Masturbation and the New Moralism

From the desk of The Brussels Journal on Tue, 2006-08-08 18:40

A quote from Frank Furedi on Spiked-online, 4 August 2006

Marie Stopes International, one of the sponsors of Masturbate-a Thon, warns that “in our work all over the world, every day we see the consequences of fertile orgasms”. The denigration of the experience of a fertile orgasm expresses a profound sense of unease with human passion, particularly when it has life-creating consequences. Here, traditional prudishness is displaced by a far more lifeless dread of acting on spontaneous desire. Sadly, this dread also haunts sex education in schools, as instructors attempt to scare children from having sex by emphasising the emotional costs of such an experience. As one factsheet targeting teenagers claims, masturbation is “satisfying without risks”. From this standpoint, whether an act is morally right or wrong is determined by whether it has consequences.

Old Moralism

Submitted by Peter Sjøstedt on Wed, 2006-08-09 12:46.

Consequentialism isn't a 'new' morality at all. Indeed John Stuart Mill advocated and propagated it in 1861 (through his book, 'Utilitarianism').

Of course, deciding what is a 'good' consequence depends on another foundational morality. This is why Nietzsche claims that consequentialism is, in fact, a form of secular Christianity (without it being aware of this).

The moderate Republican plan

Submitted by Amsterdamsky on Wed, 2006-08-09 07:52.

The moderate Republican plan is to provide cryogenic freezers to all masturbating adolescents in the US so their sperm can be saved for later use for "snowflake fertilizations". The conservates ,however, advocate a Constitutional Amendment to prohibit such behavior.