Sunday, June 25, 2017

Apparently if you’re a dude and only watch lesbian porn that means....



I can’t believe I am making a blog entry about this but someone recently “debated” with me on the subject and I have felt compelled to write about it. 

I am sorry in advance if this goes into “T.M.I territory,” now that it is out of the way, here goes….

I’m a hetero guy and my favorite porn category is lesbian porn.  Over the years I have learned to “weed out” the good stuff from the bad.  The top two studios in my opinion are Sweetheart Video and the Girlsway line of sites (BTW…. If you’re at work, DON’T google them, they are obviously Not Work Safe and meant for adult audiences at home).   The bad studios will use actresses that are “Gay-4-Pay” and it’s easy to tell by watching them.  

There are reasons why I only watch lesbian porn, the main reason is that seeing a dude in a porn video totally kills it for me, in fact it’s a total turn-off.  I just wouldn’t be able to enjoy what I am seeing, in fact it grosses me out.  Obviously, it’s a little different in real life when I’M the dude with a woman.  

The other reason is because from what little I’ve seen of boy/girl porn is that many times it’s very degrading and treats the woman as nothing more than a sex toy for the man.  The lesbian stuff is more sensual and soft; in fact it’s more “loving” in that the women are treated as equal partners.  

Plus there is another, obvious reason: One hot woman is great, two are even better!

But recently, upon telling a friend my above reasons for only watching lesbian porn after he pressed me for an answer beyond “I just don’t like boy/girl porn,” he offered this to say:
 
“Watching porn is all about envisioning yourself in the role of the man on-screen. You don’t get that with the lesbian stuff.” 

Fair enough, if that is what your opinion of it is.  But then this was said:

“If you have to watch two women getting it on just to avoid looking at a naked man in a porn then that says something about you.”

I asked to elaborate and this is what I got:

“Lesbian is gay.  Two women making out and having sex is gay.  That means you like watching gay sex acts between two women and if you’re telling me that you mainly watch it to avoid looking at another dude than that means that you might have some closeted gay feelings you are trying to push away.”
 
*Cue the record scratch!*

Wait, what?!  There is a reason why this person’s logic is flawed:

LESBIAN PORN ONLY HAS WOMEN IN IT.  GAY MEN DON’T LIKE WOMEN.  IT’S THAT SIMPLE.  

Okay, sorry for the “shouting.”  But what was said to me is totally ridiculous.  Now I’m sure everyone knows someone who is gay.  Whenever the subject is brought up this is what a gay person usually says to me:

“I never understand why you straight dudes like seeing two women kissing and having sex!”

Now….

If you google “why do straight men like lesbian porn,” you get a bunch of results.  The best answer is one that is on this Yahoo Answers page.

Ok, I have screened it and there is a lot of spam links to shit that may not be totally safe (Meaning you better make sure that your antivirus is up to date), so if you don’t want to visit I’ll just copy-n-paste the “best answer” here because I would basically say the same thing:

1) A lot of straight men just don't like looking at men, which is something you have to do when you watch straight porn. For guys who get turned off at the sight of naked men and male body parts (other than their own, that is), lesbian porn easily fixes the problem.

2) If one girl is good, two is better! Or at least, that's what a lot of men believe.

3) It lets men in on a world they don't otherwise get to see. What we don't know is mysterious and exotic, and many men fantasize and imagine- what exactly DO lesbians get up to together? A lot of people can't even conceive of sex without a penis, so they're obviously curious and it's really hot to watch and get that voyeuristic feel of peeking into the bedroom's into which they would otherwise not be allowed entry.

4) Much of the mainstream, girl-on-girl porn produced by men for men to consume, is very soft, playful, and gentle. For men who get turned off by rougher boy/girl scenes, lesbian porn is perfect.

5) Lots of female pornstars openly admit that they prefer doing girl/girl scenes- they are with another woman, so there isn't an unequal power dynamic, and it's less stressful- it's just two girls having fun. Lots of time this communicates itself onscreen, so you get more real orgasms in lesbian porn (although there is still so much faking), and what looks like genuine enjoyment instead of acting the way there can be in boy/girl scenes. Men (and women) tend to enjoy watching happy pornstars.

6) It's taboo. Two girls together is still somewhat taboo and "rare", so that adds in even more heat and sexiness.

7) Somewhat related to #3, there are some men who watch it from that viewpoint, but more mean-spirited and vengeful. These are the guys who have been spurned by lesbians or bisexual women, and watch it feeling vindicated that they get to see lesbians (the same reason, for example, that many men like "Girls Gone Wild" instead of more hardcore fare- it lets them vicariously 'get with' all the young girls who rejected them back in high school).

8) Somewhat related to #5 but a little different- a lot of men believe that women can better please a woman (because they have vaginas so they know what others like), and they feel because of this, they can watch hotter, better pleasuring in lesbian porn than straight porn.

9) When's the last time you saw extended cunnilingus in a straight porn video? Exactly. If you like seeing the vagina being lovingly lavished, lesbian porn is the place to go.

10) Men are programmed to think it's hot. We always seem to forget that the media has a large part to play in what we think is sexy, and they definitely promote girl-on-girl as something sexually desirable.

11) It's "innocent". Oddly enough, a lot of men who watch porn feel disdainful for girls who seem "skanky" or like "sluts" for being in porn and sleeping with so many men. They want to see girls who aren't jaded and experienced, and lesbian porn harkens back to that for them- images that inundate our culture (young girls having sleepovers and practicing kissing and whatnot). Two girls together is often portrayed by porn as "innocent", "exploratory", and so on.

12) We all want what we can't have. Men can't, by definition, have lesbians. Hence it becomes even hotter.

There are probably more reasons, but this is a lot of it.

Here are my responses to the “best answer” above:

1. Exactly what I said.

2. Exactly what I said.

3. I never thought of it that way, but one has to keep in mind that the sex you see in porn is often “choreographed” to look better for the camera.  It’s rarely that way in real life or “off camera.”

4. Exactly what I said.

5. Many female porn stars have stated in interviews that their best experiences (As in amount of orgasms) are with other women.  I am not surprised by this and this is one of the reasons why I watch it.

6. I never thought of it as “taboo” but maybe it’s because of my progressive mindset?

7. I never watched it with this mindset, because if a woman doesn’t want to go out with me because she is a lesbian I just move on.  

8. You can refer back to #5 for this one.

9. Let me just say this: To many guys who watch girl-girl it’s not how long the performer’s partner does it for, it’s the reaction to her orgasm when she has one that really makes a cunnilingus scene.  In fact, if a scene like this takes too long I usually end up hitting the “fast forward” button on whatever video player I’m using until I get to the “climax.” (No pun intended).

10. You can say that, but then again the media likes to dictate what we think of as “hot” and/or “sexy” in a lot of areas.  For example, that is why a guy who fits the “properly hunky” description can get a woman while having no money and living in a studio apartment but someone who is “average” needs something to “enhance” himself to be considered attractive to a woman, namely having lots of greenbacks.

11. I don’t judge women, but the more “sensual” and “loving” look on screen is as stated a reason why I watch girl-girl.

 12. Have never looked at it that way.  Interesting.   Kind of like having a dream car: You fantasize about driving it but unless you hit the lottery you’ll never own one.

---

That alone should really be the end of this silly discussion but I’m sure people reading this will have rebuttals so here goes….

Rebuttal # 1: There is a reason why people refer to lesbian porn as “n00b / newbie porn” or “starter porn.”  It’s a good start but eventually you’ll want to move on to harder stuff.  

My response: I think I have heard a variation of this before… on the anti-porn propaganda website “fight the new drug.”  The myth that you’ll want move to harder material that is simply not true.

Rebuttal # 2: “You don’t learn anything as a guy from watching lesbian porn!  You need to watch a boy/girl movie and learn some things!”

My response: Remember above when I mentioned that the sex you see in a porn is “choreographed?”  Multiple publications over the years have stated that porn is the last medium you should take tips from.  

Rebuttal # 3: Your friend isn’t the only one with that mindset, take a look at this post on the IGN forums.

I read that, and only because if came up in a google search when I did the research for this blog.  Look at how the other members are making fun of him for his “logic.”  It’s just as silly as the person I referenced told me.  Oh, and I really don't want to go by a forum where the 90% of the users are probably virgins.

Rebuttal # 4: What your friend was trying to say is that based on your explanation, the reason you intentionally avoid seeing another dude by only watching lesbian porn is because you are afraid that if you watch boy/girl porn you might focus on the man’s junk and get turned on by it.” 

My response: Thanks for the clarification.  But it’s still stupid.   I’m confident enough in my masculinity that I can watch boy/girl porn.  But it just wouldn’t do anything for me.  It would be a big waste of time.  Plus I have already given the stated reasons so let’s leave it at that.

---

Conclusion: 

I am sorry that I had to even write a blog about this.  Apparently, to the person who I referenced this is what he was basically saying:

“1 beautiful naked woman = Hot.  Two beautiful naked women = Closet gay.”

See how stupid that is?  By the way, I want to mention something.  Down here in South Florida the news stations all have hot weather girls.  Sure there are some guys but they don’t get the same attention (Obviously).  The same person who made the “closet gay” argument on lesbian porn told me this:

“I only watch the stations when they have the female meteorologists on, I don’t need a dude telling me the weather!”

So by his own argument that he used on me, he only watches the female meteorologists because he’s afraid that if he watches a dude meteorologists he might get turned on by it.  Haha!  Closet gay! 

See how stupid that sounds when the shoe is on the other foot?

In closing….

People will like what they like.  In the case of entertainment, people don’t have ulterior or any other type of motive for liking what they like.  They just like it and should be not accused of having “closeted whatever feelings” for deciding to like it over something else.  They don’t like something else because they…. Just don’t like it.  For example, I don’t like rap music.  With the exception of some old-school hip-hop, I try to avoid listening to it because I just don’t like it, not to mention that it’s a quick way to give me a headache!  I like rock and blues and would rather listen to that because I actually want to enjoy what I am listening to, not because I’m afraid that if I listen to rap I’ll suddenly have the urge to go on Spotify and download Kanye and Little Wayne.  

That is all.

THE END.

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

How did “whatever floats your boat” suddenly become a problem?

I am going to start off by saying that this is NOT about anything you might be thinking.  Rather, it is a blog on fetishes.  Yes, fetishes.  Aka something that floats someone’s boat that some people may not “get” or understand.  Got it?  Good, let’s start….

Rather than going into the fetishes themselves, I’m going to get into something I noticed while doing research: That in 2017, there is an actual medical term for fetishes and websites actually list “symptoms” and “treatment.”  What’s that term?

----

The word is “Partialism.”

Googling “Partialism” shows this definition: 1. an emphasis of sexual interest upon one part of the body. 2. a form of fetishism in which the sexual stimulus is a part of the body, as pictures of feet.
  
The Wikipedia entry says this:

“Partialism is sexual interest with an exclusive focus on a specific part of the body other than the genitals.[1][2][3] Partialism is categorized as a fetishistic disorder in the DSM-5 of the American Psychiatric Association only if it causes significant psychosocial distress for the person or has detrimental effects on important areas of their life. In the DSM-IV, it was considered a separate paraphilia (not otherwise specified), but was merged into fetishistic disorder by the DSM-5.[1] Individuals with partialism sometimes describe the anatomy of interest to them as having equal or greater erotic attraction for them as do the genitals.”  

----

Lack of understanding.

Besides this ridiculous medical term, this blog is really about how a lack of understanding of what float's someone's boat can can cause people to label others with said fetishes or think there is something wrong with them.

---- 

Now that we got that out of the way….

You may have heard of people with feet fetishes.  I personally never understood it myself, but you know what?  Whatever floats their boat, I don’t care.  I don't label or think there is something wrong with them.

But thanks to headshrinks constantly “labeling” things, it is now a stigma that having a fetish that turns you on is somehow a bad thing.  Newsflash: It isn’t.  

Case in point?  There is a head coach in the National Football League that was revealed to have a foot fetish.  I mean, as long as it wasn’t effecting his ability to coach there shouldn’t be an issue, right?  

Apparently, not!  As ridiculous as it sounds, people poked fun at him and a couple of people actually said his personal fetish was grounds for dismissal.  

----

More like misunderstood than problematic.  

Regarding that football coach…. Why would people make fun of him or call for him to be fired just for liking feet?

You can argue that in 2017, we still have this puritanical view of the human body and anything related to sex in general.  

But I have a different view: When someone doesn’t understand someone else’s fetish or "boat float," it’s viewed to not be normal just because of that lack of understanding or "getting it" just because he does not have that same thing that floats his boat.

You can apply the same mentality towards things like food.   Some people love escargot or frog legs, others will not even go near them.  In fact, people in the 2nd group probably look at the first group and think “That is some strange shit to want to eat that kind of stuff.”   Simply put, because people in the 2nd group don’t understand why the 1st group likes those foods, they go to the most convenient label they can find: That there has to be something wrong with them.  

---

I am going to reveal a fetish that I have, something that floats my boat….

The bare shoulder tease.

Yep…. There, I said it.  It depends on the woman and the outfit she is wearing, but I find bare shoulders incredibly sexy.  It all started when I was in high school.  Don’t ask me to explain how, it just happened (Well…. I'll explain later).

The reason why I call it “the bare shoulder tease” instead of just a “bare shoulder fetish” is that it depends on how they’re bared, which brings to a question that you may be thinking of asking:

“So you seriously get a chubby when you see a girl wearing a strapless or off-the-shoulder top/dress/whatever?”

Actually, no.  Those outfits 95% of the time take the fun out of it for me.  To best describe this, it’s when a girl starts off with a regular top/dress/shirt/whatever and turns it into an off-the-shoulder version that really gets me, of course if she is wearing a bra those straps come off her shoulders too.  Bonus points if she does the "bra trick" of taking off her bra while keeping her top fully on.  I eventually found out that if a girl goes further and converts it into a strapless it’s even sexier to me.  In the case of a modeling shoot, if a model manages to do the “shampoo pose” while it’s strapless and manages to get the garment to stay up and keep from “falling out,” then whoa momma!

---

Wait…. What?!  That’s kind of weird!   Can’t you just like boobs and be done with it?

One of the reasons why I never say anything about this to people is that I don’t want a label put on me.  Like being called “weird,” for starters.  

Yes, I consider myself a boob guy as well (But even then, I have my limits of what I think is attractive).  So, with that out of the way, why is it “acceptable” for a man to like bustier women, but suddenly “not acceptable” for him to like bare shoulders depending on how they are bared?

One of the reasons why someone would say this is that the female breasts have been “sexualized” here in the United States.  So therefore, if it’s sexualized, it’s considered okay to be turned on by it.  Shoulders are usually not a sexualized part of the body, so that is why someone might want to “label” someone that is turned on by them.  Because again, an outsider doesn’t understand why.

----

What did your partner(s) think about your fetish?

The woman I last dated kind of figured it out on her own without me really having to tell her.  Was she turned off?  I don’t think so.  In fact, she thought I was a “cheap date,” all she had to do was shoulder tease me and then turn her top strapless and she had me!

----

Well, as long as you’re not going up to random girls, pulling their straps off and exposing their shoulders I guess you’re fine.

For anyone who actually wants to say this to me: I may be turned on by the shoulder / outfit tease, but I’m not a fucking pervert.  What you are saying would be considered assault.   That’s not me.  I don’t go that far.  I can’t believe I actually have to say that in response.

----

Have you used the services of a fetish video producer?  Come on, tell the truth....

To be truthful: YES.  I have had some tease videos done for me, because it’s just a model “teasing” with her outfit and there’s no nudity involved they didn’t exactly break the bank for me.

----

*Cue record scratching sound* If you are paying money to satisfy your fetish, that’s a problem and that’s why there is an official medical label on it.  

Want to know why a good amount of adult performers are getting into the custom fetish video business?  Because they quickly discovered that it’s a HUGE market.  

People (Not just men) use it as an avenue to put a visual to their fetish without being judged, which you – dear reader - are doing when you start throwing labels at me.   The custom fetish video market is big right now for that one reason alone.  

There are other reasons too.  Some might say, “Why don’t you just hire a local model to shoulder tease for you?”  Well, let’s see…. Models have to get PAID.  If you want to “aim high” the really “in demand” (Translation: very attractive) models can cost a lot of money.  Secondly, you can’t just show up with a point-and-shoot camera, you have to have the good stuff.  Third, if you don’t have any editing skills, who’s going to edit the video?   It’s much cheaper just to pay a producer to do it.  The other problem with hiring a model yourself is that she may not like that the fact that the person shooting the video is also the customer.  When you go through a producer the model they hire is just going by a script that is handed to her.  Big difference.

There is another reason: What if you’re single, or you have a significant other but she thinks your fetish is stupid and doesn’t want to do it?  If you need to get a release to your particular niche, a fetish video producer doing a video for you may be the only way to go.  

---

Okay…. After those piece about fetish videos if people didn’t think you have a problem they will now!

If they think I have a “problem” than simply put, they can take their holier-than-thou, “let’s shove my view of morality into his face” attitude and stick it where the sun don’t shine and get the hell out of dodge!  That is what I would tell them!  They can do the same thing with their “labels” too!

----

Fine…. So you like shoulders.  But…. Why wait until now to reveal it and why do it on a blog that is viewable worldwide?

To be honest, for a while I was concerned about the things that people would think about me or things that people would say about me or to me.  Like I wrote earlier, because many won’t or don’t understand it.  However, there eventually comes a time when you just don’t give a shit about what people think about or say to you anymore.   That is why I am making this blog.  

----

This fetish had to come from somewhere.  Come on, tell us how this came about!

Okay, fine.  It was when I was a teenager, like I wrote earlier.  I was watching the Oscars post-awards coverage where they show the celebs walking the red carpet.  1998 to be exact.  They showed a clip of Actress Minnie Driver in a red dress when it happened – what today’s kids call a “wardrobe malfunction.”  One side slipped off her shoulder and if she didn’t catch it, her shoulder would not have been the only thing that was exposed!  I loved that she managed to do it without showing too much.  I thought that was one of the sexiest things I ever saw, and I was kind of bummed that she pulled the side back up (To be honest, I’m not surprised it happened as that dress was a wardrobe malfunction waiting to take place).  

Then one day in high school, I began chatting with one of the new girls and I see that she’s wearing a thin-strap thank top.  I don’t know how I got to ask this question but I asked, “If you were modeling for someone and he paid you a bunch of money to take your straps off your shoulder and that’s all would you do it?”  She goes, “You mean like this?” and she does what I now call the “off-the-shoulder” tease right then and there.  I told her, “You know that’s pretty hot.”  As they say, "the rest is history...." 

So there you have it – the story of where bare shoulder teasing floating my boat started.  I didn’t choose this for myself.  It chose me and that’s all I can really say.

----

Conclusion….

I want to write a big conclusion here, but I’ll just leave it at this: You have every right to be puzzled at my “fetish” or “the thing that floats my boat.”  You have every right to think I’m “weird” or whatever other label you want to put on me.  You have every right to think my occasional use a fetish video producer means that I have a “problem.”  You have every right to think so just because some headshrink somewhere decided to out of the blue create a medical category for it.  Meanwhile that headshrink probably downs a bottle of Grey Goose or Johnny Walker after their day at the office is done.

That may be you.  I will say this in response: I have every right to say that you just don’t “understand” or “get” my fetish, or as I like to call it, the thing that floats my boat.   When you don’t “understand” or “get” something, it’s sometimes easier to put a label on someone than being open-minded.

In conclusion, the waters that float our boats may be different, but those vessels are the same.  Different things may turn us on, but we are all one people.  It’s time that we understand THAT.

End.

Monday, November 7, 2016

When you ban things for morality reasons, bad things happen.



With all the talk about marijuana legalization, one might wonder how it became illegal in the first place.  This blog is not really about marijuana, but it’s a good place to start.

First off, marijuana is not even the correct name for it.  “Marijuana” is actually a form of Mexican tobacco, the plant everyone refers to today is actually cannabis or hemp.

In the 1930’s, one of the uses for hemp was paper.  It provided a fast, efficient way to make paper without having to wait for trees to grow and chop down.

John D Rockefeller, a big newspaper magnate saw it as a threat to his paper industry so he had to think of a moral argument to get it banned so it wouldn’t pose a threat to his business.

He decided to run a story which only appeared in his newspaper (how convenient!) by Harry J. Anslinger of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (the original DEA).  In it, Anslinger, a known racist, stated that men of black and latino descent were smoking it, getting extra amorous and going around raping white women.   Which of course was just bullshit designed to make people panic about it.  This was the 1930’s, after all.

That is how hemp was outlawed.  Of course, when it became illegal bad shit started to happen.   It gave business to the drug cartels, which is the biggest side effect to making it illegal.  There are many other economic, social and health issues that have surfaced due to it being banned, too many to list in fact.  

But it’s not just hemp.  It is many things that are either banned, or things that people push to be banned simply because they have a certain sense of “morality” that they feel needs to be shared with the rest of the nation.  But as the title says: When you ban shit for morality reasons, bad things happen.

----   
                                               
There are two major examples of things that people want outlawed, plus one that is the prime example of what happens you ban shit for morality reasons.  Let’s start with the two examples first.

1. Abortion.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: I am very pro-choice, but even I know that overturning Roe V. Wade would just leave it up to the states to decide.  You know as well as anyone that states like Alabama would immediately outlaw it if Roe V. Wade was overturned.  

I will quote something that someone said to me recently: “I am not a fan of laws that cannot be enforced.  If a woman wants an abortion, she will get an abortion!”

That is the problem right there.  If you outlaw abortion, then women will just have “back alley” abortions and put themselves in significant harm.  You will have women taking plane rides and road trips to states that will keep it legal.  But it’s not just that.  

For women that could not get an abortion and are desperate, you will be seeing women throwing their unwanted babies in dumpsters / trash cans.  Orphanages will fill up to beyond capacity.  In addition, unwanted children in these states will be abused and neglected by their mothers that decide to keep them after its born, causing child abuse cases to skyrocket.

Or, you’ll have stories like this:


Yes, it is awful.  This is a different type of case, though.  When states cannot ban something for morality reasons, they put restrictions on it.  I just looked on Planned Parenthood’s website and Nebraska is one of the states that require a parent to grant permission for an abortion.  I am willing to bet my lunch money that the girl knew her mother would refuse to allow her an abortion, so she got desperate and when people are desperate they do some crazy fucked up shit. 

2. Pornography.

Remember when Rick Santorum wanted to ban pornography?  A little reminder:


If you were to ban porn, you would be causing a lot of people to lose their jobs.  I’m not just talking about the performers, either.  I’m talking about the camera guys, the editors, the web designers, etc.

The rhetoric on porn that guys like Santorum like to spew is that porn can lead to committing sexual assault.  That alone is untrue to the point of being slanderous, and all it takes is a quick research on countries where pornography is outlawed to where it’s legal.  Hint: sexual assault is higher in countries where it’s outlawed.  The reason is simple: If you are freely allowed to get your release to a two-dimensional tart on your computer monitor, you are lot less likely to bottle it up until you explode on a real-life unwilling female.  I’ll be the first to say it: If a city or state bans porn, they better be prepared to hire more SVU detectives.

The other bullshit rhetoric that anti-porn people like to spout is that guys who watch porn tend to, um, have issues getting aroused to a real-life person.  True, consuming any porn might raise a guy’s standards to a level that causes him to overlook an otherwise viable partner just because she doesn’t look like Dani Daniels or Jelena Jenson.  But even so, you will be hard pressed to find any man who can’t get it up for a real-life woman in the flesh.  Besides, all media is guilty of desensitizing people.

----

And now, the poster child for what happens when you ban shit for morality reasons:

Prohibition of alcohol aka the eighteenth amendment.


 The 18th amendment aka “prohibition” is the best example of why you should never ban shit just because you think it’s morally wrong.  Prohibition was difficult to enforce and just created a whole slew of criminal enterprises.  Thankfully, the 21st amendment repealed it.

In fact, if you look at the entry for the 21st amendment here, you will see a quote that John D Rockefeller (Yes, him) said about it:

“When Prohibition was introduced, I hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil effects of alcohol would be recognized. I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result. Instead, drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before.”

Notice the part where he said that drinking actually increased under prohibition.  That is because when something is illegal, there is a “rush” that you get when you do something that you know could get you in trouble.  When it’s legal to purchase and consume, that rush is simply not there anymore and it’s less fun to actually do it.  

----

Now for the rebuttals that people reading this may have:

1. But weed is a gateway drug!  That is why it was banned!  Not because it was competition!

If you actually say this, congrats, you’re a moron that deserves to have your rebuttal privileges revoked.  It has been proven to NOT, I repeat NOT be a gateway drug.

98% of weed users never move on to harder drugs, and that remaining 2% would have done so anyway even without weed being in the picture.  But keep on having this extremely outdated mindset!

2. If you make weed legal it’s going to cause all sorts of problems.  Look at Colorado.

Record levels of tax revenue collected, to the point that Colorado had to give some of it back to its citizens.  Drops in all sorts of crime (Especially domestic violence, because after all if you’re mellowed out on weed you’re a lot less likely to beat your wife/girlfriend).  Record job growth.   A boom in the food service industry.  A police force that can concentrate on real criminals instead of busting someone for having weed.  People have access to a medicine that actually works with no side effects.  If these are “problems,” then bring them on!

3. If porn “desensitizes” a guy to the point that he passes over a viable partner because she doesn’t have the body of a pornstar, then yes that is a problem.

You might as well blame all media for it, as I wrote previously.  Ever heard of “two girls one room?”  No, it’s not a viral shock video.  Basically, it goes like this: There are two women in a room, one looks like a beautiful celebrity while the other is obese with pimples all over her face.  Now let’s say a guy is placed in that room and is asked to choose the woman he would want to date.  100 times out of 100, he will choose the woman that looks like the celebrity.  But let’s say that the celebrity look-alike has no interest in him, while the obese woman does.  100 times out of 100, I am betting that the guy would rather pick no one and stay single then pick the obese woman.  After all, it’s better to be alone and happy then be taken and miserable.   It’s what happens when attractive women are the norm in the media.  It’s not just movies or TV shows either, look at the vast majority of the weather and traffic girls on your local TV news station.  When it’s the norm, the brain assumes that is what it should go for.

4. If porn doesn’t drive men to committing sexual assault, why did Elizabeth Smart say that her captor would watch porn then rape her?


Make no mistake: What Elizabeth Smart went through I would not wish on even my worst enemy.

But let’s be honest here.  Her captor did not need to watch porn to be a raging, sexually assaulting dirtbag.  He already was one that just happened to watch porn.  Correlation is definitely NOT the same as causation.  His material of choice could have been a benign documentary of hummingbirds.  It would not have mattered.  He still would have been a raging, sexually assaulting dirtbag no matter what he watched.  Unfortunately, everyone likes to have a “fall guy,” and in this case porn was that fall guy.

---

Conclusion.

The moral of the story here (pun not intended), is that yes there are many things that people don’t like.  But when you ban those things just because you don’t like it, a whole slew of problems start popping up.  Problems that you never saw coming that are actually worse than the thing you managed to outlaw.  Is it worth it just because you think something is immoral?  Remember guys: What is immoral to someone else may be perfectly acceptable to another.  Does not mean it should be outlawed just because someone doesn’t like it.

Have a good day!

Sunday, August 21, 2016

“Don’t like it? Move!”/ Regulations / State’s rights / Privatization.



This blog is going to be about four things I want to write about.  I have decided to combine the four topics into one so it’s a decent length rather than writing four small blogs. 

Without further adieu…..

1. “Don’t like it, move!” 
 
After one of my rants on Facebook about Municipal Broadband (If a city/town wants to offer its own internet due to poor or no service from a private ISP they should be able to!), I received this private message from someone I don’t know that is going to remain nameless:

“Will you please put a sock in it about municipal broadband?  You should not be asking your local government to provide internet for you!  If you move into an area where the choices in internet are crappy, that’s all on you!  Don’t like it?  Move!”

See, I have a big issue with people telling others to “move” if they don’t like a current situation and call for change in something.  It’s basically saying, “The status quo is fine where it is, it doesn’t need to change, if you don’t like it, fuck off.”   

There are many versions of “If you don’t like it, move.”  As I wrote above, it’s basically telling someone that they just need to accept the way things are, even if the “way things are” is totally wrong.  I’m not just talking about internet here, by the way.

A little over a year ago I wrote this blog: http://samsnonpcpage.blogspot.com/2015/06/subjects-that-are-now-politically.html.  In one of the parts I basically asked “why can’t members of the LGBT community just go to another business if one refuses to serve them rather than suing said business?”
Fast forward to today.  I’m not going to re-write an over year old blog, but someone told me this when I told him the above opinion on the subject:

“I get what you’re saying, the issue is that when you decide to just go to another bakery or whatever, you are letting discrimination win over what is right.  By suing, or at the very least leaving a bad yelp review or taking your story to the media, you are standing up for what is right.”

Look at it this way.  What if Rosa Parks was told, “Don’t like being told you need to sit in the back of the bus?  Just take a taxi or buy a car!”  What if she actually did that, instead of refusing to sit in the back of the bus and standing up for what is right?  

Sometimes, you need to stand up for what you believe in, because if you “move,” you have officially given up on for what is actually right.

---

2. Regulations.

Regulations are a hot topic among political shows.  The way I look at it, is that regulations are like “ground rules” that companies needs to adhere to.

The reason why regulations are needed is that without them, companies all over would screw over both employees and customers in pursuit of high profit margins or in quests to please their shareholders!  

The problem is, we honestly have regulation in areas where it’s not really needed, and no regulation for things that should have them.  

I’ll give an example, and yes it’s cars.  Let’s say I wanted to buy a Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat.  The dealer local to me has one exactly like I would order…. If I was willing to pay $30,000 over MSRP for a “market value adjustment.”  

Yeah, I could go to a well-respected dealer in Ohio and get one for MSRP, but that would entail having to get plane tickets and a hotel stay, not to mention paying shipping fees to deliver the car back to Florida.  

Now, there should be regulation in place that outlaws these stupid markups.  Maybe allow up to 10% over MSRP but nothing more.  It’s called making sure the business doesn’t gouge the customer, the most important part of said business. 

Regulation doesn’t even have to come from government.  Look at consumer electronics.  Wonder why the price of current-model TVs are the same whether you buy it at a brick and mortar store or online?  It’s because manufacturers have what’s known as a “unilateral pricing policy” or UPPs, and retailers (That includes online retailers) that sell those manufacturers’ sets have to sell it at MSRP and cannot jack up the price.  They also have to get permission from the manufacturers to lower the price if they intend to run a sale on it.  If the retailer breaks the UPP rules, they might lose the license to sell the product.

FYI: UPPs exist so that online retailers can’t undercut brick and mortar stores on price to the point where the B&M stores might “throw in the towel” and stop selling TVs due to losing business to online retailers.  After all, when it comes to a TV, you want to see its picture quality first-hand.  It’s pretty hard to judge a TV’s picture quality by looking at a stock photo on an online retailer.

It’s not just about products.  Why are we - the USA - the only developed country that does not mandate that businesses over a certain amount of employees give a minimum amount of vacation days?  It’s been proven over and over that people work better when they are given a chance to recharge their batteries, so to speak.  Yet thanks to no regulation in this area, there are places that give maybe a week’s worth of vacation time all year and that’s it.  To make matters worse, many times when these employees take their vacations, they are seen as not as valuable compared to one that stays at work.  The USA is ranked at or near the top for work-sourced stress related illnesses.  Again, it all comes down to the fact that people work better when they are given proper time off! 
There are some people who will read this blog and think, “Why should the government tell me how to run my business?”  I’ll say it again: So that businesses don’t screw over their employees and customers, their two most important assets!

---

State’s rights.

Republicans and conservatives always tout “State’s Rights.”  The way I see it, states should not have unlimited rights or at least the magnitude of “rights” they do now.

Just the fact that 21 states let private ISPs like AT&T and Time Warner “ghost write” bills that block municipal broadband then signed them into law is proof of that.

Better yet, here is a scene from the movie Tropic Thunder that explains it best:


If you don’t want to watch the video, here is a meme:


That’s really it.  It’s not just states signing laws to stifle competition in the broadband space.  It’s a lot of fucked up, moronic, imbecilic things they do.  In other words, they manage to go full retard!  

Here is what I am talking about:

1. Look at how many states have signed “religious freedom” laws that basically allow businesses to discriminate against the LGBT community.

2. States that have repealed motorcycle helmet laws under the guise of “personal freedom.”   Sorry, but this is just dumb. 

3. States that force private business to allow people to open carry not just handguns, but rifles into their establishments.  RIFLES.  Yep, in these states a person can legally sling an AR-15 on their backs into say a restaurant and the owner cannot throw him/her out.

4. States that compel public universities into letting students conceal carry guns on campus.  I am waiting for the news story of a professor that got shot because he delivered a flunking grade to a student that was packing.

5. States that block abortion if a fetal defect like down syndrome is listed as the reason, while at the same time cutting any sort of assistance that a woman might need to help with raising such a child. 

6. States that refuse to make pay equal between both genders, in the form a vetoing bills that would make it law to pay women equally.  

I’m going to give a hypothetical situation here.  A republican friend of mine thinks that seatbelt laws should be repealed at the federal level and left up to the states.  

Okay, let’s say that happens.  I’ll name-drop one state.  Alabama.  Now, I’m not going to completely hate on Alabama because my car was made there.  But let’s face it, Alabama is a state where it’s socially unacceptable to be LGBT but it’s okay for your cousin – 1st cousin – to be your girlfriend.  Knowing that, you can bet your lunch money that Alabama would probably be one of the first states to repeal their seatbelt laws if it ever became up to the states.

So what would happen?  First, I would feel bad for all the first responders who have to respond to all the fatal accidents that would not have been fatal if the people in the car just wore their seatbelt.  Next, morgues would have to expand in size for all the dead bodies that would come in, and more funeral homes would have to open for all the funerals that they would have to commence.

That is why you don’t want to give a state unlimited “rights,” because, as Robert Downey Jr’s character said, they go full retard…. And you never want to go full retard.  

---

Privatization.

I’m pretty sure everyone knows what Privatization is, so I’m not going to explain it.  What I want to touch on is that simply put, there are certain things that need to remain in control of the government.

The issue is that when you let a private industry get ahold of something, it’s going to want to make a profit off of it.  That, in itself is not a bad thing.  But when bad things happen due to wanting to make a profit, that is, well…. Bad.

The worst example is private prisons.  The more inmates they have, the more money they make.  As such, corruption ensues such as judges intentionally throwing people in their jails in exchange for payoffs.  

Last year, the private prison companies donated huge sums of money to keep Cannabis illegal in the remaining 46 states.   It’s not secret why they want to keep it illegal: If people can consume cannabis freely without fear of getting arrested and thrown in jail, the prisons will not make as much money and therefore their profits will suffer.  

Another example is water.  You know, the stuff we need to live.  Michigan felt it was going the public a favor by handing over control of the drinking water to private industry.  A private industry that is also concerned about making profits.  That worked out well for Flint, didn’t it?  New Jersey also wanted to turn over its drinking water to private companies, but last I heard it was scrapped.  Thank goodness!

A long time ago, someone told me that a county should try turning its police force over to the private sector.  Yeah, I can just imagine how that would turn out!  If you think your local police force is corrupt now, wait until one is privatized!

There is still discussion that the US Post Office should be privatized.  Yeah, some people want this done for one reason only – to get rid of the union that is protecting the labor force.  Plus, if the Post Office was privatized, you can bet that cost of postage would rise to ridiculous levels.  You think the cost of a book of stamps is “too high” now?  Just imagine if it was private….

The point is, not everything needs to be privatized.  Some stuff, whether you like it or not, needs to remain in government control.

----

That’s it!