Get thee to a monastery ASAP -- any one that will have you.

Advertising sex as good for health is, for example, a way to get people interested in sex. — Agustino

Could you give us a sample of advertising "sex as good for health" or "a way to get people interested in sex"? If you think I was saying that, you are wrong. We are not conditioned to be interested in sex (at least between the ages of 15 and 45). We are conditioned, if at all, to associate products with sex, and the goal of the conditioning is sales of products, not sex. Proctor and Gamble, Lever, et al have no interest in sexual activity, only in selling products.

People having sex is a market - for condoms, for sex toys, for medication for STDs, for abortions, for contraceptives, for pornography, for dating agencies/websites, for alcohol, etc. So what you're saying isn't the complete truth, again. People having more sex = more business of all sorts - including psychotherapy, and whatever else people need because they fuck themselves up through improper actions. — Agustino

And condoms and sex toys, medications for STDs, etc. are such a huge business! As for alcohol, back in the sex-restrictive days of Victoriana, alcohol consumption was much greater than it is now. Go back to the 18th century, and the volume of alcohol drinking was amazing. (They weren't drinking large amounts of hard alcohol because the water wasn't any good, either.)

as you are hyping it up for example — Agustino

Actually, I have been employed to hype sex -- safer sex, safe sex, harm reduced sex, and harm-reduced IV drug use--in social marketing for AIDS prevention. You know what -- it's damned difficult to get people to change sexual behavior with advertising. People change sexual behavior (or they don't) much more on the basis of personal experience than public messages. Ten friends dropping dead from AIDS motivates more behavior change than all the advertising in the world. A pregnancy scare, an AIDS scare, an STD--all these things are more motivating than preaching.

Tinder or Grindr facilitates sexual partner finding, but it doesn't give people the idea to have sex. It doesn't need to.

Based on earlier testimony, we have already determined that you have no competence to pontificate about people's sexual behavior.

Advertising and commercial television are not urging you to have sex promiscuously, monogamously, or at all. To think that all the advertising one encounters, or all the sexually suggestive content of programming is "urging you to have (more) sex" is a fundamental misunderstanding.

Advertising is all about selling products--one of which is not sex. The sexual allure promised for the many products advertised is limited to the product. It doesn't, it shouldn't, extend to actual sex. That would defeat the whole bait & switch purpose of advertising and selling.

The amusing ads for Old Spice deodorant are a good example:



Old Spice, or anything else, won't make you the man of your dreams, and it won't get you the woman of your dreams, either. It isn't intended to. The product is a means to profitability, not to personal fulfillment, which is the bait.

Commercial programming is also bait -- to keep you in front of the TV so that you can view the commercials. Titillating suggestions of sex will keep you on the couch longer than public policy discussions.

How do people get sex? They go out and look for it. They hunt--maybe at work, maybe at a bar, maybe at church, maybe on the school bus--wherever. They go out with potential partners, they plead, whine, coax, pet, kiss, pounce, and so on and so forth. The thing is, they don't get sex from advertising, and in reality, advertising doesn't tell them how to succeed.

Changes in sexual behavior have occurred over at least 60-70 years, 2 or 3 generations, and have been brought about by things like oral contraceptives, population mobility, women's and gay liberation, changes in the workplace (a large percentage of women in the workforce), mobilization and demobilization before and after wars, a decline in church attendance and interest in religion, secularization, changes in welfare spending, and so on and so forth.

Damn.

I've visited and lived with monks before on Mount Athos — Agustino

How long did you live with them? Details, please.

Sooner or later everybody wants to murder annoying ppl. Furthermore, you misspelled 'aggressive'.

agressive — intrapersona

I did tell Genghis. He said there was a lot more to it than just sex.

The power that allegedly accrues to the sexually dominant or proficient is grossly overestimated.

Who needs it? — Question

Children need age-appropriate information about human sexuality -- particularly their own sexuality. This does not mean, obviously, that 10 year olds should be instructed on the the fine points of sex on PornHub. As children grow, the age-appropriate and sexual-orientation appropriate information they need changes. Post-pubertal gay children need specific guidance, just as post-pubertal heterosexual children do. A lack of information isn't going to prevent adolescents from wanting to, and/or having sex. Without good information, they are sitting ducks for bad experiences.

Young adults can't make good decisions about education, careers, or health (lots of things) if they are totally unprepared to think about the topics. Same with sex.

There's an unnecessary burden on parents to be always there, watching, directing, and supervising children. It's quite a failure of society to leave all the burden on the parents to raise a child, whereas society is just this thing out there not actively encouraging growth and identity formation. — Question

I'd say, rather, that it's quite a failure of society to not require parents "to be always there, watching, directing, and supervising children".

I don't expect or want people to be 'helicopter parents'. I expect them to be paying attention to what their children are up to. If people don't feel up to being parents, then they should get their various tubes tied or cut.

It's really fairly simple: Don't give the children a private room, a private computer, and a private internet connection; or a cellphone, or a tablet that accomplishes the same thing. Let them use this equipment in common areas of the house. Parents and children should be interacting and sharing, not all staring at private screens.

It's getting to the point that we feel compelled to have sex just for the sake of it.
— Question

How awful. — jamalrob

As Jerry Seinfeld observed: "When sex is good, it's terrific; and when it is bad it's still OK."

Sex and the collapse of the World Trade Center bldg.--why not?

The situation is much worse for growing and developing children growing up surrounded by media and advertisements promoting sex at such a young age. — Question

I grew up in a vacuum of information about sex, sexual imagery, sexual content, sexual innuendo, etc. Born in 1946, small town in rural Minnesota. No TV till the late 50s; the local movie theater ran standard fare--westerns, comedies, an occasional monster flick, that sort of thing. Small library, etc. PURE and WHOLESOME.

There was far too little in the way of information, too little content, too little sexual imagery. Like, none. Hey, great for first graders, but not so great for 16 year olds. On the other hand, children don't benefit from a glut of information, imagery, content, innuendo either. Unless the parents are AWOL, there is no reason why children would be over-loaded.

Children can get over-supplied with sexual content too early when they are given the means to peruse the internet and cable TV without supervision and oversight. Even without sexual content being available, it isn't healthy for children (or adults either) to be transfixed by the social media on digital devicee for hours on end--practically 24/7.

I don't really have a sex drive in the sense you speak about it — Agustino

In my life in general, whatever sex drive you mention is absent. — Agustino

I never have this pressing desire to have sex that some others seem to have. — Agustino

that's why much of what you say doesn't make sense to me. — Agustino

At last! The admission that explains your views. When it comes to the healthy sex drives of 3.5 billion men, you don't know what you are talking about. `

Well it would be strange if other life forms would have been around for longer than bacteria, considering the fact that the first life to appear would be bacteria, since they are relatively the simplest in complexity. Evolution would be in quite some trouble if bacteria weren't around for the longest time :P — Agustino

They were here at the beginning and they are still here. Most species have long, long, long since disappeared. They will be here long after everything else. They are the preeminent success story in terms of survival.

Sex depends on culture. — Agustino

Your strenuous arguments against people having sex in anything but the pristine confines of a lasting monogamous relationship is clearly a form of sublimating your own sex drive. You are substituting argument for sex in this discussion and getting the results all over everybody.

If sex depended on culture, evolution would have ceased and desisted a very long time ago. We, and everything more complicated than bacteria, wouldn't be here. Sex is a biological drive, like hunger, thirst, and sleep. The restrictions of society are the price of human advancement. Culture channels sex, but it doesn't provide its power. That's biology. Culture attempts to specify what sorts of emotional satisfactions we are to obtain from "proper sex" but our emotions always supersede culture.

Our human natures are always in conflict with our created societies. That's why life is essentially neurotic. The closer we come to actually blocking drives (and not just channeling them) the closer we are to neuroses bordering on actual pathology. Your path of restricting sex to either a consecrated marriage or an unconsecrated, long-term monogamous relationship, and disparaging all others, amounts to recommending that the sex drive either obey your rules or be blocked. That is the path to craziness.

You are more mesmerized by sexual imagery than most people are, apparently. You are taking what you see on the screen for the content of western culture. It isn't so.

It seems to me that there is a neurosis with the subject of sex. For people to talk about it as something healthy and something that ought to be done instead of never is an indication of a pathology inside society. — Question

"Neurosis" and "society" are a combo package. In order to construct society we have to limit our individual drives, urges, aspirations, and appetites. Limiting natural drives, urges, aspirations, and appetites produces neuroses. "Limit" isn't the same as "blocking", however. It's a fair tradeoff. Society makes all kinds of things possible, and we have more or less learned to live with the resulting neuroses.

"Living with neuroses" is about as close to perfect psychological health as we are going to get.

the difference between bacteria and sexually reproducing plants and animals begins with the difference between Eukaryotic Cells vs. Prokaryotic Cells. Prokaryotic cells are single-celled bacteria. Eukaryotic cells form multi-celled organisms like yourself. Prokaryotic cells reproduce through simple cell division. They don't come together to combine and produce daughter cells through either mitosis or meiosis. That's what Eukaryotic cells do.

They don't have sex. There are exchanges of genetic information, but it is helter-skelter. Bacteria in a puddle can pick up bits of genetic material from other bacteria that have fallen apart. By these and other hit and miss methods, bacteria can change -- like become resistant to antibiotics. They can also mutate and pass on the mutation when they divide themselves into two new bacteria.

It works for them. It works for bacteria so well, that they have been around longer than any other form of life.

Really! I find it hard to believe myself, sometimes. Other times, not so much.

Right on! as we used to say. One of the causes of the neo-freudian Wilhelm Reich's downfall was that he advocated for the right of juveniles to have healthy sexual experiences. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elder hit the rocks for suggesting that sex education programs should encourage masturbation as an alternative to very problematic juvenile intercourse (children having babies, STDs, all of that).

We only "seem" to be saturated with sex. Sex saturation is mostly a commercial tease: "Here it is, quick look" then "NO you can't have it".

I used to be a libertine but that gradually went away as I crept into old age. Some 70 year olds are still quite active sexually. But... after being in a relationship for a long time, I don't really have that much interest any more. (Well, interest--yes, but not the performative élan I used to have.)

I suppose something happened a long long time ago that doesn't want to be brought up; but, is a need of attention. Either that or I'm telling myself a crock of shit. — Question

It's always possible that you are telling yourself a crock of shit. All of us do that at one time or another.

If something happened a long time ago that doesn't want to be brought up and is in need of attention, then a public forum is probably not a good place to delve into it. You would benefit from the assistance of a good therapist to deal with the "doesn't want to be brought up" stuff.

Crocks of shit, though, are fair game.

There seems to be a cross-cultural consensus that sex is good for people and that they benefit from having healthy (not abusive) sexual encounters and sexual relationships. Unless one is sacrificing sex for a higher goal (like taking a vow of celibacy required of priests, monks, and nuns) there usually isn't any virtue in avoiding the kind of sex one desires.

There may not be all that much virtue in celibacy either. It's a very tough row to hoe for even the most committed, as are the vows of poverty and obedience.

You don't have to have sex, of course. Not everybody does, but most people do. It's mostly a question of "is this a comfortable and happy choice" or "is this an unpleasant accommodation of unpleasant personal experience"? If it is the former, talking about it here might useful. If it is the latter, talking about it someplace else (in private) would be better for you.

Yes, we can be mistaken about our experiences. Isn't this fact the basis of philosophy? — TheMadFool

Exactly.



You can dither over the question of whether the apple is actually red or green till the cows come home, but such dithering yields little of value--UNLESS you are getting feedback that other members of your species are perceiving the apples much differently than you are. If three apples are said to be yellow, red, and green respectively, and you can't tell the difference, then you have a problem that's worth thinking about.

What about cases in which people don't realize they are suffering until they get out of their habitual behavior, such as the case with addiction? What is going on here that allows a person to "suffer" but not realize that they are "suffering" until after the fact? — darthbarracuda

One of our problems is that we can not externalize our self-perceptions and see ourselves as other people see us. We can become quite unraveled, and if it happens gradually, we may not understand that we have become dis-arranged. We may be suffering and know it, but we can't see the cause within our complexly confused self-picture.

It is quite possible for our dis-arranged confused self to be eventually be taken (by us) as normal. If we do not receive some kind of acceptable objective feedback, or if life doesn't change for us we may never catch on to how messed up we are -- we will just keep suffering and suppose that it is because there is something wrong with the world.

As a counselor, I could give objective feedback to other people (about their conditions) without seeing how dysfunctional I was becoming. It was a huge discovery, once I quit working and could "re-ravel" myself back together, that I had been in quite a bit less than optimal shape for a long time.

I've never had sex myself and frankly don't want to. I want to go through life not indulging in it; but, the struggle is real with sex being advertised and promoted almost everywhere you go. — Question

Do you want us to discuss your personal sexual feelings? I'd be more than happy to -- your lack of sex is a fascinating topic, and I would love to make you the object of prurient speculation, but you might not want that.

By the way, I suspect you'd find that your struggle to never have sex would be as difficult in the 10th century as in the 21st century.

Why is sex so idolized in the West? — Question

Is it idolized? Is "the West" a uniform, billion+ person sex-worshiping fertility cult? I think not. Most people do not engage in anything remotely associated with "sex idolization".

Of the billion+ people who comprise the population of the west, there are three groups that might lead one to think that "the West" idolizes sex.

First, there may be 25 million people that may actually idolize themselves and sex. These people would be the younger, quite a bit more attractive, healthier-looking, more affluent heterosexual and homosexual hedonists who live in the larger urban centers. They are a small fraction of 1.5 - 2.0 billion people. They get a disproportionate amount of attention in the press because their hedonistic sexually active lives are much more distracting than coverage of the overweight working class people who are too tired and too poor to lead dazzling lives.

There is an second relatively small groups of people who are engaged in activities that might lead one to think that "the West" idolizes sex: certain businesses like advertising and cultural production and distribution. The cultural influence of this group is wildly disproportionate to it's size. This group primarily uses sex as a tool to sell an infinity of products.

The principle that "sex sells" comes with a critical catch: Sex sells products that almost never result in more sex. If it did, the product would have a much more limited sales life. If buying Lady Killer cologne promptly led to users finding more sex partners, their need for more Lady Killer would be diminished. They'd pour some of the stuff on themselves, go have an orgy, and not need to buy any other sex-promoting product for a long time. The product must always promise plenty but never deliver much.

Hence, we are inundated by advertising that promises sex and never effectively delivers it. What tends to get us sex is our own pheromones, reasonably healthy bodies, attractive faces, charm offensives, good hygiene... and money, of course. Even just a little money helps. Enough money to buy him or her a few drinks... Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.

A third group is the cultural production businesses--Hollywood, TV, Internet, music, video, magazines, and so on. This group sells entertainment that is laced with sexual imagery (and in the case of porn, sexual activity) because sex sells (and spices up) entertainment. Sex adds an air of verisimilitude to a dull and otherwise uninteresting story.

How much spice we each need varies. I can totally enjoy an orchestra concert which offers zero sexual innuendo or imagery. A steady diet of movies about love affairs that didn't involve any sex at all would not be acceptable.

Good discussion. — Lower Case NUMBERS

It is a good discussion and the OP accidentally demonstrated how a possibly fake news story can be taken for real news by an intelligent and earnest reader. I swallowed the bait, didn't check the link, and came to altogether erroneous conclusions myself.

What's with all the bogus news stories these days, they seem to be popping up everywhere, even getting picked up by mainstream media agencies some times? Is this the new trend for pranksters, or should I be worried about a deeper conspiracy? — Metaphysician Undercover

Worry about a deeper conspiracy.

Bogus news stories have been popping up for a long time. What is different is that the Internet is perfectly positioned for the bogus to spread far and wide, and to be taken more seriously than ever before. 100 or 50 years ago fake news stories were published in newspapers, but there were few ways and means for a story appearing in the Wacko, Texas Daily News to "go viral".

The Press has published bogus stories for a long time. The difference between the New York Times and some vague "news site" on the Internet is that the New York Times is a substantial financial asset with a real reputation to protect, with real journalists and editors on the job to do the protecting, and XYZ "news site" isn't. If the New York Times decides to publish something dicey (or a straight-forward lie), it's the result of a calculated decision. Like, they might trust the government to tell the truth on important issues, especially when they are not in a position to double check the facts of the matter themselves.

Did the Russians hack the American Election. Could be. I wouldn't be surprised. Those who can hack will hack. The press has reported it. Neither the American People nor The Press are going to see the raw data of the Intelligence Agencies (CIA, NSA, FBI, etc), so we have to take their word for it--for now at least.

Unprovoked attack in the Gulf of Tonkin? Highly doubtful, but it was a useful story at the time. Nuclear weapons in Iraq? No, but it was useful fake news at the time.

I am glad there is not an IQ test for posting here. — m-theory

There is. You just flunked it.

I thought M-Theory had made up the story himself--curses, foiled again. However, I am sure that had he elected to write such a story, it would have been even better.

I have always assumed (but could not know for sure) that when people picked up the print versions (tabloids) of this sort of stuff at the supermarket they don't actually believe that a woman in Arkansas literally gave birth to a monster fathered by an alien from Proxima Z, or that someone had actually given IQ tests to the US Congress. I could be mistaken, of course.

If we are to take the OP seriously, then allow me to dissent: I very much doubt that the average IQ of the US Congress is 100, and no, I don't think the population elects people who are perceived to be relatively stupid because they think they will be safer. Congressmen may not sound like Oxford scholars when they talk, but it still takes a lot of intelligence to be an effective liar, thief, knave, and scoundrel at the professional level.

Selecting stupid people for leadership positions is something only the elite are in a position to do, usually. Her Honor the Mayor might appoint an approximate moron to head up an initiative she didn't want to have in the first place and now wants to wreck. Or you might promote the factory owner's son into a position he can not succeed in so that you can finally get rid of him. It isn't that the elite themselves are so clever, it's just that they generally have power disproportionate to their value in society.

I'll stick with the view that there are no idealists in Congress, even deluded or deceiving ones.

Maybe this forum needs a "building collapses on annoying person" button.

we are on a small boat in a world of shit — Ying

Have you heard that song by the Fugs (1960s) "Wide Wide River"?

(gospel sound)
River of shit,
River of shit,
Flow on, flow on, river of shit,
Right from my toes,
On up to my nose,
Flow on, flow on, river of shit.

(transition to Rock)
I've been swimming In this river of shit,
More than 20 years, and I'm getting tired of it,
Don't like swimming, hope it'll soon run dry,
Got to go on swimming, cause I don't want to die.

(spoken with gospel sound in background):
Who dealt this mess, anyway?
Yea, it's an old card player's term,
but sometimes you can use the old switcheroo and it can be applied to ...
Frontal politics
What I mean is ...
Who was it that set up a system,
supposedly democratic system,
Where you end up always voting for the lesser of two evils?
I mean, Was George Washington the lesser of two evils?
Sometimes I wonder ...
You got some guy that says
"For God sake, we've got to stop having violence in this country."
While he's spending 16,000 dollars a second snuffing gooks.

Do we need to worry about sensitive terminology here? "Dull normal" might be less hurtful to women who whelped really stupid bastards.

I am concerned that there might be a factual contradiction in your otherwise valuable report: First you state that ...

The Kennedy School of Government did a longitudinal study over the last 30 years

Then you state that ...

Nancy Pelosi approved the funding of The Moron Study back in 2009.

There is an unexplained discrepancy between the past 30 years and the past 7 years. How do you account for this?

There is no functional difference between an IQ of 101 and 98.

It is a well known fact that "want to" is more important than IQ. You have neglected the role of blind ambition. A highly focused, energetic, and ambitious moron can out-achieve a laid-back genius any day. Other studies have found that the level of high-T-driven ambition (males and females both) in elected officials approaches the capacity limit of measurement tools. They are, in a word insanely ambitious.

delusional idealists — Ying

Ying, there are no idealists in the US Congress, delusional or otherwise. There are dissembling slime balls who pretend to have ideals, but they always prove to be craven crooks.

and at the same time plagiarising — unenlightened

Are you saying this monster didn't even make up his own trolling nonsensical baloney? He copied somebody else's? Incredibly OUTRAGEOUS.

Damn! All I've watched was Foxnews. — Hanover

No, no Hanover. Don't put yourself down. What you need is an in-house Climate Wonk. Get rid of the lawn and pool boys--also the housekeeper, you can't afford it all--and hire an in-house wonk who can supply you with every comfort that statistics and charts can offer. You'll probably want to request a curvaceous, sultry wonkess from Brandeis University who can fluff up your pillow and sit by your bed and read you lewd and lascivious nighttime tales from the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force as well as boil a kosher egg for your breakfast. (Personal services are charged separately.)

You can continue to watch Fox News and still be well informed.

If you aren't entrenched enough, here is a tool that will help.

It can also be used in hand-to-hand panel discussions about philosophical concepts.

No.

No.

As I understand it (not well at all) the relationship between the ozone hole and climate warming is rather complex. CFCs are a green house gas, yes? I don't think ozone depletion is a major factor in warming.

Furthermore, solar and other renewables would have to be adopted unanimously by all G20 nations. If one country backs out of said commitment, then the house of cards falls. — Question

Why must renewables be unanimously adopted by all G20 nations? Why, if one backs out, does this prevent the other 19 from continuing to benefit?

the general public (myself included) has no idea what sort of experiments have been conducted or what sort of data has been collected, but we are all asked to accept the conclusions because most scientists say it's valid — Hanover

You might be surprised to hear that the scientific record supporting global warming is not and has not been kept a secret. You don't have to subscribe to obscure or well known but technically difficult science journals to become aware of what the information is. Unfortunately for you, if you have have not been paying attention for the last 25 years or so, you'll have to do a fair amount of catch-up reading.

If for the last 25 years had you regularly read general science articles in papers like the New York Times, Washington Post, Scientific American, and so on; had you been watching the Lehrer News Hour on PBS, had you been listening to news on National Public Radio, had you watched NOVA and Nature on PBS, you wouldn't be in this slough of deficient information. You would have heard many explanations about what data had been gathered, how they got it, how the analyzed it, and what the upshots were.

Here's some evidence from the little ice age: Hendrick Avercamp (1585–1634) painted this picture of an ice skating party at a time when Dutch waterways regularly froze in the cold of winter. The canals don't freeze now.