Moral Judgments

Ah, so activity that transmits STD's as harmful is wrong?Physical damage requiring surgery, permanent scarring (physical or mental), and fatalities are all also associated with pregnancy and childbirth. Are those wrong too?On to a new topic. Aids. According to Avert.org the 2003 statistics (cumulative)for the US for exposure categories looks like this.Male-to-male sexual contact - 440,887
Male-to-male sexual contact and injection drug use - 62,418
Injected Drug Use - Male 175,988 - Female 70,558 - Total 246,546
Heterosexual contact - Male 56,403 - Female 93,586 - Total 149,989
Other - 20,726
Total - 920,565Heterosexual to Heterosexual transmission works out to around 16%. Of those (and I can't verify this figure until I get back home) most (something like 95%) slept with a member of the opposite sex who used drugs. In actuality there are less than 300 cases (again, can't verify until I get home) of hetersexual transmission of HIV from m to f to m to f. Most are either homosexual males, durg users, or heterosexuals who slept with drug users.So can we use this to say that homosexuality is wrong?

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Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8
No webpage found at provided URL: www.1st-vets.us

Tal writes:

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Ah, so activity that transmits STD's as harmful is wrong?

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Within one's moral system one may of course view such activity as wrong. Of course, if one is truly concerned about STDs one will no doubt remain cognizant of all STDs when one passes judgement as you are so eager to do in violation of Jesus' direct words.

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So can we use this to say that homosexuality is wrong?

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Only if one has tunnelvision and can only see HIV in a world of its own where no other diseases exist. You see, there have been and still are pandemics and epidemics of other STDs besides HIV/AIDS. STDs that have affected far, far more heterosexuals than homosexuals.So if indeed you are prepared to say that all activity which might cause STDs is "wrong", then you will be quite consistent in saying that any particular type of such activity is wrong by extension. That would include homosexuality of course. It would also include heterosexuality. It would not include lesbianism.Why are you so obsessed with homosexuality?

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Keep America Safe AND Free!

That post wasn't a reply to you.But to answer your question There's some empirical evidence.This message has been edited by Tal, 01-14-2005 05:05 AM

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Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8
No webpage found at provided URL: www.1st-vets.us

This is not the way to start out a civil debate. "All manner of subterfuge"? To "wriggle away"? It is way too early to be using emotion laden, and rather inaccurate terms.Please try and remain civil.I have replied to the majority of your concerns at the thread which was reopened. Hopefully you will understand better where I am coming from.I will address a few of your other comments (the ones which won't be useful) in this thread. No. My undergraduate background was in Philosophy/Sociology and as part of the latter stressed cultural analysis, risk analysis, and deviance. As part of the former I specifically studied pornography (which invariably included discussions of harm and measurement of harm.)Afterward I went into strict physical sciences and worked in them until turning to film work, where I wanted to do documentaries. One of the docs was struggling between porn (which included its affects), and sex in general (namely its effects).My conclusion is based on both my undergraduate research, and now my semi-professional research into the topic of sex and harm as related to sex. There simply is no research which connects sexual activity itself (barring obvious conditions I outline and agree to in the other thread, so read my new post there first) and harm.I am aware of the Rind study and like most social studies, especially "metadata analyses" have a critical view of them.That said, it is irrelevant what congress voted on it. They are politicians, not scientists, and have in the past voted on resolutions that did not exactly pass scientific muster. I mean really, can you imagine one politician standing up for a resolution saying sex with children was okay?Please stick with people in the field.So I will agree that there is no study (that I am aware of) which proves that sex with minors causes no harm. That is why I am not presenting any which say that. What I was saying is that there are no studies (no empirical evidence) that general sexual activity (again read the other thread first) causes any harm to anyone. I cannot provide evidence for a lack of something. But that lack of evidence is there.I address your statements regarding fatalities,physical injury, and STDs within the other thread. I also amend my statement so that it reads more to your liking, inclusive of the situations you are talking about, though it does not change what the point of my original statement was.As far as cases treated and criminal correlations go, these are not issues which prove or disprove intrinsic harm from sexual activity at all. They are simply stats derived from legal or clinical categories which are inherently biased as groups and contain ethnocentric definitions. If we are going to debate this it will have to be from scratch definitions in order to remove cultural biases. This is indeed a horrific case. You will need to divorce yourself from anecdotal or personal experiences in order to approach this subject objectively and clinically. I think you will agree that in the above case it was specific sexual acts which cause the injury and fatality and not that the person engaged in "sexual activity". The difference is in the choice of which specific sexual activity and that pertains to adults as well as children. Human bodies have physical limits which can be exceeded. Clearly this individual did not care about physical limits and was intent to cause harm, using sex as the weapon.I had a friend that had to go to the hospital and could have died from physical injuries she sustained during "sexual activity". She was well over legal age. That does not make sexual activitity with adults inherently harmful. What it meant is that her partner engaged in a specific sexual act which due to her body structure was not possible or healthy. "In cases" is exactly right and what surrounds those specific cases is which determines whether we are talking about general sexual activity itself causing harm, or specific sexual acts in specific conditions causing harm.Again, instead of responding to this here, go to the other thread where I explain this a bit more (clearly too I hope) and amend my statement so that it reads in a way I think you will agree.It may be (and I hope it is) that we are talking past each other.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"Don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

I do agree that using STDs as a measure of harm or wrong in a general activity (besides someone knowingly transmitting it) is faulty. It will end up cutting all ways.But just be careful how you use your arguments... Number wise this may be true, but proportionally (especially if viewed in locations) this can vary wildly. In the Netherlands rates of STDs are higher in homosexual populations (and not talking about HIV). If I remember right as I was leaving Chicago they had just announced that STDs (again non HIV) were jumping in homosexual populations.While one can point to Africa and say that numerically STDs hit heteros more, or that the larger percentage of STD cases are hetero, that does not mean that proportionally the homo population is less effected. It could just mean that homosexuality is less prevalent in general, yet those in that small population have greater rates.Personally, I think (until attitudes change toward sexual health in general) that you will generally find homosexual populations with higher rates (or risks) of STDs. They are more sexually active, and more sexually risk taking than heteros (in general). Even among the swinging hetero crowd I do not see the same level of indifference to sexual protection and personal health as I do within homosexual crowds.Not making a judgement, just an observation. It certainly does not imply that any specific gay cannot be totally prudish and fastidious about his/her health.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"Don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Tal, ignorance indeed does not become you. If you think for one minute you can entice me into a propaganda love fest in relation to your pet interests think again.
You made a comment, I provided evidence to show the error in that comment, either retract your original comment, or prove me wrong. Then we can move on to what you pose with your soap suds.Edit to add point: My apologies to you Tal, this post reads in an implied deragatory manner to you. I am remorseful for that. To reword it though would indicate I am above visible {self} reproach, and I am not. So I will leave it, and reiterate once again Tal, my apologies to you.ShazThis message has been edited by Shaz, 15 January 2005 02:22 AM

Yes, and you stand some more correcting... Great, whoop dee doo. My initial response to you, and still main point in this thread, has nothing to do with whether you dragged the thread off topic.Indeed I don't even believe I suggested you were the person dragging things off topic. I simply pointed out that something that you wanted (an explanation of why) was not on topic, and would be better in another thread. The post I responded to of yours was not asking him to explain why, it was a criticism, and I was responding to that with a criticism of logic.It appears to me that you want to drag out this whole offtopic garbage in order to avoid the "mea culpa" of admitting that I was right, your argument was not logically sound.The latter technical point of what you desired to get out of Tal is really incidental. I am prepared and I gave it to you. Do I have to drag a whole thread over here and rework it for you when it was already done over there? Give me a break.When someone comes on and wants to address a topic that was already addressed elsewhere what is the common thing to do here? They are given a link to the general thread topic or a specific thread. It is up to them to catch up to speed with the material there, and not for everyone to rehash everything just for their sake,If you don't believe that homosexuality was once linked to harm and clinically classified as a psychological problem in its own right, then you are living in fantasy land and I don't care if you believe me or not.If you don't believe that there is evidence linking homosexuality to psych/phys problems then go to the thread where it has already been discussed and read it. I mean what the hell is the difference if I post individual links to each message in the thread and the links within the posts, or point you to the beginning and you can work your way up through them? Honestly, what is the difference, except that you are forcing me to do all the work for you!As it stands the point is not critical to this thread anyway, so I am not going to drag it in here. I suggest you go there and read what is there (just like any other EvC topic) and address any comments to it there. If a newbie came in and insisted on this on any other topic which was being discussed elsewhere and more importantly had been discussed at length elsewhere, my guess is you'd tell them to go there and do their own work.In any case that is exactly what I am telling you. If you seriously are having a hard time finding the articles, or reading them, or finding the post within the thread where I analyze the evidence, then I am sorry for you.Oh yes and by the way, the thing that you keep leaving out of all yoru quote mining in order to continue this argument is that in context I am saying that such evidence is not completely convincing. It was part of an argument against stats of harm. I even mentioned that I had criticism of the studies that were cited BUT IF YOU BELIEVE THOSE KINDS OF EVIDENCE then there was a greater implication for homosexuals.So I am wondering now what was my assertion? Gee, was it that homosexuality is bad or harmful, or that there is evidence that homosexuality is statistically linked to harm of some kind, or that harm is a subjective definition which should not be used lightly and that while studies may show connections they may not be objective or accurate?Yes, gee I wonder what assertion I need to show evidence for, the one you pulled out of the hat because you are so hung up on your own sexual issues you continually miss my overall point?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"Don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Not that I agree with using STDs as a way to indict an activity in general, and I do agree he is trying to avoid direct debate on the point you were discussing, but I am unsure why Tal's point is not a valid criticism of your own argument.If STDs are a valid way to measure harm in pedophilic sex acts, then why would they not be in homosexual sex acts?This is of course not to argue it should be, I think it shouldn't. It will be inconsistently applied based on personal bias, and results vary by populations (skewing them even more).

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"Don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Apologies if my post reads that I am being uncivil, should I have said the same to you in person, you would know that I was not intending to be uncivil, but merely expressing dissapointment that this has dragged out into an arena of specifics.You are very right to state that some of what I used appears to be irrelevant to the topic at hand, however I needed to show a correlation between activity, injury, and person. This is because specific evidencial data is not available, due to the nature of statistical measurements and confidentiality. (Hope that makes sense, I am tired) Indeed again I agree that is the basis for all healthy discussion, and debate. I believe I have been objective and clinical in my post though. I merely highlighted the personal account, to show that I have the weight of first hand witness, which is why I took your original comment to task. I did also attempt to highlight that disputing your comment, was not a personal thing, it was merely in response to the generalisation of what you stated.In many things I believe we have been talking past each other. My peeve was the generalisation of your comment, not about the semantics of the moral debate, it only ended up there because of a need to highlight the innacuracy of generalisation.Edit to add the following point: How you manage to seperate a sexual act, from sexual activity, is beyond my understanding, and I intend to query this on the other thread.This message has been edited by Shaz, 14 January 2005 22:53 AM

Holmes, my point to Tal, is merely that his original comment either needs to be upheld, retracted or rewritten. Once that is done, he can use whatever he wants to show correlation to other things, and I will either agree or disagree.
In the meantime though, I am ignoring the soap suds, until the original point is addressed.

So I take it you have no intention of backing your stupid assertion. That would of course be because you can't. Why didn't you just say so six or seven pages ago rather than trying to spread lies about homosexuality and then link to information that has absolutely nothing to do with your claim.And you imply that I'm unreasonable.

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Keep America Safe AND Free!

This is certainly a more reasonable post, holmes. I see your point and it's valid, but I was talking about STDs over time. In other words, what's so special about today? About here and now? HIV/AIDS is perhaps the most widespread deadly STD today (although even it affects many more heterosexuals than homosexuals), but what will come along next and who will it affect? What was the last major STD before AIDS and who did it affect?How can we read moral judgements about homosexuality into:1. STDs that change over time and affect different groups of people at different times or2. HIV/AIDS, which as I said affects more heterosexuals than homosexuals?

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Keep America Safe AND Free!

Tal writes me:

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That post wasn't a reply to you.

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And that matters because?

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There's some empirical evidence.

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But it doesn't support your assertion.

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Keep America Safe AND Free!

I have sex with men. Do you need pictures or video or something to back up that "assertion"?I would not spread lies about homosexuality as that would impact my own lifestyle, and that is on top of "spreading lies" simply not being my style. I told you that you are creating a false assertion (a bit out of context), and as it stands I did tell you where you can find its discussion at this site. It is there to read. We do that for everyone else, why are you different?I certainly can back it up, I am simply not going to do it again and again and again for each new person that asks, when it is already written in that thread. When asked I will point to that beginning point. How hard is it to follow when I place you at where the first citation and discussion begins?We do that for everyone else for other subjects, why are you different? No remember I "claimed" that a study was presented here at EvC by a person intending to prove the harm of sex with minors, but within that study was evidence which actually linked harm to homosexuality. That would indicate that the study might not have a name or synopses that explicitly deals with homosexuality per se.Indeed if you read the actual studies, and I think it was his second one which included even worse info, or the analytical discussions within the thread, then you would know this already.I even said I was suprised at what stats it included, and do have criticisms of the studies, so I am not even saying the harm is intrinsic or real, just that there are correlations or links between harm and homosexuality. But maybe you do not know the difference between correlation and causation. I can't tell. Yes. Yes you are. Not only did you just call me a liar because you want me to do something we would not expect for other topics which are already written down in another thread at EvC, you explain to me that I am trying to spread lies about a lifestyle I not only have no problems with but the lies would "implicate" me as well.You also showed an ignorance of the very statements I made about the citation and data within the citations.You are so unreasonable that I am done with you. Goodbye berb.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"Don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

holmes writes me:

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I would not spread lies about homosexuality as that would impact my own lifestyle, and that is on top of "spreading lies" simply not being my style.

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You made a statement about harm resulting from homosexual conduct between consenting adults. I asked you for the evidence of that harm. You linked me to a post about a study on nonconsensual sex. It is not up to me to find the post with the data relevant to your statement, it is up to you.I'm not trying to be unreasonable, all I'm doing is asking you to provide a link to the specific data you're talking about. Linking to a message from the same thread where the data can be found, somewhere, is not a reasonable way to back up your claim.

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I certainly can back it up...

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Then please do so in order that we can settle this.

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I even said I was suprised at what stats it included, and do have criticisms of the studies...

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And I believe you. You and I have been in complete agreement about similar issues before, there's no reason why we can't find agreement here. But I can't respond properly to your claim of harm unless I know precisely what you're talking about. I DON'T WANT TO READ THROUGH THE THREAD, I want to know specifically what data you are relying on. It shouldn't be that difficult to present. You made the claim and thus it shouldn't be my duty to find the data that backs it.

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You are so unreasonable that I am done with you. Goodbye berb.

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So you're not going to back up your claim? Oh, well. Goodbye.EDIT: Tell you what, I'll try meet you halfway. If you can't find the specific data or don't want to take the trouble, simply summarize the type of harm you're talking about. I'm willing to take your word for it (no, I don't think you're a liar, but I think your assertion, made without qualification, was misleading in the extreme). Again, I'm particularly interested to know what specific physical harm results uniquely from homosexual contact between consenting adults.This message has been edited by berberry, 01-14-2005 14:32 AM

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Keep America Safe AND Free!