730. Research Concerning The Distinction Between Alley Dogs And Nice Guys

730.  Research Concerning The Distinction Between Alley Dogs And Nice Guys

In previous entries I have been speculating about the observed strong distinction between annoying predators and nice considerate guys. 

Long ago, while still being ignorant of evolutionary effects, I naively thought most men to be nice guys, and the predators to be sick exceptions.   I attributed being approached by too many disgusting men as an envisaged target for abuse as bad luck.   

Then I learned the sad reality from evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology.   Predators were and are those most successful in forcing procreation upon women.   Because there also were some decent nice guys, I started to speculate about what then seemed the most plausible, which is a continuous scale of instinctivity between two extremes.     Yet following also my admittedly biased inclinations derived from my personal experiences, I compared the two extremes mostly as if there were a dichotomy.   Alley dogs, whom I loathe, at one extreme, and those nice guys, who are suitable as a partner, at the other extreme, seemed to be the most recognizable.  

The following research confirms, that I was not completely wrong in my bias towards the dichotomy.   

Stay or stray? Evidence for alternative mating strategy phenotypes in both men and women
Rafael Wlodarski , John Manning , R. I. M. Dunbar
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/11/2/20140977

"In all comparative analyses, humans always fall on the borderline between obligate monogamy and polygamy. Here, we use behavioural indices (sociosexuality) and anatomical indices (prenatal testosterone exposure indexed by 2D : 4D digit ratio) from three human populations to show that this may be because there are two distinct phenotypes in both sexes. While males are more promiscuous and display higher prenatal testosterone exposure than females overall, our analyses also suggest that the within-sex variation of these variables is best described by two underlying mixture models, suggesting the presence of two phenotypes with a monogamous/promiscuous ratio that slightly favours monogamy in females and promiscuity in males."

"The extent to which any one individual pursues a short-term mating strategy (‘unrestricted’ strategy involving promiscuous mating with multiple partners) or a long-term mating strategy (‘restricted’ strategy favouring the formation of exclusive and extended pair-bonds) has been referred to as their ‘sociosexual orientation’"

"Although these two strategies could well just be opposite ends of the same continuum, it has sometimes been assumed (albeit without any real evidence) that these represent two distinct male phenotypes: those that pursue a more promiscuous, unrestricted mating strategy (‘stray’) and those that focus on investing more heavily in their offspring in long-term relationships (‘stay’) ......  Although individual differences in female mating strategies have sometimes been noted in the literature ....., the possibility that women might also exhibit contrasting mating strategies has received considerably less attention."

"The SOI-R indexes an individual's psychological degree of sexual promiscuity on a continuum running from restricted (monogamous) to unrestricted (promiscuous). The 2D : 4D ratio is an anatomical marker for fetal testosterone exposure and testosterone receptor-site density ....., and reflects the level of prenatal testosterone effects in the adult phenotype ..... Across primates, 2D : 4D ratio correlates with mating system ..... and provides a biological marker for mating strategy."

"Modelling confirmed the existence of two phenotypes within each sex, one of low (restricted) sociosexuality and the other of high (unrestricted) sociosexuality. High-sociosexuality males make up a slightly larger proportion of the male distribution in each case, and low-sociosexuality females make up a slightly larger proportion of the female distributions."

The 2D:4D ratio is calculated by dividing the length of the index finger of the right hand by the length of the ring finger of the right hand. A longer index finger will result in a ratio higher than 1, while a longer ring finger will result in a ratio of less than 1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digit_ratio

727. How Instincts Reinforce Each Other Thus Aggravating Harm And Suffering

727.   How Instincts Reinforce Each Other Thus Aggravating Harm And Suffering

The biological spoils of war
Study finds those who take part in violent conflict have more wives, children

The study, ......  found that, among members of an East African herding tribe, those who engaged in conflict - in the form of violent raids carried out on neighboring groups - had more wives, and thus more opportunities to increase their reproductive success through having more children

In an analysis of 120 men, Glowacki said, the data was clear - those who participate in more raids had more wives and more children over the course of their lives.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-12/hu-tbs122914.php

In a scientific study, observed and observable data are presented.    From a very different point of view, I am looking at the suffering caused to individuals.   

• Raids cause deprivation and often the subsequent risk of perishing
• Raids often cause deaths, serious injuries and mutilations 
• More children mean women suffering more often the agony of giving birth.   
• There is often the additional suffering of those women, who are forced to share a husband in a polygamous situation in spite of wishing monogamy and/or to procreate more than they wish to. 

This is a clear example, how two instincts reinforce and enable each other leading to aggravated suffering.   

• The raids are an expression of the ingroup-outgroup-instinct.    The more the distinction between the groups is accentuated by this instinct, the less inhibitions there are against the ruthlessness and cruelty, upon which depends the success of raids.   Thus the success of raids both depends upon and rewards the ingroup-outgroup-instinct.   
• Procreation depends upon the combined strength of the procreation instincts and the means and occasion to act upon this instinct.   The more men are driven by the procreation instinct, the more they consider the acquisition of more wives and children as a desirable goal and a reward for embarking on a raid.  Thus a strong procreation instinct serves as a motivation for raids, such men's additional procreational behavior is enabled in the case of the raids being successful.

Would one instinct be absent, individuals would suffer less:

• Without the procreation instinct, there were less or no reasons for raids, depending on the own resources.   
• Without the ingroup-outgroup-instinct, raids were not possible, less procreation were possible due to less resources.

 

One should not shrug this off as if it were merely a remote problem in Africa.   The simple and therefore obvious mechanisms described in the study can be generalized and recognized in the sad every day occurrence, that people force disadvantages upon outgroup members in favor of advantages for their own progeny.    

• The raid can be replaced by the wider concept of exploitation in situations of asymmetrical power.  The same mechanism, that has been shown in the study above, is also at the bottom of all the outrageous injustice and cruelty of the world wide globalized system of exploitation.  
• Having more wives and more children can be replaced by the greedy accumulating of control over resources.    A person, who dies without offspring has no reason to amass more wealth than what he needs for the preferred standard of life during his own lifetime.    But someone leaving behind wealth as an inheritance bestows advantages to further generations of bearers of his own genes.   His offspring have a better chance of healthy survival, in turn they may have more offspring than without the inheritance.  

Whenever someone in the situation of direct or economic power exploits other humans, expecially slaves, illegal immigrant workers or inmates of labor camps, he has first defined them as an outgroup.   Only by this he is able to apply very different standards to them than to those people, whom he considers as his ingroup, while nevertheless not feeling cognitive dissonance with his idea of behaving morally.  

In the complex globalized system of exploitation, there are layers of ingroups and outgroups, as the example of this documentary shows.  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gktid0YO9s

• To the privileged social class of plantation owners, the slaves are the outgroup.   These landlords are the most directly and knowingly cruel persons.  
• To those Ivorians, who abduct people from Mali, these are perceived as outgroup by being citizens of another country.   This is a form of raids, which are not a part of remote tribal life.  
• To the companies importing the cocoa beans and to the consumers of chocolate, all Africans are outgroup.  The majority of the uninformed customer are in denial or even truly ignorant of the sufferings caused by chocolate as an apparently inland product.   But those managers, who dictate the prices, are aware of the unavoidably dire situation of workers not being paid sufficiently.  

The worst cause of human suffering are the instincts, which humans share with animals.  There cannot be a better world, until people recognize the damage done by instincts and until the control of the instincts is eliminated and replaced by the rational concept of global equality and global equal rights.         

724. The Hierarchy Instinct: Research On Competitiveness

724.  The Hierarchy Instinct: Research On Competitiveness

I have been speculating before, that instinctivity is a significant trait distinguishing individuals.  By Instinctivity I am referring to animal instincts, which also influence human behavior.    The hierarchy instinct is one aspect thereof.   Competitiveness is a trait, competition an behavior, both are the noticeable expressions of the invisible hierarchy instinct.

There are some research results showing and explaining by evolutionary mechanisms the variability of the level of competitiveness:

"Virtually all organisms in the living world compete with members of their own species. However, individuals differ strongly in how much they invest into their competitive ability. Some individuals are highly competitive and eager to get access to high-quality resources, while others seem to avoid competition, instead making prudent use of the lower-quality resources that are left over for them. Moreover, the degree of competitiveness in animal and human societies seems to fluctuate considerably over time. A new study sheds some new light on these findings."

"If not too much is at stake, that is, if high-competitive individuals acquire only slightly better resources than low-competitive individuals, evolution leads to the stable coexistence of two types of individuals: one type does not invest into competition at all and is content with lower-quality resources, and a second type that invest an appreciable (but not maximal) part of their energy into being competitive. If much is at stake, such coexistence does not occur. Instead, the model predicts cyclical changes in competitive ability over time. "

"However, also in humans there is huge diversity in competitiveness, and individuals with highest competitive ability often seem least prudent in the exploitation of their resources. It is therefore tempting to speculate that the external stimulation of competitiveness by societal pressure, which is analogous to the stimulation of competitiveness by the female preferences in our model, can lead to such a wastage of resources that our future survival is threatened."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141029084021.htm

721. Research: The Personality Of Alley Dogs

721.   Research:  The Personality Of Alley Dogs

I have been speculating several times in previous entries that the general individual level and strength of instinctivity and the magnitude of the male urge to behave as copulating alley dogs objectifying and abusing women could be a personality trait distributed along a bell curve and also that the observable net power of the instinctive behavior were the absolute power of the instincts modified by the rationally derived amount of self-control.  

I just read about some research results which seem to point in this direction: 

"Can aspects of personality help explain a predilection towards risky sexual behaviors in developing adolescents? Researchers approached this question by surveying middle adolescents of various personality types. The three most common personality types found across cultures and age groups are undercontrollers (extroverted, disagreeable, unconscientiousness, open to new experiences), overcontrollers (agreeable, conscientious, introverted, emotionally unstable), and resilients (agreeable, conscientious, open to experiences, extraverted, emotionally stable)."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140905113909.htm

717. The Difference Between Animals And Humans

717.   The Difference Between Animals And Humans

Some people deny, that there is any decisive difference between animals and humans.   To me such a claim seems to be made by those in need of an excuse for allowing themselves the behavior of animals in disregard for the consequences. 

The most significant difference is the human ability of memorize sufficient knowledge and experience, which enables only humans for the long term anticipation of the consequences of their behavior.   Thus they are capable to recognize the harmful effects of instinctive behavior to an extent, which can lead to the conscious decision against such behavior.  

Under natural conditions, at some times animals find plenty of food, at others none.    Their instinct to eat as much as possible to store body fat is an evolutionary advantage for survival.   Until 10 000 years ago, and sometimes even much later, this was also the case for humans.
Today the reasoning ability enables humans to not always give in to the impulse to eat, because they want to avoid the anticipated consequence of obesity.    More precisely, the reasoning supplies the knowledge, but the balance between the power of instinctivity and the counter power of rationality and willpower determine the behavior.   Therefore some people are more than others able to keep their weight between healthy limits.  
Overfed pets just get fatter and fatter. 

It is the same concerning the survival of the species.    Animals do not hesitate to copulate, when they are driven by instincts, because they are unable to know, that at some time later, they will be severely punished with the atrocity of giving birth and the burden of raising the offspring.    

Only humans are capable to recognize early enough, that the survival of the species and procreation is a form of self-harming for the individual person.   The cognitive ability of a considerable number of humans to consciously reject procreation is a very unique trait of humans. 

The critical cognitive distance from instincts and the resulting freedom of decision is therefore what makes humans unique.   This ability to prevent self-harming comes along with the ability to also know, when the own behaviors cause harm and suffering to others.

 

When a cat catches a bird and drops it somewhere seriously wounded, the cat lacks any ability to recognize the suffering of the bird.  The same holds true too, when animals seriously hurt each other during struggles for the alpha position.   Animals cannot know, when the side effect of their instinctive behavior is strong suffering.
Humans can know this. Therefore it cannot be morally justified, that many humans use and consider their cognitive qualities only as a tool serving a more successful application of their instincts.   This aggravates the suffering of others instead of avoiding and preventing it.  People, who consciously follow their instinct, are knowingly cruel.  

This means that the cognitive ability to recognize the consequences of the own behavior brings along the moral obligation to avoid harm and suffering of others as much as of oneself.

 

Unfortunately, many people live by double standards.   When they benefit from using their rational brain, they do it.   But when others are concerned, they allow themselves willingly to be ruthlessly determined by instinctive drives. 

The same hunter, who during the day shoots animals feeling entitled to do so due to being a human, nevertheless claims in the evening his right to follow his animal nature by copulating like an alley dog with a prostitute, not perceiving the woman as an abused and degraded human being but only as an object.   Shooting at humans of another country or ethnic group driven by the ingroup-outgroup instinct, he also has allowed himself to be controlled by an animal instinct, even though his reason could recognize this as absurd, as animal but as certainly not human.

Who feels superior to animals due to being human should also be congruent in not giving in to his own animal urges.    Excusing and condoning animal behavior by misrepresenting it as the human nature is not only absurd, but also the consequences are fatal, usually for all parties involved.

715. Love Cannot Be Defined, But A Loving Relationship Can

715.  Love Cannot Be Defined, But A Loving Relationship Can

Love is an emotion, which is felt and cannot be clearly defined.   It is easier to define, what is not love, than what is.  
The mere urge to copulate with a body is certainly not love but only a virulent expression of the procreation instinct.    Whatever form of attraction there may be, nothing can be called love with justification, unless there is the recognition and appreciation of the cognitive qualities and personality of the partner. 

The relationship of a couple can be defined as loving by behaviors, by which the quality of the bond between the partners is directly or indirectly expressed.
  
The criteria of a loving relationship:

1. Emotional attachment and emotional intimacy
2. Physical intimacy
3. Some amount of intellectual intimacy, depending upon the amount of intelligence and education
4. Exclusivity, each being special to the other in a way, which nobody else is
5. No need or inclination to wish or to search for someone else

When all the above criteria for a loving relationship are present, and when the couple has also explicitly agreed to stay together indefinitely, then they have accepted to be a loving couple.  Obviously both experience sufficiently, whatever love means for them personally.

But when two persons share physical intimacy repeatedly with each other during a considerable time, even for years, and they do not consider themselves as a couple in a loving relationship, there can be very different arrangements.  

In the case, that it is really only physical intimacy and nothing else, then this is just a variety of reciprocal abuse and taking advantage of each other, while they prefer the practical advantage of avoiding the recurrent hunt and search for someone different.

But there is also the concept of friends with benefits (FWB), where the word friend really means true friendship, and is not just confounded as synonymous with mere acquaintance.   

A true friend is someone, with whom there are ties of emotional and intellectual intimacy in some form.    This is the essence of friendship.  When physical intimacy is added to the true friendship, then this combination contains all esential ingredients for a loving relationship.   

When the couple nevertheless explicitly puts emphasis upon the distinction of being FWB, but not being a loving couple, this means more often than not, that their are some serious personal problems.

1. It can be a sign of selfishness and greed, when someone wants all the benefits of being in a loving relationship while also wanting all the advantages of being single.   It is an attempt to get all needs met while not having any obligations to also meet the other's needs.  
   
2. There can be fear and apprehension.  
   Someone may fear commitment and obligations.  
   Someone may fear failure and getting the more hurt, the more he allows involvement.   
   Someone may be torn apart between the fear of a repetition of a very hurtful past experience and the wish to have a better relationship. Someone may fear to fail, would accepting love lead to the next step of further closeness by living together. 
   Someone may succeed to maintain the denial of such fears by insisting on the denial of any emotional involvement.  
   
3. There can be unrealistic hopes and expectations.   The real quality of the present relationship is not appreciated as sufficient in comparison with imaginary ideals.  The relationship is considered as a temporary arrangement until either the ideal and perfect partner is found or until someone experiences that overwhelming sudden sensation, as which love is presented in fictional novels or movies. 

This FWB concept seems weird.

It cannot be explained by evolutionary biology.    By instinct, men want to sire as many offspring as possible with as many different sets of genes.   By instinct, women want commitment and attachment as the best way of provision for their offspring.   

While FWB does not cater for the needs of the instinct driven, it nevertheless also does not serve the specific needs of those with a very low instinctivity, the brainiacs, eggheads and intellectuals. Their needs for intellectual and emotional intimacy, for the companionship of shared extensive cultural and cognitive activities are best fulfilled in a close loving relationship.
 
Maybe FWB suits predominantly the needs of the people in the middle of the instinctivity bell curve, who are the most disturbed by their internal struggle between the contradictory forces of instincts versus rationality and self-control.  

As long as both persons implied want either love or FWB, they can get, what they want.   But sadly enough, often there is a disparity, probably when people differ very much in their level of instinctivity.  While one partner experiences all the criteria as given and thus himself as being in a loving relationship, the other is afflicted with some of the problems listed above and keeps on enforcing a distance by insisting to be only FWB.    

714. The Big Difference Between Childfree Women And Childfree Men

714.   The Big Difference Between Intrinsically Childfree Women And Childfree Men

A frequent topic discussed in groups or forums of childfree people is the difficulty to find a childfree partner.  

While all childfree people are different from more average people, unfortunately the biological differences between the genders seem to be more pronounced in the childfree than in instotypicals.   (I call those people, whose instinctivity suffices to facilitate the survival of the species, instotypicals.   Thus, all instotypicals are breeders, but being a breeder does not make someone automatically an instotypical)

The following is about intrinsically childfree people by inclination, not about breeders manqué including those by political considerations.

1.  Instotypical women (IW) are driven by an instinctive urge to breed.   Breeding is a function of their body, it requires no use of the brain.  Animals are breeding successfully, unless they have become extinct.
Therefore IWs identify with their body, their focus of self-improvement is upon the body, their self-worth depends upon their looks.   They consider their body as an asset, the improvement of their looks as an investment to find the man with good genes to sire healthy offspring and the man, who can provide for them.   For IW, they are often not the same.
 
Once IW have children, they become not only emotionally attached to them but even addicted to care for them. 
One consequence is their willingness to accept self-sacrifice, which could even be called self-abuse.  They choose the agony of giving birth, health risks, plus dull, unpleasant, abhorrent and annoying activities for years.   By accepting the chores of not only regular cleaning but even the changing of stinking diapers, they make themselves the slaves of selfish, very incompetent and irrational beings, who for many years remain unfit for any intellectually rewarding interaction.   IW accept to be the slaves of pre-human beings, which are more like animals.  
Once they have made these pre-human beings the significant center of their life, once the father is legally bound to pay, the IW often looses interest in the person of the man.  For her, he has become a purse, a bank account, a handyman, a taxi driver.  

2.  Instotypical men (IM) are driven by an instinctive urge to sire.   As the breeding outcome thereof cannot be predicted, the recurrent dishomeostasis does not depend on the breeding success.   The instinctive urge to sire is an urge to have as many offspring with as many healthy women as are available, it does not imply any attachment to the women nor any inclination to take part in raising the brood.   If an IM does, it is the price he is willing to pay to be subscribed to the recurrent access to the same woman's body.   Some men prefer this over the repeated hunting for new victims for siring attempts.    

3.  A childfree woman (CFW), who is not a breeder manqué, is this by lacking the breeding instinct.   This makes a lot of the body focused behavior of the IW obsolete or at least unimportant.  To find a companion to share cultural and intellectual activities, a woman needs other traits and qualities than good looks.  
It is the absence of the dominant instinctivity, which allows childfree women to recognize breeding as an unnecessary burden to refuse it.

4. In contrast to the CFW, childfree men (CFM) cannot be explained or defined by the absence of a breeding instinct, which even male breeders do not have.   For any man, being the provider of children adds a heavy burden upon his life, especially if the number of the children restricts the mother to be only a housewife.    Wishing to avoid as much as possible of the stress of the professional rat race, and additionally disliking the deficit of benefits from being with a woman, who is an overburdened mother, is independent of the magnitude of a man's instinctivity.  
Therefore remaining childfree and finding a CFW is an expression of a general male wish to avoid for himself the disadvantages of raising children. 


This leads to a sad discrepancy: 

The CFW want men, who appreciate their non-physical, cognitive qualities.   But many CFM are attracted by the same siring instinct to the same female breeders as had been those, who have succumbed to breeding.    While they remain CFM, they feel an urge to sire, yet they want the guaranty of no success.   They just do not want to be themselves involved in breeding. 
CFM feel inclined to strive for the same stupid attributes of masculinity, like fitness, muscles, strength, ambition, success, assets, competition.  Thus they appear attractive to the provider seeking breeders, whom they do not want.   They are ignorant, that what attracts breeders often does not interest or even repulse the CFW.   They know nothing except their own struggle with their own siring instinct.   They are not aware, that only the absence of the breeding instinct makes women really CFW.

CFW have a problem finding a suitable match.   CFM are oblivious of what distinguishes CFW from wanna-be breeders, what CFW need and want and how to recognize those truly not afflicted by the breeding instinct.    CFM often get involved with breeders temporarily in the skin of a CFW. 

713. When One Irrationality Serves To Reinforce Another

713.  When One Irrationality Serves To Reinforce Another

Wars are a manifestation of the ingroup-outgroup instinct.  

The more someone perceives, defines and identifies himself as a bearer of genes and his purpose of existence as to enable his genes to survive and to spread, the more any behavior favoring his own progeny is subjectively logical to him.  Even exploiting and killing outgroup members thus appears permissible and even mandatory to him.   
Rationality ascribing equal rights to any person on this globe makes the ingroup-outgroup obsolete.  But while this instinct it is often consciously, publicly and legally discarded and rejected, it prevails subconsciously.  

When people are torn in cognitive dissonance, when they are oscillating between rational behavior and irrational instinctive urges and tendencies, a variety of irrational beliefs are invented to ease the inner conflict.  
These beliefs allow people to succumb to and to follow their instincts without feeling bad.   For many people, this comes easier than to rationally conquer instincts.  

While denial prevents to recognize and acknowledge the irrationality of the belief itself, being guided by this belief makes the instinctive behavior subjectively appear rational.    Thus the pseudo-rationality of the belief enhances instinctive behavior, even though it is obsolete and harmful.

The following article is an interesting indication of how war is reinforced by religious beliefs. 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140515153811.htm

"World War I -- the “war to end all wars” -- in fact sowed seeds for future international conflicts in a way that has been largely overlooked: through religion, says a historian and author. Widespread belief in the supernatural was a driving force during the war and helped mold all three of the major religions -- Christianity, Judaism and Islam -- paving the way for modern views of religion and violence, he said."

703. Differing Effects Of Varieties Of The Visual Objectification Of Women

703.  Differing Effects Of Varieties Of The Visual Objectification Of Women

The objectification and commodification of women by visual representations is nothing new.  

"The female nudes in Roman mosaics exalt beauty, the carnality and eroticism, while male bodies reflect determination, strength and power. This is one of the conclusions of research that analyzed the cultural construction and ideological implications of these artistic representations in which female predominate as compared to those of males."

"The deeply asymmetric treatment of male and female bodies is evident and, therefore, constitutes a reflection of relationships based on power, according to the researchers. "

"the main male figures tend to be gods, heroes and mythological beings, or else wrestlers and athletes."

"One very revealing example is a representation of Ariadne or the Nereid that shows a nude female figure lying on a marine animal, with one arm behind her head in a position and with a gesture that has been interpreted as "availability to the other.""

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140210083155.htm

The text of this video is in Spanish, but it shows some good examples of the mosaics:  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKVwl4leLkU

 

These mosaics are expressions of the misperception, that women were objects existing to be used by men. This misperception had been women's plight through history.  

But there is a fundamental difference between the effects upon men's brains by ancient mosaics, frescos, statues or pottery decorations and the contemporary effects by the overexposure to more or less pornographic life like representations of female bodies.

No matter how provocative and explicit the ancient representations, they were nevertheless clearly and unequivocally artifacts.   Looking at a mosaic with whatever fantasy cannot have the same desensitizing effect upon a man's subconscious instincts as that which follows the abuse of a real woman.   (I consider any use of a female body without emotional attachment and without commitment as a form of abuse.)

Today the situation is much worse.   Visual representations, especially by high quality colorful moving pictures, are so much like real life people, that the male subconscious mind cannot distinguish between seeing a real woman and seeing a filmed representation of her.  (Thanks to Kanazawa for this insight).   The fantasy of abusing a filmed woman therefore contributes to the desensitization of men as if they had abused a real woman.  
This makes pornography so devastating.  Frequent abuse causes desensitization.   Desensitization lowers the threshold for attempting and intending more abuse.   It also blurs the male awareness, that approaching a woman for abuse is often perceived by the target as an insult and offense.          

Would any model or actress enact the exact scenes of the Roman mosaics, as far as there is an effect, that by the mosaic and that by the photo of the inaction on a man's brain would be very different. 
The mosaic would reinforce a man's conscious attitude, that women are there to serve him and to be used.   The photo would trigger his instincts, and subconsciously he would perceive the picture as an available real woman. 
 
I personally cannot see any additional artistic value of nudity compared with dress in any work of art and I also see no harm in nudity, when the represented naked body is obviously and unequivocally an artifact and not a real naked body presented for abuse and commerce.    But the contemporary pictures are too much resembling real life women and thus they are confounding men's instincts.  Such pictures have a very detrimental effect upon male brains, which those Roman mosaics could never have.  

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.       

699. Is The Own Body A Merchandise?

699.   Is The Own Body A Merchandise?

"French MPs have approved a bill that will penalise anyone paying for sex.

The bill, which was adopted by a vote of 268 to 138, with 79 abstentions, establishes a fine of at least 1,500 euros ($2,030) for buying sexual acts."

"The 1,500-euro fine is for first offenders - subsequent offences could be more than double that."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25217185

There are some more articles concerning the controversial aspects.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/09/opinion/frances-new-approach-to-curbing-prostitution.html

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/05/france-s-new-prostitution-law-targets-johns-ignites-national-debate.html
 

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/technology/2013/12/across-europe-growing-sense-legalized-prostitution-isnt-working/7777/

Opposition to the new law comes not only from men, but also from misguided feminists, who are probably too desensitized to be aware of the fallacy of their thinking.  

Prostitution fills the asymmetrical gap between the magnitude of most men's biological urges and the lack of the same amount and urgency in the majority of women.   If women would enjoy copulation without emotional attachment and without commitment as much as men, enough women would want this and no men would have a reason to pay for it.
  
Prostitution is enabled by the combination of the asymmetrical male urges and men's onesided advantages of physical and/or economical power.

There are two fallacies in the demand for legalized prostitution:

Fallacy 1.

Prostitution is called sex work.   Whenever there is no direct coercion, it is alleged and claimed to be a more or less fair deal.  
It would only be a fair deal and a free choice in the case, when a woman has a real, not only a legal right and chance to get all the schooling and training she wants and a well paid agreeable job, and when in spite of this she nevertheless prefers to sell the self-abuse of her body.     
Defining a woman's last straw in a dire need for survival as a free choice and as a fair deal is a fallacy of desensitized people. 

Fallacy 2.

There is a claim, that women should be completely free to do with their own bodies, whatever they want, including selling it.  

If this is to be accepted, then this has to be applied fully and with no other restrictions.   Women then should be given the full freedom of choice, how to use their bodies as a source of an income and what kind of harm they are most willing to suffer.
  
Right now, except selling blood, in most countries other methods are not legally available.   If there are illegal practices, the owner of the bodies get themselves very little, while criminal agencies make profit.   

Comparing the non-financial costs and benefits, prostitution is undoubtedly the worst option for the abused women themselves:

1.  Prostitution 

When a prostitute sells her self-abuse, she serves as a toilet for a selfish man's body waste. 

The costs for the women are the disgust and agony during the recurrent abuse and the long-term psychological and physical damage, for example often substance abuse and the inability to ever emotionally bond with a man.
 

The only benefits are what the abusers perceive as pleasure.  

2.  Selling body parts

Would the women be allowed the choice to sell a kidney (or any other body part, which can be sold without disabling oneself) instead, this would not merely enable a man to acquire selfish abuse, but it would help someone to survive and it would also safe resources needed for the general health care.   Recurrent dialysis is extremely expensive and inconvenient.   A woman (or any person) could be paid the amount of money saved by preventing some years of dialysis.   

The costs for the women are the risk of an operation and the loss of one kidney.  
 

The benefits are for all persons getting off dialysis and having a normal life with a working kidney.

3.  Selling unwanted babies.

Even the uterus and its contents are a part of a woman's body.  If unwillingly pregnant women are allowed any choice at all, it is between abortion and donating the child for adoption.  While it is considered as suitable to impose the paid more general abuse upon women's reproductive area for the mere satisfaction of men's instincts, there is no logical reason, why they should not be allowed to sell the use of the filled uterus instead.    
Women should have the right to the alternative of selling unwanted children or of producing babies for other people as surrogate mothers.  This should be a fair option for the avoidance of the agony of prostitution.  

The costs for the women are the inconvenience, suffering and expenses of pregnancy and giving birth.   For those women, who do not want to breed, there are no emotional costs. 

The benefits are the fulfilling of the breeding urges of those people, who are unhappy without children.  They would be spared futile fertility treatment and more babies would be available to be adopted.  The benefits are also for the babies, who grow up as wanted.

 

Selling body parts and babies has to be restricted as a direct deal between the giver and the health insurance or the receiver, without any greedy third party making profit from it.

Of course I cannot know it, but I am convinced, that many prostitutes would prefer to sell a body part or a baby, if only they were allowed to do this to prevent the agony of being abused. 

Either the own body is a merchandise to be freely used by its owner, then all forms of use have to be legal.   If it is not a merchandise, then prostitution cannot be defined as an exception, only because those powerful men with the influence over legislation are too often themselves the abusers wishing to perpetuate their privileges.   

 

It is an outrage that even in rich countries, some women are deprived of any other means of survival except the use of their bodies.   But it is even more an outrage, that these women are not even allowed a fair choice, how to use their bodies to acquire survival with the least harm for themselves.   

As long as it is considered as morally wrong to sell body parts or a baby, prostitution cannot, neither logically nor ethically, be justified by the right of women to do with their body, what they want.  
As long as it is legally impossible to sell a body part or a baby, men taking advantage of women selling self-abuse as this being their only legal option are abusers, who deserve to be punished.  

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.      

682. The Hazard Of Being A Woman

682.   The Hazard Of Being A Woman 

When only looking at attitudes, morals and intentions, there may be as many women not hesitating to exploit men as there are men not hesitating to abuse women.    But the harm actually done depends not only on the intentions, but also on the power to enact them.  

Men's advantage of greater physical strength gives them power to succeed in causing harm to women, who in spite of whatever their intentions are nevertheless restricted to be victims rather than perpetrators.

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/130910_rape

"Nearly a fourth of men in the Asia-Pa­cif­ic re­gion ad­mit to hav­ing raped some­one-at least, if they’re asked about it in a way that avoids the word “rape,” a study has found.

Re­search­ers sur­veyed more than 10,000 men aged 50 and un­der from six dif­fer­ent coun­tries in the re­gion, from both ur­ban and ru­ral ar­eas."

"The sur­veys were con­ducted in Bang­la­desh, Cam­bo­dia, Chi­na, In­do­ne­sia, Pap­ua New Guin­ea, and Sri Lanka."

"Elev­en per­cent re­ported hav­ing raped a wom­an who was not their part­ner. When men who re­ported hav­ing raped a part­ner were in­clud­ed, this pro­por­tion rose to 24 per­cent. Of those men who re­ported hav­ing com­mit­ted rape, 45 per­cent said they had raped more than one wom­an.

When asked why they had com­mit­ted rape, 73 per­cent said that they did so for rea­sons of sex­u­al en­ti­tle­ment, 59 per­cent for some sort of en­ter­tain­ment, and 38 per­cent for what they per­ceived as pun­ish­ment."

Of course this does not warrant any misinterpretations of Asian men as being more instinct driven animals than men elsewhere.   They only live in societies, where they risk less punishment than their equally abusive peers in western societies, who are restricted to pay for abuse or to apply trickery and manipulation instead of violence.   

The sad biological reality, that by instinct men are attracted to and perceive female bodies as mere toilets for their body waste, blurs all men's comprehension of the magnitude of the atrocity experienced by the victims of rape.   Even many well meaning and decent men are deprived of empathy for many women's very different reaction to unwelcome close contact with strangers' bodies.   This reaction is disgust and nausea.  

There are many suggestions as to how rapists should be punished.   But in my personal opinion neither imprisonment nor even the death penalty are appropriate as sufficient punishment.   
Instead, every rapist should be forced to suffer the same amount of disgust and nausea as his victim.   He should be forced to eat something like dog shit, vomit or rotten meat with maggots.   And every man, who trivializes the full atrocity of rape should imagine, what he would feel, were he to suffer the disgust of eating such substances.                 

681. Strong Instincts Are Women's And Men's Common Enemy

681.  Strong Instincts Are Women's And Men's Common Enemy
 

This blog may appear biased, because I am a woman writing about what kind of a mindmate I am looking for.  Thus I am focusing upon the harm done by men's strong instincts to women, which I want to prevent myself from suffering, while the damage done by foolish and also instinct driven women to men does not concern me.   

This omission is no denial of the reality, that both masculinity and femininity as expressions of instinctive roles, which are equally dysfunctional for individual happiness.  

Male and female instincts have evolved in the animal ancestors to complement each other for an optimized success of procreation.  These instincts force people to make both themselves sacrifices for their offspring and they force them also upon others.  By these instincts, personal sufferings does not impede procreation.  
High instinctivity leads to a high identification with and display of masculinity in men and of femininity in women.  The instinctive urges cause different varieties of harm to the other gender.   Masculinity leads to the abuse women's bodies without attachment and commitment.   Femininity leads to the exploitation of men as providers by choosing attachment only to the children.
 

The instinctive attractions are often symmetrical, men with high instinctivity expressed as strong masculinity are attracted to women with high instinctivity expressed as strong femininity and vice versa.    In this case, the most abusive men fall for the most exploitative women and the most exploitative women are also the most prone to become victims of abuse by a bad choice.

But whenever there is a mismatch in the amount of instinctivity, then the partner with the stronger instinctivity is very prone to hurt and harm the less instinctive and more rational person, who does not reciprocate due to not being equally driven by instinct to cause harm.   

Thus, a battle between the genders is irrational.  Both genders have one common enemy, which is the subconscious power of animal instinctive forces over them, of which they are unfortunately usually not even aware.   If both genders would learn to reject, repress and fight against all instincts, which hurt and harm others, then male abuse and female exploitation could be if not eliminated then at least drastically reduced.  

 

Masculinity and femininity are not needed for the forming of bonded and committed couples.   The biological and therefrom deducted behavioral differences between the genders are only biologically needed for procreation.   Strong instincts only serve the compulsive production of offspring overriding any rational decision for or against breeding as a mere choice.  

There is evidence, that the difference between masculinity and femininity is obsolete for couples' happiness, when couples bond as individuals and not as breeders.  This evidence are all those lesbian and gay couples, who are getting married, where this is legal, and who are able and motivated to form longterm bonded unions based upon intellectual, emotional and physical intimacy.  

These couples can be a model for a new form of heterosexual couples, who also are focusing on equality in spite of belonging to different genders.   

When procreation is not the goal, then egalitarian models of choosing and preferring similarity are a rational option for all couples, also for heterosexual ones.   This includes the option to choose psychologically androgynous partners with only a low instinctivity towards being masculine or feminine.   

The happiness in a committed union of two individuals does not require any differences.  If only differences would attract each other, then twins, even identical twins, could not be so strongly bonded and attached as they often are.   Two persons, who are very much alike each other, could become attached like twins, with the addition of physical intimacy.

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.   

676. The Effects Of Attire - A Rational Woman's Subjective Perspective

676.  The Effects Of Attire - A Rational Woman's Subjective Perspective

Whatever people do to their exterior in the realm of attire and body modification, it has effects upon others' perception.  

In the following, the person choosing an attire is the source, the perceiving observer is the target of these effects.   

First some general thoughts:

These effects can

• convey information or clues suggesting and enabling surmises about the sources' invisible attributes.
• trigger or influence the targets' behaviors.  

The effects upon the targets depend upon

• the power of instinctivity leading to spontaneous and automatic reactions
• rationality and awareness controlling and impeding instinctive reactions.

Effects by the source are

• rationally intentional and successful in agreement with the target
• rationally intentional and successfully manipulating the target
• rationally intentional and not successful, when recognized and avoided by the target
• rationally intentional and counterproductive, when recognized and counteracted by the target
• unintentionally collateral and irrelevant.
• unavoidably collateral and counterproductive
• instinct driven, unaware and counterproductive.

The significance of these effects depends upon the subjective identity of the source:

• Strong instincitivity leads to an identity of predominantly being a body and this implies the expectation of benefits from effects upon another body. 
• A predominant rationality leads to identify with invisible traits of the brain.  By such an identity, benefits are expected by verbal communication and behavior. 

How to rationally deal with the effects of attire:

• As a target, it is of paramount importance to always attempt to evaluate and interpret the intention behind people's attire and to always strive for the full awareness of the own spontaneous, instinctive and irrational reactions.  
  Based upon this, a rational target can react independently to perceived effects and avoid being influenced to the own disadvantage. 
  
• As a source, costs and benefits of the effects of the chosen attire have to be carefully evaluated and compared. 
  Costs can be financial, invested time, endured pain, discomfort and social disadvantages.
  Most benefits to be gained by the effects of attire are only substitutes for what can be also gained by verbal communication and by intentional active behavior.   
  Rationally, benefits from attire and body modification are not worth the cost.

Subjectively:

As a rational woman with an identity based upon invisible traits of my brain and not upon traits of my body, the following is my personal attitude towards attire and body modification.

• As a target, I use other people's attire as a source of information.   This helps to know, whom to esteem, whom to avoid altogether, when possible, and how to avoid being influenced by the intention of the attire.    It is important to make conscious rational decision and to avoid spontaneous reactions.  
  
• As a source, I consider my attire not as an instrument to intend any positive effects.  Nothing of what could maybe be gained by external effects of attire is rationally justifiable. 
  But I have always attempted to actively avoid the undignified effect of triggering the abusive instincts of male animals.  It was futile.  Even though I always was a bit more covered than most other women, hoping to divert the animals to them was in vain.   Sadly enough, my experience at a younger age was, that short of wearing a tent, nothing helped to spare me being approached for the intention to abuse my body.  

Some examples of information important for a woman when evaluating a man.

• Occupation
  Some jobs and hobbies require protective and hygienic attire for practical reasons.   It is important to distinguish necessary attire from attire chosen for effects.
  
  
• General conformity
  Following fashions or limiting the scope of selectable attire according to what is considered as social rules and normative dress code is a form of petty submissiveness.  Examples are men, who hate to shave but continue to do so every day and men, who deny themselves the comfort of wearing sandals or who are bothered about avoiding specific colors of socks along with the sandals.    They are pathetic and ridiculous.
  Such men have a scaring effect upon me.  They can be a jeopardy to a woman, when by the same submission to conformity they also do hurtful things to her.
  
  
• Physical masculinity
  Intentional masculinity, which is expressed for example by investing a lot of time and effort into extensive work-outs for the purpose of muscle-build-up, includes a favorable attitude towards aggressiveness and an inclination to fighting and to competing for a high rank and a position of power and domination.
  Such a man is a high risk, not only because his strength allows him to physically force his will upon a woman, but also by the positive attitude to collateral effects of masculinity as is the objectification of and domination over women.  This effect scares me.
  
  
• Group conformity
  Some men enhance their own subjective masculinity by adhering to groups, which have traditionally cultivated a form of masculinity, which included abuse and degradation of women as a part of the conformity to the group.   They express the adherence to such groups by their attire and body modifications. 
  Outfit and tattoos of motorcycle rockers, street gangs, military and sailors are examples, where the effect of identifying someone as a group member is also recognizing him as a hazard to women.
  
  
• Manipulation
  Any men dealing with large amounts of money, for example insurance agents, bankers or dealers of luxury goods, who want to pursue their own pecuniary advantage by appearing as honest as they are not, choose the crooks' uniform.   Its effects are their method of enhancing the success of their manipulation.   
  Their attire is an expensive looking suit, a tie, a clean shaven face and a neat haircut.   Their trick is creating the false impression, that this intentionally over correct attire lures people to make the mistake to expect correct behavior. 
  Upon myself, the effect is the contrary.  I am so aware of this manipulative strategy, that I never trust a man in a suit and a tie and with a clean shaven face.
     
• Attitude based group membership
  Members and role bearers of religious, woo-woo and political groups of any kind use their attire to signal their group membership.    This has the effect that I can avoid those men, from whom I am separated by a mental abyss. 
   
  

Independence and intellectual identity
 

Wise, rational and decent, non-manipulate people do not make sacrifices of time, money or comfort for the purpose of exterior effects.  They consider and experience external vanity as foolish and irrational.  Their attire serves only their subjective comfort and wellbeing.   They do not attempt to influence others by superficial and manipulative effects, they use verbal communication and correct behavior instead. 

A man wearing cheap sneakers, jeans, t-shirts and a beard due to not being bothered to shave every day expresses by this his rational identity.  (To avoid misunderstandings:  This does not imply neglect.  Comfort does not preclude the attire to be clean and not tattered.)

Depending upon what else I know about his invisible traits and attributes, such a man can have an attracting effect upon me, and he is also a good candidate for becoming trustworthy as a kindred mind.

674. The Omitted Cognition In The Interpretation Of Research Results Concerning Monogamy

674.   The Omitted Cognition In The Interpretation Of Research Results Concerning Monogamy

Research on questions of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology are very valuable methods towards explaining, why the subconscious power of instincts interferes so much with the conscious and cognitive goals and needs of humans.    But it is overdoing this, when humans are mistaken for being not more than animals with a specific instrumental intelligence only serving a better success in fulfilling instinctive urges.    The unique human cognition has some special implications, which need to be taken into account.  


Evolution of Monogamy in Humans the Result of Infanticide Risk, New Study Suggests
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130729161558.htm

"Infants are most vulnerable when they are fully dependent on their mother because females delay further conception while nursing slowly developing young. This leads to the threat from unrelated males, who can bring the next conception forward by killing the infant. Sharing the costs of raising young both shortens the period of infant dependency and can allow females to reproduce more quickly."

Monogamy Evolved as a Mating Strategy: New Research Indicates That Social Monogamy Evolved as a Result of Competition
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130729172244.htm

"They found convincing support for the hypothesis that monogamy arose as a mating strategy where males could not defend access to more than one female. Monogamy is associated with low density of females, low levels of home-range overlap, and indirectly, with their diets. The study showed that monogamy evolves in species that rely on high quality but patchily distributed food sources, such as meat and fruit. In contrast, in herbivores, which rely on more abundant resources, social monogamy is rare."

"The analysis did not include humans, and the researchers are sceptical that these results tell us much about the evolution of human breeding systems.

Clutton-Brock added, "It is debatable whether humans should be classified as monogamous. Because all the African apes are polygamous and group living, it is likely that the common ancestor of hominids was also polygamous. One possibility is that the shift to monogamy in humans may be the result in the change of dietary patterns that reduce female density. While another is that slow development of juveniles required extended care by both sexes. However, reliance by humans on cultural adaptations means that it is difficult to extrapolate from ecological relationships in other animals.""

This tunnel view on monogamy is another example, how the special and unique qualities of the human cognition is overlooked or omitted.   

• Humans have emotional and intellectual needs, which can be selectively fulfilled with one specific partner more than with any or with most others.  
• For some humans, these emotional and intellectual needs are stronger or at least as strong as the instinctive needs to breed.
• Humans have the ability to recognize and distinguish other humans as individuals by invisible and exteriorly unnoticeable traits, which can only be discovered and recognized by verbal and cognition based communication.
• Humans have a memory for information gained, which allows them to anticipate the modalities of the fulfillment of emotional and intellectual needs in the future.
• Humans have the ability to comprehend the consequences of their own behavior as a determinant for this future fulfillment.

Therefore monogamy in humans can be more than an evolutionary strategy towards breeding success, instead being an expression of the unique human cognitive evolution towards surpassing the yoke of the full control by animal instincts.    The unique human cognition enables them to decide, that, when and how monogamy is the best choice for a long-term fulfillment of those predominant needs, which are more than just instinctive urges to breed.   

671. Research On Predators' Brains

671.   Research On Predators' Brains

There is a wide variety of men when judging them by the harm, which they inflict on women.  

Nice, responsible, considerate guys know how to treat a woman without hurting her.   They feel an own innate wish for bonding, for monogamy, for a close and committed relationship with a woman perceived as a person.  

Predators, jerks, abusers are instinct driven alley dogs, who make women's life miserable by mistaking their bodies as toilets for male body waste.  

Both varieties exist and of course there are mixed forms between these extremes.   Explaining the difference includes defining the baseline.

 

1.  One possible way to interpret this distinction is to see the abuse of women as the direct and logical effect of unconstrained male libido.   What enables some men to be nice and decent is their special talent or gift to appreciate and respect women to an extent, which suffices to deactivate all destructive and excessive impacts of their libido.   Their recognition and perception of women as companions is an achievement based upon this special aptitude, which may be an expression of emotional intelligence or even an independent cognitive ability.    It is something, which is lacking in animals and in abusers.

2.  The alternative interpretation is defining drastic behavioral urges as a disorder and call it hypersexuality, which is supposed to be an addiction.   This interpretation and definition omits and overlooks to take into any account the impact upon the abused victims.   Their suffering is condoned and misinterpreted as normal, as merely collateral damage.   Hypersexuality is only considered as problematic, when there are unintended and not wished for consequences for the abusers themselves.

I consider the first explanation as more plausible, because the human species is still evolving further towards the development of predominant cognitive talents and abilities.   This ongoing evolution of the unique qualities of the human brain to be more rational than driven by instinctive urges strengthens the ability to make wise decisions, which can override the power of animal instincts.  

 

There has been done a study on abusers' brains.

Sexual desire, not hypersexuality, is related to neurophysiological responses elicited by sexual images.
Vaughn R. Steele, PhD, Cameron Staley, PhD, Timothy Fong, MD and Nicole Prause, PhD.  

http://www.socioaffectiveneuroscipsychol.net/index.php/snp/article/view/20770/28995
 

"Background: Modulation of sexual desires is, in some cases, necessary to avoid inappropriate or illegal sexual behavior (downregulation of sexual desire) or to engage with a romantic partner (upregulation of sexual desire). Some have suggested that those who have difficulty downregulating their sexual desires be diagnosed as having a sexual ‘addiction’. This diagnosis is thought to be associated with sexual urges that feel out of control, high-frequency sexual behavior, consequences due to those behaviors, and poor ability to reduce those behaviors. However, such symptoms also may be better understood as a non-pathological variation of high sexual desire. Hypersexuals are thought to be relatively sexual reward sensitized, but also to have high exposure to visual sexual stimuli. Thus, the direction of neural responsivity to sexual stimuli expected was unclear. If these individuals exhibit habituation, their P300 amplitude to sexual stimuli should be diminished; if they merely have high sexual desire, their P300 amplitude to sexual stimuli should be increased. Neural responsivity to sexual stimuli in a sample of hypersexuals could differentiate these two competing explanations of symptoms."

Methods: Fifty-two (13 female) individuals who self-identified as having problems regulating their viewing of visual sexual stimuli viewed emotional (pleasant sexual, pleasant-non-sexual, neutral, and unpleasant) photographs while electroencephalography was collected.

Results: Larger P300 amplitude differences to pleasant sexual stimuli, relative to neutral stimuli, was negatively related to measures of sexual desire, but not related to measures of hypersexuality.

Conclusion: Implications for understanding hypersexuality as high desire, rather than disordered, are discussed. "

"In conclusion, the first measures of neural reactivity to visual sexual and non-sexual stimuli in a sample reporting problems regulating their viewing of similar stimuli fail to provide support for models of pathological hypersexuality, as measured by questionnaires. Specifically, differences in the P300 window between sexual and neutral stimuli were predicted by sexual desire, but not by any (of three) measures of hypersexuality. If sexual desire most strongly predicts neural responses to sexual stimuli, management of sexual desire, without necessarily addressing some of the proposed concomitants of hypersexuality, might be an effective method for reducing distressing sexual feelings or behaviors."

The study backs up my notion, that male libido is by itself a problem causing harm to women.   Therefore it should be not only considered as problematic, when it has detrimental effects upon the men themselves, but whenever is causes degradation, commodification and objectification of women.   It should be considered already as a problem, while it still is restricted to men's deranged attitudes, before any harm is done to women.