Thirteen Orphans posted:

I think eating absolutely has moral considerations.

NikkolasKing posted:

I consider myself fairly conservative but if there is one aspect of conservatism that has never made sense to me, it's the anti-sex thing. No doubt this hatred for sex is why progressives tend to valorize it. Neither view has any merit. Sex is like eating or pooping, just something that happens and we move on. It does not deserve any special moral consideration, either for or against.

BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:

there's a definite strain among conservatives, Scalia being the most prominent example, that really really likes using big words needlessly and its always struck me as coming from a place of insecurity where they're aware of how much the intelligentsia leans left/liberal and thinks knowing what munificent means validates their opinions.

In happier news, just as the buddha converted Angulimalla a depraved serial killer to goodness and calmed a drunken elephant intent on killing him, a goose, the most evil of all creatures, has taken refuge within the 3 gems.

Nessus posted:

I believe it is partly because sexuality in general tends to evoke powerful emotions - perhaps the most powerful, on average (though individuals vary) - and partly because most of the sexual requirements tend to be easily distilled into power relations. I suspect they are also understood as power relationships internally, although I would not make more than a general statement on that.

I think sexuality deserves consideration but it is a question on what that consideration should be.

I would take issue with it not deserving particular consideration. It can cause profound emotional impacts on yourself and on others! People will die or kill themselves over it, by inches or all at once! They don't do that over whether or not they should eat onions or shrimp.

NikkolasKing posted:

That's not about the sex, though. People aren't going to kill themselves over a Tinder hookup failing. They might kill themselves over a prolonged series of sexual failures, or a hard break-up with their partner, but in both cases it's less about sex than something much more important.

Nessus posted:

I think if you are considering sex only in the sense of 'genital stimulation to the point of orgasm or fatigue' you are really not considering sex as humans experience it.

Gaius Marius posted:

Considering suicide the only fail state is also really weird. Granted I find modern sexual politics to be repulsive. Hookup culture is leading to a large amount of very unhappy people.

That said I don't think most religions are anti sex. Moreso their anti sex before marriage, you wouldn't consider Christianity anti food because it tells us to fast.

NikkolasKing posted:

And homosexuals and other forms of non-procreative sex?

NikkolasKing posted:

It's very apparent that the simple desire for sex is considered wrong.

NikkolasKing posted:

What is sex if not sexual intercourse...?

I agree sex should be more but those people who are spending all days at gloryholes or meeting each other via apps aren't looking for deep, spiritual connections. They just wanna put their penis in something or have a penis or finger or dildo put in them, probably to help obliterate the feeling of meaninglessness in their lives.

NikkolasKing posted:

What is sex if not sexual intercourse...?

Gaius Marius posted:

You're making a lot of sweeping generalizations that you really should not be.

I would honestly tell you to take a step back and drop your preconceived notions, This is quite possibly the only entirely sincere Thread on this website. Rolling up to the thread and saying all of religion is anti sex is not a great way to start a conversation.

Bar Ran Dun posted:

A whole lot. Sex and the maintenance of a relationship(s?) are not separate things. I mean we want to separate them, we try to separate them, but people get burned hard. If I wake up early to care for the kids, affects my sex like. The care and effort of listening and talking with my spouse, affects my sex life.

Now it’s different for different people. Different parts of relationships and even negative acts in relationships affect peoples sex lives. The various rules and prohibitions in religion about sex are problematic because they are universalized yet originate from specific time periods and specific cultures. So that ends up hurting people. But they point to the idea that how we treat each other and how we act towards each other is tied up with having sex and trying to have healthy relationships.

NikkolasKing posted:

I never said anything like "all of religion is anti-sex". We're talking about our Christian society here, not India or Japan and what Hinduism or Buddhism say on sex. (and of course there being a billion sects of both of them, many of which have their own sacred texts, complicates any statement of that kind)

NikkolasKing posted:

What is sex if not sexual intercourse...?

I agree sex should be more but those people who are spending all days at gloryholes or meeting each other via apps aren't looking for deep, spiritual connections. They just wanna put their penis in something or have a penis or finger or dildo put in them, probably to help obliterate the feeling of meaninglessness in their lives.

And homosexuals and other forms of non-procreative sex?

The greatest Catch-22 of all of it is they'll say don't gently caress but also don't masturbate which helps mediate the desire to gently caress. So people are just left sewing in agony. It's very apparent that the simple desire for sex is considered wrong.

HopperUK posted:

You're still being too sweeping in your generalisation here. Whose Christian society? I'm a British-Irish Roman Catholic, for example. That's not the same 'Christian society' as an evangelical Midwesterner, or a Presbyterian Scotsman, or even a Roman Catholic Italian.

NikkolasKing posted:

And the folks who are on Tinder or Grindr? This is all really on my mind because a Twitch streamer I follow recently recounted a story of meeting a guy via Grindr. The dude didn't have any furniture so they ended up having to gently caress on the floor. Also the guy ruined the whole thing by saying "your mom's dead? I'm so sorry." It was a very weird story.

But it was clear, for him, that this was just...sex. Physical contact of genitals. No deeper meaning at all. So do you think all sex has to have the things you speak of and folks like that streamer are mistaken?

NikkolasKing posted:

But no Catholic authority I've ever read or spoken to has anything good to say about sex outside of the supreme exception of marriage and procreation. Which is not good but it really is the "masturbation is a sin" idea that irks me most deeply. I don't like the idea of people having casuals ex but the best way to prevent that is encouraging masturbation.

HopperUK posted:

Catholic teaching is that sex has a particular place, yeah. I don't really agree with how strict it is. But I also am not sure of your premise there. Does masturbation prevent casual sex? Seems unlikely to me.

quote:

E: even then my point was that 'our Christian culture' is a meaningless phrase unless you're specifying which one and whose because it's different all over the place.

NikkolasKing posted:

What is sex if not sexual intercourse...?

I agree sex should be more but those people who are spending all days at gloryholes or meeting each other via apps aren't looking for deep, spiritual connections. They just wanna put their penis in something or have a penis or finger or dildo put in them, probably to help obliterate the feeling of meaninglessness in their lives.


And homosexuals and other forms of non-procreative sex?

The greatest Catch-22 of all of it is they'll say don't gently caress but also don't masturbate which helps mediate the desire to gently caress. So people are just left sewing in agony. It's very apparent that the simple desire for sex is considered wrong.

NikkolasKing posted:

I agree sex should be more but those people who are spending all days at gloryholes or meeting each other via apps aren't looking for deep, spiritual connections. They just wanna put their penis in something or have a penis or finger or dildo put in them, probably to help obliterate the feeling of meaninglessness in their lives.

CarpenterWalrus posted:

Ultimately, religions try to control how people engage sexually because that's an excellent way to control their behavior generally. .

CarpenterWalrus posted:

Ultimately, religions try to control how people engage sexually because that's an excellent way to control their behavior generally. You control how and when people gently caress and you can get them to do basically whatever you want.

Valiantman posted:

I see this claim on the internet, and only there, a lot and it infuriates me how disingenious it is. While I don't doubt that there are cults that do so, I have never ever met a religion that wants to control people. Yes, some commandments and rules might be very strict, depending on the religion, and yes, some people are power hungry or otherwise want to control others and yes, sometimes the power hungry people are religious people. But it sounds like a conspiracy theory that a religion wants to control people.

Who does that even mean, exactly? Who does that accusation target? I'm deeply religious and I believe that the world would be a better place if people were more responsible in their lives which naturally includes their sex lives. Do I want to control people? Heck no, that's completely the opposite of why I am religious in the first place. I, until recently, teached teenagers. Those teachings included relatively conservative (for this forum) biblical values regarding sexual behaviours. I know there is no secret cabal in my religion that makes up rules to control people so I feel personally attacked. Who else could it even mean that us who try to teach what we believe and why?

Lutha Mahtin posted:

Fritz the Horse posted:

TIL apparently Buddha prescribed cow urine as a medicine for most/all diseases and ailments. It's one of the Buddha's most ignored teachings.

http://www.meditation2.net/htdocs/Books9/Bhikkhu_Dhammajiva_The_Buddha_Medicine.htm

I don't have a better link, was just told this offhand

CarpenterWalrus posted:

Most Christian sects control how and under what circumstances people have sex. Sex before marriage is a sin (PS only the right kind of marriage counts). Sex for fun is a sin. Sex between same-sex people is a sin. Masturbation is a sin. In some sects, sexual excitement and fantasy are lumped in with "adultery" and "covetous thought." Sexual "purity" is a powerful concept to the American Christian and great pains are taken to adhere to that idea. It seems difficult to believe that you'd be unaware of things like purity vows, purity rings, purity balls, girls signing over their virginal purity to their fathers, the Christian side-hug, etc., if you're deeply religious. These things aren't secret at all.

Based on some of your spelling, you probably aren't American. The CoE very famously forbade divorce to the point that death and murder was the preferable alternative. Is this not an attempt to control how people have sex? The Catholic Church forbids birth control, either as a means of maintaining their population or by ensuring pregnancy as a punishment for sex, or encouraging Catholic marriages by saying having children out of wedlock is sinful. Again, these policies aren't secret. It's worth examining why you, personally, feel attacked by recognizing these things.

CarpenterWalrus posted:

Most Christian sects control how and under what circumstances people have sex. Sex before marriage is a sin (PS only the right kind of marriage counts). Sex for fun is a sin. Sex between same-sex people is a sin. Masturbation is a sin. In some sects, sexual excitement and fantasy are lumped in with "adultery" and "covetous thought." Sexual "purity" is a powerful concept to the American Christian and great pains are taken to adhere to that idea. It seems difficult to believe that you'd be unaware of things like purity vows, purity rings, purity balls, girls signing over their virginal purity to their fathers, the Christian side-hug, etc., if you're deeply religious. These things aren't secret at all.

Based on some of your spelling, you probably aren't American. The CoE very famously forbade divorce to the point that death and murder was the preferable alternative. Is this not an attempt to control how people have sex? The Catholic Church forbids birth control, either as a means of maintaining their population or by ensuring pregnancy as a punishment for sex, or encouraging Catholic marriages by saying having children out of wedlock is sinful. Again, these policies aren't secret. It's worth examining why you, personally, feel attacked by recognizing these things.

Slimy Hog posted:

I don't even know where to start with this other than to say you have a flawed and very narrow understanding of the way Christianity views sex

Smoking Crow posted:

valiantman is finnish

church of england exists because henry viii wanted to get a divorce (among other things don't hate episcopals)

Bar Ran Dun posted:

Here’s a point to start thinking about how complicated an issue sex in Christianity is: Carnaval

CarpenterWalrus posted:

I've always understood Carnaval and celebrations like it to be sort of release-valves for otherwise pent-up and repressed urges. They typically come just before or after periods of abstinence like Lent, right? On a smaller scale, evangelicals hold revivals in the same tents, on the same grounds, with the same organ player and audience as carnivals. Anton LaVey was inspired to write the Satanic Bible in part because he played organ for both the carnivals and preachers and saw the same people going to both events: first to get freaky, then to repent. And, just because the Church allows carnival, carnivale, carnaval, etc. to exist, doesn't mean that they condone the typically promiscuous activity that happens there. I still see carnaval/carnival as part of the cycle of guilt/forgiveness that is Christianity's bread and butter.

Fritz the Horse posted:

guilt: butter
forgiveness: bread
grace: toaster??

CarpenterWalrus posted:

I've always understood Carnaval and celebrations like it to be sort of release-valves for otherwise pent-up and repressed urges. They typically come just before or after periods of abstinence like Lent, right? On a smaller scale, evangelicals hold revivals in the same tents, on the same grounds, with the same organ player and audience as carnivals. Anton LaVey was inspired to write the Satanic Bible in part because he played organ for both the carnivals and preachers and saw the same people going to both events: first to get freaky, then to repent. And, just because the Church allows carnival, carnivale, carnaval, etc. to exist, doesn't mean that they condone the typically promiscuous activity that happens there. I still see carnaval/carnival as part of the cycle of guilt/forgiveness that is Christianity's bread and butter.

CarpenterWalrus posted:

Please elaborate! As far as I know, I haven't said anything that's factually incorrect. You might argue about WHY Christianity regulates sex among its adherents, but to say that Christianity doesn't have those regulations, rules, and laws is demonstrably false. The whole point of this thread is elucidation and I welcome correction.

quote:

Ultimately, religions try to control how people engage sexually because that's an excellent way to control their behavior generally. You control how and when people gently caress and you can get them to do basically whatever you want.