It almost makes you think that all life is suffering. And that the root of that suffering is desire. Perhaps the way to end that suffering is to end the desire.
Just a thought…
perhaps the most insightful post thus far
Congratulations! You’re Buddhist!
Fair enough, but you appreciate that the point that pretty much everyone else is making is not “Be repressed” or “Women, for god’s sake don’t have casual sex!”.
We’re just questioning the assumption of the OP, and some later posts, that humans come from a background of free love and it’s just modern society that holds us back from that.
Then don’t try and use a false argument from SCIENCE! to try and give your opinions an importance or universality that they simply do not have.
So the point is, assume the worst, and be pleasantly surprised when you’re wrong? In otherwords, happiness via pessimism?
I can actually get behind that. Of course it doesn’t seem to bear much relationship to anything you’ve said prior, but perhaps you’ve just been being subtle.
Is this an attempt to claim I’m too dumb because I can’t inject meaning into your wandering screeds? Because there’s another possible explanation.
For example this - it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with artificially lowering your expectations. It seems to be arguing for avoiding other people completely, since you can’t control them, and failing that keeping all human interactions as emotionally distant as possible. In other words you’re advocating making sex an empty meaningless act of mutual masturbation.
Which is okay if that’s your thing, I guess, but to me it sounds like a crappy substitute for a real relationship - even if the relationship doesn’t necessarily work out. It’s like you’re offering me a penny and telling me to take it over a 1 in 100 chance for a million dollars. Not a good deal in my opinion.
Okay, I am not surprised that someone got into this thread with the quote before I did.
I am :eek: that it was Friar Ted, who I always mentally picture as a sort of Friar Tuck fellow. I know he’s not actually a priest, but I sort of think of him as one, and I was slightly shocked!
Avoiding people completely? Come on now…
Not at all.
Sex is how we reproduce, correct?
Survive and replicate. Thankfully it feels good to have sex. Is that not good enough? Now you want it to “mean” something?
Only as cultures evolved sex now has meaning.
If having an orgasm is empty and meaningless then maybe you have a crappy way of looking at things.
It’s not the sex that you want but the feeling of someone loving you back? In my opinion that’s weak. My happiness is not created by other people, I create it. People can only make the experience more or less pleasant. But they do not define it.
It seems you oppose this view
So then, why not masturbate? Essentially, the big problem with your argument is that you’re assuming that it’s SOLELY social conditioning that drives the sexual decisions that people make.
I have known more than one person, from varying walks of life and belief structures, who believe that there’s nothing sinful about any configuration of sexual behavior you care to name but THEY PERSONALLY do not enjoy it unless it’s in the context of a emotionally intimate relationship. You are coming across as saying that you believe this is not possible and/or weak.
Emotions have a scientific basis, after all. The chemical transmitters in your brain have physical reality, they are produced and taken up at wildly different rates by different people under different conditions, and denying emotional context to behaviors with a lot of neurotransmitters involved (or saying said context as justification for behavior is “weak”) is just as ascientific as basing your morality on a iron age myth collection.
Not everyone’s brain is wired to be a solo player who can freely take up and discard the companionship of other humans at a whim, and as a matter of fact it would seem to be maladaptive at any number of points in human history, including arguably today.
I don’t oppose you having it, but it’s certainly not for me. And it’s apparently not for all the women you turn down your offers of meaningless quickies, either.
It really does sound like masturbation is the thing for you. Seriously.
End Of Thread. Well played, sir 
Interesting how you assume i’m a man without me ever declaring my gender.
I’m curious to know what got you to that conclusion.
I enjoy having sex with another person.
What i’m saying is I do it for the experience not for love.
and it seems like your friends, Zeriel, can only enjoy it if there is a feeling of love in the air. They can’t be satisfied by just having amazing sex, because it’s only amazing if it’s intimate.
I don’t say it’s weak because you you want to have a fairytale romance.
I say it’s weak because sex is objectively positive and would improve people’s well being if practiced as someone practices a good diet.
What we’re talking about is that the objective experience which is good is not casual because how people feel about it subjectively. It’s a matter of preference, and that preference deprives you of objective goodness.
It’s like taking a pill that is good for you. It’s better if you take it with someone else. But you will only take that pill with someone else if you’re intimate with them?
That seems horrible.
I arrived at this conclusion because in your hypothetical, it was the (weak, weak) woman who said no. If you were extrapolating from personal experience, that would make you the man.
The fact that per the stereotypes your view is much more “male-like” doesn’t hurt either.
In my opinion sex isn’t objectively good. It has this side effect see. One that you can protect against somewhat, but has been known to happen depite all efforts to the contrary. It’s called babies. And from what I hear, they can be a severe buzzkill - especially if you’re only in the relationship (such as it is) for the old bump-'n-grind.
That alone is reason enough for a rational person to be a bit leery of relationship-free sex.
Enough so that I personally have never even spent a single thought considering the merits it might otherwise have. I realize that I’m the minority in this. I suspect that most people prefer to have their cake and eat it too - have their sex, and also have that cuddle afterwards. And maybe even be able to stand talking with the person occasionally.
So yeah, it may be laziness. We just want one-stop-shopping when it comes to positive human interaction.
This answer is based on the fact that one does not practice safe sex.
With safe sex as an alternative to prevent babies from happening how does that change your rationale?
No, it’s based on the fact that I don’t believe that safe sex is 100% effective. Which is to say I think that “safe sex” is a misnomer/fiction.
But in fantasyland where 100% safe safe sex is an alternative…I prefer to one stop shop when it comes to relationships. This is not to say I don’t masturbate - I do! A lot! It’s saying that when it comes to relationships I don’t bother trying to cultivate relationships that will provide me nothing but sex. Relationships are work, and I want more payoff for my efforts.
This is a really strange thread. If I get what the OP is saying, he thinks he should be able to have sex whenever, wherever he wants just because we’re animals. It’s not clear, to me at least, if the other party’s desires come into it at all.
How does that old adage go? Ah yes – “Some people believe with great fervor preposterous things that just happen to coincide with their self-interest.”
The OP presented hypothetical about a couple getting together for a quick shag where the woman demurres at the last minute because, despite wanting meaningless sex, she was held back by the whimpy desire to not to be seen as a slut, and the truly pathetic wish to have some sort of relationship with the male who’s using her as a fuck-toy.
Based on this I conclude the OP is a man (an assumption that was met with protest but not denial), and that the OP is of the opinion that the world would be much better if other people wanted to have casual sex all the time, just like him/her. So s/he’s not advocating rape; to the explicit contrary s/he’s complaining that people really ought to change their attitudes and come to him/her willingly.
She’s just not that into you.
S/He’s advancing the position that nobody should want to be into anyone before submitting to sex with them. So if you were right, his/her plan would work great!
Everyone should be up for casual hook-ups all the time, because sex is always good!
Of course, sex ISN’T always good. Having sex with someone who you find creepy or disgusting can be the opposite of good.
No. I am a Christian, and I believe that typical Christians believe. Since you apparently are ignorant of what that is, perhaps you should read the book.
Meanwhile, I’ve posted some reasons why you’re argument that people would be happier with fewer social restrictions on sex is wrong, and why experience shows that people are happier with those social restrictions on sex in place. Are you going to address those reasons, or is ignoring them the best that you can do?