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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Article - Is casual sex immoral? - on sex positivity and its effect on women

121 replies

Goosefoot · 20/11/2020 13:47

I thought people might find this an interesting article - I'll come back and give my thoughts later but there are plenty of interesting ideas in there.

unherd.com/2020/11/is-casual-sex-immoral/

OP posts:
YetAnotherSpartacus · 21/11/2020 11:39

We’re not referring to, for example, the horrors of child marriage in other parts of the world

I didn't say anything about child marriage and no I'm not. I did say that it has only been in recent times that we widely associate marriage with romance and that many unions elsewhere in the world are still made on economic grounds.

Imnobody4 · 21/11/2020 11:39

@Stripesnomore

‘Is using another person as merely a means ok.’

So are you saying that there are moral and immoral ways of having casual sex? Perhaps casual sex is moral if it is between friends who care about each other but don’t intend to pursue a relationship?

For heaven's sake. The question is one of reciprocity. Treating the other person as you would wish to be treated, respect etc. Proper communication, an interest and concern for the other person's preferences. The problem is this is more complex than simple consent. And yes that also applies to all sex in every context.
Stripesnomore · 21/11/2020 11:40

‘As you say, if they are shit in bed you won't know any better and are then stuck...’

This seems like quite an uncaring attitude to a person you are married to, never mind just sleeping with. In a relationship you learn to have sex with each other in mutually fulfilling ways. It doesn’t matter if someone initially isn’t any good at sex. They can learn and change.

Stripesnomore · 21/11/2020 11:42

I am not sure why you are frustrated Imnobody. I didn’t ask about consent and am agreement that moral sex would be reciprocal.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 21/11/2020 11:43

In a relationship you learn to have sex with each other in mutually fulfilling ways

You can also do the same in a casual fuck but you are not stuck cleaning his toilet the next day.

Stripesnomore · 21/11/2020 11:49

Spartacus, I am not saying that you are referring to child marriage.

What I am saying is that if we are discussing what are the best moral principles for marriage and way at are the best moral principles for casual sex, we are looking at what our values are.

Whatwouldscullydo · 21/11/2020 11:55

This seems like quite an uncaring attitude to a person you are married to, never mind just sleeping with. In a relationship you learn to have sex with each other in mutually fulfilling ways. It doesn’t matter if someone initially isn’t any good at sex. They can learn and change

I think this is quite naive.

Yes there is a degree of learning what you both like. But I do think sexual compatibility is either there or its not.

I mean within this learning, you will obviously both have boundries if what you are prepared to try/do. And rightly so. And those boundaries of course should he respected without question.

But sometimes they just don't match up.

Flywheel · 21/11/2020 11:56

It's a really interesting topic. From a societal point of view, widespread casual sex is bad (unwanted pregnancy, disease). The moral framework provided by the church, particularly in the past, did have benefits.
I do think the sex positivity message is simplistic and can be damaging, particularly for girls. I will be teaching my daughters that sex can be wonderful, but to approach it with their eyes wide open. There are risks (both to their health and emotionally). And I will also explain that their behaviour will be judged far more harshly than their male peers. This is unfair, but it is also a fact.

Wandawomble · 21/11/2020 12:27

@kesstrel

I don't think the point of the article is a out whether casual sex is immoral.

It's about whether it's immoral to encourage girls and young women to unquestioningly believe a narrative about casual sex that may be damaging to them, while clearly benefiting males.

This is what I took away from it too. That is a narrative that needs to be explored, even if this article isn’t the most articulate.
Wandawomble · 21/11/2020 12:42

@Flywheel

It's a really interesting topic. From a societal point of view, widespread casual sex is bad (unwanted pregnancy, disease). The moral framework provided by the church, particularly in the past, did have benefits. I do think the sex positivity message is simplistic and can be damaging, particularly for girls. I will be teaching my daughters that sex can be wonderful, but to approach it with their eyes wide open. There are risks (both to their health and emotionally). And I will also explain that their behaviour will be judged far more harshly than their male peers. This is unfair, but it is also a fact.
I totally agree with this. I have some thoughts and anecdotal observations that are and aren’t related.

One is that I feel uncomfortable with the sex positive message being pushed on girls to be like men and the double standards still prevail as you say. Also that often girls do get emotionally attached in a way that boys don’t because of the LOVE narrative being indoctrinated into them and maybe because of actual female need to bond. I think boys are encouraged not to bond.

I know several men who have casual sex with women who do want relationships and these women say they are ok with being fuck buddies but are getting more and more damaged by the experiences (I have friends on both sides of this)

I know several people who were in open relationships who at the time said it was working for them, but apart from one, all have broken up because of the man sleeping with people outside the “rules” of the relationship boundaries.

For myself subjectively in the 80’s and 90’s being 20 something mostly single woman, I hated casual sex and how common the fuckbuddy scenario had started to become. Often it was unspoken, I didn’t know how to ask the question and the bloke wasn’t forthcoming about not wanting a relationship until a few weeks had passed and it became clear he was not emotionally invested. I had no idea how to navigate my feelings on this having come from a very damaged background. I don’t think I even knew the concept of what it was. I wonder how we talk about these things and educate our daughters about it now. It starts with women being able to ask questions before the sex happens. I don’t know how many of us do that and I don’t know how many girls do that and are being told the truth if they do.

twoHopes · 21/11/2020 12:58

I know I'm going to sound about 100 saying this (I'm in my early thirties!) but it seems to me that so many young women have been completely conned out of romance. What happened to chatting over a bottle of wine for hours? Or walking around in the dusk and first kisses under the stars? To me it is this kind of thing that makes being young and single exciting and fun. Those are the memories I look back on and smile.

I think dating apps have a lot to answer for in killing the romance stone dead and making relationships more like online shopping than romantic adventures. It's absolutely true that this benefits men more than women but I also think many men are not exactly emotionally fulfilled by a "fuck and chuck" either.

FifteenToes · 21/11/2020 13:10

The problem with the article is that it confuses morality with preference. The dead chicken example sets up this confusion right from the beginning: Of course it's not "immoral", in the sense of being anyone else's business to have a say in, if someone wants to fuck a dead chicken before eating it. Are most people likely to find the idea disgusting and not want to do it? Yes, of course that, too. But there is no contradiction between these two things, because it's not the purpose of morality (in a modern liberal democracy, at least, as opposed to a theocracy) to stop other people doing things you happen to find disgusting.

Similarly, the fact that casual sex between consenting adults is morally neutral is not complicated and really doesn't require so many words. The idea that cultural developments which prioritise casual sex over slowly developing pre-sexual relationships have been bad overall for women is a really interesting and important one that should be talked about, but doesn't negate that moral neutrality.

And this:

O’Neill is correctly identifying a problem — the fact that horny and unscrupulous men (“fuckboys” in contemporary slang) will regularly manipulate naive women into casual sex that leaves the women feeling wretched. Such sex isn’t illegal, since the women do say “yes”, but it’s unpleasant and unkind.

is really simple. Lying is wrong - that's hardly a revolutionary moral discovery. Lying to get people to do things that are against their own best interests, because they probably wouldn't do them in posession of the truth, is particularly wrong.

Stripesnomore · 21/11/2020 13:24

‘Of course it's not "immoral", in the sense of being anyone else's business to have a say in’

There is no sense in which immoral means other people being able to have a say. That isn’t what immoral means. Immoral means that something is wrong or bad. Whether or not somebody else should be able to have a say in whether you can commit the act is a different question.

Thelnebriati · 21/11/2020 13:28

I thought the article showed there was some confusion about that, particularly in the minds of people who considered themselves liberal. They seemed to think that if they found something immoral or disgusting, it should be made illegal.

Stripesnomore · 21/11/2020 13:33

Yes, the inebriarti, I thought that.

People aren’t clear on the distinctions between finding something immoral, telling someone else you find it immoral, and making something illegal.

Which is perhaps where some authoritarianism is coming from. Many people (not on this thread, but generally) struggling with the idea that people may express an opinion we consider it immoral to hold, but it shouldn’t be illegal to hold an immoral opinion.

Stripesnomore · 21/11/2020 13:43

It is of course illegal to have sex with a dead animal in many liberal democracies - the United States for example.

DidoLamenting · 21/11/2020 17:00

@Stripesnomore

It is of course illegal to have sex with a dead animal in many liberal democracies - the United States for example.
Do you have a specific citation for that? Most countries have bestiality laws in relation to live animals.

You mentioned "liberal countries" - Denmark used until quite recently have animal brothels- which is appalling.

My top priority is animal rights but I can't get terribly worked up about what someone does with a dead chicken.

ginandbearit · 21/11/2020 17:31

Interesting article in today's Times about a matriarchial society in China where women rule the clan , have as many lovers as they want as long as they are gone by the morning , and have better health markers than women in traditional marriages abd societies . I think there are a couple of other groups where men are added extras to the family..interesting to consider the cultural rather than biological reasons for enforced monotony...er monogomy especially in light of the discovery by dna of how many men aren't bringing up their own offspring . The almost universal fear by men of womens sexuality and its repression and control underpins almost everything you need to know about the patriarchy .

ErrolTheDragon · 21/11/2020 17:48

There's a thread on that with a link - yes, I thought of this discussion when I saw it.

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