quote:Purely and simply, all of the problems you have put forward are, at their root, due to selfishness. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So is promiscuity at it's root.
Then you're doing it wrong.
quote:If I didn't have strong morals, I'd be all over Chris's argument:
Your morals are no stronger than Chris's or mine, merely different. And more complex and in number. But don't get that confused with strength.
Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote: But the rates for all the ills of our current society were MUCH, MUCH lower.
All the ills? You want to play "count the ills" with me, Chad? I think you'd be surprised by the numbers.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Let's promote responsible promiscuity as viable and acceptable.
What benefit does that provide to society over not being promiscuous at all?
Your idea is already a horrible, horrible failure since it's inception in the 1960's as a temperment of "free love".
But let's keep stabbing ourselves as a society hoping for a different outcome other than killing ourselves.
I heard the saying you can rationalize yourself all the way to hell. I thought it only applied to religious folks like myself. Well were there socially speaking, and some people are still rationalizing and trying to misdirect blame.
Sad, this wheels never gonna get fixed as long as people think that it should remain square.
Posts: 1533 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote: Your idea is already a horrible, horrible failure since it's inception in the 1960's as a temperment of "free love".
Chad, again, I think you're speaking with an assumption -- that things today are much worse than they were in the '50s -- that doesn't actually have much basis in reality.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Your idea is already a horrible, horrible failure since it's inception in the 1960's as a temperment of "free love".
A: "Free love" was never advertised as responsible...indeed, condoms weren't insisted upon and abortion was never discouraged.
B: I've gotten no diseases, spread no diseases, and fathered no unwanted children. What you call a horrible failure I call "A whole lotta headboard-banging fun". To each his own.
Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:"Honey, I'm just sharin' myself with other people sexually for the good of society. I'm bein' selfless. I really don't want to have sex with other people on a casual basis, but I'm willing to do it, for the good of AMERICA.
Yes UNCLE SAM, this sex act is for you!" :thumbs up:
How is this not an example of selfishness and stupidity?
I spent a time-period with four boyfriends. It was nice. They all knew about each other. Two of them were best friends. No babies were made over the course of this experiment. No one got AIDS. There was not even much jealousy or hard feelings. One moved on to other things. One got a new girlfriend who he's absolutely absorbed with and with whom he's wildly in love. I'm happy for him because they're considerably more compatible than he and I would ever have been, and it seems like it's been really good for him. Another one remains one of my best friends. The last is my current and only boyfriend.
No, I don't think casual sexual relationships are harmful to society. I don't think it's for everyone.
But I made a choice with which I'm fairly happy, and a choice that did not lead to the downfall of society as we know it.
I respect the choices of those of you who wait until marriage. I don't understand those choices and could never do it myself, but I can respect that you're doing what you think is right.
All I want is the same respect for my choices, for my honesty and for my honesty with my boyfriends then.
To me, deception is one of the most abhorent things. Far more abhorent than someone enjoying the company of another in a naked-type situation.
Posts: 1751 | Registered: Jun 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by CStroman: Also, is being "selfish" a new invention since the 1950's? How about "stupidity"? People are dumber now?
See all of those things existed back then as well. But the rates for all the ills of our current society were MUCH, MUCH lower.
Trust me, there were lots of selfish people before our new "sexual freedom/anarchy" that you espouse, but the unwanted child rate was MUCH lower, STD's were MUCH lower oh and no one had decided to be promiscuous with a monkey (from what I understand) to bring AIDS into the picture.
Sorry Chris, Promiscuity is a problem and should be taught as such and discouraged as such for the benefit of our society.
This post is just filled with a lot of inaccuracies. Few if any reputable scientist support the theory that AIDS started because of sex with a monkey. Second, who are these people who are promoting sex with monkeys. I don't see them on this thread and I haven't encountered them in my life either.
Second, teen pregnancy rates are falling, abortion rates are falling. It is hardly the skyrocketing to hell that you speak of.
Third, I don't think anyone advocated we should teach promiscuity. The argument was that people shouldn't place their morals on others. Further, I don't even think anyone was talking about teens having sex but instead about adults having sex. Why on earth is it your responsibility to teach them anything? I don't think there are many who don't know the possible consequences of there actions.
Finally, STD rates are on the rise at an alarming rate among MARRIED women. So, it seems that premarital sex is not the only thing to blame for the rising STD rates.
Posts: 416 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Your morals are no stronger than Chris's or mine, merely different. And more complex and in number. But don't get that confused with strength.
Uh there are differences. In regards to morallity, mine are proven to greatly reduce the ills I mentioned above. In some cases the exterminate almost entirely the risks.
Yours have been in play for decades and the problems have worsened and worsened.
I'm not saying my whole moral code is better than anyone elses.
But when it comes to sexual promiscuity, mine have been proven to lower unwanted pregnancy rates to more manageable sizes, reduced the spread of STD's including sexually transmitted HIV to miniscule, manageable proportions and reduces a whole lotta other problems not mentioned in this thread.
However the "free but responsible love" has been in play for decades and has failed to provide a single positive result. Unwanted pregnancy has skyrocketed. Abortion continues to climb and STD's are spread like wildfire (even good ads on TV for herpes treatments now) HIV is an epidemic thanks to those morals in reality.
And it's a mathematical fact that sex 1 on 1 ONLY vs. Sex 1 on 10 or 30 or 100 or however many partners you have increases your risk for STD's and AIDS.
Anyone wanna take a gander at how AIDS was introduced to this country? It's not a mystery, and it's not suprising either.
HINT: It was flown in.
On what level has your permisive promiscuity had success on the whole of society vs. it's all but complete and utter failure?
Honestly.
Tom: I'm speaking specifically about Promiscuity, not other problems that existed in the past. Which yes existed, but we've decided we need more problems so let's loosen the morals, open pandora's box and then find ways to try and shift blame when things start falling apart.
posted
You know, no matter how much you keep saying your morals are better than theirs, no matter how much you believe that, it's just plain not gonna fly. You need to come up with some linkable, citable statistics before you make any more claims.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Trust me, there were lots of selfish people before our new "sexual freedom/anarchy" that you espouse, but the unwanted child rate was MUCH lower..
By which record? Although it is true that babies and children died much more often, and families needed more workers, and, oh yeah, there were less people.
...STD's were MUCH lower...
Because back in the good old days, no one died of gonnorhea or syphilis.
...oh and no one had decided to be promiscuous with a monkey (from what I understand) to bring AIDS into the picture.
No clue where to start here.
The 60's, as was pointed out, were a perfect example of a lack of responsibility and not at all what I'm talking about. I have never, in any conversation, in any post on this or any other forum, espoused anarchy. I have never urged sexual relationships without responsibility.
For the first five years og my relationship with my wife we were unwed and sexually active. We got married mostly so we could file jointly. There was little other change in our lives. By the definitions given in this thread we were flagrantly irresponsible the first five years, and respectably responsible the other 20, and I can't for the life of me understand why this is so.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Right -- the ONLY thing that changed for Chris was some legal shmegal money issues. That's IT. It's just plain ignorant to call all "pre-marital/extramarital" dangerous and/or degrading to society, when you have evidence that for a LOT of people (i'll add Strider and I to that list) for whom any legal marriage contract would change virtually NOTHING between us, nor strengthen our relationship.
Posts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Almost found the statistic I was looking for. I am sure there is probably at least a small percentage of people who have only one sex partner but engaged in premarital sex. I think that pretty soundly questions OSC's thesis about what most American's are like.
According to the University of Chicago [quote]A total of 19 percent of American men reported having had only one sex partner during their lifetimes, as compared with 21 percent of Britons. Among women, 32 percent of American women reported having only one sex partner, while 40 percent of British women reported having had only one sex partner.[quote]
Posts: 416 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm still of a mind that whoever thinks of sex when the word marriage is brought up, probably hasn't had much of either one.
We can bang the drum all day long for abstinence, but we can't be in the back seat of every Buick on Lover's Lane. Or be in every dorm room or summer camp lodge. It is just human ... no make that more specifically, just nature. "The birds do it, the bees do it...~~~"
Respect for oneself and others trumps abstinence. And respect is the cornerstone of a marriage.
Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
The problem with this argument, I think, is that on CStroman's side there is either married, monogamous sex, or slutty, anything-you-want sex, and absolutely nothing, nothing in between. Of course, junder those strict, no-gray-area restrictions, anyone arguing for slutty sex is being naive and selfish and I don't blame him for being amazed that anyone would.
Openness about sex has caused a great deal of harm -- although not as much as, say, no-fault divorce -- but it has in fact done a great deal of good. People can say "pregnant" in public now. More people are willing to come forward about rape and child abuse and harassment, because being a rape victim doesn't get you ostracized the way it used to back in the good old days. And reliable birth control has freed up young couples to enjoy sex while waiting for more financially stable times to have children.
Promiscuity didn't cause the AIDS epidemic across Africa. That was the method, but what caused it was ignorance and selfishness. African men refused to wear condoms, even when told the dangers. Many even specifically targeted virgins because of a persistent belief that they could cure themselves that way.
Compare sex to driving. The posession of a drivers license in no way affects the quality of my driving. What affects my driving is my knowledge of my car and the inherent dangers, my attention to conditions, and my consideration of others. I could, in fact, drive my whole life and be considered a safe and responsible driver even if I never got a license, while there are plenty of people who possess licenses and still drive like idiots.
This isn't a perfect analogy to marriage for two reasons. One, it is actually illegal to drive without a license. And before you can get a drivers license, you have to pass a test showing you know what to do. But handing me a drivers license does not confer magical driving abilities, and handing me a marriage certificate made little different in how we lived our lives.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think the point some people are trying to make is that having a strong cultural focus on chastity before marriage and fidelity thereafter encourages responsibility among people who would otherwise be irresponsible.
Sure, there are lots of people who can manage their love and sex lives like adults without any outside impetus "forcing" them to do so.
The problem is that when the responsible people abandon societal constructs that are designed to encourage responsibility "because WE don't NEED a piece of paper", then the irresponsible people abandon them, TOO. And THOSE people get into all kinds of trouble with their unsupported children, venereal diseases, broken hearts, etc ...
It's a sacrifice, but I feel like it's the responsibility of the people who are already responsible to set a clear standard for those who are not.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well said, although I have doubts that that's what others here have been trying to say.
Your answer recognizes and addresses gray areas and real world situations, where others here have flatly denied such areas exist. It is those people who see the world in stark black and white that I live to pester.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I believe that people who engage in extra-marital sex *do* have a responsibility. A responsibility to act maturely within their own relationships, and to encourage others to do the same. Beyond that, I don't think I'm obligated to give up what I do in the hopes that someone will stop abusing it.
Posts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Every relationship is different. While it's very easy to say what we'd do if we were in the other person's shoes I don't think it's something that needs to be judged upon. Nobody is imposing the view of having sex before marriage on anyone so I don't exactly see the point of impossing the opposite view on someone else.
Marriage is a contract between two people who love each other. The fact that it also has legal ramifications means nothing to the people who actually value it's intended purpose. What does it matter if someone has sex or not before they get married so long as they're careful and the decision is mutual?
It's nice to have a moral code, but you can't really expect to be able to impose your own code on others. Would anyone else here like it if people imposed their code on them?
Posts: 459 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
the beauty of Hatrack is that people get really into these discussions. A bad part of Hatrack is that people get really into these discussions
I used to think we all needed to come to an agreement, or that people were trying to convert me, but now i just enjoy the discourse for the discourse.
Posts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Rico, we impose codes on people ALL THE TIME. It's only certain specific parts of certain codes that are starting to come into question as our culture shifts. But the idea of developing a code of behavior and expecting everyone to live by it is NOT a bad thing. I wish we did more of it.
And not in a legal sense — I'm not talking about cops busting down your door and forcing you to marry your lover or something. I'm saying that it really is okay for people to expect a certain standard of behavior of other people. We should be able to expect kindness, honesty, honor, respect, fidelity, etc, and enforce it not through the law, but through public opinion. If you know that cheating on your spouse will result in all your friends thinking you're a worthless lowlife, then you're less likely to cheat on your spouse.
This sense that we should never judge a person's behavior or apply our moral standards to them closes off an important tool that civilizations use to maintain themselves. Certainly, we need to be understanding of a person's motivations, background, and beliefs when we are evaluating them as a person. We need to try to understand one another. But at the same time, we shouldn't be bound and gagged, prevented from speaking up when we feel that someone's behavior is causing a problem.
Leonide, I tend to look up to people who accept more "obligations" than they are forced to accept. Sure, it's not your responsibility to stop and help when you see someone broken down on the side of the road. You're not "obligated" to do it. But isn't the world a better place when you do?
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Whenever people say "you can't apply your moral standards to other people", somehow I get a picture of an inarticulate whorish girl on Jerry Springer pointing her ex-boyfriend and shouting, "You can't judge ME!" followed by a crazy round of applause
Again, when responsible folks use the excuses, it's the irresponsible people who end up living the worst-case scenarios of those excuses.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Uh there are differences. In regards to morallity, mine are proven to greatly reduce the ills I mentioned above. In some cases the exterminate almost entirely the risks.
Yours have been in play for decades and the problems have worsened and worsened.
I'm not saying my whole moral code is better than anyone elses.
You are essentially saying that you believe your moral code is better. Don't deny it. Everyone considers their moral code "better" or they wouldn't follow it. If everyone thought everything was interchangeable why would they pick one religion or one "moral code"? Why not switch back and forth?
I believe my moral code is right, and therefore, I live by it. You may not believe it, and I'm going to disagree but unless you're going to do anything I percieve as harmful, I'm not going to beat you over the head with it or make laws or rules against you.
Only a major shift in public thought will take sex out of film and books. I find this very unlikely. Many people don't give a second thought to pre- and extra-marital sex.
Cigarettes, which are not a natural part of human life, will remain in film and books for as long as people smoke them. Sex will remain in films for as long as people have it, and I have a feeling it's not going to be dying out very soon. Hollywood puts pre-marital sex into its movies partially because it sells but partially because it probably partakes in it. As I said, many people don't give a second thought to pre-marital sex because, where they grew up, on in the world around them, it's perfectly normal. It's not irresponsible, it's just the way it is.
I had something else to say but I've forgotten what it is.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
I agree with your views on judgement and morals and believe me when I say I am the farthest thing from a relativist when it comes to ethics and morals. I simply believe that the point in question has nothing for me to judge upon unless it actually affects me. How is engaging in premarital sex, with the same partner, in the hopes of marrying later, worse than having sex once they're married? Does marriage suddenly put a positive spin on sex? Why?
quote:kindness, honesty, honor, respect, fidelity
Are all of these qualities lost once a couple who loves each other engages in sexual activity before marriage? My point is that their actions as a couple do not negatively affect the world around them if they're careful. Judging based on the merits of each individual relationship makes more sense to me than judging people using blanket statements and definitions.
You can't just group the relationships according to premarital and marital sex. These conditions in as of themselves are amoral, the only things that factor here are the merits of the couple.
Posts: 459 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Actually i didn't see Puppy's statements as moralistic at all, but coldly pragmatic. Much the way a parent would tell a child not to play with a knife even when that child is more than mature enough to handle it carefully. While the parent has no fear for that child, the other child, the one known to be not so careful, would be watching and taking it as permission to do the same...
And were that the only outcome, that people who didn't need restrictions to avoid harm must honor them anyway so that people who did wouldn't try to emulate what for them would be risky behavior, I'd sigh and go along with it.
But the people raised on "this is bad" who fail to see the root causes as to exactly why "this" is bad tend to extrapolate from those simplistic lessons into needlessly overgeneralized Truths. They may begin to fear knives, and want to ban them entirely or ostracize those who said idly that knives could be fun. Many of them vote.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
It is entirely possible to have a responsible sexual relationship outside of the bond of marriage. It is also entirely possible to be completely irresponsible within the bounds of the marriage relationship.
Looking backwards fondly on a supposedly more responsible decade in our history is not very useful, it seems to me. The return to those days would also likely involve a return to other things about society that we wouldn't necessarily view as positive.
Are we better off if we never talk about sex?
Are women better off if they are expected to fill certain specified roles and no others?
Are we better off if the "races" don't mix?
Are we better off if homosexuals have to hide their sexuality and "fit in?"
Those were also the standards of responsible sexual behavior before the sexual revolution of the 1960's. Or so some would have us believe.
There was more to the sexual revolution than "free love." And not everyone went along with that "movement" either. What happened in the 1960's was a lot deeper than just a few people deciding that they didn't have to turn into their parents. Even those parents decided that they'd been too much bound to authority. It was a time when our government engaged in some collosally stupid blunders and it culminated in the resignation of a President. That didn't happen because of free love. It happened because the government was corrupt and people stopped trusting their leaders as a consequence.
That's a pretty liberating thing too.
America has never been the same since.
It was the liars and the cheaters and the folks who were willing to send 18 year olds to their death to defend an ideology that they were undermining in back rooms... And it was because people were more educated than ever before in our history.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote: Tom: I'm speaking specifically about Promiscuity, not other problems that existed in the past.
I'm also speaking specifically about promiscuity. What makes you think that our society is, historically speaking, any more or less promiscuous than those of our ancestors?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:B: I've gotten no diseases, spread no diseases, and fathered no unwanted children. What you call a horrible failure I call "A whole lotta headboard-banging fun". To each his own.
Me too baby! Except I've mothered no unwanted children. The more I see you the more I like you Frisco. I don't think my boyfriend will ever get married, he is much too libertarian and thinks the government does not belong in marriage. I guess I see his point, though I really rather would get married eventually. Hey, if he doesn't come around you want to do some headboard banging with me? Treason made a joke. Nobody jump down her throat for it! Posts: 870 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
You know, I don't think it makes much difference whether you are formally married or just married in practice. The piece of paper is just symbolic. What really matters is the commitment, because it is the commitment to maintain that bond through thick and thin that dissolves most of the big problems with premarital sex. So as far as I'm concerned, if you are committed in the way married people are, it doesn't matter if you are joined de jure or de facto. It's only really premarital sex if that commitment is not there.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well, if you believe that paper isn't necessary, than it's not "premarital" it's "extra-marital" but, you know. i'm being a nitpicker :0p
Posts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:When you know that cheating on your spouse will result in all your friends thinking you're a worthless lowlife, then you're less likely to cheat on your spouse.
The problem I have with this whole line of thinking is that this is not actually true. Oh, in the isolated, individual case when a person is directly weighing the costs and benefits, yeah it weighs against cheating on your wife. However, in a wider, developemental sense, looking at morality this way makes you more, rather than less likely to cheat on your wife. It's just that when you do, you try not to get caught.
External reward/punishment versions of morality don't work that great in terms of preventing the things they set out to prevent. Generally, they just foster repression, which leads to unresolved, buidling pressure that can't be addressed consciously. Besides this, they hinder moral maturation such that people get stuck in the reward/punsihment mode, which focuses morality on getting caught.
posted
So ... how would you deal with the repression of an urge that you actually believe shouldn't be acted upon? Like the desires of a child molester or a wife-beater? Is it unhealthy for them to repress their desires, and is it unhealthy for society to exert social pressure for such people to rein themselves in, even in the absence of legal punishments like jail time? Are such people simply lost causes because apparently, nothing can stop them from doing what they want to do without making them "unhealthy"?
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
After having read the majority of these posts, I've had to sit and seriously think about how I feel about the link between pre-marital sex / living together before getting married and social irresponsibility.
I dated a great girl for about six months, and we were falling deeper and deeper in love with each other. We talked about marriage, because we were both considering the other as a serious candidate for the position of life partner. But we both decided that it would be wise to wait until we had an opportunity to live together before we committed to anything, even an engagement.
Eventually, we moved in together, because we felt we were ready - with the firm intent of getting engaged and, eventually, married. Remember that we were very deeply in love with each other. We discovered, however, that despite our amazing chemistry as people, we just couldn't live together. Things that we had written off as minor differences ended up being too serious to ignore. I'm a very neat person by nature; she's fairly messy, but neither of us thought unlivably so. She's a rapid-fire channel changer and I like watching one thing at a time, but previously this was something that we could laugh and tease about. She's an "under" toilet paper person; I'm an "over." The list of little differences goes on since we are, after all, two different people.
After six months, neither of us wanted this to continue. We recognized that too many of our little habits were incompatible for a marriage to work - we would have constantly been annoyed with the other person for something or other. I don't think there was any way for us to discover the extent of these differences or how deeply they would affect us without living together.
I should mention that we did engage in pre-marital sex, but it was a non-issue: we were very, very well protected (pill + latex), the sex was good, and it wasn't the central focus of our relationship.
Wasn't what we did the socially responsible thing to do? Isn't it better that we discovered these incompatabilities before we went into a marriage?
I agree that promiscuous pre-marital sex is generally socially irresponsible, but I don't see why living with someone - and sleeping with them - prior to getting married is such an issue, if you've thought it out beforehand.
It's like how I feel about pre-nuptial agreements: a lot of people think that if you need to be thinking about what will happen if your marriage ends, then you shouldn't be getting married in the first place. While I can certainly see this being true, I will never get married without a pre-nup, because unforseeable things happen. People make mistakes. My ex and I made one in thinking we were potential life partners. Does that make us irresponsible people? Or does that make us more responsible than people who don't consider these possibilities beforehand?
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
![[Laugh]](graemlins/laugh.gif)
Treason made a joke. Nobody jump down her throat for it!![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Party]](graemlins/party.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Aren't I hawt too? sniff..didn't y'all see my rack in the favourite character trait thread? ![[Evil]](graemlins/evil.gif)
