For those who haven't been following along, I'm pro-porn. I believe in allowing people to engage with their sexualities in any way they please that doesn't harm others without the fully informed consent of those others.
Alarmist hand-wringing is nothing new. The internet didn't invent it. You need only look at the satanic ritual abuse cases of the 1980s to see how far alarmist hand-wringing can take people.
The one I'm addressing today is, as you've no doubt figured out, about pornography. Specifically the most recent alarm being sounded that because of all their exposure to pornography on the internet, men (always just men, isn't it?) are losing interest in partnered sex. The reasons cited for this are various, and not really the focus of this blog post. No, the focus of this blog post is to make lemonade.
You see, if we accept the current alarmists at their word. If we accept that they are doing real science, and that the issues they are bringing up are real. Then we come to one inescapable conclusion. All the efforts to limit access to child porn have been contributing to the molestation of children.
If all the porn that men (again with the not so subtle sexism from these alarmists) have access to in virtually limitless quantities on the internet really is "rewiring their brains" such that they're no longer interested in sex with real women, then the only morally correct thing to do is to immediately halt any and all efforts to stop or slow the distribution of child porn on the internet, and indeed start subsidizing that industry.
I realize some may object to taxpayer dollars going to support the child porn industry, but to quote an entirely different group of alarmists, "if it saves just one child."
Now, of course, I don't believe that pornography has these horrific effects on the (male) libido. I don't believe the alarmists who attach the term "addiction" as though it can damn a perfectly safe, healthy activity by pointing out that there exists some small group of people who develop addictions and compulsions associated with it. I don't believe access to porn hurts the viewer in any way.
But I figure this argument will either shut up this particular batch of pro-censorship alarmists and provide some measure of protection for free speech by using my own boogie-man status against them, or they'll stick to their guns and start lobbying for government subsidized child porn. Either way, I consider it a win.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Don't Like The Rules? Go Someplace Else.
If any of my readers is aware of a country anywhere on earth without an age of consent that has any rule of law whatsoever, please leave a note in the comments. The only places I've ever identified lacking the current arbitrary-age-line-based-on-nothing system are places that don't so much as have sufficient government to enforce the laws against murdering each other in the streets.
I mention this, because an infrequent, but still intriguing argument I occasionally face is, if we aren't happy with the law of the land as it stands, we should go someplace more in line with our legal philosophy. Or alternately, that we should all be deported to such a place.
The days of the frontier are over. There are no habitable places on earth that aren't already claimed by nation states willing to enforce their claim to those places with the military force of a standing army. The option of just finding an island somewhere and starting our own society isn't an option, no matter how tempting it might be.
Yet, there is something worth noting. As I've mentioned previously, population studies of male pedophiles indicate we make up about one fifth of the population, and barring evidence that there's a reason for a gender split, I'm going to just use that number. That's actually one of the biggest minorities in the United States.
That's enough that, if concentrated in one geographic area and voting as a block, could eliminate the age of consent laws of twenty states, even with every nonpedophile in the same jurisdiction voting against.
Now, there are major problems with any such plan. First and foremost, the fact that we're an invisible minority and secretive for our own survival means that it's very difficult to coordinate. Second, of course, we all have different opinions on how things should be. Just because you think prepubescents are hot doesn't mean you're interested in changing the laws that say you go to jail for having sex with them. And that's not to mention the fact that even among pedophiles, there's always a subgroup willing to look down its nose at the people they visualize as less socially acceptable than themselves.
And of course, the worst problem with such a plan is that voluntarily concentrating ourselves and taking decisive political action like that means mass outing ourselves and potentially staring down the barrels of a tank battalion when the rest of the nation decides now is the time for the federal government to standardize age of consent laws constitutionality of such an act be damned.
Still, the fact remains that there actually are subtle forces causing us to concentrate in certain geographic areas even now. As states compete with one another to be the least friendly to us in order to cleanse their populations, the losers of those fights get the refugees. The tricky part will be recognizing when that critical mass has been reached that we can act from a position of power within those states, and mustering the courage to do so.
Yes, it's a pipe dream. But there has to be something useful that can be done with our numbers to effect change. Any other potential hickups with that plan are of course, welcome in the comments, as are alternate proposals.
I mention this, because an infrequent, but still intriguing argument I occasionally face is, if we aren't happy with the law of the land as it stands, we should go someplace more in line with our legal philosophy. Or alternately, that we should all be deported to such a place.
The days of the frontier are over. There are no habitable places on earth that aren't already claimed by nation states willing to enforce their claim to those places with the military force of a standing army. The option of just finding an island somewhere and starting our own society isn't an option, no matter how tempting it might be.
Yet, there is something worth noting. As I've mentioned previously, population studies of male pedophiles indicate we make up about one fifth of the population, and barring evidence that there's a reason for a gender split, I'm going to just use that number. That's actually one of the biggest minorities in the United States.
That's enough that, if concentrated in one geographic area and voting as a block, could eliminate the age of consent laws of twenty states, even with every nonpedophile in the same jurisdiction voting against.
Now, there are major problems with any such plan. First and foremost, the fact that we're an invisible minority and secretive for our own survival means that it's very difficult to coordinate. Second, of course, we all have different opinions on how things should be. Just because you think prepubescents are hot doesn't mean you're interested in changing the laws that say you go to jail for having sex with them. And that's not to mention the fact that even among pedophiles, there's always a subgroup willing to look down its nose at the people they visualize as less socially acceptable than themselves.
And of course, the worst problem with such a plan is that voluntarily concentrating ourselves and taking decisive political action like that means mass outing ourselves and potentially staring down the barrels of a tank battalion when the rest of the nation decides now is the time for the federal government to standardize age of consent laws constitutionality of such an act be damned.
Still, the fact remains that there actually are subtle forces causing us to concentrate in certain geographic areas even now. As states compete with one another to be the least friendly to us in order to cleanse their populations, the losers of those fights get the refugees. The tricky part will be recognizing when that critical mass has been reached that we can act from a position of power within those states, and mustering the courage to do so.
Yes, it's a pipe dream. But there has to be something useful that can be done with our numbers to effect change. Any other potential hickups with that plan are of course, welcome in the comments, as are alternate proposals.
How Are People This Stupid?
I've made a shocking realization recently. Apparently I'm an optimist.
Only an optimist would continue to be surprised when people don't respond to reasoned argument, when people don't take the time to think through their positions, and when people uncritically repeat talking points as though they fundamentally represent their own worldview.
Intellectually, I know the tendency to look critically at one's own biases and viewpoints in the world is rare, and the willingness to face up to the mutually contradictory ideas you might be holding on to rarer still. But I keep getting blindsided when people keep acting like this.
You may have noticed I don't post particularly often. This isn't because I lack passion, or because I'm fundamentally pressed for time. It's because every time I go to put proverbial pen to paper, I talk myself out of a hundred subjects because the points that I could speak on are so basic, so axiomic, that I feel like I'm insulting my audience's intelligence when I try to take such a simple idea and break it down into something even simpler to explain it.
Most of the things I talk about seem so basic that, ironically, the fact that my opposition doesn't seem to get them makes me worry about whether they're capable of providing meaningful consent themselves.
And yet I keep assuming people will do the work necessary to keep their worldviews self-consistent. That people will be bothered by the presence of those inconsistencies when they're pointed out, and work to find out which of their beliefs needs to go. I keep being shocked when instead they build elaborate justifications because they actually care more about avoiding the work of reevaluating how they've been living their lives than they do about making sure the lives they live after this point are more faithful to what their fundamental core ethics are.
I keep expecting people to overlook typos and poor word choice, and accept clarifications in order to get at the meat of an argument, rather than using any excuse they can muster to decide not to listen to someone with views opposing their own. Because I value the argument, I keep expecting other people to behave the same.
And I know this is something people do. I recognize that people defend their preconceptions with more vigor than they'll question them. I know the very fact that I'm in the minority position in a debate means that the vast majority of people out there haven't thought through the issue. (Yes, I do believe that anyone who's thought through their position sufficiently will agree with me. Of course, I cheat. When someone comes up with a better argument, I change my position and suddenly they agree with me again.)
Yet knowing all this, I keep staring at shock when I see news articles, blog posts, forum conversations, and even in-person conversations with friends where these same factors keep coming up. I keep expecting reason and self-consistency to win the day, when I know people respond better to fallacious emotional argument.
Only an optimist would continue to be surprised when people don't respond to reasoned argument, when people don't take the time to think through their positions, and when people uncritically repeat talking points as though they fundamentally represent their own worldview.
Intellectually, I know the tendency to look critically at one's own biases and viewpoints in the world is rare, and the willingness to face up to the mutually contradictory ideas you might be holding on to rarer still. But I keep getting blindsided when people keep acting like this.
You may have noticed I don't post particularly often. This isn't because I lack passion, or because I'm fundamentally pressed for time. It's because every time I go to put proverbial pen to paper, I talk myself out of a hundred subjects because the points that I could speak on are so basic, so axiomic, that I feel like I'm insulting my audience's intelligence when I try to take such a simple idea and break it down into something even simpler to explain it.
Most of the things I talk about seem so basic that, ironically, the fact that my opposition doesn't seem to get them makes me worry about whether they're capable of providing meaningful consent themselves.
And yet I keep assuming people will do the work necessary to keep their worldviews self-consistent. That people will be bothered by the presence of those inconsistencies when they're pointed out, and work to find out which of their beliefs needs to go. I keep being shocked when instead they build elaborate justifications because they actually care more about avoiding the work of reevaluating how they've been living their lives than they do about making sure the lives they live after this point are more faithful to what their fundamental core ethics are.
I keep expecting people to overlook typos and poor word choice, and accept clarifications in order to get at the meat of an argument, rather than using any excuse they can muster to decide not to listen to someone with views opposing their own. Because I value the argument, I keep expecting other people to behave the same.
And I know this is something people do. I recognize that people defend their preconceptions with more vigor than they'll question them. I know the very fact that I'm in the minority position in a debate means that the vast majority of people out there haven't thought through the issue. (Yes, I do believe that anyone who's thought through their position sufficiently will agree with me. Of course, I cheat. When someone comes up with a better argument, I change my position and suddenly they agree with me again.)
Yet knowing all this, I keep staring at shock when I see news articles, blog posts, forum conversations, and even in-person conversations with friends where these same factors keep coming up. I keep expecting reason and self-consistency to win the day, when I know people respond better to fallacious emotional argument.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
What Is And Isn't Predatory Behavior
I was reading an article by Noah Brand on the Goodmen Project blog recently. In it, he details an incident from his youth. He describes it thus:
The first thing he opens with is a description of the man's appearance. He takes special note of the fact that his appearance was so stereotypical of a child predator, and uses it to emphasize how stupid and naive he had been for not recognizing something was wrong.
I should take a moment to inform readers unfamiliar with Noah Brand and the Goodmen project that Noah is the editor-in-chief of the publication, who's stated goals are to hold conversations about men and masculinity and to confront harmful stereotypes about men. Full disclosure, the staff of the Goodmen project, Mr. Brand included, were the inspiration for this blog post.
The encounter itself was a conversation struck up in a fast food restaurant, during which the author was lured to a secluded alley under the pretense of finding job postings. When the man made his sexual interest clear, Noah left.
There are a number of linguistic tricks that the author uses to demonize the man he encountered, and I do encourage any of my readers to look over the original post in detail and see if they can spot them on their own. Anyone who can pick out one I've missed would be doing me a favor pointing it out, so I can be on the look out for the same trick in the future.
The inconsistencies in Noah's story start fairly early on. I suppose being the editor means you don't really get people giving your stuff a once over. He describes the man directing the conversation to what job he would like to have when he was old enough to enter the employment market. He suggests the alley because the local university had set out job postings and want ads there, and that it might give him a better feel for the job market. He later recounts with mock shock that there were no postings that an eighth grader would be qualified for.
For those who missed it, the point was never that he might find a job there, only that he might get a feel for the market which might help him in a future decision on his career path. This is, a bit beside the point, since the trip to the alley was clearly a pretense, but the verbal slight of hand used here is worth making a note of. Tricks like this can hide the actual course of events in a narrative while technically not lying. After all, he never said that the man made up some lie about there being listings he could qualify for, he just set that interpretation up for the reader to jump to on their own if they weren't reading carefully.
So, if we were to strip away all the deceptive language from the original post, what actually happened in this narrative that Noah presents? He was approached in a public place by a man who struck up a conversation. The man convinced him to go to a dead end alley, and there he made his intentions clear with a pickup line. Noah left, and that was the end of it until he saw the man a year later and gave him a dirty look.
I found a few points interesting about what the man actually did, according to Noah. He struck up a nonsexual conversation with a member of his own sex, and arranged to talk someplace private before making it clear his interests were sexual. Given Mr. Brand's current age, I'd like to invite readers to consider what the state of the Gay Rights Movement was when he was thirteen years old, and ask yourselves why you might want to hold off on any obvious pickup lines until you weren't in public.
Noah mentions that he was between the man and the exit when he realized what was going on, which he attributes to luck. I'm not so sure. This wasn't someone who didn't take no for an answer, as evidenced by the fact that when Noah said no, he didn't see the man again for a full year. Given that Noah was ostensibly there to look at the postings at the end of the alley, this man would have had to go out of his way to keep from getting between Noah and the alley's exit. I think he left the out precisely because he didn't want Noah to feel trapped.
If we remove the legal issues surrounding age and gender from the equation, this man did literally everything right, yet the language he's described in invites the reader to imagine a string of infractions that build and build as the narrative progresses. Stories like this contribute to the idea of male sexuality as inherently predatory. His readership must be so proud.
I don't currently support sexual relationships between adults and minors. I hold this position because it is my belief that the social climate is such that even a perfectly consensual, mutually desired, and mutually enjoyed encounter would be twisted by society into something traumatic for the younger party, by a constant bombardment of harmful messages, legal consequences for their lover over something the younger party participated and enjoyed, and so called therapy where they'll be told over and over again that they were raped. I am willing to be persuaded, but for now that's where I stand on the issue.
But I think it's important to distinguish what predatory behavior is and is not, regardless of whether that behavior is legal and/or something I approve of. This man's behavior was not predatory. His interest wasn't reciprocated, but he was far less a predator than your average pickup artist who thinks it's his job to push past a "no" and be forceful enough that the woman he's targeting can tell herself she didn't consent to sex with him, so it isn't her fault.
Taking no for an answer is not what a predator does. I'm getting real sick of needing to state the obvious.
When I was thirteen, I was approached by a pedophile.What struck me as I read the account was how absolutely normal and reasonable the behavior was despite being described in terminology meant to arouse disgust and fear.
The first thing he opens with is a description of the man's appearance. He takes special note of the fact that his appearance was so stereotypical of a child predator, and uses it to emphasize how stupid and naive he had been for not recognizing something was wrong.
I should take a moment to inform readers unfamiliar with Noah Brand and the Goodmen project that Noah is the editor-in-chief of the publication, who's stated goals are to hold conversations about men and masculinity and to confront harmful stereotypes about men. Full disclosure, the staff of the Goodmen project, Mr. Brand included, were the inspiration for this blog post.
The encounter itself was a conversation struck up in a fast food restaurant, during which the author was lured to a secluded alley under the pretense of finding job postings. When the man made his sexual interest clear, Noah left.
There are a number of linguistic tricks that the author uses to demonize the man he encountered, and I do encourage any of my readers to look over the original post in detail and see if they can spot them on their own. Anyone who can pick out one I've missed would be doing me a favor pointing it out, so I can be on the look out for the same trick in the future.
The inconsistencies in Noah's story start fairly early on. I suppose being the editor means you don't really get people giving your stuff a once over. He describes the man directing the conversation to what job he would like to have when he was old enough to enter the employment market. He suggests the alley because the local university had set out job postings and want ads there, and that it might give him a better feel for the job market. He later recounts with mock shock that there were no postings that an eighth grader would be qualified for.
For those who missed it, the point was never that he might find a job there, only that he might get a feel for the market which might help him in a future decision on his career path. This is, a bit beside the point, since the trip to the alley was clearly a pretense, but the verbal slight of hand used here is worth making a note of. Tricks like this can hide the actual course of events in a narrative while technically not lying. After all, he never said that the man made up some lie about there being listings he could qualify for, he just set that interpretation up for the reader to jump to on their own if they weren't reading carefully.
So, if we were to strip away all the deceptive language from the original post, what actually happened in this narrative that Noah presents? He was approached in a public place by a man who struck up a conversation. The man convinced him to go to a dead end alley, and there he made his intentions clear with a pickup line. Noah left, and that was the end of it until he saw the man a year later and gave him a dirty look.
I found a few points interesting about what the man actually did, according to Noah. He struck up a nonsexual conversation with a member of his own sex, and arranged to talk someplace private before making it clear his interests were sexual. Given Mr. Brand's current age, I'd like to invite readers to consider what the state of the Gay Rights Movement was when he was thirteen years old, and ask yourselves why you might want to hold off on any obvious pickup lines until you weren't in public.
Noah mentions that he was between the man and the exit when he realized what was going on, which he attributes to luck. I'm not so sure. This wasn't someone who didn't take no for an answer, as evidenced by the fact that when Noah said no, he didn't see the man again for a full year. Given that Noah was ostensibly there to look at the postings at the end of the alley, this man would have had to go out of his way to keep from getting between Noah and the alley's exit. I think he left the out precisely because he didn't want Noah to feel trapped.
If we remove the legal issues surrounding age and gender from the equation, this man did literally everything right, yet the language he's described in invites the reader to imagine a string of infractions that build and build as the narrative progresses. Stories like this contribute to the idea of male sexuality as inherently predatory. His readership must be so proud.
I don't currently support sexual relationships between adults and minors. I hold this position because it is my belief that the social climate is such that even a perfectly consensual, mutually desired, and mutually enjoyed encounter would be twisted by society into something traumatic for the younger party, by a constant bombardment of harmful messages, legal consequences for their lover over something the younger party participated and enjoyed, and so called therapy where they'll be told over and over again that they were raped. I am willing to be persuaded, but for now that's where I stand on the issue.
But I think it's important to distinguish what predatory behavior is and is not, regardless of whether that behavior is legal and/or something I approve of. This man's behavior was not predatory. His interest wasn't reciprocated, but he was far less a predator than your average pickup artist who thinks it's his job to push past a "no" and be forceful enough that the woman he's targeting can tell herself she didn't consent to sex with him, so it isn't her fault.
Taking no for an answer is not what a predator does. I'm getting real sick of needing to state the obvious.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Why I Haven't Killed Myself
It's hard to start writing about a suicide attempt, because every time I put metaphorical pen to paper, I'm reminded of all the wonderful things in my life, and all the ways I have it easier than other people. That doesn't help the depression, indeed, the guilt at feeling depressed in spite of those things only deepens the depression and the sense of worthlessness.
It's only years later that I've been able to contextualize what happened and recognize that's precisely what it was, a suacide attempt.
A bit of background. I've always been hyperaware of the legal situation that young people are in, and this dates from my time resenting it from well on the other side of the age line. My parents were and are wonderful people, but that didn't change the fact that they wielded arbitrary power against which I had no legal recourse. They weren't perfect, obviously, but if they had been less wonderful people... well, the stories are in the news all the time. Teachers were where I got a taste of what it feels like when someone with that kind of arbitrary power wants to use it against you. Again, it was never as bad for me as some, but it did happen, and the psychological pain was quite real.
Meanwhile, I was also quite isolated from my peers. I'm a natural introvert. To this day, after spending time among friends who's company I genuinely enjoy, I need to take time alone to decompress, unwind, and recover from the social activity.
When I was bullied, I was never able to view it as a temporary condition. The old "tell an adult" advice was tried, then rejected when the best outcome was the immediate cessation of hostilities, followed by a worse and more persistent campaign the instant the adult's back was turned, and the worst outcome was the adult disbelieving my words and heaping additional scorn on me, followed by a ramping up of hostilities from the initial bullies in retribution for trying to tell on them. I saw no value in the "fight back" school of thought, because I knew that if I hurt them, all that would mean was added motivation for them to hurt me even worse.
I decided fairly early on, as a result, that the only way anything would actually change would be if I fought back hard enough and vicious enough that whether they were willing to come back later and resume and redouble their torments would be irrelevant, because they would be physically unable to do so. Basically, the only way to ensure any permanent change to the status quo would be to kill one of them. I didn't have it in me to do that, which I spent considerable time berating myself over. Whether by nature or nurture, I couldn't bring myself to try to kill someone in cold blood, no matter how airtight the logic I presented myself with.
I considered just killing myself. I was quite capable of self-harming, even if I couldn't direct those destructive impulses outward. But suicide was something I realized I'd have to get right. The idea of suicide as a "cry for help" made zero sense to me. Everyone who actually gave a shit about me was presumably doing what they could already, and everyone else wouldn't care anyway, so who was going to listen to a "cry for help" suicide attempt? The only two outcomes in my mind were that I would successfully die, or that I would fuck it up, the normal bullying would continue as before, only now I'd have to deal with whatever potentially crippling injuries I'd inflicted on myself during the botched attempt.
I can easily see why people going on antidepressants are at higher risk for suicide. I didn't kill myself during that period because I was convinced I'd fuck it up and only make things worse for myself. If I had enough hope that I could do it right, or maybe that something would change after the attempt if I did botch the job, it's easy to see myself moving forward with it.
Things did eventually change for me after what I now recognize probably qualified as a suicide attempt. I was attacked in the school hallway, and I snapped. The only coherent thought in my mind through the red haze of anger was that one of us was going to die there, and I didn't care who. Either I'd end his life and thus make sure he at least, could never hurt me again, or I'd make him kill me to stop me. I was well aware that the later outcome was far more likely, as evidenced by my inability to land a single punch, even as most of the bones in my face were shattered by repeated blows to the head.
Of course, the fact that I'm able to write this should be proof enough that I failed. Some of the staff pulled us apart, and that was when things got interesting. The school attempted to downplay the incident, even as I was hospitalized, requiring reconstructive surgery. My parents pushed and the courts were eventually involved. I don't know for sure what happened to the bully who attacked me, only that he wasn't in the school after that.
After that object lesson in how vulnerable I was, and how little the school could or would do to protect me, my parents got me involved with martial arts, which helped both my actual safety, and my sense of security. I've never had to use it since I began studying nearly two decades ago.
This incident happened before I'd worked out my orientation, so this incident was there in the background as I was coming to terms with the prejudice I was going to have to deal with for the rest of my life. Since then, tons of people have tried to goad me into suicide and self-destructive behavior. I can't imagine why they think I'd even consider it knowing they'd count it as a win.
It's only years later that I've been able to contextualize what happened and recognize that's precisely what it was, a suacide attempt.
A bit of background. I've always been hyperaware of the legal situation that young people are in, and this dates from my time resenting it from well on the other side of the age line. My parents were and are wonderful people, but that didn't change the fact that they wielded arbitrary power against which I had no legal recourse. They weren't perfect, obviously, but if they had been less wonderful people... well, the stories are in the news all the time. Teachers were where I got a taste of what it feels like when someone with that kind of arbitrary power wants to use it against you. Again, it was never as bad for me as some, but it did happen, and the psychological pain was quite real.
Meanwhile, I was also quite isolated from my peers. I'm a natural introvert. To this day, after spending time among friends who's company I genuinely enjoy, I need to take time alone to decompress, unwind, and recover from the social activity.
When I was bullied, I was never able to view it as a temporary condition. The old "tell an adult" advice was tried, then rejected when the best outcome was the immediate cessation of hostilities, followed by a worse and more persistent campaign the instant the adult's back was turned, and the worst outcome was the adult disbelieving my words and heaping additional scorn on me, followed by a ramping up of hostilities from the initial bullies in retribution for trying to tell on them. I saw no value in the "fight back" school of thought, because I knew that if I hurt them, all that would mean was added motivation for them to hurt me even worse.
I decided fairly early on, as a result, that the only way anything would actually change would be if I fought back hard enough and vicious enough that whether they were willing to come back later and resume and redouble their torments would be irrelevant, because they would be physically unable to do so. Basically, the only way to ensure any permanent change to the status quo would be to kill one of them. I didn't have it in me to do that, which I spent considerable time berating myself over. Whether by nature or nurture, I couldn't bring myself to try to kill someone in cold blood, no matter how airtight the logic I presented myself with.
I considered just killing myself. I was quite capable of self-harming, even if I couldn't direct those destructive impulses outward. But suicide was something I realized I'd have to get right. The idea of suicide as a "cry for help" made zero sense to me. Everyone who actually gave a shit about me was presumably doing what they could already, and everyone else wouldn't care anyway, so who was going to listen to a "cry for help" suicide attempt? The only two outcomes in my mind were that I would successfully die, or that I would fuck it up, the normal bullying would continue as before, only now I'd have to deal with whatever potentially crippling injuries I'd inflicted on myself during the botched attempt.
I can easily see why people going on antidepressants are at higher risk for suicide. I didn't kill myself during that period because I was convinced I'd fuck it up and only make things worse for myself. If I had enough hope that I could do it right, or maybe that something would change after the attempt if I did botch the job, it's easy to see myself moving forward with it.
Things did eventually change for me after what I now recognize probably qualified as a suicide attempt. I was attacked in the school hallway, and I snapped. The only coherent thought in my mind through the red haze of anger was that one of us was going to die there, and I didn't care who. Either I'd end his life and thus make sure he at least, could never hurt me again, or I'd make him kill me to stop me. I was well aware that the later outcome was far more likely, as evidenced by my inability to land a single punch, even as most of the bones in my face were shattered by repeated blows to the head.
Of course, the fact that I'm able to write this should be proof enough that I failed. Some of the staff pulled us apart, and that was when things got interesting. The school attempted to downplay the incident, even as I was hospitalized, requiring reconstructive surgery. My parents pushed and the courts were eventually involved. I don't know for sure what happened to the bully who attacked me, only that he wasn't in the school after that.
After that object lesson in how vulnerable I was, and how little the school could or would do to protect me, my parents got me involved with martial arts, which helped both my actual safety, and my sense of security. I've never had to use it since I began studying nearly two decades ago.
This incident happened before I'd worked out my orientation, so this incident was there in the background as I was coming to terms with the prejudice I was going to have to deal with for the rest of my life. Since then, tons of people have tried to goad me into suicide and self-destructive behavior. I can't imagine why they think I'd even consider it knowing they'd count it as a win.
Friday, July 5, 2013
Erring On The Side Of Caution
As my arguments have grown more refined, I've noted a particular argument of last resort among my opposition. After they've been forced to admit that it is a fundamental injustice that rational, competent human beings are routinely denied the right to decide what they do with their own bodies, rather than just accept that the situation needs to change, their final argument is that we must "err on the side of caution."
What this argument represents, is the false assumption that we simply cannot know for certain who is and is not competent to make their own decisions, and therefore we must restrict the rights of people we are actually fairly sure are competent in the hopes of getting all the ones who aren't "protected."
There are two fundamental errors with this argument. The first, and most obvious, is that there is no inherent need to "err" at all. It is perfectly possible to examine an individual's mental capabilities and knowledge base to determine if this individual is or is not up to the standard for informed consent. Talking about which way you would rather err means nothing when the goal is to simply not err in the first place.
Because, we should be clear, the individuals who bring up erring on the side of caution aren't talking about making the examinations potentially more rigorous than they would need to be. They're talking only about maintaining the failed system of age lines that, by this point in the argument, even they have been forced to admit are not capable of accurately sorting those who can provide meaningful consent from those who cannot.
The second error with this argument is that it assumes as a given that in the eternal debate of freedom versus security, the right and proper side to err on is security. That has been, by no means, established in any particular issue you care to mention, so there's no possible way for it to have been established in the general case as such individuals argue.
The entire point of a legal system founded on "better to let ten guilty men go free than that one innocent man be punished" is to err on the side of freedom. Everyone who's ever been offended by seatbelt laws, helmet laws, or speed limits understands that the tradeoff on freedom versus security is never cut and dried in favor of security.
I'll admit I am an extremist. Anyone reading this blog who is surprised by that has probably not been paying attention. I fully support the right to hate speech, even against me. I'm of the opinion that the right to bear arms means the right of the private citizen to bear any weapon that the government sees fit to place in the hands of its military, and that includes nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons so long as the government in question asserts its own right to those weapons. I may make another post in the future discussing this point in more detail, but suffice it to say that on the freedom versus security debate, I'm going to choose to err on the side of freedom every time.
The worst of it, though, is that choosing to err "on the side of caution" (including times when it isn't necessary to err at all) isn't a consequence free choice. There are real harms inflicted on people when they're denied their rights to bodily autonomy including sexual autonomy. You could try to argue that those harms are lesser than the harms inflicted on someone who has been improperly deemed capable of informed consent and thus "fair game," but you cannot deny that the harms in the former situation simply do not exist.
I've frequently suggested, in response to the idea that we should "err on the side of caution," that the correct course of action would then be to raise the age of consent to 40, 60, or maybe 80. For some reason, no one seems to think it's a good idea to "err on the side of caution" in those situations.
What this argument represents, is the false assumption that we simply cannot know for certain who is and is not competent to make their own decisions, and therefore we must restrict the rights of people we are actually fairly sure are competent in the hopes of getting all the ones who aren't "protected."
There are two fundamental errors with this argument. The first, and most obvious, is that there is no inherent need to "err" at all. It is perfectly possible to examine an individual's mental capabilities and knowledge base to determine if this individual is or is not up to the standard for informed consent. Talking about which way you would rather err means nothing when the goal is to simply not err in the first place.
Because, we should be clear, the individuals who bring up erring on the side of caution aren't talking about making the examinations potentially more rigorous than they would need to be. They're talking only about maintaining the failed system of age lines that, by this point in the argument, even they have been forced to admit are not capable of accurately sorting those who can provide meaningful consent from those who cannot.
The second error with this argument is that it assumes as a given that in the eternal debate of freedom versus security, the right and proper side to err on is security. That has been, by no means, established in any particular issue you care to mention, so there's no possible way for it to have been established in the general case as such individuals argue.
The entire point of a legal system founded on "better to let ten guilty men go free than that one innocent man be punished" is to err on the side of freedom. Everyone who's ever been offended by seatbelt laws, helmet laws, or speed limits understands that the tradeoff on freedom versus security is never cut and dried in favor of security.
I'll admit I am an extremist. Anyone reading this blog who is surprised by that has probably not been paying attention. I fully support the right to hate speech, even against me. I'm of the opinion that the right to bear arms means the right of the private citizen to bear any weapon that the government sees fit to place in the hands of its military, and that includes nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons so long as the government in question asserts its own right to those weapons. I may make another post in the future discussing this point in more detail, but suffice it to say that on the freedom versus security debate, I'm going to choose to err on the side of freedom every time.
The worst of it, though, is that choosing to err "on the side of caution" (including times when it isn't necessary to err at all) isn't a consequence free choice. There are real harms inflicted on people when they're denied their rights to bodily autonomy including sexual autonomy. You could try to argue that those harms are lesser than the harms inflicted on someone who has been improperly deemed capable of informed consent and thus "fair game," but you cannot deny that the harms in the former situation simply do not exist.
I've frequently suggested, in response to the idea that we should "err on the side of caution," that the correct course of action would then be to raise the age of consent to 40, 60, or maybe 80. For some reason, no one seems to think it's a good idea to "err on the side of caution" in those situations.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
We Can't Be Associated With You
I've mentioned before that I get barred from a lot of online forums. I am a pedophile who doesn't see anything wrong with my sexual orientation, and I am a vocal and unapologetic advocate for the rights of young people.
Quite often, the ban comes in the form of a fairly obvious and unapologetic expression of disgust at my views, positions, and/or existence. The runners of said sites establishing themselves as effectively declared enemies, and acting on the sincere belief that I'm evil and need to be silenced. In a strange way, they're some of the most respectable sorts who act to silence me, since their intentions are clear and displayed in the open for all to see. So certain of the righteousness of their position, they often hold no fear of leaving what I've already said as a matter of public record, and allow that record to speak for itself, which suits me just fine.
Slightly less often, legalistic loopholes are used to justify the bans, citing some rule or another that's been deliberately written in vague language for the sake of later selective enforcement. These are the sites that pretend to uphold a standard of free speech and pretend that censorship isn't a part of their ideology or mission statement. These are the places that tend to have drawn out exit processes, since almost no one on the internet has thought to prohibit the sorts of things I want to say. As a result, most of that overbroad language isn't actually broad enough on a simple reading, and the staff at such places is very reluctant to actually invoke and use the "we can ban anyone for any reason" clauses that are always a part of the boilerplate. They recognize that censoring me is admitting that they can't defeat my ideas in a free marketplace, and so a ban is an admission of failure on their part. These are actually some of the most satisfying notes to leave on, since typically by the time they've rewritten their rules for the purpose of getting rid of me, I've emboldened others who'd previously stayed silent.
It's only in recent years that I've encountered a peculiar third group of censors. This one actually seems to understand how public relations works, and as such, I've come to the conclusion the are the most threatening and insidious of the lot. They communicate via emails and private messages, away from the public eye, that they are oh so sympathetic to what I'm saying, but that they can't risk the public blowback of being associated with me or my ideas, before imposing secret restrictions on my posting or jumping straight to a ban outright.
In a sense, it's easy to empathize. After all, I know full well what the risks are of being associated with me. I am me, after all. Merely by letting me speak, when so many places engage in outright bans, does come across as a tacit endorsement of my words in the eyes of some idiotic members of the public, so one can see what they would have to fear.
The problem is that they're liars.
I take no issue with forums where the subjects I care about are censored entirely. Where the entire conversation simply is not allowed to happen, and anyone bringing it up is told to knock it off and/or banned. That is not what happens with those sites who utilize this friendly public relations tactic.
When you censor only one side of an argument, and allow the other free reign, that is what an actual endorsement of a viewpoint looks like. Just because the site runners and administrators don't join in on the pile-on doesn't change the fact that they've taken a side and acted as an enemy. What makes them different and worse than the first group is that they've chosen not to declare hostilities, preferring to pretend to their readership that the site is actually an open forum and that the apparent homogeneity of opinion is a fact of life rather than a product of their censorship.
These are the sites who will most often retroactively wipe away the record of any argument that didn't go their way, while leaving dozens of threads where they believe their preferred viewpoint came off better intact.
The fact of the matter is that even at my most aggressive, I don't go where I'm not invited. I never bring up pedophilia or youth rights subjects in a space where no one had breached the topic first. I do care about, and respect the fact that not every space is appropriate for this conversation. But when the conversation is happening, when someone has brought up the subject, and it's continuing, someone needs to step in and say something, speak unapologetically for the opposing point of view. The risk otherwise is that those who thoughtlessly follow the crowd will leave the mainstream viewpoint unexamined, and those who fear reprisal will be cowed into silence, creating the illusion of consensus when the truth is anything but.
I don't recall if I've said this before in one of these posts, but I care as much as I do about putting forward the idea that there is nothing wrong with pedophiles because when I was younger and figuring out my sexuality, I desperately needed to hear it. I needed to have the point that pedophiles are not the same thing as child molesters stated loudly and unapologetically, because I was afraid of what I was feeling and what the cultural gestalt told me that meant was coming. When I saw someone stand up to the crowd, that helped me, and since then, I've tried to become that voice for the next person who needs to hear it.
Quite often, the ban comes in the form of a fairly obvious and unapologetic expression of disgust at my views, positions, and/or existence. The runners of said sites establishing themselves as effectively declared enemies, and acting on the sincere belief that I'm evil and need to be silenced. In a strange way, they're some of the most respectable sorts who act to silence me, since their intentions are clear and displayed in the open for all to see. So certain of the righteousness of their position, they often hold no fear of leaving what I've already said as a matter of public record, and allow that record to speak for itself, which suits me just fine.
Slightly less often, legalistic loopholes are used to justify the bans, citing some rule or another that's been deliberately written in vague language for the sake of later selective enforcement. These are the sites that pretend to uphold a standard of free speech and pretend that censorship isn't a part of their ideology or mission statement. These are the places that tend to have drawn out exit processes, since almost no one on the internet has thought to prohibit the sorts of things I want to say. As a result, most of that overbroad language isn't actually broad enough on a simple reading, and the staff at such places is very reluctant to actually invoke and use the "we can ban anyone for any reason" clauses that are always a part of the boilerplate. They recognize that censoring me is admitting that they can't defeat my ideas in a free marketplace, and so a ban is an admission of failure on their part. These are actually some of the most satisfying notes to leave on, since typically by the time they've rewritten their rules for the purpose of getting rid of me, I've emboldened others who'd previously stayed silent.
It's only in recent years that I've encountered a peculiar third group of censors. This one actually seems to understand how public relations works, and as such, I've come to the conclusion the are the most threatening and insidious of the lot. They communicate via emails and private messages, away from the public eye, that they are oh so sympathetic to what I'm saying, but that they can't risk the public blowback of being associated with me or my ideas, before imposing secret restrictions on my posting or jumping straight to a ban outright.
In a sense, it's easy to empathize. After all, I know full well what the risks are of being associated with me. I am me, after all. Merely by letting me speak, when so many places engage in outright bans, does come across as a tacit endorsement of my words in the eyes of some idiotic members of the public, so one can see what they would have to fear.
The problem is that they're liars.
I take no issue with forums where the subjects I care about are censored entirely. Where the entire conversation simply is not allowed to happen, and anyone bringing it up is told to knock it off and/or banned. That is not what happens with those sites who utilize this friendly public relations tactic.
When you censor only one side of an argument, and allow the other free reign, that is what an actual endorsement of a viewpoint looks like. Just because the site runners and administrators don't join in on the pile-on doesn't change the fact that they've taken a side and acted as an enemy. What makes them different and worse than the first group is that they've chosen not to declare hostilities, preferring to pretend to their readership that the site is actually an open forum and that the apparent homogeneity of opinion is a fact of life rather than a product of their censorship.
These are the sites who will most often retroactively wipe away the record of any argument that didn't go their way, while leaving dozens of threads where they believe their preferred viewpoint came off better intact.
The fact of the matter is that even at my most aggressive, I don't go where I'm not invited. I never bring up pedophilia or youth rights subjects in a space where no one had breached the topic first. I do care about, and respect the fact that not every space is appropriate for this conversation. But when the conversation is happening, when someone has brought up the subject, and it's continuing, someone needs to step in and say something, speak unapologetically for the opposing point of view. The risk otherwise is that those who thoughtlessly follow the crowd will leave the mainstream viewpoint unexamined, and those who fear reprisal will be cowed into silence, creating the illusion of consensus when the truth is anything but.
I don't recall if I've said this before in one of these posts, but I care as much as I do about putting forward the idea that there is nothing wrong with pedophiles because when I was younger and figuring out my sexuality, I desperately needed to hear it. I needed to have the point that pedophiles are not the same thing as child molesters stated loudly and unapologetically, because I was afraid of what I was feeling and what the cultural gestalt told me that meant was coming. When I saw someone stand up to the crowd, that helped me, and since then, I've tried to become that voice for the next person who needs to hear it.
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