I'd like to pass on a good book that was recommended to me: "The New Male Sexuality" by Bernie Zilbergeld.  I find the subject of sex interesting to read about (surprise).  This book was interesting, easy to read, and even therapeutic.  This author's writing style allowed me to actually finish it.  Some authors make it almost impossible to read their work.  I would be interested in other similar recommendations from the group.
Thanks in advance!
Cheers

"Love, Sex and Romance" by Leonard Peikoff
"Of Living Death" by Ayn Rand

BJ, Palm Beach, FL
[email protected]

I must confess I never associated the concepts "Ayn Rand" and "Sex" before.

A few papers waiting to be written there, I expect.

O.

Check out the book review and book resource sections of the "Sunday Night Sex Show" website.  Lots of books about sex.  It is a great, funny, and educational show, and the only show I know of which can not go an hour without talking about cock rings.  It is on the Oxygen network Monday-Thursday at 10:00 Central. and Sundays at 11:00.  


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi

If there ever was an industry which needed a objectivism in love and sex, this is it.  LOL  ;^)

Interestingly enough, there is also a Playboy Magazine article of hers.  I haven't read it myself, but it is presented for sale at the ARB.

BJ

It gives one pause to think "who is the sexiest philosopher"?

What intellectual tradition has done the most to connect Man with sensuality?

There are "spiritual traditions" of course, like Tantra, and related works such as "Kama Sutra", but they are hard to ascribe to a single author.

The Greek philosopher Lucretius, who codified Epicureanism for the Roman audience in "The Nature of Things" (I think "Di Natura" in Latin) presents a strong case for the enjoyment of life, including love and its sensual aspects... "Things" is startlingly modern, and was sort of ahead of its time; also the Stoics really managed to beat back the advent of Epicureanism, so the work wasn't fully appreciated until much later.

The Roman poets Catallus and of course Ovid as men of ideas were very sensual, though they are not "philosophers" technically.

Overall, though, sexuality and sensuality hace been woefully overlooked by formal philosophy, a shame considering their primacy in the mind.

O.

make a virtue of selfishness.

... than a philosopher.

O.

Ayn Rand was a Russian immigrant who befriended Cecil B Demille while working as an extra on a movie set and went on to write some very passionate and long-winded books and movies on the importance of the individual in society.

For her, this meant a rebellion against the "collectivist" principles of Marxism that had not only imprisoned her homeland but that also happened to be quite fashionable in American intellectual circles at the time.

As such, she became something of a lightning rod in the ongoing discussion over the place of core American values like self-reliance and individual initiative and responsibility.

She came to relish her role as cultural and intellectual provocateur and stood in the face of many of the cherished ideals of FDR's "Great Society" while simultaneously presenting her own fiercely passionate view of what it meant to be American.

And to boot, she was kind of hot in her own strange way. Tall with a lanky elegance, an awkward athleticism and piercing dark eyes. No doubt an animal in bed too. Her personal exploits contributed to her legend.

She is pretty cool but needs to be placed within the context of her time in order to be fully understood. There is a pretty good documentary on her that you can get through Netflix.


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Ayn Rand wrote a book called "The Virtue of Selfishness"
Here is my interpretation of it:

Ayn Rand defined selfishness differently than the typical person would. Typically, selfishness is seen as a completely negative thing. Basically, someone who is stingy. The Ebeneezer Scrooge type.

Rand looked at it in the context of individualism and the right of you to live your life based on what makes you happy. This SHOULD NOT be interpeted as having license to do anything you want. It might make you happy to rape someone or break into some rich guys house and rob him, but you can not morally do that. You have the right to be an individual and live life the way you want to, but in doing so, you have to respect the rights of others to live their lives as individuals, which includes the right to be free from coercion through the use of force, etc. It means that other people have no right to place obligations on you without your consent. You might want to be an artist and paint, but your parents (or the government in a collectivist country) want you to be an accountant. Neither has the right through use of either nagging and making your life miserable, or through force of law, to stop you from pursuiing what makes you happy. You have the right to pursue being an artist, just because that makes you happy. Though by the same right to be free of obligations, you then dont have the right to go to your parents at 40 and demand money because you dont make as much money as an artist as you want to.

Ayn Rand rejected the notion of altruism (another thing she defined differently). She defined altruism as the concept that to be a moral person you should always put other people ahead of yourself. An (Randian) altruist would say that if you, your wife and a stranger were on a boat that sank, and you were the only one who could swim, the moral thing to do would be to save the stranger and let your wife drown, because that would be the ultimate act of self sacrifice (you would make a supreme sacrifice of saving someone elses wife or son, rather than your own). Rand would say this is not only incorrect, the concept is evil. Everyone else is important except for you. She would say of course you would save your wife, and even if your motivation for saving your wife was that you loved her and would miss her if she was dead, that is a morally valid motivation.

If you were walking by a pond and someone was drowning, should you jump in and try to save them? Possibly (but again, there is not a concrete obligation). If you can do so at no risk to yourself, you probably have a moral obligation to do so as that is what you would hope someone would do for you. But what if you were a weak swimmer and there was a good chance you might drown in the attempt (I am talking about actual fact and not just potential cowardice). If you drowned you might leave your wife a widow and your children orphans. In that cause you would have to decide what you wanted to do, but you would not have a moral obligation to risk your life for someone else.

It would be entirely consistent for a "Selfish" person to give money to the Salvation Army or some other charity if they feel the Salvation Army is a good organization and it would make the world a better place for them to live in or even because it would make them feel good to do so (A selfish concept). A selfish person wouldn't have the right to ignore a stop sign because they were late for an appointment because that puts other people in actual danger and violates their rights.

So selfishness doesnt mean stealing candy from children, or raising the rent to screw the widow living there or sitting alone on top of a pile of money stolen from others. It simply means the concept that you own your own life and have a right to live it in such a way that makes you happy simply because something makes you happy, but not that you can abuse the actual individual rights of others. It is a rejection of the notion of collectivism and collectivist obligation based on misguided altruism.

older and got in touch with the real world, I slowly realized that my tendency to place someone else's interest ahead of mine limited my own welfare and in turn limited my abilities to help others.

Unfortunatley, collectivism and group thoughts have an easier time to claim the moral high grounds as misguided altruism benefits many others who in turn are the ones that have a louder voice in singing praises.  Individualism is not a easy concept for society in general to accept.  So far, only USA and partly UK have the majority of the population embrace the idea.  Other countries in Europe are still mired in the thoughts of surrendering individual rights for the great good of society (as defined by a small number of elites.)  Somehow new wealth creations is still looked down upon by many in those countries.

Personally, It is still a struggle for me to strike the balance after all those years of Baptist and Catholic school teachings.


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