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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 5th, 2025

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  • I think the argument about it being a mentally unhealthy activity to do that causes harm to the one doing it is a much stronger argument, granted I don’t think it is universally true that that is the case, I would definitely agree it is harmful a majority of the time to a majority of the people who do it.

    But I would also say at this point we then have to ask if self harm is immoral, I think that we are no longer in the realm of morality any more and more in the realm of harm reduction seeing as while it is not generally good to harm yourself (mentally or otherwise) calling it immoral also seems incorrect. It’s bad, but not for moral reasons?


  • First of all, under my moral framework which I already described the coma example would be very morally wrong because you are doing something TO someone, which I have already said is my dividing line. Which makes it functionally different than anything else we’ve discussed and therefore not a good comparison.

    Secondly when it comes to the sleeping stranger there’s also a difference, you are running a very high risk of traumatizing them which also would fall into the doing something TO someone category and therefore be morally wrong even if it’s only based on probability, you are risking immoral outcomes for pleasure which is fucked up.

    But if you’re just wearing a sex toy you’re not doing anything to anyone except yourself as there’s no risk someone decides to randomly strip search you in public and if they did that would put THEM in the wrong. Do you see the difference now? Getting off to other people isn’t the same as doing something to them, you aren’t actually physically involving them because they aren’t forced in any way to interact with what is happening.

    Your next argument is about being physically there having a moral quality to it so now you have to define physically there, for example, would it be ok if they were in the next room? Is that still “physically there”? Is it a line of sight thing? If you can see them it’s wrong but if you can’t then it’s ok? You must make a choice here where you either claim all masturbation is wrong if you’re thinking about real people or you must find a way to describe “being physically there” that excludes masturbating while thinking about someone but includes all possible ways of being “physically there”

    This is fundamentally an impossible task as being “physically there” is a gradient spectrum concept, you can measure it in physical distance, for example how many meters away someone is, you can measure it by sight/sound, or by conceptual ‘thereness’ which is probably the closest to what you’re actually trying to describe but far too vague to be useful which is the problem you’re running into here, for example I will assume that you would also oppose to someone masturbating to a video feed of another person who is unaware yes? Even if that individual is on the other side of the planet, they are still being ‘physically involved’ albeit indirectly if you use a general concept of ‘thereness’.

    The thing is I think you’re also conflating harm to the other person and the mental state of the acting individual, if someone is doing something like that then it’s generally safe to say that they are not engaging in mentally healthy behavior yes? It is generally not mentally healthy to masturbate to live video of people unaware you can see them even though it doesn’t harm those people yes?

    But something being bad for you to do because it is harmful to the way you view other people and something being bad to do because it harms those other people directly are two different things and I think you are treating both as the same thing in your arguments here without realizing that’s what you’re doing.



  • On a physical level sure, but on a moral level I’d be interested to hear your reasoning. I don’t even really have a horse in this race since it’s not something I do or have any interest in doing but it seems pretty obvious that this doesn’t really harm anyone, you’re not forcing anyone to do anything, you’re not doing anything TO anyone, and unless they take your clothes off they won’t know,

    masturbation: getting off while thinking about someone in another room this:getting off while thinking about someone in the same room

    if the only difference is proximity then what even is your argument considering proximity has no moral dimension?




  • I don’t think this actually is the line though, take masturbation for example, most folk masturbate to other people they know, technically this is involving others in a sexual way without consent but it’s considered completely ok and normal because ultimately you’re not doing anything TO them.

    Same with wearing a buttplug in public, is it kinda strange? Yeah, sure, you can even say it’s offputting and I would at least in some cases agree, but on a moral level you’re not doing anything TO anyone, that’s in my eyes the real line, if they don’t know and have no way of knowing then it’s not really causing harm.

    Compare it to say flashing strangers in public, now you’re doing something TO people, without consent and that is bad.




  • Everybody has preferences, it’s not immoral to have different preferences than someone else, fetishizing is harmful when it causes you to stop treating someone like a person and instead treat them as an object.

    Because A: there are no actual furries irl to be harmed and B: most of the fandom is actually very invested in who their characters are as people

    I think that argument falls flat, I brought up aliens to counter the argument you made next about animals already existing. Because no animals on earth can talk. Furries might have animal characteristics but conceptually they are closer to aliens than animals unless you only care about visuals.