I understand the difference. If I saw someone eating an ice cream cone
it is not likely that I would mistakenly think that person was engaging
in sex. But in the words of John W. Campbell, Jr., "A difference that
makes no difference is no difference." I am reminded of a story a
certain woman told me about her father catching her masturbating. I
don't know how old she was when this happened, but she was pretty young
at the time. She said that her father happened to walk in while she was
masturbating with her cabbage patch doll. She described it as the most
embarrassing thing that ever happened to her in her whole life. The
trouble is that she did not really have to be embarrassed. Her father
made it embarrassing with the lecture he proceded to give her. He sat
her down and gave her a lecture about how what she was doing was normal
and natural. I didn't hear his speech, so I don't know exactly what he
said, but she told me that he must have gone on for nearly an hour
telling her how normal and natural it was and ended up telling her,
"Just don't ask me to help you." She said that he sure didn't have to
worry about that. Well, I am going to have to agree with him that it is
normal and natural, but he did not treat it as normal or natural in the
least bit. Eating a candy bar is normal and natural too, but if someone
walks in and catches you eating a candy bar can you expect that he will
sit you down and lecture you about how normal and natural it is for
nearly the next hour? Of course not. The most likely thing he will do is
to not comment at all. If he does comment he might say that he likes
that kind of candy bar too or he might suggest another candy bar that
you might like. Giving you a lecture about it, though, is sending a very
clear message that you are engaging in some kind of terrible act that is
far from normal and that you need some kind of therapy in the form of
the lecture to help you get over your perversion. So what he did was
another form of prudery. If he had really acted like it was normal and
natural like he was saying it was she might not have been embarrassed at
all or, if she was, it would have been much milder.
___
Irvin D. Yalom “Truth," Nietzsche continued, "is arrived at through
disbelief and skepticism, not through a childlike wishing something were
so! Your patient's wish to be in God's hands is not truth. It is simply
a child's wish—and nothing more! It is a wish not to die, a wish for the
eveastingly bloated nipple we have labeled 'God'! Evolutionary theory
scientifically demonstrates God's redundancy—though Darwin himself had
not the courage to follow his evidence to its true conclusion. Surely,
you must realize that we created God, and that all of us together now
have killed him.” ― Irvin D. Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept
On 6/8/2021 10:08 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Roger,
If you don't understand the difference, then no one can explain it to you. But
there is a difference between describing people eating together as opposed to
people being involved in sexual activity.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On
Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Monday, June 7, 2021 11:03 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Gratuitous Prudery
Since I mentioned gratuitous prudery let me express my opinion of that more
explicitly. It is obvious to me that sex is something that is a shared
experience of humanity. Having worked in some of the peripheral areas of the
sex industry I am especially aware that it is very rare that anyone gets
through life without having sex. Even the most unattractive people you can
imagine have sex. It might not be as frequent for them as it is for most
people, but they do have sex. Even the nerdiest of the nerds have sex. Prudish
old grandmothers could not have become grandmothers if they had not had sex.
Even children have sex. An example of that was a woman who was telling me about
her first sexual experience. She was eight years old when she had lesbian sex
with her nine-year-old friend. But even with examples like that about the only
people who get through life without having sex actually are children who die
before they have a chance to try it out. Now, if it is such a shared
experience, such an experience that we all have, then why do so many people get
so uptight about it? Why do so many people go to such ends to keep sex a secret
from children as if they aren't going to find out that it exists anyway? Why do
so many people have to pretend that they know nothing about sex? Why do so many
people get so offended when someone else casually admits to knowing about and
indulging in sex?
Really, if anything causes me to have a strong urge to roll my eyes it is when
someone starts some prudish self-righteous declaration of how such things
should be kept private and should never be mentioned in public and so forth
when it is such a shared experience. Really, why should we all keep such things
so secret when it is such a shared experience? Eating is a shared experience
too and no one tries to keep it a secret that they eat food. People eat food
openly in public and in social gatherings and no one is offended if someone
says that a certain dish was really enjoyable. There is no point in keeping
food consumption a secret because it is a universally shared experience. So is
sex. What is the point of prudery?
___
--
Irvin D. Yalom “Truth," Nietzsche continued, "is arrived at through disbelief
and skepticism, not through a childlike wishing something were so! Your patient's wish to
be in God's hands is not truth. It is simply a child's wish—and nothing more! It is a
wish not to die, a wish for the eveastingly bloated nipple we have labeled 'God'!
Evolutionary theory scientifically demonstrates God's redundancy—though Darwin himself
had not the courage to follow his evidence to its true conclusion. Surely, you must
realize that we created God, and that all of us together now have killed him.” ― Irvin D.
Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept