6 ms·

These aren't arbitrary just because they are enshrined in religion and custom. Before the pill, women couldn't sleep around without fear of getting pregnant. Be

• Tloewald 11y ago
  Back when sex always entailed a chance of pregnancy, food was scarce, disease was a mystery, we lived in small tribes, etc. etc. many of these rules may well have made sense. Survival heuristics got encoded as religion, which was then horribly misinterpreted, and adhered to long past its point of utility. Now these rules aren't random, but they are pretty arbitrary. Consider that our hangups about sex are tied to a sense of right and wrong that comes down to food scarcity (and other base needs, such as safety from predators) and reproductive rights. So we've got a bunch of people who treat sex as having moral significance owing to a survival/economic importance that no longer exists. When sex first became disconnected from reproduction we had a "sexual revolution" where people tried to act as if the underlying rules and norms had changed overnight and there were horrible repercussions, but that's not because there's something intrinsically correct about our current (or recent past) sexual mores. Rape within marriage used to be just fine (indeed, it only became illegal throughout the US in 1993).
• humanrebar 11y ago
  > Before the pill, women couldn't sleep around without fear of getting pregnant. Before condoms, people couldn't sleep around without fear of STDs. I'm going to push back on that assertion. There are still STDs in developed countries with plenty of access to condoms. Assuming that STD patients are not intentionally contracting diseases, it appears, at least on a social level, that condoms are not effective ways to prevent STDs in populations, at least not yet. Likewise for other forms of birth control and unplanned pregnancy rates. I think our morals are outpacing our science and habits. And the disadvantaged disproportionately pay the consequences. Or the people who pay the consequences end up disadvantaged. Or both. > We are adjusting our social values in response to advances in technology. Are we? I'm not so sure. We take a very non-judgmental view of all sorts of risky behaviors. Scientifically speaking, anal sex has many more risk factors associated with it than other forms of sex. I haven't seen any studies about health risks associated with infidelity, but it's plausible (if not almost certain) that a person having unprotected sex with a secretly promiscuous spouse is exposed to STDs unwittingly. I think you can argue for more personal freedom, but I'm going to disagree when you assert that we, as a society, have evolved past the consequences traditional morals were set up to protect against.
• SZJX 11y ago
  Well said. Though of course another aspect of those social institutions was hierarchical stability: if a peasant married a nobility, had a child, and then gained claim to this family's assets then all would go to pots soon. On the contrary a marriage between two noble families would create political bonds to benefit them both. In fact the notion of "romantic love" didn't really exist until the renaissance (though unfortunately now we know pretty well this notion is also quite BS and against human nature anyways). Now with productivity largely increased and ordinary people having much more economic power such an institution has no reason to stand. It's just that social changes mostly occur slower than technical/economic basis for them. And indeed, a relationship has to be based on mutual agreement and trust. If both sides agree this relationship to be open, then there's no problem at all. It's only problematic if they reached an agreement when starting the relationship, but later couldn't adhere to it. If no deal, then no relationship. If there's a deal, then you'll have to follow through.
• Shorel 11y ago
  Or legalize against the advances in question. In France it is illegal to DNA test you 'own' children, and the doctors will lie to you as a policy, to avoid 'broken homes'.