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Monday, November 12, 2007 - 1:10pmSanction this postReply
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P.S. There are two erroneous posts of this video on the YouTube site that don't have the complete talk -- just a few opening seconds (or, if your browser is Firefox, they divert you to a bizarre concert video!).

The URLs I've provided above will take you to the right video segments.

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Monday, November 12, 2007 - 3:35pmSanction this postReply
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It was very interesting watching this....  did Nathaniel have anything  to say?

Post 2

Tuesday, November 13, 2007 - 8:15amSanction this postReply
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Ayn wrote romantic novels about imaginary heroes.

I doubt that Ayn Rand was disappointed that only a very few people appreciated her work.   Dale
---
$ dale-reed@worldnet.att.net   Seattle, Washington $


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Post 3

Tuesday, November 13, 2007 - 6:07pmSanction this postReply
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I was very disappointed by Barbara's book, "The Passion of Ayn Rand," and even more so by the film adaptation.  In both cases, had I not known anything about Rand, I would have come away feeling that she was a bad person.  My recollection of the book is that while Barbara praises Rand to the sky in the abstract, virtually all the concrete examples of Rand's behavior were negative.  The movie trivialized various aspects of Rand's life as well, as in the visual connection between sex - portrayed as an ugly thing - with Nathaniel and her supposed breakthrough in doing Galt's speech in "Atlas Shrugged."  My take is that Barbara's barely concealed hostility toward Ayn runs hot and strong.

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Thursday, November 15, 2007 - 8:09amSanction this postReply
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Phil Osborn writes:

I was very disappointed by Barbara's book, "The Passion of Ayn Rand," and even more so by the film adaptation.  In both cases, had I not known anything about Rand, I would have come away feeling that she was a bad person.  My recollection of the book is that while Barbara praises Rand to the sky in the abstract, virtually all the concrete examples of Rand's behavior were negative.  The movie trivialized various aspects of Rand's life as well, as in the visual connection between sex - portrayed as an ugly thing - with Nathaniel and her supposed breakthrough in doing Galt's speech in "Atlas Shrugged."  My take is that Barbara's barely concealed hostility toward Ayn runs hot and strong.
Almost all the evidence I'm aware of suggests that, at the end, Ayn Rand treated Barbara Branden very badly. It was a savage betrayal. Naturally Barbara wanted her good name back -- as well as revenge. But in 1968 and thereafter, she selflessly declined to pursue this as she sacrificed herself to the Objectivist Movement.

So proper vengeance had to wait for the biography -- not the best place for it. One huge problem here is Objectivists don't remotely understand the concept and virtue of revenge.  


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Thursday, November 15, 2007 - 5:13pmSanction this postReply
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For anyone who cares:

Revenge is not a "virtue." 

Justice is the virtue, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with revenge.



***Now taking donations for Kyrel's Anger Management therapy.***



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Post 6

Thursday, November 15, 2007 - 5:43pmSanction this postReply
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"Objectivists don't remotely understand the concept and virtue of revenge."
- Kyrel Zantanovitch

At least not the happy ones!

How utterly bizarre to watch this most sincere and elegant woman speak so beautifully, and then to imagine with Kyrel that her greatest public achievement* was an exercise in hatred, and that her Atlas Society conference appearance was what...just a venue for another chance to twist the knife?

Revenge is no virtue, it is a burden, an act of submission, a perverted desire to place the suffering of another as the centerpiece motive in the living of one's own life. No one should let hatred for another consume any part of his own precious life. To quote Howard Roark, "but I don't think of you" is the proper Objectivist sense of life.

Ted Keer

* I found Barabara Branden's biography enlightening, but the movie strangely embarrassing. But this is not what at issue.


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Thursday, November 15, 2007 - 6:36pmSanction this postReply
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Regarding posts #3 and #4: You guys just can't let this go, can you?

Okay, I'm compelled now to weigh in in Barbara Branden's defense.

I've said before: I really loved Barbara's biography of Ayn Rand, and I really loathed the lurid, prurient "Showtime" film that focused on only one tiny aspect of the events chronicled in that biography: the Affair.

I just can't fathom how anyone extracts, from the actual text of the biography (not from the movie, over which Barbara had little control), any hint of "hatred" and "revenge" motives. I've known Barbara for some years, and I have never detected a flicker of malice toward Rand. In my opinion, anyone who watches her video tribute and can still claim that Barbara is motivated by hostility, is smoking something weird.

I'd invite those of you who do, to conduct an honest, private little thought experiment:

You are married to someone. All of a sudden, you begin to see that there's a growing attraction between your best friend and your spouse. You are rattled emotionally to the foundation of your being.

Then one day they come to you and present you with an incredible proposal: You are asked to tolerate an extra-marital sexual relationship between the two of them -- and you're also asked to remain married to your spouse.

Try to conceive of the shock you would experience. Try to imagine your actual feelings. These are the two people you adore and admire most -- people closer and more important to you than anyone else on earth. One is a genius and a philosopher; the other is a brilliant, skilled psychologist. Now, you are very intelligent; but you are also quite young, naive, and intimidated by these personal icons. They have been your inspirations, your intellectual mentors, and your constant companions since your teens. They are the two people in the world who have helped to forge who you are -- the two to whom you've entrusted your life, future, and happiness.

Now -- using every bit of their combined genius and emotional influence over you -- they offer up a host of "reasonable"-sounding philosophical and psychological arguments to get you to accept this "arrangement." They, the authors of the moral and psychological principles to which you are dedicated, cite these very principles in the arguments they raise against you. And to clinch the deal, they appeal to your idealism and self-image: They tell you that because you are a "moral giant," just like them, you will, of course, understand and accept this arrangement.

Now, what would YOU have done in the face of this kind of pressure from Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden?

Yes, Barbara made the wrong choice. But that wrong choice, under those bizarre circumstances, I for one find perfectly understandable. Indeed, most people cave in and make mistaken choices in life under pressures a lot less compelling.

So now, let's fast-forward twenty years or so.

You are now writing an account of the life of that philosophical and artistic genius. And you reach the part of the history that concerns the devastation wrought in your life -- and to the entire movement led by your book's subject -- by that arrangement, and by those two people whom you had idolized.

How would you feel?

What would you now say about it?

It's clear that any honest biography of Rand (especially one written by an intimate participant in its events) had to tread on this uncomfortably private territory -- if only to make comprehensible the destruction of the fast-growing, then-unified Objectivist movement of the 1960s. Prior to Barbara's book, the very suggestion of the existence of that Affair was denied heatedly, and those even hinting at it were damned and ejected from the Objectivist movement. Barbara's biography for the first time revealed the truth and made those nightmarish days intelligible.

In doing so, her book embodied an honesty not in evidence in the officially sanctioned, hagiographic documentary Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life. Where the Showtime movie distorted (and evaded) heroic facts of Rand's life in order to transform her into a manipulative neurotic, the "approved" documentary rationalized (and evaded) less-than-heroic facts of Rand's life in order to transform her into a flawless goddess.

Sense of Life, with a running time of 145 minutes, condensed the entire 18-year relationship of Ayn, Nathaniel, and Barbara -- including the whole history of the NBI period -- to just three minutes of screen time. And those minutes consisted solely of a vague, fact-free narrative by Leonard Peikoff and his ex-wife rationalizing the Affair. Incredibly, the very existence of Barbara Branden and NBI was not even mentioned! For a biography claiming "objectivity," this airbrushing of eighteen years of its subject's life was utterly disgraceful.

By necessity -- and by an honest historian's requirement to make those painful years intelligible -- Barbara took a different route. What is extraordinary is not that she revealed her emotional anguish and conflicts about those years, or that she voiced a few criticisms of Ayn Rand. What is extraordinary is how utterly devoid of bitterness her account actually is: how few and mild the criticisms are, and how extraordinarily generous and admiring she is toward the person who had such a traumatic impact on her marriage. Many reviewers outside the Objectivist movement have marveled at her generosity, bigness of spirit, and lack of bitterness -- characteristics that are in short supply in most memoirs.

But that positive view of Barbara Branden is not shared by those who are emotionally wedded to the idea that Ayn Rand must be presented as a flawless being -- at all costs.

Any depiction or discussion of Rand that even hints at the slightest personal criticism provokes the ugliest forms of psychologizing and moralizing imaginable. The substantive facts of such criticisms are completely evaded, by means of diversionary ad hominem attacks that focus instead on the (alleged) motives and morals of those raising the questions or criticisms. In the psychologizers' script, such people are portrayed as envious mediocrities trying to find "feet of clay" on a heroine, as a rationalization for their own (allegedly) blighted lives. Never are they regarded as people who simply might have honest criticisms of rare mistakes or isolated flaws in a person whom they otherwise admire tremendously.

Such self-proclaimed "defenders of Ayn Rand" have advanced the moronic proposition that the validity of Objectivism itself is tied intimately to the character of Ayn Rand: If she was not completely perfect, then her philosophy is not practicable. Therefore, to criticize her person in any way, to any extent, on any count, no matter how minor, is to undermine Rand's entire case for rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, and pride.

This is nonsense standing on twenty-story stilts.

The validation of ideas does not depend on the character of their advocates. The validation of ideas depends solely on their relationship to reality. Objectivism does not need the example of Ayn Rand (and I do believe that she was a GREAT example) to establish its connection to reality. Objectivism's validation requires only the rationality of anyone who cares to grapple with its ideas, and to trace them back to their roots in the facts of reality.

A forthcoming biography by Anne Heller promises to reveal fascinating new material about Ayn Rand the visionary thinker, artist, and achiever -- and I may read it for those new insights. I am indeed interested in how the experiences and influences in a giant's upbringing and personal growth may have contributed as incentives (either positive or negative) to that person's extraordinary idealism and incredible achievements.

But as for the facts about Ayn Rand's intimate life, I have made clear elsewhere my indifference to the topic, for the reasons given above. I've made clear to Anne Heller herself that the truly private stuff doesn't interest me in the least. My desire for psychological enlightenment about the genesis of human greatness does not translate into a desire to know every intimate detail of a great person's private life.

That Ayn Rand was a great woman -- intellectually, artistically, and morally -- I have absolutely no doubts. But on these counts, neither does Barbara Branden have any doubts. That was clear in the closing two chapters of her book, in which she gave her summary verdict on Rand's life.

And, in my opinion, anyone who views her extraordinarily moving tribute to Ayn Rand on that YouTube video cannot have any rational doubts about her love and admiration for Ayn Rand, either.


[Edits below solely to correct a few grammatical errors and a missing or extraneous word or two.]

(Edited by Robert Bidinotto on 11/15, 6:47pm)

(Edited by Robert Bidinotto on 11/16, 11:47am)


Post 8

Thursday, November 15, 2007 - 6:49pmSanction this postReply
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HEAR, HEAR..... [clap - clap - clap - clap - clap - clap!!]
Well said.....


Post 9

Thursday, November 15, 2007 - 9:38pmSanction this postReply
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Robert,

Yes.

Thank you.

Post 10

Friday, November 16, 2007 - 9:54amSanction this postReply
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What do you folks think of this idea written by Barbara Branden?

 

“Passion” page 303-304

 

<snip>

One must wonder if Ayn’s suffering was not in part the price she paid, granted other elements in her psyche, for her astonishing intellectual powers.  Historically, it is a price that men and women of vast intelligence have often paid.

<snip>

 

Why then, did others not grasp what was so easy to grasp?  Why did they not perceive what was so patently apparent?  Why did they not understand what was so simple to understand?  Why did they not know what she knew with such blazing clarity?
<snip>
 


Post 11

Friday, November 16, 2007 - 10:17amSanction this postReply
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Robert -- I agree with Robert Malcomb, Mike Erickson, and no doubt many, many others. Your long, detailed, fair-minded exegesis of this rather painful series of issues was simply outstanding. I found your general evaluation quite insightful and wise -- I just wish you would say it more often. You repeatedly noted the remarkable generosity of spirit Barbara showed in her biography. I too find this hugely admirable, and even stunning.

I know you find this subject unpleasant, and so shy away from it, but I think you're very eloquent in giving a balanced account of the issues, events, and personalities involved. I think the account above devastates the "official" version of things offered by the cult Objectivists. But I think these rather clear facts and spot-on evaluations need to be promoted much louder and longer, to make the Objectivist Movement much healthier and stronger. It's always beneficial to society when the truth is spoken, and when this truth wins out to become received wisdom all over the world.   

For all of that, however, there still may be a few more issues to be discussed...

Firstly, it's little known but revenge is a species of justice. It doesn't involve malice or cruelty. Webster's Ninth New Collegiate defines it as "to avenge (as oneself) usually by retaliating in kind or degree; to inflict injury in return for" as well as "an act or instance of retaliating in order to get even; an opportunity for getting satisfaction." The basic idea here seems to be that of balancing things out, gaining equality, and achieving justice. So proper acts of vengeance are acts of justice and acts of moral goodness.

I've long thought Barbara (and Nathaniel) wasn't treated right by Rand in the aftermath of 1968 -- and probably even before -- as you alluded to. I'm glad she finally took the opportunity to set the record straight(er) in her 1986 book. I just wish it had happened much sooner.  

Based on previous discussions, one area where you and I may disagree lies in the fact that I think everyone naturally has their own somewhat Rashomon view of events -- especially controversial, impassioned, and deeply personal ones. I also think everyone has a natural tendency, and even basic moral right, to present themselves in a good light, and present their best face to the world. I think Barbara (and Nathaniel) did just that in their memoirs. 

Speaking of the virtue of vengeance...In a similar manner, and for similar reasons, I wish The Objectivist Center would defend itself more vigorously against the many malicious and injust attacks of The Ayn Rand Institute and their personnel. Considering the level of malevolence and evil pumped out by them over the years, I think by right -- and in defense of truth, justice, and morality -- there needs to be some version of payback.

At some point, silence implies assent. I'm always disturbed and disappointed by the level of silence by the rational and philosophical elements of the Objectivist Movement in the face of cultist attacks. Whining, sarcasm, oblique references, indirect resentment, and mute passivity don't seem normal, healthy, proper, or self-respecting to me.

Attacking evil-doers who attack you seems very natural and moral. Vengeance against injust onslaught often seems very necessary and desirable. If someone goes after you personally or intellectually, in a way which isn't called for or right, you should go after them back. Enough of this "superior" silence. How much better everything is in the Objectivist Movement when everybody can express themselves fully and freely without fear of censorship or moral condemnation for being a dissident!


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Post 12

Friday, November 16, 2007 - 1:36pmSanction this postReply
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Regarding the affair, had Barbara been from Sicily she would have  smacked Ayn Rand couple times, just like Rand did to Nathaniel. :-)). But unfurtunately, in this case, she is from  Canada and not from Italy.

(Edited by Ciro D'Agostino on 11/16, 1:37pm)


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Post 13

Friday, November 16, 2007 - 3:49pmSanction this postReply
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Firstly, it's little known but revenge is a species of justice. It doesn't involve malice or cruelty. Webster's Ninth New Collegiate defines it as "to avenge (as oneself) usually by retaliating in kind or degree; to inflict injury in return for" as well as "an act or instance of retaliating in order to get even; an opportunity for getting satisfaction." The basic idea here seems to be that of balancing things out, gaining equality, and achieving justice. So proper acts of vengeance are acts of justice and acts of moral goodness.
That's crazy talk.  The definition even implies it's crazy. Revenge is a species of justice devoid of reason, which is crazy. "Getting even," is a crazy idea.
Revenge is "other focused," something common among crazy folk.

Revenge is for crazy people.


 



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Friday, November 16, 2007 - 4:18pmSanction this postReply
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I have not a clue as to where I put my copy of Barbara's biography of Rand, but when I do, I will pull out the corresponding quotes of negative concretes vs. positve abstractions.

I assumed that it would be assumed by many that in criticizing Barbara, I was intent on defending some version of Rand as God.  This is simply not the case.  I have many tapes, books and records from the golden age of NBI, including Barbara's "Principles of Efficient Thinking" series, which I thought was marvelous, BTW.  From what I heard of tapes of Rand dealing with questions from an audience as well as the information that Galambos passed on to me as to his brief but disastrous relationship that led to the "Competing Governments" article by Rand, I long ago came to the conclusion that I and Ayn would not have gotten along very well.  (Altho I would have liked to have met her when she was younger.  ;-)  )

Which in no way diminishes her stature as a first-rank novelist and a great philosopher.  I like Wagner's music, too, and he was notorious for stealing other people's money right and left to finance his operas. 

I have seen a lot of very smart people get sucked into a situation in which second-handers take over and form a shield between the real idea person and reality.  Anyone who is a real independent innovator and attempts to get through that barrier will likely trip over it.  Typical of such groups is the development of a private jargon, which is then used to make fun of outsiders, forcing people to take sides in a social-metaphysical contest of wills.

For example, Nathaniel has long played down and denigrated the economist Murray Rothbard, who for a time attended Rand's private parties as one of her inner circle.  (Note that the last time I heard Nathan mention Rothbard was probably two decades ago, so things may have changed.)  Nathan is reported to have insisted upon mangling Rothbard's name by deliberately pronouncing it in an exaggerated Russian accent, i.e., "Rossbott." 

Imagine that you are a noted professor in a serious academic field, with decades of work challenging established thinking, many published books, and a large international following and you choose to approach someone else who you regard as a major intellect with similar concerns and interests, in spite of the fact that even using her name in academic circles may result in your being shunned - with the consequence that you are made fun of by her lover, based on your name... 

As far as the affair between Nathan and Ayn, wasn't it clear to everyone that the marriage between Nathan and Barbara wasn't working?  Unless the movie and everyone else that I have heard on the subject got it horribly wrong, Barbara simply wasn't interested in Nathan sexually, as a man, and never in fact loved him.  He alleged talked her into the idea on the basis that as the best man in the world, obviously, she should love him, and if she didn't feel the love then that meant that she must be repressing it out of fear of recognizing greatness - or some such line, paralleling the Howard Roard/Dominique Francon relationship.  So, she couldn't go on her emotions - heaven forfend! - but had to do the right thing and the emotions then would (hopefully) follow.

So then Barbara is shattered(!) when Nathan has an affair with someone else?  Wow.  After all her sacrifice and self-denial... 

I suspect that Ayn just got fed up with dealing with comparative mediocraties.  Any relationship that worked on the level that she lived at inside was worth pursuing for its own sake.  To hell with all the mundane, petty people who acted like they had a claim on her and then knifed her in the back.  Nathan was the best show around, and she went for it.


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Friday, November 16, 2007 - 6:22pmSanction this postReply
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I checked the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary and see no part of the formal definition of the noun revenge stating that it involves justice without reason -- or with reason, for that matter.  It simply describes it as an act taken "in order to get even" or for "getting satisfaction" -- certainly a motive for the punishment aspect of justice also.

I do prefer the term justice rather than revenge because of the negative and irrational connotations of the latter, however.

I know some people like to play tit for tat but I will focus on the tits and leave the tats for others.

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 11/16, 6:24pm)


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Friday, November 16, 2007 - 8:34pmSanction this postReply
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It simply describes it as an act taken "in order to get even" or for "getting satisfaction"

Luke-
My definition is "justice without reason," not the dictionary's.

What does that mean, "to get even?" Is there a scoreboard somewhere? Maybe it's only visible to crazy people.

You bump into someone who interprets it as "disrespect."  You get a big "FUCK YOU" in the face. How satisfying that must be. 

The dictionary definition doesn't give the nasty details, which are far more cruel than just negative, irrational connotations. The dictionary definition just leaves one to their own crazy devices, and that makes the negatives very real.     


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Friday, November 16, 2007 - 8:47pmSanction this postReply
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 Barbara simply wasn't interested in Nathan sexually, as a man, and never in fact loved him.  He alleged talked her into the idea on the basis that as the best man in the world, obviously, she should love him, and if she didn't feel the love then that meant that she must be repressing it out of fear of recognizing greatness - or some such line, paralleling the Howard Roard/Dominique Francon relationship.  So, she couldn't go on her emotions - heaven forfend! - but had to do the right thing and the emotions then would (hopefully) follow.

So then Barbara is shattered(!) when Nathan has an affair with someone else?  Wow.

Maybe, Ayn Rand tried to help the troubled marriage by taking Nathaniel to bad.
 


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Post 18

Saturday, November 17, 2007 - 2:54amSanction this postReply
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Teresa, with all due respect, I take the dictionary more seriously than I take you in defining key terms.

I have some sympathy for Kyrel's advocacy of revenge though not to the degree you suggest.  For instance, setting aside the imperfections of government justice systems and their associated risks, is it "crazy" to inflict capital punishment on a serial murderer rather than just jail him for life?  How is this not "revenge"?  It sounds like "getting even" to me with the "scoreboard" written on the law books and the psyches of all affected parties.  Certainly lawsuits to recover tangible damages amount to a form of revenge as the dictionary defines it.

EDIT: Capital punishment may not be the best example, so consider instead punitive fines or jail sentences or lawsuits aimed at discouraging initiations of physical force.  This of course opens the whole debate between anarchist type libertarians and Objectivists about the nature of justice.  In the end, though, any form of penalizing wrongdoers must necessarily be a form of revenge.

As for civil society in general, many, many aspects of living in such a society require a certain level of psychological self-defense that includes making those who wrong you pay a price.  This might involve an occasional "f*** you" delivered in well-reasoned doses.  To combine two common bromides, "Revenge is a sweet dish best served cold."

I consider well-reasoned retribution a form of justice and revenge concurrently.

Ciro suggested (with spelling and grammar corrected):

Maybe Ayn Rand tried to help the troubled marriage by taking Nathaniel to bed.

From http://www.sexualhealth.com/question/read/301/ comes this:

Question:
What Is a Sexual Surrogate?

 
Answer:
by
Mitchell Tepper: (05/16/2004)
A sexual surrogate or surrogate partner is a person, most often but not always a woman, who works with clients to overcome sexual dysfunction and enhance relationships. The goals range from relieving anxiety around intimacy or dating to addressing specific concerns such as virginity, erection response, ejaculation timing, painful intercourse, inhibited desire or negative body image. Or the surrogate may try to facilitate more pleasure or overcome negative responses based on past traumatic experiences. For anyone who has experienced changes resulting from a disability and does not have a partner to work with, the surrogate can help explore and develop sexual potential.  [...]  It is not uncommon for surrogates or coaches to encounter extremely rigid attitudes and outright refusal to cooperate. I believe every person, regardless of disability, has a right to sexual expression and access to coaching services and surrogate partner therapy if needed. The time is now for sexual advocacy, for ourselves and for each other. --Lizzi McNeff


(Edited by Luke Setzer on 11/17, 4:11am)


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Post 19

Saturday, November 17, 2007 - 6:05amSanction this postReply
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That's the thing, Luke. The dictionary doesn't impose any kind of rational meaning to the concept "revenge."  It's wide open to all kinds of interpretations. It could mean being rational, or not.   There is no reference to facts or truth or rights. There is only reference to "desire."  

Revenge can be any kind of "justice" for any kind of perceived slight, or wrong. There is no requirement for facts or truth. In fact, there is no mention of anything to compel one to weigh and measure what one knows against what is true, except, perhaps, what one feels. What you want as opposed to what is right. Emotions are a result, not a cause. Revenge renders emotions as a cause. Justice does not.  The object of revenge is emotional vs. Justice as a subject of reason.

No, I don't think the imposition of justice is a form of revenge. There's a reason we don't have victims on juries.  Justice requires one to be impartial.  Revenge does not. Revenge demands one to have a stake in the outcome. Justice does not.   
 
Justice:

Main Entry: jus·tice
Function: noun
Pronunciation: 'j&s-t&s
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English & Old French; Old English justice, from Old French justice, from Latin justitia, from justus
1 a : the maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments b : JUDGE c : the administration of law ; especially : the establishment or determination of rights according to the rules of law or equity
2 a : the quality of being just, impartial, or fair b (1) : the principle or ideal of just dealing or right action (2) : conformity to this principle or ideal : RIGHTEOUSNESS c : the quality of conforming to law
3 : conformity to truth, fact, or reason : CORRECTNESS


Revenge:

Main Entry: 2revenge
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French revenge, revenche, from revengier, revenchier to revenge
1 : a desire for revenge
2 : an act or instance of retaliating in order to get even
3 : an opportunity for getting satisfaction
 
I'll say it again, Revenge is not a virtue. It isn't even a value, in my view.


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