Sexuality by Alex @ 11:17 pm
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Rewritten, 2008-12-29:
- People of any sex should be treated not in terms of their sex, but rather as equals and as individuals. Sex, like height, can be taken into account, but should not interfere with how people are treated. For example, when creating clothes, even if the different body structures of males and females are taken into account, that doesn’t mean the rooms in which males and females change should be separate, unless each person is given their own room or space to change clothes.
- Given only the above, pan/bisexuality would be fine. However, people should act on reason rather than on biological instincts as well. That means if someone eats food, they should do so in order to sustain themselves, not for the sake of pleasure. Feeling pleasure by doing something reasonable is fine, but doing something for the sake of pleasure is not. Relying on pleasure rather than on reason to guide your actions not only can lead to disastrous consequences, but simply makes no sense.
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Do you conflate romance and sex, or are they separate spheres? In other words, would you date someone without the possibility of sex, or is dating part of the underlying problem?
Yes it is. I’m talking about human sexuality in general, not just sex. The innate desire to reproduce is what drives people to date. It’s also what drives homosexuals, even though there isn’t the possibility of having children through sex.
First, your new avatar picture is pretty cool.
Second, there’s a song my chorus used to perform called “Everything Possible“, by the Flirtations. Check out the lyrics. The refrain is what I’m thinking of…
That might apply.
I don’t really see what that has to do with my argument. :\
Then, explain. As I said, I can’t understand….
You need to tell me what it is you don’t understand exactly.
It’s great for the economy though.
I see your point.
I can’t understand why you want to live a loveless life. It’s sad…
So I followed your link from ( [link removed] ) in regards to why you were set on not ever having a “first time”, and I’m not entirely sure I understand, even after reading this.
What does society projecting gender roles onto people have to do with you personally not having sex?
Tama, no, not really. I posted my reasons, so I don’t see what there is not to understand. Besides, I have many great friends (both male and female) who can keep me company instead.
Jyuu, I’ll clarify what I was trying to say. Heterosexual males like females simply because they’re females. I can’t accept thinking differently of females just because my body instinctively wants to have children. While I might think differently of females anyway, I’m going to try my best not to. Sorry, I kind of got off-topic when I was writing that originally…
” Females do not like pink, they do not wear dresses or skirts, they do not like dolls, they are not unintelligent, and they do not have other stereotypically “girlie” qualities. The same goes for males; their actions are not merely the result of the sex they were born with. That isn’t to say there aren’t males or females who adhere to various stereotypes, but instead that being male or female does not necessarily mean one will act a certain way.”
Get out of the 50′s. No one makes these assumptions anymore. And the people who do are regarded as uneducated. That’s no reason to be asexual. I don’t think you have a strong grasp on sexuality. You’re heterosexual, through and through, you’re just not a fan of heteronormativity. Welcome to the 21st century.
ALSO I HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL YOU
What are you talking about? Sexism is incredibly pervasive in our society. In practically all stories, movies, etc. females are treated as lesser than males. Who saves the princess/girl in trouble? Some male hero. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a story where a female saves a female or a male; at the very least those are pretty rare. Just to take a recent example of some explicit sexism, in the anime I’m watching currently called Reborn! the guys go out and fight while the girls stay back at the base and cook because they’re useless. Is it just a coincidence that the females happen to be the only ones who don’t fight? I doubt it. People should be judged, if judged at all, on their individual merits, and yet this sexism is all over the place. It really pisses me off.
However, that’s not the main reason I dislike sexuality. It has a lot to do with not wanting to think differently of certain people (females) because of a primitive desire to make babies. You’re right though, I’m not asexual. However, I would be if I could choose to be.
I can understand your displeasure with the prominent (though frequently latent) sexism in our society, but dismissing reproduction in general is downright retarded. Humans are not excused from the rules of life; we live to pass on our genes and then we die. Regardless of your own existential philosophies, the legacy encoded in our DNA is the sole piece of information of value that we can leave behind.
Until you find away to evolve within your lifetime, (none of us are exactly Starchild material) I suggest you refrain from dismissing our natural desires, as they’re the only way to advance mankind and possibly create a society where there’s no longer a need for our “primitive ideals.”
Off the top of my head Utena, Gundam Wing, Yakitate Japan, Cowboy Bebop, Fullmetal Alchemist, Bleach, Tenchi Muyo, Mouse, Ribon no Kishi, and many of the Pokemon movies include female leads whom save a male protagonist. My animu tells me your theory is full of shit.
Ninja337, obviously I’m not saying that in no stories do female characters play an important role. It just so happened that I watched that episode of Reborn! soon before I made that comment so I thought I’d mention it as an example. In all of those, however, females are portrayed differently than males are as a result of their sex. That’s what I take issue with.
CJ, that’s not the only reason: “Aside from that, there are other reasons I’m opposed to sexuality. Namely, I don’t want to let my body’s desire to reproduce control how I treat or think of others.”
Also, people can reproduce without having sex, and if I don’t reproduce I’m sure there will be plenty of other people who will do so instead.
Wow. This is a pretty active thread. You must’ve hit a chord.
Also, if you were confused about my lyrics above, they basically are a parent telling a child that no matter what kind of relationship a child chooses to have when the child grows up, the parent will still love the child forever.
I understand the lyrics, but I don’t see their relevance… >_<
Well if you don’t make female and male characters somewhat dynamic you basically end up with Avatar the Last Airbender, and that would suck.
(Edited by Alex: Please try not to be vulgar here.)
All I’m saying is that I don’t think females should be treated a certain way as a result of the sex they happened to be born with. However, that’s not even the main point of this entry. It’s just a reason I don’t like heterosexuality.
You realize males are generalized in a certain manner as well, aren’t you?
“The same goes for males; their actions are not merely the result of the sex they were born with. That isn’t to say there aren’t males or females who adhere to various stereotypes, but instead that being male or female does not necessarily mean one will act a certain way.”
I completely understand what you mean, but if you think you can trust and like someone enough to where you are the happiest you have ever been, then be sure about it, and do what you think is right.
I agree fully with your arguments, and would like to say that many people have found happiness out of non sexual relationships, sexism is a big part of the worlds problems, what with you know, stereotypes and such.
https://www.reachandteach.com/store/images/products/everyboy_girl.gif
check this.
I’m out.
First off, I’d like to say that I agree with you wholeheartedly on the matter of stereotypes. I HATE stereotypes with a fiery passion, period. I believe that by stereotyping, humans fulfill the “need” to know, the same way religion and various gods explain the unknown, but at the same time, stereotyping (and religion, but I won’t get into this) promotes close-mindedness, which sucks.
The way you say this, it seems like you have no other way to restrain yourself except stopping all intimate relations completely. Are you the Hulk of sexuality or something?
Although as intelligent beings, we don’t *need* pleasure to guide us to survive, but at the same time, being intelligent doesn’t mean we shouldn’t indulge in pleasure, though it best comes in moderation (like you said, exemplified by overeating and sexual harassment). I disagree with you though, that people should eat to stay alive. People should eat to enjoy it, to satisfy their personal necessities (perhaps more energy through caffeine, or the ability to train harder with more protein, etc), or else we’d all have the can-o’-nutrients they had in the Matrix.
Although I agree that stereotyping is wrong, males and females are different, in more ways than one. No asexuality, intelligence, or ignorance is going to change that. What you CAN do, though, is help defeat the stereotypes and the sexism. You can never change that it is part of the woman’s reproductive role to carry the child for nine months. There are physical and chemical differences between males and females of all species, not just humans, and to try to break that in itself is to go against nature.
Also, don’t just go by what I’m saying here. I’m not trying to tell you what to think, but rather why what you’re thinking might be different from what you think you’re thinking (if you catch my drift).
I don’t want to treat or think of girls differently than guys. Simple enough?
Although pleasure can be part of the reason people eat, the reason should not be because it’s pleasurable. How people act should be controlled by their reason, not instinctive desires that exist because we’re too dumb to eat or reproduce without being encouraged to by the prospect of feeling good.
Yes that can be changed, and just because something is natural doesn’t mean it’s good.
I’m pretty sure what you thought I’m thinking was at least somewhat wrong. Hopefully I’ve cleared it up a bit.
@Alex
I have a much simpler solution. Merely treat and think of every individual person independently from every other person. The common occurrence of thinking about a person in terms of the millions of other people who happen to have the same genitalia or other shared personal feature – millions of whom no individual will ever have any more than superficial contact with for the duration of their lifetime – is an archaic practice that is little more than the vestigial, mindless herding instinct rooted within us from our primitive origins. Think of individuals as what they truly are, and you overthrow the oversimplism of judgment and you afford reasonable personal dignity to the people you know.
However, what I don’t understand is why you equate sexuality with unjust sexism. Say you take a look at the dynamics of interpersonal friendship: it’s eminently reasonable to prefer hanging out with people who are socially compatible with you, and hanging up on incompatible people. Is such discrimination *unjust*? Would similar sexual discrimination be unjust then? It’s not narrowminded in the sense that you’re missing anything potentially reasonable, so I don’t see what the fuss is about.
Second, the degree to which sexuality actually causes sexism is slim in my opinion. Sexism, as much as I’ve been able to ascertain, is largely from cultural conditioning related to our instinct to think of other people or ourselves in terms of herds or shared identities. It just so happens that sexuality is conditioned right alongside our views of sexual make-up. (Psychology, physiology, social status, etc.) Trying to repress sexuality, or holding the intellectual opinion that it is a weak-minded attribute, will not take out your conditioning, so there’s no point in doing so for the purpose of being nonsexist. I think my initial advice here works best; treat individuals as individuals.
“Reason is the servant of the passions.” Reason is merely a tool, a mental device, that can be aimed towards desired ends. Pleasure, even superficial pleasure such as sexual or appetitive instead of intellectual or spiritual, is an available end in itself. There is no a priori “reason” to choose more civilized ends over primitive ends; there are only the subjective values we hold with which to discern between what we truly want or don’t want. Are shallower people less reasonable than philosophical ones if they’re getting equal satisfaction and contentment out of life? I don’t think so.
Also, why are you pointing out the naturalistic fallacy to Nick N when you committed it yourself? (“Sex is for reproduction, food is for nutrition, unnatural = unreasonable!”) Enjoying food isn’t the cause of obesity, taking out nutrition and other necessary components of food for short-term economic convenience is. And expanding our sexuality, in my opinion, will actually wipe away more sexism than it bolsters!
Just to clarify: Are you saying that sexual discrimination is just because, as with friendships, it is just to choose those who are compatible with you over those who are incompatible?
As I said, “People of any sex should be treated not in terms of their sex, but rather as equals and as individuals.”
So what do you think causes sexism to exist in the first place? People have suffered from sexual objectification, for example, because of sexuality for a very long time, so I don’t see how you can argue that sexuality does not play a role.
I realize that, but, essentially, I’m attempting to explain why I’m opposed to sexuality in the hopes that others who share my subjective values will understand. Say, for example, a person believed it was okay to torture others because that person enjoyed their suffering. If I tried to argue with them, I would attempt to appeal to their sense of empathy, but if they were simply apathetic about how others feel, I wouldn’t be able use reason to change their mind no matter how rational that person is.
Expanding our sexuality? I’m not entirely sure what you mean by that.
I don’t think I was committing a naturalistic fallacy. I’m saying that I think continuing the human race and not starving to death are good things, while overeating because eating food makes you feel good is not, and therefore things should not be done simply for the sake of pleasure, especially if they have negative consequences (e.g., causing people to be treated differently as a result of their sex rather than who they are as an individual).
You mentioned there that you don’t consider sexuality to be a necessity to human beings. All the research I’ve read has very clearly indicated that sexuality is a *requirement* for healthy human development – babies need to be touched and held, children naturally tend towards hugging and physical contact, and adults deprived of physical contact suffer from a wide range of maladies.
It’s one thing to say you, personally, are making a conscious choice, but it’s quite another to say “people don’t need sexuality,” IMHO.
You’re making a straw man argument. I’m not trying to argue that people will be perfectly fine without any physical contact between each other. I’m trying to argue that sexuality, while not detrimental to one’s health, does have negative aspects to it that people don’t usually take into account. I’m talking about how things should be.
I think it’s a stretch, when it’s pretty clear the positives far outweigh the negatives. In any case, I certainly disagree with you, but I’d reiterate that qualifying your statements that they’re your choice might make things more clear to others. Just a thought.
I’m not talking about positives vs. negatives. I do agree that, for now, sexuality is necessary, albeit less so than eating; the positives outweigh the negatives right now.
I’m simply trying to explain why I don’t see sexuality as a good thing (why I dislike it).
I don’t know, I still see you conflating “sexuality” with “sexism,” and they’re really not the same thing (although related, certainly). A person can be sexual with whomever they choose; by the same token, a person can’t control who they’re attracted to. I’ll agree that perhaps in a perfect world who you’re attracted to might be governed by less superficial things (such as looks alone), but mutual pleasure (note the word “mutual”) simply for the sake of mutual pleasure is not, in and of itself, a bad thing.
Just my opinion, of course.
the problem is that sexuality has been trivialised,turned into a commodity and mercilessly flogged.its difficult to participate in a circus and not feel like a clown.regards,thomas
Exprix, I object to that because I don’t think our actions should be determined by the incentive of pleasure, but rather by reason.
“I don’t think our actions should be determined by the incentive of pleasure, but rather by reason.”
You’re battling the most basic drives of living animals – survival and reproduction. If we do not eat, we die, so our biochemistry rewards us with pleasurable feelings when we eat. If we do not have sex, we do not pass on our genes to our children, so our biochemistry rewards us with pleasurable feelings when we have sex.
Our bodies reward us with happy chemicals when we engage in behavior that contributes to survival of the species. We would have died out long before now if it was any other way.
Of course, reason can and should modify how we respond to the drives to eat and reproduce. Being unreasonable about food and sex also has a negative impact on survival and reproduction.
I like the eastern philosophical concept of ‘balance’. “All things in moderation’ may be a cliche, but I think it’s still a good way to live life.
(I followed a link from Pharyngula blog comments to here, and I’ve got the same username on both blogs.)
Via Paryngula too…
“I don’t think our actions should be determined by the incentive of pleasure, but rather by reason.”
Reason is good, but.. um… this is either an incredibly bleak, or a rather ill-thought-through philosophy. Reason is all very fine but cannot be an end in itself. What is your “aim”? To carry on living, by eating exactly enough food to get survive, and do what? Have sex exactly the number of times required to have as many children as you think are necessary to continue your genetic line? What is the point of friendship if not the pleasure of it? Or of going out for a long walk, or reading a book, or watching a film? What, fundamentally, is the point of any of us living (unless just to reproduce) if not, on some level, to experience some of the joy of just being alive, being human, which contact with other people gives us (I assume since you posted on Pharyngula without frothing at the mouth that you don’t believe the sole purpose of life is to Do God’s Will).
As has been said above, you conflate sexism with sexuality, they’re quite different (although it does depend on the environment you inhabit, high schools and Hollywood movies don’t help when trying to figure out a position on this one). Sexism, and indeed the commodified sex on TV and film, are, I agree, awful.. but sexuality as an physical part of a friendship, no, that’s different. It’s also, for some people, thoroughly enjoyable as a form of recreation, they tell me, but I’ve never really understood that.
AnneH, that is exactly my problem with sexuality. I don’t think the behavior of intelligent beings should be governed by “happy chemicals” such as dopamine. While I recognize that is unavoidable to a large extent given the present state of humans, I at least want people to not think of sexuality in the terms they currently do. I want them to recognize why it exists and therefore why it shouldn’t be acted on, even if it’s unreasonable to expect otherwise, currently.
Why?
You’ll have to be more specific.
The first paragraph seems to be mostly derived from issues underlying the second, so…
What’s wrong with being motivated by pleasure – and really, what other root motivation is there? What makes some things reasonable and others not – and, specifically, what makes pleasure unreasonable?
(And, with regards to the first paragraph, what’s “reasonable” about flatly advocating a social order that ignores the demonstrable psychological and social characteristics of humans?)
“What’s wrong with being motivated by pleasure”
It often leads to unreasonable actions.
“and really, what other root motivation is there?”
I hope you don’t consider the release of chemicals that make you feel good the motivation for your actions. Wanting to make the world better is a good motivation, regardless of whether or not it makes you feel good.
“What makes some things reasonable and others not”
Whether or not they’re based on reason, I s’pose.
“and, specifically, what makes pleasure unreasonable?”
It’s not governed in reason. Therefore, it can result in unreasonable actions. People who take recreational drugs, for example, are doing something unreasonable for the sake of pleasure.
Although it might be necessary, that doesn’t mean it’s reasonable. For some people, it’s necessary to believe in an afterlife or Heaven because they cannot deal with the death of another person. Although this could be described as a psychological necessity, that doesn’t mean it’s reasonable to believe in the afterlife or Heaven. Don’t equate what is psychologically necessary with what is reasonable.
rosy, I’m not conflating sexuality with sexism. I’m saying non-pansexual sexuality is by its nature sexist. The same would be true if people were only attracted to others of the same “race”. It would almost certainly result in racism, and that feeling in itself is racist in nature.
How do you define “making the world better?” With reference to what?
This is a tautology. You have not established why reason dictates the things you advocate here and not the things you reject.
Produce a definition of “reason” that excludes “weighing options and examining cause and effect to figure out how best to make oneself happy.”
Again: how is a proposition which is unworkable in practice reasonable?
“How do you define ‘making the world better?’ With reference to what?”
With reference to what I think is our shared belief that suffering is bad, for example.
“This is a tautology.”
What else am I supposed to say? You asked, “What makes some things reasonable and others not?” If you prefer a dictionary definition: “reasonable: agreeable to reason or sound judgment; logical.” If something doesn’t meet that standard, it’s not reasonable.
“You have not established why reason dictates the things you advocate here and not the things you reject.”
How haven’t I?
“Produce a definition of “reason” that excludes ‘weighing options and examining cause and effect to figure out how best to make oneself happy.’”
There’s a bunch here: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/reason
“Again: how is a proposition which is unworkable in practice reasonable?”
Because I’m not proposing people stop acting the way they currently do.
Can you try to make your posts a bit more like AnneH’s? I don’t really want to have a discussion with you if it’s going to keep going like this, no offense.
Hasn’t rejecting doing things to cause happiness pretty much closed this off as a motive? “I know suffering is bad because it makes me feel bad when I suffer and I know other people are like me in that respect” is a reasonable statement, as is “I know suffering is bad because I feel bad when I know others are suffering, too.” But, if personal good or bad feelings aren’t “reasonable motivation,” how does one conclude that suffering is bad?
How does one decide which things meet this standard?
(The reason I’m being such a pain in the ass about this is that your argument, so far as I can tell, has a LOT of unstated assumptions, many of which seem unlikely to be tenable once stated explicitly.)
You’ve explained what reason means, but not how it’s being applied here and why it leads to these conclusions and not others.
None of these are obviously incompatible with “weighing options and examining cause and effect to figure out how to best make oneself happy.”
What are you proposing, then?
What a great way to mess up your life: equate irrational with bad and then try to live it out. I’m sorry, you’re not a robot. You don’t want to lose your biological nature. The very reason you can motivate yourself to do anything at all stems from it. Read Hume on why we should be happy to be irrational animals. Even your dislike towards irrationality is basically an aesthetic opinion. I can understand it, because I share it too. I see the pernicious influence it has on our affairs. However, I still think there should be a balance between it and its opposite, rationality, instead of dismissing it entirely. My rational mind is the most important part of myself, but still I don’t want to be a robot. Not just because it’s impossible by just trying hard, but because it would be the same as being dead. Even if it’ll one day be possible for my consciousness to exist digitally, I’d still have things like hormones and other brain chemistry simulated, just to continue being myself.
No, you’ve got this wrong. I want to enjoy my sexuality (and his) with my boyfriend, but I’m no more attracted to my two male housemates than I am to the female one. I’m not equally attracted to everyone, I have in my lifetime been attracted to a very small subset of people all of whom (to date) happen to be male. There is nothing sexist in that.
Individuals are attracted to other individuals, most people are more attracted to more people of one sex than another but actually very few people are even a little bit sexually aware of most of the people they meet (unless they are unfortunate enough to be obsessed by sex, which I grant you would be inconvenient), so they just go on with their little lives and occasionally find someone attractive and either act on it or don’t. That’s normal. It’s even, in my view, rational.
There are problems with sexuality and sexism, for example a woman may be given a hard time by male colleagues providing unwanted attention, or vice versa, but that’s not an inherent result of everyone not being pansexual, that’s a result of some people being assholes. But the way to fix the world is for people to be less hung up on sexuality not more, for sexuality to be normalised rather than something people worry about endlessly.
Sorry, I seem to have got something wrong in the message above.. the first paragraph shouls be a blockquote.
Beyond that, while reason is by far the best tool for figuring out how to produce a certain state of affairs, the decision to value that state of affairs over another is fundamentally and inescapably emotional.
Sorry rosy, I’ve been trying to figure out how to fix that for a while now. I finally did by adding “overflow:auto;” to the comment’s styling. I’m not exactly sure why it worked, but I’m not complaining.
Azkyroth, I’m just saying that humans, being intelligent entities, shouldn’t, ideally, base their actions off of a desire to feel pleasure (“sensual gratification”). That doesn’t mean I’m opposed to people feeling happy or good.
I dunno. That’s like asking me why I think 2+2=4 is reasonable. I’m not sure how to answer it.
Well, I agree my wording needs a lot of work, but I think if I’m able to get my idea across successfully, you’ll agree with it.
I think an example might get the idea across better.
Imagine people were born with an biological tendency to watch paint dry. Watching paint dry gave them a euphoric feeling. Although I wouldn’t be opposed to people watching paint dry since it helped them psychologically and gave them a good feeling, I would still say that, ideally, intelligent beings shouldn’t sit around watching paint dry just because it feels good to do so.
I hope that makes a bit more sense.
Oh, sorry, I didn’t know that’s what you meant when you said “excludes”. I thought you meant a definition of reason that didn’t include “how to best make oneself happy.” I think that’s probably reasonable.
My modest proposal is that people do not view sexuality in the terms the currently do. They need to be conscious of the fact that it exists in humans because it was a useful evolutionary adaption.
Reinis I., hopefully my most recent reply to Azkyroth clears this up a bit. Though, personally, I think I would rather be a “robot” if I had the choice.
Why not? You still haven’t explained what’s wrong with doing things for a desire to feel pleasure, other than to observe that it “sometimes leads to unreasonable actions.” Leaving aside the issues with your use of the term “reasonable,” this ignores the fact that many other things, like reasoning – even impeccably – from faulty premises also tends to lead to unreasonable actions, and they’re often considerably more destructive (starting world wars based the belief that one’s actions are in “defense” of one’s country comes to mind). Why single pleasure out – especially after having decided that suffering is bad, which seems to imply that happiness is good, and while sensual pleasure and happiness are distinct concepts the former manifestly contributes to the latter in psychologically healthy individuals.
In the case of 2+2, I’d clarify exactly what was meant by each element of the expression and then try it by, for example, putting two pebbles next to two more pebbles and counting how many I had. Or it could just be accepted as an axiom. The problem here is that the definitions for “reason” you’ve offered as it applies to the definition of “reasonable” you’re using don’t seem to capture the way you’re using it. One can imagine cases where “reasoning” per any of the verb senses in the dictionary link you offered does not lead to the rejection of sensual pleasure as a motive or even affirms it (the observation that it manifestly contributes to happiness except under specific circumstances, for example), and thus seeking sensual pleasure would be “reasonable,” but you maintain that it isn’t. If it’s “unreasonable” because it stems from emotional causes… well, then so do all ultimate (as opposed to proximate) motivations, including that of decreasing suffering; again, why single out pleasure (or why single out any motivation as acceptably “reasonable?”)
If watching paint dry were demonstrably associated with improved emotional and physical well-being and general happiness, and an important element of healthy and fulfilling relationships, and people enjoyed doing so and felt a drive to do so, then as long as people weren’t pursuing it to the point of interfering with their responsibilities and social functioning, I don’t see what the problem would be. What bearing does being intelligent (sentient?) have on the matter?
I think pretty much everyone understands the biological function and origins of sexual attraction and the sex drive. What is it you think this understanding would imply that, by the failure of most people to demonstrate this implied behavior/attitude/whatever, you conclude that they don’t get it?
I think I should make this far more clear; this is an ideal I’m talking about. I do not think humans should avoid sensual pleasure for the sake of basing their actions purely on reasons because, as you said, pleasure helps lead to “psychologically healthy individuals”.
You’re making the assumption that humans can accurately make observations about the world. How is it reasonable to say human experiences give you an accurate depiction of reality? How does calling any assumption that appears self-evident an axiom meet the standard of being reasonable?
I have to make “suffering is bad” an axiom, I think.
I don’t know how else to explain this more than I already have. Humans doing things so they can feel good, while perhaps necessary at the moment for their well-being, is irrational. In a hypothetical scenario, it could lead to someone killing someone else because it gives them a good feeling or someone cutting off one of their hands because it gives them a good feeling. Basically what I’m saying is that when the actions of an intelligent entity are subject to what gives them a good feeling, irrational behavior can and will result. Even if pleasure was only experienced by doing things that had “good” results, like eating and having children, in principal it’s undesirable for the actions of intelligent beings to be the result of neurotransmitters that give people a feeling of euphoria in exchange for certain actions.
I might not be able to explain this as well as I want to, but hopefully it makes sense.
Their attitude toward human sexuality will change if they’re conscious of its implications. A comment like, “You want to dance, dance. You want to sing, sing. The two of you want to kiss, kiss. I think those are all beautiful acts…” would not be made if people acknowledged this.
This still doesn’t follow.
I know all sorts of things about why sex is an inbuilt necessity if the human race is to continue, and that desires leading to reproduction in my ancestors (whether sexual desire or the arguably more prosaic awareness that without children no-one had a duty to look after them in old age) are the reason I’m here. (Good old Darwin).
I know that some people have all sorts of dumb assumptions programmed into them by their upbringing about gender roles and all that tedious rubbish. But that’s not inherently related to sexuality, it’s all a stupid (or at least outmoded) social construct, which has as much to do with the orderly devolution of property and whether or not the “father” of a child is indeed the father of that child and whether it is therefore in their interests (or the interests of their genes’ continuation) to help care for that child.
Sexuality, actually, has damn all to do with it. So I’ll dance, I’ll sing, I’ll kiss, and I’ll carry right on expecting my man to do his bit bringing the kids up when we have ‘em.
Yeah, I realize people tend to not want to believe things that devalue their behavior, especially if that behavior is a large part of their lives like sexuality is for most people.
“whether sexual desire or the arguably more prosaic awareness that without children no-one had a duty to look after them in old age ”
Sexual desire is much more likely I would think; depending on how far back you go, it almost certainly is. I don’t think worrying about someone to take care of you when you get older is as much of a factor.