Whilst I have friends I don't own them. I endeavour to obtain more friends, and I judge people as to whether they would be the kind of friend that I want - short or long term.
To describe somebody as 'having' women is often accurate and useful - I do not see why this should be penalised.
Now what does confuse and upset me is the way in which we rarely describe women as being able to have lots of men - the slut problem.
Enjoying regular sex and really exploring it, like any other hobby, seems incredibly reasonable. Hoping to enjoy lots of sex sounds like something anybody should want, and I don't see why this is limited as a descriptor for men only.
In short, pretty much everybody likes a good fucking - why are we afraid to say it?
>Now what does confuse and upset me is the way in which we rarely describe women as being able to have lots of men - the slut problem.
We do describe women, in a positive way, as being able to have lots of men -- we just call them suitors. We correctly identify that having lots of men that want to marry you is a rare gift, and that having lots of women that want to have sex with you is a rare gift. Having casual sex with a lot of men is not a difficult feat to achieve, so why would you expect anyone to glorify anyone for being able to do it?
So you recognize the inequality inherent in the situation. This is exactly why being sensitive to objectification of women is important for fighting gender inequality! The reason society praises men getting sex is because women are / have been historically treated in part as objects of pleasure / things to be won / conquests. Brides are literally given away at weddings. Women's suffrage in the US came after slaves.
Once the "object" is "defiled" it is shamed, but the men are not defilable because they're not objects! They can't be defiled because it's not their job to be objects for others. Like, if I sleep in a set of sheets, and then you go to sleep in the sheets, you might say the sheets are defiled. But in no world do you say either of us are defiled. Society currently treats women like bedsheets, to put it lightly.
Women are only praised for getting "suitors," so people who ask them to be their girlfriends, and people who ask them to marry them. But if you follow that model, women have no agency. There's no agency in waiting for men to ask. Again, they're just objects.
And people take this all as normal?! That a man having sex never treats the man as an object of pleasure, but as a taker of pleasure? And women are just pleasure-giving commodities? That's exactly the problem.
I don't think people care that much about what they're praised for, but more that they are seen as whole people instead of objects without agency.
>So you recognize the inequality inherent in the situation.
Yes, I think the inequality inherent to the relationship between men and women will inevitably result in people being impressed by certain accomplishments when done by men and other accomplishments when done by women.
>The reason society praises men getting sex is because women are / have been historically treated in part as objects of pleasure / things to be won / conquests.
Don't you think it has more to do with the fact that it's difficult to convince a lot of women to have sex with you?
>Once the "object" is "defiled" it is shamed, but the men are not defilable because they're not objects!
If it turns out that either A) women having casual sex is bad for society or B) women having the sorts of personality traits that lead them to have lots of casual sex is bad for society, is shaming not an appropriate tool to improve society? As far as defiling goes, do you believe that sex has the same effect on women that it has on men and that the sort of personality traits that cause a woman to seek out sex with men other than a life partner are the sort of personality traits that men find desirable in life partners?
Don't you think it has more to do with the fact that it's
difficult to convince a lot of women to have sex with you?
This statement depends on who you are. Attractive males and females both get more sex than unattractive ones. Society has a systemic problem however, regarding how women are viewed.
is shaming not an appropriate tool to improve society
Ideas A & B are moot. It's bad for society to oppress classes of people based on their gender (discrimination). Shaming people for their gender in the name of "improving society" is pretty ludicrous.
do you believe that sex has the same effect on women that
it has on men and that the sort of personality traits that
cause a woman to seek out sex with men other than a life
partner are the sort of personality traits that men find
desirable in life partners?
What I believe is that people (but mainly men) should not look for sex toys as life partners. That's what objectification is, and it's unfortunate that every society currently has varying levels of objectifying women built-in; that is, this is not something on just an individual basis but something systemic which is my broader point.
Generalizing about the effects of sex on men vs women is pointless; sex means something different to every person and affects every person differently.
>This statement depends on who you are. Attractive males and females both get more sex than unattractive ones.
It's difficult in the sense that not a lot of people can do it.
>It's bad for society to oppress classes of people based on their gender (discrimination). Shaming people for their gender in the name of "improving society" is pretty ludicrous.
Why is it "ludicrous" for society to discourage women from engaging in certain behaviors, if it turns out that it's bad for society if women engage in those behaviors? That sounds eminently reasonable to me.
>What I believe is that people (but mainly men) should not look for sex toys as life partners.
Should they not look for chaste women as life partners, if it turns out that marriages to chaste women end up being the most successful? Should society not then encourage women to be chaste, if society cares about how many marriages end up being successful?
>Generalizing about the effects of sex on men vs women is pointless; sex means something different to every person and affects every person differently.
Why is it pointless? If casual sex tends to have some particular effect on men and some other effect on women, or if it turns out that the sort of personality traits that lead a woman to engage in casual sex tend to be different from the sort of personality traits that lead a man to engage in casual sex, why is it not reasonable for men to treat women who have casual sex differently from how women treat men that have casual sex? If the effect of casual sex on women tends to make them less desirable life partners in the opinion of men, why is it not reasonable for men to discourage women from engaging in casual sex if those men are primarily interested in long term relationships?
Why is it "ludicrous" for society to discourage women from
engaging in certain behaviors, if it turns out that it's bad
for society if women engage in those behaviors? That sounds
eminently reasonable to me.
Define "behaviors" and "bad for society" because your bringing this up makes me think you actually believe specific such things. It's ludicrous because saying we should decide social policies based on generalizations of groups of people is a bad idea. Replace women with any group: LGBT, people of color, poor people, foreigners, etc. You'll see that it's kind of a crazy statement. It might benefit some people to oppress people of color, for example, and so you might say it "benefits society" depending on what society you're talking about. It might even lead to technological progress! But does that make it right, and is it good?
Should they not look for chaste women as life partners, if
it turns out that marriages to chaste women end up being
the most successful? Should society not then encourage
women to be chaste, if society cares about how many
marriages end up being successful?
Society should care about the rights of the individual to freedom and happiness to live their lives: equally, without regard to gender.
You also fail to define successful marriage: you could mean if they successfully rear children, or you could mean they are happy long term, or you can mean any other number of things. To encourage systemic behavior on poorly defined things like this leads to people getting hurt. In this case, it means women not having the same rights as men. And not only that: men with what are considered more feminine characteristics sometimes suffer similar consequences. Feminism is a misnomer; gender equality benefits both men and women because gender is not a binary and all men are not the same and all women are not the same.
You keep saying "if x turns out to y" but we don't have such data. Either say something or don't, that's why it's pointless. I think you'll find that there are actually no hard and fast rules like the ones you say we should consider may be the case, and that people actually occupy a very diverse spectrum. As such social policy should be as permissive as possible to avoid hurting classes of people not considered the "majority."
>It's ludicrous because saying we should decide social policies based on generalizations of groups of people is a bad idea. Replace women with any group: LGBT, people of color, poor people, foreigners, etc.
We don't let foreigners vote because, generally speaking, their interests are less closely aligned with the best interests of the country compared with citizens. Should we let foreigners vote now?
Certain racial minorities tend to come from poorer backgrounds, so we mandate that they receive certain advantages in hiring and college admissions and so on. Should affirmative action be ended?
Why is it necessarily a bad idea to base social policies on generalizations of groups of people? If the generalizations are correct, why is it automatically bad to take them into account when deciding policy? In what other circumstance is it a good idea to discard correct information when making decisions?
>Society should care about the rights of the individual to freedom and happiness to live their lives: equally, without regard to gender.
We all sacrifice some of our freedoms to make society a better place. Why should society not be allowed to take gender into account when making policies, if gender is actually relevant to the policy?
>You also fail to define successful marriage:
Generally speaking I mean they produce children that become productive members of society.
>To encourage systemic behavior on poorly defined things like this leads to people getting hurt.
Ignoring facts also leads to people getting hurt.
>You keep saying "if x turns out to y" but we don't have such data.
I'm not going to bother getting into specifics because it sounds to me like you wouldn't change your mind even if I provided such data. It sounds to me like you believe it's morally wrong in and of itself to hold men and women to different standards, even if there is good reason to do so.
>I think you'll find that there are actually no hard and fast rules like the ones you say we should consider
You're saying there is no statistical relationship between, say, the amount of casual sex people have and any other statistic that society has an interest in increasing or decreasing?
We don't let foreigners vote because, generally speaking,
their interests are less closely aligned with the best
interests of the country compared with citizens. Should we
let foreigners vote now?
s/generally speaking/very specifically speaking/r. Foreigners don't live here and don't pay taxes. That is clear-cut, unlike gender. This is not an accurate analogy.
Now, treating foreigners poorly because you think they're poorer or stupider than you or that their culture is inferior is why we have a lot of hate in the world -- that's an example of society choosing behavior / shaming based on generalization. And clearly that's not a good thing.
Certain racial minorities tend to come from poorer
backgrounds, so we mandate that they receive certain
advantages in hiring and college admissions and so on.
Should affirmative action be ended?
No, but it has plenty of criticism right now in the sense that the actual purpose is to help economically disadvantaged and often what happens instead is privileged individuals in disadvantaged categories benefit the most (not actually representative of who we try to help). Clearly we should seek the most accurate classification and base policy on that. Law should be a scalpel, not a cudgel.
And so the same is with society: we should err on the side of respect and open-mindedness rather than trying to shoehorn everyone into boxes / classifications of our own imagination.
We all sacrifice some of our freedoms to make society a
better place. Why should society not be allowed to take
gender into account when making policies, if gender is
actually relevant to the policy?
Are you saying women should sacrifice being treated as people with agency to make the world a "better place" ? Better for who?
Generally speaking I mean they produce children that become
productive members of society.
Cool so what do you want to say? That subjugation of women will make it more likely that we produce children who are productive members of society? I won't agree with that and you wouldn't have data to support it.
Ignoring facts also leads to people getting hurt.
Ignoring that status quo is not the same as fact leads to people getting hurt. Furthermore, assuming that you can know all the facts leads to people getting hurt. For example, many in society used to say homosexuals can't raise children as well as straight couples, but ignored the circumstances under which homosexuals were forced to live as influencing their classification (persecution). Now that (specifically liberal American) society has become more accepting of homosexuals, you might see that statistically well-adjusted homosexuals are on the rise, and those couples that raise kids do so just as well as their straight counterparts.
In the world you propose, people can say "well statistics show they have higher divorce rates or children make less when they grow up" and use that as a reason to shame gay marriage. And in that world you'll fail to account for the myriad of reasons why that's a flawed notion.
Even if statistics show something, it doesn't mean we should act on it. We don't always know why things are and the various causes, so as soon as you try to blame it on poorly-defined blurry groups such as race and gender, you begin to encroach upon irrational territory. Basing decisions off intractable data is terrible.
I'm not going to bother getting into specifics because it
sounds to me like you wouldn't change your mind even if I
provided such data. It sounds to me like you believe it's
morally wrong in and of itself to hold men and women to
different standards, even if there is good reason to do so.
If there's something we agree on here it's that I'm dubious of any data you'd provide, mainly because I don't believe such data exists. My assumptions and ideologies are formed upon the basis that we actually cannot accurately enough assess this information and thus must operate with a wide berth of respect for one another.
I think of law and society norms as being a shitty x-dimensional linear classifier, and people y-dimensional points, where y >>> x. This is where my disdain for your "data" arises: where you assert you can say some facts for "all women vs all men" and I'm saying you just can't. As far as reason goes, burden of proof is on the hypothesis.
Statistics also can be interpreted with a high degree of variability. So even if my premise was incorrect, and you did "have the data," we'd have to have a conversation about how you're interpreting it.
^ Turns out with most things regarding people we cannot directly measure / find metrics. Instead we have to satisfy ourselves with operationalizations. So yeah, forgive my skepticism when you claim to have enough data to know the effects of gender norms on societal health when you haven't even done step 1, defining how these things are measured and accounting for confounders.
You know what you can measure? Suffering. You can talk to women and people of color and realize that there are systemic flaws that really hurt people. And you can act on that data, because it's not abstract. You can be kinder.
You're saying there is no statistical relationship between,
say, the amount of casual sex people have and any other
statistic that society has an interest in increasing or
decreasing?
I'm saying that if there is, you can't know it, and even if you do, it's so noisy it's useless to try to base policy on and inevitably hurts people.
Equality for all people regardless of gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, is an ideal. If you don't believe in it, we're going to disagree, because it speaks to the core of what we feel is "good for society" or a "good society." If you think of life as an optimization problem, you can think of sum(ideals) as the objective function.
A good society to me is one in which everyone has the same civil liberties to life and happiness. Physical life is not fair (you may be born with a disease and I may not, born rich vs born poor, etc) but that doesn't stop us from saying that fairness is a virtue worth pursuing where we can. Do we at least agree on that?
>s/generally speaking/very specifically speaking/r. Foreigners don't live here and don't pay taxes. That is clear-cut, unlike gender. This is not an accurate analogy.
In the US, there are millions of permanent residents who live here and pay taxes but can't vote. Should they be allowed to?
>Clearly we should seek the most accurate classification and base policy on that.
The accuracy of the classification system is not the only concern. At the very least, the cost of classifying individuals will always be a factor.
>Are you saying women should sacrifice being treated as people with agency to make the world a "better place" ?
Do we not all sacrifice some of our freedoms to make the world a better place?
>Better for who?
Future generations.
>I won't agree with that and you wouldn't have data to support it.
It doesn't matter if the data exists or not; your ideology has told you a priori that it can't exist.
>Furthermore, assuming that you can know all the facts leads to people getting hurt.
In what other cases are we held to this high standard, that we must know all of the facts before we can take action? All we can ever do is use the facts we have to make reasonable guesses about what policies we should have. You seem to have made up your mind that it's fundamentally impossible to gather enough facts for us to know that not holding different genders to different standards will hurt people more than holding different genders to different standards.
>For example, many in society used to say homosexuals can't raise children as well as straight couples
What is the point in this anecdote, other than to suggest that because people who disagreed with you once used statistics wrong, other people who disagree with you cannot use statistics correctly?
>Even if statistics show something, it doesn't mean we should act on it.
Then what should we act on? What your feelings tell us?
>poorly-defined blurry groups such as race and gender
Gender is not blurry for the vast majority of people.
>where you assert you can say some facts for "all women vs all men" and I'm saying you just can't.
I've asserted no such thing, nor do I think any such thing. If you believe I have said such things, then you haven't been paying attention, and this discussion cannot possibly be useful to anyone. I have always spoken about women in general and men in general, understanding fully that what I'm saying does not apply to every single woman or every single man.
>Equality for all people regardless of gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, is an ideal.
It's not the only ideal, by any means, and the relative importance of that ideal is a matter of personal opinion.
>worth pursuing where we can. Do we at least agree on that?
It sounds to me like, for you, "where we can" means "irrespective of any other concern". I can't agree with that.
In the US, there are millions of permanent residents who
live here and pay taxes but can't vote. Should they be
allowed to?
Isn't that what the naturalization debate is about?
The accuracy of the classification system is not the
only concern. At the very least, the cost of
classifying individuals will always be a factor.
Agreed. And the cost of classifying individuals can be perilously high.
Do we not all sacrifice some of our freedoms to make
the world a better place?
Again, better for who?
Future generations.
Nope, future generations of men but not women if you make that assumption. And no, our policies should benefit future generations of all people.
The status quo for women blows.
In what other cases are we held to this high standard,
that we must know all of the facts before we can take
action?
In all cases where the potential for harm is very high and there exist alternatives. For example, making equality a priority along with other metrics you haven't defined to measure a "good" society.
What is the point in this anecdote, other than to
suggest that because people who disagreed with you once
used statistics wrong, other people who disagree with
you cannot use statistics correctly?
It's to illustrate that statistics need to be used correctly and that metrics you purport to have (presumably regarding the subjugation of women for the public benefit) are doubtful given the vast scope of the problem we are observing. Statistics are only meaningful given well-defined hypotheses and need to account t=0 -> t=future.
Then what should we act on? What your feelings tell us?
No, again, ideals should serve as an objective function and we can operate on real feedback in well-defined scopes. E.g. the world as it is sucks for women and people of color in ways x y and z, and there are systemic issues. We can address them. The opposite of shaming women who do x doesn't have to be encouraging women to do x, it can be respecting them and allowing them to make their own choices. Path of least harm.
Gender is not blurry for the vast majority of people.
By this I mean characteristics you attribute to men do not apply to all men. And same for women. And even if a generalizing characteristic you make applies to a majority (e.g 51% of men), it can harm another 49%. Furthermore, 1% of all men or women is a large large number of people. Cost of false positive is high.
>where you assert you can say some facts for "all women vs all men" and I'm saying you just
can't.
I've asserted no such thing, nor do I think any such thing.
Don't you now?
Should they not look for chaste women as life partners,
if it turns out that marriages to chaste women end up
being the most successful?
Why is it "ludicrous" for society to discourage women
from engaging in certain behaviors, if it turns out
that it's bad for society if women engage in those
behaviors?
if it turns out that the sort of personality traits
that lead a woman to engage in casual sex tend to be
different from the sort of personality traits that lead
a man to engage in casual sex, why is it not reasonable
for men to treat women who have casual sex differently
from how women treat men that have casual sex?
By asking these you imply such data is possible to come by, such classifications are able to be made, and clearly that men and women are well-defined groups. You're posing that these facts might exist, where they don't because the groups are not well defined to begin with.
I have always spoken about women in general and men in
general, understanding fully that what I'm saying does
not apply to every single woman or every single man.
Right, so what have you learned about generalizing about race, and why is it bad? Now maybe think about why it might be bad to do the same thing with gender?
It's not the only ideal, by any means, and the relative importance of that
ideal is a matter of personal opinion.
Sure. My opinion is that being kind and actually caring how policies might cause harm is important. I believe in a kinder world. Feel free to disagree.
It sounds to me like, for you, "where we can" means "irrespective of any other concern". I can't
agree with that.
I prioritize it highly, because it is the basis for a society I want to live in. But surely you realize there's no gap between having ideals and being rational. You haven't brought any valid concerns to the issue, so you don't know that my views are "irrespective of any other concern." You've only brought theoreticals about "data" that "might suggest" things you believe. and I found those unlikely.
And it's OK to say a theoretical is unlikely. You can theorize that aliens are watching our every move, or that god exists, and I can't refute that, but it doesn't make me irrational to be skeptical. You make it sound like there's possibly a point where subjugating women might be good for the human race as a whole...but good luck finding well-scoped proof of that, that's just crazy.
I haven't proposed anything impractical now, have I? If everyone were more respectful of one another the world would be a better place, can we agree on that? In lieu of data that would say it's good for society for some people to be deprived of their rights, is it not OK to choose a sane default action (ideal, if you will)?
They are not given the right to vote as well as a few other rights/privileges. If basing policies on generalizations is a 'bad idea', should we then give them the same rights/privileges as other people that live here and pay taxes?
Nope, future generations of men but not women if you make that assumption
No, future generations of both men and women. Both men and women benefit when society's standard of living increases.
The status quo for women blows.
How is the status quo bad for the vast majority of women?
In all cases where the potential for harm is very high and there exist alternatives.
The potential harm of accepting and encouraging destructive lifestyles vastly exceeds the harm done to the tiny minority that have a strong preference for those destructive lifestyles.
The opposite of shaming women who do x doesn't have to be encouraging women to do x, it can be respecting them and allowing them to make their own choices. Path of least harm.
You have no idea what the path of least harm is. Respecting someone's choice to engage in self-destructive behaviors can easily result in greater harm even for that person than discouraging them from engaging in those behaviors. On a society-wide basis, tolerating certain lifestyles can easily result in far greater harm to society than having a cultural stigma against those lifestyles.
By this I mean characteristics you attribute to men do not apply to all men.
Of course they don't. I'm speaking generally.
Don't you now?
No.
By asking these you imply such data is possible to come by
Why would that not be possible to come by in principle?
and clearly that men and women are well-defined groups.
Are you actually suggesting that we can't measure, say, the average height of men and the average height of women in some population? The vast majority of humans fit clearly into one of those two categories. Are you suggesting such information cannot be useful? For example, would that kind of data not be useful information to a clothing manufacturer?
You're posing that these facts might exist, where they don't because the groups are not well defined to begin with.
And this is why there's no point in me even bringing up any particular facts. In your opinion, they cannot even in principle be valid or meaningful. Until we can agree that it is in principle possible to extract useful information from data gathered about men and women, there is no point in debating whether some particular data suggests it's a good idea for society to treat them differently.
that's just crazy.
Why do you believe a priori that it is crazy?
If everyone were more respectful of one another the world would be a better place, can we agree on that?
No, not necessarily. Choices matter. Society has an interest in making sure that people make choices that are good for society.
In lieu of data that would say it's good for society for some people to be deprived of their rights, is it not OK to choose a sane default action (ideal, if you will)?
The problem here is that you've already defined away the possibility for such data to exist.
Incorrect. When slavery was legal, women had zero votes in and slaves had zero votes.
Presumably, you are confusing the 3/5 compromise -- by which slaves contributed to the representation of the states in which they were held -- with giving "votes" to slaves, but that's not correct (it just gave more power in federal government to the states in which they were held.) But, not only is that not correct, but since women were constitutionally "free persons" despite not being granted voting rights, they were counted as full -- not 3/5 -- people for representation. So if you are counting their contribution to their states representation as "votes" (which is, again, wrong) they would have more than slaves, not less.
To describe somebody as 'having' women is often accurate
and useful - I do not see why this should be penalised.
Can you also see that someone might find this language offensive? That 'having a woman' is somehow vernacular but you don't really see women being described as having 'money, fame, men' ?
The language makes women sound like they are possessions.
Firstly I show how being grammatically in possession of something is not derogatory:
> I have friends
I then argue that this usage is in fact desirable
> To describe somebody as 'having' women is often accurate and useful
Which is followed by stating that I also consider the language to be one sided
> Now what does confuse and upset me is the way in which we rarely describe women as being able to have lots of men
So when you ask whether I can see that someone might find this language offensive I can only say "evidently". And when you state that we don't see women being described as having men I refer you to my earlier dismay. And when you state that the syntax of the language makes it look like women are possessions I wholeheartedly agree.
Can you see that removing reference to "a persons ability to access sexual gratification" is detrimental to the expressiveness of the language?
Firstly I show how being grammatically in possession of
something is not derogatory:
"Grammatically not being derogatory" is not the same as understanding how something is actually being received. Language is only as useful as it communicates messages, and I think you can believe what you do and still see how someone could find this offensive, given the landscape which you recognize is one-sided.
That is just what I meant. Justifying the usage as accurate and useful and grammatically correct doesn't take away from the point that someone can conceivably, justly, take offense to the language. It's valid for someone to feel the one-sidedness and inequality inherent to the statement.
Can you see that removing reference to "a persons ability
to access sexual gratification" is detrimental to the
expressiveness of the language?
If I'm reading this correctly, then I disagree. I think there may be a better way to say what the author was trying to say that is sensitive to the objectification women face.
I understand how people take offense at this. However I am saying that their offense is misplaced and the call for action validates the censorship of womens sexual desires.
I think you understand this, we just sit wanting different things. To my mind you are calling for the censorship of mens sexual desires to match.
In regards to finding a better way for the author to have said it, I imagine simply replacing 'women' with sex would be both more explicit and absent of trigger words.
the call for action validates the censorship of womens
sexual desires
How does asking people to be more sensitive validate the censorship of women's sexual desires? I think that's overthinking it.
Women are an underprivileged group right now, and nobody's "calling for censorship." I'm just asking for kindness. Is there anything wrong in hoping that people can be more kind?
There are many offensive things we avoid saying in general. It's not new, and it's not different to ask that people respect one another.
To describe somebody as 'having' women is often accurate and useful - I do not see why this should be penalised.
Now what does confuse and upset me is the way in which we rarely describe women as being able to have lots of men - the slut problem.
Enjoying regular sex and really exploring it, like any other hobby, seems incredibly reasonable. Hoping to enjoy lots of sex sounds like something anybody should want, and I don't see why this is limited as a descriptor for men only.
In short, pretty much everybody likes a good fucking - why are we afraid to say it?