One night stands: good or bad?

Basically, I just think that it's a matter of personal morals. Becuase I'm a Christian (and I don't want to take the chance of getting some kind of disease) I think it's morally wrong and stupid in the first place. A night of pleasure for what cost? Potentially getting syphilis, maybe. I don't know.

 

There are four types of 'right' and 'wrong' to be considered: ethical, legal, societal and beneficial. I'll go through each and weigh up the pros and cons.

Ethically, something is acceptable provided it is consensual, and no one is being forced to do something against their own will. In this case, one night stands are acceptable, provided they are done between people who give consent. If one or more of the people are drunk, then it becomes a tad more complex, with arguments ranging from "it's wrong to take advantage of a drunk person", to "they gave consent when they got drunk". It also becomes problematic if either is a minor. Ultimately, in terms of ethics, the question is whether the participants are able to understand what they're doing. In that case, anyone over the age of 13/14 who isn't heavily intoxicated should be able to consent ethically.

Legally, it varies from state to state to country to country, but the general idea is that anyone over a certain age (14/16/18/21) is able to legally consent to sex. It differs if you leave the west, as other countries have more conservative views on sex, but for the majority of people on KHV, the western rules apply.

Socially, it's a bit harder. Society is moving in a direction where anyone can have no-strings sex, but it's still not entirely there. People who are especially promiscuous are often ridiculed socially. However it is socially acceptable, for the most part, to have one night stands, provided both people are single, so as not to violate other social conventions. There are other aspects that impact the social judgement, such as age, but those preconceptions apply to all sexual and/or romantic situations, not just one night stands.

To decide whether the one nights stands are actually beneficial or not, we have to look at two aspects: physical health and emotional health. Physically, there is the risk of pregnancy and STDs, both of which have the potential to hinder or end your life, depending on the severity. Provided birth control and protection are used, pregnancy is unlikely. Also, the morning-after pill or even abortion can be used in the worst case scenarios. On the other hand, some STDs are incurable, while others make life extremely unpleasant. Even if protection is used, there's the risk that it may fail, and there's no morning-after pill for AIDs. Ideally, one night stands would only occur between people free of STDs, but that's only an ideal. It's a risk that everyone takes that an STD could get transmitted.

The psychological aspect is one that varies too wildly to properly analyse. For some people, a one night stand means nothing, while others can get too attached. To many, it's a confidence booster, but to others its depressing and degrading. There are too many factors to properly consider this one. In the case of psychological wellbeing, it has the potential to be either 'good' or 'bad'.

In the end, I'd say that one night stands are neither good nor bad. A label cannot be neatly applied to them. It depends on each individual case, between unique people. It's not without risks, but neither is it objectively a bad idea.

 

Even though I'm a Christian (not upbringing but choice), I don't have a problem with sex outside of marriage. However, I don't approve of one night stands.
Sex is a good way to blow off steam, it makes you happy and is a painkiller (endorphins are created). However, due to what I see sex as, I think it should at least be inside some kind of relationship (meaning couple or just very good friends). I think you should at least have a relationship to the person before you have sex with them.

Making out and just fooling around a bit, I don't care about. But I think of sex as something so intimate and personal that you should share it with someone you love, or at least really care about. That's not because of a religious standpoint, but simply because it's my principle.

I'm not saying I would never slip up and have a one night stand, but I would definitely hate myself for it. Also, the good thing about knowing the person you're to have sex with, is that you are able to talk to them about it, and you'll know if STD's are a problem or not. Also, pregnancy is always a risk, no matter if you are using birth control (thinking of the pill), and even with a condom, it could break.

And also, it's called making love, isn't it? It's not only supposed to be pure lust, the lust is supposed to be sparked by passion, not only want. Also, I fail to believe any sex can be as good as the love you make with the one you; exactly, love.

Though I think in the end, it's a matter of principle - Mine is that sex (I usually call it making love) is such an intimate gift we have received, we should share it with the one we love, no one else. Even if the relationship ends, you still loved the person when you made love, which in my opinion, is what makes love (and sex) so great.

 

I have a problem with your definition on ethics P. Extreme example but if I have a suicidal friend it would then be ethically wrong to stop him since his consent is to die rather than live. Now as I said, very extreme, but ethics is not just a matter of measuring consent of something. It is a measure of analyzing the pros and cons of a situation. The classic example is "There is a train going and it has no method of stopping in time. If it continues along it's path it will hit a school-bus full of children, if you hit a switch it will be redirected and hit your grandmother." If you want to put it in a less negative light you could swap the choice to be one path gives everyone on the train ice-cream and the other gives everyone five bucks. It would still be an ethical question. No almost by definition there will almost never be a cut and dry "correct" answer. The only method I know of is to disengage one of the options. If your grandma got moved off the tracks then take that route. If the money is revealed to be counterfeit then don't go that way.

The case of the one night stand is interesting because the argument already includes a disengaged side - we don't have anything to contemplate on being against one night stands. But, as you said in your beneficial section, one night stands themselves don't lend themselves to be good or bad uniformly. You end up in this mess of specifics where the one side debates with itself. Going back to the train analogy you end up with something like; path one gives you nothing, path two gives you ice-cream and a counterfeit bill. Well if you are diabetic then path one is an obvious choice, if you aren't worried about getting caught with the bill then path two is the obvious choice. There are effectively too many variations to consider them all. People will look at the same criteria against different experiences, values, and circumstances.

But where do we go from there? Set up an "average" situation? Even if you could set up a decent one people would just say that the discussion didn't address the points they cared about. Take a poll? Well that doesn't really qualify as a discussion and people would just consider the people voting against them to be naive and illogical. As it turns out the deciding the proper way to perform an ethical argument is in fact an ethical argument. I think the best way about it would be the same way you would estimate a curve in math and break it up to examine each piece. The more we use the more accurate it would be but I doubt the people here care enough for that. So how about three? We discuss three different variations (worst case, best case, and average) and then compare them.

 

Personally I've only had bad moments regarding them.

I misunderstood some or I realised that this person was wrong for me in the middle of the act...but being British I had to carry on without voicing it until I could get the person to leave after the act.

It can be empowering to some and useful in the breakup coping mechanism to others but there are risks and dangers to casual sex with strangers. I don't judge those who do but I worry for the risks and dangers just like my friends would for me.

Well I do judge one person who does, but his love life has been in a cyclical nature (clingy obsessed into girlfriend->proposes->cheats/she cheats->cries misery and gets back together->cheating again->meets new casual partners->more tears->new obsession of a girlfriend and repeats) for three years now and I'm not his friend any more.

Do what you want but don't live in the rose tinted world, there are dangers and always be aware. Let friends know you're hooking up with some guy and ask them to call you tomorrow or something, always think before doing I have often not and it's always left me in regret and shame.

I believe sex can be both physical and emotional but they can mix sometimes but never in a one night stand. I always felt empty during them. I feel sex is a natural part of a relationship and should happen when both partners trust each other, not with marriage in consideration. But as before I don't judge one night stands, some people are in that period of life to be sexually liberated and mature enough to make that decision or are coping with a break-up. Totally fine in my eyes.

 

In the suicide example, you would be making an ethically wrong choice to stop someone from committing suicide. Do not mix ethics with morality. What is a pro and what is a con is up to each person; a set of such values that one tries to apply to everyone would be called morality, not ethics. Ethics is quite different because it is based in consent and not values. Each person decides their own pros and cons until such values lead to controlling the values and or actions of others against their wills. Deciding what is preferable for another person and acting out to enforce that notion on them is unethical, but it may be moral by your definition. Suicide or sex, it is the same. Think of it as a right to property. They have more right to their body and existence than you, therefore they get to decide before you. According to ethics, anyway.

 

If you want to simply measure consent then no act is ever "wrong" because consent is a specific that you can't take into account really. And if you did it would be in the definition which removes all debate. If you want to do a measure of consent feel free, but don't try to call it ethics because it is not. Morality is a subdebate of ethics (as I described it) where you try to determine a quality as being good or bad and at what level. I morally consider life to be a positive value with a very high level which easily outweighs my worry of hurting the feelings of my suicidal friend in that ethical debate. Now if you place the wishes of your friend at a higher level than the life of that same friend then you end up with a different outcome, but you are still weighing values.

 

Rather, as I have known it by everyone other than you, ethics does not relate to right and wrong or good and bad at all. It deals specifically with interactions between sentient beings, and it does not define what is "wrong" in such an interaction, but only what applies to the system of consent. If you do not think that consent is needed, then you are acting on a personal morality, and are not acting ethically. The system of ethics is about balance, and you are right, it is not up for debate. You can end any ethical debate very quickly if you have a reasonably intelligent person there. The same result can be achieved every single time if you use ethics. It is a very simple and logical system. You do not have a system of morals. You have a system of ethics. Ethics is impartial, while morality is not.

The point of this is that your values have no effect on anyone else's values and what they do if you are acting ethically, and what they do does not control those around them either if they are, and so on. Everyone acts without compromising the values of others in an ethical society. This is completely apart from whether such a society would be right and good or wrong and bad. That is the purpose of ethics; to balancing out subjective values so that no one has any kind of moral superiority over anyone else. You can't just disagree about ethics. You can be wrong about it. Your end result will either work flawlessly and all will eventually come to that conclusion or it will contradict and so be in error.

Property is a good way to distinguish how far your values stretch. If someone owns something, their values overrule all others' values regarding the thing that they own. That is the definition of ownership, and property. I hold that a person owns themselves. If you can stop them from committing suicide, then you are claiming the right to own them, at least for an instant. You assume that your right to their body is stronger than theirs. You violate their right to their property. Is that wrong? That is not the question, and it depends on who you ask. Is it unethical in all cases? Yes.

What people own is what would be in question here. After all, if you do not own something, ethics is harder or impossible to apply to anything regarding it. Arguing against ownership is the only way to discount an argument from ethics under this definition.

 

Yes, the British way of dealing with things is hard to describe properly, but it seems to be simply begrudging the situation your in but still go along with it. And a vey well put togeher plan of action if the situation arises, and you ar eright, dealing with the situation with maturity is best, but the best doesn't always happen when passion takes over the situation. But we can noly try our best and hope for it as such.