Currently Listening To: Ancestors by Bjork (haha. How appropriate)
Finally I am doing a blurb about Victorian sexual morals, abstinence, health classes across America, and other topics encompassed by the title.
I'm not going to go on a rant about how ridiculous the Victorian sexual morals were (ok, maybe a little) but I will be talking about how much their views of sexuality, especially female sexuality, have impacted our modern outlook on carnal pleasure. Victorians are perhaps the most notorious prudes and when their views on sex are brought up, most people get the same cliche image as the person sitting next to them. I will be basing my commentary on a great deal of slightly altered, but nonetheless, cliches.
For those who are totally clueless the Victorian moral code was very tight-laced and demanded an obscene amount of sexual restraint. Sex was only to be performed in a marriage and only for the reason of conceiving a child. A lady seeking sexual pleasure was a deviant. According to their morals a woman had sex with her husband only for his pleasure and procreation. Society's medical knowledge of female sexuality was so incredibly skewed at the time that they believed a woman was entirely indifferent to sex. Contributing to this was their overall lack of knowledge when it came to the female anatomy, thinking that sexual pleasure should result from the stimulation of the vagina (which is a natural train of thought I suppose, but wrong.) I was watching the show History of Sex and the told the story of man who refused to have sex with his bride because she had pubic hair and the only nude woman he had ever seen before was the depictions of women in old nude statues (which obviously don't have pubic hair) so he thought his wife abnormal. And if you want to see an example of the most extreme kind of Victorian prudishness look as the creation of the table skirt. Some believed that if men even saw table legs they would be turned on, so table skirts were invented to cover the (indecent I suppose) legs. Masturbation was the ultimate taboo. From the Victorian era and beyond solo sex was blamed for causing/worsening diseases, inducing insanity, and that old religious claim of causing blindness. Medically autoeroticism was dismissed as unhealthy. Inventions were created to prevent the practice, such as chastity belts and in extreme situations some would have their genitals removed.
Remnants of their moral code can still be seen in modern ideas of virtue. Sex itself hasn't really become a taboo unless in discussion or addressing the youth. Masturbation, however, is still extremely taboo. Not so much for men, but for women it still is. Solo sex is perfectly normal, even people who are married do it, a significant amount of women can only reach orgasm when doing it that way. But society and especially religion, continues to make it into a big deal. Certain religions still claim that it's bad, can cause impotence, and blah blah blah. Then there is, of course, the double standard of sexuality between the sexes themselves, which has unfortunately infected me as well. A woman sleeps around she is a whore, a man sleeps around he is...well...a guy. Before this starts sounding like a feminist rant let me just say I am not a girl power type of woman, I'm all for humanity as a whole and ultimate fairness and by observing conversations I have noticed these two trends as far as women are concerned.
The Christian view of sex has always bothered me. What makes sex dirty? Yes, it is the intimate sharing of your body and there will always be a realm of good taste but honestly...premartial sex is not sinful. If you are in love with the person, you are in love with them,marriage or not. Everyone should exercise a great deal of restraint when dealing with animalistic urges but ultimately we are a sexual speices. A marriage will have a difficult time functioning if you go on your honeymoon and find out the happy couple has absolutely no sexual chemistry. For the sake of a working marriage I think premartial sex should be cleaned of its negative image. It doesn't necessarily mean fucking some random guy you met at the bar.
That isn't to say American society, especially people, women in particular, haven't begun to swing the other way. So far the other way in fact, that the realm of sensuality and good taste has given way to pure smut.
Most importantly, the youth of America is shielded from the health aspect of sex and its mechanics. At least shielded from it in an educational setting (after all, there is no lack of porn.) Our educational system does not do a very good job when it comes to preparing a youth for their entrance into their sexuality. My freshmen year of high school I remember wondering why we were not allowed to be taught about the exterior of the female genitals. This leads to self-teaching, which can possibly lead to having the wrong facts and God knows where that could end up leading when it comes to sex.
Our health classes in America are a joke and it is this remaining gasp factor about the human body and the pleasures it allows us to feel that hinders general knowledge. I believe that aside from bad parenting and just plain old primal urges it is the abstinence philosophy that contributes to the overtly sexual youth. The abstinence program isn't realistic. After puberty people are ready to go for reproduction. Women would die young and have children very early back in our primitive days. Though that isn't the case anymore our bodies haven't gotten the message yet. Teenagers have bodies that want to have sex and as they begin to enter the dating world their chances of having sex become more likely. Why not teach them to have sex when they feel they are ready and how to prevent be a father or mother to a child or how to avoid contracting AIDs? Abstinence is idealistic, an unrealistic picture of human sexuality painted by parents who can't stand the thought of their children growing up to become sexually active. They want to wait until the last possible moment (their offspring's marriage) to accept their child as a sexual being. It's understandable of course, but not at all practical.
People need to start looking at sex from a scientific point of view when it comes to the education of our youth.
NOTE: Please excuse the bad writing. I was feeling lazy.
Currently Listening to: Crucify by Tori Amos
