I also encourage people to be thoughtful, at least, about their judgmental comments about classes of people or areas of sexual practice. But that’s a secondary goal, and depends a lot on context, apparent intent, and the extent to which such comments seem to contribute rather than being inflammatory.

Finally, I’d like to point out that I spoke of “shallow thinking” and “warped views”, not “shallow women” or “warped women” as your comment seems to suggest. It’s a subtle distinction, but an important one I think.

And with that, I propose that this dead horse has been sufficiently beaten. Last word is yours, Kali, if you feel the need.

I think much of the problem lies in that my original post was not sufficiently clear. I found the diamond comment to reflect a view that was negative/unpleasant to me (I said sad, and that was more inflammatory than I should have been). I think it was interpreted as a statement that Dr. Whiplash was a “sad” or pathetic or otherwise unenlightened person, and that was not my intent. I was, admittedly, unclear, and the language, I have said, was inflammatory in a way that lent itself to that interpretation.

Unfortunately, I am a little unclear on where current boundaries are.
Correct me if I am wrong, Bacchus: It is acceptable to make negative comments (”shallow”, “warped”) about an entire group of people (”many women”), as long as you don’t “personally attack any one woman.” (i.e. it is only an attack on the women who hold that view.) These women are not, you assume, present. Therefore your negative statements are still “intellectually honest” by virtue of not being aimed at anyone in particular, just at those “many women”.

My statements are unacceptable due to the fact that I have made them in the virtual presence of the person making the initial remark, and that I have said, rather than implied, in follow up posts how the initial remark can negatively affect my opinion of that person.

If someone had made your statement and had applied to a group of people who shared a kink, say D/s, and their interpretation had been that submissive players exhibited “shallow thinking” and a “warped view of love” that comment would likely not have made it through moderation.
Assuming it had been left up long enough for me to comment, I might have said, “Hey, that’s a really negative stereotypical view of kinksters! Your statement perpetuates the idea that kinky people are ‘warped’ in their lovin.” But I’m not sure if that response would have been taken down for being intellectually dishonest or PC. I’m a little more confident (but not entirely sure) that it would have been objected to if the wording had included “sad” in place of “really negative stereotypical”.

>>
“I cheerfully concede that I’m perhaps oversensitive on this subject, which is why I’ve done my own best to be as pleasant as possible in challenging you on it.”

I’ve got to run out the door, so I don’t have time to respond to you in full.

Quickly, I think you are confusing judgment in the “weighing and balancing” sense with judgment in the “condemnation and denunciation” sense. When I comment on the views or approaches of “many women”, I’m not personally attacking any one woman. When you say “I find the idea…to be…reflecting poorly upon those who perpetuate it” in the presence of one such person, you are attacking that person. You were bending over backwards to be nice about the attack, but it’s still an attack.

I think my previous comment responds to the rest of your post. Your approach struck me as preferring to denounce the speaker (or anybody who would say what the speaker said) rather than engaging the ideas with which you disagree. I cheerfully concede that I’m perhaps oversensitive on this subject, which is why I’ve done my own best to be as pleasant as possible in challenging you on it.

Of course it’s inevitable that we form opinions about people because of the things that they say. But, in my view, it’s toxic to open and interesting discussion to express those negative personal opinions. Argue against the idea, please, but don’t jump directly to a condemnation of the person who expressed the idea, not in the ErosBlog comments.

I’ll go one step further, and say that in my opinion, the hasty condemnation of people who express unpopular opinions is one of the hallmarks of “political correctness”, to which I am opposed because of its intellectual dishonesty. Instead of engaging with ideas on their merits, political correctness tends to assume that all right-thinking people agree, and so criticism coming from this perspective tends to leap immediately to criticism of the speaker of unpopular ideas. The argument is not “that idea is wrong” but “people who express that idea are sick / bad / evil / pathetic.” Which is, implicitly, where Kali’s first comment seemed to be going (she chose “sad”) and then she confirmed in her second comment that she did, indeed, intend to make a negative comment about people who would express such a manifestly (to her) wrong idea.

So, no, I don’t think I’ve been too hard on Kali. I’ve been as friendly and nice as I know how, while opposing a style of argument that I find quite seriously toxic and pernicious (not to mention, unwelcome in my blog comments).

I will point out that even in your proposed alternative explanation for the properties of diamonds, you attributed the women’s response to “Shallow thinking” and “warped view of love” and ascribed that view to “many women.” As it happens, I agree with you that this is certainly a cause for some women’s behavior. I even agree that it is “shallow thinking” and a “warped view of love”. However, I also think that those statements are negative and do judge the view they describe.

I’m a little curious about what judgmental means to you. In itself it has a negative connotation, and indicates someone applying a negative judgment to others. It’s use is perhaps a bit curious in that calling someone judgmental requires making a negative judgment of a person.
It is, of course, your blog, and the definition of what constitutes tolerance and judgment is a call for you to make. I would espouse the view that informed opinions are a necessity, and judgment (positive and negative) a requirement for evaluating information and observations of practically everything.