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A Response to Lucifer Geraldo's article Regarding Sex
by Ann Morgan
[email protected]

Attribute to L. Neil Smith's The Libertarian Enterprise

I would like to offer some thoughts of my own regarding the article by Lucifer Geraldo about sex and the 'left handed path' as they relate to freedom. [see "Like Herding Cats; Sinister Observations into Libertarian Snobbery" by Lucifer Geraldo]

First of all, the current puritanical attitude of most people regarding sex is both fallacious, and is deliberately encouraged by the government, because it makes a useful tool for destroying freedom.

Regarding the current puritanical attitude regarding sex being fallacious, most anti-sex statements do not stand up to rigorous examination. The most significant of these is that other than rape and pedophilia, any reasons given for why some form of sex is BAD ultimately always boil down to nothing more than "God said so".

This is not a very good reason for anything being BAD, as one would think that an all-knowing deity could come up with a better reason for something being BAD than merely his/her own whim. The excuse given for this lack of any other reason, namely that there is a good reason, but we mere human beings are mentally unable to understand it, violates an important principle in most religions, namely that knowlege of good and evil is necessary for sin to occur. If human beings are mentally unable to understand the reason why sex is BAD, then no 'knowlege of good and evil' is possible in the area of sex. Without the ability of understanding, human beings cannot be morally culpable in this area.

Furthermore, I would hold that as we do not live in a theocracy, and there is no indisputable and demonstrable proof of the existence of any diety(ies) much less his, her, or their opinions on sex or any other subject, any argument regarding sex being BAD that boils down to 'God said so' actually really boils down to *I* said so, and is merely a means for imposing tyranny of some sort.

There are a number of other arguments against sex, which also do not stand up to rigorous logical examination. Take, for instance, a statement recently made by the Catholic church against birth control. Their argument was that fertility is not an illness, therefore it should not ever be prevented. This is obvious nonsense for a number of reasons. First of all, there are many things that are not illnesses. Eating for instance, is not an illness. This does not mean that it is a good idea to eat constantly. In fact, eating non-stop will probably kill you. At any rate, this argument is, in fact, contradicted by the Catholic church's attitude regarding sex. Sex is not an illness either, so why does the Catholic church try to limit that? Or eliminate it altogether, as they do with their priests?

Another fallacious argument regarding sex is psuedo-scientific in nature. This is the claim that since sex is (supposedly) associated only with reproduction in other species, it should be used only for reproduction in human beings as well. First of all, this argument ignores certain animal species such as dolphins and bonobos, both of whom have sex recreationally. Secondly, it assumes that all organs have precisely the same function in all species. This can be disproven just by looking in your mouth. In most animal species, the tongue is an organ strictly for eating. It is used to taste, manipulate, and sometimes catch food. In human beings, the tongue is actually an organ primarily of communication, not eating. Most people talk far more often than they eat, and the tongue is needed to form certain sounds. I would hold that the same evolutionary change is true of of human genitals, like the tongue, they serve different purposes than they do in animals. In human beings the genitals are actually primarily organs of communication and recreation, not reproduction.

In regards to the current attitudes about sex being used to destroy freedom, this is done in primarily two ways. First of all, it is a distraction. Whenever the public becomes too irate with the activities of politicians, or starts asking inconvenient questions, some sex scandal is suddenly plastered all over the headlines, and almost everyone starts worrying about that instead. You would think that after a few dozen times, people would start to get wise to this technique, but hardly anyone ever seems to.

Secondly, the assumption of sex being BAD is used as a justification for any number of tyrannical laws, such as those making felons out of men for having consensual sex with women who are biologically adults, but whose age falls below an arbitrary figure.

Now, there is something unpleasant that needs to be said here that a lot of people are not going to like, indeed, I have been accused in the past of lying about this matter. The government DOES NOT CARE about children (or anyone else) being sexually abused against their will. I know this for a fact, because I myself was sexually molested literally thousands of times against my will by my so-called 'peers' in the public school I attended. This abuse was enabled by my teachers, who are government employees, who refused to do anything about the matter, lied to my parents, and punished me the few times I attempted to defend myself.

Nor is this a unique situation, there have been children taken from the custody of their mothers and given to fathers who had previously molested them, because the mother said or did something to offend some petty government bureaucrat. That tells you where the priorities of the government are, they are far more interested in protected the fragile ego of some adult government employee from some small verbal insult, than they are in protecting children from being raped by adults.

The real situation is that the situation in our society is actually the same as that in the sci-fi novel 'The Rainbow Cadenza' by J. Neil Schulman. Namely, it is assumed that people are owned by the government, therefore the government can give or with-hold consent for them to have sex. Rape has been re-defined in our society not merely as having sex with someone against THEIR will, but as having sex against the will of the government.

This is very convenient for the government on several levels. The first is that with a stroke of the pen, they have now made a whole new class of felons, who can be denied rights, such as the right to Keep and Bear Arms. The second, is that in a situation such as the one I went through in school, where the teachers protected the students who were abusing me, the government is also able to train future sociopathic citizens and tyrants, who learn that so long as they please the government, they will be rewarded by being given Carte Blanche to sexually abuse those who are not so pleasing to the government.

Now, so long as I am on the subject of sex, I would like to discuss a pet peeve of mine, namely a form of sexual mutilation which is very common in the USA, and which some readers here might actually be in favor of. This is male circumcision, and I do not think the practice of it can be justified under the ZAP. The bottom line is this: The male foreskin is not a disease, an injury, a birth defect, or a genetic anomaly. It is normal, healthy body tissue. Removing it constitutes mutilation and assault of a non-consenting individual, namely an infant boy. Not to mention, that it is a violation of medical ethics. A doctor is sworn by the Hippocratic oath to act in the best interests of his patient. In the case of circumcision, his patient is the infant boy, and he should be acting in the best interests of the boy, not the best interests of whatever neurotic, social, religious, or other desires the parents might have.

I think anyone who calls themselves a Libertarian and is in favor of this practice, ought to engage in some serious self-examination as to why. You cannot be a Libertarian, and be in favor of amputating healthy body parts from non-consenting people, and being in favor of it is a flaw in the ZAP that will almost certainly be exploited somehow by those who want to control others. Once you agree that certain healthy body parts can be amputed off certain people for certain reasons, without their consent, such as foreskins off baby boys, you've just given up your best moral argument against such things as prefrontal lobotomies on political dissidents against their will.

Mind you, for much the same reason that I oppose circumcision in infants, I would ALSO oppose a law banning it in adults. Once a man becomes an adult, if he wants to have his foreskin removed, or his whole penis amputated for that matter, well, then, more power to him.

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