Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Be Careful What You Wish For...
Recently, some very perverse individuals were unable to get their minds out of the gutter when presented with a beautiful and natural celebration of girlish innocence:
Playboy boss Hugh Hefner wants to the 15-year-old to follow up her controversial photographs for a magazine recently and strip off completely in the pages of his magazine, but only when she reaches the legal age.
The 82-year-old also slammed the furore surrounding her poses for the magazine. “I think to make such a big to do over something as innocent as those photos, I think is a reflection on how schizophrenic America is about sexuality,” he said.
Hugh is such a smart fellow. His comment clearly illustrates the phallacious thinking behind these so-called 'slippery slope' arguments.
I mean, it's not as though a few partially unclothed photos of a girl statutorily under the age of sexual consent generated so much heat that they attracted the attention of... oh, I don't know ... a magazine that features photos of nude women :p
On the otter heiny, this is just inexcusable.
- Cassandra
17 Comments:
By 
, at
Tue May 13, 02:09:00 PM:
Sue is a perfect candidate for testing the outer limits of the bounce-o-meter, once she's finished her art career.
Miley might want to finish eighth grade before she moves on to the Playboy mansion.
By 
ScurvyOaks, at
Tue May 13, 02:23:00 PM:
"Benefits Supervisor Sleeping" -- that's pretty much the perfect title and visual representation of the nanny state.
By K. Pablo, at
Tue May 13, 02:29:00 PM:
The painting challenges modern notions of beauty...
Nor is she beautiful in a classical sense....
By Dawnfire82, at
Tue May 13, 02:40:00 PM:
After reading these comments, I've decided to forgo viewing that link. I'm all out of eye-bleach, you see...
By Cassandra, at
Tue May 13, 03:06:00 PM:
I'm all out of eye-bleach, you see...
Heh. My work is done :p
I agree, Dawnfire. That was cruel.
Funny, but cruel.
By Cassandra, at
Tue May 13, 03:12:00 PM:
You have to admit, A. Non., that the sight of Hugh Hefner chiding his fellow lovers of feminine pulchritude for polluting his enjoyment of youthful innocence with their "schizophrenic attitudes about sex" as he offers Ms. Cyrus money to pose nude is almost worth the price of admission...
*snort*
By , at
Tue May 13, 04:20:00 PM:
Hugh would tell us, if he were talking to us, that there is no irony here. After all, it's all about him, his house and his limo. That's the important stuff, and Miley could play an important role in keeping the dream alive and solvent.
Too bad about that whole "of age" thing. I mean, if her parents don't care, and she's into it, why should society foist it's hidebound views on consenting adults who like to abuse children for money?
By Cassandra, at
Tue May 13, 04:29:00 PM:
Well yanno... if Miley says no, there's always Sue! She's got a million-dollar bod!
*running away*
By , at
Wed May 14, 08:01:00 AM:
"on the other heiny"?
Good grief. How old are you?
By Viking Kaj, at
Wed May 14, 10:04:00 AM:
There is a reason for 18 USC Sections 2251-2260, and Hef's comments are just a further reminder of why this code section was made necessary.
Even if Billy Ray is pimpin' his daughter it's still illegal. Thank god someone realizes that minors are not capable of reasonable decision making in such instances. I know I certainly wouldn't want my teenage daughter making such calls.
I wonder how this is going to impact sales of Hannah Montana lunch boxes in Salt Lake City? That's the real litmus test.
By Dawnfire82, at
Wed May 14, 10:24:00 AM:
"Thank god someone realizes that minors are not capable of reasonable decision making in such instances."
So a 17 year old is incapable of rational thought, but the very same 17 year old the following day (when they turn 18) is?
That's retarded. And I thought it was retarded when I was 17.
We have some of the higher age of consent laws in all the world. Nature has decreed that reproductive capability and sexual attractiveness strikes in the early teens. The idea that people who *have* such capability are just naturally too stupid to use it until they reach a magic date when a 'smart switch' goes off in their brain is a legislated absurdity.
It's the same kind of schizophrenic idiocy that declares that a 17 year old (still under the general age of sexual consent, mind you) can enlist in the Army, fire machine guns, rocket launchers, and drive tanks, but 'isn't responsible enough' to buy beer.
Triumph of self deceiving illusion over reality.
By Cassandra, at
Wed May 14, 11:25:00 AM:
Good grief. How old are you?
1. Actually, if you read carefully, it's "otter heiny", not "other" heiny.
2. 49 in about 2 days. Why? How old are you?
3. It's a bit of an inside joke. But as you appear to be unusually excitable, I'll attempt to avoid frivolity in future, especially as it relates to aquatic mammals :p
By Cassandra, at
Wed May 14, 11:32:00 AM:
She isn't 17 Dawnfire. She's 15.
You can debate the unwisdom of arbitrary age cutoffs all you wish, but exactly how does society go about making a legal distinction between adults and children without first defining who is a child? I think we all recognize that one-size-fits-all rules chafe at the margins, but they're intended to serve broad public policy ends, not to serve as perfect guide on the individual level.
That's why we have emancipated minor laws.
By Cassandra, at
Wed May 14, 11:36:00 AM:
Oh, and regarding this:
It's the same kind of schizophrenic idiocy that declares that a 17 year old (still under the general age of sexual consent, mind you) can enlist in the Army, fire machine guns, rocket launchers, and drive tanks, but 'isn't responsible enough' to buy beer.
The difference is that we generally don't allow 17 year-olds to do those things while intoxicated. Alcohol is one of many mood altering substances which inarguably cause even mature adults to do things they would not otherwise do if their inhibitions were not chemically impaired.
You are arguing apples and oranges. The issue is not whether 17 year olds are ready to *buy* beer, but whether the average 17 year old is mature enough to consume it responsibly.
By Dawnfire82, at
Wed May 14, 01:18:00 PM:
"She isn't 17 Dawnfire. She's 15."
Numbers.
My point was v. Viking with his implied claim that people are either too dumb or not too dumb for decisiona based on an arbitrary age. And that's exactly what he said: "Thank god someone realizes that minors are not capable of reasonable decision making..."
They'll never be capable of reasonable decision making if they aren't allowed to make decisions, will they?
For example: You know what all my friends in college did when they turned 21? They bought a ton of beer and got totally shitfaced. One of them, Dan, promptly wrecked his truck and shattered his arm. It was his first time to get drunk, and it happened far away from home at a party in a college town because he wasn't allowed to do it any sooner.
"The difference is that we generally don't allow 17 year-olds to do those things while intoxicated."
I don't see the point of this statement. 40 year olds aren't allowed, either.
My point was the fundamental disconnect that allows these "children" to use military weapons of war that are not simply dangerous but designed to kill people in spectacular ways, but beer is off limits. Because they aren't mature enough.
Rifles, explosives, and giant combat vehicles, ok. 'No problem. And good for you, for enlisting.'
A beer? 'What do you think you're doing? You're just a child!' One of most pathetic things I've ever seen was an Army sergeant who was a veteran of two deployments, and was not old... I'm sorry, 'mature' enough to buy a beer.
I think that the same logic applies to sexual consent. It's cool to drive a two ton vehicle at high rates of speed, or sign an employment contract and work at a job and bring in money (and pay taxes) but you aren't grown up enough to make 'reasonable decisions' about sex.
"The issue is not whether 17 year olds are ready to *buy* beer, but whether the average 17 year old is mature enough to consume it responsibly."
There's no distinction. They aren't allowed to buy it so they can't consume it. Providing it elsewise is a felony, (in Texas, anyway) Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor.
Our society is terribly hung up on issues of sex and alcohol, far beyond the point of rationality. You are allowed to contribute to the choice of our nation's leadership before your fragile little mind can be entrusted with the awesome responsibility of downing a Budweiser.
I think that's absurd. Fortunately, it seems that I'm not the only one.
http://www.jointogether.org/news/headlines/inthenews/2008/bills-to-lower-drinking-age.html
By Cassandra, at
Wed May 14, 03:54:00 PM:
Our society is terribly hung up on issues of sex and alcohol, far beyond the point of rationality. You are allowed to contribute to the choice of our nation's leadership before your fragile little mind can be entrusted with the awesome responsibility of downing a Budweiser....
I think that's absurd. Fortunately, it seems that I'm not the only one.
What you (or I) think about the drinking age is not really the issue here and in any event, the way these laws function in real life is not to prevent this behavior entirely, but to put a damper on it and make it possible for law enforcement to go after people when certain lines have been crossed - something that wouldn't be too easy if the distinctions weren't there in the first place.
Until we move somewhere with a less representative form of government, we have to abide by the disturbing notion that in democracies, laws are a function of the mores of the majority of the citizenry.
Persuade enough of your fellow Americans and your 8 year old niece and nephew can enjoy free love and unlimited brewskis liberated from the arbitrary dictates of their parents or anyone else, courtesy of Uncle Sam. After all, why should they have to listen to their parents? They're adults and can make their own decisions! The law says so.
Of course then children will also have no protection under law (can't very well define a class of protected persons without drawing those arbitrary lines in the sand!) but one must break a few eggs, n'est pas?
I can think of at least one organization whose support you can count on. The savings in travel money alone would be a considerable inducement, I'd say.
And those links are not provided to be gratuitously offensive, but to make a point.
By Cassandra, at
Wed May 14, 04:06:00 PM:
My point was the fundamental disconnect that allows these "children" to use military weapons of war that are not simply dangerous but designed to kill people in spectacular ways, but beer is off limits. Because they aren't mature enough.
Last time I checked, military weapons *per se* don't affect your judgment negatively. Neither do guns.
Also, the average military recruit is not generally placed in situation where he/she is firing weapons unsupervised. The Marine Corps does not, for instance, send 17 year olds out into the streets of your neighborhood with an M-16 or a tank, so the risk to the community is not comparable.
Alcohol, on the other hand, is known to impair judgment in even moderate amounts (and that's coming from someone who drinks regularly and has since ... well, let's not go there). Adding chemical substances which impair inhibitions to the known tendency of immature homo sapiens to act somewhat randomly in their leisure time when they're not supervised and you have exacerbated an already existing problem in a way that training them to use weapons under a structured system, with rules and very well defined consequences for screwing up, does not.
