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.  

704. The Irrational Distinction Between The Abuse Of Women And Of Children

704.  The Irrational Distinction Between The Abuse Of Women And Of Children

A German politician has been caught as suspicious of owning child pornography.  Reported in the medias has been his possession of pictures of naked boys, which are not explicitly sexual.  Such pictures are actually not illegal in Germany.  

The German newspaper "Rheinische Post" writes today.  

"Die Bundesregierung plant, den Handel mit Nacktfotos von Kindern zu verbieten. Niemand dürfe mit den Körpern von Kindern und Jugendlichen Geschäfte machen" 

The federal government plans to make the trading naked pictures of children illegal.  Nobody should deal in bodies of children and adolescents.  

"Diese Bilder verletzen die Rechte von Kindern". 
These pictures violate the right of children.

http://www.rp-online.de/politik/handel-mit-kinder-nacktfotos-wird-verboten-aid-1.4046914     

Of course I agree with these quotes.   But it makes me angry, that all outrage and wish to protect is reserved to children, while the exactly the same treatment of adult women is considered as acceptable, normal and reasonable.   

There is a cruel fallacy in this arbitrary distinction of the victims by their age.   This fallacy is the entire focus upon the biological suitability of the victims for male needs and the subsequent denial of the damage done to victimized women.   

Abuse (by men) can be defined as the selfish, inconsiderate and irresponsible use of another human being's body, which a man in the state of dishomeostasis uses as an object for the purpose of getting rid of his body waste.  

Children are not biologically suitable for this.   Therefore nobody disputes children's need to be protected from all abuse, direct and indirect by pornographic representations.

But whenever women are concerned, the view is distorted.   Even though adult women are biologically suitable for sexuality, this does not imply any justification for abuse.  Women are entitled to be only targeted for a form of sexuality, which is no abuse, because it fulfills their emotional needs. 
It is generally accepted, that humans do not exist to be exploited as slaves, just because humans are suitable to do hard labor and others feel a need to make a profit from it.   Women do not exist to be abused, just because they are biologically suitable and men have physiological urges.   This still needs to be accepted.

This first distortion not only justifies the abuse of female bodies by their biological suitability, but the consequence thereof is also the male denial, that using a woman's body without emotional attachment and commitment even is abuse.  

The second distortion is the different interpretation of the damage done depending on the age of the abused victim. 

Only the damage done to children is recognized as such and attributed to the abuse.  
When abused women become drug addicts, alcoholics or psychiatric cases, this is not recognized and acknowledged as a consequence of what men have done to them.  Instead it is falsely attributed to genetic or personality defects.   

According to male attitudes, a sane and healthy woman can be abused without suffering, a woman, who cannot be abused without harm and trouble is defective and flawed.   Women are not considered to need protection against abuse, they are expected to be willing to be fixed, if they lack sufficient resilience.  
Women's self-abuse in exchange for material benefits is mistaken as a choice and as a healthy disposition.   Men's denial, that such self-abuse needs to be attributed to social problems depriving women of other options adds to the other male justifications of abuse.   The frequent delay between the abuse and self-abuse and manifestations of being damaged adds to the male denial of the true causes for the damage.
 

Therefore I am correcting the above quotes:  

Nobody should deal in bodies of other human beings, no matter the age.  

These [naked or pornographic] pictures violate the right of human beings of any age.

Suitability does not suffice to justify harming others.   

Those men, who consume pornography, who abuse prostitutes, who are promiscuous treating and perceiving women as mere toilets for their body waste, are hypocrites, if they demands more protection only for children. 

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.  

697. Desensitization: Abuse As A Christmas Gift

697.  Desensitization:  Abuse As A Christmas Gift

I just came across another scary example of how far the desensitization to the objectification of women has gone, not only by those men, who profit themselves from the abuse.  

One dating-site has sent me the link to a short video.   

First scene:  A man, obviously lonely on Christmas.

Second scene:   The door bell rings and from a delivered box emerges a woman, provocatively dressed in not much more than a reduced Santa costume.   The woman immediately makes physical advances to the man.

Third scene:  The door bell rings again, and a second women is delivered, the man is now handled by one woman on each side.

Forth scene:  The door bell rings again....

At that moment I was too disgusted to watch the rest.   

 

Sending a bunch of prostitutes to be abused is suggested as a Christmas gift.  

As an atheist, Christmas means nothing to me, I have no reason to celebrate the birthday of someone, who either never existed or if he existed was an insignificant person.   To me personally, abuse of women as mere toilets for men's body waste is not any more objectionable on Christmas than it is at any other time.  

But for the Christians, for whom Christmas does have a meaning, people are supposed to form emotionally attached monogamous couple and abuse in any form is considered a sin.  
According to the Christian myth, a child was born by an alleged virgin.   The video suggests to celebrate this event by abusing a bunch of prostitutes.


The message of the video is the culmination of how far abuse has become socially accepted by some part of the population.   The sender of the link has an unequivocally female name.  
This is really disheartening.   Not only men are desensitized to what abuse does to women.  Even many women are desensitized to the long-term detrimental effects of the self-abuse of women. 

The video is meant to be humorous.  Humor trivializes its topics.  Therefore most decent people limit jokes to topics, which do not trivialize outrageous and shocking events like the holocaust or shooting at schools.   Yet people are so desensitized, that the abuse of women is not perceived as a serious outrage, but as something suitable to be trivialized by jokes.  This trivialization reinforces the desensitization.

696. Detrimental Longterm Effects Of Childhood TV Exposure

696.  Detrimental Longterm Effects Of Childhood TV Exposure

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131122084541.htm

"preschoolers who have a TV in their bedroom and are exposed to more background TV have a weaker understanding of other people's beliefs and desires."

"This study shows that TV exposure may impair children's theory of mind development, and this impairment may be partly responsible for disruptive social behaviors."

""When children achieve a theory of mind, they have reached a very important milestone in their social and cognitive development," said lead researcher Nathanson. "Children with more developed theories of mind are better able to participate in social relationships. These children can engage in more sensitive, cooperative interactions with other children and are less likely to resort to aggression as a means of achieving goals.""

People with empathy and a good theory of mind consider the consequences of their behavior upon others.   When men ruthlessly abuse female bodies as toilets for their body waste without any own need for emotional attachment and without any awareness for the degraded women's such needs, this indicates a deficient theory of mind and a state of serious desensitization.  

There have always been such abusers, but they harmed women in defiance to a generally accepted social norm of monogamous attachment.  Sartre and Camus are examples (entry 686).   This then happened inside some subcultures, but before the impact of media upon all young people's minds, abuse did not become a part of the social norm.  

The so called sexual revolution changed the social norm towards the nearly ubiquitous acceptance of abuse as men's alleged natural right and towards the tragic myth of the alleged benefits of self-abuse for the victimized women.

Reading the study quoted above, I can see, why this change of the social norm first happened in the sixties in the USA and only with a delay in other countries.   The first generation of people, who had grown up with TV from an early age on, were also the first generation of people, who were seriously desensitized and distorted in their theory of mind.   In other countries, as in Germany, the same effect came with a delay, which was the delay until the local ubiquity of TV.
An entire generation had lost the ability to fully comprehend the tragedy of the abuse for the victims.   When an entire generation of men had been desensitized to copulate like alley dogs, this sufficed to change the social norm.  Since then the impact of TV has even grown stronger, because as a compensation for the desensitization, the material has become even more drastic and more explicit and more available to choose from.   Therefore it has only been getting worse.    

I grew up as a child without TV, I grew up in the tranquility of not being prematurely disturbed by any detrimental exposure to what has its appropriate place only in the privacy of adults' bedrooms.  I was lucky not to be desensitized concerning my dignity as a female human being, having never lost the full awareness for the monstrosity of the socially accepted abuse.  

Instead I got allergic, The more men are desensitized, the more often women are exposed to the obnoxious impertinence of intended and proposed abuse.   Too frequent exposure to what is noxious can cause allergies, not only by physically noxious substances, but also by emotionally noxious proposals.   

679.   The Subtly Detrimental Influence Of Movies - An Example

Recently I watched the movie 'You've Got Mail'.   I had heard of this movie before as if it were simply a nice and friendly romantic story of an internet match.  

I was quite surprised, when I discovered its detrimental subtle message.  


When only looking at the dynamics of the story, it could be a very exemplary story of the slippery slope of how the allegedly and mistakenly innocent initial behavior of chatting first escalates into emotional cheating and ultimately leads to the breakup of two couples.  

Unfortunately, the movie is not at all a warning for considerate and responsible people to beware of this slippery slope.    To the contrary, it reinforces and encourages people to pursue their own selfish goals without any consideration for their partners, without feeling any commitment and obligation.   The movie is a story about how ruthless and irresponsible transgressions are rewarded.   

Already the secrecy in the first scenes shows, that both protagonists are fully aware of doing something, which they know as not being accepted by their respective partner.  It is clearly emotional cheating. 
Additionally, both couples are shown as being principally in harmony, the respective partners are not presented as having done anything to deserve being dumped.   When the two protagonists decided to cheat, they had not the least excuse in their partners' behavior.

 
Movies are fictional stories, but movies like 'You've Got Mail' are realistic enough to influence people's behavior and their moral compass.    This movie contributes to the desensitization of people towards denial or unawareness for the hurting consequences of how they treat others.  

The fiction of this movie is very unrealistic by presenting the dumped partners as not suffering but both ready to get involved with each other.  
In real life, a dumped partner rarely ever goes through such an ordeal without being wounded and scarred.  

The two protagonists could not foresee this exceptionally benign outcome of their transgression.   When they made the first step upon the slippery slope towards emotional cheating, they decided to do this in spite of the then very real risk of deeply hurting their partners.  


Such movies propagate the fallacy as if it were morally acceptable to look for someone new and dump the previous partner, even though he did nothing whatsoever to deserve this.

Of course this is just one movie, but those people seeing such movies frequently often end up desensitized.   When they hurt others and the others are damaged and show this by their demeanor, the transgressors are unable to comprehend, what they themselves have done.   Instead of taking responsibility, they define the damage done to the hurt person as a weakness, a flaw, a defect.   Even those not directly involved are under the fallacy of blaming the victims for lacking resilience and not seeing the transgressor's full responsibility. 


Sometimes people do worry about the effects of violence in movies and computer games upon people.   But hardly ever anybody worries about the subtle desensitization of superficially harmless movies, which are teaching people to be ruthlessly selfish, irresponsible and inconsiderate.

668. Where Are The Men Like André Gorz?

668.   Where Are The Men Like André Gorz?

I already mentioned Dorine and André Gorz in entry 100.    I have now finally read his entire book 'Letter To D.'.    

It is a very touching book.   It sadly reminds me of the role in a man's life, which I am craving for.   Those men, who are able to concede so much significance to a woman, are very elusive.  I have never met one.  

Andrè Gorz appreciated Dorine as a person, she was very significant to him.   He cared, what she thought, he valued her feedback, he accepted to be influenced by her.   He was intellectually and emotionally bonded with her.  She was even more than just a part of his life, she was the essence of their being a unit transcending the limits of being two persons.   

Dorine got the dignified and appropriate place in his life, which she deserved.   He never tired of her, the longer they were together, the more he felt attached and the more he learned to admit and recognize this. 

When the book 'Letter To D.' was published, the reactions in the media were not about an example of a happy marriage, they sounded more like the review of a fairy tale of a marriage.  

 

Men today are the victims of the subtly devastating collateral damage of the technological and economical progress which began, when my generation grew up and was in the decisive years of being most susceptible to being influenced.  

One generation earlier, the Gorzes grew up in a very different world, which facilitated the development of deep thoughts, while today this is more impeded than facilitated:

1.   Kind of media

When the Gorzes were young, there were movies shown in the cinemas, but the majority of media was printed text, and that was what people had at home to occupy their minds with.

Reading a book is a completely different process compared with watching a movie.   I grew up without TV, but it started in Germany, while I was a child.   In those days, any program on TV was continuous and could not be stopped or rewound.   If some part or some important scene was missed or not understood, it was gone without retrieval.   

This trained people to accept as normal the superficial consumption of what was not available for any deeper reflection.    

Reading a book allows people to process it much more thoroughly than a TV program.  One can put a book aside and think, one can go back and reread some chapters or talk about it.  Therefore books allow people to reach a profounder understanding of the content than do movies, when they cannot be stopped at one's own convenience.  Thus people can learn deeper thinking much better from reading than from TV.   

2.   Effect of media

I have already mentioned Kanazawa and his savanna theory.     
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201002/the-savanna-principle
His suggestion, that people's minds mistake persons on a TV-screen as friends, has made me aware of a much broader effect.   The human brain has not evolved to subconsciously distinguish between merely technical representations and real life experiences, whenever the quality of the representation is a good enough imitation of real life.   This is true for TV, movies and sound in the quality, which exists now since several decades.  
 

When people read a story in a book, it is easy to be aware, that this is an imaginary story and not a description of reality.    But when people see the drastic imagination of extreme behaviors acted out by real people, these actors as role models on a TV screen can subtly change the standards and the sense of what is morally right.  This effect of role models on a screen is much more devastating than the influence of books.   
Behavior based upon consideration and responsibility does not entertain people.   What entertains people, is drastic and extreme.    Consciously, people know, what is real and what is not.   But the subtle subconscious devastation nevertheless happens. 

Reading Casanova's written stories about his abuse is much less a lecture instigating men to abuse women in real life, than are movies presenting the hero-jerk's abuse of women as a positive role model.
 

The quantity of the exposure to the readily available mass of movies presenting the most extreme and outrageous behaviors has a strong impact upon the subconscious mind. This deforms and distorts, what is considered as normal and acceptable.    

Not only does this change social norms, it also leads to the desensitization towards the suffering of the victims of those imitating the role models.  Since people's standards have been damaged, hurting, cruelty, abuse, inconsideration have become so ubiquitous, that people have lost the awareness for the monstrosities done or at least tolerated.   

3.   Effect of distraction

A couple in the times of the youth of the Gorzes had not much alternatives to spend their time together except by communicating.  At least at home, there was not much entertainment available, and events outside the home were expensive compared with people's income.  

Communicating leads people to knowing and appreciating each other and to growing deeper in their connections.    Becoming deeper as persons makes communication more attractive and enjoyable.    

Today people can entirely avoid communicating by the permanent distraction of easily and affordably available superficial entertainment and activities.    A couple can thus never even discover the benefits and joy of a deep level of communication as was the life style of the Gorzes.  

4.   Effects upon men's attitude towards women

The above listed factors have damaged men's behavior and attitudes towards women.   

Men's instinctive tendency to perceive women as bodies are enhanced, while they are impeded to recognize and to notice, let alone to appreciate the benefits of women's intellectual abilities.

Relationships are considered as mainly between two bodies.  

Female bodies are presented as easily available and easily replaceable.  

Conflicts and troubles do not lead people to work on their relationship and develop depth and bonding.   By discarding and replacing their mates too easily, people never experience depth and are unable to recognize and value it in others.   

655. The Strategy Of The Self-Arranged Commitment Project

655.   The Strategy Of The Self-Arranged Commitment Project

Sometimes men give me the feedback, that they disagree with my searching strategy as is outlined throughout this blog.    This disagreement is a mixture of lacking comprehension and of the error of considering the instinct induced focus as better than a more rational but eclectic and uncommon approach.  

But my approach and my strategy are not even my invention, very learned people have similar ideas.   I already mentioned Epstein's love project in entries 29 and 385.

Further information can be found on his website in many publications and interviews, some of it about his love project and about arranged marriages:
http://drrobertepstein.com/index.php/media-coverage

This short video gives a good introductory overview:
http://www.sandiego6.com/san-diego-living/this-week/tuesday/Science-of-Love-139242443.html



1.  The self-arranged commitment project.
 
When more than a decade ago I first read about Robert Epstein's love project, I perceived this as a very good representation of my own previously more vague inclinations and wishes.  At that time I had already implicitly developed the paradigm of my own matching strategy, but the awareness for this was still emerging.   I immediately recognized my own inclinations, convictions and attitudes in Epstein's idea and I fully agree with his principles.  

My own strategy for a 'self arranged commitment' differs only in details.        

• A signature under a contract is only of legal significance.   If there is not enough trust between two persons to feel bound by a verbal agreement, then there is no base to attempt a relationship. 
• Paying for counseling is too much of a financial burden.   In the case that not each partner is able to comfortably afford a fair share of this burden, it is not such a good idea to require financial sacrifices, which may jeopardize the project. 
• I consider a very careful choice of the suitable match as even more important than it seemed to Epstein.   He admits to not even have read most of the over 1000 emails he got after the announcement of his project.  Instead he chose for his first attempt a woman, whom he met in an airplane.  

As far as I can make a guess, Epstein developed his love project as a consequence of his psychological research and as a remedy against being misled by his own inclinations.   To me the idea of the self-arranged commitment comes as a most natural expression of my own needs.   It is the result of full awareness of my own inclinations.


2.  The influence of instinctivity.

Unfortunately, Epstein's love project is spontaneously counterintuitive to men, who react strongly to the effects of female bodies upon their instincts.   It needs some intelligence and theory of mind to comprehend its wisdom.

The self-arranged commitment project can be chosen for disparate reasons, which are connected with my recurrent topic, that individual differences in the power of instinctivity have a very strong impact upon personality, attitudes, perception, decisions and behavior.
   
Men with high instinctivity cannot help but experience instinctive reactions when interacting with possible mates.   These reactions blur and distort rational long-term reasoning.   

This works both ways.   Such instincts can cause

• strong physical attraction and fast infatuation.    
• strong frustration, when the expected infatuation is not experienced immediately.   

Both effects impede rational decision and a wise choice of a mate.  


The choice of the self-arranged commitment project is influenced by a man's instinctivity and by the quality of his theory of mind: 

• The stronger a man's instinctivity, the less he is prone to comprehend and accept my strategy of the self-arranged-commitment project.  Only a man with an exceptionally good theory of mind and ability for the long-term anticipation is able to think independently and to act rationally in spite of what his instincts urge him to and in spite of the distortion by infatuation.   
• The less physical infatuation at the beginning of a relationship, the better the chances of rational choices and reasonable behavior and long-term happiness.   Only a man with low instinctivity and high predominance of cognition can meet a possible match without any expectation for strong physical attraction and without immediate infatuation.  Only he has a sufficiently clear mind to consider long-term compatibility and to welcome a self-arranged-commitment project.   

Men's instinctivity causes often an asymmetrical constellation.    While men get immediately infatuated with bodies, women can also get infatuated and blurred in their decision, but in a very different way.   Women can get infatuated with the prospect of and hope for a safe haven, a reliable companion, a trustworthy lifelong partner, a mindmate, in short with the fulfillment of all their cognitive relationship needs.  
The asymmetry dooms the relationship.   When the man's infatuation wears out, he discovers the reality of how much or how little both have in common.   The woman, who enters a relationship for the purpose of getting her non-physical needs met, discovers after a while, that she was infatuated with a delusion, and there was no safe haven, only a man wishing to get access to a female body.   The man gets tired of the woman and the woman gets hurt.  

Starting a relationship as a self-arranged-commitment project is a method to avoid such an asymmetry.   The less a man is infatuated, when he agrees to build a relationship, the better are the woman's chances to be offered realistic prospects and no delusions.   

Therefore a self-arranged commitment project is for me a method to reduce the risk of getting hurt. 


3.  My inclinations towards the self-arranged commitment project.

I have never experienced or expected infatuation, immediate love or love at first sight or anything of this kind at the first encounter with someone, neither online nor previously offline.  It seemed natural to me to let love and attachment grow slowly.   Reciprocally meeting each other's basic criteria was to me always the starting point for the cooperation to create long-term attachment.    

I mistook this for the logical way how things were usually going.   For a long time I had the wrong impression, that most people were more rational and cognitive than they really are.   I thought that passion was an invention of novelists and that those men, who were driven be passion to annoy and to harm women, were only a sick and deranged minority.  

Only when learning about evolutionary biology and when the internet allowed me access to many public personal accounts of the experiences of real people, I understood the sad reality of the huge power of instincts over the majority of men.  It was really disheartening. 

I was not really astonished, that when Epstein created a project of what to me had always been sensible, reasonable and logical, it was perceived as an extraordinary and very novel project and stirred a lot of publicity in the media.      


4.  The scarcity of men inclined towards the self-arranged commitment project.

There is nothing wrong with being a nobody.   There is nothing beneficial in being famous.   Fame is merely the situation of being known by notoriety, admired, despised, envied or hated by lots of haphazard and insignificant persons.  

There is only one disadvantage of being a nobody.   There is no way of getting publicity, when there is a need to find something scare, rare and hidden.

Unfortunately there are very few men sharing Epstein's wisdom.  When I am in contact with men, whom I consider as hopeful candidates for a self-arranged-commitment project, they usually do not understand my intentions.   While hoping for a positive response, I am getting rejected as a consequence of their incomprehension. 
There are certainly a few men out there somewhere, who are innately suitable and motivated for a self-arranged commitment project.  Some may share this inclination, some may have been convinced by Epstein.   

Somewhere out there, there is one who would be as happy to find me as I were happy to find him.   But I just do not succeed to reach him.  
 
Epstein had one big advantage:   As the then publisher of Psychology Today, he had sufficient publicity, when he announced his love project on their homepage.    He got over a 1000 emails as a reaction, many from interested women.  

I am looking for and offering nearly the same as Epstein did.   But I am a nobody, I am unable to get sufficient publicity.  This blog is implicitly an elaborated synopsis of my self-arranged commitment project.   But writing 653 blog entries appearing in google searches in more than two and a half years has not given me even a tiny fraction of the resonance, which Epstein had in a few days. 

Life is not a novel.   If it were, a journalist from a widely read web site would discover this blog and help me to get the publicity needed to enable my mindmate to find me.   Or someone would start a matchmaking site especially for people interested in self-arranged projects of any kind and I could find my mindmate there.   

654. Gender Differences As A Research Result

654.   Gender Differences As A Research Result

I am aware of what I have learned by my own experiences and perception of men's behavior and of the huge distinction between how much most men are under the power of animal instincts and how little I am myself afflicted by such instincts.  

My own needs for attachment, commitment, companionship, appreciation of and respect for my brain and the recognition, that I deserve something better than being mistaken for a commodity are the contrary of many men's instinctive urges towards using female bodies without commitment.
  
But this awareness does not imply, that I am able to generalize correctly from myself to other women without a bias.   There are too many women presented on the web as allegedly and apparently by choice promiscuous, prostitutes and porno-stars to not be puzzled.   

The truth about this and about how many of them remain unharmed cannot be obtained from the standard media.  Feminist publications present this very differently.   Those of these women, who suffer later from irreversible psychological damage, are often either not presented or the damage is attributed to any other cause but not the self-afflicted compliance with being abused. 

Many people are gullible to social norms and external influences distorting their attitudes and evaluation of their own behavior, both as perpetrators and as victims.   In many societies, especially in modern western cultures, this favors men.   Women are fooled to underestimate the self-inflicted harm and men are fooled and fool themselves, that there is nothing wrong with what they do.   It is a sad reality, that too many men are naive and stupid enough to believe, that what they experience as beneficial for themselves, cannot cause harm for women.  Because they feel an urge to copulate like alley dogs, they cannot comprehend, that this harms women.   It is a good example, that a good theory of mind would be a better protection against harming others than is simple naive empathy.  

I am a allergic to any male attitude towards commodifying and objectifying women.  I am aware that many other women on the web appear to protest and to reject abuse much less than I do and to tolerate and to condone male harming transgressions more easily.   I cannot know the reasons, why they differ from me.  
I wonder if they really suffer less as the victims of male instincts.  Maybe the real difference between them and me is my greater resistance to being manipulated.   The socially propagated female gender role is not a part of my ideal self nor of my identity.   As an independent thinker I am immune to be made to believe, that what men do to women is automatically appropriate and that women should therefore not disagree but attempt to accommodate men by submission to their needs and repressing own needs.     


Therefore I always welcome research, which shows, that other women too are not the complying animals for copulating alley dogs, even though men prefer and misperceive them as such:  

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130410192806.htm
 

"Women saw the maintenance of their romantic partnerships as a team sport, involving equal input from both partners with shared goals and beliefs being the key to success. Further, their happiness and contentment were intimately bound up in both their best friendships and romantic partnerships.

In contrast, men were found to exist at a greater distance from both of their closest relationships. When asked to score themselves against their best friends and romantic partners on a range of attributes their responses indicated that, consciously or not, they continued to act as though they were members of the dating market despite being in committed relationships."

"Dr Machin concluded that: "Our research shows that successful relationships are much more essential to women's well-being than men's. Men seem to keep their relationships at arm's length with one eye on the dating market. It seems that regardless of our culture of monogamy and commitment the biological imperative still operates, to a greater or lesser degree, for men. The war of the sexes is still alive and kicking within our relationships.""  [My emphasis]

628. Theory Of Mind, Empathy, Society And The Media

628.   Theory Of Mind, Empathy, Society And The Media
 

As told before, I consider not to harm others as the core principle of any acceptable moral and not to be harmed as the core principle of basic human rights.  

To be successful in avoiding to harm others requires more than the acceptance of a moral principle.   It requires also sufficient knowledge of what others experience as harm.   While recognizing visible immediate harm is easy, this is not the case with invisible and delayed harm.

The reliance upon empathy and the working of the mirror neurons is limited to situations, when someone can spontaneously feel with the unlucky person, for example someone, on whose foot a brick has just fallen.   

But when the harm is invisible and caused by complex and abstract cognitive experiences, then empathy is not enough to prevent hurting another person emotionally.   Avoiding emotional and future harm by broken trust, by injustice, by depreciation, by commodification and such requires a mature theory of mind.    

"Theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc.—to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions that are different from one's own."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind

While children usually develop a basic theory of mind by innate maturation, the more complex and abstract theory of mind is a learning process enabled and enhanced by experiences of interactions.   

Nobody can know for certain, what behavior causes invisible harm to another person, unless this is based upon acquired information.    This can be achieved by either learning from the reaction and feedback by the harmed person and/or by any observing third party, or by asking the target person's advice before acting and by listening to such advice when proffered.  

It is the fallacy of immature people to deny the existence of anything, that they are ignorant of and to think that it is enough not to do to others, what they would themselves feel hurt by.   
It is also a fallacy to overlook the biological differences between women and men in evaluating the impact of behavior.   

 

An example.    Some men in the state of sexual dishomeostasis feel an urge to copulate like dogs in the gutter with any haphazard female body without getting attached.   

Those being immature believe women to be like them.  Whenever they mislead women to consent by unjustified expectations of attachment, immature men abuse women's bodies with a clean conscience.  They do not understand attachment and believe women to be stray dogs the same like themselves.  

Men with a mature theory of mind are aware, that women do get attached much more easily and rapidly and how important attachment is for women.   Jerks have no conscience and manipulate women to be used and dumped, they are not deterred by not reciprocating attachment.   Jerks consider women's getting attached as an annoying flaw.

Mature men with morals are able to acknowledge, that not getting attached is their own deficiency.    They are responsible to not make others the victims of their own deficiencies and to accept the obligation of using self-control to abstain from hurting women.  


The development of a mature theory of mind depends upon the society and culture.  

Unfortunately the modern western societies impede and thwart the moral maturation of people.   The influence of the ubiquitous media is the main factor in this.  

Desensitization:   The media are full with realistic representations of the most horrible agonies and atrocities.   But as the human brain had evolved without realistic pictures, it cannot really distinguish between TV and real life.  Watching TV is not very different from people partaking in the spectacle of public hanging and beheading.  

The consumption of the media leads to a desensitization towards suffering.   As a result, a 'mere' emotional betrayal appears as if it were only a trifle compared with the magnitude of the frequently watched atrocities both reported from real life and in the imaginary world of movies.  

Misunderstood tolerance.   Tolerance is important to protect minorities and people with special needs from any avoidable disadvantages.    But if alleged tolerance embraces also the protection of behaviors, which cause harm, it is not tolerance, but irresponsibility and a failure to protect the victims.    

Misrepresentation.   There are many perversities and deviant behaviors, which seem obviously harmful to most people, who would immediately refuse to expose themselves to be thus harmed.    Yet in the uncensored web, nearly every perversity and deviance has its adherent proponents, who propagate it publicly from their subjective distorted view as a minority right and behavior while omitting, denying and trifling the harm to the victims.   

Desensitization, misunderstood tolerance and misrepresentation have an impact not only upon the person behaving unknowingly as a transgressor, but also on the victim and on any other possible source of corrective feedback.  

Victims getting hurt are irritated and confused as to how much their felt outrage is justified.  They are often misguided to attribute their own healthy reaction instead to an own weakness.    They submit and endure instead of protesting, because they are manipulated into.self-doubt as if they were failures lacking to adapt the socially prescribed pseudo-progress.

Acquaintances are not involved enough to suffer as victims, but they often notice behavior as potentially harming to closer relations.   Would they react sincerely and show their true disapproval, this would serve as helpful feedback towards a better theory of mind.    But instead they shrug their shoulders and avoid any conflict.   

Constructive feedback can only be given by people with a mature theory of mind, who are aware of the importance of not hurting others.   People who are immature themselves are less prone to give any feedback and they are even less able to give feedback of supportive value.    What makes role models in the media attractive to the masses is often an expression of immaturity, which is then imitated. .  

Therefore some of those people, who hurt others, never had a chance to reach sufficient maturity to get aware of what they are really doing.   

627. Ludicrous And Irresponsible Propagation Of Woo-woo

627.   Ludicrous And Irresponsible Propagation Of Woo-woo

I just got an email from one of the dating sites, where I have a profile.    Some quotes:  

"do you want to die alone?‏" 

"We’re screwed. You should be too!"

"As we all know, the world is ending 12/21. Why not find someone to spend your last moments with? As things heat up and the earth’s crust begins to melt, here’s a high match that would welcome your embrace — before your hearts burst into ash. Hey, better safe than sorry."

People, who merely believe such nonsense, are pathetic fools.   But when they create, enhance or reinforce other people's irrational anxieties, this is irresponsible.

    
Based upon the false belief of having no future, people could do lots of things, which they hitherto wisely avoided to prevent dire consequences.  

Examples:

• Gambling and loosing all the savings.
• Risking unwanted pregnancies and STDs
• Telling the boss the true opinion about him and getting fired.
• Killing someone hated and finally indulging in a long repressed revenge.
• Indulging in the consumption of any food or substance, which damages their health or causes a relapse to an addiction

The easier it gets technically to spread the publicity of any claim and opinion, the more those people are dangerous, who carelessly multiply dangerous, weird and delusional beliefs.    Unfortunately skepticism lacks behind the technical progress favoring the propagation and spreading of woo-woo.  

626. The Counterproductive Absurdity Of Recent Feminist Attempts At Provocation

626.   The Counterproductive Absurdity Of Recent Feminist Attempts At Provocation

Lately there have been several feminist groups protesting against real issues by attempted provocation.   The method of their provocation included the display of their fully or partially naked and painted bodies.  
They are naive and they are fools.   As far as they provoked anything at all, it was only the hypocrisy of pretended social norms.  Getting attention is not the same as provoking onlookers to reconsider their opinions.  

In reality, these young women gave to male animals, what they subconsciously enjoy to perceive:  Triggers to their instincts.   On the level of animal instincts, men do not discriminate between cognitive connotations of the triggers.   A naked female body is a trigger to drool, no matter if in a movie, a commercial or by a misguided feminist.    

These women did not provoke anything at all, instead they presented the sight of young, fertile female bodies for men to drool over.  


I am a feminist as far as this means that I refuse to accept any disadvantage to a woman based upon her gender.   I am not a feminist, if this means to upvalue dull and unintellectual occupations like housework and breeding.  

Therefore I consider the core objective of feminism as to defend, restore and fight for the dignity of women as equals and as persons with a brain, who deserve better than to be degraded by objectification and commodification.

The male biological affliction of recurrent sexual dishomeostasis is a real handicap of those men, whose reason gets temporarily blurred under the impact of this state.  As long as feminists (of both genders) are in denial of the devastating effects of this handicap, the success of feminism is doomed to be limited.   Since the beginning of feminism about a hundred years ago, some of the worst legal inequalities have been overcome.   For example, today women are allowed to vote, can have a job without the requirement of the husband's permission and are allowed to become soldiers.  

But where the dignity of women is concerned, the development has gone the other way.   Women's dignity is and has been dwindling, as far as it had ever existed rudimentary in any country's social norm.   
Never before in the German history has the objectification of women been more ubiquitous and more considered as all men's normal right.   Prostitution has been made legally a job as any other, pornography is easily available, the media and commercials are full with pictures of seductive and lascivious women.   While child pornography is illegal for good reasons, nobody seems to see, that the same reasons do also apply for the requirement to protect women.    No person in Germany can pass a day without somewhere being exposed to pictures representing  women in seductive and lascivious attire and posture.       
 
It has become an implicitly accepted reality, that triggers to men's instincts are not only available but that men are entitled to expose themselves to be triggered at their convenience.   People have been desensitized so much, that even many women consider being triggered as men's innate rights.   

Men in some cultures use their power to force women against their will under tent like garments.  This is not only an outrage, but it is also an interesting self-disclosure by these men.  While the men in western cultures are in denial of their affliction, these men clearly admit their own dysfunction.    They recognize to be so much the helpless slaves to their own instincts, that they are unable to cope with any subconscious perception of the triggers radiated by uncovered women.   Their awareness for their own biological reality would by itself be preferable over the western men's denial.   Unfortunately this awareness is not used to benefit the women.  It could be a challenge for men to learn self-control.  Instead these men use their power to force the women to suffer under the burden of men's failure to cope with their own dysfunction.


Many feminists rightfully fight against all male behaviors, which are assaults and infringements upon non-consenting women.   But at the same time they also claim to have the right to send out the most drastic signals to the male subconscious without any self-restriction.    It is not only irrational, it is even unfair to men, when women make men drool over their bodies, yet demand male self-control as if they had not contributed themselves to the drooling. 

Feminists who complain and fight against being objectified but paint their faces, wear jewelery and sexy attire are contradictory.   They send out double-bind messages.   Their seductive attire signals 'I want to be seduced', while as a feminist they implicitly add 'but I refuse to be abused.'  Seduction is the first step to abuse, while forming a serious relationship is based upon reciprocal rational convincing of being a good long-term match. Whenever a man reacts to the apparent invitation to seduce, his subsequent attempts to seduce and abuse are rejected as an outrage.   


A constructive form of feminism needs to cooperate with men towards finding a fair compromise between men forcing women under a tent and between women making men drool while refusing to be used.  Feminists' attire would be rationally based upon the conscious avoidance to trigger men's unwanted behavior as a support for men attempting to cope with their affliction without harming women.

There would be only one way to provoke men out of their desensitized entitlement to the ubiquitous availability of visible female nakedness.   It would be a triggering strike.   The provocation would be by women systematically making themselves appear in public as anti-sexy.   Imitating the wearing of a tent would be too extreme, but women would cover themselves as much as they can still feel comfortable.    Being deprived of triggers to drool would be much more effective to provoke men's attention, that something needs to be changed.

But this will never happen.   While some feminists may consider anti-drooling behavior an option, there are unfortunately too many women, who are void of any need for dignity.   Instead they are so stupid, uneducated, simpleminded, vain and brainwashed, that they identify entirely with their looks and with their bodies.    They feel flattered and ego-boosted by men's attempts to seduce.  They feel power by both, by either being able to reject the attempts and by else extracting material benefits from men as a result of making them drool.  


Therefore while I personally have become allergic to the frequent disregard of my dignity as a person, I am fully aware that this cannot be attributed only to the male biological affliction, but I have to recognize this being enhanced and reinforced by many women.

614. Changing Role Models

614.   Changing Role Models

For the purpose of reducing the boredom of doing household chores, I am sometimes listening to simple and superficial stuff like old radio shows.  Thus I also listened to a serial about a private detective called Richard Diamond, consisting of several dozen episodes broadcasted around 1950.  
As it is a Hollywood production, the hero was created as what at that period of time was the fictional prototype of masculinity.    Being a prototype, Diamond was certainly the role model for many contemporary young men.   Just as was and is James Bond for the generation of their sons and grandsons. 

Diamond and Bond have a lot in common (, as much as I can know from only having ever seen one unpleasant Bond film without any wish for more).  
Both role models are aggressive and tough, never have any fear, being very apt with weapons, fists and also with verbal flippancy.   Both are not destroyable, no matter how much they get beaten up or injured.  Both are never impacted by any guilt or emotional effects after having killed anybody as an everyday event of no consequence.

But there is one very decisive distinction between both role models. 

James Bond is a disgusting promiscuous women abusing jerk.  Were he real, he would be every decent woman's nightmare.  
 
Richard Diamond appears to be principally a decent guy.  Throughout the entire series, he has the same girlfriend, Helen, treating her correctly.    Being the prototype of a stud, he is portrayed as catching every woman's interest and as flirting with all of them, but this is the limit.   He is not only a role model of being true to Helen, but he is shown as being true by choice, not by lack of opportunity.   
Diamond is also presented as not merely infatuated with Helen's body but also attached to her as a person, whom he appreciates enough to spend a lot of his spare time with her, including shared non-physical activities.   
Monogamy is an implicitly and indirectly expressed part of this role model.  Whenever Helen expresses jealousy of one of his female clients, he does not reproach her, but defends or clears himself as being true to her.  An such jealousy is a part of Helen's being also a role model, it is not at all shown as inappropriate. 

Richard Diamond is certainly not my ideal of a man, because I prefer non-aggressive intellectuals.   But at least he is not someone abusing women as does his thoroughly repulsive successor James Bond.    

As far as role models have an influence, someone like Diamond can bring out the relatively best in men, but Bond certainly reinforces their worst.   

608. Commercials: The Paradoxical Effects Of A Nuisance

608.  Commercials:  The Paradoxical Effects Of A Nuisance

Usually I avoid to expose myself to commercials.   While visual commercials can be avoided after a short glance, acoustic commercials are less easy to avoid.    There is no earlid to shut the ears and avoid hearing.

While doing dull routine chores, I often listen to easy stuff like audio books or radio shows, whatever can be found for legal downloading.  Thus I got a series of very old detective radio shows made in Hollywood.    

The entire series is loaded with commercials from just one company, at a rate of about four commercials per every half hour episode.  Listening to the repetition of the same few commercials in a dozen of these episodes is already sufficient to make me dislike this company so much, that I would never ever consider to buy any of their products.  

As far as I know, such an bombardment by commercials is quite normal on radio and TV in the USA and on private stations in other countries too.   

I am really puzzled, how it is possible, that people are influenced favorably by such a nuisance and why they buy, what the commercials lure them to.   Why are people so foolish as to reinforce, what they are pestered by and what they rarely like or enjoy but usually dislike?
I am wondering if growing up bombarded by commercials is another example of desensitization by the media and if people can get selectively desensitized only towards stopping to feel disturbed and annoyed, but not towards being influenced in favor of buying?


On myself, the effect of commercials is very different.   Perceiving commercials as an annoyance and nuisance being exposed to them causes me to develop an aversion against the brand of the advertised product.   As long as there is any no-name product, I buy it as an alternative.  

Besides being a nuisance, commercials also cost a lot of money, which is paid by the customer.   Whenever someone buys the expensive advertised brand instead of buying a cheaper no-name product, he contributes to the persistence of the nuisance.   

If everybody would react like me and refuse to buy, what is advertised, commercials would seize to exist due to not being profitable.  But too many people are fools, who are too easily taken in.    

604. Commodification Under The Influence Of Culture

604.   Commodification Under The Influence Of Culture

Biologically seen, there are factors determining the watershed between the intrinsic commitment of nice guys and the promiscuity of abusive jerks.   

These factors are the innate strength of men's instinctive urges causing the discomfort of sexual dishomeostasis and the innate quality and strength of the cognition upon the behavior.  

Demisexual intellectuals with a strong need for bonding are able to appreciate women's personality, promiscuous jerks are programmed to always degrade women as objects for use.   But there are also the fence sitters having behavioral predispositions in a delicate balance between instinctive urges and cognitive strength.   Upon them, culture and social norms are a third and decisive influence.     

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120905135340.htm

"To be a 'success' in evolutionary terms, women need to have access to resources for raising offspring, and men need to have access to fertile females. Researchers have argued that women tend to prefer partners who have an ability to invest resources in their children (i.e., wealthy men), and men tend to prefer partners who appear fertile (i.e., young women) because evolutionary adaptations have programmed these preferences in our brains."

"They found that the gender difference in mate preferences predicted by evolutionary psychology models "is highest in gender-unequal societies, and smallest in the most gender-equal societies," according to Zentner."

"Because increasing gender equality reduces gender differences in mate selection, these studies indicate that the strategies men and women use to choose mates may not be as hardwired as scientists originally thought."

"But he also adds evolutionary roots shouldn't be ruled out entirely.

"Indeed, the capacity to change behaviors and attitudes relatively quickly in response to societal changes may itself be driven by an evolutionary program that rewards flexibility over rigidity.""

When a promiscuous jerk copulates with a female body like a dog in the gutter, this is determined by four factors.   

• The experience of the intrinsic urges of dishomeostasis, 
• The enhancement and magnification of the impact of dishomeostasis by external triggers upon the perception.
• The availability of bodies for easy abuse.    
• The basic attitude of accepting promiscuity as appropriate behavior without any damage to his self-esteem or confidence.   

While only the innate magnitude of dishomeostasis is biological, the availability and ubiquity of external triggers, the availability of bodies for ready use, and the choice between promiscuity and monogamy as part of the ideal-self depend also upon the social environment.   

I was a child in Germany in the 50s, before the fatal sexual revolution freed the worst in men.    The 50s were certainly not a golden age for women, while there was still no reliable birth control, no legal abortion and husbands had unjustifiable legal rights like the one to forbid their wives to have a job.   

But as far as women were commodified, it was as wombs, not as objects and utilities serving men's animal instincts.  There was no public objectification of women.   Sexuality was restricted to its appropriate place inside the privacy of the bedroom of committed couples.  

There were no pictures of naked or lascivious women in any public place, not in commercials, magazines or newspapers, nor in movies.  Most women were aware, that being nice but decently dressed was in their own best interest, just as was also the conscious rejection of any involvement except long-term commitment.    

It was a golden age of beneficial wise prudery.    

Public life was free from detrimental triggers for male instincts.   

There were too many jerks then too, but they were jerks by their own innate animality, they were jerks in spite of a social norm of commitment and monogamy.  Abusing women was not facilitated for them.  These jerks had to consciously decide first, that they really wanted to abuse a woman, because finding the hidden prostitution and pornography required a proactive search. 

The nice guys and the fence sitters were spared the involuntary exposure to triggers, which were incongruent with their real wishes and inclinations for intrinsic commitment based upon their cognitive personality.    

When they experienced the discomfort of dishomeostasis, the circumstances due to the social norm and the culture smoothed their path much more towards commitment and monogamy than towards promiscuity.   

In the 50s, it was much easier for intrinsic nice guys to remain decent, nothing perturbed and distracted them from living in congruency with their cognitive ability to appreciate women.     

Today, the public objectification of women does not only cause a lot of harm to women, but it also causes self-harming to those nice guys, who would be most happy in bonded monogamous commitment.   They are exposed without having a choice to the ubiquitous triggers to their worst animal instincts by the combination of the excellent quality of the realism of the media, the oversexation of every day life and the social norm of male promiscuity and female acquiescence.

The potentially responsible and considerate nice guys and the fence sitters are in the unfortunate situation of being triggered by instincts and encouraged by social norm to use those too many women, who acquiesce too easily.  Such women are also manipulated by the same social norm into believing, that promiscuity were modern, monogamy were prudish and old fashioned and that the only chance to successfully compete with other women is to allow themselves to be available first for use lest another would be chosen for being easier to get.  The sad result are many women suffering from unilateral and not-reciprocated attachment.  The men get desensitized by using too many women.    This is, how fence sitters convert themselves more and more to jerks.   

The guy described in entry 601 is a good example.    In the 50s, the easiest way to homeostation would have been to continue his efforts towards finding commitment, which he initially seemed to really want.   But now, the social norm and the triggers lured and lure him to desensitize himself, until he will be unfit for commitment by his own doing.     

 

I have a very high regard and appreciation for those nice guys, who are determined by their cognition and no trigger of any strength has the impact to cause them to stray from decency towards abusing women as bodies.   

The true quality of a man reveals itself, when no trigger and no influence can ever make him sink so low as to become promiscuous.    Such men are rare, but they do exist.    I am looking for one of them as my mindmate.  

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.

555. Cognitive Poison Ivy

555.  Cognitive Poison Ivy

Too many repetitions of stimulation can lead to desensitization, but there is also the possible opposite reaction of sensitization and allergization.   
Physiologically, impaired hearing due to too much noise too often is an example of desensitization.   Touching poison ivy is known as initiating an allergic reaction, which gets worse with every repeated contact.   

Exposure to immaterial stimuli can also cause both kinds of a reaction.   Just as people get desensitized be their repeated inflicting harm, people can also get allergic due to being exposed too often to annoying, disgusting, discouraging, disturbing, hurting or in any other way unpleasant cognitive input.    I will call such allergenic input cognitive poison ivy.    

There is an expression about pushing someone's button.   Cognitive poison ivy is something different.   A button in the expression is an individual's peculiarity.  What is a button to one person has not effect upon another.   Poison ivy is toxic, becoming allergic is not a peculiar weakness.    Commodification harms every woman, if it is forced upon her too often and too drastically.   

The availability of cheap mass media has lead to the possibility of exposing oneself to extensive and intensive cognitive stimulation, which can have the side effects of either desensitization or allergization.
   

I have internet access at home since 1998.  This was a turning point in my access to authentic informations about very varied people.  Without the internet, information was either second hand through the filter of those writing, producing and publishing books, newspapers, magazines, radio, movies, tv.  Else it was limited to the experiences of the preselected kind of people, whom I chose to mix and socialize with.     

On the internet I started to avidly read forums of all kinds, where I found people's authentic and unfiltered expression of their opinions, attitudes and accounts of their subjective perception of their own life experiences.   
My wish to end my loneliness and to find a mindmate requires to be active by reading men's profile and taking the initiative to contact those appearing suitable.   
Doing this is for me like searching for one nice flower on a meadow overgrown with poison ivy, which I cannot avoid to expose myself to.    To find happiness, I have to invest a lot of annoyance of walking through the gutter, of developing a growing allergic reaction to too much filth.  

As a result of my exposure to the internet I got aware of the real seriousness and magnitude of two nuisances and annoyances, which I had previously thought to be able to keep away from.    The commodification of women and gullibility to irrational beliefs are so ubiquitous on the web, that they became cognitive poison ivy for me.

Before the internet, I mistook both nuisances as merely vague and drastic dysfunctions of a limited and clearly recognizable number of people.  

• I thought that those predators, who insulted me with their wish to abuse my body were a bad minority from the gutter, while there were also enough decent, monogamous and committing men.  
• I thought that all people, who called themselves atheists, really were rational.
• I overestimated the prevalence of decency and the prevalence of rationality.  

Since then, by reading information, by a lot of thinking and drawing my own independent conclusions, I have learned a lot more about commodification and irrationality:

• They are quite ubiquitous and exceptions are rare.  
  
• Both have as a general basis the disposition towards distorted thinking, which can lead to become manifest in many different variations.   Not only the manifestations are the nuisance, but also the disposition.
  
  • The disposition for commodification is the asymmetrical attitude towards women, which causes many different harming behaviors.
  • Gullibility is the predisposition, which is manifest in very different irrational beliefs leading to different harming behaviors.   

•  While the harming behaviors are drastic, the dispositions can be recognized by subtle, indirect indicators, which are superficially not easily noticeably and tend to be overlooked and underestimated.  
  I got more aware and attentive to recognize the real significance of such indicators as red flags.   
  
• Some of the damage done directly and indirectly to victims is beyond what I had imagined as possible.

• People's self-labeling and self-attributions are often not correct.  When these persons appear sincere, this can be misleading.    It sometimes takes a while to find out, that they are not aware of the real meaning of what they appear to say.
  
  • Self-labeled atheists believing in reincarnation, astrology or chi are not less irrational than christians.  
  • A man's declared intention to commit does not imply symmetry, even marriage can be mistaken by some men for a variety of commodification.
    
• Those causing the nuisance are unable to comprehend, what they are doing, even when they are told or notice any disruption, they blame it on the victims of commodification and of irrational behaviors. 
   
• The worst nuisance are those men, who combine commodification and irrationality. While a rational men has theoretically the potential to reconsider and change his asymmetrical attitude towards women, irrationality protects the commodification.   
  
  

With growing awareness for the indicators of both nuisances, I started to consciously encounter them more often and I became more alert as to their significance.   While ignorance had spared me previously thereof, I experienced annoyance more frequently.  I was waking up to the real extent of two major dysfunctions of the cognition.
   
I am using the words annoyance and nuisance.  It is difficult to describe emotions.  Every instance of reading about women being degraded or about some irrational belief triggered in me this feeling of sighing a 'not again' and of cringing from this unpleasant aspect of life.    The more often this happened, the stronger I experienced the unpleasantness.   By now it has become an allergic reaction of disgust, tedium and nausea.    Commodification and irrationality have become cognitive poison ivy for me. 


I want to find a mindmate for a relationship, which is a safe haven, from where commodification and irrationality are both banned.  Filth and stupidity are kept outside the surrounding walls.   I wish to be never again exposed to cognitive poison ivy.  

But where is my mindmate?

548. The Evolution Of Men's Brains Lags Behind The Evolution Of Women's Cognitive Needs

548.   The Evolution Of Men's Brains Lags Behind The Evolution Of Women's Cognitive Needs

The technical quality of visual and auditory imitations of people on screens has reached a level of similarity, to which human brains have not evolved.   The inability of the human brain to distinguish between real persons and their virtual representations on screens effects the subconscious mind of both genders.    

But only in men this effect aggravates and enhances their unfortunate instinctive urges so drastically, that many of them become emotionally crippled by the tragic commodification and objectification of women.   

Consumers of pornography are misled by their brains to confound the perception of pornography as if it was the experience of observing the real bodies of the objectified women.   The more often men expose themselves to this fallacy, the more this distorts their attitude, expectations and behavior towards all women.   

This fallacy is perpetuated by the discrepancy of men's conscious superficial awareness of merely looking at a screen and the subconscious susceptibility.   They are either ignorant of the damaging impact of pornography upon their subconscious mind, or they choose denial, when women attempt to warn them.  
Men are not born as commodifying jerks, they are only born with a high risk to becoming jerks by the exposure to pornography.   

As usually, writing about what I personally perceive as an outrage against women's dignity is easily dismissed as a frustrated woman's rants refusing to accept her purpose as seen by many jerks, unless my complaints are backed up by other sources.  

So I just found an article on this topic:

http://scholar.googleusercontent.com/scholar?q=cache:2pPhsT0Gex0J:scholar.google.com/&hl=de&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1

 Here are some interesting quotes:

"In The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television and New Media Like Real People and Places (1996) Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass argue that there is no essential or functional difference in how the brain responds to the ‘real’ physical world, and how it responds to media images and artificial entities. According to Reeves and Nass our “old brains” have not yet caught up with our new media technologies and they do not have the sophistication to distinguish between a real physical object in the world and a media image or robotic simulation of that same object. This means that people tend to respond in essentially the same way to screen images of a person or a virtual computer persona as they would to a real person. Even though we may be consciously aware that screen images and simulated entities are not real, nevertheless, we have an ingrained unconscious tendency to treat them as if they were"

"Recent research into the phenomenon of mirror neurons also suggests a neuroscientific basis for this physical and emotional response to screen images and artificial entities. Experiments show that areas of the brain collectively known as the ‘mirror neuron system’ respond not only when individuals perform an action themselves but also when they watch someone else perform that action. Watching someone pick up an object triggers a similar response to actually picking up the object yourself. Screen-based actions and experiences also trigger mirror neuron responses and corresponding physical motor responses; pornography is a key example here."

"Of course, this tendency to treat screen images and robots as social partners means that we have a corresponding tendency to expect them to react in ways that are socially and naturally appropriate and believable. When they don’t, and our expectations are not met, the result can be one of frustration, disappointment and annoyance."

This last quote is important concerning an additional trigger for men to harm women.   While men's brains confound the realistic pornographic images with real women, these picture are nevertheless restricted to the screen and not available for tactile abuse.   This can cause men to feel frustration and anger.    

When such frustration is added to a man's already distorted general attitude towards women, he becomes an even worse hazard of inflicting real life abuse and harm upon any woman happening to be in his reach.

547. The Subtle Immorality Of Christian (Pseudo-)Morals

547.   The Subtle Immorality Of Christian (Pseudo-)Morals

This continues entries 545 and 546.   

I watched this video made by a group of people around Reisman
 

The Kinsey syndrome

http://www.drjudithreisman.com/archives/2009/03/watch_videos_on.html#table34

This video presents principally the same information concerning Kinsey's misconduct and aberrations as does Tate's documentary.    I can agree with the simple attribution to Kinsey of the onset of the sexual revolution and with Reisman's pointing out, that pornographic magazines like Playboy are one facet of the damage done by the sexual revolution.  Her elaboration of the harm of pornography in her article in entry 545 is excellent. 

I see this in a wider context of an unfortunate reciprocal reinforcement between social development and technological progress leading to the fatal oversexation of society.    Kinsey's mere claim of what and how sexual behaviors should be a social norm happened to coincide with men's instinctive predispositions to commodify women.  But only the development of a sufficiently high quality of photos, moving pictures and recorded voices made the presented virtual persons in the media such a good imitation of real people, that there impact upon the brain is nearly or completely the same as if they were real.   
   

Beyond this partial agreement, the bias of some of the conclusions, interpretations and claims of the video make me shudder.    This video is one more example, how any morality derived from a religious belief system can be very immoral, when morality is measured by how much the victims are either harmed or spared.   

The morals of any religion arbitrarily defining sin cannot be more rational to the needs of individual humans than is the belief system itself.

Bias/fallacy 1.  The video attributes Kinsey's part in the atrocities to children to his having rejected religious beliefs.    There are many possible explanations of what was wrong with Kinsey causing him to harm other humans.  Maybe his behavior was due to psychopathy or any other disorder, but it was certainly not caused by the absence of religion.  

Bias/fallacy 2.  The video condemns behaviors, even though they do no harm.    

Homosexuality is generally condemned.  The video does not distinguish between the differences in the harm caused by either promiscuity or monogamy.    A caring committed couple is beneficial to each other, independent of both partners' gender being the same or different. 

Bias/fallacy 3.  The video even condemns beneficial behaviors.   Abortion is condemned, even though legal abortion is beneficial.   Women are protected from harm, while nobody is harmed.        

Bias/fallacy 4.   The video condemns necessary preventive adaptations to reduce the risk of harm, even though the causes of the necessity cannot be changed.  

The video condemns sex education for children.    The ubiquity of the oversexation of the media makes it nearly impossible to avoid young children to be exposed to age-unsuitable material.   Age appropriate sex education can reduce the risk or prevent harm.   

Bias/fallacy 5.   The video is not concerned about subjective harm, only about sin and fraud.  
Example 1:  The tragic case of the girl, whose father was paid by Kinsey for taking notes during his abuse of his own daughter.  
In Tate's documentary, she was presented as a suffering woman having been traumatized by an outrageous act.
In the religious video, she was presented as a witness of Kinsey's sin and fraud, her lifelong suffering was omitted.   
Example 2:   A man is interviewed about having ended his pornography addiction due to in his own words his 'fear of god'.   There was not one word of consideration, guilt or remorse concerning the victims abused directly and personally by him or indirectly by the production of the pornography.   He did not change his behavior to stop harming others, only himself.    He subjectively stopped to sin, not to harm.  

Bias/fallacy 6.   The video implicitly shows the christian attitude, that nothing done to an adult woman is a sin bad enough to be mentioned, let alone condemned.   In the christian world view, women are meant to suffer and to wait in patience until their god does his job to compensate them after their death for the plight.   

The video's attributing a lot of harm to children to the influence of pornographic magazines like Playboy is very stringent.   But there is not the least logical reason to protest against harm only when the victims are children, but to completely omit all of the harm done to women in the video's entire duration is over two hours.  

It is absurd to consider women as growing up automatically for the destiny of sufferings by male abuse and commodtification.    Harm to adult women is misinterpreted as a god's will, which therefore cannot be a sin to bother about. 


In addition of being already apistic, because this fits my rationality, any belief system, in which morals do not serve to protect and prevent all people equally from being harmed and abused, is as repulsive as it is dangerous.   
in the above example, the immorality of alleged morals happens to be christian, but this is just one example, some other religions inflict even more drastic harm on the victims by the alleged justification of a cruel pseudo-moral.