I will start with the punchline; it’s just sex! You can read further if you’d like.
Sounds simple, but Americans treat sex and the idea of sex like 2nd graders hearing a “yo mama” joke in class. Folks get to the “ooohs” and some steer clear altogether. Generic stuff like “sex sells” or “that dress is sexy” or “sexiest celebrity alive” are tossed around casually, however the implied act is somehow taboo. I’ve gone through my phases of how I view sex as well and after traveling the world, soul searching and having a fair amount of sex along the way, I feel like we need to grow up. At very least, we should act how we expect grownups to act when a “yo mama” joke is heard. Address it with sense and keep it moving.
The Scale
I have a good friend that talks about sex like most people talk about walking their dogs. No frills, no detail off limits, he is in my opinion, completely desensitized on the topic. He’s the type of person that if someone hacked into the Best Buy TV displays and showed a porno, he’d critique the actors, and continue shopping as if he walked past an episode of American Idol. No outrage, probably no laughing, no discomfort whatsoever. On a sexually liberal scale from 1 to 10, with the lower numbers being more liberal and the higher numbers being more conservative, I’d say he’s at 1 after rounding up to the nearest whole number.
I know another person that believes sex is a sacred act and should not be discussed publicly at all. Seeing as that’s how she feels, her reaction to a porno in Best Buy would likely be outrage, probably leave the store and write a letter to the manager. She is very religious as you may have already imagined, but she is well under the age of 50 which may not be as obvious since highly conservative views with young people are less common. Her avoidance of the topic is not her being coy, or a result of trauma, she just feels it is totally a private thing. On that same scale she’s a 10 in my opinion.
“Sex is the most fun you can have without smiling”
Madonna
Those contrasting ideas are simply to give you context on where I fall on this imaginary scale according to me. I’d say I’m a 3. I am totally open with discussing sex with anyone, however, most details will be kept private even among my inner circle of friends. If a porno popped on in Best Buy, I would acknowledge it for sure, likely with a smart remark, but casually continue looking for whatever I went there for, especially if I’m there for a TV or sound system. It would be difficult for me not to laugh at the horror I imagine would be gripping the sales associate explaining to me the features of that Samsung through exaggerated moans.
Let’s Dig In
Most people in the U.S. above the age of 28 have had sex at least one time, regardless of marital status, though that metric is based on the average age of marriage being 28 now. In addition to that stat, 65% of adults say that premarital sex is acceptable. No official stats so I’ll estimate that of the remaining 35% of adults, 30% of them probably had sex before marriage but don’t want their business out there like that. According to Planned Parenthood, the average age of losing one’s virginity is down to 18 years old. In my own lifetime, I have only known 4 people that made it to the age of 25 without ever having traditional sex. However, all of them experimented with giving and/or receiving oral or manual stimulation from a partner by then. Technically still virgins…but the O’douls version of virginity.
So, if we’re all pretty much doing it, what’s the big deal with talking about it? Most of us have probably had Sex education by the time we graduated from high school. You know when they tell you all about diseases and pregnancy and how abstinence is the best way to not get diseases or pregnant. Also, if you are going to have sex, wear a rubber or make the guy wear a rubber, good luck. Hopefully sex education is a bit more robust than that now. I find it odd that sex is used in marketing just about every product in America, all these singers (Old and New) are making songs about having sex and then you have the PE instructor drilling herpes and gonorrhea into your brain. Call me crazy, but mixed messaging is usually counterproductive to achieving positive outcomes.
“Sex is always about emotions. Good sex is about free emotions, bad sex is about blocked emotions”
Deepak Chopra
When to talk about it
As a parent, there’s always this sense of “when is the right time” regarding talking about the taboo topics. I read somewhere long ago that the best time is when a kid asks questions about it or expresses curiosity. My daughter asked that question when she was 4 and I said, “vaginas or bellies, depends on what the doctor says”. Don’t worry she wasn’t horrified, confused yes, but she figured it out when she was 6 years old. We haven’t had the talk about sex yet, but whenever I get to it, I’ll be just as “matter of fact” about that as well. No need to lie or pretend that my cautionary tales will prevent curiosity from taking place.
I would love to see society at an evolved state that we can have mature, honest conversations about sex. Sex is one of very few things we have in common across religious and political spectrums. We aren’t all doing it the same way, or for the same reasons…but we’re all doing it based on the increase in population. Every group of people you can think of outside of priests and nuns allegedly, are engaging in sex, yet we promote this unhealthy, dirty view of sex unless it’s being used to advertise or entertain us. All of us are here because of some bumping and grinding that was either too brief, too long, awkward, amazing, fun, uncomfortable, planned or spontaneous. No matter what we say, unless civilization stops here, sex is gonna be around for a while, so why not talk about it freely? It’s just sex!