Live Earth

[nomadologist]

I do.

 

[nomadologist]

is typical of the kind of impulse all too prevalent nowadays that equates all actions with the basest motivations and that has made the modern world so fucked up.I'm just thankful I was a young kid in the 1970s and not today...

Isn't this also a generalization?

 

[Mr. Tea]

Isn't this also a generalization?

Well hang on a second: surely it's impossible to have this kind of discussion without making at least some generalisations? There are generalisations and then there are generalisations: when DRSHYIP talks about 'a kind of impusle prevalent nowadays' s/he's talking about general trends that affect some - perhaps many - people, some of the time. Which seems to be fair enough, as it's not a statement about all people, all the time. Where when you say:

What creeps me out are male high school teachers.

,
it's difficult not to see that as basically saying "I think (all) male high school teachers are creepy".

Edit: FWIW, I've been tutoring kids aged mostly between 13 and 16 - most of them girls - since last year, and I've hardly molested any of them. So there.

 

[nomadologist]

the ones i've met! of course, if you take a look at the post, at the beginning there's a lengthy disclaimer where i explain that I BARELY EVEN WENT TO SCHOOL, so my experience was limited.

there are generalizations, and there are generalizations. whenever a person speaks from experience, they are speaking from their own very limited perspective. people make judgment calls all the time, usually based on extremely limited information. shrug

 

[nomadologist]

i wouldn't expect you to molest anyone, Mr. Tea. you're not that interesting

 

[Mr. Tea]

Well, fair enough, but the way you put it made it sould like you were suspicious of the motives of any/all men who voluntarily teach high-school kids.

 

[nomadologist]

it's 100% a matter of cultural differences between what Americans think of as sarcastic joking and things british people wouldn't joke about. with maybe a dash of "can't read tone on the internet" thrown in

 

[nomadologist]

Well, fair enough, but the way you put it made it sould like you were suspicious of the motives of any/all men who voluntarily teach high-school kids.

rhetorically! with a "haha of course THAT's not it, but it often feels that way" tone

 

[mistersloane]

For the record, my experience of school was it being an extremely sexual place between the (male) teachers and the (male) pupils, and not just in an abusive way - there were relationships going on which lasted for years in some cases. And I do think there's something creepy about teachers in general, but I already got slagged off for talking about teachers being prison officers in another thread so I'm not gonna bring that up here.

 

[Mr. Tea]

rhetorically! with a "haha of course THAT's not it, but it often feels that way" tone

I can just see the Onion headline now: "Area Man fails to detect sarcasm on Internet forum: pointless discussion ensues".

(Or is it: "Area Woman makes daft statement, attempts to wriggle out of it with 'sarcasm' claim"? )

 

[nomadologist]

Who would ever make that "claim" and truly mean it?? Come on people.

Maybe I gave you all too much credit or something?

 

[nomadologist]

Mistersloane, I come on here to STOP being bored at work, and now I have a few tears dripping down my face. Tears of boredom.

Say something literal--quick!

 

[Mr. Tea]

Yeah - I want some lurid Sir-on-boy action and I want it NOW!

 

[nomadologist]

I was hoping for some narratives. I like hearing other peoples experiences, especially of abnormal behavior.

i bet some of you have stories that would make my hair curl, but the veneer of politeness keeps them down.

 

[tht]

how old is the cutoff age for pathological hebephilia (english tabloids seem to feed off middle age wank fantasies for teenage girls, suggesting it's VERY common)

this has been on my mind reading 'a fragment of an analysis' (freud) and some of that late victorian sexual theory and thinking about how often older teenage girls (and boys?) age have/enact the corresponding seduction fantasies

there's some citations in freud for obscure early studies of infantile sexuality written around that time too

 

[swears]

this has been on my mind reading 'a fragment of an analysis' (freud) and some of that late victorian sexual theory and thinking about how often older teenage girls (and boys?) age have/enact the corresponding seduction fantasies

Oh I fancied a couple of women teachers in my school. I'm not sure how much of it was because they were just attractive generally, rather than any fantasy about authority figures or whatever. You can't deny that breaking that taboo would be thrilling with someone you liked. Can't imagine any teacher would have found my scrawny,spotty teenage arse sexy though.

 

[nomadologist]

interesting questions, tht--I would guess that in the U.S., it's somewhere around the legal age limit, which is usually 16-18 depending on the state. No clue what the DSMIV says, but it would be interesting to find out.

have you read Dora yet?

 

[Mr. Tea]

An age of consent of 18 is ridiculous. I mean, most women have been sexually mature for, what, six years by that time?

 

[nomadologist]

I tend to agree with you, but I suppose the problem in parents minds is that although nearly all 18-year-olds are physically mature, not many of them are "adults" and capable of making good judgments in sexual matters.

I think it's probably well-motivated, but the hysteria around "statuatory rape" is highly problematic: the idea that a woman does not have the ability to be a true sexual subject and have sexual encounters because she actively wants to is really reinforced by the high age for consent.

Sometimes I even wonder if it contributes to the negative forces that compel rapists--if we stopped telling victims their lives were "irrevocably damaged" by rape, maybe rapists would no longer have the thrill of ruining someone's lives to add to their motivations.

 

[nomadologist]

Oh I fancied a couple of women teachers in my school. I'm not sure how much of it was because they were just attractive generally, rather than any fantasy about authority figures or whatever. You can't deny that breaking that taboo would be thrilling with someone you liked. Can't imagine any teacher would have found my scrawny,spotty teenage arse sexy though.

I sometimes wonder if the "sex with teacher" fantasy is more prevalent among boys in school, because they've had less social conditioning to see female advances as bothersome and invasive...