I think the permissibility of sex acts in public depends not just on ordinary questions of harm, but also on a more nuanced concept of consent. There are enough kinks that depend on watching another's sexual behavior, or being watched in the sex act, to suggest that witnessing a sex act is itself in some measure also a sex act. And if we hold that sex should always be consensual then public sex acts will potentially engage others in non-consensual sex, at least in societies where there is no collective agreement that simply going out in public constitutes consent to witness sex acts there. Likewise, if dressing in drag is construed as sexual behavior, or sexually explicit or suggestive acts happen in a particular drag queen story hour, then this can be understood as a non-consensual sex act with minor children.
This is something that also affects the online domain.
There are people who understandably want an uncensored internet and say, "If you don't like what you are seeing, get off the internet." However, being online is now sometimes a requirement to get goods and services (or at least makes it easier), so there are going to have to be some rules to protect people. Some of that is protection is naturally going to be protection from offense because, while a person doesn't have the right to avoid being offended, they do have the right to make someone stop offending them repeatedly after being asked to stop. Somewhere along the line, offense becomes harrassment, bullying, abuse, etc. I'm specifically thinking of situations where the offense is directed at an individual rather than the individual stumbles upon it (sending someone DM's that insult their culture vs a person coming across an X account which disparages their culture.)
There is also the issue of kids being online. Child safeguarding online is pathetically inadequate and has mostly been left to parents who are not necessarily tech-savvy. Even if they were, the parents can't reasonably be expected to hold the entire internet at bay. I'm curious to see how policies change to protect kids now that we know tech and access to developmentally inappropriate material is so catastrophically bad for kids.
OK, I'll bite: Would this mean that owning and plowing (fvcking) a child sex doll/robot in the privacy of one's own home, with no kids around, would be OK but that doing it in public would be wrong?
Your public/private comments are spot on and to a large degree this article is only possible due to a collapse of people being able to recognize the difference between the 2 .
The problem with those on the Left , as a recovering democrat myself that I can attest to , is that they condone behaviors they would never allow their own children to take part in.
The way they ignore going into crime-ridden neighborhoods their policies have destroyed
Hypocrisy may be the greatest luxury of them all.
I'm guessing 100 years from now, when we have more accurately mapped the human brain and how it operates we will decry what we permit to enter our eyes and ears -legally- the way we now decry cigarettes and lobotomies.
Let me give you an example.
As an American of Italian descent who despises movies like the Godfather, Goodfellas and shows like the Sopranos I can testify to how simply downloading such distorted inaccurate stories as well as glorifying them can do actual harm including death.
The small cemetery in my Brooklyn neighborhood is filled with the tombstones of young Italian boys and men in their teens and twenties who bought into those films the way people by toothpaste and insurance sold by geckos. They wanted to be gangsters ... they were just young influenceable kids.
I went to many weddings in limos with these movies playing on what was then videotapes. Gorgeous actors , hot wives and/or girlfriends , tons of money .... never had a shot .,
I'm not sure if a fundamentalist approach to the First Amendment is the way to go, not at all. Nor am I sure what the solution is .
What I do know is that when another modern technology was being advanced , the railroad , it averaged about 100 deaths a day attributed to zero regulation ie signage, speed limits etc.
Reasonable people made laws, set limits and things became much safer .
Just claiming someone is an 'adult' is a silly idea given that states define this rather loosely , just look at the age when people can get married .
And not only is it silly it's intellectually lazy .
Having a child of say 8 years old be able to click "yes I am 18 or 21 " on his IPhone and access the horrors of the internet will do more damage to America from within than any enemies abroad ..... and for what ?
To die on the infantile hill of " free speech" ?
Nah , that sounds like the cringiest fringiest Far Left excuses which just got them their asses handed to them on Election Day .
"They condone behaviors they would never allow their own children to take part in" this is precisely part of Rob Henderson's description of luxury beliefs. They receive the kudos of "being tolerant"/forward thinking - the doers pay the cost of their lives being diminished by notoriety and self harm.
"As an American of Italian descent who despises movies like the Godfather, Goodfellas and shows like the Sopranos I can testify to how simply downloading such distorted inaccurate stories as well as glorifying them can do actual harm including death."
The entertainment industry is a key player with influencing culture. Not only do movies that glorify bad behavior encourage those who watch it to mimic that behavior but it can also alter history. When Hollywood race swaps and or gender swaps characters in content based on historical events they are in a way teaching viewers history because most believe that what is shown is accurate. If Hollywood were to constantly out out historical films where, because of "Diversity" they have the wrong ethnicity and or sex in the film, once those who were young at the start, are now adults, they believe the history they saw in the movies and not real history. It is why the activists that infected public education began eliminating civics and reduced history. In order to get the next generation to make the mistakes of past generations they need to not be taught about the mistakes of the past.
I don't recall the details because this easily 10+ years ago but I read an article where some college student(s) did a study on entertainments impact on society by asking people if we actually had a zombie like outbreak and you were armed with a gun to defend yourself how would you kill the zombie and most said you had to hit/destroy the head else the zombie would keep coming. This of course is absolutely silly and it shows how impactful entertainment can be on how people think. It's not unreasonable to think we could one day have a virus get loose that doesn't make people zombies but causes them to behave similar to a zombie. It is however absurd to believe that if this were to happen the only way to stop them is to destroy the head
Another great example is how young people who live in the hood, hold a firearm. They foolishly hold it sideways because that is what Hollywood has taught them
Creating, downloading, and consuming art does not do harm. Though Goodfellas has “caused” me to gain many unwanted pounds by causing cravings to gorge on Italian-style food every time I watch it. Still, the choice to gorge and the actions I take to obtain, prepare, and eat the food are mine alone. Or, in the case of harms done to children, the harms are the responsibility of the parents.
You do realize that neuroscientist have gotten animated geckos to sell us car insurance? Stick to art pal because you know nothing about the human brain.
You would be 100 % wrong . Define art, I dare you. Art is littered with nonsense . The human brain couldn't care less about your delineations . I don't think Andy Warhol is art, do you ?
For generations talk therapies and meditations were deemed 'harmless' to PTSD survivors . Now we know the opposite is true and that the worst thing these survivors could do is meditate or relive their trauma through talk therapy.
it since been proven that having these returning soldiers simply play video games helps them more than either meditation or talk therapy, which actually caused them more harm. I doubt very much that you want to take the position that art however you define it is somehow safer than talk therapy or meditation, do you because it would be ridiculous if you did. I was very clear in my post. We don't know yet, but we will know, and when we do know we will regulate, thankfully.
People like you need ankle bracelets . Your infantile definition of art would make pedophilia legal.
I cannot wait for A.I. to clean house and burn the silliness of what passes for art today . Your reification of art into a sentient life form would indicate to me that perhaps you should stop breaking your pills in half and listen to your doctor's advice .
This line "Religion further complicates what should otherwise be straightforward matters." indicates your bias. Your article is written with this bias in mind.
You define harm in a way that aligns with your morality.
You talk about nudity and sex in public. You could push it even farther.
Is suicide acceptable? Is suicide in public acceptable?
Is what happen with Jim Jones acceptable?
Is polyamory acceptable?
What about incest? Its consenting.
Then there is the age of consent.
It's not universally agreed on.
Why can you be drafted at 18 but not drink?
How is the concept even defined?
Morality is how society or better yet community works.
Suggesting that some how individual autonomy is the basis of all morality is just you promoting your religion. The UN charter on human rights includes the right to religion. That of course then gets into what is a religion.
I could reverse it "Intellectual elites further complicate what should otherwise be straightforward matters" by religions and it would be just as valid.
Don't get me wrong. I'm largely on your side on what I want as values in my community. But I acknowledge that my values are not morally superior to others including various religious positions.
I advocate a freedom to position that includes the freedom to establish communities of like minded values. Everything isn't about the individual. In fact, the community is more important than the individual.
nice discussion here! I suspect that our susceptibility to other people's actions is much graver yet less clear now that we are in a social and economic syncytium (had to look up spelling twice substack gods please dont ban my bot followers). At the same time, the death of religion and nationalism is leaving people grasping for straws. The butterfly effect of walking around with sperm on your face is as real as its ever been... just more waves and less walls in the common space.
Thankful to live in a place where I don’t have to worry about people parading around offensive things. However, I think we all deserve to have a “safe space” where kids, and others in the public are not subjected to the lost marbles of people looking for clicks and public displays of perversion. They can claim their lost marbles in their backyard, much like saying they are whatever gender they want to be.. but we in the public shouldn’t have to be subjected to it. On that note, pornography shouldn’t be accessible to kids, unless the person can prove they are an adult. Most people don’t have problems with these boundaries..
Thank you for your brilliant take on this deeply disturbing trend. As a woman, I'm absolutely appalled that these women are blatantly displaying their sexual perversions. Yes, I'm judging because ALL women pay a MUCH greater cost when these things go on in public. Male predators and porn users feed off this as a way to justify the horrific violence, exploitation and degradation that they already inflict on the women in their lives as well as the women in porn and prostitution. It leads ALL men to question ALL women's morality when in fact, it's an exceptionally tiny minority of women who do this.
It also begs the question: What the HELL happened to these women to make them crave the money/attention that they're now receiving???
I've been observing this as a 65 year old grandmother and lifelong feminist who worked hard to establish credibility in a male dominated industry - technology - and who dreamed of a world where my daughter and granddaughter, and son for that matter would stand side by side with men earning the respect, awards, income, that their fellow male workers, partners, brothers earned and nobody would give anyone a second thought. I dreamed of a world where women's accomplishments would transform the world and create a balance between the masculine and feminine such that women choosing to raise their children at home would be not only respected, but would be compensated for the value that they created in the economy equivalent to any similar work in the workplace. I dreamed of a world where it would be UNTHINKABLE FOR MEN TO BUY WOMEN'S AND CHILDREN'S BODIES much less have women themselves actively promote their own sexual objectification.
I'm absolutely nauseous seeing these things unfolding knowing that the manosphere is going to use these perverted young women to justify the vile disgusting behaviour of these men. They will tell themselves 'See, deep down ALL women deserve to be treated this way by men. Women are ALL perverted.' Even as we see Gisele Pelicot's story about her husband drugging her and having a hundred average men in her community pay to rape her limp. unconscious body with her husband making money from this horrific abuse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gis%C3%A8le_Pelicot
Of course, the more we promote the stories of these young women, who in my view must have been raped, molested, abused themselves in order to do these disgusting acts in public and make money off of them, the more it becomes normalized for other desperate damaged young women.
Soon, the irony is that men will DEMAND that women's sexuality be policed and before you know it we WILL be in a Handmaid's Tale scenario. The OPPOSITE of what feminism was about. Meanwhile, women are reeling from all the sexual violence they're already experiencing at the hands of men in their lives. Men they love. Men they trusted.
Feminism has been hijacked by porn culture and predatory capitalism. What we have today is NOT feminism. Today's bastardized version of feminism has taught both young men AND young women that women's bodies are just meatsacks, sex organs, to be dumped on or in by any man who feels entitled and the average woman does not stand a chance in the face of this misogyny. Young, old, rich, poor, all will become prey for male predators even more so than is already the case.
On what planet does baby rape get normalized? Look at any dark web porn site. Read the book 'Big Porn Inc. - https://www.amazon.ca/Big-Porn-Inc-Exposing-Pornography/dp/1876756896 and you will learn just how depraved the porn industry really is and just how depraved the average porn user is because they BUY this. 80% of men consume porn. This is NOT ok.
I feel sick. Deeply, profoundly sick and I want it to stop. I want men to stop it. I want MEN to call out other men who consume this because women KNOW that men want this content and will PAY for it. That's what's driving these desperate women to behave this way. Male porn buyers. Make it stop. I don't care how. I don't care who. Women like Gail Dines, Catherine McKinnon, Andrea Dworkin have been trying for decades ever since porn magazines came out. Nobody listens to them. What happened to #MeToo??? It got relegated and dismissed because a small percentage of women had questionable claims. So now, NONE of the women are believed. It's a nightmare and it's driving women insane making them unable to function as mothers, wives, daughters, caregivers. It will leave the world a demonic place largely because of male entitlement and sexual obsession.
You and I both, my sister! And don't mind the comments below, every time there is a woman who tells the world she is sick of the porn culture, there will be at least one idiot to scream "misandry !!!!!". Yes, the huge majority of women have had enough. Alas, most men would claim that women selling their body means "liberation".
76 year old grandmother here. I could have written this word for word. Thank you for doing so. Coming of age in the 60’s I never dreamed that we would have such a giant step backwards in the 21st century!
The base underlying process here is uncoupling of sex from intimacy (ie bodies are just meatsacks). The original sexual revolution uncoupled sex from pregnancy, this is a follow-on phenomenon, but I think far more impactful - because the need for attachment and intimacy is so strong that a whole generation missing out on it can realistically lead to societal collapse. There are already distinct cohorts of men and women who display hostility and disconnection from each other.
What happened to MeToo? It was an inherently unsustainable movement because the current social norms assert two things simultaneously: commodification of sexuality paired with highly punitive repercussions for transgression in that space. The results are either: mass abuse for some and withdrawal & mass celibacy for others.
@Signme Uplease, Your rant reads as if you are channeling Carry Nation and her sociopathic desire to forcibly impose her will--and her axe--on men and their choice to drink alcohol. Her desire, motivated by sexual frustration and misandry, was to control and rule men, not so much to protect women whom their drunken husbands abuse. McKinnon and her ilk, including you apparently, motivated by their misandry, falsely claim(ed) that any peaceful, mutually consenting interaction between men and women is an act of violence against women, or that porn as such necessarily degrades and sanctions violence against women in the real world. Yes, there are male predators who target women. There are female predators, too, and sometimes they were wrongly acquitted or found not guilty because of their being "of the weaker sex" (e.g. Lizzie Borden). Yes, there are men who read all genres of porn and stupidly, lazily generalize that "all women" are like the women portrayed in those stories, and "think" that those stories "justify" them coercing their dates and spouses to emulate those fictional characters. But those who choose to initiate violence towards others because of violence-laden stories they read do not thereby negate, do not refute the rights to intellectual freedom and freedom of the press and speech that all people possess. There are many women who have rape fantasies and enjoy reading pornography involving rape. That doesn't mean that they would actually enjoy rape, and that it should therefore be legalized, and it doesn't mean that women should not be believed when they can prove that they have, in fact, been physically assaulted, sexually or otherwise. To advocate for censorship or arrest and incarceration on the presumption of being guilty of a crime absent any physical proof of harm is dangerous to everyone's liberty.
Nope. I call DARVO. Of course, the first man to reply centres the concerns of men who are victims. Nowhere in my statement do I say that men are not victims. You are not a woman and do not understand what it's like to be on the receiving end of male aggression and violence.
My entire 'rant' which you refer to in a derogatory way simply proves my point. You compare me to a 'sociopathic' woman. Insult me rather than provide any legitimate rebuttal to my points. The fact is, men cannot/will not take accountability. In truth, as a mother of a son and someone who loves and often defends men, I CARE enough about men to call them out. Not out of spite, but because I hold them to a higher standard than they seem to hold for themselves. When we look at the sheer SCALE of victimization, which is the essence of my post, men are doing the sexual violence by far. Not only to women, btw, but to men as well. At what point, will men stop defending their own male pattern violence? I beg you to consider the harm that your reply is doing by redirecting the focus to men, always men, forever men, as innocent victims. Sheesh! It's crazy-making.
Imagine that every day of your life you have to constantly be on your guard against abuse and violence from people you encounter as you move through your day, at work, at home, in social settings. Now add to that the fact that if you ARE abused YOU will be blamed more often than not. YOU will not get justice. YOU will be left to deal with the consequences. THEY will be treated as the victim because you had the audacity to report them. Then consider that the person who victimizes you is usually someone close to you. Someone you know and trust.
It's mind-blowing that men don't get this. It blows my mind every time. The entitlement and lack of empathy are deeply disturbing. Open your eyes. Please. Where is your humanity?
I couldn't have said it better! I am a mother to two sons, and I love all the men in my life (I am lucky, what can I say? Wonderful sons, perfect husband, loving dad, amazing boss, great colleagues, supporting friends - all these men make my life better!). But I am not blind! And I had my share of sexual violence from men, from the time I was a child, exposed to exhibitionists in clear daylight, while walking to school, to a few days ago, when a "transwoman" was loudly masturbating in the stall next to mine in a Whole Foods toilet (not kidding! Whole Foods!). Groped, catcalled, menaced for rejecting sexual advances, inappropriately touched, pressed against for no reason, cyber flashed, stealth victimized, exposed to sexual jokes and innuendo, victim of sexual rumors, upskirted, almost every single thing men have invented to make our lives a hell. Thank God, I was never raped, but what society is that where women call themselves lucky for not having been raped? I am sick to my stomach to hear men call us "men haters" simply because we want to be safe.
In each of these cases there's at least one victim, and the fact that it seems to spread suggests that there's more than one. The idea that one can bootstrap their own morality rationally from the ground up is, and has always been, ridiculous, and something that Peter has either ignored or failed to grasp (can't tell which)
The society that surrounds a person has an influence on the sorts of decisions they are likely to make. People bandy about the phrase "consenting adult" as though each adult is sitting there in a vacuum making uninfluenced personal decisions, when that couldn't be further from the truth.
There are many examples to show how ridiculous it is to place consent über alles but the easy one is women who take part in "consensual" sexual intercourse but then later claim that they were raped. It's so easy to attribute bad motive to the woman, but what has really happened is that they've been hoodwinked by a toxic society to go along with something that they don't actually feel right about and then later deeply regret it as what's left of their conscience rebels against whatever messed up societal norms have propagated in the absence of common sense.
The victim in a toxic society, generally speaking, are agreeable people, because they will "consent" to being taken advantage of in all sorts of ways to avoid conflict. See recent allegations against Neil Gaiman for just a recent example.
You claim that there's a difference between these examples and actions done to oneself, saying, "Many on the Right failed to differentiate between defending someone's choice to engage in a victimless activity and condemning actions with actual victims, such as coercing others into sex", but the only difference I see is how easy it is to peg a single person in the situation as the "victimizer". Is there any reason to believe that a victim/victimizer dynamic only exists if the victimizer is one person? Further, you claim that in one case it's a victimless activity. Based on?
As for who decides, the important thing to understand is that no matter how liberal the society, you're never going to get even close to 100% of individuals making truly free decisions. Rather, their decisions will be influenced by various others (including tradition, local norms, and people) within that society. If that is a functional, productive society, then the influence will be positive. If it's a dysfunctional society, then the influence will be negative. In neither society will this unrealistic, idealistic notion of "consent" be the only impetus behind a given decision.
Peter: As a paying subscriber it should be obvious that I think your takes on various matters are interesting, but it often seems like you have simple answers to issues by the expedient of ignoring complexity. This is one example, but there are others. In the past I thought you were perhaps doing it unknowingly, but here you state explicitly that "These are not particularly complicated issues, and we already have well-established moral frameworks to navigate them. Still, that does not stop people from complicating what is otherwise straightforward." In this case you've simplified the situation by taking it as a foregone conclusion that these activities are victimless. Whether the activities are victimless is at the heart of this discussion, so saying that "Many on the Right failed to differentiate between defending someone's choice to engage in a victimless activity and condemning actions with actual victims" is just textbook begging the question. Any issue can become simple by oversimplifying it, but I'm not sure what the goal is by claiming without evidence that an issue is simpler than your opposition says it is, nor framing them as emotional. It goes from bad to worse when the very next topic in the article is all about nuance.
I could not agree more. This sort of rationale can only be entertained by those who have the privilege of living in "hypotheticals" where one's moral laziness has the privledge of hiding behind banal platitudes like "the independent actions consenting adults." Did you he consider that not everyone in a park or on the internet is a "consenting adult" and that inadvertently exposing minors to such content could be physchologically disturbing? Or are the debacherous activities of adults and their feelings about "free expression" which now apparently extends to anal sex for all to see (not because we all agreed that free speech should include lewd videos, but because technology made it possible to include far more than the written or spoken word) more important than a parents right to address such topics in an age appropriate manner?
As a mother of sons, I would not want any young man coming of age to be lured into participating in this. If you contract a venereal disease, you're a victim. I don't care about "eyes wide open."
I think the street persona is a choice he makes to sort of disarm the people he's questioning so he can get to the source of their beliefs before pushing back against them.
There is a difference between consenting to an act and making it public. IE That woman could have had sex with 100 men and not made it public... But of course that was the whole objective. "Consent" wasn't the issue. The modern progressive-cult is actually trying to *abolish shame* - the gray area before actually transgressing into the forbidden.
Consider the recent Neil Gaiman revelations... Its easy to say "don't be a prude", much harder to say "sure go work for ND as a babysitter" to a young lady, isn't it?
There's a big difference between stigmatizing or condemning a behavior and arresting people for it. I think BDSM is sick, but I don't think consenting adults should go to jail for it. I think what Lily Philips is doing is tragic and sick, but I don't want to see her arrested.
This is very different from the legalization of sex buying, because studies have made it very clear that legalized sex buying increases demand (how could it not?), and there is never enough willing "supply" to meet the demand; this then fuels a steep rise in sex trafficking. The price that vulnerable women and children are forced to pay for a person's "right" to buy sex is far too high - it's also too high a price for those people living in poor neighborhoods crawling with sex buyers.
This is similar to why I support the right of trans women to use whatever restroom they want, but not to compete against women in sports. The latter is a "freedom" that impinges on the rights and freedoms of others.
I think walking around with sperm on your face is more a public health issue. We don’t like being exposed to bodily fluids in any form. And the phrase “Eat shit and die” might be a bit of a truism. I think the question is more about lessening the definition of mental illness in favor of a “free society” where anything goes. The concept of a private life and a public life is broken. If you want to screw 100 guys in 24 hrs., good luck to ya and your future health, it’s not my business and I’m not responsible for your behavior and I don’t need to know. By the way, not new, porns been around for a long time.
What bothers me is the insistence of making a public spectacle of oneself. If you like wearing a dog collar and walking around on all fours, there’s a club for that. If you like having sex in public, there are clubs for that too. When someone asks, “How are you?”, they don’t even want to know that. It’s a polite social convention. It’s not so much a moral issue as, again, the collapse of private/ public boundaries.
Your moral framework and thus your conclusions are quite parochial. They are characteristic of a. relatively small but elite portion of the world's population and a more recent worldview. In most times and places, actions that almost universally evoke disgust are considered immoral. They are considered an affront to human dignity or to the sacred. Jonathan Haidt has written a book called The Righteous Mind which outlines various moral "flavors". He has done research on populations from different demographics around the world and come up with very interesting findings. One finding that interested me is the difference between traditional American conservatives and traditional liberals are not that conservatives have different values but that they have additional ones. Anyway, harm is only one moral value and of course what we mean by harm varies as we know when current campus definitions that define speech as harmful. Anyway, Haidt's work is quite original and will, I think, add to your understanding of moral principles. It really helped expand my thinking.
I consider blasphemy to be a category of "moral injury". It's an offense against a societies morality/beliefs that is similar to a racist or sexist statement, or walking around with sperm on your face (but I don't think any of them should be illegal) At it's heart, religion isn't much more than a way to enforce specific morals/beliefs on large groups of people. If you believe God thinks you shouldn't do something than you believe doing that thing is immoral.
I'd say your initial comment is essentially the same as saying "that's not a dog it's a Labrador".
And that's exactly why we don't have blasphemy laws in America but they have them in medieval societies, like Afghanistan or Pakistan. But, again, in the general sphere of "moral values", religion and other spiritual beliefs are a special category. This category alone is protected (freedom of religion), but also citizens are protected against it (no blasphemy laws), the way it should be. I repeat, walking with sperm on your face is not a moral value, it's just societal deviation. We can discuss, of course, if societal deviations should be punished, but that is not even the issue here. Nobody wants to "punish" people for being a deviant, but the society, sometimes, views the said deviants as a danger to themselves and/or to others, and imposes restrictions. You cannot masturbate in public. You cannot defecate in public. You cannot walk naked in public (there are spaces where you can do it, as on a nudists' beach). You cannot torture yourself in public (cut yourself, etc.). Cross-dressing was equally part of this, as it is considered sexual self-gratification. Alas, "well-intended" people have promoted it to the rank of bravery, and now we have people flashing their cocks and fake breasts during parades, and they are applauded. From what I see, the next one is cuming in public and wearing your sperm as makeup. Slippery slope. The society needs a robust discussion about this, but the "progressive" movement (there is nothing progressive about it) has forced it down our throats and has limited (or even outlawed) any debate about it.
Aren't we missing a key distinction here? My thought is that there are plenty of acts that, while they should be legal, should also have such severe social consequences that almost no one does them even if they want to. Before we talk about bringing the full force of criminal sanction on some of these people, is there really no way to talk about rebuilding a culture that makes it social death to do things that even disgust most normie liberals?
I genuinely wonder if you're willing to draw *any* lines. I suspect you're not. Your answer to anything aside from "this thing is bodily touching me" is something like "where's the line?"
You won't draw any obscenity lines, I don't believe. I wish you'd just cop to it.
Missed point- these people that desperately need to degrade themselves in public tells me that their own judgement is way off anything I can trust and their own perversion is off putting to the rest of society.
Before I address your text, I would like to introduce myself as someone who supports both sex and sexual experimentation in mutual consent.
What the text lacks is the motivation behind any activity.
I remember the sense of awakening in the 1990s in Europe, especially in Berlin—an evolution of the sexual liberation of the 1970s. It was a direct response to the restrictive prudishness of societies that tolerated sexuality only within the framework of reproduction. Yes, even in the ’90s, there was a great need for liberation. Many people I knew, including myself, were exploring what sexuality was really about. It was often pleasurable, sometimes painful, but always exciting and enlightening.
Digital tools have taken the second sexual revolution in a completely different direction than I could have ever imagined. No one in 2000 would have thought that almost everyone would one day be making and publishing their own porn.
This led to a strange distortion of motives. Today, I rarely see hearts that consciously and with integrity want to explore their sexuality. Far more often—almost as a new norm—I see people who derive their thrill from attention and will use any means necessary to provoke it.
This has little to do with play, fun, pleasure, or sexual experimentation. Even when bodies and bodily fluids are involved, it often has nothing to do with sex anymore—which I find very sobering. It seems to be more about showing off than about sensations and experiences. And that is a moral decline that goes much deeper than just sexuality.
What are the reasons today for human beings to do anything at all—besides vanity, money, and unconscious compulsions (compensation, escape, distraction)?
I don’t see the sexual downfall as more shocking than the normalization of violence, indifference to hate, increasing alienation, disrupted communication, and the total loss of meaning. It just becomes especially evident in the realm of sex. And the real question is:
What is each heart willing to do—or to boycott—to make the world a little more livable again?
Is it possible to disconnect sex from the framework of reproduction? That is what its for isn't it?
You talk about sex from the hedonistic perspective but it is a strong ingredient of intimacy - does its ubiquity for pleasure destroy the latter?
Indifference to hate? What hate - there is less than ever before, we are living in the most tolerant era in history. This constant appeal-to-hate is paranoid.
What disrupted communication? We are saturated by too much of it instead!
I would answer your final question: people are psychosocially built for lifelong monogamous relationships to produce children. The modern ennui arises from departing this psychological norm that has existed for 000s of years. If we don't turn back Western culture will simply die out and non-libertine ones will replace us.
I think the permissibility of sex acts in public depends not just on ordinary questions of harm, but also on a more nuanced concept of consent. There are enough kinks that depend on watching another's sexual behavior, or being watched in the sex act, to suggest that witnessing a sex act is itself in some measure also a sex act. And if we hold that sex should always be consensual then public sex acts will potentially engage others in non-consensual sex, at least in societies where there is no collective agreement that simply going out in public constitutes consent to witness sex acts there. Likewise, if dressing in drag is construed as sexual behavior, or sexually explicit or suggestive acts happen in a particular drag queen story hour, then this can be understood as a non-consensual sex act with minor children.
Very thoughtful comment.
This is something that also affects the online domain.
There are people who understandably want an uncensored internet and say, "If you don't like what you are seeing, get off the internet." However, being online is now sometimes a requirement to get goods and services (or at least makes it easier), so there are going to have to be some rules to protect people. Some of that is protection is naturally going to be protection from offense because, while a person doesn't have the right to avoid being offended, they do have the right to make someone stop offending them repeatedly after being asked to stop. Somewhere along the line, offense becomes harrassment, bullying, abuse, etc. I'm specifically thinking of situations where the offense is directed at an individual rather than the individual stumbles upon it (sending someone DM's that insult their culture vs a person coming across an X account which disparages their culture.)
There is also the issue of kids being online. Child safeguarding online is pathetically inadequate and has mostly been left to parents who are not necessarily tech-savvy. Even if they were, the parents can't reasonably be expected to hold the entire internet at bay. I'm curious to see how policies change to protect kids now that we know tech and access to developmentally inappropriate material is so catastrophically bad for kids.
A very interesting take.
OK, I'll bite: Would this mean that owning and plowing (fvcking) a child sex doll/robot in the privacy of one's own home, with no kids around, would be OK but that doing it in public would be wrong?
Your public/private comments are spot on and to a large degree this article is only possible due to a collapse of people being able to recognize the difference between the 2 .
The problem with those on the Left , as a recovering democrat myself that I can attest to , is that they condone behaviors they would never allow their own children to take part in.
The way they ignore going into crime-ridden neighborhoods their policies have destroyed
Hypocrisy may be the greatest luxury of them all.
I'm guessing 100 years from now, when we have more accurately mapped the human brain and how it operates we will decry what we permit to enter our eyes and ears -legally- the way we now decry cigarettes and lobotomies.
Let me give you an example.
As an American of Italian descent who despises movies like the Godfather, Goodfellas and shows like the Sopranos I can testify to how simply downloading such distorted inaccurate stories as well as glorifying them can do actual harm including death.
The small cemetery in my Brooklyn neighborhood is filled with the tombstones of young Italian boys and men in their teens and twenties who bought into those films the way people by toothpaste and insurance sold by geckos. They wanted to be gangsters ... they were just young influenceable kids.
I went to many weddings in limos with these movies playing on what was then videotapes. Gorgeous actors , hot wives and/or girlfriends , tons of money .... never had a shot .,
I'm not sure if a fundamentalist approach to the First Amendment is the way to go, not at all. Nor am I sure what the solution is .
What I do know is that when another modern technology was being advanced , the railroad , it averaged about 100 deaths a day attributed to zero regulation ie signage, speed limits etc.
Reasonable people made laws, set limits and things became much safer .
Just claiming someone is an 'adult' is a silly idea given that states define this rather loosely , just look at the age when people can get married .
And not only is it silly it's intellectually lazy .
Having a child of say 8 years old be able to click "yes I am 18 or 21 " on his IPhone and access the horrors of the internet will do more damage to America from within than any enemies abroad ..... and for what ?
To die on the infantile hill of " free speech" ?
Nah , that sounds like the cringiest fringiest Far Left excuses which just got them their asses handed to them on Election Day .
It's ALWAYS the overcorrection.
Be careful what you wish for.
A very interesting read. Thank you.
Thanks for your kind words.
"They condone behaviors they would never allow their own children to take part in" this is precisely part of Rob Henderson's description of luxury beliefs. They receive the kudos of "being tolerant"/forward thinking - the doers pay the cost of their lives being diminished by notoriety and self harm.
"As an American of Italian descent who despises movies like the Godfather, Goodfellas and shows like the Sopranos I can testify to how simply downloading such distorted inaccurate stories as well as glorifying them can do actual harm including death."
The entertainment industry is a key player with influencing culture. Not only do movies that glorify bad behavior encourage those who watch it to mimic that behavior but it can also alter history. When Hollywood race swaps and or gender swaps characters in content based on historical events they are in a way teaching viewers history because most believe that what is shown is accurate. If Hollywood were to constantly out out historical films where, because of "Diversity" they have the wrong ethnicity and or sex in the film, once those who were young at the start, are now adults, they believe the history they saw in the movies and not real history. It is why the activists that infected public education began eliminating civics and reduced history. In order to get the next generation to make the mistakes of past generations they need to not be taught about the mistakes of the past.
I don't recall the details because this easily 10+ years ago but I read an article where some college student(s) did a study on entertainments impact on society by asking people if we actually had a zombie like outbreak and you were armed with a gun to defend yourself how would you kill the zombie and most said you had to hit/destroy the head else the zombie would keep coming. This of course is absolutely silly and it shows how impactful entertainment can be on how people think. It's not unreasonable to think we could one day have a virus get loose that doesn't make people zombies but causes them to behave similar to a zombie. It is however absurd to believe that if this were to happen the only way to stop them is to destroy the head
Another great example is how young people who live in the hood, hold a firearm. They foolishly hold it sideways because that is what Hollywood has taught them
Creating, downloading, and consuming art does not do harm. Though Goodfellas has “caused” me to gain many unwanted pounds by causing cravings to gorge on Italian-style food every time I watch it. Still, the choice to gorge and the actions I take to obtain, prepare, and eat the food are mine alone. Or, in the case of harms done to children, the harms are the responsibility of the parents.
You do realize that neuroscientist have gotten animated geckos to sell us car insurance? Stick to art pal because you know nothing about the human brain.
You would be 100 % wrong . Define art, I dare you. Art is littered with nonsense . The human brain couldn't care less about your delineations . I don't think Andy Warhol is art, do you ?
For generations talk therapies and meditations were deemed 'harmless' to PTSD survivors . Now we know the opposite is true and that the worst thing these survivors could do is meditate or relive their trauma through talk therapy.
it since been proven that having these returning soldiers simply play video games helps them more than either meditation or talk therapy, which actually caused them more harm. I doubt very much that you want to take the position that art however you define it is somehow safer than talk therapy or meditation, do you because it would be ridiculous if you did. I was very clear in my post. We don't know yet, but we will know, and when we do know we will regulate, thankfully.
You claim gangster movies are inaccurate yet blame them for the deaths of many young, Italian boys. Is that life imitating art or vice versa?
Art doesn’t care about your opinion and you cannot legislate morality. Censorship is never the answer. Ever.
People like you need ankle bracelets . Your infantile definition of art would make pedophilia legal.
I cannot wait for A.I. to clean house and burn the silliness of what passes for art today . Your reification of art into a sentient life form would indicate to me that perhaps you should stop breaking your pills in half and listen to your doctor's advice .
I don’t believe in art critics.
This line "Religion further complicates what should otherwise be straightforward matters." indicates your bias. Your article is written with this bias in mind.
You define harm in a way that aligns with your morality.
You talk about nudity and sex in public. You could push it even farther.
Is suicide acceptable? Is suicide in public acceptable?
Is what happen with Jim Jones acceptable?
Is polyamory acceptable?
What about incest? Its consenting.
Then there is the age of consent.
It's not universally agreed on.
Why can you be drafted at 18 but not drink?
How is the concept even defined?
Morality is how society or better yet community works.
Suggesting that some how individual autonomy is the basis of all morality is just you promoting your religion. The UN charter on human rights includes the right to religion. That of course then gets into what is a religion.
A better discussion is how to live and let live.
Not define a universal morality concept.
So how is that line biased, esp given different moral systems and different edicts?
I could reverse it "Intellectual elites further complicate what should otherwise be straightforward matters" by religions and it would be just as valid.
Don't get me wrong. I'm largely on your side on what I want as values in my community. But I acknowledge that my values are not morally superior to others including various religious positions.
I advocate a freedom to position that includes the freedom to establish communities of like minded values. Everything isn't about the individual. In fact, the community is more important than the individual.
nice discussion here! I suspect that our susceptibility to other people's actions is much graver yet less clear now that we are in a social and economic syncytium (had to look up spelling twice substack gods please dont ban my bot followers). At the same time, the death of religion and nationalism is leaving people grasping for straws. The butterfly effect of walking around with sperm on your face is as real as its ever been... just more waves and less walls in the common space.
Thankful to live in a place where I don’t have to worry about people parading around offensive things. However, I think we all deserve to have a “safe space” where kids, and others in the public are not subjected to the lost marbles of people looking for clicks and public displays of perversion. They can claim their lost marbles in their backyard, much like saying they are whatever gender they want to be.. but we in the public shouldn’t have to be subjected to it. On that note, pornography shouldn’t be accessible to kids, unless the person can prove they are an adult. Most people don’t have problems with these boundaries..
Thank you for your brilliant take on this deeply disturbing trend. As a woman, I'm absolutely appalled that these women are blatantly displaying their sexual perversions. Yes, I'm judging because ALL women pay a MUCH greater cost when these things go on in public. Male predators and porn users feed off this as a way to justify the horrific violence, exploitation and degradation that they already inflict on the women in their lives as well as the women in porn and prostitution. It leads ALL men to question ALL women's morality when in fact, it's an exceptionally tiny minority of women who do this.
It also begs the question: What the HELL happened to these women to make them crave the money/attention that they're now receiving???
I've been observing this as a 65 year old grandmother and lifelong feminist who worked hard to establish credibility in a male dominated industry - technology - and who dreamed of a world where my daughter and granddaughter, and son for that matter would stand side by side with men earning the respect, awards, income, that their fellow male workers, partners, brothers earned and nobody would give anyone a second thought. I dreamed of a world where women's accomplishments would transform the world and create a balance between the masculine and feminine such that women choosing to raise their children at home would be not only respected, but would be compensated for the value that they created in the economy equivalent to any similar work in the workplace. I dreamed of a world where it would be UNTHINKABLE FOR MEN TO BUY WOMEN'S AND CHILDREN'S BODIES much less have women themselves actively promote their own sexual objectification.
I'm absolutely nauseous seeing these things unfolding knowing that the manosphere is going to use these perverted young women to justify the vile disgusting behaviour of these men. They will tell themselves 'See, deep down ALL women deserve to be treated this way by men. Women are ALL perverted.' Even as we see Gisele Pelicot's story about her husband drugging her and having a hundred average men in her community pay to rape her limp. unconscious body with her husband making money from this horrific abuse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gis%C3%A8le_Pelicot
Of course, the more we promote the stories of these young women, who in my view must have been raped, molested, abused themselves in order to do these disgusting acts in public and make money off of them, the more it becomes normalized for other desperate damaged young women.
Soon, the irony is that men will DEMAND that women's sexuality be policed and before you know it we WILL be in a Handmaid's Tale scenario. The OPPOSITE of what feminism was about. Meanwhile, women are reeling from all the sexual violence they're already experiencing at the hands of men in their lives. Men they love. Men they trusted.
Feminism has been hijacked by porn culture and predatory capitalism. What we have today is NOT feminism. Today's bastardized version of feminism has taught both young men AND young women that women's bodies are just meatsacks, sex organs, to be dumped on or in by any man who feels entitled and the average woman does not stand a chance in the face of this misogyny. Young, old, rich, poor, all will become prey for male predators even more so than is already the case.
On what planet does baby rape get normalized? Look at any dark web porn site. Read the book 'Big Porn Inc. - https://www.amazon.ca/Big-Porn-Inc-Exposing-Pornography/dp/1876756896 and you will learn just how depraved the porn industry really is and just how depraved the average porn user is because they BUY this. 80% of men consume porn. This is NOT ok.
I feel sick. Deeply, profoundly sick and I want it to stop. I want men to stop it. I want MEN to call out other men who consume this because women KNOW that men want this content and will PAY for it. That's what's driving these desperate women to behave this way. Male porn buyers. Make it stop. I don't care how. I don't care who. Women like Gail Dines, Catherine McKinnon, Andrea Dworkin have been trying for decades ever since porn magazines came out. Nobody listens to them. What happened to #MeToo??? It got relegated and dismissed because a small percentage of women had questionable claims. So now, NONE of the women are believed. It's a nightmare and it's driving women insane making them unable to function as mothers, wives, daughters, caregivers. It will leave the world a demonic place largely because of male entitlement and sexual obsession.
You and I both, my sister! And don't mind the comments below, every time there is a woman who tells the world she is sick of the porn culture, there will be at least one idiot to scream "misandry !!!!!". Yes, the huge majority of women have had enough. Alas, most men would claim that women selling their body means "liberation".
You’re welcome. There’s a lot here I disagree with. It would be interesting to analyze this reasoning in a separate post.
76 year old grandmother here. I could have written this word for word. Thank you for doing so. Coming of age in the 60’s I never dreamed that we would have such a giant step backwards in the 21st century!
The base underlying process here is uncoupling of sex from intimacy (ie bodies are just meatsacks). The original sexual revolution uncoupled sex from pregnancy, this is a follow-on phenomenon, but I think far more impactful - because the need for attachment and intimacy is so strong that a whole generation missing out on it can realistically lead to societal collapse. There are already distinct cohorts of men and women who display hostility and disconnection from each other.
What happened to MeToo? It was an inherently unsustainable movement because the current social norms assert two things simultaneously: commodification of sexuality paired with highly punitive repercussions for transgression in that space. The results are either: mass abuse for some and withdrawal & mass celibacy for others.
@Signme Uplease, Your rant reads as if you are channeling Carry Nation and her sociopathic desire to forcibly impose her will--and her axe--on men and their choice to drink alcohol. Her desire, motivated by sexual frustration and misandry, was to control and rule men, not so much to protect women whom their drunken husbands abuse. McKinnon and her ilk, including you apparently, motivated by their misandry, falsely claim(ed) that any peaceful, mutually consenting interaction between men and women is an act of violence against women, or that porn as such necessarily degrades and sanctions violence against women in the real world. Yes, there are male predators who target women. There are female predators, too, and sometimes they were wrongly acquitted or found not guilty because of their being "of the weaker sex" (e.g. Lizzie Borden). Yes, there are men who read all genres of porn and stupidly, lazily generalize that "all women" are like the women portrayed in those stories, and "think" that those stories "justify" them coercing their dates and spouses to emulate those fictional characters. But those who choose to initiate violence towards others because of violence-laden stories they read do not thereby negate, do not refute the rights to intellectual freedom and freedom of the press and speech that all people possess. There are many women who have rape fantasies and enjoy reading pornography involving rape. That doesn't mean that they would actually enjoy rape, and that it should therefore be legalized, and it doesn't mean that women should not be believed when they can prove that they have, in fact, been physically assaulted, sexually or otherwise. To advocate for censorship or arrest and incarceration on the presumption of being guilty of a crime absent any physical proof of harm is dangerous to everyone's liberty.
Nope. I call DARVO. Of course, the first man to reply centres the concerns of men who are victims. Nowhere in my statement do I say that men are not victims. You are not a woman and do not understand what it's like to be on the receiving end of male aggression and violence.
My entire 'rant' which you refer to in a derogatory way simply proves my point. You compare me to a 'sociopathic' woman. Insult me rather than provide any legitimate rebuttal to my points. The fact is, men cannot/will not take accountability. In truth, as a mother of a son and someone who loves and often defends men, I CARE enough about men to call them out. Not out of spite, but because I hold them to a higher standard than they seem to hold for themselves. When we look at the sheer SCALE of victimization, which is the essence of my post, men are doing the sexual violence by far. Not only to women, btw, but to men as well. At what point, will men stop defending their own male pattern violence? I beg you to consider the harm that your reply is doing by redirecting the focus to men, always men, forever men, as innocent victims. Sheesh! It's crazy-making.
Imagine that every day of your life you have to constantly be on your guard against abuse and violence from people you encounter as you move through your day, at work, at home, in social settings. Now add to that the fact that if you ARE abused YOU will be blamed more often than not. YOU will not get justice. YOU will be left to deal with the consequences. THEY will be treated as the victim because you had the audacity to report them. Then consider that the person who victimizes you is usually someone close to you. Someone you know and trust.
It's mind-blowing that men don't get this. It blows my mind every time. The entitlement and lack of empathy are deeply disturbing. Open your eyes. Please. Where is your humanity?
I couldn't have said it better! I am a mother to two sons, and I love all the men in my life (I am lucky, what can I say? Wonderful sons, perfect husband, loving dad, amazing boss, great colleagues, supporting friends - all these men make my life better!). But I am not blind! And I had my share of sexual violence from men, from the time I was a child, exposed to exhibitionists in clear daylight, while walking to school, to a few days ago, when a "transwoman" was loudly masturbating in the stall next to mine in a Whole Foods toilet (not kidding! Whole Foods!). Groped, catcalled, menaced for rejecting sexual advances, inappropriately touched, pressed against for no reason, cyber flashed, stealth victimized, exposed to sexual jokes and innuendo, victim of sexual rumors, upskirted, almost every single thing men have invented to make our lives a hell. Thank God, I was never raped, but what society is that where women call themselves lucky for not having been raped? I am sick to my stomach to hear men call us "men haters" simply because we want to be safe.
Exactly!
Yes! Absolutely on point!
In each of these cases there's at least one victim, and the fact that it seems to spread suggests that there's more than one. The idea that one can bootstrap their own morality rationally from the ground up is, and has always been, ridiculous, and something that Peter has either ignored or failed to grasp (can't tell which)
Who’s the victim? And should a consenting adult be allowed to make that decision? If not, who decides? You?
The society that surrounds a person has an influence on the sorts of decisions they are likely to make. People bandy about the phrase "consenting adult" as though each adult is sitting there in a vacuum making uninfluenced personal decisions, when that couldn't be further from the truth.
There are many examples to show how ridiculous it is to place consent über alles but the easy one is women who take part in "consensual" sexual intercourse but then later claim that they were raped. It's so easy to attribute bad motive to the woman, but what has really happened is that they've been hoodwinked by a toxic society to go along with something that they don't actually feel right about and then later deeply regret it as what's left of their conscience rebels against whatever messed up societal norms have propagated in the absence of common sense.
The victim in a toxic society, generally speaking, are agreeable people, because they will "consent" to being taken advantage of in all sorts of ways to avoid conflict. See recent allegations against Neil Gaiman for just a recent example.
You claim that there's a difference between these examples and actions done to oneself, saying, "Many on the Right failed to differentiate between defending someone's choice to engage in a victimless activity and condemning actions with actual victims, such as coercing others into sex", but the only difference I see is how easy it is to peg a single person in the situation as the "victimizer". Is there any reason to believe that a victim/victimizer dynamic only exists if the victimizer is one person? Further, you claim that in one case it's a victimless activity. Based on?
As for who decides, the important thing to understand is that no matter how liberal the society, you're never going to get even close to 100% of individuals making truly free decisions. Rather, their decisions will be influenced by various others (including tradition, local norms, and people) within that society. If that is a functional, productive society, then the influence will be positive. If it's a dysfunctional society, then the influence will be negative. In neither society will this unrealistic, idealistic notion of "consent" be the only impetus behind a given decision.
Peter: As a paying subscriber it should be obvious that I think your takes on various matters are interesting, but it often seems like you have simple answers to issues by the expedient of ignoring complexity. This is one example, but there are others. In the past I thought you were perhaps doing it unknowingly, but here you state explicitly that "These are not particularly complicated issues, and we already have well-established moral frameworks to navigate them. Still, that does not stop people from complicating what is otherwise straightforward." In this case you've simplified the situation by taking it as a foregone conclusion that these activities are victimless. Whether the activities are victimless is at the heart of this discussion, so saying that "Many on the Right failed to differentiate between defending someone's choice to engage in a victimless activity and condemning actions with actual victims" is just textbook begging the question. Any issue can become simple by oversimplifying it, but I'm not sure what the goal is by claiming without evidence that an issue is simpler than your opposition says it is, nor framing them as emotional. It goes from bad to worse when the very next topic in the article is all about nuance.
I could not agree more. This sort of rationale can only be entertained by those who have the privilege of living in "hypotheticals" where one's moral laziness has the privledge of hiding behind banal platitudes like "the independent actions consenting adults." Did you he consider that not everyone in a park or on the internet is a "consenting adult" and that inadvertently exposing minors to such content could be physchologically disturbing? Or are the debacherous activities of adults and their feelings about "free expression" which now apparently extends to anal sex for all to see (not because we all agreed that free speech should include lewd videos, but because technology made it possible to include far more than the written or spoken word) more important than a parents right to address such topics in an age appropriate manner?
A well thought out and nuanced approach. I hesitate to think that Lily is not a victim especially when her own mother helps monetize her actions.
As a mother of sons, I would not want any young man coming of age to be lured into participating in this. If you contract a venereal disease, you're a victim. I don't care about "eyes wide open."
I don't know if anyone has told you but your writing style gives a more sophisticated and intelligent image than your podcast/street interviews do
I think the street persona is a choice he makes to sort of disarm the people he's questioning so he can get to the source of their beliefs before pushing back against them.
There is a difference between consenting to an act and making it public. IE That woman could have had sex with 100 men and not made it public... But of course that was the whole objective. "Consent" wasn't the issue. The modern progressive-cult is actually trying to *abolish shame* - the gray area before actually transgressing into the forbidden.
Consider the recent Neil Gaiman revelations... Its easy to say "don't be a prude", much harder to say "sure go work for ND as a babysitter" to a young lady, isn't it?
There's a big difference between stigmatizing or condemning a behavior and arresting people for it. I think BDSM is sick, but I don't think consenting adults should go to jail for it. I think what Lily Philips is doing is tragic and sick, but I don't want to see her arrested.
This is very different from the legalization of sex buying, because studies have made it very clear that legalized sex buying increases demand (how could it not?), and there is never enough willing "supply" to meet the demand; this then fuels a steep rise in sex trafficking. The price that vulnerable women and children are forced to pay for a person's "right" to buy sex is far too high - it's also too high a price for those people living in poor neighborhoods crawling with sex buyers.
This is similar to why I support the right of trans women to use whatever restroom they want, but not to compete against women in sports. The latter is a "freedom" that impinges on the rights and freedoms of others.
I think walking around with sperm on your face is more a public health issue. We don’t like being exposed to bodily fluids in any form. And the phrase “Eat shit and die” might be a bit of a truism. I think the question is more about lessening the definition of mental illness in favor of a “free society” where anything goes. The concept of a private life and a public life is broken. If you want to screw 100 guys in 24 hrs., good luck to ya and your future health, it’s not my business and I’m not responsible for your behavior and I don’t need to know. By the way, not new, porns been around for a long time.
What bothers me is the insistence of making a public spectacle of oneself. If you like wearing a dog collar and walking around on all fours, there’s a club for that. If you like having sex in public, there are clubs for that too. When someone asks, “How are you?”, they don’t even want to know that. It’s a polite social convention. It’s not so much a moral issue as, again, the collapse of private/ public boundaries.
Your moral framework and thus your conclusions are quite parochial. They are characteristic of a. relatively small but elite portion of the world's population and a more recent worldview. In most times and places, actions that almost universally evoke disgust are considered immoral. They are considered an affront to human dignity or to the sacred. Jonathan Haidt has written a book called The Righteous Mind which outlines various moral "flavors". He has done research on populations from different demographics around the world and come up with very interesting findings. One finding that interested me is the difference between traditional American conservatives and traditional liberals are not that conservatives have different values but that they have additional ones. Anyway, harm is only one moral value and of course what we mean by harm varies as we know when current campus definitions that define speech as harmful. Anyway, Haidt's work is quite original and will, I think, add to your understanding of moral principles. It really helped expand my thinking.
See Haidt’s work on this:
In most times and places, actions that almost universally evoke disgust are considered immoral.
Disgust triggers a “moral module” but it is in no way an indicator of something immoral.
Aha! I knew it! It’s ok to have sex with a grocery chicken carcass then eat it.
But not in the grocery store.
It's okay, just don't do it in front of me or we're going to have a problem.
Isn't moral injury an injury? Even JS Mill recognized that the principles of free expression do not protect obscenity.
Define “moral injury”. Burning the Koran?
Off point!
NO, that is simply "blasphemy". Fortunately, we don't have blasphemy laws in a secular society, and it should stay that way.
I think that's a distinction without a difference.
Not really. It involves beliefs and religion. Walking with sperm on your face is neither.
I consider blasphemy to be a category of "moral injury". It's an offense against a societies morality/beliefs that is similar to a racist or sexist statement, or walking around with sperm on your face (but I don't think any of them should be illegal) At it's heart, religion isn't much more than a way to enforce specific morals/beliefs on large groups of people. If you believe God thinks you shouldn't do something than you believe doing that thing is immoral.
I'd say your initial comment is essentially the same as saying "that's not a dog it's a Labrador".
And that's exactly why we don't have blasphemy laws in America but they have them in medieval societies, like Afghanistan or Pakistan. But, again, in the general sphere of "moral values", religion and other spiritual beliefs are a special category. This category alone is protected (freedom of religion), but also citizens are protected against it (no blasphemy laws), the way it should be. I repeat, walking with sperm on your face is not a moral value, it's just societal deviation. We can discuss, of course, if societal deviations should be punished, but that is not even the issue here. Nobody wants to "punish" people for being a deviant, but the society, sometimes, views the said deviants as a danger to themselves and/or to others, and imposes restrictions. You cannot masturbate in public. You cannot defecate in public. You cannot walk naked in public (there are spaces where you can do it, as on a nudists' beach). You cannot torture yourself in public (cut yourself, etc.). Cross-dressing was equally part of this, as it is considered sexual self-gratification. Alas, "well-intended" people have promoted it to the rank of bravery, and now we have people flashing their cocks and fake breasts during parades, and they are applauded. From what I see, the next one is cuming in public and wearing your sperm as makeup. Slippery slope. The society needs a robust discussion about this, but the "progressive" movement (there is nothing progressive about it) has forced it down our throats and has limited (or even outlawed) any debate about it.
I will never look at a glazed donut the same way.
lol
David Lynch is quoted as saying, “Keep your eye on the doughnut, not on the hole.”
In this instance, I’m going to suggest you do exactly the opposite.
Aren't we missing a key distinction here? My thought is that there are plenty of acts that, while they should be legal, should also have such severe social consequences that almost no one does them even if they want to. Before we talk about bringing the full force of criminal sanction on some of these people, is there really no way to talk about rebuilding a culture that makes it social death to do things that even disgust most normie liberals?
I genuinely wonder if you're willing to draw *any* lines. I suspect you're not. Your answer to anything aside from "this thing is bodily touching me" is something like "where's the line?"
You won't draw any obscenity lines, I don't believe. I wish you'd just cop to it.
Various U.S. states banning porn online puts the state, however vicariously, into the bedroom.
Better to make a minimum age and ethics test for internet use, not unlike drivers permits for young adults.
I work with public school youth. Their not being appropriately prepared for the unavoidable internet, is not helping those kids.
Missed point- these people that desperately need to degrade themselves in public tells me that their own judgement is way off anything I can trust and their own perversion is off putting to the rest of society.
Before I address your text, I would like to introduce myself as someone who supports both sex and sexual experimentation in mutual consent.
What the text lacks is the motivation behind any activity.
I remember the sense of awakening in the 1990s in Europe, especially in Berlin—an evolution of the sexual liberation of the 1970s. It was a direct response to the restrictive prudishness of societies that tolerated sexuality only within the framework of reproduction. Yes, even in the ’90s, there was a great need for liberation. Many people I knew, including myself, were exploring what sexuality was really about. It was often pleasurable, sometimes painful, but always exciting and enlightening.
Digital tools have taken the second sexual revolution in a completely different direction than I could have ever imagined. No one in 2000 would have thought that almost everyone would one day be making and publishing their own porn.
This led to a strange distortion of motives. Today, I rarely see hearts that consciously and with integrity want to explore their sexuality. Far more often—almost as a new norm—I see people who derive their thrill from attention and will use any means necessary to provoke it.
This has little to do with play, fun, pleasure, or sexual experimentation. Even when bodies and bodily fluids are involved, it often has nothing to do with sex anymore—which I find very sobering. It seems to be more about showing off than about sensations and experiences. And that is a moral decline that goes much deeper than just sexuality.
What are the reasons today for human beings to do anything at all—besides vanity, money, and unconscious compulsions (compensation, escape, distraction)?
I don’t see the sexual downfall as more shocking than the normalization of violence, indifference to hate, increasing alienation, disrupted communication, and the total loss of meaning. It just becomes especially evident in the realm of sex. And the real question is:
What is each heart willing to do—or to boycott—to make the world a little more livable again?
Lots of questions:
Is it possible to disconnect sex from the framework of reproduction? That is what its for isn't it?
You talk about sex from the hedonistic perspective but it is a strong ingredient of intimacy - does its ubiquity for pleasure destroy the latter?
Indifference to hate? What hate - there is less than ever before, we are living in the most tolerant era in history. This constant appeal-to-hate is paranoid.
What disrupted communication? We are saturated by too much of it instead!
I would answer your final question: people are psychosocially built for lifelong monogamous relationships to produce children. The modern ennui arises from departing this psychological norm that has existed for 000s of years. If we don't turn back Western culture will simply die out and non-libertine ones will replace us.