"... since that could open the door for any deeply felt sexual identity to claim that status. Is sexual orientation a slippery slope? Are we two clicks away from a strong preference for nerdy-Jewish-tech-guys-with-dark-hair-and-an-athletic-streak being called an 'orientation'? Personally, I don’t think it really matters—I doubt that preference could become a legally protected category, so if someone wants to say that’s her orientation, what do I care? — but, for the sake of conversation, let’s say there needs to be some mechanism to limit what can qualify."
Writes Jillian Keenan over at Slate in a piece called "Is kink a sexual orientation?"
I admit to only skimming the article, but what I think is missing is an analysis of what hangs on the answer to the question whether something is in or out of a category called "sexual orientation"? This is one of those questions about whether to interpret a term narrowly or broadly. That's something that we discussed a few days ago with respect to the word "rape."
There are different consequences to defining an important term narrowly or broadly, and it should be recognized that this doesn't need to be about what the words somehow really mean. It's often about what you are trying to do by labeling. You might want to narrow a category so something important is taken very seriously and given special attention, or you might want to be more inclusive because you see something good that could be done (or you just want some priority for an interest of yours).
"Sexual orientation" clearly refers to the sexual preference for a partner of another sex or your own sex. But you could make it a big category, inclusive of things like sado-masochism. But why? What are you trying to achieve by grouping these things together?
If you don't address these questions, the discussion runs in circles.
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Orientation is scientifically meaningless concept. It can mean whatever we want it to mean, like the term 'fisherman'.
But at least we should acknowledge that the term 'orientation' has no basis in biology.
A little over a year ago I read an interview with a couple of swingers in which one of them said, "We wish that we could openly be ourselves instead of having to hide it from society."
The amount of narcissism in that statement is horrifying. It's not enough to be free to engage in your own private business with other adults, you have to demand that society acknowledge it and celebrate it.
Conservatives have often been accused of trying to peek into peoples' bedrooms. We don't. What we want is for people to stop dragging their bedrooms out onto the front lawn.
It's a plan for Freshman Orientation Week.
I am particularly interested in this documentary. It's all good, right?
http://www.vice.com/vice-profiles/animal-fuckers-trailer-751
Get a feng shui guy for orientations, if missionary isn't good enough.
Derbyshire reports a feng shui guy investigating the perfect burial site for a customer died in a mudslide along with his customer at the site.
A fortune teller friend of his was quoted as saying he was surprised the guy went because it was an inauspicious day.
There's also girl on top.
Mr. Wibble's use of the word "horrifying" to describe his quote is really bizarre.
I don't think Kink is an orientation but it find her essay interesting
If "orientation" is the thing, does that mean homosexuality is voluntary ?
Althouse needs to read Empson's The Structure of Complex Words, a book entirely on the uses of multiple meanings imposing doctrines.
He pretends at a scientific system that he persists in ironically so he is able to say : look at what turns up if you persist.
Those who control the language of sex control how's its defined. If the terms of the conversation change based on an unwritten set of rules, then you can (as the person who defines the terms of the "conversation"). That one's as old as the hills in this line of argument. If everything I say is wrong then what chance do I have of being taken seriously?
The post-modern left is all against binary oppositions, seeing them as yet another legacy of hegemonic thought from the Enlightenment.
Until, of course, they find a binary opposition such as straight/gay that they like, and then, ya know, they're really jiggy with 'em.
So, let's not go muddying up the waters again with this talk of a fluid continuum of sexuality in human experience, like the cultural left did for, oh, about 50 years of the 20th C.
The question should be are some sexual orientations, in fact, kinks. I'm thinking of lesbians. They're always switching sides......Sinead O'Connor now claims that she's 75% heterosexual. Go figure. She's an older woman, with twenty extra pounds, a bald head and too many tats. That's no obstacle for true love among the lesbians, but straight men find such things off putting. Maybe that's why she switched back. Her true kink is sexual rejection. When she was a beautiful woman too many men were entranced by her beauty, so she shaved her head and became a lesbian. Now switching back to straight ensures the most betrayal and rejection. That's how she finds the most fulfillment in a relationship.
If "orientation" is the thing, does that mean homosexuality is voluntary ?
If orientation is the thing, does that mean apples taste better than oranges?
"So, let's not go muddying up the waters again with this talk of a fluid continuum of sexuality in human experience, like the cultural left did for, oh, about 50 years of the 20th C."
That's because it is not about some abstraction called "civil rights". it's about the power of elites to control the lives of the non-elites. They'll have us eating dirt before long. Just to prove to us, and especially themselves, that they can make us eat dirt.
But suppose you decide to limit what is included in the category of "sexual orientation". Then what? Of the multitude of sexual practices and preferences, what principle will you use to say this preference is in (S&M), and this preference is out (pedophilia). The principle that is used will determine the breadth of the definition.
Anyway, the word "orientation" has no real meaning in this discussion. Its only purpose is to get people to think that a compass is a good metaphor for sexuality: Some people's compass is set to point north, but others are set point all over the place. And no one direction is better than any other.
"Orientation" provides a kind of scientific gloss to a non-scientific question: which sexual preferences are "normal" and which are just "weird"? A principle is still necessary to decide which is which. But science cannot provide such a principle.
The slippery slope is not progressive libertinism per se, but selective (i.e. unprincipled) exclusion which creates moral hazards. The advocates for normalization of homosexual behavior and a limited subset of other "orientations" have manufactured a moral hazard, which they seem incapable or unwilling to address. And with the normalization of elective abortion, they can offer no logical opposition to normalization of a diverse set of dysfunctional and unproductive behaviors.
YoungHegelian:
Straight/homosexual. Alive/aborted. The juxtapositions are numerous and revealing. The notable issue is the creation of moral hazards, which they have failed to address, let alone reconcile.
"the discussion runs in circles"
oh yes.
Look, once you make people with psychosexual problems, like people who stick their penis in another man's behind, into a special category, then everyone wants their own special category.
Hey, we can sue people who have hurt our feelings and refused to serve us? Great! I want that too! I want my own special category too! Me me me!
We pretend like it's a bad thing, or, those poor poor men who get abused by Christians!
But really, everyone wants to be gay now. Special class!
Just like, everyone wants to be black and collect their reparations.
I'm all for it. As soon as everyone is a minority, then no one is a minority.
The question I keep asking, and no one can answer honestly, is this: where does it stop? Where can we draw a line in the sand and say "Anything beyond this line is NOT acceptable to a civilized, functioning society?" Draw me that line and I guarantee you someone will justify going beyond it.
The problem is that once you open the door to anything other than biological male/female sex, there is no legitimate reason to ban anything else. Its all just varying degrees of what one person finds acceptable versus another.
The pro-gay agenda is not about sex or marriage at all... its about loosening, and ultimately eliminating, all traditional moral boundaries. Its proponents follow the creed: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law", most not even realizing where that slogan comes from.
Mr. Wibble wrote:
"Conservatives have often been accused of trying to peek into peoples' bedrooms. We don't. What we want is for people to stop dragging their bedrooms out onto the front lawn."
Yes, please!!
Exhibitionism and narcissism are present in heterosexuals and it's just as disgustingly uninteresting there as it is in homosexuals... or whatever orientation.
"That's something that we discussed a few days ago with respect to the word 'rape.'"
Discussion? I can only imagine the filth you rejected, but discussion it was not.
It is like what they say about dialects and languages, "A language is a dialect with an army."
An "orientation" is a predilection with a political power base. Not sure there is a better way to define this stuff in a democracy. What gets lefties into trouble is when they try to pretend it is based on logic and science and try to work out those rules. That is why they have speech codes, how else do you prevent people from pointing out the emperor has no clothes, if I may be permitted on additional metaphor.
Why shouldn't these other oddball lifestyles be treated equally too?
Normalization. That is what they always want. They want to be "avant garde" for stuff that is totally normal and every day kind of shit.
News flash: Most folks find how you bone to be utterly boring and tedious.
Remember when "gay" went from "sexual preference" to "sexual orientation"? The point was "being gay isn't a choice, so they can't stop being gay, and they shouldn't suffer any disadvantage in life for being gay."
"Orientation" is a loaded word because of that context. Using it contains a built-in demand for political and social recognition.
Mr. Wibble: A little over a year ago I read an interview with a couple of swingers in which one of them said, "We wish that we could openly be ourselves instead of having to hide it from society."
The amount of narcissism in that statement is horrifying.
Got it in one, Mr. Wibble.
I'll add "infantilization" and "stupidity" to "narcissist", which results in:
"I have total sexual freedom but, gosh darn it, life is still just life! My expensive but half-assed education gave me only one tool -"naming the oppressor" as the answer to every problem of the human condition - so somehow my continuing discontent has to be caused by not being validated enough. It's either that or contemplate that the 'pearl-clutchers' are just bored and disgusted, not scandalized, by my tedious little mass-consumer-culture perversions, and maybe this vulgar need for endless TMI-ing and claiming victim-status doesn't really address anything."
Terry said...
Orientation is scientifically meaningless concept.
I think we're not supposed to use the word "paraphilia".
There is no consensus among scientists
about the exact reasons that an individual
develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or
lesbian orientation. Although much research
has examined the possible genetic, hormonal,
developmental, social, and cultural influences
on sexual orientation, no findings have
emerged that permit scientists to conclude
that sexual orientation is determined by any
particular factor or factors. Many think that
nature and nurture both play complex roles;
most people experience little or no sense of
choice about their sexual orientation.
http://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/orientation.pdf
Note especially this: "most people experience little or no sense of
choice about their sexual orientation."
This sentence has so many qualifiers it is a waste of time to read it. It tells you nothing about whether or not orientation is a choice, it only says that most people don't experience it is a choice. Duh.
Almost everything said about "orientation" can be said about left versus right handedness.
Tin in Vermont A friend of mine once said that a church was a cult with a congressman.
I think it is pretty clear that pedophiles have no "choice."
Would it really harm children if adults didn't make such a big deal about it? In other words, aren't we socially constructing the denial of a pedophile to be a pedophile?
Just wondering. Isn't the concept of "consenting adults" a social construction that harms certain individuals in their need to express their "true self"?
Are we going then to talk about minimizing harm? Do we really want to open that discussion regarding gay men, who spread AIDs around so readily, you know, during the bleeding involved in having sex with the wrong body parts?
I have nothing against gays, really, just the idea that we can pretend that sanctioning gay sex is anything other than an expression of gay political power. Normal is one of those words whose definition must be eviscerated in order to include 1.2 percent of the population. How is reason even possible when the terms of the argument are destroyed in the argument?
Orientation is a preference or predisposition, depending on your faith's perspective of freewill. Behavior is expression of an orientation. Sexual orientation is inclusive of all preferences and predispositions which are sex-related. It does not include expression of orientations.
Homosexuality is an orientation. Expression of this preference or predisposition is a behavior. The same duality describes other sexual orientations and their expression, including bigamy, polygamy, incest, and, yes, kink.
It wasn't long ago that homosexual orientation was defined as a kink, a psychological aberration.
It wasn't long ago that marriage was defined as a union between a man and a woman, motivated by nature, realized as a social construct to promote responsible procreation.
It changed for one reason: normalization. Homosexual advocates and activists sought a low barrier to normalization through usurpation of a well-defined "normal" construct and institution. It was a progressive process. First, psychologists normalized the orientation (i.e. preference or predisposition). Second, the behavior (i.e. expression) was normalized through executive and judicial decree, and civil rights litigation.
Anyway, there is nothing special about the number two, other than as a numerical combination engendered by the natural order. And with the normalization of elective abortion, there is really no logical argument to oppose normalization of other dysfunctional and unproductive behaviors. This is what advocates and activists of other kinks are predictably and justifiably exploiting.
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