"Savage Love" columnist likes Dawkins

Chimera

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Chimera
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Dan Savage gives The God Delusion a pat on the back in his latest sex-advice column, regarding differences in libido between men and women:

And finally, a word about a book I have read: In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins tears the intelligent design idjits into a million little pieces. I feel bad about piling on—almost. Hey, intelligent design idjits? If God really wants us to have heterosexual sex only, and then only within the bounds of holy matrimony, and if adultery offends Him so much—it's a stoning offense, right up there with gay sex—how come He designed men and women to be sexually incompatible?
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Darth Rotor said:
Where do you get men and women being sexually incompatible?
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The idea was that because women don't want sex all that often (5 to 20 times a year for the case in point), while men want it practically daily, they're incompatible.

Though honestly, this makes no sense when you actually think about how sex functions; the man impregnates women as much as he can, but a woman can only take so many pregnancies. This could be "designed" from God just as well as evolution. Overall, I find it a weak point.

Makes you question "holy matrimony" though.
 
Where are these women that only want sex 5 to 20 times a year? Luckily I've been avoiding them so far...
 
strathmeyer said:
Where are these women that only want sex 5 to 20 times a year? Luckily I've been avoiding them so far...
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Yeah, that's another thing: A few anecdotal examples are just that. I'm not quite sure if women that rarely want sex in general are as common as claimed by the article. And for all I know, the woman mentioned in this particular case might be cheating.
 
Lonewulf said:
Yeah, that's another thing: A few anecdotal examples are just that. I'm not quite sure if women that rarely want sex in general are as common as claimed by the article.
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And I imagine in most cases the issue is more cultural and psychological than biological.
 
Dawkins is, of course, hardly at fault that a disgusting pervert(*) like Savage likes him. But unfortunately such endorsement does more harm than good, strenghtening the wrong idea in the public's mind that atheism is the same as immoral hedonism.

(*) To clarify: I don't mean he's a disgusting pervert because he's homosexual. I mean he is a man obsessed with sex and with no sense of shame or decency, who happens to be a homosexual. He would be just as much of a pervert if he were straight.
 
I must admit I read Savage's column weekly. Though inclined to be rather acerbic, he's also very funny. Mostly, his advice is rather appropriate as well.
 
Skeptic said:
I don't mean he's a disgusting pervert because he's homosexual. I mean he is a man obsessed with sex and with no sense of shame or decency, who happens to be a homosexual. He would be just as much of a pervert if he were straight.
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Why do you think being obsessed with sex makes someone a disgusting pervert?

I'm not a huge Savage fan myself but he only gives advice regarding consenting adults, so why should it be shameful or indecent?
 
Alt+F4 said:
Why do you think being obsessed with sex makes someone a disgusting pervert?
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For the same reason that being obsessed with food makes someone a glutton, and being obsessed with money makes one avaricious.

he only gives advice regarding consenting adults, so why should it be shameful or indecent?
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Numerous things are shameful and indecent despite the fact that they are legal and done among consenting adults.
 
I don't think it's fair to assume Savage is "obsessed with sex". Of course he writes about it all the time--it's his job.

Would you accuse a food critic of being a glutton because they're always writing about food?
 
Why do you think being obsessed with sex makes someone a disgusting pervert?
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Skeptic said:
For the same reason that being obsessed with food makes someone a glutton, and being obsessed with money makes one avaricious.
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Boy, am I glad you saved me from myself.

From age 11 to about five minutes ago, I was a pervert and didn't even know it. I am so glad I participate on JREF P&CE. I am embarking on the path away from being a pervert thanks to your spreading of enlightenment.

Praise Skeptic! Hallelujah!

DR
 
Darth Rotor said:
Where do you get men and women being sexually incompatible?

DR
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Savage says it in the column I posted. I don't claim to agree with him.

Speaking only from my own biased anecdotal examples, I have often found the opposite problem (women having higher libidos than their male partners).
 
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Chimera said:
Speaking only from my own biased anecdotal examples, I have often found the opposite problem (women having higher libidos than their male partners).
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I would say that people of all sexes and inclinations have varying degrees of libido. And that it's sad when people with drastically different libidos wind up together. Or if someone who used to match their mate's libido suddenly changes.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Or if someone who used to match their mate's libido suddenly changes.
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Or if someone promises her partner when they first become sexually active, "I'm willing to try anything to please you. I just want to make you happy." And then after they get married or move in together or he promises to help raise her child her libido suddenly changes.
 
Skeptic said:
Dawkins is, of course, hardly at fault that a disgusting pervert(*) like Savage likes him. But unfortunately such endorsement does more harm than good, strenghtening [sic] the wrong idea in the public's mind that atheism is the same as immoral hedonism.
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Neither Dawkins or Savage are responsible for the fact that Americans hold irrational, neurotic, priggish views regarding what people do when they are naked. Views that a good portion of the civilized world has long since shed.

If anything, it's not Dawkins or Savage who are the problem. The problem is people who not only equate atheism with "immoral hedonism," but equate sex with "immoral hedsonism."

Skeptic said:
(*) To clarify: I don't mean he's a disgusting pervert because he's homosexual. I mean he is a man obsessed with sex and with no sense of shame or decency, who happens to be a homosexual. He would be just as much of a pervert if he were straight.
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I bet you've got "black friends" too, right?

Of course, when Skeptic use terms like "disgusting pervert" or "obsessed with sex" he referring to consensual sex acts not endorsed by the Republican Party Platform or just having the nerve to tell the prudish bigots that populate this country that sex is good, fun, and should not be watered down with mysticism and restrictions ala our backward organized religions.

Besides, if we humans ever embrace the anti-sex insanity of the prigs, prudes, and other morality mongers and stopped being "obsessed with sex," homo sapians would go extinct.

....And deserve to be.
 
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