#Cultural critique

[gordiita]

wow almost seems like this whole romanticization of "girlhood" thing kind of revolves entirely around consumerisim. "little treats". 10 step skincare regimens. "girl math" as an excuse to be financially illiterate. be a good girl, don't think, just spend inordinate amts of money to conform to the latest tiktok microtrend bc that's all it means to be a girl <3

[kryptonbabe]

A personal argument in favor of transgression in fandom spaces

Marquis de Sade (1740-1814), would he write Wincest, Reylo and Zadr fanfiction with obsessive yandere mafia boss tropes if he was alive today?

It's so weird for me to come to fandom at my current age (30) and with my background, I was not a very online teenager, I had an art tumblr growing up, but that was very far from the whole Superwholock bubble and discourse. My first interests reading were classic literature and stuff from school and Harry Potter for little bit, then Tolkien for a long time, then science-fiction and transgressive literature, starting with A Clockwork Orange, then Piano Teacher, Bret Easton Ellis, Yukio Mishima, Dennis Cooper etc. I'm a sensitive traumatized person (for reasons I won't explain) and I've been depressed and anxious most of my life, experiencing disturbing intrusive thoughts, so the themes in fiction that interested me were always the things I was most afraid and uncomfortable with in real life, traumatic events close to me that I had no other way to explore and no one else to talk to about. In a way transgressive art was always there for me, showing me how evil thoughts and experiences are not an exclusive thing, not a burden I must carry alone, those artists and writers also cared and thought about those things in meaningful ways, that was a relief. Slowly and with therapy I learned to organize my intrusive thought as creative thoughts, ideas I could use to paint or write, and this really really helped me.

The thing is I started to get interested in comic books too, this by the age of 20, reading them by myself and sharing my ideas with some close friends who didn't care about comics, but would listen to me. I started being active in fandom spaces recently, almost ten years after I started reading comics and, oh boy, is this a different environment. Where the morally ambiguous, weird and transgressive are very close to forbidden, people are divided among anti and proshippers, and exploring heavy themes and disturbing scenarios is frowned upon. I recently read about an Invader Zim artist who was bullied and had to abandon their blog due to attacks to their weird art. As if Comte de Lautréamont, Marquis de Sade, Georges Bataille and I don't know, the fucked up passages of the Bible never existed, to free us from the closed-mindness. It's all so backwards, restrictive and conservative. Not the fact that some people do not want to engage with these themes, you have the right to do so, but we accomplish nothing by judging and hating on people who want to talk about these subjects, who understand the human nature as a complex experience not imune to evil, malice, bizarre impulses and desires.

Talking about these things is different from supporting and agreeing with them, but they are a part of our existence and sometimes expressing awful experiences through art is the only escape someone have. To ignore the worst in us is a conservative attitude that idealizes a perfect conduct and ideal way of being, an hygienist perception of what it means to be human, with a lack of nuance and complexity that is just boring on top of being a form of censorship.

[thoughtportal]

In this episode we explore a relatively new subgenre of science fiction called Solarpunk, which aims to imagine better, more ecologically harmonious, futures on earth. In many ways Solarpunk is a reaction to both the real-world climate crisis and to the many apocalyptic visions of collapse filling our screens. Andrew Sage from the YouTube channel Andrewism joins host Jonathan McIntosh and friend of the show Carl Williams for this conversation.

References & Links • The Andrewism YouTube Channel • Walkaway by Cory Doctorow • Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach • Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation • Fighting for the Future edited by Phoebe Wagner  • Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler • Princess Mononoke from Studio Ghibli • The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin • Emergency Skin by N. K. Jemisin • Monk and Robot book series by Becky Chambers • Dear Alice from THE LINE • Dear Alice’ Decommodified Edition by Waffle To The Left • Our History Is the Future by Nick Estes • 3000-Year-Old Solutions to Modern Problems by Lyla June  • Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher

[adrianfridge]

I’m annoyed beyond belief that the majority of information is now in videos that waste my precious time instead of articles that let me skim through text. Most of the videos don’t even answer my question. Garbage information age

[mediamatinees]

"American Fiction" Makes the Perfect Argument For Why Drake Is "Not Like Us"

Who know one day I'd be using my English degree to one day formally discuss rap beef? Dreams do come true. Check out my essay on "American Fiction" and "Not Like Us"!

“No, you not a colleague,  You a f****** colonizer”  Kendrick Lamar, “Not Like Us” (2024)  Content Warning: American Fiction touches on difficult topics, including racism and cultural appropriation, false identities, as well as Blackness as a monolith. Additionally, I won’t be discussing the pedophilia allegations in this post (that would be an entire post all on its own). This conversation is…

[piecesbythestars]

“frankenstein,” a poem about women’s suffering

normalized in medicine, glorified in pornography, justified in religion. since we birth people, does this mean we birthed the society that causes and trivializes our agony?

[mai-333]

“Buy less. Choose well.”

-Vivienne Westwood

Vivienne Westwood Fall 1995 Ready-to-Wear Look 35 Modelled by Kate Moss

We are living through a global collapse as our oceans are killed by plastic, and our land melted by global warming. The big companies that run our world have decided that money is more important than the planet we all live on, and the fashion industry is not innocent. 10% of the worlds carbon emissions are from the fashion industry alone. Just last year, 235million items of clothing were sent to landfills. In this culture of fast fashion, and micro trends, clothing has become one of the biggest pollutants.

Fashion has always been a major part of society, going as far back to the old ages where it was a sign of social status, to today where it is our main form of self expression. Yet this has been exploited. The pay for labour to make clothing is decreasing, the quality of the clothing is decreasing, and yet the cost is still increasing. Even cheap companies such as Shein are racking in an impressive profit just down to their abysmal production costs. The fashion cycle goes faster, churning out new designs and trends (often stolen from independent designers) so fast that within a month they are old. Even if you aren’t one to be bothered by wearing out of style clothing, don’t worry because the clothes will be unwearably damaged in no time.

Ethical and quality clothing may be more expensive, but in the long run it will cost just the same as the countless cheap versions that have to be bought. Second hand shops, reselling and repurposing, are all great alternatives for shopping ethically. Even sewing, or knitting new clothes will make such a difference. It may be harder to follow all these rapid trends, but by buying less and better quality clothing you will be able to achieve a stable wardrobe that doesn’t need replaced monthly.

[livingbythewords]

The good, the bad and the boring

Today's discussion with a friend about the way heroes and generally positive and morally good characters are portrayed in mainstream media made me think a lot. It was, on the most superficial level, about Marvel movies, but the issue itself actually goes way deeper than that, and is something that I've been pondering about for ages, on and outside of Tumblr. Here's a nod in the direction of my friend @princeescaluswords, who I know shares a lot of my sentiments in this matter.

It is, of course, about how morally good and positive characters are usually considered "boring".

Now. My friend claimed that being boring is not bad in itself, which might be the case. Here, however, I need to view it as such, because it's when real life and the world of fiction tend to differ a lot. In fiction, a character being boring is in fact one of the greatest, if not the greatest sin a writer can commit. To be boring in literature, cinema, movies means death for a character. The audience won't care about it, won't identify with it, won't be curious about its motivations, which means no more movies, no more stories. So if good people are considered to be boring, that means fewer stories with good people. That means more stories with assholes.

There is nothing wrong with a shady or, using an euphemism, "morally complicated" person as a main character. There is even nothing wrong with straight up evil person as a main character. I love Walter White as a character, precisely because he is not complicated at all - his downfall is the inevitable result of his pride, selfishness and yearning for power for the sake of power, and the writers of the show couldn't make it more obvious. We are not supposed to root for Walter, we are supposed to hate him. Watching him destroying everything that once mattered is fascinating. But there is nothing interesting about him in terms of why he is who he is. His motivations are pretty clear. In that way, he is boring.

(Now, Mike Ehrmantraut and Saul Goodman are a completely different story. But that's a matter for another post.)

There is place for both kinds of stories. However I am not the only one worried that recently the odds became really uneven in favor of one side at the cost of the other. Is that it? Are we really supposed to root only for selfish and reprehensible characters now, because all the heroes are "boring" or their character arcs became completely butchered if not straight-up villainous?

It was David Foster Wallace who noticed almost two decades ago that literature became so lazy and self-conscious it's hard to stand. What a cool, sharp, sarcastic commentary on the modern materialistic society you wrote, bro! Now go write something honest and optimistc and true, I dare you. Everybody knows that today's society is materialistic, individualistic and self-obsessed to the core. We have been saying that for ages. Nobody cares about that. What is really interesting is what makes people altruistic and caring when there is no obvious gain from it, monetary or other. Why some people who have been through hell still choose to be good, despite the odds being all against them. Why we risk everything, knowing that there is a possibility we could never get back to what once was.

This is where the realms of reality and fiction overlap in a high degree. Fictional characters, both on the micro and macro scale, are a reflection of us. It was never "just fiction". The medium might be considered deep and serious (literary fiction) or shallow (superhero movies), but issue at the core remains the same. Being a good person is the furthest thing from boring. Doing the right thing despite all odds being against you requires bravery and effort and the spine of steel no matter of you are a suburban single mom, a gay guy trying to navigate the corporate world, ex-KGB agent trying to atone, or Captain America. In fiction it's just dramatized for the sake of the story, but the core principle remains.

My favorite quote about writing fiction, one that I think about a lot, comes from True Detective writer, Nic Pizzolatto. He once said that the audience has been abused by writers for twenty years through constant irony, sarcasm, plot twists used merely for shock value, and other techniques with no other end goal than reinforcing the sense of superiority in some viewers and shocking the others, who will forget about it in a week anyway. There is no place for sincerity and authenticity in writing anymore. Happy endings are for sissies. Fiction being "realistic" means that every character is an asshole. Grimdark is the gold standard now. It's all very depressing, when you think about that.

We need heroes now more than ever. We need good people, both in real life and fiction, more than ever. I'm tired of Tony Starks of this world. Give me someone who can just tell the truth without being a sarcastic asshole. Someone who finds hope and light in the darkest of times. That requires unbelievable strength and resourcefulness, and it's the furthest thing from boring.

It is seems that way, it's because the writers are bad.

[cebomar09-blog]

The Spirit Of Ideas, The Death of God, and the Crisis of Truth

"In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes." -Judges 21:25

The same idea can lead one group to justify the enslavement of people based on the color of their skin just as effectively as it can spark an abolitionist movement. Take the grand narrative (universal truth) of Imago Dei—the idea that all of us were made in the image of God. You can use that to say that everyone is equal no matter what. One can also say, “Everyone is made in the image of God and therefore equal, except you people.”

An additional illustration is the social constructionism put forth by Michel Foucault and his peers in 1970s France. This concept posits that ethics, morality, identity, knowledge, and social norms are shaped by historical and cultural contexts rather than being inherent or universal truths. Foucault, Derrida, and Sartre signed a petition supporting the decriminalization of consensual relationships between minors and adults…

If each person’s individual truth is considered The Truth, who are we to deny them? 

Conversely, Derrida’s relativism possesses a certain brilliance, making it quite suitable for career counseling and other areas of counseling. The postmodern constructivist perspective encourages individuals to reflect on the various factors that have shaped their current life circumstances, offering them the possibility of escaping a fixed narrative. This approach fosters insights far more effectively than a generic method, especially in an age when people can no longer depend on predefined identities or linear career paths.

The point I aim to drive home is that ideas, their development, and how we use them matter. Philosophy, theology, and the social sciences aren’t simply a matter of people having abstract discussions for the fun of it. The discourse of ideas shapes humanity, and if you’re reading this, you have a worldview that affects you and everyone around you. 

The Spirit of Ideas

Nietzsche begins Beyond Good and Evil by critiquing philosophers by pointing to their arrogance. They lack the humility, he says, to admit that their ideas come, in large part, by way of their own psychophysiological societal constitution. “...the greater part of the conscious thinking of a philosopher is secretly influenced by his instinct and forced into definite channels.”

Nietzsche seemed to understand that ideas are not formed in isolation; rather, they are like seeds that carry the imprint of the environment in which they were conceived. Just as DNA encodes the blueprint for a living organism, ideas are shaped by the psychological, cultural, and social forces that give birth to them. These forces—what might be called the spirit behind an idea—guide its development and influence the direction it takes in the world.

Additionally, Nietzsche prophetically lamented what would happen when grand narratives collapse, leaving humanity in a state of moral and existential disarray. As the death of God looms over modernity, we see ideologies emerge that seek to fill the void. The rest of this post will showcase examples of important ideas that started as seeds, the soil in which they flourished, and the fruits they produced.

Example 1—From Karl Marx to Soviet Russia and Mao Zedong: Communist Atrocities and the Influence of Postmodern Neo-Marxism in Today’s Discourse 

Karl Marx had an obsession with destruction that was not solely intellectual; it carried a psychological weight. His works often reveal profound disdain for his surroundings, a fixation on chaos, and a compelling urge to witness the downfall of established institutions. This sense of negation is intertwined with his personal life—his estrangement from family, inability to find personal stability, and a disordered lifestyle mirror the decay and turmoil he sought to inflict on society. Considering Nietzsche’s view that philosophers' ideas stem from their personal instincts and experiences, Marx’s preoccupation with destruction, rebellion, and dark imagery becomes particularly telling.

Dr. Paul Kengor, author of The Devil and Karl Marx (2020), notes that Marx was fixated on Faustian themes and Hell, despite his declared atheism. He famously stated, “Thus Heaven I’ve forfeited, I know it full well... My soul, once true to God, is chosen for Hell.” For those unfamiliar, Karl Marx, along with Friedrich Engels, profoundly influenced modern communist ideology, laying the groundwork for many 20th-century communist movements, including those responsible for over 100 million deaths. No other ideology in history has caused such widespread loss of innocent life. Marx also advocated for the dissolution of the nuclear family and encouraged ruthless scrutiny of everything—ABSOLUTELY everything. The Communist Manifesto explicitly calls for a violent overthrow of the current state of affairs, including private property, capital, the family unit (yes, the family unit), and entire societies. He glorified destruction.

I encourage you to look into the terrifyingly strong positive correlation between dark triad (now tetrad) personality traits and left-wing authoritarianism.

What about the origins of this spirit of destruction?

These ideas originated from a deeply unclean man who led a chaotic, financially unstable life, constantly borrowing money and failing to repay his debts. Marx exploited his parents' generosity and was widely disliked, even by his partner, Engels. He refused to bathe, and his squalid living conditions reflected a deeper disorder that manifested in his revolutionary vision. Marx’s life embodied his ideas—marked by disarray, dependency, and self-inflicted misery. Just as he sought to abolish the social order, he rejected personal responsibility and hygiene, living in perpetual financial and physical distress.

He suffered from carbuncles, which were at their worst while he was writing Das Kapital (his magnum opus), a lengthy and painful read (I’ve tried). His carbuncles on his privates were particularly severe during the writing process, sometimes triggering fits of rage. In a letter to Engels (co-author of The Communist Manifesto), he noted a boil between his upper lip and nose, stating, “It's as if the devil has been hurling shit at me.” It is not unreasonable to suggest that Marx’s bodily suffering found expression in his work—his pain, both physical and psychological, sought relief through the destruction of the societal body. His boils, which tormented him as he wrote his magnum opus, can be seen as a metaphor for his ideas themselves: festering, painful, and ultimately destructive.

Karl Marx’s perspective views consciousness as a collective social phenomenon heavily influenced, if not determined, by material, particularly economic, conditions. He argues that societal superstructures, especially economic and religious ones, manipulate the working class (proletariat) to benefit the ruling class (bourgeoisie). He wasn’t entirely mistaken. History indicates that religion can indeed perpetuate oppression, as seen in the papal states' influence over politics, the harshness of the Inquisition, and the collaboration between religious institutions and colonial powers. However, to limit human history solely to class struggle while neglecting the positive aspects of the subjects he criticized oversimplifies the intricate nature of human experience. I think this quote from The Communist Manifesto sums it up: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle.” History, for Marx, is defined by conflicts between classes with opposing interests, and the mode of production in any given society determines its social structures and relationships. That’s it. It’s all about power.

If that sounds familiar in today’s discourse, it should. The dominant view of universities, which has so thickly seeped into every nook and cranny of sociopolitical life, has become an adaptation of this same Marxist framework—only now, class struggle has been refashioned into an endless struggle of identity categories. There are the privileged people and the oppressed people, and they are demarcated primarily by race, gender, and sexual preference. If you are a member of the oppressed class, you are de facto morally superior to your oppressors. Some people go as far as to suggest that being wealthy or white means you must be morally corrupt. And if you happen to be a wealthy straight white male, well…

What I’ve just described is often referred to today as postmodern neo-marxism. It denies the existence of universal truths and grand narratives while paradoxically operating religiously (wink) under its own rigid, unquestionable dogmas. But some ideas seem to eat themselves alive like a snake. This intellectual ouroboros fuels a cycle where every institution, relationship, and belief is viewed through the lens of power dynamics, often leaving little room for nuance, complexity, or alternative interpretations. Ironically, while striving to break down hierarchies and absolute truths, these ideologies establish new, rigid orthodoxies that replicate—yet corrupt—the systems they aim to dismantle. This creates a continuous cycle where skepticism becomes self-destructive, eroding the very foundations it relies on. Consequently, we find ourselves in a culture dominated by deconstruction, which allows scant opportunity for genuine reconstruction.

In the end, Marx’s philosophy of destruction did not arise from an objective analysis of history but from the chaotic, festering spirit of his own life. His call for revolution was not just theoretical—it was deeply personal.

Example 2—John Money, Alfred Kinsey, And The Spirit Of Hate And Deception 

John Money

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Ideas do not emerge ex nihilo. Their existence embodies the essence of those who conceive them—molded by personal experiences, trauma, biases, and disturbing motivations. This was evident in Marxism, and it holds true in the work of John Money. 

Money’s childhood in rural New Zealand was marked by early failures, anxieties, trauma, and personal tragedies. He was thin and delicate, raised in a home of strict religiosity, or what he would later call “tightly sealed, evangelical religious dogma.” He had a terrible relationship with his father. Many decades later, he wrote about his father, describing him as a brutal and heartless man who gave an “abusive interrogation and whipping” to his four-year-old son over a broken window. Money famously indicated that this event contributed to his enduring rejection of “the brutality of manhood.” After his father’s death, he wrote, “My father died without my being able to forget or forgive his unfair cruelty.”

Money was thereafter raised in a strongly feminist atmosphere, shaped by his mother and single aunts, whose critical attitudes towards men had a profound effect on him. “I suffered from the guilt of being male,” he wrote. “I wore the mark of man’s vile sexuality”—referring to penis and testicles. Considering Money’s forthcoming notoriety in adult and infant gender reassignment, his subsequent remark carries a disturbing tone. “I wondered if the world might really be a better place for women if not only farm animals but human males also were gelded at birth.”

Fifteen years after starting at Johns Hopkins University, he became known as the individual who introduced the term "gender identity" to describe a person’s internal sense of being male or female. He was also recognized as the foremost expert on the psychological effects of ambiguous genitalia and garnered international attention for establishing the pioneering Johns Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic (presently known as the Center for Transgender and Gender Expansive Health). 

I’ll provide some direct quotes and tidbits from Money.

"If I were to see the case of a boy aged ten or twelve who's intensely attracted toward a man in his twenties or thirties, and the relationship is totally mutual, and the bonding is genuinely totally mutual, then I would not call it pathological in any way," he told the journal, and added, "It’s very important once a relationship has been established on such positive and affectionate grounds that it should not be broken up precipitously."

In 1987, Money wrote a foreword to a work published in Denmark entitled Boys on Their Contacts with Men: A Study of Sexually Expressed Friendships by Dutch professor Theo Sandfort. The book presented what purported to be verbatim testimonials of boys as young as eleven years old describing the delights of sex with men as old as sixty. "For those born and educated after the year 2000," Money wrote, "we will be their history, and they will be mystified by our self-imposed moralistic ignorance of the principles of sexual development in childhood."

A childhood sexual experience," he explained to Time magazine in April 1980, "such as being the partner of a relative or an older person, need not necessarily affect the child adversely." 

He granted an interview to Paidika, a Dutch journal of pedophilia, which carries ads for the North American Man-Boy Love Association and other pro-pedophile groups.

Under Money’s influence, the Johns Hopkins Medical School curriculum in 1971 featured explicit photographs of people engaged in bestiality, urine-drinking, feces-eating, and various amputation fetishes in order to desensitize medical students to sexual perversions.

During a lecture in Winnipeg, Money screened a stag film of five women and three men having group sex, then followed the screening with a speech in which he informed the assembled professors and first-year medical students that marriage was simply an economic compact in which the “heart follows the wallet”; that incest should not be prosecuted as a criminal offense; and that in cases where stepfathers sleep with their stepdaughters, the mother is often “happy” because she “is glad to have [her husband] off her back.”

[W]hat happens in our culture?" he wrote. "Children's sex explorations are treated like a contagious disease... [D]on't let them see the incontrovertible differences in their genitals, and don't, at all costs, let them rehearse copulation—the one universal human activity that still imperatively demands that the two sexes behave differently and harmoniously!"

In an interview with the pornographic magazine Genesis in April 1977, Money vented his frustration against the prohibition against childhood sexual rehearsal play and a psychologist's right to observe it. “The number of studies of the effects of depriving human infants and juveniles of sexual rehearsal play is exactly and precisely zero,” he said, “because anyone who tried to conduct such a study would risk imprisonment for contributing to the delinquency of minors, or for being obscene. Just imagine the headlines and the fate of a research-grant application requesting funds to watch children playing fucking games!”

Note: Information about Money is sourced from As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl (2000) by John Colapinto.

His influence on the fields of gender studies and human sexuality extends far beyond the walls of Johns Hopkins University, where, like a seed planted in fertile soil, his ideas have taken root and flourished, influencing generations of scholars, clinicians, policymakers, and the political landscape of modern discourse. Many of his students and proteges, educated in his theories of psychosexual differentiation, have risen to prominent roles at some of the nation's most esteemed universities, research institutions, and scientific journals. Among his former students are Dr. Anke Ehrhardt, a senior professor at Columbia University; Dr. Richard Green, director of the Gender Identity Clinic in London; Dr. June Reinisch, who led the renowned Kinsey Institute (remember that name) for many years; and Dr. Mark Schwartz, director of the influential Masters and Johnson Clinic.

The spirit of his ideas, born from personal turmoil, radical ideology, and an explicit disdain for men, continues to shape policies, academic curricula, and society's perceptions of gender and sexuality. However, John Money was not an anomaly. He was part of a larger intellectual movement determined to dismantle long-standing notions of sexuality and morality under the pretense of scientific inquiry. To grasp the full extent of this ideological shift, we must also consider another influential figure whose impact parallels Money's—Alfred Kinsey. If Money’s theories sowed the seeds of gender fluidity, Kinsey’s work laid the groundwork for the sexual revolution itself. Like Money, Kinsey's research did not arise ex nihilo; it bore the unmistakable mark of his personal obsessions and biases, which continue to reverberate through academia and public policy today.

Alfred Kinsey 

Alfred Kinsey's work on human sexuality was deeply influenced by his personal history and upbringing. Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1894, Kinsey grew up under the watchful eye of his father, a strict Christian disciplinarian who saw Sundays as sacred and tightly regulated his family's activities. Conversations about sexuality were virtually non-existent in his household, leaving Kinsey grappling with feelings of repression well into adulthood. In fact, by the time he met his future wife in 1920, he had never been on a date or engaged in sexual intercourse—a striking testament to his sheltered upbringing.

Kinsey’s early years were further complicated by a series of health challenges, including rickets, rheumatic fever, and typhoid fever, conditions that left him physically frail. The combination of his father's rigid expectations and his own physical vulnerabilities may have fueled a deep-seated desire to push boundaries and challenge societal norms. His fascination with biology and the natural world provided an escape, offering him a lens through which to explore life beyond the rigid confines of his upbringing. Eventually, this scientific curiosity led him to one of the most controversial and influential fields of study: human sexuality.

Initially trained as an entomologist, Kinsey’s career took an unexpected turn when he founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University in 1947.

Kinsey’s personal experiences with repression, combined with his relentless pursuit of scientific understanding, fueled his advocacy for a more nuanced and inclusive perspective on human sexuality. His work not only ignited academic discourse but also played a pivotal role in reshaping societal attitudes, paving the way for modern discussions about sexual fluidity and orientation. Whether hailed as a visionary or criticized for his methods, Kinsey undeniably left an indelible mark on the study of human sexuality.

The Kinsey Scale and Its Influence

Kinsey's most famous contribution is the Kinsey Scale, introduced in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948). The scale ranges from 0 (exclusively heterosexual) to 6 (exclusively homosexual), with intermediate numbers reflecting varying degrees of bisexuality. This scale critiques the binary perception of sexual orientation, framing sexuality as a spectrum.

The Kinsey Scale is frequently used by LGBTQ+ advocates to highlight that sexuality isn't limited to fixed categories but exists along a spectrum. It provides a flexible framework for individuals to explore their sexual orientation, and it is often referenced in educational materials and awareness campaigns aimed at promoting acceptance of sexual diversity. Kinsey’s research significantly contributed to the concept of sexual fluidity, challenging the notion of static sexual identities. His work has been vital in LGBTQ+ advocacy, normalizing various orientations and addressing societal taboos. Much of Kinsey’s foundational work has paved the way for marginalized individuals, fostering a sense of welcome and inclusion in society. 

Let’s take a look at how he conducted his research, which was cited positively multiple times during my time at IUPUI from 2020-2024. What you’re about to read is deeply disturbing. 

In Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (which was reprinted in 1998 and is widely available), the Institute published the notorious Table 34, which documents the sexual responses of children from infants through teens. They conducted sexual experiments on hundreds of children by bringing them to what the experimenters called “orgasm”, timing these responses with a stopwatch.

Kinsey proudly asserted, “We have now reported observation on such specifically sexual activities as erection, pelvic thrusts, and several other characteristics of true orgasm in a list of 317 pre-adolescent boys ranging between infants of five months and adolescence in age.” Table 34 in Kinsey’s book includes an 11-month-old baby who had an alleged “orgasm” ten times in one hour; a four-year-old child and a 13-year-old boy experienced 26 such alleged “orgasms” in a 24-hour period.

For more information, visit: https://familywatch.org/fwi/Kinsey_fraud.cfm & https://stopthekinseyinstitute.org/ 

John Money and Alfred Kinsey's work illustrates how humans tend to develop new moral frameworks when traditional ones are lacking. Nietzsche's famous words — “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms” — effectively captures the contemporary challenge of replacing objective morality with constructs rooted in science and society. As Kinsey explored the complexities of sexuality and Money aimed to redefine gender, society began to forge new sacred values to fill the emptiness left by diminishing traditional values. 

The fundamental ideas promoted by John Money and Alfred Kinsey have had far-reaching societal outcomes. On one hand, their work played a pivotal role in advancing discussions around sexual identity and gender expression. Kinsey's research, in particular, helped to destigmatize non-heteronormative sexual orientations. His findings contributed to a gradual shift in public perception, paving the way for advancements such as the legalization of same-sex marriage and broader LGBTQ+ rights movements. Similarly, Money's introduction of the term "gender identity" laid the groundwork for the recognition of transgender individuals and the development of legal protections and healthcare policies aimed at supporting gender-diverse populations.

However, their work has also led to controversial and unintended consequences. Increasingly, gender-related concerns in individuals are being addressed through medical interventions rather than social or psychological support, resulting in a significant rise in treatments for minors, such as puberty blockers, hormone therapies, and surgeries. Rather than affirming the inherent connection between mind and body and reinforcing the intrinsic value of one's biological identity, these ideas have contributed to the erosion of parental rights—as seen in many cases in Canada—and the destabilization of the nuclear family. This has raised serious concerns about the long-term social and psychological implications of their theories.

While Kinsey and Money influenced important social progress, their legacy remains a complex and polarizing one—challenging society to continually navigate the balance between evolving scientific understandings and the stability of long-standing moral frameworks.

Did the spirit of their ideas require child sacrifice in order to flourish? Was that worth future social progress? I’ll let you decide. 

Final Thoughts

Nietzsche’s haunting question— “What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent?”— rings louder today than ever. The collapse of grand narratives and universal truths has left society in a frantic search for meaning, replacing once-sacred values with new ideological constructs. But what drives these constructs forward? The spirit of an idea, much like a seed, carries the imprint of its origin—its cultural, psychological, and historical context—shaping the trajectory of thought and action in ways both profound and perilous.

Ideas, as we have seen, are never neutral; they are infused with the desires, biases, and struggles of those who conceive them. The spirit behind an idea influences whether it will build or destroy, liberate or oppress. In the absence of universal guiding principles, we find ourselves in a landscape where ideas are constantly deconstructed but seldom reconstructed with wisdom and foresight.

As we strive to redefine morality, identity, and social order, we must ask: Are we creating a coherent framework that fosters human flourishing, or are we trapped in an endless cycle of ideological reinvention? True balance requires both order and chaos—an acknowledgment that while ideas must evolve, they should not detach entirely from the timeless truths that anchor our humanity.

In the end, the spirit of an idea shapes not just the world but the soul and psyche of those who embrace it. The challenge is not merely to invent new values but to discern which spirits we allow to guide us forward, for better or worse.

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits.

Matthew 7:15-16

[chariotofgod]

the phenomenon of an individual needing to "condone" or "condemn" everything really interests me when hits a critical point like this. maybe it results from a misunderstanding of what 4chan was/is. as if you can condemn 4chan as a homogenous culture and not at least as heterogeneous as tumblr is.

there are fascists, terfs, and libertarians who are here or were popular on here who participate in a lot of the same linguistic and cultural rituals as the progressive part of the site. some of these individuals even being critical in its cultural development. does it make any sense to "condemn" Tumblr as an entity because of this?

like obviously we can point to 4chan as the root of a lot of misogynistic and racist subcultures that now permeate the American and European Right. but then like. the origins of SCP, creepypasta, the growth of furry culture, the inception of the MLP fandom (as filled with paranoid homophobia as it was, which is obviously hilarious in retrospect), and even the standard formats for how shitpost punchlines are delivered all come from there.

they don't have their fingers in so many pies "for some reason???" it's because 4chan was a diverse and complex culture group that defined the early internet.

the continued treatment of it as "fringe" or "a place that's so scawy to visit :(", i think, creates a sense that whatever cultural products we decided to keep from 4chan were deviations from rather than products of its culture.

there are obviously a lot of problems with this. one being that it creates a lack of critical evaluation of 4chan's cultural exports (not that i'm rushing to categorize them as morally good or bad, just that it's important to consider).

another being a lack of perspective on why and how marginalized groups tended to thrive within the space in spite of its hostility towards.. everything (a kind of countercultural edgy nihilism which was not *inherently* reactionary, but definitely a response to 2001-2008 American and European neoliberal positivism).

anyways. you spend two seconds on a board that's not /pol/ and you quickly find an overarching paranoia around "redditors" who invaded after 2016 when r/The_Donald was shut down. there's a marked difference in the website's culture post-Trump, when the fascists on /pol/ (who i don't think you could call a majority) forged an alliance with Trump-aligned redditors.

pretty much any "oldfag" on the website is extremely resentful of this change. you could not take pity on them in a "where did you think such edgy nihilism would lead?" sense, but it also makes it quite clear that the website's earlier dissonance between anti-social behaviors and pro-social politics was not an accident. and while i would not want to adopt early 4chan's philosophy full sale, i do think there are things to learn from it.

whatever. post over. kisses, mwah, xoxo. 💋💋💋

[disneycritical]

disney's "adorkable" problem 🤪| ModernGurlz

A good look at the current trend of Disney heroines.

[frank-olivier]

Balancing the Psyche: Embracing the Feminine Principle in Personal Growth

The interplay between the resurgence of the feminine principle, personal transformation, and the quest for balance is a pivotal aspect of contemporary societal and individual evolution. As highlighted in the work of Maureen Murdock, PhD, an author, educator, and Jungian-oriented psychotherapist, the last few millennia have been characterized by a dominance of masculine culture, leading to the suppression of the feminine. However, this paradigm is now being challenged, as the feminine, associated with the unconscious, healing, and mystery, begins to emerge as a counterbalancing force. This shift is metaphorically represented by the archetype of the Dark Goddess, symbolizing the deep-seated need for healing the feminine wound within individuals and culture.

The transformative journey of the heroine, as outlined in stages of separation, identification with the masculine, and eventual descent into the unconscious, offers a universal blueprint for growth. This journey is not confined by gender; rather, it presents a holistic path for integrating repressed aspects, achieving inner balance, and fostering a more compassionate, inclusive society.

As we move forward in this critical juncture of human history, the significance of embracing the feminine, pursuing personal transformation, and striving for balance cannot be overstated. It is through these interconnected processes that we may forge a more compassionate, holistic understanding of the self and the world, healing the wounds of the past, and illuminating a pathway towards a future that truly honors the interconnectedness of all beings.

By deeply integrating the feminine principle, we not only contribute to personal healing but also to the broader cultural healing, cultivating a society that values harmony, balance, and the divine in all aspects of life. By doing so, we create a world that reflects the harmony of the self, embodying the transformative power of the heroine’s journey.

In navigating this transformative landscape, individuals are invited to engage in a process of self-discovery that honors the complexity of the human experience. This involves embracing the feminine aspects of intuition, creativity, and emotional intelligence, alongside the masculine principles of logic and action. By acknowledging and honoring this interconnectedness, we foster a deeper understanding of the self and the world, paving the way for a more enlightened, compassionate society.

As we embark on this journey, the significance of the resurgence of the feminine, the pursuit of personal transformation, and the quest for balance becomes increasingly evident. By integrating the repressed feminine aspect, we heal the deep-seated wounds of the past, and by honoring the interconnectedness of all beings, we illuminate a path towards a brighter, more holistic future. This future is one where the harmony of the self reflects the harmony of the world, and the world’s harmony is, in turn, a reflection of the self’s.

Dr. Maureen Murdock: On the Dark Feminine [1993] (Black Madonna Archives, December 2022)

Judy Goldschmidt: I am Them (Breaking the Silence. December 2024)

Thursday, December 19, 2024

[kryptonbabe]

It's baffling to me how some people really believe that someone's taste in fiction is an accurate portrayal of their personalities... "I don't trust people who like X", "I'm suspicious of people who ship Y", like our lives truly revolved around this specific topic, like we are all reduced to a handful of comic books, movies, fanfics, blog posts, headcanons. It's surprising to witness people being judged by what I perceive as such a small aspect of their inner lives. I get we sometimes get so attached to these characters and their fictions that we might think they are defining parts of who we are, but they're really not, we are complex and ever changing, made of experiences as well as our interpretations of the world. Fiction is merely our playground, our laboratory, a safe space to explore concepts, experiences, sensations; a place to express feelings and learn about how others feel, and the human experience is diverse, as such the art and fiction created based on it won't always be pleasant or appeal the same way to everyone. You can enjoy multiple things for multiple reasons and this won't say anything about your actions necessarily, bad people can enjoy wholesome media, good people can enjoy transgressive and what is perceived as toxic and problematic and bad and bizarre media. We are not products to be so easily classified and comprehended, the study of human psychology would be way more simple and brief if we were

[thoughtportal]

the garden of time and the met gala

[adrianfridge]

Waiting for purity culture to reach the point where two people or characters are sharing the same surname and the purists freak out about it being incest except even after learning it’s from a marriage they’ll insist becoming part of the same family is always inherently incestuous

[captaingimpy]

A Tale of Two Systems: Revisiting First Blood and Rambo: First Blood Part II

When most people think of Rambo, their minds immediately go to explosions, body counts, and a shirtless Sylvester Stallone wielding an M60. That’s fair—by the time the series evolved into its later iterations, it had become synonymous with over-the-top action. But to reduce First Blood and Rambo: First Blood Part II to mere action movies is to miss the heart of these films entirely. At their…