I have to be off to work right now and might have some time this
evening to slosh through this conundrum.  I will also contact the
Webmaster again, as I have already contacted him before on this
very same kind of problem.  Thank you for putting your mind to
it as it is a website peculiarity.

nope can’t do it. I get redirected to this page
http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/commentreceived/the_internet_and_human_sexuality_20111013/
which, as you say, tells me the page cannot be found.
What’s happening, I would think, is that there is one page which deals with comment submissions, accepted or rejected, and this page is supposed to pull in an appropriate message to let you know what happened,  in this case the appropriate message would tell us why the post was not accepted. This is the page that is not being found, the snippet containing the appropriate error message and link to return to your post to correct the problem. Maybe the character count is not 4000, maybe it says it is but it’s actually set to something else by mistake, maybe we’re carrying some formatting in from, in my case Word,  or something that it is not liking (also the char. count you need to look at is including spaces, they count towards your total) but I would think that unless the censorship is very clever, ie adds up more than one shadey word to give you a total score and only if your total score is over some threshold your post is blocked then the fact that all the content will go through in smaller chunks sort of rules out censorship. if we were being really thorough I think I’d try putting your whole post through deleting one word or line at a time until it was accepted and see if that showed up what was causing it to fall over.

it is a mystery, I’m going to put your 4 posts together and see if I can post them.

I made an error in my last post.  The Sorry, page not found (is the
page that is given when the post is not accepted).  If I click on where
it is directing me, it takes me to the Home page of the all the articles
being advertised for the day. To get back to the article and the
commentI am trying to post, I have to use the back button.  When a
comment is accepted you get a Thanks for your comment…What would
you like to do next?  page and a link to return to the article.  Sorry but
this is a bit difficult to explain.  I might be accused of being a geek of
some sort, but I am not a computer geek.

Hello tombuck - I’ve tried a couple of times and the entire post is
2584 characters long.  Way under the 4000.  I just tried it again and
again it was not accepted. 

I’ve been posting for over 4 years and have some familiarity with
posting with over 6000 posts having been made.  The message I
get when I try to post the four as one long post does in fact get the
message Sorry, page not found (which is the post as accepted and
then redirects the message back to the forum when clicking on the
linking line, which is the title of the article.  I took the four posts as
posted below and combined them without any changes and it will not
post as one. Very odd indeed since they are posted separately. 

When this first happened I did have some extra text that contained
the reference “Sexual Motivation” in Psychological Review, March 1966
by Richard E. Whalen, as it was relevant to what I was saying, but I
removed it when the entire post would not post as I thought maybe the
word sexual was censored for some unknown reason.  I was trying to
edit the unaccepted post before I tried breaking it up into four parts. But
it still would not post a a unified comment.  I have in the past written to
the WebMaster about this problem as others were having the same
experience and he said he would investigate and that TD does not
censor. He had me go to a specific website and send him a bit of
information that would be found, it was an IP address, that he was going
to give to his technician, which I did.  He thanked me but never got back
with what was the problem.

P.S.  I see that the line about RIchard E. Whalen does not prevent this
post from being accepted so that was not it.  I can tell since I almost
always “Preview” check my posts for typos (not always arrrgh! and I
should but you know, we get in a hurry.)  Anyway, this very comment was
accepted and I am able to see it on the thread.  It is a mystery.

Shenonymous your post altogether, all 4 points in one long post, seems to be a little over 3000 chars. so should not hit the 4000 char. limit. However I wonder about your statement
“I would get the message “Page Not Found,”
which is a signal that there is something censored.”
I don’t think the page not found error is necessarily an indication that something has been censored, only that the page it was trying to send you to to report whatever the error was couldn’t be found, this could be all sorts of things, a mistyped error message, or a misconfig in their htaccess file which sorts out page redirects. If you could see the actual URL you were trying to be directed to you might get more of an idea what the problem was, are you able to see that, you might have to resubmit the full post.

N-G: did you change anything about it when you posted it
in 4 parts?  No.  I just tried to post the four posts as a whole
post and the following showed up:

Sorry, Page Not Found - We dug around, but couldn’t find that
page for you. Continue to Truthdig Website >>

By default I am a recluse. Can’t interact well, very uncomfortable there is no other choice but be one. I don’t like it but I live with it. Just one of those who can’t do it. I would help someone if they are in trouble no matter who they are but it would be highly unlikely I would become friends with them. I have done my own research and come to the conclusion I have schizotypal personality disorder. Another spectrum disorder that has varying levels of severity. It is like having some of schizophrenia without the worse parts of it. I am highly creative which helps and intelligent enough to use the cognitive disinhibition—the brain’s failure to filter out extraneous information to my benefit. The ones who can’t become delusional. Of course it isn’t official but it takes money to get an official to see me and I don’t have it. Such is life. It is much easier in these forums.

Shenonymous when you tried to post the last long one did you change anything about it when you posted it in 4 parts?

I might have to agree with you Night-Gaunt about the censorship
of TD except this was not the only time it happened, and it has
happened to others about six or so months ago.  I was wondering
if anyone on this thread had encountered the problem.  I will test
it out and try to post my comment a one continuous post.  If I
should experience “the problem”  I will let you know. Then I will try
an experiment using a little bit different language that might be
construed as referring to topics that could be censored as well as
one other test.

It is hoped you are not a misanthrope, or a hater of mankind who
dislikes or distrusts other people.  You might be a recluse, a hermit,
and possibly a cynic or an anti-feminist sexist.  But only you would
know this.  If I thought I were in that category, I would definitely be
in therapy that would help me become humanitarian since basically I
believe the doctrine that humanity’s obligations are concerned wholly
with the welfare of the human race and that humankind may become
perfect without divine aid. I work towards the ideal of humanitarianism
in my occupation and in my private life to the degree I can make an
effort to dovetail this mind set with living my otherwise ordinary life. 
I suppose as long as you believe you are ill-equipped to interact with
others, women in particular, then you are to the degree you believe it is
true.  It isn’t, I think, a matter of winning but of having insights into
one’s own psyche and finding ways to have healthy relationships. 
Perhaps you are happy without interacting with real physical others. 
Being a happy human is about all there is to this absurd existence.

I must say it is strange the you should activate a hidden censor but only when you go to post a certain way but not others. I will say that so far I have not experienced it once over the years so your idea there is some censor seems to be wrong just by your own experience. Especially if you changed nothing and could still post. It certainly isn’t conclusive from what you have said so far to me.

Now as for women I will say up front my experience is minimal at best but would be considered in the lowest range of ability short of being a misanthrope. Just wasn’t born with the right equipment for interpersonal communication. I just don’t function well around people in general and women especially. I am taciturn and have since found out that some consider it to be a negative trait. So I can’t win there.

This gives me an outlet since we only communicate in typed words. No other aspects of personal communication is used. Much easier for me.

I know the 4000 character limit very well NIght-Gaunt.  It was not
the problem.  I systematically previewed each section of the post
and as each one, they would give a preview, but if I tried to post it
as a whole unified post, I would get the message “Page Not Found,”
which is a signal that there is something censored.  If there were an
excess of characters the message that it was over the limit would be
linked, and you would have to return and cut it back or make it into
two or multiple posts. I’ve pretty much figured out how to sidestep
the censoring detection by splitting it up and checking as I noted
above.  There are a few other tactics that can be used as well.  I was
just wondering if anyone else has run into this problem.  TD claims
it does not censor, but I think it has a builtin “private eye.”  LOL I
don’t really mind, since it is a private website and they can do
whatever they want, I think, in terms of comment policy. But they
ought not to pretend they don’t censor when they in fact do.

Your personal experience may not be a completely accurate perception
about the attraction factor for women if a first lookover or general audit
of a possible personal interest flails or doesn’t pass inspection that then
is the end of it.  I have not found that to be the case and so have others
in my circle of friends.  Reconsiderations have happened with favorable
outcomes.  Of course there are dependent factors and if it happens too
often, obviously an in depth personal review with behavior modification
might be constructive.  It depends precisely on how important it is to
have a relationship.  Don’t make the mistake that looks are the first
thing that women react to.  Maybe a lot of do, but not all women do.

More and more women first look for a non-egocentric, non-self-
centered person who reserves the idea of friendship that is solidly
grounded in a concern for mutual respect.  That is almost a joke to
expect these days.  It takes genuine self-reflection and a clear idea
of what exactly it is that is wanted in a relationship if a relationship
is indeed wanted.  The men who do that are an endangered species.

Were you able to check the letter and space count for the entire thing? 4000 is all that is allowed per comment load. Since you compose yours off site that may be why. But you should have been able to reduce it to at least two over four postings Shenonymous.

One thing I do know is that if you fail the first superficial test all others of deeper and deeper layers are moot in obtaining closer relations with women. Then there is always the next layer to be successful at. If you fail too often you are non-viable. There are those of us out there who end up that way. It is just the mathematics of DNA expression. You get something, you lose something else.

1. This appears to be an article for sensation purposes only.  See the
report in the Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Activation of
Neural Pathways Associated with Sexual Arousal in Non-Human
Primates, January 2004, also Sexual Motivation in Psychological
Review, March 1966 by Richard E. Whalen.  There are hundreds of
scientific reports regarding this subject.

2.  A much better one than this TD one, and more fun to read, is
the article “Mating for Life?  It’s Not for the Birds of the Bees,” NYT
by N. Angier, August 21, 1990.  In the non-human animal world,
desire and affection is rather limited and due to particular critical
evolutionary purposes.  While there are a few animals who mate
for life, (the California mouse is one) most often, if one mate dies
and the other is young enough to still procreate, a new mate is
sought.  Often though, a secondary mate is selected not for
procreation but to parent the already born young.  In other words,
a glorified baby sitter.  So the impulse is still on behalf of procreation
but in a somewhat novel way.

3.  Of course there is no way of knowing if non-human animals
fantasize about encounters, so with no information, no reasonable
conclusions can be made nor any intelligent comment made about it. 
From studies of animals and watching their behaviors by many
scientists, animals do not seem to dwell on such “desire” or over-
emotionalize about it shows they spend more time on foraging than
on engaging in procreation.  The arousal of the male baboons is
inherent to the natural need to procreate and geared to that end as
all such need is regardless of the form it takes, whether it is visual,
physical contact, or mental imagery.

4.  The human animal has plenty of “leisure” time from their ability to
have invented many ways to reduce their work hours. Work is mainly
to provide food and shelter, then sex is third in importance, though
it is an absolutely important behavior, whether it fails to procreate or
not.  With leisure time humans are able to indulge in fantasy and
what ifs, which is the basis of all science.  But the impulse for sex
originates in the procreative motive.  Their ability to fictionalize
future encounters of all kinds including sexual experiences
associates into the ability to fictionalize answers they could give
to Internet surveys.  It is preposterous to believe that any Internet
survey is an accurate account of anything.  It is foolish to believe
there are not those perverse enough not to try to influence
outcomes. 

Some of the conclusions expressed about the arousal factor in human
women in this report is incorrect, it is much broader than they have
understood.

For some Truthdig censorship reason, my post has to be submitted in
parts.  If I try to post it as one comment, it gives the message that “The
page is not found,” which very strange since the content is completely
devoid of any improper language.  I am able to however post it in four
parts exactly as it would be in one comment.  Can anyone explain this?

Q: How many masturbating baboons does it take to write a book about the internet?

A: Who gives a flying fuck.

exactly EmileZ, nothing ground breaking or new uncovered.
there’s also a large element of chicken and egg. The vast majority of content, particularly in pornography, is there to generate income, therefore it’s designed to satisfy a recognised audience. If someone goes online and searches for ‘naked mud restling with alligators’ they’re not going to find very much, so won’t run the search again, but if they search for ‘cheerleaders’ they’re going to get a truckload of fresh results every time so are good to run the search again and again. So the searches run is going to be skewed towards what’s available, therefore normalising the variety of searches.

Is it just me, or have these conclusions been reached far in advance of the internet???

It has long been known that (heterosexual) males have a weakness for boobie and vaginas and lovely legs, behinds, “pretty” faces etc.

It has long been known that many women are attracted to men in positions of power, or those that exude the “alpha male” aura of complete confidence (I think men also admire that in women).

There are also those that supposedly go for the “vulnerable” types.

Everyone is different.

It all seems quite superficial and materialistic (as these studies are bound to be) to me.

Perhaps this data might be useful for the purposes of manipulation, but I don’t think it goes very far beyond that goal.