#i mean. sex and gender are arbitrary even within a human framework. but the words we use for THE FOUNDATION OF LIFE ON EARTH are arbitrary

[bobcat-pie]

GO WATCH THE OCTOPUS LADY ON YOUTUBE, SHES SO COOL AND I'M LEARNING SO MUCH

[nowhere-hunch]

Social constructs

A few years ago, I started hearing the phrase “X is a social construct” in the context of social justice. First “gender is a social construct”, then “sex”, and lately I’ve been hearing “race” as well. At first, I didn’t understand the concept well, but as time has gone on I think I’ve gotten a better idea. Essentially, I think a good definition for “social construct” could be “a shared framework people use to cooperatively handle infinitely varied natural phenomena.”

I think the best way to explain this would be to work through a common, pretty non-controversial example: color.

Color is a social construct

“Color” is our brains reaction to light waves hitting our eyes – we perceive different wavelengths within a range of “visible light” as different colors. Since there are an infinite number of wavelengths within that range, technically there are an infinite number of colors.

However, when people talk about color, we are never (or very, very rarely) talking about a specific wavelength of light, but a whole bunch of wavelengths that are next to each other on the spectrum. Essentially, we have divided a continuous spectrum (a rainbow) into several bands (ROYGBIV). This allows us to more easily utilize the concept of “color” in our everyday lives. You can say “These berries are ripe when they’re red” while accounting for all the different variations of red that might occur between individual fruits, for example.

For this to work, the person you’re talking to needs to know (at least approximately) where you put the “boundaries” between the different color bands. As long as you two agree, the placement of these boundaries can be completely arbitrary. This is where the “social” in “social construct” comes from – our concepts are validated by social agreement rather than any actual reflection of physical reality.

When you consider this, several observations follow:

These “boundaries” may be agreed on by one group of people, but they change according to time/place/context.

If you speak another language, you may know that the agreements people have for talking about color vary by culture. For example, in Japanese the word for “blue” overlaps considerably with what we in English would call “green” (e.g. the color of green traffic lights). While English traditionally splits the rainbow into 7 bands (ROYGBIV), other languages may use more or fewer.

Although the whole society appears to agree, it’s likely that no two individuals actually completely agree on the precise placement of the boundaries.

If you give a hundred, or a thousand people a picture of the color spectrum and ask them to draw lines where red turns to orange, orange turns to yellow, etc., you’d most likely not find any two who put them in exactly the same places. Yet we are all (for the most part) still able to communicate successfully with each other about color.

Social constructs usually actually describe the intersection of multiple natural phenomena, even if we don’t always realize it.

In most art programs, when you select a “color” to paint with, you are actually working with three different “spectrums”:

“Hue” – the rainbow spectrum we’ve been talking about

“Saturation” – how bright the color is (full saturation = fully colored, no saturation = gray)

“Lightness” (full lightness = white, no lightness = black, mid lightness = “true” color)

Thus, we get words like “maroon”, “periwinkle”, “navy”, “brown”, etc. The usual answer to “what is color?” doesn’t include any of those. Our social construct of color actually includes not only the bands of the rainbow, but also other attributes like saturation and lightness. This is because our human experience of color is greatly affected by these other attributes, and our social constructs describe our *experience* of a phenomenon, not the actual reality of it.

Two people using the same social construct may sort the same object into different categories for a number of reasons.

First, we already noted how most people probably have slightly different boundaries between categories. Physical differences in our eyes or brains might also affect how we actually perceive color (e.g. colorblindness). Think about “the dress” – many people sorted that image into completely different color categories. Remember that social constructs describe our experience of a phenomenon, not the actual reality of it.

In some cases, we use different attributes to sort phenomena depending on context. Sometimes when we say “color” we mean “hue” and sometimes we mean a hue/saturation/lightness combo. When you’re shopping for clothes, you’ll probably say “I’m looking for a maroon shirt” but when you’re describing your purchase to someone you might say “I’ll wear my new red shirt.”

Social constructs are based on constructed stereotypes but impact our reality in measurable ways.

Each wavelength of light is a completely different color. As stated, physically there is no reason why we have sorted them into bands the way we have… or is there? There are generalizations people make about entire bands of colors all the time: “red is energizing”, “blue is calming”, “purple is luxurious”, etc. There’s a kind of chicken and egg problem:

Did we sort colors the way we did because they have these common characteristics? OR

Do these colors have common characteristics because we have sorted them together?

The fact that the “common attributes” colors are thought to have vary by time (e.g. blue used to be associated with girls and pink with boys, the opposite of today), place (e.g. in the west, white is associated with purity and happiness, while it is associated with death in some Asian cultures), and context (e.g. red could be connected to either anger or love) makes me think more the latter than the former, though I’m sure there’s a mixture of both.

However, it doesn’t really matter whether colors actually have those attributes. Just the fact that these attributes are part of our social construct has a measurable effect on our experience of the physical phenomena. There are experiments that show that people are actually energized by red and calmed by blue, even though those concepts are culturally specific. 

As stated, it’s often possible to trace these stereotypes back to some actual reality. Purple is considered luxurious because purple dyes used to be very rare and expensive. But note how the stereotype has remained in place and still has an effect on people’s lived experiences even though reality has changed.

Social constructs usually don’t distinguish between assumptions made about an item’s category and assumptions made based on an items’s category.

The human brain likes to take shortcuts, and one way it does this is by being loose with the distinction between “conditions” and “consequences” of a given object being sorted into a given category. I.e. there’s a difference between “these are the attributes I use to decide that this object belongs in this category” and “these are the attributes I can assume this object has by virtue of being sorted into this category,” but this often gets ignored.

A simple example would be to say something like, “Well, purple is a luxurious color, so I will call any color I decide is luxurious purple.” This isn’t especially common with colors, since it’s really easy for most of us to sort colors by sight and so we don’t need a shortcut, but it happens a lot with other social constructs I’ll touch on later.

Social constructs are not inherently “bad”.

Saying that something is a social construct is not saying that it isn’t real or doesn’t exist or doesn’t impact people’s lived experiences – in fact it’s saying the opposite. A social construct must be based on something real and important to our lives, otherwise we wouldn’t bother to create a social construct to allow us to conceptualize and communicate about it.

Social constructs are necessary for us to live in society, it’s just important that we not mistake our social construct for the actual reality they are meant to describe. Social constructs describe our experience of a phenomenon, not the actual reality of it. “A map is not the territory,” as they say.

Anatomy of a social construct

Now, we can list some things we would expect to find with any social construct:

One or more natural phenomena that are a) experienced by people in infinitely (or practically infinitely) varied ways and b) something that we care about enough to want to think and talk about with others.

A set of categories people sort the experiences of these phenomena into.

For each category, a set of attributes associated with items in that category. These may be used to sort items into categories AND/OR to make assumptions about items after they have been sorted.

We would expect the categories and/or attributes associated with them to change depending on time, place, or context.

With this in mind, we can start looking at some more interesting examples.

Gender is a social construct

If gender is a social construct, we would expect it to be built on some actual natural phenomena. The question is, what is that phenomena exactly, especially if it is distinct from physical sex? I don’t think we as a society have a very good idea of this, which is why, to me, this example is more difficult to talk about than color, sex, or race.

My theory is this: the phenomenon behind what we think of as “gender” is individuals’ specialization in social tasks.

I think this is why sex and gender are so closely related for many societies. The earliest social activities humans were doing were primarily related to reproduction: courtship/mating and parenting, so it makes some amount of sense that individuals would specialize in the tasks required for these activities based on their role in the reproductive process. Someone needs to feed the child; it makes sense for someone whose body produces milk to be responsible for that. And if they’re spending their time doing that, then someone else will have to specialize in the other things that need to be done. 

These roles and specialties weren’t (and still aren’t) exactly the same in every family, so as families came together and started to talk with each other about their social roles and specialties, the social construct of gender developed.  The concepts of “man” and “woman” corresponded pretty closely with a person’s physical sex. But as human society became more complex, additional social tasks needed to be fulfilled related to spirituality/religion, medicine, industry/technology, etc. These were worked into the gender social construct in different ways depending on the society, resulting in the diversity we see today.

My basis for this theory is just considering *why* it matters to people what someone’s gender is. Humans care about color because it helps us determine what food is good to eat (among other reasons), we care about physical sex because it allows us to find a partner we will be able to reproduce with, why do we care about gender if it’s different than sex? I think that people use gender to make “educated” guesses about:

The language forms used when talking to or about them (e.g. pronouns)

Their roles/responsibilities within their social groups

The most effective social strategies to use with them for the given situation

Social experiences you do/don’t share with them

I.e. it’s a shortcut for figuring out social situations.

So, if we consider “gender” as a construct for describing “how people specialize in social tasks”, then there are technically as many genders as there are people alive on earth – it’s extremely unlikely that any two people will have specialized in exactly the same way. For colors, we mainly use 1-3 attributes (hue, saturation, lightness) to categorize items into categories, but for gender, although there are fewer categories, many more attributes are considered:

The roles/responsibilities you take on within your family (e.g. in raising children) or other groups/teams

The way you present yourself physically via clothing, mannerisms, etc.

Your relationship dynamics with individuals (familiar or strangers) of different genders

Hobbies and aesthetics you are drawn to

Etc.

At this point, we are realizing that our society is so complex that trying to sort every person into one of two available categories just isn’t sufficient. There are so many factors that go into “sorting” people that at this point it’s probably easier and more reliable to just have people self-identify. Sex is not a reliable indicator for all these other things, nor is appearance, interests, skills, etc.

So, we have the natural phenomenon: groups of humans divide responsibility for social tasks between individuals. We have categories for sorting that phenomenon: “man” and “woman” traditionally, and other “nonbinary” categories becoming more prominent as time goes on, and we have lots and lots and lots of attributes associated with those categories. Think of all the stereotypes we use to make assumptions both about a person’s gender and based on a person’s gender.

We can also see how both the available categories and the attributes associated with them differ by time and place. There are many cultures all over the world that have included more than two genders for a very long time. One example is “two-spirit” people in Native American societies. Attributes that are considered “feminine” or “masculine” by one culture may elsewhere be acceptable or encouraged in other genders. For example, in western cultures men are discouraged from styling their hair and face with lots of product, but it is encouraged in some Asian cultures.

This is why gender is considered a social construct: we think about it using concepts that are not a one-to-one correspondence with reality, but are instead validated by social agreement – we as a group all agree to talk about it in a common way.

Sex is a social construct

I think most people are more ready to call gender a social construct than sex, even though to me sex has more in common with the color example than gender does.

Our social construct of sex is based on the natural phenomena of human beings possessing an infinite variety of sex organs – no two people have a set that is exactly the same. The fact that a body is considered “male” regardless of the length of the penis or whether or not it is circumcised is evidence of this.

What makes the social construct of sex difficult for people to grasp, I think, is that it appears to be quite close to a direct one-to-one correspondence with reality, particularly if you’re willing to ignore people with intersex conditions as “outliers” (which I think is unwise). However, if you pay close attention you can see some situations where our social construct starts to fail. This is because although people usually assume “sex” is decided using a single attribute, our social construct actually considers several:

The (visual) sex organs you were born with

The sex organs you currently possess (“sex change” operations may be relatively new, but eunuchs are an ancient phenomenon)

The sex of partners you could potentially reproduce with

Presence or absence of a Y chromosome

Hormone levels in your body

And although the categories and attributes appear fairly constant across place and time, they do vary according to context. This is reflected quite obviously in recent controversies about intersex athletes. Medical and social establishments decide sex based on the appearance of sex organs at birth, while athletic organizations often instead base it on current hormone levels. That’s how someone can live their entire life with no doubt they are 100% female, only to be disqualified from sporting events because they meet the criteria for being “male”.

Again, saying that something is a social construct isn’t saying that it’s not real. In human reproduction there are two roles involved – an egg cell needs to meet a sperm cell, and there are two “configurations” of sex organs that correspond to these roles. This is not being disputed. The social construct is how we “sort” people when these configurations are not exactly consistent and not always as obvious or simple as we might assume.

So, in summary:

Natural phenomenon: People are born with unique sex organs

Categories: “Male” and “female” traditionally, “intersex” more prominent recently, “eunuch”/“neuter” historically

Attributes associated with categories: sex organs visible at birth, sex organs currently possessed, presence/absence of Y chromosome, levels of “sex hormones” in the body

Race is a social construct

Race is another social construct that people might have a hard time recognizing because it is apparently rooted in physical reality - the physical differences that manifest in people due to their genetic ancestry are usually highly visible. The social construct of race is how we conceptualize this phenomenon when no two people (who aren’t siblings) share exactly the same genetic ancestry.

One thing that makes it pretty obvious race is a social construct is that the available categories we “sort” people into vary so greatly by time, place, and context that it’s difficult to even come up with an acceptable list. In everyday life, it seems like we in the U.S. tend to categorize race roughly by continent of genetic origin:

White (Europe)

Black (Africa)

Asian (Asia, sometimes including Oceana and the Middle East, sometimes these are their own categories)

Native American (Americas)

“Latino” is an interesting category. Technically the definition refers to national origin (someone of any race from a Latin American country), but people who only have genetic ancestry from those places are (sometimes, depending on context) considered Latino as well as or instead of Native American.

Notice how these don’t necessarily correspond to the options you can pick from on “official” forms, which for example sometimes include “multiple races”/“two or more races” as an option. In many other contexts someone who is multiracial is seen as being sort of half-categorized in each applicable race, regardless of if this accurately reflects their experiences.

Another way you can tell that “race” is a social construct is that it takes into account more than one phenomenon when “sorting” people. For example, religion and shared *cultural* ancestry has a long history of being tied to race. That is why Jewish people are (depending on context) considered a race even without all having a shared genetic ancestry. There are also Muslim minorities throughout the world today that are treated essentially as separate races locally.

Note that the categories used for race change over time. Catholic people were in a somewhat similar position to Jewish people at one time; remember that the U.S. didn’t have a president who was Catholic until JFK. Catholics were actually regularly targeted by the KKK, and anti-Catholic and anti-Irish sentiments were closely intertwined. Another example is Moors, which is a racial category we don’t really hear these days, at least in the U.S. These were *technically* people of mixed Arab and European origins, but the term was also more widely used to refer to Muslims in Europe generally. Shakespeare’s character Othello is a famous character who is a Moor.

Another very heavily used attribute associated with race is a person’s physical appearance. Depending on context (such as before we had a good understanding of DNA), this might even be more important than genetic ancestry. For example, think about the “paper bag test” that was used in apartheid South Africa – if your skin is darker than a paper bag, you’re black, regardless of your parentage. On the other hand, there have been examples in more recent times of people being forced to change their racial identification because it was discovered that they had ancestors from a particular place, even though it was in no way evident in their appearance or recent family history.

So, in summary:

Natural phenomenon: People have unique physical characteristics based on their ancestry

Categories: White, Black, Asian, “PoC”, Jewish, Catholic, Irish, Moor, etc. depending on time, place, and context

Attributes: genetic ancestry, cultural ancestry/religion, physical appearance

Conclusion

So, this is how I have been thinking about the concept of “social constructs” - I make no claim that this is in any way “correct” but I have found it helpful and maybe others will as well. What this all comes down to is essentially a) “beware of stereotypes” and b) “knowledge can be validated either by accurately reflecting reality or by social agreement - don’t confuse the two”. 

Or if you need something simpler: “be respectful and believe what people tell you about their identities and experiences.”

[somnilogical]

Intercommunity Jargon Bargain

Our characters (in order of appearance):

metagameface :3 is @metagameface Hive is Hive 微梦 is @somnilogical Serei c: is @serinemolecule kerapace :s is @kerapace

All have given their express permission to be quoted under these names. The following is a complete transcript of the discourse. Enjoy :3

metagameface :3 - 昨天晚上9點01分 Like, having a term for women with penises, is making it more of a category than it probably needs to be, because the contexts in which you need to specifically talk about women with penises are few, compared the the contexts in which you need to talk about women, or talk about people with penises. Hive - 昨天晚上9點07分 Something tells us any such term would be worn out in seconds on the euphemism treadmill. metagameface :3 - 昨天晚上9點10分 Right, but my point is that the desire to have a term seems suspect, because why are you singling out women with penises to the point that you need a quicker way to refer to them as a group? 微梦 - 昨天晚上9點18分 because futa are hot and sex is important to people? Hive - 昨天晚上9點21分 Considering all the trans people we know irl experience a good deal of like, discomfort and distress w/r/t their genitals, putting them in a group that defines them specifically by genitals seems really shitty. 微梦 - 昨天晚上9點25分 yeah different people have different needs and the needs of pervs is outweighed by the needs of innocent victims. IDK this is probably not a thing to say in public with people who are not your friends. Arguing over which priors to use for generic [member of class] isn't fun. metagameface :3 - 昨天晚上9點28分 nods 微梦 - 昨天晚上9點28分 Just like give a survey or something maybe. Hive - 昨天晚上9點33分 We think that's just it though Somni, at least from our experience, like, trans men for instance, don't want to be in the set of [trans men] they want to be in the set of [men]. They don't want to be treated like a special case distinct from the generic [men] set.  Most people don't transition from like, male to transgender, they transition from male to female. 微梦 - 昨天晚上9點43分 Not all trans people want to assimilate into social structures for the gender they transition to, but for ~90% probably. Trans people, however aren't the only morally relevant agents involved here. The people who creep and perv on trans people (including pervs who are trans) also have experiences and emotions. And being able to talk about what you like is important for them emotionally. When interacting with trans people who are not a part of their subculture using the distinction is probably a net negative utility wise. I see not problem with these people having and using terms with these distinctions within their own subculture. And I think this is a ~motte and bailey. A bit here or something. The conversation started vague and now I am talking about specific solutions. So we should probably refresh and update when these things happen to see if we still disagree. I disagree with you if you say that a distinction between [girls] and [girls] with dicks is a net negative for the world. Serei c: - 昨天晚上9點46分 @metagameface :3, having a term for women with penises is quite relevant when you're, like looking for porn of women with penises which is the context in which this was brought up 微梦 - 昨天晚上9點48分 ^ Serei c: - 昨天晚上9點49分 also futas are different from women with penises, or at least the Japanese term 'futa' is 微梦 - 昨天晚上9點49分 eh yes but also it gets applied to trans girls people have arguments about this on like 4chan metagameface :3 - 昨天晚上9點50分 @Serei c: Ah, I missed that context 微梦 - 昨天晚上9點50分 Okay I mean grrr maybe I am being 2edgy but this is What Somni Actually Believes. And I may be being more forceful on this point because it brings up a rhetorical thing that has been annoying me for a while I both want to reject the point and the technique. Which is gerrymandering morally relevant agents to make your proposal come up with positive net utility. I think this is done when there aren't separate stages for expressing your needs and collectively trying to figure out what is best for the benefit of every agent who is affected by the choice. ~ And people present what they need and their concerns as a "plan that helps everyone" because they don't want what they care about left out of consideration. Instead of what should be protocol which is everyone stating what they want and are sensitive to and then discussing the situation and then brainstorming a solution. In discrete steps. Hive - 昨天晚上9點55分 Something something Moloch kerapace :s - 昨天晚上9點56分 I mean, I think we already have different terms (non-offensive ones, even) for people and pornography, and I think that's probably as close as we're going to get to a nice compromise one can talk about people, the other can be used to talk about people's sexual preferences Hive - 昨天晚上9點57分 Isn't that literal objectification though? 微梦 - 昨天晚上10點00分 But yeah if your plan makes excuses for omitting a class of people because they are serial killers or unintelligent or have a different political philosophy or have money or just leaves them out of consideration entirely, it is probably because including these people makes figuring out a solution that benefits everyone is a hard problem and the planners do not want to cede power because ceding power is painful and might give their ground fewer nice things. When you measure the goodness of a plan ideally you estimate what it does to all morally relevant agents (not non-computing rocks etc.) who are affected by the change and see how to fit everyone's needs together. When making a choice the chooser should desperately want to live in a world where every hair is numbered and every grain of sand. Hive - 昨天晚上10點07分 Unless you can actually do that math and show the positive effects outway the negatives then all of that is just talk though. 微梦 - 昨天晚上10點13分 It is talk which gives us the heuristics that of you omit a class of people affected by the thing from your considerations, you cannot knowingly converge on the correct answer even if you have all the exact numbers. Hive - 昨天晚上10點15分 Okay sure but in that case Chesterton's Fence. 微梦 - 昨天晚上10點16分 It is strictly worse for working out a solution that actually works for all parties if just drop a class of people from consideration. Unless information about them is smuggled in through other avenues. Hive - 昨天晚上10點17分 Okay like, fine, we're not saying 'ignore perverts values' or anything. As a pervert ourselves that would directly effect us. But like, show us the math. kerapace :s - 昨天晚上10點17分 somni I am very confused at what you are saying 微梦 - 昨天晚上10點21分 If "Chesterson's fence" points to the argument I think it does, then I don't think it is even applicable. I know why people are dropped from consideration and I have seen it cause dysfunction and failed plans. I am not saying "why are perverts not being taken into consideration here it seems like and arbitrary hold over from barbaric times". I am saying that omitting people from consideration causes specific harm and is done because people don't want their group to be shafted at the negotiating table so they draw the line around who matters such that there is little uncertainty over whether they will "win" the resources. @kerapace :s Then I shall dispel your confusion! A questioning technique from debates in the middle ages: Can you write out what you think I am saying so far and what part is the Region of Confusion? kerapace :s - 昨天晚上10點27分 so you're saying that the feelings of people who are attracted to trans people need to be taken into account when making the calculus of what language people use when talking about their gender and genitalia 微梦 - 昨天晚上10點38分 @Hive :3 There is a reason people use mathematical models for things that are messy and hard to quantify and this is because they are kind of useful. Thinking about things in terms of utilitarianism even though the numbers are hard to locate instead of just doing what just feels right on an intuitive level at least prevents people from donating to things like the Make A Wish Foundation. Which is clearly not effective at all according to pretty much any metric of charity evaluation that cares for maximizing happiness per a dollar. But the thing is a lot of people don't even think of evaluating this class of things in a considered way as a thing that is done. So even though many of the people who are donating to EA things aren't actually doing any math they still do better than people who use no framework at all and wing it 100% on impulses like guilt or desire to help cute kids. Even if they have only rough numbers, using the model that dominates intuitions under perfect information out performs the the intuitions when both processes are given approximately correct information. There are times when over analysis harms people and the intuitive processes of the brain dominate because they are more efficient than formalized processes using imperfect information as inputs. But I do not think [neglecting to include members of a class of people who are not you in a choice of who should get what resources is a time when intuitive biases do better at locating solutions that are good for all parties] is one of the situations that is easier to reason about when given over to human intuition. @kerapace :s This is correct! Hive - 昨天晚上10點47分 Fine, but we're arguing that in such a situation, doing nothing is a better option then messing with the status quo and adding words to the language that might be harmful. We're arguing for the status quo, unless you can actually do the math that shows that changing the language the way you're proposing will do more good for people attracted to trans people, then it will do harm to trans people (who are already disproportionately marginalized already). Unless you can actually show us the data on that, we're not going to find your argument particularly compelling. Chesterton's fence! basically. 微梦 - 昨天晚上11點02分 Ah! I kind of agree with you there! I think the current direction of word use is good and words shouldn't be regulated and communities of people perving on trans girls should be allowed to use whatever words they want in their own communities. However the phrase "maintain the status quo" is weird and like "act natural". I mean what actions do and do not maintain it how do we measure the difference between how we would act with no agreement. etc. What if without being told to maintain the status quo someone goes out and says that all trans girls are traps and gay. Is that maintaining the status quo or not? Assume that none of us did anything and in fact were locked in a room away from the rest of the world. (Although that would be changing the status quo.) I'm not you, but I think that maintaining the status quo in this case would call you to make a positive action to tell the person saying that to stop advocating for this or to write letters about why they were wrong because they were doing was changing the status quo. If by maintaining the status quo you mean let the communities hash it out between each other with good negotiation norms where everyone's concerns and needs are heard and navigated around so that they fit together in a positive sum way, then we agree on this!

Hive - 昨天晚上11點06分 Realistically communities aren't going to neatly hash it out between each other in every case. Within communities definitely, smaller ones specially, but yes.

微梦 - 昨天晚上11點37分 Yay! Our views have contracted together!

[datingadviceonreddit]

Hi /r/dating_advice! This essay was originally submitted to /r/MensLib, where I was given the heads-up I should cross-post it here with a bit of editing. Keep in mind that this essay was originally written in response to a need for strategizing dating without objectification, like you see in many Pick-up Artist communities. I am not a fan of these frameworks, so I figured I would do a write-up on my own philosophy when it comes to dating. Keep in mind this essay was mostly written for a relatively young, male audience, but much of the advice herein is universal (in my opinion).Without further ado, I'd like to dive into some of the rules I learned from theatrical improvisation, and how they can be used as a framework for flirtation and general interaction.First, some housekeeping:I am no PhD in anthropology or sociology or gender studies etc. etc. Though I am familiar with a decent amount of literature, I am certainly no expert when it comes to human social interaction. Hopefully you'll take my word for a few thingsI am no casanova or womanizer. In fact, as I am writing this essay, I am currently single. I followed these rules for my last relationship, and it was one of the most fulfilling and enjoyable experiences I've had. So I hope, again, you'll take my word for a few things.This is not a comprehensive guide like you might find in Pick-up Artist handbooks, with highly specific strategies for every given situation. Rather, this essay is purposefully vague in order to be generalizable, as every person and every interaction is unique in its own way.Following these rules won't get you sex. If you are truly hell-bent on getting sex and just sex, then this is not the essay for you. However, if you're looking for a partner, somebody with whom you can share companionship, support, and eventual love, maybe consider these words.This essay is not a substitute for the classic banal advice of getting in shape, dressing well, having a passion, etc. Working on these things is equally as important as what I'm going to talk about, which, as you will see, should come naturally over time anyways.Improv and InteractionThis essay was inspired by this Tedx YYC talk by professional improviser Rebecca Northan. Rebecca learned improv at The Loose Moose Theatre in Calgary1, and has been working professionally as an improviser for decades. I would highly recommend watching this talk - I teared up a bit the first time I watched it - but I realize you aren't all going to, so here's a quick summary:Rebecca has being doing a show for a while called Blind Date2, wherein she calls a random member of the audience down, and they have an improvised "blind date" on stage for around an hour and a half. Intimidating, no? But Rebecca always sticks to the basic rules of improv she learned so many years ago, like being positive and inspiring your partner, and that allows her to confidently stride to the end of the scene. She had the epiphany recently that all these maxims she learned for improvisation are the same things that come naturally to a person when they have fallen in love. In other words, improv provides a great framework for interacting with a desired partner.Now, you might be saying, "Corbutte, that's easy for you and Rebecca to say, but I'm not an improviser! I was never trained, and I'm not a funny guy, and I get stage fright..." etc. I will assert to you right now that you are an improviser, although maybe not a good one, and you've been doing it your whole life. This boils down to the essentials of how humans interact.All social interaction is performative. You may be familiar with ye olde Shakespeare quote:All the world’s a stage,And all the men and women merely players;They have their exits and their entrances,And one man in his time plays many parts,If you were like me, you'd already heard this quote a bajillion times by the time you were fifteen. If you were also like me, you probably rolled your eyes and said "Yes, yes, very deep" and continued on with your day.But when I started doing improv, it dawned on me that there is a lot more to this idea than you'd think. The essence of most of the social interaction we have on a daily basis is highly ritualized. Think about casual small talk with your peers or coworkers. They probably all follow the same pattern:"Hi/Hey/Sup?""How's it going/What's up?/How are you?""I'm good, you?/ It's going all right, yourself?/Not much, you?""It's all good/Fine/It's going/Another day another dollar""How's the semester going/How's the wife?/Sunny day out today..."And so on and so forth, and I'm going to stop there before I tear my eyeballs out. But, essentially, most conversations work on this semi-scripted system of casual greetings and banal topics. Although excruciating in many circumstances, this is a convenient and easy way for humans to gauge and demonstrate respect before getting into anything deeper.Now think about a good, engaging conversation you've had recently. Chances are it was with somebody on the same "wavelength" as you, it was probably about some topic you both find interesting, and you probably came out at the end feeling like you either learned or accomplished something. You probably spoke immediately when the other person finished their sentences - you wanted to say something immediately because you felt inspired. This is because the conversation became improvisational. You had spoken long and deeply enough to demonstrate a sense of support and trust with your conversational partner, and thus both of you entered a flowing and productive conversation.Flirting an dating are no exception to this rule, which is why mastering the rules of improv - I think - helps quite a bit. And I think our society does us a disservice by teaching men a completely arbitrary set of tropes irrelevant to these rules3. The same, perhaps, can be said for women as well3.1.The RulesSo what are these fabled rules? Well, I have four. You may notice that's an extra one to what Rebecca listed in her Tedx Talk. This is because I have an additional rule for you that, in particular, seems to affect men, but is also a universally good thing to do:1) ListenJust listen. This is actually so hard to do. Especially when you're nervous: you're constantly in your head, thinking about what you need to say next, and before you know it you completely missed what your scene partner is saying. This is a classic trap for improvisers of all levels of experience, and is generally indicative of a scene going terribly.One classic, and cliched, exercise for teaching proper listening is One-Word-At-A-Time. Check out this video. And now check out this one. Did you notice the difference between the two? In the first one, the two improvisers take pauses between each word, and are constantly in their heads, trying to think of what to say next. In the second one, the improvisers are speaking right on each other's heels and are directly engaged with the story. They don't stop to think about what's coming next.The difference between the two? In the first, they're both staring at the camera. In the second, they're both staring at each other.It's not like looking another person in the eyes will magically tell you what they're going to say next. The magic lies in knowing that your partner is there and engaging directly with them. When you speak and you know the other person's eyes are hanging on to exactly what you're saying, conversation can flow without any hesitation. Just by actively listening, you've inspired a great amount of trust in your partner. Which brings me to the next rule:2) Don't fear failureThis is classic generic advice handed out by everyone from Roosh V to Barrack Obama. How can you improve without failing? Two steps forward, one step back, amirite?I want to frame how we're thinking of failure a bit differently here. Chances are, you're thinking of failure at flirting or dating as a rejection. And this can be true.But in every improv scene, successful or no, there are always a dozen failures. These are what we call failed offers. These could be endowments, like giving your scene partner a name or attribute, or just generally providing some prop or movement or game or idea to the scene. And, quite often, these offers fall flat, either because your partner wasn't properly listening, or was uninspired, or your delivery was just all wrong.And that's fine, as long as you fail gracefully. Acknowledge that your offer was rejected and move on. By doing so, you're demonstrating that it's alright to fail in the space you've created, and that doesn't necessarily mean the scene needs to end.Now think about flirting. Chances are, if you're talking to your crush, you'll end up stumbling over words, making all kind of social faux-pas, and you'll become so painfully self-aware you just want to hide in a hole and die.If you know how to fail gracefully, you don't need to worry about messing up. Because you know that even though one of your offers may have fallen flat, the scene isn't over. You're still there, and your partner is still engaged, you just need to find the next offer to move on to. Maybe you brought up the wrong topic of conversation, something your partner doesn't find interesting. Just laugh, say "Eh, maybe we shouldn't talk about how the Ben Folds' solo music doesn't feel as rich without the rest of the Five", and move on. Or, stop, listen, and let your partner choose the next topic.The importance of this strategy doesn't necessarily lie within the tactics of keeping the scene/flirtation smooth. Oftentimes it will just not work. Rather, each time you try, fail, and gracefully get back up, you're instilling yourself with more confidence in your ability to rebound to the next thing. So each time you approach an offer, you'll be less scared to give it a try.3) Be PositiveBeing positive doesn't mean being a sycophant. For the love of god, do not agree with everything that comes out of your partner's mouth. Being positive isn't about being cheery or affirmative. It's about accepting an offer and building upon it.This is a concept commonly known as "Yes, and". When your scene partner says, "Let's go get some cheese from the moon!" You say, "Yes, let's take my rocket ship" or "Yes, we'll need to break into Cape Canaveral and commandeer their shuttle" or "No, Barbara, take your goddamn medication! Every day you come up to me and tell me there's cheese on the moon. It's not true! Damnit, what happened to the woman I loved? I can't believe what they did to you with that... experiment".In every case, you are replying to your scene partner by accepting their offer, and then building upon it (hopefully with something you know will inspire them). This doesn't mean agreeing to everything that is said, it just means engaging with every idea offered. Sometimes, the offer will fail, as stated previously, in which case you fail gracefully and move on.Chances are, however, that if you're talking to somebody you find attractive, you'll probably be inspired by most of the things they say. When that happens, don't just nod your head and go "Uh-huh". Build upon it. When she says, "Douglas Adams was a great novelist", don't just say, "Yeah, he was," say, "Yeah, I loved Restaurant at the End of the Galaxy, especially the part where Arthur learns to fly when he sees his handbag4. I wish I could fly like that."Now, all this being said, there is a significant probability that no offer will be inspiring enough.4) Inspire Your PartnerThis is the true make-or-break of a successful scene, date, drunken conversation, what-have-you. In improv, it's easy to become another character for a scene, and say whatever you need to inspire your partner and progress the story. But in life, it's not that simple. Maybe you can play a character for a one-night-stand5, but it is exhausting and unrealistic to play a character beyond a few hours.This is why flirting and dating happen. You need to sit, and talk, and exchange ideas and information about who you are. In such a way, you'll end up knowing whether or not you inspire one another. Without that inspiration, there is no way to have a truly fun scene together. And without that fun well, what's the point?This is why so much of the advice we hear throughout puberty (and staunchly ignore) is "Be yourself". It's not because yourself is a particularly charismatic or attractive person5.1, it's because yourself is the only version you can play that will leave you feeling fulfilled. And until you meet someone else that can inspire yourself, and that yourself can inspire, you'll never be able to feel the true companionship of love5.2.Inspiration can take many forms. Your partner could feel inspired by what you know, or how you act, or your appearance, or social status, or even an event for which you were both present. As time goes on, you'll hopefully keep inspiring one another to talk more, to do things together, to live together. This is what people mean when they say, "I can do anything with her and it's fun." They don't need to get inspiration from the doing, they get inspiration from each other.All of these other rules are essentially just guidelines towards this one rule. They are just ways to make you unafraid of approaching another person as yourself, and engaging them fully and happily.And the unfortunate reality is, most of the time yourself won't inspire the other person's self. That's the reality of dating: it is a crapshoot, a numbers game of seemingly infinite rerolls. But if you listen, and act positively, and fail gracefully, you'll hopefully, eventually, find the person that inspires you.Obliviate ObjectificationThese rules will not get you dates. They won't automatically make you friends and influence people. Their purpose is to make the process more fun and more engaging for yourself and your partner. They exist to give you confidence in the way you engage a potential partner, and what to look for and master when you finally do meet that special person. They exist, in some ways, as an ideal, something to look forward to while you patiently sort through the rough.Most importantly to this essay, they provide a strategy for approaching flirting and dating without objectification. It is of the utmost importance that you treat your partner as exactly that - a partner. Dating is a co-op game, not PVP5.3, and you'll find that if you work to make your partner inspired and happy, they will do the same for you. You aren't a protagonist and a boss, with your objective obstructed until you master your opponent's patterns - you're just two people trying to figure out your game together.I would also like to once again reiterate the importance of the basics. Eat healthy, work out6, dress well, be kind and courteous, get a hobby. But also: be confident in yourself, and love yourself, and inspire everyone around you. Don't be afraid to fail, be afraid you never get the chance to do so. Learn and grow as a person, but never lose sight of what makes you unique.Ok, those are all very nice potential tattoos. But how do I get laid, Corbutte?Well, my friend, you don't just acquire sex. You need to be given sex. Remember that you also give sex, so it's generally a mutualistic offer. Try asking nicely. You will be surprised at what another person will do for you after a pleasant conversation.____________________1As did yours truly, so don't think I'm putting any words in Rebecca's mouth when we actually received the same training around the improvisational theory of Kieth Johnstone2An excellent show, as I have heard through the grapevine3In short, society teaches men a disconnection from emotional engagement and a need to constantly assert status to and above a partner. While these attributes might help in terms of pure sexual strategy, they do not generally lead to a particularly interesting partnership. As well, since trying to constantly be "cool" and high status is exhausting for men, most men are just incapable of being successful with this strategy. Unlearning it marks an important rite of passage for many into adulthood from their embarrassing teenage years. Many, however, never grow beyond it, and end up looking to Pick-up Gurus who offer their own formulas for achieving this. Perhaps the most egregious example of this frame of thought is negging, which I think exemplifies why trying to be a James Dean-type is ultimately so fruitless, cringey, and toxic.3.1Again, this essay was originally written for the Men's Lib subreddit, where we often get into the more cerebral aspects of society and culture and that kind of thing and how they relate to masculinity. I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to say that society has been equally as unfair to women in how it "teaches" dating, but I also don't profess to know enough about that to give keen insight.4 I actually think this might be in the next book in the series. But that's ok, I'm just failing gracefully and moving on. If she points that out, I'll laugh and admit it's been a while since I read the books.5 Unless you're Barney Stinson, you're probably not good enough to do this. Also, it's pretty scummy (see footnote #3).5.1 Although, if you play things right, you will be the charismatic and attractive person to that one partner.5.2 Ok, this is actually pretty blazee of me to say absolutely. It might be possible to find "the true companionship of love", whatever that actually means, without any of this. But I'm willing to bet that the probability of that happening is relatively low.5.3 This is a reference to a previous comment of mine, which used a video game metaphor to explain the issue with pick-up artistry and objectification.6 Lord knows I need to do this more___________________Previous essays:Le Guin's Left HandPrivilege of the PetersonianLet's Talk About The WallA Wizard of Earthsea vs. Harry Potter via /r/dating_advice