Exactly what is "degenerate" in today's pop culture?
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Thanks guys! I appreciate you peeping pervs who like myself are not afraid to let others know what's what! I know there are more of us out there but not everyone wants to admit it. Funny. Butt fucking and even fisting is now considered pretty ordinary. But mention piss, and you're likely to be met with disgust. Pissing is far more "natural" than having an arm shoved up your ass. But, whatever. I have mine and you have yours! Would love to correspond with other voyeurs of urination!
Degenerate? Sure, why not! Though my kinks are becoming more main stream all the time!
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One of the most important approaches to the understanding of degenerate behavior is called Labeling Theory. First coined by sociologist Howard S. Becker, labeling theory assumes that no act is inherently degenerate or deviant. Instead, people in positions of power define what is deviant. An action is only deviant, or degenerate, if it is labeled as such by the dominant group.
Accordingly, deviance is a product of social inequality. The people who are labeled 'deviant' are usually powerless people, because the powerful are able to make the rules or use their resources to avoid the 'deviant' label.
~SPiN
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Good stuff! Would saying that "deviance is subjective" be accurate? What is or is not currently deviant is decided by the cultural mores of the time. And as the mores change over time, so does that which is labeled deviant. Certainly many of the phobias we experience in the U.S.A., such as nudity, are not as problematic in other developed countries. Just an example of cultural mores.
(Once could say that mores are more directly controlled by those in power who have the ability to make and enforce such mores or rules. More interesting: What is the basis on choosing those acceptable and those not?) -
STEALFIRE: One of the most important approaches to the understanding of degenerate behavior is called Labeling Theory. First coined by sociologist Howard S. Becker, labeling theory assumes that no act is inherently degenerate or deviant. Instead, people in positions of power define what is deviant. An action is only deviant, or degenerate, if it is labeled as such by the dominant group.
Accordingly, deviance is a product of social inequality. The people who are labeled 'deviant' are usually powerless people, because the powerful are able to make the rules or use their resources to avoid the 'deviant' label.Thank you for this information and insight. Back in a prehistoric era, once Time magazine revealed the hanky code and Castro Street bars installed picture windows, fags, fruits and fairies were exotic and generally media figures of fun. Now, they're the couple next door. Saw a story the other day by the father who was a little bemused about going in public with his 10-yr-old son who proudly (and innocently unaware of the dangers) insisted on wearing a tee shirt that blatantly proclaimed, "I like men." Kid was not only hiding, but had figured himself out early and happily proclaimed it. Thus the world changes.
I believe Obama has credited "Will and Grace" for making gay normal and unthreatening. Might not have worked that way if any of the gay guys actually made out on camera, and these days beefcake is in, whether intentionally homoerotic or naively intended only for a female audience (yes, of course that's all they have in mind).
As everyone knows, if you do it right, sex is loud, messy, wet, and of course fun. In a word, it is "dirty." But you know what's really deviant? Sexual repression. The greatest, most wonderfullest granfalloon (cf Vonnegut, Kurt) in the world is still run by Mrs. Grundy and the public Victorian, just as if no one has genitals or is allowed to pay them any attention.
The Kronhausens, writing in the early 1960s, noted that U.S. pr0n tended to be violent, lots of shades of Grey even then, all manner of dominance and fantasies of force. In contrast, Denmark at the time was churning out skin books with stories that might consist of a single extended sex scene full of love, tenderness, multiple positions, and multiple orgasms.
If US telly has a "nip slip" or "wardrobe malfuction" (why do those only happen to women?), that is a scandal, just like breastfeeding in public, which as everyone knows is proof of sluttiness and whoredom. Meanwhile, civilized countries can have nude beaches that don't require a long hike and mountain climb to reach, and billboards with blatant boobs right in the center of the city. What can they be thinking– that the evolutionary and biological imperative is natural? Whoa! Who ever said That?
Guilt over doing what cums naturally benefits those who demand control, rather than liberation of the human spirit. What I find fascinating is the frequent description of pr0n women as nasty, degraded, rampaging sluts, secret (or not so secret) whores. How about healthy, happy, horny just like a lot of men?
Baffles me this sense that "nasty" is good. Maybe related to a time when pornography books had not only Lust in their titles, but often Sin, as if orgasms are evil. Look at all the videos described as wicked and other terms strait out of the holy mf church. Can't something be a turn on and desirable and attractive without being unholy, devilish, and the like. Why is it The Devil in Miss Jones and not her better angels at work and play allowing her to maximize enjoyment of the life their mythic sky ghost has given us, complete with seXboxes and Joy Sticks?
Kahil Gibran, once popular Lebanese writer, has a story about the dude who discovered a new pleasure. An angel and a devil appeared to comment. One said, "It is a virtue." The other one, whichever one it was, said "It is a sin." I suppose because boosting our self esteem by providing pleasure and relief to others is an evil thing to do. Ah, the Holy Babble. "Hate one another as I have hated you." The bigot's favorite verse.
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I stumbled across these gems years ago…
Thought you guys might find them "amusing"
