sex, drugs, food, etc.

[lemur]

Outside of debates about what really constitutes an addiction or not, let's just assume that all forms of excessive usage of pleasure-inducers is addiction. In that case, which addictions do you think would be considered more unattractive than others? Is a sober chain-smoker less attractive than an alcoholic non-smoker or vice-versa? Is a healthy non-user sex addict (think Tiger Woods) more attractive than a smoking, drinking, drug-user who is faithfully committed to monogamy? Is food-addiction and obesity preferable in a partner to other forms of addiction? What about obsessive-compulsive cleaning or other work (OCD) addiction?

 

should this topic be for the lounge instead of philosophy, btw?

[insane_alien]

attractiveness is a subjective measure. It will vary from person to person.

 

for instance, if you and I were comparing ideal partners you'd likely have a very different set of attributes to maximise attractiveness to you. it is even possible that our differences in what we find attractive means that i would find your epitome of attractiveness quite repulsive.

 

also, i wouldn't call OCD an addiction. thats outside of the definition you proposed.

[lemur]

attractiveness is a subjective measure. It will vary from person to person.

 

for instance, if you and I were comparing ideal partners you'd likely have a very different set of attributes to maximise attractiveness to you. it is even possible that our differences in what we find attractive means that i would find your epitome of attractiveness quite repulsive.

 

also, i wouldn't call OCD an addiction. thats outside of the definition you proposed.

I realized that this was a subjective question. I posted it in the lounge because I was just hoping people would give their general subjective impressions regarding cultural tastes. I think you could say that beyond individual subjectivity, there are cultural-taste factors that influence what people find attractive/unattractive. E.g. alcohol use is generally consider less unattractive than use of harder drugs, although addiction is generally considered unattractive regardless of the substance. OCD may not be an addiction, but it falls into the same general range of personality traits that involve control-problems.

[Marat]

Any addiction that makes people less truly human and more like pure, unthinking machines is profoundly unattractive. People who compulsively gamble often seem glassy-eyed and robotic in their pursuit of the empty adrenalin rush they get from taking risks whose potential downside is typically much worse than any potential gains from their success. The general rule would then be that addictions which make people less critically self-aware are most ugly.

 

Using this as a criterion, drug addiction and drunkenness seem to be among the worst addictions, while sex obsession and a preoccupation with chess are not. A math Ph.D. I know once told me that when he is doing math "there is only math going on in the space where I exist, but no self-awareness." However, in cases like this, the potential to return to self-awareness when socially necessary is more available than in the case of drunkenness and drug addiction.

[lemur]

Any addiction that makes people less truly human and more like pure, unthinking machines is profoundly unattractive. People who compulsively gamble often seem glassy-eyed and robotic in their pursuit of the empty adrenalin rush they get from taking risks whose potential downside is typically much worse than any potential gains from their success. The general rule would then be that addictions which make people less critically self-aware are most ugly.

 

Using this as a criterion, drug addiction and drunkenness seem to be among the worst addictions, while sex obsession and a preoccupation with chess are not. A math Ph.D. I know once told me that when he is doing math "there is only math going on in the space where I exist, but no self-awareness." However, in cases like this, the potential to return to self-awareness when socially necessary is more available than in the case of drunkenness and drug addiction.

Interesting but then why is it that more people initiate contact at bars than at math/chess conventions?

 

 

 

[Hal.]

Maybe initial contact is in different ways that are difficult to count unless you know what to look for , when at a bar it's , ' Would you like a sexy drink ? ' , whereas , at a math convention it might be , ' Would you like to talk about this sexy integral ? ' and during a chess convention it's possibly , ' Watch this sexy chess move ! '.

[Moontanman]

I have a seafood addiction, i see food and i want to eat it! It's more difficult to stop eating once it gets out of hand than many people seem to realize. I eat late at night for some reason but seldom during the day, addiction is weird, hard to understand unless you have been there.

[lemur]

I have a seafood addiction, i see food and i want to eat it! It's more difficult to stop eating once it gets out of hand than many people seem to realize. I eat late at night for some reason but seldom during the day, addiction is weird, hard to understand unless you have been there.

I only noticed my alcoholism after many years of freely drinking with the belief that I was just playing at overdrinking but that in reality I was totally in control of my alcohol use. So I would guess that many people understand addiction although they don't realize it because they are in denial.

[nec209]

Outside of debates about what really constitutes an addiction or not, let's just assume that all forms of excessive usage of pleasure-inducers is addiction. In that case, which addictions do you think would be considered more unattractive than others? Is a sober chain-smoker less attractive than an alcoholic non-smoker or vice-versa? Is a healthy non-user sex addict (think Tiger Woods) more attractive than a smoking, drinking, drug-user who is faithfully committed to monogamy? Is food-addiction and obesity preferable in a partner to other forms of addiction? What about obsessive-compulsive cleaning or other work (OCD) addiction?

 

should this topic be for the lounge instead of philosophy, btw?

 

It is not so much what is unattractive or not but was is more of a taboo.Some countries sex is big taboo some not and some very liberal.

 

Look at US 60 years ago you would think you where in other country .

 

Yet some (((Female circumcision removes the very sensitive part of the sex organ ))) in some countries .

 

And smoking was not a taboo to it was linked to cancer.Where smoking pot was grouped in as a hard drug to about 10 to 15 years ago it was than called a soft drug.

Edited June 6, 2011 by nec209

[Realitycheck]

Without a doubt, cigarette smoking is/was the foulest, most inconsiderate, most obtrusive, most invasive, toxic, utterly self-perpetuating pointless waste of time that could have ever been devised. I would know. I had to deal with it to and from school every day for the first 13 years of my life. Usually, when you become addicted to something, it is supposed to be pleasurable in some way, and you know that the first time you smoked a cigarette or drank alcohol, you scowled at it. It's amazing that people became so enthralled with the aloof, deluded "relaxation" of a legal not-nowhere-near high. I guess maybe some people equated it with the peace pipe, though it seemed to me to be more equated with the warpath until they get their next fix. With the addition of more and more tariffs for tobacco and greater awareness, we finally seem to be getting somewhere on this pointless pastime.

[Marat]

Nicotine use is a form of self-medication to reduce anxiety. If you have ever seen a group of schizophrenics, you'd astonished at how many of them are chain-smokers.

 

But as necessary as some people might find that addiction for self-sedation, it is one of the most offensive to other people, not just because of second-hand smoke but also because the stench of it spreads everywhere around the smoker, getting on books, papers, clothing, and even food. Also, kissing a smoker is like kissing a full ashtray, which detracts a bit from the frisson.

 

Also, when you consider that a lobster is a type of undersea insect, that should cure anyone of a seafood addiction -- to say nothing of the hepatitis risk with most shell fish.