Letters to the Editor
leftychris
Published Letters: 354 Editor's Choice: 4
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Does anyone else on this board...
[Read the article: Warren Jeffs found guilty]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...have the slightest idea what David Sugarman is talking about? Because I'm fairly stumped, and the last thing I want to do is ask him to explain in more detail.
I'm not trying to be dismissive in a mean way. I have no problem in engaging in lengthy debates with folks on these threads. However, Mr. Sugarman, your last post was little more than a mass of irrelevancies, tangents, and non sequitirs. And again, I have no idea what on earth you're talking about when you mention "god's law" because you provided no clarifying context, still less a reason for mentioning it in the first place.
I think my last post to you was quite clear as to how I stand on this issue and why, and I won't rehash it here. Otherwise, I'm not going to spend time countering an "argument" that I can't make heads or tails of. Sorry.
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@fetboy
[Read the article: Poland's female politicos disrobe]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You are right that most of the actors in straight/lesbian porn/erotica are men, but when you ask fans of straight/lesbian porn/erotica to list off their favorite male actors, they will usually say Ron Jermey, and then draw a complete blank. But when you ask them to list off who their favorite straight/lesbian porn/erotica actresses are, in less than 5 minutes they will come up with 10 or 20 starlet names.
True enough, but that's mostly due to the fact that unlike the porn actresses, very, very few straight porn actors are made into stars by the industry, and promoted as such. Ron Jeremy, Peter North (man, what a gusher!), Seymour Butts, and a few others come to mind, but again only a handful compared to the actresses. That makes sense--the industry caters to straight men, and so naturally the men will be depersonalized and de-emphasized as much as possible to focus on the women. That's where the money's at, and the industry knows which side its bread is buttered on.
If anything, I think one can make a compelling argument that in straight porn at least, it's the men who've been depersonalized, objectified, over-sexualized, treated as pieces of meat, turned into little more than unthinking, unfeeling sexual robots--not the women. The women might be slutted up and made to look and act silly, but at least they talk and have personalities and their faces are shown, and they're allowed a wide range of moods and expressions. The men are more nearly portrayed as mere dogs, but with less charm.
All that aside, I still think you overstate the potential of women taking over straight porn and expelling all the men. Lots of straight guys like to watch girl-on-girl action, but plenty don't, and if you scratch the surface of a straight male porn afficionado, I think you'd find that most of them would have a real issue with porn that didn't include big throbbing dicks and copious money shots. Sorry to be crude, but there it is. That's a curious, illuminating, even funny fact, but I think it's undeniable!
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@Ghingis Can
[Read the article: Bringin' home the bacon, but no boyfriend]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am so glad there are people like LeftyPiss who get to decide not only where I must spend my money but wheather or not I get to be part of the human race. It is also nice to know that constitutional rights only apply to leftists. Sounds like you would rather make a lamp shade out of me.
I think you're a bit confused. I, LeftyPiss (as you say), was the one actually defending you from the efforts of fetboy to dehumanize you and say you could remove yourself from the human race because you were complaining about paying taxes. Perhaps a re-read of this thread to refresh your memory is in order?
Makes me wonder why I even bothered. You stick up for somebody, and then that person turns around and insults you. Lovely!
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@Laurel962
[Read the article: Stopping the hands of time]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]we women are constantly judged -- and put down -- for the simple act of growing older, as if we were an unwanted dented can on a supermarket shelf that gets continually marked down in price.
I'll grant you that women have it worse in that respect, but men are not immune from such judgments and putdowns, and if anything our culture is evolving in ways that increase the pressures on aging men without doing much to alleviate them on aging women. Our cultural obsession with surface appearances seems to be getting worse for everyone. In any case, for a good example of such judgments and putdowns directed at men, please see AKA Smith's posts from the "Hillary Clinton--STILL not gay" thread.
Sorry, AKA, I couldn't resist. You kind of left the door wide open on that one ;-)
The reality is that women who retain their physical beauty (assuming they have it in the first place) are treated far better than women who don't -- they get more and better jobs, higher pay, more visibility, and they have more opportunities for sexual partners and marriage.
Again, this is sadly true, but also of men, if to a lesser degree (but getting worse all the time). Favorable treatment of those deemed more attractive is an unfortunate trait of ALL humans, not just the males of the species.
It would be nice not to be under pressure to look younger, or actually to look ANY different than one would naturally -- and by that I include aging, gray hair, natural body hair and weight gain. But that won't happen until as a culture we get this demanding and demeaning cult of lookism under control.
Agreed 100%. The ideal cultural evolution would be to maintain the lower levels of "lookism" directed at men and greatly mitigate the worse "lookism" directed at women; unfortunately we seem to be doing the opposite--maintaining the high lookism suffered by women and directing more at men so that they (we) can "catch up". Pretty sad all around.