board77

Cerin wrote:

Are there persons born without sexual organs? I know there are persons born with both sets of sexual organs, or with the wrong set of sexual organs developed(?), but with none? I don't really know what to say about it. If it is purely hypothetical, that is, if it is not something that occurs, then I don't quite see the value in considering it.

It is quite rare, of course, but as Wolfgangbos said, it does happen.

Sister Magpie wrote:

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We don't call a marriage "consummated" if a couple has not engaged in intercourse. I might even go so far as to say that a marriage that was never consummated might be regarded as dysfunctional or unusual...

Someone might call that marriage dysfunctional or unusual, but those kinds of marriages certainly exist that have never been consummated for whatever reason. They've even been known to go on for years and be satisfying for everyone involved. It's generally considered to be the couples' business what they do sexually...

Hi, Magpie! *waves*

In Massachusetts, at least, not consummating a marriage is still grounds for divorce or annulment. I am not sure what the implications of consummation for same-sex marriage are, or what is "required" for a same sex couple to consider their marriage consummated.

I think Cerin has really done a wonderful, level-headed job of arguing his (his? I am never sure about anyone's gender - pretty ironic, considering this topic!) point. A male and a female fit together in a way that two males or two females do not. This is "nature's design" and it is intended to create more of whatever species.

In most species, male-female intercouse only takes place when procreation is a possibility. The only other mammal that has male-female sex "for fun" is a dolphin, I believe.

In other species, the sexes are separated unless it is mating season. And, in most other mammals, homosexual activity is quite common.

Cerin is arguing that the word "marriage" is, in and of itself, a separate thing that specifically defines male-female relationships. And this definition is because of the design - male goes into female to make babies.

Now, I am not sure that really IS the definition of marriage...or, at least, I think it is only ONE definition. The word "marriage" is used in other contexts, too...in music, we speak of a "textural marriage" if we put several kinds of voicings together. There is a saying about a "marriage of minds" meaning that you are thinking on the same wave-length as the other person. And there are other uses as well.

There used to be an expression "a Boston marriage" which basically meant two women living together, presumably intimately. Everyone knew what it meant; nobody cared, really.

It seems to me that what is happening is the common definition of marriage is changing. Is this good or bad? Or doesn't it matter? Well...its a moot point, because what makes a "marriage" is changing. But what being "married" entails has changed over the centuries...so maybe its just another evolution.

Cerin wrote:

I fear gay couples may lose the fight for actual legal protections and privileges, because of the insistence on calling gay unions "marriage." I don't know how much comfort the symbolic victory will be in that case. Personally, I would have recommended going at it the other way: first secure legal protections for gay unions, then address the issue of "marriage." That way gay couples could be visiting each other in hospitals, making life and death decisions, etc. while working on the "marriage" issue.

I agree with this. I think it would have been better to get the whole civil unions thing in place first...and then work towards the "M" word. There was a bill proposed that ALL marriages done through the courts be called "civil unions" and the word "marriage" be reserved for religious cermonies.

This made sense to me, but was immediately shot down by both sides!

Cerin wrote:

[Hi, Magpie! You changed your name ... do you prefer that we call you Sister Magpie, or is Magpie ok?

Magpie's fine. I use both.

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The line is not arbitrary. As I've repeatedly attempted to explain, it is about the nature of things, what I call (for lack of better expression) design.

Yup, that's why I'm looking at this whole idea of design and the nature of things. As you say:

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Your suggested meaning (nature didn't intend), if I understand you correctly, is that whatever the situation is, is what nature intended.

My use of the phrase "the nature of things" is intended to say, the way things are designed to function, absent some anomaly or problem interfering in that function. So we are actually using the word to convey opposite meanings.

I'm trying to think about what nature is and what it could really intend to see what we're really talking about. You're using the phrase the way it's usually used, which is to give one person's opinion of something and say it's nature's. As humans we ignore nature all the time when it suits us.

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We can deduce that things were designed (it is in their nature) to function in a certain way, by observing how they do function absent any problem or interference.

We can see what things do. But what we often do after is assign (rather than deduce) value to different things it can do. For instance, people who enjoy anal sex would probably say that nature designed our bodies wonderfully for the purpose of giving pleasure in this way. Other people have said no, nature did not intend this. Homosexual sex is also considered by many people to be not what nature intended because it does not involve a man and a woman creating a baby, but it's not nature saying these things, it's people. Nature just created lots of possibilities.

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For example, one could say that people are designed to be able to chew and swallow food; someone who can't chew and swallow food isn't able to do what a human being is designed to be able to do in order to nourish their body. I do not view this situation (not being able to swallow and chew) to be what "nature intended." I view it is a malfunctioning of, or interference in what nature intended.

But why would you say this isn't what nature intended? Many people are unable to chew or swallow due to illness. You are calling that an interference in nature's intention, but nature is also the illness running its course. There's no reason to think that nature's on our side, or wants any particular individual to chew, swallow or have children. Maybe nature is on the illness' side or wanted another person to not be able to have children.

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Yes, a woman past child-bearing age can still enter into a committed union with a man, and she is still configured to fit together physically with him in completion of a biological design. The design remains, the fundamental nature of things, remains.

But the design doesn't remain. Things that are necessary to have children are no longer there.

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Or what about a post-op transexual? Are they a woman or still a man because nature intended it?

Of course, a lot of other people would say that nature intended the person to be the sex their body looked like when they were born, so whatever they do will not make them that other sex. Nature isn't here to tell us which way it votes, whether it thinks it made a mistake creating the sex organs or whether the person is interfering with its design by thinking he's a woman. We, as people, just project ourselves into it.

As people we can decide to celebrate anything we want, of course, including the biological design that allows a man and woman to produce children. Since a man and a woman who can't have children due to age or something else can get married, we're not celebrating the literal ability, but just the symbolic idea. It seems like when you refer to the biological design to have children and parts configured to fit together, you're referring to one person having a penis and the other person having a vagina. If a woman is no longer ovulating or has no ovaries or has a vagina that can't have sex she's still considered to have those parts. But I'd say that's clearly us, as humans, deciding and not nature. We focus on the stuff we can see--a penis and a vagina. But nature might consider the internal stuff just as important or more important to its design.

I mean, we as people could just as easily have decided there was a big difference between a union between two people who were going to produce children and those who weren't. We could have had two words, one of which you only earned after you got pregnant.

Not that this really answers the question of what marriage means to most people, because there it seems like people just instinctively disagree probably based on what *they* think marriage means. The word itself is used in lots of different ways, as Jewel pointed out below. (marriage of the minds, marrying the text and words, Boston marriage, football widow, etc.)

Jewel said:

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Hi, Magpie! *waves*

In Massachusetts, at least, not consummating a marriage is still grounds for divorce or annulment. I am not sure what the implications of consummation for same-sex marriage are, or what is "required" for a same sex couple to consider their marriage consummated.

Hi!

Yes, it's definitely grounds for divorce or annulment, but having those kinds of grounds for the dissolution of the marriage doesn't make you not married. If two people go into a marriage never planning to have sex and never do, they were married. You can marry someone on their deathbed, I assume, and be married. Of course, I had a friend in college whose father decided to become a monk (for a while--he got over it) and managed to have his marriage annuled--and that was with two children.

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I think it would have been better to get the whole civil unions thing in place first...and then work towards the "M" word. There was a bill proposed that ALL marriages done through the courts be called "civil unions" and the word "marriage" be reserved for religious cermonies.

That makes sense, but there too the word marriage is used by everyone already. It means something and I can see people being insulted at the idea that suddenly only people who had religious ceremonies were married, like they deserve the word more than other people do. That's why on principle I see the point of using the word marriage for gay couples too.

-m

First: of course "most people" think One Man, One Woman when they hear the word "marriage". But, so what? Ten years from now, "most people" might think differently.

It's a word. Marriage, like many other words in English, can have its meaning changed and this ALWAYS happens through usage, not fiat. Many words once meant something other than what they mean today. Some words mean the opposite of their older meanings.

If "marriage" is really going to include same sex couples, the change will occur organically, as the usage becomes common. If that doesn't happen, the whole argument is beside the point. The law can call it what it likes, but people can and do ignore what the law calls things. And I don't just mean the Laws of Grammar, although that's what I'm ranting and raving about right now.

"Prostitutes" are now "sex trade workers" to the politically correct. I guess "sex trade worker" is better than "whore", but I think you see where I'm going.

I, for instance, do most sincerely hate to see the word "flaunt" being used when the word "flout" is meant. This wrong usage has become so common it will soon be acceptable. It makes me grit my teeth in fury, but I can't stop it. I hate to hear that someone has "graduated college" instead of "graduated from college". This one mistake does more to interfere with my enjoyment of life here in this valeof tears than you can possibly imagine. Nearly as maddening is the word "savings" used when the word "saving" would be proper. This is beyond hope now. The change has taken effect and I seem to be the only living English speaker who gives a rat's ass.

No human being has ever been born with fully functioning sexual organs of both genders. There are oddities, for sure. And sometimes the gender of a person is indeterminate to the casual observer. No human has ever had both a properly formed and functional set of ovaries and a set of testicles. No person has ever had a functioning uterus while also having proper testicles. An apparent penis can be seen on some persons who are otherwise female. The exterior sexual organs can sometimes be neither here nor there in appearance, but a uterus and ovaries make a woman more certainly than the lack of a penis, if you follow me. And the presence of a penis does not make a man, unless the other organs are there as well.

Most interesting subject. I wish I could link to that article......

Sorry. Double post.

vison ultimately makes the most important point of all. I tried to make that point earlier by arguing that the meaning of "marriage" has already changed since it's not even rare anymore to hear people talk about same-sex marriage. For the first time a couple of weeks ago, I met a guy who told me he'd been married to his husband for seven years. Never met a gay guy who'd actually gone through the whole marriage ceremony (even gotten some legal documents!). "How cool!", I thought. And, of course, I knew exactly what he meant when he said he'd been married to his husband. And Cerin knows exactly what he meant. And practically every English-speaking person would know what he meant. Which to me says that the meaning of the word has already changed. And no amount of semantic arguing on this board is going to change that fact.

vison wrote:

First: of course "most people" think One Man, One Woman when they hear the word "marriage".

Or, more precisely, "most people" in the West. But wouldn't most Muslims think One Man, up to Four Women? The Biblical patriarchs had at least an option of polygamous marriage. There are or have been places where marriage meant One Woman, Several Men or Two Women, and those two guys who they let in for procreation purposes, but who live with their maternal clan.

Of course, this thread is primarily about what "most Americans" think as opposed to "most people".

Just sayin'

Wolfgangbos wrote:

And the value in considering it, if it never occurs that is, would be alleviating my curiosity about your position.

Well, then. In the case of persons born without sexual organs, I would assume that just as with persons born with the wrong gender manifestation, the person without sexual organs will nevertheless know inwardly whether they are by nature male or female. It would be no different from any other case of a heterosexual couple unable for some reason to produce offspring -- the physical problem does not negate the underlying design. Such a couple will not be able to consummate their marriage (unless perhaps some sexual organs could be constructed through surgery, which I believe is sometimes done), so they will not experience the fullness of the union that other heterosexual couples are able to enjoy.


Hi, jewelsong. I am a she. I always seem to guess wrong about poster gender.

Magpie wrote:

You're using the phrase the way it's usually used, which is to give one person's opinion of something and say it's nature's.

No, that isn't what I'm doing. I'm using the word "nature" in one of it's definitions, and you are using it in another. I'm saying that by observation, we can deduce how something is supposed to, or is meant to, or is designed to work. Trees bring forth their buds in the spring. It can be said that it is in the nature of trees, that they bud in the spring. If a specimen tree of a species that normally buds in the spring, does not bud, one would not say that it is in the nature of the tree not to bud in the spring. Now if you want to attribute to nature, the tree's failure to bud ("it is what nature intended"), you can of course do that, but just recognize that the word is then being used in a different sense, to convey a different meaning.

nature - 2 a the essential character or constitution of something; esp : the essence or ultimate form of something b : the distinguishing qualities or properties of something

4 a a creative and controlling agent, force or principle operating in something and determining its constitution, development and well-being

I am using the word "nature" in the first sense, you seem to be using it in the second. The first usage is not a matter of opinion, but of observable distinguishing qualities or properties. If you wish to attribute to nature, a couple's inability to conceive, that is fine. It does not negate the fact that it is in the nature of a man's and a woman's coupling (i.e., it is part of the essential character of, it is a distinguishing quality of), that it completes a biological design for reproduction. It may be nature that is responsible for the malfunctioning of the design, but nature's malfunction does not negate the fact of nature's design.

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But what we often do after is assign (rather than deduce) value to different things it can do.For instance, people who enjoy anal sex would probably say that nature designed our bodies wonderfully for the purpose of giving pleasure in this way.

Yes, just as the person might say, who enjoys putting bananas in their ear, that nature designed our bodies wonderfully for the purpose of receiving pleasure in this way. However, the person would not claim that they are eating when they are putting a banana in their ear, that is, they are not engaging in an activity that is part of the biological design for nourishing their body. In the same way, persons engaging in anal sex would not say that they are engaging in an activity that is part of the biological design for reproduction.

Now I believe it is a matter of deduction, rather than assignment, to observe that though putting a banana in the ear, and eating a banana both give pleasure, yet the eating has an added element of significance and satisfaction, being the completion of a specific biological design.

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Homosexual sex is also considered by many people to be not what nature intended

Yes, that is the way you have been using the word "nature," but it is not the way I have been using it.

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because it does not involve a man and a woman creating a baby,

It is a matter of observation to state that homosexual sex, but it's very nature, is not a reproductive model. That is, it is part of the essential character of, or a distinguishing quality of homosexual sex, that the reproductive organs are not being used in a way that completes the biological design for reproduction. You could make a case that it completes a biological design for experiencing pleasure, but any activity from which people derive physical pleasure would qualify for that broad designation, whereas the mechanisms for eating and reproduction are very specific designs for specific purposes. The vagina is designed to receive the penis as part of the reproductive process; the anus, though it may function to receive the penis, is not designed to do so as part of the reproductive process; rather, it is part of the specific design for a different bodily function.

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but it's not nature saying these things, it's people.

That is the way you have been using the word nature. I am not saying, nature intended this or that, I'm simply observing what is in the essential character and constitution of things, what are the distinguishing properties or principles involved.

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But why would you say this isn't what nature intended?

I wouldn't use the phrase at all, if it were up to me. I used it in quotes, because that is the phrase you are using. I agree, that it could be said that "nature intended" that the person not be able to swallow, if one wished to put it in those terms. However, that isn't the point I am making. The point I am making is that it is in the nature of human beings -- that is, it is part of the essential character of the human physiology, it is a distinguishing property of the human physiology, that human beings chew and swallow food as part of the process of nourishing the body. If this is not occurring, it is because something is interfering in the functioning of the system. If you wish to say that "nature intended" the system of a particular person to malfunction, that's fine with me. It is irrelevant to my point, and to my use of the word "nature."

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Many people are unable to chew or swallow due to illness.

Yes.

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You are calling that an interference in nature's intention

I am saying that the system for nourishing the body is not functioning as it was designed to do, because illness is interfering in that function.

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but nature is also the illness running its course.

Yes, this is the way you have been using the word. It doesn't contradict the other use of the word. Yes, the illness can be said to be nature running its course; the result is that the person is unable to nourish their body as human beings are designed to be able to nourish their bodies.

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There's no reason to think that nature's on our side, or wants any particular individual to chew, swallow or have children.

Again, according to your use of the word "nature," as in the second definition I cited, that is a legitimate statement. According to my use of the word "nature," the distinguishing properties of the human nutritional and digestive processes in this individual, are malfunctioning. It is in the essential character of the human physiology that we must take nourishment, therefore there is a mechanism to allow this. If we cannot take nourishment, we will fail and die.

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Maybe nature is on the illness' side or wanted another person to not be able to have children.

Maybe so, but that doesn't change the fact that it is part of the essential constitution of human beings, it is one of the distinguishing properties of the human physiology -- that is, it is part of the nature of being human -- that we are designed with mechanisms for nourishment and reproduction.

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But the design doesn't remain. Things that are necessary to have children are no longer there.

The design remains, though parts of the mechanism may wear out or malfunction.

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Of course, a lot of other people would say that nature intended the person to be the sex their body looked like when they were born

Again, I'm not talking about "what nature intended." I am talking about the nature -- the essential character or constitution -- of the person, not a superficial manifestation. Only the person themselves can know their own essential character.

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Nature isn't here to tell us which way it votes

Things have an essential nature, which can be observed and examined. It has nothing to do with nature voting.

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Since a man and a woman who can't have children due to age or something else can get married, we're not celebrating the literal ability, but just the symbolic idea.

Yes. We're celebrating the nature of things.

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It seems like when you refer to the biological design to have children and parts configured to fit together, you're referring to one person having a penis and the other person having a vagina.

Yes, this is the physical aspect of the union, a perfect joining in completion of a biological design (like sitting down to a lovely meal with friends when you are hungry, which would offer an added dimension of satisfaction and significance over sitting down with friends when you are hungry, and everyone sticking bananas in each others' ears).

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If a woman is no longer ovulating or has no ovaries or has a vagina that can't have sex she's still considered to have those parts.

Yes. It is part of the nature of - the essential character of, a distinguishing property of -- the female body, that it has ovaries and a vagina. Anomalies, malfunctions, changes over time do not negate the fact of the design. A person not being able to swallow or chew because of illness, does not negate the fact that the human body was designed to be able to take nourishment by chewing and swallowing food.

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I mean, we as people could just as easily have decided there was a big difference between a union between two people who were going to produce children and those who weren't. We could have had two words, one of which you only earned after you got pregnant.

In that case, the language would be reflecting a superficial aspect, rather than the underlying nature of the marital union.

:):)

Cerin wrote:

Scientific advancement will not change the fact that a man and a woman were by nature (if you will) designed to fit together in the biological design for procreation, whereas two men or two women are not.

Then what do you make of the clitoris? (Or male nipples?) Or that pleasure had nothing to do with the presence (or contact of) gamites? Why aren't all the factors most likely to result in conception more strongly rewarded? (As any anthropologist can tell you, humanity figured out non-procreative sex a long time ago and many cultures (and some religions) make important use of that information.)

If it were difficult or far less rewarding to have non-procreative sex, I'd believe your point -- but I do not think that anatomy is destiny. (There are all sorts of deformations and conditions that can make vaginal intercourse uncomfortable or impossible, some of them are birth defects and without the altering hand of contemporary surgery, quite natural. Also, I know many people who would not equate insertion with sex -- or who find other concavities perfectly natural and delightful matches for male convexity. And no matter how kinky and strange you find someone else's private life, didn't nature provide the nerves and the brain that enjoy it? )

<K. goes back to reading an article on the rise of STD's among young people who give lip service to intercourse-is-sex, then evidently have active intimate lives, nonetheless>

More on male nipples:
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/ma ... .Me.r.html

-Kushana

Kushana wrote:

Then what do you make of the clitoris? (Or male nipples?) Or that pleasure had nothing to do with the presence (or contact of) gamites? Why aren't all the factors most likely to result in conception more strongly rewarded? (As any anthropologist can tell you, humanity figured out non-procreative sex a long time ago and many cultures (and some religions) make important use of that information.)

Kushaha, I just don't see how your questions relate to the basic fact I stated, to which you are posing them in reference. Are you actually contesting the idea that males and females are designed so as to be able to procreate?

What I would say to your questions, though unrelated to my basic premise, is that of course, reproduction is not all there is to sex between a man and a woman, just as nourishment is not all there is to eating.

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If it were difficult or far less rewarding to have non-procreative sex, I'd believe your point

Would you mind stating what you believe my point is?

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-- but I do not think that anatomy is destiny.

I am not saying, either, that anatomy is destiny.

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K. goes back to reading an article on the rise of STD's among young people who give lip service to intercourse-is-sex, then evidently have active intimate lives, nonetheless

I'm afraid I'm missing the point there.

:):)

There were a couple of relevant legal decisions recently.

Gay marriages were overturned in Oregon (I'm afraid I didn't absorb the legal details).

The Connecticut legislature passed a bill guaranteeing the legal protections of marriage to gay (civil) unions, while at the same time specifying that 'marriage' refers to the union between a man and a woman.

This is consistent with the argument I've been making, that mainstream America supports the idea of legal recognition and protection for gay unions, but opposes calling those unions marriage. I think this is an excellent and precisely the correct outcome, and I hope other states will follow the Connecticut model.

Cerin wrote:

This is consistent with the argument I've been making, that mainstream America supports the idea of legal recognition and protection for gay unions, but opposes calling those unions marriage.

But b77 is so much cooler then mainstream America!

I certainly wouldn't argue with that.

When someone speaks of "designed", does that one therefore assume a designer?

I don't, myself. So the issue of body function does not mean any more to me than that evolution has produced what is, so far, the optimal human body. If it were only procreation's "needs" that influenced evolution, I think the human body would function differently than it does.

And, if we are to let "anatomy be destiny", there are a lot of other issues that leap to my mind.

vison wrote:

When someone speaks of "designed", does that one therefore assume a designer?

No, as I've said, it is a matter of observing how things work, and then saying (for lack of a better way to say it) that they were designed to work that way.

Cerin wrote:

Are you actually contesting the idea that males and females are designed so as to be able to procreate?

If there is design involved then why are sexual acts other than vaginal penetration pleasurable? Why is vaginal penetration during less (or non-) fertile weeks pleasurable? Why is relatively shallow penetration 'rewarded' by greatest sensitivity in the wrong third of the vagina? In most other mammals, females can't have sex unless they're fertile and in many there are mechanisms (like barbs) that keep the male in a position that is most likely to ensure conception. (And even the barbs affect the female's physiology of conception. )

What I mean is, if human sexuality is designed to ensure conception, it's a design full of inefficient and inexplicable features.

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just as nourishment is not all there is to eating.

The difference is that the body will digest anything eaten, even if it's non-food and non-nutritive (i.e. a bicycle, something Guinness has long since stopped taking entries for....) But women don't release a mature egg every time they have sex, and even the most heterosexual men are capable of responding to things other than vaginal penetration.

Pleasure in sex has nothing to do with the requirement of sucessful conception... comparing the two designs, it's as if hunger could be satisfied by placing things in one's mouth then spitting them out -- or inserting them in one's nose ... under such a system "response to hunger"="a full stomach" isn't a given. People could do all sorts of non-nourishing things and feel just as full for it.

-Kushana

Dave,

You've got to send that into Jay Leno for headlines. Seriously!


I won't interrupt the conversation too much. I did vote--for civil unions only.



Lali

The Swiss people have decided to legalize civil unions ba a popular majority of 57% this week-end....

In Switzerland which is a direct democracy, everything important has to be decided by referendum. I was really happy that this one passed, in a country which only gave full voting rights to women in 1971, it was not obvious.

Only two (very catholic) reagions voted no.

And they have decided to join the Schengen agreement, which means open borders to the EU states (which surround Switzerland).
Open borders to private cars, of course, trucks full of stuff still have to undergo customs.

Hooray for the Swiss, however, practical and clever as they are!