I have a little test for whether you’re a decent person about other people’s sexuality or not. I call it the Noumenon Test. It’s named after a commenter who responded to a post at economist Robin Hanson’s blog Overcoming Bias many years ago. The comment struck me so much at the time that is became part of a post I wrote at ErosBlog and I yet moved to write about it some more.

Here’s how Noumenon gets through life.

I’m so darn nurturing, but not sexy, so what I do is go over to my sister’s house and play with her little babies until I am all out of love, then I go home and watch amazing porn in peace and quiet. It’s a good life, I hope all the unsexy men adapt as well.

There are many reactions Noumenon’s self-revelation. One class I’d call Hard Disdain, revulsion at Noumenon that doesn’t bother to mask itself: He’s sick. He’s sinful. There’s something wrong with him. He’s a pervert. He’s horrible. Another class of reactions might be called Soft Disdain. It’s still disdain, really, but comes wrapped in counterfeit concern and respect for Noumenon: That’s sad. I pity him. He must have a problem. He should get professional help, get into therapy or counseling. He’s missing out on something really wonderful that would be totally worth it for him if he would just make the effort. He just hasn’t met the right girl (or guy!) yet, but she’s (he’s?) surely out there because there’s someone for everyone in this world you just have to have faith that that’s true. I’ll pray for him.

If you feel either Hard or Soft Disdain for Noumenon then I’m sorry, but you’ve failed the Noumenon Test and that means you are an asshole. You don’t respect him enough to realize that he can think for himself and structure his life to meet his needs as best he can with the resources available to him just as readily as you can. On the basis of knowing him for the length of a 56-word statement (perhaps just a little longer if you read his whole comment), you are declaring that you know better how to live his life than he does. Seriously, just where do you get off? What exactly is it that assures you so much of your own automatic superiority?

And if you want to take Noumenon’s amazing porn away from him “for his own good,” then you are an arch-asshole.