Dum-Diddy-Dum-Diddy-Adden-Dum
Published by R. Mildred June 29th, 2006 in For the ladies, Mutterings Of The Disturbed, Lick My Jackboots of LoveMusing upon the mighty wisdom of Lindsay Beyerstein and Le Marcotte, I think I have figured out the problem everyone’s having.
Well there’s really two problems, the first is Pardigm based, i.e. how people are thinking about operant conditioning, I characterized Operant Conditioning as a form of apssive agressive manipulation, and while I was not wrong, I was also neither right (The Law of Non-Contradiction can go suck a pigeon’s ass). You see, while all passive agressive manipulation is a form of operant conditioning, not all operant conditioning is passive agressive manipulation.
In fact, operant conditoning is such an innate part of interpersonal relationships between human beings that I would like to move to have that term of raw intellectual masturbation become a term used only by sociologists, pyschologists and wingnuts with fake diplomas, just call it Communication, it’s accurate and more easily comprehensible than that other term, which is honestly more wanky than a sack full of “The Hammer”s and does nothing but confuse the issue.
The second problem is of course a simple matter of marketing beyond the name. Namely the fact that the only “good” examples of Communication that anyone seems able to think of (which is partly to do with the wanky naming that’s been used) involves the manipulation of children or animals into docile subservience by their leninist controller.
Strangely enough, people are a bit worried by such things.
But people are of course only whipping out such fucked up examples because they haven’t thought it out fully and realised that there are innumerable examples of Good Communication, but that they’re such ordinary and everyday occurences that you can’t really see them for the wanky terminology, should be no surprise, and so instaedo letting you all pull your own plonker & bootstraps, I’ll give you a good example taht Amanda brushed past.
For instance, constructive criticism in the bedroom, a person affirms and discourages certain behavior and activites by saying they do or do not like/want to participate in those activities and behavior, and the other person accepts that and stops because they respect you as a person and do not want to ruin the entire thing for either of you. Yes this is a form of “operant conditioning”, now do you see why it’s wanky like a bag of “The Hammer”s? It’s just a fancy word for what can be nothing more complex than basic interpersonal communication combined with the basic human sense of empathy. If however you need more than empathy and straight, deceitless communication with the other person, then you are indulging in passive agressive manipulation, as I think we can all agree Amy Sutherland’s particular technique is (we can tell it is, because if she was a guy doing such things to a woman she’d be slapped with the “Nice Guy” label so fast her feet wouldn’t touch the ground). That her husband is an assbag manchild who both won’t change his behavior simply because it would cease pissing her off, even after being told that it pisses her off (and will then choose to escalate becuase of an overly large ego and misogynistic fear of being in someway controlled by a mere woman, rather than accept that it would be simpler and better for everyone if he simply changed himself) is His fault, but Amy, Patriarchal patsy extraordinaire, chooses to blame the “trainer”, herself, because women are always the ones at fault no matter what the actual problem is.
Such behavior is not something anyone who honestly calls themselves “feminist” should be able to condone or accept as good, it’s a horrendously harmful and self-destructive application of Communication.
Le Marcotte later whips out the strawradfem (I’ve yet to actually see an example of a radfem advocating total lesbian segregation, cites of a non-FOAF nature are required and looked upon favorably before I will accept that radfems are the mythical man-hating fems that Amanda, Bitch|Lab and Ampersands has made them out to be*) and the idea of gender segregationism, which is stupid primarily because segregation gives “equity” anti-fems a huge opportunity to co-opt and kill feminism and whatever momentum the movement has left after the dems’ anal raping of all the progressive movements after they deigned to let women and other Others, who weren’t gay of course, civil rights. Anything other reasons are just icing on the shitcake of gender segregationism. But the reason why she whips out the Strawradfem is for the purpose of setting up yet another false dichotomy (I’m saying that term way to often atm, could people please stop making me use it?) between passive agressive manipulations and total lesbian separetism. Here’s some advice for everybody so I don’t have to keep correcting everbody’s constant dichotomy fondling: If you think there’s only two really shitty ways to do something, you’re wrong, when loa tzu, sun tzu and bruce lee all agree on the single basic concept that the way to win fights is to cheat and change the rules out from under your opponents and make them play your game, and I doubt they’d all be wrong (though they could be Zengerle’s erroneous sources for all I know). two shitty optiond are usually an illusion caused by your inability to harness the only thing that makes humans superior to animals; our abilities to break,fuck with, bend, bust, smash, rewrite, revise, ignore and cheat everysingel system we’ve encountered so far that limited us, our big brains made genetic based biological evolution obsolete compared to memetic based social evolution, and our ability to both ignore and subvert natural processes like conception and viral death really does make us superior to animals. Though the stoner Jaguars of the Amazonian rainforests mean that cats certanly come a close second place to us. Dogs suck**. There’s always a third option to take, even if sometimes you have to knitt it out of your own pubic wool, in this case it’s the favoring of Communication over Passive Agressive manipulation that can allow feminist women to make good feminist men out of fence sitting assholes. Sex is a great time for prosletysing because, as a sufi mystic once told me; “A person’s demons are best slain in the nude” (it was a metaphor admittedly, but a more literal interpretation hasn’t done me wrong yet).
A feminist should never fear using Communication to deal with and stop a man being a misogynistic asshole, she should not accept his misogyny as her fault though (which is all too natural a thing to do because the hating is hard to not take personally, but it’s really not, which I suppose makes it worse in many regards), she should not accept that manipulative behavior that the patriarchy has convinced you is neccesary and just happens to involve a tacit acceptance (and failure to challenge) of the idea that men are just big babies who need careful coddling, as Hugo has made quite clear. She should also not give him a shit load of praise for doing what is really the bare minimum we should expect from men, treating women is the right thing to do, and it’s not something that really earns him the right to a shit load of praise, treating a guy who accepts that women are human beings as something remarkable just reinforces the patriarchal notion that it is this big deal that is a remarkable thing for men to do, becuase it’s not really, and it can also backfire and lead to him slapping you in the face with this minimum level of feminism as something the really does earn him all sorts of attendant rights that Other and dehumanize you. That it may backfire is not of course a good reason to throw the technique out entirely, but it does mean it should be used with extreme caution, the main reason that it’ll be impossible to move the movement forward towards the day that treating women like human beings is considered by more men than not as a bare minimum requirement for entry into polite society until men are taught and retaught until it finally sinks in that WOMEN ARE PEOPLE TOO, and that treating them appropriately is the very least a guy should be expected to do, is enough for me, though you may argue with the importance of such behavior to the wider movement. It seems to make sense to my brain at any rate, though it is really late.
And before anyoen says anything, that such an idea is just another form of Communication is not lost on me, but the fact that it can potentially have soceity wide ramifications should be no surprise to anyone, “the person is political” remember, butterflies and feotal deathicanes (which is a really deadly hurricane).
So in summary: everyone happy with all the caveats, kleats and agitprop?
*Some of the responses to the blowjob post have troubled me, and I’m not sure whether I should respond or simply take the fact that people read me as a homophobic sister-fucker as my due for being a sucky writer. /OT
**Because they’re fucking gross
Heh, and I was going to say “constructive criticism” has always struck me as a $3 phrase, too. It sort of falls outside the realm of strict behavioralism, though you could strain the model to see it. But yeah, constructive criticism, given to a mature adult, should proceed the cookie giving and ignoring.
In bed, perfect example. Operant conditioning would really help women get what they want in bed. 1) Tell him what you want. 2) Don’t respond when you don’t get it 3) Respond enthusiastically when you do. (If he’s doing it right, #3 is not a problem.) Taa-daa! You’ll have the perfect lover in no time. Screech at him for doing it wrong, though, and he’ll go limp. That sucks. Punishment can create learned helplessness, and is a bad idea.
Use the behavioralist model and constructive criticism is much easier to execute correctly. You cannot allow yourself to hide punishing language under the phrase “constructive criticism”. You’re just manipulating the environment. The ideal constructive criticism is actually giving the person an opportunity to see a reward they didn’t realize before was available and thereby changing the structure of their motivations.
“Honey, I could come much easier if you did it this way,” is constructive criticism. The reward is stated—the promise of an exciting orgasm.
“You’re doing it wrong!” That’s punishment.
Like I said in my post, our Inner Conservatives want to punish punish punish. It won’t work. And it wasn’t a “strawradfem”, that’s about what I see coming from rad fems (on the sex issue). They get stymied because every other feminist solution requires rewards for taking baby steps and doesn’t have a built-in punishment structure. I think people overrate the idea that rewarding is “coddling”. All the time, I write about how feminism can help men overcome some of their problems. That’s “coddling”, aka giving rewards. It also works.
By the way, if a woman says to herself, “His misogyny is not my fault,” wouldn’t it thereby mean that she’s giving herself permission not to suffer it by having to nag nag nag? By nagging him, she was letting his misogyny “win” by turning herself into the stereotypical female he could hate. Which let him justify not breaking his habits.
In bed, perfect example.
True. My GF likes to do certain things (like a little S&M) that originally made me a little uncomfortable to do, but after I got used to the fact that she likes it (reeeally likes it), that was all the comfort I needed.
By the way, if a woman says to herself, “His misogyny is not my fault,” wouldn’t it thereby mean that she’s giving herself permission not to suffer it by having to nag nag nag? By nagging him, she was letting his misogyny “win” by turning herself into the stereotypical female he could hate. Which let him justify not breaking his habits.
I think everyone agrees with that.
“Honey, I could come much easier if you did it this way,” is constructive criticism. The reward is stated—the promise of an exciting orgasm.
“You’re doing it wrong!” That’s punishment.
How does “You’re doing it wrong, try doing it like this” strike you?
The interesting point that jackgoff highlights there is that the orgasm is not the reward, the sense of security that comes from knowing that our partner is enjoying it is. Which meshes quite well with what mir says over at pandagon about how teh lack of reward becomes a punishment - except in this case the lack of reward is a refusal to soothe the guy’s fragile ego, which is a pretty nasty punishment when all is said and done.
I’d prefer it if there was a way to teach men to that they don’t have to act out to reaffirm their fragile masculinity, without utilizing their insecurities as a tool against them becaue that still leaves them with the cause of their acting otu in the first place, and means they can’t take the slightest bit of criticism without going soft.
I want manly men, men in tights.
I want manly men, men in tights.
[gives self wedgie] TIIIIGHT tights?
“How does “You’re doing it wrong, try doing it like this” strike you?”
Strikes me as a being unable to resist reminding the person that they’re doing it wrong.
And that would be terrible, wouldn’t it?
It wouldn’t be terrible…just unproductive. The primary thing reminding people of their failure accomplishes is making them feel bad. If you can correct the problem without making people feel bad, why do it?
Because it implies they can’t take a single lick of criticism, even in the form of an alternate suggestion, and it implies they trauma such a suggestion would inflict on them would either make them rebel or resent you. And if that’s actually how your partner is, you’ve got a bigger problem than teaching them to find their own damn keys.
Well, even when coupled with an alternate suggestion. The reminder of failure isn’t doing any useful work. The suggestion itself is a good thing.
But yeah, marc. I see your point. We’re splitting some mighty fine hairs here, and people should be able to take some negativity with their suggestions (even if I think they’re gratuitous).
Well I dislike saying things that might cause people in bed to have unnecessary bad feelings, yes. If you can keep it upbeat, why make it negative? No one wins that way, especially if you’re facing a soft cock due to hearing the word “wrong” in a rather vulnerable situation.
Hey, I’m a pansy. I don’t like being told I’m wrong when naked either.
The truth is, “You’re doing it wrong” is not constructive criticism. It’s not constructive. It’s destructive. “Do it like this” is constructive.
R. Mildred, just for you I posted one a coupla months ago. That man wuz robbed in the latest James Bond casting go-round, I tellz ya.
And it wasn’t a “strawradfem”, that’s about what I see coming from rad fems (on the sex issue). They get stymied because every other feminist solution requires rewards for taking baby steps and doesn’t have a built-in punishment structure.
Who is “they”? And some links or citations, please???? Cause if you can’t provide detail and specifics, it sure smells a lot like straw.