What about chemical feedstock? An awful lot of very important and convenient stuff is made out of oil. It isn't that there are NO substitutes ever, it's that there are often no easy substitutes. Oil is a great source of molecules which do all kind of fantastic stuff, like dental parts and glues, for instance, or pharmaceuticals. An awful lot of stuff has oil as a component.

A rule of thumb is that major new technology takes 40 or 50 years to be established. For instance, from the beginning to full deployment, solar will likely take 50 years -- including building necessary transmission lines, developing and deploying battery installations (of some kind), developing solar/thermal as well as solar/electric, etc. Same for wind. Full deployment is not 50 years from today, but 50 years from when we started which is like 10-15 years ago.

Kunstler points out how very very very dependent the world is on oil. Electricity isn't the main thing that oil provides. It's conveniently packaged, highly potent, shelf-stable energy. The car runs on oil, but it is also lubricated with oil, it's upholstery and carpet is made from oil, the paint and rust proofing is made from oil, the tires are largely made from oil. The plastic dashboard and door covers are made from oil.

A good share of clothing is made from oil (i.e. polyester), as is carpeting, indoor/outdoor paint, plastic bags, plastic packaging, plastic containers, plastic furniture.

Going back to natural fiber (wool, linen, cotton, leathers and feathers) is possible, but doing so would require a tremendous agricultural and manufacturing shift.

Children might be shaped to believe that Santa Claus exists, but later they learn to think. Thought is not shaped by childhood experiences. — jkop

"The way we think" and some thoughts (like Santa Claus) do seem to be shaped by childhood experiences, but it isn't rigidly determinist. Just because a child of 5 thinks Santa Claus is real doesn't mean that at 15 he will still think Santa is real. Rigid, unbending thinkers learn to be that way somewhere along the line, as do flexible, adaptive thinkers.

That was already covered in the OP, if you just cared to look... you could have responded to that specifically but I notice you have a tendency to not do that. — intrapersona

Isn't there something you want to say besides dismissing my response? I disagree with your title suggestion that nature can be considered moral or immoral because "nature" isn't an agent of any kind.

As a child I was convinced that there's something behind everything (like the world I see is just a veil). I don't remember when I decided that thething is ideas. Did you have an experience like that? — Mongrel

No, definitely not.

or will he drop from the sky singing "I was born this way." — Hanover

Will god need a parachute, and what color is it?

The way we exist in the world is formed in our infancy, and develops rapidly. Childhood experiences do not give us a metaphysics, but they shape the stance that we will have. So I agree with The Great Whatever that

Your metaphysics is probably a retroactive expression of your behavior/outlook. — The Great Whatever

I am a theist, and my belief that God is real significantly affects my behavior, moral outlook, relationships, and overall worldview. — aletheist

Aletheist was probably directed toward theism at an early age. Theism became part and parcel of his metaphysics from the beginning of his life.

But if certain individuals just make a habit of provoking the ire of others, why not ban them? — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, the possibility of being banned is part of the deal when joining a forum like this. So, if some people want to play the role of a demon with a trident and just keep sticking it into people to see them flinch, then ban them back to hell.

Some people are sensitive, and sometimes it may be just a matter of reading one sentence and it's already too late. — Metaphysician Undercover

This I know all to well. In the past (before PF or TPF) I was in a bad state and often experienced a state of really intense ire before I could do anything about it. There are, sadly, quite a few people in this bad state. "Self-help" doesn't always deliver salvation. Major life changes which I didn't engineer gave me new life circumstances which solved my problem.

Is it really possible to ignore that thing which invokes your ire? If it were, then how would it invoke your ire? — Metaphysician Undercover

It is really possible, but it requires practice. A large part of ignoring ire-provoking people, places, things, and actions is avoidance. Avoid by thinking about something else. Avoid by registering one's reaction, but not ruminating on it. Avoid by understanding what it is about the thing that is ire-provoking, accepting the uncorrectable reality, and moving on.

This all works best when one is not in a state of intense ire to start with.

First comment out and you're reinventing Milton's plot. If god is coming into existence next week, we may presume that our previous guesses might have been at least a hair off the mark.

On the other hand, Sapientia probably mistook the end of the world for the appearance of god. (It might be hard to tell the difference between the two.)

That is the time the world ends;
This is the world that god upends;
There is the stairs that god descends;
Here are the ashes and sackcloth to rend.

But, hypothetically,if we called it paedosexuality, and it wasn't abnormal and almost universally condemned...? — Sapientia

Big IF. Sexuality has more than one axis. It isn't just gay or straight. There's also object choice (boys, girls, men, women, horses, corpses, etc.). Apparently some people are even attracted to Donald Trump. There are mating patterns: 1 mate for life, as many mates as possible, 2 or three mates, and so on. There is frequency of mating: once per male bee (but mostly never) and continuously for bonobos of both sexes. (BTW, humans and whales (one other animal, can't remember) are the species that have menopause. Cows, for instance, can continue calving until they drop dead from old age. (Some of these old gray cows look like they really need a rest with menopause.)

So, to be more accurate we could devise words for various positions on the several axes, but that would get very complicated.

Sex between adults and minors (sex between minors, for that matter) is a too-hot-to-handle topic in most settings. Some sort of sexual contact between adults and older minors--hebephilia and ephebophilia--seems common enough that one might wonder if it is possibly "normal" and tolerable. By "normal" I don't mean to suggest that it is a matter to which we should be indifferent.

The problem isn't that pubescent children (and older teenagers) aren't interested in sex. The problem is that adults are interested in the youths as sexual objects, and youth and adult can not enter into a sexual relationship without some sort of complicating leverage being applied by the adult. Many youth (talking teenagers here) are really, really naive, and can't assess an adult's trustworthiness.

MAYBE if we were very good about education children and youth about sex and sexuality, teen agers could better deal with hebephiliacs and ephebophiliacs. Paedophilia (pre-pubescent children) is unacceptable because, as has been observed many times, young children can not give informed consent to sexual activity with an adult. They are incapable of informed consent at that age. Prepubescent children are also not physically and/or psychologically equipped to engage in sex.

Puberty, of course, is not the enlightenment and many physically capable youth know jack shit about sex and sexuality, and that may remain the case well into adulthood.

I'd want to see scientific evidence that this is always a paraphillia or fetish or whatever, and cannot, by its nature, possibly be the same sort of thing as homosexuality or heterosexuality under any circumstance.

The fetish theory is just a theory, and not a proof, isn't it? And not a theory quite like the theory of evolution or the big bang theory? — Sapientia

I'm not sure that a huge amount of research has been done on paraphilias or fetishes. After all, it's mostly "not very important". If preferring red heads and green eyes is a fetish, so what? Or, if liking plump women and not twiggy thin women is a fetish, who cares? It's not worth a big grant to study it.

Paedophilia, hebephilia (sexual interest in pubescent children--11 to 14); and ephebophilia (sexual interest in late adolescents--15-19) is a different story. Where an odd-ball fetish, like requiring a kitchen setting to have satisfying sex might be inconvenient or problematic, paedophilia, hebephilia, and ephebophilia has been criminalized with severe punishments.

Where sexual orientation and paraphilia match is in permanence: Like sexual orientation, fetishes are established early and they don't change. Again, not a problem with most fetishes, but it is a problem when the fetish is criminalized: It's illegal and the person can't change their preference.

We don't have a solution to this problem, just like there isn't a solution to the moderately psychopathic personality. It has been practice in this state (and others) to sentence paedophiles to prison and then place the parolee in mental health facilities after the prison sentence is served. What it amounts to is indefinite institutionalization for which there is no end. Last year the state supreme court ruled that this practice was unconstitutional, and an end point to institutionalization had to be provided. We don't know, at this point, how this decision will be put into effect.

A couple of thoughts on lesbians...

You are right that lesbians get omitted or get scant attention from homosexual-topic discussions, most of the time, and not just here.

when one condemns homosexual relations as "disgusting," one gets the feeling they have male-on-male anal sex in mind, and not, say, "scissoring" between two females) — Arkady

Many heterosexual men seem to find lesbian sex interesting and stimulating (ask Hanover), where they definitely do not find males performing sex with each other stimulating or interesting. That's one. The other is that, historically, it hasn't mattered what powerless low status women do between themselves anyway, so who cares.

there are presumably as many gay women as there are gay men, and yet they often seem to be omitted from the discussion — Arkady

Surveys consistently show that a significantly smaller percentage of women identity as gay, than men identifying as gay. Homosexual women have tended to self-identify as gay somewhat later in life than homosexual men. I haven't read a lot about bisexuality in women, so I don't know.

[The distinction, "gay men / lesbians" happened to the early 1970s. Initially, there was the Gay Liberation Front, gay liberation, gay people, gay community, gay pride. Within a few years that changed to "gay, lesbian, bisexual" or GLB, and in a couple of decades, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or GLBT, and sometimes GLBTQ (questioning, confused...) Why all the initials? It is part of the culture wars, where every minority needs to be allocated status, I suppose.)

I don't think anyone can reasonably claim that the gay community (to the extent that gays even had the comfort of a community; presumably many didn't, especially those living in small towns) weren't beleaguered at that time, or that they were not disproportionately affected by the AIDS crisis. — Arkady

Oh, well... gays have been lamenting for decades that "the gay community" is more a figure of speech than anything else. A few parts of the gay population form community in large cities, but large parts of the gay population are not part of a gay community. There is less sense of community now than previously.

I've heard some commentators refer to this period as a gay "genocide," which strikes me as extremely wrongheaded. — Arkady

Yes, totally wrongheaded. Some people were convinced that AIDS was invented (maybe at Ft. Detrick in Maryland) for the purpose of getting rid of homosexuals (or blacks). Some people were convinced that HIV didn't cause AIDS (and not just in the first 2 or 3 years of the epidemic, either.) Some people were convinced that the U. S. Government did absolutely nothing on their behalf; that the science establishment dragged its feet; nobody cared; pharmaceutical companies were cashing in. and so on. All lies, except that Big Pharma was cashing in. Big Pharma is always cashing in. It's what they do. That's why they're Big Pharma and not Little Pharma.

The HIV virus is a naturally-occurring phenomenon, and one which disproportionately affected gay men as a result of their sexual behavior. The outbreak was to a certain extent self-inflicted. — Arkady

Had HIV 'landed' someplace else, it would have been a different epidemic, true enough.

As it happened, HIV landed in the middle of a pool of professionally successful, culturally sophisticated, highly promiscuous, gay party-circuit travelers. Quite a few of these people were members of the artistic elite, and were interconnected with people all over the country. They networked. Had it landed in the middle of some gay cowboys in Montana, it wouldn't have amounted to much.

There were clues before HIV landed that some gay guys were going overboard on sexual exuberance. Intestinal parasites, various odd infections resulting from too much penetrating, and so on were booming in the late 1970s. But... nothing incurable, nothing too debilitating. Most people got over hepatitis infections, syphilis, and gonorrhea; and parasiticides cleared out the can of worms some guys were carting around. (That kind of worm problem is much more common in Africa.)

My guess is that the elite gay men's lifestyles in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, and so on were everything I imagined them to be, anchored as I was in the boring Sodom on the Upper Mississippi of Minneapolis. On the one hand, I longed for that kind of exhilarating life; on the other hand, that's one of the reasons I'm here and they are not. That and luck.

revolve around homosexual men more than around homosexual women. — Arkady

This gay man, having lived in a large city where there was sort of a community, learned fairly early on to not speak on behalf of lesbians. Ever. In the 70s Minneapolis had a relatively large group of ferocious lesbian feminist separatists. Their coffee house on Fridays in the basement of Plymouth Congregation Church discouraged mothers from bringing even young male children with them. A 10 year old boy was anathema, let alone a man.

In Minneapolis, lesbians and gay men didn't mix a lot. So, brothers, I don't speak for our lesbian sisters, and thereby I lived long and prospered.

It could, obviously, unless one were doing it alone.

As Irving Berlin says,

if you've got something that must be done
And it can only be done by one
There is nothing more to say.
But I hope whatever you've got to do
Is something that can be done by two
For she'd really like to stay glued to you
And would be so happy to be doing you, dude...

You probably didn't know Old Berlin used "dude". He was way ahead of his time.

No, it would be a fetish--a paraphilia.

As cynical as it may seem, AIDS gives us a chance, however brief, to establish ourselves as a victimized minority legitimately deserving of America’s special protection and care." from AFTER THE BALL By Kirk and Madsen — Wayfarer

The capacity to think that way strikes me as far more deviant than the most perverse sexual activity I have ever heard of.

One of the reasons for the public's improved view of gay men MIGHT be the loving devotion that men displayed in taking care of each other as partners and as a community. In 1987 there was zero indication that the AIDS epidemic was going to be brief. It would be another 9 years 1996) before the AIDS cocktail was shown to be effective, which changed the picture of certain death (but killed off the sympathy angle for Missures Kirk and Madsen).

The gay community was beleaguered, particularly up to 1995-1996. In the HIV hot spots (New York, LA, Miami, San Francisco, etc.) the seropositivity rate was 40% to 70%, depending on location. The over-all rate of fatality for untreated AIDS (prior to 1996) was between 80% and 90%. (It's lower now, with "highly active AIDS retroviral therapy"). So, large swaths of the gay community were wiped out.

True enough, a lot of people were never very sympathetic toward any problem the gay community might have, but quite a few people came to understand that gay men had not cause the virus, and had the virus been introduced in some other community, then that community would be dealing with 80-90% fatality rates instead of gay men and IV drug users (another never very popular group).

There was a discussion on NPR a few days back about how the far right and Trump's campaign strategized cynically to make it difficult to think reasonably about Trump's candidacy. Very similar to the crap cooked up by the twisted sisters Kirk and Madsen.

It would be wise, here, to distinguish between sexual orientation and fetishes. — Heister Eggcart

I take it that's a request for clarification.

Sexual orientation determines whether one is sexually attracted to men or to women, homosexually or heterosexually. There's more to it, but we can go into all that another time.

Fetishes are objects which some people find necessary adjuncts for sexual arousal. A fetish isn't the object of sex, per se. For instance, a heterosexual male who finds black lacy underwear stimulating, wants to see the underwear on a woman -- not in a box by itself. Similarly, a homosexual male who finds military clothing arousing, wants to see the clothes on a guy, not on the shelf.

There are some people who like sex objects other than people. The black lacy underwear could be a sex object on it's own. So could an old running shoe. (But not a new running shoe. No, no; that would be totally beyond the pale. Lock that person up!).

What's the harm? This is obviously where the analogy fails. I wouldn't ask those questions about paedophilia. — Sapientia

OK, I get your point. Of course I agree that pedophilia (paedophilia) is harmful. It's just that attraction to pre-pubescent children isn't a sexual orientation, and neither are any of the other paraphilias. It's an attraction to children of one sex or the other. Most of the other paraphilias are pretty much harmless. They might be annoying or embarrassing, but they don't result in much harm.

I had the opinion that Alfred Kinsey has been discredited as a social scientist. — Wayfarer

Kinsey's research is still relevant, to some people's pleasure, other people's disgust. Who was it that discredited him? (The Kinsey Institute is still doing research at the University of Indiana, btw.)

Kinsey's studies were observational. He and his team conducted interviews and he observed sexual behavior. There was little formal research on sexual behavior at the time he began his work in the 1930s.

Gay rights and gay identity is a minefield nowadays - say anything other than to express unqualified admiration and support, is to be categorised as a racist or a bigot. It's a binary choice. This is a consequence of a successful communications and media strategy, whichwas laid out in a 1987 article called The Overhauling of Straight America (later published as a book). — Wayfarer

Sexuality and gender in general has become something of a minefield.

"The Overhauling of Straight America" was an interesting piece...

As a strategy, it might be effective, I don't know. It sort of sounds like Trump's and the right wing's approach to overhauling democracy, and that seems to be working.

One of the features of the article that bothered me was that it seems very anachronistic. Gay liberation began in the 1950s-and 1960s; Stonewall was in 1969. A lot of gay rights work had been accomplished between Stonewall and Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen. Gay marriage was elevated to a critical issue by the "gay-political-elite" in the 1990s, so maybe Kirk and Madsen succeeded. I was struck by the small presence of AIDS in the piece. It got mentioned as a major hazard for the cause of universal acceptance. But for the average gay man of 1987, it was more like an existential threat.

In any event, it is a great demonstration of what happened to gay liberation between the time the homophile Mattachine Society (1950) was organized and 1987. What started as a claim for human dignity, then sexual liberation became a program for assimilation into middle class straight society.

As you said, it seems, these days, that advocacy groups of all stripes pretty much require total assent or one is labeled as racist, sexist, homophobic, classist, ableist, ageist, elitist, or something. I blame cultural politics which have been rolling along since the 1980s. Sure, some gay people contributed to this by calling everyone homophobic who wasn't explicitly pro-gay.

However, I find there is a problem when we start comparing it with other innate but unaccepted characteristics, such as pedophilia or psychopathy. — NukeyFox

You should have a problem, because homosexuality isn't the same kind of thing as pedophilia, and psychopath shares nothing with either homosexuality or pedophilia.

We don't know how, exactly, people develop what are called "paraphilias". Quite a few people have fetish objects which were, are, and always will be necessary for their sexual arousal -- perhaps black, lacy underwear, or perhaps wearing the opposite sex's clothing for their own sexual arousal. Three controversial paraphilias are pedophilia (sexual interest in pre-pubescent children; hebephilia (sexual interest in pubescent children--11 to 14); and ephebophilia (sexual interest in late adolescents--15-19.) People are generally not very successful in changing a paraphilia, though they can avoid the object of desire (young children, exposing themselves in public, prostitutes, etc.).

Psychopathy is a brain disorder which prevents emotion from acting on thinking in the normal way. A psychopath may perfectly understand that stealing is wrong, but they don't feel guilt about stealing (or killing people). It isn't that they don't want to feel guilt -- they can't feel guilt. Psychopathy presents as a range of pathology, from slightly psychopathic to extremely psychopathic.

Sexual orientation is not binary, or all one thing or all another. Kinsey's scale (which does not at all represent percentages of straights, gays, or bisexuals) is worth a look:

Some people engage primarily in heterosexual activity, but sometimes engage in homosexual activity. Similarly, some people engage in mostly homosexual activity, but sometimes engage in heterosexual activity. A much larger percentage of the population is exclusively heterosexual than is exclusively homosexual (maybe 66% exclusively heterosexual, 3 or 4% exclusively homosexual). Around a third of the population sometimes engage in sexual activity in which they do not usually engage. "Sometimes" might be once, twice, for a few months; or a couple of years.

Marko would say something like that, of course, and no matter how you slice it, the way through the world is tortuous. Whether lust and desire are the deepest, most dangerous pits into which we might fall while we traverse this veil of tears) is open to dispute. Lust, in particular, is quite dangerous and finds its objects in wealth (avarice), food and comforts (gluttony), vengeance (wrath), or achievement (pride) as well as S*E*X.

Desire is pitched much higher. We don't 'lust' after the good, we desire the good. We desire love--eros, philia, agape, storge, ludus, pragma, philautia, of which eros (sex) is but one (albeit double-edged) form.

Love in all ways:

Philia, or deep friendship
Ludus, or playful love
Agape, or love for everyone
Eros, or sexual passion
Pragma, or longstanding love
Philautia, or love of the self
Storge, or familial love

If we only aim for eros which is the easiest love -- hard wired by nature to assure our continued existence -- then we are more likely to get tripped up. But there are other forms of love that are compatible with eros which will keep us balanced.

And, quite frankly my excessive (previous) indulgence in pornography has made me quite unhappy. — Question

My take on us people is that we are much more alike than we are different, and that we tend to be unhappy a lot because we think we have failed to live up to society's high standards (and have made the unobtainable social ideals our own). A lot of us beat ourselves over the head for failing to live up to both our own, (and society's) often quite unreasonable expectations.

Everything connected with sex tends to be connected to some sort of high ideal, high standard, or religious rigamarole. It's easy to fail with sex. We either had too much; too little; were too casual about it or too serious; didn't do it the right way or didn't do it with the right people; took too long, didn't take long enough, and so on ad nauseum.

Try forgiving yourself more and do more of what makes you happy.

virginity isn't physical — Agustino

Sorry. Psychic virginity does not compute.

matriarchies — Agustino

Please list the extant matriarchies where men are considered property the way women are considered property under patriarchy (as if there were such a thing as matriarchy and patriarchy).

Yes that's Victorian England — Agustino

Victorian England, he says. Double standards preceded Victoria Regina and survive into the 21st century.

chastity — Agustino

Chastity schmastity.. My guess is that chastity has been honored everywhere more in the breach than in the observance.

Why do you suppose virginity applies only to women? — Agustino

This should be obvious. 1) Men do not have a hymen which can be breached, thus providing evidence of virginity or not. 2) Women were sexual property of men, not visa versa. 3) Men were expected to have sexual experiences prior to marriage, women were not. You have heard of the double standard?

Of course, a man can be a "virgin", not that it was much of a virtue.

Actually chastity is precisely one characteristic that is specific of civilisation, not of savagery. — Agustino

I think Michael was making a joke which you didn't get.

Besides, chastity can be taken on, whereas virginity once lost can not be regained. Nuns and monks who have had sex (even a great deal of sex) can become chaste, poor, and obedient, if they have nothing better to do with their time.

Indeed, but their society obscures spiritual aspects from coming under consideration in how words related to sex are used. Us individuals don't just pop into being out of nowhere - we are created and molded by our society, and hence our stupidities, more often than not, end up being the stupidities of our own society. — Agustino

Since it is the case that we haven't agreed on what might and might not constitute sex, and since it is the case that we haven't agreed on what exactly spirituality is, I don't think a spiritual interpretation of virginity is going to help much.

Virginity makes some sense in a society where either the woman has some sort of 'property value' or where women have been tasked with maintaining a sentimental notion of purity (which doesn't apply to their potential mates). Virginity does not make much sense where women are free of property value and where sentimental ideas of purity are pretty much history.

Vaginal sex — Agustino

versus

masturbation — Agustino

Masters and Johnson were doing laboratory research, and the required instrumentation of measurement may have leveled off the experiences the subjects were having. No one would dispute that really great sex (whatever that might be) is better than humdrum sex (whatever that might be). What M & J were claiming is that the basic physiological response was no different. It's like, good food is better than bad food.

Psychological satisfaction is more complicated (obviously). The oral sex lady could count herself as a virgin because her psychological investment in both the act and the guy was probably minimal. The energy required to perform various sex acts varies and one will feel more or less exercised when it is completed.

So, when President William Jefferson Clinton claimed he did not have sex with that woman, he was speaking the truth as far as he was concerned. Ms. Lewinsky apparently thought they had had some sort of sex. "How else could I have a Presidential semen sample in my closet?" she cried.

Yes, I think you're right, most heterosexual people probably think that sex is first vaginal, then anal, then maybe oral, but maybe oral is counted as foreplay, and a hand job just would not count. Some gay men think that sex is first anal, then oral. But a fair number of gay guys would count oral and anal as equally "sex". A hand job is not intercourse, except in a vaguely 'digital' way, one's digits wrapped around a hard dick.

What counts as "sex" is not important in actual sexual contexts. But in discourses about sex, like public health advisories on how to avoid sexually transmitted disease, precision about what is "sex" matters a lot. For instance, quite a few teeny boppers, those teen age lovers, don't think that oral sex is actually sex. It doesn't count.

"It doesn't count" until one discovers a sore on the roof of one's mouth (primary syphilis lesion), a dripping infection from one's penis (primary gonorrhea), blistering on the lips or penis (genital herpes), or some such. One might go to a clinic and discover that one acquired a venereal infection while not having "sex".

What is "sex" also matters in discourses about sexuality and sexual identity.

BTW, Masters's and Johnson's research showed that there is no physical difference in the physiology of arousal and orgasm, whether the sex is anal, oral, vaginal, or digital, gay or straight, single or double. So, as far as the body is concerned, masturbation is indistinguishable from vaginal sex.

Why do you think god being lonely suggests that god is vain?

Well, in my experience at least, solo masturbation, for example, doesn't get called "sex" in common parlance, and it is commonly understood in contrast to sex. But it is obviously sexual. Likewise with flirting, but it seems even more absurd to call that sex.

I'd say that "sex" primarily means sexual intercourse, but perhaps can also include oral sex. I think that it makes sense to say things like, "We didn't have sex, I just gave him a blowjob". — Sapientia

Right, people usually reference sex in the context of at least two people. As for flirting, I was thinking of fairly aggressive flirting, not the sort of flirting that a waiter or waitress does to increase the tip size. Flirting isn't "sex" so much as it is "sexual".

"We didn't have sex, I just gave him a blowjob"... not sex? It seems to me that a blow job is definitely sex, and so is a hand job performed on someone else. I think if you asked 100 people if you could perform oral sex and a hand job on them, at least 95% would think you had ask them to have sex with you, and wouldn't think you were suggesting something on the order of a scalp massage.

Hmmm... but it's a different experience with a partner than without. I think most people would agree. — Agustino

Of course, and I would agree; I'd also suggest sex with a partner is usually better than without.

because I loved her, and so I found no need for "imaginary partners". — Agustino

Sure -- people in love don't need to add the internal video track. But... as you know, people aren't always in love with the people with whom they are having sex (and are often married to) so that added video track helps performance. I mean, sometimes one is expected to get it up and a woman can fake pleasure more easily than a man can fake orgasm (at least for a money shot). So, again, the mental movie in one's head helps one get it up, as per expectation.

What defines something as being sexual? — Agustino

The person who is experiencing it.

I included flirting as sexual because when people do it, it "feels sexual". One's dog might show a lot of interest in you while you are eating, or when it wants to go for a walk. but it does not feel sexual. It''s either annoying or amusing. One's lawnmower, pencil, or refrigerator don't feel sexual (one would hope).

I think the sex drive is different from the pleasures of sex. The sex drive is like an energy source, it depends how one learns to make use of it. — Agustino

Good clarification. It isn't the pleasure that is sublimated as much as it is the 'drive' or energy.

What reason or justification is there for us to know we will still continue existing for the next day, if any — Ephrium

We have nothing to go on but the past (morning after morning we woke up and continued to exist that day). You might hope that you will continue to exist, you might fear that you will continue to exist, and you might not care all that much one way or the other whether you continue to exist.

There is, of course, only one guarantee, which is that one day you won't continue to exist. You might know that that fated day will be soon, or you might not -- but the final day will come.

Mongrel

The universe is the result of God's loneliness. — Mongrel

Exactly.

Have you seen the rest of Dark Star? It's quite good; nice satire. There is a monster on board, and the cryogenically preserved (but oddly conscious) captain of the ship provides a possible solution to the Bomb's problematic desire to detonate: "Discuss phenomenology with the Bomb."

Hmm, but who's to say all these are ways toward transcendence? Is praying and fasting and the like acts of transcending? And how would you know until you're actually transcendent? At that point, it would seem that you wouldn't even have knowledge of having gone from A to B.

Kant thought it was outside experience--which for us, I guess means we don't transcend and tell about it.
— Bitter Crank

This makes the most sense to me. — Heister Eggcart

I agree with Kant, too. I don't know that prayer and fasting are effective for anything at all, but some people think they are and the do these things for some end.

What counts as sex? This is a very interesting question... Psychologically it seems that it's not only intercourse that is of significance. For example oral sex probably still counts as sex. Some would say masturbation counts as sex, others would disagree. Others would say even holding hands with a significant other is a manifestation of sexual energy... Where is the boundary between sexual activity and non-sexual activity, and how are sexual activities distinguished psychologically? — Agustino

I classify genital/genital, oral/genital, oral/anal, oral/oral, and manual/genital contact as sex. While the last doesn't involve an actual partner, an imagined partner is often present, sometimes several. Sometimes those imaginary partners are present along with a quite real partner. Flirting (all gesture, no touching) may be tantamount to sex, and just sitting next to somebody and "casually" touching feet, knees, arms, etc. might be very sexual (usually not, though). Getting sexual under the table requires reciprocation of the casual "accidental" touch of knees, for instance.

People are inherently sexual whether they engage in sexual activity or fantasy, or not. The organs and hormones are there whether employed or ignored. Sometimes life events can charge one up sexually. Once I needed a job, I wanted a particular job, and I was hired. I was 'sexually on fire'. The job made me feel very puissant, potent, and grand. Sadly, the effect wore off, but it was great while it lasted.

The sex drive, the pleasures of sex, can be sublimated--transferred to some other--non-sexual--activity. The enormous productivity of well organized societies seems to involve sublimation, as people pour into their work their creative, libidinous energies. (Not that actual sex robs one of creativity; I think good sex adds to one's creative efforts.)

The absence of sexuality in the environment -- a cold, sterile corporate setting for example -- is usually felt as oppressive. Some buildings are sexual, others are sexless. Much of the built urban environment --freeways, strip malls, featureless apartment and office buildings, highway interchanges, cookie-cutter warehouses -- is damned near totally sexless.

Well, I've taken care of myself for a long time on my own and think I will continue that way. — Question

That method is probably the most common of all methods of having sex.

why is life and other things you have in mind inexplicable in terms of science? — TheMadFool

I wasn't clear enough. While we can get along without reductionism (getting down to very small parts which together become the whole), there are limits to our application. We are limited because we don't have all the information we would need to account for everything, and we probably won't get all that information in the next few weeks.

I didn't want to name some things, like life or mind, as "inexplicable and beyond science". I look to science to explain the world, but our knowledge is limited, so some things remain inexplicable, for now.

But what I was objecting to was waving a physics textbook over the termite mound and saying "This explains everything." It doesn't, it can't. Not because life is beyond science -- but rather, our science isn't quite that capable yet.

Maybe those folks are all nice and healthy but... — Hanover

Beware of all enterprises which require a change of costume and a trip to the basement.

It sort of seems that the allure of it to you is that it appeals to your general laziness, as in you can sort of lay there and let someone else do the work. Not only would you not have to take any initiative, you'd be specifically forbidden to do anything, which would be right up your alley. — Hanover

I think whether Question could just lay there and "enjoy" having a dominatrix whip him into shape (so to speak) depends on the scene he ends up in. It might very well be that the mistress dominatrix would expect her male to be a quite active slave, bucking up against the restraints, thrashing about, howling in real or fake agony, and so forth. After all, there isn't much fun standing in spike heels on somebody resembling a corpse.

My theory is that a preference for BDSM is formed as a result of dictatorial toilet training. The thing I don't like about S&M is that there is entirely too much stage business to deal with. "OK, now that we're all dressed up, tied down, and hanging from the ceiling of the dungeon, when do we get around to fucking -- which I though was the whole point of this dreary affair!"

It's one thing to be a reductionist (the idea that the laws of physics can, theoretically, account for reality). It's something else to be an intelligent reductionist who has some scheme to explain HOW reality can be accounted for with the principles of physics (and chemistry, if you like). I'm not an intelligent reductionist; I can't explain a fish leaping out of the water and catching an insect (or an eagle swooping down and catching the fish). I can't explain how my own mind composes these sentences and sends instructions to my fingers to type these letters.

You, Mad Fool, can't either, it seems. At least, you haven't demonstrated that you can. You too are not an intelligent reductionist. You are making a reductionist claim, but I don't think you have the means to make reductionism work in all the manifest complexity of reality. We are in the same crowded boat.

Some things can be accounted for with physics and chemistry, and those "some things" account for big hunks of reality. But there is a lot which we really can not explain with stuff like inertia, waves of light, gravity, and conductivity. Or, just in case you were thinking of it, quantum mechanics.

Beyond a certain point, there is a lot of stuff that just isn't explainable--given what we know, and given what we don't know.