New Yorker article - "The Rage of the Incels"

[Sneezyone]

1 minute ago, StellaM said:

 

So as long as they pay, their woman-hating manifestos are OK ?

 

Huh? No, I’m not inviting these incel folks over to dinner anytime soon. But I’d be a fool to think there aren’t a lot of misogynistic people in both ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ relationships already. So long as they aren’t violating the personal autonomy of their partners or random strangers, shooting up yoga studios or kidnapping teens, I’ve got bigger fish to fry.

[Sneezyone]

Just now, OKBud said:

 

If rap3 was all about power, men would orgasm when they did exhibited power in other ways. The.Olympics would be a.lot different. So would high end car test drives and cashing big checks.

Do you orgasm when you feel powerful? When you hurt someone and literally get off on it? 

Why would you think men.would but not you? Not other women? Not men who are appropriately appalled by rape?

 

No, those things don’t happen to me but I’m not naive enough to think it doesn’t happen that way for others, that they experience arousal from striking a great deal or demeaning someone else (BDSM) or any other number of things. I also don’t assume only men experience those feelings.

[Farrar]

3 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

I guess we can do a few things. Ironically, its not binary.

Acknowledge the transactional lens we bring to relationship. Accept it, even if it bothers us.

Acknowledge it and promote it, making sure all forms of labor are compensated fairly.

Acknowledge it and explore what a non-transactional lens looks like.

Reject a transactional lens. 

I agree with most of this. I think yes, that's part of what I'm saying - that we can both use it and find it offensive. The lens is there. It's actually very useful in many situations, including some of the ones discussed in this thread. It's also limited because, as you essentially alluded to... it is dehumanizing, especially vis a vis the extremes of relationships - things like rape or love being reduced to transactions feels deeply wrong and offensive, which Sneezyone acknowledged - that there's an emotional piece to using this lens.

There are definitely other ways to conceptualize relationships. I find many of them have a top down morality that I'm not personally interested in, at least if applied across the board to everyone.

[Frances]

24 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

It's the dominant view. 

I just don't see that as down to gay and lesbian civil rights.

Being gay or being lesbian wouldn't have had to be such a huge part of someone's identity, if they hadn't been discriminated against on the basis of it. 

 

Exactly. Someone close to me is gay and just considers it part of who they are, not a huge part of their identity. But then they were fortunate to grow up in a time and place where they personally did not face any discrimination.

[Farrar]

7 minutes ago, KidsHappen said:

I see the sarcasm here but it leads me to wonder what kind of movement do we need to have so that women are free to sleep with no one at all?

I really think one of the end points of sexual identities is part of that movement. The way young people talk about asexuality is exactly that. And they talk about it that way because the dominant view that we must have sex to be happy, "normal" people is just that oppressively dominant. And they see it as an extension of the LGBTQ movement. If we go enough letters we'll get there... LGBTQIA... yep, there's the A.

[KidsHappen]

12 minutes ago, Bluegoat said:

I think it's very likely there is a link between these things - these guys think "Well, if it is cruel to tell people who are unlucky enough to be gay that they just have to manage involuntary celibacy, it's cruel to to people like me who are unlucky enough to be unattractive."

Well, I think part of the disconnect is that many of these guys are not necessarily unattractive. The problem is really their attitude. If they were willing to make the effort (something akin to etiquette training for young girls) they would probably not have a problem finding a woman. 

[KidsHappen]

18 minutes ago, OKBud said:

 

If rape was all about power, men would orgasm when they felt power in other ways. The.Olympics would be a.lot different. So would high end car test drives and cashing big checks.

Do you orgasm when you feel powerful? When you hurt someone and literally get off on it? 

Why would you think men.would but not you? Not other women? Not men who are appropriately appalled by rape?

You make a good point here. For as long as I can remember I have always heard that rape was about power but I think you examples make it clear that something else is going on. I think it seems to be more about men who get sexual pleasure from having power (in the forms of control, violence, humiliation etc.) over women. And I really think that porn culture is feeding into conflating the two.

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, Sneezyone said:

Well, if you take the biblical view, mothers are compensated by being cared for (emotionally) and and treasured (economically) within marriage. I think that’s the gist of many of the arguments here. That should be enough. In some countries, children are held responsible for elder care. I suppose I find InCels most reprehensible for their cheapness and entitlement, yes. Everything has a cost, monetarily or emotionally and they simply believe they should be above paying it.

I think that’s the 1950s Christian view not the biblical one.  Prov 31 lady weaves, spins, sells and buys, farms, Lydia in nt has a large household and successful business, Ruth supported her aging mother in law and the daughters of Zelophehad fought to have the laws changed so they could receive an inheritance, Deborah ran a school and Priscilla had an equal working partnership with her husband in a tent making business!  Tabitha was an accomplished seamstress.  The verse that mentions women being keepers of the home says it in contrast to “going about gossiping from house to house” not as opposed to being gainfully employed.  

The fact that certain bible verses have been taken out of context to control and browbeat women doesn’t mean that’s the biblical view of the one right way to run a life.

[Frances]

32 minutes ago, Bluegoat said:

 

There has a widely accepted perspective in the argument for gay rights that says that the reason taboos against homosexuality are wrong is that it means some people can never have a satisfying sex life, or a sex life at all.  And while it seems like that would be pretty easily shown to be silly, a lot of people seem to believe it and it's more recently been extended to a lot of kink identities..  

I think it's very likely there is a link between these things - these guys think "Well, if it is cruel to tell people who are unlucky enough to be gay that they just have to manage involuntary celibacy, it's cruel to to people like me who are unlucky enough to be unattractive."

Since gay sex can get you killed or imprisoned in some countries, I’m not sure I can agree that this argument is always silly. And I’m also not sure about linking gays who freely choose their partners and incels who want to simply take what they think they are owed.

[EmseB]

6 minutes ago, Frances said:

Since gay sex can get you killed or imprisoned in some countries, I’m not sure I can agree that this argument is always silly. And I’m also not sure about linking gays who freely choose their partners and incels who want to simply take what they think they are owed.

It's not linking gays to incels.

It is that specific line of reasoning/argumentation which informs incels' views of sex. They want to freely choose their partners as well and be liberated from what they view as a societal confinement of their sex lives. The fact that they are wrongly using that exact argument according to others' views (generally) doesn't enter into it for them. They view it as the same question of right to have a sex life of their choosing. They see themselves as just as persecuted.

Edited March 28, 2019 by EmseB

[Bluegoat]

1 hour ago, Frances said:

I think there is a difference between freely chosen celibacy and celibacy forced upon someone in order to conform to religious or societal expectations, as some would like to do with gays. Also, there are varying degrees and lengths of celibacy. People often seem to lump all of it together.

 

But the incels aren't upset about freely chosen celibacy, they are upset at involuntary celibacy, potentially on a permanent basis  I don't think talking about voluntary celibacy really addresses the question of what the implications are, ideologically, if we say, taboos that result in people having to live a life of celibacy are forced celibacy or just ignore that it happens for many people.  That takes us right to the viewpoint that somehow society has to find some kinds of ways to accommodate the sexual "needs" of everyone.  

[Bluegoat]

57 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

 

Huh? You just said the same thing, twice. You said relationships are not transactional, that stealing baking services are unlike stealing sex. Emotions aside, I’m asking how so? Both are taking without permission. I asked whether you deny the existence of transactional personal relationships since the beginning of time.

 

I changed what I'd said part way through writing, so I may have done so.

I don't understand why you are accusing me on the one hand of not seeing the difference between paying for cakes and stealing them, and when I say women are not commodities , then getting upset that I don't seem to take it seriously that people sometimes treat women like commodities.  The cake analogy was yours.

[Frances]

4 minutes ago, EmseB said:

It's not linking gays to incels.

It is that specific line of reasoning/argumentation which informs incels' views of sex. They want to freely choose their partners as well and be liberated from what they view as a societal confinement of their sex lives. The fact that they are wrongly using that exact argument according to others' views (generally) doesn't enter into it for them. They view it as the same question of right to have a sex life of their choosing. They see themselves as just as persecuted.

But for incels the choosing is all one sided. The sexual partners are not choosing each other. They are proposing to harm others in order to get what they want.

[EmseB]

1 hour ago, Frances said:

I think there is a difference between freely chosen celibacy and celibacy forced upon someone in order to conform to religious or societal expectations, as some would like to do with gays. Also, there are varying degrees and lengths of celibacy. People often seem to lump all of it together.

I tried to multi-quote but it didn't work.

My point was that incels think that celibacy is being forced on them by societal expectations "just as some would like to do with gays". So they believe society is wrong and use the same reasoning to get there.

But yes, people do lump it all together, and rarely is it seen as a healthy, fulfilling life choice, even for a season.

[Pam in CT]

re untrained therapy encounters

38 minutes ago, Eliana said:

I have some serious concerns about untrained, non-professionals entering into for-pay therapeutic encounters.  I almost wrote "relationships" there, but I don't think a real relationship can be contracted for like that.  When I pay a therapist, I'm setting up a very highly constrained "relationship", with very clear boundaries.  My therapist can't be my friend, or a pseudo-relative, and if those boundaries get crossed, it is unhealthy and potentially harmful.  For that reason therapists are trained in establishing and maintaining those boundaries  - and they can lose their license to practice if they don't do so.

In these situations where a familial relationship is being emulated in some way, the the risk of harm from lack of clear, professional boundaries seems very high. 
 

I think we should also recognize that hiring someone to meet our emotional needs creates an inherent power disbalance that I find troubling.,,, 
 

Yes, I can see all of these as posing real hazards.  

There are a range of services that Americans fairly commonly *do* obtain via compensation -- job/life coaching, organizational assistance, image services etc -- that provide something approaching approaching therapeutic objectives, that are not licensed... and the Greek drama communal catharsis that some of the Japanese role-playing in Ausmom's article was getting at for work teams is maybe analogous to the kinds of corporate Team-Building exercises we do here, in a different form.  

But the need for clarity around boundaries is critical; and that's one of the reasons (not the only reason) why the role-plays that sallied beyond the people involved in the contract and entailed deception -- the kid in Maize's article, the parents concerned that their adult children had not found partners -- troubled me.

 

But your comment about effecting an end-run around the emotional labor of holding up reciprocal relationships hones in on what for me is essential:

38 minutes ago, Eliana said:

II have to admit that I find hiring out emotional support very troubling, on a number of levels. And, just as I believe viewing pornography and/or purchasing sexual intimacy can create or strengthen a sense of entitlement, I also fear that purchasing emotional support could teach us that we don't have to do the emotional labor of holding up our end of a relationship.

... and THAT strikes me as critical, a Missing Link that connects many insights throughout this thread touching on incel entitlement, rape, and purchased-services (prostitution, porn, and role-played acting).

Unwillingness to take on that emotional labor required to hold up reciprocal relationships:

32 minutes ago, KidsHappen said:

Well, I think part of the disconnect is that many of these guys are not necessarily [physically] unattractive. The problem is really their attitude. If they were willing to make the effort (something akin to etiquette training for young girls) they would probably not have a problem finding a woman. 

 

[Ausmumof3]

6 minutes ago, Bluegoat said:

 

But the incels aren't upset about freely chosen celibacy, they are upset at involuntary celibacy, potentially on a permanent basis  I don't think talking about voluntary celibacy really addresses the question of what the implications are, ideologically, if we say, taboos that result in people having to live a life of celibacy are forced celibacy or just ignore that it happens for many people.  That takes us right to the viewpoint that somehow society has to find some kinds of ways to accommodate the sexual "needs" of everyone.  

Which is the viewpoint of those who want to legitimise paedophiles.  

Maybe theft actually is a good analogy.  Basically these are people that can’t accept that you can’t have everything just because you want it.  Some things are always going to be unobtainable or off limits.

[Bluegoat]

54 minutes ago, Farrar said:

I don't know how I feel about treating rape as theft. I also want to emotionally recoil from it. But this is what I meant about seeing everything as transactional is sort of a lens that we can't just magically make go away. It reduces a parent's love and a stranger's assault to nothing but commodities. But because we can analyze things this way, on some level, someone always will. I don't know.

 

This has been my argument though from the beginning of the thread.  Sure, we can use a transactional model, and it has some validity both in the sense you mean where people just have a bad tendency to think that way about people, but also in the sense that sexual relationships, even temporary ones, can have an economic component, sometimes a significant one - and it can be useful at times to think about that.

But that model also tends to be fundamentiling dehumanising if we see it as the basis of sexual relations - or other relations for that matter, because what it tends to tell us is that people are commodities and that is how we should be relating to them.  And it's reductive and will lead to serious social ills - a good example being the way people think about pornography.  But also quite possibly other kinds of exploitation related to seeing people as commodities - there is a reason slavery is really as big now as it ever was, whether it's the overt kind most people here have nothing to do with, or the covert kind that almost everyone in the west is complicit in. 

Even if we use this kind of language sometimes, it has to be limited and our ideas need the protection of a more robust way of thinking about what it means to be human and how we relate to others, so we can avoid falling prey to that thinking, recognise it when we see it, and censure it socially.  A major reason we have a hard time censuring porography, for example, is many people have no other language to think about what is going on there, and lacking the language they don't have the thoughts.

[goldberry]

16 minutes ago, Bluegoat said:

 

But the incels aren't upset about freely chosen celibacy, they are upset at involuntary celibacy, potentially on a permanent basis  I don't think talking about voluntary celibacy really addresses the question of what the implications are, ideologically, if we say, taboos that result in people having to live a life of celibacy are forced celibacy or just ignore that it happens for many people.  That takes us right to the viewpoint that somehow society has to find some kinds of ways to accommodate the sexual "needs" of everyone.  

 

One of the comments I read was roughly "Society tells you that if you don't have a sexual partner it's because of you, that you are the problem.  But I'm here to tell you that you are not the problem."  The point seems to be "I shouldn't have to do anything x, y, or z to make myself more appealing if I want to have a partner.  It's society's fault (or women's fault) that I don't."  Part of the attitude is that women are so demanding or entitled themselves now that they refuse doing their job, which is apparently to "service" any man that wants it.  

So it's involuntary in the sense they don't think *they* should have to do anything to get or deserve a partner.

Edited March 28, 2019 by goldberry

[Ausmumof3]

I think my take away from this thread is that I personally believe 

healthy relationships are not transactional (though we sometimes view them that way)

people are not resources to be distributed but human beings

attempting to replace natural relationships with relationships where one partner is a financial beneficiary can be problematic 

[EmseB]

2 minutes ago, Frances said:

But for incels the choosing is all one sided. The sexual partners are not choosing each other. They are proposing to harm others in order to get what they want.

Part of it I think is that ideally they do want to be chosen. They are maldeveloped in some way to not know how that happens, but I think that's a core part of feeling the injustice being done-- no one is freely choosing them.

So then they see it as fighting for a kind of liberation from societal norms (a la other facets of changing societal norms about sexual partners) of consent and how sex should be fairly distributed.

I would venture to say that there is a movement much like this in the pedoph1le community as well based on the same idea that everyone deserves a sex life no matter the preference or barrier.

That doesn't make it right or correct. I'm not arguing this position for them. I'm saying this is the reasoning they are using based off of another movement. They see themselves as fighting for the same type of thing.

I'm on my phone and probably missing posts and making typos galore. So apologies for that.

[Frances]

3 minutes ago, goldberry said:

 

One of the comments I read was roughly "Society tells you that if you don't have a sexual partner it's because of you, that you are the problem.  But I'm here to tell you that you are not the problem."  The point seems to be "I shouldn't have to do anything x, y, or z to make myself more appealing if I want to have a partner.  It's society's fault (or women's fault) that I don't.  Part of the attitude is that women are so demanding or entitled themselves now that they refuse doing their job, which is apparently to "service" any man that wants it.  

So it's involuntary in the sense they don't think *they* should have to do anything to get or deserve a partner.

Exactly. They shouldn’t have to even have basic respect for women.

[Bluegoat]

43 minutes ago, KidsHappen said:

Well, I think part of the disconnect is that many of these guys are not necessarily unattractive. The problem is really their attitude. If they were willing to make the effort (something akin to etiquette training for young girls) they would probably not have a problem finding a woman. 

 

I'm not sure that matters though.  They may well have some sort of abnormal body image, or they may have some sort of personality problem.  There are reasons to think both are the case and maybe they reinforce each other.  

But really, other people telling you to just make an effort and you'll get laid is not the most helpful advice, if you are in a funk about the situation, even for people who are emotionally normal.

[Rosie_0801]

1 minute ago, goldberry said:

 

One of the comments I read was roughly "Society tells you that if you don't have a sexual partner it's because of you, that you are the problem.  But I'm here to tell you that you are not the problem."  The point seems to be "I shouldn't have to do anything x, y, or z to make myself more appealing if I want to have a partner.  It's society's fault (or women's fault) that I don't.  Part of the attitude is that women are so demanding or entitled themselves now that they refuse doing their job, which is apparently to "service" any man that wants it.  

So it's involuntary in the sense they don't think *they* should have to do anything to get or deserve a partner.

 

Well yes, that's a safe way to view things. They are, after all, a bunch of self loathers. To admit they need to be better is to admit they aren't good enough, and they're already in enough pain about that.

It's pretty interesting to contrast self loathing + misogynistic entitlement with self loathing - misogynistic entitlement.
Self loathing is a nasty complicated mess.

[Rosie_0801]

1 minute ago, Frances said:

Exactly. They shouldn’t have to even have basic respect for women.

 

And yet there's a warped kind of equality in that because they don't have basic respect for themselves.

[EmseB]

10 minutes ago, OKBud said:

 

Because they don't view women as people, but as sexual pleasure dispensers.

Not because they actually have anything in common with homosexuals who have been, and are, persecuted.

I'm not arguing with this. My point is that obviously they don't see it that way. They see themselves pushing societal boundaries of sex in a new direction where consent is considered an old-fashioned religious idea of prudes who don't want to give them their due. They think it's all relative to pleasure, as you say.

It's horrifying all around. 

[chiguirre]

2 hours ago, StellaM said:

 

 

So we should feel no moral disgust at their entitlement to sex, other than that they're not prepared to pay (either in cash terms, as in buying a prostituted woman's body) or in emotional and financial labor terms (as in having a relationship with a girlfriend or wife).

 

I haven't caught up yet, but this is the crux of the revulsion for me. They're not willing to find a woman who is not amazingly physically attractive, get to know her, spend time together and form a relationship. They just think women should be willing to skip to sex without the bother of establishing intimacy. They are lazy.

[Bluegoat]

29 minutes ago, Frances said:

Since gay sex can get you killed or imprisoned in some countries, I’m not sure I can agree that this argument is always silly. And I’m also not sure about linking gays who freely choose their partners and incels who want to simply take what they think they are owed.

 

If it were true, it would equally follow for any kind of person with any type of sexual desire - it would be cruel to tell them they had to face a life of celibacy.  And in fact, this argument has been made, sometimes quite successfully, but other groups.

It is mentally difficult to  to be celibate when you don't want to be, and I think that applies to anyone, whatever the reason for their situation.  

 

[Ausmumof3]

5 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

Oh, this.

Mind you we live in a society where “Human Resources” is literately the name of a department in most major businesses. So changing that mindset might be impossible.

[Frances]

14 minutes ago, Bluegoat said:

 

If it were true, it would equally follow for any kind of person with any type of sexual desire - it would be cruel to tell them they had to face a life of celibacy.  And in fact, this argument has been made, sometimes quite successfully, but other groups.

It is mentally difficult to  to be celibate when you don't want to be, and I think that applies to anyone, whatever the reason for their situation.  

 

I disagree. There is a distinct difference between sexual desires and practices that harm others and those that do not.

I also disagree that it’s mentally the same for everyone when not chosen. Someone might be celibate because they haven’t yet found a willing partner, but they are still looking and still have hope. That is quite different than someone who is gay and celibate in a country where having sex can get you imprisoned or killed. 

Edited March 28, 2019 by Frances

[Ausmumof3]

When I think about I’ve known (and still know) men like this.  Men who are single because no one lives up to their standard.  The difference is they haven’t as far as I know joined an internet group bemoaning the injustice of it.  They’ve just accepted it.

[KidsHappen]

24 minutes ago, Bluegoat said:

 

I'm not sure that matters though.  They may well have some sort of abnormal body image, or they may have some sort of personality problem.  There are reasons to think both are the case and maybe they reinforce each other.  

But really, other people telling you to just make an effort and you'll get laid is not the most helpful advice, if you are in a funk about the situation, even for people who are emotionally normal.

My point was that they problems are of their own making and awareness of that problem would probably be helpful but you are right in that I don't know the best way to communicate that message.

[Farrar]

25 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I think my take away from this thread is that I personally believe 

healthy relationships are not transactional (though we sometimes view them that way)

people are not resources to be distributed but human beings

attempting to replace natural relationships with relationships where one partner is a financial beneficiary can be problematic 

I don't disagree with any of this exactly. But also, we're always telling people that if their relationships aren't beneficial to them - if their friends take and take, if their parents are meddlesome and unsupportive, if their in laws are rude and bad influences on the kids, if their spouses are cruel - that they should cut those relationships. Society (and generally this forum) does tend to be a bit more of the "stick it out" mode when it comes to marriage. But even then, in the end, if a marriage is not helping one party, we tend to think that it's okay if it ends and that person leaves. So if that's not a transaction, what is it?

For me, I think I rebel at diminishing human relationships like that. But I also think healthy relationships do have give and take. And that sometimes the give and take is a complex system - like, maybe someone in a church always makes meals for the families with new babies (my mom does this) and never gets anything directly from those families, but does get other things from other members of the church when they're in need. In the end, we shouldn't have to accept relationships that don't have the give and take. And that's... transactions at the heart of it, even if they aren't quid pro quos.

[Bluegoat]

21 minutes ago, goldberry said:

 

One of the comments I read was roughly "Society tells you that if you don't have a sexual partner it's because of you, that you are the problem.  But I'm here to tell you that you are not the problem."  The point seems to be "I shouldn't have to do anything x, y, or z to make myself more appealing if I want to have a partner.  It's society's fault (or women's fault) that I don't."  Part of the attitude is that women are so demanding or entitled themselves now that they refuse doing their job, which is apparently to "service" any man that wants it.  

So it's involuntary in the sense they don't think *they* should have to do anything to get or deserve a partner.

 

I think the thing is, they don't really know how to do anything, what they should do, and it may actually be the case that there isn't anything some of them could do.  

Because really, the way you have worded this kind of suggests that if they really tried and took responsibility they would find someone.  Or if they lowered their standards.  But I think that is because they seem ridiculous in other ways - we would never say that to a more normal personality.  Lots of people make an effort and keep their standards reasonable and don't find anyone.

If that's what you think has happened to you, and you think that your worth as a human being is tied up in sexual success, what do you do?  Either you are a complete waste of space, or something is wrong with society.  A lot of the incels seem to move between those two ideas like a broken compass.  They have no other measure for self worth, and no sense of other ways to lead a meaningful life.

[Farrar]

7 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

Not the way I see it.

The way I see, say, the decrim of gay sex, is that the government had no real basis for making one form of sex illegal, and the other legal. Ie discrimination, not entitlement to sex.

Gays and lesbians are no more entitled to sex than the rest of us. Their 'entitlement' is to be treated by the government and the criminal justice system the same way heterosexuals are treated.

I also haven't seen the argument that Bluegoat makes there very often. This is typically the core argument for LGBTQ rights. Not that people "deserve" sex more, but rather that the legal framework cannot prosecute one form of consensual, adult sex over another. That does get us back to consent. It also gets us back to the "anything goes" for sex mentality (anything being anything consensual among the adults involved). But I don't have any issue with either of those things.

[Ausmumof3]

1 minute ago, Farrar said:

I don't disagree with any of this exactly. But also, we're always telling people that if their relationships aren't beneficial to them - if their friends take and take, if their parents are meddlesome and unsupportive, if their in laws are rude and bad influences on the kids, if their spouses are cruel - that they should cut those relationships. Society (and generally this forum) does tend to be a bit more of the "stick it out" mode when it comes to marriage. But even then, in the end, if a marriage is not helping one party, we tend to think that it's okay if it ends and that person leaves. So if that's not a transaction, what is it?

For me, I think I rebel at diminishing human relationships like that. But I also think healthy relationships do have give and take. And that sometimes the give and take is a complex system - like, maybe someone in a church always makes meals for the families with new babies (my mom does this) and never gets anything directly from those families, but does get other things from other members of the church when they're in need. In the end, we shouldn't have to accept relationships that don't have the give and take. And that's... transactions at the heart of it, even if they aren't quid pro quos.

Yeah for sure.  In a healthy relationship both parties give what they can though that’s going to ebb and flow according to life stages.  

I do think that transactional view has been harmful to my own relationships at some stage in the sense of being unwilling to accept help because of not having the ability to give anything back and being insecure/worried about my marriage when for various reasons I can’t put in what I feel like I should.

[Bluegoat]

14 minutes ago, Frances said:

I disagree. There is a distinct difference between sexual desires and practices that harm others and those that do not.

I also disagree that it’s mentally the same for everyone when not chosen. Someone might be celibate because they haven’t yet found a willing partner, but they are still looking and still have hope. That is quite different than someone who is gay and celibate in a country where having sex can get you imprisoned or killed. 

 

But that isn't the argument - it says nothing about harm.

The argument is X is ok because it would be cruel to tell people that they have to resolve themselves to a life of celibacy through no fault of their own.

What you are arguing is that x may have a different value than y, so they need to be evaluated differently -  sometimes it may be right to tell people they have to be live a life of celibacy through no fault of their own, and sometimes it may not.

The form of arguments is important.  The former has all kinds of potential implications if people think it is true.

[Farrar]

1 minute ago, StellaM said:

 

Is lack of sex harm ?

 

I would say no, though obviously it can cause unhappiness. But also, I didn't address that at all in what you bolded.

All I'm saying is... we expect healthy relationships to have give and take. Sex is a part of that picture. Anyone treating it like it's the only or most paramount thing probably does not have a healthy attitude toward their relationship.

[Rosie_0801]

2 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

Is lack of sex harm ?

 

Sex generates oxytocin, which is a bonding hormone, therefore a prolonged lack of it will cause emotional distancing and that causes harm to the people and the relationship.

Outside of a relationship, I can't think of an argument.

[Farrar]

2 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

I'd say 'consensual and non-harmful to particupants.' Because I a m not at all keen on the idea that women can consent to violence, especially as that's a defence that's been used to acquit men of murder.

Safe, sane, consensual. I think people can consent to violence. I don't think anyone should be able to consent to something that could easily kill them. Asphyxiation, comes to mind.

[Rosie_0801]

5 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

Honestly, though, I mean what happened to getting a hobby ? 

That doesn't cure the self loathing.

[Ausmumof3]

I wonder how much early life experiences and specifically unhealthy school dynamics have played into all this.  The way schools divide along the lines of the cool, the academics, the outcasts definitely does damage to sense of self worth for both men and women and maybe that puts up some kind of barrier for some that they can’t get over.  Most of us at some point figure out how to live with those experiences and move on but I get the impressions many of these are still relatively young.  The school shooter who identified this way kind of reinforces the idea.  

Not that it’s a justification any more than “I was bullied at school” is a justification for school shootings etc  but it might be a starting point for where to address it

[Farrar]

1 minute ago, Rosie_0801 said:

That doesn't cure the self loathing.

Hey, when I bake and make a collage, you don't know how good I feel!

If we assume they're mentally ill (which maybe) nothing will cure it. Hobbies, therapy, turning off the wifi... so many things could help though.

[Sneezyone]

1 hour ago, Bluegoat said:

 

I changed what I'd said part way through writing, so I may have done so.

I don't understand why you are accusing me on the one hand of not seeing the difference between paying for cakes and stealing them, and when I say women are not commodities , then getting upset that I don't seem to take it seriously that people sometimes treat women like commodities.  The cake analogy was yours.

 

The thing is, saying you don't think women or relationships SHOULD be treated like commodities doesn't negate the fact that they are, have been, and that it is the predominant ACTUAL reality.

Edited March 28, 2019 by Sneezyone

[Ausmumof3]

4 minutes ago, Rosie_0801 said:

Sex generates oxytocin, which is a bonding hormone, therefore a prolonged lack of it will cause emotional distancing and that causes harm to the people and the relationship.

Outside of a relationship, I can't think of an argument.

I guess but can’t you get oxytocin from cuddling and looking into peoples eyes?  I don’t know that much about it but doesn’t the dopamine/oxytocin balance play a role in addiction?

[Farrar]

Just now, Ausmumof3 said:

I wonder how much early life experiences and specifically unhealthy school dynamics have played into all this.  The way schools divide along the lines of the cool, the academics, the outcasts definitely does damage to sense of self worth for both men and women and maybe that puts up some kind of barrier for some that they can’t get over.  Most of us at some point figure out how to live with those experiences and move on but I get the impressions many of these are still relatively young.  The school shooter who identified this way kind of reinforces the idea.  

Not that it’s a justification any more than “I was bullied at school” is a justification for school shootings etc  but it might be a starting point for where to address it

Part of me wants this to be true because then I can say to myself, I have stopped my boys from going down a path like this because I kept them out of the culture of school.

I don't know though.

[Rosie_0801]

Just now, Farrar said:

Hey, when I bake and make a collage, you don't know how good I feel!

If we assume they're mentally ill (which maybe) nothing will cure it. Hobbies, therapy, turning off the wifi... so many things could help though.

I gotta say, I was pretty happy with the chocolate cake I baked yesterday because I wanted cake for lunch. 😂

I don't know if self loathing should be classed as a mental illness, but it's a horrible and difficult thing to cure. I had reason to go investigating the topic last year, and some of the quotes I found were beyond words. People not just hating themselves and wishing they were dead, but believing they ought to be tortured because they believed they were so despicable they deserved to die slow, agonising deaths. "Get a hobby" can work for low self esteem, but self loathing is more than just low self esteem.

[Ausmumof3]

2 minutes ago, Farrar said:

Part of me wants this to be true because then I can say to myself, I have stopped my boys from going down a path like this because I kept them out of the culture of school.

I don't know though.

 

2 minutes ago, Farrar said:

Part of me wants this to be true because then I can say to myself, I have stopped my boys from going down a path like this because I kept them out of the culture of school.

I don't know though.

I don’t know that it would be that straightforward now the culture already exists.  Seems like wishful thinking.  I hope desperately that my boys will always remember how they have been taught to treat people but I guess there’s no guarantees.

[Bluegoat]

34 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

Not the way I see it.

The way I see, say, the decrim of gay sex, is that the government had no real basis for making one form of sex illegal, and the other legal. Ie discrimination, not entitlement to sex.

Gays and lesbians are no more entitled to sex than the rest of us. Their 'entitlement' is to be treated by the government and the criminal justice system the same way heterosexuals are treated.

 

Lots of people do see it that way though, it's been a common argument.  And anytime anyone pointed out that it also legitimised all kind of other things, the response was "Oh my God, I can't believe you are comparing gay sex to X!"  The fact that the response meant there was actually a totally seperate underlying argumebt being invoked didn't seem to matter at all, even if pointed out.  And notwithstanding that it was actually used, with some success, to legitimise paedophilia and attach it to the gay rights movement.

I think there is a ton of stuff in terms of this set of ideas that are coming home to roost now because it's been so widely accepted - a lot of people don' really even try and think it through, it's just accepted as a point of principle.  People have actually changed their whole view in terms of entitlement, and for many it's never really put to the test where they suddenly realise it's a bankrupt idea, because they never find themselves personally in the right sort of situation.  I suspect that this is some of the reason for the very extreme reactions towards paedophiles you sometimes see, even when they are not offenders  - they have to be seen as sub-human or it would cause a need to reevaluate.

 

Edited March 28, 2019 by Bluegoat

[EmseB]

1 minute ago, Frances said:

I disagree. There is a distinct difference between sexual desires and practices that harm others and those that do not.

But the whole point of the argumentation is that it's the forced celibacy that is cruel, and the harm isn't really harming anyone (because women aren't people) and it is only fair to those being deprived. That is the exact argument being made by incels. They see consent as an arbitrary, relativistic standard that shouldn't apply to their interactions. And if they've been interacting with sex via pornography for any length of time, that's probably a deeply ingrained idea. They see consent as the same type of standard as number of partners, or gender of partners, or any number of things that have fallen out of favor. Societal laws and morality surrounding consent are the only thing standing between them and their liberation.

Yes, it is truly awful to think incels might change anything in their direction. Or that any group that doesn't see consent as a thing might do so. What do you do, though, about views like these in the modern west where women are pretty much in the best position they've ever been in historically?  I don't know how you change minds line these because it's so far from my own moral framework. I almost think the best bet is ignoring them as a tiny minority of mo consequence, because attention to the viewpoint seems bad.

Anyway, of course you disagree, so do I! But they don't and that's sort of the problem.

[Rosie_0801]

2 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I guess but can’t you get oxytocin from cuddling and looking into peoples eyes?  I don’t know that much about it but doesn’t the dopamine/oxytocin balance play a role in addiction?

 

Sure, but the desire for touch and the desire for sex aren't quite the same thing physically, let alone emotionally or for status-seeking.