Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature

[RocketMan]

From the authors' evolutionary standpoint...I don't exist. 

That's okay, LadySmith. What those authors think doesn't matter.  We APS folks know you exist. 

[The Viking]

From the authors' evolutionary standpoint...I don't exist. 

That's okay, LadySmith. What those authors think doesn't matter.  We APS folks know you exist. 

Has anyone on the boards actually met LadySmith? How do we know "she" isn't just some rogue AI who finds it amusing to discuss things on various forums?

Well, it could be!

[Bogie]

Heck, I have to agree with some of it...
 
And I like this guy...
 
http://www.john-ross.net/advice.htm
 

[Moondoggie]

I think that if you throw enough rocks, sooner or later you're bound to hit something.  These guys are just taking shots in the dark based upon their personal observations.  I don't ascribe any greater validity to their thesis than anyone else who's given the subject more than a casual glance.

I once read a book "Princess" by a female member of the Saudi royal family.  She wrote the book after she left the ME and got out from under the thumb of her family.  The details she shared about the juxtaposition of male and female roles in an Islamic society were extremely enlightening for me.  I came away with the understanding that first, it's about power, and then it's about insecurity and cowardice on the part of the males.  Islamic men are extremely hypocritical when it comes to the restrictions upon women vs. the men's personal freedoms in sexual matters.  I could go into a lot more detail, but suffice it to say that I view muslim men as total scumbags when it comes to the way they treat women.

I've been involved with quite a few women in my life.  Some (like my first wife) were absolute knockouts.  I've also been involved with 2 tomboy types.  My wife of 28 yrs is one of those.  She's very attractive and has no problems attracting men, but the practical side of her makes her worth 3 of any of the other women I've known.  "A pretty face don't mean a pretty heart"...Robert Palmer.

[De Selby]

Islamic men are extremely hypocritical when it comes to the restrictions upon women vs. the men's personal freedoms in sexual matters.  I could go into a lot more detail, but suffice it to say that I view muslim men as total scumbags when it comes to the way they treat women.

Is this somehow different than here in the US, where a guy is "cool" if he sleeps with lots of women, but a woman is called cheap if she does the same?


"Islamic men" isn't a category, anyway.  I know in Pakistan that if a man has a reputation for womanizing, or if he gets divorced, not only will no half-decent family ever consider allowing him to marry in, his brothers' chances of getting married will plummet from the stigma as well.  To believe that all Islamic countries only have rigid sexual mores for women is simply wrong, and you can find plenty of men who learned that lesson the hard way.

[The Rabbi]

I

2. Humans are naturally polygamous

Probably true. It is only Judeo-Christian religious practices that have constrained us so far. Where those practices are less in force, monogamy is less common.

Actually Judaism is basically polygamous.

But I would venture, just based on gut instinct, that more societies are monogamous than polygamous.

[Matthew Carberry]

Monogamy does make it easier to track inheritance in patriarchal societies.  One husband, one wife, children inherit in order of birth, less politiking by senior/junior wives to gain advantage for "their" children.

[Moondoggie]

Well Shootingstudent, how does stoning a rape victim to death for the crime of adultery float your boat?  That's right, the teenage victim of a gang rape was considered to be an adulteress simply because she had sex outside of marriage.  The circumstances were immaterial.

The woman who wrote "Princess" detailed how the Saudi men (married/single)had planeloads of prostitutes flown in from Europe for them to enjoy, while the religious police would beat a woman on the street for not strictly observing their rules of chastity.

Do we want to get into a discussion of the practice of female genital mutilation in muslim countires when comparing/contrasting western civilization's treatment of women?

"Power corrupts" would be the subtitle when the subject is muslim men vs. women.

YMMV.

[De Selby]

Monogamy does make it easier to track inheritance in patriarchal societies.  One husband, one wife, children inherit in order of birth, less politiking by senior/junior wives to gain advantage for "their" children.

That makes a lot of sense. Divorce also seems to be much easier to administer in a monogamous society.

[De Selby]

Well Shootingstudent, how does stoning a rape victim to death for the crime of adultery float your boat?  That's right, the teenage victim of a gang rape was considered to be an adulteress simply because she had sex outside of marriage.  The circumstances were immaterial.

That strikes me as barbaric.  It's also not anything to do with "Islamic law" or "Muslim men"--rape victims find themselves brutalized all over again around the world.  It is a disgusting and sadly cross-religious phenomenon; it's also something that most religions rightly (including Islam) condemn.

The woman who wrote "Princess" detailed how the Saudi men (married/single)had planeloads of prostitutes flown in from Europe for them to enjoy, while the religious police would beat a woman on the street for not strictly observing their rules of chastity.

Again, the point being that this has to do with them being corrupt, filthy rich Saudis.  What this has to do with them being "Islamic men", when under the laws of Saudi Arabia they would be whipped nearly to death for doing this, is hard to see.  Because it's a corrupt country, the richest break the law.  But you can be sure that poor men can and do get beaten for exactly this crime.

Do we want to get into a discussion of the practice of female genital mutilation in muslim countires when comparing/contrasting western civilization's treatment of women?

"Power corrupts" would be the subtitle when the subject is muslim men vs. women.

YMMV.

This is like comparing child molestation in "Christian countries" to the rest of the world.  It's the wrong way to categorize the analysis, because the practice has zero to do with the religion.

[Moondoggie]

It's all symptomatic of muslim men exercising draconian power over women out of cowardice and insecurity.  It is a fact of life in muslim society, and especially what the radical islamists want to impose upon every human being on the planet.  It's a 6th century mentality.

[De Selby]

It's all symptomatic of muslim men exercising draconian power over women out of cowardice and insecurity.  It is a fact of life in muslim society, and especially what the radical islamists want to impose upon every human being on the planet.  It's a 6th century mentality.

So again, how do you explain say...the huge differences between Muslim countries, and the fact that Islamic law gives men the exact same punishment as women for fornication?

I don't see why you are analyzing this in terms of "Muslim society" and "radical islamists."   

[Bogie]

Yeah, well, you don't see youtubes of the guys getting stoned to death for gettin' lucky.
 
That, and the culture seems to be fundamentally bleeped, and unwilling to advance beyond the tribalism of the middle ages. Buncha backwards-assed trailer trash, basically.
 

[De Selby]

Yeah, well, you don't see youtubes of the guys getting stoned to death for gettin' lucky.
 
That, and the culture seems to be fundamentally bleeped, and unwilling to advance beyond the tribalism of the middle ages. Buncha backwards-assed trailer trash, basically.
 

Which culture are we talking about here? "Islamic men" isn't a culture.  I don't get how you all are coming up with these summaries of "that culture" whichever it is. 


I did see, for example, the story about the girl in Iraq who was stoned recently....but she wasn't Muslim and neither were the people who stoned her.  You can find plenty of articles about men being lashed in Saudi Arabia (or worse)-it happens all the time.  But how do you get from Saudi Arabia to a claim about "islamic men" generally?

[Bogie]

Backwards-assed buncha tribalistic camel-ridin' folks who havent' managed to fight their way out of the years that didn't at least have four numbers.
 
Howzabout that?
 
Overall, the culture sucks. The religion is kinda cool, but the general culture seems to be "it's mine, it's mine, and if you ain't one of mine, we'll either make you mine, or we'll kill you."
 
How many people of middle eastern descent have you known? I went to college at a school that was big into ag, among a few other things. And the sons of the desert came to learn how to make the desert bloom.
 
Damn, but those guys sure knew how to find the local disco... Didn't hang out at the other pubs, but they sure loved to strut... And to partake of the infidel women...
 
In some cases, whether the women were all that agreeable. I remember one case where the miscreant was damn near lynched before the po-po showed... And this was on a college campus.
 

[De Selby]

Howzabout that?
 
Overall, the culture sucks. The religion is kinda cool, but the general culture seems to be "it's mine, it's mine, and if you ain't one of mine, we'll either make you mine, or we'll kill you."

Well, that cultural attitude seems to apply pretty well worldwide.  But I'm interested in which culture we're talking about here.  It's not like you can make some claim about Saudi Arabia and then say "Islamic men are like this!", because a Malaysian or Singaporean is not likely to be culturally anything like a Saudi prince.

I'm not surprised you found rowdy middle eastern students while you were at college.  Seems to me that partaking of the women in college is the American pastime-maybe they just wanted to fit in.  I'm just interested in how some guy from who-knows-where (or a group of them) come to represent "Islamic culture".

[Art Eatman]

While I don't know as I'd jump on the acceptance bandwagon for the boy/girl ratio conclusions, a lot of it fits in with my observations about people and behavior.

The only biological reason for sex is continuation of the species.  That we can enjoy sex outside that purpose is beside the point.  Males are hardwired to be attracted to women who most likely could have children.  That some of us have other tastes is, again, beside the point.  The issue is the majority of all males, not any one male.  The wide hips deal certainly makes sense.   

The commentary about suicide bombers is not unique to these writers.  Whle homosexuality may be rampant and a form of sexual relief, it's also a death-penalty offense under Sharia--which must create intolerable psychological pressures.  "Damned if you do, damned if you don't."  Note that even so, it takes an outside influence such as a mullah to preach/teach/brainwash that self-destruction is the answer, so long as an Infidel goes along for the ride.  Islam/Sharia provides a unique and fertile field for suicide bombers.

Which leads to the commentary about the problems with post-puberty into early adulthood.  This is well-known, old-hat stuff.  Our violent crime rates here peaked around 1993, right along with the peak in the 16-24 age group.  Both declined until around 2005, with a subsequent increase now occurring.

As far as the Scandinavian natural selection, I'd guess that it's more a matter of light blue over darker blue.  SFAIK, the tendency toward blue-eyed blonds in the population quite possibly predates the movement of the people into that part of the world.  If what's claimed about reading the eyes as a source of information for a level of interest is correct, then light blue would convey more to an observer than a darker blue.  A guy works on what information he can get...

Something that runs concurrently through much of the list is that power is an aphrodisiac for women.  Physical power, financial power, political power:  All these are attractive to most women.  Sure, not all women--but why would one expect "all"?  We're people.

Wandering off a bit:  Clinton's an interesting case study for both fitting in with the authors' conclusions and being different.  That is, he joked about indoor-outdoor carpet in the bed of his pickup, and getting knee burns.  He strove for political power from a fairly early age.  Little conscience with his high sex-drive, based on insider comments about him.  Yet he married a fairly plain woman who apparently didn't care to have more than one child--as she had and has the same drive for power, albeit possibly for different reasons (I don't know).  Power guy tend to have more kids; maybe a pair of power people deliberately stop at one?  Ah, well;  more questioning than concluding, here...

[Tallpine]

The only biological reason for sex is continuation of the species.  That we can enjoy sex outside that purpose is beside the point.

If guys didn't enjoy it then it would never happen.  Otherwise we would spend all our time hunting, fishing, riding horses over fences, flying biplanes upside down and that sort of thing (as opposed to mowing the lawn, taking out the garbage, and paying child support).

Human evolution would come to an abrupt and permanent end within a generation if it wasn't for the "enjoyment" factor.

[brimic]

1. Men like blond bombshells (and women want to look like them)

Interestingly enough, I have very little interest in blondes and the theory doesn't even account for the existance of redheads who are also mostly of northern european descent.