Comic Strips

I mean, I dunno, I do think it's sort of stupid idea to, as I see it, give men the advice to just sort of, pretend they like someone, when realistically they just want to have sex. Basically just telling them to, say, be courteous, or whatever, or to "be themselves", when "themselves" is the guy that's courteous, has sex, and then ghosts a chick, or does something worse. I think the advice kind of originates from the idea that sexual relationships will more naturally evolve into normal relationships over time, and if they just have sex, then their relationships will naturally evolve from there. It's a perspective where sex is the end goal, rather than like, third base, and then when they are unable to achieve sex, they turn into incels, and then when they achieve it and it doesn't work out how they want, they turn into cynical red pill grifters. Like, it's a very conventional reasoning for chastity before marriage, right, that you have sex, and that's sort of, the foundation of the relationship. I think that's really kind of stupid and misunderstands what the role of marriage is, but nonetheless, that's the origin of that advice, I think.

I think probably the difference would be that, upper in the comment chain, you respond to a comment about "men should be able to be friends with women without wanting to have sex with them", you respond to that with, "nah it's just gonna happen anyways". Like, the men wanting to have sex. I dunno, I think human behavior, if anything, is successful in it's flexibility, and I don't think it's an unreasonable expectation to think that both sexes should be able to socialize outside of their sex without sex being the primary driving motivation. Especially for men. I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation, and I think it's actually a pretty healthy one.

This isn't to say that men shouldn't necessarily experience sexual attraction, right, because that's sort of, harder for most men to exercise some level of self-control over. But I don't think it's a step too far to say that they should try not to show this sexual attraction in their behavior, or use it as a primary motivator in their behavior. I think it's probably more that one leads to the other, and men who exercise this level of self-control over their sexual attraction will probably be more consistently able to control their sexual attraction over time.

I mean, sometimes you'll get a boner in class or whatever, right, which I would consider more just a physiological oddity than originating from sexual attraction, but even that's not common if you're not a teenage boy. Usually, real sexual attraction comes from some level of like, human behaviors which can be changed. A stray or conscious glance at someone, a loop of thoughts, etc. This is sort of, related to normal human self-control, right. It's hard to not think of a pink elephant, if I tell you to think of one, right? But at the same time, it can be done, and you can not think about it. You can just, not really process it consciously, or cut off that thought at the root and think about something else. That's maybe getting more into the weeds a bit, though, and certainly, it's variable, depending on the person.

I also think there's probably a multitude of contexts in which two people can be experiencing sexual attraction and it's not right for them to both enter a relationship, have sex, or, have an expectation of affection. I would say, certainly, I understand the other person's perspective in basically never expecting that.

I think you and this other bloke are talking past each other a bit, it seems like they're talking more about just, men and women being able to have more platonic relationships, which, yeah, that seems healthy and probably like it should happen more, and you're talking more about like, the nuance of human behavior in maybe a less prescriptive way.