Sex: attitudes and philosophy

There is no reason why it can't be had both ways.

Food is meaningful. It is necessary and has a purpose. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy a slice of cherry cheesecake even when I am not hungry.

religion says we should not enjoy sex

evolution has made sex enjoyable so that we keep doing it.

making your body feel good is not some moral issue, only those with issues themselves press that upon people.

Sex is good. There is nothing wrong with it. Be responsible, use protection, but dont let others jaded views dictate what you want to do.

Religion introduced sexual shame.
Religion was introduced to control the masses.

There is nothing wrong with having sex. Your worth is not evaluated by the presence of a hymen in women, or abstaining for men.. Thats just ridiculous and a wonderful way to teach someone shame and remove their self esteem.
Our bodies want to have sex. Sex is a psychological and physical need. There is no shame in that.

Not that simple Shewolf.

The regulation of sex is not a "religious" thing... it is a social thing. Every society (religious or not) has developed rules about what sexual practices are acceptable or not. This includes our society. Our society has very strong rules against adults having sex with adolescents... a practice that was accepted, and even encouraged by other cultures.

Well said She..

As far as I know religion does not forbid us to enjoy sex. But I don´t know the rules and regulations of all religions. But the moral issues have changed over the centuries since the very first religon started.
There are moral and religious issues which make sence. Even though the issues might have started as a religious one it was often taken over by the state laws.
No sex with minors, close relatives, animals, prostitution, rape, forced marriage
and others.

It seems to me that those exceptions were not implied in the original question of the poster.

Let's keep it clean and between consenting adults..

Francis, what does it mean to keep sex "clean"?

This is a thread about doing what is enjoyable versus following social rules. Is there any difference between "keeping sex clean" and following social rules.

And what about prostitution between consenting adults. People obviously find this enjoyable-- is it "clean"?

I meant clean as in a relatioship between consenting adults, according to usual social rules.

Now, it seems people want to talk about pratices at the margin of the mainstrean, like prostitution.

I wouldn't say prostitution isn't clean, unless it's unclean.

It's certainly not part of my actual preoccupations.

If people want to use the services of meretrices or gigolos, who am I to oppose that?

"Usual Social Rules" is an interesting phrase indeed. Social rules of course vary from place to place.

There is a significant subculture in the United States that has a social rule that forbids sex outside of marriage. They are not the majority (any more), but there are many people who are brought up with these social rules and the idea of promise rings (a promise of chastity) are part of our popular culture.

The original posters belief that sex should only be for pleasure is a "social rule" .

Of course, there are similar problems with the term "consenting adult".

A question for Shewolf.

The idea of "fidelity"; that is, the idea that a married man should not have sex with other women, was imposed on us by religion. It was widely propagated in American culture by means of Protestant Christianity.

Evolution made infidelity enjoyable. Should we keep doing it?

I see nothing wrong with infidelity so long as people having the sex are doing it safely ( condoms and such) and the people with in the relationship AGREE to this going on.
If they do not, they need to change their relationship.

Its not about morals in MY mind.. not about ' you are married. sex with others is a no no'.
If the relationship / marriage has 2 people that are ok with that behavior? By all means! go have fun. Its not a problem.

The problem is the society that does not encourage people to explore, enjoy and LIVE sexually, how they choose.

(im finishing this with my words to help explain.)

And the majority , i realize not all, but the majority are based on religious reasons.

Then of course there are medical, scientific reasons as well. Sleeping with your siblings produces retarded people. Those people do not survive and are not meant to survive. that sex produces something tangible , visible, and a concrete reason to NOT do it. That goes against our very core of survival and reproduction. Even if people do not have the words for it ( cavemen for a bare example) you KNEW that it was not going to work. So it was not seen as a definite way to marry. Obviously! Look how long we have been here.


There IS no concrete reason to not have sex.
None.
Diseases.. yes. Use protection.
But the very act of consensual sex has no repercussions. Psychologically? yes. As thinking beings, everything has psychological reasons and repercussions. But sex produces people. We now know how to stop that.
Why is sex still wrong?

psychological aspects aside... because those can be worked out.

if you go back not even 150 years, it used to be common place and expected for teenage girls to marry 30 year old men.
That was just how it was done.
Probably based on the average life span being 40 to maybe 50. To produce children, you needed a woman BEFORE 40.
With many plagues and health issues, people did not live long.
The young and strong were ideal .... not jail bait ()
Nothing was wrong with that. that was how our society was.
With the introduction to modern medicine, people began living longer.
How did that change our mindset? Im clueless.. but its obvious it has.
Maybe its that core survival thing kicking in. You dont need to chase the young ones anymore? (tongue in cheek here...)

It seems to me that "sex issues" are part of the price we pay for our cognitive abilities which allow for "planning" and the anticipation of "consequences". In other words, as clever animals, with a concept of "time", we seek to control everything, including our animal instincts according to their individual and social pay-off values. To this end, social rules are agreed and these are often reified by appeal to "divine authority" aka "religion". Indeed, it can be argued that this is a primary function of religion and a key reason for its invention. (A second reason being the anticipation of our own mortality along the time axis, and attempted "control after death")

Less intelligent animals don't have such problems!

an edit on my infidelity comment.

If someone is secretly cheating, then it becomes an issue of honesty more than sex. That is something that means the relationship is not a good one to begin with. The sex is just a byproduct.
Everyone is capable of being honest and if our society would stop putting up barriers about HOW people can have sex ( consenting adults) you would be more comfortable and able to find a person who would be interested in staying partners while sleeping with other people..

Less intelligent animals have a lot more sex too


great point / post.

if you go back not even 150 years, it used to be common place and expected for teenage girls to marry 30 year old men.
That was just how it was done.

I don´t know what country you are referring to that teenage girls married 30 year old men.
As a rule young people waited to get married until the man could support a family.
I Scandinavia young people came to age for marrying for men at 21 and women at 18. This has changed over the years. Already 1734 according to Swedish law young people were recommended not to marry before 21.

There were similar laws in all of northern Europe.

Is it your view, then, that sex should only be for the purpose of procreation?

That is an invalid assumption Joe...

There are more than two reasons for sex.