Elf Sternberg

In case anyone's forgotten, orbiting brain lasers run Linux.

Alternet is hosting this conversation between two clinical psychologists as to whether or not pornography is really harmful to its consumers or society. One of the writers says something that I found quite profound and essentially rang very true to me:

If there is one nearly universal common denominator in heterosexual porn it is that the women in it are generally portrayed as easily, constantly and powerfully sexually aroused, driven wild by whatever men want to do with and to them. For most men, this fact is crucial to their arousal, not because they're looking for a rationalization for their violent impulses but because they are guilty about feeling strong, selfish and masculine; feel overly responsible for and worried about women; and secretly believe that women are unhappy and relentlessly dissatisfied with men and their own lives. In the service of masturbation, these portrayals of "women in heat" momentarily reassure men against their fears, relieve their burdens and offer them a freedom they find lacking in relationships with real women.

That whole quote really rang true for me and I kinda hoped it was an accurate depiction of the genre. And then this morning I stumbled upon a manga this morning, a 230-page tome: Rape of the Warrior Princess, and in the lower right-hand corner it read, Volume 11. I don't find that topic particularly arousing, but... so much for the "nearly universal common denominator." It might be a common theme in Western smut, but it's hardly "universal." Not nearly.

"That's it. The Japanese are done. They can now return to planet Japania, leaving all the people of Earth horribly confused and scarred for life." So quoted Kotaku the other day while reviewing a standard two-dimensional fighting game of the Capcom vs. Marvel flavor, only with a twist: your opponent's damage heals unless you can kick or otherwise slide a camera under her skirt and get a shot of her panties.

I was reminded of this quote this afternoon. Omaha and I are sick and good for little more than sitting around passively absorbing media, although we've been good about keeping the girls occupied without sitting them in front of the television or a console game for hours upon hours. And I've been doing mostly reading; I'm down to the last ten pages or so of A Soldier Of The Great War. But what reminded me of this quote was, while I was spending a little time cleaning out the backlog of various video I've got on my laptop, I found a cache of unorganized doujinshi (illustrated fan-fiction, usually done in a manga style and almost always pornographic). Most of it was around a single theme: the television show Galaxy Angel, but I had to stop at one and laugh.

I haven't watched the show and so am not familiar with the characters. But halfway through a frentic sex scene the characters stopped, turned to the fourth wall, pulled out a Reality™ brand "female condom," and for the next four pages lectured the audience and then demonstrated how to use the darn things.

Heh. I still think Omaha and I did a better job. Still, it was fun to see.

"I'm going to pretend that all of this is a highly disturbing hallucination."

"You'd be surprised how many civilizations have been founded on that very principle."

Ah, Diablo and some unidentified space monkey once again make terrible sense in today's Goats strip. I love Goats. Oh, and check out Reality Check. Third couple from the front. Go Patty!

This morning as I drove into work I had the weirdest sensation. It had already started out as a pretty strange day-- I awoke at 5:30, a half-hour earlier than usual, and felt fit to get up, hack for half an hour, then head straight into the office. I drove into downtown to drop off my library books (which I'm going to have to check out again later; I didn't finish the second one, and the first was full of good references for a story I'm writing), then drove to the office-- all the while, enjoying myself fully, stereo blazing. (I love Yoko Kanno's techno-instrumental piece The Way Men Fight!) Now, this experience is rather odd, as I usually loathe driving. But there I was, tooling down the freeway, having one of those Steve McQueen moments, focussed vision and all.

I realized I was in a manic phase. Just a mild one. I haven't had a real full-blown case in over a decades and I kinda miss them. (I don't miss the crashes, though.) No worries, though; I got into work, sat at my desk, and it mostly went away. Sigh. On to the soul-crushing working-for-the-Man kind of day. At least I've stolen my boss's chair for the month while he's off on his honeymoon. He uses a 75cm inflatable ball designed for long-duration sitting. I'm trying it out to see if I like it. So far, it encourages wiggling, which I regard as a good thing, since it means I'm not static all day long. My wrists kinda ache this morning; not sure why, I didn't do a lot with them over the weekend, but I've downed a full dose of glucosamine/chondroitin and another of Advil.

(It's a day for comics! Today's Sally Forth! reflects my life well today, too.)