Dr. Emily Nagoski denies and neglects culture as a reality

Somethings need to be dealt with at once, with the proper tranquility and peace of mind needed, without any kind of hurry to prove one's point. But things need to be laid out in a functional perspective, one that will really help us understand how our species was evolved to work as opposed to how our species, by its own elaborations, has needed to adapt itself to function within cultural frames —not necessarily in connection with biological sources.

Emily Nagoski, the Ph.D. suggests this to us: “if nothing else, let’s get at least this one detail right”, and proceeds to argue in such a way that one can only infer that she hates reality and needs to find a scientific way to prove that it's the way it is.

About a dozen people have sent me this gushing Salon review of Daniel Bregner’s book.

In the interview, Bregner makes two of the (dozen or so) mistakes I’ve devoted this blog to correcting.

Is there room for debate? She has dogmatically called whatever Bregner says, two of the dozen or so mistakes that she has devoted her Blog to correct! Yes, other people are making mistakes and, no matter how many those persons are or where their conclusions come from, for Emily Nagoski, those are nothing but mistakes.

(1) Sex is not a drive. I’ll write about that another time (you can read about that here if you aren’t familiar with this tidbit and want to know more.)

OK, fine. Dr. Nagoski wants to apply a different vocabulary, with different semantic connotations, to terms that were supposed to have been sufficiently explained and studied in volumes of studies. So, what's the problem here? No big deal: sex is not a drive, and she will write about that in the future.

And (2) Genital response is not desire. Meredith Chivers would NOT say anything like, “the physical responses, registered in the plethysmography, really might well be a measure of being turned on, being in a state of desire.”

Genital response, is not desire? An erection in a man might be the result of desire—the guy is ready for copulation—but not so in women: a wet vagina does not necessarily mean naturally—that's what Dr. Nagoski implies—that the owner is ready to copulate.

But, wait a minute. Is she talking about biology or about the cultural adaptation of homo sapiens sapiens female to the elaborations of a culture? This is the most confusing part for most people who tend to deny the enormous importance of culture—brain programming through childhood, adolescence, adulthood, etc.—that appears disguised to even the most outstanding scientists when they deny themselves the vision of what gets into you through culture as opposed to what is within you as part of your biological equipment.

This is a big one. Chivers’s work has been misrepresented more or less universally in trade books – Sex at Dawn, for sure, and also in Brooke Magnenti’s “Sex Myth.” Indeed, the whole a-woman’s-genitals-are-more-honest-than-she-is thing is a zeitgeisty thing lately, with Alain de Botton saying that genitals are “unambiguous agents of sincerity.”

Ah, of course, “this is a big one”... The study of Meredith Chivers finds that the body reactions in women tend to show something the women themselves deny: they get biologically excited, but don't admit it to the machine by the button they press. Dr. Nagoski wants to liberate women from the burden of “lying” to the machines. Dr. Nagoski wants us to believe that women were not conscious of their arousal. But, why is she so insidious about this?

But it’s incorrect. Simply incorrect. And also wrong, in every sense.

Of course, what else? It must be wrong: women can't lie! They will always tell the truth. The process of social programming has absolutely no value for Dr. Nagoski... I suppose a course in Anthropology would have been of great help for her and persons like her.

Here’s how it actually works, according to my best understanding of the research:

And, of course, her “best understanding of the research” is the only understanding that could NOT be wrong, right?

Your sexual excitation system (SES) is constantly engaged in the scanning the environment for sexually relevant stimuli, which causes it to send “Turn on!” signals down to the peripheral nervous system (e.g., your genitals). That’s simple enough, and it tells us why a woman’s body may display physical arousal even when shown something as marginally sexual as videos of monkeys mating. “Sexually relevant,” says SES. “Go.” Genital response.

But, wow! What is this? She is totally accepting that such arousal is possible—but, of course, not acceptable... (by the Vatican?)—and introduces SES or Sexual Excitation System—one more system that needs to be defined in order to avoid any inclusion of social brain programming through culture.

And at the same time, you sexual inhibition system (SIS) is also busily engaged in noticing all the very good reasons NOT to be aroused.

Dr. Nagoski has just introduced one more system: SIS, or the Sexual Inhibition System. This system—and not cultural programming—is busily engaged in all the very good reasons—biological reasons!; this is incredible for a Ph.D. to ignore at such depth any existence of socio-cultural brain programming—NOT TO BE AROUSED. She implies that the reasons are embedded in the neurons of the brain, pre-programmed just like a bird knows how to build a nest.

“Desire” comes along when (a) SES activation crosses some threshold of awareness, which is different depending on the sensitivity of that system, and (b) all the OTHER brain systems involved agree that sex would be an interesting and non-problematic thing right now.

It's difficult for me—my BG is in Sociology—to understand how a Ph.D. could be out there, moving freely by the world, with zero knowledge of how the brain is programmed to function and respond according to the needs of culture. The lady Ph.D. is confusing everybody, by making a mess of things, simply to prove that “women don't lie; it's their biology...”

Your sexual inhibition system (SIS) needs to DE-activate, your stress response system needs to be calm, your attachment system very often needs to be engaged in its forward pull toward attachment an object, your overall wellness needs to meet some baseline criteria – how sleep deprived are you? are you starving for nutrients? dehydrated? can you really afford to shift your attention toward something as luxurious as sex right now? should you not be saving your energy for something more immediate to your own (and your existing offsprings’) survival?

Our SIS—not social values and cultural teachings—deactivates, the stress response system (SRS?) needs to be calm, and your attachment!!! system—nothing cultural, it's all biological; what's the matter with Nagoski?—needs to be engaged in its forward pull toward attachment of an object, your overall wellness needs to meet some baseline criteria: this is even MORE incredible!!! In each and every single word that refers to reactions that would be entirely different in different cultures, she wants us to believe that it is not cultural, but totally and absolutely biological, embedded within us as we are formed inside the womb.

When all of these things align, desire happens.

She is precisely talking about social conditions, which are what make up the environment to which the individual will respond but not according to biology, but according to social programming, through cultural adaptation.

Arousal comes first. Before desire. Genital response is not desire.

Genital response might not be desire, but it certainly IS arousal, and that's where sex starts. Whatever comes after the arousal IS NOT at all something embedded in the biology of humans, but learnt through social brain-mind programming

Dr. Nagoski, thanks for going back to your basic Anthropology books: Margaret Mead and others.

How can we make Americans respect us?

How can we teach Americans that Mexico is not just another third world country? It is sickening for some of us to open WEB sites that treat Mexico and Mexicans as if they were from a strange land, incapable of coping up with the «Great American Way».

They should be informed that the Mexican Peso is a truer currency than the American Dollar, simply because it's backed by a Government that is not playing with deficit—and charging it to the rest of world—like the US Government is doing.

I'm sick and tired of seeing web sites made by Americans, incapable of adding the Mexican currency as one more currency with which they would be able to do business with.

Is there something that I don't know about doing business with Mexico and Mexicans? We're stupid enough in Mexico to be using Windows 7 over Linux—unlike they do in Europe. So, we are more partners with American Business than with business anywhere in the world. Thousands of kilometers in common boarders make of us natural partners.

The terrible violence generated by the drug cartels in Mexico is nothing more than a consequence of the Americans needing the substance, buying it, generating a demand, which reflects in the cartels killing themselves in the streets of our cities and towns, corrupting all levels of governments.

Our president decides to combat these criminals. The American government is perfectly informed of the attitude of the Federal Government being a genuine one. Their internal intelligence knows in detail the strength and determination in the Mexican President's decision. They know it isn't only a political affair, a stage to show off; they know better than any Mexican that the so called «war on drugs» in Mexico is real. And what do they do to back it up? Nothing!

There are a bunch of anti-Mexicans among the media «big men». They love to spit out words of contempt against Mexico and the Mexican efforts to change things. Today, in 2012, Mexico is a different nation from what it was 12 years ago. Can the Americans recognize that? Yes, they can, but they don't want to recognize that they recognize it. The Media Giants continue with an attitude that does exactly the opposite of helping.

It is that lack of support from the international media that has resulted in the electoral behavior of this past July 1st. People in Mexico are confused. They don't really understand what is happening. Whatever the international media publishes, becomes the background of the Mexican national media; even if the local media contradict what is said internationally, the Mexican public would have a different frame of reference.

It's time for some intelligent Americans to speak out on behalf of the real change that has taken place in Mexico since December 1st, 2000. The process is now over and power is going back to the same political group that kept Mexico a third world country for 100 years, making it enter a process of counter-development that was completely halted and reversed during the years of real government (2000-2012). Growth? Did you say GNP growth? The worst world crises took place within these last 12 years. Take a look at the world around and see which country was able to overcome the consequences with the least harm to their people.

Yes, that country was Mexico! Viva México! This time it's for real. A renowned economist in Europe suggested that the Mexican economy looked as if it were from another planet! It was one of the few economies doing well, in spite of the destructive crisis the Mexicans suffered in 2009, due to the AH1N1 virus unexpected looming.

So, what is it that Americans don't seem to be willing to understand from Mexico? Rest assured: We aren't trying to make us or anybody else believe that Mexico is the gate to heaven. What is really important—and it's that what needs to be accounted for—is the real changes that have taken place in the daily life of the country. A lot is going on, especially now that we are a nation of free media, some of them especially conscious of what the public needs and the country deserves.

Paragraphs, please!

Paragraph, a simple concept has become a giant issue all over the Internet. Why was it such a difficult concept to understand? <p> was — and still is today — the HTML tag to indicate that a new regular text paragraph was starting. Initially, it wasn’t necessary to indicate the end of the paragraph with </p>. The beginning of the next one with <p> was enough.

However, all of that has remained in the past, because Microsoft® decided to ignore it. Then people started writing their e-mails with double enters. Today, believe it or not, Microsoft® has changed the way their programs work: they all generate an automatic empty paragraph with just one enter. That is, internally, they’re generating one simple <p> tag.

Too late! The incredible generalized public ignorance about the concept of paragraph has driven more than one code programmer crazy. Just take a look at the blogger.com site. The regular HTML language would simply ignore empty space. In other words, if you typed inside an HTML page two or three or four empty lines, they would all be ignored. If you wanted an empty line, you needed to write <br> — which later on became <br /> — and then you would get one empty line, even if you were within a <p> paragraph. That makes a lot of sense!

Back to blogger.com… Today, if you write inside the HTML section, and you enter empty space, the most horrible thing happens: it prints the empty space! That’s what I would call a total aberration! I would like to punish whoever made that decision.

Also, if you type from the rich edit editor, instead of generating <p> tagged paragraphs after an Enter, you generate empty lines! The aberration completed and rounded up.

It all comes from the error that Microsoft® started several decades ago. And they have corrected the mistake, but now others are actively resuscitating it, making of it even a more aberrant issue. Back to blogger.com, the aberration goes as far as forcing the HTML page to behave — and for this they must do something special — in such a way that you need to write without empty spaces!

What a way to rewrite the world upside-down!

It’s time for us to ask them to get their act together. All rich text editors should generate simple HTML formatting text, so that a style sheet can easily define the personality of the <p> paragraph, the <li> personality, and other very simple and useful stuff.