So, just to unpack this a bit… looking at your comment at the top of this thread, I infer that the sides are “the user of pickup” and “the victim,” and I presume that the user is male and the victim female, and I infer therefore that I (being male) gain a benefit from the user of pickup winning (which I presume means having sex) but no benefit from the victim of pickup winning (which I presume means not having sex).
Did I get that right?
Can you clarify what benefit it is that I’m getting here?
If it matters: I’m fairly certain that all my female sexual partners were setting out to have sex, I’m not quite so certain of that for all of my male sexual partners, and in any case I’m fairly certain of it for all of my partners in the last 15 years or so.
I infer that the sides are “the user of pickup” and “the victim,”
That makes no sense in this context (as established by Nancy’s first mention of sides and cousin_it’s response.) The sides are “those who condemn (so as to discourage) the use of pickup” and “those who see nothing wrong with pickup”. With those definitions of the sides, ones sex definitely does not determine which side one is on, but it does have an influence. And “winning” in this war takes the form of marshaling arguments that convince the soldiers of the other side to defect.
The sides are “those who condemn (so as to discourage) the use of pickup” and “those who see nothing wrong with pickup”.
Forgive me, but this is the fallacy of the excluded middle (it’s possible you do not ascribe to there being just two sides, but you are unclear on this point).
The “sides” as I see it also include, at the very least:
“those who condemn certain common practices of pickup that deliberately harm other people, but are fine with (or even encourage) other practices that are not”
You may be right… the reason I made my inferences explicit was precisely so that we can be clear about this stuff, rather than move forward as if we were talking about the same thing when we aren’t.
That said, I was responding to the sentence: “The goal of pickup is to engineer the most desirable outcome for the user of pickup, not the most desirable outcome for the victim,” which seemed to be what Nancy was responding to.
If all your female partners were willing, that doesn’t change the fact that you like having sex more than not having sex. Otherwise presumably you would opt out of having sex. I’m not sure what you and Zack_M_Davis are arguing with; perhaps it’s the connotations of my remark, rather than its content? If that’s the case, I assure you I didn’t imply any of the usual connotations, I have more weird ones :-)
Actually, I quite deliberately didn’t argue anything, because I wasn’t even sure that I understood what claim you were making.
Instead, I attempted to make my inferences explicit, asked for confirmation, and asked for clarification on the piece that remained unclear to me. (I’d still sort of like those things.)
So it’s not surprising that you can’t figure out what I’m arguing with, though it’s a little puzzling that you assumed I was arguing with anything at all. Re-reading my comment I’m not sure where you got that idea from.
Anyway: I agree that the willingness of my partners doesn’t change whether I like sex more than no-sex or vice-versa.
And I’m not sure why it matters, but just to be clear: if I take “I like X more than Y” in a situation to mean that I estimate that I prefer the actual X in that situation to the counterfactual Y, then I’ve had sex I liked more than no-sex, I’ve had sex I liked less than no-sex, I’ve had no-sex I liked more than sex, and I’ve had no-sex I liked less than sex.
Edit: Um. Apparently the comment I was replying to got deleted while I was replying to it. Never mind, then?
Sorry, I deleted my comment for approximately the same reasons that you listed here. I often say stupid things and then desperately try to clean them up.
(grin) No worries. I just leave my desperately stupid things out there; I figure in the glorious future when I stop saying stupid things, the contrast will be all the more striking.
So, just to unpack this a bit… looking at your comment at the top of this thread, I infer that the sides are “the user of pickup” and “the victim,” and I presume that the user is male and the victim female, and I infer therefore that I (being male) gain a benefit from the user of pickup winning (which I presume means having sex) but no benefit from the victim of pickup winning (which I presume means not having sex).
Did I get that right?
Can you clarify what benefit it is that I’m getting here?
If it matters: I’m fairly certain that all my female sexual partners were setting out to have sex, I’m not quite so certain of that for all of my male sexual partners, and in any case I’m fairly certain of it for all of my partners in the last 15 years or so.
That makes no sense in this context (as established by Nancy’s first mention of sides and cousin_it’s response.) The sides are “those who condemn (so as to discourage) the use of pickup” and “those who see nothing wrong with pickup”. With those definitions of the sides, ones sex definitely does not determine which side one is on, but it does have an influence. And “winning” in this war takes the form of marshaling arguments that convince the soldiers of the other side to defect.
Forgive me, but this is the fallacy of the excluded middle (it’s possible you do not ascribe to there being just two sides, but you are unclear on this point).
The “sides” as I see it also include, at the very least:
“those who condemn certain common practices of pickup that deliberately harm other people, but are fine with (or even encourage) other practices that are not”
You may be right… the reason I made my inferences explicit was precisely so that we can be clear about this stuff, rather than move forward as if we were talking about the same thing when we aren’t.
That said, I was responding to the sentence: “The goal of pickup is to engineer the most desirable outcome for the user of pickup, not the most desirable outcome for the victim,” which seemed to be what Nancy was responding to.
If all your female partners were willing, that doesn’t change the fact that you like having sex more than not having sex. Otherwise presumably you would opt out of having sex. I’m not sure what you and Zack_M_Davis are arguing with; perhaps it’s the connotations of my remark, rather than its content? If that’s the case, I assure you I didn’t imply any of the usual connotations, I have more weird ones :-)
Actually, I quite deliberately didn’t argue anything, because I wasn’t even sure that I understood what claim you were making.
Instead, I attempted to make my inferences explicit, asked for confirmation, and asked for clarification on the piece that remained unclear to me. (I’d still sort of like those things.)
So it’s not surprising that you can’t figure out what I’m arguing with, though it’s a little puzzling that you assumed I was arguing with anything at all. Re-reading my comment I’m not sure where you got that idea from.
Anyway: I agree that the willingness of my partners doesn’t change whether I like sex more than no-sex or vice-versa.
And I’m not sure why it matters, but just to be clear: if I take “I like X more than Y” in a situation to mean that I estimate that I prefer the actual X in that situation to the counterfactual Y, then I’ve had sex I liked more than no-sex, I’ve had sex I liked less than no-sex, I’ve had no-sex I liked more than sex, and I’ve had no-sex I liked less than sex.
Edit: Um. Apparently the comment I was replying to got deleted while I was replying to it. Never mind, then?
Sorry, I deleted my comment for approximately the same reasons that you listed here. I often say stupid things and then desperately try to clean them up.
(grin) No worries. I just leave my desperately stupid things out there; I figure in the glorious future when I stop saying stupid things, the contrast will be all the more striking.