GENIUS FORUMS

.


Italian prostitutes to dress as nuns

Prostitutes in Italy who have been ordered to stop wearing skimpy clothing while they tout for business plan to dress as nuns instead.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -nuns.html


.

I was thinking about the issue of porn and did a little scouting around. I am interested in this stuff because I am investigating mainstream Christian views and activism on these contentious issues. I find, with some definite reservations, that I agree with aspects of their position.
___________________________________________________

'Killer Culture'

Anti-Pornography Movement

Jewish Quarterly

Pro and Anti-Porn Positions within Feminism

Andrea Dworkin on Pornography
_____________________________________________________________

By David Kupelian, Author of 'THE MARKETING OF EVIL'.

Americans have come to tolerate, embrace and even champion many things that would have horrified their parents' generation – from easy divorce and unrestricted abortion-on-demand to extreme body piercing and teaching homosexuality to grade-schoolers. Does that mean today's Americans are inherently more morally confused and depraved than previous generations? Of course not, says veteran journalist David Kupelian. But they have fallen victim to some of the most stunningly brilliant and compelling marketing campaigns in modern history.

"The Marketing of Evil" reveals how much of what Americans once almost universally abhorred has been packaged, perfumed, gift-wrapped and sold to them as though it had great value. Highly skilled marketers, playing on our deeply felt national values of fairness, generosity and tolerance, have persuaded us to embrace as enlightened and noble that which all previous generations since America’s founding regarded as grossly self-destructive – in a word, evil.

In this groundbreaking and meticulously researched book, Kupelian peels back the veil of marketing-induced deception to reveal exactly when, where, how, and especially why Americans bought into the lies that now threaten the future of the country.

For example, few of us realize that the widely revered father of the "sexual revolution" has been irrefutably exposed as a full-fledged sexual psychopath who encouraged pedophilia. Or that giant corporations voraciously competing for America's $150 billion teen market routinely infiltrate young people's social groups to find out how better to lead children into ever more debauched forms of "authentic self-expression."

Likewise, most of us mistakenly believe the "abortion rights" and "gay rights" movements were spontaneous, grassroots uprisings of neglected or persecuted minorities wanting to breathe free. Few people realize America was actually "sold" on abortion thanks to an audacious public relations campaign that relied on fantastic lies and fabrications. Or that the "gay rights" movement – which transformed America's former view of homosexuals as self-destructive human beings into their current status as victims and cultural heroes – faithfully followed an in-depth, phased plan laid out by professional Harvard-trained marketers.

No quarter is given in this riveting, insightful exploration of how lies, both subtle and outrageous, are packaged as truth. From the federal government to the public school system to the news media to the hidden creators of "youth culture," nothing is exempt from the thousand-watt spotlight of Kupelian's journalistic inquiry.

In the end, "The Marketing of Evil" is an up-close, modern-day look at what is traditionally known as "temptation" – the art and science of making evil look good.

About the author: David Kupelian is the managing editor of WorldNetDaily.com, the world’s largest independent news Web site. He is also a widely read online columnist and the driving force behind the acclaimed monthly news magazine Whistleblower.

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING
ABOUT DAVID KUPELIAN'S
'THE MARKETING OF EVIL' ...

"David Kupelian dares to tell the truth about the overwhelming forces in our society which take us far away from our original American concept of freedom with responsibility, happiness with commitments, and traditional values. 'The Marketing of Evil' is a serious wake-up call for all who cherish traditional values, the innocence of children, and the very existence of our great country." – DR. LAURA SCHLESSINGER, talk-show host and author

"It's often said that marketing is warfare, and in 'The Marketing of Evil,' David Kupelian clearly reveals the stunning strategies and tactics of persuasion employed by those engaged in an all-out war against America's Judeo-Christian culture. If you really want to understand the adversary's thinking and help turn the tide of battle, read this book!"
– DAVID LIMBAUGH, syndicated columnist and author

"David Kupelian's research brings into sharp focus what many have sensed and suspected for a long time: The effort to change America's mind on issues like abortion, homosexuality, church-state separation, and more, is a well-thought-out strategic campaign that uses the methods of Madison Avenue to market rank lies. But the good news is that the truth will eventually win out, and Kupelian's important and groundbreaking book makes enormous progress toward that end."
– D. JAMES KENNEDY, Coral Ridge Ministries

"Every parent in America needs to read this book. David Kupelian skillfully exposes the secular left's rotten apple peddlers in devastating detail. From pitching promiscuity as 'freedom' to promoting abortion as 'choice,' the marketers of evil are always selling you something destructive – with catastrophic results. Kupelian shines a light on them all. Now watch the cockroaches run for cover."
– MICHELLE MALKIN, Fox News Channel

"Over just a few years, life in America has become indescribably more squalid, expensive, and dangerous. Like the dazzling disclosures in the final page of a gripping whodunit or the fascinating revelation of a magician's secrets, 'The Marketing of Evil' irresistibly exposes how it was done. It will elicit an involuntary 'Aha!' from you as you discover who did it and your soul will soar with optimism as you discover the only way we can undo it. In years to come Americans will acknowledge a debt of gratitude to David Kupelian for his honesty, courage, and laser-like insight in this must-read book."
– RABBI DANIEL LAPIN, Toward Tradition

"Marketers are out to get America's youth, and they'll stop at nothing to do it. In 'The Marketing of Evil,' David Kupelian treats parents to a rare insider look at exactly how our children – and adults too – are being lied to, confused, and seduced by radicals and phony experts. The game's over, folks – the con men have been exposed. I urge every parent to read this eye-opening book."
– REBECCA HAGELIN, the Heritage Foundation

"Did you ever want to know – I mean really know – how and why America is being transformed from a unified, Judeo-Christian society into a divided, false, murky, neo-pagan culture? Even if you think you know the answers to those questions, in fact, especially if you think you know the answers, you must read David Kupelian's 'The Marketing of Evil.' So clearly does it expose the incredible con game to which Americans have been subjected that it offers real hope – because when our problems come this sharply into focus, so do the solutions."
– JOSEPH FARAH, WorldNetDaily

"Excellent! Simply excellent. If you want to solidify your Christian worldview – or just understand what the culture war is all about – you owe it yourself to read David Kupelian's 'The Marketing of Evil.'"
– DONALD E. WILDMON, American Family Association

From the article Alex pasted:

For example, few of us realize that the widely revered father of the "sexual revolution" has been irrefutably exposed as a full-fledged sexual psychopath who encouraged pedophilia.

Who is this?

Shahrazad wrote:From the article Alex pasted:

For example, few of us realize that the widely revered father of the "sexual revolution" has been irrefutably exposed as a full-fledged sexual psychopath who encouraged pedophilia.

Who is this?

A lucky guess would be Hugh Hefner... he likes his girls 'young' like a legal 18...


.

Tomas,

My smallest kid likes to watch that show "Girls of the Playboy Mansion" quite a lot. The girls are barely older than herself. I don't like the way they glamorize the prostituted life of these girls.

Who is this?

That would probably be Alferd Kinsey.

Darn, the link worked from here: Google

.


-Shahrazad-
Tomas,

Yes, dear?




-Shahrazad-
My smallest kid likes to watch that show "Girls of the Playboy Mansion" quite a lot.

-tomas-
We got rid of cable-tv in 1979 .. never had satellite-tv. The girlfriend saw 'what the world was coming to' in a different light .. that I did. One of her many talents is she tells me ahead of time what needs to be done, then she goes about implementing the changes ever-slowly, but steadily. Seems it's imperceptible to the undiscerning eye but oh am I so lucky to have a woman who knows right from wrong. No grays areas allowed.

She works on me much the same way .. not in a nagging way .. but more like hen-pecking. Well, of course I go along with the program because, I finally realize, it is for my own good. Enlightenment (that light) will show when you drop your guard and let it flow in.




-Shahrazad-
The girls are barely older than herself.

-tomas-
Does she have a father-figure, big-brother type of fella around?

We do some "on call" domestic violence/foster parenting with the State, but we can't do the crazy-kids (near psychos) like we could when we were physically younger. We tend to foster the infants-to-age-11 group. It's so sad to see what some of these pre-teens have been exposed to. You just never get used to it (the depravity stories they relate) whereas these boys/girls have seen it all and then some.

With our 10-yr-old daughter, we make it plain-and-simple to other parents that no crap is allowed on tv/dvd when she does overnights with her gal-pals, at there homes.




-Shahrazad-
I don't like the way they glamorize the prostituted life of these girls.

-tomas-
These girl's moms and dads were prostituted because their parents before them, didn't know any better, grew up in the 60s, 70s, 80s, watching/reading the same crap.

The mind-control is worldwide. The blowback from the Iraq war is evident in Syria. Iraqi girls, ages 9-13 are bought and sold in Damascus like calves, goats are. Rented out, probably killed (snuff filmed) when they are worn out - past their prime.

I've been told by GIs who were in Iraq that they saw the same "business" go down in the cities, towns there.


I dunno, Shah




.

Merchants of Cool 1

Merchants of Cool 2

Merchants of Cool 3

[et cetera]

Tomas,

We got rid of cable-tv in 1979 .. never had satellite-tv.

Really amazing. You've lived a sheltered life. Not that sheltered is necessarily a bad thing.

Does she have a father-figure, big-brother type of fella around?

She used to when she was little: my brother "adopted" her as a daughter. He was a good father to her, until she got into her rebellious teens and treated her grandma badly. My brother was not able to forgive her, and now hates her. Nature makes sure that natural parents will continue to love their offspring regardless of how undeserving of that love they are, but adoptive parents do not have that advantage (if I can call it that). No fake father is ever going to love an unlovable teen. But the real mother (and real grandma) has no choice in the matter.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, I wouldn't want their real father within 100 miles of them, ever. He's dangerously crazy.

-

.



-Tomas writes earlier--
We got rid of cable-tv in 1979 .. never had satellite-tv.

-Shahrzad-
Really amazing. You've lived a sheltered life. Not that sheltered is necessarily a bad thing.

-tomas-
Suppose we couldda sat around and collected welfare... NOT.

About this time 1978-79, we (my buddies) had started up a political consultant "business" as California politics was entering the computer age - the political propaganda was taking over the airwaves etc.

We had five children to juggle between school, (other activities that they wanted to pursue), diapers, you know the deal. I truly miss the mid-20s .. cuz its all downhill once one hit the big-28.

We didn't watch a lot of tv when we were growing up in North Dakota .. so why have the tv babysit our kids into stupor-ville? We (the early 1960s) had all of two channels to choose from: NBC - CBS. The human race got along for a long time without mind-control programming for eons...


-tomas earlier-
Does she have a father-figure, big-brother type of fella around?

-Shahrazad-
She used to when she was little: my brother "adopted" her as a daughter.

-tomas-
Yeah, girls are cuties when they are young and impressionable. Our last, age 10, is fast becoming wise to the world, almost like being an "only child", one of our elder kids age-37, has loaned (if you will) one of their daughters who is about the same age, so ours doesn't feel so 'left out'. Fortunately, they get along fairly well.




-Shahrazad-
He was a good father to her, until she got into her rebellious teens and treated her grandma badly.

-tomas-
Grandmother has passed?




-Shahrazad-
My brother was not able to forgive her, and now hates her.

-tomas-
The brother has no children - didn't learn from it all?




-Shahrazad-
Nature makes sure that natural parents will continue to love their offspring regardless of how undeserving of that love they are,

-tomas-
I'm looking for some reason to disagree, but no.




-Shahrazad-
but adoptive parents do not have that advantage (if I can call it that).

-tomas-
Yeah, we never adopted any of the scores of children that passed through our front door.




-Shahrazad-
No fake father is ever going to love an unlovable teen.

-tomas-
This makes me sad. The adult faker isn't mature in his own self (didn't grow, change with the times of the child's reaching the pre-adult stages of teens).




-Shahrazad-
But the real mother (and real grandma) has no choice in the matter.

-tomas-
In most cases, this is true. But the times, they are a changing.




-Shahrazad-
Oh, and in case you're wondering, I wouldn't want their real father within 100 miles of them, ever. He's dangerously crazy.

-tomas-
I was the youngest, and was hit a lot by both parents til about the 8th grade, when I grew 12 inches (and muscled out) in about six months the hitting stopped. I was 4-6 in the 7th grade! Fully 6 foot by 9th grade and made the girlfriends day :-).

My dad apologized for the beating in his last years on this earth when he realized that he was never hit (you know, spare the rod spoil the child) religious nonsense in the 1920s.

Life is hard, can't buy happiness no matter what you do.

Can't get to heaven on roller skates.

And you can't take a taxicab to Timbuktu.




.

Alex Jacob wrote:This is likely irrelevant to you as a criterion of consideration, but my view is that the best of what it means to be human comes about when we set our eyes and our wills on 'higher things'.

That may just be you trying to rationalize the repression and suppression of your "base" desires.

Although you do not agree, and I have no way to make anyone agree with me, I think that we have to train ourselves to limit our pleasures and temper our spirits through certain renunciations.

Actually, I don't necessarily disagree with that. I don't necessarily agree either.

It is quite possible to turn the living of life into a pure hedonistic enterprise, and I think our modern culture is certainly working in this direction, yet I think that we will lose from that far more than we will gain.

Again, possibly all rationalization.

These are decisions that I have made based on my own experiences, my own internal visions, and I really have not come up with a way to 'sell' these views to other people.

Also made from within your own conditioning.

And finally, though you will not relate to what I say, but I have never hidden this fact, my values are essentially formed by traditional sources, such as Biblical values, Biblical ideas, and what I understand as core religious values.

How much of that is your own imagined variety of "Biblical values"? So-called Biblical values seem to have changed constantly with the times, and even existed in very different forms simultaneously among different camps. Traditional Biblical values include burning heretics alive, but I'm guessing you've decided that's not really traditional.

I admit my ignorance here, but it wouldn't surprise me if current Christian cultures are generally more similar to current Islamic cultures than to Christian cultures of one thousand years ago.

Modern culture, advertising, democratic values, all conspire to seduce people away from those values and ideals and there is very little any one can do to stop it.

I get the feeling that some of what you believe stems from that conservative type of view that there was some golden time in the past where everything was better. Was high culture ever common place amongst the populance in the past, in the less democratic days? The average person couldn't even read! Now we have something that may soon hold just about all the "high" culture ever produced, available to the masses at the push of a button, and with nearly universal literacy(in the developed democratic countries.)

When the old-school social controls are questioned, pushed against, weakened and done away with, there are simply no limits to where a roving sexual appetite will go.

Sexual desire doesn't exist in a vacuum. Empathy, amongst other things, would act as a control for the vast majority of people.

When you combine that with mercantile interests, and corporate interests whose primary moral is to generate income, one can easily see what the future will hold for us. It is impossible if the general culture is moving in this direction, to keep this 'information' out of the eyes and heads of youngsters, and they too will be 'seduced' by these insistent pleasures, and they too will participate in the pornographising of culture. It is likely that what we are seeing now is only the very beginning of what is to come. So, I would only ask you---lover of pornography that you are---to be aware of what you are supporting and creating.

It's not like religion and tradition haven't been heavily responsible for creating extremely unhealthy and unfulfilling sexual paradigms.

When I mentioned 'run-of-the-mill' I mean that it is common values that now have ascendancy. I could describe it in Zarathustrian terms, Nietzschean terms.

The Last Man?

It is the common appetite, the philistine and common value-system, that is becoming the predominant one, the dictatorial one.

Was it ever not the predominant one?

As things progress---as in Huxley's BNW---people will no longer even recognize 'higher values', they will not register on their internal radar. In BNW the Savage did something, I can't remember what, maybe he was reading a poem or something, and the people nearby could only interpret it as an invitation to Orgy-Porgy, a group-masturbation session. The demos wants its pleasures, and it will have its pleasures, like a child, and if it doesn't get them it will kick up a fuss and make itself miserable until it gets them back.

I'd point you again to that essay which I linked to earlier that examines the problems with Brave New World and possible futuristic utopian alternatives.

You are asking me what my limits are? Why? My limits have no relevance.

Of course they do! That you think otherwise makes me think that I shouldn't pay attention to you at all. Is this all just a game to you? Your personal limits have deep relevance, not only do they obviously affect/reflect(or maybe not if you're a hypocrite) your more philosophical and theoretical views, but I think putting yourself out there, putting something personal on the line has great worth. It's good to be working with something that has some real value - it keeps us, and things, careful, honest, relevant, fresh and real. Without this the entire endeavor could become meaningless theory that has no relationship to the real world and real people.

(But I have never been at all interested in anal intercourse, and if some girl proposed it I think I would bloody her nose and send her packing). (No pun intended).

Hang on, are you saying you'd punch a woman in the face if she asked you for anal sex? To me that is horrendous - you'd engage in physical violence merely at a sexual suggestion? Typical Christian response. That's what I call sick.

I'd give her anal if she wanted and I'd take it from a strapon too.

Jason wrote:Sexual desire doesn't exist in a vacuum.

It certainly did for me, the time my girlfriend and I made love inside a combine (a giant piece of farm equipment designed to suck grain stalks off the field, winnow the grain, and auger it into a bin).

Tomas,

-Shahrazad-
He was a good father to her, until she got into her rebellious teens and treated her grandma badly.

-tomas-
Grandmother has passed?

No, but she had several nervous breakdowns. My kid sent her to the hospital twice. Had grandma died, things would really be bad for the kid, as everybody would be blaming her, and plotting to leave her out of the inheritance.

My mom and kid get along quite well now, but it's complicated. Granny can't forgive the kid for partying too much, and kid can't forgive granny for wanting to control her life at all costs.

-Shahrazad-
My brother was not able to forgive her, and now hates her.

-tomas-
The brother has no children - didn't learn from it all?

Yes, he has a child of his own now.

-Shahrazad-
but adoptive parents do not have that advantage (if I can call it that).

-tomas-
Yeah, we never adopted any of the scores of children that passed through our front door.

Just having them in your care can be considered a temporary adoption.

-Shahrazad-
But the real mother (and real grandma) has no choice in the matter.

-tomas-
In most cases, this is true. But the times, they are a changing.

Most children would be hard pressed to survive without a mother's unconditional love.

Fully 6 foot by 9th grade and made the girlfriends day :-).

I did not imagine you as a 6-footer.

Life is hard, can't buy happiness no matter what you do.

No, but you can use your intelligence to learn to be happy. After all, it is a state of mind.

-

Jason,

I guess sometimes we just work from certain axioms and assume that what we understand (I mean understanding at a more basic, internal level, more than intellectual) is immediately apparent to others, that it does not require a defense. The higher accomplishments of Western culture, as I understand it, have come about because those people sublimated their hedonistic desires into higher accomplishment. Someone, of course, had to define a value that it is desirable to do that (pursue 'higher' accomplishment), and that value had to be taught. Conversely perhaps, if we were to teach pure hedonism as a social and cultural goal, it seems likely that there would be a falling away from higher attainments. I see this question as being self-evident, but as I have been trying to state, I don't really have an interest in convincing you. I just don't know how I would do that. The amazing thing about life is that it gives every person the opportunity to live their lives as they see fit. It seems to happen that it is at later periods in life when the true ramifications of one's choices become apparent to one. That this is so is 'proverbial'.

My impression thus far is that mercantile interests get behind the baser pleasures---the hedonistic aspect of life which is tangible---and work to sell those pleasures to people. It is a kind of studied seduction. That idea was touched on---alluded to---in some of what I quoted above. For example, I take it as axiomatic that it is wrong to rationally come up with methods to sexually seduce youngsters. I remember very well being a youngster, and I know all about the attraction and curiosity for sexual pleasures, so it is not prudery that causes the aversion. I think that one could define a sort of wholesomeness that is pretty well accepted, and it would have to do with engaging children with wholesome activities, projects, thoughts, literature, art, outdoor activities, etc. This wouldn't mean to demonize sexuality, but rather to concentrate on 'higher aspects' of life, including sexual and sensual expression. As you can guess, I see modern corporate culture as having a devious and even 'evil' bent, and that comes about through exclusive and rational focus on generating money, and a lack of values that would limit how far they could go. It is obvious to me that business interests have far too much liberty to pursue their goals, and it is obvious to me that---culture-wide---there is great confusion about what values to hold, and why.

I have self-consciousness about what my values are and how I arrived at them, and I don't think I suffer from delusions about the relativity of values, speaking generally. Every person, at the end of the day, has to define their values, to test them, to interrogate them. It is true that within traditional Judaism the idea of values is connected intimately with the core Mosaic revelation, and it is not exactly questionable, interrogatable. I think though that values and the context from which they arise has to be looked at carefully, though that process can be troubling. I guess then I am a religionist with a philosophical bent.

"How much of that is your own imagined variety of "Biblical values"? So-called Biblical values seem to have changed constantly with the times, and even existed in very different forms simultaneously among different camps. Traditional Biblical values include burning heretics alive, but I'm guessing you've decided that's not really traditional."

It is of course a little intricate. In Judaism the core teaching stems from 'Torah', but along with Torah comes 'Tradition' and the 'oral teaching'. The oral teaching was all the conversation that went along with the receiving of the written Torah, and is generations and generations of conversations on the theme of What is right? When I refer to biblical values I refer to the writings and decisions of many generations of people who have sat down to think about the core problems of human existence and to come up with ethical proscriptions. In Judaism, that material is not in the Bible per se but in ancillary material, and makes up Rabbinical Jewish ethics. The main emphasis of Judaism is in ethics (as opposed to ceremonialism, ritualism or dogmatic theology), and so, for example, 'Halachah' (the decisions of ethical Judaism) would very certainly have something to say about, for example, pornography, or marketing sexual imagery to children. The ethical imperative of Torah, focused through Tradition, would arrive at some ethical guidelines that would, most likely, make a great deal of sense.

Christianity seems to focus more on theological dogma and has, in my opinion, strayed far from 'halachah' with a direct link to the Bible. It is more important in Christianity what you believe and less important what you do. In Judaism, what you believe is more fluid, but everything hinges on what you do. The reason, I assume, these approaches have differed is that Christianity (Jesus and the Apostles) take issue with Jewish 'legalism', but a major part of their attack on it seems to me very unfair. You have to extrapolate tangible, daily values from your experience of God, and from the Scripture.

"I get the feeling that some of what you believe stems from that conservative type of view that there was some golden time in the past where everything was better. Was high culture ever common place amongst the populace in the past, in the less democratic days? The average person couldn't even read! Now we have something that may soon hold just about all the "high" culture ever produced, available to the masses at the push of a button, and with nearly universal literacy(in the developed democratic countries."

I don't think former times were better, though they may have been simpler, at least generally. When I used the word 'democratic' I meant it in the strict sense of being driven or dictated by 'the demos'. The 'demos' is, if you will, the body, and the body is appetite. If interests pander to the emotionalism and the appetite of the 'demos' what arises from that is not very sophisticated, not very 'high'.

"It's not like religion and tradition haven't been heavily responsible for creating extremely unhealthy and unfulfilling sexual paradigms."

A very good point. Again, referring to Judaism, sexual expression is encouraged not suppressed. It is a 'good deed' (mitzvah) to make love on the Sabbath, it is not just allowed but recommended. Christianity put lots of guilt on sex because it was trying to rein-in uncontrolled pagan sexual practices.

"...but I think putting yourself out there, putting something personal on the line has great worth. It's good to be working with something that has some real value - it keeps us, and things, careful, honest, relevant, fresh and real. Without this the entire endeavor could become meaningless theory that has no relationship to the real world and real people."

I certainly agree.

.


MEPs urge Strausbourg sex trade pledge

-snip-
"The background for this decision is of course the growing understanding of the harm prostitution causes for the people involved in prostitution as well as the role of prostitution in organised crime," the Nordic MEPs said, noting the "praxis of many hotels as providers of sex trade with humans, as if they were dealing with an ordinary commodity."

(see image)

http://euobserver.com/9/26810



.

Alex Jacob wrote:The higher accomplishments of Western culture, as I understand it, have come about because those people sublimated their hedonistic desires into higher accomplishment.

You seem to treat hedonistic desire, sexual energy, just basic passion perhaps, as a rather limited resource that must be carefully and sparingly used and transformed - as if it would easily run out and be wasted. I don't think it is necessarily so limited, I would hope that it is bountiful. Neither do I think that hedonistic desires must certainly stand in some fundamental opposition to higher accomplishments. I have no strong reason to believe that liberally engaging in hedonistic pleasure cannot coexist with engaging in higher pursuits. It seems quite possible to me that passion could support both simultaneously without one eating away at the other.

Someone, of course, had to define a value that it is desirable to do that (pursue 'higher' accomplishment), and that value had to be taught.

I don't know that is the case. Maybe the pursuit of higher accomplishments is simply in the nature of humans? Dreams, exploration, curiosity, discovery, experimentation, will to do great things - why assume that these desires would necessarily need to be taught any more than the desire for hedonistic pleasures would need to be taught?

I just don't know how I would do that. The amazing thing about life is that it gives every person the opportunity to live their lives as they see fit. It seems to happen that it is at later periods in life when the true ramifications of one's choices become apparent to one. That this is so is 'proverbial'.

Some may think they are making choices but really only be playing out the unexamined choices that have already been made for them by their conditioning. Hence your "axioms", perhaps.

For example, I take it as axiomatic that it is wrong to rationally come up with methods to sexually seduce youngsters.

If this is axiomatic do you think it needs no further justification? What do you make of pedophilic, but high accomplishing, ancient Greek and Roman cultures then?

I remember very well being a youngster, and I know all about the attraction and curiosity for sexual pleasures, so it is not prudery that causes the aversion. I think that one could define a sort of wholesomeness that is pretty well accepted, and it would have to do with engaging children with wholesome activities, projects, thoughts, literature, art, outdoor activities, etc. This wouldn't mean to demonize sexuality, but rather to concentrate on 'higher aspects' of life, including sexual and sensual expression.

Despite your claims otherwise, your use of the word "wholesome" when describing non-sexual activities suggests that you view sex as unwholesome. Sounds like the old Christian prudery to me.

As you can guess, I see modern corporate culture as having a devious and even 'evil' bent, and that comes about through exclusive and rational focus on generating money, and a lack of values that would limit how far they could go. It is obvious to me that business interests have far too much liberty to pursue their goals, and it is obvious to me that---culture-wide---there is great confusion about what values to hold, and why.

I'm generally not particularly impressed by those whose sole purpose in these things is generating profit, but I don't see any great reason to praise the old keepers of values either - religion and tradition.

I think there are rules and perhaps limits that need to be applied to our use of sexuality, yet I recognize that to propose such a thing makes one sound like a prude. It is likely true that the tendency, in me, toward temperance comes from religious sources, for example from the doctrine of yoga, and from the pseudo-doctrines of 'Taoist' energy practices.

'Hedonism' is a specialized word, and I think it connotes a giving over to pleasures, or an especial focus on pursuit of pleasure, yet it stands in relation to other values and attitudes, and in that sense (and in my use of it) it is a comparative word. I am not at all trying to say that sexual pleasure is a bad thing, but I am personally convinced that it can be used in a way that is 'destructive'. That is a personal assessment, it is something I have seen and felt. Yet I am aware that people do not like to have any one else standing over their sexual activities, making judgments about them, or proclamations, and certainly laws. Over the last 40-50 years there has been a concerted effort to cast off all sorts of different regulations in respect to sexuality. There is a whole source of writing on the subject, and the area I am familiar with is the feminist writing. One can take some steps back and examine the social phenomenon, observe it and make assessments about it. Clearly, some part of it has been good---very good. But as I see things some part of it has not been so good. Again, personal assessment, personal application of values. I have no power to influence anyone, and it is most likely that no one---i.e. the culture generally---has any interest in 'listening'. What that means is that things will go their own way. I am just an observer on the sidelines.

"Neither do I think that hedonistic desires must certainly stand in some fundamental opposition to higher accomplishments."

I don't think that you are taking into account the question of excess, and of placing hedonism in front of, say, 'spirituality'. When I say spirituality I do not at all mean what most people seem to mean---something very vague, something NewAge. Also, I am contextualizing this hedonistic excess by making criticisms of pornography, the selling of sex-culture to people, to youth, by hugely powerful corporate interests. I am speaking of something occurring on a mass level, and I am also asserting that it is something that is not hard to observe. I am not saying that sex is bad or evil or even anti-spiritual. Not at all. I think it hinges on how it is expressed, 'where it comes from', why it has been excited and for what purpose. And also, since my general orientation is 'religious' (as I define it), I will naturally have something to say about sexuality that is divorced from a person's unity, their spiritual life, a relationship with 'God', etc. I am aware that all my ideas on these things are subjective and personal, but I am also aware that some thoughtful theologians---most of what I am reading now dates from the 20s---have written some very intelligent things about the process of industrialization of society on the 'spiritual nature' of culture, the effect of the atomization of the individual as a by-product of modernity, and the increasing tendentiousness of our desires.

The people I am reading were religious people, Christians in this case, yet I don't at all see them as backward, regressive or un-progressive. Actually I see the criticism they offer, in relation to the modern climate, as representing progressivism. In that sense I do see the higher and the better aspects of the religious impetus as part of the 'holy cure', and I do see the irresponsible and reckless use of our faculties as part of a 'disease'. There are core agreements, therefor. I say this very openly, no effort to disguise it or mask it.

"It seems quite possible to me that passion could support both simultaneously without one eating away at the other."

Absolutely it can, except when it is a diseased passion, and then it operates like a disease until it takes over the whole organism. This is really what I am attempting to get at, the difference between what is diseased and what is wholesome. It is not at all easy to come to agreements about that.

"What do you make of pedophilic, but high accomplishing, ancient Greek and Roman cultures then?"

I know a little more about the Greek than the Roman. The Greek ideal of boy-love, at least what is written about it, was very idealistic and so was not expressly hedonistic. There were limits that were set on it, rules of engagement as it were. It was also an upper-class phenomenon and, interestingly, was not at all approved by some factions within the culture.

My impression of the Romans is that they'd fuck anything that moved and many things that wouldn't. The sexual excesses, at least according to some historians, was part of a destructive process of decadence and corruption that worked to undermine the 'virility' of the culture. There was a time, for example, when Roman soldiers were not allowed to go to certain places because they had a reputation of being sex-pots and would have a dissolutive effect on 'corporal virility'. (I am thinking of Daphne, in old Syria, modern Turkey).

"Despite your claims otherwise, your use of the word "wholesome" when describing non-sexual activities suggests that you view sex as unwholesome. Sounds like the old Christian prudery to me."

Like in the film you suggested to me, you wish to present these questions in a very clear dichotomy. In that film, the priest was old fashioned, regressive, backward, and the film suggested that there was a new way, a better way, a freer and of course 'more wholesome' way, and it presented a path to it.

The Christian narrative, where it critiques an 'unbridled hedonism', is quite cogent, sensible and relevant. But again, I am referring to people who have very little in common with the modern 'preachers' we know of. Their discourse seems sophisticated to me, and progressive. I hear shades of that today, but so much of Christian discourse is right-wing discourse. The book I am now reading (The Return of Christendom, a group of essays, 1922) has a progressive, anti-plutocratic stance and in many places reads socialistically, but anti-Marxian.

http://www.cwfa.org/articledisplay.asp? ... ornography
http://www.pncanada.com/Materials/PorntoFreedom.pdf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q55XsjotCKY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdQphijj ... re=related

Dis one's for you, Carl.

...an' dis ain't bad, neither.

You guys are pushing your luck. You know that, right?

Remember what they say happens when the cat leaves the house.

Here's some relevant comedy:

http://current.com/items/89298493_internet_porn_you

Trust me. It's good.

That was entertaining, Turbatio.