Comments

  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play

    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
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    ↪Heister Eggcart
    So who is being the belligerent dickface then, me, TimeLine, or both of us? >:O
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    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!
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    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
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    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...
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    ↪TimeLine
    This is really besides the topics of discussion of this thread, but for example this kind of stuff:

    ponder why I feel like I spend most of my time in the company of people I merely tolerate when it could be spent with you.
    That's the latest time I noticed it, because we usually don't participate in the same threads but I've seen this repeated several times before, and I think other people would have noticed the same. Why do you keep talking about what you consider an ideal man, how you're waiting for you King Solomon, how you don't like to spend your time with people that you do spend your time with because you only tolerate them, etc. :s that's all very strange behaviour, which is exactly why I'm picking on you. Do you see anyone else obsess over such issues? :s

    And by the way, we're just derailing the thread, so you can respond to that, but then I won't respond anymore, because it wouldn't belong here.
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    You made it out that I seek to dominate men, am obsessed over them, when I said that I have yet to sleep with anyone. — TimeLine
    No, I actually didn't, I said however that this may be possible, precisely because I don't know you well enough to say for certain. Hence why I said:

    This would not be moral, if that's the case. — Agustino

    How does that even work? — TimeLine
    To be obsessed about men does not entail that you sleep with them, have sex with them, etc. As far as this works, it would be a psychological thing, seen from the fact that you return over and over again to discussing men, in quite weird ways, such as keep repeating what an ideal man is, how you spend your time with people who don't really deserve it, etc. Why do you do that? That's called obsessing over something, because I can assure you that most members here don't want to read how you're so great that you shouldn't be spending time with whoever, etc. Neither is it useful for the kinds of discussions that go on here.

    Being friendly is not being provocative, the point I was attempting to convey was that men often think what is not there. — TimeLine
    I agree.
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    I think you are morally trying to compete with me. — TimeLine
    Why do you think that?

    You are using the very assumptions that draw conclusions that only express your own projection on the subject — TimeLine
    How is it my projection? This is what I noticed from your own stories, and I said it may be a possibility.

    a woman can be virtuous and still wear a bikini. — TimeLine
    Does it seem to you like I said she can't be virtuous if she wears a bikini in the right circumstances? :s
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    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 — TimeLine
    Yes, but I think this is a problem for you. From the amount of time you spend talking about men on these forums, it seems that you are at least obsessed about men, and I would go even further and say that you do draw pleasure out of dominating other men by frustrating them. I gather this especially from the stories you tell, and how you assume that other men on these boards are interested in you, combined with your generally low opinion and regard for men etc. So what if you dress this way on purpose to attract their attention and feel superior by refusing whatever you perceive to be their advances?

    This would not be moral, if that's the case. Of course, neither would the aggressive actions from men that you say you experience be moral. But then immorality breeds immorality.

    But I obviously agree with that post above.
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    The problem Aug, is that you're using terms which are ambiguous and in some senses unrelated to my inquiries. — VagabondSpectre
    I think most people have quite a capacity to handle those terms, but it seems you don't.

    "don't actualize" means "do/does not" — VagabondSpectre
    Wrong, that is just a specific instance of actualising and it's absolutely not the definition of the term.

    "potential" we can forget about because it's redundant in the sense that the ability to do/not do — VagabondSpectre
    Again, this is just wrong (you will see later why).

    "getting out of the prison of your own self and relating with someone else" (I'm not satisfied with this BTW, it's just as vague). — VagabondSpectre
    I think that's quite specific. What's unclear and vague about it?

    So, casual sex is bad because the participants don't "get out of the prison of their own selves and relate to each-other". — VagabondSpectre
    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.

    What do you mean by "relate to each other"? — VagabondSpectre
    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.

    Why though Aug, why is "a lack of emotional contact" during sex such a harmful thing? — VagabondSpectre
    A lack of emotional contact during sex is impossible. Being unaware of the presence of one emotion or another isn't to say that they don't exist. Making efforts to block them out (glory holes, not knowing who you're having sex with, etc.) doesn't mean that they aren't still there.

    What's so important about the "emotional packaging" of sexual contact? Or, why does a lack of a certain kind of emotional contact (what kind?) during sex render it harmful? — VagabondSpectre
    I made none of the inferences you suggest I made here.

    "if there's no meaningful emotional connection during sex, then it's harmful" (I'm sure you will object to this phrasing, which is why I keep asking you to clarify and define your statements). — VagabondSpectre
    Of course I will object to it because it's false. You're talking of something that is a performative contradiction.

    What takes place in the sanctity of your own mind cannot possibly be held against you as wrongful or indecent, it's your actions that affect other people. — VagabondSpectre
    >:O 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.

    At the right club, "I just want to enjoy your body for a night and then I won't trouble you any more" might actually get you invited to a few bed chambers. — VagabondSpectre
    Yeah, so? :s

    So, is it that asking for sex from someone who you do not love is inherently disrespectful? — VagabondSpectre
    Do you wish to discuss the morality of discussing sex, or the conditions under which the sexual act is disrespectful?

    What I'm trying to find out is the precise type of "close emotion" that renders sex not harmful, and how or why it achieves this... — VagabondSpectre
    There is no close emotion that renders sex not harmful as such.

    I might feel any number of emotions depending on the circumstances, but are lust and sexual satisfaction/gratification emotions? — VagabondSpectre
    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?

    It employs a simplistic but elegant mechanic of a hole to negotiate an anonymous contract between two willing participants. — VagabondSpectre
    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?

    The glory hole epitomizes loveless sex, but at the same time it very obviously mitigates any kind of interpersonal emotional exchange/connection that might impact either participant negatively — VagabondSpectre
    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.

    Why am I morally obligated to be considerate of everyone's emotional well being? — VagabondSpectre
    Well do you want to be a nice and decent person? If so, then yes, you should consider everyone's emotional well being.

    If I am at a night club, and a woman is dressed a certain way and showing me a certain kind of body language, why can I not assume she is competent enough to take care of her own emotions? — VagabondSpectre
    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?

    If sex is what we both want, why do we need to toss in a bunch of extra emotions and commit to anything beyond a sexual encounter? — VagabondSpectre
    This happens automatically. Sex always involves one's whole being.

    If I'm not actually abusing her (nor she I), how is any damage done to our emotional well-being? — VagabondSpectre
    Except that you would be abusing each other.

    how "emotional well-beings" are necessarily harmed by sex without communion — VagabondSpectre
    Wait, those two are different aspects, they're not the same.

    (expensive escorts in the 2000$ a night range have more dignity than you can afford XD) — VagabondSpectre
    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?

    I know you don't support the criminalization of prostitution, and I commend you on that, but like so many you have this deeply seeded bias that someone who has sex is somehow a sinner (and it warps your perception of sex itself). — VagabondSpectre
    They are. They are doing a lot of harm to themselves, their partners, and their future spouses.

    A ditch digger or coal miner sacrifices their body in ways that prostitutes and McDonald's workers both do not (they suffer actual bodily harm/damage) along with anyone who gets injured at the work place. — VagabondSpectre
    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.

    According to everything I've pieced together so far, a one night stand between two horny and consenting adults is a(n immoral?) misuse of sex. I'm panning for answers to why! — VagabondSpectre
    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.

    or potential for communion becomes emotional contact, which then becomes "close emotion". — VagabondSpectre
    I never said this. Nor did I say the previous. I meant desire for transcendent from the very beginning in that discussion as I've already proven.

    So in other words, children have just as much "potential for indecency" as they have "potential for decency"? — VagabondSpectre
    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.

    (Or, why do you think babies have pre-programmed ideas as opposed to creating those ideas from a somewhat blank slate as stimulus accumulates? ("Tabula-rasa"). — VagabondSpectre
    Because without these potentials, they could not develop in the directions that they do in the first place.

    Is it the experience of the transcendent that threatened them with eternal damnation? (as a religious youth, that's why I feared God). — VagabondSpectre
    No, not at all. It is the experience of sin that threatened them with eternal damnation.

    Do you at least assent to my re-framing "desire for anything beyond the material" as being sufficiently described by "superstition"? — VagabondSpectre
    No, although desire for anything beyond the material can involve superstition. Superstition would certainly be a sign of such a desire.

    Well because casual sex can be largely unemotional, and your argument seems to hinge on the idea that sex without "communion/emotional contact/close emotion" is harmful, I reckon you haven't had much casual sex (my own experience establishes the harmlessness of communionless sex) and I'm bringing this up as a means to show you that the impact of sex may extend beyond your own experiences... — VagabondSpectre
    No, I've never had casual sex for that matter, but that certainly doesn't suggest that I wouldn't know what casual sex involves, or what feelings would be aroused, or what the effects of casual sex would be. Certainly I know what would happen and how I would feel if I were to put my hand in the fire, even though I've never done this. Our imaginations allow us to construct experiences based on feelings and emotions that we have already experienced through other, different experiences. For example, before I had sex the first time, I knew what the feelings of say orgasm would be like from masturbation, so I wasn't that surprised by the feeling. I also knew what the feeling of love and attraction were from things like having kissed my girlfriend, and from the intimate time I had spent with her. It would be absolutely silly to suggest that someone must have casual sex in order to know what casual sex is like - just as silly as suggesting that you have to put your hand in the fire to know what fire is like.

    We are sexual beings, so the sexual act is not necessary at all to understand what it would be like. This is one experience that young people are often misguided and deceived by. They often think they need to have sex, because omg see what it's like, etc. Then they do things that they later regret having done. The truth is, as sexual beings, we already know, by nature, what the sexual act is like, because we simply have those feelings anyways. I'm a celibate, and have been a celibate for quite some years now, but I wouldn't say I'm asexual. I experience sexual feelings, I simply don't act on them, but I'm acutely aware of them. Monks have very similar experiences as well. If anything, you're closer to yourself as a sexual being by being celibate, than by being promiscuous.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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").

    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).

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

    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?

    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?

    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?
  • The Last Word
    Two of your favs! — Noble Dust
    X-) X-) >:)
  • The Last Word
    ↪Noble Dust
    :-d
  • The Last Word
    As long as you do no feffing then perhaps i'll consider saving you a slice. — TimeLine
    >:O >:O >:O

    Do you think I'm a creep? :’( — Heister Eggcart
    >:)
  • Currently Reading
    Does anyone have access to this book please? Or do you know where it can be purchased for much cheaper? Please PM me.

    https://www.amazon.com/Kierkegaard-Nietzsche-Acceptance-Philosophy-Religion/dp/0312173474

    EDIT: Got it, thank you, you know who you are! (Y)
  • The Last Word
    ↪TimeLine
    Maybe but in your great magnanimity, I'm sure you could indulge those two rams to liven up the atmosphere at the wedding :D We will not disturb you while you smoke the hash :-x
  • The Last Word
    I have long sought the company of a man of true philosophical brilliance, the one who has all the answers and as I await collection for a late night sesh at the movies, ponder why I feel like I spend most of my time in the company of people I merely tolerate when it could be spent with you. — TimeLine
    Are me and @Heister Eggcart invited to the wedding? :P
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    me: "What does "actualize our potential for communion mean?".
    you: "Go read Aristotle".
    me: "Lol".     — VagabondSpectre
    What don't you understand by the expression actualise the potential for communion? You don't understand what a human potential is? Go read Aristotle and find out. Or you don't understand what communion means? It means getting out of the prison of your own self and relating with someone else, something that perhaps you've never done seeing that you're so clueless.

    Not all sex comes with the same emotional packaging. — VagabondSpectre
    Yes indeed, but it always comes with SOME emotional packaging.

    Sometimes both parties are just looking for a certain kind of physical contact. — VagabondSpectre
    So if I think about someone else, I just want to enjoy their body for a night and then not be troubled by them anymore, am I loving? Am I a decent person? Am I doing anything wrong perhaps?!

    But what exactly does "emotional contact" mean with reference to sex? — VagabondSpectre
    You are greatly puzzling me, it seems that you don't even understand the meaning of basic words. What planet have you been living on until now? Emotional contact - a contact which involves feelings of close emotion excited in both people.

    I could hug someone and feel emotional love and I could fuck someone and feel none at all; — VagabondSpectre
    Would you not then feel another emotion instead of love while fucking them?!

    just because there is physical (sexual) contact does not mean that emotions are necessarily involved... — VagabondSpectre
    This is false. You either don't know what is meant by emotions, or you're redefining them in some ad hoc manner. Or you're completely clueless about sex.

    But I still want to understand the argument for your position that exchanging sexual favors is harmful. First you saidbecause it violates personhood, then defined "personhood" as "constituent elements belonging to someone" i.e: body and emotions (and some other junk), and so I guess your actual argument is: "exchanging sexual favors is harmful because physical and emotional contact being used as a tool for gratification is disrespectful to the "personhood" of participants in sexual behavior"

    Is that a fair portrayal of your argument?     — VagabondSpectre
    No, not quite. I've already given you my portrayal of my argument very clearly, and I've pointed you to it several times already. You've made no effort to read it properly:
    Both of them are harmed, because they use one another as tools, they don't respect each other's personhood and VALUE as a person, they fail to actualise their potential for communion with one another, and they fail to uphold their human dignity. Need I go over these same explanations over and over again? :s — Agustino
    The point is that you're disconsidering the other person (and therefore disconsidering yourself) when you have sex with them in such circumstances. Even the mere fact that you're not concerned with their emotional well-being (which you yourself admit) is a sign of that.

    In order to acquire money people need to work (sacrificing their body and emotions). The MacDonald's worker is sacrificing their patience to deal with customers and their time and body to do the work in exchange for money. It's not entirely different from a prostitute doing work for a john. The form of gratification is different (sex instead of junk food) and the work involved is different (genitals are involved). So essentially the only major difference is that sex is involved. — VagabondSpectre
    It is entirely different. First the McD's worker isn't sacrificing his body at all. And the prostitute isn't only sacrificing her time. She's also sacrificing her emotional desires, her value as a person, and her dignity.

    What's inherently bad about sex again? — VagabondSpectre
    Nothing, inherently. But sex can be misused.

    (P.S: you probably should not say because it "violates personhood", because your reasoning for why violating personhood is bad is itself based on the fact that sex is involved, making the reasoning circular) — VagabondSpectre
    Your basic problem is that it seems that you cannot comprehend facets of human existence and experiences. And nothing I say can save you from the fact that you just seem to lack basic human experiences.

    feral children sometimes cannot learn many aspects of normal human behavior, which indicates that they're not born with innate knowledge/ideas. — VagabondSpectre
    No it doesn't. Just because they're born with a certain potential doesn't mean they can always actualise it. Mentally retarded people cannot actualise a lot of human potentials.

    Feral children can learn when we manage to discover and capture them and force it upon them, but they're not out there "desiring god and the transcendent" and observing your own notions of "decency". — VagabondSpectre
    Yep, that's exactly what I said, these potentials require the right circumstances and experiences (including being raised in a social environment) to be actualised.

    "Identified as a possible threat" is just another way of saying "something unidentified".

    Choosing to react to something unidentified in a particular way (fear) because you feel threatened might actually be one of the main drives of superstitious belief...     — VagabondSpectre
    No, I wouldn't qualify this as superstition.

    People fear god (who is unidentified) by assuming all kinds of nonsense about the nature of reality and our relationship to it. — VagabondSpectre
    They fear God because they have an experience of the transcendent.

    Back to sex though, please explain what you meant by "emotional contact" and how exactly is someone harmed when they willingly seek out this kind of emotional contact for gratification? — VagabondSpectre
    >:O >:O >:O Man this guy!! I've already answered that question about 4 times for fuck's sake!

    You alluded that you don't know what kind of sex I've had, the answer is many different kinds. — VagabondSpectre
    Where exactly have I alluded to that? :s >:O

    I'm not trying to be rude in asking this, but have you ever had sex? — VagabondSpectre
    Yes, unfortunately, but that's something that I regret. And I have absolutely no clue how in the world someone can possibly be rude by asking the other person if they've had sex :s
  • Forcing people into obligations by procreating them is wrong
    Hey, fuck you, I disagree! — Heister Eggcart
    No sexy time, sorry.

    A child being born facilitates their being harmed, though, as much you'd like to play a semantic trick on me. — Heister Eggcart
    It is not a semantic trick at all. Giving birth to a child cannot be wrong since the child is not harmed. Something wrong would be doing something that actually harms the child in life.

    Exaggerations can be true, though. — Heister Eggcart
    Almost by definition they can't, since an exaggeration is something that goes above and beyond what is the case.

    The other one that's exactly like this, but for some reason we have two threads now! >:o — Heister Eggcart
    :-O Which one lol?

    Fuck no, bro. "Benefiting" yourself at the expense of others, whilst realizing that you are doing so, sounds pretty fucked up to me. — Heister Eggcart
    Yes I agree with you. But I meant to say there is a positive type of self-love which is NOT selfishness - not benefiting yourself at the expense of others.

    I agree birth in itself is not wrong, but procreation, the decision to bring a life into a world of suffering, is wrong, especially if you admit that the child will suffer later. — Heister Eggcart
    As far as I know, wrong is when you directly cause harm to someone. Giving birth to someone isn't directly causing them harm, for the simple reason that they don't exist prior to birth.
  • Is Evil necessary ?
    The common use of the term applies to the knowing cuckold, who derives masochistic pleasure in seeing his wife sexually satisfied by another man, while being denied the same access as the invader. It's a humiliation fetish. — Hanover
    :-O Oh dear, seeing that this is so disgusting, no wonder you know about it!! >:O

    The word is derived from the cuckoo bird, who supposedly invaded other bird's nests, pushed aside its eggs, and laid its own eggs in the nest, causing the other bird to unknowingly care for the egg and eventually raise the cuckoo bird. — Hanover
    Well, the term I knew is "cuckservative", and it describes a conservative just like you Hanover - like John Kasich, Jeb Bush, that ilk ;)
  • Is Evil necessary ?
    "Cu*ks and puss**s"... We're all grown up here, you can spell the words out. Maybe you were looking for "cringing weaklings"? btw, what is a 'cu*ks'? — Bitter Crank
    >:O >:O >:O
  • Religious Discussions - User's Manual
    Yes, I was. — unenlightened
    :D And what did you think?
  • Forcing people into obligations by procreating them is wrong
    But why is it necessary for the human race to continue if on an individual level you admit that it isn't necessary to procreate? — Heister Eggcart
    It isn't necessary to procreate in the sense that Epicurus used the term, namely that if you don't procreate, your own personal survival will not be affected (Epicurus himself had no children, he was an atheistic ascetic, much like you :P ). As for why is it necessary for the human race to continue, I don't think it's necessary, but I do think we should continue.

    Okay, but why do you drive a distinction between procreation and murder? — Heister Eggcart
    Because one of those actions is evil in and of themselves in-so-far as it harms another being, while another isn't evil in and of itself, since it harms no one.

    Another example - murder is prohibited in the 10 Commandments, procreation isn't. The two are not comparable, it would be an EXTREME exaggeration to say that to procreate is as bad as to murder.

    I'm not so sure. Maybe I should stick my dick in that other thread, though it has looked a giant can of worms... — Heister Eggcart
    What other thread? :P

    Yes, because people are selfish. Surely this comes as no surprise to you? — Heister Eggcart
    It's not just selfishness that is at play. Love your neighbour as yourself implies that you should love yourself to begin with, which is different than selfishness, which entails benefiting yourself and the expense of others.

    There is enough suffering to go around for love to always be applied without the need to make matters worse by creating more suffering just so that I can love that too. To look to cause suffering, either in yourself or in others is sadism, and is the complete antithesis to love. — Heister Eggcart
    I agree with this, but I don't agree that this has anything to do with procreation, because, as I've said, someone cannot be harmed by birth. They can be harmed only by what comes after.
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    There are nudist beaches here in Sydney, and I have swum at some of them, and i find nothing at all offensive about seeing naked human bodies, and i feel no shame about appearing naked myself. — John
    Well, sure if that's your thing, no problem doing it at a NUDIST BEACH. But there would be a problem if you did that in the middle of the street. It's not indecent to be nude at a nudist beach, but it is indecent to be nude on the street.

    Personally I wouldn't do that, not because I would feel ashamed or offended by it, but I just see absolutely no point to go to a nudist beach - as in I'd have zero reason to go.

    I don't agree with your allegation of there being a "political agenda", though, with the "Serena' image. At least no more than there is a political agenda to every aspect of media, simply by virtue of the fact that we are political beings. — John
    I think this is not right. There is a political agenda to it which is driven by all sorts of postmodern and neo-progressive movements that Serena has always been a part of. Part of their agenda is to eliminate standards and hierarchies of beauty and truth, including in-so-far as they pertain to the pregnant female body.
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    Or, you could have clear ideas and communicate them effectively... There's always that option! — VagabondSpectre
    They are clear first of all, and they are communicated effectively given that this is a philosophy forum and not just a casual conversation in a pub.

    What if sex need not involve intimate emotion? — VagabondSpectre
    Was I saying anything about intimate emotion? I said sex involves emotional contact, which is a true fact. I don't know what kind of sex you have had, such that even in the middle of the sex act you feel no emotional contact whatsoever with the other person (and no - this doesn't mean love).

    What's your definition of personhood? — VagabondSpectre
    Fundamentally a person is someone bestowed with both will and intellect, such that the intellect can guide the will in the choices that it makes - but personhood refers to the constituent elements that belong to the human person, namely body, emotions, feelings, mind and spirit.

    Buying something at McD's is purely a financial transaction, which does not involve the body, emotions and feelings of someone the way the sex act involves them. Now if you are going to say they do, then I think we're quite clear that you don't know what sex is.

    Feral children (and children who were not raised with normal social interactions) do not escape their "condition", the severity of which depends on the severity of their circumstances. They're all permanently affected and only a few have managed to eek out even some modicum of normalcy. They do not acquire verbal language and their social habits are forever changed.

    But what you're saying here is that because feral children can learn some new behavior later in life that "innate human ideas" somehow exist, right?     — VagabondSpectre
    So how come some feral children can learn languages eh? Why don't you teach your dog a language too?!

    I've seen dogs and cats be trained to use the toilet, does that mean that they have some innate human ideas too? — VagabondSpectre
    Yes, in relatively simple activities, but try teaching a dog or a cat to paint, to speak, etc.

    Why would you be more interested in an attractive female at the outset?

    You low down hedonist dog you!     — VagabondSpectre
    First, attractive would involve what I personally consider attractive about her, which may be different than what society does, so others may not necessarily consider her attractive as well.

    And your question isn't a fair question. I said physical attraction MAY play a role in getting me interested in her as a person in the first place - so this is by no means a necessity as your question suggests. I could meet my future wife online for example, and first talk to her before I see her for example, in which case this wouldn't be the case. But otherwise physical attraction may play a role by simply making her be a person that I simply notice faster than other people, which makes it more likely that I will interact with her.

    How do you know animals aren't superstitious?

    I think that dogs who growl at mailmen are behaving superstitiously...     — VagabondSpectre
    Acting out of fear and taking some sort of action against something identified as a possible threat isn't being superstitious.
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    Dogs never escape? :-} — VagabondSpectre
    Do they? Show me a dog starting to become a human. :s

    What the fuck does "Actualize their potential for communion with one-another" mean?

    Does it mean anything or is it just nonsense? Did you just make it up?     — VagabondSpectre
    Read some Aristotelian philosophy and you may be able to understand what it means.

    I would rather study L Ron Hubbard's "Dianetics" to be honest... — VagabondSpectre
    Okay, go do that then.

    What do consensual sexual favors have to do with personhood? Oh, nothing.

    If one day a woman should let you put your penis in her don't for a minute think that she's offering up her "person-hood".     — VagabondSpectre
    They absolutely do have to do with your personhood, because sexual acts are INTIMATE, and involve close bodily and emotional contact.

    Aug, I asked why humans cannot trade sex for sex without "love" needing to be a factor. "We're different from animals" is not a satisfactory answer. The fact that ants don't have altars doesn't mean we cannot trade sex for money in a loveless transaction without some terrible harm being inflicted (other than to your own emotions, for whatever reason). — VagabondSpectre
    Yes, and I answered you why. Read it and study what it means:

    Both of them are harmed, because they use one another as tools, they don't respect each other's personhood and VALUE as a person, they fail to actualise their potential for communion with one another, and they fail to uphold their human dignity. Need I go over these same explanations over and over again? :s — Agustino

    so whether or not you're physically attracted to someone is not a consideration whatsoever as a potential marriage partner? — VagabondSpectre
    Nope. Not at all. Physical attraction may play a role in getting me interested in her as a PERSON in the first place, but it would definitely be of no consideration in deciding whether I should marry her or not.

    Read as: anything vaguely superstitious = a baby's desire for god. Humans are superstitious, QED babies desire god right? — VagabondSpectre
    Yes, anything beyond the physical includes the superstitious. Animals don't have superstitions, yet another difference.
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    That's your opinion, but I'd argue that you are absolutely wrong. The desire for the transcendent (including God)

    Stop being pedantic please.     — VagabondSpectre
    It says desire for the transcendent (which does INCLUDE God, but it obviously is much larger than the concept of God).

    Would you marry someone you found visually repulsive because you like who they are? — VagabondSpectre
    Yes, quite possibly.

    we ARE animals. We evolved here on Earth right along side all the others... — VagabondSpectre
    Sure, but this doesn't mean we're JUST animals. We're also VERY different from other animals. Animals weren't painting in their caves AND burying their dead AND worshipping, etc. ;) Don't make me bring this one up on you again.

    Ant colonies don't have a space for altars, where they make sacrifices and such. Maybe only in your dreams they do.

    When your self serving ends are over with a MacDonald's worker, and they with you (making money), the relationship is too, which means that you treat each-other like TOOLS - not as persons (CITATION NEEDED). In casual fast-food, the two participants each want the pleasure that each can provide the other. When one of them can no longer do that, the relationship ends - again showing that they were just TOOLS that each was using for their own selfish ends, and not real people." -Augistino's reflection — VagabondSpectre
    How does buying something from McDonald's involve your personhood in any real sense of the term? How does making a business deal involve your personhood? Oh it doesn't. Right. Of course then that it is irrelevant if they're using you as tools, because they're not actually using you at all, since your personhood isn't involved. Again, doing business isn't the same as putting a penis in someone. You seem not to be able to get this.

    In other words, how do you FAIL to treat each other as persons when you make that exchange with the McD's worker? None of your personhood is involved in anyway in that, it's not an intimate act at all.

    "Actualize their potential for communion with one-another" is the kind of phrase I could program a post-modern research paper generator to produce. It's meaningless and you know it Aug... Do you honestly expect me to bend-over backwards and guess what the hell it is you actually mean here? (if you're not just making shit up ad hoc that is...).

    In what way do tricks and johns fail to "respect each-other's personhood" in a way that MacDonald's workers and customers do not?

    Let me guess: "BECAUSE WHEN THE PENIS ENTERS THE VAGINA IT'S SINFUL AND DISRESPECTFUL!"     — VagabondSpectre
    You've shown no evidence of having understood what is being told to you to begin with. Evidence that it's time to go back to studying what I wrote.

    That said, there are numerous well documented cases of feral children who have exhibited extreme degrees of animal behavior and additionally (but not crucial to my point) they have severe difficulties re-adapting to normal human life (sometimes they escape . — VagabondSpectre
    Ah, sometimes they can escape! So they're not like dogs, because dogs can never escape RIGHT?! Really, you're making yourself appear stupid.

    Were you even aware of the existence of feral children before I brought them up? — VagabondSpectre
    Yes, I was totally aware of them. They're still not anywhere near animals, evidenced even by the sole fact that they can sometimes escape that condition.
  • Forcing people into obligations by procreating them is wrong
    I'm familiar with some of these classical definitions, but...

    "examples of natural and necessary desires include the desires for food, shelter, and the like. Epicurus thinks that these desires are easy to satisfy, difficult to eliminate (they are 'hard-wired' into human beings naturally), and bring great pleasure when satisfied. Furthermore, they are necessary for life, and they are naturally limited: that is, if one is hungry, it only takes a limited amount of food to fill the stomach, after which the desire is satisfied. Epicurus says that one should try to fulfill these desires."

    the part, "they are necessary for life" is where'd I counter and agree to an extent, but argue that a natural desire, let's say procreation for example here, is not necessary for love. Life? Sure, at the fundamental level. But love? I don't think so.     — Heister Eggcart
    Epicurus has a tripartite distinction. Natural and necessary desires, natural and unnecessary desires (the desire to have sex for example), and unnatural (or artificial) and unnecessary desires.

    I would say procreation is in the natural and unnecessary desires, in that it's not necessary for your own survival (but it is for the survival of the species).

    Something like cannibalism would count as an unnatural and unnecessary desire for Epicurus.

    What I meant to point out with this, is that some desires are natural, in that they are innate to the human organism - others are not, like cannibalism and the examples you often give.

    In that example, sex is the firearm, the thing doing the killing. Love would be me acting in self-defense, while my murdering someone would be more akin to shagging a prostitute. — Heister Eggcart
    Okay I think your analogy fails because killing, in and of itself, is wrong, even if in some circumstances it is acceptable (such as in self-defence). However, procreation in and of itself isn't wrong, even though in some circumstances it can be wrong.

    Each individual, except the child for whom the decision is being made without consent. — Heister Eggcart
    There is no child for whom the decision is made without consent. The child simply doesn't exist, so the question of consent is illogical.

    These aren't good enough reasons to have a child. At the very least adopt a child if these three reasons are what "most" people desire. — Heister Eggcart
    Maybe, but there seems to be the desire to have your own child too. Maybe people should have on child of their own and also adopt?

    Seems to be? Shouldn't you be a bit more assured in your understanding of God's will? — Heister Eggcart
    Yes, and no I don't think I should be. The origins and ends of existence are mysterious.

    Maybe, but it doesn't follow that suffering must be propagated in order for love to be fulfilled. — Heister Eggcart
    Why not?
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    Yes it could, because it's possible, which in turn suggests that it could. Therefore it's possible. — Sapientia
    Smart owl :D
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    Dude I quoted you directly in the other thread and it's there for anyone to read. Here it is again: — VagabondSpectre
    Yeah what the hell does that sentence say? Does it say the desire for God or the desire for the transcendent?! >:O I think you just need some new glasses.

    Being born with the potential to learn mathematics is not the same as being born with mathematical ideas in your head. — VagabondSpectre
    As if I said it was.

    What if they want a mate that they are attracted to, so they are trying to make themselves attractive. — VagabondSpectre
    That's good, no need to pay special attention to making themselves attractive for that. All they have to do is be themselves. That person should like them for who they are.

    Should they be happy with whichever man/woman their parents/priest indicates they should marry? — VagabondSpectre
    No.

    I'm talking about sex, not love. Why do people have to only deal in love and not in sex? — VagabondSpectre
    Because we're not animals. Next question please.

    Umm, so you're upset that they're "using one other" even though they're both well aware that pleasure is being traded for pleasure? Doesn't usery need to be one-sided or else it's not usery? — VagabondSpectre
    No, because this isn't an economic exchange. It involves who they are as persons directly (including their bodies and minds), in a way a business deal doesn't. A business deal doesn't involve lying close to that person and putting your penis in them. Nope. It just doesn't.

    When you walk into any commercial establishment and exchange money for services, you're treating people like TOOLS? You're making a self-serving exchange for your own ends.... When you buy a sand-which.... So what? — VagabondSpectre
    Read what I said above, and stop strawmanning and being stupid please.

    Forgive me, but I'm having a hard time wondering who is harmed during an actual transaction for sex for money. Clearly the woman isn't harmed; she got paid! So is it the main who gets harmed? He loses his hard earned money and afterwards feels emotionally depressed that he must pay women to sexually gratify him? I don't get it, please enlighten me... — VagabondSpectre
    Both of them are harmed, because they use one another as tools, they don't respect each other's personhood and VALUE as a person, they fail to actualise their potential for communion with one another, and they fail to uphold their human dignity. Need I go over these same explanations over and over again? :s

    Ummmmmmm.......

    So running around on all fours, living amongst a pack of dogs, eating sleeping and living like them, is not animal behavior?

    The existence of feral children pretty much destroys your notion that humans have some kind of innate set of ideas like "god" and "decency"...     — VagabondSpectre
    Yeah, go back and do a proper study of it. We have very little scientific knowledge of feral children (your own Wiki article says as much), and many of the stories are hoaxes. There's also stories of people who are now living amongst people even though they were feral. So no, clearly NOT like dogs. Go walk the dog, you may be more successful at that, than at peddling BS here.
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    It's just no big deal. Obviously it's no big deal to me, and no big deal to others as well. As for the rest, it should be no big deal for them, too. — Sapientia
    Great, a more circular reasoning could not be possible :P

    My wife? What wife? :D

    And what six pack? :(

    Nah, people on the street should enjoy my hypothetical six pack, too. Some probably did in the past when I actually had one and when it was on show in public.     — Sapientia
    LOL!

    I was hoping we could avoid that quibble. I was speaking in a looser sense of not knowing enough about a situation to make a good judgement. — Sapientia
    Sure, that is sometimes possible.
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    ↪Bitter Crank
    Not a bad song, thanks! 8-)
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    Perhaps if I was a sex-crazed maniac I'd be shrugging my peepee? — Heister Eggcart
    What if you are one, and because you're afraid of yourself and what you can do, you've chosen prudery? >:)
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    The basic kernel of human sexual drive isn't all that different from other animals. For instance, you don't have to decide to be sexual. Sexual is baked in — Bitter Crank
    Agreed.

    Human sexuality, the sexuality of embodied persons, however is more complicated -- as you point out. But it is in the complexity of human existence that we get screwed up by bad/stupid/evil ideas. — Bitter Crank
    It is more complicated precisely because we're different from animals in that we're also persons. So we have to deal with the fact of our personhood when we feel the impulses of our sexual desire. The idea obviously would be to get the two in harmony, and religions (and Freud) would I think advocate for the same, even though they may share different means of doing that.

    Is our sexuality complicated by bad/stupid/evil ideas? I think it's just complicated by vicious authoritarianism which uses fist and force instead of education to deal with our sexuality as it emerges. Most people don't have the capacity to educate, so they resort to other means.
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    I would hope that you would fuck a woman rather better than a dog would. >:) — Bitter Crank
    >:O
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    Tried and failed to maintain the claim, yes. You ended up trotting it back to some ultra-vague nonsense that dropped the god parameter entirely and settled on anything vaguely superstitious ("in any way beyond the physical"). You elected not to defend it against my subsequent rebuke. — VagabondSpectre
    :-} :-} :-} You are a bigger liar than Jeb Bush, as Trump would tell you. It is YOU who idiotically thought I said God, when I had said the divine/transcendent from the very beginning, something that I pointed you to, but it seems you still haven't acknowledged it. Maybe you want me to point it again, how you can't even read what I write properly.

    Teaching someone mathematics isn't "actualizing" the mathematical ideas they already had, it's introducing them to new ideas which previously did not exist in their mind. — VagabondSpectre
    No, it is actualising a potential of their mind to do mathematics. If their mind has no such potential in the first place, how come you can teach them mathematics? Why the hell don't you teach mathematics to your dog as well if there's no potential in discussion?

    You would condemn an ugly woman from wearing makeup, or an ugly man from compensating with his career, right? — VagabondSpectre
    :s what does this have to do with anything? I don't think they should "compensate" with anything, there is no necessity to be sexually attractive in the first place. They should be happy with how they are.

    What if the desire to be sexually attractive is to advertise yourself on a market of fair exchange where when two people have sex it's not simply one using the other (or whatever it is you're afraid of?). — VagabondSpectre
    Love is not a business, sorry to break this one to you. When I pick a woman, I don't do a business deal, tallying up the costs and benefits. That's a very STUPID way to pick a woman.

    What if instead of "using" other people for sex, they "had mutually gratifying sex together" and both enjoyed it? — VagabondSpectre
    What does mutually gratifying sex have to do with the fact that they're using one another? :s They can absolutely exchange pleasure for pleasure, but that would NOT change the fact that they are using each other. CASUAL SEX IS PROSTITUTION - that's what I say, just as Proudhon said that PROPERTY IS THEFT!

    The reason for that is such a relationship bears a utilitarian modus operandi, where two people engage in sex for self-serving ends. The man who fucks a prostitute desires the sexual pleasure she can provide, and the prostitute desires his money. When the self-serving ends of each are over, their relationship is too, which means they treat each other as TOOLS - not as persons. In casual sex the two participants each want the sexual pleasure that each can provide the other. When one of them can no longer do that, the realtionship ends - again showing that they were just TOOLS that each was using for his/her own selfish ends, and not real people. That is why casual sex is prostitution, because it bears the logic and modus operandi of prostitution and degrades both of the participants, whether they freely agree to it - like the man and his prostitute do - or not.

    You're essentially saying that you don't like women who try to be attractive because you think they are disrespecting your spiritual nature (by controlling you?) with their bodies... — VagabondSpectre
    No, they absolutely can't control me, try as they may. I'm actually quite good with that. It's not about me, it's about the intentions of their heart. They have impure intentions (to control me, make me lust for them), which is their problem and their sin. Whether they succeed or not is of a secondary nature. Even if they fail every single time, it's still sinful, because intentions matter.

    They're called feral children. They tend to have no language and literally behave in a manner congruent with their development. In the case of a child growing up with a dog pack, they act like a dog.

    Your ideas about pre-existing ideas in human babies is really a mal-formed/naive way to view human psychology.     — VagabondSpectre
    Such children do not behave like their animal counterparts, no. However, they do have a decreased function as human beings.
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    Humans, on the other hand, do have the cognitive ability to screw up the sexuality of their offspring (and much else), which they do with regularity and aplomb. — Bitter Crank
    :-} There's a problem with this because it assumes that sexuality is the same for man as it is for animals, and this is not true - at least not true in comparison to MOST animals, there may be some with regards to which comparisons can be made.

    Man is a spiritual being (and before Vagabond jumps up in arms about some bullshit), all that means is that we are rational creatures, possessed of both will and intellect - we are PERSONS. Animals are not persons. So as human beings we do struggle to manage our sexual drive in accordance to our nature as persons, and thus have different conundrums than animals. When an animal feels the sex drive, it goes jumps on the female boom boom boom, gets the job done, and that's it. No questions asked of who is the female, does she want it, etc.

    When we feel our sex drive, it is mediated by the fact we are persons. I don't want to just fuck a woman like a dog. Why not? Because I'd feel bad about myself for using her and not treating her as a person worthy of dignity and communion, and thus failing to respect myself and my own personhood in the end.

    Now the way the human mind functions is that there can be irrational desires present. For example it is possible for someone to want to fuck a woman like a dog - even though they realise this is not in accordance to reason, morality, and their own nature. Freud would identify this as some part of the psyche for sure. This is the part that most often has fantasies, which many times are irrational. There's no problem with these so long as they remain fantasises, but there is a problem when you try to bring fantasises in reality, for the simple reason that the fantasy does not share the same structure with reality. For example, it is impossible to fuck a woman like a dog in real life and still respect her personhood. In a fantasy, this may however be possible. Freud was right that some of these desires emerge from different associations (some mistaken) that we formed during childhood in our minds. The way to deal with such fantasies is to either (1) acknowledge them and keep them as fantasies, or (2) work with them by bringing them into consciousness, and severing the link between the pleasure associated with the object/action of the fantasy, by mentally trying to bring the fantasy into reality and therefore experiencing the actual negative emotions that would in truth be associated with it.
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    ↪Bitter Crank
    And by the way, you seem to think that sexual abstinence or celibacy is a repression of sexuality, but this isn't at all the case. Rather abstinence isn't repressing sexual feelings, but not acting on them - that's wholly different. Repression means when you don't acknowledge your sexual nature at all, but so long as you acknowledge it, and accept that you are a sexual being (amongst other things), there is absolutely no problem with not acting on sexual desire - it's actually a good thing, you become self-controlled - your own master, captain of the ship, even though poor Freud thought it was impossible.
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    Also, you are presumably straight, so you probably wouldn't find a male torso arousing. But still, too much nakedness (uncovered breasts! Oh, no! Save us from concupiscence!) is immoral. — Bitter Crank
    I didn't say it's immoral btw, I said it's not decent. They are a bit different, lacking decency is not ALWAYS immoral. Decency is a matter of social norms that we expect to hold ourselves accountable to in order to foster a more moral (and predictable) environment. So for example a man walking without a shirt on in the street will be indecent, but not immoral unless he's doing it to (1) show off, or (2) to sexually attract others. The social norms though are indeed built on objective moral standards.
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    But because sexuality is central to our personality and physical development from infancy forward, (and one doesn't have to cite Sigmund Freud for support) the morality of all things sexual are probably strongly influenced by experience and emotions. — Bitter Crank
    I doubt this is the case (that sexuality is central to our personality, etc.). Some people seem to WANT this to be the case, but I doubt it. It's certainly true for the people who have bought into this idea however - their life does seem to be all about sexuality.

    Sexuality is important, like all other factors of our existence, but not the absolute central bit. Our values seem to be a LOT more central than sexuality, and values do determine one's stance on sexual issues to a large extent.

    Keep digging. — Bitter Crank
    Typical of Freud, when something doesn't fit the theory, it's a problem with the person (they're repressing something) not with the theory :-}
  • John McEnroe: Serena Williams would rank 'like 700 in the world' in men's circuit play
    Isn't this like when you tried to claim that babies are born with a desire for god? — VagabondSpectre
    Like I TRIED to claim? :s

    Babies aren't born with any knowledge about decency; they're born naked and will happily piss, shit, and vomit on you.

    If a child gets raised by a pack of dogs, they act like a dog. Do you honestly believe that humans are born with biologically pre-programmed ideas?     — VagabondSpectre
    Yes, however those ideas do require other factors in their environment to be actualised. And I'm not sure that if a child gets raised by a pack of dogs he will act like that pack.

    You previously stated that if a women tries to be sexually provocative by showing her ankle then she is behaving immorally... — VagabondSpectre
    Yes. So?

    All you have done is stated that "attempts to be sexually appealing are immoral" but you have not justified why (beyond some insane fear mongering of the collapse of western society that is clearly fueled by your passion for religious conservatism and your hatred of liberalism). — VagabondSpectre
    Attempts to be sexually appealing are immoral because they (not all the time, but most often) involve the desire to use others (and their traits/bodies) for your own satisfaction. Using other people is failing to treat them with the dignity they deserve as persons, objectifying them, and mistreating their spiritual nature. There's your reason, now go walk the dog.

    You might add that so treating other people also demeans your own self.

    And you wonder why others call you a prude... Sexual attraction is a natural part of human life Aug, get used to it. By your standards any woman who makes sure she has good posture is an immoral whore. — VagabondSpectre
    Depends why she intends to have good posture. If she intends to have good posture in order to attract other men to her and use their wills/bodies, then yes, that would be immoral. Most often though, women don't have those intentions when having good posture - they just want to be healthy and comfortable.

    So yes, sexual attraction is part of life, and I have no problem with it IN THE RIGHT CIRCUMSTANCES.

    Seems to be that being sexy hasn't harmed Beyonce or Madonna. In fact I think they profited from it. — VagabondSpectre
    They profited from it financially, but finance is relatively unimportant to other ways in which they have been harmed.

    What harm are you taking about? — VagabondSpectre
    The harm takes the form of neglecting their human nature, failing to actualise their potentials for a lot of things, amongst which relationships (that's why Madonna isn't even married anymore, because who could be married to such a person, except maybe someone equally bad) - and also failing to uphold their dignity.
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