Sexual Morality and Ethics Catch-All

What you call bullsh*t, I call scholarly work from the American Psychological Association.

At no point did I state that desires, curiosity, fetishes lead to violence or crimes. I am stating that you get closer to that line when you begin to flirt with dangerous, potentially, or likely harmful activity. The risks of accidental harm go up markedly with people who engage in these in an amateur capacity.

What I am stating is that darker desires can be an indicator of an underlying disorder or psychiatric problem. This can be indicia of a past abuse in a sexual partner; unresolved sexual abuse from childhood is especially common in the US. When we talk rape fetishes, a growing amount of research is showing childhood or adolescent brain trauma to be a significant factor.

Maybe case by case.

Do you think a man who enjoys attaching electrodes to his genitals hooked to a car battery might have an underlying psychological disorder?

Do you think that a woman who desires anal fisting to the point of fissures might?

Do you think a man who gets gratification from punching his partner in the face might?

If a friend told you he really enjoys wrapping a belt around his boyfriend's neck and pulling as hard as he can, would you suggest he get evaluated by a professional?

KingGorilla wrote:

What you call bullsh*t, I call scholarly work from the American Psychological Association.

At no point did I state that desires, curiosity, fetishes lead to violence or crimes. I am stating that you get closer to that line when you begin to flirt with dangerous, potentially, or likely harmful activity. The risks of accidental harm go up markedly with people who engage in these in an amateur capacity.

What I am stating is that darker desires can be an indicator of an underlying disorder or psychiatric problem. This can be indicia of a past abuse in a sexual partner; unresolved sexual abuse from childhood is especially common in the US. When we talk rape fetishes, a growing amount of research is showing childhood or adolescent brain trauma to be a significant factor.

Citations needed

How about this one:
Richters et al (2008). "Selected Abstracts of Presentations During the World Congress of Sexology, 2007: Demographic and Psychosocial Features of Participants in BDSM Sex: Data From a National Survey", Journal of Sex Research, 45(2), pp. 90–117.

"BDSM is simply a sexual interest attractive to a minority, not a pathological symptom of past abuse or difficulty with normal sex."

Or this one, Moser, Journal of Social Work and Human Sexuality 1988, summarised at wikipedia with the following statement

Moser emphasizes that there is no evidence at all supporting the theory of BDSM practitioners having any special psychiatric problems or even problems based solely on their preferences.
KingGorilla wrote:

Do you think a man who enjoys attaching electrodes to his genitals hooked to a car battery might have an underlying psychological disorder?

Do you think that a woman who desires anal fisting to the point of fissures might?

Do you think a man who gets gratification from punching his partner in the face might?

If a friend told you he really enjoys wrapping a belt around his boyfriend's neck and pulling as hard as he can, would you suggest he get evaluated by a professional?

Sure. "Might" to all of them. But a categorical "no" to the idea that any of the activities listed somehow imply a psychological disorder.

Do boxers have a psychological disorder? What about free climbers, or base-jumpers? That's applying your exact same logic to different activities.

Consensually engaging in behaviors others perceive as risky != psychological disorder.

KingGorilla wrote:

Do you think a man who enjoys attaching electrodes to his genitals hooked to a car battery might have an underlying psychological disorder?

Citation needed to demonstrate that this is anything other than a one off practice. There are specific devices designed so that you can have safe electro-sex. Why wouldn't he be using one of thise?

KingGorilla wrote:

Do you think that a woman who desires anal fisting to the point of fissures might?

If you're getting fissures not only are you doing it wrong but you might have a medical issue that you should go an get checked. Also we'll need a citation that correlates the desire for extreme anal sex with psychological problems

KingGorilla wrote:

Do you think a man who gets gratification from punching his partner in the face might?

Is it consensual? I get a reasonable amount of gratification for practising full contact martial arts, is that a problem? Or is it only a problem when sex is involved?

KingGorilla wrote:

If a friend told you he really enjoys wrapping a belt around his boyfriend's neck and pulling as hard as he can, would you suggest he get evaluated by a professional?

Plenty people enjoy breathplay, belts aren't a very safe way to engage in it. But really I don't have much objection to other people engaging in activities with a reasonable risk of death like base jumping and bungee jumping, I don't regard them as having a psychological problem

http://element.e-uni.ee/_download/eu...

http://www.nnvawi.org/pdfs/alo/Campb...

http://www.acog.org/Resources_And_Pu....

You can continue to argue what I am not saying. Or you can read what I am saying.

By the numbers risky sexual behavior, violent sexual fantasies are common indicators of past abuse in an individual. Violent and coercive sex among "consenting" adults is particularly common in these instances. You will be hard pressed to find a male rapist, or a woman who is in an abusive relationship who lacks a formative traumatic experience that went unresolved (Sexual abuse, physical abuse).

I never said consensual BDSM led to diddly. By all means people can and should explore their sexual desires safely, with knowledge.

I said that sexually risky behavior can be an indicator of underlying disorder. So far as I have read, that is not so controversial. And that disorder can often come out in a person's sexual desire and sexual practices. In the same way that an underlying depression comes out in alcohol or drug use. Did I just say that every person who gets drunk or snorts cocaine is mentally ill?

None of these are about consensual BDSM activities. The terms BDSM and fetish don't feature in any of those articles. These are about domestic abuse, which is a completely and utterly different psychological and interpersonal process.

I thought we were talking about BDSM activities. If you are conflating BDSM with domestic abuse and you can't tell the difference then I think I'm done here.

e2a:

KingGorilla wrote:

By the numbers risky sexual behavior, violent sexual fantasies are common indicators of past abuse in an individual. Violent and coercive sex among "consenting" adults is particularly common in these instances. You will be hard pressed to find a male rapist, or a woman who is in an abusive relationship who lacks a formative traumatic experience that went unresolved (Sexual abuse, physical abuse).

All of this can be true but it still doesn't tell you anything about the average BDSM practitioner. Who, if you'd bothered to read my references, are no more likely to have prior psychological issues than the population at large

Your first 2 sources are talking about unconsensual violence between partners i.e. abuse, and the long-term effects of exposure to that abuse. And yes, I agree with that paper that suggests that being abused has long term psychological effects. That's not what we're talking about. Next.

The third source is more what you're driving at, and the only conclusion that that one really comes to is that survivors of abuse are more likely to engage in sexual risk-taking. Again, you've got your causation the wrong way around. Yes, abuse can lead to sexual risk taking, but it's far from the only reason for sexual risk-taking.

More to the point, fetishes and kinks don't necessarily need actual risky behaviors to be satisfied. In many cases, they need the appearance of risky behavior to be satisfied. "Safe, sane and consensual" isn't the catchphrase of the modern BDSM community for no reason...

KingGorilla wrote:

Do you think a man who enjoys attaching electrodes to his genitals hooked to a car battery might have an underlying psychological disorder?

What about a guy who likes to runs around on a field in tight pants hurling himself into another dude as hard as he can? Or a guy who is willing to carry a ball while other guys do their best to pound the crap out of him for 60 minutes? These activities involve a lot of unnecessary pain but bring the participants a huge amount of gratification. If the activities are conducted on a playing field while other people watch, we call these normal, healthy entertainment. Do that by yourselves in a bedroom with the door locked, it's a freaky psychological condition.

There's a lot of extreme human behavior which shrinks find normal in some social contexts and abnormal in others. I don't think you're going to find it easy to separate the sexual from the non-sexual, or the healthy from the unhealthy, with any consistency across human activity.

KingGorilla wrote:

I said that sexually risky behavior can be an indicator of underlying disorder. So far as I have read, that is not so controversial. And that disorder can often come out in a person's sexual desire and sexual practices. In the same way that an underlying depression comes out in alcohol or drug use. Did I just say that every person who gets drunk or snorts cocaine is mentally ill?

Here's what you said:

KingGorilla wrote:

Sociologically speaking fetishes and fantasies can be an indication of disorder.

What you meant to say is that sexual risk-taking can be an indication of disorder, and you ignore the fact that the vast majority of people indulging their fetishes and fantasies go a long way towards doing it in the least risky way possible.

also, isn't "sexual risk taking" things like putting yourself in sexual situations where you're at high risk of rape or further abuse, or high risk of exposure to STIs or pregnancy?

In what way is consensual degradation role play or knife play linked to "sexual risk taking" such that you are flirting with the line of a disorder?

Funkenpants wrote:

Or a guy who is willing to carry a ball while other guys do their best to pound the crap out of him for 60 minutes? These activities involve a lot of unnecessary pain but bring the participants a huge amount of gratification.

Whoa, buddy. Am I gonna have to code up a NSFW tag?

I never bloody said it was direct cause and effect like knocking over dominoes. That is the fun part about social sciences, it is about probabilities and likelihoods.

Put another way, this is about looking back. Rapists tend to watch a lot more porn (particularly violent porn) that the given male population.

By no means does this mean porn (violent porn) leads to men raping women. What it does show is that men with rape tendencies exhibit a warning sign of heavy consumption of porn and violent porn. Now at whose peril do we operate when we tell a woman that is just his kink, as opposed to possible indication of sexually violent tendencies?

Jonman wrote:
KingGorilla wrote:

Sociologically speaking fetishes and fantasies can be an indication of disorder.

What you meant to say is that sexual risk-taking can be an indication of disorder, and you ignore the fact that the vast majority of people indulging their fetishes and fantasies go a long way towards doing it in the least risky way possible.

And those kinks I am referring to are often sexually risky. I would love for someone to tell me the safest way to punch a woman as hard as you can in the face.

KingGorilla wrote:

By no means does this mean porn (violent porn) leads to men raping women. What it does show is that men with rape tendencies exhibit a warning sign of heavy consumption of porn and violent porn. Now at whose peril do we operate when we tell a woman that is just his kink, as opposed to possible indication of sexually violent tendencies?

Nobody is advising a guy who would like to go and rape someone to go out and do so. And no one is suggesting "rape" is a kink.

The topic at hand is about a woman whose husband has dark fantasies and what they/she should do about it. And the advice is "consensually indulge in the ones you think you'd enjoy and leave the rest to the world of fantasy".

Bonus_Eruptus wrote:
Funkenpants wrote:

Or a guy who is willing to carry a ball while other guys do their best to pound the crap out of him for 60 minutes? These activities involve a lot of unnecessary pain but bring the participants a huge amount of gratification.

Whoa, buddy. Am I gonna have to code up a NSFW tag?

Too hot to handle, eh?

IMAGE(http://www.dailyherald.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=DA&Date=20120830&Category=SPORTS&ArtNo=708309560&Ref=EP&NewTbl=1&item=5&maxw=507&maxh=370&Q=70&cache=1)

KingGorilla wrote:

By no means does this mean porn (violent porn) leads to men raping women. What it does show is that men with rape tendencies exhibit a warning sign of heavy consumption of porn and violent porn. Now at whose peril do we operate when we tell a woman that is just his kink, as opposed to possible indication of sexually violent tendencies?

Possible indication? Guilty until proven innocent? Surprised to hear that coming from a legal mind.

Oh hey, I watch a bunch of porn. Whose peril are we operating at when I turn up to a Slap'n'Tickle?

Jonman wrote:
KingGorilla wrote:

By no means does this mean porn (violent porn) leads to men raping women. What it does show is that men with rape tendencies exhibit a warning sign of heavy consumption of porn and violent porn. Now at whose peril do we operate when we tell a woman that is just his kink, as opposed to possible indication of sexually violent tendencies?

Possible indication? Guilty until proven innocent? Surprised to hear that coming from a legal mind.

Oh hey, I watch a bunch of porn. Whose peril are we operating at when I turn up to a Slap'n'Tickle?

I have a bunghole cover.

The thing is a woman or a man does not get the benefit of a childhood of information when it comes to warning signs from an intimate partner. You will not quite know if they tortured animals, were masochistic bullies, wet the bed until puberty, etc. You get a narrow snap shot to work with. And sadly the closest thing I can give to a guarantee is that in that subset of the population that is abused some way in childhood in North America, they are not likely to have gotten the treatment that they need for it.

So a sexual partner has to go with what they know. And that is the exhibition of desires with the here and now, and their own reaction to it. I would like to think any decent man or woman who has seen dysfunction would seek help, or absent that dysfunction would seek it at the behest of an intimate partner just to ease their mind.

And for me, I have a tainted mind that has been despoiled by a few too many police reports, but the common theme is there. And like every other man, we have to excuse ourself from the deviant population at every turn. We are every guy who slips a pill into a girl's drink, every man who slaps his wife, every man who got a hooker in Vegas until we show otherwise. Women in the US cannot take the risk thinking any other way.

KingGorilla wrote:

Put another way, this is about looking back. Rapists tend to watch a lot more porn (particularly violent porn) that the given male population.

By no means does this mean porn (violent porn) leads to men raping women. What it does show is that men with rape tendencies exhibit a warning sign of heavy consumption of porn and violent porn.

For something to be a warning sign, don't we have to take into account the number of false positives? I would be surprised if rapists DIDN'T watch a lot more porn, particularly violent porn. That doesn't mean it's a warning sign. That means you need to have more information about porn-watching habits before making that jump to calling it a warning sign. You said "That is the fun part about social sciences, it is about probabilities and likelihoods." Sure, but the important likelihood here isn't that a rapist will watch a lot more porn than the average male. The important likelihood is how good a predictor watching a lot of porn is of someone being a rapist. Do you get the difference?

KingGorilla wrote:

So a sexual partner has to go with what they know. And that is the exhibition of desires with the here and now, and their own reaction to it. I would like to think any decent man or woman who has seen dysfunction would seek help, or absent that dysfunction would seek it at the behest of an intimate partner just to ease their mind.

And we get back to kinky = abuse survivor and/or abuser. Which DanB has debunked with citations upthread.

DanB wrote:

The topic at hand is about a woman whose husband has dark fantasies and what they/she should do about it. And the advice is "consensually indulge in the ones you think you'd enjoy and leave the rest to the world of fantasy".

And also "chill the f*** out". Judge the man on his behavior, not his idle fantasies.

KingGorilla wrote:

And for me, I have a tainted mind that has been despoiled by a few too many police reports, but the common theme is there. And like every other man, we have to excuse ourself from the deviant population at every turn. We are every guy who slips a pill into a girl's drink, every man who slaps his wife, every man who got a hooker in Vegas until we show otherwise. Women in the US cannot take the risk thinking any other way.

Getting a hooker in Vegas is deviant? That seems like a pretty different activity than rape.

KingGorilla wrote:

And like every other man, we have to excuse ourself from the deviant population at every turn. We are every guy who slips a pill into a girl's drink, every man who slaps his wife, every man who got a hooker in Vegas until we show otherwise. Women in the US cannot take the risk thinking any other way.

Speak for yourself pal. Don't tar me with that brush. I am categorically not every date-rapist, abuser and john. I am also not a murderer, child molester or burglar.

Yes, sure, people shouldn't necessarily assume the best of me when they don't know me, but I don't need to excuse myself from that population - my actions do that loudly enough.

Funkenpants wrote:
Bonus_Eruptus wrote:
Funkenpants wrote:

Or a guy who is willing to carry a ball while other guys do their best to pound the crap out of him for 60 minutes? These activities involve a lot of unnecessary pain but bring the participants a huge amount of gratification.

Whoa, buddy. Am I gonna have to code up a NSFW tag?

Too hot to handle, eh?

IMAGE(http://www.dailyherald.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=DA&Date=20120830&Category=SPORTS&ArtNo=708309560&Ref=EP&NewTbl=1&item=5&maxw=507&maxh=370&Q=70&cache=1)

One thing that has always puzzled me, is where do we draw the line as far as sexual ethics. I assume that everyone would consider rapists or pedophiles to be wrong in their ethics, but is everything besides that okay?

I suppose one could say that everything that makes everyone involved feel loved and honored should be okay, but, since when do people know what they want? I have the nagging feeling that no matter what act people perform sexually, it will never be more fulfilling than "missionary, lights off and married" (sorry if that's not an exact quote), unless there is a deep emotional connection with that significant other. I'm not an expert on psychology, but I don't think having an orgasm is the only motive for sex. What if every sexual motive that we have, has its motives buried deep underneath or subconscious? Despite what that might entail, I'm not calling the desire for sex a bad thing because I believe most of our motives truly are good, like the need for intimacy, acceptance and reproduction; but, when those good motives aren't being met, is it possible that we try to find more intense methods of sex to deliver those needs that could be met by non-sexual ways? If I'm wrong, then why is having sex more preferred than finding the most intense orgasm through our own methods?

edit for better conclusion:I suppose that all this bantering is to say, we shouldn't allow sex to define us, but, should know ourselves and exactly what it is we are looking for before we engage in sex or more extreme sexual methods. That sexual conduct is wrong when we allow sexuality to determine how we act and our purpose in life as opposed to allowing sex to enhance our self awareness, joy and intimacy with ourselves and others.

FiveIron wrote:

edit for better conclusion:I suppose that all this bantering is to say, we shouldn't allow sex to define us, but, should know ourselves and exactly what it is we are looking for before we engage in sex or more extreme sexual methods. That sexual conduct is wrong when we allow sexuality to determine how we act and our purpose in life as opposed to allowing sex to enhance our self awareness, joy and intimacy with ourselves and others.

Why does there have to be one correct way? Why can't people have a multitude of different experiences and desires that satisfy different wants?

DanB wrote:
FiveIron wrote:

edit for better conclusion:I suppose that all this bantering is to say, we shouldn't allow sex to define us, but, should know ourselves and exactly what it is we are looking for before we engage in sex or more extreme sexual methods. That sexual conduct is wrong when we allow sexuality to determine how we act and our purpose in life as opposed to allowing sex to enhance our self awareness, joy and intimacy with ourselves and others.

Why does there have to be one correct way? Why can't people have a multitude of different experiences and desires that satisfy different wants?

I guess I should clarify a few things. For one, I don't believe that there is a more prevalent desire for sex other than the need for intimacy. That in all our ambition and experimentation, what we are looking for isn't merely a heightened sense of pleasure, but the attempt to find our preconception of it. And I don't think there is one correct way. I believe that playfulness and experimentation are a part of a intimate relationship. That being said, I don't think there is a limit to what is acceptable and good. The main point that i was trying to get across was that the proof is in the results. If someone can increase their happiness, productivity and mental awareness through sex, then they must be doing it right.

please understand that I in no means want to condemn peoples sexual preferences, I just think people should really consider their motives and self awareness before they try something that might make them more distant or unappreciated (whatever that may be). Different things are appropriate in different relationships, but I'm not sure everything is right in every relationship.

FiveIron wrote:

One thing that has always puzzled me, is where do we draw the line as far as sexual ethics. I assume that everyone would consider rapists or pedophiles to be wrong in their ethics, but is everything besides that okay?

Not sure how much of the thread you've actually read, since nobody has said that everything apart from rape or pedophilia is okay (or moral/ethical, to keep the focus on the thread topic).

To reiterate my earlier position:
the moral / ethical boundaries for sex are tightly bound to consent. If everyone involved is consenting to what's happening, there is no moral or ethical issue in play.

Pre-empting likely objections:

* Rape is obviously non-consensual.
* Society recognizes that children are incapable of meaningful consent in the same way that adults are, so pedophilia is also off the table.
* Infidelity (sex with someone else when your partner isn't aware / okay of what's happening) is also morally / ethically wrong because your partner isn't consenting to what's going on.

Anything else (as long as it involves informed consent from everyone involved) is pretty much fair play - even things that I find distasteful or personally nauseating.

Dimmerswitch wrote:

Anything else (as long as it involves informed consent from everyone involved) is pretty much fair play - even things that I find distasteful or personally nauseating.

Two girls, one toboggan?

--

One interesting question about relationship ethics that I hadn't thought about until recently: What ought a trans person do when beginning to see someone, or becoming more serious with someone? There are a lot of obvious problems with not being open about your past. But, at the same time, you're not trying to find someone to date your past self. There's a sense of betrayal that the other person can feel about not being told in the first place. But talking about things up front brings the expectation of outright rejection on the basis of "not being real" without even giving things a chance, or worse, an extremely negative and possibly violent reaction.

An additional complication comes from the fact that many trans people don't want to have "TRANS" stuck to their identity for the rest of their lives—as far as they're concerned, they're just a man or a woman—and having an expectation that not introducing yourself by leading with "I'm transsexual" might count as a betrayal is just a mess. (Consider also: If you're actively seeking someone to date, it might make sense to always share that information before even meeting, although the problems above apply. But what if you meet someone socially or professionally, and hit it off and a romance starts to bloom? At what point should you disclose things?)

And as a final giant complication: There are " {transphobic slur} chasers" out there who actively seek out trans people to have sex with. The attentions of chasers are generally not appreciated by trans people, because of the horrible objectifiction involved. I also suspect that some chasers take advantage of the vulnerability of trans people, making the consensuality suspect in some cases. This makes problems elsewhere, too, because openly sharing your trans status potentially makes you the target of such people—and because if you do meet someone who knows of your trans status but appears to be interested anyway, you kind of have to wonder. (Similar to the "there are so many misogynist assholes out there that women have to be on guard all the time, even against people who probably aren't like that" problem.)

The most interesting ethical questions arise when two conflicting interests come together (a cis person who would rather not date a trans person, a trans person who would rather not be treated as different). And the hardest ethical questions are those for which there is no traditional solution. Every case must be taken individually, and what works for one set of people might not work at all for another set.

--

Back on the more common side of things: I think that when you have mutually consenting people, as Dimmer says, there's very little you can say other than "different strokes for different folks." I'd probably add a point that it's important to be careful about external power dynamics, and the impact that can have on consensuality. (This is why things like relationships in the chain of command or between professionals and clients, managers and subordinates, or students and teachers are worth being [em]careful[/em] about.)

To step back a little bit to the recent question that revived this thread: When someone has desires to do things that their partner is not interested in, but still loves that person very much, and doesn't feel compelled to act those fantasies out... that seems perfectly reasonable to me. I think that it's probably safer and healthier to share those fantasies with your partner(s) rather than assuming there can't be consent. You never know. As an example: I'm a bit of a masochist, and had a girlfriend who was willing to experiment with that. She found inflicting pain to be enough of a turn-off that it didn't really work for her, so we stopped. If I hadn't shared that with her, we wouldn't have tried it and figured out what our boundaries were. But it didn't have to be a deal-breaker, and it wasn't.

Still, people can be really embarrassed by their fantasies and feel like they're unsharable. I think that's sad, and that the right solution is just to make sure people are comfortable sharing things with people they become serious about. If I'd been in that woman's position, I would mainly feel betrayed in the lack of sharing, rather than in the fantasies themselves.

Dimmerswitch wrote:
FiveIron wrote:

One thing that has always puzzled me, is where do we draw the line as far as sexual ethics. I assume that everyone would consider rapists or pedophiles to be wrong in their ethics, but is everything besides that okay?

Not sure how much of the thread you've actually read, since nobody has said that everything apart from rape or pedophilia is okay (or moral/ethical, to keep the focus on the thread topic).

To reiterate my earlier position:
the moral / ethical boundaries for sex are tightly bound to consent. If everyone involved is consenting to what's happening, there is no moral or ethical issue in play.

Pre-empting likely objections:

* Rape is obviously non-consensual.
* Society recognizes that children are incapable of meaningful consent in the same way that adults are, so pedophilia is also off the table.
* Infidelity (sex with someone else when your partner isn't aware / okay of what's happening) is also morally / ethically wrong because your partner isn't consenting to what's going on.

Anything else (as long as it involves informed consent from everyone involved) is pretty much fair play - even things that I find distasteful or personally nauseating.

Yes I read the majority of the posts (sorry if i restated a few things), but i wanted to bring the perspective of personal mental health to the table since the majority of the forum has been directed at others emotional/physical health as opposed to personal well being. I agree with your three moral directives, but I want to explain that personal well being should also be a huge moral guideline. If ones current sexual behavior is turning them further into a introvert, eroding their self confidence and making them feel more isolated; couldn't that hint that something is wrong with how they are behaving? In fact, I believe that this method could be used to determine all ethics. just a hunch, but, If someone can acknowledge every mental impact that happens during sex, I think that we would be much more clear about what should be perused in our sex lives and what not. If a man commits rape it obviously hurts his victim, in more ways then most can comprehend, but would it be reasonable to assume that the rapist is also harmed by committing their act? The general stories that I have heard about rape, is that the rapist develops a stronger hatred towards the victim which might indicate the rapists disgust with himself, for committing the act, and dissatisfaction from the victim for not getting what the rapist truly wants from them.

I think that the discussion of the mental and emotional aspects of sex is certainly needed and appropriate but a bit overstated.

As my uncle Joe used to say: "A stiff prick has no conscience."

If you are so addicted to porn that it is having a detrimental effect on your personal wellbeing I'm not so sure that the issue is sexual at all. Likewise rape is not a sex act. The discussion of rape doesn't really belong in a discussion of sexual morality because rape is not about sex. People don't become rapists because they are horny they become rapists because...well... they're rapists. Listing rape as a sexual kink does it a disservice.

I think there is a definite blurring of the lines here between (I'm making these terms up): mechanical sexuality and behavioral sexuality.

Sometimes sex is indeed that thoughful. BDSM is an example where you can have power dynamics and fetishes that play upon our psychology to heighten sexual pleasure. THat said, it is possible and even commonplace for people in a BDSM relationship to not always have intercourse together. The act of dominance/submission is hardcoded into us to have an effect. Power play and sado-masochism amount to brain-f*cking, not body-f*cking.

A rapist has about as much connection to rape fantasies as a killer does to Dexter. Entertaining thoughts of something and doing it are quite different and NOT an indication that the person is likely to act on those thoughts. We all indulge in power fantasy all the time in video games. How many pixels have we murdered? How many games have elicited a low level of arousal from us? More than most would care to admit, likely. Saying that rape fantasies lead to rape I liken to the "violent" video game debate. Nobody killed because a game told them to. A rapist is no different. They were born (or were traumatized) to the point where something is functionally wrong with them. This doesn't excuse their actions, an evil act is evil.

This is kind of all over the place but what I'm trying to say is that sometimes sex is just sex. Yes their are emotional aspects and mental aspects but as much as you may like to tell yourself that you put on your top hat and monocle before every masturbation session I bet a lot of the time you just want to get busy.

There are moments when we indulge our brain with romatic candlelight meals and soapy baths and Barry White albums and there are times when you wake up with a boner and, hey look at that, you have a handy member of your preferred gender next to you in bed! Only 15 minutes before you have to get ready for work but hey...we can do this with some team work!

Talking about sex is one thing. Talking about our MOTIVATIONS behind sex is entirely different.

FiveIron wrote:

If ones current sexual behavior is turning them further into a introvert, eroding their self confidence and making them feel more isolated; couldn't that hint that something is wrong with how they are behaving? In fact, I believe that this method could be used to determine all ethics.

That's sort of the thing, isn't it? That general a test is true for any recreational activity. Whether it's stamp collecting or doing Ironman events, if it's resulting in something like eroding your self-confidence, you should stop.

The issue as I see it is that being turned on/experiencing sexual satisfaction is so much more subjective than any other activity. No one has their most intense orgasms from being charged usurious fees, so we don't consider mutual consent the standard for behavior in finance. No one gets hardest when their friend wears a Star Trek skirt to hang out (and if they do, that's more than just friendship) so we don't consider it right for one friend to tell another friend what to wear beyond well-intentioned advice given in good faith. So there's a lot less room to come up with some objective, universal rules beyond "if you're both consenting and of the appropriate age." It's almost more like telling people what kind of music they should allow themselves to listen to. Or that they shouldn't put ketchup on a hot dog.