Posted by sigismund on August 1, 2011, at 1:54:40
In reply to Re: Dragging... (warning uncheerful post ;-) » sigismund, posted by floatingbridge on July 27, 2011, at 19:53:35
>When children/adolescents are left to, and therefore tacitly allowed to, harm, ostracize, practice power over, and otherwise bully their peers, where are the adults? Why is it boys will be boys or any other platitude? Why does our society accept the default position of Lord of the Flies and let it play out over and over like that's a human being's natural baseline?
It was done to toughen the boys up. This *might* go some way to explaining the misogyny of the day. It was left to the women to do this to their boys, in the same way as women had to supervise the footbinding of Chinese girls because men were much too soft hearted.
Well, the world has changed and ideas of what it is to be a man have changed more than anything, and though I don't like change, this change has been for the better.
>There is an idea that love is somehow selfish (reflects the needs of the lover) or conversely, it needs to be selfless in order to be legitimate. Can both ideas be false?
Some people are most happily themselves when they are pleasing another. Some like congruence, some like the play of wills.
What I did with this boy so long ago is I played with him. We played like little kids and at some point, as in a civilised Swedish movie, it turned into sex. That was light years ahead of what followed later, when I was always worried about what I was supposed to be doing. I didn't even have to think about that....I was following my heart.
poster:sigismund
thread:991485
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20110722/msgs/992449.html