Porn. My friends like porn. One of them wants to start a porn magazine and is actually going in for a meeting with some kind of publisher today. I remember when they all passed around 'The Happy Hooker' which many loved. I remember conversations about exactly how much we would sell ourselves for. They, as do I, dance and grind on each other to get attention.
Now I could sit here and defend their ability to do what they want or argue that they would probably be this way if the world hadn't preformed any socialization on them (both of which I believe are winnable arguments). But instead I'd like to attack the concept that socialized things are not acceptable. We talked in class about how just because something is socialized into people doesn't mean it's not real. But it more then just real.
For starters, the idea that we can realistically study what is and is not socialized into people is untrue. We all remember those cases of parents trying to bring up their kids without gender and how ever time it was attempted it didn't seem to work correctly, that is the kids were still exposed to the effects of the outside society and the gender that it displayed. Those are biased studies and until that bias can be removed, there are no solid conclusions that can be drawn. And those are well prepared and forethought studies. To say that we can look at women in general and say which ones would have done what had they been brought up differently is absurd. They were not brought up differently and any prediction of how they would have acted imparts so much of what the observer would have done into the observed that it becomes nothing more then talking about ones self.
Beyond this, the difference between genetic and social manipulation is immaterial. To say that something is genetically bred into us and that makes it ok while something that is socialized into us may be incorrect and in need of change is to break up what are both evolved behaviors. It really only is the different in terms of what is easy to change and what is difficult to change. It doesn't mean that one deserves to be changed more then the other. And we're not going to be able to get away with making that difference when genetic engineering makes it possible to determine behavioral characteristics before birth. Socialized is just as ingrained in people as genetics are. Not to say they don't both deserve to be changed, but it's not just real, it's a valid part of human life. We really can debate what the ideal human can be, that's a valid conversation but let's not kid ourselves into believing that intentionally socializing a person for an intended outcome is different then genetically engineering them. It is a debate over what a human should be and we would be telling not just ourselves but someone else how they're allowed to build humans.
Also, I'd like to attack the idea of what is natural. We talk about how some things are and are not natural. This is an absurdity. We're studying people, the culture and evolution of people. When we say 'natural' we're really trying to express the idea that a vastly more intelligent force didn't interfere to make the outcome of the observation come out one way of another. Well barring a god, humans are the most intelligent life form and as such no vastly more intelligent one can interfere because they don't exist. When you're studying humans, whatever happens is whatever happens naturally. Our culture is natural as is everything we do. Unless you run to the supernatural, all things are natural. I only bring this up to defend the evolution and 'natural' nature of our culture. So many times certain ways that people act are cited to be unnatural. If people are that way, they got that way naturally and it is a natural state for a human to be in, no matter how terrible it is.
To reemphasize, it is reasonable to have a conversation about the way that humans 'should be' (after all there are many practices of humans that are bad enough that they are generally unacceptable to have in a human who is expected to interact with other humans: serial killing for example) but to have such a debate over if this is the way that humans 'are' entirely misses the point that humans already are that way.
Me and my friends dance and grind and think and talk about sex just like any number of people do in their free time. Why shouldn't we?
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Posted by: lwppvju at March 21, 2008 10:44 AM