why is sex for physical gratification wrong?

[konerko14]

It's just that, as you can see from the above quote, Ayn Rand had a very strong position on this subject. So strong that I am stunned when people don't get it. I hope from here that I can just link to that topic (or just ignore them) and be done with this subject.

I think most of us know Ayn Rands take on sex, but what Im interested in is what the negative consequences are of having sex with a person you're attracted to but dont admire as a hero.

[BrassDragon]

Yeah, I understood what you were saying. But I wanted to say that the reason it is wrong to have sex with a corpse or animal isnt necessarily because the act would be divorced from spiritual values, but because the entities didnt give permission to the living human.

Animals don't have rights, and neither do dead bodies. You don't need permission from them to have sex with them, although you would need permission from the owner/ownership yourself.

Although again, let me stress, if sex is an expression of value for whatever you're having sex with, having sex with one of these entities IS wrong, if values are a product of the mind and rational self-interest.

I don't like Rand's use of the word "spiritual," simply because that word is usually used in a context of mysticism (religion, etc.). Of course, that's not the way she's using the word - to her, "spirituality" had to do with the mind, not the "soul." (Forgive the pedantry, I'm no expert, but this is my interpretation of her.)

[Lathanar]

I think most of us know Ayn Rands take on sex, but what Im interested in is what the negative consequences are of having sex with a person you're attracted to but dont admire as a hero.

That's femininity, different thread here

I don't think hero worship is really germane to this thread.

[RationalBiker]

Yeah, I understood what you were saying. But I wanted to say that the reason it is wrong to have sex with a corpse or animal isnt necessarily because the act would be divorced from spiritual values, but because the entities didnt give permission to the living human.

I'm not going to get into the finer points of bestiality (YUCK!), but there's an error here in thinking one needs an animal's "permission" to do anything to it. Hunters don't get permission from animals to kill them, but hunting isn't wrong.

[Groovenstein]

Hunters don't get permission from animals to kill them, but hunting isn't wrong.

It's not wrong per se, but it could be wrong sometimes. It depends on one's motives. Hunting for food or recreation is fine. Hunting because one delights in suffering is not.

[RationalBiker]

It's not wrong per se, but it could be wrong sometimes. It depends on one's motives. Hunting for food or recreation is fine. Hunting because one delights in suffering is not.

Correct, but my main point was about "permission" from an animal.

[The Wrath]

My answer: Because sex is by its nature an expression of value,

But why does it have to be? I'm sure Emeril Lagasse and Paul Prudhomme think the same about the culinary delights that they create, but it is not immoral for me to eat their food without being in love with them.

I disagree with both of these premises. Sex isn't a psychological need - you can do just fine without it, and many people do.

And not all people are the same. For me, it's pretty much a psychological need, because I start to get very irritable when my fiancee just isn't "in the mood" for abnormally long periods of time.

Sex cannot also be said to be just "physical desire," because a goat or something could provide a lot of the same physical stimulation as could a woman, but you probably don't have any physical desire to have sex with a goat.

I'm gonna use another food comparison. Let's say you are eating some kind of exotic food that tastes great. Then someone tells you that you just ate horse testicles. You will be repulsed, despite the fact that your physical experience of the food was a positive one. Same thing here. True, a goat's anus would probably feel at least somewhat similar to a woman's vagina, but any normal man will be repulsed by the idea.

Edited September 22, 2006 by Moose

[BrassDragon]

But why does it have to be? I'm sure Emeril Lagasse and Paul Prudhomme think the same about the culinary delights that they create, but it is not immoral for me to eat their food without being in love with them.

You're misunderstanding the way I changed the fruit analogy a little bit. You eat food, and you have sex with a woman. Eating Emeril's food is an expression of value for that food, not for Emiril, in the same way having sex with a woman is an expression of value for that woman, not for her mother, or her genetic code, or the environment she grew up in.

And why is having sex with a woman an expression of value for her? It just is, inherently. For the same reason eating something is an expression of value for the food you choose to eat.

And not all people are the same. For me, it's pretty much a psychological need, because I start to get very irritable when my fiancee just isn't "in the mood" for abnormally long periods of time.

Yeah, but I bet it wasn't a psychological need when you were my age, or at least for the first 20 years of your life (or whenever you became sexually active on a regular basis). Also, I think you can change your psychological "needs," because psychology is largely subservient to rationality. Finally, I think your fiancée would appreciate it if you wouldn't be so grumpy when she's not "in the mood"; the last girlfriend I had didn't appreciate it, and I say i had for a reason.

I'm gonna use another food comparison. Let's say you are eating some kind of exotic food that tastes great. Then someone tells you that you just ate horse testicles. You will be repulsed, despite the fact that your physical experience of the food was a positive one. Same thing here. True, a goat's anus would probably feel at least somewhat similar to a woman's vagina, but any normal man will be repulsed by the idea.

Why would you be repulsed by horse testicles? I'm not kidding; I think the French kings used to always eat the testicles of animals killed on the hunt, as an honor, and I think some people may still do that, like eating bull testicles in Spain (somebody help me out with my cultural references). If horse testicles taste good, I'd eat them, and I bet Emeril could pull that off.

Of course I agree with you that I'd be repulsed by having sex with a goat even though it might feel similar to a woman, for the reason I've stated, the same reason I'd be repulsed by having sex with a woman whose mind was "in the sewer." I mean what's the difference between having sex with a woman you detest and a goat? I see the same false premises in both cases.

I think these are very important questions to be asked, it's been good to think them over some.

Edited September 22, 2006 by BrassDragon

[Bold Standard]

Why is sex for physical gratification wrong?

Why do you assume that it is? I have seen Ayn Rand and other prominent Objectivists give strong arguments that promiscuity and indiscriminate or degrading sexuality is wrong. But I've never heard any of them say that "sex for physical gratification [is] wrong." In fact, there are many statements from Ayn Rand and others to the contrary.

I will provide just a couple of examples:

From her notes on the character of Howard Roark, that she made while writing the Fountainhead--

Until his meeting with Dominique, he has had affairs with women, perfectly cold, emotionless affairs, without the slightest pretense at love. Merely satisfying a physical need and recognized by his mistresses as such.

This is an excerpt from a letter Ayn Rand wrote to Gerald Loeb on June 3, 1944. Mr. Loeb is writing a novel in which his protagonist is struggling with conflicts between sex as a physical need, and his mind and ideals, and Ayn Rand is giving him advice on how his character should resolve the conflict.

The mental state of the hero—the idea that man is a slave to sex and to nature, that there is an irreconcilable conflict between the mind and the sex urge—is a perfect description of the mental state of an adolescent. Not of a mature man. In the case of your hero—this mental state would be intensified tenfold, because he is developed intellectually, he is an intelligent man in every other way, and an experienced man—but in the matter of sex he is still a youth. That mental state, however, is NOT caused by his particular predicament. Only intensified by it. It is the normal mental state of very many adolescents when they discover sex. Not of all, but of many. The tragedy of your hero is not that he gets into such a state—but that it will take him longer to outgrow it than it would in the case of an actual adolescent. And the most interesting part of the process would be that he can outgrow it while consciously watching his own spiritual growth. And he will outgrow it. He has to. That, too, is a law of nature.

Why is man a slave to sex? Because he needs it so strongly? Well, his need of food is even stronger, and more urgent and more immediate. But nobody thinks of himself as a slave to food. We simply take for granted that we need it—and we are in complete control of the means by which we get it. We keep on inventing new means all the time—we find new pleasures in food—and the whole matter is not tragic at all. In fact, in a normal, modern civilization, to a normal, average man the problem of getting food is no problem at all. Yes, he does need food, he is not free to decide not to eat—but why should he decide that? He is free to satisfy his need in an endless number of ways, he controls his means of production—he is a free man. (I am speaking of a civilized, capitalistic society—not of a collectivist slave pen.) The basic fact about sex—its overpowering necessity—is the same. So the mere fact that man needs it does not make him a slave. Now, of course, his means of satisfaction are not as simple as in the matter of food. But still, he is in control of them. The thing that seems to terrify your hero is the fact that his satisfaction depends upon another human being, upon some woman. There is nothing so dreadful in that. Not if he found the right woman. It can appear terrible to him—only until he does find her. But if he doesn't—well, as he matures and grasps the subject, he would learn that he can find a second-best substitute. Let's say, not a wife, but an attractive mistress. It would not be sex at its best and highest—not the perfect union of the spiritual and the physical—but it would not be terrifying or degrading or enslaving. That typically adolescent feeling comes, I think, only from physical impatience—a strong physical desire that drives the man to women he despises, for lack of anything better, while his mind naturally objects. Why should his mind object if he found a woman he did not despise?

[editted to add page number]

Edited September 22, 2006 by Bold Standard

[Bold Standard]

I don't like Rand's use of the word "spiritual," simply because that word is usually used in a context of mysticism (religion, etc.). Of course, that's not the way she's using the word - to her, "spirituality" had to do with the mind, not the "soul." (Forgive the pedantry, I'm no expert, but this is my interpretation of her.)

Actually, Ayn Rand was in the habit of frequently using the term "soul" as well [edit: as, for intstance, in her famous aphorism, "Man is a being of self-made soul"], usually stating something like, "By 'soul' I mean: 'consciousness.'" I think she liked using words like "spiritual" and "soul," because they conjure a more uplifted, "reverent" conception of the mind, as opposed to a materialistic interpretation of the mind. I think it's mostly an aesthetic choice.

Edited September 22, 2006 by Bold Standard

[Inspector]

From her notes on the character of Howard Roark, that she made while writing the Fountainhead--

That passage about Roark was one she did not include in the novel. Given the quote at the top of this page, I think it is perfectly fair to assume that this is because she rejected that idea of sex.

The Fountainhead's notes contain several passages which conflict with her later conclusions. For example:

[Roark's] Attitude toward life. He has learned long ago, with his first consciousness, two things which dominate his entire attitude toward life: his own superiority and the utter worthlessness of the world. He knows what he wants and what he thinks. He needs no other reasons, standards, or considerations... He did not acquire [this attitude]. He did not come to it through any logical deductions. He was born with it. He never questions it because even the possibility of questioning it never occurs to him.

The passage is followed by an editor's note:

QUOTE(Editor's Note)

This passage conflicts with AR's rejection of innate ideas - see John Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged.

Here is another such passage:

Politics - Interested only in not being interested in politics... He recognizes only the right of the exceptional [man] (and by that he means and knows only himself) to create, and order, and command. The others are to bow.

The passage is followed by an editor's note:

QUOTE(Editor's Note)

Here we see a remnant of the Nietzscheanism prominent in The Little Street. For AR's mature view, see "Man's Rights" in The Virtue of Selfishness.

So Bold Standard, I think you are wrong to attribute either of those passages to Ayn Rand's mature view or to Objectivism; especially when she so clearly rejects physical-only sex as "evil perversion."

Edited September 22, 2006 by Inspector

[JMeganSnow]

I think there's also the perennial problem of suffering from Madonna/Whore complex when discussing sex and value. You can go to a woman for no purpose other than the satisfaction of your "physical" desire, but this does not mean that you are having sex that is not based on values. If you didn't value her at all, you wouldn't be able to sustain an erection, much less achieve orgasm. Sex in the pleasurable sense is actually impossible with someone you don't value.

Now the question of why you value them is up for grabs; it's up to you to determine the rational reasons for valuing another person and then act on them. Or, you can do what a lot of people do and just let undigested observations accumulate until you "fall" in love with someone for no reason you can comprehend. If you want to have a really screwed-up sex life, this is the way to go.

One of the points I differ with Inspector on is that I think it's perfectly rational (and even well-advised) for people to have different levels of selectivity on how much they have to value someone before they will sleep with them. Depending on a number of variables in your personal situation, it may be a perfectly good thing for you to have sex with another person, whereas if your situation were different it would be a very bad thing. I don't think there's an Ideal relationship for each person and you should hold out for that come what may; I think, like everything else in life, you have to learn how to have sexual relationships and this may involve a certain amount of trial-and-error. There are a great many things in life that no one can teach you how to do--although, if you're lucky and you meet a wise person, he or she can show you how they do it and you can make many inferences from their experiences.

No amount of watching someone else walk up and down, however, will teach you how to walk: you have to get up off your butt and go for it yourself.

[Groovenstein]

Correct, but my main point was about "permission" from an animal.

Yeah. After I posted that I regretted it, because, while true, I know that wasn't the crux of what you were getting at. I'll put a point in my "tangential" column.

[Inspector]

Sex in the pleasurable sense is actually impossible with someone you don't value.

Well, yes and no. As you say in the next part of your post, that "value" could be entirely irrational. The value, in other words, could be enitrely a figment of their imagination; an evasion of the facts.

People can make it "work" with such evasions, at least enough to go through with the act. But in the sense of making it a pleasureable experience, even physically speaking, this will fail.

I'm pretty sure that's what you meant; just clarifying a bit.

[Lathanar]

Why do you assume that it is? I have seen Ayn Rand and other prominent Objectivists give strong arguments that promiscuity and indiscriminate or degrading sexuality is wrong. But I've never heard any of them say that "sex for physical gratification [is] wrong."

I don't know about anyone else, but I place sex for mere physical pleasure under the heading indiscriminate sex.

[Bold Standard]

I don't know about anyone else, but I place sex for mere physical pleasure under the heading indiscriminate sex.

But the original topic of this thread was not addressing "sex for mere physical pleasure" (emphasis mine), but rather "sex for physical gratification" in general, which is one of the many alternatives some people seem to be equivocating on.

So Bold Standard, I think you are wrong to attribute either of those passages to Ayn Rand's mature view or to Objectivism; especially when she so clearly rejects physical-only sex as "evil perversion."

When does Ayn Rand ever even address the issue of "physical-only sex," and what does that phrase mean?

Edited September 23, 2006 by Bold Standard

[softwareNerd]

But the original topic of this thread was not addressing "sex for mere physical pleasure" (emphasis mine), but rather "sex for physical gratification" in general, which is one of the many alternatives some people seem to be equivocating on.

I didn't notice that; I simply assumed that Moose meant "purely physical", as that is the discussion that has been ongoing recently. For the record, Ayn Rand spoke against "platonic love".

just as an idea unexpressed in physical action is contemptible hypocrisy, so is platonic love—and just as physical action unguided by an idea is a fool's self-fraud, so is sex when cut off from one's code of values. It's the same issue, and you would know it. Your inviolate sense of self-esteem would know it. You would be incapable of desire for a woman you despised. Only the man who extols the purity of a love devoid of desire, is capable of the depravity of a desire devoid of love.

[Proverb]

I take a simpler approach.

Consider this.

The physical act of sex is pleasurable, at least by those without some physical defect. So for the purpose of argument it's fair to replace "physical sex" with pure 'biological' pleasure as it relates to the chemical and consequently psychological reward system.

With that in mind, the hedonist says that sex, exclusively for pleasure, is a value. Consider the consequences:

Finding a "sex partner" requires time. Convincing said sex partner requires time (and often money it would seem). The "act" itself takes time (albeit possibly brief). All costs for which are withdrawn from the account of one's life, for what?

A purely biological reaction (IN THIS CONTEXT) to the physical act of sex (inclusively; whether it be the physical and/or immediate physiological consequences of sexual activity).

So in the context of ones life, sex simply for pleasure is of no prevailing value to the rational person.

"It is the hedonist that can't comprehend contexts wider than his nose, whereby he cannot see that a lifetime of pleasure seeking is not a lifetime at all."

DO NOT GET ME WRONG, physical pleasure is a value, but only in so much as it is a consequence of rational action and the value judgements that lead to it within the context of man's life.

[Lathanar]

But the original topic of this thread was not addressing "sex for mere physical pleasure" (emphasis mine), but rather "sex for physical gratification" in general, which is one of the many alternatives some people seem to be equivocating on.

I believe it's addressed the same as the need to satisfy hunger. We need to use reason to figure out how to satisfy the need for food, we need reason to figure out how to satisfy the need for sex. We can obtain food a moral way or we can obtain food immorally, i.e. stealing food may keep us full but it's still wrong. Same thing with sex, there's a wrong way to go about it.

[Bold Standard]

"Only the man who extols the purity of a love devoid of desire, is capable of the depravity of a desire devoid of love."

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It's kind of hard for me to imagine a desire devoid of love, but if I think about it in that context, I can. Still, it seems like there are those in this discussion who condemn more than merely a desire devoid of love (and I'm assuming that she means love in the same sense that she defines the concept on pages 34-35 of Introduction To Objectivist Epistemology, "an emotion proceeding from the evaluation of an existent as a positive value and as a source of pleasure"). Some insist that deriving sexual gratification from anything other than sex with one's life partner and romantic ideal is depraved.

The way I see it, it's fine to hold a view like that, but don't attribute it to Objectivism. There is nothing in the Playboy interview with Ayn Rand, or anywhere else in her writings as far as I'm aware, to confirm that Ayn Rand held that view-- and, the way I read her words, I think there are passages that are strong evidence that she did not hold that view.

There are many passages in which she comes out very clearly and persuasively against promiscuity in sex, and against hedonism as a general approach to ethics. But the burden of proof is on whoever claims that anything other than sex with one's ideal automatically falls into this category... And.. Sorry if I'm getting a couple of these threads confused. There are so many on this or a very similar topic right now! From reading the original post, I thought the topic of this thread was "Why is sex for physical gratification wrong, according to Objectivism." In which case, my response is that it's not-- sex should be for physical gratification, and spiritual gratification, too. But maybe I was taking that wording too literally. If the question is: why is sex for physical gratification to the exclusion of spiritual gratification, or even with negative spiritual consequences wrong; then I would say, for the same reason that spiritual gratification to the exclusion of physical gratification, or with negative physical consequences is wrong-- and to the same degree. Because there is no split between mind and body.

[edited grammar]

Edited September 23, 2006 by Bold Standard

[Inspector]

If the question is: why is sex for physical gratification to the exclusion of spiritual gratification, or even with negative spiritual consequences wrong

That's how I read the question of this thread, and that's what I've been responding to.

[Inspector]

When does Ayn Rand ever even address the issue of "physical-only sex," and what does that phrase mean?

All over the quotes given in this thread and the others. In the quote in post #17. In the quote you just responded to.

When I say, physical only sex, I mean sex as a response only to a partner's physical appearence to the ignorance or exclusion of their values, character, and all mental attributes.

As to your question of where, beyond a desire devoid of love, that problems lie, I suggest the thread linked to in that I endorsed in post #10. Specifically, my formulation in post #83.

But as an answer to Moose, and a follow up/addendum to my earlier addendum to Jennifer's post, I would answer the question:

"Why is sex purely for physical gratification wrong?"

With:

"Because it's lousy."

Remember this isn't about self-denial. It is about wisdom of what will and will not bring happiness. Or even physical pleasure for that matter.

[Bold Standard]

All over the quotes given in this thread and the others. In the quote in post #17. In the quote you just responded to.

When I say, physical only sex, I mean sex as a response only to a partner's physical appearence to the ignorance or exclusion of their values, character, and all mental attributes.

This is a good example of what I mean by people falsely attributing things to Ayn Rand in this discussion. And it's not something I can remember seeing you do, Inspector, on any other topic. "Physical-only sex" is not a term that Ayn Rand used-- not in any of the quotes on this thread, anyway: I used my search feature on Firefox to double check!

But I have trouble seeing how even the concept of physical-only sex as you've defined it could be possible on her premises. How do you reconcile that with Francisco's statements on sex from pg 456 in Atlas Shrugged, such as, "...in fact, a man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions." Is it even possible to divorce all of a person's values, character, and all mental attributes from his physical appearance?

Even if it is possible, I don't see how you derive a concept like that from anything Ayn Rand said, especially the posts on this thread and especially the quote from post #17.

As to your question of where, beyond a desire devoid of love, that problems lie, I suggest the thread linked to in that I endorsed in post #10. Specifically, my formulation in post #83.

Although I feel like I've already read endless volumes of posts and threads on this topic, I'll put that on my list and read it eventually. It is an interesting topic, but it does seem to get very repetitive at times.

But as an answer to Moose, and a follow up/addendum to my earlier addendum to Jennifer's post, I would answer the question:

"Why is sex purely for physical gratification wrong?"

With:

"Because it's lousy."

Remember this isn't about self-denial. It is about wisdom of what will and will not bring happiness. Or even physical pleasure for that matter.

It makes sense to say that it's wrong to have sex for the purpose of pleasure if it's a situation in which pleasure isn't a possible result of the actions you're taking. But in some posts, you've implied that even if you do experience pleasure, that pleasure is somehow immoral if it's experienced with someone who doesn't correspond to the ideal of the highest possible to you ever. That's where I start to get totally baffled. Even the Christian argument against sex* makes more sense to me than that-- at least they usually admit that you can experience the pleasure on Earth; they just say you'll be punished in the afterlife. They don't say that the pleasure you actually experience wasn't really pleasure..

*[edit: I meant, against (what they would call) "premarital" sex.]

Edited September 23, 2006 by Bold Standard

[RationalBiker]

I don't know about anyone else, but I place sex for mere physical pleasure under the heading indiscriminate sex.

Why is it necessarily indiscriminate?

[Inspector]

"Physical-only sex" is not a term that Ayn Rand used

Need she have used those precise words? What essential difference is there between that and the quote from #17? You are nit-picking.

How do you reconcile that with Francisco's statements on sex from pg 456 in Atlas Shrugged, such as, "...in fact, a man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions." Is it even possible to divorce all of a person's values, character, and all mental attributes from his physical appearance?

If one of a man's fundamental convictions is that A can be non-A, or that mind can be divorced from body, then yes he can convince himself of all sorts of things.

Even if it is possible, I don't see how you derive a concept like that from anything Ayn Rand said, especially the posts on this thread and especially the quote from post #17.

"sex has to have a high spiritual base and source, and that without this it is an evil perversion."

How is that unclear? Sex without a high spiritual base and source (i.e. in pursuit of physical appearance alone) is an evil perversion. I don't see how that could be any clearer.

But in some posts, you've implied that even if you do experience pleasure, that pleasure is somehow immoral if it's experienced with someone who doesn't correspond to the ideal of the highest possible to you ever.

Again, post #83 in that thread is the best, clearest statement of my position to date. Any conclusion, such as the ones you are wondering about, are derived from the premise of the argument in that post.

That's where I start to get totally baffled. Even the Christian argument against sex* makes more sense to me than that-- at least they usually admit that you can experience the pleasure on Earth; they just say you'll be punished in the afterlife. They don't say that the pleasure you actually experience wasn't really pleasure..

To you, what is the status of the pleasure one recieves as one burns ones brain into oblivion with narcotics? What is the status of the pleasure of a man hallucinating as his body wastes away in a disease-ridden gutter? What is the status of the pleasure of a zoophile engaged in his perversions?

In other words, at what price does that pleasure come? If it comes from some form of evasion, then is that a pleasure that a life-seeking rational man would desire?

As I said, most people won't experience much pleasure at all from sex on bad premises. There is too much unpleasant reality intruding on the experience. Only those who are highly deluded will be able to ignore enough of that reality.

Rather than focus on what I have implied here or there, focus first on my premise (from post #83 of the thread linked to in this thread's post #10). Before you go to agreeing or disagreeing with what I have concluded from that premise, see if you agree or disagree with it. If you agree, then perhaps you could show me how something I have said does not follow from that premise.

And you might also want to start another thread, as your line of questioning is clearly beyond the scope of the question of the moral status of sex divorced from mental values.

Edited September 23, 2006 by Inspector