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The Purpose of Sex

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Jill

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I do not agree with Ayn Rand on romance and sex. I think she was well intended and wanted to bring meaning and beauty to an act that is a source of pleasure, but not only she seems to forget to mention that a person can have the same pleasure in solitude, she entrenches one of the biggest mistakes of humankind, that is to remove sex from its actual purpose of conceiving new life and invent another apparent "superior" meaning to it. There is no reason to have sex with a person just because you admire the person, share values very deeply or like the person's company above any other person, out of the context that you wish to have children with this person and be a parent with this person. To this day I have found nobody that agrees with me on this, that values the beauty of sex for what it actually is.

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There is no reason to have sex with a person just because you admire the person, share values very deeply or like the person's company above any other person, out of the context that you wish to have children with this person and be a parent with this person. To this day I have found nobody that agrees with me on this, that values the beauty of sex for what it actually is.

Well, suppose that a couple wanted to have six children, and they've just had their sixth child. Does that mean they should put an end to all romantic intimacy between them, and act as if they were only friends?

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I think she was well intended and wanted to bring meaning and beauty to an act that is a source of pleasure, but not only she seems to forget to mention that a person can have the same pleasure in solitude, she entrenches one of the biggest mistakes of humankind, that is to remove sex from its actual purpose of conceiving new life and invent another apparent "superior" meaning to it.

This is blatantly and obviously false. Most people value sexual intimacy with another person far more than they do masturbation, and for good reason--it's more fun. The pleasure involved is mental and emotional, not just physical. And why on earth should the "purpose" of sex exclusively be the creation of new life? One of the best parts of being human is the ability to turn physical circumstances to your own purposes. Why should we do this in every other aspect of our lives yet for some completely unknown reason refuse to do it with sex?

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I do not agree with Ayn Rand on romance and sex. I think she was well intended and wanted to bring meaning and beauty to an act that is a source of pleasure, but not only she seems to forget to mention that a person can have the same pleasure in solitude, she entrenches one of the biggest mistakes of humankind, that is to remove sex from its actual purpose of conceiving new life and invent another apparent "superior" meaning to it. There is no reason to have sex with a person just because you admire the person, share values very deeply or like the person's company above any other person, out of the context that you wish to have children with this person and be a parent with this person. To this day I have found nobody that agrees with me on this, that values the beauty of sex for what it actually is.

So people who don't want children should never have sex? Ridiculous.

Sex has the potential, at its best, to be a cohesive force between two loving individuals second to none. The incredible bonding experience of giving your body to someone freely, as a gift, while at the same time taking theirs all for your own and mastering it, knowing you are responsible for their every move, reaction, and sensation, is inimitable. I know this is not what sex is like for everyone, or how everyone views their sexual experience, but I'm suggesting that it is possible to a loving couple and, I assert, only to a loving couple. No conversation, gesture, or other act of love, no matter how expansive, can quite compare to that one thing. Moreover, people are meant to have sex. It actually improves your physical condition to have more sex (assuming you are not being put at increased risk of infection). Masturbation helps to a degree but it is not a total substitute.

What do you think about sex acts that do not carry the possibility of reproduction at all? Do you think they are wrong? Or just somehow unsatisfying (on which point I will disagree with you)?

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There is no reason to have sex with a person just because you admire the person, share values very deeply or like the person's company above any other person, out of the context that you wish to have children with this person and be a parent with this person. To this day I have found nobody that agrees with me on this, that values the beauty of sex for what it actually is.

I can't think of a better reason to have sex with someone; You admire the person, share the same values and morals, and enjoy the person's company above any other persons. This sounds like the person I would like to wake up next to every day!

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one of the biggest mistakes of humankind, that is to remove sex from its actual purpose of conceiving new life

People have made many mistakes throughout history, and the decision to have sex as an end in its self, i.e., as a source of pleasure, and not as a means of having a baby; hardly constitutes "one of the biggest mistakes of humankind."

Why do you think this is one of the biggest mistakes of humankind? What do you think has resulted from people's decisions to have sex for pleasure, which makes that decision so disastrous, as oppose to some of the other potential disastrous mistakes people can and/or have made?

Each individual person sets their own purpose, this is what it means to have free will. However you state the "actual purpose," of sex is such and such. If men have free will, then the "actual purpose," for sex is whatever purpose each individual person chooses for having sex. That means there are as many actual purposes for having sex, as there are people who actually choose a purpose for engaging in sex, and then follow through with that purpose.

If human beings did not have freewill and were more like the lower animals, then some kind of alien biologists could come to earth, and study mankind and ascribe a teleological purpose to the sexual act. They would do this in the same way todays biologists study sexual reproduction in animals. Such alien biologists would observe non-free human beings, behaving like monkeys or other animals, and conclude "biologically their is an inherent teleological purpose of sex for human beings, which is to procreate."

(Note: I say alien biologists because if human beings did not have free will, there would be, literally, no purpose to have schools and study phenomena, because acquired knowledge would make no difference, so there would be no point in acquiring it.)

But, the moment we are observing volitional, purposeful, human beings; (beings with free will), then it is nonsensical to sit on-high and ascribe what the "actual purpose" for sex is, while condemning all the various purposes people actually choose for sex.

Note: your epistemology with respect to the concept of "sex" has somehow become Platonic. You have chosen a "Form of the Good," like Plato, and the implication is that that "Form" is out there somewhere, and people somehow gain insight to it. The result is your kind of dogmatism with regard to sex.

What may be helpful is if you try to make an argument as to why men should only use sex for procreation. Attempting to make an argument for or against a given position would require the use of reasons, which implies that men have free will. E.g., if you are going to claim that it is a huge error for people to choose to hold the position that it is proper to use sex only for pleasure, then you'd have to supply reasons why it is an error, i.e., you'd have to choose a standard for how one knows a given belief is a mistake, and then you'd have to choose a standard for how one knows when a given mistake is little vs. big. Finally, you'd have to provide reasons for your audience to support your claim.

If you approached your beliefs in this way, your propensity for Platonism / Dogmatism would quickly be destroyed.

Regards,

Michael

Edited by phibetakappa
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The title of this thread, "The Purpose of Sex", suggests that sex has only one purpose. It seems to me that that sort of thinking is rather limited. If I remember correctly, Jacob Bronowski wrote (maybe in "The Ascent of Man" http://www.amazon.com/Ascent-Man-Jacob-Bro...749&sr=8-2) that every biological structure has at least two uses. For example, the penis transmits both urine and semen, the ear is involved with both balance and hearing, the tongue is used for both eating and speaking. Surely sex can be seen to have at least two purposes, pleasure and procreation. To suggest that sex has only one purpose, whether it be pleasure or procreation, seems to me as silly as asserting that the penis should transmit only urine, that the ear should be used only for hearing, and that the tongue should be used only for eating.

John Link

Edited by John Link
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I do not agree with Ayn Rand on romance and sex. I think she was well intended and wanted to bring meaning and beauty to an act that is a source of pleasure, but not only she seems to forget to mention that a person can have the same pleasure in solitude, she entrenches one of the biggest mistakes of humankind, that is to remove sex from its actual purpose of conceiving new life and invent another apparent "superior" meaning to it. There is no reason to have sex with a person just because you admire the person, share values very deeply or like the person's company above any other person, out of the context that you wish to have children with this person and be a parent with this person. To this day I have found nobody that agrees with me on this, that values the beauty of sex for what it actually is.

Be very careful in ascribing the "purpose" of any biological feature or behavior or actions of a living organism. One of the ways in which evolution works is by adapting organs or actions suited for one purpose to another function. It's called "exaptation"--look it up in any decent biology textbook. It's also possible for a physical trait or action to serve more than one purpose--as John Link points out in an earlier post. Nothing in reality excludes Nature from giving sex other purposes besides reproduction. In fact, many biologists who study the sexual behavior of higher mammals, such as dolphins and Bonobo's, find evidence that sexual acts serve social functions. If Nature can use the pleasure of sex to create and maintain social bonds among other mammals, why not in humans, who have even more complex social relationships? Given this, you simply cannot argue that Nature dictates a strictly reproductive purpose for sex and thereby claim that "there is no reason to have sex" with someone whom you deeply admire and value if you don't intend to have children with them.

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To this day I have found nobody that agrees with me on this, that values the beauty of sex for what it actually is.

Fortunately, man has a mind and can make choices about what purpose sex serves for him (or her) within a particular context. Perhaps the reason no one else agrees with you is because in determining sex's purpose according to your personal values, you impose that purpose on others without respect to their values and reasoning.

Alas, for the man whose wife is older and unable to bear children anymore, I suppose sex would be without purpose for them. I am glad that is not the case.

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So, what 'sex really is' is a unit-popper.

Well, along with people who simply don't want children, we can now call the following immoral, since they cannot produce offspring:

*. Any same-sex relationship.

*. Any relationship where one or both members are sterile and cannot produce children.

*. Any relationship where the members suffer from a strong hereditary condition and choose not to have children so as not to inflict them with it.

*. Masturbation.

You do realize that what you are trying to pass off as an argument is essentially "Sex is too beautiful to be enjoyed?" You are ascribing a moral duty to sex: Procreation. You are doing this by eliminating the one important factor, the human mind, and instead you are focusing the issue on a purely animalistic scope that I like to call Genital Determinism. Whereas in animals the act of sexual procreation is part of an instinctual makeup (and not all the time, as many animals engage in masturbation), humans differ from these animals in that they possess higher brain functions and the ability to exist, on a conceptual level, beyond the mere rudiments of said primitive, animalistic existence.

We are not shackled to be animals merely because we share physical attributes with them. If sexual procreation were the sole effect of sex as it appears within the context of human biology, and if we were bound by nature to that function as an instinctive mechanism, we wouldn't be on this board pondering the purpose of sex. We'd be doing it without being able to think about it.

It is undeniable that sexual reproduction is the result of an evolutionary pathway aimed towards propagation of the species. However, in that same subject our noses developed so that we could identify our location and smell the presence of possible predators. Obviously, that is the 'purpose' of our olfactory systems and therefore perfumes are immoral.

I think you can do better than to state that the contents of a man's mind must be dictated by the shape of his penis.

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If you don't mind me asking, do you identify as asexual?

I was thinking about that as well. I have only very recently found about and have become interested in asexuality for a number of reasons (numbering at least 3 right now), and find myself actually identifying with it to some extent. From what I gather, it can umbrella different things. But my sleeping pill is kicking in, so I probably shouldn't talk much more about it. (not only now before sleep, but also after I sleep - I just had to say something quickly nonetheless.)

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In this context it is, because if I am not mistaken the way Jill has structured her post indicates that it is the enjoyment of the act when separated from her moral imperative that she dislikes, and it seems to me that she is trying to hint that the action becomes hedonistic.

Are those two things the same?
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In this context it is, because if I am not mistaken the way Jill has structured her post indicates that it is the enjoyment of the act when separated from her moral imperative that she dislikes

I'll be curious to hear her elaborate on how she meant it, but I think if taken literally, her post does not imply a moral imperative, but rather disputes a value: i.e., not "Thou shalst procreate," but rather "If you don't want to have children, why bother to have sex." If that is indeed her argument, then I think the way to approach it is similar to how you would respond to something like "If you don't want to cross the lake, there is no reason to go swimming in it."

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That's awesome. :lol:

I had a discussion with a young person in chat once about the value of sex and romantic relationships in general. I couldn't seem to get anywhere with her in our conversation, so I just gave up. Some things you just have to experience to understand, I guess.

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"If you don't want to have children, why bother to have sex."

This is part of what made me think a little of an asexual, because from what I understand, certain ones will have sex with another person, only to procreate, not for celebration, or hedonistic reasons. I am only beginning to understand this orientation, so I shouldn't say much more than that.

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This is part of what made me think a little of an asexual, because from what I understand, certain ones will have sex with another person, only to procreate, not for celebration, or hedonistic reasons. I am only beginning to understand this orientation, so I shouldn't say much more than that.

Well, being that sex and romance are optional values, I guess there's nothing wrong with that, so long as you have other values in your life that you achieve that bring you long-term happiness.

Some of the rest of us are quite content in our horndog ways, but I suppose like anything else sexual desire varies greatly from person to person.

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Well, being that sex and romance are optional values, I guess there's nothing wrong with that, so long as you have other values in your life that you achieve that bring you long-term happiness.

Right. It may be a psychological thing too, such intimacy might not be something a person wants to get involved with for a number of reasons. Some are just not attracted to opposite sex or same sex, and the causation is probably nothing but guesswork. Such an orientation might be problematic in relationships with others.

Some of the rest of us are quite content in our horndog ways, but I suppose like anything else sexual desire varies greatly from person to person.

I also think that sexual desire can vary in a person through the years (and not just for physiological/biological reasons either).

The desire has for me, that's for sure. I've recently begun to explore that in my writing. This whole year for me has seemingly been nothing but one self-discovery after another for me. It's a great year for finding out all about myself, and it's high time too. And I'm simply luxuriating in it, seeing, identifying just what I've blossomed fully into.

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Well, being that sex and romance are optional values, I guess there's nothing wrong with that, so long as you have other values in your life that you achieve that bring you long-term happiness.
Not quite, at least in the typical case. The typical person who takes the "sex only for procreation" line does so based on faulty ethical reasons. So, guard against the "everyone is selfish" fallacy, where Mother Teresa becomes selfish because she wanted to be altruistic.
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You could have linked to
instead, it would have been funnier.

that just doesn't get any less funny with time... still love it.

of all the topics covered under Objectivism I have found none that are more often confused than sex and romantic love. I have seen every extreme sexually from people calling themselves objectivists and if you sat 10 of us down in a room you would probably have 12 different sets of values.

Edited by Scott137
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