If this board is anything to go by, it seems like a lot of folks simply want to go from policing other people’s speech to other people’s sexual practices. I’ll take neither side of the culture wars - everybody involved in it, right, left, and, yes, centrists are seriously fucked and need to learn to mind their own fucking business.
If this board is anything to go by, it seems like a lot of folks simply want to go from policing other people’s speech to other people’s sexual practices. I’ll take neither side of the culture wars - everybody involved in it, right, left, and, yes, centrists are seriously fucked and need to learn to mind their own fucking business.
How in the closet does someone with unconventional sexual practices have to be in order to get a pass from the prude brigade here? This sounds a lot like “It’s OK to be gay, just as long as they keep quiet about it” that I remember from just a few decades ago.
Oddly enough I feel this way about pretty much all kink stuff even though I have been rather sexually adventurous in my life. Nothing to do with hetero/queer or anything, I just don't really want to hear anything about what makes people get aroused without some sort of explicit conversational signal that that's what we're talking about. But this is a subset of thinking that "[insert legally permitted but not looked favorably up on by everyone] Pride" is a terrible thing that has birthed lots of narcissism is all kinds of different communities from kinkiness to fandom.
You make a reasonable point, but again, just how in the closet does someone have to be? I’m putting aside cases where people are being deliberately over-sharing or in-your-face, which I don’t care for either. (I find starting a conversation with “My pronouns are….” to be incredibly cringe.) At the same time, it doesn’t strike me that other people knowing about it and not liking it is a reasonable standard at all. It seems like the folks who are put off by someone’s lifestyle have some duty not to make it their business. Also, there’s cases where the law still comes down on people - BDSM has never been fully decriminalized in the UK. Sex workers still get arrested or otherwise harassed by the law. Why are those groups less entitled to organize against this, and even use “I do this and I’m not a monster” as an argument, as countless other movements have done previously? The thing that I seem to be hearing from a lot of the centrist/heterodox crowd is, “Lesbian and gay liberation was needed, everything else is going too far”. As you might have noticed, that idea when expressed in a kneejerk way really ticks me off, but I’m willing to unpack that.
The centrist/heterodox crowd simultaneously regards all past protest movements as necessary and important and also regards all current protest movements as shrill and unreasonable activists who want to go too far. They're against everything until it becomes popular, at which point they were always for it.
It does seem like that doesn’t it? And I say that as someone who can be very critical of the left and as someone that rejects the idea that protest movements have always been ahead of their time and eventually accepted. The pedophile liberation movement is a prime example of a movement that was ostensibly for liberation of a marginalized group and had quite a few people in the libertarian, socialist, and gay rights movement on board with it. The San Francisco liberal establishment thought Jim Jones was a social justice hero, in some cases right up until the Jonestown killings. The Venezuela solidarity movement was big in the 2000s, and now most socialists don’t have anything good to say about Maduro. So protest movements can get things very wrong.
But the flipside is declaring every successful liberation movement historically a good thing, but having nothing good to say about any current ones. “We’ve reached the best of all possible world, in fact overshot it. Let’s stop with any forward social change, in fact, let’s dial some things back.” I get this from Bari Weiss and the like especially.
Interesting! So, thinking as I am typing here, heterosexuality was the "default" but heterosexual sex was still taboo. It was/is still something you talk about in trusted company. Nobody wants to know about the mechanics of a hetero couples sex life anymore than a gay couple.
So what are kinksters being liberated from exactly? It's entirely inappropriate for me, a heterosexual monogamous female, to go into work or a party or a family gathering and start talking about how I fuck.
It seems to me that there are more than a few folks making the sexual practices of these folks their business, then being really pissed off at what their finding out and somehow putting the onus on the kinksters for not being derp enough in the closet. Me, I think the onus is on busybodies to mind their own fucking business. If someone’s being in-your-face or oversharing, it’s good to draw some boundaries, but I don’t see that’s what’s taking place here.
“So what are kinksters being liberated from exactly?” I hate to be “educate yourself”, but for fuck sake, there’s a long history of people literally being prosecuted for consensual sexual activity, especially BDSM, which in some places is treated as assault, and in some cases, such laws are still on the books. Look up “Operation Spanner” sometime for a historically recent example.
Ah we have a problem here. I don't care about BDSM being illegal. I care more about the men who have been given lenient sentences for killing their girlfriends using a rough sex defence. If that means you have to be extra careful practising your kinks by keeping them secret and making sure you only do them with trusted partners... Good?
And I don’t care to sacrifice real individual rights on the alter of radical feminist ideology or the hatred and suspicion of men that goes with it, so no, not good with that at all. In general, I find radfems and the extreme subset of trans activists to mirror images of each other’s worst tendencies, differing only in which gender grouping everybody’s rights must be sacrificed to in order to protect from any bad tendency whatsoever. I find authoritarian nationalist ideologies in general to be contemptable, gender ones being no exception. So that’s a fundamental difference in world view, really.
Lol. I don't like this thing so it's the same as the other things I don't like! So nuanced.
It's not radical feminism to think that men shouldn't be given lenient sentences because they claim their girlfriend liked being murdered. The fact you think that authoritarian is dumb as fuck.
The fact that you don't see identitarian-based "group rights" arguments as more similar than different is what's lacking in my book. It's much the way Communists and Fascists will eternally deny any similarity between their ideologies while the similarities are glaringly obvious to outsiders. Such is the case with so many warring factions locked in a downward spiral. And the fact that you're OK with having the entirety of sadomasochistic activity be illegal is most certainly authoritarian. UK feminism trends that way, unfortunately.
The fact that gender-crits advocate for such laws, and censorship of porn often as well, but then bitch and whine when the state starts passing laws against their speech (as we've seen in the UK and elsewhere in Europe) is the most myopic thing imaginable. I oppose the lot of that kind of legislation on principal, but unlike the heterodox crowd, I don't see any good guys in the 'TERFs vs trans activists' wars.
What the fuck are you talking about? You're the one leaning identitarian with your nonsense about sadomasochists being some sort of marginalised group. I'm not a feminist radical or otherwise.
I have no issue with sadomasochism being legal until the point that it's legality can be used in defence of murder. This is unreasonable to you?
In the second paragraph you’re literally shifting the goalposts, since you said upthread you have no issue with sadomasochism being illegal, which it is under the most overly-broad interpretations of assault laws. This was what individuals who were caught up in Operation Spanner were often charged with by the authorities.
I do see sadomasochists as a group that is, in a sense, marginalized by unjust laws and irrational stigma. Hell, I see trans people as irrationally stigmatized and with stronger claims on that regard than normie cis women. That said, I’m hardly an identarian - I don’t support special identity-based laws and exceptions to universal rights, based on sex, gender identity, race or otherwise, but no one should be deprived of their rights based on irrational group hatreds either, and that’s what I see taking place here.
My own take on this case is that specifics are likely based on rumor-mongering and innuendo by the people who don’t want the kinksters using that space. I don’t think Jesse and Katie have done any first-hand fact-checking here, are repeating second-hand claims, and doing so because it’s red meat for an audience that really doesn’t like sexual minorities. It’s too bad, because this pod has done some important reporting in the past. Less so these days.
I think your understanding of radical feminism is severely lacking if that's what you think. Murder and rape are statistically sexed crimes. Yes, we know that there are some female persons that commit murder and rape. And yes, it might make the other males on the board uncomfortable to say the statistics out loud... but it's not about us. It's not about any of us that don't rape or murder. It's about policy. What do we do about the men that *do* rape and murder? That use the veil of false accusations to cover their behavior.
You sound an awful lot like people on the right who put a lot of emphasis on Black people disproportionately being the perpetrators of violent crimes, and using that as an excuse for wanting policies that are punitive toward black people. It's one thing to understand the sociological roots of crime, it's another thing to use that as a rationalization for vindictive politics. I'll also note that there's a longstanding and sound feminist critique of the kind of carceral feminism that's being advocated for here.
Carceral feminism? Haha. I see you've been reading Elizabeth Bernstein. By long-standing you mean 10 years. Iirc, she's the one who says sex trafficking is good, actually. And tries to brand her critics as right wing, just as you are, rather than going against the substance of their arguments. It's a tribalistic tactic designed to stifle debate. "You sound like a conservative because you don't agree with me!" Piss off.
Believe me, the “piss off” is mutual. Critics of carceral feminism like Elizabeth Bernstein have never said “sex trafficking is good”, but that it’s a poor legal construct that conflates together everything from consensual sex work to migration to labor exploitation to actual sexual enslavement. OF COURSE the latter should be criminal, but creating a meaningless catch-all so that authorities can use that to crack down on anything they feel like is not good law. But anyway, do go on dumping on those of us who have criticism of such nonsense, framing yourself as the reasonable middle (which is the problem with the whole “centrist” framing) and then gainsaying those of us who want might want reasonable regulations around sex work and not just indiscriminate criminalization as the out-of-touch extreme leftists. THAT is a tribalistic tactic right there, buddy, and even if you’re so high on your own supply that you don’t see that, I see through it and am not buying it.
"Carceral feminism" describes being quick to use the hammer of state power to solve anything that remotely looks like a issue of gender inequality. And if your main tool is a hammer, everything you don't like starts to look like a nail. (BTW. the critique of this approach goes back to the 1980s, with Elizabeth Bernstein simply putting a name on it in the 2000s.)
And in this case, we’re not even talking about commercial sex, but sadomasochistic sexual activity at a private event. And sure enough, the sentiment by many in “reasonable centrist” world is that this too needs to be stigmatized or even punished in some way. Because “feminism”, or just plain, “these people are a bunch of freaks, how dare they show their face in public” - that's about all the "substance" I see here. This ‘centrism’ or ‘feminism’ or whatever the fuck you’re billing it as is no more ‘reasonable’ or for ‘freedom’ than the ‘social justice warrior’ mentality that folks here get up and arms about. And it’s only tribal blindness that prevents you from recognizing this.
“How in the closet does someone with unconventional sexual practices have to be in order to get a pass…”
Would kind of depend on the particular nature of the practices, don’t you think?
“It’s OK to be caged, humiliated, get your ass welted and be dom fucked by a leather nazi, just as long as they keep quiet about it” actually sounds about right. Essentially different than the case of being gay.
That’s pretty arbitrary, if you ask me. And while I’m not saying it’s identical to being gay, you’re argument pretty much IS identical to the kind of argument that used to be made as to why gay people should stay deep in the closet, because of the supposed instinctual revulsion ‘normal’ people might feel toward such a practice. Times changed and social norms changed.
It's worth noting that there are no victims otherwise lack of consent to what sadomasochists are doing. Merely the 'ick' factor, and I don't consider that to be a sufficient moral judgement to condemn and formally or informally penalize a practice.
Dude, there’s nothing wrong with opposing a sloppy off-hours orgy in the kiddie play place, come on. What consenting adults do with poop guns in the privacy of their own homes is something nobody really cares about so long as nobody talks about it at the office water cooler.
First, proof, please, that we’re talking about an actual “kiddie play space” here rather than a claim made by some who’s trying to throw the worst kind of shade on kinky folks they clearly don’t like. (I would suggest if you’re up in arms about sex-being-had in a space where children may later be present, you might have some bigger concerns about motels and bnbs.) Second, your standard for “too public” is if it becomes “office water-cooler gossip”? Are you fucking kidding me? That’s the very opposite of minding your own damned business.
Did Zagarna recruit an asshole apprentice or something?
I don’t know what painful personal issues you’re dealing with that make you want to lash out at everyone here over the tiniest things, but you really need to calm down. These attitudes that you’re projecting onto everyone here are entirely in your head.
I haven’t encountered Zagarna before, but I don’t disagree with him if that’s what you’re asking. I’m merely consistent in my pro-personal freedom and anti-cancel culture politics. Unlike some culture warriors billing themselves as reasonable centrists.
Point me to an argument that equates freedom of speech with freedom to have sex anywhere you like. The latter is just not a thing in any country, as far as I'm aware.
Who’s having sex anywhere they like? So far, all that I know is that a group of people had sadomasochistic sex in a rented private space. If that puts a bee in your bonnet, don’t patronize such places. And, yes, I do think freedom of expression does include the right to be out as a sadomasochist without the state coming down on you, which seems to be what’s being asked for here. A more general ”culture of free speech” argument might include the right to be out and not suffer private retaliatory acts (aka “cancel culture“). BTW, if the roles were reversed and the normies were being threatened by the freaks, I think there are a lot of folks here who are pissed at the kinksters would be talking out the other side of their mouths.
You're talking about policing other people's sexual practices. That is absolutely a thing. You can't just fuck anywhere you feel like it. It's wildly different to policing speech.
I think one point you're missing here is that the practice was covert so people didn't have the choice not to take their children to places they would not have been comfortable with.
edit: nobody IRL was going after the participants for what they were into as far as I can tell, it was more of a "not here"?
edit2: I think _most_ of us here dgaf what you do in your private life but there's a fundamental difference between freedom of expression as pertains to sexuality liberty and public expression of sexual behaviour.
The statement was "if you don't like it, go elsewhere"; the obvious response being that people can't make that choice when they don't know about the activity in the first place. Most people don't assume that sex parties are happening in spaces their kids play in.
I think that's wildly overgenerous; the correct answer is, "if you don't like it, rack off," because no one has any obligation to warn you about things that don't impact you. Either the place passes health inspection (under generally-applicable sanitation laws, not special-pleading-we-don't-like-squicky-sex laws) or it doesn't. If it has been properly sanitized before hours, then it is, again, none of your business what goes on after hours.
If this board is anything to go by, it seems like a lot of folks simply want to go from policing other people’s speech to other people’s sexual practices. I’ll take neither side of the culture wars - everybody involved in it, right, left, and, yes, centrists are seriously fucked and need to learn to mind their own fucking business.
Nobody gives a shit about other peoples sexual practices.
Just keep it to yourself and don’t jizz all over kiddie furniture.
That’s seems supremely reasonable to me.
How in the closet does someone with unconventional sexual practices have to be in order to get a pass from the prude brigade here? This sounds a lot like “It’s OK to be gay, just as long as they keep quiet about it” that I remember from just a few decades ago.
Oddly enough I feel this way about pretty much all kink stuff even though I have been rather sexually adventurous in my life. Nothing to do with hetero/queer or anything, I just don't really want to hear anything about what makes people get aroused without some sort of explicit conversational signal that that's what we're talking about. But this is a subset of thinking that "[insert legally permitted but not looked favorably up on by everyone] Pride" is a terrible thing that has birthed lots of narcissism is all kinds of different communities from kinkiness to fandom.
You make a reasonable point, but again, just how in the closet does someone have to be? I’m putting aside cases where people are being deliberately over-sharing or in-your-face, which I don’t care for either. (I find starting a conversation with “My pronouns are….” to be incredibly cringe.) At the same time, it doesn’t strike me that other people knowing about it and not liking it is a reasonable standard at all. It seems like the folks who are put off by someone’s lifestyle have some duty not to make it their business. Also, there’s cases where the law still comes down on people - BDSM has never been fully decriminalized in the UK. Sex workers still get arrested or otherwise harassed by the law. Why are those groups less entitled to organize against this, and even use “I do this and I’m not a monster” as an argument, as countless other movements have done previously? The thing that I seem to be hearing from a lot of the centrist/heterodox crowd is, “Lesbian and gay liberation was needed, everything else is going too far”. As you might have noticed, that idea when expressed in a kneejerk way really ticks me off, but I’m willing to unpack that.
The centrist/heterodox crowd simultaneously regards all past protest movements as necessary and important and also regards all current protest movements as shrill and unreasonable activists who want to go too far. They're against everything until it becomes popular, at which point they were always for it.
It does seem like that doesn’t it? And I say that as someone who can be very critical of the left and as someone that rejects the idea that protest movements have always been ahead of their time and eventually accepted. The pedophile liberation movement is a prime example of a movement that was ostensibly for liberation of a marginalized group and had quite a few people in the libertarian, socialist, and gay rights movement on board with it. The San Francisco liberal establishment thought Jim Jones was a social justice hero, in some cases right up until the Jonestown killings. The Venezuela solidarity movement was big in the 2000s, and now most socialists don’t have anything good to say about Maduro. So protest movements can get things very wrong.
But the flipside is declaring every successful liberation movement historically a good thing, but having nothing good to say about any current ones. “We’ve reached the best of all possible world, in fact overshot it. Let’s stop with any forward social change, in fact, let’s dial some things back.” I get this from Bari Weiss and the like especially.
Interesting! So, thinking as I am typing here, heterosexuality was the "default" but heterosexual sex was still taboo. It was/is still something you talk about in trusted company. Nobody wants to know about the mechanics of a hetero couples sex life anymore than a gay couple.
So what are kinksters being liberated from exactly? It's entirely inappropriate for me, a heterosexual monogamous female, to go into work or a party or a family gathering and start talking about how I fuck.
It seems to me that there are more than a few folks making the sexual practices of these folks their business, then being really pissed off at what their finding out and somehow putting the onus on the kinksters for not being derp enough in the closet. Me, I think the onus is on busybodies to mind their own fucking business. If someone’s being in-your-face or oversharing, it’s good to draw some boundaries, but I don’t see that’s what’s taking place here.
“So what are kinksters being liberated from exactly?” I hate to be “educate yourself”, but for fuck sake, there’s a long history of people literally being prosecuted for consensual sexual activity, especially BDSM, which in some places is treated as assault, and in some cases, such laws are still on the books. Look up “Operation Spanner” sometime for a historically recent example.
Ah we have a problem here. I don't care about BDSM being illegal. I care more about the men who have been given lenient sentences for killing their girlfriends using a rough sex defence. If that means you have to be extra careful practising your kinks by keeping them secret and making sure you only do them with trusted partners... Good?
And I don’t care to sacrifice real individual rights on the alter of radical feminist ideology or the hatred and suspicion of men that goes with it, so no, not good with that at all. In general, I find radfems and the extreme subset of trans activists to mirror images of each other’s worst tendencies, differing only in which gender grouping everybody’s rights must be sacrificed to in order to protect from any bad tendency whatsoever. I find authoritarian nationalist ideologies in general to be contemptable, gender ones being no exception. So that’s a fundamental difference in world view, really.
Lol. I don't like this thing so it's the same as the other things I don't like! So nuanced.
It's not radical feminism to think that men shouldn't be given lenient sentences because they claim their girlfriend liked being murdered. The fact you think that authoritarian is dumb as fuck.
The fact that you don't see identitarian-based "group rights" arguments as more similar than different is what's lacking in my book. It's much the way Communists and Fascists will eternally deny any similarity between their ideologies while the similarities are glaringly obvious to outsiders. Such is the case with so many warring factions locked in a downward spiral. And the fact that you're OK with having the entirety of sadomasochistic activity be illegal is most certainly authoritarian. UK feminism trends that way, unfortunately.
The fact that gender-crits advocate for such laws, and censorship of porn often as well, but then bitch and whine when the state starts passing laws against their speech (as we've seen in the UK and elsewhere in Europe) is the most myopic thing imaginable. I oppose the lot of that kind of legislation on principal, but unlike the heterodox crowd, I don't see any good guys in the 'TERFs vs trans activists' wars.
What the fuck are you talking about? You're the one leaning identitarian with your nonsense about sadomasochists being some sort of marginalised group. I'm not a feminist radical or otherwise.
I have no issue with sadomasochism being legal until the point that it's legality can be used in defence of murder. This is unreasonable to you?
In the second paragraph you’re literally shifting the goalposts, since you said upthread you have no issue with sadomasochism being illegal, which it is under the most overly-broad interpretations of assault laws. This was what individuals who were caught up in Operation Spanner were often charged with by the authorities.
I do see sadomasochists as a group that is, in a sense, marginalized by unjust laws and irrational stigma. Hell, I see trans people as irrationally stigmatized and with stronger claims on that regard than normie cis women. That said, I’m hardly an identarian - I don’t support special identity-based laws and exceptions to universal rights, based on sex, gender identity, race or otherwise, but no one should be deprived of their rights based on irrational group hatreds either, and that’s what I see taking place here.
My own take on this case is that specifics are likely based on rumor-mongering and innuendo by the people who don’t want the kinksters using that space. I don’t think Jesse and Katie have done any first-hand fact-checking here, are repeating second-hand claims, and doing so because it’s red meat for an audience that really doesn’t like sexual minorities. It’s too bad, because this pod has done some important reporting in the past. Less so these days.
I think your understanding of radical feminism is severely lacking if that's what you think. Murder and rape are statistically sexed crimes. Yes, we know that there are some female persons that commit murder and rape. And yes, it might make the other males on the board uncomfortable to say the statistics out loud... but it's not about us. It's not about any of us that don't rape or murder. It's about policy. What do we do about the men that *do* rape and murder? That use the veil of false accusations to cover their behavior.
You sound an awful lot like people on the right who put a lot of emphasis on Black people disproportionately being the perpetrators of violent crimes, and using that as an excuse for wanting policies that are punitive toward black people. It's one thing to understand the sociological roots of crime, it's another thing to use that as a rationalization for vindictive politics. I'll also note that there's a longstanding and sound feminist critique of the kind of carceral feminism that's being advocated for here.
Carceral feminism? Haha. I see you've been reading Elizabeth Bernstein. By long-standing you mean 10 years. Iirc, she's the one who says sex trafficking is good, actually. And tries to brand her critics as right wing, just as you are, rather than going against the substance of their arguments. It's a tribalistic tactic designed to stifle debate. "You sound like a conservative because you don't agree with me!" Piss off.
Believe me, the “piss off” is mutual. Critics of carceral feminism like Elizabeth Bernstein have never said “sex trafficking is good”, but that it’s a poor legal construct that conflates together everything from consensual sex work to migration to labor exploitation to actual sexual enslavement. OF COURSE the latter should be criminal, but creating a meaningless catch-all so that authorities can use that to crack down on anything they feel like is not good law. But anyway, do go on dumping on those of us who have criticism of such nonsense, framing yourself as the reasonable middle (which is the problem with the whole “centrist” framing) and then gainsaying those of us who want might want reasonable regulations around sex work and not just indiscriminate criminalization as the out-of-touch extreme leftists. THAT is a tribalistic tactic right there, buddy, and even if you’re so high on your own supply that you don’t see that, I see through it and am not buying it.
"Carceral feminism" describes being quick to use the hammer of state power to solve anything that remotely looks like a issue of gender inequality. And if your main tool is a hammer, everything you don't like starts to look like a nail. (BTW. the critique of this approach goes back to the 1980s, with Elizabeth Bernstein simply putting a name on it in the 2000s.)
And in this case, we’re not even talking about commercial sex, but sadomasochistic sexual activity at a private event. And sure enough, the sentiment by many in “reasonable centrist” world is that this too needs to be stigmatized or even punished in some way. Because “feminism”, or just plain, “these people are a bunch of freaks, how dare they show their face in public” - that's about all the "substance" I see here. This ‘centrism’ or ‘feminism’ or whatever the fuck you’re billing it as is no more ‘reasonable’ or for ‘freedom’ than the ‘social justice warrior’ mentality that folks here get up and arms about. And it’s only tribal blindness that prevents you from recognizing this.
“How in the closet does someone with unconventional sexual practices have to be in order to get a pass…”
Would kind of depend on the particular nature of the practices, don’t you think?
“It’s OK to be caged, humiliated, get your ass welted and be dom fucked by a leather nazi, just as long as they keep quiet about it” actually sounds about right. Essentially different than the case of being gay.
That’s pretty arbitrary, if you ask me. And while I’m not saying it’s identical to being gay, you’re argument pretty much IS identical to the kind of argument that used to be made as to why gay people should stay deep in the closet, because of the supposed instinctual revulsion ‘normal’ people might feel toward such a practice. Times changed and social norms changed.
It's worth noting that there are no victims otherwise lack of consent to what sadomasochists are doing. Merely the 'ick' factor, and I don't consider that to be a sufficient moral judgement to condemn and formally or informally penalize a practice.
Dude, there’s nothing wrong with opposing a sloppy off-hours orgy in the kiddie play place, come on. What consenting adults do with poop guns in the privacy of their own homes is something nobody really cares about so long as nobody talks about it at the office water cooler.
First, proof, please, that we’re talking about an actual “kiddie play space” here rather than a claim made by some who’s trying to throw the worst kind of shade on kinky folks they clearly don’t like. (I would suggest if you’re up in arms about sex-being-had in a space where children may later be present, you might have some bigger concerns about motels and bnbs.) Second, your standard for “too public” is if it becomes “office water-cooler gossip”? Are you fucking kidding me? That’s the very opposite of minding your own damned business.
Having sex in a children's play area is okay because people have sex in hotels and children sleep in hotels?
I don't love the habit of describing something by calling it by what it explicitly forebode.
Did Zagarna recruit an asshole apprentice or something?
I don’t know what painful personal issues you’re dealing with that make you want to lash out at everyone here over the tiniest things, but you really need to calm down. These attitudes that you’re projecting onto everyone here are entirely in your head.
I haven’t encountered Zagarna before, but I don’t disagree with him if that’s what you’re asking. I’m merely consistent in my pro-personal freedom and anti-cancel culture politics. Unlike some culture warriors billing themselves as reasonable centrists.
Truth hurts, does it?
No, being an asshole is irritating and toxic
Good thing I don't do that then! Glad we talked that out.
Point me to an argument that equates freedom of speech with freedom to have sex anywhere you like. The latter is just not a thing in any country, as far as I'm aware.
Thank you
Who’s having sex anywhere they like? So far, all that I know is that a group of people had sadomasochistic sex in a rented private space. If that puts a bee in your bonnet, don’t patronize such places. And, yes, I do think freedom of expression does include the right to be out as a sadomasochist without the state coming down on you, which seems to be what’s being asked for here. A more general ”culture of free speech” argument might include the right to be out and not suffer private retaliatory acts (aka “cancel culture“). BTW, if the roles were reversed and the normies were being threatened by the freaks, I think there are a lot of folks here who are pissed at the kinksters would be talking out the other side of their mouths.
You're talking about policing other people's sexual practices. That is absolutely a thing. You can't just fuck anywhere you feel like it. It's wildly different to policing speech.
I think one point you're missing here is that the practice was covert so people didn't have the choice not to take their children to places they would not have been comfortable with.
edit: nobody IRL was going after the participants for what they were into as far as I can tell, it was more of a "not here"?
edit2: I think _most_ of us here dgaf what you do in your private life but there's a fundamental difference between freedom of expression as pertains to sexuality liberty and public expression of sexual behaviour.
You want every business to be required to post one of those running counts: "Days Since Someone Last Had Private, Consensual Sex In This Space"?
I really can't roll my eyes hard enough at these comments.
The statement was "if you don't like it, go elsewhere"; the obvious response being that people can't make that choice when they don't know about the activity in the first place. Most people don't assume that sex parties are happening in spaces their kids play in.
I think that's wildly overgenerous; the correct answer is, "if you don't like it, rack off," because no one has any obligation to warn you about things that don't impact you. Either the place passes health inspection (under generally-applicable sanitation laws, not special-pleading-we-don't-like-squicky-sex laws) or it doesn't. If it has been properly sanitized before hours, then it is, again, none of your business what goes on after hours.