Re: Memes and sexuality

From: Kenneth Van Oost (Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be)
Date: Tue Jul 25 2000 - 20:08:27 BST

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    From: "Kenneth Van Oost" <Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be>
    To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
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    Subject: Re: Memes and sexuality
    Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 21:08:27 +0200
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    Vincent, I will post more info about this in the next fex days.
    Untill then !!

    Regards,

    Kenneth

    (I am, because we are)

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk>
    To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
    Sent: Monday, July 24, 2000 1:38 PM
    Subject: RE: Memes and sexuality

    > That's very interesting.
    >
    > It seems to me that this is an area where public perceptions of risk play
    a
    > part as well. For example, currently in Britain, a young girl has been
    > murdered by an as yet unknown assailant, and has generated massive media
    > coverage. One tabloid sunday newspaper, prompted by this terrible crime,
    > yesterday printed photographs, and named the towns of residence, of 50
    > convicted sex offenders who are on the sex offenders register (the UK
    > version of Megan's Law in the US)- even though, so far, there's no
    evidence
    > that a previously convicted offender committed the crime.
    >
    > In fact, I'm not sure of the actual figure, but the vast majority of child
    > abuse incidents, and child murders, are perpetrated by relatives, or by
    > people known to the victim. The odds of a stranger taking someone's child
    > and killing them are literally millions to one against.
    >
    > It seems that there is always a knee-jerk response to crimes that capture
    a
    > nation's attention- one is to change some aspect of law (superficially on
    > occasion, or fundamentally on others), the other is to go into a kind of
    > mass delusion where the incident is dismissed as a one-off, the
    perpetrator
    > is defined as pure evil, and the event is not seen as indicative of any
    > underground aspect of that nation. Sometimes, paradoxically perhaps, both
    > things happen, as in the case of the Dunblane shootings a few years ago (a
    > gunman killed 15 children and their teacher, and then killed himself)
    where
    > handgun ownership was banned, whilst at the same time the gunman was
    > portrayed as a figure of pure evil.
    >
    > Vincent
    >
    > > ----------
    > > From: Kenneth Van Oost
    > > Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    > > Sent: Friday, July 21, 2000 5:04 pm
    > > To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    > > Subject: Re: Memes and sexuality
    > >
    > >
    > > ----- Original Message -----
    > > From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk>
    > > To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
    > > Sent: Monday, July 17, 2000 5:53 PM
    > > Subject: RE: Memes and sexuality
    > >
    > >
    > > > Just to interject here,
    > > >
    > > > You don't have to go that far back in history to get to a time when
    > > marital
    > > > rape wasn't illegal, and as such wasn't constituted as 'rape' at all.
    > > Given
    > > > things like that, it's no wonder that the incidence of sex crime
    appears
    > > to
    > > > be on the increase.
    > >
    > > << Given other things, in Italia a judge ruled that offering no
    resistance
    > > against the advances of a man is a ground to let the man free on charges
    > > of rape.
    > > Also, judges ruled that there was no way that a girl could be raped
    > > wearing
    > > a jeans, because of the impossibility that the man could have undressed
    > > her
    > > without her help. >>
    > >
    > > > IMHO, the important point relates to the discussion about taboos that
    > > > Kenneth and I have been engaged in. What is clearly different in
    > > > contemporary society is the notion that sex, including sexual abuse
    > > (whether
    > > > rape or incest), as a subject to be discussed in public has gone from
    > > being
    > > > an almost absolute taboo, to something more evidently accepted. With
    > > that
    > > > acceptance has come a big explosion of reports of sexual abuse on
    women
    > > and
    > > > children-
    > >
    > > <<note, however, the situation of woman and children are improved over
    > > the years, they have rights and a voice now !! We are bound to listen !!
    > > We can 't put them off with fair words... >>
    > >
    > > >
    > > > The strategies for trying to pretend such things don't happen can have
    > > long
    > > > terms consequences of course. Am I right in saying, for example, that
    > > one
    > > > intepretation of Freud's concept of the Oedipus complex is that it
    > > stemmed
    > > > (at least in part) from his inability to accept the possibility of
    > > > widespread sexual abuse of children by polite Viennese society as
    > > reported
    > > > by his female patients?
    > >
    > > << In the famous X1 witness cases, in Belgium, there was talk about a
    > > widespread network of childabuse /-rape and -murder by high ranked
    > > politicians, buisnessmen etc. The investigators never found any clue
    about
    > > such network, but in all the us surrounding countries police found one
    or
    > > more. It was like the networks stopped at the Belgium border.
    > > IMHO, a clear case of what I call ' an emotional barrier ', we could
    not
    > > believe, and people do believe still, that above the Dutroux case there
    > > were networks where children were raped, sexually abused and murdered.
    > > Dutroux was worse, even one thing more worse would have meant the
    > > end of the country. In some way we areased the possibility that such
    > > networks could exist out of our collective memory.
    > > Vervloesem, a fellow who investigated such possibility in his own free
    > > time, was brought into discredit, after a while he was accused of having
    > > sex with under age boys and having put the pictures on Internet... >>
    > >
    > > Regards,
    > >
    > > Kenneth
    > >
    > > (I am, because we are)
    > >
    > >
    > > ===============================================================
    > > This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    > > Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    > > For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
    > > see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
    > >
    >
    > ===============================================================
    > This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    > Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    > For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
    > see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
    >
    >

    ===============================================================
    This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
    see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit



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