"We've agreed this is casual sex, so as long as we decide not to develop feelings, we won't."

February 10, 2012 4:58 AM

The Geek Social Fallacies of Sex. (Probably SFW in itself, depending on your W - no naughty images - but links out may go to NSFW content) Holly Pervocracy (previously), a feminist sex blogger, revisits Michael Suileabhain-Wilson's classic but contentious Geek Social Fallacies (previously).
posted by running order squabble fest (74 comments total)

GSFS 2: The weirder your sex, the more enlightened you are.

This, harder than a blue-steel boner. So many people that don't understand that their bragging about their kink adventures doesn't make them seem more interesting, they're making it seem less interesting.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:14 AM on February 10, 2012 [33 favorites]

I just want to do some split-testing, baby. Why aren't you into optimization?
posted by michaelh at 5:15 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Sex is complicated as fuck, and if you think understanding sex is easy, you don’t understand sex.

This is a pretty good summary. I don't see how these are really in any way "geek" specific, and some of them are more "I used to hang around with a bad crowd" than striking insights into human sexuality, but yeah. My own thoughts have long been that human sexuality is just crazy--literally irrational, unpredictable, makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and the way to be happy is to know where your lines are drawn, know where others' lines are drawn and be ready to change your mind and redraw them at any time, so long as that doesn't hurt anyone.
posted by byanyothername at 5:23 AM on February 10, 2012 [5 favorites]

She says she "loves geek sex." What is geek sex?
posted by jayder at 5:33 AM on February 10, 2012 [3 favorites]

Sounds like a good one for AskMe
posted by Renoroc at 5:34 AM on February 10, 2012

Haven't finished already, but love this one

Drama is always worse than the thing the drama is about.

A lot to think about, this article!
posted by Tarumba at 5:34 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Maybe I'm an atypical geek, but those GSFs seem culled from 80s movies more than real life.
posted by DU at 5:35 AM on February 10, 2012

She says she "loves geek sex." What is geek sex?

Sex where you don't just use the whole chicken, you bite its head off.
posted by MartinWisse at 5:37 AM on February 10, 2012 [27 favorites]

What is geek sex?

To expand the popular analogy (with a bit of historical literalism):

Kinky sex is when you use feathers.
Perverse sex is when you use a chicken.
Geek sex is when you bite its head off.
posted by titus-g at 5:37 AM on February 10, 2012 [9 favorites]

dagnabbit, that's what I get for actually proof reading a comment before posting, that's the lust time I do that.
posted by titus-g at 5:39 AM on February 10, 2012 [14 favorites]

She says she "loves geek sex." What is geek sex?

It's better to "love geek sex" than "sex Geek Love." Because fiction cannot give consent.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:42 AM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

Kinky sex is when you use feathers.
Perverse sex is when you use a chicken.
Geek sex is when you bite its head off.

and

Sex where you don't just use the whole chicken, you bite its head off.

I won't hide my ignorance when it comes to sexual terminology. I've read both of those five times and still don't get it. Maybe I need a nap (feeling a little tired) or something.
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 5:47 AM on February 10, 2012

Half expected something along the lines of a "Brazzers and Bangbus are not instructional sites" entry.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:49 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

the joke is that a geek is not a person who is socially awkward, enjoys S.F., is a little too into their hobbies, does not dance or dress main stream etc, but rather is a headless chicken.
posted by rebent at 5:50 AM on February 10, 2012

Ms Moonlight: It's a reference to the definition of "geek" from the 19th and early 20th century as a picturesque lunatic in travelling fairs - one feature of the performance of which was sometimes to bite the head from a chicken.
posted by running order squabble fest at 5:52 AM on February 10, 2012 [8 favorites]

I've read both of those five times and still don't get it.

Formerly, in 18th century Austria-Hungary, Gecken were freaks shown by some circuses. In 19th century, in North-America, the term geek referred to a freak in circus side-shows (see also freak show). In some cases, its performance included biting the head off a live chicken. - "geek" entry at Wikipedia

posted by DU at 5:52 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

She says she "loves geek sex." What is geek sex?

It's in the third paragraph of the article:

Geeks are tinkerers who constantly try to improve and innovate, and geeks are not bound by many mainstream social rules, and these two things combine to create some fucking hot sex. Also for some semi-mysterious reason the overlap between “geek” and “kinkster” is, like, 90% of both groups.

posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:03 AM on February 10, 2012

It's also a bit on an auto-antonym, in that it's original meaning was probably 'a fool'.

Geek sex: where you set out to have happy-fun-sexy time and get distracted and spend the evening discussing an etymological* tangent instead.



* Or similar.
posted by titus-g at 6:05 AM on February 10, 2012

Also for some semi-mysterious reason
"An interest in sadomasochism can eroticize your hardware store." -- Pat Califia
posted by localroger at 6:06 AM on February 10, 2012 [5 favorites]

The overlap between geeks and kinkster is not any where near 90%. Though probably the overlap between geeks who bore people about their sex lives and kinkster is probably close to that. The rest of the geeks talk about their model railroad collections or video games or whatever.
posted by empath at 6:07 AM on February 10, 2012 [15 favorites]

Geeks are tinkerers who constantly try to improve and innovate, and geeks are not bound by many mainstream social rules, and these two things combine to create some fucking hot sex.

Did the definition of "geek" change in the last day or two?
posted by DU at 6:09 AM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

The overlap between geeks and kinkster is not any where near 90%.

Prove it and show your work.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:10 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Though probably the overlap between geeks who bore people about their sex lives and kinkster is probably close to that.

When I was in college, there was a pretty tight overlap between the people who would spend hours telling you how awesome they were for being pansexual/polyamorous/whatever*, and that person also being at high risk of spending hours telling you about Star Trek episodes. So if that's what she means by "geek," I guess I am on board with this. But I don't know a single person over the age of about 23 that would fit her description well; in my very limited experience, it has the feel more of a youthful thing rather than a broader social phenomenon.

* Every single one of those people has shown up in the alumni magazine announcing their heterosexual marriage and with baby photos; there's definitely a "kinky until graduation" thing that probably overlaps with the definition of "geek" she is using.
posted by Forktine at 6:14 AM on February 10, 2012 [5 favorites]

Prove it and show your work.

oooh... kinky!
posted by empath at 6:15 AM on February 10, 2012 [3 favorites]

YOU ARE THE 90%.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:17 AM on February 10, 2012

sex is gross and by sex i mean i've been out of risperdal for like a week and a half
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 6:19 AM on February 10, 2012

I suppose that geeks in general have better logical reasoning skills than social skills. Going back into the archives, many of the geeks in college were brilliant when it came to thinking, and often less brilliant in interpersonal relationships outside their friend group. Geeks can be tremendously great friends, however there often seems to be a very strong need for defined boundaries, which speaks to thinking dictated by logic.

The issue of geek sex seems to be an extension of 'thinking' about sex, when sex is just as emotionally-driven. In fact, many geek friends treat sex either religiously – it is so big and amorphous, they stand in awe of its power – or transactionally, like engineering parts which when fitted together produce an outcome.

In reality, sex inhabits society in an infinitely more complex relationship. Sex is involved in pretty much every subject in a university curriculum, not to mention omnipresent in the human experience.

And there are many gradations and few hard rules. There is tremendous game theory underlying sex, complex rituals and social norms, and significant personal and societal implications.

At it's grossest expression, some aspects of sex can be figured out. Some men will pay for sex. That seems very true. The geek extension of that can become Sex can be a financial transaction. Logically, that is true. Emotionally, that is the beginning of a very deep and finally nuanced trench. Taken to it's next logical extreme If sex is a financial transaction, and sex is a key part of marriage, marriage can then be considered to be a financial transaction

This is the transitive friend property noted in the original article linked to in the topic post. If A = B, and B = C, A = C. That works in the abstract world of logic and thinking, but not in the real world. And geeks constantly look for laws, rules, universal maxims, related properties within natural occurrences. To some, the apple falling was just an apple falling. To Newton, it was a symbol of the universal property of gravity.

It's fascinating to attend highly-technical conferences populated predominately by geeks. During the day, when the PowerPoints are flowing and the talk is shop, the geeks are at home, swimming through concepts, designs, and thinking. When the session finishes for the day, and the attendees retire for drinks and socialising, there is a complete power-shift, from thinking to emotions.

I was at an auto industry conference, and a very weak speaker took the stage, haltingly describing his product in rough generalities. Most of the Q&A was devoted to the audience asking for technical details, which he did his best to answer. I have no doubt he was one of the lowest-rated speakers in the history of that conference.

That evening in central Berlin, a group went to attend drum-and-bass night at a packed club. The line was long, and there seemed little chance of getting in, hence the geeks broke out smartphones, googling for other clubs in the area. The same chap that was nearly run off the stage earlier, chatted up the doorman, recruited a few girls from the back of the line, and ten minutes later, we're inside. For the rest of the night, the geeks mainly chatted with themselves, whilst our hero chatted up a number of very attractive women. We basically had to drag him out of the place. He made friends with a bartender, and our bill was very reasonable.

It's just different types of intelligence, I suppose. A very smart engineer-turned-investment banker said, "intelligence is really a proxy for adaptability. The more one can adapt, the more intelligent they are." Just as the geek mind is adaptable to symbols, concepts, meanings, maths, and cognitive functions, the social mind is adaptable to other people.

There are a few geek friends I have that now, in our 30s, still have the same awkward relationships with flirts, crushes, partners, wives, and sex that they have had for the last two decades. For all of their intelligence, they have not figured out that there indeed are many parts of the human experience that cannot be quantified. That there is no template for human relationships, especially sex.

Now, I think geeks do great work in society and the world, and they probably have moved sex forward substantially by trying to measure and understand it. But just as often, I think geeks hide from sex in the same way they can hide from new social experiences. Geeks are used to being good at something -- to having a level of mastery which provides comfort and security. Geeks don't like being bad at things, especially in public.

As sex is essentially a non-private act (there's at least one other person in the room), I think geeks shortchange themselves because they're afraid of not being good as sex. But as with most things emotional, the only way to improve is to try, and try, and try, and try. This reflects the "freaky is enlightened" point of view illustrated. As if greater and greater experimentation proves the geek is getting better at sex.

Overall, this post fascinates me because it is a geek appealing to other geeks about how sex cannot be thought through, rather it must be felt. Yet even the geek authoring the post only gets to the depth Sex is complicated as fuck, and if you think understanding sex is easy, you don’t understand sex. As if the geek nation can only relate to sex as something incapable of being understood, and the only way to understand it is to realise how complicated it actually is.

I am not sure how useful that advice is. International policy is complicated as fuck, and if you think understanding international policy is easy, you don't understand international policy.

Probably the best thing for geeks to learn is that sex is an emotional thing, no more lending itself to explanation than the reasons that some people like sweet and some like savoury. For the purposes of planning a dinner, it is almost useless to try and derive the input values from the outputs. The same thing with sex.

A fascinating facet of this is the seduction underground that blipped in the early 2000s. In silicon valley, many newly wealthy .com men hired coaches to teach them how to date. The seduction community was ready to market this to them, with their purported belief "attraction is not a choice," and their roadmap that if you execute things along a certain process, results can be assured.

Watching this from the outside, what it appeared was that all the rules and structure the coaches put in place was basically designed to keep the men occupied with executing a plan, rather than being self-concious. All of a sudden, these men are so pleased with their success with women! They found the secret! The process! The game! Hallelujah! One wonders if at the base of success, these men finally gave themselves permission to try, fail, and learn. Once they give a few grand to a coach, their not "getting rejected", they're "developing skills." Rather than awkwardly wallflowering all night, maybe chatting to one or two women, they're talking to 20 women a night. Rinse and repeat 10 times a week. Of course your sex life is going to improve.

Fascinating all of it, really.
posted by nickrussell at 6:23 AM on February 10, 2012 [48 favorites]

This was a great article, if anything, I only wish it were longer.

Here's the thing tho, as a "geek" who spent more time on mIRC than talking to flesh and blood people and didn't kiss a girl til he was a senior in high school: if you count among your day to day problems having to justify multiple sexual partners and compare sex techniques with kinksters, etc, you don't get to call yourself a geek anymore, I don't care how thick the rims on your glasses are.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 6:24 AM on February 10, 2012 [10 favorites]

accursed link was supposed to go here.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 6:26 AM on February 10, 2012

Here's the thing tho, as a "geek" who spent more time on mIRC than talking to flesh and blood people and didn't kiss a girl til he was a senior in high school

You kissed a girl in high school? Some geek you are.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 6:28 AM on February 10, 2012 [32 favorites]

* Every single one of those people has shown up in the alumni magazine announcing their heterosexual marriage and with baby photos;

Does it seem that being married and having a baby is inherently incompatible with kinky sex, polyamory, and/or pansexual...ism? This is not a "gotcha", I'm genuinely curious about this perception.
posted by the young rope-rider at 6:31 AM on February 10, 2012 [5 favorites]

To be fair, it was the 90's, dialup was pretty shit back then.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 6:32 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

I had sex once.

I was all, "yo baby, youse wanna have a piece of sex on me???"

and she was all, "yo sexxy let's have a hot quart of sexx right now ooh yeah"

and I was all, "yo baby I'm-a give you a kilogram of sexxx yo"

and she was all, "yo I need about a pint of sexxxx right here"

and I was all, "yo what's that in millilitres yo"

and she was all, "yo i need a rood of sexxxxx"

and I was all, "yo say it in decimal system units baby"

and she was all, "oooh yeah I want nine furlongs of sexxxxxx"

and I was all, "no, seriously, use standard measurements, for chrissakes"

and she was all, "OMG I'm having a hundredweight of sexxxxxxx!!!"

and I was all, "wait, what the fuck is a 'rood'?".

And that's my story.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 6:32 AM on February 10, 2012 [33 favorites]

Yeah, all the geeks I knew in college (I ran with some Carnegie Mellon guys), the kind who lived in one big communal house notorious for orgies and casual fuckbuddy hook ups and this whole phenomenon of making things hyperlogical, where if your (especially girly, yes, she's spot on about that) emotions/concerns came up eye rolling happened, wound up married with kids...but I never assumed the kinky poly stuff went away with that. I'd be surprised to learn it had.
posted by ifjuly at 6:35 AM on February 10, 2012

Hmm, you must know different Carnegie Mellon people than I do, ifjuly. All of the CMU folks that I know, which is most of the people I know, are nerdy married church-going family types who get more excited about Arduino projects than sex. Or maybe they're just good at hiding it but I kind of doubt it.
posted by octothorpe at 6:43 AM on February 10, 2012

Now, I think geeks do great work in society and the world, and they probably have moved sex forward substantially by trying to measure and understand it.


Not so much this as an enthusiasm to experiment and a proclivity to follow one's own interests, society be damned. If a geek has a fetish for being slapped with a dead eel, they will set up anonymous web communities devoted to dead eel slapping, spend time and money hiring fetish models and purchasing dead eels to produce video clips that won't come close to breaking even, write long, vividly detailed erotic (and sometimes non-erotic, it-just-happens-in-this-universe) dead eel slapping stories, commission dead eel slapping pics from open minded artists on DevianTart, and make an effort to connect with other people who enjoy this obscure interest, or who at east understand it and can play along with it. Much like any other role-playing game, when you think about it.

A non-geek would just cram dead eel slapping deep down inside until his therapist has to wedge it out with a crowbar after the marriage falls to shit and his Republican primary chances are shot.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:46 AM on February 10, 2012 [18 favorites]

A non-geek would just cram dead eel slapping deep down inside

This line caught my eye before I read your comment, and I thought that "cram dead eel slapping deep down inside" was the worst euphemism for sex ever.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 6:50 AM on February 10, 2012 [10 favorites]

Does it seem that being married and having a baby is inherently incompatible with kinky sex, polyamory, and/or pansexual...ism? This is not a "gotcha", I'm genuinely curious about this perception.

What I'm actually contrasting here were the youthful declarations of "this is the sexual One Way" with their much more tame adult lives; obviously, (as can be seen in many comments and answers here) married people can be plenty dirty, and I'm sure some of them have continued their activities over the decades. But I'm still allowed to smile at seeing the people who Would Not Shut Up about the evils of vanilla relationships celebrating the most vanilla of vanilla portrayals; to the extent I can speak for the ones I am still in touch with (and again, acknowledging that people's private lives can be all over the map), that wild and crazy stuff was a part of an experimentation phase, exactly the sort of thinking approach to sex that is described in the article.

Speaking entirely generally, I do think that many people have the conception that marriage, children, etc is incompatible with a lot of more experimental sexual stuff. Think of lines like "But those are the same lips she kisses my kids with!" -- for a lot of people, those are totally separate boxes, and never the twain shall meet.
posted by Forktine at 6:55 AM on February 10, 2012

So much of this can be explained as "when geeks go through their Heinlein phase".

The "cool chicks" thing is sadly dead on and is not limited to geek circles.
posted by flex at 6:56 AM on February 10, 2012 [15 favorites]

Wow, no kidding on the geek/kink crossover. I went to a local kink meetup once and it turns out that it is not so much a great way to learn about kink but a fantastic way to hear peoples' Opinions regarding Doctor Who.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 6:57 AM on February 10, 2012 [13 favorites]

Funny, they were my first and strongest encounter with a post-internet "let's hack sex" generation (this was 10 years ago). You know, very into codewords, safewords, women-run sex shops, the term "pansexual", books like The Guide to Getting It On and Ethical Slut, etc. a couple had started out on this journey of internet enlightenment about friendly sex misguidedly at pickup artist forums, blech (one otherwise cool guy negged me repeatedly until I called him out on it). I am super pro making sex friendlier and more modular as individuals desire but on a personal level am more monogamous than a damn swan and always have been, was emotionally before ever having physical relationships even, so when they tried repeatedly to welcome me into the fold and I politely declined they were always puzzled but not miffed as far as I could tell. Most moved to California and work for Apple, Microsoft, Palm/Blackberry etc. now.
posted by ifjuly at 6:59 AM on February 10, 2012

Most of these fallacies seem to apply to every social group I've seen the inside of. They seem subscribed to as much by goths, hipsters, and backpackers as by geeks.

The only group it doesn't seem to apply to is the normals. Could we get someone from that group to weigh in and say, "yes, it's true, I have normal friends and we don't have any of those beliefs"?
posted by justkevin at 7:02 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Is geek sex where you get Noam Chomsky explained to you by two girls? I hear it costs you.
posted by Segundus at 7:02 AM on February 10, 2012 [4 favorites]

Unfortunately for me, I'm not a geek -- just a nerd. Nerd sex consists exclusively of forlornly masturbating to Internet pornography.

I'd tell you nerd sex's social fallacy, but there's nothing social about it. Plus, there's no way to do nerd sex wrong, because there's no way to do it right.
posted by planet at 7:03 AM on February 10, 2012 [8 favorites]

The geek use of geek the word 'geek' every few geek words really geek turned me off geek to the geek point where I couldn't geek read the artigeek.
posted by Saxon Kane at 7:03 AM on February 10, 2012 [8 favorites]

Ah yes, self identifying as a geek and then pretending that it's a pseudo-ethnicity with its own culture.
posted by codacorolla at 7:05 AM on February 10, 2012 [7 favorites]

Good general advice about sex prefaced with an XKCD article. *makes loud raspberry noise*
posted by codacorolla at 7:06 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

"wait, what the fuck is a 'rood'?"

A unit of both length and land measure as well as--and this is the neat part--an Old English word for "cross" or "crucifix". The Old English term for the sign of the cross was rodetacne, literally "rood-token".

I...I didn't get laid in high school.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 7:18 AM on February 10, 2012 [5 favorites]

Yet even the geek authoring the post only gets to the depth Sex is complicated as fuck, and if you think understanding sex is easy, you don’t understand sex.

Yeah, I found that this meditative take on a fathomless subject was only about knee-deep. I understand the author's thesis, but I don't think this is a great exploration of this. The line that jumped out at me was this:


I’ve written 1300 posts on sex and I’ve already changed my mind about roughly half of them.

So by her own admission, she is missing the point half the time? But this article is one of the good ones, right?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:40 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Interesting, but I think she tries to make a few points universal that may be more personal. Some say that being a "geek" is really being somewhere on the autism spectrum, or having an extreme case of "male brain". And maybe she overlaps with some parts of geek culture but not others. Are the hyper-rational really in denial about universal human nature, or do they actually have somewhat different natures? Can some people approach sex more top-down logically while for others it's a tangle that can't be interrogated rationally?

I find my own strongest emotions often go along with what I'm most conscious about and have verbalized the most thoroughly. Put pepper near my nose and I'll sneeze, and tap my knee and I'll jerk my leg. These reactions circumvent conscious thinking but I'd dismiss them as "reflexes" and not emotions.

In my experience it's frustrating trying to get together with someone whose basic relations with reason and emotion differ so much from mine, but it would be as equally counterproductive to assert that real human nature was only one approach or the other. The author cautions against blaming one's emotional reaction as "wrong" (for example when one intends one thing and finds oneself irrationally consumed by an unexpected feeling). But I've found in many cases people's perception of what even happens, the actual objective events occurring between people, can be distorted by wishful or worryful thinking. I've been frustrated, talking with a woman, to find her focussed not on what I was saying, but on the tone of my voice, or to find her giving more emphasis to hints and allusions (which, lacking enough background on me, she could not yet understand), as if anything important about me could only be revealed only apart from explicit verbal conscious control.
posted by Schmucko at 7:40 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

A unit of both length and land measure as well as--and this is the neat part--an Old English word for "cross" or "crucifix". The Old English term for the sign of the cross was rodetacne, literally "rood-token".

Now mostly survives in a Claremontian oath used to demonstrate that an X-Men character is Scottish:

"By the holy rood, Colossus! It cannae be!"
"By the holy rood, Charles, yuir mutant powers are out of control!"

(High school for me was pretty much non-stop loving. Obviously.)
posted by running order squabble fest at 7:42 AM on February 10, 2012 [6 favorites]

So much of this can be explained as "when geeks go through their Heinlein phase".

If I were a comment favoriter, I'd favorite that so hard I'd break my keyboard. Also the "cool chicks don't complain about sexism" except I'd say it as "cool chicks don't even notice it".
posted by immlass at 7:46 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Cool chicks are swimming in it so cool chicks have internalized it. It's hard to understand "why feminism?" if you haven't had reason to explore it or had enough exposure to it - and who does, when you're young, you know? I tell people "I didn't really get feminism until I got married and had kids, and then I was actually pretty angry I went all those years without knowing this stuff." Man, my teenage and university years would have been so different. I cringe, thinking back, knowing what I know now.
posted by flex at 7:57 AM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

I must be a geek, because I got distracted by the claim that "the overlap between “geek” and “kinkster” is, like, 90% of both groups." which would imply that both groups are about the same size. I see no evidence for this.
posted by madcaptenor at 7:58 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Cool chicks are swimming in it so cool chicks have internalized it.

Actually, there are some geeks out there who think that feminism is what MAKES cool chicks cool. (Either I got really, really lucky, or I have really finely-tuned anti-jerk instincts.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:07 AM on February 10, 2012

Yeah a typical case of overthinking instead of overfucking the topic.

Sex basically proves that Geeks can't hack everything, because despite all their brain power even the machine lovers have that urge to procreate and do stupid stuff for love and lust.

The Hacker mantra "to play with everything" can only lead to disaster in terms of sex, relationships and - god forbid - actual kids. There is no hack, reset or restart for real intimacy and commitment. "Playing" in such matters without real responsibility only leads to pain for all involved ... geek, nerd or not ...

And the arrogance to think that "normal" people would not try to improve, experiment and hack their sex lives. I dare you to ask any nurse or doctor who did night shifts about odd experiments and incidents involving genitalia or drugs whilst having sex ...

This is stupid tribalism at it's best. The BDSM Community has the same arrogance about "normal people" ...

It's not enough that Nerds & Geeks are forcing their computerized friendship and relationship models upon us via so called "Social" Networks, now they gonna be redefine sex as well?

Gimme a break or another planet please ...
posted by homodigitalis at 8:13 AM on February 10, 2012 [4 favorites]

A non-geek would just cram dead eel slapping deep down inside until his therapist has to wedge it out with a crowbar...
posted by Slap*Happy

Eponyterrifying.
posted by roystgnr at 8:14 AM on February 10, 2012 [7 favorites]

If my user role and access permissions can vary wildly and without explanation from day to day, clearly the system needs to be redesigned.
posted by delfin at 8:28 AM on February 10, 2012 [4 favorites]

I quail at another Dan Savage reference here, but a few weeks ago on his podcast, he said something like, "We don't have sex. Sex has US. Sex is millions of years older than humans, so we are naive to think that we can really know anything about it."

From my perspective and experience, I find that pretty frigging apt.
posted by Danf at 8:40 AM on February 10, 2012 [5 favorites]

delfin, have you tried the BSDM community?

It's far more stable that most other variants, and has a much more sensible heirarchy.
posted by titus-g at 8:42 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

I think it's helpful to remember that "geek sex" is fairly synonymous with "a group that didn't get any action in high school is suddenly getting it in their twenties, and reacting accordingly. Most of her fallacies (and I think she's dead on) are equatable to smart people playing catch-up with how to have healthy relationships.
posted by Navelgazer at 8:44 AM on February 10, 2012 [3 favorites]

Yeah, that all applies to the entire human race. Geeks are cool and all, but we aren't a seperate species or anything.
posted by Ad hominem at 8:56 AM on February 10, 2012

I don't know if it is exclusive to "geek sex", but fallacy #4 is real and leads to all kinds of fucked-up situations. I recall hearing from a friend, who was attached to a group of geeks who were pretty much all sleeping together, that one guy in their group assaulted (and possibly raped) one of the women. But, you know, ostracizing him from the group would be bad, because drama is bad. It was basically an open secret among the group that this guy was a predator and yet they all remained friends with him and, in the end, ended up ostracizing the victim because she "just wouldn't let it go."

I am no longer friends with the person who told me about this, partly because she was implicit in the whole thing.
posted by asnider at 9:01 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Now mostly survives in a Claremontian oath used to demonstrate that an X-Men character is Scottish:

Now I'm going to have to find a way to work "Claremontian oath" into a sentence this week.
posted by Fleebnork at 9:08 AM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

Help! Help! I'm being stereotyped!
posted by Dr Dracator at 9:14 AM on February 10, 2012

"We don't have sex. Sex has US. Sex is millions of years older than humans, so we are naive to think that we can really know anything about it."

From my perspective and experience, I find that pretty frigging apt.

You could say the same thing about physics, but you'd be wrong to. This just sounds like mysticism.
posted by adamdschneider at 9:17 AM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

Now mostly survives in a Claremontian oath used to demonstrate that an X-Men character is Scottish:

Invoking the name of Chris Claremont in a kinky sex thread is a very, very dangerous practice.
posted by delfin at 10:21 AM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

Ah dinnae ken!
posted by running order squabble fest at 10:30 AM on February 10, 2012

I fully endorse the effort to eradicate the use of the word "drama" when people mean "conflict."
posted by straight at 10:41 AM on February 10, 2012 [5 favorites]

I quail at another Dan Savage reference here, but a few weeks ago on his podcast, he said something like, "We don't have sex. Sex has US. Sex is millions of years older than humans, so we are naive to think that we can really know anything about it."

I think that can apply to a lot of things other than sex; to relations with other people in general, assessments of risks/rewards, and such. In fact, I half suspect that what we think of as the conscious mind doesn't so much make the decisions that we make but rationalises the decisions made by the myriad subconscious systems that long predate humanity into a narrative we tell ourselves to give us an illusion of being an autonomous self that is captain of one's own fate. But sex, certainly, highlights the gap between our idea of Homo sapiens as a free, rational agent and the reality that we're basically biological replicators with a layer of language and culture on top.
posted by acb at 3:22 PM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Invoking the name of Chris Claremont in a kinky sex thread is a very, very dangerous practice.

Which reminds me that George Perez is into BDSM. And did a comic about it with Peter David.
posted by MartinWisse at 4:59 PM on February 10, 2012

I fully endorse the effort to eradicate the use of the word "drama" when people mean "conflict."

Yes, please. I hate the word. "Interpersonal conflict" is my go-to synonym that actually means something. Interpersonal conflict for its own sake, I guess, is what I'd call "drama". Conflict due to actual real problems is something else entirely.
posted by BungaDunga at 7:20 PM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

What is geek sex?

A brilliant marketing term?
posted by formless at 8:39 PM on February 10, 2012

From my perspective and experience, I find that pretty frigging apt.

I see what you did there.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:43 AM on February 11, 2012