JDN 2456154 EDT 18:50

Obviously sexism hurts women, and I don't want to ignore that. Particularly in the most sexist cultures (like Iran and China), women are extremely harmed by sexism, and much more than men are. In less-sexist cultures like the United States, it's less apparent to me whether the harm to women is greater than the harm to men. A lot of feminists seem to assume this, but I think they are focusing too much on the small minority of men who benefit from sexism, and ignoring the vast majority of men who are harmed.

Obviously the harm sexism does to women is enormous. None of what I'm saying here should be taken to deny that. (Indeed, many of the things I'm saying about men also apply to women, like impossible standards of body image. But some don't—women aren't seen as rapists, for example.)
Today I'd like to focus particularly on the harm to men, for two reasons. First, it is a neglected subject; we need to talk about it more. Second, men who realize that sexism harms them will feel a much stronger incentive to combat sexism. While it is possible to seek social justice purely out of a sense of altruism, it's much easier to do so when your own self-interest is also advanced. Moreover, this allays any fear that the game is zero-sum and gains for women will just be compensated by losses for men. No, we can have gains for women and gains for men.

But like I said, this is a neglected topic. We hardly ever heard about it. Indeed, a lot of feminists think the whole idea that sexism harms men is just absurd. Witness this rant about how undermining patriarchy will cause men to have sex less often, and how men should just be totally fine with that because if they aren't they're despicable sub-human monsters.

In fact, a less sexist society would probably result in more sex for most men—as indeed it's easier for most men to find sexual satisfaction now than it was in 1950. It might result in less sex for the men at the very top of the hierarchy—but they seem to be doing pretty well for themselves as it is. More importantly, the quality of sexual relationships that men will have is vastly better in a more egalitarian society: Instead of a toy to play with, a woman becomes a genuine companion to help you on the journey through life. Instead of having to impress women with your sexual prowess, you can enjoy genuine intimacy with them. You will no longer feel pressure to “perform” sexually (think about that word for a minute—and ask yourself, “Who is the audience?” Your partners? Other men?); instead you will enjoy sexually, and women will enjoy with you. In a world without sexism, you won't have to feel self-conscious about the strength of your muscles and the size of your penis.

Reducing sexism will reduce the opportunities for rapists to get what they want, but they really are despicable (though it would be odd to call them sub-human, seeing as they comprise about 4% of human males). This will not be a loss for the vast majority of men; indeed it will be a gain, for reasons I'll get to in a moment. (In fact, if rapists had a fuller conception of human happiness, even they might realize that the ability to rape with impunity is not a real benefit.) The assumption that all men would prefer to rape women if that were allowed is, frankly, the most sexist thing I've ever heard in my life.

This may be hard for radical feminists to believe, seeing as they are trained on the idea that every man is Schrodinger's Rapist, but I am literally so averse to raping anyone that I am not sure I would be able to do it even if I knew it would save the human race from being annihilated. In such a circumstance the rape would obviously be justified (there aren't many other cases when it would be, but this is one—and if you have trouble seeing that I am deeply concerned about your notions of morality); but I'm honestly not sure that my body would let itself move that way. I'd be trying to maintain an erection out of terror alone even as her screams burrowed into my mind. I'd have horrible PTSD the rest of my life and probably end up committing suicide even as the world lauded me for saving humanity. That's how not a rapist I am. In my rare rape fantasies and dreams (which always deeply unsettle me), I am the victim, not the perpetrator. I actually tried to fantasize about being the perpetrator once, to see what that would feel like, and couldn't do it—I ended up just being, even in the fantasy, consensually dominate. I knew, as by an omniscient narrator, that deep down she wanted it. In real life of course, you don't have omniscience and you have to go with what she says—for a dominance fantasy that means having a safeword.

Oddly enough, most rapists don't think they're rapists, but they know they have forced people to have sex. (This is like saying, “Sure I kill people, but I'm no murderer.”) And one reason I don't read men's magazines (actually sometimes Playboy is pretty good, but that's because they're very selective about their writers; it really is possible to read Playboy for the articles) is that the attitudes of men's magazines literally mirror those of rapists. Also, the Schrodinger's Rapist attitude that any man is a potential rapist is shared by most rapists.

So that's one way that sexism harms men: It makes women think of us as potential rapists. It makes us have to present ourselves in such a way as to constantly allay fears that we are sexual predators. It creates a barrier between us and the women in our lives. Because a small number of men are violent and most violence is committed by them, all men are perceived as potentially violent. This makes us doubt ourselves, and wonder if perhaps the radical feminists are right and we really are, deep down, but a thin veneer of civilization over an insatiable violent monster. (If you ever feel this way about yourself, it is almost certainly not true. Psychopaths rarely doubt their own character—unfortunately.)

Another way sexism hurts men is by expecting us to measure up to an impossible standard—or, if not impossible, then possible only for a tiny minority of men who are born into privilege. We're supposed to be rich and strong and beautiful; we're suppose to give women multiple orgasms practically just by looking at them, or at most by penetrating them with our foot-long penises (even though the majority of women cannot reach orgasm through penetration and a larger penis makes no difference in this regard). We are supposed to never have feelings and always be in charge. Indeed, we are supposed to be in charge of other men, which leads to a never-ending orgy of competition in which every man is trying to beat every other man. It's simply mathematically impossible for all men to be in charge of all other men all the time, yet this is what society demands of a “real man”. Real men are supposed to have perfect bodies—but never preen ourselves or watch what we eat, that's effeminate. We are supposed to win at all sports and spend our time always caring about sports—but if we want to watch football instead of do what our spouses want, we're insensitive. (Again, it's mathematically impossible for every man to win every game.)

Sexism undermines men's body image. Most people think that body image is only an issue for women, and studies do show a correlation between, for example, eating disorders and gender. But why do you think you get all those spam emails about enlarging penises? Where do you suppose those come from? What do you suppose those ads for fitness products—the pill or machine or exercise routine that will make you a bodybuilder overnight—are about? Men don't have the same body image issues as women (indeed, how could women be concerned about their penis size? They could be, and often are, concerned with how their vulva are shaped), but we most certainly do have body image issues. (I was about to say men aren't concerned with breast size either, but actually we are; gynecomastia is a major source of body image problems for men. A large number of men have some breast development in puberty that can be very upsetting but eventually subsides; about 4% will suffer full gynecomastia. My heart goes out to these men; fortunately the prognosis for surgical treatment is quite good.)

If we didn't have a sexist society that places demands on us to be “real men”, we could have a much healthier body image. We would exercise and watch our diets for health reasons, not in order to bulk up or get a six-pack of abs. We would be happier with our penises, and probably better in bed as a result—because it really is about what you do, and not how big you are, no matter what the porn movies and penis-enlargement ads try to tell you. (Even men with micropenis can generally have satisfying sex lives. And if you're within the normal range at all, it's really not a big deal. Speaking as someone who sometimes sucks cock, I'd prefer 3 inches to 12 inches. 12 would be overwhelming and I couldn't fit it in my throat at all. About 5-7 would be ideal, and guess what? That's what most guys are.)

Sexism hurts men because it prevents us from exploring non-normative sexuality. This is one I actually think is harsher on men. A woman who is bi is sexy, exotic; maybe you could watch her have sex with another woman, or have a threesome! A woman who likes receiving anal sex offers you an extra experience to try. But a man who is bi? He's obviously just gay and only pretending to like women. And a man who wants to receive anal pleasure, even from women (this is called “pegging”)? He is also gay, and not a real man. Or what about a man who actually is gay? Well, forget it; he's a “pussy” and a “faggot” and he's no man at all. (I've actually had sex with men who went on to insist they were straight. That is how powerful the stigma against being gay is—in the face of direct proof that you are not straight, you still insist you are.) In fact, you should rape him, because he's really a woman. (I've actually had homophobes threaten to rape me, as bizarre as that is. Once this was actually in person and I was somewhat afraid he might actually try. The rest have been online.) I actually think most men would like to explore bisexuality to at least some degree (Kinsey scale and all that); but they're not allowed to. Anything but 100% straight is 100% gay, and gay is inferior.

Sexism harms men by forcing them into careers and lives they don't want. Men have to be providers, we have to work at something honorable and prestigious—and lucrative. We can't stay at home and take care of the kids because that isn't “manly”. We aren't to explore art or poetry—or worst of all, dance. Science and math are all right; geeks are inferior to jocks but are at least masculine. But really the ideal job for a man is somehow both physically demanding (like construction worker or soldier) and high-paying (like corporate executive or doctor). In fact, no such jobs exist. All physically demanding jobs are low-paying and all high-paying jobs are not physically demanding. (Maybe this shouldn't be true, but it is.) Men are supposed to marry a woman, have kids, raise those kids. Many men want to do this—but some don't, and yet society forces them to. At the same time, men are supposed to seduce large numbers of women for casual sex—again, even if they don't want to. And somehow it is never acknowledged that these two goals are fundamentally conflicting: The sort of man who likes casual sex is not the sort of man who wants to settle down and get married. Personally I think settling down in a long-term relationship is ultimately a much deeper and more satisfying experience. But if you really do like casual sex, you have a right to do that. The problem is that our society simultaneously expects us to live both ways at once.

Sexism harms men because it tells us we are expendable, especially if we are young and unpartnered. We have to sign up for the draft so we can be thrown onto the frontlines to die (while old men order us around). It's “women and children first” when the ship goes down (virtually no men survived the Titanic disaster, though a fair number of women and children did).

Sexism harms men because it makes circumcision a double standard: Unnecessary surgery on female genitals is rightly called “mutilation”, while the same on male genitals is considered a “personal choice”. Yes, a lot of female genital cutting is very extreme, much more than circumcision. But even when it isn't—even when the surgery is just to cut away the clitoral hood, which is exactly analogous to male circumcision—people are still outraged. But criticize male circumcision and you're called anti-Semitic. Point out the double standard and you're called a misogynist. A significant number of women in the US report insufficient lubrication during sex. Most American men are circumcised. The foreskin provides lubrication. Women whose partners are uncircumcised report better lubrication and more orgasms. To those who say the foreskin has no function: That doesn't sound like a function to you?

In all these ways (and probably others I didn't think of), sexism is harmful to a large number of men. This actually makes sexism rather exceptional: Most racism does not harm white people, for example (though it does sometimes, e.g. if you fall in love with a black person, you will be stigmatized for the interracial relationship). Most classism does not harm rich people (despite constant cries of “class warfare!”). Most homophobia does not harm straight people. Men are unique in that despite being a “privileged category”, we are often oppressed by the very same gender norms that oppress women. This is why men aren't just allies in the fight for gender equality. We are also victims—and when we realize this, it should spur us to fight that much harder.

JDN 2456151 EDT 13:39.

The men who hit on the most women, by far, are jerks. Narcissists and pickup artists hit on literally hundreds or even thousands of women a year, while the rest of us will ask out maybe ten at the most. Hence, most of the experiences women have of being hit on, are experiences of being hit on by jerks.

But the solution most women usually offer, “Don't hit on me!” actually makes this problem worse. Now the only men who will hit on you are jerks, because they're the ones who will ignore your stated desires.

If it's actually true that you never want to have sex (you're celibate) or you never want to have sex with men (you're a lesbian), fine, say that. Obviously then you don't want men hitting on you. But most women are straight or bi, and therefore presumably want sex with some men at some point in their lives. Maybe they plan to do all the comeons themselves? No, clearly our social norm is that men take the initiative, and even if that changes, the ideal scenario is 50-50, not women always making the first move.

Which means, therefore, that most women want to be hit on by at least some men at at least some point. Therefore they should say so, and they should make it clear just what kind of men they want to hit on them. This will to some extent vary: Some like geeks, others jocks. Some will be into tall men, others short men. Some will prefer domination, others submission. Some love to receive cunnilingus and others aren't interested in it. And so on.

If you state your desires clearly and a man ignores them, yes, then he is a jerk.

But stop and think about the desires you're expressing. Are they your true desires? If what you really want is for a nice man seeking a serious relationship to ask you out, you'd better not say “Don't hit on me.” You can say, “Only jerks ever hit on me,” but it better be followed by, “so I want non-jerks to hit on me more.” Make it clear that it's not the hitting on you that makes them jerks—that was a pre-existing condition.

What you should say is this: “Nice men, men who aren't jerks: Please hit on me. Here is how to do it, and how to show you're not a jerk. (And here's how to not be a jerk, in case there's any doubt about that.)” Do this, and soon men will hit on you who aren't narcissists or pickup artists, who don't want to deceive you just to get into bed. These other men want a real relationship with you, and yes, sex as part of that—but isn't that what you want too?

For, you see, until I made this breakthrough realization last night, I thought that women really meant they never want men to hit on them. The message I got from women concerned about being hit on by jerks was, “Hitting on women makes you a jerk.” So what did I do? Not being a jerk and not wanting to be, I never hit on women. (Well, hardly ever, not to derail with Gilbert and Sullivan.)

And a million other men who would have made good boyfriends, men who respect women and don't want to be jerks, did the same thing. Result? The minority of men who are jerks now comprise the majority of comeons.

Hence, it probably feels to you like all men are jerks, but that's not true. Most men are not jerks, actually. But you have systematically excluded that sample.

Now, you might be thinking, “I already get hit on a lot, too often even. You're suggesting I should ask for more?” Yes, because this more is also different. You'll still get hit on too often by jerks, I'm sorry. I'd stop them if I could but I don't know how to do that right now. But at least this way, you'll also get hit on by nice men who respect you. You get the same amount of bad, plus more good.

To see how this might work, let me run some numbers. If jerks are 10% of the population but each one hits on 100 times as many women as a non-jerk, then for every 100 men there will be 90 comeons from nice men and 1000 come-ons from jerks. This means that 1000/1090 = 92% of comeons will be from jerks.

But now suppose non-jerks become 10 times more likely to hit on women than they were before. Now 100 men will yield 900 non-jerk comeons and 1000 jerk comeons. Out of 1900 total comeons, now 900/1900 = 47% will be from non-jerks.

If non-jerks actually became as likely to hit one women as jerks are, there would be a 90% chance any given comeon is a non-jerk, but there would also be a lot of comeons (10,000 in all), which is probably bad for other reasons.

But going back to my second case, you can drastically improve the odds of comeons being from non-jerks (8% to 47%, odds ratio 5.9) with only a modest increase in the total number of comeons (1090 to 1900, odds ratio 1.9). This I think should be our goal.

And obviously, if we can make fewer jerks or make jerks come on to fewer women, we should do that. But that's really hard to do. Honestly the best method I can think of would be for women to agree to never have sex with jerks, not ever, no exceptions. That creates a powerful incentive to not be a jerk, wouldn't you say?

Right now, women are probably less likely to have sex with a jerk, say 1% at each comeon compared to 10% at a comeon from a non-jerk. But jerks get laid more overall, because they come onto so many women. Using my first estimates above (which I believe to be reasonably accurate), for every 100 men, there are 1000 jerk-comeons from 10 jerks, of which 10 get accepted—i.e. each jerk gets to have sex on average one time—and 90 non-jerk comeons from 90 non-jerks, of which 9 get accepted—i.e. each non-jerk gets to have sex on average 0.1 times. Many men already try to practice “I don't stick my dick in crazy”; more women should practice “I don't let jerk stick dick in me.”

My proposal will actually make this rule easier to practice, because there will be more non-jerks coming onto you and you can have as much sex as you did before, or more, but with much better men. That way when you need sex (as we all do), non-jerks will be available to fill that need and you won't need to fall back on jerks just to blunt the edge of loneliness and desire. (And believe me: I have done exactly that, and literally with jerk men, so don't try to tell me I don't know what it's like.)

Suppose the acceptance rate for jerk comeons dropped to 0.1%, and then my proposal for 10 times as many non-jerk comeons was implemented. Now there are still 1000 jerk comeons from 10 jerks, but only 1 gets accepted—i.e. each jerk gets to have sex on average 0.1 times. There are now 900 non-jerk comeons from 90 non-jerks, and each still gets accepted 10% of the time. (Note that I'm not asking you to have sex with a man just because he's nice. I understand there's more involved in terms of compatibility, attractiveness and such. You get to keep your same non-jerk acceptance rate.) Now 90 non-jerk comeons succeed, and each non-jerk gets to have sex on average 1 time, which is probably all he wants anyway, because he'd rather have one serious relationship with a good woman than ten random flings with women he barely likes. Women, in turn, get more sex (91 compared to 19), from much better men (before 90% jerks, now 99% non-jerks!), which I presume is what they want. Everyone wins, except the jerks, who deserve to lose.

And if you think that we shouldn't have to use incentives to make people behave better, well, unfortunately sometimes we do. Unless you want to talk about re-wiring the brains of jerks to make them decent human beings, incentives are probably the best we can do. (Actually I'm all in favor of rewiring rapists; in other words I think A Clockwork Orange is actually sound policy, even though the story portrays it negatively.) And since positive reinforcement works better than negative reinforcement, having sex only with non-jerks should have a powerful effect on making men try to at least act like non-jerks—and my hope is that when they act the part long enough, they'll realize why it's worth doing and actually become non-jerks. This can be predicted to work better than something like punishment for jerks (which would be hard to implement anyway). Don't punish bad behavior: Deny rewards for bad behavior, and offer rewards for good behavior.

In fact, even if you don't buy the incentive theory, you have reason not to have sex with jerks: They're jerks! They're more likely to abuse you, break your heart---there's a chance they'll even rape you. The more you stay away from them, the better. How do you tell a jerk from a non-jerk? Granted it's not always obvious. But I think as non-jerk men start hitting on you more, you'll have a much better sample to work with and you'll be able to more easily make the distinction. 

For my part? I'm going to hit on more women. And actually, I'm even going to come onto women who say they don't want it! Why? Because most of them do want it, they just don't realize it or can't express it. I'll be gentle, I won't put a lot of pressure on. If you reject me firmly and clearly I'll accept that and move on. But the next time a woman says to me, “I hate when men hit on me,” I'm going to respond: “No, you hate when jerks hit on you, but because you say it like it's true of all men, now you've made it so only jerks will do it, because it's against your stated desires.” Maybe I'll even add (if I really feel this way about her), “Like right now, I would totally go out with you. But if you don't like being asked out, well, what can I do?”

How's that for a new paradigm?

JDN 2456146 EDT 19:30.

There are certain things people often say to those of us with depression, which are so close to being helpful, but they tend to be worded in a way that makes them upsetting or counterproductive. I've tried to create a handy guide here to help you say these things so they might be better received.

Don't say: “No one will ever love you if you can't love yourself.”

Instead say: “People love you, and that's a reason you should love yourself.”

When I hear that first one, especially in the middle of a depressive episode, here's what it sounds like: “No one will ever love you.” Period, full stop, end of sentence. Why? Because I have a very hard time loving myself, and in the depths of that despair I can't understand how I would ever manage to love myself. So when you tell me that I need to first love myself before anyone else will love me, my brain interprets that in the following logic: Being loved implies loving yourself, you can't love yourself, therefore you will not be loved. A implies B, not B, therefore not A. (And yes, given those premises, that logic is perfectly valid.)

Also, it's simply not true. There are a lot of people who will love you even when you don't love yourself. Maybe not as many, or maybe it's harder for them to reach you, or maybe you even push them away; but the fact remains that people with depression are not, in fact, alone and incapable of being loved. Our parents love us. Our families love us. Our friends love us. For some people with depression, their partners, lovers, spouses love them (not me, alas). Even when you hate yourself, there are those who will still love you.

Don't say: “Happiness is a choice. You should choose to be happy.”

Instead say: “You are strong enough to make it through this. You can find a way to be happy.”

In the simplest sense, no, happiness is not a choice—it's not a voluntary action. It's not like moving your arm three inches to the left, not like saying the word “carburetor”, not like voting for President or working through a math problem. It's not something you can simply choose to do or not do with pure volition.

But people with depression do need to be reminded sometimes that there are choices you can make that will make your depression more bearable, or after enough time and effort, actually make it go away. There are mantras you can repeat to yourself, therapy programs you can go through, medications you can take. It is always a struggle. It is always difficult and painful. And there is no guarantee of success. But it does work, at least for a lot of people, and you have no reason to think you are some exceptional, irreparable case who can't be saved. As long as you are still alive you have a chance to be saved.

I particularly stress the “you are strong enough”; it may feel superfluous, but one of the hardest parts of being depressed is that you feel weak and powerless. When people say “choose to be happy” (or worse, so much worse “snap out of it”), this emphasizes that feeling of powerlessness, because we are being asked to do something we know we cannot do. To counteract this, it helps to emphasize that there are some things people with depression can do, that we are not as weak and powerless as we imagine.

Don't say: “I know what you're going through.”

Instead say: “I'm here to help in any way I can.”

Unless you've actually been through major depression yourself (in which case “I know what you're going through” may actually be the right thing to say—and you can follow up with “here is what I did to get out”), no, you don't know what we're going through. You've been sad before, you've hurt before, you've had your heart broken. But have you felt like you were worthless? Have you hated yourself deep inside? Has everything enjoyable, the taste of food, the pleasure of sex, ever become empty and blank to you? Have you ever thought that maybe it would be best if you simply died—or even thought about actively killing yourself? Have you ever felt so hopeless that even getting out of bed was an ordeal? Unless you can answer every one of these questions with a definite yes, you do not know what it is like to experience a major depressive episode.

And so you shouldn't say you do. Instead, you should offer to help, and you should understand that there are limits to how much you can help. Honestly one of the biggest things you can do is simply show that you care, show that the depressed person's life matters to you. That in itself will make them wonder how it can be that they feel so worthless, yet you care so much about their worth. At first they may simply react against it and say that you are wrong, they are worthless and you are a fool to be unable to see that. This will hurt, but if you truly care for them you must bear it. In time, you can make them see that no, it is they who were wrong, they are not worthless, and you knew their value all along.

Don't say: “Stop being so negative.”

Instead say: “There are a lot of good things in your life worth fighting for, for example: ...”

A fierce, irrational negativity is definitely a symptom of depression. I know that when I'm in an episode, I can find the dark side of almost anything. It's easy enough to do for some things of course, because they actually are bad: I couldn't get out of bed today. I'm living with my parents like a loser. I'm broke. I'm lonely. But I can do it even for obviously good things, which takes skill really: I got accepted to be published? Well, once people read it they'll hate it, and from then on I'll be seen as a hack. She wants to go out with me? She just doesn't know how screwed up I am, and once she sees that she'll break up with me immediately. They want to interview me for the job? I'll just screw up the interview and make a fool of myself. I made some money? I'm sure to blow it on something irresponsible. And so on.

So you're absolutely right, the negativity is real, it's irrational, and it's harmful. The problem is, you can't just tell them to stop and expect that to make them stop. Instead, you need to give them a reason, give them something good to hold onto. Point out things in their life that are obviously positive—and they may well find ways to see them negatively, but at least make them work for it. Point out things they can't dispute, like verifiable achievements. If those are hard to find, go for compliments—“you're smart,” “you're pretty,” things of this nature. This will be more of an uphill battle, because the depressed person will most likely dispute it. They will deny that they are truly smart, pretty, etc. and say you are just saying that to make them feel better. Ensure that you are not. Ensure that whatever compliments you use are genuine and accurate. Otherwise, they will catch you in a false compliment and from then on distrust all other praise you give them. Even when you do give them honest compliments they will probably dispute them, so the more verifiable you can be the better—“you have a 750 on your SAT” is better than “you are very smart”. But as long as you are truly sincere your sincerity will in some small way come across, and even if it doesn't feel like it's making a difference it probably is.

JDN 2456145 EDT 13:54.

Found an article about the evolutionary psychology of female sexual desire.
Like much popular evolutionary psychology, it spins a convincing narrative. But where is the evidence?

First of all, is male sexual arousal so closely tied to erection? That's always assumed and really never proven. Consider nocturnal tumescence for example; often there's no psychology there at all, and men wake up with an erection they don't want and don't know what to do with. Or consider men who have been raped by women; they will often report that their erections remained even after their arousal was replaced by fear and dread. Conversely, consider men with psychosomatic erectile dysfunction, the most common sexual dysfunction. They have the desire, they feel aroused, they want to have sex, and they can't get erections, even though the physiology appears to be functioning properly. (The standard theory is that it's a matter of anxiety.)

This article makes passing reference to the beta male/alpha male distinction, which is really well defined in some species, and almost completely worthless in humans. Our most successful males ("alpha" behaviorally) are intelligent, charismatic, very gracile in their appearance ("beta" biologically). JFK and Richard Feynman would not last very long on the African savannah. (Nor would Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom, but this is complicated by the fact that Jack Sparrow and Legolas seem pretty good at surviving in violent environments.)

Ultimately, I think what happened is this: Humans are a beta-dominated species. Alpha is beta and beta is alpha. Otherwise, there's simply no logical explanation for why we have such tiny canine teeth and such pathetic muscles. The only biologically alpha trait we still have is height. 

Also, almost all these observations are based on using the mean, without considering the variance. This is how stereotypes are born: You ignore the variation within the population and treat entire groups as if they were defined by a single typical individual. "Men do X, women do Y": no, actually the data says that in our sample men were 14% more likely to do X and women were 16% more likely to do Y. 

And you get sentences like this: "Perhaps the paradoxical nature of women’s non-hormonal sexual desire is most pointedly exemplified by the authors’ observation that “many women are willing to pay money for celebrity biographies in order to read about the private life of Leonardo DiCaprio or Johnny Depp, but they won’t pay money to see photos of them nude." Really? Seriously? Women never pay money ever to see nude photos of sexy celebrities? They have no interest whatsoever in how their bodies look, as long as their wallets are fat enough? Do you actually know any women?

And here's why it's a problem: This kind of narrow-minded stereotyped thinking hurts people. It hurts men who see that their bodies are gracile and are told that this makes them inferior, undesirable, never able to be successful with women or in life. It hurts women who are told that they will always only be attracted to jerks and abusers and there is nothing they can do about it. They will never actually feel sexual desire for men who are caring and trustworthy, so they may as well just follow their impulses and go with someone aggressive and rich. (And then when they get abused, who do they turn to?)

Serious evolutionary psychologists, like Cosmides, are actually looking carefully at the data and trying to understand where human traits come from. And when they find something unsettling---like the evolutionary advantages of rape---they don't throw up their hands and say "boys will be boys", they start looking for the proximal brain chemistry and trying to understand how we might use culture or medication or therapy (or surgery, or cybernetics!) to remake ourselves to be wiser and happier and better than we are. They don't perpetuate stereotypes and they understand variation.

And why don't we hear about them? Because they don't make for sexy narratives that reaffirm our preconceived notions.

JDN 2456144 EDT 21:05.

If you read my blog at all (and if you don't, wait, how are you here?), you know that I occasionally talk about sex. Though I would not consider this a “sex blog” like Greta Christina or Dan Savage, I talk about sex because sex is a part of the human experience and a part of my own life (well, lately I've spent a lot more time thinking and writing about sex than actually doing it—actually maybe that's always been true).
I'm in general pretty sex-positive, but there are certain aspects of the sex-positive movement that I don't much like. My view is that sex is good, per se, prima facie. It's not necessarily good all things considered. Because sex is so powerful, so important biologically and psychologically, it can be very dangerous. (You can literally die from it: AIDS. Or you can create life by it, but often before you're really read to do so.)
Indeed, I'm particularly concerned about a few things that sex-positive people tend to do.

First, they tend to be casual sex-positive, or promiscuity positive (Dan Savage certainly is), and I think that for most people, promiscuity and casual sex are overall a bad thing. They're not horribly immoral—I don't buy the puritan line that sluts are evil—but they aren't usually a psychologically healthy and responsible way to live your life. I've played that game—mostly men, mostly Craiglist closet cases—and it left me feeling empty and degraded. I got my fix sure enough, and I don't necessarily regret it (I learned a lot about myself that way, and it sounds silly but just being able to say I'm not a virgin anymore feels good), but nor would I recommend it to others. I wish I knew how to get straight to serious relationships, but that's something I'm still working on. My most recent depressive episode was triggered by a sex columnist literally telling me I might have to wait over a decade before I could do that. She recommended I join some sort of kink or alternative community where I could explore my sexuality. In other words, promiscuity-positive.

Which brings me to my second point: Sex-positive people generally agree that sex should be “dirty” and “naughty” and “kinky”, that a sexy girl is a “bad girl” and rough, dominating, BDSM-style sex is the right way to approach it. And this, again, is not immoral—I wouldn't go that far—but it does seem to me to be psychologically unhealthy. Sex at its best, at least those brief moments when I've gotten close to that ideal, is a unity between two bodies and minds. It is the highest joy of our experience and the most fully honest and intimate moment in our lives. It should be, it seems to me, equal, and moreover, beautiful—and using words like “dirty” and “naughty” takes away from that sense of beauty. You would not describe the Sistene Chapel as “dirty” or the Horsehead Nebula as “naughty”. Dominance and submission, unless done very carefully—honestly it seems to me you've really got to both play both roles, alternating or something—damages that sense of equality. It creates a sense of power, hierarchy, inequality.

I have this vision of what sex could be, and so few people understand it. I finally gave it a name, but it was a name ill-suited to our own language, and I ended up having to imagine a whole new language, a whole new species of beings different from us to reflect back on us. (This ultimately is how the Terlaroni were born, though they have grown from that.) The word is tarinei, the aesthetic beauty of sexuality. It describes the place where art and porn and erotica merge, a vision of the sexual self that elevates sexuality instead of degrading it.

For here is what I think most sex-positive people do: They take puritanical categories at face value. Puritans told them that sex was dirty and naughty and kinky and bad; and instead of rejecting that categorization, redefining the terms of the debate so that sex would be beautiful and loving and unifying, they took those terms at face value and instead simply reversed the polarity. Instead of challenging the whole idea that our sexuality is dirty and naughty, they tried to say that dirty and naughty were somehow good things. But they obviously aren't! We know that dirty, naughty things are by definition bad. They are things that harm us and endanger us. They are not beautiful, they are ugly.

If you reject all authority, then any authority can control you like a puppet. All they have to do is reverse the polarity of their commands. The true radical acts orthogonal to authority: They do what is right regardless of what authority says about it. And they reject the associations and categories that authority hands down to them—or rather, make their own categories and don't care whether they coincide with what authority says.

A true radical, therefore, would reject the association between sexy and dirty. They would reject the idea that someone who believes sex is good must believe that promiscuity is also good. They would reject the idea that sex is about power and domination—and hence they wouldn't be inclined to carry over that sense of power and domination over into BDSM. (Maybe they'd play around with it, as we play around with violence in video games; but video games offer a stark separation between the game and reality, and I'm discomfited by the fact that BDSM often doesn't. Safewords help—and are essential—but I wonder if they are quite enough.) An enlightened culture would not fantasize about rape (as a large fraction of people do, especially women). Rape fantasy is not the same as actually wanting to be raped; but it's a sign of a repressed culture and it can be psychologically damaging for men and women alike.

Do you fantasize about being mugged? Do you enjoy the thought of being murdered? Presumably not. Nor do you fantasize about being force-fed ice cream, or having people throw gold bricks at you, even though presumably you enjoy eating ice cream and would like to have more money. But you're not ashamed of liking ice cream or wanting more money, so you don't need to imagine it being forced on you; you can take it willingly and fantasize about that instead. (You might be ashamed of eating too much ice cream, especially if you are obese or have an eating disorder; in which case, yes, you might actually fantasize about being force-fed. But my point is precisely that this is not healthy.) Rape fantasies, it seems to me, are the result of being ashamed about your sexuality, and if you feel this way I don't blame you, because in our puritanical American culture I feel that way sometimes too. What kind of horrible, dirty, naughty slut wants to be fucked, right? WRONG. If you learn nothing else from me, understand that you should want to be fucked (or to fuck, or both). That is healthy. It is good. It is a deep and beautiful part of the human experience. It is quite literally what we were made for.

Third, sex-positive people are usually in favor of prostitution. They like to be supportive of sex workers, and often are sex workers themselves. They often say that sex workers should be proud of what they do.

No, they shouldn't. Sex workers aren't bad people, and they don't deserve the awful treatment they typically get. There have been times in my own life when my body image and my bank account were both so empty that I thought about trying such a profession myself.

But no, there is nothing to be proud of there. They've made sex a commodity to be bought and sold like potato chips. They've taken out the love, and the intimacy, and the real human connection, and made it some crass knicknack to be stamped with a barcode and stuffed onto a shelf at Wal-Mart.

Prostitution is not the disease, but it is a symptom, a result of a society corrupted by wealth and inequality and the gilded pipe dreams of unfettered capitalism. It is the final encroachment of the market economy into our humanity, the final surrender of value to be replaced by price.

Frankly, I'm uncomfortable with how waiters pretend to like you for bigger tips—to speak in commodity terms, I think it inflates and debases the currency of human connection. But prostitutes? Porn stars? Strippers? They take that debasement to a whole new level, where our one last refuge for real privacy and intimacy becomes just another product for sale.

JDN 2456140 EDT 14:53. (1453, rather important year: Fall of the Eastern Roman Empire.)

One of the most, well, depressing findings from psychology today is depressive realism, the result that in certain cases, people with depression can actually be more accurate in their judgments about the world. Ask them to estimate the prevalence of bad things (homicide, rape, poverty) and they'll be more accurate. Ask them to judge the probability of a new business venture succeeding and they'll be much closer to the mark. Related is the phenomenon of optimistic bias, in which non-depressed people will tend to exhibit an overly optimistic view of the world, overestimating their chances of having good things happen to them.
Both of these effects are controversial, because they only seem to work in certain cases. But the weird thing is, they actually may help people be more successful. Not as successful as they predict, but more successful than people who predict more accurately. By overestimating their chances, people persevere more, and their chances actually improve. The famous rule of thumb is that pessimists expect to die at 70 and do; optimists expect to live to be 100 and make 80 instead.

These findings are very upsetting to me, because they make me feel that rationalism is part of the cause of my depression. Yet rationalism is one of the deepest parts of my identity—if there were one value for which I would die, it would be this: Reason. Truth. Knowledge. But could that be the very thing that's killing me?

One thing that has helped is to realize that even if this is true statistically, it need not be true necessarily. It need not be that the world is simply so bad that being more rational makes you depressed. It could instead be that most people suffer from optimistic delusions, and depression can take away these delusions (while perhaps adding some others in their place).

So what would it look like, optimism without bias, realism without depression? How do we stare into the face of the abyss and find the strength to keep on standing?

Compare these three hypothetical entrepreneurs:

A. “I'm guaranteed to succeed. My idea is so brilliant, everyone will love it, funding will be easy, and I'll make millions overnight!”
B. “I won't succeed. Why bother? This is a waste of time. I have no chance.”

C. “I probably won't succeed, since most startups fail. Even if I do succeed eventually, it will be a long and difficult road. But I believe in my project, and I believe in myself. I think it's worth a shot.”

Entrepreneur A is the classic optimistic bias (also your typical entrepreneur). Entrepreneur B is a typical depressive person, who is exhibiting depressive realism; indeed to call them an “entrepreneur” is really not accurate since they're going to give up without even trying. Entrepreneur C, however, is being quite realistic—they acknowledge that failure is a likely option—yet they aren't giving up, and in fact they might persevere just as well as Entrepreneur A (or maybe even better!).

We can apply the same reasoning to other scenarios, like dating. Compare these three singles, who for clarity I have imagined as heterosexual men (you can do other combinations mutatis mutandis):

A. “I'm God's gift to women. No woman could dare refuse me, or if she did she'd be a fool. I can have any woman I want.”

B. “It's no use. No matter what I do, I'm going to get rejected. I'm ugly, or stupid, or my personality is all wrong. No woman would ever want me. So why bother? I'll just stay home and masturbate.”

C. “Most of the women I ask out will reject me. That will hurt, but I'll survive. Others will start a relationship with me and it won't work out for whatever reason. But that won't kill me either. I just need to keep trying until I find the right woman. I'm a pretty smart guy, I'm fairly good looking, I have a lot to offer in a relationship. I can do this.”

Once again, single A is probably going to do better than single B, but the price he pays for that success is being completely delusional, and in this case, narcissistic. He's actually an archetypical date rapist. Single B isn't going to do well because his depression is getting in the way, even though his assessments of probability are closer than single A's. The real success rate might be 1%; that means single A who imagines 90% success is off by 89%, while single B who imagines 0% is off by only 1%. But what about single C? He can take that 1%, be even more accurate, and find the inner strength to persevere. Try 200 times, and a 1% chance per trial becomes an 86% chance overall. He can have as much success with women as single A does, without being a narcissist; and his dates won't have to worry about being raped.

We can do the same thing in the job market, three potential candidates:

A. “I'm the best candidate, no doubt about it. They'll hire me for sure. I'm smarter and better than everyone else on their list, I guarantee it; they'd be idiots not to hire me.”

B. “I probably won't get this job if I apply. I meet some of the qualifications, but there are a few I don't, so obviously they won't hire me. Hence, why apply? Why bother? I'll apply somewhere that's easier to get into, like Target or McDonald's.”

C. “I probably won't get this job if I apply. But I definitely won't get it if I don't apply. I meet most of the qualifications, maybe not all but I can learn on the job. I'm punctual, I'm responsible, I'm hard-working. I can do just fine in the interview. If I don't get this job, there are others I can apply for instead. I don't need to settle for McDonald's; I'll find a job that really is advancing my career.”

And I think where you see this is going. Candidate A might beat Candidate B, but Candidate C can achieve the same success without being delusional. He might even have a better chance, because he won't come off as cocky and arrogant in the interview. He'll be much more of a pleasure to work with.

So that, I think, is the solution. I'm not quite there yet myself; I slip too easily back into B, and sometimes rationalize it by fear of becoming A. But there is a third option. We can be C: Realistic and optimistic at the same time. Hoping for the future without overestimating our chances. Take smart risks—not dumb risks like an A or no risks like a B. Play the good bets.

And if everyone starts doing this, then we won't even see depressive realism and optimistic bias in the statistics anymore. 

JDN 2456130 EDT 23:36

Today's advice is horrible because it is unbearably vapid. It's the sort of thing someone who has never actually suffered from depression would write. "Smell flowers! Go for a walk! Get a pedicure!" Yeah, that will surely resolve my life-threatening systemic brain dysfunction. (If you doubt that it's life-threatening, remember that suicide is the third-leading cause of death among people my age, after car accidents and homicide. In this sense, depression is more deadly than cancer.)

 My favorite is definitely “Make love!”; that just sounds like a wonderful idea, doesn't it? I'm sure that if I were in fact making love on a regular basis I'd be a lot less depressed. There's just one problem: Depression and social anxiety cause all sorts of relationship problems, often (as in my case) making it all but impossible to form and maintain sexual relationships, and then many of the medications used to treat them cause sexual dysfunction.

 Honestly, I think the person who wrote this list saw “depression” and read “sadness”, thinking that depression is the same thing as the occasional sad feelings people normally get, perhaps a bit more intensely. It's not that at all, and for me this realization was one of the first steps in finally getting treatment. No, this is not normal sadness; it's not even amplified sadness. It's a persistent condition of despair that is immune to ordinary sources of happiness. It's a brain disorder.

 If you want to know what depression feels like, listen to the Rolling Stones song “Paint It Black”. It probably sounds really weird to you, if you've never been depressed; but to someone like me who has, it makes perfect sense. Why would he want to paint everything black and make it all dark and ugly? Because he can't enjoy colors anymore. He can't enjoy anything anymore. This is a classic depression symptom, technically called anhedonia. You know you've got it when you eat chocolate ice cream and it literally tastes slimy and hard to swallow. If that's never happened to you, congratulations, you probably don't have depression—and hence, probably shouldn't be giving those of us who do advice, unless perhaps you're a certified psychologist or psychiatrist.

 So no, these feel-good techniques are spectacularly unlikely to work, especially for severe depression. For very mild depression, there's not as much anhedonia, and it's more likely that some of these techniques could produce a short-lived effect. Even then, it's not really a treatment so much as a temporary relief.

JDN 2456129 EDT 18:40

Today rather than focus on a single piece of really horrible advice, I thought I'd instead talk about the vast quantities of mediocre advice. While there certainly is a lot of truly awful advice, even more prevalent is advice that's just slightly wrong—not terrible, but ultimately not really helpful either. This kind of stuff is all over the place, and it's honestly a lot more common than good advice.

Sometimes you get advice that's actually reasonably good (positive self-talk, regular exercise), but it's surrounded by utter pseudoscientific nonsense (“energy” and “meridians”). Even worse is when some of the advice mixed in is actually bad, with the result that you can't separate the wheat from the chaff without independent sources.

Sometimes most of the advice is good, but then there are weird things added that don't make sense, like the idea that thinking about the heat death of the universe is a good way out of depression. It's frankly a pretty good way in, especially if you're right on the edge.

Other advice doesn't seem to make a distinction between feeling blue and actually being depressed, as when it tells you to “avoid big decisions” or “take a bath”. Plainly one cannot do that all the time for the several months a typical depressive episode lasts. You could do this on the very worst days perhaps, but ultimately coping with depression means being able to maintain normal functioning even in the face of feelings of despair that persist the vast majority of the time.

Sometimes it's just annoying that reasonably good advice is then interspersed with shameless plugs for products that are then advertised in the AdWords ads.

One thing that happens even in fairly science-based sources is they accuse people with mental illnesses of being far more irrational than we really are. For instance, they will say we are trying to be “mind readers” and “fortune tellers” when we're simply doing what everyone else does: Trying to infer other people's thoughts and make plans for the future. It may well be that our inference methods are faulty, and that's something worth talking about; but the very idea of making inferences about other people's thoughts from their behavior is not some sort of mysterious “mind reading” that's inherently irrational (the notion smacks of behaviorism frankly).

JDN 2456128 EDT 15:24

 The exodus into the hellish maw of the Internet continues, as we seek out the most awful, counterproductive advice for people with depression and social anxiety. There's plenty to choose from.

Day 2: Give up and resign yourself to a destiny of failure.

This one is particularly galling because it's even marked “the best advice you'll ever hear” on a social anxiety support forum. Yet it is quite simply the opposite—it's perhaps literally the worst advice you'll ever hear, and if you read all the way through the thread (at your own risk), you'll come to realize that the person posting it is nothing short of paranoid delusional. They apparently believe that there is a powerful and mysterious force watching over them, controlling their fate to ensure that it always turns out badly. Social anxiety may not even be their problem; I'm thinking full-blown schizophrenia.

 It's interesting to me how precisely this mirrors the most common delusion in the world, namely religion, in which people believe that there is a powerful and mysterious force watching over them, controlling their fate to ensure that it always turns out well. This is the coping mechanism not available to the atheist, who always knows deep down that there are only the Blind Idiot Gods named Nature, Evolution, Probability—and they aren't going to watch over us to make sure everything will be okay. Indeed, the Panda of Despair is surely correct: Everything will probably not be okay. Some things will be okay, and some things will not.

 Yet, this is not because there are mysterious forces guiding the world toward pain and destruction; on the contrary, it is because there are no mysterious forces guiding the world at all. This can be frightening in its own way—one imagines that there are certain possible worlds so dead, so empty, so barren of life that even an evil god like Satan or Cthulhu would not allow them to exist, and Probability has no such qualms—but it can also be liberating, as you can clearly see if you read just how defeated this poor person feels when they contemplate the thought that their destiny of pain and suffering has been planned out by forces beyond their control.

 No! Your destiny has not been planned, not by forces beyond you, not by anyone. Indeed, you are the one who has the most control over it, though you surely do not have as much control as you would like. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune can strike you at any time for good or ill, for Probability is nothing if not a fickle beast. Indeed, it is a well-known fallacy to think that it has even the slightest bit of memory or loyalty.

 We cannot resign ourselves to fate. There is no fate to which to resign. Yes, we could kill ourselves, or take stupid risks and let the world kill us (and there are gradations in between for which it is not obvious whether it should be called accident or suicide). Yes, we could ruin our lives in various ways, by self-injury, by committing some sort of crime and ending up in prison. Yes, we could give up on all hope of forward progress, and intentionally drive our life plans toward say living in a mental hospital indefinitely. But none of these are resigning ourselves to fate. They are giving up, perhaps; in a sort of way they involve surrender. But even surrender isn't quite the right concept, because an army can surrender strategically—there can be reason to surrender, for example because you know that you will lose the war and you see no reason for more of your men to die needlessly. No, what you're talking about when you talk about suicide or giving up hope for a better life is something much more than that—because there is no possible objective you could be achieving that way. There is no strategy that can advance in that direction.

 What do we do instead? We hold on. Somehow, we hold on. We push forward against our obstacles and we continue to hold hope for a better life. Even when all the odds seemed stacked against us, we can never fold, for we are already all in. We fight to our last breath to make a better life for ourselves and those around us.

 For the only other option would be to stop breathing at all.

JDN 2456127 EDT 20:02

I haven't been blogging much lately, in large part due to my depression and social anxiety. But I've been getting a lot of advice on how to resolve these problems, some of it good, and some of it really, really bad. Perhaps at some point I'll talk about the good advice, but that's actually a lot harder to recognize and requires a lot more work. It's much easier and more fun to point out really horribly bad advice. Each new post will be a new piece of really horrible advice on depression and/or social anxiety that can be found on the Internet. There's plenty of stuff out there, so no doubt this could be done indefinitely.

Day 1: Hide your depression from women because it isn't manly.

No, seriously. That's what it says. Our whole society spends all its time telling men to hide their emotions because it's not manly, and here we have someone who purports to be a dating “expert” (he has a “system” you see; in other word's he's a pickup artist) offering it as advice for people with depression. Honestly, the only thing worse you could do for men with depression would be to say something like “go get drunk” or “go ahead and kill yourself”. (Sadly, this is typically what most men with depression do—retreat to drugs or commit suicide—precisely because they're told to hide their emotions and not reach out to anyone for help. The higher rate of diagnosed depression among women is corresponds to a higher rate of substance abuse among men; seems to me this just means that depressed men drink their pain away.)

The only saving grace (if you can call it that) is that this “expert” tells you only to hide your emotions from women, you're allowed to share them with other men. But stop and think about how most male relationships are structured and you can immediately see the problem: When your standard bonding involves drinking, sports, or trying to get laid, there's not a lot of opportunity for heart-to-heart conversation. A lot of men depend upon the women in their lives for emotional support, and if you take that away you might just take away the only thing keeping them from killing themselves.

The fact is, hiding your depression might actually get you laid, I don't know. I'm not sure I could do it if I wanted to. Psychopaths are really good at faking emotions; maybe the guy writing this is a psychopath and he thinks everyone can do it easily (maybe a lot of pickup artists are psychopaths, come to think of it). But the really important thing to keep in mind here is that hiding your depression means the very opposite of intimacy. It means that you will always hold women at arms' length, and while you might get the chance to have sex with them, you will never really be able to love them, or have them love you.

For counter-advice that seems a lot better (and comes from, you know, actual experts, at least on depression if not dating), see Health.com.