The brief insists it is reasonable for states to favor heterosexual marriages because they are the “traditional and universally recognized form of marriage.” In arguing that other states do not have to recognize same-sex marriages under the Constitution’s “full faith and credit” clause, the Justice Department cites decades-old cases ruling that states do not have to recognize marriages between cousins or an uncle and a niece.Look. Gay pornography routinely dips into the brother bin by getting two dudes who resemble each other to fuck. Video tag: Brotherly Love. Authentic Real-Life Gay Human Person™ Daniel Mendelsohn wrote a turgidly lyrical memoir about how the ancient Greeks proved that gay people really just want to have sex with themselves. He proved it with philosophy. Or something! My brother is not an elfin hipster androgyne ten years my junior, but if he were I'd totally covet that ass.
These are comparisons that understandably rankle many gay people. In a letter to President Obama on Monday, Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights organization, said, “I cannot overstate the pain that we feel as human beings and as families when we read an argument, presented in federal court, implying that our own marriages have no more constitutional standing than incestuous ones.”
-NY Times Editorial
But, you know, seriously. The Human Rights Campaign is a timorous gang of desexualized, petit bourgeois, liberal ninnies whose very name is a cowardly euphemism. Denying that the growing general visibility of queer sexualities and the expanding legal recognition of same-sex relationships opens the door to the reevaluation of other sexual taboos plays well for the go-slow "allies" in the Donk party, but it is distinctly unrelated to the reality. If it is okay for two men or two women to have sex, why is it not okay for two related men or two related women? Why shouldn't uncles and nieces or aunts and nephews or cousins be permitted to marry or have sexual relations, especially non-procreative sexual relations? Why is it necessary to forcibly preclude polyandry and polygyny? I knew three gay men who lived in perfect happiness together for over two years--just as long as a lot of first marriages, and certainly longer than most gay couples ever make it.
The truth is that while the moralizing of the slippery-slope social conservatives is reactionary, silly, and hysterical, their point--that the growing permissibility of "alternate sexualities" does indeed force us to consider that many of our sexual prohibitions are just as arbitrary as those that, for instance, "define marriage as between one man and one woman"--is a good one.
48 comments:
You're not running for any kind of elected office, or trying to collect contributions from old ladies, right? Then big deal! Anyone can tell the truth.
The "arbitrary prohibition" that is truly under attack (or truly feared for, anyway, one of the two), is the age of consent. Adult-PostPubescent is the new Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name, and it is the most obvious downhill track from IOZ's "silly" slippery slope.
Marriage/schmarriage---the common SCOTUS thread from the birth control, miscegenation, abortion, sodomy, and gay marriage cases, is a nascent, fundamental Constitutional "right of intimacy", or right to self-direction in matters sexual and reproductive, especially once replete with Justice Blackmun's gloriously elective "penumbras of privacy".
How in the world can a fifteen year old girl now invested with the civil rights standing to get birth control or even an abortion without parental knowledge or interference, then be told that she doesn't also possess the maturity, standing and fundamental right to select her consensual sexual partners? Just ask David Letterman.
It's a good question, though I don't think that slippery slope derives from homosexual activity so much as the separate issue of how to establish consent.
You can posit a basic morality to homosexual or heterosexual behavior and still not justify acts with children or adolescents (separate issues, as well, though Erin and I have argued on the matter).
But still, good point. How can we? The answer is that we can't, at least not easily. My opinion is that fifteen year olds will have sex and ought to if they can get it, but that they ought to do things with kids their own age or near it. That's my opinion, mind you--not a policy position, because it's not without its loopholes and its not really a fix.
Anyway, I don't see why we can't split the difference and acknowledge adolescents' biological immaturity while also giving them greater degrees of autonomy, especially over their bodies. Just because they're nearly adults doesn't mean they're children. God knows they won't do anything their parents haven't.
the ancient Greeks proved that gay people really just want to have sex with themselves.
i'm not gay, but i would so do me.
Inkberrow points out the only 'traditional marriage' argument that i can make any sense out of: traditional marriage should be preserved so that fathers, husbands and societal norms all work to control womens' selection of consensual sexual partners.
shit, Twisty was right!
Montag---
For the record, my comment was not intended as a "defense of traditional marriage" (if you ever really thought so). I personally do not see how homosexuals can possibly be excluded from the modern-day institution of "marriage". That said, I get tired of folks reflexively pooh-poohing the slippery-slope, even our esteemed host. Sometimes even the right thing to do has undesired or non-linear concomitants. Hubert Humphrey said he'd eat his hat if the civil-rights bills of the Sixties led to quotas or reverse discrimination. The bills should have been passed nevertheless, of course, but there's no need to bowdlerize all the arguments in opposition.
Yo Inky, you may want to actually read the post, which endorses the argument that permitting same-sex sexuality lubricates the incline toward incest, etc. The hyphenate "slippery-slope" is used as an adjective to modify "social conservatives." The modifying list of adjectives--"reactionary, silly, and hysterical"--describes "the moralizing," which is in turn modified by the prepositional phrase "of . . . social conservatives."
Cuneyt---
Agreed, it's certainly not an issue or "danger" springing from homosexual activity. It's that the "penumbras" of sexual self-determination will be examined and re-examined as a result of the expansion of "traditional" marriage. And perhaps they should be.
Inkberrow: my comment was not intended as a "defense of traditional marriage" (if you ever really thought so)
understood. i didn't mean to attribute the argument to you. only that your comment made me think of it.
IOZ---
Don't get your knickers in a twist. Obviously, I did read your post. Your response is accurate as far as it goes, but so is my cavil, in that your conception was of those dread "slippery-slope social conservatives". The adjective appears to be intended pejoratively across the board, in keeping with similar sneering references from you in the past concerning slippery-slope arguments from whomever.
isn't the slippery slope a logical fallacy? (or continuum fallacy?)
it's one thing to say we ought to reconsider many of our sexual prohibitions, and entirely another to say if we legalize homosexual marriage we will inevitably face the legalization of incest, bestiality, pederasty, etc. the pejorative seems quite appropriate when applied to the second argument.
There was a young fellow named Crocket
Who had an affair with a rocket
If you saw them out there
You'd be tempted to stare
But if you ain't tried it, don't knock it.
Polyandry, polygyny, and incest are sexual relationships or practices, not sexual orientations. Lumping them all in as "taboos, same difference" ignores these distinct categories.
And even if incest, for example, were an orientation, it wouldn't follow that the prohibition would be "just as arbitrary." Even in non-procreative marriage, it's not all about bliss-following. There are issues of creating kinship and social boundaries.
And even if we were all: "Incest, no big deal," it wouldn't follow that Incest-Americans would have any plausible equal-protection claim, as any restrictions would presumably continue to apply across-the-board without regard to membership in any constitutionally protected class.
So sure, you may get people reevaluating other sexual taboos (and maybe they should once in a while). But you won't find them residing on the same slope as same-sex marriage.
I agree with maakoo here plus incest isn't always consensual, in fact it usually never is, it's usually sexual abuse.
In response to Inkberrow's typically lucid and compassionate remarks, I'd point out that the "slippery slope" as far as age of consent goes has been trending upwards for the past century or more. In the good old days, an English maiden could court disease or pregnancy at the age of ten, though she couldn't marry until she was 12. In these United States, the age of consent was frequently 15 or lower during my lifetime. Those teenagers that Tom Delay was sexting a few years back were all legal adults, yet many liberals denounced Delay as a pedophile. Reactionary feminist Christina Hoff Sommers claimed that Monica Lewinsky was only a child -- in her 20s! -- when she was fooling around with Bill Clinton. So, if the slippery slope of age continues, we can expect to see an age of consent of 30 or more in this century; with luck, I won't be around to see it.
(I also see that Inkberrow is buying the right's line that Letterman was joking about Willow, not Bristol, though it only emerged later that Momma Sarah had the littl'un in tow when she went to the New Yawk basseball game. Besides, by traditional standards Willow at 14 is husband-high anyway.)
I'm also wondering what Inkberrow suggests as a response to the slippery slope. Overturn Loving v. Virginia? That case of judicial activism by the Communist Warren Court was the deciding push down the slippery slope to legalizing gay incest and gay rape of 15-year-old girls, after all. Or was it the election of adulterer Ronald Reagan to the Presidence? Twice, even? (Once a philosopher, twice a Sodomite!)
Mark Foley, not Tom DeLay.
What I want to know is, when did fucking your cousin become incest?
Apparently they did it all the time back in the day; There's all kinds of old novels and stories where the hero falls in love with his beautiful cousin. Wasn't Cyrano De Bergerac in love with his cousin in the play?
When did that transform from normal upper class behavior to terrifying perversion? The various sexual taboos we have in modern America are really fairly novel.
If you're arguing against gay marriage by comparing it to marrying your cousin, (or to people marrying twelve year old girls for that matter) you're basically saying "Gay marriage will open up the door to recognizing traditional marriage!"
It just seems odd to me.
Cuneyt, thanks for the correction. I always get them mixed up.
Christopher: it was also normal in the Bible -- didn't Jacob marry two of his first cousins? And according to Genesis, Abraham and Sarah were half-siblings.
Incest is a legal category, not a real-world thang.
Polyandry, polygyny, and incest are sexual relationships or practices, not sexual orientations.
Homosexuality and lesbianism are sexual practices. Draw me a bright line distinction. I'm not trying to make a Foucauldian argument about the invention of gays on one day in May, eighteen-ninety-whatever, but really. Define "sexual orientation."
incest isn't always consensual
No shit. Neither is any other sexual activity. The fact is that activities we'd now call incest, especially near-cousin marriage, were perfectly ordinary and perfectly widely practiced for centuries.
Promiscuous Reader---
And IOZ upbraids me for questionable reading comprehension! Other than the astute description of my compassion and lucidity, your entry proceeds from the imaginings of your fevered brain, not the posts of mine you've feebly caricaturized here. I realize that as a homosexual you are naturally defensive in subject-areas like this, but puh-leeze!
The distinction I have in mind is a choice vs. not one. People don't choose which sex they are driven to couple with. Incest, on the other hand, has to do with which particular individuals one chooses. Polygamy with how many.
And Jenny has a point about incest, which is mostly not about near cousins. Father-daughter or even uncle-niece incest is fraught with imbalance of authority and non-arbitrary-boundary crossing.
The distinction I have in mind is a choice vs. not one. People don't choose which sex they are driven to couple with. Incest, on the other hand, has to do with which particular individuals one chooses. Polygamy with how many.
So, I may be alone in this, but I've never understood why "it's natural!" was the chief argument for proponents of gay marriage etc. There are plenty of things which have a correlate in the natural world, or for which some kind of genetic basis has been established, which we don't think are particularly justified.
So why is nature the great arbiter here? Why don't we just say that insofar as homosexuality or gay marriage or whatever are not intrinsically detrimental to anyone, people can do it? I mean, I understand the rhetorical value of the "it't not a choice!" talk, but ultimately I don't find it very persuasive.
You're almost completely wrong on both counts, Maakkoo. The idea that pedophilic father-daughter incest is the most prevalent form may be true in the world of To Catch a Predator or what have you, but historically cousin marriage, which we would call incest, is the most common, largely because it was both legal and normative. In any case, the idea that if we remove the legal impediments to incest, then every father will want to fuck his daughter is really just the same hoary fallacy as the conservative notion that letting gay men fuck each other will cause all men to fuck each other . . . or what have you.
As for "sexual orientation" being a matter of genetics (or at least a matter beyond volition) while polygamy is a matter of pure choice, well, that's even more ill-informed. We have long known that in the animal kingdom some animals are predisposed to long-term pair-bonding, others to various "polygamous" arrangements, still others to no family (or herd or pride or pod) structure that we would recognize at all. Reproductive and familiar groupings, in other words, are products of genetics, environment, and socializing just as is sexuality. Human history (and indeed the human present) is rife with examples of polygamy as the predominant social form, in which what we would call traditional marriage would be the "chosen" outlier.
"No shit. Neither is any other sexual activity. The fact is that activities we'd now call incest, especially near-cousin marriage, were perfectly ordinary and perfectly widely practiced for centuries."
Sorry, but that's a really stupid argument. And no, homosexuality is indeed an orientation. Homosexuality involves two people of the same sex who usually know and are comfortable with one another. Incest is a different story. Sure if incest was legal,fathers wouldn't obviously fuck their daughters, but damn it, I think it's a strong possibility that a sexually abusive relative would use the law as an excuse to continue violating their child/nephew/etc. And animals are polyamrous because they need to reproduce in order to survive. Humans have other options, including having multiple relationships.
"No shit. Neither is any other sexual activity. The fact is that activities we'd now call incest, especially near-cousin marriage, were perfectly ordinary and perfectly widely practiced for centuries."
Sorry, but that's a really stupid argument. And no, homosexuality is indeed an orientation. Homosexuality involves two people of the same sex who usually know and are comfortable with one another. Incest is a different story. Sure if incest was legal,fathers wouldn't obviously fuck their daughters, but damn it, I think it's a strong possibility that a sexually abusive relative would use the law as an excuse to continue violating their child/nephew/etc. And animals are polyamrous because they need to reproduce in order to survive. Humans have other options, including having multiple relationships.
I understand the rhetorical value of the "it's not a choice!" talk, but ultimately I don't find it very persuasive.
Well, if sexual orientation is a lifestyle choice, then same-sex marriage is on a slippery slope with incest and polygamy. If it's not, then it's not. If you’re a person who doesn't fly into a panic over slippery slopes, then it's mostly irrelevant. But if you’re like Barack Obama's DOJ, then it’s a very important and apparently elusive distinction.
historically cousin marriage, which we would call incest, is the most common, largely because it was both legal and normative
Jenny was not talking about cousins; she was talking about incest. Cousin-on-cousin action is sometimes deprecated, sometimes not, but it is never the sole definition of incest, which (though I haven't made a study of it) would probably always start with regulating kinfolk of the first degree and work outward from there. OMG, where do you draw the line! Who cares? Not me, as long as we physically restrain parents from penetrating their offspring. That’s just me. The point is that same-DNA marriage doesn’t have the first thing to do with same-sex marriage. It’s only on the same slippery slope for people who think one taboo is much like another.
Reproductive and familiar groupings, in other words, are products of genetics, environment, and socializing just as is sexuality.
"Just as" is doing a lot of work in that assertion. I think we all know that sexual orientation does exist. Do we know that beyond-volition polygamy orientation exists? I've never heard of it. But sure, that just might necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship.
For the record, brother-sister marriage characterized something like 30 percent of all conjugal unions in Egypt until the third century Anno Domini. In fact, clearly as a literary play on this very institution, Abraham and Sarah were half siblings. You can look it up!
I'd do a guy before I did my sister. But different strokes, so to speak.
homosexuality is indeed an orientation. Homosexuality involves two people of the same sex who usually know and are comfortable with one another. Incest is a different story
Oh, boy. First of all, orientation isn't defined by the degree to which people know and are comfortable with one another. And I am entirely sure that there are incestuous relationships which have more comfort (and certainly more knowledge of one another) than adult homosexual or heterosexual ones. Hell, for most of human history, people were lucky if they'd ever met the person they were slated to marry, let alone become comfortable with them.
It is, of course, entirely possible that a law allowing incest would enable screwed-up incestuous relationships to continue. But how is that different from the current law which allows screwed-up heterosexual relationships to continue?
And finally, let's say that it was established by Science (dum dum da DUM) that while homosexuality was natural, other things were just "lifestyle choices." My point is, why is this the deciding factor? There are plenty of natural things which we don't desire to emulate. So why is nature all of a sudden the big line in the sand?
Jenny: "And no, homosexuality is indeed an orientation. Homosexuality involves two people of the same sex who usually know and are comfortable with one another."
Leave aside from the sheer wackery of the second sentence, though homosexuality often involves two people of the same sex who don't know each other, but are comfortable anyway, and having fun.
What is "orientation" anyway? A lot of people solve the problem by definition, claiming that an orientation is by definition inborn, but if that is true, then we don't know if homosexuality is an orientation. (As far as I can tell, "orientation" became the Official Terminology of the Gay Rights Movement purely for PR reasons, not because it means anything.) Besides, there are plenty of people who are functionally bisexual, so where do they fit into your classifications?
Maakkoo, a lot of people do consider sex between cousins to be incest; first-cousin marriage is illegal in many locales, including parts of the US. But what about Abraham and Sarah, who were half-siblings?
Jenny is defining incest as abuse, which has all the advantages of theft over honest toil. It's true that it can be abusive, like any other sexual combination. So it seems to me that it's the abuse that should be penalized, not the combination itself. (The same mentality moves antigay bigots who point to cases of same-sex abuse, and say triumphantly, "You see what will happen if we legalize homosexuals?!")
Oh, and Maakkoo: "The distinction I have in mind is a choice vs. not one. People don't choose which sex they are driven to couple with. Incest, on the other hand, has to do with which particular individuals one chooses. Polygamy with how many."
This is a very popular argument, but it's bogus. People don't "choose" which persons they are "driven" (?) to couple with. David didn't choose to be driven to couple with Bathsheba; he just was, with troublesome results. If I'm "driven" to couple with my first cousin, I don't choose that, my libido just doesn't care. Your list could be extended to disapprove of "interracial" coupling as well. I presume you also disapprove of "promiscuity", i.e., people who have more partners than you do, because it also has to do with which particular partners someone chooses?
I'd do a guy before I did my sister.
Verb tenses don't have to be your enemy.
People don't "choose" which persons they are "driven" (?) to couple with.
You should totally write a screenplay. With like a montage and shit.
All arguments from predisposition are absurd. Pedophilia is an "orientation," such as it is, predetermined by genetics and social processes beyond individual control, an incurable urge that can be resisted or denied but not "cured." To claim that gay is okay because it's "not a choice" is as fraught a distinction as any other. If innateness is made to be sole determinant of moral acceptability, then all of a sudden . . . Oh, IOZ, look at what you've done.
But is anyone really claiming innateness is the "sole determinant of moral acceptability"? Power relationships, family stability, etc. have all been mentioned here. Ioz...that's a bit of a strawman argument.
To claim that gay is okay because it's "not a choice" is as fraught a distinction as any other.
Which is why I would not claim such a thing. See:
"And even if incest, for example, were an orientation, it wouldn't follow that the prohibition would be "just as arbitrary."
Same thing with pedophilia, which let's assume is largely non-volitional. There is a big not-"just-as-arbitrary" line that separates pedophilia from same-sex marriage. Consenting adults works fine.
Again, I agree that a lot of sexual taboos will be reevaluated, if for no other reason than the taboo-fetishists' equating homolove with man-on-dog. I just think that, "If it is okay for two men or two women to have sex, why is it not okay for two related men or two related women?," is more of a non sequitur than a stumper.
Why is it not all right for two brothers to have sex with each other?
Why is it not all right for two brothers to have sex with each other?
In my opinion? It is all right, if they are consenting adults. (It's all right with me if consenting adults do any number of fucked up things.)
If they're not, then it's problematic for the same reasons that hetero non-consensual or child sex is. In other words, it has nothing at all to do with their same-sexness.
Now, why might adult, consensual brotherly love be fucked up even though I wouldn't personally look to prohibit it at the point of a gun? Siblings do not develop independently of each other. There should be and generally is, along with the physical and emotional interdependence and forced intimacy and birth-order dynamics and deep affection and seething-to-violent rivalry, an implicit assumption that siblings are not sexually available to each other. This is a good thing because kids are sexual beings who should not be having sexual intercourse. And, genetically, they certainly shouldn't be mating with siblings, which works as a general instinct even though it's not a direct concern with same-sex pairs under modern reproductive theory.
So there is a psychological boundary there that is real and non-arbitrary, and that boundary doesn't just vanish when the person reaches adulthood even though its strict necessity diminishes. For two siblings to dispense with (or never to have had) what would be expected to be a definitional part of their ingrained psyche suggests that something has gone wrong developmentally.
It's also a non sequitur with respect to same-sex activity generally, because a gay guy deprived of dudes is SOL. But a gay guy deprived of just this one particular dude can cast a wider net.
For two siblings to dispense with (or never to have had) what would be expected to be a definitional part of their ingrained psyche suggests that something has gone wrong developmentally.
For two women to dispense with (or never to have had) what would be expected to be a definitional part of their ingrained psyche suggests that something has gone wrong developmentally.
But by all means, keep circling the drain.
If your objections to, shall we say, "alternate sexualities" simply ape the old arguments objecting to homosexuality, excluding adult non-incestuous homosexual relations for no better reason than that we've grown accustomed to them and comfortable with them in the intervening years, then your objections are probably flawed.
But this is a blatantly false premise. We don't expect women to have heterosexuality as a definitional part of their ingrained psyche. Some other people do, of course, but they are wrong. I hope you're not suggesting that all points of view are equally valid.
Grant that my psychologizing (NB, not moralizing) about incest or some version of it is at least susceptible of being correct (I'm trying to be game and answer a direct question, not make a strong claim, though I do believe it) and you'd have to agree that the distinction between gay sex and gay incest is not necessarily "just as" arbitrary as that between gay sex and straight sex.
Or, take the point about precluding all sexuality (no gay sex!) vs. just one particular outlet for sexuality (no incest!), which is really the gist of my point about orientation in the first place. Again, not "just as" arbitrary.
Am I circling the drain? Maybe I’m missing the point.
But this is a blatantly false premise. We don't expect women to have heterosexuality as a definitional part of their ingrained psyche. Some other people do, of course, but they are wrong.
Who is this "we," and who are these "other people"?
The prohibition of incest and the prohibition of gay sex are equally arbitrary. When you consider the historical prevalence of relationships we now prohibit as incest, you would be hard-pressed not to say that the prohibitions on incest are more arbitrary.
Your insistence that "sexuality" constitutes an empirical category which consists of gays, straights, and bisexuals, whatever any of those are, is charming, but obviously false. Your insistence on a clear distinction between "sexuality" and permissible "sexual outlets" is, dare I say, Catholic.
Well, at least I wasn't missing the point.
Who is this "we," and who are these "other people"?
"We" is you and me, obviously, since you and I plainly agree that heterosexuality is not a definitional part of a woman's ingrained psyche.
The prohibition of incest and the prohibition of gay sex are equally arbitrary.
No, because the first bars sex with a few billions of people in one broad sweep, whereas the second puts just a few individuals off limits. Not equally arbitrary at all unless 3 billion = 3 or 30 or even 300. And if there were any such thing as a gay person, the first prohibition would effectively bar sex with anyone at all, but we needn't agree that gay people exist to see the essential disparity.
... relationships we now prohibit as incest
I take it we're talking about cousins again. Yes, it's arbitrary -- indefensibly arbitrary, let's even say. Stipulate that it could never survive the objective scrutiny of rational minds. But it's not "just as" or "equally" arbitrary.
There are valid reasons for discouraging incest that don't exist for gay sex. The outer limits of "discouraging" and "incest" will have to be somewhat arbitrarily drawn, but that doesn't make the whole notion of prohibiting cousin sex "just as" arbitrary as prohibiting gay sex, for which there is no valid reason whatsoever.
And where did I insist on empirical categories and clear distinctions, as opposed to regular-old categories and distinctions?
the first bars sex with..., whereas the second
The second ... whereas the first, I mean.
"The first bars sex with a few billions . . ."
You put Kinsey to shame.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, so now the best type of fucking is that which allots you the most? Well, I suppose we should all develop Asian fetishes, guys. And red-head lovers? You're deviants! Likewise to all gentlemen who prefer blonds. Perverts all!
Maak, if I may quote you:
'"We" is you and me, obviously, since you and I plainly agree that heterosexuality is not a definitional part of a woman's ingrained psyche.'
But you just said that we ought to be taught not to fuck our siblings. So is that ingrained, or is it not, but ought to be? You've clearly got a love for the naturalistic fallacy (which sounds really hot, I'll grant you).
Here's the other thing; a lot of this shit isn't taught at all. we're attracted to those who look like us, unless we're raised with those people, and all that's only a common thing--by no means absolute or universal. You can do the research if you like--I'm observing this from my little knowledge of experiments in Israeli kibbutzim. The kids communally raised usually felt a taboo against connecting romantically with others, even if there was no blood relation. You think they were being raised to it?
There's nature, and then there's choice, and there's power and violation. As long as you want it, choose it, and don't coerce others, I think it's cool. The only argument against incest that I dare make (other than that it's totally gross, but I have the same thing about anal and each opinion is about equally rational) is the whole birth defect thing, but if I were to make that argument, then I'd also have to say that totally unrelated people who have compatible defects should also not marry, or even fuck. And that's a real slippery slope.
Incidentally, I am kinda against choosing weak breeding partners, but I don't see why laws have to be made on account of that. You might understand that I think of that as Nazi territory.
You put Kinsey to shame.
That's probably funny, but I don't get it. Oh well.
Define "sexual orientation."
I'd like to take a shot at that, if I may.
"Sexual orientation" is a euphemism used to medicalize natural sexual/social urges. It goes along with creating the terms "heterosexual" and "homosexual" in the 19th century, in order to classify what is far too complex for words, and also to denigrate the latter so it can be eradicated. (Note that no one mentions bisexuality in these contexts, as it's not near as much a threat to the ostensible rules of the patriarchal culture we've had the dubious honor of growing up within.)
Oh hey, I just got it! Cute.
Anonymous,
Actually, "sexual orientation" means which sex you choose your sexual partners from. Because of the (at least) double meaning of "sex," which can refer either to copulation or to external reproductive organs, and because "gender" now largely means what "sex" used to, a lot of people think that a "sexual orientation" is anything you like do sexually. But it isn't. Pedophilia is not a "sexual orientation," because children are not a sex; s&m is not a "sexual orientation"; bestiality is not a "sexual orientation"; liking to get or give blowjobs is not a "sexual orientation", etc.
"Sexual orientation" more or less succeeded "sexual preference" because, it was claimed, "orientation" means "inborn" and "preference" means "choice." This was also false, and some wildly batty things have been written in defense of the claim. It has been defended on political grounds, that if we say "sexual preference", the bigots will say it's a choice, and it's like totally NOT, okay? But even if this were true, it hasn't worked. Bigots continue to refer, though not consistently, to homosexuality as something chosen, and they've exploited the ambiguity of "sexual" to argue that if we legitimate the homosexual sexual orientation, we'll have to legitimate "orientations" like bestiality, pedophilia, etc. Since their gay opponents are generally as narrow and ignorant as the bigots, they flail around helplessly, denouncing polygamy to try to show that they're every bit as righteous and moral as the bigots.
Maakkoo, I think it's totally brill that you simply dodged answering my point. Fortunately IOZ continued to hammer at you. The trouble with your arguments is that you basically deploy the same kind of bogus, empty, pseudo-scientific, teleological bullshit that was used to attack homosexuality not so long ago -- psychologizing as moralizing.
"that doesn't make the whole notion of prohibiting cousin sex 'just as' arbitrary as prohibiting gay sex, for which there is no valid reason whatsoever." Except that you haven't given any valid, non-arbitrary reason for prohibiting cousin sex either. And "arbitrary" does not refer to the number of people who are excluded by a prohibition, as you think. Nor does saying that the incest taboo is as arbitrary as the homosexuality taboo mean that they are "linked"; it's an analogy, not a link.
the gay rights movement is just about finished, having miraculously recovered from what i was sure was a horrible miscalculation in taking lawrence as a sign that the country was ready for total equality--i predict full marriage rights in all states within ten years at the outside, with five much more likely.
once that happens, something else needs to take over, since it's not like the ACLU et al are just going to retire in triumph. my bet is that it'll be incest and/or pedophilia.
to anyone who thinks sister-fuckers and pedos deserve to be shamed/castrated/flayed, i beseech you, in the bowels of christ, think it possible 2060 may regard your bigotry in the same light that 2010 will regard 1960's marginalization and still-regular institutionalization of gays.
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