Representation

Sensationalism and plain social bias are key factors in ensuring that homosexual people remain sidelined. As we say in media writing class, a dog biting a man is generally not news, while a man biting a dog will make it to the papers. Now, whenever a paedophile becomes involved with a young kid, it is invariably something that makes the papers. In fact, it would be wrong not to reveal the presence of such unacceptable behavior. There is no intrinsic moral wrong in doing so.

However, since such crimes are newsworthy, and the achievements of homosexual individuals are hardly so, I imagine the popular representation of homosexual individuals would be quite negative in the press relative to their positive representations. Again, this is not intrinsically morally wrong. It's just media writing and deciding what is nesworthy.

Basically, given that homosexuals are a minority (and all that entails), and are simultaneously under attack by certain groups of people, it stands to reason that these negative representations are simply used as a means by which to condemn them. Undoubtedly, such acts are quite unfortunate and understandably revilved by the community. Worse still, decent gay folk are rendered quite invisible.

Overall, the popular perception is difficult to reverse. The media's other duty is to inform the public, and I believe they are right to reveal the unsavory acts of the black sheep. However, what can be done to help the situation is to give some indication that the crimes, while undoubtedly heinous, are not the norm. Certainly, priests may abuse altar boys, yet I seriously doubt a majority of priests do such things at all, let alone on a regular basis. Should there be an attempt to make peace between the factions (impossible though that may seem at this point), it may be possible to persuade both sides to self police and somewhat improve this sordid situation.

Survival Of The Sickest

I've been reading this fascinating book on genetic "diseases" and evolution. Granted, I have not finished it at the time of the writing of this entry. However, I do like what I've read so far, and I believe that while it does overlap the subject matter of Parasite Rex somewhat, it does have more of a focus on genetics and that topic has always interested me.

The book is easy reading, and does alert me to just how limited my senior high school biology education has been. (And I thought that was pretty hefty by itself). Basically, what I learned from my classes was that evolution was, at best, introduced to new genes through the vagaries of random mutation on a rather minute scale. Perhaps some of it could be from gene exchanges through sexual reproduction. Yet, my education failed to at least hint at the possibility of genes switching position outside the context of sexual reproduction, that they could be switched on and off prior to fertilization such that the on and off state could possibly be passed on to the offspring.

I've always suspected that evolution was more active than I've been taught in school, primarily because the adaptations that parasites come up with seem to be suspiciously pertinent to their needs. After all, if it were always a case of a random 1 in a million parasites coming up with the fix, then repopulating to that million, it seems quite improbable that such elegantly adapted samples could just pop into existence even after a million iterations. Improbable, but not impossible, of course.

Of course, I'd imagine that should this subject matter be taught as well, my senior high syllabus would have been even more horrendous. Regardless, I've been introduced by this book to the adaptive benefits of certain congenital conditions that we popularly regard as genetic defects. It also sheds light on my own condition, and how G6PD deficiency could possibly be a good thing. Perhaps I should take care to avoid certain foods that I wasn't previously told to avoid. Hmm. Besides that, I'm also glad that I have not actually donated blood at some point, and risked dosing someone with my epic exploding red blood cells.

Fashion: Self Policing

Fashion is a pretty potent way to send a social message on a daily basis. The way one dresses sends a signal to others regarding the disposition of a person. It also serves as a check of social conformity. This is of course not a problem in a society that respects ones' right to individuality (within reason). Yet, it is a huge penalty in a society where conformity is important.

For example, someone dressing in a manner contrary to the climate and popular culture will most certainly draw attention. In fact, curious bystanders are likely to snap pictures of the person and spread them over the internet. That aside, in a conformist environment like high school, someone not conforming to whatever expectation the gen pop has of them is very likely to face some rather unpleasant social reprisal. I am talking about bullying.

Simply put, fashion is a sort of social confmity test. If one fails that test, there are consequences. A strong-willed individual may go fuck all regarding this, and do as they wish regardless other peoples' reactions. In reality, that is not always the case, and someone winds up victimized as a result. Undoubtedly, this self-policing is potent, and very real.

An Interesting Question

When I was heading home after a drinking session at a bar, we met this rather interesting transvestite (in full drag, no less). He/she turned to me with rather obvious bewilderment on his/her face and asked me: Are you a man or a woman? I suppose the irony of the question was lost on him/her. I simply responded by saying: That is a very interesting question. My friends were quite creeped out by the experience, especially since that wasn't quite a convincing drag getup, and with a rather interestingly masculine voice. I think I have served my stint as mysterious night creature this time round.

What is interesting though, is how such a person who indeed does seem quite willing to transgress gender boundaries by going about in drag at night yet turns out to be so concerned about the formal delineations of my gender. If anything, I'd have thought this person would have set them aside at least for the crossdressing stint.

That is not to say that I have not asked myself that question before. So far, my response has been...does it really matter? Sometimes, after much thought, my conclusion is that...it doesn't really. Androgyny for the win!

Those Senile Delinquents

I am becoming increasingly annoyed by the rising incidences of senile delinquency. Now, the situation is that some old folks are starting to believe that they have some kind of entitlement to a seat on public transport simply by virtue of the fact that they're old. While I do agree that we all have a duty to protect those weaker than we are, there is a difference between being willing/unwilling to do one's duty, and to have someone arrogantly presume that you need to do your duty for them simply because they expect as much.

Now, what happens when an older person is standing before you on public transport? One's duty would come to the fore if the older person (or any other person, for that matter) shows that they are in greater need of the seat than you are. That, or they can voice it out if they show no external signs of weakness but need the seat regardless. Yet, it irks me to no end if someone simply stands in front of another, expecting that their mere presence would coerce the person into giving up their seat. No cookie, my good chap. The standing around and looking imposing bit is largely my role, thank you very much.

I believe that everyone should do their utmost to be civil in all their public dealings as far as possible. In the event that someone chooses to be uncivil in the manner of standing around expecting things to happen, then expressing displeasure when nothing happens because of their silence, I would put them in their place. Being older folk, I have even greater expectations of them, because they have been around longer than I have and I do expect them to have a greater understanding of what constitutes politeness. I do wish, however, that senile delinquents quit behaving like they do and thus giving other older folk a bad name. Unfortunately, I am pretty sure it's wishful thinking at best on my part.

Peeling The Dream

I am documenting my method for peeling aside the layers of my dreams in order to better understand them. I do tend to amuse myself by doing exactly that, whereby when I wake up remembering a dream, I get down to dissecting its contents as I remembered them. Of course, it is expected that some details fade from memory practically immediately, and the memory continues to decay, so it is useful to analyze the dream at the moment of recollection.

The thing I would do is recall as much of the dream as possible, then try to pay attention to each dream segment. From there on, I try to sift out which memory maps to each dream segment. For example, if I dream about a house with a river and a mountain nearby, the interior of the house can often be mapped to an interior I've seen in a movie, read about or just simply seen in real life. What comes next can be distilled further, like how the water is moving and what sort of emotion/experience it is reminiscent of. The process repeats itself till I become unable to reconcile the final dream segments. That's what I regard as somewhat original segments, in that they do not readily relate to a memory or previous dream.

Of course, this is not to say that the "original" segments (which probably are not) are of any particular significance. Except perhaps my rat dream and the other similar ones. Regardless, it is interesting to go through this exercise and realize just how much of a dream is really quite intrinsic however bizarre it may seem to be.

Brainwashing

Sometimes I think the term "brainwashing" is a subjective judgment of highly effective persuasion. Simply put, if someone's personality and opinions have been changed in what is deemed to be a positive manner, that someone has been persuaded. If the change is in a perceived negative direction, that person has been brainwashed.

That bewilders me, because I am trying to better understand just what brainwashing is, and how to differentiate it from plain persuasion. The loose way the term is bandied about does make me think that the terms brainwashing and persuasion are interchangeable depending on the arbitrary perspectives of the people deciding the label. For example, if someone suddenly decided to join an unpopular cult and started becoming exceedingly devoted to the cult, brainwashing is suspected because the person was not expected to originally be of the temperament that would nudge them towards cult membership. And given that the cult may be deemed detrimental to them, their devotion to it may be seen as yet another sign of brainwashing.

However, I've always wondered if they were indeed "brainwashed" as the term is understood. It may well be that the person genuinely believes in this cult for whatever reason. In fact, the term "genuinely" is dubious as well, since it may well be that the brainwashed individual and the persuaded individual both truly believe that they are devoted to the cult. How will one distinguish at this point? My current take is that perhaps the terms are differentiated by perceived acceptability of the persuasion, rather than any objective measure of brainwashingness. After all, I haven't heard of people being brainwashed into being perfectly good law abiding citizens. They were...persuaded.

Sharing The Blame

I was considering the case of gang rape turned aggravated outrage of modesty. Here, a bunch of guys gang raped a girl at a drinking party, but the judge later amended the charge to outrage of modesty. Granted, I do not know the exact facts of the case, so I cannot possibly make a fair alternative judgment, but I do think there is an underlying principle to such cases: sharing the blame.

Now, it seems that the girl has engaged in risky behavior, having gone to a drinking party as the only girl amongst a bunch of guys. Indeed, when people are drunk, they are capable of doing incredibly stupid things, so they are to some extent absolved of being expected to exercise their better judgment. Thus, she is certainly doing something foolish by putting herself at risk.

Yet, there is the niggling doubt here, that justice was not served. The principle is simple, in that a crime is a crime regardless of one's state of mind at the time, and regardless of the risk the victim exposed themselves to. If a man covered in jewelery was silly enough to walk into a lonely dark alley alone, I could reasonably expect that he'd be a target of an opportunistic robber. However, should the robber be caught, I seriously doubt that the robber would be charged with a lesser crime: the robber clearly robbed the man, and would be punished as such. The fact that the man was stupid enough to expose himself to crime is irrelevant in this case. In fact, the man's stupidity was already punished by his being turned into a victim of a crime of opportunity.

Back to the raped girl, my take is that if all involved were drunk and the guys were still sober enough to drag her out to be gang raped for a couple hours, they are certainly sober enough to have a niggling notion of right and wrong. While their state of intoxication can shed doubt on whether consent was given at the time, the fact that they did force themselves on a girl seems to be sufficient grounds to consider the crime a gang rape.

Of course, this assumes that a crime did take place. There is the flip side whereby it could have been that the girl did indeed consent to sex with all of them while she was drunk (or sober) instead of with one of them as claimed. In short, she could have cried rape. Conversely, the guys could simply gang up and claim that she was consenting at the time. It becomes a somewhat tricky call, because all were presumably drunk at the time, while their truthfulness and integrity of memory may be in doubt due to intoxication. Circumstantial evidence may serve to be the objective witness here, though the trustworthiness of the evidence is only as good as its interpretation.

Ultimately, however, I disagree that women should by default avoid such "risky behavior" to evade potential harm. Responsibility for one's actions should fall equally upon everyone. If the girl in question was at risk of being raped, it is the responsibility of those guys nearby to prevent their peers from doing so. To assume otherwise, that the woman is responsible for avoiding harm, is a slippery slope. How far should one go to truly avoid harm? She might as well hide at home wearing a full suit of armor and a chastity belt. Surely such a solution is unsuitable. As I've said before: if men were truly unable to control themselves, they should not be permitted to go out unescorted by a sensible woman. To do otherwise would be irresponsible.

I discussed the case with a friend, and after much discussion of avoiding harm when drinking, we found that there was no real way to avoid harm when drinking and have fun at the same time. If the girl drank alone with guys at someone's house, the girl is understandably at risk. If the girl drank with female friends at a pub, it is still not inconceivable that the lot of them would get stone drunk and carted off somewhere by a gang to be taken advantage of. If they drank with a mix of both genders, it is still possible that the guy friends proceeded to take advantage. The possibility, then, was to not get stone drunk in the first place. Yet, such an approach is still not suitable, since it is a fine line between being drunk and being amnesiac-drunk: One may not know when one will cross the line, depending on health status, drug use, food consumption, etc. The metabolism varies. The final solution is to simply ban alcohol (and other similar substances) to avoid becoming intoxicated at all.

Ultimately, it must be accepted that some risk is always involved when one is going to get intoxicated for recreational purposes. The risk is not the problem. The problem is societal attitudes that someone is disproportionately responsible for their own safety. In a case where everyone is equally responsible, the victim already bore the responsibility from becoming a victim in the first place. What is left is for the perpetrator to pay their dues.