509. The Fallacy Of Tantra

509.   The Fallacy Of Tantra 

The word Tantra in a man's profile makes me suspicious.   The word Tantra in the context of our western culture can have two meanings, both indicating something, that I prefer to avoid.  

Those who claim to be sophisticated, experience and define Tantra as one of many eastern woo-woo cults.  In entry 508, I already presented the debunking by the Great Tantra Challenge.   A man with such beliefs is not more my mindmate than is any other believer in some irrationality.   

But there is an even cruder interpretation, which reduces Tantra to a technique of instinct-enhancing gymnastics.  
While I react with repugnance towards the vulgarity of Penn & Teller, the last part of their show is nevertheless an example of how people are trained in Tantra:  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jFj_RL5QvM
 

The documentation shows people in the public activity of near-copulation, the pornographic display reminds me of the behavior of dogs from the gutter, void of any human dignity.    I cringe at the mere idea of getting involved with a man, who has participated in such a session.

It was not even clear, if the participants were committed couples.  But assuming them as couples attempting to improve something wrong between them, learning Tantra is not more an appropriate remedy for their problem as would be fighting a headache by hitting the head with a hammer.   The enhanced pain and enhanced pleasures are both only stronger sensation covering temporarily a persistent and not solved real problem.  

Long term happiness as a couple requires more than attractive bodies, but also specific psychological conditions.  When a couple is dissatisfied with what happens inside their bedroom, Tantra cannot be more than a pseudo remedy.  

Their real problems are very different, they are a consequence of the general mating fallacy.     
In many mammals including homo sapiens, the physiological male needs for sexual homeostasis and the motivation to pursue this by the stimulation of the pleasure center in the brain has evolved to trick people into procreation.  The infatuation between bodies has evolved to produce healthy offspring, but it has not evolved to last, especially not as long as people live today.    

The sad consequence of this is promiscuity.  

But there has also been the second evolution of human cognition including both emotional and intellectual needs and cognitive abilities to be guided by long-term thinking, non-physical enjoyments and self-control. 

The more the human intelligence has evolved enabling people acquiring education, sophistication and intellectuality, the more they are able to enjoy intellectual and creative pleasures.  Logically, in comparison with non-physical enjoyments, sexuality becomes a dull banality and less rewarding.  

The theoretical consequence is the cognitive ability to find happiness in monogamous close long-term bonding based upon intellectual and emotional intimacy.

In spite of the benefits of the advanced evolution of the cognition compared with the evolution of the more primitive instincts, many humans continue to fall into the trap of the general mating fallacy.   Due to this fallacy, people continue to consider sexual satisfaction as the purpose of and the reason for having a relationship and as the criterion for the choice of a mate.    

This fallacy is maintained and enhanced by the social norm of oversexation as already explained in entry 498 and entry 493.   

I would not be astonished, if some of the participants in the Tantra course were even singles and as mislead as to believe, that such skills would be of more advantage in the competition for a mate than personality and intelligence.   

Mistaking Tantra as a remedy when experiencing physical dissatisfaction as a couple is a behavioral expression of this general fallacy.  

1. How affective physical intimacy is experienced depends on the quality of the intellectual and emotional intimacy of the couple.   The quality of physical intimacy is a measuring device for the emotional quality of the relationship. 
   When there is a distortion of physical intimacy, it is absurd to apply mechanical remedies like Tantra.  Instead the couple needs to find out, what is wrong in the relationship.   When unresolved conflicts are damaging the emotional intimacy, then the couple needs to solve the conflict and repair the emotional bond.   When they restore the close bond, they also restore the non-verbal message of belonging together expressed by physical intimacy.    If external help is needed, couple's therapy improves much more than Tantra instruction. 
   
2. Some people are innately hedonists, and hedonists are the kind of consumers, who bring the most profits to capitalists.   Therefore they are the preferred role models as shown in entry 498.
   Others are Epicureans with predominantly cognitive and emotional needs.   It is absurd, when Epicureans are manipulated by the capitalistically propagated hedonistic social norms to attempt to experience the same as do hedonists.   Methods like Tantra are used to override Epicurean innate preferences.   
   Some Epicurean couples are mislead by the general fallacy to expect much more benefits from sexual activities, than there really are, when seen realistically with an unmanipulated mind.  Sexuality is nothing more than an instinct shared with animals, who have no cognition, who cannot enjoy anything better.   Animals have no choice, but humans do.
    
   Only maintaining a man's physiological homeostasis is a necessity for a relationship, but nothing more.  There is no rational reason to artificially attempt to get more pleasure from something, when it is experienced and considered as a mere banality.   
   
   If intelligent and educated people would be free from the detrimental social norm of oversexation and would instead fully recognize that they can enjoy a visit to a museum, a lecture or a good movie together more than bed activities, this would enable them to just shift their focus in a positive way to share, what they really enjoy most.    They would be out of the reach of capitalists selling Tantra.  

If a man believes in the possibility of improving a relationship by methods like Tantra, this scares me.   I am looking for a man as my mindmate, who shares the full awareness and recognition, that the quality of the affective physical intimacy depends only on the emotional quality of the relationship.

149. Penn & Teller

Penn & Teller

A few days ago I discovered a site, where I can watch all the Penn & Teller shows from their bullsh*t sessions.    This was the first time, that I watched anything from them.    At first I was very pleased by watching some of their debunking absurdities like ESP, astrology, Feng Shui, reflexology and Ouija Boards, even though their language is too nasty and vulgar for my personal taste.  

But after watching some more I got aware, that they are not educating people, but instead are doing a lot of damage to the reputation of skepticism and atheism.      In the spectators' minds, Penn & Teller associate their debunking of irrationality with the macho attitude, that women are bodies to be used.   They do it implicitly between the lines of what they say, and explicitly by having dozens of naked women with instinct eliciting body language decorating their show.   They propagate the message, that women are objects for men to use.   Some of their shows are repulsive and sexist.

They are doing a lot of psychological damage:
1.  It is one of the false christian accusations, that atheists have no morals.    Many atheists make a lot of effort to refute that claim.    Treating a woman as equal, being faithful and monogamous is an important part of morals, because cheating hurts the woman, and hurting it immoral.   Penn & Teller discard monogamy. 
2.  Penn & Teller are role models for men, who are skeptics and atheists.   They indirectly encourage those men to abuse women, to be promiscuous, to cheat, to become less suitable for decent women.  
3.   They have a basic flaw in what they do.   They meddle two distinct things, the debunking of unscientific claims and the propagation of their opinion as better than that of others, when this is a question of personal values, which cannot be decided by the scientific method.  
While rationality concerning the scientific validity of things it is a dichotomy:  Something like astrology can be either be backed up by scientific evidence, or the evidence is lacking.   When it comes to human behavior as to what is best for the individual, there is no right or wrong for everybody, but what makes some people happy, is detrimental for others.   It depends on the disposition of the individual and the amount of instinctivity or rationality in their brain.   It is a personal choice and not right or wrong.
Penn & Teller are as fanatic as christian fundamentalists in declaring as wrong and absurd, what does not correspond with their personal inclination. 
We in the western world live now, maybe for the first time in history, usually in circumstances to choose our personal way of life according to our personal wishes.   It is a good thing to propagate tolerance to all forms of flexible life styles, including gay couples raising children and people having promiscuous and polygamous life styles, as all minorities acting upon consent.   Those, who are lacking the ability to be happy in a monogamous relationship have the right to do, what they want.   But the monogamous person, who gets harmed and hurt by any non-monogamous partner needs to be respected, accepted and protected. 
In the show on family values, Penn & Teller are very intolerant.   Instead of advocating tolerance for alternative life forms, they declare the alternative life forms as the new norm and they make monogamy appear as if it were weird and not some people's natural inclination and what makes them most happy.   Like Dorine and André Gorz (entry 100)   Penn & Teller are obviously very much determined by strong instincts.  They are another indication, how the strength of animal instincts in people influences their own values and attitudes and makes them intolerant for those, who are different.  
As long as they would only personally deny the fact, that some people need monogamy as much as Penn & Teller themselves seem to need promiscuity, they would not do much damage.   But their public denial of the value of monogamy and their role model for men is irresponsible and dangerous for the victims of cheating.    It may be the one decisive bad influence, that makes men finally allow themselves to cheat, while they have struggled to stay faithful to their monogamous wives so far.  
4.  They are repulsive to those people, who are most in need of the debunking of their irrational believes. 
In entry 71, I have the example about the absurdity of having a lawn.   Penn & Teller have made one show about the absurdity of lawns, that makes some excellent points.   Except that the first 3 minutes of the show spoil it all.   They start by showing about a dozen naked bodies spread over a lawn.   When the middle class home owners, with a sense for decency, those people, who are the most prone to make a fuss about their lawn, see this introduction on tv, they zap and never see the rest, that is meant for them. 
Some of the New Age nonsense and woo-woo are especially attractive to women.   But the debunking of that stuff is so much blended with the degradation and devaluation of women as sex-objects, that many, if not most of them are getting disgusted and repulsed by Penn & Teller.  They either never see their debunking shows at all, or if they do, the general repulsion impedes, that they understand the skeptical message.