sexuality, Rod Fleming's World

10/05/2024

Sex, Sexuality and Gender are real

Originally posted 2021-02-08 14:09:30.

Sex, folks, is real. So are Sexuality and Gender. But these are not always related as people might expect them to be. So let’s have a look at them.

In all sexually dimorphic species there are two morphs, which are directly linked to reproduction; that, after all, why sexual dimorphism exists. One of these produces large, relatively static cells called gametes, which contain half the DNA needed to make a new individual. The other produces small, highly motile gametes, which contain the other half. The former are called ova and the latter spermatozoa or sperm.

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10/05/2024

Roman sex was the right kind of sex — and it still is

Originally posted 2023-01-12 20:07:26.

Perhaps incredibly, Roman sex remains the standard model in most of the world. It is only the Benighted West that thinks it’s different.

One of many orgy scenes in the film ‘Caligula’. This was probably fairly accurate.

There was no equivalent, anywhere in the Ancient World, to modern concepts like ‘gay’. There was a class of males usually called cinaidus or catamite, and these were exactly equivalent to the modern Homosexual, highly feminised, submissive, receptive in sex and often dressing as women.

‘Same-sex’ intercourse was commonplace and indeed, enthusiastically pursued, but only according to social conventions. Breaking these would incur no criminal penalty but the culprits might be shunned or excluded from society. This, in Rome, was a severe penalty.

Roman sex was dictated by two sets of rules. The first set was known as the mos maiorum , which translates to “the way of the elders”. It was an unwritten code of honour.

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14/02/202410/05/2024

Nature or Nurture: the debate

Originally posted 2022-02-12 13:00:32.

The ‘nature or nurture’ debate has been central to the discussion of sexuality for over two hundred years. In brief, the nature school believes that human behaviour is largely inherited, while nurturists believe it is the result of experiences in childhood, particularly in our interactions with our parents and siblings.

The nature or nurture argument over sexuality spreads out into other areas of thought. So let’s examine it.

What does ‘nature or nurture’ mean?

The nature school is sometimes called ‘Essentialism’. It is fundamental to the Christian concept of Original Sin, which insists that we are not sinners by choice or because of our background, but because we are human. Our nature is that of sinner and Christ came to absolve us of this. That is how is possible for a newborn infant to be a sinner, in the eyes of Christians, even if she has done nothing other than suck her mother’s tit; sin is innate to being human. However, human nature, so hated by the Constructionists, is not seen as a flaw by the nature school but rather the source of our strength. It is what binds us together and makes us human, for better or worse.

Nurturism is sometimes called the ‘blank slate’ or tabula rasa. It was present in the thinking of men like Rousseau, an eighteenth-century philosopher whose thinking gave rise to many of the social movements we know today. It is also central to Marxist dogma, for example. In many ways it is a development of the idea of individual autonomy, which informed the cultural revolution of the era and gave us the Enlightenment. Nothing is written and we are all able to shape every detail of our lives independently of the past. Today it is commonly known as ‘Constructionism’.