It's very much relevant if you're aware what kind of thought control comes out of liberal colleges. The person in question is here only to spread its agenda, nothing else. I have no respect for that kind of people and I encourage others to step up and finally show that you have some balls left.
I'm quite aware - and I think it's often a useful lense. After seeing the parent comment, I initially was concerned I was in the wrong for finding interesting parts of the piece but the first sentence of your comment reminded me that it was silly to think that. The rest of your comment didn't enlighten me though, it just made it clear that you have an agenda.
For the record, I downvoted the og comment and upvoted you - I think your reaction added more to the conversation than their initial criticism.
This shows that some of the legal restrictions we have on sex are just a reflection of our culture, not actual human requirements. Particularly things like pedophilia, prostitution, and incest. No doubt those savage children aren't traumatized by their sex the way western children are because nobody told them they're supposed to be.
Pedophilia "can" be extremely damaging. Maybe not 100% of the time but it can mess with your psychosexual development (and delay many other parts of your life) in ways that are hard to describe.
That said, it's true that cultural response also costs. Some 2000s movie talked about this, by making too much of a situation, the victim pays a double penalty, and even when the prime suffering goes away, the social stigma and change of lifestyle (relationships) doesn't.
Yes. These things are difficult to make blanket rules for because everyone's different. Primitive tribes have their own horrible problems for some individuals too. I suppose our laws protect that minority which the islanders would neglect.
Are you aware of any research on this subject? It seems very hard (if not impossible) to disentangle the damage of childhood sex caused by social expectations and cultural response from the innate damage of childhood sex. (Even without the obvious ethical considerations of any non observational experiment).
Intuitively, I find it hard to believe that there could be any significant innate damage to having sex as early as puberty (when "wild" humans would presumably start). I also do not see an innate mechanism for the age difference to cause significant harm.
It is also not at all obvious to me that prepubesent sex would present innate harm; but that, at least, seems plausible (although I still can not think of a mechanism of damage beyond influencing the child's sexuality; which is only a problem if you consider the new sexuality inferior.
Not research, personal anecdote, and I'm not even screaming of scandal and morality here. Consider it a cold statement of things that people cannot perceive. And I didn't mean early teen sexual intimacy, but younger than that. A negative event might block the link between desire for affection (give and receive) and physical contact, the root of sensuality. This will delay socialisation desire in hidden ways, causing alienation. A lack of affectionate human relationship distorts your experience of life, friendship, school, work, and just about everything. When you finally resolve that knot (which can be a morbid "psychiatric" period) you realize how much you just couldn't do because that part of your brain was locked.
> This shows that some of the legal restrictions we have on sex are just a reflection of our culture, not actual human requirements. Particularly things like pedophilia, prostitution, and incest.
I didn't see anything in the article that said or implied that the Trobriand Islands people engage in pedophilia, prostitution, or incest. I don't see how you infer anything about the origin of our restrictions on those things from that.
As far as I can see from a bit of searching, the Trobriand Islands people do have restrictions on incest, and children there who have sex are having it with other children. I didn't find anything on prostitution.
One reason I think everyone should go to college is to gain exposure to cultures completely different from theirs and lose their sheltered and ethnocentric mindset. (the best place to start is on the Nacirema [0]) It's no surprise that the most homogenous and least educated populations are more prevalently racist. (I'm not saying the educated elite are above it though and it was often the most educated who thought they knew best with beliefs like eugenics)
One interesting culture [1] we studied in one of my classes practiced ritual cannibalism of their dead. It was highly formalized regarding which relatives eat and had rules for the method of eating. (the meat is cooked so disease isn't much of an issue) After the Brazilian government's FUNAI [2] stopped the practice, one woman described feeling haunted by her deceased kin and not knowing whether their spirit was put to rest. The ritual held huge spiritual significance to the people and provided catharsis after death, yet the government stopped it because it was against their own moral code. This has parallels in how Christian Americans impose their own views on women and others (Manifest Destiny anyone?) who should have autonomy.
Another group we studied was male sex workers in (I think) the Dominican Republic. Western men would go there to receive sex from them. The interesting thing is that the workers did not view themselves as homosexual, despite living in such a macho culture, as long as they were the ones not being penetrated. This is contrary to the Western view where any sexual attraction with men means you are gay, while in reality sexuality isn't so binary and clear-cut.
Lastly we learned about a Bedouin [3] tribe in which speech is highly restrictive, yet women were afforded more free expression through the medium of poetry. Their culture of modesty actually empowered their women and the narrative is in contrast to that of Western nations which view Middle Eastern women as oppressed and in need of rescuing. (the author, Lila Abu-Lughod, actually has another book titled "Do Muslim Women Need Saving?")
The point I'm trying to make with these three groups isn't that their perspectives are the right ones or that we should completely ignore what other groups do in order to let them preserve their culture (many immigrants still believe in beating their children and spouses for example), but rather that we should question our assumptions and preconceived notions and we cannot do that if we stay safely in our own bubbles and hold stubbornly to our believes because "that's the way it always was" or that "it's our heritage".
Many good points there. I'd just like to point out that eugenics is demonized partly because it was taken to an extreme by the Nazis which are demonized. It's not necessarily bad. We do it in a broader form when we choose partners - who wants to pick the disabled or mentally ill person to have children with? All else being equal, we usually prefer a partner without genetic "defects" according to whatever the popular idea of a "defect" is.
I do too. Does it make much difference though if it's a centralized or distributed decision? The end result is the same but people are selected for different traits.
It is hugely different. How decisions are made is different. What decisions are made is different. The only similarity is that they both involve decisions.
Both are systemic and consistently skew the population of people who reproduce. Both also discriminate against people that the system decides aren't worthy of reproducing. Either poor people, ugly people, diseased people, etc.
>One reason I think everyone should go to college is to gain exposure to cultures completely different from theirs and lose their sheltered and ethnocentric mindset.
This doesn't happen in college but through actually living away from home in another culture. The worst bigots and racists I've met have university degrees.
Let's be real though, those who need it the most won't go live in another culture exactly because they're so attached to their own. Education is a cheaper way to get the necessary exposure. Regarding your second point, I did make a disclaimer that educated people aren't above this, but in my experience at least higher education encourages more independent thinking, reasoned inquiry, and study than is done in high school or by the uneducated. Opposing opinions are encouraged and healthy debate is pretty common, even with the professor.
Opposing opinions are never welcome within any social group or system such as the academy, and discussion is always kept between narrow bounds.
>but in my experience at least higher education encourages more independent thinking, reasoned inquiry, and study than is done in high school or by the uneducated.
It's very hard to believe that generation after generation after generation, they didn't connect intercourse with pregnancy. I understand the explanations; it still seems unlikely that no circumstances, human it otherwise, would have ever convincingly demonstrated it. Like eating and defecating.
The associate theorized they were stupid. I sincerely don't know what to think.
Sounds to me like there's too much cultural inertia. They're not stupid, but admitting that sex causes pregnancy means admitting that Bob's wife cheated on him; it means some poor desperate soul really did shag Ugly Betty; it means accepting responsibility for life-changing events that it's much more convenient to write off as "acts of god".
The clincher is the fact that they've been informed of the link now, and still won't accept it. That's not stupidity, it's denial.
I actually don't fault them at all for believing this. The only way to know that A causes B, is if you consistently observe the absence of A, paired together with the absence of B. Ie, you need a control group of women in their teens/20s/30s who are not having sex.
In societies that frown upon premarital sex, this control group is easily found. But in a society that practices free love, this control group doesn't exist at all. Even worse, the people who you think are in the control group (the wife of the guy who went on expedition, and the "truly hideous" women), are actually having sex secretly, and thus further misleading everyone else.
I wonder how many such "obvious truths" we ourselves are missing out on, simply because we haven't done any structured experiments relating to their absence.
34 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 68.5 ms ] threadJudging by your commenting history you're at the wrong place. This is not Berkley's women studies.
For the record, I downvoted the og comment and upvoted you - I think your reaction added more to the conversation than their initial criticism.
A technical term would be something like "Mongoloid Idiot". That was considered pejorative, so it became "Down's Syndrome".
Then it became "Down Syndrome", because Dr Down did not actually have the condition.
That said, it's true that cultural response also costs. Some 2000s movie talked about this, by making too much of a situation, the victim pays a double penalty, and even when the prime suffering goes away, the social stigma and change of lifestyle (relationships) doesn't.
Intuitively, I find it hard to believe that there could be any significant innate damage to having sex as early as puberty (when "wild" humans would presumably start). I also do not see an innate mechanism for the age difference to cause significant harm.
It is also not at all obvious to me that prepubesent sex would present innate harm; but that, at least, seems plausible (although I still can not think of a mechanism of damage beyond influencing the child's sexuality; which is only a problem if you consider the new sexuality inferior.
I didn't see anything in the article that said or implied that the Trobriand Islands people engage in pedophilia, prostitution, or incest. I don't see how you infer anything about the origin of our restrictions on those things from that.
As far as I can see from a bit of searching, the Trobriand Islands people do have restrictions on incest, and children there who have sex are having it with other children. I didn't find anything on prostitution.
One interesting culture [1] we studied in one of my classes practiced ritual cannibalism of their dead. It was highly formalized regarding which relatives eat and had rules for the method of eating. (the meat is cooked so disease isn't much of an issue) After the Brazilian government's FUNAI [2] stopped the practice, one woman described feeling haunted by her deceased kin and not knowing whether their spirit was put to rest. The ritual held huge spiritual significance to the people and provided catharsis after death, yet the government stopped it because it was against their own moral code. This has parallels in how Christian Americans impose their own views on women and others (Manifest Destiny anyone?) who should have autonomy.
Another group we studied was male sex workers in (I think) the Dominican Republic. Western men would go there to receive sex from them. The interesting thing is that the workers did not view themselves as homosexual, despite living in such a macho culture, as long as they were the ones not being penetrated. This is contrary to the Western view where any sexual attraction with men means you are gay, while in reality sexuality isn't so binary and clear-cut.
Lastly we learned about a Bedouin [3] tribe in which speech is highly restrictive, yet women were afforded more free expression through the medium of poetry. Their culture of modesty actually empowered their women and the narrative is in contrast to that of Western nations which view Middle Eastern women as oppressed and in need of rescuing. (the author, Lila Abu-Lughod, actually has another book titled "Do Muslim Women Need Saving?")
The point I'm trying to make with these three groups isn't that their perspectives are the right ones or that we should completely ignore what other groups do in order to let them preserve their culture (many immigrants still believe in beating their children and spouses for example), but rather that we should question our assumptions and preconceived notions and we cannot do that if we stay safely in our own bubbles and hold stubbornly to our believes because "that's the way it always was" or that "it's our heritage".
[0]: http://www.ohio.edu/people/thompsoc/Body.html
[1]: https://pib.socioambiental.org/en/povo/wari/865
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funda%C3%A7%C3%A3o_Nacional_do...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedouin
This doesn't happen in college but through actually living away from home in another culture. The worst bigots and racists I've met have university degrees.
>but in my experience at least higher education encourages more independent thinking, reasoned inquiry, and study than is done in high school or by the uneducated.
Case in point: bigot with a degree.
The associate theorized they were stupid. I sincerely don't know what to think.
The clincher is the fact that they've been informed of the link now, and still won't accept it. That's not stupidity, it's denial.
In societies that frown upon premarital sex, this control group is easily found. But in a society that practices free love, this control group doesn't exist at all. Even worse, the people who you think are in the control group (the wife of the guy who went on expedition, and the "truly hideous" women), are actually having sex secretly, and thus further misleading everyone else.
I wonder how many such "obvious truths" we ourselves are missing out on, simply because we haven't done any structured experiments relating to their absence.