Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!aero-c!nadel From: panix!mara@cmcl2.NYU.EDU (Mara Chibnik) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Perceptions (was Re: ... mutual erotica exist?) Message-ID: <1991Apr13.141835.7142@panix.uucp> Date: 13 Apr 91 14:18:35 GMT References: <1991Mar20.050507.24027@informix.com>> Sender: news@aero.org Organization: (getting there) Lines: 46 Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org Status: R Originator: nadel@aerospace.aero.org In article uunet!infmx!robert@ncar.UCAR.EDU (robert coleman) writes: >[ ... ] The >construct we call reality is known through our *senses*, and only a >part of the input to the senses comes vicariously through >representations. Our preferred method for constructing reality is >through our personal experiences; for that which we cannot personally >experience, we accept the poor substitute of other's representations. >Thus, an abused husband believes he's been attacked even though nearly >all media representations of family life ignore the possibility (as >once they did for abused wives). I am somewhat surprised to read this. I disagree with it. That there are abused husbands who believe (correctly) that they have been attacked is certainly true, but if there were more support for the cultural notion that women can and do sometimes attack/abuse men, more abused men would be likely to recognize what has happened to them. Of course, this is also true of women. Women who have been abused and whose reality has been denied by the people around them may also have difficulty accepting that this has happened to them. Two weeks ago I mentioned to a (woman) friend that I had been mugged (we met since that time), and she replied that she, too had been mugged. In fact, she said, the mugger had held a gun to her head and demanded that she tongue-kiss him, and put his hands "where they had no business to be." (Yes, I'm quoting her directly.) As we were talking about it, I made some reference to the "sexual assault" that she had undergone. She looked at me open-eyed and said in great surprise, oh, yeah-- I guess I *was* sexually assaulted. She hadn't thought of it that way before. And the (Washington, DC) police, to whom she had reported the crime, hadn't put it in those terms, nor had the group of friends with her at the time. This was more than five years ago. The perceptions of others is a considerable influence on our reality. -- cmcl2!panix!mara Mara Chibnik mara@dorsai.com "It can hardly be coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression "As pretty as an airport." --Douglas Adams