confused sex

A number of threads and my own personal discoverings have brought to my mind the issue of human sexuality in North America today. I think that a lot of people are afraid of sex or are confused by their own sexuality. I don’t mean whether they are heterosexual or homosexual or the many beautiful combinations that lie inbetween. I think a lot of people don’t understand what thier sexuality means to them, and are thus often afraid of it.

Twenty-five years ago we were celebrating love and peace. Sex was okay and open. Since then AIDS and other concerns have changed our outlook, and our beliefs. Christian fanatics (and I am not saying that all people who belief in the Christian doctrine, I am talking about the psycos that exsist in all religions and all aspects of life) are giving us the idea that sex is bad. That sex outside of a hetrosexual marriage for the purpose of procreation is bad.

The thread about bad nakedness (how can this beautiful creation called human be bad naked???) and the one about the NYC Scouts (I don’t know who to paste the links so bare with me) are examples of society’s fear and uncertainity about sex.

What do you think? Do you think that leaders in out society are capitalizing on this confusion to force thier beliefs on us (Day and Bush)? Do you think that we have lost what we had years ago? Do you think we can change our ideas to develop sociological healthy ideas about sex?
Do you think I am off my tree? Discuss!

You didn’t define ‘sex’…

Plus when society becomes liberal about sex a new disease usually comes up. e.g. Free Love in the 60’s brought us much more Herpes & gay people coming out of the closet brought HIV out into the open.

Right now social expression of sexuality might be repressed but just wait, it’ll open up again. It always does.

“SEX” - the act of physical contact resulting in mutually enjoyable feelings and hopefully a delightful conclusion.

Oh, you mean dancing!

for some, GREAT!! But really, what do you think matt_mcl?

(My emphasis)

LMAO! Great pun.

Thanks, I didn’t think anyine else would enjoy me sense of humour’ :wink:

And some folks wonder why sex education is needed in schools.

If a sizable group sets up boundaries concerning something which is of prime importance, and then censures those who step beyond these boundaries, it builds a bulwark of power and control. If one is to step outside those boundaries, one becomes marginalized. This too protects the bulwark. The issue is the degree to which the mainstream is willing to permit the margins to share power and control. Sex, including social and economic gender roles, is of prime importance to a great many people, so power structures form up around it. Formal and informal censure of sex comes down to power and control.

Muffin…Foucault much? :smiley:

Not enough. Sigh.

Good one, Matt. G New question: if dancing is sex, is it grounds for adultery?

Yes, note that in * 1984 * , sex was basically made into a disgusting thing. In Communist society (on a poster I have, “making love is a mental illness that wastes time and energy”, from the Chinese Communist Party), sex would certainly encourage free thinking. I suppose we don’t even NEED to bring up Christianity!!!

As an Objectivist, I certainly have rejected Christian morals and believe in pleasure, and sex is surely the most pleasurable act known. The self-sacrifice and guilt that most people go through is reprehensible to me, and if there was only some way to convince them that sex is a beautiful and natural thing, then there wouldn’t be so much discomfort in life. Of course, the right to have sex also entails the responsibility to be smart about it. If someone wants to sleep around, that’s just fine with me…just don’t expect me to bail you out when you come down with an STD.

BEAUTIFULLY put! Thank you. Now, why does society have such a hard time seeing this? What is it about our society that sees this as evil?

I don’t think that sexual taboos can be simplified down to a bunch of grumpy old men wanting to prevent anyone from having a good time. Sex is a serious thing: it has serious consequences (babies being the big one,)is for many people strongly coorelated wiht there social interations with the people around them, and tends to result in strong emotional reactions one way or another. Given this, it is not suprising that every society on earth has come up with conventions and mores to regulate sexual behavor. If nothing else, no one would ever get laid if all we were were but bundles of instincts with no conventions to guide us. You find orginizations with sexual mores that differ from the mainstream culture. But these situations represent a different set of rules and expectations about sex, not an absense of rules and expectations about sex. In fact, groups with different sexual conventions frequently have to be much more explicit about those conditions, because they cannot rely on everybody knowing said conventions as a result of growing up in the group culture. From swinging, to bondage to soliciting prostitution–all these things involve consistient ways in which things are done.

Now, you want to argue about how certain sexual conventions are silly, or outdated, or inherently patriarchial, fine. If you want to establish that particular sexual taboos or tradidtions are harming society, fine. But you are goign to have to make your arguement more specific than “people are too uptight about sex”, because everyone is uptight about their own particular set of sexual mores.

Quite frankly, I think it comes down to the Puritanism that founded this country and the Victorian mentality that came around at the “right” time. Christians certainly do not like sex before marriage…hell, I doubt they’re all too big fans of sex IN marriage. I mean, missionary position, and only that to conceive…well, by god (figure of speech of course) that gets pretty damn dull!

Generally, I think that seeing as Christianity is mostly a good mind control device (can’t wait to see who I piss off with that statement!), they had to outlaw sex. Sex is the most pleasurable act between two human beings, and seeing as pleasure and joy certainly leads away from being a good little mindless zombie, the church would have to ban it.