Hey Jack... it may not be your wife's fault. ;-)

[Seeker]

In article <20040521165225.27780.00001985@mb-m11.aol.com>, WhansaMi
<whansami@aol.com> wrote:

When scientists from Essen University put volunteers in a brain scanning tube and showed them pornography they found both men and women showed activity in the temporal lobes linked to memory and perception, but only women used their frontal lobes.

It's long been asserted that women in general -- not that there aren't
exceptions either way -- don't respond to visual stimulation
(pornography) as much as men do and presumably these results in some
way confirm that -- whether it's cause or effect is a different
question.

Ted

[Jack C Lipton]

Seeker wrote:

WhansaMi offered:

It's long been asserted that women in general -- not that there aren't exceptions either way -- don't respond to visual stimulation (pornography) as much as men do and presumably these results in some way confirm that -- whether it's cause or effect is a different question.

I've been told that pornography is different for
"mainstream" (as if there is such a thing) women;
soap operas and romance stories, I have been told,
have "put my wife in the mood". Unfortunately,
by the time I got home, the kids had pulled her
back out of the mood.

People respond to different stimuli; some may be
more excited by *hearing* than by *seeing* (let's
assume a silent video or one that's been over-dubbed
with music because the original audio quality was
so poor) and, even more specifically, by varying
*acts*. People have differing kinks and squicks.

(For those unfamiliar, kinks are assumed to be what
turns one on, be it vanilla or butterscotch, while
squicks can turn one off almost instantly. I've
got a fairly heavy squick spectrum but was quite
surprised when Tai was squicked by some "background"
activity in one of my stories; people vary. What
would turn me on... and off... could be seen as a
spectrum w/ emission and absorbtion lines.)

So one person's pornography is another person's
Jerry Springer show.

[HUMOR]
And remember...
Innuendo is NOT an Italian suppository.
[/HUMOR]

--
Jack C Lipton | cupasoup@softhome.net | http://www.asstr.org/~CupaSoup/
"While life is too short to be taken seriously, it also lasts
for far too long to spend it with a stick up your ***." - me

[Emma Anne]

Jack C Lipton <cupasoup@peElMe.cx> wrote:

At the same time medication-induced diagnoses may have driven a lot of that. Like Ritalin... "We have the medication, find us some patients to put on it". I do suspect many of the ADHD dx's are for kids who have "Audience Deficit Disorder" instead (all children want/ need attention but economic stresses are reducing the available attention from their parents).

Oh, you just *had* to bring ADD into it, didn't you? I was managing to
ignore your theories when it was just antidepressants you were talking
about. . . :-)

Some facts for you to ponder. Methylphenidate (Ritalin) has been around
for fifty years, and it's been used for ADHD all that time. Though the
name for ADHD has changed. At one point it was called minimal brain
damage (ew) and then minimal brain disfunction (not quite as bad). Then
hyperactivity, then attention deficit disorder, and now ADHD (I may have
skipped a few). None of these names really describes what it is, which
is an attention *inconsistency* disorder. ADDers can pay quite rapt
attention when something interests them - they just can't control it.
This is why ADDers get in twice as many car accidents as NTs.

Treatment for ADHD did expand rapidly for a period, because it was
recognized that girls and adults have it, and their was a
non-hyperactive version. Before that we pretty much only dealt with
hyperactive little boys, who disrupted the classrooms and hence bothered
us. It wasn't until the doctors started thinking about helping the
patients reach their full potential that those dreamy underachieving
little girls got any attention.

Treatment for ADHD has now levelled off. It is going up in other
countries which are now recognizing all the variations I mentioned
above. But in the U.S., most people agree that ADHD affects about 3-5%
of the population. It shows up in brain scans, so there's physical
backup for this. I think about a third of these are treated with
medication. Some don't need it. Others really do but aren't getting it
(just like depression).

Many people think that countries like the U.S. and Australia which have
had a lot of immigrants have higher incidences of ADHD. ADDers are more
likely to emmigrate, and they are more likely to be arrested and kicked
out of their country, too. ADHD is highly heritable, so the descendants
of immigrants will carry on the family tradition.

ADHD has a very specific set of symptoms, and they have to affect the
person in at least two settings (at home and at school, for example).
They must appear in childhood, before age seven, and persist. The
symptoms must be considerably worse than others of their age experience.
So no, this isn't a diagnosis that a competent doctor will give to a
child who is just lonely or restless or misbehaving.

There are risks to not treating ADHD. Untreated ADDers are much more
likely to end up abusing drugs, getting arrested, having accidental
pregnancies, and getting in car accidents. My own experience bears this
out. I was in nine car accidents before I got myself to the pdoc for a
screening. Note, by the way, that I grew up in a house with no
television, health food, a stay at home mom for most of my childhood,
and no siblings. Yet here I still am.

[Tim and Stephanie Stowe]

"Emma Anne" <mbjq@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:1gehqw1.7fekqplgvdlqN%mbjq@earthlink.net...

Jack C Lipton <cupasoup@peElMe.cx> wrote:

Oh, you just *had* to bring ADD into it, didn't you? I was managing to ignore your theories when it was just antidepressants you were talking about. . . :-) Some facts for you to ponder. Methylphenidate (Ritalin) has been around for fifty years, and it's been used for ADHD all that time. Though the name for ADHD has changed. At one point it was called minimal brain damage (ew) and then minimal brain disfunction (not quite as bad). Then hyperactivity, then attention deficit disorder, and now ADHD (I may have skipped a few). None of these names really describes what it is, which is an attention *inconsistency* disorder. ADDers can pay quite rapt attention when something interests them - they just can't control it. This is why ADDers get in twice as many car accidents as NTs. Treatment for ADHD did expand rapidly for a period, because it was recognized that girls and adults have it, and their was a non-hyperactive version. Before that we pretty much only dealt with hyperactive little boys, who disrupted the classrooms and hence bothered us. It wasn't until the doctors started thinking about helping the patients reach their full potential that those dreamy underachieving little girls got any attention. Treatment for ADHD has now levelled off. It is going up in other countries which are now recognizing all the variations I mentioned above. But in the U.S., most people agree that ADHD affects about 3-5% of the population. It shows up in brain scans, so there's physical backup for this. I think about a third of these are treated with medication. Some don't need it. Others really do but aren't getting it (just like depression). Many people think that countries like the U.S. and Australia which have had a lot of immigrants have higher incidences of ADHD. ADDers are more likely to emmigrate, and they are more likely to be arrested and kicked out of their country, too. ADHD is highly heritable, so the descendants of immigrants will carry on the family tradition. ADHD has a very specific set of symptoms, and they have to affect the person in at least two settings (at home and at school, for example). They must appear in childhood, before age seven, and persist. The symptoms must be considerably worse than others of their age experience. So no, this isn't a diagnosis that a competent doctor will give to a child who is just lonely or restless or misbehaving. There are risks to not treating ADHD. Untreated ADDers are much more likely to end up abusing drugs, getting arrested, having accidental pregnancies, and getting in car accidents. My own experience bears this out. I was in nine car accidents before I got myself to the pdoc for a screening. Note, by the way, that I grew up in a house with no television, health food, a stay at home mom for most of my childhood, and no siblings. Yet here I still am.

It seems that, with each new mental illness we uncover, we have to relearn
not to blame the patient. For some reason, no one gives grief to someone
with renal failure. But if you suffer from depression, you need to pull
yourself by your bootstraps. If you have ADD, your mother needs to unplug
the tv. There are probably misdiagnoses, and even some irresponsible parents
and/or doctors. But throwing the baby out with the bathwater, that is
allowing people who can be helped to flounder, is a travesty IMO.

S

[Jack C Lipton]

Emma Anne wrote:

Jack C Lipton wrote:

Oh, you just *had* to bring ADD into it, didn't you? I was managing to ignore your theories when it was just antidepressants you were talking about. . . :-)

#1 they're not theories yet, they're hypotheses. A theory
is able to be tested for veracity or can then be discarded
as balderdash.

#2 I mention ADHD only because there's been some remarks
of it being "overdiagnosed". While not an out and out
scandal (there's truth the ADHD, you know, but I think
some of the borderline children don't need to be medicated)
there are some arguments that it's "engineered".

Part of the problem is that we're medication crazy.
(People are disappointed that medicine doesn't work
the way it does on Star Trek, for instance.)

Antibiotics are useful devices but they're losing their
effectiveness because they're over-used (and tend to be
misused) as pathogens evolve around them... and are
completely useless in viral infections. (Granted they're
very handy when a viral infection weakens the immune
system.)

The problem between antibiotics and psychoactives is
that the psychoactives have far more subjective effects.
While success with both may be expressed statistically
(factoring in allergies, etc) the effects on a human
being in the treatment can be far more objectively
understood w/r/t antibiotics.

Let's ignore the human mind, let's just talk about the
machinery it runs within: the human brain. The brain
is so complex, subtle and interwoven that *any*
psychoactive medication will vary more person-to-person
than other meds (well, the blood-brain barrier doesn't
help matters either).

I hadn't been aware that the DX rate for ADHD (and related
maladies) has leveled off in the US; some of the screaming
over the high DX rate may influence this.

It's funny (and not ha-ha, I might add) that social systems
are far more subject to Pauli's and Heisneberg's theorems.

*SIGH*

Humans and Relationships: Imperfect together.

--
Jack C Lipton | cupasoup at pele dot cx | http://www.asstr.org/~CupaSoup/
"While life is too short to be taken seriously, it also lasts
for far too long to spend it with a stick up your ***." - me

[Doug Anderson]

cupasoup@peElMe.cx (Jack C Lipton) writes:

Emma Anne wrote:

#1 they're not theories yet, they're hypotheses. A theory is able to be tested for veracity or can then be discarded as balderdash.

Actually a number of your assertions on this topic are testable and
discardable.

[Emma Anne]

Tim and Stephanie Stowe <stowevt@sspamotrapver.net> wrote:

It seems that, with each new mental illness we uncover, we have to relearn not to blame the patient. For some reason, no one gives grief to someone with renal failure. But if you suffer from depression, you need to pull yourself by your bootstraps. If you have ADD, your mother needs to unplug the tv. There are probably misdiagnoses, and even some irresponsible parents and/or doctors. But throwing the baby out with the bathwater, that is allowing people who can be helped to flounder, is a travesty IMO.

You are so right. Why do people have such a strong need to blame and
dismiss people? If you really look at people you can tell if they are
working hard at overcoming their difficulties (rather than simply
whining) but so many people won't look.

[shinypenny]

Tracey <rbrancher2@aol.com> wrote in message news:<40BABD67.3010507@aol.com>...

Doug Anderson wrote:

I'm going to disagree with you both. When I was being treated for depression, I had situational depression. A long laundry list of traumatic, emotional events had happened to me over a period of of months and, as the doctor explained it to me, my brain was in high overdrive as far as producing seratonin. So, I went on ADs to (as the doctor put it) get my brain back to 'idle'. (Where it has remained every since. There, I said it first. :P) From my reading back then, there is a distinction between (if I recall the terms correctly) exogenous depression and endogenous. Or 'depression from the outside' and 'depression from the inside.' The mechanics of the depression is the same, the causes are dif- ferent. Where people get confused, IMO, is when they confuse situational depression with 'being unhappy.' There's as comparable as a splinter in your big toe and having your leg amputated without anesthesia. And ADs work just fine with situational depression. Tracey

When explaining treatment of situational depression with ADs, the
analogy I like to use is as follows:

Imagine you catch a cold. Normally you would rebound from the cold
within a week or two, without any need for an Rx (which wouldn't do
anything anyway), but instead you are run down due to stress (in the
case of situational depression, this is typically stress due to death
of a loved one, loss of a job, etc). The stress causes the cold to
take hold and eventually it becomes a nasty case of pneumonia. The
pneumonia might go away on its own eventually (provided it doesn't
land you in the hospital or kill you first), but a reasonable course
of action is to treat it with antibiotics.

Cold = normal unhappiness
Pneumonia = "Clinical" or "Major" depression
Stress causing cold to become pneumonia = the "situational" part

Situational depressions *are* clinical, by the way. I believe the
distinction Jack was thinking about was "single" versus "recurrent"
episodes. Most situational depressions are considered single episodes.
Those with recurrent episodes have brain chemistry prone to cyclical
depression; they may also have personalities that make them less
resilient to situational stress. It gets confusing because a person
might have their first bout of depression triggered by an
understandable situation, and end up having cyclical depression from
there on out because they happen to be prone to it to begin with.

For those with cyclical depression, often the treatment is to keep
them on ADs for the rest of their lives. In my analogy, this would be
like keeping a person who's body is prone to developing pneumonia on
prophylatic antibiotics to prevent recurrence. (I don't know if they
actually do this with pneumonia, but I know they do it with children
who are prone to recurring ear infections).

Complicating matters, however, is that many of the ADs can cause
"rebound" depression upon withdrawal. It is critical for all patients
on ADs to be under the supervision of a doctor, and to carefully
follow instructions for tapering off the meds to prevent rebound. When
I went off, I did experience rebound. I eventually figured out that I
needed to taper much more gradually than what was recommended. Took me
several months, but eventually I was off for good.

jen

[Lauri]

On Wed, 2 Jun 2004 10:17:23 -0500, "Seeker"
<tedds212removethis@yahoo.com> wrote:

how about *you* being attracted to me?" She: "I'm attracted to you whenyou don't have clothes on, so it doesn't matter." (or something like that.)

I'm amazed that you find anything about what she said to be unclear.

Lauri in WA

I like my email spamless

[Seeker]

"Lauri" <res0rnlr@spamlessverizon.net> wrote in message
news:l71tb0d7jh7mukc0q8dgh1842597csvtk0@4ax.com...

On Wed, 2 Jun 2004 10:17:23 -0500, "Seeker" <tedds212removethis@yahoo.com> wrote:

that.)

I'm amazed that you find anything about what she said to be unclear.

You don't know her. She's the master of telling ambiguous truths -- things
the hearer can interpret one way but the speaker another.

Ted

[shinypenny]

"Seeker" <tedds212removethis@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<2i69c5Fjeg5eU2@uni-berlin.de>...

A fer instance. Last night we were watching some of a "What not to Wear" episode that dealt with one of the rare times they tackle a man. She commented that when they do that, most of the men *know* they are in need of a fashion makeover -- they know and admit that they do dress like a dump.

Innocent comment, just making small talk and sharing the experience of
watching WNTW.

I allowed as how I would fall into that category, that my clothes are pretty dumpy

Insecure, needy reply, begging for reassurance. This is along the
lines of the old, "Honey, do these pants make me look fat?" question,
for which there is no good answer.

She said, "that's just fine. I wouldn't want any other women to be attracted to you and get strange ideas."

Response providing you with ego-boosting reassurance, while wisely and
carefully side-stepping the "am I fat" part - "Of course you're a
desireable guy and I must beat off any woman who might think to get
her claws into you."

Yes, she expressed something -- but didn't really show her feelings.

Because your comment begged her to be less than honest with her. She
knows full well if she said, "Yes, you look dumpy" you're going to go
into a downward spiral of neediness and insecurity.

I countered with something like, "but how about *you* being attracted to me?"

Good recovery (see, you are improving). It's not all about you... you
care what she thinks, too.

She: "I'm attracted to you when you don't have clothes on, so it doesn't matter." (or something like that.)

She still doesn't feel safe enough to say, "Well, yeah, maybe it'd be
nice if you dressed up a bit for me." So she gives you this comment,
which frankly I think is very sweet. It says, "I love you for who you
are, not how you dress."

Sheesh, I wouldn't complain! Your wife sounds tactful, sensitive, and
caring. Also sounds like she couldn't care less about things like
clothes. She really does love you for you.

jen

[Doug Anderson]

shinypenny0001@yahoo.com (shinypenny) writes:

"Seeker" <tedds212removethis@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<2i69c5Fjeg5eU2@uni-berlin.de>...

Innocent comment, just making small talk and sharing the experience of watching WNTW.

Insecure, needy reply, begging for reassurance. This is along the lines of the old, "Honey, do these pants make me look fat?" question, for which there is no good answer.

Response providing you with ego-boosting reassurance, while wisely and carefully side-stepping the "am I fat" part - "Of course you're a desireable guy and I must beat off any woman who might think to get her claws into you."

Because your comment begged her to be less than honest with her. She knows full well if she said, "Yes, you look dumpy" you're going to go into a downward spiral of neediness and insecurity.

Good recovery (see, you are improving). It's not all about you... you care what she thinks, too.

She still doesn't feel safe enough to say, "Well, yeah, maybe it'd be nice if you dressed up a bit for me." So she gives you this comment, which frankly I think is very sweet. It says, "I love you for who you are, not how you dress." Sheesh, I wouldn't complain! Your wife sounds tactful, sensitive, and caring. Also sounds like she couldn't care less about things like clothes. She really does love you for you.

Good post.

[Seeker]

"shinypenny" <shinypenny0001@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:c8cb5319.0406030820.f9acb73@posting.google.co m...

Sheesh, I wouldn't complain! Your wife sounds tactful, sensitive, and caring. Also sounds like she couldn't care less about things like clothes. She really does love you for you.

LOL! -- fascinating how two people can read such different things into the
same exchange. But I'm too tired and too busy right now to expand on that.
Thanks for that point of view. Question is -- in the future do I have the
courage to dig deeper into the conversation when it happens to remove any
ambiguity?

Ted