A serious sex thread (seriously)

logansrun

So, I'm looking through some booklets at school (college, mind you) about sex and abstinence and all that good stuff. Seems like the department of health really promotes just holding hands and smiling at each other as opposed to mind blowing orgasms. This got me wondering.

What is it with humankind and sex?

That's right. Why the hassles? Even in this day and age, in our secular world (and it is secular, folks) and at a secular, public college there is abstinence, "sex might make you feel guilty" booklets being handed out to adult students. Why. WHY!

Why do humans feel guilty about sex? Don't kid yourself and think it's just the dub's that are so hung up on sex. Nor is it just our Judeo-Christian background that manipulate people's feelings. Seems that sex is a subject which many groups and peoples have viewed with a measure of suspicion and guilt for millenia.

Plato, Aristotle, Confucious, Marcus Aurelius -- all were not Christians. All held a dim view of sex. It is safe to say that all of them, along with countless other great minds, thought sex outside of marriage was somehow wrong. My question? WHY!

No, I mean I really want to know. Is it the fact that, up until the last few decades, occassions of intercourse often ended up in pregnancy and all that that entails? That would be my first guess. Is it the fact that sex is so much fun that many have thought it wrong? (Aurelius took a dim view of all pleasures!)

Where does that leave us? What should/could be a healthy sexual ethic?

Bradley

Phantom Stranger

Serious sex? You mean like not smiling?

Bradley, the current theory (not espousing it) is that social groups tend to be more stable with family groups that are more stable. So many pillars of society have advocated monogamy while they were privately banging the milkmaid or the towel boy.

Neal Stephenson, in Cryptonomicon (read it, Bradley) humorously theorizes on a secret cabal called the Ejaculation Control Commission, whose function is to prop up society and make it progress, and to make sure you don't have sex outside of marriage.

You might also read the uncut version of Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. It's the trade paperback, not the pocket paperback. I won't attempt to discuss what Bob did there, because some on this board would have my head on a plate (not the mods, either).

Sex is one of the most primal urges. Reason doesn't overcome sex drive reliably - ask Newt Gingrich, Bill Clinton, Ethan Hawke and Eric Benet (cheat on Uma or Halle? WTF?)

If you want to control sexual behavior of a group, you'd better use peer pressure and guilt (negative emotions) because anything less will be overcome by our desire to do the nasty.

logansrun

Thanks Phantom Stranger.

I'll be sure and get those books. I'm sure they will make for great reading during the dull moments of "Girls Gone Wild."

Bradley

Phantom Stranger

No reading them on dates, Bradley.

But those books (mostly Stranger) do pose questions: once a social taboo is no longer related to survival of a society, why keep it around?

logansrun

once a social taboo is no longer related to survival of a society, why keep it around?

Yes! Exactly!

Now, that doesn't mean I believe "anything goes." But, if two people who have no other obligations to anyone want to shag, and as long as they are responsible (read: condom) -- well then, why not?

I notice that most all the literature I see promoting abstinence quote fear-mongering statistics. Here's one: "Every minute, six people aged 10 to 25 get AIDS." Okay, so how many of them were wearing condoms? And what part of the world are we talking about here? Africa? India? Come on.

Bradley

Phantom Stranger

Sex without love is merely healthy exercise.

Of all the strange "crimes" that human beings have legislated of nothing, "blasphemy" is the most amazing - with "obscenity" and "indecent exposure" fighting it out for the second and third place.

Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful - just stupid).

Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again.

I don't see how an article of clothing can be indecent. A person, yes.

The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.

The more you love, the more you can love-and the more intensely you love.
Nor is there any limit on how many you can love.
If a person had time enough, he could love all of the majority who are decent and just."

Robert A Heinlein

DanTheMan

Why do humans feel guilty about sex? Don't kid yourself and think it's just the dub's that are so hung up on sex. Nor is it just our Judeo-Christian background that manipulate people's feelings. Seems that sex is a subject which many groups and peoples have viewed with a measure of suspicion and guilt for millenia.

Well, ya see, there's this whole emotional component to it....we aren't like cats or something. Wasn't it Marx who considered sexual desire as being something as simple as being thirsty for a drink of water? And in his communist utopia, just as easy to quench?

There's a happy medium between a puritannical and a pornographic outlook.

drwtsn32

But, if two people who have no other obligations to anyone want to shag....

Why did "free love" in the 60's die out? Fear of disease? Condoms don't guarantee protection, and AIDS is pretty damned scary. I doubt that's the entire picture though.

Good question and interesting comments so far.

logansrun

Watson,

Condoms don't guarantee protection, and AIDS is pretty damned scary. I doubt that's the entire picture though.

Correct. Yet condoms, when used correctly, are nearly impermeable. Studies have shown that it is usually when someone is inconsistent in using condoms or when they use them incorrectly that "mistakes" happen.

Moral -- always use condoms and be careful with them. Oh, you're married, that's right. Just forget everything I said.

Bradley

drwtsn32

Oh, you're married, that's right. Just forget everything I said.

LOL

A serious sex thread (seriously)

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