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Senate Race and Sexual Attraction

Discussion in 'Community' started by CT-867-5309, May 25, 2018.

  1. LostOnHoth

    LostOnHoth Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 15, 2000
    Wocky, what are you going on about? The discussion we are currently engaged in (that is, you and I) is very much a tangent from the OP thread and has emerged from a comment made by Ender on the first page of this thread that "attraction is innate" which you challenged by saying "Attraction is not innate, or else it would not be modifiable by culture".

    I then made the comment "Are you perhaps confusing different normative notions of "attractiveness" with attraction? I guess you can say that normative qualities of "beauty" change over time and are modifiable by culture, including attire, hairstyles, etc but I think it's fair to say that the process in the brain which affirms your attraction to somebody is something you are born with."

    Vivec then made the comment: "I don't think it's an either/or thing. Attraction certainly comes from within, and it can be affected by outside sources as well. I don't see why it can't be both tbh".

    Which I then agreed with. (This is essentially the tangent discussion).

    I am not developing an argument, I am simply stating the obvious fact that sexual attraction is not purely a product of cultural/social forces. This statement arose from the tangent discussion outlined above. You seem to be having a different discussion in your head to that which we appear to be having on our screens. I can see now that you think I am somehow crafting an argument which justifies racism or which denies that social forces can affect notions of attractiveness. For the record, I am not. I agree completely with your comments above regarding the cultural forces at play which have changed notions of attractiveness in relation to African Americans.
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2018
    Violent Violet Menace and tom like this.
  2. Diggy

    Diggy Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Feb 27, 2013
    You aren’t a Swede? Are you sure?
     
  3. Zapdos

    Zapdos Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 7, 2013
  4. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    Apologies then, if I assumed you had a broader agenda than you did. But repeatedly in this thread and the original discussion that spawned this thread, Vivec has been pushing the notion that it is somehow wrong to challenge anything about attraction because it is not under our control. I thought--and think--it would be bizarre and probably inappropriate for me to have answered our discussion without touching on this parallel debate.

    If you want a narrower response, to your inquiry, your thought experiment is still errant. You demonstrated that the mind can fill in something where there is a void, but not that this is the mechanism that is typically employed or is explanatory of our society. For instance, consider your same isolated human child. They will have the ability to make vocalizations. If feral children are instructive as a case, he will likely do so in imitation of some animals that frequent his environment. Likewise, twins have been reported to make secret "languages" amongst themselves. These suggest something about language is innate to humanity. Going further, we have both neurology and anatomy to support this notion. Is it therefore appropriate for me to claim that speaking English is "innate" rather than the mere capacity to produce a language of some kind?

    I would say its better stated that you have revealed a biologic basis through which human socialization usually occurs, even if in the absence of said socialization something could emerge. In terms of this example, none of us are hermits living alone on an island. How they develop attraction isn't of concern, except insofar as it can accurately reflect how we, nested within complex societies, do so. Except we have every reason to believe that those two contexts are so different that we can't make any meaningful conclusions from it. The ability to feel sexual attraction is innate. [What[/i] humans become attracted to is much, much less likely to be so.

    Zapdos: I realize I'm clogging up the thread here but anyway. I can't tell. Nor can I tell with many other ethnic groups, especially those that share a geographic region. My only problem was that some of the responses to sj seemed to be people implying it was impossible to tell different Asian ethnicities from one another. There are big differences between "I don't know" "I find this hard" and "This is literally impossible for a human being to accomplish so she must be lying." The first two are honest, the last one is racist, as I see it.
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2018
  5. LostOnHoth

    LostOnHoth Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 15, 2000
    Again Wocky I am making no thought experiment as I am not proposing any hypothesis. The island scenario was to illustrate the point I'm tired of repeating and which has no real bearing on the discussion intended by this thread only the tangent discussion which emerged which I have already outlined. It is like you must take an opposing view out of basic principle or something.

    At the risk of continuing the distraction, I think it is entirely plausible that a person can be socially influenced to find certain others unattractive and will act on those social norms in the form of behaviour and social interaction but may internally and secretly be sexually attracted to those persons. What conclusions can we really draw from research which is sourced from views expressed by people within a social context (and I'm not referring here to the doll experiments which you mention)? For example, during the Nazi era, a time when the portrayal of Jewish people as villainous sub-humans was a social norm, studies would no doubt show that Germans considered Jewish people to be unattractive. However, subsequent studies might then show a change in disposition towards Jewish people by Germans following end the of the Nazi era where it was no longer a social norm to portray Jewish people as villainous sub-humans. Would this type of research be a reliable indicator of an actual change in sexual attraction based upon cultural imperatives, or just evidence that people would say whatever was expected of them to comply with social norms?

    The same is true for sexual orientation. When it was socially unacceptable to be homosexual, you would expect to see research which reinforced this view, i.e, nobody was attracted to others of the same sex, but you would expect to see a change in expressed views once the negative social stigma of homosexuality was removed. Would you say that social norms produced the effect of lower same sex attraction or simply that people were not willing to admit they were homosexual when it carried social repercussions? You would have for example, a man who was sexually attracted to other men, but who would never admit it -rather they would join in the homophobic behaviour because it was socially acceptable to do so, but that man would still find men sexually attractive. That attraction is not cultural or social, but from within.
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2018
  6. solojones

    solojones Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 27, 2000
    It is not. While differences do exist, it's not encumbant on people to know or see them. As long as you don't scoff and say "whatever, all Asians look the same", you are not being racist. I can only see the differences because I had a Chinese boyfriend and a Filipina roommate.

    For the record, people in Southern Europe thought I was Swedish too.
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2018
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  7. Rogue1-and-a-half

    Rogue1-and-a-half Manager Emeritus who is writing his masterpiece star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 2, 2000
    I'm Native American, but I have a kind of generic "ethnic" look. There are certainly features that are more obviously Native American and more obviously Hispanic and I can often tell on first seeing someone which they are, but I've been taken to be both. Also Italian, Jewish & Pakistani.

    What I mean is that I can fit into a variety of fetish scenarios, should anyone so desire. Costumes are extra. Accents are guaranteed to be at least 50% accurate.
     
    Last edited: Jun 1, 2018
  8. Violent Violet Menace

    Violent Violet Menace Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Aug 11, 2004
    Yeah, I thought you were Indian the first time I saw your picture in the "post a picture of yourself" thread. Like from the actual India.
     
  9. gezvader28

    gezvader28 Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Mar 22, 2003
    Shameless hussy !
     
  10. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    Look the question up on Google translate, Wocky.