Ab_Normal

all quotes from long winded fool
Um, how is me having non-reproductive sex with my husband in the privacy of my own home going to inspire somebody else to have sex? Should I also refrain from kissing him in public, just to make sure that nobody gets the wrong idea? [slippery slope]Should we also make sure that nobody ever dresses in a way that can inspire sexual desire? Do you happen to have a burka franchise?[/slippery slope]

You don't know me or my husband. You don't know our relationship or our libidos. But let me tell you this. If we didn't have consensual, non-reproductive sex, our relationship would suffer, which to me is a greater harm, and therefore even more irrational.

And what about homosexual sex? It can never be reproductive, so it won't lead to overpopulation, which was one of the harms you cited for sex. Should we be encouraging that instead? But wait, you say it's bad, because it's not reproductive. Catch-22, anybody?

I have as yet inchoate objections to this statement. Logic-chopping infidels, please help: is this a fallacy of false dichotomy?

(What's really weird is, I'm the least libidinous person I know. And here I am defending sexuality.)

long winded fool

Keep in mind that I'm not advocating the ban of non-reproductive sexuality anymore than I'm advocating the ban of cowardice. Humans are animals and animals are both fearful and lustful. These are nothing to be ashamed of in themselves. Elevating them to the status of things that are good and ought to be pursued is. You are not terrible if you tend have non-reproductive sex often in the privacy of your own home with your spouse. Neither are you terrible if you have arachnophobia. Both fear and lust are the human condition. It is wrong however to elevate irrationality and instinct in the minds of young people to a status quo. It should not be considered perfectly normal and healthy to have irrational fear nor irrational sex. It should merely be considered something that each of us needs to work on for the good of the species.

Having sex with your husband in your home would not necessarily inspire someone else to have sex. Proclaiming that sex is meant for pleasure and enjoyment more than for reproduction will show others that casual sex is okay. It is quite possible to love someone without having sex with them, and kissing is not sex, therefore there is nothing irrational about kissing someone you love. The same goes for dressing to inspire sexual desire. It doesn't matter how you dress, and it doesn't matter how much I desire you, I am only being irresponsible if I have sex with you for purposes other than fathering your child. (All assuming I am intelligent enough to know the evolutionary purpose of sexual desire.)

You don't know me or my husband. You don't know our relationship or our libidos. But let me tell you this. If we didn't have consensual, non-reproductive sex, our relationship would suffer, which to me is a greater harm, and therefore even more irrational.

That's unfortunately common. There are many cases where, if both partners are not of the same religion or belief system, the relationship suffers. In the case of a Christian and an atheist, would it be equally irrational for the atheist to refuse to become Christian? On the contrary, it would be more rational for the atheist to follow his personal beliefs at the expense of his relationship. I would never marry a woman who needed sex for her relationships to be healthy any more than I'd marry a woman who needed me to have any specific illogical belief. If we all looked for unconditional love in a relationship instead of settling for dishonest submission and the opportunity to temporarily relieve irrational fears like lonliness, perhaps the world would be a better and less crowded place.

And what about homosexual sex? It can never be reproductive, so it won't lead to overpopulation, which was one of the harms you cited for sex. Should we be encouraging that instead? But wait, you say it's bad, because it's not reproductive. Catch-22, anybody?

Good question. Forgetting STDs for the moment, homosexual sex is not harmful to other homosexuals. It does, however, fall into the category of casual sex being treated as a thing to pursue instead of avoid, and therefore is harmful to heterosexuals. If we were all homosexual and there were no STD's, entertaining the instinct of lust would not be harmful to the species. (assuming there were male and female volunteers to propogate the species at a healthy rate.) Since this is not the case, and since homosexual sex by definition is sex without the purpose of reproduction, advocating it as rationally acceptible behavior is wrong because it normalizes sex for fun instead of sex for reproduction. Also keep in mind that promoting sex without intent of reproduction still promotes sex. Those in areas of little food who fail to take necessary precautions wind up with more mouths to feed. If we ought not promote giving birth to unsupportable babies as rational behavior, we ought not to promote engaging in sex for pleasure as a rational behavior, since this is too often outcome.

I have as yet inchoate objections to this statement. Logic-chopping infidels, please help: is this a fallacy of false dichotomy?

(What's really weird is, I'm the least libidinous person I know. And here I am defending sexuality.)

This could be a false dichotomy, but you must show another possibility that I haven't addressed. I have gathered all of the possibilities I could imagine together and refuted them with this one statement because I am confident that all of the possibilities fall into one of these two general categories. Barring spirituality and the supernatural which I'm assuming most people posting here would reject as a basis for a rational argument, I believe that instinct and reason are the basis for all human thought. All humans have a mix of the two. When reason fails, instinct can keep us alive, however, only reason can tell us when our instincts are failing. Our instinct of fear of the unknown fails us when we are afraid of dark skin color, because reason shows that racial equality is beneficial to the species, while instinctual fear is detrimental. I believe that this is also the case with sexuality. Casual sex as a pursuit spreads in the same way that racism spreads. Riots start because of people abandoning reason and feeding off of their respective instinctual fears and the fight or flight response. The collective embrace of sexuality solely as a source of pleasure also spreads because of instinct over reason.

"If it feels good and doesn't cause harm to another, then go ahead and do it," is a simple way of saying, "If following instinct doesn't contradict logic and reason, then go ahead and do it." Since casual sex is detrimental to an overpopulated species with no predators, casual sex, and anything which directly promotes it, contradicts logic and reason and ought not to be done. Since you can't really legislate personal morality, I don't argue that casual sex, and anything which directly promotes it, ought to be outlawed. I compare casual sex with personal, private racism. I can believe anything I want in a free country, but logic and reason tell me what I ought to believe. I ought to believe that racism is wrong and that it is wrong to teach impressionable children otherwise, and I ought to believe that casual sex (sex without the purpose of reproduction) is morally wrong and that it is morally wrong to teach impressionable children otherwise.

LHP Adept

I have been saying (words to that effect) for years. Until recently, I thought it was indisputable. However, there is one point someone made in a conversation a while back.

If people are free to have all the sex they want, a lot more total man-hours (and woman-hours) will be spent on this enjoyable but unproductive pursuit than in a more repressive society. A more repressive society generates more labor hours per capita.
One theory is that this factor (combined with the sabbath, a day of nonlabor) is the main reason Christian Europe and Muslim Persia became so much more scientifically and technologically advanced than the more sexually open cultures of the east.

Also, since lifelong behavior patterns are largely influenced by early life experience, a policy of shielding children from things that encourage them to think about sex may foster develpoment of an adult personality which will spend less time/energy on sexual activity, be more industrious, and acheive more in life.

All of which only serves to advance the notion that a less sexually open culture may have practical utility, not that it is morally superior.

Ab_Normal

lwf, I must conclude that your human experience is greatly different from mine. *bows out*

long winded fool

Ab_Normal, I don't think our experiences differ all that much as believe it or not I really want to agree with you. I'm just as human as anyone else. I simply haven't yet found a rationale that will let me and yours doesn't strike me as a reasonable interpretation. But all the same, I thank you for taking the time to share it with me.

Why is practical utility a goal? If "morally superior" means that one arbitrary assertion is better than another solely because a majority agree on it in a society, then I agree with the above statement. If morally superior means that the society works together for a common goal in a better way than another, then I would argue that the most practically useful society is the morally superior society. If the goal of society is the survival of its members, it is irrational, and by my definition immoral, to promote behavior ultimately detrimental to the society, even if said behavior seems temporarily beneficial. Those who do are being counter-productive. If morality is not practical utility, then what is it? Personal opinion is subjective and therefore cannot be a meaningful definition of morality as it is ever changing and by definition contradictory. To meaningfully answer the question of childhood sexuality being moral or immoral, I suppose we need a common definition of the word "moral." "What I personally think," is not an acceptable definition for me. There is no possible way to come to a useful conclusion with this as a premise. "What logically follows, assuming a goal of the survival of the most humans possible for as long as possible," sounds more like my interpretation of what it means in human society to be moral or immoral.

The AntiChris

The logical extension of this, and your previous argument, is that any human activity motivated by the desire for pleasure for its own sake is shameful and should be condemned.

Do you really believe this?

Chris

long winded fool

The logical extension is that any irrational activity motivated by pleasure for its own sake is shameful. Because something gives me pleasure does not automatically make it shameful nor does it automatically make it rational. Taking pleasure from eating is fine. Using the pleasure as an excuse to gorge is shameful.

Loren Pechtel

So, having sex to the point that it interferes with earning a living is wrong. How many people do that?

Farren

Long-winded fool

The a priori assumption in all of your quotes seems to be "If you act on a drive for anything other than its (apparent) evolutionary 'purpose', you are being irrational and counter-productive to the long-term wellbeing of the species, and this is in some sense morally wrong"

With respect, I utterly disagree, for a number of reasons:

1) If we stop physically evolving entirely but continue to enjoy health and prosperity as a species in harmony with our environment, whats the beef? If I wank and throw away all that useful genetic material who does it harm? If I engage in safe sex with contraceptives how does it contribute to human or any other misery?

2) Almost every drive we have demonstrably has a multitude of purposes. A lot of the stuff I've read deals with the role of sex in regulating & cementing social relationships. I read something two days ago (I think it was from another II forum) about a study in Japan showing how a particular breed of monkey practices lesbianism as a means to regulate social relationships. The sharing of food is a social regulator in many species.

New Scientest recently ran an interesting insert on peculiar evolutionary case studies about a bird (a Tit, I think), in the arabian peninsular that is supremely altruistic, living in large colonies and demonstrating its social status by grooming and caring for other birds and their offspring.

Natural selection doesn't produce digital algorithms like computer programming (this variable is for function X, this one for function Y). It appropriates existing characteristics for as many functions as it will serve. Reproduction may be ther primary function of sex, but its niave to think it is the only "intended" natural function.

3) We have reached a point in evolution where cultural/mental evolution and physical evolution directly affect each other and are in a dialogue. Ideas, thoughts and philosophies have a selective effect on our future in a way that they don't, say, in flatworms. In this your reasoning is partly correct.

However, this gives us an even greater reason to experiment sexually, since the mechanism by which evolution produces "positive" change (I put the positive in quotes because of a slew of arguments not directly relevant to this post) - is departure from the norm. Arguing that we should stick to the original function of sex is almost like arguing that we should _stop_ evolving.

The AntiChris

I'm having trouble following your reasoning.

Are you saying that it's the motivation which renders the act irrational (and therefore shameful) or the consequences of the act which renders it irrational?

In other words, do you believe the desire to have sex without procreation is shameful or are you saying that the consequences of sex without procreation are shameful?

Chris