Letters to the Editor
J.C. Miller
Published Letters: 344 Editor's Choice: 35
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male behavior
[Read the article: Killing Jared]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There’s no mystery here, just biology.
Mating and aggression are two of the strongest drives in male animals and in male humans, linked by testosterone and evolutionary history. Impulses toward rape, male aggression and fighting, homicide (“crimes of passion”) and suicide (rates for divorced, middle-aged males are among the highest) take on existential dimensions due to the fact that males compete aggressively for mates for emotional security and to pass on their genes, and some are losers. Status is everything.
Matt was “shy, awkward” a “late bloomer” and he was awkward looking, “with his skinny, almost concave frame and a face that was all character”. He was acutely aware of the male attractiveness of his competitors, including Jared’s “exquisitely worked-out physique”.
Matt Baker became homicidal when he was rejected by a female, "by a sophomore he'd had a long-standing crush on”.
Not all males end up killing over jealousy, rejection, or perceived exclusion from mating, although it’s fairly common. Matt was involuntarily enmeshed in a social system (“high school”) in which winners, losers, and status are clearly identified. His childhood appears to have been unstable and chaotic – the type of environment that hijacks the brain to over-develop impulsivity and aggressive response to fear, and to under-develop control and empathy.
If there’s any doubt about what was driving Matt, think about the presence and force of mind he maintained after shooting Jared in the chest and head – he was focused enough to strip him in front of the other males in order to denigrate the size of his rival’s penis.
There’s no real mystery, just our apparent discomfort to confront the toxic combination of social forces and biology that can, and often does, drive male behavior to extremes.
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Heather's open door policy
[Read the article: I Like to Watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]She opened one here for a serious discussion on a persistent and important theme in Salon – feminism, sexual expression and empowerment versus exploitation and commoditization of sexuality, and blowback and sexual repression.
What makes healthy sexual empowerment healthy? What are the individual and social correlates? When does backlash against unhealthy sexual expression itself become counterproductive? What drives the stinky old men to create demand for unhealthy sexual expression? If commoditization and objectification are unhealthy yet normalized, sublimated, substituted outlets for real, healthy sexual drives and interactions, what are the cultural and psychological barriers to the latter? When kids are taught abstinence, or to masturbate in private, what’s the message? What’s the alternative?
Why are we waiting outside the open door, bickering?
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yes, hush
[Read the article: "Babel"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Andrew, when you find a film inaccessible, a more adaptive and honest response might be to simply say that, and leave it at that. Feeling left on the outside isn’t an excuse for letting loose with “intellectual lightweight” or “pretentious, portentous and slightly silly artistic vision.”
No Name Given got it, and succinctly summarized a main theme in this profoundly deep film. Chieko’s deafness is metaphor for the loss of relatedness and safety in a world in which, as NNG noted, connection via verbal communication has displaced ultimately more effective, non-verbal forms, most notably human touch.
More fundamentally this beautifully told story is biblical, in only a positive and deeply meaningful sense: Cain and Abel, fall from grace, Babel. If you give it another view, pay attention to the use of sexuality and touch: as means of non-verbal communication and human connection, as repressed and disallowed, and the consequences.
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And furthermore,
[Read the article: "Babel"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]check out the landscapes in this remarkable film. Are they all not deserts, from ancient, Middle Eastern to urban, deserts? And don’t the characters wander in them, alienated, disconnected, struggling to connect in ways that are disallowed or frustrated by misunderstandings?
There is barely a glimpse of green, of vegetation, anywhere in this film. How far from The Garden is that?
Chieko stands naked in the final scene, alone and alienated in an urban desert of millions, her needs to be touched and be connected disallowed and thwarted. As the camera zooms out, isn’t that a blinking red light in the foreground? Fracking brilliant.
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no reason to get excited
[Read the article: I Like to Watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What is it about using the words of a prophet in a series about impending destiny that is odd?
Just wondering.
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misogyny
[Read the article: Death threats dog female blogger]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One major deficit of online communication is that the information needed to read human intent and status is largely missing. What is provided by written language and symbols is limited compared to what nonverbal and contextual cues might provide toward assessment of homicidal intent. In the absence of those cues that would allow some assessment of risk, it’s reasonable for someone on the short end of aggression and power differentials (a female) to be fearful.
Like the Duke strippers, Ms. Sierra was psychologically assaulted, partly the result of circumstances she chose to place herself in. The pathology and misogyny that drove these assaults have nothing to do with criminal evidence or conviction, and the obsessive focus on the role of the criminal justice system serves primarily to safely avoid confronting the underlying issues.
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Touchy subject,
[Read the article: More orgasms for single women]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]but not so ambiguous, really. We know that:
1. The marriage contract, by its very nature, constitutes a restriction of autonomy and personal control, especially for females,
2. Perception of decreased control and autonomy increase anxiety and insecurity, which impairs psychological well-being and sexual responsiveness, and therefore
3. Duh.
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Mark 14:22
[Read the article: Bill Donohue and the big chocolate Jesus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Take, eat, this is my body.
Yum.
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truthfully spoken,
[Read the article: Men who hate women on the Web]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]and well put. And yet . . . . . .
Was it simply due to an editorial error that you would appear to defend a misogynistic, abusive, and troubled male writer, such as Dr. Paglia, under the guise of misogynistic victimization?
Odd.