Goths and Gender and Censorship and other issues

Well it's been quite a busy week for me. Lots of socialising and a lot of good and interesting conversation.

One of the things I've been impressed with is that Goths are even more acepting of TG these days than I'd realised. This week I came out to some new goth friends and met a heap for the first time while at a party 'out'. I also met some non-Goths at the party.

Many though not all were teens, mostly about 15, though the full range was somewhere near 11 to 40's. Utter, instant, unquestioning, unconditional acceptance.

Discussing gender issues with the teens I learned some interesting things. For one in the 'norm' or non-goth non-emo population their age the gender 'colour code' of pink=girls and blue=boys is reversing as so many teen boys are wearing pink the girls are now going for blue. And man-skirts are becoming trendy with plenty of 'norm' boys wearing them on casual days.

And all this in rural New South Wales Australia.

I remember when I was the only goth in the village lol. Except for the brief period when it was suddenly a popular trend when The Crow came out. It was interesting hearing similar views from these teen goths as they discussed the surge of interest in vampires due to the Twilight books and movie and it's wonderful to see the growth development and spread of Goth culture accross so many decades as we had people from their early teens, late teens, 20's 30's and 40's.

I also discoved just how bad I am at singstar lol!

Through the many conversations i've had with several social groups this week the following notions were particularly interesting ones.

How philosophy, especially ethics, as well as politics and the law can handle coming to terms with implications of cognitive neuroscience such as the evidence that we are far less concious than we think with most decisions post-rationalised by the conscious brain after the decision has been made... how can anyone be held responsible for actions if this data is correct and the 'person' is but a passenger and not actually in command?

And it was great to hear the views about Toxoplasmosis Gondii (the rat-behaviour and possibly human behaviour-altering brain parasite) of someone who actually definately is a host to that parasite!

How should we handle things like car-insurance and drivers licences for people whose brain-parasites effect their reactions in emergencies? And what is societies responsibilities to it's citizens rgarding transport and infrastructure let alone what are the ethics issues involving someone with a brain parasite? Should a treatment exist should they be forced to undergo it? What allowances should be made for those with it when there is no treatment or for those who may refuse such treatment.

Sex work, sex-positivity and pornography were also discussed at length from several different viewpoints with intersting notions raised.

For example it was suggested that pornography with GLBT content, especially that made for the 'mainstream' audience should have a moral and perhaps ethical obligation to include some education content or carry political messages. The comment "If they are good enough to (masturbate) to then how about voting on their issues. no-one else need ever know who you vote for any more than what genre your getting off on".

There was also some discussion of how the industry apeared to be largely failing to address the changing audience when 1/3rd of the pornography audience and growing is female.

Issues of pornography as well as video games and censorship were interesting and it seems clear that the 'community values' used to determine a lot of things have nothing to do with the actual values of the actual community unless all the polls on the subject can be dissmissed.

It was also interesting that pretty much everyone in the discussion agreed that from an ethical viewpoint the BDSM community with it's emphasis on informed consent and safety is generally far better than the standard vanilla community where sex while drunk and/or stoned and therefore unable to give truly informed consent because of impaired cognition is in fact the primary sexual circumstance.

And my Le Chevalier D'Eon anime boxed set arrived and a friend has the Hellsing series set so as well as social fun and a host more roleplaying gaming I've got some fun stuff to watch.