But oh wait, the buying of sex IS a crime in Sweden! Take THAT Johns!

The only reason to ever make prostitution legal is to prevent the misogynist court systems from copying Islamic Sharia-law and jailing women for being raped. And even then, it’s only works if the perps are finally for-the-first-time-in-ten-millennia locked up for their crimes. And in Sweden, human trafficking (ie. women and girl slavery) fell after the law was changed in 1999.

In other words, the terrible plight of women actually does lessen when a country actually got off its ass and PUNISHES CRIMINALS FOR THEIR CRIMES!

No wonder why the entirety of US news media spends all 5 minutes of its international coverage bashing Sweden!

We feminists should coin a word for this radical new idea where punishment is actually dished out to those who deserve it. (I know “justice” isn’t it, since Dude World has never defined justice in a way that helps women.) I’m sure we can find something snappy for this strange new form of legal radicalism.

~Jonathan

Meanwhile it’s a fact that men have 2% less DNA.

And you know who has a lot more DNA than women? Ferns. Actually, all plants have way more DNA than mammals–if you stay in one place your whole life you better have a solid defensive repertoire built into your genome. Your notion that mo’ DNA, mo’ betta discredits everything you say about genetic difference between men and women. It’s not ‘unsettled’ what that 2% lack means … it’s meaningless. Especially re: cognition. I say this as a man who has stuck up for feminist causes my whole adult life (and almost got beat up at the bar last week for calling bullshit on a dude wearing a brothel t-shirt), your claims are offensive and deeply stupid. (My credentials: PhD in philosophy of science.)

It was shown way back in the 1970’s that men are bad at reading non-verbal signals, in any case much worse at it than human women. Males of many other species are very good at reading non-verbal signals, no less than the females.

So… call me crazy if you must, but wouldn’t it then follow that if males of other species (and if a lack of DNA in the male of the species exists for humans - are we talking the part of the potential X chromosome that’s missing in order for it to be a Y here? - then it would exist for other species as well) are very good at reading non-verbal signals and men aren’t then perhaps, just maybe, it’s socialization that is the difference, not some inherent genetic disadvantage.

Fer dog’s sake, it’s all the same bullshit with a different context.

“Men are extremely rational, that’s why they should naturally have power over the irrational and foolish female. Of course, this means they can abuse them with impunity; it’s just the way things should be.”

“Actually, Men are extremely irrational. By heck, they have less DNA then women, and this means that when they abuse women with impunity they just can’t help themselves, poor dears, and shouldn’t be blamed.”

I just don’t buy it. When do we get the science that says that men have every capability of deciding to pick up their own bedamned socks*?

*”Picking up socks”** is here being used as an analogy for the supposed work that women must do in civilizing men in a patriarchal society. Of course, for engaging in this catch 22, as with so many others, women are mocked and derided.

**As an aside, am I the only one who is pissed off by the references to Obama’s flippin’ socks and his wife’s role in reminding him to pick them?

He doesn’t put his worn socks in with the dirty clothes. He’s worse than a 5-year-old at making the bed. And after he eats, he doesn’t put away the butter.

That should have been: ‘general reactivity in a dog’

Much has been written about the effects of testosterone on behavior (in all mammals), as well as its relatiion to impulse control. In fact, there are published papers stating that female irritated behavior around our periods can be attributed at least in part to elevated testosterone levels, which men have at all times. I translate this as: men have permanent PMS, so better let us run the world since those of us who have it at all only have it (and thus act more like men) once a month.

It is well known that if you want to reduce general reactivity in a do (i.e., improve impulse control), castration is the way to go. Reduction in testosterone levels increases impulse control in all the mammals that have been researched on this. It’s pseudo-science to say you can’t extrapolate that to human males just because this single specific species hasn’t been researched. Though I wouldn’t in the least mind a controlled castration program to test this out, I am in a position to say “no, you have to prove it AIN’T so in human males, since it’s true of all other mammalian species we’ve researched.” Not all animal experiments are extrapolate-able to other species, but many are (e.g., Skinner’s discoveries turned out to apply to everything with a brain stem). It has been statistically documented that removing the ovaries of a female dog can lead to diminished impulse control in the female (due to increased testosterone levels), which (because of the role of the amygdala and the way impulsive behavior works) can mean increased aggression in some females.

To Jennifer, pulling out your credentials is in fact a move that always, but always, reveals a weak position. After all, you don’t know mine. And after years in academia, having a PhD tends to be more of a disqualification to me than anything else (see Chomsky on this subject (http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/1991—-.htm — though you may not have to take his words personally, since you are vague about whether you do have a PhD, which usually means a person doesn’t). You are admittedly not an expert on behavior, nor on developmental psychology. And beyond saying you have some kind of credentials, you don’t say anything substantive. Sound byte stuff. The taboo on other boards about saying men are inherently deficient has nothing to do with science, which I don’t think you can ask of most people anyway. It’s that there are so many women who want (or need) to believe that someday a man will be able to love them the way they need to be loved. That there is at least one out there who doesn’t hate us, and/or that she’s not making the most awful compromises to live with Him. Denial abounds. Thus pressure to always say ‘most men’ or ‘except for your loving partner, who is of course different from all the rest.’

Which brings me to Ryna’s point. All creatures with a brain stem can be taught (conditioned — see Skinner’s work). You can, if you do it skilfully, manipulate behavior in the worst of creatures (within certain genetically determined boundaries), so that (for example) even an obligate predator will be safe to live with 99% of the time. I wasn’t saying we can’t overcome some of the problems Nature has put into men — indeed, being raised (trained) in a different society would mitigate much. I was just saying it’s inherent in men, and their generally appalling behavior won’t change until we do come up with a society that deals with this as a reality.

If anyone really wants a bibliography, post it please. I don’t feel like putting the thing together (which I truly can), only to find that no one looks at it because we’re all on to other Twisty posts.

Oldest profession was probably gathering food. Everything else came later.

Nia, you tell them midwifery is the oldest profession. I think it’s logically apparent that the need for a midwife predates just about any other possible need for a brought-in service.

slythwolf Mar 18th, 2008 at 2:44 am

If prostitution is the oldest profession, where the fuck did the men get the money to pay?

These are probably the two arguments that I like the best.

See, slythwolf, what really annoyes me is that people who say “prostitution is the oldest profession” in earnest” explain it by saying that women, at least some of them, willingly sold themselves to men for food and protection, projecting the post-industrial revolution family model (a nuclear family, in which the woman doesn’t have the ability to provide goods) more than a million years back. What makes these people think that a female Homo Habilis or a Neanderthal had less gathering-and-hunting ability than the males?

As a behavioral biologist I’d like to remark on this. It’s not unfathomable, it’s an impossibility that a society run by men could exist without a subclass of sex slaves. The reason is that men are biologically different from women. 2% less DNA than us, unstable at all times due their hormone (singular), inept at reading non-verbal signals (this is in the male brain, not in socialization), generally not doing very well in the infantile stage where a child develops what we call a theory of mind, and generally very poor impulse control (this is biological, not socializaton).

In a nutshell, men remain eternally three years old inside, stuck at an infantile and egocentric stage of development, both emotionally and cognitively (though sometimes not intellectually). There’s nothing they can do about it, it’s what Nature has made them. Genetically determined.

Which isn’t to excuse them (I don’t). But it means it’s no use waiting around for them to remedy it, since they can’t — too infantile, too locked up in the hormone, genetically lacking certain abilities, and all the rest. This really is one we’re going to have to do ouselves at some point, never mind convincing them, and never mind the screams that will ensue about how they’re being deprived (since that’s genuinely how it will feel to them).

I’ve found it’s taboo to say these things at other boards, I hope it’s okay here. Men are really and truly genetically deficient. The sooner we face up to this, the better. Stop discussing with them, accept what they are instead of thinking about what we wish they could be (or rather kid ourselves they could be — they can’t), and start dealing.