708. Men's Implicit Disrespect And Disregard For Women's Minds

708.  Men's Implicit Disrespect And Disregard For Women's Minds

Men are afflicted by feeling recurrent urges, for which they consider women's bodies as the best remedy.   But this is biologically asymmetrical, there are by far not as many women with complementary needs.    
Depending on many factors, men are coping quite differently with this asymmetry.   Unfortunately, these methods of coping show implicitly a lot of disrespect, disregard, denial and depreciation for women's brains and cognitive qualities.  

1. In some cultures more than in others, men feel entitled to abuse women, whenever their social or physical power enables them to do so.   They do not even consider to owe anything to their victims.
   
2. Men feel entitled to abuse women's body, whenever the women seem to sell their self-abuse as prostitutes as an alleged choice.
   
3. Gender roles in many societies generally attribute to men the role of being a source of material benefits, even when there is commitment and no abuse.    In marriage and often also in cohabitation, the man provides all or parts of the standard of living for his wife or partner.  During phases of courting and dating, or in any other forms of non-cohabitation, men feel obliged to pamper women by spending money on her for invitations to restaurants and events, and expensive gifts.   This is a social norm, women are encouraged to expect this.   Nevertheless men implicitly compensate for their asymmetrical physiological needs by material benefits.  
   
4. If men do not want to pay and nevertheless also do not want to feel as abusers or recipients of a favor, they (as pointed out in entry 707) belief the myth, that they could sufficiently please women physically and that in this case women would not experience and perceive the asymmetry.   This is a fallacy based upon male ignorance of biological facts. 

In all these constellations, men asymmetrically want access to female bodies, but they either give nothing or only material, non-personal advantages.  

They do not give anything of real value.   They do not give themselves.  
 

They either do not feel a need or they feel no reason and not obligation to share their mind, their cognition, their cultural and intellectual pursuits, their thoughts and feelings.   They want to connect bodies without connecting minds, without creating a unit of bonding, attachment and togetherness.  

This is a very blatant disregard, disrespect and depreciation of women.    I acknowledge, that many men are not even aware of this.  They are ignorant of more appropriate alternatives to the indignity of merely material compensation.   But this ignorance can only explain the plight of women, it does not justify it.   

Where are those few men hidden, who have true mindmate quality, who have a stronger need for the connection of the mind than for the connection of the body?

707. Selfish Men's Delusion And Myth

707.   Selfish Men's Delusion And Myth

Recognizing the biological reality, that only a man has a recurrent physiological urge to get rid of body waste, which women do not have, enables him to acknowledge, what a woman really does, when she contributes to his maintenance of his homeostasis.   He appreciates this as a gift of love from her.   As a caring and equal partner, he returns his own gift of love, by equally fulfilling her needs: He bonds with her in committed monogamy, he reciprocates her emotional attachment and the feeling of belonging together, and of being a unit, he shares intellectual intimacy, he enables her to feel significant and protected in a reliable save haven. 

But there are also those men, who want access to women's bodies without giving any of the above, and nevertheless they avoid to experience themselves as selfish or abusive.  The complete denial of the biological asymmetry is their method.  

These men have created a myth, which is perpetuated by the male dominated media:   This myth is a collective male delusion and fallacy, that allegedly women would have the same need for sex as men and would therefore also equally benefit.   This claim serves as these men's justification to refuse giving anything to the women or to ever accept any obligation to fulfill women's different needs.  

But it gets even worse.   Not all women are brainwashed by the oversexed social norms, some are quite aware of their own reality, that a behavior, which every animal without a rational brain does by instinct, is just too banal and stupid to be bothered about it.   For an intellectual woman, the question, how much or how little she enjoys a book, an art exhibition or a theater play is so much more significant than the question, how much she enjoys food or sex.   When a woman states this comparison about food, most men are able to grasp this.   But not about sex, which blurs male brains.   Whenever a woman has the self-confidence to insist, that she considers the male needs merely as an unavoidable banality in a relationship, most men are just unable to accept or respect this attitude.   Instead of recognizing, that some women's cognition is above such banalities, these men defame such women as flawed, inhibited or repressed.  

700. Research Concerning Female Self-Abuse

700.  Research Concerning Female Self-Abuse

This is entry 700 and I am still blogging to find a mindmate, who is not predominantly an instinct driven animal, but someone, who values a woman's brain more than her body.  
All I want is to find one such man.  Where is he?  

Sometimes in matchmaking sites they suggest answering among other questions, what one would change, if one were a deity able to create a better world.  
My answer:  I would change the male biology.   I would recreate a different version of men, who would never feel an urge to abuse a woman's body and remain emotionally unattached.   I would create men, who crave for emotional attachment and monogamous bonding and who would only consider, need and experience physical intimacy as a consequence of this.   I would create men, who never touch a woman, unless they also want and intend to share their lives with her.    

A few such men do exist, but if all men were like this, the world would be a much better place for women.  

In entry 688 I listed some of foolish women's reason for participating in self-abuse.  

I omitted one more unfortunate reason for female self-abuse.   Many foolish women compete for whom they perceive as alpha males and reject the others, whom they could have for themselves without competition.  
In long bygone times, women competed for men by their looks, the social status of their parents and their quality of character and personality.   
Due to male power over the media, the present social norm of promiscuity has the side effect of many women having been brainwashed to accept self-abuse as the unavoidable price to be accepted by men.   Today women compete by making themselves available for self-abuse and by presenting themselves in a way to trigger men's wish to abuse them.   These women have the delusion to get a relationship with alpha men by allowing their bodies to be abused before another woman makes her body available.     

But self-abuse is detrimental for women, as two studies indicate:

1.  There is a study showing the distinction between the attitudes of the genders concerning what is the best pursuit of self-interest.   

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131125164745.htm

"In the largest, most in-depth study to date on regret surrounding sexual activity, a team of psychology researchers found a stark contrast in remorse between men and women, potentially shedding light on the evolutionary history of human nature."

"They suggest that men are more likely to regret not taking action on a potential liaison, and women are more remorseful for engaging in one-time liaisons."

""For men throughout evolutionary history, every missed opportunity to have sex with a new partner is potentially a missed reproduce opportunity -- a costly loss from an evolutionary perspective." Haselton says. "But for women, reproduction required much more investment in each offspring, including nine months of pregnancy and potentially two additional years of breastfeeding. The consequences of casual sex were so much higher for women than for men, and this is likely to have shaped emotional reactions to sexual liaisons even today.""

"According to the findings:

    The top three most common regrets for women are: losing virginity to the wrong partner (24 percent), cheating on a present or past partner (23 percent) and moving too fast sexually (20 percent).
    For men, the top three regrets are: being too shy to make a move on a prospective sexual partner (27 percent), not being more sexually adventurous when young (23 percent) and not being more sexually adventurous during their single days (19 percent)."

These asymmetrical regrets reflect the impact of the current social norm of promiscuity, which represents the men with the strongest urge to abuse as if they were average.   Male regrets are about failing to perform as much abuse as prescribed by the norm.    Women regret to have been misled by the norm to act in a self-damaging way, hurting themselves by the denial of their emotional needs.  
Men are encouraged to feel entitled to more abuse, women learn the stupidity of self-abuse often only, when it is too late. 

2.  A study indicates, that self-abuse is unhealthy:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2013.848255#tabModule

"“Hookups” are sexual encounters between partners who are not in a romantic relationship and do not expect commitment. We examined the associations between sexual hookup behavior and depression, sexual victimization (SV), and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among first-year college women. In this longitudinal study, 483 women completed 13 monthly surveys assessing oral and vaginal sex with hookup and romantic partners, depression, SV, and self-reported STIs. Participants also provided biological specimens that were tested for STIs. During the study, 50% of participants reported hookup sex and 62% reported romantic sex. "

"hookup behavior during college was positively correlated with experiencing clinically significant depression symptoms. Sex in the context of romantic relationships was not correlated with depression."

"Approximately one-quarter of the sample reported at least one instance of SV by way of physical force, threats of harm, or incapacitation during the yearlong study."

"hookup behavior during the study was a significant predictor of incident STIs"

"The potential for negative health and social outcomes suggest the need for proactive educational efforts"

This is a tragic vicious circle.   Women are misled to mistake self-abuse as the only successful method to find a partner for their emotional needs.   This instrumental compliance reinforces the male delusion, that women would benefit when in reality they are abused.   Thus even those men, who would not abuse a woman, were they aware of what they are really doing, do not hesitate to abuse women pretending their compliance to be their true wish.  The male delusion of mistaking purposeful self-abuse for beneficial self-interested behaviors bears the risk, that sometimes men may believe to do something beneficial and pleasing to not consenting victims.       

683. Research Confirms Biological Reasons Of Women's Plight

683.  Research Confirms Biological Reasons Of Women's Plight

Sometimes things appear to me so obvious, that I am surprised, when they are confirmed by research, which is presented as if it were a novelty.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130921092236.htm

"A recently published study strongly suggests men succumb to sexual temptations more than women -- for example, cheating on a partner -- because they experience strong sexual impulses, not because they have weak self-control."

"Overall, these studies suggest that men are more likely to give in to sexual temptations because they tend to have stronger sexual impulse strength than women do," 

"But when people exercise self-control in a given situation, this sex difference in behavior is greatly reduced. It makes sense that self-control, which has relatively recent evolutionary origins compared to sexual impulses, would work similarly -- and as effectively -- for both men and women,"

The misery and plight enforced upon women as a consequence of the physiological asymmetry between the genders is one major topic of this blog. The devastating consequences of men's recurrent dishomeostasis experienced as the urge to use female bodies for the removal of body waste cannot be explained by the mere lack of self-control. 

The reality of this drastic asymmetry is evident by the fact, that men often obtain the abuse of female bodies not only by payment and manipulation, but also by violence.  The latter is enabled by the unfortunate co-evolution of the urge towards abuse with the superior physical strength to force it upon unwilling victims.   

The evolution of these devastating strong male urges seems to make a lot of sad sense, when looking only at how it serves procreation.   Evolution serves the survival of the species, not the emotional and cognitive wellbeing of individuals.        

Female animals willingly copulate at the moment of estrus due to their lacking the cognitive ability to anticipate the consequences of giving birth and raising the offspring.   

When the human cognition evolved, this enabled women also to anticipate the experience of pregnancy and child rearing.  Some women perceive this is a horror, an abuse of their bodies and a form of slavery.  Logically they attempt to avoid this.  

The human species would probably have been extinct by now, had not the further biological evolution counterbalanced this by hiding the female estrus and by adding more male urges plus physical strength.   Thus pregnancies continued to be caused, no more only by compliance due to ignorance, but also by force upon unwilling women.  


In spite of more legal equality in modern western society, even in recent times the plight of women has been perpetuated by two main fallacies.  Both fallacies deny the physiological differences and attribute all asymmetry between the genders to education and culture.   Both fallacies are based upon the projection of the level of the own urges upon the other gender.

1.  The fallacy of the so called 'sexual revolution' is the fallacy of men, who project their higher urges upon women and claim, that women only feel abused due to sexual repression.   This dangerous male fallacy has proclaimed that if women were liberated, they would as much as men want to copulate like alley dogs and would as little as men need emotional commitment.

2.  The feminist fallacy overestimates men's willpower and unrealistically demands men to have the same easy self-control as women.   This is based upon the mistake to project their own lower female physiological urges upon men.   More about my suggestion for a more rational feminism in entry 566.  

 

According to the study, men's problem is not self-control, but the stronger sexual impulse.   But it is a banality to state, that stronger urges require stronger self-control.    Thus the same ability to exercise self-control does not automatically mean the same success of willpower over stronger urges.  

Thus any abolition of the abuse of women requires a change in the attitude and behavior of both genders.   This requires a shift of the focus away from both fallacies.  Neither the female demand of more self-control by men and nor the male myth of female repression leads to any improvement of women's plight.  

The focus needs to be on the full acknowledgment of the disruption and harm caused by the excessive male urges and a subsequent change of both men's and women's attitude and behavior.  

1.  Men need to acknowledge their instinctive urges for recurrent restoration of physiological homeostasis as asymmetrical and not reciprocal.  They need to learn and take for serious, that women have different needs.  Men need to accept the biological reality, that the magnitude of male urges cannot and will not be requited by women.   Men need to give up the devastating myth of the existence of less consciously felt but equally strong urges as being the women's defect, and the belief in this myth as the justification to overcome this alleged defect by hook or crook as if this would ultimately be beneficial for the women.  This is a male delusion with cruel consequences for the victims. 

Instead men need to recognize, that the only realistic expression of consideration and responsibility towards women means to refrain from commodifying and objectifying them.    

2.  Women need to acknowledge, how little men have control over the automatic triggering of their instinctive urges towards abuse, whenever they are exposed to the perception of stimuli from female bodies.  This is aggravated, when men are in the state of high dishomeostasis.  

Even those decent and nice guys, who have not the least conscious intention to let abuse follow the perception of any unwelcome triggers, need more self-control for stronger stimulation.   Whenever they need all their available self-control to cope with these urges, this may leave them depleted of any further willpower, which they need to cope with other urges.  This may make it more difficult to resist other behaviors like overeating or smoking.   This can be concluded from studies about the depletion of willpower as presented in entry 524.   

(The following may sound like a far fetched speculation: I am wondering, if obesity, alcoholism and other self-harming widespread behaviors of lacking willpower are not partially enhanced by the oversexation of the media and of everyday life.  Not abusing women may deplete many decent men of so much of their willpower, that they more easily succumb to other urges instead.)

 
Therefore women too have a responsibility and a moral obligation to be considerate of men's physiological affliction.   Women need to avoid triggering male instincts towards their bodies, unless they are in private with a man, with whom they either have or want a relationship. 

Most people would agree, that it is cruel to show a bill of money to a beggar and then tell him to keep his fingers off, because it is not for him to have.  This invites the beggar's attempt, if he grabs it, while of course this is not a justification.   The beggar needs willpower not to grab it.   He would not need willpower, as long as people just pass him by.   A woman presenting herself nearly naked or in any provocative attire does the same to any man in dishomeostasis, whenever she wants him to keep off her body.    

As unfortunate as it is, the misunderstandings between the genders lead to antagonistic struggles, in which in the end both genders suffer.   Men are able to enforce abuse, but women react by materialistic exploitation.  
The abuse of women and the exploitation of men can only be abolished by cooperation based upon the realistic acknowledgment of the biological asymmetry.   Studies like the one cited are a good beginning, but a much more widespread recognition of the true problem is needed.      

678. Misconceptions Of Commitment Impede Relationships From Being A Safe Haven

678.   Misconceptions Of Commitment Impede Relationships From Being A Safe Haven
 
Since reading ads and profiles on the web, I have been getting more and more aware of several misconceptions of commitment. 

The following is not about those nasty promiscuous guys, who abuse women by outrightly and consciously refusing any commitment.  It is about misconceptions, which lead to hurting behavior in spite of this not being intended.
 

For many women a relationship is a simple deal, even though they may themselves not be aware of this or they may even deny to put it as bluntly as I do.   Realistically seen, when they supply their bodies for men's instinctive urges, it is meant as the price for getting a safe haven in return.  
But when men are ignorant of women's non-physical and non-material needs, they do not comprehend this deal.  Their misconceptions are harmful to women.   

When such a woman allows a man the access to her body, she instantly wants the safe haven to be given to her.  Not as a vague expectation for the future, but immediately in return, as in a fair deal.   But due to misconceptions, the man does not or not yet pay this price.  This often leads to situations, when women feel like creditors, while men do not comprehend, that they have a debt or what they owe.  

 

When there are misconceptions, there is no malice and not even selfishness, but just ignorance and misguidance by those men, who deprive women of a safe haven..    

  

Misconception 1.    Men project their instinctive cravings upon women and are not aware, that this is not symmetrical due to physiological differences.   They are unaware, that women expect the safe haven as a price owed to them.  

When, as a metaphor, an alcoholic and a non-alcoholic sit down together to drink a bottle of wine, they can seem superficially to do the same.   Both appear to enjoy the flavor of the wine.   But it is not the same.   The alcoholic craves the wine for the alcohol, he has no choice to refrain from drinking.  He would drink any other alcohol, even horribly tasting stuff.  The non-alcoholic drinks the wine as a conscious choice to do so, he is free to not drink what he does not like to drink.   

When a man and a woman get physically involved, the situation is equally asymmetrical.   The man's instincts crave to copulate with a female body because of his recurrent physiological dishomeostasis.  If he is also attracted to the woman's brain, it is only an additional bonus, not a significant reason.    The woman is free from such compulsions, she has a real choice.   She is able to choose physical intimacy, when enjoying it is part of the whole package of also intellectual and emotional intimacy, which are the preconditions for a safe haven.   She has no need for a mere male body, if she gets nothing better than a body.  
 

This misconception impedes men from comprehending the women's deal.  They are in full denial, that they owe a safe haven in return for homeostasis.  

Instead these men have the delusion of a different deal, by which they were merely obliged to satisfy allegedly equal female instinctive urges.  In the case of apparent success, they sincerely believe to have no further obligations.    They are dangerous fools.     


Misconception 2.   This misconception equates commitment with monogamous exclusivity.  

Under this misconception, people choose or attempt to find relationship constructions, which are sometimes called LAT (Living Apart Together) or by others friends with benefits.    When and as far as they feel committed, they confound this with the mere restriction of physical intimacy to only one partner, while they do not feel any further obligations or responsibility for what they do to the other. 

Thus a man can acquire sufficient access to a woman's body to maintain his homeostasis and nevertheless keep her completely out of his own life, but continue to live at his own convenience as a bachelor.   

He fulfills his physiological needs without paying a price. In combination with misconception 1 he is oblivious that this favors only his onesided advantages but harms the woman, who is denied a safe haven.


Misconception 3.   Only the legally binding act of an official marriage with a signature is considered and perceived as commitment.  

Under this misconceptions, all obligations of marriage under the respective laws of any country are accepted as binding, but nothing else.   This is not a safe haven.    Legal obligation care for the spouse's material minimal requirements, but not for emotional needs.  

This misconception has several possible consequences.   

Consequence 1.   When a man does not understand the real meaning of a safe haven, but wishes to fulfill a woman's non-physical needs, he may be prone to hasten to marry before both have discovered, if they really are a good match.  

Consequence 2.   When a man mistakes the fulfillment of legal requirements with fulfilling a woman's needs, the laws of a country, especially gender asymmetrical ones, can make a man to wrongly believe to be a good husband.  But when he dominates, forces his will upon her for his convenience, then there cannot be a safe haven for a woman.
 

Consequence 3.   For those persons, who understand the real meaning of a safe haven and of intrinsic commitment, the obligations to each other are morally indistinguishable between a legal marriage and cohabitation without the signature.   But a man, who does not feel committed unless he is married yet who intends to be decent, is motivated to get engaged to be married.   The phase of being engaged is especially beneficial for his combined needs.

With such a man, aggravated by misconception 1, the premarital phase of physically intimate engagement can be very destructive and hurting for the woman.   She expects the safe haven to have already been created, while the marriage to come is only a tiny insignificant addition.   

But for such a man this engagement phase is subjectively as if he could temporarily eat as much cake as he wishes and continue to keep it all.  
He has the illusion to be decent and correct, because he has principally accepted to start having obligations, but only at some moment in the future.   He already fully enjoys the use of the woman's body, while temporarily not feeling obliged to already pay any non-material price.   

While being merely engaged he still feels the uncommitted freedom of the bachelor.   He still feels no obligation to share any decision with the woman.   He still feels entitled to have everything at his convenience and to enforce this.   He still considers his time and his money as his own.  
For the women, this is very painfully the contrary of a safe haven.  
For some such men, this is a very agreeable situation to be prolonged by delaying the marriage.    


As a result of the prevalence of any or all these misconceptions, a woman cannot get the pursued safe haven in return for allowing a man the access to her body.   All these misconceptions are especially found in persons, who experience themselves as singles in the interaction with someone perceived as very distinct. 

A safe haven is based upon a general intrinsic attitude towards the partner, which leads to behaviors enabling her to feel and experience emotional safety.  

Life is an never-ending sequence of problems, troubles, inclemencies, pressures, which are prone to exhaust and burn out those persons, who are forced to cope alone.    Household items and installations break, neighbors, bosses or family members cause struggles and disputes, legal and financial problems arise. 
 
The person, who is alone when afflicted with any such problem, is often ultimately very helpless.    Platonic friends and non-cohabiting LAT partners can be or at least can attempt to be supportive by listening, by giving advice or by supportive actions.   But in the end, it is not their own problem.   They have a backdoor, they can sooner or later withdraw and go on with their own life.   Being supportive is merely their choice, a onesided altruistic act, for them it is not an own necessity.   In the end, the person remains still alone with the problem.      

A safe haven is very different.   A safe haven means, that both partners intertwine their lives and their circumstances so much, that they both are concerned and struck together by such problems. They have an identity as being two halves of a unit.  Whatever happens to one automatically also happens to the other, because it happens to the unit.  The shared life causes being struck together by the impact of the same circumstances and events.   Both partners have no choice and no backdoor, they need to cooperate to solve common problems by common activities.    Whatever they do or fail to do causes either benefits or damage to both.   

657. An Example Of An Emotionally Hazardous Man

657.   An Example Of An Emotionally Hazardous Man

In entry 650 I compared the asymmetry in how male and female singles are coping with their needs and instincts.    Singles of both genders can successfully established a network of sources for their intellectual and emotional needs.   By this network of family, colleagues, friends, buddies, all cognitive needs are fulfilled.  What remains unfulfilled, are only the instinctive urges.  

Under such circumstances, men continue to be driven by dishomeostasis towards the use of female bodies.    But women are in the fortunate situation of not being afflicted with the same recurrent urge to get rid of procreative body waste.    Therefore women in the same situation either feel no additional needs of a kind, which requires a man's body.   When women are driven by instincts, it is towards breeding and towards a man as a provider.   Only very few women are ever driven towards a man for the mere purpose of copulating with a body.   Women who want nothing better are very rare, while there are many men preferring them.  

The consequence is a very unfortunate imbalance.   There are many men with no other relationship needs except for a female body, but whose basic decency causes them to refrain from paid abuse.   They search in vain for women, who also have no needs or demands for anything better than a male body.    When they get instead in contact with those women, who need a bonding companion, a safe haven based upon emotional and intellectual intimacy, these women are at a very high risk of being hurt.

This risk is aggravated by some men's insufficient theory of mind.   Being unaware of the implications, that women are not afflicted by the same body waste dishomeostasis as men are, they have instead the delusion, that women share the same instinctive needs.    Only those men, who know, when they hurt and abuse women, have a choice to refrain from doing so.   

A woman needs to be very perceptive for red flags indicating the hazard of being hurt, the earlier and the better she notices them, the more she can protect herself.    


The following is a good example.

I have been contacted by a man, who has listed some search criteria in his profile.
Unfortunately he did not reply to my asking permission to quote him literally, so I try to paraphrase him with the least distortion.   And of course, the following are conjectures from limited information.

    
Two of his criteria are red flags, and his replies to my reservations about these issues made the red flags grew even bigger. 
   
1.   By his criteria, a woman should not require to be his only female friend.   In his reply he claims that jealousy is poisonous and a consequence of a weak relationship.

2.   By his criteria, a woman should not hold him responsible for her emotional wellness.   In his reply he claims that a whole person cannot be hurt by anybody, that being vulnerable means a need to work on oneself and that people are only accountable to themselves for what they feel.  


This man is a nightmare for any woman, who wants a bonded companion, an exclusive confidante, a safe haven, a mindmate.   With him, there is nothing better available than a body in bed.   When his denial of a woman's non-physical needs and his emotional cheating with other women hurt her, he does not take responsibility but blames it upon her flaw and weakness.   Oversimplified, the gist is that if a woman disagrees with how he treats her, it is the woman's defect, while nothing he does, can be wrong.  

1.   For simple minded and immature people, the simple definition of cheating is not getting physically involved with any other person.   Anything else is not understood as cheating and is considered as permissible.   Any objection is rejected as unjustified jealousy.
People without a mature theory of mind are unaware of the harm done as a consequence of this oversimplified definition.   
When such a man's entire non-physical needs are met by his network, he can be misled to firmly believe to be a trophy husband, as long as he spends every night in the bed shared with his partner and does not touch other women.    

When he shares his innermost feelings and troubles with female confidantes other than his bed partner, whom he emotionally and intellectually excludes from being a companion, he feels justified and entitled to do so.  
When he knows in advance his strong permanent and persistent need for multiple important female friends, this clearly indicates, that no woman has ever any chance to become exclusively significant as his one and only bonded companion and confidante.    The exclusivity of only one significant partner is beyond his imagination.        

A different man, mature and with a good theory of mind, is able to draw a clear line between female acquaintances, who are kept at a sufficient and safe emotional distance.   He is able to understand the importance of having close friends as common friends.

2.  Healthy people do not get hurt by insignificant persons, and they are capable to choose, who is significant.    People with a healthy emotionality are vulnerable to what significant people do to them.  Entering a meaningful personal relationship with a significant other implies to make oneself vulnerable.   It implies to give the significant other the power to have an impact upon the emotional wellbeing and it is based upon the trust, that this power is not abused.
People, whom nobody can hurt, are either robots, monsters or psychopaths, or they are unable to perceive someone as significant and to allow anybody to become significant.   One method to interpret this man's normative statement is to imply, that he avoids being vulnerable by not allowing any person to get close, not even a woman in a relationship.  
If this man does, what he claims, he would not hesitate to return every night to the bed of a woman, who lies, cheats and betrays him, and the lacking emotional impact of her behavior upon him clearly indicates, that to him, she is not a person of significance, but only a body and an object.    As long as the availability of her body serves his physiological needs, nothing else of what she does matters.   And if he considers this as normal, then he obviously has never in his life experienced a woman as significant.  

Enhancing the shared happiness is a common goal of a bonded couple, while it is an illusion to passively expect to be made happy by the other's proactive actions.  A partner has no obligation to add to the other's emotional wellbeing.   But the trust of making oneself vulnerable causes and justifies the other's moral obligation and responsibility to avoid hurting, harming and damaging the emotional wellbeing.   It cannot be justified, that one partner profits from a relationship and in return damages the other's emotional wellbeing.    The baseline has to always be Epicurus' principle of not harming and not being harmed.   

650. Independence And Interdependence

650.  Independence And Interdependence

Sometimes I am reading in men's profile their expressed wish to find an INDEPENDENT woman.    After some pondering I have come to the conclusion, that this is a huge red flag, because quite often it can mean something very different from what a woman herself would consider as being independent.   

Logically, dependence cannot be evaluated by probing only one person, instead dependence concerns at least two entities, of which one depends upon the other.   Absolute independence would mean, that there were no dependence whatsoever of no other entity.   

But to survive, humans do depend upon resources and usually also on other humans supplying such resources.   Any need creates a form of dependence upon the source of fulfillment, the stronger the need, the stronger the dependence.   

As therefore there cannot be absolute independence, all independence is partial and defined by the absence of the dependence upon a specified entity.    Calling oneself independent can mean a wide variety of even contradictory things.   A man wanting an independent woman and independence as a part of a woman's identity can be not only different but mutually exclusive.   

Personally, I as a woman value in both genders independent thinking, independence from social norms and especially the independence from being determined by instinctive urges.  

But I suspect, that a man preferring an independent woman means something very different.   He expects from such a woman the convenience of not being bothered by her with any relationship needs to be fulfilled by him.  He expect to be allowed to use her body without giving her anything in return.   

Not giving what is not wanted nor needed is subjectively for him very different from denying a woman to fulfill her expressed needs.   Independence understood this way allows him to use her body without any reason for having a bad conscience.   His imagines an independent woman as one, who is an animal like himself, not needing, wanting or demanding emotional attachment, cohabitation, a safe haven, bonding. 

This is a consequence of the biological differences between the genders in the situation of coping with being singles.    Singles organize the provision for their needs as well as possible by a network of many sources.   

• Emotional needs of both genders are fulfilled by the family of origin, by the own children, by close friends and buddies.   
• Intellectual needs of both genders are fulfilled at work, by educational institutions, in hobby groups and with colleagues.   
• Physical needs are asymmetrical.  Many female singles are content with their sources for emotional and intellectual needs and they do not miss the physical interactions with a man.   But many men are driven by their recurrent sexual dishomeostasis to need a female body, while all other needs are met.  

The worst male animals do not hesitate to pay for the abuse of prostitutes or to behave as alley dogs abusing any female body they can lure into bed.    

The more decent, mature and considerate ones consciously want to refrain from any such abuse.   They are willing to get involved in an exclusive long-term relationship with one woman.  As all their non-physical needs are already cared for, this leads to an imbalance of giving and taking.  Having only physical needs, nothing else a woman offers has any value or attraction for them.  Fulfilling a woman's needs is therefore perceived as a price and a sacrifice, which do not supply sufficient benefits.   Men in such a situation wish for independent women, who need and want nothing from them yet appear content to maintain these men's homeostasis.  

A female body is easily replaced, a man's mere physiological needs do not suffice for the stability and durability of a relationship.    A relationship is fragile, as long as a man's entire human cognitive needs are fulfilled elsewhere, while only the animal in him needs the woman.   

A relationship, which is a reliable and trustworthy safe haven for a woman, requires a balanced mutual and reciprocal interdependence, the stronger the better.    Interdependence between two humans develops, when also the man enters the relationship with unfulfilled cognitive, emotional and intellectual needs and when he chooses his partner for her individual personal suitability for these needs.    Interdependence then means, that both partners need each other as unique sources for a wide variety of aspects of wellbeing and that they are fully aware, that the other is not easily replaced.    Under such circumstances, interdependence is not experienced as a burden, but as a beneficial arrangement for both partners.  

Interdependence has two aspects.  

One is the mutual enhancement of the joy of any shared activity.   The other is the reciprocal fulfillment of each other's onesided individual needs.   
All those joys, which are gender-neutral and cognitive, can be mutual as is for example the visit to a museum and the exchange of thoughts and impressions   

But where there are biological differences, it is reciprocal concerning different needs.    Keeping one emotionally attached partner in homeostasis is a fair deal, when he in return protects her against the dishomeostasis of all other men, who as predators would otherwise attempt to abuse her body.    

As I really like traveling, this is a good example of the balanced giving and receiving of very disparate needs.  Traveling alone means for a woman the unavoidable stress of permanent vigilance, recurrent fear and hazardous situations.   Traveling with a partner makes it a relaxed and safe joy.    The reciprocity of homeostasis in return for secure traveling is a very beneficial deal for both partners.  

642. Statistical Evidence Of The Asymmetry Of Instincts

642.   Statistical Evidence Of The Asymmetry Of Instincts

According to estimates recently published in the local newspaper, the yearly transaction volume of prostitution in Germany are € 14.5 billion and the daily number of abusers (euphemistically called clients) of prostitutes are 1.2 millions.    The population of Germany is nearly 82 millions.    

Even by a cautious interpretation of estimated numbers, the magnitude of this market gives clear evidence of the biological asymmetry and the differences between male and female animal instincts.
 

I am basing my consideration, that prostitution is clear evidence for a blatant asymmetry upon the logic in people's decision, what they are willing to pay for and what they only supply in return for payment.  
People choose to pay money for the fulfillment of a need by another person, who himself does not benefit from his part in the activity and who therefore has no own reason to engage in unless for money.      
Outside training and instructing, people have no need to pay a partner for shared activities as is playing chess, tennis or dancing.  Such activities are chosen by both partners in a symmetrical dyad for the purpose of mutual benefits. 

Someone shining another person's shoes does not do this for personal benefits or by deriving pleasure engaging in such an activity.  Without being paid, nobody would shine shoes.  The person wanting his shoes shined can therefore obtain this service only by the compensation of payment.   

The statistical fact, that so many men can only restore their physiological homeostasis by paying indicates very clearly, that the emotionally unattached copulation of two bodies is not or rarely experienced by women as beneficial.    

1.  Evolution

 

Some men justify their abuse of women as this being natural and that humans are just animals and thus nothing were wrong with behaving as such.  This is a fallacy, because it does not take into consideration the very unique distinction in humans between the evolution of both genders, where only in the females the cognition has evolved towards overriding the force of instincts.

Most species of non-human mammals copulate for the purpose of procreation at the moment of the female estrus.   As these animals are lacking the human cognition, especially the long-term memory, copulation does not create attachment.  For animals, copulation is a physiological act of limited duration, which leaves no traces except fertilization.  For most mammals, male dishomeostasis and female estrus are balanced and occurring following a similar cycle of recurrence.  

In humans, this balance is disrupted and modified in several ways. 

• The female estrus cycle is about one month, while male sexual dishomeostasis is a cycle of days or even hours.  
• Women are neither consciously and innately aware of nor signaling the moment of the estrus.
• The moment of estrus is for women only an option to become pregnant, not an automatic urge.

This means, that the human evolution has changed male instinctive urges to copulate with a female body only towards a higher frequency of the dishomeostasis.    But it has separated the female urge to procreate from being driven by the estrus to copulate for the purpose of becoming pregnant.   Emotional attachment has replaced the estrus as what is motivating women towards physical intimacy.  
If women were able to react adequately to this imbalance by refusing any abuse of their bodies and demand emotional attachment from men as a condition for giving them homeostasis, the human species would have been extinct a long time.   

But the concurrent superior male physical strength has enabled men to enforce their homeostation by the abuse of the bodies of non-consenting women.   Thus the ability for emotional attachment did not evolve equally in men.    

2.  The effects of this evolutionary asymmetry on contemporary people. 

A man wanting to merely copulate with a female body has only the choice between abuse by force or abuse by payment.   If he wants a woman's motivation to give him his recurrent homeostation, he has to take care, that she has a reason to experience physical intimacy as beneficial for herself.   This reason is giving her emotional attachment, bonding and long-term commitment.  

In modern civilized countries, the risk of the dire consequences of abuse by force is so high, that the abusers usually choose prostitution. 

   
Prostitution is for the man the exact simulation of the situation of the animal copulation.   But a woman, who is not driven by an estrus to get pregnant, has no own reason to copulate with a body.   She does not experience any personal benefits by being abused as a toilet for men's body waste.   The prostitute takes money as a compensation for the damage of allowing herself to be abused (if this even is a free choice). 

2.1.  Modern communication technology like the web enables people to find a partner for any activity.  Whenever an activity supplies reciprocal and symmetrical benefits, people can find a partner without needing to pay.  

If uncommitted copulation of two bodies were beneficial for more than a tiny minority of women, men would find them and avoid paying for prostitution.   The web is full with ads and profiles of men, who want intimate encounters, no strings fun, friends with benefits or any other euphemism for wanting a woman as a living toilet. Any woman (if there are any) attracted to be used this way, would be certainly found.   But the € 14.5 billion yearly only in Germany show, that the consent to be abused is not available for free, it is only sold.   

2.2. There is a big difference between reducing dishomeostasis and attempting to find and indulge in pleasure.   Dishomeostasis is experienced as an urge to remove or reduce a state of discomfort and return to the neutral relaxed state.    This urge can severely disrupt rational thinking and distort appropriate behavior.   

When in a relaxed state there is a free choice for additional pleasure and enjoyment, this is an undisturbed mind's wise choice or preference.   

Most people would prefer to buy for example a piece of cake or a newspaper rather than a painkiller.   But when they experience the dishomeostasis of having a headache then they need the painkiller and cannot spend that money on buying something else.   They are more driven to pay for relief than for pleasure.   

A man in the state of homeostasis can wisely choose between spending a sum of money on a book, a visit to the zoo or in a restaurant.    But a man, who pays a prostitute instead of buying a book is unable to make a wise choice, he is driven by an urge to reduce his physiological discomfort.    

2.3.  By evolution, women's strong need for emotional attachment has replaced the urge to copulate as being identical with the urge to get pregnant at the moment of a noticeable estrus.   This need to not only be in a situation of being able to get attached but also to experience the attachment as reciprocal is doomed to bring harm and pain, as long as it is onesided, because too many men are driven towards copulation without attachment.   

Many women get emotionally attached to their children, while they commodify and take advantage of men as material providers.  Based upon the evolutionary asymmetry, I am wondering, what is cause and what is reaction and how many women do breed not by really preferring their children for emotional attachment, but by perceiving this as their only chance to get any emotional attachment, which they do not consider possible with a man. 

  

Women commodify men as purses and men objectify women as bodies, but there is a huge difference.    Men are at least respected as being able to fill the purses.   Women are perceived as bodies only apt to trigger men's instincts, which is not considered as an achievement requiring a brain and justifying respect. 

2.4.  By recognizing the reality of men's instinctive urges I do not excuse or condone any abuse of women.  Men have the problem, it is their task to cope with it without abusing women.    

When someone has a recurrent problem, which causes him so much discomfort, that he is willing to pay for a remedy, because he is unable to solve it in any other way, this is usually considered as an affliction, as an unfortunate and detrimental situation.   
But when the recurrent problem is a man's sexual dishomeostasis, and his choice of a remedy is paying for prostitution, because he is unable to get emotionally attached in a serious relationship, then this man often feels proud of his high libido and is in complete denial, that he has an affliction, a disability and a defect.  

I consider men, who are proud of their high libido, as pathetic idiots.   

The man, who has a low libido and no need for emotionally unattached copulation is the winner in the lottery of life, which has given him the genes, which cause the least harm to himself and to women and the most long term benefits.   

High libido is as obsolete as excessive hunger or appetite.  For long parts of human history, overeating served survival.  Fat stored on the body, when food is plenty was needed in times of scarcity.    Before modern medicine, the mortality was so high, that male high libido combined with physical strength enabled men to force so many pregnancies on women, that the species survived.    Today, the same combination has led to overpopulation.    Men overeating damage themselves, men driven by high libido towards abuse damage women.  

Unfortunately, people are more prone to change attitudes and behaviors, when they experience the damage on themselves, then when they only harm others.   

Not all men abuse women, and there are many, who theoretically and generally agree that women deserve better than being abused, with or without being paid.    But this is not sufficient.    What is really needed is a radical change of men's attitude towards their own libido.   

 

It is the same as with obesity.   As long as a man considers it as good to be fat, he will continue with a positive attitude towards overeating.  Only if he changes his attitude and considers overeating as harmful and undesirable behavior, he can control. his behavior and loose weight.   As long as a man considers it as good to pay for the abuse of prostitutes, he will continue with his positive attitude towards a high libido.   Only if he changes his attitude and considers copulation without attachment as abusive, harmful and undesirable behavior, he can control his behavior and stop all abuse of women.  

While there is nothing wrong with any amount of libido, as long as it can be absorbed entirely by the physical intimacy earned by emotional attachment in a bonded monogamous long-term commitment, men need to acknowledge and recognize, that all libido beyond this is a dangerous and detrimental affliction.    Only then the world can become a better place for women.

639. A Disheartening Research Result

639.   A Disheartening Research Result

People are generally motivated towards behaviors for the purpose of improving or maintaining their subjective well being (SWB) as far as ability, moral restrictions and circumstances allow it.

The following study about the positive effects of power on the SWB is very scary for women.    It implies indirectly men's asymmetrical option to enhance their SWB by harming women.

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/01/15/0956797612450891.full

"Across four surveys representiedly different primary social roles (general, work, romantic-relationship, and friendship surveys; Study 1), and in an experiment (Study 2a), we found consistent evidence that experiencing power leads to greater SWB. Moreover, authenticity mediated this effect. Further establishing the causal importance of authenticity, a final experiment (Study 2b), in which authenticity was manipulated, demonstrated that greater authenticity directly increased SWB. Although striving for power lowers well-being, these results demonstrate the pervasive positive psychological effects of having power, and indicate the importance of spreading power to enhance collective well-being. "

The power situation between women and men is asymmetrical.    Men have a choice, which women do not have.  

Men are on average physically stronger than women.   They have the innate options to either install power over women or to voluntarily refrain from doing so.    If women have any option at all, it is only the option to avoid those men, who would use power to harm them in the case of their exposing themselves to be harmed.   Women have no option to remain unharmed once they have allowed themselves to be under the control of a man using power.   In civilized countries, women have the option to refuse and to leave a relationship with a man using power.   But there are still many societies, where women are owned, sold and married forcefully by their parents.  

If a woman and a man were stranded on a deserted island, this innate asymmetry becomes virulent.  He has a choice, while she is at his mercy.   As long as there is nobody else present to interfere, he has unlimited power over her.  He has the physical strength to do, whatever serves his convenience.    He can kill her, rape her, deprive her of supplies, coerce her, constrain her, torture her, exploit her.   

If he helps and protects her and shares the supplies, he does it by choosing this as an option.   The woman has no options.    


Women can only have power, when they either have a weapon or when their power is provided by rules, laws, law enforcements and third parties protecting her and acting on her behalf.  
A women can have the power to control something, which a man wants or needs, but only under the condition that usurping it by coercion is either made impossible or if the serious consequences are worse than not having it.   A man can use physical force to take away any object from a woman, but he cannot get at what others control on her behalf, like her bank account.   The fear of being severely punished serves in a limited way as a deterrent against men coercing women.   
  

Therefore women's safety, wellbeing, let alone happiness, all depend on men's voluntary choice of not using the power, with which they have biologically been endowed.   The result of the study implies a special hazard for relationships.   

Both genders usually enter a relationship for the purpose of enhancing the SWB.    Between egalitarian partners, this can be symmetrically, mutually and reciprocally beneficial for a shared and interdependent SWB experienced as a unit of being a couple.      
But men are favored by the asymmetrical alternative option.  They can choose to install power and thus enhance only their own SWB, while this automatically damages the women's.


While men usually know what harm they inflict when applying power or intimidating to do so for the purpose of getting what they want, they are often not aware of the detrimental effects of unintended intimidation.   

Women can never be fully sure, what those men will do to them in the future, who have so far never used the powers available to them.   Violence against women is ubiquitous and men's innate option to decide at any moment to use power and harm women is real.   Living under the permanent threat of male power is a part of women's life, no matter how much this threat is conscious or only subtle and subconscious.

   
Men are encouraged and they learn to fight and to use aggression as a way of getting their due from other men.  They choose their behavior based upon the expectation of resistance.   But when men express anger and aggression towards women, who lack sufficient physical strength for successful self-defence, the effect is intimidation due to women's realistic awareness of being at the men's mercy.    While intimidation can be subtle and subconscious, it nevertheless prevents women very often from daring to stand up for what they really want, need and consider as fair and correct.   
 

Intimidation leads to unfortunate consequences.   When a woman's only option to end being harmed by a man using power is to leave him, while she has no option to make him stop his harming behaviors and enable her to stay together, this impedes women from reacting appropriately to all transgressions, which are below the threshold for leaving.   Men do not only get away with inappropriate and harmful behavior, but they also get the wrong impression as if women would accept, what they merely do not dare to protest against due to intimidation.   Thus men are mislead to enhance their SWB by damaging the women's, even when the men are not aware nor intending to do this.           


Sadly enough, it is logical when seen as a result of evolution, that physically strong men using power on women had also the result of unwanted pregnancies and that they contributed more to the gene pool than the considerate and respectful nice guys did.   

I am wondering, if the combined effects of birth control and low risk abortion with the modern technology of intelligence being more important for survival than physical strength could influence the evolutionary trend.   

Maybe over the next many thousands of years, the difference in physical strength between men and women could dwindle?
But even if there will ever be a golden age, when men are no longer stronger than women, I will not be around to enjoy it.  

597. Commodification And Wanting

597.   Commodification And Wanting

When a sane, mature and rational person declares to want something, this is an expression of a mere wish and of nothing more.   Wishing does not imply any assumption concerning the availability or feasibility nor does it imply any claim to get it.

Attempts towards gratification are an independent next step.   Such attempts are limited by the full recognition of and awareness for the rights of others and by the moral obligation to refrain from harming others and from usurping and seizing.     

The rational method to get gratification is earning it.  When it comes as a gift, it is received with gratitude and not taken for granted.
 

Immature and selfish jerks have a blatant delusional fallacy in their thinking.  When they say 'I want x', they really mean to say 'I demand x, because I believe myself to be entitled to get x immediately'.  They confound wanting something with the entitlement to automatically get it.  They believe, that everybody and the society owe to given to them, whatever they want and when they want it.  

Relationships are entered for the purpose of meeting specific needs.   The difference between mere wishes and claims of alleged entitlement contributes to the difference between egalitarian bonded couples and asymmetrical commodification.   

A bonded, caring, considerate couple feels reciprocally responsible for the careful use of their pooled resources.   Those expenses have priority, of which the benefits are shared by both partners   Any expenses only benefiting one partner are secondary.  Shared decision are based upon agreement as being fair.  Reciprocal gratification of wishes is perceived with gratitude as a gift or as a favor.     

The commodification of women is one special case of the fallacy of mistaking wanting as an automatic justification for claims, demands, coercion and usurpation.  A jerk informing a commodified woman of what he wants feel automatically also entitled to get it immediately. 

• Commodifying men experience and consider it as their baseline of normality, if they always get everything immediately whenever they demand it.   
  They take all received benefits for granted.  They are blind to recognize, when someone does something for them by choice and by a voluntary decision.   They do not know, what favors are.  They do not know gratitude.  
  Any expression of love, care and affection by voluntarily doing something for such a man is lost and not recognized as such.  Whatever gratification he receives, he always confounds it as if it were his due and as if she were only doing her duty. 
  
• When the reaction to commodifying men's demands is refusal,
  
  • they seize their alleged due by hook or by crook, by domination, coercion, bullying, if they have the power to do so.
  • they get extremely angry, aggressive, frustrated and unpleasant, when they lack the power to enforce gratification.

594. The Difference Between Control And Influence

594.  The Difference Between Control And Influence

In entry 593 I mentioned, that control and trust are mutually exclusive.    But it is very important to distinguish between control and influence.   While control destroys a relationship, reciprocal influence is needed.

Control means, that the relationship is asymmetrical.   One person not only has power, but uses it to gain selfish and onesided benefits from another person, who is helpless, powerless and unable to impede being coerced under domination.

Egalitarian relationships can only work, when reciprocal influencing makes them symmetrical. Influencing means to be able to get one's own needs met while being fully aware of and considering also those of the other, without refusing, ignoring or denying them.   

Having influence includes to be heard, taken for serious and rationally convinced in a process of constructive communication.  
Being influenced requires more than just listening, but also recognizing the other as the only reliable source for information to be learned by active interest and asking.  
Reciprocally influencing partners never do anything, which has any impact upon the partner, without first having reached an agreement.   They only act based upon shared decisions.      


It is the commodifying and not trusting man's fallacy to believe, that he cannot get a fair deal without control.   In reality, control serves him to usurp more than what is fair.   His fallacy is confounding his selfish benefits with what is fair.  
A genuinely fair deal requires reciprocal influence, because a deal is only fair, when it is fair to both, not only experienced as fair for oneself but also knowing this being the same for the other.  

A commodifying and controlling man experiences a relationship only as satisfactoy and functional, as long as the commodified woman does not make any attempts to influence him. When she shows passive compliance, he confounds this with her alleged consent with his entitlement delusion.   

Influence as a reciprocal process of sharing decisions is unknown to him.  All he knows is either the security of having power or else distrust and the expectations of unavoidable doom under her alleged power and usurping of control.  He misinterprets any of her attempts to influence him towards a fair deal as if she were taking control.  Therefore this functions as a trigger to enhance his own use of power as his method to prevent her alleged harming him.  

593. Commodification And Trust

593.  Commodification And Trust

A correct assessment of trustworthiness is very important when interacting with others, especially when deciding on future interactions.    The better the assessment of trustworthiness, the better the prediction of behavior.  

Consciously paying attention to consistent, congruent and plausible behaviors is one method, but there is more:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120911113047.htm

"Certain nonverbal gestures trigger emotional reactions we're not consciously aware of, and these reactions are enormously important for understanding how interpersonal relationships develop,"

"Nexi is a humanoid social robot  ....  While conversing with the participants, Nexi -- operated remotely by researchers -- either expressed cues that were considered less than trustworthy or expressed similar, but non-trust-related cues. Confirming their theory, the team found that participants exposed to Nexi's untrustworthy cues intuited that Nexi was likely to cheat them and adjusted their financial decisions accordingly."

While too much trust bears the risk of being harmed, there cannot be any close relationship without or with insufficient trust.   

A close relationship is symmetrical between equal partners based upon mutual trust and reciprocal trustworthiness.  
Trust is based upon the expected trustworthiness as a trait, whenever somebody is considered to be a person and a human being.   Only persons are checked for being trustworthy, and clues as in the research for trustworthiness are only perceived and expected from persons (or robots imitating them).  

Commodification is asymmetrical between a user as a subject and a used utility as an object. Utilities are functional or dysfunctional and the prediction of their reliable functioning in the future is a question of probability and experience.  In the case of inanimate objects, this is logically not a question of trust and trustworthiness.  A utility like a vacuum cleaner is not asked, if it intents and is able to function the next day, followed by the assessment, if the answer is honest or a lie.  

Due to trust not being a relevant factor when using an inanimate utility, the commodification of women as if they were inanimate objects creates a distorted situation.  
The owner has full control over a utility.   When he puts the vacuum cleaner in a closet, he can expect to retrieve it in an unaltered state, whenever he wants.   He has no need to trust the vacuum cleaner to not leave the closet.
When a man has established control over a commodified woman, he expects to have once and for good ascertained her availability for being used at his convenience without this being a situation requiring to consider trust.


It the comparison with a vacuum cleaner appears a bit too drastic, here is another metaphor:   When a man commodifies a woman, she is for him, what a dairy cow is for a farmer.   

A farmer's dairy cow is valuable possession under his full control. 
The cow brings him lots of benefits, as long as she receives careful maintenance for her physical wellbeing.  He is aware that appropriate maintenance is in his own self-interest.  
The farmer learns, how to handle a cow, from instructors and books, by observing her for signs of dysfunction, by using trial and error and by consulting a veterinarian.
The farmer does not expect to get any information from the cow by asking her questions, nor does he bother about intellectual or emotional needs.  She is a body and he gets the benefits from her body.  
Trust or any personal traits do not contribute to his prediction concerning the amount of future benefits or the assessment of the cow's value.   


But a woman is not a utility, and in contrast to a vacuum cleaner or a dairy cow, external and physical control does not include control over her mind, having full control over her is only the controlling man's illusion.    Neglect, oblivion or denial of the importance of the woman's trustworthiness and personality does not annihilate their impact.   

Whenever the woman wants to trust, to be trusted, to find trustworthiness in a partner and recognition of her own trustworthiness, then being kept outside his protective defense of control dooms the relationship.     

Omitting any focus on or attention for the assessment of trustworthiness makes commodification even also risky for the man himself.   If he is unfortunate or stupid in whom he picks as a utility to be used, he does not get control as expected over a suitably helpless victim.   In the worst case for him, he gets commodifed in return, for example by a breeder, whose priority are her children and who only exploits him materially as a provider. 


Trust and control are mutually exclusive, while control is a behavioral consequence of or ingredient in commodification.    

This leads to distinguishable dynamics:  

• If a man lacks the ability to assess trustworthiness and gets harmed too often by trusting the wrong persons, resorting to the replacement of trust by control is his method of coping, the result is commodification.   
  It could be called secondary commodification, because it is a side effect of control as a coping mechanism.
  
• If a man is driven by instincts to perceive women principally as commodities, control is the method to establish the commodification.   In this case trusting and the perception for any information serving the assessment of trustworthiness are deactivated as not needed and they may have never been trained and developed. 
  This could be called primary commodification.  Control is used, because women do not opt to be commodified, as long as they have a choice for an alternative.  

This distinction is of no practical significance to the woman, who is helplessly under the control, until she removes herself. This distinction would only be important, if such a man ever attempted to overcome the commodification.   But as commodification means, that a man subjectively has the power to get the benefits he wants, unfortunately he lacks any motivation to end it.   

Trustworthiness as a human cognitive trait and trusting as a person's reactive attitude have both an impact upon behavior, even though they are ignored when replaced by control.   There are many more traits and attitudes having an important reciprocal impact upon the interaction between cognitive humans, but which are not expected from commodities, no matter if inanimate objects or animals. Their denial is as detrimental as is the denial of trust. Responsibility, consideration, empathy, caring, intellectual appreciation are just a few of a long list.  

591. Commodification And (Cyber-)Stalking

591.  Commodification And (Cyber-)Stalking

Commodification while the relationship lasts and stalking after its end are connected, because they are both caused by the same distorted attitude towards women.     

People are protected by the law against real life threats from real life stalking, cyberstalking without any physical danger is a more subtle, but nevertheless a form of abuse.  There are many other kinds of cyberstalking, the following concerns the variety based upon commodification.   

When egalitarian, mature, rational and responsible people discover to have become involved by mistake, due to not having enough in common or to having irresolvable conflicts, they communicate until they end the relationship by a shared decision.

When egalitarian, mature, rational and responsible people later suggest a reconciliation, they do this based upon the insight and motivation to offer a drastic change of their own behavior.  They do not approach the ex-partner with demands while they offer nothing.    In the case, that they cannot or do not accept to change their own behavior, they recognize the final failure of the relationship.   They have the consideration of ending all contact and allow the ex-partner to forget and to heal.


Men who commodify women are neither egalitarian, nor mature, nor responsible.  They are also not rational, else they would know, that relationships are doomed by their commodification. 
Commodification is based upon the asymmetrical attitude, even entitlement and grandiosity delusion, that women exists for nothing more except to serve men's needs, wishes and whims at their convenience.    

Commodifying men believe to have been born with a free flatrate for being served with unlimited benefits by women.    

This can lead to two patterns of disastrous dynamics.   

• Pattern 1.  Commodifying men hurt women so much by domination, disrespect, coercion, control, disregard, objectification, until they are devastated and run to save themselves.
• Pattern 2. Woman having enough self-esteem and self-confidence to resist enforced commodification get dumped and discarded as being flawed, defective and dysfunctional.   

In both pattern, men do not get, what they expect according to their entitlement delusion:  Utilities always serving their needs but not asking or expecting anything in return.   Nor do they elicit women's agreement with the men's delusion of being perfect, while anybody else is to be blamed for men's every dissatisfaction.  

Cyberstalkers are angry and frustrated men.   They reproach fate, life, a deity, cosmic power or any other vague entity for failing to give them, what they feel entitled to:  Complying and submitting women.   

• In the first pattern, they are angry for having lost a satisfying commodity.  They demand to be given back, what they consider as their rightful possession.     
• In the second pattern, they feel defrauded by having been given a dysfunctional commodity.   They feel entitled and demand not to get a discarded insufficient  possession back, but to get it first fixed, repaired and improved.       

Some cyberstalker write angry diatribes full of grudges, complaints and reproaches, claiming what they believe to be entitled to and declaring their outrage of either having lost it or of having been given only a deficient and dysfunctional substitute.    These diatribes are implicitly written to the entity, not to the woman.  They are angry with the entity, whom they consider as responsible for their frustration.   

When someone buys a faulty machine, he blames the shop keeper, not the machine in the case of a defect.   But there is no such entity, neither generally nor as someone owing them anything.   So there is nobody to which to address complaining diatribes.   Lacking any better valve for their anger, cyberstalkers misaddress and displace their diatribes to the incommodifiable women.    These cyberstalkers are like the legendary man, who was dissatisfied with his inability to use his computer, so in a burst of anger he shot a gun at it.      

This is not only a fallacy, it is completely irrational and leads nowhere.    Cyberstalkers waste their time and achieve nothing except making themselves repulsive and aversive.      At the moment of breaking up, the dumped or driven away commodified women may have moved on with still ambiguous feelings.  The annoying and obnoxious stalking behavior helps the process of killing, whatever positive feelings may have been left.  

Stalking has several effects upon the victims.

Emotional:

• Being reminded of what the victims want to forget slows their healing.  Poking into someone's emotional wounds for the purpose to delay healing is adding more cruelty to the previous abuse.   It adds repulsion to the estrangement.
• Being triggered to relive memories of the abuse during the relationship is painful.
• Post relationship harassments add to feelings of being ashamed for having been involved with an unworthy and deranged man.

Cognitive:

• Men confirm by cyberstalking their being good riddance and not valuable enough to yearn for.
• The repetition of grudges confirms their magnitude and puts emphasis upon those differences, which indicate a mismatch.   
• The vindictiveness of efforts to prevent the victims' healing clearly indicate the cyberstalkers' unworthiness.
• The irrationality of stalking without benefits not even for the stalkers themselves indicates the men's lacking of intelligence and/or sanity.  

Stalking is paradox.  Even if the cyberstalkers would really want the women back, their behavior nevertheless drives them only further away.   The cyberstalkers reassure women of their unworthiness by adding some more to their previous reasons for rejection.

586. Jerks With Halos

586.  Jerks With Halos

In entry 381 I described Diego Rivera as a jerk with a halo.   He is just one specimen of many, and it is a pattern of very detrimental and unfavorable dynamics.

I consider people (usually men) as jerks with a halo, when they are accomplished or outstanding in some area, as artists, writers, scientists, actors, politicians or even as benefactors for many people, while they also inflict a lot of suffering upon persons close to them.   

Jerks are jerks, and the suffering of their victims is real and no halo seen by any third party does reduce this suffering, it only hides it in an unjustifiable way.
  
Accomplishments need to be evaluated by themselves, without any impact upon the subjective recognition of the magnitude of personal transgressions.   The harm done to the unfortunate victims is an unacceptable moral failure, this is independent of any coexisting achievements.   

Accomplishments do not exempt people from being responsible for what they do to others.  

But this is unfortunately not reality.   Instead, there is a general tendency to condone unacceptable, immoral and cruel behaviors in proportional accordance with the transgressor's fame due to his accomplishments.  By this fallacy of accepted compensation, someone can buy by his accomplishments the right to harm without consequences.

This fallacy is enhanced and perpetuated by any combination of several factors, which all lead to the underestimation of the harm done to the victims: 

1.   Women's apparent and alleged compliance when continuing to expose themselves to their plight.   
1.1.  Women are dependent upon the material support by the man, especially by raising children.   They would leave the jerk, if the could.  
1.2.  Women in asymmetrical relationships have got onesidedly emotionally attached to the jerk, who in return has an entitlement delusion.  His fallacy is his belief, that women exist for his convenience, his accomplishments justifying their commodification.  I described this in entry 268 (The Jerk Attachment Syndrome).

2.  The generalization of suggestive influences of religion, especially christianity, upon both the jerks and the victims.  The jerks with halos subjectively consider their accomplishment as their currency to buy the right to harm women. 

In religion, sin is believed to be compensatable by penitence, so that after having paid for the previous sin, there is no cognitive obstacle to prevent the next sin.  Replacing penitence by accomplishments is a fallacy, which is not very far fetched, considering the weirdness of the religious beliefs in themselves.
Thus jerks are not only haloed by others, but they also halo themselves by believing, that their accomplishments entitle them to privileges, even when the privileges harm others.  

Women allow men to harm them for the purpose of buying the reward after death with the currency of their forgiving the unforgivable and by their prolonged suffering .  

3.  Sometimes people feel a vague, fuzzy and unspecified need to improve themselves, but are uncertain, how to proceed.  When they discover persons, whom they do not know personally, but only by the presentation in their work and in the media, such persons are chosen as role models.   The nearer the role models appear to be perfect, the stronger the appeal to imitate them.  The successful imitation boosts the self-esteem and causes good feelings.  This motivates to maintain the idealization of the role model, even when it is not at all justified in the case of haloed jerks.   As a consequence, the idealization of such a role model is protected by the denial of unpleasant and dark sides.    The focus is restricted to the perception of the halo, while the jerk underneath is willfully overlooked.   

Seen from this perspective, many admired and famous men are in reality only jerks with halos.  

577. Propinquity - Significance - Importance - 2

577.   Propinquity - Significance - Importance - 2

This continues entry 575.  

Significance is correlated with propinquity, importance is not and can have many reasons.

The difference between significance and importance determines the behavior towards others.   The difference between being important and being significant determines what behavior can rationally be expected.  
But this difference is too often blurred in too many people's awareness.  This is the cause of a lot of unhappiness and harm.  

The following are some possible constellations of this difference. 

Reciprocity

• Neither significance nor importance
  
  As long as people do not know of each other's individual existence, they cannot experience each other as significant or important persons.  
  
  
• Importance without significance
  
  People can be important to each other without being significant.  The bus driver is important for someone in need to go someplace, and the paying customer is important for the bus driver to earn his wages.    They can either have nothing in common or they are ignorant about each other's person.   In either case, there is no subjective propinquity and they are not significant to each other.  
  
  
• Limited significance
  
  Acquaintances, coworkers, sport buddies, pen pals and such can have a partial area of propinquity and a limited significance to each other. 
  Their propinquity is either limited, because they do not know each other well.   Or it is counterbalanced by some essential disagreement, which creates a mental ditch.   
   

• Predominant significance
  
  People can be friends, when the areas of propinquity are far bigger and more attractive than what separates them mentally, and when they can rely upon not being harmed.   The limitations of mere friendship of not sharing the home, nor all hazards of life nor the full intimacy including the body allows some tolerance for differences.
  
  
• Ubiquitous significance
  
  A committed, bonded relationship including intellectual intimacy and trust requires propinquity without mental ditches.   
  The partner is the one person specially elected for the privilege of sharing a safe haven with.  He is the one chosen as deserving unrestricted full intimacy, even including the body.  
  He is not just a friend, he is the one best friend having a special significance, which would be disrupted by mental ditches. 
  
  

Asymmetry

• Anonymous partial significance
  
  Asymmetrical, anonymous propinquity of any degree can be experienced with persons, who are known by any media, books, movies, public events, newspapers.  
  Reading, watching, listening to their expression of the perceived propinquity reinforces their partial significance.  This is independent of their own ignorance of the existence of any individual person in their audience.     
  This can be any author, actor, philosopher, musician, scientist, politician, no matter if dead or alive.  
  
  
• Onesided significance and/or importance in personal interaction
  
  
  • Interaction based upon propinquity is sometimes a onesided choice.   Someone choosing a trainer for what he is fascinated with as an essential area of propinquity makes the trainer significant.  But if the trainer happens to be teaching, what does not really interest him, then the pupil is important as a source of income, but not significant due to lacking propinquity. 
    
    
  • A chosen guru or teacher can be very significant to the pupil, while for any guru each of a multitude of his many pupils is someone with propinquity but does not have the same significance for him.
    
    
  • Interaction based upon propinquity is a choice.  But there are many situations, where interactions are instead forced upon by circumstances in the absence of any propinquity and where there is no significance.  The school teacher of a disliked subject is an example.   So is the boss of a disliked but needed job.
      
    
  • Many dysfunctional relationships are pseudo-reciprocal in spite of being dyads. A woman, who has chosen a man by propinquity experiences him as significant for herself. But when he has followed his instinctive urges and objectifies her, then she can be an important utility, yet she is not significant.