You think so? In developed economies, are high rates of sexually-transmitted diseases, and large numbers of children born outside marriage, not to mention epidemics of cybersexual addiction. This simply a kind of hedonic fantasy that equates pleasure and happiness. — Wayfarer
I think any real philosophy ought to recognize the perilous nature of existence itself. I was reading a summary yesterday of a PhD research programme concerning Western practitioners of Buddhist meditation - the working title being 'A Precarious Path'. It detailed how many difficulties and obstacles practitioners face. And that is as it has to be! Life is perilous and precarious, and a real philosophy has to acknowledge that. Whereas, increasingly, the 'philosophy' of the consumerist society is bent on making the world a safe place for the ignorant; the whole social order is based on encouraging 'consumers' by stimulating their demands for often useless products, or engaging in ridiculous escapist fantasies through screen entertainment and the internet. — Wayfarer
This sounds strange - to me. There never was such a time in my life. I did see it in others, but I've never been that way. I've had other sins, or what you'd consider base desires, but certainly not this one. In a way it is strange. Given theism, I can see why one is overly concerned about sex. It's seen as a sacred, and special act of bonding with the beloved person. But given atheism, why? Just why? If sex is something that all the other animals do, and sex serves just reproduction, why "get laid" instead of say, masturbate? What's the easiest way, least likely way to bring about consequences, to get sexual pleasure? Masturbation right? So if all one cared about was sexual pleasure, why not become like the Japanese who don't have sex anymore? (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/20/young-people-japan-stopped-having-sex) Seriously, why would anyone in their right mind go after something that requires effort, that involves other people, that has multiple ways it can backfire in serious ways (STDs, unwanted pregnancies, etc), when they could just masturbate - especially given all the technological advances and sex toys that must be available today? If sexual pleasure is all one cares about it makes no sense - sure, sex can be somewhat better than masturbation (however I think technology may be catching up, which is why the Japanese, which are very much into technology - don't have it anymore!), but the marginal benefit, is never greater than the potential marginal cost. So Epicurus is right - it can be a very rational option, given atheism, to avoid sex at all costs - run away from it like monks run away from the plague! >:O And indeed - I have met quite a few atheists who have that attitude towards sex - and it's impossible to convince them otherwise (they're not interested in love - they think love is a disease, they're interested just in friendship with the opposite sex). They're harder to convince than theists.There was admittedly a time in my life when getting laid was the primary motivation of my actions. — Erik
I am not so sure. I don't restrain my natural impulses out of fear at all. I simply understand what my natural impulses are aimed towards (and I seek with all my strength to satisfy that). I don't have a natural impulse just to have sex for example (and I would doubt you have such an impulse). I have a natural impulse to have sex in such and such a circumstance and with such and such a person. So there's no question of restraining anything. My natural impulses are what they are because of intelligence - not because of love nor fear for that matter.I guess I could simplify my take on this as a contrast between practical and spiritual conservatism. I think the former is grounded in something much more precarious than the latter: I restrain my natural impulses out of fear of the possible consequences of my actions (shame, dissolution of my marriage through my wife's anger, STD's, unwanted children, bad for business and the like)--but I do so out of fear rather than out of the sublime sort of love that flows from a heart genuinely gripped by a firm faith in the inherent value of existence beyond it's brute materiality. Poorly articulated, perhaps, but that's the gist of it. — Erik
8-)including of course my friendly nemesis Agustino. — Erik
So if all one cared about was sexual pleasure, why not become like the Japanese who don't have sex anymore? — Agustino
Fine, if sex is an amoral act, there is nothing contradictory in sex occurring during love. However, there is something contradictory when sex occurs outside of love, because the intention is always to use someone else as a means to your own end - your own pleasure - rather than an end in itself.I should think the onus is on you to defend the claim. I will simply say that sex is an amoral act, whereas an act of love is intrinsically moral. — Thorongil
there is nothing contradictory in sex occurring during love — Agustino
Replace "during love" with "while in love". Certainly sex doesn't occur in a vacuum and it occurs within the framework of the entire relationship that's going on between the two people in question."During love" doesn't make any sense. If one is having sex, there isn't anything one is doing in addition to that. — Thorongil
Casual sex can't be ethical, because by default, by its very means of happening, it involves using the other as a means of obtaining pleasure. If you really cared about the other, you wouldn't forget about them the next day, and go on living your life as if they never existed.Even causal sex, in a relationship which lasts no more than a night, needs "love" to be ethical. If it's not understood to be the mutual expression of people, it becomes destructive. People become content to use each other. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Ehm... no, in practice, this is most often the case, for probably 99% of people, including, unfortunately, those who are married.The atomism of sex exists only in pretence. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Ehm... no, in practice, this is most often the case, for probably 99% of people, including, unfortunately, those who are married. — Agustino
A short term desire cannot be love, love by its very nature is eternal. Thus, when sex is the result of whatever short-term desire you're talking about, it is merely another selfish act, which desires (temporary) possession of and pleasure from the other.Sometimes casual sex is a mutual expression of a a short term desire. — TheWillowOfDarkness
But for most people sex is simply obtaining pleasure, or, in some cases, self-esteem. Many - perhaps most people - measure their self esteem by who they manage to have sex with or not. For most folk, sex is just some other activity one needs to do in order to be considered a good-standing human being, just like - I don't know - confessing your sins used to be considered an activity that everyone of good standing would engage in in the past. Most people, for example, can't even imagine there are people who aren't that interested in sex. They think people like me don't even exist! That's how ingrained it is in the cultural understanding - that life without sex is impossible. They cannot even think of themselves as existing without thinking of sex >:O and I just find that hilarious!My point was the idea was an illusion. People who think sex is only the obtaining of pleasure are pretending. — TheWillowOfDarkness
But for most people sex is simply obtaining pleasure, or, in some cases, self-esteem. Many - perhaps most people - measure their self esteem by who they manage to have sex with or not. — Agustino
It's their intentions that matter more than behaviour. Their intentions - like worms - grow in their heart, and give birth to immorality. However, for most, their immorality is restrained by elements of decency they have learned to respect from society. Because they never question such norms, their immorality can never truly manifest itself completely in their behaviour.I think that's an image. People think and say that, but I don't think that's how most people behave — TheWillowOfDarkness
I never claimed they did it with just anyone, and in fact, if they are seeking it for status, this is exactly what we would expect. (Maybe they'd be morally better [but still immoral] if they did it with anyone than if they did it for status with select few people actually)Don't get me wrong, plenty of people have sex for a social status, but they don't do it with just anyone. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Yes.Those people tend to try and possess particular people-- the attractive, the popular, the know, those people at the party or those they know will accept their advances. — TheWillowOfDarkness
What you're describing here is merely something that is more immoral and outrageous than the immorality that most people practice. But just because there are worse people out there, doesn't mean that what most people are doing is fine. It's like comparing killing a child, with hitting a child. Both are immoral - it's just that one immorality is worse than the other.In practice, the abusive don't just seek to obtain pleasure. They seek to obtain others, to possess and mislead ignore them, to obtain them for only their own benefit. I would say that the idea that these people are just trying to obtain pleasure is part of the atomistic pretence that sex is this isolated from everyone else.
You say such people are trying to obtain pleasures if it is all they are seeking. It's not. They are seeking to use, possess, mislead, ignore and hurt others. — TheWillowOfDarkness
It's not eternal if it ends. Nor do they intend for it to be eternal, which is the even bigger problem. And the idea that they were "meant to have sex" is nonsense. There was no destiny compelling them to do it. It's their own choices that led to it. Furthermore, the fact that both of them will be hurt is inevitable - anything which is lost, will be - sooner or later, perceived as a loss. And even if this isn't so - it would still be running a Russian Roulette. One never knows if they, or their partner, may actually fall in love and hence end up hurt badly.It's eternal. The expression of the one night when they were meant to have sex doesn't die because they don't continue a sexual relationship. Desire for each other may be shot-lived, but that doesn't take away the meaning of what happened.
Indeed, that's why it works. If a participant did desire an ongoing relationship, this eternal expression would be lost. Someone would be hurt badly and the night of casual sex would be unethical in one way or another. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Is there a link between social conservatism and religion, and if so, why? — Agustino
He had a very sensitive morality about him, not to mention that he was conflicted because of his mother's views of his relationship.it caused him a great deal of consternation — John
I'm not sure because for me at least, I've found that sexual desire doesn't happen regardless of context - it's context dependent. Like I don't just have some vague sexual desire that makes no reference to a context in which it would occur, and latches itself on whatever person is present. I never had such a desire. After I broke up with my second girlfriend for example (because the first and the second were too close in time, so virtually no time in-between) - I did have sexual desire which troubled me, but it wasn't sexual desire in the sense of I just want to have sex. It was sexual desire in the sense of I want to have sex with a her who loves me and whom I love - not otherwise (and the "her" in question wasn't at the time any of my two previous girlfriends, they stood merely as symbols for her, or as Plato would say, as shadows for her - mere intimations). And that's in some regards more painful, because it can't be satisfied at any time and anywhere, and with just about anyone. I couldn't just find some girl and have sex with her, because that wouldn't do. So I spent quite a few months afterwards just languishing with little interest in anything else except finding someone to love and who would return my love at the same intensity. So it took me quite a bit of wrestling with that desire before I could subdue it and return to living peacefully. All in all, I don't think I've eradicated that desire - as Napoleon said, once one has tasted of romantic love, it's hard to give it up - it's there, only that it's dormant. It's the sleeping dragon as the Chinese say >:OOne who naturally has very little sexual desire to begin with certainly has less to struggle with. — John
It's not eternal if it ends. Nor do they intend for it to be eternal, which is the even bigger problem. And the idea that they were "meant to have sex" is nonsense. There was no destiny compelling them to do it. It's their own choices that led to it. Furthermore, the fact that both of them will be hurt is inevitable - anything which is lost, will be - sooner or later, perceived as a loss. And even if this isn't so - it would still be running a Russian Roulette. One never knows if they, or their partner, may actually fall in love and hence end up hurt badly. — Agustino
'What you're describing here is merely something that is more immoral and outrageous than the immorality that most people practice. But just because there are worse people out there, doesn't mean that what most people are doing is fine. It's like comparing killing a child, with hitting a child. Both are immoral - it's just that one immorality is worse than the other.
Why is it, in fact, more immoral and outrageous? Because there is even less love in it - they don't only want to gain pleasure from others - and hence use them as a means to an end - they want to humiliate them, deceive them, dominate them, and so forth. This means they want to gain pleasure from others' suffering, not merely to gain pleasure regardless of others' well-being. — Agustino
If I care for someone, I cannot just care for them for the 30 minutes we're having sex for, or for just the night we have met. That's simply impossible, and I would be deceiving myself if I thought I care about them. I may appreciate them, I may find them interesting people, and so forth - but CARE about them? Impossible. If I actually care about them, then I will go on caring tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, and so forth. That's what caring means. — Agustino
It's their intentions that matter more than behaviour. Their intentions - like worms - grow in their heart, and give birth to immorality. However, for most, their immorality is restrained by elements of decency they have learned to respect from society. Because they never question such norms, their immorality can never truly manifest itself completely in their behaviour. — Agustino
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