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Thanks Snerd!

For me the issue against this whole, don't have sex unless you intend to marry the woman belies the manner in which value judgments are formed. They are so complex and abstract, at least these anyway, that you need to do some inductive learning. You learn what's good by trying to make good judgments and seeing how they turn out.

Your discussion of sex and intimate relationships in light of the continuum of relationships in general also helped. IN that continuum, sex need not be present along every point, and I think that those who would argue the values "heirarchy" as it relates purely to sex have to address why it must be so that sex show up at all manner of points along that heirarchy.

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Again, I love your analogy. To say that reading is so much of a value, that one can get value reading Kafka would be one side of a dichotomy; to say that one ought only to read Rand would be the other. Personally, I think Agatha Christie can be great fun, even if I know she doesn't offer everything I want in a book.

At one point in my life, I read Kafka, Faulkner, and Joyce. I tried to like them I really did. But now that I have a much more mature idea of what good literuature is, I simply refuse to go back there. It is viscerally unsatisfying. To try to go back and read them, once you know better, to me is what the claim for casual sex is doing. As Inspector says it destroys the idea of values simply by the selection of it in the face of knowledge to the contrary.

By a related idea, Agatha Christie can be great fun, but you don't read it expecting great literature, and you don't read it in the same way that you do great literuture. To try to read it as great literuture would also destroy the idea of the importance of great literature.,

For me it's even more viscerally apparent with Music. I love Rush, but it aint Rachmaninoff. And the way I treat them both is very different. I would never, ever, ever try to listen to Rush, to give it the same import as Rachmaninoff. Spiritually, they aren't in the same ballpark.

Sex is great literature. That is its nature.

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Sex is great literature. That is its nature.

I disagree. Sex is just literature. Some is good, some is bad, some is just mediocre. I am not aware of any avid readers that would turn down a decent book because better books have been written. In fact, I know many readers that will read downright trashy books even though they have unread great works waiting on the bookshelf.

There is nothing wrong with this either. There are many different levels that books, and sex, can bring pleasure. I don't see why I should never read a Tom Clancy novel again, even though I know many better writers are out there. His stories certainly will not pass the test of time and be read in literature courses in the future. However, they are still fun. It doesn't detract or somehow stain my love for great literature just because I read everything that interests me.

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At one point in my life, I read Kafka, Faulkner, and Joyce. I tried to like them I really did. But now that I have a much more mature idea of what good literuature is, I simply refuse to go back there. It is viscerally unsatisfying. To try to go back and read them, once you know better, to me is what the claim for casual sex is doing. As Inspector says it destroys the idea of values simply by the selection of it in the face of knowledge to the contrary.
I don't think anyone in this thread is recommending going back to that type of mistake. The context of the thread is not about going back so far, nor about having casual affairs if one has found a great soul-mate. Even in the context of not having found an ideal partner, very rarely have I seen self-proclaimed Objectivists saying that sex with anyone and everyone is fine. So, an argument against those types of positions would miss the point.
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But you can't get away from the fact that sex or a relationship is an expression of value as such, right?

Which value? Value of what?

I'm just not sure how the selection of a certain level of importance of sex doesn't in the process desctroy the nature of that act as a value, as such.

Why, what inherent value does it have?

This is sort of like saying that marriage is a lesser value for me even though I know that it can be a higher value for some, so I'll express that value by entering into a casual marriage.

Not really because marriage has a specific connotation about long term committment in the way it is defined (especially legally) that sex does not have.

At least that is where I'm at. One has friends instead, and there are things you simply don't do with friends that you'd do with a spouse. I think sex is analogous.

(My bold) And I'm good with the idea that you recognize that is where YOU are at. My point is that not everyone else is where YOU are at. That can be good or that can be bad depending on the context of their life.

Why can't a person have sex with their friends?

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For me it's even more viscerally apparent with Music. I love Rush, but it aint Rachmaninoff. And the way I treat them both is very different. I would never, ever, ever try to listen to Rush, to give it the same import as Rachmaninoff. Spiritually, they aren't in the same ballpark.
And yet believing this, you still listen to Rush sometimes? Aren't you settling for a lesser value when you listen to Rush when you could be listening to Rachmaninoff?Or is it that within the context of your life you can make room for both because they each offer value to you in a different way and/or you simply don't care to listen to the same music all the time simply because you have deemed it 'better'? Each has its place in your life based on a context at the moment.However, as sNerd points out, I'm not advocating having a 'love of your life' and then screwing around on her so this whole analogy is not applicable to anything I'm saying.
Because then maybe it'll get better than writing.../you asked...
Maybe also leaves open the possibility of 'maybe not'. So that doesn't necessarily address why "should" plays a part in this.
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I've read through this thread now, and as far as the 'Sex-threads' go on this forum, this has got to be the most concise I've read so far.

I've listened to both sides and understood the Puritanical Christian side and the semi-Hedonistic pagan side (j/k :P). I think Kendall has said it best however, and it makes the most sense to me as a virgin (depending on what your definition of virginity is). I've realised first hand, as anyone who's read my relationship thread, how the ability to form good judgements is formed through attempting to make judgements. It has taken intense encounters with another person, to help to realise who I am and what I value; as a result, my productivity in finding my ideal woman has increased by about 300%.

I think I'm a fair way away from being mature (including in my sexuality) and in going from knowing intellectually what is right for me and what is wrong for me, but I still, at the end of the day, it falls on me to make that judgement, so I need to experience, and abstract from those experiences, my values and what is right for me.

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Now, why can one not rationally say that the pleasure one gets from finishing a chapter in a book is reaches a greater heights than the pleasure one gets from having sex?

Because those two are completely different spheres of pleasurable. A person experiences their femininity/masculinity (which is a part of their identity) when it is being contrasted and that happens the most through sex which is a big part of why it is so pleasurable to us - it is a concretization of oneself - and experience of integration between one's mind and values and one's biological/sexual identity. Finishing a chapter in a book, or any other productive achievement is not going to give you that concretization. It is a nautral on that scale, it is independent of your sexual/biological identity. Therefore you can not compare the pleasure from sex to that comming from productive achievement (or eating chocolate).

Edited by ~Sophia~
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Because those two are completely different spheres of pleasurable.

Which can be compared in terms of which activity provides more value to an individual given the context of their life. Thus, for some folks finishing a book may be better than having sex. That they are two different concretizations pleasurability makes no difference in terms of their comparison regarding the value they add to one's life and where they fit into an heirarchy of values.

For instance, I think sex is better than torture. They aren't even in the same realm at all (pleasureability) yet I can definitely determine which adds more value to my life.

Therefore you can not compare the pleasure from sex to that comming from productive achievement

I think he can but you cannot.

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Ok, see, here is the issue. This analysis breaks down when you realize that you're already putting severe restrictions on your writing. Are you saying that you get that sort of rush when you produce any sort of work? You write something that is crap and you get a rush from it? I am going to bet that the emotional response to you work is highly restricted, in the abstract. My question for you is why do you refer to sex as being restricted as if any sort of sex will give you same rush as any sort of work? The rush you get from work is the expression of an abstracted idea, and you choose to do certain types of work and not others because of it. In that sense it is identical to the choice of a partner for sex.

I think you've misunderstood her here. She wrote "even more restricted," which implies that she fully recognizes her writing as having severe restrictions on it. The implication for me is that as long as she's produced solid, valuable writing, she doesn't feel guilty for not having written her life's masterwork.

Edited by Adrian Hester
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Your discussion of sex and intimate relationships in light of the continuum of relationships in general also helped. IN that continuum, sex need not be present along every point, and I think that those who would argue the values "heirarchy" as it relates purely to sex have to address why it must be so that sex show up at all manner of points along that heirarchy.

But are they actually arguing that? I'd have said they were arguing that there's some point in the middle of the range of possibilities between sex with your ideal life partner and sex with a commie tree-hugging unwashed granola grubber where sex stops being moral and becomes immoral. This value might vary a good deal between any of them and might be a good deal lower than Inspector's (and certainly differs from Capitalism Forever's).

Edited to add: Though I might be misinterpreting your phrase "all manner of points along that heirarchy." What do you mean by "all manner of points"?

Edited by Adrian Hester
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At one point in my life, I read Kafka, Faulkner, and Joyce. I tried to like them I really did. But now that I have a much more mature idea of what good literuature is, I simply refuse to go back there. It is viscerally unsatisfying. To try to go back and read them, once you know better, to me is what the claim for casual sex is doing. As Inspector says it destroys the idea of values simply by the selection of it in the face of knowledge to the contrary.

I have to disagree with Software Nerd: This is a poor analogy. It breaks down once you try to introduce the idea of monogamy into it. You can read the great and the not-so-great writers at the same time and value them for their respective merits, and you can even go back and re-read pernicious authors for their merits, or at least to learn from the ways they wrote. I doubt anyone here is claiming anything like that would be moral in your sexual relationships. (In any case, I disagree with you about Faulkner, and some Joyce I like, some of The Dubliners for example. But I think we're agreed on his big two and on Kafka.)

Sex is great literature. That is its nature.

I don't get the comparison myself. There's usually a climax in both, but apart from that...

Edited by Adrian Hester
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Which can be compared in terms of which activity provides more value to an individual given the context of their life.

In order to make a comparison more/less you have to be comparing things which cost you the same currency, or provide similar benefit. I don't use "value" as some abstract concept. The benefit of pride from productive achievement is not the same kind of benefit as the concretization one experiences via having sex. Those two are two different aspects of man's life. If one chooses not to pursue one of them it means zero benefit of that kind in their life.

I am not just a human (gender neutral values) - I am also a woman (gender related values - sex).

I think he can but you cannot.

What do you mean by that exactly? Didn't he say he had not had sex yet?

Edited by ~Sophia~
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In order to make a comparison more/less you have to be comparing things which cost you the same currency, or provide similar benefit.

And if I'm not mistaken, according to Ayn Rand "value" is that currency.

I don't use "value" as some abstract concept.

But value is an "abstract concept" (assuming I'm taking your meaning of that phrase correctly): A value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. The nature of the value is abstracted away, whether productive activity or sexual pleasure or anything else.

The benefit of pride from productive achievement is not the same kind of benefit as the concretization one experiences via having sex. Those two are two different aspects of man's life. If one chooses not to pursue one of them it means zero benefit of that kind in their life.

And presumably a person who pursues one of them but not the other finds greater value in pursuing that activity than the value he would have obtained from the time and effort spent in the other. It's on the basis of the respective values of various benefits that a rational man chooses which to pursue, not because he has a quota of a given type of benefit to meet.

Edited by Adrian Hester
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And yet believing this, you still listen to Rush sometimes? Aren't you settling for a lesser value when you listen to Rush when you could be listening to Rachmaninoff?Or is it that within the context of your life you can make room for both because they each offer value to you in a different way and/or you simply don't care to listen to the same music all the time simply because you have deemed it 'better'? Each has its place in your life based on a context at the moment.However, as sNerd points out, I'm not advocating having a 'love of your life' and then screwing around on her so this whole analogy is not applicable to anything I'm saying.Maybe also leaves open the possibility of 'maybe not'. So that doesn't necessarily address why "should" plays a part in this.

I disagree. Sex is just literature. Some is good, some is bad, some is just mediocre. I am not aware of any avid readers that would turn down a decent book because better books have been written. In fact, I know many readers that will read downright trashy books even though they have unread great works waiting on the bookshelf.

:sigh: it's fun to see everyone pile on the analogy. I only expanded it from its original reference in side note with Snerd, guys. But since you've both wholy misinterpreted it, let me clarify it so we aren't beating up straw men instead. the original reference was with regard to the comparison between relationships and art, in valuing within relationships and the value of art. That's the only aspect I'm analogizing, so I wont' be answering any of Adrians objections because they are so far out of the original reference that I won't even claim to have been analogizing there.

@Scott: the fact that there is a degree of relative value within sex would be true whether I said that sex was good literature or just literature, so I'm not sure what your point is. The importance of the analogy is when discussing relative to what other than sex, which you didn't address. My meaning was that given all the possible actions that show value in relationships, sex is for expressing important values. I certainly agree that within the category of sex, there are varying degrees of importance, but if what you meant was that sex can be used express any values, then my next question is going to be for you to explain to me how valid sex can be equivalent to me giving 0.25 cents to my buddy to buy a candy bar, which is also an expression of value in a relationship.

@RB: I think we're crossing wires here. I'm not debating the contextuality of values; I am debating the nature of sex. The problem I have with the sort of "heirarchy of values" argument for less serious sex is that sex has a nature apart from the value one uses it to express. Let's see if I can illustrate. It would be immoral of me, if my true love was dying of kidney failure, to reach into my wallet, pull out $1 for the operation, and offer some words of encouragement. Likewise it would be immoral of me to offer my kidney to a stripper as a tip. That is, apart from the valid value I wish to express, the nature of the act I choose to express it is wholly unsuited to the value. It is the equivalent of using the pulp fiction motif to express ideas on the level of Ayn Rands. My reference to high art and low art is in reference to sex and other forms of valuing, not to various forms of sex. You're making the same mistake Scott is with regards to my analogy.

Now, I'd love to have a debate on the nature of sex, because in some ways that would help indicate what values it is a good vehicle for and what it is not a good vehicle for. To me when you argue the contextuality of values it is as if (and please correct me if I'm wrong), sex is a natureless vehicle that gets its only identity from the particular value heirarchy you choose it to express. This is silly to me. The question, "Why cant you sleep with your friends?" is as odd to me as the question "Why can't a french kiss a waitress as a tip?". My answer is well you can, but why choose such an action of such odd nature to express that particular value with?

Now sex gets tricky because there is a purely physical component to it, but to me this goes back to a qua rational animal argument. What does sex mean as an act to a rational man? Look having sex with someone you "connect" with in a bar is not much different than my dog wanting to hump the nice little Sheltie down the street because she smells nice. Yes, you can do it, and technically it might be a value act on some level, but hardly one qua man. That is why I specifically chose art to analogize the situation because it does reflect abstract value choices.

As to everyone else who thinks they can tear down this analogy, then maybe starting with the original context would be appropriate, and at least linking it back what you mean in the original context. Otherwise, I'm not touching it.

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So in your opinion not having sex is repressing the expression of oneself because everyone should want to have sex? "Who you are" cannot include a person who does not desire to have sexual intercourse or someone who values something much higher than having sexual intercourse?

I think SoftwareNerd answered that well. I agree with his response to this.

No this is completely wrong expression of the uniqueness of relationships. No you don't change the other person and can't. What you work on is your ability to select rationally from among the possible choices. To that end, one needs to select and experience to understand how their abstract value choices affect the concrete outcomes. I think you're misunderstanding Jenni's point.

Maybe that's wrong and I need to think about it some more, but I don't think you're entirely correct in your.. correction. Who you are attracted to is a natural response to others based on who you are. You certainly may learn to select more rationally over time who you choose to engage with romantically, but this is a result of you having become more rational as a person, not any work that you have explicitly put into the act of choosing.

You don't consciously "work on" who you engage in relationships with unless it's for some reason a different set of people than who you're attracted to, because it would take a conscious decision in opposition of your values to select them. I can't think of a rational reason for why one would do this.

I think you put it best when you said:

I can see how choosing a certail level of relationship at a certain point in time might be as full of an expression of value as one is mature enough to understand,...

I think that is perfectly understandable. Romantic engagements under this circumstance are not immoral, even though the values one is expressing through them at the time may be of a lower grade or less defined nature than those that they would express later in time, after having matured.

I'm not entirely sure that your art gallery example fits perfectly. It's like you're saying in your analogy that a visit to an art gallery is equivalent to a romantic encounter with a person--"selecting and experiencing" galleries being equivalent to the selecting of partners and the experience of relationships that come with them. But the proper equivalent to testing a gallery, observing it and deciding whether or not you like it is not a romantic relationship, it is simply the casual observation of that person before you know whether or not they have any value to you. It is your acknowledgment of value in a good art gallery and your resulting repeating visits that are equivalent to "selection and experience." The only selection made is the selection of the good art gallery. The poor gallery was never selected, it was simply observed.

The galleries you select are a result of who you are at the time. Whether your tastes become more defined as time moves on relies not on the art that you've seen before it, but who you are and the values you hold in the present moment. Your partners, similarly, are an expression of how you have evolved, changed, or grown as a person over time. It is not the other way around--You do not learn by expressing, you do not learn who to pursue next by being attracted to someone now.

Being able to select in regards to art and partners is the result of already knowing your values. It is not the other way around. One does not select, then find out. That is the process of selecting between things which can only be of unknown quality beforehand, or things whose level of quality is not important. Because sex is an expression, because attraction is a reaction, the extent to which you value (take seriously; have pride in) yourself is the extent to which you will be selective.

In all of this, the act of "selection" is analogous to the reaction that is natural attraction.

(If you have no values whatsoever, you can only be attracted to art as far as its quality as decoration--i.e. how pleasing its uninterpreted patterns, proportions and colors seem to you. If you have no values whatsoever, you can only be attracted to people on the base level of physicality, etc. To have a value at all is to know that it can exist in other things. When one acknowledges the existence of those values in something else, they are naturally attracted to it.)

"Casual sex" is worse than spiritual immaturity. It is the result of the lack of or denial of any values whatsoever. A thirteen year old can tell you that it's not a good thing to have sex with people that mean nothing to you. They probably won't be able to tell you why because they might still be spiritually immature, but their sense of life tells them that there is a reason and that they can learn it. "Casual sex" practitioners have either denied this, avoided it, or were never instilled with any values at all. The age when a person can begin to be attracted to things is the age that they can be attracted to things because. I might even say that attraction is only possible because people have the capacity for values.

I think I could go further with that, but.. that's enough. Anyway, I think I mostly agree with what you're saying, KendallJ.

Edited by cilphex
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Because those two are completely different spheres of pleasurable. A person experiences their femininity/masculinity (which is a part of their identity) when it is being contrasted and that happens the most through sex which is a big part of why it is so pleasurable to us - it is a concretization of oneself - and experience of integration between one's mind and values and one's biological/sexual identity. Finishing a chapter in a book, or any other productive achievement is not going to give you that concretization. It is a nautral on that scale, it is independent of your sexual/biological identity. Therefore you can not compare the pleasure from sex to that comming from productive achievement (or eating chocolate).

That concretization might be of less value to some people than finishing a chapter. Finishing a chapter brings a wonderful euphoric experience, one that springs from your personal mental identity, i.e., who you are personally.

Besides, I think one can measure the height of one's pleasure and compare it. Just as one can say they watching TV more than going on a rollercoaster, one can say one enjoys sex more (or less) than finishing a chapter in a book.

Disclaimer: I have said nothing in any of my posts about which brings me personally more pleasure because I have not experienced sex. For now I am assuming sex will be more pleasurable to me.

Which can be compared in terms of which activity provides more value to an individual given the context of their life. Thus, for some folks finishing a book may be better than having sex. That they are two different concretizations pleasurability makes no difference in terms of their comparison regarding the value they add to one's life and where they fit into an heirarchy of values.

Exactly my point.

In order to make a comparison more/less you have to be comparing things which cost you the same currency, or provide similar benefit.

Currencies can be exchanged from one to another. Or if you have the exchange rate you can use your mind convert a cost to you in pounds to US dollars. Or from New Zealand dollars to US dollars. The equivalent can be done with values of a different type. Besides it isn't just a cost analyse, nor is it with a purchase. Both are actually cost-benifit analysis.

I don't use "value" as some abstract concept.

Actually, the words "value" and "pride" are abstracts. Only particular examples, such as that I value finishing a book chapter, are concretes.

The benefit of pride from productive achievement is not the same kind of benefit as the concretization one experiences via having sex.

No one ever said they could be the same. It was said that one can be of more value and bring more pleasure and that that can be recognised.

Ultimately, which you enjoy more depends opn one factor: your own hierachy of values.

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But are they actually arguing that? I'd have said they were arguing that there's some point in the middle of the range of possibilities between sex with your ideal life partner and sex with a commie tree-hugging unwashed granola grubber where sex stops being moral and becomes immoral. This value might vary a good deal between any of them and might be a good deal lower than Inspector's (and certainly differs from Capitalism Forever's).

Edited to add: Though I might be misinterpreting your phrase "all manner of points along that heirarchy." What do you mean by "all manner of points"?

I agree, that they might be arguing that, but I'm trying to tease out their ideas on the nature of sex. The fact that there is a "Golden mean" somewhere does not close our seeming disagreement on where that mean is and what the basis is for choosing it. And the statements made so far by RB and Jenni, at least call into question whether there is not "some" value somewhere that is lower than mine, so until they draw the line, I'll be a little provocative.

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Oh, dear. Now you've done it. :confused:

[dozens of posts within 24 hours]

I believe we may now declare Inspector as the unrivaled winner of the prediction contest! ;)

Aaaanyhow, where do I differ from CF? If memory serves, I don't think I do... I think he's using a very simplified version of his position or is perhaps just being a bit of a tongue-in-cheek "troll."

When I am trying to fit a statement into a single line (especially one written in large font!) it is safe to assume that I'm simplifying it at least somewhat. The most obvious simplification, of course, is that I only refer to "a man" in the subject and leave it to the reader to infer that I hold the analogous position for women. Another simplification is my use of the word "marry" to refer to the idea of an exclusive and permanent relationship, whether or not any legal or social or (hopefully not!) ecclesiastical formalities are involved, where "permanent" means until death--or something similar--parts the two lovers. I could go on to clarify what I mean by "something similar" to death, or elaborate on my use of the expression "intend to marry," or list some possible sets of extraordinary circumstances that are outside of the principle's context of application, etc., but these little refinements do not touch the essence of my position, which is that sex is your token of esteem for the one person of the opposite sex that you love the most--and as such is diametrically opposed to the Casualist approach.

Perhaps a better version of the one-line summary would be: "You ought not sleep with someone you intend to leave." For if you're going to leave her, that means she's no good; in other words, that you don't really value her, for a value is something you act to gain and keep. Could you honestly say "I love you" to someone you don't really value? Could you honestly kiss a person you don't love? Could you honestly have sex with a person you don't want to kiss? Explaining why you're giving yourself to someone you don't think you belong to amounts to explaining why you think A is not A; for a man of integrity, an act declaring someone to be his supreme value cannot coexist with a view to discard her.

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I think you've misunderstood her here. She wrote "even more restricted," which implies that she fully recognizes her writing as having severe restrictions on it. The implication for me is that as long as she's produced solid, valuable writing, she doesn't feel guilty for not having written her life's masterwork.
This is very fair comment. Jenni, apologies if I took you out of your intended meaning. It may have been RB's attempt at clarifying Jenni earlier that I reacted to most.
I think SoftwareNerd answered that well. I agree with his response to this.
Whew, a ton of stuff there, cilphex. I'm going to need some time to mull it over. Not ignonring you if you don't see a response, but noodling.
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Perhaps a better version of the one-line summary would be: "You ought not sleep with someone you intend to leave." For if you're going to leave her, that means she's no good; in other words, that you don't really value her, for a value is something you act to gain and keep. Could you honestly say "I love you" to someone you don't really value? Could you honestly kiss a person you don't love? Could you honestly have sex with a person you don't want to kiss? Explaining why you're giving yourself to someone you don't think you belong to amounts to explaining why you think A is not A; for a man of integrity, an act declaring someone to be his supreme value cannot coexist with a view to discard her.

That was awesome. Still thinking about whether I agree with that entirely, just because it seems so final and concise, but I like it.

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The arguments for uniquenss I've heard so far are poor in my estimation. Cilphex's "you can't work on another person" is an irrelevant characteristic.

I agree with you there - no offense I hope, Cilphex. I was going to mention it in my last post, but I was a little worn out by then. Temporal arguments, while superficially true in some cases, are a focus on one of the least important aspects of the issue.

My particular take on this is that sex is serious business. But it's reasons for being so are conceptual and abstract, a lot like the reasons for choosing and liking art (I'll use this as the comparator throughout because I think it works better than other values like food)...

I haven't actually heard a reason for this from Inspector yet

I could swear that I mentioned it somewhere, but between the comments at Myrhaf and here I am starting to lose track. Yes, I see it as a matter of you "a, b, and c." I don't know if I'd consider that an exhaustive list, but I agree with it.

I'm not sure I understand the values heirarchy argument put forth by RB and Jenni either, and it feels like they're confusing value with priority in their analysis.

I agree. There is a difference between giving a low priority to pursuing relationships in one's life, and having a cheap attitude toward sex. To say that one is not focused on pursuing a particular value in one's life is not necessarily to say that one will lower one's standards of what is good and what is in bad taste. People make food analogies here but they fall short because you have to eat something every day or so at least.

But you can't get away from the fact that sex or a relationship is an expression of value as such, right? I'm just not sure how the selection of a certain level of importance of sex doesn't in the process destroy the nature of that act as a value, as such.

Precisely.

I can see how choosing a certail level of relationship at a certain point in time might be as full of an expression of value as one is mature enough to understand, but once one understands what sort of expression of value it is, then one doesnt' go back and express less than this simply out of a sense of priority, does one?

To answer RB's question about this, there are certain levels of maturity which are unsuitable for sex at all. Having identified the nature of sex - of what it is to a rational man, and what it means given his conceptual nature - there are levels of maturity which will destroy these values if one attempts to apply them to sex. People with a 10-year-old mentality, for example, should not be having sex any more than they should be working in a foundry. They simply can't understand the importance of the values involved and will make a mess of things, which they will have cause to regret once they do learn and understand that importance.

To say that someone isn't mature enough to understand the values being cheapened and destroyed and so why shouldn't they do the kind of thing that is suitable "for them," is to cut one's concern off at the short term. Sooner or later most people do mature and understand what they have destroyed. And if they don't? Listen, ignorance is not bliss and perpetual immaturity is not something I could see being reconciled with man's nature as a rational being and the requirements that that implies for leading a flourishing life.

I find that I've become more integrated in body and mind along these lines that that fact becomes more important, and I find my body reacting much more strongly when the spritual need is met, and quite weakly in fact when an attraction is just purely physical. Which belies the conventional wisdom that it's all hormones. It is far from it.

Exactly, and the pleasure and seeking of the wrong kind of sex is entirely a product of non-integration of mind, body, and values. To further answer RB's question: why not let others have what is right "for them?" Because non-integration is not right for anybody. (That's the principle. Of course, the existential consequences are too complex and numerous to go into.)

I take most people's sincere desire (when the desire is sincere - as a believed expression of some sort of value) for casual sex as simply spiritual immaturity.

Correct, which is to say: moral and integrative immaturity. Not in the harmless sense of the word "immaturity" where children play on a child level, but in the same kind of "immaturity" that makes many adults see work as something to be skirted and money as something that is to be "had" and not earned. It is not simply immature, but also incorrect; not in accordance with the facts of reality and therefore harmful.

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