The Obligatory Sex Blog Entry

One of the things that most fascinates and frustrates me when people talk about morality (or, I suppose I should say "morality" with quotes) is how much of what they are focused on is what could, for lack of a better term, be called "victimless crimes."

Not coincidentally, most of these "moral" rules reveal a bizarre obsession with sex. Now, a few points up front. What I am talking about here is responsible sex between those who are capable of making responsible decisions. So, it is sex that avoids unnecessary risks amongst those who have the maturity and frame of mind necessary to make an intelligent choices regarding responsible behavior (so those who are too young/inexperienced in life to make such decisions, those who suffer from conditions that impair their judgment, and so on are not being considered here - they are, by definition, a special case that the general rules don't apply to). I am talking strictly about sex between reasonable and responsible adults - don't try to put words in my mouth and claim I am saying otherwise. Also, don't try the bullshit "slippery slope" argument that what I am saying automatically leads to sex with children, animals, etc. etc. The fact that I specifically state that I am talking about individuals capable of making responsible decisions automatically shows such responses for the bullshit that they usually are anyway.

I have lost count of the number of times that I have had someone lecture me about the "immorality" of pre-marital sex. Now, don't get me wrong, considering the possibility of both pregnancy and infection with disease, not to mention the emotional issues that it causes for many people, sex is something that demands responsibility. However, responsibility can be taken by the unmarried as easily as the married (in fact, because they are more likely to be forced to see sex as something other than a matter of course, it's possible that the unmarried might be more likely to think about sex and therefore be responsible). Contraception can be used, couples can discuss the possibilities of emotional entanglements both before they begin a sexual relationship and throughout the duration of that relationship, individuals and couples can avoid risky behavior, and individuals can be routinely tested for STD's. Just as importantly, each individual should know what they think and feel about sex and its consequences (both certain and potential), and make sure that they find a partner who is compatible - what sex is and means is different for everyone.

These things being done, the responsibilities associated with sex can be dealt with just as effectively as they would be for a married couple - indeed, comparing the married vs. unmarried couples I know side-by-side, the unmarried couples routinely show a greater responsibility regarding their sex lives (you don't want to know the number of married couple I have crossed paths with where one member routinely lies to the other regarding sex, sometimes having severe consequences for both of them, while the unmarried couples I know tend to be rather open and honest with each other). Hardly a scientific survey, I know, and perhaps not completely representative, but it does give the lie to the notion that unmarried people are not likely to be responsible.

Yet, this being the case, many (usually, though not always, religious) folks rant about the evils of pre-marital sex. Why? While many claim that there are many bad consequences inherent in pre-marital sex, the scenarios provided consistently either caricature pre-marital sex into something that it is not (for example, it is very likely that someone reading this will claim that I am advocating wild promiscuity, which is the very opposite of the responsible behavior that I am advocating) or else ignore that the same problems associated with pre-marital sex are frequently also associated with sex between married couples (for example, I bet that someone right now is thinking that I haven't taken infidelity into account, but I have, and it is unfortuantely common amongst married couples). It is an unfortunate fact that married couples often experience abuse, infidelity, STD's, and other such problems. Don't believe me? Talk to a marriage counselor some time, they can tell you tales to curl your skin back from your bones. The fact that such problems are common for unmarried couples does not in any way change the fact that they are also common for married couples.

Now, some folks will claim that the non-married couples have shown less commitment. Not necessarilly true. I have met many non-married couples who have been together for decades, and many people who have been married multiple times within the space of a few years. Legal recognition of the relationship does not confer commitment on the part of the members of the couple - unfortunate, but true. All of that aside, though, so long as the couple is responsible, if no physical or emotional results from the sex (again, also quite possible for married couples), what is the harm done? If you guessed "well, none, really," give yourself a cookie.

Others will claim that pre-marital sex does psychological harm to those engaged in it. However, all of the studies that I am familiar with indicate that people with an active sex life, whether they are married or not, tend to be happier and healthier than those who lack one (who may be married or non-married). Moreover, many of the married couples that I know have found their sex lives unsatisfying when they married someone with whom they were incompatible, often doing psychological harm to both members of the couple. So, the psychological harm argument doesn't hold water.

Some folks will, at this point, claim that pre-marital sex results in "spiritual harm," by its very nature not a qualifiable or quantifiable thing. The "spiritual harm" argument is one of the most arrogant bullshit arguments that humanity has ever conceived - designed to be untestable, it exists merely so that someone who has reached an ill-informed a-priori conclusion can continue to hold that view despite overwhelming evidence. It essentially says "I, personally, dislike this thing, and so I will claim that it is wrong and evil despite all evidence or arguments against my conclusion!" Anyone who uses the "spiritual harm" argument should be ashamed of themselves for their basic dishonesty, but they probably won't be.

So, if there is not necessarilly a qualitative difference in pre-marital and marital sex, and there is no real evidence that responsible people will somehow be less responsible if they are not married, where does the claim of immorality come from?

Well, mostly it comes from tradition. Traditionally, most people claimed to wait until marriage for sex. Whether or not this is true is unclear at best - the first systematic sex surveys were not conducted until the 1950's, so hard data is lacking. However, it is known that prostitution was rampant through to the early 20th century (up through the early 20th century, every sizable town, and many small settlements, in California, Oregon, Colorado, Washington, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada had brothels - and that's just the region that I personally know about, I suspect that it is equally true for regions that I haven't studied), "deflowered girls" were often hidden by family, "illegitimate" pregnancies were a well-known phenomenon, churches routinely preached about the "evils of premarital sex" (why they would be preaching about it if it wasn't a relatively common "sin" is a question worth asking), and STDs were endemic in most populated areas (consider the estimated syphilis rates prior to the discovery of antibiotics) - so while people may have been claiming to "wait for marriage", a large number of them clearly weren't.

As a result of the expectation, however, most people simply didn't talk about sex. As a result, people assumed that almost everyone was following the "traditional" practices, despite the fact that this clearly was not happening. So, a tradition of a "tradition" grew up, and people began to think of this as the norm, and it is an unfortunate tendency for human cultures to mistake a perceived (though often not real) norm for "morality". In addition to all of this, the lack of discussion regarding sex has led to a substantial misunderstanding of it.

For example, in my hometown, I often heard people scream that sex is "for procreation, not recreation!" This attitude reveals a truly diseased misunderstanding of the physiological, social, and psychological dimensions of sex. Across human cultures, sex serves for procreation, yes, but also as a bonding tool between individuals, as a form of recreation, and as a release for tensions and anxieties. Physiologically, the benefits of sex are becoming clearer through medical research, but so far they are known to include: relieving physiological stress, boosting the immune system, maintaining healthy hormone balances, and helping to maintain overall health. So, sex does much, much more than simple procreation, and to claim otherwise is to show a vast ignorance of what it is (incidentally, most of these benefits come from any form of sex, not strictly heterosexual missionary position vaginal intercourse).

So, then, what is the harm of responsible premarital sex between adults? Well, nothing, really. We claim that it is immoral because it goes against a dubious tradition that tends to be uncritically accepted.

Now, that's not to say that pre-marital sex is a good idea for everyone. There is a wide range of human variation, and for some individuals, premarital sex may be a bad idea - and that is up to the individual to decide. But it is not for that individual to push their own feelings on the rest of society and arrogantly call it "morality."

But the point is that pre-marital sex is not inherently a bad thing by any verifiable measure, and may even be a good thing in providing health benefits for the unmarried and allowing the unmarried to find a partner with whom they are compatible before they enter into a legal contract (which is what marriage is in our society). Pre-marital sex is not inherently bad, so how can it (as opposed to risky sex, abusive sex, etc., which can be engaged in by married people as well as unmarried people) be considered immoral when nobody is harmed? This is the problem of most conventional measures of "morality" - they are arbitrary and focused on preventing things for no real reason, while often distracting society from very real problems and threats.

More broadly speaking, why is sex the focus of so much of our society's arguments about "morality?" Matters such as violence, poverty, and disease are usually just paid lip service, and are only rarely directly addressed as moral concerns (as opposed to legal or financial concerns). Debate about sex has been a constant feature of our social arguments about morality - be it the right of pharmacists to not sell contraceptives (while still selling Viagra - go figure), arguments against such complete non-issues as gay marriage, or constant tries to push "abstinence-only" education on the public despite the fact that it has been consistently shown to not actually work. Why is it that issues that impact all of us are pushed into the background while the personal lives of independent adults are opened up for public scrutiny? Also worth asking - why is it that most of the people doing this pushing are the self-proclaimed "conservatives" who want "less government" except for when and where the government interferes with people's personal lives?

Worse, our obsession with sex as a focus of "morality" has led to a clouding of issues and an ignorance of very real problems. For example, the HPV vaccine has the potential to eliminate most cases of genital warts and many cases of cervical cancer, yet many religious groups oppose it because they insanely believe that anyone who engages in sex outside of marriage deserves to get a deadly disease (and they are open about this, go to Google and look up "HPV Vaccine religious and moral opposition" to see these folks say it themselves)*. Likewise, most anti-prostitution crusaders focus on the sex, not on the medical and violence risks faced by the prostitutes (or even by our culture's attitudes towards sex that creates an underground prostitution market). Also, many religious lobbyists actively put pressure on the government to cut funding for HIV/AIDS research despite the fact that this research can save lives the world over not only by stopping HIV, but also because the odd biological problems that must be tackled for this research will contribute greatly to the treatment of a wide variety of other diseases.

To add to the problem, many folks realize the inherent silliness of classifying pre-marital sex as evil or "sinful", but because of the immature attitudes that this "morality" fosters, they often swing to the opposite end and assume that extremely risky behavior is somehow more "natural", "moral", "sophisticated", etc. Of course, this is just as ridiculous, but it is the sort of soft-headed response that one should expect from a pervasive soft-headed immoral "morality" that demonizes sex.

In short, the "moral" focus on sex has led to an ignorance of real problems (such as violence), the demonization of segments of the public who are doing no harm (such as unmarried couples and homosexuals), and the creation of a society in which promising medical research is attacked or ignored because by dealing with sex it makes many people uncomfortable. This is sick. Moreover, it has led to a society in which "moral" crusaders consistently waste the time and money of the government pushing for the government interference in our personal lives (making various forms of sex illegal, interfering in medical treatments, interfering in the right of responsible adults to marry whom they choose) and attempting to silence criticism of this absurd behavior. This is really, really sick.


* This should not be confused with actual debate in the medical community regarding the use of the vaccine, which is usually based around, ya' know, evidence and not presumptuous notions about morality.

Note: I previously posted this elsewhere. It has been mildly edited to make it more readable.

Abraham and Isaac

I have always found the Abraham and Isaac story very disturbing. The story is held up as an example of different things by different people - some hold that it demonstrates that obedience to god is the most important attribute that one can possess, others that it is a sign of god's mercy (since he doesn't make Abraham kill Isaac in the end), and others that it is a sign that god can invert the natural order any way that he wants and that us limited humans ought not to question it.

For a variety of reasons, all of which can be grouped together under the heading of "being a normal and well-adjusted moral individual" I find all of these explanations, all of which seek to justify the proposed human sacrifice as moral, to be complete and utter bullshit. Or, as Julia sweeney puts it:

This Old Testament God makes the grizzliest test to peoples' loyalty, like when he asks Abraham to murder his son Isaac. As a kid we were taught to admire it. I caught my breath reading it. We were taught to admire it! What kind of sadistic test of loyalty is that, to ask someone to kill his or her own child? And isn't the proper answer no?

I have however come across two bits o' media that cover the story in a way that at least shows some sort of attempt to understand it. The first is from Radiolab, and is sympathetic to Abraham. Listen here.

The other is satirical and very unsympathetic not only to Abraham but to the world view that holds that this sort of sadistic test of loyalty (to quote Sweeney) is justifiable:

A bit more on morality

I saw this article today, and it discusses, in a limited and simplified way, the origins of moralty in our evolutionary history, while briefly referencing the role that culture plays in moral reasoning and development.

The article simplifies the discussion rather greatly, and there is reason to be skeptical of some of the specifics. However, the interesting point is that it discusses morality as a function of our brains in rather the same way that other judgements - about beauty, flavor, and tempurature - are.

No doubt this view will make some folks uneasy (I can already see one particular commenter coming up with some strawman reasons why this is the work of godless heathens who lack any redeeming qualities), but if this view, certainly more complex and modified, is valid, it is important to understand, as it will hold clues regarding how we can continue to function as a population as we move farther from our evolutionary roots as hunter-gatherers on the savannah.

The Obligatory "Pope Condom Comment" Post

So, as you may have heard, the Vatican is lashing out against those who are mocking the Pope because of his rather absurd claims about condoms being one of the causes of the spread of HIV.

Now, the Vatican is reacting to two things, as far as I can tell: 1) the fact that people have the nerve to critice the Pope, and 2) that the criticism of the Pope over the condom comments is overshadowing some of the other things that he said and did during his African visit.

#2 is perfectly valid. The Pope did say and do many other things while in Africa, and they have been eclipsed by controversy over his condom comments. This is problematic from any point of view, and the Vatican has every right to be annoyed with that.

HOWEVER…

The notion that the Pope should be spared criticism is beyond absurd. Like it or not, think it’s right or not, the Pope is a significant political figure, and as such he is going to be subject to the same types of scrutiny and criticism as any other major political figure. The fact that he would take a position that is at such odds with reality as claiming that the use of condoms may increase HIV transmission richly deserves criticism and condemnation – it’s a view that is out of touch with reality and in a place such as Africa, DANGEROUSLY STUPID for a major political figure to espouse, especially one that a large number of people assume has divine authority.

I have to say that my favorite quote comes from Bishop Bagnasco:

"He represents for everyone a moral authority, which this journey has made people appreciate even more," Bagnasco said.

Ummm, he’s encouraging an abandonment of one of the primary effective tools in the fight against a deadly disease that has engulfed the African continent not because the tool doesn’t work (it does) but because his a-priori assumptions won’t allow him to actually examine the evidence. That alone means that he is not a moral authority. By choosing to ignore evidence in favor of dogma, he has chosen a path that is only going to lead to the death of others. How the Hell is that a moral stance?

EDITED TO ADD:

By the way, he represents "for everyone a moral authority"? Umm, last I checked, non-Catholics were part of "everyone", and many (maybe most) of us don't consider him a moral authority. If the guy (or his spokesmen) are going to try to assert his moral authority over everyone and not just his followers, then they had damn well better be prepared for more criticism and mockery.

Thinking About Morality

What is morality, and where does it come from? Seems like a simple question, doesn’t it? Most of us treat it as if it’s a simple thing, but it really isn’t. If you live in the U.S., you will most often hear morality discussed as a function of religion. In fact, I find that because I do not share the majority position regarding religion, I am often (in fact, typically) accused of being immoral or amoral – the basic idea being that if I do not believe in a supernatural source for morality, I must be “cut off from moral bearings” or, as Banana Man Ray Comfort puts it, a “moral free agent.”

The first problem is that this particular claim is that, like most of the folks that I know who share my views on religion, I’m pretty boring on the whole sin front. For the most part, I don’t have any particular vices that aren’t also shared with the religious people I know, and I lack even many of those (I don’t drink, never been unfaithful to a partner, no drugs, tend to be a goody-two-shoes as applied to other people’s property, etc.). Where I tend to differ from them is that I do not view arbitrary things that don’t harm anyone as sins – I have no problem with gay people, I don’t really care if someone “blasphemes”, and so on.

In other words, I’m a good citizen, decent neighbor, and all without thinking that there is some sort of being hanging doom over my head if I do wrong. And I am not alone. Time and again, research into the relationship between violent crime, divorce, substance abuse, willingness to cheat others, and so on has shown that these things are not negatively correlated with religious belief. If the non-religious were truly adrift in a sea of immorality, the situation would be quite the opposite.

In fact, as a general rule*, high rates of religious belief in a nation or region correlates with higher rates of crime, drug use, divorce, unplanned pregnancy, abortion, poor social and personal health, etc. (see here and here). This is not necessarily to say that religion causes all of the strife – there are many factors that play a role (some of which have non-causal correlations with religion) – but it doesn’t prevent these problems and may bear some responsibility (by making some topics taboo – such as accurate information about sex education and STDs - or placing some legitimate solutions arbitrarily off-limits – such as the Catholic Church’s official refusal to accept that condoms may be of use in combating the spread of HIV – or placing belief ahead of action – such as the tendency amongst many Christian sects to argue that belief in Jesus is more important than behaving morally, or sanctifying anti-social actions as moral – such as suicide bombers in the Middle East or the murder of people who leave Islam in many Middle-Eastern nations). That religion is not the bulwark of morality against a rising tide of social ills is further illsutrated by the fact that the non-religious make up a smaller portion of the prison population than of the general population (see here and here). Independent of the question of whether or not religion causes social ills (a very complex question outside the scope of what I am writing here), it should be obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together that if religious belief was in fact the source of morality, then belief in gods would correlate with higher rates of moral behavior, but this proposition is demonstrably false.

There is a further problem with the notion that religion is the source of morality: most religious believers don’t actually follow the moral codes that they claim to believe – and, for the record, this reflects well on the believers. For example, in the recent Proposition 8 debate here in California, believers frequently stated that the Bible condemned homosexuality, and therefore gay marriage should not be allowed. They are, of course, correct that the Bible condemns homosexuality**, but they ignored that the Bible also calls for the death penalty for homosexuals – for that matter, most of them even feel that the mandatory prison sentences for homosexuality that were common up through the first half of the 20th century were overly harsh. And we see a similar rejection of harsh punishment for other religious “crimes” amongst most modern believers. In other words, the average believer today demonstrates a stronger sense of compassion and, well, morality than the authors of their holy texts did, and in demonstrating these commendable traits, they are, by the standards of the texts that they claim to follow, committing a sin***. And good for them I say, they are clearly better people, citizens, and neighbors than the original authors of the texts, and I think that this shows some degree of moral progress. But it also shows that even those who claim religion is the source of morality don’t actually behave as if it is.

So, if the majority view is wrong, and morality does not come from religion, where does it come from? How can we be moral? Why aren’t we doomed to nihilism and wickedness?

Well, the answer seems to come from a rather obvious place, really: our evolutionary origins. Put simply, we are social animals, and as such, we have had to evolve both biological and cultural traits that allow us to function in groups.

Let me phrase my argument as a hypothesis to be tested. If our sense of morality comes from our evolutionary origins, then it follows that other animals that are close to us either genetically or in their social organization will demonstrate similar traits to deal with social organization – constrained by their own biological capacities, that there would be evidence of moral behavior across all human societies and not just those with the “correct” religions, and that those traits that are universally “moral” should have adaptive use to mobile hunter-gatherers (our ancestors).

So, let’s start with other animals. When we look at other social animals, we see development of social rules that allow these animals to interact successfully and with minimal conflict – even the fights observed amongst packs of dogs are geared at determining the leader to be followed rather than violence for the sake of violence. As we come closer to humans, we see more and more traits that are recognizable. Chimpanzees, for example, show such human behaviors as warfare and outgroup exclusion (both part of most human moral codes, interestingly), but also show our better traits such as compassion and cooperation. As Jane Goodall, puts it:

They kiss, embrace, hold hands, pat one another on the back, swagger, shake their fists, and throw rocks in the same context that we do these things. There are strong bonds of affection and support between family members. They help each other. And they have violent and brutal aggression, even a kind of primitive war. In all these ways, they’re very like us.

For more information, look into the work of Dr. Goodall, or the work of others researching the origins of morality.

Likewise, we do find certain universals amongst human populations, and I have seen these time and again in my studies and research as an anthropologist: the preservation of the in-group is seen as good; altruism is good; harm to the in-group is bad; harm to the out-group may be neutral, good, or bad, depending on the impact that this has on the in-group; individual compassion is used as a guide to correct treatment of others, but is influenced by the relation of the other to the individual acting; the definition of in-group and out-group is flexible and dependent upon the situation, but is generally correlated to the social and genetic relationship of the individual being acted upon to the individual doing the acting.

So, we do see universals that make sense for mobile, stone-age hunter-gatherers, but not necessarily for modern humans. For example, look up the “Trolley Problem” (listen here) to see how the interjection of technology into the equation causes us to view what is logically an equivalent situation as being morally right or wrong (long story short – technological harm to an individual is seen as being more “okay” than directly-caused harm, even if the resulting harm is identical), or check out how an action that would generally be considered evil can be made acceptable through the phenomenon of groups absolution or the placement of those being acted upon into the out-group. These traits are not adaptive to a modern post-industrial society, in which we have the ability to impact masses of people both positively and negatively, but make perfect sense in the context of stone-age hunter-gatherers.

Now, of course, religion is itself probably a result of our evolutionary histories, and so it is no surprise that it often becomes conflated with morality. But the difference is that when we drop the notion that religion is the source of morality, rather than something that evolved along with it, we can see that morality is a natural thing – that is, it is something that has come about because we need it, rather than being enforced on us by an external force. This has an important implication: we can use the needs of living people as guides to moral behavior, and we can see where there is wisdom to be gained from our evolutionary past, rather than continuing to claim arbitrary and silly traditions from bronze-age societies.

A lot of people find this idea of a changing and fluid morality uncomfortable, and as such they declare that such a notion is bad (some particularly bigoted individuals will then go on to claim that the non-religious are unable or unlikely to be moral – but this says more about the insecurities, and, let’s face it, immorality of the people who claim this than the immorality of non-religious people). However, even these people subscribe to the notion of a fluid and changing morality, whether they admit it or not. As noted above, most believers are not in favor of the execution of blasphemers and homosexuals, though that is what their religious texts call for and their ancestors would have demanded. The reason for this is that our society has changed – for the better – and these old ways are seen as harsh and maladaptive now. Religion has not tamed society and made it more moral, rather, culture has tamed religion and forced it to actually behave in a more moral way. Anyone who clings to the notion of an eternal and unchanging code of morality is lying, either to themselves or to you.

Some may claim that giving up even the illusion of an unchanging morality from the divine will lead to moral decay - gulags for the sick, eugenics, violence against those of a different intellectual bent, etc. Assuming that such a thing is true - which is a debatable point - this claim in favor of a religion-based morality still doesn't hold water, and is in fact rather dishonest (and, ironically, therefore probably immoral) for a simple reason: through most of human history, people have clung to models of morality either dictated by or justified through perceived divine revelation, and that has resulted in persecution of dissenters, genocidal wars, torture, suicide bombings, honor-killings, etc. etc. Even if an openly fluid non-religious moral ethos completely replaces religious ones, and even if it is the worst that all believers claim it might be, it would not really be any worse than the religion-based versions. At worst, it would be pretty much the same, and then we're in the same place that we've always been - except that now we're honest about it.

In truth, those who push the notion (even if they don’t actually subscribe to it) of an un-changing morality handed down by god are the ones who are unmoored from moral anchors. They are allowing arbitrary codes that they themselves only half-heartedly hold to take precedence over the very real needs of people. They are more concerned with having their own prejudices and psychological comforts unquestioned than with actually doing good. They will often try to misdirect you – claiming that you are entering into a dangerous moral relativism, when they are the ones who are holding that their own arbitrary a-priori beliefs are somehow more important than the suffering or joy of others - and the assumption that arbitrary positions are somehow equal to verifiable facts is the very definition of relativism.

In other words, don’t buy it. Think about morality, consider that we do have moral impulses that we can sharpen and make use of for the good of ourselves and those around us, and don't allow yourself to be sold on something that may be doing more harm than good.





*I say “as a general rule” because there are, of course, some exceptions.

**Or, at least, most modern translations do – but what the original Hebrew and Greek said, and whether it was a blanket condemnation or rather a rejection of ritual homosexuality (common in the ancient Middle East), is a matter better discussed by people who know more about the subject than I currently do.

***There are, of course, many rationalizations that believers may give for ignoring these rather evil commandments – “that was a ritual requirement that Jesus did away with,” “that was specific to that time and place,” “God’s subsequent commandments show that this changed.” The problems with these rationalizations are twofold: 1) the same believers will still cling to commandments that can be easily dismissed in exactly the same way (such as the general condemnation of homosexuality), and 2) the same believers often claim that the moral codes of the Bible are “eternal and unchanging” while simultaneously admitting that they have changed.