Archive for the 'Relationships' Category

Always on: the internet, social media, communications and everyday life

Published
by
Mark
3 weeks ago
in Blogging, Consumerism, Culture, Film, TV, Video etc, History, Life, Media, Music, Parenting, Relationships, Sociology, Technology and The Web
. 11 Comments

In doing a bit of reading for a couple of courses I’m teaching this semester, I was struck recently by the concision with which Mark Deuze pings how mediated so many aspects of our everyday lives now are - and how he deftly places this constant mediation - through email, mobile phones, the intertubes, and so much more - in its sociological context, leveraging off the work of Zygmunt Bauman. Some day, when I have time, I’ll have more to say about that, and there’s lots of nifty academic research - a fair bit from my colleagues at QUT’s Creative Industries Faculty - which is exploring many of the ramifications of everyday mediation. Loath as I normally am as a sociologist to believe the new new anything really is fundamentally new under the sun, I am starting to be convinced that a shift in the conditions of our everyday lives is taking place, though I’m totally unconvinced by claims that it’s “dumbing us down” or whatever.

Continue reading ‘Always on: the internet, social media, communications and everyday life’

Guest post by Aaron Darc: Morgan and the Multiplex

Published
by
Guest Poster
3 weeks ago
in Consumerism, Culture, Film, TV, Video etc, Food, Foreign policy, Life, Masculinity, Relationships, Religion, Sociology, Terrorism, USA, Urbanism and War
. 193 Comments

Aaron Darc, whose work will be familiar to LPers from his incarnation as Eye on Big Brother, recently interviewed film maker Morgan Spurlock. Spurlock came to prominence with Super Size Me and his new film Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? will be released in Australia next week. You can read more of Aaron’s writing at Pop Psychology for Beautiful People.

MORGAN & THE MULTIPLEX

From fat to fatwah, Murgon Spurlock has lost the pounds he gained for his smash-hit, Super Size Me, and hired himself a camel, for his latest film, Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden? I caught up with Morgan, this week, on his press tour of Sydney.

My 20 year old brother, Glenn, lives in a distant galaxy from me, on a planet called Regional Suburbia. He likes football, easy girls and fast cars. His favourite film is The Fast & The Furious; he calls it “wicked sh*t.” It would never have dawned on me, it goes without saying, to peruse my brother’s DVD collection. I knew it would be large, and I knew it would have been entirely purchased at JB Hifi; I know probably more than I should about Revolution Plasma and its disturbing power to appeal to the working and middle classes, and replace what would once have been their lives; draining whatever connection to the real world they had, by offering their unconscious longing to escape, a glistening, mostly poisonous, apple. Here, everybody! Plug into this - you’ll find it… easier. You will have a purpose. You will own that 42″ plasma, even if you f*ck yourself up on credit to do it, and you will build thyself a DVD Tower. There, thy shall easily access The Fast & The Furious; it shall keep the company of Face Off, Rush Hour, the Terminator Trilogy and, but of course, the Die Hard Box Set. Got plasma? check. Got plasma tower? Check. Okay, then, you’re all set to waste a good deal of your life plugged right into consumer oblivion. Isn’t modernity just fabulous?!

I only neared my brother’s DVD tower, out of that familiar desperation to escape the reality of my awkward bi-monthly family visit. Somewhere, in between the time your mother has once again implicitly let it be known you’ve not amounted to what you should have, and the moment following eight meaningless remarks about the state of recent weather, you look around the room, and you think, quite simply, “What can I do, here, to pass the time without having to sincerely engage my family?” My brother’s DVD tower seemed like a pretty good idea.

Continue reading ‘Guest post by Aaron Darc: Morgan and the Multiplex’

Cognitive dissonance in the Seduction Community

Published
by
tigtog
4 weeks, 1 day ago
in Feminism, Levity, Masculinity, Relationships and Sexuality
. 54 Comments

This (long) post is inspired by the tapes of self-styled seduction guru Dimitri The Lover (AKA James Sears) that are being discussed on blogs all over at the moment (or at least linked to with a LOLOLOL!!1!), and the arguments as to whether they are genuine recordings of a creep or performance art from a guy engaging in viral marketing for a movie. I’ll get to them later, but first a little about the background of the “seduction community”, because Sears claims to be a different kind of seduction guru.

There’s been a lot written about the seduction community (AKA players/PUAs (Pick Up Artists)) in the last few years, and it’s worth emphasising here that most men join these (largely online) communities because they are simply looking to gain more confidence when interacting with women, that there’s nothing wrong in principle with seeking sex without commitment for either men or women as long as everybody’s being emotionally honest and physically safe/sane, and that most of these men probably do ultimately want a committed relationship one day. These points are usually clouded by the best-known Community gurus emphasising cynical bedpost-notching above all (and making a lot of money talking about the ways that their special techniques allegedly make women powerless to resist them).

One of the aims of the Community is to correct a common problem for inexperienced men - an overly romantic view of women as sweet, pure and sexually demure that makes these men overly hesitant and overly eager to please. The Community doesn’t tend to mention that this package usually includes a belief that sex is inherently dirty, resulting in a side-serve of self-loathing for their desire to defile women, which is the part of their attitude that is most offputting, rather than the common plaint that the men are just “being too nice”.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with correcting the pernicious stereotype that sex sullies women and that men must supplicate and compensate women for their dirty male desires. Done properly it can lead to a more realistic, relaxed and confident style of social interaction that both sexes can appreciate. Unfortunately, instead of moving away from gender-stereotypes to view women as people with highly individual wants and needs (that often do actually include sex for fun with the right person at the right time), what tends to happen in the Community is that one gender-stereotype is replaced with another: women as fickle, emotional, selfish and easily manipulated. The idea that sex demeans women remains, but is recast as sluts deserve to be demeaned. Then the Community wonders why folks (not just feminists) find fault with their collective wisdom. Continue reading ‘Cognitive dissonance in the Seduction Community’

Work/life balance?

Published
by
Mark
1 month ago
in Culture, Economics, Ethics, Feminism, Industrial Relations, Life, Media, Policy, Politics, Relationships and Sociology
. 16 Comments

I haven’t seen any discussion in the blogosphere about the stories in the papers of the report of a major research project on Work, Life and Workplace Culture co-authored by Barbara Pocock and Natalie Skinner. Maybe we’re all too busy juggling work, blogging and life. But it’s a pity.

The report can be downloaded from here [pdf].

Since we do a fair bit of dissing the mainstream media round here, I wanted to observe that the story in the Sydney Morning Herald is an exemplary piece of reporting academic research into social issues - summarising the nuts and bolts of the findings and contextualising it with the every day lived experience of citizens.

Continue reading ‘Work/life balance?’

Michael Savage is a drongo

Published
by
tigtog
1 month ago
in Authoritarianism, Disability, Feminism, Levity, Masculinity, Parenting, Philosophy, Politics, Relationships, Science and Women
. 29 Comments

I could have used many harsher terms, but I was exhausted from outrage and despair after reading his latest, and couldn’t really give him my best invective.

Apparently, despite decades of study from medical and childhood health professions, Michael Savage knows better than all of them when it comes to autism. (Like so many of his fellow cultural warrior pundits, an awful lot of it boils down to WIMMIN R DOIN IT RONG (AS USUAL (COZ WIMMIN R LOOSRS)), but there’s a nasty side-dish of JUST SNAP OUT OF IT)

That’s what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they’re silent? They don’t have a father around to tell them, ‘Don’t act like a moron. You’ll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.’” Savage concluded, “[I]f I behaved like a fool, my father called me a fool. And he said to me, ‘Don’t behave like a fool.’ The worst thing he said — ‘Don’t behave like a fool. Don’t be anybody’s dummy. Don’t sound like an idiot. Don’t act like a girl. Don’t cry.’ That’s what I was raised with. That’s what you should raise your children with. Stop with the sensitivity training. You’re turning your son into a girl, and you’re turning your nation into a nation of losers and beaten men. That’s why we have the politicians we have.

Basically? F*ck you and that ablist, misogynist high horse you’re riding, Savage. Continue reading ‘Michael Savage is a drongo’

It’s more serious than that

Published
by
Darlene
1 month, 2 weeks ago
in Life and Relationships
. 37 Comments
“What the police believe is that it’s not just a domestic situation where one partner’s taken the children, we believe it’s more serious than that,” Detective Sergeant Richardson said.

Undoubtedly, our law enforcement officials witness all types of pathological relationships, including marriages damaged by extreme abuse and partnerships wounded by the need some people have for a bit of drama. However, the indented comment above, which featured in an article on The Age’s website about a kidnapping case, is a tad strange, especially since it was only a short time ago that the police had to investigate another case of children being murdered by a parent.

Annoyed! III

Published
by
Mark
1 month, 2 weeks ago
in Authoritarianism, Crime, Ethics, Media, NSW Government, Relationships, Religion and Sexuality
. 116 Comments

Irfan Yusuf has the money quote on all the World Youth Day imbroglios, writing in today’s New Matilda:

I guess it really boils down to values. Cardinal Pell once accused Muslims of having difficulty separating Church from State. Unless he openly distances himself from (and not just denies involvement in) increased police powers designed to protect pilgrims from annoyance, his own secular credentials might look compromised.

On Lateline last night, in the context of new revelations about the crimes of Father Terrence Goodall, and George Pell’s casuistry in dealing with clergy abuse victim Anthony Jones, and his avoidance of any admission of culpability and therefore responsibility for the consequences of his actions, host Tony Jones interviewed prominent Catholic journalist and author Robert Blair Kaiser.

And I think that model can be applied to modern times and we can be a much more responsible, accountable church in a local situation where the bishop is not appointed by the Pope but elected by the people.

In referring to the democratising forces unleashed by Vatican II, Kaiser was suggesting that the root cause - not just of clergy abuse but also of cover-ups and grossly inadequate responses to its “horror” - is a deeply authoritarian tradition and its accompanying mindset and culture. George Pell is one of the leading lights of the Catholic “restorationists” who want to put all the genies of Vatican II back in the bottle, and return to a “Father Knows Best” model which has given us Catholics a Church marred and contaminated by misogyny and authoritarianism. Pell’s attitude to political power (which has been on show with World Youth Day) and his treatment of those whom some priests and brothers have monstered is cut from the same cloth - a desire to protect the institution and its power above all else. Continue reading ‘Annoyed! III’

Senate report on the sexualisation of children in the contemporary media

Published
by
tigtog
1 month, 4 weeks ago
in Ethics, Health, Media, Parenting, Politics, Relationships and Sexuality
. 3 Comments

The full report can be found here (long).

Just the recommendations are here (brief).

I can’t think of anything in particular to add to Senator Bartlett’s summary, and totally agree that the best recommendation of the report is the one advocating “more comprehensive education programs on sexual health and relationships”.

Implementation of such comprehensive education would do more than just help address the way in which children are sexualised, it would also help people generally be more rational in weighing up their options in pursuing sexual liasons and relationships, which should also improve matters such as STDs, unplanned pregnancies, and maybe even the separations and divorces that are due to the disappointment of unrealistic expectations.

The report also offers recommendations for industry guidelines and ethical codes, but Bartlett, while acknowledging the importance of particular aspects of our media culture, is not so sure that they are the most important arena for tackling the problem. His major points that aren’t being discussed enough in the overall debate:
Continue reading ‘Senate report on the sexualisation of children in the contemporary media’

“Sacred institution of marriage” may have something to learn from same-sex relationships

Published
by
Kim
2 months, 2 weeks ago
in Feminism, Lesbian and Gay, Masculinity, Relationships, Sexuality and Women
. 31 Comments

There’s a really fascinating article in the New York Times‘ health section by Tara Parker-Pope - accessed via Feministing:

For insights into healthy marriages, social scientists are looking in an unexpected place.

A growing body of evidence shows that same-sex couples have a great deal to teach everyone else about marriage and relationships. Most studies show surprisingly few differences between committed gay couples and committed straight couples, but the differences that do emerge have shed light on the kinds of conflicts that can endanger heterosexual relationships.

The findings offer hope that some of the most vexing problems are not necessarily entrenched in deep-rooted biological differences between men and women. And that, in turn, offers hope that the problems can be solved.

Aggregating a number of studies, the article suggests:

Continue reading ‘“Sacred institution of marriage” may have something to learn from same-sex relationships’

Age of consent

Published
by
Brian
3 months ago
in Education, Ethics, Life, Photography, Politics, Relationships and Sociology
. 75 Comments

At the outset on the Henson matter, I in common with many others had some difficulty with the notion that parents could give consent for 12 and 13 year olds to be photographed with no clothes on in order to make a work of art for public display. In Kim’s second thread tigtog raised an interesting question about consent:

A possible ethical compromise regarding consent for those under the age of legal self-sovereignty might be that if the adolescent and parents consent to being photographed, that the negatives/digital card containing the images be legally sequestered until the adolescent becomes a legal adult, and then and only then could they sign a release form for the image’s publication. How does that strike people with regard to the issue of consent?

I want to explore this question a little in the context of the development path we take from childhood to adulthood, the significant milestones along the way, and what skepticlawyer has called the “bright lines” the law has ruled across this process.

My tentative conclusion is that deferring authority for release is an unnecessary constraint for little if any gain. I’m interested in your views but a word of warning. If you don’t accept that what Henson is doing is creating art, then please go away. And if you think that there is no distinction between art and pr0n, then please go away also. I’m not interested in debating those topics on this thread.

Continue reading ‘Age of consent’

Class and Big Brother 2008

Published
by
Kim
3 months, 2 weeks ago
in Consumerism, Culture, Film, TV, Video etc, Politics, Relationships, Sociology and Women
. 107 Comments

You can’t talk about Big Brother without talking about class, it seems. Over at Troppo, Ken Parish, who should be familiar with the BB concept of the grenade lob, lobs one in comments:

Far from being careful, I’ll throw petrol on the fire. I think the phenomenon of people who should have more taste and intelligence professing to like BB is just a pretentious affectation, like ending a post with “just sayin’”. Then again, all these shows (including Ladettes to Ladies and the assorted Gordon Ramsey shows) have a certain macabre fascination, sort of like not being able to resist looking at a particularly gruesome car smash as you drive past.

The really vexing thing is that these shows are also a calculated cost-saving gambit by the free-to-air channels. It doesn’t cost all that much to make them because they don’t have to pay the actors. A truly principled lefty would boycott them (although, as Jen pointed out last night, you can make a similar point about the employment effects of blogging on professional journalists).

I don’t know about the logic of boycotting tv shows for political reasons - I suspect it’s only ever invoked in this sort of context, and one could counter with the fact that a lot of writers and other “creatives” get employed by these mega shows (which are actually far more expensive to produce, but also more lucrative, than a lot of the cut-price free to air drama that’s around). And Corey Delaney is Worth(ington) 10 grand a show apparently. Though there’d be an interesting angle in thinking about how “creatives”, anyway, are self-exploiting - freed of career paths, permanent employment, and all those other things that go with not being a contract for hire and an entrepreneurial micro-business. And the lack of reflexivity that comes with seeing one’s endeavours as a big quest for that one big break has uncanny parallels with the show’s refusal of any solidarity to its Housemates. But, whatever, Ken probably thinks I’m displaying an “affectation” - while I think that the BB hatin’ *and actually I don’t enjoy this season, I just find it interesting* is a classic “that’s for the Bogans” Distinction. Proper people, of course, go to the theatre, dahling.

In a way, though, it was ironic that John Howard was a BB hater, because the Inmates couldn’t be more aspirational and individualistic. Some might even drive utes, and you can bet they’re big alcopop drinkers. I’m sure Brendan probably feels their pain. (And I’m sure that he’d probably jump at the chance to be an intruder. Might be useful training for all those frontbench wars.) But class is at issue within the House too, as another excellent post from Eye on Big Brother shows. Continue reading ‘Class and Big Brother 2008′

“I love my dog/cat/budgie etc as much I love you”

Published
by
Darlene
4 months ago
in Relationships
. 21 Comments

Peggy and Pencil from Year of the Dog 

Australians, at least numerically speaking, are a pet-loving bunch, with dogs, cats, budgies and other creatures making up part of our families.

Recently, a ferret and its “mum” were seen outside a supermarket, perhaps waiting for “dad” to purchase whatever it is that ferrets eat.

On any Sunday afternoon, the park located not from where I live is full of dogs running around with different degrees of vigour, and owners running after them with various levels of stamina.

Continue reading ‘“I love my dog/cat/budgie etc as much I love you”’

Parental leave, part time work and policy

Published
by
Mark
4 months, 3 weeks ago
in Economics, Industrial Relations, Parenting, Policy, Relationships and Women
. 37 Comments

Two papers released today probably won’t be the proverbial barbeque stoppers of Howardian memory on work/life balance, but they’re raising very interesting issues and questions which have the potential to reframe debates of central importance to, well, all of us. The Productivity Commission’s Issues Paper on Parental Support has now been released. It’s a very good exercise in recognising the differential impacts of decision making on people with different circumstances and basing policy on rethinking its objectives. There’s also an extremely useful appendix summarising what’s known about the scope and impact of policy in this area in Australia and overseas. It’s certainly true to say that Australia is one of the few major developed nations not to have in place any overall framework for parental support, but that doesn’t mean we should rush to formulate policy on the run, but rather that we have the chance to get it right. The Commission is inviting submissions in response to the paper, and I’m also glad to see that it’s welcoming individual submissions on personal experiences of time taken out of work for parental reasons.

It’s also worth observing that the PC provides data which demonstrate that access to paid parental leave is currently a privilege largely enjoyed by full time employees and those employees in higher income brackets. It ought not to be seen as a “bonus” but rather as a right that enhances and underpins equitable access to employment and career progression and job satisfaction, and should thus be guarenteed to all. The Commission also notes the positive labour market effects and productivity gains for employers which could flow from a broader extension of paid parental leave.

Having worked in the area of advising corporations on staff retention and equity issues myself, I’m well aware that one of the options often taken by professional or skilled parents (and particularly women) - part time work - has often been something which is viewed as an inconvenience to employers (although in the case of less skilled workers, it’s lauded as necessary flexibility). Continue reading ‘Parental leave, part time work and policy’

“You really look like Angelina Jolie”

Published
by
Darlene
4 months, 3 weeks ago
in Levity and Relationships
. 66 Comments

angelina_jolie.jpg

Was Angelina Jolie on a tram in Melbourne tonight being chatted up by a bloke who wasn’t Brad Pitt?

The success of Internet dating sites, speed dating, singles events and books that let people know how to pick up indicates that finding love these days isn’t such an easy task. For any single gentlemen reading this blog who are looking for a lady love (excuse my heterosexism and sexism) but aren’t sure how to go about it, I am happy to pass on something I heard on the tram tonight. Yes, one young chap managed to get the telephone number of a fellow passenger/female by loudly uttering such lines as:

Wow, you’re thirty, I wouldn’t have spotted that. You could be a model.

You really look like Angelina Jolie.

Yes, he actually got her phone number with those lines, so if he can do it you can too. Perhaps “Tram Romeo” has started something beautiful, but if he’s anything like some of the men mentioned in an article on The New York Times website she better read the “right” books. The item by Rachel Donadio is an interesting insight into a rather peculiar form of snobbery:
Continue reading ‘“You really look like Angelina Jolie”’

White flight

Published
by
tigtog
5 months, 3 weeks ago
in Education, Immigration, Indigenous, Parenting, Politics, Race and Relationships
. 152 Comments

That’s today’s big story in the SMH: the growing trend over the last decade, in NSW especially, whereby white parents choose not to send their kids to the local public school, particularly for high school education, meaning the public schools have become predominated by indigenous and immigrant children of Middle Eastern descent. The trend has also started to affect selective public high schools on Sydney’s North Shore with large numbers of Asian children. School principals are expressing grave concerns for the implications this trend holds for social cohesion.

One principal also made the point that it’s not only private schools that are contributing to the segregation of children:

Social cohesion was under threat, Dr Reid said, from increasing segregation in education according to race, class and academic achievement.

Public schools were becoming increasingly selective on the basis of academic achievement, sporting and artistic ability.

“We have increased segregation inside public schools into the smart and the dumb, the sports capable and the creative. It’s that crude,” Dr Reid said. “It has implications for social cohesion. What do we do if kids are no longer growing up together?”

I grew up attending several schools because my dad had a public service job that meant we moved around. My favourite school was in Newcastle, in an area of high immigrant population, where I was surrounded by a bunch of non-Anglo-Celtic Europeans, considered at the time to be very non-U. Certainly I found that those schools were better both academically and socially than several others I attended which were virtually wall-to-wall WASPs, largely because the kids came from so many different backgrounds that ethnicity became a very low-level concern: we pretty much just rubbed along. I have very little reason to believe that things would be that much different these days, even though the ethnicity of the immigrants considered most non-U has certainly changed. So why the changed perception, especially in Sydney, that if one doesn’t private educate one’s kids one mustn’t really care for their future advancement, and certainly not for their current safety?
Continue reading ‘White flight’