I don't know for sure if this belongs here in this section, but if it doesn't I apologize.

The recent Supreme Court ruling on legalizing gay sex has brought up Thomas Jefferson's stance that instead of execution, homosexuals should be castrated. Thanks for the gentle compassion, Jeff. This was from a man who imposed no restrictions on his own liberal sexuality.

This proposal that castration should be used by a government to impose a restriction on free citizens, exercising free choice, shows how little freedom people actually get under any government. What is so hypocritical is that there is a strange thought that it is all right for some judge, who is operating on his own upbringing and personal morality, has the ability to sentence someone to castration; but it is not all right for a free citizen to choose to have himself castrated merely because he wants that operation.

So if you want to live as a eunuch the way to get it done -- for free -- is to commit a crime. But if you want to exercise your freedom of choice, you can just forget it.

Jefferson's benighted compassion; castration as a punishment but not as a free choice of lifestyle; all of these matters have been raised here on the Archive.

I think the reason I am bringing it up is to generate some exciting thoughts about the topic. Why is it all right for a government of a free nation to use castration as an option; but not for a free human male, with all his senses intact, to make a decision to have himself castrated?

This attitude that free people don't have the ability to choose for themselves what makes them happy, when the Constitution "guarantees" freedom of choice, and the pursuit of happiness, is paradoxical and hypocritical (don't get to use those words enough).

It seems that the Consititution gives us the right to pursue happiness, but not to decide what makes us happy. It has to be handed down from lawmakers who aren't better equipped than the people they represent to decide individual happiness.

It is like providing a limited menu of htings that you are allowed to choose to make you happy. If it's not on the menu, you can't have it.

You get better choices at a Chinese restaurant.

yankee masha

The thing that someone brought up to me in discussing the Supreme Court ruling was that this is not necessarily about choice. Think about the following things:

Is it ok to masturbate in private?

What if someone were to do so with pictures of naked women?

What if someone were to do so with pictures of farm animals?

What about doing so with pictures of children (non-porn pictures)?

Everyone can bring to bear their own thoughts and feelings on these different questions as to whether each of these is right or wrong. Whether or not they are an offense punishable by law is another matter. That is not for each of us to decide.

A handful of people have the power to decide what is right and wrong for all of us. Whether government or religion, that seems to stay constant.

Rich

I don't understand what you are saying. Is there a position you are taking or is it just reporting a conversation?

My idea is that no one has a right to deny a human being the ability to practice a normal human function. it's like telling us what to eat. What turns you on sexually comes out of your childhood experience. Everyone can't follow a law about sexual desire. it's like saying you can only raise one kind of tulip, one kind of rose bush and have only a dog and not a cat.

Biological needs can't be legislated by a governent. It is like creating a crime and looking for offenders. Or saying one person's bioloigical needs are better than someone else's.

YM

Masha, the sort of thinking which Jefferson expressed, and which is, to some extent, still with us today, is a survival of the old medieval idea tha you don't own your own body--the state owns you. Similar reasoning is why, in England until the 1830's, you could be hanged as a punishment for attempting suicide. Controlled substance laws are derived from the same type of attitude. Most people only want to give you the freedom to do what they want you to. I personally have always considered homosexuality to be an undesirable habit that some folks have, but it's your right to engage in it, since it doesn't affect me.

That expresses it really well and concisely. I never heard it put auite that way, but yhou're right -- that is the basis of most laws. The most creative societies, such as Ancient Athens had real democracy for its citizens. But the idea of legistlating sexual behavior at all is something htat comes out of the Judaic-Christian religious thought. The idea that sex can somehow be a sin is the problem and it has led to the conditioned hatred and dislike of homosexuality in modern times.

Prior and apart from these religions sex was considered neither shameful, harmful, nor reprehensible. Except for rape. Your own mild feelings about homosexuality stem from this cultural conditioning, but your intelligence and personal self respect allow yhou to ignore it since it is not of interest much to you.

ym

yankee masha (imported) wrote: Fri Jul 18, 2003 7:44 am I don't understand what you are saying. Is there a position you are taking or is it just reporting a conversation?

My idea is that no one has a right to deny a human being the ability to practice a normal human function. it's like telling us what to eat. What turns you on sexually comes out of your childhood experience. Everyone can't follow a law about sexual desire. it's like saying you can only raise one kind of tulip, one kind of rose bush and have only a dog and not a cat.

Biological needs can't be legislated by a governent. It is like creating a crime and looking for offenders. Or saying one person's bioloigical needs are better than someone else's.

YM

The point I was trying to make is not whether or not I am for or against anything here. Your idea about whether the government should be allowed to tell us what is legal to do for sexual practices is one I agree with. However, the reality is that we are not in control of saying whether or not a given sexual practice is legal in this country. Whether this is right or wrong in yours or my view does not necessarily come to bear on the matter.

I am actually quite thankful that we live in a country where we do have a large number of freedoms. Think about how it would have been living under the Taliban--the government telling us what to eat would be a definite likelihood.

Again, desires of any sort, sexual or not, are impossible to regulate. Otherwise, a lot of people would regularly be jailed for wanting to kill their boss, spouse, etc. However, we live in a society where practices and behaviors can be and are regulated. That is what I am trying to make people think about.

That's what I thought you were saying, and you have a really great way of expressing yourself, if I may be complimentary. In online postings sometimes it is dificult to determine intentions for some reason.

I don't know of any gay person who has not had sex because it has been against the law. So the idea of legislating against it is nonsense. But obviously something worked to change things because the change is here now. So you can chane stupid laws. The thing about homosexuality is that it is a natural part of human makeup, no matter what people think. It always has been. It was not considered unmanly in early socieities, nor is it considered that in places such as Japan, whre christianity has not held sway. But i don't want ot get into detailing all that. It would be off the subject.

I jus found it interesting that Jefferson, an enlightened man of his time, would actually consider castration as a humane way to control homosexuality, when he saw no reason to control his own sexuality. Adulatery was as heinous then too, but he carried on with his salve woman, had a lifelong love affair with her, and fathered many children through her. He saw nothing wrong with that. Personally I think it was as disgusting as he viewed homosexuality

ym.

You are absolutely right.

What choice would a sex slave have NOT to have sex with the master?

What would they have done to Bill Clinton for keeping a sex slave?

OH! GAWD!....I can hear it now...Impeach him!!! For having sex, and then lying about it...

Talk about your biblical hypocrites...

A-1

I mentioned to someone what Thomas Jefferson had written, and she made the comment that Jefferson may have thought of homosexuals as sexual predators, and he may simply have advocated desexing homosexuals as a way of eliminating their urges, and thereby protecting children. I don't know how much was known about homosexuals in the eighteenth century, or how they were viewed, but there are unquestionably a lot of people today who think of homosexuals as persons who are prone to molest children.

The reason for this seems fairly clear. Because of the general public disapproval of homosexual activity, homosexuals who engage in sex between consenting adults, usually try to keep out of sight, and try to keep their relationships private and unnoticed. And they generally aren't noticed. Only when cases of child molestation are in the news, do most people focus their attention on homosexuals. And, since the well behaved, law abiding homosexuals are out of sight, the predators are the only homosexuals that people are aware of.

You can see an example of this in the scandal about catholic priests molesting young boys. By some estimates, thirty percent or more of priests are homosexual, while considerably less than two percent of all priests have been accused of molestation. Yet you never hear about the vast majority of gay priests who don't prey on children.

I'm not suggesting that Jefferson's ideas in this area can be excused, but he may have misunderstood the nature of homosexuality.

I'm only goinna tell you all one more time (LOL): people who prey on children sexually are pederasts. They have nothing to do with homosexuality. The vast majority of child molestation is done by stragiht men and women on little boys and girls. Straight women prey on young boys just as much as men. But very little of this ever gets reported. It is always covered over -- unless the victim is a boy.

There is a large percentage of priests who are gay -- but that is gay, for adult men. The child molesting priests would not want to go to bed with adults unless they cross over into adult sex.

For all that he did for our country Jefferson was a sexual predator himself, forcing his slave women to have sex with him. They had no choice in refusing him.

The idea of child molestation in those days as spoken by your friend is doing retro history. What we feel today is something that never was even considered back then. Jefferson probably did not even know that adults molested children, and in thoe days children were considered small adults and the idea of doing certain things with them was not considered wrong, as we see it today -- because we know more. Girls married adult men when they were 12 or 13.

It is only in the past 40 years that any of us have become aware that child abuse exists at all, and then realizing how terrible it is for the victims and how it messes up their lives forever came even later.

So trying to go back and apply our awareness to someone in the 19th century shows a real lack of thought. Sorry, but this retro morality doesn't work. You can only look at how they thought then, and not expect that the great men then knew any more than was available to know.

Jefferson saw nothing wrong with screwing his slave women because it was the common practice. They did not see slaves as humans, but as property, and could use them as they wished. Even the slaves then had been taught that this is what they were and even hating it, they were taught to believe that what was done by their masters was right, even if they suffered for it.

Even Lincoln, who understood the humanity of slaves and freed them, still did not see black people as welcome into the white society. He expected the salves to return to aAfrica when he freed them and even told them so. The fact that they had never been to Africa in the first place never occurred to him, yet he was a deeply enlightened and kind man. Conditioning is always seen as the "right" way.

Jefferson saw himself as always being in the center of acceptability because he was rich, a cultural leader, and part of the southern heritage, which he saw as the standard for cultural rightness. He had no reason to question himself. The paradox is that he saw all (rich) men as being free and equal in relation to the King of England. But he did not see black people as being real people, nor women as having a voice in their own choices, or in the common man as being equal to himself. He figured if he wanted to screw the maids, there was nothing morally incorrect about it. But if a non-slave owner wanted to do the same thing he would have been shocked and outraged. It was the standard that he believed in. He was a snob and self-serving and believed that he was enlightened in all ways. And in his milieu he was always right.

The idea of treating people that way is revolting to us today, but 50 years ago whites still were treating black people that way and it was considered to be the correct and only way. Today the attitudes against homosexuals is the big "right" thing, and even black people subscribe to the prejudice. But that is changing too.

Did I go way off on a tangent here? Sorry if so.

The point I was making is about retro history.

ym