dagblog - Comments for "Extracurricular Activity"

I think you're right. The

Donal — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 12:59:16 +0000

In reply to I think there is a parallel.

I think you're right. The sweet, fructose-like part of sex is the orgasm, not the fantasy. And that can be just as disconnected with a one-night stand as with a porn vid.

I think there is a parallel.

moat — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 01:09:26 +0000

In reply to On a long drive this weekend,

I think there is a parallel. As mentioned in your food blog, there is a point after which eating is not about eating any longer. Sexual gratification can also be about something other than sex.

How much the two things relate to fantasy is hard to get a handle on. In one sense, those "addicted" to pornography are not imagining something so much as having something imaged for them. It is the way the images become equivalent to real memories that isolates the vicarious sexual adventurer from actual people. But if that is true, the adventurer is also alienated from the images.

Where the parallel breaks down is that there are people who actually sleep with a lot of people. Comparing the vicaraious to the actual behavior seems to require something different than the ideas of compulsion and obssession that the food question brings up. On the other hand, when I have heard sexual adventurers talk, it does remind me of someone talking about a meal.

Assault and Battery not

Donal — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 21:20:21 +0000

In reply to Every time I scroll past this

Assault and Battery not included.

Every time I scroll past this

acanuck — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 20:46:43 +0000

In reply to Extracurricular Activity

Every time I scroll past this post, I think your illustration should carry a disclaimer: "Device not exactly as shown" or maybe "European model."

On a long drive this weekend,

Donal — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 00:52:11 +0000

In reply to In the different accounts of

On a long drive this weekend, I was thinking there might be a parallel between an eating life too rich in fructose without fiber and a sexual life too rich in fantasy without reality.

In the different accounts of

moat — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 23:00:50 +0000

In reply to Extracurricular Activity

In the different accounts of people becoming detached from sex with real partners because of their fixation on readily available images, there seems to be a general consensus that not indulging in such activities would guarantee the bond they sense has been lost. They end up creating a dual fantasy world. They think the diversion of energy into self stimulation is parallel to what they could have had experienced in another place.

But I don't think life is like that. The self-consciousness of being sexual is not an insurable thing, either in the most romantic conception of one's person or the most lucid rejection of that ideal. To my ears, the moral views of those who feel excluded from imagined benefits of what they have denied themselves are fabulous by definition.

I don't know how much should be "permitted" in the way of demonstration, art, and media. Whatever the right answer may be, it isn't directly tied to the range of lifestyle choices that should be allowed to made by people.

Was Tolstoy right when he said that happy families are very similar to each other and only unhappy families are peculiar? It is a question central to our experience. But I don't want social polity to be based on a consensus of what the answer might be.

BYU suspended it second best

Elusive Trope — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 01:56:07 +0000

In reply to Extracurricular Activity

BYU suspended it second best player, in keeping with fact we are in the midst of March Madness, for having premarial sex.

(am I being too pomo?)

...you said you wanted a

EmmaZahn — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 21:11:14 +0000

In reply to Extracurricular Activity

...you said you wanted a [sexual] revolution...

I do not know but assume NY Magazine is or at least fancies itself a trendsetter. That would make the porn ennui article and another there, Emmanuelle Alt’s French Vogue to Include a Lot More Clothes, a Lot Fewer Boobs, very intriguing. Vogue is very much a trendsetter.

Is the Sexual Revolution nearing an end?

Sex (the act), sex (the

Elusive Trope — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 19:40:07 +0000

In reply to Extracurricular Activity

Sex (the act), sex (the anatomical description), gender, identity, arousal, intimacy, and power (to name a few) have been and always will be mix together in some strange brew, individual particulars side by side with the commonalities. Toss in the relation to morality, religion, shame, and spirituality and it's no wonder things get all messed up when someone tries to bring it into classroom. Just as it is no wonder that we can't get to any kind of consensus on how we should approach something like porn.

I remember one time when there was going to be a "take back the night" march in my community. First a rift occurred between those who thought males who were "allies" should be on the march and those who opposed that (don't know if someone threw in the transgenders to really muddy the waters) basically on the grounds that all men are in the end unable to be allies. Then they also planned to start (or end, I can't remember) the march with a rally at the local porn store downtown (it was a smallish college town). But the uber social conservative religious right folks caught wind and were planning to show up to protest with them. Politics, esp social politics, makes for strange bed fellows (pun intended I suppose).

I have to say that after reading the blog, I think maybe the Buddhist monks had the right idea.

DD, are you sayin' I'm

CVille Dem — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 18:58:48 +0000

In reply to Having watched St. Elsewhere

DD, are you sayin' I'm strange? I consider that a major compliment!!!!