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Source: (consider it) Thread: What is sex?
Jack the Lass

Ship's airhead
# 3415

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quote:
Originally posted by Henry Troup:
quote:
Originally posted by Henry Troup:
...

And I'm a pedant, which is a worse sin that either masturbation or misspelling.
Oh, I don't know - some of us find pedants ever so sexy [Big Grin]

[Where did my point go?]

[ 06. February 2007, 21:22: Message edited by: Jack the Lass ]

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Zoey

Broken idealist
# 11152

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Just a minute .... you guys are saying that masturbation by a person who is alone is actually sex?!?!?!?!?!?! [Eek!]

I'm female, but I've been lead to believe (and I've not heard any counter-evidence) that masturbation is pretty much a biological requirement for post-pubescent males (if sex with a partner is not available) - sperm and semen get produced inside blokes' testes no matter what and all that sperm and semen needs to get out one way or another.

So if 99.9% of the male population start having sex by masturbation when they hit puberty, why is it a big deal whether or not they get another person involved? (ie - can't they argue that if they're having sex already (by masturbating), they might as well have sex with another person even if they're not in a committed relationship with that person.)


Hmmm ... I think the main upshot of this post is that I don't think masturbation is the same thing as sex. I think that sex needs to involve more than one person.

But I'm interested in thoughts on the above points from those who think that masturbation is sex. Do you believe that masturbation is always wrong? Or that it is sometimes wrong and sometimes okay? - in which case, which circumstances make it okay? Or that it is always okay?

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mousethief

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# 953

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quote:
Originally posted by mountainsnowtiger:
Just a minute .... you guys are saying that masturbation by a person who is alone is actually sex?!?!?!?!?!?! [Eek!]

What other category could it possibly fall under? Exercise?

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Lamb Chopped
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quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Shakespeare wrote two plays on the subject, you know.

Love's Labours Lost and The Comedy of Errors

Three, at least. You forgot Much Ado About Nothing --in which the "nothing" is a well-known pseudonym for, um, something shaped roughly like a zero (nothing, geddit?).

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Soror Magna
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quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
quote:
Originally posted by mountainsnowtiger:
Just a minute .... you guys are saying that masturbation by a person who is alone is actually sex?!?!?!?!?!?! [Eek!]

What other category could it possibly fall under? Exercise?
Well, it does relieve stress! OliviaG

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Zoey

Broken idealist
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I wouldn't say it falls under any category. I would say 'masturbation' in itself is an activity. And that it's distinct from 'sex' which I think needs to involve more than one person.

My question is:-
Are you saying that all the unmarried single blokes who masturbate and attend churches which teach that one shouldn't have sex outside of marriage, are actually going against that teaching by masturbating? (I ask this question whether or not you yourself think that sex outside marriage is wrong - although that would also be an interesting thing to know in the context of the discussion.)

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mousethief

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quote:
Originally posted by mountainsnowtiger:
I wouldn't say it falls under any category. I would say 'masturbation' in itself is an activity. And that it's distinct from 'sex' which I think needs to involve more than one person.

My question is:-
Are you saying that all the unmarried single blokes who masturbate and attend churches which teach that one shouldn't have sex outside of marriage, are actually going against that teaching by masturbating? (I ask this question whether or not you yourself think that sex outside marriage is wrong - although that would also be an interesting thing to know in the context of the discussion.)

That rather depends on their definition of "Sex", not mine.

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Zoey

Broken idealist
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I think masturbation is a sexual activity, but it is not 'sex' per se.

Okay. I'm not actually asking you to answer these questions, because they are far too personal to be answered on a public web-forum, but the following questions might illustrate where I am having difficulty with the logic that masturbation = sex.

1) Do you believe that sex should only take place inside a committed relationship?
2) Have you ever masturbated while not in a committed relationship?
3) If yes to both of the above, was your masturbation wrong? If not, why not?

I get the impression that quite a few Christian men would answer yes to questions 1 and 2, but would not consider their masturbation to have been wrong because it did not involve other people/promiscuity etc. At which point, the answer to question 3 - 'why wasn't the masturbation wrong' - is 'because it was a special category of sex not involving another person'. At which point, we're messing about with semantics and if masturbation is such a distinct category of sex why can't it just be classed as a sexual activity which is not equivalent to 'sex'.

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Pants

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quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
quote:
Originally posted by Pânts:
1.What is sex?
2.Is 'virtual' (ie online chat) sex actually sex?
3.Is phone sex actually sex?
4.Does that mean masterbation is actually sex?

1. I can't define it but I know it when I see it.
2. Yes
3. Yes
4. Yes

Mountainsnowtiger, if as MT says, 2 and 3 are sex, then 4 must be too as 2 and 3 are a form of 4. Although they are different as there is 'someone' else involved with 2 and 3.

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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quote:
Originally posted by Henry Troup:
quote:
Originally posted by Henry Troup:
...

And I'm a pedant, which is a worse sin that either masturbation or misspelling.
Or confusing "than" and "that".

I hereby formally state KLB's Law:

"Any Internet posting criticising another's spelling, grammar or punctuation will itself contain at least one solecism".

[ 07. February 2007, 08:38: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]

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Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252

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quote:
Originally posted by Pânts:
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
quote:
Originally posted by Pânts:
1.What is sex?
2.Is 'virtual' (ie online chat) sex actually sex?
3.Is phone sex actually sex?
4.Does that mean masterbation is actually sex?

1. I can't define it but I know it when I see it.
2. Yes
3. Yes
4. Yes

Mountainsnowtiger, if as MT says, 2 and 3 are sex, then 4 must be too as 2 and 3 are a form of 4. Although they are different as there is 'someone' else involved with 2 and 3.
Are the following human beings?

2. George W. Bush
3. Billie Piper
4. All animals

Now, according to your reasoning above; we must conclude that all animals are human beings, since 2. and 3. are forms of 4. Spot the problem?

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ken
Ship's Roundhead
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Is reading War and Peace equivalent to doing military service? Is watching a cop show on TV murder? Is Star Trek space travel?

Fantasy is not the thing itself.

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Ken

L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

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Pants

Emergency underwear
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Ken, I take it you're saying M isn't sex? And if so, what about 2 and 3?

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leo
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# 1458

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Confessors' manuals have defined masturbation as a sinful misuse of sex.

I wish they hadn't because it would have made my teenage years more enjoyable.

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mousethief

Ship's Thieving Rodent
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quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Is reading War and Peace equivalent to doing military service? Is watching a cop show on TV murder? Is Star Trek space travel?

Fantasy is not the thing itself.

Thus, imagining yourself having an orgasm, or reading about somebody else having an orgasm, is not sex. That's as far as this metaphor will take you. It certainly says absolutely nothing about masturbation.

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Zoey

Broken idealist
# 11152

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Would any of the male contributors to this thread who think that masturbation is sex and/or that masturbation is a sin care to comment on whether they think it's accurate to say that 90% plus of men who don't regularly have sex with a partner, do masturbate relatively regularly?

As already stated, this is the impression I've previously gained - but I'm young and female (I might even try keeping up my claim to be young and innocent [Biased] ) and I don't think masturbation is sex.

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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460

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quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
Fantasy is not the thing itself.

Thus, imagining yourself having an orgasm, or reading about somebody else having an orgasm, is not sex. That's as far as this metaphor will take you. It certainly says absolutely nothing about masturbation.

Nonsense. Sex is the sharing of genetic material. Two-becoming one. Orgasms might be a common accompaniment to that but they aren't the same thing.

[Edited to fix UBB]

[ 08. February 2007, 16:52: Message edited by: TonyK ]

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Ken

L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

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ken
Ship's Roundhead
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quote:
Originally posted by mountainsnowtiger:
it's accurate to say that 90% plus of men who don't regularly have sex with a partner, do masturbate relatively regularly?

I would think that is an unbelieveably low estimate. 99% is more likely. 99.9%. Effectively everybody. When young anyway. Perhaps if fades away with age.

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Ken

L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460

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quote:
Originally posted by Pânts:
And if so, what about 2 and 3?

No, obviously not. Maybe count as fantasy or flirting or whatever. Would still probably be a betrayal when done by a married person with someone they are not married to. There are forms of unfaithfulness that are not sex.

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Ken

L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

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Zoey

Broken idealist
# 11152

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Well, it probably belongs on a separate thread, but if any churches do still think masturbation is a sin in and of itself - it seems pretty unfair for something to be a sin if it's virtually a biological necessity for young (but post-pubescent) men (which, again, I've previously stated is the impression I've gained, while not actually being male myself).

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Jahlove
Tied to the mast
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Here's the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the subject, mountainsnowtiger:

quote:
2352 By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. "Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action." "The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose." For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of "the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved."

To form an equitable judgment about the subjects' moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.

Without wishing to get into a long (and ultimately fruitless) debate on whether the Church is Right, Wrong or Bonkers in this pronouncement, I would just point out that it does take “affective immaturity” into account as a major factor in the “fairness” or otherwise of considering this a “sin”. (As someone pointed out to me, in order for it to constitute Mortal Sin, one would have to be masturbating in order to defy God, which, pace Aleister Crowley, is really a rather negligible consideration. [Big Grin]

Not male myself, either, but I had rather picked up that, even if young men do not masturbate, excess sperm production finds natural egress via involuntary nocturnal emission, aka "wet dream".

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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In some men, apparently. But "men who never masturbate" is too small a sample to really research the question.

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Jahlove
Tied to the mast
# 10290

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Well quite, Karl. Even if young men wank themselves stupid 10 times a day, they often also have wet dreams, such is the power of the thing at that age. All I was saying is that, even if their hands were tied behind their backs, there would still be emission.

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Zoey

Broken idealist
# 11152

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Exactly to all of the last 3 posts. And I have heard it on good authority (i.e. from somebody male) that wet dreams can be a much more disturbing example of human sexuality than straight-forward masturbation (i.e. when wanking a bloke will probably imagine having sex, but the 'dream' part of wet dreams can involve all sorts of weird and wonderful and potentially disturbing variations on the general theme of sex).

So it would seem to me rather unfair to decide that wanking is a sin and to therefore force all celibate men to endure unpleasant and potentially disturbing wet dreams (which might well also be considered sinful, or at least unhealthy, by the people who think masturbation is a sin - at which point what is the poor unmarried bloke meant to do about the semen which biologically needs to depart his body?).

But then, I doubt that this is the only area where my own thinking about sexual activities differs from that of the Catholic Church. (There are plenty of people on this planet already, thanks - if I'm ever lucky enough to get the sex as true love phenomenon, then I'll do without the procreation bit of it - but then that's probably a seperate thread again ....)

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leo
Shipmate
# 1458

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quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
Fantasy is not the thing itself.

Thus, imagining yourself having an orgasm, or reading about somebody else having an orgasm, is not sex. That's as far as this metaphor will take you. It certainly says absolutely nothing about masturbation.

Nonsense. Sex is the sharing of genetic material. Two-becoming one. Orgasms might be a common accompaniment to that but they aren't the same thing.

[Edited to fix UBB]

So lesbians don't have sex, then?

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mousethief

Ship's Thieving Rodent
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So sex with a condom isn't sex then?

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Scooby-Doo
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# 9822

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quote:
Originally posted by mountainsnowtiger:
Would any of the male contributors to this thread who think that masturbation is sex and/or that masturbation is a sin care to comment on whether they think it's accurate to say that 90% plus of men who don't regularly have sex with a partner, do masturbate relatively regularly?

As already stated, this is the impression I've previously gained - but I'm young and female (I might even try keeping up my claim to be young and innocent [Biased] ) and I don't think masturbation is sex.

I think 90% of men do at some time, whether in a relationship or not. The other 10% are liars!

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John Holding

Coffee and Cognac
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quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
Fantasy is not the thing itself.

Thus, imagining yourself having an orgasm, or reading about somebody else having an orgasm, is not sex. That's as far as this metaphor will take you. It certainly says absolutely nothing about masturbation.

Nonsense. Sex is the sharing of genetic material. Two-becoming one. Orgasms might be a common accompaniment to that but they aren't the same thing.

[Edited to fix UBB]

So same-sex ....isn't sex at all!

John

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Timothy the Obscure

Mostly Friendly
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I've seen some research (it was quite a few years ago and I can't recall where) that found that men actually masturbate more when they're in relationships than when they aren't.

I 'm not sure what that proves, exactly...

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76

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quote:
Originally posted by Jahlove:
Well quite, Karl. Even if young men wank themselves stupid 10 times a day, they often also have wet dreams, such is the power of the thing at that age. All I was saying is that, even if their hands were tied behind their backs, there would still be emission.

Not in all. Or even most. I suspect that "wet dreams" are as often an explanation for stained sheets as they are real phenomena ifyouseewhatImean.

And most men manage quite well after vasectomies - where do their sperm go?

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Jahlove
Tied to the mast
# 10290

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I must, of course, yield to your first-hand knowledge although chaps of my acquaintance say otherwise.

This article describes what happens to sperm post-vasectomy.

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ken
Ship's Roundhead
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quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
I've seen some research (it was quite a few years ago and I can't recall where) that found that men actually masturbate more when they're in relationships than when they aren't.

I 'm not sure what that proves, exactly...

Probably that they are less embarrassed about talking about it when they are in a relationship.

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Ken

L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

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Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252

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quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Confessors' manuals have defined masturbation as a sinful misuse of sex.

I have in my possession a confessors' manual which describes 'attending places where they dance' as sinful.

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Zoey

Broken idealist
# 11152

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Where who dance? The elves or the pixies?

[Big Grin]

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Louise
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Fascinating though the subject be,
This is Dead Equines here not TnT.
'What is sex?' we answer in this thread.
Take merely wanking somewhere else instead!

cheers
Louise

Dead Horses host [Big Grin]

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Cod
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# 2643

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Although what is generally considered sex no longer accords literally with "sexual intercourse", ie, intercourse between the sexes it is generally accepted, and I think always has been, that more than one person must be involved in the act itself.

So Johnny aged 13, in his room with only his hand and his Kleenex for company, is not having sex.

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Eliab
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# 9153

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quote:
Originally posted by duchess:
I will say though that YEAH, I really do think like that. And I will stay on my island and wait until my ship sails by with the dude who actually wants a commitment with me before kissing. That would be so totally cool, to feel that secure. But I guess that is a girl thang.

Why do you say that? Being male doesn’t stop me from thinking that kissing someone is a serious and intimate thing, which should indicate (at the least) a willingness to make a commitment to them.

I don’t think that kissing is “sex” (in that a decision not to “have sex” would not bar me from kissing) but that doesn’t mean that I think it is always appropriate. I married the only person I ever kissed.

quote:
Originally posted by Pânts:
Is 'virtual' (ie online chat) sex actually sex?
Is phone sex actually sex?
Does that mean masturbation is actually sex?

If I said that “I didn’t have sex before marriage”, and you believed me, I don’t think you would necessarily conclude that I had never had an erotic conversation (phone/online/in person) with my fiancée. You almost certainly would not conclude that I never masturbated. I might not have, and there might be good reason for saying I ought not to have, done any of those things, but they aren’t remotely implied in the bare statement that “I didn’t have sex”, in the way that the words are usually meant.

They are examples of sexual behaviour, sure, but so is (some forms of) kissing. So are (some) embraces. That doesn’t make them “sex”.

I agree with Ken that virtual or phone sex might count as ‘cheating’ if you were in a relationship with someone else, but even then, I think that if my wife had phone sex with another man, I’d merely be very hurt and annoyed. If she “had sex” with him I’d be absolutely devastated – because sex (narrowly defined) is for me an expression of the highest commitment and intimacy.

Sex is a lot more than just one way amongst several of getting an orgasm. Orgasms aren’t really that important. As Jahlove’s observations imply, many (most?) men have had an orgasm without it even waking them up. Saying that anything that gets you off is fundamentally the same thing as sex seems to me to miss the point. The main thing about sex is that what you are doing ought to mean something, not that you get a certain physical reaction from it.

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mousethief

Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953

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I want to hear Ken defend -- or short of that explain -- his contention that sex requires the swapping of genetic material.

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HenryT

Canadian Anglican
# 3722

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quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I suspect that "wet dreams" are as often an explanation for stained sheets as they are real phenomena ifyouseewhatImean.

Even in my forties (and twenty plus years married) I've been woken up by a real ejaculation during a erotic dream. YMMV.

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Gracious rebel

Rainbow warrior
# 3523

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quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
I want to hear Ken defend -- or short of that explain -- his contention that sex requires the swapping of genetic material.

Well he's a biologist isn't he? My guess is that he was using the term 'sex' in more scientific sense to that generally understood. I reckon he would therefore say that plants 'have sex' as well (well I guess he wouldn't use those actual words but you get my drift) because they exchange genetic material. If you take as a definition that 'sex is an exchange of genetic material', then obviously that excludes any activity that does not involve this, and includes other things (like plant reproduction). Its not right or wrong to see it that way, its just using a different, scientific definition.

Well that was my understanding of what he was trying to say anyway.

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76

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quote:
Originally posted by Henry Troup:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I suspect that "wet dreams" are as often an explanation for stained sheets as they are real phenomena ifyouseewhatImean.

Even in my forties (and twenty plus years married) I've been woken up by a real ejaculation during a erotic dream. YMMV.
I'm a light sleeper, which unfortunately means I tend to wake up thinking "Oh BOLLOCKS!!!! I was dreaming" rather before that point.

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Pants

Emergency underwear
# 999

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quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I agree with Ken that virtual or phone sex might count as ‘cheating’ if you were in a relationship with someone else, but even then, I think that if my wife had phone sex with another man, I’d merely be very hurt and annoyed. If she “had sex” with him I’d be absolutely devastated – because sex (narrowly defined) is for me an expression of the highest commitment and intimacy.

Yet, as I think someone might've said before, online / phone sex can be so much more intimate. RL sex can just be a physical act, in and out. Whereas doesn't online / phone needs to have more to it?

Or you could say that 'in the heat of the moment' you got swept away by it all and had sex. But online / phone there's some premediated thought involved?

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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460

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quote:
Originally posted by Gracious rebel:
I reckon he would therefore say that plants 'have sex' as well (well I guess he wouldn't use those actual words but you get my drift)

I would use those actual words. And so surely would just about anyone. Isn't it quite normal, for example, to talk about flowers as being the sexual organs of plants? At least in school biology lessons anyway...

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L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

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mousethief

Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953

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quote:
Originally posted by Gracious rebel:
Well he's a biologist isn't he? My guess is that he was using the term 'sex' in more scientific sense to that generally understood.

In which case I'd say it's completely irrelevant to this thread, which is about the morality of sex, not the biology thereof.

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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460

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quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
this thread, which is about the morality of sex, not the biology thereof.

Yeah, but don't you agree with

quote:
what Eliab wrote?
If I said that “I didn’t have sex before marriage”, and you believed me, I don’t think you would necessarily conclude that I had never had an erotic conversation (phone/online/in person) with my fiancée. You almost certainly would not conclude that I never masturbated. I might not have, and there might be good reason for saying I ought not to have, done any of those things, but they aren’t remotely implied in the bare statement that “I didn’t have sex”, in the way that the words are usually meant.

They are examples of sexual behaviour, sure, but so is (some forms of) kissing. So are (some) embraces. That doesn’t make them “sex”.



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Ken

L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

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John Holding

Coffee and Cognac
# 158

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So, getting back to my previous comment, do you, Ken, think anal intercourse between two men is sex? There cannot be "sharing" of genetic material". But then there isn't exactly "sharing" in normal, missionary position sex between a man and a women either.

Or by "sharing" do you just mean partner A depositing material in partner B -- which is not how people use the term, but if biologists do inside their world, fair enough -- though it would be nice to be given a hint that you weren't using the word in the usual way.

That means that any form of "deposit" works -- providing a very wide definition of sex so long as two people are physically in the same location.

John

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Autenrieth Road

Shipmate
# 10509

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quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Gracious rebel:
I reckon he would therefore say that plants 'have sex' as well (well I guess he wouldn't use those actual words but you get my drift)

I would use those actual words. And so surely would just about anyone. Isn't it quite normal, for example, to talk about flowers as being the sexual organs of plants? At least in school biology lessons anyway...
This begs the question, in the technical sense? The discussion is about which activities done with sexual organs are encompassed by "sex".

[ 13. February 2007, 13:48: Message edited by: Autenrieth Road ]

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Truth

Posts: 9559 | From: starlight | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged
Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252

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quote:
Originally posted by John Holding:
So, getting back to my previous comment, do you, Ken, think anal intercourse between two men is sex? There cannot be "sharing" of genetic material".

There almost certainly will be, in the sense that the DNA of both will end up in contact with the body of the other. Indeed, one of the problems with defining sex as 'sharing genetic material' is that it throws the net far too wide. Breathing, for example, would become a sexual activity. Perhaps we could say 'reproductive sharing of genetic material'? But then; homosexuality? Contraception? I think the best way to put a Ken-ish point would be 'sharing of genetic material is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for sex'. Not that I agree.

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mousethief

Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953

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quote:
Originally posted by Divine Outlaw Dwarf:
I think the best way to put a Ken-ish point would be 'sharing of genetic material is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for sex'. Not that I agree.

Which rather leaves us where we started.

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Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252

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Yes it does. The Dead Horses equivalent of a Dollis Hill loop.

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