06-09-2021, 11:32 PM
(06-09-2021, 04:47 AM)Captain Genet Wrote: There are some positions in my old posts (especially from Personality Cafe) which now make me cringe:
- Seeing male sexuality as a destructive, barbaric force. In fact, most rapists are driven by anger and desire for power (like the "incel" community shows) and even after castration seek hormones to be able to do the thing again. A healthily socialized man with high libido will seek a high libido wife rather than commit rape. If his wife is not willing, he will use his own hands.
Male sexuality can range from tender and caring (the sort of sexuality that strengthens marriages and keeps women seeking even more of the same) to violent, brutal, and dehumanizing. At tle latter extreme is male sexuality that punishes, abuses, or degrades women. Think of Ted Bundy, who may have been worst because until he did his monstrosities he seemed unlikely to do them. He was the definitive betrayal of expectations. Rape punishes, abuses, degrades, and harms women. Real hate rape and rapists.
Quote:- Seeing sex in general as something that debases a person and distracts from civilized intellectual or cultural pursuits. We "lose" way more time for sleep than for sex. Also, being sexually frustrated warps the mind as shown by 19th century women. Puritanical attitudes won't make a society wholesome, and they would likely make people more interested in porn and prostitution. It's natural for young people to pursue casual sex, and then outgrow it and pursue a long term relationship.
Sex is a primitive drive operating much the same way in creatures as distant from us as mollusks (the most distant phylum from our chordates that can at times be described as "intelligent". The mechanics are much the same for us as for an octopus. Sex in the animal world mostly follows animal world, and some people are still in the animal world when it comes to sex. Worse, some people do much of their sexuality with a harsh judgment of the partner as a loser. Many serial killers find that they have had sex with a prostitute and then kill the prostitute.
Quote:- Genetic determining and looking for genetic engineering as a way to improve public morality. In reality, genetically programmed behaviours are found only in primitive creatures. Tribal warfare is definitely a natural trait of humans, and yet Christianity was able to overcome it not with gene therapies but with ideas. Now we see racism on a way out, also because of ideas and institutional change. Also, genetic modifications without a proper cultural awareness would likely result in parents making their kids pro footballers, supermodels or CEOs rather than idealistic cosmic saints I hope for.
Dating is a crude attempt at judging the 'genetic' desirability of someone to bear or side a child (homosexuality perhaps excepted, and too complex for me to fully understand, so I am not going to discuss it). People seek to assess virtues and abilities. Dating may be one way in which to reject people that one deems grossly inadequate as spouses. Stupidity? Callousness? Cruelty? Immaturity? Deviousness? Disloyalty?
Marriage remains a tricky proposition.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.