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Originally Posted by mixedmedia
I've been very clear about my stance here, you just don't agree with me. You're taking one word out of thousands I have typed here (used in a different context than you are requesting from me, I might add) and calling my whole argument nil because I have yet to quantify it for you. Meanwhile, conveniently ignoring all of my questions and multifarious mission statements.
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Not sure what a multifarious mission statement is but I'd be happy to answer any unanswered questions. I did take one word out of a 1000 but I can clearly see where say 'the' would work in this debate but not where 'exploitive' would. Its a strong word, it deserved an explanation.
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Let me see, how could the phrase 'I'd hit that,' ever be construed as exploitative of another human being?
Number one, using 'that' to describe a person that you would like to fuck is exploitative whether you want to admit it or not. I find the use of the word 'that' in this phrase to be very significant.
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Sex is a basic physical act. We can add all the emotional layers we want, but for men a least the physical nature is what matters in the moment. If this wasn't true then we wouldn't have otherwise happily married men going to brothels. An interesting question in prostitution is WHO is being exploited, the women for sex or the men who are driven enough to spend cash for sex. I do not find 'that' to be very significant. Would it be better if it was 'I would do her'? That was the 'hit it' of my generation.
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But more interesting to me, is considering the most recent origin of this phrase, (as well 'i'd tap that') which happens to be a segment of the hip-hop culture in which women have been most literally exploited - in that they've been promoted as being anonymous, available, disposable and interchangable. Which after about a decade of outrage on the part of a horrified white America, started to trickle into white culture without a second thought, eventually winding up here on this thread where it is legitimized as 'male bonding' and 'sexual expression.' It's funny, but I don't recall those words being bandied around when this was a 'black issue.'
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I can't say I know the origin of the word, nor does it matter, it matters in context of how its used. A nerd on the internet saying 'I'd hit that' has absolutely no connection to hip-hop culture any more than eating cracklins (pork rinds) would connect him to slavery. I have no idea if the phrase IS from hip-hop, I first saw it on fark.
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Now, people have two choices when observing this phenomenon:
1. They can dismiss it outright and say that it's just harmless fun and has absolutely no further implications to society and the state of male/female relations.
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Yep.
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or
2. They can question it when the realization dawns on them that we have accommodated an attitude, even if in a less overtly offensive manner, that just a few years ago we thought was despicable.
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Just a few years ago? Lets see from my youth, which would be 20 years ago. 'I'd fuck her brains out', 'I'd do her', 'I want some of THAT' (yes that). I'm not sure when this innocent time was, but you might have to go back to the Victorian, where talking about sex, at least on paper, became taboo, though I'm sure they had a very nondescript euphemism or two for it, they were human after all.
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Now, no, I do not think that a guy directing 'i'd tap that' at me amongst his friends without my knowledge is necessarily exploitative, although it is on an innocuous level. And I can certainly imagine many scenarios in which being the subject of the phrase would be violative enough to make me feel that I've been exploited.
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Your choice of language makes me wonder what your real issue is here. Guys talking among themselves, about you, can be violative? I've caught people saying things behind my back which really pissed me off, but violate is an aggressive term, an assault on you directly, something far stronger than saying things which are crude or rude.
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But can we acknowledge that our acceptance of this phrase into our vernacular combined with the increase in the last twenty years or so of women in the media seen not only as sexual and desirable, but sexually available (I think there is a big difference there), is, at the very least, a curious thing and okay to talk about?
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Yes but your time frame is too short. With the information age its more available but we are looking at closer to the last 40-50 years which if you think about it coincides with the women's lib movement. This is a far deeper issue than just media or what phrase kids are using. Women wanted to be accepted as sexual beings, not just baby factories, and fighting for the right to birth control etc leads to making women sexually available. Its a side effect womans liberation.
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Now if all this is still unclear to you at this point, I don't think I can think of a plainer way to put it. If you want to talk about any of these things, then fine, let's talk. This is what I have been wanting to do all along. But I'm done having my argument minimized and dismissed like this is a silly game for you.
And to bring it allllll the way back around to my first contribution to this thread. If you are using these phrases as anything other than a mockery of the men who use it as if it were an entitlement, then I think it's stupid. Grow the fuck up.
The end.
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Well I can guess we can drop the old 'hit a nerve' concept from earlier eh? Your argument isn't being minimized and dismissed, I think its not graspable by many of us in this thread. To me it seems your real argument is about victimization of women, and that I just don't see here. It to me is regressive, back to a time where women were considered unable to defend themselves from the whiles of men, and were not suppose to like sex for sex itself. I happen to like that amazon has 24,000+ sex toys on line, that birth control is readily available, that porn is greatly destigmatized, that arguments are over if women should be allowed to be topless in public rather than how long their sleeves must be on their bathing suites.
If you want to discuss how women are viewed in hip-hop culture, be my guest, thats not my culture, and I'd have nothing to add there. I can only speak of my culture, middle class white, and in mine saying 'I'd hit it' is completely innocuous.