I appreciated the article from
@Darth Doc .
I think it was the way you segued from people who think of sex as something more than a "potentially repulsive" thing they might do on a daily basis like any other casual but distasteful act in a way somehow linking such beliefs to idiotic religious values that really got me upset.
For the idiotic religious beliefs, I was referring more to instances of people influencing legislation to control sexual acts of others (e.g. anti-prostitiution laws, or anti-sodomy laws, etc.). Or in general just saying these things are "immoral."
There is some evolutionary behaviorism science & anthropology that would suggest that some people's feeling that sex is something more than "just sex" and potentially not like any other chore, is not just a result of conditioning.
okay... conditioning still plays a substantial part though.
I read a very interesting psych piece once on why rape is such a particularly traumatic type of violence to go through, why any violence is. It centered around the concept that a big part of our ego boundaries and sense of safety are built around the perceived "integrity" of our bodily boundaries, to not be destroyed, invaded, or subjected to torture from the environment. This touches on ontological security. Only makes every bit of logical evolutionary sense for organisms and cultures to give a hoot about the "integrity" of our bodies with respect to our environment.
Sure. people don't want to be physically harmed. sex doesn't necessarily equate with physical or emotional harm.
They went on to say, that from the "integrity" of our personal space bubble, to the "integrity" of you not ****ing with my arm throwing spitwads at it on the school bus, to the integrity we feel about our sexual organs - not all violations of bodily integrity is experienced the same way and some are considered more "personal" than others. (It was implied that this holds true to some extent for both men and women. Although, whatever I read so long ago, did put forth the theory that the fact the the most frequent violation of the self that occurs in females being sexually assaulted is penetrative and the pain may be felt more internally than externally, that it may hold more traumatic meaning or may be experienced as a "greater violation of the self." This last part is pure conjecture.)
Again, i don't think penetrative sex is necessarily a violation. There are many many men and women that enjoy it and don't view it as a traumatic experience or a "violation."
To what degree do you associate your personal self with your eyes? Your head? Your knee? Your scrotum? We identify with different parts of our bodies in different ways. Some of this is conditioned, but if we are conditioned rather than born to feel very close to/protective of our genitals, can we really ascribe that to ignorant religious belief or something more rational? I still suggest there are some biological underpinnings to some of this.
you're right. there probably are biological underpinnings.
I bring all this up to say, there is no good reasoning to just dismiss the potential for serious psychological implications of being alone & naked with someone who intends to do things to what are considered private, and to what are with certainty, sensitive areas of the body that have profound biological implications in the "grand scheme of things," as simply some silly socially constructed phenomenon that we can dismiss if we just "socialize" people enough and get everyone having sex like one might go for a run or shake someone's hand.
I wasn't advocating for a mass orgy. many have casual sex without "profound biological implications" though, and this isn't just men. I know many women who have sex for enjoyment and remain far more emotionally detached than men i know. They just enjoy having sex... with different people... for the first time... So this sense of violation or loss of integrity isn't engrained into psyche of all humankind.
My point is that to put an end to the prostitution debate with "sex is no big deal unless you believe in religious hooey" seems to vastly underestimate what I think we can observe rationally and scientifically. As the poster points out, all of us are the product of sex, 7 billion of us. I think it's a pretty big deal.
So, my point so far is really, sex is a big deal for a lot of reasons including what I consider legitimate sociobiological reasons fundamental to survival, and of course anything that important will have cultural and religious commentary on how best to deal with it. Ignoring that commentary, still what people do to each other with their genitals is no inconsequential psychological matter either for many.
How people react to sex or how they want to do it should be THIER concern, not yours.
I think if we want the sex that people are having to be the least damaging to all parties involved, it should happen for free between two people who are willing to get that physically close with another for the purpose of sharing pleasure. Sure free sex happens all the time and doesn't meet my snuff test here, and I'm sure you can exchange cash and accomplish all this with the exception of "free."
This was the main point of post. I think you're overstepping your bounds dictating why or how or for what reasons OTHERs should have sex...
My argument is that once you add an enticement such as money to the decision-making of giving consent, (so I'm assuming NO pressures on the prostitute besides perhaps financial desire, true consent) I still wonder if we are fostering an exchange that is less healthy for the parties involved and society as a whole, than what is achieved with a culture that does more to discourage prostitution.
If someone pays me to shovel **** did i really consent or was I forced? What if someone pays me to go on a roller coaster? In both cases I chose to do it. One i perceived as unenjoyable, the other as fun. Regardless I chose to do it based on what i value and what i want out of life. that's what adults do. you're thinking far to abstract about this and overstepping your bounds.
We understand to some extent how money = power, and how when unequal power plays becomes part of sex, there are frequently bad outcomes.
No, I'm not citing a bunch of studies about STD risks, arrests, etc.
I'm defending the fact that as a feminist my gut doesn't like being told that the extent to which I identify with my vagina as a precious, personal, private, and sensitive part of my being that I feel close to, that occasionally the stimulation of it causes me intense emotions and psychological responses, is just a product of ignorance, social conditioning, or superstition.
I never said you shouldn't view your vagina as "precious." I was saying the desire to control the sexual acts of others was the product of 'ignorance, social conditioning, and superstition.' In fact, i said there are many sexual acts i wouldn't want to do---and by way of that, there are lots of sexual acts that you probably don't want to do and that's your right. Don't do them. But who are you to tell someone else what they can or can't do with their body. That doesn't seem "feminist" at all.
Basically, I'm being told by my society that's it's more "normal" or somehow better to objectify my vagina, and pass it around with the same consideration I might give my hand in a handshake. I don't think it makes any sense on so many levels that have nothing to do with religion.
As physicians, the science around STDs alone makes the best medical advice, "protected sex with a limited number of partners."
Anyway, my gut tells me that encouraging people to rent the use of genitals is a bad idea.
