Cross-posted and slightly edited from a discussion on another forum.
It seems that a lot of people tend to have some fairly strong misconceptions about human sexuality and society's increasing openness to the act of sex.
Firstly, many people believe that it is only "suddenly" that social interactions are beginning to revolve around sex and that this is only a feature of modern society. People believe that this new sexuality has developed only after the sexual revolution of the 60's. This, by itself, is completely false. First of all, if you look at the 50's, which many stereotype as that idyllic age of sexual prudence and social conservatism, American men and women had plenty of sexual partners and tended to be fairly sexually experienced. Look for the Kinsey report, Kinsey was a psychologist/sociologist in the 50's who interviewed tens of thousands of couples on their sex lives and compiled a book known as the Kinsey Report, where he summarized his findings. His work is apparently being made into a Hollywood movie, should be out in theaters if you're interested.
Second of all, open sexuality is not a feature new to the post-1950's era. Racy sex poems can be found in classic Latin literature where poets talk, in detail, about what they want to do to their lovers. Scriptures of these poems have been found in public forums in Roman ruins, showing that society was accepting or understanding of sexuality. Seneca himself wrote about how noble women looked at gladiators as sex objects and wrote on the sexual objectification of gladiators, both men and women. Women gladiators, btw, often kept their left breast uncovered to please the audience, and were depicted as half-naked in the official invitations and later depictions of fights. Even games, such as the Olympics in Greece, were known for turning into sexual orgies at times.
But also, look to the Victorian age, a simple example to point to is the works of William Shakespeare. In EVERY SINGLE ONE of Shakespeare's works you will found countless allusions to sex and simple crude sex jokes. Shakespeare's plays are filled with these, completely filled with them, take a Shakespearean Lit class with a real professor and you will see that quickly enough. These plays of his were designed for the common audience, who was understanding of the sexual humor involved and often rowdy in their responses there to. In fact, the majority of renaissance and victorian love poetry was not "romance" and all that "how do I love thee, let me count the ways" crap. In fact, countless scholars have said how these poems were meant to seduce women, how they operated as preludes to one night stands. Several poems made blatant references to how the poets themselves new where in the city they could find ass, they called it "hind," meaning that they knew the spots in the city to pick up chicks.
Victorian society in England was also very open about sexuality. During the Victorian era people did not stop talking about sex and it did not become socially taboo, instead people started talking about it more, a LOT more. People didn't simply talk about the act of sex, but everything surrounding it: People talked about how they felt before sex, during sex, after sex; about what they wanted to do in sex, what they dreamed about, what they fantasized about, what they did prior to sex, what they did after the sex, how they felt during and after, who they did it with, who they wanted to do it with, etc. See, during the Victorian age, another institution was being born as social sexuality was supposedly being suppressed: the confessional. Religion became extremely interested in sex and the confessional became more and more focused on this aspect of our lives.
The act of the confessional did not stay in religion either, it spread throughout many parts of society and Victorian England became a “confessional-based society.” Psychiatry was very interested in sex and everything else you could have told them. Sexual health, reproduction, and attitudes became a strong focus for the medical establishment.
Essentially, what this means is that the social dialectic has always focused on sex and that people wanting sex, people playing women, and people being promiscuous are not new things that our generations are discovering, they have been around for ages. A lot of people believe in these myths about the good old conservative days that are based on popular misconceptions about sexuality.
If you're interested in this topic, I highly recommend reading Foucault's History of Sexuality, Part I. Reading Foucault can go a long way in advancing this conversation and understanding how society transitioned from focusing on bio-power to juridical power and consequently, how society's dialectic on sexuality is spawned from a false dualism of repression and enticement as contradictory states of submissiveness and liberation. Foucault sees this false dichotomy as inherently based on a hypocritical neophyte puritan deontology.
If you got any questions, feel free to ask.
Also, Foucault is a nutcase what concerns his normative views for philosophy, but the historical analysis in History of Sexuality is awesome.
It seems that a lot of people tend to have some fairly strong misconceptions about human sexuality and society's increasing openness to the act of sex.
Firstly, many people believe that it is only "suddenly" that social interactions are beginning to revolve around sex and that this is only a feature of modern society. People believe that this new sexuality has developed only after the sexual revolution of the 60's. This, by itself, is completely false. First of all, if you look at the 50's, which many stereotype as that idyllic age of sexual prudence and social conservatism, American men and women had plenty of sexual partners and tended to be fairly sexually experienced. Look for the Kinsey report, Kinsey was a psychologist/sociologist in the 50's who interviewed tens of thousands of couples on their sex lives and compiled a book known as the Kinsey Report, where he summarized his findings. His work is apparently being made into a Hollywood movie, should be out in theaters if you're interested.
Second of all, open sexuality is not a feature new to the post-1950's era. Racy sex poems can be found in classic Latin literature where poets talk, in detail, about what they want to do to their lovers. Scriptures of these poems have been found in public forums in Roman ruins, showing that society was accepting or understanding of sexuality. Seneca himself wrote about how noble women looked at gladiators as sex objects and wrote on the sexual objectification of gladiators, both men and women. Women gladiators, btw, often kept their left breast uncovered to please the audience, and were depicted as half-naked in the official invitations and later depictions of fights. Even games, such as the Olympics in Greece, were known for turning into sexual orgies at times.
But also, look to the Victorian age, a simple example to point to is the works of William Shakespeare. In EVERY SINGLE ONE of Shakespeare's works you will found countless allusions to sex and simple crude sex jokes. Shakespeare's plays are filled with these, completely filled with them, take a Shakespearean Lit class with a real professor and you will see that quickly enough. These plays of his were designed for the common audience, who was understanding of the sexual humor involved and often rowdy in their responses there to. In fact, the majority of renaissance and victorian love poetry was not "romance" and all that "how do I love thee, let me count the ways" crap. In fact, countless scholars have said how these poems were meant to seduce women, how they operated as preludes to one night stands. Several poems made blatant references to how the poets themselves new where in the city they could find ass, they called it "hind," meaning that they knew the spots in the city to pick up chicks.
Victorian society in England was also very open about sexuality. During the Victorian era people did not stop talking about sex and it did not become socially taboo, instead people started talking about it more, a LOT more. People didn't simply talk about the act of sex, but everything surrounding it: People talked about how they felt before sex, during sex, after sex; about what they wanted to do in sex, what they dreamed about, what they fantasized about, what they did prior to sex, what they did after the sex, how they felt during and after, who they did it with, who they wanted to do it with, etc. See, during the Victorian age, another institution was being born as social sexuality was supposedly being suppressed: the confessional. Religion became extremely interested in sex and the confessional became more and more focused on this aspect of our lives.
The act of the confessional did not stay in religion either, it spread throughout many parts of society and Victorian England became a “confessional-based society.” Psychiatry was very interested in sex and everything else you could have told them. Sexual health, reproduction, and attitudes became a strong focus for the medical establishment.
Essentially, what this means is that the social dialectic has always focused on sex and that people wanting sex, people playing women, and people being promiscuous are not new things that our generations are discovering, they have been around for ages. A lot of people believe in these myths about the good old conservative days that are based on popular misconceptions about sexuality.
If you're interested in this topic, I highly recommend reading Foucault's History of Sexuality, Part I. Reading Foucault can go a long way in advancing this conversation and understanding how society transitioned from focusing on bio-power to juridical power and consequently, how society's dialectic on sexuality is spawned from a false dualism of repression and enticement as contradictory states of submissiveness and liberation. Foucault sees this false dichotomy as inherently based on a hypocritical neophyte puritan deontology.
If you got any questions, feel free to ask.
Also, Foucault is a nutcase what concerns his normative views for philosophy, but the historical analysis in History of Sexuality is awesome.
