OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
No bio...
User ID: 359
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1mo ago
I'd be ok with everyone receiving the program I got in High School. It was a lot like the described:
First it went into the social aspect of sex. I remember they had a gotcha icebreaker task where they asked everyone what the first step to having consensual sex was out of a list. The answer was "eye contact." They talked about how intercourse took place after a sequence of events, (eye contact, conversation, seclusion, etc) which a person could get out of at any time by being vocal and making a choice to get out of the sequence.
A lot of "if you are pressured into having sex, here are some trusted adults you can go to."
Then went into the most common contraception methods available to teenagers, but actually read the warning labels on every box. Explained that none of them were fully effective at preventing STDs, not even condoms. None of them were 100% effective at preventing pregnancy.
Described economic and social status outcomes of pregnant teenage mothers. That pregnancy and childbirth changes you hormonally and "you don't really want to be like your mom yet, do you?"
We had to make posters describing STDs, symptoms and treatments. Presented them to the class.
I would call it abstinence-first education. It explained contraception thoroughly. The problem is, once you explain contraception thoroughly, it doesn't deliver on all the goods that abstinence can. Over a population, it is effective. As individuals, a 5/100 risk of pregnancy each year is still a lot of sexually active pregnant teens.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1mo ago
I don't exactly respect Tim Pool's political commentary, but I respect him a lot as a person and take this as a demonstration of how easy it is to be caught up in accusations of foreign influence, spying, etc.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1mo ago
I mostly mean for the past few centuries, does it have impact now?
Now we have birth control and secular women who don't have kids, so it's a different bottleneck today.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1mo ago
I wonder if we would see a difference between countries that were Catholic for longer periods of time, and the percentage of women who genuinely want kids.
I say this because Catholics are more likely than Protestants to encourage women to live in celibate communities, and this would give women in the second group a way to select out of the gene pool.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1mo ago
I will not.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1mo ago
I do think a realistic assessment of health ought to look at happiness a fair bit more, though. I was never going to reproduce for a variety of reasons, so I think it's totally reasonable to trade that off for happiness.
Yes, happiness is a component of health. It's just not a component of the health of a reproductive system, which is what is under discussion here.
show some respect for people of faith.
I respect Truth, and I'm sorry but this conversation has mostly cemented my belief that many trans people have a very tenuous grasp on reality and equivocate between concepts in order to justify themselves to themselves.
(I am a very spiritual person myself. I worship the Way, the Truth, and the Life.)
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1mo ago
It's an unsourced reddit post, but this person claims the names of the hostages were being circulated a couple days before the bodies were found. There were rumors of a rescue mission: https://old.reddit.com/r/2ndYomKippurWar/comments/1f660pm/the_6_hostages_bodies_found_in_gaza_have_been/lkyth9t/
Honestly, if they have a functioning vagina from birth (not a weird amalgamation of penile tissue and intestines sewn into a gaping hole that needs to be prevented from healing over) then I am comfortable calling them a woman. It's clear what direction their body would go. If it would take modern medicine to determine that their reproductive system doesn't work, they belong to the sex they appear.
We're talking about a magic person, so it's hard to specify what I mean by "direction." But I imagine that such a person either has ovaries or could receive an ovary transplant in a way a man could not. Their body would naturally make the hormones to stimulate the follicles and bring forth an egg. This egg could be fertilized by a motile gamete that had a straight path through the vagina. This conceptus would find a home in a uterus.
If you only have to bring one thing to health to make the female reproduction system work, then it's obviously the female reproduction system. A male reproductive system isn't a defective female reproductive system and vice versa.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1mo ago
Your body is not healthier. You have lost some biological functioning that you had before.
Yes, there are soooo many health risks to cross-sex hormones. A FtM balds because of their testosterone. Do they take Finistrade? Finistrade is risky to women, do the same risks apply to this person?
But I don't even have to get on the weeds on this, the increased risk to cancers, blood clots, heart attacks, etc. The mechanism of transition itself purposely damages the reproductive system. It is by itself unhealthy.
Now, it may be the case that cross-sex hormones are an effective treatment for gender dysphoria, maybe the only effective treatment after a certain threshold (I much prefer treatment that would make someone's hormones more like their natal sex if they are being treated before the age of 16, and have seen evidence that this works better.)
I am not against treating trans people with cross sex hormones.
But there is a difference between getting a hormone treatment to treat your mental illness and trying to make everyone else in society believe your mental illness.
I am 100% against cosmetic surgery except where it restores functionality, like nose jobs to breathe better and skin repair for burn victims.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
We use this way of classification all the time, you are swapping disease with biological classification willy-nilly and that is what is confusing you.
Blindness is a disease, not a biological classification. A blind person still belongs to the human species, which is a sighted-species. A blind person still belongs to a sighted-species. Their blindness is not a sign they are a member of a different species, it is evidence they have a health problem.
A woman is a human who, if her body is not producing large gametes, has a health problem that requires explanation. A male body does not require a disease to explain why it's not producing large gametes.
Your counterfactual world where you have XX chromosomes requires you to not exist. It requires a completely different person to have been conceived and born.
The counterfactual worlds that I am using are all, "if the same organism was healthy." It is something that happens every day, some organism in a disease state becomes healthier.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
Do you think trans people are a different phylum?
No, but a phylum is one biological classification. Sex is another.
A human whose heart has stopped working does not change phylums.
A human whose sexual organs have stopped functioning does not change sexes.
A human embryo that does not yet have a heart is in the phylum chordata.
A human child who does not yet have the capacity to bear a child is still female.
An imagined bionic human who no longer has a heart would still be in the phylum chordata.
A post-menopausal woman who no longer has a functioning uterus is still female.
The idea that someone can change classification is a Trans idea. It is not universal. I am specifically countering your objections that a woman with a hysterectomy or a post-menopausal woman is a different gender. They are not because sex/gender does not change. They have the qualities of their sex at some point in their lifecycle.
You are making a mistake that you think everyone thinks like you. You believe that you have changed sex/gender, and therefore whatever definition someone has for sex/gender allows for change.
In humans, there are four potential sexual categories (though only three in reality.)
-
Body produces large gametes in reality, or would have produced large gametes if health was obtained.
-
Body produces small gametes in reality, or would have produced small gametes if health was obtained.
-
Body produces neither small gametes or big gametes, and there is no obvious direction where health would go, even if Miracle Healer Jesus touched them. (Happens, though much rarer than the intersex statistics show, even a person with CAIS and XY chromosomes can become pregnant.)
-
(This category has never happened in a human) Body produces both small gametes and big gametes at the same time or at different times in the lifecycle.
What's funny is that there is a tradition of intersex people naturally transitioning and this being accepted in Christianity (below is a repost of a previous AAQC):
...Emperor Justinian's Digest of Roman law incorporated the statement of Ulpian, "The question has been asked:—according to which sex are hermaphrodites to be treated? but I should say on the whole that they ought to be treated as having the sex which predominates in them."
...The theologians of the School of Salamanca consider the case of a predominantly male hermaphrodite who has been ordained to the priesthood, licitly or illicitly, in whom the female sex has begun to predominate on account of ageing. They say "by reason of the changed sex" this person could no longer validly consecrate the Eucharist; the priestly character would remain in the soul, but would now be in the soul of a person not capable of exercising orders, just as a priest who has died can no longer consecrate the Eucharist. Considering the case of a woman who, "nature itself breaking out," is spontaneously transformed into a man, which they say Pliny the Elder testifies is not only possible but has in fact happened, the Salmanticenses say this man could be validly ordained, but unless the matter can be hidden, it cannot be done on account of the astonishment and scandal to those who would see someone they had known as a woman ministering at the altar.
So there is some discussion where someone who can perform the male role in sex can be a priest, even if they haven't always been able to perform the male role in intercourse.
However, that's a natural development of an intersex person's body. It's interesting that they talk about "nature itself breaking out." I don't think orthodox Christians will ever encourage someone to artificially change their sex, or believe that artificial changes are sufficient to actually change sex. If gender is in the soul, than it is the form of the body - the blueprint for what a body does on its own power.
I am perhaps more open than some of your interlocutors, at the least my philosophical and biological assumptions are very different. I still think you're a man, one that has become very sick. Restoring you to health would not involve you growing large gametes naturally and bearing children, it would involve you creating sperm and a mechanism to impregnate a woman. That is what is written into your body, the form of your body which you struggle against.
I know you believe that one day we will have control over these things, and there will be no difference. I believe that your sex is written into every cell of your body and is impossible to change, wherever medicine goes in the next century. Maybe through very artificial and mechanical methods will you approximate what my body does as easily as breathing, but that would not be the same as changing the powers of your body, you would be relying on a power outside you. The Abolition of Man and all that.
I know you wish it was one specific thing that defines sex, and then it would be something you could obtain for yourself (even theoretically, in some distant future) and then you have it. But sex isn't a thing a person possesses. It is one of the things a human person is.
The equivalent to changing heart conditions would be to go from a infertile to fertile, which happens all the time without changing sex. I'm not convinced you understand me and I don't know any way to be clearer.
We do have categories for female too young to be fertile - girl. But going from girl to woman is not a change in sex/gender, just a change in age. And going from infertile to fertile is not a change in sex/gender, just a change in health.
Do you not know what a bitch is or are you being cute? I would never call a woman a bitch, we are different species.
Edit: it's like you are claiming that someone with heart disease isn't in the phylum Chordata. A disease does not change a classification.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
That seems to be an attempt to make others adopt your frame that it is possible to change genders. If it is not assumed that it is possible to change genders, then it explains quite handily why a pre-pubescent or post- menopausal female is still considered a woman, and a post- castration male a man.
In biology there is always a "when functioning properly" attached to descriptions. A heart pumps blood "when functioning properly." A kidney filters waste "when functioning properly." A female organism produces large gametes at the species-appropriate point in the life cycle "when organs are functioning properly." Reproduction is generally only applicable at certain times in an organism's life cycle, but a bitch that isn't in heat is still a bitch.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
The "Catholics need to marry in the Church, otherwise the marriage is invalid rule" was put in place to combat couples making private vows and then one partner leaving the other high and dry... 400 years ago. The rules really should have changed by now, people's situations are so different now. But the Church is slow to change.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
I think this is more the character he was trying to write, rather than a consistent issue with the author. He wanted to write a goofy two shoes who would rather be a teacher than a top researcher.
While I enjoyed the puzzle in Project Hail Mary, The Martian is a superior book.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
I think the Internet is a huge leveler. Men talk about their experiences openly. It didn't take long before I noticed that what men feel when they look at an attractive woman is different from what I felt when looking at an attractive man. For a few years I decided I was asexual, but I am happily married with four kids, so that label probably doesn't actually apply to me.
Even with the Internet, I still don't think I understood. People like to say that the Internet is not real life, and to some extent that's true (but if lots of people on the internet talk about red and green like they're different colors that you don't perceive, eventually you might start to understand that you're colorblind.) I understood that the porn-sick, perverted men of Reddit were very visually attracted to women, but that wasn't evidence that the Respected and Trusted men of my life, who share my workplace and classrooms, also reacted that way.
I waited for marriage. While my husband hadn't made the same choice, he was very respectful of my choice and saw himself as a guardian of my conscience. One day I wore a dress that was sexier than usual. I thought that was just what women did when they had boyfriends. To me, it was just a style that signified that I loved him. He responded differently from what I expected. He told me that, if I cared for him, I shouldn't wear that dress until we were married and wanted sex right then and there. I was embarrassed, but also it was a huge click for me.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
I think it's possible that no one wants to starve, even journalists, and they are hoping to dissuade Harris from committing to this policy while still hoping she wins.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
https://www.themotte.org/post/1121/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/241478?context=8#context is a recent example of what I mean. A woman assumed bras make breasts more sexy, and the only benefit to modesty was they reduced the visibility of hard nipples. She made these deductions through observation, and thought she understood the rule. But now a bunch of men are telling her that bras actually make breasts less sexy.
Sure, a woman can learn to be a stripper. But my point is that most women you meet are not intentionally sending Fuck Me signals through their dress, and would be alarmed to realize the intensity that Fuck Me signals can cause in a man.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
Let's say you are grandma who bought a good sized house for 200k. You are about to retire and all the kids are gone so you sell the house.
Situation 1, the price of your house rose to 1 mil, you net 800,000. You spend a third to buy a condo in an old person condominium, and now you have 700,000 on top of your 401k and SS to spend in your dotage.
Situation 2, the price of your home went back down to 300k. You net 100k. The price of the condo also fell, now it's 100k. You only have 200k extra to add to your nest egg. Assuming other costs stayed the same, you are worse off.
There are lots of people who would be better off too. But it's the Baby Boomers who are retiring, and they are such a huge voting block no one wants to mess with it for now. Maybe when Gen X retires.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
I did say it was a controversial comment. I am a woman and I can tell you that dressing "sexy" versus dressing "beautiful" is like trying to look pretty like a sunset or look pretty like a flower.
I can tell my six year old not to wear tights and a t-shirt because I understand that this is inappropriate with the rules of fashion, not because I understand what it is to look at a six year old with sexual lust. But as the rules of fashion change so goes clothes, and my kids have "jeggings" they can wear under both dresses and shirts, which makes it easier to let them pick their own clothes for now.
Yes, women understand that they are sending different signals when they dress. They understand that this cardigan makes them look smart and serious, this skirt makes them look fun, etc.
But they don't understand sexual hunger and how they dress impacts it. We witness patterns and try to act accordingly, but we don't grok the underlying mechanism, so sometimes we think we understand a pattern but a man behaves differently than we expected. This explains a lot of the disconnect between women thinking men act creepy, and men thinking a woman wearing only half an outfit must be down for a good time, and if she rejects the man it's because he's not hot enough.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
A while back I made a controversial comment that was along the lines of "When women dress sexy, they don't really understand what it's signaling to a guy. They want to be beautiful, like a sunset, and these are the clothes society is telling them makes them beautiful." A lot of men have a hard time believing it, but it really does tie in to a completely different understanding of sex between the sexes.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
The Secret History of the Catholic Church that you won't learn in school is that, as mean as we can be to non-Catholics, our most vicious attacks are reserved for other Catholics.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
A coconut is white on the inside... Really not a great thing to meme into existence.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
I guess this wikipedia article is going to be a major culture war battle:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donald_J._Harris&diff=1239033648&oldid=1238918997
"Perfect use" condom is 2%, "Perfect use" Pill is .3%. Even "properly used" contraception means that there are thousands of women winding up pregnant from "perfect use." But how many people in a high school class are going to use it perfectly? "Typical use" is 14% and 7% respectively.
Things that are 100% like sterilization are unlikely options for teenagers. I suppose now IUDs might be more available.
I guess the idea is that, with education, "typical use' rates will go down? If so, my sex ed class covered explicitly how to put on a condom, the importance of taking a pill every day and that a single missed day means that the woman is more likely to get pregnant for the next month. Etc. They went very deep into the failure modes of each.
The biggest problem is that "Sex Ed" was one week. How many of your classmates on the internet are claiming that they never learned about the Vietnam war in school, or segregation, or whatever, when you remember very clearly that these topics were covered? I would prefer for Sex Ed to be a weekly thing all throughout Middle and High school.
I didn't. My parent's didn't. My grandparents didn't.
That being said, in hindsight I think my Sex Ed was trying to encourage oral. They went deep into dental dams and things.
More options
Context Copy link