We still pretend that there’s a magical, mumbo-jumbo, taboo energy about sex that makes it different from all other human activities. – Maggie McNeill
I’ve often said that the main reason sex is treated as a “special case” in law, custom and culture is that people imagine it to be unique; they believe that a bright, clear line can be drawn between “sex” and “not sex”, and many of them further believe that this division is no mere line but a chasm, a yawning gap that can only be breached by special rituals and/or benediction by some authority figure. Now, you might protest that sex is different because it’s the only activity which has a chance of creating a human life, but even if birth control did not exist that would be a spurious argument; if that were truly the rationale behind sex laws, the government wouldn’t claim the right to regulate oral or anal sex, masturbation, homosexuality, sex between the very young or the very old, sex acts involving at least one sterilized partner, bestiality, stripping, porn, BDSM or any other sexual activity other than heterosexual genital copulation between two fertile partners. But if anything, the opposite is true; authoritarians are far more obsessed with sex acts that involve no risk of pregnancy, and many of them want to restrict contraception and abortion.
What makes the attempt to control sexuality even more absurd is that trying to even define it is like trying to twist a rope out of sand, and how can one control what one can’t even define? Have you ever looked at legislative attempts to define which activities are sexual for the purpose of banning them? They’re usually quite absurd, and have loopholes big enough to pass an entire orgy through; they often consist of little more than catalogs of body parts, ignoring the fact that some people are extremely turned on by parts or actions that others might perceive as completely neutral. I’m very aroused by images of women in bondage, yet such images are considered acceptable even in children’s shows; one of the hottest scenes I ever had with Jae involved little more than talk and staring into each other’s eyes, and I was fully clothed the whole time. Conversely, I recently had a massage which included several body parts that would commonly be coded as “sexual”, yet neither I nor my masseuse perceived the contact as anything of the kind. Sexuality is a thing of the mind, not of the genitalia; as I so often say, the most important sex organ lies not between the legs, but between the ears. And any attempt to create some sort of universal rule which defines for everyone which activities constitute “sex” and which don’t, is doomed to failure.
As if that weren’t bad enough, some people don’t even perceive their personal division between “sexual” and “not sexual” as clear and distinct; I certainly don’t. There are some things I think of as clearly sexual; some I perceive as sexual under certain conditions; some I perceive as tinged with sexuality; some which are somewhat erotic but not really sexual per se; some which are sensual and pleasant, but more or less non-sexual; some which are not at all sexual; and some which are, if anything, anti-sexual. There are no lines between these groups; they fall into a sexual spectrum, with each category blending smudgily into the neighboring ones. What’s more, the various ideas, acts, images and whatnot which fall across my spectrum, might fall in entirely different positions on someone else’s…often without any discernible rhyme or reason. A sane and reasonable person would look at the situation and conclude that it was ridiculous to even attempt to impose regimentation on this chaos; alas, the kind of person who seeks to control others via the use of violence is neither sane nor reasonable.
Incidentally, human life can also be created by artificial insemination and in vitro. Both variants do not include sex and do not even need to include masturbation on the male side.
It also seems that there is now a thing where a man and a woman have children together and raise them together as a pure business arrangement, no sex or emotional attachment to each other involved.
When you encounter a politician that is anti-contraception in any way, the true reason is that the politician in question knows that the average tax revenue for a human being in USA is $9.3 million dollars. As a representative of the 1%, they know the value of a human whelping and act appropriately.
”Have you ever looked at legislative attempts to define which activities are sexual for the purpose of banning them?”
In Canada they didn’t bother defining it. That way the law can be applied to just about anything. When I give extra tip to a waitress because I got some sexual gratification looking at her, I am technically a criminal.
Prostitution law is really weird. Not only are they banning the sale of a legal activity, they don’t even have to define what constitutes ”sex” and what constitutes ”payment”.
There’s an Eric Idle book that has dating advice for Christians. It includes photos of a naked ‘Christian’ couple (one of them is Idle) touching each other in their ‘safe zone’ – the one part of the body researchers have determined isn’t erogenous. Apparently it’s a small oval shaped region in the small of the back.
Funny thing I immediately noticed is that the female model had those two dimples in the small of her back and they fell with in the ‘safe zone’. As it happens I’m so turned on by those dimples …
Anatomically, they are called “The Dimples of Venus”.
Ah, here it is. The Vatican Sex Manual.
Sex has always been used for more than reproduction. The uses include pleasure (fancy that!), bonding, spiritual growth, and physical and emotional health. While who we are attracted to is complex, and in large part influenced by culture, sex itself has a physiological basis, at least according to researchers I consider sane and reasonable, like Masters and Johnson, The Bauers (ESO: Extended Sexual Orgasm), etc. So what seems chaotic may have some order. I think that the sex negativity of our culture is what makes sex look chaotic.
And making money. Never forget making money.
I still can’t have sex with someone without having a conenction with. No matter how hot he is. I’m sorry. I also don’t like open relationships when it comes to me. I’m all for peopole being fre with their sexuality but I don’t like being shamed for not having sex all willy nilly. But when I do like someone enough, I like to have sex A lot. Well I think I wll because I’m a virgin now but I think about sex a lot.
You don’t ever need to feel ashamed for the amount of sex you choose to have, or for whom you choose to have it with, or how you choose to have it, as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult. I will tell you, though, that what you’ll feel about the subject in the future (after you pass 30 and have a relationship or two or three under your belt) could be surprisingly different from the way you feel now. That’s not always true, but it is quite often.