Talk:Religion and sexuality

Just a brief comment: Sex is NOT!!! the be-all and end-all of morality. Danny

I agree: there should be a morality article for the general issues. Ed Poor

--- Unless this is an article designed to promote a particular POV of sexual morality as present in the US, the general should precede the specific in the article. Also, this is not at present a "history of" -- which implies cause and effect and changes over time. This is a general discussion of the article topic -- sexual morality -- giving neutrally presented examples from different periods and cultures. It makes some sense to discuss both chronologically and geographically, but that does not make it specifically history.J Hofmann Kemp

Can someone explain this? Otherwise I'm going to delete it:

social and environmental conditions play a part in the development of a given society's most commonly held views on sexual morality.

What's to understand? morality does not come forth fully formed. Different societies have different views of what is moral. Social and environmental conditions have a causative effect on thought and belief systems and the development of a moral culture. BTW, whoever kindly added the Homosexuality in Greece header -- not necessary and misleading. The point was that the kin-group's needs helped to form sexual practices in terms of marriage, etc. I've added more clarification.J Hofmann Kemp

Let's also not forget things like new technologies and economic conditions. Years ago, having sex outside of marriage often had disastrous consequences; childbirth was dangerous and often fatal, bastard children were often scorned by their families and weren't properly cared for, diseases were easier to spread, etc. Pre-marital sex risked many of those things. Today with modern medicine, safe and reliable birth control, better knowledge about disease, better social acceptance for single parents, and other changes, the consequences of pre-marital sex are much less heinous. There are still the emotional consequences and some remaining medical risks, but it's just not the terrible risk it once was. Moral values can't help but change when the human condition itself changes. --Lee Daniel Crocker

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I removed "These conservatives believe that human beings are capable of abstaining from sex when unmarried or separated from their spouse, a view which some liberals apparently dispute." since the statement is biased. It seems to state that the "liberal" position is just that people are "incapable" of abstaining from sex, whether it is "right or wrong." It is not a question of being able to abstain or not, so please, let's not oversimplify this with snide jibes at other opinions. Danny

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In traditional US morality, is divorce considered to be wrong, or is marriage lifelong? If divorce is allowed, is sex after remarriage allowed too? Are there different opinions on these matters? AxelBoldt

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I replaced the word adultery because of the religious, i.e., moral connotations. Similarly, I removed "even homosexual" since this implies that one might think otherwise. Finally, I qualified "premarital, extramarital, and homosexual" by saying "one or more of the following, because the rejection of one does not necessarily imply the rejection of the others. Danny

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Axel, it depends -- most protestant Christian denominations in the US frown on divorce, but also allow remarriage.

Danny, I like most of your changes. I'm wondering why sex ed. is even mentioned, as it's really very peripheral. J Hofmann Kemp

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For example, in Hellenic society, homosexuality was often encouraged and accepted as part of the socialization and upbringing of young men, especially those in the military. These relationships were in addition to heterosexual relationships entered into for the establishment of families and the production of progeny so that property would be inherited and kept within a larger kinship group.

How does this fact relate to the gay rights contention that sexual orientation is fixed and unchangeable? If men can be "encouraged" to engage in homosexual behavior, doesn't this contradict the gay rights position? --Ed Poor

Homosexuality <> Homosexual behavior.

Gay people and most scientific researchers believe that sexual orientation is relatively fixed, but not sexual behavior. They are not the same thing. --Dmerrill

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Many people, arguably a majority, disagree with this traditional view.

This is *not* traditional view. It's only what conservatives call "traditional". There was never any society in which there weren't any premarital or extramarital relations. --Taw

I didn't say there wasn't any, just that it was traditionally frowned upon. If that's your only reason for taking the sentence out, then it should go back in. --Ed Poor

Ed, yopu'll have to define traditionally here before making an assertion like that. Danny

Where it says:

'For example, in Hellenic society, homosexuality was often encouraged and accepted as part of the socialization and upbringing of young men,'

the word "homosexuality" should be replaced by "pederasty".

Also, from ( http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/eln08_childrearing.html )

(I'll be glad to know who is writing this. Thanks -- 6birc 19:33 Dec 29, 2002 (UTC).)

Indeed, the husband was rarely with his family in antiquity-legislators sometimes suggest that in order to prevent population decline it would be a good idea for husbands to visit their wives occasionally and not just have sex with boys, as in Solon's law "that a man should consort with his wife not less than three times a month-not for pleasure surely, but as cities renew their agreements from time to time."30 But for the most part, as Plutarch puts it, "Love has no connection whatsoever with the women's quarters;"31 it is reserved for pederastic relations with boys. As Scroggs summarized Greco-Roman practice, "To enter the 'women's quarters' in search of love is to enter the world of the feminine and therefore is effeminate for a male."32 Xenophon says "the women's apartments [are] separated from the men's by a bolted door..."33 As Plutarch wrote, "Genuine love has no connections whatsoever with the women's quarters."34 When Socrates asks, "Are there any people you talk to less than you do to your wife?" his answer was, "Possibly. But if so, very few indeed."35

So the article should make clear that heterosexual relationships were not based on love or even pleasure. There is even a case of a Greek man who was infamous because he didn't engage in homosexual sex.

-- Haven't heard of this. Details, please?

I wish I could but I can't track down where I read it. I think I read it of a General of Alexander's but I can't be sure of even that.

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RK, just a minor question about the opening sentence, I believe it was more generally related to a possibly wider gamma of cases and situations as it was before: I mean, we should consider that a culture, group, ... whatsoever, that produces a "morality", would probably like to extend its application even to non adherents. In this sense, it properly intends to develop a regulation of individual behaviours, in the sense that if non-members too could be forced (or however convinced) to respect its "code", in many cases the culture-group-etc would have achieved its goal. The proposed regulation in itself is usually declared in a universal form, an absolute "law", the proof being that very often non-members are discredited (sometimes for other purposes too) right because not accepting that rule. Also: why no concepts (deleted)? -- Gianfranco

"We should consider that a culture, group, ... whatsoever, that produces a "morality", would probably like to extend its application even to non adherents."

I totally agree that this topic should be discussed in the entry. I rewrote that sentence because I thought that this was a special case of a more general phenomenon; it seemed to me that the general case was that different societies (groups, etc.) have standards for sexual morality. Within this topic we can then note that certain groups at certain times try to enforce their views on others, which seemed to me like a sub-topic. Your thoughts? (And, of course, the thoughts of anyone else!) RK

We may want to expand on this topic. For example, the article should note that Islamist movement has made clear that it wishes to literally the entire world to follow the Islamic view of "morality"; however it isn't the sexual morality per se that militant Muslims want to spread. Its their entire socio-religious worldview, of which sexual morality is just a part. The same was true of various European Christian kingdoms for many centuries. (Of course, since The Enlightenment this is no longer a concern. Western Christian nations don't engage in crusades or wholesale religious persecutions of this magnitude anymore.) On a lesser scale, Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel try to coerce their fellow Jews to follow the Jewish laws of sexuality. I say on a lesser scale, since they don't literally force anyone to do this, and they only use words (newspapers, books, radio shows, websites, etc.) to push their views. RK

(forgive me, please, for my late answer)

You are right: we ought to underline the difference between the general case and the sub-topics. Besides, I'd say that these sub-topics are however available in relevant proportions, so maybe they might represent something more than simple exceptions to the rule and might be admitted into the general definition, as well: we could study this matter more in depth, but by now (at a first sight) I would guess that it is quite common for sexual moralists to look for (at least) an external agreement - or to develop an ideal vision of the world in which their own theories have gained a supremacy. It is a logical consequence that if these absolute theories effectively are correct, they have to be generally accepted (or they would not proof to be "absolutely correct"), so they should have general application, projectively among non adherents too. As a matter of fact, moralists often tend to justify their own theories with the sole condemnation of diversity in itself, as a "resisting" opposition to the "right belief".

This is a passage that is usually seen when the group is aiming to achieve a sort of cultural-social-political supremacy, however hidden or disguised, therefore telling to its members: "we need the supremacy because we developed the best theory - we consequently need to fight diversity - we finally need to merely explain our visions to "good" people and they will agree, as well, or we'll defeat them - we developed the best theory", and in fact the examples you made were going exactly in this direction. World (or related external context) has then in these visions only to be brought to compliance with these schemes.

Of course, in this sense it mostly is a sub-topic of the concept of morality and you already correctly noted that it is often the entire respective socio-religious worldviews we are talking about.

Now, I'd say this might regard most of the sexual moralists' schemes, so this is why I said that it could be included in the first note. But this is only my humble opinion, and honestly, truly I also find that the article is really fine after your edits, so we can perhaps better go on investigating in the directions you suggested, but I have no sufficient knowledge in this and - sadly - I won't be as helpful as I'd like to. I'll read instead with great interest :-) -- Gianfranco

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If this article gets too big, we can always subdivide it into Islamic views of sexual morality, Christian views of sexual morality, etc. Ed Poor 07:58 Jul 23, 2002 (PDT)

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If we are going to make room for Muslim views, we should leave room for all other major religions too, shouldnt we? Iammaxus 06:22 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Speaking of the Muslim view of sexuality, a Muslim man has written an excellent article on just that topic, which I've included in my Wiccan web site. I'm new here, so I'm not ready yet to take on the task of editing it down to a usable size for Wikipedia. I want to point all you "experts" at it, and see if anyone wants to adapt it. (It's a personal communication to me, that I have permission to use publicly, so there are no copyright issues.) To read it, go to www.gaia-web.org/gaia-wicca, select the "Sacred Sexuality" link in the left frame, then look for & take the link "this excellent essay" not too far from the top. Gymnos 05:29 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)