New Yorker article - "The Rage of the Incels"

[shawthorne44]

In the late 80's early 90's my boyfriend and I would often double-date with a gay couple.   There were certain places we couldn't go as a group because someone(s) would try to beat me up.   I expressed shock.  They explained to me that some men were gay not so much because they liked men, but because they hated women.   On their own turf with like-minded people, females entered at their risk.  

So, not surprised.  

[Bluegoat]

15 hours ago, Farrar said:

I'm not totally sure what you're referring to when you talk about decriminalizing children having sex, but I'll say that I don't think it should be a criminal activity for minors to engage in consensual sexual activity with other minors. (It absolutely should be a crime for an adult to have sex with a minor, though I think consent laws that make allowances for age difference are sensible, such as laws that allow consent between a 17 yo and an 18 yo). Even if you think it's wrong for a 15 yo to have sex with another 15 yo, I don't think there's a purpose to be served in making it a crime that can come before a court or cause an arrest or get a child taken from their parents. None of those things will prevent it from happening or support the minors involved.

This is, for me, the legal argument involved in general. The state has no compelling interest in policing sex unless it's coercive or otherwise harmful, such as rape, incest, assault, statutory rape, etc. I think you can potentially make a case for sex work either way (maybe it's inherently coercive and harmful or maybe it's not, depending on the argument). But in terms of minors having sex with other minors, men having sex with other men, women with women, etc. there is no compelling interest and they should not be involved.

As LGBTQ folks have pushed for more acceptance in communities, since the idea that sex is such an inherent, important part of life is so pervasive, I think that has been used to make this other argument. But that's never been the basis for arguing for basic rights.

 

No, back at that time, in the UK in particular but it existed in the US as well, there was a movement toward decriminalising sex for children - including pretty young children, and including sex between any age categories.  THe logic was, quite deliberately I think, very close to other sexual liberation movements and tended to begin with a lot f true ideas - that sexuality is natural, that children too are sexual beings.  Then that it is repression that causes sexual shame and psychological dysfunction, that love is love, that people should not be punished for the sexual desires they were born with and be forced to live a dark and pathetic life of celibacy.  

It also used the technique of shaming people who disagreed publicly as bigots and homophobes, and of course as prudes.  And it was all far more successful than a lot of people now realise.  Lots of the stuff about rock stars carrying on with young teens without the progressives being up in arms is a direct result of all that, and there was some pretty horrific child abuse stuff that people didn't speak out about in the entertainment industry, or that was hushed up.  It's a big reason a lot of people would say things like "the girl wanted it" in the Polanski case.

It took a while before people got over being bamboozled or shamed by all this and trusted their own instincts, and it even took some time for some of the activists to realise that they really did not want these people associated with them.  

Anyway, to me this is a kind of warning about accepting causes just because the right people have hooked themselves up to them, and also about how accepting a premise can lead people in directions that weren't expected, even when you'd think that people would naturally just know better.

[Bluegoat]

16 hours ago, chiguirre said:

I think you're forgetting that parts of the Christian West defended the institution of slavery until 1865. Their theology clearly didn't place "relation to all other humans in a spiritual/body ecology". 

 

Slavery in the Christian west declined from the ancient period through to the modern period, based on the theological underpinnings of their anthropology. It was an almost universally accepted part of the social order prior to that, apart from the Stoics.    It underwent a revival in the early modern period for a variety of reasons, and in a somewhat different form than it had previously had - a nastier form too I think.  But clearly out of order with the theology which is probably part of the reason it was so nasty - it required people to argue that slaves were less than human which made the constraints that had been adopted over time unnecessary.

[Bluegoat]

14 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Kind of sounds a bit handmaids tale.  I don’t feel any more comfortable with the idea of everyone being assigned a woman than with the idea of them being legally allowed to rape

 

Ah, no.  But I think it's not the case that they are, at least largely, guys who are actually talking about going out and being criminals.  They are taking about stupid things on the internet, how they would like to reform society.  THough that kind of talk will sometimes lead to people doing things.  I got the impression some posters thought that they were a sort of criminal group, but I don't think they are that organised.

[Ausmumof3]

3 minutes ago, Bluegoat said:

 

Ah, no.  But I think it's not the case that they are, at least largely, guys who are actually talking about going out and being criminals.  They are taking about stupid things on the internet, how they would like to reform society.  THough that kind of talk will sometimes lead to people doing things.  I got the impression some posters thought that they were a sort of criminal group, but I don't think they are that organised.

I think many of the recent shootings and terrorist attacks show that people don’t have to be part of an organised group to be dangerous though.  At least not in countries with lax gun laws.

[chiguirre]

1 hour ago, Bluegoat said:

 

Slavery in the Christian west declined from the ancient period through to the modern period, based on the theological underpinnings of their anthropology. It was an almost universally accepted part of the social order prior to that, apart from the Stoics.    It underwent a revival in the early modern period for a variety of reasons, and in a somewhat different form than it had previously had - a nastier form too I think.  But clearly out of order with the theology which is probably part of the reason it was so nasty - it required people to argue that slaves were less than human which made the constraints that had been adopted over time unnecessary.

It seems to me that there is not one "theology", there are each theologian's views. Quite a few of them said quite horrible things about slaves, native Americans, Jews and, of course, women. Institutionally, the church owned slaves, abused native Americans, promoted the persecution and exile of Jews and barred (or still bars depending on your denomination) women from positions of power. In fact, it's one of the major sources of oppression throughout Western history. It's had its soaring heights of defending human rights and doing valuable corporal works of mercy too. But if you continually want to hold it up as a wonderful alternative to the Enlightenment, you need to acknowledge the crimes that have been done at the instigation of Christian doctrine and institutions.

[ChocolateReignRemix]

5 hours ago, chiguirre said:

It seems to me that there is not one "theology", there are each theologian's views. Quite a few of them said quite horrible things about slaves, native Americans, Jews and, of course, women. Institutionally, the church owned slaves, abused native Americans, promoted the persecution and exile of Jews and barred (or still bars depending on your denomination) women from positions of power. In fact, it's one of the major sources of oppression throughout Western history. It's had its soaring heights of defending human rights and doing valuable corporal works of mercy too. But if you continually want to hold it up as a wonderful alternative to the Enlightenment, you need to acknowledge the crimes that have been done at the instigation of Christian doctrine and institutions.

 

+1

I would also like to add even though Bluegoat's point about slavery "declining" for a time is technically correct, during that same time period the Church also routinely participated and condoned the subjugation of the peasant/serf classes throughout Europe and elsewhere.

[ChocolateReignRemix]

7 hours ago, Bluegoat said:

 

No, back at that time, in the UK in particular but it existed in the US as well, there was a movement toward decriminalising sex for children - including pretty young children, and including sex between any age categories.  THe logic was, quite deliberately I think, very close to other sexual liberation movements and tended to begin with a lot f true ideas - that sexuality is natural, that children too are sexual beings.  Then that it is repression that causes sexual shame and psychological dysfunction, that love is love, that people should not be punished for the sexual desires they were born with and be forced to live a dark and pathetic life of celibacy. 

I am calling this out yet again.  There was no movement decriminalizing sex *for* children.  There were very, very small groups (NAMBLA, PIE and the possibly fictitious Rene Guyon Society) that failed miserably in efforts to decriminalize sex *with* children by lowering the age of consent.  Those are not the same things.  Based on my limited knowledge of these groups they focused their arguments on children's rights more so than anything to do with forced celibacy.

The groups in question were as a rule not given much credibility, and based on a quick search most of those involved were in prison by the 80s.  Police investigations moved rather quickly thanks to public pressure, so I think your insinuations that these groups had any sort of acceptability is a serious reach.

FWIW during the same time frame you referenced child p*rn was legally available in many places and was sold alongside adult p*rn.  By the end of the attempts of these groups to lower the AOC most nations had changed their laws to outlaw it.

Edited March 29, 2019 by ChocolateReignRemix

[Bluegoat]

On 3/28/2019 at 7:47 PM, StellaM said:

 

You can't blame repression on the gays! That's totally down to Freud 🙂

The solution to people taking an argument that was used against discrimination by the state, and using it for something nefarious, is for people to put their critical thinking hats on.

If people cannot see that a grown man 'sleeping with' a 13 year old girl is any different from two middle aged women, having sex on Saturday, because tomorrow's not a school day, and they don't have to get the kids up early, that is a problem with their thinking skills.

(And yes, progressive movements do have some deep problems with their group psychology and their thinking skills at times...PIE being one example, eugenics another, and there are more...but it still doesn't subtract from the fact they were right on this one... the government had no business discriminating against this class of people).

 

Yes, I would maybe blame that on Freud - though I am not sure he was totally wrong.  A certian amount of repression is necessry for society to function though which somehow hasn't entered the pop culture mindset.

Fundamentally, it  doesn't matter if they were right or not about gay rights, that's really really not the point.  Within a population, there are vast numbers of people who pretty much accept whatever premises are put to them and seem to be accepted by people they trust or admire.  I don't think this is just progressives, though they do have a particular sort of problem in that they don't like the idea of being left behind, but it's a widespred human problem.  If there are popular ideas being promoted, they tend to run with them, whether we like it or not.

To say, a particular movement popularised a certain idea of phrase which then was applied in other ways  - if it did, it did. That's a historical claim, not an ideological one. You are still allowed to think the cause is well founded, in itself.  

For a lot of people, as far as I can see, they never or rarely examine their base assumptions.  They might be able to reason perfectly well from those, but for some reason certain types of ideas that form the basis of arguments seem to be given a really different kind of status.  Maybe they are things that seem to resonate with them emotionally, or they are accepted on authority, I am not sure , but they often seem to be things that have a good slogan-like sound.  But when they are wrong, even if they are just expressed carelessly, it can have a significant effect on outcomes.

Maybe this relates to the "what can we do" thread, because probably one thing that is more important than any other is to teach people to be really exacting about these kinds of ideas, so they do't fall prey to bad, or even poorly phrased, ones.  And maybe for some they need to be taught a strong sense that it is a bad idea to use slogans and ideas that are not sound, even if they are effective as slogans.  "Love is love" being a good example.  I'm not convinced that we will ever get rid of the people who are followers, so it might be best to influece the leaders.

[Bluegoat]

On 3/29/2019 at 2:23 AM, ChocolateReignRemix said:

I am calling this out yet again.  There was no movement decriminalizing sex *for* children.  There were very, very small groups (NAMBLA, PIE and the possibly fictitious Rene Guyon Society) that failed miserably in efforts to decriminalize sex *with* children by lowering the age of consent.  Those are not the same things.  Based on my limited knowledge of these groups they focused their arguments on children's rights more so than anything to do with forced celibacy.

The groups in question were as a rule not given much credibility, and based on a quick search most of those involved were in prison by the 80s.  Police investigations moved rather quickly thanks to public pressure, so I think your insinuations that these groups had any sort of acceptability is a serious reach.

FWIW during the same time frame you referenced child p*rn was legally available in many places and was sold alongside adult p*rn.  By the end of the attempts of these groups to lower the AOC most nations had changed their laws to outlaw it.

 

Well, I am not inclined to respond to people "calling me out".  If you are unsure of what I am saying, or specifically disagree, ask, and I'l answer.  Calling people out requires some sort of authority, and when people with no authority do it, well...  

However, I am not sure what you would call those groups besides a movement - the goal was to influence society.  I agree they didn't last as a movement and certainly the bulk of regular people did not even jump on board, however they did have some real effect in the progressive community.  Not a large one, but given that they were promoting sex between adults and children, something that seems pretty obviously wrong to most people, it's significant that they convinced even small numbers that their ideas were plausible. It was a real conversation that went on as part of the larger mindset of the sexual revolution, and it encompases things like man-boy stuff but also things like 14 year old groupies - all of which in hindsight seems like a terrible terrible idea.

And yes, their primary argument was on children's rights, but that comes out of the basic argument of the sexual revolution -  that sexual desires are natural and natural desires should set the bar for what is normative, because to deny what is natural is unnatural and unhealthy.  There is an underlying sense that any kind of limits places would simply be man-made and without any real authority.  It's a very pervasive idea even now, but it also makes it very difficult to put any kind of boundaries on sexual behaviour.  And it's more difficult because for many, it's kind of in the background of their thinking rather than  really explicit.

[ChocolateReignRemix]

1 minute ago, Bluegoat said:

 

Well, I am not inclined to respond to people "calling me out".  If you are unsure of what I am saying, or specifically disagree, ask, and I'l answer.  Calling people out requires some sort of authority, and when people with no authority do it, well...  

However, I am not sure what you would call those groups besides a movement - the goal was to influence society.  I agree they didn't last as a movement and certainly the bulk of regular people did not even jump on board, however they did have some real effect in the progressive community.  Not a large one, but given that they were promoting sex between adults and children, something that seems pretty obviously wrong to most people, it's significant that they convinced even small numbers that their ideas were plausible. It was a real conversation that went on as part of the larger mindset of the sexual revolution, and it encompases things like man-boy stuff but also things like 14 year old groupies - all of which in hindsight seems like a terrible terrible idea.

And yes, their primary argument was on children's rights, but that comes out of the basic argument of the sexual revolution -  that sexual desires are natural and natural desires should set the bar for what is normative, because to deny what is natural is unnatural and unhealthy.  There is an underlying sense that any kind of limits places would simply be man-made and without any real authority.  It's a very pervasive idea even now, but it also makes it very difficult to put any kind of boundaries on sexual behaviour.  And it's more difficult because for many, it's kind of in the background of their thinking rather than  really explicit.

 

They were promoting allowing adults to legally have sex with children.  Two different times you claimed they were advocating " decriminalising sex for children" which is outright falsehood.  It's hard to claim that these groups were actually part of the sexual revolution when society actually moved in the other direction of criminalizing sexual activity between adults and children during the same time (AOC laws increased in many places, the nearly universal ban against child p*rn, and increased enforcement of laws regarding the sexual abuse of children and the dissemination of child p*orn).  Arguing these groups were part of the "real conversation" when they were booted from the conversation via criminal prosecution and other groups refusing to be associated with them is nonsensical. 

Regarding the bolded, how else would the limits be made?  If you try to argue religion, good luck picking which one!

[Bluegoat]

On 3/28/2019 at 8:28 PM, chiguirre said:

It seems to me that there is not one "theology", there are each theologian's views. Quite a few of them said quite horrible things about slaves, native Americans, Jews and, of course, women. Institutionally, the church owned slaves, abused native Americans, promoted the persecution and exile of Jews and barred (or still bars depending on your denomination) women from positions of power. In fact, it's one of the major sources of oppression throughout Western history. It's had its soaring heights of defending human rights and doing valuable corporal works of mercy too. But if you continually want to hold it up as a wonderful alternative to the Enlightenment, you need to acknowledge the crimes that have been done at the instigation of Christian doctrine and institutions.

 

Certainly different theologians have different views.  You can however also look at them as a whole, over time - that's exactly what the history of philosophy is, because these different views aren't random, or unrelated.  So if you wanted, you could make a much closer study of the topic and see how individuals and movements ft within the greater whole - you would see certain sets of ideas in soe cases set against others, new ways of liking at things, some arguments defeated, and so on.

I think that there will always be crimes, and jockeying for power.  I think it's an inevitable outcome of the failings of human nature. So to me, it's no surprise to see that in any part of history, as indeed we do.  And that also of course counts for the Enlightenment, it could be a perfect set of ideas and yet it still would take time to make them concrete in society and people's minds,  and even then it would fail to fully instantiate those ideas.  Ultimately I think that the view of the human in the Enlightenment falls short on the grounds of the ideas themselves, rather than some sort of empirical proof.  You can make some links, but it's always inexact.   Fundamentally though I think the Enlightenment falls short because it is too individualistic, it fails to root the basis for human value, and its tendency to turn human relationships, including society itself, into contracts, is damaging.    

[Bluegoat]

8 minutes ago, ChocolateReignRemix said:

 

They were promoting allowing adults to legally have sex with children.  Two different times you claimed they were advocating " decriminalising sex for children" which is outright falsehood.  It's hard to claim that these groups were actually part of the sexual revolution when society actually moved in the other direction of criminalizing sexual activity between adults and children during the same time (AOC laws increased in many places, the nearly universal ban against child p*rn, and increased enforcement of laws regarding the sexual abuse of children and the dissemination of child p*orn).  Arguing these groups were part of the "real conversation" when they were booted from the conversation via criminal prosecution and other groups refusing to be associated with them is nonsensical. 

Regarding the bolded, how else would the limits be made?  If you try to argue religion, good luck picking which one!

 

If you are going to say I am lying because you don't like the way I worded something, you can screw off.

[ChocolateReignRemix]

1 hour ago, Bluegoat said:

 

If you are going to say I am lying because you don't like the way I worded something, you can screw off.

It isn't a phrasing issue. 

[Frances]

7 hours ago, Bluegoat said:

 

Yes, I would maybe blame that on Freud - though I am not sure he was totally wrong.  A certian amount of repression is necessry for society to function though which somehow hasn't entered the pop culture mindset.

Fundamentally, it  doesn't matter if they were right or not about gay rights, that's really really not the point.  Within a population, there are vast numbers of people who pretty much accept whatever premises are put to them and seem to be accepted by people they trust or admire.  I don't think this is just progressives, though they do have a particular sort of problem in that they don't like the idea of being left behind, but it's a widespred human problem.  If there are popular ideas being promoted, they tend to run with them, whether we like it or not.

To say, a particular movement popularised a certain idea of phrase which then was applied in other ways  - if it did, it did. That's a historical claim, not an ideological one. You are still allowed to think the cause is well founded, in itself.  

For a lot of people, as far as I can see, they never or rarely examine their base assumptions.  They might be able to reason perfectly well from those, but for some reason certain types of ideas that form the basis of arguments seem to be given a really different kind of status.  Maybe they are things that seem to resonate with them emotionally, or they are accepted on authority, I am not sure , but they often seem to be things that have a good slogan-like sound.  But when they are wrong, even if they are just expressed carelessly, it can have a significant effect on outcomes.

Maybe this relates to the "what can we do" thread, because probably one thing that is more important than any other is to teach people to be really exacting about these kinds of ideas, so they do't fall prey to bad, or even poorly phrased, ones.  And maybe for some they need to be taught a strong sense that it is a bad idea to use slogans and ideas that are not sound, even if they are effective as slogans.  "Love is love" being a good example.  I'm not convinced that we will ever get rid of the people who are followers, so it might be best to influece the leaders.

Nm

Edited March 31, 2019 by Frances

[Corraleno]

On March 27, 2019 at 9:04 PM, EmseB said:

Disagreeing with the logical premise to an argument doesn't mean the two parties using the same logical premise are morally equivalent. One could even agree with the ends, agree with the morality of the conclusion, and disagree with the means of the reasoning. Showing how the logic of one aspect of one argument can be applied to further something immoral does't mean that anyone who has entertained that argument is immoral.

But you are clearly misrepresenting the "logical premise of the argument." And whether you are doing it purposely or not, this exact misrepresentation was purposely used by many anti-marriage-equality groups. 

Pro Marriage Equality Groups: A secular government has no business discriminating against a specific group of people on the basis of religious beliefs — which are not universally held even by Christians — that their behavior is "sinful," and this discrimination causes very real harm.

Anti Marriage Equality Groups:  Outlawing gay marriage and/or relationships doesn't actually cause any harm, because gay people can just be celibate, therefore avoiding sin.  

Pro Marriage Equality Groups: Denying LGBT people the right to the same kinds of consensual adult sexual and marital relationships that heterosexuals have is cruel, discriminatory, and without legal basis.

Anti Marriage Equality Groups: OMG, so every perverted person on the planet has a right to have whatever sex they want??? Next people will be marrying dogs and 10 year olds!

Your argument that the logic underlying the fight for marriage equality inevitably leads to attempts to legitimize nonconsensual and nonadult relationships only holds water if you are seriously claiming that the "consensual adult" part was missing from the logical arguments for LGBT rights. You are basically taking the anti-LGBT "interpretation" of the argument and attributing it to LGBT advocates — and then responding to push-back against that claim by implying that LGBT advocates were probably well-intentioned, but they were too dumb to notice that this argument (that they never made) would inevitably lead to attempts to legitimize pedophilia and rape.

[chiguirre]

8 hours ago, Bluegoat said:

 

 

I think that there will always be crimes, and jockeying for power.  I think it's an inevitable outcome of the failings of human nature. So to me, it's no surprise to see that in any part of history, as indeed we do.  And that also of course counts for the Enlightenment, it could be a perfect set of ideas and yet it still would take time to make them concrete in society and people's minds,  and even then it would fail to fully instantiate those ideas.  Ultimately I think that the view of the human in the Enlightenment falls short on the grounds of the ideas themselves, rather than some sort of empirical proof.  You can make some links, but it's always inexact.   Fundamentally though I think the Enlightenment falls short because it is too individualistic, it fails to root the basis for human value, and its tendency to turn human relationships, including society itself, into contracts, is damaging.    

How do you propose to judge ideas except through the empirical proof of their positive and negative consequences for human beings? And on that basis, we are vastly better off, all 9 billion of us, today than the less than billion people were back in the heyday of Christian feudal Europe. The nations with the lowest life expectancies today enjoy about 20 more years of life than even the richest countries did before the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution and the Germ Theory of Disease. And, frankly, the empirical examples of societies that put communal interests above the individual is not very good (that's every totalitarian regime that darkened the 20th century from Mussolini to Pol Pot).

[shawthorne44]

Speaking of not having ... , did y'll see that study about the young adults not having any?   If was low 20+% of men in their 20's and in the high teens for women in the 20's.   That was the percentage who had not had ... in the last year.   People in their 20's.   For a year.   Pretty interesting.  

 

[Farrar]

2 hours ago, shawthorne44 said:

Speaking of not having ... , did y'll see that study about the young adults not having any?   If was low 20+% of men in their 20's and in the high teens for women in the 20's.   That was the percentage who had not had ... in the last year.   People in their 20's.   For a year.   Pretty interesting.  

 

Yes, there's been some discussion in different threads. There's a major sex recession right now in Westernized, developed nations according to every measure they've been able to take. This is not older people having less - it's young people (and older people). And it's comparatively less overall compared to each previous generation. It's definitely interesting.

[maize]

14 minutes ago, Farrar said:

Yes, there's been some discussion in different threads. There's a major sex recession right now in Westernized, developed nations according to every measure they've been able to take. This is not older people having less - it's young people (and older people). And it's comparatively less overall compared to each previous generation. It's definitely interesting.

Does this correlate with lower marriage rates?

[Farrar]

17 minutes ago, maize said:

Does this correlate with lower marriage rates?

I'm not sure how closely, but obviously both are falling. But so the number of people who are morally uncomfortable with sex outside marriage. That may, indeed, be a part of it. Hook up culture or even serial monogamy is way more work than going home to a stable partner in a warm bed. But I think there's more to it. They may both have the same cause. Or it may be a more complex set of factors.

This new study was written up in a number of places, but the best article is still that one in The Atlantic, which covered a lot of different aspects:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/the-sex-recession/573949/

[KidsHappen]

4 hours ago, Farrar said:

I'm not sure how closely, but obviously both are falling. But so the number of people who are morally uncomfortable with sex outside marriage. That may, indeed, be a part of it. Hook up culture or even serial monogamy is way more work than going home to a stable partner in a warm bed. But I think there's more to it. They may both have the same cause. Or it may be a more complex set of factors.

This new study was written up in a number of places, but the best article is still that one in The Atlantic, which covered a lot of different aspects:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/the-sex-recession/573949/

Long article but definitely worth reading.

[Farrar]

1 hour ago, StellaM said:

I wonder if there's a correlation between less sex and worse mental health in young people, including the libido reducing effects of some meds.

I'll bet there is... but I'd want to know if it's a chicken or egg thing for sure.

[Frances]

3 hours ago, StellaM said:

I wonder if there's a correlation between less sex and worse mental health in young people, including the libido reducing effects of some meds.

The article Farrar linked mentioned increased anxiety and depression rates in young adults.