Pornography in the service of women

[Stella_Omega]

Oh, Freud! He had some excellent insights. he interpreted them, as we all know, according to his own strictly limited worldview, and he was a damn good self-advertiser. he took up most of the room in the public mind, so that more than one hundred years worth of western society firmly believed that boy children only loved their mothers because they wanted to crawl back into that womb.

And that autism was the mothers fault. This was such a foregone conclusion that, in one case I know of, the psychologist whom the troubled parents went to would not request a brain scan. Years later, a scan showed that a part of the child's brain was physically missing. But the parents spent five years 'in analysis' first. And that psychologist was not an unscrupulous man.

Freud told us that daughters must hate their mothers in order to become Real Women-- who show their maturity by having vaginal orgasms instead of clitoral ones. Therefore, the first sign of tension between a growing girl and her mother, which coul be dealt with in a multitude of ways, was instead treated as inevitable and a death knell for their relationship. And of course we now know that the vagina is an integral part of the clitoris, or the other way around... but generations of women were unwomanly in their own eyes as well as their husbands. And, partly because this measure of maturity was so strongly accepted, the knowlege about the physical clitoris only came to light four fucking years ago. The impetus to explore further had been hijacked.

Freud implied that inculcating self-discipline in children rests on strict toilet training and nothing else. That one has done so much societal harm-- both in action and reaction.

And such was the skill of his public relations that, for generations, all other schools of psychoanalysis only existed in relation to Freudianism.

Surely you've heard;"a little learning is a dangerous thing."

Dawkins wrote "Selfish gene' as an ethiologist. He was jumping to conclusions in regards to human behavior, and he promoted his conclusions with great skill, firing the public and academic imaginations with the elegance of his solution-- meaning that other equally elegant solutions have had to fight their way back into acceptance. This is normal in the process of science, but pretty fucking tough in the lives of people who are effected by that little learning, while the process winds slowly to its end. When public policy is determined by science, the science had better be right.

Dawkins' 'little learning' masquerading as scholarship has been dangerous and detrimental to society. The popularity of such solid-seeming, strongly-worded suppositions focus both public and academic interest, and fosters neglect of other more viable avenues of study. And some very good minds went jumping down the rabbit holes of evopsyche.

I am research assistant to an anthropologist sociologist at a California university, and this historic hiccup is the very topic I've been working on for the past year.

My observation has been that when a truism results in inequality for one or more groups of human beings, it is not true.

 

[CharleyH]

No need to prove yourself, Stella.

 

[Stella_Omega]

No need to prove yourself, Stella.

It's a fine little challenge, and rather easy to do.

would you mind changing the university appellation at the end there, for me? I've suddenly realised that's probably too specific...

 

[xssve]

xs said, some excerpts //Absolutely true. It's {infanticide} not at all uncommon among predators, to whom their own offspring represent competition, and mothers in almost every mammalian species are at pains to keep males - all males - at a distance during pregnancy and nursing [...]

The gang violence thing is interesting, i.e., they gang up on members who have already been socially marginalized - [...]

My point was very different, nearly all male animals fight over females and resources, virtually none of them fight to the death - and the reason for this simple: both individuals are subject to injury. If one animal "submits", the fight is over.//

ok, if we're to use nature as our teacher: we're agreed males mammals don't naturally/normally kill each other, unless one is socially marginalized (or there's a war of groups); one submits or leaves the scene.

they do naturally/normally, kill another male's babies (who are in the company of the mother, of course), in some circumstances, e.g, when the mom will be available as a sexual partner. they do rub off on each other sometimes (e.g., intercrural), but as to the anal penetration, the current, solid evidence, outside captivity, is scanty, see e.g. Diamant, Psychology of Sexual Behavior, pp. 142-5, for a summary: http://books.google.com/books?id=5IdO6wisyUUC&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142

Ok, but the evidence of such activities among humans is anything but scanty - we aren't any other animal, we're human animals, and we do a lot of shit other animals don't do, like wearing clothes and communicating via electronic networks - the word "unnatural" is itself, an abstract linguistic construct, it has no meaning in the natural world where anything that happens is, by definition, natural.

There is only one value distinction in Darwinian terms of natural selection when it comes to describing species: extinct, and not extinct yet.

According to the theory of natural selection, traits that contribute to fitness will be propagated, those that have a negative or suppressive effect will not.

According to textual (Biblical) evidence, society has been trying to eradicate homosexuality for at least Three Thousand years, and it hasn't made a dent - it means something, I'd say.

 

[CharleyH]

It's a fine little challenge, and rather easy to do.

would you mind changing the university appellation at the end there, for me? I've suddenly realised that's probably too specific...

No prob

 

[Stella_Omega]

No prob

Thank you so much!

 

[xssve]

And of course we now know that the vagina is an integral part of the clitoris, or the other way around... but generations of women were unwomanly in their own eyes as well as their husbands. And, partly because this measure of maturity was so strongly accepted, the knowlege about the physical clitoris only came to light four fucking years ago. The impetus to explore further had been hijacked.

I disagree, I'm positively aching with the impetus to explore it further.

My observation has been that when a truism results in inequality for one or more groups of human beings, it is not true.

Like this one? Perhaps an example is in order.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I disagree, I'm positively aching with the impetus to explore it further.

Like this one? Perhaps an example is in order.

Naw, you can take that bait yourself. Got an exception?

 

[xssve]

Naw, you can take that bait yourself. Got an exception?

Bait? I'm genuinely curious - you said:

Dawkins' 'little learning' masquerading as scholarship has been dangerous and detrimental to society. The popularity of such solid-seeming, strongly-worded suppositions focus both public and academic interest, and fosters neglect of other more viable avenues of study. And some very good minds went jumping down the rabbit holes of evopsyche.

I'm interested in what you might consider to be an example of this - seems to me like a perfectly legitimate request to make of an anthropological research assistant.

I won't bite. Hard.

And California? I had you pegged as a Yankee.

 

[penandpaper]

Stella,

I'd be genuinely interested in your study. The study of how a philosophy, theory, viewpoint, or faulty clinical study can mislead and damage society truly sounds fascinating. In fact, if I may point out, it sounds a bit like what Dawkins was actually trying to do with religious philosophy. Interesting, that it may take his own kind of belaboring (from a camp on his own side) to bring him down a peg or two.

And you need to know that when I brought up Freud, I was using him as a pile of crap that led to a grain of truth. I was in no way shape or form condoning his studies. I too, realize he was a dolt that led to a a lot of harm - especially against women. But that is, in my understanding, how science works. You create a hypothesis and then see if it is true. Often times it is not.

Anyway, thanks for sharing.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Bait? I'm genuinely curious - you said:I'm interested in what you might consider to be an example of this - seems to me like a perfectly legitimate request to make of an anthropological research assistant.

I won't bite. Hard.

And California? I had you pegged as a Yankee.

That's a different request than the one I understood. I thought you were asking about truisms.

so;
Robert Trivers, who coined the term "Battle of the sexes," and assigned it to biological emperatives-- and also the oxymoronic term "reciprocal altruism" whicih reduces our need to give and recieve love and affection to some sort of tit for tat game.

Buss, of course, who bases his violence research on the foregone conclusion that rape is a viable reproductive strategy. Only recently have researchers actually started to look at that theory in any other way tha foregone, and some new papers are on their way out, I'll let you know when they are published. But-- not so successful for reproduction, in a nutshell.

And in a practical setting, a young-ish man who is seminal in developing games-- like D&D type games-- who, despite assurances to the contrary, insists that D&D only appeals to men because menevolvedtobandtogetherintoraidingpartiesandhuntmastodonsandrapeandpillage...

And women have evolved different living strategies and therefore are not interested in playing D&D.

This theory informs his game design.


And let's not forget Porn producers who confuse what they give the market with what the market might actually prefer-- if the market only knew that such a thing could exist.

Evopsych spends inordinant amounts of effort in twisting empirical data into shapes that fit the theories.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Stella,

I'd be genuinely interested in your study. The study of how a philosophy, theory, viewpoint, or faulty clinical study can mislead and damage society truly sounds fascinating. In fact, if I may point out, it sounds a bit like what Dawkins was actually trying to do with religious philosophy. Interesting, that it may take his own kind of belaboring (from a camp on his own side) to bring him down a peg or two.

Yes... it's equally irritatiing to me as an atheist, that this man is one of the leading voices against blind belief. Religious belief, at least...

And you need to know that when I brought up Freud, I was using him as a pile of crap that led to a grain of truth. I was in no way shape or form condoning his studies. I too, realize he was a dolt that led to a a lot of harm - especially against women. But that is, in my understanding, how science works. You create a hypothesis and then see if it is true. Often times it is not.

Anyway, thanks for sharing.

You made your postion on Freud crystal clear!

And that is how sceince works, and how science works society; you make a hypothesis, and, if it strikes the public imagination, it informs society-- until it's proven untrue. Meanwhile, misery results for someone-- especially if the hypothesis is untrue.

Dawkins was incredibly unscrupulous in writing that book.

 

[xssve]

That's a different request than the one I understood. I thought you were asking about truisms.

so;
Robert Trivers, who coined the term "Battle of the sexes," and assigned it to biological emperatives-- and also the oxymoronic term "reciprocal altruism" whicih reduces our need to give and recieve love and affection to some sort of tit for tat game.

Buss, of course, who bases his violence research on the foregone conclusion that rape is a viable reproductive strategy. Only recently have researchers actually started to look at that theory in any other way tha foregone, and some new papers are on their way out, I'll let you know when they are published. But-- not so successful for reproduction, in a nutshell.

And in a practical setting, a young-ish man who is seminal in developing games-- like D&D type games-- who, despite assurances to the contrary, insists that D&D only appeals to men because menevolvedtobandtogetherintoraidingpartiesandhuntmastodonsandrapeandpillage...

And women have evolved different living strategies and therefore are not interested in playing D&D.

This theory informs his game design.


And let's not forget Porn producers who confuse what they give the market with what the market might actually prefer-- if the market only knew that such a thing could exist.

Evopsych spends inordinant amounts of effort in twisting empirical data into shapes that fit the theories.

I've never heard of any of these people - if your argument is that pseudo scientific theories in general often cause a great deal of collateral damage as they bash around in the modern psyche, I'd be forced to agree with you, in general.

I was asking specifically about Dawkins, on whom I am by no means an expert, in fact I don't believe I've read any of his books, just heard some things propagated as memes, which, if I'm not mistaken, is a term he coined himself.

So what "memes" of his are dangerous, in your opinion?

 

[Stella_Omega]

I've never heard of any of these people - if your argument is that pseudo scientific theories in general often cause a great deal of collateral damage as they bash around in the modern psyche, I'd be forced to agree with you, in general.

I was asking specifically about Dawkins, on whom I am by no means an expert, in fact I don't believe I've read any of his books, just heard some things propagated as memes, which, if I'm not mistaken, is a term he coined himself.

So what "memes" of his are dangerous, in your opinion?

With all due respect, xssve, you have been citing articles that feature conclusions based on evopsyche theory.
You present these articles as authoritative and use their conclusions in argument-- evidently, without understanding the theory beyond that it corroborates what you already believe.

There's your dangerous meme, baby.

Let's test this theory of yours, that, pseudo-science does a lot of damage in general.

Can you find an example of a highly popular, generally accepted, pseudo science that has not done damage to one or another group that it impacts?

 

[penandpaper]

"Buss, of course, who bases his violence research on the foregone conclusion that rape is a viable reproductive strategy. Only recently have researchers actually started to look at that theory in any other way tha foregone, and some new papers are on their way out, I'll let you know when they are published. But-- not so successful for reproduction, in a nutshell."

That's interesting you say this, because I just recently read where the strategy of orangutans in arrested development was to rape. (Arrested development refers to orangutans not fully developed, yet at an age to where they should be. The suppression of puberty is assumed to be brought about by an adult alreadt present. Incidentally, the level of stress hormones in the arrested development orangutan are actually lower than in the adult.)

The authors, Maggioncalda and Sapolsky, a biological anthropologist and neuroendocrinologist respectively, stated that it is a strategy that is working for these apes. They are also very keen to point out it is nearly impossible to gain insights into human behavior and reproductive strategies by extrapolating from animal studies.

I have not read anything that refutes their position, although, I'm sure some time soon, there will be something that does.

Just thought you might find it interesting. It just goes to prove that once you think you have the monkey pegged, they start using tools, driving with truckers, and taking over Hollywood.

 

[xssve]

With all due respect, xssve, you have been citing articles that feature conclusions based on evopsyche theory.
You present these articles as authoritative and use their conclusions in argument-- evidently, without understanding the theory beyond that it corroborates what you already believe.

There's your dangerous meme, baby.

Let's test this theory of yours, that, pseudo-science does a lot of damage in general.

Can you find an example of a highly popular, generally accepted, pseudo science that has not done damage to one or another group that it impacts?

The articles I posted were not articles, they were peer reviewed research. It's entirely your assumption that they only "confirm what I already believe".

Dawkins didn't invent evopsych, my initial interest in the subject dates back to Richard Restak and Elaine Morgan, long before the world had heard of Dawkins.

I'm forced to assume you have nothing but rhetorical rebuttal then?

 

[Stella_Omega]

Yes; orangutan mothers raise their infants without regard to the circumstances that conceived it. Harry Harlow, in his famous 'motherless mothers' experiments had his asocial macaque females raped by the males in order to impregnate them.

Human mothers however, tend to remember the past and its bearing on the present. They may, for instance, detest the child that reminds them of the incident that brought it forth.

Human women don't always survive the rape, or it may have done enough damage to her genitalia that the birth kills her.

Human rapists do not necessarily rape women during their fertile period, which they have no way of determining. They do not always rape women of a fertile age. They do not stick around to protect any possible progeny, who may be destroyed or ostracised by the tribe.

Rape is not bred into us as a procreative strategy. It does exist as an aggrandisement strategy, and is therefore cultural in nature.

DEEP fucking culture, yeah? The kind that needs decades of attention before it begins to change. And five decades have been wasted on evospyche.

 

[Stella_Omega]

note to self; waste no further energy on xxsve.

 

[xssve]

Yes; orangutan mothers raise their infants without regard to the circumstances that conceived it. Harry Harlow, in his famous 'motherless mothers' experiments had his asocial macaque females raped by the males in order to impregnate them.

Human mothers however, tend to remember the past and its bearing on the present. They may, for instance, detest the child that reminds them of the incident that brought it forth.

Human women don't always survive the rape, or it may have done enough damage to her genitalia that the birth kills her.

Human rapists do not necessarily rape women during their fertile period, which they have no way of determining. They do not always rape women of a fertile age. They do not stick around to protect any possible progeny, who may be destroyed or ostracised by the tribe.

Rape is not bred into us as a procreative strategy. It does exist as an aggrandisement strategy, and is therefore cultural in nature.

DEEP fucking culture, yeah? The kind that needs decades of attention before it begins to change. And five decades have been wasted on evospyche.

So unless it works %100 of the time, it's a social construct? Are there rape victims that have successful pregnancies and care for the offspring? How many women does the average rapist rape, in his lifetime?

Are all social constructs "unnatural"?

I'm not using the word "natural" here as an excuse or a justification, I'm not assigning any value to the word at all, as per my response to Pure.

As a human, I think it's a deplorable strategy, and as a pseudoscientist, likely to reduce both group and individual fitness for all parties involved - doesn't mean it isn't a strategy, it's just bad strategy, quantity over quality.

Thing is, most rapists are not strangers but family members or close acquaintances, war being the exception, and I sincerely doubt many of them have read Dawkins - or is that another pseudoscientific social construct?

Is not understanding the problem a requisite step to solving it?

 

[Stella_Omega]

We were talking about the evolutionary theory, that because rape is an effect procreative strategy for many primates, it's a viable biological component in humans.

There is evidence that contradicts that theory.

The evidence does not contradict the fact of rape.

We need to look at other theories for the prevalence of rape among humans. The evo theory of rape is based on the same fallacy that you brought up; that it works 100% of the time.

Cultural constructs are 'natural.' Culture, which drives humans (and probably any other sentient critter that ever had to adapt in a hurry) is infinitely mutable-- as evidenced by the way we can live in the Sahara, the Arctic, the banks of a rainforest river, and New York city and remain the same species!

Thing is, most rapists are not strangers but family members or close acquaintances, war being the exception, and I sincerely doubt many of them have read Dawkins - or is that another pseudoscientific social construct?

And 'twas ever thus, right? You are talking about this society, that of modern man. Evopsych dudes tend to ignore the modern part of man.

 

[xssve]

We were talking about the evolutionary theory, that because rape is an effect procreative strategy for many primates, it's a viable biological component in humans.

There is evidence that contradicts that theory.

The evidence does not contradict the fact of rape.

We need to look at other theories for the prevalence of rape among humans.

I agree - not sure how that negates evopsych.

There are rapists who kill their victims for instance, clearly, this is not going to be very successful as a reproductive strategy.

There's quite a few miles between a given impulse and its ultimate expression, environment and individual psychology has quite a bit to do with that territory.

The urge to drag down an antelope eat it with your bare teeth and the desire to sit down to a fine multi-course meal are both expressions of the same primal urge, they are similar in cause but very different in effect.

I would suggest that radical feminists have done just as much "damage" by defining all heterosexual sex as rape, i.e., trivializing nonconsensual sex - by way of not laying it all on Dawkins, rather than trying starting up another battle-of-the-sexes meme war.

Freud did the best he could with what he had to work with, nobody can be 100% correct all the time, even me.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I would suggest that radical feminists have done just as much "damage" by defining all heterosexual sex as rape, i.e., trivializing nonconsensual sex - by way of not laying it all on Dawkins, rather than trying starting up another battle-of-the-sexes meme war.

In that some of them were working from an evopsyche basis, yes indeed! This is a good example, of the danger of a little learning; the anger of the group that is most affected by it, might just come back to affect the rest of us.

Freud did the best he could with what he had to work with, nobody can be 100% correct all the time, even me.

Freud never explicated that he was 'doing the best he could with what he had to work with.' His reputation depended on his Godlike Infallibility.

Neither did Dawkins, and likewise his rep.

 

[Stella_Omega]

The urge to drag down an antelope eat it with your bare teeth and the desire to sit down to a fine multi-course meal are both expressions of the same primal urge, they are similar in cause but very different in effect.

oh, a lovely case in point!

What primal urge do you figure this expresses? The need to fill the belly?

No, if all you wanted was food, you'd go trap something small and easy, or pick fruit or something that didn't expend so much energy. The urge to run down an antelope is the urge to be a Big man in the eyes of your tribe. And that's a social desire.

Similarly, in this day and age, hunger can be assuaged by a sandwich, or an ice cream cone, or something that's pretty reasonably easy to prepare. Sitting down to a fine multi-course meal involves an enormous expense in time and energy if you prepare it, or of money if someone else does. You aren't doing all of that just because you're hungry; you're doing it because it feeds your sense of status.

 

[xssve]

In that some of them were working from an evopsyche basis, yes indeed! This is a good example, of the danger of a little learning; the anger of the group that is most affected by it, might just come back to affect the rest of us.

A given movement and the gullibility of it's enthusiasts are in fact, two separate things.

Freud never explicated that he was 'doing the best he could with what he had to work with.' His reputation depended on his Godlike Infallibility.

Neither did Dawkins, and likewise his rep.

No, he didn't say it, I did. See above.

The roots of this lie in the religious impulse, in which some dogma promises to create order in a chaos of conflicting impulses that is the human condition.

Specifically, the cult of Science, which began in the Renaissance, the scientist as Shaman - it's more modern expression dates to the "cult of expertise" that Kennedy cultivated, marked, of course, by the occasional disaster precipitated by "groupthink", such as the Bay of Pigs.

This is the subject of Christopher Lasch's Culture of Narcissism, wherein he pays particular attention the rise of therapeutic culture, in which we are inextricably intertwined.

Ultimately, I have to see it as and extension of the religious impulse as I originally stated - the only way to deal with science is to treat it as science, not religion, i.e., confirm before you jump on the bandwagon, it's just data.

You need something else to satisfy the theoleptic impulse, like... religion.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to make a futile attempt to satisfy my theoleptic impulses by watching "2 Wild Bitches in Need of Cock".

 

[xssve]

Aaa, I give it a two.