Senate Misogyny, Entitlement, and Pop Culture

I'm still trying to figure out why there was a random picture of Connor MacLeod in the middle of the article...

 

PC Master Race Ender

 

Yeah, I don't even want to think about 18 years of PMs and chat transcripts, having been a person with both a vagina and an internet connection.

 

I'm not suggesting it is. However, most of the recorded evidence of this kind of overt misogyny comes from console game experiences. PC gaming isn't pure, but I'm saying in the games I've played I don't encounter sexism. I did in WoW a lot back in 2007, but SWTOR these days seems to avoid it pretty well.

 

I dunno, but I tend to blush a lot when I'm around scantily clad women, which can be really embarrassing. And you know Freud said blushing is a "displaced erection"!

 

yeah okay, so uhh.. what are you saying?

 

It means that although I'm controlling myself, my inner sexual desires manifest in the colour of my face. When a man blushes, everyone knows he's straining to repress his sexuality.

 

You might not necessarily be thinking about sex on a conscious level, but your body is responding to your subconscious, which is wired for sex. We're also more prone to blush in formal settings where we're under pressure to keep our cool, and any deviation from the norm can result in intense blush responses. Many people also equate blushing with repressed sexuality, so if they point out your blushing, it actually makes it even more intense, because it feels like you've been caught thinking racy thoughts. Therefore you become embarrassed that you've been caught being embarrassed! And in today's formal settings, sex is an embarrassing topic.

 

Nothing to do with rape at all, but I believe blushing is a primal artifact that signals that the body wants sex, but our civilised side has repressed this desire. Let's just say if you see a bloke blushing, best bet is he's got sex on the brain, but his primal desires are inhibited by his moral code and his awareness of social taboos.

 

Good question, but the point is a guy can only do so much to prevent his sexual desire from rearing its head. If that woman in the skimpy outfit made him blush, obviously his body is sexually responding to her, but the part of his brain that's been morally conditioned to tell him that "sex is bad, m'kay" kicks in and gets in a tug of war with the caveman in his subconscious. This war between civilisation and barbarianism results in a deep shade of crimson in the facial epidermis.

How people deal with this depends on the individual. But ultimately, almost everything comes back to sex and repression.

 

see, the reason why we're wondering is because you started mentioning repressed desires, blushing and displaced erections to a comment miana made about rape. you should have clarified it, if it had nothing to do with rape.

to me it sounded like the typical "men should be able to control themselves, but-" argument.

 

Actually I was responding more to the poster's point that women are told to cover up, lest they distract the boys. Many of them blush when faced with sex in a social context, which is an unpleasant feeling and its probably more prevalent among people who live in a world where old conservative values still rule with an iron fist.

This "entitlement" thing doesn't factor into my part of the discussion, because the involuntary act of blushing is an indicator that even though the body has a subtle visual way of expressing its desire for sex, his rational thought processes inhibit him from action. The only downside to blushing is social ridicule because everyone knows a blush is a signpost for repressed sexual desire, and people in general act differently when blushing. They tend to engage in evasive behaviour or they might become a little hyperactive in a vain effort to draw attention away from the blushing.

There's so much in the world of sexual frustration among human beings that I find absolutely fascinating!

 

jamesdrax. I remember you. I remember this guy. And the search for some larger point may be in vain.

 

Do they, though? Do they?

 

Not at all! In fact I'd encourage society to be less repressed by being more open about their sexuality. How this would be achieved would be up to... wiser people.

 

Blushing is merely a manifestation or symptom of repression. However it can cause severe social phobias and anxieties that can cripple a person.

What's needed is to ease this repression, and therefore this animosity that's growing between men and women over the last few years may be eradicated.

And I believe shyness is linked to repression. It's a manifestation of shame that one cannot perform socially and therefore unable to court the opposite sex (or even the same sex, since that's the way things seem to be going these days), which leads to a deep and profound frustration.

 

i still don't understand where you're going with this, james