connection between sex and prefered liteature?

[OrphanPip]

I no more bow down to scientific narrative for guide posts than I do to religious doctrine. There are two methods for procreation, asexual generation and sexual generation and humans care more about the latter because we define ourselves along gender roles, inclusive of those whose orientation switches are biologically confused. Indeed, the best I've seen writers imagine in terms of alternative sexes are humans who have both genitalia, and that isn't saying much, because we can't imagine another type other than male, female, neuter. Culturally, socially, how we view ourselves as men and women matters, and this will always be reflected in our literature.

I would agree that asexual and sexual pretty much do define the means of procreation for living things. That doesn't really demonstrate that the two sex dichotomy isn't really a matter of convenience, it works just because it first most people not because it is a solid determined thing. Besides hermaphrodites and intersex humans exist. That's without getting into the issues of sex-related traits, like brain chemistry, hormones, breasts, etc. which are not always aligned how we like to think they should.

Of course, I agree how we view ourselves as men and women matters, but it also matters how we reconcile tensions with how we identify as men and women, and how people who identify as neither men or women feel. How exactly are intersex people supposed to feel, when their adult sexual morphology is often something that has been surgically and pharmaceutically imposed on them. Should they be forced to flip a coin and choose a sex, or go with the old "it's easier to dig a hole than build a pole" mantra.

[Emil Miller]

This has been the funniest thread since the girls discussed Twilight.
It reminds me of the form that was circulated to companies saying:

List all the people in your company broken down by age and sex.

Count me in.

[Jozanny]

I would agree that asexual and sexual pretty much do define the means of procreation for living things. That doesn't really demonstrate that the two sex dichotomy isn't really a matter of convenience, it works just because it first most people not because it is a solid determined thing. Besides hermaphrodites and intersex humans exist. That's without getting into the issues of sex-related traits, like brain chemistry, hormones, breasts, etc. which are not always aligned how we like to think they should.

Of course, I agree how we view ourselves as men and women matters, but it also matters how we reconcile tensions with how we identify as men and women, and how people who identify as neither men or women feel. How exactly are intersex people supposed to feel, when their adult sexual morphology is often something that has been surgically and pharmaceutically imposed on them. Should they be forced to flip a coin and choose a sex, or go with the old "it's easier to dig a hole than build a pole" mantra.

This is as relevant to disability identity as it is to the GBLT identity that keeps pushing the envelope, and only science fiction as a genre meets those expectations, as a whole. It is a gender crossing genre in this sense.

[illusionary]

I associate philosophy, poetry, and anything serious (for lack of better word) with men. I associate fluffy chick lit, romance, and self-help with women.

Interestingly I am a female and I do not live up to my own stereotype.

[Rores28]

No it's something of gender, I think it would be incredibly difficult to attach anything to do with biological sex to literature preference.

If you mean what I think you mean I find this to be a strange assertion. I take this to mean that if we randomly sampled 1000 humans with penises and 1000 humans with vaginae and recorded their literary preferences that no correlative pattern would emerge? Likewise, we could do the same thing with 1000 XY individuals and 1000 XX individuals.

Edit: While I realized that vaginae was a plural form of vagina I did not realize that spell check would actually reject vaginas.

[OrphanPip]

If you mean what I think you mean I find this to be a strange assertion. I take this to mean that if we randomly sampled 1000 humans with penises and 1000 humans with vaginae and recorded their literary preferences that no correlative pattern would emerge? Likewise, we could do the same thing with 1000 XY individuals and 1000 XX individuals.

Edit: While I realized that vaginae was a plural form of vagina I did not realize that spell check would actually reject vaginas.

A correlative pattern here doesn't demonstrate a causative link, nor would it delineate between cultural and social impact over biological. Not that I think those are entirely mutually exclusive entities, as I defined gender as a function of our understanding and relation to our biology, which is itself influenced by our biology.

Or in other words, just because more people who have penises are reading fantasy novels doesn't mean that it is because they have a penis that this is so. It may be in part, but if any matter of culture is involved in producing in that pattern, then we're looking at something of gender.

[kiki1982]

I agree with Brian that this is the weirdest thread.

@OrphanPip:

I recognise that 'gender' is the right way to talk of 'sex' in sociological terms, but I was talking of the way it was introduced. Why not just continue talking about 'gender' instead of 'sex' and be done with it? Why do we have to say, 'I think you mean "gender", right?' To me that sounds like, 'Tut-tut, you don't know it quite as well, do you', a tad offensive actually. That was my point.

Although the rest of this dicussion is very interesting.

[Seasider]

One thing I've realised from reading the posts on this forum is that posters come from a huge variety of countries,cultures,genders,languages,ages and everything else that divides people. And still we try to communicate with each other in one language about things that are interesting or important to us.And we must do it without tone or volume of voice, facial expression, body language or any of the other ways we supplement the words we use to get our meaning across.
So is it not sensible to try, when the written word is our only tool, to ensure that the terms we use,regardless of grammar, spelling or idiom as far as possible communicate the same ideas to the debaters? At the UN they have interpreters...I suppose to avoid offence being taken thus leading to An International Incident!

The original title was ambiguous; the word sex can be used in many contexts. It was clear that the poster was speculating as to whether men and women have different tastes in literature. My suggestion was not a correction and it certainly was not a criticism of the poster. I was not saying to the poster tut tut you got it wrong! I simply suggested that if we used a more precise and less ambiguous word the chances of our understanding each other would be increased.
The only reason I post this is because what had the potential of being an interesting debate seems to have got somewhat snarled up.

[inbetween]

yep a little
when I posted this I was actually thinking of using the word "gender" but I didn't know (still don't) whether it was a gender or a sex matter... perhaps I choose sex to provoke answers and to get more readers (at least in one case this worked out exellenty... )
perhaps that's part of the question. does the difference in taste concerning literature tell us anything about the general differences?
I saw a documentary about authism which followed the theory that there is sytemathik brain (S brain) and an emotional brain (E brain). it said men mostly have S brains and women mostly E brains (as to why that is I got my own theory... I think our brains adapted to the tasks they were given, which were, due to the physical differences, mostly emotional for women and mostly systematic for men. doesn't mean that a woman can't have a S brain and the other way round but as a matter of fact the majority of autistik people are male) . the absolute S brain was the autistic.
so the real question is perhaps: how strong is the connection between gender and sex?.. and does this literature thing tell us anything about it?

and complaining about a word (when there's something fishy with the meaning) is something I would do as well, just I'd try to choose my words more carefully not to hurt anyone... see you could as well have asked me if I meant gender rather then sex... that would have sounded a little kinder

but anyways ... none of you complained about the missing "r" in the very headline. so either you didn't notice or you were kind enought not to. (I would apreciate the later one very much since spelling is something I loose so easily when writing these things in the evening... and of course I'd be kind with you as well if it's just about spelling in comments... )

that's bin too long
I do apologize for this mass of letters, I usually have it shorter...

[JCamilo]

Since there is no way anyone can grat that both sides will not interpret the text in the way they want, except with silence, there is no much point in debating which word.

Anyways, women was introced as public and producer of literature quite lately. They were present in the oral aspect, only after the burgoise raise in the XIX century and a considerable inclusion of reading public, which included women (with the education to them) the literature was a male game. And what was literature main products? Philosophy and Poetry. Novels in prose were behind it, so in a way, many will identify the raising of novels in XIX century with the inclusion of woman. The number of writers increases clearly on this field. And they have great importance, Jane Austen, Bronte sisters, George Elliot are all major names of english novel. Maybe only Elizabeth Barrett had such power in poetry. About the romantics, most of them are men and most are writing for men. The idealized love or woman is a good signal of that - even those who are close to their "muses" like Shelley or Keats, still consider the acceptance of his peers in first place. And in a way poetry, still a male game. The number of great male poets after XIX century easily outnumbers the female poets. But this is less about phylosophy (it should be how it is writen, not the format. We have enough themes and ways of poetry or prose for both genders) more about the social momment. Poetry and Philosophy were downcast, so woman education moved to what was on the top - prose, novels, romances - and more pratical. If the woman inclusion was earlier, they would certainly be educated reading poetry and would be writting poetry too.

[Rores28]

A correlative pattern here doesn't demonstrate a causative link, nor would it delineate between cultural and social impact over biological. Not that I think those are entirely mutually exclusive entities, as I defined gender as a function of our understanding and relation to our biology, which is itself influenced by our biology.

Or in other words, just because more people who have penises are reading fantasy novels doesn't mean that it is because they have a penis that this is so. It may be in part, but if any matter of culture is involved in producing in that pattern, then we're looking at something of gender.

Of course... now notice the title of the thread. Connection between sex and preferred literature... Not causative link between sex and preferred literature. You are not the first person to point out the dif between correlation and causality to me and I don't find it odd because it is false but because it is so obviously true. This is taught in high school science and mathematics classes.

Furthermore, I'm not trying to be nitpicky myself but this would in fact make your assertion incorrect (unqualified by your response post post that is). I can say with a fair degree of certainty that there will be a higher vagina to Twilight-preference correlation than a penis to Twilight-preference correlation. The reason I can comfortably say this is because the number of people who have penises and vaginae, but possess significantly aberrant hormonal profiles, significantly atypical gender rearing environments, significantly strong predilections to resist status quo mentality etc... will be relatively infrequent in the population. That is to say, they will be infrequent enough that making these sex preference correlations is still possible.

I actually think that, had the poster invoked the word gender in lieu of sex (and if we were being sufficiently naive/nitpicky to begin with and acting like in common parlance these words weren't totally interchangeable), that the question would have become more difficult and obscure, if not totally impossible to answer from what he was implicitly asking as an anecdotal estimation.

I guess what I didn't realize was that many posters on litnet required of their acquaintances complete blood panels, and rigorous psychological evaluation to determine where exactly on the gender identity continuum they fell (rather than using that audaciously un-PC "visual inspection of sexual dimorphism" heuristic) before asking them what books they liked to read.

[Emil Miller]

I seldom read poetry but I do read novels and always have done.So, am I atypical in this regard, or is the dividing line between the genders less clear cut than some have suggested?

[JCamilo]

In a way, all forms of literature are read by male public. All, romance, prose, poems, essays. But not all themes and subjects are. The difference wont be in the format, much more in the themes and in a way, there is very few "girls only" literature.

[OrphanPip]

Of course... now notice the title of the thread. Connection between sex and preferred literature... Not causative link between sex and preferred literature. You are not the first person to point out the dif between correlation and causality to me and I don't find it odd because it is false but because it is so obviously true. This is taught in high school science and mathematics classes.

Furthermore, I'm not trying to be nitpicky myself but this would in fact make your assertion incorrect (unqualified by your response post post that is). I can say with a fair degree of certainty that there will be a higher vagina to Twilight-preference correlation than a penis to Twilight-preference correlation. The reason I can comfortably say this is because the number of people who have penises and vaginae, but possess significantly aberrant hormonal profiles, significantly atypical gender rearing environments, significantly strong predilections to resist status quo mentality etc... will be relatively infrequent in the population. That is to say, they will be infrequent enough that making these sex preference correlations is still possible.

I actually think that, had the poster invoked the word gender in lieu of sex (and if we were being sufficiently naive/nitpicky to begin with and acting like in common parlance these words weren't totally interchangeable), that the question would have become more difficult and obscure, if not totally impossible to answer from what he was implicitly asking as an anecdotal estimation.

I guess what I didn't realize was that many posters on litnet required of their acquaintances complete blood panels, and rigorous psychological evaluation to determine where exactly on the gender identity continuum they fell (rather than using that audaciously un-PC "visual inspection of sexual dimorphism" heuristic) before asking them what books they liked to read.

No, the connection between sex and literature preference is obscured by the effect of gender, i.e. the relationship to cultural and social conditioning of our relationship to our sex. So, it is more fruitful to speak of the connection to gender rather than sex, because we are speaking of a cultural and social relationship, which includes the effect of biology but also takes into account the effects of social construction. Establishing such a correlation would just be a mere exercise in counting responses, it is the commentary and how we interpret this stuff that is interesting.

Fyi. I actually answered her question as well, in my first post in this thread. Who is being nitpicky here? I never commented on her grammar, neither did Seasider. She merely said that it might be better to discuss gender's relationship to literature than sex's, which I agree with. You people are making a mountain out of a mole hill for no apparent reason other than picking pointless fights over the internet.

Moreover, I don't see why we should be sticking to the topic in the OP, it's just a pointless call for sharing anecdotal impressions of what people like to read. I just find it much more interesting to go into discussing the effects of gender, mediated through cultural and social forces, like say targeted marketing of certain literature, on how people are reading rather than just commenting on whether we have observed the same thing.

If you're not interested in that, then simply don't respond, c'est tout.

[Rores28]

No, the connection between sex and literature preference is obscured by the effect of gender, i.e. the relationship to cultural and social conditioning of our relationship to our sex. So, it is more fruitful to speak of the connection to gender rather than sex, because we are speaking of a cultural and social relationship, which includes the effect of biology but also takes into account the effects of social construction. Establishing such a correlation would just be a mere exercise in counting responses, it is the commentary and how we interpret this stuff that is interesting.

Once again this is stemming from me pointing out your initial assertion that a connection (attachment) cannot be made between sex and literary preference and it in fact can. Whether or not the connection is obscured was not in question and in a sense is really irrelevant (that is "that it is obscured" not "how it is obscured"). Nearly every connection between two things is obscured and rife with all kinds of variables known and unknown, this is not a strange occurrence. What you typed in that particular post was simply not what you meant, and that's all I was really asking, because it was unclear to me if you really thought that.

Fyi. I actually answered her question as well, in my first post in this thread. Who is being nitpicky here? I never commented on her grammar, neither did Seasider. She merely said that it might be better to discuss gender's relationship to literature than sex's, which I agree with. You people are making a mountain out of a mole hill for no apparent reason other than picking pointless fights over the internet.

I never questioned whether or not you answered her question nor did I say anything about grammar.

Moreover, I don't see why we should be sticking to the topic in the OP, it's just a pointless call for sharing anecdotal impressions of what people like to read. I just find it much more interesting to go into discussing the effects of gender, mediated through cultural and social forces, like say targeted marketing of certain literature, on how people are reading rather than just commenting on whether we have observed the same thing.

If you're not interested in that, then simply don't respond, c'est tout.

Disagree. The sharing of the anecdotal impressions could actually be quite interesting if a consistent pattern emerged by which we then could form hypotheses about the sociobiological implications. But it would be nice if we had some baseline data first. I also am not averse to the thread meandering in other directions, but if you thought the originial topic was "just a pointless call for sharing anecdotal impressions" you may have been better off opening a new thread about gender.

If you're not interested in that, then Je m'appelle Emilie.