The Purple Pill Debate subreddit is a strange little corner of the internet, a place where intrepid Blue Pillers try to logic Red Pillers into giving up their repugnant ideology, and vice versa.
The main problem with this strategy is that Red Pillers don’t really understand logic as you or I do. They’ve got their own version, and it’s pretty … weird, as one recent post in r/PurplePillDebate makes abundantly clear.
The proposition being debated: “If you expect a man to date a rape victim, then you should be willing to date a pedophile.”
Wait, what? The Red Piller advancing this, er, argument tries to explain in more detail what exactly he means:
Rape victims often develop a variety of serious psychological issues, including depression, borderline personality disorder (aka borderline insanity disorder), self-harm, alcohol and/or drug addiction, and PTSD.
People who have these serious psychological issues are at a higher risk of joblessness, homelessness, and divorce. They tend to have unstable and chaotic relationships.
Now, of course it isn’t a rape victim’s fault that they were raped, but that still doesn’t mean that it is a good idea to date a rape victim.
So far, not so good. All of the sources the poster cites as evidence for these claims about rape survivors are behind paywalls, but a quick scan of the abstracts suggest that he didn’t read them very carefully. One of the papers he cites, actually looking at the effects of childhood sexual abuse rather than rape per se, reports that, contrary to the poster’s claims,
there is insufficient evidence to confirm a relation between a history of childhood sexual abuse and a postsexual abuse syndrome and multiple or borderline personality disorder.
That said, there’s no question that rape (or any kind of sexual abuse) can be extremely traumatic, with far-reaching and long-lasting consequences. These can certainly cause issues in relationships.
But every relationship has issues, and there is absolutely no evidence that rape survivors — or the survivors of any other serious trauma — are incapable of having healthy relationships.
At this point, our Red Pill poster goes completely off the rails:
Dating someone who has serious psychological issues is risky. To illustrate how risky it is, would you date a pedophile? Pedophilia isn’t a choice. However, pedophiles have unstable lives and wouldn’t make good romantic partners.
So, if you expect a man to be willing to date a rape victim because “it wasn’t her fault,” then you should be willing to date a pedophile because “it isn’t his fault.”
Wow. There are at least two gigantic problems here. First, of course, is the inherent offensiveness of suggesting there’s some sort of moral equivalency between pedophiles (potential if not necessarily actual predators) with rape survivors (people who have themselves been victimized by predators).
Second, there’s insurrectono’s if-then logic, which is utterly inappropriate when it comes to matters of the heart, where “should” shouldn’t go.
No, Red Pillers, no one is telling you that you are obligated to date rape survivors — or, for that matter, cancer patients, or Billy Joel fans, or indeed anyone in any particular category that human beings fall into.
Indeed, if your first thought upon hearing that someone us a rape survivor is to think “ick, she’s probably all messed up,” guess what?
No one really gives two shits whether or not you’re willing to date her. Because she doesn’t want to date you. Because you’re a petulant asshole with no empathy for other people. And that makes you pretty damn “risky” as a romantic partner.
H/T — r/TheBluePill
Thanks. I do need to clean behind the stove and fridge. I’m grateful for the advice but now I need to not think of this for a while. :p It’s all so gross.
@mrex:
First page of Google:
APA definition: “Sexual orientation refers to an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic and/or sexual attractions to men, women or both sexes. Sexual orientation also refers to a person’s sense of identity based on those attractions, related behaviors and membership in a community of others who share those attractions. Research over several decades has demonstrated that sexual orientation ranges along a continuum, from exclusive attraction to the other sex to exclusive attraction to the same sex. However, sexual orientation is usually discussed in terms of three categories: heterosexual (having emotional, romantic or sexual attractions to members of the other sex), gay/lesbian (having emotional, romantic or sexual attractions to members of one’s own sex) and bisexual (having emotional, romantic or sexual attractions to both men and women)”
http://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/orientation.aspx
I would argue the terminology should say “all genders” as gender seems to potentially be on a continuum.
The real point is that both medically and in laymans terms, “orientation” refers to preference for gender, not a state of being (especially not a state of being that necessitates a lack of consent). Yes, research aggregators in the link I sent you and in the link you provided misuse the term. I think it is sloppy and poor judgment, just as if they had referred to “depression” as “sadness.” We need psychological terms to be as sensitive and precise as we can, or they lose their meaning. It’s why “crazy” or “mentally ill” are super unhelpful terms that I’d like to see never again in discussions of mental health. Especially in terms of issues as dire as pedophilia.
@Alan
Normal ants are pretty tiny. But imagine even tinier ants. No. Even tinier. Don’t stop imagining until they are barely visible.
They like to cover my sink overnight and I’m sure if I didn’t often demonstrate my ability to annihilate their entire colony by waving a vacuum around, the little fucks would try to eat me while I’m asleep.
Re: Ants Problems
They do have these little ant traps that they will get into and either take poison back to their hill or get stuck in some sticky stuff what you can keep in the house. I’m not sure if they’re available where you guys live, though.
You can also sprinkle strong smelling herbs around windowsills, doorways (since that’s where they usually crawl into) and in cabinets with food. My prefered is basil since we grow it, but any strong smelling herbs, like mint, oregano, rosemary, whatever will deter them. Basil helped my dog’s food be ants free during a year where we had a SHIT TON of ants. (And you don’t want to use poison around where animals eats anyway but my dog puts hers on the ground first before eating so a little sprinkling of flavor is better than poison.)
I swear, we had to clean out the cabinets and EVERYTHING and they got into the HONEY and SYRUP and it was awful.
Using both methods have made it so the last three years have been ant free in my house.
@ tinyants
@sylvia
I have no idea where you live, but is there any way you could get ahold of some Vegemite? A few spoons of Vegemite and a dollop of jam or honey dissolved in water and left out in a cup overnight is pretty much the best ant lure in the world. That stuff even keeps meat ants away from the cat food.
@Octo
Ooh, I did not know that. I read about Angela Merkel’s constituents calling her Mutti (Mom) in Der Spiegel. I didn’t get the impression that it was ironic. Of course, mileage can vary between constituents!
Ant talk
Not everyone wants to hear more about ants, so I’ve put a bold head above and below this.
I live in Northern California, which has a Mediterranean climate. What people around here notice is that when the weather is very hot or cold, or very rainy or dry, ants tend to come into homes. They’re looking for the amenities that we have: fans or heat, shelter from the elements or water.
The worst is when they get into the cat dishes on the floor. When that happens, we use a “moat.” Get a big, flat casserole dish and put a little water in the bottom. Then put the cat food (on a dish or in a bowl) in the casserole dish. It will be sitting on the water. You don’t want to have so much water that the food gets wet. The ants can’t cross over the “moat” without drowning.
Like Alan, I don’t want the ants to get hurt, although some might attempt to cross the moat and fail. Nor do I want to hurt the environment or myself or my cats. So I always go the natural way. The moat method works very well re cat food.
The herb method, described above, also sounds good.
Ant talk
@TinyAnts:
I think the fact that the link that you posted so emphatically used the term demonstrates why it is problematic and confusing not to label pedophilia an orientation. (Absolutely, it is also a paraphilia — and one of the few that is absolutely harmful if it is acted upon.)
While this is correct according to the APA’s definition of sexual orientation, is doesn’t match the public’s perception that sexual orientation means something much closer to “the people a person innately finds sexually attractive”. For the life of me, I don’t see why orientation needs to be defined as a positive term. It seems like it should be neutral. The APA’s definition of “sexual orientation” seems like it would be a much better definition of “sexual identity”. For example, their inclusion of:
seems completely extraneous. Why do we need to define sexual orientation this way? A closeted gay person has a different sexual orientation than an out gay person because they have a different sense of identity? WTF? The definition also says:
What about people, gay or straight, who don’t have any deeply felt needs for love, attachment, and intimacy? Do they not have a sexual orientation?
Yes, I see sexual orientation as “just” a characteristic of a person. But a person’s ability to express it and identify with it affects (potentially) their sexual, emotional, and romantic identities.
When we don’t use the term sexual orientation to describe those whose attractions to children manifest in puberty, and are not chosen and can’t be unchosen — it seems to me like that really takes us down a dangerous road. A road in which social conservatives can say, “You’re just using an ad hoc definition of orientation that assigns it to your deviant group, but not to this deviant group.” It gives them the chance to put up a fence and avoid answering the real question. It seems more straightforward and less confusing to say, “Sexual orientations can be harmful or non-harmful. Being attracted to adults of the same gender is absolutely not harmful.” It also makes the defense of the full range of human experience much easier. Just as there exist people who find their gender to be fluid, there exist people whose sexuality is fluid. When it comes to the question of, “Is this okay?”, the determining factor should never be, “Were they born that way?”, but rather, “Does it hurt anyone?”
This does not mean that we can’t point out how tragic and destructive it is for someone to have to repress a non-harmful sexual orientation.
Does a pedophile’s repression of their attraction to children affect their sexual identity? Sure. But it doesn’t affect their ability to form a romantic relationship (their orientation precludes that already). It’s quite clear to me that nothing is lost by a pedophile repressing their sexual orientation, and everything gained (even for the pedophile). Whereas a person repressing their homosexuality is a situation where nothing is gained, and so much is lost.
Using “being a child is a state of being” to define children as “not a gender” seems to ignore the fact that pedophiles’ attractions to children’s bodies can be heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual in nature. It also seems to suggest that what sexually arouses pedophiles is the inability to consent, rather than the children’s bodies. No doubt this is true for some; but even among offending pedophiles, most come up with elaborate, fantastical rationalizations that allow them to believe that children can consent. It also seems to define pedophiles who are disgusted by their attraction to children — for the very reason that children are incapable of consent — out of existence.
We know they exist, but because it is borderline illegal (and clearly life-threatening) for them to self-report and seek help, we know next to nothing about them. The only data we have are on offenders. It would be extremely useful to know: their numbers relative to offending pedophiles; if they have similar histories of childhood abuse; if there are differences in their brains, and if there are, what they are; if they have similar problems with addictions, impulse control, and OCD; if they use different coping strategies; how their support structures differ; and how often they interact with children relative to offending pedophiles.
I am a child of survivors of some truly horrific shit. If I am passionate about this, it has absolutely nothing to do with having sympathy for pedophiles. What I am passionate about is this: I don’t want that 13, 14, 15 or 16 year-old, who first comes to the realization that he really isn’t like the other boys, and doesn’t find girls his own age attractive, but girls much younger, to feel like he can’t seek help. I don’t see any way that can be good for children.
On topic: Comparing dating a traumatized rape victim to dating a pedophile is ludicrous. Even assuming we’re talking about a pedophile who has never offended, they’re not dealing with a trauma. Being unable to ever have sex with consent sucks, sure, but it’s not a trauma. Good grief. Also, um, rape victims are capable of adult sexual relationships. It would be more like dating someone who has sworn to celibacy — but there you’re not having to deal with them suppressing a highly dangerous paraphilia.
@ kat
As a great philosopher once put it
🙂
the public’s perception that sexual orientation means something much closer to “the people a person innately finds sexually attractive.”
The public doesn’t generally perceive the group “children” as a category of gender/gender representation. Because honestly, gender, and its various fluid forms, is the only framework with which we observe sexual orientation. You can’t be sexually oriented to “White people,” if you grew up in a segregated racist area. You can’t be sexually oriented to “women with large chests.” You can’t be sexually oriented to “people over 20 but under 30.” You can be sexually oriented to any, all, or no genders. To consider children’s bodies as a form of pseudo gender has many disturbing sociological ramifications, in the same way as if we considered bestiality as a sexual orientation, and animals as a category of “people” (namely, that it is impossible for them to consent).
A closeted gay person has a different sexual orientation than an out gay person because they have a different sense of identity?
In effect, yes. It’s a label that covers a complex area of emotion, and is based in self-identity. It is impossible to know if someone is a “closeted gay person,” unless they themselves consider themselves as such. There’s no actual gaydar in the field of psychiatry.
What about people, gay or straight, who don’t have any deeply felt needs for love, attachment, and intimacy?
The quotation, “Thus, sexual orientation is closely tied to the intimate personal relationships that meet deeply felt needs for love, attachment, and intimacy,” does not imply that intimate personal relationship are necessary and required to meet the definition of orientation, but simply, as it said, “closely tied” to it.
it seems to me like that really takes us down a dangerous road. A road in which social conservatives can say, “You’re just using an ad hoc definition of orientation that assigns it to your deviant group, but not to this deviant group.”
I honestly don’t give the faintest shit what social conservatives say. They’ll find a reason to hate gay people no matter what. It’s much better to base our decisions about discourse on people who don’t think “the gays are going to hell.” But if I did give a tiny shit about what social conservatives say, I would wager that having pedophilia as a sexual orientation is going to give them much more ammo against gay people. In fact, this is the repeated claim they have made in the past. Frankly it’s ridiculous that you would have to resort to guessing what they would do, when we already know what they have done with the whole, “If gays can marry, what’s next, pedophiles?”
“Sexual orientations can be harmful or non-harmful.”
This is where you are demonstrating the problem with your definition of “sexual orientation.” Sexual orientations can’t be “harmful” or not. It just means what genders you are attracted to, if any. Not whether you’re a rapist or an addict, whether you like big butts or being submissive. Those are specific aspects to sexuality and behavior, not orientations.
Using “being a child is a state of being” to define children as “not a gender” seems to ignore the fact that pedophiles’ attractions to children’s bodies can be heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual in nature
Actually, it seems to bolster my point. “Children” aren’t a gender. They are a transitory phase of being.
To the rest of your paragraphs, you are responding to things I haven’t said or claimed. I don’t make any claims that pedophilia is innately evil or should not be treated, that “innate” = good or bad.
@ tinyants
Love the name change. 🙂
ETA: you ever seen “Joe’s Apartment”?
@Alan
I love Joe’s apartment! It was an example in one of my film textbooks, showing the story boarding process of the cockroach animations.
@TinyAnts,
You seem to be using a very narrow definition of sexual orientation. That’s ok. My definition is a lot closer to mrex and littleknown’s definition. I’m not going to change my definition just because you keep insisting that yours is the only acceptable one. As far as I’m concerned, necrophilia is an “orientation.”
People confusing preference, paraphilia and orientation is the reason why people think “sapiosexual” is a thing.
Also…this.
@TinyAnts,
And you when you say this:
you seem to be implying that “harmful or not” is irrelevant, but you are the one who brought it into the conversation when you said:
I wonder if the conflation of sexualities and paraphilias started out as an internalisation of that sort of right-wing rhetoric.
(Note: I’m not calling anybody homophobic or anything like that, I’m just
highthinking out loud.)Sorry to cut in, I’m going to have to strongly disagree with this. There’s no such thing as “your” definition, or “my definition” or tinyants’ definition. Definitions, by, well, definition, are defined. Definitions change, are reclaimed, expanded etc., but words mean things and they’re dependent on social context. You don’t get to call someone “narrow” and claim some sort of bizarre moral ground just because people are sticking to a socially agreed upon meaning of a word. The entire purpose of language is so people can communication with each other, not reinforce their own personal beliefs.
There’s been a lot of greater acceptance for people who are polyamorous, dominant, submissive, etc., which is fantastic. But those aren’t orientations. Orientation is defined as a direction or position, i.e. which end/s of the gender spectrum, a person is attracted to. I’m a heterosexual woman with kinks on the dominant/sadistic side of the BDSM spectrum, which is considered contrary to societal expectation. But if I claim to be “queer”, and LGBT people call me out for being a cishet person misusing a historically significant term used by non-cishet people, I don’t get to accuse them of being “noninclusive” or “narrow”. They’re right. It’s just like how if I say that spiders are insects and someone corrects me, I don’t get to say, “You seem to be using a very narrow definition of the word ‘insect.’ As far as I’m concerned, spiders are insects.”
@Suffrajitsu: Right. Just like when people point out that you “can be racist towards white people” because of the dictionary definition of racism.
That doesn’t mean that the dictionary, which was written by well-educated older white men, is wrong, but it doesn’t mean it’s right either, because racism has a whole other societal context that doesn’t include white people because white people benefit from a system that favors them.
@ParadoxicalIntentional, like I said, definitions change. But definitions change based upon social context. To use your analogy, say someone claimed there was racism against white people and you corrected them by saying that racism is defined as systematic oppression based on race and not simply prejudice. You’re right because that’s the societally accepted definition of the word, not because that’s “your” definition of the word. If that person said “Well, you’re using a narrow definition of the word ‘racism.’ According to MY definition of the word racism, the fact that I can link you to a rando blogger who says mean things about white people proves there is racism against whites,” that person is most emphatically wrong. It’s like when MRAs bash feminism by claiming that by THEIR definition, feminism means man hating. That’s not how it works. Words mean things.
The issue I took was with Sbel accusing Tinyants of using “a narrow definition” of the word ‘orientation’ to justify the idea that necrophilia as an orientation, when it is in fact a paraphilia.
(Note that ‘societally accepted’ does not always mean ‘understood by society at large’, as in the frequent conflation of sex and gender.)
you seem to be implying that “harmful or not” is irrelevant, but you are the one who brought it into the conversation when you said:
An “orientation,” both medically and colloquially, implies a valid sexuality that can be practiced healthily.
There’s nothing contradictory about this. I wasn’t saying the definition of “orientation” meant the person has to be healthy, just that it refers to sexualities that in of in themselves, are not harmful. This, as opposed to pedophilia. I wasn’t saying the definition of orientations is “healthy,” but that they can be practiced healthily. Pedophilia can never be practiced healthily.
As far as I’m concerned, necrophilia is an “orientation.”
I should feel angry at this comment, but I can only feel a thin, ragged dismay.
Dead is not a gender.
@ paradoxy and suffrajitsu
The dictionary definition thing is interesting. I’m not sure though that you can blame people for using dictionary definitions.
In England at least (the situation is somewhat different in France for example) dictionaries are descriptive not prescriptive.
The OED is compiled by looking at how words are generally used in society. (For a fascinating insight into the procedure check out “The Surgeon of Crowthorne”).
You may remember this cropped up with ‘mansplain’. The OED definition was slightly different to the meaning the originator actually intended; but it reflected the way the word has actually been used generally.
I understand suffrajitsu’s distinction between ‘societally accepted’ and ‘understood by society’, and it may be that if the ‘prejudice + power’ definition enters the mainstream, the dictionaries will pick up on that. Words do evolve as you’ve pointed out; and it’s possible for words to have multiple definitions.
But I don’t think you can say someone is ‘wrong’ for using the current ‘belief that one race is better’; ‘animus based on that belief’ definitions.
That doesn’t stop you arguing that racism (in the dictionary sense) against whites isn’t a big thing or that non white people face systemic racism of course.
This was actually a major topic over here a while back. We ended up with something called the McPherson Report. That popularised the term ‘institutional racism’ that captures the meaning of racism as you describe and that seems to have caught on here.
@suffrajitsu
Definitions change and dictionaries trail after the changes. We have on this board at least 3 different people who use a broader definition of “sexual orientation,” and I can promise we didn’t make it up on the spot. I picked it up because I saw other people on other sites using it that way. Will the official definition change? Too soon to say, but I’ve seen enough people using a broader definition that I’m not going to change or condemn just because it’s not in the dictionary.
You are reading way too much into my post. I said the definition was narrow, not the person.
——
@tinyants
Why should you feel anger? We are literally arguing semantics.
@tinyants
“
In effect, yes. It’s a label that covers a complex area of emotion, and is based in self-identity. It is impossible to know if someone is a “closeted gay person,” unless they themselves consider themselves as such. There’s no actual gaydar in the field of psychiatry.”
Wait, so a closeted gay person has a different sexual orientation than one who’s out? How is this not just basically saying that sexual orientation is “chosen” because every queer person makes a choice as to whether to be out in public or not?
Please tell me I’m misunderstanding.
“First page of Google:”
Yes I can google. I wanted your source that sexual orientation never refers to states . Look, if it’s been a while, if you don’t have it, I understand. I just found it interesting and wanted to read the background on it.
“just that it refers to sexualities that in of in themselves, are not harmful. This, as opposed to pedophilia. I wasn’t saying the definition of orientations is “healthy,” but that they can be practiced healthily. Pedophilia can never be practiced healthily.”
I don’t think *any-one* here would describe pedophilia as “being able to be practiced healthfully”, because I’m pretty sure that everyone here realizes that children can’t consent, and that rape, in particular child rape, is *very, very, bad*. Obviously, we all agree on that.
The problem with your argument is that the definition of “can be practiced healthfully/nonharmfully” is completely subjective. I’ve had more arguments with homophobes that swear up and down that same-sex attraction will send queer people to hell and therefore will never be “healthy” or “harm-free”. Likewise, NAMBLA would argue, in all sincerity, that it’s “healthy” to rape children. (Because it somehow isn’t rape, despite ample evidence that children can’t consent).
I agree with you that scientific definitions should be precise, which is why I think that there’s evidence the the definition of “sexual orientation” should change . And to that end, “but it is/isn’t healthy” is not that kind of precise argument.
” research aggregators in the link I sent you and in the link you provided misuse the term. I think it is sloppy and poor judgment, just as if they had referred to “depression” as “sadness.”
Yeah, research informs the APA, not the other way around.
“We need psychological terms to be as sensitive and precise as we can, or they lose their meaning. It’s why “crazy” or “mentally ill” are super unhelpful terms that I’d like to see never again in discussions of mental health. Especially in terms of issues as dire as pedophilia.”
Ok, this is super vague, I’ll bite. What’s wrong with the term “mental illness”, and what’s wrong with defining pedophilia as a “mental illness”?
” I would argue the terminology should say “all genders” as gender seems to potentially be on a continuum.”
If you live by the definition, you die by the definition. The APA does not consider pansexuality an orientation, or even to exist. Either the definition is correct, or it is not.
“You can be sexually oriented to any, all, or no genders. “
If you live by the definition, you die by the definition. The APA does not consider asexuality an orientation, and in fact considers it a mental disorder if it causes distress or relationship problems.
Same goes for pedophilia. A person can have sexual urges towards children, as long as they’re not strong, cause no distress, and the person happily masturbates away instead of offending, they do not meet diagnostic criteria as a pedophile.
Live by the definition, die by the definition.
“Not whether you’re a rapist or an addict, whether you like big butts or being submissive. Those are specific aspects to sexuality and behavior, not orientations.”
Hay, no-one is said that any of those things are “orientations”. And I’m sure that you’ll agree that pedophiles can be all, or none, of those things as well. :p
“But if I did give a tiny shit about what social conservatives say, I would wager that having pedophilia as a sexual orientation is going to give them much more ammo against gay people. In fact, this is the repeated claim they have made in the past. Frankly it’s ridiculous that you would have to resort to guessing what they would do, when we already know what they have done with the whole, “If gays can marry, what’s next, pedophiles?”
Bigots be bigots?
And no, I don’t think it will give homophobes more ammo for reasons;
1. “Homosexual” pedophilia is much more common than it should be considering the percentage of the general population that is gay. If “pedophilia” is is deviation and not an orientation all on its own, then why are gays more likely to be “deviant”? (Excuse me while I go wash the vomit out of my mouth).
2. Everything little known said.
I second not giving a fuck about what social conservatives say.My interest is in what will allow the most pedophiles to remain non-offenders, which takes understanding what pedophilia is.
Which takes defining it correctly.
@Panda
“ People confusing preference, paraphilia and orientation is the reason why people think “sapiosexual” is a thing.”
Yeah, Tumblr is a mess.
There’s no evidence that a preference for intelligence, or the dead for that matter, is an inborn sexual preference, that is self-discovered during adolescence, and is resistant to a person’s own attempts to change sexual preference. I mean, they *could* be, but I’ll change my opinion when I see evidence saying so. There is evidence, however, that pedophilia is all of that.
As it is, most sexual preferences , as well as most paraphillias, are largely *learned*.
Also, I see I got my P names confused and called you “Paradoxy” before. My apologies to you and Paradoxy. :/
Mrex, my patience is really thinning, because you are not understanding me, arguing in loops, and using meaningless aphorisms like “live by the definition, die by the definition.” I’m clearly arguing for the case of a specific definition that I believe is the most beneficial, while I also think there are other aspects to it that must evolve.
The only reason I linked to the APA is you requested for a source, now you’re shifting the goal post to a source for another reason.
I have also never claimed that the definition of orientation is “healthy,” just that it is neutral, and thus implies that it can be practiced healthily. And no, pedophilia is not neutral. In your hypothetical situation, they are still satiating fantasies, which is NOT a good behavior as it can lead to strengthening the paraphilia.
Also, @ the other person, if you REALLY don’t understand how characterizing necrophilia as an orientation wouldn’t be distressing to someone who is invested in the social wellbeing of people with various orientations, and the ability to treat people, and with a shred of empathy for victims, and that this conversation is “simply semantics,” then I’m fucking done here.
Looking back, I should’ve clarified that when I was talking about certain definitions being fixed by social context, I didn’t mean “they cannot change” or “cannot vary” so much as social usage is what sets the meaning of words. I think “descriptive not prescriptive” is a good way to think of it–definitions and connotations change because of how they’re commonly used by groups of people, which can be general or more regional etc. And obviously the complexity of words is a great and beautiful thing (it’s the basis for poetry, for example)
I do think, though, that as far as *terminology* for various fields of study, the sciences, sociology etc. go, definitions should ideally be as specific as possible, because often ideas are so nuanced that it’s really important to be precise. See “theory” in common usage vs. one very specific definition when you’re talking about theories in the scientific sense. As far as I can tell, “orientation” is in this terminology camp.