What about food? Which has arguably a much bigger effect on your hormones, mood, and lived experience? Will you commit to a bland and static diet to remain true to yourself?
What about illness or injury, and what about trauma? Will you commit to an ultra-low-risk lifestyle to avoid your “true self” being altered by adverse experiences?
What about sleep loss and tiredness? Will you commit to a strict sleep schedule? Are you capable of that without the use of substances?
What about the way successes and failures and the way they make you feel? Will you commit to a state of not-doing to preserve yourself from the dopamine highs and lows from achieving or not achieving your goals?
Anywhere you draw the line seems incredibly arbitrary to me. Life will affect your hormones and neurotransmitters, which will in turn affect your personality, moods, affect, and experience. Unless you plan to become a monk and remove yourself from stimulus, you can’t avoid this. It makes sense to me to avoid doing highly mind altering substances and activities when you need to make a big decision or have a clear head, but I don’t see any sense in abstaining completely or especially in drawing a line at sex but not food.
I agree with the statement that it’s kind of arbitrary where you draw the line, and honestly it’s up to anyone to determine where they do. I wouldn’t advice everyone to refrain from drinking or doing drugs, I’ve just personally decided it was not something I’d like to experience. However, as much as I think this observation is fair, the rest of your comment makes me feel like you either didn’t read my blog post to the end to write this the way you did, or completely distorted what I said—I see a lot of slippery slopes here. (But also, if anyone wanna commit to any of the things you said because it makes them feel like they’re closer to being their more authentic selves, so be it).
I understand sex can be a sensitive topic, especially since some cultures are really sex-negative; however, this post is not advising to abstaining from sex at all. I’m personally polyamorous and have several romantic / sex partners (not that I need to tell that about myself to justify where I come from, but thought it might help understanding how not extreme I am in this proposition at all). It was only meant to serve as food for thought to reflect on how someone wants to approach their physical intimacy (which could also be cuddle parties or the likes, doesn’t have to be sexual).
Knowing in greater details the impacts that physical intimacy have on someone, we’re in a better position to take decisions about it (and yes, that can include doing nothing about it and going on with our lives). I’m personally a bit afraid of committing to romantic relationships (and have worked through that fear) based on anecdotical experiences (mostly from people around me), and I’m super interested in the topic of toxic relationships, and how to avoid them and get out of them. It does empower me to know a bit more about the mechanisms behind them, and as said in the last paragraphs of my post, even though I’ll continue to have sex, it does make me reevaluate when I’ll have sex with them. I think that’s the most important takeaway; when sex is the most susceptible to impair your judgment (such as during a tense period with a partner).
But regardless, even if you don’t change anything based on all this info, I still think it’s interesting to learn about :) The studies on the fostering of in-group / out-group mentality was particularly new and interesting to me!
What about food? Which has arguably a much bigger effect on your hormones, mood, and lived experience? Will you commit to a bland and static diet to remain true to yourself?
What about illness or injury, and what about trauma? Will you commit to an ultra-low-risk lifestyle to avoid your “true self” being altered by adverse experiences?
What about sleep loss and tiredness? Will you commit to a strict sleep schedule? Are you capable of that without the use of substances?
What about the way successes and failures and the way they make you feel? Will you commit to a state of not-doing to preserve yourself from the dopamine highs and lows from achieving or not achieving your goals?
Anywhere you draw the line seems incredibly arbitrary to me. Life will affect your hormones and neurotransmitters, which will in turn affect your personality, moods, affect, and experience. Unless you plan to become a monk and remove yourself from stimulus, you can’t avoid this. It makes sense to me to avoid doing highly mind altering substances and activities when you need to make a big decision or have a clear head, but I don’t see any sense in abstaining completely or especially in drawing a line at sex but not food.
I agree with the statement that it’s kind of arbitrary where you draw the line, and honestly it’s up to anyone to determine where they do. I wouldn’t advice everyone to refrain from drinking or doing drugs, I’ve just personally decided it was not something I’d like to experience. However, as much as I think this observation is fair, the rest of your comment makes me feel like you either didn’t read my blog post to the end to write this the way you did, or completely distorted what I said—I see a lot of slippery slopes here. (But also, if anyone wanna commit to any of the things you said because it makes them feel like they’re closer to being their more authentic selves, so be it).
I understand sex can be a sensitive topic, especially since some cultures are really sex-negative; however, this post is not advising to abstaining from sex at all. I’m personally polyamorous and have several romantic / sex partners (not that I need to tell that about myself to justify where I come from, but thought it might help understanding how not extreme I am in this proposition at all). It was only meant to serve as food for thought to reflect on how someone wants to approach their physical intimacy (which could also be cuddle parties or the likes, doesn’t have to be sexual).
Knowing in greater details the impacts that physical intimacy have on someone, we’re in a better position to take decisions about it (and yes, that can include doing nothing about it and going on with our lives). I’m personally a bit afraid of committing to romantic relationships (and have worked through that fear) based on anecdotical experiences (mostly from people around me), and I’m super interested in the topic of toxic relationships, and how to avoid them and get out of them. It does empower me to know a bit more about the mechanisms behind them, and as said in the last paragraphs of my post, even though I’ll continue to have sex, it does make me reevaluate when I’ll have sex with them. I think that’s the most important takeaway; when sex is the most susceptible to impair your judgment (such as during a tense period with a partner).
But regardless, even if you don’t change anything based on all this info, I still think it’s interesting to learn about :) The studies on the fostering of in-group / out-group mentality was particularly new and interesting to me!