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Sexual Advice from a pansexual Philiologist


Pan-GalacticGargleblaster

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MosesWilhelm

Curious how this was studied and how the team only came up with: fad and evolution. :blink:

Actually, there are not too many studies on asexuality. Plenty of studies on sexuality, but a surprising and disappointing lack in asexual mention. I have only found one study in a college library and two or three (with disputable citations) on the internet.

The two sides most argued upon is that A) asexuality is a mindset forced on an individual by environment or B) asexuality is a biological factor.

I have not heard an evolutionary standpoint.

I am now clarifying that I am in no way an expert. I just like reading about asexuality. Take that as such.

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oneofthesun

There is a dead simple evolutionary explanation, but it's not something people like to hear. I'm sure you can think of it if you try.

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MosesWilhelm

You can explain anything that exists with evolution if you try hard enough.

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You can explain anything that exists with evolution if you try hard enough.

That doesn't make it true.

I can't think of any evolutionary explanation for asexuality that makes any sense. Other than "stuff happens". Not everything is because of evolution. For example, Stephen Gould and Richard Lewontin coined the term "spandrels" for an interesting phenomenon (basically byproducts of evolution - things that have no evolutionary advantage, but are the result of things that do.)

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i feel as if i am being gang raped not that i would mind that as i am pansexual

Sir, you do realize that pansexual does not necessarily mean you're poly, right? And the very definition of rape means that you really kind of would mind?

I also smell evopsych here. Oh, the smell of evopsych in the morning. Smells like burnt waffles and simplistic views of human behavior and evolution.

Also, daveb, thank you for bringing up the spandrels. There is not nearly enough spandrel love in the world. Me, I tend to think that homosexuality/bisexuality are more likely to be spandrels than asexuality, which I think is more of the end of a range on sexual attraction, like the end of a bell curve. It would make a lot of sense for evolution to err on the edge of "sexually attracted to people we can't produce babies with" line rather than the "not sexually attracted to anyone we can't produce babies with" line. With respect to asexuality, it makes the most sense to me that we're on the end of a continuum of sexual attraction levels/drive levels that has hypersexual people on the other end. Human sexuality is fantastically complex, and we already know that there's a metric fuckton of variation, so it seems to me that asexual people are just the cluster with the lowest level of interest in sex for its own sake.

Also, if we must get into evopsych, asexuality =/= nonreproducing, especially historically for women, since if you were female in the vast majority of societies if you didn't have a relationship (marriage or concubinage or something) with a man you either starved or you were a prostitute. Or you got to stay on with your family as a spinster and do all the scut work the married women didn't want to do. This is assuming you actually had a choice about who you married and weren't carried off by your "husband" and raped for a wedding, which is actually a pretty common method of selecting brides in hunter-gatherer culture. Not saying that guys didn't have any pressure to get married or have kids or whatever, but historically women have had extremely strong pressures from many different fronts to engage in heterosexual intercourse and relationships whether they got happy tingly feelings in their vulvas towards men or not. (This also, like I said, goes straight into hunter-gatherer culture, which is the type we've had for most of our evolutionary history. You may have heard of it?)

But you know, all that fails to consider the fundamental problem with evolutionary psychology, which is this: YOU CAN'T TEST ANY OF IT. IT IS NOT SCIENCE. We can test evolutionary mechanisms by observing microevolution, the fossil record, and analyzing genetic codes. Behavior is waaaay too squishy to do any of that with. We don't even understand how the hardwiring of imprinting in birds works, let alone analyzing the precise evolutionary mechanisms that lead to queer sexual orientations. THIS STUFF IS REALLY FUCKING HARD, guys. Making Just So stories about how it might have worked is fun and all, but stories is all it can be right now until we understand a lot more about how both evolution (and genes) and the brain work. With any luck, that's my life's work right there. And also, I think it's really fucking sad that an undergraduate in genetics and psych appears to know more about this stuff than someone who at least theoretically has a PhD. (Or wait, what universities are there that offer PhDs in philology? Because every reference I can find to the term says that philology is the study of ancient languages.)

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Guest Viinasu

i have a question for the super smart philiologist guy XD

i've heard that most asexuals have asperger's, or something similar.... i personally have schizoid personality disorder.... is that true? are there "normal" people who are asexual, or do you think it's just because of asperger's, a personality disorder, etc?

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virescence

I was about to leap on the "gangrape" thing, and was quite relieved to see that other people already had. Plenty of forums I know, no one would have batted an eyelid at that. Still, because another voice can't hurt:

i feel as if i am being gang raped not that i would mind that as i am pansexual

To put this as simply as possible, rape is non-consensual sexual activity. If a person is having sex with multiple people and does not "mind" it, i.e. they consent to it, it is not rape. It is simply group sex. It is as impossible to rape someone who is consenting to that particular sexual act (and is, you know, capable of giving consent) as it is to have a circle with straight sides.

I also feel that this implies it's impossible to rape pansexuals, which is obviously untrue, and also implies that all pansexuals desire group sex, which is again untrue, though I imagine that may just be due to a momentary lapse in expressive ability.

Still I do wonder what the focus of this new subject area is? One would rather have hoped that anyone researching in the area of human sexuality would know what rape was... particularly someone who works with the police to profile sex offenders!

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Guest fridayoak

I couldn't find anything online about the word philiology apart from something called "The Journal of Anatomy and Philiology Normal and Pathological" by Unknown author with no details at all.

I can't take anything the OP says seriously, even without that odd rape comment (which I presume was a joke).

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I will now deliberately misspell a word that I think pertains to the OP (whatever their many names are), since if I spell it correctly I'll be rightly reprimanded by a Mod: Trole.

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Actually, since AVEN is moderated by real people and not by a word censor, creative spelling doesn't have any particular advantages.

-GB

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Actually, since AVEN is moderated by real people and not by a word censor, creative spelling doesn't have any particular advantages.

-GB

I know. Mistake on my part saying that. :redface:

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oneofthesun

But you know, all that fails to consider the fundamental problem with evolutionary psychology, which is this: YOU CAN'T TEST ANY OF IT. IT IS NOT SCIENCE.

The same is true for all psychological theories. That doesn't stop people from believing in them.

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But you know, all that fails to consider the fundamental problem with evolutionary psychology, which is this: YOU CAN'T TEST ANY OF IT. IT IS NOT SCIENCE.

The same is true for all psychological theories. That doesn't stop people from believing in them.

Not really--with the exception of psychoanalysis, anyway, which is shit. Cognitive behavioral therapy, for instance, has been shown to be effective in placebo trials with several different disorders. Behaviorism by definition confines itself to what can be observed. Neurology is similar. We can conduct and replicate psychological studies on a vast variety of subjects, and replicability of experiments is the gold standard of science. (Sorry I'm being vague, here, but it's rather difficult to defend an entire, very broad field when you haven't levied any specific accusations.)

By contrast, evolutionary psychology usually relies on survey and self-report data to support its conclusions about the evolution of human behavior. Not really germane to their theories, there, to say nothing of not actually tying back to evolutionary biology in any way but the stories.

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But you know, all that fails to consider the fundamental problem with evolutionary psychology, which is this: YOU CAN'T TEST ANY OF IT. IT IS NOT SCIENCE.

The same is true for all psychological theories. That doesn't stop people from believing in them.

Not really, you can test how predictive a psychological theory is with a well designed experiment. It's tricky to do that with evolutionary psychology.

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Sciatrix, you are wonderful (just had to say it - and that is not a "come-on" in any way! :lol:).

I studied a little evolution in college, among many other things. Although, I was not a biology major. I enjoy reading about it, too. Very fascinating stuff. So much more amazing and interesting than any "just so" stories!

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oneofthesun

Not really--with the exception of psychoanalysis, anyway, which is shit. Cognitive behavioral therapy, for instance, has been shown to be effective in placebo trials with several different disorders. Behaviorism by definition confines itself to what can be observed.

I said theories, not therapies. As in theories of why we develop the way we do (Freud, Yung, Erickson etc) as opposed to the theory of evolutionary psychology.

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Not really--with the exception of psychoanalysis, anyway, which is shit. Cognitive behavioral therapy, for instance, has been shown to be effective in placebo trials with several different disorders. Behaviorism by definition confines itself to what can be observed.

I said theories, not therapies. As in theories of why we develop the way we do (Freud, Yung, Erickson etc) as opposed to the theory of evolutionary psychology.

Every authority you named (and it's Jung and Erikson, by the way) comes under the heading of psychoanalysis, and I just agreed with you--it's shit. Which is why the entire field of psychology has since moved on from there--the last heyday of psychoanalysis in research was the 1950s. (Incidentally, therapies took more time to trickle down from research, but Skinner and his behaviorists and ethologists definitely took over in the 50s and 60s, and as I also just said, behaviorism by definitions confines itself to observable phenomena.)

ETA: And thank you, daveb. :wub:

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MosesWilhelm

All of psychology is unprovable, for there are exceptions around every corner to practically every theory. The human brain has not been mastered, and evolutionary psych is no different.

To me, psychology is like religion and psychology. You have to have faith to completely believe in either one.

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Moderator note:

In accordance with the previous notice in this thread, Sally has received an official warning for her comment referring to another user as a "trole". We would like to remind all of you that such posts are a personal attack, and in violation of the Terms of Service. If you believe someone is a troll, report their posts and ignore the thread unless you have something productive to add.

- sonofzeal, SPFA moderator, on behalf of the Admod Team.

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I will do so from now on.

I assume the two other people who mentioned the forbidden word are being warned also?

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I assume the two other people who mentioned the forbidden word are being warned also?

I think they said it before the warning about being warned was made. :)

It's a shame about the warning, but I do understand the rules are necessary to keep AVEN the pleasant place it generally is.

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Why would you need a warning about a warning? I thought a warning is a warning whatever :huh:

Well, the first being unofficial and the second being official, I assume.

The same thing happens in football. (That's association football - or "soccer" to Americans.) Frequently the ref will verbally warn people who infringe the rules; if they repeat this he will brandish his yellow card, the "official" warning.

Anyway, it's really not up to me to say. I'm not a mod. This is just how I understand it.

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Guest fridayoak

Yeah I get that. I mean obviously that'd make sense as in a pre-warning for each individual followed by an official warning, but I was confused if they meant you could give a pre-warning to some but then the next person after just gets the official warning. But whatever, I'm not really bothered.

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I guess I understand now. I made my comment after the pre-warning was made, so it was like I was ignoring the pre-warning. Which I didn't intend to do; was just joining the pack, so to speak. But now I know.

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Yeah I get that. I mean obviously that'd make sense as in a pre-warning for each individual followed by an official warning, but I was confused if they meant you could give a pre-warning to some but then the next person after just gets the official warning. But whatever, I'm not really bothered.

Well the "pre-warning" was (implicitly) addressed to everyone, not just to the people who used the word "troll" first time around.

(So I guess at that point my football analogy breaks down...)

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Guest fridayoak

OT but It would actually still hold for Rugby though, as the ref often warns the captain of team that has been consistantly breaking the rules that the next offender will go to the sin-bin, and the captain lets the whole team know. Though for that to work we'd have to assume that we are all always on the same team here (and we all know that's not always entirely the case <_< ).

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All of psychology is unprovable, for there are exceptions around every corner to practically every theory. The human brain has not been mastered, and evolutionary psych is no different.

To me, psychology is like religion and psychology. You have to have faith to completely believe in either one.

No one's saying the human brain has been mastered. But then, we still don't know exactly why gravity works, either--does that entirely invalidate the field of physics? The point of psychology is to make assertions about the human brain, conduct experiments to see if evidence supports those assertions, and aggregate evidence in support of particular theories which may be later disproven by subsequent experiments. The very fact that you think science can prove anything indicates that you don't understand what it is. (I suppose your assertion that psychology is unprovable is correct in the sense that it's really hard to prove a method of trying to understand the world.)

Psychology is a science. Admittedly, it had roots in psychoanalysis, which is not a science (and which again, I'm not going to defend--if you're not familiar with anything in psychology past Freud or Jung, do not assume I am talking about them), but it has since moved past them.

Similarly, the field of chemistry has its roots in the pseudoscience of alchemy, but has since moved beyond those roots. The vast majority of psychology these days approaches problems from either a biological (neurology falls under this category; so does monitoring human physiology to see how emotions change bodily functions), cognitive (focuses on how people learn, think, and remember--memory research, for instance, tends to be here), or behavioral (Skinner--focuses entirely on observable data, say observing the way people behave in particular social situations) perspective.

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Gho St Ory Qwan

I know philia is something to do with sex like with paedophilia. So yeah I believe its the study of sexuality.

I have a question for you regarding sex crime.

*Sex crime by psychopaths; how often or important is the sexual gratification in this?

*Psychopaths are normally somewhat emotionless so how does this affect their sex drive and romantic drive?

*Some asexuals identify as aromantic, having no romantic interest in others. Do some psychopaths show this trait? (admittedly with the limited research I doubt this can be answered).

*Is it possible that some asexuals are more prone to being psychopaths? (not the criminal ones the ones that function normally and are often more likely to be bosses).

*And is it possible that some sex offenders are asexual and did it for dominance rather than sexual gratification?

I know it seems like an obsession right now, but after realising most psychopaths are not criminal but more like bullies-terrorisers I started to wonder about the possibility of everyone being one. And the link between lacking emotion and lacking sexual interest and specifically romantic interest could correlate in some way.

NB: I'm not suggesting we asexuals are more likely to be psychopathic fellows, just trying to determine if there has been evidence of asexuals through such crimes. Also I find it disturbing that asexuals will almost automatically trust other asexuals. It's nice but naive to assume lack of interest in sex reduces the chance of sexual assault if, like its suggested, its not about sexual attraction or interest a lot of the time.

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