#talos-4

[crispyfishsticks]

talos-4 Would you consider a patreon or something? I've been a long time follower too, and have wanted a way to get the whole picture for a while now.

I've got one over here at Empire of Eels; currently posting when I can, as I work on stuff (sometimes art, writing, etc).

I would love to answer questions there.

[socketballmasks]

Deer SB; would it be possible for you to create masks with pin connectors, like the Metru masks or the Marhi masks, but as a mod version of one without a pin? To be more specific, I mean like a 2015 mask of water with pin connectors rather than those annoying clamps it uses. I've long held fantasies of 2001 masks with pins to stay on better or cool modded versions of Inika masks that dont need a weird green face shield to be used. Hope this isn't already covered, I looked for a FAQ, I swear!

You’re not the only person to ask! And don’t worry, I haven’t made a FAQ yet. At the moment, it’s something that’s possible, but I’m not sure if it’s something I want to do. I have other things that are more important than that particular type of mod (also I worry it won’t look so good because the G2 masks are smaller than pretty much all pin-connecting masks).

The 2001 masks with pins sounds much better, if I could manage to orient the pins exactly perfectly, it might be something I’d actually do. Making plastic versions of the Inika masks has also been a point of interest.

Right now though, this stuff isn’t happening any time soon. Perhaps in the future after I’ve accomplished some of the things I’m currently planning.

[samodivas]

How do you define love? Not trying to cross examine your take that love is "something you do," but I'm a philosophy student. I can't help myself, I love hearing people's takes and exploring mine.

I actually think Love is very poorly understood and defined by basically everyone. It's a word we all use, but one few people actually agree upon, when you get down to it.

Because of linguistic and cultural plurality, I'd say there are a lot of types of love; "I love ice cream" is surely quite different from "I love you [pointed at marital partner]" or "I love my dog" etc.

In terms of what I do for my ice cream, well, I devour it or let it fallow in the freezer for months before I remember it's there. That's way different from the things I do for my partner, which are different from what I do for the dog. When you crunch that down, it looks like 1 = 2, which doesn't work logically.

To get specific, "things you do" are verbs, and feeling is used syntactically like a verb. We conjugate feeling like a verb; I/you/they feel, I was feeling, I felt. While emotions and sensations are different from actions like running or crafting, they are "things you do." We can even learn how to select and choose thoughts and actions that moderate and select emotions, in a similar [but non identical] way we chose actions.

So what's common abouy my love for ice cream, my partner or my pets? Similar positive feelings, ones we might call love. Those feelings are usually situated before my actions for them, and are not identical to those things that I do. We say "people will do crazy things for love," speaking to how that intrinsic feeling comes before the more conventional action.

Understanding that love is a feeling doesn't really tell us what kind of feeling though, besides positive. This is an area I'm still exploring. You could also get really granular about confusion between love and like, but I think the two feelings are at least related, and may exist on a spectrum based on magnitude.

Does that make sense? Clarity is important for exploring nuanced topics like love, but I worry I don't always achieve it. I'd like to hear your feedback & thoughts about love.

Cheers ✌️🍝

Thanks for dropping in! I'm going to put everything under the cut to spare people's dashboards because I can turn a simple question into an essay. (Humanities students unite lol)

Also, a note: @a-book-dragon left a much more well-articulated (philosophy-based) comment under yours in that post, which is how I found it in the first place. I'm just not familiar enough with dialetics (and I found the gif before that lowkey annoying) so I went directly to the source (you) to reblog it. (She's also super smart if you want to discuss something with her and can probably hold a conversation based in philosophy a lot better than I can.)

I agree that "love" and "like" are related, not just on a linguistic level, and I also think that there are different types of love. So while there's the type that says you love to consume something, there's also the type that's about giving, providing, cultivating.

The only book on the subject I've read is bell hook's "all about love" and to be honest, I don't entirely agree with everything she states there, but it does cover a lot of my beliefs on the subject. I was surprised to see her articulate some conclusions I had already reached by myself. I'm honestly not too well-versed in philosophy at all so all my opinions are based on less scientific approaches to the subject, ranging from personal experience, observation, art, cultural notions, etc.

First, I don't think love is necessarily positive in all its expressions. A love for power or possession can translate into a monstrous greed or violence. A lot of cases of domestic violence (referencing my country here) always point to how the perpetrator did it because "he was jealous" over his partner. Plenty of parents end up being abusive out of "love" for their child, which turns them into controlling, hypercritical bullies in the name of love. Controversial take but I don't think people who do bad things always do them because they're unsalvageable monsters, they often do them because they believe in their heart they have to, or that it's okay because they just love this person so much they have nothing else they can do. I think when we discuss love there needs to be room in that conversation for the ways love can twist us, too.

Second, I actually think there's a better distinction that can be made between what I consider two main types of love. In my language they would be "obich" (you would say this both for a love of dancing, pancakes, or to tell someone you love them, be it your mother or your spouse) and "lyubov" (this is used to describe a lover, making love, being in love, and having a love of something, including a love for animals). The following paragraph is going to be my personal interpretation of the concepts, not something that's universally agreed upon by other people in my culture (Bulgarian in case you're curious) nor something I've seen discussed outside of like, two conversations with my own romantic partner or my best friend.

So, linguistically, I make the distinction between "love" (obicham) which to me is something that goes deep and is harder to shake, and it goes in a different direction than being "in-love" (lyubov) which is the more exciting, sexy, lustful side of love. (I don't like calling it an infatuation because I feel like that word in particular is used to demean the feeling. It doesn't have to be less important, it's just different). It's also worth noting that the first kind of love I described tends to be used most often (in my language) as a verb (to love, I love you, loving pancakes, etc), while the second is usually a noun (making love, falling in love, what even is love?, etc). I also think it's interesting that this mostly matches how the words are used in English despite us being like two or three branches apart within the larger Indo-European language family tree.

Next, I believe you can have both of these feelings for your romantic partner, or just one of them. You might not have either of them if you're in a relationship that's very shallow or with someone you don't find interesting or attractive, though to me that's a questionable relationship. (To each their own though.) I can personally attest to having a world of difference between the past 2 experiences of falling inlove I've had, wherein my current relationship feels like a love that is built, and the previous person I was inlove with [I'm not saying it was a situationship but I'm not not saying it] felt like something that would come upon me like a sickness. It was not something based out of action, out of the active caring for another person. It was like clinical insanity, borne out of a brief but intense two weeks of knowing each other, a great attraction, fantastic sex, and a lot of uncertainty that comes with being very different people and not having similar goals or even continents between ourselves.

Feeling [as a verb and a noun] is very important for both types. But the main difference is that the first is achieved through the action of loving, by turning love into a verb. It's almost like training because the more time passes, the stronger that love is. So I think that's also an appropriate type of love to describe between parent and child - it's an incredible bond (or so I hear) and it may change over time as you both change and grow, but it's also something that's largely based around your closeness, your active caring for each other, there's a certainty there. The second type can be that romance-novel, crazy-stupid-mania type of love. That's the love people talk about when they describe "love-sickness" or "wanting" someone.

Let's consult those old greek types of love for a second:

I love (lol) these and they have their uses, though I think dividing them this much can be a hindrance. Feeling part of a group (philia) can include a family unit (storge) or love of humanity/contributing (agape). Self-love (philautia) can be 'I'm a whole human who deserves respect and kindness' or it can be 'fuck my tits so look good when I'm riding him, I'm so glad we put a mirror there' (eros). I would say that to love (obich, the first kind I was describing earlier) covers 6/9 of these, and the remaining 3 (eros, ludus, mania) are covered by love (lyubov, the second type I was describing).

Note: for the remainder of this, I will refer to "9" types instead of 8, because when I found the image it said "9 types of love" and I later saw they're actually 8. Then I found some article claiming the 9th type, which I'm adding here for consistency:

(I like the concept so it stays. Nine aspects of love it is!)

Everything so far served as the introduction, theories, methods, and background. Let's get back to the research problem: do [those men described in the specific post] actually love women?

In regards to "I don't think these men love women", I am definitely refering to the first type of love, which covers 6/9 bases. This isn't to say they aren't capable of loving any individual woman on the planet in any of those ways 6 aspects but I do think that they don't love (6/9 aspects) women as people, or potential (romantic or sexual) partners. They have already narrowed down the category for women who deserve their love (obich), and the women they can love (3/9 aspects, lyubov).

I am perhaps also going back to OP's original point which is that many of these men don't even like women, which doesn't necessarily contrast with your point that these hyper-specific turn offs (like piercings, tattoos, dyed hair, cat-ear headphones, or taking pictures of your latte) are also stand-ins for traits they have a hard time articulating. These men are capable of wanting women (which includes lust, attraction, basically those 3/9 aspects/lyubov) and I'm sure that for many of them, there are women they do like, perhaps as friends, or coworkers, or crushes. (Or, to be honest, as pets, because while I can never truly know what goes on in a man's mind (since I am a cis woman), just based on the these 'women aren't really people like you and me' types that I've seen who still have female friendships (? somehow ?) I can only assume they treat these friendships I mentioned with a type of delight and frivolousness that one does when they get to hang out with someone's dog, or when a particularly friendly but mangy cat brushes up against your leg. Something that falls between 'well it doesn't count' and 'I guess I might fuck her but she's still pathetic' or something. Let me know if that even remotely makes sense outside my head)

In addition to these traits-as-stand-ins, we also have a lot of other things that OP didn't necessarily say but I felt they were implied, so that affected my comment. To back up my point a little bit, I consulted two random articles listing beauty trends and fashion trends men hate for some. These include:

Taking pictures of little things - this doesn't necessarily mean posting them, but other than your latte it could be a cool rock or a pretty leaf on the ground.

Taking pictures of herself - Oh she's so vapid and self-absorbed! (Meanwhile his ig feed is full of OnlyFans models and women he 'talks to' in their bikinis)

Red lipstick - a very popular makeup trend that men very vocally complained about when it began earlier in the 2010s.

Super short denim shorts - which is ironic because that's the pornified look that men are always drooling over?

Having tattoos - I personally know at least two men who express disgust at women with tattoos, with one of them saying he's convinced a woman with tattoos would be a cheater. (To their credit, neither of them are tattooed at least...)

More recently, thin eyebrows, bleached eyebrows, pouty lips (pretty sure this started as a porn/sexy pose trend to begin with?)

Talking to other men on dating apps (when you have just met on a dating app and are in the get-to-know-each-other, see if you want to date at all, stage...)

Having any sort of body hair

Wearing any makeup at all

Not wearing enough of it (because we're all actually ugly without it)

Having male friends (to be fair, a lot of women also dislike this in men they would consider dating)

Speaking a certain way (accents, dialects, speech impediments... sure, not liking one of these things/having a pet peeve is fine, but always nitpicking at these things in any woman... at that point you're making up problems)

Weightlifting or having any muscles at all - 'oh she looks like a man!' (she does not)

Yeah basically it's a long list and we can keep going.

I'd also like to point out that what you described in your comment, to me, sounds like [those dudes] love the idea of being loved. Perfectly fair - everyone wants/loves that idea. They also, perhaps, see love as a type of subservient self-sacrifice. So that means someone taking on their burdens in exchange for them "providing". Only most of these men are incapable of providing anything beyond disappointment, though the ones that actually make money think that somehow covers the emotional void between them and their partner. (The amount of times I've tried, in vain, to explain you need to be present for your partner, actually DO things for them, not just sneeze money when the check comes.... sigh.)

We can also draw some parallels to the madonna/whore complex, to how [these] men are often attracted to women they're also disgusted by (e.g.: how many of them watch hardcore pornography and at the same time think women who do this are disgusting and evil? There was a great video by Kidology about Kendel Kay, AKA the Stay-at-Home Girlfriend, who had this exact thing happen to her when her boyfriend dumped her for being 'demonic' after she gave up doing porn because of him. She was very much an active OF model when they met.]

Summary sentence: I agree with your point and where you are coming from but I believe it's more accurate to say these men [described in OP's post and your comment] do not love women so much as they are technically capable of wanting them if they meet their predetermined list of qualities. To me, "I could potentially fuck and imagine having my emotional needs met by a woman who fits this checklist of requirements" is simply not something I would call love.