Either that, or it becomes customary for women to arm themselves, and train themselves to be willing to kill.
Would that be a better future than the one Quartz described, or worse?
OK, then, human sexuality is a “powerful, anarchic force,” so we need to impose restrictions on it, on a societal level. Which practices are “best“ to do away with? Are we best off discouraging homesexuality, and/or bestiality, and/or rape, and/or pederasty, and/or anything besides good, old heterosexual congress between adults within the context of marriage (the latter of which I really enjoy, besides the marriage part)?
Can’t agree more. Absolute freedom (sexual or otherwise) only exists in the Hobbesean state of nature, which I think (although Der Trihs’s comment may possibly be a falsification of this) that all of us regard as bad.
The real question is “are there valid reasons for making <Particular_Sexual_Unorthodoxy> illegal?”. If the OP were to state what the unorthodoxy s/he objects to is, the debate might be more productive.
From what I’ve seen, heard, and read, the populace of Pompei was pretty liberated sexually. They seem to have gotten along.
At least they did until God sent them a firestorm. 
If you mean this, then I can’t disagree with you. I personally disapprove of gambling, but I would not support any movement to ban it. If everything (with the aforementioned caveats) is permitted, but if people are allowed to express their disapproval of certain practices, then we’re close to establishing the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.
Unfortunately, far too many people want to ban what they disapprove of. This is the heart of the issue.
Throughout history and in some modern cultures, incest in certain circumstances is perfectly acceptable. The Egyptian royalty married their brothers and sisters, and some African tribes allow father-daughter sex as a ritual blessing before a hunt. If it were completely “unnatural” no one would ever do it.
Whether you realize it or not, you are a product of your socialization. Everything you believe about what is right and wrong has been formed by your primary socializers and the society around you. Babies are born with no moral code whatsoever. Later on in life what that baby is taught is fo firmly engrained into its sense of self that certain reactions (such as disgust at the thought of incest) may seem innate, but they are simply the reaction dictated by your socialization.
Believe it or not, if your culture taught you that your first sexual experience should be with a sibling, you’d think it perfectly natural and look forward to it. Look at it this way: our culture teaches us that a woman should cover her breasts in public. If a woman found her top had suddenly dissapeared while she was at work, she’d be horribly embarrassed. She’d feel naked, exposed, shamed. But Amazonian women never wear tops, and probably pity American women for being so repressed.
I read of an experiment some time back. Volunteers were brought into a lab and given copious amounts of water to drink. When the urge to urinate became unbearable, the researchers urged the volunteers to wet their pants. Some did, but others were actually unable to do so. The socialization against wetting their pants was so incredibly strong they felt physically incapable of doing so in front of others.
Our bathroom taboos are a perfect example of socialization seeming to be innate. In some other cultures, people just simply squat and pee when they feel the urge, despite who may be watching or where they are. Others use communal bathrooms (ever seen those old-fashioned outhouses with multiple seats?) These notions are horrifying to us, but are perfectly normal to others.
No, I don’t.
Taboos are forms of social control. Societies need rules and structure in order to get along smoothly, and also graduations of those rules. For example, running a stop sign is a “little bad” in our society, whereas incest is a “big bad.” We would not punish an offender of the first as strongly as we would punish one who comitted the latter.
Human beings (and all social animals) seem to need these rules and boundaries, and every society designs its own set of rules based on its culture and environment. It’s part of a culture’s identity (and aids in that fun notion of xenophobia.) It’s also a way of demarcating status.
No, because your socialization began long before you became sexually aware.
Twins sometimes fondle one another’s genitals while still in the womb. A child’s natural curiosity about the other sex sometimes leads them to touch or explore siblings until Mom’s horrified reaction teaches them quickly that it’s not okay to touch their sister there.
Lissa, I love your mind. 
It’s a pity that Freud is so unpopular these days.
Because absolute sexual freedom for ME would lead to absolute sexual repression for YOU. How can this be, you ask?
I have a desire to mate with human females. I also have a desire not to have those females mate with males other than me. I don’t want my wife having sex with other men. I, however, want to have sex with many other women. But I don’t want those women to have sex with other men either, I want them to have sex only with me.
If you don’t allow me to have sex with dozens of women, and at the same time allow me to prevent those women from having sex with other men, then you are denying my sexual freedom. I cannot achieve absolute sexual freedom for myself without restricting the sexuality of just about everyone I meet–the women I want to have sex with, and the men who might want to have sex with those women. And oddly enough–get this–there are lots and lots of men who have very similar sexual desires. If the large fraction of men who felt like me were given license to express our sexuality freely…well, it wouldn’t be pretty.
The bottom line is that absolute sexual freedom for everyone is logically impossible, since many conceptions of sexual freedom include restricting the sexual freedom of others. How can I have sexual freedom if I can’t have sex with whoever I want? But if I can have sex with anyone I want, I’ve taken away their sexual freedom! If I want to have sex with a woman (or man), what happens if they don’t want to have sex with me? Whose absolute sexual freedom will be violated, mine or theirs? What gives other people the right to say I shouldn’t be able to have sex with them, that violates my rights! What gives people the right to say I’m wrong when I don’t allow my women to have sex with other men, that violates my rights!
It’s logically impossible, it doesn’t even mean anarchy, it means nothing.
Ah yes, it’s not a sexual crime. It’s about violence. It’s just like every other violent crime where you ejaculate. It’s no different from if you were to go into a convenience store, pistol-whip the manager, empty out the cash register, and then come. Or if you went into a bank with a vest made of dynamite and a detonator in your hand, threatened to blow up the building, got an erection, told all the customers to lie down on the floor, started breathing heavily as your skin became flushed, demanded that the tellers fill a paper bag with hundred dollar bills while you groaned involuntarily, then ran out to your getaway car as semen shot from your penis. There’s nothing sexual about that.
[/Loveline]
Yeah, I picked up on a certain psychoanalytic tone to Lissa‘s posts, and I love her mind, too. I miss Freud, as well. However, I still think his work made better literature than psychological truth. Another topic…
Interesting observation, but why do you think it would end up this way?
I understand that you’re kidding, but plenty of people would take that statement as literal and absolute truth. Are we punished somehow (by the Big Guy) for sexual liberation?
For the record (I’ve seen others mention cousins), it’s actually legal to marry your cousin in 26 states.
Also for the record, that site totally skeeves me out.
Bee-yootifully expressed!
I guess that the pith of the matter is that sex, at least as we’re discussing it, involves two persons, or at least two entities. This would, of course, not include masturbation. An old Marine once told me, “If it’s got a hole, a man has tried to fuck it.” But where you’ve got more than one person involved, you have the possibility of one of them (or more) feeling slighted somehow.
I very much respect your conclusion that what amounts to the topic of this debate “means nothing.” Rather than walk down the well-worn path of, “Duh, I can‘t get my head around it it, so it must be a bad topic for debate,” you have chosen instead to offer an incising analysis of the matter at hand, phrased in the form of relevant questions and assertions.
I applaud you, but I’m not done, yet.
It’s forbidden. bDOOM kssh
So, Lissa. I said Some things are just wrong. You disagreed. So you think murder isn’t really wrong, we were just brought up to think so.
I think you may see the error of this statement here. Lots of people do unnatural things that are harmful. If they DO them then, that makes it okay. Is that what you are saying?
You may want to read her statement again. She said if it were completely unnatural, no one would do it. Since people do it, it isn’t completely unnatural, but that’s not the same as saying it’s not harmful or that it’s “okay”. Plenty of natural things are harmful, and vice versa.
Did I give you the impression that I approved of what I was talking about ? No, I was just laying out what I felt were the consequences. Lemur866 said it better, however.
Nope, it’s been tried. For example, in China it was once a custom for rich families with many sons to adopt a poor girl baby and raise her to be an acceptable wife ( makes sense if you believe in arranged marriages to begin with ). It didn’t work very well; despite the lack of taboos, they just didn’t find each other attractive. Being raised like siblings made them uninterested in each other.
Another example : Children raised communally seldom marry.
Another Example : Women can detect by scent how similar the major histocompatibility complex ( MHC, a molecular “label” used by the immune system ) of a man is to their own; if it’s too similar, they find his scent unattractive sexually.
The Soviet tried and failed for decades to propagandize people into Communist drones; they wanted to create “Soviet Man”. They even denied Darwinism and embraced Lamarkism because of this. They failed; people are what they are, and no amount of propaganda can change people beyond a certain point.
Try reading The Blank Slate, a recent book on this subject.