Unpopular Opinion
Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!
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Vote the opposite of the norm.
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Tag your post, if possible (not required)
- If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
- If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].
Rules:
1. NO POLITICS
Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.
2. Be civil.
Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...
Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.
5. No trolling.
This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.
6. Defend your opinion
This is a bit of a mix of rules 4 and 5 to help foster higher quality posts. You are expected to defend your unpopular opinion in the post body. We don't expect a whole manifesto (please, no manifestos), but you should at least provide some details as to why you hold the position you do.
Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
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Same way you go around assuming most people aren't wearing vibrators and butt plugs in public, because some definitely do but it's probably best not to make negative assumptions about people.
Personally though I don't even mind if people do kink in public so long as on a functional level it's not noticeable or at risk of making others uncomfortable.
Mm that's a good point on the wearable sex toys. I'll make negative assumptions about people wearing those and knowingly involving non-consenting people in the kink though. Even if the other people are unaware. That's creepy and borders on rape-like tendencies.
It's directly involving non consenting, unaware, people in their sexual fetish. It's definitely creepy and not okay.
Yeah that's the line for me with any kink or fetish. You can't involve others without their consent and still be morally correct.
I don't think this actually is the line though, take masturbation for example, most folk masturbate to other people they know, technically this is involving others in a sexual way without consent but it's considered completely ok and normal because ultimately you're not doing anything TO them.
Same with wearing a buttplug in public, is it kinda strange? Yeah, sure, you can even say it's offputting and I would at least in some cases agree, but on a moral level you're not doing anything TO anyone, that's in my eyes the real line, if they don't know and have no way of knowing then it's not really causing harm.
Compare it to say flashing strangers in public, now you're doing something TO people, without consent and that is bad.
Hmm I like your point about masturbation. To narrow in on where my personal line is: the physically present part. I do think if one is wearing a sex toy in public with the purpose of getting the thrill of interacting with people without consent it isn’t morally ok. Intention matters.
Now that I know fur suits that people wear in public are not used sexually (or at least that’s what I’ve been told here), my opinion on the public suit wearing has shifted a little to a more positive one.
I know there’s an argument in there that what people don’t know won’t hurt them, but I disagree. It hurts the offender as well as the subjects when leaning into enjoying using people without consent.
I think the argument about it being a mentally unhealthy activity to do that causes harm to the one doing it is a much stronger argument, granted I don't think it is universally true that that is the case, I would definitely agree it is harmful a majority of the time to a majority of the people who do it.
But I would also say at this point we then have to ask if self harm is immoral, I think that we are no longer in the realm of morality any more and more in the realm of harm reduction seeing as while it is not generally good to harm yourself (mentally or otherwise) calling it immoral also seems incorrect. It's bad, but not for moral reasons?
So does masturbation usually. I think you need a more detailed explanation of what actually makes a thing wrong and where that line is.
No, it doesn't. There's a huge distinction between the natural human act of masturbation possibly imagining a person in your head but not involving them in any way in reality, and secretly masturbating while sitting next to others in public and very literally involving them in your fetish.
On a physical level sure, but on a moral level I'd be interested to hear your reasoning. I don't even really have a horse in this race since it's not something I do or have any interest in doing but it seems pretty obvious that this doesn't really harm anyone, you're not forcing anyone to do anything, you're not doing anything TO anyone, and unless they take your clothes off they won't know,
masturbation: getting off while thinking about someone in another room this:getting off while thinking about someone in the same room
if the only difference is proximity then what even is your argument considering proximity has no moral dimension?
Not all people are even capable of seeing a mental image of another person, it's not a real thing but an aspect of the mind and memory. It is by it's very nature completely different from physically involving another person in your fetish without their knowledge or consent.
can you define "physically involving another person"
There's another person physically there. Secretly wearing some sexual insert or vibrating panties and getting off because people are near is ethically the same as pulling your dick out and jerking off staring at a sleeping stranger.
Just because a person isn't aware doesn't mean you're doing something moral. It's still wrong to rape a person in a coma.
First of all, under my moral framework which I already described the coma example would be very morally wrong because you are doing something TO someone, which I have already said is my dividing line. Which makes it functionally different than anything else we've discussed and therefore not a good comparison.
Secondly when it comes to the sleeping stranger there's also a difference, you are running a very high risk of traumatizing them which also would fall into the doing something TO someone category and therefore be morally wrong even if it's only based on probability, you are risking immoral outcomes for pleasure which is fucked up.
But if you're just wearing a sex toy you're not doing anything to anyone except yourself as there's no risk someone decides to randomly strip search you in public and if they did that would put THEM in the wrong. Do you see the difference now? Getting off to other people isn't the same as doing something to them, you aren't actually physically involving them because they aren't forced in any way to interact with what is happening.
Your next argument is about being physically there having a moral quality to it so now you have to define physically there, for example, would it be ok if they were in the next room? Is that still "physically there"? Is it a line of sight thing? If you can see them it's wrong but if you can't then it's ok? You must make a choice here where you either claim all masturbation is wrong if you're thinking about real people or you must find a way to describe "being physically there" that excludes masturbating while thinking about someone but includes all possible ways of being "physically there"
This is fundamentally an impossible task as being "physically there" is a gradient spectrum concept, you can measure it in physical distance, for example how many meters away someone is, you can measure it by sight/sound, or by conceptual 'thereness' which is probably the closest to what you're actually trying to describe but far too vague to be useful which is the problem you're running into here, for example I will assume that you would also oppose to someone masturbating to a video feed of another person who is unaware yes? Even if that individual is on the other side of the planet, they are still being 'physically involved' albeit indirectly if you use a general concept of 'thereness'.
The thing is I think you're also conflating harm to the other person and the mental state of the acting individual, if someone is doing something like that then it's generally safe to say that they are not engaging in mentally healthy behavior yes? It is generally not mentally healthy to masturbate to live video of people unaware you can see them even though it doesn't harm those people yes?
But something being bad for you to do because it is harmful to the way you view other people and something being bad to do because it harms those other people directly are two different things and I think you are treating both as the same thing in your arguments here without realizing that's what you're doing.
I don't secretly masturbate around people. You are mistaking a philosophical argument for actual behavior.
How is a simple honest comment trolling? The moderation here is insane. When someone makes a page long plea trying to say it's alright to do a thing most consider immoral it does seem like they're invested in it.
Meh, not super invested, just wouldn't really mind if I somehow found out someone was wearing a toy in public. If anything I'm a little weirded out by how much you seem to be obsessed with marking the sexual behavior of others as immoral when it's not actually hurting anyone. Kind of reminds me of Republican anti gay talking points from the 90s
It's nothing like those at all. If you can't understand why involving other unknowingly in a sexual kink is bad look on the internet and you'll find plenty of people who write about it. I'm not interested in debating the topic with you.
You keep using that word incorrectly though "involving" and yes, it is like those because when gay men showed affection in public they were accused of "involving" the public in their "perversion"
You're now comparing secretly masturbating with other people in the room and forcing them to be unknowing participants in a sexual kink with... gay men showing simple affection.
You're going on the block list. I'm not dealing with that shit.
I'm not the one using the same arguments as bigots shrugs
I think there are arguments you could make that would be better than the ones you're actually making but you're not making those arguments. And the ones you are making are pretty bad. I'm just pointing that out.