Reply #46: blows me away

[iverglas]

I wouldn't believe it if you hadn't said it!

I make a pretty firm point of not discussing personal stuff on the net -- both because of experience with very unpleasant people whom I very much do not want to know who and where I am and because personal info like how many sexual partners one has had has absolutely nothing to do with one's positions on anything ... other than maybe how many sexual partners is the perfect number. ;)

But okay, I'll make an exception. Now, I don't know how many is "a large number" in most people's minds, so maybe I should ask first (not how many partners anybody has had, but how many is "a large number" in their minds). I'm pretty sure I'd qualify by most yardsticks. I was a child of the sixties, I was a political activist, I was a feminist, I did things and went places and met lots of people, and I luvved sex. I had no interest whatsoever in settling down with anyone or even attaching myself to anyone. I had things to do and places to go and people to meet. And I turned 31, and I soon realized that all the men I met for the next decade had apparently sat up in bed one morning and said "it's time!" and set off to look for a wife. (Funny thing was that a couple of years after I noticed this phenomenon, the comic strip Cathy had it happen to the male lead character there: he actually sat up in bed and said "it's time".) Enormously frustrating. Every damn "date" (I didn't date either; if I decided to eat with someone, it was because I liked him enough to sleep with him) turned out to have been a job interview, unbeknownst to me, and after a couple of weeks' probation I would get the rejection notice ... when I hadn't applied for the damned job and wouldn't have taken it if it had been offered. All of them were married and breeding within the year, I swear.

So yeah. The whole thing is hilarious. Ha Ha. I'm a prude who hates sex and needs therapy, and you're a slut. And of course I'm just lying anyway about really being a slut and not a prude who hates sex and needs therapy; I'm really a menopausal virgin, doncha know.

If they don't have something to use as ammunition against you for their charming little ad locutorem "arguments",* they'll just make shit up and pretend to believe it. Your words will be unworthy of being heard if you have too much sex, if you have too little sex (by whatever standard whoever comes along might choose to apply), if nobody knows how much sex you have had, or if you are unable to have any sex at all because of a terrible childhood accident. Basically, you are unworthy of being heard because of what you say. Oh, and who you are; whatever it is, it comes down to woman who says something I don't want to hear.

_____

Ad locutorem = against the speaker.
Ad hominem = against the man.
I like mine, and offer it for anyone who wants it. (Ad personam doesn't work, because persona is a role in a play.)

And if I hear one more person call an analogy a straw man argument I'm going to throttle him/her ...