We don't often hear alternate views of sex. This is a space for asexuality and celibacy. This book is looking to feature well-written articles by aces and celibates, so please do fill out the form in the bio should you wish to submit (you can send i...
We've all heard it before; how sex is normal, natural, necessary and so on. Society normalizes it with a vengeance, especially as a way of rebelling against old religious doctrines and conservative traditions. In fact, if you question it, you are deemed religious, immature or strange; when none of that might be the case.
Questioning sex isn't new, but those voices are not always heard or taken notice of in our sex-crazed society. Here are some voices on Quora offering a different view on this subject.
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Let's look at the "normal", "natural" and "necessity" to decide if sex really is compatible with an advanced, moralizing species.
It's perfectly natural to be naked; in fact, we are the only species to be wearing clothes. Yet, walking around naked is unacceptable. Can you take off your clothes in the streets and argue that you're only doing what's natural? In fact, everything from incest and rape to infanticide is natural. Therefore, we can agree that something being "natural" is beside the point here.
Sex is an addiction, so much so that there is therapy for those addicted to it. Lust and sex undermine human values such as modesty and civilized behavior. Sex is in fact, impossible without compromising those values, which is why we intrinsically know it's questionable and try to dictate rules on the right way to go about it. Perhaps it's time we ask: maybe there's no right way to do something that is questionable to begin with?
Sex is a taboo subject in societies around the world, and many experience guilt and discomfort when talking about it; in spite of us being raised to accept it as an irrevocable fact of life. Sexual thoughts are unconsciously called "dirty thoughts". Not engaging in sex or having sexual thoughts is called being "pure", which implies that sex is impure. Many people do not want to dwell on the idea that their parents or children have sex. In the bestselling novel, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Soraya's father never asks about possible grandchildren because he cannot bear to think of her engaging in sexual activity even after she is married and would do so in a culturally accepted way:
The general, ever the Pashtun, never made any queries [about grandchildren]--doing so meant alluding to a sexual act between his daughter and a man, even if the man in question had been married to her for over four years.
Many euphemisms are in place to discuss sex; such as "make love" and "sleep with". People are so desensitized to it that they rarely pause to think what sex really is. The bestselling writer, Stephen King, has written the following in his novel, The Tommyknockers:
...if The Hussy enjoyed the animalism of sexual congress, with its gruntings and thrustings and that final squirt of sticky stuff that smelled faintly like codfish and looked like cheap dish detergent, then it only proved The Hussy was little more than an animal herself.
