5 ms·

Enjoying sex isn’t a sin. Sex is supposed to be held in the highest regard. It’s a wonderful and joyous thing. The point is, I believe, to avoid cheapening it,

by beobab 8y ago

Enjoying sex isn’t a sin. Sex is supposed to be held in the highest regard. It’s a wonderful and joyous thing. The point is, I believe, to avoid cheapening it, making it less than the truly awesome thing it is. It’s supposed to be a priceless gift shared with your true love. Packaging it and selling it makes it less valuable. I believe that if you approach the subject with that mindset, a lot of the decisions that society has made suddenly make a bit more sense.

sacado2 8y ago
Replace "sex" with "food" and you just described French culture.
- yoz-y 8y ago
  Only the older generation snobbish french culture. If you look around here, restaurants that are full are kebabs, burger joins and other fastfood.
- GuB-42 8y ago
  Poor quality food never was illegal in France. For a time, fast food joints avoided France because they thought there would be no market. There were wrong, and they are everywhere now. It doesn't mean the value of good food has cheapened. If anything, now that there is a point of comparison, the opposite is true. Good restaurants, from Michelin 3-star to inexpensive "plat du jour" lunches, are still there. So are long lunch breaks and good home cooking. And I am talking about people of every age.
  - stochastic_monk 8y ago
    There’s even a McDonald’s on the Champs-Élysées now.
    - microcolonel 8y ago
      I think there's a distinction between "poor quality" and "bad idea".
    - staticautomatic 8y ago
      To be fair, if a McDonald's was going to be placed anywhere in Paris the Champs Elysees in its current form is a pretty good choice.
megous 8y ago
You can have both. Same as there are high end restaurants and drivethroughs.
microcolonel 8y ago
Well, while not a sin, it also isn't a panacea. We get it, you like sex, you think it's great. Lots of people who agree with that also think that having quite so much of it everywhere cheapens it and gives it outsize control of people's desires.
- lenticular 8y ago
  Closed attitudes about sex lead to more teen pregnancy, less opportunities for women, etc. I don't see where it is beneficial. The arguments for sexual prudishness always seem to revolve around "cheapening it" with a heavy subtext of expecting women to maintain sexual purity especially. Most of Western Europe is quite progressive about sex, but yet I can't see how that has been a problem for them. While you may have these beliefs about sex, many people do not. It shouldn't be imposed on everyone.
  - microcolonel 8y ago
    > less opportunities for women What is the mechanism of that? I don't understand how it's necessary to expose broader society (rather than just people interested in it) to unavoidable sexual imagery in order to... have women in the workplace?
    - lenticular 8y ago
      Sexual control is universally directed primarily towards women. No matter where you are in the world, male heterosexuality is far less restricted (often thought of as "conquest") whereas female sexuality is heavily restricted ("slut"). This gives a backdrop of delegitimizing women's choices over men's. I'm gay, and repressive sexual attitudes did tremendous damage to me in my youth, as I grew up in a conservative area. I don't understand how you can say with a straight face that sexual repression is not associated with homophobia or discrimination against women. I lived it, and so did every other gay or trans person I know. Also, who gets to decide what is appropriate? A few years ago, people commonly argued that gay people on TV isn't appropriate for children, using some variant of your argument. That's considered a reprehensible viewpoint now. The same is currently true of depicting trans people on TV, or accepting the reality that they exist. In 10 years, that will be considered reprehensible. I now live in an area with a more positive view of sexuality, and this carries over to acceptance of homosexuality, gender nonconforming behavior, etc. Sexual repression, empirically, is always linked to devaluing of women and other disadvantaged groups. edit: Openness about sexuality does not translate into acceptance of nonconsensual or harassing sexual behavior, which is what we should all be concerned about. Quite the opposite. Openness encourages victims to come forward, as has become very apparent in the last few years.
GavinMcG 8y ago
That's really not what it looks like from the inside of conservative religious communities in the United States, which are probably the single biggest driving force behind prudishness. Yes, they'll agree that it's "a gift shared with your true love" and want to avoid its devaluation, but even more than that there's a very strong culture of shame around sexual desure.
bouncycastle 8y ago
This is a meme I've heard before. From an anthropological view, I think sex (or the restriction of it through memes like this) is used as a way for one group to dominate over another group. Usually, a tool user by religion, especially around the dogma of marriage, where religious have the authority. This meme is so effective and convincing that it's often propagated without much thought.
- minkzilla 8y ago
  Slightly off topic but why are you referring to gp as a meme?

by beobab 8y ago

sacado2 8y ago

Replace "sex" with "food" and you just described French culture.

yoz-y 8y ago
Only the older generation snobbish french culture. If you look around here, restaurants that are full are kebabs, burger joins and other fastfood.
GuB-42 8y ago
Poor quality food never was illegal in France. For a time, fast food joints avoided France because they thought there would be no market. There were wrong, and they are everywhere now. It doesn't mean the value of good food has cheapened. If anything, now that there is a point of comparison, the opposite is true. Good restaurants, from Michelin 3-star to inexpensive "plat du jour" lunches, are still there. So are long lunch breaks and good home cooking. And I am talking about people of every age.
- stochastic_monk 8y ago
  There’s even a McDonald’s on the Champs-Élysées now.
  - microcolonel 8y ago
    I think there's a distinction between "poor quality" and "bad idea".
  - staticautomatic 8y ago
    To be fair, if a McDonald's was going to be placed anywhere in Paris the Champs Elysees in its current form is a pretty good choice.

megous 8y ago

You can have both. Same as there are high end restaurants and drivethroughs.

microcolonel 8y ago

Well, while not a sin, it also isn't a panacea. We get it, you like sex, you think it's great. Lots of people who agree with that also think that having quite so much of it everywhere cheapens it and gives it outsize control of people's desires.

lenticular 8y ago
Closed attitudes about sex lead to more teen pregnancy, less opportunities for women, etc. I don't see where it is beneficial. The arguments for sexual prudishness always seem to revolve around "cheapening it" with a heavy subtext of expecting women to maintain sexual purity especially. Most of Western Europe is quite progressive about sex, but yet I can't see how that has been a problem for them. While you may have these beliefs about sex, many people do not. It shouldn't be imposed on everyone.
- microcolonel 8y ago
  > less opportunities for women What is the mechanism of that? I don't understand how it's necessary to expose broader society (rather than just people interested in it) to unavoidable sexual imagery in order to... have women in the workplace?
  - lenticular 8y ago
    Sexual control is universally directed primarily towards women. No matter where you are in the world, male heterosexuality is far less restricted (often thought of as "conquest") whereas female sexuality is heavily restricted ("slut"). This gives a backdrop of delegitimizing women's choices over men's. I'm gay, and repressive sexual attitudes did tremendous damage to me in my youth, as I grew up in a conservative area. I don't understand how you can say with a straight face that sexual repression is not associated with homophobia or discrimination against women. I lived it, and so did every other gay or trans person I know. Also, who gets to decide what is appropriate? A few years ago, people commonly argued that gay people on TV isn't appropriate for children, using some variant of your argument. That's considered a reprehensible viewpoint now. The same is currently true of depicting trans people on TV, or accepting the reality that they exist. In 10 years, that will be considered reprehensible. I now live in an area with a more positive view of sexuality, and this carries over to acceptance of homosexuality, gender nonconforming behavior, etc. Sexual repression, empirically, is always linked to devaluing of women and other disadvantaged groups. edit: Openness about sexuality does not translate into acceptance of nonconsensual or harassing sexual behavior, which is what we should all be concerned about. Quite the opposite. Openness encourages victims to come forward, as has become very apparent in the last few years.

GavinMcG 8y ago

That's really not what it looks like from the inside of conservative religious communities in the United States, which are probably the single biggest driving force behind prudishness. Yes, they'll agree that it's "a gift shared with your true love" and want to avoid its devaluation, but even more than that there's a very strong culture of shame around sexual desure.

bouncycastle 8y ago

This is a meme I've heard before. From an anthropological view, I think sex (or the restriction of it through memes like this) is used as a way for one group to dominate over another group. Usually, a tool user by religion, especially around the dogma of marriage, where religious have the authority. This meme is so effective and convincing that it's often propagated without much thought.

minkzilla 8y ago
Slightly off topic but why are you referring to gp as a meme?