How miserable do you have to be to make it a life goal to deprive other people of pleasure?

Honestly, it is even worse than that. They want to increase the risk of STDs, pregnancy, and the increased risk of death to women due to being forced to carry pregnancies to term. Not to mention continued economic ruin and crime due to more unwanted babies and broken homes.

These people are basically evil. If you went to a movie and a character was trying to increase disease, death, and financial ruin, would they be the villian, or the hero?

This article should have the more click bait-y headline "Carly Fiorina Wants to Ban Sex!".

^^ what he said

Question: since the female orgasm is not required for procreation, are women allowed to have them? Because if not I'll stop trying; it's hard work!

I almost feel sad for her, if she didn't want to impose her misery on everyone else too.

“Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” — H.L. Mencken

Question 2: can I fuck Mrs. Solomon after menopause?

I've long held the view that the whole "sex is only for making babies" view is horribly limited.

On the other hand, I've also come to realize the that whole sex for pleasure thing, especially in its NSA form does have some dangers and pitfalls that aren't often brought up.

One being that sex, being so deeply hardwired into the brain, can never be merely reduced to some kind of hobby. You are dealing with some truly primal emotions here, all the biggies: love, desire, jealousy...anger, rage and fear too in some cases. You can do real emotional harm to people with sex (cheating, leading them on, etc.), sometimes without even realizing it.

Another is that there is a real potential for casual or recreational sex to become self-centered, something that's all about fulfilling one's own desires and pleasures. In extreme cases, it's almost as if you reduce your party to a living, breathing toy. Sex is many things, but to me, the one unforgivable sex act is the one that is not focused on your partner—it should be all about giving yourself to someone else, not snatching and grabbing everything you can get for yourself.

It's funny reading the Savage Love letters and seeing just how many of them are focused "How do I fulfill MY wants?" or "How do I make my partner do what I want?" (and whatever it is that I want to do may be anything from some kind of kink to opening the relationship to celibacy, which can be just as selfish within a relationship). I think many of these problems could be solved if people within relationships approached them from the perspective of "What can I do to satisfy and please my partner?" instead.

All of which is simply my endorsement of the GGG rules. But I do think it's worth acknowledging that there are real pitfalls to casual or recreational sex.

It's mind-boggling that somebody who condemns 99% of human sexuality can charge Planned Parenthood with having a "corrupt sexual ethic."

@8, You can still have sex in a committed, loving relationship without EVER wanting babies, which is probably just as evil from her perspective.

I knew I was sterile (as did my fiancee) before we were married. This filthy sack of shit of a woman, and all of her ilk, literally wants to erase more than three decades of our happy, successful marriage. May she, and her ilk, burn for eternity in the depths of whatever Hell they believe in.

I've been an LGBT supporter/ally for many years, strongly reinforced when my childless heterosexual marriage was attacked by these fuckwits using procreation as an argument against marriage equality. With this statement, though, we see it goes far darker and deeper than that.

Further than sex, too, These people are Christian Dominionists who would abolish secular government given the opportunity, putting us in a totalitarian theocracy to rival the Spanish Inquisition in its inhumanity.

Corydon @8,

You have clearly never heard of abstinence-only sex-ed. It’s very common and it focuses heavily on the pitfalls you mention.

You have clearly never read about ‘hook-up culture’ in the popular media either, because it’s all hand-wringing, all the time. Google it.

Sex takes maturity and practice. I’ve been having partnered sex for nigh on thirty-eight years and I have a way better time and am much more grounded now than when I started. I think everyone recognizes the challenges of multiple relationships, and that they require more sensitivity, better boundaries and clearer communication than monogamy. (A one-night stand is just a shorter-term relationship than most.) The pitfalls you mention are the reason there are guidebooks for avoiding them. (In addition to “The Rules” and “I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” there’s “The Ethical Slut,” “Opening Up” and “More Than Two.”)

For a good time, sign up on Quora and start following the Dating and Relationship questions. “My boyfriend doesn’t love me. What do I do?” “I proposed [expressed an interest in dating, in indian english] my crush. She said no. What do I do?” “My husband doesn’t always respond to my texts right away while he’s at work. Is that reasonable?” “My girlfriend married someone else. What does that mean for our relationship?” People need to learn this stuff. It’s slow, hard and painful; slower, harder and more painful for some than for others. That doesn’t mean that we warn people not to date. It means we have a steadying hand out for our friends when they trip and commiserate with them that yes, love and sex are hard.

Also, @8, "Sex is many things, but to me, the one unforgivable sex act is the one that is not focused on your partner—it should be all about giving yourself to someone else, not snatching and grabbing everything you can get for yourself."

I definitely think that people should consider their partner's wishes as well as their own; but as many Savage Love letters have shown, taken to the extreme it can also be bad for the relationship. Sometimes the constant "I just want what you want!" can get wearisome. It can be hot for someone to just take what they want (assuming it's consensual of course).

@ 12 - "A one-night stand is just a shorter-term relationship than most"

This is only one of the reasons why I think you're brilliant. I really like your worldview.

This is the relevant article: http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…

@ 13 - Yes. A 50/50 balance is good. If you're on the receiving end of your partner's total attention, it can start feeling like its an obligation to him/her, and I don't equate that with a fun time. Among other things, it makes me feel like I'm being totally self-centered, and that I'm not giving my partner enough pleasure (which is a great part of my pleasure).

Calico Cat @13,

Yep! I have a boyfriend who, when he’s been having a hard day, likes to start things off by roughing me up a little. I don’t like it much but I know it will stop as soon as I say I’ve had it. He knows I don’t like it but it turns him on that I let him anyway. I like that he trusts me to assert my boundaries. We then go on to more mutual stuff.

I have another boyfriend who gets off on my pleasure. If I didn’t tell him to come he wouldn’t.

Also, sometimes I masturbate.

None of this is unforgivable.

@1 - Not to get too cerebral about this, but I'm an advocate of not turning these things into "good vs.evil" debates, because Good!Evil! raises people's hackles/defenses, and those terms are slippery and mean different things to different people.

What these people are is Authoritarian. On the political spectrum they want everyone else to follow their "received" wisdom / correct world-view. Which, of course, is insane. Especially in a democracy. But they don't really want a democracy, they want a totalitarian state (where they get to be ruler for life, natch.)

The thing that gets me about these sexual authoritarians, is that sex for pleasure is how humanity got here in the first place! If sex wasn't pleasurable, and pursued for that end, then the babies wouldn't have shown up. So they're saying, "Now that we know sex = babies, we have to forego sex for pleasure"... as if a tiny dose of knowledge and awareness suddenly renders 100 million years of biological imperative obsolete?

And where are the Christians stepping up and saying "Hey Monica Miller, STFU, that's crazy!" We like sex, it's ok.

Man, we really need to start teaching more logic classes in school. These people are drunk on power.

Ricardo @14,

Aww, shucks!

Last week, while cuddling in bed with two men after waking up between them and having morning sex,* one commented that they loved me because I didn’t run screaming from their ‘true natures.’ I didn’t follow up at the time but when I quizzed the other about what he thought that meant he paused to think and asked, “Do you watch porn?" Only for research really. “Do you run screaming?” Ah. Ok.

*nocutename: please take some credit for the modeling.

@7, 11, what some people like this think (I was raised Catholic) is that continuing to have sex past menopause, or knowing that you and your partner are both sterile, is still "okay" because a ~miracle~ could happen. It's knowing that you would be fertile and actively preventing pregnancy via BC, non-PIV, etc that's the "sin."

(cue "Every Sperm Is Sacred")

They'll have to pry my dick out of my cold, dead hands.

How can you associate with a group called "Citizens for a ______ Society" and not realize you're one of the baddies? "Citizens" is pretty loaded already, but paired with "society"? Even Orwell's editors would have had notes on that.

@21 - 1 millions points to you, sir.

I suspect that she uses the honorific Dr. to falsely convey medical authority and an educated intelligence.

Which ones are worse, the ones who want nobody to enjoy sex, or the ones who think it ought to be enjoyed but only by a select few who qualify by meeting some highly self-serving requirements? Ms Cute will recall The Abstinence Teacher and the guide to Hot Christian Sex that gave OS married couples a surprisingly high amount of leeway.

@21. Awesome.

It is so ridiculous, because you know each and everyone one of them is completely having sex for pleasure.

@8 Can we also acknowledge the problems with the other point of view? That sex means babies and being stuck with the person you slept with for the rest of your life? That I means having kids you don't want and can't raise with a person you don't like and don't want to be with is a pretty awful way of having relationships.

And a lot of the problems you mention are things that have to be outgrown, there are no shortcuts there. Focusing only on your partners pleasure sounds good in theory, but it puts way to much pressure on them to always be in charge, and nurtures resentment in you for never getting things your way.

I almost pity this woman. I can't even imagine how unsatisfying and unhappy her sex life is to want to put this into practice, and I'm a virgin.

One of the reasons the first eave of contraception was prohibited in the early 20th century, was the idea that sex eas to good for the lower classes.

Only the well off could afford children, so the wives of working men were advised, if they couldn't afford children to go "sleep on the roof" of their tenement.

@1:

Really all it takes is a Calvinist, Puritan-Protestant world view that considers ANYTHING pleasurable as suspect. In their minds, God put humans on this earth to suffer, and through suffering we show our obedience to His Will and win ourselves a place beside Him in everlasting glory - after we're dead, naturally.

Bet that girl likes to get tired up and licked silly.
What a bean bag. Of course people have sex for pleasure, why else would one behave in such a strange way with others?

Oh dear. Mind is going... Tied up.

Ms Lava - I don't know; I think there are possibilities for being "tired up", which sounds like something that might befall Penelope Pitstop.

I had the terrible experience of being married to a family that was pro-life. They allowed their daughter to get an abortion under an exception that they would never allow for anyone else. It still makes me sick.

What I don't get about these anti-sex christians is this: Just who do they think invented sex? It's pretty clear that their "god" invented sex when he invented humans 6000 years ago. And he made it feel really good. Are they turning against the will of god? Maybe he'll strike them down. (we can hope)

@1 @11 @12 @18 All rocked it out! I love reading these comments - so many smart, questioning people.

Why don't they go after Christian church leaders for a similar reason? For "gay, underage, non-consenting, anal-rape sex with children"?

Also, statistically, the demographic with the highest number of abortions: Catholic women.

It goes so far beyond that. These people won't stop with sex. Their ultimate goal is to supplant the constitution with the Bible and put theocracy in place. They're shameless in saying it, that they answer to a higher law than the law of man. If they get abortion, they'll go for the gays. If they get the gays, they'll go for the atheists. If they get the atheists, they'll go for secular schools, then the Muslims, then the Jews, then finally the government itself. And when the government goes? Beware all of the moderate Christians, because they'll go after them as well. It would be no different than what the Tea Party has done with moderate Republicans, burning down party members who already hold office and replacing them with far right ideologues who are "true believers."

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

This is what happens when asexuals are backed up by a code of ethics that makes them look good.

Dolphins have sex for pleasure even when the females are not in season. Maybe we should ban all dolphins from our oceans for promoting the liberal sex agenda.

@19 - I don't follow. But that's okay - I like the story anyway. Feel free to include more detail in future stories; considering this is a comment thread dedicated to the sex-related postings of a sex-positive advice columnist, it can be downright monastic in here. Don't you think? Let yr freak flags fly, everybody!

This reminds me of an article I read a few years ago, by a former pro-lifer explaining what changed her mind. Her conclusion was that the pro-life is using abortion as an excuse to control women's bodies (because how dare women have sex freely), while masquerading under the banner of saving unborn babies. It's quite a good read, I highly recommend it: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfemi…