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EXCUSES

Human beings are obsessed with sex.
It's only natural.

Or is it?

Doesn't it seem like there's a tremendous
amount hype in the direction of getting
people excited about sex?

If the biological drive toward sex was all that over
powering, wouldn't you expect people to spend more
time having sex, and less time talking about it?      "But what about AIDS?"
                                                      "Ever heard of condoms?"
It often seems to me that people are                  "Oh I hate those things."
really afraid of sex on some level,
and they much prefer to be tantalyzed-and-             	  For people in the
denied to satiation.                                      grip of an
	  						  overwhelming urge
There seems to be this in-built need to 		  it doesn't take
come up with excuses not to do it. 			  much to turn us
							  off.
For a long time the popular reason was
fear of pregnancy and disease, but as
contraception and antibiotics got
increasingly better, the rug was yanked
out from under that one.

So here we go into the sixties, and
now that we've got the Pill (and some
other pills...) we're all going to be
fucking in the streets, right?

But this heyday of hedonism was awfully
brief, and never really penetrated             (Sorry. Can't help myself.)
all *that* far into the mainstream.
People started working out philosophical
objections to promiscuity (the "sex as
an expression of love" concept).              The theological objections
                                              were ringing fairly
Then the mid-80s rolled along                 hollow just then.
and everyone seemed *overjoyed*
at the prospect of a fatal,                                  Maybe
incurable sexual plague.                                     they
                                 Christian Conservatives     still
Now at last we can go            took it as confirmation     are.
back to thinking of   		 that they were right
ourselves as raging 		 all along ("AIDS is the
animals who can only 		 wrath of God").
barely contain ourselves.
		   	 	       They seize on data when      "Oh so
     Like dogs that 		       it supports doctrine,        lesbians
     bark and snarl 		       and reject it when it        must be
     only when on      		       contradicts.           	    God's
     the leash.                                                     chosen?"
	        		       Unfortunately
                                       not a syndrome
                                       restricted to     Would I be
                                       the nominally     more impressed
Let me make a prediction here:         religious.        if they'd
When the cure/treatment for                              predicted a
AIDS is finally in place, there                          sexual plauge?
will be another 60s style blip.
"Oh boy, we can run for it                                  But there
now... uh, run where?  Uh, what                             must've been
happened to that leash?"  We'll                             someone
then have a new pop-philosophy                              somewhere
promoted to provide more                                    predicting a
excuses for abstaining from                                 Sodom &
promiscuity.                                                Gommorrah
                                                            style
                                                            catastrophe.

                                                               Eh. Not legit
                                                               to select your
                                                               predictions
                                                               after the
                                                               event, and
                                                               ignore the
                                                               ones that
                                                               failed.

             There's some
             supporting babble in

                  AIDSMYTHS


===

Okay.

So what exactly about sex is so
terrifying?

It's not a fear of anonymous bodies.

It's a fear that you won't live up to
expectations?

A fear that the sexual game will lead
to some unwanted personal involvement?

The popularity of masturbation:
heaven is where there are no other people.


                       (A strange inversion of
                       Victorian hypocrisy...)




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