Get your morality out of my science (and my bedroom)

[static_hiss]

If I needed the occasional reminder that some scientists use their research to justify their personal morals (and thus Decide What's Best for everyone else, especially parents), one popped up on a feed on my friends page today. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of science, but I'm not a fan of moralizing and "Ooh, there's a slight correlation here

Comments

[paperclipchains]

I think refusing to wear a condom constitutes risky sex and I am willfully ignoring the "premarital" designation because it seems they're using it interchangeably with "non-monogamous."

As for the masochism... I've got of got to raise an eyebrow on this one.

On the one hand, they're consensual activities and moralizing should be kept out of science.

On the other hand, to see it linked to being hit as a child is kind of alarming. It kind of raises some old questions about abuse and reaction to abuse that I've heard posed about sadomasochism.

Note

[paperclipchains]

I hardly consider this single study conclusive evidence, but as I said, my first response it recall some questions that've been raised.

[liminalia]

On the other hand, well-known kink blogger Mistress Matisse says that she was never hit as a child and still grew up kinky as all hell. A random sampling of my friends says she's not the only one.

Personally, I was spanked as a child, and grew up to be kinky, but spanking is emphatically NOT one of my kinks, and I can't see how the kinks I have are related to anything my folks did to me.

[paperclipchains]

Well, it would be absolutely exceptional if everyone who grew up kinky got hit as a child, so it's not surprising to hear that many/most people didn't. I just don't think that this is a useless topic of study.

[mystik_serena]

It seems very... Freudian to link the corporal punishment as a kid with masochism later in life. I am a masochist who was punished as a kid with corporal punishment, and lemme just say that I never, ever thought that being beaten was fun and games -facepalm-. ...Then I grew up and it wasn't my parents and there were magical things called "safe words" and it did become fun and games!

[paperclipchains]

Good point about being Freudian.

[static_hiss]

Yeah, it does feel very Freudian, doesn't it? :/ That's what bugs me; this is a "new" scientific finding? It feels like the researcher had a point to prove at the beginning, since all they use to prove their point are statistics and correlations.

Re: Ironic icon at work

[static_hiss]

The lack of a solid definition beyond "spanking" or "corporal punishment" really bothered me, too. The article seems to desperately want to avoid using words like "abuse" and "rape" at all costs. I find such euphemism to be rather offensive. (That, and it's so frustratingly ambiguous.)

It just feels so blatantly obvious that they're drawing far too many conclusions out of the correlations they found. How does this sort of thing pass peer review??

Re: Ironic icon at work

[sabonasi]

I'm puzzled by a number of things, like what constituted corporal punishment in this study. I was spanked rarely with a flat hand; I know kids who were belted or hit with objects (which I consider abusive, personally). What's the cutoff level here?

*nods* I was wondering the same thing.

[emily_arete]

Not all sex without a condom is necessarily risky, either...obvious cases like lesbian sex aside, if you have some other adequate form of birth control and you are certain your partner doesn't have any STDs, sex without a condom can be perfectly reasonable! They do mention "insisting" on having sex without a condom, which is different from just having sex without a condom (and much more problematic), but still, I think this is a bad definition of risky sex.

[paperclipchains]

Yeah, I know what you're saying, but I think it's better to just give the benefit of the doubt on this one.

[emily_arete]

I understand why they used that definition; it's pretty hard to come up with a not-too-ridiculously-complex definition of risky sex. Just pointing it out. :)

[demolitionwoman]

I'm not trying to be nitpicky here, but you seem to be implying that lesbian sex is safe sex. I know that it's lower risk, but there are so many lesbians who seem to think they're immune to STDs that it drives me kinda crazy...lower risk does not equal no risk.

[static_hiss]

Exactly.