I know you're just playing devil's advocate here, but hey, I can play... uh... angel's advocate? Sure.
On the first quote: Man, I don't care what he thinks is "disconnected from reality", I'd still rather much rather discourage irrational hate than irrational love. (Also, the whole "sex is for procreation" argument is totally bogus but I don't think I'd get far with him on that front.)
On the second quote: It takes a fairly marginal amount of self control to make sex pretty darn safe, whereas no amount of self control is gonna keep smoking from giving you a really high chance of lung cancer. And people who happen to be *nearby* someone having irresponsible sex don't have any chance of catching second-hand AIDS.
Also, backing up to your first few paragraphs, I really like the time in Babylon 5 (not that it was on Sci Fi, but whatever) where two male characters were going undercover, and there cover story was that they were a couple on honeymoon, and it basically just went without comment beyond the minor eye-rolling you might get from having to pretend to be in *any* sort of relationship you're not actually in. It was just a perfectly plausible story.
no subject
On the first quote: Man, I don't care what he thinks is "disconnected from reality", I'd still rather much rather discourage irrational hate than irrational love. (Also, the whole "sex is for procreation" argument is totally bogus but I don't think I'd get far with him on that front.)
On the second quote: It takes a fairly marginal amount of self control to make sex pretty darn safe, whereas no amount of self control is gonna keep smoking from giving you a really high chance of lung cancer. And people who happen to be *nearby* someone having irresponsible sex don't have any chance of catching second-hand AIDS.
Also, backing up to your first few paragraphs, I really like the time in Babylon 5 (not that it was on Sci Fi, but whatever) where two male characters were going undercover, and there cover story was that they were a couple on honeymoon, and it basically just went without comment beyond the minor eye-rolling you might get from having to pretend to be in *any* sort of relationship you're not actually in. It was just a perfectly plausible story.