[MD] Sex, Rape and Law in a MOQ

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[John]
Sex is social.  The sexual urge is biological, I'll grant you.  Nocturnal
emission or masturbation is biological, I'll grant you.  But sex takes two and
occurs through a complex of social negotiation.

[Arlo]
It takes two earthworms too (although I hear they are less picky about who gets
to be the girl and who gets to be the guy).

I agree that modern human social patterns present a socially-mediated complex
ritual of negotiation in order to "control" who gets to who, but I think this
is conflating two levels unnecessarily.

On the biological level, then, we have "sex", on the social level alongside the
"rape stigma" I mentioned we have a lot of other social patterns attempting to
guide and control and structure the path to this biological act.

[John]
Even rape is a sociopathic behavior rather than a merely biological urge.  In
fact, it's pretty widely known that rape is due more to rage issues than mere
horniness.

[Arlo]
Of course, and this is the evidence of the intellectual level coming in and
dominating the social level. It is the intellectual level (rape laws) that
defines the act of "rape" as a crime of violence and controls social patterns
that would place shame and humiliation on the victim. 

As I said, if we look at cultures dominated by social values (modern one, or
even historically our own), we can easily see how social patterns dealt with
"rape"; shame and humiliation (since the act is seen as sexual the victim is
tainted as well), based on the ownership and property of the woman by the
husband (again, there was no such thing as a husband "raping" their wife).

When we look, historically, at the emergence of the intellectual level (or, to
appease Platt, when Qualigod poofed the intellectual level into existence) we
see this change. "Rape laws" not only punished the aggressor, but also
protected the victim from social forces that would punish her/him. The
intellectual level defines it an act of violence, not sex, for which the victim
should rightly bear no shame. 

[John]
I disagree completely, as I believe all emotions have social roots - the caring
about self in the relation to others.  Biologically, our bodies would probably
be quite happy kept in a pod and fed all necessary nutrients.

[Arlo]
I think this is interesting and may start a new thread about it. I'll give this
more thought, but I think this is more right than wrong.

If we consider "sadness", and make it a biological pattern, then wouldn't it be
something like "the flu"? Your body just "gets sad" when a particular imbalance
or virus or something infects your biological system.

"Fear", of course, we do see initially on the biological level. Sneak up behind
a deer and yell "BANG!" and you'll see a non-social biological response. These
responses can be mediated by social patterns, so you could train that deer not
to be afraid, but I don't think anyone had to first train the deer socially TO
be afraid. 

"Love", on the other hand, is hard to think of as not mostly social. I suppose
you could argue its rooted in a physiologically-based need to mate or not be
alone, but then I would expect to see "love" on the biological level. And other
than looking at anthropomorphic actions of non-humans I am not sure how we'd
even look for it. (Professing disagreement with Pirsig, I'd say the evidence
that your dog "loves" you is the result of social activity between you and the
dog, not a physiological function of the dog's biochemistry.)