What's the deal with the moralization of sexuality?

[SaWaSaurus]

I'm posting this discussion here rather than in the sexuality subforum because this deals more with the philosophy and morality of sex rather than the act of sex.

I'm coming from the perspective of having grown up in the USA. There's always been a very funny vibe surrounding sexuality. A mixture of fear, guilt, and shame, embarrassment. Sex is seen as dangerous and sinful. Things like orgies or polygamy are thought of as obscene or immoral by the bulk of society. The counter culture -- the free love movement of the 60s, Osho's ashram, or Huxley's Island, offer an alternative view to sexuality where it's not suppressed but is encouraged as a healthy outlet.

Certainly there are concerns about sex... STDs, pregnancy, sex addiction, but what's with the incessant moralization? Some people act like having sex is somehow adding to their negative karma, or like god isn't going to be happy with them. I don't get it, but maybe there's something I'm missing here so if that's the case please let me know.

I'm interested in tracking the moralization of sexuality through history. It seems clear to me that Christianity was the driving force behind the moralization of sex. The idea that sex should be abstained from until marriage, and then only done in the most vanilla way solely for the purpose of pro-creation... that's obviously a Christian idea. This idea also shows up in Orwell's 1984 as a means to better control the herd. Is that what Christianity was doing by moralizing sex, controlling the herd? Or was there some other reasons for moralizing sex?

We no longer live in a society where Christianity is the prevailing paradigm, but we do still feel the momentum of the most influential ideology of the last thousand years. Culture has its roots in a Christian philosophy of sex, though that's philosophy is eroding.

I get the feeling that if people had healthier more fulfilled sex lives, we'd be a hell of a lot happier. Mental illness would likely plummet, and society as a whole would be much happier. Looking forward to hearing what you all think about this.

[bejapuskas]

Well, try that path for yourself, but be careful, because dopamine addiction is really powerful tool of delusion, you can easily get very dishonest about how your change in lifestyle affect your happiness and stuff like that, but if you are genuinely more happy with polyamory, than in a committed relationship, why not. For me multiple partners just feel wrong, I don't feel like doing that and also it would be so much distraction.

 

[Forestluv]

5 hours ago, SaWaSaurus said:

I'm coming from the perspective of having grown up in the USA. There's always been a very funny vibe surrounding sexuality. A mixture of fear, guilt, and shame, embarrassment. Sex is seen as dangerous and sinful. 

I’d say that is true for relatively small segments of the US, but by no means is that representative of US culture in general. Get out and explore sexuality in diverse subcultures. You might be surprised what you find. . . 

[electroBeam]

6 hours ago, SaWaSaurus said:

I'm coming from the perspective of having grown up in the USA. There's always been a very funny vibe surrounding sexuality. A mixture of fear, guilt, and shame, embarrassment. Sex is seen as dangerous and sinful. Things like orgies or polygamy are thought of as obscene or immoral by the bulk of society.

Los Vegas is astonishingly liberal when it comes to having sex and who with. The shit that happens there would send a respectful Chinese man, Christian pope or jewish rabi into a coma. And yet Los Vegas is in the US.

The majority of the center of the US is quite non liberal when it comes to sex, but this is only part of the US, and even then its no where near as non liberal as the majority of the planet(Saudi Arabia, India, pakistan, Poland, etc).

[Apparition of Jack]

Modern Western culture on one hand allows overt sexualisation of people (usually women) to exist in its public sphere (usually through the forms of advertising, Hollywood movies, pop music, etc.), usually for the sake of corporate profit (sex sells, after all), whilst also having latent Catholic/puritanical/Victorian underpinnings of being ashamed about our natural urges and wanting to keep it all "hush hush" around "polite company." The result is, in my perspective, a society of people who are constantly having their sexual urges subtly evoked, but then feel subconsciously ashamed and hateful about them.

I'm convinced that trends like the incel movement and even alt-right chauvinism are in a good part caused by this. Sexual desire is one of the most powerful and forceful energies in the human being, and if not properly understood and controlled it can cause one to fall into all sorts of deeply unhealthy thinking. Go onto some place like /r/nofap and a lot of the guys there seem to be struggling with deep feelings of guilt and unworthiness that they have, in my opinion, erroneously attached to masturbation as the cause.

A good start to fixing these deep psychological wounds would be to fight against the weaponisation of sexuality in the name of corporate profits. Sexuality is a wonderful and beautiful thing, and should be celebrated, but it should not be used as a cheap tactic to siphon money from sexually frustrated men and women. You let this run rampant and you end up with societies like Japan, where something like a third of all young people aren't even interested in exploring the joys of romance and intimacy (along with all the demographic and social impacts that such a thing brings.)

[Surfingthewave]

Great post @SaWaSaurus. I live in the UK so I can't comment on the US but I agree with you about the deep rooted moralisation of sexuality being influenced by religious doctrines particularly Christianity. Absolutely @Apparation of Jack this is further strengthened by popular western culture, the constant depiction of heterosexual relationships, objectification of women etc etc. 

Here in the UK (near where I live) we are seeing a move away from this which is massive progress. Same sex relationships are accepted more and more and people are realising marriage isn't for everyone. Also it does depend on where you live, polygamy is more prevelant in certain cultures.

If sex was discussed more openly then yes, I think this really would impact of people's happiness and also relationships (just take a look at the sexuality part of this forum). I do think  sex education in school plays a massive part (or lack there of) mine was shit, pretty much non existent. This is a huge problem because we learn as children not to talk openly about sexuality or relationships. 

Edited July 15, 2019 by Surfingthewave

[Leo Gura]

Morality is a major survival function.

Sex is a major survival function

The two go hand in hand because sex is a very powerful force for humans. It dominates all of human life. This force is controlled and manipulated by the individual ego and the collective ego in order to maximize survival. Church and state both have a vested interest in regulating sex.

Sex seems like fun and games, but sex is also a matter of life and death, especially for the woman. So she and her family must take it very seriously because her value in society is directly tied to her reproductive potential.

Sex is worth a lot of money so egos will come up with all sorts of ways to manipulate it.

Don't forget, you can build entire empires with sex. People did and still do.

[Surfingthewave]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

So she and her family must take it very seriously because her value in society is directly tied to her reproductive potential. 

@Leo Gura How have you arrived at this view or are you stating this is what the collective ego projects? 

There in lies the problem. Absolutely it is about survival, so how do we change these deeply moralistic views? 

Edited July 15, 2019 by Surfingthewave

[Jonac]

People have always try to deny sexuality, isn't a religion thing. If there were no religion still would exist other way of represion. Sex display the mortality of men, and we want to be gods. 

[Leo Gura]

On 7/15/2019 at 4:46 AM, Surfingthewave said:

@Leo Gura How have you arrived at this view or are you stating this is what the collective ego projects? 

Practically, that is how human sexuality works. Since sexuality is a survival function its value is of course purely relative and imaginary.

Why is sex valuable to males and females? Ultimately for no reason whatsoever other than to advance the self. You don't go sticking your dick into tree holes because it does not advance your self. If it did, you'd do it and pay money for it. And tree holes would suddenly be worth a lot of money. There would be armed guards around every tree hole to ensure money is collected and the holes are not damaged (so more money could be collected in the future).

Just observe how sex works. You'll see it's transactional. Sex is a transaction between two beings who have certain needs which they want met.

Quote

There in lies the problem. Absolutely it is about survival, so how do we change these deeply moralistic views? 

By raising your consciousness high enough to realize that survival is an illusion and unimportant in the absolute sense. Survival is a relative matter. True morality is the transcendence of the need to survive. When you no longer care about whether you survive or not, then you have become truly moral. Otherwise you are a devil.

[possibilities]

Sex is generally born out of a desire, a desire is an impulse and an impulse is an automatic reaction.

Everything else you mentioned just seems like conditioning (i.e. social to cultural conditioning).

Conditioning is generally mirrored as an unconscious action born out of a belief, the belief appears as an emotion which is sometimes paired with thoughts at least as an emotional reaction, and the person may or may not know where the belief comes from.

Forms of conditioning are like algorithms learned by the mind, its the algorithms, aka religious scriptures which act as the structure to the underlying mechanical function of the algorithm. These algorithms are only learned to the effects that we see based on these described unconscious algorithms pairing with the requirements for the conditioning to be instilled.

Most of these beliefs are indoctrinary, of course, given this is generally the basis for most conditioning especially when collectively applied whether it be Nazi propaganda or the beliefs of any one cult being unconsciously to consciously (i.e. through force) adopted by its members. Whether those members are internal or external to the known structure of perceived group affiliation, for example, many people from the US were indoctrinated into the KKK without the KKK ever even knowing that these people adopted their beliefs.

Edited July 17, 2019 by possibilities

[Rilles]

Stage Blue remnants... were still in the Dark Ages when it comes to sex nudity and even emotional intimacy

[Surfingthewave]

7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Practically, that is how human sexuality works. 

Why is sex valuable to males and females? Ultimately for no reason whatsoever other than to advance the self. 

I get that sexuality has a survival /transactional function and agree that ultimate aim is to transcend this. Yes sex is valuable to us to advance the self,  there is also a deeply spiritual function to sexuality, regarding connection, love and transcendence of the self which can be expressed through sex. Perhaps it's not just about sticking your dick in trees?

I don't agree that a woman's value in society is directly tied to her reproductive potential, we've moved away from that in the past 50 years. 

@possibilities I'm not quite sure I quite get some of your points however I do agree there is so much conditioning when it comes to sex. Also desire is what makes us human, it makes us move towards our goals in life and hopefully to meet that partner a lot of us long for. There is also an underlying desire not to be alone, which serves a survival function and and forms part of the moralistic view on sexuality. 

Edited July 17, 2019 by Surfingthewave

[Leo Gura]

6 minutes ago, Surfingthewave said:

However there is also a deeply spiritual function to sexuality, regarding connection, love and transcendence of the self which can be expressed through sex. Perhaps it's not just about sticking your dick in trees?

Yes, but one has to be conscious for that, and people aren't.

Quote

I don't agree that a woman's value in society is directly tied to her reproductive potential, we've moved away from that in the past 50 years. 

The point is, all value is relative and imaginary. At this point a large part of her value, culturally, is reproductive. Don't forget, no babies, no human species. That's not changing anytime soon.

All this discussion was simply to explain why sex is so moralized. Doesn't have to be in the future. But women still lose a lot of cultural value for being sluts. Relative value.

[Surfingthewave]

28 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

But women still lose a lot of cultural value for being sluts. Relative value.

Can you explain this point?  Do you mean sex workers, rather than sluts. 

Edited July 17, 2019 by Surfingthewave

[possibilities]

@Surfingthewave

I would explain it something like this - Morality is both:

• biological (nuanced discussion - from chemicals like oxytocin to cognitive functions like affective to cognitive empathy)
• theoretical (in part already described above using religion as one extremely crude example)

So yeah, gotta be extremely careful how to approach the topic to ensure you don't overlook key aspects to justify a position (i.e. pre-conclusions before all the important reference frames and corresponding info is looked at properly).

 

 

 

 

[RendHeaven]

6 hours ago, Surfingthewave said:

Can you explain this point?  Do you mean sex workers, rather than sluts. 

It's not an accident that many women lie about how much sex they've had and pretend to be less sexual than they really are on average.

I suppose you can say the same about some men, but the culture is still different to this day:

A man gets laid, he gets a pat on his back.

A woman gets laid, she must hide it (unless it's with a trusted longtime significant other - what might that be about? Survival perhaps?)

Though things are slowly changing, and you see extremely liberal women flaunting their sexuality carelessly, that does not speak for the majority of women.

Furthermore, those individual instances of sexual rebellion are exactly that - a collective ego backlash. Very reactive stuff.

People like this are still on a deep level clinging to their cultural values. Otherwise, they wouldn't have anything to react against.

Rarely do you see a woman who has all the sex she wants (while maintaining reasonable boundaries), without any shame or guilt, and furthermore without rubbing it in people's faces so as to demand respect.

Why? Because that would require her to let go of her cultural values.

And for her to do that, she must de-prioritize her own survival to some degree (not entirely).

Edited July 17, 2019 by RendHeaven

[Surfingthewave]

2 hours ago, RendHeaven said:

Rarely do you see a woman who has all the sex she wants (while maintaining reasonable boundaries), without any shame or guilt. 

I think you do. Why even make a point about it, you wouldn't if it was a man. 

2 hours ago, RendHeaven said:

A man gets laid, he gets a pat on his back.

Does he? Who says? If you raise  the consciousness levels of society these cultural values won't exist. 

Sorry @SaWaSaurus I've taken over your thread. But clearly we still have a lot of work to do to deconstruct the moralisation of sexuality. 

[RendHeaven]

19 minutes ago, Surfingthewave said:

I think you do. Why even make a point about it, you wouldn't if it was a man. 

Yes, of course conscious women exist, lol. Nobody is denying that.

Like I said, 

3 hours ago, RendHeaven said:

I suppose you can say the same about some men, but the culture is still different to this day:

A man gets laid, he gets a pat on his back.

A woman gets laid, she must hide it.

These are GENERAL statements. Don't act as if they apply to any individual man or woman.

Nonetheless, I am able to make these general statements due to personal experience and consensus.

When's the last time that you as a woman had a parade of people (of any gender) cheering you on for having sex?

If that's ever happened - wow! awesome.

But I doubt that's your everyday experience.

For men, it's not so strange for this to happen. We group together and PLOT about sex. We encourage and celebrate it (in very toxic ways, of course. I'm not saying this is the right thing to do).

Many people will confirm this double standard. Just look around.

20 minutes ago, Surfingthewave said:

1) Does he? Who says?

2) If you raise the consciousness levels of society these cultural values won't exist.

1) Yes, yes he does. Because our culture has a double standard.

2) Yes. You're absolutely right. These values are all relative constructs and one day they will be extinguished.

I'm not encouraging these values... I'm merely observing that they exist.

I understand if you have a problem with these values.

But it doesn't seem accurate to pretend that the culture around men's sexuality and women's sexuality are the same... which you seem to be arguing for? I'm not so sure.

20 minutes ago, Surfingthewave said:

But clearly we still have a lot of work to do to deconstruct the moralisation of sexuality. 

I'm curious. What "work" do you think is necessary?

[Surfingthewave]

8 hours ago, RendHeaven said:

These are GENERAL statements. Don't act as if they apply to any individual man or woman.

Nonetheless, I am able to make these general statements due to personal experience and consensus.

When's the last time that you as a woman had a parade of people (of any gender) cheering you on for having sex?

For men, it's not so strange for this to happen. We group together and PLOT about sex. We encourage and celebrate it. 

8 hours ago, RendHeaven said:

I'm curious. What "work" do you think is necessary?

I'm curious to know how general statements come about, as they appear to become cultural values if enough people believe in them for a significant amount of time. For example the free love movement of the sixties was only a movement, however, but it was able to blast though some cultural norms such as of no sex before marriage and the oppressive nature of family values of the fifties (women having to become housewives etc). 

You mention the consensus, the problem that I have is it's actually fear based rather than what people actually believe. It is also deeply rooted in religion and politics. People fear difference, or anything outside the norm so society will do anything they can to keep things the status quo. 

In relation to your other points above, women group together and discuss sex it's just not done in the way you describe men do. 

The work needed is of course raising consciousness. This will then lead to the break down of cultural norms, the end to gender roles when it comes to sex  and the deep rooted moralisation of sexuality. I'm being very optimistic of course!