Well, when your place is at the top of the [DEL]food[/DEL] slave-owning chain it becomes more palatable.
Jeff Sessions: Well, you know, Colin, I’ve actually, I’ve had some memory problems stemmin’ from a childhood trauma.
Colin Jost: A childhood trauma? What was that?
Jeff Sessions: The passin’ of the Civil Rights Act.
Man, I’m going to miss Sessions when he goes. I mean, I won’t actually miss Jeff Sessions at all, but I will miss Kate McKinnon playing Jeff Sessions.
Stranger
OK, this thread is a tad odd because of the repeated use of “Them” or “They”. I’m always uncomfortable when the conversation becomes about them, implying, as it does, that we’re all on the same side here.
So- I am locally progressive, nationally conservative, and an outsider making a quick judgement might decide I’m of a libertarian bent. Comes from growing up where mother nature can and will kill you- creates certain self-sufficiency tendencies.
But- I learned a long time ago that it doesn’t matter WHAT you love. The most important factor for me, in terms of those I chose to consider friends or members of my social sphere, is whether or not you are CAPABLE of love. So many, many people really aren’t. Sometimes I think its where evil begins. I may be straight, but I’d rather be stranded on a desert island with someone of any conceivable preferences who is honestly able to love another human being than a movie-star gorgeous woman who is not. (All this is to keep me from getting flamed for my thoughts, I guess).
Conservative philosophy as I understand it is an emphasis about using society’s collective resources as efficiently and prudently as possible for the optimal progress of society.
Sex, sexuality, reproductive function- these are all societal resources. The question was, “why so interested?”. I submit it is congruent with the general philosophical stance of the conservative. I do not argue that the positions defended or argued are therefore correct or even that there is some “optimum” sexuality function, like some sort of bizarre free market invisible hand.
I’m just saying conservatives being concerned with other’s sexuality "resources"is something that fits with the conservative concern with allocation of all and everybody’s resources. From this perspective, its not that surprising. No need to bring in religion, demonize narrow-mindedness, or whatever.
Conservative thinking lays down a reason for societal concern, or at least interest. That many have taken that basic and minor construct and run wild with it is a fault of their reasoning, not conservatism per se. I differentiate the snowball at the top of the mountain (resource use) and the avalanche at the bottom (any given day’s scandal du jour).
I have never seen any evidence that this is even remotely true.
If anything the converse is true with ‘conservative’ thinktanks like The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute lobbying for unrestricted exploitation of petroleum, oil, and outer resources for the benefit of major corporations regardless of the impacts and effects upon current and future generations.
Stranger
… but it seems true that conservatives do regard other people’s sexuality and reproduction as community-owned resources.
But not their money.
Capitalist money, but communist sex (not even socialist, because they’re not saying you’re required to give a portion of it - they’re saying it was never yours).
I’ve never quite understood the point of threads like this. You get almost every answer from a non-conservative, mostly making fun of that position.
Why would a conservative want to really answer, then, if he’ll get piled on but 15 different people?
I’m not even implying that the OP is dishonest, but it’s clear that he’ll get the answers he already thought were true and never the actual conservative perspective.
I guess communist-sexually the polygamist groups are the approximate equivalent of the corrupt Soviet system where “communism” ended up meaning the party bosses owned everything.
That’s because it’s a difficult topic where misunderstanding is the rule rather than the exception. It’s not a reason to give up trying to understand. And criticizing each other’s arguments really is an effective way forward, even though it obviously isn’t efficient.
And there is a forthright and calling-it-as-he-sees-it response from MattDHat right there, which taught me something I never understood about what it means to be a conservative. I’m less stupid than I was yesterday. Somewhere in the universal balance, me being slightly less stupid is probably a good thing.
Note that the way I express my new-found bit of understanding may sound wrong-headed to him or to other conservatives, but since just about everything I say sounds wrong-headed to a conservative, that’s neither here nor there.
That’s why the thread is in Great Debates. If a conservative is rolling in Great Debates they’re presumed to have the steel will required to face challenges to their position - and sufficient experience to realize that this is the SDMB; conservative positions (and liberal positions) will be challenged.
As I’m the charitable sort of person, I’d assume the OP is honestly trying to make some sense of the bizarre and freakish behaviors in question due to honestly not understanding how a rational and informed person could hold such opinions. Conservatives who have these opinions on the policing of such sexuality do indeed subject their thought processes to examination, though - for example I, too, am flabbergasted by the bizarre claim that american conservatives as a whole have efficiency as a primary goal.
I think that part of his argument was poorly worded or poorly thought out, but I’m satisfied to just ignore that, or wait for a better explanation, or even just read it as “insert hand-waving here”, because he made the other part so crystal-clear to me. Thank you MattDHat.
Is that the one where you sit on your hand until it goes numb and then…wait…never mind.
As to your real point, why would someone’s sexuality be considered a resource? I mean, I get that monogamous, heterosexual couples generally lead to babies, which equals families, which equals cohesive communities with shared goals, etc. But, any cursory look around today will tell you that we’re not living in hunter-gatherer times. We don’t need to constantly replenish the members of our tribe, so sex without babies is not an issue. Gay couples are just as like to have kids and straight couples, so it’s not like gay marriage threatens the idea of the family unit. What keeps Conservatives from looking at the world around them and acknowledging basic facts?
Conservatism (today, at least) seems to constantly shout about “freedom” while cheering for authoritarianism. I don’t get it either. I can only assume that they think the freest person is the one who gets to tell everybody else what to do. And they all think they’re going to be the ones in charge.
ETA: This post ends up not just being about gay men, but about the broader issues of why conservatives view sex as a communist-style resource.
I have heard a theory (no doubt put forward by a liberal) that in the case of the stereotypical conservative attitude toward gay men it’s not necessarily an idea of their being dirty or something, but an idea that they are freeloaders - because a gay man would not “do his part for the community” in terms of breeding.
In a modern society, not everyone has to be a breeder - there are many ways to contribute to society - and in fact there are many people who it’s just as well they don’t have children. 
In an earlier time, if you had no children, then the main fact was that you were not contributing to the growth and maintenance of the work force - and in a tiny group of humans farming by hand, that gap in the work force could considerably increase the risk of trouble (or death) for everyone.
Affluence leads to liberalism.
Liberals can reject and mock traditional family structures and sexual mores because modern retirement accounts, pensions, and safety nets ensure their well being no matter what happens.
In poorer countries, having children and maintaining strong family bonds are strategies for survival in old age and in illness and disability. Conservative positions on sex are partly a legacy of that thinking.
I suspect homosexuality and divorces would be a lot less popular if pensions weren’t readily available. But pension and safety nets exist, and people can largely do what they want sexually. And that has it’s own benefits and pitfalls.
N/m, didn’t realize this was GD.
So pensioners are having a lot of sex? Who knew?
Sure, this makes sense (although I don’t think anyone is mocking traditional families). As does DavidwithanR’s previous post. But since we do live in an affluent society that takes steps to ensure the long term care of the marginalized and the elderly, why don’t Conservatives update their thinking? And why are they so eager to destroy that social safety net?
If we can meet the needs of the ill and disabled through pensions, social security, and medicare, and Conservatives still want to wipe out those programs, then survival cannot be their true goal. Once again they’ve chosen to focus on controlling people’s sexual selves to the detriment of everyone and everything else.
Oh, yeah. It was conservatives who took that It Takes a Village to Raise a Child meme and ran with it.
This is a brilliant analysis, and comes closer to sating my curiousity on the issue than anything else that I’ve heard or read before does. I’ve known for a long time that the authoritarian tendency is just about the worst human trait of all, and at the base of much bad behaviour.
I don’t know if this has been mentioned yet, but one of the ways that power structures stay in place is to keep their subjects in a constant state of low level guilt and anxiety.Because sex is one of an individual’s most basic drives, making them (the big “them”) accept the notion that 1: outside authority has the right to judge and sanctioon one’s sexual behaviours, thoughts and 2: that there’s something wrong with their sexual proclivities–is an excellent and easy method of instilling that mindset.
One is left to ponder how much of the common acceptance of coercion from outside is the actual activity of power-grabbing leaders, and leaders manques, and how much of it is the cowardice, conformism and inertia of the run of humanity.
(Bolding mine)
Isn’t the bolded passage, that you are as free as the amount of shit you can do to your fellow-beings without fearing the consequences, basically the thrust of Albert Camus’ Caligula?