'Previously suppressed material from
the original Kinsey interviews tells us that incest is
prevalent and often positive. '

Few things are as powerful as a deviation whose time has come. Homosexuality, wife swapping, open marriage, bisexuality, S & M, and kiddie porn have already had their seasons. Just as we seemed to be running low on marketable taboos, the unspeakable predictably popped up. Incest is supposed to be the ultimate inhibition, universally recognized and unconsciously observed. Margaret Mead declares that widespread breaches of this primative taboo may be more disruptive of society than crime, suicide, and murder. So incest is very serious business. Even the discontentedly civilized shudder at its mention. Yet the game that every family can play, while repulsive and resistable, appears undeniably bewitching and oddly exciting in passing fantasy.

Thematically, incest is rugged country. Although Sophocles, Shakespeare, Stendahl, Shelly, Balzac, Wagner, Mann, and Wharton have tried to express its horrible fascination, the popular literature is understandably thin. But no longer. This once unbankable subject is now the darling of the media. After centuries of restraint, incest is finally a hit.

To wit: NBC News devoted its monthly Saturday night Weekend show last May to a ninety-minute documentary on the incest victims at a unique California child sex-abuse clinic.

In Pete Hamill's boxing novel Flesh and Blood (Random House), young Brooklyn heavyweight Bobby Fallon sleeps with his mother Kate and fights for the title. According to the catologue copy, theirs is "a love affair that readers will never forget."

Carolyn Slaughter's Relations (Mason/Charter), an August Literary Guild alternate, tells of the intimacies shared by a brother and sister in the late nineteenth century. "The beauty of their love is inevitably destroyed, but not the memory of the beauty. ..."

Twins (Putnam's) by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland, is a recently published novel based on the weird deaths of indentical-twin gynecologists in New York City in 1975. Their fictionalized fatal flaw was incest. Paperback rights have been sold to NAL for $902,000, and the movie version is about to be optioned.

Rewedded Bliss: Love, Alimony, Incest, Ex-Spouses, and Other Domestic Blessings (Basic), by David Mayleas, cites cases of sex between stepparents and stepchildren and gives rules for avoiding this increasing "polyincest" in second marriages.

For her untitled book on incest (contracted by Hawthorn), children's book author Louise Armstrong is tracking down women for first-person accounts of the ordeal.

Redbook, Family Circle, People, the Washington Star, and the New York Times have recently broken the taboo in print with major features.

Three films with incest plots were exhibited at Cannes last spring: Yves Boisset's The Yellow Taxi, with Fred Astaire and Charlotte Rampling; Carlos Saura's Elisa, Vida Mia, with Geraldine Chaplin and Fernando Rey; and benoit Jackquot's Les Enfants du Placard, with Brigette Fossey and Jean sorel. This cluster arrives six years after Louis Malle's sympathetic treatment of an incestous mother and son in Murmur of the Heart.

Incest would be just another media trend, faddishly seduced and abandoned after repealed use, were it not for two forthcoming studies that promise to turn the prohibition on its head. Both introduce and uphold the notion of "positive incest", an especially dissonant oxymoron that will madden therapists and confuse the masses more than the Kinsey reports did twenty-five years ago. Actually, Kinsey was the first sex researcher to uncover evidence that violation of the taboo does not necessarily shake heaven and earth. Unpublished data taken from his original sex histories (some 18,000 in number) imply that lying with a near relative rarely ends in tragedy. "In our basic sample, the is, our random sample, only a tiny percentage of our incest cases had been reported to police or psychologists," states Kinsey collaborator Dr. Paul Gebhard, currently directory of the Institute for Sex Research in Bloomington, Ind. "In fact, in the ones that were not reported, I'm having a hard time recalling any traumatic effects at all. I certainly can't recall any form among the brother-sister participants, and I can't put my finger on any among the parent-child participants."

The nation was hardly prepared for such talk in the fifties, but Gebhard is relasing Kinsey's startling incest material for incorporation in Warran Farrell's work-in-progress, The Last Taboo: The Three Faces of Incest. According to the cultural gatekeepers in New York publishing, America still wasn't ready to hear about positive incest in the mid seventies. Farrell's impressive credentials -- a Ph.D. in political science from N.Y.U., former board member of the National Organization for Women, and author of a book entitled Beyond Masculinity -- counted as nothing. His forty-one-page outline (including two sizzling case histories -- one with a New York writer who has intercourse regularly with his seventeen-year-old daughter, occasionally supplemented with threesomes with the daughter's girlfriend, and another with a Notre Dame graduate who made love to his mother for ten years) was returned by twenty-two houses last fall. MacGraw-Hill's editor-in-chief Fred Hills wanted to acquire the project, but company executives said no. The top editors at a major reprint concern were anxious to buy it until their lady boss invoked an "over my dead body" line. Bantam was the only firm that dared to bid, and Farrall signed for $60,000.

'Dr. James Ramey, a sociologist, states, "If two relatives
make love in a caring situation, that's one thing. If it's rape, it's another.
You can't put the incest tag on that." '

Dr. James Ramey, a sociologist with a multi-disciplinary Ph.D. from Columbia, has censored his own positive incest manuscript for the past four years. Fearing for his reputation and massive misunderstanding, Ramey hesitated to lead with an apparently permission-giving book on man's oldest taboo. He refuses to discuss specifics but volunteers that only one incest family from his 1,500-plus interviews and questionnaires ever ran afoul of the law. "And that was a setup," he adds. Feeling that others are bound to soften up the opposition before him, Ramey has opened negotiations for the book. But unless he can control the publication date, promotion, and jacket and advertising copy, he will not proceed. "You have to be careful when you do a taboo-bucking book," he comments. "There are a lot of slips between the cup and the lip."

NBC's Weekend visit to the Santa Clara County Child Sexual Abuse Treatment Center in San Jose will not help Farrell and Ramey convince anybody that incest is less than a scourge. Host Lloyd Dobyns was so depressed by the content that he told the audience in his introduction that he wasn't sure he'd watch himself it it weren't his own program. What followed was a montage of contrite fathers and exploited daughters pouring out their unrelievedly sad stories of incestuous grief. To interrupt the monotony of the documentary, producer Clare Crawford-Mason frequently cut to Hank Giaretto, director of the treatment center, for background and wisdom on the taboo. Giaretto was positively against incest and linked it to prostitution, drug abuse and sexual dysfunction in daughter victims. In his experience the normally repressed impulse overpowered law-abiding, middle-class fathers when they were down and out professionally and alienated from their wives. These men looked toward their blossoming daughters first for consolation and then for sex. A self-described humanist psychologist, Giaretto requires every father patient to apologize to his daughter and confess his secret to every family member still in the dark about his sins. Regardless of the cost and embarrassment, he believes that public prostration is preferable to discreet, private handling of incestuous entanglements.

For example, in a curious composite portrait of an incestuous family drawn from Giaretto's records and published in Family Circle, the father goes to prison for six months, depletes his life savings, and loses his old job; his daughter has to repeat a year in school; and the other two children freak out and are forced into therapy. Branded as a child molester, the father has dim prospects of future employment. Although such a cure may be worse than the disease, Giaretto admits he would hand over to the law any participants in incest who sought his counsel anynymously. "I have never come across a happy incestuous family, " he said on Weekend. Of this there is little doubt.

Although Farrell had personally familiarized Giaretto with his findings on positive incest before the Weekend taping, Giaretto failed to temper his apocalyptism on camera. For instance, Giaretto might have hinted that his strictly patient population was biased by definition and therefore could not possibly provide a true picture of the practice. And he could have explained that brother-sister incest, by far the most common kind, is known to be relatively harmless. Producer Crawford-Mason, who is also a Washington correspondent for People, loaded the documentary with so many recitals of the Auschwitz of incest that key, clarifying questions were never asked. Both Crawford-Mason and Dobyns deny sensationalizing a sensitive sexual issue before a wide-eyed- audience of millions, emphasizing that the show was about Giaretto's center, not incest. "If the subject was incest," Dobyns conceded, "we did it poorly."

Crawford-Mason won't grant the bias inherent in Giaretto's sample. "You're trying to attack my story," she says testily. "How many documentaries have you produced? ... If we didn't make it clear that brother-sister incest was not as traumatizing it was a mistake. We discussed incest for the first time in public. And the very fact that you're writing this article proves that the show succeeded. You have a right to comment, but it's Monday-morning quarterbacking."

Warren Farrell admires Giaretto's rehabilitative mission among legitimate victims, for his own investigation allows for considerable negativity, particularly in the father-daughter category. But he faults Weekend for its skewed perspective. "It was like interviewing Cuban refugees about Cuba. Weekend recorded sexually abused children speaking about their sexual abuse, which is valuable, but the inference is that all incest is abuse. And that's not true."

Farrell was reluctant to give a tour of the heart of the country. His research is incomplete, and the data collected from 200 in-depth interviews (he plans to have 250 for the book) await a computer run. Although he vowed not to speak out prior to publication (probably in 1979), he consented to a one-time debriefing at a Chinese restaurant near his Riverside Drive apartment overlooking the Hudson River in Manhattan. At thirty-four, he is separated from his wife, who is an IBM executive, and childless.

The idea for the book struck him after reading a Times article about incest early last year. According to the piece, only a tiny fraction of the cases ever reaches the courts. In 1976 New York City police received merely one incest complaint and no arrests. Farrell wondered if perhaps some incidents weren't reported because the relationships went smoothly. Since nothing had been written about nonpatient-nonoffender participants, he decided the gap was too large to ignore.

What is the incidence? Farrell's survey of 2,000 undergraduates in state as well as community colleges yielded a 4 to 5 percent figure. Kinsey's incidence was 3.9, but his collaborator, Dr. Wardell Pomeroy, thinks that the real figure is closer to 10 percent. Incest is not simply a deviation; it is a crime. People tend not to respond as honestly as they would about other modes of unconventional sex. Positive incest is even more hidden, since nothing is gained by disclusure. Thus most of Farrell's positive participants who replied to his ads in the Village Voice, the New York Review of Books, Psychology Today, and the New Republic were speaking out for the first time.

Farrell cautions that his statistics are rough and confined just to his current sample of 200 -- including people from the unemployed, the working class, business executives, Ph.D.'s and professional athletes. But his preliminary data suggest that the taboo needs severe overhauling. Breaking down the effects into positive (beneficial), negative (traumatic), and mixed (nontraumatic but not regarded as beneficial) categories -- the three faces of incest in his subtitle -- he says that the ovewhelming majority of cases fall into the positive column. Cousin-cousin (including uncle-niece and aunt-nephew) and brother-sister (including sibling homosexuality) relations, accounting for about half of the total incidence, are perceived as beneficial in 95 percent of the cases.

Mother-son incest represents 10 percent of the incidence and is 70 percent positive, 20 percent mixed, and 10 percent negative for the son. For the mother it is mostly positive. Farrell points out the boys don't seem to suffer, not even from the negaive experience. "Girls are much more influenced by the dictates of society and are more willing to take on sexual guilt."

The father-daughter scene, ineluctably complicated by feelings of dominance and control, is not nearly so sanguine. Despite some advertisments, calling explicitly for positive female experiences, Farrell discovered that 85 percent of the daughters admitted to having negative attitudes toward their incest. Only 15 percent felt positive about the experience. On the other hand, statistics from the vantage of the fathers involved were almost the reverse -- 60 percent positive, 20 percent negative. "Either men see these relationships differently," comments Farrell, "or I am getting selective reporting from women."

'Do you talk about rape and courtship in the same breath?
Both are defined by intercourse, but the consent and spirit are different. So, too, with so-called coercive and noncoercive incest.'

In a typical traumatic case, an authoritarian father, unhappily married in a sexually repressed houshold and probably unemployed, drunkenly imposes himself on his young daughter. Genital petting may have started as early as age eight with first intercourse occurring around twelve. Since the father otherwise extends very little attention to his daughter, his sexual advances may be one of the few pleasant experiences she has with him. If she is unaware of society's taboo and if the mother does not intervene, she has no reason to suspect the enormity of the aberration. But when she grows up and learns of the taboo, she feels cheapened. If she comes from the lower class, she may turn to prostitution or drugs as compensation for self-worthlessness, although a direct cause-effect link is far from certain. The trauma is spread through all classes, Farrell observes, but incest is more likely to be negative in the lower class.

Ramey would quarrel with Farrell's classification of the above case as incest. When coercion is involved, it's plain rape in his opinion. "You can't put the incest tag on that," he argues. "If two relatives make love in a caring situation, that's one thing. If it's rape, it's another." Dr. C.A. Tripp, a New York sex researecher who is unafraid of positive incest, also contests Farrell's methodology. "Do you talk about rape and courtship in the same breath?" he says. "Both are defined by intercourse, but the consent and spririt are vastly different. So, too, with so-called coercive and noncoercive incest. The two shouldn't be lumped together as two aspects of the same phenomenon."

It is not difficult to guess the benefits that accrue to the incestuous father, but what's in it for the 15 percent of daughters who inform Farrell that they liked it? The answer is a tender, nonfumbling, and loving introduction to sex that is wildly arounsing for all its wickedness and devoid of the usual teenage backseat trial and error. One daughter told Farrell that she preferred her father to "the locker room jerkoffs" who were interested only in scoring with her. She felt that they, rather that her father, were trying to take advantage. If the father lets his daughter go gently, avoiding jealous fits, their relationship may be fondly remembered. Some have been known to continue after marriage.

"When I get my most glowing positive cases, 6 out of 200," says Farrell, "the incest is part of the family's open, sensual style of life, wherein sex is an outgrowth of warmth and affection. It is more likely that the father has good sex with his wife, and his wife is likely to know and approve -- and in one or two cases to join in."

Incredible? Impossible? Insane? Well, just such a father-daughter case happened in New York City. A forty-two-year-old Jewish writer, contentedly married for twenty years, phoned Farrell after reading his ad and related the following story.

Two years ago the writer happened to be at his beach house alone with his attractive fifteen-year-old daughter. He watched her strip out of her bikini -- nudity was not unusual in the family -- and fantasized about having sex with her while she showered. His wife's appendix operation had curtailed his sex for the previous five months. This day the women on the beach and a few beers had led him into special temptation. When the daughter emerged from the bathroom in a towel, he greeted her in the nude and erect. Although he had never consciously desired incest before, he told his daughter that he missed sex. Without further prompting she fellated him to orgasm. Then she cried until he assured her that they hadn't done anything wrong; he asked her not to tell her mother.

Two weeks later the daughter walked around the house naked until the father approached her. That day he deflowered her to their mutual satisfaction. But the father was careful not to push things. He did not want to hurt his daughter, who seemed to have an active sex life with boys her own age. Several weeks later the daughter took the initiative again, this time with a girl friend as a third party. This threesome was the most exciting sex the father had ever had. Soon the father and daughter were having intercourse three times a week, repairing to motels with their secret passion. When they were six months into the incest, the wife unexpectedly returned to the apartment from shopping and caught the pair in the act. Despite some initial hysteria, the wife okayed everything. Apparently she was relieved that her husband's strong sexual demands could be met at home rather than with hookers, and she hinted that she'd like to watch the two of them in bed. When the writer talked with Farrell, the incest had been ongoing for two years. The father is enjoying himself immensely, and he says that his daughter prefers his expertise to the groping of her boyfriends, who just want to be "deepthroated." The writer insists that they're both much better friends now that before.

Incredible. Impossible. Insane. But unless the writer is deluded, it is perhaps true and definitely positive. However, Farrell has become increasingly skeptical of reports from fathers, for they are seldom confirmed by daughters. For a woman's view of positive incest, see Edith Wharton's long supressed short-story fragment Beatrice Palmato, appended to R.W.B. Lewis's biography. It is the best read with one's feet in holy water, as Wharton leaves nothing to the pornographic imagination.

Brother-sister relations are attended by fewer complications, since domination is not a factor. Farrell recounted the history of a twenty-five-year-old woman who had happily slept with her older brother for two years until he left home, four years ago, to get married. Today they talk on the phone every week and remain very close. The woman has no regrets and regards her incest as one of the best sexual experiences of her life.

She began the long seduction of her brother at the age of thirteen or fourteen, prancing around their suburban New York home with her robe open. The tease progressed to leaving her bedroom door open while she was undressed. Apparently, the brother ignored these early invitations but later reciprocated with exhibitionism of his own. When she was eighteen, the girl started masturbating in bed, naked and with the door ajar. The brother responded by simltaneously masturbating in his own room. Soon they were masturbating together and performing oral sex. In a few weeks they engaged in sexual intercourse for the first time.

The sister was turned on to making love with a mirror image of herself. Breaking the taboo only heightened her pleasure. They had sex twice a week for the duration of their liason, often dipping into fantasies and Polaroid pornography. The brother once watched her make love to another man; another time he looked on as she exercised in the nude with a girl friend. On both occasions he made love to her immediately afterward. Their familial arguments ceased during the affair, and they became the best of friends. The sister now feels the incest helped in overcoming her inhibitions, though she and her brother had an active sex life with other partners while they were involved. They have slept together only once since her brother married.

Farrell realizes the risks that attend publication of this book. "In a society where men are powerful and exploitive and insensitive to women's feelings, which is reinforced by female adaptiveness and a daughter's lack of power, data like these can be used as an excuse for the continuation and magnification of that exploitation. When I consider that, I almost don't want to write the book."

Since neither victim nor benefactor needs Farrell's confirmation, why does he gamble with bringing on a sexual deluge? "First, because millions of people who are now refraining from touching, holding, and genitally caressing their children, when that is really part of a caring, loving expression, are repressing the sexuality of a lot of children and themselves. Maybe this needs repressing, and maybe it doesn't. My book should at least begin the exploration.

"Second, I'm finding that thousands of people in therapy for incest are being told, in essence, that their lives have been ruined by incest. In fact, their lives have not generally been affected as much by the incest as by the overall atmosphere. My book should help therapists put incest in perspective."

Farrell also hopes to change public attitudes so that participants in incest will no longer be automatically perceived as vitims. "The average incest participant can't evaluate his or her experience for what it was. As soon as society gets into the picture, they have to tell themselves it was bad. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy."

If pushed to the wall, would Farrell urge incest on families? "Incest is like a magnifying glass," he summarizes. "In some circumnstances it magnifies the beauty of a relationship, and in others it magnifies the trauma. I'm not recommending incest between parent and child, and especially not between father and daughter. The great majority of fathers can grasp the dynamics of positive incest 'intellectually'. But in a society that encourages looking at women in almost purely sexual terms, I don't believe they can translate this understanding into practice."

The joys of incest will be lost on the therapeutic community. A pocket of Kinseyans, however, won't dispute the possibility a priori, as most other psychotherapists, in particular the Oedipally oriented, must. "Incest was grist for our mill," comments Dr. Pomeroy, now a marriage therapist in San Francisco. "We were interested in what people did and couldn't have given a damn about what was right or wrong or proper or improper." Yet it took Pomeroy a quarter of a century to come out of the research closet. His article in last November's Penthouse Forum -- Incest: A New Look -- landed like an unopened parachute in professional sex circles, but it was the first in this new antitaboo wave.

Although Pomeroy reports many beautiful romances between father and daughter, he discriminates between the consenting adult variety and pedophilia. "The trouble with incest isn't incest at all," he remarks; "it's pedophilia. There are real problems with a thirty-five-year-old father having sex with his thirteen- or foureen-year-old daughter because of his one-up position. But a twenty-five-year-old woman sleeping with her fifty-year-old father -- what the hell difference does it make? It's not a society's concern." (Dr. Ramey came across a son who crawled into his mother's bed for the first time when he was past fifty.)

' "Maybe this [ incest ] needs repressing, and maybe it doesn't,"
says author Warren Farrell.
"My book should at least begin the exploration." '

Despite the drawbacks of pedophilic incest, Pomeroy has seen it flourish under ideal conditions. "Here's a husband who's fairly mature and thinks of incest only as a stepping-stone for his daughter in developing her sex life. So her urges her to have social-sexual contacts outside the home. I've seen cases like this but they are the great exception. The odds are against it, because the father can seldom be objective. I'm treating a man now who's had intercourse with his fourteen-year-old daughter. When he ... tried to control her outside sex, she blew the whistle."

Pomeroy speculates that incest occurs most frequently at the two extremes of society, since rich and poor tend to be less affected by sexual taboos. He eschews elaborate interpretations of the impulse that drives mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers into bed with each other. "Sex is fun," he explains. "That's the overriding factor. You can't overlook that sex is pleasurable enough to overrule this terrific taboo in some cases."

This reporter retorted that he, too, endorsed the fun of sex but wouldn't dream of incest with any of his three daughters. "Perhaps you wouldn't because you've been fathering too much -- wiping their noses, changing their diapers, and so forth," Pomery replied. "The fathering principle kills the sex impulse. It certainly does for me. I wouldn't consider sleeping with my daughter, although I've given it much thought and even talked to her about it. And she said to me, 'You're a great father, but you don't turn me on either.'"

According to Dr. Tripp, the lifting of the taboo would not automatically invite an avalanche of incestuous activity. Far from being a potential hotbed of sexual tension, the nuclear family just about kills lasciviousness around the hearth -- and for good reason. "It's not the fathering and the intimacy," states Tripp, "but the closeness and the lack of mystique that block out sexual interest between any two people, i.e., father and daughter, friend and friend, and comfortable 'old shoe' husband and wife. The most fascinating thing in sexual motivation is the appeal of a slightly hidden or removed object. What seems to permit incest to emerge at all is the insertion of some kind of alienation into the scene, e.g., the father is distant, often away from home, or the home itself is split, etc."

Willard Gaylin, a psychiatrist at Columbia Medical School as well as president of the Institute for Biology, Ethics, and the Life Sciences, is appalled by the positive incest hypothesis. For him it is an intellectual and moral contradiction. He wouldn't believe it if it lay down on his couch. "I'd have to say that what's wrong with incest is the same as what's wrong with homosexuality. It's not necessarily wrong for the persons to do it if it gives them pleasure. But it implies that some wrong has already occurred -- the there was not a normal development out of the incestual stage into finding men other than the father attractive. Incest usually represents a very distorted structure and is never a positive good. ... After all, a child will have plenty of intercourse in life, but he or she is going to have only one crack at a caring parent."

Despite Kinsey's statistics, Gaylin remains unconvinced of nontraumatic incest. "We deal in probabilities, not possibilities, in medicine. If incest became a fun-loving way of initiating your kids into sex, it would do more harm than good. I tend to trust the wisdom of the Old and New Testaments and every other religious group."

Dr. Abraham Kardiner, one of psychiatry's grand old men who did early studies on the taboo, worries about this article. "You will throw a monkey wrench into society by introducing the idea that incest is beautiful," he says. "The family is in enough trouble already from homosexuality."

Television producer Claire Crawford-Mason is equally dubious. "Saying that incest isn't harmful is a male chauvinist cop-out. Father-daughter incest is the ultimate victimization. Mother-son incest must be devastating to the son. ... The medical profession ignores two- and three-year-olds with gonorrhea of the throat; the doctors insist they catch it from bed sheets."

Warren Farrell prophesies that incest will be a major social issue in the eighties. If so, the debate will be bloody and presumably unproductive. Those who accept the original sin of incest, the great Judeo-Christian majority, will not be dissuaded by anyone's case studies. The last taboo could become the last straw as the Save Our Children movement heads closer to home.

I read about Warren Farrel from the perspective of a feminist activist who goes by "liz". She has been labelling Farrell as a perfert since this article came out.

Seems the mention of "genital petting" when Farrell meant "gental" petting was an error in the article's production.

Farrell was a board-member of NOW until he saw the Man-bashing start to get out of band and resigned. He has published a number of books on Men and never produced the study on Incest - it was just too hot, and he was sure he would be savagely misquoted.

If there was a National Pro-Incest Movement, I suspect Farrell's work, and credibility would be somewhere near the theoretical nucleus of it.

Incest is such a mixed bag, and the good things that go on in the best of cases don't match up with the bad things that go on in the worst of cases. Being pro incest is difficult because so much incest is abusive and/or involves children. It would be so nice if our language offered a word that specifically described consensual sex between related adults. Unfortunately such a word does not exist....yet. I think that one of the first things any pro incest group should do is define itself as not being in favor of abuse or pedophilia. Coining a phrase to describe consensual adult incest would be a good way to distance itself from any hint of abuse. I don't know what that word should be necessarily, but I think the term consanguineous sex might fit the bill. It's hard to say but it isn't a misnomer or a euphemism.

What do the rest of you think?

I think that's why TI people, which this forum is part of, don't put porn in here, they are 'purists' if the term suits, they want to stick to the real subject: TRUE INCEST, and i think that's why they are so successfull since 6 years ago, they are serious about this.

Thanks again TI for not changing your politics with the tides.

'Previously suppressed material from
the original Kinsey interviews tells us that incest is
prevalent and often positive. '

Hans: Thank you for sharing this. I found it illuminating. A lot of my suspicions, speculations, feelings have been grounded in some at least semi-scientific fact here.

Some of the distinctions between "positive" and "traumatic" incest experience ring true to me. My introduction to the whole subject of incest was my previous girl friend who was ritually abused as a child and for whom incest was a horror that has cost her the ability to relate hormoniously with any man. For one thing, the stored-up rage. When we broke up (she tried to kill me, acting out her rage against her father on me while screaming at me "Admit it, you are trying to kill me!"--while her hands were around MY throat)... I wanted to learn more about incest. I came to this site. I found some women, most in fact, who said their incest had been enjoyable. I was truly shocked and confused. I did not know whether to believe some of them, because--face it, this can all be fantasy here--but I began to hear the ring of truth in a few, especially one whom I got quite close to. Still, I had a hard time resolving the idea that these people who said they enjoyed their incest might be repressing their actual pain and anger. However, after Honeychile's posts, I am not convinced that at least some people's incest is truly a beneficial experience to them.

So, the distinctions drawn in this literature between positive and traumatic incest experiences confirms my observation finally. It always helps. But I imagine the fuss and confusion, the rampant hostility, that are going to burst forth when this view becomes widely read. If I struggled with it--and I am open to experience and changing my views--what of people who are not? The excrement is really going to collide with the ventillation device now.

I also thought the cross-generational incest vs. same-generational incest distinction was right-on from my thoughts and observations. The women I have talked to who seem to have trouble with men in their lives, and who have had incest with their fathers, seem to have power issues. I am sure this goes back to the questions I have raised in these threads: that there can be no real informed consent from a child, that participation does not mean the child consents (although the parent-incestor may construe it as consent from his/her perspective). Rather, it is following the path of sensation of pleasure in the moment--which is a whole other thing than consent. And, the child also follows out of pain and fear of abandonment or punishment. The parent, after all, is a giant who can protect or annihilate the tiny child person.

B4rry: Well, who says women/mommies don't dominate their children just as men/daddies do? How about your wife? Don't forget, a lot of parents are single mothers. They have to be more controlling if they are going to be controlling at all, because there is no one to share the job. Some of them go overboard because they are worn out, overworked, at wits' end from raising their child without another pair of hands to help. Given the right (sic) circumstances, woment can be just as power-oriented as men.

For heaven's sake, think of the dominatrix thing in our culture. Where does that come but from domineering mother images?

Don't forget, the child depends primarily on the mother's love--whether a father is present or not. Withdrawal of her love is her biggest source of power. That, alone, is terrifying.

You only have to think of mythology to catch on how powerful the Woman is: Sirens, witches, goddesses. Where do these come from but the archetypal Mother, which is our birth mother.

Then there is the shift of power in our culture now, where women actually have more power than men do in many legal situations and elsewhere.

quote:

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Originally posted by Daddy:
Gimme a break, B.

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quote:

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Originally posted by b4rry:
Fast break or a time out break? :-) (How do others insert the graphic versions into the flow of their text?)

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Read Warren Farrel's Book

There are two thrusts of Mens "Liberation".

One is a reactionary response to Feminism, a Father's Rights Movement. Much of this movement is an angry, wounded, reactionary response to abuses of Fatherhood, and Masculine Images that are by-products of Feminism as NOW becomes more and more Radical, and contemptuous of the Nuclear Family.

The other is composed of guys who look at this gender-based catfight between Father's Rights and NOW (and radical cronies thereof), and cry out, This is SO WRONG.

Warren Farrell, who served on NOWs Board until he had enough is of the second sort. His books and speeches are used by the Father's Rights movement, but his tone and thrust is towards a rigorous Feminism, which must be as much a Men's Liberation as a Women's Movement.

Betty Freidan understood this, but she is honored for her role, and no longer for her more balanced philosophy.

Men's Liberation will come out of a combination of minds like Warren Farell, and Men who seek to rediscover what it is to be a Masculine Keeper of a balanced Family and Society. I see some of these men coming out of the Mythopoetic Mens Movement - and out of the general population - those with uncorruptible common sense.

I'm a man who gets rather upset when I see or hear of a woman being treated as inferior or being held back because of her gender. So when the feminazi's start in with their zealous bullshit it really just annoys the shit out of me. How can they be so full of it? How can they fail to realize just how much men respect and admire women, or at least men who aren't fucking nuts themselves. Its not that hard to find some disgruntled guy who doesn't have good relationships with people in general, let alone women. Its easy to find some men who are abusive to women and even enjoy hurting them. The thing is, these men are that way not because they are men, but because they are FUCKING NUTS! You can also find just as many women who hate men and are abusive to them. NOW seems to be something of a club for them.

There is no battle of the sexes, at least not for the emotionally healthy and mature. For us there is only love, respect, and intense attraction.

Try walking a mile in the other person's shoes.

Some people are oppressed, and deserve affirmative action, and some turn the tables on affirmative action and act out in equally oppressive manner, either honestly, or subconsciously refusing to move beyond the role of victim.

Sadly, from that place, they do re-victimize themselves, and those thow earnestly attempt to be of service.

This problem is presented when a movement achieves so much of its vision, that it becomes time to move into a different role, that of a person who can succeed as institutionalized barriers fall. Some make the leap, and take on the challenge of succeeding, some are not ready, as barriers that still hinder them have not fallen, others have opportunity laid out before them, and chose not to act, preferring the once-successful role and visibility of the outraged victim.

I judge this happens in NOW, in Race Relations, and to many people affected or victimized through addiction or abuse, who have progressed to the threshhold of an independent, constructive life.

I don't mean to say that Women's Lib, and Racial Justice, or that anyone's personal growth struggle, have succeeded to perfection, just that the struggle must be finished by persons who are taking constructive advantage of all gains made up to the present day. For such people, playing outrage, and playing victim does not cut it anymore.

And Guyyre, you sound like you're overintellectuallizing to hide your real fears.

Let's listen to some women's talk on this.
Let's listen to the talk in the hood on this.
Let's learn from those that live what we don't live. There is no better way to glimpse what they see, hear and feel than for them to honestly relate it with all the sensory depth of their experience.

If you'd truly read what I wrote about my feelings and attitudes towards women you wouldn't be accusing me of wanting to oppress them. I consider myself a feminist in the original sense of the word. I'm someone who wants women to be recognized as equal beings to men and given the same opportunities in life. This business about me wanting anything else just isn't going to cut it. Name calling, even if you take a paragraph to spell out the name, doesn't prove anything, especially when you've no basis for it in the first place. In case you don't know this, the fact that I'm male is NOT a basis.

As for race relations, you really ought to read The End of Racism by Dinesh D'Souza. Anything I could hope to say about race relations he's already said far more eloquently than I.

I painted a picture, If the picture didn't form in your mind, it may or may not be my style at fault. I cannot always present a complex idea with 'dick and jane' language. Try reading it again and criticising my content more directly.

Let me try a different angle:

Everybody who lives in a racially charged culture is racist - it is in us unconsciously, imbued by our culture, which pervades us, perhaps even by instinct.

Even you have racist ideation, I wager.

Humanists overcome their racist ideation by bringing it to consciousness, and choosing not to implement, or confirm to these ideas, taking a different path.

Pseudo-Humanists deny their racism, keep it subconscious; they cannot see the subtle, and sometimes embarassingly overt ways they express racism.

This does not affect the identified oppressor class only, as the same discipline of consciousness is necessary to reject reciprocal-racism, reciprocal-genderism. Reciprocal prejudice is prejudicial ideation against members of the oppressor class, born of real experience of harm caused by members of that class. There are those who consciously reject it, and those who deny their reciprocal-prejudices and let them slip out sideways, or overtly.

This happens in NOW: Andrea Dworkin and her milieu labelling all patriarchal constructs in society as pernicious and rabidly agitating to deconstruct and disempower them, without a competing humanist vision to offer. The destruction of families, and theft of a Father's right and need to be stern and intimate, protective and demanding...to be masculine...he is emasculated within marriage, and and more radically, after divorce, in the typical denial of joint custody, and limited access to his own children.

This happens in my Mexican-American Community: defeatism and raging against the man, while opportunities to advance and build community go untaken.

This happens in politics: decisions and tactics and strategies are taken based on distrust and anticipation of attack by the other party. Gridlock, and deriliction of the public trust ensue.

This happens in all human relations: instead of connecting and exchanging insights about our fears, and impulses, honestly, abstaining from judgement.....,we more often put up defenses (conscious/unconscious) and barriers to denial - which institute oppression of the self, and the other...

I'm not saying that every member of an oppressed class is prejudiced against their identified oppressor's, but a fractionis; it is a large fraction, when little consciousness is brought to the topic of reciprocal prejudice. For those with reciprocal prejudice, whether they are vocal and assertive, or silent and passive...., day in, day out, damage is done to them, to our society, to you, and me.

Pogo is right "we have met the enemy, and he is us!".

The enemy is us, all of us.

"Crack!".....whooah!....oops....
My soapbox just collapsed....

Ok, later! Gotta go get these splinters out.

Guyre

"barriers to denial"

should be

"barriers to awareness and denial"

Guyre

I reviewed your earlier post & these last two. You're in the ball park of being right, yet clearly miss.

Things have improved and yet they haven't. For instance, this year we saw a major magazine (Newsweek?) story about blacks succeding in business -- finally even as CEO of mainstream companies -- and of police brutality of black suspects. Unfortunately, there's lots of examples like this. The black community is all too aware of it, too. So, imagine how they feel when on one hand you're told how things have improved (and see it in more/better jobs & all) and on the other you still keep frequently seeing racist crap, some overt and some covert. So some in the black community are as happy with their cells and SUVs as anyone else on these modern drugs and others keep wondering when the "promised land" (in MLK sense, not Jewish sense) will come.

But perhaps you're talking about the brothers in the hood and how so many young black men act out the whole thug thing. On that let's get two things straight: 1) 15-20 years of being put down & of poverty will make young testosterone voitile anywhere. (Contrast this to middle class youth of any race.) 2)Young whites have always acted out too -- but have usually been given a chance to go on with their lives. (I can't tell you how darned often the rednecks in my office brag about what they've gotten away with -- or even lived through.) So are the brothers in the hood re-victimizing themselves? Not intentionally, I assure you. They just feel like America has boxed them out.

I did not say that black people are not oppressed by racism.

I'm saying that reversing the racism is not the remedy.

I'm saying reciprocating one prejudice for another is not a remedy, but just makes things worse.

That's where I agreed with Hans, "Feminazis" are becoming the thing they hate, because they hate. If they responding to prejudice, guided by a vision of balance, (can't we all just get along?) they would not be hating or engaging in reciprocal/reactionary prejudices of their own.

I see you're mostly focusing on certain feminists. Yes, I agree there appears to be some who adopted the other of the two main role models available insteading finding a new middle ground. I'm not overly worried about that since there's always been a few people who adopt the opposite main role model.

I do know, however, that on the black side the progress made so far just hasn't been anywhere near enough; hence much resentment remains.

But Guyyre, the solution to America's tendency to pigeonhole each other (which ends up causing people to rebel against the effects of being pigeonholed) is seek out each other and to build understanding of each other's realities so we can build a strong respect and love for each other.

I did not say that black people are not oppressed by racism.

I'm saying that reversing the racism is not the remedy.

I'm saying reciprocating one prejudice for another is not a remedy, but just makes things worse.

B, I am happy this incest forum has become so much involved with discussing broader issues. And rather civilly for a change amongst ourselves, I would say. We have a little group here of B4rry, Guyre, Hans, and forgive me if I have left anybody out. I enjoy tuning in and hearing the thoughtful, usually respectful go-arounds.

The issue here is prejudice. How is it that we are not beating each other up over the DIFFERIMG views being expressed amongst ourselves here? In other words, why are we not building separate camps of belief and PREJUDICE? How is it we are not fighting?

In the answer to this, I think, is the answer to how to stop predudice of whatever form.

We are the enemy, and he is us. We are also sthe solution, and it is us.

Part of the reason for prejudice at large, racism and all of that, is our choice of language. That, in turn, comes from our upbringing or conditioning. Even deeper, fundamental tribalism ("them" and "us") and the need to feel special, superior, dominant as an individual or group of the same tribal marking. In seeking to eliminate racism or prejudice, it is truly necessary to evolve--beyond conditioning, even ancient tribalism. The only thing I have seen which speeds that evolution is awareness. Non-judgemental awareness. This is hard to come by, but it does seem to be the key evolutionary (?) or revolutionary factor that frees our minds radically from all forms of conditioning. And, in these times, non-judgemental awareness may be the only factor that can save us from our own self-created destruction.

Perhaps, then, the question is not to "tolerate" more, or to crank down racism in some conditional way (all of which is good but is a temporary band-aid)...but, rather, to ask how we may become more aware in this special sense.

So, that is my background, now here is my point: I cannot recall ever being racist or prejudiced--in any way. I was raised for awhile with a Negro (that is what they liked to be called then) nanny. I still remember her from when I was an infant. Can you imagine the effect she had on me that I can remember all these years? I am smiling as I think about her now. I even remember her name--Josie. How many other people's names have I forgotten but not Josie's. I think she had a lot to do with non-verbally setting me on a path. When I was a teenager I sat in at Woolworth's counters, demonstrating for Negroes (still calling themselves that) in Los Angeles, in sympathy with the big sit-ins in the South at the time. I had to do with civil rights movements and gained an extraordinarily refined sense of justice for all. I might add, that in Canada, my sense of justice gets me in trouble a lot because Canadians tend to permit a lot of racism without taking strong action. They tend not to like assertive behaviour when it comes to standing up for oneself. They will sooner stand up for someone else than for themselves, which has great value actually when it comes to not making war. My point is, however, that racism gets dealt with less strongly here.

My main point is, though, that I do not think I am racist even unconsciously, due to early experience. I also add, I worked for almost four years in an East Indian part of the city, where almost all my clients were East Indian. We could hardly understand each other (language problem), but I enjoyed my time with them more than with "us white guys" (prejudice??). That is because--partly in absence of language--I was forced to LOOK, LISTEN, GET BEYOND CONFINED THINKING in order just to get on and understand. When I was AWARE, in other words, when I PERCEIVED rather than engaged my habitual thinking, I learned more about them. I ended up feeling very close. I learned that they have really wonderful families by and large (the women pay a high price for being dominated in many instances, however): their kids laugh with real pleasure and not that jarring, hysterical outpouring scared, repressed kids do. The kids look secure. They get lots of hugs and eye contact--much more than I ever got. I ended up envying the families I saw for being what I never got. I am sad for myself and for the culture we are creating where the family is really being destroyed. It is pathetic we have to "teach" how not to be dysfunctional, when there is so much that we can learn from other cultures' family life. (Not ignoring that abuse, dysfunction, exists cross culturally. Just saying that, ON BALANCE, those kids are living, bouncing, giggling testamony that something is awfully right about how they are raised.That something is love, no doubt about it. And it shows.)

B, Nobody has ever, in my whole life, said I might fear being victimized by women or imply I might have chauvanist tendencies! I am amazed you would say this.

I was only pointing out, in my post, that women as much as men, exert their power. I was initially responding to your post in which you seem to say cross-generational incest tends to cause problems for the child when the parent doing the incesting is a domineering male. Rather than the female,usually themother, you seemed to imply. I was merely pointing out that the mother holds the cradle and how she rocks the cradle rocks the world.

Perhaps, in order to make my point, I over-stated it, but that was in order to balance your assertion.

I do think the balance of power is shifting and that women are, in many situations, having more power than men now. You can see this in settlements in divorce, apparently (at least here); the number of women on the front page of our newspapers is increasing noticably; women news anchors are increasing; ads making men seem powerless and foolish appear; then there is the latest role model for little girls: Xena, Warrior Princess and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Do I need to elaborate on these role-reversals? These women are teaching that women being physically violent is a good thing, and that they can beat up men successfully and without retaliation. School yards around here are apparently having more pre-teen girls beating up other pre-teen girls and boys, even with weapons. This cannot be missed.

Personally, after my previous girlfriend tried to strangle me (see previous post someplace here), I am a bit scared, yes. She was acting out her rage against her abusive father on me at the time. I was not abusing her at the time. I was washing some dishes with my back turned when it happened. I think my attitude towards this kind of excessive woman is demonstrated by my response. I danced around the apartment with her hands on my neck, my hands around her wrists, trying to figure a way of breaking the hold without hurting her (without hurting HER). I decided to try yanking her leg out from under her, so she would fall onto a soft area of the rug away from objects. I tried, but the rug had too much friction and my attempt resulted in her lunging in with her knee for my groin. I bent at the waist to avoid the blow, and her knee dented my trousers without makinging contact with its target, thankfully. So, she was intent on doing damage. I somehow broke the contact at my throat, and I will never forget the rest of this scene:

She had backed into the wall (just like in the movies when the woman is being victimized), only she pulled me there with her hands around my throat. I broke the hold there. I was coiled up, enraged now. She kept making these odd twitches, feinting movements, you know what I mean, sort of signalling she would attack. I felt what seemed like "sparks" burning my bare skin (no shirt on) every time she would twitch. I truly felt she was trying to "ignite" my rage, provoke me. I felt myself coiling up... And then I burst out: "I WILL NOT BE PROVOKED TO VIOLENCE!! GET OUT!!"

I remember realizing that I was being pulled into her world in which she wanted me, on an unconscious level, to become her abusing father. "Admit it! You are trying to killme!" she had shouted as her hands closed on my neck near the sink. I fought for a way not to be either victim or victimizer. She left me only those two options. Neither was acceptable. In a matter of seconds, I had to find another way.

I recall that there was something spontaneous about my outburst, "I will not be provoked..." I recall feeling absolutely unmovable in either direction of victim or victimizer. I was somehow outside of both. My non-violence was absolute.

I also knew, without a doubt, that if I had given in and beaten her or let myself be harmed, HER FATHER WOULD HAVE WON. I realized something like trans-personal evil (is the only word for it) was at work in her, and it was on the very verge of inhabiting me. Something very like an impersonal moral force made me yell, "I will not be provoked..." The curse stopped there, and then, with me.

I take no credit for this. I just say it to indicate there are solutions to our human dilemmas down in the reaches of our consciousness. And, that they lie outside our conditioning. We have to find them. We have to stop this trans-personal evil that is racism and prejudice and hurting the ones we love.

Read Warren Farrel's Book

I was raised in the south, but I've lived in the north and now in the southwest. I can tell you from personal experience that there is at least as much racism in the north and southwest as there is in the southeast. The difference is that, particularly in the north, the racism is hidden.

Over the past 20 years there has been a mass migration of blacks to the south. The reason is that in the south if someone is a racist and doesn't like you because of your skin color they are much more likely to be up front and honest about it. In the north they are much more likely to smile to your face but never extend any genuine friendship. In the south you know where you stand with someone. Also in the south you tend to have more black people who live in rural and semi-rural communities. These communities are real communities, not the burned out social vacuum that exists in inner cities of the north, which is where these blacks are migrating from. The culture in these rural communiites is markedly different. Instead of a self-destructive culture where psychopathology is common if not the norm, the culture is a healthy one. I really wish I could adequately describe exactly what I mean but I'm not sure if I can. Just imagine black people who are happy, hard working, no less educated than their white neighbors, and generally doing well in life. Not exactly the picture the mainstream media likes to paint, but then the mainstream media is little more than a vehicle for left-wing propaganda nowadays. The blacks in this community are generally very religious as well. It was from this very communitiy that the civil rights movement originally sprung. Racism was institutionalized in the south back then. That doesn't mean that every white southerner was a racist, only that it wasn't something that any single person, white or black, could do much to change. All they could do was follow the golden rule. Of course not everyone was so wise. But in any case the reason why the civil rights movement got off the ground in the first place and was recognized as being legitimate was in part because the non-racist whites who were stuck in this explicitly racist society recognized the plight of their black neighbors and sympathized with it. Take a look at some of the film footage of the civil rights marches in the 60's. There are a fair number of white folks marching there and they didn't come all the way from some place like Boston do to it. The actual culture of whites and blacks in this region was far more similar than different. Both groups tended and still tend to be very religious and share many, if not most, of the same values. As a result everyone generally gets along. There isn't much inter-marriage (the white guys are missing out), but that doesn't mean there is hatred. Much of what is generally called racism is actually ethnocentrism. Protestants and catholics in Ireland don't get along even though both are of the same race. The Japanese and Chinese don't get along with each other. Actually the Japanese don't get along with much of anyone over there because of the things they did during WW-II, everyone hates them and is afraid of them. But in any case it is not because of a difference in race. In America we can't seem to tell the difference between racism and ethnocentrism. When the Irish first began coming here in mass numbers there was a great deal of distrust, discrimination, and outright hatred. It had nothing to do with skin color.

The actual number of people in america who are truly racist is rather small. Not when Colin Powell could have easily won the presidency (or at least the republican nomination) had he chosen to run in '96, and Bill Cosby can create a TV show that gets high ratings accross the board. The number of people who are wary of other cultures is much larger, but then that is a universal trait of every culture. I've heard teenage culture described as being precisely calculated so as to cause the most distress in members of older generations. I suspect that much of urban black culture is the same way, calculated to create animosity among members of the white population. To a large extent their's is a culture of victimization that has mutuated into one of self-victimization. This is one of the reasons for the migration to the south, the culture is not diseased. In addition you don't have a bunch of white guilt-ridden "liberals" causing problems for everyone.

Aside from genunine racism I don't really care all that much about the problems that blacks have in America. Or I should say that I recognize that there isn't anything I can do about them. The reason is that most of their current problems are self created or created by the culture they are a part of. There is racism as well to be sure, but racism is not a universal or even prevalent white trait. There aren't that many racists left in this country, especially not among people my age (30) and younger. Those that do exist aren't usually in a position to cause much harm to anyone because, lets face it, they're losers. Most of the racists I know of are trailer trash and are racist because they know they're the lowest of the low. They desperately want to find a group, any group, that they can imagine as being below them in the pecking order. Racism isn't enough to keep a good man or woman down in the first place. If racism is prevalent it might have the ability to rob them of opportunity, social status, or money. It can't rob them of their character or self-respect.

It is my most sincere hope and dream that eventually everyone just fucking well learns to get along. I'm sick and tired of seeing the problems of black America paraded around as a symbol for the sins of white America. I want blacks to do well not only because I don't discriminate based upon race, (I've slept with both black and latin girls after all and I'm picky about who I merge souls with) but because I'm sick and tired of being told that any failure on their part is somehow my fault.

As for hot button words, you shouldn't let the context within which words were used at other times influence your interpretation of them within the current context.

Is anybody concerned about the recent Daily Pictures that, for the past several weeks, have depicted very unhappy little children being incested. Look at the faces and the fists clenching the blankets, and the rigid body postures. We are seeing rape here, aren't we. And, nobody seems to be objecting, although there are plenty of people in the chat room who stress the importance of "consent". (Not that I believe children consent in the same sense adults do; but I have discussed that at length in these threads.) Karen does not want child porn in here, but cartoons are OK because she says the Supreme Court allows it. But child rape porn??

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Originally posted by Daddy:
Perhaps, then, the question is not to "tolerate" more, or to crank down racism in some conditional way (all of which is good but is a temporary band-aid)...but, rather, to ask how we may become more aware in this special sense.

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Daddy, Everyone,

This is the thrust of my intention - To deal with the division between ourselves, we must begin honestly; to be honest, we must suspend judgement, or else honesty will be withheld in fear; I take it a step further, we must honor what is, even say 'what a blessing it is to SEE that you have demeaning or fearful judgements of others', that is encouraging and rewarding people for bringing owning what is truthful, no matter how dangerous, or self-destructive. Once we own up to what-we-do, without fear of retribution, we can entertain whether we can get what we want, by doing what-we-do, and whether the realistic consequences of doing what-we-do are what we want.

Only from a place of admitting - and owning - the truth about what-I-do, can I begin to appreciate my ways of inflicting wounds from the past upon others in the present.

Only when I can seperate the ways I act 'out of fear and prejudice', from 'rational and humane responses to the sins of the present', then I can consistently choose the rational humane action and avoid becoming oppressive, and self-destructive.

This is hard work. I believe this can work for everyone.

The fact that powerful people seldom do this work, or make these distinctions, is the foundation-stone of chaos in the marketplace of good intentions.

Guyre

Down here in a poor section of the rural south many whites listen to oldies and country. Oldies = 50s, 60, 70s. Reminds me of when I was growing up and most adults seemed to listen to big band music and the stuff that became Musak, except even southern youth are listening to many of the same tunes I listened to as a kid and young adult.

Meanwhile I hear that over 50% of the hip-hop/rap sales in America are by young whites -- and just when Eminem has a CD out. From down here I can't tell if this is true or not, but I have noticed the hip-hop/rap genre has alot of vitality these days (and much less thug-ism), even sounding as multi-voiced (musically, not just vocally) as broadway show tunes (or even opera). This makes the music rather alive, which may explain those youthful sales. (But as Thomas Jefferson once pointed out: Every generation needs to make its own revolution. I simply wonder about generations that DON'T.)

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Yes, Hans (etc), much of America believes racism is behind us these days. Hell, we have Condalesa Rice and Colin Powell in an activist conservative government and Halley Barry winning an Oscar and all. We have more black college graduates than ever before and even a few black CEOs of mainstream corporations. And in some souther cities (such as Atlanta) blacks are moving into brand new homes in the finest subdivisons.

Yet if you're a young, poor and non-white male you're still more likely to be convicted of a crime than if it had been a young middle class white person committing it. Believe me, that's not totally due to the defendent's monetary resources (or lack thereof).

I'm sure none of us here are doing this, but many Americans still thing of blacks as "those people" "over there" (meaning blacks in their part of town). Whites in general just don't get it as to how their remote politeness when crossing paths with blacks around town enbodies a subtle form of racism. Likewise with many other black-white dealings. Newly immigrated blacks are always amazed at how prevalent this subtle racism is in America still. (And you've got to believe, then, that many America-born blacks see it too.) This subtle racism is mush harder to crack since the solution lies within all of us to break the molds we've inherited, something anyone smug about how things are is less likely to be able to do.

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Hans, come back home. We need more good people.

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While on the racism topic: Down here we see tons of television advertising featuring blacks. Is this the case everywhere, or (as I suspect) are the advertisers creating ads specific to target demographics?

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Originally posted by Daddy:
Gyyre, I don't agree that if I live in a racially charged culture I have to be racist at least unconsciously; and that the more humanist of us become concsious of our racism and choose not to act on it (is what I think you said). [snip]

No doubt about that. Yesteday, in fact, I was beaten four times by a young man with colored skin. I do not think this was a racial beating, however.[snip]

I was forced to LOOK, LISTEN, GET BEYOND CONFINED THINKING in order just to get on and understand. When I was AWARE, in other words, when I PERCEIVED rather than engaged my habitual thinking, I learned more about them. I ended up feeling very close. I learned that[snip]

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Daddy,

At first, you disagree with me. I see you as feeling like my post did not describe you.

At Second, you said you were beating up 4 times by a black man, and don't think it was racially motivated: (???)If this happened, I hope you have gotten good care, and that the trauma you received does impair your quality of life, nor skew the quality of your postings. I presume this did not happen, and you to have written this is a fit of sardonic pique, and not as a bland report of the peril that bestrides Canadian throughfares and alleyways(heheheh).

Thirdly, You report that you were 'forced' into awareness of confined thinking, and transcended it. You seem to have confirmed my hypothesis, with which you originally took issue. That is, we are imbued by our culture (and perhaps instinct) with fears and prejudices, that we must bring to consciousness before we can categorize them, and choose not to act on them.

Do you agree then ?

INCEST: THE LAST TABOO
by Philip Nobile (as originally published in Penthouse, December 1977 issue)http://www.incestboard.com/Forum/Forum1/HTML/000403.html

I do welcome more input from people who do not identify with the dominant classes.

Being 50/50 European and Native American, culturally ConsumerAmerican and Hispanic, visibly White, with softened Native American Features; I occupy a niche between the dominant and other classes.

I find that being a bridge between the dominant class and a minority class gives me a unique perspective on both.

But I have to admit that I was too often not a very nice guy in either the way I posted or what I said. Perhaps, then, the big difference between then and now is the assemblage of people here back then knew how to handle each other better than what's been prevalent more recntly.

But this is a Blast from the Past!

Guess all are still living huh! Let us stop the racism discussions. This has been a long term debate and I think was resolved. Let us continue the talk about the pro-incest and not. I am from the other side of the world. A very customary country-The Philippines, and I am very curious about this "incest" thing because I found it next to solving the sex crimes and much better than sex education.

Parents must act like a parent. If they think it inappropriate, then they should not involve in an incest related family. However, if they feel they have matured throught time and it is the right time to talk about incest within the circle, go with it, never leave a doubt.

It seems as though so many major social movements could have formed this way - all the little pocket cells of people with the same ideas preserving themselves as long as they can until each gathers enough mass that they can finally coagulate into one cohesive, public union. I sometimes optimistically feel that if we can just remain who we are, preaching our truth right where we are in our own little areas, and steadily gathering others to our cause, then we can wait until the rest of the world can't help but take notice and be moved by our idealistic sentiments. But then I remember how much further homosexuality still has to go.

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Originally posted by Horchata:
This was a great thread.

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I truly, truly miss Guyrre. That dude was sharp and funny and human.

quote:

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Originally posted by b4rry:
Hans, I work in a mostly white (and often redneck) world and live in a mostly black world. I enjoy what I do at work, although I have to walk out occasionally to destress myself when the neo-Klan talk gets running thick. Needless to say, I'm often glad to get home and have weekends with my friends. Have youexperienced the subtle racist behaviors in America today? I have, often. These things frequently are close to the surface down here in the dirty south. Yet I retain my personal context of previously living the nearly all white life one can have up north where diversity tends more to mean "over there." And I know how our Eurocentric society intellectualizes the hell out of anything and everything not Euronormal (something we interested in the subject of incest experience all the time regarding our little *****n). So if you're really as pro-this or pro-that as you state, please refrain from stating hot button phrases (if you know which are which).

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quote:

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Originally posted by Iowa Guy:
Why don't the stupid people shut up. you cou could start out talking about ith isreali wars and end up talking about the time I got bite by a dog while mowing the grass.

so many stupid ass'es you are
shut up

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