Hah! You’re right, I did make it sound like that last quote was yours. My apologies.
And yes, you’re right, there are millions of morons who believe that. I’d just hope most, or all, of us at ILP are beyond that.
There are also millions of morons who disagree with evolution. Very few on ILP, though, so I generally feel free to start with principles of evolutionary psychology, for example, and go from there, without the need to justify evolution in the first place.
Well, I disagree with this. I think most absolutist statements about sex end up being wrong, with claims of “sex is all cultural and need have no emotional impact whatsoever” being equally idiotic to claims that sex is inherently sinful.
In the context of regular psychology and evolutionary psychology, there is every reason why a raped woman would feel damaged. There is every reason why a woman who had completely causal sex may (depending on the woman, or even the man) feel damaged (although of course to a lesser degree than the raped woman). There are psychological constants that are evolutionary adaptations to our ancestral environments, and since sex is one of the most important things in our lives, it is naive to imagine that the only evolved instinct or evolved emotional response we have regarding sex is a desire for it. Clearly there is more going on than that.
Twiff - I didn’t mean to say that sex is cultural - that would be idiotic indeed. I mean that most consentual, adult sex is not harmful in any way. I am of course not talking about rape. There is no reason to use exceptional cases as the baseline. But that is what we often do. How you can slide so easily from rape to casual sex I do not know.
Sex is one of the most important things in our lives if we make it so. It’s really just sex.
I see, I was taking your statement in a way other than it was intended. I completely agree with your statement now that (I believe) I am taking it correctly.
Up to the present moment, I haven’t understood why the absence of believe in God or in absolute moral codes should prevent us from seeing some things as adequate (‘good’) and other things as inadequate (‘bad’). In the end, isn’t everything a matter of personal choices and personal beliefs? There is no moral relativism that can oblige me to accept the abuse of children and/or women as something harmless and fair. Pornography doesn’t necessarily do that, but it can give us the impression that women exist only to be sexually abused, and that it’s pretty acceptable to desire pretty young girls when all one needs to do in life is finding a source of sexual pleasure.
Sex is a natural thing, but the way it is portrayed today it’s like life was reduced to it.
Again, I am not a pseudo-moralist, it’s just the exaggeration and the banalization of sex nowadays that bothers me.
And if you consider that women don’t want their unborn children to live, then you can easily compare it to the fact that men don’t want some other people to live. This is a moral qualification of responsibility. In other words, Radiohead629, you are saying this: Because I don’t want you around me, I have the right to end your existence (in any shape-or-form). Thus, women are murderers (if you consider abortion murder, or not). And men are murderers.
This is by your reasoning Radiohead629, not mine. Explain to me where I may be misreading you, if I am, at all…