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Relationships after Sex
Relationships after Sex

It is a correct principle of ethics to take into account the particular circumstances in a situation in order to decide the right course of action. One should apply his brakes in his car if a child runs out into the street in front of him, though one should not drive about arbitrarily jamming on the brakes between intersections. Similarly, one might properly drive faster down a broad boulevard than one should drive down a narrow street with parked cars on both sides beyond which little children are playing. If one is playing poker, one would be foolish to bet the same on every hand regardless of the value of that hand. Circumstances determine what the right or prudent act is whether in ethics, business, poker, or whatever. Read more @ www.gconnect.com.ng

Further, it is fair and rational to act similarly under similar circumstances, unless there is some overriding reason not to -- for example, in poker, one might sometimes want to bluff with a hand worth even less than one had folded previously, or a baseball pitcher may want to throw a different pitch from the one that had worked earlier in the "same" situation to the same batter, since the batter may now be looking for it. (Hence, it is not exactly the same psychological situation, though it may be the same playing or scoring situation.) But without some overriding reason to the contrary, circumstances in a situation determine what is right to do, and similar circumstances demand similar actions. Hence, to say that situations determine right behavior is not to say there are no standards or principles for situations nor that all situations are different in relevant ways. Read more @ www.gconnect.com.ng

Now one of the things that should go into consideration of what act is right are the desires of people who would be affected by your choice, including, of course, your own desires. For example, in deciding what present to buy a child for its birthday, one should at least consider what the child wants or might like. This does not mean, of course, that that is the only consideration -- a twelve year old may want a big motorcycle that might be unsafe; or someone may want a car that the family could not prudently afford. But certainly it seems to me that if the choice is, say, between one kind of book and another, or between one kind of toy and another, of equal cost, and there is not some particular reason the child should not be given the one he wants, then the right choice is to give the child the one he actually wants or would like. Read more @ www.gconnect.com.ng

Similarly in deciding what vegetable to cook for yourself for dinner, between two equal costing ones that are equally appropriate, nutritious, and available, the one you want is the right one to choose. Sometimes desires may even override other considerations. If a desire for something extravagant is very strong, one may sometimes rightly splurge and indulge oneself. Other times, such as in going off a strict medical diet, if that would cause serious physical consequences, the strong desire should be overridden. Desires should always be taken into account, but they are not the final or sole considerations in deciding proper actions.
In sex, as in many cases involving desires, sometimes desires are stronger or more important than they are at other times, and might have more weight as factors or reasons to consider. It is very easy to think sex is right when you are in the mood, and then later to feel disgusted, guilty, repentant, or remorseful, after one has indulged one's desires and spent one's passion. Inexperienced people, particularly younger people, often feel terrible after a sexual experience, whether it was intercourse or even something potentially less disastrous, such as petting or even kissing. You may feel you have led the other on or perhaps made a non-verbal commitment you did not really intend. You may feel you have taken advantage of another person's mood at the time, or that the other person took advantage of yours. Or, released from the influence of strong desire, you may now simply feel guilty that you gave into those desires rather than being able to overcome them as now you feel you could have. Read more @ www.gconnect.com.ng

There is a distinction to be made in cases like this, since there is feeling guilty that is justified and feeling guilty that is not justified. And it is not just with regard to relationships and to sex. If the act you did was wrong and you only did it because your desires overpowered your reason, then feeling guilty is justified; but if the act was right and you only feel guilty afterward because afterward you would not choose or do the same thing if you had to choose then while not being in the mood, then you are feeling unjustifiably guilty because you are confusing making a choice under one set of circumstances with making a choice under another set.

For example, first outside of sex. If while working at some task, someone becomes so hungry that they cannot concentrate properly on their work, even though they may want to get the work done, it might be better for them to go ahead and break for lunch or dinner and return to work, than to try to work straight through. If so, then they should not feel guilty or weak-willed afterward just because they now have the strength and seeming resolve they lacked before. However, if they eat so much they do not feel like working, if they take so long they miss a deadline, if they eat food that disagrees with them and makes them unable to work, or if they break an important diet, their guilt feelings would be justified. Read more @ www.gconnect.com.ng

Similarly with regard to sleeping or taking a nap when you are too exhausted to function efficiently or sufficiently. After the nap, if you then perform properly, it would be silly to berate yourself for having taken it, just because you forgot how tired and inefficient you were before you did. Of course if you oversleep, or if you were really not as tired as you thought but were impersistent, just bored, or just procrastinating, then you should feel guilty because you were guilty of doing the wrong thing.

Part of maturing is learning to know beforehand the likely consequences of various actions, including how you will feel afterward; and part of maturing is developing the resolve to withstand, or the ability to harmlessly assuage, the desire to do things you know are wrong or that will unavoidably make you feel so bad afterward that you are better off not doing them. But you should not feel bad about things that were right under particular circumstances just because those circumstances changed into new ones which, had they been the ones occurring at the time, would have made the act wrong. Sleeping when you are exhausted is not like sleeping when you are lazy; eating when you are famished is not like eating when you are frustrated or unhappy; having sex when circumstances are otherwise right and you are in the mood is not like having sex when circumstances are wrong but your passion clouds your reason or overpowers your will. Feeling rested later does not indicate you were lazy before; being indifferent to food after eating does not mean you were wrong to eat before; and being undesirous of sex after having it does not by itself mean you did the wrong thing when you had sex before. Read more @ www.gconnect.com.ng

Particularly young and inexperienced people can feel tremendously guilty after initial intimate encounters of whatever stage. Sometimes they can even feel so guilty they can ruin an experience or a relationship by doing or saying something to the partner under the distress of overwhelming guilt feelings that they would not have said had they been able to wait for the tide of guilt and distress to naturally subside. Often the guilt feelings are mixed with, or really are just, fear -- fear of being discovered, fear of pregnancy, fear of entering into a relationship or a stage of a relationship one is not ready for or really does not want, fear of not being in control, fear of having been intimate with the wrong person, fear of having been used, or of having embarrassed yourself, etc., etc., etc. Most fears subside with time and that is one really good reason not to say anything nasty or upsetting to one's partner while in the grip of fear one confuses with guilt. One can be honest about one's feelings of fear or guilt; but if one is abusive and
insensitive to the other person instead of sensitively and honestly tactful, one could very much regret that later, or it could at least be unnecessarily damaging to the relationship and the experience. Read more @ www.gconnect.com.ng

I would like to make another distinction now that relates to making rational decisions, particularly ones whose results turn out badly or worse than you expected. First, however, I do not mean to imply by all this that sex, even first encounters, always turns out badly or regrettably. When sex is right, when it adds to a relationship, and when no fear or guilt is felt, but only wonder, joy, appreciation, and closeness, it can be thrilling and beautiful indeed. However, those cases speak for themselves and are not problematic. Further, they are what everyone hopes for and many people expect. It is when these hopes and expectations are not met that problems arise which need addressing. Read more @ www.gconnect.com.ng

The distinction to be made is what is right versus what is reasonable. Baseball broadcasters make this distinction all the time when they talk about a manager's "playing the percentages so he cannot be second-guessed [criticized]" about a decision. Since we cannot always know the consequences of an act ahead of time, the reasonable thing to do may in fact turn out to be the wrong thing -- if the circumstances aren't as you reasonably thought they were or if the results of your action do not turn out the way you reasonably expected them to. (Sometimes we may never know all, or even the most important, consequences of our actions, so we may never know whether our choice was the right one or the most beneficial one or not.) The best people can do is the rational or reasonable thing and hope it turns out right.

Most times it will; but when it does not one simply accepts the mistake, knowing he or she at least did their best and made the best and most rational choice available. In poker this is easy to see. Suppose in a poker game one bets a large, but affordable, amount on a hand with four kings in it. However this turns out, it is certainly a very reasonable bet because of the high probability (low risk) and affordable amount involved. If the hand wins, the player did the reasonable thing and the right thing; if it loses to a hand with four aces, the player still has done the reasonable thing, just simply the wrong thing. The bet is right or wrong when the player makes it, but the knowledge of which it is only becomes known when it and the opposing hands are compared. The reasonableness of the bet can be determined at any time that the circumstances are described. The reasonableness never changes, nor does proper awareness of it. If a man bets his mortgage on a king high hand in a straight poker game of knowledgeable players that are a very unreasonable and downright stupid bet -- even if it wins. If the hand wins, the player is simply lucky. The bet was the right one to make at the time, but it was an irrational and stupid one. One would not be wise to underwrite a player who makes those kinds of bets. (Now one could say of a wise bet that loses that it was the right bet when it was made, but the wrong bet once the hand was played. And one could say of the stupid bet that wins it was the wrong bet to make, but it became right once the hand was played. I think it would be much clearer and more accurate, however, to say that the first bet was rational but wrong, and the second was irrational but turned out to be right. The first person was really unlucky; the second, really lucky. That way you do not have to say things like each bet was both right and wrong. In the case of cards, what makes a bet right or not is generally simply whether it wins or not. The only times a losing bet might be right are (1) when a large loss on a good hand makes possible a successful bluff later with a bad hand, or (2) when the thrill of making the bet (watching others squirm, being able to brag about the loss later, or whatever) or some other such intangible quality is worth more than the loss of the money involved. In the baseball case, the reason the manager cannot be justifiably criticized for "going with the percentages" assuming he is using the right percentages -- that is, figuring in the relevant factors and those alone -- for the situation, is that fans and the club cannot justifiably criticize a manager for unpredictable bad luck, just for mismanagement -- inefficient, irrational, or stupid preparation and decisions.) Read more @ www.gconnect.com.ng


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