A response to Darrel Ray and his brand of so-called "Secular Sexuality."
Commentary about abusive leftist confusion regarding human nature, and the evolutionary roots and benefits of some degree of sexual shame.
Ultra-leftist type, and Darrel Ray's own, "sexuality" are apparently assumed by Ray and his followers as being The definition of Secular Sexuality: It or they are Not.
Yes I celebrate the joys of sex.
But it's worth noting exactly why sex exists in the first place: To produce children, and pair bonding to support them after they're born.
A copy of comments I've transmitted to Darrel Ray, via his Secular Sexuality Podcast FB page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darrel_Ray
https://www.facebook.com/DrRayLifeCoach
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For Darrel Ray:
You've been very verbose with your efforts to date, so I've opted for a verbose response.
A great crusade has been launched and is ongoing. But here's my take on your whole effort:
I agree that the "addiction" paradigm regarding sexuality is inherently abusive.
A better view would be this: Our brains were set up by evolution via natural selection to be "addicted" to certain activities, and that's a damn good thing, otherwise we probably wouldn't be alive today.
Drugs can hijack that built in system.
People try and make money off of selling sex as a means of hijacking our evolutionary-"designed"-sexual-system.
When people leave conservative religions they can jump to the complete opposite side of things, and can go right off a cliff.
I agree with a fair amount of what you say. But I think you have gone off the deep end yourself, by reportedly being a "polyamory" type person and advocate.
Within the context of the incredibly toxic way rightist religion shames regarding sex, it's very understandable why some people find it necessary to maintain high value with letting it all hang out. But there are some fully natural & reasonable reasons why religions have codes of conduct regarding sex.
A damn hard thing for an ex-religionist to admit.
Yes the ultra-right goes too far (too much shame), but so does the ultra-left in their own way (too little shame, and not recognizing how there's fully natural & reasonable value to ideals like monogamy, fidelity, and working to direct your sexual energy into productive activities eg. dating & inherently reproductive marriage as opposed to not).
People can be and are victims of the ultra-left (which they jump to and glom onto after being ultra-right).
I was raised a Mormon. After leaving Mormonism I became an ultra-leftist. I spent several years wading in the swimming pool of the left. Now I'm married to a socially-moderate-to-conservative atheist from China, a woman with zero connection to the Bible, Quran, or Book of Mormon. Where did her social-conservatism come from? Joseph Smith? Mohamed? The Pope? No. It came from her humanity, and culture is inseparable from biology & evolution.
Daniel Dennett's dangerous idea is that religion is a natural phenomenon. This fact cuts several ways. Yes it shows that religion is not "divine," but it also shows that it's very human.
Fully natural evolved codes of conduct do exist within religion. Dismissing all those codes simply because there's a charismatic charlatan as a leader of a given religion is premature. The codes themselves can have some very good reasons for existing. Yes, some bad, but also some good.
So what to do as a person who's very angry at the abuses of conservative religion regarding sexuality? Completely rebel? Proclaim that full sexual freedom is best? No. You're setting yourself and others up for failure if this is the route you take and/or advocate.
Like it or not shame evolved as a useful tool of protection within the human animal.
Regarding the DSM-IV: Whatever happens to be written inside books of this nature isn't "science." Psychology is not really a true science as such. There's huge leftist cultural confirmation bias going in within groups like the APA. Examples? Google for them yourself, but suffice it to say that the cultural left does not have all the answers.
Yes Mr. Ray I loath and hate Spencer Kimball & Boyd Packer & Joseph Smith & Mohamed. But on the other hand, my own wife is a sort of "control" for what humans do when they're *not* exposed to Abrahamic faith.
Also the left's fear of "patriarchy" is dogmatically misplaced misdirected abusive anger in and of itself.
Additional thoughts for your reference:
Repackaged bullshit: Porn The New Tobacco | Jack Fischer | TEDxBinghamtonUniversity
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2015/08/repackaged-bullshit-porn-new-tobacco.html
Lives and families are destroyed by Tranny and Gay acceptance and promotion - LGBT abusive outliers are not equal
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2015/07/lives-and-families-are-destroyed-by.html
Comments in response to the general Mormon stance on marriage
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2015/02/comments-in-response-to-general-mormon.html
Latest thoughts on the pressing issues of the day
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2015/02/latest-thoughts-on-pressing-issues-of.html
John Harvey Kellogg: what a fucker. Masturbation prevention is evil.
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2014/10/john-harvey-kellogg-what-fucker.html
Embracing true honest naturalism: Marriage is about children
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2014/05/embracing-true-honest-naturalism.html
Are Mormonism & Catholicism homosexual & pedophile generators? | Connections between homosexuality & pedophilia
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2014/05/are-mormonism-catholicism-homosexual_24.html
The Atheist Movement needs move laxative - Making room for social & political conservatives!
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-atheist-movement-needs-move.html
---end of quote
So I agree with a fair amount of your work, but I strongly disagree with the current lengths to which you take it: an apparent de facto advocacy for a level of human promiscuity which is in and of itself inherently abusive. Not because the Bible tells us so, but because human nature and human sexual history tells us so. Infidelity destroys families, because of how human nature is set up, not because a-hole Spencer Kimball thought it was a good idea.
Thanks be to Thomas Rowlandson, and Mihály Zichy, and films like the Good Old Naughty Days, yes I agree with that. On the other hand there's some damn good reasons to be faithful to one's wife, and to value inherently reproductive marriage & monogamy & families & life, and to be highly skeptical of abusive humans who want to sell sex for money & so on - to yes hijack our evolutionary evolved sexual systems for their own ends. So this is all a balancing act between both sides IMO.
============== end of first comment posted at https://www.facebook.com/DrRayLifeCoach
I received a few snotty responses from an operator of the FB in question, and from one other guy. Here's quotes of my responses. The page operator deleted some of my replies & the replies of others. Fortunately I made copies before they could click delete.
============== comment 1:
Additional note sent to the guy;
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Humans gets to make rules to help quell destructive behaviors.
There's better and more productive activities than porn and harlotry that humans can and do engage in.
You've set yourself up as a sort of prophet, imposing your own brand of overly permissive sexuality as *the* secular sexuality. It ain't.
What you're peddling really is an infantile flavor: the initially and understandably rebellious flavor.
After the 60s comes the 70s hangover. And lives are destroyed via too much permissiveness.
It ain't a religion thing. It's a human nature thing.
Science and skepticism are not present in your endeavors.============== comment 2:
============== end of comments posted on the FB page in question.
Follow up thoughts:
Ray has reportedly come out as "polyamorous." Here is a graphical symbol he frequently uses in his conference presentation:
How about a podcast that's more along the lines of honest science and true honest skepticism?
Can we be skeptical about the value of the porn industry, and about all things "sex positive?"
Here's my question:
"Do you think selling sexuality and selling your body as a deceptive lie is helpful to society, or an inherent abuse?"
The assumption that being a secular who's sexual must mean all porn is good, and that monogamy is inherently bad, is a very misguided and very-unscientific non-skeptical assumption.
Science requires a crucible. Your requirement of having questions which "...must be sex positive..." disallows honest scientific & skeptical inquiry into the subject.============== comment 3:
Ad hominem fallacy and completely false claims.
I don't need your luck and neither do regular faithful monogamous humans trying to get on with their lives raising productive happy families.
The key touchstones for the rebellious here are harlots of one type or another.
Yes the machinery of evolution produces non-productive outlier activity, but humans are not bonobos.
Lives and families are destroyed via too much permissiveness.
Poly people are being abusive to themselves and others.
The ultra left is no answer to the ultra right.
We, recoverers from religion don't need the abusive non- solutions offered within the chambers of harlots, pornographers, and poly people who're in denial about human nature and the *value* of avoiding destructive outlier type behaviors.
If you or anyone here were interested in science and skepticism you wouldn't be putting all your eggs in the baskets of greedy abusers who're working to hijack our sexual systems to their own ends.
Follow up thoughts:
Ray has reportedly come out as "polyamorous." Here is a graphical symbol he frequently uses in his conference presentation:
Also a brief view of the recent podcasts put on by Ray has swingers, porn stars, and various flavors of other "outlier" groups.
http://secularsexuality.dogmadebate.com/category/health/psychology/
Excerpts from the above site:
SweetWomanDirtyMind blogger – Lisa – talks about transitioning from religious to atheist, from monogamous to kinkster, swinger and sex positive blogger.And from their FB page:
Sandra Meade is the host on one of the longest running LGBT shows in the US. She is also an activist for Transgender issues and rights. We discuss a broad range of topics.
Dr. Ray talks with 3 polyamorous people about relationships and jealousy.
Secular Sexuality Podcast---------end of quote
October 2 at 8:22am ·
Dear friends of the Secular Sexuality Podcast, on Monday I will be taping an interview with the Internationally known porn star Angela White from Australia. She actually ran for Parliament a few years ago as a member of the Sex Party, a fully recognized political party in Australia, I met the president Fiona Patten, when I was in Australia a few years ago. I want to give my listeners an opportunity to ask a question so here is my offer, if you would like to ask her a question put it in the comments below. I will select one or two questions to ask her, from those submitted. Questions need to be related to the theme of the podcast and must be sex positive. http://angelawhite.com/
Porn stars, swingers, poly people, so-called transgender people, militant homosexual advocates: The quintessence of ultra-leftist sexuality today.
To Ray and his groupies the absolute quintessence and near utopian stance of human sexuality is represented by what inherently non-reproductive outliers do, and what non-monogamous people do.
They conflate the fact that humans share a common ancestor with Bonobos with what human nature is.
They conflate what humans do (cheat), with what humans need to do to have happy families (not cheat)!
They conflate and mix up their own desires to rebel against ultra-right religion, their chosen-ultra-rebellious flavor of sexuality, with what normal healthy thriving happy human sexuality is.
I fully agree with this article:
Transgenderism: A Pathogenic Meme
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/06/15145/
Permissive relativist liberalism destroys families and lives.
Jumping from the ultra-right to the ultra-left can result in the destruction of your family (via cheating, betrayal, and via deadly STDs).
Polyamory advocates are in denial about human nature. The answer to the ultra-right is not dismissing all sexual shame, rather it's putting that shame within context: the biological and evolutionary context.
There are damn good reasons for sexual shame: family stability, child support, happiness, progress, growth. Shaming for destructive abusive dead end outlier behaviors, all that shame has some very reasonable evolutionary roots.
All this is completely lost on Ray in my view.
Polyamory (eg: swinging - sex with multiple partners openly simultaneously) is an inherent abusive, upon those who practice it and the people who're connected to the people who practice it. Children raised in such groupings will end up being abused, by default.
Homosexuality (and gender confusion AKA transgenderism) happen naturally because of how the machinery of evolution by natural sexual selection works, and how sex gets set up in us. Doesn't mean being gay is "preferred" or selected for in any way! It just means that outliers "happen" within the context of the currently-operating machinery of evolution.
Homosexuals and transgender (gender confused /deluded) people have no more right to access to raising children than do animals of a completely different species. Outliers are outliers. But most children are not outliers, and so most children need a mommy and a daddy.
Daniel Dennett's dangerous idea, that religion is a natural phenomenon, cuts several ways as I've noted. Fully natural and highly useful human moral codes exist and are couched within religion. Simply because there are no mystical gods as such doesn't mean natural human moral codes are bogus! This is another key point completely lost on people like Ray and his ultra-leftist followers.
People exposed to the abuses of Mormonism and other conservite religions do have an axe to grind, and for good reason. Yes hard-line rebellion is understandable, but it's not an answer in the end.
Why do humans do what they do? That's a key question. And Darrel Ray does not appear to know any of the proper answers.
On his podcast he states that questions must be "sex positive." That phrase is code for open and ready acceptance of the abusively-permissive flavor of leftist relativist abnormal outlier-embracing sexuality, in other words sexuality which destroys families and lives, and which also is a de facto death cult.
All these people, the poly people, the tranny people, the gay people, the "childfree" people, oh and the pedophile people, the confessed sexual proclivities of all these groups exists because of how evolution by natural selection works. Doesn't mean we shouldn't lock up for life and execute all pedophiles, rather the same way we put down mad dogs. Doesn't mean the "sexuality' of the other groups mentioned must be declared as being equal to normal inherently-reproductive human sexuality.
Sex exists for one reason only: Reproduction. That's it. There is some "spill over" which results, but the spill over effects are N-O-T being selected for by the process of evolution. How can they be? Non-reproductive spill over effects most likely cannot be selected for!
So play while you can. Embrace your inner "you" by doing all the selfish dangerous abusive permissive destructive stuff you can with your sexual organs, but in the end there's really only one useful thing you can ever do with them: make babies. That's it. Don't like that fact? Tough.
Having my cake and eating it too.
How can a ex-Mormon be in favor of more conservative (family focused) forms of sexuality, and still also be an advocate for having adult humans being exposed to more honest expressions of what some would call "porn?"
There is joy in sex and we should realize why that joy is there, and where that joy comes from: from evolution and solely because of reproduction and sexual selection.
Porn 1.0 is based mostly on lies and harlotry.
Porn 2.0 allows for organic expressions via couples and individuals showing their sexuality to other adults. But Porn 2.0 is surrounded by and supported by porn 1.0 abusiveness.
Porn 3.0 could perhaps be a porn 2.0 which is not supported by or surrounded by the abusive money grubbing whorishness and lies of porn 1.0.
What would be some examples of Porn 3.0? Perhaps fine art which accurately depicts sexuality. Perhaps films which depict it, where such films are not being sold within the crass lying money grubbing hijacking porn 1.0 context.
I do think it's important that humans be able to learn about sex, and even be able to revel in it's joys and intricacies and power - but they should and must never forget why sex exists in the first place.
Just because humans shared a common ancestor with Bonobos doesn't mean we can be Bonobos ourselves, not without destroying the lives of our fellow humans and not without destroying our own lives.
Ultra-right religion helps push people to the ultra-left, and by so doing it's acting to abuse people further: because within the ultra-left people learn even more lies about human sexuality and they are foolishly taught on the left that "anything goes," when it does not.
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Additional thoughts:
Embracing true honest naturalism: Marriage is about children
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2014/05/embracing-true-honest-naturalism.html
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