> Sexual repression produces a world in which the nonsexual is constantly eroticized -- in fantasy, we re-create mentally what we have lost in real life. For many males fantasy is not about what has been lost but what is seen as missing -- as unattainable. And for many males, what is missing is the potent sense of manhood they are told is the one form of power they can possess. If a male does not possess this potency in real life then he can possess it via fantasy.
>Hence Kimmel's assertion that "sexual pleasure is rarely the goal in a sexual encounter; something far more important is on the line, our sense of ourselves as men. Men's sense of sexual scarcity and an almost compulsive need for sex to confirm manhood feed each other, creating a self-perpetuating cycle of sexual deprivation and despair.
>In pornography the cum shot has a basic function. It is an ontological declaration: there, the orgasm exists, see it? The point of spilled seed is not to avoid reproduction but to enable replication — to enable the viewer to replicate the sex depicted, coordinate his orgasm with the facial or creampie that culminates the video. It is a weird mutual climax that occurs not only between people — the viewer and the porn stars — but across time, the viewer in the present and the stars in the past. What’s more, the cum shot has the effect of reducing sex to masturbation. In the facial and the creampie, it is typically the man who finishes himself off, jerks off onto face, crotch, ass, eyeball. This enhances the viewer's ability to identify with the porn star: they’re both wankers. "If you say, ‘Can I come on your face?’ or if you try to come on my face, I’ll assume you’ve watched a great deal of porn in your life"
> On television and in magazines, the rich were and are fictively depicted as caring and generous toward impoverished classes. They are portrayed as eager to cross class boundaries and hang with diverse groups of people. Unlike the "undeserving" poor or the "unenlightened” middle classes, these images tell that the wealthy do not long to just stay with folks like themselves, that the rich are open, kind, vulnerable.
> And more importantly that they "suffer" as much as anyone else. Daytime and nighttime soap operas depict the lives of the rich as one sad crisis after another. On television screens, the vast majority of rich people work long hours. While they may have servants, they labor alongside them.
> These images served and serve to whitewash the reality that the rich are primarily concerned with promoting their class interests, even when to do so they must exploit others.
>Progressive intellectuals from privileged classes who are themselves obsessed with gaining material wealth are uncomfortable with the insistence that one can be poor, yet lead a rich and meaningful life. They fear that any suggestion that poverty is acceptable may lead those who have to feel no accountability towards those who have not, even though it is unclear how they reconcile their pursuit with concern for and accountability towards the poor.
>Their conservative counterparts, who did much to put in place a system of representation that dehumanized the poor, fear that if poverty is seen as having no relation to value, the poor will not passively assume their role as exploited workers. That fear is masked by their insistence that the poor will not seek to work if poverty is deemed acceptable, and that the rest of us will have to support them.
>(Note the embedded assumption that to be poor means that one is not hardworking.)
>Jim was very different when sober for a week – energetic and moving in a more positive direction. But he did not see this. This change was not salient for him. It was not reinforcing for him. Why not? Jim was depressed. He rarely used that word in his writing (which is perhaps characteristic of men) but the symptoms are there – sadness, irritability, tension, lack of motivation, feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness, suicidal thoughts. As an escape from the depression, he drinks (characteristic of men) and uses escapist activities (television and computer games)
>No one has any difficulty in recognising the astonishing and mysterious difference between a living plant and one that has died and thus fallen to the lowest Level of Being, inanimate matter. What is that power that has been lost? We call it 'life'. Scientists tell us that we must not talk of a 'life force' because no such force has ever been found to exist; yet the _difference_ exists. We could call it 'x', indicating something that is there to be noticed and studied but cannot be explained.
>If we call mineral level 'm', we can call the plant level m + x. This factor x is obviously worth of our closest attention, particularly since we are able to destroy it although it is completely outside our knowledge and ability to create it. Even if somebody could provide is with a recipe, a set of instructions, on how life could be created out of lifeless matter, the mysterious character of 'x' would remain.
each link has a book and some porn in it
> Sexual repression produces a world in which the nonsexual is constantly eroticized -- in fantasy, we re-create mentally what we have lost in real life. For many males fantasy is not about what has been lost but what is seen as missing -- as unattainable. And for many males, what is missing is the potent sense of manhood they are told is the one form of power they can possess. If a male does not possess this potency in real life then he can possess it via fantasy.
>Hence Kimmel's assertion that "sexual pleasure is rarely the goal in a sexual encounter; something far more important is on the line, our sense of ourselves as men. Men's sense of sexual scarcity and an almost compulsive need for sex to confirm manhood feed each other, creating a self-perpetuating cycle of sexual deprivation and despair.
-- We Real Cool
http://uszu6r4xh4z5cuai.onion