It probably is the second most serious of mortal sins on the pseudo-left, the denial of science. What else does the febrile anger at creationists by people, some of whom know as little as they do about evolution consist of by damning the sinners to the hellishness of being them? The most serious sin among the pseudo-left is being not being all up to date and modernistic, the ultimate fashion faux pas, what replaces a sense of sin when the reality of sin is to not to be considered real on pain of being not kewl.
And it is the reason that when it comes to the real and undeniable results of sexual promiscuity, sleeping around, screwing around, one is required to pretend that the massive science documenting those results is wrong. Or, failing that, to pretend that the science doesn't exist. Of course the results of promiscuous sex are well documented even in the popular culture, known to just about anyone as soon as they find out what sex is. Pregnancy, in the case of straight sex, infections in any instance when an exchange of bodily fluids is possible. No one who has an understanding of the most basic biology of the matter can misunderstand that. Only you are required to pretend that you don't understand it, you are to suppress that knowledge.
The conflict between some of the most obvious, relevant and life saving science that identifies sleeping around as a dangerous practice* and that grooviness requires a breezy, insouciant, contra-scientific requirement to approve of sexual promiscuity proves that the coercion to be in step with fashion wins out over science and personal experience among the "rational class". Their objects of worship, their substitute state of grace, are, arguably, more powerful than those of the fundamentalist religion that leads unfashionable people to deny the far more remote reality of evolution.
The denial of science by the "sex pos" hucksters and their dupes is a far greater denial of known reality than the denial of science by those who will never experience or observe evolution. I doubt there is a sentient adult who has not know of, observed or experienced the negative consequences of sexual promiscuity.
The arithmetic of infection with STDs isn't complex, your chances of infection increase with both the numbers of people you have sex with AND with the number of people the person or people you have sex with have had sex with. This is the same as with any communicable disease. The "sex pos" people who deny that is the case are at least as stupid and irresponsible as the anti-vaxx people. The result of both practices will be larger numbers of people contracting preventable diseases and the endangerment of other people, some of whom have the misfortune of being married or in what they believe is a monogamous relationship with someone who engages in a known risk factor to them.
The "sex pos" people are as irresponsible as the Muslim fundamentalists who prevent vaccination programs because they encourage a risky behavior, they recruit people to turn their bodies into the vector of infection. The few ways we have of reducing the risks of sleeping around, chlamydia vaccines, various drugs that may reduce risk of other infections**, don't anticipate the evolution of viruses into new pathogens. The time between the evolution of HIV as a human pathogen and the first conclusions that something was happening in gay men was long enough for a catastrophic, world-wide pandemic to have developed.
IT IS AFTER PEOPLE BECOME SICK AND DIE THAT NEW PATHOGENS ARE EVEN NOTICED BY THE SCIENTISTS WHO ARE LOOKING FOR THINGS LIKE THAT. In the case of HIV-AIDS and antibiotic resistant forms of old fashioned STDs, those incubate in the bodies of people who have been exposed to them through people having multiple sex partners, especially those who have had many. Yet that is what "sex pos" encourages, especially to young people who can reasonably claim to not have seen the results of that behavior, yet. It's too bad that they will probably have to experience it themselves to understand that they were being lied to, often by old people in the pay of the sex industry or those who are desperate to remain trendy and groovy well after their days of finding non-paying sex partners in large numbers are past.
There is as much if not more denial of science and what it means for people and their lives among what passes, pathetically, as hipsters these days as there is among the creationists and the dupes of FOX, it's just different science that is denied. And the difference in what is acceptable to who isn't based on anything more serious than in-crowd identity or fundamentalist coercion.
* There is so much science done on this and the basic facts of it are so well known to the people who are reading this that it is ridiculous to keep pointing it out. I doubt that among people old enough to remember the 1980s and 90s those facts aren't known except among the least intelligent and most willfully ignorant. Though anyone who knows that science and denies it probably shouldn't qualify as being smarter than them.
** In looking to see how this issue is covered at the "Scienceblogs" I came across this post that looks rather realistically about the problems of the recently developed prophylactic pill that may "help" prevent the spread of infection. Among other things noted, people are notorious for not taking pills as prescribed. I am skeptical that it will turn out to be an unmitigated success due to that and due to its inevitable use in convincing people that they are safe to sleep around without the use of a condom. If it works as advertised, it will work in some cases but its use won't be entirely successful. The post also talks realistically about problems that even what would seem to be a more reliable means of prevention, inoculations, are problematic.
Well, I started the morning making the mistake of responding to some comments on the weekly "Cosmos Outraged the Fundies!" thread at Salon, via Alternet. Somebody reposted an NYT Op-Ed about the Rev. Thomas Prince critiquing Franklin's lightning rods in 1755 as "proof" Christians be crazy when it comes to the subject of electricity. A quick Google search found that Prince was reflecting the scientific consensus of his time (that perhaps the cause of lightning and of earthquakes was connected, and so lightning rods could cause earthquakes) in his response to a earthquake in Boston that year.
ReplyDeleteAnd the conversation jumped off a cliff, as one example after another of a Christian with crazy science ideas (Hagee came up) was presented to "prove" all Christians be crazee!
Science is what I think is true, and what you think is true is crazee, and probably "religion"! And don't bring that "reasoning" stuff around, because I have evidence of crazy things "Christians" say, so I win!
Personal experience is what I want it to be. We all filter experiences and decide which ones establish our weltanschaaung. And in reaction, usually, we establish what is "good" based on what it is not. Rabid Protestants to this day want to be sure, above all, that they don't worship like Catholics. Rabid promoters of Atheism go so far was to say Dawkins has never said an unkind word about religion, he's just shown us how marvelous science is (that's in the post I was commenting on; I knew better than to bring that one up).
And the "sex pos" crowd just wants to do away with Victorian strictures and judgments about sexuality and sexual expression, because the best cure for the past is alway to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
And never listen to anyone who says otherwise. It is, as you say, all about in crowd identity. I was certainly getting the "He is not of the Body!" treatment in that comment thread.
Ah, well; I knew that would happen. I knew better than to comment there. The internet is not a place for discussions; it is a place for confirming one's prejudices, and little more.