Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!aero!kuhub.cc.ukans.edu!huxtable
From: huxtable@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Sexual attraction (was: diversity)
Message-ID: <26414.272ea64c@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
Date: 31 Oct 90 15:24:12 GMT
References: <1990Oct26.170150.9341@nntp-server.caltech.edu> <26364.272c0370@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <14097@cs.utexas.edu>
Sender: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services
Lines: 39
Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org


In article <26364.272c0370@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>, I wrote:
words about changing one's perceptions.

In article <14097@cs.utexas.edu>, turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) writes:
> Before one puts effort into this time consuming process in return
> for some subtle effects, it might be appropriate to ask what
> one's goal is in doing so, and in particular, why it is important
> to society.  There are some things that are obviously worthwhile
> to the individual.  At the conscious level, there is the
> recognition that not everyone has the same tastes, and that one's
> own tastes set no objective standard.  At a more subtle level,
> one (hopefully) learns that some tastes are superficial and
> others have deeper import.  
> 
> But where is the social goal?  Ms Huxtable wants us to "work for
> a society where these perceptions are different".  Different how?
> Where people's tastes are the same?  Where appearance is totally
> irrelevant to sexual attraction?  (Really?)  And how is this
> social goal, whatever it is, tied to feminism?

I agree with Russell.  One should always consider one's goals.  What I
am after is a society where each individual is treated as a unique
individual, rather than as a set of deviations from some putative
norm.

Obviously, people have different criteria from each other for sexual
attraction.  This won't change and I don't think it *should* change.
But if we have a society where we each recognize that every other
individual has hopes, aspirations, abilities, and limitations and that
these may have little in common with our own and that this is not a
bad thing then I hope we would have a society I would prefer living in
to this one.

If you can parse the above sentence, I nominate you for the
pseudo-intellectual of the year award.  I talk like that in (what
passes for) real life.  Isn't that scary?

-- 
Kathryn Huxtable
huxtable@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu