Ship of Fools: Only 46% of British young people say they are completely heterosexual

Thread: Only 46% of British young people say they are completely heterosexual Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=70;t=030814

Posted by Starlight (# 12651) on :

Fascinating results from a YouGov poll of British people's sexuality out this week.

Among those aged 18-24, only 46% reported themselves to be "completely heterosexual" given the standard Kinsey 7-point scale. 11% reported a greater preference for the same sex than the opposite sex, and 6% reported being "completely homosexual" on the 7-point scale.

Whereas among the most elderly demographic surveyed, those numbers became 88% "completely heterosexual", 2% with a greater preference for the same sex, and only 1% report being "completely homosexual".

Results for young people showed a strong bias against the label 'bisexual', with people who scored near the middle of the Kinsey scale largely reporting themselves as identifying either with the labels "heterosexual" or "gay/lesbian" rather than "bisexual" (20% of respondents were near the middle of the scale, while only 2% identified as "bisexual"). 10% labelled themselves "gay/lesbian".

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

Starlight sent me a PM apologising and asking for the thread to be moved to DH. On its way it goes

B62, Purg Host

Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on :

The trouble with a continuum line from 'exclusively heterosexual' to 'exclusively homosexual', with 'varying bisexual' responses in between, is that it completely excludes asexual people, as if they didn't exist.

Posted by Starlight (# 12651) on :

From reading the original data it looks like "No sexuality" and "Don't Know" were additional allowed responses in addition to selecting a location on the 7-point spectrum. 1% of 18-24 year-olds selected "no sexuality", and 3% said "don't know". Likewise with the more common 3-way categorization of gay/straight/bi, 2% went with "other" and 2% with "prefer not to say".

I agree with you however, that having a specific category for "asexual" would have been better. I think "no sexuality" is in danger of lumping together people who identify as "asexual" and people who are not currently sexually active.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

I admit to being a little surprised the numbers at the more homosexual end of the scale are that high. I know everyone throws around a 10% figure from Kinsey, but the more reliable data I'd seen from the past had suggested to me that the figure for identifying as homosexual was down around the 2% mark, and that the 10% would be more accurate for also including 'sufficiently interested to have tried a homosexual activity at some point'.

Perhaps this just demonstrates how strong an effect the social condemnation of homosexual activity had, and that when young people today grow up in an environment where homosexuality is okay there is no longer the same downward pressure on reporting homosexual inclinations, of whatever degree.

[ 20. August 2015, 04:51: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

I am not surprised by the figures for young people, and rather glad to see them being stated. I think that for many people (and TBH IME) sexuality is a continuum rather than a tick-box.

[ 20. August 2015, 07:33: Message edited by: Albertus ]

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

What Albertus said.

Also, this isn't 46% of 18-24 year olds; it's 46% of 18-24 year olds who are registered with YouGov and filled in that survey.

For those outwith Britain, YouGov members register and then accumulate points for each survey they complete. Once they accumulate 5000 points they are paid £50. I don't know, but I'd guess, that college / University students form a large proportion of those completing the survey.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

Good point, NEQ. One always needs to take note of the way in which results are collected as this can skew the results. One might guess - perhaps erroneously - that those who filled in the poll are better educated, more politically and socially aware and perhaps more liberal than the population as a whole. Nevertheless an interesting picture.

[That reminds me of a poll they did at a doctor's surgery regarding opening hours: most of the respondents said that they thought they were fine. But only people who actually visited the doctor's got asked: there may have been many more who never got there simply because the opening hours were impossible for them.

And re. statistics in general: I used to think that one could make an interesting correlation between bus travel and lung cancer, although I don't know if there is one: i.e. those who travel by bus are more likely to get the disease. But, of course, it wouldn't be a case of simple cause-and-effect: rather that bus travellers and smokers are proportionately more likely to be drawn from similar socioeconomic bands].

[ 20. August 2015, 08:25: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

Thank you NEQ, I too had been wondering about the methodology and the extent to which the results could be relied upon. From what you say, it is a survey true only of those who completed it.

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

Obviously the survey has statistical limitations and I guess a professional statistician would say "gives no reliable information about the public at large".

But I think orfeo is probably right. Historical pressures may well have led to inaccurate conclusions about folks' sexual orientation and preferences.

And a lot depends on the framing of the questions asked. As Sir Humphrey famously demonstrated, if you want a particular answer you can improve your chances of getting it by the way you frame the questions, and the sequence of questions.

Posted by Starlight (# 12651) on :

The data we have from Greek and Roman times on the subject of sexuality makes it clear that a majority of males were okay with at least occasionally having sexual interactions with other males. So I'm really not surprised to see the "exclusively heterosexual" figure at below 50% in this survey...

I suspect that as our societies continue to get more tolerant, the percentage of people who are prepared to admit to themselves and others that they have some level of same-sex attraction will continue to increase.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

<cross-post with Starlight making the point of my 1st paragraph>

This is not particularly surprising. We know from history that men at least can be pushed to close to 100% "openness to occasional homosexuality" by nurture and social pressure. The Greeks demonstrated that long ago. Furthermore, in the age bracket of 15-25 year olds, you could probably convince young men to screw much anything by giving them encouragement, or even just an excuse.

The delusion on display in the discussion of this result is that these numbers are some kind of relaxation to a "normal" state, maybe even the "state of nature". As if our contemporary societies were somehow "neutral" on this matter. They very much are not neutral now, and it is questionable whether such a neutrality is even possible. The social acceptance and even celebration of homosexuality is certainly in full political swing, with the media blaring its pro homosexuality bias at the public day in and out (well, the USA is a bit of an exception there in the Western world, since it does maintain a split on the issue - anywhere else, not so much).

What this does give a lie to is the claim that giving homosexuals their "proper rights" does not recruit the young to this kind of sexuality, but merely frees a fixed group of people from suppression. We have just rediscovered that youth indeed is impressionable, even concerning what and how to screw. In other news, bears shit in woods...

[ 20. August 2015, 09:47: Message edited by: IngoB ]

Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Starlight:
From reading the original data it looks like "No sexuality" and "Don't Know" were additional allowed responses in addition to selecting a location on the 7-point spectrum. 1% of 18-24 year-olds selected "no sexuality", and 3% said "don't know". Likewise with the more common 3-way categorization of gay/straight/bi, 2% went with "other" and 2% with "prefer not to say".

Ah yes - the article seems to suggest that people have to put themselves on the continuum, but looking further at the Kinsey scale, there is an option 'X' to not be on the continuum. Wikipedia says:

quote:
In both the Male and Female volumes of the Kinsey Reports, an additional grade, listed as "X", was used to mean "no socio-sexual contacts or reactions"; in modern times, this represents asexuality

Definitely there is a lot more awareness and acceptance of bisexuality and homosexuality nowadays, especially among young poeple. Less awareness and acceptance of asexuality - on equal opportunities forms, for instance, where you select your sexuality, I've never seen 'asexual' as an option. Sometimes there isn't even an 'other' option.

I wonder - if a specific 'asexual' option were included in the Kinsey scale, maybe, say, in twenty years time when there is more awareness and acceptance of asexuality, the same sort of change might happen where more people select that option.

Posted by Starlight (# 12651) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The delusion on display in the discussion of this result is that these numbers are some kind of relaxation to a "normal" state, maybe even the "state of nature". As if our contemporary societies were somehow "neutral" on this matter. They very much are not neutral now,

I agree. Homophobia is still rampant in our societies and we are still very very far from gay and straight people being treated equally in the minds and attitudes of everyday people.

quote:
The social acceptance and even celebration of homosexuality is certainly in full political swing, with the media blaring its pro homosexuality bias at the public day in and out

You're hilarious.

quote:
What this does give a lie to is the claim that giving homosexuals their "proper rights" does not recruit the young to this kind of sexuality, but merely frees a fixed group of people from suppression.

You're treating it as an either/or case, but it does both things. The people who are at the fully homosexual end of the spectrum are being given their proper rights and freed from suppression. But, yes, it is also going to lead to those who aren't at the fully homosexual end of the spectrum possibly choosing to have some gay sex when previously they would have had only straight sex. Dun, dun, DUN...

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
<cross-post with Starlight making the point of my 1st paragraph>

This is not particularly surprising. We know from history that men at least can be pushed to close to 100% "openness to occasional homosexuality" by nurture and social pressure. The Greeks demonstrated that long ago. Furthermore, in the age bracket of 15-25 year olds, you could probably convince young men to screw much anything by giving them encouragement, or even just an excuse.
The delusion on display in the discussion of this result is that these numbers are some kind of relaxation to a "normal" state, maybe even the "state of nature". As if our contemporary societies were somehow "neutral" on this matter. They very much are not neutral now, and it is questionable whether such a neutrality is even possible. The social acceptance and even celebration of homosexuality is certainly in full political swing, with the media blaring its pro homosexuality bias at the public day in and out (well, the USA is a bit of an exception there in the Western world, since it does maintain a split on the issue - anywhere else, not so much).

What this does give a lie to is the claim that giving homosexuals their "proper rights" does not recruit the young to this kind of sexuality, but merely frees a fixed group of people from suppression. We have just rediscovered that youth indeed is impressionable, even concerning what and how to screw. In other news, bears shit in woods...

You would make a stronger case if your argument wasn't so full of obvious bias. You think the numbers artificially high? Well previous were likely artificially low.
That sexual attraction is plastic is just as likely an indicator that indicates that it is not as fixed in nature as you would represent.
"Recruits" Please. That there exist opportunists in this world? [Eek!]

Really? Shocker, innit.
But someone has been watching the Village People a bit too seriously.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

I am not at all surprised by the results.

Because homosexuality has been a subject of shame, people have suppressed theiur natgural feelings in the past and presented as heterosexual.

I disagree with Orfeo's 2% - becuse 5% has been the result in most surveys whereas the 2% comes about through surveys done face to face where many lie.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
You would make a stronger case if your argument wasn't so full of obvious bias. You think the numbers artificially high? Well previous were likely artificially low.

I agree. Clearly nurture works both ways. Let's get back to "artificially" low then.

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
That sexual attraction is plastic is just as likely an indicator that indicates that it is not as fixed in nature as you would represent.

That I would represent? It seems to me that the line that homosexuality is hard-coded into people is more one of the pro-homosexuality side. Witness the lamentations and claims of impossibility whenever the possibility of educating someone away from homosexuality is raised. (Mind you, somewhat absurdly such programmes tend to be aimed at adult "hard cases", which may well be near un-turnable. We see in these poll numbers that such interventions likely would succeed better when aimed at the young whose sexuality is apparently more fluid.)

I am set on the moral evaluation of homosexuality, and yes, that can be related to the unchanging purpose of sex in the biological sense. But I'm not at all claiming that individual sexual desires and practices are unchanging or unchangeable. In fact, if lived sexuality was merely a free choice, then the moral argument would simplify a lot.

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
"Recruits" Please. That there exist opportunists in this world? Really? Shocker, innit.

I'm not at all "shocked" by this. I just find it amusing that the often denied "corruption of youth" is rather clearly happening. (Obviously, whether one considers this change a corruption depends on one's moral views. But at least we can now clearly see that the youth are significantly affected.)

Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on :

Yeah, we need to go back to the good old days when young people were "influenced" to the point of suicide by sexist and homophobic bullying. Oh, wait ...

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
the unchanging purpose of sex in the biological sense.

There isn't just one. No matter how many times you assert there's only one, it won't be true, any more than it's true that hearing is the only purpose of ears.

I've been hearing you assert this same thing for several years, now, and it's never been remotely convincing, which makes all the arguments you hang off this assertion similarly unconvincing.

[ 20. August 2015, 13:36: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

ADDENDUM: It took me 5 seconds of Googling to find a thoroughly conservative Christian website that cites multiple purposes of sex. We're talking about a site that says the only licit sexual activity is heterosexual sex within marriage, and it still says sex has a variety of purposes.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

I apologise for posting multiple times in a row, but I feel it is essential that I "reply" to what is almost certainly Ingo's next approach: to say that other purposes of sex are not purposes in the biological sense.

Such a position is not tenable. Intimacy is not an abstract mental concept. There is very strong evidence about the role of vasopressin and oxytocin in intimacy and pair bonding. Indeed, I've experienced a man trying to prove to me that homosexuality was not biologically right because of the release of vasopressin during sex and the way it encourages pair bonding in the species that have higher quantities of the hormone.

Intimacy is a biological purpose of sex. It's as simple as that.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Using the term 'biological purpose' seems odd to me, as 'purpose' suggests agency or intelligence. Would you say that the purpose of the heart is to pump blood? I suppose you might, if you think that the body is intelligently designed.

But some theists strike me as deliberately using terms like this in a kind of ambivalent way, thus, 'purpose' partly suggests 'function', but also 'intention'. I can see why an Aristotelian Catholic might use it, in order to designate final cause, or the like.

Thus, we wouldn't say that the purpose of a river is to carry water to the sea, would we?

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Intimacy is a biological purpose of sex. It's as simple as that.

More precisely, intimacy is a secondary purpose of sex which is ordered to the primary one: procreation.

I have never denied multiple purposes of sex, indeed, traditional Catholic teaching sees three main purposes (of marriage, which however we can think of as the social contained for sex): the begetting and raising of children, the union of the spouses and their mutual help, and remedy from concupiscence (or less negatively: licit enjoyment of sexual pleasure in satisfaction of sexual desire).

However, these main purposes (and any auxiliary ones one might come up with) are not equal, but hierarchically ordered. The reason why we have sexual desires and sexual pleasure is because we are being biologically motivated to procreate. This is not some weird bonus that nature dropped into our laps. It is rather a direct motivation for us to seek out that one activity, sex, which can result in offspring. If we asexually reproduced by fission, then there would be neither sex nor sexual pleasure nor sexual desire. Likely we would have desires and pleasures that would motivate us to fission though. Likewise the purpose of intimate union and mutual help is not independent. We can have emotional unions and exchange mutual help with friends. However, the nature of this bond is not that of friendship. It has a special nature, because it serves a particular case. The purpose of this intimacy is precisely to establish a special and strong bond between man and woman that will lead to protection of the woman during pregnancy and the maintenance of a family after birth for many years that makes much more likely the successful upbringing of the child.

The simple truth here is that this whole biological complex, and its manifold social expressions, are geared towards human reproduction. This includes whatever chains of hormonal processes or sophisticated cultural ado you might name. None of it would exist if this wasn't how humans reproduce. In this sense then the purpose of sex is procreation, a sentence that is so blindingly obvious that it is a wonder of human sophistry that doubts about this can be maintained. This does not reject all the other purposes one might attribute, but it aims them, it makes them secondary contributors to a grander scheme. Without procreation, none of them would be. In procreation, they have their proper direction.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Intimacy is a biological purpose of sex. It's as simple as that.
More precisely, intimacy is a secondary purpose of sex which is ordered to the primary one: procreation.

Sigh.

Well, there goes sex for infertile couples and after the child-bearing years are over.

AGAIN.

You use the word "ordered" so freely, but much as with biological purposes, I don't think you have a damn clue what it means. It's not even a normal English word. I have never, ever seen anyone else use the phrase "ordered to" the way that you do. Ever. And I am a professional writer of sorts.

I repeat: nowhere outside your posts have I seen the idea that one thing is "ordered to" another. It is a meaningless buzzword, and placing it in italics does not stop it from being a meaningless buzzword. There may well be an order to things, but the idea that one thing is "ordered to" another is nothing more than an Alice-in-Wonderland attempt to make words mean whatever you demand they mean. It proves nothing, thereby relieving the rest of us of any attempt to refute the nothingness.

Night.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I think IngoB uses plenty of words and phrases like 'ordered to' which have a sort of covert teleological meaning. Thus, purpose itself hovers mid-way between function and intention. And 'geared towards' rather similar, and 'aims'.

It builds teleology in, thus, his conclusion is prefabricated. It's nice work, if you can find it.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
orfeo: You use the word "ordered" so freely, but much as with biological purposes, I don't think you have a damn clue what it means. It's not even a normal English word.

Yesterday evening down the pub, I ordered a beer.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
orfeo: You use the word "ordered" so freely, but much as with biological purposes, I don't think you have a damn clue what it means. It's not even a normal English word.
Yesterday evening down the pub, I ordered a beer.

You are taking my utterances at 1:30am far too literally. When you say you ordered a beer, you do not mean that you told the beer what its purpose was.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

It's Aristotelian language, isn't it? Things have ends to which they are ordered; thus, a ball at the top of a ramp is ordered to being at the bottom of the ramp. See, I didn't mentioned acorns!

But using it in relation to sex introduces an ambiguity, which probably IngoB is exploiting, between function and intention. But evolution has no intention, and in fact, no direction.

But I suppose many theists are happy with teleological language-bollocks.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
orfeo: You are taking my utterances at 1:30am far too literally. When you say you ordered a beer, you do not mean that you told the beer what its purpose was.

Its purpose was to be drunk by me [Big Grin]

(I know I was taking you too literally; I couldn't resist the joke [Smile]

)

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It's Aristotelian language, isn't it? Things have ends to which they are ordered; thus, a ball at the top of a ramp is ordered to being at the bottom of the ramp.

This is problematic when discussing gay sex for males as being the bottom is supposed to be worse, right?

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

Especially when you're ordered to be the bottom.

Posted by Siegfried (# 29) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Especially when you're ordered to be the bottom.

Always the best...

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Fineline:
The trouble with a continuum line from 'exclusively heterosexual' to 'exclusively homosexual', with 'varying bisexual' responses in between, is that it completely excludes asexual people, as if they didn't exist.

The Kinsey scale has 0 to 6 and also X and F. X for non-sexual and F for "The test failed to match you to a Kinsey Type profile. Either you answered some questions wrong, or you are a very unusual person."

The absence of X and F from the results makes me think that the test was not done but people were asked to place themselves on the scale.

Without proper testing makes this about as accurate as YouGov's election results.

Posted by Qoheleth. (# 9265) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It's Aristotelian language, isn't it?

.. and, probably more decisively for IngoB, it's Aquinas too.

Posted by Qoheleth. (# 9265) on :

I'm not clever enough to tangle with IngoB, but for a judicious review of Thomist natural law on the issue, see here.

Posted by PaulTH* (# 320) on :

The study would seem to contradict this study done five years ago which claimed that only 1% of Brits are gay. The time has come for the various churches and all the rest of society to jettison all the prejudice of the past and accept gay people on their own terms. I have recently been attending a church which welcomes, accepts and values worshippers who are gay and I totally applaud it.

But it remains an exaggeration to say that only 43% of the population is heterosexual. Gay people can't reproduce unless they are Sir Elton John. Whatever reason people turn out to be gay, be it genetic or psychological , it's an evolutionary blind alley which couldn't affect a majority of the population.

Posted by PaulTH* (# 320) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
However, these main purposes (and any auxiliary ones one might come up with) are not equal, but hierarchically ordered. The reason why we have sexual desires and sexual pleasure is because we are being biologically motivated to procreate. This is not some weird bonus that nature dropped into our laps. It is rather a direct motivation for us to seek out that one activity, sex, which can result in offspring.

This is the same for dogs, cats and horses. Sex is pleasurable in order to make animals (humans included) do it, so they can reproduce. But what of our closest surviving relative, the bonobo or pygmy chimpanzee. They are sex crazy! Most friendly greetings have a sexual connotation among the members of the tribe. Like all other animals the ultimate purpose of any sexuality is reproduction, but the fun element in it is just as important.

I'm reminded of a story I once read about jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong once being presented to Pope Paul VI. The pope asked if he had any children, to which Satchmo replied "No but we sure had a lot of fun tryin'." That's the human condition. We share it, at least in part, with our ape cousins. For the Church to attempt to bind the potential chaos of human sexuality within marriage is right. But to bind sexuality to reproduction alone will never work for our species.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Qoheleth.:

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It's Aristotelian language, isn't it?
.. and, probably more decisively for IngoB, it's Aquinas too.

Aristotle and Aquinas would have been left open-mouthed and silent at chaos theory.

The irony is I spend large parts of my time assigning things, and people, to defined categories, checking that everything is neat and orderly with no gaps and no overlaps, and assigning functions and duties and powers on that basis. Just last week I had to explain to a client why a small change of wording would create a logical gap that an entity could squeeze through.

Which is precisely why I understand how difficult it is and why sometimes it can't readily be done. The notion of a world where every activity and function can be neatly assigned to just one, discrete yet all-encompassing box is simply wrong.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

My principle comment remains about the language itself, because fundamentally it is used to sweep aside any possibility of argument.

As you soon as you get away from declaring "sex is ordered to procreation" and start talking in normal English about how sex is the means by which procreation is achieved, it becomes readily apparent that this doesn't logically exclude sex achieving anything else. Nor does it mean that the other things it achieved suddenly become "bad" if not achieved in conjunction with procreation.

Nor does the claim that sex only exists because of procreation mean that there is anything logically excluding biological systems from having co-opted the same thing for different ends. Indeed, this is fundamentally how evolutionary theory WORKS (most mutations are a change in the function of something existing, not the development of something entirely new), and it is simply impossible to separate out the human body or its activities in the way that an "ordered" theory suggests. Not everything in the natural world uses the same channel for excreting liquid waste and for ejecting sperm, but we do, and if you try to work out which one of those is the "primary" function to which the penis/urethra is "ordered" you are going to tie yourself in impossible knots.

In short, if you replace "ordered to" with a series of logical statements about supposed 1:1 relationships of cause and effect, the whole thing will fall apart before your eyes.

[ 20. August 2015, 23:47: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Starlight (# 12651) on :

orfeo, an analogy that comes to mind, with regard to how Ingo is misinterpreting sex, is eating.

Food is necessary to live. It's possible to construct a food product that meets the exact nutritional requirements of a human adult.

Yet people would roll on the floor laughing if someone tried to seriously advocate that we ought to only eat that particular food and that the sole purpose of eating is nutrition.

Instead, everyone eats foods they like the taste of for pleasure, and often socializes while doing so. So the act of eating has multiple roles in our society that meet various kinds of different social and biological needs, just like sex does. To fixate on one role to the absolute exclusion of all others is just obsessive and demented.

[ 21. August 2015, 00:18: Message edited by: Starlight ]

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

That exactly analogy has been tried at some point in the past. It did not cause any shift in Ingo's views. Indeed, I would say it actually places him on stronger ground because food is necessary for the survival of the individual, whereas sex is only necessary for the survival of the species. One of my chief criticisms of Ingo's stance on sex is I think it confuses a collective "need" to procreate with an individual need. There are in fact very few essential tasks that each of us must carry out as individuals - I don't grow or farm my own food, I don't make my clothes, I didn't build my own shelter, the water is supplied to me for money, and so on and so forth. But the act of eating is something each of us has to do as an individual.

Also, the current Hell thread where sexuality is being "discussed" at length veered at one stage into the relative nutritional merits of rabbit and manna...

[ 21. August 2015, 04:00: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

A couple of weeks ago to stop my baby from crying during communion, I put my finger in her mouth so she could suck on it. We don't use a dummy with our younger daughter, although we did with the older.

It occurs to me that this is a clear case of violation of natural law teleology: sucking is for the purpose of nutrition and its comforting role is ordered to that end, therefore dummies (or fingers) are sinful and we should not use them.
See: if you give your child a dummy you might as well be sending a generation ship consisting entirely of gay people to Alpha Centauri.

The food analogy seems to me not quite so persuasive: I think IngoB's argument is that food with a high ratio of fat/sugar/salt to nutrition is in fact wrong - which leads to the conclusion that the mass-market processed food industry is largely evil, which, well, fair enough.

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Using the term 'biological purpose' seems odd to me, as 'purpose' suggests agency or intelligence. Would you say that the purpose of the heart is to pump blood? I suppose you might, if you think that the body is intelligently designed.

I think this is actually quite strong ground for the argument, even without intelligent design. That is, you can't explain what the heart is doing or how it evolved without explaining why the body needs blood pumped around it. And you can certainly say that if the heart has some feature that makes it pump less blodd around then it has a fault.
We can say this because if the heart stops pumping blood the organism has some immediate problems. Now, the teleology arguments tries to extend this to sexual activity. But it's not obvious that if you as a person have sexual activity that is unlikely to result in procreation that you as an organism have any immediate problem. And it certainly requires more work to show that, granting the argument works, the same argument doesn't apply to abstention as well as to sex in the non-approved manner. You can't argue that the role of the heart means it's wrong to use the heartbeat to play a tune, but that not using it at all is fine.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Using the term 'biological purpose' seems odd to me, as 'purpose' suggests agency or intelligence. Would you say that the purpose of the heart is to pump blood? I suppose you might, if you think that the body is intelligently designed.
I think this is actually quite strong ground for the argument, even without intelligent design. That is, you can't explain what the heart is doing or how it evolved without explaining why the body needs blood pumped around it. And you can certainly say that if the heart has some feature that makes it pump less blodd around then it has a fault.
We can say this because if the heart stops pumping blood the organism has some immediate problems. Now, the teleology arguments tries to extend this to sexual activity. But it's not obvious that if you as a person have sexual activity that is unlikely to result in procreation that you as an organism have any immediate problem. And it certainly requires more work to show that, granting the argument works, the same argument doesn't apply to abstention as well as to sex in the non-approved manner. You can't argue that the role of the heart means it's wrong to use the heartbeat to play a tune, but that not using it at all is fine.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'the argument' here. Do you mean a full-on Aristotelian natural law argument? Or a theistic evolution argument, that God intends the heart to be an efficient pump of blood? Of course, evolution in itself does not have aims and goals or directions.

I just find so much ambiguity in some of these arguments - it smacks of sleight of hand to me, if people use terms like 'purpose', 'geared towards', 'ordered to', and 'aims', which for me all have a teleological flavour.

There is also the is/ought problem. We might all agree that sex often produces babies, but that doesn't imply that it ought to. But again, theists are able to fill in the gap with 'God intends'. Thus, if God intends sex to produce babies, then doing sex without babies frustrates God's intention. But secular law-makers are hardly likely to make that the basis for law, and secular moral theorists neither.

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I'm not sure what you mean by 'the argument' here. Do you mean a full-on Aristotelian natural law argument? Or a theistic evolution argument, that God intends the heart to be an efficient pump of blood? Of course, evolution in itself does not have aims and goals or directions.

I mean an Aristotelian natural law argument (which is at least in its premises entirely secular).
You can't move from 'evolution has no aims or goals or purposes' to 'the things evolution operates on have no purposes'. That doesn't work. The heart has certainly got a purpose or a function: at least there isn't a good way of talking about what it does without implicitly or explicitly using function language. Of course, you equally can't argue from 'the things that evolution operates on have purposes' to 'evolution has a purpose'. The whole point of the claim though is that we can talk about the purpose or function of the heart without assuming the existing of a conscious being with purposes, which in my view dispels any inference to a designer before it gets started.

Trying to apply the argument to sexual activity runs into a whole lot of obstacles though; the heart and the genital-reproductive system just have too many disanalogies.

[ 21. August 2015, 11:00: Message edited by: Dafyd ]

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

OK. I don't like the conflation of function and purpose. Would you say that the purpose of rivers is to channel water to the sea?

But I know that biologists often discuss this problem, since language is shot through with semi-teleological images and metaphors, and biologists tend to use them as short-hand, especially in relation to evolution. I see natural law theorists as exploiting these ambiguities, so that teleology is covertly planted from the beginning of the arguments.

It is very complicated and difficult, since while evolution has no direction, it is also not random. Anyway, it's too early in the morning to delve into that.

Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on :

I suspect that for the majority of the "not completely heterosexual" people in this survey, what they mean is that they have crushes on some spectacularly attractive celebrities of the same gender as them, or there have been times when they've wondered what it'd be like etc etc. And then they go off and settle down in a straight relationship without ever exploring that side of themselves. I know many many people my age and younger (I'm 34) who've spoken of such things, considered whether or not they might be bi, but ultimately never had a gay relationship.

And honestly, this has always been the case. Going back to when gay sex was illegal, girls and boys were expected to have a "pash" on a classmate. A "phase" of confused crushes was no big deal, and importantly, didn't mean that you weren't straight. Even if it went as far as physical experimentation, it was something you could leave behind. When these people grew up and got married they had no reason to think of themselves in terms of not being straight. Only those people who really had nothing going on for the opposite gender at all were pushed towards identifying as gay, and even they could often be persuaded to shut up and get married in order to have a quiet and respectable life.

Now that people are more aware of the complicated mess of wibbly wobbly sexy wexy stuff that makes up the human sex drive, I think we're much more likely to think of ourselves in those terms, and much more likely to be honest about it, even if the underlying experience isn't actually very different. This survey may seem massively out of sync with what we think we know about people's sexual orientations, but were you to change the question to one about how much time people have spent in committed relationships you'd see a picture much more in keeping with what we expect. Which in turn is of course another inadequate way to look at sexuality - a gay person is no less gay for being single, and I want to make that very clear. Thoughts and feelings and behaviours and attitudes all play into this question, and in order to get an accurate picture you need to consider all of these things.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
This does not reject all the other purposes one might attribute, but it aims them, it makes them secondary contributors to a grander scheme. Without procreation, none of them would be. In procreation, they have their proper direction.

Which is all grand and good.

But your word 'proper' is clearly very very loaded. The human race will continue, unchanged, whether we allow same sex sex and marriage or not. Just let the Church be kind and thoughtful enough to allow SSS/SSM and the proper direction will not be compromised at all. Neither will the Church.

[ 21. August 2015, 11:44: Message edited by: Boogie ]

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

The whole thing is loaded, isn't it? For example, IngoB's phrase, 'the grander scheme'. Eh?

I guess this is OK for some theists, who accept that there is a grander scheme, planned by God, which involves baby-making, which you ought to do via sex.

But I would think that are some theists who balk at this, surely. We are drifting towards occasionalism, i.e. that God plans every detail, even foreskins. Oh, well.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Well, there goes sex for infertile couples and after the child-bearing years are over.

Nope. There is nothing wrong with using a faculty in the way nature has intended, event though one can predict that it will be frustrated by something other than one's own actions. Natural infertility is simply not your fault. Morals pertain to acts you are responsible for, not to the general state of the universe.

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
You use the word "ordered" so freely, but much as with biological purposes, I don't think you have a damn clue what it means. It's not even a normal English word. I have never, ever seen anyone else use the phrase "ordered to" the way that you do. Ever. And I am a professional writer of sorts.

Shrug. This is mildly technical, but very common jargon in the Aristotelian / Thomistic philosophical traditions which indicates the final cause. And since Aristotle is one half of the foundation of Western philosophy (Plato being the other), it should be vaguely familiar to anyone who has read Western philosophy. I don't think it is particularly hard to understand, even if one has never read any philosophy though. It should evoke associations like "aimed at", "arranged with regards to", "reasonably for", "systematically structured in the light of", ... Basically, some sort of order is imposed or detected, which exists not for its own sake, but for what is being pointed to.

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But using it in relation to sex introduces an ambiguity, which probably IngoB is exploiting, between function and intention.

The only reason we are talking about this at all is because humans intentions are "free". An animal that acts contrary to its natural ends we consider to be mistaken or sick or mad. A human can choose to act contrary to his natural ends, and that is what we mean by immoral.

quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
Like all other animals the ultimate purpose of any sexuality is reproduction, but the fun element in it is just as important.

No, it isn't. And precisely so because of the word you have italicised. Mind you, I am not saying that for people having sex reproduction is foremost in their minds and "fun" is a side issue. Obviously, often enough it is all about the "fun" and reproduction is even not wanted. But if we analyse the final causality of a thing philosophically, then "ultimate" is primary.

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Aristotle and Aquinas would have been left open-mouthed and silent at chaos theory.

You could not possibly be more wrong. I'm sure these gentlemen would be shocked and awed by much you find in modernity, say an iPhone and its uses. But they really wouldn't bat an eyelid at the concept of exponentially reducing predictability with time of certain deterministic dynamical systems. I'm not sure how one says "So what?" in Latin and ancient Greek, respectively, but that's exactly what they would say...

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Nor does the claim that sex only exists because of procreation mean that there is anything logically excluding biological systems from having co-opted the same thing for different ends. Indeed, this is fundamentally how evolutionary theory WORKS (most mutations are a change in the function of something existing, not the development of something entirely new), and it is simply impossible to separate out the human body or its activities in the way that an "ordered" theory suggests. Not everything in the natural world uses the same channel for excreting liquid waste and for ejecting sperm, but we do, and if you try to work out which one of those is the "primary" function to which the penis/urethra is "ordered" you are going to tie yourself in impossible knots.

This really misses the point completely. First, there is no problem at all in discussing multiple purposes of a single organ. That you use your penis both to evacuate your bladder and to eject seminal fluid does not lead to the slightest confusion in any discussion of primary, secondary or whatever functions. We are not discussing the primary purpose of your penis, we are discussing the primary purpose of your sexual faculty. As it happens, one of the main organs used to instantiate your sexual faculty, your penis, also doubles in another physiological function. That can lead to interesting physiological problems (try peeing with a hard-on), but does not complicate the philosophical treatment at all. Second, the problem is not using an organ for something other. If you use your penis to strum a guitar, for example, then whatever moral or indeed cultural concerns one could have with that are not the same as the concerns with homosexuality, contraception, etc. Your penis guitar play is not contrary, is not acting against, the natural purposes of your sexual faculty. You are doing something else with your penis, and whatever one might say about that, unless you are strumming so vigorously as to get off, you are not actually engaging your sexual faculty there.

quote:
Originally posted by Starlight:
Yet people would roll on the floor laughing if someone tried to seriously advocate that we ought to only eat that particular food and that the sole purpose of eating is nutrition.

Eating is indeed a nice analogy. The primary purpose of eating is nutrition. That does not mean that you cannot enjoy a fine meal, or a wide variety of dishes. They all serve the nutritional purpose, and provide enjoyment, occasion for cultural engagement, etc. That's great. However, if you eat your food and then put your fingers down your throat to vomit it back up - so that you can eat some more - then you are actively frustrating the natural purpose of eating. You cannot argue that secondary purposes, like the pleasure of eating or the joy of communal gathering for a meal, justify this action. You cannot frustrate the primary purpose to get more of the secondary purposes. That's immoral. If there is reason why you should eat no more, say because you are getting full or even because you are too fat, then inducing vomiting is not a licit option. You have to stop eating.

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
One of my chief criticisms of Ingo's stance on sex is I think it confuses a collective "need" to procreate with an individual need.

I have never said that you have to have sex, or that you must procreate. Let's be clear that there is a difference here between biology and natural moral law. As far as biology is concerned, you are of course in some sense a "failure" if you do not "pass on your genes". But this is not exactly identical with the natural moral law argument. The moral law is that good should be done, and evil avoided. But while all evil should be avoided, not all good can be done. There are choices to be made there, priorities to be set. Some of these may again fall under a kind of "meta-moral" evaluation, so we can discuss things like whether it is good or bad to have less kids to make more money, or to have less kids to serve God better. But natural moral law as applied to the sexual faculty is in the first instance about the question what kind of sex is licit, not about whether and how much sex you should be having.

quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
A couple of weeks ago to stop my baby from crying during communion, I put my finger in her mouth so she could suck on it. We don't use a dummy with our younger daughter, although we did with the older. It occurs to me that this is a clear case of violation of natural law teleology: sucking is for the purpose of nutrition and its comforting role is ordered to that end, therefore dummies (or fingers) are sinful and we should not use them.

This is basically like the "chewing gum" objection for adults. It is based on a misunderstanding. What is immoral is the frustration of a faculty, not merely its usage for something else. So, if you let your baby suck a finger or dummy to calm it down, then you are using its natural reflexes for something else, which generally does not actively impair the nutritional purposes these reflexes are also geared to. However, if your baby is actually hungry, and you give it a dummy to basically stall it, then that is (ever so mildly...) immoral. And if you rarely give the baby any food, but frequently frustrate its attempt to suck in actual nutrition with a dummy, then that obviously is gravely immoral (assuming that you do have food to give, of course).

To clear up these and other misconceptions, I recommend this talk by Ed Feser. He addresses common criticisms of traditional moral law from 43:30 to 54:30, if you don't have time for the whole talk.

quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
But it's not obvious that if you as a person have sexual activity that is unlikely to result in procreation that you as an organism have any immediate problem.

This is, however, not the definition for what a final cause of a thing is. One can look at "failure modes" to discern a purpose, but this is just one way among many, and not all purposes are revealed by obvious ill effects when frustrated. In the case of sex, frankly it is not rocket science. It is obvious that reproduction is a natural end for all living things. It is obvious that in us humans this is achieved by sex. It is also obvious that "mechanically", we are designed to achieve this by a man inserting his penis into the vagina of a woman, and ejaculating semen there, so that it can travel towards an egg and fertilise it. Anything else then is simply contrary to this basic functional design. It is true that you experience no immediate ill effects if you ejaculate into a tissue instead, of course, indeed you likely find that rather pleasing. However, the intended sexual process has been frustrated by your acts then. That is the problem.

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But I know that biologists often discuss this problem, since language is shot through with semi-teleological images and metaphors, and biologists tend to use them as short-hand, especially in relation to evolution. I see natural law theorists as exploiting these ambiguities, so that teleology is covertly planted from the beginning of the arguments.

This is such a stupid statement. There is nothing "covert" about teleology in (Aristotelian-type) natural moral law arguments. It's the very core, it takes centre stage right from the start, it's pretty much the only thing being talked about. Nobody is hiding anything there. Physicists can pretend better that there are no final causes in nature, biologists find it near impossible to toe that nonsensical line. That's true. Whether it means that biologists are more prone to believe in natural moral law I do not know. In my experience, biologists tend to overcompensate and are often very dogmatic about there not being any final causes even as they speak of them all the time. But to pretend that the natural moral law theorists are trying some sneak move here is just bullshit. It couldn't be plainer what they are trying to do.

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
The human race will continue, unchanged, whether we allow same sex sex and marriage or not. Just let the Church be kind and thoughtful enough to allow SSS/SSM and the proper direction will not be compromised at all. Neither will the Church.

And all this was revealed to you by Archangel Gabriel, or what?

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

IngoB wrote:

This is such a stupid statement. There is nothing "covert" about teleology in (Aristotelian-type) natural moral law arguments. It's the very core, it takes centre stage right from the start, it's pretty much the only thing being talked about. Nobody is hiding anything there. Physicists can pretend better that there are no final causes in nature, biologists find it near impossible to toe that nonsensical line. That's true. Whether it means that biologists are more prone to believe in natural moral law I do not know. In my experience, biologists tend to overcompensate and are often very dogmatic about there not being any final causes even as they speak of them all the time. But to pretend that the natural moral law theorists are trying some sneak move here is just bullshit. It couldn't be plainer what they are trying to do.

Fuck stupid, IngoB. Your language is shot through with ambiguity. For example, you state that 'there is nothing wrong with using a faculty in the way nature has intended'.

How can nature intend something? This is what I mean by this equivocal language, which is a kind of sleight of hand. Are you being anthropomorphic, or are you referring to divine intention? It seems incoherent and opaque to me.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

I don't know, quetzalcoatl, seems fairly clear to me.
His argument is one attempting to rationalise reality with ideology. When they clash, something needs to be adjusted. For some, the ideology is too brittle to survive that challenge.
Sexual reproduction is not about an individual's need to reproduce, but a species need. Homosexuality appears to suite that purpose. But to fit within a rigid ideology which condemns homosexuality, reality must be contorted.
Despite the many problems with literal interpretation, even within the NT, some cannot accept this stance just might be wrong.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Well, there goes sex for infertile couples and after the child-bearing years are over.
Nope. There is nothing wrong with using a faculty in the way nature has intended

First, nature doesn't "intend" anything except when you anthopomorphise her, and second you simply cannot declare that "you are using a faculty in the way [anyone] has intended" when you know full well you won't achieve the intended outcome.

You are making a truly ridiculous distinction between a case where the intended outcome won't be achieved but a penis will be inserted into a vagina, and a case where the intended outcome won't be achieved but a penis won't be inserted into a vagina.

To make that the basis of distinction, rather than "will this sex be potentially procreative or won't it?", is an absurd prioritising of form over function.

Seriously, you are all about declaring the importance of function, and then you make statements like this that show you actually haven't any interest in function at all. You're only interested in form.

You are perfectly happy for people to have completely non-procreative sex, whether it's because of permanent known infertility or because everyone knows these days that women are only fertile about 10% of the month, because the form looks right to you even though the function can't be achieved.

I raised the latter point with you a year or two ago. I asked: do you really think that God is that stupid? Do you really think that God understands the female menstrual cycle less well than human beings do, and is fooled by knowingly non-procreative sex because a penis is inserted into vagina?

Apparently you do think either God is that stupid, or you think that God is a formalist who has no interest in practical results.

[ 22. August 2015, 00:08: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
If there is reason why you should eat no more, say because you are getting full or even because you are too fat, then inducing vomiting is not a licit option.

Sirach 31:21:

quote:
If you are overstuffed with food,
get up to vomit, and you will have relief.

This verse was brought to you by Ricardus' 'inspirational and uplifting Bible quotes for all occasions' service.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Ah, but that is Old Testament. There is a verse in the NT where Jesus says, "and forget about the inconvenient stuff in the OT. We were working things out".

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

Ricardus [Big Grin]

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I don't know, quetzalcoatl, seems fairly clear to me.
His argument is one attempting to rationalise reality with ideology. When they clash, something needs to be adjusted. For some, the ideology is too brittle to survive that challenge.
Sexual reproduction is not about an individual's need to reproduce, but a species need. Homosexuality appears to suite that purpose. But to fit within a rigid ideology which condemns homosexuality, reality must be contorted.
Despite the many problems with literal interpretation, even within the NT, some cannot accept this stance just might be wrong.

Well, theistic natural law seems uncontroversial to me - if you think that God designed things, or planned things, so that sex leads to babies, and anything else is wrong, then in a sense that is internally consistent, even though it may be at odds with secular law.

But then we get phrases such as 'nature intended' and 'geared towards reproduction', and so on, which strike me as ambiguous. Do they mean that God intended via nature to create sex as baby-making, or do they mean that nature has its own teleology, its own ends, which include baby-making? Well, I don't see how nature has such ends. Ah well, Sinatra's on telly, must dash.

Posted by Siegfried (# 29) on :

I have a hope that someday we can have a discussion about homosexuality without Ingo riding in on his "intent" hobby horse.

Posted by Starlight (# 12651) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Siegfried:
I have a hope that someday we can have a discussion about homosexuality without Ingo riding in on his "intent" hobby horse.

Totally agree. I'm at the point of having decided his views are both insane and pretty much unique to him, so I'm not at all interested in hearing about them or discussing them further.

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

IngoB can ride whatever hobbyhorse you may perceive he likes here, Shipmates, provided he doesn't transgress the guidelines. Which he very rarely does, and IMO he hasn't done that, or come remotely close to it, in this thread.

You have the freedom to scroll past of course.

Barnabas62
Dead Horses Host

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Well, there goes sex for infertile couples and after the child-bearing years are over.
Nope. There is nothing wrong with using a faculty in the way nature has intended

Sed contra:

quote:
But nature each month cleanses the womb, as if it were some field of marvellous fertility, the proper season for fertilising which must be watched for by the husband as if he were a skilful husbandman, in order to withhold his seed and abstain from sowing it at a time when it is inundated; for, if he do not do so, the seed, without his perceiving it, will be swept away by the moisture, not only having all its spiritual energies relaxed, but having them, in fact, utterly dissolved. These are the persons who form animals in that workshop of nature, the womb, and who perfect with the most consummate skill each separate one of the parts of the body and soul. But when the periods of illness which I have spoken of are interrupted, then he may with confidence shower his seed into the ground ready to receive it, no longer fearing that there will be any loss of the seed thus sown. (34) But those people deserve to be reproached who are ploughing a hard and stony soil. And who can these be but they who have connected themselves with barren women? For such men are only hunters after intemperate pleasure, and in the excess of their licentious passions they waste their seed of their own deliberate purpose. Since for what other reason can they espouse such women? It cannot be for a hope of children, which they are aware must, of necessity, be disappointed, but rather to gratify their excess in lust and incurable incontinence.

Philo, The Special Laws 3:6.

Which seems to me a condemnation both of 'natural' contraception and sex with an infertile woman.

Now granted Philo is not one of the Fathers for obvious reasons, but the Fathers rather liked him, and it would surprise me if they thought differently.

The position of the Fathers, AIUI, is that a virtuous person is one whose appetites are subordinate to their reason. A very virtuous person displays apatheia and is immune to all passions. The only rational reason for having sex is procreation - having sex for pleasure is by definition sex to satisfy an appetite, and therefore a violation of apatheia. However this denigration of appetites does not just apply to sex - hence gluttony is also a deadly sin.

ISTM that in this respect both liberal Anglicans and conservative Catholics have turned their backs on the Fathers, but at least the Anglicans are open about it.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Ricardus. [Disappointed]

This is why you'll never make a proper neologian.*
First, Philo was Jewish. This means anything he said is weighted by how much it aligns with one's chosen beliefs.
Second, though his thought on this is a perfect extension of the logic IngoB uses, it is a time honoured tradition to choose just how far one applies logic to an argument.
Usually this limit coincides with one's predetermined point.

*neo-theologian

UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0