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| Author |
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| 25 new of 129 responses total. |
orinoco
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response 31 of 129:
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May 22 18:10 UTC 2002 |
It seems to me that on most issues, everyone thinks their own side is doing
all the work and the other side is having all the fun. This one's probably
no different.
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jmsaul
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response 32 of 129:
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May 22 21:24 UTC 2002 |
Re #30: Okay, what's the Peace Posse?
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jazz
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response 33 of 129:
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May 22 22:26 UTC 2002 |
I'm not saying that men are doing all the work here; what I am saying
is that men tend to do the lion's share (biology pun intended) of the work
asking people out, and women the lion's share of the work discriminating
between suitors. Still. Despite the advances that our society has made in
equality.
The burden of discrimination lies upon the person who isn't asking,
but is being asked.
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senna
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response 34 of 129:
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May 22 23:22 UTC 2002 |
Wait a second, John, am I hearing you say essentially what I think I'm hearing
you say? What it sounds like is that you're saying that because all a woman
has to do is flex her hip muscles enough to open her legs when a guy comes
along, it's okay to hold her to a higher standard than the guy who does the
seeking and pursuit? It sounds like you're putting a higher level of value
on the work the man does in a sexual encounter, that of choosing who to sleep
with and making it happen, than the woman, and thus defending (devil's
advocating or otherwise) the use of separate, differing terms for promiscuous
members of the two genders.
That's a wild overstatement, obviously, but it still sounds like you're
holding a woman more responsible for who she sleeps with since she basically
just has to give a "yay" or "nay." I'm sure my impression is innacurate, but
still.
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flem
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response 35 of 129:
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May 23 17:04 UTC 2002 |
More responsible? where do you get that?
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jazz
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response 36 of 129:
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May 23 17:09 UTC 2002 |
This response has been erased.
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jazz
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response 37 of 129:
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May 23 17:25 UTC 2002 |
Hrm, that didn't make sense. Let's try that again.
The role of the pursuer and the role of the pursued are different, as
you mentioned. A successful pursuer must be able to make quick decisions as
to who they are interested in, and must have the ability to pursue and create
new relationships, and often must be willing to pursue more than one person
with the understanding that pursuit sometimes does not work out. A successful
pursuee must be able to make effective decisions on much less superficial
qualities, and often must be willing to hold back on getting into a
relationship if they aren't sure about a person.
The role that, in this simplified duality, makes the final decision
is the pursuee. Shouldn't the one who makes the final decision be held to
a different standard than the person who originally proposes the idea?
Shouldn't managers who approve a product to be released be held to a different
sort of standards - not higher or lower, but different - than the engineers
that came up with the product idea?
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pthomas
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response 38 of 129:
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May 24 00:33 UTC 2002 |
It would be logical to hold the manager who approves the release to the
same standard as the manager who approved development of the product in
the first place. The factors involved in the decision are essentially
the same - given the available information, is it reasonable to conclude
that action would have a high probability of success/profit? Is the
product/proposal of high quality? You get the idea.
Tying this analogy into the main topic of the discussion, this means that
the decision to pursue someone should be evaluated by the same standard
as the pursued's decision to accept the pursuer's advances.
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oval
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response 39 of 129:
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May 25 17:31 UTC 2002 |
thanks you. i didn't quite buy #37.
if someone pursues me, it's probable that they would be showing off their
finer qualities. if i accept and then they do something horrible to me, i
really don't want to be held accoutable for their actions.
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i
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response 40 of 129:
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May 26 12:09 UTC 2002 |
Hmmm. It's reasonable that some New Product Concepts guy somewhere
might be required to crank out X ideas (good, bad, or indifferent) per
week and that he'd be ranked "excellent performance" if just one idea
per month was worthy of serious consideration. But this is about like
a guy noticing gals in the parking lot. Actual pursuit is far more
like building a small factory & trying to sell widgets in a test market.
There are plenty of "Johnny Wild Oats" guys who'll pursue pretty much
any gal they notice, do their hormone thing, leave because of boredom/
dumping/pregnancy/responsibility, and repeat the pattern. I don't know
if i'd call 'em sapient, and probably wouldn't oppose the government
castrating 'em as public health hazards (espec. AIDS vectors).
On the flip side, i knew a guy in college who believed that he could
NOT, as a man, refuse to have sex with any woman who wanted it. He
was otherwise quite intelligent, nice, and very good looking. It would
interesting (in a sad sort of way) to know how his life worked out.
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emblem
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response 41 of 129:
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May 27 06:31 UTC 2002 |
Sex with different partners before settling down has its risks, but it can
be beneficial. Not being married, or a solid girlfreind/boyfriend can make
sex a difficult thing because genetically and hormonally humans need it...to
a point. And having a sexual partner thats always there helps you with that.
But when a steady sexual partner isnt available, then different partners ehlp
you, and i think that people's sexual interests change throughout thier life,
weather its a homo thing or just different things turn them on in a person.
Ofcourse there are the "Johnny Wild Oats" guys, but just because a
relationship didn't work out doesn't mean people should stop having sex. And
if you are still in a learning process or discovering new things that you
like, than sex with different people is acceptable. And slutty phases that
men/women go thru happens to almost everybody at some point in thier life.
Then again, maybe society is just more accepting of sex than it has ever been
before.
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i
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response 42 of 129:
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May 27 12:04 UTC 2002 |
Re: #41:
Speaking in the very limited context of young people developing and
discovering themselves in a world free of consequences, i mostly agree
with you. And if HIV infections progressed like ebola virus infections
(killing victims/vectors very quick, very sure, & (medical costs) very
cheap), i might be tempted to agree with you in the real world. But
that ain't the case. More realistic would be to tell young folk to
stick to masturbation and burn HIV vectors at the stake on-air during
major league sports half-times. Maybe castrate skip-town fathers and
Clinton Syndrome sufferers while we're at it.
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flem
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response 43 of 129:
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May 28 17:10 UTC 2002 |
Or we could, I don't know, maybe work on a fucking CURE?
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jaklumen
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response 44 of 129:
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May 28 20:40 UTC 2002 |
What think you of working on fucking PREVENTION?
I mean, really. A cure would be excellent, but it's only part of the
solution, and I think the CDC and the UN Committee would agree that
prevention is a weak area. "Safe sex" never existed, but "safer sex"
is realistic. It is realistic to ask people to avoid riskier
behaviors, and to limit their partners.
It is a cop-out to assume people are just full of raging hormones, and
that this facet is ultimately futile. It is possible that another
epidemic outbreak may be necessary for those who must learn the hard
way-- HIV infection is on the rise again in gay and bisexual young men-
- they have not had friends die to AIDS. Black and Hispanic gay men
are suffering probably the most due to cultural taboos. Medical
treatment has improved, but it is enoromously expensive-- and-- the
STDs we *can* effectively treat are beginning to grow resistant to
existing medications. These STDs increase chances of HIV infection.
HIV in Africa is an enoromous problem. Poverty and lack of education
about the disease make treatment and prevention programs difficult and
challenging. The obstacles are socioeconomic and somewhat cultural.
Drug use with unsterile needles is another problem, and I believe some
people suggested some solutions elsewhere. Alcohol abuse is very
indirect, but I am referring to problems of rape and in general, where
alcohol is a part of sexually charged situations and individuals are
impaired in judgement due to intoxication.
I don't need to blather on. I'm sure my words are rather amateurish
and lacking in scope. *But* I have had some education through
classes, and my wife has been trained in AIDS issues. She volunteered
for an organization that assisted AIDS patients. A cure is good, but
it will not end it forever, I am extremely sure, until our behavior
begins to significantly change. We could bring back the plague,
possibly, if our sanitation practices returned to that of the Middle
Ages.
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lelande
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response 45 of 129:
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May 29 01:51 UTC 2002 |
you're so right, dude. you really didn't need to blather on.
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i
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response 46 of 129:
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May 29 02:12 UTC 2002 |
Re #43:
Thinking about a *cure* for HIV that could put a dent in the global
problem in the next 10 to 15 years is about as realistic as thinking
about a *cure* for heart disease. Ever notice that heart diseases is
the leading cause of high-profile death & disability amoung the very
gender, class, and age group that controls most of the world's wealth
and medical research, and has virtually unlimited access to the best
medical care that the world can provide? There's loads of free info
on how to cut your risk of heart disease, and loads of treatments to
slow or reduce the damage caused by heart disease - none of 'em free
and none for-sure - but all the money & power in the world can't buy
our VP a *cure*! And heart disease doesn't mutate like HIV does to
resist drugs.
And even if Santa Claus brings us a magic wand tomorrow that will cure
every STD case on the planet with a single wave, that won't do one bit
of good for all the unwanted babies born to hopeless were-just-having-
fun "parents" on an already-horribly-overcrowded planet with no way off.
(For hotter hell, look at HIV in the 2nd, 3rd, & 4th worlds. *Both*
the society and the authorities are in denial and/or prevented by taboo
from doing much anything about it in many places. Even if they were
rationally fanatical about fixing the problem, the resources just ain't
there. And the too-long-living HIV carriers develop all sorts of very
destructive ways to deal with their disease. In many area, the idea
that having sex with enough virgins will cure HIV is accepted as truth,
and the de-facto minimum age for girls raped by men working on this
cure is *0* years. At what point does members of a society "acting
human" and "doing the natural thing" become "self-inflicted genocide"?)
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i
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response 47 of 129:
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May 29 02:13 UTC 2002 |
(leland slipped in)
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flem
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response 48 of 129:
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May 29 14:50 UTC 2002 |
That's all well and good. I understand that in most parts of the world, huge
amounts of work on prevention is needed. But *here*, in *my* world, where
people are educated about AIDS, have the scientific knowledge and excess
means, the job isn't done. The dangerous meme around here is that if you have
a normal, moral sex life, AIDS just isn't your problem. You can forget about
it and move on. You don't need to help fund research to find a cure. You can
self-righteously tell the rest of the world that if they weren't so
backward/uneducated/immoral, they wouldn't be having this little problem.
Safe sex is a workaround, not a bugfix. Let's fix the problem, not just
expect people to contort their sex lives into areas considered relatively
safe. Note that this is *in addition* to working on prevention.
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jazz
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response 49 of 129:
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May 29 23:16 UTC 2002 |
People're reading into what I've said here. Of course someone who was
pursuing you would try to show off their best qualities - that's their *job*
as a pursuer, that's what will make them a successful pursuer. Your job as
the pursued is to be able to see through that, and try to realistically
evaluate the pursuer.
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i
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response 50 of 129:
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May 30 01:01 UTC 2002 |
Re: #48
Are you aware of how many $billion$ per year are going into direct and
indirect research on the problem? If you magically boosted the HIV-cure
research budget to as much as is spent on *all* medical research, for
*all* diseases combined, starting yesterday and continuing *forever*,
than doubled *that*, there would *still* not be any real scientific
prospect for the kind of cure that you want for 20+ years. That's over
a generation, and in large parts of the world, the HIV+ bones of *most
of the population* will have been picked clean years before that. The
attitude that "i can risk HIV 'cause they'll have a cure before i'd get
very sick from it" is a big part of why infection rates are bouncing
back up in many groups that public health people *though* had been
taught about safe sex, prevention, etc.
Not that "screw as you will & don't sweat the consequences" would be a
survivable attitude for humanity to have even if Allah snapped his
fingers & made HIV vanish tomorrow. There's something called "runaway
population growth & crash" that really easy to demonstrated with a few
rats in a cage in a lab. Only there's no guarantee that Earth would be
able to support humans after the crash, and no sign of alien scientists
who'd move the survivors to new planets & feed 'em there after we'd
given 'em their desired experimental result.
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orinoco
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response 51 of 129:
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May 30 03:31 UTC 2002 |
(Those who like to take a long view of things will say that AIDS is helping
us stave off that ultimate population crash. Those who like to take a long
view of things tend to be keeping their heads up their collective ass.)
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phenix
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response 52 of 129:
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May 30 04:11 UTC 2002 |
aids isn't doing dick
we'd need an ebola outbrack in new deli to really do that.
we're looking at that population crash as it is, it's just a matter of weather
it'll be 4 or 6 billion dead
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jazz
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response 53 of 129:
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May 30 14:54 UTC 2002 |
HIV, being a retrovirus, mutates at a staggering rate, and is indeed
difficult to find a vaccine or a cure for. No less than the noted Jonas Salk
tried and only partially succeeded. So there may well be no cure in the next
twenty years, though it is impossible to say with certainty.
That said, it's a disease. It doesn't have a moral message.
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flem
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response 54 of 129:
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May 30 20:45 UTC 2002 |
I was trying to remember why I opened this can of worms in the first place,
so I read back. It's mostly #42 I am reacting to. I may be misreading, but
this seems to be saying that 1) because consequences can be so severe, "young
people" should not be allowed to explore their sexuality, 2) knowingly
engaging in behavior that exposes someone else to AIDS is a crime deserving
public execution in a painful fasion, and 3) what the heck, let's commit
mayhem on some other people we think are morally weak, too. (WTF is "Clinton
Syndrome", anyway? Enjoying a good BJ?)
I'm sympathetic to #2, though I would probably prefer hanging or perhaps
a gas chamber to burning. It's mostly 1 and 3 I have trouble with. I don't
think AIDS is a problem that requires young people to stop having sex. I
think that "skip-town fathers" is a reference to a far subtler and more
complex problem than such heavy handed moralism can counter (in fact, I lay
a nontrivial part of the blame for the existence of the problem squarely
at the door of such moralism), and the other reason #42 suggests for
mutilating people is something I don't even understand.
My reaction whenever people suggest that, given all the possible consequences
of sex, people should just stop having so much sex, is similar to my reaction
when keesan suggests that we wouldn't have to pay high gas prices if we just
all decided not to own cars. I'm not interested in giving up significant
portions of my lifestyle, much as I'm not interested in amputating my legs to
keep my feet from hurting.
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jaklumen
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response 55 of 129:
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May 30 23:30 UTC 2002 |
Your last sentence, Greg, speaks volumes. It's not necessarily a good
or a bad sentiment, but I think most people would share it.
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