Point being, how does one define it? Is it the freedom to have as much or none as you want without judgment? What about those who abstain, should they at least try it first before saying they don’t want to be any part of it all?
Machinaforce, try to be more rational and coherent. You linked some random blog by a nut. “Sexual freedom” is ambiguous but the most accurate definition is “two consenting adults can do whatever they want without being concerned about being harassed by law enforcement or religious authorities”.
It doesn’t mean that less attractive adults are going to get laid often, or at all. Sorry for us ugly or poor or short or anyone who isn’t a male in the top 20%, or a female between 18 and 35 who is slim. The rest of us are probably going to get less sex.
Hence what I said “by a nut”. If the author of that blog can “self service” through willpower, it’s quite possible he’s simply got different neurological wiring than most people. In addition, the actual sensation of orgasm without an attractive partner present is not as emotionally satisfying for most adults. So even if you could give yourself amazing orgasms without needing a partner, you probably wouldn’t feel as good about yourself.
I guess future generations will fix the shortage of attractive partners (for both men and women. Confident men with bodybuilder physiques and 6 figure incomes and square jaws and who are towering giants in height who are in their 20s are rare. And similarly, waif thin, tall women with submissive, fun personalities who are between the ages of 18 and 22 are also rare) with robots.
I wouldn’t think the link indicates a popular notion. Are you simply asking “What does the phrase ‘sexual freedom’ mean to you?” I’ve never felt the need to define it, perhaps I am sexually free.
Those of us who were around before sexual freedom know what it means. It means not having to sneak around people of authority (not just parents.) Like lying when you check into a hotel. Like restrictions in dorms about who is allowed in when. It is like landlords not renting to unmarried couples. And it is about gay people not getting arrested.
Yeah, everyone judges, but lack of sexual freedom is about the powers that be judging with the force of law.
Sexual freedom means that society as a whole says to this nut “yeah, whatever.”
If you think there is a shortage of attractive partners, it means you are watching too much TV and seeing too many movies and are not really looking at what is out there. Or that your definition of attractive is way too narrow.
What does hands-off jerk-off have to do with sexual freedom? The dude is just bragging, “I can come without touching my dick!” which is a great party trick for certain parties, but not much of a central organizing principle for a moral philosophy.
Freedom can reasonably be defined negatively or positively. A negative definition means other folks are forbidden from interfering with you; this is the libertarian approach. The positive approach, which I prefer, holds that freedom consists of having the capacity to fulfill your desires.
The negative approach has as a central weakness its limitation: what does it mean to be free if you’re penniless and starving to death? It becomes a fairly trivial value.
The positive approach is much more significant, but also much thornier: many times, two people will find it impossible for both of them to be free by the positive definition. Sex is a great example: if I desire to have sex with you, and you desire not to have sex with me, we are not both free to fulfill our desires.
Thorny; but that’s cool. When freedoms collide, you gotta look at some other principles. Bodily autonomy is a good one to look at. If my desires involve your body, you’ve got a pretty reasonable case (in most circumstances) to tell me to go fuck myself (in this case literally).
So, sexual freedom at its most expansive, when limited by other principles, means this: you are free to use your body for sexual pleasure in any way that involves nobody except yourself and other fully consenting adults. That’s what it means to me.
Makes sense. I mean consent to me is a big part of the sexual freedom. Obviously it’s not going to be pleasant if only one of the parties is interested or willing to perform the act. But I think it’s also the freedom to abstain from sex if you want though not if it’s for some reason of superiority.
Interesting link…but stupid. The blogger extrapolates excessively, going from the universally acknowledged truth that we are not totally free to do anything we want, to arrive at the incorrect – and stupid – conclusion that: “you have never been free, have never experienced any freedom, of any kind.”
Absolutely flaming batshit. Most of us have quite a bit of real freedom. I can say what I think here on the SDMB; I have access to millions of books, movies, and web-sites; I can travel to just about any place on earth; I can quit my job and look for a new one.
Only an idiot would reason, “I must eat to live, and therefore I am enslaved by my metabolism.” Your freedom is limited from being “absolute” by your metabolism, but you aren’t “enslaved” by it unless someone has you in a prison cell and threatens to withhold food unless you cooperate.
“Absolutist” libertarians are not reasoning rationally.
Clearly sexual freedom includes the freedom to abstain if that is what you want. But it doesn’t mean that those who don’t abstain aren’t free, which is what I think this clown is saying.
Man, I don’t know how you read that dude. He comes across as a deeply disturbed halfwit with a thesaurus and delusions of grandeur.
I read all of the “hands off jerk off” article, and I tried this one you just linked to, but that’s quite enough. He has nothing worthwhile to say at all, AFAICT.
If there’s some point you think is important, or interesting, can you summarize?
Huh. I poked around that website, and was redirected to his other site, with this charming caption for a certain famous mugshot:
It doesn’t get less crazy from there.
Edit: boy howdy doesn’t it. He’s not so much specifically a fan of Charles Manson as he is a fan of serial killers in general. Also he talks about his fetish for women with deformed feet.
I think, uh, I think I’m done caring about this idiot’s opinion of freedom.