Re: Marital Status of Abductees
From: jpolanik@mindspring.com
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 11:36:54 -0800
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Gender Differences
Recently I posted an extract from John Rimmer's _The Evidence for Alien
Abduction_ which suggested that there may be gender differences in the
way that males and females experience, interpret or report abduction
experiences.
Rimmer's particular focus was availability status.
If we look at those cases where women have been abducted alone, or
in the company of other women ... we find a distinct tendency
towards the phenomenon selecting women who are divorced, separated
or undergoing some sort of marital or sexual crisis.
The responses I've gotten from this post have been extremely varied:
1. Is Alien Technology a Factor?
It was argued that it is unlikely that women are selected based on
their social/sexual availability status because the abductors have the
technology to 'switch off' a target female's sleepmate.
This is a good argument, but it cuts both ways. If we *were* to find a
correlation between availability status and frequency of experienced or
reported abduction, this would mean either that the abductors *lacked*
the technology they are widely thought to have or that they were
selecting their targets non-randomly. If this latter point were true,
then it would discredit the idea that aliens are here to do scientific
research, which, as several writers pointed out, is based on using
random samples.
2. Do Alien Abductors have a Purpose?
If Alien Abductors select disproportionately more women then men then
the belief that they are here to conduct some sort of breeding program
becomes more plausible.
Perhaps there are ways to test this possibility. If a survey were to
show that women with hysterectomies did not report significantly fewer
abductions than women capable of bearing children, then there would be
no basis for concluding that Alien Abductors select female targets based
on whether they can contribute to the supposed breeding program.
Similarly, with regard to men, if men with vasectomies or who are
otherwise sterile are abducted about as frequently men who are capable
of impregnating women, then there would be no basis on which to conclude
that Alien Abductors select male targets based on whether they can
contribute to the supposed breeding program.
In any event, in order to test these theories researchers would have to
collect detailed personal information about their research subjects.
Unfortunately, as Rimmer pointed out, researchers often fail to gather
demographic information about their subjects because of a prior
assumption that such facts are irrelevant --- not a good way to conduct
either scientific or phenomenological research.
3. What the Trionic Research Institute has Discoverd Thus Far
So, why am I dwelling on the issue of gender differences?
Well, as those of you who have visted the TRI website may know, there is
a simple on-line questionnaire. It's purpose is to find out how people
classify experiences that are arguably related to Awareness during Sleep
Paralysis [ASP].
There is also a Query page which enables you to see a table of the
results thus far.
There are two points worthy of note:
1. About as many females as males have filled out the questionnaire.
Does this mean that there are no gender related differences involved?
Well, that would depend on whether the population of net users is about
half male and half female. I consider this rather unlikely at this point
in time, but maybe it is true.
In any event, there seems to be a distinct gender related difference in
the data we've collected so far. (From the website Query page,
http://www.trionica.com/resultsmenu.htm, select DataView 2)
I draw your attention to the columns that display results relating to
the trion of Lucid Dream Experience, Out of Body Experience and Astral
Projection Experience (listed on the query as LDE, OBE and APE,
respectively). People often argue whether these are different
interpretations of the same core experience.
In my view, the phrase 'Out-of-Body Experience' is phenomenologically
more accurate than the others --- this is often the way it seems to
experiencers, but it makes no assumption as to the way 'it really was'.
The phrase 'Lucid Dream Experience' takes the same data and adds the
interpretation that it 'really' was just a hallucination that happened
to happen when the body was asleep. The phrase 'Astral Projection
Experience' substitutes the assumption that it 'really' was a journey in
another body and perhaps to another plane of Being.
Well, for some reason, it seems that males report disproportionately
more Lucid Dreams and females report disproportionately more OBEs and
Astral Projection Experiences.
Do females have different types of experiences than males? Or is this a
gender difference as to interpretation only?
I don't know the answer to that question. At this point I can only
suggest that researchers who ignore the possibility of gender related
differences may be overlooking important information.
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RELEVANCE OF THIS MESSAGE: Response to previous
Index: Alien Abduction (#49.2)
Created: Apr 9, 1998
