…or, how to learn to stop worrying and love teh pr0n.
There’s an article that went up on Newsweek’s site this week about a book. The book is about porn, or more specifically “The Pornification Of A Generation.”
Now, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that we’re a country that is, not to put too fine a point on it, deeply fucked-up about sex. We are simultaneously awash in sexual imagery and hopelessly sexually repressed, and that tension doesn’t make for healthy attitudes about porn OR sex.
I haven’t read the book that the article talks about, so I don’t know if the book is as badly written, but the article seems to make a lot of unwarranted assumptions and unsupported conclusions. It also uses a lot of over-the-top, emotionally manipulative language (like “I realized porn culture and I were in a death match for my daughter’s soul”), and it’s DEFINITELY been my experience that you can’t really expect reasoned, measured investigation of a complex subject from folks who talk this way.
If you look at the way the article cloaks a lot of hidden assumptions in its use of language…well, let’s just say it sets off my baloney detector1. It doesn’t take long, either; the second paragraph of the article begins “In a market that sells high heels for babies and thongs for tweens, it doesn’t take a genius to see that sex, if not porn, has invaded our lives. Whether we welcome it or not, television brings it into our living rooms and the Web brings it into our bedrooms.”
It’s reasonable to say that porn is more accessible at this point than it has been in the past, but to say that it comes into our lives and into our bedrooms “whether we welcome it or not” is simply stupid. It’s not like “porn” is sitting somewhere inside the Internet with the magical ability to leap through your computer or TV set and, I don’t know, wave naked pictures of Angelina Jolie in front of your face or invade France or something. I personally don’t have that big a taste for porn, and if I don’t particularly feel like seeing any, I don’t. No magic involved; I just don’t go to porn Web sites or watch “Debby Does Dozens XXXVI” on the DVD player unless I…
…actually want to. You know?
Anyway, the article then goes on to say, “But it isn’t just sex that Scott is worried about. He’s more interested in how we, as a culture, often mimic the most raunchy, degrading parts of it—many of which, he says, come directly from pornography. In “The Porning of America” (Beacon), which he has written with colleague Carmine Sarracino, a professor of American literature, the duo argue that, through Bratz dolls and beyond, the influence of porn on mainstream culture is affecting our self perceptions and behavior—in everything from fashion to body image to how we conceptualize our sexuality.”
Which misses the point so spectacularly that if there was an award for point-missing kind of like the Oscars, with actresses in ten-thousand-dollar dresses and limos parked around the block and so on, this guy would be strutting his stuff on the red carpet like Paris Hilton on a bender.
See, here’s the thing. People are interested in and curious about sex; it kind of, err, goes with being human. Basic biological drive, y’know? And we live in a culture that is so repressed about sex that we refuse to even talk about it, yet at the same time we hook into this basic biological drive in advertising and marketing and media, because, well, it works.
So yeah, we’re surrounded by sexualized imagery, but we refuse to talk about it openly. So we create a social environment where kids grow up in a vacuum; the grownups won’t talk to them about sex, the parents are too embarrassed and ashamed to talk about sex, and they’re surrounded by sexual images without any sort of context. Y’think that might get confusing?
This confusion isn’t the fault of the imagery; it’s the fault of chickenshit grownups who refuse to have a grown-up conversation about sex. When you create an environment that says sex is fun and enticing and then you treat the entire topic with a deep, red-faced shame, people are going to get fucked in the head.
And that’s the most reasonable part of the article. The rest of it is like an inverted version of those stories your grandfather told you as a kid; no matter where you go from there, it’s downhill. In the snow. Both ways.
The red-carpet bender continues with this little gem: “All you have to do is live here on a daily basis, and you pick this stuff up through every medium,” says Sarracino, who teaches at Pennsylvania’s Elizabethtown College. “But it’s been so absorbed that it has almost ceased to exist as something separate from the culture.”
Attitudes about sex and sexuality are one of the defining aspects of culture. “Culture” in this context is the tastes, attitudes, ideas, and beliefs that are shared by a society. A shared set of ideas about sex doesn’t exist as something separate from a culture? Thank you, Captain Obvious, for illuminating THAT with a harsh white light that will shine as a beacon of knowledge for generations. You may go now.
OF COURSE sexual attitudes don’t exist as something “separate from the culture.” That’s what culture is. What the captain here is trying to say is something different: namely, that cultural ideas and taboos about sex are changing. And they are. That’s absolutely correct.
But then, wait, it gets better. The very next sentence is this: “The prevalence or porn leaves today’s children with a lot of conflicting ideas and misconceptions, says Lyn Mikel Brown, the coauthor of “Packaging Girlhood,” about marketers’ influence on teen girls. “All this sex gives a misinformed notion of what it means to be grown-up.””
Y’think? I wonder why that is. Could it be that, oh, I don’t know, we’re not giving kids any sort of framing or context in which to place and understand this sexual imagery? Could it be that grownups won’t talk to kids about sex, grownups won’t be honest and direct about sex, and so kids end up inventing their own context? Might it be, just maybe, that if we as a society weren’t so goddamn hung up on having sex, selling sex, depicting sex, and doing everything under the sun except TALKING ABOUT sex, that kids would find it easier to put sex into context?
Take something that people really, really want to do, because it’s fun and it feels good and they have genes that make doing it something of an imperative. Spend a tremendous amount of time perfecting the art of depicting this thing until it’s honed to a razor-fine edge. Surround people with it, and then whenever they ask you about it, snatch it away and tell them they should feel ashamed. Rinse and repeat, oh, I don’t know, thirty or forty thousand times. Think they’ll end up with misinformed notions about what it is? Really? Who knew?
“The authors of “So Sexy So Soon” (Ballantine), which came out last month, believe that part of the problem for children is that they lack the emotional sophistication to understand the images they see.” Yeah. You know why they lack that emotional sophistication? Because we’re so goddamned obsessed with treating children like they’re little china dolls or something that we refuse to give them that emotional sophistication. We deliberately, with the resolution of a Muslim suicide bomber, make goddamn well and sure that kids don’t get the tools they need to understand the images they see, and not only that, we teach them that it’s shameful to even try.
Then we tell them that if they’re not good in the sack, they’re not good people.
YOU try to figure that one out.
“Last year, the American Psychological Association put out a compelling report that described the sexualization of young girls: a process that entails being stripped of all value except the sexual use to which they might be put. Once they subscribe to that belief, say some psychologists, those girls begin to self-objectify—with consequences ranging from cognitive problems to depression and eating disorders.” Mmm-hmm. And this is the fault of who, exactly? Pornographers who kick down the door and wave nudie pictures around in the living room whether we want it or not? Magazines that have learned that making girls feel bad about themselves is a devastatingly effective marketing hook? Parents who fel that their greatest duty as the guardians of society is to ensure that the next generation of bright young people grows up as ashamed and conflicted about sex and sexuality as they are?
My money’s on numbers two and three. I’ve never had anyone force porn into my home against my will. Maybe it’s the lock on the door, I don’t know. Or maybe it’s because nobody is FORCING anything on anyone.
“It’s the porn ideal of sex as commodity in a competitive market—and to see rapper Nelly swipe a credit card through a young girl’s backside in a music video only reaffirms that notion. It’s artificiality as a replacement for authenticity.”
No, it’s adults who are scared to death of authenticity, who leave their children to figure out what all this means because Heaven knows that teaching kids how to understand all of this in context is just way too much to ask.
Listen, this should be obvious. The world is a big and confusing place. Part of a parent’s job is teaching the skills that a child needs in order to learn to make sense of it. That’s what adults do. When we as a society abdicate this responsibility, we can hardly go crying about the results.
1 Carl Sagan, in the book The Demon Haunted World, sets out a list of cognitive tools he describes as a “Baloney Detection Kit.” It’s a great set of tools for spotting flim-flam or sloppy reasoning, and I highly recommend this book.
oh fucking huzzah! *G* One of the best bits that i’ve read on this topic.
I used to describe my personal sexual fuck-uppedness this way, in terms of the conflicting messages i got growing up.
A. “Sex is a beautiful thing that happens between 2 people who love each other very much.”
B. “Are you going out looking like *that*?”
(i.e. slutty,as defined as too many buttons open on my shirt. really.)
oh fucking huzzah! *G* One of the best bits that i’ve read on this topic.
I used to describe my personal sexual fuck-uppedness this way, in terms of the conflicting messages i got growing up.
A. “Sex is a beautiful thing that happens between 2 people who love each other very much.”
B. “Are you going out looking like *that*?”
(i.e. slutty,as defined as too many buttons open on my shirt. really.)
Oh please stop making sense! Why have a healthy attitude about sex when we can just subvert it and use it to sell a bunch of shit we don’t really need?
Oh please stop making sense! Why have a healthy attitude about sex when we can just subvert it and use it to sell a bunch of shit we don’t really need?
There must be something in the air (pheromones?) because it seems all of LJ has been talking about our messed-up attitudes about sex lately. Anyway, this post is made of win.
Last year, the American Psychological Association put out a compelling report that described the sexualization of young girls: a process that entails being stripped of all value except the sexual use to which they might be put.
Um, would this be the same process that girls and women have been subjected to for, oh, millennia? I get such a kick out of it when people talk about the “perils of modern society” without stopping to consider whether these phenomena are in fact new. I would argue that women were stripped of all value except sexual use far more pervasively in times past than in today’s world. Most girls in today’s industrial world, sexualized or not, still feel entitled to an education, still believe they should be allowed to have careers or create art or get involved in politics. Even tweens in thongs have a whole lot more value in today’s culture than they did just a couple hundred years ago.
In the past, women existed to provide sex and children to men, but they weren’t supposed to actually enjoy the sex part. Maybe that’s what truly bugs people today. Girls are no longer willing to be passive participants in sexuality–they want to flaunt it, use it, enjoy it. This is threatening. Sexual power is power. If we don’t condition girls to be ashamed of that power then they might actually use it! Oh noes!
But I think we give sex more power than it warrants when we treat it as such a taboo. The forbidden is always more enticing than that which we can have (or at the very least discuss) freely.
I don’t understand why people are so unwilling to talk to their kids about sex. The attitude is so pervasive that my son spells out the word “sex” because he’s gotten the notion that it’s a bad word. I don’t know where this comes from, because I say it all the time and I’ve talked to him about it many times. (He will, however, say “mating,” which I find utterly adorable and which always puts that “Discovery Channel” song in my head).
But my view is, if I didn’t want to talk about uncomfortable, confusing, difficult topics with my kid, I wouldn’t have had one. It’s just part of the job.
There must be something in the air (pheromones?) because it seems all of LJ has been talking about our messed-up attitudes about sex lately. Anyway, this post is made of win.
Last year, the American Psychological Association put out a compelling report that described the sexualization of young girls: a process that entails being stripped of all value except the sexual use to which they might be put.
Um, would this be the same process that girls and women have been subjected to for, oh, millennia? I get such a kick out of it when people talk about the “perils of modern society” without stopping to consider whether these phenomena are in fact new. I would argue that women were stripped of all value except sexual use far more pervasively in times past than in today’s world. Most girls in today’s industrial world, sexualized or not, still feel entitled to an education, still believe they should be allowed to have careers or create art or get involved in politics. Even tweens in thongs have a whole lot more value in today’s culture than they did just a couple hundred years ago.
In the past, women existed to provide sex and children to men, but they weren’t supposed to actually enjoy the sex part. Maybe that’s what truly bugs people today. Girls are no longer willing to be passive participants in sexuality–they want to flaunt it, use it, enjoy it. This is threatening. Sexual power is power. If we don’t condition girls to be ashamed of that power then they might actually use it! Oh noes!
But I think we give sex more power than it warrants when we treat it as such a taboo. The forbidden is always more enticing than that which we can have (or at the very least discuss) freely.
I don’t understand why people are so unwilling to talk to their kids about sex. The attitude is so pervasive that my son spells out the word “sex” because he’s gotten the notion that it’s a bad word. I don’t know where this comes from, because I say it all the time and I’ve talked to him about it many times. (He will, however, say “mating,” which I find utterly adorable and which always puts that “Discovery Channel” song in my head).
But my view is, if I didn’t want to talk about uncomfortable, confusing, difficult topics with my kid, I wouldn’t have had one. It’s just part of the job.
tin foil hat
The only way I’ve been able to make sense of this state of affairs, is to decide that the way things are, people are easiest to manipulate. If we’re insecure in our sexuality, and authority figures are calling the shots, then we are constantly in debt to them, so they can move us around.
That’s the only thing that makes sense, given the enormous costs and terrible consequences of keeping the status quo. Left to ourselves, we’d be much more European in our attitudes, but then we’d also be harder to manipulate.
As a mouthpiece for owned media, I expect Newsweek to defend the status quo any way ot can.
Re: tin foil hat
While I definitely think that’s true, I don’t think it’s a conscious thing. I don’t see a government committee meeting together in a basement in the Pentagon and saying “We need to get together and make sure that society sends a confusing mixed message about sexuality, because it will make our jobs easier and make folks more controllable.”
Rather, I think our messed-up attitudes about sex are the result of centuries of Puritanical religious repression about sex combined with free-market economic systems that have learned that sex makes for very good marketing indeed, and the result is a certain amount of confusion about sex. And I think people like it that way, because a great many people truly, sincerely believe that if they are not ashamed of sex, an invisible man up in the sky will cast them down into fiery pits of burning and torture forever and ever, amen.
Does that make us easy to manipulate? Yes. Do folks exploit that? Oh, yes. But they’re merely taking advantage of a pre-existing situation–and one that people are really attached to.
Re: tin foil hat
While I definitely think that’s true, I don’t think it’s a conscious thing. I don’t see a government committee meeting together in a basement in the Pentagon and saying “We need to get together and make sure that society sends a confusing mixed message about sexuality, because it will make our jobs easier and make folks more controllable.”
Sure- at this point, no one needs to twirl their moustache and sit in smokey rooms deciding how it needs to be. All they have to do is work within prevailing market forces and go with what seems to be working
Changing this situation, though, will not be some kind of invisible process where people do the right thing without talking about it. I think it’s going to take exactly the kind of breathing together that we like to dismiss as impossible, since no one can hold a secret.
tin foil hat
The only way I’ve been able to make sense of this state of affairs, is to decide that the way things are, people are easiest to manipulate. If we’re insecure in our sexuality, and authority figures are calling the shots, then we are constantly in debt to them, so they can move us around.
That’s the only thing that makes sense, given the enormous costs and terrible consequences of keeping the status quo. Left to ourselves, we’d be much more European in our attitudes, but then we’d also be harder to manipulate.
As a mouthpiece for owned media, I expect Newsweek to defend the status quo any way ot can.
Now now, we can’t actually have parents parenting kids. The job of parent doesn’t really mean they have to teach, educate, or inform them, it just means they create them, give them food and a blankie at night, then send them off to someone else to educate. I mean, if a parent actually had to spend time giving their children the toolkits necessary to be a functioning adult, then those adults wouldn’t have time for running corporations and volunteer organizations. I mean, you’d need, like, two or more adults for that! In this day and age, we’re supposed to be able to do it all with no compromises and always what makes No. 1 happy.
Oh, wait, was that my sarcasm showing again?
We educate our kids on the dangers and wonders of electricity, of sports, of driving, but guns and sex? Nope, let’s show them lots of shiny pictures, then slap their hands when they reach for them to get a closer look and tell them there is something wrong with them for being curious about it (like my own mother did when she threatened to send me to a therapist after reading some letter I wrote to my friend talking about sex at age 13).
Parents raising their own kids? Why, heaven forfend, that would be…taking responsiblity for something.
Since we seem headed for the biggest socialist programs in the history of the United States, doesn’t that run counter to letting anyone take any sort of personal responsibility? After all, doesn’t the government know better than you do?
BTW, Turtle…I can’t wait to meet your kids, 20 years from now. No, wait…I can’t wait to meet them at 8 years old.
I would say that the gvt. probably knows better than I do about how safe food products are, since they supposedly have a team of scientists standing around to develop standards for just that purpose.
But based on their federal acceptance of abstinence-only programs for kids, I’m quite positive they absolutely do NOT know better than me about how to raise kids! And I’m child-free by choice!
As for‘s kids, heh, gonna wait a long time for that one! Unless someone manages to steal his sperm while he’s cryonically frozen and inseminates someone for nefarious purposes.
Unless you count his clones, created for the endless battle against his arch-nemesis as “children”?
Now now, we can’t actually have parents parenting kids. The job of parent doesn’t really mean they have to teach, educate, or inform them, it just means they create them, give them food and a blankie at night, then send them off to someone else to educate. I mean, if a parent actually had to spend time giving their children the toolkits necessary to be a functioning adult, then those adults wouldn’t have time for running corporations and volunteer organizations. I mean, you’d need, like, two or more adults for that! In this day and age, we’re supposed to be able to do it all with no compromises and always what makes No. 1 happy.
Oh, wait, was that my sarcasm showing again?
We educate our kids on the dangers and wonders of electricity, of sports, of driving, but guns and sex? Nope, let’s show them lots of shiny pictures, then slap their hands when they reach for them to get a closer look and tell them there is something wrong with them for being curious about it (like my own mother did when she threatened to send me to a therapist after reading some letter I wrote to my friend talking about sex at age 13).
Not to come down on the prudish side, but it can also do a lot of damage if parents badly violate society’s basic expectations about how sexuality should be taught. This isn’t because sex is something evil — far from it — but because of the mixed-message problem. If parents consistently overstress sex education, especially before the child has a handle on the proper emotional context, it’s pretty easy for kids to conclude that there’s something wrong, either with the parent for sharing or with themselves for not understanding how awesome this is supposed to be. That’s no way to grow up.
I think giving straight answers to birds-and-bees questions is always a good thing. I also think that children should have an understanding of safe-sex practices and other major topics before they become sexually active. I don’t think imposing the topic on children is a good idea as long as the dominant culture says otherwise.
This obviously isn’t a perfect situation. Ideally, the problem of mixed messages wouldn’t exist. But parents have to deal with the culture they have, not the culture they wish they had.
I think you are combining two different issues here and while I agree with you on one of them, I don’t necessarily agree on the other.
First, there is the issue of sending a mixed message. If I tell my son that it’s okay for gays to marry each other but everyone else in my community says it’s a horrible sin, then he will get a mixed message. I don’t think that’s a terrible thing. Life is confusing. My job as a parent isn’t to pretend that everyone agrees about everything, but rather to give my son the tools for reasoning out his own viewpoint and for getting along with people who don’t share it.
But then there’s also the issue of age-appropriateness. You’re right, it’s not appropriate to tell kids things that they aren’t intellectually or emotionally mature enough to handle. But I’d think that regardless of whether the rest of society agreed with me or not. This isn’t about mixed messages, it’s about not messing with the kid’s head.
I don’t think imposing the topic on children is a good idea as long as the dominant culture says otherwise.
I disagree here. I think you shouldn’t impose topics on kids that they aren’t ready to comprehend, but that’s an individual decision based on the child. What the dominant culture says my kid should or shouldn’t know is only relevant in terms of how I teach him to behave around others.
*nods* It is important not to ‘overshare’ — kids get pretty uncomfortable if they’re being given information that is too sophisticated or too explicit for their age level.
I’m hoping that I’ve managed to do a pretty good job with Kira — discussing things as they came up in conversation pretty naturally, asking questions to try to see how she feels about situations that she sees on TV or reads about, and bringing stuff up in the car on occasion so that it’s a low-pressure situation to talk and eye contact isn’t necessary (this last is a technique I read about some years ago, and we do seem to have really good, wide-ranging, open conversations in the car.)
Another thing is to be careful with how much you reveal about your own sex life — it’s crucial not to put a child in a confidante/”best friend” situation. They’re still your kids, and they still don’t want to hear all the details, particularly if you’re non-vanilla-heteronormative. (My daughter knows that I’m poly, and she knows my longterm, stable partners, but she doesn’t need to know which friends have been FWB in the past, for example.)
But, yeah. It’s HARD being a parent in today’s world. The media messages that sex is slick and easy and meaningless, plus the cultural Puritanism, are really difficult forces to fight — you want to try to avoid getting the poor kid’s mind warped from all the conflicting information.
— A <3
Of course, there’s more than one way to mess up a child. Being too heavy-handed is as bad as not talking about it at all.
I don’t think that mixed messages are necessarily a bad thing. The simultaneous prudish attitude about sex and the sexuality of marketing and advertising itself is a mixed message, after all. Part of a parent’s job is giving kids the tools they need to be able to make sense of those mixed messages, preferably in healthier ways than “I must never talk about sex, but if I’m bad at sex I’m a failure as a human being, and my worth as a person varies in direct proportion to how much I look like the models I see in advertising.” (There’s a certain amount of absurdity in the fact that the models used in advertising don’t even look like the models used in advertising, but that’s a whole ‘nother rant altogether.)
I will say that it’s highly dangerous to adopt a philosophy that you should only teach your kids ideas that agree with whatever the prevailing social culture says. There are worse things than giving a contradictory message, and honestly, I think the dominant social view on sex is pretty twisted and unhealthy.
It may be dangerous to teach your kids ideas that agree with whatever the prevailing culture says…the flip side is that you teach them to ignore it for the sake of individuality.
And one more question, now that I’ve thought of it…what about instilling in your children your values?
For instance, if the prevailing culture has no pride and thinks that it’s just fine to take handouts from the government (WIC, welfare, Unemployment, etc) there’s no reason that you can’t tell your child, “Have some pride and don’t be a deadbeat.”
As far as “prevailing culture”, I do teach my child that prevailing culture is all very well, but that’s no reason to go along with the tide. Just because one says that marraige is any number of any beings (including dogs or cats or wherever you draw the line…WHATEVER) doesn’t mean that’s the case. In the same light, just because prevailing culture says that you have to be young and beautiful or you’re nothing doesn’t mean that you have to give that thought any validity.
My point is that teaching the child that you can buck the trend any time may be a bad thing, because the other kids will make his/her life miserable until they conform.
My point is to say…who says YOU are right? It comes down to, “Hey, I’m this kid’s parent. He/She will hear the truth from ME.” But you may be screwed like Hogan’s Goat…so then what?
Not to come down on the prudish side, but it can also do a lot of damage if parents badly violate society’s basic expectations about how sexuality should be taught. This isn’t because sex is something evil — far from it — but because of the mixed-message problem. If parents consistently overstress sex education, especially before the child has a handle on the proper emotional context, it’s pretty easy for kids to conclude that there’s something wrong, either with the parent for sharing or with themselves for not understanding how awesome this is supposed to be. That’s no way to grow up.
I think giving straight answers to birds-and-bees questions is always a good thing. I also think that children should have an understanding of safe-sex practices and other major topics before they become sexually active. I don’t think imposing the topic on children is a good idea as long as the dominant culture says otherwise.
This obviously isn’t a perfect situation. Ideally, the problem of mixed messages wouldn’t exist. But parents have to deal with the culture they have, not the culture they wish they had.
Well said, tacit.
“The world is a big and confusing place. Part of a parent’s job is teaching the skills that a child needs in order to learn to make sense of it.”
This might be my favorite bit, honestly. I really wonder what goes through parents’ heads sometimes.
Well said, tacit.
“The world is a big and confusing place. Part of a parent’s job is teaching the skills that a child needs in order to learn to make sense of it.”
This might be my favorite bit, honestly. I really wonder what goes through parents’ heads sometimes.
I agree with you about parenting, as you probably know, but I do have to take issue with one part of this. You seem boggled by the notion that porn comes in whether it’s welcome or not, and you seem to interpret that literally, in that the porn actually physically walks in of its own volition and forces you to watch it. Of course it doesn’t do that, but I can tell you that I have never invited porn into my bedroom (where by “bedroom” I mean “sex life with other people”) and it has been there almost without exception.
I have had to compete with porn actresses for time, attention, desirability, and a place in my partner’s mental sexual landscape. I have had to deal with partners who think that the sex acts that take place in porn actually happen in real life (and I do agree that parenting is a large part of the reason for this, but not the entire reason). I have been with more than one man who was unable to orgasm without porn as stimulation.
I never invited it in, but I invited my partner in, and he brought it in with him. This is an interpretation of that complaint that I feel is a valid one. I don’t think porn is the enemy, but I do think it perpetuates a lot of the fucked up ideas out there about sex. I agree with you that grown-up communication is a huge solution to this – but that doesn’t mean that porn isn’t part of the problem.
This is a really good point. I hadn’t thought of it that way.
I actually wanted to comment on the unwelcome porn issue in a different way. I think that the author cites uses a broader definition of porn than most of us here. I think he’s also referring to fake-breasted cover models in low-cut shirts on magazine covers. I think he’s referring to people humping each other in music videos and singing about “my lovely lady lumps” on the radio. I think he’s referring to advertisements that imply women will jump into bed with you if you wear a certain cologne. I don’t consider these things “porn,” but a lot of people do–or at least they consider them manifestations of a “porn culture.” And unless you go join an Amish community or something, you really can’t avoid that stuff. It’s in the supermarket. It’s on TV.
*nod* I’m pretty sure you’re right about that.
I get what you’re saying, though I don’t think it’s quite the same thing as what the author of the book is talking about when he says that porn forces itself on people.
And if anything, i think you’ve provided an example that demonstrates my point. The folks who you’re talking about come into your bedroom with attitudes and expectations shaped by porn precisely because nobody else has offered them any other attitudes and ideas–because nobody else has talked to them directly about realistic expectations around sex. You’re competing with porn actresses because they don’t have any other model to frame their expectations about sex. Giving people a more realistic model means talking openly about sex–the one thing that folks in this sex-saturated culture won’t do.
Porn presents a highly abstract, unrealistic, and sort of twisted idea about sex, but it’s not really the fault of the porn; it’s supposed to be entertainment, not education. It only becomes a problem when folks don’t have any other source for information about sex.
Imagine a culture that never, ever spoke about violence, or kindness, or reasonable ways to treat other human beings, but that had movie theaters filled with movies like Lethal Weapon and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I bet folks would drag ideas they’d picked up from those movies into their interpersonal relationships, simply because there was no other source of information, you know?
Had your partners had a better context for understanding porn, do you think you’d still be competing with porn for their attention?
Yes and no. I think some of the reasons would stop existing, if we lived in a society that was well-educated and allowed to talk about sex. I definitely think the problem would be much much smaller. I don’t think the situations where porn is just “easier” than a person or used to fulfill a hate fantasy would disappear. So, yes, I think I would still be competing with porn, but the other things I mentioned, like thinking porn stuff goes on in real sex, and perhaps even some of the body-type stuff, would probably not be present, at least not as much.
I agree with you about parenting, as you probably know, but I do have to take issue with one part of this. You seem boggled by the notion that porn comes in whether it’s welcome or not, and you seem to interpret that literally, in that the porn actually physically walks in of its own volition and forces you to watch it. Of course it doesn’t do that, but I can tell you that I have never invited porn into my bedroom (where by “bedroom” I mean “sex life with other people”) and it has been there almost without exception.
I have had to compete with porn actresses for time, attention, desirability, and a place in my partner’s mental sexual landscape. I have had to deal with partners who think that the sex acts that take place in porn actually happen in real life (and I do agree that parenting is a large part of the reason for this, but not the entire reason). I have been with more than one man who was unable to orgasm without porn as stimulation.
I never invited it in, but I invited my partner in, and he brought it in with him. This is an interpretation of that complaint that I feel is a valid one. I don’t think porn is the enemy, but I do think it perpetuates a lot of the fucked up ideas out there about sex. I agree with you that grown-up communication is a huge solution to this – but that doesn’t mean that porn isn’t part of the problem.
Well, well… Starting to write like Greta Christina, with the pictures? 🙂
I think you didn’t quite get their point, Franklin. It seems to me that their point is a bit more subtle and even more messed up than you thought. I heard the same argument many times, from intelligent people who are not at all repressed about sex. It goes something like this:
1) Sex is this deep, awesome, important thing, an expression of our most wonderful feelings.
2) Pop culture (porn, commercials, etc.) displays it a cheap, shallow and empty way.
=> that’s why children get the wrong message!
I’d love to hear what would you answer to this argument. The people I know who would agree with the article would also agree with what you said here — that we should talk openly about sex — and they do talk about it. But when they do, they say the same things: sex should be A, but it is depicted as B, and so we should be ashamed of ourselves. Or something.
– Ola
1) Sex is this deep, awesome, important thing, an expression of our most wonderful feelings.
2) Pop culture (porn, commercials, etc.) displays it a cheap, shallow and empty way.
=> that’s why children get the wrong message!
I think the problem (and the reason for mixed messages) is that sex isn’t inherently either one of those things. It’s what the people engaging in it make of it. Sometimes sex is deep and important, but sometimes it really is cheap and shallow. You might not agree that it should be cheap and shallow, but you can’t deny that sometimes it is. Sex can be anything from a sacred, loving experience to a form of brutal torture (i.e. rape), depending on the motivations behind it and the perceptions of the people involved. To me there’s no mixed message at all. Sex is all of those things.
Explaining to your kids that sex can be all of those things doesn’t stop you from talking about what you think sex should be. In fact, I think it’s a great way to launch into a discussion about it. I don’t need to pretend that unethical sexual activities don’t exist in order to teach my son how to have ethical sexual relationships. Even at his young age he knows that people make bad decisions and people do cruel things.
The world is full of contradictions and kids are pretty capable of recognizing that. I don’t think it’s terrible for kids to get mixed messages. There are a lot of viewpoints in the world and I’d like to teach my son how to navigate them sooner rather than later.
Exactly, exactly! But, being the devil’s advocate for a minute: sex certainly can be brutal torture, but you wouldn’t like it if the vast majority of sexuality in our culture concentrated on rape, would you? If that happened, you’d become worried about where this society is going, right? In the same manner, some people are concerned about the shallow, artificial and cheap sexuality that is becoming so dominant nowdays. It might indicate that something is wrong with the way we see sex. [/end being devil’s advocate]
It’s what the people engaging in it make of it.
That’s the most important thing, for me. People often misinterprete the displays of sexuality they see, sometimes drastically. What seems cheap and shallow to one is not so to another. I guess this is the root of the answer to these critics, although I’m still struggling to elaborate it clearer…
– Ola
In the same manner, some people are concerned about the shallow, artificial and cheap sexuality that is becoming so dominant nowdays. It might indicate that something is wrong with the way we see sex.
Oh, absolutely. And I don’t fault such people for speaking out against what they see as wrong–I certainly do it. I think it’s more a matter of degree. Some people rail against the mass media and the dominant culture and blame them for corrupting our children. My take is that there will always be messages out there that I disagree with and that I hope my child won’t internalize, but it’s my job to share my value system with him and encourage him to question the messages he receives in life. I guess I just have a visceral reaction when I hear claims that “X message is corrupting our children…” because I think that’s a way of dodging your responsibilities as a parent.
Also, I think that a lot of people who condemn the cheapening of sex in the mass media still support its underlying cause–the glorification of consumerism. If making a profit is a worthy goal, then you can’t fault advertisers and celebrities for making that profit the most effective way possible. And sex is pretty effective.
What seems cheap and shallow to one is not so to another.
This. Yes.
But, being the devil’s advocate for a minute: sex certainly can be brutal torture, but you wouldn’t like it if the vast majority of sexuality in our culture concentrated on rape, would you? If that happened, you’d become worried about where this society is going, right? In the same manner, some people are concerned about the shallow, artificial and cheap sexuality that is becoming so dominant nowdays. It might indicate that something is wrong with the way we see sex.
I don’t actually think that’s a valid analogy.
The idea that rape is wrong is a bit different in kind from the notion that casual sex is wrong in some pretty fundamental ways, not the least of which are the notion of consensuality and the simple factt hat not every person feels the same way about sex.
When you say that sex ought not to be rape, you’re saying basically the same thing as when you say people ought not to kill one another, steal from one another, or brutalize one another in non-sexual ways; a society that permits it citizens to do these things as a normal course of their behavior can’t long continue to exist.
On the other hand, people who say that sex should only be some wonderful spiritual thing between exactly two people are, in effect, saying that people “should” only have one kind of feeling about sex, which is a pretty far cry from saying that people shouldn’t violate one another physically. The fact is, human beings don’t only feel one way about sex. Any realistic view of sex must be able to accommodate that fact.
I think the pictures definitely help with readability. It remains to be seen whether or not I have enough patience to keep up with it. 🙂
I do think that we spend a lot of time harping on the “deep wonderful important expression between two people who really love each other” view of sex, and we create a great deal of confusion when we do. People are told that they are “supposed” to feel a certain way about sex, and then if they don’t feel that way, they are told it’s because they’re bad people.
I’ve known folks who really, really like recreational sex, and then agonize over it because they’ve internalized ideas that say sex “should” only be enjoyed in certain circumstances. I’ve met people who believe that they are only “supposed” to have sex with folks they love, so they convince themselves that they are In Love with every person they sleep with, whether it’s true or not.
I think that helps form the backdrop against which social attitudes are played out; it’s part of our Puritanical view of sex. When porn presents a view of sex that doesn’t fit this model, and when advertising presents a highly glamorized model of sexuality that also doesn’t fit this model, people get a little twisted in the head.
Thanks! I feel a bit like a parasite, though: asking tacit to formulate my thoughts for me instead of thinking hard and doing it myself 🙂
Seriously, though, I agree 100%.
That. Oh, yes.
– Ola
Well, well… Starting to write like Greta Christina, with the pictures? 🙂
I think you didn’t quite get their point, Franklin. It seems to me that their point is a bit more subtle and even more messed up than you thought. I heard the same argument many times, from intelligent people who are not at all repressed about sex. It goes something like this:
1) Sex is this deep, awesome, important thing, an expression of our most wonderful feelings.
2) Pop culture (porn, commercials, etc.) displays it a cheap, shallow and empty way.
=> that’s why children get the wrong message!
I’d love to hear what would you answer to this argument. The people I know who would agree with the article would also agree with what you said here — that we should talk openly about sex — and they do talk about it. But when they do, they say the same things: sex should be A, but it is depicted as B, and so we should be ashamed of ourselves. Or something.
– Ola
You and your earth logic!
The mixed messages that parents and society send to children are amazing, and I feel bad for today’s kids. I really do. I think every who has children or is even thinking about having children should read this, because you make a hell of a lot of sense.
Would you believe that my parents have still not given me the “sex talk”? They’re lucky that I seem to have been born with a fully-functioning baloney/bullshit detector, or we’d be in a whole world of trouble.
Re: You and your earth logic!
Icon love!
Re: You and your earth logic!
Ain’t it great?
You and your earth logic!
The mixed messages that parents and society send to children are amazing, and I feel bad for today’s kids. I really do. I think every who has children or is even thinking about having children should read this, because you make a hell of a lot of sense.
Would you believe that my parents have still not given me the “sex talk”? They’re lucky that I seem to have been born with a fully-functioning baloney/bullshit detector, or we’d be in a whole world of trouble.
I think you are combining two different issues here and while I agree with you on one of them, I don’t necessarily agree on the other.
First, there is the issue of sending a mixed message. If I tell my son that it’s okay for gays to marry each other but everyone else in my community says it’s a horrible sin, then he will get a mixed message. I don’t think that’s a terrible thing. Life is confusing. My job as a parent isn’t to pretend that everyone agrees about everything, but rather to give my son the tools for reasoning out his own viewpoint and for getting along with people who don’t share it.
But then there’s also the issue of age-appropriateness. You’re right, it’s not appropriate to tell kids things that they aren’t intellectually or emotionally mature enough to handle. But I’d think that regardless of whether the rest of society agreed with me or not. This isn’t about mixed messages, it’s about not messing with the kid’s head.
I don’t think imposing the topic on children is a good idea as long as the dominant culture says otherwise.
I disagree here. I think you shouldn’t impose topics on kids that they aren’t ready to comprehend, but that’s an individual decision based on the child. What the dominant culture says my kid should or shouldn’t know is only relevant in terms of how I teach him to behave around others.
*nods* It is important not to ‘overshare’ — kids get pretty uncomfortable if they’re being given information that is too sophisticated or too explicit for their age level.
I’m hoping that I’ve managed to do a pretty good job with Kira — discussing things as they came up in conversation pretty naturally, asking questions to try to see how she feels about situations that she sees on TV or reads about, and bringing stuff up in the car on occasion so that it’s a low-pressure situation to talk and eye contact isn’t necessary (this last is a technique I read about some years ago, and we do seem to have really good, wide-ranging, open conversations in the car.)
Another thing is to be careful with how much you reveal about your own sex life — it’s crucial not to put a child in a confidante/”best friend” situation. They’re still your kids, and they still don’t want to hear all the details, particularly if you’re non-vanilla-heteronormative. (My daughter knows that I’m poly, and she knows my longterm, stable partners, but she doesn’t need to know which friends have been FWB in the past, for example.)
But, yeah. It’s HARD being a parent in today’s world. The media messages that sex is slick and easy and meaningless, plus the cultural Puritanism, are really difficult forces to fight — you want to try to avoid getting the poor kid’s mind warped from all the conflicting information.
— A <3
This is a really good point. I hadn’t thought of it that way.
I actually wanted to comment on the unwelcome porn issue in a different way. I think that the author cites uses a broader definition of porn than most of us here. I think he’s also referring to fake-breasted cover models in low-cut shirts on magazine covers. I think he’s referring to people humping each other in music videos and singing about “my lovely lady lumps” on the radio. I think he’s referring to advertisements that imply women will jump into bed with you if you wear a certain cologne. I don’t consider these things “porn,” but a lot of people do–or at least they consider them manifestations of a “porn culture.” And unless you go join an Amish community or something, you really can’t avoid that stuff. It’s in the supermarket. It’s on TV.
1) Sex is this deep, awesome, important thing, an expression of our most wonderful feelings.
2) Pop culture (porn, commercials, etc.) displays it a cheap, shallow and empty way.
=> that’s why children get the wrong message!
I think the problem (and the reason for mixed messages) is that sex isn’t inherently either one of those things. It’s what the people engaging in it make of it. Sometimes sex is deep and important, but sometimes it really is cheap and shallow. You might not agree that it should be cheap and shallow, but you can’t deny that sometimes it is. Sex can be anything from a sacred, loving experience to a form of brutal torture (i.e. rape), depending on the motivations behind it and the perceptions of the people involved. To me there’s no mixed message at all. Sex is all of those things.
Explaining to your kids that sex can be all of those things doesn’t stop you from talking about what you think sex should be. In fact, I think it’s a great way to launch into a discussion about it. I don’t need to pretend that unethical sexual activities don’t exist in order to teach my son how to have ethical sexual relationships. Even at his young age he knows that people make bad decisions and people do cruel things.
The world is full of contradictions and kids are pretty capable of recognizing that. I don’t think it’s terrible for kids to get mixed messages. There are a lot of viewpoints in the world and I’d like to teach my son how to navigate them sooner rather than later.
*nod* I’m pretty sure you’re right about that.
Exactly, exactly! But, being the devil’s advocate for a minute: sex certainly can be brutal torture, but you wouldn’t like it if the vast majority of sexuality in our culture concentrated on rape, would you? If that happened, you’d become worried about where this society is going, right? In the same manner, some people are concerned about the shallow, artificial and cheap sexuality that is becoming so dominant nowdays. It might indicate that something is wrong with the way we see sex. [/end being devil’s advocate]
It’s what the people engaging in it make of it.
That’s the most important thing, for me. People often misinterprete the displays of sexuality they see, sometimes drastically. What seems cheap and shallow to one is not so to another. I guess this is the root of the answer to these critics, although I’m still struggling to elaborate it clearer…
– Ola
In the same manner, some people are concerned about the shallow, artificial and cheap sexuality that is becoming so dominant nowdays. It might indicate that something is wrong with the way we see sex.
Oh, absolutely. And I don’t fault such people for speaking out against what they see as wrong–I certainly do it. I think it’s more a matter of degree. Some people rail against the mass media and the dominant culture and blame them for corrupting our children. My take is that there will always be messages out there that I disagree with and that I hope my child won’t internalize, but it’s my job to share my value system with him and encourage him to question the messages he receives in life. I guess I just have a visceral reaction when I hear claims that “X message is corrupting our children…” because I think that’s a way of dodging your responsibilities as a parent.
Also, I think that a lot of people who condemn the cheapening of sex in the mass media still support its underlying cause–the glorification of consumerism. If making a profit is a worthy goal, then you can’t fault advertisers and celebrities for making that profit the most effective way possible. And sex is pretty effective.
What seems cheap and shallow to one is not so to another.
This. Yes.
This is the best rant I’ve seen on this subject in a very long time. Kudos.
This is the best rant I’ve seen on this subject in a very long time. Kudos.
Good post.
Because, you know, repressing knowledge about sex and completely denying that sexual urges are a natural thing worked so well for Bristol Palin. Seriously, people’s schizophrenic attitudes about sex in this country just baffle and annoy me.
And they’re dangerous, and they lead to counterproductive results, as abstinence-only sex “education” shows We can not expect people to make informed sexual choices if those people are not informed.
Unfortunately, all too true. I got lucky – even if my parents hadn’t done a good job talking to me about sex, the sex ex program in my high school (in Mississippi, of all places, in the late 1980s) was actually good. We actually learned about all different types of birth control – including various types of abortion – but also diseases and their prevention, and at least a passing mention of homosexuality and fetishes. A remarkably progressive program, and it seemed to have been fairly effective. Unfortunately, it was an elective – most 10th graders took one semester of sex ed and one semester of driver’s ed for one of their their electives, but some didn’t. So it wasn’t a perfect program, but it was pretty damn good considering the place and time.
Of course, having seen the myriad failures of public schools in other areas, A. and I haven’t left it up to the schools – if either of our boys ever run into problems in this area, it won’t be because we didn’t provide them sufficient information and weren’t open enough for them to be able to ask questions.
Good post.
Because, you know, repressing knowledge about sex and completely denying that sexual urges are a natural thing worked so well for Bristol Palin. Seriously, people’s schizophrenic attitudes about sex in this country just baffle and annoy me.
There’s so much more than pr0n that we don’t equip our children to deal with. Basic (to me) communication skills, wealth management, and critical thining come to mind. That said, yes, sexuality should certainly be presented by the parents before it is exploited by the marketplace.
Critical thinking, definitely. Boy, I’d love to live in a society that spends as much time obsessing over teaching kids critical thinking skills as it does obsessing over sex.
Not that, y’know, I’m holding my breath.
Well, don’t forget, somebody needs to make my fries…
There’s so much more than pr0n that we don’t equip our children to deal with. Basic (to me) communication skills, wealth management, and critical thining come to mind. That said, yes, sexuality should certainly be presented by the parents before it is exploited by the marketplace.
Re: tin foil hat
While I definitely think that’s true, I don’t think it’s a conscious thing. I don’t see a government committee meeting together in a basement in the Pentagon and saying “We need to get together and make sure that society sends a confusing mixed message about sexuality, because it will make our jobs easier and make folks more controllable.”
Rather, I think our messed-up attitudes about sex are the result of centuries of Puritanical religious repression about sex combined with free-market economic systems that have learned that sex makes for very good marketing indeed, and the result is a certain amount of confusion about sex. And I think people like it that way, because a great many people truly, sincerely believe that if they are not ashamed of sex, an invisible man up in the sky will cast them down into fiery pits of burning and torture forever and ever, amen.
Does that make us easy to manipulate? Yes. Do folks exploit that? Oh, yes. But they’re merely taking advantage of a pre-existing situation–and one that people are really attached to.
Of course, there’s more than one way to mess up a child. Being too heavy-handed is as bad as not talking about it at all.
I don’t think that mixed messages are necessarily a bad thing. The simultaneous prudish attitude about sex and the sexuality of marketing and advertising itself is a mixed message, after all. Part of a parent’s job is giving kids the tools they need to be able to make sense of those mixed messages, preferably in healthier ways than “I must never talk about sex, but if I’m bad at sex I’m a failure as a human being, and my worth as a person varies in direct proportion to how much I look like the models I see in advertising.” (There’s a certain amount of absurdity in the fact that the models used in advertising don’t even look like the models used in advertising, but that’s a whole ‘nother rant altogether.)
I will say that it’s highly dangerous to adopt a philosophy that you should only teach your kids ideas that agree with whatever the prevailing social culture says. There are worse things than giving a contradictory message, and honestly, I think the dominant social view on sex is pretty twisted and unhealthy.
I get what you’re saying, though I don’t think it’s quite the same thing as what the author of the book is talking about when he says that porn forces itself on people.
And if anything, i think you’ve provided an example that demonstrates my point. The folks who you’re talking about come into your bedroom with attitudes and expectations shaped by porn precisely because nobody else has offered them any other attitudes and ideas–because nobody else has talked to them directly about realistic expectations around sex. You’re competing with porn actresses because they don’t have any other model to frame their expectations about sex. Giving people a more realistic model means talking openly about sex–the one thing that folks in this sex-saturated culture won’t do.
Porn presents a highly abstract, unrealistic, and sort of twisted idea about sex, but it’s not really the fault of the porn; it’s supposed to be entertainment, not education. It only becomes a problem when folks don’t have any other source for information about sex.
Imagine a culture that never, ever spoke about violence, or kindness, or reasonable ways to treat other human beings, but that had movie theaters filled with movies like Lethal Weapon and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I bet folks would drag ideas they’d picked up from those movies into their interpersonal relationships, simply because there was no other source of information, you know?
Had your partners had a better context for understanding porn, do you think you’d still be competing with porn for their attention?
the sexualization of young girls: a process that entails being stripped of all value except the sexual use to which they might be put.
Of course, the absolute worst offenders there are the abstinence groups trumpeting “You’re worth waiting for!”. “You”, of course, being sex with you — other aspects apparently don’t matter.
Heh. And given how powerful and primal a drive sex is, those who hear this message will say “okay, I’ll wait for sex; until we get married, I’ll only do oral and anal.”
Which blows my mind.
And use no protection for it because, hey, it’s not sex, so it doesn’t count.
*HEADDESK*
I hate that line so much. If it’s not sex, why the fuck does it have “sex” in its name?! (It’s times like these when I wish I had an interrobang on my keyboard.)
I heartily agree with you. One of the geek websites sells keyboard replacement keys with custom or unique labels. I could certainly use a shortcut key like that on mine!
It’s not sex because Bill Clinton didn’t see it that way.
the sexualization of young girls: a process that entails being stripped of all value except the sexual use to which they might be put.
Of course, the absolute worst offenders there are the abstinence groups trumpeting “You’re worth waiting for!”. “You”, of course, being sex with you — other aspects apparently don’t matter.
I think the pictures definitely help with readability. It remains to be seen whether or not I have enough patience to keep up with it. 🙂
I do think that we spend a lot of time harping on the “deep wonderful important expression between two people who really love each other” view of sex, and we create a great deal of confusion when we do. People are told that they are “supposed” to feel a certain way about sex, and then if they don’t feel that way, they are told it’s because they’re bad people.
I’ve known folks who really, really like recreational sex, and then agonize over it because they’ve internalized ideas that say sex “should” only be enjoyed in certain circumstances. I’ve met people who believe that they are only “supposed” to have sex with folks they love, so they convince themselves that they are In Love with every person they sleep with, whether it’s true or not.
I think that helps form the backdrop against which social attitudes are played out; it’s part of our Puritanical view of sex. When porn presents a view of sex that doesn’t fit this model, and when advertising presents a highly glamorized model of sexuality that also doesn’t fit this model, people get a little twisted in the head.
But, being the devil’s advocate for a minute: sex certainly can be brutal torture, but you wouldn’t like it if the vast majority of sexuality in our culture concentrated on rape, would you? If that happened, you’d become worried about where this society is going, right? In the same manner, some people are concerned about the shallow, artificial and cheap sexuality that is becoming so dominant nowdays. It might indicate that something is wrong with the way we see sex.
I don’t actually think that’s a valid analogy.
The idea that rape is wrong is a bit different in kind from the notion that casual sex is wrong in some pretty fundamental ways, not the least of which are the notion of consensuality and the simple factt hat not every person feels the same way about sex.
When you say that sex ought not to be rape, you’re saying basically the same thing as when you say people ought not to kill one another, steal from one another, or brutalize one another in non-sexual ways; a society that permits it citizens to do these things as a normal course of their behavior can’t long continue to exist.
On the other hand, people who say that sex should only be some wonderful spiritual thing between exactly two people are, in effect, saying that people “should” only have one kind of feeling about sex, which is a pretty far cry from saying that people shouldn’t violate one another physically. The fact is, human beings don’t only feel one way about sex. Any realistic view of sex must be able to accommodate that fact.
Re: You and your earth logic!
Icon love!
That’s an entirely different argument, though. “Porn is sometimes bad” and “porn is sometimes produced in ways that are coercive” is a whole ‘nother topic than “our children are growing up with distorted views of sexuality, so it must be the fault of people forcing porn on them.”
I’ve compared the porn to music, actually – just because the porn industry/music industry is corrupt and vile doesn’t mean every product that falls under the heading of porn (or music) is also bad. There are cruel and manipulative practices, but you can find ethical companies or independently produced works. The mainstream porn industry bothers me, the ways some performers get involved bothers me, but that doesn’t mean porn is, itself, inherently wrong.
That’s an entirely different argument, though. “Porn is sometimes bad” and “porn is sometimes produced in ways that are coercive” is a whole ‘nother topic than “our children are growing up with distorted views of sexuality, so it must be the fault of people forcing porn on them.”
And they’re dangerous, and they lead to counterproductive results, as abstinence-only sex “education” shows We can not expect people to make informed sexual choices if those people are not informed.
Heh. And given how powerful and primal a drive sex is, those who hear this message will say “okay, I’ll wait for sex; until we get married, I’ll only do oral and anal.”
Which blows my mind.
Critical thinking, definitely. Boy, I’d love to live in a society that spends as much time obsessing over teaching kids critical thinking skills as it does obsessing over sex.
Not that, y’know, I’m holding my breath.
Unfortunately, all too true. I got lucky – even if my parents hadn’t done a good job talking to me about sex, the sex ex program in my high school (in Mississippi, of all places, in the late 1980s) was actually good. We actually learned about all different types of birth control – including various types of abortion – but also diseases and their prevention, and at least a passing mention of homosexuality and fetishes. A remarkably progressive program, and it seemed to have been fairly effective. Unfortunately, it was an elective – most 10th graders took one semester of sex ed and one semester of driver’s ed for one of their their electives, but some didn’t. So it wasn’t a perfect program, but it was pretty damn good considering the place and time.
Of course, having seen the myriad failures of public schools in other areas, A. and I haven’t left it up to the schools – if either of our boys ever run into problems in this area, it won’t be because we didn’t provide them sufficient information and weren’t open enough for them to be able to ask questions.
Re: tin foil hat
While I definitely think that’s true, I don’t think it’s a conscious thing. I don’t see a government committee meeting together in a basement in the Pentagon and saying “We need to get together and make sure that society sends a confusing mixed message about sexuality, because it will make our jobs easier and make folks more controllable.”
Sure- at this point, no one needs to twirl their moustache and sit in smokey rooms deciding how it needs to be. All they have to do is work within prevailing market forces and go with what seems to be working
Changing this situation, though, will not be some kind of invisible process where people do the right thing without talking about it. I think it’s going to take exactly the kind of breathing together that we like to dismiss as impossible, since no one can hold a secret.
Well, don’t forget, somebody needs to make my fries…
Yes and no. I think some of the reasons would stop existing, if we lived in a society that was well-educated and allowed to talk about sex. I definitely think the problem would be much much smaller. I don’t think the situations where porn is just “easier” than a person or used to fulfill a hate fantasy would disappear. So, yes, I think I would still be competing with porn, but the other things I mentioned, like thinking porn stuff goes on in real sex, and perhaps even some of the body-type stuff, would probably not be present, at least not as much.
Re: You and your earth logic!
Ain’t it great?
Parents raising their own kids? Why, heaven forfend, that would be…taking responsiblity for something.
Since we seem headed for the biggest socialist programs in the history of the United States, doesn’t that run counter to letting anyone take any sort of personal responsibility? After all, doesn’t the government know better than you do?
BTW, Turtle…I can’t wait to meet your kids, 20 years from now. No, wait…I can’t wait to meet them at 8 years old.
It may be dangerous to teach your kids ideas that agree with whatever the prevailing culture says…the flip side is that you teach them to ignore it for the sake of individuality.
And one more question, now that I’ve thought of it…what about instilling in your children your values?
For instance, if the prevailing culture has no pride and thinks that it’s just fine to take handouts from the government (WIC, welfare, Unemployment, etc) there’s no reason that you can’t tell your child, “Have some pride and don’t be a deadbeat.”
As far as “prevailing culture”, I do teach my child that prevailing culture is all very well, but that’s no reason to go along with the tide. Just because one says that marraige is any number of any beings (including dogs or cats or wherever you draw the line…WHATEVER) doesn’t mean that’s the case. In the same light, just because prevailing culture says that you have to be young and beautiful or you’re nothing doesn’t mean that you have to give that thought any validity.
My point is that teaching the child that you can buck the trend any time may be a bad thing, because the other kids will make his/her life miserable until they conform.
My point is to say…who says YOU are right? It comes down to, “Hey, I’m this kid’s parent. He/She will hear the truth from ME.” But you may be screwed like Hogan’s Goat…so then what?
I would say that the gvt. probably knows better than I do about how safe food products are, since they supposedly have a team of scientists standing around to develop standards for just that purpose.
But based on their federal acceptance of abstinence-only programs for kids, I’m quite positive they absolutely do NOT know better than me about how to raise kids! And I’m child-free by choice!
As for‘s kids, heh, gonna wait a long time for that one! Unless someone manages to steal his sperm while he’s cryonically frozen and inseminates someone for nefarious purposes.
Unless you count his clones, created for the endless battle against his arch-nemesis as “children”?
And use no protection for it because, hey, it’s not sex, so it doesn’t count.
*HEADDESK*
I hate that line so much. If it’s not sex, why the fuck does it have “sex” in its name?! (It’s times like these when I wish I had an interrobang on my keyboard.)
I heartily agree with you. One of the geek websites sells keyboard replacement keys with custom or unique labels. I could certainly use a shortcut key like that on mine!
It’s not sex because Bill Clinton didn’t see it that way.
Thanks! I feel a bit like a parasite, though: asking tacit to formulate my thoughts for me instead of thinking hard and doing it myself 🙂
Seriously, though, I agree 100%.
That. Oh, yes.
– Ola
Holy shit I think I just came. Well done, sir!
Holy shit I think I just came. Well done, sir!
I’ve compared the porn to music, actually – just because the porn industry/music industry is corrupt and vile doesn’t mean every product that falls under the heading of porn (or music) is also bad. There are cruel and manipulative practices, but you can find ethical companies or independently produced works. The mainstream porn industry bothers me, the ways some performers get involved bothers me, but that doesn’t mean porn is, itself, inherently wrong.