Sex-Positive Feminism

[Sunstone]

From google: sur·ren·der
/səˈrendər/
Verb
Cease resistance to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority

Perhaps if I'd read the dictionary then, I would not have been so confused. As it were, I tend to make many words my own by departing slightly or even wholesale from common meanings. I'm off beat that way. I've been that way my whole life. My mother was that way. I can't see myself changing.

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

Assuming she's right, it's a shame so many of those men are fine authors. Tragic, in a way.

Some of them may not be necessarily negative but just referenced to support a point. But Tolstoy, after reading her book, he was one of the biggest freaks of the lot!

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

Perhaps if I'd read the dictionary then, I would not have been so confused. As it were, I tend to make many words my own by departing slightly or even wholesale from common meanings. I'm off beat that way. I've been that way my whole life. My mother was that way. I can't see myself changing.

or this one: from Dictionary.com, sur·ren·der [suh-ren-der] Show IPA
verb (used with object)
1.
to yield (something) to the possession or power of another; deliver up possession of on demand or under duress: to surrender the fort to the enemy; to surrender the stolen goods to the police.



I think that is what she meant

 

[Sunstone]

Some of them may not be necessarily negative but just referenced to support a point. But Tolstoy, after reading her book, he was one of the biggest freaks of the lot!

I had issues with the depiction of women in War and Peace. At first, I was offended because I thought his depictions were without much basis in reality. But as it happened, I was hanging out with a lot of young men and women back then. People in their teens and twenties. (Long story how that happened!) At some point, it came to me that Tolstoy might be more or less accurately describing the timeless sins of the aristocracy.

You see, the kids I was hanging out with were in most ways just as leisured and largely aimless as the young Russian aristocrats of Tolstoy's age (or any age). And the kids seemed in many ways to be as vapid as Tolstoy's young aristocrats -- just as concerned as those aristocrats were with trivial things, and with romantic love, sex and relationships (albeit the Russians focused on getting married, while the kids I knew focused on romance, etc, absent getting married).

I reached the tentative conclusion Tolstoy might have been accurately describing the behaviors of people who have too much time on their hands, who have few goals in life, and whose few goals they obsess over.

But how do you see him?

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

I had issues with the depiction of women in War and Peace. At first, I was offended because I thought his depictions were without much basis in reality. But as it happened, I was hanging out with a lot of young men and women back then. People in their teens and twenties. (Long story how that happened!) At some point, it came to me that Tolstoy might be more or less accurately describing the timeless sins of the aristocracy.

You see, the kids I was hanging out with were in most ways just as leisured and largely aimless as the young Russian aristocrats of Tolstoy's age (or any age). And the kids seemed in many ways to be as vapid as Tolstoy's young aristocrats -- just as concerned as those aristocrats were with trivial things, and with romantic love, sex and relationships (albeit the Russians focused on getting married, while the kids I knew focused on romance, etc, absent getting married).

I reached the tentative conclusion Tolstoy might have been accurately describing the behaviors of people who have too much time on their hands, who have few goals in life, and whose few goals they obsess over.

But how do you see him?

Judging from his wife's diary which Dworkin quotes from he treats her like crap

 

[Sunstone]

or this one: from Dictionary.com, sur·ren·der [suh-ren-der] Show IPA
verb (used with object)
1.
to yield (something) to the possession or power of another; deliver up possession of on demand or under duress: to surrender the fort to the enemy; to surrender the stolen goods to the police.

No! Certainly no! And Nope! Your shameless efforts to make me use words only and merely according to their common meanings shall never succeed. I shall never surrender; not on the beaches, not in the fields, nor in the mountains, nor at day, nor at night. I shall rather struggle on, authentic to my off beat meanings, proud of the day no one shall understand me, ever, ever unconquerable!

I think that is what she meant

That's helpful. Thanks!

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

Please make that into a poem, but slightly more depressing, because I like depressing poems.
You can make it about a man who is sentenced to execution for misusing/changing the meaning of words.

 

[Sunstone]

Please make that into a poem, but slightly more depressing, because I like depressing poems.

You actually enjoy poetry? Really? So few people enjoy poetry anymore!

Allow me a shameless plug: Have you checked out my poems? Please, please say you have!

You can make it about a man who is sentenced to execution for misusing/changing the meaning of words.

Brilliant!

I might do that if anything comes to me.

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

You actually enjoy poetry? Really? So few people enjoy poetry anymore!

Allow me a shameless plug: Have you checked out my poems? Please, please say you have!

Poems can be quite hard to understand if they are very symbolic or make references to things that the modern reader has no knowledge of like Greek mythology for example.
I like poems but they have to be gritty, emotive, depressing.
I have read yours, I read a couple just now to refresh my memory, they sound too happy for me, a poem has to satisfy my inner goth.

I've read Sexton but she never did it for me either.

I just finished reading the flowers of evil by Charles Baudelaire the edition I had didn't try to make his poems rhyme in order to stay truer to the meaning in french. I bought another edition and the translator makes the poems rhyme like Baudelaire always did. So I can compare them.
I need to read more poetry though.

Brilliant!

I might do that if anything comes to me.

Make me want to die please.

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

I like whispers to the river

 

[Sunstone]

I have read yours, I read a couple just now to refresh my memory, they sound too happy for me, a poem has to satisfy my inner goth.

No problem. Years ago, I composed many such poems for my ex-secretary. She once told me she'd never had a love poem written to her. So, after thinking how wrong that was (she was one of the gentlest souls I've ever met, and deserved, I thought, to have poems composed to her), I wrote one or two poems that expressed a platonic love for her. Then something happened to turn things dark and depressing.

Over a period of a few short months, she eased into an abusive relationship with a young, lost, and stupid boy. This upset me because I really did love her. So my poetry first turned to an attempt to get her to see what she was getting into, and then turned downright pessimistic, despairing, hopeless, and depressing. I wrote some powerfully depressing poems back then. Stuff you could have chanted to a blissful saint and the saint would have despaired and died on the spot. By that time I was no longer writing in a style she could appreciate, though.

I can't recall any of it now except a line from one of the very early poems, when I was still optimistic -- and it was in a style she liked.

Tara Lyn, the boys have sold you
All their promises and their lies,
And soon I'll see the sadness in your eyes.

Sad to say now, but the poem was prophetic. As she was increasingly abused, her eyes lost their life and liveliness, and their bright and fresh blue color rapidly greyed to that of an old woman. She was only 21.

Charles Baudelaire

I have a friend who just loves his take on life.

Make me want to die please.

If something comes to me, I'll give it a shot. No guarantees, though.

 

[Sunstone]

I like whispers to the river

Thanks! I wrote that during a homeless period in my life.

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

Yeah I think the dedicated poems are the best ones.

 

[Sunstone]

Yeah I think the dedicated poems are the best ones.

Thanks, again! I've never tried to write "good" poetry, except years ago when writing to my ex-secretary, I tried to make the poems as beautiful as I could. But my direction has been to experiment with it, to play around with it, and to do things that have probably been done a thousand million times before, but which I've never done. Naturally, most of my poems flop.

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

No problem. Years ago, I composed many such poems for my ex-secretary. She once told me she'd never had a love poem written to her. So, after thinking how wrong that was (she was one of the gentlest souls I've ever met, and deserved, I thought, to have poems composed to her), I wrote one or two poems that expressed a platonic love for her. Then something happened to turn things dark and depressing.

Over a period of a few short months, she eased into an abusive relationship with a young, lost, and stupid boy. This upset me because I really did love her. So my poetry first turned to an attempt to get her to see what she was getting into, and then turned downright pessimistic, despairing, hopeless, and depressing. I wrote some powerfully depressing poems back then. Stuff you could have chanted to a blissful saint and the saint would have despaired and died on the spot. By that time I was no longer writing in a style she could appreciate, though.

I can't recall any of it now except a line from one of the very early poems, when I was still optimistic -- and it was in a style she liked.

Tara Lyn, the boys have sold you
All their promises and their lies,
And soon I'll see the sadness in your eyes.

Sad to say now, but the poem was prophetic. As she was increasingly abused, her eyes lost their life and liveliness, and their bright and fresh blue color rapidly greyed to that of an old woman. She was only 21.

That is a very sad story.

I have a friend who just loves his take on life.

I wouldn't say I love his take on life, I can imagine him being a massive douche as a person, but he is a talented poet and I can appreciate that.

If something comes to me, I'll give it a shot. No guarantees, though.

That's cool.

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

Thanks, again! I've never tried to write "good" poetry, except years ago when writing to my ex-secretary, I tried to make the poems as beautiful as I could. But my direction has been to experiment with it, to play around with it, and to do things that have probably been done a thousand million times before, but which I've never done. Naturally, most of my poems flop.

I used to write poems a lot in high school-very melodramatic, me and couple of friends used to write regularly. But I've stopped since then and I don't have any of them I wish I kept all of them, for a laugh at least.

 

[Sunstone]

That is a very sad story.

One surprising thing came out of watching her free spirit destroyed. I revolted against it in the only way that was open to me at the time: I went from largely being a prick to being much more compassionate and considerate of people. In protest against the darkness of human nature. It was the single most life changing experience I've had to date, except for one other.

 

[Sunstone]

I used to write poems a lot in high school-very melodramatic, me and couple of friends used to write regularly. But I've stopped since then and I don't have any of them I wish I kept all of them, for a laugh at least.

Damn! It would be nice to be able to read them. Your decisions sometimes suck eggs, I'm beginning to learn. I might have enjoyed seeing where you've been in life.

During a period of estrangement, my second wife burnt all the poems I had written to her in the bathtub. I hadn't kept a copy, so they were lost. All lost. But I got back at her later on by writing a poem in which I wittily referred to her burnings and then suggested she deduct the value of the heat my poems had generated to warm the house -- deduct it from the price she was charging me for access to the warmth of her heart.

She hated that poem, by the way.

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

One surprising thing came out of watching her free spirit destroyed. I revolted against it in the only way that was open to me at the time: I went from largely being a prick to being much more compassionate and considerate of people. In protest against the darkness of human nature. It was the single most life changing experience I've had to date, except for one other.

I know a man from work, who told me a life changing moment was having Amnesty international training (work related) and a woman telling him she was sexually assaulted at work, he reported it and the guy was fired.
He realized then that he had no respect for women.

And my partners life changing moment...meeting me of course
he used to be a massive douche bag.

 

[Sunstone]

He realized then that he had no respect for women.

He realized he himself had no respect for women, or that the guy he got fired had not respect?

And my partners life changing moment...meeting me of course
he used to be a massive douche bag.

That's touching.