Holy Buck, Fatman!

last evening, I was a bit tired and decided to retire to the bedroom early in the evening. Instead of watching the usual South Park or Futurama, I flipped to the History Channel’s “A History of Sex”

The name was interesting enough and the chapter was on the Libertine movement through the Victorian era. I decided to watch. It is interesting how widespread sexual liberation always seems to give way to sexual repression in the name of morality. However, I never quite understood the roots of sexual repression. I can only surmise that it is the usual culprit, organized religion.

This prompted me to think about the book I’m currently reading entitled “Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism” By Michelle Goldberg. The chapter on Abstinence only programs disturbed me. Michelle interviewed two people who head abstinence only programs. Pam Stenzel who was quoted at a particularly interesting debate as calling sex “A dirty, rotten, filthy, stinking sin!” (pg 135 of Kingdom Coming) Essentially, this lady scares teens into forced celibacy. Excellent! Tell a young impressionable teenager that, not only is sex bad, filthy, dirty and an evil sin and you’ll go to hell for engaging in it. Hello 17 century Puritan community! Someone needs to tell this lady that abstinence has proven time and again to fail.

Oh, and someone needs to get her a vibrator.

The other woman, Leslee Unruh runs the “Abstinence Clearinghouse” which celebrates abstinence until marriage. Instead of scaring young women into abstinence, this program celebrates the old adage, “wait until marriage”. According to Goldberg’s book, Unruh promotes the fairy tale marriage solution. Marriage is the only gateway to proper sexual behavior, much like the thinking during the Victorian era. The website even sells “purity rings” and “No trespassing underwear” to aid folks with their decisions to wait. Except that divorce rates among conservative Christians tend to be higher. I guess that no one bothered to tell them that healthy and responsible sexual attitude can lead to a happy and fulfilled marriage, eh?

As the parent of a teen girl, I’m going to tell you right now that all this abstinence crap is bullshit. 100% bullshit. What I do know is that my child will eventually engage in sexual behavior. The feelings she will experience are not filthy or sinful. They are a part of normal behavior. It also needs to be understood that with these feelings come responsibility. It’s my responsibility to make sure that she understands the responsibility fully.

In my opinion, sex is a part of human nature. If it was meant to be bad, it wouldn’t feel so damn good. Why try and repress something that should be celebrated as a part of living life? Sex is necessary to create life so it is made to feel good so we will want to keep doing it over and over. and over. and again. and again. and if he isn’t around , well..we can simply diddle ourselves. Because our arms are long enough to reach our goodies, which is  proof that masturbation isn’t supposed to be discouraged, either.

Some people may choose on their own to wait for a very special person. More power to them if they can. However, a majority of people will probably engage in premarital sex. It’s time to start realizing that repression breeds curiosity and ignorance only creates problems.