However, I do think the will precedes reason; but, the amount of work and effort that reason applies in polishing and making a goal a reality is certainly underappreciated in my opinion. — Question

Yes I definitely agree with that. (Y)

For example ... I never even knew what ejaculation was until I was 12, when I accidentally found out and got scared >:O and then researched online to see what the hell had actually happened! Then I tried to do it again and make it happen out of curiosity. Then I started to research and investigate these matters, and then got into pornography etc. — Agustino

I often wonder what it would have been like to have had access to the 2017 internet when I was 12 in 1958. There were many things I wondered about for which there was no information available (to me). And not just sex questions. Radioactive fallout from the Nevada above-ground atomic bomb test sites drifted over much of the US, and information about it was sparse. We worried about it. I remember a map in the Weekly Reader showing bands of higher and lower radioactivity. The northern US was under a band of high radioactivity (relative to low levels).

There were civil-defense pamphlets about building fallout shelters; I couldn't quite fit the drawings in the pamphlets into our dirt-floored cellar. There was extreme right-wing propaganda being passed around, published in newspapers, shown in school. Communism was out to get us, like some kind of slithery monster crawling out of the sewers. There was no contrary opinion offered to us, for the most part. I was obsessed with mushrooms at the time, too (don't know how that happened) and quickly ran out of information in encyclopedias. Google would have been very handy.

I do remember orgasms arriving. It was one of the sunny bright spots amid all the gloom and doom.

had access to the 2017 internet — Bitter Crank

Heh, even 2000s internet was good! 2017 is more about social media than research and so forth. Back then the internet was quite solitary from what I remember. As in, you'd read and research stuff but that's about it. Few of the communication features were there - they started to appear around 2004/5. Even games, at least for me, were hard to find (and expensive), I had to go to PC cafes to play. Nowadays, almost no one goes to PC cafes - which is quite sad, they were good places for socialising.

no one goes to PC cafes — Agustino

I see all sorts of people sitting in coffee shops with a screen in front of them, but they don't socialize. It strikes me as dysfunctional. It's a way of being "less alone" I suppose.

I see all sorts of people sitting in coffee shops with a screen in front of them, but they don't socialize. It strikes me as dysfunctional. It's a way of being "less alone" I suppose. — Bitter Crank

Yeah but PC cafes were different, because it was literarily computer next to computer, and everyone talked with everyone, they played multiplayer games one against each other, and so forth - it gathered people who were interested to do the same things. Nowadays they go sit in a coffee place like Starbucks or whatever with a laptop and surf the net - but you see the place is set up in order to keep them isolated (they are only connected via social media), it's hard to approach someone in that environment with separate tables, and so forth. People sitting with a laptop certainly look like they don't want to be disturbed - as in they want to be amongst people, and yet be far from them too.

So, you're OK with bestiality then? — John

dafuq?

Do you intend to communicate by typing on a keyboard? If you do, then why do you intend to communicate? Because you think this is good. — Agustino

I don't think communication is a good in itself.

You don't OBSERVE right and wrong, you judge things to be right and wrong. You observe facts - for example the color of leaves of the tree out your window. — Agustino

Mere judgement does not objectively decide morality.

My judgement tells me. — Agustino

Which isn't always right.

Actually no, because the faculty of judgement =/ reason in the way I've been using it. Reason is the way we function - we do things for certain reasons. That's what rationality is - a creature is rational if it holds reasons for doing X and Y. — Agustino

We often judge based on reason, so what exactly are you trying to contest here?

Yep, we judge it to be wrong. But this isn't to say our judgements can be objective. — Agustino

So.....................?

If I judge it to be wrong, I clearly am not using reason to do it. — Agustino

How did you arrive at your judgement? Through reason. What else besides instinct would you be using?

Differences in judgement are not differences of reason. — Agustino

They sure can be.

Desire is innate and is not a choice, nor can it be eradicated — Emptyheady

Explain.

at best suppressed with some nasty unforeseen side effects. — Emptyheady

So a pedophile's innate desire cannot and should not be eradicated or suppressed because doing so will produce "nasty unforeseen side effects"?

This is why I think Buddhism is fundamentally mistaken and numbing yourself leads to alienation. — Emptyheady

Bruv, what'd the fat man ever do to you?

I believe in two personal virtues, ambition and discipline.

Do you like BDSM, by chance?

Hume was on the right track when he said: "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them." — Emptyheady

Pedophiles rejoice! You can now fulfill your desirous passion for child flesh because who the fuck needs reason 'til after you done it?! :D

Pinker — Emptyheady

People sitting with a laptop certainly look like they don't want to be disturbed - as in they want to be amongst people, and yet be far from them too. — Agustino

Jokes on you when you look at what they're doing and they're feverishly lurking TFP, 8-)

dafuq? — Heister Eggcart

" Fucking bitches"...a bitch is a female canine, no? :s

but you see the place is set up in order to keep them isolated — Agustino

Which is why bars where 80% or 90% of the inhabitants are standing are much much better than bars where everyone has to be seated. People on foot mix readily.

The thing I really don't understand about coffee shops is "How do they make money on the large amount of space occupied by a few asocial people who aren't buying that much coffee and are at the same time soaking up WiFi and heat (or AC) and sitting there for hours? Are these people like duck decoys--attracting more profitable live birds in off the sidewalk? Are there secret fees being paid to sit there? Are they acquaintances of the owner who would rather these lumps stay at the shop than coming round to his house to bore him to tears? Are they in a witness protection program -- hiding in plain sight?

dafuq? — Heister Eggcart

Fucking bitches"...a bitch is a female canine, no? :s — John

"Yes, Virginia; a bitch is a female canine. Like, "bitch, re, me, fa, so, la, te, bitch. "Bitch, a dog, a female dog, ra, a drop of golden sun; me, a name I call myself; fa, a long long way to run; so, a needle holding thread; L. A. the land of Hollywood; te, a drink with jam and bread, which brings us back to you, you fucking bitch!" Maria von Trapp sang. But then they cleaned things up and rewrote the song.

John, you really have to stop reading everything so literally.

"Dafuq" and "fucking bitches" are coded words with layers of meaning. "Dafuq" for instance, has a layer of proletarian bluntness on top -- "da" in place of "the"--always a proley give away. "fuq" is a kind of hipster spelling of fuck. "Fuck" is a multi-functional word providing noun, verb, adjective, intensifier, etc. functionality. "Dafuq" (which spell check wants very badly to change to "daft" is code for "I'm sorry; I don't understand what you are saying." Or "I'm sorry, but what you are saying doesn't make any objective sense to me." So, "fucking bitches" is adjectival (something unappealing about bitches") or verbish (something so and so is doing at the time) or both at once. Referencing a female human as if she were a female canid is an ancient insult, and adding "fucking" deepens the slur to reference said bitches as unusually promiscuous and atrociously vindictive.

And so on.

Margaret Atwood, the distinguished Canadian Novelist, ended the Madd Addam Trilogy by explaining to human beings' successor species what "Fuck" is. They had been hearing the almost disappeared old-design homo sapiens using the term and they wondered what it meant.

"Fuck is a god. Pray to Fuck in times of need and adversity, like we do: Oh Fuck! etc..."

You will be free to complain when you yourself can pack so much dense meaning into words as efficiently expressive as "dafuq" and "fucking bitches".

Thanks for the spontaneous didactic ejaculation. I'm figuratively wiping myself off as I write.
However, "bitch" as a term of abuse is not referentially confined to, although admittedly more commonly associated with, female humans.
So, I wasn't actually reading literally (I am amazed at your lack of subtlety!) I was just implicitly jiving the jive turkeys, and their excessive big-noting loose use of insulting terms and gratuitous invective.
To what desperate lengths will a lumpen prole go to appear to be a man?

Sorry -- no offense meant. Need another towel?

:) None taken BC, none at all taken...and just in case, and just to be clear, the "lumpen prole" comment was NOT in the slightest degree directed at you, but at the invectivores (you have to eat it before you can vomit it forth).

I actually enjoyed your pedagogical outpouring. 8-)

Ah, at long last this thread has finally come around.

Just in case anyone is interested at all in the original question, rather than the exposition of the Western conflicted attitudes to sex: here are a couple of random references to non-western, and non-Abrahamic cultures:
www.gbv.de/dms/ub-kiel/21559682X.pdf (eskimos)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trobriand_Islands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sexuality_in_India

What my readings in philosophy have taught me, meaning where I'm coming from, is that unfulfilled wants and desires cause suffering and anguish, which in turn lead to other undesirable emotions. I don't think there's much controversy over that.

As a constantly aspiring Stoic, I feel compelled to listen to my brethren Christians and not indulge in the pleasurable aspects of life. Please understand that I have nothing against people who indulge in pleasures and such matters. However, I hold people who can master their desires and wants in higher regard to those who do not... and the history of philosophy and religion would stand with me in that value of self-mastery. — Question

Having said that, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. If you find celibacy works for you, then it works, and no amount of psychological theorizing can make it wrong. — Baden

Unfulfilled wants and desires cause suffering.
I feel compelled to not indulge in the pleasurable aspects of life.
Therefore I suffer.

The proof of the pudding is that there is something wrong; one does not need to theorise, merely read the 19 pages of anguish, aggression, fear, ignorance, and naked suffering already presented.

But let's do some sociology. Virginity and monogamy is important to patrilineal societies. The weight naturally falls on women, because there is rarely much question who the mother of a child is. Thus, as one might expect, matrilineal and matriarchal societies do not tend to value virginity or monogamy very much. The Abrahamic tradition involves a lot of begetting because it is patrilineal. Nobility, kingship, class, race, wealth,etc, are heritable constructs that require the control of sexual expression just because they are social constructs and not actually inherited genetically.

The conflict played out in these pages is an expression of the decay of some of these constructs as central social values. The arguments between participants are the least of it; the conflict is largely internal to individuals. To a great extent, the conflict is inherent in patrilineal and particularly aristocratic and capitalist societies, but it has become more open starting with WW1. For a good rage against sexual repression, and exposing the hypocrisy of the time, I can commend to you Death of a Hero, a novel worthy of being more widely read.

(Y)

And guess what, unenlightened is against what he terms "patrilineal societies" and for "matriarchal societies" - as if matriarchal societies weren't equally constructs. The facts are that nobility, kingship, etc. are values - at least for some. And as I have said, this conflict will be never-ending as the two sides cannot live together. All that is left for us to do, is for all of us to head in the political arena and fight.

Unfulfilled wants and desires cause suffering.
I feel compelled to not indulge in the pleasurable aspects of life.
Therefore I suffer. — unenlightened

I agree, although I would say that suffering voluntarily taken on as a kind of purgation has a particular character that's worth recognizing. A moral vision is like a mini-society in the psyche; it can raise esteem by reflecting torment as a victory of sorts. In the case of celibacy, I consider the process untenable, but I wouldn't rule out there being exceptions

The proof of the pudding is that there is something wrong; one does not need to theorise, merely read the 19 pages of anguish, aggression, fear, ignorance, and naked suffering already presented. — unenlightened

Indeed.

↪unenlightened And guess what, unenlightened is against what he terms "patrilineal societies" and for "matriarchal societies" - as if matriarchal societies weren't equally constructs. The facts are that nobility, kingship, etc. are values - at least for some. And as I have said, this conflict will be never-ending as the two sides cannot live together. All that is left for us to do, is for all of us to head in the political arena and fight. — Agustino

And guess what, Augustino has no criticism of the analysis to offer, and resorts to personal innuendo. There is absolutely no question that the western tradition is patrilineal and has been ever since children started taking their father's name. And that was a while back. So what you term "what he terms" is just the way the term is used by anyone who understands it. What I am for or against is for me to say, not you, so start talking some sense or shut up.

:-* your passive aggressiveness leaves me unmoved Sir.

The real fact is that your so called analysis tells us absolutely nothing. What have we found out? There are societies which have these set of values, and there are societies which have a different set of values. Big deal. What's analytic about that? I've been saying that for ages.