SEX! There! I Said It!

So, what’s the big deal about sex, anyway? When I was growing up in a fundamentalist authoritarian church, all sex was basically demonized. It was only allowed during marriage, and then, you weren’t really supposed to enjoy it. It was supposed to be used only for procreation. However, there is a vast difference between human beings and animals that may go into a rut once or twice a year. Human beings are one of the few mammals capable of having sex when not “in heat.” Human beings are among the few mammals that have sex just for pleasure, and there is actually a good reason for that. Sex is one of the things that binds families and communities together. Some might argue that sex through adultery tears families apart, but if you think about it, it’s not the sex that causes the damage in adultery; it is the deceit and the violation of trust that causes the damage. Historically, sex was one of the reasons men would hang around rather than roam about looking for one mate after another. However, there is still an element of that in most men. Sex for pleasure serves a psychological purpose, and there was a time in human history when sex was revered as a spiritual act.

There are only five other mammals that have sex for pleasure. They include two other primates, Bonobos and chimpanzees. However, the list also includes lions, rats, and dolphins. Now, dolphins in particular will do almost anything sexually, including mating with one another’s blow holes, and they don’t seem to care if they are engaging sexually with one gender or the other. Still, humans are unique. We are the only ones expected to mate for life—marriage. However, there was a time in human history when mating for life was not necessarily a thing. Again, historically, the wealthy had multiple wives, and kings had harems. As well, later, the nobility was known to have mistresses, and it was not unheard of that they would stray into homosexual sex. I question: how did we go from a society that was primarily matriarchal and free sexually to a society in which sex is basically demonized and repressed?

In ancient cultures, sex was revered, not just as a biological act, but as a sacred, life-giving, divine force of energy. Many ancient cultures believed in utilizing sexual energy to achieve spiritual awareness. Before Judeo-Christian religions, sex was practiced in religious rituals and was used for ritual initiation. In ancient Egypt, sexual energy was considered to be central to creation, and the sexual potency of the pharaoh was considered to give life to the Nile and to Egyptian society. In some ancient cultures, including Mesopotamia and ancient European cultures, priests and priestesses engaged in ritual sex to promote the fertility of the land and ensure good crops. Ritual sex was seen as a goddess devotion, releasing fertile energy to the land. The ancient Greeks considered sexual enjoyment to be the domain of the Goddess Aphrodite. The male phallus was an everyday object of worship and was often depicted in art. In ancient India, certain practices like Tantra were considered to be a path to enlightenment through the ritual use of sex and learning to transport sexual energy through the chakras from the base (sexual) chakra up through to the head, the spiritual chakra. They considered both Shiva (the male deity) and Shakti (the female deity) to be elements of power within the body, and ritual sex was seen as a way of uniting them. Ritual sex was also used as an initiation into a priest or priestess status. In other words, there were not all the rules around sex that we have today. Sometimes, I wonder if there were no rules about how people were to behave sexually, other than being respectful of one another and the right to have dominion over our own bodies, what would happen? Of course, sexual respect would always mean, no means no, and anyone without the maturity or cognizance of sobriety could not give consent.  Therefore, children and anyone intoxicated could not be touched sexually because of the inability to either understand or have the mental capacity to grant consent. Then, if adults who were sexually respectful of one another were allowed to do anything that mutual consent would allow, what would happen? I don’t think society would fall apart. Ancient societies held together despite having very open and liberal beliefs about sex.

You may have noticed a pattern in the above paragraph. That pattern is goddess worship. In ancient cultures, women were seen as givers of life. They gave birth and therefore brought life into the world. Women were respected, and often societies were matriarchal or matrilineal, with names and lineage passed through the mothers rather than the fathers. When Europeans first came to America and encountered the Iroquois, they discovered the Iroquois Confederacy, which was matrilineal, with descent and inheritance traced through women, giving women significant economic and political power. In fact, the Iroquois system of government is said to have contributed to the United States Constitution, and in 1988, Congress passed a resolution acknowledging its influence on the Constitution.  So, a Matrilineal society had specific beneficial characteristics.

There were significant differences between indigenous societies and the Judeo-Christian model. One of the primary differences was that indigenous societies were not only usually more respectful of women but also of people in general. Those who were known as two-spirit (LGBTQ) people were not only openly accepted but often revered as having almost shaman-like qualities. They were considered to embody the best qualities of both men and women in one person. However, something happened over time as society converted from matriarchal to patriarchal influence and governance. Sex became dirty. It became demonized, and one of the reasons was monotheism, in which God was visualized and conceived of as male, and society became patriarchal, male-dominant. Instead of women being the life-givers, the creation story changed, with man being created first and woman (Eve) being created from one of his ribs. Biologically, that makes no sense. That switches the power structure from women to men, and not only were women then perceived to be less worthy than men, but they were also the ones who tempted men into sin. Therefore, it was all their fault that Adam got kicked out of Eden. Women still receive blame and disrespect, with men blaming them for their own failures and shortcomings. In strict Muslim societies, women are expected to wear burkas and remain covered so they don’t tempt men. Therefore, if a man becomes tempted, it must be her fault. The same scenario is seen in blame the victim rape cases in which defense attorneys ask ridiculous questions such as, “Why were you wearing such a provocative dress?” Like her dress is responsible for the choice her rapist made. Men have too long gotten away with not taking responsibility for their choices, and have too long gotten away with disrespecting and demonizing women. When you boil it down and look at it truthfully and clearly, patriarchy is the foundation for many of the failures of modern society, as well as the atrocities.

Part of demonizing sex was because lineage changed from inheritance being passed through the mother to being passed through the father, and that meant that the men had to make sure that a child born was their own offspring and not the offspring of some other man. In a matrilineal lineage, it doesn’t matter who the father is because the mother controls the property, and her children inherit it. However, when God is conceived of as male, then the male is perceived to be more important than the female, and if lineage is to be passed through the male, then there have to be restrictions on sex to prevent someone who is not of the father’s bloodline from inheriting the property. Men took over and used religion as a means of justifying their control. To prevent a woman from bearing a child by another man, she must be kept away from other men. In the Middle Ages, women were expected to wear chastity belts to be sure they didn’t bear another man’s child while their husbands were away. Women were expected to be virgins at marriage to be sure that another man had not “defiled her.”   Sex stopped being about pleasure and started being about male dominance and control. However, there was a double standard. Although women were expected to be chaste, men did not receive the same reprimand. The subtle rule (double standard) was that girls were expected to remain virgins, while boys were expected to pursue their first lay.

In the 1960s, during the “sexual revolution,” these old standards were challenged with the idea of “free love.” This transitioned in the 1970s to the club scene, and sexual freedom took on a whole new appearance. Then, in the 1980s, AIDS came along and changed the whole picture. Suddenly, an STD wasn’t something that could be cured with penicillin. Sex became deadly. Since gay men (as all men are prone to do) were often promiscuous, HIV went through the gay community like wildfire. However, let's make something clear here. Gay men were only more promiscuous than straight men because they were sleeping with other men who were less likely to say no than women. In general, women have always had more respect for sex than men. Even though women are more likely to be blamed for tempting men, they are also more respectful of sex than men. Also, women had, for centuries, been taught to remain chaste and were therefore less likely to grant permission for casual sex. If straight men (in general) could get laid as often and as easily as gay men, believe me, they would. In the 1980s, with the AIDS crisis, the world began to take a more conservative turn, returning to the previous rules against sex for pleasure. That didn’t mean men stopped cheating on their wives or that gay men stopped having sex; it just meant that there was a transition in thought back to a more conservative view of sex. Conservatives began condemning gay sex again and making accusations that gay men are pedophiles by nature, when there has never been any evidence to support that claim. Of course, that condemnation was a backlash against the gay rights movement, and gay people refusing to continue to stay hidden for the comfort of heterosexual, cisgender conservatives. There was a move back toward male control, which never really went away, and in the United States, it meant white male control.

There are lots of different ideas about sex, and about what should or should not be allowed. Some people want to control women’s bodies, and some people want to wipe out gay marriage. Yet, gay marriage is one of the things that has allowed gay culture to mature and participate in their own family when so many have been rejected by their birth families. Family is, most assuredly, important, but there are families of blood and families of spirit. Genetics does not necessarily create bonding within a family, and sometimes the cruelest people are members of our own genetic families. LGBTQIA people, perhaps especially transgender people, having long experienced rejection by their blood families, learned to create families of spirit. They created their own families and developed their own ideas of kinship. In families, there are important rules and boundaries. In Native American cultures, which would sometimes kidnap white children during the early encroachment of Europeans, incest was strictly forbidden. This included when white children were adopted into a tribal family, even though there was absolutely no genetic connection. There are good reasons for some rules and boundaries, especially those that require respect for one another and for individual boundaries. There is one line of thinking that says as long as we don’t hurt anyone, we should be allowed to do what we want. So, let’s define hurting someone sexually. Violating anyone’s sexual boundaries is hurting them. No means no. Forcing anyone into a sexual act is hurting them. Molesting children is hurting them because a child does not have the cognitive maturity to understand, and it is still hurting the child even if the child gives consent, because children don’t have enough brain or social development to understand what they are giving consent to. It also causes lots of emotional problems for children who have been sexually violated, and those problems often, if not usually, follow them for the rest of their lives. Someone who is intoxicated cannot give consent because the use of a drug impairs their brain and interferes with their ability to define their boundaries. Alcohol, by the way, is a drug. It is essential to understand that someone who has been raped is more likely to develop PTSD as a result of the rape than those who have experienced military combat. So, the most basic rule would be, don’t hurt anyone.

Many people don’t really understand what sex is. It is much more than a biological function. An orgasm can be achieved through masturbation. That’s a biological function. However, sex with another person has many more elements than biology. If you stop to think about it, sex beyond the physiological response is a form of communication, just like language. With language, we can communicate love and understanding, kindness and respect, gentleness and compassion, or we can communicate anger, resentment, guilt, shame, or hatred. Those same things can be communicated sexually. Think about it. What is a rapist communicating sexually? It certainly isn’t compassion, love, and respect. So, why does rape occur? An AI overview said this: “Research suggests a correlation between sexually repressed societies and higher rates of sexual violence, with many scholars proposing that cultures with rigid, repressive, or patriarchal, and often religiously influenced views on sexuality, contribute to an environment where sexual violence is more common. While this relationship is debated, many viewpoints suggest that sexual repression acts as a contributing factor in perpetuating "rape culture" by treating female sexuality as dangerous, which can lead to dehumanization and a diminished respect for consent.” One might therefore conclude that rape would be far less likely in a society in which sex was not demonized. However, that would be a society in which men would have to give up much of their control, and guess what? Many, if not most, men love control. Who wouldn’t? However, control comes at a price. To have it, one must constantly take steps to maintain it. Enslavers, for instance, had to put in a great deal of effort to maintain control over their slaves. That is because the longing for freedom is inherent in every human being. That includes sexual freedom.

In the1980s, John Lennon recorded a song with the lyrics, “Woman is the nigger of the world.” A for instance on that is that black men were given the right to vote before white women. In the 1970s, a white man I knew who was from Zimbabwe Africa said, “There will be a black man elected president of the United States before a white woman. His prophecy was most assuredly true, and that is because of the systemic misogyny all over the world. Men may say they love the mother of their children, but do they really treat her with the respect that she deserves? Misogyny results from the patriarchal need to control women and the demonizing of women as well as the demonizing of sex. Behind all control is fear, and this means that deep down at their psychological core, men fear women, which is why they often treat them so disrespectfully.  If they can get women on their side, brainwash them into believing that they must be submissive to their husbands, all the better. That’s something else enslavers did. They used a different Bible for their slaves, selecting only the passages that emphasized servitude for the enslaved people to be convinced that God wanted them to be in slavery.

Misogyny is behind many of the evils that occur in society. It has prevented women from earning equal pay, preventing them from getting the right to vote, or even having control of their own property, which was inherited from the women’s side of the family. Another evil is women who believe that they have to fight and control like a man to have any semblance of authority. This often makes them uncharacteristically dominant. Then, when the dominant woman assumes authority over a man, the men she has authority over resent her. When a man emphasizes something, he may be called capable, but a woman emphasizing the same thing is called a bitch. Laws regarding women’s rights have changed only in the last century, and women still often make less money than their male counterparts for doing the same job.  

Misogyny is not just fear and hatred of women; it is fear of sex because men fear that if they don’t control women, they will lose their patriarchal lineage by not having control over a woman’s body. Right now, this male fear, white male fear in particular, is rearing its ugly head again because white men know that the population of the United States is changing, and they are terrified of losing control. To them, any loss of their dominance feels like a loss of their rights, when the truth is they are losing privilege, not rights. Misogyny translates to LGBTQIA people because how dare a male appear in any way like a woman. If a man is attracted to another man, someone is non-binary, a drag queen, or transgender to the misogynistic patriarchy, that is perceived as a betrayal of manhood.  In truth, it has nothing to do with their perceived manhood and does nothing to it. I once heard a man who another man had raped exclaim, “He took my manhood!” My response was, " No, he didn’t. He took your choice, your right to say ‘no’, but what he did has nothing to do with your manhood. Who you are cannot be taken from you.

So, what if we were to live in a society of sexual freedom, at least to the point of respecting one another’s boundaries, where ‘no means no’ and religious groups or governments stopped trying to control sexual behavior other than to prosecute those who violate the sexual boundaries of those unwilling or unable to give consent? What would that be like? What if we were to stop worrying about patriarchal lineage and pass lineage through mothers? Men would have to give up a lot, but the truth is that they, along with everyone else, would likely be much better off in every respect. Let’s face it, the death of misogyny would mean the death of racism (considering anyone to be less than yourself), the death of homophobia, and the death of a great deal of unnecessary disrespect in general. We deserve a better society based on human rights and respect, rather than the illusion of power and the quest for dominance.