sexual orientation issue

[Rayaan]

Why so serious?

Say it like this:

[Chido-Wan Kenobi]

Ok, guys... my mistake! I seem to be glaringly out of place with the prevailing attitude around here. On the practical side of this, if I wanted to exchange ideas with a roomful of snarky teenagers, I could have joined Facebook and spend my time discussing "Jersey Shore", or finding out who is Taylor Swift dating. So, I'll just be negative a while longer and go talk to some adults.

Have a nice day.

[Faith No More]

Ok, guys... my mistake! I seem to be glaringly out of place with the prevailing attitude around here. On the practical side of this, if I wanted to exchange ideas with a roomful of snarky teenagers, I could have joined Facebook and spend my time discussing "Jersey Shore", or finding out who is Taylor Swift dating. So, I'll just be negative a while longer and go talk to some adults.

Have a nice day.

I've tried to be reasonable about this, but calling me a snarky teenager because I won't submit to your politically correct policing is indicative of someone who is frustrated that people aren't as ultra-sensitive as they are. The last ditch effort of the thought police is to label anyone who doesn't think like they do as inherently immature. Maybe you should go to facebook to spend your time discussing Jersey Shore as you would be more comfortable that way, and we wouldn't have to walk on eggshells around your fragile ego.

[Tiberius]

Ok, guys... my mistake! I seem to be glaringly out of place with the prevailing attitude around here. On the practical side of this, if I wanted to exchange ideas with a roomful of snarky teenagers, I could have joined Facebook and spend my time discussing "Jersey Shore", or finding out who is Taylor Swift dating. So, I'll just be negative a while longer and go talk to some adults.

Minimalist is by far the most offensive member on these forums, and he's in his 60's...

[Violet]

Ok, guys... my mistake! I seem to be glaringly out of place with the prevailing attitude around here. On the practical side of this, if I wanted to exchange ideas with a roomful of snarky teenagers, I could have joined Facebook and spend my time discussing "Jersey Shore", or finding out who is Taylor Swift dating. So, I'll just be negative a while longer and go talk to some adults.

Minimalist is by far the most offensive member on these forums, and he's in his 60's...

And is the second most reputable member here as of now.

Few of us particularly enjoy Jersey Shore and I'm pretty sure most of us could not care less whom Taylor Swift is dating every second Tuesday. Infact, I'm our own personal Soap Opera, and polyamorous to boot

Legally, I'm an adult in america as of 9-10 days ago But you know... I never cared for legality anyhow.

[BethK]

Well, I've got a minority opinion of incest, judging by the posts here.

Inbreeding - e.g., incest - has long been used by animal breeders to breed in a particular trait, to reinforce that trait. After generations of inbreeding the strain, you've got smaller dogs, or differently-colored rabbits, or longer-haired cats, or larger cattle. Inbreeding has been done to a great degree with the mice that are used in all sorts of experiments.

Bottlenecks in populations have been shown to produce a higher level of deformities in the first few generations. But, given a lack of medical care, and that those without the bad gene dying before they can reproduce, after about 4 generations that particularly bad, recessive, and lethal gene is removed from the population's gene pool.

Lines of monarchs have been severely inbred for hundreds or thousands of years. The royal families of Europe and of North Africa have some hereditary conditions - such as hemophilia and color blindness. The pharaohs of Ancient Egypt were even more inbred over a dynasty, and they too had some genetic disorders that we can tell from looking at mummies and ascertain from reading histories. In Ancient Egypt, pharaohs married their sisters and produced the next Pharaoh - and his wife. They had a high coefficient of being inbred if the pharaoh had parents who were brother and sister who were descended from parents who were brother and sister who were descended from parents who were brother and sister... They still mostly live to adulthood with few problems. Until the last few generations of European monarchs, there was no access to medical care that could adequately address such problems.

Some of these foetuses with severe genetic birth defects are, indeed, miscarried. However, fewer miscarriages or spontaneous abortions happen when the parents are first cousins, with modern studies. That's believed to be because of the consanguinity making the body chemistry between mother and foetus more harmonious - her body is less likely to attack it as a foreign protein.

Rates for marrying a relative vary between nations and societies. Worldwide, approximately 20% of all marriages occur between first cousins. In the US, it's about 1:250 while in Japan it's about 1:4. It's perfectly legal in most countries, including all of Europe. It's illegal in 26 US States.

Even at that, the rate for birth defects - e.g., Down's Syndrome is much higher for a mother who is over 40 than the rate is even for a brother/sister pairing. If we're going to use the risk of birth defects as a reason to disallow a particular type of sexuality or even potentially procreative sexuality, it would be far better to allow cousin marriages (and children of marriages) than to allow women over 40 to marry, be sexually active, or have children. See http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/humanna...rhood.aspx

"Children of non-related couples have a 2-3% risk of birth defects, as opposed to first cousins having a 4-6% risk. Genetic counseling is available for those couples that may be at a special risk for birth defects (e.g. You have a defect that runs in your family) In plain terms first cousins have at a 94 percent + chance of having healthy children. Check the links section for more information on genetic counselors. The National Society of Genetic Counselors estimated the increased risk for first cousins is between 1.7 to 2.8 percent" http://www.cousincouples.com/?page=facts

Note too that no one alive is any more distant from anyone else alive than 27th cousin. Most of us are much closer than that - especially if we are of the same race, live in or come from the same country or region. And, genetic deformities occur with people who are not known to be related, or are known to be related only very distantly - e.g., 5th cousins or more.

The bottom line is that I don't see anything inherently wrong with incest, per se. I do see problems when it's confounded by someone being a prepubescent child, or some sort of relationship where the power balance was such that someone could not "say no". In those cases, it's nothing more or less than rape or child molestation. If both people are adults, it's fine.

In the animal breeding case, especially the inbreeding done to somehow improve a line of animals, or in the observed cases of genetic bottlenecks requiring inbreeding, the one thing that keeps it going, or allows it to in some way improve that bloodline is that those with the observed manifestation of the deformity absolutely must be culled. That is, that they are not allowed to reproduce - culled does NOT necessitate killing them! In the case of show-animal breeding, the culls are sold as "pet quality", and either don't reproduce or don't reproduce back with the show quality animals. In the case of humans, they could simply be sterilized. But, somehow that's "wrong" because we're human but it's not "wrong" to sterilize an animal with a defect.

I'll come back and answer the other questions about various sexual practices and "orientations".

[Anymouse]

1. What do you think about incest?
2. What do you think about sex with animals?
3. What do you think about sex with dead people (and perhaps, also with animals)?
4. What do you think about minor sex (e.g. 8 years old)?
5. What do you think about male homosexuality?
6. What do you think about female homosexuality?
7. What do you think about prostitution and paid sex?

Well, the short answers:
[1] Zenith notes that he does not consider "cousin sex" incest. First problem of incest: it is a matter of opinion, not biology.

Incest is Government and church defined sex crime. The government or the church tells you who you may have sex with. I would point out that the eugenics argument of "it passes on birth defects" does not wash. So does being over forty. So does having birth defects and engaging in sex, period.

(Sorry to my own son: you'll have to turn over your life to the "Sex Police" because your father has epilepsy and that's a birth defect you know. You "should never have been born." Eugenics doesn't wash very well with a "pro-life" stance that many churches take.)

That argument has been used by certain politicians before, starting in the United States [eugenics, supported by many churches here to remove "undesirables"], which was the inspiration for Hitler's programme. (He said so in Mein Kampf.)

I could even toss in the argumentum ad Hitlerium that the Nazis killed those with epilepsy (using the same drug I take for it to-day). But then, churches killed people with epilepsy, too. Still do in some countries. And governments forcibly sterilised them. In the USA. Until the 1970's. By calling them "feeble-minded." Sorry, dad and son, turn over your Mensa cards.

In Africa, sickle-cell anaemia confers immunity to malaria, arguably a good thing there. In the USA, it is a birth defect.

Concerning the oft-cited but misapplied definition for incest - paedophelia - they are not the same thing.

Keep the government out of the bedrooms of consenting adults. Period. The key words here are consenting adults.

[2] Not my thing. I would point you to the Garfunkel & Oates song "Sex with Ducks" on YouTube. (It's a hoot.) [3-7 follow video] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXPcBI4CJc8

[3] I try not to.

[4] Minors have sex with each other all the time. Send 'em to prison. Seriously though, what is 'minor sex?' In the United States it varies by state and by marital status. (For example, in Kansas, a twelve-year-old resident may marry anyone [of the opposite sex, of course, as the government wants to be in your bedroom with you to tell you who you can have sex with], with parental consent, and recently when a man did this with a fourteen-year-old and then returned to his home in Kansas City, Missouri, he was jailed.)

[5] See last line of [1]

[6] Sis, the Sex Police in my former state want to arrest you for your lesbian marriage. Don't go there. See also the last line of [1]

[7] To quote George Carlin: Selling is legal. Fucking is legal. Why is selling fucking illegal? Two of my best friends are prostitutes. (Really.) The argument that "poverty drives women (and men) into prostitution" does not wash. (Neither of them is poor.) So we will solve the problem of poverty by taking away one of the few things that such a person can sell and making it illegal, rather than solve poverty?

I submit paid athletes, or ditch diggers, or garbage men, or anyone who works in physical labour, by the definition of 'selling your body,' (rather than proper usage: selling a service) is thus a prostitute. What does that make the organ donor industry (to which you must donate, then they turn around and sell your freely donated blood or organs for fantastic amounts of money)? Pimps? or businesses?

I do find it somewhat two-faced that a rising caste of prostitutes in the USA are women trying to pay for college. We will take away their ability to earn tuition money, rather than addressing the problem of tuition being too high?

If I take her flowers and chocolates, then to dinner and a show, and go home and boff her, that's a "date." If I give her $100 (the cost of all that stuff, which she can then use on anything she wants), that's illegal. If I spend that $100 on anything she wants, give it to her, then boff her, that's still a date. Nonsensical.

James

[Darth]

=/ I'll never look at my rubber ducky the same way again.

1# not interested myself, but knock yourselves out.
How would I feel if I watched it? My own fault for typing that into the internet I suppose.

2# The animal can't give consent. Even the mating rituals (check out the ig nobel prizes of 2002) are due to confusion. Consent is primary
3# If they gave consent prior to death. Knock yourself out (well, bit late for that now). Again, what is it that you think I search for on the internet?
4# hell no, Consent! 18+ or gtfo.
5# totally normal, though again, I'm not searching for this stuff on the internet, i promise
6# Now this I search for
7# again, it comes down to consent. The very few that are doing it when they don't need to (paying through college vs having an addiction exploited) I have no issues with. Like others have said, making it illegal seems to do little aside from endanger the prostitutes further. Legal at least offers them some protection and safety.

[downbeatplumb]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6623895.stm

The goat, known as Rose to close friends, became a web phenomenon when it was reported that she had been "married" to Sudanese man Charles Tombe. The wedding was enforced by elders after a drunken Tombe was found taking advantage of the poor animal. He was also made to pay a dowry to Rose's original owner. The elders hoped to shame Tombe, though did not spare Rose's feelings in doing so.

[Epimethean]

1) Procreative issues noted, so long as is it consensual, no issue.
2) This may sound off, but when the animal is the sexual aggressor, it seems to be consenting, so no issue on that side of the equation.
3) I saw the movie Dead Girl. The issue here seems to be that, once a body is lifeless, it is a property item, but whose?
4) Very young children really cannot understand sexuality, so no.
5) Cool
6) Cool
7) Should be legal-and monitored by the government for health and wellness aspects.