Narcissism
Narcissism is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one's idealised self image and attributes. The term originated from Greek mythology, where the young Narcissus fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water. Narcissism is a concept in psychoanalytic theory, popularly introduced in Sigmund Freud's essay On Narcissism; the American Psychiatric Association has listed the classification narcissistic personality disorder in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders since 1968, drawing on the historical concept of megalomania. Narcissism is considered a social or cultural problem, it is a factor in trait theory used in various self-report inventories of personality such as the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory. It is one of the three dark triadic personality traits. Except in the sense of primary narcissism or healthy self-love, narcissism is considered a problem in a person's or group's relationships with self and others. Narcissism is not the same as egocentrism.
The term "narcissism" comes from the Greek myth about Narcissus, a handsome Greek youth who, according to Ovid, rejected the desperate advances of the nymph Echo. This caused Narcissus to fall in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Unable to consummate his love, Narcissus "lay gazing enraptured into the pool, hour after hour," and changed into a flower that bears his name, the narcissus; the concept of excessive selfishness has been recognized throughout history. In ancient Greece the concept was understood as hubris, it is only more that narcissism has been defined in psychological terms. In 1752 Jean-Jacques Rousseau's play Narcissus: or the Self-Admirer was performed in Paris. In 1898 Havelock Ellis, an English psychologist, used the term "Narcissus-like" in reference to excessive masturbation, whereby the person becomes his or her own sex object In 1899, Paul Näcke was the first person to use the term "narcissism" in a study of sexual perversions. Otto Rank in 1911 published the first psychoanalytical paper concerned with narcissism, linking it to vanity and self-admiration.
Sigmund Freud published a paper on narcissism in 1914 called "On Narcissism: An Introduction". In 1923, Martin Buber published an essay "Ich und Du", in which he pointed out that our narcissism leads us to relate to others as objects instead of as equals. Four dimensions of narcissism as a personality variable have been delineated: leadership/authority, superiority/arrogance, self-absorption/self-admiration, exploitativeness/entitlement; these criteria have been criticized. Behavior is observable, thus classification requires assumptions which need to be tested before they can be asserted as fact considering multiple explanations could be made as to why a person exhibits these behaviors. Psychiatrists Hotchkiss and James F. Masterson identified what they called the seven deadly sins of narcissism: Shamelessness: Narcissists are proudly and shameless. Narcissists hate shame, consider it "toxic", as shame implies they are not perfect and need to change. Narcissists prefer guilt over shame, as guilt allows them to dissociate their actions from themselves - it's only their actions that are wrong, while they themselves remain perfect.
Magical thinking: Narcissists see themselves as perfect, using distortion and illusion known as magical thinking. They use projection to "dump" shame onto others. Arrogance: A narcissist, feeling deflated may "reinflate" their sense of self-importance by diminishing, debasing, or degrading somebody else. Envy: A narcissist may secure a sense of superiority in the face of another person's ability by using contempt to minimize the other person or their achievements. Entitlement: Narcissists hold unreasonable expectations of favorable treatment and automatic compliance because they consider themselves special. Failure to comply is considered an attack on their superiority, the perpetrator is considered an "awkward" or "difficult" person. Defiance of their will is a narcissistic injury. Exploitation: Can take many forms but always involves the exploitation of others without regard for their feelings or interests; the other person is in a subservient position where resistance would be difficult or impossible.
Sometimes the subservience is not so much real. This exploitation may result in many short-lived relationships. Bad boundaries: Narcissists do not recognize that they have boundaries and that others are separate and are not extensions of themselves. Others may as well not exist at all; those who provide narcissistic supply to the narcissist are treated as if they are part of the narcissist and are expected to live up to those expectations. In the mind of a narcissist, there is no boundary between self and other. Narcissistic personality disorder affects an estimated 1% of the general population. Although most individuals have some narcissistic traits, high levels of narcissism can manifest themselves in a pathological form as narcissistic personality disorder, whereby the individual overestimates his or her abilities and has an excessive need for admiration and affirmation. NPD was revised in the DSM-5; the general move towards a dimensional view of the Personality Disorders has been maintained.
Some narcissists may have a minimal capability to experience emotions. The Cochrane Collaboration has commissioned two reviews of th
Naturism
Naturism, or nudism, is a cultural and political movement practicing and defending personal and social nudity, most but not all of which takes place on private property. The term may refer to a lifestyle based on personal, family, or social nudism. Naturism may take a number of forms, it may be practiced individually, within a family or in public. Additionally, there is militant naturism, including campaigning, extreme naturism is sometimes considered a separate category; the XIV Congress of the International Naturist Federation defined naturism as: a way of life in harmony with nature characterised by the practice of communal nudity with the intention of encouraging self-respect, respect for others and for the environment. Several other terms have been proposed as alternative terms for naturism, but none has found the same widespread public acceptance as the older terms "naturism" and "nudism". People interested in social nudity can attend clothes-free beaches and other types of ad-hoc nudist events.
At these venues, participants need not belong to a nudist club. Many contemporary naturists and naturist organisations feel that the practice of social nudity should be asexual. For various social and historical reasons the lay public, the media, many contemporary naturists and their organisations oversimplify the relationship between naturism and sexuality. Current research has begun to explore this complex relationship; the International Naturist Federation explains: "Each country has its own kind of naturism, each club has its own special character, for we too, human beings, have each our own character, reflected in our surroundings."The usage and definition of these terms varies geographically and historically. Though in the United States and nudism have the same meaning, in Britain there is a clear distinction. Nudism is the act of being naked, while naturism is a lifestyle which at various times embraced nature, respect for others, self-respect, healthy eating, teetotalism, non-smoking, physical exercise and pacifism as well as nudity.
In naturist parlance, textile or textilist is a non-naturist person, non-naturist behaviour or non-naturist facilities. E.g. the textile beach starts at the flag, they are a mixed couple – he is naturist, she is textile. Textile is the predominant term used in the UK, although some naturists avoid it due to perceived negative or derogatory connotations. Textilist is said to be used interchangeably, but no dictionary definition to this effect exists, nor are there any equivalent examples of use in mainstream literature such as those for textile. Clothing optional and nude optional describe a policy or a venue that allows or encourages nudity but tolerates the wearing of clothes; the opposite is clothing compulsory. Adjectival phrases clothes free and clothing free prescribe where naturism is permitted in an otherwise textile environment, or define the preferred state of a naturist; the social nudity movement includes a large range of variants including "naturism", "nudism", "Freikörperkultur", the "free beach movement" as well as generalized "public lands/public nudity" advocacy.
There is a large amount of shared history and common themes and philosophy, but differences between these separate movements remain contentious. See also: labels and terminology for an extended discussion and disambiguation. Many people are nude in the privacy of their home or garden, either alone or with members of the family; this may be occasional nudity or as a naturist lifestyle. There are differences of opinion as to whether, if so to what extent, parents should appear naked in front of their children, whether children should be nude within the home in the view of their family as well as visitors; this has attracted a great deal of academic study. A United States study by Alfred Kinsey found that 75% of the participants stated that there was never nudity in the home when they were growing up, 5% of the participants said that there was "seldom" nudity in the home, 3% said "often", 17% said that it was "usual"; the study found that there was no significant difference between what was reported by men and by women with respect to frequency of nudity in the home.
Gordon and Schroeder in 1995 reported that parental nudity varies from family to family. They say that "there is nothing inherently wrong with bathing with children or otherwise appearing naked in front of them", noting that doing so may provide an opportunity for parents to provide important information, they note that by ages 5 to 6 children begin to develop a sense of modesty, recommend to parents who wish to be sensitive to their children's wishes that they limit such activities from that age onwards. Barbara Bonner in 1999 cautioned against nudity in the home if children exhibit sexual play of a type, considered problematic. In a 1995 review of the literature, Paul Okami concluded that there was no reliable evidence linking exposure to parental nudity to any negative effect. Three years his team finished an 18-year longitudinal study that showed that, if anything, such exposure was associated with slight beneficial effects for boys. Smith and Sparks in their study on the effects of social nudity on children conclude that "the viewing of the unclothed body, far from being destructive to the psyche, seems to be either benign and harmless or to actually
Clothed female, naked male
Clothed female, naked male is a genre of erotica based on the real or imagined interaction of one or more nude men and one or more clothed women. It is sometimes a sexual fantasy of women or men, depicting an exhibitionist or physique worship scenario. CFNM situations can arise in situations where a male disrobes as part of a male striptease, a medical examination, as a figure model for art students, or is forced to remove clothing as a punitive measure. In pornography or erotic writing, CFNM depicts a power exchange where the more traditionally dominant male is objectified, debased, or humiliated by a more traditionally submissive female; as a result, CFNM fiction includes the clothed female taking on the role of a dominatrix over the nude male. The opposite of CFNM is naked female. In classical antiquity, the portrayal of nude male form in art was considered to be more acceptable than that of the naked female form. By the renaissance, this view had reversed. For example, in Titian's treatment of Perseus and Andromeda in the mid-1550s, it is Andromeda, nude—save for the barest wisp of fabric—while Perseus is clothed in armour.
Depictions of nudity were acceptable to the 19th-century French salon culture if the setting was "classical", depicting characters in a culture where nudity was commonplace, as in Combat de coqs by Jean-Léon Gérôme. Feminist authors Christina Hoff Sommers and Naomi Wolf have written that women's sexual liberation has led many women to a role reversal, whereby they view men as sex objects, in a manner similar to what they criticize in men's treatment of women. BDSM Clothed male, naked female Erotic humiliation Intimate parts Male submission Media related to Clothed female, nude male at Wikimedia Commons
Histories (Herodotus)
The Histories of Herodotus is considered the founding work of history in Western literature. Written in 440 BC in the Ionic dialect of classical Greek, The Histories serves as a record of the ancient traditions, politics and clashes of various cultures that were known in Western Asia, Northern Africa and Greece at that time. Although not a impartial record, it remains one of the West's most important sources regarding these affairs. Moreover, it established the study of history in the Western world; the Histories stands as one of the first accounts of the rise of the Persian Empire, as well as the events and causes of the Greco-Persian Wars between the Achaemenid Empire and the Greek city-states in the 5th century BC. Herodotus portrays the conflict as one between the forces of slavery on the one hand, freedom on the other; the Histories was at some point divided into the nine books that appear in modern editions, conventionally named after the nine Muses. Herodotus claims to have traveled extensively around the ancient world, conducting interviews and collecting stories for his book all of which covers territories of the Persian Empire.
At the beginning of The Histories, Herodotus sets out his reasons for writing it: This is the showing-forth of the inquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, so that neither what has come to be from man in time might become faded, nor that great and wondrous deeds, those shown forth by Greeks and those by barbarians, might be without their glory. The rapes of Io, Medea, which motivated Paris to abduct Helen; the subsequent Trojan War is marked as a precursor to conflicts between peoples of Asia and Europe. Colchis and Medea; the rulers of Lydia: Candaules, Ardys, Alyattes, Croesus How Candaules made his bodyguard, view the naked body of his wife. Upon discovery, she ordered Gyges to murder Candaules or face death himself How Gyges took the kingdom from Candaules The singer Arion's ride on the dolphin Solon's answer to Croesus's question that Tellus was the happiest person in the world Croesus's efforts to protect his son Atys, his son's accidental death by Adrastus Croesus's test of the oracles The answer from the Oracle of Delphi concerning whether Croesus should attack the Persians: If you attack, a great empire will fall.
Peisistratos' falls from power as tyrant of Athens The rise of Sparta The Battle of Halys. Rebellion fails and he seeks refuge from Mazares in Cyme The culture of Assyria the design and improvement of the city of Babylon and the ways of its people Cyrus's attack on Babylon, including his revenge on the river Gyndes and his famous method for entering the city Cyrus's ill-fated attack on the Massagetæ, leading to his death The proof of the antiquity of the Phrygians by the use of children unexposed to language The geography of Egypt Speculations on the Nile river The religious practices of Egypt as they differ from the Greeks The animals of Egypt: cats, crocodiles, otters, sacred serpents, winged snakes, ibises The culture of Egypt: medicine, funeral rites, boats The kings of Egypt: Menes, Nitocris, Mœris, Pheron, Proteus Helen and Paris's stay in Egypt, just before the Trojan War More kings of Egypt: Rhampsinit, Chephren, Asychis, Sethôs The line of priests The Labyrinth More kings of Egypt: the twelve, Necôs, Apries, Amasis II Cambyses II of Persia's attack on Egypt, the defeat of the Egyptian king Psammetichus III.
Cambyses's abortive attack on Ethiopia The madness of Cambyses The good fortune of Polycrates, king of Samos Periander, the king of Corinth and Corcyra, his obstinate son The revolt of the two Magi in Persia and the death of Cambyses The conspiracy of the seven to remove the Magi The rise of Darius I of Persia. The twenty satrapies The culture of India and their method of collecting gold The culture of Arabia and their method of collecting spices The flooded valley with five gates Orœtes's scheme against Polycrates The physician Democêdes The rise of Syloson governor of Samos The revolt of Babylon and its defeat by the scheme of Zopyrus The history of the Scythians The miraculous poet Aristeas The geography of Scythia The inhabitants of regions beyond Scythia: Sauromatae, Thyssagetae, Issedones, Hyperboreans A comparison of Libya and Europe The rivers of Scythia: the Ister, the Tyras, the Hypanis, the Borysthe
Sheela na gig
Sheela na gigs are figurative carvings of naked women displaying an exaggerated vulva. They are architectural grotesques found all over Europe on cathedrals and other buildings; the highest concentrations can be found in Ireland, Great Britain and Spain, sometimes together with male figures. Ireland has the greatest number of surviving sheela na gig carvings. One of the best examples may be found in the Round Tower in County Kerry, Ireland. There is a replica of the Round Tower sheela na gig in the County Museum in Tralee town. Another well-known example may be seen at Kilpeck in England; the carvings may have been used to ward off death and demons. Other grotesques, such as gargoyles and hunky punks, were part of church decorations all over Europe, it is said that their purpose was to keep evil spirits away. They are positioned over doors or windows to protect these openings. Scholars disagree about the origins of the figures. James Jerman and Anthony Weir believe that the sheela na gigs were first carved in France and Spain in the 11th century.
Jerman and Weir's work was a continuation of research begun by Jorgen Andersen, who wrote The Witch on the Wall, the first serious book on sheela na gigs. Eamonn Kelly, Keeper of Irish Antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin, draws attention to the distribution of sheela na gigs in Ireland to support Weir and Jerman's theory; the areas that remained "native Irish" have few sheela na gigs. Weir and Jerman argue that their location on churches and the grotesque features of the figures, by medieval standards, suggests that they represented female lust as hideous and sinfully corrupting. Another theory, espoused by Joanne McMahon and Jack Roberts, is that the carvings are remnants of a pre-Christian fertility or mother goddess religion, they note what they claim are differences in materials and styles of some sheela na gigs from their surrounding structures, noting that some are turned on their side, to support the idea that they were incorporated from previous structures into early Christian buildings.
In addition, typical continental exhibitionist figures differ from those of Irish sheela na gigs. There is a scarcity of male figures in Ireland and the UK, while the continental carvings are more to involve male figures. Continental figures are represented in more contortionist postures; the name was first published in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 1840–1844, as a local name for a carving once present on a church gable wall in Rochestown, County Tipperary, Ireland. Scholars disagree about the origin and meaning of the name in Ireland, as it is not directly translatable into Irish. Alternative spellings of "Sheela" may sometimes be encountered. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is derived from Irish, Síle na gcíoch, meaning "Julia of the breasts"; the name "Seán-na-Gig" was coined by Jack Roberts for the ithyphallic male counterpart of the Sheela. While rare in Ireland, it is much more common on the continent. Jørgen Andersen writes that the name is an Irish phrase either Sighle na gCíoch, meaning "the old hag of the breasts", or Síle ina Giob, meaning "Sheila on her hunkers".
Dinneen gives Síle na gCíoċ, stating it is "a stone fetish representing a woman, supposed to give fertility, gnly thought to have been introduced by the Normans." Other researchers have questioned these interpretations. The phrase "sheela na gig" was said to be a term for a old woman. Barbara Freitag devotes a chapter to the etymology of the name in her book, Sheela-Na-Gigs: Unravelling an Enigma, she documents references earlier than 1840, including a Royal Navy ship, Sheela Na Gig, an 18th-century dance called the Sheela na gig. Irish slip jig, first published as "The Irish Pot Stick", appears as "Shilling a Gig" in Brysson's A Curious Collection of Favourite Tunes and "Sheela na Gigg" in Hime's 48 Original Irish Dances; these do not apply to the architectural figures. The Royal Navy's records indicate the name refers to an "Irish female sprite". Freitag discovered. A similar word in modern Irish slang "Gigh" exists, further confusing the possible origin of the name. Weir and Jerman use the name sheela for the figure.
They cite Andersen's second chapter as a good discussion of the name. Andersen says there is no evidence that "sheela na gig" was a popular name for the figures when they were created, it arose during the mid-19th century "where popular understanding of the characteristics of a sheela were vague and people were wary of its apparent rudeness". An earlier reference to the dubious nature of the name is made by H. C. Lawlor in an article in Man Vol. 31, January 1931, in which he writes, "The term'sheela-na-gig' has no etymological meaning and is an absurd name."
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian, born in Halicarnassus in the Persian Empire. He is known for having written the book The Histories, a detailed record of his "inquiry" on the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars, he is considered to have been the first writer to have treated historical subjects using a method of systematic investigation—specifically, by collecting his materials and critically arranging them into an historiographic narrative. On account of this, he is referred to as "The Father of History", a title first conferred on him by the first-century BC Roman orator Cicero. Despite Herodotus's historical significance, little is known about his personal life, his Histories deals with the lives of Croesus, Cambyses, Smerdis and Xerxes and the battles of Marathon, Artemisium, Salamis and Mycale. Herodotus has been criticized for the fact that his book includes a large number of obvious legends and fanciful accounts. Many authors, starting with the late fifth-century BC historian Thucydides, have accused him of making up stories for entertainment.
Herodotus, states that he is reporting what he has been told. A sizable portion of the information he provides has since been confirmed by historians and archaeologists. Herodotus announced the purpose and scope of his work at the beginning of his Histories as such: Here are presented the results of the enquiry carried out by Herodotus of Halicarnassus; the purpose is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time, to preserve the fame of the important and remarkable achievements produced by both Greeks and non-Greeks. His record of the achievements of others was an achievement in itself, though the extent of it has been debated. Herodotus's place in history and his significance may be understood according to the traditions within which he worked, his work is the earliest Greek prose. However, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a literary critic of Augustan Rome, listed seven predecessors of Herodotus, describing their works as simple, unadorned accounts of their own and other cities and people, Greek or foreign, including popular legends, sometimes melodramatic and naïve charming – all traits that can be found in the work of Herodotus himself.
Modern historians regard the chronology as uncertain, but according to the ancient account, these predecessors included Dionysius of Miletus, Charon of Lampsacus, Hellanicus of Lesbos, Xanthus of Lydia and, the best attested of them all, Hecataeus of Miletus. Of these, only fragments of Hecataeus's works survived, the authenticity of these is debatable, but they provide a glimpse into the kind of tradition within which Herodotus wrote his own Histories. In his introduction to Hecataeus's work, Genealogies: Hecataeus the Milesian speaks thus: I write these things as they seem true to me; this points forward to the "international" outlook typical of Herodotus. However, one modern scholar has described the work of Hecataeus as "a curious false start to history", since despite his critical spirit, he failed to liberate history from myth. Herodotus mentions Hecataeus in his Histories, on one occasion mocking him for his naive genealogy and, on another occasion, quoting Athenian complaints against his handling of their national history.
It is possible that Herodotus borrowed much material from Hecataeus, as stated by Porphyry in a quote recorded by Eusebius. In particular, it is possible that he copied descriptions of the crocodile and phoenix from Hecataeus's Circumnavigation of the Known World misrepresenting the source as "Heliopolitans", but Hecataeus did not record events that had occurred in living memory, unlike Herodotus, nor did he include the oral traditions of Greek history within the larger framework of oriental history. There is no proof that Herodotus derived the ambitious scope of his own work, with its grand theme of civilizations in conflict, from any predecessor, despite much scholarly speculation about this in modern times. Herodotus claims to be better informed than his predecessors by relying on empirical observation to correct their excessive schematism. For example, he argues for continental asymmetry as opposed to the older theory of a circular earth with Europe and Asia/Africa equal in size. However, he retains idealizing tendencies, as in his symmetrical notions of the Nile.
His debt to previous authors of prose "histories" might be questionable, but there is no doubt that Herodotus owed much to the example and inspiration of poets and story-tellers. For example, Athenian tragic poets provided him with a world-view of a balance between conflicting forces, upset by the hubris of kings, they provided his narrative with a model of episodic structure, his familiarity with Athenian tragedy is demonstrated in a number of passages echoing Aeschylus's Persae, including the epigrammatic observation that the defeat of the Persian navy at Salamis caused the defeat of the land army. The debt may have been repaid by Sophocles because there appear to be echoes of The Histories in his plays a passage in Antigone that resembles Herodotus's account of the death of Intaphernes. However, this point is one of the most contentious
