Sex

The two basic necessities of life are to survive and to reproduce. For many reasons, sexual reproduction is a useful strategy. Nature makes sex automatic, instinctual, pleasurable or all three. 

It takes real perversity to turn something so beautiful and natural into an act of nasty evil. And to frame women as the wicked temptresses who lead “pure” males astray. Yet some cultures have done so, usually with additional male mythology. 

I believe in the “grandmother hypothesis” _ that most tribal socialization has been accomplished by women over the ages. Perhaps men reacted out of annoyance at that. Or maybe they were simply jealous.  Over the long history of civilization, women may get raped, but men get slaughtered. 

The Victorian era was seen as a height of hypocrisy. Any bare skin was taboo, talk of sex forbidden, “good” women virginal. Yet simultaneously there was a massive underground of dirty books and masses of prostitutes. Mistresses and lovers of both sexes, and identical sexes were commonplace. Those complex contradictions led Freud to believe sex and death were the unconscious root of all personalities. 

But modern America makes Victorian society look transparently innocent. Pornography is freely available at the flick of a switch, fashions enhance sexual attractiveness, sex can be contracted or consummated over the phone. And there are no longer pregnancy consequences. Yet somehow children must be protected from nudity (which all children are under their clothes) and sex (which all their parents had to do.)

I know in these times many cultural patterns are in transition, but this set of contradictions is probably the silliest of all.