What the hell is it...

[Maj]

About people who believe that you should only have sex if you're capable of taking care of a child?

I have no idea where this idea started, and I have no idea how it manages to gain so much traction. But the thought is absolutely appalling to me. In my mind, not only does it amount to eugenics, but it's torture.

If you can't afford a kid, you can't have sex. If you have some sort of personality disorder that makes parenting difficult, you can't have sex. And it doesn't even matter if you're married - don't want or can't "handle" a child? No sex. What the fucking fuck?

[momothefiddler]

As a child of someone who definitely wasn't equipped to raise kids, I absolutely support the idea of not having kids if you're not able to take care of them, because creating a person in order to not take care of them is... shitty, to say the least.

But equating having sex with having children is just idiotic and has been for millenia and I agree that the idea that people shouldn't have sex if they can't/shouldn't have kids is a big problem.

[Koumei]

Yeah, it's one thing to say "don't have children if you can't look after them".

But the bit where sex = babies needs to be buried with all the other bullshit we left behind hundreds of years ago. Birth control is what sets humans apart from animals, let it be used.

[Sam]

It turns out that people have all kinds of crazy opinions that just happen to all be aimed, by sheerest coincidence, at controlling women's sex lives. Weird but true.

Also, people will flip the fuck out when confronted with the idea of people with physical or mental disabilities having sex (or worse, having a sexual relationship).

[Laertes]

It's simple misogyny. The thought that women might be able to view sex as merely a consequence-free recreational activity, the way men do, is unacceptable to people who believe that women shouldn't have nice things.

[Kaelik]

About people who believe that you should only have sex if you're capable of taking care of a child?

I have no idea where this idea started, and I have no idea how it manages to gain so much traction. But the thought is absolutely appalling to me. In my mind, not only does it amount to eugenics, but it's torture.

If you can't afford a kid, you can't have sex. If you have some sort of personality disorder that makes parenting difficult, you can't have sex. And it doesn't even matter if you're married - don't want or can't "handle" a child? No sex. What the fucking fuck?

It comes from pre industrial agrarian society where you produced all the babies because you needed them because most of them died, and you needed the rest to help with the farm. That was ingrained in religious beliefs for some reason, because religions are for social engineering or whatever...

For a brief period people realized that the endless kid production was not necessary at this point and better family structures existed in letting people have kids when they want, and then the religious backlash came and suddenly tons of people are just so sure that producing kids literally as fast as you can regardless of your financial situation is religiously mandated.

Because that is why you shouldn't attempt to force social engineering preferences into religion and or morality, because it ends up fucking you later when children don't actually help you produce more food.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

It's simple misogyny. The thought that women might be able to view sex as merely a consequence-free recreational activity, the way men do, is unacceptable to people who believe that women shouldn't have nice things.

There's also an aspect of classism involved as well, the idea that poor people shouldn't be allowed to enjoy things.

[Stahlseele]

Isn't that what blowjobx, handjobs and anal are there for?
Or Boobjobs? Or whatever? Sex has so many variations, only one of which produces offspring.

And then there's still contraception and abortion, if you're not a religious nutjob about that kind of stuff.

[Laertes]

And then there's still contraception and abortion, if you're not a religious nutjob about that kind of stuff.

Conveniently, those are the things that religious people are the most nutjobbish about.

There's also an aspect of classism involved as well, the idea that poor people shouldn't be allowed to enjoy things.

I thought about that but I don't think it's entirely true: as a society, we let poor men get away with being deadbeat fathers but come down heavily on the mother. If it were a predominantly classist thing, then we'd see shotgun marriages be far more common than they are.

This is actually a pretty good example of intersectionality: being poor means you get it worse, and being female means you get it worse, but at the intersection of the two you get interesting results that reveal a lot about our society.

[Blade]

Anal sex can lead to pregnancy. It's rare, but it happens.

[Stahlseele]

@Laertes
Then maybe they should not have sex unless they want children and stay out of other peoples bedrooms.

@Blade
Wait. What.

[Laertes]

Anal sex can lead to pregnancy. It's rare, but it happens.

To quote a German friend of mine, that's how Wurtemburg came to be.

Then maybe they should not have sex unless they want children and stay out of other peoples bedrooms.

Sadly, given the existence of movements like The Joshua Generation and Quiverfull, religious people being allowed to have children is scarcely a comforting thing.

[Stahlseele]

@LAertes:
Was that Norman?

Not born. SHIT into existence

[Koumei]

@Laertes
Then maybe they should not ever speak to other people or interact with other humans

I fixed it for you.

[Occluded Sun]

I have no idea where this idea started, and I have no idea how it manages to gain so much traction. But the thought is absolutely appalling to me. In my mind, not only does it amount to eugenics, but it's torture.

I love that you're using the word 'eugenics' as a synonym for 'unbelievable evil'.

What's wrong with eugenics, again?

[Stahlseele]

Probably the same thing as with euthanasia.
Strong association with the 3rd Reich and it's attempts to create a better, purer, more arian race.
It dehumanizes more than anything else and basically devalues the complete concept of familial connections.

[Maj]

The fuck? I'm equating the inability to have sex with my husband with unbelievable evil.

And yes, Stahlseele, there are other types of sex, but I really don't find that limiting myself to those other types is particularly fulfilling. Sometimes, the original is best.

[Laertes]

Eugenics denies human morality and human social activity. To suggest that it is possible to breed a better humanity is to say that nothing one chooses to do in one's life is as significant as the genes with which one is born, which manages the unusual feat of being both absurd, reductionist and provably false.

[Occluded Sun]

So I suppose we should also dispose of Volkswagon Beetles and nationalized health care. Brilliant.

Here's a question for Maj: do you think people are entitled to have children that they can't take care of?

[Occluded Sun]

Eugenics denies human morality and human social activity. To suggest that it is possible to breed a better humanity is to say that nothing one chooses to do in one's life is as significant as the genes with which one is born, which manages the unusual feat of being both absurd, reductionist and provably false.

It's none of those things.

"The genes with which one is born" are what, more than any other factor, determine what sorts of choices are available to you and how you will prefer to choose. The primary difference between a human being and a chimp is genes. People tried raising chimp babies as they would human infants, and it doesn't work out because of their inborn differences.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

America had a eugenics program. We had thousands of people sterilized against their will. It was not a shining moment...

[Stahlseele]

@Occluded Sun:
I am right there with you on the part of disposing of all VW Beetle Cars.

Not ALL things done by Hitler are universally seen as bad things, to be sure.
The Beetle was actually according to some sources a stolen project not a genuine german developement.

Autobahn? Done by Hitler. The Olympic Fire run? Done by Hitler.
First Jet-Engine and Rocketry, done by Hitler.

[Occluded Sun]

What do you mean, 'had'? We still do - why do you think it's illegal in many places for cousins to marry?

And it's not official governmental policy, federal, state, or local - but why do you think the number of Down's syndrome births keeps going down even though people are having pregnancies later and later in life?

[Stahlseele]

Because that stuff is icky to most people.
Eugneics would probably be exactly the opposite.
Mixing closely related genes, getting rid of defective offpsring and keeping the rest.

[Maj]

Here's a question for Maj: do you think people are entitled to have children that they can't take care of?

Having a child isn't a matter of entitlement. It's a matter of biology. And I think that children are entitled to help, should their parents have difficulties. Further, I think that women are entitled to freedom from children, so that if they want to have sex, they can.