But how do you figure that our human touchiness in relation to sexual intimacy relates to our closest living evolutionary kin? Well at least one of the two: bonobos. — javra
As regards eusociality and what you said about fertility, consider the problem of homosexual behavior in both humans and bonobos. How to explain it? It is non-reproductive. Some have argued for eusocial explanations. In humans, such things as celibacy for certain members of the group also might have a eusocial explanation. — petrichor
I'd have to give it some further thought, but at the moment, it occurs to me that sexual engagement can serve multiple purposes. And since bonding hormones are involved, social bonds might be solidified. — petrichor
There seems to be something ethically special about sex.
So I think most of you are missing the point, which is that sex appears to be morally special in and of itself. So sex is a bit like pain in this respect. Many acts that are wrong are wrong precisely because they cause someone some pain. (Not all, obviously, and not all acts that cause someone pain are wrong, but many are wrong and wrong precisely because they cause a person pain). Many acts are wrong precisely because they involve sex. — Bartricks
Well, it is in a way - though not to gainsay any other word of your post. Take it back far enough and life, to be life, does not fewer than two things: convert fuel to energy, and reproduce. That is, sex is not just one of several, it is primordial, and in its imperatives unreachable through reason, in as much as it's built in and chemically driven.Sex is not special. — Bitter Crank
And once more you are committing the genetic fallacy by providing a possible history of the intuitions. — Bartricks
By insisting that it is irrational to view sex as ethically special you are assuming that reason does not represent it to be. Yet as my examples show, reason clearly does represent it to be ethically special. — Bartricks
But they ARE near universal. — Bartricks
You say, for instance, that what is responsible for the widespread intuitions that sex is ethically special is 'convention'. But it could be the other way around - it could be that we have the conventions we do because sex seems special. — Bartricks
Placing your penis in their lap and you have a crime. — Coben
Most people really do consider sexual betrayal worse — Bartricks
Might be two crimes. At the very least cutting your penis off in public would get you taken into custody. Putting in someone's lap would be a crime. Of course you'd be heading for psychiatric wards not prison most likely once all the legal smoke cleared.A guy's penis may not be quite long enough to place in somebody else's lap. If they cut it off first and then put it in this person's lap, is it still a crime? — Bitter Crank
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