Debate:Should we stop shaming women for being sexual, or start shaming men for being sexual?

Proposition
Obviously shaming one sex but not the other is hypocritical. But how should it be balanced?ZeroIsLogic (talk) 21:34, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I think we should shave both sexes for being sexual. 21:50, 9 March 2014‎ (UTC)
 * I'd call a False Dilemma on this one. This question has too many questionable assumptions behind it and may need sharpening.Shirtsleeves (talk) 22:19, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Oh, dear me! In proper society, we don't talk about such things.   22:32, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
 * What Shirtsleeves said above. You need to make clear what you mean by "shaming" in both cases. The previous "debate" you started had the same problem - you didn't point out what you mean by "gun control". "Define your terms" is a very basic guideline even in high-school debates.
 * Oh, and when starting a "debate", it's a good idea to stick around and participate.--ZooGuard (talk) 08:05, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I stick around. I just siting back and listening. I prefer to gather information. But I guess I didn't really think too far into how much information is needed to answer this. I just kinda ask what pops in my head when going through articles on here. Hmmm... Thinking about it, I guess the point more boils down to the simpler question of should sex before marriage be seen as a bad, neutral, or good thing. Forgive me if I word things confusingly. I was never good with words. If you need more clarification, I'll do my best.ZeroIsLogic (talk) 09:12, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I say that sex before marriage is neutral (all else being equal), and we shouldn't shame anybody. Personally, I think that's both the fairest solution and frankly the simplest.  This doesn't strike me as a terribly complex issue.   10:23, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * At a glance, it isn't a complex issue. And really, it's probably not complicated. But it's a subject that is debated. I feel these subjects, the ones that cause heated debates, need to be solved. They cause problems that can escalate into much more than simple debate. There will always be people who disagree with each other. But when things cause problems, a side has to be taken I guess. As for my input on this debate, I'm still unsure where I stand. I mean, there is the point that what two consenting adults do together is their business, and if a girl (or guy) wants to sleep around, that's their choice. But then there is STD's and teenage pregnancy, which should be reduced. And making random sex frowned upon would certainly help that. Peer pressure has always been a powerful force.-ZeroIsLogic (talk) 19:51, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 'But then there is STD's and teenage pregnancy, which should be reduced' This is what sex education and contraceptives are for. As for peer pressure being a powerful force, it is powerful and in this case an abhorent force. AMassiveGay (talk) 20:26, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Only in this case? Peer pressure is abhorrent in all cases! Nullahnung (talk) 20:28, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I was trying to side step any pendantry like 'what about peer pressure against racists' AMassiveGay (talk) 20:59, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. Doesn't change my opinion on peer pressure, but I also want to avoid such pedantry. Nullahnung (talk) 21:35, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * To all above, I want to clarify that I don't believe peer pressure is good. Only that it is effective. Also I agree that sex education and contraceptives are very important. But something else is still needed. I don't think it's peer pressure though. I believe there is something else we can do, but I just don't know what. If someone can find out what it is, or make all STD's curable, then this debate would likely no longer be a problem.ZeroIsLogic (talk) 22:06, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * if sex ed and contraceptives is not doing it then then the sex ed is not being done properly. That something else - if not peer pressure then you must mean some other way of shaming people for behaviour that is not shameful. And I can speak from personal experience, making something 'shameful' does not prevent 'shameful' behaviour. If anything it makes it worse. AMassiveGay (talk) 22:38, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * It doesn't necessarily have to be something shameful. It could be a better condom, one that is more effective at preventing STD's, and harder to break. Or it could be something else entirely.--ZeroIsLogic (talk) 01:28, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Smerdis of Tlön gets to promote his views again

 * In addition to the problem of definitions ('shaming' for one; most societies shame some sorts of female sexuality, and some sorts of male sexuality, but they do this with different vocabularies and different agendas), we're dealing with something strongly rooted in biology: the different social agendas ultimately relate to different biological agendas.
 * My big, vague, and general concern, as usual, is with reducing the space, time, effort, and noise made by moral disapproval, because all moral disapproval engages the nasty bits of the human psyche. And this is going to be problematic here, because male brains detect and react negatively to cuckoldry and female brains detect and react negatively to outside attachments, and neither persuasion, politics, nor law can make any of this go away either.  The variety of coupling arrangements observed in human societies represent different settlements of the conflict arising out of the sexual conflict of interest, which ultimately relates to the fact that sperms are cheap and eggs expensive. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 20:33, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Arguably the social separation induced by shaming reduces the need to moralize. Although I feel this is more a question of "evolution" than the "economic" sort of efficiency. In a Western society there is very little incentive for having children. Some 25-33% (and raising) die childless and birth rates are well below 2. Stereotypically having a kid is a thing for 30+ women and the unattractive who feel a need to tie down their partner. These are both groups that are way down the scale in sexual attractivenes, and therefore they have limited means to dictate rules on sexuality. Consequently there is much less demand for sexual morals than there was, but it takes just one group that fails to westernize as it grows to change that. --188.238.246.13 (talk) 10:02, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * What "western society" are you talking about? I really don't see a reverse relationship between sexual attractiveness and having children. "To tie down your partner" and "because you're not as sexy anymore" are some of the worst reasons to take such a big decision as having kids, and I can only imagine the most idiotically ridiculous of people actually doing it for those reasons. That's just wild speculation and spotty personal experience if anything. Nullahnung (talk) 11:08, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * @SoT, I'm not quite sure that it's 'sperm is cheap whereas eggs are expensive' as much as 'it's the woman who get's left holding the baby'. The consequences of promiscuous sex are radically different for men and women and morality reflects this. It's no coincidence that women's sexual liberation started with the easy availability of contraception. Placeholder (talk) 12:00, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * That's because you are not seeing people getting kids at all. Also with older women it's just as much about the closing window of fertility as losing attractiveness. Indeed a lot of people are in total denial about some effects of aging. --188.238.246.13 (talk) 12:58, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * It's pretty hard to understand what you're getting at and, in particular, your opinions on why there are different sexual standards for men and women and what we should do about it. As for your assertion that only the old and ugly have children... oh, deary me! Yes, the age of first maternity is rising but that is an outcome of reliable contraception and women's ability to take control of their lives. Maybe you think this is a bad thing? Placeholder (talk) 13:45, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * That the woman gets stuck holding the baby is also true, of course: the point is that physiological differences between men and women give rise to different best strategies, and ends up in a misalignment between what men and women want from each other. The historically best strategies for each sex are hardwired as differences in the brains, and so also in the emotional lives, of men and women.  The observed diversity of social mating structures represents attempts to compromise this inherent conflict, and they all make sense against the backdrop of this dynamic.
 * Which sex bears the burden of shame depends on how this compromise breaks. When a society strongly favors men at the expense of women, women bear the burden of shame and guilt, and the public expression of female sexuality is discouraged; in its extremest forms, exacerbated by extremes of wealth and poverty, this means harems, purdah, and honor killings.  When a society strongly favors women at the expense of men, men bear the burden of shame and guilt, and this translates into attempts to prevent male sexuality from being manifested in public and the labelling of male sexuality as something dangerously predatory; 'sexual harassment' becomes a thing, rape is defined very expansively, and men are presumed guilty.
 * The point isn't so much to argue for a different settlement of the sexual conflict of interest; the point is to understand its origins in unlearned behavior, so that the social moralisms that surround all of these things, whichever way they break locally, can be deconstructed and defanged. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 15:30, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * "When a society strongly favors women at the expense of men, men bear the burden of shame and guilt, and this translates into attempts to prevent male sexuality from being manifested in public and the labelling of male sexuality as something dangerously predatory; 'sexual harassment' becomes a thing, rape is defined very expansively, and men are presumed guilty."
 * Do you actually have any factual example of a society that strongly favours women or are you just speculating? The symptoms you've listed are a bit more complicated and less one-sided than you are oversimplifying them to be. Nullahnung (talk) 15:47, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Let's just say that if there were a society that favored women to the extent that some have favored men, those are some of the things you might expect to find there. For better or for worse, some form of "patriarchy" is inevitable, a human universal, so the sustained existence of such a regime is unlikely.  The point, again, is to understand how the underlying dynamics are rooted in sexual physiology, in hopes that such understanding might turn down the heat of conflict. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 15:57, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * So we are back to the old "nature vs. nurture" discussion, are we? It is difficult to convince either side that they are too pessimistic/optimistic about people's ability to stay a certain way or change... Read this: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Biological_determinism . What do you think of that? Nullahnung (talk) 16:25, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I literally laughed out loud when I read this. Not only SoT has read that page, his edits still stay on it.--ZooGuard (talk) 08:54, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't disagree with much of what that article says; like it says, you can't get from 'is' to 'ought', so the ethical ideal of a unisex society is not refuted by different sexual physiologies and psychologies. All that biology means is that achieving such a goal is going to be hard, and may make such a society less happy than otherwise. Then again, the whole point of sex is to goad people and make them unhappy.  - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 17:02, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * "such a society less happy than otherwise" - Who knows? This is all speculation.
 * "the whole point of sex is to goad people and make them unhappy" - Goodness gracious, that's a rather unconventional view... To goad people and make them unhappy is certainly not the point, though it may be an undesirable side-effect sometimes. The key word is sometimes. The ability not to obsess can and should be learned by all. Nullahnung (talk) 17:10, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Lust, like hunger, pain, and fear, is in one sense an imposition; a hardwired routine, imposed by biology to make humans serve a biological agenda rather than goals they chose themselves. Everyone who suffers the misfortune of being born gets allotted a measure of necessary hunger, fear, pain, and lust. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 19:30, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I think it is a more complicated issue with sexual lust than with hunger, pain or instinctive fear. Not that those three are similar either. They all require different types of strategies to overcome them or live with them. Satisfaction works for lust and hunger, but doesn't apply to pain or fear. Control works for all of them, but will probably break down eventually with hunger and pain. Etc. etc. . The issue is always more complex than you are trying to make it in your attempt to distill a quick and easy understanding out of it. Nullahnung (talk) 21:51, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, that may be true. If I were to identify any basic human drives or instincts as simply bad and wrong, sexual jealousy would rise quickly to the top.  It is triggered by different things and expresses itself very differently in male and female brains.  Male sexual jealousy and possessiveness appear to be major causes of homicide worldwide; this doesn't change significantly from culture to culture.  If there was some kind of law we could pass or institution we could erect that would stop it, we'd have done so already.  De-legitimizing sexual jealousy and possessiveness in a culture might help, but it seems impractical in a culture where every other country song goes back and re-legitimizes them.  (Triad bu Jefferson Airplane is the only moral love song.)  The take-home point in all this, I guess, is that we are unable to significantly alter our worst emotional and behavioral subroutines even if we can recognize their wrongness. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 01:41, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * You are using that statistic incorrectly, it seems. Domestically caused homicides in Australia as noted in the link come from a variety of relationship-related sources (one of the sources might have been murderous parents arguing over their kids!) which don't all include sexual jealousy. It is not clear whether sexual jealousy plays a large enough role in that statistic to be considered a "major cause of homicide worldwide". Confirmation bias is a troublesome thing that I suspect we are both suffering from. Let's not make hasty conclusions. Nullahnung (talk) 02:19, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Perhaps.... I blame sexual jealousy and possessiveness for crimes mostly because I've had too many conversations with murderers and other criminals. What good in the world is sexual jealousy?  How would we be diminished without it?  If we actually had the option not to experience it, I think we'd do well to choose it.  The point is, we don't. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 03:04, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Stop shaming women, but continue shaming both sexes for sexual harrassment.Bazer63 (talk) 09:28, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

AtheistGamer Here Any form of none consensual activity (including flirting and the..I suppose milder things (to a point)) are in my opinion, bad. Sleeping around randomly. I don't like, heavily frown upon buuut, there choice. And if it's legal (i.e. In age range + consensual ) then I have no say. They decided to it was ok. Sexual Jealousy is basic human nature on both ends. Trying to stop it is like trying to outlaw my Flight-Fight response. Isn't happening. AtheistGamer (talk) 02:21, 26 January 2018 (UTC)