Disgust

Given events in the U.S. in the last few days, I felt it would be pertinent to revisit the subject of disgust.

Disgust was a long overlooked emotion but recent psychological research into the subject has shown that it plays an important role in many facets of the human person.

Firstly, with regard to the subject of female sexuality, there is a growing body of research which suggests that it has an important role in the regulation of female sexuality.  From this paper,

In addition, the stimuli involved in sexual encounters are in general (at least out of context) strongly perceived to hold high disgust qualities, with saliva, sweat, semen and body odours qualifying among the strongest disgust elicitors . Clearly then, disgust may be an important interfering factor in sexual activity which may help to explain the mechanisms involved in sexual dysfunction  The finding that many of the strongest disgust eliciting stimuli are also involved in sex (e.g., saliva, and sweat) may not only help explain how disgust may be involved in sexual dysfunction, but it also raises the critical question of how people succeed in having pleasurable sex at all

The growing research evidence suggests that arousal is the key disgust suppression mechanism which facilitates sexual activity. In other words, women are quite literally disgusted by the idea of sex unless sufficiently aroused. This is an important finding, especially with regard to its theological implications. Traditionally, the marital debt was supposed to be rendered by each spouse on demand--within reason--yet the arousal dimension, a dimension which appears to be necessary in order for the normal functioning of the act has not been an object of consideration. There appears to be a need for a theology of desire (Eros: Ed).

The implications of a lack of arousal are clear. (from the same paper) 

From a clinical standpoint these findings can indicate that lack of sexual arousal (perhaps due to inappropriate stimulation) may interfere with functional sex, as it may prevent the reduction of disgust and disgust related avoidance tendencies. Consequently, if sexual arousal is low (for a variety of possible reasons), the disgusting properties of specific stimuli, which are relevant for the engagement in pleasurable sex, as well as the hesitation to approach these stimuli are not attenuated. As a result, this could lead to problems with sexual engagement, and lack of vaginal lubrication, which in turn could increase friction and cause problems such as pain with intercourse. It is thus possible that in extreme cases the woman might acquire negative associations with sex and might start to avoid sexual intercourse altogether. Relevant to this, our previous studies with women suffering from vaginismus (Genito-pelvic pain disorder/penetration disorder) have shown that they experience disgust responses towards erotic stimulation at the subjective as well as at a more automatic level. Moreover, the fact that sex related stimuli appeared to elicit disgust rather than arousal in women suffering from vaginismus might further worsen the problem. This is relevant here, since a typical response to disgust is avoidance behaviour in order to create distance from the disgusting stimuli. Thus, it is highly possible that these sexual problems can be directly or indirectly related to low sexual arousal, which as a consequence gives more room for the elicitation of disgust, resulting in a downward spiral and continued maintenance of their difficulties and sexual dysfunction.

As I've mentioned before, "Biblical Christians", whom insist that a wife must submit to his wife without any reference to the qualities of desire are cultivating conjugal trouble.

Recent research into the subject of Vaginismus and Dyspareunia have shown that women who suffer from these conditions have a higher disgust response to sexual stimuli than other women. Furthermore, normal morally conservative women have a higher disgust response than liberal women. (There appears truth to the notion that liberal women are easy and more tolerant of dirt.)

Now treatment for this condition varies in effectiveness with most approaches being based on a systematic desensitisation approach with quite variable success rates. Interestingly, this small and highly ethically dubious study, used "surrogate partners" with 100% success. After reading the about this latter study, I wanted to know a bit more about the characteristics of the surrogates, no details were forthcoming, but this dissertation, which reviewed the literature with regard to male response to vaginismus, is, as they say, very...very interesting.

The male partners of women with vaginismus are typically described as gentle, timid, inexperienced, overly considerate, and passive-dependent men who are unassertive with lower than average sexual desire (Fertel, 1977 cited in Leiblum et al., 1980). The female partner is seen as the more dominant personality in the majority of the cases (O’Sullivan, 1979). A psychometric study of both partner’s personality by Kennedy et al. (1995) found the male partners “to be reserved rather than outgoing, sober rather than happy-go- lucky, shy rather than  venturesome, trusting rather than suspicious, tense rather than relaxed” (p. 16).

A high proportion of the male partners are described as gentlemen, who are kind and polite, display a good deal of tenderness and concern towards their partner, and show much consideration and understanding for her condition (Puxon & Dawkins, 1963;Stanley, 1981). These qualities of support and empathy may help with the continuation of the relationship, but some partners experienced supportiveness without an appropriate level of assertiveness, as an exacerbation of the difficulties caused by vaginismus in a study by Canin (2006). 

Roissy's shadow is ever present in the dissertation.
Several manosphere commentators have noted the link between disgust and non-alphaness and it would appear that there is a sound scientific basis for it.  Arguing against the notion that there is something wrong with women for wanting an alpha male is not just anti-woman but it is anti-nature as well.

NOTE TO THE RETARDED.

I'm not saying that both these conditions are caused solely by a lack of alphaness in the male, rather it would appear that recent research suggests that the that failure of desire arousal (for whatever mechanism) may be responsible. Epsecially, in cases of dyspareunia, organic factors may be at play and need to be excluded before "desire failure" should be considered as a cause.
Seek proper medical advice.

Lucky Guy

Unlike a lot of this segment of the blogosphere, I'm pretty ambivalent on the subject of a hereditary aristocracy or Royalty. It's a sort of backhanded tribute to Marx when one accepts the notion that those born into a life of privilege are actually morally better than those less fortunate.

I must admit that I have strong sympathies for this view of Jefferson in his letter to John Adams,

For I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. Formerly bodily powers gave place among the aristoi. But since the invention of gunpowder has armed the weak as well as the strong with missile death, bodily strength, like beauty, good humor, politeness and other accomplishments, has become but an auxiliary ground of distinction. There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class. The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society. May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government? The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent it’s ascendancy.

A cursory read of European history will show that princes have been corrupt, kings bad, dukes dissolute, Earls treacherous and Queens promiscuous. In England, we have the virtue of Elizabeth matched by the prolishness of his Son Andrew and former daughter-in-law Sarah. There have been exceptions of course, but hereditary aristocracy is no guarantee of virtue. I'd be far more accepting of it, if we could rid ourselves of the worst offenders without slipping into war.

Which brings me to Sweden. Nothing really surprises me about Sweden and those superior Aryans Nords anymore. It appears that they have had a Royal Wedding and whilst marrying commoners is not the breech of precedent it was before, I must admit, I'm a bit surprised with Sweden's newest princess, Sofia Kristina Hellqvist.  Her credentials are impressive (NSFW). Topless model, Reality TV show contestant,  admirer of  Jenna Jameson.  The picture in the Wiki link shows her just about to hit the wall.

Clearly, some commoners are more common than others. That prince, he sure is a lucky guy.

Welcome to our new overclass.

Carnal Lite II: The Virtues of Eros.

One of the most important concepts in biology is the concept of conditioning. First described by Pavlov, conditioning is the learned association between between an innate response and some other stimulus. It is a powerful mechanism of learning in aversion therapy, i.e. when you want to teach a patient to avoid a certain behaviour. It is worth keeping in mind in my comments to follow.

Now, the reason I bring this up is because of a recent post by Dalrock, Don't blame Heartiste for the equation of Alpha with virtue, which I believe raises an important question with regard to the relationship between the two. Now, in order to help those who suffer from concept conflation,  I want to distinguish between alpha male traits--traits which women find sexually attractive--and the the PUA lifestyle, which involves the bedding of multiple women.  The two concepts are separate and when I speak of Alpha male behaviour, I'm speaking of the specifically of the traits, not the lifestyle.

Now the reason I raise this point is to pose the question: Is it possible to be properly masculine without reference of alpha traits? Or is alphaness something that forms a component of masculinity?

If you look at it more closely, many of the alpha traits which women find attractive aren't explicitly sexual traits but are rather personality factors, which demonstrate a strong internal locus of control combined with a strong sense of social awareness. Can a man be manly without these factors? Personally, I don't think so and am more of the opinion that a man needs to posses some alpha factors in his personality to be properly masculine.

In other words, Alpha behaviour is a component of masculinity and sexual attractiveness is a sort of virtue. A better way of thinking of it is as an Arete, an excellence of masculinity.

As I've argued previously, Christianity has downplayed this excellence and has sometimes been out-rightly hostile to it, and has in may ways laid the foundation for the current sexual dystopia, by blurring the sexual dimensions of the person, seeing moral goodness as sexually androgynous. When we tend to think of a good man for instance, we don't tend to think of him as a attractive muscular personage, rather we tend to dismiss this aspect and evaluate him solely on his character traits. Likewise for women. Christian goodness or badness seems to seems to evaluate the "vessel" in which the moral actor subsists as morally irrelevant. It's hard to develop a theology of sexual polarity when the underlying religious assumptions regard physical sexual identity as if it didn't matter.

The problem with taking this approach is that it become very difficult to then to analyse deficiencies or excellences of sexual polarity within any type of moral framework. Even Christian conceptions of Eros, tend to "decarnalise it" seeing it as an appetitve element, a thing of desire, rather than as a thing of desire for the opposite sex. If anyone doubts this, have a read of Benedict's speculations in his Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, and Benedict is not stupid. This Christian approach to Eros deforms it into a meeting of souls instead of a hedonic delight in the carnal nature of each other. Eros is primarily concerned with the flesh.

Eros is a type of love that brings the opposites together and therefore it's virtues are those which facilitate union. Masculinity under such a framework  must posses qualities which are attractive to the opposite sex, likewise femininity is composed of the qualities which attract the male. The Erotic virtues are those which conform to this ideal and a good man under this analysis is not only a man who is pleasing to God but is also attractive to women. Furthermore, masculinity in this construct becomes a matter of empirical observation instead of some philosophical construct. A component of masculinity must include what women like.

This "carnal lite" view of the sexes leads to other more profound problems. It tends to analyse intersexual relationships without reference to actual human biology, tending to evaluate male female relationships on a "platonic" dimension instead of an "erotic" one. Marital dysfunction is seen more as a "friendship" failure rather than a failure of Eros.  Now by erotic failure, I don't just mean an explicitly sexual failure--i.e a failure in the bedroom--but rather a more inclusive failure of either masculinity or femininity. Wives come home to men who can't make a decision and men come home to whiny bossy wives.  Marriages fail not just because men and women don't posses the character traits to be friends, rather marriages fail because the partners fail to maintain their sexual polarity.
Christianity just doesn't operate on this level of analysis.

Now the reason why I think this is important is because many Christian types feel that the institution of marriage would be all right and dandy if wives would just simply" submit to their husband" as per Paul's command. Paul says much more than this on the subject of marriage and is, in fact, quite explicit that both partners should try to please each other. But what's important here, amongst those who love to emphasise this passage of scripture, is the usual accompanying disregard for the erotic component of male-female relationship, and given the anti-carnal tendencies of Christianity, "pleasing" is quite readily assumed as not including the broader sexual dimension. Therefore Christian marital advice focuses on "understanding" and "patience" instead of losing weight and property maintenance without nagging. Furthermore, Christianity does not seem to grasp that their may be a class of "erotic sins" which wound a marriage.

Now telling women to "submit" without reference to their carnal nature leads to some very interesting and poisonous after effects, especially in light of recent psychological research on the subject of disgust. Accumulating evidence suggests that the emotion of disgust is the sexual gatekeeper in women and it's inhibition through the mechanism of arousal is what permits sexual activity to occur.

Which brings us back to the subject of conditioning. If a women is compelled to have sex without arousal, her innate response will be to associate the act with disgust, The thing that needs to be remembered is that this is a "hard wired" biological response not some choice. Over a while,  a conditioned response will occur and avoidance behaviour will set in, resulting in the marital aridity of folklore. Now the good woman may choose, out of her love of God, to grit her teeth and perform for the husband but she will be acting against her nature and gradually, as the cycle is repeated,  the conjugal aspect of the marriage will become dysfunctional. No matter how you cut it, arousal and disgust matter. Eros is more than just desire, it's about the qualities of the other.