Ep 92: What is the purpose of sex?

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses what is the purpose of sex, especially in developed societies with effective birth control? The “natural” answer, whether one is dealing with animals or humans, is to create offspring which is no longer the answer since the invention of birth control. With its rise, things have changed significantly, with pleasure and peer bonding added into the mix of reasons to do it; they have arguably become the central reason. For much of human history there wasn’t really any cheap, reliable, available and effective birth control. If healthy fertile people did the act then children would result. As Walter Block’s opponent argued, this is what is “supposed” to happen if everything is working. The invention of effective inhibiting measures has arguably changed society even more than steam engines. Everyone in a sense family plans, which has led to the drop of birth rates almost everywhere. The post-Soviet states and East Asia are in demographic collapse. Even Iran has declined and arguably the Third World will follow. Abortion and the rise of people having no children are commonly brought up but what tends to be forgotten is the pro-natal people are having fewer children.

 

If one goes back three generations, most westerners can find people with ten plus children. In the past high birth rates did coincide with high infant mortality rates but the number of live children is quite historically low all things considered. Is this entirely due to family planning? What are the other reasons if any? If sex isn’t mainly for child production then what are the consequences for the family and society? Is the left-wing Anglican Giles Fraser right to support same-sex marriage for the purposes of peer bonding? Is the infamous Mr Spencer right that abortion is mainly birth control for certain classes of people? Is the campus “rape culture” and “date rape” an extension of the divorcing of sex from reproduction?