The Rise of the Internet

Loners are “the most solitary, interacting with people but keeping their deviant attitudes, behaviors, or conditions secret. Some of the examples of activities that are kept secret as a loner are cutting, anorectics, bulimics, depressives, and sexual asphyxia are just a few acts that are done alone, but many commit.  The rise of the internet has allowed for loners to interact anonymously with others that commit the same deviant acts.  There are differences in the sites though because of the deviant act. Some support the activity and some seek to help stop the activity.  For example “…such as the “proana” and “promia” sites explicitly state that they reinforce and support the deviant behavior, regarding this as a life style choice. ..Others, such as many self-injury sites, purport to help users desist from their deviance but may actually end up reinforcing it by providing supportive ad accepting community where individuals can go when they feel misunderstood and rejected by the outside world.”  These sites sometimes have unintended functions.  They transmit knowledge of a practical sort of ideology among people, which enables them to better engage in and legitimate the behavior.  These sites help provide information on how to seek help, obtain medical or legal services; learn new ways to do the activity and how to deal with others that just don’t understand.  It can also provide for a way for people to come together in various ways and with people from all over the world…well that is if they speak English. 

A type of loner that is further discussed in Adler and Adler’s book “Construction of Deviance” are self-injurers.  This involves people that cut or burn or brand themselves. Some reasons that people self-injure are because they suffer from depression or feel alienated.  Self-injuring provides a form of comfort that assisted them during a stressful period of their lives. For some it is a release that feels better and then everything seems fine for just a little bit.  It doesn’t even matter that it might hurt that is not what is going on in their mind at that point. 

These are some quotes taken from the book mentioned earlier (these are by people that self-injure): “When I hurt like that, I get really self-involved.  I get my blinders on.  I’m all about me, and don’t disturb me…so that if someone was cutting themselves in my house, even though I do it, I’d be uncomfortable.  It’s my thing, you know? I’m in control.”

Here is a site that has information to help and support self-injurers: http://fuschia9.tripod.com/si.htm. 

Another quote from the book is about the practical problems: “The practical side to it –how am I going to explain these cuts all over myself in the summer, to my friends? Am I going to go to a job interview with a big scar or a cut on my arm? And that really freaked me out – I don’t want anyone to know; no one can know, no!”

These are just a few things that occur for those that self-injure.  It is a personal act that they keep to themselves and it is hard to explain when someone finds out, because they do not understand. The sites that are there to help and support those that self-injure are okay in my mind because it helps them realize that there are people like them and they are not alone.  It may be a deviant act but at least some are trying to get help for it.    

Deviance of Work Environment

In the working environment the norm is to show up to work on time, be dressed in appropriate work clothes (such as dress shirt, pants, and shoes), to look clean and to be organized. Some places of work also control how someone has to speak to customers or potential clients.  The rules on tattoos and piercings might be strict as well. In the field of business it is “unprofessional” to have tattoos that are obscene or piercings that are anywhere besides the ears (places that people can see such as the face or mouth).  The deviance then is to not dress in the manner that the work environment wants you to or to have tattoos or piercings that are not appropriate. This means that someone could be overlooked in hiring based on their appearance and not their actual work ethic. 

Some places have it in their rule books about how someone is supposed to dress, look and the rules on piercings. Most of these places are fast food, retail, coffee shops, restaurants etc. These places more than likely already have a uniform where someone is not able to express their uniqueness through what they wear.  In some coffee shops the workers are encouraged to wear what they feel like, but there pants with holes in them, shirts that may have sayings on them, and down to the shoes sometimes.  The saying that I was told from a place that I worked at was “Wear something that you would find appropriate to wear in front of your grandma”.  So low cut shirts are out for females, which is a norm in most work locations.  People do not want to see a woman’s chest when they are ordering coffee or buying merchandise it is just not business like.  These attitudes are seen on a regular basis. 

Moving on to piercings and tattoos in a society where it is becoming a regular daily thing to see at least one person with a tattoo or piercing.  The difference is that in the work place the placement of the piercing or tattoo can be the norm or it can be deemed as deviant.  An ear piercing is fine but a pierced tongue is not.  The tongue piercing people may not even see when speaking to the worker and if the customer did it is not a big deal.  The company is worried about the image that this may portray not the quality of the worker.  The employer might be worried that it could be labeled as a place that does not show class through their employees.  In the hospital area nurses are not supposed to have tattoos that  are too big and if they do have tattoos they are supposed to be on places of the body that are hidden; if they have tattoos that are seen by the public and cannot be hidden the art is supposed to be very small.  The thing that I discovered from a friend that bothered me a little was that a “transfer nurse” is able to have a sleeve of tattoos and that is acceptable but the nurse that sees the patient is not.  Some may think that because the patient has to see the nurse more than the transfer nurse and the patient may be uncomfortable having someone take care of them that has a lot of tattoos is the reason that nurses are not able to have many tattoos that are visible. 

In the business world this is seen as an okay practice.  It is the norm for businesses to have rules and regulations on dress and body piercings and tattoos.  I see a problem with this.  It should not matter what the person looks like or speaks to do the job. I can understand if the person looks like they have not taken care of their hygiene or speaks in euphonics but other than that clothing, piercings and tattoos are becoming part of the norm in society today that if someone does have a sleeve of tattoos or a face piercing that many people just brush it off as nothing and they continue to go into that business and get what they need no matter what the person looks like. 

The other part that a business can control of a worker is the way that the person speaks to customers.  There can even be a script that they give the employees for answering the phones or taking orders at a restaurant.   It is encouraged in telemarketing  that a woman  that answers the phone and the other person on the line is a man that they should speak in a flirtatious manner and speak with a higher pitched voice. 

For a business to have that much control over someone; I wonder why anyone would want to work at all.  Well there is the fact that people have to work to make money.  A conflict theorist may say that in a capitalist economy this is the norm.  The fact that an owner or manager of a business can have so much control of what an employee says or does is part of conflict theory. The reason is that the owner would be an example of an elite and the worker/employee is the example of the inferior group of society.  The manager controls the hours, benefits and wages of the employee. The employee has no say in what their hours, wages or benefits are, therefore, the managers (elites) have control over everything.

These statements about clothing, piercings and tattoos according to working conditions are only true for some businesses and companies.  The rules and regulations change as the jobs/occupations get better.  The point of this was to open the eyes of some of what is going on the business world and how much control someone can have over another and it can become alienating.  There are many theories that can go into this practice; I focused on conflict theory. Of the theories that I spoke about in “Theories 101” are there any that you can think of to explain the practices that were discussed?