Sapiosexuality
A discussion below describes sapiosexuality in rather categorical terms but it would probably be better described as a matter of degree. But the article is nonetheless useful as a survey of the idea. Basically, a sapiosexual finds intelligence attractive, often attractive enough to cause the sapiosexual to overlook other failings in an intelligent person.
I suspect that most sapiosexuals are themelves pretty bright. That would make it just another instance of the general rule that people get on best with people like themselves.
But there is a particular case where sapiosexuality might emerge very strongly: in intelligent women. No woman wants her partner to be dumber than herself and, in the traditional order of things, may in fact prefer him to be MORE intelligent than herself.
Men, however, are different. There is something of a tendency for men to like less intelligent women. Many men don't like their women to be too smart. They feel better equipped to get their way if they can outsmart the woman.
And things other than intelligence can matter when an intelligent man makes a mate choice. A very common example of that is when a man chooses a partner on the basis of her good looks rather than on her general competence.
So the supply of intelligent men that intelligent women can latch onto will often be quite limited. Potential mates will have been spirited away by a set of D-cup boobs, for instance.
So when an intelligent woman DOES find herself a potential mate who is high in intelligence, she will be very glad of that. Having found such a rarity she will often pair up with him regardless of other inadequacies in him. She will be very forgiving of his faults.
I believe that I am a lifelong beneficiary of that phenomenon. I DO greatly appreciate and seek intelligence in a partner and am myself very bright so I have often been what intelligent women were seeking. My looks were never better than average and I have often been not at all considerate of the woman in my life but I have nonetheless had many much appreciated relationships with intelligent women. I have been forgiven much, rather to my embarrassment in retrospect.
How it seems to work is that on teaming up with me, women become aware of a much wider world about them and they very much want to hang onto that awareness. So they tolerate or work around my deficits in other respects
My present partner and I are a perhaps extreme example of sapiosexuality. We are wildly inappropriate for one another in a number of important ways but our shared high IQ has created a strong bond between us
What is sapiosexuality, and why is it so controversial?
Sapiosexuals are described as people who are physically, emotionally, romantically, and relationally attracted by intelligence. They find intelligence to be the most important and erotic trait, and value it more than a potential partner's physical appearance, status, emotional connection, and even personality.
It’s a relatively new term
Sapiosexuality is a relatively new addition to the sexuality lexicon, and though there were whispers of the word online prior, Merriam Webster reports that the first recorded use was in 2004.
The signs of being a sapiosexual
Before we get into the controversy of it, first let's look at what sapiosexuality is said to look like. The following are common traits typically associated with sapiosexuals in relationships.
Their relationships start slow
Oftentimes it's expected that sapiosexuals don't jump into romance right away. Rather, relationships tend to start out as friendships, giving them the time to really understand the person. In other words, it's not an immediate attraction based upon looks.
They might seem less sexual
Sapiosexuals tend to prefer discussing things like books and movies on first dates rather than trying to get into bed as fast as possible. Intellectual discussions can sometimes be more erotically rewarding than physical touch.
Intellectual discussion is necessary for sex
Most sapiosexuals reportedly can't feel comfortable enough to connect with someone sexually unless they've had an intellectual discussion. In other words, talking about politics could very well count as foreplay! Sex and relationship therapist Casey Tanner told MBG: "Intellectual connection may be considered far more effective foreplay than even physical touch."
They avoid small talk
Unchallenging, frivolous chatter does not bode well with sapiosexuals, and if the conversation starts to go that way they'll often ask harder questions to get people to think about things one might usually not. They supposedly prefer to unearth insights rather than merely pass the time.
They want to be challenged
As long as they are mentally aroused, sapiosexuals won't care so much about what you wear or how much money you earn.
They're also drawn to emotional intelligence
While intelligence is a focus of sapiosexuals, it also involves emotional intelligence. That means they can also be drawn to people who show compassion, empathy, and humility.
Not to be confused with demisexuality
Often, sapiosexuality is confused with demisexuality—an orientation characterized by only experiencing sexual attraction to someone after making an emotional connection with them. For sapiosexuals, intellectual spark is more important than emotional connection, and in fact the connection must be intellectual before they can begin to experience sexual attraction.
They are great at communication
Text or email conversations are especially great with sapiosexuals, who supposedly tend to be very articulate. Witty banter is considered a turn-on, and their feelings are typically always made clear.
They can lose romantic interest after a disagreement
While some couples can agree to disagree, many sapiosexuals will lose romantic interest in someone if they don't find their interlocutor's political, philosophical, or spiritual arguments valid.
They're attentive to thought processes
Sapiosexuals tend to analyze not only the information being shared, but the process of getting to that information—and the more sophisticated, the better.
They prefer deep, long-lasting friendships
Sapiosexuals are said to be great friends, as they value growing and learning with people over a fleeting good time.
The Mark Ronson drama
In 2019, famed music producer Mark Ronson said he identified as sapiosexual on 'Good Morning Britain,' and stirred quite a bit of controversy after the host declared, “So you're coming out as sapiosexual, congratulations!” The media interpreted the moment as Ronson's intentional coming out moment, as if he were staking claim to a marginalized community who needed to “come out.”
He apologized
In a subsequent interview with Rolling Stone, he clarified, “I do not consider myself part of any marginalized community. I apologize if anybody misunderstood or took offense to it." He continued: "It sounds like I went on a TV show to be like, 'Guys, I have some big news!' And the fact that I would go on and sort of declare myself—like as a heterosexual white male—part of any marginalized community was terrifying to me, or just embarrassing.
What really happened
Ronson was asked about sapiosexuality on 'Good Morning Britain' after an earlier segment had focused on it. He admitted that he didn't know much about it, and the hosts explained it as "when you're attracted to intelligence," leading Ronson to think, "That sounds great. Of course, who wouldn't be?" The hosts then capitalized on that to create his “coming out” moment.
How was Ronson's understanding wrong?
Gender and sexuality educator Eli A Scriver, founder of 'Pillowtalk,' a queer-inclusive column and radio show, clarified to InStyle that sapiosexuality is not just the attraction to intelligence, but rather it's being more attracted to intelligence than other traits, including sense of humor, family-orientedness, or empathy, for example.
Sapiosexuality is still quite common
Dating site OkCupid has allowed users to add sapiosexual to their dating profile since 2014, and reported in 2017 that 0.5% of their users identify as sapiosexual, though InStyle accurately notes that people actively trying to find mates cannot be representative of a general population. Still, self-identifying sapiosexuals are increasingly around us!
**********************************************
My Christian group was denied service at a restaurant. But we didn’t seek a legal remedy
Ever since Metzger Bar & Butchery in Richmond canceled our organization’s reservation an hour and a half before our guests would have arrived for dessert, we’ve received widespread support from Americans who don’t want to dine where a religious or political litmus test is applied at the door.
For those unfamiliar with the disturbing incident, our organization was denied access to the restaurant because the waitstaff refused to serve us on account of beliefs.
When waitstaff at any restaurant prejudge people they’ve never met based entirely on the faith-based values of those people, it is unsettling. For many conservative Christians, the hatred and intolerance echoes experience they know all too well. They are tired of being the subject of irrational fears and hatred by the woke elites, who want them shut out of the public square and the marketplace. Many people have strongly urged us to take the matter to court.
As an organization with a legal arm, the Founding Freedoms Law Center, a lawsuit or prosecution request seems like an obvious next step. Every day our attorneys are working on legal actions in situations where people of faith, including doctors and teachers, have lost jobs or had other serious consequences occur as a direct result of their religion. When employers trample on the fundamental religious freedom of their employees, we allow legal judgments to remind them of the Constitution and civil rights.
Metzger’s waitstaff was wrong, and its owners should have seized the opportunity to educate their team about customer service despite differences, rather than yielding to prejudice.
Although our guests and I could have taken great offense at being denied service and labeled "unsafe" simply for sitting down to eat, the very faith that the waitstaff find so threatening teaches us to turn the other cheek. We simply and graciously found another restaurant, without making a scene or demanding that they serve us.
Moreover, unlike many in the LGBT community, we do not believe it is always necessary or desirable to weaponize government against those who deny us services because they disagree with our beliefs. This was just Colorado where multiple bakeries exist. Jack Phillips will bake for anyone, any cake he or she wishes except one that violates his faith. HIs customers include those who are LGBT, he simply won’t bake to celebrate a same-sex wedding, The free market is the solution, not the government.
When prohibited discrimination causes people harm, which can be made right by the justice system, a legal path can be a worthy solution. Yet even if a win in court here could satisfy the hurt felt by the ill-treatment of many people of faith, such a path is not our definition of living at peace with everyone as far as it concerns us. As Metzger is far from the only restaurant in Richmond, we were able to redirect our guests elsewhere. In this instance, Metzger has been tried in the court of public opinion.
The lesson for other businesses could not be more clear: discriminate against people of faith and find yourself shamed on a national stage. It is not a recipe for success. Metzger needs to learn that.
Some say, if Jack won’t bake the cake, he should "get out of the kitchen." Would they that about Metzger?
I have news for everyone. Principled Christians populate every career, and they aren’t going to be chased away by the intolerance of others, nor would you like a world without their influence. Pro-life doctors shouldn’t have to leave the medical field because they believe human life in the womb should be protected, not purged. Catholic adoption agencies shouldn’t have to shut down because they believe it’s optimal to give a child a mom and a dad. Christian psychologists shouldn’t be forced to push children with gender confusion toward hormones and amputations when they know counseling could heal.
A pluralistic society must have room for all viewpoints. Those who shout "tolerance" the loudest need to practice it, even against those they deem the most unworthy. I contend that their tolerance of people of faith might not be as difficult as they think once they engage with Christians. The very faith that the waitstaff finds threatening is the faith that compels us to treat the waitstaff with charity and love.
Our law center will continue to litigate on behalf of others free of charge when the injury is great, and the marketplace does not ensure an adequate remedy. But not today. Not against Metzger.
************************************************************
Christmas reflections: Quirky things to be grateful for
James Allan
At Christmas dinner my wife’s family has a longstanding practice of going around the table asking each person to tell the rest the one or two things from that year for which he or she is most thankful. I’m sure that more than a few readers have a similar custom. I mention that because Australia’s bravest editor (just look at the virtually unique courage he showed in making this publication one of the world’s best in standing up to lockdown thuggery and mandate illiberalism), The Spectator Australia’s very own Rowan Dean, has suggested to all of us regular writers that perhaps for the Christmas issue we might want to be a bit more reflective and quirky than is our usual wont.
So a few days ago, there I was reflecting on what to be reflective about. (It’s harder quirking while pondering what to be quirky about.) And for no particular reason I got to thinking about the unusual things for which I was very grateful and disposed to feel lucky. Not the important things such as the continuing health and well-being of our kids and spouses. Or how we’d all won the lottery of life living in Australia (where English is the main language and the country’s criminal law system is founded on the presumption of innocence – oops, sorry ACT and Victorian readers).
In other words, I got to thinking of unusual things not simply over the past year but over the course of my life for which I was grateful. Little, quirky things not the big life events. What were a couple of those that stood out?
Well, here’s one. It goes back to the teachers I had in my Toronto state schools who made us all memorise some poetry. You see my maternal grandmother had myriad lines of poetry that she could recite right into her nineties. Whole poems. Shakespeare sonnets and soliloquies. The Romantic poets. You name it; there was a good chance she could recite it. I’m not remotely in my late grandmother’s league. But ever since primary school and then high school, where teachers actually forced kids to memorise famous poems and Shakespearean passages, I’ve been incredibly fortunate. You see way back then I learnt by heart quite a few things. I can do three full Shakespeare sonnets (29th, 129th and 18th). And eight or nine of his most famous soliloquies. I can recite Kipling’s ‘If’, which we made both our kids memorise and which they can still do and which you can think of as Jordan Peterson condensed down into one beautiful, powerful poem. Likewise, I’ve memorised William Henley’s ‘Invictus’, which was reputed to be Nelson Mandela’s favourite poem (for obvious reasons perhaps) and again which our kids can recite. And a couple of war poems – ‘In Flanders Fields’ by the Canadian John McCrae and ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ by Alfred Lord Tennyson.
Full disclosure: I love both those poems, and note for Aussie readers that all Canadian Remembrance Day services will include McCrae’s haunting poem made more haunting by the fact he died just before the end of the first world war commanding a battlefield hospital. I’ve got the starting bits of Melville’s Moby Dick and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice off by heart, both being terrific and with Austen showing that ironic cynicism that makes her my favourite female writer save for perhaps Agatha Christie. There’s Edward Lear’s ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ and chunks from David Hume’s Essays. Oh, and I memorised a few biblical passages, including 1st Corinthians 13 and the 23rd Psalm.
And let me be clear that when I read the Bible back in my first year as a practising lawyer I read the King James’ Version (the one documenting the way God would actually talk and the only thing I’ve ever read that rivals Shakespeare for the sheer beauty of its prose) so that is the version I can recite. God’s version. I can also reveal to readers a small secret. It took me almost a whole year to the read the Bible because I would only read it on the 25-minute subway commute to and from work each day to my big downtown Toronto law firm. But I discovered this was also a fantastic way to get a seat on incredibly crowded commuter trains. Get on the train. Open the Bible. Presto, everyone around me had moved away and I had a seat.
Now you might think that it’s something of a drag to sit down and memorise poems and passages, and you’d be right. But boy, am I grateful today. Years later I realise that I am carrying around in my head some of the highlights of Western civilisation. And forget what the postmodernist nihilists say, Western civilisation has delivered the world’s best way of life today measured by what most human beings want.
It has delivered antibiotics, jet airplanes, the best life females have ever had anywhere at any time in human history, a Royal Navy that ended slavery on the high seas at great cost to British taxpayers when every other culture still practised slavery. (How many of our ill-educated Australian students know that far more African slaves were bought for and sent to the Islamic world than to the West? I’m betting not many.)
It alone went through an Enlightenment that changed all cultures everywhere, though my view is that the Scottish version was much superior to the French. At any rate, I am today immensely grateful to have this modicum of poems and passages at my fingertips. Or rather in my head. Connecting me to a great past, no doubt flawed, but worthy of deep respect. It is a shame, verging on a crime, how our schools and universities have been captured by the self-loathing postmodernists.
And here’s a second quirky thing for which I’m very grateful. My wife and I have been lucky enough to drive from Toronto to San Diego, and then half-a-year later drive back. We did it twice, actually, once in 2013 and once in 2019. No stops planned in advance. On and off the interstate highways as we pleased. Diversions at a whim. (We had a week to do this drive that is 4,200 kilometres if you go the fastest route, but we serpentined.) Meeting the friendliest people on earth. A sane speed limit on the interstate highways of 75 mph, but no speeding tickets till you’re over 85 mph. (That’s just under 140 kph.) Go look at car accident deaths in Australia versus the US and Britain and Germany. You’ll soon conclude that our officious speed limits are very much only about raising money.
Anyway, that experience of driving across the US is another quirky thing for which I’m grateful. Happy Christmas to all you readers.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/12/christmas-reflections/
***************************************************Australian Dictionary reviews definitions of 'man' and 'woman'
The editors of the Macquarie Dictionary are considering the definitions of "man" and "woman" in light of shifting modern usage.
It comes after the Cambridge Dictionary quietly updated its definition of "man" and "woman" to include anyone who "identifies as male/female" regardless of their sex at birth.
A spokesperson for Macquarie Dictionary said "the editors are looking at ensuring the entries for woman and man are reflective of Australian English usage" as well as various related terms, including female, male, girl, and boy.
They added while "Cambridge is predominantly concerned with providing a reference for learners of English ... Macquarie seeks to describe Australian English as it is used in the community".
"To fulfil these goals, both dictionaries need to examine a range of different texts, from academic works to social media, from fiction to news reports, and beyond.
"Our intention is to have any necessary changes made to these entries by the update in mid-2023." Macquarie updates words twice yearly, according to their website.
The current Macquaire Dictionary definitions of "man" include "the human species", "the human race", "a male human being (distinguished from woman)" and "an adult male person (distinguished from boy)", while the definitions for "woman" are "a female human being (distinguished from man)" and "an adult female person (distinguished from girl)".
When asked if the definitions of "man" and "woman" would be broadened to include those who "lives and identifies as male/female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth" as Cambridge did, the spokesperson said, "that is certainly part of what we're looking at".
The spokesperson said, however, they were not yet in a position to discuss any specific changes that may be made next year.
The Macquarie Dictionary currently defines "female" as "belonging to the sex which brings forth young, or any division or group corresponding to it" and "of or relating to the types of humans or animals which, in the normal case, produce ova which can be fertilised by male spermatozoa".
When the Telegraph UK revealed the Cambridge Dictionary changes last week, a spokesperson told them they had "carefully studied usage patterns of the word 'woman' and concluded the definition is one that learners of English should be aware of to support their understanding of how the language is used".
It follows various dictionaries updating definitions to keep up with modern usage.
In 2020, Merriam-Webster included an additional definition for "female" as "having a gender identity that is the opposite of male".
The Oxford dictionary also altered its definition of "woman" to include they could be "a person’s wife, girlfriend, or female lover”, not only a man’s, to be inclusive of same-sex relationships. The entry for "man" was also changed to include gender-neutral language in the example of a relationship.
****************************************
My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
*****************************************
/>
Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See 
1 comment:
It may be so that people are especially attracted to the bodies, emotions or the ability of others to separate one thing from the other. But I am a curmudgeon when it comes to yet another label besides heterosexual and homosexual. It is Christmas soon so I might as well utter the word humbug, but then again, I simply do not use terms I do not like and onwards I go. Hopefully more intelligent ladies and gentlemen will make headway meeting and becoming couples!
Post a Comment