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[Vector]

Heheh, read up on the Lysistrata gambit, guys.  This has been around since Ancient Greece.


So G-Flex, I've done a lot of reading around since we last had that conversation, and here's the deal as far as I know it.

Autistic traits are one thing.  The other component is generally intelligence.  Low-functioning autism is (often, not always) autistic difficulties compounded with mental retardation.

So if they want to cure mental retardation, they can talk about that.

But as-is, I am frankly really fucking tired of the way this issue is treated.  You seem to not understand that I am directly affected by it as a person who cannot pass as normal and grew up with most of my cohorts being rather autistic; hell, I'm weird by math-department standards.  I've listened to my classmates joke about how I'm unhirable by anyone but a university, not the sort of person you'd ever expect to date, and generally just completely and totally off the social base since I was in sixth grade (before that, I might as well not have existed).  Other people on the spectrum let me know that they wish they were a little bit more normal, so that they'd be able to help me out of the pit I'm in.

I'm friends with some of the people you're talking about.  I've got a friend with a math IQ below 70.  She can't do basic arithmetic or really take care of herself that well.  All the same, she is out and about in this world with all of its signs, radio broadcasts, buttons, newspaper articles, stickers, and well-meaning idiots.

Don't side with the assholes.

We all know that the websites talking about women as bitches, whores, loose, emotionally overwrought, stupid, mentally ill, and incapable are only talking about the bitches, right?  We other women shouldn't take offense, because it's clear that they weren't targeted at us.  We're okay.  It's those other women, over there.  The ones who have real problems.

It's all called the autism spectrum, and the apologia is starting to really piss me off.

[sluissa]

It' probably makes a great excuse for not fighting as well.

This... How many people involved were actually interested in fighting and how many were being pressured into it in one way or another?

It's a common excuse, just as you might use. "Yeah, I'd love to come help move your furniture this weekend, but the significant other wants me to spend more time with them."

[Mindmaker]

So you deny that "control through sex" is actually happening in our world?

True, I have no idea what the war was about, nor what the motivations of the different parties were, but I expect better from any sort of news agency, than presenting it under such a retarded headline.
Seriously, I'm so tired of that stereotype.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I cannot help but noticed how fucked up it is that there are societies where men having regular sexual activity is so ingrained in the culture that it becomes a mental dependency on par with physical necessities.

It's ingrained in our species, don't worry about it. It's healthy for couples to regularly engage in sex, and the lack of it in a relationship that once had a lot of it would cause some issues. I'm taking this situation as a positive mark on people as a whole, as women could pull this off. They did not have a culture where it was required or forced.

I'm tired of the cultural obsession with women. It's why people airbrush anorexic models for magazine covers in the West, make women wear tents for clothing in the Middle East, and are so rabid for sex that they'll end armed conflict for it in the story we are discussing. It drives me insane to see this stuff going on. It is not "ingrained in our species", it's a cultural disease that effects most of the world to varying degrees. This obsession isn't even a good thing for women themselves, it just makes them a victim of societies that act like stalkers.

[Duke 2.0]

I'm tired of the cultural obsession with women.

Ah, I see where you are coming from.

 It's not that. It isn't about women. It's about relationships. Men in young couples can pull this off too. If it was really as you suspected then it would take the media to pull something like this off, as obviously we would get our attractive females from their airbrushing expertise instead of our partner who they were in a relationship with for possibly reasons other than looks.

 I understand your point but I don't think it applies here.

[Bauglir]

It is not "ingrained in our species", it's a cultural disease that effects most of the world to varying degrees.

I don't see mutual exclusivity there, unless you create some arbitrary and anthropologically laughable sharp line where on the one side you have culture and on the other you have instincts. I'm not endorsing evolutionary psychology as a good explanation for every facet of human culture, nor am I supporting all of the conclusions people come to by that route (there tends to be a lot of circular attempts at justifying gender roles as "correct", for instance). I'm saying I think sexual objectification (and the fixation on women associated with it) has a non-cultural component, which needs to be overcome through social customs that are, sadly, all too rare.

[Mindmaker]

MetalSlimeHunt... I want to bro-hug you so hard right now.
You understand me 

[Bauglir]

I should point out that I agree with everything I didn't quote. Just in the retrospective interests of not coming off as defending asshattery as legitimately okay behavior or something.

[Duke 2.0]

I should point out that I agree with everything I didn't quote. Just in the retrospective interests of not coming off as defending asshattery as legitimately okay behavior or something.

Same. I just don't think that is what is going on here.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

so, are we arguing that the maxim "make love not war" is not good on principle? i don't think it is our society's obsession with sex that is wrong, i'd argue that sex is great and one should have as much of it as one feels confortable with. there are some(or maybe many) facets of sexuality that we as a society currently deal with very poorly, but whoever came up with the idea that virginity and prudishness were virtues must have been a very sad person. i would easily be dissuaded from going to war through sex deprivation, but then i'm quite an extreme pacifist, and very coward when my bodily integrity is plausibly threatened

edit: now i remember that i could have quoted voltaire en français for extra coolness :\

[Bauglir]

I don't have a problem with sex, so much as I have a problem with sex overriding a lot of other priorities, such as the concept that the other people involved are people. War is not one of the priorities I have a problem with being overridden and I endorse this strategy as a good way of making use of a problem to solve another problem, but it doesn't speak to my opinions about the general case.

[sluissa]

So you deny that "control through sex" is actually happening in our world?

True, I have no idea what the war was about, nor what the motivations of the different parties were, but I expect better from any sort of news agency, than presenting it under such a retarded headline.
Seriously, I'm so tired of that stereotype.

I don't deny control through sex can happen. But I do think it's power is usually overstated. There  are only a few ways I see this particular case happening. One is if one party, in fact, wants to be controlled for some reason, either some masochistic part of their personality, or that the control helps them towards their own ends. (I.E. They didn't really want to fight, they just used the sexual control as an excuse not to so as to not sound like a coward.) One other way it could happen is if there were some cultural force that kept someone from seeking out a new partner if their current one tried this tactic. Say, for example, very strict laws on divorce and/or adultery or some cultural taboo against someone being married twice. The last way I could see it working is if one party had serious self esteem issues. Frequently being told things like "I'm the best you'll ever find." or "Nobody else would want you, you're lucky I deal with you." or even just personal issues of that sort that aren't caused by the other partner where they feel like they don't have much self worth and could never do any better than this person, even if they do control them.

Might be other cases as well, but my point is, unless force is used, control is almost always exerted over someone who either allows themselves to be, or wants to be controlled. I will add the caveat that this only applies to relationships between couples, or possibly small groups. I'd say nothing larger than 3 people in general. This would not apply to something like the case of control between a company and an employee or a government and a citizen or a large group of peers.

[Vector]

Please, let's not use the word retarded like that here.  We don't use this thread to denigrate the mentally disabled.

[Mindmaker]

Sorry, I didn't mean it this way.
'Dumb' or 'stupid' just didn't cut it and I needed a stronger word.

[Bauglir]

Oddly, "dumb" can be subject to the same criticism, since it's derived from a word for people who can't speak. Though, it seems like the origin is so far removed from the current use that it probably doesn't carry the same weight of association, and I'm not sure how many native speakers, even, know that. Random language tangent for the day, I suppose.