Steve: (Sex is another appetite that is naturally geared toward self-preservation. The reproductive urge is biologically explainable only as a means by which a species is maintained through offspring. The elements of attraction, courting rituals, sexual pleasure, etc., are all tangental to the purpose of the sexual act. They are means by reproduction is accomplished, not the end in itself.)
Human beings, on the other hand, do know this. We are scientifically aware that the male and female sex organs are physically compatible. We know that normal attraction - I can use the term "normal" because it is an established fact that over 90% of the population is heterosexual - when manifested in (vaginal) sexual intercourse between a man and a woman leads, naturally speaking, to conception and childbearing. The parameters for normal sexual acts - according to nature - exist within the order that underlies reproduction. Regardless of how one might feel, this is the unquestionable biological reason for sex.

Me: Heterosexual attraction sometimes leads to conception and childrearing (though very often it doesn't). In a more general sense, heterosexual attraction can lead to many things: physical intimacy (holding hands, kissing, touching, making out, oral sex, vaginal intercourse, anal intercourse, etc., etc.), having a quickie in the supply closet, having a one-night stand, having a torrid affair, dating, falling in love, establishing a longterm relationship, buying each other presents, moving in together, buying things together, buying wedding rings, getting married, having children together, raising children together, having a 50th anniversary... Homosexual attraction can also lead to all of these things as well... (well, everything except for obtaining a legal marriage license in the US, at least up until last Thursday in San Francisco!!)

Steve: As humans, however, we can sublimate sex.

Me: After looking up the word "sublimate"
[Some definitions from dictionary.com:
To modify the natural expression of (a primitive, instinctual impulse) in a socially acceptable manner.
To divert the energy associated with (an unacceptable impulse or drive) into a personally and socially acceptable activity.
To refine and exalt; to heighten; to elevate.
To direct energy or urges into useful activities.
To make more subtle or refined.]
I must disagree with the idea that sex needs to be sublimated in any way.

Steve: We can't change it's natural end - though many try

Me: If, according to you, its "natural end" is conception, pregnancy, childbirth, and childrearing, then we certainly can change it, and millions of us do so every day! The Pope and yourself may think we're wrong, but that's your problem! Goddess willing, you'll never stop us any more than you've already tried to do!

Steve: but we can make sex something more than an animalistic pursuit of pleasure. It can be about love and respect and generosity and openness to life. We can consciously choose those things. Too often, we don't.

Me: I don't perceive any disconnect between an animalistic pursuit of pleasure and love, respect, etc. Sex is about many things. Sometimes it's about more of some of them than others. It's all good. :) (So long as it's consensual, a perfect segue into our very next topic!)

Steve: This is why there are pedophiles in the world. This is why people have sex with animals. This is why men rape women.

Me: Whoa! Stop the train! I'm jumping off partner!
Rape is not about sex: it's about power. Let me repeat that. Rape is not about sex: it's about power. Let me repeat that one last time. Rape is not about sex: it's about power. Forced sexual intercourse, whether it is forced on a woman, a man, a child, or a non-human animal, is not an act of sexual expression: it is an act of violence. True sexual pleasure (in sexual acts involving two or more people) is mutual. Forced activity involving sexual organs is not sex: it's violence. It is not a true seeking of pleasure in any kind of healthy or positive way: it's a pathology. Pleasure is a positive thing, a conscious thing, I dare say a spiritual thing. Violence is a negation of one's own worth and dignity and that of others. Sexual expression and connection are natural, healthy, and beneficial. Violence is pathological. Sexual violence and true sexual expression have nothing in common: indeed they are completely opposite. Rape has nothing to do with sexual expression: it is an act of violence that abuses sexual organs. It is not about sex, and it is not a form of sex: it is a heinous form of violence.

Steve: Though the pleasure that is associated with sex is a legitimate good,

Me: LOL Yeah, I'd say so!

Steve: when sex is reduced to primarily the pursuit of that pleasure, the "natural" result is a kind of slavery to desire.

Me: That's a load of horse shit. You have a totally distorted sense of what "pleasure" is and what it means. Let me repeat what I said above: pleasure is a positive thing, a conscious thing, I dare say a spiritual thing. Sex is all about pleasure. The reason we have sex is to experience pleasure. Solitary masturbation allows us to experience sexual pleasure all by ourselves, but most of us want more than that: we want to share the experience of sexual pleasure with another or others. Through the shared experience of sexual pleasure we connect with other people in an amazing way. Sexual connection is among the most intimate, the most immediate, the most tangible ways to make a deep connection with another person. Pleasure is what makes sex...sex! Pleasure, the giving and receiving of pleasure, the sharing of pleasure, is what makes the profound connection possible.

If we focused much more on pleasure, on the giving, receiving, and sharing of pleasure, on the intense sensations of our bodies and what they teach us about life and the Universe, on what it means to bring pleasure to another person...if we focused much more on pleasure, and much less on all kinds of other factors of sexual relationships, we would be ever so much better for it!

Steve: When pleasure is made to be the purpose of sex, rather than a natural means to promote procreation, pleasure becomes an end to be reached by whatever means necessary.

Me: Here comes procreation again! Procreation is such a tiny part of sex! It doesn't even merit mention! But let's take out that middle clause, so we have: "When pleasure is made to be the purpose of sex, pleasure becomes an end to be reached by whatever means necessary." Well, I don't know, but add the word consensual in there somewhere, and it works for me—whatever means necessary indeed! Bring it on baby! ;) LOL
Seriously, though, I totally disagree with the premise that sex needs to be about anything besides pleasure, because the connection it offers is subsumed in the pleasure it provides.

Steve: This changes the context of what sex is, and opens it to other, disturbing possibilities. The fact is, we know that the acts I mentioned above are unnatural, no matter how "natural" the urges and desires feel to those who act them out.

Me: OK, so now we're back to rape. As I already said, rape is not about sex, and rape is rape, whether it's a woman, a man, a child, or an animal that is being raped. Rape is forced, non-consensual sexual contact, and it's an act of violence. The desire to rape is a violent pathology, not some sort of sexual preference, if that is what you are attempting to imply! And I think that's about all I have to say about that...

Steve: Homosexuality serves no natural purpose, so to call it a "natural" orientation is a false use of the language.

Me: Homosexuality is obviously "natural", because it exists in nature. It has existed in all of humanity throughout all of human history, just as heterosexuality has, and it has only constituted some sort of "problem" when certain societies have decided to consider it problematic. Same-sex human relationships meet the same basic human needs that opposite-sex ones do. Why does homosexuality exist? I think the best answer is that nature loves diversity. The natural world is a testament to the glory of diversity! The non-human animal world contains even more sexual diversity than the human world, really. Animal sex is fascinating! But of course human sexuality (and arguably that of other highly intelligent creatures) has many added dimensions that are arguably not present in the mainly reproductive sexual activities of praying mantises and honey bees and robins, and part of human sexuality is homosexuality...

Steve: It is not procreative, and does nothing to promote the generation of children.

Me: I swear, it's like playing a broken record! Then I get to be a broken record too: sex is about so much more than procreation! If you need some reason for gay and lesbian people, perhaps they are here to help irresponsible heterosexuals and bisexuals care for the overabundance of children we produce! At any rate, the definition of a valid human relationship should certainly not be that it "promotes the generation of children". Plenty of human relationships, gay and straight, do not result in the birth of any children, but that hardly makes them less valid or useful or beautiful...

Steve: It is sexual activity that is concerned only with pleasure, and therefore disordered - as it is not ordered to the natural sexual purpose of procreation.

Me: So that's your bottom line: any sex that does not result in procreation is disordered. What's disordered is your thinking! You'd better get out there and get busy, because you've got a lot of sex to stop. But please start with the heterosexuals, because in terms of numbers, they're having a lot more non-procreative sex than homosexuals. (Good luck!) In the meantime, the rest of us will keep on enjoying ourselves with our "disordered" non-procreative, pleasure-oriented sex. ;P
Seriously though, your entire argument is flawed, because it fails to acknowledge that most sexual activity on this planet, whether heterosexual or homosexual, does not result in conception (and thank the Goddess for that, because we've got enough of an overpopulation problem as it is!!!!). Are your parents still alive and married? Do you think it's wrong for them to have sex? It's not procreative! We'd better round up all of the infertile people and send them to the convents and monastic orders—no sex for them! (Or maybe we should just kill them all, along with the gays and lesbians, since they serve no purpose and are just taking up space!) Ooops, I forgot to be serious again. But that's because there's really nothing more to say. You have no argument that makes any sense. Most of what we do is not strictly necessary for survival, and most of our sexual activity is not strictly necessary for procreation. But you don't really want to change most of that; you just want to single out gays and lesbians and attack them. That's not logic or reason: it's heterosexism, plain and simple. And that's all I have to say for now!

Steve Skojec wrote some things on his blog. I replied in his comments section, but I'm reprinting my replies here.

If you want to define that which is morally right as that which is strictly biologically necessary, then you're going to have to tell a lot more people to quit having sex than just gays and lebians, including many legally and religiously married heterosexuals, and I don't think that's what you want to do. You're going to have to tell a lot of people to stop doing a lot of things, including both of us to stop typing at our computers, as that is definitely not biologically necessary for our survival!

So, it seems to me that you're not making any sense!

I don't agree that "reproduction is the primary function of sex" for human beings, especially if "sex" has any broad sort of meaning, but even if you turned it into "reproduction is the primary function of penile/vaginal intercourse", I still wouldn't agree, because I don't think that the majority of the time human beings have penile/vaginal intercourse they are actively trying to get the woman pregnant! I think that sexual activity and even penile/vaginal intercourse "accomplishes" much more for human beings than simply beginning pregnancy, which it only does occasionally anyway...

I think it makes plenty of sense to reduce sex to pleasure, as long as pleasure is understood in a broad sense as to encompass the way in which sexual intimacy allows people to connect to one another psychologically, emotionally and spiritually, as well as physically, through the process of sharing physical pleasure. I think it makes no sense whatsoever to reduce sex to reproduction, because reproduction is a very small part of what sex is for human beings (besides, though you likely think it morally wrong, being a conservative Catholic, the fact is that we no longer even need penile/vaginal intercourse to facilitate conception)(and soon enough we won't need to have a male sperm and a female egg; DNA from any two people will be able to be combined to make a new person)(or maybe three people, or who knows what!).

I don't think we need to get into specifc cultural and religious details (i.e. what the Vatican says, or what you think God wants, or what I think the Goddess wants, or whatever) in order to discuss human beings as much more than mere biological machines programmed to survive and propogate their species. If human psychological, emotional, social, etc. needs are valid reasons for human action, then we can discuss the validity and utility of human actions for those ends, do you not agree?

Anyway, I think for now I'm going to continue to work my way through your original essay...

Blessings, Madeline

Posted by Madeline Althoff at February 20, 2004 02:28 PM

OK, I have to say a bit more... It really doesn't make any sense to me what you're trying to do. If you're trying to argue that in a very strict sense of biological necessity (the bare minimum we need to do to survive and propogate our species) there is no need for human beings to engage in homosexual sex, well yeah, you're right, but what does that prove?! There is no need for human beings to do anything besides eat, drink, sleep, eliminate waste, not freeze to death, and possibly have penile/vaginal intercourse a few times in their lives (actually, most men would not necessarily need to participate at all--only the most "fit" would need to impregnate the women). Wow, that sounds fun, sign me up! ;P So I truly do not see where you think a strict biological argument is going to take you...

On another note, if you don't feel well right now, there's certainly no rush... Respond when you're feeling better!

Posted by Madeline Althoff at February 20, 2004 02:41 PM