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My morning's musings were clearly inarticulate. I've skimmed two different responses (one LJ, the other DW) and they addressed completely different issues than what was itching my brain. I will try to redirect my writing. Let see:
Given
Story 1: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2011/01/the-hazards-of-duke/8328/
"A NOW INFAMOUS POWERPOINT PRESENTATION EXPOSES A LOT ABOUT MEN, WOMEN, SEX, AND ALCOHOL" where the exposed "lot" is a hook-up culture where women intentionally get drunk so they can be picked up by guys to use each other for sex.
Story 2: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/01/hard-core/8327/ "The new world of porn is revealing eternal truths about men and women," which is that, "A warring dynamic based on power and subjugation has always existed between men and women, and the egalitarian view of sex, with its utopian pretensions, offers little insight into the typical male psyche. Internet porn, on the other hand, shows us an unvarnished (albeit partial) view of male sexuality as an often dark force streaked with aggression"
and
the disappointing realization that i actually do know someone who can mix alcohol, firearms, and a national park and then be utterly shocked and appalled that by committing a felony* she is treated like a felon.
* Brother's legal advice on reading the email: Stop. Writing. Things. Down.
i find the heterosexual and gendered relationships and behaviors asserted as given or proven in the first two articles to be so unlike the behaviors that people i know exhibit**, so shallow, and yet so unquestioned in this mainstream magazine that i feel alien. Indeed, it is the shallowness of the relationships described in story one, the shallowness of the analysis in story two that makes my brain itch.
** Despite various and sundry delights or complete lack of interest in kink and porn and sex , and despite the varied and sundry variations of romantic and intimate relationships, despite various and sundry values about numbers and genders of partners and the numbers and genders of partners' partners....
I want to assert it's only in some bubble of privilege that can afford to be so shallow, and then my sister's friend demonstrates a different but similar shallowness: can i argue her connection to the bubble of privilege?
I'm not saying that i'm surprised there's porn on the internet (although i continue to wonder if the common wisdom that it's so easy to find accidentally is some sort of cultural fig leaf excuse so that everyone can excuse any embarrassing revelation with, "It was an accident! You know how hard it is not to trip over a porn site on the internet!").
I'm not saying that i'm surprised that there's violence in intimate relationships.
I am saying that the boundaries of experience that seem to make up the fodder for these two articles seem strangely drawn, clearly unwilling to go past anything other than the most binary understanding of gender, a sort of narrowly defined sexuality, some narrow premise about what relationships look like. I want to argue that the articles are flawed because the authors limit their review of The World to an Us and We that is caught up in power and status and wealth and success. Their conclusions (well, article 1's conclusions) might just be accurate for a community that is caught up in success measured by being seen in the right places with the right people and having the right type jobs: i wonder just how representative of college life in America the article is. Similarly, the observation that there is a lot of porn showing men subjugating others sexually therefore "male sexuality [is] an often dark force streaked with aggression" seems to be such an analysis fail on so many points, i wonder how it got published. (Is this an "eternal truth about men and women" or a clear result of the misogynistic messages in our culture? And shouldn't this author meet up with the failed academics who tried drawing some conclusions about female sexuality based on some cursory survey of slash and fan fiction?)
I suppose the real conclusions is that i shouldn't bother with The Atlantic but to continue to enjoy folks' Wiscon reports. And go to Wiscon someday.
Given
Story 1: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2011/01/the-hazards-of-duke/8328/
"A NOW INFAMOUS POWERPOINT PRESENTATION EXPOSES A LOT ABOUT MEN, WOMEN, SEX, AND ALCOHOL" where the exposed "lot" is a hook-up culture where women intentionally get drunk so they can be picked up by guys to use each other for sex.
Story 2: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/01/hard-core/8327/ "The new world of porn is revealing eternal truths about men and women," which is that, "A warring dynamic based on power and subjugation has always existed between men and women, and the egalitarian view of sex, with its utopian pretensions, offers little insight into the typical male psyche. Internet porn, on the other hand, shows us an unvarnished (albeit partial) view of male sexuality as an often dark force streaked with aggression"
and
the disappointing realization that i actually do know someone who can mix alcohol, firearms, and a national park and then be utterly shocked and appalled that by committing a felony* she is treated like a felon.
* Brother's legal advice on reading the email: Stop. Writing. Things. Down.
i find the heterosexual and gendered relationships and behaviors asserted as given or proven in the first two articles to be so unlike the behaviors that people i know exhibit**, so shallow, and yet so unquestioned in this mainstream magazine that i feel alien. Indeed, it is the shallowness of the relationships described in story one, the shallowness of the analysis in story two that makes my brain itch.
** Despite various and sundry delights or complete lack of interest in kink and porn and sex , and despite the varied and sundry variations of romantic and intimate relationships, despite various and sundry values about numbers and genders of partners and the numbers and genders of partners' partners....
I want to assert it's only in some bubble of privilege that can afford to be so shallow, and then my sister's friend demonstrates a different but similar shallowness: can i argue her connection to the bubble of privilege?
I'm not saying that i'm surprised there's porn on the internet (although i continue to wonder if the common wisdom that it's so easy to find accidentally is some sort of cultural fig leaf excuse so that everyone can excuse any embarrassing revelation with, "It was an accident! You know how hard it is not to trip over a porn site on the internet!").
I'm not saying that i'm surprised that there's violence in intimate relationships.
I am saying that the boundaries of experience that seem to make up the fodder for these two articles seem strangely drawn, clearly unwilling to go past anything other than the most binary understanding of gender, a sort of narrowly defined sexuality, some narrow premise about what relationships look like. I want to argue that the articles are flawed because the authors limit their review of The World to an Us and We that is caught up in power and status and wealth and success. Their conclusions (well, article 1's conclusions) might just be accurate for a community that is caught up in success measured by being seen in the right places with the right people and having the right type jobs: i wonder just how representative of college life in America the article is. Similarly, the observation that there is a lot of porn showing men subjugating others sexually therefore "male sexuality [is] an often dark force streaked with aggression" seems to be such an analysis fail on so many points, i wonder how it got published. (Is this an "eternal truth about men and women" or a clear result of the misogynistic messages in our culture? And shouldn't this author meet up with the failed academics who tried drawing some conclusions about female sexuality based on some cursory survey of slash and fan fiction?)
I suppose the real conclusions is that i shouldn't bother with The Atlantic but to continue to enjoy folks' Wiscon reports. And go to Wiscon someday.