More ramblings

This started out as a harmless comment on wittlebc‘s awesome entry, but it got so long that I figured I might as well wallow in my intellectual pretension and post it as a full-fledged entry.

Read hers first if you want mine to make any sense.

The problem with Americans is that we mystify sex: we ascribe to it all kinds of properties and implications that simply don’t follow. As Wendy pointed out, it all stems from our archaic, Puritanical codification of individual morality, which is totally bogus.

(An aside: imagine how funny it would be if we applied the same rules about sex to other things: I play soccer because I and the people with whom I play like it. “Oh my god, he’s such a slut! He plays soccer with like every person he meets!”)

The fact is that morality has absolutely nothing to do with how you act with respect to yourself. Morality is all about your responsibility to others. It really doesn’t matter how much (consensual) sex you have, or how many piercings you have, or how religious you are, or how much you drink or smoke. What’s important is whether you fail in your responsibility to other people: do you cheat or steal? are you negligent or abusive? manipulative? You get the idea. Of course, the tricky part is realizing when your private actions, while they might be innocuous in the abstract, are immoral in context. For instance, sex is okay but cheating with someone violates your responsibility to your partner; smoking is okay but not when you’re in public for the same reason; gambling is okay but not at the expense of your family’s fiscal security, etc. I know I’m doing a terrible job describing this (I’m a CS student; I should just code up a morality spec or something) but I hope you’ll give me the benefit of the doubt and actually think about it seriously before trying to poke holes in it :). It’s funny how I can be such a civil libertarian but at the same time be as liberal as I am. But it all fits together quite nicely, with very few contradictions — one day I’ll write everything down. In a sentence: it’s all about integrating rights and obligations. Consider that if you’re reading this LiveJournal, chances are you’ve been extremely lucky to be born (a) in the US (b) with enough money to get a good education (c) and (this is the kicker) with a good deal of intelligence and/or motivation. Yes, lucky. Time to be grateful, bitch!

(Yeah you moral relativists will hang me from the first words: “the fact is”… but I’ve gotta take a bold stand! Kant did, and we still read him today…)

I agree that there’s this ludicrous double standard for men and women when it comes to sex… but if you play by my morality rules, it’s easy to see that it will disappear: sex is cool for everyone. Gender has nothing to do with it. Simple!

And Wendy, I suggest that instead of feeling bad about your purported hypocrisy, you should enjoy it. No one has to hold the door open for you, but when someone does, be happy for it, right? Guys don’t have to buy you drinks or dinner (and you shouldn’t expect them to) but when they do, consider it a nice gesture (even if they have other motives), smile, and chug :).

Now that I’m on this massive ramble-fest (also inspired by several other conversations I’ve had this weekend), I might as well continue. Two things that annoy me:

1. Girls who expect a guy to buy them a drink or dinner. Nothing more annoying than that. I have no problem springing for a meal, but only if the girl would have been happy to chip in and is genuinely appreciative of the fact that I like her enough to want to pay myself. It’s like you find a wallet on the street and track down the owner, only to have him say, “Jeez, took you long enough…”.

2. It’s a well known phenomenon that girls say they like nice guys but really are attracted to assholes. The issue at hand is that girls like guys who aren’t pushovers, guys who can stand up for themselves, and since assholes generally have this characteristic, girls are attracted to them. Unfortunately they fail to realize that you don’t have to be an asshole to be able to stand up for yourself (the implication goes only one way, baby) and so there are guys out there who are nice and aren’t suckers.

My god, what a self-absorbed, snotty post! Maybe I really am just an asshole — in which case I have nothing to worry about, right? Sweet…

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