Tim Minchin performs Inflatable You:
Hysterical!
Apr 252011
Apr 082011
This clip cracked me up… and made me want to start watching Desperate Housewives again!
Share This Post
Aug 252010
Is it immoral to have a sexually-oriented job, such as stripper or pornography actress/actor? Is it wrong of me to enjoy having a sexually-oriented job?
Imagine giving a person the key to your home because you found him/her pretty interesting after an evening of casual chat.
Imagine allowing your co-workers to read you personal journal, including your doubts about your upcoming wedding, if willing to pay a few dollars.
Imagine posting your financial records on the internet for anyone to see — or exploit.
Imagine asking perfect strangers on the subway to inspect the infected wound on your shoulder.
Should that seem like revealing too much of yourself? Yes!
Would that invite nasty people to abuse and exploit you? Yes!
Would that be a massive failure to recognize that different relationships warrant different degrees and kinds of intimacy? Yes!
Unfortunately, many people don’t apply these basic lessons about intimacy to their sex lives.
By its very nature, sex is an intimate act, not merely physically but spiritually too. It requires exposing one’s most delicate parts to handling by another person, in pursuit of the most exquisite pleasure the human body has to offer. Sex can be an exaltation and celebration of life.
Yet sex can also be deeply degrading too, precisely due to its inherent intimacy. For example, the intimacy of sex is degrading when done with an unworthy person, e.g. someone abusive, callous, brutish, or even just dreary. It’s not enough for a sexual partner to be merely tolerable, however. The inherent intimacy of sex demands a serious bond and well-earned trust between two people. It requires a deep and mutual interest in the well-being of the other person. Without that foundation for intimacy, you might as well stay home and play with your own sex toys.
Obviously, such selectivity is precisely what sex workers — strippers, prostitutes, pornographers, etc — cannot exercise. Even if able to refuse the worst of the lot as clients, he/she engages in the most intimate of acts with merely tolerable partners. And to do that well enough to earn money, he/she must create the illusion of intimacy — meaning the pretense of concern for and trust in the other.
In so doing, the sex worker is deeply warping his/her own view of sexuality — such that the reality of sex is smutty and bestial, and the spiritual meaning of sex is mere pretense. A person who develops that view of sex closes off his/her capacity for truly deep and meaningful sexual relationships. Given the value of such relationships, I can’t but regard that as self-destructive.
That being said, I don’t condemn all sexual commerce. Instead, I celebrate what aims to enhance the experience of people seeking genuine pleasure and intimacy in sex, such as sex toys, lingerie, and erotica.
I’m sure that makes me a prude by some people’s standards, and a libertine by others. So be it!
Update: I’m now answering questions on practical philosophy and the principles of living well in my internet radio show Philosophy in Action. The Q&A broadcasts every Sunday morning at 8 am PT / 9 am MT / 10 am CT / 11 am ET. Each week, I select the most popular and interesting questions from the ongoing queue of questions. Please submit your questions, as well as vote and comment on questions that you find interesting!
If you can’t attend the live broadcast, you can listen to the episode later in the podcast archive or by subscribing to the Philosophy in Action Podcast RSS Feed:
- Enhanced M4A Feed: Subscribe in iTunes or your RSS reader
- Standard MP3 Feed: Subscribe in iTunes or your RSS reader
Share This Post
Jul 232010
Some FormSpring Questions and Answers on my life chez Hsieh:
How many prospective husbands did you have to reject before you found one who both took ideas seriously and respected your insistence on doing so?
I had two longer-term boyfriends before Paul and I began dating. My incompatibility with them was more about temperament than intellect.
Does keeping the passion alive between you and Paul come naturally for you, or does it take concentrated effort?
I don’t think those two things are mutually exclusive.
Paul and I don’t “work on our relationship.” We’re in agreement that that’s pretty much bullshit. We talk about issues as needed, but we get along so well that those conversations are short, sweet, and to the point — and rare.
However, we’re super-busy with our projects, such that we work at night and on weekends more often than not. So sometimes we have to carve out time from our projects to simply enjoy spending time together. I’m not talking just about sex, but even just time snuggling on the sofa or taking a walk or something. However, once we carve out the time, the activity in question … uh… “comes naturally.”
Did you and Paul explicitly decide to not have children?
Yes. I was more interested in kids, although ambivalent about taking the required time away from my career. However, Paul was totally opposed to kids. I’d much rather have him than kids, so I stuck with him!
Since you and Paul do not want children, would you two consider having a robot as a pet or a great helper doing tedious chores in your house?
I would love an army of servants… or robots. I’d hire a person just to do my one to two loads of laundry per week … and to make the kefir and set out my vitamins and pick up my dirty clothes off the floor and clean out my closets and wipe the mud off the dog and buy groceries and do the weekly finances and clean the goo off my mouse and refill the bird feeders and cut up raw meat for the beasts and de-worm the horses and water the trees and manage house repairs and …
Need I go on? I hate chores with a passion.
[One of these days, I'll answer the questions about how Paul and I met and married. It's a somewhat long story, so perhaps I should make it into a podcast.]
Share This Post
Jun 252010
Too damn funny: Children Exposed To Pornography May Expect Sex To Be Enjoyable.
Study: Children Exposed To Pornography May Expect Sex To Be Enjoyable
My favorite line: “[Pornography is] going to make kids think they’re doing something wrong when they find themselves in a thirty minute struggle to arouse their frigid partner, then they fall asleep with their hand in her vagina.”
Indeed, that would be a tragedy!
Share This Post
Jun 172010
Now that my podcast on finding good romantic prospects is safely in the hands of the fine people who generously pledged to make it happen, I’d like to offer it for sale to people who didn’t pledge. However, the process will be somewhat unusual, as I explain below.
First, let me tell you about the podcast. I’m very pleased with it, but it wasn’t exactly what I expected.
Most obviously, it’s ninety minutes long, rather than the promised thirty to sixty minutes. (Bonus!) Somehow, my problem is never that I don’t have enough to say. Fancy that!
More importantly, my advice in the podcast applies just as much to seeking out prospects for friendship as it does to seeking out prospects for romance. That’s because I think the best opportunities for romantic prospects come from expanding and mining your social network of friends and acquaintances, rather than seeking romance directly. So even if you’re already happily married or attached, you’re likely to find the podcast of value. Or, as Kelly Elmore said on Twitter: “It should have been entitled Social Advice for Everyone for Every Situation. 
” True!
The basic structure of podcast is as follows:
- Opening remarks
- A bit of theory:
- Types of social relationships, visualized as a target
- Major axes of compatibility in relationships
- Practical advice
- Make yourself a good prospect
- Expand your social network
- Engage with other people
- Cultivate your social skills
- Questions and answers from pledgers:
- How can a person get better at evaluating other people’s characters when meeting them?
- When should I reveal a psychological problem like bipolar disorder to someone I’m dating?
- Closing remarks
As promised, much of my advice can be put into practice at OCON, or rather, even before that.
Also, one of the themes of my podcast is that you can take rational, purposeful control over your social life, rather than relying on luck. That’s what I’ll be talking about in my course at OCON in just a few weeks.
Update: I’m now selling this podcast for $20. For details, see Podcast for Sale: Finding Good Prospects for Romance and Friendship.
As of this very moment, I’m selling the podcast, but not by the ordinary means of setting a price. Instead, I’ll be accepting or rejecting your offers.
If you want the podcast, here’s what you need to do. Fill out the form below, offering whatever you think reasonable. If your offer is satisfactory to me, then I’ll accept it. I’ll send you a link to the podcast, as well as instructions for payment. If your offer is too low, then I’ll reject it. You’ll owe me nothing, but you’ll get nothing from me.
I’m not interested in haggling. You’ll have one chance to make me a good offer. So your offer should represent your judgment of the likely worth of the podcast to you. As with the pledges, I’ll happily offer a refund if you’re unsatisfied with the podcast, provided that you explain your reasons why. Also, you’re welcome to share the podcast with members of your household — but no one else.
Why am I using this method, instead of offering the podcast at a fixed price? Basically, I want to see what the podcast is worth to you, just as I did with the pledgers. And I want to be paid on that basis.
Finally, as I mentioned when I solicited pledges, I might offer the podcast for free at some point. Originally, I thought that might be sometime this fall, but now I’ll say that it won’t be until 2011, if ever. At this point, I just don’t know what I’ll do, but I wanted to give you fair notice.
[Note: The form has been removed, see the note below.]
If you have any questions, please feel free to post them in the comments or e-mail me before making an offer.
Update: I’m now selling this podcast for $20. For details, see Podcast for Sale: Finding Good Prospects for Romance and Friendship.
Share This Post
May 192010
Some FormSpring Questions and Answers on sex and romance:
What is the best pick-up line to use on a rational woman such as your self?
Any man who would think of interacting with women in terms of “pick-up lines” wouldn’t get anywhere with me. Talk about something of substance in a lively way, then I might be interested. Overall, I’m definitely a “friendship-first” kind of gal.
More generally, I can’t imagine that I’d be even remotely interested in a total stranger pursuing me. That would actually be really off-putting: I wouldn’t think they were exercising good judgment to be interested in me purely from my looks. Plus, I’m too much of a weirdo (by conventional standards) to be interested in random guys.
Is exclusivity in a romantic relationship a reasonable expectation, or should I accept that I might be left for someone more suitable at any moment?
You need to know and ask for what you want in a relationship. If that something is sufficiently important to you, you need to end the relationship if you don’t get it.
It’s perfectly reasonable to ask for exclusivity in a relationship. I wouldn’t have it any other way, personally. More than that, I’m pretty firmly convinced that multiple partners (whether flings or affairs or polyamory) are psychologically destructive for everyone involved.
Moreover, if your partner might abandon you for something that seems better at the drop of a hat, that tells you something, namely that you’re not valued in the slightest by this person. You’re just a placeholder. That would be terribly degrading — and it would prevent you from seeking out a worthwhile relationship.
Can sexual acts be rational as versus irrational? If so, examples?
Yes.
It would be irrational to cheat on your beloved wife (or husband) with some worthless bimbo.
It would be irrational to sleep with a person you find unattractive, uninteresting, or immoral.
It would be irrational to sleep with someone just because you’re bored or drunk.
It would be irrational to sleep with a total stranger who might be diseased or psychotic.
And so on… In all of these cases, the sex would not be a value to you — and it might even be seriously damaging. That’s irrational.
I think that questioner was asking if particular sexual acts are more or less irrational than others (vice versa with the other partner objecting to them)? E.g. Anal, bondage, pegging, etc
OH.
I’d say that a sex act definitely shouldn’t endanger life, limb, or health. It shouldn’t be seriously painful. It shouldn’t be degrading. It should be consensual.
I’d also say that it shouldn’t express a twisted psychology… but that’s somewhat harder to describe, except that such sexual acts often violate the above conditions.
I don’t see any inherent problem with anal, light bondage, sex toys, or whatnot. If you’re into them, use them — provided they’re not a distraction from the intimacy of sex. If not, then don’t bother with them.
Does morality apply to dating? In other words, is it possible for one’s choice of a romantic partner to be morally wrong?
Yes. It would be morally wrong to date Hilter, even if he brings you the nicest flowers.
Other (less extreme) examples are pretty easy to imagine. Take a look at my earlier Q&A on sex.
Share This Post
Mar 032010
I was highly amused by this recent question and answer from Miss Manners. First, the question:
Dear Miss Manners:My partner and I have been having a disagreement recently about the etiquette of having sex when staying in other people’s homes. I feel that it is extremely rude and should be avoided at all costs, while she feels that it is expected and normal, particularly if we are staying with friends/family for more than a couple of nights.
I asked my sister and her husband what their views are, and my sister informed me that they plan to have regular sex when they stay with us in our new home. She also informed me that other visitors would expect to do the same.
As our new home has my first-ever guest bedroom, which up until now I had been looking forward to having occupied by friends and family, I would be grateful if you would help clarify whether guests should have sex in guest bedrooms, and if this is conditional upon the relationship and length of stay.
Wow. Just ponder that for a moment… The man is so disturbed by the thought of his guests engaged in sexual acts with a spouse behind closed doors in his home that he’s now reluctant to invite them to stay. If that’s not prudery, then I’m not sure what is!
Care to guess what Miss Manners’ reply is? (It’s rather amusing.) She writes:
It is conditional on their not making it known to others in the house, before, during or after the event. Your sister has already violated this, but Miss Manners acknowledges that she can claim you provoked her.
That’s right. People with manners do not foist their sex lives on uninterested third parties. They don’t get it on in their friend’s kitchen, just because they happen to feel a bit lusty. However, what people do in private — including in guest bedrooms — is purely their own business. Just don’t break the furniture or wake the neighbors.
Share This Post
Feb 142010
While I’ve never been much enamored of Valentine’s Day, I was feeling rather amorous (in my usual silly way) this year. So here’s a quick Valentine-O-Rama:
Share This Post
Oct 282009
Hooray! I’ve just posted Episode #20. It’s a bit of an experiment for me, as you’ll hear.
In this episode, I discuss the error of expecting a spouse or lover to notice some change about you — and the proper approach.
Listen Now
11:08 minutes
Download This Episode
- Enhanced M4A File (5.4 MB)
- Standard MP3 File (5.2 MB)
