In order to avoid derailing the Kevin-Spacey thread, I'm starting a new one devoted to this question.
You assume correctly, but no, I have no more difficulty comprehending men who are attracted to men than I have comprehending women who are attracted to men! (And please don't tell me again that there are an awful lot of these cases, also in history!) So in a way, I find it much easier to comprehend lesbians: We are turned on by women! :)
And in this case (that is: ordinary sexual attraction and desire), Darwinian explanations make sense: it helps procreation if the act that results in offspring is enjoyable to the extent of ecstasy. And it helps bring up that offspring if the partners remain attracted to each other, i.e. love. That homosexuality doesn't result in procreation doesn't bother me. Nature sometimes works in mysterious ways. And I think that people who are bothered by this, "Unnatural!", resort to this pseudo-Darwinian argument, not because it's unnatural (which, of course it isn't since you find it all over the animal kingdom), but because they are against gays for different reasons and just use nature as an excuse the same way others use the Bible.
Now, I think that it would be a good idea to distinguish between taste and kinks. They don't appear to be the same thing at all. (And I also find the question of different tastes rather uninteresting: I don't like cheese, for instance, but I really don't know why I don't, and I also don't care. Maybe a geneticist will someday discover the different genetic makeup of cheese lovers and cheese haters, but I won't buy the book.)
But unlike you, I think that there is much to be explained when we are talking about sexual kinks: I don't think that there is a bicycle-seat-sniffing gene, a necrophilia gene, a nylon-stocking gene or a masochism gene, and I doubt that being into one of these things will make it easier to understand the others. Why should it?
And some of these aren't that hard to understand with a little effort: Fetishes are often associated with the desired sex or body parts: bicycle seats, for instance, so if you believe that you cannot get nearer to the object of your desire you transfer your desire to the inanimate object.
And in the fantasy world of sado-masochism, the masochists are 'liberated' from being responsible and in charge of their own desires (really a contradiction in terms: tied down and free!), they don't have to feel guilty about sex (as you're supposed to if you are good Xians), and sadists don't have to fear the humiliation of rejection: their fantasy is one of being in total control (also a contradiction in terms, in as far as sex is usually a question of letting go of control).
But the sadists are different from sexual offenders like Spacey: They seem to want their partners to be consensual, they want them not only to like but to desire what is going all: their role-playing games.
The Spaceys, the Cosbys, the Weinsteins, the O'Reillys etc. don't really seem to care about this, and they may even be turned on by the unwillingness of their partners.
And that is the thing that I find difficult to understand: The sado-masochists are playing a game of unwillingness, but it is pretense and everybody appears to be aware of that.
But how can anybody enjoy to have sex with an unwilling partner?!
(And please don't tell me about the numerous historical cases! I know, I know!)
I also don't understand why so many people seem to find the explanation perfectly natural that this is how people (or at least men) behave when they are positioned so far above everybody else that they no longer have to care about how other people feel.
I can see why a celebrity surrounded by admiring and willing sex partners might feel tempted to 'stray', but that only makes it so much harder to understand why they would then resort to drugging or in other ways coercing or downright forcing people to commit sexual acts that they don't want to be a part of.
I don't see what's the 'fun' in that …
My original question in the Kevin Spacey thread
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Originally Posted by 3point14 (Post 12068784)
I'm going to make the assumption that you're straight and ask if you have the same difficulty comprehending those who are attracted to their own sex?
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And in this case (that is: ordinary sexual attraction and desire), Darwinian explanations make sense: it helps procreation if the act that results in offspring is enjoyable to the extent of ecstasy. And it helps bring up that offspring if the partners remain attracted to each other, i.e. love. That homosexuality doesn't result in procreation doesn't bother me. Nature sometimes works in mysterious ways. And I think that people who are bothered by this, "Unnatural!", resort to this pseudo-Darwinian argument, not because it's unnatural (which, of course it isn't since you find it all over the animal kingdom), but because they are against gays for different reasons and just use nature as an excuse the same way others use the Bible.
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I don't really think there's much of an explanation for taste. Well, there probably is, but it's likely to be neurological and complex and difficult to explain. I think, perhaps, it's easier to comprehend kinks in others when one has kinks oneself. Sexual relationships aren't always symmetrical so, in order to, for instance, to get a thrill out of spanking someone, one has to be able to understand that someone is capable of getting a thrill out of being spanked while having no desire whatsoever to be on the receiving end of same. |
But unlike you, I think that there is much to be explained when we are talking about sexual kinks: I don't think that there is a bicycle-seat-sniffing gene, a necrophilia gene, a nylon-stocking gene or a masochism gene, and I doubt that being into one of these things will make it easier to understand the others. Why should it?
And some of these aren't that hard to understand with a little effort: Fetishes are often associated with the desired sex or body parts: bicycle seats, for instance, so if you believe that you cannot get nearer to the object of your desire you transfer your desire to the inanimate object.
And in the fantasy world of sado-masochism, the masochists are 'liberated' from being responsible and in charge of their own desires (really a contradiction in terms: tied down and free!), they don't have to feel guilty about sex (as you're supposed to if you are good Xians), and sadists don't have to fear the humiliation of rejection: their fantasy is one of being in total control (also a contradiction in terms, in as far as sex is usually a question of letting go of control).
But the sadists are different from sexual offenders like Spacey: They seem to want their partners to be consensual, they want them not only to like but to desire what is going all: their role-playing games.
The Spaceys, the Cosbys, the Weinsteins, the O'Reillys etc. don't really seem to care about this, and they may even be turned on by the unwillingness of their partners.
And that is the thing that I find difficult to understand: The sado-masochists are playing a game of unwillingness, but it is pretense and everybody appears to be aware of that.
But how can anybody enjoy to have sex with an unwilling partner?!
(And please don't tell me about the numerous historical cases! I know, I know!)
I also don't understand why so many people seem to find the explanation perfectly natural that this is how people (or at least men) behave when they are positioned so far above everybody else that they no longer have to care about how other people feel.
I can see why a celebrity surrounded by admiring and willing sex partners might feel tempted to 'stray', but that only makes it so much harder to understand why they would then resort to drugging or in other ways coercing or downright forcing people to commit sexual acts that they don't want to be a part of.
I don't see what's the 'fun' in that …
My original question in the Kevin Spacey thread
via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/2hnun6k
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