We are a sexually schizophrenic nation.
We don’t talk about it in polite company. It’s something to do behind closed doors, shades drawn. We blush and giggle at those who don’t have the decency to do the same. And those who embrace it, proudly and publicly, are scandalous exhibitionists, crossing lines of social etiquette. We don’t want to see it, we don’t want to see others enjoying it, and god forbid we should talk to children about it.
And yet.
Reality shows on TV celebrate it. Famous children market their own brand of lingerie for their fellow tweens. A nation was riveted by the salacious details of the president’s sexual relations fellationship, even as parents fretted about how to explain it to the children.
We tsk-tsk the taboos, even as we hunger for the details. Tiger Woods cheats on his wife and checks into rehab, while a disappointed nation shakes its collective finger at him, all the while absorbing the sordid details of all of his many lovers. Girls going wild together on spring break is hot; a kiss between two men at the American Music Awards garners a thousand complaints.
Recently, the RNC embarrassed itself -- again -- when it was revealed that it had spent nearly two thousand dollars at a "bondage-themed club" in West Hollywood. The first obvious point of the story was the inappropriateness of spending donors’ dollars in a fashion that clearly did not reconcile with the public puritanism policy of the party, but the media delighted in giggling about bondage and "simulated lesbian acts." As if bondage and simulated lesbianism isn’t something enjoyed every day, every where, by all sorts of people, some of whom are undoubtedly Republicans. As if no straight men watch The L Word for the girl-on-girl action.
In 2005, when Justice Scalia dissented in the Lawrence v. Texas case that struck down sodomy laws, a student asked him, "Do you sodomize your wife?" The student later explained why he asked the question and why he believed it was relevant. But many did not agree. And while it seemed somehow appropriate for the highest court in the land to take an official position on exactly what kind of sexual activity is appropriate for two consenting adults, that one of those justices would be asked about his own practices with his wife was considered distasteful.
But honest conversations about sex have never been our strong suit. President Clinton’s surgeon general, Joycelyn Elders, was condemned and ultimately fired for having the nerve to suggest that masturbation is normal and healthy and should perhaps be taught to children as a way to prevent teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease. Shocking! As if every single person who criticized her had never masturbated.
And now, if an overzealous, hyper-religious district attorney in Wisconsin has his way, those who do talk about it could face criminal charges.
Juneau County District Attorney Scott Southworth last month sent a letter to area school districts warning that health teachers who tell students how to put on a condom or take birth-control pills could face criminal charges. The warning has befuddled teachers, school administrators and parents in Southworth's poor, rural county.
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Southworth warned that teaching a student how to properly use contraceptives would be contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a misdemeanor punishable by up to nine months behind bars and a $10,000 fine. He said it would be promoting sex among minors, who are not legally allowed to have sex in Wisconsin.
Better to pretend that kids don't have sex, right? Better to leave them wandering in the dark, clueless about what sex is and how it works and how to do it safely. Maybe that's why a new study found that 80 percent of young adults do not believe oral sex is sex. Aside from revealing a stunning lack of imagination, it also demonstrates just how heterocentric our entire notion of sex is. If sex only counts when Tab A is inserted into Slot B, does that mean all those straight-to-hell homos aren’t having sex after all? Apparently, that's what most teens think, including the nation's most famous sexually active minor and born again virgin, Bristol Palin.
Last year, in response to Bristol's claim that abstinence is the only 100 percent "foolproof" way to prevent teen pregnancy, sex advice columnist Dan Savage responded:
Right off the top of my head, Bristol: mutual masturbation, oral sex, anal sex, outercourse, sex toys your partner can insert into you, sex toys you can insert your partner into, erotic role-play that doesn't culminate in vaginal intercourse, GAY SEX—there are lots of "foolproof" ways for teenagers (and adults) to be sexual, to be fully intimate, without risking an unplanned pregnancy. It's possible for a teenager to have fulfilling and low-risk sex, and the intimacy and closeness and connection that comes along with it, without risking the "24-hour job and... huge responsibility" that having a baby entails.
But it's not just the hyper-religious zealots who struggle with what is and is not sexually appropriate. Feminists have long fought amongst themselves about this very issue, with Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin arguing that all heterosexual sex is, by its very nature, rape. Camille Paglia, on the other far end of the spectrum, argued that when a woman goes to a man’s home, she’s asking for sex. The time to say no is at the door, not in the bedroom. Thankfully, MacKinnon and Paglia have so marginalized themselves that no one pays much attention to either of them these days.
And yet feminists continue to struggle with notions of sex, of what it means to have feminist sex, of what it means to define sexual relationships in a supposedly post-feminist world.
When you’ve spent most of your life fighting to be taken seriously as a woman, it can be extraordinarily grating to discover that you want to call any man "sir." This, then, is the plight of the feminist sexual submissive—how do you maintain your identity as a strong, intelligent, independent woman when you also get off on letting people push you around?
Such frank admissions inevitably invite disapproval from the zealots of all shapes and sizes. We have such an impulse to say, I would never do that. That’s wrong. That crosses a line. That’s not normal. We’re a nation of eight-year-olds, shaking our heads in disgusted wonder that anyone would want to do that, whatever that is. Even as we giggle at the book hidden in our parents’ bedroom. And, at the same time, we are the parents, tsk-tsking children for their curiosity. Why would you look? How dare you want to know? Even as these same parents can recite the names of Tiger’s many lovers.
Last month, a jury awarded $9 million dollars to a woman whose husband had an affair. The judgment wasn't against the husband; it was against his lover, found guilty of the centuries old crime of "alienation of affection," which is now only a crime in seven states. And while it’s easy to feel sympathy for the jilted wife, one can’t help but wonder at a state’s interest in punishing the other woman by essentially saying, "That’s what you get for being a home-wrecking whore."
And while many people have criticized the jury's decision for its excessive punishment, they've still chastised The Other Woman for, well, for being a home-wrecking whore.
At the same time, there is an entire industry to help people in their taboo-violating activities.
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If only Tiger had pursued his extracurricular activities through the world’s #1 married dating service. Instead of doing his apology tour, he could have landed a new sponsor. Maybe Ashley Madison makes golfwear?
Lately, the tabloids have been relishing the disintegration of Sandra Bullock’s marriage. The headlines ask how could she have not known her husband was a total jerkopath. Why didn’t she know better? Even David Brooks -- wannabe tabloidist, apparently -- got in on the shaming game by making the absurd argument that Sandra Bullock’s success as an actress somehow invited the failure of her marriage.
Marital happiness is far more important than anything else in determining personal well-being. If you have a successful marriage, it doesn’t matter how many professional setbacks you endure, you will be reasonably happy. If you have an unsuccessful marriage, it doesn’t matter how many career triumphs you record, you will remain significantly unfulfilled.
As if Bullock made some conscious decision to forfeit her marriage in pursuit of an Oscar. But don’t think Brooks is being his typical asshole self; as he assures us: "This isn’t just sermonizing. This is the age of research, so there’s data to back this up."
Ooh. Well as long as there's data. On the internet.
It's not about politics. Or religion. Or etiquette. It's a simple fact. We enjoy things we wouldn’t admit; sometimes, that’s exactly why we enjoy it. The straight-laced Republicans who go to lesbian bondage clubs. The anti-gay marriage crusader who pays a gay meth dealer to give him euphemistic massages. The bathroom-cruising senator who thinks the president’s fellationship made him a "bad boy." The feminist who wants to dominate in the boardroom and be dominated in the bedroom. The philanderer whose PR strategist checks him into rehab.
We can pretend all we want. We can pass laws, fill op-ed pages with condemnations, and even elect candidates on their holier-than-thou platforms. We can shame ourselves and each other silly. But it doesn’t change who we are, what we do, and what we really want when the shades are drawn. And what we want -- Republican or Democrat, gay or straight, married or single -- is sex.
And there's no shame in that.