site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   Edited 2yr ago   5649 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 13, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

This may have been a clever plot in the somewhat victorian early 20th century where this story is from, but nowadays most boys grow up being taught this “secret” as gospel, and the orgies don’t materialize. Except for gay boys obviously (spot the difference…) . If anything, women’s sexual desire is massively overestimated nowadays. As an example, FDS has a purely materialistic point of view, I don’t see any space for female desire in there.

...the orgies don’t materialize.

But they have materialized. They're all around us, if he can't see them I guess it's two movies on one screen? Arguing that sex isn't available, that women don't want to have sex, feels so strange to me, like arguing that America is impoverished.

women’s sexual desire is massively overestimated nowadays.

Tiresias the seer who lived as both man and woman, when asked by Hera and Zeus whether men or women enjoyed sex more, said that "Of ten parts a man enjoys one only." Chanakya in India tells us that women have "Four times the shyness...and eight times the sexual desire." It isn't just nowadays. Women have been thought of as coyly hiding a ravenous sexual apettite since antiquity

Buddhists teach that there are three kinds of knowledge. There's rote knowledge, memorization, the ability to repeat a fact: Brasilia is the capital of Brazil. There's understanding the causes of a fact: Brasilia is the capital of Brazil because it was founded to be a city of the future in the mid-20th century, to pull the government of Brazil away from the existing primate cities of Rio and Sao Paulo. Then there's understanding a concept at a deep level, where you look at the world differently knowing what that fact means for the world you live in: walking down a street in Brasilia and looking around and seeing the world around you in terms of the history of Brazil, the economic tensions and choices that lead to what the city looks like today.

Consider that these men may not believe what they say they believe about women. They understand it at the first level, as a fact that they parrot, or maybe even at the second level of talking about multiple orgasms or a woman's sexual prime or whatever. But they don't look at a woman and see someone who wants to fuck them, they think they have to trick them or convince them or cajole them, they view it transactionally. And that's the totally wrong framing, it's not a transaction, it's a mutual benefit, we both want to be there.

I dont know if you are taking those ancient tales seriously but FtM trans people almost unanimously confirm that the sex drive with increased levels of testosterone is orders of magnitude more than what they had.

So those ancient stories probably do contain some wisdom, that is applicable in some contexts, in the general case they are way off.

I do take ancient traditions on the human condition seriously, much more seriously than I do mad science experiments involving pumping a woman's body full of test and seeing what happens. A trans man still has female anatomy, pumping it full of exogenous hormones doesn't make it male anatomy. That's before we even get into the impact dysphoria, however framed, has on psychology and sexual desire.

So, yeah, critique citing mythology and symbolism all you want, but hard science doesn't have an answer here.

If you prefer ancient traditions to any actual modern evidence, you could go read the bit in the Book of the City of the Ladies where de Pizan discusses the idea that women are more lusty than men, and points out (in more polite terms) that there are no female-serving whorehouses. As her basic premise remains true today, cross-culturally, etc, it seems like she's in the right and Tiresias is in the wrong.

Sex for het men is of course available, but not freely so, and in a limited amount. It doesn't nearly cover the demand, like it does for gay men.

The hierarchy of human couplings by amount of sex exchanged goes: gay men (high demand, high supply) > het couples (high demand from men, low supply from women) > lesbians (low demand, low supply).

Plus the well-known experiment of taking an attractive person and propositioning members of the opposite sex gives wildly differing results.

Tiresias the seer who lived as both man and woman, when asked by Hera and Zeus whether men or women enjoyed sex more, said that "Of ten parts a man enjoys one only."

What other useful knowledge have you gathered from your study of mythology? Aside from fictional evidence, Tiresias has real-life counterparts, and trans men report vastly increased levels of sexual desire when taking male levels of testosterone.

They understand it at the first level, as a fact that they parrot, or maybe even at the second level of talking about multiple orgasms or a woman's sexual prime or whatever. But they don't look at a woman and see someone who wants to fuck them, they think they have to trick them or convince them or cajole them, they view it transactionally.

That sounds like bullshit my man, like that movie where michael caine is drunk fake Sherlock, where he explains how he solves crimes "others see, whereas I see and observe".

Plenty of gullible men spend years waiting for women to show the same kind of sexual interest they feel and express.

What other useful knowledge have you gathered from your study of mythology?

Tons. Certainly more interesting, to me, than pumping a woman full of testosterone and asking her how she feels.

It fundamentally doesn't matter that lots of men aren't getting laid, or that lots of men want to have sex but can't, that doesn't really impact my little point of mysticism, any more than the existence of people who can't shoot a basketball disproves the existence of basketball. A minority of men is getting laid all the time, it ain't because all these women are just cosmically confused that I'm going to start spending money on them any second now. The whole point of the metaphor within the movie is that it's an exclusive club of men who "get it," who know that there is no second password. When you get it, you get it, and then you can get it.

OK I'm sure you drown in pussy, that proves nothing, I don't see any argument that supports your thesis.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats