The Dream is Always the Same.

I first saw Risky Business (NSFW)when it came out in 1983. It affected me deeply and in many ways the film has haunted me throughout my life.

I've often wondered why the movie has affected me so much and I still can't provide an explanation. But it appears to have affected other people the same way.

"The score for this movie was a stroke of genius. Captures perfectly the mystery surrounding women and sex during adolescence."

"why does this song take all the bad things in your life away for the time that it's on? It's like everything is perfect."

"Love on a real train reminds me of times when i was growing up, its a great tune, but it sometimes makes me a bit sad that those days are gone. I want to listen to it while I'm driving back from the beach, the suns setting, and i going to go out for the night. its a very bittersweet tune for me. Life was a lot simpler back then."

"If ever a film was made that captured the epitome of being a high schooler during the early 80s, this is it. Tangerine Dream's music is entrancing and in my opinion, is what made this film a classic."

Close your eyes and listen to the music and tell me you are not transported to someplace far away.

I still get the same feeling watching this now 20 years on as i did when i was 14

The soundtrack by Tangerine Dream still affects me deeply. Lana's theme and Love On a Real train transport me somewhere else. If I'm on the road, on summer evenings, whenever "In the Air tonight" comes on the radio , I start driving like a mad man, possessed by something wells up in me from where I don't know.

Enjoy (NSFW) This is still one of the best sex scenes ever. Porn looks so amateurish and cheap.


I won't be posting for the next four weeks as I'm off on holidays.

M.O.R.O.N.S.

Recklessness was seen as a vice by the ancients and with good reason; It frequently got you killed. But it was also seen as a deficiency of judgment and discernment; a failure in the proper application of courage and a sign of mental weakness. No good having all the bravery in the world if it all it did was shorten you life or put the lives of your colleagues at risk.

If we asked your average Thomist the question, should we go walking through minefields to prove our courage? I imagine the answer he would give would be no. He would probably say that we have a duty of care to ourselves and that exposing ourselves to risk without a good reason would be rash. (Stupid in less polite company). On the other hand, if we asked him should walk through a minefield in order to reach a fortune or to save someone who had wandered into the minefield by accident, I suppose the answer would be, it depends. The calculation would be based on a the benefits of risk vs the probability of loss. If there is a good reason for doing something dangerous, he would certainly see grounds for the positive admiration of a man who undertook a risky endeavor. Rescuing people in need, courage in war and the advancement of science were all seen as noble endeavors where the benefits gained at great risk to the participant were praised. But to willingly exposing yourself to danger for the "thrill of it" or to prove to yourself that you can would have been seen as idiotic.

Now Abbey Sunderland's parents were like the parents who let their kid play in a minefield. When they asked the American Sailing Association if they would sponsor young Abbeys trip, the American Sailing association declined, as they said the trip was too dangerous. Jessicas parents (who have a duty of care to look after their daughter) willfully put her into harm's way. Now exposing your child to harm may not necessarily be a bad thing for a good reason, but the only reason here was self aggrandizement. The girl's parents let her risk her life for fame. It's the cult of celebrity gone mad.

Whilst stupidity is endemic to the human condition, what surprised me was the support she got from "conservative" commentators across the internet, people who should clearly know better. The same commentators who would without hesitation in a moment say "serves you right" to a provocatively dressed woman who placed herself in harm's way and who managed to get herself sexually assaulted were here heaping praise on girl displaying a greater idiocy.

Any person who supports the actions of this girl, fails the most basic precepts of conservative prudence and has displayed to the world self-evident proof of their utter stupidity. The fact that these conservative individuals have so thoroughly failed such an elementary test of good sense, raises the question of just how valid are their judgments on other matters? Is such a man capable of determining the complexities of a mortgage? Or what about the legitimacy of foreign wars? Or questions of economics? He that displays no sense in the little things is likely not to display any in the big ones.

It sad to say, but the liberals do not hold a monopoly on stupidity. The conservatives are doing their best to outdo them. If you ever wonder why the liberal project never gets turned back, perhaps it's because large numbers of Abbey Sunderland's supporters are in the conservative ranks.

Part of the problem with political theory is while great tomes have been written on human rights, separation of powers and the distribution of wealth, very little has been written on the role of stupidity in public life. Many commentators have worried about the quality of government when the the demos becomes demonic, but what happens when the demos becomes moronic?

As I become older, I have become more and more convinced that the right to vote should be limited to people who have practically demonstrated their ability to manage their affairs. People who cannot manage their own affairs have no right to a say in the management of mine. The test of citizenship should not be the presence of a pulse.

How it Works: The Social Processor. Examples.

I hadn't planned to put this post up until I ran into an interesting post by bloggist Remasculation. The post, titled ""Am I allowed to think that?" Asks Wannabe Bisexual" is a delivered on cue example of the importance of "group opinion" in female cognition.

The straight girl who asked the question is in a relationship with a man who is unhappy with his gender and wants to "transition". She explains her dilemma to her peer superior:

Transitioning aside, PIV (penis in vagina) sex (which I really like) probably isn't going to happen, which for the moment I'm totally fine with. Question 4: how do I make sure I'm still ok with that, as things continue? Am I allowed to think like that?

This innocuous comment opens up a window into the cognitive mechanism of the female mind. Here is a woman in a complex social situation for which there is no apparently obvious Party approved precedent. Her social processor is flummoxed and she has lost her social bearings, effective placing her at risk of being outside the group which she dreads. The important thing is to discern the group norm and conform to it, hence the appeal to her social superior.

Never mind the fact that she enjoys the heterosexual relationship and would appear to miss it if it were taken away from her. The important thing that this girl is trying to achieve is alignment of feelings with group norms. Primitive processing is at war with social processing and her cognitive state resembles thus:

Firstly her primitive processor is definitely repelled by her partners proposed actions, but a cognitive crisis occours, since the rational processor is not receiving any stimuli from the social processor since it is unable to determine the situation. The rational processor initiates rational actions to ascertain a solution to the social question. Once the appropriate social bearings have been made, cognition returns to normal. However in the above situation social approval is combined with primitive repulsion and then it's the role of the cognitive processor to rationalise justification for the situation.

" I shouldn't be judgmental"
" I've gotta consider his feelings and be supportive"
" I'll learn to live with it"

......and so on.

The point here is that ambiguous social standing is profoundly unsettling for most women she will endeavor to drift towards the peer group norm. Women seek safety in numbers.

This sort of stuff happens all the time even amongst women who have boyfriends with ambiguous sexuality.

Many women who are determined to breast feed feed and fail, despite painful bleeding nipples, feel failures for not conforming to the group ideal. Many women who are having a torrid time with children feel failures for not feeling the apporpirate way towards the children during childhood; our culture has effectively portrayed childhood as one endlessly Hallmark moment.
One of my left wing colleagues confessed to me that she was ashamed that she enjoyed Euro-Disney so much, given that the official left wing position is that all things American are declasse. Religious women who were taught that sex is dirty, often felt ashamed after the fact for enjoying it. Women everywhere police and judge their feelings by group norms.

Our bisexual girl will try to rationalise away her misgivings with her relationship but there will always remain a tension between her primitive nature and social expectations and should her social circumstances change, she will drop her ambiguous boyfriend like a hot potato as there is no alpha stimulation present.

I think its this phenomena which explained the great surge in divorces once divorce became liberalised. Many women were married to beta husbands but stuck with them because of social expectations, the social expectations helped rationalise away their misgivings with the relationships. With the social changes that came about post war, the social pressure to stay married evaporated and the tsunami of divorce ensured.

How it Works: The Social Processor. Part 2.

As mentioned in the previous post,there are three important factors with regard to the social processing of the female mind. They are:

1) A greater weighting of social factors in female cognition.
2) A sense of unease is self-generated when a woman falls outside perceived group norms.
3) This sense of unease motivates her towards behaviours and actions which effectively integrate her into the group.

Now group norms are derived either from direct experience of a group or through second degree knowledge such as that derived from the mainstream media and given the ubiquity of the media it now forms the predominant source of information with regard to group norms. The media determines "what's in" and "whats out". In practical terms, what this means is that women are susceptible to media manipulation to a greater degree than men. Editors and television producers exert far more influence on female behaviour than logic or religion. Should the editors or producers choose to make religion acceptable it will very rapidly become so amongst women.

A classic example of this mechanism in operation concerns the delicate subject of the Brazillian. (Readers who have been with me for a while will know my thoughts on this matter.) As a doctor, I get to do quite a few gynaecological examination and am old enough to have commenced my career in the middle of the video cassette revolution. With the increasing consumption of porn, women were presenting with "more grooming" than before until Sex and City came along. That show's promotion of the "Brazillian" correlated in my experience with a disappearance of all hair down there, especially amongst younger women. Now this may be just an innocent example of women following fashion but on more sober reflection it's profoundly disturbing.

It's no secret that the mainstream media is profoundly liberal, and liberal ideas are always presented positively, whilst conservative ideas are always presented negatively. The effect on women will be to abandon traditional in favour of the liberal. As Roger Scruton put it:

Women have been shamed into being shameful.

On a more primitive level exposure to non-peer approved stimuli will cause negative emotion: Non-liberal ideas and positions simply won't "feel" right. It also shows why arguing with women who have strong socially weighted cognition is pointless. You're logic may be watertight, but the argument does not "feel" right.

If that were only it.

Over the last 60 years or so, the western cultural ideal of the ideal man has shifted from the religious sober bourgeoisie to the playboy rake, the rebel , the man with issues. It's shifted from the good man to the emotionally unstable man. Our media is conditioning women to find good men objectionable and psychologically unstable or bad men desirable. The cognitive model is as follows:

In the presence of an boring white collar worker (say decent low level government employee):

In the absence of any positive or negative stimulation to the primitive processing centres, social negativity outweighs rational benefit. The woman can see that the man is a good man but given the greater weighting to social factors the woman overall will view the interaction negatively. "He's a good man but somethings missing". On the other hand this same man would have been viewed like this 60 years ago:

The relationship would have been viewed positively. However, sixty years of liberalisation of the arts, media and culture

On the other hand, after sixty years of the media pushing liberal ideas, some no hoper wannabe artist who refuses to work out of "rebellion against the system" starts a conversation with a girl in the bar and is viewed as follows:


Note, her brain can rationalise that the man is a poor long term bet but given the greater social weighting in female cognition, " I know he's bad for me but we have a chemistry" logic ensures. The relationship is viewed positively. (What were are talking about here is two alpha neutral (beta) males, men who neither repel or stimulate the primitive centers).

Perhaps one of the reasons women, especially professionally educated women, cannot find "decent men" is because they have been socially conditioned to be repelled by normal men. The inabilitiy to find Mr. Right may rest more on a habituated feeling of repulsion to those who are not the ideal. Hypergamy is innate in women, every woman wants to pair up with the best suitor available to her, but what she thinks is best is socially conditioned.

How it works: The Social Processor. Part 1.

As mentioned before, the social considerations of a woman's thinking are weighted to a far greater degree in her overall cognitive processing than in a man. Woman are genetically wired to be "other focused" and constantly evaluate their actions with the consideration of others and exeternalities in mind. They do this in a way that men just don't. It needs to be understood that this is not a choice a woman makes rather it happens naturally. This does not mean however that women are incapable of being self absorbed, rather female selfishness is the selfishness of competition; male selfishness, the selfishness of neglect.

The effect of this greater weighting of externalities on woman thinking is that externalities exert a powerful effect on a woman's mood. Now, it's a well known fact that women suffer from higher degrees of anxiety than men, and in her natural resting state, the average woman is intrinsically more anxious than a man. Women, just like men, wish to avoid the unpleasant sensation of anxiety and will try to engage in behaviours which limit it. One of the strategies employed is seeking safety in numbers: women endeavor to be part of the group. This does not mean that a woman can't think logically, it's just that an independent logical conclusion won't "feel" as right as group consensus. Women seek consensus out of a desire to avoid internal stress and being out on limb is more stressful for a woman than for a man. (Some women can handle greater degrees of stress than others, but given that the "anxiety mean" is greater in women than men, these women will be few). It's also why shaming is a more powerful behavioural modificant in women than logical argument. Shaming exerts a powerful capacity to generate anxiety than argument.

A classic example of this thinking in operation is with regard to fashion. Women are far more fashionable than men, the question is why? The greater "other focus" in female minds and inherent anxiety makes a woman both aware of outside customs and her conformity to them. When the mass of women take on a "style" the women feels "pressured" to adopt out of fear from being outside the group norm.

In fact, one of the common complaints many women make is with regard to social pressures to conform. However, what they mistake is the locus of this pressure. The pressure to conform is not from without, from the patriarchy or from the media, the pressure to conform is from within the woman herself. Women intrinsically feel more uncomfortable going alone, they are "wired", so to speak, to want to belong to the group.

This involuntary susceptibility to perceived group norms raises profound implications sociologically.

1) Women are far more more influenced by by perceived group norms than men. Therefore the way to convince women to change their behaviour is to give the perception that other people are doing it. (Whether or not it's true is totally irrelevant)

2)Appeals to a female's reason will be less successful than shaming or peer adulation.

3) In modern urban societies, where people live relatively isolated lives with small groups of friends, percieved group norms are going to be provided by the media.

4) He who controls the media controls female behaviour.

Here's an interesting article from the BBC

Here's how it works.

1)Firstly provide a TV show that's enjoyable and get everyone to watch it.

2)Make all your lead female characters genetic freaks with toned BMI's of 18.

3)Constantly portray the said freaks positively.

4)Girl compares herself against beautiful and positively presented freaks.

5) Internal anxiety is generated---> over a long term,constant anxiety generates depression.

6)Woman engages in behaviour to make her fit the perceived group norm.

7) Anorexia or bulimia, since calorie restriction is unrealistically portrayed as a fail safe method to achieve beauty( Outcome dependent on character traits). Never mind the woman's genetics.

How it Works: Alpha Male, Gamma Male.

As mentioned previously, a man who has the ability to stimulate a woman's alpha receptor will elicit both attraction a positive sexual response. The fact that such a man will frequently have a wide variety of suitors from a population of women with wildly disparate upbringings and social environments would seem to suggest that there is a common genetically predetermined neurobiological pathway for this phenomena. A woman's response to alpha behaviour, just like a woman's maternal response to the presence of little babies, is hard wired.

Also as mentioned previously, is the fact that social and rational factors also play an important role in mate selection. The Gamma male literally ticks all the boxes, being both socially, rationally and primitively agreeable to the woman.. An example of such a man would be a good looking and successful executive of a non-profit NGO. Here the cognitive state resembles this illustration.

In this situation, no stress is generated as all the cognitive processes are operating in unison re-enforcing each other. A woman cannot hope for better relational state than this as this is optimal state. Unfortunately in the real world, a woman's mate options are in many ways as limited as a man's: Optimal men are scarce.

As mentioned previously, alpha receptor activation is necessary for sexual attraction and many men who possess the ability to do so are flawed in other ways. Indeed the the typical cognitive pattern of the alpha male is as follows.
What's happening here is that whilst primitive and social processing are providing strong feelings of approval, rational processing is detecting serious flaws in the prospective mate and sending inhibitory signals to the other cognitive functions: Stress ensures potentially corrupting the mating process.

In the presence of primitive attraction( hard wired) and rational repulsion(soft wired) a woman will not mate with the male. On the other hand, in the present of strong attraction and rational repulsion, primitive processing will influence rational processing in such a way as bias the rational processing as to rationalise away objections to the mating process. The more sexually attracted she is to her otherwise unsuitable partner the more likely she is to engage in this form or rationalisation.

The aim of the mind is to recreate the state as exemplified in the Gamma Male illustration.

In low investment choices, i.e one night stands and short term flings, this cognitive inhibition may be of minimal importance as the woman can rationalise away the inhibition by recognising the relationship as strictly short term and of minimal importance. In longer relationships of potentially higher investment value, a woman will engage in all sorts of self-justification and illusory ideation in order to justify the relationship.

"He's damaged and I can fix him"
"His friends influence him too much"
"We're so good for each other"
"He'll change"
"He promises he won't do it again (fifth iteration of this idea)"
" A baby will strengthen our relationship"
"I don't deserve anyone better"

and so on.

This last one is particularly jarring and perplexing, especially to the laying in the wings beta male, who idolises and worships the affected woman(and who provides the shoulder for her to cry on) but who chafes at his spurned affections. The spurned beta wonders, Why does she reject me and stick with him especially when he treats her so badly? The reality is that she wants to stay with him for his alpha qualities and is trying to find an excuse to do so. It needs to be noted that the woman is not "lying" when she is doing this, rather their is a "hard wired" cognitive bias towards rationalising away the stress present in the relationship.

This last justification is particularly powerful deceiving rationalisation to outside observers as well; eliciting both sympathy towards the woman and paradoxically socially justifying her relationship with the man who obviously inappropriate. "She has low self esteem, don't be too hard on her" . The whole "I don't deserve anything better" rationalisation provides a powerful motive not to leave the relationship whilst at the same time gaining social sympathy as an "abused victim". It surprising how many women discover the self-esteem and leave the relationship when a greater alpha suitor presents himself.

Note, the same process can occur when there is low sexual attraction but high social justification for the relationship. When the social justification ceases, the woman "suddenly" finds out that she is "living a lie" and initiates divorce proceedings. The genetic meta imperative of the female mind is to eventually align thought with emotional state.

How it Works: Beta Male, Omega Male.

As mentioned in previous posts, the ability to elicit mating behaviour in a woman requires the stimulation of her cognitive alpha receptor. Niceness or agreeableness, whilst not off putting, are not characteristics which stimulate the alpha receptor. The neurophysiological processing which generates the sensation of "niceness" is seperate form the mating neuro-circuitry. This is easily verified in real life by the phenomena of the "friend zone". Women can and do have agreeable relationships with males such as brothers, fathers and workers without feeling the slightest sexual desire. Partner "agreeableness" may be a pre-requisite(though not necessarily so) to sexual attraction but it on its own is not enough to stimulate the alpha response.

Figuratively we can picture the mental processes as such.

Note, in this cognitive model, the beta male may appeal on both socially and rationally but he fails to elicit any response in the primitive area. The woman finds the man agreeable(even strongly so)and may in fact place high value on the friendship but does not feel sexual attraction to the male. It's also the cognitive mechanism at play when a woman speaks those dreaded words "lets just be friends". Hence a beta male can be defined as a male who fails to stimulate the alpha receptor but retains enough positive attributes so that a woman wants to form a non sexual relationship with him.

Now a woman may still be able to engage in erotic behaviour whilst in this zone, but the behaviour is not instinctive or desired. Such a mechanism operates when a woman is "doing her duty" or having sex with someone out of guilt or pity, however what are driving her behavior are social expectations or rational judgment, not instinct.

(It needs to be remembered that just as mothers can experience difficulty in bonding with their child when exhausted, ill or under other external stresses, the sensitivity to the alpha receptor can be diminished in similar states.)

Contrast the Beta cognitive model with the Omega. The Omega male actually stimulates feelings of repulsion in the woman,

Here, not only is the primitive processing not stimulated but the primitive area sends inhibitory signals to the rational and social areas of the mind to try and break off contact. Unlike the beta male where there is no desire to break off the non-sexual relationship, the woman deliberately tries to avoid the Omega man. This in some way is a small mercy for the Omega male, for he is left in no doubt about the woman's desire not to have a relationship with him. This small mercy is not extended to the beta male. Here the woman is still quite happy to keep his company and her friendly engagement and proximity with the beta male may be misinterpreted by him as being the very beginnings of a potential sexual interest. Inevitable frustration and bitterness ensures.