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Johnicholas's avatar

As far as I can tell, sex-positive, leftist activists don't believe that bad sex is a good, and also that good sex (absent things that prevent it, such as misogyny) is not scarce; masturbation can count as good sex, for example. There are certainly people and policies that try to change the fraction of people-that-have-good-sex, and I am not sure they are on your radar.

Your research as you have framed it is adjacent to - stronger than that, very, very close to - misogynist beliefs that women have a (social) obligation to pair up with a man. Please do not neglect the very clear and present danger that your words will be twisted to support vile policies - for example, used to support the claim that (gay) marriage bans rationally further a legitimate state interest.

That was one of the arguments advanced by the (eventually) losing side of the 2015 US Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage is not long ago, and it was an incredibly difficult fight. It was polarized on the left-right axis, and the court makeup has shifted since then, and the three branches of US government are now red.

This, among other similar political fights, explains why left-wing people are generally hostile to your recent posts, and right-wing people are generally friendly to it - it's because your research topic touches on these current, active, difficult political fights.

If you proceed incautiously, without attempting to anticipate the likely political implications of your words and willful misconstruals of your words, your positive intentions to contribute to society via science and your positive previous contributions to society, will not matter. Your total impact on society will be "was yet another tool of powerful, regressive, social forces".

I would recommend Kate Manne's "Down Girl". This is a recent philosophy text about what "misogyny" means, and it addresses one of the common fallacies that you stepped into - the idea that people are talking about "women-hating men" when they say "misogynists". The problem she points out with that psychological definition of misogyny is that it not only cannot be used to definitely say "Such-and-such is misogynist", it can also not exonerate anyone from being a misogynist - regardless of their outward behavior, who can know what was in their heart?

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Samuel Shadrach's avatar

1. Wealth redistribution generates far more net utility because it involves far more people. Compare "Benefit to multiple poor people's happiness minus some harm to one rich person's happiness" to "Benefit to one person getting a better mate versus another person getting a worse one". (Not that I'm saying maximising net utility is always the way to go in social issues, but it's worth keeping in mind.)

2. Sexual preferences *depend* on whether you had freedom to choose. You can enjoy a piece of food whether you earned it or it was handed to you by the state. You can't enjoy a relationship independent of whether they chose to be with you. There isn't a static preference that comes first, and means to satisfy preference that comes second.

It is entirely possible for two people who naturally both choose to be with each other as a first preference (not just the best they get, but their actual first preference), to *both* hate being forcibly paired off with each other.

All this stuff also applies to friendships btw. I'd definitely be in favour of societies and spaces that are designed to faciliate more *voluntary* interaction between people otherwise not getting it - be it platonic or not.

P.S. If I may say so, I feel like you should have thought of these points yourself. Violating a taboo should require a higher burden of understanding on the part of the person violating it as to why they're justified in violating the taboo and are smart enough to navigate around whatever problem the taboo exists to avoid. And my points weren't particularly hard to come up with.

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