Shaking the Rafters
January 16, 2019 12:11 PM   Subscribe

Mutiny on the Sex Raft “He wants to be very progressive and radical giving power to the women,” says Lindeen, “but when it comes to the crisis of the captaincy he’s very macho.”
posted by CheapB (34 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
That sounds weird, but unless they're leaving a lot out, nothing that extraordinary happened - people fantasized about murdering the guy in charge because he was a jerk who endangered them, and after he endangered them control was restored to the actual experienced boat captain.

It sounds like a real disgrace as an experiment - tells you absolutely nothing except that if you put a hand-picked small crew on a boat in a weird setting, people will have a variety of strong feelings and interact weirdly. I would not renew his grant.

(On another note, I guess I'd ask him what he thought about the fact that it took being on a drifting raft with strangers, endangering them and being rejected by them to provoke meaningful self-reflection and access to his own emotions. The real gender thing here seems like "manly scientist can't have a feeling except in extremity", and this sounds like an expensive way to figure that out.)
posted by Frowner at 12:19 PM on January 16, 2019 [16 favorites]


I'm not sure where "sex raft" would fall on the sketchiness continuum. Probably somewhere between "truck" and "van".

The documentary sounds fascinating, though. Thanks for the pointer.
posted by Johnny Assay at 12:29 PM on January 16, 2019 [2 favorites]


To spur conflict onboard, Genovés minimised opportunities for privacy. His human guinea pigs were allowed no reading material. When they wanted to use the loo, they had to sit on a hole perched above the waves in full view of the other 10 and hope that the sea would wash their bottoms.

*introvert me runs screaming back to my cave*
posted by medusa at 12:30 PM on January 16, 2019 [18 favorites]


He had been researching the connection between violence and sexuality in monkeys. “Most conflicts,” he noted, “are about sexual access to ovulating females.”

But would this apply to humans, too?


I am so sick of this deeply creepy evolutionary psychology shit that seems to be back in vogue over the past 5-10 years. I know that the "study" here dates back about forty years, but even so I thought Desmond Morris had been totally discredited. Bah.

I will still probably watch this film if I have the chance to, though.
posted by JamesBay at 12:32 PM on January 16, 2019 [23 favorites]


I'm not sure anthropological experiments are something you can perform. For any group small enough to study it quickly becomes a matter of the individual psychology of the participants.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:37 PM on January 16, 2019 [12 favorites]


The boat would have no engines and would sail towards the Caribbean, just in time for hurricane season. Genovés knew that the Acali was sailing into danger but thought science justified the risk.

This alone seems like an incredibly dumbass rationalization. Would the "science" really have suffered much if they waited to do it during a less risky season??
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:42 PM on January 16, 2019 [5 favorites]


.... he sought to diagnose and cure world violence. To that end, he ... made his selection from respondents, choosing a crew of strangers from different races and religions so that he could create a microcosm of the world. Among the five women and five men were a Japanese photographer, an Angolan priest, a French scuba diver, a Swedish ship’s captain, an Israeli doctor and an Alaskan waitress who was fleeing an abusive husband.

Perfect microcosm indeed, it's just like communities in the real world, which as we all know are filled exclusively with strangers who have absolutely no shared experiences.
posted by solotoro at 12:42 PM on January 16, 2019 [34 favorites]


This movie is great, I love the settings and the way the story is told. It's absolutely worth seeing in a cinema. If you know how to bypass regional restrictions, you can try your luck here. The Dutch public broadcasting service put the movie online in low res and for a limited time. (everything subbed in Dutch, some scenes not in English)
posted by ouke at 12:44 PM on January 16, 2019


If modern science has taught us anything, it's that the passengers should have been D-list celebrities.
posted by roger ackroyd at 12:51 PM on January 16, 2019 [11 favorites]


I'm not sure where "sex raft" would fall on the sketchiness continuum.

"Sex raft" is so far off the chart that it wraps back around and becomes awesome.
posted by allegedly at 12:58 PM on January 16, 2019 [3 favorites]


So, science bro 👨‍🔬 looked 👀 at some horny monkeys 🐒 fighting over sex 🙊🍌 and thought, "I better try this with humans 💑💑💑. On a boat out to sea 🛥️. During hurricane season 🌀." For some reason his colleagues 😩😲😠 didn't tell him to fuck off 🖕, stop fantasizing about monkey sex 🙊🍌 and do some real work for once 😤. Instead, they were like 🙃🤪🤡, "That totally sounds like legit and ethical science 🔬 Santi, go for it 👍 👏". I am genuinely surprised he didn't bring ovulating monkeys onboard as a messed up control group or something 🥴
posted by Foci for Analysis at 1:15 PM on January 16, 2019 [24 favorites]


Would love to see the IRB protocol for this.
posted by carter at 1:15 PM on January 16, 2019 [8 favorites]


Would love to see the IRB protocol for this.

IRBs as we know them didn't come into being until 1974, Sex Raft was in 1973. I wonder whether the Sex Raft made it into the "List of Experiments That Demonstrate Why We Need Something Like This Right Now".
posted by Anonymous at 1:24 PM on January 16, 2019


> I am so sick of this deeply creepy evolutionary psychology shit that seems to be back in vogue over the past 5-10 years.

"What if," a man once thought, "I could use SCIENCE to reinforce what I would prefer to believe about male and female sexual relationships? Then nobody could take exception to my behaviour, or the behaviour of any other man!"
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:33 PM on January 16, 2019 [41 favorites]


I have to admit being a little ??? on the guy's previous film, "The Regretters," described as being about men who transitioned to women and then back again. (I know that sorta thing happens from sometimes, but, well, seeing it referenced in the Guardian makes me wonder if it's some TERF-y nonsense.)

Has anyone seen that movie? What's the tone like?
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me at 1:38 PM on January 16, 2019 [3 favorites]


Workin' on a sex raft
Trying to raise my main mast
Gettin' out my big oar
Takin' it aft

Polishing yer gunwales
Climbin' up yer fo'c'sle
Swabbin' out yer poop deck
Bravin' the spray
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 2:28 PM on January 16, 2019 [17 favorites]


Man, I don't understand how people came to their decisions when the Seventies. I cannot imagine having consensual sex in that orange pit for any other reason than to conceive the last known child for a vanished human race. And the thing about being at sea is you're filthy and you're constantly sharing -- or failing to share -- your chores and your share of the work. People cultivate grudges like delicate houseplants.
posted by Countess Elena at 2:30 PM on January 16, 2019 [8 favorites]


Overthrown, Genovés retreated below deck and collapsed into depression, made worse by news on the radio that his university wanted to be dissociated from the scandalous Sex Raft headlines. While lying there he started to cry for the first time since childhood and had an existential epiphany,

Of all the manly-man behaviours displayed by Genoves during his important, expensive self-finding mission, this one is the manliest.

His great discovery is that he was the biggest asshole on the raft. Naturally, he retreats to his cave to cry, write big words about it and leave it to his victims to dig themselves out of the shit he piled on them.
posted by Omnomnom at 2:32 PM on January 16, 2019 [26 favorites]


I‘m also really side eyeing the filmmaker as quoted in the article for identifying himself with his subject. There‘s nothing glorious about this shit, yo. It‘s tiring.
posted by Omnomnom at 2:35 PM on January 16, 2019 [3 favorites]


Countess Elena -- cocaine. cocaine and perhaps lead poisoning.
posted by turbowombat at 2:39 PM on January 16, 2019 [9 favorites]


When Santiago Genovés set sail across the Atlantic with 10 attractive people, he didn’t foresee hurricanes, epiphanies and murderous scheming. Marcus Lindeen’s new film retells a remarkable saga

[...]

The boat would have no engines and would sail towards the Caribbean, just in time for hurricane season. Genovés knew that the Acali was sailing into danger but thought science justified the risk. “I believe that in a dangerous situation people will act on their instincts and I will be able to study them.”

????????
posted by gucci mane at 2:44 PM on January 16, 2019


I'm not sure where "sex raft" would fall on the sketchiness continuum. Probably somewhere between "truck" and "van".
posted by Johnny Assay


And very near "water bed and cat with sharp claws".
posted by Splunge at 3:25 PM on January 16, 2019 [1 favorite]


Countess Elena -- cocaine. cocaine and perhaps lead poisoning.

To be fair, psychedelics were big at that time, too. I think that most of what happened in the West in the Seventies is the result of some combination of lead poisoning, PTSD from Vietnam, psychedelics, cocaine, weird experimental spirituality, and people realizing that they could get a lot of money and/or sex out of people by exploiting psychedelics, cocaine, and weird experimental spirituality.
posted by Xiphias Gladius at 4:00 PM on January 16, 2019 [4 favorites]


Sounds like a Freudian who was trying replicate initial conditions for the Primal Horde.

If I'd been on that raft, that might have gone a lot further than he anticipated.
posted by jamjam at 4:05 PM on January 16, 2019 [2 favorites]


METAFILTER: cocaine. cocaine and perhaps lead poisoning.
posted by philip-random at 4:53 PM on January 16, 2019 [5 favorites]


I think you could turn Sex Raft into a reality show

Our minds work very differently.   I immediately got excited at the thought someone might re-write the lyrics to Soft Cell's 'Sex Dwarf.'   After all, it couldn't be any more fucked up than the original.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 6:38 PM on January 16, 2019 [4 favorites]


I think you could turn Sex Raft into a reality show in 2019 if you called it Ex Raft and everyone on board used to be in a relationship with 2 of the other people.

Done, the first season of Unanchored just finished:
fiery exes try to coexist peacefully during their voyage. Between hidden jealousies and buried secrets, there's no shortage of drama with these friends as pent-up conflict between the crew finally comes to a head
nice locations though.
posted by unliteral at 6:55 PM on January 16, 2019


I think you could turn Sex Raft into a reality show in 2019

Already been done
posted by JamesBay at 7:55 PM on January 16, 2019 [2 favorites]


This article made me think about the thread about the movie Dau, because both are about men in positions of power who rig up complicated scenarios allegedly in pursuit of their work, but are really just elaborate ways for them to be controlling douchebags.
posted by entropone at 5:39 AM on January 17, 2019 [3 favorites]


I immediately got excited at the thought someone might re-write the lyrics to Soft Cell's 'Sex Dwarf.'

Sex raft
posted by octobersurprise at 7:09 AM on January 17, 2019


MetaFilter:exploiting psychedelics, cocaine, and weird experimental spirituality.
posted by Splunge at 3:47 PM on January 17, 2019


Sex raft, sex raft, you're on a sex raft.

What I don't get is why anyone other than the lady escaping from the bad guy wanted to get on this thing once they heard about the poop hole.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:26 PM on January 17, 2019 [1 favorite]


The Seeeeex Raaaaft!
Let's hope there's never another one
The Seeex Raaaft,
Promises trauma for everyone
Set a course for monsoon
Minds reeling with grievance
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:41 PM on January 17, 2019 [2 favorites]


Tom Jones, perhaps?

Sex raft, sex raft:
you're my sex raft.
You can keep me fighting
like I'm William Howard Taft, yeah!
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 11:52 AM on January 19, 2019


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