Redditor gets raped "I didn't loose my virginity because I didn't consent it. Losing your virginity requires consent" "Nah you lose it the first time you are penetrated" (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
28 ups - 8 downs = 20 votes
47 comments submitted at 10:03:55 on Feb 16, 2014 by pokker
Like, I get the thinking behind it, but the human psyche is evolving to the point where nowadays we just change the interpretation of things to get around the facts we dislike. And then we scream about oppression when someone walks along and calls us out on it. It's probably got a lot to do with the internet and the ease with which anonymity and the spreading of ideas have allowed some stupid thoughts to permeate the general consensus and give more stupid thoughts credibility. I get it, it's just incorrect.
evolving to that point? It's had that capacity for a while imo.
And if you disagree you are a troll and I hate you.
Self-delusion is a direct consequence of the development of imagination, which means it probably predates the advent of homo sapiens. And that was a quarter of a millenia ago. So yeah, unless we're talking in geological terms, it's been a while.
People didn't coddle it back in the day though. Nobody cared.
People furnished it different ways; they worshiped pantheons of gods, or cultivated racial superiority, or told legends about heroes who never actually existed. What you call 'coddling' is a coping mechanism by which society deals with things it can't fully understand in the absence of gods and delusions of historical grandeur.
I don't care what you believe. What I called coddling is other people feeding your fantasy. It's gotten a lot more prevalent in the more recent history of peopledom.
>I don't care what you believe.
I'd been resisting snark and dismissiveness till now, but if that's where we're going, sure, I'll play.
Given that I just gave you three concrete historical examples people feeding other people's fantasies, I'd say that it's less that it's gotten more prevalent and more that it irritates you, personally. Which is kind of funny, because you're making a huge deal about how people just can't accept reality. Which is true. People like you can't accept reality.
Not like you specifically, the general you. Sassy-britches. And I stated in my original post that I get it, so it's not that I don't get it - I even think that it's helped society in its own way at times. My point is that it's growing via the aid of instantaneous communication, and that means that more and more people are agreeing with sillier and sillier shit.
Aww shoot, and here I was reveling in a chance to bust out my inventory of meanness and douchebaggery.
...why yes, I am a bad person!
Say what you will about me, but leave people like me out of it, by Jove!
>Like, I get the thinking behind it, but the human psyche is evolving to the point where nowadays we just change the interpretation of things to get around the facts we dislike.
The irony of that argument is that you're kind of circumventing the crux of the matter yourself. The advent of cheap and affordable birth control as well as STI tests collectively mean that the value of virginity in Western society has been largely reduced to a cultural construct. It doesn't matter whether or not she lost her virginity, because in and of itself, it functionally affects nothing; all that matters is that she was violated. It's important only to the degree that she and others place value in it, so if she wants to decide that her virginity wasn't lost in the rape, then as far as I'm concerned, no one has any reason to tell her otherwise.
Sure, virginity in itself is intrinsically worthless. But there's still two problems:
Firstly, it's the wrong definition. Words have meaning, you can't make up your own and expect nothing to happen. There's going to be a situation where someone accuses them of lying about being raped because they said "I lost my virginity when I was an adult" or whatever, and it's not going to be pretty.
Secondly, and more debatably, it makes it politically incorrect to be right. That if you correct their definition, you're an asshole. That someone is entitled to be wrong if it makes them feel better, and that anyone who thinks otherwise should be shunned. As a scientist, I really can't stand any position like that.
>Firstly, it's the wrong definition. Words have meaning, you can't make up your own and expect nothing to happen.
Words change and evolve, the perception of the cultural position that they represent conceptually changes and evolves, and also a third thing that changes and evolves 'cause my rhetoric professor taught me to talk in threes. So if the traditional conception of virginity has become irrelevant, then the meaning of the word itself becomes mutable.
>Secondly, and more debatably, it makes it politically incorrect to be right.
Right about what, exactly? Nobody's right about anything here in an objective sense. We're not arguing over whether or not blacks commit more crime than whites (they obviously do, even if there are underlying systemic factors), or not 'tough on crime' policies are destructive (they are, even if they seem morally justified) to cite two politically incorrect examples. If the concept the word represents is in flux, and I think I made a reasonably compelling case that it is, then there's no objective criteria by which its 'actual' meaning can be discerned.
Edit:
>That if you correct their definition, you're an asshole.
Even if I concede all your arguments (and I obviously don't), it's still utterly unnecessary to correct her. Whether or not she considers herself a virgin is completely unimportant to anything, except how it makes her feel. So why even bother?
I had a virginity in my tree I truck dog fish lovely hammer tree moon bees noun a verb with my purple.
That goldfish ugly whenever acute RAM alien?
Bitch fat greyhound red.
The linguistic criticism of that sentence would be that it has improper syntax and grammar, and is therefore incomprehensible regardless of the specific vocabulary. The more practical criticism would be that your sentence is a stalking horse that doesn't constitute a realistic representation of linguistic descriptivism.
The criticism I will offer is that you are an idiot.
But it was completely outside the context of the question, iirc. I always connected virginity as the first instance of penetration and she was penetrated. The top comment answered the question correctly, if depressingly. The children comments are just Redditors being Redditors.