Blood Brain Barrier said:
geizr said:
Hmm, fan-service that targets females, for once.
For once? Ever watched any soap operas?
Not since my childhood days (which was about 2.5 decades ago) when I caught only snippets in passing because my sister would watch them all the time with her friends. But, that is a good point. Regardless, I think my general point about objectification going both ways is still reasonably valid; admittedly, in video games, it seems fairly one-sided, hence the brouhaha over it all.
Actually, that opens a question, in what other forms of creative productions do we find a significant level of male-objectification targeted at women? I mentioned romance novels; you mentioned soap operas. Do we find it anywhere else? Just how common is it? Do most gamers (at least the vocal ones) fail to notice it because they simply don't have an interest in the things where male-objectification would be found in prevalence?
More and more, as I have grown older, I've learned that many of the things people waste time having heartburn and bowel disruption over really don't matter worth a damn. Most of the people engaged in these "Us vs. Them" ideological wars just need to reconnect with reality (which tends to sit almost squarely in the middle of the opposing extremes of view) and learn to get over themselves.
VERY OFF-TOPIC: If you're African-American, as I am, turns out we have an 80% chance to be lactose intolerant. I discovered that I was lactose intolerant when my GI doctor persuaded me to take a lactose intolerance test. As a result, I was put on a lactose free diet, and I have to say that my body feels like it is 20 years younger. Turns out that the lactose, because it is not being broken into glucose and galactose to be absorbed in the small intestine, passes into the colon where the bacteria there ferments the sugar into all kinds of toxins that poison the body. Since removing lactose from my diet (you can get lactose-free milk, for example, which just has the lactase enzyme added to break down the lactose for you), my body has had more energy than I have had in years; the constant over body aches and muscular tension that I would always have has completely subsided, and burning, painful sensations I would always get in my face and sinuses has just completely disappeared. My cognitive abilities have jumped considerably; for instance, my reading speed spontaneously increased by a factor of 2. Seriously, guys, I'm not lying about any of this. I used to kid about being naturally drunk, but turns out that really was a true state of existence for me. The bacteria in my gut was constantly producing ethanol, along with other toxic chemicals, because of all the diary and other lactose laden foods I would eat (such as various breads). Also, for quite some time, I have been a sufferer of IBS, and even that has now subsided after going lactose free. For those interested, here's a link to a medical research paper I came across hypothesizing the link between the bacterial mechanism associated with lactose intolerance and a host of systemic symptoms:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20851732
You may need to do a little googling to access the full PDF of the paper, or if you're on a school campus while accessing the link, it may be possible to use the school's blanket library subscriptions to access the paper. I had just about every systemic problem along with the gastrointestinal issues that the paper discusses. After about a week on the lactose-free diet, those problem just vanished, including some of my allergy problems.
Turns out that most adults likely don't produce a sufficient supply of lactase (the enzyme that breaks down lactose), and we're not supposed to. Once the child weening years are done (roughly by age 4), our bodies generally produce less and less lactase as we get older. However, we still tend to consume milk and diary like we did as children. The undigested lactose sugar, because we don't make enough lactase to break it down, makes its way into the colon, where it is not supposed to be. The bacteria in the colon feed on the lactose, which they are not supposed to do, and produce all these toxins that poison the body.
Even if it doesn't seem like you're lactose intolerant (I swore up and down to my GI doctor that I wasn't because, as far as I knew, I dealt with diary products just fine; shows what I know), you may actually be lactose intolerant. Getting tested would be a good way to confirm it. You may not have the serious intestinal issues that are normally associated with lactose intolerance, but if you have other systemic body problems that you may be putting down to just getting older, it is possible that the real culprit is the toxins being produced in your colon due to the lactose.
Very, very sorry for the sudden thread derailment, but I just suddenly felt a need to get that out there. Please, carry on as normal.
OFF-TOPIC ADDENDUM: Oh, and I shed a lot of weight, too, as my metabolism went up.
