Just Do It (if you want to)

Let's talk about sex. Good. Now I have your attention. I mean that quite seriously, though. Today I'm going to ponder some about the topic of young people, sex, and freedom.

My understanding of history suggests that a person's freedom is based at least in part on his or her (and particularly her) control of "the means of production," or in this case, reproduction. Michel Foucault's History of Sexuality is one place to understand this dynamic, and how it has evolved in the West. One could also certainly look at gender and sexuality-based rights movements for insights. If you are at all interested in this topic, I encourage you to do so. For now, my treatment of the issue will be considerably less erudite, and perhaps at times, crude. So sue me.

Here's more or less the gist of my argument. In the United States there is remarkably little attention to providing a robust understanding of sex for young people. In the public sphere, the tendency seems to have been to more or less try to pretend that puritanical prudishness is sufficient to "protect" kids from the evils of sex. So, we have the Federal government pushing abstinence-only programs as if the are (a) effective and (b) enough. That, I think, is bullshit. I will not belabor the point here, but I do encourage you to read up on abstinence-only programs and reach your own conclusions.

I think that this tendency to treat every public controversy as if it were a crisis, and to produce, of course, favored solutions as the only course of action, has reduced public thinking on this and other topics to all new lows. In fact, particularly when talking about children and adolescents, this tendency is especially pronounced. I encourage you to look at this book and this one to hear some interesting arguments about kids get used as pawns when advancing an agenda of social control. More or less, these hot button issues tend to be framed in such a way that children are seen as a public problem, a menace to society, or possibly as willing or unwilling dupes of unsavory individuals and organizations. Notice, please, that the prevailing discourse on youth does not seriously entertain the notion that young people can or should make substantive life decisions over, for example drug use or sex. "Just say no." That's not a particularly useful or realistic way to approach these issues.

Now, back to the sex issue in particular. We have one very prominent public debate on young people's sexuality, and a whole slew of issues that never get much play, if any, because they tend to make "responsible adults" uncomfortable (to put it very lightly). So they get ignored. Here, I'm talking about the weird and "fucked up" kids: The various freaks, queers, experimentalists, and others with "abnormal" sexual urges and tendencies. Perhaps all those "Girls Gone Wild" videos will encourage parents to at least admit the possibility that their precious little girls (and boys?) get their respective freaks on, sometimes with their best friends... I wouldn't hold my breath. I wonder, sometimes, how many of those ladies' fathers have bought their own daughters' work. Wouldn't that be rich to witness? Pseudo-puritanical dad of sorority girl sees her (and her roommate!!!), getting down and dirty in public. How do you broach that during the family dinner? But I digress.

The "queer" kids, however they are understood as "queer" (e.g., gay, lesbian, bi, transgendered, androgynously gendered, in some way kinked, or whatever) are more or less ignored in the public discourse, if not actively demonized by the nation's moral scolds like James Dobson, Bill Bennett, and Jerry Falwell. Public discourse about queer youth, even when it occurs, tends to come from the mouths of "experts" and other adults. Rarely are children called upon to give voice to their thoughts and positions. When they are, generally it tends to be in the context of yet another study of the particular "crisis" adults are concerned about, or to give testimony about what fucked up individuals they are. This is particularly harmful given the rising numbers of religiously-based, private behavioral modification programs for these kids. Given that they are religiously-based, they tend to lack adequate supervision from the relevant child welfare authorities, lack a robust understanding of the bases of sexuality, and more or less attempt to control things that may not be controllable, resulting in incalculable damage to young people.

I won't even grace these people with serious attention. They don't understand, they don't want to. They make me angry, and I need to keep that at a distance for now.

Anyway, back on topic. To deny sexuality, sexual difference, and so forth, does kids a disservice. Adolescence is a fucked up time anyway. It's bad enough without people attempting to control your sexual thoughts and behaviors. More importantly, I think, this denial of a primary fact of life leads to a bunch of bad consequences: bad feelings, bad information, and bad sexual technique. Kids either must learn to suppress their sexual feelings or they must feel that something is wrong with them. Even straight kids who have sex don't escape the framing of adolescent sex as deviant, rather than natural, behavior. The denial also tends to control kids access to sexual information, including facts, options, info on birthcontrol, techniques, practices, etc. Some this is stuff that would be classified as "porn" by some people. Nonetheless, I tend to believe that endlessly deferring people's adult status is in itself a source of learned helplessness. After all, not long ago it was not uncommon for 14 and 15 year olds to get married and start families. When did we become so stupid that we couldn't, with good info, know what to do w/ our sexual feelings and equipment? The taboo against adolescent sex extends like a fetid blanket to cover all kinds of information, behaviors, and feelings. Finally, people who hate sex and deny it and hide it from their kids do them a further disservice. What harm is there in doing it right? How can a person become appropriately sexual, even at the "right time," or in the marriage bed, if they don't know how to use their (and their partner's) equipment pleasurably, safely, and effectively? I wonder how many fundamentalists are closet sex-fiends, frustrated by their own limitations.

In the end, the topic of sex should not be taken out of public discourse. Normalizing sexuality, of all kinds, does not harm, but helps. It helps kids. It helps parents. It helps society. Treating sexuality the way we do guarantees the marginalization of queer and kinked youth. It fetishizes a kind of blandness and sameness of human sexuality. It demonizes anything that departs from "normal" sexual tendencies. It attempts to make "natural" what repressed Christians do as a matter of course. As a result, we end up with fucked up, sad, lonely, self-hating kids. For no good reason. We also, by denying them control of their own bodies and identities, deny them the possibility of real political power. The cannot vote. They have little influence, even over their parents. Their lives are tightly controlled, defined, and commodified by people not themselves, by people who have "plans" for them: business plans, career plans, marital plans, etc. Quoth the Bard: Now that's fucked up.

We deprive kids of deeply personal and political decision-making, and try to lock them into a state of perpetual childhood. Unless they deviate. Unless they kill someone. Unless they fuck someone. Unless they take drugs. Then they are punished as quasi-adults, or they are institutionalized, marginalized, or denied. They have literally no political representation on their own behalf. It is always through the proxy of a parent, no matter what a kid may want, no matter how fucked up the parent. I'm not talking here about letting eight year olds do "whatever." I'm talking about kids between say 13 and 17, people who are supposed to begin acting like adults some day. Adults of some sort, anyway. How is that supposed to happen? We will control virtually every aspect of their lives, including their sexuality, and suddenly at 18 they'll just be adults? Really? Can't get behind that idea. Sounds like bullshit to me.

Being an adult is not about the calendar on the wall, but about the ones in your hearts and minds.

Go now, and think about sex. Do it if you'd like, by yourself or with a partner (or more). Have a good time. Give and receive freely. Most of all, embrace this part of your being. Understand and accept it, and you will probably be happier. Understand that sex is political and it can help you find personal power. But don't get hung up on it. It's not everything, just one thing. Learn it, live it, and love it.

Sela