## In a previous RainysRambles video, I briefly spoke about sexuality, autism, and some of the psychological and philosophical implications surrounding it in my experience. I was going to elaborate in my editor's notes, but my notes ended up far too long to put in that video, so I decided to split them off into a separate presentation. Keep in mind my limited implicit ethos; I'm making my case based off of the information I've gathered in life and have not provided any sources. I do this because I don't see my musings here as such distilled, pure, and actionable truth that they require rigorous sourcing, moreso due to the required time investment. I'd love to speak the truth and nothing but, and to provide extensive sources, but my time here is limited, so you must take these as speculative musings based off of the experience of someone with twenty-three years on this Earth, and nothing more.

## **So, I see it prudent now, to share an anecdote.**

## When I was about 16, I was on the swim team, and I was never comfortable with changing with the rest of the boys in the tiny cramped locker room. I was harassed by at least one of my peers, and derogatorily called gay for always changing in the stall and taking a long time. But I wasn't in the stall because I was gay or bi, I was in the stall because I was autistic. I couldn't reconcile the fact that we wear clothing all the time for privacy's sake, but for some reason when it was time to change, everybody could strip totally naked in each other's presence. I hadn't exactly rationalized it then, but I think the subconscious thought in my mind was, there's a reason we have clothes on, and it's to keep the private parts of our bodies private. What about keeping those parts private changed, when we were in a boys-only locker room? If we can go naked in the locker room, why don't we go naked outside it, and why do we have laws that criminalize such exposure? I thought none of it was okay, and I wasn't comfortable with showing mine, and much of that was because very few of the older, more popular, socialized people on that "team" were ever very kind to me. Whenever I would talk to them, they'd look at me like I was from another planet. Which is true, but that didn't make it right. If I don't even feel comfortable talking to you, what makes you think I'd ever feel comfortable getting *naked* in front of you? And the constant harassment and complaints from the juniors and seniors only furthered this divide. Sure, I could have taken less time. But ethically speaking, they should have been kinder, not because I'm an altruist. As an Objectivist, common ground helps resolve disputes, and if you want someone to stop doing what they're doing, you need to be diplomatic about it. Forcefully directing your anger towards somebody for their behavior is *never* going to be anything but counterproductive to your desires. In any case, I wish I could have had more success socially. But I was in the process of reverse-engineering the intricacies of hominid social interaction with a lot on my plate for a teenager, given my extracurriculars, AP classes, and concurrent enrollment and all. But none of that experience had to do with sexuality. So it would be disrespectful to, and exploitative of myself to define myself that way.

## Yes, defining me by my sexuality is a very bad idea, because my sexuality *itself* is exploitative of myself, which is true of any male with a high libido, particularly those who struggle to control it.

## We are slaves to our inhibititions, because consciousness exists as the convergence of multiple different systems, and they're constantly at war with each other. The limbic system, otherwise known as the paleomammalian system, is one of the most ancient collections of circuits in the human brain. Part of this system is the hypothalamus, which connects the nervous system to the endocrine system. It's outside of the control of consciousness; humans can't tell the body to stop sending signals to maintain homeostasis. The body largely doesn't trust consciousness with that. You can breathe manually, and you can hold your breath, but when your consciousness is preoccupied, those activities return to their homeostatic defaults. Even if you wanted to, you can't manually pump blood or stop your heart, even if you were attempting to do so for what you believed to be good reason. The consciousness is not wiser than countless generations of the Darwinian process, and is thus not to be trusted with total control.

## So that same circuit that induces hominids to seek shelter when cold, is the same one that makes them seek a mate when the body says it's time to do so. You don't control it. It controls you. And it can be hijacked by a great manner of things. Sexuality, for example, has been scientifically proven to be remarkably fluid depending on the surrounding culture. This is why the LGBTQAF has shown substantially increased numbers in the youngest generations, and potentially in those who are autistic, though I'm speaking a priori, and haven't done my research to whatever extent is required to prove this. If your brain is wired, whether it be by nature or nurture, to associate your sex drive with certain things, you can't necessarily directly control that. What you can control is what to do about it, which is the purpose of consciousness. Your job, as the conscious being at the locus of those converging systems, is not to tyrannize the lower systems. It's to accept that they demand something of you, and assess whether that demand is maximally beneficial for you as a whole. So the limbic system demands sexual satisfcation, and does so in different ways and at varying intensities in different people. 

## A conceptual schema is a high-level, abstract representation of a database's structure and relationships. It's a term normally relevant to computer science, but we can relate this to psychology with psychoanalysis, in the sense that, whether we've mapped it out or not, we all have built a "database" consisting entirely of the information we've collected. Truths and falsehoods, realities and dreams, and especially the vast ramifications of archetypical stories, reside here. Each action, lesson, experience, behavior, it all influences this node tree. Thus, the older you become, often the more complex this schema will be, if it were to be mapped out. This schema resides within the prefrontal cortex.

## If your conceptual schema is coded with the logic that a system, in this case, the limbic system, particularly the hypothalamus, is always wrong, you're going to be very unhappy, because now you have an entire system at war with your schema, but if the schema falls, your consciousness will devolve into chaos. This is why some males with homosexual feelings, such as myself, fall into self-destructive behavior when grappling with them. Our schema says it is wrong, but the limbic system won't shut up because you cannot dictate its function to it. So that internal war must not be allowed to have either side prevail. If the limbic system wins, then you're left without a schema, and a new schema is built to enslave you to your sexual desires. If the schema wins, the limbic system will torture you constantly and you will crumble under the weight of said desires. The limbic system can't be wrong, in the sense that it exists to make desires known to the consciousness, so that they may be satiated. But it can be wrong, in the sense that those desires can be satiated via methods that are not maximally beneficial to you, because said methods do not allow you to play the game of life in a way that is best for you, that is also best for your inner circle of friends and family, that is best for your community, that is best for your principality, state, and the world at large. You can say that the entire hierarchy is completely wrong, good luck to you trying to destroy the most advanced collective schema ever known to be created in the history of biology and the *universe*. Good luck trying to supplant that with a schema you cobbled together last week. In the impossible sum of the monkey fist hung on a vine, your schema was created yesterday. Hominids have a consistent problem with percieving themselves as wiser than countless successes in the Darwinian process. It's tough enough to be at war with your own internal systems. It's damn near impossible to win, so you have no chance in hell going to war with someone else's schema, let alone all of humanity, or conversely, all of reality.

## My proposed alternative is this: you could figure out what way you can ensure that the hypothalamus is satiated, in a way that is maximally beneficial for you, without subjugating the entire rest of existence to your physiological or emotional needs, no matter where they truly come from, and no matter what you believe. That way, we have a conceptual schema that incorporates the concerns of systems such as the hypothalamus, or at least it doesn't sideline every concern that is brought to the table. But that schema must be constructed with the concerns of other consciousnesses in mind. That way, you have no need to go to war with yourself, neither with anybody else. But to get there, it's required that you consider the perspective of other consciousnesses and have civil discussions in a way where information can be exchanged without devolving into War, in any way.

## Personally, my conceptual schema has never been tolerant of my lower systems attempting to determine my behavior. It's caused me a great deal of distress, especially given the fact that the hypothalamus is truly in control. It causes you to do things that you wouldn't do in your right mind, things you tend to regret afterwards. The guilt can be debilitating. But it's part of life, so the best way to go forward is to mitigate those forces as much as possible, and to only embrace them when you know you can afford to, and that's when there are minimal outsized consequences to your behavior. And not a moment earlier. It's a mistake to embrace your inhibitions when you have no idea where they're going or why they're there. And it's tyranny to demand that others praise you for embracing them, especially when they serve only your happiness, which is your moral burden alone. We are all responsible for our mental state, and if we make ourselves dependent on the praise of others, we will inevitably be disappointed and miserable. Even if the rebukes of others aren't just or fair, we have the responsibility to recognize their right to speak in that way. It serves us best in the long run, to get the sympathy we need from ones who love and understand us, and to expect nor demand any sympathy from those who may not.

## But there's obviously balance to this; do not conflate minimal outsized consequences with *zero* outsized consequences. Mistakes are inevitable in an imperfect temporal existence. Don't tyrannize yourself for falling short of whatever your ideal is. Be vigilant, but not so uncompromizing as to force you give up your original aim. In a word, be *realistic* with what you can achieve over the course of your journey of self-mastery. Tyrannizing yourself is a bad idea, but it's even worse to tyrannize others. You can choose your aim and how you pursue it. It's a fool's errand to attempt to choose the aims of consciousnesses independent from your own. And berating others about their decisions, whether you believe them to be poor or not, is not likely to be anything but counterproductive to your aims.

## I mentioned responsibility, and what I mean by that is that you deserve everything you experience without limitation. This is a metaphysical conclusion, an absolute, I've come to over much philosophical musing. Or, perhaps, it's an idea that's siezed me. But as it applies to freedom of speech, you deserve everything that results from your inability to recognize the right of others to speak as they see fit, no matter how much you may object to their ideas. Again, this is an absolute. So, if you see someone else's behavior as an affront to your senses, you have every right to speak your mind on it. Do so with rationality. Or do not; you will suffer the consequences either way, be they good or bad. If you are the one who has become subject to critique, first assume that the person you're speaking with knows something you don't, and if you seek to gain understanding of that, you may be able to learn something of value, and hopefully it's a more amicable experience for you both.

## Let me apply my philosophy bluntly: those who claim membership to the Alphabet Mafia has the right to behave as they see fit, and those who are opposed to such behavior have the right to voice their opposition, especially if they do so offensively. What neither of them have a right to do is to tyrannize each other. The gay progressive has no right to penalize the speech of the Christian Conservative, and vice-versa. /*michael knowles*/ Both of them have the right to dissociate with the other if they see no reason to prolong association. In any case, the happiness of each is their own moral burden, and they deserve every consequence of their behavior they recieve. So the best way forward is for everyone to leave each other the hell alone. For any grouping of us versus them, either we will agree to coexist, or we will agree to exist separate from each other. If that boundary cannot be drawn and abided to, war will continue, and the consequences thereof will be on the heads of all who did nothing to prevent it. Don't be mistaken that I say this in favor of your pursuasion. I say this in favor of the ideal itself, and I pray that we do not fail in our adherence to it.

## In conclusion, my sexuality does not define me. It may constrain my behavior somewhat, but only in ways that matter to me and my significant other. My autism defines me in ways that are far more pronounced, in that the constraints on my behavior, or indeed, the underlying causes of the behavior itself, are omnipresent and somewhat obvious to anyone who's ever socialized before. I'm me because I'm me, and I will not take pride in anything that doesn't define me. I'll take pride only on what I have made the efforts to control, to bring about the best state of being I can muster. I'll take pride in who I decided to be, so long as that's someone worth being prideful of. Perhaps I'm not yet entirely proud of who I am. Perhaps I never should be, if my only desire is Improvement & Progression ad Infinitum.

## And that's what I wish for you, dear viewer. May you have Improvement & Progression, ad Infinitum. God be with you 'til we meet again.