Originally Posted by
DogOfDanger
You're focusing on consequences, which on the surface - in your case - seem to be very minimal... that won't always be the case, and you can't always predict the outcomes. You also describe just the most minimal encounter, only with 1 woman who you knew well... But forgetting about consequences, which can be controlled... and forgetting about extent, what about the moral evaluation of the attitude itself? This casual, non-committal, ambivalent attitude. It's not easy to separate this attitude about sex from other things such as your approach to relationships, the way you approach love... your deepest emotions. What's missing from the attitude, to me... is true passion, true love and intoxication and the complete absorption with the other. The kind of emotion that seeks total commitment. To me this inner spark seems like the most important thing there is to live for, and without that... life has just become this mundane, modern materialist malaise. It is this spark that drives people to get out of bed in the morning, to go to the gym and grind every day, to go to work and tolerate all the stress and problems there... it's not just materialism we should live for. But to claim that this core part of ones being can be casually dispensed with without real consequence... I think it's nonsense, and it is antithetical to my whole way of thinking and being. And sexuality can't be trivialized, we're discussing the process responsible for bringing fourth all life, survival & reproduction... one could make a case there's nothing more important to an organism. Also, when we speak of evolution we're inevitably speaking about instincts, and a conversation about consequences doesn't really speak to the core instincts.
In studies that compare the personalities of religious traditionalists against the general population surprisingly one of the most outlying personality traits of the traditionalists is a high level of romantic idealism. To some degree that may be self-selecting, but the traditional values are also geared at preserving this idealism, which is related to innocence vs. experience. Because the reality is you lose that idealism over time, as happens with repeated casual encounters. Once you've lost the spark within you what do you have left to live for? Money?
If you look at society... with the broad use of porn, plummeting birth rates, no fault divorce, hookup culture, yet simultaneously people are dating much less than they used to - all of these things are direct consequences of the sexual revolution, this ambivalent attitude toward sex. And there are broader consequences to this - breakdown of the family, children being raised without 2 parents. This has worked to extinguish the spark within society... what has followed is nihilism, widespread mental illness, addiction... and just a very mundane, materialist existence - the gears of society turning onward.
So there clearly are broad social consequences... when you factor in human nature and psychology I think it becomes clear that there are often consequences for individuals. But beyond any of that I think the attitude just isn't good, in the sense it conflicts with psychology and human nature.
I think pretty much everyone is effected by this ambivalence nowdays, with a few rare exceptions - my argument is not based on false pretenses, I'm really speaking to the principle of the matter. And if collectively and as individuals we're going to be a bit off, a little bit insane so to speak, at least let us all remain conscious of the fact, at least we can try to cling to sanity.