"Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man. For war consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of time is to be considered in the nature of war, as it is in the nature of weather. For as the nature of foul weather lieth not in a shower or two of rain, but in an inclination thereto of many days together: so the nature of war consisteth not in actual fighting, but in the known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is peace.

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Chapter 13

 

Well, happy New Year...I guess. Sorry if that seems slightly pessimistic, but I can hardly stand the gratuitous platitudes that are seemingly necessary in our society. So, I'm going to do something a little unusual in a belated celebration of this one day turning into another that just happens to have a different number at the end of the date. I'm not going to be responding to the D'Souza's of the world. It's not for lack of material-if anything, it's the overwhelming abundance of drivel that I have to sift through that has caused me to feel completely overwhelmed by this task. There is so much mindless nonsense that gets foisted onto a dumbed-down and apathetic populace that I rue my ability to see that we're all just knee-deep in shit. Sometimes it seems that ignorance truly is bliss.

 

I don't find it surprising at all that so many of the visionaries of our past and present were so prone to melancholy and drug abuse. It seems that the ability to comprehend the sometimes harsh reality of existence on this rock is both wondrous and terrifying. Having to interact with the other members of your species is just the icing on the cake. The senseless violence that we inflict upon each other, knowingly or not, the careless insensitivity with which we disregard those whom we, or those before us, have determined are enemies, is evidence of the solitary existence of which Hobbes spoke. We can only see things from inside our own experience, and it seems that the gap between two people will never truly be reconciled. For those of us who desire more than the typical diet of fast food, shitty news, and reality shows, how shall we numb ourselves?

 

Maybe it's just the season. I never could stand the "holidays". Endless days of forced interaction with people who share some percentage of your genetic makeup and nothing more. Why do we have to invent excuses to do the things that we should be doing every day? Anybody who talks about "Christmas spirit" has obviously never been to a mall during the month of December. Not only is their mythical savior a bunch of mythologized bullshit, but even they cannot help but succumb to total misanthropy while trying to find a parking space at Wal-Mart. At any rate, I'm in a rut right now.

 

Whatever. People will, I'm sure, find some excuse to attack me (and likely every atheist on the planet, so I apologize in advance) for my honesty here, and this is pretty uncharacteristic of me, but for once, I don't fucking care. I have something that I want to address here, and maybe I'll feel better after I just lay it on the table for everybody to see.

 

Ever since the Radar magazine article, the most popular way to attempt to discredit me is to refer to my "other job". I can't look at my Google alerts without seeing something about "lap-dancing Kelly" or some other lame attempt to influence people's opinions of me and my intellect. Well, guess what? I like my job. I see through your façade of propriety and know that you probably get a hard-on thinking about me giving anybody a lap dance. I'm not going to go into details, but as far as I'm concerned, any woman with the assets and attitude to do this job is stupid for not doing it. All the Christophiliacs (that's what I'm naming your disorder and if you don't like it you can fuck off) just can't stand the fact that anybody enjoys and maybe even revels in their sexuality. I'm sorry that you have such a complex about it. Do you pray for forgiveness before or after you masturbate?

 

Philadelphia Weekly recently ran the story on Margaret Downey and FSGP's Tree of Knowledge which included a few blurbs about the RRS, and my boobs, entitled "Taking Christ Out of Christmas". The next week, the same publication ran a segment on me that had nothing to do with religion and just had some of my thoughts on stripping. I hesitated to publicize it because of the complaints and attacks that I'm sure will result, but then I decided otherwise. Especially after I saw that it was one of their most popular online articles, right behind "Taking Christ Out of Christmas". Here's my quote from that article:

"I'm a nude psychologist. Most people who come into the club and spend a lot of money just want to connect to another person. The fact that it's a barely clothed attractive female is a bonus. I don't call myself a dancer, because it always leads to people asking, ‘What kind of dancing?' The kind where I swing around brass poles and rub my ass on people for money. If you have a problem, it's your issue. You should find out why you feel threatened by it. It takes a certain kind of personality to do this. You have to enjoy the attention. People talk about how stripping is degrading; I see it as the exact opposite. When I'm onstage, I'm in power because you can't control yourself. Everyone sells themselves. Whatever it is, you sell a part of yourself that's better than what other people have. I'm just using what I have at my disposal."

 

Attention haters: I don't care if you call me a lap dancer/stripper/slut/big-tittied bitch or whatever else of which your convoluted Christ-tarded minds can think.

 

I had previously written a response to a post on our boards that got lost in a server crash, so I'm going to reprint it here for your viewing pleasure. It was a question about Japan, pornography, and its effects. For anybody who doesn't know, I lived in Japan for three years and just wanted to share my experience, which ended up turning into a rant on porn and feminism. Have fun.

 

Technarch wrote:

Not to stereotype or anything, but Japan tends to be less raised on puritanical beliefs of eternal damnation based on disobeying some moral code, despite its adherence to social norms and custom.

 

Not stereotypical at all--totally accurate. There is no concept of eternal damnation outside of the unfortunate people who have been sucked into christianity.

 

Technarch:

Though some might argue that a restrictive social code lends to repressed feelings that are expressed more readily in art.

 

Also agreed. Japan is a perfect case in point.

 

Technarch:

Or perhaps everyone is repressed, but religion tends to stifle various expressions of repression due to a stated repurcussion of some kind.

 

I'm sure that everybody IS repressed at least slightly in some way. Some of that is necessary for a functional society without mass chaos. Most is unnecessary and harmful.

 

Technarch:

Anyway, Japan has lots of porn. The normal porn only goes as far as the limits of physics, but drawn porn tends to go further. Hermaphrodite tentacle rape gangbangs, sex with animals, monsters, and demons, scat and gore wherein some imaginative artist gets to draw whatever the hell they imagine. Now this is great from an expressive standpoint- the id, in all its creative glory, showing anything it wants without fear of protestors carrying signs and saying "BURN IN HELL FOR THY TRANSGRESSION." So assume that America doesn't have this moral stigma of "If I draw whatever I think about, I may go to Hell."

 

The hentai shit gets crazy, but businessmen read it on the trains in front of everybody. I can remember sitting next to a guy on the shinkansen (bullet train) who was reading a porn mag. The weird thing is that porn is on public access TV late night weekends, but they can't show genitalia--they blur it out. They can, however, show money shots, and that makes the whole experience weird. Stuff coming out of a big blurry object? O_o

 

Technarch:

Now America has all the porn it can imagine. Is this a bad thing? Feminists may argue that such musings are inherently degrading to women and therefore wrong. So do you ignore feminism, or do you support feminism and say "don't draw degrading porn?" This is based on a scenario of say, 1000% more porn than there is now. Do you reject this flood of porn based on some societal code, or do you accept it as the right to express whatever the hell you want to create as long as you can ignore it?

 

People have the right to express themselves in whatever way they choose, especially in anime or drawn art, as long as they are not infringing upon the rights of another person. The whole feminism/porn issue is incredibly irritating to me (Obviously, I have had to listen to that shit ever since I started dancing a long-ass time ago.) Not all women enter the sex-industry to support a drug habit or because their father sexually abused them. Not all women are degraded by their jobs. Some enjoy it. Like all jobs, although I only have experience in dancing and not at all in porn, it has its ups and downs. Personally, I would feel degraded working at Wal-mart for 6.25 an hour.

 

The issue at stake is freedom of choice, which is an incredibly serious issue. The Religious Right or the uber-feminists (NOW, for example, makes me want to not be a woman just so I can say that they do not represent me) would have that freedom removed. I would not have the choice to do a job that I don't find degrading and would be forced to do one that I DO find degrading. One could even argue that stripping, in particular, has helped women due to the sheer number of women whose college degrees were paid for solely because of that industry.

 

Therefore, they would be infringing upon MY rights, and those of many other women, if they had their way and shut down porn and strip clubs. In an ideal world, would it be necessary to strip to make enough money to live--maybe not. But, in an ideal world, we wouldn't want roofers sweating to death in 100 degree heat either. It would be like Star Trek where everybody pursues their passions and nobody is forced into menial labor positions. (Don't hold your breath.)

 

(This is getting really fucking long...)

 

My position on "feminism" is that it entails the belief that a woman can choose what she wants to do--and that should include working in the sex industry. The whole movement was about CHOICE--how ironic that they want to take choices away from other women now.

 

Technarch:

This is an assertion, being More Atheism = More porn. Or, lack of being told "you'll burn in hell" means lack of fear from creating whatever kind of porn you want.

 

Not necessarily true. Most sex industry workers believe in god, but their god approves of their job, or at least excuses it. You can also go here for stats on christian porn consumption.

 

Technarch:

So, assuming more porn is created, of whatever kind, which does not have to adhere to any social code such as Feminist ideals, then, would you be ok with more porn? Would you mind? Or would you prefer it conform to some social expectation first? Would you object on grounds of it being addictive or disruptive, such as preventing efficient work or stable family raising or social interaction or causing bruises after prolonged use?

 

I think it should be entirely up to each individual. Some women may be uncomfortable with a partner who watches porn or frequents strip clubs. That's fine. The answer is not outlawing either--it's not being with somebody whose values differ from yours in important areas. Anything can be addictive--let's outlaw WoW before porn, please. I must admit that when I first moved to Japan, the sight of a billboard ad for a porn movie with a topless woman on it (dressed in a nun's habit *lol*) was shocking, but it's only because I am unaccustomed to it. Everybody else was walking by it with their kids like it was nothing. I had to think about my gut reaction to that ad and digest it for a while, and this was after I had been a dancer for two years. It was good for me, and it would benefit others to really consider the true origin of their opposition to porn.

 

Overall, I would say, after living there for three years, that part of Japan's porn obsession is related to being a little too tightly wound on the conformity front, but that overall, they are not any worse off for it. You can buy porn out of vending machines on street corners and see it on public TV. Their society isn't falling apart at the seams. The status of women is slightly more like that of 1950's America, but they are slowly progressing, just as we did. As a matter of fact, some women may use the sex industry as their ticket to freedom--whether that is a bad relationship or getting an education.

 

Everybody sells some aspect of themselves--your intelligence, skills, brute strength, looks, whatever-- it helps some and it hurts some, but so does every other industry on the planet.