What America Needs: More Sex

While we need love and sexual attention as individuals, I think our society as a whole may need it even more. In light of the importance sex has in our outlook on the world, our association with others, and our understanding of self-identity, it's surprising how negligent we are as a culture in dealing with the issues involved in sexual relations. It's unfortunate that something which brings so many people pleasure -- and which also is all-too-often involved in inflicting anguish -- is still kept in the dark. It's obvious that sexual issues and opinions wield an immense impact on our lives and thoughts. Sex is involved in how we look at new people, how we group ourselves, how we hire people and even how we vote. Hormones are as powerful as any drug. And the act of sexual intercourse itself means so many different things to different people at different times (i.e. love, fun, experimentation, domination, self-confidence, self-hatred, expression). But the issues are cloudy; they deserve to be discussed more. The recent discussions on acquaintance rape highlight the real need for better interpersonal communication. But perhaps we should all pay a little more attention to the way sexual issues are communicated on the societal level as well. Our culture-producing institutions (media, school, etc.) deal with sex ineffectively and irresponsibly -- even to the point of causing harm. Like everywhere else, sex is shunned in the mass media. Federal laws regarding "prurient interests" and "community standards" prevent issues from being dealt with in their full physical or psychological context. And yet, knowing that audiences are interested in sex, programmers saturate the airwaves with sexual stimuli as long as they don't cross the imaginary "smut" line. This presents a problem for children -- who grow up seeing Charlie's Angels running around in bikinis, meeting men and waking up the next morning all within an hour. There is implicit sex and coded gender classification all over the screen, but it is included only to draw interest, not be discussed. The viewer is allowed to be a voyeur, but not allowed to comment or think about what the depiction of sex on the screen means. Cars and beer are equated with sex (or even more despicably -- sometimes specifically equated with women). The right clothes, cigarettes, and foods are often associated with sex. Men who are portrayed as successful are shown wearing business suits and busily working. Successful women on the other hand are beautiful. Sex is a goal -- sometimes a game. On television sex is one-dimensional and "commodified." And even without the confusion added to the issues by the media, people -- especially young people -- have enough stuff going on in their bodies and minds to demonstrate that sex is a very real force. · So where do we deal with all of these cues about gender, sexuality and sex itself? We all have penises or vaginas, hormones and hair, fluids and desires -- universal functions like eating and sleeping. And yet we rarely discuss (let alone depict) these taboo topics realistically in public. What are the forums for sexual discussion as we grow up within society? It's not proper to deal with the issues in school or in the media. It's not a very comfortable or even allowable topic for family or religion. And how often do we talk about the specifics of sex with even our closest friends? What does seem to occur is a lot of individual thinking, a lot of joking around in small groups, and a lot of miscommunication. Since these issues are left out of the mainstream, the only avenues left over for satisfying sexual queries and sexual urges may prove to be less beneficial for our overall welfare than a little bit of open discussion. When we grow up as small groups of boys joking around, telling grand stories, boasting, and even ogling at the parts of an objectified woman in some magazine during recess, maybe it's no wonder that the sense of goal-orientation, self-confidence and competition is so widespread. And it seems, girls grow up having to look good for the boys (take a look at Seventeen magazine) while at the same time being fearful of their own desires (lest they be seen as improper or slutty). Why is it that our sexual desires should be banished from society? As Amos Vogel, a professor in cinema and ideology asked last semester, "Should we rescue our sexual organs from the porno houses?" Certainly pornography should be allowable as free speech, but isn't it unfortunate that it's one of the only arenas in which sex is tolerated? And while it can at times be deemed a proper avenue for sexual fulfillment, porn often brings with it malevolent factors that are not inherently affiliated with sex or sexuality -- such as violence, objectification of women, commodification, and misinformation. Why is it that our society is more tolerant of killing 120,000 Iraqis than it is of allowing me to say "cocksucker," "piss," or "tit" on the radio? (That's illegal by the way.) Why is it that a nude sex scene was cut from A Clockwork Orange while the scenes of bloody violence and rape weren't a problem? With the repression of sexuality from the public arena, the irresponsible reliance on "sex for sales" within the media, and the limitation of tolerable avenues for exhibiting sexual behavior, it's no wonder that the issue is so confusing for individuals. It's no surprise that so much sexual misunderstanding and violence exists -- and is tolerated -- within a society that both shuns good communication and thought and encourages misinformation. Stuart Sperling is a senior Communications major from Rye, New York. Oh, The Humanity! appears alternate Tuesdays.

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