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Date Posted: 17:56:28 05/15/02 Wed
Author: Perceptor II
Subject: More replies
In reply to: Icon 's message, "Reply to clarifications" on 17:06:22 05/15/02 Wed

>I would argue that we humans are "higher" than animals,

Or like to think we are. Man is the only creature we know of capable of true abstract thought. However, we also use that skill to justify actions which no animal could ever consider, like genocide, murder and the like.

True. We are higher, but not perfect. Because of our higher nature, we are moral creatures, meaning we can assign a moral value to our actions. Our higher nature gives us a higher capacity for evil as well as good.

>This is one reason why people (not just men) need to reach
>out and help those in need.

True, but if she turns down the help, prefering to make her own way in the world, what then?

Ultimately, it is her decision to make. The people that care about her can offer all the help they want, can explain why her decision is not a wise one and can continually ask her to reconsider how she gets the income she needs. However, she's the one who has to make the decision; it can't be forced upon her.

>Pornographic fantasies are lust, which involves the desire
>to possess another person for sexual gratification. It's
>not the sexual gratification that is wrong, it's the
>desire to possess.

If that is not acted on, but overcome through strength of will, is that wrong?

To act upon that desire is wrong. To indulge that desire to possess and control, even merely in the recesses of the mind, is still wrong, because in your mind you are denying her her personhood. In your mind you have reduced her to an object, someone less than you are, and that is wrong. To be simply physically attracted to someone, to appreciate her beauty, and to feel the desire to express your affection in a sexual manner, is not wrong. That's natural and healhy.

Complete denial of the sexual side of things is not a healthy situation.

Condemning pornography and complete denial of one's sexual nature are two separate things. No one's advocating puritanism here.

I find the whole context unfortunate in it's gender specific direction, as if men have more to atone for, or have a different set of moral priorities to women.

Not a different set of moral priorities, but a different set of myths about "proper" behavior that need to be addressed and combatted.

Our society is not automatically patriarchal. Our political power structure is, as are, ironically, the majority of Christian worship groups, such as the Catholic Church.

That's very naive of you to say. The patriarchal nature of our political structure and churches is merely a symptom of the patriarchal attitudes found throughout society. We still haven't advanced as far as we tend to think we have.

>This involves taking the set of myths about each gender's
>supposedly "proper" behavior. You've got to tell men
>that "real men" do not dominate over their wives and
>children and women that "real women" are not weak and
>submissive servants and trophies to their husbands. When
>each gender has its own myths that need to be torn down,
>yes, you have to address each gender separately from time
>to time.

Perhaps, but it's not the approach I would favour.

How then do you favor addressing and combatting these gender specific myths without being gender specific? I am quite curious.

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