If a man can become accustomed to ignoring women’s requests for him to leave, making the judgment that his desires are more important than her sense of security, then does he still count as a “respectful man”? If not, then his breeding successfully doesn’t increase the number of “respectful” genes in the gene pool either.
The same men that are currently respecting women’s requests to go away, are generally respectful in numerous other ways, such as not beating them. If the same men simply invert their rules of engagement with respect to women who initially [1] tell them to go away, they are still going to be respectful in all of these other ways; it’s just that they won’t be at a reproductive disadvantage.
(Even if you posit some effect whereby these respectful men infect the rest of their personality by doing this, they’re still more respectful than the kind of man who doesn’t currently obey requests to leave.)
Of course, it would be even better if women only told suitors to go away when they really meant it, and strongly avoided all men that refuse to (even if they change their mind about him), but why should they change? I mean, this practice really only hurts non-humans such as high-functioning autistics.
[1] Obviously, there’s some point where even disrespectful men and this PUA go away.
I’m curious as to why you think that; so far as I’m aware, the general stereotype of autistics is that they’re “logical” and have no natural skill for understanding social interactions (which is, of course, both imprecise and incomplete, though in my case they’re probably pretty fair descriptions). According to that stereotype, at least, I would think polyamory would be proportionally quite popular among autistics (and judging by the way in which it clusters with other subcultures with disproportionate rates of autism-spectrum personalities like computer programmers and science fiction fans, this does seem to be true to at least some extent).
For what it’s worth, my diagnosis was AS and there seems to still be quite a bit of uncertainty about its relation to autism; the competing viewpoints I’ve heard are that AS is on the “autism spectrum”, that there’s no meaningful distinction between AS and high-functioning autism, and that AS and autism don’t have much to do with each other at all. I lend the most credence to the first view, but not by much; the case for it is almost as unsupported as the other two. In any case, I’m not emotionally attached to either label.
Ahh, now I see what you were getting at. Much as I hate to say it, I think you’re giving me too much credit. While I’ve had a thoroughly delightful amount of success at polyamorous dating, I’ve only ever dated one person who I’d successfully seduced away from monogamy; she’s also the most serious and long-term S.O. I’ve had. The other polyamorous relationships I’ve had (of which there have been 4-7, I think, depending on where you draw the line) have all been with people who already considered themselves to be poly.
And while I have had a hand in convincing a couple other friends and acquaintances to give polyamory a shot, I don’t think I deserve most of the credit there, as the social circles I’m involved with have plenty of other poly people, many more persuasive (to most people; I’m not sure whether rationalists are a special case) than I.
That just pushes my confusion back a level. If you’re AS, how are you able to have such enormous social circles and ease of making strong enough personal connections?
Again, I wouldn’t say enormous. When I say my social circles have lots of poly people in them, I’m really talking in terms of proportions. Of the 10-15 people I have strong personal connections with (“friends”), about half are poly. Among folks with whom I have less strong connections (“acquaintances”), that fraction is a bit lower, but still above that of an equivalently-sized random sample of liberal, geeky, college-educated people between the ages of 18 and 25.
But yes, relative to other AS people, I am very socially successful, by dint of effort, analysis, and at least a decade of concentrated trial and error. I wasn’t born with a fully-functional socialization module, but I’ve gotten pretty good at emulating one; combined with my many other enthralling character traits (like arrogance, which was also a learned behavior), I tend to do pretty well in many social situations. I also try to avoid (the many) social situations I don’t yet understand well, which leads to my general social competence appearing to be greater than it is.
Thesecomments may provide further context and/or explanation.
Point taken. But is the gene pool really at much risk? It seems clear that the modern mating environment already penalizes abusive/disrespectful men more than almost all environments since the agricultural revolution. By the way, do you really care that much about the gene pool, or was that just a stray comment you threw out to vent your frustration?
I agree that it would be better if women behaved the way you described. But currently, women who behave that way are also penalized; they can lose status through being labelled as a “bitch” or “dyke.” This would change if direct aggressiveness in women (instead of passive aggressiveness) was more socially acceptable. But as it is, a woman who genuinely wants a man to leave will often eventually give in to his persistence just to avoid coming off as cold or unreceptive, even if she doesn’t really come to like him much more. Would the kind of relationship that ensues from such an encounter be the type you want?
By the way, do you really care that much about the gene pool, or was that just a stray comment you threw out to vent your frustration?
I care that being nice is a self-limiting policy. It would be one thing if the effects were limited to that interaction. But a policy of turning over all the opportunities to disrespectful men, because they’re disrespectful, is only delaying and amplifying the problem, not working toward a solution.
If a man can become accustomed to ignoring women’s requests for him to leave, making the judgment that his desires are more important than her sense of security, then does he still count as a “respectful man”? If not, then his breeding successfully doesn’t increase the number of “respectful” genes in the gene pool either.
The same men that are currently respecting women’s requests to go away, are generally respectful in numerous other ways, such as not beating them. If the same men simply invert their rules of engagement with respect to women who initially [1] tell them to go away, they are still going to be respectful in all of these other ways; it’s just that they won’t be at a reproductive disadvantage.
(Even if you posit some effect whereby these respectful men infect the rest of their personality by doing this, they’re still more respectful than the kind of man who doesn’t currently obey requests to leave.)
Of course, it would be even better if women only told suitors to go away when they really meant it, and strongly avoided all men that refuse to (even if they change their mind about him), but why should they change? I mean, this practice really only hurts non-humans such as high-functioning autistics.
[1] Obviously, there’s some point where even disrespectful men and this PUA go away.
Was this intended to be derogatory? I’m reading it that way, but as a non-human I’m not particularly good at judging questions of tone.
Nope (at least not to autistics...); I’m non-human too.
Edit: By the way, when you casually wonder why people aren’t as polygamous as you, I think that hurts your case for being autistic, but whatever.
I’m curious as to why you think that; so far as I’m aware, the general stereotype of autistics is that they’re “logical” and have no natural skill for understanding social interactions (which is, of course, both imprecise and incomplete, though in my case they’re probably pretty fair descriptions). According to that stereotype, at least, I would think polyamory would be proportionally quite popular among autistics (and judging by the way in which it clusters with other subcultures with disproportionate rates of autism-spectrum personalities like computer programmers and science fiction fans, this does seem to be true to at least some extent).
For what it’s worth, my diagnosis was AS and there seems to still be quite a bit of uncertainty about its relation to autism; the competing viewpoints I’ve heard are that AS is on the “autism spectrum”, that there’s no meaningful distinction between AS and high-functioning autism, and that AS and autism don’t have much to do with each other at all. I lend the most credence to the first view, but not by much; the case for it is almost as unsupported as the other two. In any case, I’m not emotionally attached to either label.
It wasn’t the intellectual agreement with polygamy on your part that I was asking about, but how you’re able to convince so many to go along with it.
Ahh, now I see what you were getting at. Much as I hate to say it, I think you’re giving me too much credit. While I’ve had a thoroughly delightful amount of success at polyamorous dating, I’ve only ever dated one person who I’d successfully seduced away from monogamy; she’s also the most serious and long-term S.O. I’ve had. The other polyamorous relationships I’ve had (of which there have been 4-7, I think, depending on where you draw the line) have all been with people who already considered themselves to be poly.
And while I have had a hand in convincing a couple other friends and acquaintances to give polyamory a shot, I don’t think I deserve most of the credit there, as the social circles I’m involved with have plenty of other poly people, many more persuasive (to most people; I’m not sure whether rationalists are a special case) than I.
That just pushes my confusion back a level. If you’re AS, how are you able to have such enormous social circles and ease of making strong enough personal connections?
Again, I wouldn’t say enormous. When I say my social circles have lots of poly people in them, I’m really talking in terms of proportions. Of the 10-15 people I have strong personal connections with (“friends”), about half are poly. Among folks with whom I have less strong connections (“acquaintances”), that fraction is a bit lower, but still above that of an equivalently-sized random sample of liberal, geeky, college-educated people between the ages of 18 and 25.
But yes, relative to other AS people, I am very socially successful, by dint of effort, analysis, and at least a decade of concentrated trial and error. I wasn’t born with a fully-functional socialization module, but I’ve gotten pretty good at emulating one; combined with my many other enthralling character traits (like arrogance, which was also a learned behavior), I tend to do pretty well in many social situations. I also try to avoid (the many) social situations I don’t yet understand well, which leads to my general social competence appearing to be greater than it is.
These comments may provide further context and/or explanation.
Point taken. But is the gene pool really at much risk? It seems clear that the modern mating environment already penalizes abusive/disrespectful men more than almost all environments since the agricultural revolution. By the way, do you really care that much about the gene pool, or was that just a stray comment you threw out to vent your frustration?
I agree that it would be better if women behaved the way you described. But currently, women who behave that way are also penalized; they can lose status through being labelled as a “bitch” or “dyke.” This would change if direct aggressiveness in women (instead of passive aggressiveness) was more socially acceptable. But as it is, a woman who genuinely wants a man to leave will often eventually give in to his persistence just to avoid coming off as cold or unreceptive, even if she doesn’t really come to like him much more. Would the kind of relationship that ensues from such an encounter be the type you want?
I care that being nice is a self-limiting policy. It would be one thing if the effects were limited to that interaction. But a policy of turning over all the opportunities to disrespectful men, because they’re disrespectful, is only delaying and amplifying the problem, not working toward a solution.