It will be best if in the future, all public reporting on sexual matters of individual people will be banned.

Of course, reporting to provide sexual education, or reporting on scientific research into sexual topics, is not to be banned. What ought to be banned is only the reporting on sexual matters concerning individual people.

From the perspective of advancing sexual freedom, reporting on the sexuality of individuals is very counterproductive indeed, for a variety of reasons.

First, for humans as sexual beings, nothing is as interesting as sex. Thus, because it receives so much attention and is discussed again and again, anything sexual reported on an individual person gets blown out of proportion. If there is just a slight rumor on, for example, a sexual affair of a president, people will be more attracted to this topic then to a president's economic policy, even though the latter may have much more impact on people's lives.

Second, humans as sexual beings are intrinsically envious of the sexual possessions of others. Thus, if a sexual affair of a parliamentarian with a movie star is reported in the media, then this creates resentment towards the parliamentarian, not so much because people would reject the idea of the sexual relationship per se, but because people don't want to grant to others sexual gratifications which they themselves are denied.

To give the media the freedom to report on the sexuality of individuals is an anachronism of the same category as repressive tolerance (tolerance for repressors results in more repression, not in more tolerance).

Because viewing sexual acts, or hearing of sexual acts involving other people, will result in jealousy and aggression, humans conduct sexual acts normally in privacy. This has long become part of the human nature.

It is unrealistic to dream of changing the human nature, so that we can all live naked and mingle like bonobos. We anyway do not need the bonobo kind of sexual freedom. If we all are afforded the opportunity to have a satisfying sex life in privacy, then we have achieved all that needs to be achieved.

I am not an utopist. States and nationwide governments are needed. They cannot just be abolished. (please note: the term “state” is used in its international meaning, referring to the ruling structure of a country; not in its US meaning, referring to a federal state of the US).

The principal function of states is to keep the peace between the members of a society, and to make a society as safe as possible for all who live in it. Furthermore, states have the obligation of defending a society against outside aggression. Beyond that, states should involve themselves as little as possible in the lives of the people.

Even states led by Marxist-Leninist governments have come to realize that a Communist economy, entirely managed by the state, just doesn't work as well as one based on private initiative.

Just as with respect to economic activities, some basic adjustments should also made to the way, crimes and settlements are handled. It may not be obvious but until now, the legal systems of modern states are based on the archaic idea that punishment primarily serves a god, or an abstract entity, whose social order was violated, and not the injured party.

The ultimate purpose of government is to provide good government. This means: to watch over a society so that it allows those who live in it to get through their lives as happily and appropriately as possible. Thus the government is in charge of providing safety, and apart from that, should allow the citizens it rules the greatest possible personal freedom.

The purpose of government is not to have been democratically elected. Yes, good government should represent the interests of those that are governed. But some forms of democratically elected governments do often not achieve this. Take, for example, directly elected populist presidents.

A democratic system in which presidents are elected directly often does not produce rational results (results that would objectively represent the interests of the electorate). Such systems typically favor populist candidates. To get elected, populist candidates appeal on instincts and emotions. The easiest emotions to address are those of envy and hate.

Populist candidates typically present clear pictures of enemies. They often are elected on the basis of what they oppose, not of what they support.

There are many variations, in which this tune can be played. It can be anti a certain ethnicity, anti foreign, anti a successful minority, anti other religions, anti immorality, anti liberty for others.

Such agendas typically are not in the best interest of those governed, because their appeal to the broad base of the electorate only lies in the assumption that only others will suffer from the hate policies, and that the individual supporter of a hate populist will not be affected.

That can be a dangerous error, because governments that are popular because of their opposition to certain "enemies" of society develop their own momentum. When they got rid of one enemy, they will need another one, and than another one, and another one. Such policies impossibly serve a society as a whole, and sooner or later, even the initial supporters of a populist will suffer.

Now, this, objectively, cannot be in the interest of the initial supporter (even if we don't address the point that the populist government from the beginning only represented its initial supporter's emotions of hate and envy).

Populist governments are a nuisance, and anybody who can afford it is advised to get out of harm's way early enough.

To avoid "populist" governments, it is best not to have direct elections. Definitely, a country's president should not be elected directly. Party-based elections are already a bit better, though they are no guaranty against the populist pest.

The most level-headed governments are obtained through indirect elections. The electorate chooses representatives that sit in a local body. These representatives elect one of their members to sit in a regional body. The members of the regional body elect one or several of their peers to represent them in a national body. And the national body elects a chief executive.

Such indirect democracy is hard to manipulate by populists, and it will result in a government that represents a wide range of interests, not just the emotions of hate and envy of the lowest (and therefore widest) strata of a social pyramid. There is no other explanation for the fact that even in cases where the perpetrator of a crime and the victim of a crime were to find a settlement, the state still insists on meting out a punishment.

In contrast to current legal practice, I hold that when the victim and the perpetrator of a crime can agree on a compensation (usually a payment, but both parties should be free to agree on other measures), then the state should give up a claim to punish a perpetrator.

When there is no agreement, the state would impose a punishment in accordance with pre-set ceilings, jus as in current legal systems.

If the maximum sentence for car theft is set as 5 years imprisonment, a victim may ask a court to have this punishment implemented. The court would decide whether there are circumstances that warrant a lower punishment.

But if the victim were satisfied with a compensation payment that is 10 times the value of the car (or anything the two parties agree on, then this punishment would be valid. In such a case, the state may, however, impose a charge on the perpetrator to recover investigation costs.

A society in which punishments would be victim-oriented, different standards would evolve in different strata of this society, and in the interest of personal freedom, I would welcome this.

The essence is that while the state would set limits of maximal punishments, everything below that would depend on what is considered appropriate in different strata of a society, or by victims in different strata of society.

In cases where the victim and the perpetrator of a crime can agree on a settlement, the function of a court should end with having established the guilt of the perpetrator.

In practice, would the proposed alternative legal theory mean that rich people would just pay up and walk free, and poor people can't? Would such a system favor the wealthy? Not necessarily. In many cases, it would mean that rich perpetrators would pay much more compensation than poorer perpetrators. This would even be more consistent with principles of social justice than the current practice, which typically imposes the same punishment on the rich and the poor.

Would the proposed system mean leaner punishments? Not necessarily either. If an injured party feels that only imprisonment will settle the score, then it shall be imprisonment, with the length of a prison term decided by a judge, Justas is current practice).

I do want to point out that my idea is quite different from the Islamic concept of blood money to settle murder cases. In murder cases, no redress is available in favor of the victim, so that in murder cases, the state should always impose a strict punishment.

Current legal theory forces its standards uniformly on all members of a society. This means that even the consensual activities of a group of people may be prosecuted because it violates state standards. A blatant example is the execution of consenting homosexuals in Iran. Another the prosecution of those who engage in consensual oral or anal sex ("against the order of nature") in Malaysia, Singapore, and Myanmar.

Western countries are not free of laws that punish consensual interactions between their citizens. They are not even free of laws that regulate what a person does alone, with his own body. If a person grows marihuana or poppy in a flower pot and smokes it himself, he may be severely punished in the US, even though there is no victim in the legal sense.

People within a society should be entitled to choose their own consensual lifestyle, without being restricted by the state. Then, different groups of people within one country would live very different lives. This is the essence of freedom.

I am aware of the fact that current political systems are unlikely to put such a new legal theory into practice, and to be able to then to fine-tune it so that it will indeed guarantee for a country’s population a new dimension of personal freedom. The political force that most likely could handle the task would be a elitist single state party, strongly guided by a sound ideology in accordance to which granting optimal personal freedom to a country’s citizens would be the primary goal of political rule (in addition to providing safety).