Kennyz wrote:How can anyone seriously make the claim that moralizing about food has taken over moralizing about sex?

Yeah, I wouldn't make that argument, and I don't find it persuasive. I think there is a really interesting dynamic between food and sex as two very basic human appetites and how we control them and direct them. Trying to understand where analogies are and aren't appropriate, and learning about one from the other, I think is a fascinating topic of inquiry.

I recognize the strawman danger and semantic issues with the word "sermonizing," and it's a difficult thing to articulate. I'm not really talking about vegans.

I "sermonize" about food all the time, and I suspect a lot here do too. I think McDonald's and Applebee's are crap, and even the less food-hobbyist of my acquaintances are pretty aware of this. I don't raise my kids on Kraft Mac 'n Cheese, fish sticks, frozen pizza, and bottled salad dressing, and I am more than happy to speak my mind about why I don't think it's a good idea, and I do attach some moral value to the word good.

There have always been food snobs, sure, but I think the point is that it has taken on a moral dimensions where it has been primarily aesthetic. The distinction I was making above in the passage you quoted of mine was trying to make the point that religious restrictions are more religious than moral, but my history is not solid enough to opine definitively one way or the other on that.

Anti-abortion violence.

Anti-foie gras violence.

I just happened upon this as I was doing some research for work (really and truly!) and if this isn’t an interesting literal manifestation of the food moralizing/sex moralizing question, I don’t know what is. A vegan strip club. Who knew?

http://www.kptv.com/news/15270102/detail.html


Then again, it didn’t last …

http://wweek.com/wwire/?p=11310

Hellodali wrote:I just happened upon this as I was doing some research for work (really and truly!) and if this isn’t an interesting literal manifestation of the food moralizing/sex moralizing question, I don’t know what is. A vegan strip club. Who knew?

http://www.kptv.com/news/15270102/detail.html


Then again, it didn’t last …

http://wweek.com/wwire/?p=11310

If your research turns up a 1950's Abstinence Club that met in a veal-producing CAFO, I'll grant that the article linked in the OP is onto something:)

Some random thoughts.

I just happened upon this as I was doing some research for work (really and truly!) and if this isn’t an interesting literal manifestation of the food moralizing/sex moralizing question, I don’t know what is. A vegan strip club. Who knew?

I love it. Since what we eat changes our body chemistry, including how we smell (the Chinese find the smell of "dairy eaters" disgusting, if I recall correctly), it makes sense that Vegans would enjoy cavorting with Vegans.

Am I correct in sensing that an overriding theme here of late is that someone, or some people, are telling us how to behave and we do not much like it?

While there is no lack of pompous, self-righteous, a**holes ready to tell me how to live my life, I also know that the only ones who really annoy me are those who strike a nerve. It may be that there are as many people telling us how to conduct our sex lives, but we are pretty comfortable with that these days so we tune them out. We know what safe sex and responsible sex are. On the other hand, we are not at all sure what a healthy diet is, and most of us here (LTHForum, or the US? You choose.) have more than a sneaking suspicion that our diet is not as healthy as it should be. So we find the critics and preachers to be annoying because they touch on our internal doubts and self-criticism.

Not saying they are not jerks, just that we pay attention because we are already worried and confused.

religious restrictions are more religious than moral

I have no idea how that works, Aaron. In almost all cases, religious restrictions are moral restrictions. The opposite is not true - one can have moral restrictions that are not religious, but unless you are pursuing some fringe amoral or immoral "religion," perhaps involving Satanism or human sacrifice, I am pretty sure most of the rules are about morality in the sense of doing right. I am currently in the market for a Vegan Satanic cult by the way as I hear they taste good, so please PM me if you know of one.

Mhays wrote:But I would also add that there is a class difference when it comes to sex. Wealthy people can better protect themselves from the potential negative consequences of sexual activity through better education, health insurance, and more expensive, more effective contraceptives. This is no different than how the wealthy protect themselves from heart disease and other food and nutrition-related diseases through education, better access to higher quality food, and better health care.

I believe this is a purely economic interpretation of human behavior. There is value to this approach, but there is also at least as much value to sociological and Darwinian models of the behavior of human populations. In this specific instance, the economic view does not work to the extent that providing the different populations with access to the same resources (education and forms of contraception, or better nutrition) does not result in the behavior of the populations converging as much as one would expect if that were the only factor.

It may be that faced with higher mortality and shorter life expectancy, unsafe sex is a perfectly rational, Darwinian response so long as it results in a higher birth rate, thus assuring the survival of the population. Unfortunately, it also sustains the higher mortality rate over the long term, both through STDs and perpetuating poverty, but to break that cycle requires more than just providing access to resources - it also requires removing some of the pressures on the population that promote the behavior in question. On the other hand, if a population is under no pressure with low mortality rates and long life expectancies, overpopulation and diseases of old age (cancer, heart disease) are the main threats, so living a healthy lifestyle and having a smaller family is again a perfectly sensible response to those conditions.

And then there is the whole issue of social status, traditions, and mores. Engineer that I am, I find that one exasperating, so I will skip it here. But it is real and at least as important as the other two. There are probably more, but those are the only three approaches I can think of at the moment.

I am not saying that the availability of resources is not an issue, just that it is not the only issue.

Back to my search for moral, Vegan, Satanism now.

dicksond wrote:

religious restrictions are more religious than moral

I have no idea how that works, Aaron. In almost all cases, religious restrictions are moral restrictions.

I wondered if I would need to clarify that.

What I mean is that there are some restrictions that only make sense within the context of one's religion.

So, for example, it makes sense that there are certain religiously proscribed times of fasting for Jews or Christians or Muslims, but I would hardly accuse a Jew or Christian of immorality for not participating in the Ramadan fast.

By the 80s, people were observing that women were getting more and more sexually liberated but at the same time coming under more and more pressure to be thin. I'm suspicious of all trend-spotting, especially when people start trying to correlate trends. It's true however that if you read Cosmopolitan magazine in those days you would get all kinds of morally neutral advice about hooking up while being told you were bad, bad, bad if you gained five pounds.

So let me get this straight; it was really an apple after all?

jbw wrote:So let me get this straight; it was really an apple after all?

Actually, I think it was a Hardee's Western burger.

Also, your current post total, which I just noticed, frightens me now!