Sex: The Sexquersex

The inspiration for this posts rests in two separate events. First, I watched a documentary called This Film is Not Yet Rated, which is a fascinating examination of our movie rating system. They spoke with a director whose film had received an NC-17 rating because a woman onscreen orgasms for too long. The absurdity of the fact rests in that, had someone burst in and killed the woman, that would have been acceptable--we find sex far more objectionable than violence, at least in America. Then, in a very intriguing sequence, they showed a series of sex scenes side-by-side. The pairs all had similar lighting, nudity, positions, etc. One of each pair was heterosexual, one was homosexual. Every homosexual scene was NC-17, ever heterosexual scene was R. Event number two: The American Family Association has ordered a boycott of Home Depot. Yes, what might seem to be an innocent orange outpost of do-it-yourselfism is in fact a subversive plot. You see, Home Depot has donated to--nay, sponsored--gay pride parades. Home Depot has advertised in magazines which advance the homosexual agenda. Home Depot, in fact, offers insurance benefits for same-sex couples. The AFA will not stand for these grave offenses against the American family by all these homosexuals attempting to start American families.

At first, this was going to be about homosexuality, and another day may see a post on that subject. But a point in the AFA's bulletin caught my eye. You see, beyond having an inclusive corporate policy, the pride events Home Depot was sponsoring had children at them. Yes, you heard me. Children. Now, even if you accept the practice of homosexuality, surely you agree that children shouldn't be allowed to see it? Surely you agree that homosexuals had best keep to themselves away from the vulnerable eyes of the little ones? I mean, they're kids. Right? Riiiiight?

FROM THE PEOPLE WHO BROUGHT YOU "RAMBLING LECTURE THINGS ABOUT GEOENGINEERING" -- SEX: THE SEXQUERSEX

(Originally wanted to call this Sex: The Masquerade. Realized that the new name was far cooler.)

Children aren't supposed to know about sex. We created storks that carry babies around as an excuse for the babies, and when children realized that being carried around by a bird would, in fact, terrify any baby to the point of child abuse. (Can birds be tried for child abuse? Well, no, because instead of giving our babies to birds, we just have sex instead.) In addition, it did nothing to explain why storks favored plump women. Eventually, we have what our culture has dubbed "the talk." This is what spy movies refer to as being "read in" on a case. Everyone knows this. But why?

My point here is that I'm having a hard time believing that this secrecy benefits the child--or society. Are we worried that if we inform children about sex, they’ll start having it? Biological issues aside, look at society right now—look at teen pregnancy rates, look at STD transmission among teenagers. Did “protecting” these people from sex, protect them from sex? No, for the same reason that abstinence-only education is a bad idea. People are quite good at ignoring commandments issued by elders, and when the commandment in question involves penises and whatnot, well, it’s so hard to keep track of all this. You protect people from sex by giving them things to protect themselves with (latex is helpful!). The attitude that adolescents won’t have sex if we’re secretive about it dramatically underestimates their intelligence. We’ve been giving them those toys where you put shapes into slots since infancy. They’ve been trained.

Arguably, all that secrecy only hurts a child, and not only by depriving them of information on safe sex. To shift back in ages from teenagers to younger kids, parents often worry about child predators and the like. In that context, not informing a child of the nature of the threat is akin to not telling your child that stealing is possible while they walk around a busy city.

Tracing the phenomenon of sexual secrecy inevitably leads us to discuss the general way our society treats sex, even among adults. Part of me suspects that this is a large part of the AFA’s issue. The American Family Association seems quite disdainful of the actual process needed to create their families. After all, while they’re anti-homosexual, they’re also anti-premarital sex. If you go to their website about “Defining the Gay Agenda” (Warning: Despite my policy of respect towards religion in general, I find this entire website stupid and infuriating. I recommend small doses.) you’ll find their stated reasons for why they oppose this agenda. Point 1: Bible say no gay. Point 2: Gay people are sinful and Jesus can fix them. Point 3: It is our duty as Christians to tell them this. Point 4: We fear the judgment of God on America if we accept homosexuality. Annnd…..Point 5, which proves my point:

“The homosexual movement is a progressive outgrowth of the sexual revolution of the past 40 years and will lead to the normalization of even more deviant behavior.”

There we go. Homosexuality is, to these people, a waypoint in a bigger fight—a local minima of the slippery slope. Going around campaigning against premarital sex would, however, make them look horribly dated, as would going around campaigning against sleeping with (shock) more than one person in a lifetime. Like me playing Starcraft during a defense mission, they fall back to the next terrace of social conservatism and find a fight still acceptable to the mainstream—though likely this will fall too, at which point I imagine polyamory or transsexuality will be the next big taboo.

Alright. So sex has a masquerade because we’re skittish about sex and, in some sense, we want to keep it buried. Why? Saying “religious reasons” doesn’t answer this question—at some point in time, someone had to make up that rule. After all, it didn’t appear fully formed in their brain, inspired by some sort of cosmic lawgiver, of course.

The more I think about, the more I think that these sexual attitudes are simply a massive piece of displaced control. After all, let’s be honest—for most of human history, it paid to be quite careful with sex, especially if you were a woman. Being pregnant with no one to support you is a bad thing. Likewise, if you’re a man, being vigilant for infidelity also made perfect sense, as raising another man’s child is embarrassing if nothing else. It’s no surprise, then, that as society wove moral restrictions into its fabric sexual constraints emerged and were enforced. At this point, it’s by no means inevitably that homosexuality and a sexual masquerade emerged. (Looking at you, Ancient Greece.) However, in Abrahamic religions, at least, it did. In retrospect, this doesn’t surprise me. If you want to formulate a system of laws, you leave as few loopholes as possible to try to keep them effective. Clamping down on any and all possible expressions of sexuality, then, would logically lend itself to the sort of moral control you might seek. (I’m not advocating, just justifying.)

Of course, myriad reasons make this a genuinely awful idea. The first is age. Modern sex (while not perfectly risk-free) doesn’t necessarily play by the same rules as it did when those rules were formulated. Age forms a feedback loop of sorts for conservatives like the AFA—it’s old, therefore it’s good, therefore it gets older, therefore it gets better. Also, this is security by obscurity. Given the choice of an operating system when it comes to security, most people agree that Linux is generally more secure than Windows. Yet, Windows is the clamped-down, hushed-up, closed-source system, and Linux is open to the point that, if you like, you can rewrite the code to your own OS. It’s time for our society to move past Old Testament era ideas and mores. It’s time to be honest with our children, and honest with ourselves. It’s time to admit that sex is real, feels good, and is important to a lot of people. It’s also time to admit that people have sex in a lot of different ways, with a lot of different emotions and connotations—and that’s ok. Perhaps the argument can be made that, in the past, there was a reason for such attitudes. In 2010, such measures are simply counterproductive and no longer effective—if indeed, they ever were.