i am not very interested in sex, even anti-interested, and I still have no idea why would anybody want to do that without the intention to make a copy of yourself, as if it was needed.
I think it would make life much easier, pleasurable, enjoyable if people wouldn't be as primitively thinking about it and singing for as much primitive people about that, and we could get rid of all those really terrible, disturbing advertisements. It would make life much more real, interesting, not annoying for asexuals, because hearing the same on the radios, in the shops, TV's, talking about that so much. Before finding out that people actually eel different than me I thought it is a bad-taste global joke.
In my perfect world, people are free from listening how people flirt, say very very disturbing things, where nobody is bullied because he's appearance is different, his interests are different, he is weaker or with less attractive human being. Also there wouldn't be people who are bullying others just to prove their alpha side to their potential partners. Unfortunately hardly for any reason to do that I can relate to.
* pleasure - can't relate to that. It is like "meh";
* stress relief - if there was no need to have sex, there would be far less stressful people. I was astounded to see a female who is angry, discontent, screaming at everybody just because she didn't see her BF for a week. Male's wouldn't be wacko's driving their cars so fast and being aggressive to all the society, because they are needy. The will for sex makes people stressed.
* exercise - Very terrible way of exercise and good article to read. If we spend more calories raking leaves or walking, then why walking or raking leaves is not an exercise?;
* sexual curiosity - can't last a lifetime;
* attraction - does not explain why people need sex. Many people are attracted to power, wealth, cars, things, but I have yet to see how you can make an intercourse with a car, coins or power;
* love - see step above;
* commitment - "..to do sex?" or ..? If I am committed to study German that does not mean that sex magically happens;
* procreation - genuine reason, which with some genetic researches can and should become obsolete. Imagine, our bodies carry not only the good stuff, and there are many things which can be transmitted to the children even before birth, it makes much more sense to alter the genes and not only reduce or eliminate the risk, but make improvements for the better life of your offspring;
* social status - if you share your most intimate moments on facebook, then yes, it is a valid point;
* revenge - plainly stupid;
* boost self-esteem - people should learn to appreciate and be content with themselves without needing somebody external. I do not believe that only source of happiness can come from expecting other to appreciate you.
Now, count how many logical reasons are there to have sex and what are the benefits of being able to weed that need away and being able to make better, healthier, stronger human beings for the benefit of all.
I have read your comment a few times. I feel like I am missing something.
Making a logical case for a visceral emotion, such as horniness or anger, seems pointless. The emotional states arise from a set of biological responses, but a person winds up hungry or angry or horny in the fire of the moment. If I could argue myself out of being angry or horny, I'd be a happier person. Instead I "take it outside" when I'm angry or masturbate when horny. I relieve the emotional strain so I can resume sanity.
I had always run on the assumption of the biochemical urge for sex. Those that are not interested in sex will simply not have it and thereby not make it any father in the gene pool because they'll have no offspring to pass that trait.
Until I got married, I never even thought of making a logical case for sex. Now I sometimes have to explain to my wife that sex would be a good idea at time X, as it would help us synchronize. However there is also a deeper point: we both want to have sex, but we have let other aspects of life ruin the mood repeatedly. So we actively choose a moment and see what happens.
You stated
- "if there was no need to have sex, there would be far less
- stressful people."
I feel like I'm trying to explain a sunrise. Even if I do it, I'll never puncture the sheer awe of seeing the sun come up over the horizon and knowing it kindles something inside me.
Well, take it as explaining sunrise to a blind person.
Thank you for your reply, I understand what you are talking about.
Still I see that rejection, failure not getting what you want and biological pressure generated down there makes the stress even bigger, people get angry and vent it outside by drinking, aggressive driving or doing something else silly and harm people on their way. The characteristics and emotions of people are shaped by so many things - genes, parenting, environment, society, social status and we cannot just simply explain "why you, another human being, are repressing me and making me sad because you do not give me your body".
I am glad you put it as "explaining sunrise to a blind person". I can move forward from that understanding.
I agree about the pain of rejection leading to horrible stress. We used to have a very simple, though not very kind, solution to the pent-up energy: military drafts. You thin the herd a slight amount, but you also channel the energy of young people and give them structures for adulthood. The closest we have to this now is working fast food jobs.
However there is something else implicit in your last statement: pain from not getting someone else's body. This suggests sex is a zero-sum game: one person gains from sex while the other loses. This is not how it should work. Instead the process of maturing in sex teaches how each partner gains pleasure.
Thinking about that led me to some other concepts. One is that many of us develop our feelings about sex early in puberty, when we're at a terrible point of self-awareness. one thing stands out above the horror of high school and the pain of growing up: the intense pleasure from giving oneself an orgasm for the first time.
If someone gets that strong a feeling from another event, then that event would make sex far less important. If someone had a religious revelation or found deep enjoyment in public performance, then the stress would transfer.
In my youth that I was hung up on words and music, math and history. So I groused about not understanding the opposite sex, but I was more keen to listen to new bands and read more challenging non-fiction. I was not ready to deal with the opposite sex in a mature way until I was halfway through university.
The sunrise is light piercing the darkness, a strong note becoming a chord and then an orchestral crescendo against the quiet of an opera house. It's not impossible to get enough of an analogy to appreciate, to synchronize an emotional response. It's also not everything -- by 11 am, you're wishing that ball of light would hide in a rain cloud.
I've come to realize that I think about it less than the general population, and the constant obsession that popular media has with it seems pretty absurd from my vantage. I count sex as a good thing in life, but I do wish that people weren't so obsessed about it. There are so many other interesting things to spend time and energy on. I can empathize with that.
I am not propagating anything and do not want to force my opinion on others. I am just tired of that stuff just like everybody is tired of religion and atheism and poverty and other things.
I would be very interested how do you see this list of things. I cannot imagine how having sex can increase your social status or how need for sex doesn't make you stressed
I'm not humanodon, but feel similar to how he does.
- I cannot imagine how having sex can increase your social status
The only people sex increases social status for are maybe high school kids. No one really gives a shit passed that time in our lives if you've had sex or not. Sex as a social status is a temporary thing to immature people. I don't see sex having anything to do with social status.
- or how need for sex doesn't make you stressed
It only makes you stressed if you let it. I hate to use the term "don't put the pussy on a pedestal", but it's an anecdote that applies here. It can only stress you out if YOU are putting to much weight on it in your life. Personally, whether I am getting sex or single and not getting any, I'm not stressed about it either way.
Also, one other thing you said above that I disagree with too...
- attraction - does not explain why people need sex. Many people are attracted to power, wealth, cars, things, but I have yet to see how you can make an intercourse with a car, coins or power
Attraction and sex are natural and things humans, and all creatures, experience. Power, wealth, cars, and more modern obsessions are not. These things aren't proper comparisons.
I have no problems with how you want to look at sex, by all means, we're all entitled to our opinions. But some of the ways you explained it seem to be stretching a little and based in personal insecurity. If you don't like sex and don't want to pursue it, I'm cool with that, but like you admitted, you're definitely coming off as "anti-sex" and don't seem to get why anyone would engage in it.
- The only people sex increases social status for are maybe high school kids. No one really gives a shit passed that time in our lives if you've had sex or not. Sex as a social status is a temporary thing to immature people. I don't see sex having anything to do with social status.
Definitely agree with you thenewgreen. Social status and sex go hand in hand throughout life, not just in high school.
- men and women tend to view how attractive a persons partner is with social status.
I agree, but I would consider those people shallow, and shallow people focus on a lot of stupid stuff in life. I like to think they aren't the majority, and are an extreme minority... but maybe I'm wrong. A guy can dream.
I don't care if my friends are dating "ugly girls", or have significant others that are "overweight", it doesn't matter to me. I don't lose respect for a peer or someone I admire when I find out their wives or girlfriends aren't attractive. That would make me the dick. So yeah it matters to some people for social status. But who are we talking about, the people who frequent the club scene and spend more on clothes than they do on rent? Like you said, the people who like expensive cars and big houses? I guess I really don't look to them as the role model for how society as a whole should act or does act.
For clarity I don't care if people have big houses or nice cares, as I enjoy nice things too, but when what they drive is more important in life than what they do and give back or how they spend their life, then I'm not a fan of those people and would consider them shallow. IE; The guy who spends more than half his monthly earnings so he can rock a BMW M3 but lives in a shitty apartment in the ghetto... I bet that dude pulls ladies at the club every weekend and has a high social status within his group of other people who care about material stuff and makeup-laden women, but try and get me to care what they think.
I guess I just don't care about those types of people that would be that judgmental over something so superficial.
I don't care if my friends are dating "ugly" or "pretty" girls either. But I would be lying if I said I didn't notice either way. When I see a beautiful woman walking down the street with a man that is 20 years older, I make certain assumptions, right or wrong. I'd be shocked if you didn't too. I am seemingly biologically wired for such things.
That is just a topic I cannot comprehend and my personal, subjective way how I see it. You have just peaked in how certain people see that.
About stress: Exactly. It is quite hard not to think about it with all the naked advertisements, western music, even for somebody who is completely uninterested in that. I clearly remember how a pack of smokes always stressed me when i felt it in my pocket. I stopped smoking right after five years just by not having one in my pocket.
Sure, I can see that for an asexual person it may feel oppressive to be surrounded by sexual imagery.
To begin with the items you've mentioned:
Sex can be used to increase social standing in many ways. Having sex can also be an opportunity to form strong emotional bonds with someone or more nefarious bonds as in the case of blackmail. Furthermore, if the person one has sex with is important, that can confer social standing by association. For example, Michelle Obama is important because she had sex with, married and had children with Barack Obama, who is of course, the current president of the U.S. Thus, she has a high social status. When Obama is no longer president, it is likely that Michelle Obama's social status will decrease as well.
Also, being considered sexually attractive is in itself a form of power over those who would wish to have intercourse with that sexually attractive person. It might not be power in the conventional sense. Think of it as "soft power." For example, Kim Kardashian isn't anyone of any real importance. However, she is considered physically attractive and has been able to attach herself to various people to climb socially and thus gain money and exposure, which in the culture she lives in, equates to power. With power, comes social status and often vice versa.
As for stress, well, the need for sex is different than the need for other things. In part, it's because it's very closely bound with other human needs, like social interaction and touch. Also, sex is different things for all people, so my sexual needs are not your sexual needs and your sexual needs are not Kim Kardashian's (as far as I know).
Another thing to consider, is that sex is much more than sexual intercourse, it is a social interaction that is as much mental as it is physical. That you can't relate to the pleasure of sex means that necessarily, you will have a lesser understanding of sex since pleasure is what colors every one of the items listed.
Thanks for your reply, it really cleared some of my skeptics and I understand how that may achieve what you have showed me, even if I do not completely understand or can imagine the mechanics behind that.
I believe that everybody has his own head, arms and legs and you cannot simply become more socially better just because some other as person as you are, has decided to engage with you in a marriage. I don't think that it is right to judge one person just because he is married/have sex with another, just like if my small brother marries Merkel does not make him a better or more of a person, just like that does not magically increase his charisma or politician skills.
The oppression with propagating sex is not only against asexuals, but to human society as all. There are people who can not do that because they are not attractive enough and all the western cheap music and media makes them feel worse, saying that "You do not have «The best feeling in the world»!" It plays also against older people who have lost the ability to have or enjoy that, brainwashes children to desperately seek it even if they do not want it, but because "everybody else do that," and there is terrible voice screaming over every corner "I just had sex" through every sound device, barring into the mind "It is good, it is the best feeling ever, everybody has it, the more you have it, the more successful you become, closer to the stars on the telly."
It is just incorrect to propagate and use it for the marketing purpose for the very same reasons as ads containing hidden messages, racism and hatred are banned.
I think that in regard to advertising and idealization, you are correct. There are countless reports of how forms of media put forth unrealistic ideals of physical beauty and desirability and how that negatively affects people in a multitude of ways that I think, could legitimately be seen as abuse if only the context were different.
What's interesting to me is that people are aware of many more reasons not to have sex these days, including unwanted pregnancy, the pursuit of a career and antibiotic resistant STDs and STDs, not to mention HIV and AIDS. Because of this, I think many people are actually having less casual sex than in some prior decades, especially in Western countries.
This is part of what I was getting to in my other response to this post. There is a lot to think about in regard to sex and as someone who really enjoys sex, that makes me a bit sad. Sex to me, should be solely about feeling completely alive and in the moment in an instance of physical, mental and at best, emotional connection with another person. But by building sex up as this grand, reality shattering thing, I think, robs sex of some of its actual power. I haven't cared much for the majority of the casual sex I've had, but I do wish that sex in general could be more casual, that is to say, less of an ordeal.