Emerald

It was just something that I'd always assumed to be the case. But I never really questioned the assumption. So, I tend to be pretty receptive to new information if I feel like I'm operating off of assumption and not really informed about a topic. But I'll argue people to death about things that I've thought about deeply and thoroughly... and if it's a hill that I'm willing to die on. It's just on this particular forum, I tend to engage mostly with posts that involve hills that I'm willing to die on. I come here mostly to spar because everyone here wants to spar on the same hills either on the same side or opposite.

There's definitely a lot of insecurity behind that kind of reaction. They try to diminish because they feel inferior to women they're attracted to. So, they try to make the woman feel inferior to lessen the sting of rejection. Like... "You're not rejecting me! I'm rejecting you!"

The lady with the 100 men a day is certainly anomalous but ultimately banal... as is all porn. So, I can understand people being disgusted by it in the same way that I might feel disgusted by people over-eating a bunch of food as a spectacle... but to me it's just "meh... bound to be someone out there that sleeps with 100 men a day. It's a little yucky to me, but to each his own.' It's no surprise that someone exists who is doing it, and I don't understand the reactions of sheer terror from a few people on here. But when it comes to run-of-the mill slut shaming there's usually some kind of bitterness and jealousy and projection behind it. Like I experienced the vast majority of the slut-shaming I ever experienced in my life prior to age 16 when I was still a virgin. I was just pretty popular in my social group and had a lot of guy friends and had a naturally bubbly personality back then. And there was TONS of projection, jealousy, and bitterness from male and female peers. And then, after about a year of middle school slut shaming I became a lot less bubbly and more reserved... and I would engage in slut shaming too towards other female peers because I'd internalized a lot of shame about my own sexuality and body that I was then projecting onto other girls. It took me until my mid 20s or so to really work through those issues. So yes... slut shaming is largely about projecting repressed sexuality onto others... and (deep down) feeling jealous towards people who are less impeded in their sexual expressions.

I do mostly agree with what you're saying. There's also a control element there. But it is mostly shame and jealousy that someone is realizing a potential that's being repressed. That said... there can also be Stage Blue and below societal dynamics that are punishing of the extended family of a woman who is labeled as a slut. So, this is also a potential reason for slut shaming. I once coached a guy from Saudi Arabia with quite progressive values. But his older brothers were more conservative and religious... and beat his 18 year old sister for texting with a guy on Instagram. And he tried to stop them and to mediate the situation so his sister wasn't in such a disempowered state. But if it got out that his sister was texting a guy, his whole entire extended family would lose status and have a harder time surviving if his younger sister got a reputation as a slut. So, even though I think his brothers' actions are horrible, I can understand why there's such a strong reaction as there are major wide-reaching social consequences. He explained to me that it would cost career opportunities, arranged marriage opportunities, and other life opportunities for everyone in the family... including grandparents, parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, cousins, etc. if there was a slut in the family. But that's very regionally specific (and era specific though some places have kept the old ways despite technology progressing)... and is an adaptation of Stage Blue agrarian patriarchal farming communities to tightly control female sexuality so that land and property can pass from father to son without illegitimate heirs inheriting the property in a time where there were no paternity tests. Overall, I agree with you that slut-shaming tends to come mostly from people who have shame about their own sexual desires. And women who sleep with a bunch of men tend to be common scapegoats for people who deal with sexual repression. It's a bit like that scene in the Disney version of Hunchback of Notre Dame where Claude Frollo identifies so strongly with piety and chastity that he can't accept the fact that he feels sexual desire for Esmeralda. And so, he starts projecting blame onto her for his own repressed sexual desires and accusing her of being a witch... and saying "She will belong to me or burn as a witch."

I had always assumed that it would be a major choking risk. But I stand corrected.

The condom could come off and get stuck down the throat of the person who's giving the oral sex.

From a Darwinian perspective, both males and females have the same purposes... reproduction and survival. The same is true for all species. If we're not talking about the Darwinian perspective, than there is no scientific backing for the question of purpose because purpose isn't an inherent quality of the universe.

There's the overturning of Roe v Wade... which means that if I have an ectopic pregnancy or some other life-threatening pregnancy complication (if I happen to get pregnant) then I could be denied care that would save my life. Doctors in red states often wait until you're on death's doorstep to intervene and give life-saving care for fear of litigation. And if Trump enacts Project 2025, there may be a more unilateral ban. Then, my husband is an immigrant. He has his permanent Green Card and is here legally. But Trump was already talking about mass deportation and even deporting people who are here legally... so, it's given us quite the scare. So, we may have to leave the country if things go too far down that path. Knowing the course of human history, persecution of outsiders has been the rule and not the exception. So, it's something we can't rule out. Also, if he shuts down the department of education like he says he's going to, my children go to public school. If that happens, perhaps public education gets gutted. And I'd have to find some private school for my kids to go to. Also, there's a lot of potential for right wing propaganda to find its way into the classroom... which I don't appreciate. Then, of course, there's the tariffs. That will increase the cost of goods by a great deal. And that will hit our pocket books. And it may even make it harder for me to sign new clients (which is how I make money) because they'd be less open to spending money to hire a coach and may instead a lot that money to go towards buying the goods they're used to buying at a 20% hike. Then, there's also the terrifying possibility of him being foolish and starting nuclear war with another nation like he was going to do with Kim Jung Un until one of his generals talked him out of it by playing to his ego. But in general, my concern is that he'll erode the system of democracy enough to have unilateral power. And even though he's not super ideological, he's supported by and potentially controlled by tons of right wing ideologues. So, my fear is that the US systems won't be robust enough and will collapse into a right wing totalitarian state.

I like being a bit more invisible in certain situations. I really don't like attention from strangers. And when you're pretty in the eyes of society, you can't go into a 711 without 10 random people trying to hand you their dicks and their hearts. And what's worse is the projection. So many men start seeing you as the arbiter of their worth as a human being. And if they put you in a position where you have to reject them and they're already shadow boxing with themselves over talking to you, it's really uncomfortable. But thank you. I appreciate you saying that my light shines on this forum. But I'm only really sharing the parts of my light that I feel safe showing. It's only the Masculine parts of myself that I really feel safe and comfortable having them seen as they increase my power and my level of respectability without drawbacks. Luckily, I do have a strong and well-developed Masculine side. But in my medicine journeys, in several journeys, I have seen what my nature is underneath the way I typically express. And the image that it's presented itself as in a couple of my journeys is a slightly androgynous by mostly highly feminine, slightly alien-looking light being with long hair and soft Feminine features with currents of sacred geometry adorning it like delicate jewelry woven into the skin. And the main strengths are very Feminine... like wisdom, softness, inherent self-worth, grace, ease, effortless internal authority, etc. Then, in one mushroom trip that I took, the mushrooms made me sit with this terror that sits in my throat that I'd spent my whole life running away from. In my throat was all the suffering in the world. And I had to sit in abject terror for about an hour. And then, I "fell through the bottom" of the terror and connected to a deeper part of myself. And the expression was soft, effortlessly authoritative, receptive, and highly perceptive of subtle energies. I was with a friend, and I could notice how he was unconsciously contorting his body to hold back his anxiety. It had always been there in a way that was unconscious to me, but I was picking up on it in a very clear and obvious way. And I spoke to him effortlessly about it without hedging myself out and excessively explaining myself and angling myself to be understood and filtering my expressions through my intellect... which I am always doing because it's all I know how to do. In everything I express, I'm always trying so hard and weaving in defense. But in this situation I could just speak as my real self. So, I've caught glimpses of my authentic self. But it's buried under layers of filtering and very robust and effective protection mechanisms. The world isn't really a place where those parts of me have been safe. So, I see my desire for beauty and Feminine expression as being a single symptom of a desire to show up in life as myself... this deeper part with real Feminine power. And this has become clearer to me in recent years as the desire to look like the societal archetype of beauty has faded away. But if I actually do connect to this deeper Feminine power... I know it would invite a lot of negative attention and so many people would feel threatened by it. There's a reason why society makes it just about impossible to be in touch with such a power.

Ten years ago, when I was in my mid-20s and about 50 lbs lighter than I am now... I was proximal to the beauty standard. And it really sucked. Everyone wants to use you and make you into their bitch. Like, imagine what it's like to be a pretty man in prison. That's what it felt like to me. It's like being the goose that lays the golden eggs. But there is this identity thing, where I want the power and positive self-image associated with being beautiful. Like, if I lost weight, I would really like what I see in the mirror, and I'd feel a lot more empowered that I currently do. But I don't want the kind of spam attention that I was getting in my 20s as it's very disempowering... even if the scope of the attention wouldn't be as threatening as it was back then. So, there's this thing where beauty equals power and an empowered self-identity. But having beauty puts you in a space where everyone wants to own you and take away your power and no one sees your identity because of projection. So, it's a catch 22. In one of my medicine journeys, there was this communication from God about my appearance that it had given me an ordinary appearance as a gift in recent years because deep down, I did not want to have others see me as beautiful. But it sucks, because my true nature doesn't really come through. I'm on the defensive because I feel unsafe to let my light shine and to really step into my power. It's a whole bunch of white knuckled "stay the fuck away from me" energy from about 15 years of unwanted attention in my teens and 20s.

That's not actually true though. While women have always taken on most of the child rearing tasks, the primary survival driver for humanity is community. And community is every human being's primary evolutionary value. The only reason why our species has survived and dominated the way it has (despite humans being a physically weak species) is because of our ability to organize as a community. And men and women have both always been equal contributors to community, which drives survival. The only reason why we think about men as the primary drivers of survival is because of the false ways that we modern people have learned to conceptualize of survival and how ancient peoples survived. We imagine a scenario where the division of labor was stark and cave women were only taking care of kids and cave men were only out hunting. But the only time in human history that mirrors this stark of a division of labor was in the 1950s in upper middle class families. Women and men (and even children) have always had roles to play in the survival of the species. And to say that men have shouldered more of the burden of the survival needs is false and undercuts all the survival-related tasks that women have done throughout history.... often with a baby wrapped onto her chest with a large cloth. First off, evidence shows that women in many regions in the past also hunted and that it wasn't solely a male task. But women have taken on the tasks of preparing food, making clothing, foraging, caring for the sick, etc. It's why there's a saying, "A man may work from sun to sun, but a woman's work is never done."

Yes.

That might be true for some women, but it's definitely not true for me. I haven't had an instant attraction since I was in middle school. And the only reason why the instant attraction worked for me back then is because I was just interested in having some kind of exploration of my budding sexuality, and I didn't need such a deep level of chemistry and intimacy to feel attracted. It was mostly like a "I like how he looks and dresses" that would grab my attention in those pre-teen and early teen years. And I'd have some kind of projected idealized fantasy of how it would be to have typical teenage boyfriend/girlfriend experiences with him. But once I got into high school, I was more in touch with the realities of dating and was less enamored by the idea of just having a boyfriend. Currently, I feel platonic feelings towards all men when I first meet them.... even if I can recognize that a guy looks attractive to me. Then, if am to develop an attraction to a guy, it usually takes me at least a month or two of regularly interacting with him to begin to feel the chemistry and the potential for connection and intimacy that's there. But it's always been a surprise to me when I've developed an attraction towards someone. It's always like, "Hmmm... him? That's interesting."

That's the problem with reducing people down to a single function... The real motivations of the person get overlooked in favor of an over-simplified projection and it becomes impossible for that person to be seen, heard, and understood by others as that person has been put in a "don't listen to them" box. This is exactly why misrepresentation is such a huge problem... and why I'm always getting onto people about it. Once people have an explanation as to why they don't have to listen to you, they just don't listen to you anymore.... even at their own expense. And once people think they understand you (especially if they think they understand you better than you understand yourself), they become unreceptive to genuinely understanding you. And it's very convenient for those who would rather not listen or understand to come up with an explanation to hand-wave away someone's perspective. And it has historically been the case that women have been viewed as simply irrational because of the way our bodies function differently from men's. And there have always been people calling us crazy, looney, etc. so that they don't need to listen. And there is the old saying, "A woman is to be loved and not understood" that's so insidious because that which can't be understood won't be loved and no needs will be met. If a person isn't understood, they can only be projected upon. Of course, operating this way makes the projecting party a lot more ignorant and unreceptive to wisdom and intimacy.. but it's a problem that they caused for themselves because of their arrogance. And they at least have control over fixing that issues. But for a person who has a projection laid on top of them, it becomes impossible to be seen and heard by the one who projects. And if the entire society does that to you... you're totally fucked. It's why so many women were lobotomized in fairly recent history due to their "hysteria". Specifically with regard to your professor... if a woman has an issue with someone, it's silly to write it off that the conflict is just coming from "the magnitude of her ability to bring existence into new life." Number one, I don't see why possessing that power to create new life would lead someone to seek conflict on those grounds in the first place. Like, I'm a woman (and I have two children) and I don't even have a clue what it would even entail to seek conflict because of my ability to create people. Like, what's the function of the conflict? I genuinely don't understand your professor's rationale. But more importantly, there's plenty of reasons why a person could have conflict with someone else. And conflict is usually based around being unable to communicate one's needs and/or being misunderstood by the other person. So, what your professor suggested would just add more fuel to the fire of conflict because all the times she'd go to set boundaries or communicate her needs and feelings would be hand-waved off as just "reproductive power based conflict" when perhaps she's getting upset because she's not being listened to properly... or something else that she hasn't crystallized well enough to articulate yet.

@Shane Hanlon 100%

Well, that doesn't prove the exact point I was making at all. Also, you're not the first to make an "it's okay to eat animals because there is no me" argument. I've heard them all. But these are just arguments people have with themselves to hide themselves from themselves.

There's a lot of cognitive dissonance in your posts. You're trying to justify things to yourself and you're using a lot of arguments that don't really reconcile to do so. And it's making my point that you're making arguments that you don't really agree with to support values that you don't really agree with to continue doing actions that you don't really agree with. If you really agreed with your values, you would just say "Yes, I eat animals for pleasure. And I think it's fine for humans to eat animals for pleasure because I see human pleasure as having a higher value than an animal's life." and that would be it. And I'd leave you alone. But you don't really seem to agree with that, so you're twisting your original argument (which was more honest) into a rationale for eating animals and a justification for that rationale that sits better with your internal compass. This is why you keep moving the goal posts. That's why you're fast changing through five different unrelated arguments in just this short post. You're trying to avoid becoming aware that you're operating outside of your own integrity. And you're trying to justify yourself to yourself via this conversation with me, when you don't need to do that. Just be honest with yourself about what your values really are. That's all I'm hoping for anyone to do.

Some women will care about your spiritual interests if she herself shares them. You just have to interact in spaces where people who are interested in spirituality congregate. That said, most people aren't very interested in spirituality. So, you may not find very many men or women who really have a passion for it. That's why it's important to find online or in-person groups where spiritual enthusiasts congregate. But most women don't really care about status that much. That said, if you're in a financial of lifestyle situation where a woman feels like she can't rely on you and doesn't feel stable/safe with you... then that will be a deal breaker for a lot of women. Like, if I started to get interested in a guy who didn't have his life together, it would still be a deal breaker because I don't want that kind of chaos in my life because it's something I've experienced before. And I want a reliable partner that I can live a calm life with. Lots of women are like this. But few women need some big shot guy. But lack of godlike looks don't tend to be much a deal-breaker. Women generally look for a guy who's got looks that are conferable to her own or in the proximal range. So, if you're a 5 and looking for a 6... then I'm sure you can find a compatible woman as long as you socialize in spaces that spiritual people tend to congregate. But if you're a 5 and looking for a 10... you'd probably have to have some kind of special celebrity status to make that happen. And I don't know if that would even work as well on spiritual girls who are a 10. Now, this is important... if you're a 5 who's only interested in 10s, you'd just be doing the thing that you're terrified women will do to you (only valuing the opposite sex for their looks and status). And this may be why those fears and insecurities are there in the first place as you may be fearing that women are evaluating you in the way you're evaluating them. But generally, women tend to gravitate to men that match them that they feel chemistry with. There's less of a focus towards landing a 10.

But this moves the goal posts from your original argument. (And Vegans have generally heard every argument and justification, which is 99% people trying to find a valid reason to justify their own behavior to themselves to deal with the cognitive dissonance of doing something they themselves disagree with.) It's moving the goal posts, because your original argument was about deliciousness and how you eat animals because they're more delicious than grain. You weren't originally arguing that it was because of prioritizing your well-being. That's just the secondary argument you chose to run away to when I confronted you with the "pleasure vs life" question. I honestly like it when people make the argument about pleasure... because it's a lot more honest than the vast majority of other arguments. The real reason why 95% of people in developed nations eat animals is because they taste good and they prioritize their pleasure over the animal's lives. That's the reality of it. It's why I used to eat meat, eggs, and dairy. They tasted good. And I prioritized that pleasure over my own values. And that was why it was difficult to go Vegan because I had to face that about myself that I was living out of integrity with my own values, and I was prioritizing my own hedonic joys over sentient life. I had to see that I shared similarities with rapists who prioritize their momentary pleasure over someone else's quality of life and well-being. There was no lying to myself anymore and going into cognitive dissonance with the 532 arguments that every non-Vegan with Vegan values uses to justify their behavior to themselves. So, most people do prioritize their own pleasure and creature comforts over the life of another. They just don't agree with the ethics of it if you confront them about it and ask them about it directly because very few people like the idea of being the type of person that prioritizes their pleasure over the life of another.

This is moving the goal posts a bit, no? A little bit of cognitive dissonance. I was just asking you if it's part of your value system to prioritize your own momentary pleasure over the life of another? If it is your value, I disagree with it. But I'll at least accept that that's part of your value system, and I won't bug you about it anymore because you don't hold Vegan values. But if it's not part of your value system and your not okay with prioritizing your pleasure over the life of another, your argument about deliciousness might be little bit out of integrity for you.

Is it part of your value system to prioritize your own momentary pleasure over the life of another? If so, how do you feel about the fact that you hold that value?

I don't really think that's why he wrote what her wrote. It was more of a chauvinistic gripe about woke society forgetting that women's main value and role is reproduction... which is probably more of an anti-trans reflex than anything else. But he still seems a little annoyed that women are operating outside of the ways that he feels comfortable defining and understanding women. He really likes to have a sense that he has a hard and fast understanding of women and how we operate, but he is often reductive and inaccurate in understanding basic things about women and Femininity. And because being misrepresented and misunderstood is one of my biggest pet peeves, I often call him out on stuff like this. Also, he was speaking a bit like Matt Walsh in his posts, so I figured he might have just been exposing himself to some right wing propaganda that's perhaps injected its venom and taken ahold of him a bit. So, I think he just mentioned that he was trying to educate men about women because he got caught being sexist and was trying to find another logical explanation for the sexist gaffe when I called him out on it. But I don't think he considered the full implications of what he was communicating because another guy on the thread was like "Then does that mean that women are lying to themselves when they pursue a career?" I don't think he realized that his sexism was opening up that particular can of worms that he doesn't agree with himself.

I was considering sharing something similar. The idea that "women's #1 value is reproduction" assumes a male-centric viewpoint. And it could be said that, from the female-centric viewpoint, the #1 value for men is reproduction... That is, if we're actually functioning from a Darwinian scientific perspective that boils human existence down to survival and reproductive functions. When it comes to reproduction, males and females of a sexual species exist for this very reason. Without the sexual reproductive function, there would be no such thing as male and female. But Leo seemed to be trying to play off of this Darwinian scientific perspective for women, while exempting men from the evolutionary lens and to see men as the exempted beneficiaries of Darwinian evolution but not as participants in it.... and to view men's value as non-relational and self-contained and women's value as purely relational... and specifically dealing with the reproductive element of relational value. But men and women have always had most of our evolutionary value wrapped up in community connection and contribution. So, everyone's evolutionary value is relational... and reproduction is just one relational evolutionary values that we all possess. And older adults who are past their child-rearing age don't lose evolutionary value. If it were the case, women wouldn't be living so long past Menopause. Ultimately, the Darwinian lens only describes a fraction of what a person is and is just bad science if we try to scientifically reduce half of the population to a single function. Yet again... perhaps those in glass houses should not throw stones. If we look at nature beyond the human species, the primary function of the males of many different species is literally just for the purposes of reproduction and nothing more. Let's pull a Jordan Peterson... but instead of Lobsters, let's apply Praying Mantis logic to humanity instead.

That's definitely true. It was true for me too.

Actually, livestock consume between 60% and 80% of the crops human beings grow, depending on the region. So, if you really want to save plants for the Vegans... then stop giving money to companies that breed millions of very large plant-eating animals into existence for human consumption. For every 1 lb of beef that's produced, it requires 16 lbs of grain to be grown and fed to cows.