Wayne Nutnot, a professional “comedian”, begins this fascinating essay with the statement, “I am a feminist.” But his main point — his only point is that “vaginas are icky”.
Vaginas on the other hand are finicky and, objectively, well– gross. There’s just no other way to put it. They are covered in hair. They ooze and slime– and that’s when you’re doing a good job! Which, frankly, isn’t often. Unlike the always responsive penis, your vagina simply doesn’t reward hard work. Eating pussy often feels like a difficult chore. Like vacuuming or doing the dishes using your tongue if the dishes were covered in smoked salmon that’s been sitting in the sun for a day. No thank you!
Follow-up essays will explore the mysteries of girls’ germs and cooties, and to class up the joint a bit, a connoisseur’s dining column on boogers, worms, and paste.
If you want to read something where someone addresses the clown more seriously, here you go.
How is it that some mammals have decided that hair is “gross”?
It’s quite bizarre. If nothing else, it demonstrates the awesome power of culture.
…the “always responsive penis” versus “a difficult chore”? Methinks someone has a serious Dunning-Kruger-exacerbated competence disparity. Not to mention a rude and sad awakening some years in the future.
“Objectively” ? …You keep using that word…
I think I found the perfect relationship partner for this guy: A fleshlight. No hair, no fluids and it doesn’t try to run away once he throws a hissy fit over it not being a penis(though it probably would if it could).
But in an encouraging story, comedian Patton Oswalt writes about rethinking his privilege (though he never uses that word) and attitude to rape jokes. It’s good to see. He is too smart a guy not to have come around eventually.
I should also point out that penises ALSO ooze slime when you’re doing a good job… Right, I’ll show myself out now.
Yes, well.
We have found the gay version of the icky homo cooties meme.
Let’s see… the penis is also in close proximity to hair. It excretes slimy stuff when pleased, and it can sometimes be even too responsive, causing awkward erections. Oral sex is a chore because your jaw starts to hurt, and there’s a good number of penises out there that smell and taste pretty funky. Ergo, the penis is objectively gross. Only, you know, not, because seriously, what the fuck?
Pteryxx,
Heh, pervy minds :)
Finicky? Really? Odd, I’ve never noticed that my vagina has a mind of its own. Perhaps I’m not paying enough attention.
Oh, the horror, pubic hair! I thought most people knew about it.
In Wayne’s case, I believe this.
I get the idea that Wayne isn’t highly experienced. Which no doubt answers that problem he has of not being good at it.
And women everywhere sigh in relief. Putting up with a man who thinks of oral sex as a chore is a…chore.
What? The quoted OP started it! <_<
I find it difficult to have PiV sex with a dry vagina. I dunno I thought the moisture was a good feature. . . Maybe the funnyman prefers plesuring penis. I’ve heard the iky vagina thing before but it has been while listening to some people talk about when they found out for certain they were gay.
What an ass.
The penis is always responsive?
He must not have much sexual experience with men.
Ok, that was definitely typed out with one hand.
I admit to having no practical experience whatsoever, but that sounds really unimaginative.
Notice how he is only looking at this from his own convenience. He can whip his cock out wherever, and it will be totally cool. No problem for a woman to get down on her knees on the filth of some dirty bathroom.
What a selfish asshole.
Sex that pleases you, but not necessarily them.
….
I’m just going to sit here and stare unbelieving at this sentence… from the man who came up with that shit about blow jobs above.
…
wtf?
Christ; that’s the most disturbing peek into an everyday misogynist’s mind I’ve seen in a week (yes, the intervals are sadly that short). This guy isn’t just crude and boorish—he strikes me as potentially dangerous. It takes loathing to think and write things like that.
…I am SO tempted to link to contradictory evidence or draw some helpful diagrams or something. Emergency remedial sex ed, STAT!
Ummm, men can get on their knees too, honey.
It… fascinates(?)… me how some folks will go on at length and in such graphic detail about something they claim to find distasteful. Fundies and anal sex, dudebros and cunnilingus. Um, if I don’t like to do something, I do not spend an inordinate amount of time and effort talking, writing, nor thinking about it, I do not wallow in it, do not expect other people to entertain my graphically detailed diatribe about how much I totally don’t ever want to do this thing and why. I just avoid doing it. The end.
No, you like being serviced. You don’t like sex with women, let alone love it, and you’re very bad at it. Here’s a hint: in order to like sex with a woman, it’s helpful to actually like the woman.
I wish he’d tell the large number of people whose posts about “cheepest viagra online” and such keep ending up in my wordpress spam box.Obviously they’re aiming at a non-market.
Oh my goodness. That’s the stupidest justification for being godsawful at cunnilingus I’ve ever heard.
Josh:
Nonetheless, a great many men think just that way and would be nodding along in agreement.
Isn’t it incredible how he doesn’t even fucking notice that things must be “convenient” for him but it doesn’t matter at all where or when the woman kneels, including a bathroom? This dood seriously, legitimately does not see women as sentient humans.
“There is no convenient way to perform cunnilingus on a woman unless she is lying down.”
You know dumbass, sometimes convenience is not the most important consideration, and as Caine infers you are not only not funny, you don’t seem to have much imagination.
INMNHFO cunnilingus just might be the funnest thing in the whole world. By all means if you don’t like don’t do it, it just gives the rest of us a bad rap. In closing just let me say: Nom, nom!
I know I’m stating things that are obvious to regulars, but the wider world needs to confront the reality that it’s not just:
a. Men being unintentionally selfish
b. Ordinary callousness
c. They don’t know any better
I really is a deep and scary problem of not seeing women as fully human. Onlookers should have to grapple with that.
I don’t know what to say.
Instead, I’ll just leave a link to some actual comedy. If you don’t have two hours to spare, I highly recommend making the time. Then free up more time for the other editions of the quiz. The 2006 quiz was a classic.
His name is Nutnot? He he he. What is he, fifteen? I never heard such griping about vaginas from someone who an actual adult. They have hair, surprise, surprise. Nor every woman waxes. Smelling like fish is a myth. If you smell fishy, see your doctor, cause something’s wrong. What an eedjit.
Did someone say pussy? Me think so!
♫P is for pussy, that’s good enough for me♫
OMNOMONOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOM
-Pussy Monster
This is far from the first time that I’ve heard something like this and it always baffles me. My few lovers have been vulvatastic*, so my experience is rather limited, but there’s never been anything chore-like about cunnilingus. Hell, depending on how sensitive somebody is and what sort of sensations they like, there can be very little physical difference between cunnilingus and giving a particularly petite blowjob.
Because “sit on my face” has never been uttered in the history of ever.
*My spell-checker recognizes this as a word. Rock on.
Marcus:
I sincerely hope he never finds out about “sit on my face!” Heh. I the distinct idea that this guy would think that’s the time vagina dentata emerges.
MM, *jinx!*
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
I heart you so much.
God, that’s fucking vile.
Sexual organ comedy done right:
I used to come here to read interesting articles about atheism and now I’m reading this crap.
I used to come here to read the threads and now the comments are shit.
I like Louis CK’s take on this… he thinks the opposite, he thinks of them as pretty and sweet and butterflies should be coming out of them and it’s male genitalia that are repulsive.
Oh shit. If there is someone holding you prisoner and forcing you to read posts that don’t really interest you, type * three times and then # once.
Stay strong. We’ll find a way to help you!
Try as I might, and no matter who the source, I cannot hear this stuff and not hear the My Masculinity Is Not In Question bleating behind straight doods talking about how actively offensive cock is.
Sorry. Just not buying that anyone is actually grossed out by their own body parts totally naturally and devoid of any homophobia. It’s bog standard performance of shoring up masculinity. Yawn.
grumpyoldfart:
You’ll be pleased to know there is an easy solution – don’t read it. Wow! Fabulous, eh?
Brett McCoy:
That’s every bit as stupid as Wayne’s crap.
…because a happy partner isn’t a reward?
Also, grumpyoldfart, no one taped your eyes open and forced you to read this ‘crap’. Go grump elsewhere.
Do Not Taunt Rule 34.
@grumpyoldfart–
Addressing misogyny in comedy is unimportant crap that has nothing to do with atheism because atheists are not products of our societies and comedy does not reflect nor promote social attitudes, is that what you’re saying?
‘Cause if it is, that’s horseshit.
If Nutnot doesn’t want to perform oral sex on women perhaps he should find a partner that doesn’t enjoy it. Not all women like it.
He must be fairly young. He’ll get to the “Damn, I’m horny, why can’t I get it up?” stage soon enough.
Aside from his misogyny the main thing I get from this is that he must be the most absolutely boring person to have sex with. I feel bad for any of his partners. Quite literally a selfish fucker.
+1 Internet for you.
Had a friend who used to make a bog show about how he could never be gay because “guys are fuckin’ ugly”.
It was such a forced bit. I’d always look around and wonder who he was trying to convince.
Yeah, Anthony. That would be himself, mostly. Quaking from Hetero Boy Terror. #knowthesigns
Also, a fucking ‘smells like fish’ reference? I hope he gets sued for plagiarism by every ten-year-old with a stolen copy of their dad’s Hustler.
OK, I’ve told this story here before, I think, but I must again.
In college my advisor and anthropology prof was Mary. She was a middle-aged, British anthropologist who studied gender in Sub Saharan Africa. She was also a lesbian.
We were assigned a book that included an ethnography of local prostitutes—-boys who dressed as ladies for work—who sold their wares to tourists. They described to the ethnographer the various contrivances they used to enhance their “realness” so the men would think they were cis women. Standard makeup and corsetry tricks, etc.
But then they said the final touch was to open a can of tuna and rub the juice between their legs.
I. Lost. My. Shit. Right. Out. In. Class.
I blurted out, “Oh please girl—everyone knows pussy doesn’t actually smell like fish!”
Pause for a beat.
Mary, my prof., replied:
“And everyone knows you’re an expert on pussy, Josh.”
The guy obviously doesn’t know his way around lady parts.
…maybe in a country where bathing water was in extremely short supply? I don’t even know.
Twenty years ago everyone who knew him thought he was just holding shut that closet door with white knuckles, but I don’t think he’s gay; just the victim of toxic masculinity and overexposure to bar star culture.
I believe you, A. This is a phenomenon of straight doodz; the closet cases are a minority.
MISANDRY!!
If I had a name like Nutnot, I wouldn’t make a career out of sexual innuendo. Just sayin’.
As is so often true, Monty Python is relevant.
I think the whole thing is satire. The ‘she looks bored’ and the references to dicks…
Oh? Satire has a point, a relevant one. Care to highlight the relevant point of “ugh, smelly pussy” or perhaps “damn bitches, making a man work”?
Oh, well, in that case, of course it’s satire, because no man anywhere has ever thought his partner looked bored, and men never ever talk about penises, no.
Careful analysis of Nutnot: boring, boring, boring.
And;
And of course;
I have come to the conclusion that this hateful, misogynistic areshat honestly does not think of women as human at all. In his eyes, there are merely two kinds of Real Doll – the kind that breathes and the kind that doesn’t.
As Josh, Official SpokesGay says @ 15;
It strikes me as very likely indeed that this is not merely some schtick dreamed up because Nutnot is suifficiently severely humour-deficient to think it funny. I think that Nutnot’s misogyny is so vehement that he quite possibly presents a very real danger to those women with the misfortune to know him.
———————————————————————————————————————-
andrewryan;
Whether or not it is intended as satire is irrelevant – it functions to replicate and reinforce attitudes about the supposedly ‘repulsive’ nature of women’s bodies that are all too widespread within the toxic dudebro culture. It presents hateful, dehumanising misogyny not as poisonous bigotry but as a source of supposed humour. It is no more acceptable ‘satire’ than a white comedian wearing black-face can be considered to be such
Sili:
Hey, I was just helping out, letting Wayne know that men do bend at the knees.
” Unlike the always responsive penis, your vagina simply doesn’t reward hard work. Eating pussy often feels like a difficult chore.” Sweetie, I’m going out on a limb here and making a wild stab that you don’t have a fucking (sorry, licking) clue what the hell you’re doing down there. And it’s 100% guaranteed that if you hate doing it as much as you say you do, you’re really, really not going to be good at it, hence all the unresponsive vaginas you run into.
Men coming on your face: its a reward! You women should feel grateful.
Caine
Look, men are stronger than women. Men dominate. Men can’t serve women because men were built to lead. It’s Just Science™, and it’s misandry to say otherwise.
/sarcasm
………
Interestingly, my spell checker doesn’t recognize misandry.
I had an Anatomy and Physiology prof tell us that she thought the vagina was so disgusting that she could barely stand to look at a slide of a illustration of one. She said this to the entire class. She didn’t say much about female genitals because she just wanted to get that part of class over.
The same woman had no problem dissecting cats.
I invited her to The Vagina Monologues. She didn’t go.
The ‘she looks bored’ strikes me as satire as it sounds like dramatic irony. Like the Spinal Tap line saying “The guy before us on stage was so awful the crowd was still booing when we came on!”. Like it’s supposed to be obvious the guy is rubbish in bed but doesn’t realise it. And the fact he’s obviously n interested in female parts and more praising of men’s.
I’m not saying it’s funny, or good satire, just that that’s how it comes across to me. Like a clumsy attempt at an Onion piece where the writer doesn’t realise how much of an idiot he comes across.
It says something that all these people freak out about vaginas (my spell checker is telling me it should be “vaginae?”) and not mouths. Both are smelly, wet, holes in our bodies. But how many times do we have people freaking out that, “I don’t even share my drinks with anyone, so why would I kiss anyone?!” despite the fact that it’s true that, yes, I have seen people who are perfectly happy sticking their tongues down each others throats but will not drink out of the same can of juice. If someone said, “I don’t kiss because kissing is gross,” everyone would stare, but it’s a-okay to say that about oral sex. And mouths aren’t even confined to one half of the population that is told to be ashamed of their mouths.
Is this guy straight? I’m so confused here.
Erm… I’m rather anti-penis myself…Seriously, though… I was planning on posting Monty Python’s “Sit on My Face”, but of course I’ve been beaten to it. That’s what usually happens…
Also, if someone starts out with “I’m a feminist”, I can quite literally hear the “but” coming from about a universe away…
*points and laughs*
Eristae
Hannalore hates kissing. Horny sea slugs, indeed.
“I have come to the conclusion that this hateful, misogynistic areshat honestly does not think of women as human at all. In his eyes, there are merely two kinds of Real Doll – the kind that breathes and the kind that doesn’t.”
I find it hard to conclude that.
Well, hell, I’m gay and I don’t think vaginas are “icky”. Not my cup of tea, perhaps, but they have their own loveliness.
If he finds vaginas unresponsive, then I would suggest he’s doing something wrong.
sheaf:
Oh? How incredibly wonderful of you to stop by and drop a worthless opinion. If you come back, see if you can devote some of that amazing brainpower to figuring this out:
<blockquote>Place Text Here</blockquote>
yes I think the poor guy’s problem might have something to do with this””They ooze and slime– and that’s when you’re doing a good job! Which, frankly, isn’t often.”
unless his schtick is a bumbling idiot who is basically without a clue which is a common character adopted by comics and clowns. I feel pity for him and pretty much disagree. in fact I would categorize interaction with all of the female anatomy to be rather fun and do not remember it ever being a chore.
I must be wierd
uncle frogy
Sheaf @ 72;
You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, as I am to mine. The reason that I think that Nutnot thinks in this fashion is drawn from his own words. He seems to have no trouble expecting women to pleasure him whenever and wherever;
The ‘purpose’ of vaginas is to pleasure men according to Nutnot. He doesn’t talk about the pleasure they offer to the women of whom they are a part. He doesn’t even offer a nod in passing to lesbian relationships. It is all about the guys and what feels good wrapped around their peens.
Then there is;
Here, the expectation seems to be that it is too much bother to make the effort to provide oral sex for a woman, but that woman can get down on her knees in whatever circumstances to please a bloke. Again, it is all about men, and male ‘convenience’.
As for the dehumanising misogyny, one need look no further than this paragraph;
‘Smoked samon that has been sitting in the sun for a day’ – that doesn’t strike you as misogynistic? The constant fixation on the notional importance of getting men off, while dimissing the woman’s pleasure as an irrelevancy, and a disgusting one at that – for all the concern shown for the woman’s interests or needs, she may as well be a sex doll.
I know that there are people out there who will point to this and say ‘it is supposed to be satire’ and ‘the real targets of the humour are the type of clueless dudes who actually believe this stuff’ or the ever popular ‘it’s a poe’. Unfortunately, the author does exactly nothing to explicitly confirm that this is meant as satire, and there are all too many MRAs and other misogynists who do in all earnestness think this way. It is eminently possible that this attempt at ‘humour’ is meant to mock and demean women – he wouldn’t be the first comedian who thought that women (and feminists) would make easy targets for cheap laughs from the privileged dudebro set, as the disturbing popularity of rape jokes shows.
Read straight, this is a tirade agaionst the notionally ‘disgusting’ nature of women’s bodies and their supposedly unreasonable attitude toward sex of the type that one might easily find on a misogynistic hate site such as AVFM. It could also be interpreted as a series of misogynistic ‘dog-whistles’ that are being dressed up as the kind if ‘edgy’ humour often used as a fig leaf by bigots.
But lets be generous. Lets assume that Nutnot wrote this with the intent of mocking privileged misogynistys, rathe rthan the women that it seems to target. Even with this best case, most positively spun of all scenarios, this still makes him staggeringly inept as a satirist, since he is simply vomiting forth the ‘accepted wisdom’ of legions of misogynists with little in the way of alteration. There is no clear critique here, no unambiguous subversion of the tropes deployed. Simply pointing to wide spread bigotry and doing little more than adding the literary equivalent of canned laughter does nothing other than repeat the tropes of an extremely toxic prejudice, which is as easily intrepreted as laughing at the victims as it could be seen as mocking the bigots.
So – maybe you are right. Maybe Nutnot is not an earnest misogynist of the type who actually finds women’s bodies repulsive.
Maybe he is the type of ‘comedian’ who finds sexism funny, and rolls out his ugly concept of humour to his equally regressive and misogynistic fans.
Maybe he is trying to be a satirist, but is so utterly woefully lacking in the skills of his trade that he is wholy incapable of pulling it off.
But in the end it simply doesn’t matter. Hate-screed, misogynistic pseudo-humour, or uncompetent attempt at satire, the end result is the same; he is contributing to the existing enviroment of ubiqutous misogyny that has spread like a canker throughout our society, and he should be called on that.
Intent is not magic.
Thx for the formating tip. I usually do not answer on blogs I just found this particular conclusion startling.
I know guys who have made similar statements about vaginas and know girls who have made derogatory statements about male genitalia. Neither struck me as creatures who could not see members of the other gender as human beings. If you have any concrete evidence that the conclusion I doubted has some hard evidence behind it and I mean more than slight correlations between certain kinds of “humor”- if you want to call it that- and sexism, go for it.
I do not understand your hostility. As for my brainpower…. yeah best start quoting the scores you got on internet iq tests. That will show me.
Sheaf
I notice you totally ignored Gregory’s post at 76.
I get the feeling you think this is clever. If so, I have some bad news.
So vagina’s are “icky” says a guy who thinks it is his right to get blown by a woman. Yep entitlement syndrome here. I guess this guy has never had a frank discussion with any woman about sex. If he had he would have found out that a lot of woman and straight woman at that think sucking a dick is gross and disgusting. I suggest this guy suck a few dicks himself before he pontificates on it being absolutely perfect while licking a clit is gross.
sheaf:
I’ve never taken an internet IQ test. If it will make you feel better, feel free to tell me you have a three digit IQ. In the meantime, you owe Gregory Greenwood (#76) a response. Something more substantial than I don’t think so.
Pacal:
But all penises are cleaner and better tasting!!1! I do wonder if he ran his own taste test and comparison.
I straight up won’t fuck a dude that won’t go down. I’m too old to put up with this eighth-grader bullshit.
Sheaf
See Gregory @ 76
Gregory Greenwod, I am very sorry that I have overlooked your long and thoughtful response. You rightly point out that the vies expressed by the unfortunate writer seem selfish with regard to the behavior he expects from woman during sex.
The key point of disagreement seems to have been articulated here:
I have been brought up in a catholic boy school and then entered the military for some time. Similar notions to the ones by the “comedian” were expressed very frequently in these predominantly male environment. Nevertheless many of the boys and men that formulated such things treated the girls and woman they knew respectfully and I think their behavior was more consistent with an egalitarian position than misogynistic. Others were true sexists. These experiences make me wary to conclude too much from such remarks. They are of course evidence for a certain kind of corrosive and misogynistic view, but only weak evidence. If a man voices such a view I update my probability estimate that he is a misogynist into direction of the misogynist end of the scale, but it is not something I would draw strong conclusions from. I think the actual behavior of the person is a far better judge than their statements.
Jacob Schmidt,
I have little concern or time for your antics. Answer substantially or leave me alone. If you decide to answer, explain the hstility of your response.
You don’t think that making statements is actual behavior?!
I mean, seriously -in what world is communication not a type of behavior?
When you’re playing a Vulcan rationalist with an ego. Then anything not agreeing with you is beneath your responding.
Are you a sockpuppet of that prime idiot aspidoscelis?
sheaf,
Your anecdotal claim relies on the very frequent expression of these notions not being misogynistic behaviour.
Since I don’t think that’s the case, I think you are mistaken because you are either confused or ignorant.
carlie,
yes making communications is a type of behavior. Nevertheless making a single remark in e.g. a locker room, but else behaving not sexists is very different from being a practicing “PUA” and the like. Human beings are complex, contradictory, bigoted and sexist, no one is completely free of such things to my knowledge. Nevertheless there are individuals who relatively consistently act in a way that is not dehumanizing of misogynistic that might on occasion crack a bad joke or even make a remark that is somewhat inconsistent with their other behavior. I have noticed this in myself and others. I do not think that the conclusion that I doubted was warranted.
If you should try to continue this discussion, try to refrain from gotcha arguments that result from the fact that my formulations are not arbitrarily precise.
sheaf:
Well, let’s see here. Wayne wrote down a whole lot of his behaviour in one specific regard, that of having sex. I wouldn’t have thought it possible to miss that, but I suppose someone somewhere had to miss it.
Now, if you didn’t miss it, then you’re being dishonest and are only here to defend toxic sexism of the rankest kind.
Sheaf
Both those environments are known to be incredibly sexist. Your description here reaffirms this.
I don’t trust your ability to recognize misogyny. This is largely because I’ve noticed many people have a hard time with it, and your comments here do nothing to challenge this (if anything, they reaffirm it).
How are these two remotely separate? Your statements are part of your behaviour. Reinforcing sexists ideas is an example of disgusting behaviour.
1) Pointing out you passed over Gregory’s post to complain at Caine is substantial, as it’s a pretty big over sight. Whining about lack of substance while a long, well written post is right in front of you is pretty ridiculous.
2) I wasn’t hostile. I’m not hostile now.
John Morales, thank you for this deep and insightful response. \sarcasm The anectodal nature of my claims has lead me to request hard evidence from your side. I know that this is weak evidence based o personal experience. If I am wrong, convince me! It is true that I might be confused. What do I not understand? Formulate it! Try to be precise!
Even if I don’t do a good job in understanding or changing my mind in accordance with the evidence, many onlookers will. On the other hand if you just make cryptic remarks, this won’t help anyone.
sheaf:
Yeah, and there are those whose public face ain’t their private one.
(BTW, I for one noted the shift from ” expressed very frequently” to “might on occasion”)
Cyranothe2nd
I like the way you think.
Sheaf
Sure, we all do things we shouldn’t from time to time, and I’d be willing to forgive them. But publishing a rather long, misogynistic rant in a very public setting where many are likely to see it isn’t a quick joke in the locker room.
So he was dehumanizing and misogynistic in one context, but not others. How does that change the fact that he was dehumanizing?
The “gotcha” statement resulted from your own incoherence in labelling behaviour as not behaviour. That’s not lack of arbitrary precision.
This is an ego statement. We must convince you you are wrong. This is the opposite of the case at a scientific blog, where you must evidence yourself and your opinion correct. Why aren’t you trying? Because we both know you have nothing but ego and opinion.
sheaf:
What my side may be is irrelevant to my contention, and I have made no claim other than to note how your opinion is flawed.
I was precise, but perhaps some emphasis will help you: “Your anecdotal claim relies on the very frequent expression of these notions not being misogynistic behaviour.”
(Your claim is predicated on an unsound premise)
Except those times when they are dehumanizing and/or misogynistic.
By doing such things they are dehumanizing a/o being sexist. We are all sexist, there’s no way to avoid it. What a decent human being does is to be aware of that, and refuse to enable the status quo by cracking a sexist joke or making a sexist remark. Decent human beings also call out that behaviour on the part of others, because staying silent not only encourages such behaviour, it enables it.
Jacob Smith,
I concede that it is possible, perhaps even plausible given my upbringing and the inherent biases of human nature that I would not recognize certain instances of sexism you would recognize. Note that the reverse would probably be very true as well. I would recognize however if a person is not seen as a human being by another human being or is extensively dehumanized. It should be obvious that exactly the behavior of not recognizing woman as human beings was central to the conclusion I objected to.
I agree with you that many, many of the people I grew up with are sexist / misogynistic. I do not think this changes anything about those who were not.
Regarding my lack of response:. I feel sorry for the oversight, but I do not think it is indicative of anything. Your remark about the cleverness of my snarky response is something I would consider hostile, since it was an entirely unprovoked insinuation about my intelligence.
Caine, I struggle to see a point in your response. I agree.
See, this is your problem. You think that people are just sexist, like its some natural state of being that we simply can’t help. That’s why you think ‘locker room chatter’ is not big deal.
Eep, that last was a response to sheaf.
sheaf:
Dude, you can’t even form a sentence properly. Deal with the responses you receive, instead of attempting a gotcha of your own.
Sheaf, until you show evidence to back your opinion, it can be dismissed as speculation, not fact. Try to get with the program, and give something other than opinion to work against. Then, and only then, might you learn something. We obviously have nothing to learn from you, based on your posts so far.
Cyranothe2nd:
In fairness, we are all sexist. Part and parcel of the society we live in. That said, it’s not okay, and the trick is to be aware of it, in ourselves and others, and change it.
Nerd of Redhead,
Appeals to the scientifc method… yeah.
I doubted a conclusion. I gave the reason I doubted it. It is for the ones ho support the conclsuions to provide evidence for it, not the other way round. I agree that I have not made a strong case that would pass peer review for this conclusion being wrong.
I think if people on the internet bring up the scientific method it is most of the time some misremembered cargo cult version, conveniently misremembered in a way that helps their “side”.
Cyranothe2nd,
I did not say it was not a big deal. I think such beliefs and statements are wrong both morally and factually. I have no strong opinions about biodeterminism with regards to sexism.
Sorry fuckwitted idjit. You make a claim against your concluded null hypothesis. You either show evidence to refute the null hypothesis,or shut the fuck up. Welcome to science, not your opinion. As Christopher Hitchens said. “That which is asserted without evidence (your claim), can be dismissed without evidence.” We evidenced our null hypothesis. Your turn,. I recommend silence.
Ack, didn’t preview (cooking dinner), Second sentence in my 107 response should be: “You make a claim against our concluded null hypothesis…”
Sheaf
I ain’t no Englishmen.
Not in your case.
Except the behaviour was aptly demonstrated, and even highlighted just for you. You claimed that the author wasn’t really dehumanizing since he might not be in other aspects in his life. At best, the author is only dehumanizing in one specific aspect in his life. But he’s still dehumanizing. It’s also incredibly likely that he’s dehumanizing in many other aspects of his life as well.
It’s indicative of hypocrisy on your part. It’s not enough to draw a conclusion (mistakes happen) but it does indicate it. In any case, you asked for substance, so I pointed you to the substance.
It was actually an insinuation about narcissistic self congratulation (considering a half assed insult “clever”). Given you ostensibly made the same insinuation at Caine, I found it appropriate.
So says your unevidenced OPINION which per Christopher Hitchens, is DISMISSED.
Try again, but with something other than opinion.
Goodness, sheaf can’t get nyms right, either. Just like aspidoscelis. Amazin’.
Jacob Smith,
I agree that in a very binary definition of being a misogynist, many of the behaviors can be quickly categorized and put into a moral black white context. However the reality seems to me to be a multifaceted continuum in which consistent long term actions are more reliable indicators of beliefs and values than single instances of voiced opinions, in whatever context they are voiced. It is a little like sometimes a good student has a bad day. I wanted to communicate this though and had the frustrating impression that I was deliberately misunderstood to score gotcha points. If this is not the case so be it and I hope to have communicated myself more clearly now.
I agree that a public written rant is worse than a joke in a lockeroom. I disagree that this particular rant was strong evidence for the particular conclusion I doubted.
Sheaf
Except you dismissed such behaviour as unimportant (less important than other behaviours) for consideration: “These experiences make me wary to conclude too much from such remarks.They are of course evidence for a certain kind of corrosive and misogynistic view, but only weak evidence. If a man voices such a view I update my probability estimate that he is a misogynist into direction of the misogynist end of the scale, but it is not something I would draw strong conclusions from. I think the actual behavior of the person is a far better judge than their statements.”
They’re either important or they’re not. You don’t get it both ways.
Again with OPINION. My opinion is that MRAs and their sympathizers must avoid evidence since they don’t have any. They must rely solely on opinion. Which makes their arguments not worth the electrons use to post their idiocy.
Sry Jacob Schmidt, for getting your name wrong. It is hard to concentrate on all the responses and I am losing track.
Nope it was completely inappropriate since Caine was hostile without reason for being so and I responded in kind.
Hey Sheaf! Ever done any reading at AVfM? How about all the MGTOW forums? All the MRA forums? How about the slymepit? Anything? I won’t directly link to any of the previous, but you could shut up and learn something by clicking the pretty blue letters: 1) Power, privilege and every day life and 2) Man Boobz
Nerd of Redhead,
please directly address the things I wrote.
Caine @ 104–
As an outgrowth of a sexist society, yes. As a natural state of human beings (which is what sheaf’s quote implied), no, I don’t believe that.
Caine, thx for the links. I have read Man Boobz on a few occasion. I do not think it has immediate relevance though.
Cyranothe2nd, ladyporn afficianado
If I implied something let’s carify. I have no strong beliefs about sexism with regards to biodeterminism. I think it could be that some sexism is inherent in ourselfs, or that all of it is cultural. I just do not kno and I think it would be hard to test either of these claims properly.
Cyranothe2nd:
Ah, got it. Yes, I agree.
Please supply some EVIDENCE. Your opinion can and will be dismissed. One doesn’t argue with MCPs, they tell them they are wrong. And you are WRONG.
*snicker* MORE OPINION.
dammit, the last thing should be a response to Jacob. His last sentence is: They’re either important or they’re not. You don’t get it both ways
Nerd f Redhead, The analytic properties of arguments are not merely opinion.
Caine
At least he translated it to English right.
Sheaf
There’s a preview button, btw. You can test out your code so that it doesn’t bork when you hit “submit”.
A single instance? Where did he get these ideas from? Did they just pop into his head and then leave? Did he think they were totally wrong then, once for like 2 hours while he wrote, he agreed, then went back to thinking they were wrong after he hit the “publish” button? Those weren’t single ideas, they were a group of misogynistic ideas used to come to a self serving conclusion. Nothing about that post is indicative of a “single instance”.
No you didn’t. You insinuated narcissism on Caine’s part in reaction to Caine’s annoyance at your total lack of substance in the phrase “I find it hard to conclude that”, after complaining at Caine for the lack of substance in her own post. I don’t think that’s equal.
That statement was explained very well by Gregory; no, that’s not the only conclusion, but given the past behaviour of people who expression such opinions, it’s very likely the author is misogynistic in many areas of his life. At the very least, the author has reinforced misogyny.
You’re also taking hyperbole literally, after the meaning has been explained to you very well. You’re being disingenuous.
The latter is your justification for the former; I think your trying to inflate the validity of your opinion.
Sheaf, you’re not closing your ‘blockquote’ tag.
Hahahahahaha. It’s always the mark of a dishonest assclam to claim “hostility!” where there was none. I wasn’t remotely hostile to you, sheaf. You would know if I was actually being hostile. Or perhaps you wouldn’t, given your high degree of obtuseness.
Jacob, given various direct statements about my character and behavior that I think to be untrue , I hesitate to respond, considering that you might be an incidence of fractaly wrong person as defined by rational wiki.
Anyway the truth of this contention will presumably reveal itself in your next post an I will act accordingly.
You say:
“A single instance? Where did he get these ideas from? Did they just pop into his head and then leave? Did he think they were totally wrong then, once for like 2 hours while he wrote, he agreed, then went back to thinking they were wrong after he hit the “publish” button? Those weren’t single ideas, they were a group of misogynistic ideas used to come to a self serving conclusion. Nothing about that post is indicative of a “single instance””
Ideas like this are accumulated by our culture. If I were to search them in your brain I could find them because you just read them. And they may pop up all the time and acted upon, or just occasionally and then acted upon even less often or possibly never. It is hard from a single instance to decide which it is. This is all I have been trying to say.
I will now insist that if I have made any severe mistakes they were honest mistakes and reject the notion that I have acted disingenuously.
I think the rest of my responses stands on themselves.
Caine, you made insinuations about my “brainpower” and called my opinion “worthless”, while all I did was a wikipedian protest, wanting to see justification for a supposed conclusion. It is of course not as hostile as the Westboro baptist church, but it is nevertheless uncomfortable behavior, a shade of hostility. I responded in kind, or even milder still. There is nothing disingenuous about it.
Just to sting Nerd of Redhead: Yeah asking for, in the best case empirical, justification is the heart of science.
Sheaf
I’d like to see you justify that.
Fucking hell. It’s not a single instance. It’s not a one off joke. It’s a long rant with many dehumanizing ideas he expressed repeatedly. He then felt the need to publish it twice, and when called on hid bullshit, repeatedly failed to condemn the attitudes within his writing.
But you won’t make the effort to actually figure what the mistakes were and admit to them. Yeah, disingenuous sounds about right.
Without bothering to address the reasoning given, or provide any possible reason why the conclusion might be wrong. Such things, btw, are required by wikipedia. You don’t get to wander into any article and throw up requests for justification. Well you can, but doing so will get you dismissed, as Caine has done.
What a fucking weasel. And yes, it’s plenty disingenuous to respond to annoyance with lack of substance with charges of lacking substance.
It is a single essay (the single instance I refered to, you inability to grasp the nature of categorization being noted as either deliberate or mark of intellectual incompetence, given its prevalence) were many of these ideas that by association naturally connect were formulated.
Of course no one likes to be called out as acting destructive and sexist and many natural responses will be to deny the charge, even if one most of the time does not behave that way and the charge is spot on.
And regarding efforts to figure it out: Despite you being irritatingly impolite in your insinuations I now try to answer your responses as directly as I can for hours and doing so straightly with what I believe t be true. Maybe I could say the reverse and claim that you are deliberately obtuse. Only I do not believe this to be the case. People can talk past each others for a long time.
They are without evidence. You have no analysis. Just your emotional OPINION. Which is why it is dismissed. Typical of how MRAs argue. We have to accept your unevidenced opinion as a fact. I won’t do that. You have no analytical argument. You merely pretend you do, just as they do. It is your attitude that you are right until proven wrong that needs upgrading. You are wrong until you evidence yourself right.
Who gives shit if you try intimidation by continued opinion? It’s been done before. Fails every time.
“But for women to want to receive oral sex when you know the strain it puts on men, is selfish and, frankly, discriminatory.”
Same goes for men. If what you want will put your partner in pain, back off, stop asking for it.
I have “given” oral sex to a man, and it put a *lot* of strain on me, physical pain. .. and when I suggested that maybe he had a problem if it was taking this god damned long, he said it was actually MY fault because I wasn’t “hot enough”.
Jacob,
I demand justificatin because the conclusion seemed to be a non sequitur. In the case of a non sequitur, it is borderline impossible to provide evidence that the conclusion des not follow….. this almost a trivial fact of logic. It is lik saying: Biology is really complex. Therefore god. If I ask justification for therefore god, I do not need to provide evidence for asking so. I will typically say: I need justification for the cnclusion therefore god, since no syllogism was provided.
As for:
“What a fucking weasel. And yes, it’s plenty disingenuous to respond to annoyance with lack of substance with charges of lacking substance”
Since this seems to degenerate to a debate whether I am disingenuous (a question that I can answer for myself perfectly fine), I will react like I should have reacted after your first response. Go away. Leave me alone.
Sheaf
Yes, it’s a single essay, in which he repeats these ideas.They are emphasized, and emphasized often. It’s not a single instance within the essay, and it’s asinine to claim that because there is a large enough category into which all the expressions fall, it’s a single instance.
Further, on what basis do you assume that these ideas he deliberately promotes have no effect on his behaviour in the rest of his life? This are not little ideas, they are dehumanizing. They are not ideas one holds lightly.
I notice you’re ignoring the fact that he published it twice.
What insinuations? I did insinuate possible narcissism on your part, but I left open the possibility of being wrong rather deliberately, and it was only in mirror to your own insinuations about Caine. Anything else I stated openly.
Done.
Nerd of Redhead, I am no MRA.
Rilian
I’m sorry that happened.
There is no discussion going on. You are pontificating. You aren’t listening. That requires opening your mind and shutting your mouth. Which is the exact fault the Slymepit™ has. Their opinion must be the one discussed, and discussed how they want to discuss it. Which is us accepting their unevidenced opinion without question or criticism. Look in the mirror. You are exhibiting that behavior.
sheaf, along with the disingenuousness (which I judge extremely probable), you’re also weighing the evidence improperly. Your reasoning back at #83 is flawed:
Treating women with surface politeness or chivalry, “respectfully” as you stated earlier, does not imply egalitarianism. In fact disproportionate politeness towards women often constitutes sexism (read up on benevolent sexism), and it correlates with hostility towards women. For instance: (emphasis mine)
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/psysociety/2013/04/02/benevolent-sexism/
So even though you’ve witnessed persons making nasty remarks about women and then treating them politely to their faces, that is not evidence for people with basically egalitarian attitudes making uncharacteristic nasty remarks. It’s the converse – people with basically sexist attitudes covering them up as respectful.
I also point out that you’re using as evidence statements made in all-male environments, which aren’t directly comparable to an essay written for broad dissemination. The author obviously intended his statements to be read by a wide audience, including women, who do in fact exist on the internet.
You know…my first reaction to this is “closet case,” but it may be that he just has really, truly, never opened himself to a woman and loved her as he loved himself, and is suffering for it. His descriptions of female anatomy are beyond inaccurate: as the owner of a vagina, I can tell him if it smells like fish something is wrong, like bacterially wrong. Daily hot showers and washing around and near (not inside, soap is like 100,000 times more basic than a healthy vagina!) plus a decent diet and not staying in sweaty clothes too long is all that’s needed.
As far as pubic hair goes, I think this is a man who’s seen a lot of porn and is used to seeing women smooth as a baby down there. That has its appeal, and definitely makes eating your love out a smoother experience, but I can deal with some hair and I like knowing my sweetie is a woman, not a hypersexualized girl. I trim down very close but rarely shave it completely off, mostly because aaaaargh, itchy~.
But the saddest thing is how focused he is on physical sensation. Lovemaking, in any form, should be partly about transcending one’s self and ego, merging with the one you love and learning her (or him) inside and out, responding to cues moment to moment and bring her/him to a peak…and then riding the crest of the wave down together, collapsing in a happy, giggling, blushing, sweaty heap with your arms and legs and hair all tangled up. Does he just not existentially know that melting, magnetic feeling that holds two lovers together across a room? The one that fills everything with light and feathers and a pure tone and makes everything feel like it’s all going to be okay? When you feel that, you’d do anything (short of what’s unsanitary and/or dangerous) to pleasure the one you love.
Also, a side question: does this accurately describe a straight guy’s experience for his girlfriend/wife? I’ve always wondered about what men feel and why and how.
@Azuma
Not in my experience, by a long shot. Most men I’ve spoken to quite enjoy going down on their partners, many have said they prefer it to fellatio. I don’t know the source of this ‘comedian’s’ disgust, but it certainly doesn’t come from a grounded place.
The other absurd thing he said that I know has already been brought up, but the whole
is sooooo wrong! Heck, if she is wearing a skirt, all he has to do is kneel. Or she could hop up on a counter. Or a chair. Instant access. Seriously, lying down is great and all, but there are myriad convenient ways to access the vulva.
Azuma Hazuki: that beautiful description should be accurate for any partners’ experience. It really, really should.
—
(*with a few caveats about not necessarily reaching climax together, or at all; inappropriate giggle fits, interruptions, sessions that end in massaging away each others’ muscle cramps, and occasionally small bandages and/or repairs to furniture. *cough* What can I say; awkward lovemaking’s wonderful too.)
@148/Pteryxx
Yes :) It all becomes part of one single, overarching experience: an “I love you” written in experience itself. I miss that; my current girlfriend lives in Malaysia, quite literally on the opposite side of the world, and the best we can do is IRC and Skype.
But it’s about living together, experiencing the flow of energy and matter and thou and I, and realizing they’re all the same. I always found it to be almost meditative, even (and sometimes especially) when one or both of us didn’t climax. The expanded awareness is amazing.
I just found this thread, so forgive me for reaching so far back, but Josh @ 39, this was kind of an “ouch” statement for me as a trans woman:
Sorry. Just not buying that anyone is actually grossed out by their own body parts totally naturally and devoid of any homophobia
Small hint: body dysphoria, genital dysphoria? Real thing. I didn’t fly all the way to Thailand and spend thousands of dollars I’d had to scrape together because I loved my body as it was. I don’t think you meant it to be, but that’s kind of a cissexist thing you said, because I really, *really* don’t think that was from homophobia. There are perfectly valid and reasonable reasons for people who might dislike “their own body parts totally naturally and devoid of any homophobia”. Mkay? Thanks.
CaitieCat–I’m sorry I wasn’t more specific. I meant to refer only to het guys of the sort in this post; I spoke too broadly.
Thanks, dude. Appreciated. :)
Nerd… I really have to say this…
…
Your posts dismissing opinions just aren’t the same without the floosh.
:D
Ack… that was meant for Nerd of Redhead…
If this was meant to be a joke or satire, it failed miserably, bur it’s a funny coincidence that I think I found someone doing it right a few days ago:
Garfunkel & Oates
sheaf:
Others have covered how deeply wrong you are, so I will not retread that ground. However, I take issue with you on a few things:
1- no ones owes you politeness, especially when you come in here offering a defense of a misogynistic rant. This is-among other topics*-a feminist zone. Most of the regulars, and our blog hosts are very knowledgeable wrt feminist issues. The misogyny in the rant is plain as day. When you showed up and defended the piece, the Horde ripped through your unsubstantiated opinions. If you had backed up your opinion with strong arguments and some sources to support them, even if you were wrong, you likely would not have been dismissed so quickly.
2- this is not a polite blog. I advise you to read the comment policy. Complaining about hostility will get you nowhere.
3- you can make all the demands of people to respond to you in the manner you prefer, but it is not likely to happen here. State your point. Make your arguments. Whinging about people being hostile (which is nothing more than you projecting motives behind the words; unless you are a mind reader you know nothing about the mindset of the other commenters) or uncivil will get much deserved ridicule. The content of your comments matters, not the window dressing.
and
*4- this is also a science blog. Nerd of Redhead has a point asking you to show your work. For an example, see the comment by PTERYXX @145.
Tony,
I respond to a post complaining about me complaining about how this blog is not polite? To cite xkcd: ‘I Am So Meta Even This Acronym.”
In all seriousness, my views on politeness are strongly influenced by my consequentialism. In hostile environments, short substanceless put downs of others seem to dominate the conversation, whereas when people are respectful conversation usually begins to focus on content going away from a tedious he said she said to an actual exchange o opinions. In line with this spirit, the most thoughtful and well written response I received, number 76, was free of the bravado that others exhibited.
On the other hands the most hostile responses like the ones by Nerd of Readhead where also completely content free jumbles with appeals to the scientific method, a method that given the content of his comments he does not understand – the last is also very true for your own response: Science does not demand me to be the one to provide evidence when I scratch my head at a statement and ask for justification. It demands that the one supporting the statement gives justification.
Pteryx,
I know the difference between caring for someone and being polite. Most functional adults do. And some people are just polite whereas others care.
I thought it was funny. And makes a valid point. A man’s penis, when you look at movies and public perception, is viewed as being inherently vulgar and offensive. I’m gay, so I can relate. Vaginas look like face-eaters from the Aliens movies. Fucking disgusting.
Bryan Leger
Matter of opinion, hey, I strongly disagree. Only shallow, uptight idiots view reproductive parts as disgusting, you know.
As a professional scientist of 40+ years, I do understand science. And understand you OPINION, unevidenced, can and will be dismissed as pure self -serving bullshit if you can’t back it up with anything. I’m also a skeptic of 30+ years. To get to the truth, you also need to make sure the “source of the truth” takes it outside of themselves and backs it up with independent evidence.
Your feeble attempt to avoid having to back up your arguments is prima facie evidence they are bullshit. Which is why you receive the mocking and derision you so well deserve. The Vulcan approach is for tone trolls, which this blog finds the scum of the Earth.
You’ve got it backwards. The alien face-eaters were designed long after the vagina evolved, and were probably given their form in part to evoke the kind of dread some men have about those mysterious lady-bits.
sheaf
IASMETA?
To accurately quote xkcd, “Someone is WRONG on the Internet.”
Well, it describes one straight man’s experience. Not a monolith are we. As a counterpoint, I love vulva; whether by sight, touch, taste, or smell few acts are as immersive and satisfying as when someone shares their’s with me for a time. To say gross when presented with such a fine opportunity, well, that’s no reflection of who I am or how I feel.
Nerd of Redhead,
please identify which scientist you are, I would really like to read one of your papers. It would certainly be an enlightening endeavor. facepalm
Mellow Monkey, oops.
Well…if you’re a gay guy you’re sort of supposed to find them unattractive right? You’re not wired to like them, same as I’m not wired to like men (though I don’t mind phalluses so much as what they’re attached to…).
It’s just a matter of who and what you are. Where you see face huggers, I see flowers, butterflies, rock formations, and interesting bits of trees. Oh, and a very special part of someone I love <3
Late to the thread, but can’t let this pass without comment.
This guy is either inexperienced, or a total klutz, not to mention that he’s not in tune with women. I’d say he’s both wrong and not even a bit funny.
He’s not talking about vaginas anyway, he’s talking about vulvas. The whole thing down there, not just the inner canal. Doesn’t even know the right words.
In my estimation, vulvas exhibit variety in the same manner as human faces. You do find the odd homely one, but most are pleasant enough, and many are just stunningly beautiful. In fact I think that beautiful vulvas are among the most lovely sights in this world. And far from being gross, they are a bounty of sensual delight. I love the hair that carries the scent and I love the juices and the sound they make. Scent, taste, feel, look. It’s all superb. And the “cunt’s eye view” of a woman in full blown orgasm is one of the most lovely sights a man can experience. What a turn on.
I don’t know whose vulva that guy has been nuzzling up to, but during my four decades of adulthood, none of the many I have buried my face in ever fit a single one of his descriptors. And I have never understood the reference men so often make that relate vulvas to aging fish. This is a false maxim that should be drummed out of the language. The musky scent of a woman’s crotch is more like an aphrodisiac.
I’ve been with my wife for more than 20 years and I’ve never found it inconvenient to perform cunnilingus on her. Finding the time in a busy life to have more is the real problem, such are the intrusions of work and children. I’d say that Wayne Nutnot is Wayne Nutcase. And not much of a feminist.
On this fathers’ day this father and certified labiaphile just wants to send out a big “three cheers” for lady bits.
I feel better now.
PZ: “The alien face-eaters were designed long after the vagina evolved, and were probably given their form in part to evoke the kind of dread some men have about those mysterious lady-bits.”
This is correct. HR Giger was referencing the ‘Vagina dentata’ fear in his Alien design. This obsession is clear in much of his other artwork and designs, and is made even more explicit in his work on the German film ‘The Killer Condom”.
Sheaf: “In hostile environments, short substanceless put downs of others seem to dominate the conversation, whereas when people are respectful conversation usually begins to focus on content going away from a tedious he said she said to an actual exchange of opinions.”
Sheaf, I’m afraid you’re on the wrong the blog if you’re after an exchange of opinions. I started scrolling up the comments trying to find out what you are actually arguing with people about, and could only find everyone piling on you, and you telling them they’re being rude, and them predictably saying ‘Bad luck, this is Pharyngula and we can be as rude as we want’. I’ve no idea whether you were originally saying something I agree with or not, but the conversation that followed is one I’ve seen on this board over and over again. Very few genuine MRA advocates post here, so the (justifiable) anger against them tends to get showered on anyone suspected of being an MRA advocate in disguise, or anyone who doesn’t attack MRA advocates clearly enough.
For the record, I believe anyone who genuinely holds Wayne’s above opinions is a misogynistic idiot. Their punishment is to miss out on a wonderful experience.
andrewryan,
I guess you are right. I disagreed with a single conclusion in post number 72., that resulted in hours of rage and insinuations abut my character. I do not think that this justifiable behavior, regardless whether I was wrong or right in my remark.
Those published papers are irrelevant to your claims. Until you evidence, from legitimate sources outside of yourself, the need for such information.
Who the fuck cares what you think about your treatment here. This is a shark tank. If you want polite, go to “Mental Wankery S Us” website.
sheaf @ 83;
I am in no position to take umbrage – as you can see, I have only gotten around to posting this reply several hours after it might have been anything approaching relevant…
I would still contend that the language goes beyond mere selfishness, and is actively dehumanising in its attitude toward, and discription of, women and (one assumes from his writing, though I could be wrong here) cis-female bodies. The repeated expressions of revulsion, couched as they are in terms likening women’s genitalia to decomposing fish in one instance, does not simply serve to convey disinterest in a particular sex act that holds no appeal for the author. It expresses visceral disgust at (an inaccurate stereotype) of the biology of the vulva.
As has been noted by other commenters, both the catholic church and the vast majority of military organisations are infamous for institutionalised misogyny, which must be taken into account as overlaying any personal bigotry, or lack thereof, of the people who express such opinions in such an environment. Statements that are normalised within the context of an institution that is fundamentally predicated upon the notional inferiority of women cannot be viewed as ‘not sexism really’ so easily. The very fact that such attitudes are encouraged by such institutions shows the reach and power of patriarchal, societal misogyny, which creates the context within which the statements of individuals must be understood.
Going along with the crowd when that crowd is promoting misogyny is not a neutral act – it enables that bigotry by adding one more voice to the choir, and reinforcing the notion that misogyny is simply an inescapable aspect of ‘how things are’. Those who benefit from prejudice typically adhere to a variant of the naturalistic fallacy. They work very hard to paint their bigotry as simply an immutable aspect of reality that can no more be opposed than the fundamental forces of the universe; as a self-evident truth. This is why they react so negatively to people who challenge their ‘accepted wisdom’ and paint their prejudice for the self-serving hatred-mongering it is. And every voice that goes along with such a misogynistic mentality, even in what is supposed to be light-hearted jest, serves to reinforce the toxic attitudes behind such things as the glass ceiling and the myriad other concrete expressions of sexism in our culture. That is why refusing to stay silent, and calling out sexism in whatever arena it rears its ugly head, is so important.
Discerning those who are merely expressing the tropes of sexism as a ‘joke’ from those who actually hold those beliefs but lack the conviction to express them without the safety net of self-reinforcing ‘lad culture’ surrounding them can be difficult indeed.
And again, intent is not magic – expressing sexism ‘just for laughs’ can be almost as damaging as stating it in earnest if you fail to make it clear that it is the misogynists you are mocking, rather than their victims.
Again, as noted by other commenters, communication – in all its myriad forms – is a form of behaviour, perhaps the most important form of behaviour in a social species like our own. Even a ‘one off’ statement of misogyny does not exist in a social vacuum, it has consequence and effects with reagards to the social discourse on the notional ‘proper place of women’. There is also the fact, again covered by other commenters upthread, that not all forms of communication are equal. There is a significant difference between an ‘off the cuff’ remark thoughtlessly made within a locker room (not that such statements aren’t problematic in their own right when they replicate bigotry), and a comedy piece that has to be drafted (possibly more than once), written and then published on a mass media forum like the internet, in the certain knowledge that some of the people exposed to the toxic tropes within that piece will be the targets of misogyny that shares the exact same style and form of words as the work of comedy.
Ultimately, we have nothing to go on but Nutnot’s words – I for one do not know him personally, and likely never will. All I have as a basis upon which to form an opinion of the man and what he stands for is the material that he has disseminated onto the internet and other media, and that material seems to conform suspiciously closely to the attitudes and mindset of any of the many egregious misogynist bigots who seek to spin their woman-hating bile into profitable ‘comedy’. Even his protestation of supporting women’s rights are very reminiscient of the type of misogynist who always prefaces his bigotry with the words; “I am a feminist, but…”
I see no reason to extend the benefit of the doubt to him at this time. He has had ample opportunity to retract his words or clarify his meaning, and to the best of my knowledge he has refused to do so. He has chosen to allow his words to stand as they are, and I am simply taking him at his word.
sheaf:
(emphasis added)
May I inquire as to the appropriate level of politeness due someone who is wrong?
Some people are very good at making you feel good even when you are wrong.
Others are not so good at this.
Notice, however, the constant: you were wrong.
If you’re wrong about something, especially about something as sexist as this, you should feel bad. You should feel chagrin and regret at holding such an opinion. I’ve said dumb things here, and been called out on it, sometimes none too politely. The net result has been that I try to be less wrong in the future.
Perhaps you’d be more successful in attempting to be right if you were concerned less with the way people are telling you you are wrong and more with the fact that they are telling you you are wrong.
. . .
andrewryan:
(emphasis added)
…but we should be careful not to hurt their feelings telling them that?
Sheaf,
Read this, the original standards and practices. PZ later added the rules on the sidebar. That is science and third party evidence, so sorely lacking from your posts.
We don’t do “drawing room” discussions. We call things as we see them, including your opinion.
Vaiyt @ #7- “We have found the gay version of the icky homo cooties meme.”
Well I’m a gay man, and I’m not at all as squicked by vaginas as this straight guy.
Personally, I can’t wrap my mind around feeling this way about the basic biology of someone I interacted with sexually. (Generally speaking, of course. Not everyone you run across will be sexually attractive to you. But this guy isn’t talking about “that woman”, he’s talking about “women”.)
PZ @ #162- “You’ve got it backwards. The alien face-eaters were designed long after the vagina evolved, and were probably given their form in part to evoke the kind of dread some men have about those mysterious lady-bits.”
Nah, the alien face hugger was designed (in form and function) to be an ambulatory penis.
ah yeah; two environments well-known for not instilling toxic anti-woman biases in people, especially men[/sarc]
define “respectfully”; because the sort of “respect” the RCC affords women is also misogynist.
we’re still talking about men in the RCC and in the military, yes? This is an extraordinary claim.
you mean such behavior as publicly making such statements as “comedy”?
quantitatively, not qualitatively; it’s still all sexist behavior.
except that those for whom this is actually true tend to genuinely feel remorseful when they have their slip-ups pointed out. not the case here.
oh, so this is a defense of yourself more than anything. got it.
er. sexism is to see a woman as less human than a man. you know, “dehumanization”. that was the point, albeit delivered with hyperbole for emphasis.
in either case, they’re sexist and dehumanizing; in either case, when not retracted, they show that the sexism and misogyny are a part of someone’s character that they do not wish to change. your point?
O RLY. you do know that this dude’s twitter account is only two clicks away, yes? aside from that, no one writes an essay like that accidentally.
this is incoherent. exchanges of opinions are “he said she said”. Aside from tha, there’s a good amount of anecdotal evidence that this blog and its commenting-style is teaching a lot of individuals about racism, sexism, etc., so I think you’re going to have to show some evidence that politeness works better, rather than merely serving to euphemize serious problems and relegate them to polite and theoretical chat.
Funny because the only thing that ever pops in my head when I think of Giger is this.
ahem, nsfw
And the “cunt’s eye view” of a woman in full blown orgasm is one of the most lovely sights a man can experience.
Not just men can experience this. It’s a view I’ve enjoyed with happy-making regularity, and one my partner (the watchee in the early part of this sentence) has enjoyed with me too. All kinds of people can appreciate how wonderful cunts are.
Which is why I don’t call people “cunt”, or “pussy”, or “dick”, or “prick”, or “dickhead”, or all those related terms (did used to, but I got better). All those things are beautiful and fun to play with, and if I used them to describe a person I’d be certainly talking about someone I liked VERY MUCH.
andrewryan
You couldn’t figure out Sheaf’s contention? Look at posts 83, 89, 98, 112, and 115. It was stated quite clearly.
Jadehawk, your answer is an incoherent mess that mostly des not seem to address me. I have no motivation to go into it right now. I would encourage you to practice your reading comprehension. It is an important skill.
Anri, you often can’t go wrong with tit for tat. And blogs where the level of hostility is low and there are effective feed back systems like the less wrong community blog seem at least to me to outperform this one on every conceivable level. Similarily science blogs like SVPOW have far more informative and pleasent discussions than those here.
Gregory Greenwoood, I believe to have answered the points you raised already. Yes I was raised in a sexist environment and the behaviors were harmful and toxic. Nevertheless there were individuals who on some occasions behaved misogynistic who most of the time did not behave in this way and I take it as stronger evidence for their worldview than their slip ups.
Regarding benefit of the doubt- you do not have to give him that to see that the original conclusion that I critisized was stronger than the data we had would justify.
Anyway if the next responses do not contain anything substantive I am pretty much done here. So have a nice life!
sheaf @ 180;
The fact that these misogynistic statements were made within the context of a culture that normalises such attitudes is still a cause for concern. You believe that their statements of misogyny were isolated ‘slip ups’ that were not indicative of their usual attitudes or behaviour. Leaving aside the already discussed points about how this is not comparable to Nutnots actions, I would still ask how you can be sure that these seemingly isolated incidences of misogyny didn’t reflect their worldviews more than you realised? Sexism does not always present itself as a ranting hatred of, or visceral revulsion for, women.
As noted upthread there are many examples of so called ‘benign sexism’ that are still discriminatory and offensive, and are significantly correlated with more hostile and explictly anti-woman expressions of sexism. There is also the fact that misogyny may not always be evident until a circumstance presents itself that brings it out of someone. An example might be the guy who seems to have no problem with women and women’s voices, but when one day confronted with an incidence of rape promptly responds by pontificating that the victim was probably ‘asking for it’.
I think you need to seriously entertain the possibility that the misogyny you heard was not some isolated outlier incident that had no bearing on that person’s life beyond that one situation, and instead was a case of the mask slipping for an instant to show what that person really thinks about women in their unguarded moments. It is certainly disturbing and unpleasant to realise that people whom you like and respect may harbour highly toxic misogynistic attitudes, but ignoring the possibility out of hand because you don’t want to contemplate it only serves to enable that prejudice.
I concede that the language was hyperbolic – as Jadehawk say @ 177;
But I think that getting hung up on my particular form of perhaps poorly chosen wording is to miss the issue somewhat. The underlying point – that Nutnot’s attitude toward women within this comedy piece appears to be wilfuly dehumanising (or, as discussed in my 76, at best represents a staggeringly incompetent attempt at satire that harms far more than it could ever help) – still stands. If this was somehow an innocent slip (odd given that it is a written piece that has been published twice, but lets put that to one side for the sake of argument), then why hasn’t Nutnot retracted it or clarified his position? By refusing to do so, he seems to be standing by his original words, along with all their problematic connotations. Why would a person acting in good faith behave in that fashion?
Gregory Greenwood, the people I believe not to be sexist pigs simply tread woman well and genuinely seem concerned for their well being. This is why I think single data points are not as relevant as they are made out to be in assessing internal states. Small collections of data points such as essays are not extremely strong as well. I have heard my fair share of ideas that contextualisation would see as plainly faschist for example, but do not believe the people who uttered them to be faschist. Sometimes these came in forms of essays.
Defensive behavior towards your expressed essays is very normal. Most people have never properly learned to say: I am wrong. And believe me, it is a hard skill to learn.
Regarding Hyperbole: Ok. Maybe. Does not change the fact that the only contention I had, namely the conclusion as presented is too strong and plausibly wrong is true, even if this conclusion was hyperbolic. If people start claiming the things I criticize to be just rethorical figures after a long debate, my typical suspicion is that they are not, else this defense would have come up much earlier. However my abilty to see hyperbole in written environments is not good so maybe it was hyperbole. Hard to discern.
Regarding intent, since you bring it up: I don’t believe it is magic. I believe t is very important in any form of moral discussion as the way to tread others with good intentions is trivially different than to tread the ones with bad ones. Those who have good intentions should be informed in a way that makes them more likely to act correctly the next time. Others should be discouraged or even made examples of. It is not without reason that our judicial system relies on questions of intent as well… But this is besides the point as I never claimed that the result of such essays are harmless. It is just not the topic I voiced an opinion on.
I’m having difficulty parsing what the “reverse” means here.
I would not recognize issues of not sexism that this person with a different bias would?
sorry, that doesn’t work.
freudian slip?
The road to hell is paved with the good intentions of the ignorant.
Ichthyc,
the reverse means that I would recognize sexist behaviors in him he does not recognize.
The road to hell paved with good intentions of the ignorant. That is why you should inform them if possible so that they are not ignorant anymore.
Sheaf
Just gonna point this out, then I’ll go back to leaving you alone.
Look at what gregory said way back at 76: “So – maybe you are right. Maybe Nutnot is not an earnest misogynist of the type who actually finds women’s bodies repulsive.
Maybe he is the type of ‘comedian’ who finds sexism funny, and rolls out his ugly concept of humour to his equally regressive and misogynistic fans.
Maybe he is trying to be a satirist, but is so utterly woefully lacking in the skills of his trade that he is wholy incapable of pulling it off.
But in the end it simply doesn’t matter. Hate-screed, misogynistic pseudo-humour, or uncompetent attempt at satire, the end result is the same; he is contributing to the existing enviroment of ubiqutous misogyny that has spread like a canker throughout our society, and he should be called on that.”
Look at what I said back at 128: “You’re also taking hyperbole literally, after the meaning has been explained to you very well.”
Why do you think we’re just claiming hyperbole at the end?
Jacob,
what gregory has said at 76 seems not to identify his conclusion as hyperbole. I agree that he did concede that it is not ironclad. And that was my point….
My initial comment: 4:21
Comment 128: 8:09
yeah 8:09-4:21. Immediately pointed out afterwards… looks different. Debate lasting for hours not.
And you figure pretending there’s nothing wrong with their comment or that it’s not really that big a deal constitutes this how?
You don’t think admitting your statement was the most extreme possible interpretation falls into the category of exaggeration, overstatement and hyperbole?
1) Your error wasn’t clear to me before this; the hyperbole was obvious to me.
2) Didn’t claim this.
3) You’re using time to measure a debate on the internet?
Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :),
???
What do you mean? That we should trade effective methods for ineffective ones because the latter have some inherent virtue, invisible to me? We should behave in a way that maximises human wellfare. In the case of people with good intent often the best behavior is to improve their ignorance. Sometimes this should be done in a confrontational manner sometimes not. It is a judgement call depending on the estimation of the person’s character.
*slow clap*
(Come on, you’re almost there…)
Jacob,
“You don’t think admitting your statement was the most extreme possible interpretation falls into the category of exaggeration, overstatement and hyperbole?”
The categories are close but not identical.
“1) Your error wasn’t clear to me before this; the hyperbole was obvious to me.
2) Didn’t claim this.
3) You’re using time to measure a debate on the internet?”
1) What error? Hyperbolic conclusions are nevertheless wrong, as is the mindset of completely judging people on too little data.
2)Did not claim you claimed this. From the internal logic of the counterargument to the statement that it was not pointed out quickly enough, it is just very important for this to be not pointed out quickly.
3) Yes since in the context of continual typing it is a suitable metric.
Azkyroth,
No. For all I am concerned we are so far from each other that you seem to have difficulty grasping the differences.
Pretending they did nothing wrong is NOT one of those ways.
Mistaking hyperbole for literal statements.
Didn’t claim you did. This’ll turn into an Abbott and Costello sketch, soon.
Pretty sure non of us continually typed for 4 hours (it’s not a suitable metric since it doesn’t take into account distractions and other things, such as me leaving to go eat dinner mid way through; it wasn’t 4 hours of continual debate, it was discrete debate spread over 4 hours).
It was pointed out in 76. That you didn’t recognize it doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.
sheaf, why are you so invested in defending this guy, when your conjectures of his intent are entirely made up in your own head?
carlie, I did not defend this guy. Red my posts. I condemned him.
vaiyt, the ways how to engage this are very varied. If for example the person you are confronted with is sociopath, appeals to right and wrong are plausibly meaningless to him or her. If the person is likely to take offense when you tell her or him that she or he did something wrong bluntly and consequently will shut you out a more diplomatic approach is warranted. Statements like yours are indicative that you are not effective at actually persuading ther people of your opinions.
Jacob,
“Pretty sure non of us continually typed for 4 hours (it’s not a suitable metric since it doesn’t take into account distractions and other things, such as me leaving to go eat dinner mid way through; it wasn’t 4 hours of continual debate, it was discrete debate spread over 4 hours)”
I did type a lot more than you mind you. Anyway you left 5 comments before 128. So the time metric seems to converge with a content metric.
“It was pointed out in 76. That you didn’t recognize it doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.”
Nope. It was not. In 76 it was admitted that the conclusion was an overstatement, which may be a form of unintentional false statement, compared to hyperbole which is intentional.
Regarding error: I did not commit one in this case, not in any definition of the word. Since very little insight will be gained from furthering this: Again, leave it be.
carlie, again: Just wanted to give my motivation: I care about how people approach their pictures of other people. I dislike it when people are overly judgemental on very little evidence.
Statements like this would be more effective if you followed your own advice.
Then you should have shut the fuck up. Continued posts are the equivalent of retracting your condemnation.
Irrelevant statement. We already know this.
Only if you show with third party evidence this actually works. Our anecdotal evidence says laughing and ridicule are very effective.
Nor are you persuading us with your PURE OPINION. Until you provide evidence to back up your assertions, they and and are dismissed. Welcome to science.where you are wrong until you EVIDENCE yourself right. Evidence from you is non-existent.
Who the fuck are you to dictate how and with what people respond to you? Your ego is overloading your OPINION. Time to realize we don’t give a shit about your OPINION. What EVIDENCE will you bring to bear to back up your assertions? Then, and only then, can you be persuasive.
Sheaf @170:
Oh quit whining.
Criticism =\= rage
<delurk>
Am I the only one waiting with bated breath for sheaf to flounce?
<relurk>
Unlike creationists, Sheaf hasn’t been taught how to declare victory *snicker* and fade into the bandwidth.
Damn, I thought I saw a flounce in the making and was really hoping.
I know! I’d lined up a band, and elephants, and acrobats, all ready to celebrate the flounce…then he failed to stick the landing.
Sigh. Another dream broken.
sheaf:
Very well, the things said by MRA’s are denying the equality of large sections of humanity.
Their defenders are assisting them in this repulsive, terrible, hurtful thing.
Is your contention that rudeness is too much of a response? That an exchange between dehumanizing rhetoric and barbed wit is asymmetrical in the direction of the snarker?
Really?
(emphasis added)
Well – and this may come as a shock to you – not everyone finds your opinion definitive. Speaking personally, if someone is correct but rude, and I ignore them and remain in the wrong because of their rudeness, I can’t blame my being wrong on their being rude – I blame it on my not listening to them.
It’s not their responsibility to make their correction of me as palatable as I wish.
Anri,
I strongly doubt discussions like this: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/hpe/how_should_eliezer_and_nicks_extra_20_be_split/
could be found here. An if they can, they most probably are not among the first blog entries.
“Well – and this may come as a shock to you – not everyone finds your opinion definitive. Speaking personally, if someone is correct but rude, and I ignore them and remain in the wrong because of their rudeness, I can’t blame my being wrong on their being rude – I blame it on my not listening to them.
It’s not their responsibility to make their correction of me as palatable as I wish.”
It comes not as a shock to me…more as source of annoyance as it is quite obvious.
I think that thinking in terms of responsibility is a hindrance. Think in the terms of consequence. Politeness costs you nothing and gains you a wider audience. Handwaving that you are not responsible and instead want to unproductively hate things won’t improve the world or the discussion. Impoliteness may however allow you to let off steam and can in cases motivate people who are closer to you and bring you attention that another approach would not bring. I believe the level of impoliteness in this comment section is simply stifling.
[OT]
sheaf blathered thus at Anri:
But consequences have antecedents, and prevention is better than cure.
Your thinking is quaint.
You sure build a shoddy straw-dummy.
You imagine you are being polite?
(Heh)
If this is what you find stifling, your prolixity when not stifled must be epic!
John,
“But consequences have antecedents, and prevention is better than cure.”
A common saying but not true in generality. It depends on cost of cure and prevention. At equal cost with effective feedback systems cure is obviously better. But this Has nothing to do with my point, has it?
“You imagine you are being polite?
(Heh)”
…. no I imagine I use tit for tat and am nicer than I should be while using it. You could have figured that out by …. reading.
“If this is what you find stifling, your prolixity when not stifled must be epic!”
Yes, there is a substantial difference in the level of content other blogs generate in their comment sections and this one, despite this one having a large audience. If you compare the level of discussion here with the one that was on common sense atheism you will find very noticeable differences. While not quite as low, this blog reminds me of youtube comments quite a bit.
[meta]
sheaf:
Doesn’t it?
Well, then, I put it to you that your advocacy of politeness whilst admitting to tit-for-tat shows you to be (at best) a hypocrite.
<snicker>
Yes indeed.
John Morales,
No, I am no hypocrite, as tit for tat advocates cooperation in the beginning…. I think you have no idea what you are talking about.
”
Yes indeed.”
Not sure what you are implying… that Pharyngula is a place for thoughtful intelligent discussion? If you think that then you would not recognize thoughtful discussions if they gave you an honorary doctorate at Oxford for saving the world from PZ’s escaped Hyena Bat cross overs.
sheaf:
I see; so you don’t consider to impolitely advocate for politeness to be hypocritical on the basis that your initial politeness was not reciprocated.
So, you advocate tit-for-tat politeness.
Hint: your persistent prolixity whilst purportedly stifled, the which debouches from the topic ever more.
It seems to suit you just fine, O prolix one. :)
<snicker>
I feel Sheaf has no idea what it is talking about. If xe expects to change the blogs culture, xe has failed before xe started. And xe doesn’t engage in thoughtful discussion. That requires listening, not preaching.
Citation needed, not fuckwitted tone trolling OPINION. No citations equals tone trolling.
Nerd of Redhead,
Why am I an it?
Why shouldn’t you be an it? Citation needed for intelligent discussion. No citations, tone trolling preaching.
Nerd of Redhead,
I gave you examples of blogs with intelligent discussions on them. Just click the bloody link.
As for politeness and evidence:
I felt petty alienated by the responses I got here and I am fairly neurotypical. So this anectodal evidence that impolite strategies at least do not engage me and probably a lot of others who are similar to me. If I try to convince friends or family members I have found being blunt as ineffective. The same is true for people I discuss with on the internet- I mostly manage to be convincing if I follow Dan Dennet’s advice on persuasion:
“Anatol Rapoport… once promulgated a list of rules for how to write a successful critical commentary on an opponent’s work. First, he said, you must attempt to re-express your opponent’s position so clearly, vividly and fairly that your opponent says “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.” Then, you should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement), and third, you should mention anything you have learned from your opponent. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism. I have found this a salutary discipline to follow– or, since it is challenging, to attempt to follow. When it succeeds, the results are gratifying: your opponent is in a mood to be enlightened and eagerly attentive.”
It is of course not always possible to follow because of time, space and energy constraints, but it works very well for me when I am confronted with intelligent beings on the other end of the line.
Blogs I read were the level of politeness is higher exhibit a higher level of discussion. While I am not willing t do a metaanalysis on this point I will link to a few examples:
http://svpow.com/
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/
http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2013/06/14/estimation-of-the-type-iii-sums/#more-6828
http://lesswrong.com/
Note that svpow and lesswrong also feature quite a lot of topics that hty debated and political/ethical in nature.
Yet you persist here with you unintelligent tone trolling. Some blogs are “Mental Wankers R Us”, with polite philosophical discussion of opinions ignoring what everybody else says. This isn’t that blog. Why are you trying to pretend your name, not PZ’s is on the masthead?
Your poor fee fee is hurt. Who the fuck cares?
This isn’t a debate society you pretend this to be. PZ doesn’t want it polite. Until your name is on the masthead you tell me why you should be listened to. So far, you haven’t convinced me of anything other than you are another pesky tone troll.
Y’know what a troll looks like? When they insist that the place is a shithole of poor arguments, bad-faith arguers, and a low quality of commenting…and continue to insist it through comment after comment at the shitty place.
Dude, if you hate the place that much, FUCK OFF SOMEWHERE ELSE. No one here is feeling the slightest bit enlightened by your persistent insistence that you hate it here, or your endless tone-trolling, or your wilful blindness to oppression, or your pseudo-Spock bullshit.
We’re not impressed. And we’re not going to change our minds without evidence, which you’re woefully short on (except for the kind that goes “Well, I think…” or “Well, in my amazingly worldly experience of my mom’s basement…”).
Seriously. Only a troll wastes this much time and effort. Go wank a pig instead of this thread. At least the pig will enjoy it.
sheaf:
I also find it difficult imagining that discussion would occur here.
Perhaps our reasons for this assumption are not identical.
I might be able to imagine a two-to-five line exchange in the Lounge on the too-much-money-here adventures of a couple of taxi-poolers, but not an entire blog entry.
What’s your point, in any case? If there are places on the internet that are polite and places that are not, so long as both maintain standards of being critical of people for what they say, rather than what they are, why is that any skin off of your nose?
Clearly.
You don’t explain why you think that, but you clearly do.
This always gets trotted out as if it were somehow accepted as universally true.
Being polite puts your message at the mercy of those why determine politeness. Take a look through the history of social movements, and the treatment of marginalized people in general, and one of the most prevalent forms of silencing is to say that discussion of issue X is impolite.
If I say to someone “you are being racist”, they might very well find it rude. Other people around us might find it rude.
I would argue that calling out racism unequivocally, and demonstrating that you’re not willing to let it hide behind a screen of politeness is a very important way of actually changing it.
You’re free to disagree, of course. Take a look through history. see who actually changed things, and see who was called rude and socially unacceptable while they were doing so.
Impoliteness has nothing to do with hating anything.
People can (and have demonstrated here repeatedly that whey will and do) say terribly hurtful, hateful, bigoted, dumb, desperately wrong things in a polite way.
Politeness or its lack is not a moral failing, it’s a communication style, nothing more and nothing less. It is completely orthogonal to the moral content of the message. Politeness is a tool primarily for enforcing that certain topics be talked about in the ways the people in power want them to be talked about. If you’re looking to change the conversation, that’s a severe hindrance.
And others find it invigorating. Look, I am sorry – honestly and truly sorry – that you find the tone on this blog off-putting. But this blog, and its tone, change minds.
That doesn’t mean that your preferred politeness-enforced blog wouldn’t – it certainly might. We might change minds that one wouldn’t, and vice-versa.
So, I’ll tell you what – go thou and do likewise. Show us how it’s done. Bring us the results of your favorite polite blog, and show us how vastly much more effective it is.
If you can’t do this, please think about why.
Sheaf: CaitieCat summarized it nicely. So why are you here?
You made a stupid series of comments that reflected the general enabling of sexism in our culture. You were addressed as a representative of that sexist attitude, and you were slapped down hard for it.
Politeness may be a tool that people use to put a nice facade over the intolerable, but we don’t stand for that kind of glossing over content here. Prioritizing manners over substance will get you publicly eviscerated in the comments.
Sheaf, usually when someone tone trolls, either they are very prissy, or they wish to be able to discuss possibly emotional laden topics without being criticized for making bigoted statements (the Vulcan approach). Whereas we call out bigotry and refuse to drop emotions.
Wait, is that a joke? You say you’re “fairly neurotypical”…and that discussion didn’t have you running away shaking your head from the first paragraph on?
Yeah, you won’t find a conversation like that here. Fortunately.
PZ,
I strongly disagree with the notion that decisions under uncertainty are “a joke” or that such discussions are somehow unimportant or should be considered unwelcome. I think it is one of the moral and practical failings of our age that we do not teach and discuss such about such decisions and the underlying theories with much greater rigor and in much greater volume. If you belief that rationally deciding under uncertainty is some kind of joke, then I should stop discussing this and instead see if I can arrange to play poker against you. Of course the example of the 20 dollars is trivial int the sense that there is no great utility in dividing them fairly, but if decisions are made on a larger scale very analogous problems may be important to solve.
As for me being neurotypical- well yes I have interests in rationality and decision making. This does not mean that I am not neurotypical and most people I know consider me to be neurotypical. Similarly the psychological evaluation I had for the army suggested as much – and since it was professionally administered I take it as a lot stronger evidence than your , to be frank, bizarre puzzlement with my interests. Of course the less wrong community itself seems to be somewhat different from the typical population averages (there is actually evidence for this, as this survey suggests: http://lesswrong.com/lw/fp5/2012_survey_results/). But it is very bad epistomology to conclude much about me from this.
I got slapped down hard? I dont think so, I think I held my own, but made mistakes going along.
Why I am here: Probably because the continued negativity by a lot of the users here left me with a feeling I have to justify myself. It is not like I completely dislike the blog, I have been reading it for years.
I got slapped down hard? I dont think so
Dunning, meet Krueger. Krueger, meet Dunning.
I think I held my own
Dude, you’d be way more right if you did go somewhere and hold your own for a while. You’d be bringing more net pleasure into the world, too.
“Prioritizing manners over substance will get you publicly eviscerated in the comments.”
I dont. Why are you suggesting I do? Similarly prioritising insults and put downs of others over substance should get you eviscerated.
FFS how rude is it to blather on when your boring everyone and have been asked to shut the fuck up?
CaiteeCat ,
I read the study by Dunning and Kruger. In the internet is has become like some bizarre godwin’s law were even teh most illiterate idiots will use the contention that the other is somehow subject to Dunning and Kruger effects.Typically it is not a good sign if someone invokes this.
Ari,
Thank you for that response
“Clearly.
You don’t explain why you think that, but you clearly do.”
I think that way because very often when friends of mine argue about something they seem to mostly focus on responsibility and try to make the other feel responsible which then leads to escalating dominance displays that seem to do little good. The more useful way is thinking about consequences. I do not like traditional gender roles since I think a great deal of suffering and inefficiency is caused to them. So I want to change people holding on to them. Then I think about how to achieve this. In all of this responsibility seems just a tool, a societal convention, I can use. Sometimes it is a good tool sometimes a bad tool but I think it is used too often and people tend to focus too hard on it. One should however never forget that outcome should be the judge, not the inherent virtue of actions. I am a rather strict utilitarian.
“This always gets trotted out as if it were somehow accepted as universally true.
Being polite puts your message at the mercy of those why determine politeness. Take a look through the history of social movements, and the treatment of marginalized people in general, and one of the most prevalent forms of silencing is to say that discussion of issue X is impolite.
If I say to someone “you are being racist”, they might very well find it rude. Other people around us might find it rude.
I would argue that calling out racism unequivocally, and demonstrating that you’re not willing to let it hide behind a screen of politeness is a very important way of actually changing it.
You’re free to disagree, of course. Take a look through history. see who actually changed things, and see who was called rude and socially unacceptable while they were doing so.”
I agree that politeness is not as universal as I made it out to be. Sry about that. Nevertheless i think it is bad strategy to attack someone vehemently for minor disagreements. I think at least for me politeness works * a lot* better in convincing other people.
“Politeness or its lack is not a moral failing, it’s a communication style, nothing more and nothing less. It is completely orthogonal to the moral content of the message. Politeness is a tool primarily for enforcing that certain topics be talked about in the ways the people in power want them to be talked about.”
I agree. My contention was that people should use it and impoliteness with more sophistication.
“And others find it invigorating. Look, I am sorry – honestly and truly sorry – that you find the tone on this blog off-putting. But this blog, and its tone, change minds.
That doesn’t mean that your preferred politeness-enforced blog wouldn’t – it certainly might. We might change minds that one wouldn’t, and vice-versa.
So, I’ll tell you what – go thou and do likewise. Show us how it’s done. Bring us the results of your favorite polite blog, and show us how vastly much more effective it is.”
My favorite blog is probably lesswrong.com I think results in this case are hard to quantify, but I never had so many genuinely interesting ideas communicated to me- many of them changed my mind. Not to say hat the community there is overly polite. They say what they think. However they do not indulge in senseless offenses that are unlikely to go anywhere.
Ok. I am very, very late to the party, but here’s my tuppence:
What the fuck is so hard to understand about, “Nutnot is a being a fantastic, sexist asshat, ergo, he is probably a fantastic, sexist asshat.”?
Sheaf, you are arguing in circles. You quote people and say, “I agree, but…” The problem with this is that the “but” section is often in your writing here, and usually in general based on other threads on this topic, some form of apologetics for institutionalized sexism.
I like it here because the commentariat doesn’t put up with the bullshit of the apologetics.
@Sheaf
Blockquotes. What the fuck are they?
Rawnaeris,
I dont compleely get your meaning. When I agree I agree, it is almost tautological and indicative for the other person not necessarily directly responding.
“What the fuck is so hard to understand about, “Nutnot is a being a fantastic, sexist asshat, ergo, he is probably a fantastic, sexist asshat.”?”
My problem with that is that from “Nutnot voices sexist oppinons” it does not follow that “In his eyes, there are merely two kinds of Real Doll – the kind that breathes and the kind that doesn’t.” The original author admitted to it being an overstatement – and I have no problem with that. In general the way people on this blog seem to judge others on insufficient data was one of my major problems. The most recent and to me troubling example was PZ concluding from me finding a discussion on how to fairly split money as interesting that I was not neurotypical (to be sure this is the contraposition of his meaning, nevertheless it strongly follows from his response).
Thumper they went out of the window when I made mistakes with them. If it is important I can use them again.
Okay, I’m getting so fucking sick of people saying that horrid speech directed at minorities is excused because it’s satire and it’s funny.
You know what, it’s stupid. Satire does often poke fun at common ideas and does sometimes tread the line of ‘oh, this is really offensive stuff.’ However, satire does it in a way that you realize that the butt of the joke is not the person to whom the offense is pointing, but rather the person stating the offense.
Good satire plays with offense in such a way that you know it’s satire.
If this post is satire, it’s horrible satire. It expresses a very common statement (and a miserably lazy one, I mean seriously “vaginas smell like fish” is up there with all the rest of the third grade humor.) It punches down at an already repressed minority. It reaffirms commonly held sentiments. It does nothing to challenge or expose the common offenders. It will change no attitudes, nor will it make misogynists and sexists think “oh, wait.”
Nope, you were a sorry tone troll. Slapped down hard, and presented no evidence to back up your claims. Troll writ large over such inane behavior.
Gee, this statement usually goes before telling us you will never read us again, and then criticizing our tone, followed by a flounce. Hopefully you get to the flounce quickly.
Your negativity is your fault. Shut the fuck up. Surprising how fast it stops.
Yep you do. Self-delusional fool. At this point it is obvious you can’t teach anybody here anything. You don’t know what you say and why you say it.
Translation: dehumanizing hate speech doesn’t affect ME, therefore I have no problem with it and all you kkkeeeerrzzzzy bitches can’t have a problem with it either.
“Translation: dehumanizing hate speech doesn’t affect ME, therefore I have no problem with it and all you kkkeeeerrzzzzy bitches can’t have a problem with it either.”
After a thousand years I would not have come up with that translation. I was reffering to Gregory calling his formulation as too strong.
Dang, borked #242. *curses work computer with IE*
Nerd of redhead, name a specific claim of mine I should provide evidence for.
so…wait, you see blog comment sections as iterations of the Prisoner’s Dilemma game?
I give up.
What’s the payoff?
zinger!
Please, let’s hear more about you.
Do you have a scan of your Mensa card handy?
Metatranslation: here comes a strawman.
Probably 95% of the time. It’s one of the most bullshit arguments in the toolbox.
ChasCPeterson,
“Please, let’s hear more about you.
Do you have a scan of your Mensa card handy?”
Nope, boasting with iq results is for losers^^
That being polite will change the mind of a raving bigot faster than telling them they are full of shit. Just what you have been preaching/tone trolling about all thread. And you haven’t presented anything other than your OPINION, which is dismissed as tone trollery.
Let’s click through to the data! So here’s your favorite blog-comment community:
have fun over there!
@Chas:
A bunch of white, cis, straight, practical (whatever that means) guys who think they’re far smarter than the average.
Yep. Wonderful community.
(Though I’m curious what the Pharyngula community would be)
ChasCPeterson, what are yo implying?
@my 249:
*practical computers*
@sheaf:
Not to speak for Chas, but it appears that the data does not correspond to your premise. The Less Wrong community seems to be rather much the bog-standard.
To be fair they put very much effort into analyzing this high iq result as it has been subject to much internal derision. Interestingly ChasCPeterso chose to leave out what immediately followed in the survey:
“SAT (out of 1600): 1485.8 + 105.9 (1439, 1510, 1570) [n = 321]
SAT (out of 2400): 2319.5 + 1433.7 (2155, 2240, 2320)
ACT: 32.7 + 2.3 (31, 33, 34) [n = 207]
IQ (on iqtest.dk): 125.63 + 13.4 (118, 130, 133) [n = 378]
I am going to harp on these numbers because in the past some people have been pretty quick to ridicule this survey’s intelligence numbers as completely useless and impossible and so on.
According to IQ Comparison Site, an SAT score of 1485/1600 corresponds to an IQ of about 144. According to Ivy West, an ACT of 33 corresponds to an SAT of 1470 (and thence to IQ of 143).
So if we consider self-report, SAT, ACT, and iqtest.dk as four measures of IQ, these come out to 139, 144, 143, and 126, respectively.”
Then in the comment section Epiphany goes on to give n analysis of the scores I am confident is beyond anything I have seen on Pharyngula:
“On IQ Accuracy:
As Yvain says, “people have been pretty quick to ridicule this survey’s intelligence numbers as completely useless and impossible and so on” because if they’re true, it means that the average LessWronger is gifted. Yvain added a few questions to the 2012 survey, including the ACT and SAT questions and the Myers-Briggs personality type question that I requested (I’ll explain why this is interesting), and that give us a few other things to check against, which has made the figures more believable. The ridicule may be an example of the “virtuous doubt” that Luke warns about in Overconfident Pessimism, so it makes sense to “consider the opposite”:
The distribution of Myers-Briggs personality types on LessWrong replicates the Mensa pattern. This is remarkable since the patterns of personality types here are, in many significant ways, the exact opposite of what you’d find in the regular population. For instance, the introverted rationalists and idealists are each about 1% of the population. Here, they are the majority and it’s the artisans and guardians who are relegated to 1% or less of our population.
Mensa’s personality test results were published in the December 1993 Mensa Bulletin. Their numbers.
So, if you believe that most of the people who took the survey lied about their IQ, you also need to believe all of the following:
That most of these people also realized they needed to do IQ correlation research and fudge their SAT and ACT scores in order for their IQ lie to be believable.
Some explanation for why the personality type pattern at LessWrong is radically different from the norm and yet very similar to the personality type pattern Mensa published and also matched my predictions. Even if they had knowledge of the Mensa personality test results and decided to fudge their personality type responses, too, they somehow managed to fudge them in such a way that their personality types accidentally matched my predictions.
They had some motive strong enough to justify spending 20+ minutes doing the IQ correlation research and fudging personality test questions while probably fatigued from having filled out most of a very long survey.
That they decided not to look up the answer to the Bayes birthday question even though they were dishonest enough to lie on the IQ question, motivated to look intelligent, and it takes a lot less effort to fudge the Bayes question than the intelligence and personality questions. (This was suggested by ArisKatsaris)
It’s easier just to put the real number in the IQ box than do all that work to make it believable, and it’s not like the liars are likely to get anything out of boasting anonymously, so the cost-benefit ratio is just not working in favor of the liar explanation, especially since they have no obvious incentives to lie.
If you think about it in terms of Occam’s razor, what is the better explanation? That most people lied about their IQ, and fudged their SAT, ACT and personality type data to match, or that they’re telling the truth?
Summary of criticism:
Possible Motive to Lie: The desire to be associated with a “gifted” group:
In re to this post, it was argued by NonComposMentis that a potential motive to lie is that if the outside world perceives LessWrong as gifted, then anyone having an account on LessWrong will look high-status. In rebuttal:
I figure that lurkers would not be motivated to fudge their results because they don’t have a bunch of karma on their account to show off and anybody can claim to read LessWrong, so fudging your IQ just to claim that the site you read is full of gifted people isn’t likely to be motivating. I suggested that we compare the average IQs of lurkers and others. Vaniver did the math and they are very, very close..
I argued, among other things, that it would be falling for a Pascal’s mugging to believe that investing the extra time (probably at least $5 worth of time for most of us) into fudging the various different survey questions is likely to contribute to a secret conspiracy to inflate LessWrong’s average IQ.
Did the majority avoid filling out intelligence related questions, letting the gifted skew the results?
Short answer: 74% of people answered at least one intelligence related question and since most people filled out only one or two, the fact that the self-report, ACT and SAT score averages are so similar is remarkable.
I realized, while reading Vaniver’s post that if only 1/3 of the survey participants filled out the IQ score, this may have been due to something which could have skewed the results toward the gifted range, for instance, if more gifted people had been given IQ tests for schooling placement (and the others didn’t post their IQ score because they did not know it) or if the amount of pride one has in their IQ score has a significant influence on whether one reported it.
So I went through the data and realized that most of the people who filled out the IQ test question did not fill out all the others. That means that 804 people (74% not 33%) answered at least one intelligence related question. As we have seen, the IQ correlations for the IQ, SAT and ACT questions were very close to each other (unsurprisingly, it looks like something’s up with the internet test… removing those, it’s 63% of survey participants that answered an intelligence related question). It’s remarkable in and of itself that each category of test scores generated an average IQ so similar to the others considering that different people filled them out. I mean if 1/3 of the population filled out all of the questions, and the other 2/3 filled out none, we could say “maybe the 1/3 did IQ correlation research and fudged these” but if most of the population fills out one or two, and the averages for each category come out close to the averages for the other categories, why is that? How would that happen if they were fudging?
It does look to me like people gave whatever test scores they had and that not all the people had test scores to give but it does not look to me like a greater proportion of the gifted people provided an intelligence related survey answer. Instead it looks like most people provided an intelligence related survey answer and the average LessWronger is gifted.
Exploration of personality test fudging:
Erratio and I explored how likely it is that people could successfully fudge their personality tests and why they might do that.
There are a lot of questions on the personality test that have an obvious intelligence component, so it’s possible that people chose the answer they thought was most intelligent.
There are also intelligence related questions where it’s not clear which answer is most intelligent. I listed those.
The intelligence questions would mostly influence the sensing/intuition dichotomy and the thinking/feeling dichotomy. This does not explain why the extraversion/introversion and perceiving/judging results were similar to Mensa’s.”
Katherine Lorraine,
Nope, several of the personality characterisitcs were different. Read the survey.
@sheaf:
A survey of a whole bunch of privileged people patting themselves on the back about how intelligent they are?
I have better things to do. Like eat Crab Chips *omnom*
“That being polite will change the mind of a raving bigot faster than telling them they are full of shit. Just what you have been preaching/tone trolling about all thread. And you haven’t presented anything other than your OPINION, which is dismissed as tone trollery. ”
Unfortunately my evidence is just anectodal:
Telling them they are full of shit has never worked for me.
Rudeness seems to only lead to long dominance displays.
Being at least neutral was more effective. You do not need to be courtious, just dont be out to solely humiliate them.
Dozens of people proved me wrong at some point. All of them had a much easier time while being polite.
In other words, nothing but personal anecdote.
Whereas we here at Pharyngula have a lot of anecdotes saying it was people being rude and dismissing their bullshit that caused them to begin to rethink their bigotry. This is the null hypothesis we use, and why solid evidence is required to change our minds. Apparently, like all tone trolls, you have no evidence. DISMISSED.
Nerd of Redhead of course gievn te number of people pharyngula reaches, many will be converted even by bad methods. That is entirely trivial.
sheaf @ 183;
I would accept that making assumptions about a person’s perspective from single words and phrases is fraught with potential pitfalls, but that does not in itself eliminate the problematic character of those discriminatory words and phrases themselves, that still need to be challenged. Positioning arguing over the way in which people confront misogyny as being of greater import than opposing the misogyny itself is obviously going to antagonise people who care deeply about the social justice issues surrounding the rot of sexism within our society. This is why pharyngulites are so angered by ‘tone trolling’ – it derails a discussion about toxic bigotry in order to admonish someone for failing to oppose that bigotry in a sufficiently ‘polite’ fashion.
Also – and I really don’t want to belabour the point, but it is too significant to ignore – Nutnot did not make a single throwaway statement. He repeated a series of highly toxic misogynistic tropes within a written and published essay. This is harder to write off as some innocuous, thoughtless slip than an off the cuff remark. Doubly so when he posts it more than once, and refuses to amend it when called on its problematic content; both those acts make it very difficult to assume good faith on Nutnot’s part.
Anything that pricks one ego can be hard to learn to accept, but if one’s satire is genuinely intended to mock misogynists, and has instead been interpreted as demeaning women, wouldn’t it be in one’s own best interest to clarify one’s position? That is one of the things that makes it most difficult for me to accept the idea that Nutnot is somehow not really being sexist – why hasn’t he taken steps to insure that his work is not misinterpreted? If pride is his only obsatcle, then he is putting his wounded pride above taking a stand against a very toxic and widespread form of bigotry that blights vast numbers of lives, which itself hardly paints him in a very good light.
Lets go back to the phrase that is causing all the trouble* at my 61;
The first part of the statement identifies what I take to be Nutnot’s dehumanising attitude toward women within the piece as expressed by such things as his replication of misogynistic tropes that depict women as obligated to, or otherwise existing to, pleasure men, and his repugnant comparison between the vulva and decomposing fish. I assumed @ 61 that this attitude was motivated by misogyny, and I concede that this may not have been entirely charitable. As I outlined @ 76, it is possible that it was am extremely poor attempt at ‘satire’, but if it was meant as satire, it clearly fails dismally in that roll, and ultimately serves only to punch down the power gradient. So, I was wrong in so far as I assumed misogyny when gross, staggering incompetence as a comedian and blind privilege could also be a credible explanation.
I think your issue is mostly with the second part of the statement. This was intended to hammer home the point about dehumanising women by means of a hyperbole, and I had assumed that I clearly implied that this was the case by acknowledging the other possible scenarios in my post @ 76;
As I stated in that quote, the harmful nature of Nutnot’s statements is ultimately not effected by his intent in writing them, hence the ‘intent is not magic’ phrase – even if one expresses bigotry with some other intent than to promote that attitude, the bigoted statement still stands, and is still toxic. It appaears that I failed to properly communicate @ 76 that my turn of pharse used @ 61 was hyperbolic, and that there were other possible explanations for Nutnot’s choice of words (but none that make his writings any less objectionable). I apologise for the confusion that this has caused. If I appeared to be arguing in bad faith when I quoted Jadehawk @ 182 and described my form of words back @ 61 as hyperbole, then I assure you that this was unintentional. I had assumed that my post @ 76 had already clearly conceded that there were other explanations for Nutnot’s behaviour.
Any one who has studied law will know how complex and difficult to handle issues of mens rea can be, but this is not a court of law. Nutnot is not charged with any crime, and will face no legal sanction. The point about intent not being magic is that a well intentioned person who replicates bigotry has still replicated bigotry, and those discriminatory statements still do harm, and so must be called out. If they acted in good faith, then it is for them to learn from their mistakes and resolve to do better in future. They are not owed any indulgance or benefit of the doubt from the social groups harmed by the discriminatory tropes they expressed, or from those progressive people not of that target group but who still oppose bigotry.
We have also encountered many people who claim to have made an honest mistake in good faith with regard to bigoted statements, and who have insisted that they feel unduly persecuted by being called out for their actions that they claim were innocent one-off slips, who then later return to using the self same discriminatory and abusive language, often further escalating their bigotry in the process. As a result, we are less inclined than we might otherwise be to assume good faith on the part of someone who has used misogynist language in the past. At this point, we will need some convincing that a person who has acted or spoken in a misogynistic fashion in the past made a truly innocent mistake.
All that said, my comment about Nutnot seemingly viewing women as just another class of sex doll @ 61 has evidently disrupted the thread, and I apologise for that. It is doubly annoying since it was a throwaway turn of phrase that didn’t really add anything to the post, and has now served to derail the thread for almost 200 posts.
———————————————————————————————————————-
* To everyone on the thread – I apologise that it was my post that kicked off this discussion that has so comprehensively moved the thread on a tangent away from the topic.
Gregory, I like your writing and positions, but you ain’t that powerful.
What’s derailed the thread for 200 messages is the one solitary person who insists, based solely on their own privately-collected anecdata from two VERY sexist locations, that people who say misogynist things really aren’t bad people, and might be kind and sweet kitty-petters by profession, and anyway, don’t we all know that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar? – all of this in the face of a dozen or so people saying, “yeah, not the point, and SO not our experience at all in a wide range of human endeavour”.
And as to the whole catching flies thing?
I’m gonna go with dead squirrels. That catches by FAR the most flies.
Gregory, you did not disrupt the thread. I will try to give it a rest now.
CaitieCat @ 259;
I was aiming to express more of an ‘even the smallest falling pebble can trigger an avalanche’ kind of thing, but I do see your point.
Most certainly – dead squirrels are far more attractive to flies than honey. Nine out of ten blue bottles agree…
They are good methods until you evidence them otherwise. WHERE IS YOUR EVIDENCE?
Posting at Pharyngula is not like speaking in public. You seem to be very confused as to what it actually is.
Which, since we are admonished to catch as many flies as possible, means we should be hurling dead squirrels at newbies, not honey.
It’s only logic in action.
Sheaf, re: rudeness.
I first found this blog via The Slacktivist and his posts about the Left Behind series. I stayed for the science, and the mocking of christianity, having formerly been christian and finding much in it worthy of mockery.
And then, after a few months of reading the rudeness, something began to sink in. All the rudeness towards religion and sexism and whatnot… could easily be turned on my own beliefs. I went from vaguely pagan, to atheist. I went from pro-choice-kinda-sorta-with-limitations to fully pro-choice. I’ve done my level best to remove gendered slurs from my vocabulary even though, for a long time, I didn’t feel “dick” was a bad insult to use. The rudeness made me think critically.
Sexual selection is always bizarre – and always shows individual variation.
That’s the point where I actually laughed.
*blink*
TSIB.
Apparently there’s malware on that site.
I was going to say!
…You misunderstand. It’s not so much a reply to you as a reply to statements – which just happen to have been made by you.
What rot. Discussions on both of these can get very heated indeed when the subject turns to open access, Aëtogate/Sphincter Mucus, or phylogenetic nomenclature – and Darren Naish himself has mocked the former commenter Peter Mihalda/Jean Pierre D’Amour at length in one of his April joke posts after banning him.
Creationists and misogynists don’t go to these blogs as often as they visit Pharyngula. That’s why there are fewer opportunities there to call a spade a spade and a fuckwit a fuckwit.
Heh. Myers-Briggs is pseudoscience; most people over here know that. :-)
Depends on the flies. Vinegar flies, such as Sophophora melanogaster (formerly referred to Drosophila), do as their name says.
Ah, trumped by a biological view, as always. David Marjanović, I cede the point. The right kind of flies would be attracted to squirrels of the “late” variety, which now I bethink me, was probably Gregory’s point in linking bluebottles. Le oops. I missed that one.
I still say that the syllogism holds: if we are implored to consider using sweetness rather than sourness because of their respective fly-attracting qualities, then I venture the winner of the syllogism will be “whatever substance those particular flies find most attractive”, and given this is not infrequently some form of cadaver, clearly we should be hurling death at our earnest guest commenters.
Which, in fact, we more or less do. So, mission accomplished.
David Marjanović
Just checked myself. That’s really weird. QC is a massively followed comic. I wonder what the problem is. There certainly was none when I checked them out yesterday.
David Marjanović,
I have been reading your posts on several websites and most often found myself agreeing with you. I am pretty disapointed that you should side with jadehawk here. He/She neither adressed me nor my posts properly and was quite underhanded.
As for OA on svpow etcetera – yeah it gets heated. But I do not get the feeling that every objection is dismissed quite the same way it is here. I self identify as feminist and open access supporter and I feel like there is a pretty big difference most of the time between these blogs.
as for the charge of Myers-Briggs being pseudoscience..yes that is correct the problem mainly lies in its low repeatability. this is of course entirely irrelevant to the points since we are analyzing group differences and this inherent variability would be defeated by the law of big numbers. It may not say the things about the character that it is believed to say, it nevertheless measures traits and if they collectively score different then this measurement indicates something and if another group that has property A scores the same way we should increase our probability estimate that the first group also exhibits A. Of course this is only circumstantial evidence.
Anyway regarding catching flies: Try rotting elephant carcasses:
Try rotting elephant carcasses:
Well, that’s clearly absurd.
We’d have to rig up some sort of trebuchet, those things are HEAVY.
well, that’s a good point.
I don’t know. So what, its devisers were Jungians; that doesn’t seem to affect the actual survey instrumenmts. If you look at the results in terms of continuous scales instead of binary categories it’s about as good as any other personality-categorization scheme, including the Big Five.
and anecdotally, I know that it nails me exactly.)
lol.
you are new here.
She did a good job smacking you down to size. She addressed what you said. If what you meant wasn’t what you said, that is YOUR FAULT.
Still no evidence to back up your inane tone trolling assertions.
“lol.
you are new here.”
at least when it comes to commenting…
Which means you don’t comprehend what you read. Tsk, tsk.
I love this. Sniffing about how everybody else can’t possibly be as smart as you.
When you can’t even manage to spell people’s names correctly.
But, like Charlie Sheen, you’re WINNING, so, yay you? So nice to see somebody with such a healthy self-confidence in the world.
hovarD,
i strongly agree, spelling is the most reliable indicator of intelligence known to man.
Well, giving people respect and titling them as they’ve indicated they wish to is the surest sign I’ve ever seen of whether a person is … y’know… what’s the damn word?
POLITE.
Suddenly you don’t seem so polite. In fact you seem hostile. In fact, you seem like an angry, ranting, hostile person.
Gee.
Whereas I think lack of proper capitalization at the start of sentences is either a sign of egotistical affectation, or a low intelligence, or both.
So, you know that sexism that you’re completely sure doesn’t really exist because you hadn’t noticed it happening in two widely-known-as-very-sexist places?
This is a little tiny piece of it, and I’ll leave you to guess or search for where I’m getting it from:
…known to man.
Not sure – did you mean to imply that only men fall for this, or that only men are included in humanity, or…?
Cause that, right there, using “man” as a synonym for “all humans”? That’s sexism.
I just figured the problem might be that you didn’t know what sexism is. So here’s Lesson 1.
howard,
As I said I am not for unconditional politeness and I reserve myself the right to diss people who try to diss me. And at the moment I am quite frustrated as you said.
CaitieCat,
You are right this formulation was unfortunate. I apologize.
translation: “I have no way to respond to your criticisms so I’ll just haughtily dismiss you and project my own flaws onto you in the hopes no one will notice.
again:
–>defend your claim two organizations that create toxic anti-women attitudes in men, often in the guise of “respect” for “ladies”, can create individuals with genuine egalitarian respect.
–>defend your claim that publishing this piece of “comedy” is not an action.
–>defend your claim that this entire essay is just a slip-up, despite the fact that it’s actually part of a pattern with this dude, and he has shown no signs of considering it a slip-up?
–>defend your claim that politeness fosters dialogue more than rude honesty does.
–>furthermore, defend your new claim that Nutnot is a “person of good intent”.
failure to defend any of these will be seen as a concession that you’re not able to do so.
lastly, your assertion that you have not defended nutnot is incorrect. you may not have had the intent to defend him, but your words constitute a defense, since you’ve spent this entire time trying to invent and impute “good intent” and egalitarian-but-with-occasional-mistakes beliefs onto a person whose behavior has shown a pattern of sexism and dehumanisation of women.
Then the best thing to do is to stop posting for a while.
Jadehawk,
”
–>defend your claim two organizations that create toxic anti-women attitudes in men, often in the guise of “respect” for “ladies”, can create individuals with genuine egalitarian respect.[1]
–>defend your claim that publishing this piece of “comedy” is not an action.[2]
–>defend your claim that this entire essay is just a slip-up, despite the fact that it’s actually part of a pattern with this dude, and he has shown no signs of considering it a slip-up?[3]
–>defend your claim that politeness fosters dialogue more than rude honesty does.[4]
–>furthermore, defend your new claim that Nutnot is a “person of good intent”[5]
”
[1]Ok. If you do not believe that I have egalitarian ideals you do not believe me. I cannot really do much about it.
[2]I have retracted this claim/clarified my formulation.
[3]Did not claim this.
[4]I did by linking to places were level of discussion was higher and prevalence of rudeness lower. I do not think that honesty is at issue in this discussion. I believe honesty is an important value.
[5] I did not claim this.
Maybe you understand why I was very frustrated by your response.
Sheaf is never going to shut up and let us go back to discussing the misunderstood awesomeness of vulvas, is he? ;(
Azkyroth, feel free to.
Why won’t you shut up? You aren’t making your points, just tone trolling, or at the moment, just trolling. Not making any future posts of your likely to be listened to, as you are essentially “poisoning the well”.
this is not a defense of your assertion that the RCC and the military bring forth individuals who see women as equals while at the same time express sentiments similar to Nutnot’s.
Since you’ve based your defense of Nutnot on that premise, and you’ve just admitted that you “cannot really do much about” showing that this premise is even true, we could stop right there and safely dismiss your entire argument because of its evidence-free premise.
vs.
shall I interpret that as a retraction of that comment, or as mere denial?
this has already been refuted by David M. Try again.
of course I do. It’s very frustrating to have one’s mistakes picked apart.
Jadehawk,
I did not defend Nutnot, I condemed his actions as sexist. I am just at a loss how you could possibly believe that. I will do it again, just to be sure: I think the view expressed in his essay are misogynistic.
Now compare:
“Nevertheless there are individuals who relatively consistently act in a way that is not dehumanizing of misogynistic that might on occasion crack a bad joke or even make a remark that is somewhat inconsistent with their other behavior.”
“defend your claim that this entire essay is just a slip-up, despite the fact that it’s actually part of a pattern with this dude, and he has shown no signs of considering it a slip-up?”
these are different statement. As I said before: improve your reading comprehension. You will often need it.
“this has already been refuted by David M. Try again” No it has not. All of the blogs I mentioned kick pharyngulas ass pretty hard when it comes to content in the comment section.
“of course I do. It’s very frustrating to have one’s mistakes picked apart.” No you don’t. To understand the frustration I have when I encounter grown people who cannot read properly you should be able to – you know- actually read.
Maybe the fact that you’re even here on this thread arguing?
Then what the fuck are you complaining about?
Azkyroth, I complained about a way of categorizing people at first then there were some disagreements about effective persuasion strategies. The whole thing grew out of hand. I have been responding to responses of responses. But very nice that you seem to have figured out that I do not defend this guy.
Who said you have to have the last word, other than your ego? You made many mistakes with your initial posts, sounding exactly like a Slymepit apologists (poor misunderstood things, don’t be so harsh on them), and there is no way to rectify them, unless you admit your mistakes, and shut up for a while.
You may feel we pull the trigger too soon. PZ says be nice for three posts only, then let go if they continue to post. THIS ISN’T YOUR BLOG, AND YOU DON’T SET THE STANDARDS. Trying to change those standards with OPINION only is tone trolling. You have stated your opinion. We rejected it. At what point does your behavior become hostile because we rejected something you said, considering it was a unevidenced point?
IF that’s true, then they retract and apologize when it’s pointed out that their behavior/statements are misogynistic. Has he apologized and retracted his statements?
carlie,
Who? Nutnot? How many times, I don’t defend this guy.
Anyway, yes sometimes people will defend themselves even against their actual opinion because they somehow want to save their face. This is pretty basic psychology: No one wants to be wrong or the bad guy.
But we cannot take his repeatedly expressed views as significant indicators of his character, right? Is that not your whole point? (It seems to have been in posts 83, 89, 98, 112, and 115)
Putting ones ego over not being dehumanizing is a rather despicable character trait. It’s not a claim in his favour.
Jacob, compared to the responses I have been getting I almost missed you.
Yes it was my contention in several posts and I would still claim that at least a single essay is not as telling as one many people seem to think.
“Putting ones ego over not being dehumanizing is a rather despicable character trait. It’s not a claim in his favour.”
No it is not. But it is better than being an all out sexist 24/7 in my book.
you mean other than your repeated assertions that he’s a good guy (“person with good intent”) who just did this one sexist thing, which doesn’t at all mean that he holds anti-woman biases, because your buddies from the RCC and the military are/were like that?
yeah, totes not a defense. [/sarc]
they express the same: that you believe this was a one-time thing that’s somehow not reflective of his worldview. of course I could be wrong in assuming that you think in order for a person to be non-sexist, such things would indeed have to be slip-ups. It is possible that you actually think it’s possible to on purpose say sexist things and not be a sexist anyway. That would be even more pathetically wrong and counterfactual though.
assertion contrary to evidence. you might not have meant to defend him, but that’s a different issue.
aside from the fac that that’s a highly subjective statement and therefore worthless as evidence, it’s also not the part of it that David as addressing; he was addressing the politeness aspect.
You’ve not shown any evidence that rudeness is worse a tool at getting through to people than politeness, you’ve merely demonstrated that you have a personal preference for blogs with a different tone. No evidence whatsoever that that tone is more convincing or results in more people coming to conclusions more in agreement with reality.
vs.
lol. and that dolt accuses me of not being able to read for comprehension.
based on your experience with guys from catholic school and the military who say/do sexist things but are not sexist, and based on the odd assertion that this is indeed the only piece of evidence available.
IOW, based on bullshit.
What a beautiful bit of projection.
“Nevertheless there are individuals who relatively consistently act in a way that is not dehumanizing of misogynistic that might on occasion crack a bad joke or even make a remark that is somewhat inconsistent with their other behavior.”
So egalitarian people might make some minor statements that go against their usual stance. In other words, they might slip up from their principles. You used this claim to defend Nutnot from our conclusion that he’s likely dehumanizing and misogynist in some respects. That only works if his essay is comparable to jokes or slip ups. If his essay isn’t, your reasoning fails. His essay isn’t; your reasoning fails.
You assert this as true. You don’t demonstrate it. This is actually a rather stupid claim to make, since there’s no feasible way you could back it up. I suggest you change your stance to “In my opinion, the blogs I frequent kick Pharyngula’s ass”.
Sheaf
Then you’re defending him. Not his statements, which you keep disavowing; him.
Jadehawk, let’s see if being rude helps.
“you mean other than your repeated assertions that he’s a good guy (“person with good intent”) who just did this one sexist thing, which doesn’t at all mean that he holds anti-woman biases, because your buddies from the RCC and the military are/were like that?
yeah, totes not a defense. [/sarc]”
I did not assert this anywhere. LEARN TO READ.
“they express the same: that you believe this was a one-time thing that’s somehow not reflective of his worldview. of course I could be wrong in assuming that you think in order for a person to be non-sexist, such things would indeed have to be slip-ups. It is possible that you actually think it’s possible to on purpose say sexist things and not be a sexist anyway. That would be even more pathetically wrong and counterfactual though.”
NO! To be precise I think in modern culture almost everyone has some sexist attitudes. Sometimes they pop up very frequently and are acted upon constantly. In others this happens rare to never. But when it happens very rarely it is not reasonable to think of these persons as blatant misogynists. I have formulated this thought over and over again, but you fail to grasp it. AGAIN, LEARN TO READ!
“assertion contrary to evidence. you might not have meant to defend him, but that’s a different issue.”
NOT AT ALL. LEARN TO READ.
“aside from the fac that that’s a highly subjective statement and therefore worthless as evidence, it’s also not the part of it that David as addressing; he was addressing the politeness aspect.”
Npe not at all. For example Terrence Tao’s blog exhibits many comments whose technical level is very far beyond the level typical members of the population are capable of. This is not subjective.
Just go there: http://terrytao.wordpress.com/
So is the lesswrong blog.
And regarding politeness: This is simply not the case. The open access debate has gotten heated but it was never the same amount of preemptive crap as here. On the continuum between good science blog comments and youtube comments pharyngula is far more in direction of youtube comments.
“Then you’re defending him. Not his statements, which you keep disavowing; him.”
Eplain yourself. If I say that he is not Stalin am I defending him too? Ok then I will defend him by asserting with all vehemence that he is not the reincarnation of Stalin.
No, as no one accused him of being Stalin.
“No, as no one accused him of being Stalin.”
My conception of defending would look like this:
A: “Nutnot is a misogynist!”
B: T”hat is not true! Here is why.”
Here sheaf defends him from the charge.
But what actually happened was something like this:
A: “Nutnot is an extreme misogynist.”
B: “How did you conclude that? I think there is not enough evidence to definitely conclude that but we should definitely update our probability estimates into this direction.”
Here B questions a conclusion that she or he believes not completely warranted on the current evidence.
I hope the difference is pretty clear.
I think we can quibble about the word defense but I think the way people here portray my actions are pretty underhanded.
incorrect.
you mean a “slip-up”? wanna try bullshitting again how my paraphrase of your comment was wrong?
and you’re basing the claim that this is rare for Nutnot on…?
aside from that, extreme outbursts like this one do indicate severe anti-woman biases even when they’re rare.
no, I merely disagree with them.
uh, yeah, if someone accused him of being Stalin and you said he wasn’t, that’s a defense. Do you not understand what “defending” means?
so does this one, but on different topics. you still got nothing but a personal preference and still no evidence that the tone you prefer is more effective.
this might be what you attempted. what actually happened was:
sheaf: my buddies from catholic shool and the military said sexist shit but i think they’re not sexist, therefore this guy might not be sexist, either
more sheaf: but what if this is a slip-up, and rarely happens, and he’s a guy with “good intent”!?
like i said; totes not a defense, lol.
You have an arbitrarily narrow definition of ‘defense’.
Sheaf: You keep using the English language. I do not think it means what you think it means.
seriously, this is how dude has been defending this piece of writing:
and this is the “quality” of his tweets from before the article:
this article is simply the not-limited-to-160-characters version of his mind; there’s nothing “rare” about this outburst of anti-woman bias and dehumanization; that’s simply what this dude thinks is funny, and because he thinks he’s a commedian he keeps on saying stuff like that.
Jacob,
“You have an arbitrarily narrow definition of ‘defense’”
You have a far to inclusive one. Did not get us anywhere, did it?
Richard,
Enlighten me then. I am not a native speaker- it might be true what you say. However:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/defend
The first one seems relevant and is in line with my own.
Jadehawk,
“this might be what you attempted. what actually happened was:
sheaf: my buddies from catholic shool and the military said sexist shit but i think they’re not sexist, therefore this guy might not be sexist, either
more sheaf: but what if this is a slip-up, and rarely happens, and he’s a guy with “good intent”!?
like i said; totes not a defense, lol”
This leads to nothing. You are just making shit up. Give it a rest.
sheaf, dude, seriously, a dictionary argument? Those, to coin a phrase, suck.
Any reasonable person reading your posts on this thread would definitely conclude you’ve been defending him, whatever your characterization of what you’ve been doing is. If it looks like a defence, and quacks like a defence….
Sheaf, seriously, the only thing I got from your posts was:
1. You don’t KNOW Comedian Dude’s heart of hearts! He might not actually HATE women with the fire of a thousand suns! Be nicer!
2. Y’all are not being sophistimacated enough with your choices of whether to be rude or polite!
Yawn. Boring. Say something worthwhile or go away please.
Please tell us what level of rudeness would cause you to swear of Pharyngula forever, Sheaf. Inquiring minds want to know.
Swear OFF obvs.
Tpyos! All glory is Yours!
What makes it too inclusive?
Our conclusions are an attack on Nutnot’s character. You seek to ward off our conclusions by claiming them unjustified. You’re defending him. Is this really that difficult?
I don’t think you know how mocking works.
What’s amusing is that the argument supports my contention.
That is your Sheaf. THIS ISN’T YOUR BLOG, YOU DON’T SET ANY STANDARDS. END OF STORY.
CaitieCat,
No reasonable persons would not conclude that. They would ask me if I meant to defend him if it was not entirely clear. I would say no. And we would live happily ever after.
Sally,
” You don’t KNOW Comedian Dude’s heart of hearts! He might not actually HATE women with the fire of a thousand suns! Be nicer!”
Yes. That could be construed as some take away points. I said more, but I am happy if you can remember that.
“Y’all are not being sophistimacated enough with your choices of whether to be rude or polite!”
To be fair it was more like: Why are you fucking assholes yelling at me?
“Yawn. Boring. Say something worthwhile or go away please.”
Yeah sure. I have been thinking about the locomotor heat developing in shark tails lately. Since several laminds use this to achieve endothermy, it would be quite interesting to analyze the scaling factors involved, especially since pehistoric lamniforms reached giant sizes. I solved several versions of the problem in order to do this and currently looking for data to confirm my predictions.
“Please tell us what level of rudeness would cause you to swear of Pharyngula forever, Sheaf. Inquiring minds want to know.”
Hm it seems the combination of stupidity and hostility I am presented with actually draws me in. If you plan on following the stupid direction the hostility direction will not change much as it is fun to knock stupid down.
Sheaf, if you quit telling us, responsible adults, how to think and behave, the hostility level directed your way would drop in proportion to your being less aggressive, in the passive-aggressive sense. I don’t see you as someone to emulate. To much foot in mouth disease.
Compared to the stupidity and hostility you show. And have shown from the beginning. Every statement you make about us, look in the mirror first.
Citation needed, again. Your assertion that reasonable people – like the large number of them here, mostly native speakers of English, which as you point out you’re not, who’ve been telling you that your assertions are most definitely serving the purpose of a defence – will agree with you, lacks any evidence.
My evidence is the large number of reasonable people right here in the thread who agree with me.
What’s yours?
Nothing. Again. Just Your Unevidenced Opinion.
You’re not even a *fun* troll, with interesting things to say. You’re just giving us boring references to dictionaries to insist that minute parsing of your statements will show that you weren’t, by some arbitrary definition, “defending” the guy whom you have continually said “but maybe he…”…which would be a defence.
Maybe put down the shovel, stop digging, and start wondering how you get out of a hole this deep.
Who am I kidding? We all already know you’re just going to rent a backhoe to make the digging more efficient.
CaitieCat,
SInce you seem to have poblems agai:. You said something about reasonable people would do… without evidence, prompting me to give my scenario which was equally without “evidence”, but seemed to be close to what most rational people I know would do in the situation if they even had a modicum of good faith.
I am not a fun troll because I am not a troll, a rather trivial syllogism, but given the unfortunate context of the statement I cannot even credit you with that.
Of couse I just said something I found quite interesting about lamnids.
“What’s amusing is that the argument supports my contention.”
Does it? Explain!
I’m feeling ignored, Sheaf. Deal with post 317 lest I consider the point about ‘defense’ conceded. (While your at it, deal with 301)
All hail to *your*, god of typos.
Dude, I’ve heard better and more varied arguments in favour of your preferred state of casual misogyny from pull-string Barbie. You’re dull. I’m going to find something more fun to do than kicking a horse that don’t know it’s dead yet.
Enjoy your evening being the guy who made a 300-comment thread out of insisting he wasn’t defending the guy everybody on the thread saw him defend, and totally also not a troll, because that makes sense.
If you had a modicum of good faith, every assertion you made above would have a citation to show your OPINION isn’t bullshit.
Sheaf, we repeat. How rude do we need to be to make you go away?
Cause guess what; asking nicely didn’t work.
Woo hoo! For the first time in probably over a year now, I’ve read a thread with over 100 comments. Now I have a splitting headache, so yay?
Anyway. Katherine:
Squids. Duh.
You poor dear (I mean that genuinely).
Jacob,
“Our conclusions are an attack on Nutnot’s character. You seek to ward off our conclusions by claiming them unjustified. You’re defending him. Is this really that difficult?”
I did not feel like warding off an attack. My whole thought process was petty much focused on answering the hypotheticals about optimal behavior in judging peoples internal states and was appaled by the extremely judgemental habits rampant here. That this had the consequence of preventing an conclusion is comparable to the fact that rain could end a siege since the people in the castle could fill their wells for a long time. The rain did not defend the inhabitants, as it had not intent in doing so its consequences merely changed something. About as much as the rain defended the castle, I defended Nutnot,even less as I was acid rain that at least gave the people gastritis. If you want to give this any moral consideration… well go ahead, it ould not change uch about my estimation of you anymore.
If you want I can give you other similes as well.
CaitieCat,
I take charges of misogyny as insults. Back them up or apologize.
Thanks, Jacob. I think?
Anyway Jacob.
Assuming the conclusion of Gregory was as formulated and nt a hyperbole. And “defended” Nutnot from this conclusion. Would I be justified?
Who the fuck are you to demand evidence when you refuse to supply any to back up your opinions hypocrite? You should apologize for every time somebody asked for evidence and you refused to do so. That is putting your actions to match your mouth.
Quit pretending you run this blog. You don’t. We both know that. And your are one arrogant egotist.
The problem, Sheaf, is that statement – about not knowing Comedian Dude’s heart of hearts – IS FUCKING STUPID.
Obviously nobody knows his heart of hearts. Nobody EXCEPT YOUR STUPID ASS cares. He is being judged on the content of the words which he himself chose to write and publish. Those words were misogynist.
Whining about how we’re disregarding the remote possibility that he might hate women less than is actually indicated by the content of the speech he deliberately chose to publish IS DEFENDING HIM. Full stop.
See? You’re wrong when you say you’re not defending him. And you’re wrong when you say it’s important that his innermost thoughts may not be reflected by his writing.
You can’t admit you’re wrong – that you’re main problem right now. Since you can’t do the decent, honest thing that this situation requires, the next best option is to shut the fuck up.
So I politely encourage you to fuck off. With a cherry on top.
You’re wrong. “Misogynist” is not an insult, it’s a fact-based label. It’s only an insult if you sincerely believe that treating women with hatred and contempt is wrong. If you can explain why you think that treating women with hatred and contempt is wrong, then perhaps an apology will be warranted. Perhaps.
Alexandra
I meant it kinda sucks that the one big thread you read through was full of insipidity and inanity. I’m sorry if I sounded condescending or insulting.
Sheaf
Your feelings aside, you were (ineffectively, but still).
You implored us to deny a specific conclusion. This was your intent. It was not an unintended side effect.
Except the consequence was your intent; filling the well was not the rain’s. Your analogy fails.
(Aside: the rain wouldn’t end a siege, it would prolong it)
If you want to claim after a 300 post thread that you were merely defending Nutnot from an attack that no one really made, be my guest. Yes, were one to assert in all seriousness that Nutnot thinks of women as “real dolls”, I would consider them wrong.
“He is being judged on the content of the words which he himself chose to write and publish. Those words were misogynist. ”
I said as much…. this is why I am so supremely pissed off by you people.
“Obviously nobody knows his heart of hearts. Nobody EXCEPT YOUR STUPID ASS cares. ”
Caring about internal states is important. If you don’t care what people actually think, chances are that you will be less effective in changing their beliefs.
“Whining about how we’re disregarding the remote possibility that he might hate women less than is actually indicated by the content of the speech he deliberately chose to publish IS DEFENDING HIM. Full stop. ”
StOp. such a powerful word. I condemed him at every point. I just found a single conclusion really not warranted. PZ made a similar more morally egregious one. I think it is quite common discourse here to make such leaps. And this is very bad.
“So I politely encourage you to fuck off. With a cherry on top.” Why? it should be no concern of yours what I do unless I dont go around killing babies. You know, you don’t have t interact with me.
Jacob:
No, you’re fine!
I’ve been involved in some of the truly epic multi-post threads (both here and at the old Sb Pharyngula) and honestly, I don’t know how I used to put up with people like sheaf for any length of time. I just don’t have the patience to indulge in my SIWOTI syndrome anymore.
Anyway, sheaf! Shut the fuck up! You are out of your element!
Sheaf (#333):
In Tpyos there is truth!
Jacob, I did not intend to defend him. Let it be. I did not take active measures to defend him mostly argued different stuff. I condemned him just as hard as you. I dont see your point.
Sometimes. Usually not. Not in the case of Wayne Nutnot. I really don’t give a fuck what his internal state is.
Tell Wayne Nutnot that you really care what his internal state is because you sincerely wish he’d be less of a misogynist, then. Your telling ME that is not going to change HIS beliefs, and that’s the goal, right?
Unless you’re trying to change MY beliefs, in which case you, by your own words, need to care deeply about what MY internal state is. No signs that you give a shit about that so far, though.
You failed utterly at not defending him, then.
Perhaps you’ve heard, but occasionally people do things without intending to do them. Shocking news, I know!
Who gives a shit if you are pissed or not. We are indifferent to you and your opinions. If you want us to care, stop your trolling, shut the fuck up for couple of days, and then come back with a better attitude. One where you recognize you don’t run things, you don’t define how we engage you, and you aren’t the smartest poster on the thread. All those claims means cut back on the egotism.
Alexandra
Oh, good. I thought maybe “You poor dear” sounded bad.
Sheaf
1) Yes, you did. Not for the sake of defending him, but for your principles on deciding when to attack someone.
2) Seriously, why do you never follow your own advice?
3) You tried convincing us that our attack on his character was unjustified, and that therefor we should stop. For day’s you’ve done this. That’s fairly active to me.
4) No you didn’t. I think of him as a misogynist who thinks verbally shitting on women is funny; you’ve said nothing about his character other than to tell us that our conclusion is wrong.
5) This is not my fault.
then get out from under the freakin bridge
Note Sheaf’s hypocrisy in his evident lack of concern about OUR internal states. Obviously he doesn’t care THAT much about changing anyone’s mind around these parts.
I think part of the problem is that Sheaf is parsing with the common-usage sense of “misogyny” as a conscious and/or pervasive, and intense, hatred of women as a mental trait of an individual, rather than its term-of-art usage in sociological and social justice communities.
Granted, his (I believe?) obstinacy has made that a relatively small part by now, but…