Sex

[Nathanial.Dread]

The Hirjra were just one example: here's a list (from wiki) of non-binary genders in cultures all around the world.

"The term third is usually understood to mean "other"; some anthropologists and sociologists have described fourth, fifth,[2] and "some" genders. The concepts of "third", "fourth" and "some" genders can be somewhat difficult to understand within Western conceptual categories."

I think fundamentally the universe is dualistic, it exists because of two fundamental aspects. You have the medium and the form. The dance and the dancer. The thing and the action. You can not have an observer without a thing, and your can not have thing without an observer. You can not have matter without movment or movement without matter. Matter is vibration of the field. Sure we have a whole bunch of different elements, particles, forces etc., but they are all just different combinations of two things, vibration and the field. Its a spectrum, yet it is dualistic because you have two absolutes and then the infinite combinations of in-between. So I agree with your spectrum sentiment.

[Citation Needed] on a lot of that stuff. Where are you getting this 'vibration' and 'field' stuff? String theory? You can totally have a thing without an observer: most of the universe is things without observers, as far as we can tell.
Even if these qualities exist, none of these things necessitate a binary gender. I happen to disagree that the universe is fundamentally dualistic: it seems more likely to me that the apparent duality is more of a quirk of our cognition rather than any kind of objective truth, but regardless, none of these things *require* a dualistic gender system.

You wouldn't say that color is dualistic: it's a spectrum, part of the broader EM spectrum. Why can't gender be like color? A slightly more apt comparison would be politics: political beliefs are not a duality either: even the simplest charts plot a conservative/liberal axis against an authoritarian/libertarian axis to give a 2-D vector space. Gender, like political affiliation isn't something 'real,' it's just a collection of behaviors and patterns that people display.

I didn't gender these forces, that was done a longtime ago. I am using the terms that are commonly know and referred to.

So just because people have been doing something a long time means that it's right, or has value? That's the 'Wisdom of the Ancients' fallacy. People developed systems in the ancient past that we'd think are deplorable, almost immoral today. I think gender is one of those.

Gender is not fiction, there are two genders and everyone falls somewhere on the spectrum between the two.

[Citation Needed]

What is a unit of gender? How do you determine what gender someone is? Is there a test? Where can we find it? Gender is a social construct, or a pattern we happen to describe an arbitrary meaning to, no more real than one's political affiliation. You can say that everyone has some quantity of these qualities in some amount, but that's true of any possible behavior you can imagine. We've just taken a sub-set of them, arbitrarily given them social importance, and then forced them on the entire population without their consent.

I could take any other set of behaviors (maybe: tendency to think critically, tendency to prefer warm colors, and tendency to extend one's vowels), put them together and it would be just as 'legitimate' as gender. It's just a random collection of behaviors.

Blessings
~ND

 

[brilliantlydim]

I'm sorry I never meant to state any of this as fact, it's just like my opinion man (The Big Lebowski reference ). But I'll tell you what, you show me something that exist without an observer and I'll admit I was wrong about that part.


I see your point about gender, and I think you are changing the way I have been taught to look at it.

But we need (what we currently call) female and male genitalia to conceive right? Or what you are saying is its just ovaries and testicles and there doesn't necessarily need to be a gender label applied to them? They are what they are and function as they do.

I still believe that the magic of the universe happens with a synergistic blending of opposites, a dance of balance, give and take, push and pull. But I can see that gender labels for these things are actually unnecessary and artificial.

Thank you for sharing your view.

 

[OneStepBeyond]

...I tried to honestly answer the question about why more men are on this site than women but despite my best efforts, I just can't P.C. myself enough to avoid possibly offending someone. I'm not an insensitive or unreasonable person and It's unfortunate that I feel I need to censor myself here.

So instead I just have to ask...

I just ran across this topic. I am surprised by the statistic outcome too.

The last post is dated in April 2010. This topic should get some attention again and who knows after all these years new members will vote and the outcome will change.

I'm wondering what you were searching for when you "ran across" this "sex" Thread from 6 years ago. :?:

Just kidding.

 

[jamie]

"I just can't P.C. myself enough to avoid possibly offending someone"

Right?

 

[OneStepBeyond]

Not to pull things even more off topic, but yeah.

I tried to explain, in a articulate and impartial way, why I thought men had a greater tendency to manufacture and/or use DMT. Then I felt the need to include two unnecessary paragraphs full of qualifiers and over-explanations. Then I read the whole thing again to make sure someone couldn't take it the wrong way, and I was still unsure. So I just said "F" it. and deleted the whole thing.

It's a shame. That's all. You can never have a real exchange of information in a setting where people are waiting to jump at the chance to be "offended".

And for the record, I'm not talking about anyone in this thread in particular. Just a general observation.

 

[Redguard]

Not to pull things even more off topic, but yeah.

I tried to explain, in a articulate and impartial way, why I thought men had a greater tendency to manufacture and/or use DMT. Then I felt the need to include two unnecessary paragraphs full of qualifiers and over-explanations. Then I read the whole thing again to make sure someone couldn't take it the wrong way, and I was still unsure. So I just said "F" it. and deleted the whole thing.

It's a shame. That's all. You can never have a real exchange of information in a setting where people are waiting to jump at the chance to be "offended".

And for the record, I'm not talking about anyone in this thread in particular. Just a general observation.

I swear I have more half written posts that I've deleted then the amount of actual posts I have on this site.

 

[jamie]

The PC world is boring, overly sterile and can be at times just as hostile, if not more than the multiplicity of individuality and diversity it seeks to forget. I am glad I am dating a woman who agrees with me. I am not sure I even agree that there is anything wrong with sexism, to a degree..or even racism. Culturally we focus on only one polarity of it's meaning, which is hate, oppression, segregation etc...Those are all rather disgusting traits of human behavior. Many feminists for example will rally against sexism with rather sexist comments raising the status of women, or celebrating aspects of the feminine that are not present, or less present in the male counterpart. This is sexist. Is there something wrong with that? No, I don't think so. The universe is a complex and diverse place. I don't see the point in pretending it's not. The problem is when people take that logic and bend it to justify hostility, hate, greed etc...

 

[anne halonium]

i suspect alot of this stuff leans toward guys cuz of education.

as i progressed thru school, affluence, mom being a doctor,
and gram being a chemist, kinda pushed me along in the sciences.

in HS biology it was about half girls.
chem and physics maybe 25%

in college, the numbers went way down.
all my friends ran off with boys and had kids.
by the time i had a few degrees, most of my girlfriends lived on other planets.

of course, friends with kids arent doing home lab.
nor do they want their families exposed to lab rats.
all my housewife girlfriends, dont want ME anywhere near their kitchen. ( or husbands)
and, when im around kids on hallucinogens, they might as well be munchkins or elves.

this is discouraging in alot of ways, and sorta lonely.
but me and the maid , keep calm and carry on.
someone has to be crazy cactus lady.

that said, the few of us that do " break bad",
seem to find each other anyway...............

i do know other girl led alchemy groups.
but like me , they are insular, and only play in limited ways with others.

i originally started my crusade on "topia"
cuz it had pry the strongest girl contingent/ attitude.
but i forgot to account for social class differences even among ourselves.
ive noted that girl power doesnt count for much on the forums.
you would think since there are so few of us, we would have a commonality.
lol.........i REALLY thought grow arts and alchemy would over ride cats........
^hopefully that will change in time.

hopefully i said that PC enough.
naturally i would word it differently in person.

 

[brilliantlydim]

Ok, well I should come out. I really just made up all that stuff I said so that I could reply to a post titled "Sex"
8)