Am I Being A Prude, Or Overly Sensitive?

[Ronin]

Reminds me of a really good George Orwell quote: "Some ideas are so stupid, only intellectuals believe them."

There's also, le gasp, that scary thing called context.

 

[Dana1010]

You are VERY attached to this view. Why is that? What bad thing would happen...

No bad thing would happen. The world would be a better place actually. That's my strength--I'm facing what's really there, while others here calibrate their information intake to maintain their emotional equilibrium.

 

[Eleanor]

So the world would be a better place, (maybe REALLY it IS!) Your idea of reality is... pretty solipsistic. (It is a world that only you inhabit...)

My point is that I am NOT calibrating my information intake at all. I am accepting what the world presents in all its messiness. And that doesn't make things emotionally easier for me, not even a little. It makes the worse MUCH worse. Precisely because so much of the harm done in the world is so totally unnecessary.

How exactly do you know how any of these positions effect anyone's emotional equilibrium? All you have to go on is text, after all...

Believing the worst and calling it reality is a coping skill. If it is yours I hope it continues to serve you well. I would just caution you that intellectual rigidity is a limited defense, in much the same ways and for the same reasons as it is in physical combat.

 

[somerandomguy]

That's my strength--I'm facing what's really there, while others here calibrate their information intake to maintain their emotional equilibrium.

Yes, it's quite clear from this thread that you know FAR better than all of the rest of us how things actually work.

So, again, why are you here? Is it just to school the rest of us dummies? Is it to gain a sense of superiority? Is it to confirm to yourself just how much smarter you are than everyone else? Yeah, I'll go with that one. Funny how a "support" forum occasionally attracts people who don't think they need any support at all, and how they've got everything figured out.

Again, @Dana1010, why are you here?

 

[scout86]

So, again, why are you here? Is it just to school the rest of us dummies? Is it to gain a sense of superiority? Is it to confirm to yourself just how much smarter you are than everyone else?

This same thought crossed my mind yesterday. Then I recognized that there were many similarities between this conversation and others I've had. Which we had actually been talking about in therapy the other day. In fact, my "homework assignment" involves considering the kind of energy I want to bring to a conversation with a person who appears to have that attitude. When I started to say something about how the other party might respond, my T laughed and said, "We're not there yet, we'll talk about it, But NO, there IS nothing you can do to get them to hear you."

Hey guys, come on over to Mars. The weather is great, we have really good Kool-aide and there are UNICORNS! :)

 

[Eleanor]

I'm with you @scout86. I like unicorns. :)

And @somerandomguy, your question is much more to the point than mine. Thank you. And I would ask that too; what support are you here to get, Dana? A PTSD forum seems like an odd place to choose to try to school people on the systemic badness the world has to offer. No one has disagreed with you, after all that the kind of thing you describe happens - it does. Every day, all the time. But it is not the ONLY thing that happens.

@Dana1010 - on the chance that you are gearing up to let go the view of the world as an irredeemably hostile place toward women who have sex, and so open yourself up to some other possibilities for your life, this is the best place I know of to get support navigating the complexity of a world without black and white clear lines between what is safe and what is risky. It is not a safe world. It is a world where one is open to taking emotional hits, because compassion for ourselves and for others requires the kind of tenderness that makes us vulnerable. Genuinely emotionally vulnerable. And learning to navigate that is ... challenging even on good days. I've lived in that defensive posture box. For a long time I lived there. What happened to me was that that box got smaller and smaller and smaller as time went on. And I noticed one day that it was too small for me to continue to exist. In order to stay in that safe and stable box, I was becoming a worse person. Mean. I was getting mean. I was losing the ability to be compassionate to the people I was supposed to love the most. So I ... decided to give up the security of the box and the belief system it entailed. It blew up my world. The good got better and the bad got MUCH worse for a LONG time. But the good has, with diligent work, gotten much much better with time. Given how bad it got for me, I'd be the last person to blame you for staying in your box. But I think you should know there IS the possibility of a life with more connection and compassion and real REAL acceptance outside of the box. True, it is not safe. It is, however, worth it. Well, it is for me. I didn't want to be the person that box required me to be.

I am, going by credentials in the professional world anyhow, a pretty smart cookie, and I've hung out with some VERY smart cookies in the 3D world. And I've gotta say, if I was going to choose someplace to go to try to be smarter and better informed (about the good and the very very worst that this world has to offer) I would not come here. In case the double negative throws anyone who is in a non-conducive time zone, what I mean is that this forum has people who have lived through the worst (often for years at a time as children) humanity has to offer, AND are wicked smart. I have been in places from time to time where it occurred to me I might be the smartest person in the room. That has never happened here. Everyone here lives with the daily realities born of just how bad it can get. Naive and pollyanna-ish? I think not. "And still, like dust, we rise."

 

[Dana1010]

So, again, why are you here?

I think to answer that question, you should go back through my posts on this site--they are quite varied, and the vast majority of them are not confrontational at all--in fact I am seeking advice from others in most of them.

I didn't mean to get into a battle here, but as it happened, I was thrown up against a wall by several posters and forced to defend my opinion over and over--and that's ok. Viva la difference. My idea of healing is to go through experience with open eyes and rise like the phoenix above the ashes. Filtering out does not work for me personally, but if it works for others here, then good for them. I certainly wasn't out to prove how much smarter I am--I was quite surprised by the flak I caught, as I assumed everything I said was common knowledge. I am not sorry for expressing what I feel to be true, but I am sorry if anyone was hurt by it.

 

[somerandomguy]

I assumed everything I said was common knowledge.

Of course. Because everyone knows that every man, every single last one of them, is a sex-crazed, animalistic asshole hell-bent on the destruction of all womankind.

 

[Eleanor]

One of the (many) thinks I have learned on this site is this: There are a lot of things I've assumed were true all my life and can easily count as common knowledge, and... they aren't. Despite lots of people who do agree, they turn out to be false. It is the BIAS inherent in our uncritical assumptions and the easy confirmation offered by "common knowledge" that filters our perceptions of the world. Openness to diversity of experience and actual data, a willingness to entertain contrary positions, (even to move in for a while and see how it goes) is the hallmark of science and scientific method. Poop colored glasses or rose colored glasses, both distort reality. Particularly when we are unaware that we are wearing any glasses at all. It is the lack of awareness and the uncritical acceptance that "This is just how the world is" that is limiting.

"Who knew?" is a theme that comes up a lot for people with childhood trauma.

You are totally entitled to your opinions and view and biases. No question. And if you think those views don't distort your ideas about, oh half the human race, (because, ya know, white men can't jump, and niggers can't do math... etc.) you are mistaken. And if you think that in defending them you are entitled to dismiss other people's experiences, cast aspersions on their intentions, insult them, or simply write people off.... well, then your are out of bounds in terms of good manners in my book. You have been rude to me and several others here. And an apology

I am sorry if anyone was hurt by it.

like this is... half assed at best. Woman up and admit you were a jerk. Or at least that others have higher standards of discourse than you do.

Socrates was, according to the oracle at Delphi, the wisest man in Athens. The only thing Socrates could figure, since he clearly did not think he knew more than others, and clearly knew less than some claimed to, was that he was the only one who was honest about and thus knew that he didn't know.

 

[Dana1010]

@Eleanor, So I give you personal experience, and it's "solipsistic"; I offer scholarship from the field of evolutionary biology, and you say, "You need to read Kuhn"; I note that it's been common knowledge for literally ages, and then common knowledge just filters our perception. And round and round we go.

 

[Pencil]

At Peace With My Decision To Quit

This study examined the hypothesis that participants scoring lowest on a measure of abstract reasoning skills would have the highest levels of anti-gay prejudice. The results supported the hypothesis.

I'm not obsessed with gay men. I just think the topic of homosexuality is interesting because for thousands (?) of years it was common knowledge that gay men were morally corrupt. We now know that it is genetic. Gays are jumping out of closets. All our common assumptions about homosexuality have been turned on their heads. Our knowledge, even in evolutionary biology, is very limited still. We can't swear allegiance to any one theory.

And when we do, we'll never adjust or align or correct our thinking, and round and round we'll go. Precisely.

 

[Changing4Best]

I resent the women who do these kinds of things, as it seems that they give the impression that all women are willing to do these kinds of things. However, not all of us are willing to make ourselves into sex objects and it causes the ones who don't want this kind of attention in their lives a lot of trouble.

I see that many folks have replied to this thread, so I know this is definitely an appealing issue to some and a hot dang issue to others.