More Info on Doug Wilson, Pedophile Enabler

[Petronella]

10 hours ago, Hane said:

Before I begin, I need to point out that the Sally in the title isn’t even what we’d consider an android: she’s a sex doll capable of saying a few vapid phrases and ostensibly performing sex acts.  She can’t move by herself or carry on a conversation.

Oh. How much less interesting than it could have been.

10 hours ago, Hane said:

(I wonder whether Dougie ever saw the bizarre but somehow sweet Ryan Gosling movie “Lars and the Real Girl,” about a socially awkward young man who buys a high-end sex doll and treats her like a human being. The doctor in his small town helps deal with his mental illness by encouraging everyone to go along with Lars’s fantasy, until the eventual happy resolution.)

I wondered the same!

This reminds me of the hardline pro-life views. Statistics show that there are fewer abortions under liberal governments, because there’s better access to education and birth control, and better support for mothers and children after the babies are born. But instead of looking for and meeting the needs that lead to abortion, they jump to law and punishment, which is far less effective.

If in Doug’s dystopia, sex-doll partners are common (especially such low-level ones, in terms of imitating any form of connection besides physical acts), then that seems to me to indicate some real needs in society aren’t being met. Campaigning against sex dolls, destroying sex dolls, would not solve the actual causes of people turning to sex dolls, and would just drive their use underground. Maybe they could consider what needs in someone’s life or in society in general are lacking and offer empathy and do practical things to try to meet wider needs?

But then they wouldn’t get to feel superior and wouldn’t get to control and punish people.

10 hours ago, Hane said:

Connor is a “fastidious body sculptor” with a mirror-lined basement full of exercise equipment. He picked up this hobby during the following harrowing event when he had been in high school:  After doing some weightlifting with progressively smaller weights (he had started at fifty pounds), when he was struggling with some five-pound ones, three beautiful Mean Girls (Dougie says they weren’t really mean) came in and laughed at him. Dougie says you would have laughed, too. (Fuck you, Dougie—don’t speak for me.) This made Connor turn gay. I swear to God.

If having a single negative experience with jerks of the opposite sex was what makes gay people, then every woman on earth would be a lesbian. For heaven’s sake.

[justwatching]

Well-proportioned without being in any way a hazard or public nuisance? Wtf does that mean? Because it sounds like you should have good-sized boobs, but not TOO big, because that automatically makes you a slut. Goldilocks boobs. 
Should a good Christian boy be referencing the lyrics to "Mustang Sally" regardless of when he was born? Shocking, 

*Goldilocks Boobs*

I just choked on my lunch!

[Marmion]

On 11/1/2020 at 7:21 AM, Petronella said:

As far as I can tell, this premise is of the “slippery slope caused by allowing gay marriage” type (rather than the more interesting “what would a robot have to do to be considered self-conscious and human?” type).

In that light, this meme seems appropriate:

 I have never thought of it in that light before .  I have been aware of sensationalized fears being stoked by social conservative Christians , including even my relatively moderate fundamentalist Presbyterian cousin .  ( which is by the way largely how I first came to know of the OPC and the PCA denominations , in the first place , as those are the type of churches he frequents )  

https://puritancalvinist.blogspot.com/2008/12/unbelievable-i-think-i-can-just-let.html  However , I do feel that there could be valid ethical , and legal concerns , regarding AI . { https://theconversation.com/sex-robots-are-here-but-laws-arent-keeping-up-with-the-ethical-and-privacy-issues-they-raise-109852?  ,  https://hcri.brown.edu/2013/06/18/raunchy-robotics-the-ethics-of-sexbots/  }   Take  for example , this story .  { https://www.zdnet.com/article/sex-robot-molested-destroyed-at-electronics-show/   ,  https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2018/04/samantha-s-suffering-should-sex-robots-have-rights } 

 

[katilac]

20 hours ago, Hane said:

 The judge says Ace can go, but in the company of two state troopers.  

Yes, this is something that always happens. They let the part-time scrapyard worker travel as a speaker, in the company of two state troopers. Sure. 

Everytime I read "Ace" I immediately think of asexual. 

[Pibblesmiles]

Every time I read "Ace," I see, in my mind's eye, a weird mash-up of Ace Ventura, Pet Detective and Ace Rimmer from Red Dwarf.

[Katzchen24]

21 minutes ago, katilac said:

Everytime I read "Ace" I immediately think of asexual. 

I'm with @Ozlsn on the "Ace" Rimmer bandwagon.

 

Spoiler

 

[smittykins]

What, no Ace Frehley? ?

[Hane]

If there’d been a character named Gary in this book, I would have been all Ambiguously Gay Duo here. Like @katilac, my mind went “Ace”=asexual. This choice of name shows how out of touch Dougie is. And, oh, I screwed up—his surname is Hartwick, not “Hardwick.”

[Pibblesmiles]

There was a wildlife photographer named Asahel Curtis, and there is a nature trail in the Snoqualmie National Forest that is named for him.  When the Pibbles kids were little, they always started getting antsy for some snacks right about the time we would pass the Asahel Curtis exit sign on I-90.

So, rather than impressing me with his knowledge of minor Biblical characters, by using the name Asahel, Dougie just makes me feel nostalgic for the Before Times when we would road trip to eastern Washington to visit family.

[Katzchen24]

I’m a terribly confused by his narrative. What exactly is he trying to demonstrate (apart from his willingness to use someone’s possible mental illness as a plot device)?
 

I actually looked up my state legislation and discovered that not only is there an offence in the criminal code for homicide, but there’s a separate Act specifically defining ‘death’ in the case of a person.  I’m guessing my state criminal code is pretty much the same around the world so Dougie is playing fast and loose with this storyline. 
 

He’s created a world where robots are recognised as people then? So would he be as upset about a bot that did housework? Does it matter if the bot is humanoid in form or not? Does the bot that replaced 50 people on the local factory line count? What is the dividing line between, say, a clothing store dummy and Sally?
 

Is it purely because Steve refers to Sally as his wife that there’s an issue? In this case Ace the Acehole has destroyed her because of Steve’s actions which is equally fucked up. 
 

I’m trying to work around to the idea that Acehole wouldn’t be charged with murder of Sally unless there were specific legislative provisions that classified her as a person who could be murdered. If the legislation is there, then there’s no story to him being charged. If the offence doesn’t exist, then he can’t be charged with something that isn’t there.

Mostly I’m just on the school run with too much time to think!

[Black Aliss]

2 hours ago, Pibblesmiles said:

There was a wildlife photographer named Asahel Curtis, and there is a nature trail in the Snoqualmie National Forest that is named for him.  When the Pibbles kids were little, they always started getting antsy for some snacks right about the time we would pass the Asahel Curtis exit sign on I-90.

So, rather than impressing me with his knowledge of minor Biblical characters, by using the name Asahel, Dougie just makes me feel nostalgic for the Before Times when we would road trip to eastern Washington to visit family.

One of the Black offspring once asked me, as we passed that road sign, just how to pronounce that name. No, not "Denny Creek", the other one!  He couldn't figure out how to say it so it didn't sound like "Asshole".

"Well, there's really no way to avoid that. . ." I always wondered if that might have been the cause of his falling out with his more famous brother, Edward Curtis.

I miss the Before Times too.

[Marmion]

22 hours ago, Pibblesmiles said:

Every time I read "Ace," I see, in my mind's eye, a weird mash-up of Ace Ventura, Pet Detective and Ace Rimmer from Red Dwarf.

 As bad as it might sound , I associate " Ace " with this .  {  https://ideas.fandom.com/wiki/Ace_Virtueson  ,  https://www.alternet.org/2014/01/shocking-lessons-christian-educational-cartoons/  }  

[Howl]

"Ace and I fixed the toaster with parts from an old airplane" said no human being ever. 

Also the implication that everyone has an old airplane for parts out back...

[Bad Wolf]

Thank you @Hane. I really enjoyed Serena's Serenity. I really appreciate you doing this.

[Lillymuffin]

10 hours ago, Howl said:

Also the implication that everyone has an old airplane for parts out back...

You mean you don’t? 

[Howl]

I don't personally, but let me check in with *checks on old FJ threads* John Shrader, the world's worst missionary.  He's rumored to have an old airplane stored away, but  hasn't been able to find the key to the hangar. 

[Hane]

Ride, Sally, Ride, Chapter Three:  Sara Yoder

Sara Yoder is a quiet Old Order Mennonite in her late twenties. She works at home as a seamstress, and is the only child of parents who had recently died. (Dougie throws in a lot of condescending and only marginally accurate info about such “plain people.” He mentions that these Mennonites are allowed to drive black cars, but with chrome trimmings that were painted black as well.  Re unpainted chrome bumpers: “That kind of bling was just two steps away from the women wearing make-up, and there was no telling where *that* might end up.”)

Sara has no extended family or friends in her community. On his deathbed, her father told her she should leave the community. He had never fit in there, and said that her late mother “saw through it,” too. After his death, she took care of her parents’ estate, put her comfortable inheritance into a bank the rest of her community never used, got a credit card, packed a backpack, and planned her departure.

On Saturday, she goes with her community to a local farmers’ market to help out. She takes a break to go into a drug store to buy a tube of pale lipstick and a Chicago Cubs baseball cap (with no clue what the Cubs are, but one of her aunts was from Chicago). She puts on some lipstick, takes off her black head covering, lets her hair down, and puts on the baseball cap. These moves are calculated as a signal to her community that she’s on her way out. The bishop, a kindhearted man, makes sure that she actually wants to leave, then tells her the community must reluctantly shun her. She gets his agreement for a community member to sell her parents’ house and he asks her to remember the community in her prayers. (Bitchy note:  Dougie spells a certain word “alright” and “all right” in two successive lines.) After he leaves her, Sara notices he’s left her five hundred-dollar bills.

Sara gets on a bus and finds herself in tears.  Who should be sitting directly opposite her but Stephanie, the human Taj Mahal? Stephanie offers to buy her a cup of coffee and to listen to her troubles, detecting from Sara’s combination of plain dress and baseball cap that she was on her way out of her religious group. In the coffee shop, Sara looks suspiciously on her cup of coffee, as she “had never had any caffeine before in her life.”  (Dougie, that’s Mormons, not Mennonites. Mennonites and Amish love their cuppa joe.)

After ascertaining that Sara is financially able to take care of herself and is planning to stay at a hotel while looking for an apartment, Stephanie gives her a few hours of 21st century life lessons: what a condominium is, how to use an ATM, how to choose her “look” in buying clothes. She helps Sara buy a phone, enters her contact info into it, and steers her into an employment service office. Sara immediately lands a job as a receptionist, because a total lack of electronics skills is a big draw for employers nowadays.  

Edited November 5, 2020 by Hane

[Petronella]

Wow. Just gets weirder and weirder. Someone leaving a restrictive religious environment has a lot of possibility as a rich source of emotional development and point of view, but Doug seems to be presenting this without irony or insight. Also, I suspect she's about to be sucked into Doug's form of religious restriction, so not much room to be interesting after all.

What a coward her father was to keep her in a bad (by his own estimation) system but not admit it to her until he's about to die. I think someone in her situation would be more likely to react with either confusion and grief (if she's a true believer) or anger (if she's been pretending to satisfy him only to learn that he didn't believe either; all those wasted years!).

Maybe it's written more vividly than comes across in summary, but her choices immediately after seem so odd. Hane, is she doing these things in order to obey her father's admonition that she leave the community, or is she excited about her new possible choices and driven by her own curiosity/relief/eagerness?

[THERetroGamerNY]

I can’t explain why, but the idea that this book is “Blade Runner for Fundies” will NOT leave my brain.

[Howl]

57 minutes ago, THERetroGamerNY said:

I can’t explain why, but the idea that this book is “Blade Runner for Fundies” will NOT leave my brain.

Thank you for this. It makes the entire thing even more fun.

Also, she has no "friends" or relatives, but she has an entire community?

None of this makes sense, but of course it's just Doug Wilson's fever dream and wordsmithy ways -- in other words, his regular ego trip.

I'm just gonna guess we'll get more descriptions of Doug's preferred secondary sex characteristics for young women. 

 

[Hane]

Poor Sara Yoder is as much a throw-away character as Sally the sex doll is. She will prove useful later in the story, but doesn’t merit the smarmy, explicit physical descriptions that Crazy Legs Taj Mahal Stephanie does.

Please, friends, do not get your hopes up about further interactions with Christian Blade Runner bots. There will be none. Instead, brace yourself for the next chapter, a lengthy slog through Dougie’s pronouncements on ideal sexual, economic, and societal conditions. Spoiler alert: Alabama will be presented as utopian.

[Marmion]

19 hours ago, Hane said:

He mentions that these Mennonites are allowed to drive black cars, but with chrome trimmings that were painted black as well.  Re unpainted chrome bumpers: “That kind of bling was just two steps away from the women wearing make-up, and there was no telling where *that* might end up.”)

I believe that he's referring to this group in particular .  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weaverland_Old_Order_Mennonite_Conference  From the article  

Quote

The popular name Horning Church came from Bishop Moses Horning, who owned a car bought for him by a parishioner.[1] The group is also known as Black-bumper Mennonites for their early custom of painting over the chrome on their cars for modesty, though in the modern day this custom is only mandatory for ministers[1]

 Just for fun , here are some pictures of Old Order Mennonites , that I have found .  

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These photos should give you all an idea of what Sara Yoder ( I think the characters name sounds more so Amish than Mennonite , in my opinion , by the way . ) might actually look like , rather than how Doug Wilson has described her .  P.S. I can certainly attest that Amish / Mennonites like their coffee , and soda pop ,  perhaps a little too much .  The author should have done his research , rather than make assumptions .  

[Ozlsn]

8 hours ago, Marmion said:

 

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I am kind of sad that I looked at this photo and my first thought was how much more comfortably dressed and shod those girls are compared to the Rodlets. They look like they could climb, run and play easily in those dresses and shoes, and they're a lot better fitting than most of the clothes Jill provides. Also more "modest" by Jill's alleged standards.

15 hours ago, Howl said:

Also, she has no "friends" or relatives, but she has an entire community?

Yeah, that is the weirdest description ever. If she'd been unhappy and waiting for her father to die so she could leave I could see it - but directing her to go while she's tending him on his death bed... could have been written better. Giving her his blessing because he knew she was unhappy would have been better. 

As for the way women apparently show they're leaving, WTAF? 

14 hours ago, Hane said:

Poor Sara Yoder is as much a throw-away character as Sally the sex doll is. She will prove useful later in the story, but doesn’t merit the smarmy, explicit physical descriptions that Crazy Legs Taj Mahal Stephanie does.

Pity, she could be interesting in the hands of a competent, more imaginative, less bigoted author. Well along with the entire book really.

Also "Crazy Legs Taj Mahal", heh.

14 hours ago, Hane said:

a lengthy slog through Dougie’s pronouncements on ideal sexual, economic, and societal conditions. Spoiler alert: Alabama will be presented as utopian

I can't wait. For some reason I'm hoping for jet packs.  

[Hane]

@Ozlsn, no jet packs. The book is set in 2024, so no fun ultra-modern stuff. New technology seems to be limited to the occasional perverted sex doll.

[Howl]

7 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

I am kind of sad that I looked at this photo and my first thought was how much more comfortably dressed and shod those girls are compared to the Rodlets.

They also looked very much FLDS, right down to the shoes.  If you are walking around on a farm/unpaved roads, working in gardens and fields, sturdy shoes make sense.