This year's crop of crotch-revealing starlets has helped establish underwear's new status as an optional clothing item
In the future, feminist scholars will most likely trace the movement to Sharon Stone.
In 1992, she uncrossed her legs in the film Basic Instinct and provided the world with its first intentional upskirt shot.
There should really be a commemorative statue somewhere, because it turns out Ms. Stone ushered in a new era of female fashion, one that would reach its apogee in 2006, when it became decidedly en vogue to flash your bits all over the place.
Take that, all you repressed, burqa-shrouded Fatimahs! You wanted a war of civilizations? You got one!
She Who is Perfect finds nothing more relaxing after a stressful week than to settle in bed with the latest editions of People, Us and other weekly chronicles of the lives of beautiful people in Hollywood and TV land. Early in our marriage, I fretted that this was a sign of her dissatisfaction with our mundane existence constrained by the gods of necessity, but I soon came to realize, without comprehending in the slightest, that the whole point of the exercise was to allow her to cluck her disgust non-stop at the wayward, dysfunctional lives so many of these people lead. I confess that, after a hard day at the office or a particularly exhausting battle with the evil Darwinists over at the Daily Duck, I join her in a little of this downtime and am always surprised at how much fun it can be.
Now, neither She nor I are so old-fashioned not to realize what the prevailing wisdom about all this among the caring professions and talk-show hosts would be. Indeed, I can imagine gaggles of them drooling at the chance to cure us of the dreaded “R” affliction by probing the inner recesses of our psyches (preferably on national television) and showing us how we are repressing perfectly natural, healthy desires to express our authentic selves by indulging in some good, safe recreational sex with our personal trainers (all the while remaining good friends), alternating bouts of our favourite addictions with healthy timeouts in rehab and making personal statements about the “real” us by...umm...dressing down. Just as they know the sun rises in the east, they would “know” we are living out thwarted desires and urges vicariously and would be much happier and healthier if we stopped all the warping sublimation and joined in the fun. Well, they may know their Freud, but little do they know She.
In a way, I might welcome such an occasion. The best defence is a good offence and, based on all this systematic research She and I have undertaken together, it seems obvious that if anyone is suffering from unhealthy repression, it is the modern brights who know bloody well they are seeing destructive, immoral behaviour they wouldn’t dream of accepting in themselves or their children, but are too embarrassed or frightened or feckless to say so. How healthy can it be to mouth rote and ponderous platitudes about freedom and choice and self-expression while every neuron inside is firing away to the inner screams of “Slut!!”? It is not a matter of different tastes about fashion and morality; it is the complete loss any capacity to define limits of the publically acceptable or even personally wise, never mind right and wrong. The thundering moralist of yesterday seems to have been replaced by modern heros who think it is enlightened to proudly and valiantly defend Britney’s absolute right to make her own choices and then snicker as she inevitably goes the way of Tonya Harding and Monica Lewinsky.
There is a wonderful scene in the film Moonstruck where Olympia Dukakis has an intimate dinner with a stranger at a very low point in her life (her husband is seeing another woman). He walks her home arm in arm in a lovely, romantic scene, and when they arrive at her place he asks whether he can come in. Sensing her embarrassment, he says: “Nah, I guess your family is there and I’d better not.”, to which she replies: “The house is empty. You can’t come in because I know who I am.”
Today the newspapers are full of “best of 2006" stories. Surely the juxtaposition of the Muslim veil debates with the antics of Britney and her chums (Is Paris Hilton trying to single-handedly resurrect objective belief in Satan?) qualifies as a memorable cross-cultural metaphor. Whatever the political significance of the hijab and other Muslim dress, however wary we may be about its implications for gender politics, whatever the limits of tolerance for it in free societies should be, it is clear that in many, many cases it is worn by women who know who they are. Fewer and fewer young Western women seem to know that anymore, and fewer not-so-young men or women seem to care enough to try and guide them in discovering that. And that is not good.
30 comments:
Peter, I was with you almost to the end. Women who wear burqas know who they are only to the extent that they know the consequences of defying the men who control them.
Women's clothing can be both modest and attractive. The vast majority of us dress somewhere between shrouds and shreds.
There's a world of difference between a hihab and a burqa. A hijab is merely a headscarf and can be quite fasionable, while a burqa covers the entire body and face.
Peter, I agree that some sense restraint and modesty are preferable to the current fad for sluttiness. I only read these magazines when I'm in the hair salon or the doctor's office. Cosmo and Glamour are worse offenders than People and Us, as they carry many advice columns on how young women can follow in the slutty ways of their favorite stars.
...modern heros who think it is enlightened to proudly and valiantly defend Britney’s absolute right to make her own choices and then snicker as she inevitably goes the way of Tonya Harding and Monica Lewinsky.
I don't get why those are opposing ideas. People have the right to make their own beds, and how will we enforce morality if we aren't allowed to ridicule those who make poor choices ?
I'm not seeing where the harm is of this unmodest behavior. How exactly is the crotch revealing starlet objectively worse off? How exactly is the viewer of the crotch revealing starlet objectively worse off? Why exactly is society objectively worse off?
Peter wrote: "How healthy can it be to mouth rote and ponderous platitudes about freedom and choice and self-expression while every neuron inside is firing away to the inner screams of “Slut!!”?"
Why would you think that everyone, or most people, or even many people would have neurons inside screaming "Slut!!"? I certainly don't. I have daughters, and my only goal is to do my best to make sure they have the capacity to think through the potential results of their actions and behaviors. If they can do that and still choose to be "unmodest", then so be it. I don't have a problem with it.
Bret
If human behavior were objective, then your point wuld be a good one. But it isnt. (Sorry, I cant type apostrophes, for some reason my browser thinks it is the search command.)
Human nature places a value on female sexual availability in very much the same way as supply and demand is used to value other goods. Women who "give it away" are not treated with as much respect and dignity as women who demand honor and respect in exchange for that access. It is part of our nature, and no amount of feminist re-education will change that fact.
Duck wrote: "Women who "give it away" are not treated with as much respect and dignity as women who demand honor and respect in exchange for that access."
Perhaps by you (and Peter, etc.), but not by me. I simply don't feel that way. Indeed, I personally feel much more respect for women who are confident enough in themselves and their sexuality to be immodest and loose. I must be missing that gene you have, the point being, that we're all different.
Duck wrote: "It is part of our nature, and no amount of feminist re-education will change that fact."
It's apparently part of your nature, but certainly not mine.
Bret
It's part of enough people's natures to matter. (Gee, I got the apostrophe back.) There is a happy medium between Islamic submission to husbands & male relatives and Maddona-esque trashiness. You see confidence in sugh exhibitionsism, but I see neediness and desperation. I certailnly don't find it sexy.
If you want to know how the average male responds to unbridled female availablilty, listen to Hip-Hop. Words like bi*** and ho aren't terms of endearment.
Duck wrote: "I see neediness and desperation."
Of course, because you're projecting your genetics, feelings, and morality on them. Obviously, if they had genetics more similar to me, then it wouldn't be neediness and desperation, it'd just be having a bit of fun.
So Peter's morality and associated perceptions works in this case for you & Peter and probably Duckians in generally, but I think that assuming that these celebrities and Peter's much reviled "brights" have, at their core, the same fundamental genetic and social cost structure that you find comfortable, is a mistake. Indeed, it would be a mistake for such people to adopt Peter's morality because it doesn't fit who they are.
OK, first of all -- GENETICS is responsible for Britney going out without her panties? That's ludicrous on the face of it. That's the sort of thing that tempts us start the revolution by killing all the geneticists. Isn't it lucky that the Arab's get all the woman with the "cover yourself in a blanket" gene while we got all the "stupid rich girl who likes drafts" genes?
Second, of course she's worse off. At best, failure to conform to social norms is a symptom of some more deep-seated problem. She's got troubles much worse than simply flashing the paparazzi. If she has anyone around her who cares about her as anything but a meal ticket, I guarantee that they're plenty worried about her.
Third, though, even those who do care about her only as a meal ticket should also be worried. What I think Peter is missing is that, in the enlightened 21st century, the universal hiss of mankind comes out as prurient laughter. Britney's career has taken a palpable hit here. Even young girls know better than to idolize a laughing stock.
david wrote: "At best, failure to conform to social norms is a symptom of some more deep-seated problem."
In case you haven't noticed, it seems to be the social norm of her group. It's just not your social norm.
david asks: "OK, first of all -- GENETICS is responsible for Britney going out without her panties?"
I personally consider sexuality to be fundamentally genetic, yes.
david wrote: "I guarantee that they're plenty worried about her."
I worry about anybody crazy enough to go into showbiz and performing arts. They're all nuts as far as I can tell.
david wrote: "Third, though, even those who do care about her only as a meal ticket should also be worried."
She's too old to pull off the young, pretty rock star anymore, anyway. Her star was falling, is falling, and will continue to fall.
I must say, Bret, I find your combination of libertarian orthodoxy and psycho-genetics quite chilling. Do you spend much time worrying about for whom the bell tolls?
Thoughts abound, but you seem to have completely severed the bonds of responsibility we have for each other and especially for the young, even within family. Freedom is great, but you make it sound more like "I'm all right, Jack--you're on your own." The truth is that the parents, teachers, mentors, coaches and other influences on the happy and successful are the ones who loved a lot, expected a lot and demanded a lot in their behaviour--and they didn't abandon those expectations as an eighteenth birthday present. The three go together and aren't severable.
Peter:
This
Indeed, I can imagine gaggles of them drooling at the chance to cure us of the dreaded “R” affliction by probing the inner recesses of our psyches ... [then claiming we] would be much happier and healthier if we stopped all the warping sublimation and joined in the fun.
is an often used, but cheap, rhetorical trick.
Step 1: Posit a hypothetical claimant of the position you wish to attack.
Step 2: Subsequently treat that hypothetical claimant as actual, then conduct your attack against the now animate strawman.
Given all the media notoriety immodest behavior obtains, what is noteworthy is the degree to which people -- in particular the female half of people -- have completely failed to follow in train.
Additionally, you should give credit dichotomy. The antics you rightly rail against are essential to reinforcing the moral guidelines you favor. What do you suppose the ratio is between young women hoping to emulate Britney's behavior, and those viewing it as a very cautionary tale?
... it is clear that in many, many cases [the veil] is worn by women who know who they are.
Leaving unstated, but equally true, the fact that in many, many cases, it is not worn by women equally aware of who they are.
The difference is that all of the latter could choose to wear some sort of veil, while a great many of the former would be at some risk to forego it.
Fewer and fewer young Western women seem to know that anymore, and fewer not-so-young men or women seem to care enough to try and guide them in discovering that.
Oh yeah? Upon what do you base this, other than notoriously neurotic, attention-obsessed, outliers?
A far more interesting question to ask is, changing the subject to the point at hand:
Why are trees so tall?
And its corollary:
Why are they no taller?
Bret,
Her career may be falling, but it doesn't mean that her dignity has to follow it.
Bret: I personally consider sexuality to be fundamentally genetic, yes.
So now we have the heterosexuals, the homosexuals and the no-panty-sexuals?
In case you haven't noticed, it seems to be the social norm of her group. It's just not your social norm.
It's the social norm in my society, which is also her's.
On the other hand, isn't the furor created by this indicative that there is still some modest left in society?
Peter:
Oh, you know, divorce rates, parentless children, exploding mental health issues with young women and quaint tales about the fun career choices so many free young girls are making these days.
'Sploding mental health issues? That really needs a reference, preferably one that doesn't rely on pop-psychology.
As for "quaint tales", irrespective of the issue's seriousness, that article is the sort of vapid, ill reasoned, assumption inflated and fact deprived nonsense that gives journalism a bad name. (NB: just for one example, apparently within a generation the demand rate for prostitutes has doubled, meaning, due to population growth, that the absolute number has more than doubled. Yet, despite this huge change, there isn't a scintilla of discussion as to how, or if, this correlates to the number of prostitutes. Nor does it attempt to explain why this doubling would occur, when getting it for free is apparently much easier now than a generation ago).
Back in the late 80s, anorexia nervosa was the fashionable plague. Clearly, Western Civilization was at fault for the over 6300 female teenagers who died each year of the disorder.
That number got wide, loud, and uncritical distribution for a couple years. Until, that is, an epidemiologist got curious. He discovered that fewer than 6300 female teenagers died of all causes per year.
So. The plural of anecdote is not data, and focussing on tragic life stories should not come at the expense of, say, the fact that the majority of college students in the US is female, or that the teen fertility rate in the US is the lowest ever.
As I was saying: basing any conclusion about the culture at large from notoriously neurotic, attention-obsessed, outliers is unlikely to withstand scrutiny.
BTW -- given any thought about why trees are tall, and what that answer might have to do with female modesty, or lack thereof?
He discovered that fewer than 6300 female teenagers died of all causes per year.
In what country? America? That doesn't sound right.
Nor does it attempt to explain why this doubling would occur, when getting it for free is apparently much easier now than a generation ago).
Getting it for free isn't easy for overweight 50 year old men or married men. For free is never "free", it always involves those sticky little personal connections and expectations that women always come with, like, maybe, how does she want sex, and how does she expect to be treated by someone she gives sex to. Paying out $50 for a quick encounter on your terms and with no residual connections is dirt cheap by comparison.
I think that there is plenty of evidence showing that sexual trafficking of women is a major worldwide problem.
http://www3.baylor.edu/~Charles_Kemp/sex_trafficking.htm
http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/trafficking
There are many reasons why it would be more prevalent now. For one, globalization. The internet, cheap worldwide communication, and transportation have made it much easier to market girls to willing buyers in wealthy nations.
Two, the easy availablility, or more accurately the ubiquity of hard core pornography has oversexualized a generation of males, and desensitized them to anything but the most male-dominating sexual acts that you aren't going to get your college roommate to consent to.
Third, young girls growing up in a culture that approves of and glamourizes sluttiness and female submissiveness to men, ie. Hip Hop, have weakened the moral compass of young women, making them easy prey for pimps and traffickers.
Duck:
In what country? America? That doesn't sound right.
In the US. The mortality rate for 15-19 yr old females between 1991 and 1995 is 0.000454 (interestingly, just over one tenth what it was 1901 - 1905)
Based upon population ratios, 20.7% of 281E6 US population (2000) is 5 - 19 yrs old, and there are 105 males for every 100 females.
Cranking the numbers: .207 * 281E6 * (100/105) * .000454 = 25150.
However, assuming only half of the 20.7% are 12 - 19, then the total number of deaths in the cohort is ~12,500. (That feels a bit high; MI has a population near the US state mean; that would imply ~250 cohort deaths/year in MI; since that sort of thing is notoriously headline prone, and the headlines aren't there, I would be surprised if the MI number was as much as 250).
Perhaps my memory failed me somewhat on this, or my numbers are a little off; in any event, asserting even half the deaths per year are due to eating disorders is pure, unalloyed nonsense. This is particularly obvious when subtracting all the non-eating disorder causes.
When I somewhat tongue-in-cheek referred to "getting it for free," I didn't mean to imply it was actually free; rather, the survey's assertion that the demand for prostitution has doubled, despite cultural trends towards far greater availability and acceptance of sex outside of marriage simply demands some sort of explanation.
The article completely failed to do this, nor did it even attempt to assess the inevitable Econ 101 consequences of doubled demand.
As with the other articles Peter cited, the supplied figures are a compendium of conjecture, baseless extrapolation and fear mongering. Not one of them would stand up to even the most cursory scrutiny. That isn't to say the phenomena do not exist, only that the articles completely fail to demonstrate their point.
Two, the easy availablility, or more accurately the ubiquity of hard core pornography has oversexualized a generation of males, and desensitized them to anything but the most male-dominating sexual acts that you aren't going to get your college roommate to consent to.
Pure conjecture. Given that it is only slightly harder to get porn than hot water out of the tap, if there was such a relationship, the police would be completely swamped by sex crimes.
They aren't. People are astonishingly capable of simultaneously holding mutually exclusive ideas. Action films don't drive murder rates, and pornography does not fuel sex crimes.
As for sexual trafficking, that has everything to do with the the economic desperation attending Communism's collapse, and scarcely a thing to do with culture.
Third, young girls growing up in a culture that approves of and glamourizes sluttiness and female submissiveness to men, ie. Hip Hop, have weakened the moral compass of young women, making them easy prey for pimps and traffickers.
Does the culture -- not some media -- really approve of that? Or does the portrayal reinforce the counterpoint?
Peter:
Having cited these articles, please do not ever again cite an article claiming boys are over medicated for ADHD. You can have it one way or the other, but not both.
I know I am repeating myself, but NB: the M:F ratio in college; the lowest teen fertility rate ever.
If your assertions are true, as opposed to citing self-interested scare mongering, then those two facts scream out for explanation.
Peter:
I don't need a medical degree of any kind to see the gaping holes in a newspaper article, or note the very strong likelihood that the prevalence of self-esteem problems is directly proportional to the hand-wringing about self-esteem problems.
Just as I don't need to be an economist to question an article about all the wonderful things that will follow raising the minimum wage, or a meteorologist to question the scientific consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Here is an example from the least flawed article (the last link you provided)
Very unhealthy weight control behaviors include the use of diet pills, laxatives, vomiting or skipping meals.
Note the use of "or." Never mind the question of whether skipping meals is truly "very unhealthy," linking the various types of weight control with an "or" means the reader cannot possibly determine the relative prevalence of each listed behavior type. Maybe 100% of the sample are ralphing each meal, or maybe 100% are skipping breakfast.
There is a world of difference between the two, but not so as the reader can determine.
A skeptical reader might, however, might wonder if meal skipping was tossed into the mix to inflate the "very unhealthy" category, though. Further, presuming the rate of "very unhealthy" doubled, then surely there must be identifiable consequences. Well?
Going to the next para, it is impossible to determine (and I'll bet the researchers can't say) which is cause, and which is effect.
Judging cultural trends based upon the antics of the least representative members of the population is not the surest way to success.
Equally, doing so based upon articles that make questionable extrapolations, fail to address consequences of assertions, or reek of numbers rigging, is darn likely to result in much hand wringing over nothing.
...modern heros who ... snicker as [Britney] inevitably goes the way of Tonya Harding and Monica Lewinsky.
Are you saying that Britney hopes to earn a graduate degree, or that it's laughable to get a Masters Degree from the London School of Economics ?
This linked discussion does seem to indicate that a British Masters Degree is something less than an American one.
When I somewhat tongue-in-cheek referred to "getting it for free," I didn't mean to imply it was actually free; rather, the survey's assertion that the demand for prostitution has doubled, despite cultural trends towards far greater availability and acceptance of sex outside of marriage simply demands some sort of explanation.
It did provide an explanation: In a recent survey of 11,000 men, the British Medical Association found that the proportion of men who have had sex with prostitutes has nearly doubled in 10 years from just under one in 20 of the male population to one in 10, with single university graduates more likely to have paid for sex than married men and non-graduates.
The figures reflect a recent trend for younger men, in their late teens and twenties, to use prostitutes, albeit mainly those in massage parlours and other brothels rather than street girls. "Sex without strings" is seen as part of their night's entertainment. Diana Marshall, who runs the Poppy Project in south London, Britain's only government-funded refuge for trafficked women, blames society's "normalisation" of the sex industry.
"It used to be taboo to go with a prostitute, something to be done furtively, something that brought shame if you were found out," she said. "But now it has become something to do on a stag night or a night out with the boys. It's considered a bit of a laugh to go to a lap-dancing club or a brothel and pay for sex."
Skipper, your statement itself demonstrates an unsupported assumption, that a greater acceptance of sex outside of marriage will lead to a lower demand for prostitution. It may seem intuitive, but there are other examples where human behavior seems counterintuitive. Two examples come to mind. First, as technology allows us to use energy more efficiently, we end up using more energy, not less. Second, as political and economic freedoms increase, political unrest grows, not diminishes. It seems that young men are just obeying a simple law of economics: when you make something cheaper, you get more of it.
Two, the easy availablility, or more accurately the ubiquity of hard core pornography has oversexualized a generation of males, and desensitized them to anything but the most male-dominating sexual acts that you aren't going to get your college roommate to consent to.
Pure conjecture. Given that it is only slightly harder to get porn than hot water out of the tap, if there was such a relationship, the police would be completely swamped by sex crimes.
Look at the per-capita forcible rape stats on this site:http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
It went from 9.6 per 100,000 to a peak of 42.8 in 1992, and has only receded to 31.7 since then, which is three times the rate of 1960. I'd call that support.
They aren't. People are astonishingly capable of simultaneously holding mutually exclusive ideas. Action films don't drive murder rates, and pornography does not fuel sex crimes.
You're not counting paying for sex as a sex crime. If you did, and you accepted the statistic from the article that this practice has doubled among men, then you'd have to say there is some connection there.
As for sexual trafficking, that has everything to do with the the economic desperation attending Communism's collapse, and scarcely a thing to do with culture.
The supply of trafficked girls is not merely sourced in the Eastern Bloc, you'll find girls from all countries victimized by it. Once a network of trafficking is set up , then it will sustain itself on whatever sources of girls it can find. It happens here in the US.
Third, young girls growing up in a culture that approves of and glamourizes sluttiness and female submissiveness to men, ie. Hip Hop, have weakened the moral compass of young women, making them easy prey for pimps and traffickers.
Does the culture -- not some media -- really approve of that? Or does the portrayal reinforce the counterpoint?
The culture isn't a single entity. Naturally there are people who disapprove of bad behavior, but are they the true voice of the culture? How do you weigh the enormous commercial and cultural success of Hip Hop? Doesn't that speak for the culture? What about the "Girls Gone Wild" videos that local TV channels have no qualms about advertizing?
Oro,
It's possible to be a public laughingstock and earn an MBA.
I don't think that we can safely compare stats on forcible rape between 1960 and 2006, due to reporting bias.
Peter:
It's about dismissing "evidence" that is FALSE. Are you seriously attempting to argue that rape data from 1960 compares in any way with that collected today ?!?
And if you are, then what becomes of your laments about how society has changed for the worse ?
If culture is the same now as it was in 1960, then what "golden era" is there for you to argue is lost ?
Duck:
That isn't an explanation, that is the (alleged) phenomena.
The phenomena, if true, should be able to predict, and find, deductive consequences. If the doubling of demand is true, then [fill in the blank]* must have occurred as a consequence.
* Candidate fill in the blanks:
-- there are twice as many prostitutes
-- the per capita number of prostitutes has remained unchanged, but the prices have gone up
-- because prostitution is illegal in the UK, and there is no regimen to control STDs, the doubling of demand has led to a doubling of the STD rate in males
The cited article did absolutely none of this, instead preferring to depend upon survey results as a reflection of objective truth.
It may seem intuitive, but there are other examples where human behavior seems counterintuitive. Two examples come to mind. First, as technology allows us to use energy more efficiently, we end up using more energy, not less. Second, as political and economic freedoms increase, political unrest grows, not diminishes.
To me, those are completely intuitive. Technology has also given us a whole slew of additional ways to use energy. Since freedom, by definition, does not impose orthodoxy, then political unrest should not surprise anyone.
Oroborous makes good sense when he states relying upon rape statistics is inconclusive, it may even contradict the point you wish to make. The change from 9.6 in [...] to 42.8 is due to all these factors, and maybe more:
-- under reporting, due to stigma
-- a lowered threshold for what constitutes rape, making the two sets dissimilar
-- the nearly complete elimination of the "entrapment" defense
-- victims' sexual histories are no longer admissible
-- more rapes
To most, the first four would indicate positive social changes. What's more, they involve easily verifiable facts. Since all five are joined by an "or," not only is it absolutely impossible to tell how much of which contributed to the change, it is well within the realm of possibility that the last -- more rapes (ignoring the threshold change) -- did not, in fact, happen.
Similarly, the rates of spousal abuse are supposedly up. Has the rate really changed, or just the reporting of what was already there?
With regard to your link "happens here in the US", two things: the plural of anecdote is not data; the FBI "estimates well over 100,000 children and young women are trafficked in America today." Based upon? How is it that many people can be so closely and continuously controlled without a significant -- yet apparently invisible -- number of escapees? If many victims are from "good" families, surely there is some significant cohort increase in reported kidnappings, right?
I can't say it hasn't happened, only that the story reeks of sensationalist scare-mongering jumped up by the sex angle, so completely devoid of any mention of deductive consequences as to render the article's reliability completely suspect.
Peter:
I am not dismissing evidence I don't like, only attestations that completely fail even the most superficial requirements for credibility. All the statistics these articles cite entail deductive consequences which are absolutely essential to demonstrating their objective existence. The systemic failure to do even the most elementary verification should engender significant suspicion that these "studies" were designed to arrive at predetermined conclusions.
Further, all of these statistics completely elide the most fundamental question regarding the state of our culture: which would women (similarly, blacks) prefer the state of our culture now, or that prevailing in, say, 1955?
[Y]ou are rejecting the hypotheses outright, not just asking for a second opinion or urging caution.
Hmmm...
By saying that we cannot compare forcible rape stats from 1960 to those from 2005, I didn't think that I was rejecting the hypothesis that more women are raped today. I thought that I was urging caution in drawing conclusions from such a comparison.
Are you suggesting this whole issue is never subject to cogent statistical analysis?
No, just that we must exercise caution in choosing data sets.
And what are you relying on to avoid the charge that you just won't accept conclusions you don't like?
My personal knowledge that I do accept conclusions that I don't like.
Admittedly, that's hard for others to accept at face value, especially those who know me only as pixels.
Skipper:
I trust you do realize you are arguing much like literal creationists argue about the evidence for evolution? You have mental health stats, more and more prescriptions for emotional disorders, endless books and articles on the effects of broken families, an exponential growth in the caring professions (and in their clienteles), eating disorders unknown in previous generations, a burgeoning sex trade and countless anecdotal and observational reflections of those who work with the young, etc., and you are having none of it because you always find a way to challenge everything these people are saying based on what sounds to me like the systems analysis and logic you learned in engineering school. I'm not going to convince you, but I have to wonder what would. If the FBI stats aren't good enough for you, I'm out of powder.
And no, that is not the fundamental question, although I do find it amusing that you would argue that we can't possibly compare statistics from 1955 with those of today, but we can all reliably know precisely in which era we would rather live and why.
Oro:
It seems you and I have switched our normal firing positions on this one. You must know I have no difficulty with your caution and am also instinctively suspicious of fads from the mental health and pop psychology crowd, but I still have no sense of what would make you question your very firmly held convictions about men and women and their sexual relations.
Skipper, if we applied the level of skepticism you displayed for the rape statistics to every study or trend that is reported in the news, then we would have to admit that we are wholly ignorant of anything going on around us. Wouldn't you have to admit that you are applying your skepticim in a biased manner to those stories that contradict your worldview, and relaxing it for those stories that align with it?
Everyone here except me seems to believe that we'll have more oil than we can possibly use in the year 2050, and this based on pure conjecture and faith that technology will allow us to find and tap enough new oil reserves and bring them all to a level of production that will more than compensate for the exhaustion of all the wells in production now and simultaneously meet the tripling or more of demand that we will see by then. Noone is running the numbers on this, it is totally faith based . What gives?
I'm not sure why you are worried about hitting the "panic" button. What happens when the panic alarm goes off, are you forced into a higher level of readiness? Do you hire armed guards for your daughters? It's not a matter of being in one of two binary states, utterly panicked or complacently happy, its about understanding and accepting what's going in in our culture. If reporting bias means that we're experiencing no more rapes now than in 1960, then what? Have we made progress by merely getting the numbers to more accruately reflect the reality without affecting the reality? And what about the droop since 1992? Do we pat ourselves on the back or worry that rape victims are going back into the closet?
Comparisons to the 1960s may or may not be accurate or helpful, but at the same time they are irrelevant, because there is nothing we can do about the past, but what goes on now is on our "watch". If young girls are being abducted and forced into sexual slavery then its a problem that we have to address without quibbling about whether it is happening more today than yesterday. It is unacceptable in any age or at any level.
You are wrong, the plural of anecdote is data, because the data is just the sum of all the individual instances which are anecdotes to those who experienced them. You will never be presented with all the data you need to satisfy your skepticism on any subject, and at some point you will need to rely on your own judgment of human nature. One way to do so is to do a survey of the people you know. Within my own extended family I can identify at least one rape victim in each generation. It happens. It happened in the past and it happens now. We are not living in a golden age of morality.
Peter:
I trust you do realize you are arguing much like literal creationists argue about the evidence for evolution?
Boy, do you ever have that backwards. The most fundamental thing that distinguishes evolution from ID/Creationism is the concept of deductive consequences.
In order for evolution to be true, a surprisingly large number of things, none of them evolution itself, must be true. Those things are deductive consequences, to which I referred above.
In contrast, ID/Creationism doesn't have even one deductive consequence. Nada, nil, zilch, zip, squanto.
Examples:
-- If evolution is true, then the earth must be very old
-- If the purported increase in sex trafficking in the US is true, then there must be a corresponding increase in cohort kidnappings.
That is precisely what is missing from all the citations: if the hypothesis is true, what else must be true as a consequence?
I strongly suspect the stats of which you speak are wildly over stated (NB: Prescriptions for emotional disorders certainly do not qualify: if there was anything was over diagnosed and medicated, that certainly has to be it.), because the knock-on effects just aren't there: if the girls are so much more sexually exploited than ever, why is the teen fertility rate the lowest ever recorded? If girls are so emotionally fraught, how is it that record numbers of them are succeeding at college? In other words, no matter the hysteria:
-- the sex trade is much as it ever was
-- when assessing why women do certain things, it is useful to first answer the question "Why are trees tall?" This century's eating disorders are last century's rib removals, are some other country's foot binding and yet another's neck stretching.
-- the plural of anecdote is not data
I am certainly willing to be convinced otherwise, but the complete failures to follow numbers to where they, if true, must lead, are either a consequence of incompetent reporting, or investigating wandering that vast wasteland between incompetence and dishonesty. You are darn right I am applying systems analysis -- there is no other way to distinguish between some approximation of objective reality and puffed up, self interested, pre-determined, nonsense.
As for FBI statistics. They are preceded by the word "estimates," which means the number is at least two steps removed from reality, and very conceivably pushed more by the bureaucratic imperative than any actual truth on the ground.
I do find it amusing that you would argue that we can't possibly compare statistics from 1955 with those of today, but we can all reliably know precisely in which era we would rather live and why.
If you happened to be African American, where would you rather live, contemporary America, or 1955 America. Hint: statistics aren't really required for the answer.
And while the imagining is more of a stretch, ask the same question as if you were a woman.
How about coming up with an answer for both, and justify it without referring solely to statistics.
Stone was a latecomer.
We oldsters can remember Pierre-Elliot Trudeau's wife, or perhaps ex-wife, flashing her pubes in, I think, the Toronto airport, in the '60s or early '70s -- before Rolling Stone moved to N.Y., anyway, which is when I stopped reading it.
But we oldsters cannot recall her name.
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