Sex
I think heterosexuality is inherently related to patriarchal subordination of women. And the idea that all that makes sex moral is "consent", is related to capitalism, because it makes sex out to be a service or exchange between two parties - the buyer and the seller. Invariably the buyer is the man, the seller is the woman. The woman is the object, the man is the subject. The man "scores" a home run. The woman gives, the man takes. The man orgasms in ~5 minutes, the woman never does.
In fact, the notion of sexual consent itself brings with it certain revealing assumptions. We do not typically ask for consent for other activities - I do not ask for consent to sit across from you, for example. I do not ask for consent when I approach a cashier to check out from the grocery store.
So then what is it about sex that makes consent so important? It is because (this sort of?) sex is inherently violating, objectifying, manipulating. Consider: it is usually the man who asks for consent of the woman (to do things to her body, to use her body as a mean for his own climax, to satisfy some urge that is inherently questionable).
My perspective on consent in sex is this: if you feel the need to ask for consent, then there is something questionable about what you wish to do (to the other person). "Kinks" are so often not about satisfying the other person but instead are about whether or not the other person will allow you to do something to them.
Bataille has argued that the erotic is inherently about defilement. In patriarchal, heterosexual culture, the woman has perfect, clean beauty that is defiled by the man. She is torn down, stripped of her dignity as the man ejaculates in or on her body. The notion of sexual consent then essentially boils down to asking another person if they are willing to have their dignity trampled over. "I respect you as a person, so I ask you for consent so that I can treat you not as a person but as an object." Yet this is clearly contradictory, you cannot ask a person to suspend their dignity and still claim to respect them as a person.
Thoughts? When/how is sex moral? Feel free to post whatever.
In fact, the notion of sexual consent itself brings with it certain revealing assumptions. We do not typically ask for consent for other activities - I do not ask for consent to sit across from you, for example. I do not ask for consent when I approach a cashier to check out from the grocery store.
So then what is it about sex that makes consent so important? It is because (this sort of?) sex is inherently violating, objectifying, manipulating. Consider: it is usually the man who asks for consent of the woman (to do things to her body, to use her body as a mean for his own climax, to satisfy some urge that is inherently questionable).
My perspective on consent in sex is this: if you feel the need to ask for consent, then there is something questionable about what you wish to do (to the other person). "Kinks" are so often not about satisfying the other person but instead are about whether or not the other person will allow you to do something to them.
Bataille has argued that the erotic is inherently about defilement. In patriarchal, heterosexual culture, the woman has perfect, clean beauty that is defiled by the man. She is torn down, stripped of her dignity as the man ejaculates in or on her body. The notion of sexual consent then essentially boils down to asking another person if they are willing to have their dignity trampled over. "I respect you as a person, so I ask you for consent so that I can treat you not as a person but as an object." Yet this is clearly contradictory, you cannot ask a person to suspend their dignity and still claim to respect them as a person.
Thoughts? When/how is sex moral? Feel free to post whatever.
Comments (64)
Either that or it's the cause of the continued existence of the species. Non-humans also engage in heterosexuality, despite having no idea what patriarchy means.Quoting darthbarracuda
And so in progressive Marxist countries do they grab women by the hair and drag them into the cave and have their way with them or is the idea that consent must precede my probing your body and impregnating you a capitalist idiosyncrasy? Quoting darthbarracuda
And yet I do ask for consent before I walk into your house, drive your car, remove your earrings from your ear, or play with your tongue, So we've now established that some things require consent and others don't. Typically we require consent when we seek to use something that belongs to someone else, which would include anything from your ballpoint pen to your vagina.Quoting darthbarracuda
Your sex life isn't like mine I guess.Quoting darthbarracuda
So women don't enjoy sex? Interesting.Quoting darthbarracuda
Asking for consent doesn't take the form of "Pardon me ma'am but would you like a good rogering," but it takes the form of all communication, which is partly verbal, partly not. That is, I can know I lack consent without being told "Stop! You lack consent." Your view on "kinks" strikes me as silly, as if you can't have two people with the same preferences who both wholly consent, even should you find their shared preferences odd.Quoting darthbarracuda
Did you grow up in a nunnery where they taught you sex was dirty?
Okay...so where exactly does this massive inference from [a] to [c] about human relations and sexual practices come from?
Quoting darthbarracuda
Well, sure, if you deny women agency by inferring that women aren't just as capable of facilitating and enjoying their own sexual encounters as men are.
Quoting darthbarracuda
*ahem* Perhaps what's needed is more experience in healthy, hetrosexual practices, rather than repudiating them? This would also give a fuller sense of partnership and equality between the sexes.
Quoting darthbarracuda
So...some things require consent and others do not? How exactly is this revealing beyond our collective interest in basic respect for human dignity and bodily autonomy?
Quoting darthbarracuda
Basic respect for human dignity and bodily autonomy.
Quoting darthbarracuda
This is a really sad, slightly impoverished view of sex and female autonomy that I urge you to reconsider. Consent is about preventing the potential of violation, objectification and manipulation. You're essentiallizing the corruption of a potentially beautiful relationship between willing adults. It's the quintessential pessimist's move, to suggest that the potential for corruption makes the whole activity "inherently" bad or meaningless.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Okay, here's a question. Is an autonomous sexual partner who enjoys sexual liasons with men, feels empowered and sees absolutely nothing wrong with her choices "suspend[ing her] dignity"? Certainly, it seems to me that, if anything, you're suspending her dignity by projecting your negative remarks onto her.
Agreed. Just like homosexuality is inherently related to the patriarchal subordination of men.
And the matriarchal subordination of women.
You definitely should, though. Maybe it's just my weird obsession with personal space - for example, I think manspreading is completely acceptable because no one in public transport has an inherent right to sit next to me.
However, as Michael pointed out, communicating consent is not always verbal. Cashiers consent to doing their job by being employed, which includes interactions with customers. Similarly, me not placing a bag on the seat opposite to me on bus signals that the seat is free, while on other contexts a verbal consent might be very much in place, such as on private property or in a restaurant.
You mean as Hanover pointed out?
[hide]I don't remember consenting to you answering to my comments[/hide]
Forgive the side question, but... are you intentionally trying to bait Agu, or is it merely accidental? :lol: I mean, this thread is like waving a picnic basket in front of a large, hungry bear. I’m getting out of here while I can, and watching from a safe distance! :nerd:
Quoting darthbarracuda
Heterosexuality = patriarchal subordination is a plank in the platform of constructionism. The equivalence supposes that natural processes operating over many, many millions of years have nothing to do with us. The hateful feminists who spout this nonsense think heterosexuality is a plot hatched in the halls of wicked patriarchal capitalist, imperialist, sexist, racist males.
Quoting darthbarracuda
More biological blindness. I have overheard women having orgasms with male partners on a number of occasions. So we know that competent men can bring their partners to orgasm--maybe not in 5 minutes.
Quoting darthbarracuda
What you are describing is really bad sex. Rape maybe. It reminds me of feminists in the 1970s who claimed "An erection is tantamount to rape." Talk about having hangups.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I guess if I invite you to dinner you would assume I am planning on poisoning you. If I ask you to go for a walk in the woods, I must be planning on murdering you there.
Now, darthbarracuda dear, you know damn well that your denatured feminist sexual advisors consider sex without consent to be rape. So if you don't ask it's rape and if you do ask it must be some disgusting filthy humiliating sex, like maybe a three way with the Kentucky Derby winner. Hey, Justify is a very nice horse -- Triple Crown winner. Are your credentials as good as his?
Quoting darthbarracuda
You talking about Georges Bataille 1897–1962? The intellectual, pornographer, qualified-librarian, attempted founder of a secret society devoted to human sacrifice--that one? Are you sure you read him correctly? The one who said "This is not to say when two people “rut like animals” they are not being erotic, but that such apparently bestial abandon is significant because of what it means for the minds of the people involved." [url=https://www.thebubble.org.uk/lifestyle/sex/five-ways-to-heat-up-your-sex-life-with-georges-bataille/]That one?
[/url]Quoting darthbarracuda
unadulterated retro bullshit.
I've been married for over 20 years. I vaguely remember what sex feels like....if i didn't need my appendage to urinate i'd happily have the ruddy thing prepared for the guillotine! During my 'teens, twenties, thirties, and even forties it governed like a tyrant, a sworn enemy of reason and good sense. It could have led me to becoming a homicide statistic. It's reign of terror is over!
Hmmm, I agree with quite a bit of what you say, but you also jump to conclusions and miss a lot of nuance. The issue of consent is actually quite simple. We ask for consent because it takes two to tango. The rules of sex are that it is intercourse with consent of both parties. If it is without consent it would be rape. Rape is a kind of sex frowned upon because sex against the will of one party is a very painful humiliating and unpleasant affair for one of the parties. So basically we require consent. I do not think it has anything to do with teh capitalust system. Sex is not 'inherently wrong', sex without consent is inherently wrong, much the same as violence is inerently wrong.
During the sex act you indeed use the other person for your pleasure, I agree with that. However the beauty of it is that the other uses you for that very same purpose. It is the mutual objectification that makes it moral. If objectification is merely one sided, yes than you have a point, but it is not. The point of it is, at least for me, that the other consents to the defilement, the base urges and what have you, but also has the right to use you in likewise manner.... and you even like it when he/she does... So yes, sex is most intimately bound up with consent, because otherwise the objectfication is just base and nother else than structural dominance in the worst form.
Often it is the other way around, from my experience.
Should I have felt used?
Is what you wrote just your experience, or what survey are you referring to?
Awww, now some of the men are going to feel inadequate. :joke:
:grin: Lol. Probably more the result of hormones than the appendage, one would think. The sex hormones in both (all?) genders have many effects but simply one basic goal: reproduction. Whether that upends one’s life, causes conflicting feelings and acne, or puts one in jail, is of no concern to the hormones. They do their job, and because they do we are here today to discuss them!
I think of sex and its attendant desires not entirely different from food, eating, and hunger, just on a species level. Food to keep the individual going, sex to keep the species going. With both intrinsic punishments and rewards for certain choices and actions.
im sure it mostly for the sake of pleasure...
what an insane thought
Personally, I think that society promotes the idea that "The man orgasms in ~5 minutes, the woman never does" and it is a bummer for the woman. There are very, VERY, few males that in a relationship are willing to take the time to allow a woman to orgasm. Maybe it is a force of nature with the male stimulation, as I think I remember Eddie Murphy saying "In jail man, we get hard when the wind blows" which may in fact be a physical response for a male and part of the misunderstanding.
As a woman, for me? The mental stimulation leads to a clearing of my mind which is the time when my body engages and there is a degree of allowance in MY own mind. I am allowed to not need to think, removing the need to protect my most intimate part of my mind, which allows my body to follow. In giving up the need to lead, it is giving up control, making myself vulnerable, naked to the person I am trusting my inner self with and then a true orgasm can occur but there is no guarantee.
So to say "that a woman never does" is almost correct for me as I can count how many times in my life that I have truly achieved orgasm. As a man, can you count how many times you have achieved orgasm?
And since we are on the subject: Is it necessary for a man to ejaculate to have an orgasm? Or do men have other forms of orgasm?
Obviously the only answer is for you to practice strict celibacy, because, according to what you say, sex is nothing but a violation of the female.
Between people of the same sex, doesn't it then become mutual violation, with each partner being both violator and violated?
No, it sounds like you should stick with celibacy.
Michael Ossipoff
Oh, definitely! Agreed. But from our point of view. The pleasure is so large that it usually obscures the possible future outcomes. But from the hormone’s point of view (so to speak), evolutionarily speaking, it is merely what gets the job done. Which species will have more individuals, and thus be more likely to survive? The one with the pleasurable sex, or the one with “meh”?
It is a strange and almost incomprehensible thought to think about the potential child, the possible person, while making love. That possibility is dwarfed by the present with which one has their... erm... hands full. But look at a person, any person. The murky, forgotten act of conception that brought them into the world is dwarfed by their being, by their presence.
shouldnt it be; the one with a condom or the one without?
Since the definition of the male orgasm is to ejaculate, yes. However, if men take the time, the intense pleasure leading up to ejaculation can be extended and repeated a number of times. The vernacular term is "edging" -- one approaches, then backs away from ejaculation. In sex therapy it's called "sensate focus".
How does one interrupt what seems like inevitable ejaculation? With a sharp, quick squeeze of the head of the penis. The Body Electric school in Oakland, CA has instructional materials on the subject. They also have live! programs for gay and straight men and women.
You didn't say how low your orgasm count was. You don't have anything against you masturbating, do you? There's that relevant old joke, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice." Women have a right to orgasm (it was a subsection of the failed Equal Rights Amendment, a few decades back. "Women can have as many orgasms as they like.") The subsection was added to quell the likelihood of female rioting: sexually satisfied women are much less likely to riot in the streets.
You certainly don't have to depend on someone else providing you with orgasms.
This is real philosophy, not self help--just in case anybody was wondering.
pussy riot! hehe, sorry couldnt help myself. :)
No, I don't think this is true. I mean, there are hateful feminists, no doubt about that. But I don't think most are that hateful. And I don't think patriarchy is some scheme conjured up by the powers-that-be, behind closed doors in shadowy rooms with poor lighting.
Oppression of women is not merely sociological but biological. All you people saying heterosexuality is "just" how the human species perpetuates itself are ignoring the details of what heterosexuality entails: how the chief alpha male of the apes gets a harem of females, how many males of species rape females to procreate, how historically women have been chattel of men and were traded and used not as people but as property, etc.
It's naive and ahistorical to think we can look on heterosexual relationships without any of this historical baggage. I never said that heterosexuality just is oppression by the patriarchy; I said that heterosexuality is inherently related to patriarchal oppression. That doesn't mean there can't be some heterosexual relationships that are healthy and good.
But then there's also some who have tried to undermine my credibility by declaring that what I see to be common elements of heterosexual relationships, or just sexual relationships in general, is idiosyncratic. Well, you can say that, but why not give examples of what a healthy sexual relationship looks like?
Look, I am still relatively young, I do not have all this experience that older folk here may have. I also happen to have a low libido that makes me basically asexual. I have never had sex nor do I particularly have the need or desire to. I believe I see sex in a different way than most people do and this may be influenced by my lack of sex drive. Sex seems clumsy, awkward and particularly unsanitary. But it also seems, to me, to be very unsettling at times. This is especially apparent in pornography. Now you may say that pornography is fiction and not indicative of real sex - yet if this is true, then why do people watch porn? Why is porn so popular?
It is as if, during the act of sex, morality sort of goes out the window. Morality is suspended, at least partly. To me, it seems like if people did not have sex drives, sex would seem strange and even wrong.
Quoting Hanover
There is a new culture surrounding sex that puts consent as the sine qua non of acceptable sex. I have been told by the authorities that "consent is sexy" (does that imply that if it weren't sexy, it wouldn't matter....?). Yet just because someone consents to something doesn't mean it's okay. Someone can consent to having all their money stolen at gunpoint - that is not true consent, that is coerced consent.
And so in sex, consent can be washed up in coercion. A woman, for instance, may feel pressured to consent to avoid a sour relationship with a man. She may consent because she feels compelled to by the culture she was raised in. A man may consent because he feels to do otherwise would be an indication of not being a man (in our culture, it seems as though men must want sex - or they are not a man).
My point is that just because someone consents does not mean it is genuine. And just because someone has a preference for something (such as a kink) does not mean this preference can't be criticized. Preferences don't just appear out of the blue. There's a background from where they develop. This is why, for example, I'm critical of BDSM.
really? whats wrong with sex?
Then I think you’re projecting. Of course there are cases where women (and men) consent but aren’t enthusiastic, but why do you think that this is the norm such that sex in general is a case of men oppressing women?
Then the issue isn’t sex but social attitudes towards sex.
nobody HAS to have sex. but still happens very naturally, obviouslly for the pleasure and closeness with their partner.
searched for "benefits of sex"
Here's what a healthy sex life can do for you.
Helps Keep Your Immune System Humming. ...
Boosts Your Libido. ...
Improves Women's Bladder Control. ...
Lowers Your Blood Pressure. ...
Counts as Exercise. ...
Lowers Heart Attack Risk. ...
Lessens Pain. ...
May Make Prostate Cancer Less Likely.
Sexual relationships tend to be characterized by a passive-active role. Heterosexual relationships tend to place the man in the active role and the woman in the passive role. This private affair is a mirroring of the patriarchal system in general.
I have read some sociologists who have said that the roles can be reversed. The woman "welcomes" the penis into her vagina, instead of the man always penetrating the woman. And sure, maybe this can be interpreted like this. But let's be frank: penetration is the term most often used and associated with PIV sex. Penetration of the vagina by the penis. Penetration of the passive member by the active member.
It's also been shown that chemicals in semen influence the behavior of women. Pheromones in general influence people's behavior. They are intoxicating. Can someone give true consent if they are intoxicated?
This is a very common misconception. Ejaculation is entirely separate from the male orgasm. The orgasm precedes the ejaculatory response, even if by a scant second. Usually, that intense eye-rolling feeling takes place two or three full seconds prior to ejaculation...and this is the orgasm.
http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/answered-questions/stages-male-sexual-response
So you have a low libido, have never had sex, and feel asexual. I sort of feel that way myself, now that I am fairly old. You should live your life the way you see fit. Since you have not, and maybe will not experience sex in the manner that most people do, you might want to be cautious about which interpretation of sex you adopt.
Sex as mere biology (though nothing is "mere", per Feynman) limits our understanding of sexuality as much as presuming sex to be a patriarchal subordination of women or a capitalist transaction or thinking that men defile women during sex.
The ways we are embodied and the way we experience the world are closely tied up together. It is through our body (including sex) that we experience the world and it is within the body that we build our being. If we can't comfortably exist as the body we are, we can't comfortably exist in the world [except by maintaining very carefully policed non-porous boundaries between the self and the world].
Quoting darthbarracuda
Life is unsanitary. We are surrounded by an ocean of biological particles, viruses, bacteria, pollen, parasites, dirt, odors, and so on. We inhale and exhale, eat and excrete all sorts of creatures and biological by-products. We are constantly shedding skin; there is an army of skin-mites in your carpet, sheets, mattress, and pillows eating and digesting your skin. We lose our skin about 12 times a year. The skin mites and other scavengers that live with you are grateful for your flaking hide. There are more single celled creatures inside of and on us (and you) than there are bodily cells. Gut bacteria in the trillions aren't just there, they are absolutely essential. Animals evolved together with gut bacteria. We can not do without them.
Young children who are not exposed to enough bacteria, viruses, pollen, dirt, and so forth tend to get sick more often and have very strong allergic reactions and asthma because they missed getting dirty enough. Once you are grown up, playing in the dirt ceases to be beneficial to the immune system.
Sometimes sex is clumsy and awkward. How else can it be in a small car, in a tree, in a public washroom, in the snow, in the sand, in the choir loft, etc. Older, wiser, and better funded people arrange for a bed, bath, and beyond -- like privacy, the right temperature, food and drink, etc.
We're limited by our personal experiences though, so you may be speaking of what you experience instead of what is typically experienced.
I didn't give a number because it is so low and it is not from a lack of experience or different people.
You ask an interesting question about having something against mastrubating and the imprint of my upbringing plays a big role on what is described as something dirty girls do. Even now I am an empty house ( closet ) pleasurer.
(It goes without saying that I am sharing here in a respectful way and would appreciate that being reciprocated.)
However, life does keep bringing me back to this basic need of allowing self pleasure to be content.
It is a struggle between what I want to want and what I allow myself to satisfy. It's not easy to understand what I am trying to explain but I am open to suggestions if you understand the battle within me.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I read your words and I understand your suggestion but I have a really hard time clearing my head of all thought while trying to physically remain in charge and drift off to enjoy the moment. Maybe I am the only one who feels this way.
Even with just myself, I start thinking right when I should be in ultimate pleasure and bam, it's like my Mother in law walked in the house. And then it's over, that moment is gone.
True but I am not someone who is lacking personal experience. Now I have been with the same person for the last two decades but I would be hard pressed to be able to name all the men I was with before getting married.
The last time I tried to recall them, the moon was bright, the girls and I around the fire pit and we counted 18. So I have tasted what is on the salad bar but I really want to get to where the Champagne and Truffles that I have heard so much about are.
You go girl.Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff
Sorry, I'm taken.
Masturbation requires that one pay attention -- it's like Yoga that way. One has to focus on sexual feelings, thoughts, images, actions. There seem to be 3 main methods of maintaining focus:
1. Men frequently use porn to assist in focusing on the sexual goal. Some women do too, I have heard. What porn does is provide an arousing object of interest that is sufficiently captivating to overcome the distractions of mental traffic. (In other words, it's a turn on.) If porn doesn't turn you on, then don't bother with it.
2. If porn isn't available there is fantasy. Fantasy was the main thing before the internet came along and provided the pornocopia. I haven't done a survey, but some men with whom I have discussed this report that at any one time they had a favorite fantasy, which they used over and over. Old fantasies were discarded and new ones were created from time to time. Fantasy also requires some diligence: you have to imagine scenarios that turn you on, and (I think) they need to be simple enough to enjoy without much plot management. It's your fantasy; you never have to tell anybody what it is.
3. A third approach is mechanical assistance. Many people like vibrators. In fact the vibrator was invented as a medical sexual tool. (This was in the early days of wide-spread electrical distribution.) Doctors offered vibrator treatment for tension. It was quite popular. It can be used in conjunction with 1 and 2.
4. Some people prefer silence; others prefer a soundtrack. Whatever works to suppress mind-wandering. Touching one's self is, obviously, a necessary part. Some people like a bed, some a hot bath, some a car parked in a private spot, and so on.
Yoga techniques can help. Steady, slow pauseless breathing can help one center. So can progressive relaxation. (There's nothing very complicated about either of these.)
You are not the only one.
Contrary to the cliché, lots of people are not sexually liberated. Millions of people have soaked up very negative scripts about sex, and many of the scripts end up condemning us for being sexual at all, let alone being even slightly eager for sex. It takes time and effort to overcome the negative attitudes about sex, sexuality, pleasure, desire, all that. The 1960s were exciting times for some, mostly young, people. But the 1960s (and decades following) kept up the tradition of characterizing sex as either chaste and procreative (a la Agustino) or degenerate.
Definitely stop thinking about your mother in law.
BTW, the champaign and truffle feature is not offered at the price point that gets one salad bars. You'll have to upgrade a couple of notches for that.
It has never not worked, regardless of gender.
And this should be mandatory study material for any young women or men.
No, of course not, but really, 'intoxication' is such a dirty word.
I dont think it has to be so controversial that certain particular states are easier to acheive through mind alterating substances. And, in my personal experience, both for me and for my partners, the state in which the mix of marijuana and red wine puts us seems very conducive to a .... relaxed hornyness?
Its just a good sense trick, like eating pasta and drinking lots of fluid the night before an orgy. That doesnt have to mean Im advocating turning into wino potheads for the sake of pleasure.
But Im not NOT advocating that, too. :naughty:
A parallel is eating food. Eating food can be very pleasurable. The pleasure of eating is the carrot on the string, so we try new things to eat; omnivore, and so we get enough nutrients and calories to satisfy the natural biochemical needs of the body.
Say we were to eat food for only pleasure, without any regard to the natural primary; body's nutrient and energy needs. We place the secondary first. The body would get overweight and may become deprived of needed nutrients; chocolate cake all the time. This would be unnatural and unhealthy and lead to problems. Modern culture attempts to keep people aware of the primary use of food; nutrition, via food labels and calorie counts, so a balance is struck.
The same is true of sex. The unnatural path of using the secondary as the primary is reflected in STD's and psychological problems and sublimations. Using an instinctive secondary, as the primary, is an example of human will power and free will. It is short term thinking where the long term result may not always be satisfactory or healthy at many levels.
The female's natural role in sexuality is much more involved than that of the male. She will get pregnant, grow an offspring, give birth and raise the child. Because of that, it is harder for the female to override the primary in favor of the secondary, using will power and choice. This is reflected in female inhibitions. She may go through the motions, via willpower and choice, but fall short in orgasm.
Abortion is not natural, but is an example of free will and choice. The goal of abortion appears to be a disruption in the natural primary goal, in favor of the secondary coming first. This is like passing a law that repeals all nutritional labelling on food, so people can eat for pleasure in peace without regard to the natural consequences.
Hmmmm…….
THIS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ will NEVER work on a lady.
Where did this whole "do me" attitude come from?
I am relieved to hear I am not the only one and Thank you for the lovely guide on ways to get closer to where I do want to get, because I do want to get there or at least not have it be an issue that keeps coming up.
You really are a therapist in many ways and I do appreciate you taking the time to get inside my head and mirror back to me what I am saying and what it looks like. I don't really care for the way I look in the sexual/sensual sense but my damn thinking comes back in with serious force.
I have never tried Yoga and that is something that appeals to me but again that intimacy factor comes rushing back in and my need to protect myself raises my shield. Weird huh?
Hum, plenty of people on all sides of the gender wheel enjoys giving oral. And also enjoys having their partner voice their desires.
If you cant ask your partner for a specific thing, out of shame, then you arent really partners.
Since the primary use of sex is pleasure, I would say that the primary purpose is pleasure, with pregnancy being a byproduct that is most often not fully expected.Quoting wellwisherHistorically, pregnancy has been a far greater threat to health than STDs.Quoting wellwisher
If the distinction between natural and unnatural is that the latter involves the exercise of free will, then sex is unnatural.
Yes you are. You're just partners who aren't fully comfortable expressing your sexual desires.
Instincts have a final goal. Pleasure is a lure toward that goal. I used hunger and eating as a parallel since they use the same schema as sexuality. What you are saying is we should eat anything we want if it brings us pleasure, since pleasure comes first. What science has found is although we can willfully do this, it is not optimized for the body. It can create health problems. People are asked to control the lure and not chase every carrot on the string, so the final result is healthy.
An interesting observation is the left wing of the political movement is more outwardly concerned with natural things than the right wing; going green and save the earth. This is based on compensation for believing the secondary is the primary. There is an unconscious need for natural. The right wing is more old fashion about sex and sees it as the basis for reproduction and child raising. Since this is natural, the right has less need to compensate via a projection into nature.
The killing the earth or manmade global warming are projections due to group choices that are harming natural brain firmware hierarchies. Religions have no problem with sex in marriage and with this sex being pleasurable. The reason is, it is following the natural hierarchy. Birth control is not acceptable o avoid tricking the system via will power.
If you look at nature, animals tend to have breeding seasons, when fertility is maximized. When the final goal is set up, the carrot on the strong is triggered with pheromones. The trigger is not done based on willpower and choice, but when the goal of reproduction is engaged.
Humans are different in that willpower and choice allows us to recreate the past through memory thereby tricking the brain to release chemicals; the carrot, ahead and/or out of phase with the natural cycles of the brain. We can eat even when the body is not hungry using memory to trigger the same chemical release as hunger. It is humanly possible, but it should not be called natural since it often leads to unnatural balances.
No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I've not advocated hedonism or irresponsibility and am aware that any excess can lead to problems. What I said was that the primary reason people engage in sexuality is for pleasure, beyond that, it is also used to build and sustain romantic relationships. The use of sexuality is rarely used specifically for reproduction. Most people attempt pregnancy only a few months of their entire lives. Those who cannot conceive due to age continue to have sex. It's hard to argue that someone who cannot conceive is having sex primarily to induce conception.Quoting wellwisher
Nothing you say here distinguishes having sex for pleasure from having sex for reproduction. It would seem more harmful for someone to recklessly try to have sex for reproduction as it would for someone to recklessly try to have sex for pleasure. The solution would therefore be to avoid being reckless, not insisting that people stop chasing pleasure but instead start chasing pregnancy. Quoting wellwisher
The desire to go green and save the earth is based upon the belief that not going green will destroy the earth. It's an empirical claim rejected by the right. Some on the left may argue that the preservation of the earth has inherent value in itself, but it seems an equally legitimate argument to argue that the protection of humanity can only be acheived by protecting the planet. Regardless, even if true, I don't see the relevance in pointing out that both the right and the left have an equal attachment to the irrational command that we do only that which is natural. Quoting wellwisher
This is not the common religious view, but one found primarily in the Catholic Church. Different religions treat contraception differently and it's a misrepresentation to suggest the religious view on contraception is monolithic. Quoting wellwisher
You don't have a consistent definition of "natural."
Do you really think that there is a chance "will power" can be increased or is it static?
I am in no way saying that "giving oral" pleasure while high and buzzed is a bad thing and asking is always a respectful thing to do.
Quoting Akanthinos
However the entitlement to a minute on the clock to have to meet is absurdly assumptive and from my perspective a total turn off.
But please, by all means, keep that stop watch in your bedside pleasure chest. :up:
Thank you.
for what?
I believe BitterCrank was suggesting that I needed permission to experience self pleasure to which I said "Thank you" as it hit a sticking point for me.
I wasn't implying that it would be necessary or even fun to use a stopwatch. The point of the "30 minutes straight" is simply that too many people stops after a few minutes. Bringing your partner and yourself to the peak of the mountain isn't a 2 minutes walk in the park, that's all.