Comment A thought experiment (Score -1, Offtopic) 427
I remember reading an article, a long time ago, in "Psychology Today", entitled something like "The Soulmate Myth". It's about how people these days seem worried about settling down. They worry they'll miss a better opportunity if they throw in their lot with the relationship partner directly in front of them. Combine that with the oft-spoken idea that when it comes to relationships you should never "settle", and you get a recipe for a lot of trouble and angst.
It can really make you wonder. Should we ever "settle", in an ideal world, for a relationship partner who's "just good enough"? Or should we wait for our "perfect match", who may or may not exist?
The question is entirely academic, for scholars and philosophers, but it's important to consider the following:
What makes a "perfect match" for you?
To answer that question, I'd like you all to conduct a thought experiment in your head.
Build, in your mind, your PERFECT partner. From scratch. Imagine this perfect person. Imagine how an interaction with this person would go. Imagine how a first date with this person would go. Don't worry about putting in qualities your wife/husband /girlfriend/boyfriend has just to keep it politically correct; this is strictly for your own edification, not for me to judge you by.
Now open up Notepad or MS Word or grab a sheet of paper and write down what you came up with. Shred it later, if you don't want your spouse to find it. Again, it's not my thought experiment.
I'm serious, I REALLY want you to do this. I promise that it can be enlightening and fun. Forget what you believe society is telling you that you're supposed to want and just pay attention to what you actually want.
Now, I'm going to ask you a series of questions about your perfect spouse. Write down the answers for your personal notes because, again, this is about individual edification.
Did you start with a personality? A voice? A sense of humor? A political ideology? Something else non-physical? Or did you start out with a body type? Hair color? Eye color? Bicep size? Breast size? Anything else physical?
Is your initial interaction sexual? Are sex and sexuality primary components of what it takes to be "perfect" for you, or secondary, or tertiary? Do the physical sexual acts they'd be willing to perform factor into your image? Is your "perfect spouse" of a particular sexual orientation (for example, bisexual)?
For those of you who even considered physical appearance, does the person physically resemble someone you've seen in a media context? An actor/actress, a singer, a talk show host, a sports persona (Woo, I know what the ladies are thinking: John Madden! POW!), a comic book character, a news anchor, a model, a porn star? Did you take a relatively famous person and graft the "perfect" personality onto them?
Does this person physically resemble your current partner or prospective partner, if applicable?
Does this person's personality resemble that of your current partner or prospective partner, if applicable?
If you were to build, in the same manner, a "perfect friend who you would never ever be sleeping with in married to", would that person in any way resemble your "perfect spouse"? If so, how? If not, why not?
How likely is your "perfect spouse" to actually exist, in terms of personality?
How likely is your "perfect spouse" to actually exist, in terms of physical attributes?
Is one of the first thoughts you have when contemplating those last two questions: "Someone like that would never have anything to do with ME anyway..."? (Hint: If so, that means you're not really focusing on creating their personality so much as their physical appearance, since someone with a "perfect personality" for you would probably, by definition, like you.)
Hey, no need to get defensive. I can already hear a lot of people, mostly men, gearing up to justify their "perfect spouse" image and make it seem less incriminating than it might otherwise seem. Don't worry so much about it, gang. I'm not all that interested in your answer on a personal level. This is just for you to think about. Although, If it's something you'd feel less than proud telling other people about, maybe that's a clue, eh?
That aside, I'd like to ask the men (and maybe the women who are so inclined) to compare their "perfect spouse" to a typical porn person. How many qualities are similar? Are we looking at oversized sexual organs or erogenous zones (breasts, penises, butts, etc)? A hyperactive sex drive? A willingness to participate in "kinky" sex acts, but not TOO kinky? Exaggerated submissiveness, with regards to women, or exaggerated aggressiveness (particularly sexual) with regards to men? Are we looking at Ron Jeremy? Are we looking at Jenna Jameson?
Think about it. And if this is making you uncomfortable or indignant, think about WHY. If your "perfect spouse" does, in fact, resemble a porn star in some respects, that's something you really need to give serious thought to. Not just for the stability of your current/future partner, but also for your current/future happiness.
How happy could your partner ever be, knowing that he or she is just "second rate", particularly when he or she is competing not against flesh and blood, but figment and ephemera? Knowing that as soon as someone comes around who is closer to the "ideal", he or she risks being dumped? How happy, how fulfilled, can you really make another human if your "perfect spouse", your image of relational bliss, will never be her/him? Is your partner's happiness and fulfillment even important to you? Honestly?
Furthermore, how happy can YOU be when your "perfect person" is unattainable? How happy can you be if you always look at your partner and compare that partner to a "perfect spouse" who doesn't really exist in real life? How likely are you to "trade up" to closer and closer approximations of your "perfect spouse", without ever being satisfied that you're not just "settling for what you can get", if your "perfect spouse" only exist in a porn director's script? How happy can you be if you never truly settle down in favor of keeping one foot in the doorway and the other on the road in case another opportunity comes along? How depressing is that? How stressful is that?
How many of you men feel like you'll never find a girl, then get confused and frightened when a girl likes you? That's a symptom.
Pornography, men assure everyone, is just a harmless fantasy. They are aware of its lies and half-truths and its whitewashing of the complex reality of sexual interaction into a simple "women want to be fucked all the time" paradigm. They swear up and down that it has no effect on them(1).
But I'm pretty sure that there are a couple men out there who, upon completion of this exercise, now realize that pornography has had a little more effect on their thoughts, feelings, and desires than they really wanted to believe.
But... does pornography shape what we desire, or merely show us what we already naturally desire? Chicken first, or egg? Good question. I will answer it with a few more questions for you to evaluate honestly:
Where would you, or anyone, originally get the idea that the perk of having a bisexual girlfriend is the opportunity to have threesomes with another woman? Keep in mind that there aren't many men who had their first exposure to "bisexual" porn AFTER they actually met a real-life bisexual woman willing to have a threesome.
Given that in real life the cervix tends to send large pain signals to the brain when it's hit with a hard object over and over again, where would you or anyone originally get the idea that women love big dicks?
Given that excess fat around the mammary glands makes it more difficult for a baby to nurse, thus removing the "biology" argument (look it up sometime), where would you, or anyone, originally get the idea that big breasts are the pinnacle of female sexuality?
Assuming for the moment that men are NOT just naturally sex-crazed misogynists who only want to use women as a sex class, where would you or anyone originally get the idea that women really love acts that you yourself would find disgusting, frightening, or painful? Especially painful?
Think about it, honestly, and maybe you'll find there's some insight to be gained from it all. Maybe, just maybe, some of you will look up from your list and realize that you're not who you thought you were. That you HAVE been influenced by pornography, that you ARE affected, and that if YOU are affected, anyone could be affected. And, most importantly, that you are not happy with it.
I don't ask you to change your "perfect spouse" image. That's a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. The only real cure begins with serious, honest, and introspective thinking.
~Dim
[(1)Until they feel cornered, at which point they claim that porn is the only thing keeping their horrible inner rapists from enacting a just-below-the-surface need to fuck and brutalize unwilling women. The form it usually takes is an assertion something along the lines of "If porn were illegal, there would be more rape". And it's bullshit, particularly since it doesn't seem to apply to kiddie porn. But I digress. Sorry.]
It can really make you wonder. Should we ever "settle", in an ideal world, for a relationship partner who's "just good enough"? Or should we wait for our "perfect match", who may or may not exist?
The question is entirely academic, for scholars and philosophers, but it's important to consider the following:
What makes a "perfect match" for you?
To answer that question, I'd like you all to conduct a thought experiment in your head.
Build, in your mind, your PERFECT partner. From scratch. Imagine this perfect person. Imagine how an interaction with this person would go. Imagine how a first date with this person would go. Don't worry about putting in qualities your wife/husband
Now open up Notepad or MS Word or grab a sheet of paper and write down what you came up with. Shred it later, if you don't want your spouse to find it. Again, it's not my thought experiment.
I'm serious, I REALLY want you to do this. I promise that it can be enlightening and fun. Forget what you believe society is telling you that you're supposed to want and just pay attention to what you actually want.
Now, I'm going to ask you a series of questions about your perfect spouse. Write down the answers for your personal notes because, again, this is about individual edification.
Did you start with a personality? A voice? A sense of humor? A political ideology? Something else non-physical? Or did you start out with a body type? Hair color? Eye color? Bicep size? Breast size? Anything else physical?
Is your initial interaction sexual? Are sex and sexuality primary components of what it takes to be "perfect" for you, or secondary, or tertiary? Do the physical sexual acts they'd be willing to perform factor into your image? Is your "perfect spouse" of a particular sexual orientation (for example, bisexual)?
For those of you who even considered physical appearance, does the person physically resemble someone you've seen in a media context? An actor/actress, a singer, a talk show host, a sports persona (Woo, I know what the ladies are thinking: John Madden! POW!), a comic book character, a news anchor, a model, a porn star? Did you take a relatively famous person and graft the "perfect" personality onto them?
Does this person physically resemble your current partner or prospective partner, if applicable?
Does this person's personality resemble that of your current partner or prospective partner, if applicable?
If you were to build, in the same manner, a "perfect friend who you would never ever be sleeping with in married to", would that person in any way resemble your "perfect spouse"? If so, how? If not, why not?
How likely is your "perfect spouse" to actually exist, in terms of personality?
How likely is your "perfect spouse" to actually exist, in terms of physical attributes?
Is one of the first thoughts you have when contemplating those last two questions: "Someone like that would never have anything to do with ME anyway..."? (Hint: If so, that means you're not really focusing on creating their personality so much as their physical appearance, since someone with a "perfect personality" for you would probably, by definition, like you.)
Hey, no need to get defensive. I can already hear a lot of people, mostly men, gearing up to justify their "perfect spouse" image and make it seem less incriminating than it might otherwise seem. Don't worry so much about it, gang. I'm not all that interested in your answer on a personal level. This is just for you to think about. Although, If it's something you'd feel less than proud telling other people about, maybe that's a clue, eh?
That aside, I'd like to ask the men (and maybe the women who are so inclined) to compare their "perfect spouse" to a typical porn person. How many qualities are similar? Are we looking at oversized sexual organs or erogenous zones (breasts, penises, butts, etc)? A hyperactive sex drive? A willingness to participate in "kinky" sex acts, but not TOO kinky? Exaggerated submissiveness, with regards to women, or exaggerated aggressiveness (particularly sexual) with regards to men? Are we looking at Ron Jeremy? Are we looking at Jenna Jameson?
Think about it. And if this is making you uncomfortable or indignant, think about WHY. If your "perfect spouse" does, in fact, resemble a porn star in some respects, that's something you really need to give serious thought to. Not just for the stability of your current/future partner, but also for your current/future happiness.
How happy could your partner ever be, knowing that he or she is just "second rate", particularly when he or she is competing not against flesh and blood, but figment and ephemera? Knowing that as soon as someone comes around who is closer to the "ideal", he or she risks being dumped? How happy, how fulfilled, can you really make another human if your "perfect spouse", your image of relational bliss, will never be her/him? Is your partner's happiness and fulfillment even important to you? Honestly?
Furthermore, how happy can YOU be when your "perfect person" is unattainable? How happy can you be if you always look at your partner and compare that partner to a "perfect spouse" who doesn't really exist in real life? How likely are you to "trade up" to closer and closer approximations of your "perfect spouse", without ever being satisfied that you're not just "settling for what you can get", if your "perfect spouse" only exist in a porn director's script? How happy can you be if you never truly settle down in favor of keeping one foot in the doorway and the other on the road in case another opportunity comes along? How depressing is that? How stressful is that?
How many of you men feel like you'll never find a girl, then get confused and frightened when a girl likes you? That's a symptom.
Pornography, men assure everyone, is just a harmless fantasy. They are aware of its lies and half-truths and its whitewashing of the complex reality of sexual interaction into a simple "women want to be fucked all the time" paradigm. They swear up and down that it has no effect on them(1).
But I'm pretty sure that there are a couple men out there who, upon completion of this exercise, now realize that pornography has had a little more effect on their thoughts, feelings, and desires than they really wanted to believe.
But... does pornography shape what we desire, or merely show us what we already naturally desire? Chicken first, or egg? Good question. I will answer it with a few more questions for you to evaluate honestly:
Where would you, or anyone, originally get the idea that the perk of having a bisexual girlfriend is the opportunity to have threesomes with another woman? Keep in mind that there aren't many men who had their first exposure to "bisexual" porn AFTER they actually met a real-life bisexual woman willing to have a threesome.
Given that in real life the cervix tends to send large pain signals to the brain when it's hit with a hard object over and over again, where would you or anyone originally get the idea that women love big dicks?
Given that excess fat around the mammary glands makes it more difficult for a baby to nurse, thus removing the "biology" argument (look it up sometime), where would you, or anyone, originally get the idea that big breasts are the pinnacle of female sexuality?
Assuming for the moment that men are NOT just naturally sex-crazed misogynists who only want to use women as a sex class, where would you or anyone originally get the idea that women really love acts that you yourself would find disgusting, frightening, or painful? Especially painful?
Think about it, honestly, and maybe you'll find there's some insight to be gained from it all. Maybe, just maybe, some of you will look up from your list and realize that you're not who you thought you were. That you HAVE been influenced by pornography, that you ARE affected, and that if YOU are affected, anyone could be affected. And, most importantly, that you are not happy with it.
I don't ask you to change your "perfect spouse" image. That's a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. The only real cure begins with serious, honest, and introspective thinking.
~Dim
[(1)Until they feel cornered, at which point they claim that porn is the only thing keeping their horrible inner rapists from enacting a just-below-the-surface need to fuck and brutalize unwilling women. The form it usually takes is an assertion something along the lines of "If porn were illegal, there would be more rape". And it's bullshit, particularly since it doesn't seem to apply to kiddie porn. But I digress. Sorry.]
