Thursday, August 4, 2016

I.O.I. Conveniently Forgets That Somi Is 15



Of the seven members in this group, 5 are underage. So yeah, black leather and latex was probably not the way to go.

The song sounds good (strong Salt N Pepa sample, which is in itself a sample. Meta!), though. And in fairness, I would love this concept with a group where THE MAJORITY OF THE GROUP WASN'T COMPOSED OF ACTUAL CHILDREN!

Okay cool, glad we had this talk.

27 comments:

  1. As longs its not 19+. I can give a rats ass if they are doing a concept fit for 15+.

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  2. 1) it's not America, a quick internet search says age of consent in Korea is 13 (I cleared my history fairly quickly)

    2) I thought they had eleven members, have they had a cull?

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  3. They do everything to survive. Poor Somi, getting dragged into nugu agency tactics. Not complaining though. ��

    http://www.soompi.com/2016/08/04/much-cost-debut-k-pop-group/

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  4. Somi is showing less boob than she did in Dream Girls.

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  5. I was listening to the original Salt N Pepa song (and the rest of the album) in a little hidey spot with a Catholic schoolgirl down the street when I was 11. This is like Sesame Street compared to what the original was, even though Salt N Pepa were all adults. I turned out okay, but I do see the dangers of this type of media. Nonetheless, a grown adult (such as one viewing this) should be able to understand that sexual development and expression in teens is different from sexual availability or propriety of relations with persons of any age.

    Things do get a bit blurry when it comes to propriety of appreciating visuals, since there is no chance of contact with these pop stars yet it may psychologically condition some adults to being inclined for inappropriate relations with teens in their lives. However, millions of years of evolution make the vitality of sexually developed youth appealing regardless of social influence, so it's an awareness and self control adults will have to practice anyway. I don't think pretending hot teens aren't hot helps teach/encourage the development of a sense of relational propriety and self control, not taking the presence of sexuality as an invitation to sexual relations.

    Moderating moral culpability over indirectly encouraging predatory behavior with media vs Forcing teens to stifle their sexuality and only have cute/innocent personal expression at the height of their hormonal states and stages of developing their sexual identity is not an easy puzzle to solve. If an older person pursues inappropriate relations with sexually mature youths, is that the fault of sexualized media? If we keep everything innocent and youths develop sexual shame and stigmas for the natural processes of their bodies they can't help, is that the fault of the media? If we attempt to keep sexually developed persons innocent/childlike but can't truly hide their sexually developed nature, and some people develop weird fetishes for childlike things, is that the fault of media?

    It's really not an easy thing to figure out, and that is before even getting to rights and ethics of personal expression to be in such media, to orchestrate/produce the media, the nature of power dynamics between employers and employees and if it's truly an artistic expression the girls want to be part of or not, etc. I know the statistics on sexual abuses, and I'm in favor of protecting girls, but I'm not sure censorship achieves it. Plus it can lead to purity culture which is just another form of patriarchal control that can make them even more susceptible to abuse. I think it is more important to teach adults to use their brains and not be shitbags.

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    1. Adding more to this since it's something people almost never talk about but it is so important...

      Acting like teens are children until they turn 18 is a horrible folly. It is a lie and a false boundary that creates false contexts of relationship where bad things can develop as the social narrative is pretending they don't exist or aren't happening. What do I mean? Well let's look at IOI here. You have some girls 15 or 16, being called children (no offense to you kalliope) by the prevailing cultural narratives. The basic implied premise is that sexuality does not or at least ought not have anything to do with their role in society until they are 18, but this directly contradicts the reason why laws say wait until they are 18, which is that there is a presumed development of identity and understanding and personal control happening in the meantime, which logically must manifest in their roles and relationships.

      So, you have an adult looking at these youth and pretending their sexuality doesn't exist and has nothing to do with their relations to them as an adult. You have youth looking at themselves and realizing they are sexual yet feeling pressured to hide it or at least think that it has nothing to do with their relation to adults. Both are big fat lies, just closing your eyes to something important that should be dealt with in good conscience. The fact is, the sexuality is present, the physical capability to have sex is present, and often enough the physical desire to do so is present. So these things need to be incorporated in how they cognitively acknowledge and relate to each other, but that does not mean they engage in sexual relations with each other.

      Think about the nature of work and life. A youth is dependent on their parents, then they get older and start learning about work, then they start working a little to get some of their own money and practice responsibility, then they work significantly more and engage in more personal freedoms and responsibilities, then they may move in with some roommates, then they may get to a point where they can live alone or with a spouse. All through that process everyone acknowledges they are in stages of development and increasing responsibility and they can and probably should learn from adults. Does this mean a teen gets hired as a manager? Or that to learn from an adult they become their business partner? No. The two are relationally separated in terms of business practice, but open to transmitting wisdom.

      In the same way, youth are in different stages of developing sexuality, and they must and will learn from somewhere, yet it is best if they can be open with a properly caring and responsible adult, and even simply glean wisdom from all adults in general, which they apply in their own life separately. This can only happen, however, if the fact of how they are developing is acknowledged. It is also only within this context that proper boundaries and dynamics of relationship and self control are brought clearly into social view. Sexual predators often groom victims with a false narratives or relational models, but if these things were existent in society, the false models of the predators would be constantly refuted by the general social influence and reasoning of the greater populace.

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    2. So this is why I think it is best to focus on teaching adults to not be shitbags, because not only is it adults who sometimes prey on the youths, it is the majority of adults who control the public narratives on what is acceptable or unacceptable to acknowledge, and they who define the contexts of how we view youths and relate to each other. I remember being 15. It was very intense with sexuality, but also feelings of pure love, and angst, and it took a lot of effort and observation and reasoning and action for expression and action for self control and sorting out identity and responsibility with myself in the world with sexuality. It's really stupid to look at a 15 year old and think of them as children, as though you have no role as a partial mentor to help them through it as an adult. Youth learn from adults. It is an essential dynamic of not just humanity, but any creature on earth.

      Strangely, I think a lot of youth these days are getting most of their sexual development advice from LGBT sources. There is currently a lot of social pressure to not stifle what LGBT sources have to say, so I think a lot of parents and adults just let it fly when their teens take an interest in studying the issues, but then with heterosexual sources talking about sexuality there is immediate paranoia and shame cast from parents and other adults. This may end up leading a lot of straight teens experiment with LGBT stuff first and get confused for a while before they realize they're straight, but at least they are finding some kind of support through growing up. I'm not sure if cases of abuse/predators are more or less common or the same level among LGBT crowds, but looking at STD and substance abuse stats it may be generally less responsible.

      So anyways, yeah, don't ignore or stifle reality, don't shirk your responsibilities to propriety whether you're a youth or adult, don't feel bad for feeling natural things yet don't use it as a license for whatever actions you want, and let's just talk about these things with a shred of sanity and respect for each other in our different stages of life and belief in our mutual desire to build a good society where exploitation has no dark corners to hide.

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    3. Note: I have care to say so many words on this because I grew up in the ghetto and went on to counsel many through strife dealing with these aspects of life, including men who had temptations but wanted to live right. Also, most women in my life, friends and family, have suffered some kind of abuse or harassment. I have too much experience with the direct realities to be content with simplistic narratives and social rules that obviously aren't working because otherwise these issues wouldn't be so prevalent. It's an incredibly important issue and "grown up" topic so that is why I gave this "grown up" response.

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    4. You hit the nail on the head when you talked about a teens sexuality being ignored. One look at our sex-ed classes (well, the ones I was exposed to at least, which while informative in some aspects wasn't in others and also placed a VERY heavy emphasis on abstinence) is enough to see just how sexuality is used more as a way to shame teens in terms of sexuality rather than helping them grow.

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    5. Super interesting, thank you for this. I will be thinking about this a lot in the coming days. It's a really complex topic, and one worth exploring.

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    6. So is it ok to still get a boner? I'm confused now... and don't want to get buttbanged in jail.

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    7. Nature works like nature. You see sexually developed and attractive girls, you'll find some attraction response in yourself. The key is being aware of this and having a responsible mind about your actions and how propriety of relationship to them is defined the whole of human nature and social development also in mind, not just what your dick wants. Our sexual desires and liberties are one part of our humanity that should not be ignored, but do need to be controlled, and it is controlled by the other half of our nature which is in our higher reasoning and desire to properly care for one another and have order and discipline. When it comes to sexuality, conservatives usually deny the base nature and liberals usually deny the conscience, but they are both essential.

      As for evaluating the propriety of enjoying the eye candy while yet retaining and respecting the other boundaries and value and needs of persons according to their place in life, that is debated every which way by every different sorts of groups and schools of thought. Some promote liberty in it as long as the single action in view is not causing harm, others think wider liberty in sexually indulgent mindsets can lead good minds astray or give incidental social consent to predatory persons (i.e. rape culture fosters rapists to think she means yes when she says no), some are religiously opposed to public sexual expression, some are against limiting sexual expression because it fosters purity culture which pushes sexual submissiveness and ends up exploiting girls and women, some are opposed to encouraging excessive sexual expression because it may hypersexualize into hedonistic philosophies unrealistic for real relationships causing dissonance from personal identity in the whole of their conscience, etc.

      It is indeed confusing to figure how to respect freedoms, hold a proper sense of responsibility for social influence, and keep a balance between your own base nature and higher conscience. It is precisely BECAUSE it is so confusing that I think all of society needs to bring this out in the light and be honest and rationally discuss it more often rather than this ultra simplified "is it definitely good or definitely bad" narrative that wants to celebrate sexual indulgence with no mind for social responsibility and yet also have ultra condemnation of anyone who slips past almost completely arbitrary boundary lines. Even just a hundred years ago girls would be getting MARRIED at 14. Did anyone really expect us to work out an entirely new format for all human civilization in vast contrast to all history so quickly? We still have a lot to work on. We can't get dogmatic with our narratives yet.

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    8. "Acting like teens are children until they turn 18 is a horrible folly."

      This. Though I agree with this in a slightly different way than you're implying. I'm 20 and everyone calls me an adult and says it's creepy that I'm attracted to older teenagers.

      Uhh.

      I was literally an older teenager 8 months ago. I'm barely an adult, and it's not like I'm into kids. In fact psychologists consider it perfectly normal for a 20 to even 30 year old to be attracted to teenagers. Not only teenagers though, but to find a teen hot doesn't make me a pedo goddamn. I like 20+ year olds too.

      Tumblr really likes pushing the idea that once you're 18 if you so much as talk to minors you're a pedophile deserving of being castrated. Jesus fuck. Literally had someone call me a child rapist for talking to my 15 year old friend when I was 18. They said that to a person who was raped as a child and a victim of child porn and child sexual abuse. Like fuck off, maybe?

      It's normal to be attracted to teen women and even some teen men (I say some because most teenaged boys don't start looking like adults until they're like legal adults) because youth is prioritized in our genes. The only problem is when (about) 30+ year olds are only attracted to underage (or adult) teens or younger. I don't mean thinking a teen is pretty, I mean fapping to illegal teen porn and having sex with young teens or older teens, even.

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  6. The Doyeon chick looks really good, like a mini Anda lol, Chungha also looks great

    But I saw a weird image weren't supposed to do a weird SIA looking shit?

    http://scontent.cdninstagram.com/t51.2885-15/s480x480/e35/13734490_155445944861707_1876062827_n.jpg?ig_cache_key=MTMwNzc1NTYxNTA2NjMwNDkzNQ%3D%3D.2

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  7. Awkward as f*ck and Koreans really don't know how to market Somi. They clearly think mixed race = more sexually precocious or some shit but putting Somi in skin-tight latex hot pants somehow makes her looker even younger than she actually is because her body proportions don't look a day older than 15.

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    1. What the fuck is wrong with people that censor themselves?

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    2. I thought that was a little boy.

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  8. I would prefer another cutesy school-girl concept tbh. I'm not very into 'sexy' concept. Also, why are people against cute concept now? Gugudan's MV was full of comments just shitting on on them about how they're not bringing anything new to the table as if sexy concept is somehow more original than cutesy concept.

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    1. Cute concept groups implies stagnation, short pvs and other unpleasant shit.

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    2. Cute concept groups implies stagnation, short pvs and other unpleasant shit.

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    3. Because cute concepts are catered towards the lolita culture which IU emphasized in "Twenty-three". Not to mention the sketchy response the PD of Produce 101 claimed that the show was basically "healthy porn" for men who want to fantasize about little sisters/nieces.

      Cute concepts/sexy concepts cater towards the same thing in the end. At least sexy concepts aren't trying to play the innocent card in the end and are honest about it.

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    4. You have distinguish which is which though. There's pedobait cute concepts, then there's feel good cute concepts like Ponponpon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzC4hFK5P3g). And then you have feel good cute concepts with a pinch or dash of pedobait.

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  9. I never heard of the original.sonf but the moment I heard or watched the teaser I knew this was an american song

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