Dealing With Prudes

I hope it was the second option. But...he didn't say it like it was a joke, he didn't smile, and you know...alcohol is like a truth serum. It makes people say what they really think but (normally) know that they shouldn't say. I've had drunks in bars make comments like that before, and then smile and wink, letting me know they were only kidding around. There's nothing wrong with that.

At any rate - that guy gave me an excuse to take another shot at prudes, which I haven't done lately. It's always fun. :cheers2:

 

Sleeeeaaaazy.
See, that would probably bother me more than prudes would.

 

Aw, that's just drunks being drunks. It's harmless. They don't really care.

The angry drunks are the ones you need to watch out for, not the silly ones.

 

Fuck them. Hard.

 

Always going to be those whom are stuck in the unhealthy "proper" rut of it. Its those who do not truly live natural and free and that's their problem to over come., don't make it yours, why feed into it. Live and let live...

 

Who has time for a prude?

 

I don't think things are getting worse in that regard. I think that some lonely guy saw you kissing, wished he had someone to kiss, and got annoyed that you not only have a guy to kiss, but you were kissing him, making the lonely guy feel even more lonely, which he then blamed on you because people don't like to own their own emotions. In other words, it was about him, not you. You did nothing wrong. If you and your guy were kissing near me, I'd find it sweet.

 

Well, I am older than you and went to high school in a more conservative time where you saw nothing of that foolishness. We were serious, upstanding teens with funny looking hair.

Here is a pic out of my yearbook of 1963 to show you the kind of clean-cut kids we were at Ritenour High School in Overland Missouri.

 

That photo is fabulous.

 

a public hug or kiss is no big deal, but when people start making out and groping each other in a public place, that's pretty fucking rude. just use some discretion about it.

i had a class last winter where we had assigned seats. directly in front of me was this really ugly couple who basically did everything but fuck throughout the entire lecture every single class. so 3 days a week i had to get up early, go sit through a ridiculously pointless lecture, and watch ugly softcore porn for an hour. that's just fucking annoying.

the person said 3 words. mind YOUR own business, and ignore him. no matter how you look at it, you were making more of a scene than he was.

it may not be your problem, but you don't need to try and exacerbate this other guy's problem either.

 

How can you be sure they were talking to you? Sound does carry and if no one was visible then perhaps they were speaking to someone else, maybe even someone in their own group of friends.

I personally would of just had a giggle and another kiss.

 

Prude's a relative term. I've been called a prude and a slut in the same day. It's all perception.

I don't give a flip about what others do, as long as it doesn't hurt them or anyone else. I try to be respectful of others' comfort level.

 

I was in New Orleans recently. It was a great trip and there are a lot of things I still love about the town, but Bourbon Street has changed greatly since last time I was there. The police were walking around everywhere, trying to make sure that no flashing boobs for beads took place. Whenever a group gathered below a balcony, the officers would go get in the middle of it. A few years ago, they didn’t give a fuck about flashing or any other victimless crime. When called to investigate something on that street, they used to walk straight to the crime location with their heads down, not wanting to see anything going on around them, totally leaving the tourists alone to do their thing. No more. Even the dancers in the strip clubs have cut back on what they are willing to do. And for the first time ever, I saw no one openly selling drugs on Bourbon Street or in any bar. The whole atmosphere of the place was different. At all times, I felt like I shouldn’t do anything that I wouldn’t do back home, except for drinking on the sidewalk. I didn’t see any flirting or fondling or other PDA, straight or gay. The stores don’t even sell profane t-shirts anymore. Without its old no-rules attitude, Bourbon was just another crowded urban street, but with more litter.

I asked some local bartenders about it, and they said that a lot of pressure has been put on New Orleans by the conservative Republican state government in Baton Rouge to clean up the city’s image and stop people from doing things that they don’t think Jesus would approve of. That’s destroying some of the best things about New Orleans for those of us who are morally liberal and not religious. Why can’t the conservatives just stay out of there? They all know what the place is all about! It isn’t for them!

What can we do to fight back? I can’t think of anything, honestly. I don’t want to see every place in America go back to the old days, when all wild, unchristian behavior had to be underground. We fought too hard for our rights to just sit back and watch everything fun go away. Conservative social momentum seems to be building everywhere, including Amsterdam, according to other threads here. Where on earth can we go to get away from these control freaks? Somebody give me a reason not to be depressed!

All this makes me really miss my college days, when it was easy to get a large group of people together who didn’t give a shit about any rules. I thought someday we would be in the majority.

 

Conservatives seem to get very nervous if anyone,anywhere is having too much enjoyment,particularly when it comes to certain body parts. Guess it comes from their mistaken idea that a god would create us as we are ,with all the various ways we can obtain pleasure,but with certain parts of our bodies not created for the pleasure that that very god gave us to enjoy. The enjoyment must be saved until the proper paperwork is filed with whatever state agency is involved with such matters. File the paperwork,stand in front of some religious figurehead and then all is well. You have fullfilled their requirements. No-lip prudes are a drag ,usually without much of a sense of humor.

 

Prudes are conflicted inside and they project their conflicts outward. To be effectively "dealt with", requires patience, otherwise, steer clear if you can.

It is not that difficult to avoid giving people something to complain about. Appearances are only skin deep and the effort to maintain them is shallow, or undemanding as well.

 

Not sure how to apply that to the travel situation that I brought up yesterday. If we reach the point where every place that I can get to in a reasonable amount of time is held to the same conservative standards for social behavior, there will be little point in leaving home except to study and enjoy history and nature. At some point, the people who are not dead inside have to draw a line in the sand and stand up for our freedom. I'm just not sure exactly what action that will consist of. This is a control issue, and you can't fight that kind of thing with tolerance. That's the same as surrender.

One way of fighting the system was the trend a few years ago for teenagers to swap nude pics on their cell phones. Then the courts aggressively went after prosecuting and convicting these teenagers as adults for possession of child pornography and making them register as sex offenders for life. That nearly put an end to the practice, even though it was never proven that anyone was a victim of this crime. No social conservative was ever forced to look at or take such a picture. The conservatives thought that everyone who participated was a victim, because it gave the kids the idea that they could live under their own moral values instead of the ones that are provided by the religious majority.

You can't really avoid conservatives and live your own life because they come after you wherever you are. They don't want to give us one square inch on this earth. They want our point of view to go away completely, and they feel a heavy sense of responsibility for making us become obedient. I know their mindset very well. I've been around it my whole life.

I think that this moral/religious/cultural warfare is probably the second most important battle of our time, with the most important one being the battle to save the environment, which may have already been lost.

The one ray of hope in the culture war is the growing acceptance of homosexuality. We are losing ground on every other front, including closures of nude/topless beaches in many places.

I guess that depends on where you live. Where I grew up (small town), maintaining appearances included getting dressed up for church every Sunday morning and actively participating. I have one good friend from college who still plays that game, even though she is a nonbeliever. She puts a lot of effort into it, and I'm not sure exactly what she gets out of it. Her peers at church like her, but only because they don't really know her. At least she doesn't have to face their wrath. She would be mistreated if she was honest with everyone.

I hate having to be fake. Morally, I'm not comfortable with the idea of it. I only do it because I don't have any other good options. I don't want to see the next generation grow up having to play the same games.

 

Hey Karen

It is really sad what you report from New Orleans. I "grew up" there in the late '60s thru the '70s and it was the City That Care Forgot. I have been thru there a couple times in the last few years (before and after Katrina) but didn't really go anywhere except the quarter and other tourist stuff.

Louisiana has always been a backward Southern state, but New Orleans was always different becausr of it Laissaiz Faire French heritage. (When I got there French was still spoken in some parts and the had a couple French language newspapers). My Mississippi family has a long history with New Orleans, or at least my great granddaddy did. He did the facade of good christian man in MS, then went down to NO to whoremonger.

I doubt that he was a prude - my whole family is outlaw and plays the part - but that it the biggest travesty about prudes and conservatives. They live a lie and know it. It's only when the more and more frequently get busted that we know of their hypocrisy.

 

This was only my second trip since the storm and flood. Everybody knew that Katrina would permanently change the place, but it was anybody's guess what the direction would be. I think the biggest change appears to be in visitor demographics. They have more tourists who are wealthy, middle-aged music fans, wanting to have a good time while doing something positive for a city that has been down on its luck for a while. Music venues and street performers are thriving. As a music fan, I'm loving this. On the other hand, I didn't see a single nude painting or sexually provocative piece of art in a gallery on Royal Street. I didn't go in every gallery on the street, but I can remember when the edgy stuff used to be in almost every one of those places.

Shale, you might find it interesting that the whole vibe of the gay section of Bourbon Street (800 block and beyond) has changed since my first time there, maybe 9 or 10 years ago. That may have more to do with the growing nation-wide acceptance of the gay lifestyle than anything local, but it seems more noticeable there. People seemed to be less...I guess the best word is territorial. I suppose that is natural, if a group feels that it is no longer being judged nearly as much as it used to be. It was nice to go in Clover Grill and have nobody really care if I was straight or gay. Imagine that - picking a restaurant solely on the basis of the quality of the food!

Next, I think I need to update myself on what's going on in San Francisco and Las Vegas. I want to like San Francisco, but I hate the crime situation. Last time I went there, I could barely walk two blocks without some motherfucking aggressive homeless person trying to ruin my day. I feel less safe there than in any other historically liberal US city.

Can you believe that Harry Reid wants to put a priority on ending all legal prostitution in Nevada? It isn't enough that the practice is limited to a few remote, sparsely populated counties in one state. Social conservatives don't want to give liberals one square inch of America.

 

You can't because that situation no longer exists.

You mean it's just no fun if people frown on you for spitting on storefront windows? Not saying that you do.

Do you believe the time has come to go all jihad on polite convention?
Education is a good remedy for prudishness, but like I say, that requires patience. More than likely if a person rouses militantly for the sake of hedonism, far from being enlightening to them, will regard you not only vulgar but rude also.

I really doubt teenagers trading nude pics, did so because they were protesting the system. They did so because they were titillated by the activity.

There is no doubt that there is a hysteria regarding sex offenses with minors but that is just the flavor of the day as far as things to be hysterical about.

No more do you want to entertain their view and now you are saying there comes a time when something must be done. So you demonstrate yourself a threat to them and that increases the vigilance against you.

It is not uniformly that way. The US anyway, is pretty polarized and there are conservatively dominated areas and there are more liberal areas.

That is what I mean about it being easier to be shallow than to be honest.

Regardless, I appreciate your sentiments.

 

In 1973 I lived in a shotgun at 811 Bourbon, near the corner of the two busiest gay bars on the street, Pete's in Exile and The Caverns. LaFittes Blacksmith Shop was up around 900 block I think and it was the leather crowd. My room opened on Bourbon Street and I actually cruised a guy from my window.

Those were the days.