Bestiality in Australia (4 Viewers)

[Iron]

I'm saying that every man is born with a sense of right and wrong. Life is a test of the strength of these convictions.
The state we are born in is a state that corresponds with your unique character. For instance, people born with the 'natural' desire towards beastiality, paediophillia or homosexuality are people who must wrestle with great temptation, but their will is stronger than the average heterosexual's. However the same heterosexual may have an insatiable lust for wealth, and that's his cross to bear.
We all have our trials

 

[Enteebee]

I'm saying that every man is born with a sense of right and wrong. Life is a test of the strength of these convictions.

The problem is that there's no evidence for this which can't be accounted for by evolution and that which can't be accounted for are usually the areas where we see the greatest correlation with social standards/upbringing... In the end though seriously this leads us no where, it ends up just being rhetoric. I could claim even if I accepted your beliefs that through rationality etc etc I am attempting to discover the true nature of my god given sense of right and wrong.

 

[Iron]

The problem is that there's no evidence for this which can't be accounted for by evolution and that which can't be accounted for are usually the areas where we see the greatest correlation with social standards/upbringing.

Well humour me. It wouldnt be a genuine test if you could verify it with certainty, would it?

 

[Enteebee]

Well humour me. It wouldnt be a genuine test if you could verify it with certainty, would it?

First you have to establish it's a test for us to discuss the nature of the test... but to humour you, nor would it be a genuine test if there was no way to work it out.

 

[sthcross.dude]

I'm saying that every man is born with a sense of right and wrong. Life is a test of the strength of these convictions.
The state we are born in is a state that corresponds with your unique character. For instance, people born with the 'natural' desire towards beastiality, paediophillia or homosexuality are people who must wrestle with great temptation, but their will is stronger than the average heterosexual's. However the same heterosexual may have an insatiable lust for wealth, and that's his cross to bear.
We all have our trials

Hahaha, I love that you thow homosexuality in with pedophilia and beastiality.

To me thats like saying; "I had to fight two huge temptations today, the temptation to eat some ice cream and brownies after dinner, and the temptation to slice my neighbour open and rape his throat."

 

[Slidey]

I would disagree because even if it were just society telling them that it's wrong there is still a decent probability that as a free actor (as much as any of us are free actors) they would dislike what was done to them.

Why? I did specify the consensual and loving subset. Do you contend children can't consent? See below.

You've glossed over the main point, forget later psychological harm. CHILDREN DON'T ENJOY BEING MOLESTED BY ADULTS.

I already said consenting situations. You're free to argue that consent in children is an illusion, but blindly saying the equivalent of "all children dislike sex" only holds as "common knowledge" to prevent paedophilia (and rightly so).

If you accept that children can consent to sex, but argue they aren't mature enough to do so meaningfully, then you're going to have to provide a basis for that. Stripping away societal expectations, you're left with what? That sex might cause psychological damage? How so, if such sex is loving, and consensual?

Your stance is inconsistent.

If they don't they are only animals. We kill them for food. If you want to make ridiculous statements like I have to accept pedophilia if I accept bestiality, then I will contend that if you don't accept bestiality, you can't accept killing animals for food.

Or at least not treat them in the cruel way we do to produce food cheaply (eg battery hens). We can get all the nutrition we need without meat and we could feed more people from the same land too. Meat is a luxury. We are putting animals through suffering from our pleasure. The only difference between bestiality and eating meat (assuming the animals don't like the sex) is the sexual element. It makes no difference to the animals. It's just an arbitrary value judgement.

I'm a vegetarian.

You don't form an attachment and relationship with your pets already? What is wrong with taking it one step further?

No, I don't. I am fond of my pets, and I feel empathy towards them, but I am fully aware there's no relationship or friendship there. It's fine to pretend there is, though - that's unlikely to stop me from seeking real friendship.

Bestiality on the other hand, is either the illusion of a relationship, or purely pragmatic. If it's the latter, I doubt that it'd also be 'consensual' because it's essentially just a 'tool' or 'object' to the person, which is a problem. If it's the former, then there's a problem, because that very likely precludes real relationships.

Homosexuality was only disclassified as a mental illness by the WHO in 1992.

Homosexuality never had a justification for being classified as one in the first place.

 

[Iron]

First you have to establish it's a test for us to discuss the nature of the test... but to humour you, nor would it be a genuine test if there was no way to work it out.

I maintain that you are subject to such a test every day. You tell me 'What bunk, stuff it up your jumper'. I admit that my only powers would be to force you to admit that you do feel such forces swirling inside you. Other than that, it's really up to you.

Though I do envy you position as wrecker. It's much more fun tearing down belief systems.

 

[Enteebee]

Why? I did specify the consensual and loving subset. Do you contend children can't consent? See below.

No I don't. I contend that children are icons of humanity and as such must be looked after as we imagine their mature, self-aware, older self would want them to be looked after.

 

[sthcross.dude]

It's absurd to apply the concept of consent to animals.

And being a vegetarian is irrelevant.

 

[Enteebee]

I maintain that you are subject to such a test every day. You tell me 'What bunk, stuff it up your jumper'. I admit that my only powers would be to force you to admit that you do feel such forces swirling inside you. Other than that, it's really up to you.

Though I do envy you position as wrecker. It's much more fun tearing down belief systems.

I have a belief system, it ultimately has no solid rational or otherwise basis to it and I've learned to accept that. The key point would be whether we can attribute such feelings to anything in particular... I believe we could find where they are in the mind and provide a physiological explanation for them, I also feel they would perhaps be missing in some psychopathic human beings.

It's no different to being in an earthquake and attributing it to God. If I didn't know what caused it I wouldn't begin making the God assumption, I would just be left to say I'm yet to know what did.

 

[sthcross.dude]

No I don't. I contend that children are icons of humanity and as such must be looked after as we imagine their mature, self-aware, older self would want them to be looked after.

Good point.

Also, given the evidence that sexual abuse does do psychological harm, allowing child abuse presents us with a problem on a more pragmatic level.

Even if it only causes psychological harm because of social conditioning, the fact remains that it exists. So by failing to prevent child abuse, we create a society with more criminals and unproductive, dysfucntional people.

No such problem exists with animals. If an animals does become "disturbed" and a danger, we can simply kill it.

 

[Enteebee]

Even if it only causes psychological harm because of social conditioning, the fact remains that it exists. So by failing to prevent child abuse, we create a society with more criminals and unproductive, dysfucntional people.

Yeah, whether it's by social condition or somehow due to their free will (idk where you would get this from, it's ALWAYS social conditioning the question needs to be applied in a much more subtle manner to be meaningful imo) the point is that they are highly likely to suffer and there is no way to safely eliminate this suffering.

 

[Slidey]

No I don't. I contend that children are icons of humanity and as such must be looked after as we imagine their mature, self-aware, older self would want them to be looked after.

Isn't that subjective? Why, removing societal vilification of paedophilia, would their mature self see a loving sexual relationship when they were younger as wrong?

This is silly, and yet, it's poignant, because while it doesn't apply to a borderline sociopath like sthcross.dude, you on the other hand seem to aim for a consistent moral framework within the scope of utilitarian humanism.

Yeah, whether it's by social condition or somehow due to their free will (idk where you would get this from, it's ALWAYS social conditioning the question needs to be applied in a much more subtle manner to be meaningful imo) the point is that they are highly likely to suffer and there is no way to safely eliminate this suffering.

So in other words, it's what society thinks, we can't change it, so there's no point arguing about it?

sthcross.dude: Being a vegetarian is relevant, because you were trying to call me a hypocrite be comparing it to eating meat.

 

[Enteebee]

Isn't that subjective? Why, removing societal vilification of paedophilia, would their mature self see a loving sexual relationship when they were younger as wrong?

If you could remove a humans natural inclination to dislike the idea that they were sexually abused and whatever social pressures then sure I don't think anyone would be able to claim it's wrong anymore, certainly not on the basis of any sort of pain which I think is the easiest way to justify a moral position. These things only exist within the realm of reality as we currently know it, to imagine that they don't is silly...

I just don't think you can disapprove of bestiality on the basis of utilitarianism especially while holding to the ideal of free agency.

 

[Graney]

If you accept that children can consent to sex, but argue they aren't mature enough to do so meaningfully, then you're going to have to provide a basis for that. Stripping away societal expectations, you're left with what? That sex might cause psychological damage? How so, if such sex is loving, and consensual?

Informed consent, not just consent. I don't think children can ever really understand what they're getting themselves into. The power imbalance between adult and child mean they can never make a fair and clear decision to consent.

Which leads later in life, to them rightly feeling violated.

 

[Slidey]

If you could remove a humans natural inclination to dislike the idea that they were sexually abused

OK, again, why would it be sexual abuse?

We've established that hypothetically, society doesn't consider sex with minors bad, much like you began this thread hypothetically with it not considering bestiality bad.

What does that leave? We're taking a loving relationship which is consensual. Where does sexual abuse come into it?

I understand nobody wants to be sexually abused. But where is the abuse in the above situation?

Informed consent, not just consent. I don't think children can ever really understand what they're getting themselves into. The power imbalance between adult and child mean they can never make a fair and clear decision to consent.

Which leads later in life, to them rightly feeling violated.

Why would they feel violated? They would only feel violated if they felt they were wronged. Why would they feel wronged if they were, at the time, consensual and loving? Because an adult potentially has power? An adult potentially has power over children every day. Children don't grow up to feel violated by adults in this circumstance.

You can only speak about a power imbalance if such power is being abused.

 

[Enteebee]

It would no longer be sexual abuse if you could ensure that a child would never suffer from it (even when we imagine a human being as more than they are in their present form) unless you want to just create the ethic out of thin air that it's wrong to have sex with children. So sure, it wouldn't be sexual abuse... If you can come up with a way to create a society where children don't grow up to hate that they were raped etc etc then I believe you'd be a consistent utilitarian to accept such things happening to them.

In our reality as it currently is though, this is not the case.. Kids are hurt by rape and there is no way of ensuring that they will not grow up to dislike it. This is not true in the case of animals.

Now of course there are moral stances I hold which are perhaps not the result of utilitarianism but my point is merely to provide a wedge against this idea that our morals come about due to what appears to be a fairly rational system.

 

[Slidey]

It would no longer be sexual abuse if you could ensure that a child would never suffer from it (even when we imagine a human being as more than they are in their present form) unless you want to just create the ethic out of thin air that it's wrong to have sex with children. So sure, it wouldn't be sexual abuse... If you can come up with a way to create a society where children don't grow up to hate that they were raped etc etc then I believe you'd be a consistent utilitarian to accept such things happening to them.

In our reality as it currently is though, this is not the case.. Kids are hurt by rape and there is no way of ensuring that they will not grow up to dislike it. This is not true in the case of animals.

Now of course there are moral stances I hold which are perhaps not the result of utilitarianism but my point is merely to provide a wedge against this idea that our morals come about due to what appears to be a fairly rational system.

Basically: you call it rape to justify calling it abuse. You call it abuse to justify calling it wrong. You call it wrong to justify why vilification of paedophilia isn't arbitrary.

Yet, you never actually explained why it is 'rape'; rape implies lack of consent, yet didn't we establish there was consent?

Anyway, the point is that you can't accuse bestiality vilification of being arbitrary any more than you can paedophilia vilification; if you argue one is harmless, then it exposes you to cases where you'd have to acknowledge the other is harmless, too.

In our world today, both these things are vilified and that won't change any time soon. I said this much earlier, and got told to fuck off for doing so.

I say we vilify both and focus on consenting adult humans. Plenty of adult men and women out there, and if you want gratification without consequence, use your hand. No moral qualms this way.

 

[Graney]

Why would they feel violated? They would only feel violated if they felt they were wronged. Why would they feel wronged if they were, at the time, consensual and loving? Because an adult potentially has power? An adult potentially has power over children every day. Children don't grow up to feel violated by adults in this circumstance.

You can only speak about a power imbalance if such power is being abused.

They would feel violated because they didn't really understand what sex was, or the reason and emotion behind such an act. A feeling of not having had a choice, that such a momentous decision was out of their power. If they haven't hit puberty, it could never be consensual, not really.

It might feel okay to them at the time, but pre-puberty children are ignorant of such things, they don't have the emotional intelligence to make such a decision.

Children consent to dangerous and stupid things all the time, why do you think they are disallowed from following through with these actions?

Also, afaik there are few penetrative sex-acts you could perform with a child pre-puberty without causing genuine physical damage.

 

[Enteebee]

The thing is, you again use circular logic. You call it 'rape' to justify it being called abuse, which implies lack of consent, yet we establish that there was consent.

Basically: you call it rape to justify calling it abuse. You call it abuse to justify calling it wrong. You call it wrong to justify why vilification of paedophilia isn't arbitrary.

I think you're reading me wrong. I am clearly stating that if you could ensure there is no abuse that it would no longer be abuse nor could a pure utilitarian any longer justify vilification of pedophilia.

then it exposes you to cases where you'd have to acknowledge the other is harmless, too.

I think the chance of these cases occurring... are incredibly tiny compared with such cases in animals given that we cannot know with any certainty at all how a child will grow up to react (unless the radical world you hypothesis does happen) whereas I doubt there'd be many cases at all (given the right protocol) where animals could be said to be likely to suffer.

In our world today, both these things are vilified and that won't change any time soon. I said this much earlier, and got told to fuck off for doing so.

No pain comes to a dog because society vilifies bestiality.