Good point -

[kyburg]

One of my old-timers, the_alchemist, makes a very valid point this morning:

On the one hand, I don't see any reason why heterosexual relationships should be given special legal privileges over homosexual ones, but on the other, I don't see why sexual relationships should be given special legal privileges over non-sexual ones.

A very valid point, indeed. As it's has been popular to mention when talking about same-sex marriage, it's not about the sex. So what's it all about?

Discuss.

Oh, and if that's not enough for you? theferrett is have a free-for-all over at his place over If you're dressed like that, can't I think you're hot? Of course, does one need to wear a burka if you're NOT on the meat market?

Oh. And this?



Ew.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/little_e_/]

as for non-sexual, i was wondering exactly what you meant by that?

i like to sit and speculate about distopic worlds. i'm currently poking at one run by robots. the robots don't exactly understand how humans work, they just know that you put people in apts. together (in an ideal world, everyone lives in a giant building) and sooner or later children are created. so the robots just evaluate all of the people sharing an appt, whether those people are involved with each other or not, when deciding whether those people should be encouraged to breed or not. so you end up with appropriately humorous occasions like households full of homosexual male grad students being moved into the "family" sections, and the robots being very confused that children did not result.

on the other hand, the system allows for many non-traditional families. families with more than two parents, for example--something the robots encourage, believing that parental redundancy is a good thing--or with same-sex partners, or the like.

of course, that's not really addressing the issue of sexual vrs. non-sexual. i don't think the robots have any way of judging the sexuality of the humans. they don't differentiate between friends who room together out of necessity and lovers roomming together out of lust.

i know people who are largely non-sexual, or have non-sexual relationships. i'm not entierly sure on how that works for the same reasons that they're not entirely sure how my relationships work, but they nevertheless do. my friends have complained long and bitterly, however, over the lack of adequate words in the language to describe their relationships. "boyfriend" just doesn't cut it. It involves far too much implication of sexuality and desire that simply isn't present. language fails, and explanations are difficult, especially in any sort of short time-frame, and communication is difficult...

i have had (although i sadly do not currently) friends with whom my completely platonic and non-sexual relationship was almost as strong and fierce as any sexual relationship i've had. it never really occured to me to want to formalize such relationships in any way--although it would have helped if my friends were a wee bit less flighty.

i suppose i should go read the link. ^_^