S. F. OLIVEIRA (2014) ZXT - Collection of Articles. http://collectionofarticles.weebly.com/ © profelipe ™
Antidepressant and Sexuality © profelipe ™
Prozac and Zoloft are for those people in crisis (or depression). The problem is that one of the side effects of anti-depressants reach sexuality.
Prozac was once known as "happiness pill". However, it means less interest in sex. But it is not impotence.
In fact, it means a difficult ejaculation during sexual intercourse.
Some men have always had panic premature ejaculation and thus to disappoint their partners. Zoloft solves this problem.
Taoism is an old theory. It is about sex too. Jacques Lacan (p. 156-157):
“In Taoism, for example - you do not know what this is, very few know, but I, I practiced, practiced the texts it is clear (…) it is necessary not to have ejaculation to be fine.”
Erection and enjoyment are the realization of a natural instinct in humans.
Humans have problems with it in the civilizing process. They think too much. There are many social rules. Emotion is not the main subject anymore.
The result is the frustration. No sex means stress in the social relations.
Taoism (again) may have the answer.
“[It] advocated a ‘let-it-be’ approach to wordly affairs, a way of life characterized by attunement to nature and the cultivation of quietude and inner peace.” (Charles Guinon, The Good Life, p. 1)
These are good advices.
Brazil 2014 [by profelipe]
Brazilian diplomacy was always respected because it was wise and it was the opinion of an important country that avoided wars.
It changed after 2003.
The government of PT (“Workers’ Party”) chose new friends in the international politics as Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez (and now Nicolás Maduro) from Venezuela, Castro (Cuba), Evo Morales (Bolivia) and other dictators.
In 2009, “while visiting Libya, Lula did not even miss the opportunity to call Libya's President Gadhafi a close friend whose "great advice" he highly appreciates.”*
Some dictators are now dead but it did not change the coalition with these kind of countries. President Dilma (after Lula), for example, avoided to criticize the serious mistakes of Vladimir Putin (Russia) or Bashar al-Assad (Siria).
In her project reelection, President Dilma made it worse because she created an imaginary war between the north and the south of Brazil (or between “the rich and the poor”). She won the elections because she thought it was necessary to apply “the hate speech”. The country is divided now.
The mistakes of governments of PT (Lula and Dilma) were in the coalition with dictators (international politics) and now the choice of “the hate speech” dividing their own nation.
Choices [by profelipe]
What gives you reason to live? Religion, money, sex, power?
What life means to you?
First, you need to choose: men are the subject of the history in the material world or life is given for human being.
“Il carattere empirico, como mero impulso naturale, è in sé irrazionale.”(Schopenhauer L’Arte de Essere Felici, Milano, Adelphi, 1997, p. 32)
There are other questions here. Nature or society? Rationality or irrationality? What is reality today?
We live on a “rational society”. The majority believes money is the most important thing in the world. It is a capitalist world. It is also an ideology. Karl Marx was right when he wrote in 1848:
“Die Bourgeoisie hat durch ihre Exploitation des Weltmarkts die Produktion und Konsumtion aller Länder kosmopolitisch gestaltet.”(Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei, Voltmedia, p. 18)
Karl Marx made some predictions too. However, how could scientists say what would happen in the future?Ernest Mandel thought that Marx was right. Mandel wrote in 1978:
“Following the social explosion initiated in the Western world by May ’68 in France, the severe generalizedrecession of 1974-75 has confirmed Marx‘s basic analysis. (…) The only possible remedy for economic crises of over-production and social crises of class struggle is the elimination of capitalism and class society. No other solution will be found, either in theory or in practice. This awe-inspiring predictionmade by Marx has been borne out by empirical evidence ever since ‘Capital’ was written. There is no sign that it will be contradictedby current or future developments.” (Introduction of Capital, London: Penguin, 1978, p, 79)
Ernest Mandel was right about the crisis in 1968 and 1974-1975. But what happens next? There was the end of Soviet Union. The communist world was in crisis. People have chosen the return of the capitalism after 1991. It was not the prediction of Karl Marx.
Francis Fukuyama thought that the communist crisis meant the end of the history. For him, it was the correct choice because liberal world was the best for humanity. However, Fukuyama was wrong. What about the misery of the majority? Viviane Forrester was also against the ideas of Fukuyama:
“Et il n’est pas question aujourd’hui d’une ‘fin de histoire’, comme on a tenté de nous en persuader; mais d’un déchaînement de l’Histoire, au contraire, comme jamais agitée, manipulée commo jamais, dans un sens unique , vers une ‘pensée unique’ axée, malgré l’élégante efficacité de certains camouflages, vers le profit.”(L’Horreur Économique, p. 131)
What about now? It depends on the point of view of each person. In other words, Michel Foucault was right when he wrote “L’homme est une invention dont l’archéologie de notre pensée montre aisément la data récente. Et peut-être la fin prochaine.”(Les Mots e Les Choses, p. 398) or men are still subject of the history.
Michel Foucault was wrong. It was an illusion to believe in the end of the history as it was told by Francis Fukuyama.
It made sense when Jacques-Emile Miriel wrote: “Aprés quelques décennies passés sous le signe de ‘la mort de l’homme’, le travail qui s’ouvre aujourd’hui à la philosophie semble être de redonner une place plus essentielle à l’être humain.”(Magazine Littéraire, n° 394 p. 89)
It is always important to remember the thought of Jean-Paul Sartre. In other words, the question is not aboutreligion. The point is:“(…) il faut que l’homme se retrouve lui-même et se persuade que rien ne peut le sauver de lui-même, fût-ce une preuve valable de l’existence de Dieu.”(Jean-Paul Sartre, L’existentialisme est un humanism. Paris: Gallimard, p. 77-78)
Men are responsible for their choices and their acts. There is not time to regret. It is here and now.
Crisis and 2010 © profelipe ™
I’m not in the mood. I know few people read what I write. So, today, I’ll write in English, anyway.
Life’s not good. It’s just a long way home… Of course, in the end, the home is the death.
Why are we here? Basically, because sex is good and people (parents) don’t think about the future.
Well, they “think”: fuck the future, my pleasure is now. The problem is: nine months after that night, “the future” arrives and it´s you.
As a child, everything’s new. Soon, you realize the new is not so good. It’s a bad start. After that, things get worse, much worse…
You wait: “well, someday, it’s gonna be better”. It never does.
So, why are you still here?
Some people are afraid of dying. They imagine they’ll go to hell. If they believe in it, probably they deserve to go to that place.
Others think on their children… Well, YOU made them. They didn’t ask anything. It was just a saturday night thing. And you called it “love”. Please.
Some people are still in this world to make a hell of the other’s life. They like to destroy the hopes and the pleasures of everybody. They love to make you suffer… This planet is for them: they hate and they lie. They don’t care about anything.
And you feel guilty. You feel pain. You don’t know why you are here. You don’t know the meaning of life. And, yet, it’s all your fault!
Someone said God’s a adult’s imaginary friend. We need to believe in something: God, love, future… anything…
But it’s just our imagination. Life makes no sense. However, it hurts. The pain is real.
There’s a Rolling Stones’ song called “waiting on a friend.”
The friend never comes. At last, you realize that it is the death. Good news, finally.
Everybody dies. The problem is that the future (with our “friend”) never comes. It’s boring…
Dreams © profelipe ™
Timothy Leary and William Burroughs were into drugs. Kurt Cobain and other musicians too. There was a “dream machine” on Cobain’s suicide. It was a thing “patended by William Burroughs collaborator Brion Gysin. A dream machine is a cylinder with light source inside that routes, causing the light to flash 10.56 times per second, which resonates with the brain, causing alpha waves to be produced and inducing a trance-like state.” (Vox, November 1995, p. 28) Basically, it works as a drug and it may cause suicide. However, as the free use of the tea of “santo daime” in Brazil – for some people, it’s drug -, the United States Government was not against the dream machines. For the American Food and Drug Administration, “they posed no danger to the user.” (Vox, November 1995, p. 28)
Drug and law depend on each country. Dream machine and santo daime’s tea make people feel different. Their vision of reality is like a fantasy. That’s what a drug normally does.
If you take cocaine, for example, it’s wrong and against the law, but if you use dream machine or santo daime’s tea, there’s no problem. Alcohol and cigarretes are bad.. what about the laws?
To take drugs on the pubs in Rio de Janeiro, New York or Amsterdam will be not the same thing. If you are in Brazil or U.S.A., you’ll have problems with the police.
Law is not based on truth.
The government depends on corporations. Nobody cares about healthy. It’s just business.
Death [by profelipe]
Every person who has suicidal tendencies, of course, has a plan for his [her] own suicide. This does not mean that something terrible will happen. This is only a possibility.
Moreover, even those who are not depressed and never thought of something like suicide is certainly capable of committing such an act.
If the person is suicidal, it is necessary to think of others: not in order to change the project, but to evaluate some details that would be important for family and friends.
L’Wren Scott, for example, made a will in 2013. In the act of suicide, however, she did not leave a note explaining why she made that choice. It was not necessary.
In fact, people – family, friends, neighbors and acquaintances – know that there was something serious for such a radical attitude. The culprits would be identified. It would not mean punishment
Before the act, the sufferer should take into consideration that those who love him need to say goodbye.
Disappear simply represent a disregard for the people who (in one way or another) were important for this person.
Some kind of desire – something like wanting to be cremated or buried in another city – can be commented informally with people you trust or it can leave explicit in the text of the will.
There must be a ritual for those who stay. It is reasonable to experience the pain of loss. The body, in this sense, becomes a key symbol.
The death is unknown and therefore can not be seen as a choice.
Who chooses suicide does not choose death. This person rejects life (more specifically, the pain and suffering in moment).
It would not be fair to judge who does this type of option for two main reasons: first, anyone, anytime, can do the same thing, and second, to judge or speak ill of someone who is no longer here, it would be more than unethical, it would be cowardice.
Fear [by profelipe]
On a movie called “Red Dragon”, a psycho killer , Dr. Lecter, says: “the fear is our instrument”. If you see fear on the other person, it would be easier to control the situation. Is it really true?
Well, on “the making of ” from another movie – “The Butterfly Effect”, John D. Biroc talks about the chaos theory and says:
“The fear of chaos invites more chaos”.
In his opinion, the answer would be stay with the “here and now”.
Fear is about what could happen on the future. It is about what does not exist yet.
We live on the present time. When it is hard to face the problems, normally we think on past or on future.
We try to remember the good moments. Sometimes, they didn’t really happen that way, but, for us, it is not important, because we need those moments to escape from some trouble on the present day.
When we think on past or future, we “forget” to live the present time. It is a choice.
We don’t control our lives. We don’t know why we are here. We know nothing about death. It means fear is part of human life. Believe or not, we need to know how to live with that kind of emotion.
Freud and XXI Century [by profelipe]
We live on the XXI century and people don’t talk about their depression, because they think who’s called “normal” may think they are weak or crazy. It’s a “invisible” disease: people feel pain and it’s the main cause of suicide in the world.
However, after Prozac’s pills and the theories of Freud, Lacan and the history of madness of Foucault, there are still people who believe depression doesn’t even exist. Normally, it’s said it’s a women’s disease. Maybe because it’s a emotional one and men are supposed to be into to the reason. Women talk. Men don’t. Women can be weak. Men can’t show their feelings. They say these are facts. Maybe. It’s a ideology too. People believe in that.
If you “read” a men’s magazine – as Playboy -, normally you will find articles about cars and pictures of naked women. If you read a Cosmopolitan or Elle, probably it will be easier to find an article about depression. For example, an old article was published on Elle’s United Kingdom – August 1993:
“Depression is not ‘all in the mind’, or a sign of weak character. Sufferers can go from what doctors describe as the cognitive stage, where the bleakness of their feelings seems impossible to shake off, to the biological stage (…).” (p. 141)
Jan Scott, still on the article, said that “in cases of depression with biological symptoms, it is unlikely that these can be simply willed away. The symptoms arise from an imbalance in the body’s chemistry, and correcting that imbalance (which is the function of the tablets) is necessary to recovery the process.” (p. 142) On other words, psycotherapy would not be enough to help a person.
There are two serious problems about it. One, the patients normally don’t like to talk about their depression. Two, family and friends think it does not really exists, because they don’t suffer “that kind of feeling”. That’s why so many people choose the suicide.
There’s not only one solution. Psycotherapy helps. Family and friends can talk to the patients. If there is “a biological stage”, it will be necessary the anti-depressants. And, the most important sympton, if the patients talk about suicide, everybody should take it seriously.
Greed [by profelipe]
Money is the central theme of the two films that deal with “Wall Street” (with Michael Douglas). The success of the first was surprising because the main message (the character that should be seen as a villain) was “greed is good”.
Many people felt identified with errors, with acts that were once considered sins.
We could not deny that the Hollywood production have an important influence on the daily lives of people worldwide.
It is not good the hegemony of bourgeois values such as greed, usury and ostentation.
These values are related to slavery or unacceptable punishments.
Workers are required to find “targets” to receive benefits. When this does not happen (which would be common), the punishments are the answer.
The “targets” depend on the future. So, how could you ensure that occur, for example, a 15% increase in sales and profits from the operation of certain officers of the company (regardless of both domestic and international economic environment, the decisions of governments and regulatory agencies rates influencing financial market)?
Basically, besides burdening workers and generate anxiety, the future has become an excuse to control and punish the masses of workers.
Life and Death [by profelipe]
People in the western world , avoid thinking about death as if it were somehow guarantee immortality.
“Thinking about death, far from being a morbid attitude, helps us to live better.” *
Death is a certainty. It can happen anytime.
If a person knew that those were the last days of her life, she probably would act differently with family and friends. She would value more quotidian details of her own life.
The rush of day-to -day is used as an excuse to not to think about life. Escaping reflection does not mean that death will not come. It can hardly be the answer.
Problematize life may also not lead to a solution. However, the knowledge helps to make better choices in the here and now. It avoids regrets.
Making mistakes in the present and suffering in the future because of this error it means wasting life time twice. This time does not repeat. As it was said by The Rolling Stones, “time waits for no one.”
Life is one and it is here and now. Therefore, it should be fun and enjoyable.
MAN AND WOMAN © profelipe ™
The woman is educated to make things difficult for men. She wants a relationship, but she never say "yes" immediately.
It is always a difficulty. A boy supports all charms and requirements - flowers, delays, alleged headaches, jealousy and so on. He keeps the focus on your goal: intercourse. It is a matter of hormones.
On the other hand, satisfied his sexual instinct, he loses interest in that girl.
He wants more sex, but he needs new girls. In other words, he needs different girls. In this sense, he will never be satisfied.
A man can be married to the most beautiful woman in the world, but he often wishes a girl he never owned.
A man will make everything to make sex to a girl. If it is done, she is not important anymore.
This explains why a man who is dating a beautiful woman is capable of being unfaithful with someone that would be considered ugly.
There is a movie called "Trop Belle Pour Toi" ("Too Beautiful To Him"). Gérard Depardieu is married to a beautiful, smart and wealthy woman. At the same time, he keeps an affair with another woman that represents the opposite of conventional beauty.
This is the masculine nature.
But, some people would say, "there are married men for decades that have never been unfaithful". Yes, it is true only if you define infidelity as a "real" sexual act with another woman.
Basically, man always looks at a beautiful woman. He can deny it, but if she gets naked in front of him, his body will tell something else.
Is it sexism? Probably.
However, it is human nature too.
Men [by profelipe]
The woman is educated to make things difficult. They never say “yes” immediately. It is always a difficulty.
When man is younger, he supports all the charms and requirements – flowers, delays, alleged headaches, jealousy and so on. He keeps the focus on your goal – making sex with her.
On the other hand, when he satisfy his sexual instinct, he usually loses interest. He wants more sex, but he needs another girl. In other words, he needs different girls. In this sense , he will never be satisfied.
This explains why a man who is dating a beautiful woman and he is capable of being unfaithful with another that would be considered ugly.
There is a movie, called “Trop Belle Pour Toi”, when the character of Gérard Depardieu, who is married to a beautiful woman , smart, rich, and he has an affair with another would represent the opposite of conventional beauty.
This is the masculine nature . But, some people would say, “there are married men for decades that have never been unfaithful.” Yes, it is true if it is considered infidelity only “real intercourse” with another woman.
However, the man always looks at a beautiful woman. He denies it, but if she gets naked in front of him , his body will tell you something else.
Some people call it “male nature”.
Myths © profelipe ™
Probably, the best time of a girl is between 15 and 20 years (it is about beauty and attraction towards men). Lolita is one of the books about it.
A young girl starts to feel the power of her presence.
A young girl starts to look for the “prince charming” She dreams about a good marriage and children.
Some people would say it is not true about modern women. However, it is not that simple. Everybody wants to be loved.
The problem begins when someone depends on another person to be happy.
Getting older means more problems.
Men live a midlife crisis when they reach 50 years. On this moment, they want the impossible: they want to be young again. They try to look young. They do thing as buying sports cars, going to academies and dating young women. They also believe in “the power of Viagra”.
Of course none of this solves the unavoidable. Youth is past. Death is near. Time waits for no one (The Rolling Stones).
Time is a problem for women too. Their crisis is about 30 years old (Balzac). Men prefer younger girls. Men want “Lolitas”.
Life is not easy. Problems become neuroses (Freud).
Everyone knows an alienated person who insists believe in fantasies (read Karl Marx). It is not the answer. It means serious problems on the future.
Remember: pain is part of life. Everybody has crisis and problems. The question is whether the person can perceive them or not. The myth of Plato's cave remains.
The History of My Life © profelipe ™
I was married until June 2006. Divorce.
I thought I was too old for the night life. At the time, some students asked me to go to the clubs and I realized I was wrong.
In fact, there was no age for fun at night (the examples of Mick Jagger and Hugh Hefner could confirm this thesis).
I knew the night (before). It seemed (2006), apparently, that it had not changed much. I was wrong and I lived some negative consequences to my new phase.
I met girls, I made new friends and went to nightclubs and bars. I had love affairs. Basically, I lived everything anyone would expect from the fun nights in any city. There were also problems and crises. After all, nothing is perfect.
As a historian, I try to think my own life “setting phases”.
The first was between 2006 and 2007. It was the beginning.
Then came a much better period between 2008 and 2010.
Ironically, it was exactly in the phase I started my sabbatical. Then I was free to go out everynight, everyday: different girls in different bars.
The nightclubs of the period - Vitorios, Lounge, Hits, Zara, Aquarius and Mambo Jambo (for example) - no longer exist in the city of Uberlândia.
It does not matter.
It was fantastic. There were some people in the right places at the right times.
These years (for me at least) were unforgettable.
Between July and December 2010, however, I decided to get away from everything and everyone. It was my first isolation.
It was the return to books and reflections. It was necessary to know who was who in my everyday life.
It was also a moment of disappointment.
In the first half of 2011, I had the opportunity to go out (at night) with a friend who would mark my life forever.
There were not so many meetings or conversations or beers. But there was something special in the air.
There was an unusual affinity. It was like a dream.
Everything was lived very intensely.
This period ended with her death in July 2011.
I went back to “the nights” only in August 2012.
It was a different time. There were new girls. It was a new experience.
There was less prejudice (on my part). Therefore I had more contact with people from the gay scene.
This phase (consciously) was created with an end date: December 2013.
It happened.
On Twitter, on December 27, 2013, I published the message to my best friends, "as I told before, I would be in udi (for you) until December 2013 ... Today I arrived in gyn ..."
It was the beginning of a new isolation.
More than that, something had changed.
I no longer wanted to go out with groups. I no longer wanted to have as much contact with strangers.
I adopted what I called "John Constantine style": go out alone, stay cool and be an observer.
That's how I live now.
The Night © profelipe ™
The night is over before the person leaving home.
There are problems – drinking, drugs, flirting, among others. They are just tools to justify something that was already drawn by the person.
Sadness, frustration and rejection are part of this process (joy and satisfaction too). It depends on the state of mind of each one.
There are people who drink or commit other excesses to forget everyday problems or something more serious, like a childhood trauma. It does not work. They will be worse in the late evening.
Some people speak in “moral hangover”, but it can be more complicated. In case of any trauma, people will face during sleep everything they wanted to forget (in terrible nightmares that seem increasingly real).
In fact, attempting to escape the unconscious does not work. The pain produced is so intense that it leads to some people in choosing something previously unthinkable (as suicide).
All this can become a cycle of self-destruction. The photos produced for social networking (with beautiful people and smiles) do not work anymore. Staying home – watching TV and eating – can be worse.
What about the self-esteem?
The problem is not only about physical appearance.
Emotion can not be controlled and the fails – hidden in the unconscious – insist on returning to annoy, especially in moments of weakness.
There is no solution.
Some people would say that the time would be the best answer. Maybe. But neither it solve the malaise of the human condition.
Truth and Religion [by profelipe]
The truth will not set you free. Nothing can save you. Jean-Paul Sartre was right:
“il faut que l’homme se retrouve lui-même et se persuade que rien ne peut le sauver de lui-même, fût-ce une preuve valable de l’existence de Dieu.” (Gallimard, p. 77-78)
The problem is not the existence of God or not. It is not about truth either.
The man borns and dies. He lives in a material world. However, he knows there’s something else. The question is what. In fact, he can’t know because he’s just human. The power of religion comes from here: the unknown.
The man depends on nature. Nature depends on the sun. Man knows it. To live better means to understand the nature. It depends on the movements of earth, which it’s in relation with the sun.
The answer is in the sky: sun and stars. What’s called astrology helps the knowledge of the man about nature and about his living in this planet.
It helps to build the religions. They gave power to a minority. Men didn’t find the answer of life or God or existence, but they found the way to control other men.
Religion became ideology and it gave power to a minority to control the majority. Religion’s still there with other ideologies and their instruments, such as: school, politics and midia.
Nowadays, people don’t mind about the meaning of life. They care about money and how they can get it and, at the same time, they can control the others.
People wear masks of ideolgy to get what they want. Nothing’s clear. Everything became a game. The intention is not to understand life or God. It’s simply to get richer and to control the society. That’s it.
Women [by profelipe]
The night is over before the person leaving home.
There are problems – drinking, drugs, flirting, among others. They are just tools to justify something that was already drawn by the person. Sadness, frustration and rejection are part of this process (joy and satisfaction too). It depends on the state of mind of each one.
There are people who drink or commit other excesses to forget everyday problems or something more serious, like a childhood trauma. It does not work. They will be worse in the late evening. Some people speak in “moral hangover”, but it can be more complicated. In case of any trauma, people will face during sleep everything they wanted to forget (in terrible nightmares that seem increasingly real).
In fact, attempting to escape the unconscious does not work. The pain produced is so intense that it leads to some people in choosing something previously unthinkable (as suicide).
All this can become a cycle of self-destruction. The photos produced for social networking (with beautiful people and smiles) do not work anymore. Staying home – watching TV and eating – can be worse.
What about the self-esteem?
The problem is not only about physical appearance. Emotion can not be controlled and the fails – hidden in the unconscious – insist on returning to annoy, especially in moments of weakness. There is no solution. Some people would say that the time would be the best answer. Maybe. But neither it solve the malaise of the human condition.
NEW WORLD AND OLD PROBLEMS [by profelipe]
What gives you a reason to live? It sounds as an old song. But, seriously, what really gives you a reason to live?
Your job and your lifestyle? Think:
(…) no one in Britain is feeling particularly secure about their jobs right now. I was recently on holiday with a friend, a features editor at a glossy title, when she got a text from a friend within the company saying how sorry she was about the closure of that magazine. Between ordering breakfast and our eggs arriving, she’d become jobless.*
It is the reality nowadays. No job, no money, no sex? Well, you can be rich and you will never be sure about the feelings of any person. It is hard. But think again. Fake orgasms. What about sex and power? Well…
"Many people avoid using words during sex because words of desire make them feel too naked and exposed. I can feel that my lover's touch makes me hot, but if I say to him, 'your touch makes me hot,' now I am sure that he knows, and now I am more vulnerable. My words give him power over me, power that comes from knowing his seduction has been successful, from knowing that I want him."**
People worry with the thoughts of the others. People like power. Therefore, they use seduction and sex to get the attention of another person. Today there is a "lad culture":
“To dismantle "lad culture" and minimise the negative effect it has on students, the girls who are shh-ed in class, the links to boys' depression and suicide, the violence, the answer is to build and highlight alternative cultures. To encourage students to drink and kiss in places that don't advertise with posters of tits. Just because the problem is serious doesn't mean the solution must be dry.”***
However, the answer is not so simple. It is a complex social problem. There is all kind of violence against women. Some people use sexism as the answer, but it is wrong:
“‘Boys will be boys’, explained an American prosecutor to the mother of a five-year-old rape victim last week, and suddenly everything was OK. Wasn't it. Boys, silly boys, with their rape and their evil and the dominant harassment gene that they carry with them in their low-slung pockets and shaven DNA.”***¹
DNA and ideology. Youth with no jobs. Fashion. Girls want to show their bodies. They like to seduce. They like modern cars and expensive gifts. How can boys (without jobs) satisfy the wishes of the young ladies? When did all this started? After World War II, people wanted freedom and pleasure.
“(…) post-war fashions were to do best minimize the secondary sexual characteristics which distinguished women form men visibly, by cutting and eventually cropping traditionally long hair, and making their chests look as flat as was physically possible. Like the short skirts, the abandoned corsets, the new-found ease of movement, all these were signs of, and calls for, freedom.”***²
They wanted a new way of life. Beatnik movement. Rock and roll. Sexual revolution. Feminism. The world changed. There was a personal computer in 1976. Internet. Life was not the same anymore. However, it is still the law of the capital. It means the economic side is the most important. Technology was used to cut jobs. Homeless and poverty were not problems only in the third world countries. Yes, life changed but it did not mean good news for the majority.
(*)Anna Hart The new ambition: the generation redefining their careers. The Telegraph, 16-03-2014.(**)Barbara De Angelis, em 1995, no seu livro: "Real Moments for Lovers" (apud, James R. Petersen, Playboy, September 1996, p. 42.
(***)Eva Wiseman. How can we curb laddism? The Observer, 2 March2014.http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/mar/02/how-can-we-curb-laddism
(***¹)Eva Wiseman. How can we curb laddism? The Observer, 2 March2014.http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/mar/02/how-can-we-curb-laddism
(***²) Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, p. 217-218.
Prozac and Zoloft are for those people in crisis (or depression). The problem is that one of the side effects of anti-depressants reach sexuality.
Prozac was once known as "happiness pill". However, it means less interest in sex. But it is not impotence.
In fact, it means a difficult ejaculation during sexual intercourse.
Some men have always had panic premature ejaculation and thus to disappoint their partners. Zoloft solves this problem.
Taoism is an old theory. It is about sex too. Jacques Lacan (p. 156-157):
“In Taoism, for example - you do not know what this is, very few know, but I, I practiced, practiced the texts it is clear (…) it is necessary not to have ejaculation to be fine.”
Erection and enjoyment are the realization of a natural instinct in humans.
Humans have problems with it in the civilizing process. They think too much. There are many social rules. Emotion is not the main subject anymore.
The result is the frustration. No sex means stress in the social relations.
Taoism (again) may have the answer.
“[It] advocated a ‘let-it-be’ approach to wordly affairs, a way of life characterized by attunement to nature and the cultivation of quietude and inner peace.” (Charles Guinon, The Good Life, p. 1)
These are good advices.
Brazil 2014 [by profelipe]
Brazilian diplomacy was always respected because it was wise and it was the opinion of an important country that avoided wars.
It changed after 2003.
The government of PT (“Workers’ Party”) chose new friends in the international politics as Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez (and now Nicolás Maduro) from Venezuela, Castro (Cuba), Evo Morales (Bolivia) and other dictators.
In 2009, “while visiting Libya, Lula did not even miss the opportunity to call Libya's President Gadhafi a close friend whose "great advice" he highly appreciates.”*
Some dictators are now dead but it did not change the coalition with these kind of countries. President Dilma (after Lula), for example, avoided to criticize the serious mistakes of Vladimir Putin (Russia) or Bashar al-Assad (Siria).
In her project reelection, President Dilma made it worse because she created an imaginary war between the north and the south of Brazil (or between “the rich and the poor”). She won the elections because she thought it was necessary to apply “the hate speech”. The country is divided now.
The mistakes of governments of PT (Lula and Dilma) were in the coalition with dictators (international politics) and now the choice of “the hate speech” dividing their own nation.
Choices [by profelipe]
What gives you reason to live? Religion, money, sex, power?
What life means to you?
First, you need to choose: men are the subject of the history in the material world or life is given for human being.
“Il carattere empirico, como mero impulso naturale, è in sé irrazionale.”(Schopenhauer L’Arte de Essere Felici, Milano, Adelphi, 1997, p. 32)
There are other questions here. Nature or society? Rationality or irrationality? What is reality today?
We live on a “rational society”. The majority believes money is the most important thing in the world. It is a capitalist world. It is also an ideology. Karl Marx was right when he wrote in 1848:
“Die Bourgeoisie hat durch ihre Exploitation des Weltmarkts die Produktion und Konsumtion aller Länder kosmopolitisch gestaltet.”(Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei, Voltmedia, p. 18)
Karl Marx made some predictions too. However, how could scientists say what would happen in the future?Ernest Mandel thought that Marx was right. Mandel wrote in 1978:
“Following the social explosion initiated in the Western world by May ’68 in France, the severe generalizedrecession of 1974-75 has confirmed Marx‘s basic analysis. (…) The only possible remedy for economic crises of over-production and social crises of class struggle is the elimination of capitalism and class society. No other solution will be found, either in theory or in practice. This awe-inspiring predictionmade by Marx has been borne out by empirical evidence ever since ‘Capital’ was written. There is no sign that it will be contradictedby current or future developments.” (Introduction of Capital, London: Penguin, 1978, p, 79)
Ernest Mandel was right about the crisis in 1968 and 1974-1975. But what happens next? There was the end of Soviet Union. The communist world was in crisis. People have chosen the return of the capitalism after 1991. It was not the prediction of Karl Marx.
Francis Fukuyama thought that the communist crisis meant the end of the history. For him, it was the correct choice because liberal world was the best for humanity. However, Fukuyama was wrong. What about the misery of the majority? Viviane Forrester was also against the ideas of Fukuyama:
“Et il n’est pas question aujourd’hui d’une ‘fin de histoire’, comme on a tenté de nous en persuader; mais d’un déchaînement de l’Histoire, au contraire, comme jamais agitée, manipulée commo jamais, dans un sens unique , vers une ‘pensée unique’ axée, malgré l’élégante efficacité de certains camouflages, vers le profit.”(L’Horreur Économique, p. 131)
What about now? It depends on the point of view of each person. In other words, Michel Foucault was right when he wrote “L’homme est une invention dont l’archéologie de notre pensée montre aisément la data récente. Et peut-être la fin prochaine.”(Les Mots e Les Choses, p. 398) or men are still subject of the history.
Michel Foucault was wrong. It was an illusion to believe in the end of the history as it was told by Francis Fukuyama.
It made sense when Jacques-Emile Miriel wrote: “Aprés quelques décennies passés sous le signe de ‘la mort de l’homme’, le travail qui s’ouvre aujourd’hui à la philosophie semble être de redonner une place plus essentielle à l’être humain.”(Magazine Littéraire, n° 394 p. 89)
It is always important to remember the thought of Jean-Paul Sartre. In other words, the question is not aboutreligion. The point is:“(…) il faut que l’homme se retrouve lui-même et se persuade que rien ne peut le sauver de lui-même, fût-ce une preuve valable de l’existence de Dieu.”(Jean-Paul Sartre, L’existentialisme est un humanism. Paris: Gallimard, p. 77-78)
Men are responsible for their choices and their acts. There is not time to regret. It is here and now.
Crisis and 2010 © profelipe ™
I’m not in the mood. I know few people read what I write. So, today, I’ll write in English, anyway.
Life’s not good. It’s just a long way home… Of course, in the end, the home is the death.
Why are we here? Basically, because sex is good and people (parents) don’t think about the future.
Well, they “think”: fuck the future, my pleasure is now. The problem is: nine months after that night, “the future” arrives and it´s you.
As a child, everything’s new. Soon, you realize the new is not so good. It’s a bad start. After that, things get worse, much worse…
You wait: “well, someday, it’s gonna be better”. It never does.
So, why are you still here?
Some people are afraid of dying. They imagine they’ll go to hell. If they believe in it, probably they deserve to go to that place.
Others think on their children… Well, YOU made them. They didn’t ask anything. It was just a saturday night thing. And you called it “love”. Please.
Some people are still in this world to make a hell of the other’s life. They like to destroy the hopes and the pleasures of everybody. They love to make you suffer… This planet is for them: they hate and they lie. They don’t care about anything.
And you feel guilty. You feel pain. You don’t know why you are here. You don’t know the meaning of life. And, yet, it’s all your fault!
Someone said God’s a adult’s imaginary friend. We need to believe in something: God, love, future… anything…
But it’s just our imagination. Life makes no sense. However, it hurts. The pain is real.
There’s a Rolling Stones’ song called “waiting on a friend.”
The friend never comes. At last, you realize that it is the death. Good news, finally.
Everybody dies. The problem is that the future (with our “friend”) never comes. It’s boring…
Dreams © profelipe ™
Timothy Leary and William Burroughs were into drugs. Kurt Cobain and other musicians too. There was a “dream machine” on Cobain’s suicide. It was a thing “patended by William Burroughs collaborator Brion Gysin. A dream machine is a cylinder with light source inside that routes, causing the light to flash 10.56 times per second, which resonates with the brain, causing alpha waves to be produced and inducing a trance-like state.” (Vox, November 1995, p. 28) Basically, it works as a drug and it may cause suicide. However, as the free use of the tea of “santo daime” in Brazil – for some people, it’s drug -, the United States Government was not against the dream machines. For the American Food and Drug Administration, “they posed no danger to the user.” (Vox, November 1995, p. 28)
Drug and law depend on each country. Dream machine and santo daime’s tea make people feel different. Their vision of reality is like a fantasy. That’s what a drug normally does.
If you take cocaine, for example, it’s wrong and against the law, but if you use dream machine or santo daime’s tea, there’s no problem. Alcohol and cigarretes are bad.. what about the laws?
To take drugs on the pubs in Rio de Janeiro, New York or Amsterdam will be not the same thing. If you are in Brazil or U.S.A., you’ll have problems with the police.
Law is not based on truth.
The government depends on corporations. Nobody cares about healthy. It’s just business.
Death [by profelipe]
Every person who has suicidal tendencies, of course, has a plan for his [her] own suicide. This does not mean that something terrible will happen. This is only a possibility.
Moreover, even those who are not depressed and never thought of something like suicide is certainly capable of committing such an act.
If the person is suicidal, it is necessary to think of others: not in order to change the project, but to evaluate some details that would be important for family and friends.
L’Wren Scott, for example, made a will in 2013. In the act of suicide, however, she did not leave a note explaining why she made that choice. It was not necessary.
In fact, people – family, friends, neighbors and acquaintances – know that there was something serious for such a radical attitude. The culprits would be identified. It would not mean punishment
Before the act, the sufferer should take into consideration that those who love him need to say goodbye.
Disappear simply represent a disregard for the people who (in one way or another) were important for this person.
Some kind of desire – something like wanting to be cremated or buried in another city – can be commented informally with people you trust or it can leave explicit in the text of the will.
There must be a ritual for those who stay. It is reasonable to experience the pain of loss. The body, in this sense, becomes a key symbol.
The death is unknown and therefore can not be seen as a choice.
Who chooses suicide does not choose death. This person rejects life (more specifically, the pain and suffering in moment).
It would not be fair to judge who does this type of option for two main reasons: first, anyone, anytime, can do the same thing, and second, to judge or speak ill of someone who is no longer here, it would be more than unethical, it would be cowardice.
Fear [by profelipe]
On a movie called “Red Dragon”, a psycho killer , Dr. Lecter, says: “the fear is our instrument”. If you see fear on the other person, it would be easier to control the situation. Is it really true?
Well, on “the making of ” from another movie – “The Butterfly Effect”, John D. Biroc talks about the chaos theory and says:
“The fear of chaos invites more chaos”.
In his opinion, the answer would be stay with the “here and now”.
Fear is about what could happen on the future. It is about what does not exist yet.
We live on the present time. When it is hard to face the problems, normally we think on past or on future.
We try to remember the good moments. Sometimes, they didn’t really happen that way, but, for us, it is not important, because we need those moments to escape from some trouble on the present day.
When we think on past or future, we “forget” to live the present time. It is a choice.
We don’t control our lives. We don’t know why we are here. We know nothing about death. It means fear is part of human life. Believe or not, we need to know how to live with that kind of emotion.
Freud and XXI Century [by profelipe]
We live on the XXI century and people don’t talk about their depression, because they think who’s called “normal” may think they are weak or crazy. It’s a “invisible” disease: people feel pain and it’s the main cause of suicide in the world.
However, after Prozac’s pills and the theories of Freud, Lacan and the history of madness of Foucault, there are still people who believe depression doesn’t even exist. Normally, it’s said it’s a women’s disease. Maybe because it’s a emotional one and men are supposed to be into to the reason. Women talk. Men don’t. Women can be weak. Men can’t show their feelings. They say these are facts. Maybe. It’s a ideology too. People believe in that.
If you “read” a men’s magazine – as Playboy -, normally you will find articles about cars and pictures of naked women. If you read a Cosmopolitan or Elle, probably it will be easier to find an article about depression. For example, an old article was published on Elle’s United Kingdom – August 1993:
“Depression is not ‘all in the mind’, or a sign of weak character. Sufferers can go from what doctors describe as the cognitive stage, where the bleakness of their feelings seems impossible to shake off, to the biological stage (…).” (p. 141)
Jan Scott, still on the article, said that “in cases of depression with biological symptoms, it is unlikely that these can be simply willed away. The symptoms arise from an imbalance in the body’s chemistry, and correcting that imbalance (which is the function of the tablets) is necessary to recovery the process.” (p. 142) On other words, psycotherapy would not be enough to help a person.
There are two serious problems about it. One, the patients normally don’t like to talk about their depression. Two, family and friends think it does not really exists, because they don’t suffer “that kind of feeling”. That’s why so many people choose the suicide.
There’s not only one solution. Psycotherapy helps. Family and friends can talk to the patients. If there is “a biological stage”, it will be necessary the anti-depressants. And, the most important sympton, if the patients talk about suicide, everybody should take it seriously.
Greed [by profelipe]
Money is the central theme of the two films that deal with “Wall Street” (with Michael Douglas). The success of the first was surprising because the main message (the character that should be seen as a villain) was “greed is good”.
Many people felt identified with errors, with acts that were once considered sins.
We could not deny that the Hollywood production have an important influence on the daily lives of people worldwide.
It is not good the hegemony of bourgeois values such as greed, usury and ostentation.
These values are related to slavery or unacceptable punishments.
Workers are required to find “targets” to receive benefits. When this does not happen (which would be common), the punishments are the answer.
The “targets” depend on the future. So, how could you ensure that occur, for example, a 15% increase in sales and profits from the operation of certain officers of the company (regardless of both domestic and international economic environment, the decisions of governments and regulatory agencies rates influencing financial market)?
Basically, besides burdening workers and generate anxiety, the future has become an excuse to control and punish the masses of workers.
Life and Death [by profelipe]
People in the western world , avoid thinking about death as if it were somehow guarantee immortality.
“Thinking about death, far from being a morbid attitude, helps us to live better.” *
Death is a certainty. It can happen anytime.
If a person knew that those were the last days of her life, she probably would act differently with family and friends. She would value more quotidian details of her own life.
The rush of day-to -day is used as an excuse to not to think about life. Escaping reflection does not mean that death will not come. It can hardly be the answer.
Problematize life may also not lead to a solution. However, the knowledge helps to make better choices in the here and now. It avoids regrets.
Making mistakes in the present and suffering in the future because of this error it means wasting life time twice. This time does not repeat. As it was said by The Rolling Stones, “time waits for no one.”
Life is one and it is here and now. Therefore, it should be fun and enjoyable.
MAN AND WOMAN © profelipe ™
The woman is educated to make things difficult for men. She wants a relationship, but she never say "yes" immediately.
It is always a difficulty. A boy supports all charms and requirements - flowers, delays, alleged headaches, jealousy and so on. He keeps the focus on your goal: intercourse. It is a matter of hormones.
On the other hand, satisfied his sexual instinct, he loses interest in that girl.
He wants more sex, but he needs new girls. In other words, he needs different girls. In this sense, he will never be satisfied.
A man can be married to the most beautiful woman in the world, but he often wishes a girl he never owned.
A man will make everything to make sex to a girl. If it is done, she is not important anymore.
This explains why a man who is dating a beautiful woman is capable of being unfaithful with someone that would be considered ugly.
There is a movie called "Trop Belle Pour Toi" ("Too Beautiful To Him"). Gérard Depardieu is married to a beautiful, smart and wealthy woman. At the same time, he keeps an affair with another woman that represents the opposite of conventional beauty.
This is the masculine nature.
But, some people would say, "there are married men for decades that have never been unfaithful". Yes, it is true only if you define infidelity as a "real" sexual act with another woman.
Basically, man always looks at a beautiful woman. He can deny it, but if she gets naked in front of him, his body will tell something else.
Is it sexism? Probably.
However, it is human nature too.
Men [by profelipe]
The woman is educated to make things difficult. They never say “yes” immediately. It is always a difficulty.
When man is younger, he supports all the charms and requirements – flowers, delays, alleged headaches, jealousy and so on. He keeps the focus on your goal – making sex with her.
On the other hand, when he satisfy his sexual instinct, he usually loses interest. He wants more sex, but he needs another girl. In other words, he needs different girls. In this sense , he will never be satisfied.
This explains why a man who is dating a beautiful woman and he is capable of being unfaithful with another that would be considered ugly.
There is a movie, called “Trop Belle Pour Toi”, when the character of Gérard Depardieu, who is married to a beautiful woman , smart, rich, and he has an affair with another would represent the opposite of conventional beauty.
This is the masculine nature . But, some people would say, “there are married men for decades that have never been unfaithful.” Yes, it is true if it is considered infidelity only “real intercourse” with another woman.
However, the man always looks at a beautiful woman. He denies it, but if she gets naked in front of him , his body will tell you something else.
Some people call it “male nature”.
Myths © profelipe ™
Probably, the best time of a girl is between 15 and 20 years (it is about beauty and attraction towards men). Lolita is one of the books about it.
A young girl starts to feel the power of her presence.
A young girl starts to look for the “prince charming” She dreams about a good marriage and children.
Some people would say it is not true about modern women. However, it is not that simple. Everybody wants to be loved.
The problem begins when someone depends on another person to be happy.
Getting older means more problems.
Men live a midlife crisis when they reach 50 years. On this moment, they want the impossible: they want to be young again. They try to look young. They do thing as buying sports cars, going to academies and dating young women. They also believe in “the power of Viagra”.
Of course none of this solves the unavoidable. Youth is past. Death is near. Time waits for no one (The Rolling Stones).
Time is a problem for women too. Their crisis is about 30 years old (Balzac). Men prefer younger girls. Men want “Lolitas”.
Life is not easy. Problems become neuroses (Freud).
Everyone knows an alienated person who insists believe in fantasies (read Karl Marx). It is not the answer. It means serious problems on the future.
Remember: pain is part of life. Everybody has crisis and problems. The question is whether the person can perceive them or not. The myth of Plato's cave remains.
The History of My Life © profelipe ™
I was married until June 2006. Divorce.
I thought I was too old for the night life. At the time, some students asked me to go to the clubs and I realized I was wrong.
In fact, there was no age for fun at night (the examples of Mick Jagger and Hugh Hefner could confirm this thesis).
I knew the night (before). It seemed (2006), apparently, that it had not changed much. I was wrong and I lived some negative consequences to my new phase.
I met girls, I made new friends and went to nightclubs and bars. I had love affairs. Basically, I lived everything anyone would expect from the fun nights in any city. There were also problems and crises. After all, nothing is perfect.
As a historian, I try to think my own life “setting phases”.
The first was between 2006 and 2007. It was the beginning.
Then came a much better period between 2008 and 2010.
Ironically, it was exactly in the phase I started my sabbatical. Then I was free to go out everynight, everyday: different girls in different bars.
The nightclubs of the period - Vitorios, Lounge, Hits, Zara, Aquarius and Mambo Jambo (for example) - no longer exist in the city of Uberlândia.
It does not matter.
It was fantastic. There were some people in the right places at the right times.
These years (for me at least) were unforgettable.
Between July and December 2010, however, I decided to get away from everything and everyone. It was my first isolation.
It was the return to books and reflections. It was necessary to know who was who in my everyday life.
It was also a moment of disappointment.
In the first half of 2011, I had the opportunity to go out (at night) with a friend who would mark my life forever.
There were not so many meetings or conversations or beers. But there was something special in the air.
There was an unusual affinity. It was like a dream.
Everything was lived very intensely.
This period ended with her death in July 2011.
I went back to “the nights” only in August 2012.
It was a different time. There were new girls. It was a new experience.
There was less prejudice (on my part). Therefore I had more contact with people from the gay scene.
This phase (consciously) was created with an end date: December 2013.
It happened.
On Twitter, on December 27, 2013, I published the message to my best friends, "as I told before, I would be in udi (for you) until December 2013 ... Today I arrived in gyn ..."
It was the beginning of a new isolation.
More than that, something had changed.
I no longer wanted to go out with groups. I no longer wanted to have as much contact with strangers.
I adopted what I called "John Constantine style": go out alone, stay cool and be an observer.
That's how I live now.
The Night © profelipe ™
The night is over before the person leaving home.
There are problems – drinking, drugs, flirting, among others. They are just tools to justify something that was already drawn by the person.
Sadness, frustration and rejection are part of this process (joy and satisfaction too). It depends on the state of mind of each one.
There are people who drink or commit other excesses to forget everyday problems or something more serious, like a childhood trauma. It does not work. They will be worse in the late evening.
Some people speak in “moral hangover”, but it can be more complicated. In case of any trauma, people will face during sleep everything they wanted to forget (in terrible nightmares that seem increasingly real).
In fact, attempting to escape the unconscious does not work. The pain produced is so intense that it leads to some people in choosing something previously unthinkable (as suicide).
All this can become a cycle of self-destruction. The photos produced for social networking (with beautiful people and smiles) do not work anymore. Staying home – watching TV and eating – can be worse.
What about the self-esteem?
The problem is not only about physical appearance.
Emotion can not be controlled and the fails – hidden in the unconscious – insist on returning to annoy, especially in moments of weakness.
There is no solution.
Some people would say that the time would be the best answer. Maybe. But neither it solve the malaise of the human condition.
Truth and Religion [by profelipe]
The truth will not set you free. Nothing can save you. Jean-Paul Sartre was right:
“il faut que l’homme se retrouve lui-même et se persuade que rien ne peut le sauver de lui-même, fût-ce une preuve valable de l’existence de Dieu.” (Gallimard, p. 77-78)
The problem is not the existence of God or not. It is not about truth either.
The man borns and dies. He lives in a material world. However, he knows there’s something else. The question is what. In fact, he can’t know because he’s just human. The power of religion comes from here: the unknown.
The man depends on nature. Nature depends on the sun. Man knows it. To live better means to understand the nature. It depends on the movements of earth, which it’s in relation with the sun.
The answer is in the sky: sun and stars. What’s called astrology helps the knowledge of the man about nature and about his living in this planet.
It helps to build the religions. They gave power to a minority. Men didn’t find the answer of life or God or existence, but they found the way to control other men.
Religion became ideology and it gave power to a minority to control the majority. Religion’s still there with other ideologies and their instruments, such as: school, politics and midia.
Nowadays, people don’t mind about the meaning of life. They care about money and how they can get it and, at the same time, they can control the others.
People wear masks of ideolgy to get what they want. Nothing’s clear. Everything became a game. The intention is not to understand life or God. It’s simply to get richer and to control the society. That’s it.
Women [by profelipe]
The night is over before the person leaving home.
There are problems – drinking, drugs, flirting, among others. They are just tools to justify something that was already drawn by the person. Sadness, frustration and rejection are part of this process (joy and satisfaction too). It depends on the state of mind of each one.
There are people who drink or commit other excesses to forget everyday problems or something more serious, like a childhood trauma. It does not work. They will be worse in the late evening. Some people speak in “moral hangover”, but it can be more complicated. In case of any trauma, people will face during sleep everything they wanted to forget (in terrible nightmares that seem increasingly real).
In fact, attempting to escape the unconscious does not work. The pain produced is so intense that it leads to some people in choosing something previously unthinkable (as suicide).
All this can become a cycle of self-destruction. The photos produced for social networking (with beautiful people and smiles) do not work anymore. Staying home – watching TV and eating – can be worse.
What about the self-esteem?
The problem is not only about physical appearance. Emotion can not be controlled and the fails – hidden in the unconscious – insist on returning to annoy, especially in moments of weakness. There is no solution. Some people would say that the time would be the best answer. Maybe. But neither it solve the malaise of the human condition.
NEW WORLD AND OLD PROBLEMS [by profelipe]
What gives you a reason to live? It sounds as an old song. But, seriously, what really gives you a reason to live?
Your job and your lifestyle? Think:
(…) no one in Britain is feeling particularly secure about their jobs right now. I was recently on holiday with a friend, a features editor at a glossy title, when she got a text from a friend within the company saying how sorry she was about the closure of that magazine. Between ordering breakfast and our eggs arriving, she’d become jobless.*
It is the reality nowadays. No job, no money, no sex? Well, you can be rich and you will never be sure about the feelings of any person. It is hard. But think again. Fake orgasms. What about sex and power? Well…
"Many people avoid using words during sex because words of desire make them feel too naked and exposed. I can feel that my lover's touch makes me hot, but if I say to him, 'your touch makes me hot,' now I am sure that he knows, and now I am more vulnerable. My words give him power over me, power that comes from knowing his seduction has been successful, from knowing that I want him."**
People worry with the thoughts of the others. People like power. Therefore, they use seduction and sex to get the attention of another person. Today there is a "lad culture":
“To dismantle "lad culture" and minimise the negative effect it has on students, the girls who are shh-ed in class, the links to boys' depression and suicide, the violence, the answer is to build and highlight alternative cultures. To encourage students to drink and kiss in places that don't advertise with posters of tits. Just because the problem is serious doesn't mean the solution must be dry.”***
However, the answer is not so simple. It is a complex social problem. There is all kind of violence against women. Some people use sexism as the answer, but it is wrong:
“‘Boys will be boys’, explained an American prosecutor to the mother of a five-year-old rape victim last week, and suddenly everything was OK. Wasn't it. Boys, silly boys, with their rape and their evil and the dominant harassment gene that they carry with them in their low-slung pockets and shaven DNA.”***¹
DNA and ideology. Youth with no jobs. Fashion. Girls want to show their bodies. They like to seduce. They like modern cars and expensive gifts. How can boys (without jobs) satisfy the wishes of the young ladies? When did all this started? After World War II, people wanted freedom and pleasure.
“(…) post-war fashions were to do best minimize the secondary sexual characteristics which distinguished women form men visibly, by cutting and eventually cropping traditionally long hair, and making their chests look as flat as was physically possible. Like the short skirts, the abandoned corsets, the new-found ease of movement, all these were signs of, and calls for, freedom.”***²
They wanted a new way of life. Beatnik movement. Rock and roll. Sexual revolution. Feminism. The world changed. There was a personal computer in 1976. Internet. Life was not the same anymore. However, it is still the law of the capital. It means the economic side is the most important. Technology was used to cut jobs. Homeless and poverty were not problems only in the third world countries. Yes, life changed but it did not mean good news for the majority.
(*)Anna Hart The new ambition: the generation redefining their careers. The Telegraph, 16-03-2014.(**)Barbara De Angelis, em 1995, no seu livro: "Real Moments for Lovers" (apud, James R. Petersen, Playboy, September 1996, p. 42.
(***)Eva Wiseman. How can we curb laddism? The Observer, 2 March2014.http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/mar/02/how-can-we-curb-laddism
(***¹)Eva Wiseman. How can we curb laddism? The Observer, 2 March2014.http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/mar/02/how-can-we-curb-laddism
(***²) Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, p. 217-218.
S. F. OLIVEIRA (2014) ZXT - Collection of Articles. http://collectionofarticles.weebly.com/ © profelipe ™