Sex and WaccoBB

[Dixon]

[This discussion erupted within the thread about Leaf Blowers and has been spit off to it's own thread. Please join the discussion! - Barry]

That's great, Dixon. lol.
Do you think there's any way to speed things up some? I wouldn't mind making big bucks now, pretending to channel myself.

I'm afraid channeling yourself is not cosmic enough to attract any "green energy", Claire. But the good news is that you can claim to channel absolutely anybody or anything besides yourself, such as a 30,000 year-old entity from Lemuria, or for that matter, claim any kind of "healing" or divinatory power, and the New Age bliss-ninnies of West Sonoma County will line up at your door with their money in their hands. There is no claim so bizarre or so thoroughly unsupported by any logic that people around here won't pay good money for it. Don't forget to use words like "sacred" and "quantum", and make sure to get a booth at the Harmony Festival. And Barry will happily let you fish for suckers here on WaccoBB no matter how bogus your "service" is--as long as it's not sexual in nature, which for some reason is verboten here on "progressive" WaccoBB.

[Barry]

... And Barry will happily let you fish for suckers here on WaccoBB no matter how bogus your "service" is--as long as it's not sexual in nature, which for some reason is verboten here on "progressive" WaccoBB.

who said anything about non-sexual?

[Dixon]

who said anything about non-sexual?

Unfortunately, I can't see all of your Posting Guidelines in order to fully research my answer, Barry, because when I hit the "Read More" button under Posting Guidelines in your About Us section, I just get a message that says "Dixon, you do not have permission to access this page..." etc. I have no idea why a member would not have access to the Posting Guidelines! Must be some kinda glitch.

[This has been fixed, thanks for bringing this to my attention - Barry]

What I do note under "WaccoBB Rules" is "By agreeing to these rules, you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, [I'll leave aside the issue of whether sex, however explicit, is obscene] vulgar, [I'll leave aside the classist implications of the concept of vulgarity] in any category aside from Censored and UnCensored", and you explicitly label that section "Strictly Non-Commercial", which seems to leave out the possibility of anyone offering sexual services on a commercial basis--thus my statement that sexual services are verboten on WaccoBB.

I understand that there are legalities involved and that you may need to forbid certain kinds of ads just to keep your own ass out of jail or WaccoBB out of legal difficulties, but I note that lots of publications have thriving sections of sexy advertisements, as well as quite explicit personals ads, and these seem conspicuous by their absence on WaccoBB.

Perhaps some clarification is in order. Would, for example, explicitly sexual noncommercial personals ads be acceptable in the Censored and Uncensored section? With explicit pictures, as I've often seen in "swingers' magazines" and the like?

[Barry]

...
Perhaps some clarification is in order. Would, for example, explicitly sexual noncommercial personals ads be acceptable in the Censored and Uncensored section? With explicit pictures, as I've often seen in "swingers' magazines" and the like?

Pretty much anything goes in the Censored and Uncensored category. Some bounds of taste and decorum would be appreciated, but I'll try to be as permissive as possible. Keep in mind that this is all still within pretext of "conscious community". Expressions of sexuality, whether the be a personal or other "classified" posts, poetry and prose, discussion, images, and video can either be appropriate or not, depending on how tasteful and respectful it is. What's more, as we all know, sexuality can be a powerful path into the awakening to the profoundness of the present, just as it can also be numbing. It's also the source of much pain that can be helped by bringing consciousness to bear, so it's a very appropriate topic for us.

I'd actually like to see an R-rated section here on WaccoBB.net someday. There's a little bit of technology that I'd like to add to make it optional to be visible or not, plus a fair amount of nurturing to get it off on the right track. That's all for another day. In the meantime, the C & U category can be used for most "exotic" purposes, where viewer discretion is advised.

Here's a little video that seems appropriate about now...

[Dixon]

Thanks for the clarification, Barry. And the "Hitler Does Tantra" vid was great.

Some bounds of taste and decorum would be appreciated, but I'll try to be as permissive as possible. Keep in mind that this is all still within pretext of "conscious community". Expressions of sexuality, whether the be a personal or other "classified" posts, poetry and prose, discussion, images, and video can either be appropriate or not, depending on how tasteful and respectful it is.
I'd actually like to see an R-rated section here on WaccoBB.net someday.

In practice, words like "taste", "decorum", "appropriate", "tasteful" and "respectful" nearly always manifest as evasive, soft-core, non-explicit material. The subtext: that sex and particularly genitals are nasty, dirty, obscene, shameful, and that really sex-positive people (not the inhibited smarmy New Age ones who have to call it some fancy name like "quidoshka" and ritualize sex in order to give themselves permission to do something fun) are low-class, immoral, dirty people. This subtext bespeaks the formative role of patriarchy and, by extension, misogyny in our lives. I'm advocating for rationality and freedom instead. Keep in mind that correlational studies from various places around the world pretty consistently show that wherever pornography becomes legal, more available, or more explicit, sex crimes such as rape and child sexual abuse decrease.

[Barry]

Thanks for the clarification, Barry. And the "Hitler Does Tantra" vid was great.



In practice, words like "taste", "decorum", "appropriate", "tasteful" and "respectful" nearly always manifest as evasive, soft-core, non-explicit material. The subtext: that sex and particularly genitals are nasty, dirty, obscene, shameful, and that really sex-positive people (not the inhibited smarmy New Age ones who have to call it some fancy name like "quidoshka" and ritualize sex in order to give themselves permission to do something fun) are low-class, immoral, dirty people. This subtext bespeaks the formative role of patriarchy and, by extension, misogyny in our lives. I'm advocating for rationality and freedom instead. Keep in mind that correlational studies from various places around the world pretty consistently show that wherever pornography becomes legal, more available, or more explicit, sex crimes such as rape and child sexual abuse decrease.

My initial take is that I'm open to allowing a free exchange of sexually oriented posts that are relevant and appropriate to our community, which as some of you remember, was initially a rather sexually free group.

Truth be told, one of my intentions for WaccoBB.net, that I have shared only with friends to this point, is "Community Safe Sex", in that, the quest was just how intimate we could be in a larger community and still have it be feel safe.

On the other hand, I'm not interested in having it be another internet porn site. There's plenty of those... And such content tends to push out other content, and I won't tolerate that. On yet another hand, sharing your experience of those sites (if you dare), would be an appropriate discussion here (or rather in the UnCensored category).

I'm also mindful that nearly two-thirds of our members are women. I want the majority of the women to be comfortable with what gets posted. Note that the Censored and Uncensored is an opt-in category as far the digest is concerned, and with a little tweaking, I can make it so on the website as well. But even with those controls, I will be listening closely to how the women feel how sexuality might be expressed here both consciously and respectfully.

[Barry]

My initial take is that I'm open to allowing a free exchange of sexually oriented posts that are relevant and appropriate to our community, which as some of you remember, was initially a rather sexually free group.

Truth be told, one of my intentions for WaccoBB.net, that I have shared only with friends to this point, is "Community Safe Sex", in that, the quest was just how intimate we could be in a larger community and still have it be feel safe.

...

To expound a little further on "Community Safe Sex", what I had in mind was intimacy as expressed through shared transparency, vulnerability, compassion, ecstasy with open hearts...

[DeadwoodPete]

I have never participated in one of these discussions, and I will likely not again.And fortunately I do not know who wrote this last post, so my response is certainly not personal. Please lets talk politely. There is no real need to put each other down like that. If you disagree with the prevailing, and amazing, ways people choose to approach their healing, please let us know how you see it. We have enough vitriol in the world.
Thanks, DeadwoodPete



I'm afraid channeling yourself is not cosmic enough to attract any "green energy", Claire. But the good news is that you can claim to channel absolutely anybody or anything besides yourself, such as a 30,000 year-old entity from Lemuria, or for that matter, claim any kind of "healing" or divinatory power, and the New Age bliss-ninnies of West Sonoma County will line up at your door with their money in their hands. There is no claim so bizarre or so thoroughly unsupported by any logic that people around here won't pay good money for it. Don't forget to use words like "sacred" and "quantum", and make sure to get a booth at the Harmony Festival. And Barry will happily let you fish for suckers here on WaccoBB no matter how bogus your "service" is--as long as it's not sexual in nature, which for some reason is verboten here on "progressive" WaccoBB.[/QUOTE]

[Braggi]

... There's a little bit of technology that I'd like to add to make it optional to be visible or not, plus a fair amount of nurturing to get it off on the right track. ...

"...get it off on the right track."

Uh huh.

Seriously, I haven't seen much interest in sexual discussions on Waccobb. Perhaps they just need to get started and then they'll "flow." Perhaps the people who come here mostly don't want to discuss their sexuality in such an otherwise intimate community. This isn't like posting on an AOL forum where you're one of 50 million and you'll never meet any of the people you're exchanging with in real life.

I like to play and I'm curious to see where this goes.

-Jeff

[Dixon]

Please lets talk politely. There is no real need to put each other down like that. If you disagree with the prevailing, and amazing, ways people choose to approach their healing, please let us know how you see it. We have enough vitriol in the world.

Thanks for your comment, Pete.

To clarify--what I disagree with is people getting ripped off by cool and groovy snake oil peddlers selling stuff that doesn't really work. Quackery and fraudulent "healing" practices make our world a little worse. I also disagree with people who not only base their decisions on really really crappy logic, but are actively hostile to improving their thinking, closed-mindedly attached to their beliefs. That may seem trivial to some, but since such irrationality is at the heart of racism, sexism, imperialism and most other problems, I get really steamed about it, and this anger is ultimately based on my empathy for others; I hate seeing people get ripped off or otherwise hurt, and irrational thinking is a major cause of needless human suffering, so it's a button pusher for me.

We can't reasonably expect to have our cake and eat it too; if we wanna be esteemed as reasonable people, we must subject ourselves to rational criteria; conversely, if we allow ourselves the luxury of believing whatever sounds cool, regardless of whether it's based on blatant fallacy, we don't get to complain when someone calls us a bliss-ninny, because that's what we've chosen to be.

I won't bore you by rattling on at length here. If you want a little more understanding of where I'm coming from vis-a-vis New Age snake oil etc. you may wish to look at my very recent post (#5) on this page.

I hope I've clarified myself a bit, Pete, and thanks for asking.

[AllorrahBe]

Barry: While I think the video is Brilliant!!! I prefer "Expressions of sexuality" stay over in the Uncensored category! Thanks for asking!

Rev. Allorrah Be
Circles of Light Ministries

Pretty much anything goes in the Censored and Uncensored category. Some bounds of taste and decorum would be appreciated, but I'll try to be as permissive as possible. Keep in mind that this is all still within pretext of "conscious community". Expressions of sexuality, whether the be a personal or other "classified" posts, poetry and prose, discussion, images, and video can either be appropriate or not, depending on how tasteful and respectful it is. What's more, as we all know, sexuality can be a powerful path into the awakening to the profoundness of the present, just as it can also be numbing. It's also the source of much pain that can be helped by bringing consciousness to bear, so it's a very appropriate topic for us.

I'd actually like to see an R-rated section here on WaccoBB.net someday. There's a little bit of technology that I'd like to add to make it optional to be visible or not, plus a fair amount of nurturing to get it off on the right track. That's all for another day. In the meantime, the C & U category can be used for most "exotic" purposes, where viewer discretion is advised.

Here's a little video that seems appropriate about now...

[DeadwoodPete]

After saying that I don't imagine I would participate in a discussion of this sort, I find that I would like to respond to this message from you Dixon. I appreciate the difference of tone. I also, appreciate the importance of using this amazing tool we own, our brain. And yet logic, as I see it, detached from emotions, is as vulnerable to blind paths as is pure irrationality. Again, as I see it, intelligence is somewhere between heart and head. It is in that place, where healing is most needed.

It seems to me, that the conditions under which clear thought arises is a environment of tolerance and clear, open expression of one's own perspective. It is about all we have to share without the use of some form of coercion. As we all know too well these days, coercion comes in many forms.

Maybe my last post on this topic.

Be well and happy, DeadwoodPete

Thanks for your comment, Pete.

To clarify--what I disagree with is people getting ripped off by cool and groovy snake oil peddlers selling stuff that doesn't really work. Quackery and fraudulent "healing" practices make our world a little worse. I also disagree with people who not only base their decisions on really really crappy logic, but are actively hostile to improving their thinking, closed-mindedly attached to their beliefs. That may seem trivial to some, but since such irrationality is at the heart of racism, sexism, imperialism and most other problems, I get really steamed about it, and this anger is ultimately based on my empathy for others; I hate seeing people get ripped off or otherwise hurt, and irrational thinking is a major cause of needless human suffering, so it's a button pusher for me. We can't reasonably expect to have our cake and eat it too; if we wanna be esteemed as reasonable people, we must subject ourselves to rational criteria; conversely, if we allow ourselves the luxury of believing whatever sounds cool, regardless of whether it's based on blatant fallacy, we don't get to complain when someone calls us a bliss-ninny, because that's what we've chosen to be.

I won't bore you by rattling on at length here. If you want a little more understanding of where I'm coming from vis-a-vis New Age snake oil etc. you may wish to look at my very recent post (#5) on this page.

I hope I've clarified myself a bit, Pete, and thanks for asking.

[Dixon]

After saying that I don't imagine I would participate in a discussion of this sort, I find that I would like to respond to this message from you Dixon.

Great!

And yet logic, as I see it, detached from emotions, is as vulnerable to blind paths as is pure irrationality. Again, as I see it, intelligence is somewhere between heart and head. It is in that place, where healing is most needed.

Well of course, the human organism, like the universe of which it is an expression, is one unified whole and we only divide it into "heart" and "head" conceptually, as such conceptualization is useful and, on one level, real.

But I differ with you re: the place of emotion in reasoning. When the conclusions we're trying to reach are about largely personal, subjective things, such as "Where should I live?" or "What career should I pursue?", our emotions are a huge part of reasoning properly. But when we're asking questions about the less personal, more objective universe, such as "Is this healing modality effective for this problem?" or "Is this person guilty of this crime?" or "Is the astrological hypothesis true?" or even "Is there a god?", I don't see how our emotions have any relevance to the process of finding the truth and in fact, I think our emotions must be, as much as possible, screened out of the process so they don't taint the reasoning and lead us to false conclusions. Without such objectivity, for instance, innocent people may be found guilty because people's feelings about the person distort the reasoning, or ineffective treatment modalities or non-existent gods may be erroneously validated because our emotional needs bias us in favor of such things.

That's a lot of what scientific method and, more broadly, rationality are about--screening out confounding factors such as self-interest, wishful thinking, prejudice and irrelevant emotions which may screw up our thinking, giving us the desirable conclusion rather than the true one.

Regarding, just for example, any of the four questions about the objective world I ask above, I can't think of any way our emotions would help us reach true conclusions as opposed to just biasing us towards believing what we wanna believe. Can you? And if you're the innocent man on trial, wouldn't you want the jury to consider the facts as objectively as possible rather than being influenced by some emotional response they have to you?

There is actually one appropriate role I see for emotion when it comes to reasoning about the objective world: We ought to care so much about truth that we're inspired and excited about it. We ought to have such a fervid passion for truth that it motivates us to set aside our emotions in those instances when they'd only get in the way of objective reasoning.

It seems to me, that the conditions under which clear thought arises is a environment of tolerance and clear, open expression of one's own perspective.

That's part of it, but if that tolerance includes tolerating thinking that is clearly fallacious or conclusions that are clearly unsupported, it goes too far, and will only result in people believing whatever meets their emotional needs whether it's really true or delusional. So I would support considerable tolerance for individual difference (and anyone who knows me will tell you I'm one of the weirdest guys around) as long as that doesn't mean that we abandon reasonable criteria for our thinking and pretend that blatantly fallacious conclusions are respectable. Keep in mind that if we were all committed to rationality, sexism, racism, imperialism etc. would all but disappear from the planet, because they're based on faulty reasoning. Telling someone that we think they're mistaken, that their most fervid beliefs are wrong, is not intolerance; it's honest, growthful communication, and far more respectful than smiling, nodding and pretending to agree when you really think they're full of crap.

It is about all we have to share without the use of some form of coercion. As we all know too well these days, coercion comes in many forms.

I hope you don't feel that my tendency to challenge people on their beliefs has anything to do with coercion, Pete.

BTW and FWIW, the various ideas I've barely touched on in this post are expanded in my monthly column The Gospel According to Dixon in the Articles and Comments section of WaccoBB.

[occihoff]

This is the first time I've taken the trouble to respond to a thread! I appreciate Dixon's intelligent, perceptive, and amusing comments, and everybody's excellent responses. I agree that it is very important to take a close look at our society's long-standing phobic attitudes toward sex, because they are the at root of so much neurosis, ugliness, and general craziness. One of the things that attracted me to Wilhelm Reich and his psychotherapeutic methods was his profound awareness of this connection, as in "The Mass Psychology of Fascism."

Where I would like to weigh in now is on the conflct between emotion and rationality that has been brought up in this thread. Pete wisely commented on the importance of a balanced, cooperative relationship between these two aspects of our being, and in response Dixon raised some caveats, citing examples where objectivity should clearly rule. But Dixon, I think you went a little too far when you said "Keep in mind that if we were all committed to rationality, sexism, racism, imperialism etc. would all but disappear from the planet, because they're based on faulty reasoning." I would reply that to the extent any "reasoning" is involved in sexism, racism, and imperialism, it is only a thin veneer covering over and justifying a deeper and more fundamental level of emotional attitudes such as greed, self-agrandisement, anger, and hatred. It is these emotions that drive the "faulty reasoning," not the other way around, and until these emotions are addressed and changed no amount of rational discourse will have much effect.

I would also like to respond to Dixon's distaste for the prevalence of what we might call the more "New Age Woo-woo" posts on Wacco. As a practitioner of what I regard as a solid, grounded emotional/spiritual healing path (Reichian bodywork-assisted emotional healing work), I must say I share your feelings. Sometimes, reading Wacco BB, I feel so all alone--stranger in a strange land! Granted, some personalities of a more imaginative, visionary type might be able to get some good effects from some of these practitioners and workshops. But I can't help but suspect that a major drive behind the attraction to many of these more "positive thinking" and "spiritual" paths is that they purport to lift you out of your limitations, pain, and personal problems by an almost magical blessing. No more pain, no more hard, scary, upsetting feelings to face. I don't want to offend anybody for their beliefs or bring down upon myself a rain of negativity from the believers in positivity! But my life has taught me--the hard way--that there is no smooth, easy path to bliss. You really have to work on it and summon the will and courage to face your blocked emotions, dysfunctional character patterns, and wounded inner child. It may not be easy, but at least it's real!