Introduction

I am a scientist who is not professionally involved with issues of sexuality.  These are my personal thoughts on a fascinating subject.  The sexual pleasure from intimacy with another complex, thinking human being is among the greatest pleasures available to man.  It is well-worth the effort to understand it rationally.

We are all different from one another in a multitude of ways.  The more we think and experience, the more we are likely to become distinctive.  We begin as very different people even as babies.  Our starting biochemistry, the wiring of our brains and nervous systems, and our very early interpretations of what is going on around us seem to differ greatly.  The more we develop, the more complex and differentiated we become.  We are fascinating in richness of our complexity and uniqueness.  Each new intelligent, good person we meet is a treasure chest of exciting new discoveries.

There is no one like me and there is no one like you.  This is in many ways wonderful and it makes the discovery of another personality very fascinating.  But, it is also a very puzzling thing.  Most people struggle greatly to understand themselves.  It is a difficult and challenging process.  But in that effort we are much helped by the ability to introspect.  If I try to apply my introspection and understanding of myself to others I am often going to be led astray by the expectation of more similarity than may exist.  I have to appreciate always how complex and different we all are.

One of the aspects that most differentiate us is our sexuality.  That sexuality is itself very complex.  It is affected greatly by our individual brains and nervous systems and by our experiences.  It is a fairly general phenomena that we evolve sexually throughout our lives.  This is hardly surprising given that our lives are characterized by ever-ongoing learning in all of our significant activities and sexual pleasure is certainly among the foremost of our significant activities.

I expect to talk more in the future about my own sexuality.  I will discuss some research results on human sexuality as well.  There are many cases in which I would interpret some often discussed research results in different ways than they have generally been interpreted.  The objective, rational scientist side of me insists on this.

Because I understand how complex and unique human beings are, I understand that there is no way that values imposed on individuals by society or government can promote the General Welfare.  It is critical that we each retain as much freedom as possible to choose our own values and to manage our own lives in accordance with those values.  To do this, we must have the freedom to choose who we will associate with for each of the very many purposes each of us unique individuals will have.  This requires as large a private sector of voluntary actions as possible and a government sector of very limited scale and power. 

Sexual freedoms cannot be separated from any of the other many freedoms that each individual holds as an unalienable and equal right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.  Because economic rights to property and to earn a living are necessary also to the security and management of our lives, to the liberty to act to gain the values we choose, and for the pursuit of our personal happiness, they cannot be denigrated as many do.  I believe in all of the sovereign rights of the individual, including those to explore, develop, and live wholeheartedly our sexual lives.  Therefore, I am not a friend to the governmental use of force to impose my values on others.  I bring this up forthrightly because many people with a strong interest in sexuality assume that everyone with that interest is a Progressive Elitist or a socialist.

I am better characterized as a libertarian.  I am happy to allow others to choose their own values and manage their own lives.  It is just too presumptuous to think that anyone should choose the values of people one does not even know.  Strangely, many more people understand that it is wrong to impose values on your friends than seem to understand that it is wrong to impose them on people on the other side of town, in the next state, or across a continent.  In fact, I insist upon being allowed to choose my own values and on the liberty to manage my own life.  It is not society that gives me this right.  It is my nature as a sentient, rational human being who must make good decisions to survive and flourish as such that gives me this right.