How do you feel about inter-species…

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

10 hours ago, bmcclure7 said:

1.Doesn’t have a human face. (I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m not sleeping with something that doesn’t have lips or has a snout. 

2. Does it have human primary and secondary genitalia?

3. Is it reproductive? To the two of us reproduce together (an important thing to consider, especially if you’re considering a long-term relationship)

One and two are your personal preference, and not on the order of "Wait, is this a crime?" right? Like, if you saw someone getting intimate with a dog, that's upsetting because the dog can't meaningfully consent. But if someone found an adult and talking octopus to engage in a Fisherman's Wife situation after talking it all through, that would not have the same upsetting element, yeah?

The third requirement you have is even weirder to imagine for me. One of my highschool friends was born to and raised by a lesbian couple. They couldn't get married in the state they resided, but they had two daughters via IVF and donor materials. The fact they couldn't create children with each other was nothing weird to me, since my own mother had undergone voluntary tubal ligation surgery after her second child was born healthy because she decided she didn't want any more children. She went on to get divorced and remarried after that.

The notion of something like the Harkness Test is more a way to judge the morality of fictional characters.

I get that some people's personal preferences and morals around intimacy are "When married, with the understanding that it's for making babies". I actually looked through the Roman Catholic Church's catechism for fun once, and I assume some people take that all to heart, but I hope modern people are tolerant enough to let others be different.

[bmcclure7]

5 hours ago, ParaTulip said:

One and two are your personal preference, and not on the order of "Wait, is this a crime?" right? Like, if you saw someone getting intimate with a dog, that's upsetting because the dog can't meaningfully consent. But if someone found an adult and talking octopus to engage in a Fisherman's Wife situation after talking it all through, that would not have the same upsetting element, yeah?

The third requirement you have is even weirder to imagine for me. One of my highschool friends was born to and raised by a lesbian couple. They couldn't get married in the state they resided, but they had two daughters via IVF and donor materials. The fact they couldn't create children with each other was nothing weird to me, since my own mother had undergone voluntary tubal ligation surgery after her second child was born healthy because she decided she didn't want any more children. She went on to get divorced and remarried after that.

The notion of something like the Harkness Test is more a way to judge the morality of fictional characters.

I get that some people's personal preferences and morals around intimacy are "When married, with the understanding that it's for making babies". I actually looked through the Roman Catholic Church's catechism for fun once, and I assume some people take that all to heart, but I hope modern people are tolerant enough to let others be different.

One and two are your personal preference
1. Isn’t that what we’re talking about our personal preferences? Is it just me or am I getting this wrong?
2. Well, this is going beyond the reach of this discussion talking about morality but personally, I would consider it morally wrong to have sex with a dog regardless of its intelligence. 
3. It’s not just a matter of having children, though that is a problem me personally I justify having sex with other species by picturing them as just funny looking humans which is easy to do if they can be produced with humans but kind of hard if they can’t. So I personally wouldn’t have sex with a species who was so different genetic on a genetic level that reproduction of any kind was impossible

[HSuperLee]

Sorry it took me a while to get back to this, I don't have as much time as I'd like to indulge in the forum anymore.

On 4/11/2025 at 10:19 PM, bmcclure7 said:

I’m very interesting and insightful. I do have some thoughts.
1. It’s important here to distinguish between Eros love and Agape Love.

I'm not so convinced it is in this particular context. Since the general topic is on romantic relationships, it can be assumed that we're discussing Eros unless otherwise stated. Yes, I mentioned more types of love than that (mainly Storge) but that was as a general point of demonstrating that love and abuse can (unfortunately) coexist. I anchored that argument in the idea of love as an emotion, that is to say, what we often call "falling in love." I then proceeded to contrast that with the idea of love as, "willing the good of another, and the greater good more than the lesser good," which I believe is a definition that can apply to all forms of love, being the core trait that they all share. Yes, that can take various forms, but whether Storge, Phileo, Eros, or Agape, it all comes down to two elements: the emotion of "being in love,"--which I would say, defines the four types of love as affection, friendship, romance, and reverence respectively--and the deeper commitment of love which is willing the good of another--I prefer the term "charity" for this to try and avoid confusion--which is the core of the most noble form of all four. This discussion is mostly on the two levels of Eros, being the emotion of Eros and the charity of Eros.

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2. “ A relationship needs to be about more than just being "in love" to be good” a very interesting point could you elaborate?

Sure. Responding to your first point actually helped give me the language to explain what I was trying to say in my previous post more clearly. As I was saying, I believe the core of love is charity, which I am presently defining as, "to will the good of another, and the greater good more than the lesser." My previous argument was that a relationship needs to be more than just about the emotional part of love to be good, they also need to contain the charity of love. My previous post argued that the emotion of love can exist without the charity with my example being relationships where the emotion is present alongside abuse. Alright, that preamble aside my assertion is that a romantic relationship needs some manifestation of charity in order to be good. This means the relationship needs to be in some way working towards the good of all parties involved. "The good," here is a complicated term. I believe in virtue-ethics, not consequentialism or deontology, so my definition of "the good" can be understood as that which demonstrates prudence, courage, temperance, justice, faithfulness, or hopefulness. For those of other ethical frameworks, you'd need to rework this idea with your sense of what is ultimately good. Anyway, this means that for a relationship to be good, I'd argue it needs to promote virtue in its participants, and prefer the development of greater virtue over the development of lesser virtue.

As a consequence, this means I don't just condemn the lion-share of inter-species relationships in fiction, which are often written purely based on the emotions of love and neglect the charity, but must also condemn many same-species relationships in fiction for the same reason. But I'm merely acknowledging with that statement a possible objection that people may bring up which I find irrelevant.

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4. being in love" as the be-all-end-all of a romantic relationship, and I do not agree. A relationship needs to be about more than just being "in love" to be good. 
 

Through there definitely can be other concerns other than just being in love. Well I can’t say this is the way for everyone been my experience. It’s definitely very easy to fall in love far from the last step. It’s really one of the first steps. 

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. It sounds like you're saying that the first step to a deeper (read: charitable) romantic relationship is often the emotion of love. I agree, but its rather annoying when authors present the emotions as if they're the end goal, whereas I would say the chief benefit of the emotions of love is that they encourage one to develop charity towards the recipient of their love.

[bmcclure7]

7 hours ago, HSuperLee said:

Sorry it took me a while to get back to this, I don't have as much time as I'd like to indulge in the forum anymore.

I'm not so convinced it is in this particular context. Since the general topic is on romantic relationships, it can be assumed that we're discussing Eros unless otherwise stated. Yes, I mentioned more types of love than that (mainly Storge) but that was as a general point of demonstrating that love and abuse can (unfortunately) coexist. I anchored that argument in the idea of love as an emotion, that is to say, what we often call "falling in love." I then proceeded to contrast that with the idea of love as, "willing the good of another, and the greater good more than the lesser good," which I believe is a definition that can apply to all forms of love, being the core trait that they all share. Yes, that can take various forms, but whether Storge, Phileo, Eros, or Agape, it all comes down to two elements: the emotion of "being in love,"--which I would say, defines the four types of love as affection, friendship, romance, and reverence respectively--and the deeper commitment of love which is willing the good of another--I prefer the term "charity" for this to try and avoid confusion--which is the core of the most noble form of all four. This discussion is mostly on the two levels of Eros, being the emotion of Eros and the charity of Eros.

Sure. Responding to your first point actually helped give me the language to explain what I was trying to say in my previous post more clearly. As I was saying, I believe the core of love is charity, which I am presently defining as, "to will the good of another, and the greater good more than the lesser." My previous argument was that a relationship needs to be more than just about the emotional part of love to be good, they also need to contain the charity of love. My previous post argued that the emotion of love can exist without the charity with my example being relationships where the emotion is present alongside abuse. Alright, that preamble aside my assertion is that a romantic relationship needs some manifestation of charity in order to be good. This means the relationship needs to be in some way working towards the good of all parties involved. "The good," here is a complicated term. I believe in virtue-ethics, not consequentialism or deontology, so my definition of "the good" can be understood as that which demonstrates prudence, courage, temperance, justice, faithfulness, or hopefulness. For those of other ethical frameworks, you'd need to rework this idea with your sense of what is ultimately good. Anyway, this means that for a relationship to be good, I'd argue it needs to promote virtue in its participants, and prefer the development of greater virtue over the development of lesser virtue.

As a consequence, this means I don't just condemn the lion-share of inter-species relationships in fiction, which are often written purely based on the emotions of love and neglect the charity, but must also condemn many same-species relationships in fiction for the same reason. But I'm merely acknowledging with that statement a possible objection that people may bring up which I find irrelevant.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. It sounds like you're saying that the first step to a deeper (read: charitable) romantic relationship is often the emotion of love. I agree, but its rather annoying when authors present the emotions as if they're the end goal, whereas I would say the chief benefit of the emotions of love is that they encourage one to develop charity towards the recipient of their love.

1. Romantic relationships typically have both Eros and agape love so it’s important to distinguish which one you’re talking about or if you’re talking about both. 
 

2. Case in point you mentioned earlier in this comment that we were talking about Eros love. But then said that the core of love is charity which is Only true for agape love . Hence why you could have emotional love (Eros love) without having charity since they are similar, but nonetheless different loves . 
3. Honestly, I wasn’t really making a point just asking you to elaborate more. And clarify some things.