Culture

Insanity & Doom Update XXIII

Item Cuckolding can be positive for some couples, study says

In our current political climate, the term “cuck” — short for “cuckservative” — has become an insult of the so-called alt-right, aimed at men they view as spineless and emasculated. The slur has its roots in the concept of cuckolding, or having an adulterous partner.

But, according to a recent study by David Ley, Justin Lehmiller and the writer Dan Savage, acting on cuckolding fantasies can be a largely positive experience for many couples, and hardly a sign of weakness.

Did somebody say Dan Savage? They did. Here is an excerpt from the abstract of the peer-reviewed paper “The Psychology of Gay Men’s Cuckolding Fantasies” on which the CNN story is based.

Cuckolding (also known as troilism) is a sexual interest in which one obtains sexual arousal from the experience of a romantic partner engaging in sexual activity with someone else. The present study investigated fantasies about and experiences with cuckolding in a large and diverse sample of predominately gay-identified men (N = 580).

Enough.

Item Religion’s Psychological Effects on Non-Believers

In New Zealand, Australia and many other countries, it’s hard to escape Christmas in December.

But even if you don’t believe in Christ or a God, religion can still be a powerful force. Research shows that even nonreligious people may hold unconscious beliefs linked to religion that can affect their psychology…

A study in Finland explored how religious and non-religious people responded to the idea of God.

The researchers used electrodes to measure how much sweat people produced while reading statements like “I dare God to make my parents drown” or “I dare God to make me die of cancer”. Unexpectedly, when nonbelievers read the statements, they produced as much sweat as believers — suggesting they were equally anxious about the consequences of their dares.

Wee p-value alert.

Item India Willoughby: Is it discriminatory to refuse to date a trans woman?

The argument started on UK reality television show Celebrity Big Brother, where minor celebrities are locked into a studio made to look like a house, then filmed 24/7.

As might be expected in such a situation, tensions run high and conversations can be fractious. One of the housemates is India Willoughby, a TV journalist who had an established career as a man before transitioning to become a woman.

Willoughby asked her housemates about their dating preferences, and the resulting conversation kicked off a social media storm

“The majority of straight men are worried about what society thinks of them if they date a trans woman,” she says. “Toxic masculinity makes them violent and rude about their attraction. When you don’t fancy someone you should talk about their characteristics. It’s not as black and white as many people think it is because whether you are attracted to someone or not is about being attracted to a fellow human being.”

Given that a “trans woman” is a man, and a man wants to date women, then yes. It is discriminatory. Not all discrimination is bad. This is good, quality discrimination. Long may it live.

Categories: Culture

11 replies »

  1. Re: the first item. We will wait to see if swordfish objects that this is not the way “everyone else” uses “cuckold.”

    Meanwhile, Wikipedia tell us that “A cuckold is the husband of an adulterous wife. In evolutionary biology, the term is also applied to males who are unwittingly investing parental effort in offspring that are not genetically their own.”

    And the Online Etymological Dictionary explains:

    cuckold (n.)
    mid-13c., kukewald, from Old French cucuault, from cocu (see cuckoo) + pejorative suffix -ault, of Germanic origin. So called from the female bird’s alleged habit of changing mates, or her authentic habit of leaving eggs in another bird’s nest.

    In Modern French the identity is more obvious: Coucou for the bird and cocu for the betrayed husband. German Hahnrei (13c.), from Low German, is of obscure origin.* The second element seems to be connected to words for “ardent,” and suggests perhaps “sexually aggressive hen,” with transferal to humans, but Kluge suggests rather a connection to words for “capon” and “castrated.” Related: Cuckoldry.

    *YOS suggests for Hahnrei that -(e)rei is a suffix. This can attach an occupational designation similar to English -ery. E.g., “die Bäckerei” (bakery). So “roostery.”

    But it can also designate a negative situation or activity: e.g., “die Schweinerei” (mess; swinishness); hence, a messy sort of roostering.

    “-erei” can also be appended to most verbs to denote an activity taken to extremes, e.g. “die Fahrerei” (a tedious amount of driving); hence, “extreme rooster.”

    Hahnrei seems to be the second or third usage

  2. The word cuckolded refers to the male’s condition where his wife, is made pregnant by another man. It has been loosely used in playgrounds for the offence of boys usurping girlfriends. Especially if Shakespeare’s on the menu.

    It is mentioned in medieval English literature and Chaucer at least at the earliest.
    The word derives from the cuckoo. Which for those who live separate from nature in their heads or reality, they are one type of bird, the one which ‘steals nests’ by laying eggs in the neighbour’s nest. The same bird that features front of house in the cuckoo clock.
    The first sign of spring, in England is the cuckoo.
    It’s nothing to do with fantasies of any kind.
    Nor is it anything ‘alt right’ related, whatever the heck alt right is, sounds like a key stroke on a computer game.

    Kook/kooky is the word used to call somebody crazy. Like the cartoon cuckoo clock.

    Sung as a round, very pretty:

    Sumer is icumen in,
    Loude sing cuckou!
    Groweth seed and bloweth meed,
    And springth the wode now.
    Sing cuckou!

    Ewe bleteth after lamb,
    Loweth after calve cow,
    Bulloc sterteth, bucke verteth,
    Merye sing cuckou!
    Cuckou, cuckou,
    Wel singest thou cuckou:
    Ne swik thou never now!

  3. India Willoughby: “The majority of straight men are worried about what society thinks of them if they date a trans woman”

    Um, no, India. It’s the “ewww” factor. It originates in a powerful gene that is apparently missing or damaged in the non-straight population. Imagine frenching your brother.

  4. Interestingly, Willoughby is thinking like a woman, believing than a man cares about other people’s opinions. Either he has always thought that way, which makes him some kimd of women, or it’s trans procedure having this effect.

  5. I am still astonished that inveterate perverts are given any publicity at all other than a quiet murmuring that he, she or it has been executed or confined to a dungeon lest their proclivities be a contagion to contaminate impressionable youth.

  6. Sander everybody cares what other people think, at some level. Just about different things.
    It is the essential, not only, reason for hiding sin in a confession box.
    It is the main tool of, and method used to control, blackmail and even torture, (emotional blackmail) by those inclined to evil and criminality.
    If there were no sense of pride or shame there could be no caring what other people think.

    Your point about men worrying about ‘dating’ a man who’s been fiddled with to look like a woman is simply the plain knowledge as you say, that he is a man and men don’t date men, ever, whatever anybody says about it! It wouldn’t happen!

    There was a very sweet, manly, dead straight fellow (M) who was a friend of mine who, so the story goes, before my time, attended a medieval reenactment function. He was seventeen. There was a member who was also sweet, whatever Oldavid says, who had several personae. One was called Violetta. When I first met him he was in mundane clothes and I couldn’t tell if he was a girl or a boy, kept my mouth shut. Anyway My friend M took a shine to Violetta and when he was told of his mistake he hid under the dress of my flatmate who later became his girlfriend.
    There’s no such thing as corrupting people into being gay or perverse. Some men do say differently, they would know, I suppose.

  7. Joy – you may believe, erroneously, that young people are not corrupted into perversions. This is at odds with what the perverts themselves say and believe, and the experience of history shows.

    Some children are born gay. Many are made to be gay. Some homosexuals attempt to transmit their mental disorder to others in the same way that some (notably homosexuals) seem driven to infect others with their physical disorder.

    It is never healthy to encourage the insane in their insanities. Shall we allow a man to say he is Napoleon Bonaparte? How about a tree? How about letting a man say he is really a 16 year old girl? These are all forms of insanity, and should be treated or quarantined for the good of society.

  8. McChuck,
    Insanity and homosexuality are not the same thing. Homosexuals are not insane. You can say it but it won’t be true. Medically or legally speaking.

    Criminality can be encouraged, though.
    The cliche ‘napoleon’ complex does not actually exist.

    People with schizophrenia are those who you and others are alluding to.
    These patients become deluded about the world or themselves AND have psychoses, (hallucinations, visual or auditory), may become paranoid as well and therefore violent.

    Somebody who just behaves a certain way is not deluded. A free hand rock climber, a psychopath, a tightrope walker, a cross dresser, a drag queen, an extreme skier are not actually insane. They are behaving a certain way because it pleases them.
    Some of those might be considered more or less healthy pursuits, more or less ‘damaging to society.’

    As to the concern about boys? I wasn’t speaking of pedophilia, I was speaking about gay men.
    I would also lock straight men up in gaol who engage in covert spying on women and share their information with other men on line. They would do time along with the pedophiles in my world.

    One was locked up just this week, ten years. For hounding a girl out of her wits. Bugging, following, spying, sharing and so on. That is a serous sexual perversion. Wanting a girl to think it’s being done is as bad as doing it, too. Consider the man who threatens to rape versus the man who wants you to think he threatened to rape. Which is the worst crime? Back on topic..

    Someone who requests mutilation by a surgeon to change sex, for that is what it is, isn’t high on my list of fears for society. Since I have many years experience of the public, tens of thousands and only recall one patient who was undergoing a procedure to change his sex. Yet we had a psychopath in our department the same year who killed a nurse in the grounds. A fifteen year old boy who was seen by our paediatric physio previously. Other patients of mine who were clearly attending to indulge their perversions. Rape fantasists and people making up stories to see your reaction. Those kind are far more common. Whatever the media is telling you and the current trend in some private schools regarding talk of gender. ..There will be lawsuits further down the line from these children when they grow up. That’s my guess.

    Sex changes aren’t something which people can be talked into. Children? Different matter entirely. That is very wrong.. As wrong can be.

    Were it up to me McChuck ‘transexuals’ wouldn’t exist because they’d never be booked for surgery.

    Some man dressing in tights for a laugh is no threat to anyone. Nor is he insane.

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