The Metaphysics of Sex.

[seandon]

Hi,

I realize that many asexuals are not specifically optimistic or pessimist about sex, but are merely indifferent; that is, they simply do not have any impulse to begin with.

However, perhaps for some of us, there is a cognitive aspect to asexuality that results from our philosophy. So, for those celibates/asexuals who have a sex drive like myself, here are a few pages I found in regards to ascetic hedonism and the metaphysics of sex. Make of them what you will. :)

http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/s/sexualit.htm

http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/e/epicur.h...20of%20pleasure

Sean

[Pete]

hmmm....

... its a walk on some slippery rocks.

[bard of aven]

All metaphysics is a walk on slippery rocks, says the philosophy major.

If the rest of the article is as simplistic and as misleading as the discussion of Aquinas, I would not put much stock in any of it. Tommy's discussion is not only not soley, but not even primarily, (wow! a triple negative!) about which body part goes where. The whole framework of it is natural law, which is an extremely slippery talus field in itself. Uncle Tom states in another place in the work quoted that nature manifests itself differently in different individuals, and for those in whom nature manifests itself in a way that they are sexually attracted to the same rather than the opposite sex, genital activity with a member of the same sex, while against nature in the objective sense, is for that person not a sin, because that person acts according to nature as it is manifested in them.

So in more modern terms, what he is saying is that a straight person having gay sex is a sin, but a gay person having gay sex is not. Very few contemporary theologians like to talk about this, but it is in Aquinas, who stole most of his ehtical paradigms from Aristotle.

As Mr. Spock said, logic is a beautiful flower that smells bad. Thus endeth todays lesson.

boa

[seandon]

Hi Boa,

All metaphysics is a walk on slippery rocks, says the philosophy major.

Yup.

... So in more modern terms, what he is saying is that a straight person having gay sex is a sin, but a gay person having gay sex is not. Very few contemporary theologians like to talk about this, but it is in Aquinas, who stole most of his ehtical paradigms from Aristotle.

Thanks. It's nice to meet a philosophy major, since I read a good many philosophers myself. Yeah, it's probably always better to go straight to the source and read *the* philosopher, instead of *about* a philosopher. It seems to me that many different author's still sometimes come up with contradicting interpretations of the same written works.

Anyhow, I, personally, was actually more interested in the parts about optimistic and pessimistic viewpoints. Since I've known non-philosophers that hold similar views.

Thanks Again.

Sean

[bard of aven]

Re the negative: It seems to me that Kant, in his treatment as quoted, objectivizes sexual people far more in his writings than sexual people do to each other in having sex. And Augustine. Well. Fathered a bastard child, named it "given by god" (Adeodatus), and much later founded a monestery the rigors of which killed the son in question.

Yes, I know, ad hominem arguments. Weak. At least Augie's ideas were based on pesonal experience. Kant supposedly died a virgin, and I suspect he was asexual, so I should probably take it easy on him.

I do like Singer's critique of the pessimists. If God created sex solely for procreation, one could argue that it would be impossible for males to ejaculate outside a vagina. That we can would seem to indicate that, like most complex phenomena, sex has multiple purposes.

boa