[al_borland]

What do you mean by “great”? It was successful in reproduction. That’s what we’re talking about here. People were having families and raising children that went out to have families and raise children.

Gay couples can’t have children (outside of adoption or surrogacy), so I’m not sure how that is relevant to the topic at hand. Gay couples will not be helping with the next baby boom.

We made a change in the culture, from the standpoint of the species continuing to survive into the future. The change put us on what looks like a worse path. Would it not be wise to question those changes to see where it went wrong and course correct, just like we’d do if this was any other problem in any other domain?

[vjulian]

That you’re focusing on “reproduction” and factoring out the pleasure of sex is a vestige of religion and speaks to the very heart of the problem.

[al_borland]

This has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with not having the population collapse, because we've become so focused on pleasure that we forgot why there is a biological advantage to it being pleasureful... to do it more and reproduce more. But modern technology has eliminated that pesky side effect of children.

The pleasure can and does still exist. It's not like it gets removed when sex is ends in a pregnancy. It doesn't have to be some mechanical act, the way you seem to be framing it.

[vjulian]

I get the sense that by pleasure you’re referring simply to orgasm during sex itself? Again, that is part of the problem. As for religion, I believe your view is in fact rooted in religion which strategically and historically segmented the sexual experience; not that you’re explicitly espousing a religious view but that it is implicit in what you’re suggesting.

[al_borland]

You’ve used the word “great” and “pleasure”, however you’re not specific about what you’re talking about. I’m having to guess at what you mean, and you keep telling me I’m guessing wrong, without clarifying your point. This isn’t productive.

[vjulian]

I suspect our experiences are vastly different, thus a difficulty in communication.