Why is it wrong to dump a girl for not putting out?

An ONS is just about feeling animalistic pleasure - using someone as a jizz bucket or a stud. Theres no difference between an ONS and two dogs humping. It also ignores the human side of it, more specifically oxytocin, which is where we are meant to bond via sex, something which is an intimate act but people pretend it isn't. Simply put, if it wasn't meant to be intimate, then why ze oxytocin?

I disagree that it's about using people - at least no more than having sex with a spouse does - if both parties have the same expectations. Just because it's a short-lived affair doesn't mean there can't be respect or kindness. Quite simply, it is possible to sleep with someone and it not be a bonding act. If it was then we'd be bereft after every brief fling. But we're not. And I cite myself as an example of that.

But sexual desire is also a selfish act, there's no denying it. But if I have sex with my fiancée tonight, there may be nothing mechanically that's any different from how we might be together if we'd only just met. So it then becomes a question of what's happening in my head: and who is to say I'm not just focused on myself, or thinking about my dissertation, or someone else. I could be there whilst being mentally absent. Or, what's more realistic, is that partly I act out of love, but also I'm there because I'm horny.

Setting up a dichotomy between the pure love of married (or equivalent) sex, and the uncaring-ness of an animal ONS is artificial since it doesn't recognise the sophistication and subtlety of the motivations and agendas that exist when we have sex. And what does "animalistic pleasure" even mean? Don't animals also eat? And don't some animals mate for life? I don't know, it just seems an odd way of denigrating something by implying that a whole class of actions is 'animal' against a higher form of love.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating anyone sleep around. Generally speaking I think it's better to have sex in the context of a committed relationship. But that argument can be made without insulting anyone who experiences something different.

If none of this is convincing I'll let it drop as I think it explains why I think as I do. But since I opened by criticising you, I'll let you have the last word if you want it!!

Who said their can't be respect or kindness? That was never the point made. The point is, spending just a night with someone is clearly just about getting your quick fix, which is animalistic and spits in the face of are neurology. Considering there are far more emotions than just happy or bereft, your point doesn't stand, and that's before addressing it as merely being anecdotal.

If sexual desire was a selfish act then explain the role of oxytocin. This is something you have ignored in your entire post and makes your entire post redundant. That's what is going on in your head. If humans were meant to have ONS', that chemical wouldn't be released after sex.

Well, since you explicitly asked me to reply...

Anecdotal evidence is quite important when explaining matters of the heart. You'll find more truth in Flaubert than any number of chemically-based studies. If you reduce sex to the expression of neurological impulse then you're replacing my supposed animalistic sex with depressingly mechanistic and impersonal encounters.

Which is all by way of saying I've never heard of oxytocin until today. Having briefly looked at the Wikipedia page I can't offer anything in the way of intelligent neurochemistry but I will say this - humans are more than the sum of our biology. We do not derive purpose or meaning from our biochemical functions. The most important and vital things in our life are motivated by a very complex network of things and emphasising one to the exclusion of all others strikes me as unbalanced. Besides which the way they pitch it on Wikipedia, a lot of the research on the sexual function of oxytocin is conjectural.

I think in a discussion of ONS it's important to consider the testimony of people who have actually had them. I assume - forgive me if this is wrong - that you haven't experienced that? I ask not to be intrusive, but because there is a huge gulf between what you think something like that will be like and what it actually is like. The same is true of sex generally.

What I was at pains to show is that you can't predetermine what a sexual experience will mean to someone.

Final thought from me: if an action 'spits in the face of our neurology' then why would people do it? Surely if it was that irrational we wouldn't do it. Or we would categorise people who do so as unhinged as someone who talked to their hat. But many people (include neurologists) have had casual sex. And anticipating the next point, not every one night stand is the result of drunkenness (which tends to lower inhibitions rather than fundamentally change a person's motivation anyway). What I'm saying is, if it's so crazy, why do we still do it? And why do those of us who have done it claim there isn't a problem?

No, anecdotal evidence is just that, and is never useful. How do we know your experiences aren't the result of brain damage? That's why you can't use it.

Sadly it looks like you're just going to sit there as an ignorant (literally) armchair critic and claim that all neuroscience related to sex is now inexplicably irrelevant. Nope, I'm not about to have that conversation as that's you trying to pass opinion over facts.

Once you've addressed oxytocin, then we can continue this conversation. If you're just going to dismiss it, then there's no discussion here to be had as I'm looking for an academic debate, not a screaming match.

I'll close with this. If you think that:
" humans are more than the sum of our biology."
then you are also the sort of person who probably argued hundreds of years ago that what couldn't be explained was the act of some magical entity, and explaining such acts was impossible. Denying science for magic, which is what you're doing, is absurd.

FYI, this is going to be a loooooong and fruitless endeavour.

I'll admit that from the perspective of 12 hours later, you called this one absolutely correctly.

Yeah I've no wish to get into a pointless and pedantic philosophical debate. I just don't really care.

Hang on a minute! This is the Chat forum of The Student Room. If you want an academic debate then you'll have to attend a conference of psychological behaviourists and neuroscientists.

Of course anecdotal evidence is helpful. We rely on it all the time. Whether it's recommendations for a film to see or a place to go on holiday, we listen to what's said and make a judgement on the basis of how credible the speaker is and how reasonable the advice sounds. Anecdotal evidence isn't objective but it can reveal shades of nuance far greater than more painstaking methods could ever accomplish.

I'm no arch rationalist that's for sure. I believe seeking a biological answer for why Shakespeare tells us profound things about the human condition, or why the Great Barrier Reef is inspirational is beyond the remit of science. I don't want to dismiss scientific thinking but when considering matters of human interactions, we must also trust our own lived-experience. What philosophers call phenomenology, I believe.

I'm fascinated to know more about you. You take an unusually strong and forceful stance against casual sex and justify it wholly through the use of biological determinism. It makes me desperately want to know about your own relationship experiences because, speaking personally, trying different things has radically transformed my understandings and beliefs concerning sexuality and relationships. And to return to the OP's original question - exploring sexuality is a legitimate aspect of life, and if his girlfriend isn't prepared to do that, then he should strongly consider whether he'd find more fulfilment elsewhere.

So as I understand it, the purpose of oxytocin in sex is to bond us to our partners. Presumably as a result of an evolution that found that survival favoured people in strong partnerships? If I've understood it correctly, I don't see why that has to inform our conduct of relationships in 2014. There's a bonding impulse but in social terms, sexual experience is often prized (by our peers and the media, if not necessarily prospective future partners) which might be a sufficient countervailing pressure to offset a chemical impulse to monogamy. Moreover monogamy is undermined by a whole host of pressures, not least an awareness of evolution itself that - in common understanding (which I concede might be wrong) - generally holds that men are hard-wired to shag around. That being the case, women have plenty of justification in suppressing whatever bonding instincts they may have. How's that?

Of course anecdotal evidence is helpful. <- thats where I stopped reading. There's no point in continuing if you're going to rewrite the laws of logic. You stick to believing in magic, I'll stick to science.

Thank you very much but I actually spent some time reading up on oxytocin so I could try and write an informed reply. My final paragraph met you on your own terms.

I think you did read my whole reply. And the reason you've gone back to accusing me of believing in 'magic' is that you know I've made some sensible points but can't, for whatever reason, bear to concede that.

Nope i literally stopped reading your reply there. There's no point discussing science with someone who doesn't understand fallacies.

It's not that I don't understand fallacies, so much as I think that on occasion anecdotal evidence is admissible.

Do read the rest of my reply because it covers a number of points I'd be interested to hear your views on.

Of course it's not wrong. Women who don't understand how important sex is to men (or even worse, don't put out for control purposes) are not worth bothering with.

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But sleeping around seems self destructive more than anything else. I believe its a result of the family unit becoming less important and people having far weaker emotional ties with friends, and therefore look for a quick fix to a lack of emotional ties by sleeping around. Just an idea though, nothing to back it up...yet