Why is sex taboo? Why do we lower our voices when we talk about it, and why does witnessing sexual behavior from those we don’t know well or aren’t attracted to make us uncomfortable? Why is it that sexual industry jobs from pornography to prostitution are considered ‘deviant’ or even ‘dirty’? Why do we associate nudity and openness about sex with shame and repulsion? These behavior and thought patterns are so deeply ingrained in our culture that few of us ever stop to consider their origins, and yet the moment we do we realize they are entirely socially contrived. Face it, you like getting laid, you think about it often, and if you don’t expend time and resources trying to acquire it – you likely expend MORE time and resources controlling your urges to do so or convincing yourself that you don’t have them. As an empiricist well-versed in a variety of social sciences, I can tell you there is hardly anything more hard-wired in us genetically and we cannot get rid of it; a good thing because without it we would go extinct. Hence, something about our collective environment must influence 10s of millions of adults in this country (and really billions worldwide) to treat sexuality in a laughably infantile and contradictory fashion. But there isn’t a government-funded propaganda war on it to match the one on drugs and create a pseudo-empirical collective delusion. It is a cultural phenomenon that isn’t centrally enforced and doesn’t translate into public policy to remotely the same extent, so a cost/benefit analysis is best done simultaneously with trying to understand its origins.

What Purpose Does It Serve To Be Prudes?

 

             Much like digging into anti-drug hysteria quickly uncovers that most people who subscribe to it aren’t opposed to drug use but to negative outcomes it’s associated with, most proponents of a prudish attitude toward sex are actually concerned about the risks it is linked to. Seeing as there is no shameless propaganda campaign distributing false information, it’s not surprising that in the case of sex the risks are actually real. For example, many very serious diseases can be transmitted sexually, and some of them such as Syphilis and Hepatitis also spread like wildfire by other means. So the risk is not only to people engaging in it, but can lead to epidemics that genuinely threaten public health. Then there is what I personally consider humanity’s most prominent social and economic problem – unintentional procreation. Legions of children whose parents are not emotionally or financially prepared to raise them can be traced as a factor in just about every political issue. In developed countries, they end up burdens on social safety nets and when public education invariably fails to fill the parental role they also procreate prematurely and continue the pattern. In the rest of the world they contribute to overpopulation which leads to unsanitary conditions and famines. In both, they end up cheap manpower for violent endeavors whether these are pointless wars for politicians’ egos and contractors’ profit or the antics of organized crime. The list goes on and on, but I will stop there.

Many proponents of prudishness also allege they are fighting ‘social decay’ whether it’s the objectification of women for liberals or the destruction of family values for conservatives. These arguments specifically are used to support policy decisions that try to censor pornography or other sexually explicit expression, prostitution and exotic dancers, and so forth. While these risks are also real, their existence and costs are owed entirely to the culture of prudishness itself. In a culture where sex is a taboo, a significant proportion of people will invariably gravitate toward pornography, brothels, and the like to receive the only sexual education available to them. Those are admittedly bad places to learn about sex because they cater to a wider audience than just the uneducated and hence make their profit by appearing better than the real thing.  Expecting all sex to resemble pornography, all women to look like and behave like porn stars or exotic dancers, and worst of all treating real life relationships similarly to what is displayed can in fact equate to ‘social decay’. However, the existence of the sexual industry only has that effect because so many Americans lack real life experience to balance those fantasies against. If they did, treating real sex like pornography would seem as bright as personally reenacting an action sequence from a Stephen Segal movie. Further, many reputable entities in this industry – particularly Playboy – have taken it upon themselves to sponsor education on sexual practices, often including advisories that pornography is fictional; only to have their efforts met with ideological opposition from the same prudes that accuse them of promoting social decay.

 

             While the risks associated with sex, including the sociocultural ones via self-fulfilling prophecy, are real; that is not enough to convince this social science empiricist that prudishness is beneficial. That requires evidence that prudishness actually succeeds in reducing those risks and costs, and its track record is abysmal. I’m neither historian nor anthropologist, but I think it’s perfectly reasonable to subscribe to the common assumption that cultures of prudishness throughout the world, most of them manifest in religion, evolved in response to the physical problems described above – specifically pandemics and the various costs of illegitimacy. While I commend global religion for trying; when and where, pray tell, has this actually worked? The Middle Ages of Europe were marred by some of the most egregious unsanitary conditions in human history, many of them due to overpopulation, as well as venereal pandemics that made the Romans look healthy in that respect. Modern Southern Asia where relatively moderate versions of Hinduism and Islam set the cultural tone and also dictate prudishness stands in a similar swamp of overpopulation, widespread poverty, illegitimacy, and sanitation conditions that have some experts impressed a new bubonic plague hasn’t originated from the slums in that part of the world already. More conservative Islamic countries such as those on the Arab Peninsula don’t share this exact dilemma, but they’re also notorious for Medieval-style atrocities such as the marriage of grown men to pre-pubescent girls, widespread and unpunished rape and a general treatment of women like livestock – all in a culture guided strictly by a religion whose writings condone these practices far LESS than all the other religions combined. Even the one-child policy in China, completely separate from religion and with the openly stated intention of reducing problems associated with overpopulation, has given that country nothing but a bureaucratic mess of fraud and illegitimacy, as well as a disturbing uptick in cases of female infanticide. The reality is that no matter what restrictions are set, legally or culturally; sexuality is hard-wired and people are going to fuck. Unlike drugs which are a choice that some people can be scared away from, there is no evidence that prudishness actually reduces demand for sex; which stated plainly means it has no notable benefits whatsoever.

 

What Does This Exercise In Futility Cost?

 

             While the risks of sex are real, exact empirical science has made available a myriad of mechanisms to reduce these and the harm from them; many of them for well over a century. I don’t need to turn this into a lecture on means of contraception and prophylactics intended to prevent the transmission of venereal diseases. Not only are these readily available, but there is a plethora of organizations that offer them at no charge and willingly include education on how to use them while minimizing side effects and interference. The science also includes volumes of research and educational materials for those already infected, many of which teach them how to still be sexual while minimizing the risk and damage involved. Of course, no precaution or mechanism of prevention in general ever provides a 100% guarantee; but statistically speaking these methods reduce risks to a negligible amount. As sexuality is not going anywhere and reasonably, no one wants to contract a disgusting, health-damaging venereal disease or conceive an UNWANTED pregnancy; why wouldn’t we make unfettered access to the information and methods readily and affordably available to anyone old enough to think about sex? There are even tons of correlational studies to demonstrate that said availability slashes the prevalence of these negative outcomes to a fraction.

 

             The answer is that such actions would contradict our culture of prudishness, and offend the 10s of millions of Americans who continue to believe the evidence-lacking bullshit that said culture prevents the negative outcomes. In their eyes it would constitute ‘social decay’, although in reality killing the culture of prudishness would disconnect sex from just about every negative outcome that argument ties it to. If you think I’m exaggerating, try to imagine for a minute a world where sex is discussed between everyone from spouses to families and friends to strangers as openly and unceremoniously as food preferences or the weather. I’m not advocating that everyone fucks everyone else in their path – I’m advocating that those who prefer this are able to say so openly without being judged, as are those who prefer to remain virgins until they are married, and everyone in between. The same goes for gender preferences, fetishes, and really anything else involving consensual copulation. In that world, pornography or even prostitution would be just another pastime, arguably with far less demand, and thought of as on par with a horror flick and a pizza on a boring Sunday afternoon. No one even thinks of learning about sex from an exotic dancer. And in that world, how many couples would avoid divorce or painful breakups because they could openly discuss sex? Conversely, how many might avoid starting a bad relationship or marriage because they realize they are incompatible in these preferences? How much easier would it be for socially awkward or physically unattractive individuals to still get their needs met, reducing misery and increasing productivity? How many fewer teenagers would contract HIV or conceive children they are not prepared to raise? THESE are the costs of our hopeless and immature quest to hide our natural tendencies toward sexuality; a quest that is not only stupid – but immeasurably dangerous and even takes lives.

 

The Religion Factor

            There is, of course, a small but very vocal and politically active minority of Americans that takes the prescriptions of religion literally. In response to my argument that religion’s well-intentioned methods of dealing with the risks of sexuality are obsolete and futile; they would say that these are divine ways that are not for me to question as a social scientist. In all honesty, I have far more respect for this group than for the idiots emotionally claiming prudishness is effective without evidence. At least they admit they have no idea how it’s actually supposed to work, they just choose to trust it.

 

             That being said, I do take significant issue with their exerting political and cultural influence to barricade sexual openness and availability of sexual education – the abject lunacy of Bush Jr.’s Abstinence Only clause in No Child Left Behind being one small example. Laws that attempt to force the subjective views of one group of people onto another are not only constitutionally proscribed, they are historically proven to be unenforceable and cause great amounts of damage. One does not have to be a social scientist to see how this applies to sexuality. Personal faith that sexual openness is immoral is anyone’s right. On the other hand, manifesting this personal faith through restrictive policies and cultural practices in the face of volumes of evidence that it leads to the spread of disease, hordes of unsupported children, and a myriad of other social problems, borders on both schizophrenia and sociopathy.

 

             I’m no theologian either, but my understanding of religion and Christianity in particular is that its primary lessons are non-judgment and working within the bounds of the existing situation rather than trying to force what it preaches on non-believers. Further, many religions frown on promiscuity but none of them effectively proscribe talking openly about sex or teaching children about it. Socially conservative Americans who believe in traditional values such as marriage and fidelity have many positive qualities to offer society, but the reasonable path for them is to get involved in their own private organizations and promote those values using safe, effective, non-intrusive means. When you explain to your children what sex is and how to engage in it safely, and include the instilment of your personal values – they are actually quite likely to listen, even more so if these values are shared by their immediate community. On the other hand,

trying to use the blunt instrument of public education to force your values down all Americans’ throats is about as effective as government and public education in most endeavors (i.e. drug ‘resistance’). It’s expensive, has the outcome opposite the intention, and over the years comes back to haunt you in the form of the censorship and exclusion of your own values from public life because you have set a precedent that this is acceptable when someone is offended or dissatisfied. Thankfully, one contributing factor to the ongoing storm in Washington, DC is religious America’s recent wake-up call regarding aligning itself with the cancer of big government in this fashion; and I am hopeful that they will go back to exerting positive influence through grassroots efforts more true to what their holy texts prescribe.
 

By: Neurotoxin

 

 

 

About the Editor:

Neurotoxin holds a dual BA in Psychology and Political Science and an MSW with a specialization in Community Organizing. Politically, he is a “structural anarchist”; a school of thought that believes in treating all power structures as facts of nature that should be accounted for but not preserved. This school of thought dictates that policy ought to be driven solely by its empirically calculated outcomes.

Neurotoxin is the co-owner of Edge of Chaos – a political podcast and blog that can be found @ www.edgeofchaospodcast.com and http://www.facebook.com/theedgeofchaos.