Sex in the 21st Century
How is it that in the 21st century, we can put a man on the moon, we have a black president, we can grow human organs from stem cells, and gay marriage is legal in some states, but we still can’t wrap our heads around sex?
When it comes to the topic of sex, we’re like lambs to the slaughter. We do and say what we’re programmed by society to do; just as our predecessors did in the Victorian Era. Imagine…
During the 19th century, it was believed that discharging semen could shorten your life.
It was considered indelicate to offer a lady a “leg of chicken” for fear that you would give over to your urges and pounce over the dinner table to copulate – obscene!
Table and piano legs were to be covered so as not to invoke sexual urges.
Parents went to great lengths to protect the health of their sons by fitting them with locked penis cages and other devices that made erections too painful to endure.
William Hammond, U.S. Surgeon General, said that nine tenths of the time decent women had no pleasure from intercourse.
And God forbid you have sex for pleasure! Based on the highly influential workings of Kraft-Ebing (publisher of “Psychopathia Sexualis”), sex for pleasure that does not induce pregnancy is a perversion of biology and God’s will. (rape good…masturbation bad).
Today, these ideals seem absurd, unbelievable, and perhaps even as mythical as the theory that “the world is flat”.
But in the 19th century, scientific fact was not available to support these ideas. Instead, they were shaped by the popular opinions of scholars, doctors, psychologists, religious leaders and other influencers and society embraced them unwaveringly.
“When the society says it’s good to have sex then it’s psychologically sick not to, and when the society says it’s bad to have sex then it’s psychologically sick to [have sex]. William A. Henkin
150 years may have passed, and although our ideals have changed, our thought process is still the same – when it comes to sex, we still judge, we still fear, we still feel guilt and we are still driven by societal norms based on opinions of modern day influencers.
Sadly, we are still repressed.
Maybe one day, we will receive all the scientific proof that we need to support the concept that “sex is good” just as “the world is round”.
And only then, “society” will transform into free thinking individuals that can explore sex safely, not judge and have fun without guilt!