Distracted wrote:Elessar wrote:Let's get back on track discussing the relative connections between the utopian storyline of the Star Trek universe and the psychological links, if any, to deviant sexual behaviors.
Hmmm. A controversial enough topic, I would say. At the risk of sounding overly conservative, though, what's the definition of "deviant sexual behavior"? Practically everything's a "lifestyle choice" these days. Are we limited only to the things that are illegal? It's impossible for even psychiatrists to agree about precisely what is pathological and what isn't. The rest of us have no chance of figuring it out. I guess we're stuck with just pedophilia as a subject, since almost everyone agrees that's deviant. But wait...up until about 100 years ago it was perfectly commonplace for a 50 year old widower to take a 13 year old girl to wife. No one thought anything of it. So is some pedophilia a matter of opinion as well? What about men who like young boys? If homosexuality is merely a lifestyle choice, and the deviance of choosing a much younger partner is a matter of opinion, then is what they're doing wrong? There are people out there actively campaigning for the right to do just that. See how screwed up the modern attitude about sex is? It's mind boggling.
As far as pedophiles and Star Trek go, I would submit that obsessive permanent adolescents who lock themselves in their rooms to play video games and watch reruns of science fiction shows are bound to occasionally obsess about other things, and the type of dysfunctional and antisocial person who'd become a pedophile is also more likely to be that type. That's the only believable association I can come up with.
I agree there's a relative definition to "deviant sexual behavior" but the reason I used it is because the article uses the reasoning that because Star Trek creates an environment where differences "make no difference", then people who are into things that they otherwise know to be (perhaps subconsciously or semi-consciously) socially unacceptable, become "ok". So really, the only person whose opinion of what is and isn't deviant, is the person in question who may be a pedophile or whatever. I don't personally consider heterosexual anal sex or even homosexuality to be deviant, but if there is some person out there who has these impulses in the back of their mind to be gay runs into Star Trek, I think the argument being made by the article's author is that they may be attracted to Star Trek under the pretext that they can fantasize about a world where -- contrary to the way they percieve THIS world -- it's ok to be gay. This is supposing that this person has grown up in an environment (a conservative religious family, southern maybe) where it's NOT considered ok to be gay.
There are, then, of course, other behaviors that are more unanimously considered to be bad, like rape, beastiality, pedophilia, whatever, which would more commonly fit into this scenario, since it's pretty common that almost everybody considers pedophilia to be a deviant behavior (even though there are levels of pedophilia, as you guys have discussed with the age differences). But what really matters is if someone encounters star trek and they're like 30 and they're into 14 year olds, I think for this link to hold, the person has to have some kind of conscious or unconscious understanding that their urges ARE wrong, and then somehow be seduced by the idea of a society or a Universe where that may be ok. They're somehow allowing, on an unsconcious level, the Utopian idea to equate to 'do whatever you want' idea.
Personally, I think the idea of pedophilia and age difference is often times arbitrary to begin with. For example, most people think that pretty much everywhere that the age of sexual consent is like 18 or something, but in most states it's lower than that, and actually depends on the age of the opposite (presumably OVER 18, party). And then, in other christian countries it's usually lower, 16 in the more "civilized" ones (i.e., like us is really what I mean, like Britain and Canada), and downwards to 12, 13, 14 in places like Thailand and S. Korea.
AND! It actually changes between girl-girl, boy-girl, boy-boy in a lot of places. I mean, I think the real root of this issue is when people think people are psychologically prepared for intercourse such that they can responsibly make that decision... hence the term 'statutory rape'. But I don't think that's why a lot of people consider it to be wrong, they just consider it "weird". The ambiguity with the real root of the issue being whether the person is psychologically ready to make that conscious decision is that everybody ages differently, so, while I'm not suggesting that an 11 year old might be ready to make that decision, there are gray areas where we are forced to ask ourselves what changes between our 17th and 18th years. I gotta tell you, I lost my virginity at 15 and I damn well knew what it meant to lose it, although later I didn't think it was the best idea at the time. Still, at 15 I still think that oughta be my mistake to make.
Victimization is, of course, a different matter entirely. This isn't to suggest that girls at 15 and 16 should be able to go out and shoot porn, because there's an inherent attitude and environment of exploitation there. I just think sometimes that consensuality is dismissed by terrified and freaked out parents. Which I will probably do too... Answer the door with my .45 holstered on my hip in case my 14 year old daughter's BF has the slightest hint of stubble on his face
By the way, a rather disturbing annotation to this subject... I am currently reading the book "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James Loewen and one section of the book handles how inaccurately American History books recount the events which lead up to, during, and following Columbus' journey and landing on the shores of Haiti, the Bahamas, Cuba, etc. One of the notes indicates how little is ever talked about the sexual slave trade that began right away and how large it was. Apparently, Spanish and other European males took quite a liking to the Native girls' and at one point, there is a passage in Columbus' diary that very nonchalantly comments on how the "most popular age for desirability at the present time is in the 9-10 range."
And that was totally ok by them.
