LOL! You probably know this by now, right?
Or, maybe you’re just meeting me.
Well, I think a bit differently than most people. I always have.
For a good portion of my life, that set me apart and made me feel alone. Until I learned “how to human” as I call it.
Part of it is my biology. Part of it is how I was raised. And a big part of it is that I’ve had amazing luck most of my life, and it’s reinforced my oddness and differentness—because I’ve been rewarded for it.
Not unlike the subconscious manipulation I mentioned in my writing Manipulation & abuse is not always malevolent..
But I digress.
Which I do a lot.
Ever heard of Project Implicit?
It’s a Harvard project designed to test our implicit biases in many things: ability, race, gender roles, and more.
I’ve taken a few tests there, and always been surprised, and then…well, not surprised because I KNOW I think differently.
Sometimes I just don’t know how different.
For example, my first test there was about race. Several years ago.
I figured that I wanted to know if I was a bigot, so I could do something about it. So, I steeled myself, and took the test, pretty damn sure in the belief that I had no bias.
I was wrong.
I took it again.
Still wrong.
In the same way. So, I figured I’d take the test on sexual orientation. Again, with the hubris that I’m not biased.
I am.
That left me with something to chew over. And I have.
Today, I ran across an article: Until I was a man, I had no idea how good men had it at work, and in reading it, there was a link to Project Implicit, inviting me to take the gender roles test.
To check my bias on assigning gender roles to career or family.
Of course, I STILL thought I wasn’t biased.
I can be slow, sometimes.
And I was still wrong.
I don’t just often think differently from others.
I often think differently than I think I think.
And knowing that matters.
Because that’s actually pretty true of most people. When we think about how we think, we think differently than when we don’t think about how we think, or when we think on automatic pilot.
The unexamined life, and all that.
Which leads me to the idea that I have biases in kink, just like life. I know we all do, collectively.
For example:
- Unknown dominant men are the most likely to be predators.
- People who do this (kink/BDSM) for sex are doing it RONG.
- Submissives are weak.
- Sluts are immoral (or unsafe).
- Virgins are useless.
And blah, blah, blah.
Of COURSE you don’t think all (or any) of these things. But you do have biases. You can be sure of that. We all do.
Which is why I write.
I don’t actually write to convince anyone of anything.
The way I think is different than most, and it would not suit every human on this earth.
I write to inspire thinking about how we think. And possibly shedding light on another way to think that may not be right for you, but may inspire something else—or may convince you that you are right, right now, as you are.
That’s awesome, too.
Oh, my results?
Am I a racist, sexist whatever-phobe?
Yes-ish.
“Your responses suggested a slight automatic association for Male with Family and Female with Career.”
My bias is actually slightly towards women at work and men at home. Slightly towards people with darker skin, hair and eye color. And slightly towards non-straight people.
A direct opposite of most humans taking the test.
In fact, in gender roles, I’m in 9% of humans who are not either neutral (17%), slightly biased (19%), moderately biased (32%), or strongly biased (24%) towards men in careers and women focused on family.
Go figure.
