I try very hard to not tell people their own lived experience is not what they think it is, especially when I haven't undergone that experience

I'm all "but I study sociology and anthropology, FFS! It's like, the description of it!".

I have to admit it's been a long time since I was in college -- you you mean that sociology and anthropology are about defining other peoples' lived experiences for them, rather than letting them define the experiences themselves, since they -- and not the sociologist/anthropologist -- lived it?

(I was a journalism major. We just wrote down what people told us. And drank A LOT.)

Giving birth to my two kids definitely hurt but it was also the greatest high I have ever experienced. I know that part was hormones but I still felt like I ruled the entire fucking world. Part of it also was conquering that fear of what was about to happen. I know I am weird but I would happily give birth again (although I don't really want to be pregnant.).

We learned about illegal drugs in our high school health class. I remember telling my girlfriend about all the drugs I'd learned about, and she said, "Yeah, I did all those." Including PCP. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure she was a pathological liar....

I'm wary of defining an experience as "mythical" just because we understand the biological underpinnings. Especially when we're talking about emotions - how people feel about their own experiences isn't something that can be usefully defined in those terms.

It's like saying, well, the Mona Lisa didn't do much for me personally so it must not really be art.

Sociology and anthropology, in a nut shell, are turning the foreign and the strange into the known and familiar, and vice versa. In less than a nut shell, one of the major names in anthropology (which I disagree with on some things - but he's still oh-very-basic text book): [link] (short article in PDF)

It's not that sociology and anthropology are the mere embodiment of "things you can see from here, you can't see from there (AKA: you need a proxy)" idea. It's a colonialist science, in a way. We stick to the descriptions of life from the people themselves, but we have to explain it, so we have to turn into other methods because people aren't rational creatures. And when I see a process of hours of pain, blood and screaming described as beautiful, I have to explain it to myself. And some very interesting ideas and writings come from that point. It's not that they're universally true or anything - but they suggest another way of thinking, which to me, is quite priceless in this mass production reality. They offer me another way to think of things.

One of my favorite observation techniques is interviewing people about what they do, and then watch them, and notice all of the things they never mentioned, but still a part of their job/position. It's the anthropologist/sociologist job to offer an explanation to this difference and behavior.

We stick to the descriptions of life from the people themselves, but we have to explain it, so we have to turn into other methods because people aren't rational creatures.

I don't see "explaining" something as "redefining" something. As in the example, if a woman who labored for 48 hours calls it "beautiful" then I would expect an explanation to be "This woman labored for 48 hours and says it was a beautiful experience," not "This woman labored for 48 hours and says it was a beautiful experience, but that description seems suspicious to me so I will call it something else."

One is explaining, and one is redefining someone else's own lived experience.

And maybe I am just thinking like a journalist. You report what someone did/said; you don't offer your spin on it. (At least, you don't offer your spin in *good* journalism that is *not* intended to be an editorial/opinion. But editorials/opinions are labeled as such so that right at the outset the reader knows that the journalist is going beyond just reporting what happened.)

I'm wary of defining an experience as "mythical" just because we understand the biological underpinnings. Especially when we're talking about emotions - how people feel about their own experiences isn't something that can be usefully defined in those terms.

I didn't try to define the experience as mythical, and I'm sorry if I am read in that way. However, I think that we mystify a lot of things - just look at commercials that tell you that you'll get a guy/happiness if you'll buy the product - because we're human and that's what we do. It doesn't mean that we're "wrong", in that way. It doesn't mean that child giving isn't an amazing experience. It just means that we might explain it to ourselves that way because we're human. And being the outsider that I am, I usually prefer other techniques of explanations. A professor I appreciate wrote that sociology is a science without sanctity. I disagree: I think that the only thing that's sacred in sociology is the humanity of all. But other than that? It's all about "screw this idea: I've got a theory. Also, WTF is wrong with these people?".

As in the example, if a woman who labored for 48 hours calls it "beautiful" then I would expect an explanation to be "This woman labored for 48 hours and says it was a beautiful experience," not "This woman labored for 48 hours and says it was a beautiful experience, but that description seems suspicious to me so I will call it something else."

I'd probably say, ". . . but that description seems suspicious to me because I understand there are significant hormonal and cultural influences at work that may be influencing her perceptions. So while she may have found the experience subjectively 'beautiful' I am reluctant to assign the event the objective description 'beautiful' until I can get further data."

Ah, very good points to clarify:

I don't see "explaining" something as "redefining" something.

Good! Neither do I.

You report what someone did/said; you don't offer your spin on it.

That just the thing: we don't report merely on what someone did/said. We also offer an interpretation of why that someone did/said that.

As in the example, if a woman who labored for 48 hours calls it "beautiful" then I would expect an explanation to be "This woman labored for 48 hours and says it was a beautiful experience," not "This woman labored for 48 hours and says it was a beautiful experience, but that description seems suspicious to me so I will call it something else."

So in this case, "This woman labored for 48 hours and says it was a beautiful experience," should be the starting point of why she described it as beautiful, using her own words - and not my original thought.

If we'd take at face value people's reports on why they're doing what they're doing without questioning things that we see both as normal and abnormal, we should have been stayed at the same place as a society. But we're not. We're changing. Language is changing. "Hot" isn't just a temperature anymore, but a scale of beauty. And that's why thick description is important: because we're not flat/two-dimensional creatures. We're changing, and so are the myths we're creating. So it doesn't matter if I believe/don't believe the woman. It's important to research her conceptualization and feelings. Because they matter to society, as a whole.

Edit: and yeah, what Calli wrote.

I'd probably say, ". . . but that description seems suspicious to me because I understand there are significant hormonal and cultural influences at work that may be influencing her perceptions. So while she may have found the experience subjectively 'beautiful' I am reluctant to assign the event the objective description 'beautiful' until I can get further data."

I just don't understand someone even trying to assign an *objective* description to *someone else's* lived experience. Like, "I think childbirth is bloody and scary and painful, so your description of your own experience of delivering your child as beautiful CANNOT BE RIGHT, objectively."