Sex In The Public Square - voyeurism - Comments

Feeling Paul

Lou FCD — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 15:35:13 -0700

Or at least feeling your pain in the first paragraph. What's a non-ogled exhibitionist to do? Very very tragic.

The only solution I've personally been able to come up with thus far involves a trip to the police station, which my wife has decided is grounds for divorce. She has no sense of humor.

Seriously, I'm really not good with the government at any level deciding what's going on in my head or whether it's good for me or society. I'm with you on shaming the shameful loudly and publicly. It's unacceptable behavior that needs to be ended, but it shouldn't be illegal.

"Counselor, what's the charge?"

"He looked at her 2 seconds longer than allowed by law."

Not a place I want us to go.

Laws, Laws, Laws

Paul — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 14:47:57 -0700

I'll preface this with the assertion that it’s extremely rare for me to be publicly ogled. I think it’s due to women ogling men less than men ogling women. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, just not to me. It also doesn’t help that at any given place there are way more attractive men around than me. Being the exhibitionist I am, this is very tragic. When I do get ogled, it’s usually by another man. Being hungry for the attention, I eat it up.

But I digress. I don’t know what it’s like to be harassed. I don’t know what it’s like to feel powerless to street harassment or "unconsensual voyeurism." But what bothers me is the government involvement. Government telling me what’s acceptable. I want to make the decision. I want the woman to be empowered enough to say, “hey, what the F are you doing”. Embarrass the person and not feel embarrassed. I want the passer bys to say something. We all turn a blind eye. “Thank got he’s not bothering me” or “Please don’t look over here.” When we let government step in and take care of us, then we have to play by their rules. The government becomes our parents and they have the keys to the car on a Friday night.

Mirror distortion?

Elizabeth — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 14:20:35 -0700

Or might it actually trigger homophobic reactions precisely because there is a subconscious level of identification that some straight guys would find so threatening to their sense of sexual identity that a distortion -- a revulsion instead of a mirroring -- would be produced?

Mirror neurons and porn

Elizabeth — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 08:06:47 -0700

It's fascinating, really. Zelda notes that our brains think we're playing each role that we watch, and I remember a therapist once telling me the same thing about interpreting dreams: that the each character in a dream represents some component of the dreamer. So clearly our brains think of us in more complex ways than our consciousness allows us to acknowledge.

Still, in terms of watching porn in light of the mirror neuron findings, it seems like our brains must do a lot of extrapolating between the firing of the neurons and the interpretation of our sexual/emotional reaction to what we see. I'm thinking especially of that genre of visual porn that is shot from a "first person" perspective. A blow job filmed for a straight man's pleasure would show a woman sucking a man's cock, but the man would be largely invisible. Maybe his cock would be shown as the woman's mouth slid up and down on it, but most of the focus would be on her face, her mouth. The friend who loves this kind of porn explains to me that he loves it because he can really "feel" the sensations much more so than he can when watching "third person" porn. Yet he certainly wouldn't interpret his reaction as having anything to do with feeling the sensation of his own mouth moving on someone else's cock. He's only interpreting the feeling of someone else's mouth on his cock.

So what is the connection here between the firing of the mirror neurons and the "sensation" or the experience of viewing as it is interpreted by the viewer's conscious mind?

Does this mean that if I put

Patrick Till — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 22:33:51 -0700

Does this mean that if I put straight guys in front of gay porn for awhile, they will mirror gay?

Any party organizers want to chime in?

Elizabeth — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 17:51:09 -0700

TracyA, so glad to see you back! I hope we'll be seeing more of you around here! I've been thinking more about play parties since this thread was started, and it occurs to me that it would be great to hear from some party organizers: What do you do to create the kind of party you like to attend?

play parties

tracya — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 01:17:56 -0700

i suppose it's like any kind of party, very hard to put your finger on it. obviously the location, people and mood but maybe it's something more like the right alignment of the stars! or the feng shui!!!

seriously, i think having clear rules is important in play parties, so people feel like they can relax and yet not have their space violated until they are ready. people come for different reasons, some come knowing they will only watch and others come looking for action and the rest undecided. my impression is that it takes a longer amount of time for people to relax enough to actually engage and that should be taken into account during the planning.

makes me wish i had plans to go to one....i could report back!

Good play parties

Elizabeth — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 12:23:01 -0700

RC, another excellent question! I love having you around these forums!

I've been thinking a lot about my assorted play party experiences and I find myself having a hard time coming up with a "formula" that distinguishes the good ones from the not-so-good ones. One thing that does seem to be true at the play parties I've enjoyed, and less true at the one's where I've felt -- oh -- less engaged, is that at the "good ones" a wide range of sexualities has clearly been accepted. I also like best the parties where the rules are clearly posted and where respect is evident in people's interactions with each other (e.g., where I don't get touched without first being asked, and where I see lots of appreciative and respectful voyeurs instead of energy vampires).

I know this sounds vague. I think I'll step out a minute and let others jump in. I'm sure I'll be back!

So, what does make a good play party?