# Most humor is Disrespectful and Otherising



## versikk

when you boil it down, a lot of humor stems from being derogatory.

common sources of laughter:
different ethnicity
being sexually unattractive, or physical deformities
possessing no talents
being unintelligent
not fitting into the social group
being "too old" or "too young"
for exceptionally immature people: being non-cishet

incidentally these things can also make people angry.

basically, being "bad" or "different" is unappealing, to the point where it is a constant source of humor. i guess we laugh to stamp out the deformities?


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## bad baby

There's an ancient proverb/quote that goes something like this (I'm paraphrasing): 
"Tragedy is the act of tearing up the things that we hold dear, comedy is the act of tearing up things of no value to us."

I think the point is that we make light of our differences, until they don't seem so scary and alien to us anymore. 

Not sure though, I could just be talking hogwash out of my behind here.


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## Maslow

I think the best humor comes from looking at the absurdities of life.


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## versikk

bad baby said:


> There's an ancient proverb/quote that goes something like this (I'm paraphrasing):
> "Tragedy is the act of tearing up the things that we hold dear, comedy is the act of tearing up things of no value to us."
> 
> I think the point is that we make light of our differences, until they don't seem so scary and alien to us anymore.
> 
> Not sure though, I could just be talking hogwash out of my behind here.


that's basically "we laugh to stamp out the deformities" , only painted with a different brush, isn't it :smile2:



Maslow said:


> I think the best humor comes from looking at the absurdities of life.


Yes.


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## funnynihilist

So this is why the millennials mostly don't seem to prefer humor?


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## blue2

Maybe most humor comes from being the victim of disrespect & othering in the first place & derogatory humor is an attempt to balance the karma of the universe.


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## C137

I think you're looking at this from the prism of how you were treated? I don't think that's most humor is. It's what you were on the receiving end of too much? Or what you observed happening to others frequently?


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## WillYouStopDave

That's why I tend to stick to toilet humor. It still offends people so you can't really win. 

I understand your point and how you feel about it but in a way, I kind of see it as a pressure relief valve. People who have issues with one thing or another are not going to stop thinking whatever they think no matter what. I'd rather have them laughing at me than have them bottling whatever it is up inside them for ages until they have 20 years of pent up aggression built up inside just waiting for something to set them off. 

When I was younger, pretty much nothing was off-limits for stand up comedy. And gay jokes were always a staple of comedy. I'm bi and not openly so so there were many secretly cringy moments for me when I'd be watching a comedy special with friends or something. I'd be sitting there hoping they didn't catch a certain look on my face or notice I was turning red or something. Or I'd be hoping they didn't wonder why I wasn't laughing as hard as they were. Whatever. Just that kind of thing. At the end of the day, people laughed about stuff and we still ended up with a society that is more tolerant and respectful of people with different sexual orientations. WAY more tolerant than say the 80s.


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## Suchness

I haven't seen anything in stand up that I thought was going too far.


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## bad baby

Ok I was more thinking of "universally unpleasant" things (death, rejection, etc.) that are joked about when I wrote the first post.



versikk said:


> that's basically "we laugh to stamp out the deformities" , only painted with a different brush, isn't it :smile2:
> 
> Yes.


No because true deformities are a low-hanging fruit. The only exception I can think of is between friends/couples, when you're both clear there's no malicious intent, like a kind of quasi-hazing routine.

Like, no-one with a heart would make fun of a mentally disabled kid for their intelligence. But we all make digs at harebrained celebrities to take them down a notch. The true Others are persecuted and ostracised, not laughed at on Late Night television.

Interested to hear your response to @C137 ITT.


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## rabidfoxes

Idk, maybe I isolate myself from the sort of humour I don't like, but I don't notice that much derogatory humour. In the U.K. most humour is self-deprecating, which helps people bond. The whole "laughing at deformities" thing seems very high school, or even primary school. It's just not cool to laugh at otherness amongst adults. There is "breaking the taboo" humour, but you really have to know your audience to know that you are not going to hurt or offend anyone, and people tend to avoid that most of the time.


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## Persephone The Dread

I think a lot of humour is actually supposed to be funny because it's relatable. It also kind of defines the boundaries of what's acceptable to laugh about in a culture, which is increasingly less stuff when people no longer relate much, which is the case right now.

A lot of the humour I come across is either dark, surreal or self deprecating as well.

There is this though:

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...-like-singapore-business-school-a8732251.html


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## SorryForMyEnglish

Humor can be different. Just because some jokes are more popular doesn't mean it can't be otherwise. It's just like any cultural sphere.


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## RSxo

Most comedy is light-hearted fun about relatable topics. It doesn't carry derogatory intent - it's simply a form of story-telling to make people smile and laugh


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## versikk

funnynihilist said:


> So this is why the millennials mostly don't seem to prefer humor?


i don't understand this



C137 said:


> I think you're looking at this from the prism of how you were treated?


it's definitely based on my second- and third hand observations since being a child:

"hahaha that man is wearing underwear with heart motif" (scenario featured in millions of cartoons. memetically "funny")

"hahaha homosexuals are abnormal and disgusting and silly, they have sex in the butt ahahahaaha" <-- all homos are male

Family Guy: "hahah Stewie is a homosexual baby"

also FG: "hahaha shut up my daughter, you are ugly and homosexual"

"that man is ugly, he's probably a child rapist, hahahah" - and stuff like https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllGaysArePedophiles

"that girl is so stupid, her denseness annoys and humors me"

"blonde women are dumb hahahahah"

"X is dumber than a bag of rocks"

"old people having sex? ewww gross hahahaha i judge old people" - and The many times Seth Meyers has joked about old people's health/mood/bodies.

the hundreds of times people have made fun of Trump's alleged "peepee tape" because paraphilias are lolworthy (i'm biased of course).

Me laughing at people for not having IT skills (i nearly laughed in a coworker's face the other day for not being IT proficient enough - stopped myself in the last second).

I may be looking at this with the wrong lens tho.:smile2:



WillYouStopDave said:


> I kind of see it as a pressure relief valve. People who have issues with one thing or another are not going to stop thinking whatever they think no matter what. I'd rather have them laughing at me than have them bottling whatever it is up inside them for ages until they have 20 years of pent up aggression built up inside just waiting for something to set them off.
> 
> When I was younger, pretty much nothing was off-limits for stand up comedy. And gay jokes were always a staple of comedy. I'm bi and not openly so so there were many secretly cringy moments for me when I'd be watching a comedy special with friends or something. I'd be sitting there hoping they didn't catch a certain look on my face or notice I was turning red or something. Or I'd be hoping they didn't wonder why I wasn't laughing as hard as they were. Whatever. Just that kind of thing. At the end of the day, people laughed about stuff and we still ended up with a society that is more tolerant and respectful of people with different sexual orientations. WAY more tolerant than say the 80s.


Good points.



bad baby said:


> Like, no-one with a heart would make fun of a mentally disabled kid for their intelligence
> 
> Interested to hear your response to @C137 ITT.


well no, but the term _retard _is used pretty often. more common with children, but still. I started waning off that word about 2 years ago.... :O


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## TheForestWasDark

Suchness said:


> I haven't seen anything in stand up that I thought was going too far.


at 3:10 he absolutely loses it, some people love it some hate it lol.


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## versikk

TheForestWasDark said:


> at 3:10 he absolutely loses it, some people love it some hate it lol.


i'd say 18:20 is when he loses it.>


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## TheForestWasDark

versikk said:


> i'd say 18:20 is when he loses it.>


jesus, a literal example of assinine otherising.


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## Harveykinkle

I agree 100%. A lot of jokes are thinly veiled insults at individuals and/or groups. Some might not notice it because they're not the ones being constantly **** on.


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## rabidfoxes

Ha-ha.


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## versikk

TheForestWasDark said:


> jesus, a literal example of assinine otherising.


It's pretty unhinged to be that forthright with your hebephilia, it's an extremely taboo subject

i'm not otherising:roll


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## versikk

rabidfoxes said:


> Ha-ha.


i dont understand this


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## TheForestWasDark

versikk said:


> It's pretty unhinged to be that forthright with your hebephilia, it's an extremely taboo subject
> 
> i'm not otherising:roll


Hebephilia is the sexual preference for early adolescent children (those roughly ages 11 to 14). Some evidence suggests that hebephilia is a distinct and discernable erotic age preference.

hmm where and how did you come to that conclusion? and i wasn't talking about you.


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## SplendidBob




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## rabidfoxes

versikk said:


> i dont understand this


Theresa May is the U.K. prime minister who is stepping down
The blank page represents her legacy, which means that she has achieved zero

It's a humorous cover of a satirical paper.


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## Persephone The Dread

TheForestWasDark said:


> at 3:10 he absolutely loses it, some people love it some hate it lol.


Yeah that wasn't funny at all, I've seen much better attempts at dealing with hecklers where they actually incorporate it into a decent joke.

Oh yeah I just remember this I watched recently (not quite the same though,):


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## bad baby

well that's only the second-naughtiest thing that Theresa May has ever done.

Anyway.

This thread kind of reminded me of MadTV back in the day (1990s/2000s). There were a lot of what are now taboo topics on the show, seemingly sexist, racist, homophobic jokes etc. But when you look a bit deeper they were probably commentaries on the general hypocrisy and discomfort coming from society towards these Others (or sometimes it was self-directed), rather than the Otherness in and of itself.

But yeah that's all a relic of the past now. 

"Retard" has been a dirty word for some years now. In its traditional sense, anyway. But I mean I reserve the right to call regular people retards when they fxck up when they should have known better.


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## Not Human

^when everyone uses it that way then you would do the same thing. For me it's different. I never used it on anyone.


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## bad baby

Not Human said:


> ^when everyone uses it that way then you would do the same thing. For me it's different. I never used it on anyone.


Actually I'm of the impression that most people use it your way (i.e. not at all)?

It's like the expression "that's so gay." I remember years ago on my university campus there was a poster teaching us to distinguish between a good-natured utterance of the phrase, and a homophobic one. Nowadays I think the only usage is the homophobic one, and that poster - if it were to be seen now - would be a major #cringefest.


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## Persephone The Dread

I like how her humour is 60% making people uncomfortable but just slightly. This is actually the most expressive I think I've seen her though lol.


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## andy1984

people have offensive ideas growing in bubbles in their heads. comedy pops the bubbles and reminds them its not true or it doesn't really matter. this is just exposing the otherising and disrespect that already exists and bringing it into the open. its a way of expressing hatred and disgust without there being any follow through.


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## versikk

TheForestWasDark said:


> Hebephilia is the sexual preference for early adolescent children (those roughly ages 11 to 14). Some evidence suggests that hebephilia is a distinct and discernable erotic age preference.
> 
> hmm where and how did you come to that conclusion? and i wasn't talking about you.


i don't know what you referenced then.

and yeah i know what **** is, Hicks described a young girl's intimate body in a romanticised way.



rabidfoxes said:


> Theresa May is the U.K. prime minister who is stepping down
> The blank page represents her legacy, which means that she has achieved zero
> 
> It's a humorous cover of a satirical paper.


oh thanks



bad baby said:


> But I mean I reserve the right to call regular people retards when they fxck up when they should have known better.


this is exactly what i meant haha

by doing this you are indirectly stating that mentally handicapped people are worthy of derision.



andy1984 said:


> people have offensive ideas growing in bubbles in their heads. comedy pops the bubbles and reminds them its not true or it doesn't really matter. this is just exposing the otherising and disrespect that already exists and bringing it into the open. its a way of expressing hatred and disgust without there being any follow through.


i'd say this makes sense but i read some research thing yyears ago that said sexist jokes actually effects to promote sexist ideas..


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## bad baby

versikk said:


> i don't know what you referenced then.
> 
> and yeah i know what **** is, Hicks described a young girl's intimate body in a romanticised way.
> 
> oh thanks
> 
> this is exactly what i meant haha
> 
> by doing this you are indirectly stating that mentally handicapped people are worthy of derision.
> 
> i'd say this makes sense but i read some research thing yyears ago that said sexist jokes actually effects to promote sexist ideas..


Well the point is that the person is _not_ mentally handicapped and has no legit reason for their fxck up. But I do see your point and I haven't thought of it this way before.

I have no good explanation, but there seems to be a universal, primitive shame surrounding unintelligent behaviour, just as there is with behaviours that challenge our social and cultural norms - boys acting effeminate and girls acting masculine, for example. The ultimate primitive shame is the one around sex, which afaik nobody has really been able to explain why it's there in all of us.

Modern progressive societies are moving past that, of course, but it feels a bit like a cover-up. For instance, if you are trying too hard to hide your flaws and insecurities, it in fact has the opposite effect of becoming more glaring and salient to yourself and possibly other people, because of how much attention you are giving to it.

Idk where I'm going with this but it just seemed like a relevant thought.


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## versikk

bad baby said:


> Well the point is that the person is _not_ mentally handicapped and has no legit reason for their fxck up. But I do see your point and I haven't thought of it this way before.
> 
> I have no good explanation, but there seems to be a universal, primitive shame surrounding unintelligent behaviour, just as there is with behaviours that challenge our social and cultural norms - boys acting effeminate and girls acting masculine, for example. The ultimate primitive shame is the one around sex, which afaik nobody has really been able to explain why it's there in all of us.
> 
> Modern progressive societies are moving past that, of course, but it feels a bit like a cover-up. For instance, if you are trying too hard to hide your flaws and insecurities, it in fact has the opposite effect of becoming more glaring and salient to yourself and possibly other people, because of how much attention you are giving to it.
> 
> Idk where I'm going with this but it just seemed like a relevant thought.


Stellar post badb

This is exactly what I'm talking about!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Suchness

Comedy and humour teaches us not to take life so seriously.


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## bad baby

Two hypotheses on shame:

H1: Shame is a protective mechanism that keeps our natural drive to procreate from overpowering everything so that we can continue to function.

H2: Shame is a natural derivative of sexual economics.

Personally I think there's more support for H2 given the varying degrees of openness towards sex across cultures, time periods, etc.

And then if we take survival + procreation to be the fundamental driver, the feeling of shame surrounding anything else can be indirectly derived from that as a starting point.

#JUNKSCIENCE


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## Persephone The Dread

bad baby said:


> Two hypotheses on shame:
> 
> H1: Shame is a protective mechanism that keeps our natural drive to procreate from overpowering everything so that we can continue to function.
> 
> H2: Shame is a natural derivative of sexual economics.
> 
> Personally I think there's more support for H2 given the varying degrees of openness towards sex across cultures, time periods, etc.
> 
> And then if we take survival + procreation to be the fundamental driver, the feeling of shame surrounding anything else can be indirectly derived from that as a starting point.
> 
> #JUNKSCIENCE


It seems kind of odd that Humans would evolve an emotion that prevents focusing on reproduction too much. I mean I can think of some potential reasons it could be useful (you can't be so focused that you are distracted from other tasks involved in survival,) but when I consider how damaging shame seems to be it seems like overkill for that purpose and I think H2 is a lot more likely.

From what I've read shame and guilt has a greater effect on female sexual behaviour than male, so maybe men just get shamed as a byproduct of that even though it's less successful at changing their behaviour. (I think male sexual behaviour is shamed as much in modern culture over the last decade or so.)


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## andy1984

sabbath9 said:


> Did you hear about the girl who went fishing with three guys?


that's sexist and normalises a practice which is destroying the environment. it should be 2 guys and 2 girls and they should be gathering wild berries. and they should be all going together, not the girl going along with the guys as if guys are in charge by default. and even better would be if they were just people, because how is gender relevant? and also need clarification if we're talking about gender or sex, because the girl could be a transexual and that could be relevant, or of course one or all of the guys. are any of the guys gay? because idk if that is important or not. can the girl have a shaved head? i'd like that.


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## andy1984

versikk said:


> i'd say this makes sense but i read some research thing yyears ago that said sexist jokes actually effects to promote sexist ideas..


yeah. but i mean going to the gym a couple of times a week is a good habit. but i read that if you chain your slave ****** in the gym periodically people frown upon that, so gyms are actually bad.


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## andy1984

sabbath9 said:


> She came back with a red snapper


this is alienation of the female body. also she might have had a penis as I said before, which you left out of the first part of the joke. and if you mean because she came back with a fish and the guys had none, this is also sexist. it's quite ambiguous.

if she caught a snapper then she must have a good rod :teeth

all the men caught was crabs

oh the outrage


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## harrison

Suchness said:


> Comedy and humour teaches us not to take life so seriously.


I agree - and not to take ourselves so seriously.


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## bad baby

Persephone The Dread said:


> It seems kind of odd that Humans would evolve an emotion that prevents focusing on reproduction too much. I mean I can think of some potential reasons it could be useful (you can't be so focused that you are distracted from other tasks involved in survival,) but when I consider how damaging shame seems to be it seems like overkill for that purpose and I think H2 is a lot more likely.
> 
> From what I've read shame and guilt has a greater effect on female sexual behaviour than male, so maybe men just get shamed as a byproduct of that even though it's less successful at changing their behaviour. (I think male sexual behaviour is shamed as much in modern culture over the last decade or so.)


Where do you see male sexual shaming? I'm curious because that's the thing - it's difficult to make an objective, quantifiable analysis of the amount of shame we feel or are subjected to. From what I've seen men are shamed for certain (non-sexual) behaviours they engage in to obtain sex (lie, manipulate, etc.), rather than how much sex they are having, or any intrinsic value judgment attached to it in the way that women are judged.

I can see shame as a safety hatch to maintain selectivity in sexual activities, so an individual isn't tempted to procreate with an undesirable partner and "waste" their resources on a "subpar" offspring, especially in their sexual prime. Given widespread claims about the strength of the male sex drive (which may or may not be exaggerations), this could be a necessary precaution.

Another interesting point raised in the article is that, historically, men have been the builders of institutions and organisations. These are larger, shallower networks, compared to the traditionally "domestic/private" spheres that women run in. We might speculate that men would value traits relevant to how others perceive them - such as honour, integrity, shame, etc. - more highly than women do.

Ofc based on their evolutionary reproductive strategy, women would have more shame when it comes to sex. But, I mean, if a lady plays her cards right, her sexual reputation in the community need only be tangentially related to the number of orgasms that she's having...


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## crimeclub

There are hundreds of genres of comedy, but regarding the 'otherising' humor it seems to be popular with the online right. I find that style to be funny every once in a while, but it's not something I'd cling to. The main problem I have with right-wing anti-PC humor isn't that I find it offensive, very little offends me, but it almost completely relies on kicking down, as opposed to punching up.

I think it can be problematic for people especially younger people to spend so much time with that kind of thing, online humor/memes whether intended or not can serve to do more than just entertain people, it can and does normalize things that shouldn't be normalized, and a smaller degree it can and does lead to offline actions. I'm not saying that's the goal or what it always leads to, I'm saying that's a reality that shouldn't be ignored.

Anti-PC humor can be funny, I consider Louis CK and George Carlin to be the 2 funniest comedians, but when someone like Steven Crowder for example focuses so much of his time on kicking down on marginalized people it makes me wonder what exactly his intentions are. Actually I don't wonder, he's a bigoted ******* and has been for over a decade. Change my mind.


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## Persephone The Dread

bad baby said:


> Where do you see male sexual shaming? I'm curious because that's the thing - it's difficult to make an objective, quantifiable analysis of the amount of shame we feel or are subjected to. From what I've seen men are shamed for certain (non-sexual) behaviours they engage in to obtain sex (lie, manipulate, etc.), rather than how much sex they are having, or any intrinsic value judgment attached to it in the way that women are judged.
> 
> I can see shame as a safety hatch to maintain selectivity in sexual activities, so an individual isn't tempted to procreate with an undesirable partner and "waste" their resources on a "subpar" offspring, especially in their sexual prime. Given widespread claims about the strength of the male sex drive (which may or may not be exaggerations), this could be a necessary precaution.
> 
> Another interesting point raised in the article is that, historically, men have been the builders of institutions and organisations. These are larger, shallower networks, compared to the traditionally "domestic/private" spheres that women run in. We might speculate that men would value traits relevant to how others perceive them - such as honour, integrity, shame, etc. - more highly than women do.
> 
> Ofc based on their evolutionary reproductive strategy, women would have more shame when it comes to sex. But, I mean, if a lady plays her cards right, her sexual reputation in the community need only be tangentially related to the number of orgasms that she's having...


It's not having sex specifically that is judged with men, but more a considerable portion of heterosexual male sexuality and preferences.

I also think that's a likely additional reason (I think there are probably multiple really.)

I think shame effects men in certain areas more than others (they're far more effected by gender role shame than women are imo,) it's just according to research I've read it doesn't have much of an impact on sexuality. Eg: religious males are less likely to keep vows of chastity than religious women. Most likely has something to do with sex drive, since women with a higher sex drive also tend to have a less restricted sociosexual orientation.

There's other research that shows that on average women who are less restricted sociosexually have more psychopathic or 'dark triad' traits, this applies to both sexes actually but there's a number of research that specifies bisexuality as well (mostly 'kinsey 1-2' I think, I actually don't think that's a good way of measuring sexuality but one study that comes to mind* used that scale to describe levels of bisexuality in women. It seems that sociosexuality is also only higher in the groups of bisexual women with greater dark triad traits, well actually I think it overlaps so the dark triad traits exist in more groups of women than the higher sociosexuality does. Along with bisexual people being overrepresented among delinquent populations for both sexes supposedly.) So that would also discourage caring what other people think and prosocial attitudes in general.

*


> Two studies examined the connection between women's sexual orientation, their sociosexuality (i.e. willingness , attitudes, and desires associated with uncommitted sexual behaviour), and Dark Triad traits (Machiavellianism, nar-cissism, and psychopathy). Both studies found that moderately bisexual women reported less-restricted sociosexuality, as well as higher levels of Dark Triad traits--particularly psy-chopathy. In both studies, sexual orientation differences in Dark Triad traits were mediated by sociosexuality. Study 2 confirmed that the relationship between women's sexual orientation and sociosexuality is curvilinear, with moderately bisexual women (i.e. Kinsey 1-2) reporting heightened sociosexuality compared to other groups. These results are consistent with the conclusion that moderate levels of female bisexuality may be a by-product of selection for traits that result in less restricted sociosexuality. At either end of the orientation continuum, women who report exclusive or near-exclusive homosexuality or heterosexuality report more restricted sociosexuality and lower Dark Triad scores, compared to women nearer to the middle of the continuum. As such, the aetiology of moderate bisexuality in women may be distinct from the aetiology of exclusive or near-exclusive homosexu-ality in women.


OK so I edited this post a bunch of times and now it's kind of a mess especially that long set of brackets but yeah.


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## Tetragammon

I've never had much of a sense of humor. Being the brunt of all the jokes and having almost everyone make fun of me and playing dumb pranks on me daily when I was about 10-13 probably contributed to that. As well as the fact that my parents didn't let me watch much comedy as a kid because they thought it was "crude." 

Nowadays I just find most humor to be stupid. Especially crap like memes. Some of the stuff my online friends think is hilarious, while I just fake a chuckle and shake my head. I wonder sometimes if my lack of a sense of humor is one of the big reasons why I can't seem to connect to people at all.


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## bad baby

Persephone The Dread said:


> It's not having sex specifically that is judged with men, but more a considerable portion of heterosexual male sexuality and preferences.
> 
> I also think that's a likely additional reason (I think there are probably multiple really.)
> 
> I think shame effects men in certain areas more than others (they're far more effected by gender role shame than women are imo,) it's just according to research I've read it doesn't have much of an impact on sexuality. Eg: religious males are less likely to keep vows of chastity than religious women. Most likely has something to do with sex drive, since women with a higher sex drive also tend to have a less restricted sociosexual orientation.
> 
> There's other research that shows that on average women who are less restricted sociosexually have more psychopathic or 'dark triad' traits, this applies to both sexes actually but there's a number of research that specifies bisexuality as well (mostly 'kinsey 1-2' I think, I actually don't think that's a good way of measuring sexuality but one study that comes to mind* used that scale to describe levels of bisexuality in women. It seems that sociosexuality is also only higher in the groups of bisexual women with greater dark triad traits, well actually I think it overlaps so the dark triad traits exist in more groups of women than the higher sociosexuality does. Along with bisexual people being overrepresented among delinquent populations for both sexes supposedly.) So that would also discourage caring what other people think and prosocial attitudes in general.
> 
> *
> 
> OK so I edited this post a bunch of times and now it's kind of a mess especially that long set of brackets but yeah.


Ooh that's interesting stuff. I had a cursory glance at a couple of the links, but wi have to look at them in more detail to get the full picture.

For now it seems, shame surrounding sex could serve to restrict sociosexuality, which would benefit the female reproductive strategy evolutionarily speaking. Whereas shame in other arenas (i.e., social standing) would increase sociosexuality through access to willing mates and sexual opportunities, which would benefit males?. Some sort of compartmentalisation hyposlthesis, idk.

The Dark Triad stuff is of particular interest to me. Most interpersonal and dating advice that I'm come across incorporates some aspects of it, to varying extents and/or levels of transparency. And I know people have instinctive disgust towards any kind of marginally manipulative or disingenuous behaviour, but it'd be interesting to see if/where the sweet spot lies where it slides from pro-social into anti-social territory.

This is all kinda vague and handwavy at this point but that's all I got for now.


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## sanpellegrino

Maslow said:


> I think the best humor comes from looking at the absurdities of life.


I agree. When you glance at life, you pick things up. Random things from nowhere. I find myself chuckling all the time.


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## Persephone The Dread

bad baby said:


> Ooh that's interesting stuff. I had a cursory glance at a couple of the links, but wi have to look at them in more detail to get the full picture.
> 
> For now it seems, shame surrounding sex could serve to restrict sociosexuality, which would benefit the female reproductive strategy evolutionarily speaking. Whereas shame in other arenas (i.e., social standing) would increase sociosexuality through access to willing mates and sexual opportunities, which would benefit males?. Some sort of compartmentalisation hyposlthesis, idk.
> 
> The Dark Triad stuff is of particular interest to me. Most interpersonal and dating advice that I'm come across incorporates some aspects of it, to varying extents and/or levels of transparency. And I know people have instinctive disgust towards any kind of marginally manipulative or disingenuous behaviour, but it'd be interesting to see if/where the sweet spot lies where it slides from pro-social into anti-social territory.
> 
> This is all kinda vague and handwavy at this point but that's all I got for now.


(I did the dumb thing where I wrote this just before leaving the house, so it's kind of rushed and goes off topic in places. These are also just my general thoughts)

Evo-psych explanations and similar are pretty speculative but I do think there's something to the idea that there are multiple reproductive strategies and they're prioritised in different environments (not 100% because some people may be less inclined to switch strategy due to genetic reasons, and then ultimately fail reproductively.) Not to mention some degree of mixing and matching too, people don't just stick to one style all the time. Quite a bit of sexuality seems opportunistic as well, based on the environment, and has intrasexual elements, like the whole prison-gay thing. Not necessarily linked purely to reproduction but also group bonding, social status, and child raising considerations.

Shaming other women into not having sex is always going to be of reproductive benefit for women if it works (and it seems to,) cause you know, but being restricted sociosexually is only an advantage in certain environments. In the current dating market and if you're well off economically, being sociosexually restricted is probably a disadvantage because there will probably always be more unrestricted than restricted men, though the latter definitely exist and have different strategies and behaviour to promiscuous men.

I think when women are less concerned about resources they're more inclined to have more casual sex with men because they're less concerned with finding an ideal provider or balancing that with other concerns. There's also the all mothering hypothesis, which potentially potentially explains the increased bisexuality in certain groups, it's kind of opportunistic. I also think lesbians are more inclined to date women with kids than men because they have less options. And besides that you see increased rates of bisexuality in certain kinds of female-centric environments where shaming women for being sexually open is more frowned upon, and where things start to seem more bonobo-like:

https://phys.org/news/2012-03-female-bonobos-homosexual-sex-social.html

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15299711003609724

(people tend to assume it's a performance that's for the benefit of men, but that doesn't seem like the most likely explanation in every case.)

I actually don't think shaming men is something men tend to do and doesn't seem to impact the sociosexuality of men regardless (or if it does, not to the degree it does for women.) When they do it's often more to appeal to women as opposed to an instinctive thing they're doing in a competitive sense. Women are more likely to shame men, in an attempt to change them into more desirable partners I think.

However when it comes to the way many men treat gender deviant or psychologically gentle males (for lack of a better description,) they do seem to want to destroy them. Not sexually as such (although it infuriates many men when a guy they see as non-conforming is very attractive to women, which they often are to certain groups because of the various strategies and sexualities,) but in a general sense I think because they're a risk as fighters or in a 'building an army' context. I don't think they know what to do with them outside of an all-male environment where there are gaps in roles left due to the absence of women. You kind of see in the stories people have written throughout millennia, and psychological theories that incorporate them (Jungian analysis,) that ambiguous men, along with women are often seen as destructive to 'patriarchal order.' That seems very ingrained into people's consciousness (plus as time has gone on the ambiguity of various figures has become increasingly demonised.)

Anyway when men struggle to get a partner, most of the time they don't resort to shaming men, they start to complain about women instead and who 'women are giving sex to' they also complain about female preferences, not male preferences. There is a small amount of complaining about men, but it's very limited in this context. I have some pretty dark theories about exactly what kind of strategy they're part of on an evo-psych level, but that's also off topic.


----------



## bad baby

Persephone The Dread said:


> (I did the dumb thing where I wrote this just before leaving the house, so it's kind of rushed and goes off topic in places. These are also just my general thoughts)
> 
> Evo-psych explanations and similar are pretty speculative but I do think there's something to the idea that there are multiple reproductive strategies and they're prioritised in different environments (not 100% because some people may be less inclined to switch strategy due to genetic reasons, and then ultimately fail reproductively.) Not to mention some degree of mixing and matching too, people don't just stick to one style all the time. Quite a bit of sexuality seems opportunistic as well, based on the environment, and has intrasexual elements, like the whole prison-gay thing. Not necessarily linked purely to reproduction but also group bonding, social status, and child raising considerations.
> 
> Shaming other women into not having sex is always going to be of reproductive benefit for women if it works (and it seems to,) cause you know, but being restricted sociosexually is only an advantage in certain environments. In the current dating market and if you're well off economically, being sociosexually restricted is probably a disadvantage because there will probably always be more unrestricted than restricted men, though the latter definitely exist and have different strategies and behaviour to promiscuous men.
> 
> I think when women are less concerned about resources they're more inclined to have more casual sex with men because they're less concerned with finding an ideal provider or balancing that with other concerns. There's also the all mothering hypothesis, which potentially potentially explains the increased bisexuality in certain groups, it's kind of opportunistic. I also think lesbians are more inclined to date women with kids than men because they have less options. And besides that you see increased rates of bisexuality in certain kinds of female-centric environments where shaming women for being sexually open is more frowned upon, and where things start to seem more bonobo-like:
> 
> https://phys.org/news/2012-03-female-bonobos-homosexual-sex-social.html
> 
> https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15299711003609724
> 
> (people tend to assume it's a performance that's for the benefit of men, but that doesn't seem like the most likely explanation in every case.)
> 
> I actually don't think shaming men is something men tend to do and doesn't seem to impact the sociosexuality of men regardless (or if it does, not to the degree it does for women.) When they do it's often more to appeal to women as opposed to an instinctive thing they're doing in a competitive sense. Women are more likely to shame men, in an attempt to change them into more desirable partners I think.
> 
> However when it comes to the way many men treat gender deviant or psychologically gentle males (for lack of a better description,) they do seem to want to destroy them. Not sexually as such (although it infuriates many men when a guy they see as non-conforming is very attractive to women, which they often are to certain groups because of the various strategies and sexualities,) but in a general sense I think because they're a risk as fighters or in a 'building an army' context. I don't think they know what to do with them outside of an all-male environment where there are gaps in roles left due to the absence of women. You kind of see in the stories people have written throughout millennia, and psychological theories that incorporate them (Jungian analysis,) that ambiguous men, along with women are often seen as destructive to 'patriarchal order.' That seems very ingrained into people's consciousness (plus as time has gone on the ambiguity of various figures has become increasingly demonised.)
> 
> Anyway when men struggle to get a partner, most of the time they don't resort to shaming men, they start to complain about women instead and who 'women are giving sex to' they also complain about female preferences, not male preferences. There is a small amount of complaining about men, but it's very limited in this context. I have some pretty dark theories about exactly what kind of strategy they're part of on an evo-psych level, but that's also off topic.


From what I've read [iirc: Vohs, 2004], sexual strategies seem to vary along a gradient instead of multiple discrete categories, and either gender may take on aspects of the opposing strategy to a larger or smaller extent, depending on the culture/society/period etc. (possibly also other external factors).

This is from a heteronormative pov though - although iirc it was mentioned that things should operate more or less the same way in the homosexual "market" so to speak - and it takes a very dichotomous view of women as suppliers and men as the demanders, which explains a lot of the prevailing patterns but doesn't really address the gender-neutrality of the "universal shame" thing that I was wondering about earlier.

Intuitively I feel like shaming would be a highly inefficient tactic in a "zero sum game", which I don't think women are playing, anyway. But from a "quality over quantity" approach, it would make the woman herself seem more selective and in-demand than her competition, essentially elevating her own attractiveness in the sexual marketplace. Which is probably why men don't shame other men - it adds nothing to their sexual appeal and can only disrupt their social cohesion.

But I guess this would only work when women shame other women _for_ being promiscuous, rather than _out of_ having sex. I don't have enough evidence, either empirical or anecdotal, to expand further on this though.

I would be cautious in making the "resourceful women have more casual sex" link. Female attraction towards a "provider" is a phylogenic thing (evolutionarily hardwired into us), whereas resources are ontological (accumulated within individual's lifetime) and unlikely to reverse millions of years of genetic encoding. I might be wrong about this. But it's a general quandry I have with the whole evolutionary psychology business - how do we take the proximal vs. the distal (and species vs. individual) and bring them onto the same plane of analysis?

You're right that it's all very speculative at this point. Descriptive at best and definitely not prescriptive, although I'll admit it's tempting to feel like you've "cracked the code" when you stumble upon a particularly fitting theory and want to look for ways to apply it in real life.

Anyhow.

Sexual economics explains the maintenance of the patriarchy as a way for men to "gain an upper hand", given their handicap in terms of avg sexual value. In this sense I can see how anyone that falls outside of the conventional gender roles would be a huge threat to male sexual access and penalised as a result. This model also predicts that women in such societies would conversely guard their chastity more tightly as a self-preservation strategy, leading to a vicious circle that feminists have always warned us about.

There's links between high testosterone with both bisexuality and promiscuity in women, so it might be the third factor there.

And as for the complaining, women do the same (i.e. the "men only like bxtches, they don't like nice girls like me" rhetoric). To me it seems like more of a mentality/personality trait rather than a gendered strategy per se.

Let's hear your dark theories, I'm intrigued!


----------



## Persephone The Dread

bad baby said:


> From what I've read [iirc: Vohs, 2004], sexual strategies seem to vary along a gradient instead of multiple discrete categories, and either gender may take on aspects of the opposing strategy to a larger or smaller extent, depending on the culture/society/period etc. (possibly also other external factors).
> 
> This is from a heteronormative pov though - although iirc it was mentioned that things should operate more or less the same way in the homosexual "market" so to speak - and it takes a very dichotomous view of women as suppliers and men as the demanders, which explains a lot of the prevailing patterns but doesn't really address the gender-neutrality of the "universal shame" thing that I was wondering about earlier.


It seems lesbian relationships stereotypically tend  towards monogamyand gay ones tend towards polyandry, casual relationships and open relationships, but it varies obviously on an individual level. I think heterosexual relationships fall in between the two on average instead though, because there's less similarity/more compromise. So it probably depends on, as in the paper you linked who has the upperhand in the sexual marketplace in a given dating environment. I don't actually think this varies based on gender typicality in other areas, which is interesting to me. Like I know I've read stuff before that suggests sexual preferences more generally don't always align with gender role typicality in women, and it seems anecdotally true for gay men (I think there's research that shows that too but I haven't bothered checking it out.)

I do wonder if the shame around sex really is universal though. It seems in terms of people feeling ashamed there are degrees to it (in general too of course the degree to which people experience shame varies from one extreme to the other,) and then even more degrees of variation when it comes to modifying behaviour in response to those feelings. Shames use generally definitely seems to be connected to status, and to keeping people in line but I think it can be used competitively too.

Also in some cultures women find shame more attractive:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/147470491501300103

It's interesting because it seems specific to certain cultures. Probably a 'WEIRD psychology' thing.



> Intuitively I feel like shaming would be a highly inefficient tactic in a "zero sum game", which I don't think women are playing, anyway. But from a "quality over quantity" approach, it would make the woman herself seem more selective and in-demand than her competition, essentially elevating her own attractiveness in the sexual marketplace. Which is probably why men don't shame other men - it adds nothing to their sexual appeal and can only disrupt their social cohesion.
> 
> But I guess this would only work when women shame other women _for_ being promiscuous, rather than _out of_ having sex. I don't have enough evidence, either empirical or anecdotal, to expand further on this though.
> 
> I would be cautious in making the "resourceful women have more casual sex" link. Female attraction towards a "provider" is a phylogenic thing (evolutionarily hardwired into us), whereas resources are ontological (accumulated within individual's lifetime) and unlikely to reverse millions of years of genetic encoding. I might be wrong about this. But it's a general quandry I have with the whole evolutionary psychology business - how do we take the proximal vs. the distal (and species vs. individual) and bring them onto the same plane of analysis?
> 
> You're right that it's all very speculative at this point. Descriptive at best and definitely not prescriptive, although I'll admit it's tempting to feel like you've "cracked the code" when you stumble upon a particularly fitting theory and want to look for ways to apply it in real life.


Yeah I think shaming other women for promiscuity does elevate women's status in the sexual marketplace if they are physically attractive, otherwise I could see the approach backfiring actually like when a guy tries to act more socially confident than he is and seems fake. Also yeah I don't think shaming women purely for having sex is something most people do, and would be far less effective than shaming promiscuity I think since the former would make it seem like you don't like sex at all, which would be seen as unattractive.

I don't think it works on an individual level like that, like the more resourceful a woman becomes the more casual sex she has, but on a group level it seems that as societies become better off and as women feel more comfortable they end up engaging in casual sex more often because that's more of an option (less risks.) I think the introduction of the birth control pill must have had a huge impact on this too. There's still going to be many women who aren't satisfied with that idea though like you say, and I think the way the dating market is set up now punishes people who prefer the idea of a long term relationship. So I'm not sure it's an ideal strategy in current society from an evolutionary pov.

Certainly for women who want a monogamous relationship instead of casual sex or some kind of poly situation but are very well off and have a decent job or who are in academia, they struggle to find a partner due to a shortage of men in that environment, so they end up sharing partners with many other women. So they're at a disadvantage over those men and over women who like that set up especially if they're also very concerned with their partner being similar to them or higher status.



> Anyhow.
> 
> Sexual economics explains the maintenance of the patriarchy as a way for men to "gain an upper hand", given their handicap in terms of avg sexual value. In this sense I can see how anyone that falls outside of the conventional gender roles would be a huge threat to male sexual access and penalised as a result. This model also predicts that women in such societies would conversely guard their chastity more tightly as a self-preservation strategy, leading to a vicious circle that feminists have always warned us about.
> 
> There's links between high testosterone with both bisexuality and promiscuity in women, so it might be the third factor there.
> 
> And as for the complaining, women do the same (i.e. the "men only like bxtches, they don't like nice girls like me" rhetoric). To me it seems like more of a mentality/personality trait rather than a gendered strategy per se.
> 
> Let's hear your dark theories, I'm intrigued!


Yeah I think that contributes but it seems only some subsets of bisexual women have elevated rates of promiscuous behaviour (ones with a slight - moderate preference for men,) and then lesbianism is also associated with high testosterone, but as a group are more restricted than bisexual women so that seems kind of complicated. Then in a lot of studies don't seem to seperate lesbian and bisexual women for some reason.

Yeah women do complain about men a lot, but I feel like it's more balanced so they'll complain about men and women, and generally if you go to for example the subreddit r/Trufemcels it's a different kind of atmosphere compared to many places where male incels and similar groups congregate (though the more extreme places end up getting closed down a lot, and the more reasonable places aren't what I'm talking about,) which leads me to my next point which I shouldn't say because it's pretty edgy but I guess **** it. I'm not overly committed to it or anything it's just one idea.


* *




Essentially just that certain groups of men form dysgenic brotherhoods of sorts, ultimately leading to gang rape, but in order to do that they either have to reach a certain point of hatred and anger or dehumanise women to a specific degree in the first place. Also drugs/alcohol seems to help a lot. I think for some low empathy men who fit into the hegemonic masculinity role this might be their primary strategy at certain points in life - like with some fraternities in college in the US, (these examples are pretty Western though,) but with others it's secondary after it becomes obvious over time that they can't have sex through other means, and that group are probably a lot more angry as well. Unlike the first group they probably need the anger to suspend empathy. They're also probably lower status than the first group and poorer economically. I don't think any of that would be conscious, but I think on an evolutionary level that occurs.

I don't think there's a mirror of this strategy in females because 'sperm is cheap,' but I do think that certain groups of women instinctively want to create matriarchies and find ways to control men or keep them away from women, either as a defensive measure or to get better access to women if they're gynephilic.

I do think that certain women are instinctively inclined to rape/kill men though, but mostly for sadomasochistic reasons or for dominance reasons like this woman, you get men like that too obviously since there are many different reasons people rape. I would be interested to know if there have been any cases of women gang raping men though, because I can't think of any anecdotes.


----------



## Persephone The Dread

Got suggested this on YT:






The comments are all talking about whether or not this is insulting to the woman or lesbians but honestly the part where he's like 'it's normal to not enjoy sex with a man so you might be straight' after talking about how lesbians should help bring straight men's girlfriend's to orgasm because they can't be bothered. Selling the straight life lmao.

Also at one point he says 4 star lesbian but I think he means gold star.


----------



## andy1984

Persephone The Dread said:


> Got suggested this on YT:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The comments are all talking about whether or not this is insulting to the woman or lesbians but honestly the part where he's like 'it's normal to not enjoy sex with a man so you might be straight' after talking about how lesbians should help bring straight men's girlfriend's to orgasm because they can't be bothered. Selling the straight life lmao.
> 
> Also at one point he says 4 star lesbian but I think he means gold star.


I'll have to watch it later, sounds good


----------



## Persephone The Dread

andy1984 said:


> I'll have to watch it later, sounds good


It's not really my thing but I'm probably biased because he seems like a dudebro. I checked out a couple of other videos afterwards since this seemed to be just talking to the crowd but it's kind of the same, mostly focuses on women and lesbians. I thought the lesbian thing was just because of the woman in the crowd but he incorporated that into another act as well:






His period standup was kind of funny though.


----------



## bad baby

@Persephone The Dread

(I had to unquote your post because the whole thing became too long. Ugh word limits :bah)

So in a way homosexual relationships go the way you'd expect if two heterosexuals of the same gender entered into a relationship with each other by this economic perspective, that's interesting.

And the universal shame thing. Well, it's just kind of an intuitive idea - but it seems to me that very young pre-school aged children already display an innate sense of shame surrounding things directly and indirectly related to sex, like embarrassment about liking/crushing on opposite sex playmate, and their own private areas. My feeling is that they know this innately and it doesn't need to be taught to them. But I mean, I could be wrong, it could just be the result of very thorough socialisation, constant reinforcement from adults about "proper" behaviour, etc.

Across cultures there's varying degrees of openness towards sex, but there's a kind of a baseline that sexual activities are fundamentally private and inappropriate to bring up in certain contexts. You never see some cultures where there's absolutely no restrictions wr/t sexual activity, like in the animal kingdom.

(Well I guess all known societies were all pretty interconnected at one point before they drifted apart. It would be interesting to study the sexual attitudes/conventions of extremely isolated cultures with zero contact with the outside world. I wonder what brave soul would or has already done this?? ...I recall a study done a while ago, where they played these horror film soundtracks for some isolated tribes, and the tribespeople showed no signs of fear at all, so it's likely that our perception of music is entirely culturally-bound. But I digress.)

Re: shaming other women - reminds me of a term I learned from a college friend, the "Madonna-wh%re complex". I think guys would say that a girl who likes sex or is open to sex is never a bad thing, but at the same time they need to feel like they've earned it somehow. Most of the dating advice I've heard from men given to women say that if her end goal is a committed relationship, then she should probably wait until after getting at least some form of commitment from him before sleeping with him. (And ofc they preface it with the women's right to sexual freedom and discourage slxt shaming/judgment etc., but from a strategic pov, this seems to be what works in attracting men.)

The results from that shame-attractiveness study you linked are interesting. It's funny that they referred to shame a "highly valued emotion", I mean, as much as we respect our hierarchies, we're not immune to the universal instinct to want to cover up our inadequacies and insecurities lol. But anyway, it's kind of a counterintuitive study, given how much emphasis Asian cultures place on humility and self-awareness. I would like to see what they actually used as the "shame" and "pride" display visuals, like, how 'overt' the pride displays were.

..It also reminded me of the otoges I used to play, where there's typically one type of guy that's younger and romantically inexperienced, so he's awkward af and makes tonnes of hilarious rookie mistakes (well, given that these games are targeted at teenage girls, usually both of them are inexperienced and it's a riot).

My mind keeps autocorrecting that subreddit to r/truffles (in my defense they are a thing where I live). Lol yeah. Now onto the dark stuff (...#darktruffles?):


* *





Intuitively I wouldn't have associated frat boys with the kind of "woe is me" guys who complain about women on the internet, but I guess both groups have that toxic masculinity mindset going on there. I remember one of my psychology professors said: "Rape has nothing to do with sex. It's all about power and dominance." ...Kind of a bold claim given that rape _does_ involve the sexual act after all. But I get her drift. I have a hard time imagine frat boys on a college campus having *such* extreme trouble obtaining sex that they have to resort to this. It's more like an exertion of their masculinity and dominance, spurred on by thheir peer group and that kind of "bros before hos" ethos.

I haven't seen a prevalence of incel/blackpill types turning to rape as a solution. (But then I don't really follow this kind of thing very much heh.) In highly patriarchal Asian cultures, there seem to be trends of guys committing physical violence against women who rejected them - e.g., Japanese guys stalking and killing exes who refuse to get back together, Acid throwing in South Asia, etc. They seem to differ from the frat rapists in that they are after reciprocation (and consent, by extension) more than the sex itself. Maybe it's also a power/dominance issue.


----------



## SASsier1

Mainly I've watched non-white comedians from Western countries. While their humor can be fine and all, it's all very painful to watch. 

Maz Jobrani is semi-funny and seems to be a really sweet person. I get him to a certain degree. But he does, unintentionally, highlight just how much Iranian Americans have it so much better than my unmentionable type of people. 

Russell Peters was my favorite comedian back in the day, when he was actually funny and non-offensive. He seems to be suffering from a long sophomore slump, and he's very offensive now. 

Joe Wong is funny, but he's making a career out of being far too stereotypical. That's painful in and of itself. 

Chappell is probably on the list of Top 10 Comedians - but I find him offensive, too. 

I don't like anyone on anyone's Top 10 list - definitely not Louis CK or George Carlin. 

I dislike the Daily Show host's standup - Trevor Noah. 

Watching comedy is, overall, very painful for me.


----------



## Persephone The Dread

bad baby said:


> @Persephone The Dread
> 
> (I had to unquote your post because the whole thing became too long. Ugh word limits :bah)
> 
> So in a way homosexual relationships go the way you'd expect if two heterosexuals of the same gender entered into a relationship with each other by this economic perspective, that's interesting.
> 
> And the universal shame thing. Well, it's just kind of an intuitive idea - but it seems to me that very young pre-school aged children already display an innate sense of shame surrounding things directly and indirectly related to sex, like embarrassment about liking/crushing on opposite sex playmate, and their own private areas. My feeling is that they know this innately and it doesn't need to be taught to them. But I mean, I could be wrong, it could just be the result of very thorough socialisation, constant reinforcement from adults about "proper" behaviour, etc.


Uh yeah the post count is annoying.

Yeah I think it's difficult to say, I do think the rate to which people experience shame varies though whether inherent or socialised.



> Across cultures there's varying degrees of openness towards sex, but there's a kind of a baseline that sexual activities are fundamentally private and inappropriate to bring up in certain contexts. You never see some cultures where there's absolutely no restrictions wr/t sexual activity, like in the animal kingdom.
> 
> (Well I guess all known societies were all pretty interconnected at one point before they drifted apart. It would be interesting to study the sexual attitudes/conventions of extremely isolated cultures with zero contact with the outside world. I wonder what brave soul would or has already done this?? ...I recall a study done a while ago, where they played these horror film soundtracks for some isolated tribes, and the tribespeople showed no signs of fear at all, so it's likely that our perception of music is entirely culturally-bound. But I digress.)


Huh that music thing is pretty interesting, but I guess that makes sense. Makes me wonder how the sounds became associated with emotions in the first place before film and such.



> Re: shaming other women - reminds me of a term I learned from a college friend, the "Madonna-wh%re complex". I think guys would say that a girl who likes sex or is open to sex is never a bad thing, but at the same time they need to feel like they've earned it somehow. Most of the dating advice I've heard from men given to women say that if her end goal is a committed relationship, then she should probably wait until after getting at least some form of commitment from him before sleeping with him. (And ofc they preface it with the women's right to sexual freedom and discourage slxt shaming/judgment etc., but from a strategic pov, this seems to be what works in attracting men.)


Yeah there's a compartmentalisation in attraction for a lot of people, and I kind of experience this myself (not quite in the same way because I'm very weird as an individual, but I can basically 'get off' to stuff that's quite different from what I find romantically or sexually attractive in other contexts.)

And yeah I think there's a general idea that sex should be difficult to get, men are thought to put in more work but since women don't they have to defend more advances to balance that or something. Reminds me of the attitude people have towards money really where 'easy careers' (often they're not but perception wise,) are looked down on. YouTubers and such.

And I have seen politicised viewpoints from certain men who basically have a romantic attraction to women who present as more elegant and beautiful than overly sexualised, and behave in certain ways, but then are sexually attracted to others but don't want to commit to them, they see them as sex objects. So there is a separation there between women men want relationships with and who they are willing to have sex with casually.



> The results from that shame-attractiveness study you linked are interesting. It's funny that they referred to shame a "highly valued emotion", I mean, as much as we respect our hierarchies, we're not immune to the universal instinct to want to cover up our inadequacies and insecurities lol. But anyway, it's kind of a counterintuitive study, given how much emphasis Asian cultures place on humility and self-awareness. I would like to see what they actually used as the "shame" and "pride" display visuals, like, how 'overt' the pride displays were.
> 
> ..It also reminded me of the otoges I used to play, where there's typically one type of guy that's younger and romantically inexperienced, so he's awkward af and makes tonnes of hilarious rookie mistakes (well, given that these games are targeted at teenage girls, usually both of them are inexperienced and it's a riot).


Yeah I assumed they viewed some kind of facial expressions or body language, but I didn't read the whole thing.



> * *
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Intuitively I wouldn't have associated frat boys with the kind of "woe is me" guys who complain about women on the internet, but I guess both groups have that toxic masculinity mindset going on there. I remember one of my psychology professors said: "Rape has nothing to do with sex. It's all about power and dominance." ...Kind of a bold claim given that rape _does_ involve the sexual act after all. But I get her drift. I have a hard time imagine frat boys on a college campus having *such* extreme trouble obtaining sex that they have to resort to this. It's more like an exertion of their masculinity and dominance, spurred on by thheir peer group and that kind of "bros before hos" ethos.
> 
> I haven't seen a prevalence of incel/blackpill types turning to rape as a solution. (But then I don't really follow this kind of thing very much heh.) In highly patriarchal Asian cultures, there seem to be trends of guys committing physical violence against women who rejected them - e.g., Japanese guys stalking and killing exes who refuse to get back together, Acid throwing in South Asia, etc. They seem to differ from the frat rapists in that they are after reciprocation (and consent, by extension) more than the sex itself. Maybe it's also a power/dominance issue.



* *




I definitely don't think most frat boys have to do use coercive means to get sex, I think they just do because they're opportunistic and low in empathy (and I think that's somehow encouraged by the hegemonic culture they're surrounded by.)

But yeah I basically think there are multiple paths to getting to that point where men kind of encourage one another to engage in certain kinds of behaviour. It's not something that would happen with most incels (and related groups,) because they communicate online, and that makes a difference as well as mainstream cultural practices, but I do think that in a certain cultural environment and where they meet up in real life that would be the end result. I have seen them endorsing rape. Not all of them, and that kind of thing often gets removed/shut down like I say (their forums/subreddits are shut down a lot,) but even on this forum there was a poster doing that a while ago.

I do think that it's similar psychologically in some ways to as you pointed out some of the behaviour that's more common in other parts of the world but on the milder end possibly. If you see it as a spectrum of behaviour/attitudes. It's interesting to see how these things interact with culture though, because of course the other side of things with incels is you have some advocating for sex redistribution, or socialised sex workers, which is a very Western left-wing political kind of thing.

Also in a lot of cultures of more conservative cultures women are often forced to marry their rapist, sometimes that's legally mandated, which incentivises the action.

Rape is definitely about dominance and power in some instances (homophobic rape comes to mind, and rape used as a punishment in general,) but I don't think that the idea that it's always about power and dominance exclusively holds true. I think there's probably a mixture of internal motivations.


----------



## Maslow

Pete Davidson videos have been showing up in my YouTube feed. He can be pretty funny.

Seth Meyers hosts one of my favorite comedy shows. I'd have to say that Norm MacDonald is probably my favorite comedian. He cracks me up. Louis CK is pretty funny, too. And Seinfeld.


----------



## Disheveled and Lost

Persephone The Dread said:


> I don't think it works on an individual level like that, like the more resourceful a woman becomes the more casual sex she has, but on a group level it seems that as societies become better off and as women feel more comfortable they end up engaging in casual sex more often because that's more of an option (less risks.)
> 
> Yeah women do complain about men a lot, but I feel like it's more balanced so they'll complain about men and women, and generally if you go to for example the subreddit r/Trufemcels it's a different kind of atmosphere compared to many places where male incels and similar groups congregate (though the more extreme places end up getting closed down a lot, and the more reasonable places aren't what I'm talking about,) which leads me to my next point which I shouldn't say because it's pretty edgy but I guess **** it. I'm not overly committed to it or anything it's just one idea.
> 
> 
> * *
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Essentially just that certain groups of men form dysgenic brotherhoods of sorts, ultimately leading to gang rape, but in order to do that they either have to reach a certain point of hatred and anger or dehumanise women to a specific degree in the first place. Also drugs/alcohol seems to help a lot. I think for some low empathy men who fit into the hegemonic masculinity role this might be their primary strategy at certain points in life - like with some fraternities in college in the US, (these examples are pretty Western though,) but with others it's secondary after it becomes obvious over time that they can't have sex through other means, and that group are probably a lot more angry as well. Unlike the first group they probably need the anger to suspend empathy. They're also probably lower status than the first group and poorer economically. I don't think any of that would be conscious, but I think on an evolutionary level that occurs.
> 
> I don't think there's a mirror of this strategy in females because 'sperm is cheap,' but I do think that certain groups of women instinctively want to create matriarchies and find ways to control men or keep them away from women, either as a defensive measure or to get better access to women if they're gynephilic.
> 
> I do think that certain women are instinctively inclined to rape/kill men though, but mostly for sadomasochistic reasons or for dominance reasons like this woman, you get men like that too obviously since there are many different reasons people rape. I would be interested to know if there have been any cases of women gang raping men though, because I can't think of any anecdotes.


I think from everything i have seen firsthand and heard, poorer people who are struggling financially are the most sexually active. I grew up in New York City and was a teenager in the 90's, and from everything i have seen firsthand, back then many less financially-secure Latino and African American youths were engaging in sex at largely a very young age, while most white youths in my area who came from wealthy backgrounds were not engaging in sex or did not have many partners. I tend to see sex as a "time-waster" like something to kill boredom when you really break it down. Most white kids in my area that I observed were more concerned with studying or playing video games or other more nerdy activities. Many white families were filling up their day with kind of wacky activities like skiing hiking or gym memberships, saunas, massages, trips out of town jogging or yoga or God knows what. My point is that from my experience what I saw first-hand, many poorer residents of NYC that i grew up around who had no access to any other more involved activities were actually from what I saw engaging in sex at very young age and regularly with multiple partners. Because women are now more independent, in some ways the roles have been reversed where women have the luxury of being promiscuous and controlling men or discarding men, like for example with casual sex or dating, where in the past that was not an option, but i do not think with wealth or resources, people necessarily have access to more sex or it becomes more available than in poorer cultures with working class families struggling to put food on the table.

I disagree wholeheartedly to the notion that women complain more equally or have more anger or grievances towards both sexes than men do. There is no proof anywhere that would show that men have more hatred or anger or resentment towards women as opposed to both sexes, compared to women. I think as far as groups like incels and MGTOW, the real underlying problem is that for men, sex is a compulsion and a need in a way that it is not for women. My point is that there are men who are so desperate and sex-crazed, that they develop misplaced anger towards women based on their needs not being met, in a completely different way than a woman would, who largely do not feel the same compulsions, which is pretty clear.

Not to make light of a sensitive topic, but as far as men victimizing women sexually like you mentioned, with all respect, I tend to have a broader view of a bigger picture: In every city and state, there are evil people who commit all sorts of horrible crimes every hour of every day, and as horrible as victimizing women sexually is, that is just part of a number of sick things people engage in as part of a criminal underworld, that law enforcement attempts to control and stop every day in every major city in the world. I understand and respect that it is frightening for many or all women to meet guys using online dating, for example, because they do not know what this person's background and who they are dealing with and what they are capable of. At the same time, I am not sure how you interjecting the problem of men committing violent sexual crimes on women as your final point is related to your previous points. To me it seems like you are implying that, deep down, men might have a few screws loose, and if driven mad enough, are capable of anything in regard to taking advantage of women. I see that as a generalization and somewhat offensive. From your final point, to me, I think it almost sounds like you are demonizing men or lumping them together where if they are not regulated, who knows what they are liable to do. It doesn't make it right, but comparatively, we could scour archives of millions of crimes in history that are committed every single day that have gone on for millenia. With all respect, to me, it almost sounds like you are implying that men as whole, deep down, if not monitored closely, are capable of horrible acts, on some level, based on your final statement.


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## Persephone The Dread

@Disheveled and Lost

Not sure I want to get into a big discussion with you since in those posts I was sort of throwing ideas around without fully committing to them + it's all sort of off topic but..



> I disagree wholeheartedly to the notion that women complain more equally or have more anger or grievances towards both sexes than men do. There is no proof anywhere that would show that men have more hatred or anger or resentment towards women as opposed to both sexes, compared to women. I think as far as groups like incels and MGTOW, the real underlying problem is that for men, sex is a compulsion and a need in a way that it is not for women. My point is that there are men who are so desperate and sex-crazed, that they develop misplaced anger towards women based on their needs not being met, in a completely different way than a woman would, who largely do not feel the same compulsions, which is pretty clear.


I think there's quite a lot of anecdotal evidence that shows that _in general_ men don't spend as much time complaining about men as women do about women in a dating/relationship context. I'm talking about specific contexts here.

I'm not really interested in the surface level interpretation. Emotions usually serve some purpose or are related to some evolved strategy so what is the connection here? That's the question. Especially in light of the fact that rape as a response to rejection exists, gang rape exists, and men group up to commit rape, and they also sometimes create hegemonic brotherhoods, it seems like _it could_ be related phenomena.



> To me it seems like you are implying that, deep down, men might have a few screws loose, and if driven mad enough, are capable of anything in regard to taking advantage of women. I see that as a generalization and somewhat offensive. From your final point, to me, I think it almost sounds like you are demonizing men or lumping them together where if they are not regulated, who knows what they are liable to do. It doesn't make it right, but comparatively, we could scour archives of millions of crimes in history that are committed every single day that have gone on for millenia. With all respect, to me, it almost sounds like you are implying that men as whole, deep down, if not monitored closely, are capable of horrible acts, on some level, based on your final statement.


I wouldn't say the 'if not monitored closely' part is particularly relevant to anything I've said, but that aside yeah I do believe a lot of people are capable of being 'monsters' under the right circumstances (not drawing lines between good and bad people/things is kind of my entire mo in general lol.) I do believe there are likely to be some dimorphic trends to that though. (But that's not really what I was saying exactly in my previous posts either, because the idea isn't that 100% of men are capable of anything, just that there might be certain strategies there that explain certain behaviour.)

Alternatively I expect there to be more females than males who under the right circumstances, enjoy emasculating and castrating men. (I think that's the form female sadism often takes.) Actually I mentioned an (extreme end,) example of that in my post you quoted:



> Lee had a chat with a friend and told him about his troubling relationship with Dennehy, confiding that she "wanted to dress me up and rape me".





> "He said 'she will kill him'," Ms White said.
> 
> "I said 'don't be silly, she would not do anything like that'."
> 
> But she did. When Mr Lee's body was found by a farmer in a ditch near Newborough, he was dressed in a black sequin dress with his buttocks exposed.
> 
> This was a form of "final humiliation", a jury was told. Dennehy, as consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Frank Farnham found when he assessed her after her arrest at HMP Bronzefield in Surrey, has the condition paraphilia sadomasochism.
> 
> Sadomasochism is a preference for sexual activity which involves the infliction of pain or humiliation or bondage.





> Dennehy specifically targeted men during her killing spree, telling her acquaintance Lloyd that she did not wish to kill a woman and especially not a woman with children. Mark Lloyd stated Dennehy had wanted to kill nine men in total, seeking to be like Bonnie and Clyde.





> Her sister Maria was unsurprised by the guilty plea and said, "I think she did that to control the situation. She likes people to know she's the boss."


Since I was trying to tie stuff into evo-psych lets go back to the bonobos:



> How do female bonobos rise through their hierarchy? "By launching seemingly unprovoked attacks on males," says Amy. "Ripping off fingernails, toenails, biting testicles. One time they bit a penis in half. So you can't really paint them as the peace-loving alternative to our other closest relative, the chimp. It's interesting that people would want to. I think it's because it's such a foreign concept to us that females would be dominant and aggressive toward males. It makes no sense, so it's just discounted.





> Chimps form violent, male-dominated hierarchies. Bonobos are female-dominated, using sexual contact between both males and females as a kind of social glue. And crucially, females form strong bonds even with females they're unrelated to.





> Suddenly, three older, high-ranking female bonobos bolted up from below, a furious blur of black fur and swinging limbs and, together with the female in estrus, flew straight for the offending males. The males scattered. The females pursued them. Tree boughs bounced and cracked. Screams on all sides grew deafening.
> 
> Three of the males escaped, but the females cornered and grabbed the fourth one - the resident alpha male. He was healthy, muscular and about 18 pounds heavier than any of his captors. But no matter.
> 
> The females bit into him as he howled and struggled to pull free. Finally, "he dropped from the tree and ran away, and he didn't appear again for about three weeks," said Nahoko Tokuyama, of the primate research institute at Kyoto University in Japan, who witnessed the encounter. When the male returned, he kept to himself. Dr. Tokuyama noticed that the tip of one of his toes was gone.
> 
> "Being hated by females," she said in an email interview, "is a big matter for male bonobos"
> 
> the toe-trimming incident was extreme but not unique. Describing results from their long-term field work in the September issue of Animal Behaviour, Dr. Tokuyama and her colleague Takeshi Furuichi reported that the female bonobos of Wamba often banded together to fend off male aggression, and in patterns that defied the standard primate rule book.


That's not particularly flowery either. Guess I'm demonising women now, oh no. Lol.


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## bad baby

@Persephone The Dread 
I'll come back and make a more thorough response when I have time (or maybe start a new thread, apologies to OP for off-topicness), but some rough thoughts on the fly--

The stuff about female emasculation of men is interesting, and reminds me of some of what the redpill community endearingly calls 'shxt-testing'.

And this may just be my own incomplete impression, but it seems the concept of 'brotherhood' has been evoked a lot in association with radical mvmts - the Aryan Brotherhood, part of the French Revolution slogan, etc.

I'm sure there's research somewhere that men are more sensitive to perceptions/feelings of threat. You see it in the current political climate - on the mild end white Western males are complaining about 'political correctness gone too far', suddenly they're scared to be alone with a woman in the wake of the MeToo mvmt, and so on and so forth.

On the extreme end there's the rise of far-right racism/nationalism, all of which points to a once-privileged demographic suddenly finding themselves 'dethroned' and preemptively defending themselves from falling further downhill.

There may well be a connection between frat rapes and inceldom. Maybe this perceived threat stuff is part of it, too. It occurs to me also that the recent prevalence of 'herbivore' men in East Asia could be a kind of passive resistance against women becoming more independent/self-sufficient, but they lack a socially approvable outlet to address their concerns, and it gets repackaged as a kind of nihilistic approach.


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## bad baby

Persephone The Dread said:


> Huh that music thing is pretty interesting, but I guess that makes sense. Makes me wonder how the sounds became associated with emotions in the first place before film and such.


Some personal speculations on this based on my limited knowledge of music theory; take them with a huge grain of salt:

The driving force of the forward 'movement' of music (in the Western, classical sense) is tonality, or recursive cycles of 'tension and release' wr/t a key. Aristotle saw this as a reflection/parallel of human actions and emotions, giving it artistic value. Over time, Western classical music evolved in a way similar to a buildup of tolerance for a drug: increasing acclimatisation to tension (dissonance) and delayed/even missing resolution (consonance).

It culminated in the 2nd Viennese School, who wanted to do away with the dichotomy of dissonance/consonance altogether (the so-called 'atonality' technique) and restructure music using permutative sequences (12-tone/serialism). In terms of artistic expression, this would correspond to wildly erratic, extreme, unpredictable moodswings; or someone acting in accordance with an alien set of social conventions. Not too far off from your typical horror-film antagonists & scenarios I'd imagine. The soundtracks, it seems, have exploited this by heavily adopting atonality/serialism and reinforcing the existing cultural intuition.

I imagine music from another culture that has a different developmental path -particularly one with minimal contact/influence from the Western tradition - would take a different view towards the use of dissonance/consonance, cadence, rhythms, etc. (For instance, traditional music from NE China using the _suo na_ uses a lot of 'unstable', dissonant sounds to create a cacophonous aural atmosphere of joyous events. There are likely similar examples from music from other parts of Asia, etc. The fundamental difference in approach may be why it would be difficult for Western listeners to 'connect' with these kinds of music on a first listen.

If I'm not mistaken, this was what the 20th century atonal composers were trying to accomplish - familiarise our ears to the the 'untameable' through a kind of calculated 'flooding'. But I guess the problem is that there's no real incentive to persist at trying to appreciate music that sounds initially 'awful'. Plus maybe the rise of other more accessible genres of musical entertainment at the time (vaudeville, cabaret, etc.), the market for atonality shrank, and it has remained a niche art form in terms of usage and functionality.

...Not sure if all that made sense to other people too or just in my own head lol. But it's an interesting topic that I've been looking into these days.



> Yeah there's a compartmentalisation in attraction for a lot of people, and I kind of experience this myself (not quite in the same way because I'm very weird as an individual, but I can basically 'get off' to stuff that's quite different from what I find romantically or sexually attractive in other contexts.)


I think this is the same 'drug tolerance' idea that I mentioned above. Easy access to pornography in the modern age propelling people to seek out more and more 'extreme' stuff to get the same kick out of it. Another part of it is hidden desires that may not be socially acceptable/appropriate to express that manifest themselves in arousal. But these are just personal intuitions drawn from elsewhere and I'm not sure if and how much they have actually been attested by evidence from the sexual domain specifically.



> And yeah I think there's a general idea that sex should be difficult to get, men are thought to put in more work but since women don't they have to defend more advances to balance that or something. Reminds me of the attitude people have towards money really where 'easy careers' (often they're not but perception wise,) are looked down on. YouTubers and such.
> 
> And I have seen politicised viewpoints from certain men who basically have a romantic attraction to women who present as more elegant and beautiful than overly sexualised, and behave in certain ways, but then are sexually attracted to others but don't want to commit to them, they see them as sex objects. So there is a separation there between women men want relationships with and who they are willing to have sex with casually.


The way I've heard men explain it is that they place women into 3 categories based on initial impressions:

1. Friends - social, intellectual, emotional compatibility, but no attraction
2. FWBs - attraction but no compatibility
3. Girlfriend material - both compatibility and attraction

(I tried to find an uneven Venn diagram on google but it was harder than I thought. Anyway, imagine 1 = small circle and 2 = big circle, and 3 = intersection between the two. In this view 'gf' is just a smaller subset of 'people whom one would like to have sex with', which in present-day Western culture I think would be true of most people irrespective of gender. The size of the respective sets, and the permeability of the borders, would vary depending on the individual.)

Haven't seen (m)any women who are so overtly sexual that they put men off. Except maybe pornstars? But then that seems like more of a value judgment/not feeling 'special' bc she's so unselective, rather than anything to do with the girl's personal qualities per se.



> * *
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I definitely don't think most frat boys have to do use coercive means to get sex, [...]


Do I need a spoiler tag for this? Oh well wth.


* *




Not much to add other than what Ive said in my previous post. But I saw this documentary recently called 'Guys & Dolls' (don't particularly feel like linking it here, but anyone reading this can look it up if inclined), which was basically a spotlight on these incel-type guys who have adopted really expensive, lifelike rubber dolls in lieu of actual girlfriends.

What struck me the most was how these guys enjoy the complete predictability and subservience of their dolls, how it will never leave them, etc., compared to actual human beings. There seems to be a kind of nice guy-chauvinist pig duality going on there. I mean I'm sure on a conscious level they would be all for respect towards women and progressive ideals in line with their surrounding environment, but their lifestyle choice makes me wonder what they _really_ subscribe to, deep down.

Also, something not entirely relevant but that came to mind here -

there's a film some years ago that came out of Kyrgyzstan, about its infamous tradition of bride kidnapping. An educated city girl gets taken by force to be the wife of a meek young shepherd up in the mountains. At first she's upset and resistant, but his kindnes eventually touches her, and she comes to enjoy her new life. I think a lot of people were angered by the movie, bc it seemed like an attempt to whitewash what is essentially a crime against women. Lots of kidnapped brides have taken their own lives out of the humiliation (which is a very patriarchal mentality/idea in itself). We can't deny that. But at the same time, these 'unexpected happy endings' happen too, maybe only for a small minority, but - does this diminish their value or right to be told?




*Edit:* I was looking up art documentaries and came across this interesting discussion about European classical paintings. Three main ideas:

1. Men are usually depicted as fully clothed, while women are usually nude. Nudity is not really a state of being, but rather how one is perceived by others (i.e., the voyeuristic gaze).
2. The nude woman is usually in a 'lazy' pose - sprawled out on a settee or w.e. It's a stance of (sexual) passivity and lack of self-agency, but somewhat paradoxically also of availability/willingness/invitation. 
3. She is also usually looking directly at the viewer, adding another layer of veiled seductiveness.

What this reminds me of, is research from online dating that seem to suggest that women's profile photos work best when they are looking into the camera and smiling, whereas for men it's the opposite - looking away and not smiling.

If those results are valid - and it's a big 'if' given the source - it could be that the (at least initial) perceived attractiveness of a woman is mediated by her awareness and display of goodwill towards her (unknown, male) audience/admirers, but the attractiveness of a man is not. Anecdotally, it seems like men are often seen as most attractive when they are lost in the moment, focusing intently on something of interest and unconcerned with how they come across to a (female) bystander.


----------



## Persephone The Dread

Sorry this response is a bit late, also had to cut out bits of your post because of the character limit.



bad baby said:


> Some personal speculations on this based on my limited knowledge of music theory; take them with a huge grain of salt:
> 
> The driving force of the forward 'movement' of music (in the Western, classical sense) is tonality, or recursive cycles of 'tension and release' wr/t a key. Aristotle saw this as a reflection/parallel of human actions and emotions, giving it artistic value. Over time, Western classical music evolved in a way similar to a buildup of tolerance for a drug: increasing acclimatisation to tension (dissonance) and delayed/even missing resolution (consonance).


I think I sort of get it, but I'm not very familiar with music theory/history  I kind of like dissonant sounding music like[/url,] but I'm not sure if that's because I also like the imagery that tends to be associated with it (almost certainly.)



> I think this is the same 'drug tolerance' idea that I mentioned above. Easy access to pornography in the modern age propelling people to seek out more and more 'extreme' stuff to get the same kick out of it. Another part of it is hidden desires that may not be socially acceptable/appropriate to express that manifest themselves in arousal. But these are just personal intuitions drawn from elsewhere and I'm not sure if and how much they have actually been attested by evidence from the sexual domain specifically.


Yeah I haven't looked into that extensively (and I think it might be difficult to research,) but some people I've spoken to (who have apparently read about this more,) seem to think the evidence doesn't point in that direction and more towards the idea that the potential to be aroused by stuff is there and people are more likely to discover stuff now that they are aroused by. So it's not that people develop a tolerance and need more extreme stuff, but that they're stumbling on extreme stuff that previously they would have never found in the first place and realising it arouses the, but I dunno it probably depends on the person because I think some people definitely have a preference for variety that extends to sexual interests.

I've noticed I've built up a tolerance medium wise like I used to imagine stuff in my head more but now almost always read stuff instead but the details of what I'm getting off to haven't really increased in severity overtime.

I do think a lot of sexual interests are linked to personal complexes/fears etc though. A lot of them even have a corresponding phobia in different groups of people like people with balloon fetishes and people with balloon phobias. They also often start in childhood or people seem to be able to link them to things that happen in childhood (though potentially that's a post-hoc rationalisation.) And it's possible that some interests correlate with personality traits somewhat (I read [url=https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unique-everybody-else/201905/sexual-satisfaction-in-bdsm]this recently actually.)



> The way I've heard men explain it is that they place women into 3 categories based on initial impressions:
> 
> 1. Friends - social, intellectual, emotional compatibility, but no attraction
> 2. FWBs - attraction but no compatibility
> 3. Girlfriend material - both compatibility and attraction
> 
> (I tried to find an uneven Venn diagram on google but it was harder than I thought. Anyway, imagine 1 = small circle and 2 = big circle, and 3 = intersection between the two. In this view 'gf' is just a smaller subset of 'people whom one would like to have sex with', which in present-day Western culture I think would be true of most people irrespective of gender. The size of the respective sets, and the permeability of the borders, would vary depending on the individual.)
> 
> Haven't seen (m)any women who are so overtly sexual that they put men off. Except maybe pornstars? But then that seems like more of a value judgment/not feeling 'special' bc she's so unselective, rather than anything to do with the girl's personal qualities per se.


Hm I think a lot of men are more inclined to commit to women who are more selective sexually, but I think it's more about what they signal socially then anything else like if they act in ways that are stereotyped as being sexually promiscuous that might be seen as a turn off for guys who are looking for a long term relationship. I also remember reading something which suggested guys like having casual sex with women who look tired/sleepy and it seems they have a different set of criteria when switching between long and short term relationships. But it does seem to be more the implication that a potential partner isn't selective that bothers them for long term relationships, as opposed to just being sexual but there's a very thin line there I suppose.



> Do I need a spoiler tag for this? Oh well wth.
> 
> there's a film some years ago that came out of Kyrgyzstan, about its infamous tradition of bride kidnapping. An educated city girl gets taken by force to be the wife of a meek young shepherd up in the mountains. At first she's upset and resistant, but his kindnes eventually touches her, and she comes to enjoy her new life. I think a lot of people were angered by the movie, bc it seemed like an attempt to whitewash what is essentially a crime against women. Lots of kidnapped brides have taken their own lives out of the humiliation (which is a very patriarchal mentality/idea in itself). We can't deny that. But at the same time, these 'unexpected happy endings' happen too, maybe only for a small minority, but - does this diminish their value or right to be told?


Yeah might as well stop the spoiler tags now I guess lol. I think I've seen that documentary or parts of it before.

Yeah in a lot of cultures throughout the world and throughout history women have often been forcibly married sometimes in spite of protesting aggressively and obviously some resort to suicide which is pretty bleak. It doesn't surprise me that some women are less effected since that's kind of prevalent and if every woman committed suicide then any culture practicing that would be quickly wiped out. But also I suppose it's partly down to survivalism and maybe even Stockholm syndrome. Still as long as the film is accurate (if it's being presented as accurate,) I don't think how controversial it is should stop it being shown.

I do wonder if that sort of thing has inspired some of the fantasies that women seem to have though. A lot of female fantasies seem to be a reaction to male sexuality like fixing the guy, or leaning in to some of the darker elements.



> *Edit:* I was looking up art documentaries and came across this interesting discussion about European classical paintings. Three main ideas:
> 
> 1. Men are usually depicted as fully clothed, while women are usually nude. Nudity is not really a state of being, but rather how one is perceived by others (i.e., the voyeuristic gaze).
> 2. The nude woman is usually in a 'lazy' pose - sprawled out on a settee or w.e. It's a stance of (sexual) passivity and lack of self-agency, but somewhat paradoxically also of availability/willingness/invitation.
> 3. She is also usually looking directly at the viewer, adding another layer of veiled seductiveness.
> 
> What this reminds me of, is research from online dating that seem to suggest that women's profile photos work best when they are looking into the camera and smiling, whereas for men it's the opposite - looking away and not smiling.
> 
> If those results are valid - and it's a big 'if' given the source - it could be that the (at least initial) perceived attractiveness of a woman is mediated by her awareness and display of goodwill towards her (unknown, male) audience/admirers, but the attractiveness of a man is not. Anecdotally, it seems like men are often seen as most attractive when they are lost in the moment, focusing intently on something of interest and unconcerned with how they come across to a (female) bystander.


Hah the opening quote in that video.. I coincidentally quoted something from that work in another thread recently. Haven't watched that though I read the quote in an article before.

Yeah I've heard of stuff like that before in regards to photo body language. I do think men are mostly looking for someone who seems friendly/warm and also depending on whether they're looking purely for sex signs of being sleepy or dumb. basically Exploitability cues I guess.

But I do see certain problems with taking results purely from online dating sites for this kind of thing (it's a bit like all the studies where the research subjects are all college students,) it could be worse but it's still a specific environment and not everyone is using online dating, or even that website. So you could definitely break down preferences further by where people are finding partners. Like two people who hooked up via tumblr would probably have completely different preferences.


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## blue2

Man that was a long post but yielded some invaluable insights, the quotes don't seem to be working properly though : /


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## AffinityWing

There are definitely comedians out there intending to hurt, but considering the high rate of depression, drug abuse, suicide and etc. among comedians I think it is also a way for them to often take dark events that have happened in their own life and use it to cope. That is why you also find so many comedians making use of self-deprecating humor.

I personally like dark humor but I understand it's not for everybody and people should know their audience. Things like suicide jokes can be a coping mechanism for me, as someone who has been suicidal and attempted suicide. Imo it's a great skill for a comedian to take something so dark and make it laughable. Delivery is very important when dealing with such humor. Stand-up comedians with experience of being in the industry for years can deliver some great such jokes that rest on a very fine balance of body language/tone of voice/sound effects/etc.

It's certainly not for everybody, but considering it can be such a good momentary reality escape for many audiences and the comedians themselves I don't think most of it is intentionally disrespectful.

There's also cases where the groups that are the subject of the jokes are actually huge fans of the comedian. Like a case of Mexicans Love Speedy (Since I saw you used TVTropes), and where it's alot of other groups just trying to feel offended in their place. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MexicansLoveSpeedyGonzales

Gabriel Iglesias has made jokes imitating Middle Eastern accents and such, but he's very popular in the Middle East.


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## bad baby

@Persephone The Dread

idk, the tolerance idea now that I think about it seems like the natural extension of, say, anecdotal accounts of couples who have been together for a long time and settled into a sexual 'routine' needing 'fresh ideas to spice things up', etc. I don't see why there would be a need for constant reinventions if there's no habituation taking place to begin with, but otoh it may be due to cultural expectations, too. From what I gather, some members of previous generations (esp. in more conservative cultures) never got much enjoyment out of sex, and they seem to see it as the 'norm' and don't tend to think very much of it.

In a sense it's kind of like the emotion-music connection all over again - the link between sexual pleasure and novelty/thrill-seeking. It's so deeply ingrained in our collective consciousness that it becomes extremely difficult to tease apart whether it's innate or just societal conditioning done well.

It also occurs to me that this could be a kind of synergic effect from multiple parallel channels all pinging the same neuropathway - for example, the pleasure one gets from non-lethal asphyxiation (due to restricting flow of oxygen to the brain), in conjunction with the pleasure of sexual intercourse, producing a kind of magnified combined effect, and one comes to associate the asphyxiation as a kind of 'erotic' act in its own right even though it was only so in context. Hopefully this wasn't too graphic or whatever for this board... it's difficult to say, without getting definite and specific about the 'extreme stuff' in question, and maybe that's an area best left unexplored for now lol. Although I'm inclined to think that there's physical and chemical explanations apart from the sexual arousal bit.

And I guess in theory sexual and romantic attraction are distinct, and can have different/opposite targets. But in practise it seems to me that Nature wouldn't 'design' an individual that way, except in rare fluke cases. Even with minority orientations you rarely (if ever?) find someone who's sexually attracted to the same sex, but romantically to the opposite sex, no? In that sense men may well adopt different criteria towards casual vs. committed relationships, but it would be pretty detrimental to reproductive outcomes if there weren't a significant overlap there.

What's jarring, to me, about bride kidnappings is the mode of execution - the actual kidnapping part, which is pretty traumatic in itself even without the forced marriage that comes later. Although there's evidence that fear might induce attraction, as seen in the infamous Capilano Suspension Bridge study.

(Supposedly they both cause a dopamine rush, which could also be a possible pathway for the extreme-stuff-arousal hypothesis that I mentioned above.)

The thing about exploitability cues is interesting. Especially since most sexual/romantic relationships that are considered illegal or taboo (or at least frowned upon) in our society seem to be based around potential exploitation - for example, prostitution, large age or position differences (professor-student/boss-subordinate, that sort of thing). It seems we want to condemn overt exploitation while retaining it at a more subtle/subconscious level. This actually reminds me of a Tolstoy quote -



> Well, and they liberate woman, give her all sorts of rights equal to man, but continue to regard her as an instrument of enjoyment, and so educate her in childhood and afterwards by public opinion.[...] They emancipate women in universities and in law courts, but continue to regard her as an object of enjoyment. Teach her, as she is taught among us, to regard herself as such, and she will always remain an inferior being.


I think that whole piece is pretty questionable and it's not entirely clear what his point was, but it's a neat little connection there.

Based on the research I've seen on attractiveness ratings (from general photo rating studies, not online dating-related), women are consistently rated as more attractive when they're smiling in the photo, whereas the results for men are more mixed - sometimes smiling helps attractiveness and sometimes it doesn't. In terms of the online dating setting (or any dating-related setting in general), it could also be a kind of priming effect, where men are expected to make the first move, and they may be unconsciously associating a smiling woman with being more open and receptive.


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## Disheveled and Lost

The main knowledge i have consists of pro sports and video games followed by movies, so I am not an expert in all this. My basic opinions on sexuality and dating would be that in the 21st century, in the United States, there are laws, I think in some small towns and country areas you would have more violence and unruly behavior in general. In big cities, i think the more extreme behavior is probably less likely only because there are cameras, a ton of cops around and there is always someone out who could be a witness to a crime. In countries outside the U.S. such as Mexico or Columbia or possibly Africa, and many Arab countries, there would be way more extreme cases of brutality all around for whatever reason. In many case, the government is corrupt or preaches hate, for example, the residents are all involved with selling drugs and violence is passed on from generation to generation. There is often such extreme poverty in many of those countries that people would join a group with evil intentions or practices just to get a paycheck and live a decent life. Terrorist groups offer to pay people money who are broke to join their organization, and selling drugs can make starving individuals instant millionaires. 

I don't know how any woman agrees to meet a guy on dating sites based on the crazy stuff that goes on. As far as dating, in 2019 women finacially are better off than they ever were, so they have less dependency on men to be forced into marriage or marry to get by and survive as a housewife, for example, such as in the 1950's "Leave it to Beaver" world. I think there are more sexually frustrated men out there than ever, and women can now afford to be pickier and pickier, and if they choose to not date, that leaves more and more desperate guys. There seems to be less and less dating now partially because it is too easy for people to watch 1000 channels and have access to any movie at home and facebook and twitter. Men who are already screwed up will end up even more and more screwed up because they have increasingly less and less chances to date based on the shift in hierarchy. It is also very intimidating for many men now who meet a woman on a date who started her own company and are millionaires. My point is, this did not exist 20 years ago. Kylie Kardashian is a self-made billionaire or close to it at age 21 which would have been unheard of 20 years ago. My point is that men who are frustrated and alone with their own thoughts are more and more likely to have extreme views or develop misplaced hatred toward women now than ever. 

From my experience dating, I now do have in the back of my mind the "me-too movement" where it did not cross my mind before. I have not dated in about a year i have been going to games movies and focusing on my business, but there is a kind of tension in the background i think now on a date. Did I offend her? Did I come across in a way that she thought I was trying NOT to offend her? I think EVERYONE in this society is too sensitive now men and women and every damn group. They are inventing words and terms now so as not to offend people and it has gotten so convoluted I can't even keep up anymore. I really believe that men and women today are like both in the frame of mind to APPEAR offended by people or phrases that don't even offend them. Everyone is tiptoeing around everyone and everything now. I am not democratic fully or republican fully, i think both sides are kind of full of it in a way, but it is a weird society we live in now. Dating is warped and people now have 10 or more ways of messaging someone now, texting, tweeting, facebook, instant message, dating app messages, yahoo messenger, no one is meeting face to face anymore and rarely do people talk on the phone. We are headed towards a time where no one leaves their houses and people ingest digital food they download through an app but scan for viruses first, and everyone will work from home and fly around on pods or something. 

Everything is backwards, there is more violence and extreme behavior and hatred and racism and sexism than ever it seems, but then society tells us to use kid-friendly terms so as not to offend anyone. Maybe work on trying to develop people's human relationships and promote human feelings and emotions and connections and stop trying to censor language because that is not where the problem lies. 
If people don't say offensive things in public, they will still say them at home after a few drinks so you are not stopping the problem, just how it appears on the surface, it is like putting a shiny coat of bright blue paint over a wall that has 10 feet of corrosion and filth and dust behind it


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## Persephone The Dread

bad baby said:


> @Persephone The Dread
> 
> idk, the tolerance idea now that I think about it seems like the natural extension of, say, anecdotal accounts of couples who have been together for a long time and settled into a sexual 'routine' needing 'fresh ideas to spice things up', etc. I don't see why there would be a need for constant reinventions if there's no habituation taking place to begin with, but otoh it may be due to cultural expectations, too. From what I gather, some members of previous generations (esp. in more conservative cultures) never got much enjoyment out of sex, and they seem to see it as the 'norm' and don't tend to think very much of it.


Yeah I think the previous lack of enjoyment being normalised was probably related, people with less conventional sexual interests would have suppressed that side of themselves, or never encountered anything like that within such a culture. But this is speaking about specific kinds of people I suppose, who tend not to be very aroused by vanilla sexual stuff in the first place.

I'm wondering to what extent spicing things up actually works too, or if it's just one of those things that's assumed to work and how much has to do with trying to find ways to make things work with your current partner.



> In a sense it's kind of like the emotion-music connection all over again - the link between sexual pleasure and novelty/thrill-seeking. It's so deeply ingrained in our collective consciousness that it becomes extremely difficult to tease apart whether it's innate or just societal conditioning done well.
> 
> It also occurs to me that this could be a kind of synergic effect from multiple parallel channels all pinging the same neuropathway - for example, the pleasure one gets from non-lethal asphyxiation (due to restricting flow of oxygen to the brain), in conjunction with the pleasure of sexual intercourse, producing a kind of magnified combined effect, and one comes to associate the asphyxiation as a kind of 'erotic' act in its own right even though it was only so in context. Hopefully this wasn't too graphic or whatever for this board... it's difficult to say, without getting definite and specific about the 'extreme stuff' in question, and maybe that's an area best left unexplored for now lol. Although I'm inclined to think that there's physical and chemical explanations apart from the sexual arousal bit.
> 
> And I guess in theory sexual and romantic attraction are distinct, and can have different/opposite targets. But in practise it seems to me that Nature wouldn't 'design' an individual that way, except in rare fluke cases. Even with minority orientations you rarely (if ever?) find someone who's sexually attracted to the same sex, but romantically to the opposite sex, no? In that sense men may well adopt different criteria towards casual vs. committed relationships, but it would be pretty detrimental to reproductive outcomes if there weren't a significant overlap there.


I think something like that is happening with certain sexual interests. I know someone with masochistic sexual interests who are specifically into pain (not humiliation which functions differently,) and they said that they had a pretty early memory of stepping on something and feeling aroused as well as pain. So that seems to me to possibly be chemical or multiple areas of the brain being lit up.

I've also seen some potential theories for chronophilia being an overlap in the brain between the 'wiring' for nurturing and sexuality, either one is being triggered instead of the other or they're both kind of being triggered together. I can't help but notice that increasing numbers of people atm seem to have an interest in ageplay so some related stuff is probably partly cultural in that nurturing and being nurtured is becoming more associated with sexuality for a lot of people maybe due to the longer childhood period in modern society and blurring between adolescent interests and adults.

Well when it comes to the sexual/romantic thing, I'm not sure that's quite what's happening. With the preference for different partners I think it's more that there are long and short term strategies that differ depending on the relationship type but the sexual attraction is there in both cases, it's just there are probably more pair-bonding feelings with one type of partner than the other. (Having said that going back to the madonna-***** thing it does seem like some guys have difficulty having both romantic and sexual feelings for the same women even if that's detrimental.)

The romantic/sexual attraction distinction that people have tried to define is harder to pin down it seems to me to be more like a lack of lust in the attraction so the attraction is sort of the same but lacking more intense feelings of lust. It also might be confused sometimes with strong platonic feelings, especially if you're someone who rarely has strong platonic feelings of affection for people, but at some point does (like if you have a tendency to be uninterested in most people but obsessed with a very small number.) Reminds me of a weird crush-like thing I had on an older girl in highschool once, there definitely wasn't any feelings of lust but I find it hard to describe what happened there without comparing it to crushes I've had, because it was the only time it happened platonically. And in another case a similar level of interest has grown into a more clearly romantic crush over time for me, so I also wonder if there are stages of attraction that you pass through.



> What's jarring, to me, about bride kidnappings is the mode of execution - the actual kidnapping part, which is pretty traumatic in itself even without the forced marriage that comes later. Although there's evidence that fear might induce attraction, as seen in the infamous Capilano Suspension Bridge study.
> 
> (Supposedly they both cause a dopamine rush, which could also be a possible pathway for the extreme-stuff-arousal hypothesis that I mentioned above.)


Yeah I heard about that study before, pretty interesting. I've seen some other examples here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misattribution_of_arousal

Seems like it's theorised as a kind of psychological mistake (so you're not actually experiencing attraction at all, just trying to find a reason for why you're experiencing the physiological state you're in,) which is kind of freaky. Reminds me of the YT video by CGP grey where the 'left brain' comes up with narratives to explain what it's doing constantly and sometimes these stories really make no sense but are very convincing. But I guess that's where the idea that people are just a bunch of random stories we tell ourselves comes from. (Not sure how accurate that video is though since I've seen people criticising parts of it before.)

(interestingly it also reminds me of anecdotal cases I've come across where guys who are usually straight seem to find other guys hot suddenly, but they're at the gym when it happens and presumably working out lol.)



> The thing about exploitability cues is interesting. Especially since most sexual/romantic relationships that are considered illegal or taboo (or at least frowned upon) in our society seem to be based around potential exploitation - for example, prostitution, large age or position differences (professor-student/boss-subordinate, that sort of thing). It seems we want to condemn overt exploitation while retaining it at a more subtle/subconscious level. This actually reminds me of a Tolstoy quote -
> 
> I think that whole piece is pretty questionable and it's not entirely clear what his point was, but it's a neat little connection there.
> 
> Based on the research I've seen on attractiveness ratings (from general photo rating studies, not online dating-related), women are consistently rated as more attractive when they're smiling in the photo, whereas the results for men are more mixed - sometimes smiling helps attractiveness and sometimes it doesn't. In terms of the online dating setting (or any dating-related setting in general), it could also be a kind of priming effect, where men are expected to make the first move, and they may be unconsciously associating a smiling woman with being more open and receptive.


I think people tend to be against overt exploitation in general but that does get amplified when it's sexual. But yeah I think people tend to focus on certain forms of exploitation while dismissing others.

That quote is interesting, I don't read much when it comes to books so I haven't read that before. I was watching a documentary recently on a school in the UK (the Isle of Wight,) where they did an experiment for a few weeks where they attempted to eradicate gender norms from the school including getting the parents to remove gendered stuff from the student's house (with varying levels of success.) Tbh they could have gone a lot further and some of what they chose to do was inconsistent like painting the cupboards they store stuff in at school so they were all orange, but keeping their gendered uniforms, but it seems that after the experiment the girls had higher levels of self confidence than before. (from an 8% difference before the experiment to 0.2% afterwards, and 12% increase in girl's self esteem and 10% increase in pro-social behaviour among boys,) but who knows if that continued on long after the experiment. They were quite young kids like 6/7 or so I think.


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## bad baby

@Persephone The Dread

So you think perhaps 'spicing things up' might be like the sexual equivalent of "having a child to save one's marriage"? That's an interesting thought. Given that sexuality can be fluid over one's lifetime, I can see how some might feel the need for change. Although I don't know how much of this fluidity is in general and how much of it applies to one's partner specifically - like, if one could lose sexual attraction towards him/her while still being 'in love'. It kind of relates a bit to that other point about divergent sexual and romantic feelings, in this sense.

A while back my friend's 4-year-old son came round to play, I gave him my teddy bear and - to our amusement - he just started randomly tongue-kissing it. He probably learned it from watching adults on TV or something, but at the same time I wonder if children begin some kind of proto-exploration of the sexual/romantic domain from a young age when they're at that stage of learning + exploring all facets of the world. I think one of my psych professors might've mentioned it, can't recall exactly.

Recently I've seen this idea crop up that paedophilia is consistent and resistant enough to any kind of corrective efforts, that it might be a sexual orientation rather than a 'disorder' in the conventional sense. I suspect that this is the type of thing that researchers have known for a while, but are hesitant or reluctant to make it known to public for fear of the repercussions. Even a decade ago when I was looking up these studies in my undergrad, they were finding systematic differences in brain structures (temporal and prefrontal, iirc) compared to normal people. I remember feeling really sorry for these people after I read about that; their neurology basically fxxked them over. (well sometimes it was due to brain trauma.)

Haven't looked into the sociopsych theories, but the nurturing/sexuality one is interesting. It would explain young women with daddy issues (absent fathers, etc.) seeking out older men as partners. Although sometimes women with no such early experiences do, too, so what's up with that >_>.

I recall also seeing some op-ed pieces about 'infantalisation of women'/'sexualising of girls' as a trend in the media. There was a magazine ad some years back with a teenage Dakota Fanning wearing a frilly dress & whatnot straddling a perfume bottle looking all sultry. Actually I think this has been a long-standing critique of the fashion industry, that their female models look 'prepubescent' because of their body type (thin with small breasts & narrow hips). But i mean, exposure to a certain aesthetic/'look' doesn't necessarily translate into attraction.

And it's my feeling with the madonna-whxre thing is that women who are too elegant/classy could come off as 'unattainable' and maybe turn off sexual attraction a little bit? It reminds me of the phenomenon in East Asia, usually in high schools and such, where guys would collectively idolise a very 'high-value/status' girl and she becomes kind of like 'communal property' in a way, where the guys would have a pact to worship her together but no-one would date her exclusively for himself. Almost like a fan club in a way, and I think girls do that with a popular guy too.

I remember learning about that split-brain stuff, that they used to cut the corpus callosum to treat schizophrenia, and it caused those kinds of problems in the patients. As for Tolstoy, I read up a bit about his life, and apparently he converted to Christianity at some point and became a proponent of chastity/abstinence. In the novella he (or the protagonist, who is really him in disguise I guess) talks about humankind's overpowering lust holding everyone back from achieving greater things, like some kind of ultimate selfless love for one another or sumshxt. It also reminds me of Morrissey or somebody, I forget, who claims to be voluntarily celibate/asexual and they are able to channel this drive/energy into creating greater art.

The gender-norm study is interesting. I think kids pick up these little things from an early age - I read an interview with the writer Zadie Smith and she was saying that her 7-year-old daughter was putting on lipstick and spending excessive amounts of time getting ready for school in the morning or something. Like, wow, fxck knows what I was doing when i was 7 but I was certainly not doing makeup! Iirc there were also studies about how adults tend to compliment young girls on their looks ("you're so cute/pretty") much more than boys (I guess boys mostly get praised for ability-related traits or something, I forget), causing them to have more self-esteem issues later on.

Overall, though, I think adults tend to praise intrinsic aspects (intelligence, looks, natural talents, etc.) rather than the child's own efforts/initiatives, which could lead them to base their self-confidence on the wrong foundations and subsequently develop a learned helplessness and/or overly outcome-dependent outlook.


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## Persephone The Dread

@bad baby

People so seem to lose attraction overtime while still caring about people (sometimes they just lose both so I guess that mostly depends on how compatible they were on a platonic level perhaps.) I'm not sure if that's exactly the same thing though always but it's hard to separate emotional feelings/connections anyway.

Children definitely start experimenting or showing signs of sexuality in childhood even if they don't understand it yet. I've heard lots of accounts and did some stuff myself before really understanding what I was doing or knowing where I got the idea from (not as young as 4 though.) A lot of people who have fetishes generally show signs in childhood like being very fascinated by something or sometimes getting erections at a young age if they're male (and I've heard some accounts of this happening in early childhood,) Of course that's kind of a bit controversial.

Yeah I think pedophilia is probably untreatable most of the time, at least if it's a persistent life long interest. I suppose people with a mildler and less dominant chronophilic interest could probably just distract themselves from it using their other interests, and I've also read about cases of people with troubling paraphilias that managed to replace them with other less damaging ones (like one example someone had a masochistic desire to be dismembered and somehow replaced it with another paraphilia,) so sometimes that can happen too.

Also heard about the head trauma thing, that's interesting actually because I think criminal behaviour and/or psychopathy are connected to head trauma in childhood as well.

The ageplay thing doesn't typically seem to be related to pedophilia. I know there's some overlap because some people are 'autopedophilic' but most of the time it seems to be more about the behavioural aspect of nurturing becoming sexualised. It's definitely increased in popularity though, which makes me think there's something about the current culture that brings awareness to that, or makes people more interested in it.

The infantalism thing in the media has definitely been going on a while there's this really cringy advert from the 70s that's a pretty good example

I've seen complaints/comments like that before about the fashion industry (also about people who aren't models but have a similar build when people say they're attractive.) I don't really think models look prepubescent since they often have very angular features and aren't really neotenic, but body wise that industry does seem to favour androgynous builds (so tall, and slim, not very dimoprhic features, no big muscles or cuves.) There was a transguy who was rejected by modelling agencies before they transistioned, but afterwards found work because they had a more androgynous look.

I don't think the stereotypical female model is really seen as that attractive by straight men and if so it's not their build but their face. So I don't think the fashion industry has much of an impact on straight men's attraction, though it could have an impact on women and some gay men's ideal body type.

Hmm yeah I have heard that some very attractive people are less successful than you'd think because everyone assumes they are unattainable and most people end up intimidated. Also reminds me of a couple of findings from dating sites:

https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2018/09/211050/online-dating-attractiveness

I'm going to have to link this YT video from a couple of days ago because I can't find the info being discussed there quickly on google, but I did read about this elsewhere a couple of years or so ago (the gist is that people with photos that are polarising and therefor have a lower overall rating, get more messages because they appeal to a niche demographic I guess):

https://@www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLNwa_hoz4w

Ah yeah there are a lot of people with a philosophy that sex = a distraction. Morrissey's always had an ambiguous sexuality. I don't know enough about him to know if he specifically said that but I was reading his wikipedia article a while back and it seems he's always been quite vague about his sexuality, so people have speculated on whether he's bisexual, asexual etc. I think at one point he said that he and his girlfriend were bisexual but that he hated sex.

Yeah I find stuff like that worrying tbh, like 6 year olds saying they're ugly... Things like that didn't occur to me at that age (I mean I never really got into makeup I can probably count the times I've used it, not including black nail varnish, on one hand but yeah.) It's fine if they're just messing around but when they have some idea that they should be wearing it, and that leaving the house without it is a bad thing that's very worrying. And yeah I've seen people talking about that too, adults do tend to compliment girls based on their appearance and boys more on their ability.

I remember getting complimented based on effort before a few times (or more like 'you did a great job, especially considering you're usually so quiet' with spoken presentations etc,) but I think most compliments I've gotten were usually based on results. I actually don't remember many compliments now irl either, because it's been a few years, and my memory is bad.


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## bad baby

@Persephone The Dread

Yeah I think that's what scares me, I don't know if I can maintain romantic/sexual attraction to one person over the course of a lifetime, and I don't know if someone else can do the same for me in return. But all the same the concept of 'undying love' still appeals to me; I wonder if that's purely a societal artefact or if there's some biological cause behind this hopeless romanticism.

I've seen pre-school aged children sometimes play with or display fascination towards their own genitals, but not sure if that's an early form of 'sexual awareness' or if they're just part of the exploratory repertoire precisely because they don't know that these parts are used for sex.

Interestingly enough my friend's son is also way friendlier towards adult women who are attractive. (I haven't seen him do the same with adult men.) seems almost certainly to be a proto-romantic type of manifestation... haven't seen any studies of this, but I feel like children's aesthetic preferences might be more primal in this sense, since they're not bogged down by the cultural influences that we are (or less so at least).

And I'm sure there are a lot of closet paedophiles walking among us who manage to successfully sublimate those urges through some other means. The small proportion who do offend are the ones who couldn't find any alternatives I would think.

In relation to the ageplay thing, wasn't there a prevalent practice of older men engaging in sexual relationships with younger males in ancient Greek military and Japanese samurai traditions? Also the popularity and legacy of Nabokov's _Lolita_, which may or may not have opened the floodgates to something.. It seems like orientation wr/t age and even gender could be partially influenced by culture, or maybe the window of attraction is bigger than it seems to us in modern society.

That advert... But at least I can see where they are coming from, given the brand name 'Baby Soft', lol. I was too young to remember the '90s properly (nonetheless I'm pretty fascinated/nostalgic for it in a weird way), but it seems like the aesthetics/standards of attractiveness underwent a major change around that time. fashion models were never 'curvy' but they got more slim and androgynous after Kate Moss and her whole tomboy/waif look. There was also Natalie Portman in _The Professional_ being this underaged seductress sort of figure, and she had _the_ look of the decade.

I think beauty and aesthetics are definitely tied to the sociocultural/-political climate of the era. The '80s/'90s' downward economic trend was reflected as darker/heavier elements in the music/fashion/general look. I remember also reading a book some time ago about 1930s (Great Depression-era) art, and the body type considered attractive at the time was something like this:










which is pretty emaciated/gaunt compared to Caravaggio's rendering of the same scene.

The trans model reminded me of a while back when a bunch of my 'friends' on facebook were complaining about the fact that the government has decided to spend money to make sex reassignment surgery available in my province. Apparently before this people had to fly to the Eastern provinces to get it done, which was surprising to me, considering how progressive we supposedly are. Anyway, my fb friends thought that the gov't will pay trans people to have their surgeries for free, and got into a hissy fit that the budget should go into more pressing issues like infertility and abortions.

Honestly I feel like progressivism is a sham. These circles that I run in, people would pay lip service to all your good ol' social justice issues because it's the 'politically correct' thing to do. (And god knows they need to blend in and play the role of the model citizen to perfection.) But anytime there's a change that will actually benefit these causes, they are just as happy to stand out and oppose it under the guise of 'but what about _me_'-ism. And these are the ones who are typically well-off and have nothing to lose in the first place.

But anyway.

The dating site findings are interesting, and reminded me a bit of this. Sites like Okcupid probably attract a certain demographic - like I mean there's different ages and races on there, but iirc i also read that their userbase tend to skew towards more liberal/progressive and more educated, which could lead to certain preference oddities. Sites like Reddit seems to be the same way, it's one of the biggest (if not _the_ biggest) online forum, but to me it looks like a giant enclave that attracts predominantly male tecchies who set up their respective echo-chambers built on similar mentalities. I guess because these are the ones who make up the majority of users on the internet, and are therefore overrepresented in that sense.

I remember having this conversation with a guy friend once - he said that a girl confided to him that she never leaves the house without makeup because she feels 'ugly', and he felt kinda awkward and didn't know what to say so he just responded with, 'okay...' Which is a kind of a dick move admittedly, but when I think about it there seems to be no good way of reassuring a girl on her appearance-

If you tell her "looks don't matter" it would probably translate in her head into a roundabout way of admitting that she's ugly. People tend to avoid offence/lying, regardless of whether they actually believe it.
Conversely if you tell her "you're not ugly, you look good!", you're reinforcing the societal emphasis on the importance of beauty.

So yeah maybe there is no win. Maybe.


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## White Shirt Guy

I don't see those jokes as necessarily disrespectful. I think you're taking them too personal. Sure people can make what they think to be jokes, actual insults but others makes jokes for the sake of making jokes and making people laugh. In a way, making fun of everything is respectful because you're not giving anyone or anything special treatment.


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