tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post8252043462572205787..comments2024-03-28T00:11:33.489-04:00Comments on bensozia: Morality and Sexual LiberationJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-64947806392961097622014-08-08T07:21:26.170-04:002014-08-08T07:21:26.170-04:00Well, there's Mr. Verloren for the Bohemian si...Well, there's Mr. Verloren for the Bohemian side. Anybody want to argue for the traditionalists? Or that none of it matters? I'm afraid I am too ambivalent to make a strong argument either way.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-70802719261757218452014-08-08T02:06:04.278-04:002014-08-08T02:06:04.278-04:00I think you hit the nail on the head with the noti...I think you hit the nail on the head with the notion of restricting sexuality being tied into perpetuating patriarchy and the control of authority and power.<br /><br />If you look at civilization as a whole, comparing societies and peoples from every point in time and every point on the globe, you begin to see certain trends crop up. One trend I'm convinced is more than mere correlation is the trend between control of sexuality and control of people and property.<br /><br />In strictly ordered societies, where people live within strongly established heirarchies, you find more restrictions on sex. This makes sense if you stop and think about how power and authority and resources end up being distributed in these sorts of societies - people accumulate wealth and power over the course of their lives, but when they die it gets redistributed. How you choose to carry out this redistribution necessarily shapes the way your society will function.<br /><br />For example, a hereditary inheritence system keeps wealth and power within a certain family - but it requires exacting rules for who receives what, to prevent (or at least generally reduce) the chaos of squabbling and fighting over who gets what. So you assign certain rules, develop a heirachy of inheritence, and the end result is typically something like the eldest male child becomes the chief inheritor.<br /><br />Obviously, this then shapes sexuality. It stresses monogamy over polygamy, with children born to women other than the primary consort or wife being "illegitimate" and excluded from inheritence. It stresses male children over female children, with girls being a drain on the resources of the family (and hence the establishment of dowries, as compensation for the resource strain changing families when a woman marries away). And it stresses smaller family sizes to minimize intrafamilial strife, with second and third sons placed in a state of limbo wherein they are expected to live lives excluded from any inheritence unless their elder siblngs are killed before the father dies.<br /><br />Of course, this is only one very simple example of what is an immensely complex and complicated portion of human endeavor. There are countless variations on the theme of hereditary inheritence, with different rules and different allowances from place to place and time to time, but I believe the general influence toward controlled sex to promote simplified redistribution of wealth and power via inheritence is firmly observeable.<br /><br />It seems like no coincidence, then, that movements like Bohemianism eschewed traditional viewpoints of family and property ownership, favoring more communally-oriented systems and shying away from heirarchical structures.<br /><br />Unfortunately it's an immensely complicated topic, with influences from countless different sources - chief among them being religion and ecomonics, both thorny complicated topics in their own rights - so it may simply be the sort of thing we can't really properly unpack without immense effort.G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.com