it all turned out. Why he's interested in the human race, who he works for and whose side he's on, all remain a mystery.
5: the Takeover.
So, that's who everyone is. How it all happened, exactly, is like this:
-after black mesa, the g-man held Freeman suspended in time, outside of what was going on;
-the species from the Xen borderworld - bullsquid, headcrabs, gargantua, fish-thingies - all started to take over, attacking people and causing mayhem;
-humans gathered in cities, fought back, resisted;
-the Combine appeared from nowhere, invading from another dimension or location in this dimension: citadels suddenly appeared in the centre of all the world's major cities;
-their machines branched out easily with the humans all panicked and condensed into major population centres;
-humanity fought back for about seven hours, losing all armed forces in the process;
-Breen surrenders to the Combine;
-the Citadels' walls begin consuming the cities, the oceans are drained, forests are razed as the Combine drain all natural resources. They also replace the air with less breathable substances, gradually, and activate a restrictive field over all cities that renders all humans infertile - no more children;
-the G-Man reinserts Freeman in the right time and place to set everything in motion, apparently with the hope of loosening the Combine's hold of earth.
The way that the G-Man uses Freeman, and Breen's cryptic comment, "Didn't you know your contract was open to the highest bidder?" suggest that whoever the G-Man works for are at war with whoever the Combine really are, and that humanity is simply caught in the cross-fire. |
|
|
| Important questions regarding the demonisation of society's miscreants: |
[May. 30th, 2007|07:40 pm] |
Do you consider pedophillia, rape, domestic abuse and abduction to be problems?
Would you like to solve these problems, if possible?
Do you believe verbally condemning and punishing existing offenders will take us any closer to solving these problems?
Quite.
Taking revenge upon existing perpetrators of these crimes is ineffective. The public desire for revenge is born of our fear and our inability to accept and tackle these things. There ARE people in this country who want to rape children, beat their wives, terrorise families, et cetera. These things are horrifying in the extreme, but we cannot afford to forget that they are committed by real people. Human beings are doing these things; as human beings, it is therefore our responsibility to delve into the causes and attempt to prevent them, to understand them, to cure them.
And no, I don't mean the Hitler definition of 'cure'. It disgusts me that people would happily see pedophiles and rapists tortured, publicly executed, humiliated. What does society gain from this?
Ordinary people often believe that vengeance should have some place in legal justice. It shouldn't. It is destructive and futile. To torture pedophiles and rapists is to assume that they are model villains. A digression is in order here:
People who commit crimes have varying levels of culpability. If someone is raised to believe crime is acceptable for survival, their culpabilty when they rob a grocery store is diminished. If someone is of very low intelligence, their culpability in murdering a baby sibling they are trying to stop crying is diminished. If someone has a psychological condition - a malfunctioning area of the brain that prevents them from feeling certain emotions or denies them the ability to consider consequences - their culpability in murdering a stranger on the street is diminished. If someone suffers from narcolepsy, their culpability when they fall asleep at the wheel and kill a family of four is diminished.
Inversely, if someone is of high intelligence, has no psychological condition and has all their practical means met, their culpability in shooting a bank manager during a robbery is raised. If someone rapes and murders a woman while perfectly sober and perfectly aware of the ramifications of their actions, their culpability is far greater than if they were heavily drunk or poorly raised.
We do not like to apply inidvidual judgement to people who murder or rape. Their crimes are so horrific that we don't like to consider it too closely, only to condemn their actions as 'evil'. Taking their circumstances into account requires us to empathise with them, and thus with their crime, and people are terrified of this. It is almost as condemnable to show sympathy for a pedophile as it is to be one, today.
So ,when I talk of model villains, I mean a person who is mentally stable, intelligent, understanding of circumstance and consequence. Someone who knows their actions and their victims and chooses to commit their crime anyway. (The best example, the ultimately perfect villain, was Hannibal Lecter, though literature and reality have provided countless similar evildoers.) This concious, free choice is assumed whenever we speak of torturing rapists, castrating pedophiles, executing murderers. We assume that they understand their actions, have calm, reasoned free will, and have a sense of morality and the wellbeing of others.
Anybody who has visited a high security prison will tell you that this is pretentious. Many people who commit these crimes are totally insane, or moderately insane, or at least seriously disturbed by an horrific childhood. To apply the same law to these people as to ordinary, civil people is absurd.
The most profound (and the most frequently denied) reason for consideration, understanding and empathy with these monsters is that they are made by our own hand. Law is based around the idea of a responsible society, making rules and punishing those who break them. But society is now charged with its own responsibilities and rules: a country which permits child labour, a government which permits famine or genocide, a society which permits gang warfare...all are charged with mending these errors. Similarly, the west must now be charged with amending the proliferation of psychopaths, pedophiles and rapists.
It is not enough to suppose that these people simply "happen" in any culture: that line of reasoning implies that these crimes are part of human nature, and that in turn implies that we should accept them as unavoidable and excuse the perpetrators.
It is also not enough to blame individuals - neglectful parents, for example, or influential peers - for the making of these criminals. Causality insists that society is responsible for every person within itself: each influences each other continuously, and if monsters are allowed to grow in our culture, it is our fault.
So, how CAN this be remedied? As I have said...we are responsible. It is our duty to explore the causes of these crimes. As for the existing criminals...these people are sick. Would a sane, well-adjusted person chooose to do these things? In the vast majority of cases, no. Pedophiles, rapists and psychopaths are beyond the realm of ordinary crime and punishment, because there is no logical excuse for committing such atrocities.
Granted, there is an element of free will involved - potential pedophiles and rapists can seek help, be counselled, diagnosed, analysed. But at present this is a marginal option for such people: in the face of so much public hostility and contorversy, disturbed, mentally ill or twisted people cannot be expected to cheerfully raise their hands when the number is called.
Just as society is responsible for preventing poverty by providing jobs and services, thereby reducing desperate crime and gang culture, so society is responsible for preventing psychopaths, pedophiles and rapists by making the relevant health services, treatment and support available, and by exploring the causes of such traits in people. |
|
|
| Freedom |
[Apr. 15th, 2007|04:50 pm] |
An interesting complication in the concept of freedom, lifted straight from 'Quiddities':
'Freedom from Constraint' strikes the ear as pleonastic, but constraint, even so, is itself a freedom of second order: freedom from decision.
And in contribution to the mood, courtesy of firstposter:
"making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity." |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
boiled_elephant's journal
.jpg){kind=link}
