It’s interesting you introduced the word “sexual”. There may be more to this conversation than I’m aware of, but she seemed to mention only dating and getting together, both of which can occur without any sex (at least to begin with).
Plenty of things that are not sex are ‘sexual’. For example, any date that does not include at least some ‘sexual tension’ is a fairly lousy date. I presume rhollerith would at least plan to have dates with some sexual chemistry involved!
“This is kind of awkward, but, um, I’ve been noticing you in class—and, like, I’d really love to get to know you better, and I was just wondering”—his voice cracked—”if maybe this weekend you wanted to go see Hamlet at the Repertory Theater with me?”
Leaning against a locker with one hand, I chewed the thumbnail of the other, gazing at the blue-and-white checkered tiles on the floor. Despite his verbal ineptitude, at six-foot-two Eric is one of the more desirable seniors, and many sophomores would, I suppose, have been flattered by the attention. Removing my thumb, I replied—not, I don’t think, with any malice in my voice, but genuinely, inquisitively, because I was seized by the problem and wanted to know the solution—”What you’re saying is tantamount to saying that you want to fuck me. So why shouldn’t I react with revulsion precisely as though you’d said the latter?”
Eric’s cheeks reddened and his hands trembled; it was rather cute. “I just wanted to have a good time, just as friends!”
“You’re asking me to accept that a first domino will be knocked over yet a hundredth will stand. Do chess masters continue playing when they see a mate—get it?—twenty moves ahead?”
This section of the text seemed really odd to me. Why would she react with revulsion to an offer of sex 20 moves ahead? I mean, maybe he’s not to her (present) taste, but revulsion seems a stronger emotion than is really warranted.
The protagonist of that story is a Hollywood Rationalist. She doesn’t really have any purpose behind most of her actions; it seems that (at least at the beginning), the only reason she uses rationality is to antagonize other people and make conversations awkward. Unsurprisingly, she becomes unhappy.
In that particular context, since “I’d like to take you to a show” and “I’d like to have sex with you” both demonstrate one common fact, that he wants to have sex with her, she considers them as being totally equivalent. Though it’s still unclear why she would find the statement, “I’d like to have sex with you” offensive, given how she otherwise thinks, but since her purpose seems to be antagonizing people, it fits.
Hmm. I don’t think this really works, because Eric brought up neither sex nor marriage. I think Ilyssa (the female protagonist) does pose an interesting question, but I have a hard time believing that she really feels repulsed or thinks she ought to. I’m not sure how to answer the question, but I’m pretty sure that it would be answered in the negative, and I have a strong feeling Ilyssa would agree.
The point of the passage seems simply to be that she has a tendency to say whatever pops into her head (and that those thoughts tend to be interesting and very intelligent), without any thought to the potentially negative social consequences. It’s meant to elicit a desire in the (presumably male) reader to be in Eric’s place and able to see past Ilyssa’s awkwardness and to her great mind, perhaps to handle the situation with more rationalist grace, perhaps even winning the interest of the girl. I think the rest of the story supports this interpretation.
Yes. But Johnicholas’s question was not about why Ilyssa reacted to what Eric actually said as she did, but about why she’d be revolted at “an offer of sex 20 moves ahead”. My idea was that it’s just considered far too early to bring it up; her ability to see things that have not been actually brought up as on the table anyway is causing her interpretation issues.
but about why she’d be revolted at “an offer of sex 20 moves ahead”
My point was that I don’t think she would be, or was. So the Johnicholas’s question seems way overly hypothetical. Ilyssa’s question to me seems to be purely hypothetical.
Actually, now that I think about it, maybe Johnicholas realized her question was purely hypothetical, and was just interested in her hypothetical reasons for feeling that way, which would be just fine with me.
I’m not sure it’s analogous. Most people (I assume) have already entertained the possibility of sleeping with someone before going on a first date. Hence, it is assumed both parties are sexually interested in each other. One person might express revulsion at the other party’s forwardness, or for some other reason, but they started with a mutual sexual interest. They both share a common goal, they just might differ on the best way to reach it.
On the other hand, consider a guy who is outright afraid of marriage. He goes on a date, fully uninterested in ever marrying the girl, and is scared by the girl’s forwardness about marriage. Really, he would be scared regardless of the point in the relationship marriage was brought up. There was never any mutual marital interest to start with. It isn’t a mismatch in how to proceed, it’s a fundamental mismatch in goals.
Considering that there are some asexuals who have romantic and potentially marital interests without sexual interests, and significant subcultures in which sex before marriage is considered completely inappropriate, I don’t think that’s a fully general disanalogy.
Edit: Or to put it differently, I think you’re presupposing that “the point” of dating is to have a relationship that involves sex. Perhaps conflicting presuppositions of this nature are part of the problem in the case of the story and the reverse case I suggested. Illustration: our heroine Darla arranges a date with some guy Bob. Darla thinks the point of dating is to find a spouse and Bob thinks the point of dating is to find someone with whom to have a sexual relationship. Darla starts talking about how to divvy up chores in a marriage and he freaks. Darla is confused, because isn’t “the point” of dating to find a compatible spouse? But she backs off because she doesn’t want to upset him. Then he starts insinuating that he’d like to have sex. She freaks. He’s confused, because isn’t “the point” of dating to find someone to have sex with? Now they’re both confused: Bob has no idea why Darla wouldn’t want to sleep with him when she just brought up marriage, for crying out loud—what, is she proposing that they could set up housekeeping and have separate beds and conceive the three children she wants via IVF? Darla has no idea why Bob would bring up sex on a first date—or at all, really, since obviously he has no interest in sticking around, doesn’t like her enough to find out if she’s a prospect for anything really long term, and why would he expect her to react well to the proposition when it’s plain from his behavior he only views her as a piece of meat?
Now, Darla never envisioned a sexless future and Bob doesn’t dislike Darla—perhaps he isn’t even fundamentally opposed to the idea of marriage. They just have very different ideas about what order to start planning for the two events.
There are cultures without marriage, but all cultures engage in sex. You can hardly compare our most basic biological imperative with a fairly recent cultural invention. In general, not everyone wants to get married, but in general, everyone wants to have sex, men and women both. These generalities hardly apply to LW, though, for reasons I believe are self-evident. Frankly, having a less than academic conversation about general human sexuality and dating in a forum like this seems misguided, especially considering the gender ratio.
Alicorn is right about the Na, but what I actually had in mind was modern Western culture, in which marriage is declining and trending toward obsolescence. There are other correlations that can be drawn—for example, atheists have much lower marriage rates than average. Speaking from personal experience, the majority of my personal acquaintances (a majority of which are female) are uninterested in marriage.
True, but it remains to be seen whether post-marriage Western culture will have enough longevity to be reasonably classified as a culture rather than a brief transition from one semi-stable state to another—of your female acquaintances who are uninterested in marriage, how many are interested in having children?
I wonder if it’s possible to explain low atheist marriage rates through contingent factors? e.g. the conjunction of a low female/male ratio and a desire to marry only other atheists; a disproportionate number of out gay people in conjunction with the widespread illegality of gay marriage, etc. As for general low interest in marriage, my suspicion is that it’s something like a snowball effect from the high divorce rate. People typically model their relationships after their parents’, and if their parents are divorced or never married or had an unsatisfactory marriage, there’s no good model there. It’s probably not a coincidence that I eventually want to get married and stay that way and have a couple of kids when that’s exactly what my parents did.
Thank you for pointing that out, Alicorn. I want to become more tactful. Allow me to revise:
“I am very surprised to learn that Katja does not get sufficient offers to go out on dates from nerds who want to improve the world.”
ADDED. I misinterpreted Katja’s words in the original, top-level submission. Katja, in fact, gets plenty of attention from male nerds with world-saving ambition, but somehow I latched onto one particular interpretation of Katja’s words and did not let go till Katja corrected me.
It’s interesting you introduced the word “sexual”. There may be more to this conversation than I’m aware of, but she seemed to mention only dating and getting together, both of which can occur without any sex (at least to begin with).
Plenty of things that are not sex are ‘sexual’. For example, any date that does not include at least some ‘sexual tension’ is a fairly lousy date. I presume rhollerith would at least plan to have dates with some sexual chemistry involved!
http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/selfdelusion.html
This section of the text seemed really odd to me. Why would she react with revulsion to an offer of sex 20 moves ahead? I mean, maybe he’s not to her (present) taste, but revulsion seems a stronger emotion than is really warranted.
The protagonist of that story is a Hollywood Rationalist. She doesn’t really have any purpose behind most of her actions; it seems that (at least at the beginning), the only reason she uses rationality is to antagonize other people and make conversations awkward. Unsurprisingly, she becomes unhappy.
In that particular context, since “I’d like to take you to a show” and “I’d like to have sex with you” both demonstrate one common fact, that he wants to have sex with her, she considers them as being totally equivalent. Though it’s still unclear why she would find the statement, “I’d like to have sex with you” offensive, given how she otherwise thinks, but since her purpose seems to be antagonizing people, it fits.
Perhaps analogous would be the rumored tendency of guys to freak out when girls they date for the first time bring up marriage.
Hmm. I don’t think this really works, because Eric brought up neither sex nor marriage. I think Ilyssa (the female protagonist) does pose an interesting question, but I have a hard time believing that she really feels repulsed or thinks she ought to. I’m not sure how to answer the question, but I’m pretty sure that it would be answered in the negative, and I have a strong feeling Ilyssa would agree.
The point of the passage seems simply to be that she has a tendency to say whatever pops into her head (and that those thoughts tend to be interesting and very intelligent), without any thought to the potentially negative social consequences. It’s meant to elicit a desire in the (presumably male) reader to be in Eric’s place and able to see past Ilyssa’s awkwardness and to her great mind, perhaps to handle the situation with more rationalist grace, perhaps even winning the interest of the girl. I think the rest of the story supports this interpretation.
Yes. But Johnicholas’s question was not about why Ilyssa reacted to what Eric actually said as she did, but about why she’d be revolted at “an offer of sex 20 moves ahead”. My idea was that it’s just considered far too early to bring it up; her ability to see things that have not been actually brought up as on the table anyway is causing her interpretation issues.
My point was that I don’t think she would be, or was. So the Johnicholas’s question seems way overly hypothetical. Ilyssa’s question to me seems to be purely hypothetical.
Actually, now that I think about it, maybe Johnicholas realized her question was purely hypothetical, and was just interested in her hypothetical reasons for feeling that way, which would be just fine with me.
I’m not sure it’s analogous. Most people (I assume) have already entertained the possibility of sleeping with someone before going on a first date. Hence, it is assumed both parties are sexually interested in each other. One person might express revulsion at the other party’s forwardness, or for some other reason, but they started with a mutual sexual interest. They both share a common goal, they just might differ on the best way to reach it.
On the other hand, consider a guy who is outright afraid of marriage. He goes on a date, fully uninterested in ever marrying the girl, and is scared by the girl’s forwardness about marriage. Really, he would be scared regardless of the point in the relationship marriage was brought up. There was never any mutual marital interest to start with. It isn’t a mismatch in how to proceed, it’s a fundamental mismatch in goals.
Considering that there are some asexuals who have romantic and potentially marital interests without sexual interests, and significant subcultures in which sex before marriage is considered completely inappropriate, I don’t think that’s a fully general disanalogy.
Edit: Or to put it differently, I think you’re presupposing that “the point” of dating is to have a relationship that involves sex. Perhaps conflicting presuppositions of this nature are part of the problem in the case of the story and the reverse case I suggested. Illustration: our heroine Darla arranges a date with some guy Bob. Darla thinks the point of dating is to find a spouse and Bob thinks the point of dating is to find someone with whom to have a sexual relationship. Darla starts talking about how to divvy up chores in a marriage and he freaks. Darla is confused, because isn’t “the point” of dating to find a compatible spouse? But she backs off because she doesn’t want to upset him. Then he starts insinuating that he’d like to have sex. She freaks. He’s confused, because isn’t “the point” of dating to find someone to have sex with? Now they’re both confused: Bob has no idea why Darla wouldn’t want to sleep with him when she just brought up marriage, for crying out loud—what, is she proposing that they could set up housekeeping and have separate beds and conceive the three children she wants via IVF? Darla has no idea why Bob would bring up sex on a first date—or at all, really, since obviously he has no interest in sticking around, doesn’t like her enough to find out if she’s a prospect for anything really long term, and why would he expect her to react well to the proposition when it’s plain from his behavior he only views her as a piece of meat?
Now, Darla never envisioned a sexless future and Bob doesn’t dislike Darla—perhaps he isn’t even fundamentally opposed to the idea of marriage. They just have very different ideas about what order to start planning for the two events.
There are cultures without marriage, but all cultures engage in sex. You can hardly compare our most basic biological imperative with a fairly recent cultural invention. In general, not everyone wants to get married, but in general, everyone wants to have sex, men and women both. These generalities hardly apply to LW, though, for reasons I believe are self-evident. Frankly, having a less than academic conversation about general human sexuality and dating in a forum like this seems misguided, especially considering the gender ratio.
The Shakers?
Which cultures exist without marriage? I’m curious, because I hadn’t previously been aware of the existence of any such.
There’s the Na in China, but those are the only ones I’m aware of that have literally nothing recognizable as marriage.
Interesting, thanks! So there is an extant group that has adopted the alternative stable system.
Alicorn is right about the Na, but what I actually had in mind was modern Western culture, in which marriage is declining and trending toward obsolescence. There are other correlations that can be drawn—for example, atheists have much lower marriage rates than average. Speaking from personal experience, the majority of my personal acquaintances (a majority of which are female) are uninterested in marriage.
True, but it remains to be seen whether post-marriage Western culture will have enough longevity to be reasonably classified as a culture rather than a brief transition from one semi-stable state to another—of your female acquaintances who are uninterested in marriage, how many are interested in having children?
I wonder if it’s possible to explain low atheist marriage rates through contingent factors? e.g. the conjunction of a low female/male ratio and a desire to marry only other atheists; a disproportionate number of out gay people in conjunction with the widespread illegality of gay marriage, etc. As for general low interest in marriage, my suspicion is that it’s something like a snowball effect from the high divorce rate. People typically model their relationships after their parents’, and if their parents are divorced or never married or had an unsatisfactory marriage, there’s no good model there. It’s probably not a coincidence that I eventually want to get married and stay that way and have a couple of kids when that’s exactly what my parents did.
Thank you for pointing that out, Alicorn. I want to become more tactful. Allow me to revise:
“I am very surprised to learn that Katja does not get sufficient offers to go out on dates from nerds who want to improve the world.”
ADDED. I misinterpreted Katja’s words in the original, top-level submission. Katja, in fact, gets plenty of attention from male nerds with world-saving ambition, but somehow I latched onto one particular interpretation of Katja’s words and did not let go till Katja corrected me.