Moralty comes from regions of the brain based on positive and negative input and our ability to process information. That being said, what is the governing force behind sexual morality?
An interesting study showed that societies where women were economically dependent in their relationships, frowned heavily upon promiscuity, while those that had less or no economic dependence on a male partner were less concerned with promiscuity. While religion tends to flourish in societies steeped in female economic dependence.
“Our results do imply a hypothesis for why religious and conservative ideologies themselves tend to be anti-promiscuity: because they emerged in environments characterized by high female economic dependence.
When abrahamic religion talks of the origins of morality, the rarely mentioned but main concern of morality is sexual purity in women. It’s origins are primal, and male dominant religious cultures genealogy is a keypoint. Same as the apes, it was all about maintaining control of food, territory, and sex. Keep the harem closely guarded.
TheCommonAtheist 
Unfortunately, this religious mindset (in fundamentalist circles) where patriarchy is the norm has produced a generation of poor women — they have – or will have – no private pension plans. 😦
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I read something not long ago where it implied that they just don’t want anyone to experience pleasure of any kind, period. Having grown up Catholic, I tend to agree. I need to go watch the George Carlin skit (Ya gotta wanna).
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Somehow I unfollowed you. Fixed it.
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Welcome back.
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I think that your comment is pretty accurate. The church wants to control your pleasure in approved doses. If they can get control of the most basic of instincts, they can control the entire you.
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Alas, patriarchy still pervades so many of our revered social institutions… churches, marriage, families, the workplace, politics, government, law, criminal justice, education, health care, and beyond… in a host of insidious ways. Two reading recommendations for anyone interested: Simone DeBeauvoir “The Second Sex” and Mary Daly “Beyond God the Father”. Thanks and peace.
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I have some questions; Do men in general speak highly of easily conquered women with their mates? Or is something kept in the dark? Maybe, just maybe there might be some issues with this kind of “love”.
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Not sure I understand your question.
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Do men in general speak highly of women they have had one night stands with with their male friends? When it comes to finding love in a partner I suspect the trait in mention are not favored. I do not expect and answer, it was just to promote some thinking;-)
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My guess would be that it depends on the man and how he views women. Some like to conquer and speak poorly of the women that they have had. Some who live alternative life styles have these encounters and are respectful of others.
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From my experience, only dickheads would even think in terms of “conquering,” and those dickheads would have to have dickhead friends if they spoke amongst themselves of the “conquered.”
Excuse my language.
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I agree John. I think that you and Latinagem’s take on this is correct. I would probable ask the question a little different to get to the root of how some organizations use of shame to control a natural occurrence affects the well being of its members. Using guilt and shame over using education and openness has been a gigantic failure.
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The term “dickhead” is distinctly appropriate in the case of the kind of men you are talking about.
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We may be having a language barrier issue in the way the was question asked. But I get it. 😉
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Lol, in the way the question was asked.*
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When abrahamic religion talks of the origins of morality, the rarely mentioned but main concern of morality is sexual purity in women.
You can see this in the behavior, rhetoric, and attitudes of the anti-abortion and anti-contraception fanatics. It’s not about giving embryos the moral status of full-blown persons (a self-evidently absurd proposition); that’s merely a pretext. It’s all about controlling and punishing female sexuality. They become agitated beyond endurance at the thought of sexual pleasure without consequences and without regard for their barbaric taboo system.
And yes, religious women too can manifest that mentality as well as men. The mind-parasite we call religion can infect brains of either gender, and women who submit and conform to the taboo system are rewarded by feeling and being called “more pure” than those who disregard it.
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Thank you. Well spoken
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For many decades now, and after experiencing “sexual infidelity” with previous married partners, I learned that sexual “morality” is a simplistic control mechanism which incorporates the “sacrament” of marriage. This is forced upon people, particularly women, by the patriarchy and indeed, the concept is used to reinforce the patriarchy.
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I have never understood why if virginity is so highly prized in women why is it not in men? I understand that men ruled and all that, but if it was so desirable, why were men considered not valuable enough to be held to the same standard? Growing up I was really confused that females my age were expected to not do it, to avoid it, were shamed if they did do it, but boys were almost forced to try to do it, demand it, and were praised if they managed to do it. That is as long as the boys did not do it with each other, which I thought was the perfect solution to the problem. I heard it worked in other countries, but no not the rural country town I grew up in. But seriously I know dads that egged their teen boys on to “become a man” while demanding their daughters to remain virgin. I never understood why men did not understand that females are as sexual as men are. However I do not agree with making females responsible for male actions. But the whole double standard is something I can not seem to understand. Hugs
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The reality is better education, less guilt, and stop the sin label for these natural, normal behaviors and study after study shows improved personal responsibility trumps “morality” every time.
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It’s not about value in the sense of higher social status (which males do have in traditional societies) — it’s about control.
Among humans, males invest some amount of parental care in offspring, and from a genetic standpoint such care is wasted if the offspring are not those of the male in question. Thus human males have an instinctive urge to control “their” females and prevent them from mating with other males. The same correlation can be seen in the other four great ape species. Among chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans, males make no significant contribution to helping raise or protect offspring, and they make little or no effort to control the mating behavior of females they themselves have mated with. In those species, individuals of both genders mate promiscuously. Among gorillas, the males do help protect and raise their offspring, and they live in male-dominated harem-like groups of one male and several females whose sexual behavior the dominant male strictly controls.
In practice, this genetic heritage of human sexuality has made most human traditional societies miserable, violent cesspits in which males exist as paranoid control freaks and females are treated as property, to be punished with horrific cruelty if they transgress the sexual taboo system. Virginity before marriage is prized because it guarantees legitimacy of offspring after marriage. There’s no corresponding value attached to male virginity because a female, unlike a male, never feels any ambiguity about whether a child is really her own — she gave birth to it, after all. And patriarchal societies don’t attach much importance to female concerns about male sexuality, anyway.
The taboo systems and law-codes of the Abrahamic religions are simply a formal codification of this twisted set of behavior patterns inherited from subhuman ancestors. To this day they fill human [hetero]sexual relationships with fear and suspicion and pain.
As Jim’s post points out, in societies where women have achieved economic independence, they generally achieve some degree of sexual independence as well. Economic independence makes it harder for males to control them, assuming the society is advanced enough that control through physical violence is not routinely considered acceptable.
The independence of women is the key to breaking down and overthrowing the toxic web of inherited instincts and religious taboos which have enslaved human sexuality for thousands of years.
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That is as long as the boys did not do it with each other, which I thought was the perfect solution to the problem.
I’ve heard that that actually happens a fair bit in some Arab countries. But everybody there pretends it doesn’t happen.
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Look up the bacha bazi boys. You gotta see it.
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I know about bacha bazi. That’s from the culture of Afghanistan and surrounding areas, part of the ancient Persian cultural zone — not the Arab world. But yes, such forms of homosexuality have been part of Persian culture all the way back to the Achaemenid period — and for the majority of that time it was openly acknowledged and a cultural norm, regardless of what the present Iranian theocracy likes to claim.
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I have investigated the bacha for several years off and on. I have a feeling it is quite an underworld of operations. I’ll have to ask Max, my Iranian Muslim atheist friend about it when I hear from him. But true, a cultural norm for large swaths of Islam
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Don’t forget how ancient Persia as a culture is. Persian imperial history dates back to the coronation of Cyrus the Great in 559 BC; the rise of Islam, which brought Abrahamic taboos to Iran, was twelve centuries later. Even after that, the so-called golden age of Islamic civilization (roughly 800-1100 CE), centered in Iran and Iraq, was really a revival of Hellenistic (post-Alexandrian Greek) culture and philosophy under Islamic rule, and there’s abundant literary evidence of both practice and general social acceptance of homosexuality during that period despite the Islamic taboos. The murderous intolerance of homosexuality in the Middle East today is a bizarre historical aberration.
(Hey, Middle Eastern history was my field of specialization back when I was in academia — can you tell? 🙂 )
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Or on the cover openly gay or people caught at it are made examples, but wink wink, a network of boy trade in in the shadows.
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I wondered the same thing when I was in Catholic schools. The nuns almost worshiped the concept of virginity. They would go into a kind of religious ecstasy when talking about female saints who had endured horrible torture and even death rather than surrender this “precious gift”. Virginity in women was literally an obsession with them. But at the same time there was no such obsession with male virginity. It was never really even mentioned.
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Good observations there Scottie. Growing up in a church setting, virginity in both men and women was highly prized, at least on paper… In actuality? I don’t think many men and women actually waited until marriage to have sex; trying to be abstinent tends to do that to people. Or they get married young. It’s almost like deep down people are inclined to follow their natural instincts regardless of what some holy book has to say about it. I don’t know why women were discouraged from sex when the opposite applied to men though. Infidels answer seems pretty reasonable from an evolutionary perspective.
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Jim I would like to add one more thought on this subject. Why do some married people think they own their partner? That is not what love is about. In the 28 years of our relationship neither Ron nor I thought we owned the other, that we somehow had property rights. To me to treat someone like property as I have seen some do, including my adoptive parents , that way of thinking is not love. It is ego or something, but not real love. But we have religious leaders here in our country promoting the idea that females are subjects of the males and endorsing treating them like property. We as a country are against such treatment in muslin countries of females, yet here our religious groups like the Quiverfull movement and other fundamentalist religions do the same thing. Hugs
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Scottie: You’re right about that, many of these religions treat women as property. First they “belong” to their fathers, and later to their husbands. One would think that in this age this kind of treatment of women would be a thing of the past, but if anything it has taken on an increasing emphasis in a lot of modern religious sects, both christian and non-christian. The quiverfull movement scares the heck out of me. They treat women as little more than breeding stock
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Heh, I came across a Christian book hidden in my junk called ‘Sex, Romance and the Glory of God’. In the first chapter they insisted that ‘men should lead their wives’. They try to portray it as chivalry of sorts, but really it’s more of a control thing. Outside of religion, I don’t think you would see this problem as often.
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By trying to hog it all for themselves they’ve pretty much ruined the best parts, but I have a feeling the women just play along but in private it’s like band camp!
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Lol you could be right there Jim 🙂 In this day and age women are becoming more independent and on equal footing with men. So many of these guys who claim to be leading their wives are only leading their delusions. Their wives of course will play along because they don’t want to wreck the ‘status quo’ or whatever. It doesn’t seem like a very healthy recipe for marriage but it’s probably the end result for many people.
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March this year, I had a conversation with a couple of friends ( all christians ), a woman was part of the group
They were saying that men are the head of women and they is not like equality between men and women whether in the house or society. I was against this but they quoted from a ancient, archaic book as the basis for their stance
They main issue I had with them, was their anger at the effort both past and present government have made to encourage women participation in decision making, politics and in the work place
A statement they made For biological reasons the government should not make gender discrimination a crime and women should not be employed into any office other than the one the bible says
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I don’t know your friends but they sound like a pack of dicks. But hey, maybe it’s just their religious upbringing which has made them think that.
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Women must have fully equal rights, freedom, and power with men. It’s the right thing to do, and it’s the key to breaking down this ancient barbaric taboo system which creates so much misery. Naturally, those “possessed” by the religions which generated the taboo system will fight that tooth and nail.
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Good Topic, great thoughts by everyone.
I was always taught (church and home) that sex before marriage was a sin. The sole reason for sex was reproduction. Masturbation was a sin. True, society seemed to have more an emphasis on women remaining “pure”. Let’s face it, while the male might have repercussions when it comes to teen pregnancy, the female would experience 9 months… and a lifetime of “repercussion”. (Probably a bad choice of words). The female would put the family to shame! The male seemed almost rewarded by his conquest, while the female was shamed for it.
I will have to say and I don’t want this to sound like I’m bragging about conquests… but I grew up near a few religious schools and I have to admit, sometimes I was the conquestee 🙂 More power to those girls!
The greatest love of my life is… an atheist. We were/are consenting adults, there was never an issue with the “morality” of what we were doing, we just did what comes natural. It’s amazing how every time I see her…. ah, the chemical reaction!
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Yes, I know the church girls. Another proof that morality/purity based sexual education is a failure. Nobody really buys the stories ” you don’t want to be damaged goods”. Nobody cares about that. It was a bs line I parroted from my parents and SS teachers. All the more reason sex education, contraception, and consequences/personal responsibility are the best options. Abrahamic failed morality has done nothing but instill guilt for sex, ruining many healthy minds with ridiculous guilt in the process. It has been a failure and a control mechanism to keep people thinking they need churches and forgiveness things for that are normal.
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Why do many religious individuals frown at sex education
Around two or three years back, in Nigeria I read an article where the author was talking against the inclusion of the reproductive system in biology text books
Many christians I have talked to see contraceptives as “the most evil 😈 invention made by man”
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I would look at it this way. Humans are exceptionally inefficient at breeding. Contraception exists just to assist our natural biology 🙂
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I’ve been in the NE AZ country side for awhile. Looks like you’ve been busy with great posts.
Here you make a great point. We should not be ignorant of the male dominance of sexual morality. But we should not blame men in general as negative agents. Biology blends with culture to create such a worldview. An ideal culture would be to note the egality of both sexes. They are innately equal in utility but have a complementary existence.
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Welcome back. Thanks
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I have been involved in a discussion of ‘complementarianism’ which is almost up to 1000 comments on this very subject, Jim. The blog is hosted by a Christian who was harmed by that very system and many of the women who comment either have been or are still being harmed by that very idea. Needless to say, there’s a man who uses the Bible to argue that women are second on the hierarchy and it’s the way things are; no good to argue. Interestingly enough, the people who reply to him use the Bible as well – to argue for equality! ;). You’d think, after that many comments, people would begin to ask themselves why it is that their ‘good’ book can be so ambivalent in its advice.
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You possibly have a link to the chauvinism? Can’t be hogging that all to yourself now.
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You know that old saying, “Be careful what you wish for”. . . but if you insist! 🙂
https://spiritualsoundingboard.com/2018/05/15/discuss-what-can-men-do-to-help-remove-misogyny-from-the-church-inquiring-elder-wants-to-know/
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A fellow by the name of KAS usually comes on every thread – no matter the topic – to argue for complementarianism; he loves him some patriarchy!!
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I may or may not take a look. I may need some beta blockers first so I don’t explode.
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It gets very interesting – on another thread – when people start commenting on what feminism is. 🙂
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I took a peek. Thanks Carmen. I owe you some coal.
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