Le philosophe Ruwen Ogien défendait une liberté d’offenser indispensable à la création artistique. De même, nous défendons une liberté d’importuner, indispensable à la liberté sexuelle. Nous sommes aujourd’hui suffisamment averties pour admettre que la pulsion sexuelle est par nature offensive et sauvage, mais nous sommes aussi suffisamment clairvoyantes pour ne pas confondre drague maladroite et agression sexuelle.I can put that into Google translate:
The philosopher Ruwen Ogien defended a freedom of offense indispensable to the artistic creation. In the same way, we defend a freedom to annoy, indispensable to the sexual freedom. We are now sufficiently warned to admit that the sexual drive is by nature offensive and savage, but we are also sufficiently clairvoyant not to confuse clumsy drag and sexual assault.That's obviously an awful translation. But in what ways is it awful? There is an English word "importune," which means "To ask or request something of (a person) persistently or pressingly; to accost with questions or requests; to beg, beseech" (OED). So why say "annoy"? I've also seen "pester" and "bother"?
The New Yorker article about the letter begins with an anecdote in which a woman leaning against a wall in Paris, suddenly had a man "running his hands over my breasts and my belly." The writer of the article, Lauren Collins, continues with:
I hadn’t thought about it again until I saw, yesterday, that a hundred Frenchwomen, including the actress Catherine Deneuve and the writer Catherine Millet, had signed an opinion piece in Le Monde, defending “a freedom to bother, indispensable to sexual freedom.” “A freedom to bother”—it was the first time I’d heard that one. (The word that the women used, “importuner,” ranges in connotation from bugging someone to really disturbing her. Whatever the level of offense, the behavior is clearly unwanted.)But the English word "importune" is about speech, not touching, and we don't have the same kind of idea that people aren't allowed to say things to us unless we consent. I'd guess that what the letter meant is that people need to be free to ask about sex. How can a sexual encounter begin? Isn't verbal consent what is recommended? It's really wrong to conflate speech and behavior here! The letter itself warns us not to "to confuse clumsy drag and sexual assault" — or so Google translates it. I can see that "drague" doesn't mean "drag" but is slang for "flirting." It seems to me that the letter is trying to preserve the pathway toward sexual behavior and wanting some tolerance about the awkward and imperfect overtures we make toward each other.
There's much more to the letter and to the Collins article, but I'm going to stop here for now. I am very uncomfortable with the translation, and I'm also very uncomfortable with the torrent of English language reports about sexual accusations. It's easy to say no touching without consent. Words are much more complicated, and I've struggled with them enough for one blog post and will self-silence for now.
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I think that there's an unspoken caveat that the men in question must be good-looking, rich and/or prominent intellectuals.
Deneuve is smart enough to know and honest enough to admit that sex appeal and sexual advances, however clumsy, are what make the careers of many leading ladies possible.
Maybe things are different in France, land of the expectation that married men have mistresses if they can afford them. Deneuve herself had multiple children from her multiple extramarital relationships with notorious womanizers.
The situation is as follows: If a women dresses to attract the attention of a particular man, other men must know that it is unacceptable for any of them to approach her. They cannot ask her out; they cannot flirt with her; they cannot discuss their own romantic lives within her presence. Sure, she looks 'attractive' because she's trying to attract a particular man's attention. You're just not that man and you should know this.
Yet, the men she is NOT trying to attract cannot ignore her, or leave her out of their conversations, nor can they avoid being alone with her, should she want to be alone with them (which she will make perfectly clear to them through telepathy). After all, how's she going to be part of the team and be mentored if she cannot be included and have one-on-one social contact with the men she works with? But, no asking her out, or flirting, or anything else along those lines, unless you're the one man in the world she would like to behave in such a manner.
I'm so glad I'm married.
..."Tither-Kaplan, who was one of many women who took to Twitter on Sunday night to vent anger over Franco’s win.
She told The Times that in a nude orgy scene she filmed with Franco and several women three years ago, he removed protective plastic guards covering other actresses’ vaginas while simulating oral sex on them."
Fucking importunate bastard! You can't even film a nude orgy scene with this asshole around!
You see, all is proceeding according to plan...
"Here comes a candle to light you to bed, Here comes a chopper to chop off your head."
Winston was fascinated by the vanished (or vanishing) past, symbolised, for example, by the paperweight. For him, the past represented a better place, or at least a different place (since he didn't actually know what it was like - see his attempt to find out from the drunk prole). At any rate, the past was a place that was free of the influence of the Party. It was a time before the Party came to be, and therefore (at least in Winston's mind), it was a purer, more innocent time. And hence his fascination with trying to find out more words to the rhyme.
But in the section where the Party finally "arrests" Winston and Julia (for lack of a better word), Charrington quotes the end of the rhyme, namely, the "chop off your head" part to them...
So, it was like the Past of which he was so fond, and which he valued precisely because of its absence of the Party, has betrayed him as well.
No doubt Orwell had multiple reasons for using that rhyme - it's very old - but he made it fit well into the plot of the story.
If the leftists and fascists (but I repeat myself) have their way, the freedom to "importune" will, in fact, vanish. What else do they desire but to extinguish any speech they don't want to hear, given "hate speech" laws and rules about "safe spaces" and all the the rest of that malarkey? The fact that you can't know until after she rejects your advances whether you're rich/handsome/powerful enough for any given women is not HER problem, comrade. It's yours.
This is how it's done in 'Murica:
https://www.barstoolsports.com/barstoolu/this-lady-claims-farting-at-the-gym-is-a-great-way-to-keep-guys-away-but-i-disagree/?_branch_match_id=480049250171943782
Good English Translation of the Catherine Deneuve Letter
https://www.worldcrunch.com/opinion-analysis/full-translation-of-french-anti-metoo-manifesto-signed-by-catherine-deneuve
Excellent translation at the worldcrunch link.
“As women, we don’t recognize ourselves in this feminism that, beyond the denunciation of abuses of power, takes the face of a hatred of men and sexuality.”
Yes.
Deneuve has, certainement, plenty of experience in the matter of being hit on.
Far more than most.
In many ways this is a very culturally specific matter, where the acceptable, or expected, or required, modes of seduction vary.
Great letter. Common sense from the French: what is the world coming to?
Those who succeeded with the system as it was don't think the system is a problem.
Of course, that's one big reason for sexual harassment/intimidation laws in the workplace in American law. That sexual advances or sexual responses should not relate to job advancement.
I know those who have lived in France, and note that there's an abundance of very creepy men who have cultural freedom to be creepy in a way that is not acceptable to Americans.
France might be more suave, but the idea they're more cultured is far overblown. Just compare how they went about a revolution. They cause chaos and panic, but then want to be models for the rest of the world.
Someone like Meryl Streep may applaud Polansky, but it's the French who give him safe haven.
France suffers from a facade of sophistication.
"Frenchwomen — including Catherine Deneuve — come out in defense of sexual freedom and the freedom to importune."
She has realized that progressives aren't actually liberal. They are the opposite of liberal.
Impressive letter. Much more consistent with what I remember from my time in the "singles" world, before marriage.
The Left dominates Hollywood and the Universities.
In the former, showbiz women are harangued and harassed by their leftist masters, but remain silent. In the latter, women have obtained equality of power in everywhere but the hard sciences, are not harassed, but get drunk at parties, learn "feminist theory" and make up shit.
Good for these French women.....
DKWalser said...
"The situation is as follows: If a women dresses to attract the attention of a particular man, other men must know that it is unacceptable for any of them to approach her."
Oh, God, no, you impenetrable Neanderthal. In the first place, she hasn't decided whom she wants to attract until she knows whom she can attract. Further, she may decide that having men buzzing around her serves to make her more attractive to other men, in which case you will be invited to buzz. Just don'r get ideas, and don't imagine that your desires or feelings have significance. She will push your buttons. You will get your buttons pushed. Buy her a drink, while she waits for someone more suitable to turn up.
“As women, we don’t recognize ourselves in this feminism that, beyond the denunciation of abuses of power, takes the face of a hatred of men and sexuality.”
Principled and consistent. Rational and reasonable. Equal and complementary.
“Good English Translation of the Catherine Deneuve Letter”
I had already seen that and didn’t think it was adequate.
There are plenty of obvious problems, so it’s not trustworthy for nuance.
The Left dominates Hollywood and the Universities.
#SheKnew. Female, male, and virginal sacrifices, the wicked solution, were made for political, financial, and social progress.
readering said...
Maybe things are different in France, land of the expectation that married men have mistresses if they can afford them."
Well, I remember that back in the '90's, the sexual mores of the French - and of Europeans, generally, were admired by the Left and held up as a reason why it was so silly to bother about The Adventures of Billy Jeff. Mitterand's mistress showed up at his funeral and his wife didn't bat a heavily mascaraed eyelash. Why were Americans such puritans and scolds?
Everything about Europe is superior unless they do something that contradicts the narrative of American leftists (the much stricter abortion limits over there are another example).
DeepL Translator gives the following:
The philosopher Ruwen Ogien defended a freedom to offend essential to artistic creation. Likewise, we defend a freedom to annoy, which is essential for sexual freedom. We are now sufficiently informed to admit that the sexual drive is by nature offensive and savage, but we are also sufficiently far-sighted not to confuse clumsy flirting with sexual aggression.
It still has the annoying use of annoy, but it did much better on the last part.
See also this from Anne-Elizabeth Moutet:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/metoo-backlash-joined-catherine-deneuve-standing-womens-right/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_fb.
"Drague" has a stronger sense than flirt. For example, when you translate a sentence describing someone who was cruising for sex in a downtown park you'd use the term.
"Importune" while it can mean to annoy also carries the sense of being indiscreet. They are arguing in defense of frankly sexual remarks.
I'm at a bit of a loss in this conversation, as I have no horse in this race. However I do notice what goes on around me and agree with Jupiter's assessment that some women are very empowered by stimulating sexual tension and the attention they receive from men, not anyone in particular. Woe unto anyone who falls in love with such a narcissist.
Regardless of my past or present sexual orientation, I enjoy flirting at times with men passing in the street, just for the sake of being alive and being acknowledged as being present. Women don't usually notice or acknowledge another woman who is a stranger, they look away. I notice this in particular with couples, the men are always more friendly than the women. As a woman living in a very progressive and liberal town I find that amusing. All these liberated women! Of course none of this has anything to do with how anyone is dressed, etc., or any intention of romantic experiences.
Is the letter by the French women pertinent to the workplace? Are they suggesting that being continually bothered by a man is acceptable when he is your boss or mentor? Isn't that what the problem is all about? As others have suggested, the best course is to say no thanks and leave if necessary. I'm actually surprised that women are still having this problem of not knowing how to handle themselves after all these years of "women's liberation" and consciousness raising, agency, and all the rest. Of course, what they say and how they act are two different things.
Ann, at least find someone who speaks French to help before hitting the keyboard.
I'm cynical enough to think that it's not that these French women are more sexually durable than their American counterparts, I just think that there exists within quotidian consciousness in France a philosophical bent missing from contemporary American culture. These women have started to work out the moral calculus in their heads, & they don't like where they see it going.
What they have figured out, but dare not say because it'll queer the deal, is that if women drop the hammer on male sexuality, then men, who have more social power than women, are ultimately going to return the favor & start asking unpleasant questions about the morality of female sexuality. Questions like "Female sexuality seems to be really linked to money & status, & therefore women are major drivers of social inequality. We're not going to be have a more just society until you chicks stop being such greedy, social climbing bitches".
At that point, the game will be ruined for all the women who, like Catherine Deneuve, can use their beauty, sexuality, & feminine wiles to climb up the social ladder. Yeah, maybe it's icky to have to blow some clown every now & then, but, getting ahead by giving some head sure beats working sixty hours a week for years on end at, well, pretty much anything.
The one thing I have learned from all these scandals is that a lot of people are leading lives far more interesting than mine. Who knew that women wore plastic shields during the filming of nude orgy scenes and that asking a woman to remove her plastic shield was a breach of etiquette......Most of the Hollywood scandals have nothing to do with life as it is lived here on earth. They're sui generis and should not be used to form rules of behavior for the rest of us.
Questions like "Female sexuality seems to be really linked to money & status, & therefore women are major drivers of social inequality. We're not going to be have a more just society until you chicks stop being such greedy, social climbing bitches".
Where's the question?
@campy.
Questions like "Female sexuality seems to be really linked to money & status, & therefore women are major drivers of social inequality. We're not going to be have a more just society until you chicks stop being such greedy, social climbing bitches".
Right, comrades?
Does that fix it for ya?
I'm reminded of this American perspective:
But of course something other than an objection to being “discriminated against” was at work here, something other than an aversion to being “stereotyped” in one's sex role. Increasingly it seemed that the aversion was to adult sexual life itself: how much cleaner to stay forever children. One is constantly struck, in the accounts of lesbian relationships which appear from time to time in the movement literature, by the emphasis on the superior “tenderness” of the relationship, the “gentleness” of the sexual connection, as if the participants were wounded birds. The derogation of assertiveness as “machismo” has achieved such currency that one imagines several million women too delicate to deal with a man more overtly sexual than, say, David Cassidy. Just as one had gotten the unintended but inescapable suggestion, when told about the “terror and revulsion” experienced by women in the vicinity of construction sites, of creatures too “tender” for the abrasiveness of daily life, too fragile for the streets, so now one was getting, in the later literature of the movement, the impression of women too “sensitive” for the difficulties and ambiguities of adult life, women unequipped for reality and grasping at the movement as a rationale for denying that reality.
Joan Didion, The Women's Movement, 1972
and we don't have the same kind of idea that people aren't allowed to say things to us unless we consent.
Really? The hate speech crowd certainly has the idea. And I'm sure it's just a short hop for the #metoo crowd to define unwanted sexual banter as similarly inconsistent with the right to not be offended.
In my day (1960-67) it was all pretty simple. Every guy knew (a) most girls weren't going to have sex with you. (b) a few girls might make out with you if you treated them right. (c) the way you found out "how far" a girl would go was to try. (d) that's "try" not "ask" -- i.e., you didn't say, Sandy can I feel you up? You put your right hand on her left breast to see what happened. (e) if she said "stop", you stopped, but you listened very carefully to her tone of voice.
Of course this all assumes that she's not French.
Here's the nuance: Liberal American women want to be like/or men. French women want to be women. C'est une femme pour vous. Euh, Francais femmes, c'est-a-dire !
"They cause chaos and panic, but then want to be models for the rest of the world. "
But they were that, models.
Including the chaos and panic. The French Revolution was foundational of a heck of a lot, including a lot that should never have been.
On other things, also. France was the cultural leader of Europe since, perhaps, Catherine de Medici moved to Paris. And that persisted until WWII.
I had to laugh at that Didion quote, considering the high rates of physical abuse in lesbian relationships.
Megyn Kelly: Some women want to be fat-shamed
Should I leave this here? I think I'll leave it here.
Presumably this letter was intended to be read by Americans, so why not use one of the faux amis words, importuner, in a crucial spot, where it would be impossible to translate with any nuance. Does it mean 'wheedle' or 'cajole' or 'molest' or 'bother' ?
More importantly Catherine had a hot sister. Francoise Dorleac, killed in an auto accident at 25. On the cusp of stardom.
And you still need a like button.
Does 'bother' mean what you think it means?
Hot and bothered, for example.
@tcrosse,
. Does it mean 'wheedle' or 'cajole' or 'molest' or 'bother' ?
Dude, haven't you read any Derrida? Where ya been?
Embrace the healing power of "et", to bilingually paraphrase Insty.
From the Bard--Act 1, Scene 3 of Twelfth Night:
Enter SIR ANDREW [AGUECHEEK]
SIR ANDREW
Sir Toby Belch! how now, Sir Toby Belch!
SIR TOBY BELCH
Sweet Sir Andrew!
SIR ANDREW
Bless you, fair shrew.
MARIA
And you too, sir.
SIR TOBY BELCH
Accost, Sir Andrew, accost.
SIR ANDREW
What's that?
SIR TOBY BELCH
My niece's chambermaid.
SIR ANDREW
Good Mistress Accost, I desire better acquaintance.
MARIA
My name is Mary, sir.
SIR ANDREW
Good Mistress Mary Accost,--
SIR TOBY BELCH
You mistake, knight; 'accost' is front her, board
her, woo her, assail her.
Francoise Dorleac, beautiful, with Michael Caine in BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN, last of the big screen Harry Palmer flicks and pretty wacky, but entertaining.
So, how long Will it be before college Co-Eds start wearing Anti-Sex League banners? Or did I miss it, and they already are?
"It seems to me that the letter is trying to preserve the pathway toward sexual behavior and wanting some tolerance about the awkward and imperfect overtures we make toward each other."
Huh. You mean, like RH keeps saying? People should work it out one-on-one?
The French women make a very good point.
The freedom to importune. To ask, to approach, to beg and yes even be a bit annoying about it. It is essential to almost all human interactions, including between the sexes. None of that is anything on the level of sexual assault or even harassment. It becomes harassing when you say back off, leave me alone and the person doesn't. Then it is stalking.
If you take away the freedom of people to approach each other, to flirt, to even ask out for coffee or a drink without being afraid of accusations of sexual harassment and fears of losing your career or livelihood, then there ARE no interactions between the sexes.
Have American women....feminists....become such delicate wilting flowers that they can't man up (or woman up) and tell the annoying importunist to back off? They must be offended at the slightest glance, comment, wink? What a bunch of pussies. Literally.
American wilting flowers can't just ignore or say no?
How is a man, or a woman to know if their possible feelings might be reciprocated if you are afraid to approach the woman, or as the woman continue living in a fog of rage that someone might actually find you attractive.
Believe me, frigid feminists, one day you will wake up and realize you wasted your shining youth on futile social justice warrior posturing and false pride. No one will want to importune you ever if you keep this up. Keep pushing the men away from you and wear that virtual barbed wire girdle. Get a couple of litter boxes because you are guaranteed to be lonely bitter old cat ladies.
Where would Frank Sinatra and his RAT PACK be in this culture?
Pepé Le Pew just breathed a sigh of relief.
Where would Frank Sinatra and his RAT PACK be in this culture?
Ask Ronan Farrow. He might know a thing or two about Sinatra.
The difficulty here, which I suspect is insuperable, is that for some men, acting like a shit works, and nothing else does. She says No, she says No, she says No, she says No, she says ... ok. In like Flynn! It's like why there is spam e-mail. A very low rate of success is still success, and the costs are negligible.
The French Salon is a pick-up bar by invitation only . And the eyes are touching the other one before the stolen kiss, to the point that who kissed first is a hard call.Better that the female leans in first.
When did women become an untouchable caste above men? The same day the Lesbians in Authority declared that competition a crime.
See Dorleac sisters together in Young Ladies of Rochefort. yum.
"If you take away the freedom of people to approach each other, to flirt, to even ask out for coffee or a drink without being afraid of accusations of sexual harassment and fears of losing your career or livelihood, then there ARE no interactions between the sexes."
Well, but, women are saying that having a powerful man ask you to go for a drink is *already* cause for fears of losing your career or livelihood. The mere asking may be regarded as a veiled threat. And I see no reason to argue with that assessment. If you don't, and she does, you'd better be good at your job. Men will use what they have to get what they want. We're rather like women in that regard.
Well, she's right. And if anyone, the French should know about love and sex. Americans suck at both.
I think the sexual hysteria here stems from our Puritan roots, quickly supplanted by a conservative Catholic sexual schizophrenia. But the reasons nowadays relate to typical American entitlement - in this case a "reputable" woman's desire to only be wanted by the people she would be flattered to be wanted by. And an immature laziness at not having a clue as to effectively rebuffing the vast majority of interest that will be anything but. That, and the drama and attention of claiming to be utterly distraught at the interest held in you by the wrong kind of guy. A guy that is beneath you!
The fourth reason is that most of this stuff is workplace related. And in America, the love of money outweighs any appreciation for sex by a factor of ten to one at least.
So yeah, the French (and most developed countries) have a much healthier and more realistic take on this crap than we do. As with other things, globalizing American corporations are trying to take these silly HR norms of theirs to other cultures, and it just isn't working.
tcrosse...Ronan Farrow would know dick about Sinatra!
Anyway, Sinatra was before his time and Woody Allen is his father.
Mia Farrow has done a great disservice to the Sinatra family and Ronan and the fans of Frank by suggesting her son was the result of an illict liaison while married to Woody Allen.
She is a troubled woman as a result of her former lover's (Allen's) disgusting behavior.
The freedom to importune. To ask, to approach, to beg and yes even be a bit annoying about it.
The French are apparently unfamiliar with our telemarketers and door-to-door salesmen.
We annoy just as much if not moreso. But channel these sexual behaviors into money instead.
We're weird that way.
Mr. Collins, introduced to the Bennet family, chooses to read a boring book to them. Lydia (the troublemaker) rudely interrupts.
Well, she's rude in the world of Pride and Prejudice.
Setting aside the book, Mr. Collins says, "But I will no longer importune my young cousin."
Who is importuning whom is, more or less, the point of the book.
Have American women....feminists....become such delicate wilting flowers that they can't man up (or woman up) and tell the annoying importunist to back off? They must be offended at the slightest glance, comment, wink? What a bunch of pussies. Literally.
They do it because they're too entitled to accept that:
1. The undesired suitor doesn't "lower" Ms. Unobtainable's "status".
2. Being wanted by the "wrong" person doesn't translate into the sort of "violation" that gets Ms. Unobtainable the attention and sense of being rescued that she craves.
I don't think Prof. Althouse means it when she says, "no touching without consent." Modern society frequently requires that one be in such close quarters (e.g., on an airplane, in a subway, in an elevator) that incidental physical contact is unavoidable. Yet many people are very offended by those (mostly Orthodox Jews) who demand that such facilities be sex- segregated, lest they be touched--without their consent--by a member of the opposite sex. At least, I never heard Prof. Althouse defend the right to sex-segregated public facilities in order to protect against unwanted touching.
Well, but, women are saying that having a powerful man ask you to go for a drink is *already* cause for fears of losing your career or livelihood. The mere asking may be regarded as a veiled threat. And I see no reason to argue with that assessment.
No doubt. People in power, men and women, can abuse their position for all sorts of reasons...including sex. This has been an issue for thousands of years. The current issue is that the #metoo hysteria has oozed out of the office (so to speak) and is everywhere in every interaction.
If we cannot draw the distinction between the boss threatening the secretary, the Harvey Weinstein predator types of the world and the awkward guy at the lunch counter calling the waitress sweetie because he thinks she is cute or is just flirting a bit, then the whole movement of #metoo becomes suspect. We will end up throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Assuming there ARE any babies :-D
Jupiter brought up the phrase, IN LIKE FLYNN. Yes, where would the likes of an Errol Flynn be in this culture?
Think of what Errol had to endure in his own time.
He'd be laughing at all of us for the hypocrites that Americans are.
Feminists, bah! Dykes!
Thought you might be interested in this Reddit post from a white, female medical student who's just been informed of sexual harassment charges have just been filed against her:
https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/7ps154/help_sexual_harassment_allegation_against_me_what/
Yeah, maybe it's icky to have to blow some clown every now & then, but, getting ahead by giving some head sure beats working sixty hours a week for years on end at, well, pretty much anything.
Can I frame that quote?
This pretty much sums it up. Throw it at any woman, and she would be too stumped and dumbfounded to see the simple and incredibly obvious conundrum in it. There's an entire political party in America that disregarded our country's deplorable working conditions and treatment of "the working class" solely to play (mostly feminist) identity politics games instead. And then claimed shock in the extreme when a majority of women in deindustrialized America voted to indicate that being able to eat was more important than having a president who fought for her female pride instead. And she voted for the candidate who deliberately sought to appeal to the former over the latter. Shocking, I know.
Women are stupid. And even still, the voters knew better nonetheless. Isn't that something.
The Godfather and I share the same period of time (1960-67). All I can say is that relationships between men and women (or more properly boys and girls) back then were "complicated", but the girls were pretty much in charge. I don't think that things have gotten any less complicated since then.
French women don't think, let alone believe, that either the feminine or masculine genders are four letter words. Darling, this may be the beginning of a beautiful Duck Dynasty.
Emma Sulkowicz has some new bondage art...
I heard a comedian recently who has a bit about being "caught" looking at a woman's boobs..that she put glitter on.
Something about it not being a smart bomb.
we don't have the same kind of idea that people aren't allowed to say things to us unless we consent.
Sure we do..that's what Antifa and the SJWers are all about. This idea rules every college campus in America today.
Ask Ben Shapiro about it.
@Comanche Voter & the Godfather,
The Godfather and I share the same period of time (1960-67). All I can say is that relationships between men and women (or more properly boys and girls) back then were "complicated", but the girls were pretty much in charge. I don't think that things have gotten any less complicated since then.
You old goats! (I say that in jest)
Those boy-girl relationships you described held steady up thru the 70s & 80s, at least for the high school years. I remember with fondness heavy make-out sessions in the back seat of my '74 Chevy Nova. But the pill and sexual revolution changed all that, for 18 year olds at college -- to the boys' delight, I might add.
I remember reading something about how they made a French version of the TV Show "The Office". IIRC most of the jokes translated, except for sexual harassment, since instead of retiring to the fainting couches, French women shovel crap right back.
Trump referred to Hait as a shithole country that we perhaps don't want immigrants from. Even now there are thousands of Trump voodoo dolls with pins stuck in them.
buwaya, passim.
I’m still reading hereabouts. Still greatly enjoying your posts from a-silent background. You inveterate-incorrigible old croc missing the opportunity to tie “chaos and panic” (@ 1/11/18, 4:27 PM) beyond modeling into the unstable geniuses of French sexuelle lives-lived, Shakespeare importing the ghost of Margaret of Anjou in his histories to stand at the end looking empty up to Heaven among the many dead - but, now stable - genius corpses of English history where chaos and panic - sexual - were spent. I beg your opinion whether the objects of sexual desire sui generis influence the truth-values of our statements about desire, disagreeing as I do with Hitchcock that logic, in sexual modes, is boring.
Fandor said...
"Anyway, Sinatra was before his time and Woody Allen is his father."
Have you ever seen a photograph of Young Blue-Eyes?
"I think the sexual hysteria here stems from our Puritan roots, quickly supplanted by a conservative Catholic sexual schizophrenia"
There is no conservative Catholic sexual schizophrenia.
Unless you mean among the Irish. I wouldn't know about that.
The Irish are weird.
Otherwise Catholic countries are not notably schizophrenic.
Or puritan - the idea is laughable.
Flirting is a way of life, even if they are not quite as insanely promiscuous.
The Irish have typically accounted for the majority of the Catholic population in America. They were prolific breeders.
Jupiter...a simple DNA test would tell the tale if Ronan was frank's or Woody's child and that has not been forthcoming.
Photos can be photoshopped, don't you know. Besides, they don't mean a thing.
That, and the drama and attention of claiming to be utterly distraught at the interest held in you by the wrong kind of guy. A guy that is beneath you!
My Facebook feed is full of #metoo tales of women who suffered the unendurable--the wrong guy came on to her, touched her, followed her. Women tell their own stories in the comments and I am appalled at the number of them who conclude their little traumas by telling how they ran back to the protection of boyfriends and husbands.
What is wrong with women? Can they not protect themselves from strangers in the park/bus/workplace? How much more empowering to hear women tell stories about how they avoided the creeps or about how they suffered an assault and learned to be stronger. Instead, we get the stories told by women enjoying exactly how helpless they were in the moments when they FEARED assault.
rhardin...describe Haiti? When was your last visit? Voodoo dolls are bullshit unless you believe? Do you believe?
Anyway, your comment was amusing. Keep trying.
He had made the girl happy. And what a girl.
''You've saved my life, she said. ''You'd better make it up to me.''
As Good as It Gets (1997), book ending.
I talked to Haiti in 1953 as a kid, HH2OT. Who was a missionary, I think. My first decently foreign country contact.
On 40m as I recall, in the early morning, before the school bus.
prairie wind said...
"Women tell their own stories in the comments and I am appalled at the number of them who conclude their little traumas by telling how they ran back to the protection of boyfriends and husbands."
It could just be that some women get a warm fuzzy from thinking about being protected by big strong males. Stranger things have happened. And it could be their males got a warm fuzzy from feeling protective. And the woman maybe doesn't think it hurts anything for the big lug to know that other guys are after her bigly. It all makes sense to me. Why they want to tell you about it, I dunno.
I talk to odd Caribbean islands all the time now in the early morning, owing to the extreme portability of ham radios now and vacationing Americans. But it was rare in the 50s. A radio weighed a ton.
Hey Bay Area Guy--being an old goat has its rewards. That and a good imagination can lead to a rich fantasy life about the way things were(nt) way back in the wayback.
But seriously things were complicated then--and they are complicated now. Anybody who wants to reduce male female relations to a simple set of rules is just that--a simpleton. Saying dumb things at the top of your voice doesn't make you (or what you say or said) any smarter. Today's SJW types never learned that lesson.
"I talked to Haiti in 1953 as a kid, HH2OT."
We are all going to have to learn from you pretty soon.
Shortwave with Morse code groups and one-time pads.
Can't be monitored effectively.
rhhardin, your a ham? Remember Jean Shepherd? WOR, out of NYC?
Jean Shepherd was K2ORS. He kazoo'd his call once in a monologue. "See, that was a message. I told people a lot." And you could look him up in the Callbook.
He had some w9 call before that.
K2ORS would probably have been from the late 50s. I was a K2D which was issued in '53.
I'm licensed now based on a test I took when I was 12.
There's nothing secure about ham radio. Machines can read morse unless it's sent really badly.
Steganography would be its best option. Conceal that there's any message at all with particular transmissions disguised as ordinary. The bit rate is very low for that, though.
Good stuff, rhhardin.
“Where would Frank Sinatra and his RAT PACK be in this culture?”
I dunno. But when Frank was singing and the band was swinging and we drank Bourbon and water and drove V-8’s we bestrode the world like a colossus. Then we decided we didn’t want too any more. We decided. Nobody took it away, we threw it away.
"shovel crap right back"
I knew very well a woman who was on Wall Street for many years in the 80s. Once she went to a meeting with a big new client firm, walking into their boardroom full of execs and lawyers, with her immediate superior and a flunky.
The superior "jokes" to her as they are about to sit "Look at this table, X! We could really do something on that, eh?"
To which she shot back "I don't think it's big enough for us both."
And that was the end of that incident.
But, there were many others, involving other men, and her and other women in the office.
Eventually, during a business slump, there was a layoff, which just happened to remove essentially all of the women. She elected, as did the rest, to take the severance package, and agreed not to sue. There was, however, no NDA. No point, really, since this kind of behavior was common knowledge in the industry.
The woman in question continued her career in other industries. Said she'd never go back to that kind of locker-room environment.
The situation is as follows: If a women dresses to attract the attention of a particular man, other men must know that it is unacceptable for any of them to approach her. They cannot ask her out; they cannot flirt with her; they cannot discuss their own romantic lives within her presence. Sure, she looks 'attractive' because she's trying to attract a particular man's attention. You're just not that man and you should know this.
That's pretty much the truth of it. It's the Pareto principle without a net - 20% of the guys are up to their ears in female attention and the rest are risking legal and employment consequences by even showing interest.
I'm glad I've aged out of the dating scene, and it's difficult to blame younger guys who are short or overweight or ugly or just awkward for eschewing women in favor of video games and porn.
Even before the Moslem invasion, it was notorious that an attractive, unaccompanied woman on the streets of any town in Catholic Europe could expect some importuning from males, by no means always polite. It's good to hear from a few grownups.
NPR used the the translation "seduce", and I think that's the right word.
The Frenchwomen are right.
The comparison of artistic freedom to sexual freedom was apt. After recalling the phrase (also a French one) épater le bourgeois* that is so often used to defend artistic freedom, I conclude that 'annoy' might be an inadequate translation because the word is too mild.
* usually translated into English as 'shock the middle class'
It's possible that importuner was the wrong word.
I think the word they were going for was de harceler. A synonym for harceler is importuner.
Harceler means to harass, or pester. It's something hetero men do to get into a woman's pants.
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