Syntheori

I am shy as hell. Almost every relationship I've been in was one where the girl has approached me, and iff anything, I'm the indirect one. Now, of course this means my experiences are biased more towards women who are direct in their flirtations, but it also means that they... you know... exist (assuming I'm not typing this from a psyche ward, which--god help me--I feel like I will be soon). As for directly propositioning sex--I've absolutely known women who do that too. The reason I hesitate to give specific examples is not because I don't have any, but because the stigmatization of women 'who are forward about sex and sleep around' as "sluts" is a very sensitive subject for a few of the girls I have dated, and a number of my female friends. Women are often shamed for openly desiring sex and actively seeking it outside of a committed relationship. I still remember--within the first two weeks of college--rumors circulating about which girls were "easy" (among other things), and they were not being spoken of favorably. Not everyone was like that, of course, but it was definitely more prevalent than I expected, and I can absolutely understand why a lot of women would want to avoid that kind of attention. I imagine it probably gets worse the further up in the generations you go. Now, I am not saying your experiences don't exist just because mine have been different. I certainly know women who act similar to the way you have described. My disagreement is with you baselessly correlating this to differences in biology without citing a single source that shows evidence of relationship between the two. You have yet adequately justify this being a result of nature over nurture. It is perfectly fine to just admit that you don't have enough information or understanding of the subjects required to say for certain one way or another, or which factors influence what. Can you even explain to me how grey brain matter and white brain matter work? Could you really describe to me, intricately, how flirting works in China, or Russia, or Africa (good luck because they're not monolithic cultures)? Did you know that feminism in Japan is completely different than feminism here because of their different conceptualization of gender roles (www.jstor.org/stable/4022632)? That Japanese women tend to be more sexually and romantically forward then Japanese men (I know I read that somewhere... probably the same place you got your information on male and female brain matter.)? Have you heard of the Mosuo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosuo)? Have you ever read extensively about anyone's perspective other then your own? When you make generalizations like "In any country. In any culture." while only trumpeting as evidence your own observations of reality, it suggests to me that you haven't. It suggests to me that your understanding of other countries, and other cultures is incredibly surface level. Maybe you read some snippet from an article once and now you take that as fact, but you have clearly not done any extensive or honest research. Now, I'm not an expert on the entire world either, nor really the fields required to have this discussion without spending seventy-hundred-thousand hours in a library or on JSTOR, but I'm also not the one claiming to know for certain all the answers. Contrary to what it may seem, I'm not trying to convince you that this is all just culture, and that biology has never played any factors in anything. I just want you to see that the subject (and the world) isn't so black and white simple, and that maybe you should be a bit less certain of your beliefs, and a bit more skeptical of the completeness of your observations.

Your observations are limited to the scope of your life. I traveled around a lot growing up, but I spent most of my time in the southern United States until I came up to Vermont for college. I was shocked by how selfish people were, and half the time I thought I was just boring to death everyone I talked to. In reality, there are subtle, but key cultural differences between northern and southern social expectations. The South is an "honor" culture, while the North is a "dignity" culture. The South is a "guess" culture, while the North is an "ask". "Honor cultures place importance on socially conferred worth, reputation, and a positive social image, all of which can be granted or taken away by others." "In contrast, dignity cultures place importance on context independent, individual, and inherent worth, which is less affected by the social regard of others." "In some families, you grow up with the expectation that it's OK to ask for anything at all, but you gotta realize you might get no for an answer. This is Ask Culture." "In Guess Culture, you avoid putting a request into words unless you're pretty sure the answer will be yes. Guess Culture depends on a tight net of shared expectations. A key skill is putting out delicate feelers." People weren't being rude, nor did they hate me. They were just conforming to wildly different social expectations that drastically shaped how they interacted with me, and each other. In the South you smile when you talk to someone because that's how you signal engagement in the conversation. It was also crazy to me how many people responded to gestures of kindness with distrust. In the North, you ask if you want help. Offering, and people will think you want something from them. And for women, they'll think you're flirting with them. Long-winded, I know. But the point I'm making is that you would be surprised by how much our culture influences our behavior, and how blind to that we can be until we step into another one, and really ask ourselves 'why?' There are certainly biological differences between men and women--most notably their different reproductive roles, and different balances of hormones--but there are many theories that explain how culture could account for current behavioral differences in socialization. Whether or not you believe a patriarchy still exists, hopefully you can agree that it did exist for a very long time in our history, and that it has left a powerful echo. And, for the record, in my personal experiences with women they've tended to have more variety in their behaviors and opinions regarding sex (as well as everything else) then the homogeneity you describe. EDIT: Fixed tenses.