Rational Sensibilities as Freakish
Well, darn. I promised myself that I would begin posting again, but the topic choice is a muddled mix with nothing specific bubbling to the surface. I could chose something from the political spectrum which, the current climate considered, could cover apathy, lies, camouflage, corruption of both money and power, the sleaze of pork (in Alaska at the moment), or the seduction of party affiliation, ego and attention instead of the non-seduction and need of country.
Alternatively, I could chose the bias of culture and the negative impact of racism, religion, gender, or tradition. With the price of gas and food as well as the worsening global climate, I could concentrate on the potential for riots over resources or the potential for greater numbers of people sliding lower on the subsistence scale for survival. I could also simply rant and rave about the general character and achievement levels of our populace, our political process, education, consumerism, big business, and small mindedness. Hell, I could easily write about the way the media cheapens everything by appealing to emotionalism instead of good sense.
But....none of that really appeals at the moment.
Instead, I think I'll talk about freaks - a word and a concept that I abhor.
The blog community is a potpourri of the common and the unique, and I've been reading a great deal over the last year, some of those blog writers provocative, others entertaining, some educational, and some simply not worth the time. Having tasted widely of the offerings, I now have my favorites - those that intrigue me, a few that annoy me, and several that challenge my sensibilities. The blog writers share a lot of commonalities, just like all humans everywhere, even when their life choices appear drastically different or extreme. One of those adult content bloggers recently defined and accepted a shared sexual lifestyle (BDSM) as 'freakish,' encouraging other practitioners to simply accept the fact that they were and would remain freaks. I found his definition, label application and acceptance highly disturbing and have been thinking about it for weeks.
There can be little doubt that 'freak' is an extremely derogatory appellation referring as it does to the monstrous or abnormal. I'm often accused to taking things too seriously, but I find no amusement in the limitations of labels or the bumper-sticker thinking of our present culture. Only once have I laughed at the phrase 'freak show' and that was George Carlin's reference to our political arena which is too often monstrous in its actions and abnormal in its interests. To call a person or a specific group (sans politicians) freakish smacks of verbal abuse from a less than stellar intellect.
What is generally viewed as a normal lifestyle is currently called the Vanilla world for its dull and bland sameness, especially in sexual matters. Vanilla would be the prim, proper and Puritanical venue. As flavors go, vanilla is a safe acquired taste, but it can be easily boosted by application of a second spice or flavor. At the opposite extreme, any form of the BDSM lifestyle, as with other fetish oriented lifestyles, is considered edgier, more extreme, and in some cases the cutting edge at the extreme end of the world. For vanilla people, BDSM activists might be freaky, but for those same BDSM people, vanilla lovers are freaky, too, so what we have is the most ludicrous tennis game ever, with both sides trading shots called 'freak' back and forth across an invisible net named 'normal.'
Regardless of your sexual preferences or activities, everyone in our culture has been taught that life is all about choices; we are the sum total of all our choices. Yet, that lesson has not stuck for those who hastily slap a label on anyone not a clone of themselves. They restrict the right to choose to themselves and are immediately willing to penalize those who select something different. One would think that anyone who has been so judged and condemned would refrain from condemning others, but that rarely happens. It's like a food fight in the middle school cafeteria. No one wins, but there is a lot of slime.
In my opinion, consensual sexual choices are as personal as it gets, and there is nothing freakish in the option selected. Monstrous and abnormal apply to those who abuse children, and I'm not just referring to sex predators here. Monstrous and abnormal applies to all those who ignore the poverty ridden and starving among us. Monstrous and abnormal applies to those people who consciously start wars and to those who eagerly seek to benefit from them.
In our current culture, the only abnormal people are those who try to understand the choices other people make, who investigate those choices, and who might reject them for themselves yet refuse to condemn others for making them. The abnormal among us are those who are curious and introspective, who eschew standard labels, who embrace differences as having their own internal and external beauty, who willingly speak out against pre-judgments against stereotypes, who encourage others to live their lives according to their own tenets and choices as long as they do no irreparable harm.
No, the sexually adventurous are not freaks. Neither are the sexually non-adventurous freaks. Probably the only abnormal or freakish person here at the moment is me.
Alternatively, I could chose the bias of culture and the negative impact of racism, religion, gender, or tradition. With the price of gas and food as well as the worsening global climate, I could concentrate on the potential for riots over resources or the potential for greater numbers of people sliding lower on the subsistence scale for survival. I could also simply rant and rave about the general character and achievement levels of our populace, our political process, education, consumerism, big business, and small mindedness. Hell, I could easily write about the way the media cheapens everything by appealing to emotionalism instead of good sense.
But....none of that really appeals at the moment.
Instead, I think I'll talk about freaks - a word and a concept that I abhor.
The blog community is a potpourri of the common and the unique, and I've been reading a great deal over the last year, some of those blog writers provocative, others entertaining, some educational, and some simply not worth the time. Having tasted widely of the offerings, I now have my favorites - those that intrigue me, a few that annoy me, and several that challenge my sensibilities. The blog writers share a lot of commonalities, just like all humans everywhere, even when their life choices appear drastically different or extreme. One of those adult content bloggers recently defined and accepted a shared sexual lifestyle (BDSM) as 'freakish,' encouraging other practitioners to simply accept the fact that they were and would remain freaks. I found his definition, label application and acceptance highly disturbing and have been thinking about it for weeks.
There can be little doubt that 'freak' is an extremely derogatory appellation referring as it does to the monstrous or abnormal. I'm often accused to taking things too seriously, but I find no amusement in the limitations of labels or the bumper-sticker thinking of our present culture. Only once have I laughed at the phrase 'freak show' and that was George Carlin's reference to our political arena which is too often monstrous in its actions and abnormal in its interests. To call a person or a specific group (sans politicians) freakish smacks of verbal abuse from a less than stellar intellect.
What is generally viewed as a normal lifestyle is currently called the Vanilla world for its dull and bland sameness, especially in sexual matters. Vanilla would be the prim, proper and Puritanical venue. As flavors go, vanilla is a safe acquired taste, but it can be easily boosted by application of a second spice or flavor. At the opposite extreme, any form of the BDSM lifestyle, as with other fetish oriented lifestyles, is considered edgier, more extreme, and in some cases the cutting edge at the extreme end of the world. For vanilla people, BDSM activists might be freaky, but for those same BDSM people, vanilla lovers are freaky, too, so what we have is the most ludicrous tennis game ever, with both sides trading shots called 'freak' back and forth across an invisible net named 'normal.'
Regardless of your sexual preferences or activities, everyone in our culture has been taught that life is all about choices; we are the sum total of all our choices. Yet, that lesson has not stuck for those who hastily slap a label on anyone not a clone of themselves. They restrict the right to choose to themselves and are immediately willing to penalize those who select something different. One would think that anyone who has been so judged and condemned would refrain from condemning others, but that rarely happens. It's like a food fight in the middle school cafeteria. No one wins, but there is a lot of slime.
In my opinion, consensual sexual choices are as personal as it gets, and there is nothing freakish in the option selected. Monstrous and abnormal apply to those who abuse children, and I'm not just referring to sex predators here. Monstrous and abnormal applies to all those who ignore the poverty ridden and starving among us. Monstrous and abnormal applies to those people who consciously start wars and to those who eagerly seek to benefit from them.
In our current culture, the only abnormal people are those who try to understand the choices other people make, who investigate those choices, and who might reject them for themselves yet refuse to condemn others for making them. The abnormal among us are those who are curious and introspective, who eschew standard labels, who embrace differences as having their own internal and external beauty, who willingly speak out against pre-judgments against stereotypes, who encourage others to live their lives according to their own tenets and choices as long as they do no irreparable harm.
No, the sexually adventurous are not freaks. Neither are the sexually non-adventurous freaks. Probably the only abnormal or freakish person here at the moment is me.
posted by kaz at 1:49 PM
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