HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mara@panix.com (Mara Chibnik)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Redefining Self (was a thread I won't get involved in)
Date: 27 Aug 92 09:03:55 GMT
Organization: (getting there)

joelp@cs.man.ac.uk (Joel Parthemore || Pharos Project) said:
     >>>I have in mind to be setting myself up a conceptual family of my
     >>>own in these environs, to fill an important space that has never
     >>>really been filled. I'd like to ask Mara to be my mother....
and I answered:
    >>I cannot say either yes or no, because we _are_ a conceptual family....
to which Joel continues:
 >Yes I know, or I'm beginning to understand, the larger family here, and the
 >families within families intermixed with incestuous visiting cousins that is
 >soc.motss. But I also have the idea to create a mini-family structure of my
 >own here, using ideas that never quite seemed to work for me in my blood
 >family.

I'm not sure what that is-- to create a family using _ideas_.
Even my own freeform notions of families (I've done any number of
emotional adoptions, a couple of which-- one from the net-- are very
strong) have not yet been based on ideas at all, but on falling into
feelings with the other people involved.  

         >>>Jess, would you be the younger brother I never had? >
    >>Does this mean that I get to be Jess's mother too?  Sounds like
    >>Iolanthe, which, of course, is all about Fairies.  >
 >I don't think so, necessarily.
Not that I'd mind, but he's had a perfectly fine one already, and I
have no need to compete.

 >Under this *new* definition of family, I'm the other people's brother
 >or son (or, heavens, father) and they're my brothers, sisters, parents
 >or whatever.  But they're not each other's, unless they choose to be.
So one of the ideas is that relationships are based on mutual (I
assume mutual) choice?  Now that is very different from the
ordinary family model, isn't it?

[complicated web deleted]
 >I like tangled family hierarchies.  (So what if it makes havoc for future 
 >generations of soc.motss geneaeologists.) 
I suspect that nobody unsympathetic to the idea would bother trying
to do the untangling, and anyone who'd try the untangling would have
a good time working on it.

  >>Mara (pretending not to have noticed that Sim and John are the older 
  >>brothers, and using friendly parens because Arnold thinks square 
  >>brackets are angry) 
 >Hmpf.  And why *shouldn't* they be older brothers?  
No reason at all.  

 >Joel,
 >wondering who or what ``Iolanthe'' is
An operetta by Gilbert and Sullivan-- the first I ever learned by heart.  

   

-- 

  Mara Chibnik
  mara@panix.com                Life is too important to be taken seriously.
From: levin@bbn.com (Joel B Levin)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Redefining masculinity
Date: 28 Aug 92 20:11:41 GMT
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA
NNTP-Posting-Host: bbn.com

In article <1992Aug28.194339.3501@cbnewsh.cb.att.com>
	psp@cbnewsh.cb.att.com (P.S. Powledge) writes:
|In article <1992Aug27.195159.14434@microsoft.com> 
|	bobsarv@microsoft.com (Bob Sarver) writes:
|>I shudder to think how deliberately unaware you strive to make yourself.
|
|Whereas it just comes naturally to you, huh?

Isn't that the beauty of complete unawareness?  It's the very first
thing you're unaware of.

	/JBL
=
Nets: levin@bbn.com  | 
pots: (617)873-3463  |                                      "I gotta go."
              N1MNF  |                                            -- I. Shoales
Newsgroups: soc.motss
From: amz@iguana.cis.ohio-state.edu (Arnold M Zwicky)
Subject: Re: practicing roles
Followup-To: soc.motss
Summary: more than one route
Organization: somewhat deranged
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 18:09:39 GMT

you aren't going to tell me that you would have developed exactly
the same mannerisms, behavior, voice, *vocabulary*, etc., if you'd
grown up in rural north china, amongst the nomadic lapps, etc.?

one way to develop this stuff is from models.  another is by
*rejecting* parts of the models you are given.  different models to
reject in different places, so different results.

i didn't mean to suggest that having gay role models was the only,
or necessarily the main, route to learning to act gay.

arnold


Newsgroups: soc.motss
From: ye@physics.Berkeley.EDU (Gordon Ye)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: The liberal media
Date: 31 Aug 1992 18:53:41 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: physics.berkeley.edu

In article <1992Aug30.232620.11258@reed.edu> nelson@reed.edu (Nelson Minar) writes:
>It's a wonderful parallel - the OCA, and some survivalist fanatic who
>is trying to kill federal marshals. Both religiously motivated.
>-- 
Somehow to me this resembles the plight of Geronimo Pratt, the black panthers,
and the Sioux leader (sorry for forgetting his name) who had been hunted down
and persecuted by the same federal marchals for defiantly believing in
alternative ideals.  How ironic that everybody ignores an individual's
democratic right to political conviction in favor of an authoritarian
government that imposes their own political convictions by force.

Maybe people should stop trying to make others so open-minded that 
they have no convictions at all (reminds you of George Bush?); instead, the
society is probably better off if everybody has and fights for his/her
political beliefs.
>                __
>nelson@reed.edu \/   Delicious & Nutritious breakfast cereals shot from guns!

Gordon
From: aberson@enh.nist.gov
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: RE: Sim? status?
Date: 31 Aug 92 19:35:39 GMT
Organization: NIST

In a previous article, anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson) wrote:
>They're doing it too?  I guess it's getting *very*
>fashionable.  Why not, after all, it *is* a fun thing.

Very much so.  But to back to the thread about having sex in heat, I
said it was possible, but that was when there were modern conveniences
like drinking water and fans.  In this heat, with mosquitos added,
nobody really wants to get very close to anyone else.  I couldn't
imagine it could get this uncomfortable.  Thankfully, the electricity
and water returned to my home yesterday.

Egad!  Another transformer blew up on the block just now.  Second
one today.  Still have power, though.

>How do you do that?  Sleep in a cot at the office, slink
>along dark streets behind shrubs that used to be a block
>away, or what?

Slip through police roadblocks which are set up everywhere.  Everyone
out after 7pm that day, 9pm today, are arrested.

       Sim Aberson   Ft. Lauderdale, FL   aberson%3328.span@sdsc.edu
"It's always Beach Party Barbie, or Malibu Barbie....  That shit does not
prepare you for the true horror of a real woman's life.  Where is Single,
Abused, Trailer-Park Barbie?"             - Roseanne Arnold
Newsgroups: soc.motss
From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Subject: Re: Come out!  come out!  (was Re: Barbara Bush is a ...)
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 92 07:49:26 GMT


In article <1992Sep1.023346.8026@panix.com> ro@panix.com (r
l reid) writes:

>Jesslers, if you weren't in front of the FUCKING computer all the
>time, you MIGHT have some time for some FUCKING FUCKING.

I've tried standing on the front porch, Roski.  That didn't
work either.  I even went to the Sun Prairie Sweet Corn
Festival.  Great eatin', but slim pickin' and dry gulch,
weenywise.

>now I'm gonna give your nose a bite and scram outta here...

You sweet-talker, you.  Hurry on back.

<> We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses,
<> but from our illusions.  We are haunted, not by reality,
<> but by those images we have put in place of reality.
<> -- Daniel J. Boorstin
-- 
Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin
Internet: anderson@macc.wisc.edu <-best, UUCP:{}!uwvax!macc.wisc.edu!anderson
NeXTmail w/attachments: anderson@yak.macc.wisc.edu  Bitnet: anderson@wiscmacc
Room 3130 <> 1210 West Dayton Street / Madison WI 53706 <> Phone 608/262-5888
From: roger@quantime.co.uk (Roger Phillips)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: What is virginity?
Date: 31 Aug 92 22:06:54 GMT
Reply-To: roger@quantime.co.uk (Roger Phillips)
Organization: Quantime Ltd, London (software for market research)

Recently, I've heard more than one (ok, two, if you must know)
gay (ok, I'm assuming they're not bisexual) man
describe himself as a virgin.
Too polite to ask directly,
I find myself at a loss to know what they mean.

Might a gay man who calls himself a virgin mean
that he's not had sex with a man?
My personal problem with this is that
I find it difficult to tell where simple touching stops and sex begins.
Where does kissing fall?

I *assume* that gay male virgins are talking about anal fucking
[I originally wrote "penetration" but that felt
too, oh, retentive, if you know what I mean],
but do they mean (using "fuck" to mean being a "top")
not-having-fucked, or not-having-been-fucked?
If one has been on only one end of the stick,
is one still half a virgin?

Is the unqualified term "virgin" useful?
It means not-having-done-*something*,
but I don't think it's clear, for non-heterosexuals especially,
what the something is.
Are there concepts of virginity for lesbians or bisexuals?

When I identified as gay,
I lost a sense of the virginity I'd been "saving".
It wasn't clear which physical act would end my virginity;
in fact, suddenly, my childhood desires
(e.g. swimming underwater in cramped, warm-water pools,
hoping to brush "accidentally" against male, adult legs)
took on a validity which removed me from some feeling of "purity".
-- 
Roger Phillips                            roger@quantime.co.uk
"*frazil* n. ground-ice: ice in small spikes and plates in rapid streams"
-- Chambers English Dictionary (1988)
From: nelson@reed.edu (Nelson Minar)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Sarcasm
Date: 24 Aug 92 02:32:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: reed.1992Aug24.023200.24187
Organization: Reed College, Portland, OR

In article <1992Aug23.231427.22152@cbnewsh.cb.att.com> psp@cbnewsh.cb.att.com (P.S. Powledge) writes:
>Ye gods! Through private email, it's come to my attention that I didn't
>do a good job of making it clear that I was just kidding Nelson Minar 
>in my "sarcasm" post of last week. 

I think it was fairly clear to anyone who read more than the first
paragraph of the message. Certainly was clear to me once I read a bit..

>My apologies to him.

Thanks, I'll hold it in reserve for when you do something that
requires apologies :-)

in the spirit of soc.motss.nice,
  Nelson
-- 
                __
nelson@reed.edu \/          Fortune presents gifts not according to the books
From: mara@panix.com (Mara Chibnik)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: a sad note
Date: 2 Sep 92 20:56:37 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: (getting there)



You may recall, on the thread about memorials, that I mentioned an
uncle in precarious health.  I had hoped to be able to visit him
once more, but didn't get the chance.  Sunday I attended his
funeral.  He was a dear, sweet man, a man of principle and of
enormous dignity. I got to know him when living in Princeton (and
owning a car) made the trip to their home in Maryland easy, and even
better after my aunt died three years ago and he, with considerable
grace and charm, picked up the family liaison tasks that my aunt had
always done for the two of them.  I will miss him, as will his two
sons, his daughter-in-law, his six-month-old grandson, and--
especially-- his wife of less than eight months.

I tell you this because I mentioned him here, and because I
loved him and he is gone.


-- 

  Mara Chibnik
  mara@panix.com                Life is too important to be taken seriously.
Newsgroups: soc.motss
From: bobsarv@microsoft.com (Bob Sarver)
Subject: Re: Is Pat Robertson for real??
Date: 31 Aug 92 22:17:00 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corp.



RE:  Pat Robertson


PR is a religious broadcaster based in Virginia Beach, VA.  Twenty-odd
years ago (1967, I believe) he started a small TV station in the VA
Beach area. By getting 780 people to pledge $10 a month, he managed
to stay on the air.  Hence the name of his flagship TV show, "The
700 Club".

He is fundamentalist, evangelical, and charismatic [the religious
term, I mean].  Over the years, he has been an influential minister, 
and recently (late 70s, actually) decided that it was the responsibility
of his ministry and other like-minded ministries to "take back America"
for God.  This has meant running tent revivals, write-in campaigns,
etc.  He has also estabished a university (accredited by the Virginia
board of colleges) at VA beach; CBN University.  It trains people
for radio / TV careers, as well having an MBA program and a ministerial
program.   The idea is to have a whole new generation of Christian
career media employees which will affect the way the media operates.

He has decided that the media in general (and TV in particular) have
been the core reason for the decline of morals in the US.  So, he has
decided to "fight fire with fire" and produce his own network a la 
Ted Turner.  It's a "family values" type network; only "wholesome shows"
that promote his values; old B&W sitcoms and Westerns (with the swear
words edited out).

Recently, he has moved into politics (presidential).  His family tree
contains two presidents; his background is quite blue-blood.  If you
will recall, he is the one who reported such things as:


1.  (1988) The Reagan administration knew where the Beirut hostages were, 
    because Robertson insists he told Reagan;
2.  (1987) He instructed his followers not to buy any real estate or
    make any long-term investments, because the world was going to end in
    the late 1980s.
3.  (1988) There are still Russian missiles in Cuba.


He also took advantage of the political caucus system in 1988.  By 
getting his stormtroopers to "stack the deck" in states where the primary
system is NOT used (and caucuses were used instead), he was able to
garnish incredible showings in these states.  He simply instructed them
as to how the caucus system works (you show up for the meetings, and
you get to vote--no maximum number of people for any one candidate--bus
them in, if you want).  In fact, in early 1988, it appeared that he was 
even ahead of Bush.  In states where the Rep. candidates for Pres. 
were elected by primary system (one citizen, one vote) he did rather
poorly; 9% to 11% of total vote.

He is very serious; although I suspect he may be (not trying to be an
asshole, now) suffering from Alzheimer's.  Some of his actions lately
resemble the Oral Roberts "I'm gonna lock myself in this Prayer Tower"
fiasco of a few years ago.


Newsgroups: soc.motss
From: elee74l@Rosie.UH.EDU
Subject: Re: Guess my age and win a valuable prize!
Reply-To: elee74l@Rosie.UH.EDU
Organization: University of Houston
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 05:17:36 GMT

In article <15906@star.cs.vu.nl>, fjvwing@cs.vu.nl (FJ!!) writes:

>There are a lot of fucked-up older guys out there, and some young guys
>who've really got it together.

(Checking all my body parts.... hmmm... they all seems to be in the
right places)  Yeah, I've really got it together!  *grin* *grin*

>This can have some funny consequences; I was working at the bar one
>night, when in comes this tall dark handsome hunk with big biceps. he
>starts talking to one of the barmen, Machiel, to whom I later remark
>that I really like the guy who talked to him. Of course, Machiel can't
>resist introducing me to him, Cees. A few weeks later Cees and me meet,
>and after breakfast (don't you just adore men who wake you up asking
>you if you want the regular or the big breakfast, and the regular
>breakfast includes croissants and strawberries) I'm invited for dinner
>next weekend.

Mmmm...... You lucky dog!!!!  Older, experienced, elegent, and expecially
MATURE!!!!!!  Funny that most of us fall into this "mature" thing about
older people.  Could it be that a mature/older person pays more attention
to his partner's emotion? And know when to stop when he's hurting the
other's feeling?  Of course I am questioning these based on the guy
I am currently seeing.  He no longer attempts to talk to me about
the ways my parents treated me, because he know I will get mild upset over
it.  
But anyway, those "big biceps" will help too.  (:

To sum it all up, it's just GREAT to see/date/flirt/*uck with older(mature)
guys.

Boy!!  I have just put myself down, since I am only 22.  *oh sad!*

>
>It is then that he asks me my age, and I shocked him. he thought I was
>25+, I'm not. I thought he was late thirties, he's is not. Cees is 49.
>
My Gosh, FJ!  He's 49 and he looks about 12 years younger?   He must be
a "baby face" when he was young....or did he do facial lift?
Talk about sex in the 50's!!!  (tsk, tsk...)
He just "keeps going, and going, and going, and going, ....."   c(-8

--Ken N.   (kinda jealous, but still happy for you.)

Newsgroups: soc.motss
From: amz@iguana.cis.ohio-state.edu (Arnold M Zwicky)
Subject: sexuality as a private matter
Followup-To: soc.motss
Summary: this is *private*?
Organization: practicing faggots
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 16:44:36 GMT

jack hamilton observes that straight folk do not consider their
sexuality to be a private matter, so why should we?

true enough.  why, in fact, should *anyone* consider their sexuality
to be a "private" matter (not for public knowledge or discussion)?
surely this is as important a fact about people as their sex, or
age, or occupation, or for goodness sake, *hobbies* (about which
people exchange information publicly all the time), right?  it's
something that is relevant to new people you meet, and of course to
your friends.  it's information they need and (should) want, if they
are to treat you in any but the most superficial fashion.

this is not the same thing as describing your sexual acts in
detail to new people you meet.  but then they don't do that either.

arnold (who *does* say some of this to you...)
From: rdonahue@spdcc.com (Bob Donahue)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: the openness of USENET
Date: 26 Aug 92 16:49:29 GMT
Article-I.D.: spdcc.1992Aug26.164929.13511
Organization: insert anything here

anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson) writes:
>But it was a kind of coming out for me, because it reminded
>me of the very thing Arnold mentions: likely somebody will
>at some point see what you've posted to soc.motss (or, as in
>this case, a pointer to it).  

	Heh... about 2 years ago I got an e-mail message from my mentor
(for whom I am working again now) saying "she knew what BCB meant"  :-)

	It took me some time but I finally figured out that someone
else we both know had seen a posting of mine to rec.arts.startrek and
passed the tidbit along...

	Other people in my grad dept. have made it known to other people
in my graddept. (twho I am out to) that they've "seen me on the net"
<nudge nudge wink wink>.

	And one person who shall remain muffined once corrected my
local topograhy after reading a posting here back in 1989... :-)
I don't know who was MORE surprised!  It was actually after this
happened that I decided that if someone finds about me reading
soc.motss it's as good a way as any...

	BTW --- if any of you are outthere would you do me the
favor of COMING OUT TO ME as my supportive (or hostile) friends?
[I wonder what I just let myself in for...]

BBC
From: twpierce@amhux1.amherst.edu (Tim Pierce)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Snaps (no, not *that* kind, Elizabeth) (was Re: New queer terminology) (was Re: The media, again)
Date: 30 Aug 92 17:20:44 GMT
Organization: Amherst College, Amherst MA

In article <1992Aug26.195728.20340@linus.mitre.org> jclander@texas.mitre.org (Julian C. Lander) writes:

>Is this the new conjugation provided for the verb "to pontificate"?
>     I am aged                        We are aged
>     You are an asshold               You are assholes

Apropos of nothing, except perhaps the delight I take in striking up
tangents: I know it was a typo, but I do love this new word you have
coined: "Asshold."  It sounds like another term for "lover," possibly
to replace all of those flat euphemisms, "S.O.," "POSSLQ," "partner,"
"roommate," and so on.  "Hi, I'm Tim.  This is Biff, my asshold."
I'll go for it.

-- 
____ Tim Pierce                / "I don't know how much support NAMBLA
\  / twpierce@amherst.edu      /  has in the gay community."
 \/ (BITnet: TWPIERCE@AMHERST) /   -- Clayton Cramer, August 1992
Newsgroups: soc.motss
From: twpierce@amhux1.amherst.edu (Tim Pierce)
Subject: Re: Gay names
Organization: Amherst College, Amherst MA
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 04:42:55 GMT

In article <1992Aug22.035132.22858@quantime.co.uk> roger@quantime.co.uk (Roger Phillips) writes:

>ObNonSequitur: Where *are* all these wasps coming from?

Redmond, I thought.

-- 
____ Tim Pierce                / "I don't know how much support NAMBLA
\  / twpierce@amherst.edu      /  has in the gay community."
 \/ (BITnet: TWPIERCE@AMHERST) /   -- Clayton Cramer, August 1992
From: fjvwing@cs.vu.nl (FJ!!)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Buck Rogers (was: research on the gay male voice)
Date: 23 Aug 92 16:23:09 GMT

amz@iguana.cis.ohio-state.edu (Arnold M Zwicky) writes:
>ohdearohdearohdear, fj!! is absolutely right, i have *conflated*
>two different, but equally unwatchable, movies.  the winged men
>are in the 1980 _flash gordon_, ...
>i am a poor excuse for a movie faggot.  i should stick to linguistics...
>arnold (hanging head in shame)

Aw honey, it's allright. _Nobody_ should hold it against you that you
forgot what happened exactly where in _these_ two movies. Hey, you even
know who the leading actors were - or do you have a movie encyclopedia
near your desk?

Actually, what you were doing in your head, mashing these two movies
together, could in real life have provided something most watchable in
its bizarreness, something like Barbarella-on Acid-on XTC-on total
confusion, with Ornella and Brian thrown in. Dahling, look at that, you
are ahead of the directors!  You are a *TOTAL* movie-queen!

							FJ!!
From: aberson@enh.nist.gov
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: RE: Rendell Bird
Date: 1 Sep 92 19:50:14 GMT
Organization: NIST

In a previous article, asente@adobe.com (A Usenet Pal) wrote:
>I just got off the phone with Rendell and he asked me to let everyone know
>that he is fine.  There were some interesting moments when he was outside
>in 90 mph winds trying to remove an awning that was threatening to destroy
>the roof...

Yikes!  That sounds awful!  Good to see us all safe.

(Didn't I say Rendell Bird was next?  Was that good or what?)


:-)

       Sim Aberson   Ft. Lauderdale, FL   aberson%3328.span@sdsc.edu
"It's always Beach Party Barbie, or Malibu Barbie....  That shit does not
prepare you for the true horror of a real woman's life.  Where is Single,
Abused, Trailer-Park Barbie?"             - Roseanne Arnold
Newsgroups: soc.motss
From: rcrice@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (roger.w.crice)
Subject: Re: EEO Poll... please read
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 12:46:28 GMT

In article <anny58h@rpi.edu> buckmr@aix.rpi.edu (Ron Buckmire) writes:
>[Haven't seena listing of the non-discrimination list in quite awhile. Seems
>like Cincinatti Bell should be added]

Bzzzzt!  And Bzzzzt!

That's Cincinnati Bell Information Systems (CBIS), not Cincinnati Bell 
Telephone (CBT) - yet, and I don't know about Cincinnati Bell, Inc.
(CBI). 

And that's CinciNNaTi, please. 

Thanks, I'll keep you posted on what I know about CBT. 
Roger Crice 
AT&T Network Services Division
Cincinnati, Ohio