Sometimes, when someone writes (or says) that they support the freedom to marry or, marriage equality, or #Marriage4All, #LoveMustWin, or “love is love” or something like “The sex lives of consenting adults is nobody else’s business.,” there is an invisible asterisk. You know, one of these: *
What might really be going on is this…
*Unless you mean something I don’t like or think is disgusting, like polygamy, open marriage, or consensual adult incest.
I don’t do that. There is no asterisk in this statement…
There is no asterisk after “adult.” An “adult” includes any person, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, or religion.
“Any and all” means “any and all”. If an adult woman can vote, be Secretary of State (or Prime Minister, which we don't have in the US), serve as a Governor, be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, sign contracts, enlist in the military, operate heavy machinery, be sentenced to life in prison or the death penalty (which we do have in many places in the US), and can consent to group sex with three cage fighters she just met, it seems to me an adult woman should also be free to have sex with and/or marry any consenting adult(s), even if that means another woman, or two women, or two men, or a woman and a man, or a married man (not hidden from his existing spouse), or her sister, whether an adopted sister, stepsister, half sister, or full blood sister. All of this goes for men, too, of course.
This basic right means all adults having the same right to not marry at all, and to divorce, and to be free of domestic violence. The basic freedom of association should mean that adults can share the entirety of love, sex, residence, and marriaqe, or any of those without the others, and any civil union or domestic partnership that is offered. That’s a funny thing called… equality. There is no good reason to deny equality. Now is the time to get it done.
So, do you support full marriage equality, or marriage “equality”*?
What might really be going on is this…
“Consenting adults should be free to marry each other.”*
*Unless you mean something I don’t like or think is disgusting, like polygamy, open marriage, or consensual adult incest.
I don’t do that. There is no asterisk in this statement…
I support the rights of an adult to share love, sex, kink, residence, and marriage with any and all consenting adults, without prosecution, bullying, or discrimination.
There is no asterisk after “adult.” An “adult” includes any person, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, or religion.
“Any and all” means “any and all”. If an adult woman can vote, be Secretary of State (or Prime Minister, which we don't have in the US), serve as a Governor, be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, sign contracts, enlist in the military, operate heavy machinery, be sentenced to life in prison or the death penalty (which we do have in many places in the US), and can consent to group sex with three cage fighters she just met, it seems to me an adult woman should also be free to have sex with and/or marry any consenting adult(s), even if that means another woman, or two women, or two men, or a woman and a man, or a married man (not hidden from his existing spouse), or her sister, whether an adopted sister, stepsister, half sister, or full blood sister. All of this goes for men, too, of course.
This basic right means all adults having the same right to not marry at all, and to divorce, and to be free of domestic violence. The basic freedom of association should mean that adults can share the entirety of love, sex, residence, and marriaqe, or any of those without the others, and any civil union or domestic partnership that is offered. That’s a funny thing called… equality. There is no good reason to deny equality. Now is the time to get it done.
So, do you support full marriage equality, or marriage “equality”*?
i find your definition of marriage disgusting and the caveat you wrote (on another forum) to interfamilial sexual abuse victims insulting and ignorant. however i support your equal treatment under federal law or rather, i don't support legal discrimination against your lifestyle choices just because i think you're sick.
ReplyDeleteNo one is promoting "interfamilial sexual abuse." "Consenting adult" is the first thing in this definition of acceptability and equality.
DeleteNo what the other anonymous is trying to say is that Keith completely warped and whitewashed some family member's cases who were sexually abused. They were warped around to say it was healthy. I found the forum and I'm completely disgusted by it.
DeleteI have done nothing of the sort. I've made it clear repeatedly that I am against abuse.
DeleteOn the whole I agree with Keith, but they must be genuine adults and genuinely consenting. There are people who are over the legal age of consent, who nevertheless have the mental age of children. Part of the problem of pathological narcissists and narcissism in general is the lack of fully developed adult mental function of empathy and for consideration of others...so a sexual predator may be one of these types of people who lacks boundaries, (only they truely exist, the victim is not important) as well as judgement. His/ her victim may also be mentally retarded with a low IQ and not be informed about various important matters, and thus not be able to give their informed consent.
ReplyDeleteSome claim that people who do sex work do it of their own free will and with their informed consent.Thus they feel no guilt when using a prostitute.
If people do a job from economic necessity because there are no other viable alternative jobs available to them..that seems more like a case of consent obtained by duress. Someone who consents to having sex for money rather than go hungry or have to watch a parent or other loved one die or suffer for not being able to afford life saving treatments or pain killing drugs, may not really have much of a choice of employment, where society conspires to protect people from being in such situations, but rather , exports jobs overseas, and allows people them to be exploited in low wage jobs, even in America. Without proper health care and decent social security for all, many people are forced into virtual sexual slavery, just as others are made to be slaves to their mortgages. If parents had no education and are forced to work at Walmart, how are their children going to afford good schooling and a degree to help escape the poverty trap? What kind of life could someone afford it they only earn $4 an hour? And that is in the so-called 'civilized world.'
In Keith's post, he mentions freedom of association. If we are going to espouse this idea, we should really understand what it means.
ReplyDeleteFreedom of association means that, contrary, to your assertion, no one is forced to do anything; no one is forced to work at Walmart or do sex work; no one is forced to consent to sex with a manupulative narcissist. Those are choices people make. All choices involve some level of risk, but people are responsible for their own choices.
Freedom of association is, as I understand it, the guiding principle behind Full Marriage Equality.
"Social Security for all" is antithetical to freedom of association. When the state (the same state that puts siblings in jail for incest, mind you) steals money from person A and gives it to person B, person A's freedom has been violated - she has literally been robbed.
I would love to have conversations with people about how to end poverty, but I'm not willing to consider robbery (and you shouldn't either). Social justice is not justice if it's achieved through injustice.
Hi. I support your work and agree with your principles. However, we cannot afford to be naive about the way some people operate and how unscrupulous some people can be, even towards close family members, even when their family member may have a mental disability or just be a late developer. We know that the human brain is not fully developed until the early twenties. The different states and countries around the world have differing legal ages of consent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_of_age It has been lowered from 21 to 18 in most Commonwealth countries. "Particularly in western societies, modern legal conventions which stipulate points in late adolescence or early adulthood (most commonly 18-21 when adolescents are generally no longer considered minors and are granted the full rights and responsibilities of an adult) are the focus of the transition" I based the age of consent for ACI (21) in my first petition to the the Scottish parliament on that advocated by the academic Graham Hughes in his 1964 article. (The last few paragraphs are what he recommended back then, so my petition was fairly conservative. But today,many children are remaining immature well into their thirties, even forties as societies are dumbed-down and become more narcissistic. C'est la vie. As for robbery by the state..'death and taxes' are a certaintly for all of us. My favourite 1963 movie is 'It's A Mad Mad Mad World' Jonathan Winters explains about all companies paying their share of taxes here: https://youtu.be/j-7pVks8avo?t=67
ReplyDeleteGraham Hughes article
https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=5245&context=jclc
Cheers
I, too, find that asterisk appalling. If we are to hold the age of majority as absolute, there must be NOTHING along the lines of "but you're not really an adult" or "you can't make that decision because reasons".
ReplyDeleteIf you're an adult, you should legally be able to consent and that consent MUST BE RESPECTED. By ALL parties, involved or not.
Just like we expect RESPONSIBILITY from all adults, these are two sides of the same coin.