(December 29, 2017 at 12:36 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: Let's say that you had to choose to either give up the pleasures of eating food, including beverages, or give up the pleasures of having sex, including masturbation. Which would you give up? Assume for the sake of this poll that giving up sex also means you no longer find looking at attractive members of the opposite sex pleasurable. And you never have to eat again for the rest of your life if you give up food. (Say they implant a "nutrition device" in you which eliminates the need for you to either eat or drink again.) (ETA: You no longer get horny, hungry, or thirsty, depending on which you give up. You just no longer have the need.)
So which would you give up, food or sex?
As for my choice, because I enjoy sexual pleasures only once every few days, but I enjoy food several times a day, I would give up sex. What about you?
With all your explanation, I'm not sure I'm completely getting this right, but here goes. I'd give up food, since, while it is more important for sustenance---you can literally live without sex, masturbation, porn, or fetish messageboards (fetlife, zity.biz, and the like)---it's less fascinating, emotional, etc.
If you took away the parameters that I'd no longer find looking at the fairer gender pleasurable, and I'd never have to eat again (maybe because of a nutritional implant), then food becomes way more important because 1) you die without it, and 2) before that happens, the hunger that you'd endure would grow to be horrible. Sexual withdrawal, in all its forms, is frustrating, but usually not that bad a thing.
"For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan