Twitter is delightfully random in its interconnectedness. Via a series of re-tweets, I saw a link to the following passage a little while ago. I never would have seen it otherwise.
"In a lot of the chick lit, depicting women slightly older than me, the sexual maturity is that of a nine-year-old, maybe. The sex is just this giggly and ridiculous activity one is subjected to in order to make a man stay in your house and marry you. There’s no honest expression of female sexual desire, the kind you find even in those old cheesy feminist manuals like Our Bodies, Ourselves. We’ve gone backwards." --British novelist Zadie Smith
I have several problems with the above.
1. Why on Earth would anyone use "chick lit" as a barometer of anything significant? Chick lit is a specialized form of writing, aimed at a tightly-defined audience. It has not pretensions of saying anything important about life, or love, or sex, jacket blurbs to the contrary. Decrying that chick lit portrays immature views of female sexuality is like saying that Popular Mechanics doesn't provide good plans for a nuclear submarine.
2. "There's no honest expression of female sexual desire." What is honest? Ms. Smith doesn't know any women who just want to live with/marry a guy? She obviously travels in more enlightened circles than I do, because I know plenty of women in that situation, and for many of those women good sex (hell, any sex) is a bonus. And that's as honest as it gets, girlfriend.
3. "Cheesy feminist manuals like Our Bodies, Ourselves." I suppose viewed from 40-plus years down the road, OB/OS might seem cheesy. But even a cursory examination of the history of feminism shows that OB/OS and other books were putting out necessary information, that many/most women not only needed, but didn't know they needed. It started the conversation about things that no one was talking about, ever, before that time. That is seems quaint or cheesy now shows that it did its job admirably.
4. I see a lot of that "honest expression of female sexual desire." It's really everywhere -- youtube, tumblr, thousands of blogs, twitter, etc. There are thousands of self-published works where women are expressing very honestly their most private, crazy desires. Even in some mainstream literature -- a certain class of "enlightened" woman might not like Fifty Shades of Grey, for instance, but one can't argue that it puts sexual desires out there that chick lit would never touch.
5. Ms. Smith concludes that "we've gone backwards." Absolutely, positively not true. No one's "honest sexual desires," man, woman, straight, gay, bi, Dom/me, sub, whatever, are ever going to be mainstream. Highly idealized/constrained visions of sex -- chick lit, Playboy, romance novels, etc. -- are always going to have a certain people. But those things will continue to exist and/or thrive is not an indicator of a lack of progress -- it's the way of the world. But that there is Fifty Shades of Grey, a website for every fetish imaginable, The Adventures of Terri and Jennifer, Literotica, many many websites devoted exclusively to erotica by women, countless tumblrs and blogs where women, straight, gay, and bi, are writing very frankly about sex (and relationships), is an indicator of progress. The best kind of progress.
What one might want to see in terms of progress, from an academic/theoretical standpoint, one often won't see, because the world, especially the parts directly reflective of human nature, stubbornly refuses to comply with notions of how people should be evolving.
But to say we've gone backwards in the "honest expression of female sexual desire" is to be not paying attention.
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Reality and Observation
Deepak Chopra posted something on Twitter than I have to respond to, but can't nearly do it in the 140-character confines of Twitter.
His Tweet:
"Empirical measurement is a description of a mode of observation not of fundamental reality."
This is a tricky one. Dr. Chopra implies that what we perceive empirically is not real. Such a stance makes the world impossibly opaque, and leaves us in a state of perpetual not-knowingness, and not the good kind.
What is amiss here is not the underlying sentiment, however, but the notion of reality. Consider this alternate idea --
"Everything empirically perceived is real but not all encompassing."
His Tweet:
"Empirical measurement is a description of a mode of observation not of fundamental reality."
This is a tricky one. Dr. Chopra implies that what we perceive empirically is not real. Such a stance makes the world impossibly opaque, and leaves us in a state of perpetual not-knowingness, and not the good kind.
What is amiss here is not the underlying sentiment, however, but the notion of reality. Consider this alternate idea --
"Everything empirically perceived is real but not all encompassing."
This idea liberates us from the blind pawing at an unknowable fundamental reality . . . it acknowledges the realness of our perceptions, the accuracy (and the limits) of our science and measuring capabilities, and gives us a basis from which to explore further, building upon what we know to have already established as real.
However, the further implications are, well, staggering.
1. Everything empirically perceived . . . meaning, there is no such thing as a hallucination. How this can be true is embodied in the idea that --
2. . . . not all encompassing. Meaning that reality in its totality contains many unknown aspects, and possibly some unknowable aspects.
Taken together these two concepts at the same give us a basis and shake that basis to its foundations, but without simply denying the (very real) existence of that basis.
This idea does not make things easier. It makes things much harder, because it prevents us from dismissing aspects of reality that we don't want to deal with, or can't account for ("things that go bump in the night" for example). But at the same time our state of not-knowingness is at least informed by the small percentage of fundamental reality that we have been able to work out thus far.
Social media is too damn . . .
. . . social!
I recently joined Twitter . . . to promote this blog a little, mainly. I also figured out that by following the sports teams I like I can get scores and news items without having to dig around for them.
I also followed some posters on other topics I'm interested in, namely BDSM and Spirituality. And therein lies the trouble.
There is a process, of course . . . one follows a bunch of people, then gradually figures out which feeds to stop following and which ones to stay with.
So far, most of the BDSM feeds I follow are those of ProDommes . . . they seem to be mostly what's out there to follow, but I'm new at this so perhaps My feed-searching skills are not what they should be yet. As for content most of these feeds are not that interesting to Me, but sometimes they are humorous or an interesting picture is posted. Most of the ProDommes on Twitter that I follow really should avoid political/social pronouncements if they want to be thought of as intelligent, but I could say that about most people, regardless of what they do for a living.
The Spirituality feeds, thus far, are more troubling. I get that the idea of social media, at least to some extent, is that anyone can say anything about anything. And I get that in the realm of spirituality, almost anything goes, since most see it as an area where there is no presumed "truth." In other words, most people won't venture uninformed statements about . . . molecular biology, or auto repair, let's say, but feel very comfortable saying anything and everything in the realm of spirituality.
And the problem is not necessarily that this multitude of spiritual tweets is "wrong." The problem lies in the fact that in most cases they are too generically correct. Here's a recent example of the kind of tweet I'm talking about:
Don't be afraid. You are already everything.
Now, this is certainly true, or arguably so, on several different levels. But it's so non-specific as to be . . . valueless, to Me, anyway. It's the spiritual equivalent of saying that "the entire universe is composed of energy," which in a sense is true, but is so broad as to not shed any light on the nature of anything in the universe.
For Me, spiritual analysis (and it can be analyzed) must be specific, focused. I like Mom and Apple Pie as much as the next Girl but they don't get Me very far in terms of being enlightening.
A big part of the problem lies in a medium itself. It's hard to say much profound in 140 characters, especially if one can't shake the grammar bug.
Is spirituality on Twitter a lost cause, then? I don't know . . . way too early to tell.
My girl lissa suggested, and I imagine she is 100% correct, that it takes time to find the right feeds to follow, and in turn to attract the right followers. So there's that to look forward to.
In the meantime, however . . . have to whore it up! Follow Me ( @Enchanted_Palms ) and I'll follow you! Promise!
I recently joined Twitter . . . to promote this blog a little, mainly. I also figured out that by following the sports teams I like I can get scores and news items without having to dig around for them.
I also followed some posters on other topics I'm interested in, namely BDSM and Spirituality. And therein lies the trouble.
There is a process, of course . . . one follows a bunch of people, then gradually figures out which feeds to stop following and which ones to stay with.
So far, most of the BDSM feeds I follow are those of ProDommes . . . they seem to be mostly what's out there to follow, but I'm new at this so perhaps My feed-searching skills are not what they should be yet. As for content most of these feeds are not that interesting to Me, but sometimes they are humorous or an interesting picture is posted. Most of the ProDommes on Twitter that I follow really should avoid political/social pronouncements if they want to be thought of as intelligent, but I could say that about most people, regardless of what they do for a living.
The Spirituality feeds, thus far, are more troubling. I get that the idea of social media, at least to some extent, is that anyone can say anything about anything. And I get that in the realm of spirituality, almost anything goes, since most see it as an area where there is no presumed "truth." In other words, most people won't venture uninformed statements about . . . molecular biology, or auto repair, let's say, but feel very comfortable saying anything and everything in the realm of spirituality.
And the problem is not necessarily that this multitude of spiritual tweets is "wrong." The problem lies in the fact that in most cases they are too generically correct. Here's a recent example of the kind of tweet I'm talking about:
Don't be afraid. You are already everything.
Now, this is certainly true, or arguably so, on several different levels. But it's so non-specific as to be . . . valueless, to Me, anyway. It's the spiritual equivalent of saying that "the entire universe is composed of energy," which in a sense is true, but is so broad as to not shed any light on the nature of anything in the universe.
For Me, spiritual analysis (and it can be analyzed) must be specific, focused. I like Mom and Apple Pie as much as the next Girl but they don't get Me very far in terms of being enlightening.
A big part of the problem lies in a medium itself. It's hard to say much profound in 140 characters, especially if one can't shake the grammar bug.
Is spirituality on Twitter a lost cause, then? I don't know . . . way too early to tell.
My girl lissa suggested, and I imagine she is 100% correct, that it takes time to find the right feeds to follow, and in turn to attract the right followers. So there's that to look forward to.
In the meantime, however . . . have to whore it up! Follow Me ( @Enchanted_Palms ) and I'll follow you! Promise!
On Twitter
Some said it couldn't be done!
Some said it had to be done!
Either way, Me and this blog and the whole #EP experience (it's not a blog, it's a lifestyle!) are now on Twitter.
Some said it had to be done!
Either way, Me and this blog and the whole #EP experience (it's not a blog, it's a lifestyle!) are now on Twitter.
Lenora X
@Lenora__X
Accept no substitutes! Follow Me now! That's an order! (Plus I have no shame -- follow Me and I'll follow you. Everyone gets numbers.)
(thank you, lissa)
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