From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc,rec.arts.books,alt.politics.homosexuality
Subject: Re: Morally good necessary possible sometimes possible reproductiveness
Date: 18 Dec 92 04:42:37 GMT
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <BzFAyx.KuD@unix.amherst.edu> 
jmfuchs@unix.amherst.edu (JESSE MICHAEL FUCHS) writes:

>Michael Zeleny (zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu) wrote:

>>jmfuchs@unix.amherst.edu (JESSE MICHAEL FUCHS) writes:

>>>Michael Zeleny (zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu) wrote:

>>>>ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) writes:

>>>>>zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:

>>>>>>jmfuchs@unix.amherst.edu (JESSE MICHAEL FUCHS) writes:

JMF:
>>>>>>>	But anyway, Mickey, you still haven't answered why oral sex between a
>>>>>>>male and female would be okay (assuming that you feel so,) but that oral sex
>>>>>>>between two men is bad. I'm pretty sure you can't come up with a logical,
>>>>>>>clearly stated reason

MZ:
>>>>>>The short form: because only in the former case, the partners can
>>>>>>switch to a potentially productive venue within their union, at any
>>>>>>time before the climax.  The long form will be found in my latest
>>>>>>reply to Mike Morris.  I await my promised reward.

>>[sententious malediction omitted]

ECL:
>>>>>Even if one grants the premise that a potentially productive union is
>>>>>some alternate world is necessary for certain configurations to be
>>>>>approved--and a more ludicrous premise

MZ:
>>>>The difference between a premiss and a derived principle is normally
>>>>covered in an introductory logic course.

JMF:
>>>	I hate to be the one to break it to you, Mickey, but there are no
>>>prequisites or course requirements to being on the net. Not all of us have the
>>>time nor inclination to take a logic course - personally, I think it would be
>>>fun and useful, but I simply have too many other things to take. If you can't
>>>explain the difference using precise, clear English, don't even bother to 
>>>bring it up.

MZ:
>>Skippy, there is no excuse for ignorance of logic, grammar, or
>>rhetoric, particularly when one presumes to flame others for their
>>alleged lack.  Besides, if you are not skilled in the trivium, you
>>will not recognize precise, clear English, even when you see it.

JMF:
>	There is a simple excuse for an ignorance of "logic," this being
>defined as not the inherent faculty that all humans have, but as that thing my
>girlfriend went to class at 8:30 in the morning to learn and got a B+ in. The
>excuse is that we didn't learn it. Instead of logic, I took courses on Japanese
>literature, my fave academic subject. Now, just because I think everyone should
>take as much Japanese literature as possible doesn't mean that it would be fair
>of me to bring up, say, Bunraku in an argument without explaining what it is
>in precise, clear English, and then chastising people for being too ignorant to
>know what Bunraku is, and how there is no excuse for not having a working
>knowledge of Japanese literature. (By the way, Bunraku is Japanese puppet 
>theater - although over there it is considered a much more high-brow form of
>entertainment than, say, The Muppets.)

You are not excused.  Unlike the ignorance of the quadrivium, which
merely leaves you at the mercy of supermarket checkout clerks, travel
agents, and building contractors, the ignorance of the trivium renders
you incapable of intelligent communication and reasoning.  Feel free
to go back to the muppets.

ECL:
>>>>>					 I haven't seen in a long
>>>>>time--I have no problem seeing that two women or two men could have a
>>>>>potentially productive union in *some* world.  (Maybe it's my science
>>>>>fiction background.)  Therefore, by your "reasoning," their union
>>>>>should be okay.  If you can't envision such a world, that, my friend,
>>>>>is *your* problem, not mine.

MZ:
>>>>Ditto for the difference between the possible and the conceivable.

JMF:
>>>	I make this point in another post, but what the heck, I'll make it 
>>>again, in a slightly different fashion. A completely, genetically barren
>>>woman (perhaps one with XY chromosomes, for instance, who didn't get enough
>>>testosterone in the womb - it's rare, but it happens) suddenly becoming 
>>>fertile is impossible. Certainly conceivable (no pun intended,) but not
>>>possible. 

MZ:
>>From the standpoint concerned with the essential nature (admittedly
>>neither legal, nor social), as represented by the genotype, your
>>protagonist would be male, appearances and phenotype notwithstanding.

JMF:
>	So this means that you, Mikhail "Mickey" Zeleny, may have engaged in
>homosexual sex any number of times and NOT EVEN KNOWN IT. Shudder...

I doubt it.

JMF:
>								     Anyway,
>the XY chromosome individual was just an example of someone who would be the
>most easily graspable example of someone who is completely barren - however,
>Mickey, I await to see your argument restated to include women who are just
>really, irrevocably barren.

That's just the point, -- barring genetic disorders and gender
incompatibility, all barrenness is purely contingent.

>								-Skippy 

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l'esprit des hommes."
Xref: sparky talk.philosophy.misc:2906 rec.arts.books:22202