"What shall we do now?" (re. the UCSB shootings)

[Laelth]

57. Hold on a second.

Sexual desire is a product of testosterone. That's instinctual and unavoidable, and I am pretty sure that science backs me up on this.

The fact that men are taught "big boys don't cry" is a social construct. That's learned behavior, passed down from mothers to their sons for centuries (if not millennia). And there's probably a good reason for that. My mother wasn't stupid, and I refuse to believe that mothers (for centuries) have been stupid. They taught their male children that "big boys don't cry" for a long time because they knew that their boys needed love and a mate, and they knew that most women would not choose a "wimp" as a sexual partner, so they taught their boys to be "strong" and to repress their emotions. That makes good, biological sense to me.

As such, it's not testosterone that "teaches" men "not to feel." Mostly, it's mothers who teach their boys not to express emotion (and they do so for very good reasons--unless you want to argue that most mothers are stupid, and I refuse to believe that).

As to your central question--what is the point of arguing what I am arguing? That's a completely fair question, but I am not sure how to respond to it. Here's what I told bostonbean in another thread:

My purpose is to understand so that I can craft a working solution. Yours seems to be to educate and condemn (i.e. create social pressure), because it appears you already have a firm opinion on the nature of the problem and the proper solution. I don't share your confidence. I am looking for answers that will be more descriptive and strategies that will be more effective.

I don't deny that education and condemnation are useful tools for shaping social norms and even government policy, but neither of those strategies will get more men to vote for Democrats. Too many men (and the women who love them) vote against their best interests, and that's what I am trying to change. That's also why I need different strategies than the ones you are comfortable with. Condemnation and education, from what I can tell, push many people into the waiting arms of organizations aligned with the Republican Party (i.e. the masculinist NRA and patriarchal fundamentalist Christianity). It's time for new strategies.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5005385

That's my purpose. Condemnation and education work well on children, and it's not surprising to me that many women fall back on those strategies (as they do most of the childrearing), but those strategies fail to persuade adults because those strategies are condescending.

All that said (and I have laid out my premises for you in the hope of creating understanding), rather than my searching for what you describe as "the actual problem," would you be so kind as to tell me what you think "the actual problem" is? I would appreciate it if you did.

-Laelth