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danksy-lives · 4 years

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The Family Values Case For Abortion

Abortion and contraception are the greatest force for family values we have available. Family planning gives parents more predictability over their lives, leading to better outcomes for their children. Ironically, those who pride the importance of family the most are the least likely to use these tools to make a stable family. This shows a failure to adapt one’s morality to the world in which they inhabit.

Stable families do not occur on accident, nor are they created by accidents. They are the result of hard work between people looking to improve their futures. Given the amount of time and effort this requires, they must be entered into voluntarily and thoughtfully, or not at all. Basing a relationship around a child, who cannot contribute to this endeavor, and then expecting the proper conditions for childrearing to develop afterwards, is putting the cart before the horse.

With that in mind, the morality around creating families should reflect the best interests of any children being raised within them. This means ensuring that the family unit is in place before it takes on children. To pursue this goal, I propose two moral principles of reproduction:

1. 1. If someone is not actively seeking children, they must take precaution to prevent pregnancy.

2. 2. If a woman becomes pregnant by accident; or does not have a family in which to raise the child, she has a moral duty to abort the pregnancy.

On Trust

It can be difficult to speak of moral duties within a liberal framework. There are few situations in which only one decision is considered valid and all others are considered immoral.

However, the belief that parents must work in the best interests of their children appears to be axiomatic among most (if not all) of the world’s cultures. To most people, the best interest of the child is allowing them to thrive in the environment they will find themselves during adulthood and beyond. The way in which the family is structured is (ideally) meant to acclimate the child to these various conditions.[1]

In high-trust societies, the most secure way of maintaining or improving your social standing is by building longstanding relationships with other people. People who can trust those around them are better able to predict their own futures. This leads to a more secure environment, where swords can be turned into plowshares. In times of trouble, people can pool their resources to prevent damages and help others get back on their feet. Under such circumstances, large social structures can be created through consent rather than mere coercion. This model is as true of a small village as it is for a nation-state.

History of the Nuclear Family

The family structures that have developed and shown the most resilience in high-trust conditions are variations on the nuclear family. Many conservative moralists believe that the nuclear family (or the sanctity of marriage, depending on the version) is the backbone upon which every other part of society relies. I do not deny the nuclear family’s profound importance in our society. After all, my thesis is meant to adapt the practice to the modern era. I also understand where such an argument comes from. Since children are raised in families, and those children go on to perpetuate society, it is easy to see families as building blocks for society.

Despite this, I must emphasize that conditions of trust with the wider society are a prerequisite for a nuclear family, and not the other way around. If all a society had to do to convert itself from a low-trust to a high-trust system was to promote the practice, then we would expect it to spread to all societies on earth. The prevalence of practices such as arranged marriages and polygamy in much of the world shows that this is not the case. Where high-trust societies are found, variations on the nuclear family tend to develop naturally.

This becomes relevant when discussing how to promote successful family models. Traditionally, this was done by forcing couples together into families at the earliest opportunity. Whether or not they would be a good match for each other, let alone up to the task of raising children, was not the primary concern. Where this was not done through forced marriage, social norms such as abstinence before marriage and that pregnant women should marry their child’s father served to direct young people towards the institution. Within it, prohibitions on practices such as sodomy, contraception, and abortion meant that pregnancies occurred frequently and unexpectedly. When such norms are adhered to, family planning is not possible, meaning most children will be accidents.

This social system is designed to prioritize the quantity of children over the quality of their rearing. If your stated goal is to be fruitful and multiply in the name of some religion or ideology, then adhering to it makes sense. Such reasoning is not meant for the benefit of the children or even the parents. It exists to use the resulting children to spread whichever meme motivates the behavior. The logic is internally consistent, but by its design, is not in the best interest of the children being produced. If this reasoning is acceptable to its supporters, then dissuading them is outside the scope of this essay. However, it cannot be argued that creating children for a larger purpose they cannot freely choose promotes any enlightened form of family values.

The biggest flaw of the system, however, is that it seeks to create stability without allowing potential parents the autonomy that allows them to build trust. Any marriage based on lust rather than logic can be expected to fail.

This problem was done away with the creation of teenager as a separate stage of development. By allowing partial autonomy in certain matters, teens can work through their worst impulses before they would have serious effects on their futures. By allowing them to make and learn from mistakes, their future decisions become more informed. When your peers have all gone through this process, your entire society becomes more trustworthy. These high-trust conditions are what make the nuclear family possible and desirable, all without the need of rigid social norms. In the short time this has been accepted, it has proven a better guide to the young than conservative moralizing ever had.

Family Planning

The new trust afforded towards the young has translated into more trust for adults. This has developed into the idea that what goes on in the bedroom of consenting adults should not be interfered with. Because this has become a cliché, it is worth noting that this state of affairs is historically unprecedented for those outside the upper class. As such, it has not had the time to be intellectually explored to the same degree as the old system.

One example of this is how sexual freedom and the freedom to plan a family are conflated. This is a result of relying on traditional modes of thought. Before the advent of contraception, this conflation made sense. However, modern advances have separated sex from reproduction. Our philosophy should adapt to this development.

Abortion and the Family

Abortion is both always present and a lingering taboo. Most people will acknowledge its availability as good or at least necessary. However, when a woman considers whether to terminate her own unwanted pregnancy, it is treated as a matter of grave importance.

This duality is embodied by the position of someone who is pro-choice but would never terminate an unwanted pregnancy of their own. The reasons for this are hardly discussed before a pregnancy. However, mothers-to-be often develop a gut feeling that they have a moral duty to the fetus, even if they had never wanted a child. This should stand out as odd coming from someone who is pro-choice. The idea that parents have an unconditional obligation to their unborn children is the cornerstone of the pro-life argument against abortion. If these women feel their moral duty to their fetuses is logically founded, then any defense of abortion is a failure to protect children. The fact that every year, hundreds of thousands of women in America come to the same logically inconsistent conclusion shows that the new morality has yet to be fully accepted.

While the desire to protect one’s fetus may be an innate part of pregnancy, it is not always moral. This desire is an evolutionary holdover from before we could plan our families. It reflects a time when any given child had a slim chance of reaching adulthood and propagating the species. Under those circumstances, having as many kids as you could was not a matter of morality, but one of social security. Humans, having the longest childhoods of any animal species, have the most to lose when their children die. Therefore, accepting any pregnancy that came a woman’s way was a necessity.

Accidents Happen (But They Shouldn’t)

Spelling out the psychology behind these decisions makes them all the more jarring in the modern world. The march of medical technology has made infant mortality a negligible concern for the first time in history. We now have the stability to prepare our lives for any children we raise. I find it troubling that this fact has not been fully accepted.

If this were fully internalized, Americans would not live in a society where half their peers exist on accident. Each of these people has an early childhood that their parents (or parent, in some instances) had to cobble together in a few months. Considering the importance of the first four years to childhood development, this instability cannot be understated. How much stress does this cause the parents? More importantly, how much do those stressed out parents adversely affect the newborn child?

These questions all assume that the parent(s) are putting their best effort into childrearing. That is not always the case, especially with fathers. While it takes two to tango, potential fathers do not have the same biological urge to protect the fetus they helped to make as mothers. If a man creates an unwanted pregnancy, and he is pro-choice (or is anti-abortion and a hypocrite), it follows that he would want the woman to have an abortion. If this conflicts with the mother’s desire to birth the fetus and raise the child, the man has no recourse to take. If he abandons the mother and child, he will forever be considered a deadbeat father. In addition, he can and most likely will be forced to pay child support for the next 18 years, a practice which can financially cripple the man while failing to provide the child with the support of a second parent. Rather than ruin their reputations and finances, most men choose to stay together despite the disagreement. While this provides the child with a second parent, it does not eliminate the difference in values which created the dilemma. The father will still feel that he is dedicating his time to a child he did not want to create. This will reflect poorly to the mother, who will feel that he is not pulling his weight in the family. As the child ages, they will begin to pick up on this simmering resentment, which they will probably blame on their own existence, creating psychological wounds which may never heal.

These situations and the lost potential they cause are each a preventable tragedy. As such, they should be presented and discussed through this lens. I find it distasteful to romanticize those who govern their lives around the fact that someone once failed to pull out. Just as bad are those who insist they or others marry their partner in pregnancy for the sole benefit of giving the child two parents. These beliefs are products of an antiquated age which the modern world forgot.

What is Life?

The sense of duty that mothers feel towards their fetuses cannot be erased, but if needed, it can be combatted by appealing to the best interest of all relevant parties.

The first step towards this is to determine who the relevant parties are. It goes without saying that a mother is a relevant party to her own pregnancy. In cases where the father is socially or financially responsible for the raising of the potential child, he should be considered a party to this matter.

The point that is the hardest to pin down is whether the fetus itself is a relevant party in the situation (and if so, at what point). To answer this, many fields of thought have proposed starting points for when life begins. If it can be proven that the organism/fetus/baby is human, it follows that it should be protected as other humans are. By establishing when this happens, it would follow that it is when the organism/fetus/baby crosses the Rubicon into our moral community.

In the Overton Window of American society, these answers range from life beginning at conception to life beginning at birth. Most people believe that life begins at some point during pregnancy. I find most of these positions to be lacking in substance.

To explain why consensus is so hard to find on this issue, we should step back from ideology and look at the question of when life begins through the lens of biology. From this approach, the only starting point for life is the abiogenesis some 3.5 billion years ago. All of the world’s life exists from an unbroken chain of that first source. Nowhere in the timeline between abiogenesis and any human currently alive is there a point where their ancestors weren’t living organisms. Using this as our criteria, every living thing that holds human DNA is itself human. Not only does this cover all fetuses, it also extends to the sperm and eggs that combine to create them. Such a broad definition of life may be scientifically correct, but it is unfit for purpose in the present question on morality. If this were taken seriously, every time a man masturbates would be an act of genocide wiping out millions of lives. Similarly, every time a woman menstruates, she would be inflicting climate change on the ovulating eggs, since her uterus is the only natural environment they can survive in. No reasonable moral Rubicon should accuse everyone of reproductive age of homicide.

Since it is now shown that the question of when life begins is a proxy for the question of when someone joins our moral community, I will be focusing on the question of the moral Rubicon.

The belief that life begins at conception takes the idea that anything containing human DNA is human but narrows the definition to the products of two people procreating. Since this only happens during conception, this becomes their starting point for human life. It is worth noting that the definition above does not originate with the argument itself, but was introduced later as DNA became widely understood. Its origins are with the Catholic Church, who believed that all their congregants must follow the commandment to “be fruitful and multiply”. Since conception creates a potential Christian, any attempt to terminate the pregnancy sets back what they consider to be their holy mission. While this reasoning is no longer explicit, it has been widely adopted by the Abrahamic Religions as a way of protecting future children (and therefore expanding their potential congregations). This belief is an extension of the traditionalist view of marriage and family. As such, it gives little regard for the individuals who are affected by its notion of the greater good. The system’s proponents have tried to reconcile this contradiction by personifying the unborn. This has led to mixed results. This standard is based on and requires an outside force to root out the individual’s reproductive control, with no concern for either parent or the child. As such, it cannot coexist with any society based on individual rights and freedoms.

The most common standard of when someone joins our moral community is that it occurs at some point during the pregnancy. In America, the standard for when this happens is at the end of the second trimester. Other nations use a variety of cut-off dates. The reason for the various dates is that zygote/fetal development is a largely amorphous process. While there are many descriptions of developments on a weekly basis, none on these change the fact that a fetus functions as an organ within the woman’s body, rather than an independent lifeform. Attempts to categorize stages of pregnancy such as the trimester system exist purely for the health of the mother. For this reason, using it as the standard of American legal precedent, as in Roe v. Wade[2], is entirely arbitrary. Such a standard exists to be easily understood, not to be logically defended. I recognize the role of this ruling and others like it in providing access to safe abortions. However, this moral Rubicon does not hold up to philosophical or biological scrutiny. For this reason, it is the least defensible of these categories.

The last standard is that the fetus does not join our moral community until it is born. While this seems outlandish to many Americans, it is already the standard used in various countries, including our northern neighbor. The reasoning behind this standard is largely the same as for allowing abortion at all; A pregnancy is a personal matter which outside forces have no right to control. Even if one believes that the unborn have some moral weight, this is outweighed by the mother’s right to bodily autonomy. Therefore, this position states that abortion should be available at all times with the same readiness that current law provides to early pregnancies.

My Moral Rubicon

Given the way these standards are laid out, you might expect me to say which of these Moral Rubicons are correct. Given my earlier criticism of Conservative moralizing on the family, you might expect me to say that fetuses have no moral worth until their birth. While I support the idea that abortion should be available at all times during a pregnancy, I do not believe that a zygote/fetus only has moral worth after birth.

My standard for when a zygote/fetus enters our moral community is whether the mother intends to raise it as a member of our moral community (i.e. give birth).

If the mother chose to become pregnant and wishes to raise the child, then she and those around her will consider the future child to be part of their moral community as soon as they are aware of it. In this case, the Moral Rubicon happens at the earliest point where its existence can be known, which is conception. This is why pregnant and expectant mothers are given a long list of prohibitions for the protection of their unborn. When one accepts guardianship over the baby on board, they willingly change their behavior for their child’s sake.

Contrast this with an unexpected and/or unwanted pregnancy. If the mother has no desire to bring the pregnancy to term, her autonomy over her body means she should not be forced to do so. If a child is not and will never come to term, it is not part of our moral community.

These two standards exist because of how differently people react to pregnancies depending on circumstance. The idea of a mother overjoyed to raise her child in a loving family is a far cry from discovering she was impregnated by her rapist. Acting as if the moral relationship between the mother and child is the same in both scenarios is an absurd oversimplification.

These absurdities are avoided by basing the Moral Rubicon on the intentions of the mother. The fetus is one of us the first time their mother falls in love with them (or when they are born, whichever is sooner). A love-based standard of moral worth would protect bodily autonomy while recognizing the value of future persons.[3]

As for policy, I advocate for the removal of all restrictions on abortion. When accepting bodily autonomy as a goal, you cannot create a cutoff point at which one’s body exists to serve a life outside their moral community. When a person requests an abortion, this would be their justification.

The Consensual Family

A moral family exists for the benefit of its members. The details of this change depending on the morality of those running it. As discussed earlier, in most places at most times in history, the father was the ruler of the family. His centralized power meant that the effectiveness of the family was measured by his success. This was created by the belief (and fact) that order and obedience were the surest traits for success in premodern societies.

As the trait which brings the most success moves from obedience to openness to change, families have adapted by giving their members more autonomy. The effectiveness of the family is now measured in its benefit to its individual members. If those members don’t have their interests served, they have the means of leaving it. If a spouse feels their partner has not pulled their weight, they may divorce them. When children outgrow the benefits of living with their parents, they are free to make their own way. They have no obligation to serve their parents, despite the immense costs their parents put into raising them. In the case of minors, the state will take over their guardianship if the family is abusing or neglecting them. The goal of such systems is that family is a consensual arrangement.

This goal of informed consent should be expanded to the creation of children. Just as the mother should have final word on controlling her body, the father must have a say in his relationship to the products of his body. At present, the time when the mother can sever legal ties to her potential offspring extends from copulation to when her society deems the fetus to be part of their moral community. The window for men starts and ends with ejaculation. The only foolproof way for them to avoid the responsibility of raising an accidental child is to not have sex in a vagina. This works about as well as promoting abstinence always does(n’t). Such a standard makes no sense in an age where sex and reproduction have been decoupled. In practical terms, the father must be made aware of the birth of his child well in advance. If he did not intend to reproduce, he must have legal recourse to sever his responsibility to the child before it is born. Without such protections, men are as liable for unwanted pregnancies as women in societies which believe that life begins at conception.

Making informed consent a cornerstone of the family has benefits beyond control of parental duties. The informed consent of parents serves the best interests of their children. Even though minors are not capable of providing it themselves, being raised in such an environment means their familial relations exist from a point of trust rather than one of obedience. Just as bans on arranged marriage and access to divorce increase trust between spouses, a policy of deliberate reproduction, as well as child protection laws strengthen trust between parent and child. When equipping a child for life in a high-trust society, the ability to trust in others is one of the most important skills they can have. Therefore, creating the environment for this behavior should be a top priority.[4]

The existence of informed consent between spouses does not guarantee trust between them and their children. Such conditions require that the creation of the child be as intentional as the creation of marriage. If mutual trust is a cornerstone of our society and being born on accident irrevocably damages their ability to trust others, then bringing a person into the world on accident is inherently immoral. If the parents had the means of preventing this but didn’t, it is a selfish act as well. Any deviation is a failure of parenting.

Afterword

This idea begs the question of where the Accidents among us fit into this moral framework. My fear is that this will be compared to the Conservative moralizing I denounced. While I too seek stable families for children’s growth, my reasoning is adapted to the reality of ever-present contraception. It is based on the benefit of individuals rather than the collective or a higher power. These individuals are judged on their character and actions, not how they fit into a greater framework.

This blank slate of moral standing applies to accidents as to anyone else. They come into the world untainted by their parent’s mistakes. As such, the child shares neither their shame nor esteem. This is true even if the mistake in question led to their existence. Passing the guilt of parents onto their children is not only meanspirited, it undermines the Liberal framework my thesis is based on. As such, I oppose any moral distinction between accidents and others.

Another accusation I expect to hear is that I believe that it would be better that a currently living accident were never born. This argument is moot. As discussed above, I believe that children unwanted by their mothers do not enter our moral community until they are born. If they are aborted, they have no rights or interests to protect. Conflating the moral worth of those outside the moral community with those who have entered it is to misunderstand the concept. Those outside the community have no human rights, and we act in their interest at our leisure. When one enters the community, they gain those human rights, as befits any human. However, that does not mean that their human rights retroactively apply before that point.

To illustrate the point, I propose a scenario. Hypothetically, if a person had a dog which they treated like any dog, and then it was magically turned into a human with human intelligence, would the owner be at fault for treating a human like an animal? If the new human remembered being treated like a dog, would it be logical for them to be bitter about their previous treatment? In both cases, the answer is no. Humans and animals are treated by different moral standards because humans are sentient, and animals are not. If an animal somehow entered the moral community of humans, they would be entitled to the human rights of anyone else.[5] At the same time, people who interacted with the dog before the transformation cannot be at fault for putting it in the logical moral category. Provided the former dog is treated as an equal of other humans, no wrong has been committed.

Dogs, like the fetus discussed above, are not part of our moral community. Their interests, if considered at all, are subservient to those of humans. These facts are irrelevant to what they might become later on.

Anyone who crosses the moral Rubicon holds the same inalienable moral worth as any human. What they were or how they were treated before doesn’t matter. My belief that the fetus in question should have been aborted has no bearing on whether or not the person it grows up to be would be better off unborn. I would never hold that as a default position, even if I somehow knew a person was an accident before meeting them.

Footnotes

[1] The families that develop in any given environment are those whose children are best able to perpetuate its values. The process by which society settles on a system has just as much to do with natural selection as it does with deliberate moralizing.

[2] Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

[3] This should not be conflated with the legal status of unborn children.

[4] One obvious scenario where parents cannot provide informed consent to childrearing is if one or both parents are too young to give informed consent. In such cases, childrearing cannot be in the benefit of the child involved. Therefore, minors should not be entrusted with the raising of children. This is the same logic used to bar them from voting. If you are not mentally equipped to be one decision-maker among millions in your nation, how can you be entrusted to be one decision-maker among two (at best) controlling the life of a fellow minor? Such arrangements only exist because puberty does not correlate with the age of consent. No one seriously believes that minors are capable of childrearing, only that they are stuck in their situation. If it is recognized to be detrimental for all parties, it should not be created in the first place.

[5] It is worth noting the reverse situation is not true. In stories where people are turned into animals, they are typically marked as separate from other animals and treated as a human wherever possible. Despite the absurdity of the scenario, various traditions come to the same idea. This shows the permanence of the moral Rubicon. Once a person enters it, they are part of the moral community no matter what.

#essay #sexuality #abortion #roe v. wade

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scifigeneration · 6 years

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Sex robots are here, but laws aren't keeping up with the ethical and privacy issues they raise

by Francis X. Shen

The robots are here. Are the “sexbots” close behind?

From the Drudge Report to The New York Times, sex robots are rapidly becoming a part of the national conversation about the future of sex and relationships. Behind the headlines, a number of companies are currently developing robots designed to provide humans with companionship and sexual pleasure – with a few already on the market.

Unlike sex toys and dolls, which are typically sold in off-the-radar shops and hidden in closets, sexbots may become mainstream. A 2017 survey suggested almost half of Americans think that having sex with robots will become a common practice within 50 years.

As a scholar of artificial intelligence, neuroscience and the law, I’m interested in the legal and policy questions that sex robots pose. How do we ensure they are safe? How will intimacy with a sex robot affect the human brain? Would sex with a childlike robot be ethical? And what exactly is a sexbot anyway?

Defining ‘sex robot’

There is no universally accepted definition of “sex robot.” This may not seem important, but it’s actually a serious problem for any proposal to govern – or ban – them.

The primary conundrum is how to distinguish between a sex robot and a “sexy robot.” Just because a robot is attractive to a human and can provide sexual gratification, does it deserve the label “sex robot”?

It’s tempting to define them as legislatures do sex toys, by focusing on their primary use. In Alabama, the only state that still has an outright ban on the sale of sex toys, the government targets devices “primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs.”

The problem with applying this definition to sex robots is that the latter increasingly provide much more than sex. Sex robots are not just dolls with a microchip. They will use self-learning algorithms to engage their partner’s emotions.

Consider the “Mark 1” robot, which resembles the actor Scarlett Johansson. It is regularly labeled a sex robot, yet when I interviewed its creator, Ricky Ma Tsz Hang, he was quick to clarify that Mark 1 is not intended to be a sex robot. Rather, such robots will aim to assist with all sorts of tasks, from preparing a child’s lunch to keeping an elderly relative company.

Humans, of course, can navigate both sexual and nonsexual contexts adeptly. What if a robot can do the same? How do we conceptualize and govern a robot that can switch from “play with kids” mode during the day to “play with adults” mode at night?

Thorny legal issues

In a landmark 2003 case, Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court struck down Texas’ sodomy law and established what some scholars have described as a right to sexual privacy.

There is currently a split among circuit courts in how Lawrence should be applied to state restrictions on the sale of sex toys. So far, Alabama’s ban has been upheld, but I suspect that all sex toy bans will eventually be struck down. If so, it seems unlikely that states will be able to wholesale restrict sales of sex robots generally.

Bans on childlike sex robots, however, may be different.

It is not clear whether anyone in the U.S. already owns a childlike sex robot. But even the possibility of child sex robots prompted a bipartisan House bill, the Curbing Realistic Exploitative Electronic Pedophilic Robots Act, or CREEPER. Introduced in 2017, it passed unanimously six months later.

State politicians will surely follow suit, and we are likely to see many attempts to ban childlike sex robots. But it’s unclear if such bans will survive constitutional challenge.

On one hand, the Supreme Court has held that prohibitions on child pornography do not violate the First Amendment because the state has a compelling interest in curtailing the effects of child pornography on the children portrayed. Yet the Supreme Court has also held that the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 was overly broad in its attempt to prohibit “child pornography that does not depict an actual child.”

Childlike sex robots are robots, not humans. Like virtual child pornography, the development of a childlike sex robot does not require interaction with any children. Yet it might also be argued that childlike sex robots would have serious detrimental effects that compel state action.

Safe and secure?

Perhaps someday sex robots will become sentient. But for now, they are products.

And a question almost entirely overlooked is how the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission should regulate the hazards associated with sex robots. Existing sex products are not well regulated, and this is cause for concern given the multitude of ways in which sex robots could be harmful to their users.

For example, dangers lurk even in a seemingly innocent scene where a sex robot and human hold hands and kiss. What if the sexbots’ lips were manufactured with lead paint or some other toxin? And what if the robot, with the strength of five humans, accidentally crushes the human’s finger in a display of passion?

It’s not just physical harm, but security as well. For instance, just as a human partner learns by remembering what words were soothing, and what type of touch was comforting, so too is a sex robot likely to store and process massive amounts of intimate information. What regulations are in place to ensure that this data remains private? How vulnerable will the sex robot be to hacking? Could the state use sex robots as surveillance devices for sex offenders?

Sexbots in the city

Whether and how governments regulate sex robots will depend on what we learn – or what we assume – about the effects of sexbots on individuals and society.

In 2018, the Houston City Council made headlines by enacting an ordinance to ban the operation of what would have been America’s first so-called robot “brothel.” At one of the community meetings, an attendee warned: “A business like this would destroy homes, families, finances of our neighbors and cause major community uproars in the city.”

But dire predictions like this are pure speculation. At present there is no evidence of how the introduction of sex robots would affect either individuals or society.

For instance, would a man who uses a childlike sex robot be more or less likely to harm an actual human child? Would robots be a substitute for humans in relationships or would they enhance relationships as sex toys might? Would sex robots fill a void for those who are lonely and without companions? Just as pilots use virtual flight simulators before they fly a real plane, could virgins use sex robots to safely practice sex before trying the real thing?

Put another way, there are far more unanswered questions about sex robots than there are actual sex robots. Although it’s hard to conduct empirical studies until sexbots are more prevalent, informed governance requires researchers to explore these topics urgently. Otherwise, we may see reactionary governance decisions based on supposition and fear of doomsday scenarios.

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The TV show ‘Westworld’ depicts how humans interact with sex robots and other machines infused with artificial intelligence.

A brave new world

A fascinating question for me is how the current taboo on sex robots will ebb and flow over time.

There was a time, not so long ago, when humans attracted to the same sex felt embarrassed to make this public. Today, society is similarly ambivalent about the ethics of “digisexuality” – a phrase used to describe a number of human-technology intimate relationships. Will there be a time, not so far in the future, when humans attracted to robots will gladly announce their relationship with a machine?

No one knows the answer to this question. But I do know that sex robots are likely to be in the American market soon, and it is important to prepare for that reality. Imagining the laws governing sexbots is no longer a law professor hypothetical or science fiction.

It’s a real-world challenge that society is about to face for the first time. I hope that the law gets it right.

About The Author:

Francis X. Shen is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota

This article is republished from our content partners at The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

#technology #robots #sex robots #technopolitics #ethics #laws of robotics #the future of #the future of law #the future of sex #the future of sex work

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tinymixtapes · 7 years

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Music Review: Patrick Cowley - Afternooners

Patrick Cowley Afternooners [Dark Entries; 2017] Rating: 4.5/5 “[Gay] pornography has become one of our privileged cultural forms, the expression of that quality for which we are stigmatized, queer-bashed, fired, evicted, jailed, hospitalized, electroshocked, disinherited, raped in prison, refused at the U.S. border, silenced, and ghettoized — that quality being our sexuality.” — Tom Waugh, Men’s Pornography: Gay vs. Straight (1985) Indisputably, gay pornography has played a fundamental role in the politics of sexual liberation. While anti-pornography feminist movements may rightfully denounce the broader medium’s commodification of the female body, these critiques ignore that gay pornography does not feature gender-defined sexual roles by definition and, as a result, is largely devoid of problematic power imbalances; rather, gay pornography — produced by and for gay men — both draws from and simultaneously challenges hegemonic constructions of masculinity and suggests, contrary to anti-pornography feminist discourse, that sexual penetration needn’t be a symbolic form of sociopolitical oppression. Encouraging sex-positive values and defending non-conformist sexuality — publicly conceptualized as “sodomy” — early gay pornography in particular functioned to destigmatize homosexuality and reaffirm the dignity of gay men, perhaps most importantly in the eyes of inhibited gay men themselves. Not coincidentally, many of these pioneering films were produced throughout the socio-sexual revolutions of the 1960s and 70s, which precipitated the emergence of gay ghettos throughout the United States as queer havens in reaction to heterosexual repression, particularly as manifest in the Stonewall police raids of 1969 and even Harvey Milk’s assassination in 1978. Queer voices of resistance ballooned over the course of a single decade, but internalized oppression endured, especially for queer men outside the San Francisco and New York spheres of influence. For those at the margins, the widening availability of gay pornography fostered reflexive sexual exploration, embodiment, and acceptance, ultimately furthering the legitimization of liberated queer discourse. In this very historical context, Foucault introduced the term “counter-conduct” to designate resistance against prescriptive state-sanctioned moralities. If we accept Foucault’s terms, then his theory of “devenir homosexuel” — which rejects static constructions of sexuality by focusing instead on relational typologies — posits a characteristically queer counter-conduct, emerging from a subversive social matrix that rejects normative gendered relationships and roles, thereby disrupting the functioning of conductive power. But queer counter-conduct needn’t be limited to relational ambiguation; gay pornography — and the celebration thereof — may also represent liberating insurrection. Afternooners by Patrick Cowley Consider, for example, Fox Studios’s gay pornographic film Afternooners (1982), the soundtrack of which was produced by electronic dance music pioneer Patrick Cowley. The seemingly innocuous film’s sociopolitical context is revelatory: it’s the Age of Reagan, and a federal investigation has encouraged a gratuitous crackdown on pornography just as the government refuses to address the AIDS crisis that has taken countless queer lives across the country. In San Francisco — where Cowley had lived — 1 out of every 100 gay men had AIDS by 1984, and sadly, Cowley himself died of an undiagnosed case only two years prior. Surely, pornographic times call for pornographic measures, and perhaps there’s no better way to protest institutionalized homophobia than revolutionary fucking. And that’s what Afternooners and other gay pornographic material represents: indulgent, irreverent satire of normative masculinity that operates by deconstructing and reconstructing its every term. And if that’s true, then archival record label Dark Entries’ release of Cowley’s Afternooners soundtrack represents a subversive statement that commemorates a forgotten martyr and celebrates a martyred medium. To be sure, pornographic films from the 1970s and 80s communicate particular modalities of queer embodiment that reflect largely white narratives from the gay ghetto, from San Francisco to New York. (On the record’s album art, Cowley himself appears handsomely dressed in typical working-class “Castro clone” getup.) Importantly, however, these films’ narratives subvert the public-private partition of sexuality by transforming the public sphere into settings for gay sex, occupying contested territory otherwise secured by the heteropatriarchy. The validating power of these materials is best captured by the stronger mail-order pornography markets of sexually repressive regions of the United States, otherwise alienated from the liberated experience of metropolitan homosexuality. Additionally, the substantial consumption of “artisanal” materials like Boyd McDonald’s widely-popular Straight to Hell zine — which rigorously documents public and private sexual encounters between ordinary men, submitted by readers — suggests the extent to which these materials shattered the façade of straight “respectability,” underscoring the fluidity of same-sex attractions, normalizing queerness, and thereby giving way to modes of socio-sexual liberation. It’s quite fascinating to note, moreover, McDonald’s recognition of the Foucauldian dichotomy of “gayness” as abstract embodiment versus “homosexuality” as empirical practice, claiming that “to be publicly gay, [men] have to be closet homosexuals […] gay is what they are in public, and homosexual is what they are in private;” the distinction hints at the taboo of intermale sex (see: “as long as they don’t shove it down my throat”) that endures despite civil rights victories for queer folk — precisely what McDonald sought to subvert. The claim that pornographic material offers reflexive spaces for “the education of desire” and the expression thereof is hardly revolutionary. In avant-garde filmographer Curt McDowell’s erotic short film Loads — which, meaningfully, is only available on PornHub — the director thoroughly contemplates his sexual attraction toward heterosexual men through the film’s stunningly vulnerable, intimate voiceover. Although its goals are not “pornographic” in the traditional sense, the film’s brief narrative captures what is otherwise implicit in mainstream gay pornography: the four-step method of sociocultural deconstruction/reconstruction that procedurally (1) relishes, (2) celebrates, (3) validates, and (4) legitimizes repressed gay sexualities, traversing each social node from the internal (1 + 2) to the external (3 + 4); the transformative process, mediated by the phenomenological experience of sexual pleasure, begins (1) triggering the visceral “id” to (2) transform the “super-ego” — the locus of internalized homophobia — until (3) the aroused body is publicly transformed into the aroused community that, when legitimized, cannot but (4) transform society — the matrix of institutional homophobia — obliterating conductive power with its uninhibited assertion of queer sexuality. By embodying this process, Loads does not fundamentally differ from the social project of gay pornography, the space in which Afternooners the film — and Afternooners the soundtrack, by extension — exists. Nor does Straight to Hell, for that matter; or Love & Lust in New Orleans, or Alpine Wood, or Provoked at Work by the Boss, or Antonio Molinas Fist Fucked and Barebacked, or Hot daddy fuck he’s neighbour, or prisoners need fuck, or Frat weight bench sex HOT or even HAIRY TEEN FUCKED HARD AND BAREBACK BY THREE MEN IN A FOURSOME. By which I mean to say: these representations aren’t grotesque or shameful or debased. Rather, they are radically transformative and marvelously sublime. --- In Memoriam Patrick Cowley (1950 - 1982) --- Bibliography Castells, Manuel. The city and the grassroots: A cross-cultural theory of urban social movements. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983. Corneau, Simon, and Emily Van der Meulen. “Some like it mellow: On gay men complicating pornography discourses.” Journal of Homosexuality 61.4 (2014): 491-510. Dyer, Richard. “Idol Thoughts: Orgasm and Self-Reflexivity in Gay Pornography.” Critical Quarterly 36.1 (1994): 49-62. Dyer, Richard. “Male Gay Porn: Coming to Terms.” Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media 30 (1985): 27-29. Escoffier, Jeffrey. Bigger than life: The history of gay porn cinema from beefcake to hardcore. Philadelphia: Running Press, 2009. Lucas, Michael. “On Gay Porn.” Yale Journal of Law & Feminism 18.1 (2016): 13. Mercer, John. “Homosexual Prototypes: Repetition and the Construction of the Generic in the Iconography of Gay Pornography.” Paragraph 26.1-2 (2003): 280-90. Schehr, Lawrence R. French post-modern masculinities: From neuromatrices to seropositivity. United Kingdom: Liverpool University Press, 2009. Sheehy, Erin. “Straight to Hell.” N+1, April 12, 2016. https://nplusonemag.com/issue-25/reviews/straight-to-hell/. Sherman, Jeffrey G. “Love Speech: The Social Utility of Pornography.” Stanford Law Review 47.4 (1995): 661-705. Siisiäinen, Lauri. “Foucault and Gay Counter-Conduct.” Global Society 30.2 (2016): 301-319. Waugh, Thomas. “Men’s Pornography: Gay vs. Straight.” Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media 30 (1985): 30-35. 1. Big Shot 2. Surfside Sex 3. Hot Beach 4. The Runner 5. Furlough 6. One Hot Afternoon 7. Leather Bound 8. Bore & Stroke 9. Cycle Tuff 10. Jungle Orchids 11. Take A Little Trip 12. Love Come Set Me Free http://j.mp/2CgWme2

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thedenfantasyleague · 5 years

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Week 10 Den League Recap... Ya Bastards

Boys & Scott,

Due to the fact that our esteemed commissioner was too busy bird-dogging chicks in the Big Apple all weekend to watch football like the rest of us, Debbie Rowe has been called into action for the recap. Sorry in advance.

Wilmore Cinderella vs. Debbie Rowe

We’ll go ahead and get this one out of the way first and foremost. Jp said it best; he pretty much lost any shot he had at winning when my running backs started scoring touchdowns. Sure, he put up a fight with decent games from Famous Jameis and Mikey Thomas, but despite a weak showing from my QB pickup, Phil Rivers, who was probably just worn out from all the sex, my squad did just enough to coast to another victory. Moving forward, JP finds himself in a weird position where he technically is still in the playoff hunt but may have an equal shot at Cabana boy for a second straight year. On the other hand, I’m just trying to stay humble and hungry, praying to the fantasy gods and Pope Francis that my team can stay healthy heading into the postseason.

POV vs. Perfect Ten

Micro v. Macro. Min v. Max. This gamer duel came down to an NFC West Monday night showdown, whereas we all know, ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN! Unfortunately for our new stepdad, POV, nothing happened on MNF. Russ Wilson, perhaps the best gamer of his generation, couldn’t get the job done against the new legion of boom: the Niners D. E stayed Golden with the law office of Murray, Ekeler and Hill, while Dyl was undone by Charles Saquon Barkley and Marlon Mackille O’Neal. There is hope for POV and his Brownies moving forward, however, as the Juice got loose for a second straight week and the Browns got a much-needed victory against the Bills. This was also a huge game for E to put some distance between himself and Al in the Cabana Boy race!

Timshel vs. Mardukas

Have we ever really figured out why Mike’s team is called Timshel? I’m not even positive that I pronounce it properly tbh. Anyway, here was another game that came down to needing a MNF miracle. Timshel was looking to ride Breida to victory but ran into technical difficulties in Silicon Valley. Meanwhile, Hank used big games from the Cookie monster and Lamar Michael Jackson to moonwalk to another easy victory. Mike’s silver linings playbook comes in the form of Smelly Melly busting loose for a big game finally after his multiple week hold out to start the year. Could this momentum help propel him out of the middle of the pack and into a top 3 playoff seed? Also, fug Scott’s bench.

VP vs. Lupin

Don’t look now but team VP is talking that SHIII and backing it up over the past month. It must have been a full moon this weekend because Lupin (a known werewolf) was killed by a Steeler bullet. Outside of the Steelers D and Hollywood Brown, Vinny’s team didn’t do too much to jump out at you, however, Gabe’s D was the only thing that stuck out on an otherwise flaccid roster. Vinny, like E, gets a huge victory this week to separate himself from Al Minshew at the bottom of the Todd heap. Meanwhile, James John Conner needs to terminate his injury and get back on the field if Lupin wants to stay near the front of the pack.

Kalabar vs. Young Robbie Gets Rubbed Hard by New Stepdad

What more can we say about Rob’s season? This week his team suffered yet another setback as Devonta Freeman exited early with an injury that will likely keep him sidelined for several weeks. I’m too lazy to look it up, but this seems like what, the 50th straight week that Rob has failed to break 65 points? Honestly, we may need to look into an exorcism because this seems like a Kurse much stronger than anything we’ve seen to this point. I don’t need to say much about G because he said a lot to himself on Sunday, but credit where it’s due for the big Baltimore D and Kyle Rudolph pickups. Very timely indeed. Almost makes you wonder, did Kalabar forget to set his clocks back this year, because this was a vintage October performance from the Kursed One. If he keeps this up we can forget Halloweentown, this season it’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.

MinMax Gardeners vs. El Commish

Mr. Commissioner may have taken the week off, but his team certainly did not! In what has to be a tough blow for MinMax, Josh Allen and Christian Kirk Cameron almost Left Jarn Behind, but negative points from David Johnson screwed him in the end (that’s a sodomy joke). For El Commish, it was Derrick Henry Rowe who outweighed the competition along with Travis Scott Kelce who went sicko mode in Nashville. As Jarn was in NYC this weekend for an annual commissioner’s meeting at the league office, it was only fitting that we received new info regarding the Cabana boy punishment. And could there have been a more apt matchup for this news? We now know, Mr. Commissioner will be conducting a Hot Ones style league recap with the Cabana boy, who let’s face it, is looking more and more like Al every week. Many people are wondering, can Al take the heat?

UPDATE:

Whoa. Jarn holds on by the skin of his world-famous tamales. I wrote this recap early in the second half thinking all was safe, and then out of the clear blue, Al’s kicker almost ruined the Commissioner’s big, fat New York weekend. Cabana boy status still intact.

******

Cabana Boy Clinch:

Magic Number: CLINCHED: Debbie Rowe CLINCHED: Hank Mardukas CLINCHED: Kalabar’s Revenge 2: Team Timshel 2: Fire Jarn 2: Professor Lupin 2: El Commish 3: Wilmore Cinderellas 3: Stick With Us PVO 3: The Perfect Ten 3: VP Virg. Gardening Minmaxers: 2-8

****** It’s late in the season and there are playoff positions up for grabs. I suggest everyone strap in and strap on for these last three weeks. Things are about to get a little wild.

That said, it’s been my pleasure filling in for our beloved Commish this week. Thanks for bearing with.

Debbie Rowe aka Jane

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yuemis-blog · 8 years

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filed: response from: @avinzas

Oliver looked like a dying pup; with the way his head tilted to the side, fringe covering his innocent blue eyes. Someone was curious about his mind? Well that is a first.

He always imagined that if he was going to exploit his thoughts it would either be through his art or poetry. Suddenly he feels that a nice glass of red would be a nice calming setting he needs to tell this. Lips pursed into a ‘o’ slowly as if he was about to tell the most elaborate treasure-filled story ever. When really it is as satire as sodomy. “My mind is a bit of a bully.” Mumbling softly in his thick accent.

Maybe he has an inferiority complex towards the way he talks. Sometimes he wished he was more fluent in Korean. Then again lately since he’s been living in Korea, his pronunciation was much better, but it also meant that his English was becoming rusty. The struggles of maintaining multilingual memory. Oliver rubbed the nape of his neck, leaning back against the nearest wall with one foot propped on it with his knee bent , trying the facade of cool was overrated for him by now. Yet his actions say otherwise.

Such a ..

「 cliche 」

Oliver was playing with matches that he sometimes carries with him when he stole them from local ajhussi’s who smoke fags. Oh right, – what you call cigarettes. Blowing one flame out, stench of burnt foul wood and grey smoke withering into nothing. It reminded him of a metaphor, lyrical reference. One from his favorite band.

“ Cause I don’t need any more friends And another kiss like a fire on pavement We’ll burn it down till the end “

“I guess you can say that is on my mind. In the music mode. But a million things run into my mind every moment. But I guess a jukebox is playing in my mind…probably because I don’t want to think about my responsibilities, and how much more pain I got to suffer as I beat off to some porn. You don’t wanna wonder what goes on in this mind. “ Oliver shook his head with a playful, shy laugh, wavering his hands trying to dismiss the idea now. He didn’t want her to think weirdly of him for the way his mind works.

To say the two of them were close would’ve been a lie, despite her fascination for the said male, something about him had intrigued her, his way of carrying himself was highly interesting. The occasional comments and actions that came with his every day behavior, she had yet to get acclimated to them-- something she wondered if she ever could. He had a mind of his own it seemed, compared to her simple existence.

Allowing her body to slide down, she accompanied the male with her back resting against the wall as well. The metal soles of her protheses tapping against the tiles of the floor, leaving an eerie sound. She wasn’t fazed by it, these artificial limbs had become part of her every day life, each sound and each moment she was so used to-- this accompanied with the stares she had to deal with on a daily base, most of which gazes filled with pity and sadness. As though she was an innocent lamb, unable to take care of herself, unable to live her life like any other. What a bother. She was perfectly able to get through life, sure, a few disadvantages here and there but in comparison to someone else-- someone, let’s say someone dyslectic. She wouldn’t have more struggles than a person like that, or so she thought of herself, she hated being looked upon with pity after all.

Gaze flickers to the small fire around the head of the match, though the fire soon turned into nothing but spoke causing her to follow the trail. Though she soon broke out of her own thoughts to focus more on those he voiced. He seemed complicated, everything about him came off as though she’d never really understand. She was a simple mind living in a big world, no worries and nothing to truly bother her. Those with more complex minds, there were a puzzle to her, one she couldn’t solve no matter how many hints she asked for, and his response to her question proved this just one more time. ‘The more you speak, the more I get intrigued.’ She responds, a soft smile curling the corners of her lips, she doesn’t break the gaze she fixed on his face.

She stretched her legs out in front of her, fingers toying with the ends of her shirt, wondering what responsibilities he would have, those so big he’d rather keep his mind off of them than to face them and get over with it. She was the kind to do anything at the moment of it popping up, to avoid later stress and worries, so why wouldn’t he. She never could understand others’ way of thinking, in her mind it was all so simple, for each problem there was a solution, one not always fun but if followed the problems would’ve been solved just like that. Why was it always so hard for people get.

‘Why are you suffering, why are you in pain then?’

#「 threads 」#avinzas

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ethelbertpaul444-blog · 6 years

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19 Gruesome Facts About The Real Life Boogeyman Known As The Beast Of Jersey

The Beast of Jersey [*] Edward Paisnel is known as’ The Beast of Jersey ‘. He presented this list to himself in a letter addressed he sent to police during an 11 year stage in which he garmented in a costume that included a wig, a rubber concealment, and homemade cloth bangles with hammers sticking out of them and registered homes at night where he would abuse his target. In lawsuit you’re having a hard time painting his cloth/ fingernail bracelets, here’s what they looked like TAGEND The Beast of JerseyPaisnel was eventually convicted of 13 counts of assault, abuse and sodomy( though more than 100 declaration certain kinds of onslaught at his hands ) and received a sentence of 30 years in prison. He served only 19 years and was released by has become a “model prisoner”. He had to move off small island developing of Jersey because the community didn’t want him there and he died on a nearby island in 1994. Rob9 84 [*] His hunting sand was small-minded and quarantined . strong> He coerced Jersey Island, part of an archipelago “ve called the” Channel Islands between France and England in the English Channel. The island is less than 45 square miles total with about 100,000 inmates living in and around a single township, Saint Heller. [*] He was previously incarcerated while the Germans dominated Jersey Island during WW II for plagiarizing menu and devoting it to depriving families in his community. [*] His first strikes were on four young lady a couple of months apart. Each bride was waiting for the bus at a bus stop, or marching residence from the bus stop when Paisnel affected them, employed a rope around their cervix, and pushed them by the cervix into a nearby subject where he could beat and abuse them. He then began to branch out and victimized older women and young boys as well. [*] On Valentine’s Day in 1960 a 12-year-old boy woke up in his bedroom to find the ogre of Jersey watching him sleep. Paisnel set a lasso all over the sons cervix and contributed him out the window to a nearby battlefield where he raped him. [*] Soon after, a baby and daughter were oppressed in the night. According to the True Crime Enthusiast place : ” In March 1960, a 43 year old-fashioned mom and 14 year old-time daughter in a somewhat lonely bungalow in the St Martin parish underwent a horrific know. The baby was awoken at about 12:30 am by the telephone ringing downstairs. She went down to answer it, but when she hoisted the receiver discover nothing but a click and then the dialling style. She went back to berthed but was awakened about an hour eventually by a phone downstairs. She started downstairs to analyse, but as she reached the bottom of the staircase the suns unexpectedly went out and she listened someone in the living room moving about. In the dark, she made for the phone to call for the police- but the phone lines had been wrenched out. Then, she used confronted by the figure of a male who grabbed her and necessitated money. He was very rough with her and threatened to kill her, but left the woman instantly when he listened the daughter coming down to investigate the agitation. The wife took the chance to flee and develop alarm systems at a nearby farmhouse, and upon returning to the cottage acquired her daughter- she was still alive but had been horrifically abused in the now familiar signature .” [*] Another 14 -year-old girl was luckier, she woke up in her bottom to find the three men in the disguise starring at her, but he ran away when she screamed. [*] Soon after, he crimes two small-time boys( separately) in his signature mode: opening their dwelling at night, and resulting them away with a line around their neck. [*] One space police knew they were dealing with a serial attack( and not separate attacks performed by different intruders) was that in addition to the rope around the cervix, all victims described the attacker as having a distinctive “musty” smell. The Beast of Jersey [*] Paisnel volunteered at community residences fairly that the children knew him as “Uncle Ted” but feared and hated him. It is well known that “Uncle Ted” would sneak into the residence to watch them sleep, creep around in the crawl space, and sexually and physically abuse the children as well as the staff. [*] Paisnel’s spouse, Joan, said that he had once dressed up as Santa Claus to call their home communities home and spread vacation cheer. [*] The duet made in orphaned children from the community. [*] When small island developing community grew concerned enough to call Scotland Yard to come help investigate the crimes, the animal of Jersey took 2 years off from stalking his casualties. He reverted and assaulted 4 children in the next two years, and then started underground again for 2 years. [*] During his “downtime” Paisnel wrote a taunting letter addressed to police in which he handed himself his own moniker. The letter spoke TAGEND My Dear Sir, I think that it is just the time to tell you that you are just consume your time, as every time I have done wat I ever intended to do and remember it will not stop at this, but I will be fair to you and give you a chance. I have never had much out of “peoples lives” but I intend to get everything I can now…..I have always wanted to do the perfect misdemeanour. I have done this, but this time make the moon shine highly britte in September because this time it must be perfect , not one but two. I am not a maniac by a long shot but I like to play with you parties. You will hear from me before September and I will give you all the clues. Just to see if you can catch me. Yours very sincerely Wait and See [*] The letter was followed by new attempts, and now his victims had mysterious punctures in their skin which were strangely parallel and spaced in an arranged way.( Later, police would recognise these came from the tacks in Paisnel’s “uniform” ). [*] The beast of Jersey was lastly is still in 1971, by collision . strong> There was a traffic stop set up as a result of an unrelated slaying. Paisnel approached the stop and assumed police were on to him so he started a car shoot that ended with police catching him in a vehicle he had stolen for the nighttime to commit one of his violations. They found in private vehicles strip, a pitch-black wig, ropes,” targeted pokes”, and a rubber disguise. In add-on, Paisnel was wearing his murder outfit of an age-old raincoat with fingernails through the shoulders and his nail cuffs as well. He was carrying a flashlight with black strip enveloping most of the bulb, so that it yielded off a thin, restricted brook of light only. Edward Paisnel’s Mugshot [*] When police cross-examine him, Paisnel told them that night he was on his road to an festivity. He wore tacks spiked through his attire in case someone at the spree was a martial artist. [*] Police too procured a secret office in his house with more entries for his murder costume, photos of residences in the area, occult paraphernalia, and a sword. [*] People think he’s responsible for many, many more violations than he was accused and found guilty of. Children who grew up in the homes he “volunteered” at declaration that he regularly used chloroform to remove progenies from the home in their sleep. You can predict 101 of the scariest( and shortest !) true-blue floors in our new collect,, accessible here. Read more: https :// thoughtcatalog.com/ emily-madriga/ 2018/01/ gruesome-facts-about-the-boogeyman-known-as-the-beast-of-jersey /~ ATAGEND http://dailybuzznetwork.com/index.php/2018/06/11/19-gruesome-facts-about-the-real-life-boogeyman-known-as-the-beast-of-jersey/

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theblacktivity-blog · 8 years

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Trap Music: Made In America.

Somewhere in America particularly down in the south where the relatively new metallic skyline cities are situated among rural landscapes more representative of the Dixie past, you hear it. In the shadows of old Jim Crow and the haunting echoes of freedom hymns, “Bloody Sunday” chaos, Chattahoochee river ghost whistles, and the collective sound of thousands of marching feet, there have been stories brewing. They explode into spinning tunes like the combustible elements of fire and petrol, a combination most comparative to the south’s inner city blues, where the poverty is further exacerbated by the structural residue of the past and its very evident present. If northern poverty and “ghetto” life is most represented by the overcrowded high rise project tenements, then from Virginia (mid-Atlantic), Tennessee, to the Carolinas, to the streets and backways of Georgia and Florida, to Alabama, Missouri, down to the Mississippi delta this same struggle is embodied in the dilapidated shacks of houses and public housing low rises that line blocks and side streets in poor Black communities. The same can be said about life down in Louisiana’s bayous and the dry heat of Texas where places such as lower 9th Ward, 7th Ward, 8th Ward, 3rd Ward, Calliope and Magnolia have become household names, small contained worlds known for their infamy. In Texas and particularly in Houston, areas such as Cloverdale, Sunnyside, 3rd Ward, and 5th Ward hold that distinction. It is the state of Georgia however, and the black metropolis of Atlanta particularly, that in the mind of many outsiders embodies the collective southern idiosyncrasies in much the way that foreigners view places like New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles as snapshots of America. One such characteristic can be heard thundering through such aforementioned neighborhood archetypes. It’s a raging noise, an ominous symphony of cinematic strings layered underneath grimy, rhythmic snares and a pounding bass often heard for blocks from out of houses and the pulsating trunks of whips of all type, including the classic cars known in southern hoods as the “trap car”. Woven within the instrumental tempest are lyric patterns that have over time become known and mimicked by everyone, but are best known and felt by the souls on these harsh streets. Young Black men and women with distant looks move about the blocks, corners, and porches speaking (some through golden grilles) an ingenious form of homemade patois that could best be described as a hard-lined defiance of what the so-called white world considers “respectable” language. Others can sometimes be seen fixing a sharp gaze from wherever their post on passersby. And if one is not intimately familiar with the isolation of the hood that sometimes breeds curiosity at anything or anyone unfamiliar, suspicious, or new, then one could mistake these stares for “aggression”. These Black men and women who have been effectively cycled into structural poverty by the forces of old and new Jim Crow and forced to survive in the underground economy are in a sense, trapped. Thus, the name for the projects as well as the distressed and condemned properties in and around poor, mostly Black neighborhoods is, the trap. It’s aptly named, a place marked by something of an organized dysfunction in which many African Americans find themselves in such a whirlwind of structural inequality, crime, and poverty that for many, they are faced with adult choices sometimes before they reach puberty. These are decisions that often come down to the difference between a full and empty stomach, a warm bed and a piece of a roof or eviction, but in many cases, it is the difference between having and not having. The only recourse that appears to be left in such a bleak environment are the confines of the drug game where one is dealt an institutionally crafted deck of cards between eventual death, prison, or addiction. Traps are at once black market versions of Wall Street with its own set of financial and moral principles, grounded in an ethos that is both organically street and, if one is honest, fundamentally American. If America has been described by most (typically white) people as a place where one must “pull themselves up by the bootstraps” then not only does trap culture and the people of it embody this, they excel past this expectation by creating boots that were not given to them, good, bad, right, or wrong. In the trap, they have another saying for this red blooded American philosophy “hold your own nuts”. To be sure this is not at all a promotion of drug culture (I’m sure someone will attempt to make that a “counter-argument”) just a valid point because these are the same people and neighborhoods that are demonized in so-called “mainstream American culture”. If one is lucky enough, and by “lucky” I mean blessed by nothing other than the grace of the Almighty and manages to somehow escape the mortuary, an 8 by 8, or the catacombs of the living that are the trap houses or ‘bandos’ (abandoned houses) then for many, the next logical step is to breathe life into your survival story, this is the genesis from which trap music is born.

The term “trap” has its roots in deep in the pines of Georgia where groups such as Outkast, Goodie Mob, and Organized Noise utilized their twangy colloquial gymnastics to pull listeners into a southern world that up until that point had been ignored by the larger hip hop world. This was the mid 90’s and rap music while seen as a young force in popular culture at the time, was still in its growth mode. Furthermore, at this moment the hip hop world was divided along the lines of two coast; east and west. The east was the birthplace of the art form originating in the Bronx in the late 70’s, but during this time New York hip hop found itself in a state of flux with the rising dominance of west coast hip hop. That is, until a larger than life Brooklyn bred MC by the name of The Notorious B.I.G. hit the scene assumed the mantle of the east’s savior. Aforementioned was the west coast which had come to prominence in the late 80’s on the wings of the all-star Compton group known as N.W.A. With tracks that were at once gangster and politically conscious impressing upon the public mind life in the gang war and corrupt cop infested city of Compton, they were the founders of so-called “gangster rap”. But with internal differences in the group that eventually lead to it dissolving and the double blow of founder Eazy-E’s death resulting from complications with AIDS, that movement that N.W.A would have to continue, but elsewise. Simultaneously coming to acclaim around this time was the label known as Death Row, of which former N.W.A. producer and co-founder Dr. Dre would join at the behest of infamous founder Suge Knight. The label would essentially run the 90’s west coast hip hop scene and eventually all of hip hop when they went on to sign superstar rapper Tupac Shakur during his bid in prison. With both Tupac and Biggie at the height of their careers carrying the torch for the east and west respectively, hip hop appeared to be in relatively good hands. But a split between the former friends that occurred before Tupac’s prison bid (for trumped up charges of sodomy and sexual abuse) involving a shooting in which Tupac was shot 5 times essentially brought about a cloud of negativity. Tupac had rumored the shooting to be a setup on the part of Biggie, Bad Boy, and Junior M.A.F.I.A affiliates (a rumor for which he had no proof) and Biggie outraged by the rumor that he would turn on a former friend, always maintained his innocence of such charges. But as is common in the world of entourages, and media, the strain would be exacerbated by outside forces leading to a violent atmosphere that eventually culminated in both the deaths of Tupac in 1996 and The Notorious B.I.G. in 1998. With two of hip hop’s brightest stars gone within only 6 months of each other, the rap world was not only in a state of fear but one of disarray. Who would carry the mantle for each coast now? Was the so-called “east coast vs west coast” war worth it? Was it even created by the now deceased musical giants who were now mere memories of what was and what could’ve been? Needless to say, these questions and many more swirled in the minds of fans and MC’s alike and hip hop entered an era of reflection. The beat didn’t stop, but it did slow down, and it did so just enough for an unforeseen region to come up in the game…the south.

Southern hip hop can trace its root back to the 1980’s when a certain Houston, Texas trio you might have heard of known as The Geto Boys hit the scene with their break out underground album “Grip It! On That Other Level” in 1989. In 1990 the group would go on to be produced by Def Jam co-founder Rick Rubin for two more albums 1990’s eponymous “The Geto Boys” and 1991’s “We Can’t Be Stopped”. This would be the rap world’s earliest known successful foray into the land and experiences of their “country” cousins. At a time in hip hop where the south was overshadowed by both of its more famed coasts and most associated with Black music’s blues and jazz driven past such classics while met with acclaim didn’t at that time move the needle on a national level the way it would in subsequent decades. In a sense, southern rappers found themselves victims of a benign musical neglect that was at once the result of geographic placement that paled in comparison to places like New York and Los Angeles. Not to mention there was a view of southern rappers held by some which in many ways was indicative of a larger cultural schism that has always existed between the urban and the rural in this country. Southern MC’s and southern music was thought by many east coast hip hop fans and MC’s to be a “slow” and a “less sophisticated” form of hip hop. Some on the west had similar thoughts, though to a lesser degree because much of the west coast sound in ‘g-funk’ derived from samples of southern based funk, and blues records (hell, so did much of hip hop’s over all sound catalogue!). Nevertheless, the south trudged on and on the heels of the success of The Geto Boys, another Houston duo in the persons of Bun-B and the late Pimp-C formed UGK or Underground Kingz an apt name not only attributable to the duo’s regional success, but a telling view of how many MC’s in the south garnered fame despite not having access to the major labels of the east and west coast. For many southern MC’s the claim to fame was a gritty hustler’s mentality that lead one from homemade studios, to pressing up CD’s and selling them out of the trunks of cars, to building direct relationships with famed local and regional club owners and radio DJ’s. It was an ingenious device that not only cultivated music business savvy that would yield future dividends, but was based on a genuine feeling amongst southern music figure’s outside of MC’s that the south needed to stick together if it was to succeed. Among the many hallowed grounds of the southern rapper’s sojourn to stardom was the strip club culture. Today, Atlanta is known as hip hop’s strip club capital, the scene of many a money shower and underground artist breakout. But originally Miami held that distinction if for no other reason but the “Miami Bass” sound and the fathers of that sound, the 69 Boyz led by the one and only Uncle Luke aka Luther Campbell. The hard driving fast paced bass heavy sonic modes over top of which could be heard the raunchiest lyrics then known to mankind drew such shock and awe, everyone from politicians to the FBI stepped in. The 69 Boyz represented not only Miami’s night and club life but they ushered in an idiom of southern hip hop that later generations of MC’s would easily be able to trace back to them, that of party culture woven into street culture. By the 1990’s ATL had become the dominant force in southern rap on the heels of the major label and Grammy winning success of Outkast. Everything that Outkast touched or was associated with was also considered golden. So, collaborations with groups such as Organized Noise, Goodie Mob, and the extended Dungeon Family brought those groups and the artist that made them up to mainstream prominence. It was from the point of departure that the A wouldn’t let up. But meanwhile in “the dirty”, the game was taking on another phase, the rise of independent homegrown labels. In cities like New Orleans and Memphis the rise of labels born out of the street hustling grit and determination of their founders began to take shape in a way that would change hip hop forever. The first major independent southern hip hop label to come to prominence was No Limit Records. Fueled by the former hustler and record store owner Percy Miller aka Master P, the New Orleans based label epitomized what would formulate the basis for the subgenre of southern hip hop that would come to known as “trap” rap. With production from heavyweights such as KLC and Beats By The Pound, Master P, & his lengthy roster of artist wove tales of a dark sort that exposed the consequences of poverty in the south in grim detail. His debut album, “Ice Cream Man” was and ode to the life of drug dealing with all its ups, downs, and penalties. Gang banging as a means of filling the vacuous space left by missing family ties, taped off murder’s scenes, and the schism between right and wrong that haunts the souls of those in “the life”, were just some of the themes that were encapsulated in between dark, hard charging, bass heavy beats. With the release of the movie “I’m Bout It” (which is one of the first southern hip hop cult gangster films) these ills as wells and more (such as police corruption) were brought to life in the on the screen, and with this south and its underbelly had officially arrived on hip hop’s radar. Yet and still other independent labels arose. Still in New Orleans, crosstown rival label Cash Money Records burst on the scene to national acclaim in the late 90’s and early 2000’s after having been a regional powerhouse since 1989. Founded by Ronald “Slim” Williams and Brian “Baby aka Birdman” Williams, the label came to success with artist such as Juvenile, B.G, Turk, and of course Lil’Wayne. On the success of Juvenile’s platinum selling album “400 Degreez” the label spun similar tales of life as “soldiers” on the south’s mean streets. The label also put out collaborative projects with all artist at the helm with the rapping quartet “The Hot Boys” and Cash Money producer and DJ Mannie Fresh and Baby formed the “Big Tymers”. Cash Money was responsible for more than invoking the gritty tales of the New Orleans streets however, they were the southern brand responsible for the single most used phrase in the hip hop lexicon at that time, “bling bling”. This was a term born from The Hot Boys 1999 hit single of the same name and was not only slang for diamonds, but a lifestyle born out of the spoils of surviving (if one did) the wars of the streets. “Flossing” was the hood’s version of the American dream, a mountain top experience of sorts that was the earthly equivalent to heaven achieved not thanks to America…but despite it. Meanwhile in Memphis, Tennessee, southern hip hop took on a somewhat darker tone as the independent label Hypnotize Minds founded by DJ Paul, Juciy J, and their group “Three Six Mafia”, brought a “horror” style of rap to the fore of the south’s signature sound. Dark, grimy beats and even darker lyrics painted a picture of an almost Dante-esque landscape: one of poverty, violence, and inner torture. Even more, with its vast array of artist many of whom were women, the label was one of the first to showcase non-token female southern rappers which gave voice to the female MC’s and their stories. Critics (and I was among them at the time) continued to rave that this form of hip hop was nothing more than debauchery, a perverse form of the art that was seeking to capitalize on the southern wave and the voids that the rap world was still reeling from. However, in retrospect one can easily draw a line from the lyrical atmosphere of N.W.A (which was also considered perverse at a point) and the lyrics of southern dope boy and gangster rappers. The world may not have liked the twang with which the MC’s flowed dark melodies into the ether, but we were nonetheless exposed to the common result’s born when structural mayhem breeds the desperate need for survival. In the earlier half of the new millennium as if Atlanta wasn’t already a force of “Dirty South” hip hop, a slew of game changing artist graced the scene, ensuring that southern rap would not be reminisced as a fad. Artist and groups as diverse as T.I., Young Jeezy, and Gucci Mane would storm both the mixtape circuit and mainstream delivering stirring tales broadcasted live from the streets of Atlanta. But it would be rapper T.I. who would bring the term “trap music” to the world lexicon in the form of his sophomore album “Trap Muzik”. It would be from this point of departure that subsequent rappers, trappers (hustlers or drug dealers) and trappers turned rappers would bleed the pain of years of struggle into melodic street college for your temple. More than just the braggadocio and so-called “simple” lyricism the it was often wrongly deconstructed into, clear rhymes over beats that were more soundtrack than car music gave (and still gives) the listener the feeling of being in there. Whether in the steaming kitchen of a trap house where the bleak atmosphere steals one’s innocence and forces him or her into an adulthood with a predictable end, at the funeral or trail of a fallen comrade, or between the diamond districts and strip clubs celebrating victory (however brief) you were forced to concede that the trap is laid everywhere. In the decade, plus since trap music has hit the scene many of the aforementioned artist have gone on to become household names with holdings in other businesses outside of hip hop, making Forbes list and of course tearing up charts. What began as hip hop’s version of “the other white meat” has now become the sound associated with today’s “mainstream” hip hop in general. This is just as much due to the producers who laid the ground work for the genre as much as the MC’s. Lex Luger (considered by many to be the father of the sound), DJ Toomp, Fatboi, Shawty Red, Drumma Boy, and Zaytoven just to name a few. Not only this, but the lyricism, depth, and complexity of many the south’s best had long been overlooked due the colloquial nature of their wordplay, but one would be hard pressed for instance, to name many albums that could hold a flame to classic��s such as “Trap Muzik” or “TM: 103”. Some would counter however that for every great trap rapper, group, or album, that there is some garbage the thwarts the whole movement. I would say that is the critics version of cutting of your nose despite your face. The very same thing could be said for any genre of music from any coast at any period (remember MC Hammer?). The game is now elevated, southern hip hop and trap music not only brought us into a world ignored, it opened the doors proving that artist from anywhere could succeed with a real story, right hustle, and a knocking production team. It is also a thumbing of the nose at so-called mainstream America’s version of the “American Dream”. However articulated or not, it isn’t lost upon those in the lifestyle and in the music that the system as it is in this country toward Blacks, has its origin’s out of southern pines and red clay roads, upon which many of their ancestors stood on auction blocks. Some would say that trap rap itself doesn’t do the continuing struggle any justice with its promotion of a dangerous life, and certainly there are many things left to be desired in the art-form. But at its most basic level trap rapper are the ones who made it out of the traps laid and who have forged a new life in an America whose sole desire was to destroy them. It was best summed up by Kanye West: “We wasn’t supposed to make it past 25/Jokes on you we still alive/throw yo hands up in the sky and say/we don’t care what people say!”.

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19 Gruesome Facts About The Real Life Boogeyman Known As The Beast Of Jersey

The Beast of Jersey

[*] Edward Paisnel is known as’ The Beast of Jersey ‘. He presented this list to himself in a letter addressed he sent to police during an 11 year stage in which he garmented in a costume that included a wig, a rubber concealment, and homemade cloth bangles with hammers sticking out of them and registered homes at night where he would abuse his target. In lawsuit you’re having a hard time painting his cloth/ fingernail bracelets, here’s what they looked like TAGEND

The Beast of Jersey

Paisnel was eventually convicted of 13 counts of assault, abuse and sodomy( though more than 100 declaration certain kinds of onslaught at his hands ) and received a sentence of 30 years in prison. He served only 19 years and was released by has become a “model prisoner”. He had to move off small island developing of Jersey because the community didn’t want him there and he died on a nearby island in 1994.

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[*] His hunting sand was small-minded and quarantined . strong> He coerced Jersey Island, part of an archipelago “ve called the” Channel Islands between France and England in the English Channel. The island is less than 45 square miles total with about 100,000 inmates living in and around a single township, Saint Heller.

[*] He was previously incarcerated while the Germans dominated Jersey Island during WW II for plagiarizing menu and devoting it to depriving families in his community.

[*] His first strikes were on four young lady a couple of months apart. Each bride was waiting for the bus at a bus stop, or marching residence from the bus stop when Paisnel affected them, employed a rope around their cervix, and pushed them by the cervix into a nearby subject where he could beat and abuse them. He then began to branch out and victimized older women and young boys as well.

[*] On Valentine’s Day in 1960 a 12-year-old boy woke up in his bedroom to find the ogre of Jersey watching him sleep. Paisnel set a lasso all over the sons cervix and contributed him out the window to a nearby battlefield where he raped him.

[*] Soon after, a baby and daughter were oppressed in the night. According to the True Crime Enthusiast place :

” In March 1960, a 43 year old-fashioned mom and 14 year old-time daughter in a somewhat lonely bungalow in the St Martin parish underwent a horrific know. The baby was awoken at about 12:30 am by the telephone ringing downstairs. She went down to answer it, but when she hoisted the receiver discover nothing but a click and then the dialling style. She went back to berthed but was awakened about an hour eventually by a phone downstairs. She started downstairs to analyse, but as she reached the bottom of the staircase the suns unexpectedly went out and she listened someone in the living room moving about. In the dark, she made for the phone to call for the police- but the phone lines had been wrenched out. Then, she used confronted by the figure of a male who grabbed her and necessitated money. He was very rough with her and threatened to kill her, but left the woman instantly when he listened the daughter coming down to investigate the agitation. The wife took the chance to flee and develop alarm systems at a nearby farmhouse, and upon returning to the cottage acquired her daughter- she was still alive but had been horrifically abused in the now familiar signature .”

[*] Another 14 -year-old girl was luckier, she woke up in her bottom to find the three men in the disguise starring at her, but he ran away when she screamed.

[*] Soon after, he crimes two small-time boys( separately) in his signature mode: opening their dwelling at night, and resulting them away with a line around their neck.

[*] One space police knew they were dealing with a serial attack( and not separate attacks performed by different intruders) was that in addition to the rope around the cervix, all victims described the attacker as having a distinctive “musty” smell.

The Beast of Jersey

[*] Paisnel volunteered at community residences fairly that the children knew him as “Uncle Ted” but feared and hated him. It is well known that “Uncle Ted” would sneak into the residence to watch them sleep, creep around in the crawl space, and sexually and physically abuse the children as well as the staff.

[*] Paisnel’s spouse, Joan, said that he had once dressed up as Santa Claus to call their home communities home and spread vacation cheer.

[*] The duet made in orphaned children from the community.

[*] When small island developing community grew concerned enough to call Scotland Yard to come help investigate the crimes, the animal of Jersey took 2 years off from stalking his casualties. He reverted and assaulted 4 children in the next two years, and then started underground again for 2 years.

[*] During his “downtime” Paisnel wrote a taunting letter addressed to police in which he handed himself his own moniker. The letter spoke TAGEND

My Dear Sir,

I think that it is just the time to tell you that you are just consume your time, as every time I have done wat I ever intended to do and remember it will not stop at this, but I will be fair to you and give you a chance. I have never had much out of “peoples lives” but I intend to get everything I can now…..I have always wanted to do the perfect misdemeanour. I have done this, but this time make the moon shine highly britte in September because this time it must be perfect , not one but two. I am not a maniac by a long shot but I like to play with you parties. You will hear from me before September and I will give you all the clues. Just to see if you can catch me. Yours very sincerely Wait and See

[*] The letter was followed by new attempts, and now his victims had mysterious punctures in their skin which were strangely parallel and spaced in an arranged way.( Later, police would recognise these came from the tacks in Paisnel’s “uniform” ).

[*] The beast of Jersey was lastly is still in 1971, by collision . strong> There was a traffic stop set up as a result of an unrelated slaying. Paisnel approached the stop and assumed police were on to him so he started a car shoot that ended with police catching him in a vehicle he had stolen for the nighttime to commit one of his violations. They found in private vehicles strip, a pitch-black wig, ropes,” targeted pokes”, and a rubber disguise. In add-on, Paisnel was wearing his murder outfit of an age-old raincoat with fingernails through the shoulders and his nail cuffs as well. He was carrying a flashlight with black strip enveloping most of the bulb, so that it yielded off a thin, restricted brook of light only.

Edward Paisnel’s Mugshot

[*] When police cross-examine him, Paisnel told them that night he was on his road to an festivity. He wore tacks spiked through his attire in case someone at the spree was a martial artist.

[*] Police too procured a secret office in his house with more entries for his murder costume, photos of residences in the area, occult paraphernalia, and a sword.

[*] People think he’s responsible for many, many more violations than he was accused and found guilty of. Children who grew up in the homes he “volunteered” at declaration that he regularly used chloroform to remove progenies from the home in their sleep.

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Read more: https :// thoughtcatalog.com/ emily-madriga/ 2018/01/ gruesome-facts-about-the-boogeyman-known-as-the-beast-of-jersey /~ ATAGEND

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