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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   1258 thread views

Transnational Thursday for January 23, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Thailand has been ahead on gender-fluidity (lady boys) and sex-in-public-life (mature prostitution industry) for a while now.

Non-christian nations are less bothered by change which has frictions with christian conservatism. India is comfortable with MTF transitioners. Pahadi muslims are comfortable with gay-sex (as long as you dont call it gay sex). Japanese have widespread tolerance for cheating.

Loyal monogamous heterosexual marriage matters matters most to Anglo Christians.

Do have a theory as to why that might be? I'm struck that, even if not quite as strong, norms around marriage as a theoretically faithful, male-female bond do seem to have arisen all around the world.

Sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one: most people are naturally heterosexual monogamists. They quickly pair bond and prefer living with a long-term partner to the alternative.

Social norms reinforce this model, because it works - both for achieving social stability (groups of single young men are dangerous) and for getting the most children to adulthood (the father being present is a huge advantage).

All baser instincts are a threat to this model, so there's an expectation that they are suppressed (or at least kept secret).

Well, yes, I agree, but then I'm inclined to natural law arguments in the first place. There is a telos to human sexuality which is discernible from nature and implicitly known to almost every human culture, despite occasional deviation. We can cash that out in either evolutionary or moral terms, but it seems fairly evident to me.

This position is naturally consistent with Christian theology (it is in fact the traditional Christian position), but it would cut against the idea of any kind of 'Christian exceptionalism', where male-female monogamy is a unique Christian innovation, rather than a Christian re-statement of a universal principle. Hence my asking the question - if male-female monogamy is unique to Anglo Christians, why isn't it, well, unique? Why does the same pattern recur globally, even in very isolated cultures and communities?

The alternative - that, ironically enough, the Christians are right and it's a human universal - seems to make more sense to me.

it would cut against the idea of any kind of 'Christian exceptionalism', where male-female monogamy is a unique Christian innovation, rather than a Christian re-statement of a universal principle

This idea is a bit foreign to me, are there people actually arguing that?

Monogamous marriages are much older than Christianity. Ancient Greek and Roman societies universally had monogamous marriages (in the sense that marriage was between one husband and one wife, and men were not allowed to have concubines living in their household). The entirety of the old testament describes pretty much only monogamous marriages for commoners (and royals pretty much did what they wanted anywhere, anytime - including in Christian kingdoms much later).

This idea is a bit foreign to me, are there people actually arguing that?

"Arguing" is giving it too much credit. There actually are people (generic everyday wokes, leftists-by-default, young women who want to maximally exploit their sexual market value right now damn the consequences) who reflexively claim as much, but it's strictly arguments as soldiers. Christianity, the Patriarchy and Capitalism are to blame for absolutely everything ever, no need to explain or differentiate, and obviously the natural state of things is some utopian vision of free love, don't you know that Science has proven it (i.e., she once read a magazine article that vaguely gestured at studies)?

This may sound uncharitable, but I have encountered it often enough.

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