Men's Discussion
RetroGamer87
Veteran
Joined: 30 Jul 2013
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Posts: 10,970
Location: Adelaide, Australia
auntblabby
Veteran
Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 113,739
Location: the island of defective toy santas
Dear_one
Veteran
Joined: 2 Feb 2008
Age: 75
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,717
Location: Where the Great Plains meet the Northern Pines
True enough, but we still need to qualify that if we want to understand gender. People have a strong tendency to be good parents, and most are reasonably good at it. The abilities of men and women overlap a great deal. Either sex can fill in as a single parent at need. However, on average, women are more nurturing, and more men are hopeless at it. If you want to observe instinct in action, watch what happens when someone rescues a child from a sinking car or burning house, and wants to go back for more. If they see a group of strangers watching, they will hand the child to a woman, if possible.
The mother has a higher biological investment in a child at birth, and bonds with it further during nursing. She is also certain of its parentage, while the father supporting them has been fooled 10% of the time.
auntblabby
Veteran
Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 113,739
Location: the island of defective toy santas
True enough, but we still need to qualify that if we want to understand gender. People have a strong tendency to be good parents, and most are reasonably good at it. The abilities of men and women overlap a great deal. Either sex can fill in as a single parent at need. However, on average, women are more nurturing, and more men are hopeless at it. If you want to observe instinct in action, watch what happens when someone rescues a child from a sinking car or burning house, and wants to go back for more. If they see a group of strangers watching, they will hand the child to a woman, if possible. The mother has a higher biological investment in a child at birth, and bonds with it further during nursing. She is also certain of its parentage, while the father supporting them has been fooled 10% of the time.
thankfully, just as one has read about animals such as dogs and cats "adopting" orphan pups and kittens, so too are some rare men who will lovingly care for a stranger's child.
RetroGamer87
Veteran
Joined: 30 Jul 2013
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Posts: 10,970
Location: Adelaide, Australia
Dear_one
Veteran
Joined: 2 Feb 2008
Age: 75
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,717
Location: Where the Great Plains meet the Northern Pines
I think that on average, men are willing to adopt, and we accept the odds of being cuckolded.
Let's imagine a young married couple who are keen to start a family, but have had no success for a couple of years. As far as I know, the odds of either one being infertile are about equal. So, what's the wife to do? She wants to know if she's a "real woman" or not, and she wants a child. If she can conceive with another man, and keep quiet about it, that's the best outcome for all concerned. The "father" never doubts himself, and gets to enjoy raising a child while supporting it.
Humans are amazingly consistent about having 10% of children misinformed about the identity of their fathers across myriads of cultural variations. This is the sweet spot on the fidelity charts - The odds of paternity are good enough to keep men involved in support, but there's still enough turnover to keep the gene pool fresh and bubbling. In a successful human society, there are some excellent male citizens who don't make good fathers. These include the wandering traders and troubadours, and also the heroes, who tend to die young while defending their whole family. Any of these can be the "bad boy" in an irresistable romance.
auntblabby
Veteran
Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 113,739
Location: the island of defective toy santas
I am reminded of this old hank penny song, "white shotguns"-
WHITE SHOTGUNS [hank penny]
well the day that we got married
was in the month of may
we had a big reception,
it was such a happy day
her father was the best man, as i could plainly see
he had a 12 gauge shotgun a'layin' across his knee
we had a formal wedding- white shotguns
her pappy was awful happy to have me as a son
an' all the local bachelors was glad that i got stung-
we had a formal wedding- white shotguns
the wedding march was playing,
they served ol' mountain dew
her father sat there waitin'
just to see that things went through-
about that time the lights went out,
i said here's my chance-
i had the doorknob in my hand when the buckshot hit my pants
we had a formal wedding- white shotguns
her pa was awful happy to have me as a son
an' all the local bachelors, was glad that i got stung-
we had a formal wedding- white shotguns
now we have a family just as nice as could be had
and all the neighbors say their kiddies look just like their dad
i look our 8 kids over, as proud as can be,
'cept when i look closer, i find ONE that looks like me
we had a formal wedding, white shot guns-
her pa was awful proud to have me for a son
and all the local bachelors was glad that i got stung
we had a formal wedding, white shotguns.
RetroGamer87
Veteran
Joined: 30 Jul 2013
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Posts: 10,970
Location: Adelaide, Australia
Let's imagine a young married couple who are keen to start a family, but have had no success for a couple of years. As far as I know, the odds of either one being infertile are about equal. So, what's the wife to do? She wants to know if she's a "real woman" or not, and she wants a child. If she can conceive with another man, and keep quiet about it, that's the best outcome for all concerned. The "father" never doubts himself, and gets to enjoy raising a child while supporting it.
Humans are amazingly consistent about having 10% of children misinformed about the identity of their fathers across myriads of cultural variations. This is the sweet spot on the fidelity charts - The odds of paternity are good enough to keep men involved in support, but there's still enough turnover to keep the gene pool fresh and bubbling. In a successful human society, there are some excellent male citizens who don't make good fathers. These include the wandering traders and troubadours, and also the heroes, who tend to die young while defending their whole family. Any of these can be the "bad boy" in an irresistable romance.
_________________
The days are long, but the years are short
auntblabby
Veteran
Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 113,739
Location: the island of defective toy santas
Let's imagine a young married couple who are keen to start a family, but have had no success for a couple of years. As far as I know, the odds of either one being infertile are about equal. So, what's the wife to do? She wants to know if she's a "real woman" or not, and she wants a child. If she can conceive with another man, and keep quiet about it, that's the best outcome for all concerned. The "father" never doubts himself, and gets to enjoy raising a child while supporting it.
Humans are amazingly consistent about having 10% of children misinformed about the identity of their fathers across myriads of cultural variations. This is the sweet spot on the fidelity charts - The odds of paternity are good enough to keep men involved in support, but there's still enough turnover to keep the gene pool fresh and bubbling. In a successful human society, there are some excellent male citizens who don't make good fathers. These include the wandering traders and troubadours, and also the heroes, who tend to die young while defending their whole family. Any of these can be the "bad boy" in an irresistable romance.
gee that sounds like nationally instituted cuckoldry to me
Dear_one
Veteran
Joined: 2 Feb 2008
Age: 75
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,717
Location: Where the Great Plains meet the Northern Pines
Deep down, women feel that they have a right to lie about paternity, in order to get both the best genes and the best care for their children. Otherwise, we wouldn't see so many getting busted by the results of DNA tests on live TV, and so many courts that won't let a man cease support payments for any children he once accepted as his own.
Decent human beings.
You should get to feel just as manly kissing a kitten brother.
Eh, I think this is changing though. It went through the kneejerk overkill as it had to, but people seem to be relaxing around this now - there are men's nights or groups for a lot of organizations, just like women's. There's also a lot of "men only" stuff going on in gay male culture no one wants to scream about being sexist. Plus, the women's discussion forum here isn't women only. Anyone can post there - it's just targeted at women's issues, just like the love and dating is targeted at love/dating. I get on my soapbox about this kind of standard though, even though single-sex exclusionary spaces squick me for queer reasons - women can be sexist and misandrist just as men can be sexist and misogynist, people of colour can be racist just like whites. Similarly men can be feminists, and in favour of gender equality. To insist someone can't be supportive of feminism or gender equality and women's rights because he has a penis is the complete antithesis of the whole idea in my view.
True, but that's more about how culture in general views men, than men themselves. It may also vary via profession - say someone in that crowd is a male firefighter or male paramedic, people may be more likely to hand a potentially injured child to him than a random woman. Unfortunately media also covers a lot more abusers who are male than female, as if female child abusers don't exist. I heard a recent news story about a man working in a childcare place who turned out to be a pedophile and abuser, and much of the concern of the speakers was what effect this would have on decent men who wanted to work with kids - that they didn't all get automatically tarred as abusers just for being men and interested in that field of work. Hopefully people are getting more sane about it as true equality, and not suppression of one gender over another.
_________________
Alexithymia - 147 points.
Low-Verbal.
LjSpike
Pileated woodpecker
Joined: 23 Dec 2016
Age: 23
Gender: Male
Posts: 188
Location: About 55° N, 3° W
I think they'd probably just hand it to the crowd in general, and I think it's just the case that more women will go to look after that child for the short period of time before a man because as you said before, they're more emotionally invested at birth and so brought into the reflex of nurturing in that sense a bit more (but then, that's not because of gender directly, but the fact the women gives birth to the child and so forth). I think regardless of whoever is being the hero in that scenario, if they go in for the first person and is the only person to go in, they'd probably go back in for more people (presuming the danger didn't dramatically increase all of a sudden) to get more people.
You have to ask yourself though, how much of these differences due to gender are down to gender itself, or down to society conditioning people based on their gender?
_________________
Why not visit my blog over here!
-------------------
RDOS Aspie Quiz
Neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 162 of 200
Neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 52 of 200
LINK: http://www.rdos.net/eng/poly10a.php?p1= ... =66&p10=74
-------------------
Score breakdown for RAADS-R
Total: 185.0 | Language: 17.0 | Social Relatedness: 90.0 | Sensory/Motor 45.0 | Circumscribed Interests: 33.0
LINK: http://www.aspietests.org/raads/questions.php
Dear_one
Veteran
Joined: 2 Feb 2008
Age: 75
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,717
Location: Where the Great Plains meet the Northern Pines
I think they'd probably just hand it to the crowd in general, and I think it's just the case that more women will go to look after that child for the short period of time before a man because as you said before, they're more emotionally invested at birth and so brought into the reflex of nurturing in that sense a bit more (but then, that's not because of gender directly, but the fact the women gives birth to the child and so forth). I think regardless of whoever is being the hero in that scenario, if they go in for the first person and is the only person to go in, they'd probably go back in for more people (presuming the danger didn't dramatically increase all of a sudden) to get more people.
You have to ask yourself though, how much of these differences due to gender are down to gender itself, or down to society conditioning people based on their gender?
I have, of course, been pondering Nature vs Nurture for over half a century. I know it is very fashionable to blame gender differences on culture, but they keep morphing, not merging, despite all the agitation. Ever since life discovered gender, every life form has been keen to identify members of their own species, and their gender. All behaviour depends upon both factors. A veneer of civilization can keep the barnyard dance subconscious, but it never stops. Currently, all gender issues are in a state of turmoil due to the Industrial Revolution changing the status and availability of work for women even more than for men. In the chaos, people with gender ambivalence have often been the avant garde, but they can never be the norm.
as for gender, the sex of woman and man are rather clearly defined, but gender itself is largely a social construct... any man can choose to cultivate the qualities they deem the best of the female gender, and any woman, the qualities they deem best of the male gender. the only thing that might dissuade them from doing so is the pressure of society to not shake the norm.
as for getting a rush of morale boosting heated blood flow , and feeling like it’d be possible to move a mountain, there’s not a whole lot more that’s been found in this life to be as exhilarating as practicing wing chun, taijiquan, japanese swordsmanship, or drawing freeform inspiration from bruce lee’s jeet kune do.
_________________
七転び八起き
Dear_one
Veteran
Joined: 2 Feb 2008
Age: 75
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,717
Location: Where the Great Plains meet the Northern Pines
as for gender, the sex of woman and man are rather clearly defined, but gender itself is largely a social construct... any man can choose to cultivate the qualities they deem the best of the female gender, and any woman, the qualities they deem best of the male gender. the only thing that might dissuade them from doing so is the pressure of society to not shake the norm.
as for getting a rush of morale boosting heated blood flow , and feeling like it’d be possible to move a mountain, there’s not a whole lot more that’s been found in this life to be as exhilarating as practicing wing chun, taijiquan, japanese swordsmanship, or drawing freeform inspiration from bruce lee’s jeet kune do.
Sure, men and women are able to cultivate characteristics usually associated with the opposite gender, and we are in a period of low social inhibition in some locations, but I'm also sure that it would take a lot of nasty coerciveness to get us to average the same. Our genes have given women a larger corpus callosum, along with many other differences. Even if we were successfully homogenized, we would lose not only the inhibited natural potential, but also the possibility of symbiosis. A team always needs variety more than duplication.
Labour has always evolved toward gender-specific membership, punctuated by extreme talents whose strong inclinations overcome customs. There have always been a few Queens among the Kings, and outliers like Joan of Arc and Marie Curie. However, most of the time, a unisex work crew is better. It minimizes the distractions and power troubles in a mixed group, and gives each sex a safe space in which to discuss the other. One engineering start-up survived the first year, so the owner decided to improve the bare-bones furnishings in the office. This included "privacy panels" added to hide the secretaries' knees. The men then did 40% more work with fewer distractions. There are also strong suspicions that it was a couples' reunion while on duty that cost BC Ferries a big boat and the lives of two passengers.