Posts by BenWilson
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Up Front: Towards a Sex-Positive Utopia, in reply to Steve Barnes,
If sex became as socially acceptable as shaking hands then the desire would disappear
This is probably my only real concern about laying down what a sexual utopia would be like, wherein shame isn't so deeply built in at a social level. One society that is, by accounts, one of the more sexually adventurous, a place where people would seldom be surprised to hear about practically any kind of "perversion" on the part of people they know, is Japan. And it would be hard to find a place in which public guilt and shame figure so highly. Makes me wonder that if the shame was taken away, whether it might actually trend far more towards plain vanilla.
The utopia Emma describes struck me a much like how things were on the "anarchy" planet Annares in Ursula LeGuin's The Dispossessed. The sexual elements of the story were fascinating, particularly since they are thrown into relief every odd chapter, which describes Shevek's adventure on Urras, a planet which is basically very much like what ours is.
The anarchists are liberal in every way imaginable, from our current viewpoint, although as the story unfolds, LeGuin's vision of what that really means is quite illuminating. Sexually, they have no apparent inhibition at all, and sexual life begins very young. Everyone tries anything and everything, as their nature dictates. There are no formalized living arrangements whatsoever, so monogamy is a choice undertaken only by people who want it, and there are no official consequences for any choices made. The only consequences of practically any and every action are varying levels of social approval. The main character chooses monogamy at one point in the story, although it would seem that cheating is such a foreign concept that it doesn't cause anyone concern if it happens - I recall Shevek hanging out with one of his old male friends and them having sex at some point, mainly because the friend wants it and Shevek is obliging, rather than because he is bisexual - the idea really has little meaning. Everyone is probably bisexual, somewhere on many spectrums of sexual preference at once. Shevek would seem to be mostly heterosexual, certainly the partners he chooses for himself are all women.
The really big question the book raises is about whether such a utopia can really be self-consistent. In order to maintain a total absence of official control - there are no police, courts, because there are no laws at all - the level of social engineering has to be very, very pervasive. People are taught from the very youngest of ages how to safely and happily co-exist, and that involves an extraordinary amount of social cohesion, brought about through constant training, social modeling, and social contact, constant discussion of what is or is not appropriate.
So actually, in the end, guilt is an enormous factor in these people's lives, since it is the only kind of social control they have at all The protagonist moving from the utopia to something closer to what we have and reflecting on his own society from there is most insightful about many of the traps involved in utopian thought. He does not turn his back on his society - he can never escape the extremely deep level at which it molded his personality, but he does have his own preconceptions profoundly challenged about whether Urras really is a bad place. In the end, it's complex. Urras is, after all, the first place in which he is able to be totally and utterly selfishly himself, talking physics and not the least concerned about what other people are doing, and of course he loves that.
LeGuin's vision is that the utopian women's lack of inhibition also leads them to being rather slack about their physical appearance, and this is brought about by effectively slut-shaming the society to which they are reacting, Urras (from which they came), with endless documentaries being shown to them about the immoral ways of the "propertarian" society, the disgusting tarting up of the women, etc, etc. Shevek is the first Annaresti to actually have anything to do with an Urrasti woman, and is rather surprised to find himself highly attracted to one of them, despite all of the propaganda in his life telling him he shouldn't.
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I'm not giving up TV, but I might give up Sky. Soho is now the only reason I have it, and it's not enough for the cost, considering those series all come out on DVD next season, and that's how I'd prefer to watch them, and there's far too many to keep up with anyway, my Fatso queue has hundreds of hours in there to get through. Just got to convince my wife. And get over the "watch it while it's brand new" thing which I really don't know why I care about, considering I never end up discussing the shows with anyone.
As for downloads, I can see why people do it, but I can't say it appeals to me. I don't enjoy the stuffing around involved. In the time when I used to do it, it felt like I was on permanent IT support for my entertainment system, and a slave to my data, which had to be constantly checked. Some people love doing that, cataloging their stuff carefully, but it wasn't my bag. I'd much rather pop the DVD or BluRay in and bingo, she goes.
It is a golden age for TV drama. But ironically, I find myself struggling to stay awake through it, the sheer volume of stuff to get through is exhausting, and fiction merges with dreams too easily. It took me 4 hours to get through the season premiere of GoT. In the end I had to actually watch it in the morning to make sure I didn't microsleep and lose the plot.
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Up Front: Towards a Sex-Positive Utopia, in reply to Sacha,
not that there's anything wrong with that.
Heh, you don't get much of that at an Alexa performance. Something about the edged weapons she is frequently wielding draw people's minds back to pointed messages. She loves to tear at the boundaries of performance. I remember one show spilling outdoors because there were too many people for the room, and she took her dance to the middle of the street. Part of it involved nudity, right at the moment that a bunch of drunk bogans pulled into the service station across the street. Initially there were predictable hoots and whistles, but something about the dance she was doing commanded respect and even the bogans fell into a respectful silence when they saw that a large crowd was appreciating an artwork unfolding.
It's confronting at a whole different level for me, being her brother, but the point is well made, the nudity rapidly changes from something embarrassing to a simple appreciation that the movements she is making are best seen "Starkers", and that the recurring theme of intersubjective exploitation is firmly embedded.
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Up Front: Towards a Sex-Positive Utopia, in reply to kmont,
This type of performance contained so much meaning, exchange, politics, sex, intellect and emotion.
Does it ever. Alexa is highly original and in my opinion, she is doing her best work right now. She takes advantage of everything that the stage has over passive entertainment, bringing interactivity, cognitive challenge, dialogue, and in your face passion to her work.
She draws quite a bit of her inspiration from Freda Stark, one of NZ greatest footsoldiers for Emma's utopia.
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Up Front: Towards a Sex-Positive Utopia, in reply to Gee,
I think you've confused 'law' with 'society' here
No, I was careful. I really meant people can do whatever they want within the law, which leaves an enormously wide number of possibilities. That doesn't mean they will do it. They may never try hard enough, or be lucky enough (or unlucky enough, in the case of the various Darwin award fetishes that people have). Or they may be pressured by society to not do things. Emma's utopia only removes the last barrier, but presumably only to the limit of the law. Which means that it will open up some people to things that they wouldn't do if social pressure was a barrier, and enable them to be open about it if they so desire.
The extent to which this would change people's lives is equal to the extent to which that barrier represses them now. There are vast swathes of people who would be unaffected, either because they are not repressed, or they have already overcome it and do as they like or they would still be repressed even if that barrier were removed. The remainder would have their lives improved.
It's a start. It's not my Utopia, though. I have other barriers in mind, ones that affected me and my peer group. Not really sure how they'd change, but hey, Utopia is all about fantasizing, isn't it? I'm allowed to wear a Hef hat in mine.
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Up Front: Towards a Sex-Positive Utopia, in reply to Emma Hart,
But they don't, you get that, right Ben?
Of course I do. Everyone is afflicted by it. I haven't lived out every fantasy I've ever had, nor done everything I would ever like to. Not only because I haven't had the opportunity, and because many of them are actually impossible, but also because some of them actually are too dodgy to do. I'm not going to say what, but I doubt society will ever be permissive enough, and for that matter, I wouldn't want it to be.
But surely, sexual jealousy, and Not Getting Enough would be lessened in the kind of world Emma is describing.
Not Getting Enough, probably. Sexual jealousy, though..? Not convinced. I bet that one is a constant.
Take the shame and prurience out of the equation, and surely jealousy will be lessened.
I can't see why. I don't think Hugh Hefner is shameful, but that doesn't mean I'm not jealous of him. I don't let it bug me, though. Mostly by avoiding watching his shows.
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Up Front: Towards a Sex-Positive Utopia, in reply to Emma Hart,
Even if people are unimpeded by inhibition or repression from whatever sex they like, they may still be not getting sex they like. Utopia could end up being not much different to how things are now. Some people are going to still be sexy to far more people than others are, or far more competent at getting sex, and there will surely be sexual jealously, and people making commitments which they are later unable to honor, cheating will still happen. I can't speak for more repressive societies, but within this one, people already can do pretty much whatever they want within the law. So it seems to me that sexual liberation (for everyone), whilst being something that is happening, should be happening, and will continue to happen, could easily still be a world full of unhappy people. Utopias are weird like that. Or should I say humans are weird like that.
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I sort of know what you're on about, Bart, although I'm not quite so fast to blame my mother for me not getting teen sex at all. Even in Utopia there are going to be dorks.
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So long as the unfairnesses and inequalities and oppression disappear, I don't have any real picture of what ideal would be. Most utopias involve things getting better for a lot of people, but worse for some people. I do have to wonder if maximizing sexual happiness is any more possible through social change than maximizing general happiness is. Humans don't really seem to have an unlimited capacity, and past the basic provisions of life's comforts, have a weird ability to become less happy the more they get. But we should certainly make the attempt - how else would we ever know for sure?
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Up Front: Towards a Sex-Positive Utopia, in reply to Emma Hart,
We know that in families and countries where sex is openly discussed and less taboo, teenagers have sex later, rather than earlier.
As one such teenager, I can honestly say that part about it really sucked.
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