Someone asked me that question privately.
If by sexuality, one means gender identity or sexual orientation… I support people being free to be themselves, as long as they don’t force themselves on others (like predators of children).
Regarding sex…
I believe in the basic human rights of freedom of religion, association, expression, and assembly. Anything consenting adults do together should be up to them, and should not be something to be subjected to criminal prosecution, discrimination, or bullying. Nor should minors close in age be prosecuted or forced into “treatment” for having sex with each other.
I don't consider rape, assault, or child molestation to be "sex." I'm all for prosecuting for those.
I think if someone is at the age of consent for sex, that age of consent should also apply to being recorded or photographed. If someone wants to make videos of themselves to take pictures of themselves or let someone else do it, and they want to show it to others, and another person of the age of consent wants to view it, fine.
Regarding marriage…
I support the right to marry for everyone. An adult should be free to marry any and all consenting adults.
But…
My support of legal rights and protections does not mean I personally support all sex or marriages.
For example, I think it is a bad idea for, say, a woman who needs monogamy to have sex on the first date, and if a friend like that wants my "support" I would tell her no, it is a bad idea.
Another example… I think it is safe to say we’ve all known people who announced they were going to get married and we cringed (if only inside) because we didn’t think they were right for each other, or perhaps in a place in their lives where they were ready to be married.
I am also against cheating (but again, I don’t think it should be a criminal matter). Cheating is when someone breaks an existing vow to another through action, rather than informing the person(s) with whom they have the vow that the agreement is ending. There are married couples who have agreements that allow one or both of them to have sex with other people, and per those agreements doing so would not be cheating.
However, if someone tells me they are happily involved with their close biological relative, or two close biological relatives, and none of them are cheating to do it, then yes, I support them. I support happy, healthy same-gender relationships, interracial relationships, polyamorous relationships, intergenerational relationships (adults), and consanguinamorous relationships.
I am sex-positive. Sex is a good thing for many reasons. We’d be better off if more people were having more sex and sex that was more satisfying to them. So generally, I “support sex.” Those who don’t think sex is a good thing or talk as though it isn’t may be doing it wrong, or may have forgotten what it is like (certain asexuals excepted).
What about you? Are you sex-positive?
Good post! Sorry, I'm just down on time to read a lot of your posts. I will read more in due time. But I agree. I'm all for pretty any sexuality as long as it's consensual. Some people don't really understand the full scope of love, or maybe don't want to because they are afraid of the truth o.o? They think they only know one truth or way of love and they are afraid to find out that their views may not be so true as they think..
ReplyDeleteAnyway I've been dealing with some nay sayers mostly towards incest lately, and while they are VERY annoying, I know that their opinion won't stick with the majority of people overtime, because they majority of naysayers I have talked to have been rude, stuck up, moral know it alls, along with name calling and how they don't want YOU to comment on something anti incest or w/e. Well if the person who made it allows comments, EVERYONE is allowed to comment. LOL I've just had it with some people...okay done my rant xD
Pedophilia, necrophilia, bestiality, just to name a few.
ReplyDeleteSimplified: sexualities that violate the consent of involved parties. Better question - if a deceased person gave permission prior to death, would necrophilia be alright? Even more complicated, if someone gave consent for a partner to have sex with them as their mental health deteriorated, would it be alright for someone to have sex with a person that has Alzheimer's? I find that situations in which consent is questionable (when consent is considered the one firm standard for the ethical viability of sexual interaction) provide more revelatory fodder for discussion than certain particular sexual offenses considered simply "too far" to consider.
DeleteHello Keith. When you say adults,there's tendency to think 18+, but in more than one occasion you emphasised"in their jurisdiction". But,what if two people made love together,one where's the age for sexual consent in his country is 15(ex:France) and the other, it's 18(ex: a state in USA)? Apart from juridical matters between the two countries,what's your ethical position? I think the age for sexual consent,when there's juridical conflict,should be the one in wich the alleged "fraud" took place.
ReplyDeleteGood question, George. I do not think the age of consent should be any higher than 18. I have no problem with different places having ages of consent that are lower than that. If the age of consent in France is 15, so be it. What I have a problem with is arbitrary applications. For example, if a 16-year-old can legally consent to sex with a complete stranger, it shouldn't be illegal for that 16-year-old to consent to sex with an of-age sibling.
DeleteI understand your opinion Keith. I agree that the law shouldn't be arbitrary and hypocritical. However, I'm sympathetic to the argument that for relationships between long-term guardians (related or not) and their long-term dependents, the age of consent should be higher - say, 20. The social status of guardians, and the built-in psychological relationship and power that guardians have over dependents (some of it is part of our developmental psychology), makes me more wary of manipulation and abuse in such circumstances.
DeleteIn developed countries, you don't even go to college or join the military until your 18, so most modern 18-year-olds have little to no experience living independently away from their parents. By 20 or 21, they probably do have such experience, and their brain is also 99% developed. They're also probably employed in some way at that point, so they're less economically dependent than when they were in high school. I don't think there's any argument for banning relatives from having sex, but there's an argument for setting the bar for guardians a bit higher. They're granted so much power and control for so long, socially and legally.
Let me be clearer. When I said 18+,I meant 18 and above,although I think all ages of consent for sexual acts around the world are, almost, arbitrary. My question was,what if an American,in his twenties,had,for example in France, sexual intercourse with a 15 years old French girl,what should apply,the American or the French law? I am asking that because, I think, the USA law and Australian law,for example, applies on their citizens,in some matters,even when they are outside the country.
ReplyDeleteI don't see why the US government should bother prosecuting such things. Now, if he'd gone somewhere and done that with a 9-year-old, then yes, I can see why the US government would be concerned.
DeleteI'd like to add a libertarian perspective to this discussion. As long as the majority of voters want to socialize the negative consequences and costs of poorly thought out and executed relationships, the public and the State as their representative, have an interest in regulating them. I do not want to pay to support anyone's love child or resulting unemployable baby-momma, or child care. There is a time coming soon when the unsustainable fiscal consequences to the public of these external costs will not, can not, be paid. Traditional relationships evolved the way they did for largely economic reasons. I support the freedom to improvise something different, but don't expect me to pay for your experiments.
ReplyDeleteI am against sexually predatory adults preying on anyone adult or child.There are many fast talking psycho/narcissists out there who can probably sell ice to Eskimos, and there are many vulnerable adults too who for one reason or another can be taken advantage of by clever unscrupulous people (lack of education, abuse and neglect in childhood, drugs and alcohol, low self esteem could make some people seek approval more than others. We have heard of men's groups and seminars to teach them how to be 'pick-up artists' and I can't think of anything lower and viler than such types other than out-and-out rapists and murderers.
ReplyDeleteWith AIDS on the march and 50,000 people in the USA alone being infected with HIV annually (not to mention all the other STDs) selfish, uncaring and irresponsible people who go around conning and taking advantage of the lonely and unwary men and women for sport or fun..well they get the thumbs down from me.Though these people may not think they are being abusive, since they might not use physical violence to seduce a victim, they cause untold pscyhological damage, causing guilt (abused people often feel guilt and shame) depression, and sadly too common - self harm, drug abuse, mental illness, even suicide later on.i.e. a slow death.
Is it moralistic not to like the sort of people? who go around causing psychological/ physical and medical harm to others?
A girl might think she is all grown up at 18, but if she is pregnant with AIDs at 19, what sort of life is there for her and her family? How could she have guessed that the suave debonair young or middle-aged man she met at a party or at a work function who was as so self-assured friendly, and as amusing and funny as Mr Charley Sheen, was not a predatory bi-sexual and had not had unprotected sex with an HIV infected prostitute the month before? And what if the next person she sleeps with is a family member?
It would probably be safer to be in a long term relationship with someone first before you begin to trust someone. And then a few blood tests might help make sure they are not infected with some life threatening disease. It is fine to risk money on the stock exchange, but why would you want to risk your health by having promiscuous sex with strangers? As we know condoms are not 100% effective or I wouldn't be here today.
I'm sex positive, but I also believe it plays an important role in procreation and the consequences of and for a possible child, society, and the future in general deserves to have some weight in assessing a sexual relationship. The West is under demographic attack from savages. Liberal (original meaning, not US political) government that allows for all our freedoms, including sexual, is being overrun in much of the world. They are selling more adult diapers in Japan than baby diapers. The State controls all relationships in China. Gay people can no longer publicly express their relationships in many European cities without being attacked. Anyone who cares about a free future should make raising children who embrace the values of Western Civilization and the enlightenment a high priority in their lives.
ReplyDelete"The State controls all relationships in China"
DeleteThis is absurd, and is a really illustrative example of cognitive dissonance.
Look brother, if you think about it, logic will tell you that several thousand government bureaucrats don't have the manpower, time or motivation to micromanage the love life of 2 billion people.
That's the argument from a logical standpoint.
I also lived in China for two years and I can tell you this is....yeah, not a thing.
There is a truth to what you are saying, but your statement is so wildly hyperbolic that it masks said truth invisible.
Here are the ways in which China manipulates relationships (info from my neighbor and best friend in China for two years, Kevin Yan, a married Chinese national with a son):
1) If a married couple wants to have more than one child and maintain normal status, they must be able to prove that at least one of them is an only child (they used to require both parents be only children if they wanted multiple kids. This change was enacted fairly recently and was considered a huge reform)
2) If a married couple doesn't follow these guidelines, their child loses access to all public benefits, including public schools and public insurance.
That's right folks, there were never any forced abortions. They just said your kids are not allowed to go to school If you have more than one.
That, of course, means the wealthy in China have been having multiple kids for years and paying for private schools.
The poor meanwhile choose to get abortions when faced with the prospect of having a child without health insurance who is barred from getting an education. Now, you could make an argument about soft coercion there, but that's not the same thing.
FYI, the other thing they do is play matchmaker with the most gifted athletes. No one is ever required to marry as the government suggests, but athletes who agree to join the program get very nice benefits from it. Yoa Ming, the crazy tall Chinese player in the NBA was conceived by parents who were matched this way.
I don't support any sexuality. It's just that I don't support locking people in cages for consensual behavior - people who threaten others for such behaviors are the ones who belong in cages.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I am firmly in the one-man-one-woman camp (which, of course, includes consanguinamoury - why wouldn't it?), because I personally believe it's God's plan for both adults and children - that gender is a part of our divine nature, and that despite the fact that men and women are more alike than they are different, and despite the fact that all sorts of personality outliers exist, males and females complement each other in powerful, uplifitng ways that transcend even the rarest of personalities. For now, I continue to be skeptical of people who insist that the "feel" like the opposite sex, because there is no established way that it feels to be a certain gender, which makes such a claim impossible; a person couldn't possibly say that whatever feeling s/he is feeling is the feeling of being a male or the feeling of being a female. "I feel like I can't breathe" is a feeling. "I feel like nobody loves me" is a feeling. "I feel like a woman" is not a feeling. If you are a man, then you feel like a man who feels whatever else you're feeling. It's absurd when I examine it.
Just because I have moral issues with people's behavior doesn't mean I have anything against them. Heck, I have moral issues with drinking alcohol, but that hardly makes me a hateful bigot. I don't drink, and I don't encourage others to drink, because I believe that life is best when lived a different way. If people have other preferences, that's no reason we can't be best friends.
For me it's not an issue of sexuality. As long as LGBTQ-POLY-CONSANG-whatever people don't insist that others make them cakes, or make then T-shirts, or call them by pronouns to which they have no claim, or pay for things they want (and that's not discrimination - nobody has a right to insist on such things), then leave people to live as they choose. Let them do what brings them happiness, for heaven's sake! Get government out of people's personal relationships; get government out of marriage. Prosecute people who violate others' rights to life, liberty, and property, but leave everyone else alone.
There are a lot of people in the world whose personal views are similar to my personal views. We just need to make them see that when they advocate for legalization of their personal views, they are advocating violence against peaceful people.
agreed with gov out of their relationships and marriages but why are you against sexuality? cause of overuseage of the word sex? cause of rape?
DeleteTrigger warning: freakin suicidal ideation, sorry all
ReplyDeleteHere's the thing though, and I know it's not much of an argument but....what if "they" are all right and we're wrong?? What if we're all suffering from some fundamental flaw, maybe even something in our genes, a bit of DNA switched on/off that differs from the majority of the planet's population? We are who we are...but since assuming a sort of robotic state of being where you literally shut down when not engaged in some work useful to society is impossible...and if the only other option is to exist as what MIGHT be just some sort of random and useless derivation of the successful human formula, just an evolutionary dead end wasting resources....ugh, I won't finish that thought as it could be a trigger (see above trigger warning I'm inserting at the top now)...but it's rough out here in the world being like this. Hopelessness is being replaced by a hope for the courage to, yknow, opt out.
Please don't opt out. Life is already short.
DeleteWe are not wrong. Love will win.
If the love you feel is off the chart , it can not be meaningless in the grand scheme of things…
DeleteYou probably know it already Keith, but the Kindred Spirits forum is not sex-positive anymore… You're fine with whatever AoC there is, while this forum silenced with the opinion that kids (below AoC) falling in love with EACH OTHER and making love is a positive and natural thing should at least, not be discouraged.
ReplyDeleteSaying that is equivalent to grooming, to them !
By the way, from a biological point of view, what do you think is the natural age for teens/children to start doing it, irrespective of their maturity (which is a relative thing, as proved by the variable AoC) ?
What would make sense according to you, if you had to make the laws ?
This blog focuses on consenting adults being treated equally. It is not about debating age of consent laws.
DeleteKindred Spirits remains sex-positive. And it doesn't allow anything that appears to support the grooming of minors.
If you wish to communicate privately, you can contact me: https://marriage-equality.blogspot.com/2018/07/this-is-how-you-contact-keith.html
Consent is everything to me, and from a legal standpoint that consent must be able to be proven, through verbal or written testimony.
ReplyDeleteThat consent also needs to be able to be withdrawn before an act and proven the same way.
I also understand the need for the legal expedient of a fixed age of consent and agree it should be no older than 18.
Often people are taught that they're "not ready" to leave home until they're arbitrarily deemed independent, and then the arguments are made against them that they can not make their own choices because they haven't left home. This argument is obviously circular.
People only gain life experience by making their own decisions, and they MUST be allowed to do that, for better or worse.