Why Is Sex Still Considered Dirty/Perverted/Shameful?

[Innsmothe]

Because it has devolved into something for people like you to pursue at any means in the name of some self-invented, short-term gratifications, like overeating and video entertainment. You become completely useless and decadent in your destruction of self (bodily functions, diseases, etc) and others (abortions, lack of commitment, useless sex hierarchies, etc).

Anyone that seriously questions this is just a bored child without a guide. You need better education... and parents.

Or you need to mellow out.

In the entirety of my 8 year sex life (I am 20 ) I have never caught anything, and I have been drunk in the worse dives imaginable.

If some people didn't consider that condoms were some sort of devil-tool, hundreds of millions would potentially be still alive today or at least not in the debilitating state they are in. In my opinion, the missionaries and priest in Africa should be tried for, if not murder, then man slaughter, for they have a direct role in those deaths.

and abortions are not something to celebrate but sometimes they are essential, a baby does not gain sentience until a certain point so we shouldn't care until it's late term, then only the circumstances around the abortion matter.

[Trotskylvania]

Because it has devolved into something for people like you to pursue at any means in the name of some self-invented, short-term gratifications, like overeating and video entertainment. You become completely useless and decadent in your destruction of self (bodily functions, diseases, etc) and others (abortions, lack of commitment, useless sex hierarchies, etc).

Anyone that seriously questions this is just a bored child without a guide. You need better education... and parents.

It's a shame that the very notion of virtue has been so robbed of meaning that it only means abstaining from physical pleasures, regardless of what else you happen to do with the gift of life.

But then again, I'm probably the only proponent of free love out there that is skeptical of casual sex.

[Chinese Regions]

Religion, tradition, backwards society.

[Lunatic Goofballs]

Why Is Sex Still Considered Dirty/Perverted/Shameful?

Because they're doing it wrong.

[Rambhutan]

Why Is Sex Still Considered Dirty/Perverted/Shameful?

Because they're doing it wrong.

There is a wrong way to do it?

[SaintB]

Uh... I really don't need to know what other people do in the bedroom. I'm not a pervert.

this is the problem in a nutshell, the perception that there is something wrong with yourself for being curious about other people's sexual habits or it somehow effects you negatively to know.

[Lunatic Goofballs]

Because they're doing it wrong.

There is a wrong way to do it?

The ghost of David Carradine informs me that there is. *nod*

[Nobel Hobos]

The second and third pages of this thread were bad. Really, "what the fuck am I doing here?" bad, but since then it has picked up.

But then again, I'm probably the only proponent of free love out there that is skeptical of casual sex.

That's interesting!

I'd like to hear a fuller explanation. I'm inclined to agree, according to how I understand the terms you used: sex should not always be a relationship exclusive of others (ie, free love is good if all partners consent), but "casual" sex seems like a contract to have sex which excludes aspects of the very people who are engaged in it (ie, limiting and limited from its conception).

Perhaps we define the terms differently, so I invite you to expand on what you just said.

[Pope Joan]

In cocktail party conversation I find people quite willing to discuss their sex lives.

What is taboo is discussing their income.

[Bottle]

Once upon a time having sex out of marriage would see you excomunitcated from society. Nowdays I know girls who have slepts with 20+ guys and think nothing of it.... Id say we have mentality evolved a long way since the old days.... althought there is still room for improvement

Add how is that evolved considering all the diseases she could be carrying from sleeping with 20+ men?

I've probably slept with about that many men, and I've never had an STD. Educate yourself.

Hint: If you sleep with 1000000 people and none of them has an STD, you won't contract an STD.
Other hint: Condoms.

As others have said, its religion. But, I also have another argument:

Although I perceive this thread to be a sausage fest, female orgasm is hard to achieve. I'm I can't imagine (and I won't) their pain during coitus. Plus, a man's first time doesn't result in anything. A woman's first however, means a lot just because their hymen is broken. Its symbolic for them. I can't speak for the women, but society will mark shame upon this kind of behavior simply because the chances of her getting STD will be higher. I know there's condom, yet there are others who want a committed relationship.

In other words, its not because they hate fun. Its because its painful.

Also, the ratio of males are higher than females. Its something to consider.

Eh, I don't really think that's it. The hymen tearing hurts, yes, but it's a level of pain roughly comparable to scraping your knee. No one imparts deep life-changing significance to "you have a scar on your knee now," and we certainly don't act as if women who scrape their knees are now "dirty."

The breaking of the hymen varies tremendously from woman to woman. A friend of mine had to drive her little sister to the hospital after the girl's first time, because she was bleeding so much and she was terrified. On the other hand, I didn't even have a hymen by the time I was old enough for my first pap smear (I was 14 and a virgin), and my first time having penis-in-vagina sex didn't hurt in any way.

[Risottia]

I can't wrap my head around the fact that there is still this common social perception that sex is somehow a dirty, taboo, or just plain bad.

Most religions say you're going to hell if you have sex for fun. That's why.

[Tipidemica]

Because, since the dawn of time, all powerful people known that if you keep the public at large stupid, scared, and poor , you will remain in power. This goes for all most religions, because in the deeper thoughts, your brain only thinks for itself. This is why banks make money off of people's stupidity, this is why Religion is so popular, this is why the entire human race is a depressed cluster-fuck.

[United Dependencies]

Uh... I really don't need to know what other people do in the bedroom. I'm not a pervert.

This. Each to his own but I really don't care to hear about it.

[Great Nepal]

Because it has devolved into something for people like you to pursue at any means in the name of some self-invented, short-term gratifications, like overeating and video entertainment. You become completely useless and decadent in your destruction of self (bodily functions, diseases, etc) and others (abortions, lack of commitment, useless sex hierarchies, etc).

Agreed.
Sex is something which should be between two long-term partners not just random people in middle of street.

[Bottle]

Because it has devolved into something for people like you to pursue at any means in the name of some self-invented, short-term gratifications, like overeating and video entertainment. You become completely useless and decadent in your destruction of self (bodily functions, diseases, etc) and others (abortions, lack of commitment, useless sex hierarchies, etc).

Agreed.
Sex is something which should be between two long-term partners not just random people in middle of street.

Boy am I glad I never listened to people like you...I'd never have gotten together with my long-term partner if I had!

I think back over my years of fucking people I wasn't in a long-term relationship with, and you know what I remember? Fun relationships, great people, enjoyable sex, and general happiness. Wonder if you (or anybody else) can explain to me why I should wish to trade all those memories in, in exchange for...nothing.

[The blessed Chris]

Because it has devolved into something for people like you to pursue at any means in the name of some self-invented, short-term gratifications, like overeating and video entertainment. You become completely useless and decadent in your destruction of self (bodily functions, diseases, etc) and others (abortions, lack of commitment, useless sex hierarchies, etc).

Agreed.
Sex is something which should be between two long-term partners not just random people in middle of street.

Why?

[The Archregimancy]

I think it's worth noting that, from an archaeological perspective of time, many of the attitudes towards sexuality expressed in this thread are comparatively recent phenomena.

That's not to say that there haven't been plenty of social groups in the past that have seen sexual activity as 'dirty/perverted/shameful', but even where they have the attitudes towards what element of sexual activity was considered 'dirty' have shifted.

In 1st century Italy, the Romans tended to be comfortable enough with group sex and homosexuality (though with the latter bounded by class conventions) so as to display it on public murals in Pompeii - but oral sex was considered a filthy taboo. Follow this link for a quick summary.

The Classical Greeks engaged in behaviour that would see many of them locked up in modern Western societies for paedophilia, and perfectly respectable academic books have been devoted to a subject that many today (except, perhaps, members of the Man Boy Love Association) find rather difficult. However, relationships between adult men carried a terrible social stigma for the 'passive' partner in adult homosexual relationships, who was considered to have 'feminised' himself and rejected his manhood. Though for all the misogyny in Classical Greek society, it's worth remembering that the plot of Lysistrata wouldn't work if Greek men had only been interested in young teenage boys.

Meanwhile, the history of Chinese sexuality demonstrates a range of shifting cultural attitudes that sometimes have affinities to Western attitudes, and sometimes don't, but which certainly demonstrates that hang-ups about sexual behaviour are by no means restricted to civilisations arising in the immediate vicinity of the Mediterranean basin, or have any necessary and direct association with the monotheistic religions of the eastern Med.

[SaintB]

Agreed.
Sex is something which should be between two long-term partners not just random people in middle of street.

Boy am I glad I never listened to people like you...I'd never have gotten together with my long-term partner if I had!

I think back over my years of fucking people I wasn't in a long-term relationship with, and you know what I remember? Fun relationships, great people, enjoyable sex, and general happiness. Wonder if you (or anybody else) can explain to me why I should wish to trade all those memories in, in exchange for...nothing.

Ditto on this but I have to be rather picky with my partners.

[Georgism]

Sex is something which should be between two long-term partners not just random people in middle of street.

Where in the UK are you that people fuck each other in the middle of the street?

I want to move there.

[The Archregimancy]

I think it's worth noting that, from an archaeological perspective of time, many of the attitudes towards sexuality expressed in this thread are comparatively recent phenomena.

That's not to say that there haven't been plenty of social groups in the past that have seen sexual activity as 'dirty/perverted/shameful', but even where they have the attitudes towards what element of sexual activity was considered 'dirty' have shifted.

In 1st century Italy, the Romans tended to be comfortable enough with group sex and homosexuality (though with the latter bounded by class conventions) so as to display it on public murals in Pompeii - but oral sex was considered a filthy taboo. Follow this link for a quick summary.

The Classical Greeks engaged in behaviour that would see many of them locked up in modern Western societies for paedophilia, and perfectly respectable academic books have been devoted to a subject that many today (except, perhaps, members of the Man Boy Love Association) find rather difficult. However, relationships between adult men carried a terrible social stigma for the 'passive' partner in adult homosexual relationships, who was considered to have 'feminised' himself and rejected his manhood. Though for all the misogyny in Classical Greek society, it's worth remembering that the plot of Lysistrata wouldn't work if Greek men had only been interested in young teenage boys.

Meanwhile, the history of Chinese sexuality demonstrates a range of shifting cultural attitudes that sometimes have affinities to Western attitudes, and sometimes don't, but which certainly demonstrates that hang-ups about sexual behaviour are by no means restricted to civilisations arising in the immediate vicinity of the Mediterranean basin, or have any necessary and direct association with the monotheistic religions of the eastern Med.

Thank you. If I weren't writing an essay on Late Antique synagogues and Jewsih iconography, I'd elaborate on the role of pederastry as a rite of passage, and military bonding exercise, in Classical Greece.

ModEdit: just correcting a bad link in the China section of the post quoted by TBC

[The Archregimancy]

Thank you. If I weren't writing an essay on Late Antique synagogues and Jewsih iconography, I'd elaborate on the role of pederastry as a rite of passage, and military bonding exercise, in Classical Greece.

Curiously, the oldest archaeologically known synagogue is, I think, a Samaritan synagogue on the Greek Island of Delos.

Anyway, those interested in Classical Greek sexual politics might enjoy this linked page on Google Books.

[The blessed Chris]

Thank you. If I weren't writing an essay on Late Antique synagogues and Jewsih iconography, I'd elaborate on the role of pederastry as a rite of passage, and military bonding exercise, in Classical Greece.

Curiously, the oldest archaeologically known synagogue is, I think, a Samaritan synagogue on the Greek Island of Delos.

Anyway, those interested in Classical Greek sexual politics might enjoy this linked page on Google Books.

The problem is that, with respect to your fine profession, I'm not an archaeologist; it's just that my masters course requires all students to study history and archaeology equally.

I'm amusing myself my putting as many Jew jokes into the essay as possible. Would it be excessive to describe my conclusion as the essay's "final solution"?

[Lenyo]

I can't wrap my head around the fact that there is still this common social perception that sex is somehow a dirty, taboo, or just plain bad. Sexuality is one of humanity's core instincts and a basic element of our society. For one, it's necessary, because without sex, as with many other species, the human race could not continue it's existence. Two, sex is pleasurable. People like doing it because it feels good, otherwise they wouldn't do it. So if sex is both a necessary and desirable aspect of the human condition, why do people still hold this perception of sex as something perverted or disgusting? It just doesn't make sense to me.

Let's do a little experiment.

Think of any non-sports/news show you watch on TV. Is sex mentioned frequently? Are you outside the Middle East?

Sex is ubiquitous in modern culture.

[Lenyo]

Curiously, the oldest archaeologically known synagogue is, I think, a Samaritan synagogue on the Greek Island of Delos.

Anyway, those interested in Classical Greek sexual politics might enjoy this linked page on Google Books.

The problem is that, with respect to your fine profession, I'm not an archaeologist; it's just that my masters course requires all students to study history and archaeology equally.

I'm amusing myself my putting as many Jew jokes into the essay as possible. Would it be excessive to describe my conclusion as the essay's "final solution"?

Although I personally would love the Jew jokes, it is highly likely that they will backfire. I would definitely avoid the Final Solution joke.

[The Archregimancy]

I'm amusing myself my putting as many Jew jokes into the essay as possible. Would it be excessive to describe my conclusion as the essay's "final solution"?

If I was marking your essay? I'd see it as crass, but by itself it wouldn't cause me to mark you down so long as the rest of the essay was up to scratch. But an entire essay filled with Jewish jokes, followed by a concluding 'Final Solution', might well cause me to think twice if you were on the border between, say, a 2.1 and a first.

So no, I wouldn't really recommend it unless you're already feeling really confident about your overall mark.

/ thread derail. Back to dirty, perverted, shameful sex, please.