Everything in our world is touched, categorized and organized by sex. The names we have, the clothes we wear, often the jobs we do, the way we worship, our relationship to others in our families or friends and workplaces are all dictated by sex. And we can hardly deny that sex physiological is disconnected from sex coital. But if its all socially constructed then, what about the rules around sex and our engagement of it?
So much has been done in the way to control and police sex and sexuality (the expression of sex and sexual attraction). From pleasure to sin or sexy to slut, the opinions and challenges to sex and its free expression are consistently being reigned in or under attack. Its no wonder we have such extreme expressions around sex and sexuality...there is so much pressure to conform to particular socially accepted norms, that those who do not comply often need to distinguish themselves from the norm and many who do comply end up living separate undercover lives to express the sexuality they police themselves from displaying for fear of repercussions.
The boundaries around sex is socially constructed and subjective at best and often seems, upon closer inspection, to be purely arbitrary. Often we find moralistic codes from religion to help us define and determine what is "right" or "wrong" about certain forms of sex or sexual expression, but as human expression changes and society is pushed and pulled in different directions, we adapt these mores to suit our needs.
That's where the literalists have trouble. Individuals who are literalists either of scripture or of culture have difficulty in ascertaining the alterations of the world around them and how to incorporate new methods. They become outmoded, seeming an anachronistic voice calling after revelers who have already left the party. It frustrates them and those who are able to adapt as much as not. So, one must wonder, what role does the literalist play.
If it can be summarised, I think it best to see it as a role of constant caution. Prophets of doom, alarmists, radical stick-in-the-muds all fall within this definition, but so do scientists and philosophers. Though they may wish to think outside the box, until the science tells them to do so, they cannot and the philosophers cannot prophesy until they have thought it out or discovered it for themselves, and so in both cases are ever looking back to see more plainly the place from which we have come. They are not the futurists, they cannot see where we are going, at least not without measuring the past.
So, what happens when society moves to a place where the conversation needs must change? What happens when there is a need to be able to discuss the intricacies and delicacies about basic human interaction (of which sex surely must be THE most basic) and we run aground for lack of words, expressions or concepts to move us forward? We must shift.
We must shift the way we look at the subject to see if we can find another way. For instance, let's look at how the GLBT community is often criticized for "flaunting" its sexuality. It looks abnormal to our eyes because we are unaccustomed to seeing human sexuality displayed in such a way (between two or more individuals of the same sex)? But, consider: Is our society not constantly flooded by expressions of heterosexual sexuality which is consistently flaunted? I don't mean even the billboards with the sexy ladies or the soft-cover romance novels with the buff guys on the front. I mean, good, old fashioned, heteronormative sex, flaunted everywhere.
Work with me here. Let's say I walk into an office and see on a female friend's desk, and I am greeted by a family photo of her, her husband and her three children. Has she not just flaunted her sexuality? Here in this photo I can see who she is likely having sex with, how many times she's had sex, and likely what types of sex she's had because I am able to see the results. That's a heck of a lot more sexual information than you would ever know about me if I were walking down the street holding hands with a man. But, we've been trained to not see the sex in it. That's how normativity works. We are trained to see what society wants us to see, but remove the "less desirable" aspects of it.
But this is and can be randomly applied. Let's talk about something that is practically a heterosexual exclusive: pregnancy. Pregnancy under certain circumstances seems to be a wonderful, sweet event that has nothing to do with sex (duh). Or it's a filthy, dirty and a social ill that needs to be fixed. There can be lots of different factors for the difference, marriage, age, socio-economic status or some combination thereof are arbitrarily applied by the society surrounding the woman in question. The randomness and silliness of the issue just leaps off the page when you take a little emotion out of it and look at it objectively. How bizarre.
In my opinion, what needs to happen in order to move conversations about sex and sexuality forward is a shift in our viewpoint towards heterosexuality and de-normalize it. Let's see what would happen if we put the "sex" back into heterosexuality. If we could acknowledge all the sex that was happening among "straight" people, and I mean your average, next door neighbor straight person, we might see quite a shift in attitudes about sex across the board.
We have to talk about sex because not talking about sex is hurting people. Individuals are made to feel freakish, alone and removed - and though we may be freakish (here's to that!) no one need ever feel alone. Not only are we not alone in whatever titillates us, but whatever it is, you are not the first to feel it. We have to set ourselves free, embrace our inner freak and move forward to issues that are certainly more worthy of our time: poverty, homelessness and bad shoes.
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