Posted by Penny_Louise on Fri 5 Jun 09, 6:48 PM to Penny_Louise's blog.
It's a bold statement, and I would like to consider it to be tongue-in-cheek as I make it. But I'm not sure that I can, because it looks like it might actually be true.
I've touched on moral issues in my previous blogs, and postulated that moral values were held largely by the church, and that they are no longer. So legislation, the heavy hand, has had to step in (mixing metaphors, slightly, but never mind).
But maybe there's more to the current rising tide of anti-sex legislation, which sees a man convicted last month of sexual offences for downloading six images from the Simpsons. And a sixteen year picking up a sex offence registration for life after sex with a 15 year old, his girlfriend. Is it simply that our society cannot, in fact, handle sex anymore?
Sex is a hugely powerful driving force, and control of the sexual urge is obviously high up on the agenda of any society wishing to maintain law and order. The church, as a respected authority, took much of the brunt while it was a respected authority, but now, in the UK anyway, it isn't. Government has taken over, in its clumsy nanny-ing way, but it has to contend with the liberation of stimulating and informative sexual material on the internet, and the proliferation of computers in the home and workplace.
So we have an unhappy dalliance of a more liberated sexual element to our society and a more censorious overall society view which the poor old Government is trying to keep up to. It's the old popular media trick, of course: we're all pretty much interested in sex, illicit sex and kinky sex, but we cover our own interest (it's the royal 'we' here, of course, as I personally don't cover my interest at all) by feigning horror and outrage at everyone else's interest. Which creates a wonderful tabloid market: they can rant and rave at sex, we buy it because we simultaneously want to rant and rave and feel outwardly disgusted while inwardly being thoroughly interested and entertained by it.
The tabloid readers, of course, are then outwardly anti-sexualisation because the paper tells them to be, and it saves them sticking their necks out in a socially uncertain situation, while the broadsheet readers are conditioned into believing sex is evil or at least, not very nice anyway. So that gives a large electorate for the Government to pander to who really don't want sex out in the open, or even peeping out from modest cover. So, a-pandering they go. Soon, sex offenders registration will be like an asbo, a must-have to prove street-cred, where it's absence will mean your sexual appetite extends no further than missionary position, with the lights off, with your married partner, and not more than once a month.
So, maybe it is true. Our society is unable to handle sex. The double whammy of no effective religion holding a moral code and the internet fuelling sexual appetites, together with our increased sophistication, greater freedom with looser working and school hours and more cars making affairs and liaisons much easier to manage: has the primal sexual urge now been enhanced to the point where it's in danger of getting out of control?
But I don't for a moment think that legislation is the answer. Like the plan to tax chocolate, it's short sighted, it doesn't hit the root cause, it doesn't engender respect, it doesn't help people, it doesn't help society.
Whereas a more open attitude to sex and relationship might.
| 5 Jun 09, 8:55 PM Merrick 3 yrs  |
Despite our society taking less moral support from the church, doesn't a significant area of interest to your title lies with old-fashioned guilt? Perhaps a generation or two will deal with that issue? |
| 7 Jun 09, 11:04 AM feetintrouble_jemima UK(EN), 4 yrs  |
I guess all we can do is hope that "The Scene" is a step in the right direction: an environment where we talk about all things sexual, and face to face, not on the internet! Dynamics of relationships: I guess many teenagers get their ideas about what they're really like from soaps. Lots of conflict and jealousy to make them seem "normal". But it's more fun being a girl! |
| 7 Jun 09, 1:21 PM Sir_Tickler UK(FY), 6 yrs |
I agree with this post. However I think the 'No Sex we're British' attitude goes back a very long way. The problem seems to have started when Queen Victoria wanted to break with the permissive Georgian era. There was a brief relaxation with her successor King Edward VII. However the prevailing view for about 100 years has been puritan despite a grudging relaxation of censorship from the 1960s to keep in line with most of the world.
The present government seems to be puritan. This is partly because the Labour party has a puritan element and also because of a need to appease the tabloid papers who have most influence over voters. If the Tories win power they will need to appease the same papers and they are therefore unlikely to be any different on sexual issues. Tied and Tickled Edited 7 Jun 09, 1:23 PM by Sir_Tickler |
| 9 Jun 09, 7:43 AM wonderer UK, 5 yrs |
I'm not sure the church, the press or the government is very qualified to restrict sexual freedoms. Most stuff doesn't need to be restricted; only stuff which has victims (e.g. rape, abusive pimping of prostitutes, stuff involving children and/or lack of informed consent). Rape is a huge problem for society because it is so difficult to prove whether or not consent took place. It is easy to claim consent as a defence against rape; it is also easy to seduce and later claim it was rape and unconsensual. An interesting question is whether the BDSM community with its considered understanding of consent, safe / sane / consensual, risk-aware etc - whether we have resources which would be of wider value.
Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est. http://www.informedconsent.co.uk/posts/226772/ |
