Behind the Culture Wars -- Nothing but Fun and Sex

By Starchild

Gay rights, drugs, abortion, rave parties, masturbation, nudity -- Behind many of the most controversial issues in society is a fundamental disagreement about the question "Should we enjoy getting it on?" Conservatives say no! People shouldn't have too much fun.

"The problem is our sexual revolution run amok everywhere -- sex on parade, sex outside marriage, sex as a tool, sex for sale, sex without love, and sex without boundaries."

- syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin, April 2, 2002

The conservative commentator's complaint goes to the heart of what Pat Buchanan called the "cultural war" going on in America. And make no mistake, Buchanan is right that there's a war going on. Sometimes it's not clear what's really being fought over. Cultural conflict rages over issues as seemingly unconnected as abortion, drug use, religion's place in society and politics, the content of movies, music and other forms of entertainment, gender roles and people who don't conform to them. At root however, these social issues -- among the most contentious in the United States today -- reflect nothing less than a fundamental disagreement over a very simple question: Should we enjoy getting it on?

To make it absolutely clear, I believe the answer to that question is an unqualified "Yes!" But there are many people who have serious issues with the enjoyment of sexuality. On a more basic level, what's really being objected to is having fun. Orgasms, and the activities that produce them, are among the most pleasurable sensations that human beings can experience. It is a universal desire that knows no boundaries of gender, class, culture, or creed. Consequently, no other source of recreation is as sought-after as sex.

Sex (along with drugs and rock and roll!) encourages living in the moment. Religion, in its sex-negative form still practiced by many Americans, says wait. Don't have too much fun in this life, and we promise you'll have a great time after you're dead. What a sucker's line. The most extreme religious fundamentalists have sought to ban most fun activities. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan even banned kite-flying. But sex, and anything that goes along with sex, has always been their top target.

Dancing, for instance. This much-loved activity which has been practiced since before recorded history, was once memorably described as having sex while standing up. "Free your mind and your ass will follow" is more than a catchy saying. It's literally true. When do you most feel like dancing? When you're happiest. When your mind is free of worries, fears, inhibitions. When artificial social constraints don't concern you. Dancing at its most unconstrained is sexually suggestive in the extreme. Isn't human happiness supposed to be the aim of politics? Then how to explain the woman who said at a City Hall hearing on young people attending all-night rave parties (in liberal San Francisco, even!), "There is no socially redeeming value to dancing after 2am." Doesn't this statement make her views about sexual pleasure quite obvious, when you think about it?

So if there existed a movement whose aim was to limit the potential for human fun (perhaps to preserve the influence of religion through the promise of a better afterlife), what more effective tactic than to declare war on sex? Seek to alienate people from their own sexuality. Not that any conservative savvy enough to understand that the basic objective of his philosophy is to prevent fun would be foolish enough to come right out and say so. It would be tremendously unpopular. Therefore it is up to others to expose the fundamental nature of conservatism.

Take the issue of being openly gay or bisexual. Why does this so infuriate the no-fun crowd? After all, the Bible is sterner on the subject of gluttony. Yet all-you-can-eat buffets in the military haven't provoked quite the uproar of gays in the military. Same-gender couples have shown that they can create stable family environments for raising children. Aside from the "otherness" factor which underlies many forms of bigotry, the real beef with gays and lesbians is that when they have sex, there's no possibility of conception involved. Therefore there can be no pretense that gay sex is about anything other than having a good time.

No wonder then, that until fairly recently solo sex was the other major taboo. This taboo was still strong enough in 1994 to cost Jocelyn Elders her job as Surgeon General. Earlier in the last century, painful devices to keep boys and girls from masturbating were marketed (and unfortunately often accepted) as medical necessities. But masturbation is in fact one of the safest things you can do. It will not make you blind or cause hair to grow on your palms ---- two of the ridiculous lies that the anti-sex puritans relied on to discourage people from doing it.

Similar lies were -- and to a large extent still are -- employed to keep people from enhancing their sex lives through chemistry. One of the main effects of many popular recreational drugs, from alcohol to ecstasy, is to make people horny.

Even the most popular recreational drug, alcohol, is frowned upon. In the United States, you can only buy it legally if you're over 21, and then only during certain hours. Just as nudity and public sex are prohibited (because sex is "dirty" and we're not supposed to like watching it, even though adult video rental and sales figures indicate otherwise), you're not allowed to drink on the street. You have to wrap your beer in a brown paper bag like a copy of Penthouse. Other drugs, many of which can improve sex even more than alcohol does, are even more thoroughly demonized. GHB, which occurs naturally in the human body, was initially sold as a bodybuilding supplement. Since the discovery that it's also a lot of fun, especially in the bedroom, it's been banned as a "date rape" drug -- perhaps in the hope that enough would-be rapists will abuse it to make the label stick. Contrary to what drug warriors would have you believe however, the most likely result of spiking someone's drink with GHB is to make the person nauseous -- it mixes very poorly with alcohol. Even a rapist doesn't want to be covered in vomit.

Abortion? The question of what makes us human aside, two certain consequences of outlawed abortion are to make non-procreative sex riskier and to decrease its perceived legitimacy. The same is true of prostitution.

But don't right wing protestations over Hollywood entertainment prove that social conservatives are as concerned with violence and other issues as with sex? I think not. Please note that the most heavily censored films are restricted solely on the basis of sexual content -- there is no X-rated category for movies deemed excessively violent.

Now it must be admitted that the socially conservative position on a given issue may have merit for other, more legitimate, reasons. As a person who avoids eating meat for ethical reasons, I am sympathetic to arguments about the rights of fetuses, for example -- although I would not go so far as to say that life ought to be legally measured from conception. But when political passions stem from an aversion to people having fun, this sick motive ought to be exposed for precisely what it is.

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NOTE: The views expressed above do not necessarily reflect those of the Libertarian Party.