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Gaaark (41)
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Linux user. Tries to keep feeding the brain with stuff. Husband and father of a young lady and a younger son who has autism/is autistic... that nut didn't fall far from this nut-tree, I'll tell ya: he gets it honestly. Now if only he'd sleep..............
I believe that God gave us the science, curiousity and intelligence to one day conclusively prove that God does not exist.
My daughter just went to a Drag(on) party (sp???):
literally a pre-wedding party for two guys (and there was a stage drag theater contest).
My questions (being an old guy trying to fit into a new world)
1. Is it husband and wife or husband and husband (wife and wife for lesbians)?
2. Why do people do drag? and why don't they dress that way all the time if they like doing it so much?
3. I knew a 'flaming homo' in Toronto (did not know him well enough to ask questions like this): why do some guys act straight and some so feminine to outright flaming in yo' face?
Will probably remember some other questions later... does anyone have a primer?
Honestly asking.... this is all new to the guy who grew up (small town) saying "Ha...you're a homo!" without really knowing what that meant (when told about a 'circle jerk' i wondered why a bunch of guys would want to do that while thinking about women, lol).
Let the flaming begin!
**A side thought:
In the future there WILL be sex bots:
.....there will also be 'child sex bots' (and will/can child sex bots be made illegal?)... thinking about this is kind of disturbing, but i know it IS coming, sooner or later.
Will something like that take care of a pedo's needs or lead to something worse?
If you had a fully functioning sex-bot that looks/feels real with wonderful AI, would you consider never having a relationship (such as marriage) again or just stick with sex-bot?
If my wife died and i had a bot/AI that was acceptable, i might just stick with it, methinks.
Damn, my mind is going tonight!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Monday August 27 2018, @01:16AM (2 children)
1. I'd say husband-husband. Applying husband-wife to non-traditional relationships is, what's the word... heteronormative? It seems to be more of a cliché joke by heterosexuals (e.g. "Which one's the wife in the relationship? Haw haw haw!").
2. They consider it a hobby, a release, a good time, etc. although some might take it much further. There's obviously a big difference between trying to pass as a woman and wearing drag.
My gay buddy (...homie?) would talk about some of his "straight" male friends who dress up in drag, or go to clubs with drag shows, have sex with men, etc. (bit of a Greco [wikipedia.org]-Roman [wikipedia.org] attitude?). I have been to such a show myself. I didn't need eye bleach (I'm out here looking for video footage of today's mass shooting, so go figure), and there were plenty of straight women there too (some of whom could be called "fag hags" [urbandictionary.com]).
3. It might be related to brain chemistry. I have known gays who had the stereotypical feminine voice, as well as the polar opposite (buff Army guy). And some who seemed perfectly normal. One of my friends said he was a lesbian on the inside (maybe just trying to be edgy about his love for yuri?). I don't know that there is a certain curve where you have a lot of hyper-feminine and hyper-masculine. Selection biases could be in action. Someone else here could probably give you a better answer.
Child sex bots are already around although they are rudimentary like most sex bots. We've had the debate [soylentnews.org] here on SN. I would not have them banned even if studies (which are likely to be irreproducible crap anyway) did link them to an increase on sexual assaults on real children. It's tantamount to restricting art, free expression, freedom to build what you want, etc. And I think research could show the opposite, sane result, with the child sex bots and sex bots in general reducing sexual assaults, violence, etc. If people want to do some weird shit that isn't harming anyone (directly), why should we ban it? If anything is going to create a mass shooter in the near future, it will be restrictions on sex bots (like this poster over here [soylentnews.org]). Frankly, I wouldn't blame them. Fetish-shamed into being stuck with the traditional relationship dynamics and low-grade tools? Go H.A.M. over that beef, little incels.
If the bot is just weeeeeeaaaaaak AI, then it's just an advanced masturbation aid (see also: VR sex + tools). If you throw so-called "strong AI" (aka real artificially created intelligence) into the mix, then the question could become a lot more interesting. Maybe many here will not live to see such AI.
What is a human, anyway? Humans are intelligent biological machines. Talking meatbags. Artificial intelligence will be realized eventually, especially given the work on neuromorphic architectures. The volume of a brain could hold many trillions of transitors worth of neuromorphic computing.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Gaaark on Monday August 27 2018, @02:01AM (1 child)
"We've had the debate [soylentnews.org] here on SN"
Huh...Musta been on vacation then!
Yeah, for me, sex bots will be interesting when, as you say, strong AI comes into its own: aka, when it can replace a person fairly well... Like conversing with a better Siri/Mycroft (mines Kaylee): good conversation about what I want to talk about, get information I want, whatever, then Giggity!
Until then, yeah: flesh light.
Thanks for all the info...still figuring things out. Watched some of Ru Paul's drag race with my wife, but still a lot of questions (like 'tuck' it WHERE???)
As for child sex bots: no, restricting/banning them would be like banning vibrators. If no kids are hurt in manufacturing them (unlike child porn) I don't see a problem...safe outlet for needs.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Magic Oddball on Monday August 27 2018, @09:12AM
This could be completely wrong... But after I saw Silence of the Lambs (which has a scene featuring a transvestite who struts 'naked' yet seems to have no penis/balls) as a teen, my father overheard me wondering how the killer 'hid' his genitals and informed me, "he tucked them between his legs."
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @01:56AM (3 children)
1. Husband and husband if there's two identifying men. Liking men doesn't make someone a woman.
2. People like to have fun. Dressing in drag is fun for some people and it draws attention (which many enjoy).
As for why they don't always do it, dressing for fun and special occasions is a very different thing than doing it all the time.
3. It isn't necessarily an act. Some men are more feminine and some are more masculine. There is some conformity within certain group identities (because people like to fit in).
Anecdote: I knew a gay guy who was on the very masculine side that had a lot of trouble in the US since he was only into very masculine men. He was ex-Israeli military and was only used to gay men that "acted" straight and was incredibly turned-off by feminine men.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Gaaark on Monday August 27 2018, @02:07AM (2 children)
"1. Husband and husband if there's two identifying men. Liking men doesn't make someone a woman."
But what gets me is (after watching Ru Paul's drag race) they call each other 'she', why not wife?
I can understand husband/husband more because...GUYS, but the 'oddities' like the 'she' above: throws a wrench in my understanding, but I just take it as 'DUDE!' for the 'feminine' guys?
Old dog, new tricks...still learning, lol.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Monday August 27 2018, @02:21AM
The problem is that as my subject said, "it's all subjective and relative". There's no set guidelines on how to act, what pronouns to use, etc. And you're looking at a media representation, i.e. a heavily edited "reality" competition TV show. Finally, "she" is being thrown around in the context of drag.
A Google search for "how to refer to drag" gave me this:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-bartolomei/drag-and-pronouns_b_3384512.html [huffingtonpost.com]
^ I couldn't even tell you if the above is accurate, and it doesn't entirely address your question.
Probably the easiest solution is to just use "partner" instead of husband or wife. Or use your best judgment and pick up on the cues you hear.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @11:35AM
When someone is in drag, they assume a stage persona (which would be a "she"). If someone is wearing a wedding dress, they are playing the role of the bride whether or not they identify as female; however, wearing a suit doesn't mean husband (e.g. wearing pants is neutral vs. wearing a dress is feminine).
Don't read too much into pronouns, just follow the lead of others or use the person's name. Some deliberately use feminine pronouns to counter balance the typical male pronoun default, so "she" might be gender-neutral.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 27 2018, @02:46AM (16 children)
If you think of and treat people as individuals, all those questions become irrelevant. They're only relevant if you play the identity politics game.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Monday August 27 2018, @10:26AM (15 children)
But have you seen THIS sh*t?
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-bartolomei/drag-and-pronouns_b_3384512.html [huffingtonpost.com]
WTF?
I'd be sitting at the table laughing my arse off trying to figure out what's going on and who is what!
I know, I know...just go fishing and stop worrying, lol.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 27 2018, @11:17AM
Pretty much, yup.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @12:55PM (13 children)
You've stumbled upon a question that is at the heart of the culture war, this could serve as a primer. [firstthings.com] When a project begins to unravel, we return to first principles and retrace the steps with a view to correcting the errors. The elevation of group identity over individual rights is widely seen as one such error and you're sure to be labeled with every other "-ism" and "-phobia" under the sun if you dare point that out. [huffingtonpost.co.uk] Trying to equate liberalism and individualism with racism, transphobia and Islamophobia is ridiculous when they are the absolute antithesis of group politics.
When we get to the issue of gender identity and appropriate pronouns why should we care? Why should the preferred pronouns of an individual identifying as gender #299,351 be of other peoples concern? We treat one another as individuals and retain the right to free association, we don't walk on eggshells around the childish and narcissistic projection of third party self-identity into our personal space. Those expecting people to accommodate this nonsense are being flat-out rude. We don't have to be assholes in rejecting it but we do have to reject it because it is social absurdity approaching farce.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @01:57PM (12 children)
"why should we care?"
You should only care as much as you respect the individual in question plus the social repercussions of going with/against the person's wishes.
Religion as an outside example
Every religion that I've learned about contains fantasy nonsense that is worthy of ridicule. That being said, I extend the respect I have for particular individuals to cover their religion (I won't disrespect the religion for the individual's sake). Even if I don't respect the individual, I may still tolerate the fantasy because others may impose a social cost for intolerance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @02:15PM (11 children)
I agree but where is the intolerance if someone is insisting you entertain their delusion? Likewise, respect being mutual; should you care about social repercussions when dealing with a socially inequitable transaction?
Being able to stand your ground morally and intellectually is irrelevant against the same levels of circular argumentation employed by Creationists. You're going to be slandered for refusing to defer to the baseless, assumed fallacies of people who are incapable of supporting their position in good faith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @03:20PM (10 children)
"where is the intolerance"
If someone prefers that you refer to them as "she" and you refuse to do so, then you are demonstrating that you don't respect their beliefs about who they are. In other words, you do not tolerate the fact that their definition is different from yours or you insist that you know better than they do.
"should you care about social repercussions when dealing with a socially inequitable transaction?"
You'll have to deal with the repercussions whether or not it is fair.
Religion is a simple example where you may not share someone's beliefs, but you do not bother arguing with them whenever gods come up and you do not make your lack of respect known. People who don't tolerate religion (e.g. using "sky wizard" or calling religious people delusional) are often judged as rude by society and worse by the religious.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @04:45PM (3 children)
Rubbish! If Donald Trump walked into the room and began demanding you address him as "God Emperor" would you do it? You cannot demand that someone refer to you as something you are not, that is the very definition of narcissistic intolerance. Where does this assumption that people are feeble minded enough to surrender their personal autonomy in acquiescence to the ego needs of others come from?
The fear of repercussions is worse than the reality. If someone wants to be silly, they can explain themselves to the court.
If you don't want your beliefs challenged, keep them to yourself. I explicitly mentioned creationism in relation to attempts to place it on the public school syllabus, the parallels should be obvious. [youtube.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @06:15PM (2 children)
"demanding you address him as "God Emperor""
That's a bad analogy for a number of reasons (closer examples would be how some refuse to acknowledge him as president or don't consider him a "real" Christian) and the topic has too much baggage.
"Where does this assumption that people are feeble minded enough to surrender their personal autonomy in acquiescence to the ego needs of others come from?"
I don't really understand why you're making this such a big deal. There isn't some gender-identity Room 101 that will torture you until your feeble mind cracks and you truly believe that someone is really a "she", even if they were born with a penis. You don't need to change your mental definition in order to be polite around others.
This is about social interaction not beliefs and that's why I keep stressing how these decisions depend on the social repercussions. You don't avoid social consequences by arguing semantics, logic, or nitpicking the denotative meaning of words.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @07:11PM (1 child)
No, it's exactly the same but let's go again. Somebody walks up to you in the street and starts a conversation before insisting you respond to their imaginary friend? You wouldn't want to be rude would you?
What if my definition of myself includes not allowing others to manipulate me into telling lies on their behalf?
In order to socially interact with others, I should dismiss my own beliefs while appeasing theirs? To be clear, we're discussing unwarranted insistence that one party in a social interaction defers to the self-identity or persona [wikipedia.org] of the other. That's not how healthy social interactions work, it contravenes the unwritten assumption of mutual respect.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @08:24PM
"insisting you respond to their imaginary friend?"
Again not the best, but I'll try to run with this one. The answer depends on the social context and how much you care.
I'll give some examples to illustrate (in rough order from positive to negative repercussions) the consequences of not playing along:
1. You're with a group of like-minded in-group peers and come across a loner out-group person with an imaginary friend. You ridicule them because they're crazy and %rival sports team% sucks. +2 points for your social status among your group.
2. You're with a mixed group of peers and come across a single homeless person with an invisible rabbit friend named Harvey. You ridicule them and gain +1 from the less compassionate and -1 from the more compassionate peers.
3. You're with a group of peers and come across a child, who has an imaginary dog named "Red", and ridicule them. -1 point from your group and -5 from the kid's family.
4. With a mixed group, you come across a pastor with an imaginary friend called "Jesus". You ridicule the pastor and lose -3 from the Christians, -2 from the Muslims, -1 from the religious that don't believe in Jesus, and gain +1 from the former-Christian atheists.
5. You come across a friend walking with some family members. The friend's grandmother is with them, but she has dementia and believes that her dead husband is walking with them, though invisible. You ridicule the grandmother and she becomes a hysterical crying mess. You lose -20 points from the friend and family and an additional -5 from any within their social sphere.
"telling lies on their behalf?"
It's mainly a difference of definition and not fact.
For example, your definition of gender identity may be strictly limited to the outward presence of reproductive organs at birth, while theirs may depend on what reproductive organs they have now. Obviously, if they didn't have a penis at birth they wouldn't be considered a "he" to you no matter what happened afterwards. At the same time, even though they believe they are a "he", they don't dispute the fact that they didn't have a penis when they were born. If you argue with them about their identity and insist that they conform to your definition, then don't be surprised when you fail to change their view and only lose social points with them.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 29 2018, @01:04AM (5 children)
Which on that last part, let us note, may be correct. What's missing here is the matter of reasonable expectation. As the other AC replier noted, if Donald Trump walks in a room and demands to be addressed as "God Emperor", then there's no reasonable expectation to call him that (unless he has an army of trigger-happy goons around to make the unreasonable reasonable in order to survive).
There isn't automatically a reasonable expectation set up merely because someone insists on a particular set of gender pronouns (or any other characteristic mentioned so far in this thread), particularly, if the set is unique and hard to remember.
One thing to note here is that a strategy for dealing with this is to play a different game. Open racists do this all the time. There's too often merely talk of why these are bad people and little talk of why the strategy works (namely, because the social costs of being acceptable to a group with picky standards can be higher than the social costs of their displeasure).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 29 2018, @02:54AM (4 children)
It's more reasonable to take someone's word on their gender than on a title (doctor, lawyer, general, emperor, god, etc.), especially if the title imposes some subordinate status to you (call me daddy, master, boss, sire, etc.).
What really changes if they are "wrong" about their gender anyway? Besides the awkwardness of following a conversation when they clearly mean something different when they say "she", what is so bothersome that it is equivalent to calling the "God Emperor"?
"play a different game"
It's the same game, just a different in-group with different social norms. You do bring up the obvious conclusion for when you don't respect the individual enough or care about others who share the same in-group: join another group. In your example, this would be the racist making the minority and minority-sympathizers an out-group and joining the openly racist social group.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 29 2018, @12:26PM (2 children)
Generally, but not always. Part of the reason complaints exist in the first place is the demand for exotic gender pronouns (like here [wikipedia.org]) that are difficult to remember and at best would apply to a small number of people.
Except that makes the game different. For example, due to those different social norms one no longer needs to care about exotic gender pronouns.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 29 2018, @05:10PM (1 child)
Your problem is not that they're "wrong" about their gender, but that they ask to be called something that isn't intuitive to you and/or difficult to remember (non-typical pronouns)?
I feel you pain a bit on that because I'm horrible at remembering names. Names are, obviously, non-intuitive semi-unique identifiers that people are expected to remember in social settings. It's simple enough to just avoid speaking about people I don't remember or use much more general pronouns when they come up in conversation. I haven't actually interacted with someone preferring anything other than the normal pronouns (he, she, they) in person. How many times has this happened to you?
Besides our confusion over the word "game", we both understand that social groups have different norms/rules and that one of the ultimate consequences of not following norms is rejection.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 30 2018, @04:09AM
Indeed. It's important to note that there are significant cognitive constraints that make remembering a lot of gender or other preferences hard. For most people, they appear and behave in a way characteristic of their preferred gender (of the traditional two). That makes it easy to remember their preferred gender.
I'm not going to wait till it's my turn at the rhetorical or public theater guillotine before I start complaining about this particular thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 29 2018, @12:30PM
No, narcissism is about control and social dominance, don't let them through your interpersonal boundaries, don't subordinate yourself by accepting fantastical delusions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @03:01AM (1 child)
Well, if we're talking about drag, we're talking about a performing art. Some people want to be clowns, others mimes, others drag queens. It is an exhibition that is external to the performer's own gender. Pandora Boxx [wikipedia.org], for example, does not identify as female.
People generally tend to wear clothing of the gender they feel they are when they are not performing on stage.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday August 27 2018, @10:23AM
And yet the wiki page says 'SHE' throughout.
Is it just she because it's about Pandora Boxx or is it she when in drag but he when not?
Colour me confused. This ( https://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-bartolomei/drag-and-pronouns_b_3384512.html [huffingtonpost.com] ) cleared it a bit, but...
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0, Troll) by Sulla on Monday August 27 2018, @04:59PM (6 children)
I'm pretty live and let live about all of this stuff, its not for me but whatever just don't shove it in my face. But what the hell is going on with this new thing buy the far far lefists to argue that biological sex is a social construct?
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @05:16PM
When the science goes against ideology, ideologues attempt to dismiss the science.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @06:39PM (2 children)
To be fair, reality doesn't give a shit about how we define it and biology is messy.
How do you define the biological sex of humans with three sex chromosomes, XXY, instead of the more typical XX or XY?
Is a female still a female if it is infertile?
Is a male still a male if it will never have sex?
That being said, there certainly is a bimodal distribution in masculine and feminine traits that strongly correlates with sex chromosomes in humans. People use these outward phenotypes to judge biological sex, but the phenotypes don't match perfectly.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday August 27 2018, @08:25PM (1 child)
The argument is not that we can't use male and female, the argument is that XX and XY are actually the same thing and any perceived differences between the two are socially constructed. Even if we don't call them XX and XY, there are differences between the two strands in the DNA chain. Are the various roles in society that people with XX and XY sets socially constructed? Yeah to some extent, but XX and XY are different.
I don't understand
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @09:23PM
You don't understand because that position is irrational.
Now, I bet that such a view is shared by so few that it is not worthy of wasting time thinking about. It's a bit like when people waste time making a big deal out of %extremist position% held by %extremist% (e.g. Westboro Baptist Church's views on anything). It might be interesting that people believe the world is flat, 9/11 was an inside job, aliens producing crop circles; however, it is best to just ignore them as if they were trolls.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 30 2018, @02:36AM (1 child)
I'm certain that nobody is arguing that reproductive system differences are a social construct. Otherwise feminists would have no basis for proclaiming that the menstrual cycle and pregnancy makes cisfemales "superior beings" (their words, not mine).
So what could the theory that gender is a social construct mean? Men and women prefer different clothing, for example.
So there is the feminist theory that robs women of their agency and free will. This gets quickly into a complicated area having to do with self-actualization. (I think self-actualization is the right term for it....) The feminists cannot understand why a woman would voluntarily go along with skirts and long hair, which are not as convenient as pants and short hair, because they believe that gender is a social construct. They tell us that if not for a massive conspiracy theory (I'm simplifying) of almost 3.6 billion men using violent imposition (like a monopoly of some kind), women would all wear pants and have short hair etc.
Yet everybody, not just religious whackos, enjoys expressing their identified gender. It's like a way for them to actualize themselves, or something. What we're missing here is some way of explaining the difference in preference for expression of one gender while shying away from expressing the other gender. Some kind of inborn orientation.
The brain is not hard-wired for skirts or pants. That just seems too specific to be plausible, and then there are all the examples of times and places where these things get reversed, and we see men wearing things that look an awful lot like skirts, and women are wearing things an awful lot like pants.
Yet the brain does seem to be hard-wired to identify with one gender or the other. For 99.99% of people, this seems to, conveniently enough, match the reproductive system. And that's good! Huzzah for the cisgender experience! Be proud of being cisgender! Don't listen to a single fucking SJW on this subject, and don't spend a single fucking second feeling bad because you're in the 99.99% majority of people who were born the way that gendered animals are meant to be.
(Disclaimer: I have no idea if 99.99% is the right number. It could be 90% for all I know. This is why we need to do some basic science here instead of just going "social construct!" and letting our brains leak out of our ears.)
Yet biology is messy, and this is how we can know that gender is not a social construct.
So if your genitals completely disappeared tomorrow morning, you'd still know that you're a man (or woman). You'd still identify with that gender. You'd still feel like you were meant to be that gender in some way you can't put your finger on. And you'd still go about wearing pants (or skirts, or whatever), because that's what men (or women) do, and that's what you are.
What is a social construct are the skirts and pants. Gender expression and norms are a function of culture (and change depending on which times or places you travel to). The identification (most) every person experiences with one gender or another transcends culture and is absolutely not imaginary or a social construct.
The brain, which must be the seat of this instinctual identification, is a biological component. Brain sex is physical and real.
In spite of all of that, there is also this to consider: The Null HypotheCis [freethoughtblogs.com]. As concerns an individual, especially given that we just aren't fucking interested in pursuing brain imaging studies to create a reliable diagnostic (and perhaps, even if we had a reliable diagnostic, nothing is 100%, false positives, false negatives, rounding errors, etc etc), we're ultimately stuck just taking an individual's word for it which gender they feel an identification with.
(I tried to compress--Sai King recommends second draft = first draft - 10%, but it still remains a book. So I have no space left to argue that this "far far left" is actually far right-wing because of their usage of identity politics and disparagement of the cisgender experience, and I must end the comment here!)
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday August 30 2018, @10:19AM
Pretty good!
Thanks.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---