Is Normalization of Sex a Good Thing?

In general, besides certain communities, if you talk about sex, the general consensus is "it's perfectly natural, nothing special, and nothing to be ashamed of"
But is this a mentality we want to strive for? To normalize sex?
I obviously can't speak for every human being, but I've analyzed general trends in media regarding this subject.

From what I can tell, on some level, most people are aroused by the inherent 'wrongness' of sex, or romance in general. A lot of stories dealing with a stagnant marriage or something will usually have the couple try a new, more out there sexual act. Off the top of my head, there's a Simpsons episode where Homer and Marge reinvigorate their sex life by doing it in public places. To get a bit broader than that, most of our most popular love stories, or jsut plain stories in general, deal with or are central to forbidden love. It doesn't matter if it's a rich person getting together with a lower class person (Romeo and Juliet) a rich person getting together with a poor person (Titanic) a rich person getting together with a poor person (Star Wars Episode V) or a girl getting together with a vampire and a werewolf (Twilight)

Personally, I think this has something to do with wanting to perceive the act as something more special, or unique, in a world where sex is slowly becoming less vilified.

Because that's the thing, why is little Tim-bob supposed to think there's anything special about boobs when he reaches puberty when he has already spent his life growing up around bill boards, TV and whatever else that just show it as another casual part of your day to day life?

I dunno, anyone think this is an actual thing? I feel like achieving a world where sex is truly accepted and treated as completely natural would either lead to significantly decreased birthrates or increasingly bizarre ways of having sex in an attempt to keep some level of taboo to it

 

The gun is good, the penis is evil.

 

I like the sound of significantly decreased birthrates. Too many people running around as it is.

SEAN CONNERY IS DORTHY!! SEAN CONNERY IS DORTHY!!!

 

Post this in Discussion and I might be willing to express my opinion on the matter.

 

Ain't even gonna front I'm too tired to write a post to reply here rn but y'all will see me when I'm back at full power.

While there is more pressure on resources with the billions of people we have around now, you also have to consider just how many people fall into what kind of age range. Japan's in a relatively growing population decline as is. It's currently at a state where they're not having too many births because everyone, particularly women, are very focused on their jobs and don't care much for sex (which, I don't really blame them for as if they get pregnant their job has a high chance of being forfeit). The men are also growing more socially awkward; they don't know how to approach women or any of that, and all in all it's led to them having a ****ton of old people laying around. When those old people do eventually die off, and there still aren't many people having babies, they're going to be in deep trouble financially, socially, and a plethora of other areas.

Now this mentality of work first bed later is very much likely to do with the patriarchal structure (women are caregivers, men are breadwinners), and unless they do take steps to circumvent that (i.e. decently paid maternity leave w/o fear of job loss just for having kids), the population issue is just gonna grow more pronounced and worse than it is now.

^ Take this all with a grain of salt as I gleaned this from a documentary I watched a few months ago, and this is a rough abridged version of the main points at best.

 

Idk, eating is considered perfectly normal. Did people stop eating ? Seems to me Homer and Marge were bored by their routine rather than tired of being vanilla in and of itself. Braving taboos is but one of the many ways to spice things up.

 

You feel hungry and ultimately die if you don't eat, nothing that extreme exists for sex.
And while you might not stop eating, you might not be inclined to, say, eat the same meal over and over

 

I don't think the end result would be lower birth rates. When you reach puberty and the hormones start kicking up your sex drive, the vast majority of people will find sex interesting (asexuals are really the only exclusion I can think of off the bat). I mean exposure at an early age doesn't mean much because it doesn't mean anything to you yet. I used to watch Family Guy as a kid and I would have told you it was clean until I picked it up again as a teen. And as a baby-sitter I have to struggle with kids to keep their clothes on because they have no idea why that would be in appropriate. Short of making kids watch porn, you can get away with a lot without them even noticing because they aren't looking.

So if nothing else sex will become novel at the age of puberty. At the epitome of "sex is normal, who cares?" you would be having sex at that point because there is no reason not to, thus resulting in smaller generation gaps.

Basically in the traditional format (mainly stemming from Christianity), you would have no sex for a while, then lots of sex soon after marriage, then drifting off into casual sex for most of your life.
With normalization you hit a similar deal, but you cut out a lot of the time without sex by waiting for puberty instead of marriage.


Plus there will always be people having sex because they want the child. Currently, half of all pregnancies in the US are planned. A number that used to be higher but there are more accidental pregnancies now (the baby that you might have ended up planning for in a few years might be an oops baby today)

Perhaps you could claim a lower actual birth rate due to the increase in abortions, but that is a separate issue with complex ethics that I don't want to get into.

 

Just want to make a clarification based on some poor wording I used around the end. When I say an increase in sexual deviation, or decreased birthrate, I don't meant to imply that they are mutually exclusive. Just that one or the other could happen.
It's not my belief that people would stop having sex, but rather that it might become more difficult to get the actual spark going, or become a generally less frequent thing
Sex is commonly used as a status of some sort, how you do it, who you do it with... if nobody really cared, why bother with any of that? The 'wrongness' of it lends it a certain mystique, but if it was just another thing it loses a lot of that.

 

I'm really glad that sex is being normalized. I recently had to write a response in a "Communication in the Electronic Age" course that discussed the effects of pornography on (mainly) adolescents (written by, no doubt, a "Senior Fellow and Director of the Centre for Research on Marriage and Religion at the Family Research Council in Washington",) yet to me the author failed to really see the real problem.

Here's my full response. 'Tis quite long:

Spoiler

The first article that is linked describes how, allegedly, pornography is causing serious harm to the young people who access it. It's stated within the article that the internet giving unprecedented access to pornography " eventually wipes out any feelings of shame and disgust and gives way, instead, to unadulterated enjoyment” The author goes on to say that one risk of using pornography was that young people, especially boys, reportedly have "more positive attitudes toward uncommitted sexual exploration" and the "adolescents who watched the highest level of sexual content on television doubled the likelihood they would initiate intercourse." Pornography can even affect behavior, as it's stated in the article that the common younger users of pornography could potentially feel uncertain about their sexuality, low sexual self-esteem, loneliness, and desensitization. Perhaps the largest risk was that "exposure to pornographic sexual content can be a significant factor in teenage pregnancy." However, the author stated that these risks that could accompany viewing pornography can be countered by parents and guardians communicating with these younger people: both with willingness and preparation. The First Amendment, as covered in the second article, tries to protect the children who utilize the internet, but it also makes tackling the problems caused by pornography very tricky without violating people's rights.

However, I have a strong opinion to state about the subject of pornography and its effects on young people. The first article constantly states that pornography is the cause of the problem, to the point where it almost sounds like the issues we hear about gun control and video games, violent film and behavior, and many, many other subjects (but there's clearly a bias to be seen, as the author works in the Centre for Research on Marriage and Religion at the Family Research Council in Washington and apparently thinks questioning sexuality is a problem.) There is no doubt in my mind that problems do exist with pornography, let's not be in denial here (some people will partake in disgusting acts that invade other people's rights no matter what we try to do,) but the problem needs to be addressed in the way we teach peopl about sex, and not just through the parents. The adolescents who access this pornography need to be smarter about what they're doing, but it's not easy in our country to know what that is: sexual education in the United States of America is laughable. For so much of elementary school and high school, it felt like my teachers and elders would simply avoid ever discussing sexuality, and when they did, it was more so a shallow "don't do it" mantra, giving sex the whole taboo atmosphere (in fact, I can remember maybe just one actual sex ed lesson.) If anyone knew a thing about young people though, especially with teenagers, they'd know that that very taboo atmosphere draws these young people to seek pornography out. Looking up reports on sex education in other countries compared to the U.S., 2006 saw the United States having almost three times as many cases of teen pregnancy as were present in France, and over four times as many cases as Germany. Not only was the teen pregnancy rate highest in the U.S. either; reports of teen abortion and HIV were also highest in the U.S., dominating the rates of Germany and the Netherlands, with France a close second. Unsurprisingly, the U.S. saw the fewest reported uses of contraceptives, both for males and females. There are connections to be drawn here.

In my opinion, the problems caused by pornography can be stifled greatly by not simply controlling the access of people to the internet, but stepping up the game of the United States sexual education programs and cultural views. We view our country as being so civilized, yet so many of us try to hide away sexuality, one of the basest aspects of humanity, when we instead need to look it in the face and actually talk about it with our adolescents. Sexuality cannot be viewed as simply shameful and dangerous if we want to stop the issues. Instead, the U.S. needs to allow for distribution of contraceptives, hold discussions about sex and its effects on people both physically and mentally (especially in order to answer questions that adolescents have been too afraid to ask for too long,) actually encourage having healthy relationships instead of none at all, connect the subject of sex with important concepts responsibility and respect, and stop treating sex as a worse subject to tackle than violence and death (which are both a lot more easily found in U.S. television, film, comics, video games, etc.) If adolescents actually become better educated about sex and what risks exist with it, than restricting access to pornography will no longer be such an apparently big issue, and thus invading people's First Amendment rights will not be necessary, because young people will be able to see sex and react maturely. There will still be issues with pornography (rape, underage, voyeurism, etc.) but by actually enhancing our country's sexual education, those issues can actually be focused on, rather than simply expecting kids to know better without being taught better.

 

There is nothing wrong with sex, also it being a "normal term" doesn't really take away any kind "special feeling".

Eating breakfast is normal but god damn it my fucking Froot Loops are still hella special.

 

But what if throughout your life froot loops were always around you, would they really still mean anything after like 16 years?
And the Froot Loops thing kinda flows into my analogy anyways. There was a time when just fresh bread was an exciting meal, but most people would be horribly bored by that now. There's also a level of guilt to eating sugary food like Froot Loops. Most kids, at least the ones I knew, got Froot Loops as special treat. It was a rare experience, beyond just the pure sugar that gives pleasurable stimulation. It creates a sensation of being special BEYOND just being being nice tasting cereal
Same kind of deal like when a Soccer team goes out for pizza or mcdonalds at the end of a season

 

YOU ARE GETTING SO CLOSE OMG THIS IS EXCITING ME IN A LOT OF VERY DIFFERENT WAYS.

 

If it lasts longer than 4 hours, punch my current postcount into your phone

 

Using the froot loops analogy because I love it, there is a difference between being surrounded by them and experiencing them, if you eat them for every meal then yes they would get boring after a while but if we only have them for breakfast (or less frequently than every day) but see them advertised everywhere then we will think about them and want them more. It would be normal to see them everywhere and we would still have great desire for them.

This sounds like a great topic to put in discussion though xD sure more people see it here but I can almost smell the debates >:3

 

Romeo wasn't lower class. The Capulets and the Montegues were of equal status.

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Because disagreement on an issue is bad and we should all have completely homogenized opinions so that people will feel good about themselves in their own little circlejerk echo chamber? The section where these topics used to be called the Debate Corner for god's sake. To boot, we haven't even had any disagreements or disdainful posts except for those posted by people who refuse to participate in this because of the section it's in. What is so wrong with people expressing opinions how they want about something they care to talk about? They are contributing more than anyone who just blindly agrees by adding something new and different to the mix. The site has gotten to the point where a lot of people want us to exercise massive amounts of self restraint and just go with whatever is the prevailing opinion so as not to hurt the egos of others but they also extol to virtues of having your own opinions and being yourself. It's hypocritical and everyone should feel bad about this. This isn't about you or anyone personally, obviously, but it's seriously wearing on my nerves this generally accepted attitude that people's shallow and transient feelings are more important than actually being able to have a real and genuine discussion where people might actually come to understand each other an make compromises and learn something. Anyways, not trying to derail, just reminding everyone that intelligent discussion can happen anywhere and debates are batter than echo chambers.

To contribute:
It feels like Americans are already basically completely desensitised to sex. Something like, "My favorite porn site is Google," isn't all that weird to say really because turn safe search off and boom we have liftoff. They may not be able to show a lot on television and in movies but we know what's happening. So the situation where people view it as normal, healthy, blah, blah, blah is already here and we don't really see the world you describe. Hell, it's considered more abnormal to not have had sex to the point where calling someone a virgin is an insult. So, forgive me if I think that a further increasing in the acceptance of sex in the mainstream media isn't going to be a huge deal when we've already come so far from not being able to view ankles.

 

Especially considering America is one of the more sensitive countries on the topic of sex. Look at how many others have Nude Beaches. To many Americans the idea of walking around naked in public is indecent / inappropriate. They can't fathom the idea, while countries where this is acceptable are just so used to it that they don't make a big deal out of it -- excluding hormonal teenage boys of course.

Personally, I still believe that sex with someone is something special and shouldn't just be done on a whim; but that doesn't mean I'm not willing to talk about it. I think it's better to be open with people about your sexuality and no one should be ashamed to ask questions. A lot of what's wrong with sexually active teenagers is that they are too afraid to talk about it with their parents or another adult. I feel like the desensitizing of sex is a positive thing in this manner because it makes people more open to discussing it.

Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to sex. It's best to be as knowledgeable as possible for two different reasons.
1. If you can't talk to your partner, then it's a lot harder to find things that work to make both parties feel good.
2. It's been statistically proven that people who become sexually active with little to no advice / knowledge are more likely to become pregnant at a young age or receive some sort of STI. It doesn't even always have to be a major disease or something that you receive from your partner. An extremely common example would be a Urinary Tract Infection.

 

The Froot Loops analogy is a bit hard to work with because it's not quite perfect. With the analogy, eating Froot Loops would be like having sex, but I think that's too extreme for the mere act of eating. With regards to the avdertising thing. It's not like you see sex being directly advertised. This would be more like if Froot Lopps were just casually thrown into a lot of situations. Like instead of all the women in a videogame having big boots they have the ability to eat Froot Loops, or something