Greetings,

it is a fine thing to start my day seeing a reasoning that has so many wise and fine people participating. Much respect to you all.
In i&i opinion we are not just creatures of instinct, or of just intellect and judgement. It is our gift to be a combination of both. Instinct to give us the sense of the world around us and the basic ways to respond to it quickly, and intellect to refine and improve upon these basic urges. It is a symbiotic relationship, both contributing to the whole.
I&i think that when people justify their behaviour on the basis of instinct, it is usually done after the fact in order to rationalise something that they know was probably wrong. Yes we are given a fairly non-specific sex drive. But this does not turn off our brain totally. We still have the capacity to know that our behaviour will hurt another person, or ourselves. Most animals are even able to over-ride instinct in the service of broader needs. It is just that at times we choose not to. And then after we have done the thing that we wished, we say "i was not in control" or "i was not myself". This excuse would not be acceptable if we were to pick up a stick and clobber someone simply because we 'instinctivley' felt a bit threatened, but for some reason it seems to be acceptable when we are talking about sexual behaviour, which requires considerable amounts of fore-thought and self conciousness. I&i dont think it is instinct we are talking about here, but greed and ego.

Respect and love
Paul