However, it might be difficult for most people to orthogonalize these two components, since for them they occur simultaneously. That's the relevance of my asexuality to my comment: I suspect it allows me to experience the socio-emotional component without also experiencing the lust component, and thereby more easily see them as different.
If it's true that there's both a lust and socio-emotional component, it still seems inaccurate (or at least, idiosyncratic) to refer to the combination of the two as "lust".
Just because people have questioned the word "love" and stuff: when I say "romantic feelings" above, I mean this type of thing: "I find myself idly thinking about her, and that this tends to make me blush; when near her, or imagining it, I'm hyper-focused on her presence (primarily her face), such that if she moves slightly closer, it's as if I feel it on my cheek; my desires are to look at her, smile at her, tell her about my feelings, and touch her affectionately." Upon touching her (or imagining doing so), I would tend to notice her body and, as I say, that is likely to inflame sexual desire; but often not before then.
I've asked around. I've met some guys who said they were similarly separate drives, and others who said they always coincided. I think girls tended to say they were separate as well. I don't have too many or too certain data points, though.
The problem with the thrust of the argument the asexual person is making is they are equating their feelings of obsession as "half" of what makes love work. It's a false equivalence.
Instead of engaging with the multitude of experiences of love and falling in love, the author discards the experiences by calling the person an outsider with nothing to contribute. That's quite unhelpful for the discussion.
Guidelines are here to maintain a level-headed discourse, and I grew to expect a high level of empathy as well as thoughtful discussion here. One of the basic things needed for that is not devaluing other people's experiences, but instead sharing your own. Especially in such a highly subjective topic as love and falling in love. But also in general, I think that we would all benefit from accepting that others have different experiences, listen to them when they are shared with us, and share our own experiences expecting the same level of respect.
so alternatively, how do you point out statistical insignificance, without calling someone a freak? That obviously not what literally happens here, but since you can read it like that, what would be the phrasing that YOU won't read as hostile?
Generalizations, especially by someone who has no overview (e.g. doing some kind of a study on the topic) are not interesting. They are as if the photoreceptor cells in your eyes would talk to each other, while you look at the sky. "I see blue" most would say. "I see black", some would say. Then, some cell seeing blue could make the generalization that all are seeing blue except for some outliers. And you would remain blind to the fact that birds (appearing black) are flying in the sky. We need data points and personal experiences, not generalizations, to get a sharper picture.
Anecdotally, I teach first year students at a design university. They use generalizations all the time in language and in thinking about highly personal experiences (e.g. when asked to describe how they felt using one object compared to using another some would say "one feels" instead of "I feel"), thus pushing their realities onto others. It is as if generalizations are taught in schools as being more valuable, more valid, and personal experiences as anecdotal and invalid. Of course, the ability to deduct, to generalize is important for the process of reasoning. But it gets in the way when talking about what we actually feel and perceive.
No, there are anecdotes from people with a majority background, that are useful to more people. If you really thought about this statement instead of forcing a talking point, it should have been obvious. The fact that we value minority's experience does not mean that there is not an inherent priority in most discussions to bring values to more people.
My point was and still is, that anecdotes from people with majority background (as you put it) are not more or less useful to more or less people. When we talk about feeling we don't even know what 'majority' would be as it is really hard to get the real data; to talk about feelings honestly and faithfully. So it makes sense to let people talk first, to gather the actual experiences of real people, without assuming they have majority or minority point of view, and without assuming one of those is more or less valuable. After all, if an experience doesn't resonate with you, you can just let it be and move on.
Someone assessed that a particular anecdote was not reprentative of the majority. They could be wrong there, but instead of challenging that assessment, or "move on", some people jumped on the conclusion that the intention was hostile.
The thread moved on and I'll end the conversation at this point.
doesn't this contradict with "let everyone speak"? In a discussion, there are talking points, and then there are comments that contextualize them, such as pointing out whether something *sounds* like outlier. It can help provide heuristics when parsing large chunks of input.
Again that comment reads completely fine to me, and the person did not say they were offended.
Why devalue or dehumanize?
I tend to view "being outlier" as something positive
And, people can love their parents, children, and siblings. Does not mean they want to have sex with them.