Sex as an overriding moral priority

[sparkindarkness]

Actually I’m going to expand on my last post with something I’ve been musing on a forum recently.

I do not get where some people’s morality come from. I literally cannot picture it and cannot understand it. It makes no rational sense no matter how I look at it.

And the problem I have is this idea of sex as a moral issue. Sex is sex. Sure there are immoral ways to have sex - but these usually involve coersion, violence, force or cheating and deceit - the immorality is not in the sex itself.

I do not understand how sex and sexuality can be inherently moral issues in and of themselves. I do not understand why who you are attracted to is a matter of morality. I do not understand why nudity is a matter for morality. I do not understand why the type of sex or amount of sex or the people you have sex with or the number of people you have sex with or the place you have sex are moral issues. I do not understand why the depiction of nakedness or of any sex act can be considered a moral issue. I just CANNOT understand it. I cannot understand where good and evil and morality enter the equation.

I can understand why some sexual practices are not good ideas from a common sense standpoint - in the same way I think that juggling meat cleavers is a bad idea. I don’t think it’s an EVIL idea or a MORALLY WRONG idea - I just think it’s a damn stupid idea.

Not only do I not understand why sex is a moral issue, but I further am UTTERLY baffled why sex is THE OVERRIDING MORAL ISSUE. It trumps all others! It is like the core of moral values, the pinnacle of goodness!

To quote the video I linked again "So it's OKAY to waterboard a guy OVER EIGHTY TIMES, but GOD FORBID that the guy who could understand what that prick was saying has a boyfriend." AND THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO DO THINK LIKE THIS. There are people who can make excuses and reasons to justify TORTURE one of the ULTIMATE evils but will decry someone over their SEXUALITY.

I’ve just been berated about Britain’s moral decline on a forum. I am bemused! what moral decline? We care for the poorest in society more than we used to, the most vulnerable, the most needing of help. We combat prejudice and bigotry more than we used to. We have greater value and understanding of personal rights and protections in the last couple of decades than we have ever had.

But we’re in moral decline. Why? Because of the terrible, racey, sexy shows on television. Televions programmes like Shameless, Queer as Folk, Life on Mars etc show naked bodies and couples having sex. I’m sorry, but I do not understand this. The presence of sweaty, nekked sexoring completely invalidates decades of social progress?

Hey back in the 50s women may been treated as little better than property and people of colour were treated like lesser species and we were still clinging to the tail-end of an oppressive and dictatorial empire but at least there was no nekkedness or sexoring! A much more good and moral age!

I just look at the very idea of sex being such an overpowering moral issue and my head hurts. I just can’t fit the idea into my brain

Comments

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

I think it more likely that we're in moral decline because the terrible, racey, sexy shows on television are teaching us to look at each other as not people, but someTHING that could give us something we want.

Just like terrible shows about various ways to blow things up and kill people are teaching us to look at each other as someTHING that is keeping us from getting something we want.

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

TV is a cultural blandifier if nothing else. It has given the US at least a pretty solid core culture. I may have that concept wrong, shared language and limited set of core values? It's still very diverse culture but I can drive 3000 miles and the majority speak the same language and have basically the same civility.

I do not think we're in moral decline, we're just getting a more diverse view of the world and are no longer sucking up pablum from centralized dispensers of wisdom.

Wisdom that was dispensed in one direction by the MSM, polyticks and religion.

Yep the internet is evil.

[seryan.livejournal.com]

People are doing the same things they've always done, only now more people are willing to be open about what they're doing (that all generations previously have done, with varying degrees of candidness). Only lots of people don't want to admit this, so they wail about 'moral decline' because they can't adapt, don't agree with what others are doing, and so whine about change in the hopes of restoring 'good old days' that never really existed. I don't understand it, either. I find it a lot more liberating to say "You know what? I'm not into what you're into, but so long as everyone involved is capable of informed consent and has done so, it doesn't affect me."

[klgaffney.livejournal.com]

the worst part is, their weird nostalgia is for a time that doesn't exist! the call for "old-fashioned" morality, "the good old days" etc. clearly none of these people have ever read a victorian-era newspaper. and they're confusing actual reality with leave it to beaver reruns, and a remembered past with all the crappy parts cut out.

i don't get the sex is wrong thing either. i never got it. that's part of why i kept getting into trouble when i was a fundie. sex is the worst thing you'll ever do ever? i don't GET it. i think it's an attitude increasingly being confined to a smaller, older, ever more threatened generation, though. hopefully, anyway.

[procris.livejournal.com]

Sex is pleasure (if done right...), and pleasure is wrong. You've got to remember, most of this Good Ol' Fashioned Morality is based on Christian reactions during the Reformation. Epicurian was out of favor. Corruption was tied to the seven deadly sins, many of which (gluttony, lust, etc) can by classified as enjoying stuff too much. This held over into the "Glory Days" of Victoria, and their nostalgic resurgence in the 1950s.

In addition, the morality binge against positive views of sex (any sex, including het sex AND gay sex) has a lot to do with that lovely 1950s view of women. After all, women aren't supposed to enjoy sex, right? We're the more "gentle sex," fainting at the idea of le Cock. So if women are *enjoying* it, it must be wrong, because it goes against how women should be have. And if it's two blokes? One of them isn't a woman! He inherently can't act the fainting beauty, or -- heaven forbid! -- if he does, he's going against his masculine boldness! The contradictions start building up and then steam comes out the ears. It's great.

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

Putting overpowering moral issues in your brain can be hazardous to your and others health.