Glory

Hey! I performed Tom Jones in college and I am not old. I am no longer young, but I am not old.

Glory

Clutch

Isn't TJ a classic? Knowing the book or movie(s) isn't quite like knowing who played drums for Blue Oyster Cult.

In fact, I'm pretty sure I've read even older books and seen older movies still...

Anyhow, count on liv to bring in the classic of bawdiness. Good old livius! Er, young livius. Er, livius.

Gallimore

Maybe we can, maybe we can’t. Since when did we ever decide to evolve? Did the caveman decide to lose his chest hair? To look like Tom Cruise? Maybe not.

We somehow have evolved (not by decision) to manipulate our psychological, perhaps physiological, make up, yes. If we have such power of mind, I still don’t think we will ever want to detach emotion (not sexual excitement, but love) from the act. Why should we? To evolve into creatures that do not “sweat, grind our teeth, or endure the 100’s of other physiological and emotional reactions” isn’t my argument. My argument is this: How wonderful! We have a privilege of choice.

Try and read the 18th century pornography, all through the decades to the present. Browse countless porno graphical websites. Immerse yourself into this permissive society. What will you say? You will say, “How blind the religion, how blind the whole civilization.” Sex is fun. It is true. But it is, above all, important because it makes us less easily deceived, misguided, rescuing us from the chagrin what you so aptly call “100’s of other physiological and emotional reactions when we hear of a partner’s infidelity.” Perhaps we are evolving, as giraffes have grown their necks to reach the tallest leaf, away from our perpetual bathos into a more intellectually and sexually satisfactory situation. Perhaps this is the case of the survival of the fittest. Giraffes were suffering of starvation, so their bodes changed. If we’re suffering ourselves of physiological and emotional distress, so will our hormones change?

Everyone caters to the sexual implication of mass media. Everyone drools or envies over the magazine poster of a Brittany, a Christina, an endless Lolita. Everyone knows pornography has gained incomparable popularity. What then? Did we decide to evolve into this?

I was reading recently one of the most revealing articles. An article about two patients in a hospital. One is diagnosed with a deadly disease. The other has a severe case of pneumonia. By human error, their clipboards are switched. The doctor tells the one with a deadly disease that he has pneumonia, and will be well in a month. The other doctor tells the other patient that he will die soon. A terrible error, yes. But what then? The one with a deadly disease is excessively happy that he becomes healthy. In a month, he is released from the hospital. The other takes an alternation for worst. Let me amplify. When a man has sex, there is a peptide called testerone that catapults its way to excite human hormones in the endocrine system secreted in the hypothalamus in his brain – all round his nerve system, his stomach, even his heart. It pervades him. There is scientific evidence that such activity may be induced when a man looks at a Playboy magazine on the coffee table, the flash of a nipple, a glimpse of a woman bending down. What then? Can mind control body? If it can, can it change human hormones? Will we, then, change our minds about the production of such hormones? Can we say “no” with confidence?
Maybe we can, maybe we can’t.

Bracer

Ouch! I resemble that remark!

Al Bouchard, IIRC...

Bumble Bee Tuna

Sex can have meaning. It also can not have meaning. Sex with meaning is better than sex without. Neither are bad. People feel guilty and are "harmed" by sex when they have the misguided view that they did something wrong, usually coming from some ancient religious beliefs that were supposed to create a social moral construct back when birth control didn't exist and non-monogomous sex was generally very bad for society.
I honestly fail to see the purpose of this topic.

Yay for sex.

-B

luvluv

Vork:

I'm not posting in relation to anything quite so formal as how "societies regulated sex". My basic point was to show how societies viewed the meaning or importance of the sex act. When I did mention regulations it was in reference to how these regulations revealed their attitudes.

I am not trying to argue from the perspective of "all societies do it... therefore it should be done". I'm saying that, resembling each other as we all do in terms of physiology and psychology, what makes us think we can succesfully do differently. My argument was really more biological in nature, I referenced other cultures partially to emphasize how our sexual attitudes are largely regulated by biology. When you take me as making cultural points, I was attempting to reach across social circumstances to make a biological point. Given how we have been built to regard sexual intercourse as a meaningful activity which leads to procreation, can we now disregard all the evolutionary and biological intents of the sex act and simply do it for the pleasure alone without consequences?

There is a such thing as casual sex, particularly in relation to other kinds of sex. We all have had sex where it was meaningless gratification and we've had sex with people we love in which the act concretized our deep feelings for each other. The two can definitely be distinguished. Unless you are dead inside, it feels different to have sex with someone you love than it does to have sex with someone you don't even know.

Nonsense, sir. You are reading your own biases into my statement. I'm merely challenging whether it is wise to pretend as if sex has no meaning or that we can decide what meaning it has independant of our biology and physiology. I could have said everything I said just as effectively as an atheist, as many atheists attempted to do on the pre-marital sex thread.

What part of me explicity stating that I was not interested in controlling people was unclear? I am merely calling into question certain prevailing attitudes about sex. Can I not even question such attitudes unless I want to control them? That seems absurd to me, that to even offer and defend an alternate opinion is "controlling". These are just the knee jerk defense mechanisms people have been trained to respond with around the sacred cow of sex in this society. I am not interested in controlling anyone, and if I was wouldn't this forum be a bad place to be doing so? I could go to a religious board and find lots of canidates if I wanted to try to control people. I am challenging your views, and I believe that is my right.

Clutch and Vorkosagian:

My reference to "the sex act" was meant to imply sexual intercourse involving penetration of the vagina by the penis. (I should write Hallmark cards). No, humanity has probably not generally taken masturbation seriously, but the same could probably not be said about sexual intercourse.

Clutch:


I don't believe I said it had one recurrent meaning attached to it, I simply said it DID have meaning attached to it, and a generally more serious meaning than that which attends other activities.

Okay Clutch, if two people shared an elevator or a cup of coffee, would you say that said anything meaningul about their relationship?

Now what if the same two people had sex? Would it mean anything to their relationship?

That's all I'm saying.

Bumble Bee:

In other words, if you cheated on your husband or wife and you felt guilty, that would be because of an ancient religious belief.

Also, if your husband or wife cheated on you, can I assume you would not want him or her to feel guilty?

For everybody:

I will really be a happy camper on the day I can post on this board and not have people respond to me as if I am a WASPy, backwater, country preacher and actually respond to what I am writing instead of casting me into the part of "theist" that you have branded onto the back of your collective skulls. Since I've been here, have I struck any of you as your average theist? I've said repeatedly that my views on this subject are not necessarily the result of religious indoctrination, but from personal experience. I've been hurt, I've hurt other people, and I am in an environment where I am constantly seeing people being hurt, in my opinion because they do not have enough respect for the station of sexuality. And that comes from sexuality in our culture being trivilialized into recreation... indistinguishable from going to the movies or catching a concert. Morally and emotionally, sex is in a fundamentally different category from all other human behavior. How could that statement be controversial at all?

Folks, you wanna disagree with me, fine. But I barely gave mention to anything remotely religious in my original document, so please don't give me that bunk about all my opinions being the result of religious indoctrination. I did not use religion at all in attempting to make my case. I merely stated that both from a religious and an atheistic standpoint, we have no reason to believe that sex can be pursued purely for pleasure without consequences. We haven't been designed/evolved for such a turn of events.

Amos

The above is not exactly true unless it is just a coincident that with the rise of the sexual revolution in North America also came the rise in infertility.

We are here today because of creation. Life must first be created in the sperm to be conceived in the ovum and sexual intercourse is not really part of this.

galiel

Rick Downey? Or was that after Albert Bouchard. (actually, I'm kidding--I did a Google search to find out their names. BOC was actually after my time...)

Thanks, all, you are all neat, groovy and copasetic. This ol' man is sniffling with gratitude.

galiel

The above is not exactly true. Um, not even remotely true. The above is merely theist dogma. I now return you to your regularly scheduled madness.

galiel

NIT, nitnitnitnitnitnit.

Giraffes did NOT change their bodies by stretching to reach the tallest leaf (Lamark was wrong), and physical evolution is not the same thing as societal evolution. plus, you are confusing metaphor with fact. Actual physical starvation and metaphorical psychic "starvation" are NOT the same thing. If you doubt it, try not eating for a while.

I am not implying this casts any doubt on your actual argument, I'm just a bit of a fanatic about correcting popular myths about science.