Thank you for this timely piece, Peter. Unfortunately, it is the logical end of the road of 'diversity' being 'inclusive' of everyone and everything, all protected under the 'be kind' hashtag. Safeguarding of both children and vulnerable adults requires discrimination and discernment, rooted in a fully-functioning moral compass. Seemingly we live in a world which prefers to prioritise all manner of deviancy to prevent hurt feelings.
Hi Lucy - thanks very much for your comment. It is completely baffling to me that it should be necessary for writers like you and me to have to research and write about such extremes of human behaviour, just in order to make a fairly evident point that body modification carries real personal and social costs to all concerned, including spouses, children and families, as well as to our wider society, and is not something to be viewed as being in any way 'brave' or praiseworthy...
I entirely agree, Peter. In the cult of 'let me express my authentic self' (which invariably is nothing of the kind), with whatever body modifications I want, everyone else is collateral damage and doesn't count.
I had a thought about that. That maybe there was some weird entanglement on the mental plane. It reminded me of that scenario where Ian Curtis got a job helping epileptics and subsequently became epileptic himself. It's like that scenario where women who look after disabled kids are encouraged to leave their job if they want to have kids, in case some 'like attracts like' phenomenon occurs'.... https://substack.com/home/post/p-173077546
Thank you for this timely piece, Peter. Unfortunately, it is the logical end of the road of 'diversity' being 'inclusive' of everyone and everything, all protected under the 'be kind' hashtag. Safeguarding of both children and vulnerable adults requires discrimination and discernment, rooted in a fully-functioning moral compass. Seemingly we live in a world which prefers to prioritise all manner of deviancy to prevent hurt feelings.
Hi Lucy - thanks very much for your comment. It is completely baffling to me that it should be necessary for writers like you and me to have to research and write about such extremes of human behaviour, just in order to make a fairly evident point that body modification carries real personal and social costs to all concerned, including spouses, children and families, as well as to our wider society, and is not something to be viewed as being in any way 'brave' or praiseworthy...
I entirely agree, Peter. In the cult of 'let me express my authentic self' (which invariably is nothing of the kind), with whatever body modifications I want, everyone else is collateral damage and doesn't count.
I had a thought about that. That maybe there was some weird entanglement on the mental plane. It reminded me of that scenario where Ian Curtis got a job helping epileptics and subsequently became epileptic himself. It's like that scenario where women who look after disabled kids are encouraged to leave their job if they want to have kids, in case some 'like attracts like' phenomenon occurs'.... https://substack.com/home/post/p-173077546