Sexual expression: your opinion

I think absolute, unqualified statements, regardless of the content, usually lead to overapplication of ideas due to their appearance as "rules" rather than "trends" or "guidelines."I'm a firm believer that we make ourselves out to be a whole lot more interesting and powerful than we actually are. Sexual expression is one way to spend your time. Playing basketball is another. Inventing new tools is another. So is eating tasty foods. I don't see any are inherently more valuable or necessary than any other.Somehow this thread seems to be taking a different direction, talking more about how sexual expression interacts with society and rules / laws / privacy? Seems to me to be a totally different issue, and like everything to me--a totally practical issue of merging disparate views into a single law.Ben

Sorry, couldn't help, but, Sure sounds like a judgment to me. Establishing norms seems fine, but calling what is outside of them, whether we're talking about behavioral or physical traits, seems to me taking a wrongly judgmental standpoint (given an evolution view of things). I would call them variations, possibly beneficial variations. I think bees might be a good example of a place where asexuality works out.Not that I'm trying to scold you; I do note you expressed uncertainty. Just to take time to express myself on what I think the right vocabulary and thinking on the subject is. It's a tough call. To what degree do we think of ourselves as animals, and whatever we do is "OK", and to what degree do we have some "ideals" that we're forcing upon ourselves? And to what degree are those "ideals" implementable and sustainable?Trying to "gain an upper hand" on sexuality isn't obviously bad to me. I see some utility in having control over any urge--it allows people to make decisions by weighting values as they (mentally) wish. Then again, I also am unsure about it. With no intrinsic values to things, we become less human and more decision-making machines.Lots of words to say, I can't agree or disagree. I haven't decided yet.Ben

If you're positing a non-judgmental socieity, then I guess I don't see why such a thing needs to be stopped. In a non-judgmental society, I guess the choice to attend to some aspect of physiology would be due to its utility in the chosen life? I'm not even sure I can make sense of a non-judgmental society.I don't see a problem with a society demanding that such things be attended to or not. Such a choice will always come from some judgment about what is desired and what is not. That judgment can be made on supposed teleological grounds, utilitarian grounds, religious grounds... I'm not a big fan of any judgment over another on absolute grounds; I felt holmes was trying to justify his argument by using some teleological argument about the purpose and function of a system.That type of thinking is useful in practical sciences. But I felt holmes was using it in defining not only what humans are, but what they should be. In a sense, it's society building. And I think that's overextending the use of practical, ad-hoc ideas developed in medicine. It is not obvious to me that using teleological arguments about the nature of our body makes for good society building.And at this point, that's what I'm all about--good society building. How do we do it?Sorry if that's a really confusing post, or if there's lots of gaps.BenP.S. Cool. That's a good thing.