497. The Human Preference For The Dyad

The Human Preference For The Dyad

The web is full of claims, that monogamy were not part of human nature and that polyamory and other forms of promiscuity were the better expression of human nature and needs.   If this were as true as it is often repeated, then this would be visible by the choice of the preferred living arrangements of involved groups of three or more persons.  
Reality indicates the contrary.  Dyads are so much preferred, that even gay people fight to be allowed to be married as dyads.  Most people indicate their preference by living as dyads or by a clear wish find a partner to become a couple, when they are singles using dating sites.    

As far as there are polyamory living arrangements, they are usually a consequence of a religion.   I cannot be sure, if without a religious belief any mormon or muslim women would really choose to share one man.    I have never heard so far of any gay or lesbian triad wishing to be a married group.  

People still prefer dyads as the basic unit of living arrangements as the result of a cost and benefit calculation.

An adult, who is neither dependent nor has dependents be family ties, is free to choose the preferred living arrangement of living alone, living with one other adult or living with more than one adult as a group.   

The following omits any special situation, when people live with parents, children, siblings etc.   The incest taboo excludes the physical needs, which are a part of the deal in the free choice by cost and benefit calculation.   

By living arrangements I mean complete personal involvement, not living as separate and independent households under one roof.   When the preferred living arrangement is a free choice, the decision to prefer and enter a specific arrangement is based upon a cost and benefit calculation, that includes not only material, but also emotional and psychological factors, which are at least equally important, if not predominant.   

Sharing a home as a safe haven means sharing material resources, security against inclemencies of life events, mutual support and advice and mentally stimulating shared time and activities.  All this is very beneficial and for many people a basic need in life.  
Sharing a home means compromising, self-control and the acceptance of restrictions of the freedom to follow every whim due to acting only by agreement with another person.   The own needs are only equally important compared with those of another person.  Additional costs are the risks by making oneself vulnerable.   Sharing very private information and unrestricted access to personal belongings bears a huge risk of being exploited, harmed, hurt and betrayed by someone trusted too much.

Seen as a cost and benefit calculation, dyads have logically the highest potential of life satisfaction for both partners compared with polyamorous groups of any kind.   

Comparing dyads with triads as living arrangements.

To illustrate this, I will compare the living arrangements of a dyad with that of three persons, no matter their gender or orientation.    A dyad by choice is independent of their sexual inclinations as either of two heterosexual or two homosexual persons, as long as they consider themselves as an involved couple.  

1. Material and practical. 
   Sharing the home and household with one person reduces all fixed costs like rent, heating etc, by one half.   Would one more person be added, the additional reduction of costs would only be one sixth more.  
   But the cost of sharing resources is doubled.   Two persons block the bathroom twice as often as one.  
2. Safe haven concerning life events.
   A person living alone is at the risk of becoming helpless, when sick or financially in trouble in the case of loosing a job.    This can cause anxiety and worries.   But one person is enough to alleviate the worries by supplying the feeling of security and being protected.   One partner in a dyad is enough to be able to care for someone sick or to share resources.  
   A third person is of no or little additional benefit.   
3. Supportive emotional safe haven
   When a person is in emotional need of another person's empathy, support or advice, usually one supportive partner is the best situation.  It requires a lot of trust, which is difficult to build with any one person.    Revealing the innermost feelings implies making oneself vulnerable to being taken advantage of, hurt or being damaged by indiscretions.  Overcoming inhibitions due to shame and embarrassment to ask for support is difficult with every person.  Getting support from one partner is of high benefits compared with the cost of the vulnerability risk and strain of overcoming inhibitions.   
   Sharing the troubles with a second person doubles the vulnerability, but does not add many benefits from support.    Having more than one person listening with empathy does not add much to the relief of being listened to by one.
4. Intellectual companionship.
   Being alone in a museum or other enjoyable cultural situation is often dreary, communicating about one's thoughts, impressions and experiences is joyful and rewarding.   But one person is enough to talk about the picture in a museum.  
   A second person may add a few more different ideas, but does not add much additional benefits to the communication of a dyad.
   
5. Man's physiological need for homeostasis
   When the experience of sexuality is controlled and modified by cognition as explained in entry 496, men's physiological need of homeostasis are as real as are the collateral emotional needs.  Most women and also those high quality men, whose sensitivity and bonding ability has not been destroyed, get emotionally attached and their attachment reinforced by physical intimacy. 
   Biologically, there are two genders, and maintaining homeostasis does not require a group or a third person, two partners are enough.  I doubt that even those in favor of polyamory and such would really choose to share a treble bed with two others snoring and tossing.     

The emotional importance of the exclusivity of the dyad.   

The viability and benefits of a dyad as a living arrangement depends upon the realistic expectation and trust, that the partner is reliable, predictable, responsible and bound by accepted obligations.   This depends upon the exclusivity of reciprocally fulfilling each other's relationship needs. 
Exclusivity does not automatically make a partner reliable and predictable, but the refusal of exclusivity prevents the possibility of being able to rely on someone in the case of need.  

Exclusivity is an emotional state of feeling bonded with and committed to one specific partner by a one time decision, which is the result of a careful cost and benefit analysis.    
Exclusivity is more than the repeated self-control as the result of a new cost and benefit calculation every time, whenever some external temptation triggers it.   
  

1. Material and practical. 
   Sharing the home requires the reliable expectation of a lasting commitment.   Financial entanglement of shared mortgages, shared rental agreements and no place to go lead to a person's dire situation, when the other's behavior destroys and betrays the trust.   Reliable agreements concerning the exclusivity of the relationship reduce the risks of such entanglements.
2. and 
3. The safe haven concerning life events and being emotionally supportive.
   All the benefits of feeling safe and secure and protected depend on the partner's reliability and predictability.    This means to be able to trust, that the partner is always available, when needed.   
   When a partner needs support in any emotional crisis or care in the case of sickness, an exclusive partner is available as a result of his exclusivity.  He has no need, reason or obligations to be somewhere else.  Nobody else is competing for his attention and care.   
   But when a polyamorous partner is part of several dyads, nobody can ever trust, that he is there when needed.   There is always the competition with someone else, who may have a stronger hold or influence over the partner.   A partner refusing exclusivity to the dyad cannot be relied upon, he is not predictable, he is not trustworthy.   He cannot be, even would he wish to, because he cannot clone himself and be present in two dyads at the same time.
    
4. Intellectual companionship.
   Only the intellectual companionship can be substituted by sharing activities with just friends having similar interests, so this does not require exclusivity.  But it requires at least the priority of sharing activities with the partner rather than with others, whenever this is the partner's wish and need.
     
5. Man's physiological need for homeostasis
   A dyad fulfilling the emotional needs of two persons does not automatically imply sexuality, if for whatever biological or medical reasons both partners have no such needs.  But since for most people except oversexed promiscuous jerks, sexuality is not completely void of emotional attachments, exclusivity of all sexuality to the dyad strengthens and protects the emotional bonding, while sexual entanglements with persons outside the dyad destroys or damages the trust and the reliability of having the dyad as a safe haven. 

I do not imply, that the preferred living arrangement of dyads by a cost and benefit analysis is conscious.   But this preference is an expression of the fact, that dyads are the best representation of the biological dichotomy and its cognitive and emotional perception.  

Monogamy in the traditional sense means the exclusivities of the heterosexual dyad.  Even the people, who are in full denial of the benefits of monogamy as the complete package of exclusivity of sexuality, emotional significance and living arrangements in the full commitment with only one person, are usually not preferring triads or group involvement.   Instead they want to be in more than one dyad.   They want the benefits of more than one dyad without the costs.  They are in denial, that they cannot be present and available all the time in more than one dyad and therefore not equal partners.  

Therefore, while monogamy may not be a part of the animal instincts of humans, especially not of promiscuous males, monogamy is the best way of fulfilling the emotional needs of humans as being determined by their cognition on a long term basis, when monogamy is redefined as the exclusivity of fulfilling all of a partner's relationship needs in a dyad of two committed persons of any gender.   .    

496. Demisexuality And Cognition

Demisexuality And Cognition

I claim:  Demisexuality (defined as "sexual attraction to people they know personally, usually based on some kind of emotional connection, whether platonic or romantic. They can’t feel sexually attracted to strangers, celebrities, or people they don’t very well." by http://outlawroad.tumblr.com/post/10265976595/gray-asexuality) is not a deviance, it is the appropriate evolutionary adaptation of sexuality as a part of the evolution of human cognition.  

Demisexuality as a concept causes a lot of confusion, as long as it is not explained as a part of a general model of human sexuality.   

The following model includes two main factors, sexual dishomeostasis and sexual behavior.    Because of biological differences, I am simplifying my model to only exploring the male side, which is determined by physiologically obvious indications.    In females, the procreation instinct interferes too much.  

The reasons for my simplification are shown in this research:
http://www.elainehatfield.com/79.pdf 
Cark/Hatfield: Gender differences in receptivity to sexual offers
In two studies, when a stranger was approached by a woman saying "I have been noticing you around campus.  I find you to be very attractive." and "Would you go to bed with me tonight?", the majority of men agreed.   In 1978, 75% did, in 1982, 69%.   In the reverse situation, all woman approached by a man refused.

The study was done on college students.  Such women have above average education and intelligence and no pressing need to marry a provider.   The men are at an age of high biological libido and before being restricted with obligations to a wife and children.  
Therefore the proportion of how many men agreed in this study is not representative for other social and cultural groups.  
But the different reaction of men compared with women in this study allows to conclude, that the reason for self-labeling as demisexual by considering it as a deviance is also different for men and for women.  
It is predominantly a male problem to experience deviance from the social norm of oversexation as a physiological deficit.  Females are under social pressure to act against their natural inclination and perceive their own demisexuality as a social deviance.   I explained this already in entry 493. (The Social Norm Of The Drooling Men)

My model of male sexuality is based upon two factors:

• Perceived sexual dishomeostasis
• Sexual behavior as a reaction to the presence and availability of a target body

As I mentioned before, I consider the strength of the libido in every age group of men as a continuum with a distribution along a bell curve.   The perceived strength and urge of sexual dishomeostasis represent the innate strength of the libido. As this is a model, I omit the effects of health issues.

Simplified, at both extreme ends of the scale, the libido determines the sexual behavior.   In the middle of the bell curve, sexuality is controlled and modified by human cognition.

1.  At one extreme end of the curve are the dangerous promiscuous jerks, who are so oversexed with high libido, that they are not only drooling over every woman's body but who are ruthless emotional psychopaths, who use and discard women without any conscience or consideration, even by force and coercion.  

2.  At the other extreme of the bell curve are the truly nonsexuals, who have no or very little libido and no need for sexual homeostation.

3.  In the middle of the bell curve, there is a moderate perception of dishomeostasis, but the experience and practice of sexuality is modified and controlled by cognition.   The cognitive control over sexual reactiveness to the perception of stimuli is a byproduct of the evolution of cognition.   

Without cognition, a man would not be different from any non-human animal.  A man without cognition and in the state of the recurrent dishomeostasis after the latency time since his last copulation, would drool over every woman's body, who is genetically suitable to trigger his instincts.   In the animal world, whenever a male feels dishomeostasis and perceives a target body, sexual behavior is the automatic reaction of a robot determined by instincts only.  

In this middle part of the bell curve of libido, there are several possible reasons, why at a given moment an available target body does not lead to sexual behavior.   A target body is the body of a woman, who is a stranger and whose physical attributes are such, that they trigger the automatic sexual behavior of every high libido jerk.  

3.1.  A man in a relationship, which maintains his homeostasis, never gets into the situation of being driven by so much dishomeostasis, that he is tempted to make use of the target body.   This situation shows the benefits of bonded and committed monogamy.  

3.2.  Other needs, urges and sensations are temporarily stronger than the stimulation by the target body, examples are hunger, fatigue, danger, sickness.   This effect limits the behavior of all men, no matter the strength of the libido.  

3.3.  A man has enough cognitive control to resist the instinctive responsiveness to the target body.   In contrast to animals, humans do not react automatically to stimuli.   Human cognition allows to base decisions upon the memory of past experiences, the knowledge of consequences and the knowledge of not directly visible additional factors.    The refusal to react to a target body with sexual behavior can be based upon the anticipation of better alternatives or of the unwanted consequences.   This rational evaluation can avoid the plight of some women, but it does not avoid those men's behavior, who have come to the conclusion, that they can get away with the abuse of a woman.   

3.4. A man's cognition interferes with the responsiveness to the target body.   This is, what is usually defined as demisexuality.   But this is more complex, because the human cognition can override instincts on several different levels of demisexuality.

Level 1.   Stimuli are filtered from perception, before they reach the brain.

• Some people with autism and Asperger's are known to be oblivious to incoming non-verbal signals.   An example are persons, who bore others with endless monologues, because they are mindblind to the non-verbal expression of others' boredom, annoyance, disapproval.
  It is possible, that the sexual stimuli from the target body can be filtered the same way.   I have been speculating before, that there is a personality type, that is a part of Asperger's, but which can also be found in people, who are far from having any clinically relevant symptoms.   Maybe demisexuality is a part of this personality.    

Level 2.  Cognitive needs are stronger than physical needs. 

Stimuli from the target body are discarded or deactivated subconsciously, when emotional needs are stronger.  Such cognitive and emotional needs can be:

• The needs to feel self-confidence, self-esteem and self-worth in accordance with an identity as a person with morals, education and intelligence.   In this identity, the body is only the container and supply system for the brain.  
• A value system, in which human cognition is valued highly, while animal instincts are despised.   There is a strong need to avoid cognitive dissonance by living up to the own standards.
• An Epicurean personality, to which emotional and intellectual stimulation causes generally stronger pleasure and joy than physical stimulation.   This includes the subjective experience of intellectual intimacy as very beneficial.
• Sensitivity and empathy blocking the perception of sexual stimuli, unless the partner shows unequivocal signs of happiness and attachment

Level 3.  Competing conscious stimuli

The stranger inside the target body not only sends out sexual stimuli, but also other stimuli, that are competing and by being stronger, override any sexual attraction on a conscious level.   

• Disgust sensitivity to a stranger's body impedes promiscuity.  Only a slow process of creating emotional closeness can be strong enough to override the disgust.   More in entry 108.   (Promiscuity and Disgust Sensitivity)
• Repulsion or fear based upon nonverbal signals or knowledge about the person as for example can be a contagious sickness or a criminal record.   

4.  The social norm has a strong impact upon what sexual behavior men consider as appropriate, no matter how much or how little it corresponds with their real needs determined by their place on the bell curve of libido.  In entry 493  (The Social Norm Of The Drooling Men), I pointed out the detrimental effects of the social norm of extremely and unrealistically high libido for all men.   But the social norm of celibacy, that prevents the catholic priests from marrying the housekeeper, with whom they have developed a monogamous attachment, is equally unrealistic.   
  
There is a need for a new social norm, which focuses upon both, the realistic recognition and acceptance of every man's individual level of libido and upon consideration and recognition of the real needs of women.  
The drooling promiscuous jerks, who are not controlled by cognition, are deviant and sick.   It is absurd to consider them as the role models for men in the current social norm.    A social norm is most suitable, when it fits best the needs of the majority, while it controls the hazard of the deviant and protects the weak and vulnerable.  

Monogamy is the most suitable concept for the men in the middle part of the bell curve, whose libido is at a healthy medium level.    Monogamy provides the best protection for women against being hurt and harmed.  
A new social norm of moderate libido and monogamy is the most appropriate to suit the actual evolutionary level of the human cognition. The oversexation of societies, which value the high libido of the men, who drool over every woman's body, is outdated and anachronistic.  

495. Men's Fallacy When Interpreting Their Incomprehension Of Women

Men's Fallacy When Interpreting Their Incomprehension Of Women

The same fallacy as explained generally in entry 494 happens very often between men and women.  Men are usually not only oblivious of it, but also out of the reach of any attempt to help them gain an insight concerning this fallacy.    This fallacy is self-protecting.   

Anybody, who bothers to read a part of this blog, can easily get aware, that I am learned and knowledgeable about some topics.  There are many men, who are learned specialists in their own field, but who know less about what I am writing about, often because they have not been pondering with the same interest over the same topics.    When they talk about their interests, of which I am not well informed, I ask questions, I read further information, but I do not dispute or debate, what they know better than I do.   I do this not, because they are men.  I attempt to learn from the better informed, no matter if they are female or male.   

But men too often do not behave like this.   When I share my thoughts with them, not matter if talking over the phone, by email or in real life, often their first superficial reaction of not immediately understanding my statements is enough to trigger the fallacy.   They do not hesitate but jump to the conclusion of misinterpreting their own incomprehension as if I were wrong.  

While writing this blog, I have put a lot of emphasis on my wish to find a mindmate, defining a mindmate as someone with a high priority on getting bonded by intellectual intimacy derived from sharing the joy of consent.    The method to create the joy of consent is communication to find and enhance agreement.  

Therefore a man's style of communicating by email or on the phone is a good indication to find out, what to expect from him in a relationship.  The way, how he reacts. when he does not comprehend a statement of mine, is a part of his style of communication.    He shows his own preference for either consent or a hierarchy of intellectual superiority.        

If a man values consent and intellectual intimacy, then incomprehension for him is the task to gain comprehension by giving me the benefit of the doubt, that I know, what I am talking about, that my statements are the result of sound reasoning.   He therefore is motivated to find out more about my thinking.   He asks questions for the purpose to getting explanations and elaborations from me.   He cooperates as an equal, because it is his wish and interest to gain better understanding as a way of intellectual convergence.     This makes me feel good.  It shows an appreciation of my person.  It is a way of reciprocal emotional enhanced shared benefits as the result of shared consent.  But it rarely ever happens.

The sad reality is very different.   Most of the time, as soon as a man disagrees with any statement of mine, there is a rut in his brain that automatically starts the fallacy of considering my statement as wrong.  It does not even occur to him to wonder about his own comprehension or lack thereof.   By believing in his own male superiority while lacking the least need or wish for consent or intellectual intimacy, such a man starts an intellectual power struggle with the purpose of establishing a hierarchy, where of course he dominates.   

He starts verbal fencing to reach his goal of believing himself the winner of a fair fight.    He competes to win by believing to be right, and that make him feel good.  

But what makes him feel good makes me feel bad.   As soon as I am told explicitly, that someone believes me to be wrong, or if his reaction tells me this implicitly, I perceive this as antagonism and as his creating an emotional crevice.   When I feel, that he wants and feels entitled to win by making my lose, I recoil.  This attitude towards me is repulsive and it scares me.  

Such competition for intellectual superiority is usually already noticeable by email or on the phone.   It is a big red flag, that he feels entitled to dominate, even if he declares in the most explicit way the contrary, that he wants equality.   But his competing to be right tells me the truth of what to expect.    Claiming to offer equality does not always indicate, that a man even knows the true meaning of equality.

    

Some of the men are unaware, that this fallacy is a contradiction to what they present sincerely as their attitude towards women, and there is an explanation.   But an explanation is not a justification, it is a challenge for men to gain more awareness.  

It is known by statistics, that men tend to mate intellectually and socially downward.   The medical doctor marrying the nurse, the engineer marrying the secretary are examples.    This is aggravated by the unfortunate fact, that in my generation, the average level of education of men is higher than that of women.

Men are unfortunately so much blinded by their physiological need for homeostasis, that their intellectual needs are often temporarily deactivated when they choose a mate by infatuation.   They are oblivious of the woman's inadequacy for intellectual intimacy, until the infatuation wears of.  

This gets some men into the repeated and long term experience, that when they do not comprehend a woman, or when a woman does not comprehend them, this is indeed caused by the woman's inferior knowledge, intelligence and education.    After a while, a man takes this bias so much for granted, that he loses the perception for any woman's intellectual adequacy and corresponding needs.   When he then gets into contact with a woman, who offers him intellectual intimacy, he is already so blind and biased, that he has lost the ability to even notice.   Before he has a chance to get aware of the woman's real intellectual qualities, the rut in his brain has already mislead him into the fallacy.   

It seems that nearly every man, with whom I get into online contact, has been biased towards the fallacy of underestimating me.     It is very frustrating to be misjudged, because he life experience has been with too much stupidity and superficiality in all those women, whose bodies attracted his instincts.  It is frustrated to be confounded with such women and to be treated as if I were one of them.  

494. The Fallacy Of Self-Overestimation

The Fallacy Of Self-Overestimation

I am sick and tired of men's fallacy of attempting to establish an intellectual hierarchy of their superiority, even when this is in no way justified.    This entry explains the general fallacy, the next entry will explain, why this fallacy is toxic in a relationship.

It is an everyday experience to feel the need to base an evaluation, interpretation or decision upon insufficient information and to fill the gap with an estimated probability of what seems most plausible.    Otherwise people are paralyzed from acting.  Therefore the strategy to derive the best estimation is very important and that includes to avoid fallacies.  

One common fallacy is the overestimation of oneself in the situation of either lacking sufficient information about another or of being biased by a prejudice to underestimate this person.    This happens often, when communication leads to a reaction of disagreement.    In this situation, self-overestimation and the underestimation of another are two sides of the self coin.

Person S as the sender makes a statement, which does not convey a convincing message to the receiving person R.   Theoretically, while omitting in this context the distorted transmission of the message, this can be explained by a deficit on either or both sides of the sequence of sending and receiving.  

• Distortion 1: Person S makes a wrong, false, stupid, unlearned, irrational statement.
• Distortion 2: Person R lacks enough knowledge, education or intelligence be able to comprehend or evaluate S's statement.

Based only upon one or a few statements from S, it is often not possible to decide, which of the two distortions is more probable.   Because S's knowledge and learning is like an iceberg.   As is known, only about one seventh of an iceberg is visible, while most of it is invisible.   Every one of S's statements is connected with all his learning and experience stored in his brain.  The more R knows about S, the better R is able to evaluate S's statements, even when the statements by themselves may appear misleading or insufficient.   Considering them as wrong is a fallacy.   The statements require further explanations and information. 

A simple example:  

S makes a statement about the harm of herbicides that is different from what R so far had heard of or considered as probably correct.   R cannot evaluate, if this statement is more probable without further knowledge about S.   When R knows, if S is a gardener having left school after tenth grade or if he has a degree in chemistry, then R has some valuable information for the evaluation of the statement.

After only hearing the statement, R needs to make a temporary decision of how to proceed in reaction to the incomprehensible statement.  There is a variety of possible reaction.   Ending the communication, ridicule, asking curious questions, ask other people, find independent information, gullibly believe it.    The better the information about S, the more appropriate is the reaction.  

When people have a realistic view about themselves, they can evaluate not only the knowledge of the other, but also their own knowledge in comparison with the other's competence.  

A realistic gardener is aware, that he knows less about herbicides than the chemist, while the realistic chemist acknowledges, that the gardener has more knowledge about pruning fruit trees.   The one with less knowledge asks questions and is motivated to learn.    

But there are people, who are not realistic.   Whenever they do not understand the other, they automatically believe, that they are right and the other is wrong.    A gardener, who claims his knowledge about herbicides to be better than the chemist's or the chemist, who claims to know better than the gardener how to prune trees, are absurd.   They are not aware of the limitation of their knowledge to their own specialty.    They are both afflicted with the fallacy of unfounded self-overestimation.   The gardener, who disputes the chemist's superior knowledge concerning herbicides and the chemist, who disputes the gardener's superior knowledge concerning pruning are both ludicrous and a nuisance.   

This fallacy can be avoided or at least drastically reduced by an a priori decision of how to handle the ambiguity of the two distortions.   This decision is to always give S the benefit of the doubt by first asking questions and getting more information and by postponing the final conclusion of considering the other as wrong, until there is no more doubt..  

493. The Social Norm Of The Drooling Men

493.  The Social Norm Of The Drooling Men
Social norms have a lot of power over susceptible and gullible people, because they influence behavior away from innate inclinations.   Others are compared with social norms.  Correct behavior is defined by social norms.  The own self-esteem and self-worth depends on the comparison with social norms.   Social norms define the perception of deviance.  

Social norms are beneficial, when they guide behavior towards a morality, that has the goal of avoiding and minimizing suffering, hurting and harming.  

Some social norms also do a lot of damage, especially when they are no longer appropriate to changed circumstances or when they serve the benefits of a powerful and influential minority but harm the majority.  

One example is the social norm of high libido for men.   This social norm is incongruent with the real human cognitively influenced sexuality, which is based upon the strength of the libido distributed along a bell curve.  

The social norm of high libido corresponds in a very biased way only with one extreme end of the bell curve.   This social norm declares the most extreme inclinations to be the best and to be most suitable for everybody.   The definition of masculinity and virility includes high libido as a major ingredient.  Low libido is strongly despised as a defect.  

High libido itself is a biological predisposition.  The social norm of expressed high libido is implicitly defined by men as experiencing themselves drooling over every female body, whenever this body is perceived as attractive in the implicit agreement of those, who drool the most.

Experiencing frequent drooling serves as the self-reassurance of meeting the requirement of the social norm of high libido. 

The consequences of this social norm are very detrimental:

1.  The technical advancement of life-imitating photos and movies and the distribution by printed media, television and the Internet has caused the oversexation of society and a general desensitization to this even for those, who do not benefit or even suffer from this norm.  

2.  According to this social norm, the promiscuity of the drooling men is considered as their entitlement, while the suffering emotionally attached victims of being dumped or cheated upon are considered as flawed and deviant.
  
3.  Instead of rejecting this social norm as being detrimental to themselves, most women accept attempts to trigger men to drool more by modification of their exterior as the best solution of coping with the social norm.    The compete to trigger the strongest drooling.   

4. Those men with less libido, whose behavior would best fulfill women's emotional needs, are impeded from accepting themselves as they are.  Instead they measure themselves in comparison with the harmful social norm.   As a consequence, they either attempt to correct their alleged problem medically or they attempt to imitate the promiscuous jerks as role models.   They deteriorate in the false belief of improving.  

5. The widespread definitions of asexuality and demisexuality as a label for self-labeling are also a reaction to the fully accepted social norm of high libido.   

"An asexual is someone who does not experience sexual attraction. "
http://www.asexuality.org/wiki/index.php?title=Asexuality

"Demisexuals are asexuals who only experience secondary sexual attraction to people they know personally, usually based on some kind of emotional connection, whether platonic or romantic. They can’t feel sexually attracted to strangers, celebrities, or people they don’t very well. So demisexuality is all about sexual attraction, just like asexuality is all about the lack of sexual attraction."
http://outlawroad.tumblr.com/post/10265976595/gray-asexuality

Theoretically, the evolution of the human cognition enables people to derive their identity, self-esteem, self-worth from their intelligence, creativity, talents, knowledge, skills and also from behaving morally by avoiding to hurt and to harm others.   The evolution of the human cognition has advanced far enough to free humans from the need to base self-esteem upon attributes of their bodies.  
Any man with low or lacking libido has this option.    But in spite of this, nearly all men seem to feel deficient, if they do not drool often enough over women's bodies.    I cannot remember to have ever read or heard of any man, who prefers himself as someone with a low libido.   Even men, whose religion forbids any behavioral expression of libido do not feel good when just having none but they take pride in conquering it.  

It appears as if low libido in men automatically leads at least to low self-esteem, if not to more severe psychological problems.   They seem just unable to consider and accept low libido as either not important or even as an indication of being the quality men, who do not hurt women.   They cannot even change their opinion about themselves, when women tell them explicitly, that they prefer the monogamous non-drooling men with the moderate libido.

There are self-help and discussion forums for people self-labeling themselves as asexual, demisexuals, and similar labels.   These forums seem to be populated by persons struggling with low self-esteem, lacking self-worth, subjective feelings of being deviant.  They seem to be in the need of a niche, where they find others similarly afflicted.   They share, what they experience subjectively as their common flaw of failing under the social norms of an oversexed society.   
They have accepted this social norm without ever doubting its value or justification.   It does not even occur to them to criticize or reject the social norm of high libido and drooling.    

They repeat again and again their strong emphasis of the paramount importance of the difference between the absence of sexual attraction and the absence of or low libido.   This very artificial distinction is a remarkable mental trick to resolve a strong cognitive dissonance.  
They are unable to deny to themselves to recognize the reality of not drooling over women's bodies, while they are aware that this is considered a deficit according to the social norm.   They want to be able to accept themselves as different without feeling deficient.

The social norm of high libido is an attribute of one person.   The focus on lacking sexual attraction is a mental trick to shift the focus away from being someone with a personal deficit.  Sexual attraction requires by definition the interaction of more than one person, it requires a target to be attracted to.   Lacking sexual attraction as an explanation allows to externalize the alleged cause to the nonexistence of suitable targets.  This can be accepted as a difference, which is independent of failing the social norm.

Humanity needs to adapt culturally to the human cognition by a radical shift of the social norms concerning sexuality.    In another entry, I will make some suggestions.

492. Mr. Mighty's Blunder

In many societies and cultures, there are fables, tales, sagas and myths about the creation of humans by deities.    So today I am writing my own creation fable.

Mr. Mighty's Blunder

Mr. Mighty is a very powerful entity.   He likes to create things.   Unfortunately, he is not very clever.  He learns by trial and error, often making a few blunders on the way.   And he is slightly immature.    

One day he created an earth.   He started to populate it with humans of the variety female.   They lived peacefully and in harmonious cooperation.    Mr. Mighty observed them for a while and got bored.    He wanted more thrill.

So he added a bunch of men.   They were those, who look at the females, notice their lack of physical strength and by a fallacy of thinking they infer, that women were as intellectually weak as they are physically.   
These men ascribe the role of servants in the kitchen to women, because they perceive women as not enough of a challenge to compete with, to win over and to enjoy the victory.  
They band together with their male companions to indulge in their own preferred occupations of discovering, conquering and controlling the world.  They have invented the tools and toys for adventurous thrills, like ships, football, racing, wars, alcohol and a lot more.   Women are insignificant for them.
 
Mr. Mighty first bunch were asexual men.  He had omitted to add any libido to the dough.   He observed the hustle and bustle on his earth for a while, then again he got bored. 
  
He wanted more thrill, so he created a second bunch of men.   This time he felt sure of making a good job of it by adding a huge dose of libido to the dough.   But he overdid it, it was way too much.  

By this blunder, Mr. Mighty created the promiscuous jerks.  

After been let loose, the jerks went all over the earth as dangerous predators in search of prey.   Whenever they get near a female, they start to drool over her body.  This drooling deactivates their brain and blurs their reasoning capacities.    They are bonding-disabled.  Instead of perceiving women as equal humans, they perceive them as nothing more than commodities, objects and utilities. 
They have the delusion, the Mr. Mighty had created the women only for the purpose of being used by men.  They feel entitled to use women's bodies by hook or by crook.   Drooling alone serves as enough justification to gain control over women's bodies, no matter if by lies, manipulations, pretence, tricks, threat, coercion, rape, money.  
Their promiscuity makes them emotional psychopaths, lacking any awareness or conscience for the consequences of their behavior upon the victims.    The same jerks often have nevertheless the delusion of being men of high morals, because of responsibility and consideration in their interaction with valued male companions.
During the latency time between just having used a body and before redrooling, they are not any better than the asexual men, they too prefer the company of other males to compete and to control the world.  

In short, Mr. Mighty's second bunch was only a nuisance for the women, without being in the slightest way better than the asexuals.   Suffering severely from the insult of being used, disrespected and depreciated, the women went to Mr. Mighty and complained about his blunder.  When he got tired of the women's insistent and repeated complaints, he finally complied and made a third bunch of men. 

This time Mr. Mighty succeeded.  He created his master piece, the demisexual men.   They are, what women want and need, innately monogamous companions.   Demisexual men get automatically emotionally bonded by getting physically involved.  Demisexual men never use a woman but enjoy to be together with a person.  Demisexual men have the intelligence and awareness to recognize and appreciate women as equal partners with a brain and a personality.  

This time, Mr. Mighty achieved the perfect mixture.   He used just enough libido to make the company of women a bit more attractive and enjoyable than that of other men.   But he dosed it carefully, so that the demisexual men are spared the indignity of drooling over bodies.   Their mind remains clear to the fact, that a bonded couple with the mental ability of experiencing intellectual intimacy spends much more waking time together out of bed than in bed.   This perfect dose of limited libido is just enough to make a man being attracted to have a woman as a significant other in his life, but he is able to make a wise choice of a matching personality.  


Unfortunately, Mr. Mighty overestimates himself and his skills.   For his first attempt, he was careful and used only a small amount of the dough, so there are not many of the asexual men.   But then he made the mistake of using nearly all of his remaining dough for his second attempt.   Therefore the promiscuous jerks are not only the worst blunder, but also the majority of men.   When Mr. Mighty finally created his master piece of the innately monogamous demisexuals, there was not much dough left.  

The demisexuals are not only the master piece, they are also as rare as they are precious.

 

But Mr. Mighty also lacks the maturity to correct his blunders.   He created his master piece only to appease the women, when he felt too annoyed by their complaints.   Being male himself, he has no empathy leading to the insight, that the promiscuous jerks needed to be removed and replaced by demisexual innately monogamous men.   Making more dough using the perfect recipe would have been an easy task.    

But Mr. Mighty does not care about the wellbeing of the women, only about the entertainment of the spectacle.    By removing the jerks and eliminating promiscuity, the world would have returned to a state of peace, harmony, cooperation and happiness.   But then he would have been bored again, while he prefers thrill and entertainment.    The limited supply of only a few specimen of his master piece enabled Mr. Mighty to lean back and amuse himself observing the struggle of the women to find the few monogamous men. 

 
__________________

I have many reasons to be an atheist.   But the fact of the ubiquitous women's suffering as victim's of ruthless promiscuity is already enough reason for a woman to refuse to believe in the wisdom and benevolence of a creator.   Promiscuous jerks just cannot be the product of any entity, that deserves the definition as a god.  

491. Intelligence And Education

491.  Intelligence And Education
For reasons of similarity and of being on the same level, I am looking for a man, who has a university or college degree.  While such a degree does not automatically mean someone is really intelligent and smart beyond having a good memory, and while the lack of the opportunity to study does not entirely impede someone from being intelligent, there is research connecting education with intelligence:

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/111226_education

"Does im­prov­ing your educa­t­ion al­so boost your in­tel­li­gence? Yes-to a great­er de­gree than widely un­der­stood, a new study sug­gests.
Brinch and Gal­lo­way ex­am­ined how men’s in­tel­li­gence test scores fared af­ter a com­pul­so­ry school­ing re­form in Nor­way that length­ened mid­dle school educa­t­ion by two years.
"The re­sults in­di­cat­ed that an ad­di­tion­al year of school­ing raised IQ by 3.7 points," "

490. Can There Be Involuntary Twilight Learning?

Can There Be Involuntary Twilight Learning?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120127135710.htm
"The concept of the subliminal message is now familiar. A subconscious suggestion can help a person bring about positive change, such as smoking cessation, or otherwise influence one's actions.

Twilight Learning is a process that uses EEG neurofeedback to cultivate a hypersuggestible brain state in a subject. Auditory "change messages" are then given to the individual, allowing "enhanced learning" to take place.

An EEG range of 4-7 Hertz was found to indicate the theta, hypersuggestible brain state. Subjects could then be presented with therapeutic messages designed to make changes in maladaptive habits, addictions, and poor self-image."

In this study, the hypersuggestible state of the brain was induced.   But I am wondering, how often such states get created involuntarily and unnoticed, people being exposed to suggestive detrimental influences.  

One example are the countless times, that people fall asleep with the tv running.    The ubiquitous presence of sex and violence in the media desensitizes people to the damage done by promiscuity and brutality.    The conscious exposition to what is presented on the media is already a hazard to sensitivity.   

But I am wondering, if people exposed to the running TV while sleeping are even more suspectible than when awake.       They are subconsciously exposed to stimuli, that are not a conscious choice.   At least here in Germany the public TV restricts some of the worst emissions to be shown only late at night.   While people sleep, they are exposed to the kind of emission, they would feel repugnance to watch, while they are awake.     

489. Demisexuality And Morals

489.   Demisexuality And Morals
Somewhere I read the suggestion to imagine a world, where more people were demisexual.    
My spontaneous reaction was to think, that this would be one huge step nearer to paradise, especially for women.   But this needs some elaboration. 

Humans can hardly survive alone, they need to be part of a system of cooperation and division of labor.   As a result, they need rules to guide the behavior.   

I am an atheist, so I omit any consideration of rules followed by people in fear of punishment and consequences from any deity or agent, that does not really exist.  This therefore excludes considering the special monogamy of men, who fear to be punished by a god.   

I consider morals as a choice based upon the consideration of the consequences of the own behavior upon others.  For non-religious people, the most logical rules are those derived from a balance between self-interest and responsibility and consideration.    
There is the golden rule, there is the tit-for-tat strategy and there is the Epicurean principle of not harming and not be harmed.    Behavior in accordance with such principles can be called moral behavior.  

There are two kinds of moral behavior, proactive and abstaining.    Proactive moral behavior means fulfilling accepted obligations, abstaining moral behavior means to refrain from hurting and harming actions.    The latter includes avoiding invisible harm and emotional hurting.   Knowing, which behavior inflicts physical or material damage, is generally unambiguous and usually easy.   But recognizing invisible emotional damage requires knowledge and awareness, predicting and preventing it needs even more thereof.  

When potential victims are spared from being hurt or harmed, it is not always obvious, why they are spared.    Someone can either use self-control in accordance to moral rules, or he can just have no urge or need towards this action.  

The difference between promiscuous behavior compared with monogamy and demisexuality is an important aspect of human life, where people are either hurt or spared.  

To illustrate this:

I have been mentioning in previous blog entries my disgust, when at a younger age travelling in Mediterranean countries, I was approached by male predators initiating contact with me as prey.   I would have appreciated a serious and civilized conversation.   But they were more often than not just jerks drooling over my body.    Their intention to harm me was obvious. 
But in the few cases, when I did get the chance to have a nice, friendly and intellectually interested talk about the country's culture, I was not able to know the reason, why I was spared the insult.   

The men's reason not to attempt to harm me could be:

• Generally moral:   The consideration to not risk to hurt a woman by using her body, while she gets probably emotionally attached.       
• Monogamously moral:  The consideration for his partner, whom he does not want to hurt by cheating.
• Selectively only drooling over some bodies, but not over all and I had the luck to not trigger his instincts.
• As a demisexual never drooling over a body.

Being emotionally attached to a person and needing the reciprocity of exclusive attachment in return is an experience made by so many human beings, that it can be considered a part of human nature.   Being cheated on or dumped by someone, with whom there is such an attachment, is one of the most frequent reasons of emotional pain.  

It can be so extreme, that it causes not only severe suffering, but often also PTSD, alcoholism, illegal and prescription drug abuse, suicide, violence, outbreak of dormant psychiatric illness.   There is also the indirect damage to the children of broken families.   Someone under emotional distress is more prone to cause an accident at a job, where he is responsible for other people's safety.  

If this sounds like an exaggeration, it is because in the media and in the social norm, monogamy has become stigmatized as outdated, while promiscuity is supposed to be normal behavior.   It is a very damaging myth and urban legend, when the promiscuous jerks not only claim, that people were not made to be monogamous, but when they also influence others to imitate them.  

It is the other way around: Many people are not made to be the victims of promiscuity.  Those who suffer as the victims of ruthless and cruel promiscuity are treated and considered as defective not only by social norms, desensitization, denial and power structures, but also by the christian religion demanding them to accept suffering and to wait for the compensation after death.  
  
But while the social norm encourages promiscuous jerks to feel no conscience or inhibition, the emotional and psychological reality of individual victim's experiences is very different.    Anybody, who reads self-help forums about relationships and personal experiences, will again and again read heart-breaking stories of the same problem:   Persons, especially women, suffer nearly always severe pain, when dumped or cheated by the partner, to whom they had become emotionally attached and whose exclusivity had become their emotional need.   

Feeling attached and then being dumped and not valued as a partner is being hurt and harmed.   Moral behavior means not only to avoid hurting.  It also means to avoid the risk of hurting.   Every time, when two persons get intimately involved, this realistically bears the risk of creating emotional attachment, even in spite of both consenting not to get attached.    In the best case, the situation remains symmetrical, either both or none.    

But as a result of biological differences, usually a woman bears the much higher risk of planned or involuntary emotional attachment.    This implies a high responsibility for a man, in the case of his wish to behave morally.    If he does not care, he is a jerk.   Since the promiscuous use of a body always includes the risk of hurting, promiscuity can be considered as immoral behavior.   As a conscious choice, it is an immoral attitude.  

When a person avoids unreciprocated attachment, this appears as moral behavior in the perception of the person not made a victim.   But a man, whose behavior appears moral, can abstain from promiscuous abuse for different reasons:

• He is consciously living morally.  He is monogamous by empathy, consideration and responsibility.
• He is demisexual.   Female bodies do not trigger sexual instincts, so monogamy comes natural to him.  

Therefore demisexuals are the men with the highest quality of outwardly appropriate behavior towards women, even though their behavior is not necessarily caused by a conscious moral decision.   

A world, in which all men are demisexuals, would be a better world, as long as there are not more men morally motivated to avoid hurting women by being monogamous.

This will be continued.