genuine platonic friendships with women?

[EtherC]

Thanks bro, how's life been treating you? Hope everything's well for you & family

Originally Posted by DO_YOU_BJ

Very very well said!

[hijav]

Originally Posted by Edyta

once they suspect its not platonic, the friendship becomes awkward.

Very true!

[larue]

Originally Posted by Edyta

thanks everyone contributing to this discussion. after reading all the replies, i start to wonder if they are quite good friends, would the man risk losing the friendship to make an attempt?

The number of male-female friendships that do not involve physical sexual acts, or even overt sexual thoughts almost certainly far outnumber those that do. For an infinite number of reasons ranging from not wanting to risk the friendship to not wanting to get beaten up.

But that doesn't mean sex is absent from the minds of the males. It's lurking there in some dark recess.

[larue]

Originally Posted by EtherC

Typically in humans, we have kin detection mechanisms that help us prevent incest so I don't think most normal healthy people wank to their family members right?

While I too am not understanding how incest became a part of the discussion, I am curious as to what these detection mechanisms are.

And also, why would, or rather should most normal healthy people not want to wank their own family members?

[kraam]

Originally Posted by EtherC

Well bro I dun understand why you equate masturbation to near incest tendencies as those are 2 different things, but since you're on that let's talk about it.

Typically in humans, we have kin detection mechanisms that help us prevent incest so I don't think most normal healthy people wank to their family members right? Is it right or wrong that a psychotic patient is yelling at you?

Life is a struggle my friend, that why we have moral codes and laws. We are judged on actions not thoughts. Don't you experience times where you feel like strangling someone irritating? So do we judge one guilty of grevious assault for thinking about strangling a person?

http://truelightministries.org/blog1/archives/563

Matthew 5:28 seems to indicate that even seeing a woman and having the slightest thought of her attractiveness could equal the actual carrying out of sexual sin. Because of this, too many times we have been confronted with Matthew 5:28 and this type of interpretation that leads us into condemnation. It has time and time again been said that there is no difference between the thinking of Adultery (sexual sin) and committing it. All of this type of thinking is based upon Matthew 5:28, but Paul correctly defines that there are levels of sins and that the acts of sexual sin–indeed the acts of sexual perversion– are far greater sins than the mere thinking of sinful thoughts in the realm of sexual activity (1 Cor. 5-8). To Paul, the very acts of sexual sin are not the same thing as the thinking of any sinful act.

How many times have I personally been brought into a situation where the man and woman are condemned, believing that they have already committed a physical sexual sin because of sexual thoughts coming into their mind. Their thinking, if not checked I agree, will lead them into the very acts of physical sexual sins. Yes! Sinful sexual thought is wrong. The thoughts come from Satan as an impulse to cause us to truly commit physical sexual sin (some type of fornication). If we dwell on that thought, then it does become sin. If we rebuke it, there is no sin committed at all. The point is that the thought itself, if rebuked, is not sin, and even if we dwell upon it, it is not the same as the sins of the flesh, real physical sexual acts done with another person. The statement, therefore, refers to intentional and conscious desire, not to unintentional desire. Even the later is sin; but a sinful thought, without the consent of the mind and the carrying out of that desire in the physical realm, is not of the same level of sin as the physical act of fornication, murder, and other types of sins of the flesh. Nevertheless, it is sin, but included in the general forgiveness.

http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Juda...tural.aspx?p=4

Islam

The Qur'an and the hadith, sayings of the Prophet, prohibit lust. Lust can impinge on a person's path to Allah, as the Qur'an states, "Follow not the lusts (of your hearts), lest ye swerve (Surah 4:135)." People who act on lust are not among the believers, as the Qur'an says, "Allah doth wish to Turn to you, but the wish of those who follow their lusts is that ye should turn away (from Him), far, far away (4:27)."

Muslims view the fast of Ramadan is a way of inhibiting lust. The month-long fast during daylight hours, helps Muslims subdue feelings of greed and lust, as they are not permitted to eat or have sexual intercourse during the fast. Fasting is considered a way of "cooling sexual passion," as Bukhari reports in the hadith: "Young men, those of you who can support a wife should marry, for it keeps you from looking at women (lit., lowers your gaze) and preserves your chastity; but those who cannot should fast, for it is a means of cooling sexual passion."

Fornication is sinful in Islam, and the hadith explain that fornication is not just the act of intercourse. Similar to Christianity, lustful glances or thoughts are also wrong. As Abu Hurairah reports in Sahih Muslim, the Prophet said, "The fornication of the eyes is to look with lust; the fornication of the tongue is to speak lustful things; the fornication of the hands is to touch with lust; the fornication of the feet is to walk towards lust; the fornication of the heart is to desire evil."

Similarly, Abu Musa reported in Tirmidhi that the Prophet said, "Every eye is adulterous (when it cast glances with lust on strange women) and when a woman perfumes herself and passes a company, she is such and such" [meaning adulterous].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholi...exual_morality

Among what are considered sins gravely contrary to chastity are masturbation, fornication, pornography, homosexual practices[7] and artificial contraception.

[DO_YOU_BJ]

Originally Posted by EtherC

Thanks bro, how's life been treating you? Hope everything's well for you & family

All is well n fine tks bro.
Wat abt u?
Been a long time since i saw any of ur posts.
Miss ur wisdom.
Hv a gd weekend

[Intltuk]

Originally Posted by Edyta

thanks everyone contributing to this discussion. after reading all the replies, i start to wonder if they are quite good friends, would the man risk losing the friendship to make an attempt?

Well, the sentence comes to mind.....`nothing ventured nothing gain'. Did have a friend in this situation, he had a close friend but would like to bring it to the next level.......my thoughts to him is.....if he doesn't try to bring it to the next level, he will be frustrated and probably lose that platonic relationship since it's a one sided situation. Just venture and if things work out....great, if not, at least he consoled by the fact that the other half did not feel the same. They are still friends...but not as close as before.

He has moved on and found his better half....in another woman

[EtherC]

Let's first understand why incest is bad. Incest means sharing extremely similar genetic material and this can be bad news because as an example; when 2 recessive sickle cell anemia genes meet they can become dominant. This is bad for survival if the outcome is a dying child. We need to remember that sex is just the process, evolution's end game is survival.

There are several anti-incest mechanisms in place: by sense of smell or by psychological tags.

Our sense of smell is very powerful and is directly linked to our memories. As infants we learn to recognize the smell of our mothers rapidly and this gets wired into our fast growing kid brains. Also evolution has ensured that most of us smell less attractive to our biological family members when compared to a genetically different person.

For psychological tags, some evolutionary biologists have proposed 2 cues: For the older siblings its named Maternal Perinatal association, this suggests that the mind tags the observation of their mothers breastfeeding their younger siblings. This eventually leads to disgust when it come to sexual selection if the stimulus is their younger sibling. For the younger siblings its named kinship estimator where the older siblings are observed to be co-residing for 14-16 years to establish the psychological tag that elicits disgust when sexual selection is in progress.

As with all things shit happens, there's no 100% fail-safes. If you have some genetic mutation in the brain region that the kinship info is stored its a higher possibility to develop incest tendencies. Or maybe its the nasal receptors in the nose being broken by disease or mutation etc. Also there are cases of adoption at a older age , being given away at a very young age so these controls whether mental/biological do not form normally.

References:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...nes-sex-lives/
http://www.cep.ucsb.edu/topics/kin.htm

Originally Posted by larue

While I too am not understanding how incest became a part of the discussion, I am curious as to what these detection mechanisms are.

And also, why would, or rather should most normal healthy people not want to wank their own family members?

[EtherC]

You do know that the debate ends when God comes into the picture right? Might as well add Santa Claus and his merry elves to lend strength to your viewpoint.

Before you quote chunks of text from scripture do you understand what religion is? Religion is the earliest form of governance and it came before the genius Hammurabi invented laws. A lot of cultures realized that to survive as a tribe they needed conformance + unity and one of the more effective ways of doing it is religion.

Now let us look at the situational context of the Apostles who say that the mere thought of a woman constitutes a sin. Back in the days when Christ died, "resurrected" and disappeared these Apostles were seeking to build a church. What was the situation back then? The orthodox Judaism was still very much the prevalent Jewish religion along with the religions of their Roman overlords. Do you know how many Gods there are in the Roman pantheon? Lots & not counting the Eastern mystery cults! So you see there was a lot of competition. When you write doctrines like these what is the net effect?Most of the flock will be guilt stricken because of their "sin" and so in order to atone, they tithe more or perform more services for their church, making it grow richer and more powerful.

It's also rather amusing to quote the Prophet Muhammad on restraint when it comes to the topic of lust. Do you know how many wives he had? Several times over the number of 4 he indoctrinated for other Muslims and not including mistresses or sex slaves that may have been missed out in history books. Strong credence on righteousness and purity? I doubt it.

Originally Posted by kraam

http://truelightministries.org/blog1/archives/563

Matthew 5:28 seems to indicate that even seeing a woman and having the slightest thought of her attractiveness could equal the actual carrying out of sexual sin. Because of this, too many times we have been confronted with Matthew 5:28 and this type of interpretation that leads us into condemnation. It has time and time again been said that there is no difference between the thinking of Adultery (sexual sin) and committing it. All of this type of thinking is based upon Matthew 5:28, but Paul correctly defines that there are levels of sins and that the acts of sexual sin–indeed the acts of sexual perversion– are far greater sins than the mere thinking of sinful thoughts in the realm of sexual activity (1 Cor. 5-8). To Paul, the very acts of sexual sin are not the same thing as the thinking of any sinful act.

How many times have I personally been brought into a situation where the man and woman are condemned, believing that they have already committed a physical sexual sin because of sexual thoughts coming into their mind. Their thinking, if not checked I agree, will lead them into the very acts of physical sexual sins. Yes! Sinful sexual thought is wrong. The thoughts come from Satan as an impulse to cause us to truly commit physical sexual sin (some type of fornication). If we dwell on that thought, then it does become sin. If we rebuke it, there is no sin committed at all. The point is that the thought itself, if rebuked, is not sin, and even if we dwell upon it, it is not the same as the sins of the flesh, real physical sexual acts done with another person. The statement, therefore, refers to intentional and conscious desire, not to unintentional desire. Even the later is sin; but a sinful thought, without the consent of the mind and the carrying out of that desire in the physical realm, is not of the same level of sin as the physical act of fornication, murder, and other types of sins of the flesh. Nevertheless, it is sin, but included in the general forgiveness.

http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Juda...tural.aspx?p=4

Islam

The Qur'an and the hadith, sayings of the Prophet, prohibit lust. Lust can impinge on a person's path to Allah, as the Qur'an states, "Follow not the lusts (of your hearts), lest ye swerve (Surah 4:135)." People who act on lust are not among the believers, as the Qur'an says, "Allah doth wish to Turn to you, but the wish of those who follow their lusts is that ye should turn away (from Him), far, far away (4:27)."

Muslims view the fast of Ramadan is a way of inhibiting lust. The month-long fast during daylight hours, helps Muslims subdue feelings of greed and lust, as they are not permitted to eat or have sexual intercourse during the fast. Fasting is considered a way of "cooling sexual passion," as Bukhari reports in the hadith: "Young men, those of you who can support a wife should marry, for it keeps you from looking at women (lit., lowers your gaze) and preserves your chastity; but those who cannot should fast, for it is a means of cooling sexual passion."

Fornication is sinful in Islam, and the hadith explain that fornication is not just the act of intercourse. Similar to Christianity, lustful glances or thoughts are also wrong. As Abu Hurairah reports in Sahih Muslim, the Prophet said, "The fornication of the eyes is to look with lust; the fornication of the tongue is to speak lustful things; the fornication of the hands is to touch with lust; the fornication of the feet is to walk towards lust; the fornication of the heart is to desire evil."

Similarly, Abu Musa reported in Tirmidhi that the Prophet said, "Every eye is adulterous (when it cast glances with lust on strange women) and when a woman perfumes herself and passes a company, she is such and such" [meaning adulterous].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholi...exual_morality

Among what are considered sins gravely contrary to chastity are masturbation, fornication, pornography, homosexual practices[7] and artificial contraception.

[kraam]

Originally Posted by EtherC

You do know that the debate ends when God comes into the picture right? Might as well add Santa Claus and his merry elves to lend strength to your viewpoint.

Before you quote chunks of text from scripture do you understand what religion is? Religion is the earliest form of governance and it came before the genius Hammurabi invented laws. A lot of cultures realized that to survive as a tribe they needed conformance + unity and one of the more effective ways of doing it is religion.

Now let us look at the situational context of the Apostles who say that the mere thought of a woman constitutes a sin. Back in the days when Christ died, "resurrected" and disappeared these Apostles were seeking to build a church. What was the situation back then? The orthodox Judaism was still very much the prevalent Jewish religion along with the religions of their Roman overlords. Do you know how many Gods there are in the Roman pantheon? Lots & not counting the Eastern mystery cults! So you see there was a lot of competition. When you write doctrines like these what is the net effect?Most of the flock will be guilt stricken because of their "sin" and so in order to atone, they tithe more or perform more services for their church, making it grow richer and more powerful.

It's also rather amusing to quote the Prophet Muhammad on restraint when it comes to the topic of lust. Do you know how many wives he had? Several times over the number of 4 he indoctrinated for other Muslims and not including mistresses or sex slaves that may have been missed out in history books. Strong credence on righteousness and purity? I doubt it.

It doesn't end when God comes into the picture, fucktard smart aleck. If that's so, all these are bullshit then and u might as well attack all of these religions and what they say. After all, these religious holy books are considered to be the word(s) from Godhead/God.

[larue]

Originally Posted by EtherC

Let's first understand why incest is bad......We need to remember that sex is just the process, evolution's end game is survival.

Thank you for that, I did do some googling after posting and read the same things that you posted.

It does make sense.

At the same time, homosexuality too is anathematic to the evolutionary end game of species survival. More so, in fact.

How do we explain the phenomenon of boys stealing their mothers'/sisters' inner wear and using them for sexual gratification purposes? It is very very very widespread.

And wanking off, or to, a closely genetically connected individual does not lead to procreation, thus there is no genetic weakening caused by inbreeding.

[EtherC]

The debate ends because you've run out of valid points and have to resort to arguing from "divine" authority. What you are trying to do is to extend that "divine" authority to support your viewpoint which is already out of scope from the original platonic discussion. So not only is your ball already out of the court its run over from the tennis court to the edge of a basketball court.

If you read carefully and in depth you'll realize I was giving a commentary of the situation back then and your less than wholesome interpretation of scripture. I've not said "all these are bullshit", that's your interpretation influenced by a bruised ego. In fact religion has a lot of good things like preaching kindness and restraint, but it does not mean everything in the Good Book is the absolute truth for everyone. Eg As a person trained in science I cannot accept Genesis literally.

What is more important for you is: you can't win every battle in life; in accepting loss you actually learn more. I've no need to prove that I'm the smartest man in the room.Why? Because if one keeps thinking he/she's the smartest, there will be no urge to improve. It's just like trying to be the greatest tennis player in the world by playing with your 6 yr old sister everyday and winning.

Peace ok my friend? There is little to gain becoming distressed over some inane forum debate. What's important is we all learn a bit more of history and philosophy out of the discussion.

Originally Posted by kraam

It doesn't end when God comes into the picture, fucktard smart aleck. If that's so, all these are bullshit then and u might as well attack all of these religions and what they say. After all, these religious holy books are considered to be the word(s) from Godhead/God.

[EtherC]

Hi Bro,

as I've said earlier, according to the proposed theory by evolutionary biologist we are supposed to have anti-incest mechanisms in place so its possible that some biological/psychological control has been broken. I'm uncertain for lack of papers/statistics whether the body can differentiate between wanking and actual coitus. However if you do a google book search on "boys masturbating to sister underwear", there are entries of what you described under fetishism and paraphilia. As I'm not a clinical psychiatrist , take my perspective with a pinch of salt.

Originally Posted by larue

Thank you for that, I did do some googling after posting and read the same things that you posted.

It does make sense.

At the same time, homosexuality too is anathematic to the evolutionary end game of species survival. More so, in fact.

How do we explain the phenomenon of boys stealing their mothers'/sisters' inner wear and using them for sexual gratification purposes? It is very very very widespread.

And wanking off, or to, a closely genetically connected individual does not lead to procreation, thus there is no genetic weakening caused by inbreeding.

[EtherC]

We've been sort of led astray assuming that the man is always inflamed with lust and cannot help himself, I do think that's an unfair picture to paint of the modern man. In Spore and major cities most of our time in spent at work, usually in tasks that require concentration and focus. At best if the man does not have other relationship or kids to handle probably he has 6-4 hrs of time left for day dreaming and fantasizing. I dunno about your male friends but most of mine are either using this time to play sports or computer games mostly. I have not seen a guy who is so overwhelmed by lust.

Like what I said earlier, it depends on how much the guy values your friendship over the satisfaction of his lust.

Originally Posted by Edyta

If the man has been pleasuring himself with the idea of that woman. He is suppressing his feelings cos he has maturity, knows that its wrong, affects his reputation etc. By given a chance to turn it non platonic i would guess that the man will likely seize the opportunity, think about consequences later.

[EtherC]

Been busy with my work. Tough economic times.
I dun post that much in the past and less so nowadays. Interest in this forum is dwindling.

Originally Posted by DO_YOU_BJ

All is well n fine tks bro.
Wat abt u?
Been a long time since i saw any of ur posts.
Miss ur wisdom.
Hv a gd weekend