izza
Master Don Juan
Why I believe cheating with a girl who has a bf can be ethical
I actually heard this while visiting a single philosophy class Wisconsin University, about eight years ago. I never thought I would be discussing that course's content now.
Anyway, here is the analogy the professor was also discussing in class that I want to focus on:
"Suppose a man is brought to a prison cell, and thrown inside with his companion, and the captors say, "you cannot leave the door is locked." But the captors lie and they never actually do lock the door. So the man sits in the prison cell, believing he is not at liberty to leave when in fact he is. Let's say he never tests the door to verify that he is in fact locked in the room for whatever reason, perhaps due to the good company of his companion."
Is he really free to leave? In a sense, yes he was at liberty to leave, but he was not free in some sense to choose to leave. In other words, assuming the man would have left if he'd known he could have, he did not choose to stay there. The point is, he did not choose this. He would have chosen to leave had he known this were an option.
(Let's leave aside the question "well why didn't he try the door." There are many ways to set up the thought experiment to get around that question, for instance, by locking the door but hiding the key inside, or whatever. I use the door being unlocked keep the analogy simple and focused.)
Getting back to women, I think this second analogy with the secretly unlocked room illustrates the choice women face in their social contracts. Many people in society often "inform" them that they need to get into a relationship, not be sleeping around, if they have a lot of sex they will be seen as dirty and not marriage material etc. But the real consequence is that if a girl has sex with a guy for her own reasons, she believes she should feel bad about her self.
I suppose you could say the consequence is real in some sense. And that's true. I would just point out that once enough people adopt more progressive values, the consequence of feeling bad about herself vanishes. And in reality, if YOU adopt more progressive values, she will just sleep with you, without telling anyone, because she is free to do at least that without consequence. Does that make sense?
In the words of the analogy, I find that if you ask women "is the door locked?" they say yes. But if you open the door, they walk out.
That is why I question the validity of these social contracts, these social contracts the women entered into "voluntarily". Because the moment you say, "I won't judge you, I will admire you for doing what you want" they don't want follow the social contract anymore. And that tells you something about whether or not that particular woman entered this social contract under compulsion or not.
Another analogy that is perhaps simpler is the old favorite: "are you choosing freely to do the laundry if you have a gun to your head and someone says they'll shoot you if you don't do the laundry."
That person is not freely choosing to do the laundry, especially if they would have preferred to do the ironing.
Again, once you say to a woman, "I will not judge you for doing what you want," many will sleep with you. That really tells you something in my opinion, about how women live in fear of this slut label - partially from men, but ESPECIALLY from women. Keep in mind that some women HATE other women who "just give away" sex - because it lowers the return value on women who are investing their time not doing what they really, actually want. "Sluts" are slightly afraid of men, but terrified of women.
I agree with you that women should be more upfront with their boyfriends and people in their life. But I think it's also fair to say that society would need to become much more progressive before women would be able to talk about this more openly without unfair consequences to her.
In other words, I think we need to stop pointing the slut label at a woman's head. Again, keeping in mind that this social contract was "signed" under compulsion - the woman believing exclusivity the best compromise way to have sex acceptably - I'm not sure that it's wrong in all cases to break this contract.
I really encourage you to check out the videos in my signature. That is where I got this "sex cartel" stuff from - and it covers these social contracts as property agreements, which is pretty shocking too.
Best,
Izza
I actually heard this while visiting a single philosophy class Wisconsin University, about eight years ago. I never thought I would be discussing that course's content now.
Anyway, here is the analogy the professor was also discussing in class that I want to focus on:
"Suppose a man is brought to a prison cell, and thrown inside with his companion, and the captors say, "you cannot leave the door is locked." But the captors lie and they never actually do lock the door. So the man sits in the prison cell, believing he is not at liberty to leave when in fact he is. Let's say he never tests the door to verify that he is in fact locked in the room for whatever reason, perhaps due to the good company of his companion."
Is he really free to leave? In a sense, yes he was at liberty to leave, but he was not free in some sense to choose to leave. In other words, assuming the man would have left if he'd known he could have, he did not choose to stay there. The point is, he did not choose this. He would have chosen to leave had he known this were an option.
(Let's leave aside the question "well why didn't he try the door." There are many ways to set up the thought experiment to get around that question, for instance, by locking the door but hiding the key inside, or whatever. I use the door being unlocked keep the analogy simple and focused.)
Getting back to women, I think this second analogy with the secretly unlocked room illustrates the choice women face in their social contracts. Many people in society often "inform" them that they need to get into a relationship, not be sleeping around, if they have a lot of sex they will be seen as dirty and not marriage material etc. But the real consequence is that if a girl has sex with a guy for her own reasons, she believes she should feel bad about her self.
I suppose you could say the consequence is real in some sense. And that's true. I would just point out that once enough people adopt more progressive values, the consequence of feeling bad about herself vanishes. And in reality, if YOU adopt more progressive values, she will just sleep with you, without telling anyone, because she is free to do at least that without consequence. Does that make sense?
In the words of the analogy, I find that if you ask women "is the door locked?" they say yes. But if you open the door, they walk out.
That is why I question the validity of these social contracts, these social contracts the women entered into "voluntarily". Because the moment you say, "I won't judge you, I will admire you for doing what you want" they don't want follow the social contract anymore. And that tells you something about whether or not that particular woman entered this social contract under compulsion or not.
Another analogy that is perhaps simpler is the old favorite: "are you choosing freely to do the laundry if you have a gun to your head and someone says they'll shoot you if you don't do the laundry."
That person is not freely choosing to do the laundry, especially if they would have preferred to do the ironing.
Again, once you say to a woman, "I will not judge you for doing what you want," many will sleep with you. That really tells you something in my opinion, about how women live in fear of this slut label - partially from men, but ESPECIALLY from women. Keep in mind that some women HATE other women who "just give away" sex - because it lowers the return value on women who are investing their time not doing what they really, actually want. "Sluts" are slightly afraid of men, but terrified of women.
I agree with you that women should be more upfront with their boyfriends and people in their life. But I think it's also fair to say that society would need to become much more progressive before women would be able to talk about this more openly without unfair consequences to her.
In other words, I think we need to stop pointing the slut label at a woman's head. Again, keeping in mind that this social contract was "signed" under compulsion - the woman believing exclusivity the best compromise way to have sex acceptably - I'm not sure that it's wrong in all cases to break this contract.
I really encourage you to check out the videos in my signature. That is where I got this "sex cartel" stuff from - and it covers these social contracts as property agreements, which is pretty shocking too.
Best,
Izza
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