Are sexual prohibitions mixing religion and the law?

I think science has provided pretty clear reasons for why we both fail to practice monogamy and why we expect it from our partners.We're the decendants, all of us, of people for whom there was nothing to prevent them from having sex. Some were "allowed", by society, tradition, or mores; some were not and did it anyway. People for whom something as flimsy as religion was enough to prevent mating simply didn't pass on any genes. Therefore it should not surprise us to discover that religious morality, or any other kind, presents little impediment to what you describe as "taboo" behavior. Yeah, we're mostly imposing religion on them. Holmes has put forward a pretty strong case that these relationships are not inherently damaging or harmful for any of the participants.But there is an element of coercion involved whenever there's a disparity in power or authority. I don't think it's an imposition of religion or moral judgement to have laws or policy against a teacher having sex with their students or a parent having sex with their child. And even an age difference can represent a disparity in authority, under some situations. Certainly. We're imposing our own attitudes about what marriage means and the obligations of a spouse. We're free to do that, of course; but we should also defer to the judgement of that man's wife, don't you think? After all it is to her that he is obligated, so it is her who makes the judgement of to what degree, if any, he's violated their relationship. I guess I don't see what science has to do with it. Religion never stopped anybody from cheating on their spouse - science is merely the tool we used to discern truths about human conduct. Religion tells us what we're supposed to do, if you believe it - science informs us of what we actually do.Religion tries to put a stranglehold on human sexuality, but it doesn't much matter. Humans have been having the sex that they were told not to have for the scope of human history. Science not only explains why they do, but why we told them not to, as well.

I think there's a vast chasm of difference between consent as a legal construct and as a mental one. It's ridiculous to assert that somehow, you gain the mental ability to take responsibility for your own actions at the stroke of 12:01 on your birthday, where a minute before you had no such power.In my country, we've determined that some minors had such mental maturity during the commission of a crime that they're able to stand trial for that crime as though they were adults. It's ridiculous that, with sex crimes being in essence a life sentence for the perpetrator, we cannot extend the same reasoning to mentally mature minors who made a choice that the law asserts they could not have made.The legal construct of "age of consent" is a legal compromise, but I don't think that it should be looked at as indicative of some kind of fundamental truth about when a human is "mentally" ready for sex. To be honest with you, I'm not sure that any human is ready for the responsibilities of intercourse until after they've had it. I wasn't, and I was 20.

Well, so what? I mean, what about the two kids in your example? Did they just rape each other? I mean, don't you find it somewhat significant that they were able to accomplish a sexual act that, according to the law, it would have been impossible for them to decide to have?Some people want to rape children, and these people need to be treated (read: sequestered) for the mental illness that they have. Some people, however, have entirely consensual, completely positive sex experiences with each other that the laws says that they could not possibly have. I don't see that imprisonment, and a life spent in society branded with the scarlet letter of the sex offender, is appropriate for either case. Rapist pedophiles should never be released; Romeo and Juliet shouldn't be punished at all. The fact that we treat both of these cases the same forces us to make the compromises that we do, but we're compromising between two positions that are fundamentally incompatible.

Leads to? No, science only describes sexual "amorality." People have been sexually amoral for as long as there's been sex.Science no more leads people to sexual amorality than religion does.

I'm concerned that, to a fair extent, we're all conflating sexual amorality with sexual immorality; Rand's not asking if science turns normal people into sexual offenders and deviants and rapists (immorality) - he's asking if science leads to a culture of non-judgementality about sexual acts.Well, no, it doesn't. Certainly a scientific approach to sexuality is non-judgemental, but science should be non-judgemental about all human behavior. The purpose of science is not to recommend policy but to describe reality, and the reality is that the scope of human sexual behavior is significantly wider, and always has been, than religions have preferred. There have always been people who did not make judgements about sex, or judged sexual activities in a different way than their society. Cassanova. Lothario. Lilith. Cultural, even mythical, figures who were both revered and despised for refusing to suborn their sexual desires to the limited scope mandated by their cultures.Does science produce more of these figures? I don't see it that way. But certainly the advancing knowledge about human sexual behavior, starting perhaps with the work of Alfred Kinsey, has provided a sense of legitimacy to people who felt illegitimized by their sexual preferences and practices. But I don't see that as a reduction in morality, towards amorality - I see it as an expansion of morality.

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Science has never led anyone to sexual amorality, but religion often does.

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I guess I don't follow. Can you explain a bit more why you feel this is the case?

Well, it sounds like the opposite is happening - pretty much everybody else has come out for the right of consenting people to do whatever they choose to do with each other. The question of who can consent and who cannot doesn't seem to be a moral issue, to me.So, in fact, you're wrong. The other side is not doing the exact same thing, they're respecting the right of persons to make their own determinations about what they will or will not do. Well, no, there is. The religious right wants to institute a bunch of laws that have no justification other than that they appear in the Bible; that violates the rights of people who do not want to live according to the Bible (which is just about everybody.)You're free to enact any laws that you can justify by their secular purpose. Laws that have only religious justification - no eating of meat, no human likenesses in art, no gay sex - cannot be enacted according to our constitution. I believe this thread has demonstrated that the opposite is true. {Fixed 2nd quote box. - Adminnemooseus}This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 11-21-2005 12:36 AM

I don't think you understood word one of what I just posted. I'm sorry, where did you do that? How, exactly, do you think you can establish morality as a factual issue? No, of course it didn't make it true. What does that have to do with morality?Some people can consent; some cannot. It has nothing to do with their age, and nothing to do with morality. It has everything to do with an objective assessment of their mental competence, and is thus not a moral issue for me, but a measuring issue.Like I said, your breathless screed doesn't seem to indicate that you fully understood my point. If you think that I've just come out in support of the legal fiction of "age of consent", after three posts where I decried the concept, then you're insane.

I thought I was ready at the time, too. It was only the next day when I realized there was a whole world of stuff that I had to worry about now.All those public service posters about diseases and stuff? Didn't even register on my consciousness, until afterwards.There was nothing more I could have done to be really ready, but I still wasn't. That's what leads me to believe that folks generally aren't quite ready. I mean, I didn't drop the ball or anything, or do anything dangerous or put myself or her at risk. It was a positive experience. But there were aspects that I simply couldn't have prepared for.But I'm glad it was different for you. Maybe it's a gender-based thing, or something.

Well, I mean, I'd been seeing the warnings for years, but I had just been in the mental habit of thinking that they only applied to people who were actually having sex, and not having any until you're 20 (and being a big nerd besides) puts you in a mindset where you don't immediately think of yourself as one of those people.It was just the realignment of a mental habit, but it was a realignment I couldn't have made until afterwards. "Ha ha! Dangly bits." I think culture reenforces that message for young women, as well. It seems like pregnancy is used to scare girls from an early age, and many cultural stereotypes still imply that the purpose of women is to be an object for sex, so it's not unexpected that young women are going to be much more anticipatory in regards to their first sexual encounter. A good friend of mine informs me that, in the US, the only avaliable spermacide is essentially a detergent, and it's very irritating to the skin, if you know what I mean. Canada and Europe, according to her, have much more advanced spermacides that are not so irritating, but for some reason, they aren't approved for use in the US. I blame the religionists, of course.

Yeah, exactly; as though extra-pair copulation is somehow the exclusive balliwick of men. As if! (Crashfrog has pretty much been cheated on by all his girlfriends.)

Well, that's certainly not how I read it. Certainly it destroys the notion of "age of consent", but I didn't see how it eliminated the idea that some people don't have the wherewithall to effectively consent to risky acts, because they simply can't comprehend the risks.I mean, surely you believe that coercion exists? Or that an extremely young or developmentally retarded person could consent to a risk they simply can't understand? I draw a personal distinction between morality and ethics, where the first are the precepts we draw on the basis of something being "right" or "wrong", and the second are the precepts we draw on the basis of their objective, testable merit to society.The idea of consent is an ethical issue to me; I don't really recognize moral issues, because discussions about morals never go anywhere. Too subjective and individual. But we can objectively discuss ethical issues through empiricism and the like.I see consent as an ethical issue because the issue itself is ameinable to objective study. Objectively, there are some people who cannot understand the risks of what they agree to do; thus, their consent is meaningless. And persons who place them in those risks knowing that they cannot understand them are culpable, just as they would be if they exposed someone to a risk directly against their will. If you're referring to that one thread where you presented the study, again, that's not how I remember it. Certainly it destroyed the link between consent and age, but the idea of consent in general? I don't see how you think it did that. Do you honestly believe that a two-year-old, for instance, could meaningfully appreciate the risks of operating a power tool? Or a firearm? I mean, isn't that why we lock up our guns? Because our young children aren't able to understand the risks of their use? No, it doesn't. You've still missed my point. I am cool. You're the one that, once again, couldn't possibly address a post to me without peppering it with ad hominem accusations of "intellectual dishonesty" and the like. Prove to me that you can address me with sufficient detatchment, and I'll continue the discussion with you. But I'm not going to drag down another thread defending myself against your scurrilous acccusations.

Circular definition. If you define the natural tendancy of humans to be "sinful" - and make no mistake, there's nothing more natural than the human desire to both step out on your partner and to prevent your partner from doing the same - then obviously you're going to think science uncovers a "sin nature."Evolution more than explains why partners cheat, and why their partners try to keep them from cheating. Religion is a social tool used to try to impose the latter, but, quite predictably, does nothing to prevent the former.

An origin that doesn't really explain anything. "People do bad things because they're bad." But people aren't bad. People are mostly good. I mean, look around you. At your friends and family and the people you love. Are those all bad people? Are they all evil in their hearts?I can't believe that you would believe that; if you do truly believe that you must be a very lonely person. I don't see the distinction. All religions justify their precepts in the same way that you just did.

They're your friends, so let's go with what you think those terms mean. Are your friends, family, and loved ones bad people? Your fellow soldiers, your brothers in arms? Bad people, every one? Well, they are. The vast majority of people won't ever see the inside of a courtroom or jail except on TV or a guided tour. Less than 1% of Americans are incarcerated. And the purpose of lawyers goes, of course, well beyond criminal defense or prosecution. In the town where I grew up, almost nobody locks their doors, car, house, or otherwise; it's not uncommon to come back from the store and find a good friend waiting in your living room enjoying one of your sodas, and you're glad to see him there. And I'm not that old.Most people are good people. Very good people. So an origin of behavior that explains that our friends do bad things because they're actually bad people doesn't jive with observation."Sin nature"? I don't see it. But evolution not only explains why people do things you consider "sins", but also why you consider them sins in the first place. It's the better explanation, to my mind.

Hrm...You know, during my reply to this, I began to see the spark of merit in your position.I'm willing to give you this one, for now. Gave me something to think about, anyway. One thing, first: Well, wait, now. You defined "consent" as merely the positive assent to an activity. How is your position consistent with that?And also, to correct your misappprehension: I'm on the record as asserting that age does not equal competence, so your criticism here is off-base. I don't know. How many children per year are injured playing with these tools? I guess I have a pretty high standard for what constitutes a tool too dangerous for a child, so what exactly are we talking about, here?