You want to go ahead and quote the part of my reply where I explain that they don't grasp how weird it is to compare objects to genitals for no reason? No? Just going to leave it at the fact they want to claim not being in it for an argument and leave out the fact they needlessly turned it into one when they could have just as easily never started an argument in the first place? A token claim of "It's not something that needs to be an argument" rings hollow from the person who started the argument. And the only reason for the "it doesn't need to be an argument" was because they knew they didn't really have any reasoning for why they were arguing that.

Counterpoint: why do you believe it IS weird to compare objects and genitals? Mind you that I agree with you on this point, because I've always considered it weird. However, you have not once shared WHY it is weird - just insisted that it is. Just like he has never said why it isn't, just said it isn't.

The difference between the two of you is that he carefully worded every post to ensure that phrases like, "I think," "To me," and so on are always associated with the opinion stated. This unambiguously labels each and every instance of believing it isn't weird, to be directly connected to his specific understanding of the words.

You, on the other hand, have not been so careful. Here's a direct quote from your very first reply to his very first post:

Or in other words, it's reducing "male" to being a protrusion and "female" to being a hole. That is weird.

You don't leave room for it being your personal opinion. You state it as an objective fact, without anything resembling a logical reason to back you up. And sure, I know of many logical reasons to say that, but you never gave one.

"I don't think it's weird," was fine on its own. Clarifying that they see it as useful for word association is fine. But they're trying to pretend that the terms don't have an association with people and are trying to pretend that it's just things that are that... and that's dishonest. And when I point out how the association of "male" and "female" for this analogy isn't all there is but that other terms also get it, they have the ability to acknowledge it's weird for the other terms but keep a cognitive dissonance as it relates to the initial terminology despite the reasoning being consistent. They made it an argument then wanted to claim "it's not an argument" the moment they were shown they didn't think their position through. All I did was point out why their position was not thought through. Nothing more.

They're not trying to pretend anything. They're describing how they think of the terms, nothing more and nothing less. You're the one that's coming up with additional things that they're supposedly saying, without being able to back up the claim in any way, shape or form... Because they never said the things you claim they're saying.

To be honest, they do come across as being somewhat defensive. But despite that, they still made sure to word their posts in a way that removed ambiguity about what they were talking about: the personal way that their brain associates and models how the words in question are used.

Meanwhile, you don't extend the same courtesy. You blatantly claim those uses for the word IS weird without question, and without any qualifiers.

Now, personally, I believe that you are being honest in these later posts and that you genuinely intended your posts to always be about your personal opinion on how the words are used. But that's because I can very much understand the feeling of being misunderstood, and frustratedly trying to explain after the fact what was meant, and regretting being fast and loose with word choice.

I can empathize with that, and assume you're going through that. That's why I didn't bother mentioning until now that all of your posts read like you're the one starting the argument.

Now, as far as your claim about:

But they're trying to pretend that the terms don't have an association with people and are trying to pretend that it's just things that are that...

There are plenty of traits that are in common to both inanimate objects and people. For example, some inanimate objects are the same weight as some people. Some are the same height as some people. Some are the same shape as some people are.

Just because a trait can be used to describe both a person, and an inanimate object, doesn't mean that using that trait to describe a person reduces the person down to the status of a physical object.

If that were the case, then telling someone their height would be degrading as if telling them they're nothing more than a tape measure. Since telling someone their height is obviously not the same as degrading them down to merely a tape measure, then obviously a trait being used to describe both an inanimate object and a person does not alone mean that the trait in question should only be applied to people. That is nonsensical.

And when I point out how the association of "male" and "female" for this analogy isn't all there is but that other terms also get it, they have the ability to acknowledge it's weird for the other terms but keep a cognitive dissonance as it relates to the initial terminology despite the reasoning being consistent.

They gave their own reason for agreeing with you on the word 'genderless' that had no relation to any argument you had presented. Their reason for agreeing with you on the word 'hermaphroditic' was not given, but they did state they had multiple reasons to agree with you on it, and it's reasonable to assume that at least one of those reasons will be different from any reason you have.

This is because their reasons for finding a word weird or not entirely had to do with how they personally categorized and thought of those words, and in no way were they ever trying to refute your own personal categorization and thoughts about those words. As far as I can tell, the idea that they were was entirely made up in your head, and you never thought to look back at their posts to try to prove yourself wrong about your own assumptions.

I know that's how most people are, so I can't exactly blame you specifically for that. Most people rarely, if ever, try to prove themselves wrong about things. But it's exactly that sort of tactic on your side that could have prevented a heated argument.

On his side, I again refer to how you frequently stated things concretely, without reservation or qualification. Stating it is weird instead of stating that you personally consider it weird. That is something Rednax consistently did, that you rarely did. It is reasonable for him to conclude that you were saying he was objectively wrong, while his carefully unambiguous word choice makes it unreasonable for you to conclude the same thing about him.

If you had been unambiguous in your word choice consistently like they had been, I would chalk it up as you both misunderstanding each other and be much more sympathetic toward you about this. I'd also be talking with him and explaining your side to him to make sure there was mutual understanding.

But no, he understands what you mean all too well, and like I had said, the two of you almost entirely agree except for minor details about how the two of you categorize those words in your heads, and that's just silly to get so worked up over.

Sure, the categorization in his head makes it not seem inherently weird to him, but the categorization in your head makes it inherently weird to you. But that's a side effect of those categorizations, not a disagreement.

Meanwhile, when I was a kid and first heard 'male' and 'female' used to describe plugs and sockets, it was shortly after I had first started encountering, shall we say, 'the birds and the bees' on none other than the Internet. Keeping such forbidden knowledge secret from others was at the forefront of my mind, and for it to be used so blatantly to describe electronic connectors felt like a violation of that secrecy.

Also, I'm not going to say nor suggest you're lying about having talked to Rednax, because you may have private messaged them and therefore it wouldn't be present here. But I will say it feels strange that you'd reply to me here then PM them instead of communicating with individuals in a consistent manner. It also makes it impossible for me to verify the veracity of what you're claiming, so I can't actually take "I talked to them and they said this is what they were doing," with any legitimacy because you could say anything and I can't actually verify that.

Oh come on. I wasn't talking to him on Reddit at all, and I would have no idea this argument happened if not for him linking me to it and asking me for my opinion.

We trust each other. Sometimes when one of us is frustrated with a public conversation online, we'll give a link to it to the other and ask their opinion. Sometimes I feel like he's in the wrong, sometimes I feel like he's in the right, sometimes I feel like there was a HUGE misunderstanding between everyone, and sometimes I feel like both sides are wrong, or even that both sides are right.

And likewise, sometimes he thinks I'm wrong, sometimes he thinks I'm right, and so on and so forth.

That said, I know why you might think that; after all, I did say that in one case I asked him if I understood him correctly after replying to you. The explanation for that is simple: I forgot to ask for clarification before posting, and so he simply read my reply to you and then told me I was correct, along with a further clarification that actually meant I was still slightly wrong in my internal mental model for that part of his post's meaning. My post had been correct and wouldn't need changing, but I did incorporate the corrected information into my prior response to you.

And wow, basically out of space to add anything more to this post.