Which sexual practices are creepy or unacceptable and which ones are fine? There are multiple ways how to try to answer this question, and some criteria for “creepiness” make more sense than others.
“Do I like this sexual practice and would I want to engage in it?” is the wrong question. “Does this sexual practice cause harm for any other people or animals?” is a much better question to ask. As long as people don’t cause harm for anybody else, they ought to be free to do with their genitals whatever they want, and how I personally feel about their actions is irrelevant.
There are plenty of things I personally dislike, some of them actually pretty mainstream. For example, I dislike facials (ejaculating on another person’s face). I also hate rudeness. If in a porn movie one actor displays contempt towards their partner or uses any rude words (like calling their partner “bitch” or “slut”), then I perceive that as off-putting. If you like this person, why are you rude towards them? If you dislike this person, why are you having sex with them in the first place? Alternatively, I dislike using words like “daddy,” “babe” or “baby” in any sexual context even in English (in my native language equivalent words have different connotations and would involve pedophilia and incest, thus they bug me even in English). That’s just how my brain works. And it’s OK if other people have different preferences.
A few days ago, in the comment section of Pharyngula, there was a discussion about whether it is acceptable to masturbate during a voice/phone call with somebody who doesn’t know what you are doing.
One of the comment exchanges were:
I suppose you all would argue that if someone masturbated while talking on the phone to someone that would be unacceptable.
Umm, yes? WTF? Are you serious? This is so textbook creepy behavior, it’s practically a cliché. If you had three seconds of screen time to establish that a character was creepy, that’s what you’d show.
After reading that comment, I could only stare at my computer screen and wonder how such attitudes are supposed to make any sense at all. A person, usually a woman, walks on the street and minds her own business when some random dude approaches and touches her butt. That’s creepy. A person arrives at work and the first thing she hears is some coworker making rude and sexually charged comments about her appearance. That’s creepy. We live in a sexist society in which sexual harassment and creepy behaviors are daily occurrences for many people (mostly women). But no, instead of prioritizing cases where there’s actual harm to the victim, it turns out that “textbook creepy behavior” ought to be something as harmless as masturbating during a phone conversation.
Why is some behavior supposed to be “creepy” when in itself it is harmless? Personally, I see nothing problematic with masturbating during a phone conversation as long as (1) you make no inappropriate sounds that could alert the other person about what you are doing; (2) you can maintain an appropriate amount of attention to the ongoing conversation; (3) there is no video.
Of course, masturbation during voice calls can easily escalate towards something that I would label as creepy and no longer acceptable. For example, if the person accidentally (or intentionally) turns on the video, or if they start making inappropriate noises that the one listening to them really didn’t want to hear. And frankly, if the person who masturbates gets too distracted and stops paying attention to the conversation, then that’s a bit rude. But I don’t think that masturbating during a phone call is inherently wrong, and I can come up with theoretical conditions under which I wouldn’t mind it.
My attitude towards sex is that as long as you don’t cause harm for other people, you should be free to do whatever you want. For me whether something is acceptable does not depend on some subjective sense of “gross” or “disgusting” or “creepy,” but on the existence of harm. When I talk with another person on the phone, as long as I don’t know that they are jerking off, I really couldn’t care less. I would get uncomfortable and judge them as creeps only if the other person went a step further and started doing some extra actions that actually cause discomfort/harm for me such as making inappropriate noises. And I really wouldn’t want to get the video. But as long as I don’t know what somebody else is doing while talking with me on the phone, their actions are none of my business.
For me something qualifies as “abuse” only when there’s a victim who got harmed. If a person gets caught masturbating, then the person who caught them experiences emotional discomfort, gets harmed, and can be considered a victim. Then we have a case of abuse happening. But if the person who masturbated never gets caught, then nobody knows about their behavior, nobody gets inconvenienced or harmed in any way whatsoever, so there is no harm, no abuse.
At least I don’t care what other people do with their genitals as long as I don’t even know about their behaviors and don’t get inconvenienced or harmed in any way. Also, I wouldn’t care if somebody masturbated while fantasizing about me as long as afterwards they don’t act inappropriately while interacting with me in real life (they don’t tell me about how they fantasized about me, they don’t sexually harass me, they aren’t a jerk towards me).
Obsessing about other people’s sex lives in situations where they cause no harm for anybody else is what I call creepy. And we live in a society, which seriously polices other people’s sex lives (rules like “no masturbation,” “no sex before marriage,” “no gay/lesbian sex,” “no anal sex,” “no kinky stuff,” “no BDSM,” “no fetishes,” “no sex toys”). I abhor such policing, hence I try to never judge other people’s sex lives and abstain from criticizing them as long as they don’t harm others. Even if some practice is something I would never want to do, even if it feels disgusting for me personally, I still have no right to criticize other people who like some stuff as long as they cause no harm for anybody.
We as a society have a long history of policing other people’s sex lives. This history still haunts us. Conservative and religious people are especially zealous and obsessive about what other people do with their genitals. In some places sex toys are still illegal. Many countries still punish consenting adults who agreed to exchange sex services for money. Countless organizations are devoted to condemning porn or anal sex or gay sex or masturbation or whatever it is they dislike. But conservative or religious people aren’t the only ones who ought to learn that policing somebody else’s sex life is a bad idea.
Kink-shaming (mocking, criticizing, or disparaging a person for having a kink, fantasy, or fetish) still remains common and not reserved to the devoutly religious. It’s also irrational—if a person who is sexually attracted to women likes big boobs, they are considered normal (because we have a society that sexualizes big boobs); meanwhile, if a person who is sexually attracted to women likes their feet, then they are a sick and deviant pervert (merely because their preferences are statistically less frequent). How comes? How is that even supposed to make sense?
Why do people even criticize those with statistically less frequent preferences? As long as they don’t cause harm for anybody, there really is no problem. And if two or more consenting adults can agree upon something they all enjoy, it shouldn’t matter if their actions seem unusual for some non-involved third party.
And it’s not just general populace that engage in kink-shaming. Let’s look at Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a publication by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and their stance on paraphilias. (Paraphilia, previously known as sexual perversion and sexual deviation, is defined as the experience of intense sexual arousal to atypical objects, situations, fantasies, behaviors, or individuals.)
The DSM-5 acknowledges that many dozens of paraphilias exist, but only has specific listings for eight that are forensically important and relatively common. These are voyeuristic disorder, exhibitionistic disorder, frotteuristic disorder, sexual masochism disorder, sexual sadism disorder, pedophilic disorder, fetishistic disorder, and transvestic disorder.
From this list only pedophilia and frotteurism (interest in rubbing, usually one’s pelvic area or erect penis, against a non-consenting person for sexual pleasure) are inherently problematic, because engaging in these behaviors results in abusing another person.
The rest are harmless and shouldn’t be considered disorders in the first place. Exhibitionists and voyeurs can find each other online and consensually observe/show off to their hearts content. Sadists and masochists can engage in consensual BDSM play. As for “fetishistic disorder” and “transvestic disorder,” labeling those as “disorders” simply makes zero sense.
I guess “transvestic disorder” is my favorite from this list, because it blatantly exposes the inherent bigotry of those doctors who came up with this list. In a non-sexist society every person would be free to wear whatever clothes they like, and nobody would bat an eyelid whenever a person who was assigned a certain sex at birth decided to wear different clothes for any reason. And if wearing certain clothes makes a person feel sexy and contributes to feeling sexual arousal, that’s perfectly fine. When cis women wear sexy women’s lingerie in order to feel sexy themselves and arouse their straight male partners, that’s somehow fine. Why was it supposed to be bad for an AMAB person to do the exact same thing?
And fetishes, those are just fun, so what’s the fuss all about. Personally, I have a fetish for long-haired men. This doesn’t mean that I will get rude and disrespectful towards some men based on their hair length. Nor will I ever jump on some non-consenting guy whose long and beautiful hair I really like. It merely means that I enjoy stroking my partner’s hair and twisting it between my fingers (and most people don’t dislike having their hair touched).
Of course, somebody who has statistically rare sexual interests can potentially be abusive and harm others, but so can the straight dude who likes big boobs.
Remember when homosexuality was labeled as a mental illness in DSM? Things have improved a bit, but there’s still a long way to go. DSM needs some serious overhaul. Granted, I should mention that, for example, the diagnostic criteria for transvestic disorder do require that:
The fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
Still, a guy who likes women’s clothes can experience distress and impaired functioning not because there’s something wrong with him, but because we live in a bigoted society that stigmatizes, condemns, and labels as mental disorders various perfectly harmless and fun kinks. And DSM contributes to creating such a bigoted culture by, gasp, literally stating that there’s something wrong with perceiving cross-dressing as erotic. DSM should stop labeling as “disorders” everything that is statistically uncommon and doesn’t fit some religious zealot’s idea of “normalcy.”
Besides, literally anything can cause “clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning” in a bigoted society that stigmatizes said trait. For example, in a racist society having been born with a brown skin could cause “significant distress or impairment.” This wouldn’t mean that there’s something wrong with the person who has darker skin, it would mean that there’s something wrong with the bigoted society they live in.
People really should learn to be less judgmental and stop policing each other’s sex lives. Or other’s lives in general. If some person enjoys some statistically unusual behavior that doesn’t cause harm for others, then there’s nothing wrong with it. Don’t pathologize or stigmatize these behaviors, don’t label them as “abnormal.”
———
Note:
Transvestic disorder is dressing in the clothes of the other gender to become sexually aroused. (Personally, I do not think that it should be considered a disorder, it’s just a fun kink that some people find enjoyable.)
Transgender people have a gender identity or gender expression that differs from the sex that they were assigned at birth. Most trans people wear clothes of the gender they weren’t assigned at birth, but doing so doesn’t cause any sexual arousal for them.
Cross-dressing is the act of wearing items of clothing not commonly associated with one’s sex. The term cross-dressing refers to an action or a behavior, without attributing or implying any specific causes or motives for that behavior. There can be various reasons for cross-dressing, for example, a cis person could cross-dress for a Halloween party for the sake of fun even though they are cis and do not have an erotic interest in cross-dressing. Or a woman can cross-dress, because male clothes actually have pockets and are designed to be comfortable and practical. Reasons can vary.
this was a TERRIBLE post.
absolutely terrible.
it’s like you completely ignored the messages people were giving you in that thread, so of course if anybody bothers, they will inevitably just repeat themselves here.
smh.
Let me just point out that at no point did I say or imply that this should be prioritized over other things. In fact, I think these points are related.
As I argued in the thread, the fact that the other person doesn’t know it happened is not an iron-clad defense, but to me this really boils down to the attitude towards the other person. Do you respect them enough to at least wait until you’ve hung up? And if you don’t respect them, what else are you willing to do? That’s what’s creepy.
I think you’re missing two points about morality:
1. We make moral judgments not based on consequences, but possible consequences. Dropping a brick from a tall building is wrong because it might hurt somebody. It doesn’t matter whether it actually hurts somebody, it was still reckless endangerment. Engaging in sex acts involving someone without their knowledge always runs the risk that they will discover it, and will feel violated by it.
I think some of the disagreement stems from different assessments of the risk of getting caught; and secondarily, whether masturbating on a phone call actually “involves” the people on the call, or if it’s just a concurrent activity.
2. Generally moral rules are based on actions, independent of our knowledge of those actions. To give an example that I think you are sympathetic to: we have a moral rule against stealing artwork, independent of whether the artist is aware of the theft. I think this moral rule is justified because it makes theft less likely. It gives artists comfort to know that it is less likely–and that’s regardless of whether they are aware of any specific instances of theft. Likewise, some people feel uncomfortable with the possibility that someone they’re talking to on the phone is masturbating, and having a moral rule makes that less likely.
My suggested important addition to this :
My attitude towards sex is that as long as you don’t cause harm or risk causing harm for other people, you should be free to do whatever you want.
Words in bold there are important. I think.
How can you know in advance that you won’t?
Obvuously youcan try not todo so but what if you fail?
Humans suck at multitasking. We also have a strong tendancy to over-estimate our multi-tasking abilities. If you are busy masturbating it is almost certainly taking more of your attentuion and focus than the conversation is.
(I think it also shows a level of disrespect for them.)
Can you ever be sure enough there isn’t and what if the fact that you were masturbating was discovered?
Unless there is advanced consent, I think this is a very, seriously bad idea.
Private thoughts and private masturbation is one thing. Mutual consensual masturbation when others know about and may also join on or or at least be aware of your masturbating to (and with) them is another thing. Both those things are okay and may float some people’s boats as the common(?) metaphor goes. Maybe even mine. Or not.
But masturbation when one “partner” is oblivious of the fact that they are the subject of the masturbation, when they could potentially find it offensive and hurtfuland disturbing, no. That’s really not okay. because it is risking harm to others.
Just as drink driving isn’t okay if you get home safely so no one is hurt or dancing with a blindfolded unknowing partner in a minefield is okay if you’ve memorised the positions of those landmines and so think you can get out alive with them isn’t okay.
^ D’oh! Stuffed up my blockquotes, sorry. 🙁
My attitude towards sex is that as long as you don’t cause harm or risk causing harm for other unconsenting people, you should be free to do whatever you want.
Extra word unconsenting added and emphasised to.
Didn’t intend my last sentence to be in bold at all either, mea culpa. Would appreciate if you fix it but understand if you don’t. Apologies.
Also what #3 Siggy said above.
Advance consent is what I meant there too NOT “advanced” dangnabbit! One more typo fix becauser I’m tired.. & also suck at typing even when not. For clarity.
Going to bed now.
Uh… WTF? How is it NOT creepy to jerk it during a phone conversation (or, these days, on chat or zoom or whatever)? It’s gross, and it doesn’t matter if the other person can’t see it, you’re still using them.
Sorry Andreas, but I have to agree with the majority that this is poorly thought through.
By this line of thinking, taking upskirt photos undetected is harmless, therefore okay. So if you secretly take pictures under a woman’s skirt and go home and masturbate (or any other form of undetected voyeurism) that’s not creepy?!
I think you should consider there’s such a thing as violating consent even when the person is unaware. Upskirt photos are wrong because if the person knew what you were doing they would not consent. Likewise, if you’re wanking to a person’s voice on the phone, and you have reason to believe they would immediately hang up if they knew what you were doing, I would count that as a violation of consent to being a participant in a sex act. I’m assuming you’re wanking because you’re talking to the person, not that you happened to answer the phone while wanking. But surely the former is the most likely scenario, no? (By “you” I mean any person, not you personally.}
Ichthyic @#1
In your comment, you seem to have forgotten to give any arguments that defend your position. This brings up an interesting question—why should I take your opinion into consideration or even bother paying attention to your words?
LykeX @#2
People’s opinions on what constitutes respect differ.
For example, I think it would be disrespectful to eat or vacuum floors while talking on the phone (most people don’t want to listen to you chewing and struggling to articulate words with your mouth full of food nor do they enjoy loud background noises that makes it hard to discern your words). But I don’t think it’s disrespectful to do various things that make no sound.
It’s inherently impossible for everybody in some society to agree about what is or isn’t disrespectful. Thus all that’s left is tolerating those who disagree with us. For example, a while ago a person in the comment section called me a “narcissist”; I perceived that as disrespectful but had to tolerate them anyway. Meanwhile, I know that religious people tend to perceive as disrespectful jokes or criticism of their beliefs. Yet here I am intentionally doing things that they perceive as disrespectful.
On countless occasions this line of reasoning has been used to justify abusing people for no good reason. For example, “If this guy is willing to anally fuck another man, what else is he willing to do; he probably also wants to fuck children; he must be restrained or else he will harm the society.”
It’s wrong to be hostile towards some person based on your imagination of what else they might be willing to do as long as there is no proof that they are indeed doing this harmful thing you ascribed to them in your imagination.
Siggy @#3
I can agree that possible consequences ought to be taken into consideration.
Most of the time dropping a brick from a tall building would be wrong. But now imagine a building that’s located in the middle of nowhere and a person with bricks who has made absolutely sure that no people are nearby. Then dropping the brick wouldn’t be wrong any longer.
Not “always” but “often.” I can imagine theoretical scenarios where the possibility of getting discovered is zero.
Yes to both. I think it would be wrong to engage in any sexual activity in cases where there is any, even if very small, risk of getting caught. But when the risk is truly nonexistent, then whatever, as far as I’m concerned, others are welcome to do whatever they want.
Imagine a scenario where a person is already masturbating and then somebody calls them. They answer the call and end the conversation as quickly as possible, because they were obliged to answer this call but didn’t want to speak at length right now. While doing so, they don’t stop masturbating. In this case it would be easy to argue that the person on the phone wasn’t “involved,” because the one jerking off perceived their voice as distracting rather than erotic.
On the other hand, we can imagine a scenario where somebody starts masturbating and then calls some person they know. They intentionally prolong the phone conversation and whenever the other person wants to end the call, they keep on pestering them so that the other person feels it would be rude to just hang up. At this point I would start to perceive masturbation during a phone call as problematic.
I’m more leaning towards basing moral rules on consequences. A theoretically identical action can be either harmless or harmful based on circumstances (example: throwing a brick from a tall building in a city versus doing so in a deserted area when you are absolutely certain that nobody is nearby).
Actually that was a bad example. If art theft didn’t financially harm me, I couldn’t care less about it. A specific instance of art theft doesn’t start to financially harm me only after I discover it. Nor does it not harm me financially as long as I fail to discover it.
StevoR @#4
I can agree with this.
Not all people are loud during sex.
I dislike the stereotype created by the porn industry that people are supposed to be loud during sex. Moaning and making noise during sex is something that never felt natural for me. Yet some partners sort of expect me to do that thanks to all that porn they have watched. But if I were to intentionally start moaning for the sake of putting up a show for a partner, then I would be faking it and being dishonest. (Expectations about what people are supposed to do during sex can be a pain.)
And it’s not just me, I know also other people who just don’t make any vocal sounds during masturbation or sex.
People are unique individuals with different abilities, which make any broad generalizations problematic.
Personally, I have never masturbated during a phone conversation, but I have done plenty of other things: picking up dog poop from the pavement, hanging my laundry to dry, deleting spam e-mails from my inbox… Do you also criticize people for doing these kinds of things during a phone conversation just because “humans suck at multitasking”?
Some people don’t own smartphones with cameras. They are sort of expensive, you know.
By the way, on countless occasions I have talked on the phone while being naked in my bedroom (I get up late; some people call me early in the mornings thus waking me up while I still sleep). According to you, is it OK for me to answer phone calls while being naked? Would it be OK if I owned a smartphone? Would it be OK if I owned an antique phone without a camera? (I’m curious about how paranoid about a potential discovery you are.)
Drunk driving and wandering through a minefield is always dangerous. Meanwhile, I can easily come up with theoretical conditions under which there is absolutely zero chance of getting caught while masturbating during a phone call.
Silentbob @#8
Masturbation in your example is irrelevant, because merely taking such a photo would be illegal in most jurisdictions. What images photographers are allowed to take and how they are allowed to use these images afterwards is strictly regulated by various laws. Here’s more on that — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography_and_the_law
Laws depend by jurisdiction, but in practice professional photographers who take images of people walk around with model release forms and ask their models to sign those.
@Andreas Avester, #11
I’m glad for some of the examples you describe, because I think they illustrate some of the gray area.
Something I noticed when PZ and his commenters were talking about Toobin was that everyone was projecting their own experiences with meetings (and masturbation), filling in details that we don’t really know in the case of Toobin, and which would not hold in general. For example, PZ referred to teaching classes, and if one was masturbating during that time I would think that it “involves” the students, and would be extremely inappropriate. But I was instead thinking back to all the bullshit meetings I’ve had to sit through, but held no relevance to me. Or large meetings, which bear more resemblance to livestream events than phone calls. At some point I feel like it doesn’t really “involve” other participants in the meeting at all.
I think the case of Toobin is pretty clear cut really–the fact that he was caught demonstrates a not-insignificant risk, which means it would have been wrong even if he weren’t caught. We don’t know the nature of the meeting, but I think our knowledge of the risk is sufficient to pass judgment.
@ 12. Andreas Avester :
What about my elaborated form of this in # 5 with the extra word :
My attitude towards sex is that as long as you don’t cause harm or risk causing harm for other unconsenting people, you should be free to do whatever you want.
My emphasis here being on consent and sexual activity always needing consent for it to be okay?
Fantasising about someone whilst masturbating, okay.
Masturbating while engaging with that person if they don’t (at the time / ever) know about it goes that extra step which involves them at another level which, for me, I’d say crosses the line into, unacceptable territory. Because they aren’t consenting to it even – indeed especially – if they dont’ know about it.
Because you are NOT given them the opportunity to consent or deny consent based on their wishes not yours. That seems a violation of their consent and a disrespect to them to me, Just like filming someone without their consent and knowledge esp ina sexual situation is a violationof consent and that person. Even if they never about know it.
Fair enough. I guess its more well, see above but also I still don’t think you cannot know that you won’t or can’t be detected masturbating. You may even think that you haven’t even detected doing so when you have been and also, well, again see my sentences above.
Analogy : If you steal from someone and they never realise that you stole from them is that wrong? If you get away with speeding or doing something that could have but didn’t hurt someone else badly does that mean you didn’t do it and make it ethically acceptable?
Yes but within limits and one of those limits being informed, adult consent. Including for masturbation.
yes but some ethcial idea sdo appl toevryone and shoudln’t have special oh its okay if I / you / X do(es) it clauses.
Also please see :
https://www.thoughtco.com/can-people-really-multitask-1206398
From there :
That’s my understanding and I accept that some people are a lot better at this than others.
FWIW. I know I suck at it and try to focus on what I;m doing and do one thing at a time.
Its not about me its about the other person in this scenario who is being unknowning and without their consent involved in someone’s masturabtion outside of purely fantasising.
Yes, answering a phone naked is fine. Times ans context depending but generally, yeah, not an issue. Yes and yes to the other things too for just being naked at the time. Simple nudity isn’t necessarily a sexual act whereas masturbation by definition is.
Okay, imagine you get a phone call from someone who arouses you and you are naked and even have a physical reaction, erectio or genital aroual as a result. That’s actually okay by me. Now iamgien youreact to your state of arousal by then masturbating, for me that s not. Its achocie that youare amkin that is involving thatperson without tehri consentand without theri knowledge and those things – the lack of consent and the lack of knowledge I have a problem with ethically.
Now, if you get that phone call and are aroused but don’t masturbate and instead focus on what that person is saying that’s fine by me. If you masturbate afterwards that’s also fine by me. If you tell them you’re aroused and want to masturbate – maybe even invite them to do so simultaneously, (ie phone sex basically) also fine by me, But if you are masturbating without theri knowledge and without their consent while engaging directly with them, that crosses the boundary I’d say into being not okay. Because they are being used sexually without their knowledge and consent. There’s a really ugly analogy here that I could state but I won’t.
Emphasis added.
It is easy indeed to come up with convoluted or even simple~ish theoretical conditions. That doesn’t necessarily mean those theories are a good idea or ethical in practice.
Please think and be kind to others and the world we share.
That’s my personal if loose defining ethic and masturbating to people when they (you think – or okay even know) dont know you’re doing it seems neither thoughtful nor kind.
Masturbation is fine and its fine. Imagining sex with others likewise. Getting unconsenting people unknowingly involved in your sex acts potentailly and indeed especially against their (likely) wishes – that’s my not-okay line here.
Sigh. Typos. Apologies . Hope you get the gist of it.
Typo fixes for clarity for #15 above. Mea culpa :
***
Just like filming someone without their consent and knowledge esp in a sexual situation is a violation of consent and that person.
You may even think that you haven’t been detected doing so when you have been..
Yes but some ethical ideas do apply to everyone and shouldn’t have special “Oh its okay if I / you / X do(es) it” clauses.
Okay, imagine you get a phone call from someone who arouses you and you are naked and even have a natural physical reaction, erection or genital aroual as a result. That’s actually okay by me. Now imagine you react to your state of arousal by then masturbating, for me that’s not. Its a choice that you are making that is involving that person without their consent and without their knowledge and those things – the lack of consent and the lack of knowledge I have a problem with ethically.
Masturbation is fine and imagining sex with others likewise. Getting unconsenting people unknowingly involved in your sex acts potentially and, indeed, especially against their likely wishes – that’s my not-okay line here.
Siggy @#14
I see few moral rules as absolute. Often things depend on circumstances. Also, I think that, most of the time, a moral rule that forbids some harmless action is either a bad rule or needs more flexibility.
Indeed.
In case that wasn’t clear already, this blog post wasn’t about a certain person who got caught under certain circumstances, but about the phenomenon in general. The fact that this guy was caught means that he was careless, and I do think that masturbating/having sex in situations where you can get caught and are being careless is wrong. If somebody wants to have sex in a public place or masturbate while others can hear them, they really ought to do their homework, be extremely cautious, and make sure that getting caught is impossible.
Also, it sounds like my idea of what constitutes a phone call differs from some other people’s perceptions.
I never call strangers if I can avoid it. Last time I called somebody was a month ago. I needed to buy a Korean pine plant; I sent the plant nursery an e-mail with a question. Instead of answering my question, they typed, “Call us at this number.” After checking online that there are no other nearby plant nurseries selling Korean pines, I was forced to call them.
I strongly prefer asynchronous communication that doesn’t interrupt me in the middle of doing something and instead allows me to answer when I have free time. Nonetheless, other people seem to either like phone calls or dislike typing. By answering their calls at all, I am doing them a favor. The fact that somebody dialed my number doesn’t mean that they are entitled to my undivided attention, nor does that mean that I have an obligation to drop whatever I was doing and fully focus on their problem. The onus is on them to prove that the conversation is important and warrants my undivided attention.
As for the calls I get. There’s the clueless person who accidentally called the wrong number and calls me again and again even though I have already clearly stated that John Doe isn’t here. There’s the overpriced vitamin and food supplement salesman who lies to me and forces me to spend several minutes on the phone with them until I finally figure out that they want to send me free vitamin samples that have ridiculously expensive shipping costs. And so on.
I would prefer everybody to state within the first 10 seconds of the call what they want from me so that I can hang up as soon as possible. But no, people are incapable of being laconic and speaking straightforwardly.
So why do I answer calls or calls from unknown numbers in the first place? In between all that spam there’s occasionally a call I need to answer. Unless I pick up the call, I don’t know what it is this time.
And then there are also all those annoying acquaintances or relatives who pester you with unwanted calls and to whom you cannot just say “fuck off.” For example, a decade ago in my life there was a person who called me late in the evenings while being drunk. Drinking made him talkative, he had no drinking buddy, so he called me instead (listening to somebody’s drunk nonsense while being sober is not interesting).
Why are people forced into conversations they don’t want in the first place? I guess you can blame capitalism and social norms. Personally, I strongly prefer honest and straightforward communication. I’d much rather say, “I don’t want to speak to you right now.” But no, that would be perceived as rude and I would get repercussions. Thus I am forced to instead spend 10 minutes playing a video game and simultaneously listening to some other person who tells me some random boring crap on the phone. And if I do so, people consider that “politeness.” In my case, masturbating to keep myself busy during a boring phone call would be far from my first choice, but I assume that other people can have different preferences.
My bet would be that the person who masturbates while talking with me on the phone probably doesn’t consider my voice sexy and alluring; instead they wish I finally left them alone, but they are scared to offend me by ending the conversation. If I called another person, there would be close to 100% probability that they are already busy and I disturbed them while doing something. Thus I don’t call people whenever possible.
If somebody else only has meaningful and important phone calls, congratulations! Getting there is no simple task in the modern society. At least I am far from getting there.
And yes, I have heard that scheduled conference calls exist and have become more common thanks to COVID-19. Those don’t sound nowhere near as bad, because scheduling prevents people from getting interrupted, and there should be no spam calls. Still, I am yet to buy a webcam.
Thus my attitudes are strongly influenced by all those boring and meaningless phone conversations I have been forced to endure in my life during which I did all kinds of other things to keep myself busy.
@ StevoR
Consent cannot be absolute, because that would be practically impossible. You are masturbating at home in your room and it is possible to hear people’s voices from the street or from your neighbors who live on the other side of a wall. You are masturbating at home in your room and in your line of sight there’s a poster on your wall that features a photo of some person. You are masturbating alone at home and at some point your mind inadvertently flashes to some memory of your ex-partner who no longer wants to be involved with you in any way.
Thus we get a continuum, on one end of the spectrum there are cases of other people being unintentionally present in some way while we engage in some sexual activity without causing them any harm; on the other end of the spectrum we have sexual abuse.
This brings up a question where to draw the line between acceptable versus non-acceptable cases. I draw the line based on presence of harm. Granted, people often disagree about what constitutes or doesn’t constitute harm.
We also seem to disagree about what constitutes “involving” another person in one’s activities. The way I see it, as long as I am at home, I can do whatever I want, and the person on the phone isn’t involved in my side activities in any way unless I somehow inform them about what I am doing right now. What I do without their knowledge is only my business, doesn’t concern or involve them. For example, if somebody called me while I am in the toilet dealing with constipation, I would think that my bowel movements do not involve them in any way whatsoever unless at some point they hear a splashing sound and figure out what I was doing.
This isn’t just a violation of consent; under most jurisdictions it is illegal. Photographers who take photo/video recordings of people in private places must ask their models to sign a model release. If they fail to do so, they risk legal trouble someday later in the future.
Are you really sure that you also want to bring up recordings (photo, audio, video), because that’s an entirely different discussion that has nothing in common with sex or masturbation? In short: Laws that govern recordings of non-consenting people must appease both photographers’ and their non-consenting models’ interests that often clash and have lead to much litigation. A journalist wants to take a photo of a crowd of thousands of people and cannot reasonably get a signed consent form from everybody. An artist wants to record public places for their street photography. A random person doesn’t want to see their face sold in stock photography websites or used in advertisements merely because they dared to leave their home and go to some public place. Thus we have plenty of laws that try to regulate every possible scenario. It’s irrelevant whether you take a photo of non-consenting people for personal masturbation aid or for whatever other purpose, because either way, depending on where you took that photo, taking the photo remains just as illegal without a signed piece of paper.
Come on, what you see in porn isn’t representative of everybody. You could sleep next to me under the same blanket and you still wouldn’t have a clue that I am masturbating unless you looked at my hands. Heck, during oral sex my partner has no clue that I am getting near an orgasm unless I tell him. And yes, I know that some people (not just me, I have also had a partner who could do it) can talk completely normally without any changes in their voice while masturbating/receiving oral sex.
Theft always financially harms a person even if they don’t notice it. And in those extremely rare cases where it doesn’t harm the owner of some goods, I do not oppose theft. For example, I am OK with dumpster diving (stealing food from other people’s trash bins) as long as you don’t make a mess or break anything on their property. Speeding is always dangerous and increases the likelihood of traffic accidents, there is no safe way how to engage in speeding.
Not sure if it’s been pointed out yet, but there’s another good at stake here, namely that if it became permissible to do some of the mentioned things, this would surely add anxiety to behaviors previously thought harmless.
An analogy: Dead people don’t care about being dead, or about pain, right? They’re dead, in fact, not even “people” anymore. Even if an individual’s death didn’t have any ramifications (loved one’s grieving, e.g.) – for example, imagine a hermit living in some cabin -, it would be wrong to rule that it’s okay to kill that person, as long as they don’t suffer, because that would imply they would have to live in fear.
Likewise, if a society determined that it’s okay to surreptitiously masturbate or take upskirt photos or such, this would impact people even if they do not notice. If it was permissible, people could worry about whether someone is doing it, while they are performing everyday activities (zooming, walking).
Not sure I’m finding the right words here. What I’m trying to say, morals don’t just revolve around being caught.
p.s.: No, I am not saying this is the only, or the most relevant aspect to it. Browsing existing comments, it just occurred to me that this is another reason not to masturbate while zooming – least of all, not to condone masturbating while zooming.
Still waiting for an explanation of how it’s (somehow) not-creepy to yank your crank while on the phone…
Yeah… I mean I totally agree @WMDKitty. The OP says they don’t find it creepy though, so it’s fair enough to figure out why exactly we find it creepy? I believe society/mores are not ambiguous in this, my intuition is that most people agree it’s creepy. So why? Maybe because there is no distinction between being caught (“noticed”) and not being caught when it comes to moral behavior? (incidentally, the word “creepy” implies surreptitiousness to begin with, but that’s a poor argument)
I find the argument that being caught should matter in the societal judgement of an act the flipside to what christians fear would happen if they became atheists: that without the threat of an all-knowing punisher, people would start doing what they want.
Eh. Just another thought.
@ WMDKitty — Survivor
What do you want from me?
I am asking, because I prefer to have a clear understanding about what is going on. Personally, I am not interested in conversations with people with whom I don’t share mutual respect. I’m perfectly happy to have polite discussions with people who disagree with me. After all, I’m always willing to learn about different perspectives.
But from what I have understood, this seems to not be the case for you. In past you already informed me that you have some antipathies towards me as a person (instead of merely disagreeing with some opinion I happen to have). You have also said bad things about me as a person in the comments sections of other bloggers.
Am I mistaken that you dislike me? If so, then why do you even read a blog of a person you dislike? If you are reading this blog because you are waiting for me to type something you could report to other Freethoughblogs bloggers that would get me thrown out of here, then you are wasting your time—Freethoughblogs bloggers do read each other’s blogs and they would notice if I wrote something they find inappropriate.
For now I don’t intend to ban you from commenting here, but I’m puzzled about what you want here.
One option I can offer you is that you are free to have conversations with other people in my blog’s comment section, but I will ignore you and won’t respond to any of your comments. Is that fine with you? Normally I respond to people who comment here, but I could make an exception for you and just ignore everything you write.
If you want me to take you seriously, answer to your comments, and have conversations with you, then I don’t really want to do that, not after you have said to me things that implied lack of respect for me, implied that you dislike me as a person beyond merely disagreeing with the occasional opinion I express in some writing.
Gorogh, Lounging Peacromancer @#20
That was just weird. When somebody kills another person, the main harm they caused was shortening this person’s lifespan. The fact that the murder caused a bit of temporary physical pain for the dead person or some emotional pain for the grieving family members is comparatively much smaller harm.
Taking upskirt photos without a signed model release form is illegal in most jurisdictions. For entirely different reasons that have nothing in common with people’s sexual behaviors or masturbation.
I can agree with the underlying idea you are trying to express here. There is plenty of evidence that people who live in constant fear of something unpleasant happening with them can develop PTSD even if the unpleasant thing never actually happened with them.
It is rational to not want your life shortened.
It is rational to be uncomfortable with others making photo or video recordings of you or your property without your permission. In past there has been plenty of litigation when some non-consenting person’s images were used for various purposes (not all people want to see their faces in advertisements, appearing online, or in newspapers). Thus we got laws that determine what rights models have and also inform photographers about what they are allowed to do without getting into legal trouble.
But in my opinion, it isn’t rational to worry about what somebody else might be doing with their own genitals without your knowledge.
The fact that some people agree upon some moral norm doesn’t mean that it is good or ought to be preserved. Historically, we have had societies agreeing upon all kinds of horrible moral norms (condemning gay sex, anal sex, anything other than missionary position, sex before marriage, blasphemy, lèse-majesté). I happen to think that also some of the moral norms we have right now are bad norms.
Sometimes they should. Some actions (example: theft) cause harm to some victim regardless of whether the person who committed said action gets caught. Other actions (example: sex in public places) cause harm to somebody only if there exists a person who caught it and experienced unpleasant emotions as a result of witnessing said action. By the way, I do not oppose having sex in public places as long as people make sure that getting caught is impossible.
I believe that any moral norm that forbids harmless actions is a bad norm. And why do people even want to prevent from happening various actions that cannot be detected by other members of the society and cause no harm?
If something is pleasant and cannot be detected by other members of the society, then people are guaranteed to do it. And why forbid it when there’s no harm?
But of course people should do what they want. As long as other members of the society don’t get harmed and cannot even detect some action, what right do they have to condemn it in the first place?
Also, moral norms differ in various societies. For example, I assume you consider as immoral masturbating while being in the same room with another person who doesn’t know what you are doing. Yet such norms are possible only among people with money.
When you are poor, you live in the same room with a bunch of other people, because that’s the only room you all have. There is always another person with you in the room. You always hear the sound of people’s voices around you. Walls tend to be thin in poor people’s homes, so you hear also the voices of your neighbors on the other side of the wall—other families that live in the same home.
On countless occasions, I have masturbated while being in the same room with a bunch of other people (I grew up in poverty). I kept my mouth shut and my arms under a blanket so that nobody could detect what I was doing. I wasn’t going to tell my mommy, “Is it OK with you if I masturbate right now?” I had zero intentions of informing people with whom I shared a living space about my sex life. Now that I think about it, I can’t remember ever noticing my mother masturbating while in the same room as me. My bet is that she probably did it, because the alternatives would mean either masturbating in public places or not masturbating at all, and those would be less likely.
When there are always people in physical proximity or within earshot of you, you never even come up with the idea that they all are involved in your sexual actions. Heck, with such a definition of “involved,” half of the community would be involved in every single instance of somebody masturbating. Instead they are just background noise, constant presence. When I masturbated with my mother in the same room as me, I never thought of her as being involved, because she didn’t know what I was doing. Similarly, if people masturbate during phone conversations without informing the other person, my default attitude would be that the other person isn’t involved in the masturbation.
When a bunch of people live in close proximity due to poverty, the moral rule instead shifts towards “do what you want with your genitals, just don’t disturb others who are nearby.” People stop caring about what somebody else who is nearby might be doing with their genitals without their knowledge, because everybody already assumes that there’s a hell lot of masturbation and sex going on all around them all the time and thus they remain content with merely not getting disturbed or directly involved against their will.
I don’t have a problem with any of those.
I do have a problem with masturbating when other people are interacting with you and you are masturbating as you are interacting with them and doing so without their explicit crystal clear consent and knowledge. That is my my line where it goes from okay to not okay. Because other people are also people too and this is likely to distress and thus hurt them.
PS. It also falls into the .If they don’t know, they should category for me.
Because you are involving them directly in your sex acts without their consent in a way that goes beyond just your own head & imagination.
Thanks for the elaborate reply @Andreas Avester. Some very quick thoughts on the run:
– Shortening someone’s lifespan is no harm in my book, suffering is. Life per se is irrelevant.
– Legality (e.g. re upskirt photos) is not god-given but an expression of morality; so, aren’t you undermining your own position that maybe morals should be questioned occasionally? Same applies for laws (say, governing incest – which is a non-issue for me as long as it’s consensual – or sex with minors), so we can totally compare the issues I think?
– “But in my opinion, it isn’t rational to worry about what somebody else might be doing with their own genitals without your knowledge.” I agree. I just don’t agree that this implies we should condone people masturbating, because it makes the possibility salient, and a (somewhat) universal “that’s creepy” provides some confidence that this is an unlikely case.
In the broader picture, I totally agree that many mores, particularly concerning sexuality, are very arbitrary and terrible. But… other people’s sensitivities are not entirely for us to decide, heh. What’s “rational” surely has some room for interpretation.
Will get back to you re some other stuff later.
Okay have a few more minutes here.
I phrased that christian argument poorly. It goes more like “if god doesn’t exist, what keeps people from raping and pillaging arrrgh”. So yes it’s about doing “what you want”, but it pertains to the christian view that (the christian) god is the source of moral and objective good or something. Sorry my lucidity is spent, but I hope you know what I meant.
Re your arguments about living together in a room with other people, that did not occur to me and I thank you for the perspective. It’s surely something to consider, and I agree that sexuality is a need people would have to attend to somehow. However, the bone of contention was that newspaper or television guy masturbating under circumstances where I believe it would be fair to expect him to delay that gratification, right? And – that’s what I had in mind re creepy behavior, like masturbating on a phone call or zoom call or more abstractly, an occasion when there shouldn’t be any urgency (I guess you could even argue if there is such a thing as sexual urgency, but whatever).
Sorry gotta run.
Andreas, all I want is an explanation for how it’s magically not-creepy to masturbate on a phone call without the other party’s, ah, what’s the term? Ah! INFORMED CONSENT.
A simple request, one I do not believe you have any trouble understanding.
PS: Respect is earned. Why should I respect someone who thinks it’s okay to rub one out while talking to an unsuspecting co-worker on the phone? That’s not behavior worthy of respect.
Andreas,
That’s the problem, you can’t. It’s not about grunting or groaning, it’s about your breathing pattern changing or your voice wavering when you talk or your wording being affected because you’ve primed yourself to think about sexual stuff. You yourself may not notice this—humans have a lot of blind spots when it comes to self-monitoring. And you may have not yet run into anyone sensitive enough to notice. But sooner or later you will.
Remember, also–I feel a bit weird saying this because you’re AFAB and I’m AMAB—but many, perhaps most, women have encountered situations like this, and many of them have been gaslighted in response. A male acquaintance suddenly adds a sexual aspect to their interaction, without their consent, and then denies any sexual intent. If a woman is lucky, it’s just a tween boy awkwardly denying that he’s staring at her boobs. If she’s unlucky, it’s a powerful man explaining that his harassment was totally innocent and she’s just being paranoid and stuck-up.
Most of the women I’m close to are quite vigilant about this sort of behavior, and they don’t enjoy having to either start a fight over it or pretend, yet again, not to notice.
Then privacy wasn’t an option for you in the first place. Obviously that shifts the moral calculus a bit. But if you’re in your own apartment, you do generally have control over answering the phone. If it is urgent, you can just stop masturbating until you’re done with the call. And if it’s not urgent, why pick up the phone in the first place?
I am of course not an expert on Your Mom–to the great disappointment of third-graders everywhere–but I don’t think those would be less likely at all. Last survey I saw, roughly a quarter of German women don’t masturbate at all, and a third to a half of middle-aged American women masturbate less than once a year. Low libido is particularly common among married women and women who have to care for children and aged parents. There’s a very good chance that your mother simply didn’t bother.
(There’s also a very good chance that she noticed you and just kept quiet about it. Mothers often know a lot more about their children’s sex lives than they let on.)
Well yes, poor people have to remain content with a lot of shitty situations. That doesn’t mean you should inflict those situations on people when you can avoid it.
@ WMDKitty — Survivor : I second your request here. Agree with your ^ 30 too.