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LadyNTrainer -> RE: What do it takes to become a pro domme? (10/27/2010 12:04:28 AM)
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ORIGINAL: DMFParadox
I'll believe this. But I feel the need to point out that most people would claim the same; and they would be misleading themselves. A buddy of mine has a favorite saying about it: "95% of people believe they're the 5% that's different from the rest." In fact, one of the links I previously posted to OkTrends has a statistic that's almost exactly this.
I don't know what the actual percentages are of Aspies and auties, but I do know that I am on the autistic spectrum, and that this is likely to lead to major disconnects between what I say and what most people think I actually mean if they don't know this up front. Probably the easiest way to explain it is that I operate on a WYSWIG interface, and it can be annoyingly literal. An autistic child, when asked by the teacher if the dog ate his homework, will cock his head and explain that canines don't include paper products in their diet; though they are not obligate carnivores, they are unable to digest insoluble plant fiber. Nothing good generally comes of this.
Fast forward twenty years, and the high functioning autistic adult will have learned that this particular expression is intended to convey a non factual meaning, and s/he probably won't fall for it a second time. But even a savvy autistic adult is liable to respond in the same vein to novel presentations of non factual meaning, if literal facts are stated with the intent to convey a completely different meaning that has emotional or social freighting. Understanding this is a very good start to a meaningful bridge in communication.
Stupid I'm not, and I've had a lot of years to study social language and figure out why constructs such as "the dog ate my homework" exist. But I can still be "gotten" with this kind of thing occasionally, because I natively operate on a solid WYSIWIG interface. If you go beyond that I may not know why you think I'm communicating something other than what I said. I can probably take a pretty good guess and even respond with the correct social move if necessary, but in my experience it's more productive to be transparent. Also it helps people on the spectrum who have even more trouble than I do when communicating with weird neurotypical folks who don't run on WYSIWIG.
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Eh, I got 'Doogie' or 'Einstein'. Or just, 'Stop, I'm not that smart.' Used to make me want to scream, because people are usually far more capable than they give themselves credit for. Plus, it's a bullshit excuse.
Either way, I can sympathize.
While I'll stop short of saying that a high functioning autistic brain is objectively any better than a neurotypical brain, I will say that I like mine very much and would not trade my wiring for better social perception. Sympathy is definitely not required. I don't see the differing range of function as "better" or "worse" so much as being optimized for different things. It's just another example of the polymorphism of successful survival traits in Homo sapiens.
I am smart. I am also autistic. That's not an excuse for anything, or a "poor me" by any means, but it is something that is useful to understand in order to facilitate meaningful communication that doesn't get derailed in the middle because we're speaking different operating systems.
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Please explain what your motivations were to not simply open a thread and rephrase the subject as an original talking point, if it wasn't to prove a point? Because really, it's only 2 or 3 mouseclick's worth of difference from what you actually did, and the Mod did complain about the state of things in here.
Because I do firmly believe that the economics of gender relations and sex work are intimately related, and that it is a worthy and relevant contribution to the pro domme topic. I did not read the moderator's comments as being relevant to this portion of the discussion. My perception may have been incorrect and the moderator may have in fact intended his/her comments to apply to the academic tangent as well as to the "soandso was banned on this other site" tangent. I await clarification on this subject, with no firm expectations in either direction. I feel something of a personal stake in encouraging on topic academic discussion, but I recognize that this is not of interest to everyone on a BDSM site.
Additionally, I was wary of your self-stated proclivity for social game playing, and preferred to act with personal integrity according to my own beliefs, eg, that the academic part of the discussion was in fact on topic. I do consent to engage in factual and academic dialogue. I do not consent to engage in social game playing, and I find it difficult to fully understand or clearly perceive another person's intent to do so. To the best of my ability I will decline to engage on this front and be entirely transparent with regards to my beliefs and motives. So my awareness of your proclivity to play social games was a factor, in the sense that I might have otherwise given greater weight to what I could have perceived as a courteous request made for practical reasons. I emphatically do not desire to "one-up" you. I don't want to win; what I want is not to play. Subtle but crucial difference.
Viewing an academic dialogue as having a "winner" or a "loser" is inherently counterproductive, not to mention silly, and it corrupts data. If you have good data, especially if it is better than mine, I want it. Your motives are for providing it are irrelevant. I do not care if I "lose" because your data was better. If your data is better, I certainly do want to "lose", because that means I gain the better data. Not much can exasperate and frustrate me more than monkey social status games fucking with the data. Being emotionally attached to your theories is bad science, and bad science makes me safeword. I am not my data; I am not even my hypotheses.
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Acedemic, no. I was all wordy mostly because I was teasing you. My point was a bridge between some of what I was discussing earlier and the OP's original topic, which was my primary goal; it was clumsy, granted, but I think I pulled it off satisfactorily.
Er, you can think so if you want, but it's not my idea of an intellectual climax. I'm left quite unsatisfied. [:D]
Unfortunately, teasing me can often be about as productive as asking the autistic student if the dog ate his homework, and can have basically the same results.
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And with that last bit, we come back full circle. Factors relating to becoming a pro domme. Go.
Nope. Your turn. Back to selfish genes and red queens, here or on a thread of your choosing, or give up and go home. [;)]
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