thread: 2005-08-30 : Coming-of-age Fantasy for Adults
On 2005-08-30, Jason Lee wrote:
Last week my wife said, "I've noticed I tend to think about what kind of men constant war (read: medieval cultures) would breed, but I never really think about what kind of women it would make."
The constant risk, or event, of death to the men in your family. The fact that if they fail you are the spoils. Women as property with virginity measuring worth. Old Testament stuff like having to marry your rapist if you were a virgin.
I think the real trick, mechanically, will be how to break away from the whole revenge/punishment BS into deeper areas. Like denial, being too afraid of your attacker to contemplate revenge, blaming oneself, etc. How fear and/or guilt leads to not mentioning an incident. There is also the other side of the coin that rarely seems to get acknowledged which is that for some people it really isn't very traumatic - no more so than getting beaten up. I think that's very uncommon in our society (not sure), but different levels of sensitivity may exist in other cultures.
Then how does that all apply to sex workers, cross-ethnic incidents, and other situations where the "damage" to a woman's worth may be more/less accepted.
This makes JBR go "Love, Sex, Marriage"
Exactly, Jason. Most of the revenge and angst meme is built out of the equation of Love = Sex = Marriage, which is an entirely modern notion. How many other ways can those three be put into juxtaposition?
This makes JL go "Yeah, I agree. And the conservative view comes in a cycle: Love -> Marriage -> Sex. We can look at the opposition to"
This makes JL go "Heh. Oops."
gay marriage as trying to outlaw gay marriage by breaking that chain.
This makes JL go "Oops again..."
I got confused by the margins... silly me.
"gay sex by breaking the chain"
This makes NK go "My uncle once asked me..."
..."How do Americans fall in love before getting married? I only fell in love with my wife after we were married and I got to know her well. I don't understand how you can fall in love with someone you don't know."
