Reveal Your Uncool Conservative Beliefs Here

Straight people are nuts

― softie (silby), Friday, March 31, 2017 6:37 PM (forty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My wife went out to lunch today with a male colleague, and I know has regularly eaten with or had drinks with other guys in her field at conferences and until the Pence shit yesterday it never even crossed my mind that this would be considered to be controversial or scandalous to anyone.

Still can't really wrap my head around being this distrustful of your partner or assuming everyone is a lecherous asshole.

it's just such a weird and useless thing to make generalizations about and depending on how you frame the relationship you can make it sound completely innocuous or the opposite of that so like what are we doing here

it's neither. it's that ppl bond w/ ppl they spend time with, esp alone, and you probably shouldn't be putting yourself into situations where you could develop romantic feelings - even instantly repressed - with ppl outside your relationship. it's not like humans are exemplars of emotional appropriateness and relationships of all kinds are often complicated by unanticipated feelings. it has nothing to w/ distrusting anyone, or assuming anyone is lecherous. xp

cad, i think probably you see it as a spectrum. you likely draw these lines in different places than other ppl. my impression is that a lot of ppl don't even see a problem w/ having a relationship w/ someone that rivals or even possibly eclipses the emotional intimacy of their relationship w/ their spouse. different conceptions of what a marriage indicates and how to maintain its health. i don't think it's a terrible discussion to have and over the last two days i've seen a lot of ppl acting like they can't even understand where pence might've been coming from. like i said above i don't go anywhere near as far as he does but i find his perspective v comprehensible.

On one hand what emerged about Pence is neanderthal: I would not share if I were the vice president of the Unites States, a personage who has to meet with heads of state who are not going to jump this limp dicked sad-faced asshole's bones. But I know my dad would also never meet with a woman by himself under any circumstance b/c he's terrified that my mom will out, which tells me (a) his line of business doesn't employ many women in charge or whom men like my father regard as equals (b) he doesn't trust himself.

The question changes in office and university settings. I was a grad student in the '90s and already male professors didn't close their office doors when meeting with female students.

i don't go out to dinner very much w/ anyone in my field unless i'm at a conference but one-on-one meetings, coffee, lunch, they happen all the time and are never weird and i never feel like they are a threat to my marriage. sometimes i might be attracted to the person and sometimes i might not be, wholly depends on the person obv and nothing really to do with the scenario of being alone with them.

idk i take it as a given that i will have romantic feelings for people other than my wife at times, sometimes those feelings are deep and real and sometimes they are fleeting, and they might happen whether i am working in an office w/ them in the company of a ton of other people or if i'm alone out to lunch or dinner with them. it's not a big deal imo, i think i became significantly less stressed about the status of my marriage when i accepted that i will be attracted to thousands of other people throughout my lifetime, and being attracted or romantically interested in someone other than my wife does not mean i will be cheat on her or seek to undermine my relationship w/ her

The question changes in office and university settings. I was a grad student in the '90s and already male professors didn't close their office doors when meeting with female students.

lol meanwhile show me a single athletic department who gives two shits

i think there's a spectrum, and then there's some kind of large gulf of nothingness, and then there's the pence viewpoint. i can't understand where he's coming from because i can't imagine a person choosing a highly public life and then setting those kinds of restrictions for themselves. and that's not even getting into where the restrictions are coming from which i think alfred has covered very nicely.

as an aside, i'd be curious where you see evidence for this:

my impression is that a lot of ppl don't even see a problem w/ having a relationship w/ someone that rivals or even possibly eclipses the emotional intimacy of their relationship w/ their spouse.

b/c my anecdotal experience would show few if any examples where this is the case.

lol meanwhile show me a single athletic department who gives two shits

― Not the real Tombot (El Tomboto),

Well, they generate revenue!

The way I boil it down has fuck all to do with people's bad judgement about intimacy and "romance" and a lot to do with professional ethics and trust between adults who work together, as peers, subordinate and superior, contractor and customer, mentor and protege, whatever. The rest is the goddamn marriage vows, for crying out loud.

I have a job that requires that I abide by federal prohibitions on the use of certain substances. Do I need to move to a neighborhood that doesn't have a guy selling weed on the corner on a regular basis? Some people abide by religious prohibitions against drinking alcohol. Must they avoid all establishments that have liquor licenses?

the particular conservative obsession with human weakness is so weird and lopsided and absurd to me

well this one has a lot to do with misogyny

Pence doesn't avoid spending time alone with women who aren't is wife because of his frailty it's because he hates women

Oh I don't give two shits what that moron thinks, I was speaking to the notion in the abstract

Still can't really wrap my head around being this distrustful of your partner or assuming everyone is a lecherous asshole.

lol i remember when i thought this way

idk i take it as a given that i will have romantic feelings for people other than my wife at times, sometimes those feelings are deep and real and sometimes they are fleeting, and they might happen whether i am working in an office w/ them in the company of a ton of other people or if i'm alone out to lunch or dinner with them. it's not a big deal imo

it's not something to make a huge deal out of but it's not fantastic either idk i guess i agree w/ carter here - that he lusted in his heart. and also there's an element of sanctity you're trying to protect as well which means trying to avoid thoughts that could encroach upon it if it can be helped. i'm trying to make a v nuanced argument so plz don't get me wrong - i don't think there's anything wrong with eating w/ someone of the opposite gender who isn't yr spouse, and i don't think there's anything wrong with fleeting meaningless romantic feelings about them. i just don't think it's ideal and i understand where ppl are coming from when they try to avoid it and i personally try to keep it to a minimum in my life if possible.

b/c my anecdotal experience would show few if any examples where this is the case.

unless someone speaks up here i'll just have to go by my memory which is that the last time i brought this conversation up on ilx i got at least one response from someone that was like "i've had many significant others come and go but i have friends who have lasted me my entire lifetime."

What about eating with a man who isn't your wife

http://m5.paperblog.com/i/83/830582/the-fannibal-dinner-party-cooking-like-hannib-L-B18MFv.jpeg

I mean, the number of jobs where one-on-one dinner interactions are a regular part of business is, I'm thinking, relatively low? But the bigger issue here is that if you aren't comfortable with that, maybe don't take a job where it'd be important to be alone in a room with another person

the main issue is that this mindset doesn't just include one-on-one interactions, it carries over into other business. maybe those meetings are essential and women miss out on managerial roles, or maybe the same dynamic carries over to larger groups. it's this essential idea that keeps good ol' boy networks in place, that keeps women off of executive committees or off Wall Street, that somehow having a woman in the room is going to fuck up their success, or that women in that room have to act like "one of the boys"

important government or business meeting rooms shouldn't be safe spaces for old white men talking about golf and tits

Still can't really wrap my head around being this distrustful of your partner or assuming everyone is a lecherous asshole.

lol i remember when i thought this way

― velko, Friday, March 31, 2017 8:51 PM (yesterday)

velko otm

though it's kinda a personal version of nanny state-ism, a drastic means of trying to prevent people from hurting themselves or others, when it's going to happen anyway, because people are human and life is short

*it's = Pence's rules

mordy what if you're bi

just get takeout

mh otm

important government or business meeting rooms shouldn't be safe spaces for old white men talking about golf and tits

yes, and that is exactly the 2nd order effect of this kind of thinking (NB: this kind of thinking is hardly treated as a personal decision, it's also a yardstick to judge others with)

unless someone speaks up here i'll just have to go by my memory which is that the last time i brought this conversation up on ilx i got at least one response from someone that was like "i've had many significant others come and go but i have friends who have lasted me my entire lifetime."

This is how I feel fwiw, but I don't even know how much I disagree with Mordy.

Like, if you want the whole rewards-of-coupledom-above-all-else thing (which I think are... children?) - maybe the strength of my love for my closest friends is a problem! I don't know, it seems plausible, I have no reason or evidence to disagree (although also no reason to disagree with happily married people saying the contrary)

I think resilience and courage are underemphasized in modern parenting.

I was brought up thinking that being sensitive and clever were good things and that a little bit of vulnerability and even neuroticism could be charming if i played them off in a kind of self-deprecating way. I now realize that this was stupid, i did not play these things off charmingly, and that i should have spent my teen years hanging out with the mainstream teens i thought i was better than -- the jocks. These people were more aware of the competitive aspect of social relationships and, more importantly, they didn't resent it. Their fear of showing weakness was not pathological; rather, it was adaptive. I don't think this is a gender role thing, either. i know as many women as men who have this kind of cheerful toughness I'm talking about.

Also I am not saying that people should pursue strength through aggression. Sometimes, I think, the basic virtue of being able to stand up for yourself is mixed up with aggression and people end up all turned around, validating weakness without realizing it. This is a road to psychological hell.

there are neurotic jocks, too, it's just the team social aspect pushes a more normalized way of relating

idk just join any large group that's intellectually diverse and not a bunch of nerds

Play a brass instrument

Regarding the Pence approach to staying faithful, it seems a little extreme/presumptuous to me. I think the reality of possible infidelity is that you know who the people in your life are that you might stray with. You have a responsibility not to deceive yourself about this and to guard against situations that make it easier to fuck up. The idea, in my case, that this would apply to all the men I know, or even all the men I am friends with, is sort of hilarious. My initial response to that Pence quote was, relax, nobody's sweating you.

Like, maybe Mike Pence is really afraid he might fuck literally any woman in the world, but the women of the world do not reciprocate that fear. That seems not to have occurred to him. Shocker.

No good literature has been produced since WW2.

― Mordy, Wednesday, August 3, 2016 12:48 AM (seven months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Mordy, do you actually believe this???

*fires up .xls* mordy rates isaac b singer iirc

i didn't mean that question to sound accusatory; i was just genuinely surprised.

Mordy's first post in thread reminds me of this exchange in Last Days of Disco

Departmental Dan:...occasionally I get reactionary thoughts, too
Chloe Sevigny: I'm not reactionary!
Departmental Dan: I meant, aesthetically
Chloe Sevigny: Oh, aesthetically

Benny was the protagonist in Rent

― Neanderthal, Wednesday, August 17, 2016 11:53 PM (seven months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol. i enjoy this thread. sarahell is terrifying in it, though.

i am kind of a fan of repression, i think.

^^^that's my contribution to the thread, i mean

Mordy, do you actually believe this???

there is lit published after 1945 that i like. but it seems like a useful cut-off date bc i think it does mark a dramatic decline in quality. and over the last decade or so i'm totally turned off to all new literature. there's too much of it, it all seems very samey, none of it seems to have anything new or useful to say, etc. </curmudgeon> happy to see u in this thread horseshoe. :)

repression can be good! ppl are too self-expressed.

i identify with that, to some extent, but isn't it just that the historical processes of selection and canonization haven't happened yet for stuff that's just come out? i feel like market forces dictate what gets presented as literary fiction more than thoughtful criticism. maybe the super-good stuff hasn't even been published and will be discovered years hence, you know? but also, i like plenty of recent stuff. the Ferrante novels are as good as anything ever written. well, maybe not King Lear, but what is? liking King Lear as much as i do is kind of conservative, i guess?

hi Mordy! it's nice to see you, too.

also genre fiction that is v v good is a welcome respite from the saminess of "literary fiction"

my investment in evaluating literature is conservative, i guess.

i've even read new fiction i like but generally not as much as older fiction i've liked and lately i've found that i'm drawn more and more to pre-1945 literature and less and less interested in what ppl have to say about /our times/ which contemp authors seem consistently unable to address in any kind of novel or valuable way. certainly the whole cadre of new yorker fiction is a total wasteland in my eyes. i haven't read any ferrante but i'm pretty much willing to try any recommendation if there's a particular one you think i should read?

I have only read the Neapolitan novels, the first of which is My Brilliant Friend. I'm trying to think of other novels I've read recently that I would recommend--it's so vulnerable! With stuff written pre-1945, I can feel confident that many smart people have pored over it and found it pearlescently perfect, which is not a feeling I often have reading new stuff. But I have read plenty of baggy, messy things I enjoy. Also I let my ninth graders read whatever they want one day a week, which is my favorite day because I get to read whatever I want with them, and the last time we did that I read a pearlescently perfect short story by Alice Munro, "Comfort," which I also recommend, and which might specifically appeal to you, Mordy.

She's pretty New Yorker-y, i guess.

alice munro? yeah, definitely. she's among the reasons i got so turned off to reading new literature but i've never read "Comfort" (i don't think? tho it does sound familiar...) and i'd be willing to give her another try on your say-so.

i don't know; if you don't like her other stuff, you might hate it. i would give it maybe five pages to appeal to you?