Re: Memes and sexuality

From: Kenneth Van Oost (Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be)
Date: Thu Jul 13 2000 - 19:37:52 BST

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    From: "Kenneth Van Oost" <Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be>
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    Subject: Re: Memes and sexuality
    Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 20:37:52 +0200
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    ----- Original Message -----
    From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk>
    To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
    Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2000 4:32 PM
    Subject: RE: Memes and sexuality

    > Yes... the name of the song escapes me also, but a fuller version of the
    > lyric goes-
    >
    > 'You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals,
    > So lets do it like they do on the Discovery Channel'
    >
    > It's good to see todays teenagers being encouraged to watch educational
    > programming :-)
    >
    > Undoubtedly there is an evident line of thought where people try to
    > avoid/deny acknowledging that humans are animals, e.g. creationists, but
    > many religions regard animals as gods/sacred/powerful etc.
    >
    > Also sexual taboos are really rather recent in many ways. I saw a
    programme
    > recently that got me very cross indeed because it said that the trend for
    > children entering puberty at younger and younger ages was primarily due to
    > the sexualised, mediated environment kids grow up in.

    < Snip >

    <<Younger you say !?
    Can we say " faster in growing up " ? If is that the case, than it is
    memetic !
    Somehow memetical processes urged up the genetic environment so that
    girls/ boys are at a younger age sexual active.
    That is memes speed up behaviours, the social environment, technology etc.
    in order to propagate themselves " faster " that is here in this context,
    ' younger ' !

    I think puberty is not earlier reached but we have to suppose due to the
    fact of the mediated environment where kids do grow up in, that it is more
    easily for them to get the info about ' how it is done '.
    That is, the possibilities to imitate certain behaviours are legio.
    Remerber, 40 years back, more then now, to speak of sexuality was no
    obvious subject.

    By the way, we mustn ' t be naive_boys and girls are at a younger age sexual
    active.
    I heard once a story of a 12 years old girl, who had a friend of 15.
    After 3 days the girl was getting very upset, because the boy didn 't yet
    ' touched ' her ! She assumed that the love of her life, ' didn 't liked
    girls '!

    Something memetic or would it be genetical is surely going on here !!
    Something is changed in the memetic approach to deal with such beha-
    viour_due to the fact that memes has ' new hosts ' to propagate themselves
    trough !?

    > the programme ploughed on with its 'the media's to blame' line without
    ever
    > acknowledging how sexualised many cultures in the past have been, not
    least
    > the cultures of the Ancient World, nor of the censoriousness of
    contemporary
    > Britain with regard to sexuality. (e.g. a programme in the same series
    > discussed a controversial sex education film from the early 1970s, but had
    > to cover up an erection and intercourse, despite it being nearly 30 years
    > on, after the 9:00pm watershed- when more adult material is allowed to be
    > showed).

    <<Vincent, how over-sexualised is England !? I read here in the papers that
    England has the most children (under 15 I think) who did became mother !?
    Wouldn 't that be related to a poorer social environment, or is that grotesk
    !?

    > Eygptian beliefs involved the masturbation of the universe into existence
    by
    > Amun, and statues and depections of the creation god (at least before
    > christian European archaeologists got there) showed him with an erection,
    > for example. In Ancient Greece, at the time of the city-states, homes
    > include plaster phalluses on the walls which were garlanded during
    religious
    > festivals.

    << Didn 't they found the remains of a whorehouse and what was left of
    the direction-signs to go there in Pompei !? Or was it somewhere else !?

    Regards,

    Kenneth

    (I am, because we are)

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