Darkpunk Guide to Philosophy
A blog dedicated to a new kind of philosophy that will look at the more pessimistic and ultimately more endearing parts of life in general.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Sexuality: Attraction, Affection, and Acceptance
Sex is a topic most people tend to avoid in polite conversation. It is generally ignored as a subject altogether; to most people, sex is personal, and it should stay that way, regardless of the situation.
Let's think about this from a new perspective; assume there are no sexual taboos, and that sex is an open topic in decent conversation, no matter where you go in the world today. You would find that some of the people closest to you actually fantasize about things sexually that you didn't think they were capable of even understanding. Sexuality, though quiet in the moral public visage that many people try to retain today, is actually a broad and well designed psychological setting in the minds of every person. To fully understand the ideas behind sexuality, you first need to look at attraction.
As a man, I am often plagued by the view of women, and biologically for men that is a distraction all on its own. I find women attractive; a general term, but one that says so much. If I was to state that I was attracted to women to any other person, than that person would know that, and if they were a woman they would, if I was attractive to anyone, find reason to act more attractive to me. Unspecified attraction doesn't apply unfortunately. One man may find thin women attractive, while another might find a plump woman sexy. That's what makes a statement of attraction so strong; the specificity of the statement doesn't matter because any statement of attraction will affect everyone you state it to at a level of belief that binds you to that topic. With attraction the basis of sexuality, let's get a little more taboo.
Let's say I'm attracted to toasters. If I walked up to you on the street and told you that, the only two thoughts you could have are: "This man is insane, and he needs to get away from me" and "Me too; I should invite him over to play with my shiny silver lover."
Don't say you can't care whether or not I'm attracted to toasters. Sexuality, honestly, has no neutral ground. That why attraction, and the perception of attraction, make up sexuality. Even if you are close to neutral, you are still either more readily accepting of toaster sexuality, or less readily accepting of toaster sexuality. Think about how you feel about homosexuality; this isn't the best comparison, but it is still good for the sake of argument. Many people accept homosexuals, regardless of their beliefs, but some are willing to support homosexuals in their fight to complete acceptance, and some are just sitting back and watching, maybe slightly disgusted by those people. No matter what you are going to have bias, but that makes sexuality much more broad, and covers up the way people discuss sex in the public forum; no one wants to openly admit their own sexual desires and fantasies, and in some ways are disgusted by them. Of course, most sexual desires and fetishes are based entirely in the physical respect, and so seem more repulsive if we don't have the same attraction. I say we get rid of the multiple sexual fetishes and fantasies, at least in detail, and regroup sexuality into two parts to understand attraction and sexual desire: mental sexuality and physical sexuality.
Mental sexuality, in part, actually sounds a bit dirtier. Fantasies are always a little worse than what we actually partake in sexually, right? Think about cyber sexuality, a form of mental sexuality that has been consistently going on for years now. Those people can have the weirdest fetishes, but they are only fantasies, right? Sort of. Mental sexuality is the extension of sexuality that deals primarily with the aspects of attraction that deal specifically with emotions, intellect, and so on. Personality sexuality, if you will. Since we, as human beings, are so accustomed to a very narrow form of physical sexuality, typically we would never consciously find ourselves indulging in mental sexuality, though in theory it can be much more potent.
Imagine you are online chatting with what appears to be a member of the opposite gender around your age. Do you know that's true? Mental sexuality relies on fantasy and personality more than physical gender. This may sound strange to you, but the desire to have fantasy sex over real sex is growing at an increasing rate, and it will soon seem that there is no boundary between the two. Pansexual belief seems to heavily believe in a similar system; to them, no one person can be considered attractive by gender. Mental sexuality is what humans should first aspire to successfully master if they wish to find themselves with a proper mate. Look at all the dating sites. Personality comes first, then physical attraction; fantasy before reality. Doesn't that seem logical?
Physical sexuality can be so hurtful anyway. Physical attraction in itself is a crime; how do you know if you are attracted to someone before you even speak to them? Of course, in some cases this works. We've come up with terminology as a society that describes the different ways people are physically attracted to each other, mainly "shallow" and "deep" to name a couple. Physical sexuality is what every person associates with sexiness as they start to understand how sexuality works. For example, think about what physical features you find attractive. Now try to remember a time when, upon looking at a person or thing you were attracted to, you didn't use those features to rate how sexually stimulating that person or thing was to you. Is it hard for you to do so? I would assume it is. We constantly use physical features to subconsciously, and even consciously, rate the attractiveness of a person or thing, and so we are more trained to effectively be more physically sexual than mentally sexual.
Is this a problem? Maybe it is. Physical sexuality is instinctual and more readily appealing, and can also be taken in the forms of wealth and assets. It could also be considered damaging to social interaction. Mental sexuality, on the other hand, allows for judgment of the person or thing, and not the way the person looks. Now, in all honesty, if you are sexually attracted to a toaster, mental sexuality will not come into play unless you are schizophrenic. Also, in some cases, one person in a sexual relationship may rely solely on mental sexuality and act physically attracted, while the other relies on physical sexuality and acts mental attracted. It is a gray, foggy, obfuscated topic. It is difficult to see where sexuality may begin or end, and what is employed when the initial attraction is made between a man and his dog, or a woman and her cucumber, but it is certain that it can only grow in intensity and depth.
Conclusion: sexuality is insane, but required. Assume a man and a woman are having an intimate relationship. They both got into the relationship based on attraction, but they were attracted for different reasons. She may have found his car to be a sign of his ability to provide; he may have found her breasts to excite him. No matter what the reasoning, sex is always going to be complicated, and what people find themselves fantasizing about is going to be equally complicated. So whether you enjoy sheep, vacuum cleaner, transvestites, or toasters, you are not alone in the idea that sexuality is personal; the sole reason people don't discuss sex is because of what they personally find exciting.
So let's change things; I say each and every person should state what sexually excites them to all the people they know.
You can go first.
Monday, August 23, 2010
There Is No God
Today, I have experienced a horrible loss: a friend of mine has decided to stop communicating with me because I am supposedly selfish, rude, and insulting.
I have found proof that there is no higher power. I am going to admit a few things through this, and then I am going to explain in depth some personal experience with religion, and once and for all at least attempt to prove in full that there is no higher power.
I am crazy. If you ask any of my friends or family, they will tell you that I have pretty much never been right in the head. I suffer from a personality disorder, and even though it makes me creative and heightens my ability to use my intelligence, it also makes me anti-social, suicidal, and causes me to have gory fantasies of death. I am rude, selfish, and insulting. I'm also incredibly sensitive to even the slightest insult. I have no block on my depression, so when it hits me, I am compulsively pushed to reveal it to someone immediately. Most of the time I can control this, but it only continually builds if I hold it back for too long, and eventually a wall breaks. Through all of this, however, I know one thing that hasn't left me since I was fifteen years old.
There is no God. I had a friend abandon me today in an attempt to avoid the misery I cause all of my friends. She couldn't handle my insanity; myself in all I can reveal to others, and she made the decision that it was better to stop communicating with me than continue being in misery, regardless of if anything can come of a positive nature with her continuing. Am I depressed? More than I have ever been. I spend most of my time telling myself that there are people out there that care about me, but when one person I thought did just that decides I'm worthless, I don't see that in my head anymore; I only see the pain and anguish.
To me, this proves the lack of a higher power. If there was a deity, than wouldn't their major goal be to ensure everything they have ever created is positive they should live? I've had experience with religion. I used to be a Christian. I had a priest tell me to break the law. I've seen Christians be intolerant of others because they believed that there way was best. I've spent my days pondering the idea of a higher power (I am agnostic), but not once have I ever been sure that there is a much more powerful being in the universe that has created everything and is controlling the things we ask it to control. Some say tonight's events is a challenge from such a higher power. I say that it is a challenge to see how long before I go play on the freeway. There can't be a God if bad things happen to people; a higher power would surely do whatever it took to maintain the world it created.
There have been many things in my life I've asked God for, but none have ever been given to me. If you are a Christian, and you are reading this, think about every prayer you have ever made. Can you remember the last time God sent you something you asked for, or at least implied you needed? I am sitting here now wondering why a Christian would be reading this blog, and I think one of you might have prayed that I would (which would be creepy), but if a higher power was in existence, then each and every person in the world who suffers and yet doesn't believe in it should be protected by God just as much as any person who prays every day and gets nothing, right? Read that question again.
Now you see why there is no God. If no one's prayers are being answered, then there can be no higher power because those that do not believe in God are not being led out of challenges in their lives just as equally; a deity would love everything that it created, not just those that pray to it and give its priests money. I believe in Fate and entropy; I believe that our lives are nothing more but a set of random occurrences that we have no control over, and that we will never have any control over. I believe I can't change just because someone asks me to or I decide to because it is not my decision to make; the universe already has a massive destructive force called entropy that causes every random event happen, and if I am supposed to change, or for that matter anyone is supposed to get anything, that it will happen at random based on the loss of energy in the universe. There can be no God, because that would mean everything was its plan, and that any person in a horrible position in life is in that position because a higher power decided you needed to kill yourself, starve to death, or be raped. That would mean a higher power was controlling every event in your life, and using some people like puppets to gain what it thinks is the best path for each person while they are still alive. I am not a puppet, except to my own delusions and fantasies, and I would never let a much larger being than me stick his hand up my ass to make others do things.
Think about it. There is no higher power. For a higher power to exist, that would mean every bad thing that has ever happened is its fault, and every religion that believes in a higher power states that that is not the mission of their deity, so how can one be in existence?
There is no God, and there never will be.
The New Blog, and some perspective on Internet socialization
So you may be wondering why you are here, and where this blog came from.
If you are familiar with Made of Human Skin (http://www.madeofhumanskin.tk), or any of my other work, than you are obviously familiar with Darkpunk, and all the fun associated with identifying and understanding the more shadowy parts of life. I was getting tired of writing blog posts on my proper writing site that were being ignored, and since this blog is supposed to be for the more philosophical things that come into my head, as well as analysis of things in the world that are recommended to me or that come up in my personal life, I've decided to create a new place for that particular type of writing.
With that being said, how about we dive right into socialization on the Internet.
It's a social creation, you know. The Internet is a massive knowledge and communication database designed to keep people coming back for more; an addictive electronic super-being whose only goal is to convey information at all times without bias or censorship. The majority of people today use it mostly for communication (social networking, for example), and it seems that such usage has spawned the creation of several terms and types of communication that are solely for Internet usage. Let's start with the feeblest, then work our way up to the real creepers.
Standard online communication is probably the most normal thing anyone can deal with on a day to day basis. The sending of emails and instant messages to friends and family, not to mention co-workers, fellow students, colleagues in your field, and businesses you work with on a daily basis, is a quick and easy way to ensure people know what you want to talk about, and is simply the currently most useful way to communicate in the digital age. People who limit themselves to just these types of communication, and possibly social networking sites as well, are your usual people: students, peers, teachers, co-workers, family members, parents of peers, and even the janitor at the fast food restaurant you frequent so much. They tend to ignore the rest of the Internet's wide usage of other types of electronic communication, such as online chat rooms and forums, and even though some of them are social networking addicts (damn apps on Facebook), none of these people is necessarily an Internet addict, or possible freak of nature that you would want to avoid.
Forums are probably the next best thing to instant messaging and emails, especially if you wish to convey information to a large quantity of people at once. Forums allow people with similar interests, and allow those people to reply with their opinions on what you have stated (unlike the social site known as "Twitter", where anyone who gets your messages has to be willing to listen to you whine about your toilet not flushing). Forums are full of people that are willing to listen, but some of them are full of people who would rather make fun of you than take you seriously. These people are referred to as "trolls", and can be found in any public forum on the Internet, including Youtube and 4chan (4chan especially; that is there standard feeding ground). Standard forum users are there to leave information, gain information, or simply read for the fun of it; trolls tend to just leave replies that involve oral sex with the same gender, or the need to fornicate with your mother.
On to the next rising force on the Internet: chat rooms. Chat rooms have actually existed almost as long as the Internet has, and have been a useful way for many people to communicate quickly for a while now. Let's do an experiment. Go to Google. Search for some chat rooms. You will find that there are several sites that are specifically designed for that service, where others provide them as another communication service. Quite surprising, right? Now mind you, many Internet addicts, trolls, and generally socially deprived, creepy people tend to enter certain chat rooms (such as the adult chat rooms that are scattered liberally over the Internet), and you might want to avoid such places, but otherwise chat rooms are safe for any person looking to meet some new people, or just have a good conversation.
Now on to Internet socialization in detail. Your average person is going on the net to send a few instant messages and emails, possibly put up a forum post, and then spend a couple of hours in a chat room going to bed, as well as looking up news stories, reading blog entries, and viewing videos. No big deal. Then you have the borderline Internet addicts. These people will have a better understanding of the Internet, and may have even had a couple of "flings" with someone online. They might enjoy uploading videos, writing blog posts, and reading articles on movies, music, and social issues more than your average person, but generally they are harmless.
Next you have Internet addicts and so forth. The ultimate electronic social experts. These people live and breathe the electronic communication age. Before I continue, please do not group me into the creepers; I have a blog, a website, and enjoy adult sites, which are similar things that serious Internet addicts do, but I do get up from my computer to fix other people's pc's, as well as go out to have fun, but I am not one of those super-freaks. There are people in this world that will only get information from the Internet, watch pornography consistently, attempt to hit on every girl in a chat room, and make fun of other people doing the exact same thing (trolls). These are the real people to avoid on the Internet, and possibly in real life if they ever leave their homes. They tend to be pale, afraid of sunlight because of it, incapable of speaking to another human being at any range of decency, and love to do such things as edit Wiki articles and play a certain MMORPG (which involves a world and some crafts…). Remember: never look one of these people in the eye; you will lose your mind trying to fathom what is inside their psychopathic little brain.
Well, that's all for now. Look in the "Little Things…" section, and email me with suggestions as to things you would like me to write about.