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A couple of interesting posts on topics near and dear to readers here:
Amanda Marcotte takes on “Nice Guys,” and the oft-repeated notion that women seek out abusers and assholes to date:
My counter-theory is that Nice Guys® group together traits like confidence with aggression, so they can convince themselves that confident men are always assholes, and thus that they’re being unfairly deprived of pussy by women who are sick fucks that enjoy being abused. Are some confident men abusive assholes? Absolutely; look at Charlie Sheen. But are all confident men? … [W]hat I can say is I’ve known many men who are great husbands/boyfriends and are also confident … Some shy men are also very nice people, just shy. But many shy men are inconsiderate fuckwits or even wife-beaters. I just don’t think there’s a strong correlation between “alpha”-ness and basic human decency.
And a couple of posts on some new research on gender and casual sex that challenges a lot of manosphere myths about women and hypergamy, suggesting that: 1) women, in general, are as interested in casual sex as men, so long as they feel they will be safe and 2) women, in general, aren’t so addled by their alleged hypergamous proclivities that they actually find Donald Trump to be attractive. In fact, the study suggests, women considering casual sex are driven by a desire for, er, hot sex with a dude who won’t kill them and who they think will be good in bed, not by a desire to get their claws into some random rich dude. Or, as the paper itself puts it:
Sexual strategies theory clearly predicts that higher status proposers should be accepted by women more readily than low-status proposers. The fact that status did not predict women’s acceptance of casual sex offers is therefore a problem for SST. Neither status, nor tendency for gift giving, nor perceived faithfulness of the proposer (nor, more precisely, the interaction of any of these variables with gender) predicted whether a participant would agree to the sexual offer, contradicting SST.
Here’s a brief summary of the research. And here’s a more detailed (if a bit convoluted) discussion from Thomas on Yes Means Yes, from which I got the above quote.
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>@ girl scientistWell since most people have some sort of sexuality, we can start there. Wait, if you're an asexual feminist why do you even post on things to do with marriage, and or traditional male female sexual issues that you shouldn't care about, and have limited personal knowledge of?Random Brother
>@richard:I'm not interested in having sex with other people, that doesn't mean I don't have a sexuality. I just keep it to myself, that's all. It's not that unusual: there are plenty of people who never pair up, never get married, who don't see the point. Just because they're not shouting it from the rooftops doesn't mean they don't exist. Studies estimate that approximately 1% of the population is asexual. It's funny that you think that I'm a freak because I do absolutely nothing that could even remotely be considered freakish. There are elderly nuns out there who are more freakish than me.I still like to read and talk to people about sexual issues because, while I'm asexual, I still live in a sexual world, and it helps to know how the rest of the world operates. If you travel abroad, you need a guide to the country you're going to and you need to learn the language if you don't want to spend the whole time completely lost. It's the same thing with asexuals living in a sexual world: it's very confusing if you don't understand what's going on, and you're likely to give offense if you're not careful.
>Normal does not equal good. Most allegations of "abnormality" are nothing more than either a an appeal to nature fallacy and/or a ad populum fallacy.Most people are not doctors, so are doctors abnormal and therefore socially undesirable?There is no reason to believe that simply because most people are different from something that the thing is bad.And, girlscientist can be concerned about things which she does not take part in for several reasons. Some of the most obvious ones would be that (1) the attitudes espoused in these areas affect her life in other areas (for example, pay or pension systems designed under these beliefs) and (2) she is not a sociopath and cares about how these things affect others around her.
>@ girlscientistAll right. Fair Enough.Random Brother
>@ DSCAll right. I can accept that, except for the whole sociopath stuff tacked on at the end. Caring for onesself and not helping those who engage in stupid activities or activities that are designed to harm you doesn't make you a sociopath.Random Brother
>@DarkSideCat: Thanks!@richard: No problem. The accusation of sociopathy leveled against you comes from the fact that you seem to think that being violent and abusive are valid and appropriate strategies to get sex. I may be asexual, but I do know that most people recoil from that. Sociopathy is one of the areas of neurodiversity, just like Asperger's syndrome, and not, in itself, something to be ashamed of. As long as you don't actually hurt someone, nobody should judge you for what's going on in your head, if you ask me. If you want to have an insight in the mind of a high-functioning socopath, you should visit Socopath World. I can especially recommend the FAQ.
>@David:My last comment disappeared 🙁 Did it get stuck in the spam filter or did I say something wrong?
>(At least) two asexuals on one board–we can't be that abnormal! I bet we're more than 1% of the commenting population. ;)My usual comment to people who complain how others aren't "normal" is to point out that the world would be terribly boring if everyone were the same. Really, really, horribly, terribly boring.
>Guys in the manosphere deliberately want women they see as inferior to them to dominate them. As an example there is female blogger called LovelySexyBeauty (LSB) that is from India and was virgin. She married a jobless guy that was living off the money of his parents and that abuse and insult her after following the advice of guys like Roissy (according to these guys women should marry very young and virgin to guys that dominate them) : http://lovelysexybeauty.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/abuse-or-anger/
>I take offense to the we're all freak shows since you know by your limited definitions of normal (which are completely arbitrary just so you know) I fit right in there and I am indeed a feminist. I also happen to be at a weight that is considered socially acceptable and I shave my legs so I'd like to hear one thing that makes me a freak richard
>@ brigetI don't enough about you to make that sort of statment.Random Brother
>okay then. Please remember that the next time you would like to call all feminists freaks.
>girlscientist, yeah, your comment was in the spam filter, and it's up now.
>@David: Thanks!
>richard, yours was also in the spam filter and it up now. Everyone, cool it with the personal attacks. Especially you, Richard, since you're the one making the most of them.
>"Sociopathy is one of the areas of neurodiversity, just like Asperger's syndrome, and not, in itself, something to be ashamed of. As long as you don't actually hurt someone, nobody should judge you for what's going on in your head, if you ask me."I disagree. I also am not to fond of the aspie comparison as a person with aspergers. I think you can judge someone based on their thoughts and emotions. We can and do make these thought and emotion based distinctions in moral judgements.Example:A gives C a cookie, knowing it is not poisoned, C is fine.B gives C a cookie, thinking it is poisoned, but it is not and C is fine.A gives C a cookie, not knowing it is poisoned, but it is and C dies.B gives C a cookie, knowing it is poisoned, and C dies.We accept that B is worse than A. Legal systems do this as well. While there is dispute over whether sucessful and failed attempts should be equivalently punished (the model penal code says yes, most state penal codes say no), there is a general concensus that mens rea is needed for at least crimes which involve serious punishment. In other words to use the example above,, we only ever want to send B to jail for murder, even when the consequence of A's action is the same. However, we likely would not want to punish B until B actually tried to do a bad act, for a variety of reasons (such as the fact that punishing the attempt and the thought equally takes away the incentive to not act on every bad thought).Being uncommon in and of itself is not evidence of being bad or morally impaired, but it can be the case that a certain uncommon trait is bad, or leads to poor moral judgment, or is the result of poor moral judgment. So, the uncommon group of doctors is not mostly bad, but the uncommon group of serial killers is (not to imply that all serial killers are sociopaths or vice versa).
>@DarkSideCat:You're still talking about actions: it's the intent of the action. A wants to give C a cookie, and B wants to poison C. B's plan to poison C only becomes morally wrong when B puts it into action. Otherwise I'd get in trouble every time I'm in line at the grocery store behind someone who's talking on their cell phone.You can't help or control your emotions. The best you can do is analyze them, go to their cause and try not to hurt anyone. Whether you're capable of empathy or not, morality comes down to self-control: if you're capable of empathy you imagine the grief and distress of the offensive shopper's children, and if you're not, you think about all the witnesses and how you could never get away with it.Imagine D, a sociopath who would like to kill C but who refrains from doing it because it's a bad idea (D stands to inherit from C, is commonly known to hate C, and doesn't want to go to prison because it would be unpleasant). Along comes B, who hands D a cookie to give to C. D complies, not knowing that the cookie is poisoned, and C dies. D is happy about C's death. D wanted C dead and handed C the poisoned cookie, but D is still not the murderer because D had enough self-control not to do it.
>Richard, after a lot of digging, I found the this response to the study that does a better job of breaking it down."On the other end of the spectrum, infidelity seemed to rise when one partner made a lot more money than the other. And that held true whether the man or the woman was the big wage earner."Make a lot of money, get cheated on is the ultimate message here. Oh and the numbers are very low for who cheats when the wife makes more.
>“Most people, man or woman, marry within their socioeconomic class.”Most does not mean all. You seem to have a problem with that, as you later accuse me of saying “all” women had strategies to marry wealthy men. Some women do, and it is not unreasonable to acknowledge that, especially given the number of campaigns claiming all men are potential rapists (and that potential is far smaller then the potentially hypergamous women).But all that is irrelevant, as I didn’t come to debate hypergamy, only to point out that David’s “research that challenges myth’s about hypergamy” has absolutely nothing to do with it“Kratch, guys in the manosphere are constantly confusing one-night-stands and regular dating”But it’s David who is equating a study on casual sex (IE, one night stands and short flings) as saying something about hypergamy (long term relationships). It’s not the manosphere who are making the mistake, it’s David. It’s right there in the article for you to read…“And a couple of posts on some new research on gender and casual sex that challenges a lot of manosphere myths about women and hypergamy”How does a study on casual sex say anything about hypergamy? They’re Davids own words, not mine. Explain them or acknowledge his mistake instead of blaming it on the manosphere.
>girlscientist: That link to Sociopath World was fascinating! I didn't have time to get too far into it, but I would ask you: how do you define sociopathy? Do you follow the DSM-IV TR diagnostic criteria for Anti-Social Personality Disorder, or do you define it more broadly as a congenital lack of the ability to feel empathy?
>@girlscientist, did you miss this part of what I said "However, we likely would not want to punish B until B actually tried to do a bad act, for a variety of reasons (such as the fact that punishing the attempt and the thought equally takes away the incentive to not act on every bad thought)." The reason I think that we should punish only attempts is not because I think all thoughts or emotions are value neutral. To go all godwin, let's say that the person has the same beliefs, desires, and feelings about Jewish people as Hitler. Is that morally neutral so long as they fear the social consequences enough to refrain from starting their holocaust? I would say definitely not. Wannabe Hitler is still a bad person, and a person we want to keep a careful eye on and keep out of positions of power. We would want to treat Wannabe Hitler differently than Wannabe MLK, and would be downright foolish for not doing so. "morality comes down to self control" I disagree whole heartedly with this statement. Queer people not controlling their desires to have consensual sex with other adults is perfectly moral. However, self control in order to conform with orders to go on a murder spree helterskelter style is immoral. Morality is about harm-harmful results and harmful intents.You talk about actions combined with intent, but "trying not to hurt someone" is not the action of the sociopath here. While the surface behavior may seem similar at times, this intent is absent. "Avoiding punishment" is the sociopath's intent, not "trying not to hurt someone".I think there are valid reasons to punish act plus intent vs just intent, but I do not think that neutrality of intent is amoung them. Here is a list of a few: 1) evidence. It is rather difficult to prove to a legal standard exactly how much someone wants their thoughts to become reality until they actually try to do it. 2) punishing intent the same as act with intent fails to discourage and sometimes encourages the act. Bad intent alone is better than bad intent plus bad act. 3) encouraging people to discuss their plans and intents gives an opportunity to intervene or to change their mind. We want people to discuss these things so we can nip them in the bud, but punishing the intent the same as the intent plus act discourages this.I also want to add that, more likely than not, you do not actually have an intent to harm the other shoppers in your analogy. Many fantasies are such that they involve no real intent to make the situation reality and would even cause the person distress should it become reality.
>"And a couple of posts on some new research on gender and casual sex that challenges a lot of manosphere myths about women and hypergamy, suggesting that: 1) women, in general, are as interested in casual sex as men, so long as they feel they will be safe"Now if men had as much mistrust towards women in general, they would be bitter misogynists.But I guess when it comes to having mistrust towards the opposite gender, double standards and feminism come hand in hand.
>@Captain Bathrobe: I can't answer your questions: I'm not a psychiatrist, just an armchair psychologist. I'm fascinated by neurodiversity, but that doesn't make me a specialist.@DarkSideCat:Is that morally neutral so long as they fear the social consequences enough to refrain from starting their holocaust? I would say definitely not.Oh, you're right. But that's not something that is specific to sociopaths. There are lots of people who don't act immorally only because they're afraid of getting caught. Wannabe Hitler is still a bad person, and a person we want to keep a careful eye on and keep out of positions of power. We would want to treat Wannabe Hitler differently than Wannabe MLK, and would be downright foolish for not doing so.We certainly should be careful around sociopaths (they're not exactly innocent fluffy bunnies), but that doesn't mean we should lock them up, or cast opprobium upon them. You can't send people to prison just for being raving antisemites inside their heads, they should at least have committed an crime for that.I think there are valid reasons to punish act plus intent vs just intent, but I do not think that neutrality of intent is amoung them.I take it I should read "action" instead of "intent" the second time, otherwise I could refer you to an excellent novel by George Orwell to explain why punishing just intent is a bad idea 🙂
>Kratch, one of guru of the manosphere, Citizen Renegade – Roissy, has a whole section of his blog about hypergamy : http://roissy.wordpress.com/?s=hypergamous . Hookingupsmart, which originally was a site about dating, is now flooded by Roosh and Roissy admirers that constantly say if a guy want to have a girlfriend, he need to learn game because women are hypergamous and are chasing alpha males in clubs.
>Girlscientist, there is a degree in mental health problems. If someone is a light sociopath, he probably can control himself, but a full-blown sociopath will not be able to control himself. And it's the same thing with any mental health problem. I have AvPD and I cannot switch it off. If someone has asperger, he cannot switch it off either.