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Uncomfortable topics (e.g. Doniger type tackiness, etc)
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03-25-2014, 10:43 AM
As the title says, I'm justifying the creation of yet another thread with the fact that tacky or otherwise unpleasant/uncomfortable stuff can go here. That way, people won't accidentally catch sight of such stuff if they would prefer not to, as they'd need to click on the link first.
[color="#FF0000"]WARNING: This is not a pleasant post
It contains stuff of a sexually unpleasant nature[/color] Not the sort of stuff I ever wanted to write on (or be remembered for writing), but the muck is unavoidable now. In an item linked from the rajeev2004 blog some time back, there was the following comment indiafacts.co.in/wendy-donigers-fake-victimhood/ Quote:Chitra Raman February 14, 2014 9:48 am Reply I came across the highlighted title again more recently, when one of the English-language songs that I actually like had been covered by some modern emo-band, and which had then been included by some crazy person as somehow belonging in their chosen soundtrack for an upcoming movie called "50 shades of grey". Piqued (big mistake - but I keep making them), and remembering that I had seen its name mentioned earlier in the above comment, I looked up what this movie was about. Turns out it is based on some book trilogy. Further: - it's written by some middle-aged British woman - apparently it started out as a fan-fiction for the "Twilight" series of crappy teen 'sparkly vampire' 'romances' that seemed to have really appealed to middle-aged western females (and not just teeny western females) - the initially unclear summary came across like a typical trashy romance novel - further reviews and comments reveal it's actually S&M* literature [* When I was a teen, the females in my class used to (deliberately) equate S&M with "SM" which in NL stands for Seksuele Misbruik = Sexual Abuse. I'm not very familiar with modern Indians and not sure what they know or don't. E.g. I recall one IF member for instance didn't know what basic words like "hitched" meant - getting hitched means getting married, btw. So for any who may not know, then, S&M stands for sado-masochism. And if you don't know what that means, well, Lucky You: trust me, you don't want to know, and you want to stop reading this thread.] I read a couple of scathing reviews right at the top of amazon's review page. These two reviews were fun to read, but they curiously pointed out what (in their opinion) was better "erotica" literature, and referred to Anne "Interview with a Vampire" Rice's "Beauty trilogy". Curious as to what constituted a better class of literature for them, I looked up this "Beauty trilogy" in amazon. Also S&M literature, going by the reviews. Amazon provided a Look Inside the book. The entire introduction by the author was available. As well as the first 1.5 chapters or so. - author Anne Rice, wrote the trilogy under a pseudonym to keep it from family (esp. dad) and friends, and later asked her dad not to read it. So clearly she doesn't feel entirely comfortable about it - she felt it expressed her sexuality/her need for stories of this kind, and that the appeal to wider audiences was apparent from how well the books sold, despite the following: [color="#0000FF"]- intriguingly she stated that her trilogy was BANNED, and not available in libraries generally[/color], which is interesting to note in the context of Doniger's torture porn - as an aside, the story uses Sleeping Beauty as a launchpad for its background: Rice declared in great ignorance that since Sleeping Beauty was woken with a kiss, that Rice started considering - what she no doubt thought was greatly 'innovative' of her - that Sleeping Beauty was actually awakened by the Prince copulating with her. Now, for someone like Rice - who pretends to be so literate - Rice is obviously not well-read: even in early NL high school (when we were 13), the "real meanings" of fairy tales was part of our "philosophy" curriculum. Sleeping Beauty - the teachers repeatedly hammered into our pained brains - should be read as being woken by the prince's "magic wand", which the teachers then felt compelled to expand on and say it was a reference to his reproductive organ. [My class - as that of my sister's before me - became uncomfortable and reeled: "can ya please stop raping us, teachers" complained several of my classmates. I understand them better now.] I think that because it was a catholic school the teachers perhaps were deliberately (or forced by their own more restrictive upbringings?) trying to debilitate the students and any budding sexuality by talking only of perverseness. Similarly, we were told the 'real' version of Red Riding Hood: she was warned off by her mum from talking to strange aka dangerous men ("wolves") and since Little Red Riding Hood didn't listen, she was raped by one who lured her from the path and ambushed her (aka the "wolf", i.e. the negative male stereotype in male-female interaction) whereas the hunter was to represent the positive male stereotype. Other fairy tales got the same treatment - all were turned into stories about awkward male-female dynamics and warning women of men. There's a lot of literature "analysing" and "explaining" fairy tales from Freudian perspectives in mainland Europe. I have repeatedly noticed that whenever American or even British reviewers speak of the "darkness" of European fairy tales, they don't mean to allude to this at all: they exclusively refer to the more explicit cruelty or dark/dreary endings (such as how the evil queen in Snow White was punished in the end, and the actual treatment the evil queen meted out to Snow White throughout: the Disney version IIRC only covered the apple and not the poisonous comb and suffocating belt etc). In reality, this just underscores that Americans and Brits don't have a clue about the modern mainland-European sordid psycho-analytical readings of their fairy tales. [BTW: Based on various significant indicators (but which are not the point of this post), I don't think these are the "original" readings of said fairy tales - at least, not in the case of all European fairy tales. But once they teach/force you to start seeing/reading them that way, it becomes hard for some people to not continue doing so, and hard to unlearn it. Sort of like how Doniger's effects - and that of other 'less offensive' aliens - influences native parrots and other subvertibles on how to "read/view" Hindu religion/narratives.] Another of the interesting statements in Anne Rice's intro was that she wanted to write erotica literature that appealed to her, and that existing erotica literature by men (she's a feminist) had S&M too excessively violent and harmful. Disturbing, these "degrees" of "harmful" (and that she draws a line that must be acceptable since she has approved it, but which others feel they *can* cross). Especially disturbing, when she kept on going about how her own work celebrated humiliation and a "not-so-painful" form of torture (let's call it torture-porn lite, then, shall we?) as a pleasant "civilised" form of "enlightened sexual pleasure". And let's not notice that Rice had her Sleeping Beauty - a 15 year old girl - repeatedly raped (euphemised with that historical word, "ravished") by the prince, before being physically hurt - which he seemed to get some sordid pleasure out of, and the victim too at the level of a typical abusee - and subjected to constant humiliation and was made a "sexual slave" of all the courtiers in the prince's kingdom where she and others like her were repeatedly and publicly gangraped, as per the intro and reviews. (Although the reviewers did not use the words rape or gang-rape.) Worse still, we're to believe that sleeping beauty and the other slaves derived a secret pleasure from this sexual torture, because the author and the adulating fans tell us so. This may well be - since these are just characters in a book after all - but that blurs the dangerous line for rape victims does it not? I mean, in reality rape can as a side-effect result in sexual release "pleasure" in some male and female victims - a very difficult topic - but nevertheless does not mean acquiescence to the rape. And I notice that 15 year old victims of child abuse who grow up into similar abusers (naturally) don't get as much "understanding" from "enlightened" reviewers as the very similar characters in Rice's work. The stark hypocrisy becomes more apparent when similar crimes - sexual violence against women - is (understandably) condemned in practice: like the Comfort Women of WWII Japan. I want to look into the mentality of such fiction authors as Anne Rice (and the many allegedly "non-fiction" authors like Donigers too, since there is obviously a connection to be made). I want to expose their hypocrisy. You notice all these middle-aged women (and men) pen these rape fantasies/torture porn (gang-rape, S&M, bondage, humiliation, torture) that goes under the name of "Erotica" in the west. Note that in contrast, what's called "Romance" novels already contain graphic scenes of sex - often a milder form of rape fantasy by the worrisome authors, but usually a rape fantasy nevertheless - and these have contained graphic stuff since at least the 70s. (I know this because my friend used to borrow a lot of old trashy "romance" novels from her library and I read some of the back covers and inner flaps which contained direct extracts.) The difference between "Erotica" and "Romance" novels is generally - perhaps until the 50 Shades of Grey type trash came along? - that Romance novels don't include S&M. Can't help but note that sexual violence against women when penned by female "feminist" authors suddenly makes it all OK. And that "No" suddenly does mean "Yes" when women "romance" authors - and worse still when fe/male authors of torture porn I mean "Erotica" - write their rape fantasies. And Anne Rice's is apparently a gangrape fantasy (bisexual, of course <- seems to be used by the author to 'alleviate' the rape-crime-nature of such things). Distressing to see a female author - declares feminism in the intro - debase her female character. I suppose the 'gender equality' comes from the fact that the author's male characters are promised to be similarly debased, as per the reviews. To harp on the middle-aged fe/male authors of torture porn: one notices that their "protagonists" (victims?) are frequently *young*, very young. 15 to 18 years old in this example. The middle-aged/elderly authors project their own late and weird sexual desires onto a much younger population, one I know from my own high school case to never have harboured such views on S&M/bondage/humiliation/torture/sexual violence etc. (It's why my teen classmates had kept calling S&M as Seksuele Misbruik/Sexual Abuse instead.) Female feminists are always an interesting case, and older ones more so. I have known/know lots of feminists and have read some articles by them too. On IF I once mentioned a famous 90s Danish movie that featured a female feminist in IIRC a communist conclave who decided to make her life align with the hardcore feminist ideology she spouted: she intellectually decided she would be a lesbian since this was the only rational choice (though presumably not her natural tendency otherwise). This was an exaggerated look at the degree of alienation, fear and loathing feminists in general have for men (I won't bother differentiating between Indian/Asian feminists and alien feminists, it's all a christianism to me). But there is something that was always obvious to me but which seems to have been missed by many - and which feminists don't admit in words, but do in actions: most feminists tend to have a love-hate relationship with men (same as misogynistic men do concerning women, BTW). They badly want men - more desperately than healthy females, I notice - but at a rational level they don't want men/they hate men. So there is this constant and longterm battle that fembots - especially feminists as old as Doniger (don't know that Doniger is a feminist) - have had with their desires, with men, and reconciling their feminism with their sexuality/desires. Often - and this is obvious not just in Anne Rice - this is projected into rape fantasies, the only way these women get to be with men while it still does not sacrifice their unwillingness. They're quite disturbed. Of course middle-aged married western women who aren't feminists also write rape fantasies - and the author of 50 Shades of Grey seems to be of this kind - and often involving protagonists half their age (a recurring motif among middle-aged people) who have feelings and desires attributed to them that only older, more sexually-bored/sexually-tolerant* people have (*'tolerance' used in the alcoholism/addiction sense). But the non-feminist kind project the unequality of their characters' relationships - i.e. the braindead 'unwilling-willing' female 'heroine' getting overpowered by the brutish aggressive alpha male 'hero' - as some ideal, as the status-quo of masculinity and feminity. This is the opposite from how feminists on one hand object to this alleged status-quo of male-female dynamic (which is entirely theoretical btw, real-life wo/men don't interact like that) and yet privately want this. (Not all feminists perhaps, but many.) They're simply unable to reconcile their rational side and their biological side, making many into simply walking contrarians. (Misogynistic men are the same, btw. I don't mean to pick on exclusively a familiar strain of feminists.) Ugh, what a topic. IIRC Rice remarked in her intro how it's often men in positions of power who gravitate toward S&M and that this too applies to women, since nowadays many women are in high "career" positions like "CEOs" (and successful authors, one may add to that list) and also gravitate toward the same. But I note these are all old men and women, who've focused way too much of their years/spent away their youth in becoming successful and making moolah. It is in their middle-aged Euro sensibilities that you see them churning out increasingly extreme sexual fantasies featuring youngsters through whom they vicariously live out their increasingly-weird desires. BTW, there's two reasons I avoid and seriously dislike the word "erotic[a]" for Hindoo (sacred) romantic literature (often concerning the Gods) despite such texts frequently featuring else culminating - as is natural - in scenes of poignant and wondrous intimacy: - the genre of erotica in the western sense certainly does include S&M. [And it has long followed the "decadence" trend that Wilde et al outlined.] - not to mention that "Erotiek" in NL was reserved for the Porn genre in video stores: hardcore porn movies - and not just softporn, note - were marked "Erotiek". (Movies that simply feature explicit sex scenes - and NL is famous for them - are simply marked drama: there's not a single NL non-children's movie I've ever watched that didn't feature sex scenes. And I'm talking about the utterly awkward/unsexy kind that Paul Verhoeven is still familiar for, as also seen in his recent Zwartboek/Black Book war drama. NL directors usually negate silly voyeurism by deliberately making it uncomfortable viewing, as this discomfort is part of the plot/part of the psychology of the characters.) And I'm sure the meaning of Erotiek for Porn movies is the same in Belgium where Jacob The Robber I mean Jakob De Rover is from: he kept threatening a "beautiful eroticism" in Hindoo sacred stuff. But European minds understand something very different under the term - so hardcore porn is always an extension of that definition, incl. for Roover. Their views are not Hindoos' views. And I would know this, because I know western minds: I grew up in alien climes, unlike most Indians who merely moved there in their late teens/in tertiary (and who - it has become repeatedly clear - really don't know the western mind at all, beyond superficial analysis). But being born and for a brief space raised in India, and being of a heathen family, I do know the traditional heathen [Hindoo] mind somewhat too. It's strange how there's no backlash against the following now slowly institutionalised constructions in the west: - torture porn-like literature dubbed "erotica" (don't know about 50 Shades of Grey, but the viewable chapters of Rice's Beauty trilogy involved not just rape but further *promised* 'public gangrape to come') - the western film genre literally called Torture Porn and which is a combination of hardcore porn and horror-torture/gore movies: where innocent attractive females are set upon by sociopaths and where the sociopath has sex with his victim as well as brutally torturing her by sawing parts of her body off etc, as in a typical horror movie. (Even before Torture Porn emerged standalone on the horror scene, in American horror/gore movies the trend had been to have young attractive women scream and get hacked to pieces. Now they just toss sadistic "sex" with the mass-murderer in there, and apparently this vomit sells in the west.) It sounds to me like these stories are inspired by real life sociopaths/rapists. Yet they get glorified in movies that - usually - young male western audiences watch. Meanwhile christoislamic rape crimes in India - projected as "all-Indian" and hence as "equally Hindu" therefore "Hindu" - are the sole focus of international "women's rights" activists (all while these so-called activists continue to hide the heathen identity of the victims and the christoislamaniac identity of the perpetrators in attempting to pass the crimes off as "all-Indian" or even "Hindu"). It's *disturbing*. And in the interrim, global complacency towards the sorts of western "cultural" trends that fuel rape and sociopathic crimes of sexual violence against women or children or men are utterly ignored. Further, the whole crucial dialogue of why "No means No and Not Yes" is utterly undermined - and with it rape victims are too - by even the old "mills-and-boons" type romances that featured rape fantasies, not to mention the more sadistic kind in Rice and similar writers' works dubbed "erotica". But No, Rape was *never* sexy. It's these kinds of books and movies that not just blur the lines but keep sending out the conflicting message. (BTW, I hope that that "Chitra Raman" - the one who mentioned "50 Shades of grey" in her comment at indiafacts.co.in - didn't actually like/wouldn't recommend books like that. Actually I don't want to know the answer to that: modern Indians are creeping me out, in how they are moulding their minds after the west: teaching themselves to "like" what the west likes.) The west has this strange smug attitude towards heathen sexuality, despite this being neither prudish nor so extreme as the western kind of middle-aged "successful" authors/feminists/etc. Not only do Hindus get clubbed over the head by the likes of alleged "sympathisers" like Balagangaadhara's unwanted alien student De Roover - who wanted Hindus to realise the "beautiful erotiek" that he saw in Hindoo religion (but what could *he* see? Hindoo religion of course has some of the most romantic stuff I've ever come across, but it's utterly delightful, and appeals on so many levels: it's intensely romantic and attractive, and I would have no trouble for kids to read this. And IMO the very real romance between the Divine Couples - as seen even in brief hints in sacred works like the MPS - is the source for traditional Hindoos' deep sense of romance to this day. I think Hindoos get it from their Gods). But other heathens and non-western populations also regularly get beaten over the head by aliens: e.g. Elst had a piece on how a former Belgian beauty queen became a sexpert or something and was "shocked" to find that Chinese married couples weren't as into public displays of affection (="PDA") as the Belgian beauty queen thought was necessary in underpinning a good sex affair. Further, the Chinese appeared too reticent - in Belgian beauty queen's learned opinion - in declaring that sex was Da Best Thing Ever invented (actually, internal fertilisation that IIRC was to have started with our reptile ancestors was indeed an evolutionary breakthrough, but that's not what the Belgian was alluding to) and that Chinese were not so centred on sex as the Belgian felt humans ought to be. IIRC the Belgian beauty queen decided that the Chinese needed to be taught to "appreciate sex" (or was it that she thought that Chinese women needed sexual liberation - can't remember). She concluded this was all undeniable evidence for how Chinese men didn't love their wives. Obviously. [Because of The Usual Rules: only aliens/oryans are capable of love. And civilisation. And humanity. And anything worthwhile.] More recently, the west took great delight in repeatedly bringing up in the news how Chinese people had found what they - and the Chinese journalist interviewing them included - thought was a strange mushroom or something, but which the west instantly recognised as being "obviously" a "sex toy". The entire west was laughing at the expense of the "sexually" "innocent/infantile/backward" Chinese. What nonsense. Maybe the real answer is that Chinese already have a happy romantic life and don't need "sex toys" or viagra or whatever to compensate, and consequently didn't recognise whatever device it was. I wish heathen women from India, China and everywhere would set up sociology fields to psychoanalyse the likes of Doniger etc and western "erotica" and draw conclusions about the state of the western psyche based on that. And also the effect western "erotica" may be having on perpetuating or at least excusing the ongoing sexual violence against women. Note that midddle-aged western people esp. including middle-aged western women are not just projecting their own weird middle-aged sexual needs/desires onto heathen religions as Donigers do - or finding heathens like say the Chinese lacking in "PDA" (oh what a crime  arcasm - but they are also condoning sexual violence via constructed theoretical/fantasy spaces wherein authors set their rape fantasies. (And they *are* rape fantasies.) And it is heathen *women* who need to expose this, because heathen men will - as always - get attacked for critiquing the alien moronisms concerning sex.I can't believe that S&M is now being romanticised by people writing for the mainstream, assuming the amazon rank that Chitra Raman mentioned for "50 Shades of Grey" gives any indication about mainstream appeal. Perhaps worse than that is that rape fantasies are romanticised and even eroticised/declared to be sexy. Ugh. Humans. You can't both denounce rape/sexual violence against women and secretly peruse romanticised rape fiction. Because that just makes you a hypocrite. The west betrays a deeply sexually-repressed mind, IMO. And also, the older these minds get, the more perversions they seem to come out with. I'm not recommending these things for reading, but: as supporting data for various claims, can look up the author's introduction/preface to Anne Rice's "Beauty Trilogy" visible on Amazon. (The first 1.5 chapters that are also visible make more sickening reading.) There's also the first couple of reviews for the '50 shades of grey' books at amazon, which lampoon the work admirably, which I do recommend that people read. I know that I may well regret writing this post. But it had to be said. Someone had to say it. (And there's actually more unpleasantness to be pointed out.) The only consolation is that no one is likely to read this (not counting web search engine crawlers). Disclaimers: I'm not actually a "prude" and neither are other heathens - though no doubt that accusation would make aliens feel better. There are some deeply troubling questions about the human psyche - especially about the modern western psyche (although Japan also showcases bondage and sexual violence against women in fictional settings, such as in 'hentai' productions, something that the west criticises in the Japanese but not in their own torture porn) - questions that need to be asked and which I just can't bring myself to ask in an Indian forum (perhaps because I'd like the innocent to retain what innocence they have; I'd certainly have preferred to, because the muck doesn't wash off, you know). There are questions not just of (modern) human sexuality, but questions on the psyche of modern male and female sexuality, on strange/worrisome trends of what's considered erotic/sexy (increased tolerance?), questions on when sexual violence is sexual violence, why is condoning sexual violence in constructed theoretical scenarios - like in rape novels - okay?, how much of this flows over into real life and blurs lines, what is the proportion of wo/men who are attracted to these kinds of scenarios and perhaps why (and crucially: how can the rest of us develop a means to detect such people in order to avoid them). And then the unspeakable questions. In my opinion, western "erotica" - and its (evolving) notions of what constitutes 'erotiek' - show the west's hypocrisy (not just in its males but also its females, note) as concerns "erotica's" regard for humans including perhaps most noticeably women. I get this feeling that the western male and female psyches just don't have a healthy relationship and are deeply disconnected/dis-attuned (if there is such a word) at some level. Individual western people are just fine and in normal relationships, there are many examples. I'm talking about the general culture of weirdness that these novels and films and notions are a part of, and in which they find life, and which culture they keep re-inforcing from one generation to the next, with increased intensity/further regressions. [color="#FF0000"]WARNING: This is not a pleasant post[/color] (to say the least) [color="#FF0000"]It contains stuff of a sexually unpleasant nature[/color]
1. Ayn Rand's objectivist tripe in novel-form "The Fountainhead" typically has a rape fantasy that Rant thought was just swell and which people are on the fence about whether it was or wasn't actually a rape, although the dubious 'heroine' kept mentally calling it a rape, but then she pursues the 'hero' to continue the 'relationship', where she once more channels wood. Personally, I classed it as a trashy romance novel, which genre also frequently - but I hear "not always" (whatever that means) - chooses to be 'conveniently' (disturbingly) undecided on such sinisterness.
But then, Rant's whole notion on the existence of essential maleness and essential femaleness (don't look at me, I'm too stupid to understand such deep stuff) as well as her view on male-female dynamics and weirdo views on sexuality are unreal and not to mention insane. Her directives to man-worship (to worship human males) are further products of her delirious ideological objectivist 'brain'. But none of that stops objectivists/cultists from subscribing to this day. Why do these crazy christoclass mindviruses have such success in creating zombies/a following? There was apparently some movie about Rant - booed at by objectivists - with Helen Mirren playing Rant, and which was based on the biography of one of her female groupie victims. Groupie victim was encouraged by Rant to marry another young groupie she didn't really care to marry, but then Rant (herself already married IIRC) took up with that groupie husband. The new couple explained that they were the alpha female and male of Objectivism, and that groupie victim - being a low-ranking female in objectivism - should just accept it (and presumably so too Rant's husband). BTW, am I the only one who thinks that Ayn Rand plagiarised her character Howard Roarke and his trials and tribulations for her 1940s The Fountainhead novel from Galsworthy's Bosinney character from the nobel literature prize-winning Forsyte books from the 1920s? Because there are many parallels. E.g. - both characters are 'brilliant, individualistic, innovative' architects with an artistic and functional vision 'the world had never seen before' - both take up with the 'impossibly beautiful' female protagonist, who is drawn to them for their talents - the female protagonist is IIRC already married. In Forsyte Saga she's married to the much-hated rich man who antagonises the poorer hero out of jealousy/spite for his talents. Roarke is also antagonised and dragged through the courts by enemies out of jealousy and spite. (In Galsworthy, the rich husband - who is "The Man of Property" - is the one who rapes his wife and this is condemned by the author as well as the doomed character Bosinney, who is infuriated by it. In contrast, in Rand's work, the male protagonist Roarke and the female protagonist act out Rant's rape fantasy, which seems to be Rant's idea of romance.) - again, both protagonists get taken to court ostensibly over the building they were commissioned to build, but in reality it's actually in order to sue the hard-working, 'brilliant' but not-yet-affluent man into the ditch of total poverty and break his will. Or something Nice lampooning of Ayn Rant and her lame writing: mcsweeneys.net/articles/atlas-shrugged-updated-for-the-current-financial-crisis 2. Beyond European fairy tales not originally having Freudian readings, there are of course non-European stories that made it into European fairy tale collections. These most certainly never intended to have aliens attach Freudian readings to them. E.g. - Cinderella is well-known as originally being a Chinese tale. In fact, fairy tale collections explain that the Cinderella tale is known to be a full 1,000 years older in China than its first appearance in the middle-east and its first appearance and subsequent transformation in Europe. (BTW, the tiny feet thing starts to make sense in a Chinese setting.) - The German variant of Beauty and the Beast is called The Prince beyond the Seven Seas. It's originally Indian and made its way to Europe via Iran, which added some frills to it. (Don't know about the origins of the French Beauty and the Beast.) - The Russian folktale of the Swan Queen is derived from Indian and southeast-Asian narratives (and variants were also known in Japan and China). People here on IF had shown that the story was already present in the Hitopadesha. - Etc. [Note that Blue Beard is originally an islamic arabic story which became a cautionary 'fairy tale' in Europe: warning people off potential spouses who merely seem decent on the surface but turn out to be, say, serial-murderers. Blue Beard for example liked to de-capitate his wives, especially if they looked in the forbidden cupboard where the heads of the previous wives were kept. 'Curiosity killed the cat' type moralising, except that Bluebeard clearly wanted each new victim/wife to look in there, just so that he could kill again.] 3. Accusations of prudishness against Hindus should be struck back into claimants' courts. Especially easy to do if accusers are AmriKKKan or British. The Brits are prudes compared to mainland Europe. E.g. regarding their ratings of explicit contents. And Americans are greater prudes than the Brits: as British cinema reviewers observe, America issues higher content classification ratings than the UK for the same movie if it contains explicit scenes, but lower ratings than the UK for graphic violence. That is, children in the US are sooner allowed to see graphic violence than scenes of human mating behaviour than British kids are. However, Britain has higher content ratings compared to mainland Europe for explicit scenes, a discrepancy which at least the following British reviewer finds enigmatic: film.thedigitalfix.com/content/id/11817/dellamorte-dellamore.html Quote:One final aside: [color="#0000FF"]the "T" (all ages") rating of this film demonstrates how completely different Italy's attitude is to sex when compared to the UK's. The film is actually rated "18" in this country, I suspect partially because of the violence and horror element, but also because it includes a couple of fairly intense sex scenes.[/color] Personally the violence is more of an issue to me than the sex (after all, one causes harm, and the other most certainly does not), but I see no reason for this film not to be shown to children who know the difference between right and wrong. Other reviewers are not so understanding. A reviewer for the Guardian had dubbed Verhoeven's Zwartboek as softporn (uh?): theguardian.com/film/2007/jan/19/worldcinema.thriller [I see Guardian/Observer has lots of reviews for Zwartboek. Those reviewers that hated it like to demote it to softporn and remember only that Verhoeven had made the much-reviled 'showgirls', whereas those that liked Zwartboek remember that Verhoeven had made Robocop in the 80s etc. But Germany seemed to have liked Zwartboek and its leading lady, and it was awarded European cinema prizes including the Gouden Kalf. In NL it's been voted a top national film.] There's been a considerable number of British reviewers asking Verhoeven else the Zwartboek leading lady Carice v. Houten about the explicit scenes, provoking responses that indicate these don't get why the UK is so hung up about that: theguardian.com/film/2007/jan/12/3 Quote:Verhoeven's brash blockbuster sensibility and his trademark fondness for cinematic sex and violence are deployed heavily in Black Book, an approach that made critics brand him perverted. "Of course there are nude scenes," he announces loudly across De Posthoorn. "I'm Dutch!" theguardian.com/film/2005/nov/25/2 Quote:Nor does she [Carice van Houten] resent the sex scenes that are de rigueur in most Verhoeven movies. [Van Houten:] "I'm from Holland and so I'm used to that nudity stuff - so that wasn't my biggest problem." Don't know why UK and American reviewers keep pretending such content is unique to Verhoeven's style of filmmaking. It should be obvious from both Verhoeven and Van Houten's responses that it is very commonplace in NL films (as it is commonplace in serious NL literature, which is often dreary, psychological, messy and depressing). But I suppose English-speaking audiences are only familiar with Verhoeven and usually only his English-language hollywho films. Americans are largely a type of Brits - especially qua culture - so that may explain the shared prudish sensibilities especially as regards NL films. Verhoeven toned down his hollywho works for US audiences, even a certain controversial one from the 80s. His older NL works like Spetters or Turks Fruit won't be popular in the US any time soon I'm guessing: American viewers have dubbed various prized NL literary adaptations even as 'hardcore porn', specifically even famous films that in mainland Europe are watched by teens. It's likely Americans would screech at films like "Turks Fruit" - admittedly a difficult book and film - despite this frequently being voted in NL as the best film NL made. In its homeland, Turks Fruit is watched by 13 year olds (or perhaps younger now) when students want to get better acquainted with the literature they have to read for NL class. In comparison, America seems to only make crass comedies with sexual innuendo or R-rated tacky juvenile films with implied/explicit scenes - both of which hint that the actual subject itself is taboo and so dealt with underhandedly, and which points to a gravely prudish society. I think this western mentality must be studied and anthropologised by heathens. 4. To end on a light-hearted note: Better than the 1-star sneering reviews on amazon US' main page for the '50 shades of <idiocy>' book, are amazon UK's opening page reviews for this book that similarly lampoon the same. Simply hilarious stuff. Some of the reviews themselves have about a 1000 comments pleading with the amateur reviewer to please take up writing, since they're so hysterical and obviously better than the actual book's writer. One comment to a review was by a man who had surmised that the 50 shades book was so obviously written by a man since it was but so much 'unrealistic crap': Quote:Posted on 25 Jun 2012 20:30:28 BDT While it's true that numerous men famously - often initially under a female pseudonym - have indeed written criminally-bad "romance" novels (and seem to have no sense of shame and refuse to quit, but then, neither do the equally-daft women, but at least these last don't write trashy romance novels under male names thereby blaming the opposite gender), and while it's also true that men often write (usually under a male name, possibly even their own) "erotica", the 50 shades nonsense appears to be penned by some middle-aged British woman who was a tv executive on one of Britain's channels. Apparently the book has sold more than all the "Harry Potter" novels combined, a fact which some reviewer or commenter on a review seemed to lament. According to them the HP novels were 'great literature' and the '50 shades' tripe was the end of the world. Actually, I thought Harry Potter - plotwise, going by one film of the series that I watched - was already promising the end of the world: wholesale plagiarism from LOTR and CON was the highlight. Apparently younger generations - and the middle-aged who also read HP - had not read LOTR or even CON* when they were reading HP. Yeah, well, if you haven't read originals/the "inspiration", then no wonder you think that Harry Potter was brilliant and original. Tsss. [* Although CON's own highlights had in turn plagiarised frequently from Hellenismos and Roman tradition, as LOTR had from Finnish and Celtic and Germanic/Anglo-Saxon heathenism.] This comment: Quote:Fazerfloozie says:Hmmm. Easy money, huh? A sinister idea has taken root in what's left of my brain. A vague plan is taking shape. I think every English-enabled (Hindu) nationalist should get a pseudonym or 5 and start churning out trashy romance novels or even erotica* - whichever people think they'd be better at penning - and then sell it to some national/international publishers and send any moolah back to help less fortunate Hindoos in Bharatam. I mean, how hard can this possibly be? (The many Sagarika Ghoses and Nisha Susans will all be reading it, no doubt: they're just the types.) [* Goes without saying that Hindu nationalists won't be putting S&M or rape fantasies in their silly romance novels or erotica fictions, so it will instantly be a less offensive (=better) class of literature.] Oooh, maybe even write an online bad-romance-novel generator, to take all the work out? Instead of nationalists wasting internet blogspace pretending to be 'intellectuals' and not even being able to raise cash with all the talking (let alone protecting Hindoos back home), just shut down all the overactive brains - stop pretending to be clever - and start typing away at silly novels. "But, but, but, I only like to write bad sci-fi..." (Yeah well, so do I.) Just make it a cheesy romance bad sci-fi. "But but I'm working on a zombie novel!" (Oh no, not zombie novels :BAN Whatever. I just saw that there's a Pride and Prejudice version with Zombies in it - no, I'm not kidding (a dude appears to have written it). So, work some cheese in there too. Maybe some zombies making out, I don't know."But what about my epic fantasy set in the rainforests of..." Yupp, epic rainforest fantasy cheese romance. See? The key is to just insert cheesy romance into it. Is there a pause between paragraphs? Insert cheese. Is there a moment of thoughtful silence? Don't waste it, insert cheese. Are there no wo/men in sight? Insert wo/men, insert cheese. Yes all your self-respect will be out of the window, you will never be able to look at your self in the mirror again, you'll live in constant fear that someone will find out that you wrote "Zombie Netherworld Romance part 3" (oh, great title right there), and will need to constantly take medication to prevent yourself from vomiting all over your keyboard while you type the cheese, but think of the Money. And money means Powah. And Powah means (never worked that one out myself, but once you have it you'll know what it means).
Back to having to be serious.
[color="#FF0000"]Warning: allusions to instances of sexual violence in this post[/color] Concerning the red bit in the following. From the DVD reviews for "Game of Thrones" Season 2 - Excerpt from one of the reviews on amazon UK's main page, along with some of the user comments to the review: amazon.co.uk/review/R903NCT4NUPR3/ref=cm_cr_dp_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B005PN8BUS&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=283926&store=dvd#wasThisHelpful Quote:32 of 41 people found the following review helpful And some of the comments to the above amazon customer review, including especially by the same person: Quote:Crookedmouth says: - the Game Of Thrones tv series is mainstream. - It's highly popular. - And it's based on the mainstream, highly-popular (but less explicit/sensationalist, as per the above) series of books. The people who made the TV series did not just choose to throw in that scene - the one highlighted red in the above quoteblock - but have enclosed it in layers of deniability/excuses to protect themselves. Excuses like - it's "just fiction", just tv, not reality - it's a medieval-type fantasy, i.e. set in a messy historical (pseudo-medieval) time where people were likely to be oppressed and so rapes may have been more common. I.e. the "we're only trying to be realistic to the fantasy" excuse. - the rape was not committed by a male - the excuse presumably being that this makes it less reprehensible - "it was committed by a female against another female". But even this crime will be expunged with the addendum "but she was made to do it" by some tyrant in charge, the "Joffrey" character mentioned in the excerpts. - it was "only implied, not shown" But the whole *rape* scene was clearly just for the purpose of "tittilation" as the western reviewer observed. That is, rape broadcast for the purpose of tittilation. (Clearly implying that some people get off on this.) I can't seem to get past that one word that I keep re-using, it's where all my incoherent feelings of mental revulsion seem to settle at: Disturbing. Ultimately it's the same problem as with all the dubious and less dubious rape fantasies in various erotica and "romance" literature, including the kind written by feminists like Anne Rice: these too have carefully constructed fantasies so they can hide behind the excuse that "it's just fiction" - a theoretical setting to create acceptance for what would be crimes in the real world. (And in the case of so-called "erotica"/trash "romance" junk, they will even declare that in their constructed theoretical setting it wasn't really rape because the unwillingness was all pretend.) THe problem is these people are blurring important, really crucial lines. It seems to be okay for them when it all takes place in literature or on tv: they will stomach it then. Indeed, it even becomes 'sexy' in literature and 'tittilating' on tv. So there's no mental abhorrence that these book authors and screenplay writers/creators of such tv drama seem to feel as long as it's all just theoretical. But there's a very real hypocrisy in this discrepancy between their theoretical acceptance that only finds offence when these things manifest in practice in all their ugliness. Again, there are some truly serious questions that ought to naturally arise and which these people (the types of authors and show creators under consideration) are either too naive to ask or - as I rather suspect - too irresponsible to want to face let alone answer. But if people are going to pretend to be mature members of a mature society, surely these are some of the most *basic* questions that ought to have been addressed. And correctly. <blablabla - snip> This statement the Game of Thrones reviewer made in his comment: Quote:culmination of the scene is where Joff makes one of the ladies rape the other with his sceptre. That part of the scene is NOT shown - the camera looks elsewhere and the screams are brief. I thought that was a terrible cop out by the producers who could have used the scene to say something worthwhile about sexual violence and exploitation, but no - in the end it was there for nothing more than a bit of gratuitous, exploitative tittilation. Why was the lack of further explicitness a cop-out? What worthwhile something should one have to say about sexual violence and exploitation that we should not already know without the existing (forget increased) explicitness? I thought the reviewer and commenters said the series was R-rated? I think that means the viewers tend to be adults. Yet even non-adults (like teens and younger children) know that sexual violence and exploitation are crimes against others. But it is adults that are hypocrites. The thing is, that scene - which is not in the book according to the viewers above - was *written* specifically for sensationalist purposes, as admitted above. As is the purpose behind all glorified rape fictions. In the 1st world/west, Rape - condemned in public and by the law - yet lives a full, elite life of respectability in the pages of fiction and on tv. It is thereby made free from any incensed person throwing rocks at its criminal presence amongst them. It is indeed untouchable: presumably decent people have to even make oaths declaring that they are not prudes before they will dare to criticise it, but they know that even such criticism will do nothing to shake Rape from its enthronement. So from its vantage-point of absolute safety, Rape jeers at the angered humans who are unable to eject it, while it thanks those who put it there and who maintain its secure position by glorifying it on tv and in books. Quote:I honestly wonder, if this is representative of a real trend in attitudes towards this sort of content, where it will end up and how soon it will get there. Like I said, Rape lives on - enjoying respectability even - in their psyche and their freedom of speech (fictions and tv). While in spaces infected/infested with christoislamania, rape lives on practically: e.g. christoislamaniacs (and communists, a subset of christianism) regularly gangrape Hindoos and other native religionists in the Indian subcontinent. Western missionaries rape the Hadzabe women*, an African heathen hunter-gatherer community and other African heathens**. Etc. (*See www.eco-action.org/dod/no8/tribal.html, section "Hadzabe: East Africa's Last Hunting and Gathering Tribe". ** See web.archive.org/web/20130602195333/http://freetruth.50webs.org/D4b.htm: 'Christian staff of Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) working in Africa were rapists: "NCA Raping Has Got To Stop! Norwegian Magazine publishes letter from ex-NCA employee woman who states that NCA took no action in Africa to stop staff from using prostitues and sexually abusing young indigenous women. Link") [color="#FF0000"]Warning: allusions to instances of sexual violence in this post[/color]
1. Extended version of something already posted in the christianism thread:
jezebel.com/holy-shit-who-thought-this-nazi-romance-novel-was-a-go-1722465991 Hosted at what is described as a western feminist site. I think it's totally worth reading the above article, then the articles linked in the body of the text, then all the comments at the above link too. - "inspirational romance" is the genre name that is christian code for christianism's foot in the door of the romance pulp industry. Its trademark is salvation, redemption in christ with non-graphic "romance" or some hogwash. - the news is that an inspirational romance novel has been nominated for 2 romance novel awards. But the subject matter is causing understandable outrage among affected non-christians, as the plot concerns a nazi German concentration camp commander romancing a blue-eyed blonde-haired Jewish female (aren't they always?) in WWII whom he saves from the camp by mistaken her for an Arische wonderwoman and placing her as his secretary :WHAT?:. Can ya say Stockholm Syndrome. But oh it gets better, as in worse: while superficially "redeeming" him :WHAT?: - with the Power of Love, reprised by Celine Dion - such as by the heroine turning her nazi lover away from continuing to genocide her people (oh, poor misunderstood nazi genocidal maniac), the main aim of the evangelical novel is that it is the Jewish heroine who is actually redeemed/saved by converting to christianism at the end. With the help of a magically manifesting bible whenever she needs it, where she despite being Jewish is suddenly moved by the NT section about jeebus, the arische terminator of her people since Constantine and even the gnostic christians. But then, if she can forgive and fall in love with a concentration camp commander who genocides her people, it's but another step from there to forgiving the jesus fiction that was the impetus of the christian anti-semitism that led to the repeated pogroms against Jews throughout history. - The comments show that this is a common trope in christian "romance", but that the 2 award nominations has merely brought attention to it. Christians have an equivalent motif for communist Russia: atheist communist russian redeemed into christianism. - People noticed the use of "Jewess" by the christian publishing house's blurb of the book to describe the female protagonist. As I recall, 'Jewess' was quite popular in medieval to later christian Britain as something like accusation to refer to Jewish females. Actually, christians spewed the word "Jew" too as if it was the word 'satan' to them. (The nazis didn't invent that style of usage, right? They just followed long standing christianism.) - Commenters recognise that the evangelical christian obsession with Jews and Israel is because of the former's 'end times' self-delusions involve the latter bringing about the 2nd coming of jeebus. (Meanwhile, he never appeared the 1st time either.) Specifically, evangelical christians need Jews to be converting to christianism. - But don't know why none of the Jewish women commenting didn't express that the very motif of a Jew converting to christianism - not to mention during their people's holocaust in WWII - is a typical christian anti-semitism. - Only one person commenting here or in one of the articles linked off the main one even mentioned that with negligible exceptions, Europe's churches by and large helped the nazis exterminate the Jews and ratted them out everywhere. - No one knew to mention that most German churches in the nazi era - all except the tiny Confessing Church - wouldn't even accept Jewish converts to christianism, but wanted them exterminated. The Confessing Church hated Jews as much as the others did with the exception that they'd have accepted Jews who were willing to convert to christianism. Which is not very christian. E.g. Martin Luther (head of several Protestant branches of christianism) did write in his "Of the Jews and their Lies" - an important christian handbook of all the nazis, as nazi Julian Streicher testified during the Nuremberg trials - that the only way he would baptise a Jew was by drowning him/her thereupon. Now the demons=evangelical (and all other) christians are fantasising about a WWII era Jewish convert to christianism and that christianism would accept them. Most or all the comments are worth reading, IMO. This comment: Quote:Snagglepuss > moweezy3I thought that (last) was my line? But yeah, well said. Though Hindus will immediately understand, others infesting India (being christianised mentalities anyway) will probably think it's all good romantic fluff, since Indians have long been de-sensitised to the nature of the problem in the above, as Indians are constantly force-fed the same type of crap by christoislamic bollywho: where Hindu women are romanced by historical islamaniac genociders (Jodhaa Akhbar etc), and modern islamaniac genociders (Mr & Mrs Iyer and a recent one where Pakis aim at Tamizh Hindu women: British paki islamaniac romancs Tamizh Hindu woman and it's all fine and dandy). A couple of the comments brought up Verhoeven's Zwartboek/Black Book also about a fair-haired Jewish woman in the Dutch resistance who, being undercover, enters into an awkward romance with a nazi gestapo. But the plot was about 3 types: the German nazis, the NL mof (uh, collaborators) and the NL resistance. And I got the distinct impression that Verhoeven's point was that none of these 3 were innocent, including -unexpectedly- the last. I still didn't approve of Carice v Houten's Jewish character romancing a nazi, but let's face it, this is Verhoeven. A tamer movie of his, made and released in America, was set in Medieval christianism-and-disease-ridden Europe, and has Rutger Hauer and his outlaw band gangraping the heroine (graphically filmed on camera, or so I understand) who then seems to fall for him :WHAT?: (Stockholm Syndrome) but then it turns out she was using him to make her escape in the end, as they all get butchered. The really scary part was that Jennifer Jason Leigh who played the heroine apparently actually pleaded repeatedly with Verhoeven to rewrite the ending to make her abductee rape-victim character run off with the rapist hero into the sunset. Apparently Leigh thought the 2 characters actually had a romance going on... :WHAT?: As scary as that is that some female reviewers - even while they admitted being disturbed by it - said that they two felt it was a romance. :WH?: I don't make this stuff up. How can I? My imagination can't even go there. But, horrifying as it is, even Leigh and female reviewers' reactions to Verhoeven's "Flesh and Blood" movie are not exceptional, as rapist romances are discussed at some length in the comments section to the jezebel article. And while the objections and revulsion upon introspection are pouring in at last, what did me in was to read how several of the commenters had apparently appreciated the rapist romance novels in their younger days :WH?: But the point was that Verhoeven has made movies about gangrapists/genociders and women who (initially seem to) grow to love them anyway. So it's not even the visceral sex and violence in his films that's the most disturbing part, but the incomprehensible madness of it all, but no one complained. Better are when he just films award-winning NL novels about sex and violence and incomprehensible madness: at least there no one can blame him for the plot. Also one of the comments said that Verhoeven's Zwartboek/Black Book was based on a true story. Not confirmed that for myself. But the NL treatment of (suspected) traitors/collaborators did happen as described, as per other materials. Anyway, one more time: it's actually totally worth reading the comments as they are on a variety of topics. Not just the insanity of rape fantasy novels existing (and logically leading to exploitative junk that recently became popular). But there's also brief discussions on the sudden and increasing popularity of "christian" infiltration into various genres of literature: there's now christian sci-fi, much of young adult is apparently entirely christian (twilight, divergent series of movies), and besides christian romance ("inspirational romance") there is apparently even "christian crime novels". Speaking of christian sci-fi, the christian nazi romance novel that is the subject of this post reminds me of the christian sci-fi book by the Mormon author of Ender's Game (never read that either): "The Redemption of Columbus" or something it was called. It was also all about how to redeem a nazi, I mean the christian genocidal maniac Columbus. Inspirational romances are apparently very prudish: one of the comments mentioned there is not even any touching and that the platonic romance between the christian boy and girl is actually a symbolic one referring to the jeebus and sinner relationship. Indian christians will probably eat up all this crap. Just their thing. Like (bad) English is their thing. They have even less taste than their ethnically European counterparts after all. Besides, Indian christians may be the world's most uncreative (but most inculturating=plagiarist) christians, and have to rely on the west to for materials to peruse and for creating avenues for Indian christians to imitate.
2. jezebel.com/what-do-romance-readers-and-pick-up-artists-both-obsess-1704567550
The world is clearly insane. <- That's a comment on the subject and discussion in the main article of this second link. The comments at the link start off light enough though following on from there, but then eventually they wander into disturbing territory as certainly belongs in this thread. I don't want to reproduce any comments here as it's just utterly disgusting. What is *wrong* with the west? Once more I record here my request that Hindoos - even if they insist on only penning things in English (but I'd prefer people to do so in native languages) - should at least start writing and (self-)publishing literature in several genres too: sci fi, fantasy, krimis, and ugh romance. In fact, put dollops of romance into them all, as stated in an earlier post in this thread. Clearly women want to read romance. But in this way, can at last give them a better class of romance and better leads than the kind of sick false archetypes and sick false relationships discussed in the main article of this second link (not that here I'm not even talking about the far sick-er revelations in the later part of the comment sections). Some women are so weird. Must be the minority that reads "romance" novel trash. Having said that, in defence of my best friend who's read countless trashy English language (hence western) romance (and crime) novels: she read what she could put her hands on. Write her a better class of romance fiction, and her taste - having tasted better - will naturally become more exacting and less forgiving of the western "romance" trash. It cannot be hard to do. The world is filled with better people and hence better romances. So even if converting non-fictional romances into fiction, heathens can produce great quality, such as simply can't be approached by the christian/christo-conditioned western junk that passes for literature. Yet apparently Indian English-speaking seculars/progressives are entering into the western romance literature genre too now: saw some link to a jezebel article advertising for "Bollywood romances" - a new genre is born - by some Indian wannabe 1st world female writing this stuff. |
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