(not the original poster) Alicorn’s post succeeds at avoiding a gender/orientation-specific narrative while lukeprog’s fails.
Simple changes can do a lot to address this:
“When I realized there were thousands of other nearby women I could date, I didn’t need to be so needy for any particular girl.”
Becomes
“When I realized there were thousands of other nearby people I could date, I didn’t need to be so needy for any particular one.”
“When I realized there were thousands of other nearby women I could date, I didn’t need to be so needy for any particular girl.” Becomes “When I realized there were thousands of other nearby people I could date, I didn’t need to be so needy for any particular one.”
I think the “people I could date” part could be changed to “people, animals or objects I could interact with”. But I also think that such change is not necessary, because if any reader feels excluded, they are able to imagine the sentence properly changed.
More seriously, I think we should distinguish situations when someone is speaking about themselves and when someone is speaking about others. When you speak about others, it is good to be including. But if you speak about yourself, you only need to include… yourself.
For example, if I write a story about “how you can use your rationality skills to get an ice cream”, it is fair to object that some of the readers do not want ice cream. But if I write a case study “how did I yesterday use my rationality skills to get an ice cream”, then it is a story about me and my specific experience, so saying that someone else does not want ice cream is irrelevant.
Saying that all people love ice cream is not OK. Saying that I love ice cream is OK. I hope the difference is obvious.
Perhaps some people can be offended even by hearing that I love ice cream. I am not sure what to do in such situation. I don’t want to be a jerk, but I don’t see anything wrong in the fact that I love ice cream. I have no problem with people who don’t like ice cream, and similarly I expect them to have no problem with the fact that I do. Is this offensive?
(not the original poster) Alicorn’s post succeeds at avoiding a gender/orientation-specific narrative while lukeprog’s fails.
Simple changes can do a lot to address this: “When I realized there were thousands of other nearby women I could date, I didn’t need to be so needy for any particular girl.” Becomes “When I realized there were thousands of other nearby people I could date, I didn’t need to be so needy for any particular one.”
I think the “people I could date” part could be changed to “people, animals or objects I could interact with”. But I also think that such change is not necessary, because if any reader feels excluded, they are able to imagine the sentence properly changed.
More seriously, I think we should distinguish situations when someone is speaking about themselves and when someone is speaking about others. When you speak about others, it is good to be including. But if you speak about yourself, you only need to include… yourself.
For example, if I write a story about “how you can use your rationality skills to get an ice cream”, it is fair to object that some of the readers do not want ice cream. But if I write a case study “how did I yesterday use my rationality skills to get an ice cream”, then it is a story about me and my specific experience, so saying that someone else does not want ice cream is irrelevant.
Saying that all people love ice cream is not OK. Saying that I love ice cream is OK. I hope the difference is obvious.
Perhaps some people can be offended even by hearing that I love ice cream. I am not sure what to do in such situation. I don’t want to be a jerk, but I don’t see anything wrong in the fact that I love ice cream. I have no problem with people who don’t like ice cream, and similarly I expect them to have no problem with the fact that I do. Is this offensive?