Balls.BGH122 said:
Time for me to man up and admit I'm somewhat banged to rights here. You're actually right on pretty much everything you've said and I'm just letting the fact I'm pissed off protract the debate unnecessarily and, if I don't just flat out admit I was wrong then I'll not only look like a raving moron, but also violate my deep held belief that the truth should win over emotion.
So here's how I understand the synthesis of the debate so far: roughly two hundred or so years ago in the Victorian era the societal norms/'moral convictions' were strongly anti-sexual and by the 1960's this belief set sort of fell apart (ignoring for now whether that's a good or bad thing). On this we agree, correct?
Whether 'young people were always doing it' is rather harder to ascertain because what is meant by 'young people' is something of an equivocation: the young people who are 'doing it' (those I characterised, rather foolishly, as licentious morons) problematically today are really a minority classed on the NSSEC [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Statistics_Socio-economic_Classification] as 8 - "Never worked and long-term unemployed" - and on the Social Grade Classification as E - "Casual or lowest grade workers, pensioners and others who depend on the state for their income" (perhaps not so much pensioners!). But the problem is that these social classes are figments of modern society, specifically state welfare, making it almost impossible to make direct comparisons to other pre-welfare eras. Nothing meaningful is said when we compare this modern class (colloquially referred to as 'Chavs') to Victorian era classes because there simply couldn't be a non-working class in an era where not working meant starvation. This forces us to draw invalid comparisons between either the lowest class of Victorian era, criminals and prostitutes, which probably did engage in as much (if not more) promiscuous sex as the modern underclass but (in the case of the women) out of necessity, not choice, or between higher Victorian classes and the modern underclass which is also invalid, because a proper comparison of the promiscuity of Victorian middle/upper classes and modern middle/upper classes probably shows far less drastic deviation than between the mismatching Victorian middle/upper classes and modern underclass.
In summary, because by 'young people' I mean not an age of people (as the name implies), but a specific age and culture-bound class of people the statement 'young people today are promiscuous' is too meaningless when compared to previous cultures to actually assess. If that sounds like an attempt at sophistry then be assured it isn't: the worst thing a scientist can do is make a deliberately fallacious or, worse yet, unassessable claim.
Furthermore, I fully accept that extreme sexual deviation in either direction is usually the result of circumstances (e.g. rearing and direct social norms i.e. that of our immediate social group) beyond individual control and largely due to arbitrary factors such as into which class of family the individual happened to be born. Whilst I still have no respect for people who endanger society as a whole by continually contracting and spreading easily preventable illnesses, I appreciate that the issue is far more complex and requires a far more complex solution than just ranting misanthropically. However, it should be made very clear to every member of the public that when one visits the NHS to receive a treatment then that treatment, whilst free to the individual, still costs money and that this money must come from the NHS' limited funds and so people who continually contract easily preventable illnesses and then expect the NHS to pick up the tab are quite literally costing other people their lives. I appreciate that by this logic an argument can be made that any chronic illness can be seen to be costing others their lives, but when a citizen in good standing, through no fault of their own, requires treatment then it is the duty of a civilized society to provide it (debatable, yes, but that's the reasoning of the NHS). However, when a citizen actively makes a choice to endanger their health and then expects others to bear the burden of their convalescence (thus robbing those passively maligned of the funds necessary to heal themselves) and does so continually then it must be accepted that they are acting against the best interests of society; this is why there's currently a massive debate as to whether or not alcoholics/smokers should get free treatment like people who've been rendered sick through no fault of their own. You can see why I got pissed off, not that this really justifies me making ridiculous claims and then doggedly defending them.
Thanks for enlightening me, it's always pleasant to lose a debate (if humiliating) because it shows I've learned something. Sorry to resurrect a dead thread, but I needed to publicly admit I was wrong and apologise for any offense caused.
