how the heck you could possibly consider that to be sexually provocative is completely and unequivocally insane. — TimeLine

Did I say it was sexually provocative? :s You're sooooo confused and blinded by your ego, you don't even understand what's going on around you...

Did I say it was sexually provocative? :s You're sooooo confused and blinded by your ego, you don't even understand what's going on around you... — Agustino

THEN WHY SAY IT?

If I had a significant other that I was in love with, I probably wouldn't spend any time on forums like these. That someone both rags on the forum, but still partakes in it, tells me that they're not getting what they want offline, so they come here. Of course I admit that myself, I just hope that I'm not always a belligerent dickface.

THEN WHY SAY IT? — TimeLine

Because you seem to be obsessed about saying things like that and it's not the first time you've said it, clearly. Most people don't think about people that they spend their time with that they're not worthy or they merely tolerate them. That's not kind, that's not nice, and that's not virtuous. End of story. :s

rags on the forum — Heister Eggcart

>:O What the hell does the verb "to rag" mean? My dictionary tells me that it means to compose in ragtime LOL!

verb (transitive) rags, ragging, ragged
1.
to draw attention facetiously and persistently to the shortcomings or alleged shortcomings of (a person)

So who is being the belligerent dickface then, me, TimeLine, or both of us? >:O

Because you seem to be obsessed about saying things like that and it's not the first time you've said it, clearly. Most people don't think about people that they spend their time with that they're not worthy or they merely tolerate them. That's not kind, that's not nice, and that's not virtuous. End of story. — Agustino

I said one friendly comment to Noble Dust and you call that obsession? You are projecting your own obsession, clearly there is something wrong with you.

Stay silent, Augustino. Enough rubbish.

I said one friendly comment to Noble Dust and you call that obsession? — TimeLine

It has zero to do with what you said to Noble Dust, it has to do with how you think about your friends, quite clearly - you think they're not worth your time, you merely tolerate them. That's not nice. And this isn't the first time you said that. Last time it wasn't to Noble Dust. I don't even remember who it was to, and I don't really care. Point being you're behaving very strangely coming on an online philosophy forum to complain about your friends.

Stay silent, Augustino. Enough rubbish. — TimeLine

Says the person who has multiple times been accused by different people of not being able to comprehend what is being told to them, but then sure, there is something wrong with me :s :s

Both of you.

I think Agu is more obsessed with Borat and Donald Drumpf (wow, right on queue, lol) than you are with men, fwiw. However, you do give off the vibe of being a misandrist.

Both of you. — Heister Eggcart

Interesting opinion, however if you try you cannot cite one proper insult addressed to TL from me, yet her comments:

Listen, you moron — TimeLine

Idiot. — TimeLine

projecting your own obsession, clearly there is something wrong with you. — TimeLine

And other such >:O . It's interesting why she's getting so upset... ;) (we'll see what else she does by the time when I return from the gym - oh oh, there she is at it again!!! >:O )

It has zero to do with what you said to Noble Dust, it has to do with how you think about your friends, quite clearly - you think they're not worth your time, you merely tolerate them. That's not nice. — Agustino

You are morally delusional. Again, you do not know anything about me or my friends, stop assuming things and using moral superiority as an excuse to try and turn the problem to me, which only shows who is the one lacking in any sense or reason.

However, you do give off the vibe of being a misandrist. — Heister Eggcart

Well, I don't hate men and have never said neither expressed as such. But, talking to people like him makes it very easy to become one.

Interesting opinion, however if you try you cannot cite one proper insult addressed to TL from me, yet her comments: — Agustino

Everything that you wrote was an insult.

Just my two cents:

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum TimeLine!
Men happen to notice when a female comes onto the boards but very few women last. Not because women are incapable of discussing Philosophy but because in addition learning the tools of debate, pondering, explaining and substantiating your personal position, you come across an underpinning of 'objectification' of women that can and does exist in all of us, both female and male, just to different degrees.

Agustino, I clearly remember how excited I was at the old sandbox when I first arrived and if memory serves me well, you wrote a bit more back then too. Everyone starts on the forums with their own experiences to draw on and maybe some reading or classes that has wet their appetite to pursue wisdom, just like the rest of us. But there is a degree of personal vulnerability, that we have to expose in order for us to learn from one another here on the forums. I know this from my own experience and how many beautiful friendships I have gained in allowing myself to be vulnerable, opening up about some things I had never shared with another soul in face to face life. All I can ask is that you allow females to be females when it comes to finding a comfort level of interaction on the boards. As my signature carried in the old sandbox: Relax, this is a safe place. which is often necessary for a female to share.

Anyway, that is my two cents that neither of you asked for and if I could get my change, I will be going now.

Anyway, that is my two cents that neither of you asked for and if I could get my change, I will be going now. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Hopefully not change for the ferryman? O:)

Men happen to notice when a female comes onto the boards but very few women last. Not because women are incapable of discussing Philosophy but because in addition learning the tools of debate, pondering, explaining and substantiating your personal position, you come across an underpinning of 'objectification' of women that can and does exist in all of us, both female and male, just to different degrees. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Of course, and then when he says profoundly immature and insulting remarks, it is my fault too, where they will try and find some justification, any justification, to solidify their argument against me. Oh, ok, so now I hate men because I am defending myself against false assumptions made against me, that I am highly aggressive because I question the remarks made by a man so high on his moral horse that he can barely hear anything we mere mortals say below.

Next thing you know he is trying to gather as many people into a mob to convict me of being a witch. I am not going to allow any man to bring me down ever again and if this place teaches me this, then at the very least I can walk away with the addition of more tools then mere debate.

Forums? — Agustino

Forgive my error, I have edited the name to reflect the right place and will gracefully bow out of this conversation. Rarely are two cents wanted or needed.

If you read your messages from the onset, you have done nothing but insult and degrade me and you're continuing to do so now. Calling me a dog, crazy, dishonest, shameful, hysterical, power hungry, that I should be ashamed of myself, fake and anyone convinced that I may have the right to defend myself against you is an 'idiot'. You then have the audacity to say that I lack virtue, why, because it is impossible for you to be wrong? Yeah, you point your finger at others and pretend that it is not projection, like you don't have a history calling women 'almond brains' among other hasty generalisations that would render your remarks suspiciously sexist to say the least.

That, among a host of other different things. It seems that you're intent on subsuming communion, to emotions, etc. but this is completely false. These are all different and independent reasons. — Agustino

What's the host of other things that makes casual sex "bad"?

To relate to another you must first relate to yourself and to something that transcends you. The act of relating to another isn't a purely physical one, but something that involves your whole being. — Agustino

So like, the transcendent metaphysical third party acts like a conduit for the spiritual energies which pass between the "whole being's" of the participants?

How can I explain to you that I don't comprehend your hippy-intuition style metaphysics?

"To relate to another you must first relate to yourself"? Meaningless... "And to something that transcends you"? Meaningless. "But something that involves your whole being"? Meaningless.

Tell me Vagabond, is it possible that a man wrong himself? Clearly it's not only actions that affect other people that are wrong, we accept this every single day of our lives in the practice of living. A drug addict who injects heroin in his veins is doing something wrong to himself, even if he "consents" to it. His consent doesn't change the wrongness of it, neither does the fact that it doesn't affect other people — Agustino

How and why are you equating sex with "injecting one's self with heroine"? That's an action, not a thought.

Do you wish to discuss the morality of discussing sex, or the conditions under which the sexual act is disrespectful? — Agustino

I want to discuss your reasons for making blanket assertions about the harmful nature/immorality of casual sex. At one point you said that wanting to have casual sex with someone is to disrespect their person-hood. Presumably then asking someone for casual sex is the action which communicates that disrespect, which you would declare to be immoral right?

There is no close emotion that renders sex not harmful as such. — Agustino

Then what renders sex not harmful? The promise to marry them?

Yes, the feeling of lust would be an emotion. So let's start with it. When you lust after something you're not satisfied. How can lusting be good? If you get yourself in the position when you lust for something you are hurting, you have already harmed yourself. How can that be good? Do you enjoy being thirsty? Would you purposefully go around getting yourself thirsty? — Agustino

Humans don't purposefully get thirsty, they just get thirsty. Drinking a cold liquid then becomes inherently pleasurable.

People don't enjoy being thirsty, but they do enjoy drinking. People don't enjoy lust, they enjoy the feeling of satiating that lust.

Would you purposefully go around not satisfying your natural desires?

If two willing participants negotiate an anonymous contract whereby one will eat the other one alive, and they both give their consent, have they done nothing wrong? Again, this whole idea that consent somehow has ANYTHING AT ALL to do with the rightness or wrongness of an activity is absurd. If I force you to have dinner with me, that's as wrong as if I force you to have sex with me from the point of view of consent. But clearly, we take me forcing you to have sex with me as a much more serious offence than if I were to force you to have dinner with me. Why is that? — Agustino

Holy shit Aug, you're really gonna equate casual sex with suicide and cannibalism?

What the actual fuck...

We generally don't let people end their lives for no good reason Aug, if you want to talk about the morality of euthanasia we can do that, and subsequently about the morality of consuming dead humans, but these are two separate discussions from the one we're having.

The main reason why "forcing people to have meals they don't want to have" is immoral is actually because you're removing their freedom, not because eating food is an inherently harmful act. If you force feed someone a type of food that disgusts them (me and squash for instance), then we could consider that to be additionally harmful to them (a kind of torture even). Now, if I consent to dine with you, and to clean my plate save for the squash, has any harm been done upon me? (the answer is no)

So when you hold someone captive, there's the immorality of that, and then what you do to them constitutes additional moral infractions above and beyond just imprisoning them. Forcing people to eat foods they don't like is generally less psychologically traumatic than forcing people to have sex that they don't want to have. Because it's more invasive, it's more important to have that consent.

Think about what you're really saying here though ("this whole idea that consent somehow has ANYTHING AT ALL to do with the rightness or wrongness of an activity is absurd"). Of course consent has something to do with the rightness or wrongness of an activity. If I give a tattoo to someone who wants one, it's not immoral. If I tattoo someone who does not want one, then it's immoral.

If I have consensual sex with my wife, it's not an immoral activity right?

But if I have non-consensual sex with my wife, it's rape.

If I borrow your lawn-mower with your consent, it's not an immoral activity right?

But if I take your lawnmower without your permission, it's theft.

Doing actions upon people who do not want those actions to be done upon them constitute moral infractions against the afflicted party.

Can you honestly not see the relationship between personal rights, consent and force?

I'm guessing that you came to this strange hill because in your mind God decided that certain actions please him and other actions displease him (sex outside of marriage being displeasing), and that's how you view the source and foundation of morality (and so you forgot to consider the whole "treat others as they want to be treated" angle).

It TRIES to mitigate them, however it is not successful. For example, people could still experience feelings of guilt afterwards - among many many other emotions that it's possible to experience, including during the act. — Agustino

And what if both parties go away from the glory hole happy with the exchange? Are you saying that everyone will feel bad about it?

Well do you want to be a nice and decent person? If so, then yes, you should consider everyone's emotional well being. — Agustino

I don't have time to consider everyone's emotional well-being and I refuse to coddle strangers. If I'm going out of my way to benefit someone's emotional well-being then that's morally praiseworthy, but it's enough to not go out of my way to damage the emotional-well being of others.

Why would you assume that? How the hell do you know that she's competent enough to take care of her own emotions from her body language, can you tell me that? How do you know for example that she just didn't have a fight with her boyfriend/husband and is doing something to express her anger towards him, something that she may later regret for example? — Agustino

So, propositioning someone for casual sex is immoral because they might be out for revenge sex which they will regret, or because they might not be mentally/emotionally capable of making decisions for themselves?

I'm asking you specifically why casual sex is necessarily harmful (and therefore immoral), not why there's a chance it might be harmful. By this logic hiring a worker could be immoral because they might not understand the stresses of the job, and therefore might be harmed/regret it.

Adults who have no mental disability must be allowed to make decisions on their own rather than someone making decisions for their own good. If and when bad things happen to people as a result of their un-coerced choices, that's life.

Sex always involves one's whole being. — Agustino

What does "whole being" mean? If I had to guess I would say some emotion-esque nonsense about souls and sin. Am I right?

If you're thinking of saying something like "How do you not know what whole being means? Do you speak english!?" please allow me to rebut in advance: I don't subscribe to/understand/believe in metaphysical bullshit like chakras, third eye's, transcendence, souls, spirits, or the like. Please take this as a request for a somewhat rigid or scientific definition for whatever the fuck it is you mean by "whole being".

Except that you would be abusing each other. — Agustino

You're just begging the question. How would we be abusing each-other? Because casual sex is a sin?

Why not admit that your entire moral premise concerning sex is just one long-winded appeal to sex-negative puritan Christian doctrine?

What does their dignity as people have to do with the amount of money they charge? :s This is a very peculiar thought, so please explain to me. Clearly you're asserting that the amount of money they charge has something to do with the dignity they have. So presumably a prostitute charging very little has little dignity, while one charging a lot has a lot of dignity. So then, by your own argument, a prostitute charging nothing for her services has no dignity, and this seems quite close to what we mean by casual sex. Is this correct? — Agustino

There's no such thing as a prostitute that charges nothing; a person who will have sex with anyone for nothing (effectively having no personal standards) will generally have very little dignity. What's so sacred about dignity though? Does it pertain to the tears of baby Jesus?

Casual sex is different than toll free prostitution. An individual might have casual sex with only one partner, thereby retaining the vast majority of whatever form of dignity it is that gets destroyed by the act of casual sex itself.

Let's step back and think about what you're saying though: an illegal alien who works your garden dirt cheap is losing some kind of dignity in comparison to the citizen who sells their labor for a livable wage. That's a sensical appraisal, but it's not "immoral" for the illegal alien to sacrifice their dignity in a consensual agreement with their employer, they're free to make such an exchange and we have no recourse to judge them for it.

They are. They are doing a lot of harm to themselves, their partners, and their future spouses. — Agustino

You're begging the question again, and I'm not surprised that you should throw in the whole "future spouses are harmed" angle. I bet that the fact that most women are out there having casual sex causes you emotional harm because you feel like there are therefore less virgin women for you to choose from. Do you think that women should be obligated to save themselves in case you wind up being their future spouse? As if you're entitled to a say over how how all women behave (according to your personal feelings about sex) because you have some sort of right to choose them as a marriage partner?

This is just like the whole "freedom to divorce is actually the un-freedom to stay married" bit. If you can find someone who shares your personal standards, marry them. Everyone else is free to live the way they want to live despite your ego-centrism.

Prostitutes can also suffer direct bodily and emotional damage. Most of them have quite a beaten up psyche, which makes life very difficult for them, which is why a lot of prostitutes resort to doing drugs. — Agustino

Not all prostitutes do drugs, not all drug users become prostitutes. Not all prostitutes get injured on the job. Not all prostitutes suffer emotional or psychological damage as the result of sex work. Lot's of things can be potentially harmful, that doesn't make them inherently immoral.

Again, why the hell are you referencing that they are (1) horny, and (2) consenting? We've already established that consent has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the morality of the underlying action. For example, if I force you to have dinner with me, that has nothing to do with the morality of having dinner, it has to do with me respecting your will as an individual. So consent is NOT part of sexual morality, just like it's not part of dinner morality. Consent has to do with respecting the autonomy of other people, and their freedom of choice. Breaking one's consent tells us nothing about the morality of the underlying action over which their consent was broken. And you should explain to me now, why forcing you to have sex with me is worse than forcing you to have dinner with me, and clearly consent ain't gonna help you. — Agustino

Sex without consent is rape.

If you force me to have dinner with you, you're behaving immorally because you've breached my consent (you would be transgressing against me) and have relieved me of my freedom.

Consent is a part of "dinner morality" just as it's a part of "sex morality". Please tell me you realize this...

Your whole notion that certain actions are in and of themselves immoral must not stem from any kind of harm based moral argument but instead from some kind of arbitrary and absolute god morality where actions are inherently immoral because they breach some immutable and objective standard ("god morality").

Baby Jesus weeps...

No, absolutely not. See, this is what I mean when I tell you that you don't understand these terms. That's why your first definitions are wrong. Indecency cannot be positively defined in and of itself, but rather it is always defined with regards to decency, which can be defined in itself. Children have a potential for decency - if they fail to actualise that potential, then they are indecent. — Agustino

Care to define decency then?

(Of course that would be asking too much...)

Because without these potentials, they could not develop in the directions that they do in the first place. — Agustino

So they have the potential for animal behavior built-in. Got it. Indecency is pre-programmed...

No, not at all. It is the experience of sin that threatened them with eternal damnation. — Agustino

Do you honestly think that some god-like force reached out to you and then communicated that if you don't obey it's will it will torture you for eternity in some terrible place of no return?

Is the the loving God you worship?

Now, onto more serious matters. First thing to note is that sex is terribly problematic, and has been terribly problematic for all of human history. So your approach of treating sex as if it was not problematic at all BY DEFAULT is simply ignoring everything that we anthropologically know about man. This is so because sex has to do with the very existence of life itself. It is very close to the source of our being. That is why most cultures and civilisations that have ever existed have had what is known as natural sexual morality. Sex has not been treated like buying a burger from McD's, and there are clearly reasons for this, some of which have been outlined above. — Agustino

"Problematic"? (You really are a true post-modern thinker at this point).

"Sex is problematic because it has to do with the very existence of life itself. It is very close to the source of our being." This is nonsense, and if you could just open your third and fourth chakras, you would naturally acknowledge that this is nonsense because chakras are very close to the source of your being.

More serious matters indeed...

Otherwise it would be absolutely impossible that very diverse civilisations have condemned certain sexual behaviour - such as homosexual sex - but haven't condemned looking at the sky for example. As an example, all major religions of the world condemn homosexual sex, including the Eastern ones like Hinduism and Buddhism. There were civilisations which allowed homosexual sex in certain circumstances, but not in all (Roman, Greek, etc.). What we note from this is that this behaviour has always been problematic and has been regulated by rules, for most of human history. So it is entirely absurd to treat it as if it wasn't problematic, and the burden of proof rested on me to show that it is. That's number one. — Agustino

"Sexual morality" has been diverse throughout human history, and your whole "ancient people tended to do it therefore it's true" rhetoric is sheer and incorrigible stupidity...

Do you think you can pass formalized and sloppy appeals to tradition like so many logs of shit?

No, just because people used to stone homosexuals to death doesn't mean it's necesarily "problematic" (whatever it is that means...

Oh, and please don't give me examples now of some minor tribes, etc. who have lived differently. I'm not talking about them, I'm talking about the majority of large human civilisations that have existed. — Agustino

Were the Spartans a minor tribe? Their entire civilization was based around militant bands of homosexuals...

Point number 2. Why does one want to have sex? Where is the origin of sexual desire in a human being, and what is it directed towards? Now, one undeniable end of sex is reproduction. I think you will agree at least with that much. Without affirming this end of the sexual act, one is in effect denying themselves, because they're denying the manner and mode in which they themselves entered the world. — Agustino

Biology gets us to have sex by offering up the reward of pleasure, which for us is an undeniable end of sex (i.e: why you masturbate). Just because sex was the original act which caused our inception doesn't mean we need to treat sex like some sacred domain. Sex isn't the monolith and we're not apes jumping and screaming around it...

Another essential end of sex is unitive - do you agree that the sexual act is something that can produce intimacy and closeness between two different people, something that perhaps can only be achieved through the sexual act? If so, then this is something that appears to be unique to sex, unlike "fun", "pleasure" and the like, which can be attributed to a variety of other experiences, and do not seem to be essential to the nature of sex. — Agustino

"Fun/pleasure isn't essential to the nature of sex"... That's very sad, but it's true. "intimacy and (emotional?) closeness" are also not essential to the nature of sex though, nor are they unique to sex. You can feel intimate with and close to someone through verbal interaction alone. Orgasms are a big part of sex but they are also not essential if we're speaking broadly about sex. Really the only essential characteristics of sex are physical contact and or the involvement of sexual organs.

So if we had to define sex, we would define it as that action that occurs between a man and a woman that can lead to either reproduction or intimacy. That's what sex can do, essentially. That's what belongs to its essence as an activity, and isn't an accidental feature, like "fun" and "pleasure" would be. Sure sex can be fun and pleasurable, but that doesn't belong to it as an essence, that's not what identifies it as a separate activity from, say, eating burgers with someone (which is also "fun" and "pleasureable"). — Agustino

Eating burgers with someone can produce feelings of intimacy, and the "fun" aspect of sex isn't accidental (evolution made it that way for a reason).

So, if we had to define sex intelligently, we could say that it is something that can lead to reproduction, or intimacy, or fun/pleasure, or any combination or these things.

We also affirmed before that sex is very close to the origin of life, including your own origin. It is thus very close to your being, and necessarily so. It reminds you of your own making. Therefore sex is something that involves your whole being, and not just your physical body, but your soul too (defined as the form of the body). — Agustino

This is nonsense: "sex is close to your origin, therefore close to your being, so it reminds you of your making, therefore sex involves your whole being, and your soul too".

I'm not even going to bother ridiculing this...

So tell me Vagabond, does good food frustrate the essential ends of the body it is meant to satisfy? So likewise, would good sexual behavior maintain accidental features, like "fun" and "pleasure", while frustrating essential features such as procreation and intimacy? So then, can we call casual sex "good"? — Agustino

You call reproduction and intimacy "essential ends" very clearly because that's what you want. You cannot equate nutritional health with whether or not someone chooses to reproduce or to seek intimacy as intimacy and reproduction are not required for an individual to go on living. You only feel that way because you think reproduction and intimacy have intrinsic moral importance, which is a fairly crappy moral position because it negates the moral freedom of people to choose whether or not to seek intimacy or to reproduce.

Furthermore, if sex always involves one's whole being (as a person), is it right and loving to deny your beloved sexual fulfilment, by denying them intimacy, for example? Or do you mean to argue that you simply do not care about the actual needs of the other, but only what they say, such that if they were to tell you that their need is to be eaten alive, you would proceed to give them a hand with it? — Agustino

Denying your spouse sex entirely is potential grounds for a divorce. I don't understand how that compares to euthanasia (or in this case some kind of suicidal-vore fetish?). These insane moral equivalences you make grow increasingly disturbing...


If you think a spouse should provide 24 hour sex on demand to their partner then you're confused. If you marry someone with the understanding that sex and reproduction will be a part of that marriage, and they change their mind, then you should end the marriage.

As we have established, sex is inherently directed towards a unitive end (btw we're talking about sex in-so-far as it relates to persons, so please don't bring up animals), so then if you deny yourself this unitive end by whatever means, is that no different and no worse than chewing food for the taste, and then spitting it out? If you refused to eat food anymore, denied the nutritional end of eating, and instead just chewed the food for the taste, and then spit it out, would you be harming yourself? So then Vagabond, don't you think that likewise you'd be harming yourself if you deny the unitive purpose of sex, which as we said is very close to your own being, and doing so regardless of whether or not you experienced some pleasure in the process? — Agustino

"We" haven't really established anything Aug, you keep saying random variations of the same vague and sometimes disturbing platitudes and I keep accusing them of being undefined and contradictory to common sense.

Pleasure is just as much a valid end of sex as is reproduction and "unity"...

If you treat another person as a tool for your own pleasure, then have you not neglected their real needs and desires? Have you not objectified them, treated them as undignified, and insulted their personhood? Is a human being no more than a vibrator or a plastic vagina? So if someone were to desire to be like a plastic vagina, would it be good to help them achieve that desire? If someone desired to be a slave, put in chains, would it be good to help them achieve that state? Would you, without hesitation, help them by putting and locking the chains on them, and then sending them off to the corn fields? And if this is how you treat others, then what about your own self? Does this not mean that you consider your own self the same way you consider them, and therefore you harm your own self in the process? — Agustino

You're just assuming that sex is necessarily harmful and then making false moral equivalences between sex and slavery or sex and suicide or sex and cannibalism...

On an unrelated note I've come to realize that I severely enjoy subverting you through music:

It is about your choice in the end and there are a number of different possibilities that would suggest why a woman behaves in such a manner. I have not yet had sex with a man but the way that I dress and communicate can often be interpreted as provocative and highly sexual, indeed there have been many men that have become really aggressive towards me from frustration at their inability to get close to me and as a way of trying to make me comply.

You need to be weary of your assumptions and consider a number of factors that requires you to know a person first, understand who they are, where they come from and perhaps you may find that it is your own assumptions that is making you choose to believe what is essentially your desire and your lack of responsibility. Such intimacy without respect for her history, her personhood, her reasons for being their in the first place merely objectifies her into what you want, not who she is. — TimeLine

If a man makes a a pass at a woman and fails he needs to move on or risk committing sexual harassment (same goes for a failed female aggressor)...

Does it surprise you though that if you show up to certain places dressed a certain way that men assume it's O.K to approach you? Are they wrong for not assuming you're not interested or that you might get upset?

This is what I mean by not wanting to have to consider everyone's emotional well-being to the N'th degree. If you're dressed up a certain way and at a certain club I'm going to assume you're an adult capable of handling an adult interaction (a sexual pass). If I were to harass you with obscenity or repetition I would be wrong, but let's say I was cordial (in a night club setting) and you verbally insulted me as a part of your rejection, in this case you would be the bad guy ;).

If you were reading a book in a library there's hardly any room for making a cordial sexual pass (the situation/context renders it clearly inappropriate), so even if I was the nicest guy you would still be in the right to tell me to fuck off.

It all has to do with the circumstances which individuals can use to create a reasonable expectation of whether not a sexual pass would be taken offensively...

Does it surprise you though that if you show up to certain places dressed a certain way that men assume it's O.K to approach you? Are they wrong for not assuming you're not interested or that you might get upset? — VagabondSpectre

We are talking about intention here; a couple of months ago, I went to a birthday party at a bar and while attempting to get a mocktail and having a laugh with the bartender as we both don't drink alcohol, I was approached by a man. I was wearing a simple, floral dress and I don't wear make-up except for a bit of blush because I have freckles that I hate. This man was eyeballing me earlier and he did a few other things and when I was at the bar, he intentionally brushed himself up close to me and came to whisper something to me, but as I pulled away he actually, quite literally went 'what?' really angrily. I am at a bar only because it is my friends birthday and I don't drink alcohol, yet his assumption was otherwise because his intentions were. In his mind, he took away my humanity, everything that I am and turned me into a disposable object and I was not allowed to get upset about that.

It all has to do with the circumstances which individuals can use to create a reasonable expectation of whether not a sexual pass would be taken offensively... — VagabondSpectre

Casual sex is symptomatic of a carelessness to ones own integrity and there is no value to it other than obtaining an orgasm or a fleeting sense of pleasure, ultimately targeted by those that have built a disjunctive against reciprocal significance of love or affection. They become nothing but a body that reduces the intimacy to nothing more than a mere transaction. The dilemma here is two-fold; the impact at a macro-level as mentioned below notwithstanding the psychological and epidemiological and your responsibility as a moral agent, but if we reduce the significance of sex to become devoid of meaning, it enables a permissibility of many acts of sexual deviation including non-consensual. Such intimacy must be reciprocal both sexually and emotionally to establish meaning.

This is what I mean by not wanting to have to consider everyone's emotional well-being to the N'th degree. — VagabondSpectre

This is not about right or wrong on a case-by-case basis and sexual objectification is not emotional, we are talking about what is going on in your mind; what is in question is your interpretation of the types of women that exist under these particular settings. This is an objectionable point of view because it brazenly assumes and overall contributes to imagined constructs that devalues personhood. It lacks the acknowledgement of the person and such assumptions form social pressures that contribute - just as marketing and mainstream media do - to a number of psychological problems where men and women become obsessed with their appearances, getting plastic surgery or drawing on eyebrows to perfect themselves, for what exactly? You're loose moral contributes to something much greater.

Humans don't purposefully get thirsty, they just get thirsty. Drinking a cold liquid then becomes inherently pleasurable. — VagabondSpectre

I'm quite sure people don't drink because it's pleasurable (or they're thirsty), but rather because they're going to die if they don't. Obviously the same doesn't hold with regards to sexuality.

Holy shit Aug, you're really gonna equate casual sex with suicide and cannibalism? — VagabondSpectre

Where have I done that? Stop straw-manning please. I know that you don't really have arguments against me, because I read through your post and it's mostly blabber and completely off the point, but still you should have the decency not to be intellectually dishonest. Certainly you should read the passage you quoted again:

If two willing participants negotiate an anonymous contract whereby one will eat the other one alive, and they both give their consent, have they done nothing wrong? Again, this whole idea that consent somehow has ANYTHING AT ALL to do with the rightness or wrongness of an activity is absurd. If I force you to have dinner with me, that's as wrong as if I force you to have sex with me from the point of view of consent. But clearly, we take me forcing you to have sex with me as a much more serious offence than if I were to force you to have dinner with me. Why is that? — Agustino

No mention of cannibalism and suicide here.

We generally don't let people end their lives for no good reason Aug, if you want to talk about the morality of euthanasia we can do that, and subsequently about the morality of consuming dead humans, but these are two separate discussions from the one we're having. — VagabondSpectre

The morality of respecting one's freedom is different than the morality of sex. We were talking about the morality of respecting another's will (consent) at that moment.

The main reason why "forcing people to have meals they don't want to have" is immoral is actually because you're removing their freedom, not because eating food is an inherently harmful act. — VagabondSpectre

Right motherducker, and did I say anything different?! The immorality has nothing to do with the underlying activity (whether this is SEX or EATING DINNER), but rather with the infringement of their freedom. And in both cases, there is the SAME infringement of freedom.

Now, if I consent to dine with you, and to clean my plate save for the squash, has any harm been done upon me? (the answer is no) — VagabondSpectre

Right, so we can conclude that having dinner with me is not immoral. Now you stopped looking at the question of consent, and looked at the underlying activity. Do the same for sex. Stop looking at consent. It has NOTHING to do with it.

So when you hold someone captive, there's the immorality of that, and then what you do to them constitutes additional moral infractions above and beyond just imprisoning them. — VagabondSpectre

Right, exactly.

Because it's more invasive, it's more important to have that consent. — VagabondSpectre

Riiiiight >:O >:O >:O - and until now you were saying that the prostitute does a service just like the McDonald worker - no difference!! Can you see how that was a piece of crap that you're contradicting yourself now? So now you finally admit that sex is different from other activities. It's more invasive. Maybe I should start like you. But why? Why is it more invasive?! Ahhhh is it because it has to do with their personhood, and involves their whole being, just like I told you before eh?!

Because it's more invasive, it's more important to have that consent. — VagabondSpectre

Bullshit. Forcing you to do something against your will is immoral, regardless of what I force you to do against your will. But - there can be additional immoralities that have to do with the underlying activity that I force you into, and those immoralities have to do with the activity in question and its nature, not with disrespecting your will.

Of course consent has something to do with the rightness or wrongness of an activity. If I give a tattoo to someone who wants one, it's not immoral. If I tattoo someone who does not want one, then it's immoral. — VagabondSpectre

Nope. Giving someone a tattoo is immoral in both cases. However, when you force them, there are two immoralities - the immorality of forcing them against their will, and the immorality of harming their body. The latter one is the only one that has to do with the activity of giving them a tattoo in and of itself. The other one has to do with respecting their will.

If I have consensual sex with my wife, it's not an immoral activity right? — VagabondSpectre

Yes it's not. Why not? Because the underlying sexual activity isn't immoral, and you respect her will.

But if I have non-consensual sex with my wife, it's rape. — VagabondSpectre

That is immoral not because of the underlying sexual activity (which is moral, you're having sex with your wife), but because you force her to do something against her will. If you forced her to have dinner with you in the same manner, that would be equally immoral.

Doing actions upon people who do not want those actions to be done upon them constitute moral infractions against the afflicted party. — VagabondSpectre

Sure, but that's NOT because the underlying activities done to them are immoral, but rather because you infringe upon their will.

Can you honestly not see the relationship between personal rights, consent and force? — VagabondSpectre

I absolutely can, but stop changing the subject. I pointed out to the fact that breaking your will and forcing you to have dinner with me, is not as immoral as breaking your will and forcing you to have sex with me. You have answered, FINALLY - that having sex is more "invasive" than having dinner. So you perceived my point, even though you're being a little snitch and trying to hide this, that there is something in the underlying activity, beyond consent, that makes one worse than the other. Consent is broken in both cases.

If someone says I wanna buy this pill and kill myself with it, it's wrong to sell them the pill. WHY? According to your stupid logic, which you don't even agree with, this shouldn't be wrong, because they've given their consent! (think of your stupid tattoo example)

I'm guessing that you came to this strange hill because in your mind God decided that certain actions please him and other actions displease him — VagabondSpectre

So Vagabond, does God randomly decide what actions please Him and what actions displease Him? Or does He have some rationality in so deciding? I feel that you think God is some sort of idiot who would make you do what's actually bad and harmful for you.

And what if both parties go away from the glory hole happy with the exchange? — VagabondSpectre

Irrelevant.

I don't have time to consider everyone's emotional well-being and I refuse to coddle strangers. If I'm going out of my way to benefit someone's emotional well-being then that's morally praiseworthy, but it's enough to not go out of my way to damage the emotional-well being of others — VagabondSpectre

Yes, because quite honestly, you're just using this as an excuse to think of yourself as moral, when you should be thinking the opposite. It's a problem that you don't consider other people.

Adults who have no mental disability must be allowed to make decisions on their own rather than someone making decisions for their own good. If and when bad things happen to people as a result of their un-coerced choices, that's life. — VagabondSpectre

Yes, and it's absolutely morally wrong to harm another knowingly, even if they accept this through their will.

What does "whole being" mean? If I had to guess I would say some emotion-esque nonsense about souls and sin. Am I right? — VagabondSpectre

It means the same shit you were saying when you said sex is more invasive than having dinner :s Really, you're feigned ignorance is pathetic.

Please take this as a request for a somewhat rigid or scientific definition for whatever the fuck it is you mean by "whole being". — VagabondSpectre

Yes, a scientific foundation is exactly what you lack, that's why you can't even distinguish properly between different aspects of morality.

I bet that the fact that most women are out there having casual sex causes you emotional harm because you feel like there are therefore less virgin women for you to choose from. — VagabondSpectre

:s I don't care if they're virgins, but I do care if they're decent people who strive to be moral. Someone who goes out every weekend to shag a different person is highly immoral, and definitely not decent, so yes, I wouldn't be interested in them. If someone had sex because they had a boyfriend or something, then that's understandable to a certain degree (though obviously still immoral).

And yes, of course sexual immorality affects me - as well as everyone else in society, including children and couples. That's why divorce rates are through the roof and people can't even have a fucking family anymore. So many children growing up with a single parent or worse.

Do you think that women should be obligated to save themselves in case you wind up being their future spouse? — VagabondSpectre

Yes, and so should men. They should strive to do that, they may fail, but that's not that bad if they're at least trying. But many, especially amongst men, don't even give a fuck, and that's very immoral, and a serious problem.

Everyone else is free to live the way they want to live despite your ego-centrism. — VagabondSpectre

I'm ego-centric? >:O >:O

Says the guy who likes shagging random people because it "feels good", and who isn't concerned about their emotional being, because, well that's too much to ask of him, they should take care of themselves! >:O >:O Give me a break!

Let's step back and think about what you're saying though: an illegal alien who works your garden dirt cheap is losing some kind of dignity in comparison to the citizen who sells their labor for a livable wage. That's a sensical appraisal, but it's not "immoral" for the illegal alien to sacrifice their dignity in a consensual agreement with their employer, they're free to make such an exchange and we have no recourse to judge them for it. — VagabondSpectre

No, that's not what I'm saying.

Sex without consent is rape. — VagabondSpectre

Oh really? I didn't know we had a special term for it. You surely had to bold it and make it obvious. So what if it's rape? :s Why the hell does it matter that we call it rape and not fjhsdhdas? Breaking someone's consent is immoral - on top of that is added the immorality of the sexual act (fornication) and therefore we assign it a special place of immorality, and call it rape.

Consent is a part of "dinner morality" just as it's a part of "sex morality". Please tell me you realize this... — VagabondSpectre

No, it's not. Consent is part of respecting your will, which is different from dinner morality and sex morality. It is also a part of morality, but a different aspect of it.

Your whole notion that certain actions are in and of themselves immoral must not stem from any kind of harm based moral argument but instead from some kind of arbitrary and absolute god morality where actions are inherently immoral because they breach some immutable and objective standard ("god morality"). — VagabondSpectre

I see you've run out of arguments, and into speculation.

Do you honestly think that some god-like force reached out to you and then communicated that if you don't obey it's will it will torture you for eternity in some terrible place of no return? — VagabondSpectre

Immorality doesn't only harm you in the afterlife, but in this life also.

Biology gets us to have sex by offering up the reward of pleasure, which for us is an undeniable end of sex (i.e: why you masturbate). — VagabondSpectre

No it's not. It's not an inherent end of sex. That's exactly why masturbation is wrong.

Just because sex was the original act which caused our inception doesn't mean we need to treat sex like some sacred domain. — VagabondSpectre

Ehmm, yes it does actually mean we need to treat it with reverence and respect.

"Fun/pleasure isn't essential to the nature of sex"... That's very sad, but it's true. "intimacy and (emotional?) closeness" are also not essential to the nature of sex though, nor are they unique to sex. You can feel intimate with and close to someone through verbal interaction alone. Orgasms are a big part of sex but they are also not essential if we're speaking broadly about sex. Really the only essential characteristics of sex are physical contact and or the involvement of sexual organs. — VagabondSpectre

Intimacy is one thing that can only be achieved, to that same extent, via the sexual act. That's why it counts as an end of sex. Sure, you can be intimate by sharing food - but that's not as intimate as having sex. Why? Because sex is fucking more invasive, you yourself said it just a few moments ago! It's kind of pathetic how you pretend to forget what you have said, and shift from contradiction to contradiction because you want to run away from the truth.

And no, I'm not talking of "essential characteristics", but rather essential ends.

So, if we had to define sex intelligently, we could say that it is something that can lead to reproduction, or intimacy, or fun/pleasure, or any combination or these things. — VagabondSpectre

No, because the same degree of fun achieved with sex can be achieved via other means. So that "fun" isn't essential to define sex. It's not the same as reproduction and intimacy. I told you to read Aristotle, and you should, because then you'd actually understand what essential means, and how it opposes accidental. Accidental doesn't mean that there isn't a connection between two things, but rather that that connection does not belong to the essence of the activity.

You cannot equate nutritional health with whether or not someone chooses to reproduce or to seek intimacy as intimacy and reproduction are not required for an individual to go on living. — VagabondSpectre

The end of eating is providing nutrition for your body. It's NOT pleasure. Pleasure is an accidental feature of eating. Likewise for sex. And it has ZERO to do with whether something is required for living or not.

You only feel that way because you think reproduction and intimacy have intrinsic moral importance, which is a fairly crappy moral position because it negates the moral freedom of people to choose whether or not to seek intimacy or to reproduce. — VagabondSpectre

The freedom of people is only part of morality. We're talking about the intrinsic morality of certain actions now, so stop bringing in the freedom of the people. The freedom isn't negated because action X is immoral. They're still free to engage in it, but that doesn't change the fact that it is immoral.

Denying your spouse sex entirely is potential grounds for a divorce. I don't understand how that compares to euthanasia (or in this case some kind of suicidal-vore fetish?). These insane moral equivalences you make grow increasingly disturbing... — VagabondSpectre

Care to answer the questions? Or do you prefer to run away?

"We" haven't really established anything Aug, you keep saying random variations of the same vague and sometimes disturbing platitudes and I keep accusing them of being undefined and contradictory to common sense. — VagabondSpectre

Answer the damn questions...

You're just assuming that sex is necessarily harmful and then making false moral equivalences between sex and slavery or sex and suicide or sex and cannibalism... — VagabondSpectre

There's no moral equivalence there. I didn't say they're equally wrong. I'm using it to illustrate a point, namely that there is an intrinsic morality of an activity which has ZERO to do with consent. So stop pretending like you don't see it, and answer the questions. It's very simple. You can either answer the question if you have a good answer, which would be able to illustrate that you are right, or you can run away, fleeing from the truth, because you don't have an adequate answer.

Pleasure is just as much a valid end of sex as is reproduction and "unity"... — VagabondSpectre

False, as I've explained above. Just like pleasure isn't a valid end of eating, so pleasure isn't a valid end of sex. A valid end of sex is what is essential for sex, what sex is aimed at. It's aimed at reproduction and intimacy, the same way eating is aimed at nutrition. Simple.

On an unrelated note I've come to realize that I severely enjoy subverting you through music: — VagabondSpectre

You're not subverting anyone mate, you're just running away now that you don't have answers anymore.

I'm quite sure people don't drink because it's pleasurable (or they're thirsty), but rather because they're going to die if they don't. Obviously the same doesn't hold with regards to sexuality. — Agustino

People do drink for pleasure, that's why they pay extra money for all kinds of flavored and carbonated beverages. This is common sense Aug...

Where have I done that? Stop straw-manning please. I know that you don't really have arguments against me, because I read through your post and it's mostly blabber and completely off the point, but still you should have the decency not to be intellectually dishonest. Certainly you should read the passage you quoted again: — Agustino

The ordering of my quotations got a bit messed up, but surely you didn't forget making that comparison:

"Furthermore, if sex always involves one's whole being (as a person), is it right and loving to deny your beloved sexual fulfillment, by denying them intimacy, for example? Or do you mean to argue that you simply do not care about the actual needs of the other, but only what they say, such that if they were to tell you that their need is to be eaten alive, you would proceed to give them a hand with it?"

There you go.

I'm not strawmanning you at all Aug, you've said all this shit on your own...

Right motherducker, and did I say anything different?! The immorality has nothing to do with the underlying activity (whether this is SEX or EATING DINNER), but rather with the infringement of their freedom. And in both cases, there is the SAME infringement of freedom. — Agustino

When you stated that consent has nothing to do with the rightness or wrongness of an activity you made it pretty clear that you weren't talking about freedom (which is related to consent). you were trying to argue that sex is inherently more harmful than forced feeding as a part of your argument that casual sex is inherently harmful, but it doesn't apply because non-consensual sex is more traumatic than non-consensual food consumption, but non-consensual food-consumption is also more traumatic than consensual sex, which is possibly not traumatic at all

You asked me "why is forced sex worse than forced eating if consent doesn't exist in both cases?" (expecting the answer "because sex is inherently more harmful") What you fail to grasp is that it's the non-consensual aspect of sex itself that makes it so much more traumatic. You kept ranting that consent has nothing to do with the underlying morality of an action, but clearly when it comes to matters of personal freedom, it does.

If you still don't grasp this basic reality, answer this question: Why is sex between consenting adults not considered to be worse than kidnapping or forced feeding?

and until now you were saying that the prostitute does a service just like the McDonald worker - no difference!! Can you see how that was a piece of crap that you're contradicting yourself now? So now you finally admit that sex is different from other activities. It's more invasive. Maybe I should start like you. But why? Why is it more invasive?! Ahhhh is it because it has to do with their personhood, and involves their whole being [CITATION NEEDED], just like I told you before eh? — Agustino

The service that the prostitute does is more invasive on their body, but then, arguably the work a coal miner does is more or just as invasive on their body than even prostitution might be for a woman.
The important thing is that the person consent to the invasive action to be done upon them. In the case of sex, a lot of the time the invasive actions are welcomed as desirable and pleasurable (keep in mind that sex has a different impact when when sex is unwelcome/non consensual). A prostitute who might not actually want to have sex but does so anyway is exchanging money/goods for a service in the same type of transaction that a coal miner or a Macdonald's worker is. We can say that the MacDonald's work is less invasive (and that's why they tend to get paid less), but we could also say that coal mining is more invasive (and that's why they tend to get paid more).

The coal dust that enters the lungs of the miner might be there forever and cause them to die a slow painful death. You could make comparisons about STD's and sex but health problems probably come from coal mining much more reliably than from sex work. But maybe now you might begin to understand that goods and services exist on a market where the price of something is determined by how much people want or need a particular good and service, and the difficulty/sacrifices people must undertake produce them.

Bullshit. Forcing you to do something against your will is immoral, regardless of what I force you to do against your will. But - there can be additional immoralities that have to do with the underlying activity that I force you into, and those immoralities have to do with the activity in question and its nature, not with disrespecting your will. — Agustino

Again, when sex is done against someone's will, it tends to be severely traumatic, that's why consent has a lot to do with the morality/impact/potential harm of sex. consensual sex between adults does not tend to be traumatic, it tends to be enjoyable.

Nope. Giving someone a tattoo is immoral in both cases. However, when you force them, there are two immoralities - the immorality of forcing them against their will, and the immorality of harming their body. The latter one is the only one that has to do with the activity of giving them a tattoo in and of itself. The other one has to do with respecting their will. — Agustino

Why are tattoo's harmful to the body? Did god say so?

That is immoral not because of the underlying sexual activity (which is moral, you're having sex with your wife), but because you force her to do something against her will. If you forced her to have dinner with you in the same manner, that would be equally immoral. — Agustino

Just to be clear, is it that you are married to her which makes the sex not immoral or that there is "communion" or whatever. In other words, if they were not married but still in love and all that, would the sex still not be immoral?

You have answered, FINALLY - that having sex is more "invasive" than having dinner. So you perceived my point, even though you're being a little snitch and trying to hide this, that there is something in the underlying activity, beyond consent, that makes one worse than the other. Consent is broken in both cases.

If someone says I wanna buy this pill and kill myself with it, it's wrong to sell them the pill. WHY? According to your stupid logic, which you don't even agree with, this shouldn't be wrong, because they've given their consent! (think of your stupid tattoo example) — Agustino

There you go again, comparing sex to suicide...

And now tattos are matters of life and death too...

Sex is invasive, but whether or not it's "harmful" depends almost entirely on the will and disposition of the participants (unless an STD or an unwanted pregnancy is involved). People have invasive things done to them all the time but they don;t consider it harmful, they consider it pleasurable (and verily, we cannot point to necessary and substantial bodily or psychological harm,). People enjoy sex and they enjoy tattoos and while there is some risk of harm we don't forbid people to pursue happiness on the basis that they might harm themselves (not unless we treat them like children, like some authoritarian overlord).

This is why people can have mutually enjoyable sex all the time and afterward might be more happy and less stressed - because consensual invasiveness isn't necessarily harmful.

At this point you will just refer back to your original assumption (begging the question) god said sex is bad so it's bad.

So Vagabond, does God randomly decide what actions please Him and what actions displease Him? Or does He have some rationality in so deciding? I feel that you think God is some sort of idiot who would make you do what's actually bad and harmful for you. — Agustino

Well, actually, stupid people randomly decide what pleases and displeases "Him". The stupid people who either think they know "god" or pretend to speak on it's behalf sometimes try to use reason, but the assortment of centuries old moral positions found in religions contain so many stupid and retarded moral arguments that we're better off starting from godless scratch.

Irrelevant. — Agustino

Irrelevant to what? The tears of baby Jesus?

Yes, because quite honestly, you're just using this as an excuse to think of yourself as moral, when you should be thinking the opposite. It's a problem that you don't consider other people. — Agustino

I do consider other people, I just don't consider them to be children in need of righteous guidance or constant emotional coddling. That and I don't have a warped and negative (and anticipatory) view of casual sex.

It means the same shit you were saying when you said sex is more invasive than having dinner :s Really, you're feigned ignorance is pathetic. — Agustino

So "whole being" means that "sex is more invasive than food consumption"?

Why did you say "whole being" instead of "sex is invasive and invasiveness is harmful" then?

But now I get to ask: When you have sex with your wife, it's invasive (and therefore harmful by that logic), right?

Yes, a scientific foundation is exactly what you lack, that's why you can't even distinguish properly between different aspects of morality. — Agustino

Are you saying that you have a scientific moral framework?

That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard all year...

I don't care if they're virgins, but I do care if they're decent people who strive to be moral. Someone who goes out every weekend to shag a different person is highly immoral, and definitely not decent, so yes, I wouldn't be interested in them. If someone had sex because they had a boyfriend or something, then that's understandable to a certain degree (though obviously still immoral).

And yes, of course sexual immorality affects me - as well as everyone else in society, including children and couples. That's why divorce rates are through the roof and people can't even have a fucking family anymore. So many children growing up with a single parent or worse. — Agustino

So 'promiscuity causes divorce' is your best and only argument that's actually based in the material world (other than your insistence that casual sex is always and necessarily harmful). At least it's something...

But it's not the only factor that leads to divorce, and making sex outside of marriage illegal (per the noahide laws and your own morality) might actually cause more harm than the amount of harmful divorces which are caused by sex outside of marriage in the first place. It's also important to note that not all divorces are bad, because sometimes it brings an end to abusive and dysfunctional relationships. You can blame sluts for the collapse of western society all you like but your argument as to how that happens is chained lunacy (because you think divorce is all the fault of immoral sex fault and that will destroy the nuclear family and therefore the culture/children and therefore your religion and therefore the economy and therefore the nation?)

And in short, yes you're emotionally affected. Got it...

Yes, and so should men. They should strive to do that, they may fail, but that's not that bad if they're at least trying. But many, especially amongst men, don't even give a fuck, and that's very immoral, and a serious problem. — Agustino

Naa, it's not immoral, and since we've already established that you shouldstop feigning pathetic ignorance and assent to my constant appeals to god and tradition and outright question begging.

I'm ego-centric? >:O >:O

Says the guy who likes shagging random people because it "feels good", and who isn't concerned about their emotional being, because, well that's too much to ask of him, they should take care of themselves! >:O >:O Give me a break! — Agustino

You're the guy who moans that he is destined for divorce. Like a slave who is "free to escape", you're free to try and fail at marriage.

You fear you will fail at marriage because you view everyone else as a greedy promiscuous slut who won't be able to resist cheating on you or to invest in life long monogamy the way god intended...

When a woman has sex, "harm is done to her future spouse", (that's you). Your future wife is out there getting fucked, possibly as we speak. Maybe she will even get pregnant (will she get an abortion and not tell you I wonder?) .

How familiar are you with the term "cuck"? (Don't answer that). It comes from cuckhold (which means your wife got impregnated by another man), but over the last three years it has come to be used as a broad pejorative that gets wielded against conservative men who basically protest too much (like a liberal, kinda). There's a few different political senses of the term, but a broad and main one essentially describes over-confident person who is in reality a whiny beta male whose insecurities (such as the inability to sexually satisfy their wife) winds up forcing them to make liberal compromises (such as letting another man sexually gratify their wife (ouch!)). It's used mainly because it bothers people with insecurity severely.

I brought up what I view to be your ego centrism because you have made it abundantly clear that the personal and private decisions of other free and consenting adults bothers you to the extent you consider yourself harmed by them. You will of course go out of your way to make it clear that you're not worried about yourself (you're an alpha, that's a given), but the way go on and lament how all the other men will be enslaved to divorce makes it seem like that's how you really feel about your own future. The way you describe sex as harmful to one's future spouse must mean you yourself are being harmed by your future wife (if she isn't a virgin) before you've even met her. This has a bit of the "protests too much" angle, and so you should be aware that voicing many of your points in many mainstream political circles would be met with the "cuck" retort.

I'm not calling you a cuck though, I don't want to pretend to get at the roots of whatever makes you feel entitled/harmed when it comes to how, when, and why other people engage in sex. But I am pointing out that your sense of entitlement and harm regarding the private actions of other people is ego-centric and seems like a psychological insecurity.

No, that's not what I'm saying. — Agustino

When you just pull terms out of your ass like "dignity" and stake your movable goal post into the ground you cannot blame me for making sensical comparisons like the fact that an illegal alien who works for less than you sacrifices their dignity in doing so.

Why is that different from the sacrificed dignity of the prostitute? Is it a different kind of dignity?

Does baby Jesus not weep?

Have you run out of arguments?

Oh really? I didn't know we had a special term for it. You surely had to bold it and make it obvious. So what if it's rape? :s Why the hell does it matter that we call it rape and not fjhsdhdas? Breaking someone's consent is immoral - on top of that is added the immorality of the sexual act (fornication) and therefore we assign it a special place of immorality, and call it rape. — Agustino

Because you repeated and capitalized nonsense about how consent has nothing to do with the morality of sex. Clearly that's not the case because non-consensual sex is deemed by society to be harmful/illegal/immoral, while consensual sex is not considered to be illegal/harmful/immoral in the same way. Your point about how the morality of sex has to do with the nature of the act is either some ad hoc misguided nonsense you haphazardly excreted on the spot or it stems from some kind of god based absolute "X is wrong because X is wrong" nonsense...

Which is it?

No, it's not. Consent is part of respecting your will, which is different from dinner morality and sex morality. It is also a part of morality, but a different aspect of it. — Agustino

Normally I would ridicule this by suggesting that it resembles something a mentally deficient child would produce, but since that won't help you understand, let me try a different approach:

"sex morality" and "dinner morality" are short hand for referencing "moral issues pertaining to sex and sexual interaction" and "moral issues pertaining to dining with other people". In both cases "respecting the will" of the participants is a highly relevant issue in many respects, and so trying to separate out consent from "sex morality" sounds absolutely ridiculous and as if you're totally unfamiliar with how your own ideas actually sound.

I see you've run out of arguments, and into speculation. — Agustino

So which is it. Is sex bad because you fear divorce or is sex bad because baby Jesus weeps. Take your pick and the arguments will keep flowing.

But I cannot treat sewage without substance, you've got to provide that.

Immorality doesn't only harm you in the afterlife, but in this life also. — Agustino

Are you answering the question with a "yes" or are you just running away?

No it's not. It's not an inherent end of sex. That's exactly why masturbation is wrong. — Agustino

Without masturbation you will become stressed and sexually frustrated unless you have a partner who is adequately available for sex.

Let's clarify though: masturbation is bad because it's pleasurable or because it's not intimacy or reproduction oriented?

Ehmm, yes it does actually mean we need to treat it with reverence and respect. — Agustino

What about the bed upon which your parents fucked in order to conceive you, must we treat that with reverence and respect?

What if you were the result of invitro-fertilization, must you treat the petri dish with reverence and respect?

Why does "close to our conception" or whatever actually mean such that we need to revere it? You keep making conclusions which don't appear to follow from any combination of the available and presumptive premises you've offered.

Intimacy is one thing that can only be achieved, to that same extent, via the sexual act. That's why it counts as an end of sex. Sure, you can be intimate by sharing food - but that's not as intimate as having sex. Why? Because sex is fucking more invasive, you yourself said it just a few moments ago! It's kind of pathetic how you pretend to forget what you have said, and shift from contradiction to contradiction because you want to run away from the truth.

And no, I'm not talking of "essential characteristics", but rather essential ends. — Agustino

It's because you have an internally contradictory view of sex (warped) that causes you to A, not understand my own moral framework, and B, to jump back and forth (cognitive dissionance?) between random, varied, and inexorably contradictory positions as you try to avoid the many problems I've pointed out.

For example, you tried to argue that the morality of sex has nothing to do with consent (as if sex is an invasive procedure that is inherently harmful in and of itself), but then you went on to state that sex is not inherently immoral (and therefore not invasive/harmful?) so long as it's with your spouse. (to me this indicates some arbitrary specific standard around which you presently dance)

Why is the harmful invasiveness of sex an O.K thing to do to your spouse but not an O.K thing to do to a consenting non-spouse? If your wife asked you to eat her alive, you wouldn't give her a hand would you? (protip: that last question is a red-herring)

No, because the same degree of fun achieved with sex can be achieved via other means. So that "fun" isn't essential to define sex. It's not the same as reproduction and intimacy. I told you to read Aristotle, and you should, because then you'd actually understand what essential means, and how it opposes accidental. Accidental doesn't mean that there isn't a connection between two things, but rather that that connection does not belong to the essence of the activity. — Agustino

Sorry that I'm not ready to submit to your dogmatic appeal to an ancient teleological framework as you try to weave it in to some kind of twisted purpose or "end" based moral platform. I have my own way of classifying, describing and understanding concepts and objects, and frankly I think it quite naive a position for you to expect me to assent to an assertion like "the purpose of sex is intimacy and reproduction, therefore subverting these purposes is immoral"...

You should read "The Moral Landscape" by Sam Harris, "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins, "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking, and if you have time "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" by the late great Christopher Hitchens.

(Spoiler alert: I've already read Aristotle but I missed the nonsensical bit that actually determined "necessary/essential ends/characteristics" to be the basis for moral oughts.

You do realize how many crazy things we can conclude using your reasoning? "The necessary end of bicycles is travel, therefore joyriding is immoral!", or, "The necessary end of eating food is nutrition, therefore eating for pleasure is immoral!", or "the necessary end of living is dying, therefore living for pleasure is immoral!", or "the necessary end of eyesight is awareness, therefore looking at art for pleasure is immoral! or "the necessary end of rest is to convalesce, therefore resting for pleasure is immoral!", or "the necessary end of listening to music is pleasure, therefore listening to gospel/hymns for religious enlightenment immoral!". Need I go on?

The necessary end of a chair is to be sat upon, therefore using it to jam a door closed is immoral!

The necessary end of a dildo is to be inserted into vaginas/rectums, therefore using it to moralize and condemn free agents is immoral!

O.k I'm done...

The end of eating is providing nutrition for your body. It's NOT pleasure. Pleasure is an accidental feature of eating. Likewise for sex. And it has ZERO to do with whether something is required for living or not. — Agustino

According to you masturbation is immoral because sex has essential ends of intimacy and reproduction, while pleasure is only accidental (sad). By that logic eating food for pleasure (choosing a dish for taste over nutrition) is immoral. Right?

The freedom of people is only part of morality. We're talking about the intrinsic morality of certain actions now, so stop bringing in the freedom of the people. The freedom isn't negated because action X is immoral. They're still free to engage in it, but that doesn't change the fact that it is immoral. — Agustino

This is exactly what I've been saying about your moral framework; it's based on some continuous appeal to the intrinsic/inherent/innate immorality of something, in this case sex, and while I constantly ask why sex in the marriage bed is not immoral while sex outside of it is, all you need to do is keep referring back to the assumption (restating, over and over and over) that such seX is immoral.

Everytime I talk about weeping baby Jesus, I'm ridiculing/assuming that you get your moral constants from an arbitrary source like God (which seems totally correct given how much you've referred to Christianity as your moral inspiration).

What if God is gay though?

Care to answer the questions? Or do you prefer to run away? — Agustino

O.K
"As we have established, sex is inherently directed towards a unitive end (btw we're talking about sex in-so-far as it relates to persons, so please don't bring up animals), so then if you deny yourself this unitive end by whatever means, is that no different and no worse than chewing food for the taste, and then spitting it out?"

No, because intimacy and reproduction are not required to be healthy and go on living. Although, assuming that you're already well nourished, it's not harmful at all to chew and spit out food for the taste, or to sip and spit out wine at a wine tasting.

"If you refused to eat food anymore, denied the nutritional end of eating, and instead just chewed the food for the taste, and then spit it out, would you be harming yourself?"

Yes you would be harming yourself, because eating food is required to go on living, intimacy and reproduction are not.


"So then Vagabond, don't you think that likewise you'd be harming yourself if you deny the unitive purpose of sex, which as we said is very close to your own being, and doing so regardless of whether or not you experienced some pleasure in the process?"

No, because "has reproduced" or "is in an intimate monogamous relationship" are not required for health or happiness, while "is well nourished" is.

Can you see the difference?

There's no moral equivalence there. I didn't say they're equally wrong. I'm using it to illustrate a point, namely that there is an intrinsic morality of an activity which has ZERO to do with consent. So stop pretending like you don't see it, and answer the questions. It's very simple. You can either answer the question if you have a good answer, which would be able to illustrate that you are right, or you can run away, fleeing from the truth, because you don't have an adequate answer. — Agustino

You're trying to make a comparison between things as if there is intrinsic immorality contained in all of the actions themselves but it just isn't so. You need to bring up such ridiculous and severe examples of immoral behaviors to try and get me to agree to the premise that certain actions are in and of thswemlves immoral rather than defining why certain actions are immoral and in what circumstances based on actual reasons (as opposed to God said so). Cannibalism isn't always immoral, sometimes it's necessary for survival Suicide isn't always immoral, sometimes it's merciful. Even murder isn't always immoral (unless you define it as immoral killing of another, in which case "the killing of another" isn't always immoral).

It's the context, the circumstances, reasons (things like consent) that determine the morality or immorality of a certain behavior, not some ultimate eternal and central authority. (at least, not a morality you can successfully argue is useful or true (i.e: persuasive)).

I'll answer these questions too though:

We don't allow people to take their own lives generally because their reasons for wanting to do so are irrational/temporary/psychologically disturbed. We put a suicidal person in a mental institution generally because we think their reasons for wanting to die are fixable (were they thinking clearly they would want us to help them rather than encourage their suicidal desires). But sometimes, such as in the case of a suffering and dying terminally ill person, we might actually let them kill themselves because it's more merciful (they have good reasons). Wanting to be eaten is not a good enough reason to permit people to kill themselves, so we do them the favor of trying to cure their insanity instead. Wanting to eat someone isn't exactly a crime, but if you steal a body to eat we will arrest you for that, and if you kill someone to eat them we'll definitely arrest you for that too, but if you eat the dead co-pilot because you will otherwise starve, most people would forgive that. If you convince someone to agree to be eaten, we will basically arrest you both on the grounds that you're both insane.

Why don't we arrest two adults who have consensual sex on the grounds that they're abusing and harming one another? Is it because we don't live in Saudi Arabia?

It's because consenting adults are capable of having sex without actually abusing or harming one-another, and so we don't need to be concerned for them on any moral grounds other than that they be free to pursue happiness.

False, as I've explained above. Just like pleasure isn't a valid end of eating, so pleasure isn't a valid end of sex. A valid end of sex is what is essential for sex, what sex is aimed at. It's aimed at reproduction and intimacy, the same way eating is aimed at nutrition. Simple. — Agustino

Food is aimed at pleasure too though. Pleasure from eating is a fundamental end of eating. Even if I were to assent to your intrinsic purpose oriented teleological-moral nightmare of a confused and sexually repressed religious perception of the world, I could still object on the basis that evolution endowed us with pleasure attached to sex and eating because happiness is an essential end of human existence, and therefore we actually eat (and fuck) to be happy.

My claim has just as much gravitas as your shitty "food is for nutrition not pleasure, therefore sex for pleasure is immoral" mental back-flip.

You're not subverting anyone mate, you're just running away now that you don't have answers anymore. — Agustino

Oh, I wouldn't call it running

In his mind, he took away my humanity, everything that I am and turned me into a disposable object and I was not allowed to get upset about that. — TimeLine

If someone stares at you and invades your personal space, then they're in the wrong. Merely approaching you and speaking to you however isn't something I would expect you to be upset about.

As far as him remarking "what!?", are you sure that he stripped you of your humanity in his mind?

Perhaps he was just surprised that you were repulsed/put off by him because he lacks self-awareness? (this isn't really a point of interest though)

Casual sex is symptomatic of a carelessness to ones own integrity and there is no value to it other than obtaining an orgasm or a fleeting sense of pleasure, ultimately targeted by those that have built a disjunctive against reciprocal significance of love or affection. They become nothing but a body that reduces the intimacy to nothing more than a mere transaction. The dilemma here is two-fold; the impact at a macro-level as mentioned below notwithstanding the psychological and epidemiological and your responsibility as a moral agent, but if we reduce the significance of sex to become devoid of meaning, it enables a permissibility of many acts of sexual deviation including non-consensual. Such intimacy must be reciprocal both sexually and emotionally to establish meaning. — TimeLine

"Careless to one's integrity" is just as meaningless to me as half the crap Aug as been writing...

Obtaining orgasms are sometimes the only value that people want out of sex, what's so wrong about that?

You employ a slippery-slope argument and suggest that sex for pleasure (as opposed to love?) will eventually lead to non-consensual sex (rape), which seems like a rather negative and presumptive view of things. Sex for pleasure is less satisfying than sex with an actual romantic lover, sure, but making casual sex out to be inherently harmful (especially along vague and subjective lines like "integrity") is just unsubstantiated prudishness.

This is not about right or wrong on a case-by-case basis and sexual objectification is not emotional, we are talking about what is going on in your mind; what is in question is your interpretation of the types of women that exist under these particular settings. This is an objectionable point of view because it brazenly assumes and overall contributes to imagined constructs that devalues personhood. It lacks the acknowledgement of the person and such assumptions form social pressures that contribute - just as marketing and mainstream media do - to a number of psychological problems where men and women become obsessed with their appearances, getting plastic surgery or drawing on eyebrows to perfect themselves, for what exactly? You're loose moral contributes to something much greater. — TimeLine

I don't devalue person-hoods by approaching women in bars. I think you actually are devaluing their person-hood by assuming that they're so emotionally fragile that If I approach them and interact with them with any sexual motive that they're going to necessarily take offense and be harmed.

And now you're suggesting that me having some sexual interest in women in appropriate settings like bars and nightclubs is what leads to the oppressive image based over-sexualization of western culture?

Give me a break, I just wanted to get laid, and I've had plenty of satisfied and unoffended customers.

"Lacks acknowledgement of the person"... Give me a break and explain what you mean by this... Please...

What do you even mean the female body becomes protected in public display? Protected from what exactly? :s — Agustino

I mean display of the naked body is valued. If we’re lauding displays of the naked body in media, especially in celebrity media, the idea it’s lewd or disgusting becomes impossible. You can’t just admonish any public display of nudity.

If the photo of Serena is beautiful for example, an expression of value of a particular embodied meaning in public, arguments for a lewd or disgusting display of a naked body have to become more nuanced. You have to start specifying the context, such that’s it distinct from the valuable naked displays. The link between the publicity of the naked body and disgust is severed.

In politics this has a significant effect. You can’t just people for displaying nudity in public. The immediate rhetorical disgust is lost. Shaming becomes more complicated than seeing a display of a naked body and attacking the creator/participants for the immediately obvious action of what’s been done with their body. You can’t make a moral example of a topless women marching in the Slutwalk just for appearing with bare top.

The question of displays of nudity is opened up to scepticism. If some of them are valuable, then they (displays of nudity) can’t be disgusting and lewd just by being naked.

In the case of the Slutwalk, for example, one of the points is about how the female body is objectified, about how other assume that a display of a naked female body means she is there for someone sexual consumption. Is the toplessness of the women actually any sort of problem? Not necessarily, if some displays of nudity are valuable, toplessness isn’t just lewd or disgusting of itself. Even if you’re taking a position opposed to the wider politics of Slutwalk, toplessness can’t just be a problem of displays nudity itself.

The accusation of category error is opened up with regards to the attack on toplessness: that you are mistaking an issue of sexual morality (advocating sexual permissiveness) for the display of toplessness. You lose a rhetorical force tied to embodiment— maybe the position of those marching on permissive sex is wrong, but that doesn’t mean being topless is.

Obtaining orgasms are sometimes the only value that people want out of sex, what's so wrong about that? — VagabondSpectre

It's objectification and ignorance of what's going on in their own head. Since sex involves other people, it cannot be just about orgasms. Even in the most casual fling, another person is desired; they are valued as a participant in the act in the sex act, be as an objectified body or another person.

By definition an impulse to have sex involves at the very least valuing, if we are talking about instances where orgasm is the goal, obtaining orgasms by being involved with another person, in both body (e.g. how ever their body is important) and mind (as they have feelings, thoughts and value related to the act of sex). "Emotionless" sex is a myth. Consensual one night stands still involve the desires, expectations and valuing another person. Sex is an act between people. It cannot be separated for the significance of others and reduced to a pleasure motivation.

Sex is an act between people. It cannot be separated for the significance of others and reduced to a pleasure motivation. — TheWillowOfDarkness

You didn't catch my bit about glory holes?

If you want to argue that there's always some emotion during sex, that's fine and I'm not a psychologist who knows better, but very evidently some sexual encounters can be less emotional than others where sexual satisfaction is the goal for both parties rather than intimate or emotional connection.

So I ask again, what's so wrong about that?

I thought McEnroe was praising her, since he said that he would rank somewhere like 1200 and she 700, 500 rank above him. People only quote half to grease the matter.

The ordering of my quotations got a bit messed up, but surely you didn't forget making that comparison:

"Furthermore, if sex always involves one's whole being (as a person), is it right and loving to deny your beloved sexual fulfillment, by denying them intimacy, for example? Or do you mean to argue that you simply do not care about the actual needs of the other, but only what they say, such that if they were to tell you that their need is to be eaten alive, you would proceed to give them a hand with it?"

There you go.

I'm not strawmanning you at all Aug, you've said all this shit on your own... — VagabondSpectre

Let's see what you said I did:

Holy shit Aug, you're really gonna equate casual sex with suicide and cannibalism? — VagabondSpectre

There is no equating of casual sex with suicide and cannibalism up there. A comparison, illustrating how consent is irrelevant to the immorality of the underlying activity, doesn't mean a comparison between the gravity of two different underlying activities. You're really having a hard time aren't you? :s

you were trying to argue that sex is inherently more harmful than forced feeding as a part of your argument that casual sex is inherently harmful — VagabondSpectre

No, stop right there. I wasn't trying to argue that. Seems like you have reading comprehension issues. I was illustrating that breaking of consent is one moral issue (which happens both in rape and in forced feeding) and the underlying action - feeding and sex - are another set of moral issues.

but it doesn't apply because non-consensual sex is more traumatic than non-consensual food consumption, but non-consensual food-consumption is also more traumatic than consensual sex, which is possibly not traumatic at all — VagabondSpectre

A comparison of how traumatic each are is irrelevant since I never compared them in the first place in terms of their gravity. I've only said that the breaking of consent is the same, and equally wrong in both. The reasons why one of them is more wrong than the other is because on top of breaking consent is added fornication.

If you still don't grasp this basic reality, answer this question: Why is sex between consenting adults not considered to be worse than kidnapping or forced feeding? — VagabondSpectre

Maybe because we value one's freedom more than we value chastity? :s Really, you're not having an easy time at all.

The important thing is that the person consent to the invasive action to be done upon them. — VagabondSpectre

Right, so if someone consents that the invasive action of eating them alive be done on them, then it's right to eat them alive? :s If not, then why the fuck not? Clearly NOT because of consent, so stop citing consent like an idiot.

We can say that the MacDonald's work is less invasive (and that's why they tend to get paid less) — VagabondSpectre

No, they don't actually get paid less. My work is very non-invasive, and I don't get paid less either.

At this point you will just refer back to your original assumption (begging the question) god said sex is bad so it's bad. — VagabondSpectre

I never made this assumption.

Why are tattoo's harmful to the body? Did god say so? — VagabondSpectre

No, because they objectively burn and harm the skin of your body.

Again, when sex is done against someone's will, it tends to be severely traumatic, that's why consent has a lot to do with the morality/impact/potential harm of sex — VagabondSpectre

Don't give me this bullshit nonsense. Consent means that their will is broken. The additional trauma of it cannot have anything to do just with their will, cause their will is broken in forced eating too. It's the same will that is broken. In terms of consent, the same harm is done. So the additional harm can only come from a different source, not from the breaking of consent.

Well, actually, stupid people randomly decide what pleases and displeases "Him". The stupid people who either think they know "god" or pretend to speak on it's behalf sometimes try to use reason, but the assortment of centuries old moral positions found in religions contain so many stupid and retarded moral arguments that we're better off starting from godless scratch. — VagabondSpectre

Well you'd be pleased to know that I arrived at my positions on sexuality (certainly with regards to fornication) before I even became a Christian. So I think you can lay to rest your false imaginations.

You're the guy who moans that he is destined for divorce. — VagabondSpectre

I never said I'm destined for divorce :s - really is your reading comprehension that bad?

You fear you will fail at marriage because you view everyone else as a greedy promiscuous slut who won't be able to resist cheating on you or to invest in life long monogamy the way god intended... — VagabondSpectre

That's absolutely not true, and stupid on top of everything else. Clearly I'm not promiscuous, and I'm a male, what makes you think there aren't such females? I've met quite a bunch of them actually. Maybe if you stopped hanging around in night clubs and other useless places you'd meet some too.

When a woman has sex, "harm is done to her future spouse", (that's you). — VagabondSpectre

Yes, that is indeed true, if we're speaking of my future wife now.

Your future wife is out there getting fucked, possibly as we speak. — VagabondSpectre

Probably not, for the simple reason that those women don't attract me in the first place. It would be very difficult for me to get married to someone promiscuous for the simple reason that they'd have to hide it for too long, as I wouldn't instantly marry them when I meet them.

Maybe she will even get pregnant (will she get an abortion and not tell you I wonder?) . — VagabondSpectre

Again, I highly doubt it.

How familiar are you with the term "cuck"? (Don't answer that). — VagabondSpectre

Well Hanover right here explained the term to me a few days ago, so quite familiar I think ;)

There's a few different political senses of the term, but a broad and main one essentially describes over-confident person who is in reality a whiny beta male whose insecurities (such as the inability to sexually satisfy their wife) winds up forcing them to make liberal compromises (such as letting another man sexually gratify their wife (ouch!)). It's used mainly because it bothers people with insecurity severely. — VagabondSpectre

"whiny beta male" - that concept doesn't translate to me, sorry to tell you.

You will of course go out of your way to make it clear that you're not worried about yourself (you're an alpha, that's a given), but the way go on and lament how all the other men will be enslaved to divorce makes it seem like that's how you really feel about your own future. — VagabondSpectre

"Alpha" and other concepts may apply to you and your life, but certainly not to mine. There is no such thing as an "alpha" or "beta" male. You must have quite a hard time always struggling to deal with such fictive imaginations, always trying to be "alpha" or whatever. That's not even how you win at the game of marriage - you don't win by "being best in bed" as that means nothing.

So no, the reason why I'm not worried about myself isn't because I'm an alpha (or other such bullshit), but rather because I trust my capacity to judge people and determine people who have good moral qualities and wouldn't marry me because they want to have sex with me or think I'm good in bed, or people who are promiscuous and have an abnormal love for sexual intercourse.

insecurities (such as the inability to sexually satisfy their wife) winds up forcing them to make liberal compromises (such as letting another man sexually gratify their wife (ouch!)) — VagabondSpectre

Again, this may be a worry for you, but certainly it isn't one for me. I wouldn't marry a hyper-sexual person who always requires to be "sexually satisfied". I don't make sex a matter of self-esteem, as you seem to do. I'm comfortable in my own skin, knowing that nature has gifted me and my future wife with everything we need to satisfy each other. So all this is your projection, you seem to think that I structure my life by the same standards that you do. If my wife is a decent, chaste and moral woman without a promiscuous past (or who at least regrets her promiscuous past), what makes you think she'd be so concerned about it and unable to control herself? If I don't have sex with her until I marry her (but I will obviously live with her before that), how will I not know about her sexual habits and ability to control herself, the same way she will know about mine? And if she can control herself while not even having sex with me, what makes you think she wouldn't be able to control herself once she starts having sex with me?

I brought up what I view to be your ego centrism because you have made it abundantly clear that the personal and private decisions of other free and consenting adults bothers you to the extent you consider yourself harmed by them. — VagabondSpectre

This isn't a matter of ego-centrism at all, it's just a fact. If you think you're never harmed by the decisions of others then you're absolutely deluded, let me tell you that. We are harmed by the decisions of other people, including with regards to sexuality. And it isn't only one way that I'm harmed. If these dangerous misconceptions (some of which you're also peddling) spread through society, then we'll live in a far worse place than otherwise.

The way you describe sex as harmful to one's future spouse must mean you yourself are being harmed by your future wife (if she isn't a virgin) before you've even met her. — VagabondSpectre

If my future spouse is having promiscuous sex, absolutely. So what? What's your point?

This has a bit of the "protests too much" angle, and so you should be aware that voicing many of your points in many mainstream political circles would be met with the "cuck" retort. — VagabondSpectre

I'd be glad if they call me a cuck, so that I may proceed to correct them, and hopefully clear out some toxic views with regards to sexuality that they themselves hold. That way, I'll make the world around me a much better place.

But I am pointing out that your sense of entitlement and harm regarding the private actions of other people is ego-centric and seems like a psychological insecurity. — VagabondSpectre

No it's absolutely not ego-centric. Ego-centric is something that I derive pleasure from, something that is selfish. There's no question of selfishness here, because what you call "my sense of entitlement and harm" is nothing but a natural human reaction, which you have perhaps repressed in your own self. Respecting yourself isn't the same as selfishness. You're really having a hard time tonight.

Clearly that's not the case because non-consensual sex is deemed by society to be harmful/illegal/immoral, while consensual sex is not considered to be illegal/harmful/immoral in the same way. — VagabondSpectre

Right, it's not as harmful as non-consensual sex, that doesn't mean it isn't harmful.

In both cases "respecting the will" of the participants is a highly relevant issue in many respects, and so trying to separate out consent from "sex morality" sounds absolutely ridiculous and as if you're totally unfamiliar with how your own ideas actually sound. — VagabondSpectre

No it's absolutely not a highly relevant aspect of dinner or sex morality. It's a highly relevant aspect of the morality of interacting with others, regardless of what kind of interaction you have with them. Again, seems like you have no clue what you're talking about. You fail to see a very simple distinction.

If consent is what makes an underlying activity moral or immoral, then why the FUCK is eating someone alive not moral if they give you their consent huh? Stop pretending you don't understand this simple analogy. There is much more to morality than your consent. And this is proven to anyone reading this, beyond any reasonable doubt. Consent alone cannot describe the morality of underlying activities, but rather the morality of interactions with people, regardless of the nature of those interactions. But the underlying activities are also relevant to determine the moral relevance of the entire situation.

And no, trying to separate consent from sexual morality is absolutely fine. I DO separate consent from the morality of cannibalism, why shouldn't I do the same for sex, and all other activities? :s These things must be judged separately.

It's because you have an internally contradictory view of sex (warped) that causes you to A, not understand my own moral framework, and B, to jump back and forth (cognitive dissionance?) between random, varied, and inexorably contradictory positions as you try to avoid the many problems I've pointed out. — VagabondSpectre

Sorry, you've pointed out zero real problems.

Without masturbation you will become stressed and sexually frustrated unless you have a partner who is adequately available for sex.

Let's clarify though: masturbation is bad because it's pleasurable or because it's not intimacy or reproduction oriented? — VagabondSpectre

The latter. And no, without masturbation you won't necessarily become stressed and sexually frustrated. It's something that comes with practice, given that we live in a very promiscuous and hyper-sexualised culture. You actually feel much better in many regards without masturbation.

Just strictly sexually, masturbation is probably the worst sin. But overall it's preferable to fornication because fornication isn't just a sexual sin, but also a sin against charity and justice. So yes, if people cannot be chaste, they should definitely resort to masturbation rather than another activity.

What about the bed upon which your parents fucked in order to conceive you, must we treat that with reverence and respect? — VagabondSpectre

Yes, I think you should, but I have no idea how exactly you'd "disrespect" it...

It's because you have an internally contradictory view of sex (warped) that causes you to A, not understand my own moral framework, and B, to jump back and forth (cognitive dissionance?) between random, varied, and inexorably contradictory positions as you try to avoid the many problems I've pointed out. — VagabondSpectre

Quite the contrary, I think it's you who is completely on the move back, projecting onto me your own ideas and your own worldview, which I do not share.

For example, you tried to argue that the morality of sex has nothing to do with consent (as if sex is an invasive procedure that is inherently harmful in and of itself), but then you went on to state that sex is not inherently immoral (and therefore not invasive/harmful?) so long as it's with your spouse. (to me this indicates some arbitrary specific standard around which you presently dance) — VagabondSpectre

I never said sex is inherently harmful. Invasive =/ harmful.

Yes, sex with your spouse is inherently good. Why? Because it is a relationship of love, where you give infinite commitment to each other, the kind of commitment that two human beings deserve to share in.

Why is the harmful invasiveness of sex an O.K thing to do to your spouse but not an O.K thing to do to a consenting non-spouse? If your wife asked you to eat her alive, you wouldn't give her a hand would you? (protip: that last question is a red-herring) — VagabondSpectre

Your question is bullshit. Rephrase it like "Why is sex an OK thing to do to your spouse and not an OK thing to do to a consenting non-spouse?" - well it's the way you value them ultimately. To one of them you have dedicated yourself to care for her unto eternity, and to the other, you're not dedicated to her at all, just want to use her body. That's wrong.

You should read "The Moral Landscape" by Sam Harris, "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins, "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking, and if you have time "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" by the late great Christopher Hitchens. — VagabondSpectre

I've actually read all those books.

(Spoiler alert: I've already read Aristotle but I missed the nonsensical bit that actually determined "necessary/essential ends/characteristics" to be the basis for moral oughts. — VagabondSpectre

Yeah, if you've read Aristotle the way you read my posts I can clearly understand why you're so confused.

"The necessary end of bicycles is travel, therefore joyriding is immoral!" — VagabondSpectre

Are you not traveling while you're joyriding silly boy?

"The necessary end of eating food is nutrition, therefore eating for pleasure is immoral!" — VagabondSpectre

Nope, this is the wrong conclusion. If you ate JUST for pleasure, in other words, if you purposefully frustrated the end of eating (nutrition) then it would be immoral. That's like chewing food but not swallowing it, and instead spitting it out. Yes, doing that would be immoral precisely because it would frustrate the end of eating.

"the necessary end of living is dying, therefore living for pleasure is immoral!" — VagabondSpectre

It's false that the necessary end of living is dying

"the necessary end of eyesight is awareness, therefore looking at art for pleasure is immoral! — VagabondSpectre

Asinus! Are you not being aware when you're looking at art for pleasure?!

"the necessary end of rest is to convalesce, therefore resting for pleasure is immoral!" — VagabondSpectre

Are you frustrating the natural end by enjoying it? :s NO! It only becomes a problem if you frustrate the natural end on purpose. I can have as much sexy time as I want with my wife because I'm not frustrating the natural ends of sex, even though I'm having pleasure while having it.

"the necessary end of listening to music is pleasure, therefore listening to gospel/hymns for religious enlightenment immoral!" — VagabondSpectre

First no, the necessary end of music isn't pleasure.

The necessary end of a dildo is to be inserted into vaginas/rectums, therefore using it to moralize and condemn free agents is immoral! — VagabondSpectre

Yes, actually the necessary end of a dildo IS sexual pleasure. And if I were to use the dildo to moralise against you, by perhaps waving it in your face, that would be immoral.

According to you masturbation is immoral because sex has essential ends of intimacy and reproduction, while pleasure is only accidental (sad). By that logic eating food for pleasure (choosing a dish for taste over nutrition) is immoral. Right? — VagabondSpectre

No. By that logic chewing food and spitting it out is immoral. If you eat less nutritious food, you're still eating nutritious food, so you're not frustrating the end of nutrition at all - you're not denying it.

What if God is gay though? — VagabondSpectre

What makes you think God can be "straight" or "gay"? I think you're just committing a category error.

No, because intimacy and reproduction are not required to be healthy and go on living. Although, assuming that you're already well nourished, it's not harmful at all to chew and spit out food for the taste — VagabondSpectre

What does being necessary to remain alive have to do with the natural teleology in question? Clearly you haven't read Aristotle very well AT ALL. And no, you can't make an assumption which you then proceed to negate.

Yes you would be harming yourself, because eating food is required to go on living, intimacy and reproduction are not. — VagabondSpectre

Yes, because you'd be harming your body, even if you didn't die. You don't have to die for something to be harmful.

No, because "has reproduced" or "is in an intimate monogamous relationship" are not required for health or happiness, while "is well nourished" is. — VagabondSpectre

Who says they're not required for happiness? You? I disagree.

Cannibalism isn't always immoral, sometimes it's necessary for survival — VagabondSpectre

That doesn't mean it's not immoral, it just means it's acceptable in some circumstances because it's a lesser evil. Much like masturbation is for many people.

It's the context, the circumstances, reasons (things like consent) — VagabondSpectre

No, not consent. But rather things like are you married to her (read, are you devoted to her for all eternity)? Do you care for her as a person? Do you value her for who she is as a human being? Is sex an expression of your love for her, or a selfish means of using her body to achieve pleasure for yourself?

We don't allow people to take their own lives generally because their reasons for wanting to do so are irrational/temporary/psychologically disturbed. — VagabondSpectre

Same for casual sex. It seems you enjoy your double standards.

Wanting to eat someone isn't exactly a crime, but if you steal a body to eat we will arrest you for that — VagabondSpectre

And will the person in question be charged with just theft or more? And why?

but if you eat the dead co-pilot because you will otherwise starve, most people would forgive that — VagabondSpectre

Right, so the activity is inherently immoral, such that it requires forgiveness even in those limit cases you quote. I agree ;)

If you convince someone to agree to be eaten, we will basically arrest you both on the grounds that you're both insane. — VagabondSpectre

Sorry to tell you, being insane aren't grounds for arrest. Try again please.

Why don't we arrest two adults who have consensual sex on the grounds that they're abusing and harming one another? — VagabondSpectre

Why don't we arrest you for being rude and disrespectful? Well, because we don't always punish immoralities legally. That doesn't change the fact they are immoral though.

It's because consenting adults are capable of having sex without actually abusing or harming one-another — VagabondSpectre

So people are also capable of insulting each other without harming one another right? :s
>:O

Food is aimed at pleasure too though. Pleasure from eating is a fundamental end of eating — VagabondSpectre

Why? Just because pleasure is associated with eating? That is not sufficient to qualify it as a fundamental end of eating. Just because most people choose food they enjoy eating? Again, that's irrelevant.

Even if I were to assent to your intrinsic purpose oriented teleological-moral nightmare of a confused and sexually repressed religious perception of the world — VagabondSpectre

First you have not illustrated that it's a nightmare. Second of all, it has zero to do with sexual repression, and the fact that you say that really tells me that you don't know what you're talking about. Repressing sexuality is very different than simply expressing it in the circumstances when it is appropriate. You're just throwing this word around, and it seems you have no clue what it means at all. So please, have a look at what Freud for example wrote about repression. Repression isn't simply being a celibate. A celibate doesn't repress their sexuality generally, but rather they sublimate it, which is very very different. You have very little knowledge of this, perhaps because of your stunted development due to your overindulgence in sex amongst other things.

I could still object on the basis that evolution endowed us with pleasure attached to sex and eating because happiness is an essential end of human existence, and therefore we actually eat (and fuck) to be happy. — VagabondSpectre

No it's absolutely laughable how you think you could object that way, and it just illustrates your complete ignorance of the matters at hand. You're conflating pleasure and happiness. The two are not the same. The drug addict may feel pleasure, but we wouldn't call him happy.

If someone stares at you and invades your personal space, then they're in the wrong. Merely approaching you and speaking to you however isn't something I would expect you to be upset about. — VagabondSpectre

You fail to see the point. What I am trying to convey is that he sexually objectified me and his rather aggressive reaction was certainly surprise (indeed, I can give a rather powerful greasy) because in his mind he thought girl at bar means she is sexually available as you are continuously reiterating. That type of categorisation is wrong, it is a problem in your perception, which corresponds with intent. Such a category takes away the humanity of women and his intention was not about 'me' - he could not give a shit about who I am - but what he could get out of me. The intention is merely transactional and such intent is immoral.

"Careless to one's integrity" is just as meaningless to me as half the crap Aug as been writing... Obtaining orgasms are sometimes the only value that people want out of sex, what's so wrong about that?

You employ a slippery-slope argument and suggest that sex for pleasure (as opposed to love?) will eventually lead to non-consensual sex (rape), which seems like a rather negative and presumptive view of things. Sex for pleasure is less satisfying than sex with an actual romantic lover, sure, but making casual sex out to be inherently harmful (especially along vague and subjective lines like "integrity") is just unsubstantiated prudishness. — VagabondSpectre

So why is sex for pleasure less satisfying then sex with an actual romantic lover? That is a problem in sexual ethics, there is no slippery slope but clearly you are unable to ascertain why because I see nothing but your usual desire to get a kick out of annoying religious people (and by the way, nothing like Aug considering I do not write 10,000 words of random nonsense and I am not religious).

You would need to substantiate how sex devoid of meaning - meaning of which can only be employed between a reciprocal sexual and emotional intimacy - is ethically justifiable because the absence of meaning purports that the act of sexual intercourse is solely the attainment of this orgasm. As such, having sexual intercourse with an animal for instance could become justifiable. I understand the dilemma to this paradox because consent should render the lack of emotions justifiable, but two people having meaningless sex is no different to one person having meaningless sex; it is without meaning.

In addition to this, as mentioned, there are psychosocial impacts to a culture of promiscuity as well as epidemiological and your responsibility as a moral agent should be to ascertain reasons why women begin to treat themselves as objects. You should take responsibility for how you act, not succumb to how others act, otherwise what is the point of your existence?

As for integrity, it is all semantics. I am of the position that meaning is founded in our responsibility to become an autonomous moral agent, that my existence and being itself is determined by my principles of morality where my motives are concerned. To be autonomous and reason and think independent from that type of blind following of ones own desires. Integrity is to say that I hold esteem and value to these principles because it provides meaning to my existence.

You say:

I don't devalue person-hoods by approaching women in bars. — VagabondSpectre

And then:

Give me a break, I just wanted to get laid, and I've had plenty of satisfied and unoffended customers. — VagabondSpectre

:-|

Customers, eh?

"Lacks acknowledgement of the person"... Give me a break and explain what you mean by this... Please... — VagabondSpectre

Perhaps you can first define what you mean when you label women as 'customers'?