Why is Sex Taboo?
In response to my friend Inara's question, "Why do you think sex generates so much anger and fear among mainstream folk?" I had this reflection and response:
Sex is scary. It's unpredictable, vulnerable, and primal. Society makes rules to maintain at least an illusion of stability, and sexuality is too powerful a force to ever truly be reliable or "safe." Sex changes, creates, and sometimes ends lives. People will do things for and with sex that they wouldn't do for anything else other than MAYBE drugs. Hell, in a biochemical sense, sex IS a drug, as it releases many of the same hormones and chemicals as intoxicants do.
Sex provides the ultimate in intimacy. There is no way, short of giving birth or killing someone (both of which, again, can come from sex) to be closer to another human being. The heady connections involved in sex bring out the best and the worst in human beings. No other act bonds people together so powerfully, and no other act can elevate or shatter a person so completely. Rape, torture, sexual shame and murder are so closely intertwined because no other act violates a person on so intimate a level or displays domination (and contempt) for another person so potently. When we have sex, we share in another person's body, energy, emotions and spirit. Sex where connection is denied is soul-killing; sex where connection is enhanced becomes one of the most thrilling human experiences.
Sex resists control, even when when the act is performed to demonstrate control. Bodies, microbes, passions and energies don't behave in 100% reliable ways, so sex is always a risk. Society, in order to function, must at least APPEAR to be in control. Sex is innately uncontrollable, so societies wrap it in taboos. The original meaning of "taboo" reflects things that are forbidden BECAUSE they're sacred, and no better word describes "mainstream society's" ambivalence toward sex than that.
I've been working this week on a paranormal romance story, so the issue is closer to my heart (and other parts of my anatomy...) than usual... which, for a satyr, is saying a lot!
Thoughts?
Sex is scary. It's unpredictable, vulnerable, and primal. Society makes rules to maintain at least an illusion of stability, and sexuality is too powerful a force to ever truly be reliable or "safe." Sex changes, creates, and sometimes ends lives. People will do things for and with sex that they wouldn't do for anything else other than MAYBE drugs. Hell, in a biochemical sense, sex IS a drug, as it releases many of the same hormones and chemicals as intoxicants do.
Sex provides the ultimate in intimacy. There is no way, short of giving birth or killing someone (both of which, again, can come from sex) to be closer to another human being. The heady connections involved in sex bring out the best and the worst in human beings. No other act bonds people together so powerfully, and no other act can elevate or shatter a person so completely. Rape, torture, sexual shame and murder are so closely intertwined because no other act violates a person on so intimate a level or displays domination (and contempt) for another person so potently. When we have sex, we share in another person's body, energy, emotions and spirit. Sex where connection is denied is soul-killing; sex where connection is enhanced becomes one of the most thrilling human experiences.
Sex resists control, even when when the act is performed to demonstrate control. Bodies, microbes, passions and energies don't behave in 100% reliable ways, so sex is always a risk. Society, in order to function, must at least APPEAR to be in control. Sex is innately uncontrollable, so societies wrap it in taboos. The original meaning of "taboo" reflects things that are forbidden BECAUSE they're sacred, and no better word describes "mainstream society's" ambivalence toward sex than that.
I've been working this week on a paranormal romance story, so the issue is closer to my heart (and other parts of my anatomy...) than usual... which, for a satyr, is saying a lot!
Thoughts?