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The Big [Censored] Theory

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1444 points feross | 7 comments | 29 Aug 22 17:34 UTC | HN request time: 0.845s | source | bottom
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wizofaus ◴[29 Aug 22 19:38 UTC] No.32642548[source]▶
Is aversion to discussion of sex a part of traditional Chinese culture? Seems odd given I'm not aware of any puritanical religions taking hold there.
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alldayeveryday ◴[29 Aug 22 19:42 UTC] No.32642602[source]▶
Why would a culture require a puritanical religions to have an aversion to discussion of sex? And do you consider an aversion to discussion of sex to be default lacking or present in a population?
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wizofaus ◴[29 Aug 22 20:06 UTC] No.32642891[source]▶
Because why else would such an aversion arise? I don't think there are any sensible "defaults" for human cultures. But I wouldn't expect aversion to talking any sex to arise spontaneously among a population that hadn't had it imposed by prior generations or from outside. We're naturally curious beings and have lots of sex (compared to other species).
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1. moonchrome ◴[29 Aug 22 20:23 UTC] No.32643059[source]▶
>Because why else would such an aversion arise?

Because it promotes social stability ? As much as I dislike defending religion - those values produced the most stable societies through history

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2. wizofaus ◴[29 Aug 22 20:35 UTC] No.32643212[source]▶
Why would not even talking about sex promote social stability? Arguably the most stable societies are those that existed for 10s of 1000s of years before the agricultural revolution etc. Did they generally have taboos around discussion of sex?
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3. moonchrome ◴[29 Aug 22 20:55 UTC] No.32643440[source]▶
>Arguably the most stable societies are those that existed for 10s of 1000s of years before the agricultural revolution etc.

Societies of n>100s. By tabooing sex you reduce promiscuous behaviour - which stabilises society. I don't really see how this would be controversial. Modern social values have unambiguously shown that they lead to a population decline. Huge difference being that technology makes us less reliant on population count for stability (hopefully).

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4. mananaysiempre ◴[29 Aug 22 20:58 UTC] No.32643475[source]▶
I’m not really sure we have a large enough corpus of (known) societies, but even ignoring that, were any pre-Middle Ages or non-Western European societies nearly as tight-lipped about sex? And just how tight-lipped actually was medieval Europe, when even Sleeping Beauty was awoken by being fucked? Finally, to which degree is stability of the social order desirable? Medieval Europe, sakoku Japan and zastoj USSR were all (meta)stable to some degree, but they were also hellholes of varying depth.

I don’t actually think the answers to these questions disprove your statement, because I have a painful lack of knowledge as to what those answers actually are. But I do feel that those answers need to be given before an argument such as yours can make sense.

(Granted, a trait that promotes societal stability can become common even if stability isn’t actually good, so the last question is not as important as the others. A dystopian equilibrium is still an equilibrium.)

5. discreteevent ◴[29 Aug 22 21:00 UTC] No.32643494[source]▶
I wouldn't think it surprising if they had at least customs around sex (whatever about taboos). Without contraception sex can cause a lot of trouble. People, even animals, will kill for mating rights.
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6. wizofaus ◴[29 Aug 22 21:36 UTC] No.32643885{3}[source]▶
Is there evidence at all that tabooing discussion of sex reduces promiscuity? I'd expect the exact opposite is just as likely.
7. wizofaus ◴[29 Aug 22 22:37 UTC] No.32644453{3}[source]▶
Exactly - which you'd think would it make it all the more important to talk about it!