The problem of sex

Won't somebody think of the children?!?!?!?! No, for real though...

This post is rated M for Mature. Highly crude language, including some really nasty 17th century poetry, and disturbing themes contained herein. Not for the faint of heart or delicate of stomach.

We live in a strange time. A time when radical feminists agree with male conservatives on the dangers of porn and prostitution. And yet both are relegated to the fringes of polite society while the mainstream extolls an anything-goes approach to sexual matters and pushes the boundaries of transgression ever further out.

The radical feminists and the conservatives rightly point to the many harms done by this normalisation of explicit sex behaviours. Those harms range from a coarsening of public behaviour (see WAP) to a roaring child abuse trade fuelled by the huge audience for ever-more transgressive porn. I’m only beginning to get a clearer picture of what is going on with these issues, but trust me, it’s extremely dark.

We cast off sexual conservatism and sexual repression years ago. We laughed at the rubes and closet cases who vehemently warned against opening the floodgates of sexual morality, predicting a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah. 

The slightly vague supposition went something like this: sexual repression is bad, therefore its opposite must be good.

Playboy Magazine cover from 1969.

But we were wrong on that point. Very wrong.

I have a huge respect for both the radical feminists and the conservatives who are currently going against the powerful consensus of today: the consensus that children can pick their gender and should be affirmed in their choice, hideous surgeries and long-term consequences be damned; the consensus that porn and prostitution are forms of sexual free expression with no ill effects; the consensus that giving young adolescents and children violent and sexually explicit reading material in schools is a good idea; the consensus that dictates that anyone questioning these shibboleths should be silenced and/or shamed into compliance with terms like TERF or right-winger.

But there are blind spots in both the radfem/conservative arguments that, if resolved, could help people create a humane and dignity based sexual morality. And maybe that could heal some the deep wounds that mass sexual dysfunction and disorder have caused. Both the radfems and the traditionalists blame larger systems and while there is some truth in that, it doesn’t capture the complexity of human nature on a more individual, granular level. For the radfems, the problem is the patriarchy. For the conservatives, it’s immorality. 

So indulge me while I to attempt to work this out — understanding that these are immensely complex issues with ties to our prehensile ancestry, our most vulnerable selves and our innermost and mysterious desires.

If I could speak directly to both the radfems and the conservatives, who I consider to be my fellow travellers in many ways, I would say the following:

Radfems: your analysis leaves out both female sexual desire and female sexual power. The insistence on categorising the female body as the locus of woman’s oppression is just plain incorrect: it is the source of both our pleasure and our power. It has made us a target for sexual violence and repression, yes, but that is not not the whole story. The bodies of men and boys have also been used in cruel ways, throughout history: as cannon fodder, for hard labour, political retribution, and sexual violence. So our bodied natures, then, is not what is unique about us. What is unique about the female body is how much it is desired, craved, and needed by the male body in ways both bad (very, very, VERY bad) and good. This makes us a target for misogyny, absolutely, but it also — and at the same time — has given us status, security and real power. 

It’s not that the patriarchy is fake, or never existed, or is dead and buried in our contemporary world. And misogyny is clearly rampant in our society. It’s that, in the Western context anyway, the patriarchy is simply too blunt a conceptual device to really get into the nooks and crannies of the matter. And if the patriarchy — which we can define as a society or community organised around giving men greater power in how that society is run — is so against female power, then why is it that in so many patriarchal societies give enormous power to older women while our own liberal world casts them aside?  

Conservatives: There was never a time when pre-marital sex did not exist. There was never a time when people completely followed the restrictive sexual edicts of their culture. Attempting to control what adults do in the bedroom was historically a tool for controlling the whole of society - my husband was taught that by growing up in a repressive Catholicism. That is tyrannical, and human nature will always seep through even the tiniest of cracks.

So I can happily go along with conservative efforts to protect women-only spaces and women-only sports, but then they suddenly veer into “this all the fault of premarital sex/abortion,” — fantasising about some past ideal where all women were demure and all the men manly, and I quickly hit the brakes. Even in the old days, men and women (and men and men, and women and women) got it on without the bonds of God-ordained marriage. Even when the consequences to free love were a good deal more dire, the horny ancients did it anyway. This poem by Lord Earl of Rochester was written in the 17th century, but is more shockingly graphic and crude than even that Cardi B video in which she counsels young women not to eat a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich or bbq ribs and then perform fellatio, because it could give you a vaginal infection. Cardi, the Earl of Rochester (b. 1647) sees your dick and yeast infections and raises you…period sex and poop stains!

By all love's soft, yet mighty powers by the Earl of Rochester (1647-1680)

By all love's soft, yet mighty powers,

It is a thing unfit,

That men should fuck in time of flowers,

Or when the smock's beshit.

Fair nasty nymph, be clean and kind,

And all my joys restore;

By using paper still behind,

And sponges for before.

My spotless flames can ne'er decay,

If after every close,

My smoking prick escape the fray,

Without a bloody nose.

If thou would have me true, be wise,

And take to cleanly sinning,

None but fresh lovers' pricks can rise,

At Phyllis in foul linen.

As Cardi herself might say, that shit is nasty.

Likewise with abortion: it doesn’t matter how morally outrageous a crime conservatives might consider to be. They might even be right about that. But it happens, it has always happened, and women who are conservative and religious as well as liberal have availed themselves of the practice. And what’s worse? An abortion, or the common practice of Ancient Greece and Rome (and other cultures) in which unwanted babies were delivered at full term, then thrown in the garbage, still alive, to die of exposure, be eaten by animals — or collected by brothels and raised to be prostitutes. 

So it seems both the radfems and traditional conservatives, while identifying the terrible symptoms of our highly promiscuous culture, are overlooking a key ingredient.

Lust.

Both the ‘left’ and the ‘right’ ignore the driving force that is lust, and miscategorise damaging — sometimes even deviant —  behaviours that stem from the pursuit of it as either patriarchal or immoral. This deviance, by the way, used to be kept private, because it was considered shameful. Now it is celebrated and shouted from the rooftops and put in school libraries, available to young kids.

For example in the book Lawn Boy, which is the story of a young man reflecting back on his sexual encounters with another boy when they were 10. This book is praised as funny by progressives, given an award and defended. By parents, it’s met with revulsion and horror. “Who normalises sex acts between fourth graders?” asked one angry mother. “Pedophiles.”

She was reacting to passages like this:

“He talked about all times at the church but never mentioned our penises, or the fact that he never said ten words to me after our little foray in the bushes. Not a single reference to holding or tugging or sucking d**ks. All I could think about while he was chatting me up, was his little salamander between my fourth-grade fingers, rapidly engorging with blood.”

This is not ok. ¹ How is it possible that American school systems allow books into their libraries about ten year olds giving each other blow jobs?

Our society has become so sexualised, it’s just assumed — by the MAINSTREAM — that allowing children to be not just exposed to but taught about lust in the most age-inappropriate and explicit ways — is totally fine. 

Lust so common to all of us it’s like we don’t even see it anymore. I barely even ever hear the word used.

And we crash into things we don’t see anymore.

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What do we do about lust?

For something that we are constantly being bombarded with, something we are sold, on the internet and taught in schools, we do a very poor job talking about lust — a basic and universal human impulse. If we don’t talk about it, how can we understand it? If we don’t understand it, how can we ensure it is not used for terrible purposes? (See school book above about ten year olds giving head.)

Both men and women, at a very fundamental, base level, have a yawning need for tenderness, and as adults that most often shows up in the form of sexual touch. And it is my personal opinion that consenting adults are allowed to act on those needs in whatever way two people consensually negotiate. Even if I would find that same activity gross or weird or creepy.

But I do not extrapolate from my position that the gates to the sexual marketplace should be thrown wide open. Sex without discernment and maturity is an extremely risky endeavour. It’s incredibly unhealthy. And that’s exactly the kind of sex our society celebrates. We throw children and young people into the deep end of the sexual pool, into waters they cannot possibly swim. They are being terribly harmed by this.

Lust is a profound need in all adults (and teens, as uncomfortable as that is to discuss), and it can be debilitating when not met. This is why I up until very recently was somewhat agnostic on prostitution and porn, and felt it was a grubby and unpleasant but necessary service for sexual relief. A video from the Youtube channel Whose Body Is It changed my mind. In it, writer Elly Arrow breaks down the physical realities of sex work, as it is euphemistically called by lefties, and rightly says that being lonely, depressed or even physically handicapped is not a good enough reason to purchase another person’s body for sexual gratification (or watch someone else have sex for money, via porn.)

I thought about this a lot, because I have sympathy for men who can’t get laid, and I recognise they can become a social problem, as the sex-starved and sex-excluded spread misery and unhappiness to those around them. Incels, anyone?

But because sexual comfort necessitates such an intimate physical closeness, sex can only be given — morally — under terms of some kind of mutual attraction, which is a form of respect. Which can only exist under conditions of real, non-transactional relationships. (Note that I’m not saying these conditions can only exist in the conditions of a marriage, or a monogamous relationship, or a long relationship, or in a heterosexual relationship. They most certainly can exist without those conditions, and very often do.)

Outside the sex trade, sex between two people is fundamentally discriminatory and exclusionary. In the main, it is an act performed by people who share a physical attraction, a bond of love, or an otherwise positive connection that manifests in this physically intimate act.

Total sexual liberation overlooks this, and the popular culture of today misleads young people into viewing sex as physical urge like any other, with no spiritual, emotional or moral aspect at all. In rejecting the punitive approaches of the past, we have not just become too permissive: but we have also demystified, rendered plastic and barely human, sex and the female body. Every young woman and girl’s body is now a commercial asset, with a hungry public ready to consume it.

Total sexual liberation rejects the norm that sex is a private act. But sex is a private act, between two people engaged in an intense and meaningful exchange of energy. It’s not meant for public consumption.

This is what sex-positivity should be about, not an anything-goes, you can fuck anything that moves, dress-like-a-hooker, indoctrination to kids.

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Return to dignity and impulse control, not chastity

So there was no past era of sexual innocence, that has never existed. There was likewise no time when women could not influence, control or otherwise use their female agency — for good and/or ill. Look up the story of Alexander the Great’s mother if you don’t believe me.

What is different about our current time, and is acting as an accelerant on a raging dumpster fire, is that, as well as destroying the concept of innocence in children, we seem to have abandoned the concepts of dignity and privacy.

Central to humanity is dignity. No person, male or female, can be truly well without access to dignity. But also, no person is dignified all the time — dignity implies a kind of strength or detachment that no one can maintain 24/7. Our basic animal functions preclude it. No one is dignified while taking a shit or busting a nut. Or to put in more genteel fashion, no man is a hero to his butler. 

So dignity is aspirational. It is the public face we wear to project a sense of order and maintain a healthy distance between our outer selves and our baser selves.

Because our flesh and blood requirements, our physical needs, leave us vulnerable to undignified behaviour, we must draw a bright line between the public and the private spheres. So the private sphere becomes the safe and appropriate place for those behaviours in which we resemble baboons — because we ALL resemble baboons at some point in the day — more than kings and queens. It is our outlet for the baser but still human aspects of our natures. It’s where we can be undignified without destroying or humiliating ourselves in the process. 

We have totally lost the public-private separation. This is a problem of epic proportions.

We also do not train children and young people to have self-control, to tame their impulses and practice patience and forbearance. Quite the opposite actually. Judging from social media wild emoting, outbursts of rage, and binging on food or plastic surgery or attention is, for young adults, the new normal.

Somebody call the Quakers or the Zen masters in here, and quick.

Sodom and Gomorrah is here, and liberals need to recognise that

All this confusion is most harmful to the young. I am genuinely upset at how poorly we have served the younger generation in sexual matters. As always, the Whose Body Is It channel delivers: in this very interesting interview, researcher Alix Aharon brilliantly points out that culture now teaches girls they must be ultra-sexed — porno-fied, reduced to a pair of tits or a hole — or de-sexed entirely, breasts cut off and sterilised and adopting a male identity. I see many young women whose choice of dress resembles a Medieval monk: austere, plain, genderless. And who can blame them when the dominant visual of a 16 year old girl is this?

This girl, the daughter of an apparently famous drummer, looks like a sex doll, not a high school kid.

Just for comparison, this is what hot, teen girl celebs looked like back when I was growing up.

And that was intimidating enough to normal-looking dorks such as myself.

The other day, a video autoplayed on my Twitter feed which was a compilation of teenage girls performing sex acts on themselves and saying debasing things about women. In one of the clips, the fat, hairy belly of a man can be seen standing over a girl who is penetrating herself with an object. Even in a single second, it was obvious from the tableau that this was a man who would not, in a healthy sexual marketplace, be able to get laid by a young woman. It’s clear from his body that he had to rely some kind of sick power dynamic with a damaged and vulnerable girl, aided and abetted by the wider societal notion that sex is essentially meaningless. It was a highly disturbing thing to see. If adults want to act out submissive-domination fantasies that is entirely up to them. But widely shared video of dead-eyed teens debasing themselves in front of fat middle aged men is not harmless fantasy play.

We need to keep boys and young men as far away from porn as humanly possible. I have only just begun to see how harmful the normalisation of porn has become. To the boys themselves, yes. But even more so to girls.

We have to teach men and boys that being pathetic and unfuckable isn’t just bad for them, it’s bad for society, because being pathetic and unfuckable doesn’t make their needs go away. Nor does it make them harmless, quite the opposite in fact. They are a menace to society, as their needs are almost impossible to meet except through the exploitation of women. Incels, anyone?

We need to teach girls that access to their bodies is entirely decided by them, but with their right to chose comes an almost sacred responsibility to make good choices, ones that err on the side of — and I can’t believe I’m saying this — modesty. Don’t commercialise your innate sexual beauty, and don’t tolerate boys who want you to look and act like a porn star. And we must fight like hell against this monstrous aspect of our current culture which invades childhood with vile and inappropriate sexual messaging. We must teach young people healthy self-control, so that they can be truly free.

Remember, whoever controls what we do in the bedroom controls society. Sexual dysfunction causes, pain, disharmony and chaos. Who benefits from that?

1. There are many different examples of this from across the United States, including books where adults engage in sex acts with kids. Some other books found in school libraries are Gender Queer, in which two kids simulate oral sex on each other using a strap on, and Monday’s Not Coming, which features oral sex between teens and also a woman being beaten and locked in a closet.