Keith's Ramblings

Violence in Cinema

2009-09-07T06:24:00.000-07:00

On numerous occasions I have encountered individuals who insist upon complaining about how some filmmaker has included in a movie vile, reprehensible depictions of violence. Often such a critic will slap on a movie a deliberately emotive and dishonest label, like 'torture porn,' hoping to make sure, by using such a loaded term, that he prejudices those reading or listening to his words against the work he dislikes (just as he might try to prejudice a person against a particular ethnic group by applying an emotive and descriptive term to that group, one that causes the hearer to form an opinion of the group prior to his encountering persons from the group). When, by some odd chance, such individuals do actually provide substantive criticisms of a violent film, instead of spewing meaningless slander, instead of engaging in mere name calling, they generally complain that such a work provides the viewer with the chance to enjoy the sight of someone enduring pain, that the film so glorifies cruelty and brings out the worst in those who watch it. Because the movie in question does this, it is, so its critics say, morally repugnant. Though, upon taking a cursory glance at such criticisms, these may appear to be legitimate, upon making a closer examination, I do not think they will be found to be so.

In order to look at this issue, depictions of violence need to be divided into two types, each of which must be considered individually.

First of all, there are those depictions intended to horrify the viewer. These are actually the ones to which the critics I've mentioned most often object. When violence is shown as being ugly, when it is not sanitized, so that its disgusting effects can be seen, and when it is inflicted on those not perceived as deserving it, then many people will complain about it. I find this very odd (though I do understand why some people, not wanting to be terrified or disgusted, do not desire to watch films that include such depictions). Clearly, in such instances, violence is not being glorified; it is, in fact, being employed to arouse feelings of horror, indignation, or the like in the viewer. Being so shocked and disturbed, this viewer can hardly desire to participate in violence like that he has witnessed and certainly will not admire the person or persons committing these acts. He is repulsed by both the acts and those performing them. How is it, then, that making violence appear ugly, shocking, and monstrous can be seen as glorifying violence? Though the viewer might well enjoy the artistic work in which such acts are incorporated, and can even savor the depictions of the acts themselves, when he does so he savors feelings of horror and disgust.

There are, however, other films in which the director obviously intends the viewer to take pleasure in watching acts of violence. Amongst these are those in which violence (which is often sanitized) is portrayed as heroic, in which acts of brutality are performed by a 'brave' and 'honorable' character against evil villains who deserve to suffer. Most people do not object to such films. If anything, movies including these sorts of depictions are frequently held to provide children with good role models and to show the viewer how he ought to behave if he found himself in a situation like that being portrayed. Just look at how admirable the protagonists of Star Wars, True Lies, and Saving Private Ryan are as they butcher more people than do most serial killers.

Fortunately, many of these films, being suffused with the fantastic or being highly stylized, divorce their depictions of glorified violence from the violence of actual life, so that, as exciting as the violence included in these works may be, it will not be connected with the violence of real life. With these movies, I can find no moral fault. The viewer realizes that the is dealing with something that has no practical connection with his ordinary existence and will not bring the fictional deeds of the film into the real world. Those movies that are closely connected to this world, that are intended to give the viewer an impression that he is seeing something from this world, are another matter, and to these I will return below.

Besides these movies, those that make violence look exciting and praiseworthy (and which are frequently lauded by those very persons who detest ugly presentations of violence), there are movies that revel in graphic, grisly, and thoroughly nasty depictions of savagery, torture, and suffering, which are often gleefully inflicted upon the innocent. While these films do appeal to something cruel and vicious in the viewer, I am not willing to condemn them. In fact, I believe that they can have a real pragmatic function (which is, of course, independent of any artistic worth they may have), one which, oddly enough, entails their being conducive to gentleness rather than to brutality.

Though I reject the idea that art is defined by its pragmatic functions, I do not deny that art can have pragmatic functions. While a work of art might not be a source of knowledge about anything other than itself, an artist can use a work to trick the stupid into believing some opinion, admiring certain behaviors, emulating certain character traits, etc. For example, a stupid person might be incapable of being convinced that bullying is wrong by rational discourse, but he might be capable of being convinced of this by a movie in which he is made to sympathize with a victim of bullying. Insofar as a movie prompts a person to modify his behavior by engendering in him a belief that a certain behavior is either right or wrong, it can be said to have a sort of didactic function (although, obviously, since the opinion of the person so influenced is formed without relying upon some means of valid knowledge, he is really being deceived rather than being taught).

In addition to such a didactic function, a work of art can have a cathartic function. A person inclined to acts of violence, who could achieve personal satisfaction from performing such acts, might be able to achieve this sense of satisfaction merely by watching depictions of violence in film (or reading about them in books, looking at them in paintings, etc.). By immersing himself in the savagery and degradation of such a film as Star of David: Beauty Hunting or Inferno of Torture, an individual is so able to satisfy his violent inclinations without anyone actually being harmed. I am not here, I might add, simply talking about deviants sating themselves. Every person (whether he admits it or not) has violent, predatory aspects of his personality (those who deny they do are usually far more vicious and predatory than are those who are aware of such traits and are therefore able to deal with them). Artistic works can give a person a chance to release these desires, to fulfill them in the world of the imagination, and so do have a cathartic function. I would point in support of this opinion to a study examining how the incidence of sexual crimes committed in Japan declined as pornography became more widely available in that country. This study makes it clear that as people were able to satisfy their sexual urges by watching, and so participating in, some movie portraying sexual acts (or by enjoying pornography in some other media) they became less inclined to commit aggressive acts in order to fulfill these desires. In other words, pornography had, and has, a cathartic effect. It allows a person to fulfill a need without having actually to perform the act he desires to perform. Depictions of violence have a similar effect. The viewer of a violent film or play, the reader of a violent book, or the enjoyer of some other violent artistic work is able to sate his predatory urges without having to prey upon anybody.

In fact, a large proportion of the artistic works of every civilization are produced as a result of some artist sublimating his violent inclinations and directing them into the production of an artistic work, which work is then enjoyed because the members of its audience are able to indulge their own violent inclinations by relishing it. There certainly can be no doubt that much of our artistic heritage is every bit as violent as are films today. Just look at Elizabethan and Jacobean tragedy, Greek epics, the Mahabharata, and so on and so on. Human beings have been expressing their violent urges in countless works of art in every age and nation that has ever been so that other persons could enjoy brutal, thrilling spectacles without reducing their society to chaos.

In a very real way, by indulging in presentations of violence, by relishing the sight of imaginary people suffering, a person becomes more civilized. He becomes less inclined actually to enjoy inflicting pain on another because he will have purged himself of such desires by having satisfied and exhausted them. The person who turns from such works is, in general, more likely to act cruelly since he will still need to express his own predatory instincts.

All of this said, when an artistic work has both violent content and didactic elements (even when these are merely implicit, as when a film does glorify a violent character and lionize his acts of violence against those it demonizes), I can have real problems with it. No sane person, having watched Ichi the Killer, is going to believe that the director of that movie, Takashi Miike, meant for his deranged protagonist, Kakihara, to be an admirable individual, one after whom the viewer ought to model his behavior. Wolfgang Petersen, the director of Air Force One, however, clearly did mean for his violent protagonist, President James Marshall, to be a hero, someone who should be admired. While I cannot believe that any sane individual would be influenced to behave as does Kakihara, I can believe that a sane person could be influenced to behave as does Marshall (or, at the least, to endorse such behavior). That troubles me. When violent heroes are portrayed as individuals whose actions should be admired and emulated in life, that is bothersome. However, these individuals rarely occur in movies that emphasize the grotesqueness of violence. They are more likely to be encountered in mainstream films.

Violence in cinema, or in any other artistic media, is hardly in itself reprehensible. In fact, such violence can incline the viewer to be less violent, and so can help to create a more gentle society, one inhabited by persons who realize how ugly violence is and who have satisfied their own dark impulses. There are times, however, when depictions of violence can lead a person to admire the performer of such acts, and these portrayals, I do believe, are morally indefensible. If we are to criticize violence in cinema, we should be aware of these distinctions.

By Keith Allen

Reflections on the Challenges of the Future

2008-11-26T14:17:00.000-08:00

The recent success, in California and several other parts of the United States, of a number of pieces of discriminatory legislation, of constitutional amendments that, by defining marriage as a bond existing between one man and one woman, deny access to the privileges of marriage to countless people, is not just disgraceful; such victories reveal the insular, mean-spirited attitudes of many people in this country. Though I am, of course, saddened by the sufferings of those immediately hurt by these spiteful new proclamations, I am actually scared by the reactionary currents that have been exposed within our culture by their passage. Such trends, after all, could lead to far, far more people being hurt than already have been.

There are, no doubt, strong secular movements in American society that are opposed to these trends, and many of these movements appear to be gaining strength from year to year. However, while I personally hope that secularism and reason will win, their victory is not assured. That's a reality we ought to face. In fact, we ought to do more than that. We need to think about what could happen if we were to lose. There is no universal law that ensures that society is heading in the direction we would like it to. I don't think that it can be denied that we are, right now, seeing a resurgence of religion, fanaticism, and savagery. This resurgence is something that we have to take into account. We have to admit its reality and its vitality. We have to grant that it could well be a danger to us not just today, but tomorrow as well. There is a real possibility that this spreading, but still relatively confined fire could, in the future, with the right fuel, explode into into a terrible conflagration. No one can proclaim with absolute certainty where current societal trends are taking us, and, if we admit that we are not assured success by Providence, we will have to concede that our enemies might just beat us. If they do, things could get very bad, and that's a possibility of which we have to be aware. Instead of ascending into the light of an age of reason, freedom, and human dignity, we could find ourselves falling into the chasm of superstition, ignorance, and oppression. The people moving us towards a new dark age do, after all, have reasons for holding the beliefs they do. Extrapolating future situations from those we see today is not, therefore, impossible.

If current trends do not simply vanish into nothingness, if they continue, as is probable, it is likely that we will see in the US increasing cultural influences from certain foreign nations (such as the ever greater impact Japanese culture is currently having on the US), increasing threats posed by certain other foreign civilizations (like the dangers, real and imagined, that Islam now presents), increasing ethnic diversity in the US itself (which will, by the middle of this century, no longer have a white majority), and an increasing prevalence of scientific understandings of (and correspondingly controlled interactions with) the universe (which are, barring a collapse of global civilization, virtually inevitable). Such things are, however, likely to frighten and anger many people, and these people, trembling with dread and wrath, could retreat (even further than some already have, and, perhaps, in greater numbers than we have yet seen) into the comforting blindness of superstition. Surrounded by a mechanistic world governed by rational laws, yet filled with iniquitous enemies, they could close their eyes, cover their ears, and run back shrieking to the gloomy cavern of irrationalism, to a small, anthropocentric universe ruled by a dire, hoary, all-seeing father-deity who, being susceptible to human feelings of love, hatred, jealousy, and anger, will be ready to banish to fiery hells those who threaten his congregations and to take the faithful, those who flatter him, into the safety of his presence. Overwhelmed by scary foreigners and their weird beliefs, these people could look back at an imaginary past when their ancestors were protected by inflexible traditions that, like blinders, kept them ignorant of the outside world. Of course, these people won't turn to real traditions (those who desire to turn back the clock never do). Instead, if this scenario comes true, what we'll see are new, shallow, fanatical religious movements, like the evangelical churches of today. There will be no real connection to the past. The past the followers of such hypothetical establishments will embrace will be a make-believe one, though it'll seem real to them. More importantly, it'll give them a comforting, hedged in universe, where bad people with their odd beliefs, unpleasant skin colors, and noxious behaviors won't be able to disturb them. Regrettably, one reason these individuals won't be able to disturb such fanatics is because the fanatics will be busy destroying their foes. When people accept beliefs like those I've described, they invariably go on to take away the freedoms of those who disagree with them, to liquidate those who are different, and to impose their hellish heaven on as much of the world as they can. The possibility is something to think about.

That said, I'm not making a prediction here, but I do think what I've described could come to pass. It's especially possible since so many liberals seem so complacent about or so afraid of religion. Liberal movements are, by no means, guaranteed to succeed. If we allow irrationalism to gain ground, it could. There is no law of history promising us victory. If we don't fight, we might just lose. In fact, the last election has shown that losing is a real possibility. That election showed us the reality of certain trends in the US. We ought to be aware of those trends.

Reflections on the Recent US Presidential Elections

2008-11-26T14:14:00.000-08:00

I've recently been thinking quite a bit about the current political situation in the US. There are many things that have happened in this country that are wonderfully encouraging, that make me want to cry out with joy, but there are others that are terribly sad.

First of all, I was thrilled by Obama's success in areas of the Deep South. I had heard for some time that there was a chance that he could take both North Carolina and Virginia, but, honestly, I didn't believe it. It's amazing to think that Obama won both the home of Jesse Helms and the seat of the Confederacy (as well as of Jerry Falwell's Liberty University). I just wish Jesse and Jerry could have lived to see it. It's heartening that a moderate rather than an extreme reactionary won in such places.

Overall, this last election day was pretty impressive. Like I've mentioned before, I was very relieved that McCain was not elected. Had the man won, the consequences could have been catastrophic. McCain, undoubtedly, would have implemented extremely belligerent policies in the Middle East, policies that could have led to terrible levels of violence (both here and there). That's not the worst thing that could have happened, though. An even more troubling result of a McCain presidency would have been an almost certain shift in the balance of the Supreme Court. The courts have long been America's protection against dangerous populism (against the majority imposing itself upon any minority) and against ruthless politicians willing and able to create a powerful, intrusive government that doesn't need to heed the rights of its citizens. Considering how ready so many activist conservative judges are to efface substantial sections of the constitution if it suits their political agendas, the prospect of there being a majority of such persons on the nation's highest bench is horrifying. We could easily have seen large portions of the constitution explained away and effectively erased in an effort to build the authoritarian, paternalist state of which so many conservatives are enamored.

That said, I don't have high expectations of Obama (and have even lower expectations of Biden, who has, after all, served as one of the generals of the "War on Drugs," which is nothing but Prohibition reborn). I was hoping (I have to admit) that I would be wrong about Obama, that he'd surprise me, but so far my opinions of him have been universally confirmed. He already seems prepared to backtrack on some promises (like repealing Bush's tax breaks for the wealthy), and the way he's forming his cabinet is thoroughly discouraging. The extreme sort of vetting Obama appears to be engaging in is virtually guaranteed to weed out anyone who might risk doing something daring and to put in place a cabal of bland, ineffectual representatives of the establishment. It looks likely that all Obama and his lackeys are going to do is to give broken institutions facelifts, instead of tearing these down and replacing them with something that works. The system's going to get patched, so that it can hobble on; it's not going to be genuinely fixed. Ultimately, such an approach does more harm than it does good. Our nation's acting like a person with a thorn in his foot who decides to take an aspirin so that he can limp around instead of pulling the thing out and letting himself heal. Honestly, I want a Clement Attlee, not a Tony Blair. Sadly, Obama looks like he's going to be a Blair, a Clinton clone, not a real reformer. Still, he is better than was the alternative.

Obama's election, though it has saved us from the disaster of a McCain presidency, and though it could yet turn out to promote admirable policies, has, regrettably, been substantially undermined by other political events. The passage, in California and other states, of constitutional amendments that define marriage as being between one man and one woman is just shameful. Unfortunately, those people who were disappointed by the success of these measures and who hope to undo them are going to have to ready themselves for a long and difficult fight. They can certainly forget about any help from Obama. He's been clear in his support of keeping marriages restricted to traditional American models. The courts are unlikely to provide much help, either. If provisions in state constitutions could have allowed the extension of marriage to non-traditional couples (and potentially even to groups of more than two persons), then changes to those constitutions will, almost certainly, put an end to such rights. The religious institutions that have backed these amendments have been pretty clever in their tactics. Instead of pushing for laws that could have violated parts of state constitutions, and which would have been overturned as a result, they've changed the constitutions themselves. Now, these new amendments will be reflected in the laws. Discriminatory laws will not violate constitutional requirements. My suspicion is that we're going to see quite a few measures like these in years to come. I also suspect that a good many of them will be passed.

I hope I'm wrong, but I would be genuinely surprised if I were. America is still an extremely religious country, and moral injunctions contained in the Abrahamic scriptures are still taken seriously by many people. There can be little doubt that a substantial proportion of the American population understands marriage to be a sacred institution, to be some sort of magical bond created by a particularly irritable and narrow-minded deity. If gay activists in the US think that popular opinion supports their cause, they're mistaken. They have, as a result, a very difficult battle ahead of them. The best route before was, without a doubt, the courts, but Christian activists are cutting these off by changing the foundations of local laws through constitutional amendments.

All in all, the US is certainly heading in a better direction than it was before the elections of 2008, but these elections have shown that we still have a long way to go. Our society has quite a bit of growing up to do, and those of us who are interested in progress need to help it mature. Our freedoms, the quality of our lives, and so much more is dependent upon our actions, upon how we move our nation forward. We shouldn't settle for half measures. We should struggle for real progress, for actual change.

The Burden of Religion

2008-11-10T11:50:00.000-08:00

I am very happy that, by voting for Barack Obama instead of John McCain, a majority of the people of the United States have rejected the destructive policies of the Bush regime, which have done so much harm both to this country and to so many others. I am also happy that the people of the state of Washington have decided to grant themselves the right to doctor-assisted suicides, that the people of South Dakota, Colorado, and California have refused to deny women access to abortions, and that the people of Michigan have given permission for stem cell research to be conducted in their state. However, I am, at the same time, saddened to hear of the passage of a number of measures that clearly show that this nation has a long way to go yet in its maturing. I am talking about the success of Proposition 8 in California, which actually amends that state's constitution so as to ban all marriages other than those between one man and one woman, the success of a similar measure, Amendment 2, in Florida, and a third, Proposition 102, in Arizona, as well as a law, Initiative 1, passed in Arkansas that prohibits unmarried couples from adopting children.

All of these measures were promoted and funded by religious groups, including the Catholic and Mormon churches, both of which were especially prominent in the effort to pass Proposition 8 in California. Honestly, I think that it is safe to say that not one of these measures would have passed were it not for the influence of religion. Once again, religion is holding us back, teaching people to judge and condemn others, to hate those who are different, and to demand that others live their lives according to the standards of someone else. Religion, once again, has shown itself to be the great enemy of human dignity, of self-determination, and of all things decent.

I have no idea why so few people whose liberties are being stolen, who are being told that they are second class citizens, unworthy of the same privileges as others, seem so afraid of denouncing their real foe, religion. For that matter, I have no idea why any person who treasures his freedom, whether it is being immediately threatened or not, does not take issue with something that inspires so many people to devote their lives to taking the liberties of others away.

In fact, when I look at virtually any issue being debated today, I am confronted with the same reality. It is religion that brings people to the wrong side. Over and over and over again, religion is the font from which bigotries, cruelties, and distortions of truth pour.

The fact is that the holy books of many religious traditions (and I am specifically talking about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam here) provide their believers with moral injunctions. Unfortunately, the morals taught in these scriptures belong to another age, a primitive and brutal age, one in which outsiders were enemies, women were property, and violence was honorable. These values do not belong to our time, or, at the least, they should not.

The adherents of these religions do, however, bring such outdated codes to our age.

Granted, many Christians, Muslims, and Jews realize (on some level) that their scriptures are nonsense and do not follow the injunctions included in them. Nonetheless, there are those who are motivated by these outdated grotesqueries masquerading as morality. Just look at what is done by certain members of these religions, by those who take their traditions seriously.

Certain Christians, acting because they are Christians (that is, because they take what is said in their scriptures seriously), oppose giving equal rights to homosexuals; some even advocate criminalizing homosexual acts. Certain Muslims, acting because they are Muslims, call for the judicial killing of any person who would leave their religion. Certain Jews, because they are Jews, steal land from other people because, they claim, that land is theirs by some sacred right; some even murder these people from a distance with rockets and artillery.

The story repeats itself over and over again. Some Christians oppose allowing those dying in agony to avoid their suffering and to end their lives with dignity. Some Jews and Muslims insist upon killing animals in the most vicious manner, letting these poor beasts suffer as their throats are cut open and they are exsanguinated, just so that the creatures' flesh will somehow be infused with a magical purity. Some Christians oppose allowing women control over their own bodies, their own reproductive organs; some even murder doctors who perform abortions for those who dare to make decisions for themselves. Some Muslims wrap their women in tent-like burqas to keep them subordinated and burdened with shame; some even mutilate their daughters' genitalia to destroy the girls' sexuality. Some Christians call for legal or de-facto censorship of artistic and scholarly works they oppose; at the same time, they not only insist that their own opinions be heard (though no one is trying to censor them), but even demand that their views be given governmental support, that these be taught in schools or enshrined in public places. Some Muslims call for the murder of those who criticize their religion, whether in films, books, or cartoons; some even commit murder to silence such blasphemers. Some Christians oppose the teaching of basic scientific ideas, like evolution, thinking it better that we accept the fanciful speculations found in their hoary fairy tales, like the idea that the world is a mere six thousand years old (though, oddly, most of these persons seem to have given up on the biblical assertions that the sun moves around the Earth (Joshua 10: 12–13) and that there are slats in the sky through which the rains fall from heaven (Genesis 7:11)). Some Muslims blow up and slaughter innocent people (as they did in New York in 2001, in Madrid in 2004, and in London in 2005) in order that they might do harm to nations they believe are opposed to their religion. Some Christians say that those who do not believe as they do will be cast by their loving, omnibenevolent deity into the fires of hell for all eternity, so that this god, in his infinite mercy, can, with his saints, savor their agony. Some Muslims say the same. Even the Jews claim to be the Chosen People, to have a sanctity, a superiority, no other people possess, making them, I suppose, into some kind of master race. The list can go on and on.

There are those who will say that many of these ideas are not in the Bible or the Koran, and I will admit that this is true. Sadly, that admission means nothing. The Koran might not contain an injunction demanding female circumcision (it does not), but those who mutilate their daughters' genitals are doing so for religious reasons. It hardly matters if injunctions mandating such actions are written in a text accepted as sacred or are handed down orally as sacred commandments (those secular persons making a distinction between these two are, I might add, falling victim to the fundamentalists' claim that there is a single authoritative text whence we can derive our values). In either case, the religious person is accepting some commandment that reflects values which are coming from another time and which are being accepted as sacred. If people did not turn to outdated values to decide how to behave, if, instead, they were rational, secular persons who were not contaminated with religion, who could formulate sensible ethical codes, if, in other words, they had a chance to learn to respect other people, including even women, then they would never perform such horrible deeds. The only reason they do so is because of their religion (or, at the least, because of their having tacitly accepted certain religious doctrines). It is, then, religion or its lingering stains that cause such people to turn to these ancient customs and to accept them as being valid.

What is more, many, many of these hideous doctrines are found advocated in the holy books of Christians, Muslims, and Jews. There can be no denying, for example, that the Bible condemns homosexual acts, both in the Old Testament (Leviticus 18:22) and the New (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). Any Christian who says that, according to the Bible, such acts are immoral and will lead those who perform them to hell, is accurately representing what is actually stated in that book. Any person who denies that this is the case, isn't reading the Bible.

Perhaps some might say that a person has to take into account when the Bible was written and understand that not all its moral injunctions can be applied to the world today. Such a person is not, however, getting his morals from the Bible. He's getting them from elsewhere. If he does admit that a moral injunction included in the Bible is proper, he's not saying it's proper because it's in the Bible; it just happens that the Bible got one thing right (something that, he will have to grant, does not occur very often). On some level, though it is probably an unconscious one, these individuals are conceding that their holy books are nonsense, that they need to get their values from other sources. I just wish that they would openly admit that.

There are, in fact, many people who say that they belong to a given religion, and who believe that they do, but who completely ignore what is actually stated in their scriptures. I have known numerous Christians, Muslims, and Jews who are decent, kind, compassionate people who would never think of imposing their values on others, of taking away the rights of others. They are, however, decent people because they don't take their values from their scriptures. Such individuals cannot, therefore, be cited as counter-examples to my claims. The fact remains that when the ancient values, the ancient immoralities, found in the Bible and the Koran are accepted, they lead people to commit horrible crimes.

Deriving our values from distant, superstitious, ignorant ages condemns us to behave like the savage primitives of those ages. I, for one, have no desire to burn heretics, trample women under my feet, and brutalize anyone who disagrees with me. There are those who do, however, and they are very numerous and very powerful.

That is why those of us who believe in freedom, who believe in human dignity and happiness, need to stop being afraid to denounce religion for what it is, the single most malevolent force in the world today. As long as its influence remains, it will be a weight dragging us down into primitivism, ignorance, and cruelty. It is such a shame that so many people avoid confronting their real enemy. They make excuses. They claim, for example, that the Bible doesn't say the horrible things that fundamentalist Christians say it does or that the Bible has to be interpreted in some special way so that when it says one and one make two what it means is one and one make five.

Let's be honest with ourselves. Religion is our enemy. We have to fight it. We have to educate people. We need to show them that the Bible and the Koran are not rational texts. These books are riddled with factual errors and internal consistencies, and they are offensive to any rational system of ethics. If we do not speak up, those of us who value our freedoms are going to find ourselves continuously struggling against those slavers who are themselves enslaved to the superstitions of the past.

Moreover, we need to fight the pestilential influence of religion in positive ways. I am not saying that we should keep religious people from speaking, from advocating or practicing their beliefs. They have as much right to do so as do we, but so do neo-nazis, parapsychologists, and people who believe they've been abducted by space aliens. What we need to do is to try to destroy the dangerous privileges religious institutions often have and to create an educated, secular society.

Just look at the things at which the rational person can take aim. Religious organizations, which are some of the wealthiest and most powerful institutions in the world, are also some of the least accountable and most legally privileged. They don't even pay taxes on their vast income. Why should they have such advantages? Frankly, they shouldn't. Muslim women are often forced to veil themselves, even to shroud themselves in shapeless burqas, as though their being female were itself a shameful thing. How can we allow women to be treated this way? We ought to be embarrassed that we do. We can't stop people from dressing as they desire in private, but we can pass laws prohibiting the wearing of religious garb in public institutions, and we can demand certain standards if a person appears in public; we can, for instance, insist that an individual not hide his face. Because of the taboos of Jewish and Muslim dietary laws, countless animals are slaughtered in the cruelest of ways. I am shocked that we allow this. Were someone to perform such a killing for any reason other than his religion, criminal charges would be brought against him. A person should be free to practice his religion, but that does not give him the right to inflict pain upon others. Halal and Kosher abattoirs should be regulated just as all others are. State schools are for everyone, whatever the opinions of any given parent or child, and should be places where objective facts, not personal opinions, are taught. We have to keep real science in schools. If someone wants to think some deity cobbled the universe together six thousand years ago, he's free to do so, but his beliefs should not be inserted into a fact based curriculum. This list could go on and on and on. There are countless goals for which we have to strive if we are to live in a free and rational world, one in which the baleful influence of religion is given as little scope to harm others as is possible.

I will admit that those of us who value freedom and rationality have a difficult position to maintain. We insist that our enemy has a right to speak. We'll even fight or die to make sure he has that right. He, however, has no qualms about taking away our freedom to express our opinions. All he needs is one great victory, and we can lose in a terrible way. So let's fight. Let's make sure that when our enemies spew nonsense, people will recognize that they are spewing nonsense. Few pay attention to those who say the Earth is flat, because we recognize that that opinion is absurd (though we don't prevent anyone from holding it). Let's see if we can't show people how absurd religion is. Let's wage war against history's greatest source of cruelty, ignorance, and prejudice. Let's add Christianity and its sister religions to the world's list of nonsensical opinions along with Nazism, geocentrism, racism, and other such beliefs.

By Keith Allen

Reflections on Hating Rosie O'Donnell

2008-10-30T06:04:00.000-07:00

There are some celebrities who are unjustifiably hated, and there are some celebrities who can be despised for legitimate reasons. I truly despise Rosie O'Donnell, and I feel that I am not wrong to do so.

The woman is belligerent, hectoring, and self-righteous. What's worse than that, she's given to making screeching tirades defending various liberal positions. Now, I don't disapprove of her politics. Actually, in broad terms, I agree with her expressed opinions, but this very agreement, together with a disapproval of her behavior, has aroused in me a real dislike of the woman. Not only is O'Donnell a consistently unpleasant harridan, which is reason enough to dislike her, but, what is more, when she acts as a spokesperson for liberal positions, she can elicit a devastatingly negative reaction to those positions. She is about as bad an ambassador as liberals could have. Oddly, however, many people seem to admire her, though, by valorizing her behavior, they set up for themselves a despicable ideal.

I don't have a problem with conservatives making foolish or mean comments. When Ron Paul declares that he doesn't believe in evolution (and reveals that he doesn't know what a theory is in science), he just exposes himself to be so uneducated that his opinions can be dismissed. By doing so, he, of course, harms his own position. Conservatism comes across as the ideology of individuals who are either stupid or woefully ignorant.

Similarly, when Jerry Falwell blames the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on homosexuals, feminists, supporters of abortion rights, the ACLU, and the like, he just reveals himself to be a hateful, loathsome individual whose opinions can also be dismissed. Again, he harms his own cause, weakening its appeal for anyone with an iota of compassion or reason.

If the conservative movement in America is hurt by its leaders, by their ignorance or viciousness, that's fine with me. I do not, however, desire to see liberalism harmed by being espoused by a nasty, selfish, badgering virago. Regrettably, Rosie O'Donnell is just such a person.

Of course, I do uphold her right to speak her mind, and while I wish to express my disapproval of her behavior, my anger at the damage she does to so many liberal causes, and my horror at the way some people admire and emulate her, such denunciations do not mean that I am advocating her removal from the public sphere or that I am championing a boycott of her products or protests against her person. I simply urge people to be aware of her disreputable actions so that they will neither follow such a person nor behave in similar ways. We cannot stop unpleasant individuals from harming causes we believe in, but we can avoid both helping them and following in their footsteps. If we do not take such persons as models, and if we do not hand over positions of leadership to them so that they can act as our spokespersons, we can, at the least, diminish the damage they will do to causes we ourselves hold dear.

Unfortunately, O'Donnell is popular and prominent in the public sphere. She is, consequently, able to project an unflattering image of what kind of individuals liberals are while, simultaneously, convincing many liberals to emulate her behaviors (as a result of her being something of a role model). The end result of O'Donnell's influence is, of course, the very opposite of what I would desire. Liberals are made to appear to be self-righteous, strident, narrow-minded, and rude, even as many such persons actually are motivated to adopt these traits.

I do not think that I am exaggerating in my characterization of O'Donnell, either. Just look at her behavior. Instead of engaging in level headed, fact based debates, O'Donnell screams at and badgers her opponents. She never listens. She never genuinely interacts. She never grants that an opponent might have a legitimate perspective. The notorious verbal assaults conducted on the television program The View, which she hosted, against co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck provide wonderful examples of just what I'm talking about. I have hardly seen all of O'Donnell's tirades from that show (and have no desire to do so), but I can say that, of all those I have seen, I agreed, at least in general terms, with O'Donnell and disagreed with Hasselbeck. Nevertheless, because of O'Donnell's vicious, snide, manipulative manner and apparent lack of reason or empathy, I was horrified and offended by her while feeling sorry for her opponent (who, I might add, is a pretty shrill and unsavory person herself). Her behaviors, instead of helping to make her point, made Hasselbeck's. O'Donnell's not doing any good for liberalism by making people feel so chagrined that they turn to a marginally more sympathetic conservative.

O'Donnell's comments are, moreover, not her only way of doing harm to liberalism. Over and over again, she seemingly demonstrates herself to be intent on revealing herself to be a malicious, thoughtless, and utterly self-righteous shrew. I am genuinely distressed that such an individual is misrepresenting people like myself and associating our views with particularly despicable personality traits. It would be difficult even to list all of the ways O'Donnell has shown herself to be unpleasant. I have been repeatedly mortified by how judgemental, strident, and even cruel she can be. For instance, her comments about the winner of the Miss USA pageant, also made on The View, are monstrous. She mocks and parodies the winner, describes the woman as a moron, and implies that she's a drug addict (or, at the least, the kind of person who might become one, whatever sort of individual that might be). O'Donnell's ugly malevolence is breathtaking.

Regrettably, O'Donnell's vileness is not confined to her diatribes. It seems to pervade her nature. There are certainly a sufficient number of public examples of her coldheartedness, arrogance, and bigotry.

Much of O'Donnell's relationship with the magazine McCall's, which was renamed Rosie's McCall's after she came to be associated with it, puts the woman in a negative light. I will concede that I do not know the details of O'Donnell's relationship with the magazine. It is even possible that she was right to be angry with the magazine's editors. I certainly cannot commend the editors of the magazine for their wisdom in forming a business association with O'Donnell. Nonetheless, it is apparent that O'Donnell was both unwilling to compromise with the editors and completely unconcerned about the welfare of the magazine's employees, who would be thrown out of work by her actions. When she affiliated herself with McCall's, O'Donnell might have viewed doing so merely as a chance to express her opinions while pocketing millions of her admirers' dollars, but she also took on some responsibilities. Her decision did mean that her actions would affect the magazine's employees, and by callously disregarding them - when she didn't get her way in every matter - she revealed how unworried she is about the welfare of others.

Moreover, whatever faults the magazine's editors might have had, I cannot imagine that they would have behaved as badly as O'Donnell did. During the trial for breach of contract that followed O'Donnell's departure from McCall's, one of her former employees, who happened to be a breast cancer survivor, testified that when she remained silent in a board meeting, O'Donnell informed her that doing so was tantamount to lying and that, "You know what happens to people who lie? They get sick and they get cancer. If they keep lying, they get it again." Just to make things worse, O'Donnell's apology for her comment was qualified by the claim, "I'm sorry I hurt her the way I did. That was not my intention." It is a real indictment of O'Donnell's character that she refused to apologize for being cruel. Instead, her 'apology' implicitly blamed her employee for failing to understand her. I am genuinely shocked by O'Donnell's viciousness and by her lack of repentance. Apparently, she sees nothing wrong with such behavior, as long as she's the one behaving that way.

I am not, however, surprised by her treatment of her employee. O'Donnell has proven herself, over and over again, to be ready to attack and bully any person who dares contradict her wishes or opinions.

Inevitably, because of O'Donnell's nasty verbal assaults, I feel sympathy for the people she is abusing, even though these people are frequently expressing opinions that are opposed to my own. Instead of nodding my head along with O'Donnell when she speaks, I despise her during such moments. It is such a shame that she makes liberals look like self-righteous verbal thugs and their opponents like innocent victims. The woman is a great help to conservatives everywhere.

Not only are O'Donnell's attacks mean-spirited, but they are also frequently indicative of her narrow-mindedness. I am a liberal, but I am not the sort of liberal who believes that those who disagree with me are wicked or that they should be censored.

Many progressive liberals go on and on about how narrow-minded conservatives are. They talk of themselves as people open to other opinions, other ways of life, and other visions of the world. However, when any such person refuses to listen to another viewpoint, when he even sometimes demands that another viewpoint be censored, then he exposes his true feelings. What such a person means by the term "open-minded" is having his own views rather than being willing to listen to others. What he means by "freedom of speech" is his freedom to speak rather than another's. This individual should, however, remember that if he seeks to censor the opinions of others because he finds their opinions offensive, then he is doing the same thing they are, and he is no more justified, and no better, than they are.

Sadly, O'Donnell has often shown herself to have a remarkably closed mind and to be very ready to silence those whose opinions, by differing from hers, offend her sensibilities. In one particularly weird incident, when the cast of the musical Annie Get Your Gun was scheduled to appear on her television talk show, O'Donnell, a supporter of stricter gun control laws (unless these happen to affect the rights of her bodyguards to carry such weapons), demanded that they remove the line "I can shoot a partridge with a single cartridge" from the song "Anything You Can Do," which was to have been performed on the program. Apparently, the woman can't stand hearing anyone sing about shooting firearms around her. I too am opposed to private gun ownership, and to killing partridges for sport, for that matter, but anyone can sing a song about either around me if he would like to.

This sort of narrow-mindedness, this angry bigotry, is hardly admirable. Whatever O'Donnell's opinions are, and however much I might agree with them, if they are mingled with a lack of respect for the rights of others to express their opinions, then they are tainted. I admire workers' movements and socialism, but I don't admire totalitarian communism. Intolerance can transform even the most noble of beliefs into the stuff of nightmares. Refusing to hear (and hoping to stifle) differing opinions is a very dangerous path to tread, and anyone following after someone walking that way should be grabbed and warned of of the evils ahead. O'Donnell and those like her are truly leading many liberals astray. We ought to be wary of her kind.

In fact, any liberal who holds his opinions with a closed mind, or even one who will silence opinions that are so utterly stupid that they are unworthy of consideration, is no better than the conservatives he or she claims to oppose. I might oppose private gun ownership, but I am far more opposed to anyone who would restrict the rights of another wanting to argue in favor of such ownership. I might oppose the death penalty, but I am far more opposed to anyone who would restrict the rights of another wanting to argue for that punishment. I might oppose discrimination based on race, religion, or sexual orientation, but I am far more opposed to anyone who would restrict the rights of another wanting to express disapproval of individuals based on these factors. As ignoble and potentially harmful as some of the beliefs here mentioned are, allowing them to be expressed is far less dangerous than is censoring them. Without freedom of speech, no freedom is safe. It is the single most important freedom we have, the one essential freedom that safeguards all the rest, and to try to silence an opponent is the single greatest offense any liberal can commit.

I am not, of course, claiming that O'Donnell is advocating censorship. I am not aware of any occasion when she has done so. Her lack of tolerance of others' opinions does, however, trouble me. When we cannot stand hearing someone else expressing his beliefs, when we try to silence him, if only by shouting him down, we are putting ourselves in the mood to restrict his rights. Censorship is born from narrow-mindednesss, from the hatred of other views that leads a person to enjoy seeing his opponents gagged. Open-mindedness, obviously, protects us from this danger. Admittedly, there are times when a view is not worthy of consideration, but we still have no right to keep anyone from expressing it. We need to be accepting of the rights of others, even when we find their opinions to be malignant or offensive. Although one person may say the arts should be censored, and another may say expressions of homosexuality should be banned, and a third may say that racist sentiments should be prohibited, not one of these persons has any right to take away the freedom from another, as much as he disapproves of that other. We should, therefore, not turn for inspiration to those who cannot abide other opinions. They are a dangerous lot.

Lastly, I should say that there are two core elements of liberalism, a valuation of individual freedom and a desire to help others. While I am willing to admit that O'Donnell could be a liberal in the sense that she fights for the first of these, I cannot believe, in spite of her ostentatious donations to charity, that she attaches great importance to the second. To be blunt, it is absurd to think that any currently wealthy person is particularly concerned about other human beings (if a rich individual did find himself troubled by the sufferings of others, he would surely be prompted to make such use of his money that he would soon cease to be wealthy). Given that O'Donnell is a rich woman, I have to question how much she really cares about the welfare of others, even though she presents herself as being both compassionate and giving. Whatever charitable acts she does perform are invariably self-aggrandizing (like writing an autobiography for charity), self-congratulatory (like naming a charitable organization after herself), or even a little vain and spiteful (like when she responded to Scope's naming her one of America's least kissable celebrities by getting Listerine to give money to charity each time she was kissed on her television show by another celebrity). Despite such criticisms, I am sure that the charities to which O'Donnell has contributed do real good (for which she and they should be applauded). Nonetheless, it is a shame that her philanthropic activities are, at the same time, lavish spectacles which call attention to O'Donnell's showy generosity and, in a real way, weird potlatches which enhance her prestige in the world of celebrity. They evince none of the self-sacrifice and the desire for anonymity that are the hallmarks of a truly generous person. Of course, they are typical of the sort of charitable acts that the rich prefer. That, however, does not so much exonerate O'Donnell as it demonstrates the ulterior motives of those of her class.

In fact, there simply is no way that I can consider O'Donnell to be a liberal in the sense of someone who works for the well-being of her fellows, any more than I can consider any other wealthy person to be. If she were genuinely concerned about others, she could use the excessive bulk of her substantial wealth to fight for them, without promoting herself by doing so. She wouldn't even have to do anything herself. She could just give the heaps of her hoarded money to groups that would fight the battles for her. After all, she has more money than any person requires for living a physically comfortable life. Now, I'm well aware that O'Donnell does give a substantial amount of money to charity (and I do praise her for that), but I'm sure she makes certain that any giving she does will not affect her own lifestyle, which, I'm equally sure, is far more important to her than are the living conditions of any other person. I suppose that there are those who will accuse me of being unduly harsh in this judgment, but I don't believe I am being unfair. Perhaps an example would help to illustrate my point. A man who makes twelve-thousand dollars a year (whose basic needs will be hard to cover with his income) and who gives away a hundred dollars will actually be making a sacrifice by doing so; he could well find himself enduring hardships for the sake of his generosity. The person who makes fifty million dollars a year and gives away forty-five million will still be living in luxury. He will still be making over four-hundred times what my poor man will be. There's really no comparison between the two. I am impressed with the former's generosity, by his obvious concern for others, but I am not so impressed with the latter's. It's a sop for his conscience at best.

In spite of all of what I have said, I am glad that wealthy people do donate to charity. They can so do a great deal of good, and I wholeheartedly encourage them to give. Though I am not particularly impressed with their generosity, I would certainly say that it is better for them to donate some portion of their riches than to keep the whole of their fortunes for themselves. I do, therefore, commend O'Donnell for her philanthropy. I just want people to think about how generous she actually is before they bestow lavish praise upon her. As is the case with any other rich individual who engages in such charitable activities (like Bill Gates, Jean-Claude Duvalier, and the CEO of McDonald's), her giving does not entail her enduring any hardship, but it does mislead people into believing that she is a self-sacrificing individual.

What is more, though the wealthy, such as O'Donnell, do sometimes show symptoms of having a conscience, and do sometimes toss pennies to the crowds of the less fortunate, they still can't be said to be unduly worried about those others. In fact, their lack of concern is made obvious by their actions, by the way they live their lives. These people are part of a system that gives some individuals huge advantages while imposing equally huge disadvantages upon others. Instead of fighting against inequity, they enjoy the benefits of playing carnivores to the ordinary man's herbivore. They employ maids, pool cleaners, bodyguards, nannies, and all the other sorts of servants that those who think other people exist only to satisfy their own needs employ. Let's be honest. Rosie O'Donnell is just such a person. I'll grant that she might be genuinely concerned about others taking away her freedoms or imposing their beliefs on her (and might so fight for things in which she believes, which she does), but I am doubtful about the depth of her concern for other people. I'm sure she helps others when it's amusing to her do so or when she doesn't have to make any effort, but such actions are hardly admirable. The woman's wealth reveals the dishonesty of her ideological harangues, just as the wealth of every other rich person who calls himself a liberal reveals the dishonesty of that person's words. I have no idea why we so often insist that our leaders come from the monied classes. These people are not on our side. We're like zebras who think a lion is going to help us.

Though I disapprove of O'Donnell's unpleasant, selfish behavior, it does not baffle me. She is just a sharp-tongued, narrow-minded person who thinks primarily of her own welfare. What does baffle me is the way that so many people, and so many decent people, apparently admire her. I cannot understand why anyone would respect O'Donnell's behavior. If someone treated me like O'Donnell treats others, I would be angry and offended. I suspect most people would feel similarly. Nonetheless, there are those who seem not to have a problem when bile and malevolence are directed at others. I would implore anyone who enjoys O'Donnell's misbehavior and who respects her for it to think of how those she assaults feel, to have a little empathy. There are a sufficient number of nasty people in this world. We do not need to try to valorize such behavior and increase their number.

As I said before, though I am denouncing Rosie O'Donnell's behavior, I am not opposed to her expressing her opinions. I am horrified by her actions, and I am horrified by the damage those actions may do to the cause of liberalism as a result of her advocacy of several liberal positions. I sincerely hope that anyone who reads this will be as disgusted by O'Donnell's actions as I am and will neither behave as she does nor admire those who do. Instead of acting like petty totalitarians, like irate bigots enamored of our own obnoxiousness, let's behave considerately and show that our opinions are wedded to genuine decency, real intelligence, and actual open-mindedness. Let's also choose leaders who, though not perfect, are courteous, compassionate, reasonable, ordinary people. We don't need to run yelping behind the heels of rich, harsh masters.

Mia

2008-06-02T16:19:00.002-07:00

My daughter Mia, born to my wife, Milve, on 31 May, 2008. She's about thirty minutes old in this picture.

Well, this might not be my typical blog entry, but I couldn't help myself. When I saw that beautiful face, I fell in love, and I had to share it.

Reflections on Human Sexuality, Part I

2008-05-20T06:08:00.000-07:00

Introduction, Sexual Categories as Social Identities, and Behaviors Associated with These Categories
Is it possible to classify the varieties of human sexuality, to come up with a schematic of that sexuality? No doubt, we try to do so by saying that certain aspects of our sexuality are important and that others are not. But are such claims justified? Instead of grounding our opinions about the nature of our sexuality on evidence, could we be privileging particular aspects of that sexuality based on prejudices, on cultural norms and inherited ideas? Could we then be misguiding ourselves? Could we even be limiting ourselves, and our chances to relish life, by accepting such judgments? Might we actually be letting ourselves drift into making moral judgments based on these possibly artificial norms? All of these, because they potentially raise real issues, are legitimate questions. In fact, they are more than simply legitimate; they are questions that need to be asked (given the consequences of not asking them). I will, therefore, try, to the best of my limited ability, to provide some kind of answer. This answer, obviously, is that we are limiting ourselves, that we are failing to recognize the diversity of human sexuality by accepting and reifying any simplistic scheme.

In order to get to this answer, let me begin by looking at the currently popular system used to describe human sexuality. In this, each and every person is placed within one of three categories based on how that person's sexual proclivities accord with a particular criterion, specifically, the gender of those persons an individual is sexually attracted to relative to that individual's own gender. Every person is then identified as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. An individual is said to be homosexual if he prefers individuals of the same gender, heterosexual if he prefers individuals of the opposite gender, and bisexual if he is attracted to both genders.

I do concede that this system of classification did, with its formulation and subsequent popular acceptance, introduce nuances into people's understanding of human sexuality that were absent before, and that it has validated sexual behaviors that were previously understood to be eccentricities at best and abominations at worst. Nonetheless, the system is far from being the prefect description of who we are as sexual beings that it is often taken as being. It is not, in fact, rare for a person's sexuality to fail to match up neatly with the categories of this system. It ignores countless behaviors and preferences that can be every bit as important as are those it does recognize. Despite this, it is very common now to hear people talk about this system of classification as though it were describing really existent entities, as though its categories (heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality) were empirically verifiable and universally applicable entities.

As a consequence of such attitudes, this system is now limiting us more than it is freeing us, and it is doing so in numerous ways. For all the system's former utility, and for all the good that has come from our adopting it, because it does set up arbitrary groupings (which are held to be real, while all other criteria for creating categories are declared to be false), it is woefully inadequate. It is, therefore, perhaps time for us to move past this system, to toss it into the rubbish heap of history, and to leave it behind us. Let's grant that it has served us well as a stepping stone, but let's not chain ourselves to that stone and so hobble ourselves so that we are left unable to dance at the sight of the wonders available to the spirit willing to go to new places.

Let's accept, instead, that human sexuality is infinitely complex, that it often even denies categorization. Let's go so far as to say that categories are generally arbitrary constructions and are virtually inevitably limiting. Whenever we are expected, whether by others or even by our selves, to conform to expectations that are associated with particular categories, pleasures that we might have experienced, that we might desire to experience, are closed off to us simply because we feel that since we belong to some particular category those behaviors are inappropriate.

I am not claiming, I should say, that the current system of classification is entirely erroneous, that it completely fails to describe human sexuality. I am not, and anyone who reads this and says I am has misunderstood me. What I am claiming is that it provides an inadequate description.

I have three reasons for making such a claim. First, this classificatory system is only one possible model of human sexuality; it identifies a particular continuum of sexual behaviors (and I include here both external activities, such as engaging in a sexual act with a particular person, as well as internal behaviors, such as brain activities (thoughts, in particular) and the activities and responses of hormones and bodily organs). Second, an acceptance of this model as an accurate description of what lies at the basis of human sexuality implies a devaluation of all other behaviors, even though these may be of equal or greater relevance to a person than are those behaviors that have been validated. Third, the model does not invariably provide for accurate classifications, that is classifications reflecting actual identities or groupings of persons according to their behaviors, even when only those behaviors recognized as significant in this system are being considered.

Before addressing these issues, I should note a fourth problem I see with our classification of human sexuality (though this is a problem with its limiting tendencies and with the sloppy thought processes of many of those who accept it rather than, like the preceding three, with its inadequacies), namely, that it actually consists of two distinct layers which are (it seems to me) almost inevitably confused, such confusion leading to countless real problems. One of these layers is simply the descriptive division of human beings into three categories based on particular sexual behaviors, as has already been discussed. The second layer, which is usually presented as being dependent upon the first, but which, in practice, is the more important of the two, consists of various social roles; that is to say, it provides a framework into which a person can take on a particular identity together with particular behaviors associated with persons who have that identity. Though based on putative innate characteristics, these categories are, primarily, groupings that provide social identities for the individuals belonging to them. Innumerable confusions and limitations result from such a conflation.

Of course, none of the three popularly accepted categories is homogenous, but this does not affect my point. The subcategories of each group are just that. Each falls nicely, like the subspecies of a species, into a particular wider category. Most obviously, each category is subdivided in two by the biological sexes of the members of that category. There are, thus, heterosexual men, heterosexual women, homosexual men, homosexual women, bisexual men, and bisexual women. Within each of these, there are further subcategories, although I do not think that I need to go into a detailed discussion of such. I need merely acknowledge that each of these subcategories is itself further divided into multiple sub-subcategories, and each of the latter will be associated with particular behaviors. Among homosexual men, for instance, there are those who adopt deliberately feminine behaviors and those who adopt behaviors associated with heterosexual men. There is a plethora of identities, each with its own set of behaviors, that can be ranged between these extremes. The same can, in essence, be said of any of the other categories. If I have simplified things in my discussion, it has only been for the sake of convenience. I ask the reader to bear this mind. It would be tiresome, irrelevant, and, in fact, impossible to provide details about every possible identity. It is enough to point out that each of subcategories belongs to one of the three wider categories and each conflates (and confuses) social and sexual behaviors.

Incidentally, although I reject the claim that these identities are somehow innate, I do not mean to diminish the value that many people place upon them. There are countless individuals who place great importance upon such identities, and any decision to do so (even if not consciously made) is completely valid. After all, simply recognizing that there are multiple possible schemes according to which we can classify human behaviors, and that a person's own behaviors may have more to do with societal expectations than with some putative biological necessity, does not diminish the worth of that person's behaviors. I generally do not believe that a person is correct if he understands that his identity, or that of most anyone else, reflects some innate nature. Nor do I believe that he is correct if he thinks that these identities, these roles, are the only roles possible. Nonetheless, I respect the dignity of the role a person chooses. I just hope that other people will do the same, even if the roles they find being played do not fit into their own system of classification.

What is important to remember here is that, although a person's sexual behaviors are relevant in determining the category in which he is placed, and are not generally ignored (though they sometimes are), our application of the terms of our system of classification to a person is usually meant to identify that person as belonging to a certain social grouping. A given category, in fact, often provides a person with a large part of his social identity in the modern West.

A man who identifies as heterosexual, for example, will generally adopt behaviors, here particular traits and mannerisms, that are associated with that category. By possessing these behaviors, such a person displays that he is a member of a given social grouping. The heterosexual man can act 'macho' to let everyone know he's a heterosexual. The homosexual woman can be 'butch' if she wants people to know she's a lesbian. The homosexual man can adopt 'flamboyant' mannerisms if he wants to be identified as a 'gay,' and the heterosexual woman can be dainty and feminine if she wants people to know she's a heterosexual woman. I am obviously grossly simplifying the categories here, but my point should be clear.

Not surprisingly, these behaviors rarely have any biological basis. There seems to be some belief in our society that 'straight' men will display 'male' behaviors, that 'straight' women will display 'female' behaviors, and that homosexual individuals, whether male or female, will display behaviors that mingle those belonging to males and those belonging to females. Unfortunately for the people who believe this, while there are clearly behaviors that are associated with real genders as a result of members of that gender possessing actual physical traits (such as brain structures and levels of particular hormones), there does not seem to be any exclusive association of these particular behaviors with persons of a given category (i.e., homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual) within that gender. These behaviors, aggressiveness among men, to give an example, seem to be possessed as much by members of one category of men as by another. In other words, 'gay' men and 'straight' men are probably equally likely to be aggressive. I, at least, have never noticed any difference. To put my point simply, the behaviors associated with each of the categories have no biological basis, even though many people seem to believe that they do.

The behaviors that we can see being adopted by persons of any given category are, instead, almost invariably determined as being appropriate to persons of that category by our culture. There are, for instance, beliefs that 'straight' men will like particular competitive sports, will be fascinated by cars, will be disdainful of showing emotions, and so on. There are also beliefs that 'gay' men will enjoy Broadway musicals, will be interested in fashion, and will be concerned with their health and appearance. Obviously, the association of every one of these things with being 'straight' or being 'gay' is determined solely by our culture and has no biological basis. 'Straight' men can enjoy music and fashion as much as 'gay' men do. They have in the past and do so today. 'Gay' men can enjoy sports and cars. In fact, most of the associations don't hold true outside of the particular time and place of our current culture, and even in this the association is often tenuous and arbitrarily or inconsistently applied. Broadway musicals didn't exist a hundred years ago, but opera, one of the styles of musical performance of that day, was not, to my knowledge, thought to be unfit entertainment for 'manly,' pudenda-craving men. There were even some risqué types of musical performance that were meant only for men. Eighteenth century French noblemen, lecherous skirt chasers that they were, were, nonetheless, keenly interested in fashion. For that matter, the members of that most heterosexual of modern institutions, the military, are frequently obsessed with grooming, fancy clothes, gold braids, shiny trinkets, polished shoes, pretty medals, and dainty ribbons. What are we to say of body builders and athletes? Are they, being interested in their bodies, 'gay'? Are 'gay' men who love their cars really 'straight'?

Clearly, the behaviors associated with being 'gay' or being 'straight,' or being of some other orientation, are arbitrarily, that is to say, culturally assigned. In fact, as I already noted, those behaviors that do seem to have some biological basis are not exclusively associated with one or another class of individuals. A desire for sexual experimentation, expressed both in a desire for multiple sexual partners and for engaging in a variety of sexual acts, is associated with both 'gay' and 'straight' males. In other words, it is associated with a biological gender rather than with a particular social category into which members of that gender are divided. No such behaviors, so far as I am able to discern, can be clearly associated with one category of persons of a particular sex and not associated with members of another category of that same sex. Although this claim is based only on my own experience, I still have to say that 'straight' behaviors like bragging, territoriality, and aggression are just as commonly found among 'gay' men. I've never noticed the least difference in their prevalence.

Reflections on Human Sexuality, Part II

2008-05-20T06:07:00.000-07:00

Social Behaviors as Determinants of Inclusion in Sexual Categories and Sexual Categories as Things Innate in a Person's Nature

Since certain behaviors are associated with certain categories, it is hardly surprising that an individual's displaying particular behaviors will lead people to believe that he belongs to a specific category. The way we make such judgments is, moreover, important in grasping how our sexual categories are applied. To do so, we must ascertain just how important behaviors are in determining the category in which a given person belongs.

I do not think that it can be denied that we assume that a person who belongs to a given category will behave in certain ways. People will often identify particular mannerisms as 'gay' or 'manly' (meaning heterosexual), and will go so far as to allow social behaviors to trump sexual behaviors in classifying a person. If a man who has sex exclusively with women has 'homosexual' mannerisms, it is likely that people will say that he is 'really gay,' even if he doesn't know it. His mannerisms are more important than his sexual behavior, and if his sexual behavior does not accord with his mannerisms, then it is because he is denying his inner nature.

Two things underlie such assertions. First, people who make these claims are confusing social identities with the categories determined by sexual behaviors that are putatively behind these identities. The two, the social and descriptive categories, are not, however, necessarily related. Of course, these individuals, whether they would articulate it or not, do seem to believe that the categories are necessarily related. This belief is based on a second assumption, that the categories are real, that they comprehensively describe human sexuality and that they reflect something innate in a person. For such individuals, a person is naturally 'heterosexual,' naturally 'homosexual,' or naturally 'bisexual,' and his behaviors are what they are as a result of his expressing or not expressing this nature.

The strength of our conviction that a person's 'true' sexuality is perceptible through his non-sexual behaviors can be seen over and over again. In fact, when we do concede that a person's sexuality does not match up with his social persona, we often feel the need to come up with a new classification. The term 'metrosexual' seems to have been coined for just this reason. Certain men who clearly prefer women as sexual partners have, nonetheless, adopted behaviors associated in the modern West with homosexual men. Obviously, they aren't straight as we understand the term, so we've invented a new classification for them, one that allows us to preserve the concept of 'heterosexuality' as a social category. I might add that members of this new category are frequently described as being less 'manly' than are 'regular' straight men. They are, somehow, slightly outside the system of classification, fitting only very uncomfortably into the 'heterosexual' grouping, if at all. Actually, it would seem that that, socially, they are more properly 'bisexual,' even if the behaviors of the members of the 'metrosexual' grouping fail to match up with those within the 'bisexual' grouping. The odd, uncomfortably intermediate place these individuals hold, their not being quite bisexuals or quite heterosexuals, says a great deal about how important social identities are in our scheme of classification.

Someone might now object to my claims by noting that although categories determined by social behaviors and categories determined by sexual behaviors are popularly conflated, the two can still be distinguished. He might then concede that, socially, 'metrosexual' men hold an ambiguous place within the popular scheme. Even while admitting this, he can, however, still point out that, in the system of categories determined by sexual behavior, it is these men's sexual behaviors that determine them to be heterosexual. This person might go on to note that even though heterosexuality is a social category, its being so is still clearly subordinate to its being a category of sexual behavior. It is, ultimately, the sexual behaviors of an individual that demand that this person be classified as 'heterosexual,' 'homosexual,' or 'bisexual,' not his social behaviors. The social identities, whatever their importance to those accepting them, are ultimately derived from sexual behaviors and, insofar as these classifications differ from sexual behaviors, they are based on mistakes. The categories of sexual behaviors, when used correctly, do, this objector can at this point claim, accurately describe human sexuality.

To reemphasize a point made earlier, I am not here denying that we are actually talking about two systems, one describing sexual behaviors and one describing social behaviors. The fundamental problems with the claim just made by my hypothetical opponent, that these two can and should be distinguished from one another in a truly clear way, are the facts that the system of describing sexual behaviors that is popular today is taken as accurately representing some external reality and that it is, as a result, easily, perhaps inevitably, conflated with the system of describing social identities.

It is hard to imagine how the clear cut and putatively real divisions of the descriptive classification of human sexuality would not be important factors in determining human behaviors if this model is fundamentally accurate. If the categories are real, then these divisions form an important part of who a person is, of what an individual is like. Inevitably, this will express itself socially, if only in a person's sexual interactions with others. More than likely, however, it will express itself in that person's wider identity. After all, the system purportedly describes a person's innate nature. I certainly do not think that it can be denied that there are many people who believe that we can observe an individual's mannerisms and determine that he belongs to a particular social category, 'gay,' for example. Nor do I think that such a belief would be unreasonable, if the categories do reflect our innate nature. In fact, it is hard to believe that such an innate nature would not be visibly expressed.

Any reification of the categories used in our current classificatory system will inevitably lead us to think that we can make determinations of who a person 'really' is. Such determinations, in turn, consistently lead us to limit both our own and others' behaviors, to think that a person should act in accordance with his supposed true nature. What is more, and this is an important point for me, when I talk about such limitations, I am talking about things that have arisen as a result of the nature of the system, specifically, its purportedly accurate description of each and every person's innate nature. Noting the way that one group of heterosexual men, 'metrosexuals,' are devalued as members of that group both by other groups and by other subgroups of heterosexuals, in the form of these others refusing to recognize them as being heterosexual, can, consequently, be given as a criticism of the system. Even if a 'metrosexual' male has never had sex with another man, we can use his mannerisms to infer that his 'real' sexual preference must be for other men. I personally have heard individuals express the belief that 'metrosexual' men are 'really' gay. Although sexual behaviors are, generally speaking, conceded as being behind the categories popularly used (because these sexual behaviors supposedly provide the basis for particular social identities), the sexual behaviors are not more important than are social behaviors in determining the category to which a person belongs. On the contrary, the social behaviors are clearly, for some, more important than are any actual sexual behaviors.

I am not, however, claiming that social behaviors automatically trump sexual behaviors in determinations of what category a person should be placed in. There are, for instance, times when a person, having witnessed particular social behaviors in another that do not accord with that individual's sexual behaviors, will feel unsure of the other's 'real' nature. If a person is somehow intrinsically 'heterosexual,' 'homosexual,' or bisexual,' then it does follow that both a person's social behaviors and his sexual behaviors should reflect his innate nature. When these do not match up, this tension must exist as a result of the person's expressing his innate nature with certain behaviors while denying it with others.

There are even occasions when people, for reasons I am not entirely able to fathom, believe that another's innate sexuality has been entirely concealed. Although we do generally think that a person's sexual nature will be expressed though his mannerisms, interests, and the like, we still concede that there are times when a person's inner nature will be denied or suppressed. I suppose the belief that there are such cases is reasonable in the context of the popular classificatory system, but its actual absurdity reveals the absurdity of the system. If the categories 'heterosexual,' 'homosexual,' and 'bisexual' are real, if they do represent something innate within us, it follows that they do not depend on being expressed (however likely it is that they will be). A person can have a particular nature even when this nature is concealed, which it could be for any number of reasons (e.g. prejudice, the expectations of others, a false sense of identity, etc.). In other words, an individual's sexual behaviors do not need to correlate with those of persons of a particular category for him to fall into that category. Thus, a man can be 'intrinsically' homosexual even if he thinks he is heterosexual and has never had sexual relations with another man. His behaviors are then irrelevant. Even his mental or internal physiological behaviors might be irrelevant. This person might never have even had a thought of finding another man attractive, and he might never have felt any physical attraction to a man. Such things are not important, however. His putative innate nature is.

I, for reasons that will, I hope, soon be obvious, do not accept as correct any assertion that a person's innate nature is 'homosexual,' 'heterosexual,' or 'bisexual.' For me, there is not necessarily some 'real' homosexual trying to get out of a man who is sexually attracted to women but who has 'feminine' mannerisms or interests. Nor, for that matter, is there a 'straight' man trying to get out of a man who is sexually attracted to men but who has 'masculine' mannerisms or interests. The belief that there is such an 'innate' nature trying to express itself in these or any of the countless other possible instances I could cite is, more often than not, just untrue.

Homosexuality, heterosexuality, and bisexuality are simply three ways to describe human sexual behaviors. At best, these terms provide a convenient scheme by which specific human behaviors can be described. At worst, they reject the great bulk of human sexual interests as irrelevant, misrepresent many interests that are accepted as relevant, and give rise to various identities (together with the expectations that come along with these identities) that so restrict many human beings as to greatly diminish the pleasures such individuals could have found in life.

Reflections on Human Sexuality, Part III

2008-05-20T06:06:00.000-07:00

Biologically Determined Responses to Characteristics Supposed to be Related to Gender, Other Biologically Determined Responses, and Learned Responses
As I said at the beginning of this essay, in claiming that our currently popular system of classifying human sexuality is inadequate, I am not denying that its categories have some basis. Nor am I saying that we do not respond to stimuli that are generally associated with persons of a particular sex. I am, however, claiming the following: 1) Such stimuli are not invariably associated with persons of a particular sex, and 2) responses to such stimuli are not the only factors relevant to human sexual behaviors. This is all that I am claiming in the whole of this essay. The ramifications of such claims are considerable, but my point is nothing more radical than this.

I have no doubt that a great many of the stimuli to which we are biologically programmed to respond are more commonly associated with persons of one or another gender. In fact, I do not have any doubt that, generally, a person responds to characteristics most often associated with individuals of one particular sex. This sex can, of course, be either the same as or other than an individual's own. Whether this sensitivity to such stimuli is a result of brain structures, exposure to certain hormones while developing in the womb, or occurs because of some other reason, it does seem apparent that we are programmed to respond to particular things while not responding to other things.

Anyone reading this and disagreeing with my wider claims might, at this point, ask, "Isn't this enough to accept that certain people are heterosexual, others homosexual, and yet others bisexual?"

No. It is not, for at least two reasons. First, just because some trait is commonly associated with persons of one gender, it does not follow that it is always so associated. Second, admitting that responses to such traits are real does not equal admitting that they are the only stimuli to which a person can respond.

"Surely," an opponent might claim, "some traits can be characterized as being 'female' while other can be characterized as being 'male.' You yourself have just granted that this is generally the case.'"

Like I said, there are certain traits that act as stimuli and that are generally associated with persons of a given sex. Some of these are almost invariably so associated. Nonetheless, many traits that are taken as being either 'female' or 'male' can actually be found in persons of both sexes. There are, for example, particular hip to waist ratios that are usually associated with the female body which most men are 'programmed' to find attractive. However, these hip to waist ratios can also be found among persons who are biologically male. Let's imagine that there is a male who takes female hormones, adopts a female persona, and looks essentially like a female, even having the hip to waist ratios most often found attractive by men. Now, a man who finds persons with such proportions attractive sees this individual and is attracted to him. Is he therefore homosexual? He cannot be according to the measure just given, since he is responding to traits associated with females. For the same reason, he cannot even be bisexual. To be so, he would have to be responding to stimuli associated with males, which he is not. Perhaps it could then be averred that this man has simply been deceived. Maybe he has been tricked, but what if that doesn't matter? What if he learns that this person to whom he is attracted is male and is still attracted to that individual? What if he already knew that? Such a person simply does not fall neatly into any of the three categories we have. I am not, I might add, going to accept any claim that he's 'really' gay even though he doesn't know it. You have to establish that such a category describes something real before you can make this claim. Besides, if someone makes such a claim, he does so only by ignoring the actual stimuli to which the man is responding. The empirical evidence simply does not support the real existence of the popularly accepted categories.

There are, moreover, things to which a person can respond sexually other than traits associated with a particular sex. The failure to adequately describe biologically determined responses to stimuli associated with a given sex is, therefore, hardly the only problem our current system of categories has. In fact, though it fails miserably in this regard, it fails even more completely in other ways.

To begin with, there are biological factors other than those associated with sex, such as age and, perhaps, race, that can be important. It is, in fact, extremely likely that a given person will be impelled by biological factors to respond to certain stimuli that have nothing to do with the sex of another individual he encounters. If this is the case, then gender related factors are not the only biological factors relevant to a person's sexuality.

It is, for example, quite possible that there is some biological drive within each of us to find persons who have physical characteristics relatively similar to our own attractive. Conversely, it is possible that we will find persons whose physical traits are substantially different from our own unappealing. I hardly need to point out that children are often afraid of persons of different racial backgrounds when not often exposed to such persons. Anyone who has traveled will have encountered such reactions. There would seem to be reasons for this. In primitive societies, being fearful of outsiders could increase one's likelihood of not being killed by outsiders, who could well be enemies. It is not hard to imagine how such an impulse could, if it has a biological basis, affect our sexuality. To support this, let me point out that features found to be attractive in the West are frequently specifically Caucasian features. The 'ideal' Western woman is, after all, a tall, large breasted blonde. How many women of Asian or African descent would fit that ideal? Conversely, features rarely found among Caucasian women, but frequently encountered among the women of some other group, steatopygy among certain African peoples, for example, while considered attractive by the men of that other group, are often seen as bizarre or grotesque by Caucasians. Of course, I am not saying that cultural factors cannot outweigh these biological imperatives (which might not exist - I am hypothesizing here). They can and sometimes do. I'm Caucasian and yet my own wife is a short, black haired Asian woman, and I find her far more attractive than I do any tall blonde.

While there are those who might argue with me that a person's race can be a biologically determined sexual stimulus, I cannot believe that many would deny that another person's age relative to one's own can be, at least for men. The fact is, males, of whatever putative sexual category, are extremely unlikely to be attracted to persons who are not of the same age or a younger age.

Mind you, I realize that learned responses can outweigh biological imperatives, even with regard to age. Nonetheless, though a person can learn to find older persons attractive, we clearly are biologically driven to find youth appealing. We are not slaves to our biology, but if that is granted, then this whole tripartite division will have to be forsaken as its most important basis will have been abandoned.

Even granting that some individuals do find their elders attractive, because of associations made while young or for some other reason, I have no doubt that, for the overwhelming majority of men (and probably for a significant number of women), a person's age is an even more important factor in deciding whether that person is a potential sexual partner or not than is that person's sex. Even people who are usually accepting of others' differing sexual attractions are likely to react with disgust if they hear of someone engaging in sexual activities with an individual who is significantly older. It is quite possible that they will actually decide that this person must be mentally ill. The biological reaction against such behaviors is very strong. In fact, I cannot begin to mention the number of times I have heard men, both 'gay' and 'straight,' who have expressed how sick or disgusting it is that a man would have sex with a person significantly older than he is. For them, the best way to explain such behaviors is to assume that the younger man is, in some way, mentally ill. If he's not ill, then he must be engaging in such 'disgusting' behavior to get something out of it, usually monetary reward. That's how extreme the reaction often is.

Here's an illustration of my point. If two men in their mid-twenties, both of whom identify as heterosexual, and a woman in her nineties were all stranded on a deserted island, I have no doubt that the men would turn to one another for sexual satisfaction before they turned to the woman. In other words, my guess is that age would be more important than gender in deciding who is a potential sexual partner.

It should, at this point, be obvious that not all of the things to which we are programmed to respond sexually are associated with a particular gender. There are other traits, such as age, that can be just as important sources of stimulation, and that are such as a result of what we are as biological organisms. Even this complexity is not, however, enough to explain humanity sexuality. Not everything to which we respond sexually has been determined by by our hormones, brain structures, and the like.

In fact, many of the things that we find attractive are determined by the culture in which we live, and the things to which we respond because of acculturation are even less consistently correlated with physical sex than are biologically determined traits. Although we may associate a given characteristic held to be attractive with a particular sex, another culture may associate it with the opposite sex, or with both sexes. In the past, for example, athleticism was held to be a desirable characteristic in men, but not in women. It was, therefore, expected that women would be attracted to a person who was athletic, but that a man would not be. Today, athleticism is held to be desirable in both genders. There is, clearly, no correlation between the characteristic and a particular gender. If there were a correlation between this characteristic and some intrinsic sexual orientation, then we would be forced to say that all those men who are attracted to healthy, athletic women are actually homosexuals.

The things a person learns to find sexually appealing are not, I might add, limited to traits, behaviors, and the like widely accepted in the culture in which he lives. There are a great many other factors that, though specific to a given individual, can be relevant for that person. Each individual's unique history causes him to form tastes specific to himself, and these tastes are, very often, as important as are any of the others already noted. Let's suppose, for example, that a particular man commonly classified as 'heterosexual' likes black hair, that he likes black hair so much that he is not attracted to anyone who does not have black hair. This characteristic, then, is as important as the other person's sex, insofar as not having black hair and not being female both disqualify another from being a potential sexual partner for him. Why then is hair color not as valid a means of constructing categories of sexual orientation? We could say that there are 'black-hair lovers,' 'blond lovers,' 'brunette lovers,' 'redhead lovers,' and 'multicolor lovers' (the last would be something like bisexuals).

I might add that this system of categorization is not hypothetical. Not only am I aware of many 'blonde lovers,' who are only interested in persons with yellow hair, but, moreover, I personally am not attracted to persons who do not have have black hair. Categorizing me as a 'black hair lover' is entirely accurate (though certainly not adequate). Having this particular characteristic is more important than having many others. It is a characteristic that transcends sex, race, religion, or any other trait a person might have. Moreover, a person's hair color has had relevance to my attraction to that person since the time I was a child. Even when I hadn't even the vaguest notions about our categories of sexual orientation, I knew that black hair was sexy and that piss yellow, shit brown, and pimple red hair weren't. I suppose this affection for black hair was learned (even if I can't say where I learned it), but that doesn't make it less real for me. It's been part of who I have been as a sexual person from my childhood. Irrespective of what others may say of this preference, it is integral to what I find attractive. If someone were to urge me to find blondes attractive, it would be like the Christian evangelist urging a 'gay' man to find women attractive. I'll even go so far as to say that I find it a little offensive if a person claims that this is just a 'fetish.' If this individual is a 'straight' man, I might say that his infatuation with the vagina is a fetish, or, if he is 'gay,' that his love of the penis is a fetish. What I find attractive is every bit as legitimate an object of desire as is the thing another finds attractive. What is more, the characteristic to which I am attracted is not one that I consciously chose (though it wouldn't matter if it had been). It is, rather, something that I respond to on some basic level. It doesn't matter if this attraction is 'learned' or 'innate.' I fail to see any categorical difference between my demand that a person has black hair and, for example, a 'gay' man's demand that a person be male. If someone distinguishes between these demands, claiming one is valid and the other is not, then I would challenge that person to justify his claim. For a 'gay' man, a person's possession of a penis is necessary for him to be attracted to that person. For me, a person's possession of black hair is necessary for me to be attracted to that person. Why is a persons's hair color not as legitimate a factor in determining his or her desirability as are that individual's genitals? Based on my personal experience, I would have to say that a person's hair color is a far more relevant to finding that person attractive than is the is shape of the meat in his or her underwear. What is more, it has to be admitted that, looking at the world as a whole, I am, with my demands, excluding far fewer persons than is either the 'gay' or the 'straight' man. Either one of these is excluding at least one half of humanity. I am excluding only a relatively small percentage of Caucasians (though I concede that hair color is not the only thing that is relevant to me, any more than a person's having a penis is the only thing relevant to a 'gay' man). At any rate, other learned categories (whatever they may be) could be constructed, and they are. People do exclude potential partners who are not of the correct religion, the right political affiliation, the appropriate economic group, the proper social background, and so on. All of these can be just as important as is the person's physical sex.

Maybe someone will say that my affection for hair color is, by my own admission, learned, and that it is biologically derived attractions that determine sexual orientation. These, my opponent might claim, are what allow us to fix the categories we have.

Unfortunately for this individual, I would point out that he is, apparently, forgetting that we have already discussed how characteristics we are biologically driven to find attractive frequently have nothing to do with a person's sex at all. Even those traits that are associated with a particular gender are not always exclusively found with members of that gender .

Moreover, there is not some rule arrived at by observation of the world that grants greater importance to biologically determined responses to stimuli than to learned responses. On the contrary, we can empirically verify that things we learn to be attractive can be every bit as important as are things we are biologically driven to be attracted to.

"But," an opponent might here say, "when we do learn to find something attractive, we generally learn that it is attractive because we have come to associate it with things we are biologically driven to find attractive."

This could be the case, but it need not be. If a person responds with sexual excitement to a characteristic he has learned to find attractive, then there is a fair chance that this characteristic will be found in persons of both genders (though he might have to look at other cultures to find actual instances).

Perhaps someone might object to my claims here and say that this only proves that all persons are basically bisexual. That's fine with me. I'll concede that. Of course, if we say that everyone is bisexual, then we're not saying anything. Being bisexual being coterminous with being human, we have no classification of human sexuality at all. I have no problem with that. We'll accept the current system, classify everyone as bisexual, and then completely ignore the system.

By Keith Allen

Reflections on Human Sexuality, Part IV

2008-05-20T06:04:00.000-07:00

Applying our Categories to Other Cultures, Another Culture's System of Classification, and Conclusion

There are clearly problems with the claim that human sexuality can be adequately described with a linear model in which there are two poles, heterosexuality and homosexuality, somewhere between which extremes every person can be placed based on the assumption that each person has an innate sexual orientation. Nonetheless, I should again emphasize that I do not deny that this model can provide a partial explanation of human sexuality. However, it fails to take into account so many other factors that it is woefully inadequate. In fact, it is often misleading and confining. We respond to particular characteristics we find attractive, whether a given response is biologically produced or learned. These characteristics do not, as I have already shown, allow for a neat tripartite division of human sexuality.

What is more, thinking that this division is the only one possible devalues other possible divisions.

To put it simply, a person's sex is not the only thing another will find attractive. A man who identifies as 'heterosexual' does not find all women attractive. Obviously, just being female isn't enough for a person to be a desired sexual partner to most 'heterosexual' men. The same is the case with the other accepted categories.

I suppose that it's possible that my reader is still not convinced, that he's so invested in his sexual identity that he cannot concede that it is anything other than real. He might say that I keep talking about attractions that are learned or that are unusual exceptions. If we look at human society as it actually exists, my opponent might continue, then the categories do apply.

Regrettably, he would be mistaken. Even in our own society, in which the categories are generally accepted as being real, they frequently fail to describe human sexuality adequately. When applied to other societies, they fail even more miserably.

How would my hypothetical opponent explain the institutionalized same-sex relationships of ancient Greece, pre-modern Japan, and parts of the Islamic world? If the sexual orientations accepted today have a biological basis, then the percentage of persons from one culture belonging to a given category should be approximately the same as the percentage of persons from another culture. Granted, societal taboos can prevent individuals from acting on their inclinations. We can, consequently, in societies rejecting male-male interactions, expect to find lower percentages of persons engaged in such activities than we would find in societies where such activities are accepted. However, it is hard to imagine that any society would actually institutionalize as normative a particular behavior, namely male-male sexual activity, if only a small minority of persons were naturally inclined to such activities. Regrettably, this is precisely what is claimed by those who think that the categories accepted today are true. It would seem, therefore, that the categories we use today are just useless in describing the sexual behaviors of most other cultures.

On top of this, many of these cultures developed system of classification of their own. In ancient India, for example, human sexuality was understood differently than it is in the West today. What is more, I believe that pre-modern India's most commonly accepted description is more accurate than is our own. At the very least, it is more useful as a starting point for describing human sexuality than is our own.

According to this system, there are two poles, male and female, but between these is an infinitely divisible spectrum, much of which is comprised of a 'third gender.' A person's place within this spectrum is determined by two factors: his biological sex and his social/psychological sex. When these two factors coincide, then a person's gender is easy to identify. When, for instance, a person who is biologically male and displays personality traits associated with being male, he will be classified as male. However, a person who is biologically male, but who displays personality traits associated with the female, will fall into the third gender. Others, who are biologically intermediate between male and female, such as hermaphrodites, will automatically fall into the third gender category.

In this scheme, the gender preferred by a person when he is looking for a sexual partner plays little role. The factors that are relevant are: 1) a person's physical sex, 2) a person's mental traits, some of which traits are associated with one particular physical sex, and 3) the relation of the two preceding factors to one another.

The utility of this system is fairly obvious. While not all men are the same, and not all women are the same, it is clear that there are particular mental traits (and consequent behaviors) that are associated more with persons of one sex than with the other. We can, therefore, speak of 'male sexuality' and 'female sexuality,' though we need to recognize that our claims will not be universally applicable, that there is a spectrum of behaviors between these extremes. Frankly, the behaviors and attitudes of 'gay' and 'straight' men are more similar to one another than they (the behaviors of the members of either of these groups) are to the behaviors and attitudes of women. Though a 'gay' man will respond to a sexual stimulus that a 'straight' man will not, and a 'straight' woman will, his attitudes and behaviors are more likely to resemble those of the 'straight' man. For example, I cannot imagine that anyone will deny that most men, whatever their sexual orientation, prefer promiscuity to fidelity while most women, whatever their sexual orientation, prefer the reverse. I am not saying that men are incapable of fidelity, and I'm not saying that no man desires to be monogamous, many, a great many do. I am simply saying that there are observable trends in male sexual behavior. I am not saying that a trend applies to all men. Actually, by using the word 'trend' I am saying that there are some men unaffected by it. Male, female, and third gender are not, then, absolutely differentiated categories.

I should additionally say that when I refer to particular behavioral trends or tendencies, I am not speaking of any norms specific to a given culture. What I am talking about are those behaviors that are associated with the physical make up of persons of a particular gender. Whether these behaviors result from the structure of a person's brain, the hormones present in his body, or the hormones to which he was exposed in the womb, they are things that are associated with a particular gender. It cannot be denied that the male and female bodies are different, including the male and female brains, and that persons of one gender behave differently because of these biological differences.

The Indian system of classification recognizes this fact. It also recognizes that not all the traits associated with a particular gender will be present in a particular individual. It admits of a scale. Some people will be physically male and have only those traits associated with being male. Others, though physically male, will have only some or even none of those traits. It can, as a consequence, be possible for a person to have the external physical traits of one sex but internal traits (brain structures, hormones, etc.) that are associated with the other.

Now, I am not entirely pleased with the Indian system. It does not provide any comprehensive understanding of human sexuality, and many of its specifics are embedded within a particular culture. Nonetheless, it is a better system than is our own. At least it recognizes a real difference, the division of humanity into sexes, and simultaneously recognizes that there is a range of ambiguous individuals between these poles. By making these recognitions, the Indian system does not, like our system, exclude other possible classifications of human sexuality. It still permits them, while, at the same time, providing some classificatory basis that can be used as a starting point for discussions of human sexuality.

This brings me to the main point of this essay. I grant that it is useful to have categories from which we can elaborate particulars. Simple biological gender can provide this basis. Of course, when I say this, I am including all a person's gender related characteristics, including his or her hormones and brain structures. I am not restricting myself to that individual's primary or secondary sexual characteristics. I am certainly not restricting myself to his or her genitals. We can, then, talk about male sexuality and female sexuality while acknowledging that these are merely poles with a great range of possibilities between them, and perhaps unrelated to them. Having accepted this scale of physical sexuality (that is to say, a sexuality based on gender inclined characteristics, including brain structures (and thus personality and thoughts), hormones, primary sexual characteristics, secondary sexual characteristics, and so on), we can go on to look at the complexity of human sexual preferences.

We can, thus, discuss human sexuality in terms of these two things. First, we can discuss sexuality in terms of a person's physical being (including his brain and its activities), which being is, without a doubt, related to his gender. Second, we can discuss it in terms of the objects to which a person is attracted. Since the number of such objects is theoretically infinite, I propose that it is simply not possible to create an arrangement, a schema of these, other than a simple list, an unorganized, potentially infinite enumeration of one preference after another. We should, in fact, abandon trying to arrange categories according to any arrangement of preferences, since, these preferences being of infinite variety, any system of classification will be based on an arbitrary determination that one set of criteria is of greater importance than another.

Let's admit, instead, that human sexuality is infinitely variable. For one person to be attracted to another, that other's hair color might be important while his biological gender might be irrelevant. Someone else might only be interested in a wealthy partner, and yet another person might demand a male partner between the ages of twenty and thirty who is Catholic. At most, we can discuss gender based inclinations (i.e., the inclinations of a person who is male or female), but these often have nothing to do with the objects to which an individual is attracted. Actually, even when we talk about a male-female scale of sexuality, we must do so while recognizing that most everyone will fall somewhere between rather than at the two poles. We should not delude ourselves into believing that the infinite varieties of possible sexual objects can be organized into any coherent scheme.

Not only does our current system ignore the fact that there are those who do not feel that their sexuality fits into any of the three categories, but it also fails to describe the diversity of human sexuality. It says certain behaviors are important and others are not. Even with regard to those behaviors it accepts, it imposes a rigid classification that is often at variance with actual behaviors.

At one time, this system of classification was useful. By presenting human sexuality as consisting of a range of behaviors, it helped to validate behaviors that had once been thought abnormal. Now, however, it constrains us. Interests and behaviors that are not validated by the system are denigrated as perversions, fetishes, or sublimated yearnings towards some accepted behavior. We've learned from this system, but we've outgrown it. Just as an infant, with the help of training pants, outgrows the need for diapers, so we, with this system, are outgrowing the need for our older understandings of human sexuality. However, now that we're a little more mature, let's not keep on wearing our training pants until we die. Let's become adults instead.

By Keith Allen

Reflections on the Current U.S. Presidential Race: A Close Look at Hillary Clinton's Genitalia and Barrack Obama's Complexion

2008-05-01T14:13:00.000-07:00

I am genuinely excited about the current battle for the U.S. presidency, even though I am not in the least excited about any of the major candidates. While I believe that this is an important race, for many reasons, the way large numbers of people are deciding who to support is sidetracking the contest into the most irrelevant channels I can imagine. Frankly, I find several of the criteria, race and gender in particular, that voters are using to choose a candidate to be outright foolish. This perception doesn't, however, make the race any less fascinating for me. In some ways, I'm actually captivated by such foolishness.

I do not deny the historical importance of the fact that the contest to be the Democratic Party's nominee for president is being fought between a Caucasian woman and a black man. That it is says quite a bit about the advances that both blacks and women have made in the United States. However, the fact that so many people are voting for one candidate because she's a woman or the other because he's black considerably diminishes the magnitude of this landmark. We've turned what could have been a monumental historical occurrence into a mere curiosity. Instead of an historical event on the scale of Mount Rushmore, we've left ourselves the equivalent of a concrete statue of Popeye the Sailor Man.

To put it simply, many people are motivated largely, or at least in part, by a desire to see either a woman or a black man advanced. Race and gender, then, are still relevant in this contest. As I said, it's significant that a woman and a black could stand for such an important nomination, but we're diminishing their achievements by giving into the same kinds of blind opinions, that is to say prejudices, that they overcame. We will really have advanced when a woman or a non-Caucasian person can run for the presidency and that individual's gender or race will be of no importance to anyone. That will be an impressive step forward. Today's race reveals that blacks and women can run for office. It also reveals that some people will vote for these individuals because of their agendas and qualifications. Both of these facts are, of course, good. It also reveals that a lot of people still make their decisions based on a candidate's race or gender.

Sadly, voting for a candidate because that candidate is of a particular race or gender is either racist, in the former case, or sexist, in the latter. Whenever one person treats another in a certain way based on that other's sex, although the other's sex is not a relevant factor in how that individual should be treated, then the first person is behaving in a sexist way. Similarly, whenever one person treats another in a certain way based on that other's race, although the other's race is not a relevant factor in how that individual should be treated, then the first person is behaving in a racist way. The specific race or sex of the individual being treated differently because of his or her race or sex is hardly important. If a white employer hires a person because he's white, rather than because he's the most qualified person for the job, then the employer's decision is racist. In the same way, if a black voter chooses a candidate because that candidate is black, rather than because he's the most qualified person for the job, then the voter's decision is racist. Unless an individual's race or sex is relevant to why a person should be chosen for something, then it is not proper to take these things into account.

As should be obvious from this last statement, I am not claiming that race or gender are never relevant. They can be in both public and personal decisions. With regard to the latter, I could mention that if a man is attracted to tall, busty blondes, it is unlikely that he will date many Chinese women. He isn't being racist by excluding them. It's just that there are very few tall, busty, Chinese blondes. Similarly, if a man is only attracted to other men, he's not being sexist when he doesn't date any women. They simply lack the characteristics to which he's attracted. In the public sphere, preferring one person over another based on that person's sex or race may seem more problematic, but, even here, these can be relevant. If a director is making a movie about Mao Tse-Tung and, when casting someone for the lead role, instead of hiring Halle Berry, a much lauded black actress, he chooses a less accomplished actor of Chinese descent, then I can hardly say that he's being either racist or sexist. Race and sex are both relevant factors in this case.

Let's be honest here, now. Neither race nor gender has any bearing upon a person's being qualified to be the president of the United States. If someone is backing Hillary Clinton because she's a woman, he's being sexist, just as someone who's backing McCain or Obama because either of these is a man is being sexist. If someone is backing Obama because he's black, he's being racist, just as someone who's backing McCain or Clinton because either of these is white is being racist.

I truly have no idea what is going on in the minds of people who decide which candidate to support based on that candidate's sex or race. Why would anyone back a candidate based on that candidate's possession of one or more particular bodily organs? How, in the case at hand, are the candidates' genitalia and skin important? The idea that there are people who are choosing who is to be the leader of the world's only super power based on whether that person has a penis or vagina or if that person has skin of a certain color is utterly bizarre.

We should not be examining the genitalia or skin of Hillary Clinton, Barrack Obama, John McCain, or any other possible candidate. We should, instead, be looking at what is relevant. First, each and every one of us able to vote in the U.S. should ask which of these individuals is most likely to push the agenda that we believe is right. Second, we should all ask which of these individuals is likely to be competent in the job of president. It is by weighing these factors that we should come to a decision. Certainly, we do actually have to weigh these factors. We might agree more with one candidate but select another because we feel the first candidate would not be a skilled leader. Alternatively, we might find one candidate more competent than another but prefer the less competent candidate because we disagree strongly with the agenda advocated by the more competent candidate. Looking at such things is important. It is critical we do so. Let's get out of our candidates' underwear and forget about what continent their ancestors came from. Let's ask some relevant questions.

Like I said before, it says a lot about the changes this country has undergone that a black and a woman are now fighting to decide which of them will be the presidential nominee of one of the nation's two major parties. However, the fact that sex and race are important factors in this contest, that many people are choosing a candidate based on these factors, reminds me how far we yet have to go. I am captivated by the drama of America's changing, and the current presidential race highlights many of the things that this country has achieved, as well as many of the things it yet needs to achieve.

Sexual Ethics: Part I

2008-04-03T21:28:00.000-07:00

Introduction and The Foundations of Ethics

Introduction
We live in an age of a great and enthralling spectacle. Today, we, as onlookers and participants at once, cannot help but immerse ourselves in the ferocious battle being fought between those attacking and hoping to tear down that grim, cyclopean structure, tradition, and those who want to defend it and shore it up.

Like some vast and terrible castle, tradition looms over us yet, but this edifice's walls, weakened by the pickaxes of reason and by the disintegration of their aging matter, are crumbling. Nonetheless, this frightening construction is not falling into ruin as fast as its destroyers would desire, nor even as fast as it would be were it left on its own. There are those who, raised in its shadows, are either as blind as worms or as fearful of the light as cockroaches, and these venomous things oppose all the efforts of those who would demolish the walls that provide them with their reassuring gloom. These hordes, shaking with fear and anger, wage a war against the men with the bright torches and the complex tools. They are horrified that the structure built over the centuries to imprison them and keep them away from the light of reason might collapse. As their venerated castle, attacked by its enemies, falls down about them, as its walls tremble and its joints groan, they, while snapping and clawing at their foes, build crazy networks of scaffolding to keep the great heap from tumbling down.

This fight between those who would knock down the prison of tradition and those who would lock themselves in it rages all about us today, and its outcome is not, by any means, certain. Those who strive to create a world guided by reason might yet be defeated and mankind might yet be made to huddle in the darkness of bigotry and superstition.

Reason is not some adamantine sword capable of cutting through the toughest integuments of ignorance and stupidity. Nonetheless, there are people who, though intelligent, have been tricked by the magic lanterns, prestidigitation, and crude deceits of old fashioned magicians. They are not themselves stupid, but, like any person, they can be fooled. It is for the sake of these individuals that I now provide arguments. Perhaps I can, directly or indirectly, help someone to look at things critically, because, if a person does so, reason might just slice through the thin layer of prejudice that keeps him away from rationality.

Obviously, the great prison of tradition covers virtually every field of human existence with its darkness, and I cannot in one short essay dispel the gloom from every place it is found. I can, however, venture forth and raise my own torch in some corner, hoping that I might illumine at least some tiny part of the world.

So now, looking around for a suitable opponent, I immediately discover that, in the world today, there is much debate about sexual ethics. Everywhere I cast my gaze, I notice how gangs of people, inflamed by traditional teachings, rail against promiscuity, homosexuality, prostitution, polygamy, or whatever practice goes against the customs with which they were raised. Having spied these individuals, I cannot avoid noticing that not only are they turning away from a great many of the pleasures life has to offer, but they are also both keeping others from those pleasures and punishing many of those who enjoy them. Here are some opponents worth fighting.

The Foundations of Ethics
To make my attack on the position of those advocating traditional sexual ethics, I must ask what it is that makes some sexual act ethical or unethical. To do this, however, I must lay certain foundations. Specifically, I must ask what makes any action ethical or unethical.

My answer to this question begins with a simple claim, that all living things have innate worth. Perhaps this statement is an axiom, but it is one that I am willing to accept. Innate worth and being alive are effectively synonyms, since having innate worth is simply being alive. If we are to start looking at what constitutes worth, I cannot think of a less arbitrary or less controversial place. There will, of course, be those who will deny that all living things are of equal worth. They will say, for example, that a human being has greater worth than does an oyster. I will not deny that it is possible to assign degrees of worth to different kinds of entities. Doing so is not, however, the point of this essay and can be ignored for the moment. I will, for now, be happy even if the reader will accept that all human beings have equal innate worth. If someone does not accept that all human beings have innate worth, then I suppose I can stop discussing ethics with that person (although I'm sure I'd be wise to keep a watch on someone who denies the worth of other human beings, if only to make sure he doesn't try to kill me or steal from me). If a person claims the innate worth of one person can be greater than is that of another, then he will have to prove it. While he is doing so, I, however, will be keeping an eye on his activities. I'm afraid I've seen more than a sufficient number of the actions of people who make such claims (like Hitler, for example) to make me wary of those individuals. To the person who will admit that all people equally possess innate worth, I do have something to say. Because of an individual 's innate worth, and because, unless it can be shown otherwise, the innate worth of every person must be admitted to be neither greater nor less than the innate worth of another person, every person has a sort of native autonomy. Being of no less worth than another, a person has a right to make decisions for himself, and a right to be free of having the decisions of another imposed upon him. At the same time, since one person is no better than another, no person has a right to make decisions for another and impose his desires upon that other. What is more, because of his innate worth, the desires of a person also have worth, although this is an assigned worth, a secondary worth.

Having said all of this, let me now define ethics as that field of investigation involving determinations of what actions ought to be performed and what ought not to be performed. To make any such determinations, a person has to take into account both the innate and the secondary worth of those individuals with whom he interacts. Specifically, since every person is equal and, consequently, autonomous, that is to say, since every person has a right to make decisions for himself, a person making a decision about what is ethical must take into account the desires of other persons.

It follows from these claims that actions can be divided into three classes, praiseworthy actions, permissible actions, and improper actions. The first of these are duties; they are those actions that one ought to perform. Specifically, they are those actions that a person performs which are both intended to be and determined as likely being conducive to fulfilling those desires of another person that do not themselves impinge upon the fulfillment of the desires of yet another person. The second class of actions, morally neutral actions, are those that are intended to fulfill one's own desires but which are neither intended to be conducive to fulfilling another's desires nor are either intended or likely to impinge upon another's desires. Actions of both of these classes can be said to be ethical, in that such actions involve interactions with other people and are morally permissible. Fulfilling duties is, of course, praiseworthy while engaging in neutral actions is not, but a person does nothing wrong when engaging in actions of either sort. The last class of actions is composed of those actions that are either intended or are likely to impinge upon the desires of another. It is this class of actions that I regard as being unethical.

Because every person has the same innate worth, no person has the right to impinge upon the desires of another. However, when one person does desire to impinge upon the desires of another, because he has no right to do so, and has so acted unethically, it is not unethical to prevent him from doing so. In this case, a person is not impinging upon the desire of a second person simply to fulfill his own desire, but rather to prevent that second person from impinging on the desires of another. The measure is preventative rather than initiatory. Actually, I might add, that when one person impinges upon the desires of a second, any third individual who happens to witness this unethical action, recognizing the worth of the person being imposed upon, has a duty to help that second person, to act in such a way that this individual's desires are fulfilled. If I see a woman being sexually assaulted in a dark alley, I have a duty to help her, and walking away instead of going to help her is an immoral act. In fact, there is little difference between my walking away and the attacker's raping the woman. Both actions will result in the woman being raped. It might be a terrible nuisance, but we do actually have an obligation to our fellow human beings.

From what I have said about every person's innate worth and autonomy, it follows that, when acting on his own, in a way that does not affect others, questions of ethics are irrelevant. A person, being a free agent, makes for himself whatever choices he desires. Since he is autonomous and his decisions have conferred worth, whatever decisions he makes that affect only himself are legitimate. They are neither moral nor immoral. Of course, there are consequences of this assertion. While I have a moral duty to defend others, as I just noted, I do not have such a duty to defend myself. If another impinges upon my desires, I do not have an obligation to fight back. That said, because it is this other person who is impinging upon my desires and not me impinging on his, I do have a right to fight back. Doing so, however, is neither moral nor immoral. It is not ethically obligatory as is fighting to defend someone else. Should I be attacked by a man desiring my blood, it is morally permissible for me to defend myself, but I do not have a duty to do so. If I choose to allow him to harm me, I have the right to make that choice. Whatever choices I make for myself are mine to make, so long as they do not impinge upon the autonomy of others.

Sexual Ethics: Part II

2008-04-03T21:27:00.002-07:00

The Basic Types of Sexual Interactions, External Factors Complicating Sexual Relationships, and The Law of Correct Sexual Behavior

The Basic Types of Sexual Interactions
Now that I have laid out a framework for my ethics, I can apply this framework to human sexuality.

When determining whether a given sexual action is ethical or not, I must first look at whether it involves one person alone or more than one person. If it involves a single person, then, because the determination of whether an act is ethical can only be made when an action involves or affects another person, the act is outside the scope of ethics. It cannot be ethical or unethical. Since every person is autonomous and every person's desires have conferred worth, it follows that a person has every right to engage in whatever solitary sexual acts he desires. To put it bluntly, if a person wants to masturbate, then he has every right to do so. The person is simply doing what he desires to do, and his actions do not harm anyone. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is unethical to condemn a person for masturbating. When someone is attacked or shamed for such actions, the intent of the person so condemning the actions is clearly to make the masturbator feel guilty for fulfilling his desires. The condemning person is thus impinging upon the desires of the person condemned by ignoring that person's desires to experience pleasure, to have self-respect, to enjoy privacy, and so on.

Having so freed the great bulk of human sexual activity from the onus of being unethical, let me now turn to the remainder of human sexual activities, namely, those activities that involve two or more persons. It is, of course, with regard to these that questions of ethics are relevant. Now, to determine whether any given act is ethical or not, the criteria given in the preceding section need to be applied to the actions of the persons involved. Once this has been done, it is possible to decide whether a particular act is praiseworthy, morally neutral, or unethical.

Of course, life is complicated, and a great many factors have to be taken into account in virtually any situation. These factors can, after all, greatly change the propriety of any action. Consequently, whenever a person acts, he has to look at every factor that bears upon the situation, at least to the best of his ability at the time. We are not omniscient, however, and we often must act without sufficient information. It is, nonetheless, still incumbent upon us to act in as informed a way as is possible. Inevitably, we will find ourselves in very complex situations, sometimes without clear answers presenting themselves. We even, on occasion, just have to guess what the best course of action will be, and, at times, we find that every possible course of action mingles the ethical with the unethical.

Since the world is so complicated, it would, perhaps, be best to simplify things so that we can have a basis on which to develop a more intricate system. To do this, to make things simpler, I'll posit a hypothetical situation in which no extraneous factors are present.

Let's imagine that on a deserted island somewhere two human beings spring spontaneously into existence as intelligent, knowledgeable adults. Let's call them Frank and Sally. These two look at each other and interact, with the result that each forms opinions about and feelings for the other. With regard to their sexual desires, there are three possibilities. First, each person desires the other. Second, one of them desires the second, but the second does not desire the first. Third, neither desires the other. The last of these scenarios can be ignored since no sexual interaction will take place. So let's look at the interactions that could occur with the first two possibilities.

If both of these individuals desire one another, then, insofar as each person is acting to fulfill his or her own desire without impinging upon the desires of the other, each is acting ethically when engaging in some sort of sexual activity with the other. Even if one of these individual is acting without intending to fulfill the desire of the other, that person is still engaging in a morally neutral act, since he or she is not impinging upon the desire of the other. Thus, although Sally is so excited that all she cares about is satisfying her urges, and isn't concerned with satisfying Frank's urges, since Frank also desires sex, she is not behaving wrongly. However, if either one of these two is motivated by a desire to fulfill the desire of the other, then that person is engaging in a praiseworthy act. Should Sally, though desiring to have sex herself, also have the desire to satisfy Frank's desire, then, insofar as she is acting to accordance with the second of the motivations, she is engaging in a praiseworthy act.

The situations become more complex when only one of the two persons desires the other. If the person feeling desire refrains from engaging in sexual activity with the second person because he acknowledges the desires of this second person, then he is acting ethically. If he attempts to compel the other person to engage in sexual activity with him, then, by impinging upon the desires of the second person, he acts unethically. As for the person who does not feel desire, if this individual refuses to engage in sexual activity with the first person, then such an action is morally neutral, because it is performed by a free agent and neither fulfills nor impinges upon the desires of the second person. The situation now gets even more complicated. Let's imagine that Frank is the person without desire for sex and that Sally is the person with such desire. Frank sees how Sally suffers because of her inability to fulfill her desire for sex and feels compassion for her. In such a case, Frank, though without desire for sex, might still choose to have sexual relations with Sally in order to fulfill her desires. In this case, Frank's actions are praiseworthy. Sally's actions will, however, need to be examined a little more carefully. If Sally, who desires to have sex with Frank, simply responds to Frank's actions, without realizing Frank's conflicted desires, then, because she is acting in accordance with Frank's expressed desires, her actions are not unethical. Actually, for Sally, the situation would be the same as that when Frank actually desired her. If she responds only in order to fulfill her own desires, then her actions are morally neutral. It is even possible that, believing she is fulfilling Frank's desires, she is acting in a praiseworthy manner. If, however, Sally, the individual with desire, is able to discern Frank's desires, it is incumbent upon her to take them into account. If she determines that there are two conflicting desires present in Frank's mind, namely, the desire to gratify Sally's sexual desires and the desire not to have sex with her, then she must examine the relative strengths of these. After all, when Sally fulfills one of these desires she will, inevitably, be thwarting the other. If Frank's desires seem to be of roughly equal or even of indeterminate intensity, then, as the praiseworthy action is negated by the unethical and the unethical by the praiseworthy, Sally may take her own desires into account. She may have sex with Frank and be confident that her actions are morally neutral. If she determines that one of Frank's desires is of greater intensity, then her own desires become irrelevant. She must do the minimum harm and the maximum good to the other person. Thus, if Sally honestly feels that Frank's desire to do her good, by having sex with her, is greater than his desire not to have sex with her, she should have sex with him. Moreover, while she does, she can put aside any concerns about thwarting his lesser desire and know that she has acted properly. If, however, Sally determines that the opposite is the case, that Frank has a strong desire not to have sex with her and a weak desire to satisfy her desire, then she should not have sex with Frank. In this case, if she does have sex with him, she would then be acting unethically. In both these situations, an action can be both ethical and unethical. To decide what course of action we ought to take in such cases, we must weigh the desires of individuals affected by our actions as best we can. Inevitably, we will make mistakes, but we must still try.

I am reminded of an ancient story from India that illustrates this point quite nicely. In it, the protagonist happens upon a departed soul who is being punished by some particularly gruesome sort of torture for a sin he committed in life. The hero asks this individual what he did to be so tormented, and the soul tells his story. He relates how, in his last life, he had been a holy man who never lied and was always charitable. Then, one day, a man came running to his home in terror and begged to be hidden. The holy man told this person to enter his house and hide there. A few minutes later, a gang of ruffians carrying weapons and clearly desiring to kill the person who had been fleeing ahead of them arrived at the house. They asked the holy man if he knew where their prey had fled. Since he never lied, he told them the man was in the house. The ruffians entered it and killed their victim. Later, when he died, the holy man found out that he was as guilty of the murder of the man who had hidden in his house as were the ruffians who had been chasing him. In his blindness, the holy man had chosen to avoid a minor transgression, lying, but had, by doing so, caused the death of another human, which is hardly a minor transgression. The lesson here is clear. Sometimes, performing a good act entails committing an evil act. Should we fail to weigh the relative merits of these, we are not just demonstrating a lack of discernment. We can be acting immorally.

External Factors Complicating Sexual Relationships
The story of the holy man related above makes it clear that deciding on a proper course of action can require some reflection, and that the relative merit and demerit of different actions must be examined. A person cannot simply take into account the expressed desires of another individual. Thus, when the holy man in this tale decided to speak honestly about the presence of the man in his house, he ought to have considered the consequences the violent intentions of the ruffians would have on the man they sought. He ought to have realized that their desires would impinge upon the desire of the man hiding, but he did not. He reacted to their expressed desire to know the location of this individual, but he completely forgot about his obligations to other persons, specifically his obligation to the man who would be killed as a result of his truth telling.

Obviously, a person making an decision needs to weigh factors other than the desires of the persons directly affected by his action (such as the desire of the members of a band of murderous ruffians to hear the truth about the location of their prey). There are, in reality, various factors that can alter the dynamics of a situation. To be specific, these factors are any condition, action, or fact that must be taken into account along with the desires of the other party because these might 1) limit the freedom of one party to engage in an action since the performance of that action would involve doing something unethical to a third person, 2) incline one person not desiring to engage in an activity, here a sexual act, to do so by producing in that person a new desire, usually a desire to avoid pain, or 3) affect the ability of one party to make rational, ethical decisions.

In making ethical decisions, we must consider how these factors bear on the act we are thinking of performing. After all, there are obligations one person has to another - whether these are promises voluntarily made to another or the universal duty to consider the desires of others - which have ethical consequences for that person's interactions with a third individual. Additionally, when one person, whether intentionally or not, produces in a second person a desire to avoid pain that is so intense that the second person has two competing desires - one to avoid the pain and the other not to have sex - then, because he is infringing upon the second person's autonomy by creating such a desire and exploiting it to impel the person to have sex with him, he is behaving in a way that ignores the other's worth. There are even influences that, by reducing a person's capacity to make judgments and to behave ethically, nullify another individual's right to acknowledge all of the first person's desires. All of these factors must be considered when making ethical decisions about how any other individual should be treated. When these factors come into play, the simple guidelines just given are not sufficient to determine the propriety of a given action. Though a person should still apply these guidelines when making an ethical decision, he should do so with an awareness that additional factors could be complicating the situation.

Admittedly, not all human interactions are complicated by outside factors. There are many occasions when two or more people, both or all of whom are free agents and acting according to their desires, choose to engage in sexual relations. In such cases, their actions are completely ethical, just as those who do not engage in sexual relations because they do not desire to do so are acting ethically. Sometimes, conflicting desires in a person must be weighed against one another, and an action's being ethical or not will depend upon a person's acting in accordance with that determination.

However, it is not uncommon for outside factors to affect human interactions. Because such factors affect what our moral judgments will be, we must be aware of these factors, and we must take them into account. To do so, however, we must be aware of what such factors could be.

Coercion, for example, could be employed by one person on another in order to induce that other into engaging in sexual relations.

I do not here mean simple crude physical force, since physical assault is not really an outside factor as these have been defined. It is simply a series of actions performed by an agent that ignore the desires of another person. By means of physical assault, one individual overpowers another and prevents that other from refusing to have sexual relations with him. When saying that physical attacks are not an external factor, I am not, however, saying that physical attacks are anything but immoral. They are undoubtedly immoral. Because acts of physical compulsion directly impinge upon the desire of the person against whom they are directed, they automatically make any sexual act performed as a result of that compulsion immoral.

The threat of actual physical attack is, however, an extraneous factor as I have defined it, and, I might add, such a threat is as much coercion as is a physical attack. Allow me to explain. Clearly, it is possible for one person to employ some means of creating a sense of danger, physical intimidation, for instance, to produce in a person, the victim of the threat, a desire to avoid what is being threatened. This desire might even be strong enough to outweigh the victim's desire not to engage in sex with the person doing the threatening. If this is the case, the threat can impel the victim into consenting to having sex. Obviously, whenever one person threatens to physically harm another if that other will not engage in a sexual act with the first, that first person is behaving unethically. I hardly even need to argue this point. It should, I hope, be apparent to anyone that the person doing the threatening is impinging upon the desires of his victim by bringing into their interactions an additional factor, namely, the threat.

There are, however, any number of other kinds of coercion that can be just as effective as are any threats of physical harm.

It is quite possible for one person to threaten another with economic ruin, personal humiliation, or some other sort of non-physical injury in order to induce that person to have sex with him. Because, in every one of these instances, the person being induced to have sex does not desire to have sex and is consenting to have sex only in order to avoid an injury that is deemed to be worse than having sex with an individual who is not desired as a sexual partner, the individual threatening the other is behaving unethically.

Coercion does not, however, require the use of violence or threats. Coercion, after all, is simply causing a person to do something although that person has not expressed a desire to do it. When the person cannot make a decision to do something, then causing him to do it is, inevitably, coercion. Consequently, if a given individual is incompetent to consent to a sexual act, and another individual, one who is not incompetent, still engages in some sexual activity with the incompetent person, then the competent person is effectively coercing the incompetent person.

There are, moreover, an almost infinite number of reasons why a person might not be competent to make the decision to consent to a sexual act. Such an individual could be unconscious, intoxicated, very young, disturbed by extreme emotions, severely mentally ill or handicapped, or afflicted by any number of other conditions. Although it is not always possible to determine if a given individual is incompetent for one of these reasons, it is incumbent upon the competent person to attempt to make that determination. If he does, then, even should be incorrect, he will know that his actions were not improper. If he does not, then he is guilty of coercing another person into having sex with him and has so behaved unethically. For example, a man might meet a woman who displays certain eccentricities. These strike him as possible indicators of mental illness. He then should make a genuine effort to discover if the woman is competent to make the decision to engage in sexual relations with him. If he does so and honestly concludes that she is sane enough to make this decision, then he is behaving ethically if he has sex with her, even if he later learns that he was incorrect in his assessment. If he ignores the signs of possible illness and proceeds to have sex with the woman, he has behaved unethically, even if he later discovers that the woman is perfectly sane.

Admittedly, every person, being autonomous, has the right to make his own decisions. Nevertheless, experience demonstrates that all persons are not equally capable of making decisions. In most instances, we just have to accept others' judgments, since, though they might be unwise, or even destructive, they are, nonetheless, made by a person who is simply relatively less capable than another. In other instances, however, a person, because of a particular mental state, simply cannot be trusted with making decisions. That person, because of this impaired mental state, is observed to be incapable either of seeing the consequences of his actions or of making decisions at all. This individual, consequently, is likely to make decisions that will be harmful to himself or others. When this is judged to be the case, other people have a moral obligation to prevent this individual from acting upon his decisions. Once again, I am not talking about those who are unwise or who have opinions judged different from my own. I am talking about those whose mental functioning is demonstrably impaired.

Even should such a person express consent to performing a sexual act, this does not relieve the mentally competent individual who proceeds to have sexual relations with this person of the guilt of having engaged in an unethical action. Expressions of consent by a person incapable of giving consent do not constitute consent. Because this is the case, I condemn the actions of the man who would convince a severely mentally ill individual to have sex with him, as well as those of the man who has sex with someone who, having had too much to drink, has passed out, and those of the man who, finding some person distraught over the loss of a loved one, sees an opportunity to exploit that individual's severely impaired reasoning for his own gratification.

The actions of the person who is impaired are, however, generally outside the scope of ethics. Since such an individual has a limited or non-existent capacity for discerning right from wrong, he is incapable of making ethical decisions. This is why the intoxicated person who has sex with a willing sober partner has done nothing wrong. It is the sober individual who has sex with this person who has done something improper. It follows from this that when two persons who are intoxicated have sexual relations, neither is doing anything wrong. Neither is capable of making rational judgments, and both are acting in accord with the expressed desire of the other. The situation does become more complicated when an intoxicated person has sex with another person who, whether intoxicated or not, does not wish to have sex with him. In such cases, though the intoxicated person is incompetent to make the decision to have sex, he was competent to make the decision to drink and so render himself incompetent. He is, then, guilty of unethical behavior. When a person is not competent to make a decision as a result of some condition over which he has no control, and this person compels another to have sex, the situation is different again. In such instances, it must be admitted that the individual has not behaved unethically, because he is incapable of making a rational decision. Nonetheless, because the individual could be judged to be dangerous, it would be foolish not to confine him. If, for example, a mentally ill man rapes a woman, that man ought to be institutionalized. His freedom is not, however, being restricted because he has acted unethically, but because he is dangerous.

There are, unfortunately, even more ways that one individual can coerce another into engaging in sexual activities.

In this complex and unequal world in which we live, a person might be compelled to engage in a sexual act with another person simply because the first of these individuals is in a position that is subordinate to the other. When one person, the superior, has such a relationship with another person, the subordinate, then the interactions of these two are inevitably tinged with potential threat to the well-being of the latter. In hierarchical relationships, any interactions the superior has with the subordinate can, as a result, be colored by the latter's feelings of fear. Consequently, should the superior desire to have sexual relations with the subordinate, the subordinate's consent could well be given simply out of a fear of retribution. The threat of such retribution need not even be overtly stated. The subordinate need merely know that if the wishes of the superior are not fulfilled, there could be consequences, and this knowledge comes simply from knowing the nature of the relationship.

Because there is always, in such relationships, the potential for feelings of fear, there is no way that the superior can be certain that the subordinate is consenting to sex because of a desire for sex. It is always possible that the subordinate is agreeing to have sex simply because of fear. As a result, even if the superior does not intend to use his position to threaten the subordinate, he cannot rule out the possibility of coercion. Relationships between individuals one of whom has authority over the other are, therefore, almost invariably improper. Thus, teachers should not have sex with their students, employers should not have sex with their employees, military officers should not have sex with enlisted personnel, and so on and so on.

Similar issues arise whenever two individuals who are of radically different economic or social backgrounds interact. Because the person of the less privileged social class might be fearful of retribution if he rejects sexual advances made by a person who is of a more privileged social class, and so has, or is perceived to have, power to do the former harm, this latter person will be acting improperly whenever he fails to take such feelings into account. If a rich man has sex with a poor woman, it is quite likely that she is consenting to the act not because she desires to have sex with the man but because she fears that he might be able to do harm to her or to those she cares about. It is also possible that, because of received attitudes about persons of certain more privileged social classes, that the less privileged individual could be overawed by the other and agree to the performance of a sexual act simply as a result of being dazzled by the presence of one perceived to be somehow prestigious. Unfortunately, there are numerous examples of people who will have sexual relations with another because they are so awed. Just look at the number of women who will throw themselves at celebrities in the hope of gracing their hero's beg for a night. While there are certainly examples of women doing this with a clear mind, I cannot but imagine that a fairly high percentage of such women are simply so awed, so overcome by emotion, that, being virtually drunk, they are not thinking clearly. Those of the more powerful class who engage in sexual relationships with persons of a less privileged class are, for both of the reasons given, behaving unethically.

The last means of coercion is simple deception. When one individual convinces another to have sex with him by misleading the other, then he is acting unethically. If the deceiver is providing information to the other, the deceived, that is not true, in order that the deceived person will make a decision based on this false information, then, although the deceived is acting upon his own desires, those desires are not based on the actual situation. Were the truth known to the deceived person, it is possible his desires would have been different. Even if they would not have been, because the deceiver is manipulating the deceived in order to produce desires favorable to himself, rather than to the deceived, and because he is preventing the deceived from forming desires based on facts, the deceiver's actions are, in effect, coercing the desires of the deceived. The deceiver's actions are, consequently, improper. When, for example, a man tells a woman he loves her, though he does not, because he realizes that she will be willing to have sex with a person she believes loves her, he is acting unethically. The woman, being deceived, engages in an activity she would not have engaged in had she not been deceived.

Before concluding this discussion, I want to emphasize a point already made, namely, that it is possible that an individual might coerce another into having sex without being aware that he is coercing this other. Is he, then, behaving unethically? Unfortunately, the answer to this, like many answers, is not simple. If the person unintentionally coercing another does so by not being aware of the other's feelings, situation, mental state, or whatever when he could have been so aware, then he, by not respecting the other's autonomy, is behaving unethically. Being negligent might not be as bad as being deliberately hurtful, but it is still not right. We have an obligation to try to know what others feel, and if we make no effort to find out, we are responsible for our failings. That said, if there truly is no way for a person to know that he is coercing another, if, for example, that person is wealthy and the other, though poor, is pretending to be wealthy, then the person unintentionally coercing the other will have done nothing wrong.

The final factor that can come into play in the interactions of potential sexual partners, and that can make one or more of those persons' sexual actions unethical, is some contractual obligation. If a given individual has entered into an agreement with a second individual not to engage in particular sexual activities, and yet that person does so, then, because he is deceiving the second person and reneging on obligations he took upon himself, he is behaving unethically. When, for example, a man marries some woman and promises to remain monogamous for the duration of that marriage, any time he engages in sexual activity with a third person, he is behaving unethically.

Though we must always consider a person's desires, we must look at them while being aware that there are other factors that can complicate a given situation. Sometimes, these factors limit one person's ability to make decisions. Sometimes, these produce, often very forcefully, new desires, such as the desire to avoid being harmed, which are contrary to a person's other desires and so impinge upon the autonomy of the individual in which they are created. Sometimes, these are obligations that one person has taken upon himself and which limit, or should limit, his ability to act upon his desires..

The Law of Correct Sexual Behavior
In summary, any sexual act must be admitted as being moral when it is performed by two or more free, uncommitted, competent, and roughly equal partners who both or all have consented to that act. To be more specific, any sexual act is moral as long as none of three prohibitive conditions is present. These prohibitive conditions are: 1) that one partner has entered into an agreement with a third person not to engage in the act in question, 2) that one partner is intentionally coercing the other into performing the sexual act, and 3) that, if coercion occurs but is unintentional, the person who is so unintentionally coercing the other can reasonably be expected to be aware that he or she could be coercing that second person. Possible forms of coercion include: 1) one person physically constraining the other and thereby compelling the other to engage in a sexual act, 2) one person threatening the other with harm, whether that harm is physical, emotional, economic, or something else, 3) one person's having a position of authority over the other so that the second person's ability to choose whether or not to engage in sexual activities may be compromised by a fear of retribution, in the case of the second person's decision not being in accord with the desires of the person who has authority over him or her, 4) one person's inability to consent to the sexual relationship, whether as a consequence of extreme youth, mental illness, brain damage, intoxication, unconsciousness, or something else, 5) one person's convincing the other to engage in a sexual act by means of deception, or 6) an extreme disparity in the social or economic conditions of the persons involved, which disparity could prevent one person from making a rational decision about whether or not to accept the first as a sexual partner. If none of the three conditions mentioned above is present, a sexual act performed between two or more persons cannot be immoral.

Sexual Ethics: Part III

2008-04-03T21:27:00.001-07:00

A Modern Debate About Sex: Sodomy, Premarital Sex, Promiscuity, Marriage, and Vows

"Well," some irate traditionalist might object, "I ain't too sure about how right your definition of sexual morality is. You say that any kind of sexin' is okay as long it's done by competent consentin' folk, but if that's the case, it'd mean that a whole lot of sins are just fine. Frankly, your definition don't seem useful at all for figurin' out what to consider moral or immoral. We ain't all into free love and wild livin'. Some of us still have values, and we think there are some things that just ain't right. What about sodomy? What about premarital sex? What about adultery? What about women who go a-whorin'? You've got to admit that those are all things that just need to be condemned."

Let's look at these behaviors in the light of what I've said. Maybe that'll help to determine if they're ethical or not.

Is sodomy wrong? If the act is performed by two or more free, uncommitted, competent, and roughly equal partners who both or all have consented to the act, then I'd have to say that the act is perfectly moral. I suppose there are those who will claim that the use of certain body parts is just innately unethical, but I don't know how they could justify this rationally. Maybe there are tiny invisible devils living in certain human organs, and these nasty little fiends sprinkle those organs with "devil dust" to make them impure. Since such a claim is complete make believe it does not, fortunately, need to be addressed. No part of the human body is more or less pure than any other. If someone thinks certain parts are more or less pure than others, then his opinion is based exclusively on inherited prejudice, not on any empirical evidence. For that matter, his belief in purity itself is based on such prejudice. It's a completely made up concept. Even if he appeals to the actual presence of bacteria in or on particular body parts, he's going to be in trouble, especially since he'll never be able to use his hands or mouth again. Actually, I wouldn't complain if some traditionalist did make such a claim. It would be good for those of us devoted to reason if he did. Since this individual wouldn't thereafter be using his hands or mouth, he wouldn't be able argue his position in writing or verbally. That would keep him out of a good deal of mischief.

"That ain't it all," my traditionalist snaps. "It just ain't natural to have sex with the mouth or the anus!"

I have to admit that I'm not entirely sure what my old fashioned friend means when he says that something isn't "natural." I suppose that there are really two possibilities. It could be that he believes that something isn't "natural" if it doesn't serve a biological function. However, if that's what's intended, then my traditionalist must oppose religion, literature, education, and engaging in business. Because none of these things serve a biological function, they must not be natural, and, not being natural, they must be condemnable. The second possible intended meaning of the word (that I can see) is as a label that allows us to make a distinction between things that are devised by human beings and things that are not, the latter being "natural" and the former being "unnatural." Of course, if this is what is meant, then, since it's not natural to wear clothing or build houses, I assume this person is also a nudist living under a tree.

"That's different," he answers. "We have our intelligence. We can learn how to do new things."

Now that's a relief! The traditionalist agrees with me. He concedes that we can employ our intelligence to learn how to do new things, like using the mouth, the anus, the elbow, the foot, the ear, or anything else to do what we want, namely, to fulfill our sexual desires.

"That's pretty nasty. Still, at least you ain't sayin' it's alright for two men or two women or a man and one of them trannies, or whatever you call them, to go at it."

I thought I had said exactly that when I mentioned that any sexual act performed by two or more free, uncommitted, competent, consenting, and roughly equal partners is morally acceptable. I completely fail to see how the genders of the persons involved would be relevant. To tell you the truth, the claim that the genders of the persons involved is relevant is so nonsensical and so arbitrary that I don't even see why it needs to be addressed. I might at well address the relevance of the shape of the participants' eyebrows, the number of moles they have on their ears, their ethnic backgrounds, or their religious or political affiliations.

"Okay, you perverts do what you like, but you still have to admit bumpin' uglies before you're married just ain't right."

Why should I? I've laid out pretty specific conditions for determining if an action is unethical, and I don't see how engaging in sexual relations outside of marriage violates any of those conditions. If a person wants to have sex, then he should have sex.

"Okay, you have your sex before you get married," my traditionalist now hoots, "but you better not say it's right! Just look at the risks. You go around havin' sex with different folks, and you're sure gonna catch some kind of sickness."

I'll grant that, for both pragmatic and ethical reasons, every person should be aware of the risks of having sex, but being aware of such risks does not mean that he shouldn't have sex. Certainly, any person ought to know that there will be a risk of contracting a sexually transmitted disease if he has sexual contact with another person. He has no ethical obligation to himself to be so aware, but it would be prudent to know this and to act in accordance with this knowledge. What is more, every sexually active person does have an ethical obligation to his partners to be aware of the risks of sexual activity. If an individual engages in unsafe sex with multiple partners and infects one or more of those partners with a sexually transmitted disease, his negligence makes him at least partially responsible for the suffering that other person or persons will endure.

Acknowledging that there are risks involved in an activity does not, however, mean acknowledging that the activity is unethical. It's risky to walk down the sidewalk. If I close my eyes, I might run into a pole or another pedestrian. I might, if I jump too merrily along my way, stumble and fall in front of a car. I might even knock someone else in front of that car when I fall. Since I acknowledge that there are dangers involved in walking, am I to think that walking is unethical? No. I just admit that I should walk in a responsible way that takes those risks into account. The same is true with sex. There are risks involved, but having sex isn't made unethical because of their existence.

"You are a sick thing!" the traditionalist now shrieks in disgust. "You just don't know how good it is to wait for somethin' special. Now, that's why some of us save ourselves till we get married."

I'll admit that there's no ethical reason why a person should have sex before getting married. Doing so is entirely a matter of personal choice. Nonetheless, waiting does strike me as being rather foolish. A pleasure deferred is a pleasure missed. I guess there are also people who forgo eating until they encounter that special dinner that will mean something extra to them. I cannot, however, understand how anyone would be so blind as to think this would be a fulfilling course of action. As someone once said, chastity is as much a virtue as is starvation. That is true. Both are equally pointless self-deprivations.

That said, there are legitimate reasons for forgoing a pleasure. It might be dangerous, like indulging in hard drugs is. It might, if experienced, prevent one from experiencing another greater pleasure, as might eating some snack just before being served a nice meal. It might require that a person ignore his responsibilities, as might some activity that prevents a person from going to his work to earn a living. It might be illegal, like gambling is in many places. In all of these instances, a person is probably wise to forgo the pleasure in question.

However, if there is not such a reason and a person passes on experiencing some joy life has to offer simply because he feels that the pleasure is wrong, when it is not, then he inevitably diminishes the quality of his life. He reduces the bliss he might have relished in his days upon this earth, and deliberately missing out on life's pleasures by devaluing these is just being foolish. Now, let's be honest, this is usually why a person forgoes a pleasure. The person who is celibate has, more often than not, chosen to be so because he has been deceived into thinking that certain or all sexual acts are wicked. This said, I will not try to prevent any person who has so been deluded from renouncing sex. I won't even prevent the most extreme hater of the flesh from living naked in a cave, eating nothing but worms and moss, and flagellating himself every day. If that's how he chooses to live his life, he's free to make that choice. Nonetheless, in all likelihood, his desire for this ascetic existence was aroused as a result of his being deceived, and I will hardly claim that he is being wise when he fails to see this. He is, after all, wasting his chance to experience the wonders of this incredible world and, in particular, sex, which is undoubtedly one of the greatest joys of life. I would, instead, tell him to seize the pleasures this world has to offer. Do not reject them. Of course, when I say that, I am telling that person to have sex.

Admittedly, as I already said, there can be reasons to forgo a pleasure, and a person might find a reason to forgo sexual pleasures at some time. In fact, brief periods of celibacy can be useful for various reasons. For instance, periods of celibacy can create such sexual tension that a person's mental state is so affected that he is able to immerse himself deeply in activities involving extreme emotions, such as certain ecstatic religious festivals. If the positive consequences of periods of celibacy are desired intensely enough to justify the loss of sexual pleasures during those times, then I would not argue that such celibacy is foolishly adopted. The fulfillment of one desire, that for sex, is simply sacrificed for the fulfillment of another desire that happens to be greater. Nonetheless, such instances are of limited scope and do not affect my general assertion, that a person is diminishing his existence by willingly adopting a celibate life. To put things simply, if he doesn't have a good reason to be celibate, it's just silly for a person not to have sex, even if he's not married.

"You nasty dog!" my traditionalist howls. "I guess you ain't capable of knowin' how good it is not to experience some pleasure. You just sink into your mire of fleshly delights and wallow there. I'm happy to atone for Adam's sins by mortifyin' my meat. I'll bet you even despise the holy bond of matrimony. You probably think folks ought to just ignore that sacred chain and go stickin' their gooey dipper in every honeypot that looks sweet to them."

Well, I have to admit that if we're talking about some supernatural institution that imposes certain taboos on any person that involves himself in that institution, then I don't see how it could really bind anyone. Is this some magical rite that's being talked about? Is it some enchantment that will bring down curses of boils and plagues of toads? Let's face it, no such transcendent entity exists. Consequently, this institution cannot impose anything on any human being. If people are guided by the belief in such an institution, then they have been deceived. It's the same as being afraid of a witch's spells or the dangers of stepping on cracks.

However, if my opponent is referring to the oaths people make to one another, then I fully agree that those who make such oaths should honor them. We have obligations to one another, and if we make promises, we should keep them. If two free and competent people enter into a relationship and promise one another to remain monogamous for the duration of that relationship, then, if either of them violates that promise, he or she is behaving unethically. After all, each person freely made this oath in exchange for a relationship with the other, and, by violating his oath, he is violating that agreement. Specifically, he is impinging upon the expressed desire of the other person to continue the relationship under the terms agreed upon.

Of course, it is quite possible for two, or even more, people to enter into a committed relationship with one another without agreeing to limit their sexual partners. If such is the case, then a person, though married, need not remain monogamous. There are an endless number of possibilities here, but these need not be elaborated.

"Wait a second! Hold your horses!" my traditionalist interjects. "Are you sayin' what I think you're sayin'? Are you defendin' wife-swappin' or somethin' like that?"

In effect, I am. As I've already said, marriage is not some mystical institution that imposes itself upon human beings. It is simply that relationship existing between particular human beings who have agreed to enter into such a relationship, especially, in the context of the Modern West, when this relationship is defended by laws that differentiate it from other types of relationships not so defended. For the sake of ethics, these legal elements of marriage can be ignored. What is relevant is the commitment that one human being has made to another.

"There you go. Now you're talkin' sense. That's what marriage is all about: one man and one woman together till they die."

Actually, that's not what I said. Certainly, one man and one woman can make a commitment to one another and promise to remain monogamous. There are other possibilities, however. Two men could make such a promise, or two women could. Three men could do so, or three women could. The list could go on and on, although I suppose that there are practical limitations. Still even more complex arrangements could be made. One man could take multiple wives or one wife multiple husbands. A group of people of both genders could even form a communal unit.

"By gosh! You are raunchy! Still, at least you ain't advocatin' wife-swappin'."

Who said I wasn't? Actually, I thought I already said I was. While the persons in a given relationship might have made an agreement not to have sexual relations with persons not in that relationship, there is no reason why they have to do so. It's possible that married persons might want to be in a relationship with each other but still have sexual relations with others. If the married persons agreed to this, then there's nothing wrong with their acting in accord with that agreement.

In fact, as far as I can tell, the variety of possible restrictions that might be agreed upon is infinite. I'll give you a hypothetical example just to illustrate this. Let's imagine that four people, two men and two women, enter into a relationship. According to the agreement by which this union is formed, the first man can have sex with any person willing to have sex with him, whether this person is in the relationship or not; he just can't enter into a contractual relationship (a marriage) with that other person. The second man can only have sexual relations with the first man and the first woman. The first woman can have sex with any of the other three in the relationship, as well as with any other man (though not any other woman). The second woman can have sexual relationships with the first man and the first woman and can form a marriage with any other person so long as that person agrees not to have sexual relationships with anyone other than her and the first man.

Obviously, it's unlikely most people would form such complex unions, but any union, whether simple or complicated, is just an agreement made by its members to behave in certain ways in exchange for the perpetuation of a relationship with the others. What the terms of this union are depend entirely upon what the individuals involved decide upon as free agents, but whatever these terms are, they do bind those who make them, at least ethically, if not legally. What is relevant here is not the precise organization of a relationship, but that a person keeps any promises he has made to another.

"Well, I can't say I like your ideas of marriage. You're gonna let perverts have all kinds of dirty fun. Still, I'm glad to hear you say that promises are important. That's why, when my daughter turned eleven and got afflicted with Eve's curse, I made her promise me she'd stay pure till she got married. Now she's got a promise to keep, and if she don't keep it, I'm gonna whip her in this life till she gets a feel of what the devil's gonna do to her in the next."

That sounds like a nice way to raise a daughter. Unfortunately, children are not competent to enter into contracts. Because they don't have the knowledge or the experience to make reasonable judgements, we can't hold them to any agreements. Now, I'm not saying a child shouldn't be punished when he makes a promise and then breaks it. He should be. However, his punishment is an attempt to teach him. It's not being imposed because he's behaved unethically. Until a person is old enough to make rational decisions, he is outside the scope of morality. What that means is that your daughter is under no moral obligation to keep a promise she wasn't competent to make in the first place. Even if she was mature enough to understand the agreement, since you have such power over her, I can't see how she could possibly freely consent to any contract with you. It's quite likely she agreed simply to avoid being punished in some way. Contracts made under duress, sadly for you, are never valid.

"Okay, okay. It doesn't matter anyway. If she goes and acts like some hussy, I'm gonna knock her upside her head so hard her eyeballs are gonna pop out of her skull. That'll keep her in line. I'm a lot bigger than she is, and she knows I can whoop her. Yep, that'll keep her in line. I don't need no promise from no puny little girl. It's the promise of my wife that really matters. I'm sure you agree that since she promised to stay with me 'till death do we part,' she can't leave me."

That is quite a commitment. I assume, of course, that you have treated her the way that she expected to be treated when she made that agreement with you. If you did not, then you might have voided the contract yourself. In that case, she would no longer be bound by its terms.

"I always treat her right. I hardly ever whoop her."

Even if you have treated her right, I suspect that she might have agreed to stay with you until one of you died without thinking about what that entails. If that's the case, then she was wrong to make the agreement in the first place, but maintaining a relationship only to avoid violating a contract that shouldn't have originally been made is going to do nothing but bring about unhappiness. Bringing about such misery is far worse of a thing than voiding a contract, especially a flawed one. Let's face it, feelings and circumstances change. We should acknowledge that fact by acknowledging that relationships can be ended. We should not, consequently, enter into contracts the terms of which are unreasonable by their not conceding this reality. Of course, it is wonderful when two people stay in love with one another their whole lives. Nonetheless, we have to admit that many people are just being unrealistic if they are absolutely certain that their feelings for another person will not change. Relationships, even when sanctified as marriages, can always be dissolved.

Sexual Ethics: Part IV

2008-04-03T21:25:00.000-07:00

A Modern Debate about Sex: Prostitution and Scripture
Conclusion

A Modern Debate About Sex: Prostitution and Scripture
My traditionalist is probably by now boiling with anger and indignation. He must be convinced I'm a great mass of sin.

Barely able to contain himself, this old fashioned moralist now says, "My ears feel dirty from just listenin' to your wicked lies, and it ain't just the wax in 'em, either. Still, I ain't done with you yet. I'm gonna hoist you with your own petard. You said that if one fella wants to have sex with somebody, probably another fella, but that other fella is conflicted, that he wants to make the first fella happy but he don't wanna have sex with him, then maybe it ain't right for the first fella to go a-sexin' the other one. You said that now. You can't deny it. Okay. Here's the deal. You've got to admit that whorin' ain't right, 'cause I don't know no whore who ever wanted to go sex some john just to make him feel good, and no whore ever wanted to have sex for free, neither. What that means is that, when a john has sex with a whore, he's doin' somethin' that goes 'gainst her desire. He's doin' somethin' wrong. Now you've got to agree with me about that."

I don't agree, though. The details of such an interaction are a little different than those just described. I agree that, in a given situation that could lead to a sexual encounter between a prostitute and a client, it's unlikely that the prostitute desires either to have sex with the man or to fulfill his desires. However, the prostitute does want something else. She wants to be paid. When she is engaging in a sexual act, she is doing so in exchange for money. It's a simple transaction.

"But she's still doin' somethin' she don't want to do, so it's wrong."

This isn't necessarily the case. Virtually all human beings engage in transactions in which we agree to perform some action that we have no desire to perform in exchange for something that we do desire. Very few of us, after all, are employed without compensation. Admittedly, some people enjoy their jobs. Some might even do them without compensation. Most people, however, work in exchange for something they need, money. They engage in an activity that they might not like in return for being given something they do desire. As long as there is no coercion involved in agreeing to such an exchange, then, since a person is a free agent, he is free to consent to engage in actions he does not desire to perform in order to receive something he does desire. A prostitute is as free to do so as is anyone else.

"There's a difference, though. I'm a plumber. I use my hands, and I have skills. A whore's just spreadin' her thighs. It's dirty and wrong."

I thought I'd already established that no part of the human body is innately dirty. A person's genitals are every bit as worthy as his hands are. They're just as beautiful, just as clean, and just as liable to being employed by that person for whatever end he sees fit. What's more, it's quite possible that a prostitute could develop as much skill at sex as a worker of a different sort develops with regard to his trade. Even if she doesn't, there's nothing shameful in unskilled labor. Frankly, it's as dignified as any other work is. It's often more so, in that unskilled laborers often suffer in terrible conditions and receive low wages and yet they work to provide for their needs and the needs of those they love. It would seem that they are more worthy, in this way, than are those who work little for high wages used to provide for an indulgent life-style.

"Okay, okay. Maybe a whore can flex her money-maker all kinds of ways. Still, you're talkin' about transactions between free agents. A lot of them whores ain't free. They've got pimps beatin' them if they don't go get johns. Some of them whores even get sold to their pimps. How are they free to agree to some transaction?"

Well, my old fashioned enemy will be happy to hear that this is one point I'll concede to him. If a person is forced into prostitution, if she is coerced into engaging in sexual activities in return for money, then the person so compelling the prostitute is behaving in an unethical fashion. The prostitute is, of course, a victim, and she is doing nothing wrong. Anybody compelling her is.

"Now I've got you. Now you've got to admit the john is actin' wrong too. He's havin' sex with a woman who's bein' coerced into havin' sex with him."

You are, indeed, correct. If a man goes to a prostitute for sex and has reason to suspect that she's working as a prostitute because she's being coerced, then, should he have sex with her, by so impinging upon her desires, by effectively raping her, he is behaving unethically. I might add that it is always unethical to take advantage of the labor of a person who has been coerced into doing that labor. This rule does not apply to prostitutes alone.

"Glad to know you got some sense. I hope you'll admit that another reason why we should get rid of whores is 'cause they spread disease. Besides, a whore might tempt a married man to commit adultery."

I suppose my traditionalist enemy was not paying attention earlier. I thought I had already discussed how a person would be acting prudently if he learned what the consequences of his actions could be and how he would be wise to take these into consideration when he does act. The same rules apply to a person's patronage of prostitutes as apply to any other sexual relations he might have. Again, an activity's having risks does not make it wrong.

As for a married man having sex with a prostitute, the same standards apply as would if he had sex with any other person. Obviously, if a person has freely agreed to limit his sexual partners and does not do so, then he is guilty of violating that agreement. It makes no difference if the person with whom he breaks that agreement is a prostitute or not.

"Alright, then," my irate moralist yells, "you let them whores lead good men astray. I suppose you love them nasty hussies like they was human beings. Okay, okay. I've got a problem for you. You want to let these whores go sell their goodies all legal like. Ain't you worried about them? You know whores get roughed up. You know most of 'em are bein' told what to do by mobsters or gang bangers or other criminals like that. Ain't you concerned about that? Or do you just want to see them whores suffer? If you don't, how can you say it's okay to visit a whore?"

Yes, I am concerned that prostitutes are often the victims of violent crimes and that organized criminal groups do have a hand in running prostitution rings. It's partly because of these concerns that I believe that prostitution ought to be legalized. Of course, the primary reason that prostitution should be legalized is that there is nothing innately immoral about the practice. The persecution that prostitutes face does not affect this. If it did, then I suppose the traditionalist would have to admit that since Christians faced persecution during certain periods of Roman history, it was then immoral to be a Christian or to patronize Christian churches. The persecution of prostitutes, of those who patronize prostitutes, or of anyone, for that matter, does not somehow confer upon those persons persecuted the onus of immorality. Engaging in such persecution, which itself is to be condemned, does, however, make those persons or that society perpetrating it immoral. It is, thus, our own society that stands condemned by the problems mentioned, not prostitution or prostitutes. In fact, the problems mentioned actually support arguments in favor of legalizing the profession. In places where prostitution is illegal, if a prostitute is attacked, she has little recourse to the law, since she is herself a criminal. If her actions were legal, then she would have far more protection from dangerous clients. Also, if prostitution were legal, it could be regulated and criminal organizations would have far fewer opportunities to involve themselves in it. So, not only do the reasons given for condemning the institution of prostitution actually condemn society, but they also provide additional justification for the legalization of prostitution.

Now my dear traditionalist is surely annoyed.

He exclaims, "I sure hope I don't live to see a society like what you want, with people goin' around havin' fun, enjoyin' their sinful meat, girls not hidin' their precious flowers until marriage, men gettin' nasty with men, whores walkin' around like they're regular folks. It just makes me sick. That's not what I was raised to believe was right, and I don't believe none of that stuff is right."

It occurs to me that most of the sexual actions traditionalists claim are unethical are perfectly acceptable. In fact, I can't find a reason why any of the actions they rail against, premarital sex, sodomy, masturbation, and so on, should be condemned. Traditional concepts of sexual ethics are no more than a hodgepodge of irrational prejudices and don't deserve being given any credence whatsoever. They are completely without justification and are frequently hurtful. Traditional sexual ethics are utterly unethical.

"Okay," the irritated traditionalist now cries out, "you think you're so smart, but God is smarter than you are. He made this whole world in seven days, after all. He made the sun revolve around the Earth, hid fake dinosaur skeletons underground, and fitted nice slats in the sky so that He could spill rain on us. He even wrestled with a giant, killer hippopotamus, that Leviathan, to keep the world safe. God's mighty clever and He's as powerful as they come. You've got to admit that, and you've got to admit that God says, right there in the Good Book, that them things I hate are bad. He says that men who go a-sexin' other men are headin' for the fiery pit, and that women who go around spreadin' their thighs ought to be put down like rabid dogs. Face it, you've got to admit that if God says those kinds of things are wrong, then they must be wrong."

I will admit that the Bible and other scriptures do contain injunctions about what is moral and what is immoral. I will also have to admit that I am bound by my own intelligence. I cannot, for example, admit that two and two equal five. Because I must evaluate the world with my intelligence, I have to make ethical judgments based on what I, using that intelligence as best I can, determine to be right and wrong. I might make mistakes - actually, I'm sure that I do - but I'm still compelled to think and follow my best judgment. There is, after all, a difference between rational beliefs, which are justified, and irrational beliefs, which are not. The former are based on informed, critical judgments; that is to say, they are based on judgments that themselves are formed by depending upon experience and logic. The latter, however, are based on uninformed, uncritical judgments. Unfortunately for the traditionalist, belief in scripture falls into the latter category. Such a belief does not, after all, depend upon experience or logic. It is simply an unquestioning acceptance of the veracity of a particular text, and this sort of belief is the very opposite of a rational belief. Often, in fact, the statements of texts accepted as scriptures, that is to say, as being authoritative, are contrary to both experience and logic. That said, when a rational judgment about some matter accords with statements given in some scripture, I will concede that the scripture is correct with regard to that matter. However, when my judgment is at variance with some scriptural injunction, then I have to say that the scripture is wrong. So, when the Bible condemns the man who has sexual relations with other men, or the woman who has sex outside of marriage, I just have to say that the Bible is wrong. I cannot abandon my reason.

Conclusion
So what does all this mean? It means that virtually all traditional sexual ethics are more than just misguided. They are usually hurtful and, consequently, unethical. In this great war between tradition and reason, let's turn to reason. It is, after all, reason that tells us to behave in ways that acknowledge both the worth of others and the worth of our own desires. The old ethics are nothing more than irrational injunctions that bring suffering to the world. The new ethics can be joyous celebrations of life.

Laws and Liberty

2008-02-13T14:40:00.000-08:00

“Let’s ban hate speech!”

“Let’s ban gay marriage!”

“Let’s get rid of corporate regulation!”

“Let’s get rid of restrictions on freedom of speech!”

There certainly are quite a few people who either want to revoke particular laws or who want to put new laws in place. Unfortunately, the debate on this topic is horribly muddled. Some say laws are just bad. Some say freedom can be taken to excess. How are we to judge any of this? Well, the answer is that we need to look at things rationally.

To begin with, let me say that I am not going to be talking about laws setting up some institution, fund, or the like. Assuming that one accepts that laws of this sort are acceptable, then the appropriateness of such a law ultimately depends upon the nature of the institution, fund, or whatever that is being established. Is it beneficial, cost effective, responsibly organized, and so on? Questions about the appropriateness of these laws, both in general and with regard to specific instances, as interesting as they can be, are quite different from those I will be asking here.

Instead, I am going to talk about punitive laws, that is to say, those laws for which a punishment can be imposed if they are disobeyed.

When I look at these laws (which I will hereafter refer to simply as ‘laws,’ rather than as ‘punitive laws’), I notice that they can be divided into two classes: those intended to protect liberty and those intended to restrict liberty. Of course, all laws do restrict somebody’s liberty, but those of the first sort restrict only those behaviors that impinge upon the liberties of others. They, in other words, protect liberty by making sure one individual does not limit the liberty of a second individual. It is these laws that are morally acceptable. The others almost never are.

In making these claims, I am working from the axiom that we human beings, and, indeed, all living things, have innate worth and that, because we do, our desires have worth. If our desires have worth, then our ability to fulfill our desires should not be limited without reason. That said, one person’s acquisition of what he desires might be detrimental to the fulfillment of the desire of another. I am not, of course, talking about cases where the desires of two persons clash in such a way that those persons are in competition. When two people desire the same thing, or have desires such that if one is fulfilled the other cannot be, then such conflicts will simply have to be resolved in as equitable a way as is possible. I am, instead, talking about instances where one person is imposing his desire upon a second person and, in doing so, hurting that other person. In such a case, that individual whose desire is hurtful to the other cannot be allowed to fulfill his desire. It is then that laws must be made. Because of our innate worth, no person can be permitted to do harm to another. We should, consequently, ban theft, murder, rape, and every form of exploitation.

At the same time, we should not make any laws that limit how a person leads his or her life. Every person has a right, based on his innate worth, to engage in whatever activities he desires, so long as these are not directly hurtful to someone else.

I do not mean to imply that I am advocating libertarianism. I am not. In fact, I think that libertarianism is a foolish, blind movement. Its adherents apparently assume that the only entity that infringes upon people’s liberties is the government. This is clearly not the case. Private individuals and private institution are equally capable of doing so. If the libertarians had their way, and the government withdrew from protecting people’s rights, from regulating corporations and the like, the country where such measures were taken would quickly degenerate into a tyrannical oligarchy where corporate bosses did as they desired and the people would have no recourse against them. There are more than a sufficient number of examples of countries, the governments of which have not passed laws protecting the poor or the weak, where these people are brutally exploited by those with economic power. Just look at the great haciendas of South America or the factories of Nineteenth Century Europe. If we are to be free, we need laws restricting the freedoms of those who would oppress us. Someone’s freedom is undoubtedly being restricted then, but it is only their freedom to limit the freedom of others. That, of course, is the extent to which any government should limit the rights of its citizens.

Whatever a person may desire to do with his or her life, he should be free to do it, so long as it does not impinge upon the liberties of others. There will certainly be cases where others are annoyed by the freedoms exercised by their fellow citizens. I might not, for example, be happy to see some person walking naked down the street, but if that person chooses to do so, I cannot think of any reason why my aesthetic sensibilities should be imposed upon him. Somebody else’s nudity does no direct harm to me. If I am emotionally harmed, it is only because of my own values, not because of some assault. I am not being insulted or vilified by another person’s lack of clothing. That person is simply not living his life according to the standards I think he should.

All this said, I do not deny that there will be grey areas, cases in which one person’s freedom so irritates another than it might have to be restricted. Noise laws come to mind. One person might desire to play music so loudly in the middle of the night that all his neighbors can hear it. No doubt, he is exercising his freedom, but I do think his freedom ought to be restricted in this matter. Though the person playing the music is not physically harming another, he is directly imposing his noise upon another in a way that the other person cannot avoid the noise. Moreover, in such an instance, it is not the playing of the music that is the issue. The problem is with the volume, something that can be adjusted without prohibiting the playing of the music itself. In a case like this, I would say that, due to the particular balance of factors, restrictive laws are reasonable.

There are, however, other cases that fall within this grey area where rights ought not to be restricted. It could, for example, be argued that same-sex relationships should be made illegal because those who engage in them are hurting their families. No doubt, this is true. There are parents who might be reduced to tears to learn their child has had sex with someone of the same gender. This case is a little different from that given above, however. Here, the parents are upset because they desire their child to share their values. They are not upset because the child is imposing something on them. If they make a value judgment about their child, they have every right to do so, but that does not alter that fact that the child is not doing anything to them in any direct way. Simple non-approval of another’s action, even if that non-approval is accompanied by anger or chagrin, is not a sufficient reason to make a law against something. It is only when an action directly affects another person in a harmful way that a law is justified, and, frankly, not even always then. Sometimes we just have to put up with annoying people.

The same can be said about freedom of expression. One person may say something that offends another, but his disapproval is no reason to keep the first individual from saying what he desires to say. Now, if what the first person says is actually harmful to the second person, and if it is false, then certainly the second person should have legal recourse. That, of course, is why we have libel and slander laws.

Endless other such examples could be provided, but they do not weaken my case. There are no absolutes in this world, and instances in grey areas will simply have to be examined on a case by case basis and decisions made according to our best judgment. Undoubtedly, errors will be made, but that’s just not avoidable.

When a decision is made to restrict liberty, it should always, in the end, be made because some person is exercising his freedom in such a way as to limit another’s freedom. We should never, except in the most exceptional of cases, make laws intended to restrict freedom. Such laws restricting the freedoms of one class of persons are virtually always made either to benefit a second class of persons or to prevent the members of the first class from engaging in an activity those of the second class find morally objectionable. As examples of the first of these categories, I might point to laws in Nazi Germany banning trade unions, that were intended to make sure workers were not able to challenge their bosses, Jim Crow laws in the United States, meant to keep blacks in a subservient position, and current attempts to pass laws on “lawsuit abuse,” intended to shelter corporations from individuals they have wronged. With regard to the second class, I could point out sodomy laws, prohibitions of various sorts of intoxicants, and restrictions on freedoms of expression. All of these laws are wrong, and they are wrong because they are intended to limit liberty when there is no moral justification for doing so. I might not approve of how my neighbor lives his life, but I have no right to force him to live it as I see fit. For that matter, he has no right to try to get me to live my life as he thinks I should. Neither of us, moreover, has any right to restrict the rights of the other in order to exploit that other.

When laws are tools one group can use to oppress another group, either because it is beneficial for the first group to do so or because the first group is disdainful of the second group, then those laws should be attacked. However, when one group, or even one person, infringes upon the liberties of another, then laws are needed to prevent such actions. When the strong prey upon the weak, then laws need to be made to stop them. When the strong make laws to ensure they can prey upon the weak, then we need to rid ourselves of those laws.

Beauty

2008-02-13T05:35:00.000-08:00

Over and over again, I have heard people complaining about how unhealthy standards of beauty are in the West today. There are endless numbers of diatribes available in virtually all media of communication that bemoan our supposedly unrealistic and even damaging models of beauty. I am not entirely sure what these people are seeing. For all the faults I myself do see in our standards, I have to say, we currently have the healthiest and freest models of beauty the world has ever known.

Before going any further, I should note that the word beauty can be used in different ways, and this can lead to confusion. I firmly believe that there is beauty in all things. For me, saying that a thing is beautiful means nothing more than expressing an appreciation of the innate worth of that thing. Even the repulsive and the terrifying can be beautiful. I find, for instance, both Grunewald’s monstrous pictures of the Crucifixion and Goya’s ferocious images of witches and fiends to be beautiful. This beauty, which I might call ‘beauty in general,’ is not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about sexual beauty. I’m talking about what makes a person attractive, as a potential sexual partner, to another. I’m talking about ‘beauty’ as the word is ordinarily used.

While there are trends in concepts of beauty today that are frankly moronic, our age has healthier more liquid ideals of beauty than any other age has had. We have come to a time when beauty is found in expressions of personal freedom and in independent healthiness. Conformity and unwanted demands of submission do still color our concepts, but they do so to far less of a degree than has ever been the case before.

Whether a person looks at the pre-modern West, ancient India, classical Greece and Rome, or countless other places, he is likely to discover a similar ideal of male beauty. Over and over again, it is the healthy, athletic physique that is admired. There are, undoubtedly, numerous variations on this, but there is a consistency as well. Today, it is still this healthy athleticism that is the standard of male attractiveness, and, since most people currently accept it as such, the most common ideals of our own age are really neither much better nor much worse than are those of other times and places.

Fortunately, while this athleticism was once the dominant ideal of many cultures, there are alternatives to it now. Those who are physically male need not strive for this ideal if they do not desire to do so, and yet they can still be regarded as attractive by many people. There are, for instance, those who might adopt thinness and pallor as marks of beauty. Others take up characteristics traditionally associated with femininity. Others yet drop a male identity completely and take on a female persona, often with such effectiveness that they can be nearly indistinguishable from persons who are biologically women. Even these categories do not, however, represent the entirety of our now diverse ideals. There are countless others. Although I do not mean to imply that all persons will find each and every one of these types attractive, each type is a reflection of an ideal accepted by some group of persons to be found in the world today. There has been a fragmentation of ideals. One ideal is not completely dominant. There is one that is predominant, but this predominance is simply a reflection of the tastes of the majority. It allows for minority standards that can differ considerably from the majority standard.

A similar diversification of ideals of feminine beauty has also occurred, and this is to be commended as much as is the diversification of ideals of male beauty. There has, however, been another shift in ideals of female beauty that is even more noteworthy.

Ideals of female beauty have not been as consistent from one part of the world to another or from one age to another as have ideals of male beauty. Without a doubt, there do appear to be biological factors at play in determining what is beautiful in women (just as there are such factors at play in determining what is beautiful in men). If there were not, it would be hard to explain why, for example, certain hip to waist proportions are fairly consistent marks of beauty from one culture to another. Nonetheless, there has been significant variation. Waif-like thinness seems to have been admired in the late Middle Ages of Europe. Pre-modern Indians praised a woman with full breasts, wide hips, and a very thin waist. The Chinese apparently admired slim, dainty women, while the Greeks liked their wives to be rather husky.

As diverse as these standards are, one thing that they have in common is that athleticism was not a quality admired in women. Even the solidly built women of Greece were not muscular. They look far more suited to household drudgery and the carrying of healthy sons than to competition with men. In fact, whatever the country a person looks at, a comparative weakness seems to have been admired in females. Women simply were not to have the physical capacities of men. They were not to be competitors. Instead, they were to remain at home where they could obediently produce children.

Today, this has changed. The dominant ideal of feminine beauty in the West is now the physically fit woman. She is no longer the frail, helpless being who must depend upon a man. She is as vigorous and as energetic as he is. This is certainly a change for the better. Perhaps there are those who admire the flabby, floundering women of the past (after all, I’m sure they were easier to dominate physically), but most men who are not insecure about their masculinity are likely to want to be with an equal, not a slave.

That said, I would not deny even such individuals from finding persons who correspond to their ideal. I do not want to see anyone, man or woman, controlled against his or her will, but, if a person desires to enter into a relationship as a submissive partner, then I will support that individual’s choice to do so. Consequently, if there are still people who strive for this old fashioned ideal, either to attain it themselves or to find it attained in another, then I am happy that our standards today have so diversified that these individuals can find fulfillment in striving for goals not desired by the majority. Though I do not share the ideals of these individuals, I do defend their right to make choices for themselves. I certainly have no right to tell them that they are wrong about what they find beautiful. In fact, it would be stupid to do so.

Now, I will grant that the reasons I’ve given for touting changes in female beauty are largely ideological, but they are not the only reasons I have for preferring the fit, taut woman of today. Because this image is one of healthiness, if it is aspired to, it ought to inspire women to be physically fit. Instead of becoming the sickly Victorian ladies of a century ago, women now often enhance their beauty with exercise. The dominant standard of beauty is one that leads to health not illness, to strength not weakness.

Of course, there are those who will object to this ideal, who will actually say that it is unhealthy or unobtainable. Such claims, however, are nothing more than self-deceit. At the least, they are for the majority of people making them.

Unfortunately, we live in an age that allows people to become monstrously fat. Many individuals in today’s society can be so lethargic that they’re virtually immobile. What’s more, while living such sedentary lives, these persons, at the same time, consume quantities of food sufficient to feed whole villages in other parts of the world. Then, having lounged for years upon a couch while gorging themselves on herds of cows, sounders of swine, and enough ice cream to form a glacier, such persons complain that being physically fit is too hard. Worse than that, these gargantuan mountains of flesh insist that they’re beautiful.

I have no sympathy for such dishonesty.

There are, without a doubt, people who find the grossly obese attractive, and their perspectives are as valid as are those of anyone else. That said, obesity is the very opposite of healthiness, and encouraging anyone to be fat is actually morally reprehensible.

If there is going to be a dominant ideal, it is far better that it should be one of healthiness than one of unhealthiness. Of course, those who are already fat, or who lack the self-restraint to prevent themselves from becoming so, can have their admirers. None of these people should, however, expect all persons to share that belief. If anything, they should be aware that most people will find the obese grotesque. Now, as I’ve already said, there is beauty even in the grotesque, but it is not a kind of beauty most people are able to appreciate, and that fact ought to be admitted.

By saying this, I am not trying to impose my own preferences as being better than the preferences of others. What I am saying is that there are biological imperatives guiding some of our preferences. There are particular features that people find attractive. For example, human beings, especially males, are likely to find signs indicative of youth to be attractive, while, conversely, finding traits associated with advancing age to be unattractive. I am not making any moral judgments about this. It’s simply an observation.

Should a person not pick up on such traits, or should a person prefer traits indicative of advancing age, then such are their tastes. I’m glad, once again, that the person is living in an age that’s reasonably tolerant of differences in taste. I’ll even go so far as to say that, hopefully, one day the prejudices many hold with regard to such persons will vanish completely. I frankly don’t like to see a person condemned as sick because he’s attracted to someone who’s “too old” for him. Nonetheless, individuals with such tastes need to be aware that they are going against biologically ingrained reactions which will, very often, incline people to be disgusted by the very things these people find attractive.

I am not saying that the old or the fat, or those who admire the old or the fat, should deny what they find attractive. I am simply saying that they ought to be aware of the fact that these things are not found to be attractive by others. In other words, these people, like everyone, should be honest with themselves. They certainly shouldn’t impose their ideals on others or denigrate others’ tastes.

If anything, it is the ideal of those who find obesity to be beautiful that is problematic. I cannot imagine that anyone would claim that it is physically preferable for a person to be overweight than to be fit. Virtually anyone who strives for fitness is going to be better off than is someone who strives for sickliness.

Though our understanding of what beauty is has moved in a healthier, more genuinely feminine direction, insofar as women are now admired for their athleticism and capacity to take care of themselves, I cannot say that this is the greatest change in perspectives. Most dramatically, we have, as I’ve already noted, accepted that there can be a variety of standards of beauty. Today, this has been given expression in the ways that we take control of our bodies and transform them as we see fit. Some people, being especially bold, even make their bodies into living works of art, crafting them into shapes that are not possible naturally.

Actually, human beings have, throughout history, modified their bodies. Some cultures admired scarification, others tattooing, others yet preferred some other change to the natural human form. These trends were, however, more often than not, imposed. Today, we are able to choose freely what our bodies look like. We are able to mold ourselves into whatever we desire ourselves to be. I cannot imagine a more noble endeavor than the effort to create beauty in this world. While one person might find the modifications another makes on his or her body to be repulsive, these changes are enjoyed by the person who makes them, and it is this person’s perspective that matters. It is, after all, their aesthetic ideals that are being expressed, not those of the other person. Now, if a man finds it beautiful to extend his earlobes, he can do so. If a woman wants to adorn her body with tattoos, she can. If a man wants to have artificial horns implanted in his forehead, he can. If a woman wants larger or smaller breasts, she can have her body modified. We can shape ourselves into whatever we find beautiful. We are freer to express ourselves, to transform ourselves into works of art, than we have ever been before. On top of that, there is such a splintering of ideals today that one ideal does not overwhelm others so completely that all rival possibilities of beauty are pushed out by that one ideal. In changing our bodies we give physical expression to our freedom, to our aesthetic ideals. We have entered the age where beauty is what we decide it should be.

As much as I have praised the standards of beauty prevalent today, I do grant that many of the old prejudices still survive, and that a natural human tendency towards conformity does still hold us back. We have moved in a wonderful direction, but we still have ahead of us much of the path that leads to real diversity, to a world where every person can make choices for himself without others judging him. Happily, we are moving in that direction. We are slowly, so slowly trudging forward, away from the narrow restrictions of the past into an age when every human being can express himself as he sees fit and bring to life his ideal of beauty.

So let us work towards this end. Instead of attacking someone else’s ideal of beauty, let’s aim to have our own recognized as being just as valid, though not more valid. Let’s fight for diversity. Let’s fight for what’s good for us. Let’s fight for a time when no person need apologize for finding anything attractive.

Reflections on Hating Britney Spears

2008-01-24T05:39:00.001-08:00

For some time now, I have been intrigued by the reactions people have to Britney Spears, even though I am not fascinated by the woman herself. There are pop stars who are fascinating in their own right. Michael Jackson, for example, with his countless, often extreme eccentricities and his startlingly bad judgment, can be entertaining as a person. Ms Spears, in contrast to this, seems like a rather average young woman, although, admittedly, one who has lived in luxury much of her life. Why, then, am I interested when people talk about her? The answer to that is actually pretty simple. I’m interested because so much of human nature is revealed in these reactions. I can’t help but be captivated. Unfortunately, what I see generally doesn’t encourage me to have great confidence in mankind.

Before going on, I should say that I am not an admirer of Ms Spears. I don’t listen to her music. I haven’t seen her movies. I don’t believe that I’ve even watched one of her music videos in its entirety, though I have seen clips of a fair number of them. I am, frankly, indifferent to her as a performer. I do feel sympathy for her, as I should for any living being, but I’m no more involved in her existence than I am in the existence of any other person who I don’t know personally but about whom I know.

I preface what follows with these remarks to establish my credentials as a non-fan, as someone who is not setting out to defend his heroine. Instead, I am, I believe, a reasonably impartial observer. My intention here is simply to examine people’s reactions to Ms Spears. If I do defend her throughout much of what follows, it is to reveal people’s real motives in accusing her and not, strictly speaking, to defend her (except insofar as I do believe that any person attacked ought to be defended).

In point of fact, many of the accusations leveled against the woman seem to be false. If this is true, it does, however, need to be asked why people are making them. The answers that I have found to this question are, at least to me, intriguing.

For the most part, the reason people attack the woman is simply to assert their own worth. Sometimes they do so by trying to denigrate a person of whom they are jealous. Sometimes they do so to denigrate a person whose morality, image, or music do not conform to those that person values. Whatever the case, the criticisms made of Ms Spears rarely say anything about her. They do, however, expose the inadequacies of those who make them.

First of all, let me note that simple jealousy is, so far as I am able to tell, the single greatest motivator of people who attack Ms Spears. There is no denying that people compare themselves to others in the hope that they will find that this comparison turns out to be favorable to themselves. Just about any person will, consequently, generally be happy to discover that someone else is not faring well. Unfortunately for whatever person is doing this comparison, he will not always find that the other person is less well off than he is. In such a case, feeling jealous, he will take delight in whatever misfortunes the object of his envy endures. He will be thrilled when this other is frustrated, when he loses his job, when he is rejected in love, and so on. Of course, such a person will rarely admit that he is so delighted – he will often not admit this even to himself – but the evidence of such pleasures is encountered again and again.

As I already said, in many cases, this is, without a doubt, the reason why people relish Ms Spears’ troubles. Countless people equate success with the acquisition of money and fame, and Ms Spears is both wealthy and famous. How could others who value these things not be envious of her? She has succeeded at achieving what they hold to be the measures of a person’s worth, while they themselves have failed. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that these persons smile an inner smile and dance a mental dance when they hear that Ms Spears is not as successful as they had thought she was. They are, surely, pleased to learn that they are not as inadequate as they had thought themselves to be. After all, while Ms Spears might have what they desire, she has countless troubles too. They can reassure themselves that, for all her wealth and celebrity, she is just a drunken, crazy slut. I am sure those persons will then feel much better. Their worth will have been reestablished, and they can return to their lives with the knowledge that they are not, by their own standards, complete failures.

Although jealousy is behind much of the joy people take in Britney Spears’ travails, it is not the only reason for this. Hatred surely inspires much of this delight as well. What, then, are the reasons why people hate this woman with such fervor? There are numerous reasons, which can, for the most part, be grouped into a handful of categories. Sometimes, she is hated because she performs, and so is representative of, a style of music a person doesn’t like. Sometimes, she is hated because she is perceived as being immoral by a person who feels himself to be highly ethical. Sometimes she is hated for her bad decisions and her perceived craziness by a person who thinks himself wise and sane. Sometimes, she is hated because she represents a standard of beauty a person cannot achieve, and sometimes she is hated simply because it is fashionable to hate her.

The first of these reasons is ridiculously banal, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t motivate a person to hatred. Almost every person I’ve ever met has been convinced that the things he likes are objectively good and the things that he doesn’t like are objectively bad. In the modern West, each generation has had its own style of music. Rather, each generation has had several styles of music, one or more of which a person of that generation would like and the rest of which he’d disdain. Naturally, these other styles are perceived as being bad or stupid, and those styles preferred in all other generations are, likewise, perceived as being bad or stupid. Even when a person prefers a musical style of a generation other than his own, he inevitably makes such distinctions between those styles he likes and those he doesn’t. He’ll just think he’s a particularly clever representative of his generation, one who can see worth others of his age are too blind or moronic to see.

Whatever style a person likes, when its worth becomes tangled up in his estimation of his own worth, he will generally be eager to latch onto any examples that apparently support his own judgments. Sometimes, even the private lives of the performers of another age are sufficient to establish that these people and their efforts are without value. Consequently, when a person who doesn’t like American pop music from the turn of the millennium hears that Ms Spears has done something he finds inappropriate, he can laugh out loud and proclaim that the musicians he likes are never that stupid. They always behave better. That, of course, just proves that the person hating Ms Spears has better judgment, and better taste, than those tacky morons who actually like her work.

As natural as it is to demand that one’s own tastes are the correct tastes and that those who disagree are lacking in discernment, I’m afraid that I can‘t actually accept that this is the case. Objectively, I would have to say that Ms Spears is neither especially better nor especially worse a performer than is any other popular performer of recent years. Neither Madonna, nor Michael Jackson, nor the Bee Gees, nor Abba, nor Herman and the Hermits, nor Buddy Holly was much better or worse than she is. I may like some of those performers more than I do others, but I cannot objectively say that one or another of them is better.

Now, I know the arguments that are popularly thrown out to prove that a particular musician is better than another, but they are consistently worthless. Some say, for example, “So and so didn’t write his own music.” Maybe that’s true, but, if it is, and it is a legitimate standard for judging a musician’s worth, then I suppose I had better stop listening to the London Philharmonic Orchestra. You, my dear reader, may not believe this, but I heard recently that the musicians of the orchestra don’t write the music they perform. I guess they’re just a bunch of charlatans.

“Okay, that may be true,” someone might still say, “but the musicians I listen to have something to say in their songs, Britney sure doesn’t.” Fortunately, I do not really need to reply to anyone who forms his opinions based on those of a musician (unless, of course, that musician happens to be an expert on the subject, as so many are). I need hardly elaborate on this point, so I won’t.

As for objective standards, such as being able to sing on key, being able to play a musical instrument, or being able to dance, I’d have to say that Ms Spears is skilled at both the first and the last of these (I have no idea if she can play an instrument). She’s certainly better than are many individuals who are touted as icons of rock. Let’s be honest, Mick Jagger cannot sing (I’m not even sure he’s able to enunciate simple words), and there aren’t that many of the “greats” who have the dancing skills Ms Spears does. I will grant that the ability to sing does not make someone a great musician. There are thousands, even millions, who have such skills. Nonetheless, these are criticisms that can’t be leveled against the woman. I’m not going to buy her albums – they don’t appeal to me musically – but I’m not going to pretend she can’t sing. I’d just be lying to myself, and I have no desire to do so.

Even if Ms Spears can sing and dance, some people still hate her for her depraved morality. Of course, I will concede to this objection. I do understand that she has played on her sexuality in her career, and I do know that a woman who does so is a whore. A woman, after all, should remain a virgin until sold, I mean given, by her father to her future husband, and, after that, she should always endure – but never enjoy – her husband’s advances. She should be a good, devout patriot and let him inseminate her for the sake of God and country. Sex is, undoubtedly, a dirty, shameful thing. It should never be enjoyed or commoditized.

A woman must have no regard for herself if she uses her body to make a living. That, of course, is why I have always despised athletes. It really is disgusting how they use their bodies to make money. It’s just vile. For that matter, I’ve always hated college professors for the same reason. The way some abhorrent professor whores himself, selling that filthy, slimy organ in his head, that wet, hair-covered moneymaker between his ears, absolutely sickens me. I almost feel nauseous just writing about such perversity.

Obviously, I am being sarcastic here. There is no shame in earning money with one’s body. After all, every action we perform, even our mental activity, is accomplished with the body.

Even were someone to say that certain parts of the body are more shameful than others, I would not be convinced. I would, in fact, wholeheartedly disagree. There is no part of the body that is shameful. Even those most despised parts, the genitals, breasts, anus, and buttocks, are not the devil’s play toys. They are simply bodily parts, like the brain, the legs, and the hands are. If Ms Spears emphasizes her sexuality, she is not doing anything shameful. There is nothing more shameful about her limbs and torso than there is something shameful about a surgeon’s hands, a runner’s legs, or a philosopher’s brain.

“Well, then,” the Britney-hater might reply, “just look at how she acts in public. She drinks. She goes to parties. She fails to wear underwear. She has sex with men!”

I will not deny that Ms Spears does appear to be guilty of these charges, but I will deny that she has done anything wrong in being so. I assume that any person making such accusations is a burqa-wearing teetotaler and virgin who never leaves his home since, if he is not, then he must be a hypocrite. No, that’s not true. If he is a man, it would be okay for him to do those things (in fact, it would be obligatory for him not to wear panties). It is only bad when a woman enjoys her life. After all, a woman’s place is in her home, preserving her innocence for her husband while sitting quietly in a corner knitting. Again, I am being sarcastic. While excessive drinking can have unfortunate consequences, there is nothing morally objectionable about drinking, even when it is a woman who drinks. Physical modesty, in and of itself, is nothing but a feeling of shame about one’s body, and there is nothing shameful about any person’s body. I will admit that, for the sake of aesthetics, not every person should expose his body, but if a person is attractive, even that reason is eliminated. Finally, there is nothing wrong with having sex. If anything, there is something wrong with not having sex. Chastity is as much a virtue as is starvation. It is a foolish hardship that does nothing but diminish the joy that life has to offer.

I might add, with regard to this, that people don’t seem to be very consistent about their condemnations of human sexuality. Male rock stars, as well as other male celebrities, are often celebrated for their sexual conquests. It is only when a woman, a young woman, is having sex that there is a problem. I don’t suppose it matters now, though. She’s ruined anyway. What man would marry her now? She’s soiled. She’s damaged goods. We might as well stone her.

Having said all of this, I will admit that Ms Spears has sometimes behaved unethically. She did, apparently, hit another driver’s car in a parking lot and fail to take responsibility for doing so. If that is the worst sin she has committed, however, then she is doing better than any person I know. I doubt if I’ve met a single person who hasn’t done far, far worse than that.

In fact, by celebrity standards, her behavior hasn’t been especially bad. When I think of Elton John’s abusive tirades, Naomi Campbell’s assaults on her employees, Russell Crowe’s violent bullying, Mel Gibson’s religious bigotry, and Elia Kazan’s informing on his friends to McCarthy, Ms Spears’ reckless driving doesn’t seem bad at all.

She could also be condemned for her great wealth, but then all wealthy persons could be so condemned, and she is no more guilty of being an exploiter than are any of those other persons, though she is as guilty as are many of them. I do find it ethically dubious for any person to be paid what Ms Spears is. That, however, is a condemnation of the rich in general.

Accepting that, perhaps, Ms Spears doesn’t have a history of violence and racism, and may not have been up to the shenanigans of some of the people mentioned above (who, I might add, may well regret their actions), still, she is clearly crazy or, at the least, has made some really bad decisions. She ought to be condemned for these things.

If anyone says this, there isn’t much I can say in response. In fact, I have nothing to say to anyone who would condemn a person with mental health problems. No, that’s not true. There is one thing I would say: “Shame on you.”

Even if a person condemns her for her unwise decisions, there isn’t much of a reply I can give him. Such a person must either be so lucky that, never having suffered as others have, he is without compassion for his fellow human beings, or he must be so blind to his own faults that speaking to him would be a waste of time. I only hope that, should any person who denigrates Ms Spears for making bad decision or for having mental health problems endure similar troubles, he will not be denigrated as he has denigrated her. I hope that such a person, though not compassionate, will be shown compassion. I don’t want to see anyone suffer because of the callousness of others. That said, I don’t imagine that Ms Spears is unduly concerned about the opinions of Pete the Podiatrist and Susie the Seamstress.

“Okay, then, let’s forget about her bad decisions and her wackiness,” my Britney-hater says. “I know I don’t make mistakes, but my family members do. I even know a crazy person. We don’t talk about him – since it is embarrassing to have squirrel-bait in the family – but I send him a little money at Christmas so that he can buy some candy at the store in the loony bin. Still, you’ve got to admit, Britney is stupid.”

I suppose I will have to admit that, judging from the times I have heard Ms Spears speak, she does seem to be of average intelligence. Nonetheless, she doesn’t appear to be of less than average intelligence. That means that the great majority of people condemning her as stupid are probably no smarter than she is. For that matter, I doubt if most celebrities are smarter than she is. While I make this judgment based only on having seen or read the occasional interview, I will say that I can’t think of more than a few film stars or musical performers who have struck me as being more intelligent than Ms Spears. I can even think of a few who seemed much less intelligent. More than a few people are clearly picking and choosing who they want to condemn. Perhaps a musician’s not being a genius can be forgiven if he or she performs music a person likes. There is clearly a fair amount of inconsistency in these judgments.

It would seem that what is being condemned here is not Ms Spears’ intelligence. Her intelligence is simply being employed as a way of condemning a person who is not liked for other reasons.

Not only is such condemnation applied haphazardly, but it is also nonsensical. Even if an individual is smarter than Ms Spears is, that does not make him a better person than she is. Intelligence does not equal worth. I might remind anyone who makes such a comment that all but one of the men who stood trial for war crimes at Nuremberg (in the trial of the Nazi leaders) were of above average intelligence (and the one of average intelligence was at the higher end of average). But if someone wants to think that Herman Goering was a great man because he was especially bright, then, once again, there is not much I can say to him. Hitler and Stalin were clearly very clever too. Admire them if you want to, but I don’t think I’m going to.

As sad as it is to say, I have to concede that people who condemn Ms Spears for any of the reasons just given (i.e., her lack of wisdom, her unintelligence, and her questionable mental health) are simply doing so out of a desperate, dishonest arrogance. They must either believe that others are inferior to them, and so condemn them for their inferiority, or fearing that they themselves are guilty of these things, they compensate by pointing out such flaws in others. Whichever of these is the case, it’s just blindness. I would urge anyone who condemns Ms Spears, or any other person, for such things to look at himself.

I suppose that, in both of these cases, fear of one’s one inadequacies, even if unexpressed, is the root of hating Ms Spears. Whether a person thinks himself better than others or fears that others are better than he is, he must downplay the worth of others to lift himself up. Unfortunately for such a person, sometimes it takes quite a bit of self-deception to do so and, sometimes, a little jealousy might just creep into his heart.

Such jealousy is certainly the reason for people’s hatred for Ms Spears’ beauty.

We live in an age of obesity. The vast majority of people are so lazy and gluttonous that they transform themselves into great masses of flab. In saying this, I might note that I am not condemning others. I’ll frankly admit that I could lose a few pounds myself. That said, I won’t lie to myself. I won’t pretend that my blubber is beautiful. It isn’t. I might not be obese, but I have no illusions that even my size is too great. Unfortunately, there are many who are much larger than I am – who are often as wide as they are tall – but who are offended that others might not find their fleshy rolls attractive.

When many such people see a person who is physically attractive, they are annoyed and attempt to denigrate that person. I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve heard some morbidly obese individual describing someone who’s physically fit as being “too skinny,” “skin and bones,” or “unhealthy.” Apparently, in some people’s world, white is black and black is white.

“Well,” the corpulent person might say, “I should be proud of my body. It’s beautiful the way it is.”

That assertion’s about as sane as a smoker’s describing his cancerous tumors as beautiful. Instead of pretending that what’s not attractive is attractive, a person should admit that his foolish actions have had unfortunate consequences. Both have my sympathy. I hope that every fat person (including myself) can find the willpower to shed his superfluous flesh and that every smoker can quit and rid himself of the fear of cancer. I will not, however, lie to either person. Neither smoking nor the combination of laziness and gluttony are beneficial to a person’s health or beauty.

Not only are claims to the contrary dishonest – I doubt if more than a handful of the people who make them actually believe them – but the reverse claims, that those who are slender are not beautiful, are also lies. I will concede that there are those with specialized tastes, such as “chubby chasers,” but, let’s be honest, men, women, and others, whether gay, straight, or otherwise, are generally attracted to the physically fit. I cannot even begin to count the number of rotund individuals who, while moaning about how they should be seen as beautiful, nonetheless lust for those people who are healthy, not fat. As I said, I grant that there are exceptions, but those exceptions don’t undermine my point, that most of the people making these claims aren’t being honest.

Before giving birth to her two children, Ms Spears was, let’s admit, a physically fit and beautiful woman. Because this was the case, it’s hardly surprising that the indolent overeaters of the world often hated her. Ms Spears was what they couldn’t be, sexually appealing to others. Of course, these people were jealous of her, and, of course, they despised her.

It’s hardly surprising that these same people are delighted and enthralled by the sight of a less physically fit Britney. They surely relish unflattering tabloid images of the woman. Finally, Britney, that annoying person who had what they did not, was looking rather unattractive.

While I understand that it can be difficult for a person to come to terms with who he is, that difficulty hardly justifies either self-delusion or spitefulness. I am not sympathetic when it does give rise to these emotions. If a person feels inadequate in some way, it should inspire him to better himself, if possible, or to accept his imperfections, however hard doing so may be.

In fact, nearly every time that Britney Spears has been condemned, the words hurled against her have said almost nothing about her. Instead, they have reflected either the inadequacies or bigotries of the person making the attack. I do not think that Ms Spears is without flaw. She is a human being, and she has made numerous mistakes (often apparently exasperated by the culture of “yes-men” with which the wealthy generally surround themselves). She has been inconsiderate to others (such as the time she hit someone else’s car). She might have mental health problems, and, most importantly, she is a member of the wealthy class. Nevertheless, she doesn’t seem to be a worse than average person. I can hardly compare the most extreme of her antics to the vicious assaults committed by Russell Crowe, the adulteries of Rory Calhoun, or the homophobic actions of Clark Gable.

Her troubles do not, by and large, show her in a bad light. She just seems to be a human being, and that means she’s flawed, that she’s capable of acting foolishly and being selfish. It’s those who harp on her troubles who appear in a bad light. Whenever someone revels in the woman’s miseries, or inconsistently criticizes her actions, appearance, talents, and the like, all he does is vomit up the reptiles and worms dwelling inside of himself. Instead of revealing another’s shortcomings, he exposes the filth of his own being to the world. It’s not pretty. I’d like to say that, seeing such vermin, a person would change, but I’m afraid that, by and large, people seem to be blind to their own faults.

Reflections on Oz and Narnia

2008-01-23T14:17:00.000-08:00

As a child, I read both L. Frank Baum’s Oz books and C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, and I loved several of the titles from each series. Now, as an adult who is soon to be the father of a daughter, I am made to wonder why it is that I am so eager to share the former with her but not the latter.

Baum was a gifted story-teller, but, at his best, Lewis was just as good, perhaps even better. Lewis’s prose style is, on the whole, better than Baum’s, and Lewis was not afraid to include dark elements in his tales, something few children’s authors will do today – including Baum.

So, why is it that I so unreservedly prefer Baum to Lewis?

First of all, while, at his best, Lewis might have been the better story-teller, he is at his best only in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The book is often thrilling. It’s filled with moral crises, affecting moments, and real dangers. What child won’t be hot with anger when Edmund lies to Peter and Susan about having gone to Narnia? What child won’t feel sympathy for the poor Mr. Tumnus when the protagonists discover that his house has been ransacked and the charming faun has been arrested? What child won’t be touched by Edmund’s redemption, and what child won’t be on the point of tears when Aslan is killed by the Witch? The book is marvelous.

Then, what’s my problem with it? The problem is not, for the most part, with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe itself, but with its successors. Both Prince Caspian and The Horse and His Boy are fun, if flawed, adventures, but the rest of the Narnia books range from mildly amusing to painfully tedious. The Last Battle and The Magician’s Nephew, in particular, are didactic bores.

Lewis’s subordination of his narratives to his ideological agenda really is the worst of his problems. Instead of simply allowing his doctrines to infuse his narrative (as he does in the first book), the narratives of many of the later books are shaped to teach his doctrines. As a result of this, several of his books read like sermons, and are just as dull. As I said, when he’s at his best, Lewis is a good story-teller, but, when he’s not, he’s just inept. In a work of art, there is no fault worse than being boring.

Oz, in contrast to this, is never boring. Baum does not try to teach his reader anything, except by implication. He tells enchanting stories filled with a bewitching diversity of magical beings. As a child, I was enthralled by Baum’s creations. When reading, in Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, about the underground land of the Mangaboos, with its cold vegetable people and their glass houses, or the silent land of the wooden gargoyles, or the cave of the dragonettes, I felt as though I had been transported to those places. Virtually all the other Oz books did the same. Even while writing this, I feel excited just by remembering the pageantry of Ozma’s birthday party in The Road to Oz and the strange transforming magic Mrs. Yoop used on the protagonists of The Tin Woodman of Oz. The books are so filled with imagination that they’re like incantations capable of spiriting the reader away. As I said, I can, to this day, still feel their enchantment. If I have a complaint about them it is that I would, sooner or later, have to rouse myself from the intoxication they produced in me and return to this humdrum world. That, of course, is a complaint that compliments the books instead of condemning them.

In all fairness, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe did much the same thing for me, as did Prince Caspian, but the other books, by and large, never had that magic. Lewis’s imagination, sadly, seems somewhat limited. He rarely gave in to sheer flights of fancy. But then, his point was to teach, not to entertain.

Nonetheless, there is one element of Narnia that Oz lacks. Narnia can be a dark and fearful place. There are monsters there, werewolves, giants, and other fiends, that can threaten the protagonists. It is relatively rare, especially in the later Oz books, for the heroes actually to be threatened with physical harm. In Narnia, people can be killed. As a child, I found the dangerousness of Narnia exciting. It was scary, in a good way. Oz never had that deadly intensity. It was a world of marvels, but it was rarely a world of dangers.

At least, however, the heroines of Oz do not become heroines by killing their enemies. Dorothy does kill the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but she does so inadvertently. The Nome King is never killed, though he is repeatedly defeated. Other antagonists, like General Jinjur in The Marvelous Land of Oz, even turn out to be decent people in the end. Most, moreover, are defeated by the protagonists’ intelligence or by some stratagem. Cleverness is more likely to make a person a hero in Oz than is lopping off an enemy’s head. I can’t complain if a child should learn that lesson.

Even so, I am not a believer in the notion that art should teach. Art is one thing, and teaching is another. The former allows a person simply to relish the beauty of a thing. The other has a function: to impart information. A poem can be read over and over again, its beauty appreciated as new each time, but a didactic work is useless once the information in it has been committed to memory. What person is going to review his multiplication tables once he knows them? After information has been learned, it need not, unless forgotten, be learned again. If a person does review a book on multiplication after he’s learned how to do it, then it is because he enjoys it, not because he’s getting knowledge from the work.

Admittedly, didactic elements are often included in artistic works. They can even add to the value of a work. It is quite possible, after all, for such elements to enhance the pleasure a person takes in the work. Of course, it is still the relishing of the beauty of the work, that is enhanced by these elements, that makes it art. The didactic content is successful only insofar as it contributes to a person’s appreciation of the work.

All that said, when an author (or any other artist) has included didactic elements in his works, I have to ask whether what is being taught in his book ought to be learned. As an adult – who does not consider a work of fiction to be a valid source of knowledge on any subject (other than itself) – I can read a book that teaches something questionable and still enjoy it. If I am deciding what a child should read, or what should be read to a child, I need, however, to take into account the fact that the child might not be as discriminating as I am. The child might actually pick up from the book attitudes that are not commendable.

Unfortunately, what Lewis teaches in his Narnia books is often objectionable.

The child will learn, in that series, that there is one true religion, and that other religions are merely lies taught by monstrous demons (I am not making this up; look at The Last Battle). While there are times when decent persons are deceived by the teachers of these false deities, for the most part, the adherents of these are presented in a very negative light. For example, the inhabitants of Calormen (a land outside Narnia that is clearly modeled on the Muslim world) are cruel, violent, arrogant to their subordinates, and slavish to their betters. They are repeatedly contrasted with the free, honest, and decent folk of Narnia. Sadly, though this sort of xenophobia is not prevalent in the earlier Narnia books, it pervades the later ones.

One particular comparison made between the heathens of Calormen and Narnia’s Christians (who are so in all but name) is, however, very amusing. Lewis mentions that the poetry of the former land is dull and didactic, while that of the latter is about mighty deeds and exciting adventures. It’s fairly amusing that what Lewis himself is writing falls into the former category. Perhaps he ought to have read The 1001 Nights for some story ideas. It’s full of exciting adventures that can be appreciated in their own right, not for what they teach.

Sadly, this negative depiction of non-Christian religions (and of non-European peoples and cultures) is hardly the only objectionable element in the Narnia books.

Although a number of Lewis’s main characters are female, I can’t say he handles them well. They are very traditional. Lucy, in the first book, does find the entrance to Narnia, but she doesn’t go on to fight to save that country. Her brothers do so while she and her older sister Susan basically act as nurses to the injured male heroes.

This problem doesn’t end there. For one thing, the first book centers around the conflict between a female tyrant, the Witch, and the rightful, male ruler of Narnia, Aslan. There’s even a weird comment in The Last Battle about how Susan is lost to Aslan by being interested in cosmetics and the like. I guess women who like to make themselves attractive are just a bunch of hussies. No wonder Aslan hates them.

As much as I enjoyed The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I do not want my daughter learning that Christianity is good, other religions are demonic lies, non-Europeans are generally villainous (as is made obvious by their dark skin), and women really ought to rely upon men. I want to teach my daughter to be open to any culture, while still being critical, to know that all people are equal, and to know that, as a woman, she doesn’t need to rely on anyone but herself.

The Oz books, happily, do not present the same sort of questionable material.

Before going on, however, I must, in all fairness, admit that there is some objectionable content in Baum’s Oz. There is, for instance, a painfully racist episode in The Patchwork Girl of Oz, in which the characters visit the country of the Tottenhots. These beings, who are parodies of Africans (and who are drawn by John R. Neill, the book’s illustrator, as such), hardly provide children with an image a parent would care for them to retain.

This sort of thing is, happily, rare in Baum’s works, and, it has to be said, is a reflection of the attitudes of his time. What is more, the Tottenhots are not depicted as being villainous. Their depiction may owe much to archaic prejudices, but it is without malice. Baum might have been ignorant, but he was not hateful.

Actually, on the whole, his books are wonderfully accepting of others. Diverse characters and people appear, and, as outlandish as they are, they are rarely condemned. There are certainly villains. There are even whole peoples that are villainous. For instance, in The Emerald City of Oz, whole tribes of evil fairies, the Whimsies, the Growleywogs, and the Phanfasms, are mentioned. These, however, are exceptions. I might note that the most frequently used antagonist of the Oz books, the Nome King, rules a people who, though enemies of Oz, are never really shown as being wicked. Their king might be a scoundrel, but they are not themselves fiends.

Oz is filled with a variety of unusual folk, and though some of them may be trying, they all have their place in that magical land. Just look at the court of Oz’s ruler, Princess Ozma. It’s inhabited by several young girls from America, a hungry tiger, a cowardly lion, a scarecrow, a stick figure with a pumpkin for his head, a tin man, a highly magnified (but thoroughly educated) insect, a former vagrant, a one-legged sailor, and so many more odd individuals I can’t list them all. If there’s one overriding message of the Oz books, it’s that a person should accept himself for who he is and others for who they are. I doubt if I could come up with a nobler message.

If that message were not commendable enough, there’s another that runs through the Oz books that is nearly as good. In fact, as the father of the daughter, I might even say it’s just as good. Over and over again, the protagonists of these tales are girls or women. Unlike the helping females of Narnia, the women of Oz always take center stage. They’re not meek beings who require the protection of males. They’re spunky, independent females who save the day on their own. In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, it’s Dorothy who saves her male companions, not the other way around. When Dorothy herself is saved in Ozma of Oz, it’s not by a male, it’s by Princess Ozma, another girl, and when two cities on the edge of Oz are about to go to war in Glinda of Oz, it’s Dorothy, Ozma, and Glinda who restore peace.

Females, in fact, are generally dominant in Oz. The country’s ruler is a young girl, Ozma, and it’s most skilled magician is the sorceress Glinda (who, by the way, teaches the Wizard real magic –he’d previously just been a charlatan). There’s something to be said for the impression a young girl could get from this. Instead of learning to depend on a man, she might just realize that she’s capable of standing on her own. Maybe she can rescue the prince instead of needing him to rescue her.

Now, I do not mean to imply by this that men are not treated fairly by Baum. The Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and countless others are certainly brave and loyal. There are more than a few admirable men in Oz. Happily, they don’t demand that the women of the country hide behind them so that they can save the day. As it turns out, both men and women can be heroic in Oz.

Although several of the Narnia books have their virtues, I have to admit that the Oz books are better. Not only are they better literature, being filled with feats of the imagination and not having their narratives subordinated to didactic elements, but they are also far better for children. In Baum’s world, girls can be just as heroic as boys (a lesson both boys and girls should learn), and everyone, no matter how strange he or she may be, has a genuine innate worth.