I am a big fan of descriptions rather than labels (i.e., exactly what Loretta_West said), as I think the latter adds a layer of unnecessary formality and rigidity to these discussions. But perhaps I'm wrong to think this.

The AV Club had an article about this very topic!
http://www.avclub.com/artic…

At first it was the best of the 50s and 60s. Then the best of the 60s, 70s, and today. Then the best of the 70s, 80s, and today. Then Nickleback.

Nothing personal, Hank, but your generation is the worst. (Actually I'll wait to see the movies first - they could be okay. But the generation that remade Transformers - they're definitely the worst).

For certain. That's what I was getting at when I mentioned that Stephen King is good at evoking that kind of feeling. "Hearts in Atlantis" refers to the fact that pre-Vietnam America, looking back even ten years later, seems like a civilization that vanished beneath the sea.

In some ways, yeah, but in others…it took me a lot less time than I was expecting to get to the "When I was growing up this was all farms" period of my life.

I'd be hard pressed to come up with any time that we should mourn the passing of - pretty much every decade had horrible things going on to a large number of people. But I've noticed that folks (and this definitely includes myself) can get nostalgic for both good and the terrible things that defined their youth that…

See, here's what I mean. I really can't enjoy the soundtrack, because I heard all of those songs so very much when I was growing up, Strange to think that 20 or 30 year old songs were still being overplayed in the 80s, but there you have it.

They really are very different types of movies, aren't they? Not even the prequels - Star Wars itself too. I like Star Wars (the original trilogy) better than American Graffiti, but something must have happened to George Lucas in between because his philosophy of what makes a good movie seemed to have changed…

Fair enough, and it'd be interesting to look at how the nostalgia manifests for those different times. What are people (or, again, certain groups of people, and not all) nostalgic for? I mean, there were shows that were nostalgic for the 30s in America, for fuck's sake, and it sure wasn't because of the fashions.

I'm fascinated by the cultural phenomenon of nostalgia for the 50s and early 60s - I was born in 1979, but the cultural of those earlier decades affected a lot of my childhood second-hand. This is one of the earliest examples I know of but I'd love to hear about earlier or contemporaneous examples (pre-Happy Days and…

Hey - look who's here! Some folks were worried about you.

Yeah, but after the 10-year point, your eyes fall out.

This is fascinating to me. I am being 100% honest and humble when I say that I would love to hear how you know for a fact that pin-up girls aren't feminist. Because it's sometimes really hard for me to tell with certain things, and if you've got a good, valid, sound method that I can use to tell what is and isn't…

Two wonderful things…

I asked a very similar question maybe a year or two ago on this very site. Unfortunately, what I learned was that there aren't any really good answers to that question, or at least no definitive ones. But the best advice was: try out different words with your sex partners (doesn't have to be during sex) and use the…

I don't know whether it's feminist or not (haven't read the book, though the art presented doesn't look exceptionally escher girlsy to me). But I categorically reject the notion that something can't simultaneously be feminist and serve as jack-off material.

They'd have my vote!

This is my problem with hyphenation - it's not sustainable. That said, it's common enough that this issue must've come up, so does anyone know by folks in this situation do?

In all seriousness, I think there are some societies around today that think that a baby is the result of multiple men having sex with one woman, such that none of them can really claim exclusive paternity. If the kid resembles someone, well, he just contributed more jizz or had a stronger influence or something. …