eudaemonist

Oh, no problem-- since I'm one of the people here who doesn't enjoy degrading language or role play, I was replying as if I were included in the comment "Too bad [context] is not so well understood for others as it is for us, Jenni."

Show me a context in which role-playing a brainless, worthless slut is morally consistent with possessing the sense of life befitting a heroine. Explain to me how playing concentration camp is life-affirming and the perfect picture of mental health. Either I'm missing something or you're dodging the question.

Of course there's a difference, but what would a woman who possesses the sense of life and ideals of, quote, "a heroine" possibly gain from play-acting she's a worthless, brainless slut? There's just no positive explanation for why you'd enjoy something so life-negating. On the other hand, if you're like most weak-minded, insecure, confused women who don't know what you want out of life, I can possibly see the attraction...but not if you're fully integrated and reasonably happy with yourself. Role playing is for people who don't want to own up to their emotions. I find being fully present to your partner in the moment far more exciting than any contrived power-game BS. If you ever find a partner who enjoys pretending she's the victim of a concentration camp, she needs professional help. She might share some of your values, but others are monstrously dysfunctional.

In that case, try to remember the real problem is THEM, not you. If they're so stupid and shallow they can't get over something so petty, well, good riddance to bad rubbish. They'd only drag you down in the long run. Just try not to let it keep you from seeing the good in people who aren't like that...give everybody a chance and try to make sure you're not re-enacting past conflicts with new partners who totally don't deserve it. (Easier said than done I know, but it's worth remembering!) I think real happiness comes from independence and the richness of your own inner resources. In my case, it would be nice to have a partner again, but what's the rush? When it happens, it happens, but I'm not about to compromise my values out of a misguided sense of desperation so many women fall prey to. In the mean time, I'm content to pleasure myself to orgasm every single day. Sometimes twice...I'm horny like that LOL Here's a fantastic article about narcissism you should give to your friend to read...maybe this site will help her realize why she's better off with you instead of loserboy. http://samvak.tripod.com/narcissistobjects.html

No kidding. It's all "real life", and there is a bright line that applies to everyone: if you need to degrade someone and turn them into your own personal emotional punching bag to feel better about yourself, you have a self-esteem problem. What in the hell kind of sick, twisted sense of life would you have to even consider playing concentration camp? That's as nihilistic as it gets. Ideas have consequences...as Rand said, "a man’s sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the [person] he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself." Looks like Rand made my EXACT point herself: "The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of [person] he can find, the [person] he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer—because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement, not the possession of a brainless slut." There you have it.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing degrading about rough, intense, explosive sex and strong language per se. If I know my partner loves it for me to beg to eat his cum and scream "fuck me harder!!!", I'll definitely do it because it makes me excited to see him so excited. That's not what I'm objecting to. My point is there are literally thousands of ways to express your sexuality in a healthy way without using culturally loaded words that are bound up with bad premises. There's got to be a point at which ugly words start to regain their original meaning for you and domination is clearly degradation-- where do you draw the line? For instance, if your Jewish partner asked you to play concentration camp, would you do it?

The heart of the matter is this: on some level, you're still buying into the Christian notion that sex is bad and dirty. It's hot because it's forbidden and you still have a guilty conscience. In what sense is a taste for degradation not a self-esteem issue? You show me a woman who likes to be called a dirty fucking slut and I'll show you a woman who has anxiety over whether or not she really is a dirty fucking slut for daring to enjoy herself and express her sexuality. One of the pioneering psychiatrists in the psychology of sadism and masochism, Wilhelm Steckel, put it like ths: "All sadomasochists are affect-hungry individuals. Our patients are all incapable of love and consumed with the desire for it. They then transfer this condition to the entire world about them. They feel themselves cheated of their happiness and allay their pain in the pleasure of the wrong they do themselves and others. The compulsion of the external world creates an inner compulsion. Every pressure produces a counterpressure. So long as this world is sick, there will be sick people. Every step which we take toward freedom, inner and outer freedom, reduces the number of parapathics."

This only makes sense if you buy into Christian morality. A woman outwardly expressing her sexuality for a special person is a wonderful, powerful, amazing thing-- I have nothing to be ashamed of, so why force shameful words on me? There's just no need. If you enjoy giving or receiving abuse, on some level there's no way around the fact that you lack respect for yourself. Why not choose a partner you don't have to devalue and who doesn't devalue you? People with self esteem problems seriously need to fix themselves before going around inflicting their hang-ups on everyone else. Yeah, well talking it up like "you're my slut" is just as creepy only worse--because you're evading the fact that you really want to be attached, but don't have the emotional guts to come right out and say so. Emotional distancing by symbolic devaluation, anyone? If she means the world to you, tell her--attachment doesn't have to be scary or creepy. Don't be afraid to express your highest values with positive, life-affirming words. Once again, "words have meaning." Yep, that's pathetic. He doesn't really care about her, it's all about what she says about him...she's basically just another interchangeable luxury good. If these guys had a firm grasp of their own worth, they wouldn't need to look to anyone else to get it.

Yeah, but in that case, she's your PERSONAL TREASURE, your PRECIOUS PRIZE...you don't need to call her the opposite to know you're a very fortunate and special guy! I agree-- "you're all mine" is very hot. It expresses being valued and being valuable...win win!

Like Miss Rand said, "words have meaning"... I'm still not sure how you reconcile this. If somebody I respected called me a whore "on a symbolic level", in reality, I'd have to conclude it meant something negative because the concept of "whore" is hideous and repugnant. I don't believe a psychologically healthy person of any gender needs to experience degradation as part of a loving relationship. If I get the idea a man needs to psychologically degrade me to somehow prove his manhood or "have power over me" or whatever, I run like hell. "Loving abuse" is still abuse. I'm a decent, kind person with real achievements and don't have the slightest desire to be "torn down" or treated badly by anyone for any reason whatsoever. What's so great about enacting rape fantasies, anyway? Why isn't my consent as a rational, loving, aroused human being exciting enough? Call it whatever you want, but declaring it "healthy" because Rand's characters liked it is a huge mistake. Anyone holding up Dominique as a model of mental health and a guide to behavior seriously needs to check their premises.

Here's a horribly sad article which sums up this warped mindset in a nutshell: One Night Only: Why some women--including me-- prefer casual sex to dating http://www.nerve.com/personalessays/scott/onenightonly/

INTP. I'm a hard NT...the P/J variable can go either way, but I usually qualify as a P by the slimmest of margins! I 56 N 100 T 88 P 11

LOL! Hey, I definitely know the feeling-- I used to work as a research analyst at a DoD think tank...now I can't even open a bag of M&Ms without sorting them into a rainbow-colored bar graph! haha One manifestation of my frugality many people find annoying is my tendency to hoard large bags of beans, oats, and rice. But if you've ever faced real hunger, it doesn't seem quite as kooky. Nobody said it better than Steinbeck: "When you have four hundred pounds of beans in the house, you need have no fear of starvation. Other things, delicacies such as sugar, tomatoes, peppers, coffee, fish, or meat may sometimes come miraculously, through the intercession of the Virgin, sometimes through industry or cleverness; but your beans are there, and you are safe. Beans are a roof over your stomach. Beans are a warm cloak against economic cold."

Well, who knows. I'm definitely not approachable--and don't wear my hair down or shorts, skirts, or even short-sleeved shirts when I know I'm going to be walking alone in public anymore. You're right about being bitchy as a defense mechanism...it's easy to fall into if you aren't rationally judging people and situations on their own merits. That's not the worst of it, either: in the space of one month, I've caught two men masturbating in the New York subway at the sight of me: one through his pants while seated in the train and one "au naturel" peeking around a pillar on a deserted platform. (In case you were wondering, both occasions I was wearing a plain black turtleneck with a simple black skirt in one case and black pants and riding boots in the other; minimal makeup with my blonde hair pulled back in a chignon. Hardly "asking for it"!) It's definitely not the first time it happened to me, either. I complained to an attractive friend, who cynically replied: "How long have you been in New York, honey? Seems like it happens to me every week."

Well, that's New York for you. Any single woman who's halfway decent-looking and alone knows the routine...sometimes, it's a real fight to stay upbeat and not automatically assume the worst. Actually, my dad's been encouraging me to get out on the range with a Glock .40.

Practically speaking, anytime I wear anything the least bit revealing, men interpret it as an open invitation to proposition and harass me. I literally can't walk one block wearing shorts (or even a knee-length skirt) without getting whistled at, leered at, and frantically hit on. I cover up, not because I'm ashamed, but because I want to discourage men from treating me like a piece of ass. It doesn't work and I get hit on anyway, but it helps. Dress "hot" and you get treated with zero respect from anyone, not even your fellow women. You aren't expecting anyone to respect you at all...that's the problem.

We're not. Sex is more than coitus and you know it. Either that, or you need to expand your horizons a little: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-penetrative_sex#Frottage You'd be surprised at the kinds of things scumbags try to pull on women: I've had loser perverts try to rub their hard-ons against me on the subway, on the bus, in a crowd, at a high school pep rally, at work, while swing dancing, at the hairdresser, etc. Putting a hip hop beat to it doesn't make it any more okay. Or less likely to make me knee them in the groin and/or punch them in the face.

Not at all, when you're speaking with them in person. It really comes down to how perceptive you are about the discrete, unique qualities each individual possesses which point to what Ayn Rand called "sense of life". Voice inflection, demeanor, posture, mannerisms, expression in the eyes: they're all speaking volumes about your psychology whether you realize it or not. (I've worked as an analyst at a DoD think tank on projects related to deception detection and criminal profiling, so I've been paid to quantify and make sense of the small things people reveal in spite of themselves that give them away.) If anyone is interested, I'll be glad to point you to some fascinating links. Just as many people have "gaydar", anyone can develop "my-kind-of-person-dar" if they're perceptive and patient enough. The more experience you have dealing with people, the better you get.

A little. But would you choose to be around a thin woman who achieved her looks at the price of bulimia (i.e. evincing a mindblowingly flawed value system) over the self-confident woman who worked out/ate flawlessly who also had a documented thyroid problem? Above all, a person's character shows in his or her eyes...that's the real way to tell if you have anything in common, in my opinion. Personally, I'll take an out-of-shape intellectual man with twinkling, lively eyes over a vapid pretty boy with a fixed, dull, bored look anyday. Someone could have the body of a Greek god, but if he were uninteresting, I still wouldn't have the slightest desire to be around him, much less have sex with him. Seriously, conventionally "good looking" stupid people leave me absolutely flat. Intelligence and character are the real turn-ons.

Obviously, men who share my preferred qualities of, quote, "Integrity, independence, intelligence, introspection, enthusiasm, creativity, being comfortable in his own skin" are going to MUCH look different from those who don't. But superficial, immature twaddle like "he has to be tall, with wavy dark hair, blue eyes, and a lantern jaw" never enters into my mind. A real, meaningful connection based on shared values and mutual respect and understanding can't be planned out ahead of time...for me it either happens or it doesn't; there's no forcing it. Rejecting my ideal mate and life partner because I was hung up on on meaningless variables like height, weight, age, or fashion sense would be a tragedy.

Shame has nothing to do with it--rubbing your dick on random people like a bonobo is hardly the expression of your higher values. RAND: "I would say that a selective and discriminate sex life is not an indulgence. The term indulgence implies that it is an action taken lightly and casually. I say that sex is one of the most important aspects of man's life and, therefore, must never be approached lightly or casually. A sexual relationship is proper only on the ground of the highest values one can find in a human being. Sex must not be anything other than a response to values. And that is why I consider promiscuity immoral. Not because sex is evil, but because sex is too good and too important." What other purpose is there? I prefer being able to think and accomplish things, YMMV.

The "point of the story" you cited was that this guy almost lost his life due to a violent crime resulting from alcohol...I merely linked to a story citing statistics about it. It would be interesting to do a comparative study of "instances of violent crime per 100,000 substance users". Nevertheless, the fact that 50% of all violent crimes in the UK involve alcohol is troubling to say the least. Real violence is happening today, regardless of how much worse it would be if all alcohol users were on PCP instead.

"Drink most to blame for violent offences" Alcohol, not drugs, linked to incidents, says survey Friday July 20, 2007 The Guardian http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs...2130770,00.html "Violent crime is overwhelmingly fuelled by drink rather than drugs, with nearly half of all incidents linked to alcohol, according to the British Crime Survey published yesterday."

Been to Brooklyn lately? I'm saying if you throw something away, by definition, it has no value to you. If it has value--of whatever kind--treat it that way and take reasonable measures to assume responsibility for it instead of whining to the state to take care of it for you. Doing what you can to protect your own economic interests ought to be a no-brainer for any business owner. More and more companies large companies like WalMart and Eckerds are doing just that by using compactors.

How's this for context: "hilight of dat bitchs life" hardly sounds like the way you'd talk about your girlfriend, or anyone you respected. Can you explain how this statement could come from anybody but a cretinous scumbag? Maybe if we got the URL for the whole rotten page you could explain it to us better. So it's okay that she's debasing herself as long as lots of other people debase themselves too? I know I only got here yesterday--what kind of forum am I on, again?? The idea you can assume anything positive about people who go to bars, own a computer and a camera and make a page like this blows my mind. It really does.