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Old 07-12-2007, 09:10 PM   #23 (permalink)
agnostic
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We still live in an anti-sex culture. We still think that sex is something to do "in private". Why?

The answer which nobody wants to admit is that it is still accepted (and promoted) within our culture that sex is something dirty and evil and something to be ashamed of for wanting it or doing it, because it's a sign of weakness and "moral depravity".

A nice theory of how this came to be (which doesn't just blame it all on religion) is Saharasia by James de Meo. In oversimplified terms: Harsh times in human history created a culture in which sensual pleasure was seen as something unhonorable. This served the culture at that time, but it solidified in the character-structure of the parents (in a literal sense: it causes people to have all sorts of muscular tension to block information-flow from body to brain) who passed it on to their children by child-bearing methods they (in their tensed-up state) believed to be normal or good for the child.
One thing that this culture always creates is a morality (religious or secular) that sees the biological need for pleasure as something weak and something to be ashamed of. It is, in a fundamental sense an anti-life morality, because it makes you feel guilty for being who you are.
The result is a culture where most people feel uneasy in their own skin, which then provides a fertile soil for utopianism, dogmatism, facism, sadism and masochism. This works both in religious and non-religious people.

I also believe that porn (and romance novels) wouldn't be so big if our culture didn't suppress our biological urges.
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