FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) of FidoNet RU.ANTISEX echoconference (fido7.ru.antisex newsgroup)





Written by Yuri Nesterenko (2:5020/1402), therefore, some answers may differ from the other members' opinions. Translated by A.Yanovsky.

Questions:

Q. Are you seriously against sex, or is this a joke?

A. We are absolutely serious.

Q. And who writes here? Perhaps only impotents, silly boys who can't "find a girl", or girls whom "nobody wants" - people who want sex but can't have it?

A. On the contrary, those who can but don't want it. Imagine, it's possible. You could as well say that only people who have troubles with digestive system don't practice cannibalism, or that only people who don't have a syringe don't take drugs...

Q. What do you call "sex"? How do you distinguish a sexual action?

A. 1) In the most general sense, sex is everything concerning "sexual relations". That is, not only the act of copulation (either in "normal" or perverted form), but also what precedes it, accompanies it, or is aimed at it. (By "precedes or accompanies" I mean the components of the same process, not external events.) In a more specific sense, copulation without the aim of procreation.

2) The criterion for sex is the presence of sexual arousal/pleasure at least in one of the partners, or just an intention to experience it.

Q. Why are you against sex?

A. Because sex is similar to drugs, both in physical and social effects. It places primitive instincts higher than intellect, a human being - a sentient being - turns into a primitive animal. The system of priorities suffers deformation. This leads to many nasty perversions of all kinds, including socially dangerous ones.

It's not a mere coincidence that the most dirty words in any language are connected to sex, and that innocence and purity have always been synonyms for virginity.

Even without perversions, the urge to obtain a new dose of the "drug" forces people to all kinds of stupid mistakes, deception and crime. Sex often ruins friendship, stimulates lie and unfair play.

If the energy that the humanity wastes on the satisfaction of lust would be used in more valuable areas, the civilization would achieve much more success, and there would fewer destructive conflicts between individuals or social groups.

Besides that, sex is not as harmless for one's health as it is commonly believed, and can stimulate some disease, not all of which are infectious; there are even reports that sex can have a negative impact on lifespan. This is the practical side of the problem.

As far as higher matters are concerned, it can be added that sex (indulgence in primitive instincts) and improvement of one's personality are incompatible. Religion can provide even more reasons. Finally, copulation is aesthetically disgusting.

Q. Can you give me more detail about social conflicts?

A. Here are several quotations from the conference:

MR> If they pull you into conflicts, send them to hell. If they damage your property, including your body, sue a criminal case.

- This is not always possible. Some people need too much money for sex. Some of them give birth to more children than they are able to raise, and more than quantity of jobs our society can provide. Then a war or a revolution begins, and you can't just "send it to hell" or sue it in court.

RE> And you forgot the poor ecological situation.



- Everything is connected. Hypersexuality, overpopulation, insufficience of resources, social conflicts, no respect for the biosphere.



MC> Possibly I can suppose (unproven so far), that if humanity were free from sex, there would be no wars.



- At least there would be fewer. First, there would be no overpopulation that causes insufficience of resources, and no wasting them on sex. Second, aggression would not have a powerful sexual support, and all sexual motives - from rape of the defeated to the image of a warrior as a "real man" - could not be used to lure people to war. The same applies to other social conflicts.

Q. Do you think that all troubles are because of sex?

A. Of course not. Sex is not the only evil. What we are trying to say is that people usually underestimate the need for struggle against it, unlike against other forms of evil.

Q. But sex is natural like, for example, food. You don't demand that people stop eating, do you?

A. First of all, natural doesn't mean good. Diseases and death are also natural.A "Natural" lifestyle is for monkeys and other animals; civilization itself is quite unnatural. And on the other hand, sex is very different from other physical needs: it is not required for the survival of an individual (only for the entire species), and, in the case of Homo Sapiens, it dramatically, at least 100 times, exceeds biologically reasonable level. Animals have short mating periods during which they become "insane" (there are common terms like "march hare"); humans experience this insanity during most of their lifespan! The higher is a species' grade of development, the less is mortality among adults and especially children; therefore, the less if the need for procreation, for sex. For a sentient being just a few matings in the entire life are sufficient. Humans do not follow this principle. This is unnatural, it is a disease of the entire species.

Mating without the aim of procreation is as stupid and awful as eating and immediately vomiting out the food; it is possible in case of a severe illness but cannot by considered normal by any means.

Q. Why is sex not normal if most people do it?

A. Because a norm can't be determined by majority. Normal is not "like everybody", but "as it should be", "as optimal". In a psychiatric hospital the doctors are normal, not the patients, though the latter prevail in number. Totalitary governments were not normal, though supported by almost the entire fooled nations. Et cetera, et cetera. Of course, you can define "normal" as "conventional", but such a term would be purely statistical.

Q. But if sex is not needed, why has natural selection not removed it?

A. Animals that live by natural selection do not have sex as humans mean it. Humans, on the other hand, are not subject to natural selection since the invention of medicine, informational communications and tools, because almost any person can have children who will live. Uncontrolled reproduction leads to degradation of the genetic pool. This is another reason why it is necessary that science interfere with natural mechanisms.

By the way, the same natural selection has not removed death and disease. The nature does not create perfection, its principle is "it works somehow".

Q. But you can't go against nature!

A. Why, you can. One of the most important tasks of science is the improvement of human body. Eventually there will be some medical means to remove sexual drive without harm to health. Even today there are many people who have no desire for sex, but are quite healthy and able to procreate. We just need to copy this mechanism.

Even without medical methods - solely on psychological level - sex can be successfully put away.

Q. Maybe you have special physiology that you have no desire for sex?

A. No, quite ordinary. Many of us had to overcome lust at some point. With success.

Q. Well, okay, but is it worth the trouble to deny yourself sex?

A. There is no trouble. During the transitional period there is a possibility of suffering withdrawal - as with all drugs. But eventually it comes to an end, and further sex-free life requires no effort, no "self-forcing". Problems arise only from involuntary abstinence, but with a voluntary decision to remove sex from life everything is OK. Sexual tension is like an itch; it will not hurt unless you scratch it.

Q. Why don't you just castrate yourself?

A. Not the right way: too many negative side-effects, and not always successful in removal of sexual drive. It would be like doing neurosurgery with an axe.

Q. What is your attitude towards masturbation?

A. Negative. Of course, it does not lead to some troubles conventional sex creates (social, financial, etc.), but it also a form of drug addiction.

Q. How can you blame sex it you have never experienced it first-hand?

A. Well, some of us might have, but that's not the point. To condemn drug abuse, one does not have to be a junkie, right?

Q. Do you accept sex for the sake of procreation? If not, how do you plan to maintain population?

A. 1) Theoretically we accept it; however, not all of us consider it acceptable for themselves even that way. Artificial insemination techniques exist, too. In future they will provide genetic control, selection of optimal genetic combinations (and, at some point, direct improvement of genes by means of genetic engineering). This is not only useful but necessary because of the lack of natural selection.

2) The Nature expert! Yes, I know about

The principles, but haven't you forgot

That the ideas reproduce without

Necessity to use "you know what"?

(C) YuN, translated by A.Yanovsky

Q. O.K, you don't want to have sex - you abstain from it. But what is your business with those who don't share your ideas?

A. See above. Too much evil and crime were done because of sex throughout the history of humanity. I don't mean only sexual abuse; it is common when a woman (or a man) is the target, and crime or foul behavior is used to reach the target. Not only sexually obsessed persons suffer. Also, it's a pity to see people who waste their energy, time, health, etc. for such a miserable thing. Sex is a disease that combines features of drug addiction and paranoia; it requires healing like any other socially dangerous disease.

Q. Don't you think that you can't defeat drug abuse and prostitution? Maybe it's better to legalise them and collect taxes for the society?

A. Why not legalise killers then, and then replace law with a price list? If a sin is too hard to destroy completely, we can at least make it hard to indulge in, too, and thus reduce it. You can't divide people into saints who are unable to seduce, and lost souls beyond help -- the majority of people are somewhere in between.

Drugs and "sex business" have no rights to be legal just because every business is interested in the expansion of its market, not counting drug-induced crime, direct correlation between availability of pornography and sex crime rate, etc.

Q. Since you consider sex equal to drugs, does that mean that you would put people in prison for it, etc.?

A. No. We don't want sex to be banned, but want people to lose interest in it. What must be banned (and prosecuted as crime) is only sexual propaganda, like distribution (not actual use) of drugs, and also sexual violence and harrassment.

Q. Of course, there are many weak people who can do anything for sex. But there are also strong people who have self-control and will not do anything insane because of it. Why should they abstain from sex?

A. First of all, about the weak. We should not consider them beyond hope, there are clever and talented people among them who deserve a better fate. And as for the strong, this is of course good that they have the situation under control, but it by no means frees them from trouble. Wasted resources are not replenished from nowhere; everything that is wasted on sex is lost forever.

Q. Don't you think that total abstinence from sex will lead to extinction of the humanity because of lack of reproduction?

A. If reproduction were only an unwanted side-effect of sexual pleasures, the humanity would die off instantly upon invention of contraceptives. By the way, families that are centered on sex have the most risk of being unstable over time.

Q. What do the abbreviations "ART" and "EEE" mean?

A. ART (Artificial Reproduction Technologies) - technologies aimed at artificial insemination and, furthermore, full extracorporal cycle.

EEE (Eternal Electric Enjoyment) - total immersion in pleasure by inserting electrodes into certain parts of the brain. Refers to wide-known experiments on rats (see photo) which, when provided with ability to trigger a switch connected to the electrodes, kept constantly pressing it until they starved to death. A similar effect is possible for humans...

Those who consider "pleasure" their aim in life, should not stop on sex, drugs and other half-measures; their ideal is EEE.



Q. Do you have fimilies? Children?

A. Some have, some have not. That is a personal choice.

Q. Arts and sex - what do you think about that?

A. Some more quotations from the conference:

GM>>> Michaelangelo was asked: "Why don't you sleep with women?" The answer was: "What I give to a woman, I won't be able to give to my sculpture."

YN>> Right. The same about Beethoven and Hemmingway. It's time to put aside the myth that sex stimulates creativity. Even those great inventions that are believed to be made under influence of sexual retaions (in general sense), in fact are more closely related to troubles in those relations.

MM> But were it not for sex, there would be no sex-induced troubles you are talking about.



- No. The situation is different: say, a person wanted to invest money in a financial pyramid, and lose it. Friends tried to convince him to reconsider, but to no success. When the mistake was ready to be made, the pyramid collapsed, and the person was forced to invest in something more useful. Why not do that right in the beginning - if there was no pyramid?

Q. So you praise intelligence and blame animal instincts. But who told you that you are right?

A. No one. The system of priorities can be connected to any frame of reference. As sentient beings, we connect it to intellect. You can choose animal instincts. But in the latter case, don't demand that you be treated as sentient beings having the corresponding rights.

Q. So if one has intelligence, there should be no emotions? No pleasures?

A. Emotions are different. There is nothing bad in feeling satisfaction by a well-done job, artwork, intellectual communication. But emotions that originate in primitive instincts and fog the mind really must not exist.

Q. Do you think that there should be no relations between men and women except business?

A. Not necessarily. This is the removal of sex that will make human relations pure. There is nothing bad in mutual sympathy, friendship; but all those "can't live without you", "nothing matters except you" are really stupid and dangerous and have no right to exist.

Q. Can there be love without sex? Where is the border dividing love and friendship?

A. 1) Yes, but it must still be related to sexuality, even if there is no visible indication of that. Love (certainly, we don't mean love for parents, children, animals, books, etc.) is always aimed at a potentially sexually attractive object.

2) 1. Friendship has nothing to do with sexuality. It has no connection to sex drive, either conscious or subconscious, and is not gender-specific or depending on sexual orientation of the participants.

2. Friendship is not a "persistent idea". A friend does not become "the center of the world", the focus of all thoughts and so on.

3. Real friendship is not jealous. A person can have many friends; friendship can connect more than two persons.

4. Real friendship must be earned. Friends forgive each other's faults, but a good-natured person would not be a friend to a traitor, a smart one to a fool, etc. Love, on the other hand, ignores reason.

5. There can be no "unhappy", "unshared" friendship. It can be broken up, but more or less simultaneously by all sides. You can't be a friend to a person who isn't your friend (save the case when one just pretends to be a friend).

These are the main differences. Perhaps there are more.

Q. Don't you think that you are overly obsessed with the antisex idea?

A. This echoconference is dedicated to the topic, but that by no means indicates that we have no other interests.

Q. And what would Freud say about you?

A. Freud was a maniac himself (how should we call a person who considered any long cylindric object a symbol of a penis, and any box a vagina?) and accused the world of the same mania. His own practice had shown that his sexual theories were not so consistent. Modern psychoanalysis has abandoned pure Freudism long ago.

Q. Wouldn't humans without sex be not quite humans any more?

A. And what? You don't panic that humans are not quite apes any more? We have to evolve. Today humans are way too imperfect yet.

Q. Why don't you allow opposition in the conference?

A. The echoconference was created as a club for people who understand what's wrong and only need to make up the mind on what to do. With time the circle of people involved expanded, and now not only radical supporters write here, but also those in doubt. It is normal and allowed by the rules.

The only people who must not be here are devoted supporters of sex. They are usually rude and aggressive, and cannot be easily turned back, as "pleasure" is higher than anything for them. Even among drug abusers it is easier to find people aware of the destructiveness of their lifestyle.

It is therefore reasonable that such people get disconnected from the conference. This is not against democracy: they have more than enough other conferences.

Q. Who is the moderator of RU.ANTISEX and what are the rules?

A. The moderator is Yuri Nesterenko (2:5020/1402). The rules are regularly posted to the conference; in addition, the moderator can send them via netmail (e-mail) upon request. It would be useful to quote the beginning of the rules here:

"This echoconference exists for everyone who, either by ideological, moral, religious, or other reasons considers sex (at least without the aim of procreation) bad, disgusting, harmful, inappropriate for a sentient being, etc. Everyone who shares this point of view fully or partially is welcome here."

Q. Where can an archive of RU.ANTISEX be found?

A. All FidoNet conferences accessible from the Internet are archived at DejaNews. You are also invited to visit our site.





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