Tag Archives: intimacy

Why People Sext (According To Dilbert)

Every generation does something unusually kinky that horrifies the older, more uptight generation that has spent considerable energy hiding from their kids that they once wore bell-bottoms and danced to disco music. I don’t deny my generation did some kinky things, many of which still play out in music videos, but I try to keep things in context.

For that very reason, a context for “sexting,” also known as the sending of dick pics and tit shots, still baffles me to some degree. Maybe it’s a sign I’m getting older. I’m in my 30s now. I can’t claim to be young, dumb, and inexperienced anymore. Being on this planet for 30 years gives me too much experience to have excuses.

Regardless of whether or not I’m becoming and old fart, sexting is a thing. According to a 2012 study in “Computers and Human Behavior,” over half of a sample size of young college-age students had engaged in sexting in some forms. Over half of any population means it’s not a fringe behavior. This is happening and it’s becoming common to a degree that’s dangerously close to what bell-bottoms were in the 70s.

So why do people do it? Why is exchanging sexy pictures a thing? Granted, there have been some legal issues involving sexting, but most of those cases involve individuals who are underage. Some involve exploitation and coercion. That’s an actual crime, right up there with forcing someone to wear bunny pajamas to a Rob Zombie concert.

This isn’t like smoking crack. As far as the law is concerned, it is legal to willingly exchange naked pictures of yourself. Just make damn sure the participants have been on this planet long enough to exceed the arbitrary threshold of adulthood that society imposes.

So why do we do it? What’s the appeal? To me, a guy in his 30s with an internet connection and a love of writing erotica/romance, it just doesn’t make sense to me. The internet has an almost infinite number of boobs and dicks on it. It’s really not necessary to persuade someone else to send you pictures of their bodies. A simple Google search is really all you need.

I liken it to being at a fancy restaurant and ordering a steak. However, instead of bringing you a stake, the waiter brings you a picture of a steak. It still looks good. It still looks appetizing. It’s still a fucking picture though. It’s not going to fill the same need.

I personally have never sent someone a picture of my penis. Instead, I just show them how long my ring finger is, which is a more subtle way of letting someone know you have a generous endowment. If I find a lover who is into sexting, I’ll probably feel different. For now though, I’m still confused.

Thankfully, others have thought about this so I don’t have to. Scott Adams, the creator of the famed comic strip, Dilbert, has a knack for making sense of absurdities that have little to no rational explanation. His wry sense of humor has inspired me a great deal in recent years. It has also helped me shape the course of this blog.

The writings of Scott Adams, as well as his hilarious Dilbert cartoons, have helped inspire the phenomenon of “caveman logic” that I’m so fond of citing. Most recently, I read his book, “How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big.” It was the most fun I’ve had reading a book that didn’t involve graphic depictions of female anatomy.

As such, when Scott Adams has something to say about sexting, I tend to listen. Last week, he did an article called, “D*ck Pics Explained.” Naturally, it got my interest and not just because it made me think about my own penis. Here’s the main crux of his interpretation:

Our sex drive is so strong that it largely eliminates the option for rational behavior. And as you know, the hornier you get, the stupider you are. Once a guy reaches a critical level of horniness, his rational brain shuts off and he becomes primal. And when he’s primal, he sometimes signals his availability for mating in the most basic way possible: He displays his junk in full preparedness.

If you think the men doing this behavior are extra-dumb, or extra-rude, that might be true. But it is just as likely that such men are extra-horny. That gets you to the same decision no matter your IQ because the rational brain is shut down during maximum arousal.

It is also true – as far as I can tell from discussions with women over the years – that sometimes a dick pic actually results in dating and sex. I realize how hard that is to believe. But sometimes (maybe one time in 500) it actually works. You would think those odds would be enough to discourage even a man with a temporarily suspended intellect, but that view ignores the basic nature of men: We’re risk takers when it comes to reproduction.

Okay, now I can understand it to some extent. I understand why sexting is still a thing. I’m a fairly healthy man and I can say without reservation or shame that I’ve been at that critical level of horniess before. It has led me to do or contemplate things that makes my brain want to kick my ass. It’s never gotten me into too much trouble, but it has led to some awkward situations that I prefer not to describe.

This interpretation is part of what Scott Adams calls the “Moist Robot Hypothesis.” It’s basically the idea that human brains are like robots, but they’re moist and fungible. Granted, they can’t be programmed as easily as a non-moist robot, but it can be hacked to some degree. In fact, the internet is full of brain hacks to exploit, which says a lot about the sub-par programming of our brains.

Flawed or not, the hypothesis is similar to caveman logic. It emphasizes the fact that we humans have two biological imperatives: survival and reproduction. Rational thought and a clear understanding of reality don’t always jive with those imperatives. That’s why critically horny men and women are prone to doing stupid things.

I’m not nearly as smart or as successful as Scott Adams, but I am working on that success. As such, I hope he’ll forgive me if I tack something onto his assessment. I agree in large part with his explanation for sexting. However, I would add another layer to it and it’s an extension of both caveman logic and the Moist Robot Hypothesis.

Due to our biological imperatives, which are at the forefront of our brain’s programming, there’s also a powerful need to adapt. Adaptation is a basic part of evolution for all creatures, be they human or pond scum. Think of it this way:

  • Does wearing tie-dye T-shirts and listening to Bob Dylan increase your chances of having sex? Then chances are, you’ll adapt accordingly.
  • Does wearing bell-bottoms and listening to disco music increase your chances of having sex? Then chances are, you’ll adapt accordingly.
  • Does sending naked pictures of yourself to a lover increase your chances of having sex? Then chances are, you’ll adapt accordingly.

See a pattern here? Notice how I didn’t mention the degree to which your chances of having sex will increase. It can be exceedingly small, but so long as it’s more than zero, that’s enough reason to adapt your behavior and conduct accordingly.

There’s another factor in play that inspires adaptation. That involves distance and technology. Thanks to the growth and prevalence of instant communication, long-distance relationships are a bit more viable.

I know this from personal experience because I met one of my ex-girlfriends online and a lot of our relationship was long-distance. Were it not for Skype and email, we never would’ve found each other and she never would’ve taken me on a memorable trip to Victoria’s Secret.

In this context, sexting can be seen as an adaptation of sorts and one that’s become more necessary to some extent. According to the Journal of Applied Communications Research, between a quarter and half of all relationships among college students are long distance. Naturally, college students are still going to get horny, regardless of distance. Their caveman brains/moist robot brains will require them to adapt.

This capacity for adaptation shows just how creative we humans can be when it comes to fulfilling our biological imperatives. In evolutionary terms, we’re no different from our caveman ancestors. We’re still wired to eat, hump, and survive. We just change our tactics in accord to our circumstances and adapt accordingly.

At the moment, some are adapting to new technology and distant connections by sending naked pictures of themselves. It’s not necessarily a logical adaptation, but since when does logic apply when you’re horny?

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Virtual Reality: The Future/End of Intimacy?

There was a time when the idea of having a hand-held device that allowed you to communicate directly with others, translate multiple languages, and access a near-limitless database of free porn seemed absurd. In fact, it seemed so futuristic that these fanciful devices often showed up in sci-fi shows like Star Trek. How many people who watched that show really thought that such a device was even possible?

That time really wasn’t that long ago. I’m still old enough to remember pagers and flip phones. That alone makes me feel way older than I want to, but it illustrates an important point. What seems like crazy science fiction today can become a reality in the future. It can even happen within our lifetime.

There are people who grew up watching Star Trek who now have smartphones. I can only imagine how amazed they must feel whenever they send an email, translate a conversation, or watch free porn. It’s an amazing and beautiful thing, right?

There’s another futuristic, seemingly impossible gadget that, for the moment, is still relegated to the world of Star Trek. It’s a gadget that also relates to my ongoing discussion about hugs and the importance of human contact.

It’s a gadget that has the potential to disrupt society in ways that pales in comparison to smartphones. In fact, it could be so disruptive that some speculate that it could be mankind’s last invention. Which invention could be this disruptive? Ladies, gentlemen, and those of unspecified gender, I give you the holodeck.

Without getting into the sci-fi jargon that will probably get me beat up by angry Trekkies and physicists, I’ll stick to the basics here. A holodeck is basically the ultimate extreme in virtual reality. It creates simulations so life-like that they’re indistinguishable from reality. If our feeble brains, which are still working under the assumption that we’re cavemen living on the African savanna, interprets it as reality, how can we possibly tell the difference?

Our brains are already easily fooled. It’s not just funny brain teasers that make us question our own internal wiring. As I’ve pointed out on this blog many times before, our brains aren’t wired to make sense of reality. They’re wired to help us survive and reproduce. That’s part of why we have such wonderful evolutionary manifestations like orgasms. In that context, it stands no chance against a holodeck.

It may seem like such an advancement is a long ways off, but I imagine early Stark Trek fans thought the same about smartphones. This invention is already in its nascent stage. At the moment, we call it virtual reality and it’s just starting to develop a consumer base.

Thanks to continued advances in computing power and a growing market for more immersive experiences, VR is becoming more mainstream and affordable by the average consumer. Like personal computers and smartphones before it, VR is creating a new market for new experiences. Those experiences, by the way, will probably involve virtual porn.

New markets mean new profits. History shows time and again if there’s a profit to be made, it’s going to happen. It’s the reason the War on Drugs is doomed to fail. It’s the reason the wars on porn, smoking, and everything fun that religion and government despises is doomed to fail. It’s also the reason why VR will become more and more indistinguishable from reality as time goes on. The recent success of Pokémon Go is proof enough of that.

So that begs the question: what happens to us when we reach the point where we have a functioning holodeck? What does that mean for the human race? What will it mean for our basic desires for intimacy?

Well, let’s all channel our inner horny teenager for a moment and state the obvious. Just as we saw with VHS and home video technology, VR and holodecks will likely be used for porn. This isn’t speculation. This is a certainty. Someone is working on this right now as we speak. You can count on it.

Do a quick thought experiment and picture how you’d use a holodeck. If I’m really horny, I could create an entire army of beautiful women that look like a mix of Kate Upton, Halle Berry, Scarlett Johanson, and even Starfire from DC Comics if I want. In case you’ve forgotten, Starfire looks like this.

See where I’m going with this? On top of that, with the right programming, I can make these simulations do whatever perverse shit I can think of. If I want them to cover their bodies in oil, pour chocolate on my dick, and take turns licking it up, I can do that.

I’m sure that’s not the kinkiest thing I could do. I’m sure there are others out there with far kinkier proclivities. A woman using such a device could create a football team of Channing Tatums and Brad Pitts, each programmed to cover her body in honey and lick it off.

I’ll stop speculating right now because I think I’m revealing too much about my own perverse fantasies. Also, they’re making me very hungry. Maybe writing this on an empty stomach was a bad idea, but it’s too late now.

It doesn’t matter how perverse your tastes are. They can even be outright illegal. So what if someone uses a holodeck to have sex with a baby elephant? It’s a simulation. It’s technically not hurting anyone or anything real. Even so, the mere fact that someone will probably use a holodeck to do something like this is kind of a mood-killer.

Again, our brains aren’t wired to be rational and make sense of reality. It’s wired for survival and reproduction. So if a holodeck simulation is that realistic, our brains literally aren’t equipped to tell the difference.

Imagine the kind of confusion this would cause. Hell, this would be 10 steps beyond confusion. This is a dissociation with reality on par with The Matrix. When a simulation becomes that real and malleable, would we even want to escape? It’s either face a cold, harsh reality or spend more time wrestling naked with Starfire and Halle Berry. That’s not a balanced decision, to say the least.

Whether you’re an anti-social sociopath or a hugger like me, a holodeck can literally give you everything you need to fulfill all the physical and emotional needs you want. I can go from having a three-way with a couple of supermodels to hugging every member of my family, even those who have passed away, on a whim. The caveman wiring of my brain will tell me I’m doing exactly what I need to survive and reproduce. Why would it want me to stop?

The cynical side of me says that I’ll join the billions of other humans on this planet who will go extinct with a big, content smile on my face. However, the less jaded side of me, which also happens to be the side that helps me craft sexy romance stories, thinks there are other possibilities.

If history is any guide, and it often is, human beings can and do adapted to these major disruptions. The 20th century gave us a number of examples, but one in particular stands out. It involves the impact of contraception and, to a similar extent, antibiotics.

It’s easy to forget in a era where contraception is so ordinary that only right-wing religious nut-jobs like Rick Santorum speak against it. Women today have all sorts of methods for controlling their fertility, deciding when and in what circumstances they’ll bear children.

This is a huge shift compared to the bulk of human history where contraception was limited to pulling out, make-shift condoms, and the medical treatments on par with smearing chicken entrails on tumors. Then, after centuries of uncertainty and superstition, we created something that worked. It worked so well that it disrupted a great many these assumptions we once had about society.

Think, for a moment, how jarring that must have been. Suddenly, women don’t have to lament whether or not they’ll get pregnant after one night of reckless indulgence. Suddenly, society has some measure of control over a basic human function. It was exciting and scary. Hell, the Catholic Church is still scared to death of contraception, which is saying a lot from the folks that gave us 2,000 years of hellfire and brimstone.

Despite what religious institutions and bad reality TV shows would prefer, contraception is not going away. It impacted society immensely, but you know what? Society adapted. The human race hasn’t gone extinct. Civilization hasn’t collapsed. The fact that people can now hump without as many consequences as before didn’t destroy humanity. It just freed us up to focus on other things.

By and large, this shift has been positive. As society has adapted, violence throughout the industrialized world has declined sharply. Opportunities for women have risen as well and not just because they can have sex with fewer consequences. This disruption that upended centuries of limits did so much good. So how much good can advancements in VR and holodecks achieve?

It’s impossible to say, but it’s a question worth asking. What do people do when they have a means of meeting their physical, emotional, and sexual needs with relative ease? We’ve never lived in a society like that before. Remember, though, until recently, we had never lived in a society where women had control over their fertility. We had no idea what to expect, but we adapted. We improved as a civilization and there’s still room for improvement.

I don’t want to be too much of an optimist. With every advancement comes challenges and pitfalls we can’t possibly foresee. At some point, somebody will use VR or holodecks to do something that’ll make us throw up. However, like those who use ski-masks poorly, we must take the good with the bad.

In the end, I believe the good will outweigh the bad. I think when human society has a means of meeting all their physical, emotional, and sexual needs, the sheer breadth of human potential will be realized.

What form might this potential make? How would such a society function? How would it adapt? These are all important questions to ask, but they’re impossible to answer right now. That said, they could make for an interesting premise of a book. Think about it, a story involving a holodeck told by an erotica/romance writer who writes stories about strippers and sex cults? That could be interesting, among other things.

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Solitary Confinement: The Ultimate Torture?

To those of you out there who think you’re having a bad day, this may lift your spirits in all the wrong ways. To those of you who consider themselves huggers who are fond of intimate contact, as I most certainly do, this will be an exploration of your worst nightmare.

I’ve argued before that our current culture makes it painfully difficult for human beings to be intimate with one another. We have technology that puts screens between us, cultural taboos that prevent us from seeking each other out, and religious dogma that will make up elaborate myths to keep people from seeking satisfying intimacy. As bad as it is, it could still be much worse.

Enter the practice of solitary confinement. For those who consider themselves huggers, this is right up there with waterboarding and power tools in terms of torture. It’s one thing to inflict pain on someone. As anyone who has experimented with BDSM knows, the right kinds of pain can actually be enjoyable. With solitary confinement, however, that potential isn’t there. If anything, it does everything possible to nullify that potential.

According to the ever-reliable sources on Wikipedia, solitary confinement is defined as:

A form of imprisonment in which an inmate is isolated from any human contact.

On the surface, it doesn’t sound nearly as bad as being shanked to death or having fingernails ripped out. However, as is often the case with the worst forms of torture, it’s not the wound that kills you. It’s the festering scar that gets infected and kills you slowly that makes it really nasty.

Solitary confinement is the absolute antithesis of what it means to be a social creature. This is very important to consider because human beings are very social animals. Our brains are hard-wired to seek contact and coordination with others. From the time we’re infants to the time we’re senile old geezers, we naturally seek to be around one another.

First, it’s our parents and siblings. Then, it’s our friend and fellow neighbors. Then, it’s our lovers, our children, and our extended family. At every stage in our biological and social development, intimate and casual contact with other human beings is vital.

Using my favorite tool, caveman logic, this makes perfect sense. Unless we’re Arnold Schwarzenegger on meth, we have no chance of taking down a sabretooth tiger. If we work with other humans, creating tools and forming strategies, then we can do more than just hunt down animals. We can actually hunt them so well that we drive them to extinction.

Being effective social creatures is pretty damn important from an evolutionary standpoint. That’s why simple gestures like hugs have so many physical and mental benefits. It’s also way, according to Health.com, people who socialize more tend to live longer. It’s pretty much beyond dispute. Social interaction is good for us on some basic level.

The practice of solitary confinement kicks that concept in the balls and lights it on fire. It takes people, including those who may not be mentally healthy to begin with, and sticks them in a situation that drives a knife into the core of their psyche. It’s like trying to put out a fire with gasoline. It’s death by a billion paper-cuts. It’s bad is what I’m saying.

Now in the interest of balance, let me acknowledge that there is an element of cold pragmatism to solitary confinement. There are indeed individuals in this world whose brain function is so damaged, so dangerous, and so deranged that putting them around other people is a problem. As bad as solitary confinement is, there are times when it’s the best of the worst possible options.

The primary use of solitary confinement is to isolate these deranged individuals from others. In the past, it was even seen as a more human alternative to flogging and hanging. That may have been true for a certain period in history, but we’re not in that time period anymore and the non-Taliban crowd of the world doesn’t wish to go back.

As a society, I feel we should treat progress the same way I treat my aspiring writing career. We should always strive for improvement. Let’s not let ourselves stagnate or get complacent. There are just some things that are worth improving and this is one of them. We stopped hanging people. We stopped flogging them. We stopped using duels to settle legal disputes. Why can’t we do the same with solitary confinement?

There are organizations out there who classify solitary confinement as torture. The ACLU is one of them and their position on the practice is pretty clear.

With no evidence-based research of its effectiveness, solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment that has been overused and abused. According to the experts, the massive expansion of solitary confinement in America is a failed experiment of the late 20th century.

In recent years, a concerted effort has emerged to combat this practice and seek alternatives. According to the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, multiple states have passed legislation to curtail or regulate the practice. More legislation may follow and as a self-professed hugger, it can’t come soon enough.

Now there will be opponents who argue that not everyone suffers the same horrific effects of solitary confinement. There is even some research to back this claim. Even if this research is valid, this doesn’t justify the practice. Just because some people can handle being tortured and go onto live normal lives doesn’t mean it should be permitted. Not everyone is James Bond or Jack Bauer.

Whatever future research may or may not conclude, we don’t need to wait for the test results on certain aspects of human nature. We’re social animals. We hug, we interact, and we make love. It’s part of what makes us the most successful species on this planet. Solitary confinement is a kick in the balls to that success and I say our balls need not be subjected to such punishment.

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Being A Hugger In This Day And Age

I’d like to get personal again. I’ve already confessed to sleeping naked. I’ve also made clear that I see foreplay as the highest of virtues. Now, I’d like to highlight another important trait of mine, one I actually mentioned in my post on foreplay. This trait isn’t as lurid or sexy as others, but it’s one of those traits that has the potential to be in the right context. So what is it? Well, here it is:

I, Jack Fisher, am a hugger.

Yes, I understand that it’s one of the least macho things you can do these days. It’s right up there with wearing makeup and crying over soap operas. It’s a taboo and a bad one at that. I don’t know when it happened. I don’t know why it happened. For reasons that defy logic, understanding, and basic human nature, it actually became cool to be a callous, detached, unemotional douche-bag at some point. I usually try to research the complex cultural reasons behind such a movement. This time, however, I found next to nothing.

The only educated guess I can make, which is pushing it because I’m not that educated, is that society’s collective fears and scorn over men sexually assaulting women went a tad overboard. It’s a perfectly legitimate concern, wanting to discourage sexual assault and sexual harassment in general. It’s a terrible crime so I can’t blame society for overdoing it, but there’s a fine line between fighting crime and turning people into callous douche-bags.

From a purely evolutionary standpoint, there’s no reason why hugs and intimate contact should be discouraged. According to Dr. Fahad  Basheer at Collective Evolution, there are at least 11 medical benefits to hugs. These benefits include, but aren’t limited to, relieving pain, elevating mood, alleviating depression, improving immune function, and reducing stress. If hugging were a pharmaceutical drug, it would be hailed as wonder drugs and probably banned by the DEA.

These health benefits, much like the health benefits of orgasms, strongly indicate that we’re hard-wired for hugs. Nature wants us to hug each other. It doesn’t matter if it’s a lover, a family member, or a stranger. Our biology, being so basic and crude, doesn’t care where the hug comes from. It still benefits us.

The benefits aren’t even restricted to humans. Nature is rarely that specific. Animals do it to and they seem to gain similar benefits.

My parents and siblings seemed to understand that. I come from a family that is big on hugging. It’s not necessarily a cultural thing. It’s just how we are. However, I notice when I go out into the modern world, I’m terrified of making too much intimate contact with others. I don’t think that’s healthy.

I don’t exactly know where this fear comes from, but I have a pretty strong feeling it started during my time in the daily prison sentence that was public school. I don’t know if anyone knows this, but public schools have a big problem with students touching each other in any way. How big a problem? Well, in 2013, a student in Georgia got suspended for a year for hugging his teacher.

That’s right. A school punished a kid for hugging someone. Let that sink in for a moment. Hugging is not like sex. It doesn’t cause pregnancy. It doesn’t cause disease. It doesn’t cause emotional distress of any kind. It has so many natural benefits that transcend species, yet we punish kids for doing it. Then, we wonder why they grow up to have emotional problems and personality disorders.

Now the school I went to never did something this extreme, but I do remember from a young age hearing all sorts of lectures about harassment and inappropriate touching, as they called it. I may have been a dumb-ass kid, but even I knew what they were getting at. They wanted to discourage kids from getting too sexual when they were too young and immature.

That’s all well and good, but it’s worth repeating that I was a dumb-ass kid in a whole building full of them. How are we supposed to know what constitutes inappropriate touching? A hug for some people might as well be slap on the ass with a wooden spoon for someone else. We never learned much about context and communication. Most of the time, we just got a thorough run-down of all the terrible punishments we can expect if we ever got caught inappropriately touching someone.

Being kids who still had some respect for authority figures, we naturally focus on the punishments. We don’t want to get in trouble. We don’t want to explain to our parents why we got suspended or sent to detention. Naturally, we’re going to play it safe and just avoid it all together.

As kids, fear of punishment tends to make us overcompensate. It’s just human nature. Again, it’s caveman logic. We’re not going to just stand a few feet away from a shady area where a lion might be hiding. We’re going to make sure we’re a long ways away from that danger.

It doesn’t just affect us as kids in school either. After spending our entire childhood terrified of making too much intimate contact with other human beings, we carry that terror into the adult world, both in college campuses and in the workplace.

We currently live in an era where harassment doesn’t even need to occur. There only needs to be an accusation that a man assaulted a woman and that’s it. No trial. No jury. No indisputable evidence of any kind. Just the accusation is enough to assure guilt in the eyes of the public. This leads to legal clusterfucks like the Duke Lacrosse ordeal and the false UVA rape case.

So as a man, it’s dangerous for me to hug someone. It could cost me my reputation, my freedom, and a boatload of time and legal fees. It only takes one woman to misinterpret a hug, accuse me of assault, and my life is over.

This actually played out very recently. Earlier this year, I went on a date with a girl to see the movie, X-men: Apocalypse, which should come as no surprise to anyone. I really liked this girl. I thought she was cute. I thought we had a good connection. However, I didn’t know how she would react to a hug so I was fucking terrified of getting too intimate too fast. That may have worked against me because we never went on a second date.

As a self-professed hugger, how the hell am I to function in a world like this? How am I supposed to find love, affection, and intimacy with others outside my immediate family? This modern world sends so many conflicting messages. We’re more connected than ever thanks to technology, but a single hug can get us sued for sexual assault if we hug the wrong person.

I don’t like this trend. I don’t think it’s good for huggers like me or people in general. We’ve become too callous and isolated. We’re scared to death from a young age, albeit indirectly, into avoiding contact with one another. It goes against our own nature. It goes against our own humanity. I may never live to see the day where hugging a perfect stranger won’t get you sued, but I’d like to aspire to such a future, both through my love of hugs and through my books.

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