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> it indicates that the person you're seeking is sought after to fill a procreative role. Indeed, if you've been following the last billion years or so, a proc

> it indicates that the person you're seeking is sought after to fill a procreative role. Indeed, if you've been following the last billion years or so, a procreative role is a common reason why males and females seek each other out. I admit I don't understand why openly seeking to reproduce is to be frowned on. (And a larger point is that people on the spectrum don't take very well to social conventions that are based on tide and fashion instead of reason and logic and clear communication. I decided long ago I'd rather be a lonely tiger than a really terrible pack wolf.)

ABCLAW 9y ago
Openly seeking to reproduce is not frowned upon. Plenty of people get married, have kids, and are fairly straightforward about their intentions regarding family. No one has an issue with this. This is a private issue, to be discussed with your partner. However, publicly seeking someone to be nothing but a baby-factory for you is frowned upon for most people in public, because people like being valued for more than their sexual organs. Hence when you refer to people as 'female' or as a 'mate' in certain contexts, there's a hint of a creep. Calling the new VP a 'hot piece of ass' is censurable for the same reason: because it minimizes her value as a person, professional and team member, regardless of how accurate the assessment regarding how nice her butt is. Trying to frame this as a 'fashion' vs 'logic' trade-off is nonsensical.
- Will_Parker 9y ago
  > Trying to frame this as a 'fashion' vs 'logic' trade-off is nonsensical. It's a tradeoff in spending the effort following and trying to understand changing conventions for very small transgressions of social norms with small consequences, with a brain that doesn't do this naturally the way it does for other people. Having to rely on verbal feedback, (vs nuanced body language and facial expression) means for every little thing I have to wonder if someone like you is on top of social conventions or is just expressing an individual point of view. I have no idea. Just using this as a micro-example, "mate" is much more descriptive and precise in describing what I would have liked to have found in my youth, than "significant other" or "girlfriend" would be. Indeed what I used to want was a monogamous life partner to have children with. I'm sure it was commonly used without negative connotations in my parents' generation. Now, I can try to learn to "correct" this kind of speech, but I haven't found that to be a productive avenue for self-improvement, because almost everything I spontaneously say has these little tone flaws in it, and socialization is _already_ an exercise in pre-screening everything I'm about to say and avoiding acting in the moment. (Aside from that, I also think denial of our animal nature and sexual dimorphism is a trendy college liberal 2017 thing, and will, too, fall out of fashion. "Gender is purely a social construct" is exactly as wacky an idea as flat-earthism.)
  - ABCLAW 9y ago
    Sure, but that doesn't mean it's based in logic and reason rather than fashion. It means it's based in your best reasoning given your known lack of data about the issue. You've now been given explicit data in the form of responses in this thread about why one avenue is preferable to the other. Now, with that data on your doorstep, you get to decide to act upon it, or intentionally ignore it. Best of luck! (Just to be clear - my only nitpick here was with the Logic vs. Fashion dichotomy, but you've edited your post and added a number of conflating assertions re: Liberal fashion.)
    - Will_Parker 9y ago
      I can't resist one more reply. Sorry, chap.
    - defined 9y ago
      The times and the fashion evolve (or devolve, as it may be), and sometimes perfectly innocent things are blown away by the winds of change. "O tempora o mores" was said by Cicero over 2,000 years ago, which - together with plenty of other evidence - suggests that this is part of human nature. "Mate", according to you, has become an unfashionable word, but it was quite acceptable in my youth (the 70's). For example, there was a radio quiz program when I was growing up in South Africa called "Check Your Mate!" And when I was so clueless in my early twenties to think it would be nice to have a get-together to which I invited my then-girlfriend and some ex-girlfriends, without mentioning this to any of them (because it didn't even cross my mind), at the gathering my then-current girlfriend - without warning - bit me hard on the shoulder and hissed at me, "Don't mix your mates!" I've also never heard anyone complain about the word "soul-mate". All I'm saying is that we each speak from our own world view, and suggest that maybe it's fallacious to think that it's always the prevailing world view.
      - ABCLAW 9y ago
        Sure, but that's a fashion vs. fashion comparison. I'm not arguing that the modes we operate under are informed by the mores of the time - I'm arguing that pretending they don't exist isn't 'logic'. It is willful ignorance.

ABCLAW 9y ago

Openly seeking to reproduce is not frowned upon. Plenty of people get married, have kids, and are fairly straightforward about their intentions regarding family. No one has an issue with this. This is a private issue, to be discussed with your partner. However, publicly seeking someone to be nothing but a baby-factory for you is frowned upon for most people in public, because people like being valued for more than their sexual organs. Hence when you refer to people as 'female' or as a 'mate' in certain contexts, there's a hint of a creep. Calling the new VP a 'hot piece of ass' is censurable for the same reason: because it minimizes her value as a person, professional and team member, regardless of how accurate the assessment regarding how nice her butt is. Trying to frame this as a 'fashion' vs 'logic' trade-off is nonsensical.

Will_Parker 9y ago
> Trying to frame this as a 'fashion' vs 'logic' trade-off is nonsensical. It's a tradeoff in spending the effort following and trying to understand changing conventions for very small transgressions of social norms with small consequences, with a brain that doesn't do this naturally the way it does for other people. Having to rely on verbal feedback, (vs nuanced body language and facial expression) means for every little thing I have to wonder if someone like you is on top of social conventions or is just expressing an individual point of view. I have no idea. Just using this as a micro-example, "mate" is much more descriptive and precise in describing what I would have liked to have found in my youth, than "significant other" or "girlfriend" would be. Indeed what I used to want was a monogamous life partner to have children with. I'm sure it was commonly used without negative connotations in my parents' generation. Now, I can try to learn to "correct" this kind of speech, but I haven't found that to be a productive avenue for self-improvement, because almost everything I spontaneously say has these little tone flaws in it, and socialization is _already_ an exercise in pre-screening everything I'm about to say and avoiding acting in the moment. (Aside from that, I also think denial of our animal nature and sexual dimorphism is a trendy college liberal 2017 thing, and will, too, fall out of fashion. "Gender is purely a social construct" is exactly as wacky an idea as flat-earthism.)
- ABCLAW 9y ago
  Sure, but that doesn't mean it's based in logic and reason rather than fashion. It means it's based in your best reasoning given your known lack of data about the issue. You've now been given explicit data in the form of responses in this thread about why one avenue is preferable to the other. Now, with that data on your doorstep, you get to decide to act upon it, or intentionally ignore it. Best of luck! (Just to be clear - my only nitpick here was with the Logic vs. Fashion dichotomy, but you've edited your post and added a number of conflating assertions re: Liberal fashion.)
  - Will_Parker 9y ago
    I can't resist one more reply. Sorry, chap.
  - defined 9y ago
    The times and the fashion evolve (or devolve, as it may be), and sometimes perfectly innocent things are blown away by the winds of change. "O tempora o mores" was said by Cicero over 2,000 years ago, which - together with plenty of other evidence - suggests that this is part of human nature. "Mate", according to you, has become an unfashionable word, but it was quite acceptable in my youth (the 70's). For example, there was a radio quiz program when I was growing up in South Africa called "Check Your Mate!" And when I was so clueless in my early twenties to think it would be nice to have a get-together to which I invited my then-girlfriend and some ex-girlfriends, without mentioning this to any of them (because it didn't even cross my mind), at the gathering my then-current girlfriend - without warning - bit me hard on the shoulder and hissed at me, "Don't mix your mates!" I've also never heard anyone complain about the word "soul-mate". All I'm saying is that we each speak from our own world view, and suggest that maybe it's fallacious to think that it's always the prevailing world view.
    - ABCLAW 9y ago
      Sure, but that's a fashion vs. fashion comparison. I'm not arguing that the modes we operate under are informed by the mores of the time - I'm arguing that pretending they don't exist isn't 'logic'. It is willful ignorance.