Debating For Girls

A girl told me the other night that she finds it very attractive when men fight. Especially if she is already attracted to one of the contenders. And not necessarily only when they’re fighting over her.

This shouldn’t have come to me as a surprise. Throughout the animal kingdom, males fight. And females watch. And the champions get the girls. In winning the fight, the male displays that he is strong. The female wants a strong male, so she watches and enjoys, dare I say, even gets turned on. From an evolutionary perspective it’s because the fact that he’s strong indicates he’s got good genes, and better genes in the parents means better genes in the offspring. But for female animals it is visceral and not based on any intellectual calculation like this.

Here’s a social situation I often find myself in: I’m at a conversation-friendly party or social gathering. On the chair next to mine is another guy, and sitting on the couch across from us are seated an indefinite number of attractive, available girls. The conversation is flowing and enjoyable. Speaking for myself and speculating educatedly for the other guy, we both want (at least one of) the girls to like us. Consequently, we both want to make conversation with the girl, where she participates as well. Well, as the eveng progresses, he expresses an opinion about something. I express to him a contrary opinion and offer a rationale. All of a sudden, I am debating with this guy, and the girls aren’t even participating. Now I enjoy debating, and with an intelligent interlocutor the conversation can become very rich in ideas and fascinating. But I always think to myself that we should either change the topic to something the girls can get in on, or include them even though the atmosphere of the debate is cross-fire.

When this girl told me that she enjoys watching men fight, it led me to thinking: Women enjoy displays of prowess. Perhaps when men debate and the girls are silent, they are watching with attraction – and the accompanying enjoyment. In which case it is not rude or exclusionary, but a complex social interaction that includes the males and the females in different ways each enjoyable in its way to its repective sex.

What do you think?

Sex, and Why It's Bad For You.

"Sex without love is an empty experience. But as far as empty experiences go, it's one of the best"
-Woody Allen

In my opinion, it is not quite so innocuous as that. Casual sex, sex without personal and socially sanctioned commitment between the partners, can be dangerous and evil. This is true for many reasons, and here I present one:

Behavior is inertial; even if we don't make any choices or exert will, we still engage in behavior. If I'm hungry, it takes more effort, and is therefore more of an activity, to refrain from eating than to eat. In such a case non-behavior is more active than behavior. One's default behavior in a given class of circumstances is a habit. Habits can be changed by an experience or by thinking, but the most effective way to change one's habits is by willful action in opposition to the habit in the given circumstance-class. This will be called changing one's pattern of behavior.

For most people, whether by nature or nurture, sex is by default a powerful connective mechanism reinforcing a very close relationship. Even if this is not the only default position, I would argue that it is possible for the sexual relationship to have this effect, and one ought to still retain openness for it when possible. To lose this ability is a great loss.

Say I want to engage sexually with this woman with whom I do not hold a commited relationship. Either (1) I do not want a commited relationship with her, or (2) I do, but have not (yet) developed one.

If (1): Fine, we're two consenting adults, so what's the problem? Being that by default I should feel this close bond, if I am not to feel it - which is my intention in this case - I have to actively change my habit to this association. I have to dissociate in my mind and life the close tie between sex and commited love. The result is a change in my pattern of behavior. I slowly lose my habit for associating sex with love. The terrible consequence is that down the road it will be more difficult to create a good, real, meaningful, commited sexual relationship.

If (2): Either (A) I think it's appropriate to commit to her, or (B) I don't yet know if it is appropriate.

If (2-A): Then put your money where your mouth is and commit to her with the sanction of the law. Take the appropriate steps and you're in the clear. This argument only objects to casual sex.

If (2-B). then either

(I) It isn't an appropriate relationship. The sex will, by default we argue, make me like her and want to commit to her. If we stay together, then, we will be stuck in a bad relationship, and I'll find it out hard when the flourish fades. If we do not, then I am ever more likely to dissociate sex with commited love. 

(II) It is an appropriate relationship. These often don't work out either. If it does not, then if I had already been having sex with her, not only will that tend to the dissociation of sex with commited love, but probably more so than in any of the other cases, because it will advance a cynicism: "I though that this sex was a token of great love and commitment, but it's all loss and a waste of time."

If it does work out in (2-B-II), then what can I say? Lucky you.

Friday, May 11, 2007 Reflections After the Biting of a Guy's Nipple by an Alligator on Cable TV

A topic which fascinates me is the sympathy/empathy complex. There are numerous conflicting accounts of the distinction between the two in the psychological literature and in people's minds. In my mind I have two ideas, two different modes of how emotion can be transferred. If you disagree that the two ideas I'm elaborating are "sympathy" and "empathy", that's okay, they are still two different ideas. We attach words to things after we think of their concepts in order to try to characterize them, and when words fail, that doesn't mean we don't possess the concepts.

My definitions are these. Sympathy ("feeling with") is actual participation in a feeling that originates in someone else. Empathy ("feeling into") is a feeling that originates in oneself, when one creates a copy in oneself of the feeling, and feels that copy. One way to look at this is to reflect that one can have empathy into a fictional character, but not sympathy.

An interesting insight into the matter occurred to me as I was watching the movie Jackass (just comes to show how philosophy is everywhere). I saw a man having his nipple bitten by a baby alligator. Ouch. I was cringing for the entire duration. Emotion was transferred. I distinguished three levels of participation in the feeling. First, there was the guy having his nipple bitten. He was in physical pain. Now the idea of any physical pain is problematic, since insofar as a thing is physical, by standard definitions, it does not have feelings at all. He was also screaming, and laughing (curious) and after the humor had registered, he had the incredible urge to act so as to get rid of the fucking alligator. Then there were the people who were with him at the time. They had the "cringe" reaction as well, I'm sure, more profoundly than I did. But where they differed the most with me on the couch, and agreed with the victim was in the urge to act to remove the pain. (They eventually pried to gator's mouth open with a knife). That was a sympathetic reaction. His feeling was motivating their actions. As for me, that was merely empathy. This is perhaps another mark of sympathy distinguishing it from empathy.