From: Sasha Chislenko (sasha1@netcom.com)
Date: Tue Jun 29 1999 - 11:58:41 MDT
At 06:05 AM 6/29/99 , Christopher Maloney wrote:
>FWIW, I disagree on your assessment of sexual harassment as
>being simply an "expression of natural sexual interest", and I
>think the American courts, as a rule, do also. For a workplace
>case, for example, to be considered harassment, there must be some
>persistence which creates a hostile environment. That's the
>theory, anyway. I'm sure that it's abused (on both sides) in
>specific cases, pretty often.
I wasn't trying to assess the issue of sexual harassment
as a whole, only its hypocrisy aspect. If a woman persistently
and explicitly tries to make her breasts more prominent and
attractive at her work place, and a male colleague makes
occasional and symbolic references to them (i.e, using words,
rather than accessing breasts in the realm they exist in -
physically), it's considered harassment.
Many verbal expressions of observations that everybody knows
people naturally make (and that women, mostly, spend so much
time trying to provoke), are considered criminal.
That seems a bit sick.
I don't think women are just protective and defensive of their
sexuality. Well, it is there - but also they actively try to
appear sexually attractive at all times, and are a lot more
adventurous, free, and deliberately expressive in exposing
their body, flirting, etc. Any man trying to show as much
skin at work or in the street as an average woman would be
viewed as a sexually explicit pervert of some kind.
Again, this is only a quick argument towards one side of the issue.
On sex with children and it's connection here - just a few quick
observations. First of all, I don't think there is much of a connection.
Second, what is a "child" and how do you draw the line.
If a 16-and-a-month year old is fooling around with a 16-short-of-a-month-yo,
it's ridiculous to put them in jail, don't you think? They pass laws drawing
scary pictures of a 60yo having sex with a baby, and then apply them to teens.
maybe, the law can suggest the punishment smoothly dependent on age difference
Citing my recent message elsewhere:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So let's set the jail term for the person 2 at (16-A1)*(A2-16)/10
years. In case of two kids a few weeks off their 16th birthday,
it will mean one obligatory glance toward the State House; for
a 17yo and 15yo it would mean a month of community work (quite
excessive, IMO); for an 96 yo and a 12 yo it would mean 32 years
in jail (a harsh punishment for a youngster abusing an elderly
person).
The formula could be improved, but the point is, to make the
law recognize that people's maturity changes _gradually_ with time
(and also, quite individually; we may have a 15yo prostitute seducing
a 17 yo shy virgin who would after that go to jail).
Same for all other laws including age-related or any other numerical
limits (like, amounts of money and quantities of illegal substances
involved - not that I think that all these cases should be persecuted
at all)
If the lawmakers see the world in black and white and can't do
arithmetic - maybe they are not qualified to govern...
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You may also want to consider that the natural age limit for which
the nature evolved both the beginning of the female reproductive
period, as well as the aesthetical preferences of males, is well
in the criminal zone in this country. By U.S. law, a huge number
of marriages in the third world, and historically, are cases of
child rape, which sounds a bit excessive.
Of course, in a civilized society one needs more time to ripen as
a person and be ready to have kids (which is not necessarily
related to sex, one could even argue that if you decide to lose
your virginity at the time when you get your Ph.D and a house and
are ready to have kids, it will be worse for your family life than
if you were fooling around since kindergarten (is that illegal?)).
So the society may discourage, say, sex between a 15 a 20 year old,
which was considered a normal thing in just about all historical times
and countries, but not by long jail terms for!
Also, did you notice that the prevalent appearance norm for women
calls them to try to imitate the look of _pre-pubescent_ girls by
shaving off their body hair? Doesn't it exploit the same part of
the male sexual interest that the same society has criminalized?
As for the observing sexuality by children...
Here is another quote from myself - again. aspectual and sharpened:
----------------- on children as Holy Cows --------------------
I think mentions of children for imposing any social restrictions,
from porn to drugs to smoking, are a part of the general tendency to
call to "sacred values" of the society - be it Motherland, Our Lord,
minorities or Holy Cows. The audience is supposed to panic at the mere
mention that the Holy Stuff might possibly be harmed. Objections and
discussions here always seem politically incorrect - partly because
people do not feel like negotiating Holy Values, and partly because
such attitude is very convenient for, and is supported by, the social
manipulators [who often use these mentions to promote entirely
unrelated regulations]
Also, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that youngsters of any
other species are harmed by seeing their adults naked, or engaging
in sexual acts. If humans are the only species whose children may
be harmed in this way, this may be explained only by the social
conditioning by those who claim that these things are bad.
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>There are several recent books on evolutionary
>psychology on this topic. I've read one called "Evolution
>of Desire" (review at
>http://www.chrismaloney.com/hobbies/books/evolution_desire.html).
Just read your review - thank you!
Do you want to submit some of your reviews to Extropy Online,
and also to Amazon and B&N with references to Extropian
issues?
>I think that a good bit of the struggle for and against "sexual
>freedom" that we see about us is just the age old conflict
>between evolved sexual strategies of men and women. As long
>as there are differences, there will always be conflict.
Very few people even realize why men and women are needed for
reproduction, and hardly anybody is aware of any evolutionary
differences. I feel it's wrong to have sex with biological
beings that are not even aware of their own biological reality.
Sex with mundanes - as well anything else with mundanes -
could be considered statutory rape in TH ethical system
(an interesting question is, why entities without sufficient
cognitive abilities are considered as full ethical subjects,
and why there are two lines; with humans, the ethical line
comes from something like 6 months from conception and the
consent line comes at 16 to 18 years, both sharply drawn.
Wait for designer creatures...)
>
> > Incidentally, the types that shape social norms against human
> > natural psychology, are standing on the way of many other freedoms,
>
>And so, per my above statement, perhaps "the types" that are
>shaping social norms against *your* human natural psychology
>are merely trying to shape it to be more in line with *their*
>natural psychology.
I view myself here as a observer, not a participant -
especially as far as the general culture goes, and by no
means identify with any of the sides. And also, I suggest
arguments aiming to stir the discussion rather than pushing
my point of view...
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Sasha Chislenko <http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/home.html>
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