As I pretty vividly remember, the 90s *were* a time of blooming sex positivity. However, and this is important, there were massive geographic differences at play. I grew up in the Bay Area, and there was a much larger dichotomy between geographic regions than now. And the decade differed wildly from the beginning to the end. By 1998, slut shaming itself was shamed.
Donna would've banged a couple of douchebags in bad sex in high school and learned how to deal with their shit. Within a couple of years she'd have eaten a few molly pills and made out with girls. At first because the boys liked it, soon after because she truly liked it. By this time, she's exposed to the early internet, Susie Bright, and then starts having great relationships and things are meaningful. But she's still shocked at how the rest of the country can be having some conniption fit over Monica Lewinski.
I feel privileged, in a way, to have spent years in very different cultures. But cursed as well to have grown up evangelical. I’m jealous of people who grew up in the Bay.
It was amazing. No other way to put it. Obviously nostalgia can create rose colored lenses, but I try and view eras in realistic terms.
There was a slight problem. The early 2000s were a slap in the face; the country tacked to the right, and that was more visible thanks to the internet. It was so depressing I couldn't take it and bounced overseas for awhile.
This is a big reason I am such a Scott Alexander stan: I see him as honest and intellectually careful to a fault. But of course, as with e.g. old fave Conor Friedersdorf or new fave Jerusalem Demsas, I am not the best judge of his actual honesty because my worldview starts out so similar to his.
Thinking about unusually honest folks with very different worldviews from mine, three come to mind immediately: Lyman Stone, Richard Hanania, and Freddie deBoer-- a religious conservative, a militant anti-wokist, and a Marxist socialist respectively. All three can be offputting (Hanania especially I think is gratuitously nasty at times) and I don't blame anyone for not wanting to read them. But I get facts, insights, analyses, perspectives etc from them I wouldn't from anyone else. And it's good to be reminded that honest, smart, well-informed, thoughtful, intellectually careful people can hold all those views.
As I pretty vividly remember, the 90s *were* a time of blooming sex positivity. However, and this is important, there were massive geographic differences at play. I grew up in the Bay Area, and there was a much larger dichotomy between geographic regions than now. And the decade differed wildly from the beginning to the end. By 1998, slut shaming itself was shamed.
Donna would've banged a couple of douchebags in bad sex in high school and learned how to deal with their shit. Within a couple of years she'd have eaten a few molly pills and made out with girls. At first because the boys liked it, soon after because she truly liked it. By this time, she's exposed to the early internet, Susie Bright, and then starts having great relationships and things are meaningful. But she's still shocked at how the rest of the country can be having some conniption fit over Monica Lewinski.
So true - grew up in the 90s on the west coast - such a different experience than many of my Midwest pals.
It was kind of exasperating to go to other places and experience those mindsets. I just could not figure out what their problem was.
I feel privileged, in a way, to have spent years in very different cultures. But cursed as well to have grown up evangelical. I’m jealous of people who grew up in the Bay.
It was amazing. No other way to put it. Obviously nostalgia can create rose colored lenses, but I try and view eras in realistic terms.
There was a slight problem. The early 2000s were a slap in the face; the country tacked to the right, and that was more visible thanks to the internet. It was so depressing I couldn't take it and bounced overseas for awhile.
This is a big reason I am such a Scott Alexander stan: I see him as honest and intellectually careful to a fault. But of course, as with e.g. old fave Conor Friedersdorf or new fave Jerusalem Demsas, I am not the best judge of his actual honesty because my worldview starts out so similar to his.
Thinking about unusually honest folks with very different worldviews from mine, three come to mind immediately: Lyman Stone, Richard Hanania, and Freddie deBoer-- a religious conservative, a militant anti-wokist, and a Marxist socialist respectively. All three can be offputting (Hanania especially I think is gratuitously nasty at times) and I don't blame anyone for not wanting to read them. But I get facts, insights, analyses, perspectives etc from them I wouldn't from anyone else. And it's good to be reminded that honest, smart, well-informed, thoughtful, intellectually careful people can hold all those views.
They’re also, which I respect, very upfront about their biases