Sex!

Handyman's Porn

 
No, the title of this entry isn't just to get your attention, that's really what this is about. As a blogger, I often run up against conundrum: how much do I really want to share? I'm very cognizant of how information on the Internet can be used against me. Information I should not share, such as: when I will be on vacation (what a concept), so I only talk about events retrospectively. My birthday: that's identifying information.

Then there are the subjects that can burn bridges and make enemies of  people I don't even know, or turn friends into enemies. Don't I know about politics and religion, but another of those is sex. If your views don't coincide with the social norm, stay quiet; and if they do, the social normals see little point in talking about it. The safe view in this culture is monogamy: no sex outside of marriage, no fancy plumbing (intercourse only, and some souls restrict that to mish), no birth control, before or after sex.



Unless you try to force this on other people like a one-size fits all prescription, none of this will offend them (unless you happen to be dating or married to them), but some people think it's the only moral way to have sex. When religion is involved, then the standard appears to be do absolutely nothing that might make God angry. Yes, this would be the same Supreme Being now credited with creating black holes that swallow up whole suns and solar systems, and he's concerned with you're having sex in an unwholesome, "unnatural" way. 

I'll declare my point of view: 1) sex is how adults play, 2) modern sexual ethics are based on consent of the participants, 3) fantasies, no matter how shocking they look, or how wrong they would be in reality, are not immoral unless they turn into plans or actions, 4) every person has a right to determine their own sexual practices as long as it's consensual for all other participants, 5) Everyone has a right to control their own bodies' reproduction, 6) parents and guardians have an obligation to provide their children with accurate information about sex. 

We often think it's ironic that porn is called "adult" material, but it's literally true. Until adolescence a child has no concept of sex. Therefore, we have an age of consent, and eighteen is the logical age.

I think sex workers shouldn't be treated as criminals. They shouldn't suffer the stigma they do, and they shouldn't live in fear of arrest, nor be harassed by the community nor law enforcement. Similarly, their clientele shouldn't be shamed, outside the of the normal onus for, perhaps, cheating on their spouse. You can't respect sex workers without respecting their clients. Besides that, I think anti-sex, anti-porn crusaders are some of the meanest, pettiest people in the world.

Those are my bedrock beliefs and conclusions about sex and sexuality. I definitely didn't come to them due to my sexual practices. I've had mutual sex fewer times in my life than most people have had in a year. A shame to say but true.

My beliefs came before my practice. In Catholic high school religion class when I was fifteen, the rest of the guys and I (an all male high school)  were divided up into groups and told to discuss a series of ethical questions. This was one them: "Your family needs money. Your wife is offered a lot of money to pose nude for a magazine. Do you give your consent to her doing this?"

My response, unlike the other guys, was that I would support her in her decision, but wouldn't influence her to do one or the other. One guy tried to describe to me how it would be to have other guys look at her. I couldn't think of how looking would offend me.

In Catholic school I was always saying things that called attention to how different I was. When I did talk, which was seldom.  

Therefore, my thinking about free love started long before I ever had a girl friend or sex partner. I could never understand the contempt, what's now called "slut-shaming" that was aimed toward women who were publicly sexual, such as the ones in Playboy. I don't know, it seemed to me providing pleasure for people, men or women, was not in any way shameful. Nor did I understand the attitude I discovered later, that those women had to be disturbed or damaged to be photographed nude, or to go farther with it.

I've mostly kept it to myself. I mean, nobody with my psychological background could confidently assert what sexual behavior is healthy. Some wavering aside, the things I've given here is what I've believed for twenty-five years.

Unless something happens in the news, my next blog will continue along these lines.