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Sexuality in America
Joseph C. Hinson
Sunday July 30, 2000

I was thinking about sex earlier today. Actually, I was thinking about how people seem to think about sex all the time. Let me be more clear. A good deal of time and energy spent by a great number of people in this strip mall infested country we live in seems to be spent making sure the rest of us are putting the right things in the right holes. And, well, I do admit that some part of my day today was, in fact, sent thinking about sex.

Do you realize there are places in this country where it is illegal for a husband and his wife to engage in consensual oral sex? Where is the ACLU when you need them?

But who comes up with these laws? And why? Obviously there are a certain number of sexually repressed people somewhere trying to stop their fellow man and woman from getting them some. I mean, can you imagine Jesse Helms going deep? If you can, you’re one sick freak.

Why does Jerry Falwell care if two men in San Franciso are kissing and sucking to their hearts content? Trust me, Jerry, you don’t have a thing to worry about. Queer Nation won't be targeting you for conversion in this life time.

And why is it that we teach our high schoolers that sex is wrong? Hasn't anyone learned anything from "90210"? Young people will have sex. There. I said it. Live with it. Get a grip. Is it right? That's for each person to decide. But we teach kids today that abstinence is the only way to go, then fail to teach them how to use condoms. Trust me. At some point, a 17 year old couple WILL find those movies that Cinemax shows at midnight on Fridays.
And it will appeal to most of them. And then at some point, a number of them will find themselves in the nasty little position of becoming parents at way too early an age.

Too often these days a teenage girl’s inner child is really a child.

And guess what? The same people that teach that sex is wrong also teach that abortion is a mortal sin. So this child that could have been avoided with contraception is not going to be brought into a world where their parents are kids themselves. Is there not some truly warped thinking going on here?

It is also taught that masturbation is wrong. So now the kids are supposed to not touch their own bodies, much less touch someone else. Tell that to some 15 year old kid who just watched an MTV special on Brittney Spears. Hell, for that matter, tell that to some 35 year old man who just watched an MTV special on Brittney Spears.

On top of all of that, these are the same people that preach "Family Values" until they are blue in the balls, er, sorry, blue in the face. But if you preach that masturbation is wrong, and you preach that pre marital sex is wrong, and you don't preach that birth control is OK but you do preach that abortion is a mortal sin, guess what that leaves us with? We're left with an ever increasing number of unwanted babies born to 16 and 17 year old girls (sometimes younger.) Can the father support his new child? Of course not. Not at that age. So what does he do? Chances
are that he will split before the girl gets out the nant part of pregnant. Thus, we are left with another single mother raising a child. Talk about family values.

Let's get with the times, people. Hormones are raging all over the world. It goes against all nature and humanity to repress them. At some point, this repression turns everyone into Bill Bennett and Kathie Lee Gifford. For the love of God, don't subject the planet to that!

Of course, ranting about the horrors of teaching children abstinence may not be the best way to go. Should high school kids have sex? Certainly not. They should just make out in the backs of their parents BMWs and wait until college. Sex always gets better in college anyway. Or so I've been told.

So to get back to how I started this rant, why should anyone care about the sex lives of anyone? Part of it is because some people are certain that they know what is right and what is wrong for all others. They would tell you it is their moral right to take away your freedom because THEIR god tells them that such and such an activity is wrong.

So they then begin legislating that morality on you. Laws against oral sex and sodomy are direct descendants on the vocal minority interfering in the lives of others who just want to live their own lives and be happy. Of course, there is rampant intolerance toward homosexuals in most laws. It may have been an over sight in the people who crafted these laws that in some states, oral sex and anal sex alike is illegal, even if practiced between
consenting adults who are married and who are in the privacy of their own houses, not frightening the horses in the street at all.

And who wrote most of these laws? Men, of course. Men who may be so unsure of their own sexuality that anytime their gay cousin even looks at them, they want to beat the shit out of the guy.

Lesbians are tolerated to a certain degree more than male homosexuals. At first, it would seem that lesbians are not as prevalent in every day society. It could also be that we accept it more because we see it all over the media. Men like the thought of two or more women together while straight women are generally not as threatened by a gay woman as a straight man is by a gay man.

And as a straight man, let me just say this: Lesbians rock! In fact, I think the world would be a much better place if there were MORE lesbians. Especially pretty lesbians.

But I digress.

Sex laws run this country. You can't sleep with anyone you're not married to. You can't put that thing in this hole. Same sex marriages are illegal. Same sex sex is too. You can only marry one person at a time. Unless you live in Utah. And the list goes on and on and on.....

It is my opinion that marriages would last a lot longer in Jack and Jane Doe had been encouraged to have as much safe, protected sex as they could before settling down to a life of ignorance, a monthly struggle to pay bills and the  battle not to murder one's in laws. Maybe Jack secretly wanted to bed Dan, but knowing how he would be viewed and how he would be treated as a result, he tried to kill that will. Is Jane not being done a disservice not knowing that she is missing the one thing that Jack really, really wants more than anything in the world?

It has been said that gays and lesbians are the only groups of people that can be legally discriminated against. This would seem true in the denial of most every state in the union to recognize same sex partnerships. But I think a word needs to be said for another group of people that sometimes gets the shaft from everyone, including gays and lesbians. And I'm talking about bisexuals. As Woody Allen once said, bisexuality immediately doubles
your chances for a date on Saturday date.

And let's not forget other laws against sexuality, those against prostitution, public nudity, even in private places and strip clubs. Let’s face it. There are people out there that do not want you to uncover too much. It’ll corrupt the children, they say, even though children are born nude and like being that way for most of their infant and toddler years. It’s only later that they learn nudity is wrong.

And by public nudity, I do not mean flashers or other aggressive, pseudo-sexual behavior. Why not legally establish more private areas where clothing is optional? As Peter McWilliams wrote, “The laws against public nudity make no sense. The idea that Jerry Falwell can go topless while Cindy Crawford cannot is an absolute affront to logic, common sense and the 5000 year human struggle for aesthetic taste.”

In truth, public nudity will probably never be much of an issue. Can you imagine shopping or doing your banking (banking, not banker) in the buff? What about pumping gas naked? And frankly, I do not want to go to the local Wal Mart and see some of the people that are normally in there in anything other than sweat suits.

Is it not ironic that some of the very men who write these laws against the sexual nature are the very ones who will be found with a hooker in some run down motel near the airport? Either that, or their wives will leave them when they get one too many credit card bills from the local Leather and Lace.

What I'm saying is simple: Relax a little. Live your life the way you want to live it. But let everyone else live their lives the way they want to live them too. In the final analysis, it is their lives, not yours, bubba. And I think we would all be much happier if we kept our noses centered squarely in own glass houses.

Of course, this is just my opinion. I could have flexible morals.

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A Few Words From The Experts:

"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religon." -- George Washington, Treaty of Tripoli, 1796 (That's not what the Wacko Right wants you to believe.)

Victim's Greiving Widow -- "Do you know what it's like to be married to a wonderful man for fourteen years?"
Detective Drebin -- "No, I can't say that I do. I did... uh... live with a guy once, but that was for just a couple of years. The usual slurs, rumors, innuendoes... People just don't understand." -- "Police Squad"

"Why doesn't everybody leave everybody else the hell alone?" -- Jimmy Durante

"As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce; therefore they must rectruit our children." -- Anita Bryant

"It doesn't matter what you do in the bedroom as long as you don't do it in the street and frighten the horses." -- Mrs. Patrick Campbell

"The Bible is clear about hate: Hate is wrong." -- Bruce Hilton

"Homosexuality is Satan's diabolical attack upon the family that will not only havea corrupting influence upon our next generation, but it will also bring down the wrath of God upon America." -- Jerry Falwell

"I believe there is something out there watching us. Unfortunately, it's the government." -- Woody Allen