DennyP Travel Forums Archives - Read Only Hedonism II Archives The Hedonism II Dichotomy

In all my trips to Hedonism II I have never seen an altercation between two people, despite the drinking and the sexuality. People go out of their way to reach out to other people. Hedo, almost by definition, is laid back and friendly, with people saying, "Hello", to total strangers and dining with new friends at Munasan. When there are newbies on my bus who start asking questions, I become a tour guide.

Okay, nuff said about the happy times at Hedo! I will make a confession that I am far more feisty on this board than I am ever am at Hedo. At Hedo I am laid back and relaxed, and say, Good Morning", to everyone, especially if they have a dour face.

Why do so many of us get so passionate when we post here? Poor Denny must think he's the room monitor at detention! How many times does he need to tell us to avoid personal attacks. (I can't tell you how many times I have sent a PM to someone who I was annoyed with and apologized. I have gotten notes back, as well.) I am pledging to be civil to everyone on this board as I am civil to all the other Hedo guests when I am at the resort.

We don't have to agree, but be do have to show respect to someone who might be our new best friend on our next Hedo trip.

This is a very interesting topic. Personally I think that it has to do with the black and white nature of the e mail or the posting. One cannot see facial expressions or other body language on the internet. From what I have read and from discussions that I have had with others regarding this matter, the internet is changing the civility of the world and, as we can observe, the civility of American discourse. Americans have for so long been known as very friendly people even to a fault according to some other cultures who may think of us as a little too outgoing. I will happily take their criticism and hope that we do not let this otherwise wonderful technology diminish our outgoing and generous nature. I am going to make an effort to picture the most wonderful smiling face at the other end of "the net".

I'm still scratching my head over someone in another thread complaining about all the "self appointed experts" posting on this forum. That's sort of how an open and free public discussion works...... I do agree it sometimes gets too personal and heated on here at times, and that's not good. This is a good topic for some conversation Paul and I hope it gets some thoughtful responses. (By the way, I have seen physical altercations at Hedo, so it's not really just here that things get heated sometimes.)

I have personally witnessed six major altercations at Hedo

Four by Americans, one by a Jamaican and one by a Russian.

Sh*t does happen at Hedo. Booze, ganja, sexual betrayal / harassment. Unspoken/unmentioned expectations.

Body blows. Black eyes.

Folks have been hurt requiring a doctor.

No guns just fists.

Chuck

I also recall the excitement on the beach when resort staff confiscated a loaded pistol a guest had laying on their lounge chair....... but that story is off-point to this thread. Sorry for the diversion.

Now you are just being a tease...

In my experience (which is limited I admit) The problems with getting personal often start out with someone displaying the Its my vacation so I can do what I want regardless what anyone else thinks, and everyone else should respect me by doing only those things that I want them to do. Thats when people start to get nasty. Myself included I am embarrassed to admit. I don't like having people tell me what I can/cannot do or insult those who like to do those things.

I know I have never seen a physical altercation at Hedo, but I have seen/been part of a verbal altercation of someone telling everyone else when were and how it was acceptable to fool around at Hedo.

Dichotomy seems to be the very appropriate word here. In the early years of NBV and Hedo, I never once saw an altercation, verbal or physical. In the mid eighties we did not come to the resort for about three years. When we did return we were shocked to notice numerous threats of physical violence. To be frank it started with the "groups". People can be more brazen when they feel that they have a support group and the groups can just about take over the resort at times.. The first altercation that we saw was when a man was singing at the piano bar and two female guests joined him while joking around very innocently.This had nothing to do with a group. I had worked out with the singer and his weight lifting wife earlier that day. We were sitting behind the muscular lady as she became more and more agitated. She became very jealous and arose to come after the two rather small feminine women.The jealous wife was huge. The two smaller ladies had eyes as big as, not saucers, but dinner plates as they quickly left the area. This event almost ended our visits to the resort. One can go back through the postings to read of accounts of stabbings and brawls in the disco. One should be careful. On two occasions, we were aware of recently released exconvicts at the resort. Let us try to keep rhetorical knives and forks from our postings here.

I dont know why people think its ok to intimidate or even become physical. Isnt that being rather un-neighborly and an automatic ejection from the resort. Can you imagine being ejected to "Breezes"?
During my April trip, one drunken Aussie came and joined our group. He asked where we were from, mostly Canadians and Yankees, he was told. He then goes on a drunken rant about warmongering and world domination. I politely asked if he spoke Japanese, the reply was "no, why would I speak Japanese". he was told he could thank everyone in group for our fathers or granddnfathers efforts in the south pacific during WWII. He relented, now every time he opend his mouth, he was greeted with a group chorus of "Tie me kangroo down, sport" or "Aussie, aussie aussie, oy oy oy." He quickly joined his wife, in their room to sleep it off. Thats the best way to handle drunks.

Just for the record; it wasn't a "stabbing in the disco" (which I have no knowledge of) it was a "forking at the midnight buffet" April 2010. One of the young ladies of the Reality t.v show Bad Girls fame instead of using her fork to eat her midnight snack; stuck the fork in the back,neck and face of a very kind and sweet bodybuilder/t.v camera man/beginner exotic male dancer. She had booed and shouted insults at his exotic dance routine in the dining room show the night before and he had called her a bitch in retaliation. Needless to say the Jamaican police came in for an investigation and the female assailent was kept in her room under supervision of a security guard for the night until she could be taken to the airport the next morning.

Dichotomy is the key word. Meeting abrasiveness with the same may not always be the most appropriate thing to do. As a very young military officer visiting Australia during a very unpopular and ,even in my opinion, a possibly criminal war, I was treated in the most kindly manner by Australians who did indeed remember the US contribution to their country s defense during WWII. If I had wanted, I would not have had to buy a drink or pay for a meal.And the Aussies fought bravely all around the world during WWII and died in numbers out of proportion to the population of Australia. Not all of our country s actions since that war have been on the same moral plane in the opinion of many. I have found that many citizens of other countries can argue politics more civilly than we US citizens.Of course, this was a drunk Australian and they do love to drink and brawl. I found that they can have the most terrific fist fights and then continue drinking with their new best friends that they have just fought. When I saw such a situation developing, I would suddenly need to visit the loo. As I love to remind the Aussies, they descended from a bunch of convicts. What do you expect of them? To needlessly remind you,Britain established their first settlements there with deported convicts. But why would anyone want to argue a point, however valid, with the drunk descendent of a bunch of convicts. Australians, to generalize, can be the most obnoxious,lovable and generous people.

I'll be honest in that I didn't know how this post would fly. The drug sting posts of the last few weeks and the earlier one in the winter/spring brought some tempers into play. Even my post on a luxury room block caused some to make remarks. I think we all have opinions, and T-38 pegged it when he said that black and white print is less warm and friendly than a smiling face- or words to that effect.

Paul,

I believe you and T-38 are right. In face to face discussions only 7% of meaning is communicated in the words that are spoken, 38% is transmitted via tone of voice and 55% through facial expression. A post on the site is therefore limited to less than 10% of the ‘normal’ communication bandwidth that we relay on to understand each other; or to put it another way we have a 90% chance of being misunderstood when posting!

Actually, taking all that into account I think the contributors on this board do a pretty good job of getting their message across. There is always going to be a degree of contention and many views are passionately held. I hope that never changes, theses boards would be much the poorer if it did. I think it helps if you try to read each post in a cheery tone of voice before replying then read your own reply before posting it and ask yourself if it could be read in an aggressive tone.

We have witnessed physical violence at Hedo on two occasions. Both times between spouses, both times spurred by sexual jealousy, both times fuelled by substance abuse and both times in the room next door at three in the morning. Maybe we’re unlucky or perhaps we’re just bad neighbours!

Ian

Very nice and informative post. We have had the terrific couple fights next door at very conservative resorts. When it gets quite, I always wonder if maybe one of them may have been killed. I lie there in bed trying to hear signs of life. Very irritating. Funny that they always end up next door to you. Perhaps you are the cause of the jealousy.(Please picture my loud American humorous joking expression)

Unfortunately, I witnessed a discussion that become quite physical. We travel with a group and we were about to take our group pictures, when someone outside of our group wanted to take a picture with us. Our group host very politely explained that the pic was for group members only. This person become very aggitated and argumentative. To make a long story short, this person became physical with both the host and his wife. All parties were pulled apart and taken into separate rooms to cool off. It didn't ruin the remaining days of the trip, but it did put a damper on it.

I think any time you get several hundred people together in the same place and throw lots of alcohol and maybe even drugs into the mix there's the potential for some kind of violence. Hedo also adds into the mix the heightened potential for jealousy issues. Having said this, though, (and especially for the newcomers reading this board), these incidents are extremely rare at Hedo (and somewhat surprisingly so considering all the factors involved). We've never actually witnessed any violence. We feel perfectly safe there. There is one place along the beach where they could use an extra light, however. The area between the nude volleyball court and the massage shack is very dark. We don't worry about it in terms of violence, but rather because you can't really see where you're walking.

My sister gets back tomorrow and I cant wait to hear her description that was just briefly posted on her facebook. Apparently two guest jumped on stage and attacked an employee??

Anyone who was there this past week know anything?

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dichotomy

di·chot·o·my   
[dahy-kot-uh-mee] Show IPA
–noun, plural -mies.
1.
division into two parts, kinds, etc.; subdivision into halves or pairs.
2.
division into two mutually exclusive, opposed, or contradictory groups: a dichotomy between thought and action.
3.
Botany . a mode of branching by constant forking, as in some stems, in veins of leaves, etc.

----For those like me who are not English professors and were wondering also!

Judy

They were measuring the butts of some of the GoodAss girls during the Saturday night show and an older, rather drunk female ran on stage a grabbed the measuring tape. Her husband followed. After a few moments, they were forcibly removed from the stage. No punches were thrown.

Interestingly enough the same part of the brain is responsible for our 3 main drives. The 3 "F"s....feeding,intercourse, and fighting/forking.

And when that part of the brain is swimming in alcohol, anything can happen!

Sure glad I missed that one.

Geez Chuck, I'm sure we witnessed more than 6 on the same trips. All memorable. The Russians were a hoot. My favorite was the South American lady that insisted on slitting her wrists and then trying to play pool volleyball.

message boards and real life are very very different animals. There are people here whose postings i cant stand, disagree with completely and think they are basically morons, but when I meet them at hedo ....they are sterling people.

Opinions are like assholes because every asshole has one and most of them stink.

I for one would rather have the free exchange of ideas and a little bitchiness than everyone being completely polite, and not getting down to the real discussion.

Well said, Mike!

true dat mikey!!!