Freerider

Noted!

I agree. Believe me when I say you'll feel bubbly for days It does the job though.

Yes, mom. You are always right. Can I go play now?

Oh boohoo. You deliberately misinterpret the discussion so you can make this about you and feel offended. How very modern of you. But at least you more or less get the fact that it is not about sex or the dangly bits. Nor is it about anybody's writing talent. It is not even about gender as such. But you miss that point. It is about heteronormativity in stories and in my case my observation that almost without exception this is done by female authors. This does not mean that ALL female authors do this. This is basic logic, but apparently it is necessary to write it out. As you say it is more about the experience of the writer. And it (often) shows that hetero women have no in depth experience at being a gay male, no surprise there. But this is all very OT, we can discuss in a different topic if you need to. I don't need to.

Not only that, but the whole dynamics of the sex scenes is often wrong. As are the dynamics of relationships, as you pointed out earlier.

When I read a story with this heteronormativity it is a sign for me to check the author. Almost without exception it is a (heterosexual) woman. Some are authors with masculine names. But it does not fool me, the proof is in the story line. Maybe some are truly men, but certainly not gay as they show no knowledge of gay life. Many do not seem to understand that when you write a heterosexual love story it takes much more than swapping mf to mm to make good gay fiction.

This was a happy chapter. Thanks Dodger!

No, sorry that definition of astrology is too limited. Astrology claims to be much more than just calculating a celestial map. Astrology is a type of divination that involves the forecasting of earthly and human events through the observation and interpretation of the fixed stars, the Sun, the Moon, and the planets. edit: definition source; encyclopedia britannica

It does not imply that others can't question one's beliefs.

You write faster than I can read. I will put it on my list 😀 Scientists being human is not an excuse, just an observation.

As long as one is not bothering others one can believe what one wants. Now you are getting in my field: random number generators, white and pink noise. I am not familiar with the University of Virginia research. What Google tells me after a quick search is that this regards pseudo-RNGs. No surprise that the results will be predictable and possible biased then. But maybe we are getting off topic with our very entertaining (for me at least) slow chat. ☺️

I agree. Just making sure we are on the same page here 😉

Is is easy to test scientifically and it has been done many times. It always fell short of scientific evidence. A famous case where scientists came "close" to prove there was more between heaven and earth was the Stanford Research Institute. Specifically the testing of Uri Geller is still quoted as a huge success for parapsychology (mainly by Geller himself 😄). But the tests were laughably flawed at best. Scientifically the tests were of zero worth, but for PR purposes they are still gold. People just want to believe so desperately. That multiple astrologers come up with the same chart after given a person's details does not prove anything byond the fact that they probably made the same "calculations". It proves nothing of astrology.

Many examples of that unfortunately. Scientists are human after all. Yet, we can not interpret Schopenhauer in a way that makes everything that is ridiculed an eventual truth. Many ideas are ridiculed for good reason. Lack of repeatability, lack of falsifiability and lack of testable predictions are very good reasons for ridicule.

The entertainment value of astrology and other things that are "more between heaven and earth" is certainly there. I like to read stories like that. That is innocent enough. But I draw the line at considering any of it possible/real/truth. Unfortunately too many people that are searching for something spiritual are falling in the traps of nonsense and lies. Quite quickly it becomes not so innocent anymore.