POLL: Premarital Sex

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@NOG: I think Arabwel was trying to say that these people cause an artificial rise because they are not normal. Most people don't marry and divorce repeatedly, meaning people who do are the exectption rather than the rule. However they are still recorded, which alters the statistics.

 

Here's a question: Should a woman who does not want to have children anytime in the near future, or want to get married, deny herself the pleasure that sex can give?

 

No, she should just be careful. She should choose her partner wisely, and make sure to be protected.


And having sex is not being a slave to your primal urge. Having sex every night with different (wo)men each night is, yes, but how many people are actually like this?

 

Having sex without being prepared to keep the resulting child, knowing contraception isn't 100% certain, is accepting a small percentile chance of abortion. In the name of pleasure.

 

...or adoption. And would it be okay if she didn't have an abortion but then killed the kid with her bare hands after the birth? Everyone will say NO on that one (I assume), but it's yet another choice that she could make as opposed to abortion. Premarital sex does not equate with condoning abortion.

 

@Sir Fink:

Its simple. First off, sex is an addictive act. It releases drugs in your brain that can quite litterally get you addicted to it. This isn't so much of a problem in a marriage because you have someone there to act as a control, and your addiction doesn't cost anything. Secondly, random, impersonal sex has a great effect on the psyche. It leads to the objectivization of the opposite sex. You learn to value women only for their bodies and think significantly less of women, even valued friends and co-workers, who aren't attractive. It creates a situation where you only think of women in terms of what they can do for you physically. In the extreme, it can even lead to the development of predatory behavior and can be a stepping stone to sexual predation. So yes, there is something wrong with it.
And it was Abraham's wife who told him to sleep with her handmaiden. God told him his wife would have a child. P.S. That relationship with the handmaiden birthed the father of the palestineans; you know, the people that are trying to wipe out Israel today.

@Laiwethel:
How about this, should a man who doesn't want to go to jail or take an extra job deny himself the pleasure of a big-screen TV when he can just stal one? Or how about murder? You can do it with that, too. Believe it or not, you're asking the same question. Should people deny themselves the pleasures of an act because they want to avoid the consequences? Yes.

@Fel:
Don't be so sure everyone would say no. A leading Stanford philosophy professor, who is an abortionist, by the way, is teaching that the child doesn't become a person for 30 days after birth. According to him, in that time, the mother can kill the child and there are no problems. This is where America is going. 40 years ago, people thought the preachers saying this is what abortion would lead us to were wackos, well they were right. This isn't the edge of the slippery slope, this is the bottom, or near enough.

 

Though this wasn't addressed to me, I cannot let this hang. The difference is probability. The probability that the criminal will be caught is significantly higher than the probability that a woman who has sex with the appropriate protections will become preganant. It's still up to the woman to take a small chance, but it's hardly on the scale that you suggest. (I'm also a bit leary of comparing premarital sex with high crime, but I'm sure that's not what you were intending. )

A slippery slope argument; I wondered how long that would take. Despite my amusement, I do agree on the basic idea that this is a slippery slope, but only if you have a low opinion of the average human. (I certainly do.) And I'd hardly call this the bottom; believe me when I say that I can imagine far far worse; the current conditions aren't even close to how bad it could get.

Believe it or not, not all premarital sex is casual. I've counselled three separate friends on their various dilemmas over the years, and before you jump to conclusions, I advised against it more often than I advised for it. No subject is black and white, and even trends can be thrown by certain exceptions.

As an example, there are actually people who do plan to marry and divorce several times. They care nothing for the "sanctity of marriage", and look only to the financial aspects. Golddiggers, for example, (of both genders) marry specifically with the intent to divorce and take what they can from their naive partner (not unlike my ex-stepmother).

 

Good, but the topic is sex. If you want to ascribe other ideas to people simply because you don't like the argument, then I would suggest that you start a thread that deals with that issue. The topic here is sex, not moral nihilism. You started your post by commenting: "Im not saying anything about the moral implications of sex...." Well, this is a thread exactly about the moral implications of sex. Feel free to start a thread on moral nihilism if that is want you would like to discuss. In that situation others will have a proper forum to defend themselves against any such implications.

 

Willpower kicks in after your brain stem makes the according decisions. Your body reacts to those primal needs even if you do not notice it.

The intention is creating offspring as fast as possible. It is a simple as that. Relationships are just a way of dealing with raising the children. Our bodies do not "think" that life-long relationships are necessary to achieve that.

If a potential sexual relationship goes on without sexual interaction, it will end eventually, because there is no sense in prolonging something unproductive.

Even if the couple has sex, the mutual sexual attraction will fade. The approximate time window for procreation is 4 years.

The period can be prolonged through tricks, and by changing the meaning of the relationship. But that is not natural.

I'm not saying that it should be this way. It just is.

 

I'd have to agree with Fel, we aren't even close to the bottom. Killing children whenever the hell you want because you don't want them anymore is pretty much the bottom. Killing things that aren't human yet is not the bottom. Not even close.

 

Sex is a natural instinct. It is part of what makes us human. To repress it is unnatural. Now I'm not saying that one should just give into natural instincts and urges whenever they occur, but on the other hand one should not just repress them because there's a possibility of something going wrong. If one has a reason to wait for having sex, such as premarital sex being banned by one's religion, then thats fine. But saying that the reason for having sex before marriage is because one doesn't have something else meaningful to take its place, or because of the emphasis put on it by modern culture, is wrong. Pop culture and lacking something meaningful may increase one's chance of having sex, but fundamentally the reason that people want to have sex is because it is hardwired into our DNA, just like eating and sleeping.

 

@Fabius Maximus & Deepfae:
Hold on, now. The arguement that sex is a natural instinct and repressing it is unnatural and that we shouldn't do it places us on the same level as cats and fish, creatures run purely on instinct. If you believe that humans have free will, regardless of what you believe the implications thereof are, this arguement is bogus.

@Fel:
On crime, don't be so sure the probabilities are that different. In the US, murder only has a 50% clearance rate by arrest, that means that people are only arrested in 1/2 of all murder cases, and that doesn't even look at the trial. As things move to less heinous crimes, like robbery, B&E, theft, etc. things get even worse. I think theft has about an 8% clearance rate, and between the pregnancy issue and STDs, I think the risks are about on par.
On slippery slopes, the falacy in slippery slope arguements is that, because we take one small step, we will automatically continue to X conclusion. My point isn't a falacy, because the X conclusion in question IS the one small step. And classifying newborn children as non-people is more than far enough down to bother me.

@Saber:
Actually, the foetus (or whatever) is biologically a distinct human being from the momment it is fertilized. The arguement in question is that they are not people, which is a philisophical term, because they aren't contributing to society, or they aren't developed enough, or they aren't independant, or whatever. Actually, this professor did his cause a massive blow. His new proposal, which is disturbingly serious, is only a small change in the arbitrary criteria the abortion movement has used for years to convince everyone the foetus isn't a person. Now it is shown that only a slight deviation can classify everyone up to 30 days old as non-people, and only a little more makes it about 8 years old. The truth is that the criteria these people are using, things like degree of development, degree of independance, intelectual capacity, etc., could classify just about any group you want as non-people with only small changes. Not only that, but these criteria, and the specific points they say make the difference, are totally arbitrary and not based on any scientific evidence.

 

Hmm, 50%, 8%, < 0.3%... you're talking three entirely different ballparks here; orders of magnitude, even. I'd hardly equate them in anything other than there being a chance, which covers...pretty much all of life. Take a shower, and there's an infinitesimal chance that you'll slip and break your neck, but does that stop people from washing the stink away every morning? The real issue is where a risk becomes unreasonable, and probably even qualifying each risk with its possible consequence. Some may think that even a 0.3% chance of having a baby from protected sex is too much, but clearly not everyone agrees.

And where did you get fallacy from? I certainly don't see that anywhere except in your post. Perhaps you have some doubts you are unwilling to express, even to yourself? Classifying newborns as non-entities is plenty far enough down for me as well, but I haven't seen that yet, and even an exception like the Stanford professor isn't enough to have me worried that it might happen, despite my in-general low opinion of people.

@Saber:
My friend, the things I imagine go quite a ways beyond mere killing. You really don't want to know.

 

What is worse than death... torture usually leads to death, as does rape in some cases. Of course, death can always be an escape from some tortures, but I don't see how merciless killing of children is not the bottom. In any case, back to the topic:

NOG:

Is the foetus truly a human from conception? I mean, all it is is an egg and sperm at first, and slowly it begins developing... but it isn't anything for the first couple weeks, at least.

And, isn't abortion legal in most places in America until 3 months, because it isn't human yet?

 

I didn't like the argument because it implies all enjoyable acts are "good" acts. It wasn't a proper way to justify the morality of sex regardless of whether I feel pre-marital sex is moral or not. The reference to moral schools of thought was merely a catch all so I didn't have to deal with anyone using a irrational philosophical stance saying anything that feels good is indeed good, it creates an environment where nothing meaningful can be said within the "Moral Language Game".

The feeling sex gives to the one experiencing it has no bearing on it's moral standing, sex could feel like you slammed your member in the door and it wouldn't have any more or any less moral standing then the standard feeling generated by sex.

I personally stand with the Hindu ascetic or the Late Hellenic philosopher who desires to ecshew sexuality in an effort to reach a higher level of existance. Mix that with my natural leftist tendencies and if often puts me in a situation where I can't pass a moral judgement on sexuality. I sure can work in all the stupid and worthless logic I studied in college though.

[ March 06, 2006, 07:02: Message edited by: Ilmater's Suffering ]

 

Back in the day when divorce statistics were low, women also stayed married to their abusive husbands because divorce was unacceptable in society at that time. If the relationship isn't working out anymore and the husband and wife are arguing and fighting all the time (or someone is abusive), this is just as bad, if not worse, for the children. Our paradigm shift on the subject of divorce is a good thing.

[ March 06, 2006, 09:17: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

NOG: You're right, we do have free will. Notcie that I said that we should NOT just give into our instincts whenever we feel like it. On the same token, however, I believe that we should not just arbitrarily decide to repress our instincts. Yes, sex has consequences, a.k.a. STD's and pregnacy. Thats why one needs to be careful. But assuming that one is careful, then there is no inherant harm in sex. It doesn't kill someone, and so long as it isn't random, abandoned sex with strangers/aquaintences (in other words its sex conducted in a loving, lasting relationship), it doesn't deprive anyone of anything. Religious traditions are not conjured out of thin air. They are based on cultural traditions of the time when the religion was young, or based upon practical reasons of the time they were created. For example, a theory of why Jews are traditionally forbidden from eating pork and shelfish is that, in ancient times, pork and shelfish were aften contaminated, thus making a cultural (which translated into religious) ban on pork and shelfish practical. And even if one takes the Christian religious tradition of no premarital sex as being straight out of the bible, as the watered down word of God through his prophets, then one must wonder if mabye the word of God might have been distorted over the years. After all, if one can see no harm in an act, that is it does not harm to oneself and no harm to another, how can an Omnibenevolent God tell his followers that it is wrong?

 

There is actually a scientific discussion going on about the issue of free will. Some scientists argue that humans are entirely steered by instinct. There are neurological facts backing this position.

I think that instinct comes first, whatever we do. If males meet an attractive female, the first thing the body does is widen the veins in the penis for better blood circulation. The brain switches to procreation mode. We cannot change this.

But I also think that we have the option to suppress the resulting urge. It is just not a natural thing to do.
There are societal reasons for reigning ourselves in. So societiy works against nature.

I just want to add that I don't want to argue on the normative level. It is not bad to suppress the reaction of our bodies. It is not good either.

 

Deepfae pretty much is saying what I think as well. Most people will agree that it's not good to have casual sex with many different partners who you don't know or just recently met. Not using proper protection in those cases only makes it worse, but that isn't a good situation to begin with. I think that is totally different than having sex in a stable, loving, and monogamous relationship, even if the two people aren't married.

I can only speak for myself, but I have never gone out to a bar or nightclub, picked up a girl that I never met before or hardly knew, and had sex with her that night. And I think that the vast majority of people (men and women) would agree with that they don't act like that either. Now, I have met and I do know people who do this, but from my experience they are a very small part of the population.

I guess my point is that most people arguing against pre-marital sex are making it sound like all pre-marital sex is the same, because sex is only for married people, so any sex outside of marriage is bad. While I will readily admit that there are a lot of cases where sex outside of marriage IS bad, I do not think that it is absolute. Is casual sex with multiple partners bad? Yes. Is going to prostitutes bad? Most likely, although I can think of a couple of exceptions. Is committing adultery bad? Absolutely. Is knowingly having sex with someone who is married even if you are not married bad? Again absolutely - it's like surrogate adultery. Is having sex with your long term significant other who you aren't married to bad? It depends on the situation. Maybe the answer is yes, maybe the answer is no, but it sure as hell isn't nearly as bad as anything I listed above it.

In response to others, and Chev in particular: I will agree that people who move in together prior to marriage are near certain to be having sex, and that people who do not move in together may or may not be having sex. And the divorce rate is higher among couple that move in together. OK, but my point was (and you seem to agree) that just because the two things are correlated doesn't mean that there is a cause-effect relationship going on. I was looking for other possibilities that may explain it. I even mentioned HB's point that people who do not have pre-marital sex may be because of religious reasons, they may be more conservative, and thus be of a mindset where they are less likely the get divorced. To me, that seems a whole lot more likely than saying they got divorced because they had pre-marital sex.