From: williamt@athena.Eng.Sun.COM (Dances with Drums)
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory
Subject: Re: So, you're straight... so far. (was Re: Why are you straight?)
Date: 10 Oct 92 23:42:28 GMT
Reply-To: williamt@athena.Eng.sun.com (Dances with Drums)
Organization: Sun Microsystems Inc., Mountain View, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: athena

In article <1992Oct10.090747.29821@nwnexus.WA.COM> elf@halcyon.com writes:
>   I don't like the argument either.  And I think we can pretty much
>agree that you, and I, and most of the people here, on alt.sex.bondage,
>and soc.bi and everywhere else we tend to associate, will agree that
>there we have a moral set of standards, affirming the power of the
>individual rather than the group.  Consensuality, Contract, and What
>'No' Means are at the heart of our morals.  They work _for us_.
---
	Toward who or what do you practice your consensuality?  Do *you*
decide who or what to be consensual to?  Suppose I don't agree with
your definitions?  At one point it was considered ok to be non-consensual
in dealing with other races.  It was considered ok in some circumstances
to be non-consensual with women.  But parents, for example cannot afford
to always be consensual with children: No, you can't play in the street;
yes you must go to bed; etc.

	Now let's enter back to the previous example where I said that using
the logic of "oh you aren't bisexual _yet_", you could say that you
are not a child molester _yet_.  Well, is it not perfectly conceivable
that a human aged 8-12, lets say, could consent to and desire to play
at sex?  Now society would say that any adult agreeing to that would
be a child molester, but by consent based logic, the human *gave* 
consent.  But one might then argue that a human of that age is not
able to give consent -- which is ignoring the fact that not only are
they not able, but they *did*.  What is really *true* is that they
are not *allowed* to give their consent.  They have had their right
to give consent taken away from them for 'their own good'.

	Now we have established that there are some humans that need to have
their right to consent taken away from them for their own good (or
for the good of others as in the case of those locked up).  Who
decides "for X's own good" is purely up to society at large.

	Now we can also look at non-humans, perhaps even 'inanimate' 
objects.  As someone pointed out early, do you have to get your
vibrator's permission before using it?  I tend to believe that might
be carrying things a bit too far, but is it too far to include
animals before you kill them for whatever reason?  How about
plants?  

	Clearly when you talk about consent, it is purely associated with
what *some* segment of society agrees upon as having consent
priviledges.  As such, who gets consent priviledges, and therefore
what acts are allowed with what objects (living or human or not) is
purely an arbitrary social construct.  

	Furthermore, it was said that bestiality doesn't imply consent.  True,
but then I would ask -- are those people vegetarians?  If not, does
that mean it is ok to kill an animal, but not have sex with it on the
bases of consent based issues?  I would assert that is *bogus*.

	To argue that you are not a child molester or not a (what?! : )
beastialitist (?!) on the basis of consent is using very convenient
filtering mechanisms which are very arbitrary and subjective.

-wat-
--
 --- "If women really earned fifty-nine cents to the dollar for the same
 work as men, what business could compete effectively by hiring men at
 any level?"    -- Dr. Warren Farrell
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory