Femme_Fatale wrote: » I'm a single woman since 2009. Haven't met any guy to have a meaningful relationship with, just the odd casual encounter. Yet, funnily enough, I don't blame all men or think there's a conspiracy against me, and I don't have a problem with men and still hope to meet that guy some day. It makes life a lot easier really.
clairefontaine wrote: » Life is not full of perfect solutions. If your wife is using sex like a dealer and you the junkie, then you will have to make some choices, and all choices have consequences. Whether you choose to continue this, or have an affair or visit prostitutes, or leave the marriage. Welcome to adulthood. It's painful but doable.
clairefontaine wrote: » And now your switching to gender neutral language. So I'm guessing you thnk men withold sex from their wives to control them also?
Hankmarker wrote: » How do you suggest a person switches off their need for sex?
The Corinthian wrote: » Firstly, a need for sex is natural. While this need varies in level and can be influenced by many social and psychological factors, ultimately it is neither unnatural nor unhealthy to have such a need. It's simply human. Secondly, such a need does not put any 'hold' over one. What puts a 'hold' over one is where one is left with no realistic option when it is used as a weapon. As I already pointed out, if you're in a relationship and someone withholds sex for ulterior motives, you can always end the relationship. However, if married, with children, and so on, the consequences can be devastating, leaving the person effectively trapped or blackmailed; damned if he does and damned if he does not.
clairefontaine wrote: » There you go, NEED. If you are that dependant, and your attitude to a women or women,is like looking for supply, then that's when they have a "hold over you" as it was put.
The Corinthian wrote: » Apparently the human need for sexual relations is akin to a narcotic addiction, that clearly we can cure ourselves from...
Steamed Hams wrote: » What
clairefontaine wrote: » They only have a hold over you if you feel like a junkie and treat your wife like a dealer.
Steamed Hams wrote: » She quite clearly was aware of a power dynamic whereby it's possible to boss a man around by "having a hold over someone" by using sex or sex withdrawal. It's certainly not in my head.
Candie wrote: » This woman was hardly alluding to some sort of universal female agenda to keep men subjugated or celibate that his daughter is not yet a part of.
I would think that only a very powerless person would interpret that as alluding to some sort of powerplay.
Candie wrote: » Wow. Even if I squint, I can't see any connection. This woman was hardly alluding to some sort of universal female agenda to keep men subjugated or celibate that his daughter is not yet a part of. The toddler has no hold over her father because he's the adult and and complete agency over her, why would there be any other interpretation? I would think that only a very powerless person would interpret that as alluding to some sort of powerplay. Extrapolating that remark to that degree is very telling though, perhaps it's projection. There is nothing 'quite obvious' about any of that, except in your head. Are you the OP?
Steamed Hams wrote: » It's not a literal cartel, but in effect it does appear to be one. No one is realistically suggesting women secretly meet up and have "sexual cartel" meetings, but the effect of women's behaviours whether conscious or subconscious results in a dynamic similar to that if a cartel did exist. But realistically it could be every women just behaving in their own best interests, so no collaboration is needed.Just recently, a woman I know slagged my brother because his 2 year old daughter bosses him around, she said " she doesn't even have a hold over you", the implication being that it's understandable that your wife could boss you around because she can withhold sex to gain power, so it's humiliating that he was wing bossed around by someone who doesn't have the withholding sex card. She didn't specifically state she uses sex for power over her boyfriend but from what she said it's quite obvious she uses sex to gain power over her boyfriend
Femme_Fatale wrote: » It's not meant to be a counter-argument, it's meant to show up how utterly ludicrous what the site-banned OP has said (a global cartel between women - really?) is. In a nutshell, the post translates as "Women are bitches for not fancying me and giving me the sex I'm entitled to, therefore I'll come up with some outlandish theory rather than accepting they don't fancy me and working on my self confidence and improving where I'm going wrong."
Wibbs wrote: » Yes I DO see the real racist shíte that might be extrapolated from the idea we were "races" in the past and the horrible results that came out of that. However I think it's more important to tell the story of how we all came to be this fantastic bunch of muppets and kings who we are today. The reason I hate racism is not because it's obviously moral to do so, it's because it's obviously daft in a scientific way.
The Corinthian wrote: » That is actually.
Well, the same goes for younger generations of Japanese. The shift from the traditional to a Western one has seen a number of changes in Asia; increased height, decrease in health issues associated with an Asian diet (e.g. high blood pressure) and a corresponding increase in health issues associated with a Western diet (e.g. cancer).
Pre-Neolithic man wasn't actually short. It was the shift from a meat rich diet to a cereal based one that did that.
clairefontaine wrote: » I don't buy that overbite theory. Does half the world who don't use forks not have overbites?
Wibbs wrote: » What's interestng about that is people are hardly dying from impacted wisdom teeth before passing on their genes, so why this is happening is, like I say interesting.
Height is another developmental attribute and down to diet. In medieval times the aristocracy were notably taller than the peasant classes. Back then tall=rich for the most part. Japanese Americans grow in stature generation by generation compared to their relatives back in Japan.
Yea and they weren't that short either. Same height as we were back then and one lad found in Iran was nearly a 6 footer. Note to self avoid picking a fight with him
The Corinthian wrote: » Well of course, you don't even have to go that far for our ancestors to be not quite 'us' - the development of the overbite, for example, is actually very recent. Average height, even more so.
The point I was making was that even in our current subspecies iteration, our entire history of civilization (including prehistoric civilization) is a relatively short, and while the changes that came with its development have been profound, we would do well to remember that there's a lot of evolutionary history that preceded it which can't be forgotten completely either.
Didn't know about Neanderthal biscuits though - interesting.
KyussBishop wrote: » True, but these lines get redrawn and recede all the time - as we see now regarding homsexuality and other gender/orientation issues.
The issue with saying avoiding incest is an innate instinct (implying psychological nature, rather than nurture), is that is making unsubstantiated implications about human psychology (I do agree that applies to our reproductive biology though, of course); I think that is better explained by social pressure, than by instinct, especially when you take reproduction out of the picture.
in general there's an increasing (but slow) liberalization of many parts of society, which I just don't think has ever been seen on quite the same social/economic/intellectual scale before.
I think some of the advantages of dropping strict-monogamy or serial-monogamy, are a lot of the disadvantages it causes, like cheating/affairs (a lot of people want to have their cake and eat it, it seems), plus divorce and such, which hurt partners and children often, plus just the dissatisfaction a lot of people have if they start to feel trapped in a relationship over time (as happens with a lot of families); it's certainly not straight-forward as being an advantage mind, it's just different way of doing things with its own set of issues.
Haha, yes I remember reading about that before - I'm certainly curious how social conservatism was back then, as I would think the church still played a large part in things at the time.
KyussBishop wrote: » Here is actually a good article I just came across, on evolutionary psychology, which is specifically about the problem I picked up on, of drawing claims about behaviour/psychology based on genetic selection:http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/07/28/tackling-pinkers-defense-of-evolutionary-psychology/
clairefontaine wrote: » The psychs like to use biology because they are still deluding themselves and the world they are a science, when they are so interpretive it seems more like an art. And that's fine that its an art, but its the pretence that bugs me.
The Corinthian wrote: » Well of course, you don't even have to go that far for our ancestors to be not quite 'us' - the development of the overbite, for example, is actually very recent. Average height, even more so. The point I was making was that even in our current subspecies iteration, our entire history of civilization (including prehistoric civilization) is a relatively short, and while the changes that came with its development have been profound, we would do well to remember that there's a lot of evolutionary history that preceded it which can't be forgotten completely either. Didn't know about Neanderthal biscuits though - interesting.
Wibbs wrote: » but there are limits in human behaviour and psychology in society and not just in the reproduction sphere. While we as societies do vary and do allow for some outliers, societies draw lines all over the place. We always have and we always will. We can see clear examples of behaviour limits too. Take the Israeli Kibbutz social experiment. It was noted that boys and girls who grew up in such collective environments nearly always looked outside their kibbutz for partners. Because they'd grown up together as children the innate instinct to avoid incest kicked in, so they looked for people who weren't their kibbutz "brothers" and "sisters". Adopted brothers and sisters don't find each other sexually attractive(and society would go ape if they did), though genetically there is zero reason why they shouldn't.
Wibbs wrote: » I think the idea that a huge amount is changing in society is a fallacy. It's one with legs I grant you, some of the ancient Greeks in their times reckoned so too. Every generation thinks they are inventing the future anew and every previous generation thinks "in my day, harrumph!". In the west there has been a gender revolution and sexual revolution over the last century. So here we are in the warm afterglow of the revolution and yes more people are having sex with more people*, however the vast majority of people, old and young, gay and straight, faced with apparently more choice than ever before still fall into the old serial monogamy vibe, like we've been doing for tens of thousands of years across tens of thousands of cultures and tens of thousands of societal changes. If someday we become more machine than man things will no doubt change, but so long as we're human I'm not so sure. More's the point what would be the advantage, the selective pressure that would make us change?
Wibbs wrote: » *travelers in 18th century London noted, even complained about the amount of openly copulating couples you'd see while walking about the place. In broad daylight too. Check out medieval maps of towns for street names like "Grabcock" and "Gropecúnt" lane". Sex wasn't invented in the 1960's we've been shagging in all sorts of ways with all sorts of people for as long as records are around. Victorian values and all that guff was the outlier, we're living more in the reset from that.
Wibbs wrote: » Well yes and no. While Homo Sapiens has been around for a while, with early versions coming along 200,000 ago, they weren't quite "us". If you dressed one of those guys in jeans and a shirt, he'd look really odd, not quite human.
The Corinthian wrote: » People tend to forget that our particular subspecies, Homo Sapien Sapien, has been around for about 200,000 years (the overall Homo Sapien group for about 500,000 years). Civilization, as we call it, where we went from being hunter-gatherers to developing permanent settlements, underpinned by agriculture and leading to law, writing, organized religion, government and so on, only occurred with the Neolithic Revolution, which began only about 10,000 years ago. So when we look at human evolution, it's important to remember that it was formed in the context of a hunter-gatherer paradigm, which made up 95% of our history.
And what you describe is perfectly correct (at least as far as evolutionary biologists and anthropologists are concerned). Females of the species were highly disadvantaged by how we reproduce, which greatly limited their ability to provide food for themselves or their offspring. And naturally this led to a series of evolutionary strategies to allow the female to manage or control the male so that he would provide and protect her - hardly unique, as you'll find it in many other animal species, such as many species of birds and even primates, such as the bonobo.
we're one of the few (if not the only) mammals to develop breasts before pregnancy, specifically for sexual reasons. Think about it; what use are breasts prior to child baring?
we can't forget that some of it is directed against other women too
Nonetheless, none of this is concious. None of this is planned. Both men and women are hard-wired this way thanks to the 95% of our evolutionary history that overshadows our recent dalliance with civilization. So to suggest a conspiracy, some sort of organized effort by women is to ignore these biological facts and instead replace them with a fanciful theory which has absolutely no evidence supporting it. In my experience, jumping to such theories does tend to be misogynistic, as it presumes some form of premeditated malice on the part of women.
Another evolutionary trait that's been examined has been the cuckold syndrome; when choosing a mate, evolution will cause a female to seek two things - good genetics and good provision. Sometimes you can't get both in one man, which leads to the old scenario whereby a woman is with a good provider, yet having sex (and children) with a handsome 'bad boy', on the side.
On the other side of the scale, you can have a simple fact; such as that Asians are far less able, as a whole, to process alcohol than Europeans (a product of how both regions developed water purification differently over 10,000 years). While both factual and lacking any social or political agenda, such a statement would be considered racist by many.
KyussBishop wrote: » All of that makes perfect sense anthropologically and in an evolutionary way, the bit where it snags for me though, are the implicit claims about limitations in human behaviour/psychology in society.
This is where it breaks down: A huge amount of the reasoning for this being the case in the past, is starting to disappear now as society changes, and (as good/interesting the points are in discussion here) I just don't see what is still left.
KyussBishop wrote: » All of that makes perfect sense anthropologically and in an evolutionary way, the bit where it snags for me though, are the implicit claims about limitations in human behaviour/psychology in society. The history and the logic of it is all solid, but I don't see a non-speculative way to apply it to the present and future/near-future; claims like this behaviour being 'buried in our subconscious' I think is a step too far, given that our understanding of human psychology doesn't yet allow for solid/objective claims like that (not until we can physically map/understand the brain better).
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