From: owen@autodesk.com (D. Owen Rowley)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Dworkin (was Re: Liberty)
Date: 22 Dec 92 22:55:18 GMT

In article <mattm-221292104543@mcmelmon.apple.com>, mattm@apple.com (Matthew Melmon) writes:
> In article <1992Dec22.172912.2724@tc.cornell.edu>,
> shore@dinah.tc.cornell.edu (Melinda Shore) wrote:
> 
> > 
> > And how do you think she arrived at her conclusions?  Andrea
> > Dworkin writes that all heterosexual sex is rape...
> 
> > ...reading Dworkin could lead more men to the "Aha!" experience.
> 
> Pseudo-intellectoid crap.  
> Sex is necessary for the continuation of the species. If all sex 
> is rape - then rape is necessary for the continuation of the species.  
> If the quack is to be taken at her word, it is only natural that 
> women are to be raped, and men should think nothing of it.
> Is this the "Aha!" experience pseudo-intellectoid feminists
> want men to have?

You really have one of the most abrasive styles I've ever seen on this
net Matthew, congratulations :-)

I suspect that in the long history of sex and our species, the concept
we currently call rape, has actually been a common part of the interplay
at work.
Raiding another tribe or village for women was probably a perfectly
acceptable way of insuring genetic diversity at one time.

But that doesn't mean that we can't grow as a species and evolve social
constructs which depart from that history.

I'm well known in these parts for my opinion regarding hormones
and behavior, so it will come as no surprise to some that I actually
do think that all men have the potential to rape. Whats that old
saying .. * a stiff dick knows no conscience* ?

Will it take behavior modification on a mass scale to counteract
the testosterone based urge to spread sperm freely regardless of
consent? Will it take social constructs which support a long term
experiment to breed gentler kinder penis weilders?
Our male dominated alopathiv medical system was all too willing to have
women alter the hormonal balance of their wombs in order to make
a hostile environment for conception, Would they consider altering the 
chemistry of the vaginal canal to become a hostile or dangerous  environment 
for a penis?

I do not advocate any specific course of action or social agenda, but
I do advocate looking at the parameters of the problem from a 
wide POV, and being as thourough as possible in investigating possibilitys.

Clearly Women have a serious stake in the situation, and clearly
women have a view of the situation that is different from a mans.

I wonder if an *aha* experience would make fuck-all difference
except amongst those men who could already be easily educated 
on the social undesireability of forcing sex on unwilling partners.

It seems we are headed into a future where we are being herded
by our social structure into more governmemt control of individual
sexual liberty, less personal control over the ownership of our own bodies.

As  a person who wasted his youth by voluntarily giving away 
my sexual liberty to win social approval, I am not happy about
facing a futue of involuntarily having to do that again!
( on the other hand it DID keep me alive and healthy, most others
of my generation who shared my sexual style are long gone by now)

Anti-abortion forces seem unable to project that the same legal
basis that strips a woman of her right to abort a foetus, can be used as 
a basis to strip a woman of the right to initiate a foetus.

I wonder sometimes about those pro-choice advocates who completely discount
the sperm-parents right to be informed and consent to the abortion of
a foetus.  In my opinion the woman must be the final arbiter of the
decision, but I also think that the act which resulted in conception
is a sort of contract, and the sperm-parent should have some input
as well as responsibility regarding the results. How society will
codify those parameters is a thorny question, I do not have answers for
them, only observations and a wish for common sense.


> *X*
> (of course, feminism has *nothing* to do with men, so I suppose
> the reaction of men is of no concern. but perhaps, some day,
> all these barking bimbos will realize that if *everything* men
> do is wrong, then *nothing* they do is wrong, and we can get 
> back to a more relaxed interaction between the sexes.  until
> such time, heterosexual men would be well advised to at least
> consider the fringe benefits of homosexuality...)

Oh Gawd Matthew...

I think that as women are free'd from the responsibility of bearing
children as the default result of sexual activity, society and womens 
place in it will change. As womens place in society changes, mens place
in society must also change, if for no other reason than to accomodate the
changed women. 

Oddly enough in Pre-christian Celtic Society, the social struture was 
matri-focal in that children were the sole *property* of the mother.
A males closest male realtives were .. brothers  born of the same mother 
( womb-mates ), and your mothers brothers born of the same mother
(uncles and cousins).

Paternity may or may not have been known about but in either case was
not a factor in the social scheme of social inheritance. ( Rhesus monkeys
have this same matri-focal social structure BTW) In that culture, women
also owned the hearth and home, and men could co-habit the home only at the
sufferance of the women. ( in other words when she got tired of him, he got
thrown out ) Men not cohabiting with women lived in common *mens houses*
or  left the tribe looking for adventure or resettlement.

These Celts were known in the ancient world for their complete lack of
sexual morals ( at least those morals common in the mediteranean cultures).
Apparently their custom of engaging in sex anytime they wanted, in a variety
of gender groupings, shocked several Roman observers so profoundly that
the horrible truth of these barbarians and their antics was considered too
risque for sensative roman society.

LUX ./. owen
--
D. Owen Rowley {uunet,fernwood,sun}!autodesk!owen

  " It will be a cold March 17th that I celebrate the imposition of
	Romes rule, on Pagan Ireland. Erin go ppphhhhhttttttt! "
Newsgroups: soc.motss