Re: virus: Sexuality

Vicki Rosenzweig (rosenzweig@hq.acm.org)
Wed, 11 Sep 96 10:48:00 PDT


Folks, it has _always_ been possible to separate sexual
pleasure from reproduction. There's a lot more to sexual
pleasure than heterosexual intercourse, and masturbation
is not a recent invention.

Yes, I realize that there's been pressure against non-reproductive
sex for a very long time, but that's very different from claiming that
there hasn't been any such thing.

Vicki
rosenzweig@hq.acm.org
----------
From: owner-virus
To: virus
Subject: Re: virus: Sexuality
Date: Wednesday, September 11, 1996 9:29AM

At 07:56 PM 9/10/96 -0500, zaimoni@ksu.edu wrote:

>I suspect that the spread of memes incompatible with monogamy would
>contribute.
>
>There is at least passive advertising [evangelism?] against monogamy on
>US public TV--skim the reviews, or actually watch, the 'soap operas' and
>'sitcoms' on ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox. I'd hate to say this would never tip a
>borderline case over the edge, in a (sub)conscious analysis.
>

You bring up an interesting point here - advertising (evangelism?).
But - it seems to me - virtually _ALL_ of the advertising for sexual
pleasure up until 30 years ago has been strongly negative, and
much of it still is. No other activity has been as scrutinized
as sex. Both presidential candidates are against it outside
marriage (well, i think that's what they *say*). Some churches are
against it unless it can lead to procreation (Catholicism comes to
mind). Many (most?) other churches are against "deviant" behaviors
(say oral sex, anal sex, homosexuality, etc, etc) (even in marriage).

So, if there is a war against monogamy it seems to me that it is
only a response against centuries of anti-sex propaganda (lead, it
seems to me, by the church).

A key question in all of this seems to be: would we be better off if
there were no attempts to restrict our sexual behaviors? Does this
restriction help us retain something useful now that pleasure and
procreation can be effectively separated? Is [serial] monogamy really
something to be strived for, special in some way to our species, and
thus a reasonable default state?

Or, is the repression of sexual energies actually harmful? Could
some (a little or a lot?) of the anti-social behaviors we see today
be due to unnatural suppression of these energies (ok, i don't
really believe this, mostly since men are primarily the violent ones
and under most future circumstances i can imagine most of these
people will have trouble finding women to partner with anyway).
But i do believe that some repression of these types of natural
energies can make the world more grey and drab than it needs to
be. Kind of like subtracting chocolate (put your favorite
activity/food here) from the world - nobody would die, nothing
really bad would happen, but the world would be somewhat
poorer than before :-(

Or, is it just neutral. Kind of an aesthetic choice that some people
like and are comfortable with and others dislike and chaff against?

The answers to these and other exciting questions may be answered in
the next 25-50 years (or not).

ken