This might get me downvoted due to the tribal dynamics on LW but I just wanted to share that I think my reason for missing your excellent point (upvoted) was perhaps some assumptions I made reading the following paragraph:
Bob is part of her crowd. Her friends like him; he respects women and treats Sally well and, like any healthy teenage boy, fairly horny. According to her belief system, that shouldn’t set off any alarm bells. She’s been warned about abusive relationships, but Bob is a nice guy.
This seems to hold true when dissected from a variety of perspectives, thought this is probably just the result of unfortunate signalling side effects of some words. Anyway I find it amusing some of the heuristics I’ve employed with such great confidence should happen to misfire on a LW article where I should have known better.
I’ve spoken in the past about Karma mining and dynamic analysis, I’ve been busy on that project. I’m not yet done by far and I’m not yet confident enough in the analysis to share any of my crazy (and conflicting!) hypothesis but lets just say I’ve found some interesting patterns.
I know I know I’m teasing, don’t worry if all goes well hopefully I will summarize in a article (share all my data too). :)
I don’t necessarily know a whole lot about what girls are attracted to...I only have my point of view and my sister’s point of view, and both of us like boys who respect girls and treat them, well, nicely. Maybe you’re right and the phrase ‘nice guy’ sets off non-sexy alarm bells...I’ll change it. But in any case, the description isn’t from Sally’s point of view. When I say that he’s a nice girl, what it means is that she doesn’t find him threatening.
I’d say rather that the description says nothing about Bob’s generally-perceived attractiveness nor his attractiveness to Sally in particular.
What if Sally had described Bob with words like:
“Bob has a little dimple on his left cheek which gives him a slightly asymmetrical smile. Those black pants he always wears have a tiny hole on the back of his left thigh. His hair looks brown at first, but it’s really a shade of red.”
Maybe Bob respects women and is an ardent feminist, maybe he’s gay, maybe he’s an abusive jerk—we don’t know. But we get an idea of how he seems subjectively to Sally.
I guess it depends on whose voice the quote was in. If that was Sally talking about Bob to herself in her own thoughts, she doesn’t seem truly interested in him. However, I took it instead that the quote was in the voice of the original poster, describing a hypothetical from a somewhat (but not entirely) detached viewpoint.
That is how I intended it. I also didn’t intend for Sally to be very strongly attracted to Bob...the problem in the story is that her being mildly attracted to him is enough, initially, for her to go along with having sex with him because her explicit beliefs say that sex is casual fun...and yes I’ve heard people express this explicit belief before.
This might get me downvoted due to the tribal dynamics on LW but I just wanted to share that I think my reason for missing your excellent point (upvoted) was perhaps some assumptions I made reading the following paragraph:
I’m sorry but Bob is a very unsexy sounding guy.
This seems to hold true when dissected from a variety of perspectives, thought this is probably just the result of unfortunate signalling side effects of some words. Anyway I find it amusing some of the heuristics I’ve employed with such great confidence should happen to misfire on a LW article where I should have known better.
Has that happened to you before? What exactly are the tribal dynamics on LW?
I’ve spoken in the past about Karma mining and dynamic analysis, I’ve been busy on that project. I’m not yet done by far and I’m not yet confident enough in the analysis to share any of my crazy (and conflicting!) hypothesis but lets just say I’ve found some interesting patterns.
I know I know I’m teasing, don’t worry if all goes well hopefully I will summarize in a article (share all my data too). :)
I don’t necessarily know a whole lot about what girls are attracted to...I only have my point of view and my sister’s point of view, and both of us like boys who respect girls and treat them, well, nicely. Maybe you’re right and the phrase ‘nice guy’ sets off non-sexy alarm bells...I’ll change it. But in any case, the description isn’t from Sally’s point of view. When I say that he’s a nice girl, what it means is that she doesn’t find him threatening.
I’d say rather that the description says nothing about Bob’s generally-perceived attractiveness nor his attractiveness to Sally in particular.
What if Sally had described Bob with words like:
“Bob has a little dimple on his left cheek which gives him a slightly asymmetrical smile. Those black pants he always wears have a tiny hole on the back of his left thigh. His hair looks brown at first, but it’s really a shade of red.”
Maybe Bob respects women and is an ardent feminist, maybe he’s gay, maybe he’s an abusive jerk—we don’t know. But we get an idea of how he seems subjectively to Sally.
But this was all I at first considered. How Sally perceives him. Hence:
I’m sorry but Bob is a very unsexy sounding guy.
I guess it depends on whose voice the quote was in. If that was Sally talking about Bob to herself in her own thoughts, she doesn’t seem truly interested in him. However, I took it instead that the quote was in the voice of the original poster, describing a hypothetical from a somewhat (but not entirely) detached viewpoint.
That is how I intended it. I also didn’t intend for Sally to be very strongly attracted to Bob...the problem in the story is that her being mildly attracted to him is enough, initially, for her to go along with having sex with him because her explicit beliefs say that sex is casual fun...and yes I’ve heard people express this explicit belief before.