Aswad
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Joined: 4/4/2007
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quote:
ORIGINAL: hlen5
Are you saying that people's attitudes towards the eventual perpetrator's fantasies "makes them do it"?
No, don't be silly.
Nothing's ever that simple, and I don't subscribe to the whole "makes them do it" paradigm.
What I'm saying is, people's attitudes to their desires are one among many contributing factors that help take the perps to the point in their lives when they say "aw, fuck it, I might as well" and go ahead with it. And, obviously, that a majority with the same desires don't end up there, and thus don't deserve to be faced with stigma for desires they'll never act on. Something about innocent until proven guilty and all that.
In the final analysis, they're accountable for their own decisions, and we shouldn't hit them with the shame bat unless they make the wrong decision. I mean, hell, one might as well discriminate against LGBT folks. Oh, wait... nevermind, this is a kink forum, so we're hopefully all on board with the idea that people are born with desires that aren't inherently problematic, and that (most) people are also born with the capacity to make moral decisions for themselves as to what to do/not. Maybe one day, we'll be radical enough to let even the crazy types play with consenting partners, perhaps even allow whips and stuff. Or was that yesteryear?
But, yeah, sure, for some people, I guess the assumption of guilt can lead to deciding to get the "fun" that goes with it.
Sorry if I sound a bit acerbic; that's not really directed at you.
This is just one of my peeves, the way people that used to be discriminated against (and, as I hear it, still are in the USA) completely fail to understand or counteract the same tendencies in themselves that, in others, lead to the discrimination they were themselves subjected to, except directed at some other group with a similar aberration from the norm.
As I see it, we should be discussing ethics and consent, not whether or not people with certain desires are evil, crazy, wrong, possessed by the devil, or in on some "xyz agenda" to make kids in Uganda eat poop (long story involving baptists getting people killed for being gay). Just like, back in the days when BDSM was an illness, people should've been discussing the ethics and consent of WIITWD, rather than what was (obviously and necessarily) wrong with us.
For me, personally, other people's attitudes don't make a bit of difference, one way or the other. I've never cared about norms and laws, stigma vs approval, or any of that crap. I care about my own ethics, and the choices I make based on that. And, yes, I have several desires I don't act on, for the simple reason that it would conflict with my ethics to do so. Despite assertions to the contrary by other posters, here and in other threads, and somewhat iffily as regards the TOS on this board, the state of the art in the psych profession holds that I'm quite sane, ethical, and most of the other nice stuff one might ascribe to a person based on what's in their heads. Should the decision not to act on such desires ever change, you can be damn sure it will have nothing to do with whether people think I'm fucked up or not. Making that assertion about someone based on their desires, rather than their actions, is a surefire way to invalidate the opinion altogether in my eyes, so it won't carry any weight.
But I speak to a lot of people on a regular basis to whom it really is a big deal. Good people that have a firm grip on their secret shame. It takes a lot of time and effort to teach them that there's no shame in what you haven't done. To turn on the lights and see that there really isn't a monster in the closet. To realize that what they've been doing all along- choosing to refrain from unethical behavior- is quite sufficient to be a positive and moral individual.
Some make those peoples' lives more difficult by giving them this needless burden to carry. I've no idea whether that could credibly contribute to some of them one ay acting on the desires they don't indulge in, so I'm definitely not saying attitudes "make them do [anything]". It certainly hasn't yet, for the ones I speak to. But I only speak to the ones that are ethical, with a strong preference for those that are ethical by moral agency rather than default, so I wouldn't know if it's been an influence for any that aren't. Do we really need to find out?
And, more to the point, is it in any way just that we prejudge people with ethical behavior based on what their desires are?
If so, how is it a problem if others prejudge us kinksters based on our own orientations, on which we do act?
That's what I was getting at in my post above.
The part you quoted was just musing on my part, based on some crime trends in Japan and the UK in periods where laws changed temporarily as concerns certain aspects of sexuality. TOS prohibits delving into that here. Anyway, that certain factors can and will influence outcomes on a population level shouldn't be taken as support for any idea that people can individually abscond moral and legal accountability and culpability for their own actions, let alone be degraded into a passive role in which "society made them do it" by other parties. No, I didn't mean to insult them in such a fashion at all.
Mostly, then, as now, I was ranting.
IWYW,
— Aswad.
_____________________________
"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.
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