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Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on A Rationalist's Account of Objectification? - Less Wrong Discussion
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Not that one fetish in particular, no. But speaking much more generally, part of the concept behind the rationalist mate is that we're supposed to do a bit of consequentialist reasoning before going "Ew!", and try to set things up so that people are happy instead of making them do the ideologically correct thing.
The main way "objectifying women as sexual fetish" is a problem ("problem": something that prevents people from being happy) is if (1) the person doesn't understand the difference between having a sexual fetish and stating an ethical value or (2) if there's a large difference between the number of men who have that fetish and the number of women, so that they can't pair up.
Hrm... just a thought re point 2: in the case of group1 of gender A enjoying lowering the status of their partners, and group2 of gender B enjoying having their status lowered, if size group 1 < size group 2, that could work out.
ie, I'd imagine that a situation where members of group 1 having harems of members of group 2 could potentially work well on both sides of the equation.
size group 1 > size group 2, however, could potentially be more of a problem since in that case the analogous solution does not seem to present itself as working as well for both groups.
(Or did I miss some obvious aspect of the relevant psychology?)
Well, the problem with e.g. the number of women who enjoy lowering male status and the number of men who enjoy their status being lowered is that group 1 << group 2 to a degree unsolvable with any realistic harem size.
Hrm... Fair enough then. (Actually, to what extent are there stats on that sort of thing available? ie, do we actually know that in that case the the ratio is that bad?)
IIRC there are stats and it is that bad.
Yet another way in which the world fails to be optimized, in that case. To borrow a reddit meme: "Scumbag Reality"
If group1 > group2, then group1 members can agree between themselves to share members of group2 with each other, which seems like it might be satisfactory given enough flex in the relationship preferences of those involved.
That occurred to me, but I see a problem with that outcome like so: From the perspective of members of group 2, being traded around/used like that would be enjoyably status lowering...
However, from the perspective of members of group 1, if you have a small subgroup of them sharing a member of group 2, then if they perceived that at all as part of the sexual interaction, then they might have a problem with the fact that each of them are failing to lower the status of the majority of others in the interaction. (ie, members of group 1 interacting with other members of group 1, having to do so on an equal basis only getting to dominate/degrade the (fewer) members of group 2.)
(Or did I misunderstand a key aspect of this sort of thing?)
We need a mathematical theory to analyze optimal arrangements for these sorts of relationships given various input demographics! :) (Why yes, I am in a rather silly mood at the moment. ;))
Speaking as a member of both groups, I don't think this is going to be a problem in practice :-)
You're a member of group 1 of gender A and group 2 of gender B?
*ducks*
Seriously though, which part are you claiming wouldn't be a problem? Eliezer's suggestion that the numbers are sufficiently different as to cause a problem? My suggestion as to a problem that occurs when the numbers are skewed in a certain direction?
That may sound flippant, but consider: http://healthymultiplicity.com/Zyfron/Gemini/?webcomic_post=episode-67-d-none-of-the-above http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switch_%28BDSM%29
There probably is at least one person in exactly that situation, and it would be very important to clarify if they were, because their optimal solution is likely to be different from most peoples'.
(Interestingly enough, I can confirm that LW has at least one (set of) fairly regular reader(s) who is (are) multiple and significantly genderqueer (in several senses!) and involved in BDSM. Not sure how many of the BDSM roles are relevant, tho.)
This does not surprise me in the slightest. People who find a different way of thinking/defining identity, and benefit by it, tend to check out at least a few other paradigm-shift subcultures just to see what else they've been missing out on, with the result that: http://healthymultiplicity.com/Zyfron/Gemini/?webcomic_post=episode-77-%E2%80%9Cnormal%E2%80%9D
Ew!
Okay, but you did the consequentialist reasoning first, right?
I believe so, but I'm not totally sure how to formulate and communicate the reasons for my disagreement. I'm pretty sure though that the proper way to characterize the alternatives here is not "setting things up so that people are happy" vs "making them do the ideologically correct thing".
If you want to engage on this, I suppose I would start with a question: is there something special about sexual fantasies that makes them deserving of being indulged - something that would not apply to other fantasies that people would prefer not to see carried out in fact? For example, if I enjoy fantasizing about brutalizing and terrorizing people while wearing a white robe and hood, is that something I should indulge as fantasies, so long as I don't act on them? Does it matter whether these fantasies are classified as sexual fantasies?
Sex fantasies are usually indulged when people are engaged in sex activity and not otherwise. Your example would be less disturbing, at least to me, if you qualified it with something similar--someone who enjoys fantasizing about brutalizing people while playing video games sounds less dangerous than someone who enjoys fantasizing about brutalizing people full stop.
Would it be less disturbing still if I told you that I don't fantasize about brutalizing people - full stop? Would people here be congratulating me and asking how I did it if I said I used to have such fantasies, but had managed to hack my utility function so that I no longer find such fantasies attractive? If I did that hacking, would I not only seem less dangerous - would I not also be less dangerous?
I feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland here.
Alice: What is that horrible ALL CAPS noise in this well-tended garden? If I downvote it, will there be less of it?
Humpty Dumpty: Oh, I hope you are not going to downvote that! It is the mating call of Homo lesswrongis. Think of it as the sound of people striving to become happy.
Alice: But the question is: Can you make a garden mean so many different things to so many different people?
Humpty Dumpty: The question is: who is to be the master? NEXT!
This is a weird way to follow up on:
What do you do about the people who have a fetish for analytically considering the subject of fetishes?
Of course, one eventually runs into a bit of a technical difficulty. :)