I agree that a couple contemplating marriage should know everything about each other, including their sexual “kinks.” But it is not necessary that they know each other intimately, i.e., by experience.

They should know each other abstractly, and on the basis of these data decide whether they are compatible or want to spend their life with each other, but not through intimate experience.

I don’t need to jump from a 7th story of a building or eat rat poison to know that I’ll die if I do so. I can know lots of things without testing them on myself.

Update. So, if there was a girl I really liked and even thought I might want to marry, I’d sit her down and ask: “So, honey, what are your sexual perversions? And you have to be honest: if you like it with animals, say, then you’d better tell me now, before I have to, as per Ex 22:19 or Lev 18:23, you know, stone you. And please don’t seduce my cat.”

“Yet the psychiatrist who enjoys his trade is also receiving constant feedback: the way the patient holds himself, the expression on his face, the hesitation in his voice, the content of the material he brings up in the therapeutic hour — all these bits of information are important clues the psychiatrist uses to monitor the progress of the therapy. The difference between a surgeon and a psychiatrist is that the former considers blood and excision the only feedback worth attending to, whereas the latter considers the signals reflecting a patient’s state of mind to be significant information. The surgeon judges the psychiatrist to be soft because he is interested in such ephemeral goals; the psychiatrist thinks the surgeon crude for his concentration on mechanics.” (Flow, 56)

Isn’t it odd for a person who has written a treatise on happiness to despise people who are not like him, in fact, people who simply perform other tasks within social cooperation? And moreover, to ascribe to those other people the predilection for having similar contempt for himself?

Judging from a few sentences here and there, our author is very insecure about his science. Studying consciousness appears to him to be a “soft” endeavor, not unlike the far “harder” chemistry and even biology. How boring.

Mises has this to say about economics:

“It is common with narrow-minded people to reflect upon every respect in which other people differ from themselves. The camel in the fable takes exception to all other animals for not having a hump, and the Ruritanian criticizes the Laputanian for not being a Ruritanian. The research worker in the laboratory considers it as the sole worthy home of inquiry, and differential equations as the only sound method of expressing the results of scientific thought. He is simply incapable of seeing the epistemological problems of human action. For him economics cannot be anything but a kind of mechanics.” (Human Action, 8)

Oh well.

Now the most obvious point in homosexual sex is the lack of the procreative third level. I contend moreover that there can be no genuine friendship and love between two homosexuals as between spouses. Thus, the only first level of sensual delight exists in a homosexual act. In this it is similar to straight promiscuity. A man and a woman engaging in “casual sex” are with regard to the second and third levels really not that different from two gay men sucking each other’s dicks. In a sense they are actually worse, because the gay men feel no interest in loving each other, while the straight couple will want to bond beyond mere sensual pleasure and actually reject the beginnings of love in them. There will be heartbreak for them which there would not be for the homosexuals. In addition, there is always the specter of conceiving a child and choosing to abort it or be forced to marry because of it or not marrying and dealing with a bastard child, all of which are admittedly pretty awful. At least gay sex is “safer” for the souls of all involved than straight promiscuous sex.

So, for the gays there’s nothing in the “relationship” but lust. Unfortunately, the homosexual 1st-level sensuality is corrupted, as well. It is a debased sensuality. Homosexual sex is really, “objectively” ugly, filthy. Most straight men who imagine two men banging each other in the ass are nauseated, disgusted. It’s genuine perversion of aesthetic sensibilities. A man ought to find women beautiful and be attracted to them. And he ought to find no interest in anal sex, say. Such things are ennobling, while gay attraction is demeaning. And then there is the effeminacy of gay men. It’s like “Deliverance” or “Pulp Fiction” in which we are shown scenes of homosexual rape. Men ought to be holy warriors; they cannot submit to being sodomized without losing all dignity. Of course, there can be a number of types of loving relationships between men which are great-making, such as between master and student, father and son, or colleagues, or fellow fighters.

In short, homosexual sex is absurd.

P.S. Oh yes, there is certainty the “zeroth” level, which is biological and relevant to physical health. AIDS was not in vain referred to as “gay disease.”

Women should treasure their virginity, as it is a great source of divine power is in them, rather than trade the holiness in them blithely for earthly power or influence over men. A woman should give herself to that man whom she loves with abandon, without second thought, with all of herself. And although I believe in love at first sight, having been in the company of incredible NF Idealist women a few times in my life (all unfortunately older than me and married), I still suggest that love grows either stronger or weaker in time, and so courtship should be long enough to determine definitively in what direction your love goes.

The final bond of a couple lies, of course, in children. And that’s another reason to avoid pre-marital sex. For in it the woman cannot give herself to the man completely, because she denies to him the power to beget a child, and that’s also one of the reasons why contraception even in marriage is such a controversial issue.

Compare this with the SJ pattern. It starts with service and is, too, a humble begining. One cannot bark orders at anyone without having first built up a record of distinguished service to something: the university, the company, the community, etc. Only after and as a result of years of selfless and successful work will an SJ be honored with a leadership position, say, as a CEO. Then one can rule, and, indeed, boss people around.

Sensing understanding is a combination of adaptable tactical appraisal and easy logistical grasp of exactly what is needed where and at what time. This is the understanding that allows one to act, to interpret history, and the like. It is different from prudence, as prudence is a practical virtue concerned with finding the most profitable course of action given the known ends and means. Understanding is a speculative virtue that assesses the situation and considers the feasibility of rival plans. In other words, knowledge gives prudence the causal connections between events. Understanding gives prudence estimates of how projects are likely to proceed in any given situation. Prudence then takes this information and calculates the best choice to make.