Debate Thread

I don't think it's fair to compare the way male and female upper bodies are perceived. Clearly, even on a purely biological basis, breasts have a more profound effect on men than a man's chest has on women. They're definitely not the same, and shouldn't be dealt with as such. This isn't so much about equal rights as it is about biology. Sometime you have to accept the differences.

As far as bras are concerned, I really don't think I have any right to judge. If some women want to wear bras, fine, if they don't, fine. The presence or absence of a bra doesn't really affect me in any way. Being a perpetually single male, I'll probably take a look either way, but that doesn't mean I think less of the person in question because of wether or not they're wearing a bra.

I don't know why, but this seemed appropriate:



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How do you know a man's chest doesn't have a profound effect on women? Maybe women like looking at men as much as men like looking at women. Moreover, isn't the male nipple just an underdeveloped breast?

It is, but it doesn't have the same sexual connotations.

Gorgro wrote:Clearly, even on a purely biological basis, breasts have a more profound effect on men than a man's chest has on women.

I read somewhere that breasts don't fundamentally cause arousal in males, it's a behavioural adaptation as a result of their -for lack of a better term- social stigma . I don't have a source but do you have anything to comment on that?

That's just how we (eg. the millions of people that make up western society) are. Explaining the cause doesn't invalidate the reaction.

semicolon wrote:

Gorgro wrote:Clearly, even on a purely biological basis, breasts have a more profound effect on men than a man's chest has on women.

I read somewhere that breasts don't fundamentally cause arousal in males, it's a behavioural adaptation as a result of their -for lack of a better term- social stigma . I don't have a source but do you have anything to comment on that?

Well, of course. We have sexualized the female body to the point where they literally have to cover it up, lest they be drowned in a sea of erections.

If we put no sexual emphasise on breasts, then no one would have to cover up their chests. (Unless it was, like, cold. Or something.)

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Oh yeah, um... Im going to put this here, because Im not really sure where else it would go, and it's probably going to start a debate anyway.

I was talking to my dad about abortion. He's extremely against it. Oddly enough, however, it doen't seem like it's an ethical issue, for him. He doesn't like it, because the woman gets all the choice. He said (Im going to paraphrase) "The couple can talk about it and all, but when it really comes down to it, if I wanted her to have an abortion, I couldn't force her. But if she wants to have one, then there's nothing I can do to change her mind."

So.... It's not that he thinks there's a moral issue (I mean, he does, but that's not the reason for him not liking it) he just doesn't like the fact that the woman gets all the choice.

Which is stupidly ignorant, if you ask me. It's her choice if she doesn't want to give birth, his, or both of them. Her choice.


EDIT: Actually, I found one of HIS posts on the subject:

Spoiler:

I agree with him on this point; men should have an equal amount of a decision on aborting their child.

Sure, I agree. But that's not up to the state to decide. That's the couple's decision. It should have no impact on whether abortion is legal or not.

Plus, it doesn't apply to Snuggle kittens with victims, and such...

The woman gets the last call because she's the one that's going to physically have the child. Yes, there is some unfairness towards the father if he wants to keep it and the mother doesn't, but to deny her an abortion because of this would mean subjecting the mother to 9 months of a very intense biological process, along with all the possible risks, completely against her will. Considering that a dispute like this is invariably a draw, I think it's natural that the mother gets a biological veto. (Unless people are working on some sort of zygote/foetus transferral procedures, that might make things more even by removing the whole 'forced pregnancy' variable, but I'm not really that in to medical science to know if that's a thing.)

I read this article on Kotaku today.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-09-05-no-sex-please-were-gamers

It's discussing the idea of sexual content in videogames: here's a link to the website detailing the game.

http://www.seducemegame.com/game.html

The gist of the article is this: Steam Greenlight is a new service that allows people to pitch ideas on a website and receive feedback on it. A developer called No Reply Games pitched an idea for a game which seems to feature fairly explicit sexual content. The reaction was a mix of open-mindedness and condemnation as I understand it. However, the end result was that the game pitch was removed from Steam Greenlight as it had, apparently, violated the terms and conditions of the service.

The service actually has just two rules. First, the game must not contain offensive content. Second, the game must not contain content that infringes copyright, intellectual property rights, etc. Now, the article argues that the first point, "offensive content" is so broad as to be meaningless, and this is something I definitely sympathise with. While I would definitely exclude content that, say, incites violence against a certain group of people, I also happen to think that anything is going to offend someone if you search hard enough, and that we could argue many games on Steam or in existence generally could fall under this category.
Look at games like Left 4 Dead, or Bioshock. In the former I can decapitate zombies with a fire axe, and in the latter I can electrocute them whilst standing in a pool of water. Heck, there are all manner of violent things I can do to people in those games, and I definitely think that those themes would be offensive to some people. So where do we draw the line on the definition of offensive content? Is drawing a line something we need to do at all?

It strikes me as a little odd that violence is something we whole-heartedly embrace as a valid means of artistic expression in art- heck, look at the E3 reaction to The Last of Us for evidence of that. Yet when we try to place sexual content in games, even beyond the purposes of mere titillation, it's denounced as perverted, dirty, and wholly inappropriate. Why? Let's be blunt. Sex is an enjoyable activity. People engage in it all the time and it's not something shameful or dirty. It's something, for the most part, natural and harmless and not something we should try to stigmatise, especially amongst older audiences. I think we would also be hard-pressed to find an adult who had not looked at erotic material nowadays, and more importantly, enjoyed the experience.

One thing I noticed being tossed around in the comments is that Steam is a "child-friendly interface" or something similiar. Well, it clearly isn't if the likes of Half-Life 2 are readily available. I mean, the thing about art is that while the existence of art is not something we should necessarily censor, access to art is something we should. By which I mean, we shouldn't let children see age-inappropriate material until a certain age, but we shouldn't deprive older people of something just because children can't do something with it. Art is not something that is crammed down your throat in all shapes or forms. It's something you actively seek out, and whether I want to play No Reply's game isn't the point. What is the point is if I feel others should be allowed to make and play games with explicit sexual content. I do.

Anyway, enough from me. I guess this post boils down to these questions: do you feel sexual content in games is an acceptable avenue? Why?

Well yeah, of course it is.

It's as acceptable, if not more so, than killing a city fool of people by growing tentacles out of my arms and chopping everyone in half (Which, while we're on the subject, IS probably a sexual game in Japan.)

In Germany, for instance, it's totally ok to show full-frontal nudity, but not much violence.


In the US, we love tits, but hate vaginas, for some reason. The closest thing that wasn't a porn game would probably be LA Noir, with those giant 50s bushes doing the censoring for us.

The only thing stopping a child from looking at the most gruesome games is a window where you input your age. And you can do it a million times, and change it each time, so that really isn't any sort of security anyway.


I guess my point is, I think Steam should have an "Adult" section, or maybe even a completely different program for you to download to access it.

But, that would certainly turn off potential customers, so it probably won't happen.

I know why we can show violence but can't show naked people!

THIS EXPLAINS EVERYTHING

But on a serious note, Zebra's comments are interesting, particularly the ones about Germany.

So, I guess I'll put this here. I don't really think it will start a debate, but it might, so, just to be safe....


I've been reading a lot about Cosmology, and Physics. I've come to the conclusion that the Big Bang theory is, more than likely, correct. It's the most logical one, with our current knowledge.


A question I've always had with it, though, is.... Well, how? How is it possible that nothing existed, except for a condensed speck of matter?

Well, my theory is that this is not the first "Big Bang." I believe that the universe is in a constant cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. The way I see it, all the black holes in our universe will, eventually, in billions of billions of years, take over completely. They'll eventually absorb all matter, including themselves, and form into one, single point. Then, everything will simply start over again.


With this in mind, I propose that multiple universes can also exist. Im not talking about alternate reality, that's... Less likely. I think that considering the Universe to be... Well, THE Universe, is illogical. I think Universes are just like galaxies, in that there are many many many millions of them, all across an even larger reality.

While I admit I don't 100% understand antimatter, this could mean that entire universes could be composed only of antimatter, rather than matter, like ours. I am unsure what this would mean, but I am sure it would be quite different.

However, this would imply that universes would have to be seperated by incredibly vast distances filled only with empty space, (Or perhaps nonbaryonic dark matter, though I don't know if anti matter would still destroy that or not) since Matter and Antimatter are mutually exclusive, and if a universe made of matter collided with a universe made of antimatter..... Well, the amount of energy that would be produced by that would be incomprehensible.

That still doesn't help explain where everything began, though. I have no answer to that question, and I don't think anyone will, ever.









I don't know. The theory probably isn't well formed, as I am tired and have only limited knowledge on the subject, but I just felt the need to get it out of my head.

The idea of a cyclical universe was actually explored in a Futurama episode.

So was the idea of a God kickstarting evolution.

Test subject #3657 wrote:So was the idea of a God kickstarting evolution.

The only picture I get from that is God kicking a monkey while yelling "COME ON! EVOLVE DAMMIT!"

Everyone knows that mankeys have to get to level 28 to evolve.

So, Im curious on what you guys think about this whole "China-Japan" thing going on. It appears to be getting rather intense.

Wait. There's a thing going on with China and Japan? But I thought for sure that China was a thing with Russia!

But seriously, I seriously had no idea there were problems between them. What happened?

This article from Kotaku may help you out.

http://kotaku.com/5943762/ok-tensions-between-china-and-japan-are-getting-serious

I think that article does a pretty good job of saying it. Tensions between Japan and China aren't necessarily rising, so much as certain Chinese idiots think that destroying Japanese cars, restaurants and the such will be a powerful blow to Japan. And then other people see this and think "Hey sweet! A riot! A chance to fuck shit up without consequences!"

Dewmann wrote:I think that article does a pretty good job of saying it. Tensions between Japan and China aren't necessarily rising, so much as certain Chinese idiots think that destroying Japanese cars, restaurants and the such will be a powerful blow to Japan. And then other people see this and think "Hey sweet! A riot! A chance to fuck shit up without consequences!"

Well, yes, but the thing is, normally, roits, and protests are not common in China. Because China is, to put it nicely, a horrible, communist tyrany that does not like free-speech. Also, their flag is pretty.

So, these roits are almost certainly encouraged, if not supported by the government.

It doesn't help that China has repeatedly stated something along the lines of, "We don't want war. But, seriously Japan, come at us. We will not back down."

I don't think it will lead to war, but this thing isn't going to go away. Japan and China will, Im almost certain, go to war. At some point.

And that will draw the US in, on Japan's side.

Which makes me wonder if Russia will risk going to war with the US, to support China.

Before you know it, boom! World War III.


That's wild speculation, of course. I doubt it would escalate that far. Still, the possibility is there. Tensions are rising, but they've always been there, since the 1930s. The government is simply using this as an excuse to rile up the populace.

Hopefully, that's it. They'll just throw a big tantrum until the US goes over there and slaps them until they stop. You know, like you do with children.


Also, this is my favortie line from that article: "Former Japanese porn star Aoi Sora, who's widely popular in China, uploaded a picture of herself holding a sign that said the islands belong to China. That might keep her employed in China, but it could make for awkward trips home."

Yes. THAT is what will make the trips home akward.

Jonny wrote:The idea of a cyclical universe was actually explored in a Futurama episode.

Yep, that is the origin of "I don't want to live on this planet anymore."

Zebra, you strike me as overly cynical. Just because China is communist doesn't make their system of government horrible and awful. It just works differently, and in some capacities is more limited than the US system.
I dislike that people are smashing things just to smash them. Where's the symbolism of destroying Chinese-made Japanese products and beating up people who have Japanese cars? It does not seem like those disputed islands are the entire issue.