Re: the Salaciousness of Anthropology

Joel and Lynn Gazis-Sax (gazissax@best.com)
Fri, 16 Aug 1996 18:11:43 -0800

Nick Maclaren wrote:
>

> >Danny wrote:
> >>
> >> I've wondered why the anthropology archives I maintain (for these
> >> newsgroups and the anthro-l list) are so popular. I've just changed to a
> >> Web server that allows me to log the referring pages, and the mystery is
> >> solved -- just look at these examples of how people find pages in the
> >> archives! ...
> >>
> >> (There are also lots of people searching for things like flink knapping,
> >> cultural relativism, infibulation, and other such terms, of course.)
>
> I would appreciate a description of flink knapping, but the recent
> attempts at censorship in the UK mean that it is probably unwise for
> me to receive such a description by Email :-)
>
> But, more seriously, there is a "Western" tradition of believing that
> "primitive" peoples were all into baring their breasts and public sex.
> While there is some truth in that (as I can personally witness!), I
> feel that a good punishment for excessive salaciousness would be to
> be forced to read a certain number of anthropological papers on the
> topic!
>
> Nick Maclaren,
> University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory,
> New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QG, England.
> Email: nmm1@cam.ac.uk
> Tel.: +44 1223 334761 Fax: +44 1223 334679

Shall we start them out with a description of the lively Australian
aboriginal penile enhancement process called "subcism"? :)

Joel

-- 
___ ___
/\ _|_ /\ Joel and Lynn GAzis-SAx
/ /\_|_/\ \ gazissax@best.com
/ / /\|/\ \ \ http://www.best.com/~gazissax/
----------o----------------------------------------------------------
\ \ \/|\/ / / "If we try to flee from our human condition into
\ \/_|_\/ / the computer, we only meet ourselves there."
\/__|__\/ William Barrett