Sorry to respond twice, but I find the logical fallacies in this post to be
utterly fascinating, and it makes a good case study, this is just a wee
analysis of one question. Sorry to be greedy and all....: Actually, I've not answered because my plans to rule the world are time
consuming.
Three times I've answered this point, and you made posts between then and
now...
: Second, It is natural to be attracted to her. It is natural to be attracted
to any good looking female if you are male. The question is, if you are
attracted to good looking females, why are you not attracted to good looking
males?
This is based on a number of fundamental errors:
1:That aec,e`e'e^e"i`i'i^i"sthetic appeal is a constant- i.e. that there is such
a thing as
'beautiful' beyond cultural subjective evaluation.
2:That sexual appeal is based upon that aec,e`e'e^e"i`i'i^i"sthetic.
3:That the aec,e`e'e^e"i`i'i^i"sthetic is equall in terms of features in both ma
le and female.
Thus, mathematically, we call the two genders X & Y, and Call beauty B.
Stuart is asserting:
If XB then Deathy is attracted.
And.
If YB then Deathy is attracted.
Or rather:
If XB then All Men are attracted.
which equates to:
XB = YB
In terms of scalar attractiveness. Effectively Staurt is saying we are all
attracted to B, which is a constant.
Is this true- plainly not, not all Men are attracted to a single woman, I
personally am left utterly cold by Cindy Crawford or Claudia Schiffer, I
actually think Kathy Burke is quite attractive myself.
Stuarts problem is with constants, such as this definition:
If heterosexual, then disgusted by homosexuality.
Which he simply asserts and assumes with gusto and abandon.
Its complimented by:
If not Disgusted by Homosexuality, then Homosexual.
This then reinforces the plain fallacy:
If not attracted by YB then disgusted.
Which assumes disgust as the negation of attraction. Since beauty is a
constant here, to make heterosexuality (which for Stuart is a rigid binaryopposition to homosexuality, perhaps bisexuality doesn't occur, though don't
tell my friends that) possible, we must assert the gender difference to
explain why we are not attracted to the male beauty constant.
And which in and of istelf, if true, would compell me to regard all men as
disgusting, since I am not atracted to them. I can only assume then, the what
he really means is that we find a certain activity disgusting, at the fantasy
level (since he presumably, has no practical/empirical experience of those
acts himself).
And further, that effectively since Stuart assumes that *all* MOS's are viable
sexual beings, that being attracted is the normal state, to which
un-attraction is the deviant state- but we blame that upon them for being
'ugly'. This is the logical consequence of 'Natural to be attracted..' since
if we are going to regard sex as the determinate state, then it must hold
universally, and I must view all women as viable sexual partners. However, he
has to qualify it 'beautiful' (which undermines neat dichotmoies of gender
attraction, and ;leave everything up to 'Beauty').
Lets try a bit more formalised logic:
Lets assume a state of being- human.
That state is, in and of itself, meaningless, until we divide it into
subdivisions, differences- in this case- sexual beings and non-sexual beings.
Thus within every pysche we can posit this distinction being made towards the
others that are encountered, between sexual and non sexual beings.
Stuart is asserting that 'naturally' all MOS's are sexual beings, and all
MSS's are non-sexual beings (Essentiallty splitting humanity into masculine
and feminine being this means that to be Human is to be either XB or YB, and
all identity is predicated upon differentiations from that). This can only be
done by appeals to nature, or reather, to the abstract, since the vast
majority of people are not 'beautiful'.
However, the problem with this is the attempt to try and assert sex lines
within beauty/attractiuveness, as we have seen above, we cannot say 'all men
desire all women', so why should we retain the sex division at all, and not
just instead deploy a 'beauty' division of attractiveness.
Thus, there is an alternate system of differentiation which is to assert
that humanity is divided into sexual and non-sexual beings, irrespective of
sex, based upon subjective notions of desirability (D)- which can be tabulated
by a set of features towards which the pysche is attracted- thus I am no
longer compelled to find all women to be potential sexual partners, and just
regard any person in posession of those features as a viable sexual being.
From an identification of those features (based on history) I can identify
roughly what they are, and in whom I am like to find them. Further, since we
can assume that the set of characteristsics likely to form D are differrent in
the sexes, we can assume that those attracted to one set of features may not
be attracted to others (Sex thus becoming subordinate to beauty).
Thus we can formulate the phrase 'All humans are attracted to the people who
display the features they find desirable', since this is subjective and
variable (from person to person) we cannot equat a beautiful man with a
beautiful woman, for the puporses of this proposition, and further, we cannot
even assert that one beautiful woman equals another. Further, since it is
based upon a set of features, and not one sex, we can no-longer make such
statements as 'All men find the idea of sexual congress with other men
disgusting' since really all we are saying is that for a large number of men
(the majority, the norm) they do not see the features associated with
desireability in other men, just as they don't see the features of
desireability in 80 yr. old women.
I would posit, then, that the only avenue for disgust is the signifying or
fantasy level, whereby some people define their indetity by a certain model of
sexuality, and find other models a threat to their very symbollic
selfhood/order. the disgust being not one of 'nature' but of the idea of otherness, of such praxis beinmg fundamentally against their notions of self
(we note with interest instances of homosexual praxis between male groups
(such as sailors) deprived of females for long periods). Effectively, at a
symbollic level sexual and non-sexual beings are aligned with one or another
sex, schematically, rather than with a certain set of features. Some people
recgnise that its just a set of features, and are as indifferent towards a MOS
thats not attractive to them, as they are towards MSS.
Lets recall that 'Anything humans can do is natural', since Stuarts 'natural'
argument was all assertion, I can dismiss it by assertion, and mines slightly
more logical than his.
To cap it off:
All human beings are attracted to a certain set of features in people.
That set of features may predominate in one sex more than another.
That to fail to be attracted due to the absence of this set of features is not
to be disgusted.
To be disgusted is to be disgusted by a different set of features/actions,
that lie contrarilly to ones schematic self-hood. i.e. Disgust is positive
(exists for itself) rather than being the negative of attraction.
Within this logic, therefore, it is entirely possible to be not disgusted by
homosexuality, and still not find men attractive.
Mr. Gorts schema rests overly heavilly upon assertion (nature largely, and
gender) and upon a category error which asumes that disniterest is disgust,
and also another based on the nature assertion, by which there is an
ontological difference, which is not by and large manifest beyond the Nature
schema, between lack of sexual interest in a MOS and in a MSS.
My case is based on logic, and worldly obsevation, Mr. Gort's is based on
theological mysticism, and pure subjective prejudice. I'm sure everyone here
can tell the difference...
None.
