International Women's Day

[Mischief Maker]

I disagree with this. I fervently believe that every child is a tabula rasa and grows up according to the world around her/him.
Unfortunately this must be nigh impossible to prove in a scientific manner. Patriarchal influence extends to every aspect of our lives, most of which is so ingrained it's hard to detect, down to our very language.
How do you justify removing a sample of children from this reality in order to see how they'd develop in its absence? You don't. They'd emerge into a vastly different world.

I remember reading once about a behavioral experiment where mothers and their toddler child were observed in a room full of toys. The mothers were given a simple set of instructions: "Your child can play with any toy in the room except the toy cow in the middle of the room. Do not, under any circumstances, let them touch the cow."

When mothers and their daughters went into the room, the mothers explained that the girls could play with any toy except the cow. Obviously the girls now wanted to play with the cow, but every time they started to make a move for the cow, they'd look to their mother, who'd give a simple signal like an eyebrow raise, and the girl would go back to playing with one of the other toys.

When mothers and their sons went into the room, after the mother explained that the boys could play with any toy except the cow, the boys made a beeline for the cow. The mothers had to physically restrain their sons, and their sons never looked at their mother's face.

It would be a cruel trick of nature if men and women were mentally identical. You would have men walking around who, thanks to their lack of Y-chromosome, were cursed with weaker, frailer bodies, periods, the risk of pregnancy, and not being able to get sexually aroused unless you honestly believed the person you were going to sleep with was cool. How horrible would that be?

You can believe in workplace equality and gender differences. Hunting is men's work. Gathering is women's work. Sitting in a cubicle giving insincere apologies for the mistakes a computer server made is neither man's nor woman's work, so it makes no difference the gender of the employee. We are a domesticated species, living in a zoo of our own creation.

[Krooze L-Roy]

I fervently believe that every child is a tabula rasa and grows up according to the world around her/him.
Unfortunately this must be nigh impossible to prove in a scientific manner.

That'd be dog easy to dis/prove in a scientific manner, just not a terribly ethical one. Luckily, the unstoppable cosmic force known as "humans fucking up" lacks our moral squeamishness, and has made major strides in this field of science, in the form of everyone's favorite plot device: identical twins, separated at birth. The results seem to indicate that biology exists.

[Blinge]

specifically in respect to the above issue or do you believe all gender biases in cognition are 100% environmental?

Aw Jeez you know what, not 100%, no. I drifted into that forum habit of speaking in absolutes. I do think the natural differences between men and women are constantly overstated and overemphasized, though.

[glitch]

ok, then we're on the same page. ^_^)b
(had me puzzled for a moment, cause the "100% nurture" position does exist and has its problems. but yeah, overemphasis is definitely the bigger problem in our present society.)

[Mischief Maker]

ok so you're saying society divides women into sluts, cheap whores, and high status whores (i.e. wives), by the "price" they put on sex? and women do some mental math where they add necklaces and tickets and multiply by dates and subtract fuck-ups to assess whether a dude has hit the requisite score threshold for sex?

just to be sure, you are saying that all this is a pernicious myth, right?

My apologies for my flippant response, earlier, I assumed you were a dude at the time. Let me put things in proper context.

First of all, when I say "society," I mean prevalent social values in the United States, stemming from Judeo-Christian tradition. I am aware that Japanese culture is less restrictive when it comes to female promiscuity and openly admit I don't know the mechanics.

If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the [bride's] virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.

Second of all, modern feminism is taking aim at "slut shaming" as a negative thing and that's good. However, it's my belief that the concept of the slut is so deeply ingrained into the culture you can't get rid of it simply by labeling it as bad. White people today live in mortal terror of being labeled "racist," but that doesn't mean the core beliefs of racism have gone away.

Third, I believe that by exposing the mechanism of slut shaming, women gain the tools they need to recognize if a habit they learned as a child is meant to reinforce slut shaming, or if the guilt they feel over a sexual encounter is warranted or not.

Maybe it would help if I went more into the "why" of slut shaming. In the Bronze age, property passed from father to son. Unfortunately humans take 9 months to gestate and women can give birth prematurely or "prematurely." How was a man to know for certain if the child his woman bore was "his," or the spawn of some interloper? The solution came from the mistaken belief that the hymen is nature's shrink wrap, bloodying the sheets at the first sexual congress, and never ever healing. If a man were to get his hands on a virgin with an intact hymen, then abscond with her to a remote location away from any other men for one month, one menstrual cycle, one "honeymoon," he would know that if a child resulted in 9 months it would have to be his!

This created a problem for parents. How do you keep your daughter virginal to maximize her marriageability, despite her instincts otherwise? One option is to lock her away in a tower where no man can reach until you manage to marry her off (Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!). Another possibility is to marry her off immediately after she gets her first period (the Virgin Mary was supposedly married to Joseph at age 14, recall). But the most effective and enduring tradition was to saddle her with a self-punishment complex. Make her the enforcer by convincing her that if she has sex outside the bonds of marriage, she has "fouled" herself. How can any woman sneak past her own guilt?

Way back in middle school I knew a girl who was a friend of a friend. She was a perfectly normal girl, no different than any other, nothing wrong with her mentally or morally. Toward the end of middle school our social circles drifted apart and I lost track of her. Then midway through high school I started hearing about her again because she had somehow gotten declared the town slut. I heard horrible, disgusting, and logically contradictory rumors being thrown about her all the time. She was being made an example of, so mothers could point to her and say, "don't become a slut, or you'll end up hated and ostracized just like her!"

I hope that the system described in my post was repellant, that's the point. Just as gentile men in the US circumcise their sons ignorant of the repellant origin of the tradition, mothers teach their daughters the slut-shaming system in bits and pieces, themselves ignorant of the tradition's repellant origin.

Does that make better sense?

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

I dated the village bike. Shit was so cash.

[Krooze L-Roy]

The anti-slut-shaming thing tends to be based on the assumption that a woman's societal value has significantly increased since the Bronze Age. Sexual fidelity is still a pretty important quality for a woman to be considered "marriage material," and the possibility of raising another man's children is - while much more accepted today than in the past - still not something one wants to do on false premises.

It's sort of like in school when all the kids walk out of class, assuming they can't all be punished; if all women are sexually promiscuous, in theory, men will be forced to accept the new paradigm. But I don't know that that's true. I think a lot of men will simply grow to hate women, and many people - men and women both - will live much sadder, lonelier lives because of it.

At the end of the day, our wiring is still the same as it always has been. What makes men and women attractive to each other is more about evolution than culture.

[Mischief Maker]

The anti-slut-shaming thing tends to be based on the assumption that a woman's societal value has significantly increased since the Bronze Age.

Yep. Women now have the ability to be completely financially self-sufficient. No more marriages of convenience.

And lets be honest, as a completely selfish man, what's more satisfying to your ego? Having a woman who's in your life because she needs you, or because she wants you?

Sexual fidelity is still a pretty important quality for a woman to be considered "marriage material," and the possibility of raising another man's children is - while much more accepted today than in the past - still not something one wants to do on false premises.

Dude, we have condoms, the pill, IUDs, non-vaginal sex, Plan B, and so on. You have to be damned irresponsible or damned unlucky to get pregnant by accident with the tools available nowadays. And if the stars align and she still manages to get knocked up by another man, you know what else we have these days?

DNA Paternity Tests!

What's more, the idea that you can determine if a woman's had sex by examining her hymen is bullshit anyway. Why base your life decisions around the beliefs of people who thought the sun revolved around the Earth?

It's sort of like in school when all the kids walk out of class, assuming they can't all be punished; if all women are sexually promiscuous, in theory, men will be forced to accept the new paradigm. But I don't know that that's true. I think a lot of men will simply grow to hate women, and many people - men and women both - will live much sadder, lonelier lives because of it.

Let's take a moment and examine the belief system that would make men "hate" promiscuous women.

Men are taught by society that if you meet a girl, and you don’t put any work into pretending to be more impressive than you really are, don’t bribe her with drinks, entertainment, and gifts, don’t make any promises of providing for her security forever and ever, and she’s still willing to sleep with you just based on the man you really are, you should never start a serious relationship with her because she’s “too easy.”

In other words, if she finds you easy to love, something must be wrong with her. This is logically equivalent to saying you're not good enough for a quality woman. Ever. This leads to self-loathing.

It's not really her you would hate, you'd hate yourself because you've been taught not to have confidence that a woman would want to share your time unless she's financially dependent on you. I'm a selfish asshole. I'm not a proponent of feminism because I'm such a nice guy, it's because the same belief system that's so awful to women is also bad for men, so I want no part of it.

At the end of the day, our wiring is still the same as it always has been. What makes men and women attractive to each other is more about evolution than culture.

Thank you for bringing up evolution. Even though I'm going to throw it back in your face.

Never forget Orgel's Second rule: Evolution is smarter than you. If there was a full blown evolutionary need for something, chances are it's already been fulfilled, you don't need to make up systems to help out.

I'll assume the evolutionary advantage of friendship is self-evident. There is no "friendship contract," no public ceremony for the initiation of a friendship, no rings or forehead dots to indicate that you have a friend. People make friends naturally, nobody's "commitment-phobic" toward friendship, nor do they get cold feet at the prospect. People say a successful marriage requires "work" but they never say a successful friendship needs "work" because it just "works." The only time making friends feels awkward is when you're trying to force the process for some ulterior social motive, like business networking.

And if you're going to respond that sex is the great divider between friendship relationships and romantic ones, let's look at the mechanics of sex a little more closely. The average man using no special techniques needs about 3 minutes of intercourse to reach orgasm, then immediately, like a switch, hormones cause his energy levels to dip, he loses all interest in sex, and he probably falls asleep. The average woman needs around 15 minutes of intercourse to reach orgasm.

This is simple arithmetic: 3x = 15 Which gender is evolutionarily geared for multiple partners?

I dated the village bike. Shit was so cash.

Exactly! Social pressures aside, why on Earth would we as men want to limit ourselves to a single inept lover for the rest of our lives? The vaginal canal is made of muscle tissue. Muscle doesn't get "loose" from exercise, it gets loose from atrophy!

[Krooze L-Roy]

Ah, man. Now we're doing the whole multi-quote thing? What have I got myself into?

Yep. Women now have the ability to be completely financially self-sufficient. No more marriages of convenience.

Undoubtedly, this increases a woman's sense of self-worth, but I wouldn't really say it increases their value to a man. The extra income source is a positive thing in many ways, but money issues are also one of the top causes of divorce, and I'm not sure if having the situation complicated by two bread-winners is a boon or a bust on that front. It probably about equals itself out.

(For example, the 1950s era sitcom conundrum of "wife complaining about some new luxury the Marshals across the street are getting that she's jealous of and expects you to buy" can now be easily solved with "then work some more damn hours and buy it yourself, you filthy cooze!" But that advance is cancelled out by the new 1990s conundrum of "my wife is making more money than me and I don't know how to emotionally handle it because it was never addressed on 1950s sitcoms.")

And lets be honest, as a completely selfish man, what's more satisfying to your ego? Having a woman who's in your life because she needs you, or because she wants you?

Need. Definitely need. Cause, come on, I won't always be something a woman will want. The whole "permanent" aspect of marriage is definitely something men worked into the clause. "Wife as possession" is a pretty common theme across cultures, and the appeal is obvious; it frees the older man up to spend all his time fucking with train sets and shit, while not having to worry about his wife, who's still attractive enough and has an active enough sex drive to bag plenty of young dudes who can get still full erections.

Plus, there are a lot of men that no women in their right mind would want. At least back in the day, they'd wind up with some resentful lesbian who hated every minute of their marriage, but gritted her teeth and went through with it anyway. Better than nothing, right? Now, in just one generation, these ancient bloodlines of deeply unlovable DNA are being extinguished forever. It's time to call it what it is; genocide! Womens Lib is genocide against ugly, boorish assholes.

Dude, we have condoms, the pill, IUDs, non-vaginal sex, Plan B, and so on. You have to be damned irresponsible or damned unlucky to get pregnant by accident with the tools available nowadays. And if the stars align and she still manages to get knocked up by another man, you know what else we have these days?

DNA Paternity Tests!

What's more, the idea that you can determine if a woman's had sex by examining her hymen is bullshit anyway. Why base your life decisions around the beliefs of people who thought the sun revolved around the Earth?

All interesting points, but I dunno, man. Technology has reshuffled the deck on gender relations, and I don't think either hand has been fully analyzed yet. We've fucked with things that have been fairly consistent throughout the history of Western Civilization, and whether the end result is positive or not, the transition period is gonna be rough. Men and women both expect certain aspects of "the old way" to be honored and certain aspects of "the new way" to be integrated, but everyone has different expectations.

One thing you've got to give to the old way is that everybody pretty much knew the ropes, whether they liked it or not. The modern "choose your own adventure" format isn't for everyone either, and I suppose when you get down to it, we're basically going from people of one temperament feeling alienated by society to people of another temperament feeling alienated by society. Hopefully when the dust settles, the situation will be one that everyone can live with.

Let's take a moment and examine the belief system that would make men "hate" promiscuous women.

Men are taught by society that if you meet a girl, and you don’t put any work into pretending to be more impressive than you really are, don’t bribe her with drinks, entertainment, and gifts, don’t make any promises of providing for her security forever and ever, and she’s still willing to sleep with you just based on the man you really are, you should never start a serious relationship with her because she’s “too easy.”

In other words, if she finds you easy to love, something must be wrong with her. This is logically equivalent to saying you're not good enough for a quality woman. Ever. This leads to self-loathing.

It's not really her you would hate, you'd hate yourself because you've been taught not to have confidence that a woman would want to share your time unless she's financially dependent on you. I'm a selfish asshole. I'm not a proponent of feminism because I'm such a nice guy, it's because the same belief system that's so awful to women is also bad for men, so I want no part of it.

She's too easy if she finds other men easy to love, not you. Most men are naturally egotistical, and take their own self-worth for granted. But if a woman has had what the man perceives as too many lovers, it shatters the illusion that their relationship is special.

And you're making "courtship" sound dirty by deconstructing it. You make it sound like prostitution on the woman's part, but it really has more to do with the traditional role of a man, and how a man demonstrates his worth. This is all part of an ancient agreement between the sexes, and maybe it should be deconstructed, but we might miss the thing once it's been torn down. It's replacement might not be as structurally sound as we want it to be.

Thank you for bringing up evolution. Even though I'm going to throw it back in your face.

Never forget Orgel's Second rule: Evolution is smarter than you. If there was a full blown evolutionary need for something, chances are it's already been fulfilled, you don't need to make up systems to help out.

I'll assume the evolutionary advantage of friendship is self-evident. There is no "friendship contract," no public ceremony for the initiation of a friendship, no rings or forehead dots to indicate that you have a friend. People make friends naturally, nobody's "commitment-phobic" toward friendship, nor do they get cold feet at the prospect. People say a successful marriage requires "work" but they never say a successful friendship needs "work" because it just "works." The only time making friends feels awkward is when you're trying to force the process for some ulterior social motive, like business networking.

If the link between the sexes were to be reduced to that of mere friendship, it would be a tragedy. Would "baby mama" and "baby daddy" be the highest level of emotional bond? And "friends with benefits" would be the norm? I don't think society could handle it. I think things would fall apart. Maybe if it was a slow transition over hundreds of years, but even then, I doubt it.

Friendship is a wonderful thing, that can't be overstated. I have only a handful of friends, and I love em like brothers, but here's the difference between them and my actual brother; I couldn't sever my ties with my brother, even if I really, really wanted to. If I suddenly started hating my friends for some reason, they could, hypothetically, vamoose.

And the thing about a spouse is that they become legit family members. And their family becomes your family, like it or not. A family bond is a different thing entirely from a friendship, in a way I can't adequately explain. You don't even necessarily like them as much as you do your friends. I think the interworkings of society would come unglued without marriage, and I don't believe there has ever been a civilization without it.

And if you're going to respond that sex is the great divider between friendship relationships and romantic ones, let's look at the mechanics of sex a little more closely. The average man using no special techniques needs about 3 minutes of intercourse to reach orgasm, then immediately, like a switch, hormones cause his energy levels to dip, he loses all interest in sex, and he probably falls asleep. The average woman needs around 15 minutes of intercourse to reach orgasm.

This is simple arithmetic: 3x = 15 Which gender is evolutionarily geared for multiple partners?

That last bit reminds me of something. I watched a nature show a while back where a bird allowed another bird to bang her while her "main man" was away scavenging for nesting supplies. When hubby returned, she gapped her ass at him and he pecked out the "sperm packet" and spit it out. Yeah, it was pretty hot. And from then on, the "other man" helped out around the house, helping maintain the nest, feed the chick, etc, under the false premise that he might be the father.

Makes me wonder if things may have been vastly different at some point in our evolutionary history (maybe even not so far back). Maybe a woman would let a bunch of dudes plow her, and they'd all help raise the kids and hope (or just assume) it was theirs. Sort of like putting your name in a hat. From an evolutionary perspective, the benefits of such an arrangement are obvious if you stop and think about it. And certainly, some women today seem to enjoy a good gangbang, and others just like to sleep around, which is more subtle, but the effect is the same. Gives new meaning to "It takes a village."

[Mischief Maker]

Ah, man. Now we're doing the whole multi-quote thing? What have I got myself into?

Fair enough, I'll spare you the multi-quote because there's just one big theme running throughout your whole reply anyway.

Krooze L-Roy, I'll be honest, your reply was deeply depressing to me. I asked on a purely hypothetical basis what would be satisfying to you. You didn't even consider your satisfaction, you lunged straight for security. "I would want her to need me so she can't leave me when she learns about my model trains and other nerdy hobbies!" You think having things in your life other than her is a turnoff to women? You didn't even give a token dismissive, "Well sure, X would be more satisfying, but Y is the realistic choice!" What on Earth could have happened to you to knock "happiness" off the top of your list of priorities?

The rest of the reply reads the same way. "I suppose what you're saying makes sense BUT YOU SHOULD STOP SAYING IT, you might break society! Then there will be no social pressure FORCING a woman to marry me!" You've given up on ever having a woman fantasize about you? You can't imagine any woman would try to seduce you, then you seduce her back? Having a relationship is such an imperative for you that having a good time in a relationship is not even a consideration? If you don't make your own happiness a priority, who will? Stop looking to women to validate you!

At its core, jealousy has nothing to do with her and everything to do with you. It stems from the belief, "If she had a choice, she wouldn't choose me."

You've gotta let go of the security blanket of pessimism. Otherwise regardless of who she is or what she does, the next woman in your life is going to have to put up with insane amounts of jealousy and possessiveness from you because of your crushing self-doubt. If she can't get out the the marriage because she's contractually and financially trapped, the two of you will be on a rocket sled to a Stell D'oro Breakfast Treats marriage.

Consider this your internet intervention, Krooze L-Roy. Something in your life is not working for you and you need to change it. Otherwise you'll one day be lying in your deathbed, reflecting on your life, and your last words will be, "Shit."

Oh, yes
.
there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than
too late.

[ptoing]

Womens Lib is genocide against ugly, boorish assholes.

Natural selection, innit.

[Krooze L-Roy]

Fair enough, I'll spare you the multi-quote because there's just one big theme running throughout your whole reply anyway.

Krooze L-Roy, I'll be honest, your reply was deeply depressing to me. I asked on a purely hypothetical basis what would be satisfying to you. You didn't even consider your satisfaction, you lunged straight for security. "I would want her to need me so she can't leave me when she learns about my model trains and other nerdy hobbies!" You think having things in your life other than her is a turnoff to women? You didn't even give a token dismissive, "Well sure, X would be more satisfying, but Y is the realistic choice!" What on Earth could have happened to you to knock "happiness" off the top of your list of priorities?

The rest of the reply reads the same way. "I suppose what you're saying makes sense BUT YOU SHOULD STOP SAYING IT, you might break society! Then there will be no social pressure FORCING a woman to marry me!" You've given up on ever having a woman fantasize about you? You can't imagine any woman would try to seduce you, then you seduce her back? Having a relationship is such an imperative for you that having a good time in a relationship is not even a consideration? If you don't make your own happiness a priority, who will? Stop looking to women to validate you!

At its core, jealousy has nothing to do with her and everything to do with you. It stems from the belief, "If she had a choice, she wouldn't choose me."

You've gotta let go of the security blanket of pessimism. Otherwise regardless of who she is or what she does, the next woman in your life is going to have to put up with insane amounts of jealousy and possessiveness from you because of your crushing self-doubt. If she can't get out the the marriage because she's contractually and financially trapped, the two of you will be on a rocket sled to a Stell D'oro Breakfast Treats marriage.

Consider this your internet intervention, Krooze L-Roy. Something in your life is not working for you and you need to change it. Otherwise you'll one day be lying in your deathbed, reflecting on your life, and your last words will be, "Shit."

Oh, yes
.
there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than
too late.

If my last post depressed you, brace yourself.

What you're calling "security," some would call commitment and devotion, but your word isn't wholly inaccurate either. I'll encounter these couples from time to time, sometimes not much older than myself, where the husband is pushing his wife in a wheelchair. She'll start to say something and it'll come out as utter gibberish. Stroke, presumably, but for the sake of what I'm getting at, it doesn't matter if it's third degree burns, a horrible car accident, or whatever. Some shitty condition which, had the woman had it when you met her, you wouldn't have considered starting a romantic relationship in the first place.

Now, should the husband in this situation tell his wife, "sorry, honey, this relationship just isn't working for me anymore," or should he stick with her and accept the fact that, through no fault of his own, his life now fucking sucks? If the couple were simply dating, he could (and would) kick her to the curb (after waiting a month or two, so he doesn't look like a dick); he's not fully committed to the relationship.

Marriage is, in some sense, security from the bullshit that the world flings at you. Rather than have to endure all of life's horrors on your own, you have someone there to face them with you and help you get through them. And of course, you know, all the good stuff too. But you don't get to choose the good:bad ratio in life. Unless you're rich.

Do I have my own issues? Hell yeah I do. I've got more issues than National Geographic. But my issues aren't the issue here. What we're basically debating here is between traditional and modernist perspectives on love. The former is unconditional, and emphasizes team work and permanence, "til death do us" and all that. The latter emphasizes personal growth and mutual benefit, but is conditional, based on continued satisfaction and compatibility with ones personal goals. The former is part of the fabric on which civilization was built. The latter (as with all forms of postmodernist thought) is built upon the former.

The whole "breaking society" thing isn't about forcing women to marry me (as you say); it's a genuine fear of literally breaking society, if one of the load-bearing walls is sufficiently undermined because affluent elites in some university are able to convince the general public that a window there would look so nice, and let in so much natural light, and lower our heating bills by 12%. And I'm fairly certain that marriage is one of those load-bearing walls.

[Mischief Maker]

You know it's funny. Mythology throughout history often has end of the world stories where man's tools rise up against him. Modern Sci Fi like the Terminator or the Matrix imagine a world ruled by computers and robots. But it's always physical tools taking over. We never stop to think about what it would be like if our conceptual tools took control. Laws, ideologies, social structures, these are all conceptual tools created for the purpose of serving human beings. Yet for some reason they're given higher priority than the happiness of their own creators.

The socket wrench is a great tool. But if there was a design flaw in the socket wrench where 50% of mechanics using one broke their thumbs, you wouldn't blame the injured mechanics. If someone decided to examine the workings of this socket wrench to find the defect, you wouldn't try to dissuade them out of fear that you'd hurt the public's commitment to the socket wrench and all the good it provides. And God forbid if someone proposed creating an alternative tool that accomplished the socket wrench's intended function that was less injurious to human beings. You certainly wouldn't panic and say, "Stop, you fool! The socket wrench is necessary to fasten lugnuts! If we lose faith in the socket wrench, cars driving down the highway will have their wheels come loose and crash! Mass chaos and destruction will ensue! Those stupid mechanics who broke their stupid thumbs are too weak-minded to aspire to the socket wrench!" But change it to a conceptual tool...

And what fabulous benefit do you expect to gain from sticking to a social model that results in financially and emotionally devastating divorce 50% of the time? An unqualified nurse you won't have to pay.

I tell you, every time I debate someone over traditional values, there comes a point where I ask myself if I'm the nicest person since Gandhi, or am I debating a sociopath? Because there always comes a point where they argue that the aspect of basic human decency that a system tries to encourage will disappear entirely if the system went away.

I love my dog. I've spent way more in veterinarian visits to keep my dog alive and healthy than I spent buying her. She's not a puppy anymore and she can't run and play with the same boundless energy that she used to, and while she's still a very cute animal, she's not as heartbreakingly cute as she was when she was a puppy. Now legally, at any time I want I can have my dog put to sleep. Just take her to the vet and say, "I want a puppy again, kill my dog for me." There are no laws or contracts preventing that. Yet, I would never ever do that because I love my dog.

Yet you're saying if you lived with and loved another human being for decades, and one day she suffered a stroke and was left an invalid, if there was no official marriage contract holding a gun to your head, you'd kick her to the curb and let her die alone? Are you really that cold, or have you been trained by society that but for its guiding influence you'd be a monster?

Social structures are a tool meant to serve mankind, not vice versa.

[ACSeraph]

I tell you, every time I debate someone over traditional values, there comes a point where I ask myself if I'm the nicest person since Gandhi, or am I debating a sociopath? Because there always comes a point where they argue that the aspect of basic human decency that a system tries to encourage will disappear entirely if the system went away.

It's more simple than you realize, he's not really afraid of what it will do to society, rather he's afraid of the implications it has for his own psychological well being.

Marriage is, in some sense, security from the bullshit that the world flings at you. Rather than have to endure all of life's horrors on your own, you have someone there to face them with you and help you get through them.

^See? This statement suggests that Krooze believes the concept of "traditional marriage" will save him from having to face life's horrors in solitude.

What we're basically debating here is between traditional and modernist perspectives on love. The former is unconditional, and emphasizes team work and permanence, "til death do us" and all that.

And it's quite an idealistic view isn't it? Not realistic at all. This statement suggests to me that Krooze has never been married or in a relationship of comparable significance. So he doesn't realize that at the end of the day you are alone when facing the horrors of life. No one can save you from yourself.

The more realistic view you propose is probably quite terrifying to him as a result, as he can't imagine anything worse than being fundamentally alone in the universe, with no chance of salvation though marriage.

I'm not saying it's impossible to be satisfied in a relationship either, just that if you expect it to be the single defining light in your life you are doomed to be very disappointed.

There is hope to be had though, because once the psychological security blanket is gone, you have no choice but to become strong enough to find satisfaction from within. The perfect relationship is one where both partners already realize this, and can enjoy life together in their own unique ways, rather than futilely trying to learn how to enjoy life from one another.

[Krooze L-Roy]

You know it's funny. Mythology throughout history often has end of the world stories where man's tools rise up against him. Modern Sci Fi like the Terminator or the Matrix imagine a world ruled by computers and robots. But it's always physical tools taking over. We never stop to think about what it would be like if our conceptual tools took control. Laws, ideologies, social structures, these are all conceptual tools created for the purpose of serving human beings. Yet for some reason they're given higher priority than the happiness of their own creators.

The socket wrench is a great tool. But if there was a design flaw in the socket wrench where 50% of mechanics using one broke their thumbs, you wouldn't blame the injured mechanics. If someone decided to examine the workings of this socket wrench to find the defect, you wouldn't try to dissuade them out of fear that you'd hurt the public's commitment to the socket wrench and all the good it provides. And God forbid if someone proposed creating an alternative tool that accomplished the socket wrench's intended function that was less injurious to human beings. You certainly wouldn't panic and say, "Stop, you fool! The socket wrench is necessary to fasten lugnuts! If we lose faith in the socket wrench, cars driving down the highway will have their wheels come loose and crash! Mass chaos and destruction will ensue! Those stupid mechanics who broke their stupid thumbs are too weak-minded to aspire to the socket wrench!" But change it to a conceptual tool...

And what fabulous benefit do you expect to gain from sticking to a social model that results in financially and emotionally devastating divorce 50% of the time? An unqualified nurse you won't have to pay.

I tell you, every time I debate someone over traditional values, there comes a point where I ask myself if I'm the nicest person since Gandhi, or am I debating a sociopath? Because there always comes a point where they argue that the aspect of basic human decency that a system tries to encourage will disappear entirely if the system went away.

I love my dog. I've spent way more in veterinarian visits to keep my dog alive and healthy than I spent buying her. She's not a puppy anymore and she can't run and play with the same boundless energy that she used to, and while she's still a very cute animal, she's not as heartbreakingly cute as she was when she was a puppy. Now legally, at any time I want I can have my dog put to sleep. Just take her to the vet and say, "I want a puppy again, kill my dog for me." There are no laws or contracts preventing that. Yet, I would never ever do that because I love my dog.

Yet you're saying if you lived with and loved another human being for decades, and one day she suffered a stroke and was left an invalid, if there was no official marriage contract holding a gun to your head, you'd kick her to the curb and let her die alone? Are you really that cold, or have you been trained by society that but for its guiding influence you'd be a monster?

Social structures are a tool meant to serve mankind, not vice versa.

I don't understand how a person who can compose entire arguments in the form of complex analogies could fail to comprehend this part: I'm not talking about myself! I'm not doing some sort of "this guy I know" routine, like a kid trying to confess to a stolen candy bar. I really haven't said a whole hell of a lot about myself on this whole board, and I'm not a fucking sociopath just because I take a more cynical outlook on human nature than you do.

Since you seem to have left this one sitting on the t-ball stand for me (a clever trap?!), I'll take a swing at it; the law. If Obama signed an executive order tomorrow (and he might, so hopefully this hypothetical will help you mentally prepare for this eventuality) that legalized absolutely everything - murder, rape, all the hits - do you think people would continue not doing those things because it's the right thing to do, or do you think there would be a huge fucking explosion of people getting chainsawed in half in the streets. Sure, you'd refrain, and so would probably everyone you know (except me, obviously; I'm getting off just thinking about it), but I guarantee, there would be madness to a great enough extent that people would be afraid to leave their homes. Society = broken, because not everyone (not anyone, apparently) is as nice a guy as you.

The 50% in your socket wrench metaphor is, I presume, there to represent women, as if the shit I'm advocating is automatically repressive to them. Any social system is inherently going to be repressive to some people - humanity is just too diverse for that not to be the case - but some systems are worse than others, and in a world run by men, the worst social system of all is no social system. Men today have carte blanche to treat women in ways which were considered deplorable not so long ago. Since a man's desirability is based on resources, and a woman's her looks, guys are free to date a woman during her best years, never making a commitment, and then trade her in for a newer model ten years down the road. Our brave new world is one populated by bitter spinsters, better educated and more independent than the spinsters of the past, but no less unhappy.

Porn has become ubiquitous as never before, and practices which were once considered degrading are now mainstream. Ask your mother if she's ever had a dick in her asshole (don't really do this; you'll get the shit slapped out of you); then go ask your girlfriend. See the difference? When I was a kid, if I wanted to jack off, I had a deck of playing cards where each card had a 60's-era nude pic on it. So I fell in love with the natural female form in all it's hairy-bushed, saggy-titted, slightly pear-shaped varieties. Today, kids can go online and jump straight into the deep end; by the time they're old enough to get their dicks wet, they've got a fetish for throatfucking and a radically warped view of how men and women should behave during sex.

Women have internalized their own objectification to the point where normal fucking girls are getting breast implants just to feel worthy of a man's attention. Much has been said about black people self-identifying as "niggas," but at least they don't pay somebody to whip them so they can have those cool scars on their backs like in the movies. And genital mutilation in the third world is abhorrent, but at least those girls are unwilling participants; it would be even more heartbreaking if they were brainwashed volunteers, paying thousands of dollars for a doctor to slice them and dice them. That's what "our" women have been reduced to.

If the direction things are moving seems so great and enlightened to you, maybe it's because you're a dude. Things are great for us now. Compared to your grandpappy, you've gotten to bang a shitload of women, without ever having to provide anything but your sweet self in return. Sure, women enjoy sex too, but they don't enjoy having to raise children alone in poverty, which is the reality for an increasing percentage of women. Studies have shown that female happiness is on the decline, while male happiness is on the rise. That should tell you everything you need to know about the social model you're advocating.

[glitch]

i really don't see how the social model Mischief Maker is advocating implies objectification...
and i can assure you that the traditional concept of marriage is a net negative in my life.

ok so you're saying society divides women into sluts, cheap whores, and high status whores (i.e. wives), by the "price" they put on sex? and women do some mental math where they add necklaces and tickets and multiply by dates and subtract fuck-ups to assess whether a dude has hit the requisite score threshold for sex?

just to be sure, you are saying that all this is a pernicious myth, right?

My apologies for my flippant response, earlier, I assumed you were a dude at the time. Let me put things in proper context.

[...]

Does that make better sense?

i'm... not sure what response flippancy has to do with my gender but ok. ^^;
and yeah, that makes sense. first time around it was honestly unclear to me whether you were laying out your own perspective or your perspective on others' perspective (my question up there was an actual question). that said, i think your former and latter post actually discuss two different issues: 1) female disapproval of female promiscuity and 2) cultural repression of female sexuality. i'm with you on the latter, not so much on the former. females have good biological reasons (high reproductive cost) for holding off on sex until they're convinced of a partner's suitability (imposing some investment on the male side). that strategy works well if all females follow it, but is open to exploitation by promiscuous individuals (who make themselves attractive by imposing only low investment compared to the other females). it makes strategic sense to suppress such exploitation by e.g. ostracization. thinking that tendency may well predate marriage and cultural repression of female sexuality by a good margin. it just makes evolutionary sense (which isn't to say that it's a good idea in this day and age).

[Mischief Maker]

The 50% in your socket wrench metaphor is, I presume, there to represent women,

No. It represents the 50% divorce rate. 50% of marriages end in devastating divorce, yet we blame the people for its failure, not the marriage concept itself.

It's worth noting that in the days before no-fault divorce there was in informal legal term called "hotel divorce." That was when a couple both wanted to divorce, but neither had done anything wrong. Their lawyer would suggest that if one of them "caught" the other in a hotel room with someone of the opposite sex, they would have the excuse necessary to get what they wanted.

And settle down, I was making a humorous exaggeration. I don't think you're a sociopath. I was pointing out the silliness of the notion that laws are the only thing keeping people from turning into Fast ZombiesTM.

Though I do find it rather disturbing that I'm talking about sex and love, but you're equating that with murder.

i really don't see how the social model Mischief Maker is advocating implies objectification...

Word of clarification, I haven't described a model in full, I've just been poking holes in the default model.

that said, i think your former and latter post actually discuss two different issues: 1) female disapproval of female promiscuity and 2) cultural repression of female sexuality.

They're both cultural. The culture wants women to preserve their virginity so there are clear paternal lines of property. The culture accomplishes this by teaching women that sluts are a threat to them and that if they become a slut, they aren't allowed to respect themselves.

i'm with you on the latter, not so much on the former. females have good biological reasons (high reproductive cost) for holding off on sex until they're convinced of a partner's suitability (imposing some investment on the male side). that strategy works well if all females follow it, but is open to exploitation by promiscuous individuals (who make themselves attractive by imposing only low investment compared to the other females). it makes strategic sense to suppress such exploitation by e.g. ostracization. thinking that tendency may well predate marriage and cultural repression of female sexuality by a good margin. it just makes evolutionary sense (which isn't to say that it's a good idea in this day and age).

I've gotta disagree with you on that. When the situation is so desperate that evolution is taking place, when the instinctual social activities of humans are a life-or-death matter, how on Earth is it advantageous to the selfish genes of a promiscuous woman to give up the esteem of the men in her tribe to make jealous bitches happy? That would make her no more likely to successfully pass on her genes than the jealous bitches in competition with her.

What makes more sense is if the jealous bitches upped their own promiscuity to even the playing field, or even gain the advantage by becoming even more promiscuous. Hence the 3x = 15 I mentioned earlier, hence the huge amount of sperm whose purpose isn't to fertilize the egg but instead run interference against other men's sperm in the woman's reproductive tract, hence the unusual shape of the human penis and its plunger-like properties, etc.

Pregnancy this, pregnancy that, is reproduction the primary purpose of sex in humans? Why do women have sex on days of the month when they're not ovulating? Why do women have sex on their period? Why do women have sex when they're pregnant? Why do women have sex post-menopause?

But I'd also say your model is based in post-agricultural thinking, when arguably human evolution was put on pause. TWO ingredients are necessary to evolution: mutation and environmental adaptation. When agriculture came along we stopped adapting our bodies to the environment and started adapting the environment to our bodies.

If the natural state of a woman is to be hit over the head with a club, dragged by her hair to a cave, then spend the rest of her life hiding in the cave and lactating while waiting for her man to bring home every supply she needs to survive, why do women have big brains? The brain is an extremely energy-hungry organ. Talk about evolutionary pressures! If men were the only providers in nature then at the knife's edge of starvation where evolution operates a tiny-brained woman would have a gigantic advantage. There are plenty of animals that have huge morphological differences between genders.

But women don't have tiny brains, and that indicates they needed these expensive organs for the survival of their tribe. Not "family," tribe. Humans are warm-blooded omnivores who need several meals a day and a wide variety of nutrients to survive. Meat alone won't do it. Hunting down an animal can take all day, even for a whole hunting party. When would these men have time to scour the countryside not only for edible plants, but ripe edible plants, gather them up, then transport them back to camp? They couldn't! There was a division of labor. Men hunt, women gather. Since plants can't get spooked by noise and run away, women could gather vitamin-rich plants in large groups with noisy children in tow. Like most mammals, the children learn to survive by watching and copying their mothers and aunties. At the end of the day, the men and women regroup and divvy out the day's bounty in a fireside feast. Then they have sex, not as "payment" for resources, but for the cementing of social bonds. "We did it!"

And I'll tell you, the tribal model gives an evolutionary reason for "love." I'll define love here as when another person's happiness and well-being are as important to you as your own. The golden rule! A single man out looking for an elk is way less likely to spot one than 20 men spreading out. If you've got a full belly and the other 19 men in your tribe are starving, they're not going to be much help, so sharing has a serious evolutionary advantage. Without food storage, a man keeping an entire elk to himself would maybe get 2 full bellies before losing the rest of the carcass to rot and scavengers. Sharing the elk with his tribe, everyone gets a full belly, no meat is wasted, and the man expended a fraction of the energy hunting in a group-effort that he would have expended hunting by his lonesome. The better off everyone in your tribe is doing, the more likely you are to survive and pass on your genes as an individual. Hence the evolutionary need for Love.

Post-agriculture, everything changed. A single farmer could slaughter livestock as needed, grow all the plants he and his family needed in neat little rows, and screw everyone else. His wife could be relegated to hiding in the house all day and lactating while waiting for her man to give her all the supplies she needs to survive. And women would have a reason to "stick together" and use sex as payment for access to this selfish man's larder.

Now I'm not advocating turning the clock back and going back to living in the savannah in a loincloth, but like I said before, society is a tool meant to serve US, not the other way around. The more we can satisfy our evolutionary desires in the post-agricultural world the happier we will become. The first step toward that, I say, is ditch the cynical bronze age self-punishment complex.

[glitch]

i'm with you on the latter, not so much on the former. females have good biological reasons (high reproductive cost) for holding off on sex until they're convinced of a partner's suitability (imposing some investment on the male side). that strategy works well if all females follow it, but is open to exploitation by promiscuous individuals (who make themselves attractive by imposing only low investment compared to the other females). it makes strategic sense to suppress such exploitation by e.g. ostracization. thinking that tendency may well predate marriage and cultural repression of female sexuality by a good margin. it just makes evolutionary sense (which isn't to say that it's a good idea in this day and age).

I've gotta disagree with you on that. When the situation is so desperate that evolution is taking place, when the instinctual social activities of humans are a life-or-death matter, how on Earth is it advantageous to the selfish genes of a promiscuous woman to give up the esteem of the men in her tribe to make jealous bitches happy? That would make her no more likely to successfully pass on her genes than the jealous bitches in competition with her.

when a rational agent chooses to perform a certain action or not, it weighs the benefits of the action against its costs. if you increase the cost (via social penalty) to the point that the cost outweighs the benefit, a rational agent won't take that action. a promiscuous exemplar weighs the benefit of relative promiscuity against the cost of social penalty. plenty of cost to impose, including social mechanisms to restrict her access to sex (a bit of ostracization can go a long way in a tribal setting), so yeah, that works. economically speaking, the promiscuous exemplar is hogging an important resource (male attention), and thus invites sanctions. humans are of course no rational agents, but cognitive evolution seems to have worked in the general direction of some crude approximation of rationality. that's no proof that this happened, but it would make rational sense for it to happen.

(btw no you don't need desperate situations for evolution to take place)

What makes more sense is if the jealous bitches upped their own promiscuity to even the playing field, or even gain the advantage by becoming even more promiscuous.

i don't like your terminology much.
and no. why would they? they can just stick to their own preferred promiscuity level and impose a penalty on individuals whose promiscuity exceeds their own.

it is not as simple as "maximum promiscuity == maximum fitness".
(if it were, then the phenomenon of courting behaviour would be quite the mystery...)
it's a fine balance between 1) making offspring at all 2) ensuring your offspring is of decent quality 3) ensuring that your offspring is born into circumstances that give it a decent chance of survival (if you're unconvinced that the cost of ostracization can outweigh the benefit of promiscuity, then think a bit on this last one in particular). hence promiscuity is not simply maximized, but finely tuned, and when the behaviour of others pulls down the top of your optimum curve, it makes perfect nasty selfish sense to suppress that behaviour. don't mean we should. just means we may be inclined to, even without the hand of culture (mis)guiding us.

But I'd also say your model is based in post-agricultural thinking, when arguably human evolution was put on pause.

no. tribal. maybe even pre-homosapiens.

i'm not sure how the rest of your post relates to the issue.

[Mischief Maker]

i don't like your terminology much.

I've seen nice girls brutalized by slut shaming firsthand. As far as I'm concerned, the term "jealous bitches" is APT.

If you're talking about a woman making rational choices in the face of social pressure, that's social pressure. If you're talking about genetic differences between women that make certain women more likely to have surviving progeny, that's evolutionary. If you're talking about social pressure, we're not disagreeing.

But I'd like to table the evolution topic for the moment because I had a light bulb moment this morning and realized there's a much simpler argument to be made:

This idea that a woman keeps a man around to provide for her and her children by using sex as collateral is fundamentally flawed because a man's lust has a half-life. The actions that "get" a man are not what "keep" a man.

I'm sure everyone here is already aware of the monotonous parade of male politicians and celebrities who have been caught not only cheating on their beautiful wives, but oftentimes cheating on them with women who are far less pretty than their wives. This has nothing to do with their beautiful wives aging or failing to maintain (although those could exacerbate things), it's a physiological response in the men themselves. Eventually our brains start to say "Hey, I've done this one already" and she stops sexually arousing us. Now arousal can be transferred and there are some wives out there savvy enough to do things like go to strip clubs with their husband and buy him a lap dance so he can harness that arousal back home with her. But in straight-up monogamy, I don't care how pretty you are, you are not the sexual object 9 months later that you were at the start.

A man lusts after a woman for her body, but he stays with a woman for her mind. If sex was the only thing keeping him from leaving you and your children... he's gonna leave you and your children.

And this is what's so frustrating as a man about the default system. Women don't give men credit for our capacity to love, just our capacity for lust. So they don't try to be likable! (At least in the United States). Even worse, they turn around and expect to be able to leapfrog "like" and get straight to "love." It's like this famous bit from Patrice O'neal that I can't find by itself on youtube:

W: I love you
M: Why do you love me?
W: Because you're so charming!
M: Okay.
W: Do you love me?
M: No.
W: Why not?!
M: Why should I love you because I'm charming?

Let me deconstruct "playing hard to get" from a man's perspective:

A man meets two women. Woman X sleeps with him on the first date. Woman Y says if he wants a piece of this he better put a ring on it.

The man likes Woman X more and may come to love her before his lust wears off. If he doesn't stay with her long-term because she's "too easy," that's because he's weak and succumbed to peer pressure.

The man dislikes Woman Y, but if she's conspicuously good looking, or notorious among his friends as a "hard to get" woman he may covet her. Forget "sex object," the man covets Woman Y as a "validation object," a trophy he can put on the shelf. He wants to be able to show off to his friends that he was high enough quality to "get" the hard-to-get woman. He'll never love Woman Y, at best he'll marry her out of laziness.

[replayme]

Not going to read this thread as its subject matter bores the shit out of me. But I will say that women "love to be raped". As according to the following website below:

http://www.healthyplace.com/sex/psychol ... fantasies/

Remember kids... Don't pay attention to what a "lady" says. Pay attention to what she does.

[trap15]

Fucking hell man.

[Drum]

Ok, time for him to go.

[Mischief Maker]

Not going to read this thread as its subject matter bores the shit out of me.

Ugh! Are you even a man? That's the kind of pussy-ass linguistic doubletalk women get away with because men want to fuck 'em. If this was a bar and we were all hanging out and you said that, you would get stabbed in your soul.

"I want to make my point but, by the way, I wasn't listening to anything YOU were saying." Really, Mr. Important? That's why you resent women, you debate like a bitch!

[Moniker]

But I will say that women "love to be raped".

Haha, RegalSin wannabe on a dangerous level. You're gone for a reason I never dreamed of expecting. I'd thank God (because I utterly resent all of your contributions here), but tragically, you probably live out your insane perspective in person. I pray for your victims.

Now we just gotta get Friendly on record saying he rapes puppies. Because obviously he does.

[Drum]

I've been trying to tell you about the puppies for a long time.

[glitch]

bye replayme, i hope you were a troll. or if you weren't, that you get hit by a bus while chasing a puppy.

Not going to read this thread as its subject matter bores the shit out of me.

Ugh! Are you even a man? That's the kind of pussy-ass linguistic doubletalk women get away with because men want to fuck 'em. If this was a bar and we were all hanging out and you said that, you would get stabbed in your soul.

"I want to make my point but, by the way, I wasn't listening to anything YOU were saying." Really, Mr. Important? That's why you resent women, you debate like a bitch!

telling off the misogynist by accusing him of debating like a bitch. class act, aren't you.

If you're talking about a woman making rational choices in the face of social pressure, that's social pressure. If you're talking about genetic differences between women that make certain women more likely to have surviving progeny, that's evolutionary.

what if i'm talking about cognitive evolution under the influence of social selection pressures?

And this is what's so frustrating as a man about the default system. Women don't give men credit for our capacity to love, just our capacity for lust. So they don't try to be likable! (At least in the United States).

gosh, american women sure sound like a terrible bunch.

A man meets two women. Woman X sleeps with him on the first date. Woman Y says if he wants a piece of this he better put a ring on it.

The man likes Woman X more and may come to love her before his lust wears off. If he doesn't stay with her long-term because she's "too easy," that's because he's weak and succumbed to peer pressure.

The man dislikes Woman Y, but if she's conspicuously good looking, or notorious among his friends as a "hard to get" woman he may covet her. Forget "sex object," the man covets Woman Y as a "validation object," a trophy he can put on the shelf. He wants to be able to show off to his friends that he was high enough quality to "get" the hard-to-get woman. He'll never love Woman Y, at best he'll marry her out of laziness.

dude sounds like a spineless piece of shit. american, i suppose?

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

mods = gods

[Mischief Maker]

telling off the misogynist by accusing him of debating like a bitch. class act, aren't you.

I never claimed to be a class act, but I'm flattered you felt that way before my last post.

I knew everybody in the forum would pile on him for his "shocking" revelation that some people get a sexual thrill from transgressive fantasies and miss what to me was the more unforgivable part of his post. Dude contributed almost a quarter of the posts in this thread, then turned around and made the most cowardly passive-aggressive snipe possible by saying he hasn't been reading this thread, it's SOOOO boring! In real life, any man who tried to pull that with a group of friends would be shouted down then verbally tortured for weeks. The only situation I can imagine in real life where someone would let passive aggression like that slide is if a girl said it, and a man bit his tongue because he's trying to get in her pants.

So yes, I called a misogynist a "bitch." It's poetic.

I'm sorry if my choice of words upset you, but then that post wasn't directed at you.

dude sounds like a spineless piece of shit.

Exactly! I've given you an example of a man deferring his own desires for the sake of social pressure and you don't find him likable! What's more I'd wager you wouldn't argue there is any evolutionary advantage for spineless piece of shit men. Why are you holding women to a different standard?

what if i'm talking about cognitive evolution under the influence of social selection pressures?

What if you are? Please explicitly explain the mechanism by which giving in to peer pressure makes a woman more likely to successfully pass on her genes.

[Krooze L-Roy]

No. It represents the 50% divorce rate. 50% of marriages end in devastating divorce, yet we blame the people for its failure, not the marriage concept itself.

It's worth noting that in the days before no-fault divorce there was in informal legal term called "hotel divorce." That was when a couple both wanted to divorce, but neither had done anything wrong. Their lawyer would suggest that if one of them "caught" the other in a hotel room with someone of the opposite sex, they would have the excuse necessary to get what they wanted.

And settle down, I was making a humorous exaggeration. I don't think you're a sociopath. I was pointing out the silliness of the notion that laws are the only thing keeping people from turning into Fast ZombiesTM.

Though I do find it rather disturbing that I'm talking about sex and love, but you're equating that with murder.

I applaud you for soldiering on after Glitch's devastating quadruple eyeroll. Ouch!

The divorce rate is a symptom of the prevailing attitude toward marriage, which has slowly been reduced to "dating plus." Overall respect for the practice has declined and the expectation of permanence has been all but eliminated. The high divorce rate builds off itself in a nasty feedback loop.

I just regret that our culture practices a scorched earth policy in it's tireless march to progress. Modernity has become a global cultural empire, irreverent and deeply supremacist, and we destroy without any regard to beauty or function, and without even bothering to replace the things we break along the way. I think it can all traced back to that shit-eater Martin Luther. Protestantism makes a poor foundation for an empire, but without it, Europe would probably be as stagnant as the Middle East. Then again, maybe the world would be a better place if we were.

[Despatche]

I hope that the system described in my post was repellant, that's the point. Just as gentile men in the US circumcise their sons ignorant of the repellant origin of the tradition, mothers teach their daughters the slut-shaming system in bits and pieces, themselves ignorant of the tradition's repellant origin.

let me go off-topic for a bit... circumcision is a good thing. it is a good thing for what it is, not what it meant; we need to reclaim it. it is a good thing because the foreskin is a giant blemish inconsistent with the rest of the body, just like the partial body hair that most humans have; that needs to go too. if i remember correctly, the hairless body was a trend at some point in history, and reference is occasionally made to it in this and that work... i'm thinking gill and urien over there in street fighter iii.

so maybe some of the following applies to both, but i would like to say it at least applies to one. if an individual was not circumcised as an infant, they must have been born to and raised by fools; fools who believe in the same kind of bandwagons that you speak of, the same kind of bandwagons that lead to the mindless support and resistance of the practice. however, if an individual was not circumcised as an infant, it may be best that they stay that way, as having it performed later on is a then-painful and then-pointless gesture... the same doesn't really apply to body hair, does it?

i was circumcised as an infant. i know that, by me stating this, some people are going to default to mashing out their mindless patterns of how they Just Know it affected my mental development or whatever. i know that, by me stating this, others are going to default to the somewhat more sensible suggestion i have some kind of bias. i'm more than happy to admit that i probably at least have some kind of bias telling me that the benefit of consistency outweighs any other loss. however, i believe i have also been able to think beyond that in a way, and i hope that the comparison to body hair proves this; i haven't exactly been able to laser out every follicle on my skin.

on another note... i obviously do not challenge your comparison, because i can't really know the other half of it. but from what i do know, there is something to be reclaimed on that side too. similarly, marriage sounds like it's fallen into the same trap of pointless support and resistance--it's "cool" to be unmarried now, simply another kind of societal pressure--and i think at some point it may as well be said that everything is governed by such mindlessness... but that's supposed to be depressing.