Posts of the Week
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Homosexuality and the "Ooh Ick" factor Tasha Gatlin - 03:37am Dec 8, 1996 PST (#331 of 332)
I guess I've never quite understood why people think about things that give them that "ooh-ick" feeling. If you don't like anal sex, not only don't do it but don't think about it. I don't like to think of people shooting up heroin, my parents getting it on, together or as divorced entities, eating out of garbage cans or children being molestted. While I completely understand why there are those who don't condone or or approve or homosexuality, I think the very least we can do is accept the fact that it exists. I really don't think that gay people are going to stop being intimate with each other because Bubba in Bonehead, Arkansas with the butt crack and chewing tobacco juice oozing out of his mouth doesn't like it. So many people worried about what other people are doing. I wish as a society we would collectively stop playing "Peeping Tom" or eavesdropping on the lifestyles of other people and worry more about teens having unplanned births and unprotected sex, the increase in drug abuse and the rising costs of a college education a little more. When I lived in the residence halls in college, one of my roommates, a suburban upper-middle class white girl who previously had no experience around black people (she actually said to me "We had a black girl at our school but she didn't act like YOU") said to me: "I don't like gay people because of what they do." [Insert ooh-ick factor here] "Have you ever had sex before?" "Well no." "Then you should see what straight people do." Do Private lives exist on the internet Margaret Osterberg - 02:37pm Dec 6, 1996 PST (#2 of 4) Do relationships exist? Oh yeah, I lost my spouse to one... I suppose it's my own fault, after all, I introduced Kelly to the wonders of the internet. I was the one who hooked us to the internet; I wanted access to gophers and newsgroups to supplement my research. (I'm a technical writer/ journalist) Having pen-pals was just one of the perks. As were chat rooms, websites and telnets to far-flung BBSes. On a BBS in Canada, (we lived in Minnesota) my ex met, fell in love with and eventually moved in with another user. (No, Kelly didn't move in over the internet.) I have no doubt to the reality of on-line relationships. My own pen-pals were a wonderful source of support during the divorce. Although I was "Stuck" in Lincoln, NE., my community was world wide. I'm reminded of how Kelly and I first courted each other: Love Letters, often jumbles of Xerox art hastily clipped and assembled during breaks at work. (Kelly at a newspaper, me at a bookstore.) We were able to dance around our mutual attraction, with the safety of distance and the intimacy of our words. It was irresistable. Add to that the immediacy of electronic interactions and you have a potent formula for connection. It's almost like everyone in cyber-space is a Jungian blank slate, waiting for you to project your own Tristan or Isolade onto them. Not only can you be anyone you want in cyberspace; you can be almost anyone to everyone. Movie stars, really, is what we are in cyberspace. I've fallen in love with the performances of countless actors, imagining elaborate private lives ( mingled with mine,of course) and late-night rendevous. On the internet, lurking in the corners of scattered chat rooms, an affair to remember is just waiting to begin. A Generic Flame Analyzed: Michael Ernest - 10:39pm Dec 8, 1996 PST (#17 of 17) ...A person who takes an opponent's character or deeds as the foundation of their arguments makes his points ad hominem, "against the man," and not the idea. In my schooling, we were taught that ad hominem arguments were typically a flaw in one's logic, or an obvious attempt-to take the low road in debate, and so a sign of desperation. Inferring a boorish attack on a topic one considers sacrosanct as therefore personally directed is something else, and I'm sure there's a Latin term for it, probably translatable as "thin-skinned." A direct insult or unflattering characterization is not an ad hominem argument! If no ideas are at stake, it's a flame, but there's a difference between the two, and it's a broad one. It seems to me you can rightfully tut-tut respondents who don't/can't refute opposing points on their merits, or chide them when their only apparent purpose is to bait others. People who hold forth on ideas they hold to be self-evident or beyond dispute, on the other hand, have no one to blame but themselves when -- gasp! -- others do disagree and then worsen the matter by finding themselves personally "attacked." End Righteous Paragraph. When I taught freshman comp, I was surprised at how difficult it was to demonstrate the difference between debating arguments and debating the people who make them. It also became clear to me that as education moves away from such "DWEM" notions as disinterestedness andworldviews as effective tools for pursuing the free exchange of ideas, that people seem less interested in the art of persuasion and keener on either cutting discussion short with pseudo-power techniques like cheap putdowns or resorting to that lovely GenX catchphrase "whatever." Persuasion seems more like tedious makework, and not a useful social method. I think it's a sad state. For one, that underlying mood leads to a none-too-subtle erosion of words and therefore ideas. It's not so important that we all agree on the precise meanings of words, but it is important for us to care about them and be willing to engage in contructive debate in them, aiming not to win the spat of the moment with specious arguments over moral authority, erudition, or plain intimidation, but to give others a sense of who we are and that what we say has some constancy with us. DWEM = Dead White European Male |
