domain:astralcodexten.substack.com
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
1d ago
I’m in total agreement here. There’s almost no upside to going into the medical mental health system, which doesn’t even work that well anyway, and is pretty much used by the state to keep people from exercising their rights.
Throwaway05
1d ago
It's usually more like "do you have any medical problems" "no" "any history of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes?" "no" "what are these scars for" "Oh I had a triple bypass in 2003 and I'm on 8 medications for all that."
birb_cromble
1d ago
A while back I played a parlor game where you had to look at a name and decide if it was a medication, a Chinese drop-shipper on Amazon, or a character in a fantasy novel.
The average score was not very high.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
1d ago
...aren't Kurosawa and Leone basically currently at the same "they made seminal classic movies but let's face it, appreciating them doesn't really make you a cinephile as such by itself" status?
It seems underappreciated that regardless of how much or how little he was actually involved in raising them, every single one of Trump's kids have seemingly turned out well-adjusted (especially controlling for being raised with absurd wealth), irrespective of their birth mother.
Often enough major politicians' or business magnates' children can turn into embarrassing thorns in their side, maybe going to the press with stories of neglect or outright abuse, of being two-faced and dishonest. Or just being badly behaved and unworthy to fill their parents' shoes. (I'm constantly reminded of Tom Hanks' son Chet as a reminder for how far the apple can fall.)
Somehow he got five kids to adulthood (Barron's got a ways to go but just look at the guy) and no major blowouts, four of the five with kids of their own now.
The first couple steps to having any kind of Dynasty is raising your kids right and making sure they go on to expand the brood themselves so you have a diverse portfolio of possible heirs (tongue in cheek). It'd be worth trying to figure out what the Trumpian secret sauce is.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
1d ago
I purchased them out of sheer amazement and thankfulness that they exist. I don't have any spare time/energy to play them, though.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
Do you actually know anything about the circumstances under which a man can "lose most of his assets and future income" in a divorce?
Yes, he gets divorced.
In fact alimony is pretty rare nowadays (and almost never close to "most" of his assets and future income), child support is to support the children
Spousal support is rare but not non-existent (my father paid it, and he was divorced far later than the 1960s), but child support is very high and doesn't have to be spent on the children. If his income goes up he has to pay more; if it goes down he still has to pay the same.
and the number of men paying "unreasonable" child support (however you define that) is exceeded by the number of men not actually paying their child support.
Which is irrelevant, as they were still demanded to have been paying it. And if they get caught, they have their wages garnished down to subsistence or less, they lose their driver's licenses, professional licenses, go to jail for contempt for indefinite periods, etc.
faceh
1d ago
Many people are not sufficiently hard-hearted enough to tell the bastard that there's the door, goodbye, he can go pay a whore if he wants it that badly,
Yes, this is my point here:
There really ISN'T an imbalance in bargaining power here! There's just women who aren't able to state their position and then enforce it, so they don't even attempt to bargain.
Emotional connection has a major impact on how one negotiates with the counterparty (since you implicitly expect an iterated game), yes. But this is not the same as someone being able to set all the terms of the bargain because the other has no power or leverage whatsoever. If your emotional side renders you incapable of stating demands and enforcing boundaries, then you're just bad at negotiating, it's not the same as being coerced.
I'm already granting that sociopaths can exploit emotional connection to extract the benefits they want, mind.
Hence a workable solution was that the woman could go to her parents and get the necessary guidance and confidence to steel herself to stand her ground and demand marriage, with there being at least the implicit threat of patriarchal violence if the BF inflicts unneeded harm on her.
WhiningCoil
1d ago
So I got Pikmin 4 for Christmas from my wife, and finally started playing it. Parenthood can be like that sometimes.
I've loved Pikmin since I played the first one on my secondhand Gamecube in college. It has subtly evolved over time, and while I'm going through the motions on this 4th one, something of the spark from the first one seems missing.
The time limit is gone. This is controversial, and the series seems to alternate between having one or not. Despite the time limit putting me off from even trying the first game until I'd played virtually every other Gamecube game worth playing... I think I really like having it. The second game got rid of it, the third game brought it back, now the fourth game has gotten rid of it again. Definitely takes some of the pep out of your step, knowing you have as long as you want.
The game also feels enormously easier? I think I went almost 10 days before I lost a single Pikmin. I don't know when this change happened. Maybe I'm just that good at Pikmin these days, but I recall Pikmin 1 was a constant war of attrition the Pikmin were so oblivious and easily killed by everything. Pikmin 2 even more so. There was a constant need to grow your Pikmin population to cope with this. I actually don't remember how hard Pikmin 3 was in this regard, but Pikmin 4 is effortless so far. I think I still have a lot left though, more than half, so I suppose I'll see how that keeps up.
I keep going back and forth about what I think about the controls. The Gamecube title's used the C-Stick to send your hoard of Pikmin at enemies and around obstacles. Outside of that Pikmin were dumb as a rock and would happily kill themselves all sorts of creative ways. Now you can have all your Pikmin ride on a dog with you, and even outside of that they seem to have pretty good pathfinding? On the one hand, probably solid quality of life features. On the other hand, they trivialize or completely remove types of puzzles to solve from previous games. And I'm not sure the loss of these aspects is replaced by anything enabled by this QOL features.
I'll probably post again after I beat it, but my feelings about it now are that it's not bad, but it's pretty mid for a Pikmin game.
Tanista
1d ago
People think Hasan is like Rogan which is so telling. He's hot and fit and popular so it's the same thing apparently.
If you know anything about either creator's character and biography it's insane to think people who admire Rogan would look kindly on Hasan.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
this will only discourage people who want to own guns from interacting with the mental health system
This is exactly what you should do. If your rights can be taken away permanently by interacting with the mental health system, you should avoid interacting with it. The Catholic Church has it right in this case -- what you say to your confessor is between you, him, and presumably God, and fuck the interests of society. If mental health professionals can't live up to that, they should be avoided.
In New Jersey, being New Jersey, it's even worse. You have to tell them every interaction with the mental health system you have (not just committment, any time you ever saw one), including name and affiliation of the doctor. If you don't have that information you can't even apply for a permit; you can't challenge this because there's nothing to challenge.
hydroacetylene
1d ago
That's tautological, surely? I'm asking why is it female gendered.
Because of conditions on the ground in ~1950 when it was one of the few acceptable female jobs?
AmericanSaxeCoburgGothic
Happy to be here! Goal is to post the most exclamation points.
1d ago
Have you played any of them? Are they fun? I've played the Crusader Kings Board game (just solo) but really enjoyed it.
Magusoflight
1d ago
Adoption studies have already debunked those other explanations. Why are people always forgetting those exist? Environmentalist arguments have been DOA for decades now
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
That said, you need to know what you take, when, how, and why - otherwise you are at significant risk of increased bad outcome (although this obviously depends on what conditions you have).
Quick, what blood thinner are you on? Adoxaban? No, I'm sorry, it's apixaban, no gun for you.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
The Bell Curve Meme strikes again, cinema history edition!
I had long known of the Reddit midwit, clickbait anti-American, hipster propaganda factoid that Sergio Leone's seminal A Fistful of Dollars, the film which made Clint Eastwood a star, was nothing but an unlicensed ripoff of Kurosawa's Yojimbo. headlines tell us that Leone "ripped off" Kurosawa, or "Plagiarized" his movie. Notably, Kurosawa would get a 15% stake in Dollars after a lawsuit, and made more money off that 15% than he had off of Yojimbo. I'd long accepted this as a fact: the superior Japanese Samurai film was ripped off by the inferior Western cowboy movie!
But, then I started an audiobook of Dashiell Hammett's 1929 noir Red Harvest, one of his Continental Op books. And what is Red Harvest about? A Mercenary protagonist, middle aged and experienced, nameless, hired or co-opted by crooked criminal warlords in an oppressed town, who plays them off against each other to clean up Personville (Poisonville). It's Yojimbo! Kurosawa acknowledged the influence of another Hammett novel/film adaptation, The Glass Key, in his creation of Yojimbo, but when you read Red Harvest it's obvious that the plot is the same. Dollars might be Yojimbo in the Southwest, but Yojimbo in turn took Red Harvest out of the 1920s Southwest and moved it back in time and across the Pacific.
And it's interesting to me for a few reasons.
The universality of Western culture and globalization of culture earlier and earlier. I've said before that Don Quixote is the proper recipient of the title First Novel, in that it is the first book with a novelistic structure that everything afterward was influenced by, there is no author anywhere after 1945 writing novels who hadn't either read Cervantes or was influenced by people who had; where something like The Tale of Genji can't make a similar claim (though arguably one could make that claim about Genji for authors born after 1985 or so). Kurosawa is iconically Japanese, and iconically among westerners a sort of saint of foreign art film vs Hollywood schlock; but his ideas were often influenced by Western originators. Everything is much more intertwined than people would have you believe.
The way this claim has been used as a bludgeon by a certain kind of cinema hipster, to point to the originality and superiority of Kurosawa over the cowboy movies made in the West. How is that claim impacted by Kurosawa in turn taking Hammett's Noir and turning it into Samurai fare? Hammett in turn was original, in that he drew directly from his work with the Pinkerton's and his involvement in leftist politics for his inspirations. But is anyone really original? Dostoyevsky said that there were only two stories: a man goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town. So at some level nothing is ever going to be original-original, that's not the nature of human culture. Not that I question the Kurosawa-Leone monetary settlement, hey he deserved it for the shot-for-shot remake, that was worth some money. But the cultural credit he receives, and the subsequent scorn heaped on the Westerns, seems excessive.
Just one of those clever factoids that's missing the "fact."
Magusoflight
1d ago
You can sort of have designer babies
Just pick your mates carefully! Ideally for multiple generations.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1d ago
After losing this expungement case, the next step is probably to go for a second amendment challenge in federal court.
No point. The appropriate District and Circuit courts uphold all gun regulations and the Supreme Court has said they don't want to hear it. We've hit the end of the line for gun rights; in as much as they exist they exist in Red states only.
HereAndGone
1d ago
Unhappy marriages were (and are) often complex tangles. Men taking advantage of their wives' beauty, social position, and often connection with high status lovers to advance their own careers were not uncommon (take the (in)famous mistresses, later in the century, of the Prince of Wales, later to be Edward VII, whose complaisant husbands were often rewarded for their discretion and tact). Unsuccessful men living off the earnings of their wives (often the women wrote for a living, hence the increase in women novelists so that now novels are nearly primarily a female art form) also happened. Take famous 19th divorce cases such as that of Caroline Norton:
In 1827, she married George Chapple Norton, barrister, Member of Parliament for Guildford, and the younger brother of Lord Grantley. George was a jealous and possessive husband given to violent fits of drunkenness. The union quickly proved unhappy due to his mental and physical abuse. To make matters worse, George was unsuccessful as a barrister, and the couple fought bitterly over money.
During her early married years, Caroline used her beauty, wit and political ties to set herself up as a major society hostess.
...Despite his jealousy and pride, George encouraged his wife to use her ties to advance his career. It was through her influence that in 1831 he was made a Metropolitan Police Magistrate. During these years, Caroline turned to prose and poetry as means of releasing her inner emotions and earning money.
...In 1836, Caroline left her husband. She managed to subsist on her earnings as an author, but George claimed these as his, arguing this successfully in court. Paid nothing by her husband and her earnings confiscated, Norton used the law to her own advantage. Running up bills in her husband's name, she told the creditors when they came to collect, that if they wished to be paid, they could sue her husband.
Not long after their separation, George abducted their sons, hiding them with relatives in Scotland and later in Yorkshire, refusing to tell Caroline their whereabouts. George accused Caroline of involvement in an ongoing affair with a close friend, Lord Melbourne, then Whig Prime Minister. Initially, George demanded £10,000 from Melbourne, but Melbourne refused to be blackmailed and George instead took the Prime Minister to court.
Lord Melbourne wrote to Lord Holland, "The fact is [that George] is a stupid brute, and [Caroline] had not temper nor dissimulation enough to enable her to manage him."
...At the end of a nine-day trial, the jury threw out George's claim, siding with Melbourne, but the publicity almost brought down the government. The scandal eventually died, but not before Caroline's reputation was ruined and her friendship with Melbourne destroyed. George continued to keep Caroline from seeing her three sons and blocked her from receiving a divorce. Under English law in 1836, children were the legal property of their father and there was little Caroline could do to regain custody.
For an Irish example, there's Charles Parnell and Kitty O'Shea, where a prominent Anglo-Irish politician had a long-running affair, her husband was aware but, as long as he gained advantage from it, didn't rock the boat (the O'Sheas were waiting for Kitty's wealthy aunt to die and leave her an inheritance, which would not have happened if she was involved in a public scandal, and there's some evidence that Parnell tried to help advance O'Shea's career in politics). Although the O'Sheas were separated, the husband did not seek a divorce (and the accompanying scandal which blew up and wrecked Parnell's career) until much later:
Parnell's leadership was first put to the test in February 1886, when he forced the candidature of Captain William O'Shea, who had negotiated the Kilmainham Treaty, for a Galway by-election. Parnell rode roughshod over his lieutenants Healy, Dillon and O'Brien who were not in favour of O'Shea. Galway was the harbinger of the fatal crisis to come. O'Shea had separated from his wife Katharine O'Shea, sometime around 1875, but would not divorce her as she was expecting a substantial inheritance. Mrs. O'Shea acted as liaison in 1885 with Gladstone during proposals for the First Home Rule Bill. Parnell later took up residence with her in Eltham, Kent, in the summer of 1886, and was a known overnight visitor at the O'Shea house in Brockley, Kent. When Mrs O'Shea's aunt died in 1889, her money was left in trust.
On 24 December 1889, Captain O'Shea filed for divorce, citing Parnell as co-respondent, although the case did not come to trial until 15 November 1890. The two-day trial revealed that Parnell had been the long-term lover of Mrs. O'Shea and had fathered three of her children. Meanwhile, Parnell assured the Irish Party that there was no need to fear the verdict because he would be exonerated. During January 1890, resolutions of confidence in his leadership were passed throughout the country. Parnell did not contest the divorce action at a hearing on 15 November, to ensure that it would be granted and he could marry Mrs O'Shea, so Captain O'Shea's allegations went unchallenged. A divorce decree was granted on 17 November 1890, but Parnell's two surviving children were placed in O'Shea's custody.
In 1867, Katharine married Captain William O'Shea, a Catholic Nationalist MP for County Clare from whom she separated around 1875. Katharine first met Parnell in 1880 and began an affair with him. Three of Katharine's children were fathered by Parnell; the first, Claude Sophie, died early in 1882. The others were Claire (born 1883) and Katharine (born 1884). Captain O'Shea knew about the relationship. He challenged Parnell to a duel in 1881 and initially forbade his estranged wife to see him, although she said that he encouraged her in the relationship. However, he kept publicly quiet for several years. Although their relationship was a subject of gossip in London political circles from 1881, later public knowledge of the affair in an England governed by "Victorian morality" with a "nonconformist conscience" created a huge scandal, as adultery was prohibited by the Ten Commandments.
Out of her family connection to the Liberal Party, Katharine acted as liaison between Parnell and Gladstone during negotiations prior to the introduction of the First Irish Home Rule Bill in April 1886. Parnell moved to her home in Eltham, close to the London-Kent border, that summer.
Captain O'Shea filed for divorce in 1889; his reasons are a matter for speculation. He may have had political motives. Alternatively, it was claimed that he had been hoping for an inheritance from Katharine's rich aunt whom he had expected to die earlier, but when she died in 1889, aged 97, her money was left in trust to cousins. After the divorce the court awarded custody of Katharine O'Shea and Parnell's two surviving daughters to her ex-husband.
Who's in the right? Who's in the wrong?
No_one
1d ago
Iain McGilchrist comes across to me as a religious mystic and obscurantist. Yes people find it exceptionally easy to delude themselves for entirely explicable reasons (see e.g. Hanson & Simler's book) and science is hard, but entirely mechanical phenomena can create incredible complexity without major problems.
McGilchrist is very ready to make sweeping conclusions that veer into outright hallucinations (metaphysics etc).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matter_with_Things
In Part III, "What Then is True?", McGilchrist asks and attempts to answer the question "what is truth?", before turning to a wide-ranging exploration of the nature of reality: the coincidence of opposites (the idea that at a deeper, higher or transcendent level, apparent opposites may be reconciled or find union); the one and the many; time; flow and movement; space and matter; matter and consciousness; value; purpose, life and the nature of the cosmos; and the sense of the sacred. McGilchrist further argues that consciousness, rather than matter, is ontologically fundamental.[5]
That all seems like someone who doesn't understand that 'believing you are the center of the universe and somehow matter' is an adaptive psychological mechanism you'd expect to find in any vital organism, but unlikely to be actually true in the sense that 'the universe came into being to create humanity'.
No_one
1d ago
Nobody is saying that. Nobody can even alter fifty places in the genome safely today, certainly not in a human embryo.
No_one
1d ago
So... even though the twin studies can't really be proven, despite two decades of intensive, worldwide research focus and ungodly amounts of funding, he still argues they are "mostly right."
80% of the people whose job theoretically is to determine the validity of twin studies are psychologically invested into finding them not true.
If twin studies are correct and most outcomes are due to 'lack of abuse' and 'genetics', as theorized by people such as fascists or authors of the 'Nurture assumption', then the bulk of policies liberals like are going to be found wanting. Scientists are generally left of center (won't punch left) and sometimes hard left (Gould, for example, who probably falsified evidence in the Morton case or was deliberately sloppy)
I have little confidence that these studies are being carried out by impartial parties and in good faith.
I'm pleasantly surprised that Scott said this much.
Let's dig in to the history of divorce to see how we got to where we are today. The alimony and property division subjects seem to be different from state to state, so it's not automatically "she will take half your stuff and your future income". Historically, divorce was obtained solely, largely, and more easily by the wealthy; men were the major earners, work opportunities for women were much more limited; a divorced woman (especially one with children) would often be socially ostracised and would find it difficult to impossible to remarry and marriage was the main form of maintaining/obtaining income and status (widows were also often in reduced circumstances); men might/would remarry more easily and form new families. Therefore there was an expectation (for the better-off) of maintaining a similar standard of living to what they had enjoyed, and the duty to provide for the abandoned wife and children so they would not be destitute. Men of high status might disinherit children of a former marriage when contracting a new (and better, trading up) marriage for reasons of inheritance rights (see Henry VIII legally changing the status of his daughters Mary and Elizabeth to that of bastards so they had no claims on the throne), so this was important to provide for such children.
So the power in divorces swung gradually, over time and with the fights for rights of women, from men (who could more easily divorce their wives and often used the threat of "I'll take custody of the children and you will never see them again", as legal custody used to be automatically granted to the father, to force their wives into either remaining in the legal marriage or to accept worse settlements in the case of divorce) towards women - automatic or nearly so granting of custody to the mother rather than the father, 'palimony' cases and the likes.
Was this abused? Sure. Just as the previous state of affairs had been abused when the power lay with men. 'No fault' divorce came about because the old procedure was long-drawn out and often difficult to prove (hence the fake adultery cases). It was supposed to be quicker, easier and cheaper when the marriage had irretrievably broken down and both parties agreed they wanted to end it. Of course, the social views at the time (divorce will be last resort) then eroded over time as divorce became more and more acceptable and commonplace, to now where one party can get a divorce even if the other party doesn't want to end the marriage.
This is, after all, the point of the slippery slope argument: you can't fossilise attitudes to be the same forever as at the time you make the changes in the name of compassion or inclusivity or whatever. You start off with the hard cases and the view that "of course this will always be last resort, we just want to help those genuinely suffering" and as the 'last resort' moves from "socially unacceptable" to "tolerated" to "accepted" to "the new normal", or course it will no longer be the 'last resort'.
The Society for Promoting the Amendment of the Law in the 1850s published proposals suggesting that divorce should be dealt with in a separate Court and should be a cheaper process. These proposals were accepted and by the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes came into existence and the Ecclesiastical jurisdiction over divorce was abolished. The 1857 reforms only changed procedure and adultery remained as the only ground available for divorce. If a wife was the party claiming a divorce, she had to prove cruelty or desertion, in addition to the act of adultery by her husband.
Abuse of the new procedure by wealthy Victorian families, combined with clashes between the Government of the time and the Church, meant that further reform was slow in coming. A Royal Commission in 1912 suggested that cruelty or 3 years’ desertion should be introduced as separate grounds for divorce and that the rights between wives and husbands should be equalised. The Church was opposed to anything that widened the possibility of divorce and the recommendations of the Royal Commission were defeated in 1914. A further Royal Commission in 1923 attempted the same reforms but only succeeded in equalising the rights between wives and husbands. As a matter of practice, married couples often contrived to stage an act of adultery by the husband to achieve a divorce ‘by consent’. In 1935 a committee within the Church finally agreed to the proposals originally suggested by the Royal Commission in 1912. Further reform suggestions were delayed until post-Second World War and in 1951 a bill was presented in Parliament to permit divorce by consent after separation for 7 years. A Royal Commission argued against this proposal in 1955, however Lord Walker in the arguments of that 1955 Royal Commission dissented and suggested divorce should be permitted where a marriage had irretrievably broken down. After a further 10 years, this approach was endorsed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and was brought into law by the Divorce Reform Act 1969.
The current position is set out in the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 and the sole ground for divorce is that the marriage has irretrievably broken down. This breakdown can be proved by the fact of adultery by one of the parties, unreasonable (abusive) behaviour, 2 years’ separation if both parties consent, 2 years’ desertion or 5 years’ separation if only one party consents. Originally under the 1973 Act, the parties had to wait until 3 years into the marriage before a divorce could be applied for but this period was reduced to 1 year by the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984.
And that's in England, the USA has gone its own way and introduced, state by state, its own laws. Take the Nevada divorces, where the state purposely made it as easy as possible for people to come to Nevada, fulfil the six month residency requirement, and get a divorce - all in the name of money-spinning for the local economy. That's got little to nothing to do with the rights of women or helping men get divorce-raped because they believed Women Are Wonderful. In this particular case, if you look at the formal notice issued, you have to admit it's some cheek to claim the wife deserted the husband, as he took up with a married woman and they fecked off to America where he then deliberately contracted a bigamous (under British law) marriage with her so his English wife could divorce him at home:
Russell became infatuated with Marion (known as Mollie) Somerville, who was at that time married to George Somerville, with whom Russell had become friendly during the campaign in Hammersmith. ...She campaigned for Russell; the two became close and were seen together at several events. When she fell ill early in 1899, Russell let her use one of his residences, and the two went away together, travelling via France to America. Russell planned to use laxer American divorce laws to end his marriage to Mabel Russell.
Russell and Mollie Somerville journeyed to Chicago, but learned that local laws had recently been tightened, and required a year's residence, with other restrictive provisions. North Dakota and Arizona Territory were also considered, and in the latter case visited, but also required living there a year. Nevada, with only a six-month requirement, was more practical. They settled in Glenbrook, on Lake Tahoe, for the winter of 1899–1900. On 14 April 1900 both Russell and Somerville were granted divorces. Their marriage ceremony in Reno before Judge Benjamin Franklin Curler took place on 15 April. They honeymooned on the way to America's East Coast, including at Denver's Brown Palace Hotel, where Russell told a reporter that a charge of bigamy would never stick. The couple returned to Britain the following month.
Russell knew such a divorce was invalid under English law, which refused to recognise foreign divorces obtained by British subjects; his intent was to allow Mabel Russell to obtain a divorce on the grounds of bigamy following adultery, which would also free him to marry again: he deposited £5,000 that would go to her upon a divorce to ensure her cooperation.
Beginning when Russell wired news of his Nevada marriage to appear as a notice in The Times, there was considerable press interest on both sides of the Atlantic in what had occurred. Both Mabel Russell and George Somerville filed for divorce, and each gained them uncontested, subject to the usual waiting period before the decrees became absolute. Russell, on his return, took his seat on the LCC as if nothing had occurred. There was, initially, no other official reaction, society accepted them as a married couple, and Mollie appeared on the 1901 census as "Mollie Russell".
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
1d ago
None of that is necessary to keep a car at home.
Why do you believe Henry over Catherine? I have a lot more reason to trust her word than his, and that of Anne Boleyn whose own ambition and that of her family had led her to work towards this marriage over a long period.
Arthur, heir to the throne, Henry's elder brother and Catherine's husband, was married at the age of fifteen and died six months later of (presumed to be) the sweating sickness. There are allegations that he had been growing weaker and more sickly since the wedding in the period leading up to his death. Doubts about the consummation of the marriage are therefore not unreasonable. Evidence as to its being consummated relied on third-party hearsay by those highly incentivised to please the king in his trial over "I'm right and this bitch is wrong, force her to do what I say":
So an attempt at consummation, ending in premature ejaculation but no full penetration, on the part of inexperienced and over-excited teenagers is entirely possible.
Remember, they were both only fifteen. Catherine certainly would have been raised strictly and come to the marriage a virgin, and it is unlikely (though not impossible) that Arthur had much if any opportunity for sexual experimentation before his marriage. Henry VII's household seems to have been run strictly and on moral lines, and besides that, the risk of bastards or entanglements with prior claims for marriage by the daughters of noble houses on the grounds of "your son had sex with me" were way too much of a risk for the very shaky House of Tudor whose grasp on the throne had not been well-established and was, even in the times of Henry VIII, vulnerable to rival counter-claims by the likes of the Pole family whose own ancestry was every bit as royal or even better. Henry VIII was, in the wake of his brother's early death, very closely monitored, even smothered, by his father who oversaw his upbringing.
Henry VII did not want to lose the alliance he had worked for so hard, nor the dowry he had been promised (his frugal, not to say penny-pinching, attitude to the royal finances enabled him to leave behind at his death a full treasury, massive public resentment at the tax regime he had inflicted on them, very unpopular scapegoats in the form of his tax collectors who were then promptly executed by his son in order to placate the public, and that same full treasury was then blown through by Henry VIII who lived extravagantly beyond the means of the English economy of the time).
Henry wasn't about to lose that Spanish princess nor pay back what dowry he had received, so he put pressure on to have the marriage annulled in order to enable his second son, and now only male heir, to marry her when he came of age. It was Henry VIII who later had the scruples about "oh I must have inadvertently married my brother's widow, which is incest, and the Old Testament says God punishes that, this is why I have no living male heirs and must annul this illegal marriage so I can marry my current mistress", and put the pressure on the pope of the time to do so.
I agree about the political and military reasons for the pope to reject this (who wants to offend the Holy Roman Emperor?) but it also put him in the difficult position of countermanding the dispensation provided by a previous pope, just on the whims of English kings: "yeah we know we previously asked your predecessor to grant us a dispensation to say this marriage was valid and licit, now we want you to grant a dispensation to say it's invalid and illicit". This wasn't just a matter of a legal quibble or overturning a previous court decision, this touches on the Power of the Keys. If we're talking about "why get canon lawyers involved?", the King's Great Matter involved Henry sending scholars all over Europe to get canon law and theological opinions in his favour, a resounding lack of same, leading to him having to heavily rely on his pet theologians in the universities at home, and even the likes of Luther going "well uh no he's properly married, just copy the Biblical patriarchs and take a second wife you muppet". The failure to push through the divorce caused the downfall of Cardinal Wolsey, up till then the most powerful man in England next to the king, and later on that of St Thomas More for his efforts to avoid being pressured into "hey, everyone in Europe respects Tom and he agrees with me, so this new marriage must be kosher, yeah?"
Catherine was a devout Catholic (not in the modern term of the phrase which seems to just mean "Catholic who agrees with the Democratic party agenda on everything") and would have been very aware of the moral implications of committing perjury. It would have been a lot easier for her to go along with Henry's demands (as Anne of Cleves did in her own situation at a later time) and would have made her daughter, Mary's, position more secure - but she did not.
You can believe she was lying because she was a jealous, spiteful woman - or you can believe she was telling the truth and an impatient king brought pressure to bear in order to get his own way at the behest of an ambitious woman who, ironically, then failed to provide the son she had promised Henry, a promise which had strung him along for years and kept his wandering attention fixed on her, and then boomeranged when this same spiteful man had her trial brought forward for displeasing and embarrassing him. Catherine was left to die of cancer, Anne got a public execution and her replacement installed as wife and queen on the very same day.
I know who I find more credible, and it ain't Henry, the guy who had mistresses throughout his marriages, over his faithful wife.
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