Desrtopa comments on LW Women Submissions: On Misogyny - Less Wrong
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Comments (472)
A:
Beware of hasty generalization. The fact that you have been in an abusive relationship and you've read similar stories doesn't imply that these relationships are typical.
The intersection between the set of sociopaths and the set of university professors is not necessarily empty. However, claiming that this behavior is normal among males is outright sexist defamation. It's like, after sharing a story of being robbed by a black person you said: "You might think my robber was an antisocial person, but no -- they are a normal black person"
B:
I'm not sure what you describe as a body/mind dichotomy really makes sense or is the proper way of describing your experiences. What you describe seems to be known as egodystonicity, which is a quite common phenomenon to a certain extent, but can potentially become pathological.
Receiving abuse doesn't justify committing abuse.
That's a patronizing view of male sexuality.
Consider it's reversal: instead of trying to fullfill women preferences (such as preference for high status mates), men should try to enlighten women so they internalize and enact men’s porn views (such as engaging in casual intercourse with random strangers).
Beware of fictional evidence.
You describe creepiness essentially as a fear response. That's not mutually exclusive of being creeped by of low-status or unattractive persons. In fact, evidence suggests that people tend to instinctively trust attractive and high-status individuals and fear unattractive and low-status individuals.
I also felt while reading this that my sex as a group was being defamed, but while I doubt that the author has the evidence to conclude that such behavior is truly typical of males in general, I also have to be skeptical that my own experiences are sufficient evidence to suppose that such behavior is atypical. Our own social circles tend to be very heavily filtered compared to the overall population, and just because the behavior the author wrote about describes few of the guys I've associated with, doesn't mean it's not normal.
I agree that we don't have evidence that his behavior is typical of men, but I find it plausible that a moderately high proportion of men and women have a script about relationships which makes it easy to maintain such behavior for quite a while without either partner being explicitly aware that it's abusive.
That's what statistics are for.
On the other hand, I can't hold it against people that they care about their group reputation.
See also the nice guy privilege.
It makes a fair point, although I think it's also an illustration of how privilege is a terrible term for the phenomenon it's used to describe.
In general I agree that “blind spot” (as suggested in the comments to that series of posts) would be a better term, but in this case, I think that being able to joke and display affection without people freaking out is a privilege even in the ordinary colloquial sense of the word.
Thanks for the link-- I'd missed a bunch of the comments, including Ragen Chastain explaining why (though she won't criticize other people for using "privilege", she doesn't use it herself.