How did you celebrate protection from porn week?

crashfrog responds to me:

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One of the big things that pisses me off in many stories is the inability of characters to "do the right thing" when they know that doing the right thing is the only way to set things right.

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Do people never do stupid things where you live?

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The people I know tend not to find themselves in an interrogation room being wrongly charged with murder, but they all agree that if they were in such a situation, they would not hold anything back.The people I know tend not to find themselves being chased by the serial killer, but they all agree that if they were in such a situation, they would never drop the shovel and if they managed to get a whack at the serial killer and dropped him, they wouldn't stop pounding on him until his brains are splattered over a good 10 square feet, every bone is broken, and not a single drop of blood is available to provide oxygen to any cell.The people I know tend not to find their children kidnapped, but they all know that even if the ransomers say not to call the police, you call the police.It isn't a question of being merely stupid. It's a question of idiocy.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Peter responds to me:

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A stripper is an employee, not a consumer.

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Says who? You? You mean the stripper isn't hiring the theatre to put on a show? Strippers don't acquire a following?

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If you are renting theatre space to put on a show, then you expect to pay for it.

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And how, exactly, is a stripper not putting on a show?------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This is similar to how all the people I know tend not to find themselves being chased by zombies, but if they did, they all agree that it's best to follow the Rules of Zombies:1)Behead your dead.
2)Aim for the head.
3)Use the buddy system.
4)Baseball bats are better than pistols. Shotguns are better than bats. Well, I see it more as a question of plot - you can hardly have a cautionary tale if your main character never does anything wrong. In fact you can't have much of a story at all.Good characterization isn't a matter of your character always doing the smart thing. It's a matter of how realistically they do the dumb thing.But enough of our nonsense. Back to work, porn defenders!

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The people I know...

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You can't know how you'll react in situations like that until you're in the situation. Panic (such as could arise from a wrongful murder arrest, a serial killer, or a kidnapped child) can do crazy things to people, and make them act in totally irrational ways.Does this mean everyone will start acting like nincompoops when they're in a panic situation? Naw. But I think anyone could.

Just to bring it back on topic, I have to agree mostly with Schraf here. Not that I believe humans are inherently monogamous beings; as I mentioned in another discussion with holmes, humans are among the more monogamous of animals, but we're anything but the most monogamous. This is evidenced by size ratios, testicular size ratios, and historical human behavioral patterns. For those who like pair bonding, gibbons are better role models. However, from my personal point of view, I don't like a swinger's life. To quote from Chasing Amy, "That time is over for me. I've been there. I've done it. And I didn't find what I was looking for.". I've been in threesomes; I've been in a foursome; I've been in all sorts of situations. I didn't find what I was looking for in any of it.I've found it, though, with my partner.Perhaps it's just me. After all, I developed an early distate for relationships, after stepping back to observe how my behavior and sense of self changed when I was "in love". I began to regard them as little more than an instinctual, undesired force acting on my very mind itself, and sending the mind through wild, unwanted gyrations of joy and abject misery (depending on how the current situation was going). This, coupled with early exploration of the concepts of existentialism led to attempts to override such instincts, which of course met with abject failure (over a slow, painful process). I ended up with sort of a counterrevolution, where I just took whatever came to me... but, after a long story, I ended up here in my life. And I like it.P.S. - One thing that's interesting that I've noticed is, at least in my experience, that men take your stance more often than women. Which is exactly what would be expected evolutionarily.P.P.S. - Back on the main thread, I offer this to Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft: "Go back to just covering up naked statues with 8,000$ drapes."------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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Just to bring it back on topic, I have to agree mostly with Schraf here. Not that I believe humans are inherently monogamous beings; as I mentioned in another discussion with holmes, humans are among the more monogamous of animals, but we're anything but the most monogamous. This is evidenced by size ratios, testicular size ratios, and historical human behavioral patterns. For those who like pair bonding, gibbons are better role models.

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Holy crap, somebody agrees with me (at all)!That's cool.I'll also say that I'll definitely support your contention, Rei, that humans tend to be pretty monogomous with cheating.Holmes keeps talking about gangbangs, casual and anonymous sex, and swinging as the more "natural" form of sexuality, and monogomy or less promiscuous sex as "prudish" and having an entirely cultural basis.I'd just like to bring up the reason for ever having sex from an evolutionary standpoint. It's not pleasure. Pleasure is a by-product meant to help us procreate.No, the real reason sex exists is...Offspring!The kind of sexual activity that holmes believes is the more "natural", without contraception, would result in lots of pregnancies and lots of ambiguity about who the fathers are.The females in holmes' situations would undoubtedly be a lot less willing to participate if they were risking pregnancy.Over the millenia, Homo Sapiens obviously have invested a great deal of time and energy in their offspring; we only have the capacity to produce one offspring a year and these offspring take a tremendous amount of nurturing and instruction for many years after birth. It makes sense evolutionarily that the offspring who's fathers tended to stick around to protect and help raise them would be more likely to survive.Additionally, the ambiguity of paternity in holmes' situations is also counter to evolution, because a male is not going to want to waste energy raising a child which does not carry his genes.There is a real benefit to human offspring who's fathers are present, at least until they are able to fend for themselves.So, pair bonding is important for raising human babies, and is therefore a normal, natural consequence of having sex with someone.I would say that for real pair bonding to happen, the contact would probably have had to have been repeated and prolonged, and I am not talking about "you are my soulmate" kind of bonding. Just a closeness that brings the two together enough so they will be able to successfully raise their offspring.[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 11-14-2003]

I don't understand the argument here. Does it make any sense to say whose sexuality or sexual experience is more "normal"? Do we really even care how or who someone is f*cking?I don't see that when somebody says "My sexuality is the best for me" that it's necessary to counter with "No, my sexuality is best for you."Maybe Schraf and Holmes could explain to me the exact stakes of this argument. I can't believe that you guys are arguing about who has the better sexuality, so I must be misunderstanding the issue.

On this one crash, I agree with Schraf. What is "normal" does have an objective place to view it from. The pair bonding aspect is the consensus view of what our sexuality is there for. The rest are a number of interesting flourishs on that theme.

Crash, holmes is painting himself as kind of practicing "pure sex", and that any pair bonding that goes on or tendencies towards monogamy is culturally imposed.He rejects any evolutionary model of sex that includes emotional pair bonding.[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 11-14-2003]

Don't we get on shaky ground, though, trying to determine which behaviors are biological and which are cultural? Is it even possible to tell the difference, in a lot of cases?I submit that there's no important difference between your positions - that emotional pair bonding in sex can be both cultural in origin and be evolutionarily beneficial.Personally I've never had sex outside of an emotional context. I've tried and failed. But then again, everything I do has an emotional context. I don't see that it's any more significant in sex than in any other arena.

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Don't we get on shaky ground, though, trying to determine which behaviors are biological and which are cultural? Is it even possible to tell the difference, in a lot of cases?

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Well, sure, it's isn't cut and dried by any means.However, it is also true that certain "I like you a lot" chemicals get released when we have sex with someone.The warm fuzzy and proud feelings a pair have when the male looks at his pregnant female or when the pair cuddle with their offspring are also probably evolutionary in origin.This is pair bonding. Monogamy for decades is something else and is probably more a cultural institution.

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I submit that there's no important difference between your positions - that emotional pair bonding in sex can be both cultural in origin and be evolutionarily beneficial.

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Except for those pesky neurotransmitters.

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Personally I've never had sex outside of an emotional context. I've tried and failed. But then again, everything I do has an emotional context. I don't see that it's any more significant in sex than in any other arena.

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Well, right.You are human, therefore you are an emotional creature.You don't always have heavy, deep, soul-searching, fully-explored emotions, but you are always emotional.

Sure, but what's the significance here? I get a fuzzy feeling looking at fried chicken, especially when I'm hungry. It's likely that feeling is evolutionary in origin too, and while eating can have a pair bonding effect too, it doesn't change the fact that I'm eating for food's sake.Well, maybe I am. Sometimes I'm eating because other people are. Assuming those neurotransmitters appear only in a sexual, pair-bonding context. Do I get them masturbating? Do I get them eating? Shaking hands with people? Petting kitties?If they're specifically sex chemicals, then yes, they exist to make us have sex. But if they're just fuzzy-good-feeling chemicals, then what triggers their release in the brain may very well be cultural, not biological. I don't know why, but it makes me laugh that you feel you need to tell me that. I'll take it as agreement, however. I think Holmes is trying to get across that sexual intercourse doesn't always entail deep emotion - that it's possible to have sex with someone with no more emotion than you would feel for the guy selling you hamburgers, or at least no more than you might feel for your mates, playing Scrabble.

I didn't see anything in your post which countered my position, or argued for schraf's.Fulfillment will always depend on the individual. You cannot find a relationship in sex (which if anything backs up my argument). Thus if you are looking for a relationship then you will always be disappointed with sex for pleasure.However, if what you are looking for is pleasure (let's say you already have a partner so that is out), then there are all sorts of sexual things which can be had for fun.This is why many people who are swingers are couples. Many singles tend to fall out for the same reason you just mentioned, and is why many swingers clubs exclude singles. Too many people (because of social norms) confuse what they are looking for. It shows.

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One thing that's interesting that I've noticed is, at least in my experience, that men take your stance more often than women. Which is exactly what would be expected evolutionarily.

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But more interestingly, many men are confused regarding what they are looking for too. So many guys go in hoping to find a partner, rather than to sit back and relax.I might point out, the above statement (regarding women) is also what would be expected in a culture that teaches from birth that boys are horny and seek fulfillment in conquest, and girls are not really sexual and seek fulfillment in finding a mate.As an example Polynesian island women shocked the hell out of European sailors for being more sexually promiscuous than the sailors. What happened to evolution there?I think evidence points to culture more than evolution.------------------
holmes[This message has been edited by holmes, 11-14-2003]

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What is "normal" does have an objective place to view it from. The pair bonding aspect is the consensus view of what our sexuality is there for. The rest are a number of interesting flourishs on that theme.

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Pairbonding is a concensus among whom? I started a thread called "evolution of "sex=love"" to discuss this very topic. I have a link in there showing that evolutionary psychology no longer takes this line.It is going the way of the previous "consensus" that masturbation and homosexuality are deviations because natural pairbonding was man and woman.------------------
holmes

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Maybe Schraf and Holmes could explain to me the exact stakes of this argument. I can't believe that you guys are arguing about who has the better sexuality, so I must be misunderstanding the issue.

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You can go to my thread "evolution of "sex=love"" for the actual argument going on, but I'll do a brief summary.Schraf claims that pairbonding is an important part of sex (evolution has made them necessary companions) and that anyone engaging in sexual activity that is not also pairbonding activity is "overcoming" our evolutionary tendencies.Her only evidence so far is neurotransmitters, which actually support my argument more than her own, yet she has refused to address this (or any of my other examples, which is why I opened a specific thread for it).I claim that sex in humans is used for more than just pairbonding. While it is clearly important to pairbonding (that is pairbonding came to use sex), the reverse is not true. Left to their own devices, humans are able to separate when they are having sex for fun and when they are having sex to cement bonds with a partner.Recent social norms have unfortunately created and reinforced a confusion between the two aspects for most people. It is actually the "ideal" of sexual monogamy for life which has bucked the real evolutionary tendencies in humans regarding sex.Thus, indoctrinated with this ideal, people end up entering a relationship (promising love) only to discover they really just needed to get laid, or trying to fight this ideal rush out to have one night stands (or attend group sex parties) and end up disappointed because they really did want a relationship.In the end everyone will have different desires, based on all sorts of influences. Those are personal tastes and so neither right nor wrong. Nor are they better or worse.I am critical of the monogamous mentality which has swept through Western civilization, demonizing the very human activity of seeking sexual pleasure outside the boundaries of an emotional relationship. I consider this mentality damaging, and as I said already, leads to confusion (essentially an immaturity).I am not critical of monogamy itself (though my stance keeps getting blown into that by schraf). I think almost everyone seeks emotional partners. I believe that the majority are single pairs (and so monogamous), however I do not believe the majority are lifelong partnerships. Childrearing may account for this tendency to bond in pairs as well as the 7 year itch (when two parents are no longer needed).In my personal opinion... I feel most people are drawn to serial monogamy, and so polygamy over the course of a lifetime. Some manage to have lifelong partners but this is rare, especially outside of cultures which pound that in as an expectation.But regardless of emotional relationships, people remain primarily sexually polygamous, desiring sex with many different partners besides their emotional partner. These feelings wax and wane of course.And ultimately (whether with another partner or with their own hand) people will seek out sexual pleasure for the purpose of entertainment (or allaying boredom). This practice is also seen in our closest mental equivalents, the dolphins.I'm not encouraging anyone to change the way they live, but to realize that it is ethnocentric to build models that pairbonding is evolutionarily tied to sex, and must be overcome (apparently by evolutionary deviates) to be enjoyed for pure pleasure. That is one of its aspects.But I encourage everyone that wants to comment on what I am saying here, to go to that other thread. I make more points over there.------------------
holmes[This message has been edited by holmes, 11-15-2003]