You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos (39 page)
Read You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos Online
Authors: Robert Arthur
Understanding different sexualities also allows these differences to be better navigated. The fact that men innately desire sex more frequently than women gives women power in relationships. This can be a source of conflict unless the male rewards the woman for meeting his additional sexual needs with non-sexual inducements.
A
CCORDING TO
T
ESTOSTERONE
(T) L
EVELS
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| P | A |
Women | Most women | High-T women |
Men | Low-T men | Most men |
Age | Senior citizens | Teens, young adults |
Professions | Academics, farmers, ministers, white-collar workers | Actors, athletes, field soldiers, blue-collar workers |
The countless biological differences between male and female sexuality (see
Chapter Four
) help explain more than relationships. For example, testosterone levels help illuminate sexual politics. People with low testosterone levels are more
likely to believe that criminal regulation will put an end to extramarital sex because they have a lower, and more controllable, libido themselves.
This is particularly apparent in regards to age. Older people are led to believe that they control their behavior better because they are wiser,
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and wisdom can be taught to youth. However, this is a hypocritical stance regarding sex because they now have a lower sex drive, and a lower sex drive cannot be taught to youth.
Western art has developed within the Christian sexual ethic. Nudity is a rarity in paintings. Sex and its various permutations are even rarer. Sexual artwork is almost never seen because curators, editors, and collectors have operated under modern taboos in selecting the art worthy of preservation and presentation.
Frequently, sexual works of art have been modified. One of the world’s greatest paintings, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel (sixteenth century), is an example. Michelangelo managed to portray nudity over objections,
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but shortly after Michelangelo’s death loincloths were painted over it and some figures were completely redone.
Nudity was a common sight in everyday life up until the Victorian Era, so the abundance of coverage in art is inaccurate. A prominent example of this inaccuracy is the portrayal of Jesus Christ on the cross. He is almost always portrayed with a loincloth. This is a false image as Jesus was almost certainly crucified naked.
Although dishonesty is inherently bad, arguably even in art, Christ’s portrayal provides an example of possible consequences. At least one historian believes an honest crucifix might have prevented the repeated Jewish slaughters that dot Europe’s history. His reasoning is that a naked Jesus would have forced Christians to recognize their savior’s Jewishness every time they saw his circumcised penis.
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American high school students hate history, considering it boring and irrelevant.
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They are by and large correct, as history textbooks distort or leave out anything that might reflect badly—like sex—upon America, Christianity, or past leaders. History is presented as an unstoppable march toward progress, with things getting better all the time. Recent history is largely ignored and glossed over because students’ parents lived through it and might recognize the propaganda.
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This has left Americans ignorant.
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Boring history classes do not capture students’ attentions and the bland white-washed factoids memorized for tests are soon forgotten. G-rated history is as popular with teenagers (and adults) as G-rated movies. Topics such as the Protestant Reformation would be intriguing and memorable if the Roman Catholic Church’s hypocritical view on sex was revealed with examples of the Borgia popes, and the English split was revealed as the soap opera it was. Henry VIII’s sexual machinations with the lusty Anne Boleyn, which resulted in Mary I, “Bloody Mary,” and Elizabeth I, “Bloody Bess,” would rival television’s sauciest fare.
Instead the Church’s nefarious activities are presented tactfully, as in this example from one texbook: “Devout Germans denounced the practice of letting bishops buy their positions. Many Germans resented the worldliness, lack of piety, and greed of some members of the clergy.”
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The sexual Olympics being practiced by the papacy has been reduced to “worldliness” and “lack of piety.” In regard to the English split from the Roman Catholic Church, the matter is often reduced to King Henry wanting a male heir and splitting when the Church did not grant him an annulment. Henry’s bevy of beddings and beheadings are ignored, as are the sexual passions behind them.
History lessons should not be a litany of sexual factoids. Knowing that Napoleon Bonaparte was a butt man,
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while the French king he was born under, Louis XV, was a breast man,
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has roughly the same value as memorizing the battle dates of the French Revolution. However, by removing all sexually-related information a better understanding of historical figures’ psyches and their accomplishments is lost.
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Sexuality, character flaws, and eccentricities are inherent to everyone. Their purging may explain why youth can empathize more with troubled modern celebrities than lionized heroes from the past. Presenting accomplished historical figures truthfully and realistically would allow youth to better relate to them, and in turn be more likely to aspire to their heights.
G-SPOTTING
In The Ass
The orgasms stemming from the female G-spot and the male prostate are exalted but little understood. The G-spot, an ultra-sensitive vaginal area, was identified in 1950 by its namesake, Ernst Gräfenberg. Scientific evidence of its existence is lacking, with one expert calling it the “gynecologic UFO.” However, the absence of evidence may simply stem from the “ridiculous” absence of laboratory research into this tabooed part of the female anatomy. Similar cursory scientific treatment is given to the male prostate gland’s arousal ability. (The semen milking of mammals for research is often done via prostate stimulation.)
This evidentiary void is changing. Recent tests suggest the G-spot is the female prostate (the Skene’s glands). This would explain the striking similarities between female descriptions of G-spot sensations and male descriptions of prostate sensations—orgasms that, as opposed to penis or clitoral orgasms, are directed inward and encompass the “full body.” It would also explain the G-spot’s connection to female ejaculation (prostate controls male ejaculation) and the reason some women do not have a G-spot (ten percent of women have underdeveloped Skene’s glands).
—Nicola Jones “Bigger is Better . . .,”
New Scientist
, 3 Jul. 2002; Alice Ladas, Beverly Whipple, and John Perry,
G Spot
(2005), p. 134; Fernando Santos & Sebastião Taboga, “Female Prostate,”
Anim. Reprod
., Jan./Mar. 2006, p. 6; Roy Levin, “G-Spot,”
Sex. Relation. Ther
., 2003, 18(1), p. 118; and Jonathan Margolis,
O
(2004), p. 162
The sexless historical and cultural landscapes presented in schools indoctrinates students into thinking that America’s sexual scruples were and are universal. This allows people who blame sex for society’s problems to be taken
seriously. An accurate presentation of history would teach people that moralists and politicians have been using sex as a scapegoat and grossly exaggerating its dangers for two thousand years. It would also show that for two thousand years authoritarian sexual repression has failed.
An example of the effects of this socialization was when President Bill Clinton’s sexual indiscretions endangered his presidency in the late 1990s. If the population knew of the numerous infidelities of hallowed presidents and world leaders (see
Appendices One
and
Two
), more people would have been disgusted with the circus that was his impeachment.
Accurate presentations of other societies’ sexual attitudes cannot be found even in award-winning big-budget R-rated movies.
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If the effort to recreate other cultures’ dress was extended to their sexual mores, fewer citizens would fear sexual freedom.
For example, the original Americans, the Indians, varied widely across tribe and region in their sexual conventions.
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However, most of them did not associate either nudity or sexuality with sin or shame, and tribes frequently accepted premarital intercourse, polygamy, and homosexuality. There were other common traditions. Children were usually allowed to masturbate and engage in sex-play. Sex with partners outside the marital bounds was more acceptable. Many tribes had men who chose to live like women. These men, whom the Europeans called “berdache,” bore no stigma.
In the Indians’ looser sexual atmosphere, the sale of sex was unknown and rape was extremely rare. Unlike the Spanish settlers who believed the rape of Indian women was their right of conquest, Indians did not sexually assault white captives.
The Indians’ “gross sensuality and unnatural vice” greatly disturbed some Europeans, such as John Smith, who was troubled when young Indian women would welcome him to their tribe by offering to sleep with him.
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When missionaries tried to instill monogamy, they argued it allowed men to know which children were theirs. An Indian once replied, “You French people love only your own children but we all love all the children of our tribe.”
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Although Indians did not try to convert Europeans to their lifestyle, a phenomenon occurred that is completely absent from American history textbooks.
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Europeans converted anyway. This occurred all along the Atlantic coast. Benjamin Franklin observed, “No European who has tasted Savage Life can afterwards bear to
live in our societies.”
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Another man wrote: “There must be in the Indians’ social bond something singularly captivating, and far superior to be boasted of among us; for thousands of Europeans are Indians, and we have no examples of even one of those Aborigines having from choice become Europeans.”
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When captives were to be exchanged following battles, Europeans, especially the children, had to be “bound hand and foot” and forcibly returned to white society, while Indian prisoners went back to their own “with great signs of joy.”
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These embarrassing scenes often tarnished European victories. To stop the flow, Europeans used force. Hernando De Soto posted guards to prevent desertion and in many places defectors faced heavy penalties, including death.
Europeans were attracted to the freedom Indians enjoyed as individuals.
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Teaching modern American students of the Indianization phenomenon would expose them to different sexual worldviews, and show that when people have had a choice, our mores were rejected.
U
NHEALTHY
S
EXUAL
A
TTITUDES
(USA)
One historian has written that sexual morality is “a purposeful myth that has been productive of more guilt and misery than any other aspect of human or divine law.”
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A sign of the sex taboo’s continuing health is that sexual activities are still shameful for many.
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Sexual shame occurs in numerous ways. One example is the penis industry. A large portion of the male population suffers from insecurity and depression over the length of their penises.
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,
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Several misconceptions contribute to this angst. First, large penises have not always been the idealized size, just as enormous female breasts have not always been the idealized size. Second, since most American men only see erect penises in pornography they have a distorted view of the truth.
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Third, the flaccid penis size does not have a correlation to the erect penis size.
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This misconception is
demonstrated by the fact that almost two-thirds of men seeking penis enhancement are concerned not about their erect penis size, but its size when limp.
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This misconception about flaccid penis size has even made its way into presidential politics. When Representative Calvin Dooley was running for Congress in 1992 he frequently told an anecdote about using the House of Representatives gym with President George H.W. Bush. The crowd-pleaser had the following punch line: “It’s quite an experience to be a lowly freshman congressman in the shower with the President of the United States (pause) and to look over and see (long pause) that the leader of the free world is (longer pause) . . . a . . . well . . . er . . . just an average little guy.”
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