Is it moral to perve if you're married?

[Mr Rayon]

If you are married, is it immoral to perve and to stare at the bodies of people of the opposite sex? Does this depend on whether the person undertaking this activity enjoys doing this or not? And generally, do people do this frequently in our modern society? I know a lot of old people are often portrayed in movies/TV shows/cartoons to be perverts who love taking walks along beaches for "sight-seeing" (particularly the men). Do you "check people out"?

 

...And is this immoral?

[lemur]

If you are married, is it immoral to perve and to stare at the bodies of people of the opposite sex? Does this depend on whether the person undertaking this activity enjoys doing this or not? And generally, do people do this frequently in our modern society? I know a lot of old people are often portrayed in movies/TV shows/cartoons to be perverts who love taking walks along beaches for "sight-seeing" (particularly the men). Do you "check people out"?

 

...And is this immoral?

Is staring really needed to notice that someone is attractive? Isn't it just apparent from surveying people around you during daily activities? Is this building up to an argument for the burka?

 

 

 

[Doc. Josh]

I dont think so much as immoral but human nature to check out the opposite sex. If not to size up the compitition just for eye candy. Human nature is disire and disire is human nature. It's healthy to look at attractive people for many reasons, the disire to be more healthy fit better looking it can be a sense of encouragement for yourself. I mean if you drool and fantasize about a person than thats not healthy, but i personaly believe it's more acceptable in modern society than ever before.

[TonyMcC]

I am a happily married man in his 70's. I'm glad to say that I can still appreciate the beauty that can be seen in the shape and movement of an attractive woman. I am sure that this is perfectly natural and in no sense a perversion. I don't stare and certainly don't make any sort of approach or have any sexual motive. I feel it is like appreciating any work of art. It will be a sorry day that a pretty woman fails to lift my heart.

[Ringer]

I don't find any problems with looking at people of the opposite sex, regardless if you are married or not.

[lemur]

I mean if you drool and fantasize about a person than thats not healthy, but i personaly believe it's more acceptable in modern society than ever before.

Even if it is socially acceptable, is it fair to either the watcher-drooler or the person being watched and drooled over? If the shoe was on the other foot and a person you found unattractive,e.g. a chauvinistic gay man, was staring and drooling at you, would you feel comfortable with that? Would it bother you to think that he might be fantasizing about you and could end up approaching you to ask you out? If not, you're probably ok in staring and drooling at women, but if so, you might want to consider how attractive women feel when stared at and coveted by men they're not interested in.

 

I am a happily married man in his 70's. I'm glad to say that I can still appreciate the beauty that can be seen in the shape and movement of an attractive woman. I am sure that this is perfectly natural and in no sense a perversion. I don't stare and certainly don't make any sort of approach or have any sexual motive. I feel it is like appreciating any work of art. It will be a sorry day that a pretty woman fails to lift my heart.

Do you think that it makes men less independent-minded if they are submissive toward feminine beauty? I've been wondering about the logic of women covering up in Islam and I think it has something to do with men not being diverted from "higher" purposes. Do you think men can combine appreciation of beauty with sober-mindedness in pursuing 'higher' matters?

 

 

[Mr Rayon]

Is this building up to an argument for the burka?

 

Certainly not. Though if you have some strong opinions for or against then I'll be sure to read them if you post them up (unless me mentioning this has made it too awkward for you to do so)!

 

I'm just interested what you logical people think about this and if you think this is okay what would your spouse think? Doesn't this sort of behaviour just encourage feelings of jealousy and other problems to develop for your spouse, if you perve (regularly) that is?

Edited January 28, 2011 by Voltman

[zapatos]

Do you think men can combine appreciation of beauty with sober-mindedness in pursuing 'higher' matters?

Sure. Just not at the same time.

[Mr Skeptic]

Well, according to Jesus that's equivalent to "committing adultery with her in your heart". Your wife probably wouldn't go that far but I doubt she would appreciate it either. It is simply a natural thing to do, but then so is cheating on your partner, and really it's a matter of whether it harms your relationship or not. On the other hand, it isn't very healthy to be too much under the control of your wife, and there are some positive aspects to jealousy.

[TonyMcC]

 

Do you think that it makes men less independent-minded if they are submissive toward feminine beauty?

When did "appreciative of" become the same thing as "submissive toward"?

I appreciate the beauty in many things:-

A woodland glade filled with bluebells.

The lines of a Ferrari car.

A painting by Constable.

Numbers in the binary system.

The sky on a clear night.

The face of my latest great-grandaughter.

etc..etc..etc..

I must be a very submissive person!

[lemur]

When did "appreciative of" become the same thing as "submissive toward"?

I appreciate the beauty in many things:-

A woodland glade filled with bluebells.

The lines of a Ferrari car.

A painting by Constable.

Numbers in the binary system.

The sky on a clear night.

The face of my latest great-grandaughter.

etc..etc..etc..

I must be a very submissive person!

Good question and good points. This is a question that I have been studying intently. Islam literally means "submission" but in this case to God. Christianity also has the message of submitting to God's will over human authority, in the form of the holy spirit. Both generally imply that "worldly authority" is a distraction from the "higher authority" of truth, purity, goodness, higher love, etc. People debate what all these things mean, but if you take an honestly reflective attitude, I find it is possible to understand the difference between submitting to worldly pleasures and seeking to transcend them in favor of higher goals.

 

You mention a number of aesthetic pleasures that are not directly related to sexual attraction to women. Are you familiar with the story of how Lucifer supposedly fell from grace as God's leading angel? I'm not mentioning this to preach theology. It is just interesting to note that in this mythology, Satan became inamoured with his own beauty as God's greatest helper and thereby came to view himself as deserving worship separately from God, hence the idea of opposition to God as evil/sin. I think the logic of this makes some sense. Aesthetic beauty tends to make people elite or exclusive toward others whom they deem less beautiful or unworthy - or they deem themselves worthy of worship because of their own status. I.e. it becomes more about egoism and less about creating goodness for others and oneself. It makes me wonder if there isn't a connection between the high level of egoism in the west and the obsession with beauty and aesthetics, not only in women but in so many other aspects of materiality. Do you see any truth in this?

 

 

[Marat]

To determine whether looking lustfully at other women is moral for a married man, you would first have to decide whether monogamous marriage, with its ludicrously unrealistic assumption that normal men must pick a favorite food when they are in their twenties and then eat nothing but that food day and night for the rest of their lives, is itself a morally justifiable institution. I think, in contrast, that it is an absurd and abusive social institution, so obeying its rules can hardly be regarded as necessary for a genuine morality.

 

Men looking at women lustfully is normal, and anything else is a perversion, as long as we define perversion as whatever is inconsistent with biology rather than as what is inconsistent with sexually sick prudery. The females of mammalian species which walk on all fours have tiny breasts, since large breasts are not necessary for nursing offspring adequately, but are useful solely for attracting male attention in mammalian species which walk upright and thus display the female breasts. So since nature intends large female breasts in humans solely for the purpose of sexually attracting men, if men don't look at them with enjoyment, they are being biologically perverse. Pornography, in short, is as natural as the breast enlargement of upright-walking female mammals.

[JohnB]

WRT the OP. Yes, it's fine and no, my wife doesn't mind.

 

Lemur, I wouldn't make so much of the "drooling" bit as this would be an extreme case and it is pointless to argue from extremes.

 

I find in many cases the mainstream religious idea behind "covering up" is a phallacy. It assumes that all men are animals and so weak in spirit that they can and will be easily led astray. This is rubbish. Historically speaking it didn't happen in quite advanced ancient cultures where women often went bare topped and it doesn't happen in societies today where the women are bare topped.

 

It is the enforced absence of something which makes it desirable. Having something around makes it passe and not worth your attention. Anybody who has worked in an industry where you associate backstage with catwalk models knows what I mean. You're working in an area where stunningly beautiful women walk around you and take their clothes off, repeatedly. After 5 minutes or less they aren't almost naked women anymore, they are just Karen, Susan and Tina. And you are way too busy with your job to notice what they are or aren't wearing. The rather odd thing is that you don't notice the girls when they are virtually buck naked, but if you see them walking around the show later in jeans and a T shirt, you do notice their figure.

 

Now I will grant that there are some sorry individuals for whom it might be an insurmountable distraction, but they are the extreme cases and societal rules should not be based on extreme cases. Just because a Muslim or a Christian apparently can't see a naked breast without suffering uncontrollable rapacious urges, doesn't mean that this is true for the rest of us. It's the same foolish logic that says that if 1 person can't learn to handle their alcohol consumption in an adult and sensible manner, all alcohol should be banned.

 

I will also add that I think that there is a lot of compartmentalising going on in reality too. As a simple example a normal male who sees a rather busty lady in a white T shirt might wonder how she would look in a wet T shirt competition or have other, similar, sexual thoughts. There might even be a thought of watching her hike up the top and giving everyone a good look, again a sexual thought. However if this same woman reaches around to a carrier, brings out a baby and proceeds to breastfeed, what happens? Nothing, nobody cares. You now know the answer to what she looks like under the T shirt and it means absolutely nothing.

 

Note that this demonstrates that the basic religious idea that "Bare skin = Sex" is totally wrong.

[Mr Rayon]

What about if you invite your best mate and introduce him to your wife/girlfriend and you catch him perving, getting tongue-tied or other signs that he finds your wife/girlfriend attractive when he is near her, how should one react if something like this happens? Should you tell him not to ever see your girlfriend/wife again?

[Mr Skeptic]

What about if you invite your best mate and introduce him to your wife/girlfriend and you catch him perving, getting tongue-tied or other signs that he finds your wife/girlfriend attractive when he is near her, how should one react if something like this happens? Should you tell him not to ever see your girlfriend/wife again?

 

Depends on whether your wife prefers to be jealously guarded, or to be trusted.

[Butters]

None of the couples I know quite closely have any problem with the fact that they both find other people attractive and will look (not overtly or threateningly). It would seem fairly naive to think that your partner has no interest in anybody else sexually.

 

We have even all sat around together and done the old 'would you or wouldn't you' game with passers by. It seems the males have much lower standards, but there is certainly no jealousy involved in admitting the attraction!

 

 

[lemur]

To determine whether looking lustfully at other women is moral for a married man, you would first have to decide whether monogamous marriage, with its ludicrously unrealistic assumption that normal men must pick a favorite food when they are in their twenties and then eat nothing but that food day and night for the rest of their lives, is itself a morally justifiable institution. I think, in contrast, that it is an absurd and abusive social institution, so obeying its rules can hardly be regarded as necessary for a genuine morality.

If you legitimate polyamory, what do you do about the feelings of hurt, insecurity, and jealousy that occur when people indulge in sex or other potentially "love-making" activities with others? How far can you expect someone to trust that their partner will return fully wanting to be with them after enjoying themselves so extensively with another person?

 

Men looking at women lustfully is normal, and anything else is a perversion, as long as we define perversion as whatever is inconsistent with biology rather than as what is inconsistent with sexually sick prudery. The females of mammalian species which walk on all fours have tiny breasts, since large breasts are not necessary for nursing offspring adequately, but are useful solely for attracting male attention in mammalian species which walk upright and thus display the female breasts. So since nature intends large female breasts in humans solely for the purpose of sexually attracting men, if men don't look at them with enjoyment, they are being biologically perverse. Pornography, in short, is as natural as the breast enlargement of upright-walking female mammals.

So if it is inconsistent with biology for women to limit their copulation to one male during ovulation, should men accept the duty of fathering children that may or may not be their genetic offspring? Should men give up the desire to bond with and father children that are the product of their own sperm instead of someone else's whose sperm just happened to win the race through the fallopian tubes?

 

I find in many cases the mainstream religious idea behind "covering up" is a phallacy. It assumes that all men are animals and so weak in spirit that they can and will be easily led astray. This is rubbish. Historically speaking it didn't happen in quite advanced ancient cultures where women often went bare topped and it doesn't happen in societies today where the women are bare topped.

You don't think it affects men's state-of-mind when they are more titillated with sexual impressions? It may not make sense to limit this to men. You don't think it puts people in a different state of mind to work in an environment where sex is practically absent as in a workplace where sex is on display on posters, in gossip among colleagues, etc.?

 

It is the enforced absence of something which makes it desirable.

So you desire heroine and driving on the wrong side of the road because their absence is enforced?

 

Having something around makes it passe and not worth your attention. Anybody who has worked in an industry where you associate backstage with catwalk models knows what I mean. You're working in an area where stunningly beautiful women walk around you and take their clothes off, repeatedly. After 5 minutes or less they aren't almost naked women anymore, they are just Karen, Susan and Tina. And you are way too busy with your job to notice what they are or aren't wearing. The rather odd thing is that you don't notice the girls when they are virtually buck naked, but if you see them walking around the show later in jeans and a T shirt, you do notice their figure.

I agree that you can get used to "sexual titillation" when it's no longer titillating because it's normal. This is the odd conflict between cultures of modesty and immodesty. Both may reduce and/or increase sexual consciousness in their own way. I don't think you can argue totally in favor of one over the other, except on the basis of ethnocentrism, because they both have similar effects. In fact, sexual suggestion is always an interplay between what is shown and what is hidden, so bikinis hide as well as show just as burkas do, although the burka is only supposed to show anything when it is not worn, i.e. in the presence of the husband. Probably sometimes men still fantasize quietly about looking under the burkas just as sometimes men fantasize quietly about looking under bikinis.

 

Now I will grant that there are some sorry individuals for whom it might be an insurmountable distraction, but they are the extreme cases and societal rules should not be based on extreme cases. Just because a Muslim or a Christian apparently can't see a naked breast without suffering uncontrollable rapacious urges, doesn't mean that this is true for the rest of us. It's the same foolish logic that says that if 1 person can't learn to handle their alcohol consumption in an adult and sensible manner, all alcohol should be banned.

I don't think you should assume the big problem is "rapacious urges." I think you can reasonably talk about more subtle effects of light sexualization during non-sexual activities. You can argue that these are not bad, or even good, but why would you downplay their existence by hiding them in the shadow of "rapacious urges" except because there is a taboo against placing even the smallest sexual feelings unabashedly in the open?

 

I will also add that I think that there is a lot of compartmentalising going on in reality too. As a simple example a normal male who sees a rather busty lady in a white T shirt might wonder how she would look in a wet T shirt competition or have other, similar, sexual thoughts. There might even be a thought of watching her hike up the top and giving everyone a good look, again a sexual thought. However if this same woman reaches around to a carrier, brings out a baby and proceeds to breastfeed, what happens? Nothing, nobody cares. You now know the answer to what she looks like under the T shirt and it means absolutely nothing.

True, but what do all those little fantasies do to your general state-of-mind? What happens to people when they spend some time alone or in nature away from people? Maybe the peace-of-mind that comes with that has to do with relief from social/sexual attentiveness.

 

Note that this demonstrates that the basic religious idea that "Bare skin = Sex" is totally wrong.

Good point, but as long as people get dressed in public and get naked for sex, there will be some potential for associating sex with nudity. I agree, though, that non-sexualized nudity can help dissipate the tendency to react to nudity with sexual thoughts and/or feelings.

 

What about if you invite your best mate and introduce him to your wife/girlfriend and you catch him perving, getting tongue-tied or other signs that he finds your wife/girlfriend attractive when he is near her, how should one react if something like this happens? Should you tell him not to ever see your girlfriend/wife again?

No, you should just talk about normal things around them both and try to help him calm down. Give him and her the benefit of the doubt but be suspicious if they start making plans to do things without you around. If nothing else, you should be able to talk with her about your feelings that he seems attracted to her, and if she loves you she will probably be honest with you about whether she finds him attractive and what she would do if he pursued her in some way. Resisting temptation can be an active thing. You could also talk with your friend about his love life, help him seek a gf if he's single, for example, or otherwise help him with relationship issues he might have.

 

 

 

 

[Athena]

Even if it is socially acceptable, is it fair to either the watcher-drooler or the person being watched and drooled over? If the shoe was on the other foot and a person you found unattractive,e.g. a chauvinistic gay man, was staring and drooling at you, would you feel comfortable with that? Would it bother you to think that he might be fantasizing about you and could end up approaching you to ask you out? If not, you're probably ok in staring and drooling at women, but if so, you might want to consider how attractive women feel when stared at and coveted by men they're not interested in.

 

 

Do you think that it makes men less independent-minded if they are submissive toward feminine beauty? I've been wondering about the logic of women covering up in Islam and I think it has something to do with men not being diverted from "higher" purposes. Do you think men can combine appreciation of beauty with sober-mindedness in pursuing 'higher' matters?

 

 

 

Thank you for your sensitivity of the person being watched. I stopped enjoy life so much when the hormones divided the girls from the boys. I really enjoyed life much more when we were all kids playing the field, building forts, playing games, when it didn't matter if one was a girl or boy. I really enjoy being older and able to join the guys again without sex being an issue.

 

It is disappointing to me when I am enjoying a discussion with a man, and sex does become an issue. Yeah, it would be nice to enjoy those "higher" matters, without wondering if I should leave the room before there is a problem.

 

Aesthetic beauty tends to make people elite or exclusive toward others whom they deem less beautiful or unworthy - or they deem themselves worthy of worship because of their own status. I.e. it becomes more about egoism and less about creating goodness for others and oneself. It makes me wonder if there isn't a connection between the high level of egoism in the west and the obsession with beauty and aesthetics, not only in women but in so many other aspects of materiality. Do you see any truth in this?

 

 

 

My grandmother would say, beauty is as beauty does.

 

I heard especially males are prone to having a sexual response when visually stimulated. This is so superfacial, and has nothing to do with inner beauty. Females also have a reaction to what they see, and many men would never have mates, if other factors weren't also important to the human female's choice in a sexual partner.

 

The Greeks became very concerned about beauty, and I appreciate this. This is not purely materialistic but has a spiritual quality as well, akin to beauty comes from the inside, and is in harmony with God. for Pythagoras there were beautiful and ugly numbers, and harmony relates to music with beautiful or terrible sounds.

[lemur]

Thank you for your sensitivity of the person being watched. I stopped enjoy life so much when the hormones divided the girls from the boys. I really enjoyed life much more when we were all kids playing the field, building forts, playing games, when it didn't matter if one was a girl or boy. I really enjoy being older and able to join the guys again without sex being an issue.

 

It is disappointing to me when I am enjoying a discussion with a man, and sex does become an issue. Yeah, it would be nice to enjoy those "higher" matters, without wondering if I should leave the room before there is a problem.

This is generally what I would assume and expect from women, but it also seems that sometimes some women dislike having their sexuality ignored or neutralized. E.g. they may want or expect you to act gracious because they are wearing an elegant dress or flirtatious because they are dressed sexy. It's as if they are trying to set the mood with their appearance and if you don't tune into the mood they're trying to create/express, they aren't happy about it. But why shouldn't be able to ignore someone else's signals and just treat them as a person without disappointing them? It's like women want to be the ones to control when they can be feminine and when they should be treated gender neutrally? Does that mean men should be able to control when women submit to them for their masculinity and when women simply treat them as equals/peers/colleagues?

 

I heard especially males are prone to having a sexual response when visually stimulated. This is so superfacial, and has nothing to do with inner beauty. Females also have a reaction to what they see, and many men would never have mates, if other factors weren't also important to the human female's choice in a sexual partner.

No kidding, and many of "us visually unstimulating" men should maybe not be cooperating sexually with women who are attracted to us (i.e. using us) for other things. If women don't like being used for physical attraction, why should men want to be used for other characteristics?

 

The Greeks became very concerned about beauty, and I appreciate this. This is not purely materialistic but has a spiritual quality as well, akin to beauty comes from the inside, and is in harmony with God. for Pythagoras there were beautiful and ugly numbers, and harmony relates to music with beautiful or terrible sounds.

Yes, and it is interesting to delve into the functions of aesthetics. But I also find it interesting that when you focus on something in terms of aesthetics, it can distract from functional approaches that ignore how something looks/appears in favor of what it does. Generally, I think aesthetics results in an exchange mentality instead of a mentality that focuses on action/labor/etc. "Beholding things" replaces "doing things" and even active-activities become more about the style or other aesthetic qualities of performing the activity instead of about accomplishing the goal of that activity. There are numerous problems that come with an aesthetic approach instead of a functional one.

 

 

[Marat]

If you look at a large group of people in soft focus you will always be struck by one thing in anything but the coldest weather: The women are always showing much more skin than the men. Some feminists may try to argue that this is only because a patriarchical fashion industry prescribes such clothing styles for females and that they have no choice but to obey, but this is ridiculous, since any attempt to prescribe an unpopular fashion would simply fail to sell clothes -- as the maxi-dress did. So we have to accept that women are deliberately sexualizing their public appearance by skimpy clothing, perfume, make-up, jewellry, high heals, push-up bras, padded bras, cosmetic surgery, etc.

 

But if women are deliberately sexualizing their public appearance, why are they also so vehemently opposed to men responding to this deliberate sexualization and to other associated social institutions such as pornography? The only way to resolve the apparents contradiction between these pro- and anti-sexual attitudes of women is to accept that what women want is to be in control of sex: to arouse men on the street when it suits their social power interests, and to oppose pornography because it provides men with a sexual outlet which women do not control and which thus fails to serve women's power interests.

 

If society were to adopt the nudist philosophy and have everyone going about naked all the time, nudity would be desexualized and women would lose their social power based on the allure of advertized but still secret and inaccessible things. This would force women to seek social power based on their intelligence and humanity rather than on their appearance, and that would confront them with a much greater challenge than they face today.

[zapatos]

But if women are deliberately sexualizing their public appearance, why are they also so vehemently opposed to men responding to this deliberate sexualization and to other associated social institutions such as pornography? The only way to resolve the apparents contradiction between these pro- and anti-sexual attitudes of women is to accept that what women want is to be in control of sex: to arouse men on the street when it suits their social power interests, and to oppose pornography because it provides men with a sexual outlet which women do not control and which thus fails to serve women's power interests.

While I'm sure it is true there are women who sexualize their public appearance and are opposed to men's response to it, in my experience these are usually two separate groups. The women I know who dress provocatively generally want to be seen in that light and enjoy the attention from men that it gets them. Women who are opposed to a strong response from men generally don't dress that way. Or only dress that way only when they are trying to draw the attention.

[Sedit]

I honestly think this is something you would have to answer for yourself. Taking your morals from a book, esp on that seems to condem human nature on so many levels, will lead to nothing but conflicts in your heart.

 

Best to develop your own moral standards and decide for yourself if theres anything wrong with the way mother nature made us. We where not born with cloths so if we never where shown shame and covered up our bodys would it really feel that wrong looking at another person?

 

The only things I feel are morally wrong are actions which if taken in excess could collapse a society as a whole. For example if murder became socially acceptable all hell would break loose and we would see chaos ensue. This will not happen from looking at a woman. Worst case senerio is your wife smacking you in the back of the head and you sleep on the couch for the night .

 

If we never looked at the opposite sex with the thought of sex in mind our species would have never propagated and humans would cess to exist. I say oggle away and take some pictures to share with dear old sedit

[lemur]

While I'm sure it is true there are women who sexualize their public appearance and are opposed to men's response to it, in my experience these are usually two separate groups. The women I know who dress provocatively generally want to be seen in that light and enjoy the attention from men that it gets them. Women who are opposed to a strong response from men generally don't dress that way. Or only dress that way only when they are trying to draw the attention.

What about the possibility that women who dress provocatively to get a response only want to get such a response from the men whose response they are interested in. They don't want losers drooling over them; just hot/rich/powerful men. Men are the same. They don't want every woman impressed by them to come flirt with them, but they eat it up when the cute/sexy/beautiful ones do.