MAP Forum

I wasn't not sure where should I post it, but as it doesn't exactly concern MAP topic, I decided to go here.
So, are there any taboo things that you think shouldn't be deemed taboo?
For example, I don't think incest, if consensual, is bad, as long as it doesn't result into a child that suffers for inbreeding. I have nothing against an incest couple/triple/etc adopting a child, too.
Do you have any similar thoughts regarding other topics that society usually bans everywhere or just sees as too morally bad?

(upd: just fixed some grammar mistakes, sorry)

I should start by saying that I consider myself a moral nihilist, and that might explain many of my positions.

I mostly agree on the issue of incest, with the caveat that yes, I also consider the suffering caused by consanguinity to be a problem—but for consistency’s sake, one would also have to consider reproduction problematic for anyone carrying disabling genetic diseases.

If we lived in a society in danger of overpopulation, I would have no problem speaking positively about topics that might smell of eugenics. I don’t think that just because healthcare exists we should ignore certain health issues at their root.

When it comes to sexuality in general, I sympathize with paraphiliacs as a whole. I could easily play devil’s advocate defending even behaviors like zoophilia. I also have no problem with violence or harm, as long as it’s consensual.

The most taboo subject I could defend—but which doesn’t concern sexuality—is suicide, which I can’t stand how society currently handles. Even in adolescence. I believe that an individual has the right to end their life however and whenever they see fit. Even though people often bring up cases of those who change their mind right after an attempt, or the role of psychological support that might help someone reconsider… I don’t know, I feel a deep skepticism. Both toward the insistence on necessarily treating it as something to be cured, and toward the supposed effectiveness of the help itself: some do change their minds—though if you listen to priests, some people also change their minds about their sexual orientation—but others don’t. Of course, the latter are ignored and end up spending their lives in therapy until they’re old enough to be socially irrelevant.

I don’t know, sometimes I interpret it as a kind of slow torture.

To be clear, it’s not my intention to make an apology for anything here—this is certainly not the place—but aside from sexuality, this is the second issue that matters most to me. And again, it’s used as an excuse to censor things left and right.

Other taboo topics? Can't really think about anything that matches the level of MAP rights.

Not Forever wrote: Tue Sep 02, 2025 10:11 pm The most taboo subject I could defend—but which doesn’t concern sexuality—is suicide, which I can’t stand how society currently handles. Even in adolescence. I believe that an individual has the right to end their life however and whenever they see fit. Even though people often bring up cases of those who change their mind right after an attempt, or the role of psychological support that might help someone reconsider… I don’t know, I feel a deep skepticism. Both toward the insistence on necessarily treating it as something to be cured, and toward the supposed effectiveness of the help itself: some do change their minds—though if you listen to priests, some people also change their minds about their sexual orientation—but others don’t. Of course, the latter are ignored and end up spending their lives in therapy until they’re old enough to be socially irrelevant.

Definitely disagree with that take about suicide though, especially when it comes to people who are still young Don't get me wrong I understand the logic, I used to think this way myself. But then I hit rock bottom and was suicidal for a long time. I truly though there was no way out, I truly though it was the only recourse I had left. I was wrong, very very wrong. And if I did actually complete it, I would have never had the chance to change my mind.
Suicide is very bad because it's a net negative for everyone: the person involved of course loses everything, their life, their future, the possibilities. The friends and family lose someone close and suffer immense pain and grief. The only people who benefit are the kind of sociopaths who push others to suicide in the first place. In order to make the world a better place, one has to hold on to hope no matter how bad things get, or else things will only be doomed to get worse.

Not Forever wrote: Tue Sep 02, 2025 10:11 pm I don’t know, sometimes I interpret it as a kind of slow torture.

Here is the right thing to do in my opinion: instead of letting the tortured person reach the point of suicide, why not instead focus on stopping the torturer? (By that I mean, whichever causes the torture, whether it's a person or something systemic). Despair is a very powerful force but it shouldn't be turned inwards, it should be harnessed and aimed towards changing things for the better. Your life is the most precious thing you have, why waste it? I'm serious here, if you have nothing to lose anyway, why not use it to change things? It can't go as bad as it would if you just took out your life, and you might actually have a chance to succeed and improve your life by overcoming whatever was causing you to despair.

Liyowo wrote: Wed Sep 03, 2025 12:26 amwhy not instead focus on stopping the torturer?

Well, in that context I interpreted it as torture to have someone simply postpone the suicide.

Liyowo wrote: Wed Sep 03, 2025 12:26 amSuicide is very bad because it's a net negative for everyone: the person involved of course loses everything, their life, their future, the possibilities. The friends and family lose someone close and suffer immense pain and grief. The only people who benefit are the kind of sociopaths who push others to suicide in the first place. In order to make the world a better place, one has to hold on to hope no matter how bad things get, or else things will only be doomed to get worse.

There are many things an individual may choose to do that are considered a negative event by the people around them, but usually priority is given to the individual, and interpreting it as a negative event is generally seen as a selfish act.

Even though I don’t want to equate them in terms of severity, an example could be coming out about something socially not accepted.

Liyowo wrote: Wed Sep 03, 2025 12:26 am And if I did actually complete it, I would have never had the chance to change my mind.

I don’t doubt that someone might change their mind; what I want to emphasize is that there are people who don’t change their mind, and honestly I don’t like the idea that such a person has to endure a slow torture just because their decision is not accepted by society.

Could they change their mind? Of course.
But they might also not change it, they might return to the subject hundreds of times over the course of their life, until they reach that age when society is ready enough to just shrug it off so they can put an end to it without much fuss.

But what I’ve written is also a kind of excuse; for me the problem is also simply conceptual: when a person wants something, even self-destructive choices should be accepted without someone from the outside stepping in to say what is better or not for that individual. This, regardless of whether they might change their mind in the future or not.

Non-consensual deepfakes and viewing revenge porn.

I think unless you're using deepfakes to promote lies about a person, it shouldn't be a big deal, anymore than a caricature of a person. I feel the issue with viewing revenge porn is the fact it's being shared unknowingly, not the fact it's being shared. I'd contrast viewing revenge porn with premeditated voyeurism, for example, a voyeur might record someone with a hidden camera without their consent, in contrast a victim of revenge porn intends to be seen in a sexual context. I don't think it's much worse than sharing screenshots of chats containing information told in confidence; both are betrayals of trust, but both are disclosures. Perhaps it's another example of sex exceptionalism.

If you didn't specify that this is about opposing taboos I would have said animal equality/the abolition of harmful animal exploitation which I think might be the single most important moral issue of our time (harmful animal exploitation, human poverty, war and violence etc. are among the biggest issues we need to work on).

I don't think that cheating is inherently bad but I don't think it's ideal either. I support the ubiquitous adoption of non-monogamy (at least in the sense of being open to more than one partner or opposing contract monogamy which would apply even to the asexual and 'aromantic' or someone who only felt comfortable with one person) to reduce competition for mates, fulfill the needs of as many people as possible and as an extension of the idea that you should value the happiness of all people (including the sexual pleasure of one's partner and their prospective other partners) which necessarily negates exclusivity *for the sake of exclusivity*. I'm sympathetic to cheating in scenarios where the cheater bends over backward to avoid harming their partner (and they can be reasonably sure that they won't suspect/discover the affair or be indirectly harmed by it in some way) whom they can reasonably assume would not be interested in an open relationship.

I don't care about either consent or what people want per se as an end in itself. I don't value freedom per se (although the fact that desire frustration is inherently painful is something to consider when it comes to violating people's autonomy, that is enough of a reason to respect the autonomy of others by default) or think that there's any moral obligation to consider the desires per se of other people (our responsibility to others is to consider their happiness and suffering, not what they want in scenarios where some conceptual 'fulfillment' of their desires wouldn't affect their emotional state at all), by extension I don't think that democracy is fundamentally ideal but it's somewhat pointless to say because I can't think of a better alternative. Hitler deserved happiness, he's not someone who's good/bad judgements should have been taken seriously and I'm glad that many of his desires went unfulfilled (you might feel differently if we're talking about innocent people but the nature of his more anti-social and egoistic desires are what differentiate him from relatively innocent people so the idea of consistently respecting people's desires without reference to some objective standard by which to determine the validity of their desires doesn't work, in my view. Most people themselves don't practice this logic, the idea that it's prosocial to respect what people what because they want it, consistently, even preference utilitarians will make a distinction between 'rational' and 'irrational' desires or critique desires that are rooted in wanting to thwart other people's desires etc. without just considering people's desires as they actually are, everyone picks and chooses when to honor the desires of people they respect and care about). I love cats. I want them to play and have fun. I don't want them pointlessly killing smaller animals for sport even though I value whatever happiness they feel as a result of that.

When it comes to sex the only acts that should be taboo are those that cause pain or deprive people of happiness or imply de-valuing the happiness/suffering of others (which would make them immoral, if not actually harmful or unjust).

Suicide is a difficult topic and I don't ever want to speak with complete confidence about what public policy on it should be. When it comes to terminal illnesses (or even some incurable life-long medical condition that leaves one in constant unbearable pain despite the fact that it won't shorten their lifespan or by much) it's clear to me that allowing people the option of a physician-assisted suicide is the most compassionate approach to take. When it comes to chronic depression, chronic anxiety or various psychological, social and environmental sources of chronic trauma it's also clear to me that not everyone is ever going to have a life worth living (I am sorry- that is a fact) but determining that in any given scenario might be next to impossible (and I definitely don't want it to be left to the 'experts,' although it's worth acknowledging that people can be mistaken about how their own lives will turn out even if they are the authority on whether or not their current predicament is unbearable). On principle, I'm not opposed to preventing people from committing suicide on the basis of valuing the future happiness that they *might* experience if they live but I don't believe that life is inherently valuable (I think that's a genuinely callous position, that we should value a man's life even under the assumption that it's causing him unbearable pain for which there is no practical hope of ending through any means other than death). I don't care about autonomy as an end (hypothetical scenarios where respecting someone's autonomy involves causing them unnecessary pain-as in pain that's not unavoidable in minimizing greater emotional harm or producing greater happiness or unnecessarily depriving them of happiness help to emotionally clarify my opposition to libertarianism on principle, along with the 'not consented to' harm that libertarianism can justify causing to others since, in both cases, a libertarian can obviously cause people pain or allow them to suffer and die without violating their autonomy) but suffering isn't bad only because it minimizes happiness, it is bad in and of itself (so while it's true that you have this improbable opportunity and shockingly small window in the span of eternity to experience happiness, happiness isn't fundamentally more valuable than suffering, so you do potentially have something to 'lose' by continuing to live. We should be grateful for whatever happiness we experience in our lives but it's not necessarily worth the harm. I see death as a mixed bag- it deprives us of any hope for future happiness, which is bad, but it protects us from pain and that is good). What I lean toward is allowing physically healthy people who are struggling with some deep prolonged trauma or dissatistfaction with life a convenient, painless, foolproof method of euthanasia but there is a waiting period of maybe 6 months or a year after they apply where they have to really think things through and 'society' steps in to see how we can improve their lives (don't just tell people to not commit suicide, help give them a life worth living).

I can't agree on non-consensual deepfakes and revenge porn. You make an interesting point (Porcelain Lark) about 'sex exceptionalism' but I feel the same way about using someone's likeness in other ways that they might find intrusive, unflattering, misrepresenting, etc. (an episode of Boston Public comes to mind where a student creates an animation of a teacher defecating into his own mouth). I don't understand why you think that it being shared unknowingly makes it worse, and I didn't understand your contrasting of premeditated voyeurism and revenge porn and the victim of the latter being presented in a sexual light (I'm not sure what you meant). I do have a problem with sharing screenshots of chats containing information shared in confidence, I definitely have a problem with that assuming that it actually hurts the person (save for some 'greater good' scenario that's not really hard to image but I would still have a 'problem' with it if it causes psychological harm, it would just be a necessary bad thing). I don't think you can condemn this from a libertarian point of view, I think that the problem is with the frustration of one's psychological need for privacy (or the perceived degradation of their public self-image in the case of some deep fakes or using someone's likeliness in some way). Being a voyeur can be harmless although it's not lost on me that we need to create the kind of environment where people can believe that no one is violating their privacy.

I am also against age roles or the concept of age-appropriate behavior, interests etc. Adults should be more independent than I am but if we're not talking about something that will cause them long term-pain/prevent them from living their best life or cause pain to others they should be 'free' to express themselves in whatever ways are natural or emotionally gratifying ('free' in the sense that they won't be critiqued for it, they are already 'free' in the libertarian sense). You can apply the same logic to breaking gender rules and 'cultural appropriation.'

Not that it would really benefit me personally but, when it comes to sex, a world where 'promiscuity' is the norm and there are no more age gap taboos is really appealing.

John_Doe wrote: Wed Sep 03, 2025 4:25 pm I can't agree on non-consensual deepfakes and revenge porn. You make an interesting point (Porcelain Lark) about 'sex exceptionalism' but I feel the same way about using someone's likeness in other ways that they might find intrusive, unflattering, misrepresenting, etc. (an episode of Boston Public comes to mind where a student creates an animation of a teacher defecating into his own mouth).

If you're against unflattering caricatures in general, that makes sense.

I don't understand why you think that it being shared unknowingly makes it worse, and I didn't understand your contrasting of premeditated voyeurism and revenge porn and the victim of the latter being presented in a sexual light (I'm not sure what you meant).

I think if you intend something to be private, usually you don't expect people to share it; so part of the harm derives from the humiliation that comes from power dynamic between the victim who doesn't know how they're being perceived by others and others who know something about the victim that the victim doesn't know they know.
I think there's a minimum of expectation of privacy that's necessary; for example, a gay person in a homophobic place. An interpersonal relationship where you share nudes always has the risk of having the nudes seen by others; sometimes this may be accidental. So sharing nudes requires you to be comfortable with the risk of them being leaked (in my opinion). In contrast, spying on someone when they expect to have privacy (be it a gay person in a violently homophobic place, or a MAP seeking peer support), can actually put a person's life at risk.

I do have a problem with sharing screenshots of chats containing information shared in confidence, I definitely have a problem with that assuming that it actually hurts the person (save for some 'greater good' scenario that's not really hard to image but I would still have a 'problem' with it if it causes psychological harm, it would just be a necessary bad thing).

That's fair enough, if you have an issue with sharing information shared in confidence then at least you're consistent. I think a lot of people engage in double think about this: i.e. sharing messages are OK as long as you don't share images.

I don't think you can condemn this from a libertarian point of view, I think that the problem is with the frustration of one's psychological need for privacy (or the perceived degradation of their public self-image in the case of some deep fakes or using someone's likeliness in some way). Being a voyeur can be harmless although it's not lost on me that we need to create the kind of environment where people can believe that no one is violating their privacy.

I'd think of privacy as a social rather than psychological need. I always think back to the communal living of indigenous people, sex taking place in communal spaces, nudity not uncommon, etc. When we require privacy we require it because of the kind of culture we have which shames sexuality. I'm sympathetic to nudism so my perspective on privacy is probably a lot different from other people; I don't mind people seeing me naked, but I would mind people spying on me and finding out I'm a MAP.

Not Forever wrote: Tue Sep 02, 2025 10:11 pm I should start by saying that I consider myself a moral nihilist, and that might explain many of my positions.

I mostly agree on the issue of incest, with the caveat that yes, I also consider the suffering caused by consanguinity to be a problem—but for consistency’s sake, one would also have to consider reproduction problematic for anyone carrying disabling genetic diseases.

If we lived in a society in danger of overpopulation, I would have no problem speaking positively about topics that might smell of eugenics. I don’t think that just because healthcare exists we should ignore certain health issues at their root.

When it comes to sexuality in general, I sympathize with paraphiliacs as a whole. I could easily play devil’s advocate defending even behaviors like zoophilia. I also have no problem with violence or harm, as long as it’s consensual.

The most taboo subject I could defend—but which doesn’t concern sexuality—is suicide, which I can’t stand how society currently handles. Even in adolescence. I believe that an individual has the right to end their life however and whenever they see fit. Even though people often bring up cases of those who change their mind right after an attempt, or the role of psychological support that might help someone reconsider… I don’t know, I feel a deep skepticism. Both toward the insistence on necessarily treating it as something to be cured, and toward the supposed effectiveness of the help itself: some do change their minds—though if you listen to priests, some people also change their minds about their sexual orientation—but others don’t. Of course, the latter are ignored and end up spending their lives in therapy until they’re old enough to be socially irrelevant.

I don’t know, sometimes I interpret it as a kind of slow torture.

To be clear, it’s not my intention to make an apology for anything here—this is certainly not the place—but aside from sexuality, this is the second issue that matters most to me. And again, it’s used as an excuse to censor things left and right.

what a great answer! thank you. and about the genetic diseases, yeah, you make a good point there. if I were to have kids I would rather adopt one instead of passing my autism, and I know some people might do the same... But if to take too far it may cause more harm than good (just like any regulation would). the only hope is that people who suffer from some painful conditions decide not to condemn their children to suffer through the same thing only because they wanted that child overall...

PorcelainLark wrote: Wed Sep 03, 2025 10:54 amNon-consensual deepfakes and viewing revenge porn.

I’m not sure I agree with the argument; maybe I agree with it partly, but some points don’t convince me, though I do share the main ideas.
If we’re talking about viewing revenge porn, I agree that it’s not particularly serious, and I feel the same about non-consensual deepfakes, as long as they don’t involve disinformation.

Regarding revenge porn specifically, the real harm should be in its distribution, not in its viewing. It’s not uncommon for journalists to have caused more harm than anything else, because they have often ended up associating the victim with the leaked material, which then pushes people to go and search for it.
In this context, then, the harm is caused by the journalist who amplified it, not by people who looked at it out of sheer curiosity.

On principle, I'm not opposed to preventing people from committing suicide on the basis of valuing the future happiness that they *might* experience if they live but I don't believe that life is inherently valuable [...]

Maybe I’ll sound contradictory, but paradoxically I place a lot of “value” on individual life. Or, to put it better, I give it the value that the individual assigns to it themselves.

As for the rest, I think I take too different a perspective: I don’t place value on "happiness", nor do I set it in opposition to suffering; I accept the values that the individual assigns to themselves, and for this reason I always come back to the idea of consent. An individual has their own scale of values, and I believe they should be the one to decide how to live—or not live—their life according to those values, which again leads back to the matter of consent.

Acting for someone else’s good feels paternalistic to me, and I don’t like it—not only because of the possibility of error. I prefer an internal subjective standpoint, rather than starting from an external subjective one (even if it’s built on seemingly objective bases, such as suffering)

I love cats. I want them to play and have fun. I don't want them pointlessly killing smaller animals for sport even though I value whatever happiness they feel as a result of that.

Here I think I hold another fairly extreme position—or at least I have in recent times—which could be linked back to the discussion about Hitler and so on… obviously there’s the issue of the limits of freedom when it infringes on the freedom of others. A genocide is a limitation of others’ freedom (unless there’s consent to be genocided), because we live in a society and we prefer not to have it collapse on us.

From these reasons comes the extreme consequence: I don’t foresee protections for those outside society. In this case, other animals—except as property of another human being, and therefore protected only as someone’s property.

And I also accept potential extreme consequences, in the sense that there’s no real reason not to treat people from other nations on the same level as animals, and so on… but I believe there are also extreme consequences on the other side: one could argue about animals less cuddly than cats, or about insects, or then get into debates about brain capacities, or how suffering is perceived in some animals (more quantitative than qualitative differences), and so on.

So I understand that it’s a complicated discussion, full of slippery slopes.

FlowerLurker wrote: Wed Sep 03, 2025 8:36 pmBut if to take too far it may cause more harm than good (just like any regulation would).

I agree, I can already picture a dystopia where people start spending tons of money to have a child with the 'right' or the 'coolest' genetics, only for a massacre to happen at the first epidemic because of the lack of genetic diversity. Haha.

FlowerLurker wrote: Wed Sep 03, 2025 8:36 pmBut if to take too far it may cause more harm than good (just like any regulation would).

I agree, I can already picture a dystopia where people start spending tons of money to have a child with the 'right' or the 'coolest' genetics, only for a massacre to happen at the first epidemic because of the lack of genetic diversity. Haha.
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that sounds like a yet another dystopian movie about 16yolds going on a quest to return genetic randomness while evil moogle and gicrosoft corptorations are trying to genetically modify them into perfect soldiers or whatever. that could make millions, lol