The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Nick Cave: Back to Transgression

    By PeraclesPlease on Tue, 04/16/2019 - 6:30pm |

    The eternal heretic speaks - in religious voice.

    https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/apr/15/nick-cave-red-hand-files-r...

    Punishment... Reward. Bring me my hairshirt and skewers.

    Comments

    It's not about art. It's not about the imagination. It's about power and the tendency for people to abuse it. You have all these young immature men who get tremendous amount of fame and money. Like so many young men they spend it on drugs that lower inhibitions and often increase aggression. That idolization in many cases resides in young women and girls who also lack the maturity to deal with aggressive sexuality. If a young man could get rich and famous as a plumber you'd see the same problems. And it takes no imagination at all to install a toilet.


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 04/21/2019 - 6:04pm

    Actually they exhibit much of this behavior *before* they get fame and money.
    On the other hand many young women and girls seem to *like* aggressive sexuality.
    Though certainly not all. Thus our conundrum.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 04/22/2019 - 8:00am

    Makes me wonder what the culture is now in high schools post #Metoo. The classic situation portrayed in teen flicks ad nauseum may have started to turn upside down, at least in the suburban schools where there are educated parents.

    I.E. the girls who liked aggressive sexuality were the sluts, the other girls were the ones you take to the prom. There's the good boy jocks with the steady girlfriend, then there's the frat boy jocks and then there's the juvie troublemakers and the outsider kooks that don't fit in all in their little group where they don't play sex roles. For all their savvy, the Parkland activist kids struck me as just another example of the latter, the outliers, and that they were part of the a classic outsider group. But they were mostly seniors?

    One thing I've been told by my GenX little brother who works as a free-lance school coach: lots of parents don't want to let their boys play football any more. So that whole signifier of male status in high school is going to disappear. Maybe becoming more like Japan kids, where everyone is a loner?


    by artappraiser on Mon, 04/22/2019 - 11:39am

    Data seems to say kids waiting much later to have sex. To some extent stupid juvie behavior gave an excuse to get past that awkwardness for the majority who weren't quite mature or shockingly desirable. I can only imagine the PC reinforcements to shame you if you don't approach it right. Or maybe it just doesn't matter.

    Myself, I quit football a week or two in when I realized a guy 40 pounds heavier doing direct headbutts with me as a "drill" wasn't exactly healthy. A shame in ways, as I was a pretty good receiver in touch football, but so it goes. Not that there isn't plenty of soccer TBI recorded, but likely significantly lower and less devastating. Will soccer jocks ever replace football in American mythology? Not likely. Basketball will have to do - and there the white guys under duress again...


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 04/22/2019 - 12:40pm

    I never claimed fame and money changed people. Just that it increases a person's opportunities to misbehave and increases the likely hood they'll get away with it. I've always thought that the idea that "many" young women and girls like aggressive sexuality to be greatly exaggerated. The stories women are telling out loud and in public now belie that theory. But there were plenty of books telling the same stories long before the me too era. You just had to look for them as they weren't very loud and they weren't very much out there.


    by ocean-kat on Mon, 04/22/2019 - 9:44pm

    As a lark, let's say 10% of women like aggressive sexuality - that's perhaps 10 million out of a female 15-50/60 population of ~100 million. Another X% may like slightly aggressive. Y% may be horrified by it. Etc., etc.

    People come in all shapes and sizes, all types of tastes. Just because some valid MeToo issues have gained sway doesn't mean all women firmly agree with this position, nor does aggressive sexuality outside the workplace mean the same as aggressive sexuality from a boss. And while the often disturbing habit of having a boss demand/cajole sex, there are still plenty of women - again, maybe 10%, maybe 5% - who might...

    Okay, I looked up some surveys - in 2010, estimated that 15% of women had slept with a boss. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex/10034074/Why-do-women-still-sleep-...
    More recent has plenty of sexual flirtation and actual sex (though less clear what percent consummation occured) -
    https://www.bravotv.com/personal-space/sleeping-with-coworkers-boss-how-...

    That doesn't mean necessarily that this office behavior was by definition "sexually aggressive" - but that definition will vary from person to person as well. Outside the office - say at a nightclub or vacation spots - one could suspect that some people would be much less restrained. But then a lot of people - including women of course - spend a lot of money going to places to get laid. Again, it's *what* constitutes obnoxious vs acceptable flirting (along with *who* - the same comment from a fat less good-looking guy will more likely be met with contempt than a tall thin good looking guy - that's part of our game - James Corden had some good observations of how fat people don't have sex in movies, and the alternate roles/activities they get instead - it works somewhat similar in real life except that most people do end up getting married through less stringent vetting than the MPAA)


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 04/23/2019 - 6:24am

    Your initial article claimed there was some connection to complaints about sexual behavior of rock musicians and art, the imagination, and the transgressive nature of rock and roll. I disagreed with the proposition. Now you're posting some stupid things going off on some stupid tangent I don't care about.


    by ocean-kat on Tue, 04/23/2019 - 2:49pm

    Sorry to ruin your expectations. Stupid is as stupid does.


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 04/23/2019 - 2:51pm

    And in another time... https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/apr/23/punk-jordan-mooney


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 04/23/2019 - 11:28am