Society's Views On Sex example essay topic

Truth about sex In the beginning, people repressed sex because they were scared of the truth around it. The church, mainly, transformed the beautiful act of making love into a cultural taboo. Because of its repression, sex could never have been talked about in a objective, and truthful manner. This type of false teaching, if any teaching, of sex, led to many disillusionments and myths concerning it. Many problems with sex that society now faces stemmed from no education about it. "It would be less than exact to say that the pedagogical institution has imposed a ponderous silence on the sex of children and adolescents (p. 59)".

The repression of sex led to a perversion of it. If people could not live out their sexual desires and fantasies, they would act them out within their minds. I am not saying at all, that sexual desires and wants are bad. Like anything, there are degrees of morality, even when it comes to the thoughts in one's own head. Nevertheless, when there are no limits on one's sexual fantasies, sexuality, in my opinion, is liable to reach a perverse and oppressive state.

I hope I am correct in saying that around the time of the seventeenth century, the society began to liberate itself from the church. Even still, sexual liberty was small, and a "non-ethical" (meaning non- conservative) discourse on sex was prohibited. This type of regard to sex was also true in the eighteenth century. By the nineteenth century, sexual propaganda was created and fed to the people.

One memorable time period that transformed society's views on sex, was the feminist movement in the 60's and 70's. Sexual images were allowed to be seen outside of the privacy of one's home, even more so than before, which in my mind, is a symbol of a new sexual freedom most people had access to. Of course the feminist movement carved the way for women's liberty, however, I am sure there were many negative affects that als followed. For instance, I could see how some people might have used the movement as an opportunity to unmask the female body for outside viewing. With the starting of women becoming more comfortable and proud of their bodies, it was accepted and understood that women would also be viewed in a much more chauvinistic, sexist, degrading, and anomalistic manner. The acceptance of such an unequal treatment as sexism, reaffirms that men not only will, but also have the right to, mistreat and disrespect women in whatever way they like.

I am not saying that this type of behavior and mentality did not always exist, in fact I am sure it did, however, I feel that it was not until the 5 o's and onward that people began to openly admit to it. In the 80's the epidemic of AIDS was discovered, as well as one of the most common methods of procreating the disease: homosexuality. It was the climax of sexual boundaries and taboos to be broken. The media was becoming overly fascinated with "kinky" sex and sex without love, to the point that sex took on a totally new symbolism in society.

As we can now see in the 90's, sexual obscurities have increased, as well as the chances of getting raped, and receiving a sexually transmitted disease. My generation is receiving the outcome of past generation's sexual mistakes and unhealthy choices. In present time, every one out of four women will get raped, while every one out of six men will get raped. Also, the chances of receiving AIDS are more than that of getting into a car accident. With problems like over population, rape, and sexually transmitted diseases, alternatives to sex are needed more than ever. Personally, I will not believe that modern society wants to stop sexism and racism until I see a change in the types of propaganda, advertising, and choice of media, society chooses to express itself with.

Some people might say that it is the 90's and things have changed, however, I am inclined to disagree. Everywhere one looks, perverse and vulgar sexual images fill up the environment, in which we are supposed to feel good about living in! Sex has become the number one campaigning device of the 90's. Sex is easily the most able to lure potential customers under its spell, and convince them into buying another materialistic item to sit on their shelf and collect dust. Subconscious messages concerning sex are within every form of media available. Sexual images have been programmed so intensively in the minds of twentieth century people, that sex has become the main focus and priority of most everyone.

I find the very essence of what sex has become immoral and sad. Younger and future generation's minds are corrupted with negative and oppressive images of sex. "Making love", a term hardly ever used, refers to an expression of one's love for another, while "having sex", a most popular term, suggests a heartless and selfish activity, done purposely for the arousal and satisfaction of one person. The current light which sex is looked upon is essential to understand the transformation of sex into discourse throughout history. "Surely no other type of society has ever accumulated - and in such a relatively short span of time - a similar quantity of discourses concerned with sex. It may well be that we talk about sex more than anything else; we set our minds to the task; we convince ourselves that we have never said enough on the subject, that, through inertia or submissiveness, we conceal from ourselves the blinding evidence, and that what is essential always eludes us, so that we must always start out once again in search of it.

It is possible that where sex is concerned the most long-winged, the most impatient of societies is our own (p. 61)". As I already stated, I feel the misinformation surrounding sex led to its uncontrolled phenomenon and misuse. If children were taught the truth about sex and not fed with so much evil propaganda concerning it, one might have found a very different sexual outcome, than the present one. On a more universal level, most of the problems or issues that the world and its people face today are, merely, the effects of endless oppression. Human beings have disgraced the very essence of sexuality, and manipulated it to reflect our own perverse and twisted state of life.