Our Societal Sex-Conundrum...

As I started staring at this title; trying to ruminate about how I'm going to fill your screen with some fresh controversy, I realised just how desensitised I've become to sensitive topics. I mean, I'm not even joking when I'm saying this, because I constantly find myself in a state of shock and sheer confusion at the reactions of 'ordinary' people (for lack of a better term), when they hear or see a mention of the word "sex". And I don't know whether it's just frustration, marvel or just plain and simple anger that makes me ask, but, how could we possibly obfuscate such a brilliant and liberating phenomenon into the abyss of silence and objectification? There's so much to be said, and people are not listening. Although, if anything, we know that the longer we stare into the abyss eventually the abyss will stare right back at us... - at least, that's what Nietzsche said. And even though the context of his phrase does not lend itself to sex per se, it does however connote a sense of introspection: perhaps a way of saying, the deeper we explore into this bottomless chasm of our (hidden) selves, the more we get out of this endeavour? Maybe I'm misunderstanding it. I don't know. Nevertheless, the interpretation conveys appropriately the tone I wish to set for this piece. The topic of sex is unavoidable; we need to engage it. And some need to listen carefully, as what I'm about to say here is borne from a place of passion about the ills and injustices that persist because we shy away from discussing our present sex-conundrum...

"What do you mean conundrum? What conundrum?!" You might ask. In the 21st Century with all our strides towards progression made, we still have not developed way of talking about sex without either sexualising (yes, you read that correctly) -or censoring it. And this subsequently perpetuates a series of problematic behavioural tendencies in our approaches to sex, such as: rape, female objectification, sexual abuse, various forms of shaming, control, harassment and other toxic narratives that we acquaint with, what is supposed to be acknowledged as the deepest and most vulnerable part of our human selves. Yet, what can I possibly write here that contradicts the mass plethora of so-called 'bigots' and 'libtards', shouting at each other with keyboards into cyberspace? -I believe I'd like to bridge the gap, by proposing a new way of talking about sex, without plunging into the pitfalls of the aforementioned dichotomy. When I wrote my Master's thesis claiming sexuality (and bodyliness) as still being a form of Spirituality without the moral monopoly of the Christian church, I started -or rather attempted, creating a premise from which to promulgate a vocabulary that respects sexuality and the boundaries of the body, without necessarily turning it into another religious 'sacred cow', you know? (no I'm not body shaming, it's a figure of speech, chill Karen).

Today, sex in itself has become sexualised (objectified). This is due to, among other things, the mainstream porn industry being dominated by male creators, developing content for male audiences with cheap and unrealistic representations of sex. And the act of sex in itself therefore also has become a commercialised commodity for the capitalisation of books, Newspapers and other media. Because of this, women, no matter what they do, cannot seem to just 'exist' without being inappropriately sexualised by the male gaze wherever they go: if they are sexually active, the common 'slut shaming' applies; if she is not sexually active, that subsequently labels her a prude. In contrast to this men have always enjoyed sexual freedom through the ages while society invented contemporary hegemonic colloquialisms like, "a key that opens many locks is a master key, but a lock that is opened by many keys is useless." dictating a sexist appropriation of sexuality. And for those unfamiliar with this narrative; it has been one of the many culprits in our incompetent linguistic constructs, praising male sexuality whilst condemning female sexuality. And this, of course, correlates to the socially constructed terms like 'virginity' and 'sexual purity', originating in more conservative (mainly religious) contexts, which is one of the root causes in perpetuating our conundrum.

In addition to this, my sarcastically disingenuous responses to these pretentiously immaculate prophets of prurient narratives, has always been: what exactly is virginity? What does it look like? How do you 'diagnose' it? And quite unsurprisingly, the fallacy they usually resort to is that the female hymen (when untarnished), is the sole determinant of their virginity. However, what these individuals often don't realise (apart from their ignorance of female anatomy) is that there are a plethora of valid reasons (apart from sex) why women don't have hymens - and many of them don't pertain to sex, if at all. As the hymen tissue is very fragile and thin and may be 'torn' by so much as a bike ride. Nonetheless, to refrain from 'man-splaining' myself into a tangent here, I believe I successfully carried the point across that the female hymen cannot serve as a determinant for virginity, because - believe it or not - virginity in itself is more of a hegemonic social and linguistic construct, than a biologically scientific one. Now, what I'm trying to convey with this is that there is therefore absolutely no objective way of determining virginity whatsoever, because it does not exist. However, let's say it did and we flip the same approach and use it against men; how exactly can we identify virginity in men when just inspecting their genitalia? - again, we can't. For the obvious aforementioned reasons. And I have yet to hear a compelling objective diagnostic method for determining sexual 'purity' or 'virginity'. I'll even bet that once society begins to discuss, and stigmatise men's reproductive rights and privileges, in accordance with the way our current zeitgeist does women, many will not take kindly to it. To say but the least.

Why? Because the basis of all sex narratives centered around women's bodies, autonomy and sexuality is authority... - Yes, authority. Since the 11th century, Christian clergymen have enjoyed an unchallenged monopoly over sexuality in the West that lasted until about the 17th century enlightenment-era, but unfortunately, even with the emergence of secular thought and scientific discourse this has all but been eradicated from contemporary society, as its pro-masculine narratives along with ascetic religious narratives have been ingrained and propagated further even in contemporary Christian theology. And I remember, while doing research for my Master's thesis, I came across this brilliant academic article written by South African feminist scholar Dr. Hannelie Wood from the University of South Africa (UNISA), who explained the origins of this theological sex monopoly brilliantly:

"The division of humanity into male and female was viewed to be parallel to the world, divided into the spiritual (represented by men) and the physical (represented by women). What it is to be a man was determined by the natural place men had in society and because it was thought that men are guided by the spiritual (rational), they had to govern over the carnal (sexual) women. These rational qualities bestowed upon men the power to be the head of the woman and to govern over women..."

Wood, H., 2017, ‘Feminists and their perspectives on the church fathers’ beliefs regarding women: An inquiry’, Verbum et Ecclesia 38(1), 8.

In short, women were oppressed due to the fact that religious men couldn't control their sexual urges and due to the ascetic narratives they upheld. And subsequently, sex was a silent confession only permitted in heteronormative marital contexts: and even there, men still maintained authority over the woman's body, as she was considered more libidinous (a.k.a 'horny') than her 'spiritual' male counterpart. Which is not exactly accurate, as it is proven that men are considerably more libidinous than women and it is for this sole reason that I believe; the narratives utilised by men in wanting to control women, was/is mainly a form of projection and overcompensation for their own lack of sexual self-esteem. So, a notion of "I can't control myself, therefore you have to..." was (and in some instances still is) conveniently normal. And you might chuckle at the sheer fallacy of such logic, however I can assure you that this still happens. Not just in religious attitudes towards sex, but also in many contemporary, secular, heterosexual relationships where men dictate to their significant others, what to wear and what not to wear, how to look, how to act and carry themselves. Blaming victims of rape for the way they were dressed, which supposedly promoted an invitation from the get-go. Therefore, the generally accepted solution is that women should dress 'modestly' (whatever that means), because men can't control their sexual urges in general, right? Wrong.

Sex is not about who has the power, possession or authority - except of course if that's your BDSM-kink, which is another matter because it is still consensual, otherwise it surmounts to abuse. Therefore, don't be fooled by popular culture's romanticising of mainstream pornography and 50 Shades of Grey, as neither are healthy (or realistic) examples to follow and they both fall into the trap of sexualising (objectifying) sex. Not to mention the censorious narratives of those promoting a sort of 'immorality' towards sex outside of marital, monogamous or heteronormative relationships, which also contribute to our present conundrum of society driving sex (that does not conform to these constructs) under the umbrella of silence, which perpetuates repression and subsequently contributes to the sexualisation of the act itself. Nevertheless, we can go on for ages about the examples of impropriety in our society's current ways of speaking and approaching sex, as the examples are tediously multiplicious. The next question we should be asking is, how do we solve this?

If the answer was easy, I believe that it would have already been done. Unfortunately, the conundrum we face today is a systemic one. And the change we need has to contribute to the eradication of hegemonic (patriarchal) power narratives associated with sex, which of course include, but is not limited to the toxic narratives of (some) men projecting their ethical responsibility of self-control onto women (as her responsibility). These changes, without sounding cliché or repetitive, are brought about through education. The socio-cultural constructs we have in place today, require deconstruction. We need to understand the roots of toxic masculinity, phallocentrism, rape-culture and preconceived gender-roles. And of course the promotion of 'consent' is one thing, but consent alone without proper sex education is futile. This means that we need to de-condition people from using porn (among other popular sources) as a frame of reference for realistic sex-perceptions and start re-conditioning the communication of sexual relations through terms like "consent, equity, responsibility, boundaries, autonomy, freedom and respect". Furthermore, men should be educated to understand that the primary function of a woman is not to provide him with children and/or sexual stimulation, but that she may determine her own function (with -or without him), based on her own values and needs. Women should also be encouraged to be comfortable using emphatic negation words like "no" or "I don't feel comfortable", when in situations that overstep their boundaries. And it goes without saying that men should learn to listen and take such sentiments seriously.

Furthermore, in the age of continuous growth in the use digital and social media, especially men should be educated on how to communicate non-confrontationally, without the assumption that a woman will swoon at his unsolicited penis snapshot, and/or verbally insulting (or harassing) her because she did not indicate a receptivity to his improper sexual advances. Thus, I believe a rule of thumb for engaging in online conversation (with people in general) should be: Would you like to see your words printed as the headline of a newspaper? If not, steer clear. If you can't engage in a good platonic conversation, without steering it into uncomfortable sexual harassment, the problem is yours - not hers. Being a man has less to do with the size of your phallus and sexual prowess and more to do with your intelligence, kindness and sense of responsibility. After all, our sexuality is a complex thing. It is a part of our unique identities. And it determines to some degree, who we are. Therefore we should take care in nurturing it not just through our actions, but our speech as well. As the fact that we sexualise sex and censor it, is a direct product of our language surrounding it. It is a powerful byproduct of our evolutionary development, and our approaches towards it could either make it powerfully healthy -or it could lead to confounding destruction. For with great power, comes great responsibility.