"Enjoy your own sex life (so long as it damages nobody else) and leave others to enjoy theirs in private whatever their inclinations, which are none of your business." - Richard Dawkins

What does this even mean?

Consider the word "damages." What does that mean? A older married married man decides to cheat on his wife. He talks a rather gullible teenage girl into having sex with him. He uses a condom, which breaks. She conceives.

Now what? Does she have an abortion? Even if you're pro-choice, you must agree that having an abortion is more 'damaging' to a woman than not being pregnant and having one. The braver alternative isn't terribly wonderful either: I think most people would agree that the average teenager is probably not better off as the single mother of the child a 50-year-old cad (who has no plans to leave his wife) compared to the alternative scenario where the two didn't have sex.

So did this man "damage" the girl? I don't see how we could say otherwise. And what is Richard Dawkins' remedy? Oh right: he wasn't supposed to have "enjoyed" that particular coupling. I guess if he'd gone about it with a more dour attitude, in Dawkins' world, all would have been well!

Seriously, what variety of sexual scenarios aren't "damaging"? A healthy marriage certainly benefits from sex. But what about sleeping around? Does "use protection" really guarantee a lack of "damage"? (Hint: No, obviously.) Yet I doubt Dawkins would think of himself as telling them (though he actually has): "Hey, stop enjoying that!"

Considering this is an issue where he's apparently telling everyone else how to live and think (a lovely bit of irony there, no?), he doesn't seem to have put much thought into the matter.

And where does law fit in here? No laws about sex? All is legal? His failure to offer a clear statement doesn't make the question disappear. Should parents have sex with their children? Or does the "damage" factor allow the state to step in? If "damage" allows legislation there, what about in other cases? A man callously cheats on his wife right in front of her — is she "damaged"? Does that "damage" open the door to legal protection for her? Why or why not? Where do you draw that line, Richard? All problems become "easy" when you utterly abdicate responsibility for solving them, or even caring about the outcome.

This guy is a scientist?

Seriously: can you imagine if we applied the same sort of thinking to scientific problems?

"Well, you know Richard, if you aren't in favor of creationism, then just don't advocate it!"

"Dawkins' theory of the 'selfish gene' is completely wrong. How? Oh don't you worry your little head with all those pesky details — just take my word for it!"

The larger irony here is that far more damage is done by idiotic social policy than by someone being wrong on some scientific question. Indeed, I have trouble seeing how we're harmed (to address one of Dawkins' pet peeves) if someone is confused about the age of the universe. But the social impacts of a massive increase in kids with a single parent? Ask those children how they feel about not having a dad, and then look at the statistics concerning outcomes for them, and the rest of society.

No, not worth even a moment's furrowed brow for Richard. He has much bigger dragons to slay: somewhere, someone is thinking a wrong religious thought.