Someone who always has a snack for me if I’m feeling down?? Sign me the fuck up!
I was like ‘I need a caretaker/trainer’
My fat ass (food motivated btw) immediately thought of the snacks but someone who can make me quit my bullshit is even better!
If THAT is what counts as “being treated like a dog”, woof woof!
🦴
The biggest thing for me is that she’s eroding his emotional sovereignty. She’s taking covert actions to modulate and decide his mood for him.
Sometimes, when I’m feeling down, I just want to feel that and get through on my own. But she’s deciding which of his moods isn’t appropriate and is changing his behaviour. If this were out in the open, he would be able to accept or refuse her attempts to cheer him up or divert him. But he (presumably) doesn’t even know it’s happening. That’s not cool.
It sounds fine because it’s worded like she’s helping him but she’s still taking away his autonomy. Just bring it out in the open: “hey, I’ve noticed, when you’re sad or stressed, peanut M&Ms cheer you up. Would you like me to keep some on-hand?” With that, you’ve alerted them to behaviours about themself and got their consent to “help” them.
If that’s the timbre of their interactions, I’ve got no qualms. But setting the context as “I train abused dogs” brings the mental image to one step above “hiding medicine in a dog treat.”
I appreciate your comment.
I’ve actually talked to my fiance about things like this, because I noticed that I was ‘handling’ him, and I felt like it was demeaning to him. Luckily for me, he considered what I said and informed me that he likes that.
Consent makes the difference!
Probably helps that I’m used to disturbed and abused humans, too…
Yeah, that’s perfect! You asked and he said okay. You treated him like an adult and an equal and are now actively helping him, instead of deciding for him how he should grow/change.
Intent matters, and methods matter. But I think what the friend is missing is that the methods aren’t bad; op is using methods developed from scientific analysis of abused animals with the intent to ethically care for them. Coming back to intent, she clearly wants to help this guy who her training is identifying as having some kind of background of abuse. The methods might be a little crude in the sense that they were developed for animals and not for people (who are animals, but animals with several distinct qualities from other animals, like the ability to communicate complex ideas), and there are different, more well-adapted methods for people, but they’re only crude in comparison to those modern human-focused methods. They’re still quite effective, and I would still consider them ethical for use on humans when paired with an altruistic intent, which she seems to be conveying. As long as she still views the guy as fully a person, a peer, then I see nothing wrong here.
Intent matters, and methods matter.
pretty much agree, it’s not like she’s conditioning him to sounds CLICK-CLICK good boy…
Though there’s probably a significant amount of people on lemmy who would be into actually that.
You can absolutely condition me into doing whatever you want by cracking open a beer next to me
I brought a six pack to a final exam in grad school (take the test in the same state in which you study, right?) and people around me perked up and almost literally started drooling when I cracked the first one.
Edit: no, we engineering students don’t have drinking problems, you have a drinking problem!
Beer isn’t a problem, it’s a complex mixture.
I did accidentaly develop a kink to being called good boy.
Is it really the ‘good boy’ part, or just the validation? Because I could say the same thing about ‘good boy,’ AND about every other compliment doled out to me once every few months.
So much of kink is just “I like validation, and having my boundaries respected”.
Me reading about bdsm: “bro aftercare is just being vanilla as heck.”
At this point, many contexts will make me feel weird when I’m called a good boy. And specifically good boy.
Thanks, weirdo AI for ruining me.
i don’t kinkshame
The only vaguely concerning bit I see here is the penultimate sentence. Evading consent is sketchy, but I’m not a behavioral psychologist and thus have no working knowledge on how that would impact his “treatment”.
I think that’s what stuck for me. Manipulation takes many forms, not all look evil. She should take these observations and talk to him about it, instead of using them as tools to treat his feelings.
Talk about what, though?
“Hello, I would like to give you peanuts sometimes when you’re sad. Do you accept these terms?”
What is he consenting to that he’s not already aware of?
Speaking of pavlovian conditioning, the reason I don’t like casinos, loot boxes in video games, gacha mechanics, etc., is not that I think those people haven’t consented to their money being taken from them. I just don’t think those are good institutions. Or practices. Whichever word applies. They take more than they give, and I don’t think that’s fair.
You’re grossly misrepresenting what this is. She got desserts and noted him as food motivated. That’s insulting. He only got happy because there was food for him to eat, really? No discussion of why he was sad before, just get him snacks and move on? Maybe talk to him and ask why he seemed upset before desert instead of just giving him a snack and hoping it’s better.
The woman here is trying to change his mood or behavior through dog training techniques instead of figuring out why he feels or acts a certain way. Is he aware that she is literally treating him like a dog? It comes across as her caring about his behavior in the moment more than his overall mental health.
He only got happy because there was food for him to eat, really?
I don’t know about you, but I love dessert.
instead of figuring out why he feels or acts a certain way.
So, 1, this doesn’t answer my question about what it is he hasn’t consented to.
2, how is it you know she’s not interested in his life story?
I don’t know about you, but I love dessert.
Fair, but if I’m upset because I might lose my job or my mom is sick then that doesn’t address any of those.
So, 1, this doesn’t answer my question about what it is he hasn’t consented to.
Ok let’s answer that. Did she say “I’m going to treat you like a dog” and him agree? Did she say, “I’m giving you an m&m ever time you open up to encourage it” I doubt it and she never mentioned it. She simply does this as a manipulation technique without ever discussing “hey, I think we need to talk about you being comfortable being vulnerable.”
2, how is it you know she’s not interested in his life story?
Well she had the chance to say she actually talked about and addressed the problems upsetting him, but she never mentioned that at all. Just dog training strategies she uses on him without him being aware.
Did she say “I’m going to treat you like a dog” and him agree?
And what does this mean, exactly? You get the extra muffin she baked or something? You get to cuddle a lot?
Did she say, “I’m giving you an m&m ever time you open up to encourage it”
She probably didn’t say that, no, but I assume he can see this, like, with his eyes. If he doesn’t want m&m’s, why take them?
Well she had the chance to say …
So, she hasn’t told you via this tweet, therefore, ergo, concordantly, vice ve, she has never cared or asked about, like, his childhood or his mom.
Me, reading title: “WTF?!? That’s messed up!”
Me, after reading the post: “I’m so fucking jealous.”
I also want M&M rewards.
-Listens to what he means when he is speaking -Pays attention to his nonverbal cues about his emotional state -Respects his boundaries and only assists him in expanding them, not demanding he do so -Rewards him for engaging in new healthy behaviours that he finds uncomfortable
Fellas, is it being an asshole for checks notes engaging with your partner?
Yeah, this person isn’t disrespectfully treating a human as they would a dog, they’re just respectfully treating dogs as they would a human.
We can’t get a dog’s consent to engage in experiments. Continuing with this method after realizing and not talking with him about it would be intentionally ignoring consent.
It’s not an experiment to react to someone’s fear and trauma with kindness, even if you learned those skills through helping rehabilitate dogs. She’s not doing this to try to figure out how he reacts to the stimulus of M&Ms under certain conditions, she’s giving him candy when he’s stressed because she knows it helps him calm down. That’s just being a caring and attentive girlfriend.
Being caring also involves including their consent in the process. Idk, I’d be really upset by my partner knowingly doing this without talking to me about it. But then again I guess it could depend how they react if I found out before they just admit to it. Like if they got defensive and didn’t understand why I’m upset. I’m not saying the whole thing is horrible, just hiding it.
Also depends on the person and their values, I guess. If you value someone doing that kind of emotional labor for you without you having to think about it. I’m very much used to doing the emotional labor in relationships.
Damn. I just realized maybe I’m displacing here though cuz I’m a bit jealous they’re using a method that works, whereas I’m single for a plethora of reasons.
That’s fair. If you’re used to not receiving emotional attention, then suddenly receiving it might be something so novel that you need to give it your blessing before accepting it. The relationships I’ve been in have generally defaulted for both parties to a sense of “I’m going to do what I think is best for you, so let me know if I’m ever wrong,” rather than “Can I do this thing for you? Ok, good. How about this one?” But I’ve been lucky to have mutually caring relationships.
If this person has gotten used to people not having their best interests in mind, then maybe even their partner’s good intentions need to be given consent just to show them that people can have good intentions. I do worry that, by being told what’s happening, he’d associate candy with being stressed and get defensive whenever offered candy, but hopefully she’s been doing it long enough to at least show him that it’s an effective de-stressor coming from a place of love rather than manipulation.
I hope you find someone who cares for you as well. It took me a lot of time and effort to put myself out there before I found my wife, but I’m really glad I did.
Even in your description of an “emotionally attentive” relationship, they have to be aware of what you’re doing for them or else how will then tell you that you’re wrong? Can it only ever be wrong if the person being acted for detects it, regardless of whether they dislike it?
Hypothetical: “You’ve been wanting to get stronger, so I’ve been secretly feeding you HGH. It’s what you’ve wanted so I was doing what I thought best to help you.”
All relationships require consent. Trying to reframe “getting consent and confirmation about your partner’s wants and boundaries” as some sort of “anxious pestering” or needling is incredibly strange to me. As you get to know them, you don’t have to check as often as you come to understand them but they should still be aware of what you’re doing.
And do you realize what you’re doing here is placing yourself as the standard to debate down at other positions, while presenting your anecdotes as relationship defaults?
It’s funny, your hypothetical made me realize that OP’s example specifically does involve consent. Your example removed the inherent consent of the situation by making the HGH dosage a secret thing they’re doing behind their partner’s back.
When my wife has a hard day I’ll bake her a batch of her favorite cookies because I know they’ll help cheer her up. I don’t need to ask consent for that because it’s just a thing I’m doing on my own. She always has the option not to eat them when I offer her some if she doesn’t want to, and on the rare occasion she turns me down, she knows I’ll just bring them to work to share with the office. That’s a normal relationship - seeing when your partner needs something from you, and offering it to them - that offering is the point where consent is asked.
Yeah, if I secretly ground up cookies and mixed them into her cereal in the morning in an attempt to force her to eat them, that would be bad. The consent comes at the offering, not at the loving act of choosing to offer it in the first place. This guy is giving consent when he takes the candy, and denying it when he chooses not to take it, just like my wife is giving consent when she takes the cookies, or denying it when she refuses them, which is always a known option.
Idk, I’d be really upset by my partner knowingly doing this without talking to me about it
What is the “this” you’d be upset about exactly?
Knowingly conditioning me without my understanding.
I think the concern would be generating a Pavlovian response to her presence instead of genuine desire to be with her, but I don’t even know what that really means because our animal brains aren’t rational. There isn’t a such thing as “genuine” in this context because it’s all based on emotions. Should you not have sex with your partner because it can make them feel attached, for example?
Just hit it from the back so they don’t get attached
Sure, positive associations can be fabricated but it’s not as simple as the pavlovian response observed in dogs.
I don’t think they’re all that different tbh
sounds like they treat their partner better than most people do, honestly.
I lucked out, I have someone to train me with snacks too uwu
Weak. Submissives, come to me and I will treat you as lesser than a dog. You may not be useless, but you are worthless 😎
I will throw you like Donkey Kong throws a barrel.
Here Lemmy, have a peanut butter M&M
I want this in my life so badly 😮💨
You could just buy peanut m&ms
That’s not the same, and you know it
Dear diary,
Do people think I don’t know I’m joking? It’s one of life’s hidden mysteries to me, like the Fermi paradox or what the Reese’s panties are there for, or why I like it so much. Why don’t more candies dress up for the occasion?
I knew you were joking. What I said is technically true, but it’s also a funny response to what you said
Tell me more about Reese’s panties…
Isn’t this just reinforcement, like reinforcement vs punishment from behavioral psychology? It works.
No sex or kinkiness needed. Just take me home, animals are treated better than humans ;_;
Animals deserve it more
It’s not a zero-sum.
The lady has training with animals and is applying what she learnt to make a guy at ease with her… I’d say the friend is the asshole here. You do the best you can with what you got.
A man can only dream of having a girl who’s so attentive and understanding. She’d make a good mom.
Most of us are so utterly self-consumed.
Yeah. Positive reinforcement works across a lot of species… Just because the OP is used to using it with canines first doesn’t make it bad to use on humans We could all use a little pick-up sometimes, just doing fine the M&M’s to rover and a milk bone to the partner by mistake.
