Hmmmmm, this is interesting. I haven’t run into that phenomenon, and it doesn’t seem to be from lack of non-mixed-company opportunity.
Perhaps talking about that is a signal that everyone present is considered socially in-group? I was considered out-group or borderline in most of the relevant situations, and the few situations where the topic did come up were ones where the women initiating it had in general been especially trying to get me involved in the social group present.
That could be it. The conversations to which I refer have tended to be segues from complaining about cramps or passing references to gyn visits, neither of which I’d expect most people to bring up with socially distant others.
“Socially distant” as I understand the term doesn’t seem relevant—the majority of the opportunities were with co-workers in my department, who I saw every day and knew reasonably well; I just wasn’t part of the supposedly-congruent social group.
We’re definitely heading into territory where how I categorize things is unusual, though, here, so I could easily be misunderstanding you.
I’ve seen a lot of talk and advocacy of menstrual cups on all kinds of Finnish IRC channels with widely varying population counts. Anonymity isn’t a strong factor as a very large fraction of people on that network use their real names.
Most internet-based forms of communication follow very different social formats than RL interactions in general—most of the same principles apply, but not all of them. I think in that case, a relevant difference is that people assume that a newcomer is a member of the social group until proven otherwise, instead of assuming that they’re not a member of the group until they’ve made the appropriate social gestures.
It also seems like most people ‘feel’ anonymous online, even if they’re using their RL names. The lack of body language is usually assumed to be the cause of that.
Menstruation and associated phenomena get a fair amount of conversational attention from women when we are not in mixed company.
Hmmmmm, this is interesting. I haven’t run into that phenomenon, and it doesn’t seem to be from lack of non-mixed-company opportunity.
Perhaps talking about that is a signal that everyone present is considered socially in-group? I was considered out-group or borderline in most of the relevant situations, and the few situations where the topic did come up were ones where the women initiating it had in general been especially trying to get me involved in the social group present.
That could be it. The conversations to which I refer have tended to be segues from complaining about cramps or passing references to gyn visits, neither of which I’d expect most people to bring up with socially distant others.
“Socially distant” as I understand the term doesn’t seem relevant—the majority of the opportunities were with co-workers in my department, who I saw every day and knew reasonably well; I just wasn’t part of the supposedly-congruent social group.
We’re definitely heading into territory where how I categorize things is unusual, though, here, so I could easily be misunderstanding you.
I’ve seen a lot of talk and advocacy of menstrual cups on all kinds of Finnish IRC channels with widely varying population counts. Anonymity isn’t a strong factor as a very large fraction of people on that network use their real names.
Most internet-based forms of communication follow very different social formats than RL interactions in general—most of the same principles apply, but not all of them. I think in that case, a relevant difference is that people assume that a newcomer is a member of the social group until proven otherwise, instead of assuming that they’re not a member of the group until they’ve made the appropriate social gestures.
It also seems like most people ‘feel’ anonymous online, even if they’re using their RL names. The lack of body language is usually assumed to be the cause of that.