I dunnoh. It’s a bit complex right?
Is someone homosexual if they picture a person of the same sex as them to masturbate to?
If someone thinks about your child or some kid in your family while they masturbate are they a pedophile?
One might say it is different because in most peoples fantasies their image of that woman or man is consenting- but if someone’s fantasy is to picture your kid but in their fantasy your kid is an adult with a growth disorder…? if someone pictures their spouse being turned into a dog by magic and is picturing a dog in their head while they masturbate.. is that beastiality…?
If someone told you they picture your underage child while masturbating you wouldn’t be upset?
But if you don’t believe that picturing a woman (or man etc.) without consent while masturbating is wrong… why or how is picturing your kid wrong?
Often times it isn’t even that we’d be ok knowing someone masturbated to use or someone we care about- it’s just that most people don’t..
Tell everyone they think if that they picture them and masturbate right? It’s a bit like saying that if you steal someone’s money but that person never realizes it was gone you didn’t commit a crime. Is what makes it wrong that the person finds out or that you did it? And if it isn’t wrong to picture someone while you masturbate- why is it wrong to tell them?
Try that one. Picture your boss or immediate subordinate and masturbate, then go tell them about it. Do that 3 times in the same month and come tell me what the results were. For science. Or perhaps I can already guess? Perhaps you can guess- because you already know that is harassment. It isn’t that it is illegal to think about them- it is illegal to let them know you did it. Isn’t that itself odd?
I’m not here telling people what to think or not. We can’t always help what we think either. Sometimes we get random thoughts. It’s well documented that new parents often picture hurting their babies. Does that make them child abusers?
Like I said- this all gets a touch complex doesn’t it? Here’s a thought- what about twins? If you marry an identical twin and fantasize about your spouse are you violating their twin because you’re picturing their body? I think most would say obviously not. But then… what if you are fantasizing about a twin or look alike or shape shifter that looks like a certain real person but isn’t? Factually we can argue that isn’t the “same” person even if they look the same- but it’s your fantasy so we go back to “your spouse trapped in the body of…”
And how is rape somehow different than almost every other crime on earth? If you go on an adventure with Harrison Ford in your dreams and tell your friend can they report you for imaginary kidnapping because Harrison Ford didn’t consent to it; or can you be sued for IP infringement? Or does that fall under some sort of public domain? Of course being in public doesn’t grant license for sexualization does it? Many places have laws against filming people even if they are clothed- especially for sexual purposes. But here we enter an odd area no?
If you purposely peak at someone’s underwear should that be a crime? A mirror on your shoe, standing under the stairs looking up etc? If that is a crime- asides an admission of guilt- what is the burden of proof that separates someone at the pool trying to sneak peaks of people through their swim clothes and someone who is there swimming but by chance happens to swim by as someone enters the water and could be accused of peeping? Many places make it illegal to take photos- like you can’t snap pictures of peoples undergarments on a crowded train… but what happens if you see them and then draw or 3D render then and distribute that? We now have this mess where they need to prove it is them- and a web of laws about using likenesses and wether you are profiting or not. The law on me taking a photo at the mall that has strangers in the background is different than the laws about using that photo in an advertisement or creating a cartoon based on them no?
At the end of the day “thought crimes” are a rare thing to legislate. We DO have them- most legal systems do. Most systems distinguish between planned Murder or intentional killing, accidents, etc. wether you INTENDED to do something is often part of the crime. Insider trading is a crime that can prosecuted based on the reasonable assumption of what you might have known or what you might have thought. Fraud is commonly a “thought crime.” It isn’t a crime to have you invest in my business and then my business fails but it can be a crime to have you invest if I known business will fail or suspect it and don’t disclose the information. Those rely on though policing- was i trying to scam you or was I honestly trying to make us both money and things didn’t go how I planned? You need to argue based on what I thought or would have known etc. about my intentions and not my actions.
It is probably at the least rude to go around masturbating to people without some sort of consent. We can infer fairly reasonably that the person who made that porn movie or who made a video with them masturbating while giving you instructions on how to masturbate are cases where consent is generally implied unless the video is specifically made for a certain person and that is clear or you could reasonably be expected to know you weren’t meant to see it.
“Sexy celebs” and stuff enter an area that can be gray. Saying a “thirst trap” is consent that people will masturbate to it is a bit like saying flirting is akin to consent for sex. But… there is that argument that what happens in our heads doesn’t harm anyone so long as we keep it in our heads.
Most moral arguments would make a case that our minds are both the roots of our actions and the truest expression of self. That people who indulge in thoughts that are negative are negative people we other others know that or not. While we all have stray thoughts, as previously mentioned parents often have and often feel guilty for having thoughts of harming their children, there is a difference between having a stray thought for a moment and then rejecting and refocusing on something else or embracing and indulging it or even creating that thought originally for the purpose of indulging it. Functionally no one but us will know unless we tell or act on it or technology develops to where people can “see” our thoughts clearly and readily.
Wether one believes in religion or not, one element of a “moral compass” common in many religions is the element of some being that now or in death is aware of everything that happens in our minds, and/or everything we do in life wether alone or not. That concept that “someone is always watching” has some theoretical moral value in that those who take it seriously will generally try to act and think in ways that they wouldn’t be ashamed of some random external observer could know about. So there is an argument that if we conduct ourselves under a principle that someone could see into our minds, many of us wouldn’t think about a lot of the things we do, or would make efforts to limit and distance ourselves from those thoughts.
Calling it rape in the literally sense may be too extreme or undermine physical rape- but I at least can see where there is a concept similar to rape in the sense that there is a sort of violation often times. If each of us thought hard enough, there would likely be at least one person we would be horrified to find out was thinking of us and masturbating. You might be that person to someone else. Empathy might dictate we keep that in mind.
To close out an uncomfortable and disturbing topic… parents sometimes have hot kids and kids sometimes have hot parents. Most of the time we don’t find them attractive or think of them that way. There is psychology and biology involved. If everyone says you look like your dad or you look like your mom at that age… your mom was banging your dad at that age. Your dad was banging you mom at that age. If you weren’t related- that means you’d be physically your parents type. So like- how would you feel about your parent or kid masturbating to you? No harm no foul cause it’s all in the head?
Is someone homosexual if they picture a person of the same sex as them to masturbate to?
If someone thinks about your child or some kid in your family while they masturbate are they a pedophile?
One might say it is different because in most peoples fantasies their image of that woman or man is consenting- but if someone’s fantasy is to picture your kid but in their fantasy your kid is an adult with a growth disorder…? if someone pictures their spouse being turned into a dog by magic and is picturing a dog in their head while they masturbate.. is that beastiality…?
If someone told you they picture your underage child while masturbating you wouldn’t be upset?
But if you don’t believe that picturing a woman (or man etc.) without consent while masturbating is wrong… why or how is picturing your kid wrong?
Often times it isn’t even that we’d be ok knowing someone masturbated to use or someone we care about- it’s just that most people don’t..
Try that one. Picture your boss or immediate subordinate and masturbate, then go tell them about it. Do that 3 times in the same month and come tell me what the results were. For science. Or perhaps I can already guess? Perhaps you can guess- because you already know that is harassment. It isn’t that it is illegal to think about them- it is illegal to let them know you did it. Isn’t that itself odd?
Like I said- this all gets a touch complex doesn’t it? Here’s a thought- what about twins? If you marry an identical twin and fantasize about your spouse are you violating their twin because you’re picturing their body? I think most would say obviously not. But then… what if you are fantasizing about a twin or look alike or shape shifter that looks like a certain real person but isn’t? Factually we can argue that isn’t the “same” person even if they look the same- but it’s your fantasy so we go back to “your spouse trapped in the body of…”
“Sexy celebs” and stuff enter an area that can be gray. Saying a “thirst trap” is consent that people will masturbate to it is a bit like saying flirting is akin to consent for sex. But… there is that argument that what happens in our heads doesn’t harm anyone so long as we keep it in our heads.