In one of the boards (the Site one, I think) I came across a thread about the SuicideBoys group. Someone made the comment that it seemed strange, and by that I get the impression sinister, that older men, say in their mid-thirties, would want to post pictures in a group called SuicideBoys. Further, that they would sign up for a site that dominantly featured pictures of younger women....
I, of course, am in my early thirties. I'll probably be around here when I'm no longer in the earlies, too.
I could make arguments about the appreciation of beauty, the affectionate qualities of youth, the differences between chronological, psychological and emotional age. I could wallow in the debates I've had with my own thoughts, pro and con, about why I joined, and for the same reasons as the men-aren't-boys critic of the thread. I could also dismiss the objection out of hand.
So I guess that it's time to choose a faction. Or a side or my mind with which to side.
Is visiting a site with portrayals of youth a way of escaping adulthood? Perhaps. But I wonder if I've affiliated myself with adulthood any more than I affiliated myself with childhood when I was in a position to be a card-carrying child: or a card-carrying teen, or a card-burning, dodger-of-the-responsibility-draft young adult.
True, I don't date anyone my own age. I don't date anyone at all, but that's another matter for the present; in the past, this was also true, but often in both polarities: younger when older, older when younger. Is this a sign of imbalance? Or a condition that would keep Freud in confidence of year after year of job security? I suppose it could be either. But I don't pretend to have the insight to say... I suppose I'll leave that to history to judge (and to the re-reading of my written journals in later years, when I have the benefit of long-term disillusionment).
What I know is this:
Seeing the combination of skin and confidence, instead of skin with strip-club manipulation and shrink-wrap sexuality, reminds me that there's more to carnality than getting rocks caressed and watering the fields. And seeing skin and confidence combined with both youth and occasional, if all too rare, maturity reminds me that this is part of being human... that it's something that we all start with, can keep without losing, and, possibly, regain.
I, of course, am in my early thirties. I'll probably be around here when I'm no longer in the earlies, too.
I could make arguments about the appreciation of beauty, the affectionate qualities of youth, the differences between chronological, psychological and emotional age. I could wallow in the debates I've had with my own thoughts, pro and con, about why I joined, and for the same reasons as the men-aren't-boys critic of the thread. I could also dismiss the objection out of hand.
So I guess that it's time to choose a faction. Or a side or my mind with which to side.
Is visiting a site with portrayals of youth a way of escaping adulthood? Perhaps. But I wonder if I've affiliated myself with adulthood any more than I affiliated myself with childhood when I was in a position to be a card-carrying child: or a card-carrying teen, or a card-burning, dodger-of-the-responsibility-draft young adult.
True, I don't date anyone my own age. I don't date anyone at all, but that's another matter for the present; in the past, this was also true, but often in both polarities: younger when older, older when younger. Is this a sign of imbalance? Or a condition that would keep Freud in confidence of year after year of job security? I suppose it could be either. But I don't pretend to have the insight to say... I suppose I'll leave that to history to judge (and to the re-reading of my written journals in later years, when I have the benefit of long-term disillusionment).
What I know is this:
Seeing the combination of skin and confidence, instead of skin with strip-club manipulation and shrink-wrap sexuality, reminds me that there's more to carnality than getting rocks caressed and watering the fields. And seeing skin and confidence combined with both youth and occasional, if all too rare, maturity reminds me that this is part of being human... that it's something that we all start with, can keep without losing, and, possibly, regain.