From fork-admin@xent.com Wed Sep 11 13:49:29 2002 Return-Path: Delivered-To: yyyy@localhost.spamassassin.taint.org Received: from localhost (jalapeno [127.0.0.1]) by jmason.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 82ACC16F03 for ; Wed, 11 Sep 2002 13:49:28 +0100 (IST) Received: from jalapeno [127.0.0.1] by localhost with IMAP (fetchmail-5.9.0) for jm@localhost (single-drop); Wed, 11 Sep 2002 13:49:28 +0100 (IST) Received: from xent.com ([64.161.22.236]) by dogma.slashnull.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g8AKkmC16112 for ; Tue, 10 Sep 2002 21:46:52 +0100 Received: from lair.xent.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by xent.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 47F5B2940AC; Tue, 10 Sep 2002 13:43:04 -0700 (PDT) Delivered-To: fork@spamassassin.taint.org Received: from relay.pair.com (relay1.pair.com [209.68.1.20]) by xent.com (Postfix) with SMTP id C6FF029409A for ; Tue, 10 Sep 2002 13:42:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 34817 invoked from network); 10 Sep 2002 20:45:19 -0000 Received: from adsl-67-119-24-188.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net (HELO golden) (67.119.24.188) by relay1.pair.com with SMTP; 10 Sep 2002 20:45:19 -0000 X-Pair-Authenticated: 67.119.24.188 Message-Id: <016f01c2590a$f9a6abf0$640a000a@golden> From: "Gordon Mohr" To: References: <20020910132951.04720C44D@argote.ch> Subject: More on promiscuity and word choice Re: Selling Wedded Bliss (was Re: Ouch...) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-Msmail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Sender: fork-admin@xent.com Errors-To: fork-admin@xent.com X-Beenthere: fork@spamassassin.taint.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Friends of Rohit Khare List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 13:45:17 -0700 Robert Harley writes: > >OK, then. Consider a population of 1,000,000. 500,000 men each > >pair off with 500,000 women. Then, 1 man, let's call him "Wilt", > >also has sex with the other 499,999 women > > This has never happened. Its relevance is nil. It was a extreme contrived example because you glosded over the point of the earlier 3-person example. But OK, Mr Math, let it be N men and women, for any N>2. They all pair off. Then, some number H, N>H>0, of men has sex with all the other N-1 women he hasn't yet had sex with. Pick any N and H that might be interesting. Any choice of values results in meaningful differences between the sexes' "promiscuity", as commonly understood. It should be more obvious with extreme choices of numbers, but it is also true for any choice of N and H, if unrealistic totals distract you. Further, and I was hoping this would be clear without saying so outright, this model actually approximates the cliche "common wisdom" about per-gender sexual behavior, if you reverse the male and female roles. Those stereotypes are: that more men than women seek multiple partners -- men being "more promiscuous" than women -- and that surplus of male interest is satisfied by a smaller number of hyperpromiscuous women (often derisively labelled "sluts"). > So I chose not to type "on average" explicitly in my post, since this > is FoRK and one tends to assume that people have a clue. > > There is no disagreement between us, except that I am more interested > in typical behaviour and you in extreme. Nope, now you've amended the meaning of your initial statement to make it more defensible. What I objected to was: Robert Harley: # >The assumption that females of all species tend to be less promiscuous # >than males simply does not fit the facts, Hrdy contended. # # Well, DUH!!! # # It is perfectly obvious that (heterosexual) promiscuity is exactly, # precisely identical between males and females. # # Of course the shapes of the distributions may differ. If you assumed people on FoRK had a clue, would you have needed to jump in with a patronizing "DUH!!"? If you were talking about fuzzy, typical behavior, would you have huffed and puffed with the words "perfectly obvious" and "exactly, precisely identical"? If your concern was with the "typical", why didn't you adopt the typical definition of "promiscuous", rather than a straw-man definition which allowed you to interject "DUH!!" and mock an anthrolopology professor's conclusions? > Actually, you probably just > had a bad day and felt like jumping down my throat for the hell of it. You are welcome to that theory! But here's an alternate theory: when you jump in with a patronizing and overblown pronouncement -- e.g. "DUH!!... perfectly obvious... exactly, precisely identical..." -- and that pronouncement is itself sloppy and erroneous, then others may get a kick out of popping your balloon. - Gordon