[non-aces only] Do you feel like your body is part of your identity? (poll)

[mreid]

3 hours ago, ryn2 said:

I had to stop before because I was risking making myself late to work.  

 

The theory that one can wholly rationally determine that people can be trusted is dependent on a few things:

 

1) certain types - and only those types - of people have both reason to harm you and the capability to enact that harm

 

2) the characteristics which define these types of people are either inborn or acquired through choice, which means people who aren’t these types are guaranteed not to become them at some point

 

3) these types of people can always be identified by observation, in a reasonable timeframe (i.e., you don’t need to observe them their whole lives)

 

4) your skill level when it comes to observing and detecting these types of people is very high, to the point it approaches perfection

 

5) those you have determined are not one of these types, and who therefore lack reason and/or means to harm you, are comparably skilled in #4 to you and can thus be trusted never to associate with the types of people you know to avoid

 

If any of the above is/are even “mostly true” rather than entirely true, faith creeps into the equation.  You can partially mitigate the risk by carefully studying people before trusting them, and by conducting yourself in a way that makes harming you less tempting/beneficial/etc., but you cannot eliminate it.

 

Having worked in emergency services for years, I can assure you #1 and #2 are not true.

 

3 hours ago, ryn2 said:

The second flaw... even if you could read their minds, that only protects you in the present.  It doesn’t guarantee that, at some point in the future, things won’t change.  Even if it is possible to read minds and know for 100% sure person A is no threat now, that doesn’t prove they’ll still be no threat in six months or six years.  Meanwhile they still have the information or access you gave them back when your mindreading proved them trustworthy...

 

3 hours ago, ryn2 said:

This is broadly applicable, not just in kink and/or sex.  Before you make yourself vulnerable, you have to establish a certain degree of trust.  Each time your trust is validated - you trust that you can safely make yourself vulnerable, and that trust is justified when the person does not take advantage of you/the situation - you’re a little more reassured that your trust is well-placed.  Each interaction like this minutely strengthens whatever bond exists between you (whether it be a business relationship, a caregiver situation, a friendship, a QPR, a romantic relationship, a sexual partnership, or whatever).

 

Conversely, each time the person betrays your trust - even in small ways - the bond between you weakens.

 

This is common across human interaction in general, not limited to sexual and/or kinky settings.

You are yet again completely evading my point.

 

If someone has any kind of power over you, or you power over them, and your trust comes more from faith than reason, it kills honesty, which kills real trust, and this "trust" becomes a kind of bondage.

 

It doesn't matter whether they can change their mind or not, betray you or not. The fact that they refuse to even have that kind of power over you to begin with is where the trust comes from.

 

Stop trying to go around what I say. You have this habit of just throwing argument after argument after argument and nothing you said addresses my points.

 

 

By the way @Telecaster68 do you really believe all that romantic wishy-washy stuff, or are you one of those nice guy types who says what women like to hear?

[ryn2]

10 minutes ago, mreid said:

To summarize: real trust to me is based on knowledge, not experience. As in, knowledge that the other person has no motives to betray you. When that is the case, whatever it is that they do that verifies this rational trust you have of them doesn't change anything, because you know it can't or shouldn't be otherwise. Rational trust nullifies irrational belief.

Sorry, no, you’re missing the point... which is that all rational trust is in the end a misnomer.  There is no way to know for certain someone will not betray you.

[mreid]

Just now, ryn2 said:

Sorry, no, you’re missing the point... which is that all rational trust is in the end a misnomer.  There is no way to know for certain someone will not betray you.

You are yet again evading what I said. I stated clearly the difference between faith-based "trust" and reason-based trust. There is an uncertainty factor to both, but it's smaller in the latter. In the latter this uncertainty factor is regarded as a nuisance and there are no feelings attached to it. The former attaches an irrational emotional significance to the consequences of this uncertainty, because it's not rational trust, it's faith. Like all faith, it explains positive outcomes as "love" when there can be many other explanations that have nothing to do with love, or trust.

[anisotrophic]

@mreid I've been neck deep in nerds my whole life. So deep into discursive thinking they believe it is divorced from emotion.

 

It's a false dichotomy, and you'll be making errors if you think you aren't emotional in your rationality. Are you emotionally invested in a lack of emotion? Emotion is inevitably part of all cognition. (cf the field of economics realizing humans are not "rational" actors.)

 

There isn't really a point being made here, as far as I can tell, just semantic dancing. Just because you can combine words in certain ways to make a phrase like "rational trust" doesn't mean that's a real thing.

[ryn2]

2 minutes ago, mreid said:

Stop trying to go around what I say. You have this habit of just throwing argument after argument after argument and nothing you said addresses my points.

I’m not trying to go around what you say.  You are incorrect in stating that it’s possible to know for certain that someone will not betray you, and also in stating that it’s possible to know who will or won’t have power over you.  My point is not that trust based solely on blind faith - which is not what others are describing, by and large - is somehow better than trust based on knowledge; it’s that knowledge is finite and limited and cannot guarantee trustworthiness.

 

Someone who absolutely refused to exercise what power they have over you is 1) not eliminating that power and 2) not guaranteed to always refuse.

[ryn2]

5 minutes ago, mreid said:

There is an uncertainty factor to both, but it's smaller in the latter. In the latter this uncertainty factor is regarded as a nuisance and there are no feelings attached to it. The former attaches an irrational emotional significance to the consequences of this uncertainty, because it's not rational trust, it's faith.

I’m not avoiding/evading your point; I’m disagreeing with the degree of uncertainty in the latter.

[mreid]

@anisotropic Are you actually going to address any of my points, or just throw non-arguments?

 

1 minute ago, ryn2 said:

 You are incorrect in stating that it’s possible to know for certain that someone will not betray you,

I never said that. Like, ever, Here you are, trying to distort what I said yet again.

 

2 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

My point is not that trust based solely on blind faith - which is not what others are describing, by and large - is somehow better than trust based on knowledge; it’s that knowledge is finite and limited and cannot guarantee trustworthiness.

 

Evading my argument by throwing another one yet again. Stop trying to change the subject. That wasn't what I said.

 

3 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

Someone who absolutely refused to exercise what power they have over you is 1) not eliminating that power and 2) not guaranteed to always refuse.

Yet again distorting what I said. What I said is refusing to have power, not refusing to exercise it.

 

This is going the same way as all our previous arguments. Either address my points or I will start ignoring you.

[ryn2]

3 minutes ago, anisotropic said:

It's a false dichotomy, and you'll be making errors if you think you aren't emotional in your rationality. 

Exactly.

 

All looking at it @mreid‘s way does, really, is create a blind spot... which is in theory exactly what @mreid is attempting to avoid doing.

[ryn2]

Just now, mreid said:

Yet again distorting what I said. What I said is refusing to have power, not refusing to exercise it.

There is no way to refuse to have power.  E.g., to use an example others here have mentioned, the IT staff who administer this forum.  Because they have access to information about your identity, they have some power over you.  They cannot refuse to have that power... they can only refuse to exercise it.

[Telecaster68]

It's fascinating to see what you project onto what I said, mreid.

[ryn2]

4 minutes ago, mreid said:

address my points

I have nothing to say on the topic of trust based on blind faith alone.  You indicated trust based on knowledge is more failsafe, to the point the risk of being wrong is small/negligible (I believe you said 1%).  I don’t agree that the risk is that small.

 

I also do not agree that people can refuse to have power over others.  I gave an example.

 

Not sure what I haven’t addressed...

 

I can’t access AVEN via computer, just my phone, so I’m not able to go through each of your posts in its entirety and make the above points after each applicable sentence.

[mreid]

18 minutes ago, anisotropic said:

It's a false dichotomy, and you'll be making errors if you think you aren't emotional in your rationality. Are you emotionally invested in a lack of emotion? Emotion is inevitably part of all cognition. (cf the field of economics realizing humans are not "rational" actors.)

Are you implying reason and emotion are mutually exclusive? I dont think so at all. I think thats only the case when the you know rationally that you and the other person either have little in common or are incompatible in some way, so a situation where this kind of blind faith without rationality happens would be a way of replacing real connection. I wonder why someone would choose an artificial connection like that  over a real one.

 

@Telecaster68 and what am I projecting exactly?

[Alejandrogynous]

Mreid, you've gone on so extensively about all these things you think are 'fake connections' and 'artificial connections' because you don't understand how they form. I'm curious, what exactly do you think constitutes a real connection?

[anisotrophic]

I'm really sorry @mreid but I have so much to do with my life. Your writing is long and meandering, I'm afraid it has an insufficient density of emotional insight or intellectual rigor to keep me engaged.

You might do well to consider the sensibility of Blaise Pascal in honing your thoughts. Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.

[mreid]

@Alejandrogynous i will reply to you when I get home.

 

@anisotropic ran out of arguments, so now you start insulting. Very mature of you. Its easy to tell my arguments make you uncomfortable.

[Telecaster68]

Neuroscience is currently indicating that emotions are often deep-seated neurological heuristics of rational processes, and obviously there's no such thing as rational objective conclusions. They're all influenced by emotions, especially the ones we think are entirely unemotional.

[ryn2]

1 hour ago, mreid said:

I think I understand you viewpoint, and the difference between our viewpoints is the attitude. To be that is not blind faith, it's taking an educated risk after weighing the risks and the rewards. It's that little percentage where things may or may not go wrong.

But the main thing is that when I am in that situation and the other person doesn't betray my trust, I see the situation as necessary but still unpleasant. I feel a relief if they don't betray me, much like I feel a relief if I play some kind of lotery or chance game and win some money, rather than lose it. Does that increase my trust in that game? No.

I accidentally skipped this before.  I don’t disagree with the above.  My point was that every situation is this situation, to varying degrees.  It’s not possible to reduce the risk to zero.

 

The lower the risk, the less unpleasant the situation may feel to you... but at the point you deem the risk zero you have left knowledge/proof and entered faith.

[Guest DesertWells]

I hesitate to get involved here, I’m not going to argue, but it seems to me the problem here is failing to acknowledge that trust is subjective. Someone must prove their reliability to you, enough to reach the subjective threshold required for trust, which you have set.

 

Nothing anyone can say or do can convince you to trust them absolutely, even if they ‘reject power’ over you, how do you know they’re not lying? - you have to trust they are telling the truth. Trust is - by definition - a risk. Without risk, trust is in fact obsolete.

 

Even then, you can trust Bob not to hurt you, you can convince him to throw his gun away, but he can still hurt you with the many human weapons at his disposal.

The only way to remove someone’s power to hurt you entirely, is by removing their free will - there’s plenty of ways to achieve that, and none of them are legal.

 

Nevertheless, as I said, trust is subjective, and I respect your concept of trust.

[Antihero.]

.
 

[mreid]

5 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

Neuroscience is currently indicating that emotions are often deep-seated neurological heuristics of rational processes, and obviously there's no such thing as rational objective conclusions. They're all influenced by emotions, especially the ones we think are entirely unemotional.

And what are you trying to prove with that, that rationality doesn't exist? Or that it emotion based? If the former then your argument has no validity because if reason doesn't exist, it can't be rational and therefore it isn't valid. If the latter then rationality remains a tangible thing and you have only changed it's quality from something uncategorized to a type of emotions.

 

Often is not all the time, and influenced by isn't the same as based on.

 

Your argument amounts to nothing, means nothing, answers nothing, and has nothing to do with the discussion. It's just an attempt on your part to look smart because the "20 year old asexual virgin" has outsmarted you yet again.

 

4 hours ago, ryn2 said:

I accidentally skipped this before.  I don’t disagree with the above.  My point was that every situation is this situation, to varying degrees.  It’s not possible to reduce the risk to zero.

 

The lower the risk, the less unpleasant the situation may feel to you... but at the point you deem the risk zero you have left knowledge/proof and entered faith.

You are yet again missing the point, I suspect deliberately so. What I said wasn't that trust happens when risk is reduced to zero, what I said was that someone trustworthy is not going to put themselves in a situation where there is unnecessary, artificially created risk because they expect you to just trust they won't betray you. You argue that trust is the bond you develop for the person because they choose not to betray you, but the problem is that you ignore that it was that person that created the risk for betrayal to begin with. It's like they create the conflict so they can play the hero. Do you get what I mean now when I say that the trust people get from the whole kink thing is fake, a mere illusion?

 

And your second paragraph makes no sense.

 

@DesertWells You got my definition of trust wrong. Using your gun analogy, trust to me is not two people with guns they can use on each other and the only thing preventing them from doing so it is "faith", and developing some ind of bond for it. It also isn't taking the guns away from either. It's that both have guns, but they are not doing so because it's much more convenient for them to join forces against some external threat or, if there is no threat, they still have more to gain by staying out of each other's way than by shooting each other.

 

4 hours ago, DesertWells said:

Nothing anyone can say or do can convince you to trust them absolutely, even if they ‘reject power’ over you, how do you know they’re not lying? - you have to trust they are telling the truth. Trust is - by definition - a risk. Without risk, trust is in fact obsolete.

There are specific situations where they have a clear choice. For example, the other person shows them their "vulnerability", whatever the people in this thread think that is. A trustworthy person would help them overcome their vulnerability (and more often than not risk the other person get mad at them), an untrustworthy person will say "Oh you are wonderful, I fully embrace your flaws, there is nothing wrong with them.", indulging them in their dysfunction and making them dependent on them for validation. Just an example.

 

5 hours ago, Alejandrogynous said:

Mreid, you've gone on so extensively about all these things you think are 'fake connections' and 'artificial connections' because you don't understand how they form. I'm curious, what exactly do you think constitutes a real connection?

Real connection is two people desinterestedly liking each other for who they are and relating to each other. There are no feelings of dependence, no power struggles, no fear, and each respects each others boundaries and helps the other overcome their problems, rather than indulge them (which is manipulative behavior).

[ryn2]

12 minutes ago, mreid said:

1)  What I said wasn't that trust happens when risk is reduced to zero, what I said was that someone trustworthy is not going to put themselves in a situation where there is unnecessary, artificially created risk because they expect you to just trust they won't betray you.

2) You argue that trust is the bond you develop for the person because they choose not to betray you, but the problem is that you ignore that it was that person that created the risk for betrayal to begin with

3) It's like they create the conflict so they can play the hero. Do you get what I mean now when I say that the trust people get from the whole kink thing is fake, a mere illusion?

4) Using your gun analogy, trust to me is not two people with guns they can use on each other and the only thing preventing them from doing so it is "faith", and developing some ind of bond for it. It also isn't taking the guns away from either. It's that both have guns, but they are not doing so because it's much more convenient for them to join forces against some external threat or, if there is no threat, they still have more to gain by staying out of each other's way than by shooting each other.

5) There are specific situations where they have a clear choice. For example, the other person shows them their "vulnerability", whatever the people in this thread think that is. A trustworthy person would help them overcome their vulnerability (and more often than not risk the other person get mad at them), an untrustworthy person will say "Oh you are wonderful, I fully embrace your flaws, there is nothing wrong with them."

1) I didn’t say (you said) that either.  If you are talking specifically about BDSM here, rather than about trust in general, people who prefer to take minimal risk/don’t enjoy taking risks probably wouldn’t be interested in it to start with.

2) No, I argue that each time a person behaves in a trustworthy manner, that reinforces your trust in them.

3) As someone (ficto?) explained upthread, kink and BDSM are much broader than roleplay scenarios.

4) My point was - even if you believe you have a situation like you describe with someone presently, a) you don’t know it, you just believe it (faith) and b) what happens when it’s no longer advantageous for them not to shoot you?

5) vulnerability is just an inability to fully protect oneself.  In BDSM it could be being restrained and gagged.  In a bar it could be accepting a drink from someone.   In daily life it could be driving or walking down the street.  We are all vulnerable.  It’s impossible to overcome or guard against every vulnerability.  Now, if you’re speaking strictly of BDSM, are you saying “a trustworthy person would not agree to play with you to start with; instead they would help you overcome whatever weakness led you to ask?”

[fiѕh]

.

[Alejandrogynous]

1 hour ago, mreid said:

Real connection is two people desinterestedly liking each other for who they are and relating to each other. There are no feelings of dependence, no power struggles, no fear, and each respects each others boundaries and helps the other overcome their problems, rather than indulge them (which is manipulative behavior).

Disinterestedly?

[Guest DesertWells]

@mreid

I didn’t get your definition of trust wrong, I was simply sharing my definition of trust, as opposed to yours. I was also responding to what you said:

Quote

What I said is refusing to have power, not refusing to exercise it.

But you also just said:

Quote

It's that both have guns, but they are not doing so because it's much more convenient for them to join forces against some external threat or, if there is no threat, they still have more to gain by staying out of each other's way than by shooting each other.

Guns = power, joining forces = refusing to exercise their power against each other (trust via Mutual Incentive).

 

However, ignoring that slight contradiction, our definitions are compatible, believe it or not...

 

What you just said is an absolutely valid definition of trust; two entities with more to gain by not hurting each other (AKA Mutual Incentive). That is one of the leading motivations of trust, and that is a threshold that you can set, before you decide to trust someone. Mutually Assured Destruction is another example of Mutual Incentive (not everyone likes this concept, but it works as a nuclear deterrent well enough, right?)

 

Nobody here disagrees about what trust is, they simply have different thresholds.

 

There are two schools of thought - 1. Mutual Incentive, 2. Common Purpose (I don’t think anyone actually calls them this anymore, both terms have been abused beyond recognition).

They both have their flaws, and benefits, but neither are incorrect. Common Purpose is simply more altruistic and idealistic in nature.

 

I jumped in here late, so I have no idea what the purpose of this trust discussion is, but when people are dancing endlessly around an argument, sometimes I like to (try to) change the music.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, mreid said:

What I am trying to say is that any situation where you have to have blind (or mostly blind) faith in another person, where you put yourself completely in their hands and the only reason they don't betray you is benevolence is not something that should inspire trust

Who said it's completely blind faith though? You know they don't WANT to betray you because they enjoy the connection you both have, they enjoy your friendship, and know they'd be losing something precious if they betrayed you. When I've practiced kink, the relationship and friendship I have with the person would be exactly the same without the kink, the kink just increases intimacy and pleasure and feels very good due to the levels of trust involved. You seem dead set on not understanding though so it would seem masochistic to keep trying to explain it to you.

 

4 hours ago, mreid said:

The kind of trust you are referring to that strengthens this bond is irrational, because you are in a situation where you believe they won't betray you, not where you know they won't. This "trust" is strengthened because your irrational belief is confirmed, not because there's actually real reasons to trust the person.

 

 It's because they're accepting you as you are, completely, in all your vulnerability. Again though, it's clear you could never understand.

 

4 hours ago, mreid said:

To summarize: real trust to me is based on knowledge, not experience. As in, knowledge that the other person has no motives to betray you. When that is the case, whatever it is that they do that verifies this rational trust you have of them doesn't change anything, because you know it can't or shouldn't be otherwise. Rational trust nullifies irrational belief.

The aim of kink isn't an attempt to verify that you can trust the other person. You already know you trust them and aren't seeking verification. You're seeking pleasure and intimacy in a way you couldn't seek with someone you didn't have those same levels of trust with. 

 

4 hours ago, mreid said:

The problem with irrational belief is that it needs constant acts of trust to be validated, or people start getting anxious that the trust is being broken because they simply don't know, they believe.

 

Intimacy (whether kink or otherwise) isn't an attempt to seek validation of trust, it's a byproduct of the type of trust intimate partners develop, which grows stronger as a natural by-product of being together in all sorts of different situations.

 

It seems to me like maybe you've never had a truly trusting and intimate connection with anyone which is the reason you can't understand. 

 

4 hours ago, mreid said:

If the kinks in question stem from childhood stuff then that is not a healthy thing, ever. It gives both people an incentive to never overcome those things.

Where it stems from is inconsequential if both people are happy, they enjoy it, and it enriches their intimate lives. I've seen some people saying that sucking cock stems from the pleasure one used to get from breastfeeding (which is bullshit imo but whatever) but regardless, if someone enjoys sucking cock then so what? If someone is happy with the things they do intimately with their partner then it doesn't matter where it stems from.

 

4 hours ago, mreid said:

And how do you know the other person actually shares your kink? How do you know they are not just trying out different stuff, or that they are pretending to share your kink because they want to have a fun story to brag about to their friends?

 

 

 Again this seems to suggest to me you've never actually experienced a truly intimate connection with someone you've developed a close friendship with or that you've maybe never even had a close friendship at all. Or maybe you just don't understand how to establish who to place trust in and who to keep at arm's length? You don't seem to grasp the concept of building a bond through friendship at all. 

 

 

In answer to these questions though - You know because over time you've established your mutual interests while you were building a very solid friendship through shared activities, looooong conversations (that sometimes last all through the night and into the next morning), time spent watching movies together, and all the other stuff friends and partners do together while they build their connection. You've developed strong emotions for each other and over time, now that you know and trust each other deeply, start sharing some of your deepest darkest desires. It often just happens that your desires coincide because you already have enough other stuff in common to prove you have underlying similarities, otherwise it may have been something they've revealed to you that you'd never thought of trying but the idea of it turns you on so much that you want to try it, and you reveal all this to your partner. Open, honest, in-depth conversation is the building block of the type of connection I'm talking about here. It's the foundation that keeps everything else in place. And that is the same for any kind of truly meaningful personal relationship, regardless of whether kink is involved.

 

(#typed all that on my damn phone while cooking breakfast Y_Y)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Antihero.]

.

[Guest]

53 minutes ago, DesertWells said:

so I have no idea what the purpose of this trust discussion is

Summary:

 

Mreid was claiming kinks are pathological, pretty much anything that isn't heteronormative baby-making sex is pathological I think was the claim, because apparently it's all destructive to society in subtle ways. Or destructive to other people around you. Or at the very least destructive to yourself. People were trying to explain that kink is just an intimate activity that some people enjoy as opposed to (or alongside) regular vanilla sex and someone threw in that kink is just a different type of activity that enhances intimacy and strengthens an already trusting bond for the people who enjoy it. Mreid picked up on the trust thing (which was only a small aspect of what people were trying to explain about why some adults enjoy consensual kink) and this 'argument' is what that turned into. I am hesitant to call it a real argument as mreid, like she usually does, seems to be utterly refusing to concede to anything that doesn't match her own personal narrative, even when other people have actually lived the experience of these things and she is only looking at it as an outsider with little to no sexual experience and zero kink experience. This will quite literally continue for another 13 pages, with mreid doggedly refusing to understand, until someone mentions something else she can latch onto and start the cycle all over again.

 

I think this trust 'discussion' may actually be an attempt on mreid's part to sidestep having to apologise for (or at the very least, explain her reasoning behind) her claims that kinks are pretty much a pathological bane to society and that heteronormative baby-making sex is the only psychologically healthy, constructive kind of sex.

 

That sums up the last few pages of this convo, I believe.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, mreid said:

 

 

What?! That's not at all what I said. It completely distorts my arguments.

You didn't say faith based trust is fake and trust based on rationally knowing the person has no reason to betray you is valid trust? Cause... that seemed to be your argument. Which, is what I was responding to. 

 

 

4 hours ago, mreid said:

 

And you are completely wrong. It's actually sociopaths who demand blind trust in them, rather than rational thinking, because they like power and knowing someone has this irrational belief in you gives you an enormous amount of power over the other person.

 

How many diagnosed sociopaths have you lived with? 

 

My brother doesn't demand any sort of blind trust. He is very honest about he does things for his own benefit. If he benefits more from stabbing you in the back (figuratively) and stealing your money, he will. If he benefits more from being nice and lending you money, he will. You have to think through exactly what is going on to know if rationally the cost analysis is on your side or not to know if you can trust him with something. Otherwise, he'll go on your computer and steal your stuff if you leave him alone in a room for too long. To him, it really doesn't matter, except what he gains from it. But, if the benefits for him are enough, you can give him $100,000 and you know for sure he's going to do exactly what you said to do with it. 

 

That is what happens when you can only trust someone based on rationality and logic. You examine if they benefit from staying in your good graces or not and decide from that if they will betray you, or stick with you. And it's tiring and exhausting and not something I think people would willingly choose. Some years my brother is great. Some years he would literally steal the shirt off your back if he could. It just depends on what he sees as best for himself at the time. And it's all logic based, no emotional connection clouding his selfish logical analysis of what is best. Whereas, most people would not harm their sister to benefit themselves, because of the emotional bond they have with their family.

 

And, sorry, but PuA game players aren't sociopaths. They are just jerks that are often misogynistic. 

 

4 hours ago, mreid said:

 

Again that is not at all what I am saying. If the other person is someone with whom your beliefs align, you have the same mutual problems, your are similar people, you have no common enemies, and an alliance between you two is mutually beneficial then you have someone you can most likely trust. It's just that the world is such a scary, complicated place that similar people have to stick together. It's rational. And since they are allies it is also mutually beneficial that they help each other, which they only do out of their free choice, not because the other person has any kind of power over them or because they want to have power over the other person.

 

But I don't see why that would create any kind of emotional bond. To me it's a rational judgement, nothing more.

Because you are describing a connection which forms an emotional bond. You even use emotions in your description such as "scary". Most people don't pick the person they trust and want to spend their lives around based on a checklist of benefits. They pick a person who helps make them feel safe in the scary world. Benefits come and go and change over 50-70 years of life. What you want today may not be what you want 40 years from now. But, the emotional bond that forms keeps people together through hard times. 

 

 

4 hours ago, mreid said:

 

 

To the others, when you talks about vulnerability what are you even talking about? Your kinks? Your flaws? Being in a position where someone has power over you but they decide not to use it?

If that is the case, why would it be a good thing to have that sort of thing "embraced" not only like it's a part of you, but also as if it's something good? It's not.

Vulnerability takes many, many forms. 

 

Telling a person a secret you don't want other people to know makes you vulnerable. And it gives the person power over you. If they choose to not keep the secret, then they abuse that power. And they harm you. 

 

Putting yourself in a position where you are tied up and you can't defend yourself if the person decides they want to hurt you makes you vulnerable, emotionally and physically.

 

Forming an emotional connection with someone makes you vulnerable. Because, if they decide to leave you, or act in ways that erode that bond, it hurts. 

 

Humans make themselves vulnerable in so many ways, every day. The people who nurture us in that vulnerability instead of hurting us are the ones we form attachments to (generally, some people form unhealthy attachments to people who hurt them). 

 

Sex and kinks are just another way to form attachments like that.

 

Example: 

I thought my partner would stop if I said no. I thought my partner would respect my boundaries. However, I had no proof of these things. So, it was a guess. And I've been wrong in the past about people. So, the first time my partner and I were doing things, I wasn't sure but I thought it was OK. Getting nothing but love and respect from the interaction made me sure and enhanced my trust of them. Which strengthened our emotional bond. That's not fake. That's not unhealthy. That's allowing oneself to be vulnerable and having your trust proven well placed. Which, if you ask therapists, is a goal of a healthy relationship - not to avoid vulnerability, but to be comfortable being vulnerable with each other and trusting that you're still safe. One of the things relationship counselors do is trust exercises and getting people to open up and be vulnerable and show all those emotions they hide and take down the walls they protect themselves with, so they can be close to their partners. 

[mreid]

@DesertWells

 

Accurate Summary:

 

I argued that the root of many kinks and perversions is childhood stuff and dysfunction. I also said that whoever goes against their biological inclinations, regardless of whether it is homosexuality or heterosexuality or asexuality or whatever, is a pervert and that perverts exist in every orientation and make those who really are that orientation look bad because they usually behave in an embarrassing way.

 

Ficto and a few others however are trying to convince me that kinks are not about childhood stuff despite the fact that that is a well known fact, but are instead about trust and embracing this vague thing they call vulnerability.

 

At some point we compared two people trusting each other to have each other's backs against a mutual threat and/or for a common goal vs the trust and bond that people develop in kinks and bdsm. I said that the latter is unhealthy and fake because:

1) those preferences stem usually from childhood dysfunction. Sometimes they don't, but most of the time people don't know and don't care, as can be perceived by the way certain persons react to my threads

2) the other person only has power over you because you choose to give them that power, and their not abusing that power is what creates trust. I said that this isn't trust, this is blind faith, and also that it isn't real because if you were to remove that power from the person you wouldn't feel the same bond. This means that it is a situational, staged type of bonding that relies on irrationality and suspension of disbelief and not reason.

3) embracing and indulging someone's flaws in unhealthy and keeps the other person needy. It's manipulative.

4) people who prioritize this fake bonding over real one do so either because they like having power over someone else or, if there is a deterrence sort of balance of power they do it to replace real connection because of incompatibility and/or lack of interest in their partners for who they are (this is how I perceive the so-called "spicing up" of a relationship)

 

I made my points in a polite and rational manner and the usual persons couldn't prove me wrong so now they are resorting to the usual tricks of dragging me into pointless arguments so they can win through exhaustion, strawmen, insults, derailing, pointless posts and the usual distorting of what I said to rile people up against me by calling me a homophobe. Oh yeah and Fictos usual posts of unfiltered purple depravity. Something about urine enemas, drinking blood and breast-feeding adults.

 

The counter-arguments:

1) but there is nothing wrong with indulging in a perversion if it doesn't hurt anyone else

My answer: Indulging in perversion perpetuates dysfunction. Perversion is not something that exists in a vacuum in the mind separated from everything else. Perversion is a symptom of dysfunction. Not addressing it enables dysfunctional behavior. This behavior spreads to other areas of a person's life and may hurt those around them and be disruptive to society as a whole. Most people don't know how their perversions affect them, and don't care.

 

2) But you have never experienced it so you can't know!!!11

 

3) It's not manipulative, it's love/bonding/trust/etc, see 2)

 

4) You are reducing everything to rationality and robot like emotional detachment, those are not real feelings, that is not real trust/love/bond/etc, rationality is emotions or something, emotions and reason are somehow mutually exclusive, insults.

My answer: That has nothing to do with what I said.

 

So yeah this about sums it up.

 

[Guest DesertWells]

@FictoCannibal.

@mreid

Thank you for the catch ups, I appreciate it.

 

I’m not going to get into the kinks discussion, for various reasons...