My Long Reply
Dear Tanya,
Thank you very much for your prompt and informative reply.
Two minor things: in describing the Murder in the Bedroom book, I believe you meant "exhaustive" rather than "exhausting" in terms of itsreview of the evidence (although, I suppose it could be both!); secondly, I think you meant to describe Baba's position as "vaunted" asopposed to "vaulted". Please forgive my rudeness in mentioning thesethings, but I 'like' to have such things pointed out to me -- for example, somebody corrected my lifelong usage of the non-word"irregardless" the other night; I did put up a sustained rearguardaction claiming that the word now is a word by way of common usage andthat pedants and the English language are always going in differentdirections, and that this is simply an example of that process, and thatI was happy to be found on the non-fussy side of the great dividebetween those who say "irregardless" and those who simply, and smugly, say "regardless"; still I am glad now to be aware of the issue and I'm grateful for my snotty friend for disabusing me of my ignorance. It is in this spirit, and without suggesting any ignorance on your part, thatI have passed on the silly comments above.
Now, as to "abuse", I think your position is perfectly understandableand defendable, but I also think that it tends to confuse a number ofthings. And I think this is very common. Let me presume further upon your patience and your good will and try to explain what I mean.
First, I think there are physical acts which are intrinsically abusive. One thinks, in this regard, of a blow by one person to the body of another that causes pain, bruising, even broken bones or injury tointernal organs. Certain sexual actions, which I will not try todescribe here, can perhaps also be in this category of intrinsicallyabusive, or close to it, particularly when they accompany an overall physical assault, or are carried out on young children. So I think we would have no difficulty agreeing that there are certain actions which produce injury that are quite clearly properly described as abuse.
You might be tempted to remark at this point that we call these thing sabuse rather than just assault because they happen in a certainrelationship or context -- one thinks of "spousal abuse" and so on --and that I am neglecting that part of the matter. That is to say, tha tit is not the nature of the blow and whether or not it produces injurythat makes it abuse, but rather the fact that it occurs within the confines of the relationship between the two persons that allows the blow or other insult to the body or person of another to be carried out. Yes, I quite agree that the social context is important, especiallywhen we look at assaults of one kind or another than go on for extended periods of time. And, at first glance, this seems to be a key factor in what happened to the young man Alaya in terms of his sexual encounterswith Baba: Alaya would never have allowed this funny little old man to carry out his sexual escapades if Baba was not at the centre of a cultof personality, or whatever you want to call it.
However, the actions which Alaya consented to are not inherently abusive. Not at all.
In Canada, there was a bit of scandal a number of years back where someof the adult male staff that ran Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto werefound to have been taking sexual favours from street kids (maleteenagers) in return for allowing them access to professional ice hockeygames and other things within their control (including providing drugs Ithink). In describing one of these incidents, one of the teenagersinvolved said, "first he abused me, then I abused him". What he wasWhat he was
This is an improper use the word "abuse" but it helps to illuminate theinherent problem of the over-use of the word. In this particular case,the act of fellatio between males was being equated to abuse. When twoparties are actively and consensually acting in this manner they canhardly be considered to be abusing each other -- indeed, there must besomething in the definition of the "abuse" that denies the possibilityof mutual abuse, if the word is to have any useful content at all.The insight here (if that is what it is), I should add, was not mine butthat of a CBC radio journalist who covered the issue on the Ideasprogram and who discussed the sex scandal at Maple Leaf Gardens -- and anumber of others like it -- and, more importantly, the media coverage ofthe scandals and the public reaction. His primary point, as I recall,was that sex that had been consensual in a number of different contextsbecame known as "abuse" only when it was exposed and submitted to publicdisapproval. The public disapproved of homo-sexual interaction (by andlarge) especially when one participant was 16 or 17 or 18 years of ageand the other was an adult, and that the frowned upon sexual activitywas thus labeled as "abuse". Teenage males are notoriously promiscuous,whether homosexual or not, and we would not normally call their sexualactivity, done by consent, as abuse. It was the social disapproval ofthe context of the sexual activity (often lonely middle aged malehomosexuals being "used" for money or drugs by sexually active youngerstreet teenagers), rather than anything about the sexual interaction orits consequences that transformed these sexual events into the status of"abuse".Of course, in your program Alaya didn\'t use wording that suggested that",1]
);
//-->
describing was fellatio being performed first on him and then by him.This is an improper use the word "abuse" but it helps to illuminate theinherent problem of the over-use of the word. In this particular case,the act of fellatio between males was being equated to abuse. When twoparties are actively and consensually acting in this manner they canhardly be considered to be abusing each other -- indeed, there must besomething in the definition of the "abuse" that denies the possibilityof mutual abuse, if the word is to have any useful content at all.
This is an improper use the word "abuse" but it helps to illuminate theinherent problem of the over-use of the word. In this particular case,the act of fellatio between males was being equated to abuse. When twoparties are actively and consensually acting in this manner they canhardly be considered to be abusing each other -- indeed, there must besomething in the definition of the "abuse" that denies the possibilityof mutual abuse, if the word is to have any useful content at all.The insight here (if that is what it is), I should add, was not mine butthat of a CBC radio journalist who covered the issue on the Ideasprogram and who discussed the sex scandal at Maple Leaf Gardens -- and anumber of others like it -- and, more importantly, the media coverage ofthe scandals and the public reaction. His primary point, as I recall,was that sex that had been consensual in a number of different contextsbecame known as "abuse" only when it was exposed and submitted to publicdisapproval. The public disapproved of homo-sexual interaction (by andlarge) especially when one participant was 16 or 17 or 18 years of ageand the other was an adult, and that the frowned upon sexual activitywas thus labeled as "abuse". Teenage males are notoriously promiscuous,whether homosexual or not, and we would not normally call their sexualactivity, done by consent, as abuse. It was the social disapproval ofthe context of the sexual activity (often lonely middle aged malehomosexuals being "used" for money or drugs by sexually active youngerstreet teenagers), rather than anything about the sexual interaction orits consequences that transformed these sexual events into the status of"abuse".Of course, in your program Alaya didn\'t use wording that suggested that",1]
);
//-->
Thank you very much for your prompt and informative reply.
Two minor things: in describing the Murder in the Bedroom book, I believe you meant "exhaustive" rather than "exhausting" in terms of itsreview of the evidence (although, I suppose it could be both!); secondly, I think you meant to describe Baba's position as "vaunted" asopposed to "vaulted". Please forgive my rudeness in mentioning thesethings, but I 'like' to have such things pointed out to me -- for example, somebody corrected my lifelong usage of the non-word"irregardless" the other night; I did put up a sustained rearguardaction claiming that the word now is a word by way of common usage andthat pedants and the English language are always going in differentdirections, and that this is simply an example of that process, and thatI was happy to be found on the non-fussy side of the great dividebetween those who say "irregardless" and those who simply, and smugly, say "regardless"; still I am glad now to be aware of the issue and I'm grateful for my snotty friend for disabusing me of my ignorance. It is in this spirit, and without suggesting any ignorance on your part, thatI have passed on the silly comments above.
Now, as to "abuse", I think your position is perfectly understandableand defendable, but I also think that it tends to confuse a number ofthings. And I think this is very common. Let me presume further upon your patience and your good will and try to explain what I mean.
First, I think there are physical acts which are intrinsically abusive. One thinks, in this regard, of a blow by one person to the body of another that causes pain, bruising, even broken bones or injury tointernal organs. Certain sexual actions, which I will not try todescribe here, can perhaps also be in this category of intrinsicallyabusive, or close to it, particularly when they accompany an overall physical assault, or are carried out on young children. So I think we would have no difficulty agreeing that there are certain actions which produce injury that are quite clearly properly described as abuse.
You might be tempted to remark at this point that we call these thing sabuse rather than just assault because they happen in a certainrelationship or context -- one thinks of "spousal abuse" and so on --and that I am neglecting that part of the matter. That is to say, tha tit is not the nature of the blow and whether or not it produces injurythat makes it abuse, but rather the fact that it occurs within the confines of the relationship between the two persons that allows the blow or other insult to the body or person of another to be carried out. Yes, I quite agree that the social context is important, especiallywhen we look at assaults of one kind or another than go on for extended periods of time. And, at first glance, this seems to be a key factor in what happened to the young man Alaya in terms of his sexual encounterswith Baba: Alaya would never have allowed this funny little old man to carry out his sexual escapades if Baba was not at the centre of a cultof personality, or whatever you want to call it.
However, the actions which Alaya consented to are not inherently abusive. Not at all.
In Canada, there was a bit of scandal a number of years back where someof the adult male staff that ran Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto werefound to have been taking sexual favours from street kids (maleteenagers) in return for allowing them access to professional ice hockeygames and other things within their control (including providing drugs Ithink). In describing one of these incidents, one of the teenagersinvolved said, "first he abused me, then I abused him". What he wasWhat he was
This is an improper use the word "abuse" but it helps to illuminate theinherent problem of the over-use of the word. In this particular case,the act of fellatio between males was being equated to abuse. When twoparties are actively and consensually acting in this manner they canhardly be considered to be abusing each other -- indeed, there must besomething in the definition of the "abuse" that denies the possibilityof mutual abuse, if the word is to have any useful content at all.The insight here (if that is what it is), I should add, was not mine butthat of a CBC radio journalist who covered the issue on the Ideasprogram and who discussed the sex scandal at Maple Leaf Gardens -- and anumber of others like it -- and, more importantly, the media coverage ofthe scandals and the public reaction. His primary point, as I recall,was that sex that had been consensual in a number of different contextsbecame known as "abuse" only when it was exposed and submitted to publicdisapproval. The public disapproved of homo-sexual interaction (by andlarge) especially when one participant was 16 or 17 or 18 years of ageand the other was an adult, and that the frowned upon sexual activitywas thus labeled as "abuse". Teenage males are notoriously promiscuous,whether homosexual or not, and we would not normally call their sexualactivity, done by consent, as abuse. It was the social disapproval ofthe context of the sexual activity (often lonely middle aged malehomosexuals being "used" for money or drugs by sexually active youngerstreet teenagers), rather than anything about the sexual interaction orits consequences that transformed these sexual events into the status of"abuse".Of course, in your program Alaya didn\'t use wording that suggested that",1]
);
//-->
describing was fellatio being performed first on him and then by him.This is an improper use the word "abuse" but it helps to illuminate theinherent problem of the over-use of the word. In this particular case,the act of fellatio between males was being equated to abuse. When twoparties are actively and consensually acting in this manner they canhardly be considered to be abusing each other -- indeed, there must besomething in the definition of the "abuse" that denies the possibilityof mutual abuse, if the word is to have any useful content at all.
This is an improper use the word "abuse" but it helps to illuminate theinherent problem of the over-use of the word. In this particular case,the act of fellatio between males was being equated to abuse. When twoparties are actively and consensually acting in this manner they canhardly be considered to be abusing each other -- indeed, there must besomething in the definition of the "abuse" that denies the possibilityof mutual abuse, if the word is to have any useful content at all.The insight here (if that is what it is), I should add, was not mine butthat of a CBC radio journalist who covered the issue on the Ideasprogram and who discussed the sex scandal at Maple Leaf Gardens -- and anumber of others like it -- and, more importantly, the media coverage ofthe scandals and the public reaction. His primary point, as I recall,was that sex that had been consensual in a number of different contextsbecame known as "abuse" only when it was exposed and submitted to publicdisapproval. The public disapproved of homo-sexual interaction (by andlarge) especially when one participant was 16 or 17 or 18 years of ageand the other was an adult, and that the frowned upon sexual activitywas thus labeled as "abuse". Teenage males are notoriously promiscuous,whether homosexual or not, and we would not normally call their sexualactivity, done by consent, as abuse. It was the social disapproval ofthe context of the sexual activity (often lonely middle aged malehomosexuals being "used" for money or drugs by sexually active youngerstreet teenagers), rather than anything about the sexual interaction orits consequences that transformed these sexual events into the status of"abuse".Of course, in your program Alaya didn\'t use wording that suggested that",1]
);
//-->
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