Conversation

Aella
@Aella_Girl
1/Let's say we have a culture where it's considered extremely bad to masturbate. You masturbate, of course. Now you're put into a position where, if you engage honestly with the rest of the community, you will be harshly punished. You can't be honest if someone asks what you
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
2/did, otherwise they might shun you or yell at you. "Maybe you should have thought of that before you masturbated", they say if you try to explain this. So you try not to masturbate, so you can be honest. But it's extremely hard, and eventually you fuck up and masturbate.
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
3/This is tragic. This puts you into a horrible position with your community, where your basic needs that harm nobody are at odds with other things you value, like honesty and communication and being accepted. You can find this more commonly in strict communities, but not only.-
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
4/How do we tell if something is a "difficult cultural standard" by this definition? To qualify, it must: 1. Not hurt anybody 2. Be difficult to avoid doing/relating to base needs So: Do you have any examples of actions that are violations of social morality, but don't hurt-
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
5/anybody (beyond the strictly constructed/cultural impact, e.g., "you hurt me so much by breaking my trust to go masturbate like that"), and are difficult to avoid doing (such that a significant percentage of the population does this despite harsh social stigma)?
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
Replying to
@drethelin
Good point! A broader spectrum in 'how much people are compulsed towards this' is probably a good contributor to it gaining status as a social morality issue. I also wonder if gender of the people compulsed or not has something to do with it.
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Nachi
@hookdump
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
Lots of addictions (drug, gambling, pornography, etc.) hurt only oneself (in various ways), and have certain social stigma. But I'm not sure I get where you're headed with the question.
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