Tag Archives: sexuality

August 28, 2018 · 9:05 am

Religious Dogma, Sexual Repression, And How They Foster (Horrendous) Abuse

By now, most people have heard the news surrounding the latest round of scandals involving the Catholic Church. Once again, it involves the systematic abuse of children, the elaborate efforts to cover it up, and the religious dogma that is used to protect such behavior. It’s certainly not the first time the Catholic Church has been embroiled in such a scandal, but that doesn’t make it any less distressing.

There’s a lot I can say about the Catholic Church and how badly they’ve handled this issue. There’s even more I can say about how this famous institution’s policies have caused genuine harm in societies that remain devoted to Catholic traditions. However, I would only be repeating what others have already pointed out and I’d rather not do that.

Some have already done it better than I ever will.

For me, personally, these scandals cut deep because I have family who identify as devout Catholics. They see these same scandals too and I can confirm that it hurts them on a personal level. Whenever someone brings it up, they don’t make excuses. They despise those priests for what they did and those who covered it up. It doesn’t shake their faith, though. To some extent, I admire that.

At the same time, however, I often wonder whether they see the same flaws in that dogmatic theology that I see. I try not to bring it up with family members, out of respect for their faith. I still believe that even they are bothered by those flaws. When children are being sexually abused, how could it not?

There are a lot of factors in play with this latest scandal, from the nature of religious dogma to the corruption of powerful institutions. The one that few want to confront, though, involves the cumulative impact of sexual repression with rigid theology.

There’s no way around it. Religious dogma and sexual repression often go together. The Catholic Church is hardly the only institution that encourages strict repression of sexual behavior. Anyone living in Saudi Arabia or Iran can attest to that. With a billion adherents and nearly 2,000 years of history, though, the Catholic Church is one of the largest and most vocal proponents of this dogma.

The reasons for that are many and I don’t want to get into all the issues surrounding its effects. Instead, I want to focus solely on the celibacy of the priests. That practice represents a true extreme of sexual repression. It’s one thing to champion monogamy to the point of murdering adulterers. It’s quite another to have an entire class of people who have to completely repress their basic urges.

It’s not like trying to quit smoking, which is hard enough. This involves denying a basic, fundamental drive that is hardwired into people at birth. Trying to turn that off is like trying make sugar taste bad. It goes against fundamental biological wiring. The idea that someone can repress those force without incurring psychological damage is flawed, at best.

To get an idea of why, think about a time when you were really hungry. Maybe you were sick for a while, trapped on a long road trip, or went on a crash diet. That feeling of intense hunger is not something you can turn off. It’s uncomfortable for a reason. Your body isn’t getting something it’s been hardwired to seek. It’s going to make you feel uncomfortable until you do something about it.

The human sex drive is not like hunger, but it’s similar in that it’s a biological drive. For every living thing, be it a human or an insect, sustenance and reproduction are the two most basic drives. It is possible to survive without reproducing, but the fundamental forces of nature are going to push you to try.

When you push back too hard, it’s like trying to patch a faulty dam with scotch tape and chewing gum. From a psychological standpoint, your brain and your body are deprived. As a result, it’s going to do whatever it can to alleviate this deprivation.

It doesn’t matter if that act is extreme. It doesn’t matter if it’s illogical, illegal, or outright immoral. Your brain and your body will find a way to justify it if it ends the deprivation. For most, it’s just a never-ending battle that requires an individual to fill that missing need with something, which in this case is religious fervor.

It’s debatable as to how much this fills that fundamental need, but a lot of that assumes that celibate priests don’t do something in their private time to relieve the tension. Historically speaking, many in the Catholic Church and other powerful institutions were pretty blatant about how they circumvented the issues of celibacy.

Some priests had lovers on the side. Some employed prostitutes and concubines, but still claimed to be “celibate” because they weren’t married. More often than not, priests were only celibate in the most technical sense and the church often tolerated this. Even St. Thomas Aquinas, a man not known for liberal attitudes, even acknowledged the futility of suppressing the human sex drive when he said this about prostitution.

“If prostitution were to be suppressed, careless lusts would overthrow society.”

For a select few, though, that effort to maintain celibacy manifests in a truly horrific way. I think it’s safe to conclude that the priests who abused these children were not mentally well. Many might have been unwell before they entered the priesthood, but celibacy certainly didn’t help. Repression, especially the kind that’s taboo to even talk about, tends to make things worse.

That’s how people end up with mentalities that are poorly equipped to handle basic urges. Instead of a healthy expression of sexual desire, someone may react with anger or self-hate. When people are angry and hateful, they tend to take it out on someone. It’s not always sexual, but when someone has all their sexual desires pent up over the years, sometimes it seeps in.

That’s how simple desire becomes disturbing fetishes, including those that harm children. That’s how unthinkable behaviors are rationalized. When religious dogma tells someone they face divine retribution for feeling these intrinsic desires, that’s causes serious distress and efforts to mitigate it can make for some pretty unholy behaviors

While it’s hard to study the sex lives of celibate priests, the occurrence of these scandals along with the historical documentation of other lurid scandals reveal plenty about the effects of celibacy. When there’s no outlet for sexual expression, other emotions get caught up in the efforts to cope with that fundamental drive. Add religiously-motivated guilt to the mix and the impact only compounds over time.

None of this is an excuse for what those priests did to these children. They still committed an atrocity and no amount of divine excuses can mitigate the suffering of the victims. The Vatican will do what it has to do in order to maintain its power and influence. However, the reconsideration of extreme practices celibacy is unlikely.

Some media figures will mention it, but never to the point of encouraging serious reforms. That’s a dirty word in both the Catholic Church and any other religious institution. Historically speaking, the rate at which major religion institutions undergo sweeping reforms is nothing short of glacial.

I sincerely hope this latest scandal gives those in the Vatican serious pause, but I have a feeling that even this won’t do it. Religious dogma is notoriously uncompromising. People, especially within powerful institutions, make any excuse to avoid changing it. While the Vatican has made some strides, the fundamental issue remains. As long as basic human nature is suppressed, more will suffer and not in a holy sort of way.

1 Comment

Filed under Current Events, gender issues, human nature, psychology, religion, sex in society, sexuality

Tagged as Abrahamic Faiths, Abrahamic Religions, Catholic Church, Catholic Church abuse, celibacy, child abuse, Christianity, church, conservatism, conservative, homosexuality, human psychology, human sexuality, Islam, Judaism, organized religion, psychology, religion, religious conservative, religious extremism, religious institutions, religious right, religous culture, sex, Sex and God, sex and love, sex and religion, sexuality, social conservatism, social conservative, social psychology, the Pope, the Vatican

August 23, 2018 · 6:22 am

Abortion, Prostitution, And The Indirect (But Powerful) Link Between Them

When it comes to conflict between genders, there are many factors driving it. Chief among them is the unavoidable ignorance that comes with men not knowing what it’s like to be a woman and women not knowing what it’s like to be a man. Add those who identify as transgender into the mix and there’s a massive disparity in understanding.

While I consider that limited understanding to be the primary driving force behind gender-driven conflicts, there’s another force that is a close second. It has less to do with how people relate to one another and more to do with who determines the accessibility and availability of sex.

As an aspiring erotica/romance writer, this issue is more relevant to me than others. However, after a few notable news stories, one involving prostitution and another involving abortion, the issue is now relevant to everyone and that’s why I feel it’s worth talking about.

The concept of sex being this tangible commodity that certain people control is already bound to cause plenty of consternation among people from every part of the political spectrum, but for logistical purposes, this is how we treat sex in a modern context. It’s no longer something we do for survival or for the passing on of property.

Like food, sex has developed a more diverse role in the modern world. We treat it as a tangible asset that we must manage. Like any asset, though, there are logistics to it and those who do the managing wield a great deal of power. Why else would pimps be so glorified in popular culture?

Who actually wields that power, though, depends on the political affiliation of who you talk to. If you ask someone who is liberal, feminist, or left-leaning, they will claim that the power is held primarily by rich old men who try to manage sex by punishing those who do it in ways they don’t like.

Ask someone who is conservative, traditional, and right-leaning, and they’ll probably say the power is held by radical feminists and their submissive male allies who wield the power of sexual management. They’re just as convinced as those opposing them that they’re right. It’s difficult to convince them otherwise and I’m not going to try. That’s not the purpose of this article.

My goal here is to point out a connection from which the conflict has evolved. Given recent events in the political world, that evolution is likely to continue and not in a direction that benefits either side in the long run. To understand that connection, I need to dig a little deeper into the unspoken, but powerful link between abortion and prostitution.

I know that just talking about one of these issues is abound to send peoples’ passions into overdrive. I’ve discussed abortion before. I’ve discussed prostitution as well. I haven’t really touched on the link between them because they’re tied up in different political domains, but have enough similarities affect one another.

Prostitution is commonly known as the world’s oldest profession and for good reason. It only ever makes the news when there’s a scandal or a legal upheaval. For once, there has been an uptick in the latter rather than the former. It began with new laws that made it more difficult for prostitutes to operate online. In some respects, these efforts are the byproduct of a trend that has been going on since the early 2000s.

Most industrialized countries in the world accept, to some degree, that it’s impossible to stamp out prostitution completely. As a result, there have been more elaborate efforts to reduce it that don’t rely entirely on blanket prohibition. Currently, the most popular approach is known as the Swedish model.

In this setup, it’s legal for someone to sell sex, but it remains illegal to buy it. It’s akin to making it legal to set up a lemonade stand, but illegal to buy lemonade. While that sounds absurd on paper, the intent of the law is somewhat clever. It’s a means to criminalize the buyer of sex to give the seller more leverage. Since the seller is often assumed to be an exploited woman, it’s viewed as an equalizer of sorts.

Granted, the assumption that those selling sex are always exploited women is flawed, as an estimated 20 percent of prostitutes are men. There are people in the world who enter the business willingly, just as there are people who willingly work in coal mines.

There’s also plenty of data that indicates that the Swedish model doesn’t have the desired effect. There’s also no evidence that it has reduced human trafficking, either. That hasn’t stopped it from spreading to other countries. In the process, it has had another effect that goes beyond the issue of prostitution.

Essentially, this approach to combating prostitution places more power in the hands of women with respect to managing sexuality. Since they make up the majority of the prostitutes in the world and men are the primary clients, this dynamic ensures they have more leverage. They can, under this model, decide whether or not their client becomes a criminal. That’s a lot of leverage and not the kinky kind.

This is where the link to abortion comes into play. It’s an indirect link, but it utilizes the same dynamics. In countries where abortion is legal, the women wield a significant amount of power in terms of sexual decision-making. In the context of abortion, they can decide how the consequences of sex play out.

Women can, in this dynamic, decide whether or not to have a child if she becomes pregnant. Whether or not the father wants to child is irrelevant. The woman can abort the child against the father’s wishes. She can even have the child against his wishes, in which case he would be on the hook for child support for 18 years.

Again, that’s a lot of power for one gender to wield. That’s not to say it isn’t understandable. Women are the ones who bear children. They’re the one whose bodies undergo the 9-month rigor that is pregnancy. It’s totally logical that women would have more leverage in this situation because they’re putting themselves at greater risk.

However, and I know this is where I’ll upset a few people, there comes a point where that leverage can become excessive. There are cases where men lose their money and their freedom because of what a woman chooses. There’s no way for them to opt out of their parental responsibilities. That hasn’t stopped some from attempting to create a legal mechanism for that choice, but to date those efforts have not been successful.

Within this context, it shouldn’t be that surprising that abortion rights are steadily eroding. In the United States, it’s looking more likely with recent upheavals in the Supreme Court that this erosion will accelerate. Some are already claiming that we’re on our way to becoming the kind of oppressive society depicted in “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

While most of those concerns are overly apocalyptic, I think part of that effort is tied directly to who wields the power in the sexual landscape. Women are poised to gain more of that power as prostitution laws in the mold of the Swedish model spread. They’ve also gained even more leverage socially through the anti-harassment movement.

From the perspective of men, who cannot turn off their sex drives, women already wield so much authority in matters of sex. They’re the ones more likely to get paid to do it. They get to decide when and where it happens. They get to decide whether or not a sex act was consensual. They don’t even face the same stigma or consequences when sex crimes does occur and are granted greater protections by the law.

That perspective is not going to sway most women, though. The same women arguing for abortion rights are just as likely to argue for the Swedish model in combating prostitution. It’s a common thread among certain brands sex-negative feminism that see prostitution as an inherently oppressive force for women in every circumstance.

This is where the paths converge and where the fuel for the conflict gets a boost. Whether intentionally or by accident, both prostitution and abortion eventually link back to who wields authority in sexual matters. Both sides can claim some form of oppression. Both sides can even be right to a limited extent. By fighting to secure the most leverage though, they inevitably invite more backlash.

I don’t claim to know what the endgame is. I have a feeling that once sex robots enter the picture, and they have to some extent, there will be a major upheaval in the whole sexual landscape that neither side will be able to confront. Until then, though, the conflict over sexual leverage will continue. In the end, though, it’s unlikely that anyone will ever be truly satisfied.

1 Comment

Filed under gender issues, human nature, Marriage and Relationships, political correctness, prostitution, psychology, sex in society, sexuality

Tagged as abortion, abortion rights, anti-abortion, anti-feminism, feminism, gender, gender equality, gender inequality, gender-driven conflict, human sexuality, human trafficking, identity politics, illegal prostitution, legal prostitution, men's issues, men's rights, MeToo, political correctness, politics, pro-choice, pro-life, prostitution, Radical Feminism, reproductive rights, sex, sexual assault, sexual health, sexual relationships, Sexual Revolution, sexual violence, sexuality, third wave feminism, women's issues

August 7, 2018 · 5:24 am

Sex Robots, 3D Printing, And The Future Of The Porn Industry

Most people with a passing knowledge about the history of media know that the porn industry played a significant role in deciding the competition between VHS and Betamax back in the 1970s. Decades later, porn played a similar role in the growth of the internet. It’s not unreasonable to say that the growth of the internet was fueled by porn.

Love it or hate it, the adult entertainment industry is a powerful economic driving force. Every effort to combat or avoid it has failed. Protests and outrage has done little to undercut the billions in revenue it generates every year. Culture, tastes, and media technology keeps changing and porn finds a way to adapt to it.

Lately, though, it has had a harder time adapting than usual. While the internet helped grow the adult industry, that same medium is undermining it by facilitating piracy and limiting distribution channels. Unlike Netflix or other streaming services, most major media companies don’t allow adult content on their platforms. Some have even gotten rid of their softcore content.

These limitations and setbacks are likely temporary, though. For as long as there is a market for sexy content and a collective libido that remains unsatisfied, the adult industry will find a way to adapt and make profits. It’s very likely that 20 years from now, the porn industry will look nothing like it does today.

Whatever form it takes will likely astonish some and terrify others. It’s hard to know for sure how the economics of porn will evolve, but there are already signs that the future of the adult industry is taking shape. As we saw with the VHS/Betamax issue, the technology is already in place. It’s just a matter of maturation and refinement.

As I write this, the development of sex robots is well underway. There’s also already an established market for life-like sex dolls that can’t interact with users, but can still provide an intimate experience that you can’t get through a computer screen. This current situation has already been subject to controversy, but further refinements ensure there will be many more to come.

That’s not just me speculating, though, as I’ve done before with sex robots and sex dolls. I’m writing this because a critical, but under-reported refinement in the sex doll/sex robot industry took place recently in China from a company called DS Doll Robotics. Their plans, if they come to fruition, may do for sex dolls what McDonald’s did for cheeseburgers.

Those plans involve addressing one of the key limitations of sex dolls at the moment, which also will plague sex robots if it isn’t addressed. As it stands, just making a sex doll is expensive, labor-intensive, and difficult to mass produce. That’s why most high-quality sex dolls will set you back at least several thousand dollars. It’s actually comparable to the cost of cell phones in the early 1980s.

DS Doll Robotics is looking to change that. In July 2018, they launched plans to utilize 3D printing to help streamline the manufacturing process. What the assembly line did for cars, this company hopes to do for sex dolls and, eventually, sex robots that incorporate artificial intelligence.

It may sound mundane on paper since 3D printing has been an emerging technology in the manufacturing sector. It’s still has room to mature in the same way the early internet had to mature, but it’s one of those technologies that’s uniquely equipped to help the adult industry. In fact, it’s not unreasonable to say that it’ll completely reinvent it.

That’s because DS Doll Robotics isn’t just using 3D printing to streamline the manufacturing process. They’re also using new scanning techniques to scan the bodies of real humans as a baseline, of sorts. This is an exact quote from the July 2018 article that reported on the company’s plans.

“It is also connected to a 3D scanner which can be used to scan in the body of a full person as well as prototype parts for replication. This type of technology is excellent for creating new doll bodies and faces as they can be developed from a real human.”

That bold text is my doing because that’s the part of the story, I feel, that has far greater implications. Just making sex dolls cheaper and easier to produce isn’t going to change the adult industry too much. It may expand an existing market that had been cost-restrictive before, but it won’t provide a radically different experience compared to the one that exists today.

The part where sex doll manufacturers scan the bodies of real people, though, is something that will significantly impact the entire landscape of the adult entertainment industry. It won’t just change the economics of sex dolls. It’ll change the way the adult industry operates.

To understand how, it’s necessary to know how adult entertainers make money in the current economy. Most people in the adult industry, be they performers, directors, or producers, get paid a certain amount for each scene they perform. In the past, they could also depend on residuals from DVD sales, but those have declined sharply due to piracy and tube sides.

As a result, it’s becoming increasingly common for porn stars to do escorting on the side. Being a porn star makes it more lucrative than regular escorting, but that still comes with risks, especially in wake of recent legal issues attacking sex work. With sex dolls and 3D printing, though, these entertainers suddenly have a new way to monetize their sex appeal.

From a business standpoint, porn stars and beautiful celebrities in general are in the best possible position to franchise their bodies. Say there’s a moderately-successful porn star, male or female, who has some level of notoriety. If they do their job well, they create a fan base. Chances are there’s a significant portion of that fan base that wants to have sex with them.

Thanks to DS Doll Robotics, they can get that or at least something close to that without having to resort to escorting. Some porn stars already licence parts of their bodies as sex toys, but with 3D printing technology, they can do it all. With further refinements to the flesh and molding of the body, it wouldn’t just feel like plastic. It would feel real.

Some of this is already being done to a limited extent. Some porn stars have licensed their bodies to create life-like sex dolls. However, they’re still very expensive and labor intensive. Refinements of 3D printing will bring that cost down and that will grow the market, but it won’t stop there.

It’ll only be when sex robots and artificial intelligence enter the mix that the true future of the adult entertainment industry will take hold. Once those same licensed bodies develop an ability to interact with their users, then they’re not just over-sized masturbation aids. They deliver a full-on sexual experience.

Like brands of clothing or food, each adult entertainer could create a particular brand. One star might have a really cute, friendly personality. Another might have a very domineering, controlling personality. By incorporating them into a sex robot, they create a product that cannot be experienced through a computer screen, let alone pirated.

For the adult stars themselves, it’s easy money. They wouldn’t actually have to do anything, sexual or otherwise. They would just have to license their likeness to a company and collect a portion of the residuals like any merchandising company. If they prove really popular, then they could conceivably create a life-long income that continues well past their stint in the business.

That’s something that’s difficult to do in any entertainment industry, pornographic or otherwise. The use of 3D printing and more realistic materials will make that both possible and lucrative. If it becomes cheap enough, then the opportunities even go beyond direct sales.

There are already sex doll brothels operating in certain parts of the world. In areas where prostitution is legal, there’s even an app for people to order a prostitute the same way they would an Uber. In the future, if someone doesn’t want to buy, store, and maintain a sex robot, they may just rent one for a while. Between discretion and safety concerns, there would certainly be a market for that.

I’m sure that sort of business would attract a great deal of controversy and outrage. Sex dolls are already controversial and sex robots already have their opponents. However, if history is any guide, the prospect of making money and satisfying peoples’ burning libidos will win out. It’s just a matter of how quick the technology can progress and how quickly the ever-evolving adult industry adapts.

10 Comments

Filed under futurism, Marriage and Relationships, sex in media, sex in society, sex robots, sexuality, Sexy Future

Tagged as 3D Manufacturing, 3D printing, adult industry, celebrities, celebrity culture, economics, emerging technology, feminism, future of love, future of sex, future of society, future society, futurism, illegal prostitution, legal prostitution, love dolls, love robots, lover bots, MGTOW, porn industry, prostitution, sex, sex dolls, sex in society, sex robots, sexuality, Sexy Future, the future, the future of sex

August 6, 2018 · 5:25 am

Why You Can’t Believe In Eternal Hell, Be Anti-Abortion, And Be Morally Consistent

Brace yourself because I’m about to talk about two topics that make people very uncomfortable. One is abortion, a heated political topic that is poised to get even more heated, due to recent political upheavals. The other is Hell, a distressing theological issue that makes us dwell/lament on our impending death. If that weren’t volatile enough, I’m going to tie both topics together.

Rest assured, I’m not doing this to combine a couple of controversial issues for dramatic effect. While I loathe talking about issues like abortion, I don’t avoid it when it reveals something important about a particular movement or can demonstrate important lessons about society.

When it comes to Hell, a topic that heats up any debate between believers and non-believers, the conversations are just as difficult. I still feel they’re worth having. This one, in particular, counts as one of them because there are certain implications that warrant a more nuanced discussion.

It’s no secret that those who are vehemently anti-abortion also happen to be religious. Anti-abortion protesters even cite bible passages to justify their position. Now, I can understand and even accept certain ethical aspects of the pro-life position. However, when religion enters the debate, that’s where some real disconnects emerge.

That’s because when those factors enter the pro-life equation, both the morality and the math break down. To understand why, it’s important to focus on an aspect of the abortion debate that the late, great George Carlin famously emphasized. He sought consistency in the anti-abortion debate and noted its rarity in the most hilarious way possible.

Consistency is important if your argument is going to have merit. Even with emotionally-charged topics like abortion, consistency is key to ensuring that an argument has some semblance of logic. Since logic and faith tend to conflict, especially in matters of science, bringing religion into the mix can easily derail that consistency.

This is where the issue of Hell enters the picture. It’s a very unpleasant, but very critical concept to certain religions, namely Christianity and Islam. It’s central to their theology, which emphasizes punishment for the sinful. It’s a very morbid, but very relevant concept because everybody dies and nobody knows for sure what happens afterwards, if anything.

In the abortion debate, Hell matters for the anti-abortion side because their most frequent refrain is that abortion is murder. Having an abortion is the taking of a human life and murder is an egregious sin. It’s one of the few sins that’s enshrined in both secular law and the 10 Commandments.

By holding that position, though, it raises an important implication for both the consistency of the anti-abortion position and the theology used to justify it.

If abortion really does take a life, then what happens to that life? Does it go to Heaven or Hell?

That’s a critical question to answer, but it’s here where both the consistency and the moral underpinnings of the anti-abortion debate break down. In fact, it doesn’t even matter which way the question is answered. It still has critical implications that make an anti-abortion stance for religious reasons untenable.

To understand why, we need to look at the possible answers to the question and examine the bigger picture. Say, for instance, that you believe the deity you worship saves the souls of aborted fetuses. They all get to go to Heaven because sending unborn children to Hell just doesn’t make sense for a loving God.

By that logic, though, wouldn’t abortion actually be the best thing a woman could do for her unborn child? If, by aborting a pregnancy, she guarantees that her child goes to Heaven, wouldn’t that be the greatest act of love a mother could give?

In that moral framework, any woman who gives birth is basically gambling with their child’s soul. By bringing them into a sinful world, they put them in a position to live a life that will eventually send them to Hell. It doesn’t matter if that chance is remote. It doesn’t even matter if the deity reserves Hell for the worst of the worst. Any child born still has a non-zero chance of damnation.

In that context, being anti-abortion is the worst position to take for someone who believes that their deity sends aborted fetuses to Heaven. If anything, they would have to be in favor of abortion for every pregnancy, planned or unplanned, because it means more souls in Heaven and fewer in Hell.

The implications are just as distressing if you answer the question the other way. If your deity sends aborted fetuses to Hell, then logic follows that this deity cannot be just or loving. A fetus, by default, has no ability to even contemplate sin, let alone commit it. Sending it to Hell implies that sin, itself, is an empty concept.

It also undercuts key aspects of Judeo-Christian theology, which says that someone must sin to warrant damnation. Holding both a fetus and a young child with a limited capacity to understand such concepts is untenable. Keep in mind, Hell is supposed to be full of torture and suffering. What kind of deity puts a child through that?

Even if the deity knows which fetus or small child is destined to sin and punishes them accordingly, that still renders the anti-abortion position pointless. If the deity already knows which life is damned, then why does it matter whether a woman opts to have an abortion? If that has already been determined, then abortion has no religious implications whatsoever.

Whatever the case, the very concept of Hell creates an illogical loop that is incapable of consistency. Even if you grant the most generous assumptions of a religious argument, it still falls apart as soon as you try to put it into an ethical framework.

While the very concept of Hell is subject to all sorts of moral complexities, it effectively supercedes those complexities in the abortion debate. Either Hell is full of innocent aborted souls or is devoid of them. In both cases, it reveals more about the deity and the adherents of a religion than it does the actual issue.

None of this is to say that those who make anti-abortion arguments on the basis of faith aren’t sincere. I don’t doubt for a second that they are. They genuinely believe that abortion is immoral and constitutes murder. However, when it comes to making a moral argument, consistency matters. Without it, the arguments are entirely arbitrary and there’s no winning that debate.

6 Comments

Filed under gender issues, human nature, philosophy, political correctness, religion, sex in society, women's issues

Tagged as abortion, abortion rights, anti-abortion, atheism, belief in Hell, Christianity, conservatism, conservative, God, Heaven, Hell, human nature, human rights, Islam, Judaism, liberal, liberalism, libertarian, life after death, pro-abortion, pro-choice, pro-life, religion, religious right, religous culture, Satan, sex, Sex and God, sex and religion, sexuality, the bible, theology, women's health, women's rights

August 1, 2018 · 5:10 am

Lessons In Love According To Rick Sanchez

What is love? Can we ask that question without referencing to a one-hit wonder R&B song from 1993? I think it’s a question worth asking and one people have been asking since the dawn of our species. Many men who are way smarter than I’ll ever be have tried to answer this question. Some have offered revealing insights. Others just use it as an excuse to whine about a cheating spouse.

Then, there’s Rick Sanchez. I know that by saying that name, I’ve completely altered the tone of this topic. I could’ve easily spent the next several paragraphs breaking down how the smartest men in history view love and how that understanding reveals itself in our modern concept of romance. For now, I’d rather scrutinize love from the perspective of a hard-drinking, brutally honest, nihilistic cartoon character from Adult Swim.

Yep, I’m referring to this guy again.

Make no mistake. I’m not just using this as another excuse to talk about “Rick and Morty,” although I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking that. I really do think characters like Rick Sanchez have something to teach us on the topic of love. Being an admitted romantic and aspiring erotica/romance writer, I believe those lessons are worth heeding.

On paper, Rick Sanchez is the last person most would go to for insights into love. From the first scene in the first episode, he establishes himself as an overly-cynical, high-functioning alcoholic who may or may not be okay with blowing up the world for the sake of a fresh start. To say he’s not the romantic type would be like saying Jerry needs help with his golf game.

However, Rick does demonstrate throughout the show that he has a capacity for love. He has even had a few moments where he has shown genuine heart. There’s an odd mix of eccentricity and complexity to Rick’s behavior. That’s part of what makes him such an endearing character and why he resonates so much with an emerging generation.

From all that chaos, though, there are insights worth noting. “Rick and Morty” may go heavy with nihilism and moments of existential crisis, but it doesn’t avoid the impact of love. Whether it’s Morty constantly trying to get with Jessica or the constant upheavals in Beth and Jerry’s marriage, love is an underlying factor throughout the show.

This is despite the fact that Rick is pretty overt about his feelings on love. In “Rick Potion #9,” the sixth episode of the first season, he gives his clearest, most quote-worthy opinion on love.

“Listen, Morty, I hate to break it to you but what people call ‘love’ is just a chemical reaction that compels animals to breed. It hits hard, Morty, then it slowly fades, leaving you stranded in a failing marriage. I did it. Your parents are gonna do it. Break the cycle, Morty. Rise above. Focus on science.”

That sounds pretty jaded, to say the least. It’s perfectly fitting with Rick’s misanthropic mentality. However, there is a context here and one that’s fairly subtle, as things tend to be in the world of “Rick and Morty.”

Part of that context is Rick’s family situation. Beyond being a drunk and an eccentric mad scientist, he also has a family. It’s not just his daughter and two grandkids, either. He mentions in his cynical musings that he’d fallen in love and gotten married at one point.

That, alone, has some pretty profound implications. It shows that even the smartest, most capable man in the multiverse cannot avoid the impact of love. Keep in mind, this is a man who travels the multiverse on a whim, defeats Thanos-level super-villains while drunk, and understands how meaningless everything is in the grand scheme of things.

Despite all that, Rick Sanchez still fell in love. He still got married. That, in and of itself, shows the power of love better than any Huey Lewis song. While the show hasn’t revealed much about his former wife, Diane, it does establish an important fact. Rick is capable of love, even when he sees it as just a confluence of brain chemicals.

The show goes onto to reveal that Rick is still influenced by love, despite this reductionist understanding of it. The most comprehensive example comes in Season 2, Episode 3, “Auto Erotic Assimilation.” In many ways, this episode helps convey the most meaningful lesson in love that any animated series has ever attempted.

In the episode, Rick catches up with an old girlfriend, who happens to be an alien hive mind named Unity. If that sounds weird, even by “Rick and Morty” standards, trust me when I say it doesn’t crack the top ten. The fact that Unity is a hive mind is part of why the insights are so unique and impactful.

Throughout the episode, we learn about the particulars of Rick and Unity’s relationship. Unity establishes herself as one of the few beings in the multiverse who can keep up with Rick’s eccentricities. If anything, she has to be a hive mind in order to do so, as evidenced by Rick’s elaborately kinky requests.

In this context, Unity is the ultimate manifestation of supportive lover. She can literally do anything and be anywhere because she has the collective resources of an entire planet at her disposal. She’s more capable than a shape-shifter like Mystique or even an advanced sex robot.

If she wants to make love as a beautiful, buxom blond right out of a Playboy centerfold, she can do that. If she wants to do it as a greasy-haired, middle-aged man with a hairy back and bad breath, she can do that too. She can be two people, ten people, or as many people as she wants to be to love Rick and express that love however they want.

This breaks down, however, when Unity’s efforts to pursue that romance with Rick ends up straining her ability to maintain her hive mind. It gets so strenuous, at one point, that it leads to a nipple-driven race war on the planet. Again, this is pretty standard in terms of weirdness for “Rick and Morty.”

The implications of this breakdown are serious and I’m not referring to the nipple-driven race war. Logistically speaking, Rick and Unity had everything they needed to make their relationship work. They had unlimited resources and unlimited opportunities for intimacy, decadence, and everything in between. In exercising that, though, their relationship devolved into an ongoing spiral of self-destruction.

There was clear, unambiguous love between Rick and Unity. However, the act of being together proved toxic to both of them. Unity couldn’t be with Rick without losing herself, literally and figuratively. Rick couldn’t be with Unity without descending into a spiral of debauchery. Even if the love is there, embracing it leads to both of them getting hurt.

This made for one of the most dramatic and emotional moments of the show, one that reveals just how much Rick loved Unity. After she leaves him, it really hits him on an emotional level, so much so that he nearly kills himself. Remember, this is a man who said love is nothing more than a chemical reaction in the brain.

The pain in that moment, though, belabors a much larger point about love and being with someone. Just loving someone is easy. As Rick says, it’s just a chemical reaction in your brain. It’s something that can happen to anyone, even the smartest man in the multiverse.

However, being with someone and expressing the full spectrum of love involves much more than convergent brain chemistry. For some people, love can be downright destructive. If pursuing love means undermining your sense of being, as happened with Unity, then that’s a sign that the relationship isn’t tenable.

It’s tragic, but unavoidable. You can love someone with all your heart, but not be capable of having a functional relationship. It’s a harsh reality, one that’s perfectly in line with the nihilistic subtext in “Rick and Morty.” At the same time, though, there’s a less dire lesson to be learned.

Even if love is just a brain function that helps propogate the species, it has the power to affect us in the best and worst of ways. It can lead us to the greatest of joys, as Rick and Unity experienced for a brief time. It can also lead us to the worst of sorrows. Few other brain functions can make that claim.

That wide range of experiences are a powerful mechanism for finding meaning in a meaningless universe. Rick Sanchez doesn’t avoid the pain in those experiences and he doesn’t hesitate to pursue the joys, often to a reckless degree. Finding meaning in this universe is hard enough, but love can do plenty to carry us forward. You don’t have to be a Rick-level genius to appreciate that, although that’s probably a good thing.

7 Comments

Filed under gender issues, Marriage and Relationships, philosophy, Rick and Morty, romance

Tagged as Adult Swim, broken heart, Dan Harmond, depression, falling in love, hate, heartbreak, Justin Roiland, loneliness, lonely, lonely men, lonely women, love, love story, Morty Smith, nihilism, nihilistic, philosophy, phsychology, psychology of love, Rick and Morty, Rick Sanchez, romance, sex, sexuality, social psychology, social science, Summer Smith, Unity

July 28, 2018 · 9:43 am

A (Sexy) Personal Story About My Ex-Girlfriend

Every now and then, I take a moment to get personal on this site by recounting a particular moment in my life. I enjoy sharing those parts of myself. I even find them therapeutic at times. Most of the time, I do that to help make a larger point about a more serious issue or to celebrate a holiday, such as Mother’s Day.

However, this is not one of those times.

Today, I’d like to share a story of a far sexier variety. Don’t drive your heads too deep into the gutter. It’s not one of those stories that will get as graphic as my novels or my sexy short stories. This is just a little tidbit of my life that should help explain why I have such a lurid mind and such eclectic passions.

This particular story involves an ex-girlfriend of mine. Don’t worry, it doesn’t involve bitterness, broken hearts, or revenge. There are enough stories like that on the internet. Instead, I want to share a story that is both uplifting and influential. To date, I think it has heavily influenced my desire to write and share sexy stories.

To understand why this moment is so influential, I need to provide some context. This particular moment occurred during my freshman year of college. I had met my girlfriend online through a comic book message board. We’d been chatting back and forth for over a year before we actually met. When we finally did meet in person, it was the opposite of one of those catfishing stories.

What we had was a beautiful thing. We were very comfortable talking to each other about things that were nerdy or embarrassing to discuss with others. That didn’t just pertain to comics, though. We also talked about sexy stuff. In our defense, were a couple of horny college students. That’s not an excuse. That’s a valid reason. There’s a difference, as I’ve noted before.

It’s that comfort that helped us forge what might have been one of the sexiest parts of our relationship. During the Thanksgiving holiday that year, my girlfriend came over the visit for a few days. As part of the festivities, we both went shopping on Black Friday. That may not sound romantic, but seeing as how we both love shopping on the holidays, it might as well have been a day in Paris.

I took her to one of the big malls in my area. We spent most of the afternoon there, eating lunch and navigating chaotic crowds. The fact she insisted on wearing heels just showed how dedicated she was to sharing the holiday spirit with me. That dedication showed in the last store we visited that day, which happened to be Victoria’s Secret.

Now, if you’re a healthy heterosexual man like me, you tend to have mixed feelings about that store. You love sexy lingerie and the sexy models who wear them, but when you’re single, spending too much time around a Victoria’s Secret can send all the wrong messages. When you’re with your girlfriend, though, it can be the sexiest kinds of fun.

My ex-girlfriend understood this so she didn’t hesitate to lead me inside, putting me in close proximity with all the sexy attire I love describing in my stories. From there, she demonstrated the energy of a kid in a candy factory, browsing some extra intimate apparel that included a nighty and a thong.

It’s worth noting at this point that my ex was abnormally comfortable with this sort of thing. She wasn’t just the kind of girl who didn’t mind talking about sex. She had a pretty dirty mind and an even dirtier mouth. In public and around people, she was very sweet and polite. In private, though, she said things that would make a hardened sailor gasp. That should help make clear why I was so attracted to her.

She knew this too because we spent more time in that Victoria’s Secret store than we did any other store at the mall. We didn’t mind, though. Personally, I wish we could’ve stayed longer. When we did leave, it wasn’t empty-handed. My ex bought a little something that day, as well. It made for a damn productive day, especially for two indebted college students.

The story doesn’t end there, though. In fact, it gets even sexier because early that next morning, my ex decided to put that new lingerie to good use. Just before the sun came up, she snuck over to my bed and slipped out of the pajamas she’d worn, revealing that she was wearing that same sexy nighty and revealing thong we saw in the store. Needless to say, that woke me up in the best possible way.

What happened after that is something I prefer to keep private. I promise it didn’t get too lurid. Remember, I was at my parents’ house and they weren’t going to let us get too reckless. That said, there were some intimate moments that were pretty intense, probably the most intense we shared during our relationship.

That’s as much detail I’m willing to share about that moment, for now. I hope it offers some insight into where some of my kinky musings come from. Out of respect and appreciation for that moment, I won’t share anything else about my ex-girlfriend. I doubt she’ll ever read this, but I still sincerely thank her for the time we had together.

A while back, I found out my ex-girlfriend actually got married. By all accounts, she’s as happy as she’s ever been and I’m happy for her. I think the man she married is lucky to have her. I sincerely hope that I can build something like it with a future lover. Until that day comes, sexy memories like this one will keep inspiring me.

5 Comments

Filed under Jack Fisher's Insights, romance

Tagged as anecdote, dating, ex-girlfriend, girlfriend, good relationships, intimacy, Jack Fisher, Jack Fisher Blog, Jack Fisher Books, love, making love, passion, personal story, relationship advice, relationships, romance, romantic relationships, sex, sexuality, sexy anecdote, sexy story, Victoria's Secret

July 26, 2018 · 5:32 am

The Other Orgasm Gap (Involving Men) And Why We Should Confront It

There are many disagreements about gender these days, but when it comes to orgasms, most reasonable people are on the same page. In general, regardless of politics or genital configuration, we’re in favor of them. We support efforts to experience more for ourselves and for our partners. In matters of sex, it’s one of the few unifying issues.

Even if most people agree that orgasms are awesome, there are still some sources of tension. I’ve already touched on the current status of the orgasm gap, as it pertains to women. That is still an unresolved issue and the current status of gender relations can only improve if that gap is reduced or eliminated.

However, there is another orgasm gap that is rarely touched on, but inescapably linked to the current pleasure parity. This one pertains to men and, unlike the female orgasm gap, is shackled by hard biological limits. Any man, myself included, knows those limits all too well.

It’s no secret, but it might as well be one because it’s rarely talked about. Without getting too graphic, I’ll just say that the female orgasm is a symphony whereas the male orgasm is like a kazoo. It’s a one-note instrument that is simple, basic, and blunt. You can still make music with it, but the range is limited.

That’s because men have something called a refractory period. It’s basically the cool-down period that men experience after orgasm. From a biological standpoint, it’s the part of sex where the brain and genitals tell one another that the job is done and it’s time to rest. That process involves releasing all sorts of hormones and chemicals that are responsible for men getting sleepy after sex.

It’s the reason why men have a difficult time getting aroused again after sex, both physically and mentally. Once a man reaches that peak, it takes a while to get to that level again. It can take as little as 15 minutes to almost an entire day. During that time, though, a man’s ability and desire are significantly hindered.

This inescapable process is also the source of many jokes about premature ejaculation and men who can’t last long in bed. I don’t doubt it’s a factor in the orgasm gap. Whereas it takes a man only two to three minutes to achieve orgasm, it takes a woman an average of 12 minutes to do the same. That is not a trivial gap.

Conversely, women aren’t hindered by a refractory period. Even though it takes women longer to climax, they’re capable of having more orgasms in rapid succession. To give you an idea of just how many more women are capable of, the record for most female orgasms in an hour is 134 whereas the most a man has ever had is 16. Again, that is not a trivial gap.

While men don’t have to look far for tips and tricks that allow men to have multiple orgasms, many of these so-called techniques are just gimmicks. They’re methods for improving stamina and control, which is a great thing to have with any partner. However, it doesn’t change the fundamental biology of refractory periods.

That’s not to say this particular gap is impossible to close. That’s also not to say that there aren’t documented cases of men achieving multiple orgasms. They do exist, but there’s not a lot of research on the topic, especially compared to the amount of research on the female orgasm.

If we’re to close the orgasm gap for everybody, though, this is something that’s worth studying. I would even argue that we can’t solve the orgasm gap with women without confronting this lesser-known gap with men. In essence, that refractory period is the greatest hindrance to true orgasm parity.

Just talking about it only goes so far, though. Unlike the female orgasm gap, the refractory period is rooted in biology rather than psychology. From an evolution standpoint, it makes sense. By achieving orgasm quickly, a man can spend less time impregnating a woman and more time surviving. It was a necessary trait for managing the survival/reproduction dynamic of the human species.

Like many other traits from our pre-modern ancestors, though, these traits are less necessary in the modern era. In fact, they can be a liability. In a world of low infant and maternal mortality, we have more incentive to seek quality over quantity in our lovers. The refractory period, much like our body’s tendency to get fat, is a real hindrance to that effort.

Addressing it is probably not going to be as simple as telling men to do kegel exercises. Men being able to achieve multiple orgasms may require an effort similar to that of developing the female birth control pill. In the same way modern medicine has given women control over their fertility, it may end up doing the same for male orgasms.

How modern medicine would go about that is well-beyond my expertise. However, we already do have some clues as to what goes into reducing the refractory period. Studies has shown that a chemical called prolactin may play a major role.

Specifically, when a man climaxes and goes through a refractory period, levels of prolactin in the body spike. In rare cases of multi-orgasmic men, though, it doesn’t rise in conjunction with an orgasm. Now, that could be only be part of a much more complex process, as is often the case in medicine, but it’s a start.

In the same way some people are already hacking their biology for reasons relating to health and beauty, it may be possible to tweak certain bodily processes to enable men to have the same orgasmic potential as women. It doesn’t even have to extend to modifying genetics. It can just involve tweaking chemical and hormonal processes, something we’ve been doing in medicine for years.

Unfortunately, research on this phenomenon is scant at best. However, given how much money pharmaceutical companies have made treating sexual dysfunction, I believe the incentives are there. It may take a long time, but given the progress medicine has made on male contraception lately, I think the infrastructure is in place and so is the market.

It’s hard to predict what form modern medicine will take in treating any condition, be it the limits of the male orgasm or the current orgasm gap with women. However, I am confident in saying that any advance that puts everyone on the same level of orgasmic potential will be a game-changer of the sexiest kind.

How Less Sex Can Crash The Economy

There’s a funny, but revealing saying by famed economist, Paul Samuelson, on the difficulty of predicting economic trends. It goes like this:

The stock market has forecast nine of the last five recessions.

Other than being a play on numbers, there is a message in this quip that’s worth noting. No matter how many dire warnings accomplished economists give, a recession always seem to hit. It only ever becomes truly obvious with the benefit of hindsight.

I bring this up because I’m about to make some predictions about the future of the economy and I’m not an economist. I don’t claim to have more credibility on the matter than anyone else who has read every Freakanomics book ever written.

However, since the economy affects us all, it’s still worth talking about. Since the economy can influence our sex lives in ways I’ve discussed before, I feel like I can comment on the subject and even do a little speculation. Again, I want to make clear that I’m not an expert. This is just me making connections I feel are worth making.

When it comes to the economy, it’s not physically possible for anyone to make sense of all the data and connections that govern our affairs. Human beings are just too unpredictable and the amount of data involved is just too vast. Some points of data, though, carry more weight than others.

One of those points has to do with population and demographics. It’s a topic that’s becoming more and more relevant these days. Just this year, the birth rate in the United States dipped to a 30-year low. That’s somewhat remarkable because people tend to have more children when the economy is doing well and by most measures, the economy has been pretty good these past couple years.

This isn’t just an American problem, though. Many industrialized countries throughout the world are experiencing very low birth rates, some of which well below the replacement level rate that would keep a population stable. The reasons for this are many, but most boil down to cost. It’s just very expensive to raise a child these days and that cost is only going up.

Beyond the cost, though, there’s another factor at work that’s driving these declining fertility rates. People, in general, are just having less sex. That may seem obvious, given the data surrounding birth rates, but there are other aspects of the data that may reveal other factors.

For one, the decline in sexual activity is actually hitting the younger demographics, who are historically and biologically the most eager to engage, so to speak. I’m still old enough to remember when every other week seemed to bring dire news about teenagers having too much sex and horrifying their parents. Now, they’re not doing, but still finding ways to horrify their parents.

While I’m sure it still comes as a relief to some parents, it’s already causing concerns among demographers. However, I believe there’s a much larger concern about the economy, as a whole, that’s just starting to emerge. It has less to do with there being fewer babies and more to do with the nature of modern economies.

The days of economic health being measured by how many widgets a factory could produce are long gone. These days, most modern economies are built around consumer spending. Around 70 percent of the economy is consumer spending. That is not a trivial portion.

To illustrate why that could be a much greater problem down the line, I’ll need to make a few connections between sex and the economy. It’s not quite as kinky as it sounds, but those connections matter if you’re going to speculate about the future with any measure of accuracy.

Think, for a moment, about just how much economy activity goes into people seeking out sex and dealing with its associated byproducts, namely children. Whether you’re a man, a woman, or something in between, that pursuit drives a great deal of our economic activity.

Men work hard at jobs that don’t always pay that well to buy clothes, cars, and gifts with the hope that it’ll improve their chances of finding a partner. Women do the same, spending a great deal of money on cosmetics, clothes, and beauty treatments to attract desirable lovers. The money people spend on beauty products alone pumps a lot of money into the economy.

Even if the goal of these purchases isn’t directly linked to someone’s pursuit of sex, this activity does link to that fundamental pursuit that has driven society and our species for centuries. We work hard, establish functioning lives, and buy the things that prove to one another that we’re desirable lovers. It’s part of the many incentives that drive any economy.

It’s those same incentives, though, that can lead an economy into a cycle of destruction. Those cycles are behind every major financial crisis, but the one created by less sex and low birth rates may end up having a far greater impact. Some of those incentives are economic, but it’s the social incentives that might compound the issue.

Some of those incentives involve how modern marriage functions. More than a few people, myself included, have pointed out that marriage is not a very good deal, especially for men. If you look at it from the perspective of a simple contact, the flaws are pretty obvious.

Imagine, for a moment, that someone presents you with a contract. You will enter into a partnership in which you pledge emotional, financial, and intimate support for an undefined period of time. However, if the other party wishes to dissolve the partnership at any time for any reason, they can do so and get half your assets, as well as custody of your children.

Read over the fine print carefully. Would you sign that contract? Who in the right mind who isn’t drunk on irrational passions would? I think most people would see that as a bad deal and one that they have plenty of incentive to avoid.

On top of those incentives, there’s another round of them that has been growing recently. These come directly from the ongoing anti-harassment movement that has helped expose horrible sex crimes, but has also given men a powerful incentive to avoid women.

As a man, and I know this is anecdotal on my part, I find myself feeling very anxious around women who I don’t know or aren’t close family. I worry that one wrong gesture or one wrong comment will lead to an accusation that will subsequently ruin my life. I don’t want that and I don’t think any man wants that.

That’s not to say those incentives are powerful enough to make men stop feeling attracted to women, but I do think they’re sufficient to make men more reluctant to seek out intimate relationships with women. From an economic standpoint, the potential cost is very high, whether it’s paying for a child or for having your life ruined by an accusation.

From these incentives, the resulting economic situation won’t just be different. It will be unsustainable when you take into account the declining fertility rates. It doesn’t even have to be an economy where nobody gets married and has kids. It can just be an economy where most men and women stay single and don’t build much of their economic activity around pursuing sex.

In that economy, the only major purchases would be shelter, electricity, internet, and entertainment. As expensive as some of those can be, they’re not going to match the same amount of spending that comes with caring for children or for people just trying to get laid.

In the short-term, that means the economy will be dominated primarily by products and services that just help single men and single women relax on a Friday night after work. In the long-term, however, the consequences are much greater.

Without a growing population, there aren’t as many workers to support the large welfare states that most modern economies utilize. Moreover, without that same growing population, the consumer base starts shrinking. Even if a greater number of people have more money, that money is useless if there aren’t enough people to spend it.

From there, a cycle of fewer consumers starts feeding a process of declining spending. On top of that, fewer workers means it’s impossible to sustain a large welfare state, which leaves more people impoverished with even less money to spend. It began with declining birth rates, but it only accelerated when people just had less sex.

In the end, the economy as we know it now, just can’t function anymore. I’m not saying it’ll completely collapse, but it would have to adapt a lot in order to function with these incentives. I’m not sure what those adaptations would entail, whether it involves a universal basic income or using artificial wombs to augment the population.

I’ll say it one more time because I think I need to belabor this. I’m not an expert. This is just speculation on my part. This is what I feel could be the endgame for our economy, as we know it, if the current incentives hold. It’s a near certainty that there will be changes, but it’s impossible to predict what those changes will entail.

From my perspective, though, I think the implications are clear. A society where people are having fewer children is hard enough to adapt to, but we’ve already been doing that to some extent. One where people have less sex or flat out avoid it, though, may end up being much harder.

4 Comments

Filed under Current Events, gender issues, human nature, Marriage and Relationships, sex in society, sexuality

Tagged as anti-harassment, birth rates, civilization, collapse of civilization, demographics, economic crash, economic decline, economics, economy, family, family issues, gender, gender equality, gender inequality, human relationships, human sexuality, love, marriage, MeToo, MGTOW, population, relationships, sex, sexual decline, sexuality, single men, single women, social issues, society, sociology, teen sex, western culture, western decline

July 17, 2018 · 5:24 am

Why Henry Cavill Shouldn’t Apologize For His Comments On The Anti-Harassment Movement (But Still Had To)

What does it say about the state of a society when people have to apologize for voicing honest, legitimate concerns? Pragmatically speaking, it implies that the value of truth and just has been subsumed by other influences. Whether it’s politics or ideology, it’s not hard for society to get to a point where unreasonable forces subvert reasonable issues.

In that sense, it’s ironic that the latest person to experience those influences once played Superman, the personification of truth, justice, and the American way. Henry Cavill, whose star has risen significantly since he broke out in “Man of Steel,” got into some hot water recently after an interview with GQ.

In that interview, he essentially made the same mistake Matt Damon made when he tried to comment on the anti-harassment movement. He said something that was reasonable, honest, and understandable from a purely logistical standpoint. He’s worried that something as simile as flirting with a woman could somehow be construed as harassment, which could lead to a full-blown scandal.

For reference, these were his exact words from the interview and the ones that subsequently led him down the same path as Matt Damon.

It’s very difficult to do that if there are certain rules in place. Because then it’s like: ‘Well, I don’t want to go up and talk to her, because I’m going to be called a rapist or something’. So you’re like, ‘Forget it, I’m going to call an ex-girlfriend instead, and then just go back to a relationship, which never really worked’. But it’s way safer than casting myself into the fires of hell, because I’m someone in the public eye, and if I go and flirt with someone, then who knows what’s going to happen?

Now? Now you really can’t pursue someone further than, ‘No’. It’s like, ‘OK, cool’. But then there’s the, ‘Oh why’d you give up?’ And it’s like, ‘Well, because I didn’t want to go to jail?’

Think about what he’s saying here and take a step back to see how he got to that point. He’s talking about being called a rapist just for going up to a woman and talking to her. How is that reasonable? It’s not. It sounds paranoid, but it’s perfectly understandable in the current social climate.

It’s easy to picture a scenario where someone like Cavill walks up to a woman, starts flirting, and ends up saying something inappropriate. That’s not just something men do. Women do that too. Being vulgar knows no gender. However, if the woman in this scenario takes particular offense, it could be construed as harassment or even assault.

If a woman was especially vindictive or just prone to exaggeration, she could accuse him of assaulting her. Even if those accusations aren’t even close to warranting an actual crime, it would still be devastating. The accusation alone would be enough to derail a promising career.

You don’t have to look far for evidence of this. Aziz Ansari was not charged with any crimes for the infamous incident that came out earlier this year and even if he had been, there’s no way he would’ve been convicted. An incident built entirely around a he said/she-said situation doesn’t come close to meeting the burden of proof for a criminal conviction.

That doesn’t matter, though. Ansari’s career has already taken a major down turn. His hit show, “Masters of None,” has not been renewed by Netflix since the allegations came out. Men like Henry Cavill, whose careers are ascending, certainly take notice of that. They don’t even have to commit a crime and suddenly, everything they worked for is in ashes.

For powerful men in Hollywood, it’s a reasonable concern, but one they probably won’t get much sympathy for expressing. Men like Henry Cavill are rich, successful, and handsome enough to comfortably wear Superman’s skin-tight costume. He’s a man who can attract women just by breathing. However, that may end up making him even more vulnerable.

Most people aren’t going to be inclined to make a big deal about someone who flirts inappropriately. When that person is a celebrity, though, the incentives are much stronger. You need only have an overreaction or a burning desire for attention to twist it into something much worse.

It’s for that reason that Cavill shouldn’t have apologized for his comments. His concerns are legitimate and after all the work he’s put in, he’s right to worry about the forces that might destroy it. That still didn’t matter. His comments still triggered a major backlash on social media. He also had to apologize for it. These were his exact words.

“Having seen the reaction to an article in particular about my feelings on dating and the #metoo movement, I just wanted to apologize for any confusion and misunderstanding that this may have created. Insensitivity was absolutely not my intention. In light of this I would just like to clarify and confirm to all that I have always and will continue to hold women in the highest of regard, no matter the type of relationship whether it be friendship, professional, or a significant other. Never would I intend to disrespect in any way, shape or form. This experience has taught me a valuable lesson as to the context and the nuance of editorial liberties. I look forward to clarifying my position in the future towards a subject that it so vitally important and in which I wholeheartedly support.”

Notice that there’s nothing in that apology that expands on his concerns. Cavill doesn’t attempt to re-frame his point or address some of the complaints levied against him. He just throws his hands up and apologizes about everything, as though every word he said was factually wrong.

Now, to be fair to Cavill, it’s very likely that the statement he gave was written by a publicist or agent. Chances are he was pressured to read that as quickly as possible in order to prevent him from getting labeled a misogynist or someone who did not wholly support the anti-harassment movement. Even if he didn’t feel inclined to apologize, he still had to do it in order to preserve his career and reputation.

Regardless of his reasons for doing so, he still apologized for telling the honest truth. The backlash he received didn’t even argue that truth. Most of it amounted to scoffing at the concerns of a rich, handsome celebrity who is undeserving of any sympathy. One commenter even went so far as to call him a wannabe victim.

Such criticism is every bit as absurd as the kind Matt Damon got when he dared to point out that there’s a difference between patting a woman on the butt and full-blown rape. They also fail to acknowledge that it’s entirely possible for a woman to be vindictive enough to falsely accuse someone of a heinous crime for the sole purpose of ruining their career, despite documented cases that this has happened.

It’s one thing to expose the serious crimes of predators like Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein. Those cases did have evidence and are being processed through appropriate legal means. The behaviors Henry Cavill described don’t even come close to that kind of conduct.

The fact that Cavill had to apologize sets a dangerous precedent for the anti-harassment movement. History has shown that any movement that throws off honest truth and basic justice is built on a poor foundation. In time, that foundation eventually crumbles and the merits of the movement get lost.

There are plenty of behaviors among celebrities and non-celebrities that warrant outrage. What Henry Cavill said wasn’t one of them. The fact he still had to apologize for his words does not bode well for anyone concerned with the values that heroes like Superman embody.

10 Comments

Filed under Celebrities and Celebrity Culture, Current Events, gender issues, media issues, political correctness, sex in media, sex in society, sexuality

Tagged as anti-feminism, anti-harassment, feminism, gender, gender equality, gender inequality, gender issues, Harvey Weinstein, Henry Cavill, Hollywood, Hollywood Culture, human sexuality, men, men and women, men's issues, MeToo, Radical Feminism, romance, sex, sex in media, sex in society, sexism, sexual health, sexuality, social issues, social justice, social media, society

July 11, 2018 · 5:05 am

How Atheism May Improve Your Sex Life

When it comes to improving your sex life, there’s no one way to go about it that works for everyone. Human sexuality is complex, diverse, and exceedingly kinky. What works for one person won’t work for another and may even be detrimental in some cases.

Conversely, there are also variety of ways to undermine or ruin your sex life. That same sexual diversity that helps the human race find novel ways to get intimate with one another can also backfire horribly. Some are minor, in terms of effect, but other forces can have a much greater impact.

That brings me to religion, a topic that tends to inspire the best and worst in people. Like sex, it’s a complex phenomenon that impacts everybody differently. It can inspire great charity and compassion in some. It can just as easily incur greed, exploitation, and outright atrocity.

For those reasons, and plenty more that are too numerous to list, any effort that involves mixing sex with religion is akin to mixing napalm with TNT. I’ve made an effort to discuss both topics in a fair, balanced manner in the past. I feel as though I can only go so far before I totally inflame certain audiences.

I’m still going to try to push the conversation a bit farther. That means taking a few risks and since religion is still such a prominent force in the world, it’s effect on our collective sex lives is unavoidable.

For this particular discussion, want to focus on what happens when religion is removed from the equation. If religion is really that powerful an influence on our lives, and both history and current politics indicate that influence is not entirely trivial, then it stands to reason that the impact of its absence can reveal something about the extent of that influence.

That’s not to say that this is going to be a glowing endorsement of atheism. I prefer to let the data, the logic, and the implications speak for themselves. Since religion is on decline in many parts of the western world, I think exploring the potential impact is critical and even a little urgent.

Information on the sex lives of atheists compared to those who consider themselves religious is somewhat difficult to come by. The act of assessing and measuring someone’s sex lives, as well as the extent of their religiosity, is extremely difficult without the aid of lie detectors or mind-readers. The information we do have, though, does offer some intriguing insights.

Back in 2011, a survey entitled “Sex and Secularism” surveyed approximately 14,500 people revealed that those who identified as religious had less satisfying sex lives than their non-religious counterparts. On top of that, those same religious participants reported a high level of guilt that came along with their sex lives. Given how some religions build their theology around guilt, that shouldn’t be too surprising.

Conversely, those identifying as non-religious didn’t just report better sex lives. They had better sexual education and were more open to discussing sex in general. Everything from personal fantasies to simple tastes was fair game and less affected by guilt. That openness, along with considerably less stigma, was conducive to a more fulfilling sex life.

That effect was more pronounced by those who had once been religious, but had since become atheist. Between the absence of religiously-motivated guilt and the sexual taboos that are often theologically driven, the cumulative effect is pretty striking. This notable quote from the researchers summed it up nicely.

“People who had lost their belief and became atheists reported a significant improvement in sexual satisfaction,” the paper went on to say. Apparently the guilty feelings that religion creates around sex dissipate after a while.

Now, I can already hear the outrage sincerely devout religious crowd on the conclusions of this study. More than a few people who consider themselves religious will claim that their sex lives are superior and they may even have a case to make. Many religions offer a simple, one-size-fits-all approach to sex that is uncomplicated, straightforward, and safer. The fact that it’s also ordained by a divine power is also a factor.

I don’t deny that there are plenty of religious couples out there who have satisfying sex lives. There are probably plenty of atheists out there who have terrible sex lives, as well. However, in order to draw larger conclusions about the impact of religion on sex, we can’t just go by a few anecdotal experiences. We have to step back and see the forest from the trees.

From a psychological and physiological perspective, it makes sense that guilt, religiously-motivated or not, would undermine anyone’s sex life. Guilt has measurable effects on people. It makes it harder to focus. It keeps us from enjoying things. It’s a powerful distraction that makes us feel stress and anxiety. All of these forces can do plenty to undermine your sex life.

In my musings on taboos, I often cite religion as a driving force behind them. Organized religion has made no secret of its intent to regulate, control, or outright exploit human sexuality. There’s plenty of theology, especially among the Abrahamic religions, that imparts divinely-mandated guilt on sex.

In these religious cultures, sex isn’t just some basic biological act that people do for intimacy, procreation, and recreation. It’s subject to all sorts of holy and unholy connotations. The deities involved in these religions aren’t just interested in the kind of sex you’re having. They’ll actually punish you if you do it the wrong way.

That does more than just impart extra guilt for doing anything that strays from what priests, mullahs, monks, and rabbis deem appropriate. It also instills a very rigid family structure, one centered around a specific manifestation of sex that has very little room for fun, kink, and exploration.

That manifestation involves strict gender roles where men do the hard labor and women do the child rearing. The only sex that is sanctioned is the one that involves producing babies who subsequently grow up to be adherents/soldiers/patrons of a particular religion. The fact that type of sexual expression indirectly benefits religious institutions is probably just a coincidence.

The act of enjoying sex for non-procreative purposes would constitute a distraction. A distraction is dangerous in any religion because if people become too distracted, then they pay less attention to the religious institutions and the duties they espouse. As such, it’s in the interest of any successful religion to maintain a strict control over someone’s sex life.

That kind of control is naturally prone to stress. Given how the biological wiring of human sexuality is not conducive to that kind of narrow expression, there’s bound to be temptation. The best way to combat temptation is through stigma and taboo. By hijacking powerful feelings like guilt, it’s possible heavily influence peoples’ sex lives, even if it’s impossible to control them.

It’s akin to putting lead weights on somebody’s limbs and convincing them that the weight is normal. Even if they come to accept that, the weight still skews perceptions and that can only do so much in terms of circumventing basic biology. It also means that when those weights come off, the effect is pretty striking.

Suddenly, the stigma that once kept someone from seeking the sex they desired are gone. The burdens associated with thoughts and feelings that religious institutions deem unholy are lifted. Like any form of stress relief, it can be pretty liberating.

That doesn’t necessarily mean the 2011 survey is conclusive. It has been criticized for being unscientific in some aspects. Some of those criticisms are valid and the researchers concede that, but to the extent the data is consistent with what we understand about how religion can affect our sexuality, it passes some critical filters.

Our sex lives are complicated. Religion, in its many forms, is complicated as well. Regardless of how you feel about one or the other, mixing them is almost certain to compound both. Atheism, like not playing a sport or not having a hobby, simply removes one of those complications.

It’s not a universal fix. It doesn’t subvert other potential issues that may undermine someone’s sex life. There’s plenty more research to be done and religion is still evolving with each passing year, but when it comes to removing divinely-imposed, theologically-driven guilt, atheism stimulates the necessary aspects that make for a satisfying sex life.

1 Comment

Filed under gender issues, human nature, Marriage and Relationships, philosophy, psychology, religion, romance, sex in society, sexuality

Tagged as anti-feminism, atheism, Better sex, better sex lives, faith and sex, female sexuality, feminism, God and sex, godless, human sexuality, love, male sexuality, marriage, non-believer, organized religion, patriarchy, relationships, religion, sex, Sex and God, sex and religion, sex and spirituality, sex in culture, sex in society, sex life, sexism, sexual health, Sexual Revolution, sexual stigma, sexuality, spirituality

Tag Archives: sexuality

Abortion, Prostitution, And The Indirect (But Powerful) Link Between Them

Sex Robots, 3D Printing, And The Future Of The Porn Industry

Why You Can’t Believe In Eternal Hell, Be Anti-Abortion, And Be Morally Consistent

A (Sexy) Personal Story About My Ex-Girlfriend

The Other Orgasm Gap (Involving Men) And Why We Should Confront It

How Atheism May Improve Your Sex Life

Donations

Jack’s Sexy Novels

Latest Release

Recent Posts

Jack Fisher’s Twitter Feed