[HN Gopher] We Are All Animals at Night
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We Are All Animals at Night
Author : casca
Score : 188 points
Date : 2023-08-06 19:26 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (hazlitt.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (hazlitt.net)
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| i like the ending's implicit shout out to that of the Great
| Gatsby
| momirlan wrote:
| great piece. the insecurity of life, and the need for a human
| connection. bravo
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| I like her poignant observations of humans and moments. I feel
| like I could learn better humanity skills by listening to people
| who assess like this.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Beautifully written, even if I don't necessarily agree with every
| single point made.
|
| Especially towards the end, I feel that she tries to emphasize
| the nobility and radical nature of this work, taking umbrage at
| Eric Adam's use of the word "low-skill" to describe some of these
| sorts of jobs. But it seems somewhat belied by the fact that,
| afaict, as soon as she had the means to escape, she did. And the
| romanticization of sex work as the only job where women get to
| call the shots and make profit off of men... I am curious the
| degree to which this is really true for these massage parlors,
| which are often managed or extorted by male-run organized crime.
| [0]
|
| But the central message, one that seems like a call for dignity,
| really resonates with me. It is one of the most beautiful
| vignettes I have read in a long time.
|
| [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/us/massage-parlors-
| human-...
| throwanem wrote:
| > I felt little of the camaraderie I once did while working night
| shifts. I'm unsure why I felt this dissonance, and it occurs to
| me now that it could have been more self-imposed than anything.
|
| I doubt it. I've worked days and nights at different times in the
| same place, at a couple of jobs in different parts of the
| country. There's a real difference between what people are like
| in the daytime and nighttime worlds, and between people who are
| at home in the latter and those who are just visiting.
|
| I don't really miss it. But I do kinda miss it.
| acc_297 wrote:
| I worked long months in the forestry industry (re-planting trees)
| during university it's not so tough as sex work but sometimes
| people throw it in the bag of "low-skill" or "manual labour" jobs
| as if thought or critical thinking we're not required.
|
| I have to say now working a "real" job now (for salary benefits
| etc.) I know way more forestry folks who could do my job today
| (consulting) than current coworkers who could dig out a stuck
| pickup truck properly, fix a broken generator, put out a brush
| fire...
|
| there are jobs which require accreditation or whatever but
| there's no such thing as truly no-skill-required labour
| hengheng wrote:
| Great writing! Seriously this is good stuff.
|
| For anybody that struggles with the length and slow-paced nature
| of this genre -- this _is_ hackernews after all -- I had a much
| easier time imagining this as a radio piece. The writing style is
| very melodic, like it 's meant to be read out loud. The noises of
| the city, the description of light and temperature, all made it
| feel very alive. Something to absorb in a very sensual way, quite
| the opposite of the how-to and faq texts we read at the office
| during daytime.
|
| (Ha.)
| ilaksh wrote:
| It's not a long article or slow-paced. It literally
| intersperses POV scenes from a brothel. If that can't at least
| hold your attention for a few pages, nothing will.
|
| I suggest that people read a few novels if they think this
| article is too long.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Try to call in. I am an avid reader, but I also know that
| lots of people really struggle with long-form reading, can
| feel insecure about this even though they are likely in the
| majority, and react with defensiveness and pride to rhetoric
| like this.
|
| Emphasizing the beauty and value of reading imo is much more
| important if the goal is to encourage longer form reading,
| which can be a learned skill.
| donkeybeer wrote:
| Novels have to justify themselves to be worth the read.
| Articles of this length would definitely do with a short
| comment or summary made by someone else to assess whether
| there's a point to reading them. There's a lot of journalists
| who are wannabe novelists and seem to suck at both skills.
| [deleted]
| ignoramous wrote:
| They say, quite a few books could have been blog posts...
| Having read hatful of books and blogs, I can see why that is.
| [deleted]
| lancesells wrote:
| > What do you need if you're out seeking services at night? Food,
| sex, shelter.
|
| This really encapsulates what all humans want and need. Food, sex
| & love, shelter & clothing. With only those three things you can
| live a happy life. Everything else is really to satisfy a desire
| for novelty and experience.
| kibwen wrote:
| I'd rather quote the full bit, since the final sentence is
| important:
|
| _> What do you need if you're out seeking services at night?
| Food, sex, shelter. The staunch of a wound._
|
| What the author is trying to express isn't that someone out at
| night has different needs than someone out during the day, but
| rather that if you're out at night then whatever you're looking
| for has an urgency that outweighs sleep, like a bleeding wound.
| nostrebored wrote:
| Hate this quote. This absolutely sums up certain cities though.
|
| Some places become amazing after dark. People just want to have
| a nice time together. Maybe that's over food, maybe it involves
| sex, but more importantly it was about camaraderie.
| jayd16 wrote:
| I think in these discussions sex is just a glib shorthand for
| companionship of many kinds.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| By your definition, I'm not a human. But then again, I always
| have thought that Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs was upside-down.
| kdmccormick wrote:
| You value self-actualization above food and shelter?
|
| Like, have you ever been stuck out at night in the cold and
| rain without eating all day and thought, "I need to focus on
| pursuing my passions"?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| My guess is that they are asexual, not sure why everyone is
| jumping to them not requiring food for some reason.
| Exoristos wrote:
| Dues it surprise you that there are people on HN who have
| gone without food or proper shelter?
| darkclouds wrote:
| > Food, sex & love, shelter & clothing. With only those three
| things you can live a happy life.
|
| On the surface I think most would agree, but I think you need
| trust in a relationship.
|
| If your job or parents job moves you around, it becomes harder
| to lay down roots it gets harder to trust people in anything
| other than a superficial way.
|
| Friendships become a thing of the past.
|
| People end up becoming divided, but pre-internet this was
| standard practice employed by the UK govt, in the name of
| science and law & order.
|
| I'd be happy to spend the end of my life on my own now, ideally
| I'd even like a sort of drive-thru euthanasia service, where
| when you decide, not somebody else like doctors, politicians,
| scientists or religious freaks, where you can bowl up to an
| incinerating crematorium, pay a fee (because only a capitalist
| society would charge you to end your life in a painfree
| manner), optionally leave some beyond the grave messages,
| inject myself and end my life, body removed from the room,
| incinerated and the waste disposed of in the bin.
|
| Its the last act of self determination and autonomy any
| intelligent person could hope to have imo.
|
| Nobody gets their life back that's stolen by people in
| authority like parents, teachers, employers, politicians,
| scientists, lawyers and judges or superstitious types.
|
| Todays society, which everyone is in denial over, is the fact
| they are nothing more than the property of the entities that
| ultimately control society.
|
| If its any consolation, life can leave you feeling numb enough
| to make suicide a viable option whilst the criminals that run
| the world, get fat off the land.
|
| So I can relate to the article.
| limaoscarjuliet wrote:
| This resonates with me so well. Every time I'm tired, hungry or
| horny, it very quickly changes how I perceive reality. Keep
| that state long enough and things change shape and meaning, as
| if I'm tuning my senses to new frequency.
| eurleif wrote:
| Actually, it's just one thing: food & sex & love & shelter &
| clothing.
| j-bos wrote:
| Odd article for the front page of hn. But one thing about it
| resonates with me. People in corporate offices, turn off their
| humanity, and seem more like polite machines. Not to contradict
| the idea of night animals, more to say, there's a middle
| grounding that feels missing.
| atleastoptimal wrote:
| This is why I imagine sex robots will only be a good thing. The
| humanitarian promise of AGI is it serves human needs optimally
| and frees humans from the need to stoop to the lowest levels to
| serve them.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| At the same time it might feed into the objectification of
| women which will actively harm the needs of half the
| population.
| SpriglyElixir12 wrote:
| Is this implying that male versions won't exist?
| sixothree wrote:
| You would have to make them a lot funnier.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| Not if it displaces women as sex objects. Women can still be
| objectified by any other metric of usefulness, but at that
| point will reach parity with men.
| morelisp wrote:
| To paraphrase, even after AGI, many livelihoods will somehow
| still depend on men employing bad judgement.
| sztelke wrote:
| [flagged]
| [deleted]
| xcxcx wrote:
| [flagged]
| kibwen wrote:
| _> certain loud small segments of society_
|
| Rather than vagueposting, would you care to leave a comment
| that doesn't require guessing what you're talking about?
| xcxcx wrote:
| I would but it's been flagged
| rainworld wrote:
| _Unlike sex work, my "good" jobs didn't threaten to overthrow
| traditional power structures. Many sex workers, including
| myself, have long hypothesized that the reason so many people
| in power work to keep the commercial sex trade marginalized is
| because they're threatened by it--by the idea that it's the
| only field where women outearn men, that it's an industry where
| women get to call the shots, and that women profit off
| something that men have been told they're entitled to for free:
| sex and attention in equal parts._
|
| Terminal delusion. Beyond parody.
| xcxcx wrote:
| [flagged]
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| I sense pride in cynicism here - and a proud display of
| ability to generate an unkind take.
| xcxcx wrote:
| Not sure if you'd like a reply styled as Diogenes or as
| Alexander the Great
| CPLX wrote:
| Can you explain why the trade she describes is regulated the
| way it is that _doesn't_ involve traditions and superstitions
| around power and sex?
| avidiax wrote:
| Monogamy as a norm is about stability.
|
| Without it, what would tend to happen is that many more men
| would have no wives and families. Which means they have
| relatively little to lose. Which could tend to make your
| society unstable, since these men have little reason not to
| flip alliances, revolt, defect, etc.
|
| Hence laws and consequences for adultery, prohibition of an
| open market for non-monogamous sex, etc.
|
| The traditions and superstitions are just the
| implementation of the idea.
| waithuh wrote:
| The people that "call the shots, outearn and get credit for
| other peoples work" want this polarization between men and
| women. While i dont think the approach in this article is no
| where near great, bluntly disagreeing is no better either.
| Maybe 'life' wouldnt be so 'selfish' if everyone realized
| that sometimes you need to support one another to get your
| own way.
| kanbara wrote:
| i actually agree with this sentiment quite strongly. part of
| the reason gender identity and dysphoria, queerness, and
| fluid gender roles are so despised by conservatives and
| religious fellows, especially when it comes to masculinity,
| is that it threatens the dominant power structure of the last
| few thousand years.
|
| sex work, and women's empowerment is especially looked down
| upon. what else is labour but selling your body, yet somehow
| a woman is a slut to be shamed, and simultaneously the object
| of sexual desire.
|
| men need these latent structured in place to remain a)
| powerful and b) keep their sense of worth and identity.
|
| why else is being gay or "throwing like a girl" insults every
| western boy heard in the 90s?
| krona wrote:
| If what you describe were remotely true then wouldn't legal
| male prostitution be a cultural universal?
| xcxcx wrote:
| The "dominant power structure" of the last few N centuries
| broadly consisted of nations of European origin enslaving
| and trading others in Asia, Africa, and the Americas,
| plenty of which under the rule of people such as Queen
| Victoria.
|
| It had more to do with military differential than with
| gender, but now they must change the rhetoric with these
| discussions because wide availability of historical facts
| and global demographic trends do not benefit this "dominant
| power structure".
|
| The former slave drivers now want local women who read this
| trash to hate you for their own crimes so they can skip
| their bill
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Quibbles aside, it seems undeniable that there has
| existed a power relationship between men and women that
| likely had much more impact on people's day to day lives
| than the macro-scale power structures you are describing.
| Nevermind the fact that it is arguable that the gender
| dynamics were to some degree productive of the
| colonialism you are describing.
|
| I don't really get the point of your comment except
| insofar as the standard HN "well actually" putdown of
| anything resembling feminist rhetoric.
| xcxcx wrote:
| I see. I must have been mistaken then because I've always
| assumed the gap between a Dutch man and a Dutch woman was
| narrower than that between a Dutch man and a Bantu man
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Clearly, these are all tied up together. The gap between
| a Dutch man and a Bantu man was not merely defined by
| colonialism, as you well know. And gender relations
| defined each of those peoples day to day life far more
| than interactions with representatives of each other.
|
| But I still do not know the point of your comment. Is it
| to suggest that gender relations was not a big factor in
| the past?
| xcxcx wrote:
| The point of my comment is that it's almost as if we
| weren't constantly bombarded by how unfair current men
| are to women, we would start reflecting about these
| inconvenient legacies instead
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I hear about the legacy of colonialism all the time.
| People can walk and chew gum at the same time.
|
| I agree, some strands of feminism can certainly ignore
| all other dimensions of power, especially when coming
| from more affluent women, but I disagree that this was
| the implication of the original comment.
| xcxcx wrote:
| Since you keep referring to an original comment, I
| unfortunately must ask which comment you're talking about
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > Since you keep referring to an original comment
|
| This is my first mention of an original comment, but I
| was referring to this one:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37026511
| golergka wrote:
| Criminalising and punishing sex work has more support among
| women than men.
| xcxcx wrote:
| OPEC has more support among Saudis than Germans
| SamPatt wrote:
| Many of the strongest opponents of sex work are women.
|
| I can't speak for the commenter you're responding to, but
| the delusional part of that quote for me was the idea that
| men opposed sex work because women earn a lot of money.
|
| I'm not conservative, but I was raised in that world, and I
| can assure you they believe sex is only acceptable within
| marriage. The vast majority of them would absolutely
| support a successful businesswoman who earned her money
| through any moral means.
| jandrese wrote:
| The article even starts out with a description of how her job
| worked: controlled by the pimp at the front door. The women
| didn't get a say.
| xcxcx wrote:
| If it makes you feel any better, most people worldwide
| don't get a say over what the United States really wants.
| Even the men.
| CPLX wrote:
| Billionaires?
| venv wrote:
| Developers?
| xcxcx wrote:
| I'm going to rewrite this article on Rust
| astroalex wrote:
| Wow, this was a unique and beautiful read. Incredible writing.
| Hiromy wrote:
| Cree firme
| pickledish wrote:
| This reads like poetry. Awesome writing, thanks for sharing it
| here
| draw_down wrote:
| [dead]
| ilaksh wrote:
| The thing is, humans are ALL animals and 100% of the time. Group
| identification and primitive needs and instincts directly
| influence our behavior and the shape of society. Primatology
| should probably be required study for practicing politicians,
| economists, geopolitical analysts, etc.
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| And: Seeing rational thinking as a layer serving the primitive
| needs vs an independent process capable of overriding them
| explains a lot.
|
| All our choices occur in the emotional centers of our brain (in
| his lectures George Lakoff often mentions research showing that
| brain injury in emotional centers erase the ability to choose /
| have a preference).
|
| The layer of rationalization deceives us into believing we
| somehow made an independent choice.
|
| One of Lakoff's lectures: https://youtu.be/T46bSyh0xc0
| Scubabear68 wrote:
| I am a very picky reader, and I rarely say this, but this is an
| exceptionally well written piece.
|
| The pacing, the wording, the sense of atmosphere, and what to say
| when are just incredibly well done.
|
| This is what writers should aspire to.
|
| Also, great hook (we are all animals at night).
| sam537 wrote:
| As an animal with similar fastidiousness, I agree. I am happy
| to have found this. Reminded me of After Dark by Murakami.
| wizofaus wrote:
| Agreed, found myself looking for the "like" button, something I
| virtually never click/tap when it's the first thing in your
| face at the bottom of a social media post.
| ianai wrote:
| This is very well written and gripping even.
|
| I don't see the negatives other commenters are pointing out. Yes
| she's talking about her perceptions born from her clients and
| years worked. That's an absolute right for all of us, right? To
| simply relate the experiences we've had.
|
| She's definitely seen a side of humanity that, while seen by
| many, doesn't quite often get public visibility-sunlight. And lo
| and behold, it's a kind of grungy crudeness-but still human and
| shared.
|
| Personally, I've worked in retail and in corporate in major
| casinos. People will assume they're better than you and treat you
| as something like a servant simply because you're the one taking
| their money for a thing. Or just because you "work here" as was
| the case in both retail and casino. That dynamic even exists in
| organizations between divisions and teams within the same
| organization. Ask yourself how that would change in the authors
| situation?
|
| I don't have a thesis. May this serve as a good reminder to treat
| all people with decency and an amount of respect if not kindness.
| There's exactly one right way to treat a person, as a person-an
| end unto his/it/herself.
| bluenose69 wrote:
| This is an exceptional piece of writing, finely crafted and
| suffused with unusually deep insight.
|
| I read a lot, and seldom have I run across a writer possessed of
| this level of skill. A writer's central task is to place the
| reader in another world, living another life. At this, the author
| succeeds with what seems like effortless grace.
|
| Few of today's award-winning novelists display this power.
|
| I do hope HN folks will take the time to read this essay.
| ACow_Adonis wrote:
| I feel like I'm missing some cultural context here that made this
| a semi- difficult read: obviously? the word "massage parlour" is
| some local euphemism for some kind of sex work and its implied
| they aren't actually masseurs/masseuses? but can someone explain
| to me exactly what the nature of the arrangement/work/ business
| she's working in is?
|
| is it just prostitution and for some reason they don't call it
| that in Canada? is it legal/illegal? is there an implication
| about its location? are they in some regulatory grey zone? is it
| men just dropping in to be touched or is it something more? are
| they just operating on a drop in schedule and does that imply
| something about the relative standing of the establishment
| compared to other sex work etc? are they contractors or operating
| their own business?
|
| please help me out HN :/
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| I struggled with that aspect as well, but after reading the
| piece entirely, it becomes clear that massage parlour is used
| as an euphemism.
|
| Also about being legal or not, it's probably work in the lite-
| grey zone (it's not Texas after all). The schedule looks
| something like, during a fixed period of time at night you just
| wait until you get scheduled/picked. That said, I don't think
| it is very important for the article.
| morelisp wrote:
| > the word "massage parlour" is some local euphemism for some
| kind of sex work and its implied they aren't actually
| masseurs/masseuses?
|
| I'm genuinely curious where you live that this is not the case.
| It is such a euphemism in every Anglophone country, and (large
| parts of?) Germany and Italy. It is usually illegal (or at
| least unlicensed) even in places where prostitution has some
| kind of legal status.
| jojobas wrote:
| In Australia there are legal brothels, there are legit
| massage joints and, as I've heard, something in between.
|
| I'm told, if you're looking for an actual massage and the
| reception doesn't have a HICAPS terminal (similar to the
| credit card one but for health insurance) you're in the wrong
| spot.
| [deleted]
| technothrasher wrote:
| It's a grey area. Prostitution isn't legal but nude massage is.
| So these places advertise as massage parlours. This article
| explains it a bit more head on:
|
| https://torontolife.com/city/the-parlour-game/
|
| But then it's not even grey where I am in New England and we
| still have "massage parlors" that are constantly getting shut
| down for prostitution.
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