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Is masturbation rational, moral?

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YGoldenberg

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Smathy's latest post makes some good points and some very bad ones. Let me begin by naming what I think is good in it.

First of all, he is correct that pleasure is not a guide to action -- it is not and cannot be man's standard of value. He is also correct that an, if not the, essential aspect of evaluating a specific action is being able to answer the question: what is the person doing with his mind? This is so because any action must be evaluated in the context of moral principles, and as we know, moral principles identify a certain (volitional) relationship between your mind and reality.

That said, masturbation is neither moral nor immoral -- it depends on the context. No concrete action can be evaluated out of such a context. But this leaves one very obvious question unanswered: what context must be present to establish the moral status of a particular action? Or, to put it another way, how do we show that a given action falls within the parameters of moral principles?

I don't have time to give a full answer, but let's take the case...er...at hand. I never said that pleasure was a proper standard of value. I said, rather, that pleasure (meaning physical pleasure) is innocent until proven guilty. By this I meant that if we establish that some concrete is pleasurable, we have established that it is a value to that extent. That's because, all other things being equal, pleasure as such is a value. Pleasure qua pleasure is self-evidently good -- this must be so, because it is the means by which we discover the concept "value." But the fact that pleasure as such is good does not mean that every pleasurable activity serves your interest. A pleasurable activity can be harmful when it undercuts other higher values. But that doesn't make the pleasure itself bad.

This might seem to be a controversial point, but if you think about it for a moment, it's really not. In The Objectivist, Branden tells us, "Even if the motives that lead a person to a particular sexual encounter are neurotic, and even if immediately afterwards, he is tortured by shame or guilt -- so long as and to the extent that he is able to enjoy the sex act, life is asserting itself within him, the principle that a human being is an end in himself is asserting itself." Pleasure is inherently connected to positive spirtual values. The goal is to seek pleasure that isn't undercut by disvalues.

But pleasure isn't purely physical (not even minor pleasures, such as eating), particularly not sexual pleasure. In masturbation, fantasy is essential, so it is imperative to ask: what are you fantasizing about? Keep in mind, however, that since masturbation is pleasurable, unless we can establish that what you are fantasizing about is immoral (or that you are faking rather than fantasizing), then the default position is that the act is moral.

Which leads to the question: what is it appropriate to fantasize about? Smathy tells us his criteria:

Masturbation is moral, ie. it is a value to your life, and contributes to your goals, when you are fantasising about your ideal partner. When done in this way you are experiencing such a vision of clarity and focus as to assist you to both crystalise your view of your ideal partner, and celebrate the love you feel for that person (or the love you will feel if you've not yet met them). In the absence of this, it's an immoral waste of time, and an immoral clouding of your mind in order to experience a sensational pleasure that does not stem from an emotional connection of values originating in the mind. Ie. you've adopted the posture of a dog humping someone's leg to get off.

I submit that anyone who accepted this idea and tried to implement it would either be unable to masturbate, or would be stricken by guilt. Why? Because it's literally impossible. There is no such thing as your "ideal partner." The "ideal man" is an abstraction. More specifically, it is any man who embodies rational principles. But a lover does more than embody certain principles -- he or she embodies them in a very particular way. That's why we don't fall in love with every Objectivist we meet.

And it's not that there is only one particular way those principles are embodied that we can fall in love with. On the contrary, each of us could fall in love with many different people, who each embody those principles in very different ways. And that's the problem. You cannot fantasize about an abstraction, and you cannot project a concrete of this sort. I mean, really, try to concretize this idea. What would fantasizing about your ideal mate, whom you have not met, while your masturbate actually consist of? Would she be screaming "A is A!" as she orgasms?

Now certainly, you are projecting a certain kind of consciousness, but the idea that you're trying to make up some imaginary person so you can celebrate your imaginary love for her strikes me as much closer to faking than what I would offer as the kind of fantasizing that should go on during masturbation.

My own view is this. As far as I know, most people fantasize visually while masturbating. They picture some person in a sexual way, and perhaps certain physical sensations of touching or being touched by that person. They do not, however, consciously project the kind of consciousness that person has, but they do do so implicitly. In some cases, they are thinking of someone they know, but let's say they are not. Presumably they are imagining someone they find attractive, and as I have argued in the past, when we consider physical beauty, we automatically project a consciousness that matches that beauty. In other words, if all you do while masturbating is think of a beautiful girl touching you, you are doing so on the implicit premise that she is an appropriate partner -- your physical pleasure is therefore tied to values and is therefore completely and utterly moral.

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First: What is the content of the fantasy while you are masturbating? Are you fantasizing about sex with Hillary Clinton? If so, what turns you on about her? What value would sex with her bring to your life?

Yikes! :)

That is just so very......wrong.

At least you didn't say Madeline Albright or Janet Reno!

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First of all, he is correct that pleasure is not a guide to action -- it is not and cannot be man's standard of value.

Here I have to object.

If a happy life is your standard, what makes your life happy except pleasure?

The only reason to pursue any task is

a ) it gives you immediate pleasure

b ) it gives you pleasure when completed

What's wrong with hedonism is that it sacrifices b for a. It's the timeframe that's wrong.

The basic premise that pleasure is good cannot be questioned. It would be, as far as I see it, profoundly immoral to tell anyone that long-term personal pleasure is not the standard for what is good.

It's not the only thing to have in mind, yes. You have to value other people's right to their lives etc, too, but that is their right to maximize their long-term-pleasure.

What else is the pursuit of happiness about?

I see a big problem for Objectivists in sacrificing a for b which results in never feeling pleasure while always pursuing happiness in the future.

As it was said so eloquently in Alice in Wonderland:

"Yesterday marmelade, tomorrow marmelade, but never today marmelade."

which amounts to "never marmelade".

Edited by Felix
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You should also note that the need for sexual pleasure is a basic human need like the need for food and sleep.

Is there any recorded medical case of "death due to sex deprivation" ? (And how come this guy is still alive?) :P

Pleasure comes from that which is not required for your mere survival, but enhances your life on top of what you need for staying alive. Eating some tasteless food does not give you pleasure; all it does is relieve your hunger. It simply moves back the hand of your "pain/pleasure meter" to zero. It is eating something desirable that brings it into positive territory.

A need or want or pain is not the same as a desire. The former tells you that something is threatening your life, while the latter arises when there is no threat and signals an opportunity for your life.

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Is there any recorded medical case of "death due to sex deprivation" ? (And how come this guy is still alive?) :P

No, but he'll be extinct.

Pleasure comes from everything you do that is beneficial to your biological survival.

That's how you are built. Sex drive is as important to the survival of a species as is the need for food.

You'll die one day. And if you didn't procreate by then you'll be extinct no matter how productive you may have been in your lifetime.

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I am not a species, I'm an individual.

And you didn't get my point with the example of tasteless food vs. desirable food. Even if "sex deprivation" could cause death like starvation could, true pleasure would still only result from good sex.

Edited by Capitalism Forever
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I am not a species, I'm an individual.

Still, you have genes. And these genes want you to procreate.

Why do you think the porn industry attracts so many people and why romance novels amount to half of all the books printed?

Face it. You cannot escape your identity as a biological being.

Good food gives you more pleasure because it is more nutritious (or because we have fooled our taste buds by chemistry to make it appear so).

Taste tells you about the nutritious value of food. Why do you think humans like fat and sweets and can taste them?

And good sex means that the one you have sex with has proven worthy of producing offspring with you. Still bad sex is better than no sex at all from a biological perspective. But again we have found out that by masturbation we can again 'fool our genes' and get part of the pleasure without giving them what they want.

Edited by Felix
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Still, you have genes. And these genes want you to procreate.

Why do you think the porn industry attracts so many people and why romance novels amount to half of all the books printed?

Face it. You cannot escape your identity as a biological being.

Yes, the opposite sex is attractive. Who said it wasn't? But ice cream is attractive too, yet no one has died of "ice cream deprivation."

Face it. Sex is not a "get it now or die" necessity of life like food or sleep.

Why do you think humans like fat and sweets and can taste them?

As a matter of fact, I don't like fat.

And good sex means that the one you have sex with has proven worthy of producing offspring with you. Still bad sex is better than no sex at all from a biological perspective.

Why should I care about the "biological perspective" ? I live for my own sake, not for evolution's.

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I already admitted that you don't die when you don't have sex. You are extinct if if you don't. Sex is a get-it-right-at-least-once-or-die-out kind of thing.

Besides:

You said ice-cream is yummy but deny that you like fat? How's that?

Why you should care about the biological perspective? Because it is the perspective that tells you why your body likes certain things and dislikes others. It explains the pain-pleasure-mechanism. You can live without sex and without masturbation, but this may very well lead to a dangerous mental condition. It denies your nature as a biological being. That's not good.

I just found an interesting link. It says that lack of sexual activity actually lowers your life expectancy. Its proof is the biggest study ever made on sex since Kinsey.

Edited for readability and to include the link.-Felix

Edited by Felix
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I already admitted that you don't die when you don't have sex. You are extinct if if you don't.

So (just to clarify your position) do you still hold that it is a biological necessity on par with food and sleep?

You said ice-cream is yummy but deny that you like fat? How's that?

To be precise, I don't like to ingest animal fat directly. I like fat in milk and in vegetables, but fat on meat apparently irritates something in my gullet and makes me feel like I'm going to throw up.

Plus, my reason for loving ice cream has little to do with its energy content. I love it because of its taste and its temperature.

Why you should care about the biological perspective? Because it is the perspective that tells you why your body likes certain things and dislikes others. It explains the pain-pleasure-mechanism.

(I see that you've already corrected most of your grammar, but here's a hint for further improvement: there is no second hyphen in "pain-pleasure mechanism.")

OK, and why is it important for me to know why my body likes what it likes and dislikes what it dislikes? How does that information benefit my life?

You can live without sex and without masturbation, but this may very well lead to a dangerous mental condition. It denies your nature as a biological being.

By the same logic, wouldn't the lack of children also lead to a dangerous mental condition?

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So (just to clarify your position) do you still hold that it is a biological necessity on par with food and sleep?
This is difficult to answer. It is not mandatory for immediate survival, but it benefits your health and longevity as well as your mental health.

As a biological drive it is a biological necessity on par with food and sleep.

To be precise, I don't like to ingest animal fat directly. I like fat in milk and in vegetables, but fat on meat apparently irritates something in my gullet and makes me feel like I'm going to throw up.

Plus, my reason for loving ice cream has little to do with its energy content. I love it because of its taste and its temperature.

Animal fat is a main part of any piece of meat. Even so-called lean meat derives its taste mainly from its fat content. And, as I already said, that ice cream taste is an indicator of its energy content.

OK, and why is it important for me to know why my body likes what it likes and dislikes what it dislikes? How does that information benefit my life?
As far as I know, Objectivist Ethics holds the position of presenting a moral code in accordance with human nature. That is, it is supposed to lead to happiness by showing you how to live according to your nature. I think it is important to remember that a sex drive is part of that nature. This knowledge frees you from the continuous guilt for being what you are that is usually felt by Christians who believe that this is the ultimate sin and that they are contemtuous by the simple fact that they exist. It frees you from Original Sin or any similar nonsense.

By the same logic, wouldn't the lack of children also lead to a dangerous mental condition?
Hmmm ... Interesting question. Honestly, I don't know, but it sounds reasonable that it has at least some negative effect. But our genes don't make us have children. They make us have sex. Children just are the usual result of following that drive. That had at least been the case before we have invented the pill and the condom. And it is still the case for all other animals (and Catholics :P ).

But the main part is the sex drive. And you have yet to show me a species that doesn't procreate. It's what every animal is built for. Every single animal on this planet is engaged in some sort of mating process during its life. Every other drive that ensures survival is just a means to the end of creating offspring.

This reminds me of an interesting story:

Darwin himself once said: "Everytime I see a peacock, I feel sick."

He said this because of the simple fact that the existence of an animal like the peacock doesn't make any sense if survival value is what animals evolve towards. This made him rethink his premises and made him write "The expression of the emotions in man and animals" among others trying to find out how mating between animals works. The very existence of an animal like the peacock shows that evolution clearly sacrifices survival value to mating value. Animals don't have sex just out of the blue. Those who did just died and others took their place.

I mean, mating is a tough thing to do. You have to take time off your other projects that need your time, and spend it searching for a partner. This definitely lowers your survival value. You have to learn how to impress your mating partner, you have to beat competitors. And all this without any guarantee for success and without increasing your survival ability. It actually lowers it because now you have to take care of others, too. Life would be much easier if you didn't have to do this. In fact, the rational response to this may really be to just not do all this stuff and stay at home. This is what Pancho Villa stated. Most of the time it's not worth the effort. If this is the case, why on earth would anyone in his right mind do this? Why? If sex was just a recreational activity like poker and badminton why all the fuss about it?

The reason is simple. Humans, just as every living being by definition have a special sex drive.

Please place two line breaks between paraphraphs so that they don't all appear to be one paragraph. -Felipe

Edited by Felipe
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Is there any recorded medical case of "death due to sex deprivation" ? (And how come this guy is still alive?) :P

Pleasure comes from that which is not required for your mere survival, but enhances your life on top of what you need for staying alive.

This is wrong. Our needs vary in their urgency, but that doesn't alter the fact that they are still needs. Pursuing life is not the same as avoiding death.

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Regardless of whether or not you procreate, "you" will be extinct when you die. Procreation is not some sort of means-to-immortality. Procreation-as-such is not necessarily a value to you. Neither is sex.

Felix, you're conflating biological urges with biological needs. We have a biological urge for sex, not a need for it. You need something if its lack will result in your death. You have an urge to do something if it triggers a pleasurable sensation. We have a need for food and an urge to eat . . . hunger. We have a need for air and an urge to breathe. We do not have a biological need for sexual release. Tomatoes also have health benefits, but we don't need to eat them, either.

You are trying to reduce EVERYTHING to biology. With humans, this is not possible. The reason that well-cooked or delicious food is a higher value is not because of nutritive content. It is because man is a being of merged biology and consciousness. From man's perspective, the fulfillment of mere physical urges or needs is not nearly as important as the maintenenance of his tool for fullfilling those needs, i.e. his consciousness. In order for your consciousness to function, you need to feel that the goal of such action is worthwhile. (This, btw, is the reason for and purpose of art.) In the context of human consciousness, mundane pleasures are transformed into a complex emotional experience.

As Dr. Peikoff explains in OPAR:

There is a biological basis of human sexuality and a counterpart in the animal world. But all animal needs an pleasures are transfigured in the context of the rational animal. Human beings, precisely to the extent that they have attained human stature, gain comparatively little enjoyment from the mere sensation of satisfying these needs. Their pleasure comes mostly from the accompanying emotions. It comes from the constellation of conceptually formulated values that define the needs' human satisfaction. Thus the joys of haute cuisine with special friends amid crystal and tapestries in a fine restaurant, or of beef stew and a glass of wine with a loving wife in one's own dining room, as against the act, equally nutritious and shielded from the elements though it may be, of chewing a piece of meat in a vacant cave somewhere. The principle is that a pleasure which was once purely biological becomes, in the life of a conceptual being, largely spiritual.

In the context of emotional, spiritual needs, masturbation is a value, as a sort of spiritual refreshment via physical pleasure. Just like ice cream, or reading a non-intellectual novel.

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We have a biological urge for sex, not a need for it.

I disagree. Sex is a need, but it's primarily a need of consciousness. See "The Psychology of Pleasure." Pleasure is vital to your survival, and sex is the most intense and important form of pleasure. This means that sex is not like pancakes -- it's not merely one kind of pleasure that you can take or leave. You need it to be a healthy functioning human being. Will lack of sex kill you? In the long term, yes, in that it will very much hamper you ability to survive -- more precisely, it will dampen you motivation to live, which has the same effect. In this regard, I agree with Peikoff completely when he said that "Celibacy is fate worse than death."

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Why do you think humans like fat and sweets and can taste them?

Fat qua fat has no flavor, btw. Try drinking a pint of vegetable oil and you'll see what I mean. The reason fatty foods are usually considered to taste good is that oils and fats preserve or take up flavorable elements in food. Try vegetables and seasonings sauteed with oil vs. steamed and you'll see what I mean. The flavor element in unseasoned meat that we find attractive is generally SALT. Meat naturally tastes just a bit salty.

As for sweets, if something is TOO sweet it provokes a violent negative reaction from ME. This is why I can't eat cake icing any more. Blech. Eat a few spoonfuls of straight sugar and see whether you want any more. I'm betting you'll get a weird sort of headachy feeling and your teeth will tingle painfully.

Now, one thing that fat DOES do for you is that it suppresses hunger for a longer period of time than a lot of other foods and provides a greater feeling of "fullness" because it is more calorie-intensive and difficult to digest. Most people don't enjoy feeling hungry, and they can't usually sit around and eat all day, so they will gravitate towards foods that provide a sort of min/max equation, and fatty foods do provide that. I have heard from people that don't eat meat for a lengthy period of time (and quite a few of them, in fact, I've experienced it myself when I've had to live vegetarian at my parents' house) that your body will adapt to the new nutrition and eventually you will actually stop even liking the taste of meat.

I know this is somewhat off-topic but I don't like to see people promulgating falsehoods of any kind.

I disagree. Sex is a need, but it's primarily a need of consciousness.

Did I or did I not specifically state, in an effort to be absolutely clear, that sex is not a BIOLOGICAL need?! I know it's a need of consciousness! Sheesh. I just didn't want to use the word "biological" twelve times in one paragraph. Maybe I should have used it just one more time.

By the same logic, wouldn't the lack of children also lead to a dangerous mental condition?

Personally, I think the possession of children is what leads to the dangerous mental condition.

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Did I or did I not specifically state, in an effort to be absolutely clear, that sex is not a BIOLOGICAL need?! I know it's a need of consciousness! Sheesh. I just didn't want to use the word "biological" twelve times in one paragraph. Maybe I should have used it just one more time.

Oh, that wouldn't have been necessary. But if you are going to go to such great lengths to show in what sense sex isn't a need, it would have been clarifying, at least to me, had you at least noted the sense in which it is a need. But now you've clarified, so thanks.

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Regardless of whether or not you procreate, "you" will be extinct when you die. Procreation is not some sort of means-to-immortality. Procreation-as-such is not necessarily a value to you. Neither is sex.

I know that I die even if I have sex. :( And I will also die even if I have children. I am mortal and that was it.

All I wanted to explain is the biological root of our need for sex and how fundamental a part of life it is.

Felix, you're conflating biological urges with biological needs. We have a biological urge for sex, not a need for it. You need something if its lack will result in your death. You have an urge to do something if it triggers a pleasurable sensation. We have a need for food and an urge to eat . . . hunger. We have a need for air and an urge to breathe. We do not have a biological need for sexual release. Tomatoes also have health benefits, but we don't need to eat them, either.

Yes, I didn't point it out clearly. We have a need for food, therefore we feel the urge called hunger. I am aware of that distinction. But this only shows that our biological urges find their root in reality. They exist to help us survive and your very existence is proof of their success. If we had to figure out that we needed food by a long chain of thought (and if food wasn't pleasurable to us) we wouldn't even be born. The same is true for sex. But for different reasons.

You are trying to reduce EVERYTHING to biology. With humans, this is not possible. The reason that well-cooked or delicious food is a higher value is not because of nutritive content. It is because man is a being of merged biology and consciousness. From man's perspective, the fulfillment of mere physical urges or needs is not nearly as important as the maintenenance of his tool for fullfilling those needs, i.e. his consciousness. In order for your consciousness to function, you need to feel that the goal of such action is worthwhile. (This, btw, is the reason for and purpose of art.) In the context of human consciousness, mundane pleasures are transformed into a complex emotional experience.

These urges evolved before the dawn of civilization. You won't find a bottle of oil on a tree. You could only find fat in combination with the substances that make it taste good. What was good for your taste was also good for your body. In this civilized world we have managed to change our food to make it more pleasureable and to stimulate our taste buds even though it has little nutritional value (the best example is fast food.) Besides, cooking the meat actually makes it more nutritious which is also true for many other foods (despite the rantings and ravings of raw foods fanatics :D ).

This just shows that these urges adapt us to a world that is not here anymore. We changed it in regard of those urges.

And Peikoffs example doesn't hold. He mixed in several other things like a warm and clean place to eat, friends, cooked foods with all the benefits modern science has to offer to cheat our taste buds. This is not a valid comparison. But it makes a good case for civilization.

And I still hold that we have a biological need for sex. By this I mean that we have a need for sex and that its root is evolution.

Then:

Why is it enjoyable to complete a difficult task or even to ponder it? Why do we like games?

Could it be that it has biological roots? After all, thinking is our means of survival. Have you ever been sitting around for three days doing nothing but 'mere survival' and watching TV. You feel miserable.

Again, your body doesn't tell you what to do. It only tells you that something is wrong.

I really try to explain human behavior with the help of biology. There must be a biological reason for ethics. For why being moral behavior leads to happiness and immoral behavior doesn't. The reason for this is that our body controls what feels good and what doesn't. It's part of our identity, of existence as such and cannot be denied. That's what objective ethics is all about, isn't it.

This of course only goes to a certain degree. But you can derive your principles from it.

To Pancho Villa:

I know that I die. :P I just wanted to explain why humans have an objective need for sex. I even credited pointing out that our behavior otherwise would not make sense, to you .

So please cool off, okay.

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It is not mandatory for immediate survival

OK, that was the point I was making.

As far as I know, Objectivist Ethics holds the position of presenting a moral code in accordance with human nature. That is, it is supposed to lead to happiness by showing you how to live according to your nature. I think it is important to remember that a sex drive is part of that nature. This knowledge frees you from the continuous guilt for being what you are that is usually felt by Christians who believe that this is the ultimate sin and that they are contemtuous by the simple fact that they exist. It frees you from Original Sin or any similar nonsense.

Please look at the exact wording of my question. I was not asking

[W]hy is it important for me to know what my body likes and what it dislikes?

I already know what my body likes and what it dislikes. I was asking

[W]hy is it important for me to know why my body likes what it likes and dislikes what it dislikes?

because you said the reason I should care about the "biological perspective" was that it explained why my body liked what it liked and disliked what it disliked. It is supposed to support your proposition that "bad sex is better than no sex at all."

I agree that, when you haven't eaten anything for days, bad food is better than no food at all. ("Bad" meaning badly cooked.) This is because the alternative to eating the bad food is immediate death.

But I don't think that when you haven't had sex for days, bad sex is better than no sex at all. You won't die if you skip the bad sex. You'll just come out neutral, and you'll be able to have good sex later. On the other hand, if you choose to have the bad sex, you'll have had bad sex.

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But I don't think that when you haven't had sex for days, bad sex is better than no sex at all. You won't die if you skip the bad sex. You'll just come out neutral, and you'll be able to have good sex later. On the other hand, if you choose to have the bad sex, you'll have had bad sex.

What you are saying is that good sex is better than bad sex. You assume that you have good sex later on.

After a month without sex or masturbation, I wonder what your stand would be on this. Your sex drive is increased if you don't follow it. And if you repress it long enough, you become a sicko like those priests who rape their altar boys. Also, you become aggressive and frustrated. Just look at the article I have posted. It's true.

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This is wrong. Our needs vary in their urgency, but that doesn't alter the fact that they are still needs. Pursuing life is not the same as avoiding death.

"Pursuing life is not the same as avoiding death"--this is the exact thing I was going to bring up in support of my position! :(

There are values that are necessary in order to avoid death. The absence of these values results in pain and eventually in death. The gaining of these values when you have been wanting them results in relief from pain.

Then, there are values that contribute to the fulfillment of your life. The absence of these values does not result in physical pain (though, obviously, a sustained lack of all such values will result in unhappiness). It is the gaining of these values that results in pleasure.

After a month without sex or masturbation, I wonder what your stand would be on this.

(snicker, snicker) Oh, if you knew...

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There is still one extremely important point which needs to be made:

There is no such thing as an immoral fantasy — sexual or otherwise.

Thoughts, desires, feelings, dreams, projections, fantasies are emphatically NOT subject to moral evaluation. Only a person's actions can be judged in this respect, never the contents of his consciousness.

More precisely: Fantasies and desires as such are neither moral nor immoral — though of course one can use fantasy, or can entertain certain desires, in a harmful or destructive way. A person can daydream instead of focusing on an important task at hand; he can choose to live in an unreal world of his own making, believing what he wants to believe, dismissive of facts and of truth. What a person wants and desires, and consequently what he enjoys thinking about, may be the result of an immoral mental process and policy (or the lack of one — i.e., of evasion), and certainly one can always decide to act on one's desires and mental projections, at which point said person steps fully into the arena of moral evaluation and judgment.

But the crucial point here is that only actions — real, existential actions — can be moral or immoral. This includes, or at least it can include, the actions one takes with one's mind; what one chooses to do with one's consciousness, but never what one chooses to think about per se. (Emotions, of course, are entirely outside of the realm of morality; while they certainly aren't causeless, what one experiences emotionally is not within one's direct volitional control.)

This is not to say that whatever a person feels, or thinks about, or desires is perfectly fine and is never worthy of examination. Sadistic or masochistic fantasies, for example, can and likely do indicate a very serious psychological and/or moral problem. But if this is the case, then such mental contents need to be treated for what they are; as clues and as important data about a person; not a cause for moral judgment in and of themselves.

The distinction between the contents of consciousness and a person's existential choices and actions is truly a life-and-death one; it is Christianity, not Objectivism, which seeks to equate them. Jesus said that whosoever looks lustfully upon a woman has already committed adultery in his heart — an explicit declaration that a person's thoughts and desires are NOT to be distinguished and treated separately from his behavior. Throughout the Bible, one can find many injunctions against contents of consciousness — anger, jealousy, doubt, covetousness, greed, pride. While most Objectivists would dismiss these particular "sins" as nonsense, I wonder how many have identified to what degree their own thinking and lives may have been affected by the truly insidious lesson contained within them.

What happens when a person accepts the notion that what he thinks and feels can, in effect, send him to hell? Invariably, some combination of repression and guilt, not to mention a tendency to view all emotions with suspicion — particularly those of pleasure. Pleasure and enjoyment, to this kind of mind, are truly "guilty until proven innocent"; one must concoct (i.e., rationalize) a super-literal "survival value" for every positive emotion — and if one ever can't justify a given feeling in this way, then one justifies it feeling guilty about it.

Under normal circumstances, pleasure is self-justifying. Pleasure need only be tied to one's "survival" in the sense and to the degree that if a person is to live as a human being, he has to experience enjoyable moments in his life, and often.

Pleasure is, in general, not a proper moral standard. There are, however, times when a person has every right to enjoy an activity for no reason other than that it brings him a pleasurable feeling. Emotions are not tools of cognition, nor are they a reliable guide to action — in general. But how could one operate in a field such as sex without constant reference to his feelings, desiring (and pursuing) that which brings him pleasure, and avoiding that which brings him discomfort or pain?

A truly appalling thread on this site is devoted, at least in its last few pages, to the question of whether or not it is moral to masturbate solely and exclusively . . . for the purpose of pleasure. Incredibly, outlandishly, several otherwise intelligent and well-written Objectivists brazenly argue that it isn't.

Their words have to be seen to be believed:

Masturbating for the sole purpose of the "pleasure" is an act that attempts to negate the existence of the inherently cognitive aspect of sexual pleasure. In engaging in sexual pleasure, any attempt to negate the cognitive aspect is an attempt to negate man's identity, which is, in essence, the consequence of a value judgment that says "my life as man is not worth living as it should be lived, I want to live solely for the sake of this pleasure and ignore the cognitive aspect of it." Masturbation solely for pleasure is an act that indicates an admition of the worthlessness of your life in your eyes.

Again, it's Christianity, not Objectivism, which says that sex has to serve a "higher" purpose; that pleasure and enjoyment must be justified, excused, tempered, forgiven — and felt guilty for. What the higher purpose is, or what it's claimed to be, is immaterial; the common denominator between this kind of statement and those issued by the Vatican is that both hold that sexual pleasure, of and by itself, is evil.

A great many readers of this site would do well to learn, and take time to consider, that there is no such thing as sexual morality. Morality is a branch of philosophy; as such it deals with broad, fundamental principles which apply to all areas of man's life. There can be no rules, no injunctions, no commandments, no guidelines, not even any suggestions or advice that philosophy can give a person specifically on the subject of sex. To the extent that one acts (and argues) as though there were, one is following a religion, not a philosophy.

Objectivism has only one thing to say about sex: It's good. Beyond that, you're on your own. No one can tell you how to live your life — not even in so important, difficult, and (for some) terrifying an issue as sexuality and romantic love. It will always be up to you to think, to judge, and to act in accord with your very best judgment; no person and no ethics can ever assume this responsibility for you. Philosophy can give you the direction and the proper mental method; it can light the way and show you the goal, but the specific steps you take along the journey are entirely up to you.

Edited by Kevin Delaney
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There is still one extremely important point which needs to be made:

There is no such thing as an immoral fantasy — sexual or otherwise.

Thoughts, desires, feelings, dreams, projections, fantasies are emphatically NOT subject to moral evaluation. Only a person's actions can be judged in this respect, never the contents of his consciousness.

More precisely: Fantasies and desires as such are neither moral nor immoral — though of course one can use fantasy, or can entertain certain desires, in a harmful or destructive way.

Off the cuff, I'd have to say I disagree with you. However, I think the gist of your argument is close to what I'd say: The morality of fantasizing about an action is not determined by the morality of that action in real life, because fantasizing about an action is an entirely distinct act from actually doing the action. For example, it is pleasurable and probably not at all harmful when you're in the middle of a rather odious or uninspiring piece of work necessary for your career to fantasize about chucking it all and going to climb a mountain. Actually doing so, however, would be harmful, not just from the damage to your career and reputation but from the damage to you--the harm to your pride and self-respect in not keeping your word. Or: Fantasizing about putting an obnoxious boss in his place with a well-constructed bit of wit is harmless; actually doing so would probably be harmful. (He might have a new-found respect for you, but likely not.) Similarly, fantasizing about getting back together with an ex might well be pleasurable and harmless; doing so in real life probably would be harmful. More interestingly, fantasizing about putting her in her place publicly and sharply could be harmful (by agitating you, dredging up what is over and done, not letting you get over the past and moving on) or beneficial (by helping you recognize more fully the character traits you can't stand, various manipulative gambits, and so on, and helping you respect your own interests more forthrightly in the future); similarly, actually doing so could be immoral (if you go out of your way out of a desire for revenge) or moral (if you run into her by accident and she wheedles or imposes on you, for example). However, whether the act is immoral depends on different factors than does the morality of the fantasy.

All actions have to be judged morally by their benefit to you. However, fantasizing has to be judged by its effects as a mental act, not by the content of the fantasy, which is largely distinct. Not entirely, because thinking about some unpleasant things or immoral actions can have a depressive, deleterious effect on your mental state, just as thinking about moral actions can have very positive effects on your mental state. With sexual fantasy, you're deriving pleasure from fantasizing about the valuable traits of another person selected away from the negative qualities that might make sleeping with her (him) immoral in real life; and presumably the person has some good qualities. I get the impression that some of the people arguing in this thread against masturbation find it self-evident that the morality of the fantasy and the morality of the act in the fantasy are identical and then argue rationalistically to find some example, any example at all, of how that immorality is manifested in some putative deleterious mental effect. (Jason King's last paragraph is a perfect example. He argues that only sex with an ideal partner is moral, so fantasizing about sex with anyone else at all is immoral. Feeling the need to show why, he comes up with, "it's an immoral waste of time, and an immoral clouding of your mind in order to experience a sensational pleasure that does not stem from an emotional connection of values originating in the mind..." No argument is offered for this remarkable conclusion; he seems to think it evidently follows from the recognition of "what you're doing in your mind at the time. What you're doing with your thoughts.")

That's why I think this point of yours is very well-taken:

The distinction between the contents of consciousness and a person's existential choices and actions is truly a life-and-death one; it is Christianity, not Objectivism, which seeks to equate them.

Add "morally" to the very end for emphasis and I agree completely. I'll just add that this is a distinct point from whether fantasies are amenable to moral judgement.

Edited by Adrian Hester
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There are values that are necessary in order to avoid death. The absence of these values results in pain and eventually in death. The gaining of these values when you have been wanting them results in relief from pain.

Then, there are values that contribute to the fulfillment of your life. The absence of these values does not result in physical pain (though, obviously, a sustained lack of all such values will result in unhappiness). It is the gaining of these values that results in pleasure.

This is wrong. It commits an error Objectivist's detractors sometimes accuse Rand of making: it implies that survival "man qua man" is something added on to life. It implies that life isn't the standard, but that a "fulfilling life" is, with "staying alive" as merely a means to that end. On the contrary, Rand's entire point is that you can't stay alive by simply trying to avoid death. That isn't living -- it's dying.

To put it another way, you are saying, in effect, that there is a fundamental difference between two types of values: some keep us alive, and some make life worth living. But there is no fundamental difference between values like food and sex. They differ only in two respects: how often we need to achieve them, and how badly we're impaired when we don't. But note those are differences of degree, not kind. And in all cases, the standard is the same: life.

Edited by DPW
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