James Beach

Politics, culture, history. and things seen along the way.

[James Beach @JamesBeachIRL]

@msayibu1 "simply because the showrunner is a woman"
Wow, I didn't know people were maligning reasonably founded fan concerns already. It's almost like clockwork at this point. Criticize poor writing, directing, or find concerns based off of past work; you must be sexist.
Predictable.

[James Beach @JamesBeachIRL]

Yeah, perhaps. Though I don't think it's always about "sensitivity". Often, we look back at people making a spectacle of a hanging or beheading and generally people consider it in poor taste; something best left to ages past. I just don't care for the "medicalization" of it.
we have more straight forward ways of doing it, rifles work just fine.

[James Beach @JamesBeachIRL]

@RogueMicrobe @SirBylHolte Ahh the Badmirals
I could see that. Though they were never "evil per se", usually misguided. Though Admiral Leighton was pretty bad with the whole military coup of Earth thing.
Still i could see that working.

[James Beach @JamesBeachIRL]

@XavierBecerra Because people should vote for a race and not a person? How is that not highly tribal racialized thinking?

[James Beach @JamesBeachIRL]

@TheLaurenChen I thought she wasn't into anal; said that it was icky.

Rules for thee not for me?

[James Beach @JamesBeachIRL]

@TrekMovie Ouch

[James Beach @JamesBeachIRL]

@Tesho13 Since when did the Confederacy of Independent Systems start showing up in this timeline? Are we going to have to fight some clankers next?

I knew something evil pulled the strings.

[James Beach @JamesBeachIRL]

@EndymionYT The Arrowverse were pretty good shows for a while.
For a while.

[James Beach @JamesBeachIRL]

@ggreenwald I don't care for the death penalty, but I'd rather it be done in the open and not behind closed doors masquerading as a medical procedure or in a dank room. Killing is a brutal act and if people want it to continue the brutality should be known.

[James Beach @JamesBeachIRL]

@wesyang Are the gays okay? Do we need to save them? Do we need to free them?

[James Beach @JamesBeachIRL]

@RefinedPopulist Loved that write up. I didn't watch it, but then I can't really deal with Lindsay Ellis. Being a breadtuber or adjacent makes her schtick difficult to handle. As if Anita Sarkessian and Destiny did broader commentary. Cruises suck and I have to point it all out, Captialism!

[James Beach @JamesBeachIRL]

@Phallolator @wesyang Considering that fecal oral is a key transmission route for numerous things, I probably wouldn't advise it with randos. But that's just me.

[James Beach @JamesBeachIRL]

@Phallolator @wesyang ya know that's a great point. I've been married for 10 years (to a woman) but my understanding is that most hooking up within any demographic is done via app now a days. Maybe with this whole shigella thing that could slow down.

[James Beach @JamesBeachIRL]

@GSmiley247 @wesyang Eeek... the umm implications are disturbing.

[James Beach @JamesBeachIRL]

7/ I don't really know how we go back, or whether we can. It's hard to put genies back in bottles.
From the standpoint of law and policy, consent has to remain the standard. It's the clearest universal rule available and leaves adults free to organize their private lives in very different ways.
But law and policy are only the floor. Culturally, I think we can encourage serious relationships built around trust, commitment, mutual obligation, and a life built together without trying to outlaw everything else.
A free society can leave people free to make their own choices without pretending every choice is equally good.

[James Beach @JamesBeachIRL]

1/ The Cornell 7 debate points to a bigger problem: consent is necessary, but too thin to define a good sexual ethic. Some answer, “just get married.” Maybe. But we’ve also turned marriage from a milestone on the journey into a destination for already-established adults.

[Steve McGuire @sfmcguire79]

A senior at Harvard observes “a narrative emerging among young people that more than just consent is required to make a sex act ethical.”

“In the Cornell Daily Sun, a student says fraternities function as ‘a market, where women are seen as commodities.’”

“A Dartmouth contributor lambasts frat culture where brothers ‘humiliate and degrade’ and that teaches ‘men to treat women and each other like subhuman objects.’”

“The emerging picture is of a sexual ethic that cannot be satisfied simply by one liberal-autonomous agent assenting to the action of another. The new ethic requires upholding the dignity and respect of the human being involved. Respecting women is incompatible with drug-fueled orgies where the ‘shop’ is ‘open,’ regardless of how consensual said orgy may or may not be.”

[James Beach @JamesBeachIRL]

6/ Marriage, or any serious committed relationship, doesn't mean the interesting part of life is over.
You can still travel, go out, drink, dance, have sex, experiment, make mistakes, and figure out adulthood. The difference is that much of it happens with someone you know, trust, and intend to keep building with.
And that doesn't mean casual sex is necessarily degrading. Some people genuinely enjoy it. It's not really our place to tell another adult what their consensual sexual experiences are supposed to mean to them.
My own view is simply that a serious relationship usually offers a more robust foundation for sex than encounters between people who barely know each other.