- Soundbites
- Religion and Widespread Sexual Disorders
- The Biological Diversity of Sexuality
- Soft Porn and Modern Society
- Sex: Being Natural and Communication
- Masturbation
- Satanism, Consent and Sex
1. Soundbites
“A number of authors have begun to argue that masculinity is a burden as much as a source of reward. Much male sexuality, they add, is compulsive rather than satisfying.”
“Current research suggests that maintaining an active interest in sex and other aspects of life helps prevent the onset of senility and other problems in older individuals”2
Shocking sexual fantasies can be surprising, but are normal. Sometimes people fantasize or daydream about sexual encounters that they would never actually act out. Thought crime is not a crime. They are only abnormal if they effect us or others in unwanted or harmful ways.3
“The more in love a woman is with a man, the more physically attractive she finds him (Price & others, 1974). And the more in love people are, the less attractive they find all others of the opposite sex (Johnson & Rusbult, 1989; Simpson & others, 1990).”
"Social Psychology" by David Myers (1999)4
Sexual desire is regulated by the organs of the brain called the limbic system.
Because human sexuality is such an important part of our psychology and life drives, lots of people become gullible, desperately buying into cultural fads and commercial products that promise to aid sexual conquests. In "Fads & Fallacies in the Name of Science" by Martin Gardner (1957) the author skeptically advises all that "methods for overcoming impotence have likewise been the object of considerable quasi-scientific investigation. An authority can be found for almost every folk belief about the sexually stimulating qualities of certain foods"5.
2. Religion and Widespread Sexual Disorders
“The subject of sex preoccupies us. It's the source of our most intense pleasures. Often it's also the cause of misery, much of which arises from built-in conflicts between the evolved roles of women and men.”
"Why is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality" by Jared Diamond (1998)6
There are too many imbalanced social pressures surrounding sex and sexuality. People in liberal communities are frequently enticed into sex too early whilst many conservative or religious families deny people sex and sex education for too long. Both are unhealthy. People are ready for different sexual experiences at different ages and factors which force (or suppress) sexuality are harmful to a person's healthy and normal development.
There have been periods in history when there existed a determined repression of all overt sexuality. In "Abnormal Psychology", the psychologists Davison & Neale write that "therapists with a psychoanalytic bent point out that in the second half of the nineteenth century, when the incidence of [some disorders] was apparently high in France and Austria, repressive sexual attitudes may have contributed to the increased prevalence of the disorder."7, sexual dysfunction may be caused by religious orthodoxy8 and that "pedophiles and perpetrators of incest are often rigidly religious and moralistic"9. The philosopher and academic Friedrich Nietzsche points out that frequently, sexual repression is religiously motivated:
“Up to this point, wherever religious neurosis has appeared on earth we find it tied up with three dangerous dietary rules: isolation, fasting, and sexual abstinence.”
"Beyond Good and Evil" by Friedrich Nietzsche (1886)10
Suppression and distortion of sexual drives is a leading, and dangerous, cause of psychological dysfunctions. The British Government released statistics for the first time, showing the prison population according to their faith and type of offence committed. There is "a strong tendency for prisoners who declare a religious faith to be serving time for sexual offences"11.
Christian clergy have been under much scrutiny over the last two decades after a long series of immoral scandals involving child abuse. The cases have been shocking, wild, numerous, public, and they keep coming. Recently, an Australian fundamentalist pastor was jailed for incest and child abuse after spending the 1990s sleeping with his own two children in order to 'educate' them, and the USA LA Catholic Church has paid five hundred victims a total of $660m to settle cases dating from the 1940s. Many cases have been settled out of court, some priests have quit, some have committed suicide. Police and Western authorities have despaired, because they thought that the Christian churches were good place for children (hence governmental support for faith schools, etc). The situation is so bad that the police have called for routine checks of all priests. No other employer or community has such massive problems with sexual immorality than do Christian organisations; and it seems the stricter they are in their beliefs, the worse their transgressions are - note the born-again paedophile priest who murdered two of his congregation.
The suppression of sexuality, irrational and superstitious regulations concerning it, are a leading cause of socially destructive behaviour.
3. The Biological Diversity of Sexuality
3.1. The Evolution of Sex, and Animal Diversity Today
“The world is, indeed, teeming with homosexual, bisexual and transgendered creatures of every stripe and feather.”
"Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity" by Bruce Bagemihl (1999)12
The best discussion of how the human set of two-genders evolved, and why the ratio between men and women is 50:50, is found in the groundbreaking "The Selfish Gene" by Prof. Richard Dawkins (1976). Many animal species share a common set of sexualities: heterosexuals, homosexuals and plenty of dysfunctionals, plus lots of situation-dependent behaviour. Monogamy, polygamy, polyandry and all those other social combinations of the basic sexualities are also present throughout the animal world (including Humanity of course). But although this may look like enough diversity, there is more, because all of these are variants of bi-gender behaviour alone. Throughout half of the history of life on Earth, living things reproduced asexually, through simple duplicative division, in a variety of ways. The ancient single-celled animal Tetrahymena thermophilia manages a total of seven different sexes13. Sexual diversity, like the rest of living complexity15, had to undergo a slow process of evolution, proceeding first through isogamy where there are no genders.
“Sex seems to have been invented around two billion years ago. Before then, new varieties of organisms could arise only from the accumulation of random mutations - the selection of changes, letter by letter, in the genetic instructions. Evolution must have been agonizingly slow. With the invention of sex, two organisms could exchange whole paragraphs, pages and books of their DNA code, producing new varieties ready for the sieve of selection.”
Even then, evolution did not simply jump straight to bi-gender heterosexuality of course. Sexual reproduction started out with cells that were no different to each other; there were no genders. The first sexuality in history was therefore isogamy, which we mentioned above. Isogamous species still exist today:
"The Selfish Gene" by Prof. Richard Dawkins (1976)17
All this should put human wranglings about the sanctity of the nuclear family, or arguments about what sexualities are 'normal' into perspective, because truly everything is natural in nature. We have to work out simply how to live in peace with the realities of sexual diversity in our own species.
3.2. Human Genders are Often More Complicated Than Boy or Girl
A human foetus - like other animals, too - starts out with no particular gender. Although it (probably) has a set of chromosomes that determine genetic sex, the translation of these genes into physical reality is a complicated and tedious affair. 1.7% (more than one in a hundred) of us are intersexual18.
“Already in the eighth week of gestation the testes begin producing the steroid hormone testosterone, some of which gets converted into the closely related steroid dihydrotestosterone. These steroids (known as androgens) convert some all-purpose embryonic structures into the glans penis, penis shaft, and scrotum; the same structures would otherwise develop into the clitoris, labia minora, and labia majora. Embryos also start out bet-hedging with two sets of ducts, known as the Mullerian ducts and Wolffian ducts. In the absence of testes, the Wolffian ducts atrophy, while the Mullerian ducts grow into a female fetus's uterus, fallopian tubes, and interior vagina. With testes present, the opposite happens: androgens stimulate the Wolffian ducts to grow into a male fetus's seminal vesicles, vas deferens, and epididymis.”
"Why is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality" by Jared Diamond (1998)19
There is much that can go wrong with these biochemical pathways, and much can be wrong with the genetic makeup itself, giving some people little chance of belonging simply to one gender or the other. Sometimes, boys and girls have odd combinations of the sex chromosomes; either gender can be born with extra X-chromosomes, some women have an extra Y18. All variations have effects on how our bodies are built and how our hormones behave. Prof Diamond continues:
“A long series of biochemical steps is required to produce all those other structures besides ovaries or testes. Each step involves the synthesis of one molecular ingredient, termed an enzyme, specified by one gene. Any enzyme can be defective or absent if its underlying gene is altered by mutation. [...] One type of pseudohermaphrodite looks like a normal woman [...] because 'her' breasts are well developed and 'her' legs are long and graceful. The problem isn't even likely to be recognized until the adolescent 'girl' consults a doctor over failure to begin menstruating. [...] The patient has no uterus, fallopian tubes, or upper vagina. Instead, the vagina ends blindly after two inches. Further examination reveals testes that secrete normal testosterone, are programmed by a normal Y chromosome, and are abnormal only for being buried in the groin or labia. In other words, the beautiful model is an otherwise normal male who happens to have a genetically determined biochemical block in his ability to respond to testosterone.”
"Why is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality" by Jared Diamond (1998)20
Many other genetic abnormalities give rise to gender gray-areas at all levels, from genetic and phenotypical, to biochemical and hormonal. Some factors cause people to be prone to becoming criminal sexual predators; and the 'normal' range of human genders range from the stereotypically female to the stereotypically male with many steps in-between. All this arises as part of nature, and if you believe a God designed animalkind, then all these variations on the basic male-female gender spectrum that are found both in nature and in humankind, are all part of God's multicoloured plan.
4. Soft Porn and Modern Society
4.1. Some Common Criticisms of the Porn Industry
Conservatives say that porn is unhealthy, damaging and causes crime, rape and misogyny. Liberals say that unnatural suppression of natural desires causes all those things. Feminists pour scorn strongly on the sexual objectification of women that occurs in porn and say the result is misogyny and deep sexual confusion of males and females. Clearly caution must be taken when evaluating such views, as the porn industry is large and old, and if such negative effects really were apparent, questions must be asked as to why society is not as broken as these ideas predict.
4.2. The Growth of Soft Porn
Soft porn is photography or imagery of semi-naked or fully naked skinny women who are there to be looked at and admired in a wholeheartedly shallow fashion, but who are otherwise striking natural poses, and not purely sexual poses. In the media, soft porn has become much more prevalent. Young men's magazines have proliferated in Britain, so much so that teenagers of all ages prize the latest easily-obtainable soft-porn magazines such as Zoo, the latest hot-seller that features naked and near-naked amateur models and professional models on every page combined with a complete sexual objectification of all women. Amidst the ubiquitous photoshopping and image editting, there is very little of the genuine woman left in the photos, worrying some that it leads entire generations of young boys into false expectations of what to expect of femalekind.
“The once-concealed symbols and attitudes of hardcore porn are now flooding mainstream culture. While the internet and mobile-phone services were pivotal in offering easy access, sex-trade terminology is standard even on primetime TV (Pimp my Ride, Wife Swap, Faking It), pop videos show rappers groping near-naked girls, and even shampoo ads address the product's orgasmic potential. All this is voraciously consumed by boys, and girls, who have only just graduated from the Beano. [...] My 12-year-old [...] like almost every other kid in his class, [watches] TV, he likes rap and when a mate sneaks a copy of Nuts into school he is ordinary enough to want a look. Consequently, they are all heading to an adulthood of deeply confused - and, potentially, deeply misogynistic - attitudes to women.”
Flic Everett (2005)
The year 2006 has seen a backlash against the increasingly explicit soft-porn magazine and trash newspaper industry. The Salvation Army has stopped stocking The Sun and various lads' mags (citing their religious principles)22, and the National Union of Students has make moves towards banning/obscuring them (based on their being demeaning to women), the same way as some supermarkets now do (for the same reasons). MPs have called "for them to be consigned to the top shelf", including magazines such as Zoo and Nuts. "MP Claire Curtis-Thomas introduced a bill to the House of Commons in July calling for magazines such as Nuts, Zoo, FHM and Arena, along with publications such as the Daily Sport, to be consigned to the top shelf.".23
4.3. Pop Idols and Thin Models
Television promotes an anti-human attitude and sexuality in Western culture. We have developed into a society where mass marketed media causes us to be biased towards overly thin women. This is bad for the self esteem of all normal sized girls, and causes an obsession with an appearance that is basically unhealthy and unnatural. The fitness and health of our bodies affects our mental health too. It does harm to our society. People yearn (for social reasons) for a body type that is unhealthy.
“Throughout history, the standards society has set for the ideal body have varied greatly (especially those pertaining to the ideal female body). [...] In Renoir's time, beautiful women were overweight by today's standards. Even in the 1950s and 1960s, the feminine ideal was considerably heavier than it became in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. [... A] large percentage of young women [...] although of normal weight, perceive themselves as fat. [...] As society's negative attitude about fat became stronger, the prevalence of eating disorders increased.”
"Abnormal Psychology" by Davison and Neale (1997)24
Male Misogyny
The sexual objectification of women leads to young adults judging women almost purely by physical, shallow standards. Women are come to be seen as bodies, sexual bodies, not personalities or people with achievements, desires, feelings like they think of fellow males. A continual social talk of women purely as sex objects reinforces an abusive mentality towards women. The process is slow, and give the intense peer pressure, sometimes all-encompassing and the only education a male gets about women arises from the soft porn industries! This leads to young adults who are deeply confused and incapable sexual partners, with their aims and desire completely skewed from what they should realistically be looking for in a relationship.
Males end up needing to unlearn the behaviours they learned as a child in order to even start the journey towards being a satisfying partner; it delays sexual maturity and relationship maturity and some men never really grow out of the misguided habits and opinions taught to them whilst young. The ethos of much of the soft porn industry is a social travesty causing potentially long-lasting psychological damage. Even if the images themselves are harmless, the culture surrounding them is not.
Female Misogyny
Women, too, suffer as a result of the objectification of women in the mass media.
“Girls at school bear no resemblance to these full-bodied, wet-lipped, Photoshopped images. But a recent survey discovered that the profession of choice for teenage girls is glamour model. In their short lives, they have learned that the greatest female achievement lies in allowing men to judge their breasts [...] while they writhe round a pole. [...] The old argument that no one's being exploited - we're all adults - no longer works, chiefly because we're not all adults. Most consumers of pop culture are children.”
Flic Everett (2005)25
The body-image of a female, important to female psychology, is damaged and harmed by the prevalence of soft porn in popular culture. Where cultural options do provide more holistic and sensible depictions of women in film and elsewhere, these are rarely the forms chosen by the young who become addicted to the simpler and more shallow women that the soft porn industry supplies us with.
4.4. Does Soft Porn Change How Attractive We Find Our Partners?
“Attraction is not all hard-wired. What's attractive to you also depends on your comparison standards. [...] To men who have recently been gazing at centerfolds, average women - or even their own wives - seem less attractive (Kenrick & others, 1989). Viewing pornographic films simulating passionate sex similarly decreases satisfaction with one's own partner (Zillmann, 1989). Being sexually aroused may temporarily make a person of the other sex seem more attractive. But the lingering effect of exposure to perfect "10s,", or of unrealistic sexual depictions, is to make one's own partner seem less appealing - more like a "6" than a "8." It works the same way with our self-perceptions. After viewing a superattractive person of the same sex, people feel less attractive than after viewing a homely person (Brown & others, 1992; Thornton & Moore, 1993).”
"Social Psychology" by David Myers (1999)26
It isn't appropriate or healthy to try and eradicate porn; nor is it appropriate to allow teenagers to immerse themselves in it before they learn how to treat people in a more complex way. Boys need to learn to treat women as they are, not as soft-porn potential, and girls need to know that the models they see lusted after are only shallow, semi-unacceptable caricatures of what it means to be a woman. The liberalisation of the soft porn ethos has gone too far, so that a mass re-education of boys and girls is required. Trash culture has infringed too far upon mainstream culture to the point that the mainstream is no longer sensible, or balanced, and a redress needs to be found.
5. Sex: Being Natural and Communication
The average man lasts a mere 4 minutes in bed.
"Why is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality" by Jared Diamond (1998)27
Relationship
The best sex is within a long term, trusting and caring relationship. When you can really learn and explore each other and become completely comfortable and accepting of all the habits of the other person and know and understand how their body works. In this situation, sex has potential to be the most amazing it can be.
Communication
Honesty and openness are essential for good sex, too! This means you need to be caring and keep communicating, talking about things and how things are, etc. The psychologists Davison & Neale warn than "poor communication between sexual partners is one of the major factors contributing to an unsatisfying sexual relationship"14. With communication you can really flex your minds and keep everything fresh, intimate and relaxing. It prevents stagnation, doubt, insecurity.
If you have issues with oral sex, or any thing else, communication is essential to prevent hurt or regret building up. Talking about these things before hand is preferable. I think if you don't have the trust or relationship in place to be able to discuss sex openly with a partner then are probably not ready to have sex with that person.
Grace
There is a very basic rule that I place a lot of importance on. When someone says "stop", or "no" it is essential that the first thing you do is stop. Basic human dignity requires it, and a failure to comply with this is very poor. People are vulnerable during sex and any actions that abuse the trust that is required for sex will have long term affects on the relationship and your own self esteem. If someone says stop, then you stop... and you accept it. You talk to them calmly and let them know it's ok, and ask what's wrong, etc. Keep communicating. If they don't want to talk about it then do not force the issue. Arguments and hostility can very easily arise when someone is feeling vulnerable.
Being Natural
I think simply being natural is the best route. This is why I believe sex in relationships is best, because you become comfortable and relaxed with your lover and are therefore much freer to be natural and to be yourself.
6. Masturbation
“Most people do not stop masturbating when they're in a sexually satisfying relationship. Masturbation is frequently done for different reasons, with different feelings, to sex and therefore isn't replaced by sex. Some couples never dispel the taboo of masturbation and never openly discuss it and I think this is harmful. I believe all couples should openly discuss masturbation including techniques, places they masturbate, times of day, etc. ”
"Masturbation, Relationships, Honesty" by Vexen Crabtree (2002)
7. Satanism, Consent and Sex
Due to the level of misunderstanding and presumption on Satanists and sex (and because I'm an expert in Satanism), here is a little to temper the media's occasional self-indulgent paranoia:
“Satanism is pro-sexuality. We should all shed the weird and stifling sexual inhibitions preached by the world's traditional religions; Sexuality is a pure form of pleasure, something that satisfies our deepest purpose in life. Modern life allows us to enjoy sex without the risks of unplanned pregnancies and sexual diseases assuming that sense is taken. Satanism supports any fetish, kink or flavor of sexual encounter as long as all parties involved are consenting. We are informed by modern and learned psychological, medical and scientific opinions on sex; there are no dogmatic principles or religious intolerance of sexualities within Satanism. It is very optimistic, positive and healthy: This can only be expected of such a carnal religion of the flesh such as Satanism! Some people like quality, some people like quantity: Just be responsible, take emotions and consequences into account, and above all, enjoy your life!”
“The Satanist would not intentionally hurt others by violating their sexual rights. If you attempt to impose your sexual desires upon others who do not welcome your advances, you are infringing upon their sexual freedom. ... If all parties involved are mature adults who willingly take full responsibility for their actions and voluntarily engage in a given form of sexual expression - even if it is generally considered taboo - then there is no reason for them to suppress their sexual inclination.”
"The Satanic Bible" by Anton LaVey (1969)28
