Fans of Ayn Rand have their own dating site

[Symmetry]

The Atlasphere

Connecting admirers of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged

Objectively, I cannot foresee any of those dates going well.

[Dukasaur]

The Atlasphere

Connecting admirers of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged

Objectively, I cannot foresee any of those dates going well.

Why?

[nietzsche]

Is it too wrong to live in fantasy world from now and then?

Isn't objectivism too stoic?

Does anybody else finds objectivism a little sad at times?

My questions are authentic, I'm not framing or baiting anyone, it would be interesting to know your points of view.

[Symmetry]

The Atlasphere

Connecting admirers of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged

Objectively, I cannot foresee any of those dates going well.

Why?

Have you met anyone who's a big fan of Ayn Rand?

[nietzsche]

I'm going to register there and pretend to be a female and will try to find and fool Scotty.

[nietzsche]

I'm going to register there and pretend to be a female and will try to find and fool Scotty.

Inb4 Phatscotty @Atlasphere asking "is that you nietze?", "stop it nietze, i know it's you"

[Dukasaur]

The Atlasphere

Connecting admirers of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged

Objectively, I cannot foresee any of those dates going well.

Why?

Have you met anyone who's a big fan of Ayn Rand?

Yes, I'm a big fan of Ayn Rand, and furthermore many years ago I did date someone who was also a big fan of Ayn Rand, and it was a fine relationship indeed.

[Symmetry]

The Atlasphere

Connecting admirers of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged

Objectively, I cannot foresee any of those dates going well.

Why?

Have you met anyone who's a big fan of Ayn Rand?

Yes, I'm a big fan of Ayn Rand, and furthermore many years ago I did date someone who was also a big fan of Ayn Rand, and it was a fine relationship indeed.

Then there's a site for you. Watch out though, some of the accounts might be Nietzsche, cunningly disguised.

[Dukasaur]

The Atlasphere

Connecting admirers of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged

Objectively, I cannot foresee any of those dates going well.

Why?

Have you met anyone who's a big fan of Ayn Rand?

Yes, I'm a big fan of Ayn Rand, and furthermore many years ago I did date someone who was also a big fan of Ayn Rand, and it was a fine relationship indeed.

Then there's a site for you. Watch out though, some of the accounts might be Nietzsche, cunningly disguised.

Well, at the moment I'm happily married, and have no need of dating sites, with or without Nietzches.

I'm still curious what attributes you were intending to insunuate make Ayn Rand fans unsuitable for dating.

[Army of GOD]

blackpeoplemeet.com, christianmingle.com and my personal favorite (that I just found today) ashleymadison.com

[Symmetry]

Well, at the moment I'm happily married, and have no need of dating sites, with or without Nietzches.

I'm still curious what attributes you were intending to insunuate make Ayn Rand fans unsuitable for dating.

Perhaps I'll let them tell you in their own words, some profiles from the site:

You should contact me if you are a skinny woman. If your words are a meaningful progression of concepts rather than a series of vocalizations induced by your spinal cord for the purpose of complementing my tone of voice. If you’ve seen the meatbot, the walking automaton, the pod-people, the dense, glazy-eyed substrate through which living organisms such as myself must escape to reach air and sunlight. If you’ve realized that if speech is to be regarded as a cognitive function, technically they aren’t speaking, and you don’t have to listen.

I love intelligent, sassy girls, particularly those working in consulting or investment banking (but other fields are great too). Really, nothing is hotter than an accomplished girl in a suit, as long as she is willing to settle down and have my children. I want a girl who will support my ambitions against the naysayers in society.

My name is Daniel. I consider myself to be a born-again egoist and I have dedicated the rest of my life to self-improvement. People see me as a socially inept loner because I tend to avoid superficial conversation but actually I love talking to people who like to think (the problem being I don’t know very many).

[Phatscotty]

where are the links?

[Symmetry]

where are the links?

I knew you'd be keen. You can sign up via the link in the OP.

[tzor]

An Ayn Rand Dating Site? Oh my God, that's disgusting.

For those who aren't aware, here is the basic dating scene from the Fountainhead.

The first encounter, "Oh there you are you handsome hunk of a stone cutter for my father's quarry ... RAPE ME ... I deserve it. I live for agnst."

Later encounters, "I just (CENSORED) you in my latest news article (CENSORED) me like there is no tomorrow."

Just saw Atlas Shrugged part I and realized that the same themes hit there, woman of cold stone, man of hardened determination, and somehow you need an iron/steel fettish. You really want to make a dating site from THAT?

[Dukasaur]

Well, at the moment I'm happily married, and have no need of dating sites, with or without Nietzches.

I'm still curious what attributes you were intending to insunuate make Ayn Rand fans unsuitable for dating.

Perhaps I'll let them tell you in their own words, some profiles from the site:

You should contact me if you are a skinny woman. If your words are a meaningful progression of concepts rather than a series of vocalizations induced by your spinal cord for the purpose of complementing my tone of voice. If you’ve seen the meatbot, the walking automaton, the pod-people, the dense, glazy-eyed substrate through which living organisms such as myself must escape to reach air and sunlight. If you’ve realized that if speech is to be regarded as a cognitive function, technically they aren’t speaking, and you don’t have to listen.

I love intelligent, sassy girls, particularly those working in consulting or investment banking (but other fields are great too). Really, nothing is hotter than an accomplished girl in a suit, as long as she is willing to settle down and have my children. I want a girl who will support my ambitions against the naysayers in society.

My name is Daniel. I consider myself to be a born-again egoist and I have dedicated the rest of my life to self-improvement. People see me as a socially inept loner because I tend to avoid superficial conversation but actually I love talking to people who like to think (the problem being I don’t know very many).

Yeah, I know. A lot of objectivists tend to be socially inept. It "isn't done" to point out to people in general that they haven't had an original thought in their entire life, and are conventionalist automatons regurgitating the tired cliches that their peer group has vomited into their mouth. And unfortunately, the criticism is just as true of most of the people making it as it is of the people they are making it about.

Still, while it may be just as true of the objectivists, it certainly isn't more true of them.

[Symmetry]

I'm not sure people who sign up to an Ayn Rand fan club dating site can really be seen as original thinkers.

And then there's this, as Tzor indicated above:

In her fascinating post on the topic, the Washington City Paper's Amanda Hess quotes the following passage from The Fountainhead:

"She tried to tear herself away from him. The effort broke against his arms that had not felt it. Her fists beat against his shoulders, against his face. He moved one hand, took her two wrists and pinned them behind her, under his arm, wrenching her shoulder blades.…She fell back against the dressing table, she stood crouching, her hands clasping the edge behind her, her eyes wide, colorless, shapeless in terror. He was laughing. There was the movement of laughter on his face, but no sound.…Then he approached. He lifted her without effort. She let her teeth sink into his hand and felt blood on the tip of her tongue. He pulled her head back and he forced her mouth open against his."

What's interesting here isn't the writing — leaden, as was Rand's wont — but the reactions of some of the young people who read it and other works by Rand. Hess talks to Angela Huynh, now 24, who read The Fountainhead at 19. She says,

"Yes, there are elements of nonconsensual sex in that scene, but I was aware of Dominique's feelings towards Roark and to me, she internally agreed to it. I guess in the way that a lot of females may enjoy ‘rough' sex and want domination behind closed doors."

Huynh's concept of "internal agreement" jibes with how many Randians view the scene. Hess writes that Rand herself once said, "If it was rape, it was rape by engraved invitation." And Joshua Zader, founder of objectivist social network and dating site the Atlasphere (which we wrote about in 2008), says,

"It was a welcomed rape is what it was. It was a rape where both people wanted that sort of contact.…Now, one hopes that not too many people would actually go out and treat a woman that way."

Which is disturbingly Akinesque.

“A Welcomed Rape:” Sex And Ayn Rand

[nietzsche]

Well, at the moment I'm happily married, and have no need of dating sites, with or without Nietzches.

I'm still curious what attributes you were intending to insunuate make Ayn Rand fans unsuitable for dating.

Perhaps I'll let them tell you in their own words, some profiles from the site:

You should contact me if you are a skinny woman. If your words are a meaningful progression of concepts rather than a series of vocalizations induced by your spinal cord for the purpose of complementing my tone of voice. If you’ve seen the meatbot, the walking automaton, the pod-people, the dense, glazy-eyed substrate through which living organisms such as myself must escape to reach air and sunlight. If you’ve realized that if speech is to be regarded as a cognitive function, technically they aren’t speaking, and you don’t have to listen.

I love intelligent, sassy girls, particularly those working in consulting or investment banking (but other fields are great too). Really, nothing is hotter than an accomplished girl in a suit, as long as she is willing to settle down and have my children. I want a girl who will support my ambitions against the naysayers in society.

My name is Daniel. I consider myself to be a born-again egoist and I have dedicated the rest of my life to self-improvement. People see me as a socially inept loner because I tend to avoid superficial conversation but actually I love talking to people who like to think (the problem being I don’t know very many).

Oh boy. I really misunderstood objectivism.

[Juan_Bottom]

This is actually pretty funny. Not in the "ha-ha" vernacular, but of the OH JESUS whaT?! sort.

[Dukasaur]

“A Welcomed Rape:” Sex And Ayn Rand

That particular line of attack against Rand is old and tired. Like, more than 50 years old and tired.

Do Rand's personal rape fantasies come through there a bit? Perhaps. But it's not necessary to psychoanalyse Rand to get clear of the rape problem there.

The easy path towards refuting that attack lies in the fact that Dominique engineered the situation and was completely in control. She knew when she ordered him brought to her house what services she expected him to render there. So, while the passage may have been written in the manner of a rape, there's no doubt that it's actually consensual. The reader knows that when she was watching him at the quarry 12 hours earlier that she had made up her mind how the evening would progress.

There is, I think, an even more important refutation. Rand's stated goal in writing the Fountainhead was to create a portrait of the perfect man. Howard Roark is an archetype, a true creator who builds purely for the love of his creativity, and is genuinely unconcerned both with others' opinions of his work and with the materialistic rewards that it might bring him. Nobody in real life could be so genuinely perfect. All of us, no matter how much we love our work, and no matter how much we might pretend not to care about externalities, really do give in at times either to the socialistic sin of caring about the approval of others, or to the materialistic sin of caring what baubles we might receive for it. Rand knew this. In creating this perfect but fictional man, she had no illusions that anyone in real life would ever achieve such a status, although we might strive for it.

So, in giving herself to Roark, she is not giving in to a real-life man that might actually exist. She is surrendering to an ideal, an archetype. Compare to the story of Leda and the Swan. There too, although some versions portray a rape, the most important interpretations see Leda as knowing that the Swan is Zeus, and willingly copulating him for that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to to get something beyond the capability of mortal men to provide.

[Symmetry]

“A Welcomed Rape:” Sex And Ayn Rand

That particular line of attack against Rand is old and tired. Like, more than 50 years old and tired.

Do Rand's personal rape fantasies come through there a bit? Perhaps. But it's not necessary to psychoanalyse Rand to get clear of the rape problem there.

The easy path towards refuting that attack lies in the fact that Dominique engineered the situation and was completely in control. She knew when she ordered him brought to her house what services she expected him to render there. So, while the passage may have been written in the manner of a rape, there's no doubt that it's actually consensual. The reader knows that when she was watching him at the quarry 12 hours earlier that she had made up her mind how the evening would progress.

There is, I think, an even more important refutation. Rand's stated goal in writing the Fountainhead was to create a portrait of the perfect man. Howard Roark is an archetype, a true creator who builds purely for the love of his creativity, and is genuinely unconcerned both with others' opinions of his work and with the materialistic rewards that it might bring him. Nobody in real life could be so genuinely perfect. All of us, no matter how much we love our work, and no matter how much we might pretend not to care about externalities, really do give in at times either to the socialistic sin of caring about the approval of others, or to the materialistic sin of caring what baubles we might receive for it. Rand knew this. In creating this perfect but fictional man, she had no illusions that anyone in real life would ever achieve such a status, although we might strive for it.

So, in giving herself to Roark, she is not giving in to a real-life man that might actually exist. She is surrendering to an ideal, an archetype. Compare to the story of Leda and the Swan. There too, although some versions portray a rape, the most important interpretations see Leda as knowing that the Swan is Zeus, and willingly copulating him for that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to to get something beyond the capability of mortal men to provide.

He also beats up and rapes women. I don't think I'll be striving for that kind of perfection.

[Symmetry]

Also, it's probably not the best ideal for a dating site to be based on.

[Phatscotty]

You know what the funny thing is?

The exact same words could have been spoken, but if they came from a gay or Muslim dating site, Symmetry would reverse his opinion 100% and be attacking people for doing what he is doing and calling them all kinds of names.

[saxitoxin]

Assigning the words of fictional characters to indict the author who created said chatacters pretty much resigns the entire canon of western literature to nothing more than the delusions of a gaggle of psychopaths.

One gets the sense, based on his last few anti-intellectual rants, Symmetry prefers Judy Bloom to Dorris Lessing, Shell Silverstein to Pablo Neruda, Richard Scarry to Nazim Hikmet, or anyone who composes an unchallenging and inoffensive coloring book over someone else who weaves a mature tale of moral ambiguities to force introspection on the meaning of the human condition.

Unfortunately, this is a common symptom in the new, anti-intellectual society; the idiocracy.

[GabonX]

One gets the sense, based on his last few anti-intellectual comments, Symmetry prefers Judy Bloom to Dorris Lessing, Shell Silverstein to Pablo Neruda, Richard Scarry to Nazim Hikmet.

I liked the first version better.

[saxitoxin]

One gets the sense, based on his last few anti-intellectual comments, Symmetry prefers Judy Bloom to Dorris Lessing, Shell Silverstein to Pablo Neruda, Richard Scarry to Nazim Hikmet.

I liked the first version better.

SuperFudge?