The sterility of the act in question is not merely biological. Regulation of that act is not entirely beside the point, but it is not really the point itself, either. Imagine, if you can — with charity, if you can — the state of a man in a silicon brothel paying to have sex (a simulacrum of sex) with an inanimate object. The act indicates a profound alienation not only from ordinary healthy sexual expression but from humanity. And from something more than that. If you want an image of a man alone in the universe, bereft, then there it is.I haven't copied the part of the essay that explains the religious objection to same-sex marriage, but it made me think that the objection applies even more strongly to sex outside of marriage and to masturbation and sex with robots.
The Marquis de Sade thought that the old order might be overthrown by a great orgy of dissolution and blasphemy, an organized assault on every accepted value until the achievement of a state of absolute freedom. De Sade and those who follow him hated and hate what marriage was, because they hated and hate the order founded on it. (Even now, what is left of it.) But they genuinely appreciated its power, and believed that if it were to go down, it would go down in flames. He would have been disappointed by the smallness and banality of where we ended up, even if it is more perverse (though generally less violent) than his fantasies, which were almost exclusively limited to the traditional, transgressions and violations sufficiently longstanding to have Old Testament injunctions against them. De Sade dreamt up theatrical acts of depravity, while we have only dreamt up new ways to be alone.
From the psalmist who discerned in the love of husbands and wives an indication of God’s design to the question of which kind of silicone sex dolls might be unallowable in the marketplace — that is the arc of our history, and of our sorrow.
I'm not creating a new tag for sex dolls, so I'm giving this post some old tags that say whatever they say about the topic — sex tools, masturbation, prostitution, dolls, robots. The salient one is masturbation. That's what it is — sex with a sex doll. There is no human mind you're connecting to.
But there could be love and longing for real connection.
If there is no God, is prayer the same as thinking to yourself?
Is masturbation elevated if you're visualizing profound connection with another person, even if that person is not with you? Even if that person is imaginary?
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116 comments:
The salient one is masturbation. That's what it is — sex with a sex doll.
Ordinary fucking, for the guy, is not a meeting of the minds but a matter of attaining an ejaculation, and he's doing it pretty much on his own, no matter how much he loves the lady. Not that ejaculation is a sought-after goal but just the natural end. The actual emotional high is insertion.
The exception would be if you're trying to make a baby, and then it becomes a team effort for the guy.
The woman is likely to see the whole thing as a team project regardless, but it's not for the guy. Physically it's a felt tighter ring around the vaginal opening rubbing back and forth on his dick. All the eroticism happened before that.
#things it would help to get communicated, probably, to advance theoretical understanding.
Are dildos, vibrators or sybians any less objectionable? Why did this become an issue when men began to use machines for sexual pleasure, but was apparently fine when women did? Why aren't women's use of machines to replace men being discussed?
No woman must be made to feel bad about, or responsible for, anything, ever.
Well what about rent-to-own?
There was some film, guy with I think Meg Ryan, where humping goes on for a while and then the guy does the ejaculation thing and stops, and Ryan asks "Did you just fake an orgasm?"
The situation is common enough to get into a script. They guy isn't getting anywhere towards the natural end and just fakes it.
They were friends but about to break up by mutual agreement, as I recall, and move to more suitable mates.
new brothels (in Toronto)
Toronto shuts down sex doll brothel one week before it opens
You’ll stop me when you pry it from my cold, dead hand.
"Is masturbation elevated if you're visualizing profound connection with another person, even if that person is not with you?"
Louis CK apparently concluded the answer to that question was no.
The thing about ejaculation is that it ends interest, for a while.
Not that it's even particularly pleasurable, but that it finishes off an obsession.
So if you're a kid thinking about female genitals five times an hour, you get some relief from the obsession. No meeting of the minds is important.
Althouse's war on the obsession wired in to young men. Or at least not understanding what's going on. It's not like what's going on in women. No symmetry.
The thing about ejaculation is that it ends interest, for a while.
That's the difference between sperm banks and regular banks. With sperm banks, after a deposit, you lose interest.
Woody Allan says with masturbation, "At least you are having sex with someone who really loves you."
yelp review of non-existent business:
Absolutely horrific! Dolls made to look like woman. To be used as a sexual tool. Objectifying woman. Whoever created these should be sued ! Do I hear class action.
Dolls made to look like babies. To be used for simulated feeding and peeing/changing diapers. Objectifying babies. For profit!
"The act indicates a profound alienation not only from ordinary healthy sexual expression but from humanity. And from something more than that. If you want an image of a man alone in the universe, bereft, then there it is."
This is silly. As Althouse correctly says, he's talking about masturbation. The question is whether enhanced masturbation with a paid-for sex doll is better than ordinary masturbation. Remains to be seen if that business model will work.
"The Marquis de Sade thought that the old order might be overthrown by a great orgy of dissolution and blasphemy, an organized assault on every accepted value until the achievement of a state of absolute freedom. De Sade and those who follow him hated and hate what marriage was, because they hated and hate the order founded on it."
This only has a tenuous connection with the sex dolls. But the transvaluation of values has indeed been gong on for a long time.
"He would have been disappointed by the smallness and banality of where we ended up, even if it is more perverse (though generally less violent) than his fantasies, which were almost exclusively limited to the traditional, transgressions and violations sufficiently longstanding to have Old Testament injunctions against them."
Well, the most common "banal" perversity, from any traditional standpoint, is the approval of homosexuality. Tony Kennedy is the violation even de Sade could not have imagined. But why would he be disappointed at the more thorough overturning of the old order, with the active assistance of our overlords, than anything he thought of? Depends, of course, on what he meant, or we might mean, by "absolute freedom."
"From the psalmist who discerned in the love of husbands and wives an indication of God’s design to the question of which kind of silicone sex dolls might be unallowable in the marketplace — that is the arc of our history, and of our sorrow."
Hmm. This requires a little more reflection on the quality marriage and on the injunction, the modern Eleventh Commandment, that one should only want sex that a partner desires.
"Is masturbation elevated if you're visualizing profound connection with another person, even if that person is not with you? Even if that person is imaginary?"
As a sorta-kinda follower of Feuerbach, I would say yes, it can be, considering that God Himself expresses the human desire to be loved. (No, the point is not to turn masturbation into a quasi-religious experience. But Althouse glimpses a possibility Williamson ignores.)
Which is more alienating: listening to Leonard Cohen's music or masturbating? Definitely Leonard Cohen. Nobody wants to engage in civic minded activities after contemplating those lyrics. I'm a fan of both masturbation and Leonard Cohen, but the lyrics of Cohen are far more dispiriting than last month's centerfold.
Liberalism, and all of its evil and perversity, has brought Canada to that point.
Liberalism/progressivism - in its current form - must be totally and completely defeated and destroyed.
The preceding post was all about tribalism. The Fake News was the object of that post.
Defeating Hillary was step one. Now Comey, Brennan, McCabe, Strozk, Rice and Power must go to jail. Hillary, too. Her hidden private server where she ran her bribery scheme started this mess.
Liberalism/Progressivism is all for destroying the Rule of Law. See, e.g., the open borders movement.
No Man is Above the Law. Unless, of course, you are an elected Dem or member of the Deep State. The stakes are high. Sessions MUST be fired.
The Catholic tradition (and much of the broader Christian tradition) holds that within sacramental marriage, a man and a woman encounter their authentic natures in the act of procreation, through which they participate in God’s creative work.
God loves Genghis Khan more than you. A lot more. And the ocean sunfish.
The trouble with same sex marriage is that it's not marriage.
Man/woman has a characteristic set of grudges, suspicions, fears, needs, desires, and narcississtic postures, and marriage domesticates them in a characteristic way.
Same sex is not like that. Use a different word. Civil union.
(list via Wm. Kerrigan)
Millions of people go through marriage with a longing for love and a real connection. In my experience, sex can lead to love, or love can lead to sex. Very efficient from nature's point of view - fucking happens in either case, and love is a possibility. There will soon be gay sex dolls to facilitate initiation of the questing homosexual. And maybe child sex robots (Japan, looking to you here) to save the Catholic Church. Or society can evolve even more and embrace the homosexuality of Catholicism.
Probably ending interest with ejaculation has evolutionary advantages, like it lets the next guy in without a fight over it.
America is the land where cheap pocket watches originated. DeTocqueville wrote about them. In Europe, only people of wealth and status could afford to own timepieces. These timepieces were finely crafted, durable, and kept accurate time. The American watches were shoddy, inaccurate, and didn't last. Nonetheless, they gave the worker an estimation of what time it was. Moreover, the mass produced watches allowed for further improvements in technology and decreases in price. The cheap pocket watch was ultimately an improvement on the hand crafted artifact..........Thus so with sex dolls. Sex dolls represent the democratization of sex and are the wave of the future. I myself would like nothing better than to have sex with movie stars, supermodels, and pornstars. Sadly my affections are not reciprocated. It's very hard for a poor man to get it on with a major motion picture star or even with a girl who does catalogue modeling. The technology isn't there yet, but I'm sure than within fifty years we will all be able to have sex with the partner of our choice --for that week. And the world will be a better place because of it.......It's been my sad experience that sexual compatibility and desirability do not necessarily coincide with the many other considerations that go into a successful marriage,
"If there is no God, is prayer the same as thinking to yourself?" Yes, it would be. However, because there IS God, thinking to yourself can be a prayer.
Women would see fucking as more romantic if humans had the dogs' compulatory tie. The male can't get back out for 20 minutes or so.
It solves the wet spot problem too, presumably. The point is to keep the sperm in there.
On atheists can pray. Believers are just ordering pizza.
No Man is Above the Law. Unless, of course, you are an elected Dem or member of the Deep State.
Or a Cardinal of the Catholic Church.
The present scandal is only beginning and only reading one or more of Malachi Martin's novels will allow you to figure out what is happening.
This one would be a good start,
This one is getting very popular with the latest news.
National Review is attempting high thoughts. Alas the dogmatic problem is not the problem.
It would be easy to build a sex doll that masturbates. Like the box that reaches out and turns itself off, if that's not the same thing.
“Althouse's war on the obsession wired in to young men. Or at least not understanding what's going on. It's not like what's going on in women. No symmetry.”
I’m reading Kevin D. Williamson. He’s riffing on Catholicism mostly. That’s a lot of men. I’m trying to understand them.
I certainly understand that much sex is like masturbation. What I asked was whether some masturbation is like the most profound sex.
I didn’t question the existence of unprofound sex and masturbation.
You seem to be the one with the obsession.
Still going back to Meg Ryan?
Well yes, us traditionalists don't really see much difference between adultery, sex without marriage, masturbation and homosexuality. Everyone else says we are extra mean to the gays.
“National Review is attempting high thoughts. Alas the dogmatic problem is not the problem.”
Hence all the high dungeon de Sade talk.
MK:
At Mass yesterday and the priest said, "Not all bishops are corrupt."
Not a good choice of words.
Many of them need to be fired. Only the Pope can do it. And he should start with Blasé Cupich in Chicago. Cupich is from Omaha but thankfully he didn't go to Creighton Prep.
William said "The technology isn't there yet, but I'm sure than within fifty years we will all be able to have sex with the partner of our choice --for that week. And the world will be a better place because of it."
Jackie DeShannon said
Think of your fellow man
Lend him a helping hand
Put a little love in your heart
You see it's getting late
Oh, please don't hesitate
Put a little love in your heart
And the world will be a better place
And the world will be a better place
For you and me
You just wait and see
The only profound sex is for procreation. Futures merge.
Child mortality being rather low, sex not for procreation has to be the default. But the inclination remains.
A good argument can be made (Levinas, Totality and Infinity) that the future child is the eroticism in the erotic.
A little OT but the UK NHS paid for an 81-year old man to convert to a woman. Idiocy at its most idiotic.
"The act indicates a profound alienation not only from ordinary healthy sexual expression but from humanity."
Sex with a woman is better than sex with your hand, except that there's a woman involved. Now technology may have solved that problem, just as it solved, or at least mitigated, the biological fact that our eyesight gets worse with age. I can't see why anyone would object to that, unless perhaps they feel that sex has a purpose. If sex has a purpose, then sex can be perverted.
I recall Vatican, windswept was almost too disturbing to go through,
could Williamson be more trite and prone to category error?
Is masturbation elevated if you're visualizing profound connection with another person, even if that person is not with you?
Based on this standard, I have indeed felt a profound connection with Phyllis Diller.
Ok, joking aside.
Much of life is a struggle to attain status within the social hierarchy. As a boy in PE class, you don't want to be the last pick, sent out to the hinterland of right field. As a girl, you don't to be the prom widow who nobody asks out to the dance.
For boys and young men, much of our energies were devoted to this competition, and much of our validation hinged on whether we "got" girls and how good looking the girls were. You banged the head cheer leader - you got the gold metal. You banged some homely chick, you got teased by your friends. You stayed home Sat night and wacked off? Well, you were a deemed pathetic loser.
This type of struggle repeats itself over and over again, in college, at work, in your career.
Hey, I didn't make these rules, it's my genes navigating the Darwinian struggle to make it!
Malachi Martin would be in great demand if he was still alive.
Martin continued to offer Mass privately each day in the Tridentine Mass form, and vigorously exercised his priestly ministry all the way up until his death.[citation needed] He was strongly supported by some Traditional Catholic sources and severely criticized by other sources, such as the National Catholic Reporter.[23][24][25] Martin served as a guest commentator for CNN during the live coverage of the pastoral visit of Pope John Paul II to the United States October 4–8, 1995.
He was a periodic guest on Art Bell's radio program, Coast to Coast AM, between 1995 and 1998.[citation needed] In the last three years of his life, Martin forged a close friendship with the Traditionalist Catholic philosopher, Dr. Rama Ponnambalam Coomaraswamy (1929–2006). In the final years before his death, Martin was received in a private audience by Pope John Paul II.[11] Afterwards, he started working on a book with the working title Primacy: How the Institutional Roman Catholic Church became a Creature of the New World Order.
Then he fell from a stool in his apartment in New York and died.
Aside from procreation, sex is pleasurable and relieves tension. There is no profound spiritual element to it.
"I certainly understand that much sex is like masturbation. What I asked was whether some masturbation is like the most profound sex."
Only you can answer that one, Ann.
If there is no God, is prayer the same as thinking to yourself?
God doesn't need prayer. Prayers are for us. Prayers organize your thinking and help your mind both relax and focus.
Of course God wants us to pray, and appreciates us when we pray. But it's not like God is in a state of ignorance and has no idea what's going on unless we pray and tell him. It's not like God is too busy running the universe and we are interrupting him. God's not busy. God's got all the time in the world. And God knows everything already.
Prayer helps us. Sometimes prayers are answered, in surprising and gratifying ways.
I gave up on prayer when I was a young man because I wanted immediate gratification. As an adult I've learned patience and gained a lot of self-knowledge and self-awareness through prayer. Huge benefits to prayer.
Most of my prayers are thanks and praises, not requests.
he's writing about the new brothels (in Toronto) where men pay to have sex with realistic looking/seeming dolls.
Paying to masturbate? Two questions: Can we tax it?? Can we subsidize it??
mockturtle said...
"Aside from procreation, sex is pleasurable and relieves tension. There is no profound spiritual element to it."
I believe Althouse is referring to a profound personal element to it. Or interpersonal.
I do recall, that when my wife and I were trying to make babies, there was a very different feeling than when my various girlfriends and I were trying not to.
Aside from procreation, sex is pleasurable and relieves tension. There is no profound spiritual element to it.
Wrong!
What I have discovered in the course of my life is that there's an incredible correlation between the size and intensity of my orgasms and my feelings for my partner. The more passion I feel for her, the better the sex is. And when I feel nothing? The orgasm is a nothing-burger.
Passion is the secret ingredient to a great sex life.
And religious people know all about passion, which is why Mel Gibson called his religious movie The Passion of the Christ and Carl Dreyer called his religious movie The Passion of Joan of Arc.
I think Joan was a virgin, but if she ever had sex with anybody, the orgasms would have been amazing. And that's a damn fine work of art, by the way. Check it out if you haven't seen it. It's like no other movie you've ever seen.
Also it's worth noting that Jesus spent a lot of his ministry talking about the importance of emotion. Specifically, he talked about love, a lot. So this idea that to be a Christian all you have to do is follow a set of rules, that's wrong. God wants us to feel, deeply.
It turns out that the big, life transforming technology that emerged from WWII was not the atom bomb but the Turing Machine. Computers have changed our lives in many basic ways and most of the changes are for the better. I think the real wave of the future might not be sex robots but virtual reality. Sex robots it seems to me are grounded in space and time and particularity. Virtual reality allows for sex outside the confines of gravity and the necessity to remain faithful to one partner for the entire sex act. Someone looking for for ideal romantic experience may prefer Lily James for the foreplay, Sophia Loren for the heavy lifting, and Meg Ryan for the post coital cuddle. A sex robot doesn't offer this variety. You're stuck with the one model you rented for that evening. Virtual reality allows your partner to morph according to your varying moods and desires. I think people will have more fulfilling sex lives in a virtual reality situation than with sex robots. But further work needs to be done. It's been over fifty years since man first stepped on the moon, and we don't yet have a fully realized sex robot.
Ann said "What I asked was whether some masturbation is like the most profound sex."
I'd guess that for the minority of men (worldwide) who get to (at least for some period in their lives) have profound sex with an attractive woman who loves them, that it's similar but not nearly as good. For the majority - the deltas - who will never have sex with an attractive woman who loves them, they lack the touchstone - it may be as good/better than any real sex they'll ever get. It's so easy for snobby/wealthy/successful alphas to look down on the deltas.
#HateLovesAbortion
"Aside from procreation, sex is pleasurable and relieves tension. There is no profound spiritual element to it."
If there is no spiritual element to it, profound or otherwise, then we are effectively nothing more than plastic sex dolls ourselves.
We engage in sex with our bodies. With particular parts of our bodies -- those parts which are necessarily procreative. We don't sex with our elbows, for example. In recent times we have tried to ignore or deny that inherent inescapable connection between sex and our reproductive organs, but it is there nevertheless, even with guys who eject their procreative genetic material into another guy's digestive tract.
Sex is pleasurable to impel one toward that biological imperative of perpetuating the species, i.e. procreation.
But aside from the procreation, and the real point of this comment -- we have sex with our bodies. But we humans are not solely bodily creatures. We have spirits as well. We are spiritual bodies, or embodied spirits, if you will -- a unified whole. And our spirits transcend both the physical and the temporal -- space and time. When we have sex, it is necessarily the entire person who has sex, body and spirit. You cannot divorce the spiritual from the bodily component.
That spiritual encounter and connection can lead one to greater fulfillment, toward a communion of persons in and through love, or if it is false and contrary to our true human sexual nature, then it leads to spiritual emptiness, an encounter with the abyss.
I am struck by a missing word in both Ms. Althouse's post and Williamson's essay- passion.
And, LOL!, I scan up from my comment and see someone else beat me to the point.
Malachi is,writing new volumes in the hereafter:
https://www.catholicnews
Hence all the high dungeon de Sade talk.
I'm pretty sure de Sade was imprisoned in regular dungeons.
And, LOL!, I scan up from my comment and see someone else beat me to the point.
Just don't call me a premature commentator.
If there is no spiritual element to it, profound or otherwise, then we are effectively nothing more than plastic sex dolls ourselves.
A black hole ... whore... hole, any will do, and a colorful phallic object, any will do. The spiritual component is either humanity or God's qualification of Nature's primitive order. It is an article of faith in the same way that is individual dignity, intrinsic value, and inordinate worth.
"I'd guess that for the minority of men (worldwide) who get to (at least for some period in their lives) have profound sex with an attractive woman who loves them, that it's similar but not nearly as good."
Hmmmmm....OK. So, how does that equation read from the distaff side? Mock says "sex is pleasurable and it relieves tension". Freud's "great question" remains unanswered.
"If there is no God, is prayer the same as thinking to yourself?"
Nah. Prayer involves the invocation of powers, whether it be yours to touch God or his to touch you, because you're so "special". There's nothing messianic (or whatever) about pondering shit. That's the difference.
People seem more offended that I'm confident than I'm lording anything over them - even in my head. Meaning, I know I have blind spots like anyone else, so no built-in advantage, and no sense of one. They're just pissed I can out-think them, in the areas I've given a lot of thought to, so they come off as idiots and I say so - using the word "idiot" (because they're so quick to stupidly challenge with such flimsy arguments as one line from one speech that MLK gave one day, when white people actually decided to listen, before they killed him and his 33% of support at the time). No other word will do on the online battlefield.
Y'all play for keeps.
Can friendship with "benefits" and polygamy be politically congruent ("=")?
The first two words of the title of this post were “Romantic love,” but as I read down I see the name of the Marquis de Sade.
Hmmmmm
So pope Francis, who is loquacious on many matters, now counsels silence.
Is there a spiritual element to eating [food]? Of course eating is more satisfying if it's something you like. Let's say, tenderloin vs. fried liver. And yes, God-given passion is a strong element in satisfying sex but the act is not, IMO, spiritual. Intensely physical and often emotional but not spiritual. Although I have often thanked God for a really good orgasm. :-)
narciso, that link is bad. No domain.
I certainly understand that much sex is like masturbation. What I asked was whether some masturbation is like the most profound sex.
No, of course not. You must watch too much porn.
Is there a spiritual element to eating [food]?
I take it you do not say "grace" before meals. That's OK. I too often do not do so myself. But why do people say it? Why is there an entire body of dietary laws in Judaism and Islam (and a few laws about fasting in Christianity)? Because it is a widespread recognition that, yes, there is a spiritual element to eating.
Again, since we are spiritual bodies, everything we do has a spiritual element. Every good we do, and every evil we do. It all transcends us, while also forming (or deforming) our own inner spiritual essence, which in turns alters us in how we relate to others.
Sorry I gave the gist though:
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pope-francis-says-response-to-division-should-be-silence-prayer-83475
Sex has its purpose, within marriage, our side it becomes a corrupting force, a tool of satan, if one may be so old fashioned.
Gahrie: Are dildos, vibrators or sybians any less objectionable? Why did this become an issue when men began to use machines for sexual pleasure, but was apparently fine when women did? Why aren't women's use of machines to replace men being discussed?
(WHY ARE PEOPLE BANGING ON ABOUT STUFF THEY WANT TO TALK ABOUT AND NOT MY PET OBSESSION?!!!?!?!?!?!?!?)
Well, what's stopping you? The article was about a sex-doll brothel for men, and I don't see anything indicating that the author thinks "but it's fine if women engage in these behaviors that I find objectionable".
Do you have anything interesting to say about the issues raised by the author re sex and technology? Feel free to include, or limit yourself to, women. Or say something that's actually intelligent and discussion-worthy about how the author's concerns are misguided in themselves and arise from an inherent bias against male sexual nature. (Which several commenters have already managed to do.)
Because the 400th posting of your "no woman must be made to feel bad about, or responsible for, anything, ever" mantra isn't even pertinent, let alone interesting or insightful.
I'm going to get out my Malachi Martin novels and reread them.
Narciso, the book, Song of Solomon in the Bible extols the pleasures of sex within marriage. And I agree that extramarital sex [and homosexual sex, married or not] are tools of Satan. But none of us is above reproach, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23.
I wonder which longing--the longing for God or the longing for the perfect romantic partner--is the most subversive of human happiness. We--in the west anyway--no longer burn people at the stake in an excess of religious zeal, but religious yearnings still cause a fair amount of anxiety, doubt and discomfort. I don't think it's possible to design a God robot to accompany and guide us through life, but I'm sure a virtual reality program where a just and provident God overlooks all our activities is possible. Who wouldn't want to live in a world where God loves his creatures and rewards their virtues. I'm sure in a virtual reality word such a thing is possible. So once again virtual reality wins out over robot technology.
Mark infers: I take it you do not say "grace" before meals.
Not so. I thank God for every meal I eat. But eating the meal is a purely physical, possibly sensual, act and not a spiritual one.
"If there is no God, is prayer the same as thinking to yourself?"
Oracion is Spanish for prayer, which is also slang for masturbation.
So yes, it's pretty much the same.
You implicitly know what you explicitly fail/refuse to admit. That's fine. Not going to get into a 100-comment argument over it.
But eating the meal is a purely physical, possibly sensual, act and not a spiritual one.
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take and eat; this is my body."
I would add though that if there is any aspect of life where you tell God to go away, including if in having sex you act as if you can shove God out of the room and close and lock the door, then that is going to be an impoverished existence.
To separate oneself from God during sex is to separate oneself from God. To think that one is going to find anything really all that good or true or loving or authentically human and alive by getting away from God is folly.
On prayer, listen to Derrida
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kmxCGILykM&feature=related
from 5:52 through about 30:00 (the first question and its answer)
You'll find some worthwhile insights that won't have occured to you.
Among them only atheist can pray, and its supporting insight.
Do you have anything interesting to say about the issues raised by the author re sex and technology?
My comment was addressed to, and about, our hostess. If you find my persistence in commenting about how gender is dealt with on this blog boring, please feel free to skip over them.
St. Croix says: While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take and eat; this is my body."
Are you proposing that every time we eat we are eating the Body of Christ? Ridiculous!
Crack's obsession with race gets him off. But his inferiors deny him the release he desires.
Interesting contrast of human sexual passion with another being ( I.e., another incarnated speaking spirit) to the religious experience seeking fellowship with God.
It works if you categorize the traditional church rituals as the act of masturbation with the sex doll and compare that to the Pentcostal experience which makes the presence of the Real Live Holy Spirit its sine qua non. The first is dead The second is passionate life.
Wow, lay it on, tradguy! ;-)
James Brown had it figured out in 1970.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzuor5mlmUM
Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine
So that’s why the lefties, particularly the leftist mediaswine and the Hollywood sex cult, are replacing romantic love with the hookup and a blowjob in lieu of the goodnight kiss.*
I knew it was ungodly, but I wasn’t sure they did.
*Instapundit, 9/2
This is Kevin D. Williamson.
Imagine, if you can — with charity, if you can — the state of a woman garnering his opinions on masturbation and silicon sexual simulacrums.
If you want an image of a man alone in the universe, bereft, then there it is.
God's just not that into me.
How about a little cultural appropriation ?
How about a little cultural appropriation ?
There is precious little diversity in that orchestra. But then, the Japanese have never cared about diversity. ;-)
Ten thousand Japanese singing in German ?
And that's not diversity?
Are you proposing that every time we eat we are eating the Body of Christ? Ridiculous!
I believe you were insisting that no act of eating could be spiritual.
To negate that I just have to give one example.
Now you're insisting that every act of eating has to be spiritual?
There are lots of non-spiritual eaters. Including my dog who will eat dead things in the road if I let her.
walter said...
"Crack's obsession with race gets him off."
As Chris Rock noticed on Comedians Getting Coffee In Cars, whites are offended and amazed blacks have "black" subjects we find important, and talk about, even when white points-of-view are so omnipresent - but WE DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR SHIT - any more than whites care what's happening in the mind of a dog looking out the window of a Tokyo suburb as write this. Y'all, on the other hand, seem obsessed with US and always have. We wouldn't be here otherwise. We've always been just a little too on your mind for anyone's comfort.
"His inferiors deny him the release he desires."
I don't know who that refers to, but, if I was anyone else reading this, I'd be offended because - as this genius describes what he's imagining - it sounds like he's rubbing my dick in your face.
Christ invites us in to find spirituality in the material world.
I don't think it's wrong to think of some foods as heavenly. Many religions are anti-pleasure, and even some Christians believe pleasure is bad or sinful. But I think Christ wants us, in joy, to see the wonders in the world that God has created. And I include a Delmonico steak, medium rare, and a lobster tail, as some of those finer things.
“Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.”
- Ben Franklin
"Who wouldn't want to live in a world where God loves his creatures and rewards their virtues."
How can creatures have virtues?
Whites have had an extreme interest in the foreign and exotic. It is a very characteristic quality of the European colonial explosion. This was not a typical quality of Asian conquerors.
One key to the massive European force-multipliers in their conquests, in which so many were conquered by so few, and kept in subjugation for centuries by trivially small numbers, is that Europeans did that "know your enemy" thing with great diligence. It is a fascinating record across every field, of documenting cultures, languages, creating alphabets, translating literatures, collecting and copying art.
If you want to rule foreigners, it is necessary to understand them. All colonialists were talented amateur ethnographers. It was a necessary skill-set.
Some, mainly Asian, countries and castes adopted SOME of the European value systems in this regard. Hence Japan. But none as fully.
Knowing the enemy is critical. Adopting their skills, where these are superior, also. Adjusting your own tactics and operational-strategic methods to suit, also.
Good observation, buwaya. We know that Western generals read Sun-Tzu but do Chinese generals read Clausewitz?
“Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.”
No one argues that He doesn't. But is drinking wine with dinner really a spiritual exercise? Or is it an enriching part of a good meal?
Some Chinese generals did read Clausewitz - the Whampoa Military Academy, founded by Sun Yat Sen and whose first commandant was Chiang Kai-Shek, was a very important source of leaders for every faction in China for the next fifty years.
Interestingly Whampoa was created as an initiative by the Comintern, was financed by the Soviets, and its foreign staff was initially Soviet officers. The curriculum was eclectic, and yes it did include Clausewitz.
Ho Chi Minh also attended Whampoa btw.
An example of British colonialists studying the culture.
Sir William Jones began the theory of Sanskrit as an indo-European language.
The Hindu nationalists didn't like the suggestion that Sanskrit was Indo-European.
It is now pretty well established in studies of archeology and Paleontology,
Blogger is annoying.
Ho also spent considerable time in the USSR and was a devoted communist, according to Mark Moyer.
Michael K that video must give a thrill to formal tailors everywhere.
Rabel said...”This is Kevin D. Williamson.”
He appears to have gravitas, but that’s not the same as spirtitual gravitas. Is this the same Kevin D. Williamson who told Trump supporters to just die already?
Blogger readering said...
Michael K that video must give a thrill to formal tailors everywhere.
No kimonos.
Holy Crack',
Proving my point more than expected...
You know I must have missed the whampoa connection to ho chi minh, I recall the French lycee,
around 1920, yes he managed his way around the purges, when many were not so lucky, curzio malaparte's recently translated kremlin's ball, has a list of who did not survive the terror, runs about 10 pages of notes,
Sex is better with love. I guess I’m just an old-fashioned cornball.
what I was referring to:
http://quarterlyconversation.com/the-kremlin-ball-by-curzio-malaparte
Ho Hum. Females have priced themselves out of the market. They can all go happily live on the other island (Bear Grylls).
The article goes off on so many directions it's hard to pin down what he's trying to say, other than Williamson is against sex dolls because they aren't natural. I don't see any convincing argument though. He condemns contemporary culture with certainty that we have more promiscuity than cultures in the past. Of course that is ludicrous -- history abounds with societies which had sex slavery, mistresses, courtesans, etc. He doesn't condemn prostitution with actual women, which in my opinion is probably more soul killing and alienating. When a man pays a woman for sex who is only there for the money and doesn't love or even like him at all, he knows it, or he is a self deluding fool. What's more self alienating than self deception? At least with an artificial sex doll he can dispense with the delusion. It's not a pretend relationship, it's strictly a sexual release. He can have integrity within himself.
And then there is this statement: "Romantic love and the longing for God are closely intertwined in our music and literature, in our theology, and, beneath all that, in our souls." Williamson doesn't bother considering the tradition of celibacy in Hinduism, Buddhism, Catholicism where the most passionate seekers of God eschew sex altogether. The purpose of the celibate is to focus on developing a consciousness of being in constant contact with God, and having sexual and romantic relationships are actually a distraction from that, not a means to it. In the case of the Catholic Church, I think they aught to invest in several cases.
The nagging question of whether some masturbation is like the most profound sex. That was asked of some spiritual teacher I read long ago, don't remember which one, but the answer was yes, if you set your intention to making love to/with God.
Females have priced themselves out of the market.
Either that, or they are mere commodities. A hole... whore... black whore. Taxable commodities for social, democratic, and GDP progress. Men, too. A phallus, like another. Womb banks and sperm banks without shared responsibility. And, of course, Planned Parenthood as an evolutionary reductase a.k.a. dodo dynasties.
Williamson has alienated just about everyone in the political spectrum except for the few anti-Trumpers out there who are also religious bigots. Maybe he should consider suicide as a way out?
God's just not that into me.
Yes he is.
God's just not that into me.
Of all the coherent energy patterns, you may retain your integrity, and that is of interest to an extra-universal entity.
One can't have sex with a robot or a doll - or any other inanimate object. This is just masturbation for people with no imagination whatsoever.
Saint Croix,
You know that's a completely separate (and older) meaning of passion, don't you?
I'm coming to this late, but: I'm a big fan of the first Blade Runner movie, so I rushed eagerly to see the recent one, which flopped at the box office. I was taken aback by the girlfriend who is really a piece of computer software, who presents as a somewhat lifelike hologram of a beautiful young woman. "She" was purchased by the Ryan Gosling character, and she no doubt knew a lot about how to please him and keep him interested in his otherwise lonely existence. It is made clear that "she" is capable of learning, getting ever better at being, so to speak, the perfect girlfriend. There may be times when an argument is exactly what's called for. Then the piece de resistance, if that's the expression: "she" hires a prostitute, so Ryan can enjoy a living woman while seeing the "face," and hearing the "voice" of the hologram girlfriend. I can see the logic that this is a good solution for extremely lonely people who don't get enough sensual or senuous contact with other human beings (see Althouse post about sex for seniors), but it is creepy.
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