LivingSoul wrote:I'll try and explain my theory as objectively as possible so my post gets through moderation
An auspicious start, and a tantalizing one.
LivingSoul wrote:In the lecture, Cantor says, at about 0:35,
"There's a problem, not in the sex center, but in the network that all together is responsible for identifying what in the environment is a potentially sexual object. It's almost like there's a literal cross-wiring. Humans of course have many social instincts: they include the four-Fs, they include when you meet a person who's an alpha male you either run away or obey them, if you're a child there's natural instincts for learning, if you're a parent there's natural instincts for parenting, when you meet sexually interesting people that's a natural social sexual instinct. It's as if, as if -- this is a metaphor not a conclusion -- there is a cross-wiring, and when the person perceives the child, the brain, instead of triggering the nurturant instincts is triggering the sexual insticts: it's cross wired; at least that's a very helpful way to look at it that explains the data. So it looks like in pedophiles this white-matter is under-developed so the correct set of stimuli is not triggering the correct... I'll say correct... the correct instincts. That's what I found."
Underdeveloped? As is so often the case, experts can’t help but slip into ad hominem territory at some point. The judgement seeps through in their rhetoric. I for one feel that my attraction to minors and my parental feelings are entirely distinct.
LivingSoul wrote:Consider where Cantor said, "...the correct... I'll say correct... the correct instincts." What if, it isn't the structure of the patriarchy that is correct, rather, the patriarchy is the one that is "cross-wired", as Cantor metaphorically refers to the brain coding in pedophiles.
Adjectives (indeed, other classes of word too, but particularly adjectives) evoke a perspective. I find it hard to call anything correct, except perhaps some a priori stuff, but even then you can question the system (mathematics, deductive reasoning). At the very least one has to ask what is being asserted with the use of the word ‘correct’, and what grounds that assertion and its underlying assumptions.
LivingSoul wrote:A long long time ago [...] a monopoly on intimacy exchanges.
I can see why you’d want to couch that in terms as objective as possible.
This starts like a narrative and reads like one, though perhaps necessarily so in view of its catholic purview. I can’t disagree with this, though I do want to raise the matter of essentialism. If sexual taboos are ultimately the product of (or rather: response to) instincts that have designs on a ‘monopoly on intimacy’, then to what extent are those instincts polymorphous or fluid? Or is it reasonable to hypothesise that they have some basis in a ‘human nature’ (whatever that may be)? I’m toying with evolutionary psychology, of course: to what extent are our taboos grounded in adaptations that one might reasonably expect in an intelligent social animal capable of self-reflection and capable of describing its thoughts and feelings in abstract language?
But the monopoly on intimacy thing is oft understated.
LivingSoul wrote:The difference is lack, or more usually, perceived lack. As Foucault, or Eckhart Tolle tell us, perceived lack is the drive-belt of discipline and punish societies/egoic consciousness.
So jealousy, basically? An ‘I want the monopoly’ finding expression? Is lack is usually perceived in terms of what others have and what one does not have?
LivingSoul wrote:Cantor had remarked that pedophiles have the nurturing part of the brain and the sexual part of the brain "cross-wired". In pre-tribalism, these are the same thing. I call it 'Barbarian Pederasty'. Before the family-unit and school system, learning happened my imitation, not by discipline. 'Barbarian Pederasty' was the system of enculturation for millions of years, it wasn't extinguished in Indo-European culture until 399 BC when Socrates was executed: at that point free education motivated by adult sexual attraction to juveniles was displaced by a market-based system of paid contracted pedagogues. In most mammals, the males are indifferent or hostile to the juveniles. What made humans human was male attraction to the juveniles. Pedophilia is actually the cause of humanity and civilization.
Hmm. I’m not convinced. I think there’s a lot of speculation vis-à-vis the behaviour of prehistoric humankind, but then you did state above that this was your theory rather than ascertained fact. I’m not clear on the link you’re trying to make between a move towards a ‘market-based system of paid contracted pedagogues’ and attraction to juveniles. I don’t think the rise of the sophists, rhetoric and philosophy can be attributed to sexual attraction, and the Greeks weren’t pursuing prepubescent ass so much as young men in mid to late adolescence.
LivingSoul wrote:So... there's not any need to explain why someone is a pedophile, that was the default.
You mean attraction to prepubescents?
LivingSoul wrote:The reason why pedophilia becomes taboo is not because there is anything in-itself harmful about touch or intimacy between adults and children, that was going on for millions of years and still is in warm sunny places; why pedophilia is "wrong" is because of the way man, woman, and child and market economy, and family unit, and encuturation all fit together in contemporary patriarchy. Hope that makes some sense.
That makes sense. It’s just that the way you explain it you seem to jump from ‘the way x, y and z all fit together in contemporary patriarchy’ creates the notion of paedophilia being ‘wrong’ (which I find credible) to attraction to children as ‘default’ (your word). I’m not averse to the idea of sexuality being shaped, but just how polymorphous is it, and if a polymorphous sexuality is the innate default then why can’t a non-polymorphous sexuality be an innate default? Puberty strikes me as a natural threshold for attraction. Or is it? And if not, what other thresholds are illusory? I’m not denying what you say, but it raises a lot of questions.
LivingSoul wrote:Cantor has some good insights on the objective level if you can keep from falling for his interpretation of the raw data -- or, getting so triggered by his perspective as to reject the interesting information he's presenting. I would add, some pedophiles might be called 'cross-cross-wired'; that is, they are lack produced: these pedophiles are living in a patriarchy and cannot get any touch or intimacy from adult females due to the peruse-reject male-female roles assigned in the patriarchy: maybe because they are short or have little social capital, or maybe because obesity and neuroticism has reduced the pool of attractive females, these males perceive themselves as lacking in their need for touch, intimacy, recognition, and so on, and turn to kids. These pedophiles can be distinguished from the polysexuals because they are motivated by egoic or neurotic lack, not by what Marshal Rosenberg called "our natural desire to enrich the lives of those around us".
Hmm. Well, I can get laid. Got laid more when I wasn’t in a long-term relationship though.
Perhaps if Aristophanes (in Plato’s
Symposium) hadn’t been distracted by the hiccups he might have remembered to include a fourth sex: half-adult, half-child, rolling around in a nice game of rough and tumble.
Morrisey once said he represented the ‘fourth sex’, and nobody really understood what he meant by that. Perhaps he was referring to Aristophane’s speech in the
Symposium? Tangential, yes, but it just occurred to me.
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