The fantasy that is created in the mind by words read, can rarely be matched by a partner in bed. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

It's very true that the fantasies we construct amidst mystery are generally more appealing than the reality behind the drapes (they grow and change along with our personal and changing desires, perceptions of perfection, etc..).

These social games we play with one-another are cerebral pleasures in the same kind of way. The anticipation/anxiety, the second-guessing, the mind-games: they're personalized and idealized emotional thrill rides.

I don't have the studies on hand, and this at least holds true for rats (the best known analogue for humans), but the more well and healthily stimulated by environmental and social interaction we are (the more we drink the psychoactive cocktail of human emotion), the less prone to depression and substance abuse we will be, on average. It's in our nature to seek stimulation.

Not all games (or players) are created equal, that's for certain, but what some see as diverse and natural others see as aberrant and dangerous or broken (progressivism Vs. puritanism). At times it seems so silly and arbitrary, so absurd. Perhaps it's down to the inability of most individuals to really appreciate the scope and scale of difference and diversity that exists between us all.

Having said that, I should admit that in the relationship with my wife, she is far stronger and more capable than I. She's smarter, better looking, more willful and social, better educated, and she makes more money than I do. — praxis

That is why she is your wife and I think she depends on you too because the love between two people is not about those things but about the people that you are and how compatible you are. I really liked a man who was younger than me and I did not care if he was less educated or whatever because I liked him, the very person he was and his presence made me want to be a better person. You need to admire who you want to be with.

The toxic concept of masculinity has strong causal roots that prompt many young men to suicide - or at the very least experience major depression - because these men parallel their identity to socially ingrained concepts like being the breadwinner or being professionally better or even more intelligent and women are often used as the tool to enable this. Men who like women that are older or better educated are suddenly small in comparison because of these stale, archaic concepts of masculinity, they become "whipped" or whatever derogatory overtones are implied by others to force them to conform.

So, instead, these men are often surrounded by people who are not as professional or intelligent than they are, partners who are socially acceptable because of age, attractiveness, popularity etc, but there is actually no love between them at all. The dependence is more social, like a pat on the head would suddenly make them a 'man'.

The toxic concept of masculinity has strong causal roots that prompt many young men to suicide - or at the very least experience major depression - because these men parallel their identity to socially ingrained concepts like being the breadwinner or being professionally better or even more intelligent and women are often used as the tool to enable this. — TimeLine

I'd need a cite for this because it makes the specious claim that traditional male role modeling is objectively unhealthy.

I recall a recent study about middle age white men that may have relevance.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/11/boomers-deaths-pnas/413971/

I'd need a cite for this because it makes the specious claim that traditional male role modeling is objectively unhealthy — Hanover

There are a plethora of studies that indicate a connection between male suicide mortality and masculinities.

Here is one and another but I am on my phone so access is limited.

It's very true that the fantasies we construct amidst mystery are generally more appealing than the reality behind the drapes (they grow and change along with our personal and changing desires, perceptions of perfection, etc..). — VagabondSpectre

Seriously? Fantasy is better than the real thing? We're talking about sex, right? Nothing is better than the real thing.

I recall a recent study about middle age white men that may have relevance. — praxis

Really interesting. Disturbing. Puts the lie to those who sneer at people who voted for Donald Trump. We got what we deserved.

Seriously? Fantasy is better than the real thing? We're talking about sex, right? Nothing is better than the real thing. — T Clark

Our fantasies generally depict idealized forms and features. In the personal amphitheater of our own minds and imagination we magnify and focus on whatever we fancy.

The real McCoy is quite good but often it fails to exceed expectations, anticipations.

We chase the fleshy dragon in reality, but we can only ever catch it again in our dreams.

Puts the lie to those who sneer at people who voted for Donald Trump. — T Clark

Because the Trump administration will benefit this demographic? Deregulation will effect their health and well-being negativity, and will probably provide marginal job growth. There’s more potential growth in renewable energy than there is in coal, for instance. Health care will most likely become more out of reach. The new tax cuts may effect social security negativity.

Trump isn’t reviving the American Dream, he never had any intention to. His kind only seeks wealth and power.

The real McCoy is quite good but often it fails to exceed expectations, anticipations.

We chase the fleshy dragon in reality, but we can only ever catch it again in our dreams. — VagabondSpectre

Indeed. The act of seduction and its anticipations is so stimulating that some, I believe, sabotage every stable situation resulting from successful seduction to repeat that initial excitement. As you imply, that excitement is founded on projection and therefore ignorance. Successful monogamy seems to me to involve a trading of excitement for security.

And we might also ask about the degree to which fantasy invades actual sex. I've known some who claim not to fantasize at all during sex acts, but I'm inclined to believe that many supplement the sensual happening with an imaginative frame.

On a more general note, I think becoming wary of one's projections is a large part of the maturation process.

idealizations are safe. Heightened, but safe. Actual erotic encounters are encounters. (provided we have a truly willing erotic partner to whom we're attracted)The real mccoy fails to live up to the ideal (the anticipated, the expected) to the extent that one retreats from the actual to the fantasy. (which isn't to say that fantasy and fantasy-founded games don't have a part in irl sex.)

@fart beat me to it

edit: actually, nvm, i think hes saying something different

Yes, there is some difference in our positions. I can't speak for everyone, but I think idealizations during the sex act sometimes help prop up monogamy. There's an old country song ('Don't Close Your Eyes') that speaks to concerns about this. And there is the old way of marketing porn in terms of a 'marital aid.'

I agree with that, in terms of day-in day-out relationship stuff. I guess I just want to flip the poles. It's not that real sex fail to live up to the idealizations. It's that the idealizations fail to live up to very good sex. Most actual sex isn't all that mindblowing, especially in the context of a long relationship, but the few good times are. [and of course its way more complicated than all this, but this is what i got for now]

Interesting. I find that the orgasms in a smoothly functioning monogamy are pretty reliably great. On the other hand, the anticipation and pre-orgasm sex act aren't on the same level as the first few acts with a compatible new partner. I can't think of a better experience than that first unveiling and 'possession' of an enthusiastic participant who is exactly one's physical/visual type.

Our fantasies generally depict idealized forms and features. In the personal amphitheater of our own minds and imagination we magnify and focus on whatever we fancy. — VagabondSpectre

For me, fantasies are needed when real is not available. Nothing is better than real. Fantasies are soggy paper. Real is well....real.

Unsurprisingly, I end up lost in the game, and perhaps it is tempting to conclude that the person is the persona, and there is nothing behind the mask, nothing playing the game but the game characters.

Because even if I play the game of not playing the game, I am still playing the game; it is just another persona. And yet the sense that I am not the mask I wear, the game I play, persists - it is an experience, but it is unanalysable.

Let's make a rule - one that is unbreakable: whereof one cannot analyse, thereof one must not analyse.
Call it 'the mystical', and allow that though it cannot be defined it can be manifested, (manifested through the relations of masks in the game, as the unsaid indications 'between the lines').

I like the rule, it's a good one, and I agree to adhere. But as soon as I set to implementing the rule, I confront this: 'whereof one cannot analyse' - & then I'm not sure. If I can't analyze, then I won't, because I can't. If I can analyze, then I can, so it doesn't break the rule.

I'm right where I began.

But this is approaching the rule in bad faith, and if i approach it this way I'm basically just acting like a too-clever teenager. I know what it means and am acting like I don't. Where we speak from, what we speak out of - that can't be itself spoken. It remains [beneath, outside of, permeating, within etc].

What gets me scared, or sad is: I don't think a lot of people are playing the game, or at least playing it to the point that they would immediately agree, like I did, that not playing the game is itself a way of playing the game.

short, tightly, tensely wrapped sentences that don't flow so much as skip: one to the other
like a rock skipping across water - the first undermines the second which undermines the third and that's the point, and the point is there's no point, or it would be if that wasn't a point too.

but i feel like the syntax or style is doing the work we once wanted the semantics to do, before we lost faith in its capacity to do so. Now the syntax (grammatical and conceptual) is
what's pronouncing the truth, or what is. And yeah, maybe now its showing, instead of pronouncing. but stilll: what did @syntax say? its a conch, its a [this is how and I'm the one who hold it]. I'm conching now. Let's conch at each other

Trump isn’t reviving the American Dream, he never had any intention to. His kind only seeks wealth and power. — praxis

I wasn't writing in support of Trump. I was only saying, as the article you linked to indicated, working class people are dying because we have let them be left behind. They would be stupid not to vote for him. What do they have to lose? What have we done for them.

I may vote for Trump next time.

What gets me scared, or sad is: I don't think a lot of people are playing the game, or at least playing it to the point that they would immediately agree, like I did, that not playing the game is itself a way of playing the game. — csalisbury

I want to have a truth telling rule - "tell the truth". But here in the psycho-web, there is only telling, and never showing; nobody has to put their dick where their virtual mouth is. So the distinction between playing the game and playing another game cannot really be made, and there is a retreat to scientific citation to support generalisation.

Successful monogamy seems to me to involve a trading of excitement for security. — fart

How am I to understand this, for example? Is it a general fact about most relationships (see Funk and Gabble's excellent paper)? Is it a universal psychological fact, that applies to me, and denies the truth of what I have been saying about my own unsafe monogamous relationship, as wishful thinking? Or is it itself a rationalisation of a personal fear of the depth of a commitment?

Here is the real danger, I'd say; that one can live a whole lifetime according to such aphorisms without even beginning to find the substance of them. One can live as if either excitement or security were somehow available by arrangement of one's life, and as if one can ever know the road not taken.

But I have already objected to this binary thinking of Mars and Venus, as if one has to maintain a gender dichotomy for fear of latent homosexuality. Other planets are available.

Indeed. The act of seduction and its anticipations is so stimulating that some, I believe, sabotage every stable situation resulting from successful seduction to repeat that initial excitement. As you imply, that excitement is founded on projection and therefore ignorance. Successful monogamy seems to me to involve a trading of excitement for security. — fart

What do you mean by trading excitement for security? Do you mean between the two people in the monogamous relationship? Or do you mean something else?

And we might also ask about the degree to which fantasy invades actual sex. I've known some who claim not to fantasize at all during sex acts, but I'm inclined to believe that many supplement the sensual happening with an imaginative frame. — fart

I agree with "some you have known" that the best sex acts with another achieve a state of nothingness in the mind. It takes a LOT of distraction to get the thinking mind lost on physical sensations and vulnerable enough to allow another to carry their sense of control, to the degree that allows for that blank minded orgasm to occur. Maybe it is a female thing? Maybe it is a 'thinker' thing? Or maybe it is just a "Tiff" thing? Regardless of how many of us there are, it makes for a challenge to clear the mind in a society that always has us thinking.

Off topic so I'll be brief.

I was only saying, as the article you linked to indicated, working class people are dying because we have let them be left behind. They would be stupid not to vote for him. What do they have to lose? What have we done for them.

I may vote for Trump next time. — T Clark

They feel left behind certainly, and Trump is manipulating that feeling to his advantage. That's why they're sneer worthy, because they're letting themselves be manipulated.

It would be stupid for people like Trump to not support Trump, because they're in the best position to receive the benefits of his administration, assuming that, like him, they too are primarily interested in wealth and power.

They feel left behind certainly, and Trump is manipulating that feeling to his advantage. That's why they're sneer worthy, because they're letting themselves be manipulated.

It would be stupid for people like Trump to not support Trump, because they're in the best position to receive the benefits of his administration, assuming that, like him, they too are primarily interested in wealth and power. — praxis

From what you've said, I feel more sympathy and responsibility for the people described in the article than you do. I don't mean that as a criticism, just a difference in our attitudes.

This book helped me in trying to understand them.

This book helped me in trying to understand them. — praxis

Someone else told me about this book recently. I don't remember if it was on this forum or elsewhere. This is something I've been thinking about, so I'll put it on my list.

This book helped me in trying to understand them. — praxis

Ordered it on my Kindle. Ain't technology wonderful.

The exchange of excitement for security seems really reducible to exchanging uncertainty to predictability. If I were a rock star, possibly I'd never look for monogamy because I know that there will always be a ready supply of available partners, but if I were a lawyer, maybe I'd find the most compatible match and hold on to her.

All of this of course assumes the cynical approach, which is that love is not the motivator for monogamy, which really seems a real motivator for most. Even rock stars find that special someone. And most don't discard their monogamous partner when they get sick or otherwise cause greater insecurity than singlehood. Isn't that the whole point of "for better or for worse..."

What gets me scared, or sad is: I don't think a lot of people are playing the game, or at least playing it to the point that they would immediately agree, like I did, that not playing the game is itself a way of playing the game.. — csalisbury

This is because people are vulnerable, reality is scary and while spatially we are sharing our experiences, ultimately we are alone and this separateness can inspire an inner anxiety that we are programmed to avoid since our motivations naturally prompt us to pleasure. Anxiety is not pleasurable, but the consequence of consciousness or our awareness of things that we try not to be aware of through various layers of communication.

For instance, from a hermeneutics angle parables attempt to highlight our moral responsibility using fictitious stories that are intended to teach us about our own behaviour yet without it being directed specifically to us, because most people are self-defensive. They automatically react when you tell them that they are wrong or that their thinking is wrong. We formulate alternate exemplums that communicate the same intention - to tell a person that they are wrong - without prompting their defensive reactions. Symbols or non-verbal forms of communication also inspire comparisons as long as it is not specifically about them.

Pretend for a moment that I am aware that you have borderline personality disorder and that you therefore lack empathy, present almost pathological symptoms of severely low self-esteem and social isolation that makes you resort to self defence mechanisms that are hostile and aggressive. You may not be aware that your reactions are causally linked to these distorted psychological responses, which perhaps even further is caused by your upbringing and social environment, but I can use my awareness of your condition to try to work within the game to enable you to understand these responses. It is a tool to communicate.

The problem, however, is how these vulnerabilities can be used for the wrong reasons, from a socioeconomic perspective marketing and social behaviour capitalises on these broadly influenced notions of beauty or masculinity, telling us what to think that our motivations - being pleasure (popularity and power is a type of pleasure) - prompts us to parallel our behaviour to the faux notions that therefore makes us want to buy tonnes of make-up or drink steroids or crush people on our way up to the top. There is an absence of moral substance, a lack of awareness of this 'game' as though one is instinctively driven and when people are not playing along with this game (they do not look a certain way for instance) vulnerabilities are given to them. You can suddenly threaten someone not because you actually want to but because the fabric of society enables you to since you seek power and popularity.

For possible Trump (dictator wannabe) insights, I recommend adding The Dictators Handbook to your reading list. It explores the selectorate theory of government. I don’t know any good books on right-wing populist theory.

Isn't that the whole point of "for better or for worse..." — Hanover

God I hope so as I have no desire to start over.

God I hope so as I have no desire to start over. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

But you'll get complete control over the remote.