Hacker News Reader

Comment by pastas | Hacker News Reader

It was a voluntary response.

This is moronic. Its unbelievable that so many well paid, "highly educated" professionals give this kind of nonsense credence.

The girl elected to have a little flip out episode after she told her boyfriend "I'm about to dissociate". She obviously had no conscious part in her decision, right?

Nothing is mentioned about her being under the influence of psychoactive substances - so discussion on that is reaching for a justification of involuntary action where there is none.

Now the boyfriend writes an overly-dramatic piece about it for the beacon of overly dramatic hipster fanfare: vice. Its his little proclamation of how much he loves a girl that manipulates him with ease. Maybe many of you of upvoted this identify with that aspect.

View on HN

There's definitely not enough information in the article to draw that conclusion.

Moreover, the description is entirely compatible with a disassociative episode. You have some pretty clear biases you're projecting onto the situation that are clouding your judgement.

EDIT: The original post, now flagkilled, asserted that the girlfriend in the article had faked the episode.

> There's definitely not enough information in the article to draw that conclusion.

On the other hand, I don't see enough information to discard this hypothesis.

I'm tempted to believe the author of course, but I don't think this is not plausible as an explanation for this truly crazy story.

Thanks for the mansplanation -- glad that you can tell us all about how voluntary it was from up on your high horse of rationality and the saddle of free will.

Now, whole bodies of academic work, and whole fields of science, would suggest that "little flip out episodes" that can be classified according to well developed criteria are significant enough to be named and described. Naming, description and classification are only means to an end. That is, they serve to help trained professionals (therapists/psychologists) help those that seek a better life. Yes, psychology is not CS with its closed form solutions, but that doesn't mean that it's bunk.

I don't see how his reply is sexist. I suppose we could really reach for something to justify the use of the term "mansplanation", but I think it detracts from the point you're trying to make.

Now, I'm not saying that this is the case in this story, but having gone through school in the late 90s and early 2000s I saw plenty of what the parent comment described. It was cool to have "mental issues" in some crowds, mainly the "goth" kids(I put goth in quotes there because there's a distinct difference between the goth subculture and the typically white, middle class kids who shop at hot topic). In searching for their identity, they found a great way to provoke responses from people, particularly adults, by appearing to be disturbed in some fashion. Claiming to hear voices, drawing violent images, etc. Some would take it this far and have arbitrary "episodes", but it really was all just a show. Knowing several personally, they were just like anyone else when you got to know them, but they wanted to appear different from the larger school population. They had loving families, comfortable homes, pretty bright kids. Today they've essentially become they railed against in their younger years, jocks, preps, "conformists". I guess the "real world" has a habit of mellowing people out.

His comment buys into and presumes a number of sexist tropes, primarily relating to the idea that women manipulate men using false erratic behavior and that there exist men, generally characterized in a way the author perceives as emasculating ("dramatic", "hipster"), who welcome this manipulation.

In all but the most egregious cases of sexism, it will be possible to find justifications for how the negative connotations could apply to all sexes. This is a pernicious way in which sexists recruit otherwise neutral parties to their defense -- our natural desire is to give the benefit of the doubt and particularly on HN, we love to find technicalities and loopholes. The key is that they will generally fall into existing sexist tropes, as this does, and more critically while they could apply to men, in the context provided they do not.

Thanks. Not my shining moment and the sibling comment to mine expresses my gripe more eloquently. The original post doesn't say "woman", it says "girl" -- a diminutive. It speaks of easily manipulable men, rather than generously interpreting the author's actions as empathetic. It's calling for normed behavior roles rather than accepting things as they are: there will be people, both men and women, that fulfill both roles described in the article. However, the OP especially strikes me as a vendetta against women: instead of seeing this article as building the case for paying more attention to mental healthcare, it reinforces the OP's implicit view of women as nutjobs and marginalizes the men that support them.

I agree that there are certainly behaviors, especially amongst adolescents, that are similar in outward appearance to those described in the article. My frustration comes from those that repeatedly deny that there are sometimes edge cases that represent actual psychological issues rather than just attention seeking behaviors. For those with psychological issues, seeking help isn't about giving them attention or creating unnecessary drama, it's about helping them achieve a quality of life that they want. People helping one another (medical/psychological professionals to sufferers) isn't something to be disparaged, it's something to be encouraged.

I can understand a degree of suspicion, but seeing as this is Hacker News, a reader shouldn't have to wait very long until others with this experience could vouch for its verisimilitude (or lack thereof), as I was able to do from my own personal experience with a girlfriend three decades ago ... definitely way before the generation of people you're referring to. Hmmm, and my girlfriend did not really fit into the "typically white, middle class kids" pattern you're referring to.

>Thanks for the mansplanation

Thanks for reminding me that some people will always hold my gender against me.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com