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.
My comment turned out to be too long for this blog, so I will divide it into 2 parts.
ReplyDeletePart 1.
Yes, I support Full Marriage Equality without any reservations or restrictions, without any asterisks.
I would just like to make 3 remarks.
1. The concept of "adult". In the legal sense, this is understood as the recognition of a person who has reached a certain age legally capable, that is, endowed with all rights and obligations under current legislation. And this age may be different in different countries. Interestingly, in some states and countries, people are granted the right to marry before they reach civic maturity/majority (become "adults").
At the same time, in many countries there is such a thing as the "age of consent", which means that a person who has reached this age can voluntarily agree to have sexual relations with another person. As a rule, the age of consent is several years lower than the age of maturity/majority.
So, we have 3 different milestones in the age of each person: the age of maturity/majority, the age of consent, and the age giving the right to marry. So, after all, what age do we mean when we talk about the right of "adults" to Full Marriage Equality?
Personally, I believe that the legal right to engage in voluntary/non-violent sexual relations with any person (several people) should be granted to persons who have reached the officially established age of consent. And it is at this age that the right to enter into an official marriage should be granted. At the same time, the age difference/"age gap" between the partners should not matter at all. If someone is afraid of so-called "grooming", the moral and physical abuse of an older person over a younger one, then we just need to increase the age of consent within reasonable limits. I understand that my opinion is controversial, but I don't see any other way out of this legal impasse.
2. I want to emphasize once again the idea that Full Marriage Equality, including consanguinamory, should be ethical. This means that sexual acts between partners should not cause moral and/or physical harm to third parties (well, except for harming the feelings of opponents of Full Marriage Equality). Keith mentioned that women and men can have sexual relations with married partners, but "not hidden from their existing spouse." I would extend this statement to all committed partners, because so many couples/polyamorous groups do not officially marry, but their partners have informal moral obligations to each other.
Part 2.
ReplyDelete3. What about children, teenagers who have not officially become "adults" (see my first remark), but are already "exploring" their sexuality? Do the principles of Full Marriage Equality apply to them? Can they freely sexually identify themselves and choose romantic partners (and sexual ones too, because it's no secret that sexual experience with peers, even in a "light" form, is acquired already at the age of 10-11-12)?
This is a very delicate and painful issue, because, on the one hand, child and teenager sexuality, even in the traditional sense, is still a kind of "taboo" and is negatively perceived by religion and public opinion, and, on the other hand, it is children and teenagers/adolescents who are most vulnerable in their feelings and do not have the necessary resilience to resist various stupid traditional restrictions. Thirdly, and this is very important, most children and adolescents are physiologically and anatomically not yet ready for the full sexual activities with their peers and are going through a painful experience/disappointments that can negatively affect their entire future lives (and not only sexually).
We cannot avoid this issue.
I believe that the position of those who support Full Marriage Equality should be something like this. "We support voluntary/non-violent romantic (emotional) contacts with sexual overtones (and there are simply no others in real life) between any children/teenagers of different genders who have not reached the age of consent. We support the right of teenagers/adolescents who have reached the age of consent to engage in nonviolent/voluntary sexual activity with their chosen partners. We support the right of children/teenagers to freely identify themselves sexually in an age-appropriate way. We support their right to receive relevant information from adults. We are against the forcible imposition of sexual behavior and gender identification by adults on children/teenagers. We are against any form of moral and physical sexual abuse of children/teenagers by adults".
I understand that my position on this issue is debatable, so it will be useful to unfold an appropriate discussion in this blog.
Excuse me if this is not the place to ask questions, but there is a link to the "Consanguinamory Blog" in the "Get Connected" section of "Full Marriage Equality". This blog was run by a very smart and brave woman who did not give her name. I wrote "was run" in the past tense, since, starting in 2020, all publications in this resource have stopped. Nevertheless, there is still a lot of relevant publicistic material on the blog, covering literally all aspects of cinsanguinamory.
ReplyDeleteThe latest materials relate to April 2020, when the pandemic was already raging, so there are various sad assumptions.
Does anyone know the fate of this woman, the author of the blog, and why the publications stopped? I am grateful in advance for the answers.
I got an answer to my question about the fate of the "Consanguinamory Blog" from the admin of the "Kindred Spirit Forum" (https://ks2016.forumactif.fr/t4839-about-the-fate-of-consanguinamory-blog-https-consanguinamory-wordpress-com?nid=83#37790 ).
ReplyDeleteI quote it below, as well as my answer.
Admin:
"That would be Jane Doe. Sadly, she had an emotional breakdown and isn’t active here or on her blog any more. She’s well, though, and I hope she’ll rejoin us as she is able and moved to do so.
Peace,
UN"
Me:
"Unowen17, thank you for information.
I am very sorry that Jane Doe is currently unable to publish her wonderful posts, which, I am sure, have helped many consanguinamorous people to make their lives better.
I really hope that she will continue to fight for our rights to free sexual identification and choice of sexual partners, for our rights to freely love, marry any person, including members of our own family, and have children with them without being subjected to judicial, moral, or physical harassment.
..............................................
Dear Jane Doe, if you are reading this post, then know that we support you wholeheartedly, that we wish you to successfully overcome your difficulties and misfortunes and fight for the ideals of consanguinamory again.
We really need you.
I wish you peace and good luck, and may God help you!"