A couple days ago, I talked about how my datahoard included specialised erotica. Talking about it got me thinking about how Victorian we still are when it comes to talking about sex in mixed company. We've got a thousand euphemisms for sex, but it's rare that we ever just say "sex". Someone on Tumblr pointed out how absurd it was that there would be a his-and-pregnant-hers set of teeshirts where hers says "Bun in the Oven" and his says "The Bun Baker". It's literally exactly the same as having shirts that say "cumdumpster" and "sex god". You go home for the holidays with your husband and you tell your parents that you're trying for a baby. That is precisely the same as saying, "We're having an unimaginable amount of sex; every waking moment almost, because I'm ovulating and constantly horny because, well, ha-ha, you know biology!"
This faux-child-friendly euphemistic society we've built up is precisely the reason why we can't have nice things on HTTP web anymore. We TALK about sex a lot, without using so many words; but, the act of sex is considered base, animalistic behaviour, and is regarded by most weird Christian evangelical types as a high sin. And, oh, Heavens forfend if the virginal ears of a Child should pick up on words like "penis", "vagina", and "contraceptives"!
There's an entire industry dedicated to helping folks have orgasms, and I'm not talking pharmaceuticals here. The pornographic video industry was the first to accept VHS and Betamax, years before Walt Disney Pictures ever hired Marc Elliot to say, "Coming soon to own on videocassette". This is a multi-billion dollar a year industry that no one ever talks about because "it isn't wrong, but we just don't do it". Every single congressman who ever voted in favour of one of these "save-the-children" type First Amendment restriction bills has masturbated to a porn tape at some point in their lives. Every state senator who has ever voted against expanding sex-education in schools has taken their phones into the restroom with them and rubbed one out between committee hearings. A lot of them even have children of their own and there's really only one way to get those*. The sheer hypocrisy of all this legislated morality positively boggles the mind. If I need my mind boggled, I'll get my vibrator out, thank you very much.
* Well, three ways. But two of them don't suit my needs at the present time.
Furthermore, it's very telling how all these legislators will say shit like, "You're gonna have to show me some hard evidence before I believe anything," and then, when the researchers come with the evidence, they say some pithy-ass shit like, "Well, what I meant was, show me in the Bible where it says that," or, my personal favourite, "My words were taken out of context; what I really said was you can't ever convince me that's true." It really tells you everything you need to know wbout their moral centre; bought and paid for by the Vatican and various smaller-time American evangelical groups.
What evidence was I talking about? The clinical evidence that clearly demonstrates that proper sex ed-- i.e. not the candy-ass, watered down crap that doesn't teach anything except "sex bad" and "you'll go blind if you touch your weener", but actually discussing sex in plain terms and not forbidding questions-- actually brings the teenage pregnancy rates down. The available data absolutely demolishes the core Christian evangelical dogma that telling children about sex will only make them want to have sex. They hid behind that false statement for decades, refusing to fund studies that sought to disprove it, revoking funding for studies that were leaning in that direction, and then finally demonising the research process itself until the Department of Education said to tone that down because it was causing conservative parents to believe that research was the Devil and bringing test scores down. Then, when they couldn't hide behind the falsehood anymore, suddenly, "the data was flawed", "participants were given the answers ahead of time", "the PI was paid off to skew the data".
😐 Oy, gevalt. The pure mischigas of it all.
The Talk in my house even included gay sex. Mum had to look some stuff up, but she managed to work it in. The fact that she even thought to work being gay into The Talk was apparently unique. Yeah, I used "gay" as an insult, like every other millennial, but I knew what it meant. In middle school, they even had a guest speaker come in, in Health class, who I'm pretty convinced at this stage was pretending to be HIV-positive. I don't remember most of her schpil, but "Anal sex was never meant to be," is burned into my brain. At first, as a warning from someone with a life-threatening sexually-transmitted disease not to make the same mistake; later, as a feeble attempt by the Catholic-controlled school board to prevent us being gay. After all, taking it in the ass is the preferred methodology of gay men. I don't know-- maybe she really did have HIV from getting butt-sex and I'm just being unfair. But, if she did, all that proves is that her partner was lying about being healthy. I seem to recall something about "drawing blood", but even that doesn't scan for two readily-apparent reasons. 1, if your partner has HIV and shoots his load anywhere on you, you're at risk. If he was up her butt like she said, and he came into her rectum, that jacks the risk factor up to 11. 2, HIV isn't transmitted through the air or skin-on-skin contact. If he broke her skin in her anus, that just means he wasn't using enough lube.
You know, if society expended HALF as much effort supporting healthy sexuality in humans as it has in attempting to quash it, there would BE no teenage pregnancy and STI transmission rates would be at the lowest point they've every been. Also, there would probably be more people realising that they're not cishet, which is really what the Vatican is afraid of. Every pope, from Honorius III to Francis I, probably has nightmares about gay people taking over the world. Honestly, I don't see that as being anything less than fabulous. Can you imagine if all the world leaders were gay? Wars would be won on the fashion runway, for one thing.
--3 May 2023--