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Disturbing opinions of loved ones

20:39 / 25.03.04

So I'm talking to my mum last night. We're having a lovely time, discussing our differing opinions on religion and social behavor. Me, defending my generally polysexual and hedonistic lifestyle as valid and rightous in its own way by virtue of mindfulness, her defending that "but God said you shouldn't do that." Its a game I generally trounce circles around her on, as you'd imagine.

But a couple of comments slipped out of her confused maw that really disturbed me. For one, she basicly made the suggestion that bisexuality and polyamory might lead one to doing perverse things like putting it to the kids. As though, somehow, being unashamed about sex leads directly to fucking little kids. As naturally, as one lets themselves go so far as to snog another man, surely their degeneracy has no bounds. Deftly countered with examples of actual sickos being the product of repression and shame more than safe environments in which to explore their more naughty urges, but disturbing none the less.

But the thing that really really got me was circumcision. Yes, see, because I refused to allow my son to have part of his penis surgicly removed to be compliant with the barbaric rites of desert dwelling nomads I have no connection to whatsoever, the increased sensitivity he may experience from sex will undoubtably lead to his having some at an unhealthily early age. To which, when I could compose myself on the absurdity of her assumption to begin with, I could only mourn the loss of my own, taken at a tender and unknowing age, forever banned from the unknown delights an extra inch of penile tissue could be affording me. Oh Cruel, cruel world.

20:53 / 25.03.04

Cusm, I'm so with you on this. Obviously not the circumcision, since that's not an option for me, but on the 'your family harbours the polar opposite of your own ideas' syndrome. I guess if you live any kind of 'alternative' lifestyle, you will find at some point that your family can't comprehend some of what you are saying.

I regularly start discussing things with my family only to find I've suddenly let them in a little too far and they're looking at me askance, worrying about my sanity and looking up the number of the local mental health hospital.

I've learned to keep quiet. Yeah, there are things I wish I could tell them because I love then and I want to share, but in the long run it's not worth the grief you get when they think you've gone completely loop -da-loop.

21:00 / 25.03.04

I have to confess, I tend to sidle away from conflict with my relatives. sure, I'll make fun, I'll have naughty conversations round the dinner table, but I don't really want to get into anything nasty. and to be awfully honest, I really don't want to know what my obviously insane but otherwise sweet, sweet gramma thinks - I'm scared! sometimes you hear things that are hurtful, coming from the mouth of someone you love (mostly) unconditionally, so, yeah, in the case of family, I choose mutual ignorance. I know that sounds so damned bad, but they're not going to change, I'm not going to bring them to enlightenment, so I'd rather just keep the peace for all involved.

oooh just blast me now, I know I have it coming!

21:05 / 25.03.04

Well it must be good to be comfortable enough to talk to your parents about these things. Presenting an argument, having someone disagree with you and still respecting each other is quite a nice way to be.

21:08 / 25.03.04

Man, in front of your parents, I think you should maybe leave your penis alone.

( Going off to the tree at the end of the garden to hang myself, hang myself, for coming out with that gag. )

21:20 / 25.03.04

The thing is, we generally get along well enough that I can talk about the crazy sort of shit I'm into and not have it devolve entirely into a screaming match about how I'm going to hell. Its just that some of the views dredged out of her actually managed to shock me with how totally left field they were. I mean, she actually thought circumcision was a good thing, for decreasing sensitivity. And this from a woman who really likes sex and is embarassingly unashamed of that sometimes. Sometimes I just don't want to understand why one comes to conclusions like that.

09:17 / 26.03.04

cusm - are you an American perchance?

The reason I ask is this: when I was in halls I had a mate who loved the US gilrs and they loved himbecause of his foreskin - well not because but it went a long way in securing his popularity because it was a novelty for this girls to sleep with an uncut boy.

Since then I've heard this from a few people but it strikes me as a little strange. I know some boys get circumcised for religious reasons, some for medical reason, but why else would a doctor do it? Is it really that common? Is there actually any proof it's better for you - without, as you say, being a nomad or some such?

As for the point in general I find bitchie kitten's approach the most helpful for me. Love them all dearly, but that doesn't mean we share the same views on religion, politics, or sex, which seem to be the main three things which most "christmas arguments" are about.

Part of the problem is the generational thing. I think it's best to just live and let live.

Whisky Priestess

09:37 / 26.03.04

I can see why a woman who *really* likes sex would want to decrease her partner's sensitivity, (i.e. if she assumed that extra sensitivity would lead to a lifetime of premature ejaculation, wifely dissatisfaction, troubled marriage, divorce, alcoholism and sordid death) - but her understanding of the whole male penile sensitivity issue is almost certainly less complete than yours. I devoutly hope so, anyway ...

09:52 / 26.03.04

Cusm: I can't really relate to your statements from personal experience. I don't think I've ever discussed sex with my mum (or my dad when he was still alive) which is sad really. I can understand the logic behind your mum's statements, though they're sad in their own way as well. Basically, with the comments about you being unashamed and all, this leading to padeophilia - well, anything which cracks the armour a little is seen as potentially opening the gates of hell. It's that (classically English) stiff upper lip, we've got to brace ourselves against our bodies and emotions because they're fundamentally bad (not saying this is your mum's attitude but it's the cultural thought process underlying it).

It reminds me of a conversation I had with my ma once about magick, she thought "there was something in it" but at the same time it was too dangerous to mess with. My response was something along the lines of well, maybe there is some dark stuff in the depths, but maybe getting to know it will make me more healthy in the long run. And it's not all dark.

On padeophilia - I've seen a couple of documentaries about peds, and it seems to me that in some cases (not all, by any means, but a couple) padeophila was a way of dealing with hetreosexual desires that couldn't handle the demands of adult, female sexuality ie. couldn't deal with a grown, autonmous individual. Seems to me, as you say, such a person would be the product of repression, not an open attitude.

Reich (I know.... banging on about him again!) wrote a powerful first account of the damage he saw caused by a case of circumcision. Will post a ref. if I can find it (I think in Function of the Orgasm).

Off topic maybe, but there's a great quote from Burroughs about why Reich's work, and by extension open sexuality, disturbs people and provokes such a negative reaction. Because it "uncovers the tissue of lies and false modesty with which the human animal compulsively covers his nakedness".

13:01 / 26.03.04

This thread is fascinating to me - is there any chance we could move it to either the Laboratory or the Head Shop? Moving it to the Laboratory would be interesting because it's about health issues and the medical profession - or if we'd like to take it in a more psychological perspective perhaps the Head Shop would be more useful? Certainly, I'm fascinated by the extent that circumcision is considered normal in the States - it's almost certainly the USA's most common form of cosmetic surgery.

13:12 / 26.03.04

Since then I've heard this from a few people but it strikes me as a little strange. I know some boys get circumcised for religious reasons, some for medical reason, but why else would a doctor do it? Is it really that common? Is there actually any proof it's better for you - without, as you say, being a nomad or some such?

It really is that common in the US. About 90% of American boy babies were circumcised in the 60's, and about 60% are now. It's due to a general misconception that uncircumcised boys/men are more prone to infection and generally just not "clean." Doctors will point out that's not true, but the majority of citizens still believe it. Not too surprising coming from a microphobic country that makes Antibacterial Everything.

13:17 / 26.03.04

As it stands this thread is more anecdotal than intellectual. Personally, I like it that way.

Parents do seem to possess the ability to talk the most incredible bollocks. I remember my gay-friendly mother telling me that bi-sexuals were, well, pretty much evil because they were "greedy" and "preditory". Bizarre.
More recently, my father shocked the shit out of the Spallirunce and I by declaring that Hitler did have a point: "there is a Jewish problem". Must be the Catholic roots coming out - the man was once a priest.

Ex

13:27 / 26.03.04

As naturally, as one lets themselves go so far as to snog another man, surely their degeneracy has no bounds.

Much sympathy, as I also find it very difficult to persuade someone that although they draw a big line in one place (with snogging blokes and child abuse the other side of it) that you can also draw the line elsewhere (betwixt the two) or indeed have a system of gradations. It's not just matters sexual, either, and yes, I have similar discussions with my mother.

Part of the problem (I find) is that by suggesting the lines can be moved at all, you're proposing this relativist perspective which is nearly as conceptually dodgy to a lot of people. You're trying to say "Look, I/that shouldn't be categorised with child abuse. Your line's in a very unhelpful place." But what you sound like you're saying is, "Look, I'm picking up your line and running around with it! Ahahaha! I care nothing for the laws of nature/God/man etc."

So you can think you're suggesting the most sensible, least offensive perspective, but in fact you're pissing all over their world view. Hard to know where to go from that. I think I've had different forms of this rant on the board before.

And homophobia does weird-fuck things to conceptualising sex. For a couple of months after I identified as bisexual, I was worried I'd wake up fancying kids one day. I wasn't consciously homophobic; and I had absolutely no reason to think I fancied kids. But somewhere in my brain, I'd let someone inscribe the line in a certain place, and it took a while to shift it. And obviously, I had pressing personal reasons for shifting it - if it's of purely abstract interest, I can see how the line stays where it is.

13:47 / 26.03.04

For a couple of months after I identified as bisexual, I was worried I'd wake up fancying kids one day.

Well, as my mother explained, bi-sexual people are evil (being both "greedy" and "preditory"), and evil people do like to bugger children.

And other such logical travesties.

14:25 / 26.03.04

cusm - are you an American perchance?

Aye. And for about 20 years or so, we all got cut, the docs didn't even ask. It was just How Things Were Done, For Your Protection, Hail Ceaser. Or evidence of the International Jewish Conspiracy, depending on your bent. Or maybe the Masonic Reptile Overlords can't replace your body if you're lacking a forskin, and I've been bred to help save the world and didn't even know it. Whatever, I'm a bit sore about it all being done without my permission, and made damn sure my son didn't get the same treatment. But I still had to tell them about 6 times, as they kept asking to be sure. The docs now a days are more upfront on there being no discernable health benefits from it, but the staff are still well trained on the prodecure.

But what you sound like you're saying is, "Look, I'm picking up your line and running around with it! Ahahaha! I care nothing for the laws of nature/God/man etc."

Well in truth, that's exactly what I'm saying, but with a dose of "but I'm not a simpleton and make sure that nobody gets hurt so its all good at the end of the day." Still, I suppose, not the best table talk over Christmass dinner.

Whisky Priestess

14:25 / 26.03.04

I think it's the idea that, if one rigid boundary can be moved or broken, then nothing is sacred and the entire world turns upside down.

Hence if you put being gay, fancying children, masturbation, burning people alive etc. all in the Bad Things category, and then someone you know & and love (or possibly you yourself) does one of the Bad Things, it opens up the possibility that they might do any or all of the other Bad Things, because they have now moved themselves from category Good to category Bad.

15:01 / 26.03.04

Right, or to put it another way, there's cusm's mom's (or whomever's) smallish land of morally acceptable sex, separately by a giant immovable wall called TABOO, and everything else is on the other side. It's really not too different from a lot of other fear-of-other situations, s.a. the Red Scare (Communists Eat Babies!), Xenophobia (Foreigners Eat Babies!), etc.

But I can't relate too well to cusm's mother problem, since it was nearly all my mother could do to point toward the drawer of maxi pads when I was 13. Sex? Wha-? Let's watch Murder She Wrote.

10:53 / 27.03.04

For a couple of months after I identified as bisexual, I was worried I'd wake up fancying kids one day.

Oh my God. Thanks for saying that, Ex: I'm in the middle of a whole weird head thing to do with the (now imminent) birth of my sister's first child, which manifested at one point as a weird out-of-nowhere flash that I might suddenly fancy the child (presumably when it was born/older) and would have to be kept away from it for its own safety. (Again, I'd like to point out that I have no reason to suspect this might happen.) That makes much more sense as a manifestation of anxiety about whether I still have a place in the family now my sister is trying to refound it around her successful heterosexual marriage-and-baby teleology, or whether queers have to be kept away from children.

13:43 / 27.03.04

so being bent is the gateway sin?

14:21 / 27.03.04

No.

14:29 / 27.03.04

well, obviousluy i was joking, and i was referencing the 'gateway drug' concept which i find equal in its ridiculousness to the idea that men who fancy men will fancy a holly and jessica three way.

but you knew that, right?

19:53 / 28.03.04

Yep, I can sympathise with all the accounts of people having a generally akward and difficult time talking about this kind of thing with their family. I haven't lived with my dad since I was 4, and haven't lived in the same country as him since I was about 12, so he has missed out for the most part on that adolescent period of adjustment. I remember when I used to stay with him in the holidays when I was a teenager, we were only allowed to watch films with NO SEXUAL CONTENT OR SUGGESTION OF SEX AT ALL... Which I found weird as my mum always had a pretty open attitude regarding that kind of thing... He isn't actually all that bad though: he tries very hard to be open minded, but I think the distance makes it pretty difficult to feel close enough to talk about much. Although we argue about politics incessently. It's really only politics that I don't have a problem talking to my family (or most of my family) about, as we are all at least in the same chapter if not the same page.
One notable exception is my grandparents, aunts and uncles on the subject of race, the palestinian question, etc. etc. That's always problematic. I try not to raise the difficult issues, but then find it difficult not to argue it out when it does come up (I'm just that kind of happy argumentative person I'm afraid

)...
In general, though, I dread the idea of most of my relatives finding out about a lot of what my life is about.. it's just too daunting a prospect to get into it all with them, really...

19:54 / 28.03.04

And hi Graham X

19:59 / 28.03.04

Certainly, I'm fascinated by the extent that circumcision is considered normal in the States - it's almost certainly the USA's most common form of cosmetic surgery.

You might want to check out this old thread, then, Tom, wherein we debate that very thing in considerable depth...