So why the change? She says evangelical Protestantism and racism.
Sorry. My instantaneous reaction is to try to look beyond American for cultural comparison and contrast. FGM immediately came to mind, and searching through my mental database of Japan. Realm of the Senses, neo-Confucianism, rape culture. Scanning the little I know of India.
Fear and suppression of female sexuality been round a long time in many places. Has it been viewed as more powerful than men's (how do we measure) of just as in more need (or more amenable to) of control.
Read in Braidotti last night about a tribe in which pregnant women have as many partners as are available and names them as co-fathers at the birth.
It's the not-fucking protestants, really.
In a way you have to respect the ability of almost all of human civilization to, within the space of like two generations, completely invert the generally agreed upon understanding of how men and women differ without in any way changing which ones clearly had to be in charge of everything as a result of those differences.
I mean, not necessarily an approving way, but it certainly demonstrates a real dedication to being awful.
generally agreed upon understanding of how men and women differ without in any way changing which ones clearly had to be in charge of everything as a result of those differences.
Vaguely reminiscent of the thing about pink being a baby boy color because it means DILUTED BLOOD or something, and then becoming a baby girl color where it means delicate flowers or something.
Maybe it correlates with the swap when pink became a girl color and blue a boy color.
Heebie's commenting drive is too much for me to handle.
Pink because it's like red (which soldiers wear) or hunting pinks, blue because it's what the Virgin Mary wears and is associated with purity...
WOMAN IS THE LESSER MAN AND ALL HER PASSIONS MATCHED WITH MINE
ARE AS MOONLIGHT UNTO SUNLIGHT, OR AS WATER UNTO WINE.
Pink because it's like red (which soldiers wear)
That's subaltern thinking.
I hope this post works as an AWB bat-signal, I'd be curious to hear what she has to say (I also agree with Bob that it would be interesting to have some cross-cultural comparisons).
The first time I encountered the idea that, historically women had a much stronger sex drive was reading a review of the play "Nine Parts Of Desire." The title comes from the same idea that is referenced in the linked article, but it is attributed to the Shiite leader Ali. I'm now curious to know if (a) Ali knew about and was referencing the Greek myth or (b) he arrived at the same idea independently or (c) one of the two citations is wrong and either Ali or Tiresias did not make a comment about women having nine times the level of sexual desire.
I'd bet on (a) or (c), but I don't know which is more likely. A quick google search doesn't give me much information.
Well Tiresias didn't make a comment about that or anything else becos mythical, but the story was certainly current well before Ali's time. So by the time Ali was asked to comment, it may have been "common knowledge". Or it may have been attributed to him in the play for dramatic purposes.
I wouldn't put much weight on what happened in New England, it's an untypical corner even of the United States. How did they feel about it in Oklahoma? I'd like to know when the conventional wisdom changed in Germany, Russia, Spain (has it?)
I don't give a damn about his bad circumcision.
Of course 17 only worked because I read 16 as "my circumcision." Because I am a man. With a penis.
Dear, sweet Barry. 17 only worked because you explained my joke back to me.
No heebie, I inadvertently mansplained your joke back to you.
You know I just made a professional contact via the twitters and explained that this is a long-standing pseud I've used to comment on blogs. So now he'll google and the first thing he'll see is cock jokes.
And I for one welcome Barry's new Arrakeen overlord.
20 and it occurs to me that oops, I did it again. Better stop commenting on almost no sleep.
...and start commenting on no sleep and several beers!
So there's the song that's been going in my head since Heebie posted this.
I want to pick up on HG's distinctions which seem very useful. The man who wants sex with lots and lots of partners without enjoying it much with any of them is a recognisable type and I think more common than the female counterpart. But multiple orgasms are a female thing and more cumulatively enjoyable than single ones -- or at least they appear to be when observed from the outside.
Yet they can sit perfectly happily within monogamous relationships.
25: Technically k-sky's distinctions.
Would love to hear from AWB on this. My general impression is that the link in the OP is a little simplistic, in that you can't just take our modern (largely positive) association of a sex drive being both a good thing and a predominantly male thing, note that people in the past thought that women were desirous of sex, and use that as a basis for thinking that people believed women had a higher "sex drive."
Pre-18th European sexual theory (in my limited understanding) had a whole bunch of weirdo ideas which need to be taken as a whole to understand what was going on. It was big on men preserving semen, which was seen as the source of their power and rationality, and also somehow connected to the idea that they were "dry" as opposed to women who were "wet." Also there was the idea of masculinity and rationality as derived from being the active, as opposed to passive, sexual participant. And a (controversial) belief that women could only conceive through orgasm. And a general belief that women's bodies were imperfect, inferior versions of men's bodies.
So yes, women might have been desirous of sex, but that was because they were passive, debased, imperfect receptacles, who would seek to make "dry" men soft and wet by luring them into love and other weak, domestic pursuits and taking their semen. They weren't seen as proto-third-wave-feminist-ethical-sluts who were into being active sex partners and having fun with sex; it was more like they wanted men to stick it in them because they were weak and imperfect and badly made and focused on the private, not public. The notion of the man as the active player/heartbreaker who loves them and leaves them is actually compatible with this version of female sexuality.
Also, my understanding is that most of this stuff is taken from medical manuals and some literary tropes, so the connection between sex theory and behavior is very much an open one. And also that at all times you can also find and cherry-pick examples of people with different sexual theories saying different things about sex.
Oh, was gonna wait, but
Oh, umm, Tania Darlington and Sara Cooper, from "The Power of Truth:Gender and Sexuality in Manga" in the current reading volume doesn't matter.
If Japanese society in no way admits the viability of homosexuality as an adult lifestyle choice (no matter the level of feelings or desire), and to a great extent does not consider advantageous or even possible the development of women as sexual beings, then love and romance between girls would be perceived as doubly safe. Of course, romantic affairs between girls offer the added perk of providing titillation for the male comic artist and consumer.
"Japanese society?"
Are we talking about Northern Japanese farmers or Tokyo young college-educated mangaka and anime artists, or maybe some society that includes both in dialogue with each other on an equal basis or wtf?
Or is the "society" that matters the ones that will read the article? Or the ones who will read the article linked in the OP?
Point: all/most politics is local, and especially the ambiguous signifier "society" is used as a local move to gain status, power, or consolidate within an entirely local and locally perceived community, primarily by creating a difference between us and them. If you like it, you are probably that intended audience. Nobody writes for or speaks to the ages and the billions.
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My sister-in-law apparently put her cats down, today. "Cats?" I asked Jammies. "Like, they both got the same disease?"
"They were elderly, one of them was peeing all over the house," Jammies said.
I'm picturing something like "sorry, grandpa cat! Grandma's health is failing and we know you couldn't bear to be without her." and grandpa cat is saying, "what? What? I can live without her. Hey! Where are we going?"
It seems morbidly funny to me.
|>
Maybe she didn't know which one was pissing everywhere.
Her expected number of cat executions could be reduced with a serial strategy.
It'll be hilarious if this thread ends up getting more comments about killing cats than about sex.
a href="http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_14670.html#1813821">25: But multiple orgasms are a female thing ...
or not.
28: And also that at all times you can also find and cherry-pick examples... Am I the only one who did a double take on use of the phrase "cherry-pick" in this discussion? I mean, I recall in HS hearing about guys who liked to therry pick (by the way, "examples" is a weird euphemism here), but in college the thought was that an experienced "example" enhanced pleasure.
29: Some write for everyone and no one.
I still want some recommendations for anime shows that are more in the style of the epic than the personal/psychological, bob.
I think the link in 36 has got to be someone playing a really magnificent prank on Salon.com readers, or the magazine itself, or at least someone. "Men! You're doing jerking off wrong - instead you should be repeatedly poking yourself in the taint while going "WAAAAHHHHHH". No no, just do it for twenty or thirty minutes and you'll see!"
".... don't worry, it often takes a few weeks practice to get it to work. Just make sure to do it for twenty minutes two or three times a week and soon you'll get the hang of it."
37. 2 Have you seen Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood ?
Peg and Al Bundy: where do they fit in these schema?
37: I am kinda hung up on a careful definition of epic, one that excludes the personal/psychological and social/political, and tends toward the mythic/high tragic on a grand scale and deterministic. Ain't that easy in our modern times, even in the different culture that is East Asia. Even Achilles and Oedipus can be psychologized with just a few touches and might be more about the psychology of the fated accepting (or not) their roles.
Death Note
Monster
Trigun (more the manga than anime)
Legend of Galactic Heroes
Mushishi is a bunch of small personal (amazingly so, society is almost missing) stories, but events are rarely a matter of choice;shit happens
Ping Pong, a sports anime, is explicitly about the "Hero"
Shinsekai yori has the scope and trappedness
Akira
Gankutsuou is an anime Count of Monte Cristo in space
Serial Experiments Lain
Shadow Star Narutaru, but definitely the manga, Bokurano by same author
Wolf's Rain is just damned doomy as is NGE
Except for Narutaru, which is controversial, most
of these are on top twenty lists; there are more, iffy, unseen
It's tough, why does Tolstoy feel epic and Dosty feel sordid?
Do not let mrs. k-sky read 30. I still like the cats a little, although we do go through an awful lot of Feliway and Nature's Miracle.
Do not let mrs. k-sky read 30.
Seems like that's really more under your control than ours, actually.
I interpreted 43 as implying that k-sky has been peeing all over his house and is worried lest mrs. k-sky realise there is an obvious and direct way to address this issue.
How well does nature's miracle work? We've had a frustrating number of cat mess issues.
45: Planting mountain laurel as an alternative?
Peg and Al Bundy: where do they fit in these schema?
Also the President and and Mrs. Coolidge touring the chicken farm joke. And I see for the first time that there is in fact a "Coolidge Effect" which seems to be a rather over-broad application of Calvin's response to mammals in general.
Pre-18th European sexual theory (in my limited understanding) had a whole bunch of weirdo ideas which need to be taken as a whole to understand what was going on.
In the past AWB has emphasized that the people from previous eras did not have a unified attitude toward sex any more than we do. That seems right to me, so I would expect different people to take up different parts of this network of interlocking ideas in different ways.
If the bear-signal reaches its intended target, she might give us more information.
40: I've seen and enjoyed a few episodes of the original series, but not this one, so I'll check out Brotherhood.
42: I've seen Akira and have been meaning to see Death Note, Legend of Galactic Heroes, and Serial Experiments Lain for some time. Thank you for the other recommendations.
Your definition of epic seems fine to me, though the tragic dimension hardly seems necessary, and I suppose I don't mind including the social/political. So, non-psychological, mythic, deterministic, and happy would be interesting too. (Or non-psych, mythic, determ., and unhappy yet non-tragic, which is the bailiwick of Lovecraft.)
41: I never understood as a kid why Al was so uninterested in Peg, since she was smokin' hot. As an adult, I figure either she was meant to be unattractive in-universe, but that an ugly mom wouldn't fly on television, or that the contrast between Peg's attractiveness and Al's disinterest was the joke. I lean toward the latter, but I've never been married, so maybe the Coolidge Effect (in reality or at least as believed by the show's (predominantly?) male audience) was also playing a role.
In the past AWB has emphasized that the people from previous eras did not have a unified attitude toward sex any more than we do.
Don't disagree, and tried to make that clear above. The only point I was trying to make is that to the extent you're looking at a "women were more desirous" trope in classical/medieval/pre-modern culture, you need to consider that trope in the context of a whole bunch of other weird anatomical and other ideas about sexuality that were part of classical/medieval medical culture, if you want to understand what people were really thinking. Just like you'd want to look at the "men are more desirous" trope in the context of current beliefs about ev-bio, reproductive fitness, etc., even though not everyone shares those beliefs and even though it's a very open question as to whether those beliefs have anything to do with people's behavior in the real world.
51. 1 & 3 I'd say FMA is definitely tragic with a social/political dimension. Really superb and extremely tense pacing. As the protagonists uncover the dimensions of the plot the sense of urgency becomes almost overwhelming at times.
51.2 Anime purists may argue (and they'd be wrong) but I'm a strong proponent for the English dub of Death Note. Alessandro Juliani's L is absolutely some of the best voice acting I've ever had the pleasure to experience.
53: Perhaps I'll watch the dub after I've already watched the sub, but I cannot be convinced to watch a dub first. I certainly haven't watched enough anime to be a purist, and I don't think I have any reason for preferring subs to dubs other than: when given the choice, I prefer reading to listening. But I also enjoy the 'alien culture' aspect that is preserved by hearing a foreign tongue spoken.
48: According to the wikipedia article at the link on the Coolidge effect:
The evolutionary benefit to this phenomenon is that a male can fertilize multiple females. The male may be reinvigorated repeatedly for successful insemination of multiple females.
My understanding is that human males are effectively sterile for about 24 hours after ejaculation, that sperm counts are below whatever the bar is that fertility specialists use for concluding that the man is the infertile one in a couple trying unsuccessfully to conceive. So, successful insemination seems unlikely, and the adaptive advantage of this behavior is unclear.
While the Coolidge effect is usually seen demonstrated by males--that is, males displaying renewed excitement with a novel female--Lester and Gorzalka developed a model to determine whether or not the Coolidge effect also occurs in females. Their experiment, which used hamsters instead of rats, found that it does occur to a lesser degree in females, where the evolutionary advantage of mating with multiple partners is less straightforward.
My understanding is that in species where infanticide is (or would be) common this is a typical technique to obscure paternity so that adult males do not kill the young. The evolutionary advantage is fairly straightforward. Something like this seems occur among the Aché of South America as well, both avoidance of infanticide and creation of back-up fathers to help feed and raise children.
In other news from the veldt... (I have a high opinion of most Belle Waring rants, so for no other reason, thought I would link to this one).
53: hmm, I never watch dubs, but it's true some people are excellent voice actors. I just can't handle the associations that come with a particular accent in english but which are irrelevant and obscure the story--why is kirito from the mid-west? stuff like that.
I'm amused by the "dudes ur mastrb8ing rong" article. women have been getting bitched out on this for decades. "you do too have a g-spot!!!"