8.15 A Sexual Summing Up

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15. A Sexual Summing Up: Update 27 Aug. 2021

(See Treatment of Sexual Problems as end note)

I imagine my readers as wanting good health so that each one may enjoy life fully. Among you may be ones who practice varieties of sex. I think the Ten Commandments served well in an era that had no time for exceptions when it came to behavior such as killing a fellow man and dragging his mate off for sex. And in a low-population world where whole peoples could be slaughtered at a tyrant’s whim, the sin of Onan (masturbation) should be expected to find no approval. But the world has achieved a level of culture where rule of law makes the savage acts of yore (of long ago)  now much less acceptable, and we no longer need moral judgment to assure that we won’t act like brutes. Also, overpopulation has blunted the pressure for more babies so, now, each of us, and our society, sets our own rules what is good and what is bad; rules best summed up in “Will doing it harm myself or others?”
   I expect rules to be broken on occasion. Above all, stands one’s need for healthy survival – as individual, as family member, as friend, as part of one's close community, as citizen of the greater society. 
    I am going to sketch out a judgment here, to let you see my method; then you may apply it for yourself and make your own judgment. But keep in mind all judgments are tentative, based on data, and even when the data are accurate, judgments may change as conditions of our lives and times and cultures change.

   The sexual revolution has led to the act of sex having as one of its main objects, pleasure rather than a bonding between humans that is a preliminary to making a baby. Promiscuity and homosexuality are vying to become equal in our values to monogamy and heterosexuality. The direction of the sexual revolution which begins with Freud’s attack on Victorianism at the start of the 20th century and, more recently continued, in the gay baths in the 1970's has had at least one terrible side effect; HIV-AIDS. Had the sexual mores of 1900 held, there would be no AIDS pandemic. AIDS is a disease that developed and spread by careless, promiscuous, many-partner sex and a general ignoring of good, common-sense sexual hygiene. For example, one “gay” man – Gaetan (see the 1980s novel, And the Band Played On) – infected thousands of other “gay” men who passed the disease to the hetero community via bisexuals, the women passing it to heterosexual men; then, blood donations, and injection-needle drugging spreading it further more rapidly. That is a startling example of an unsought effect of the sexual revolution: The disease initially passed and spread by men with fists, penises, tongues and noses up other men’s assholes and now millions infected. When I try to balance the more than 60-million people around the world who carry HIV in the body fluids and the more than 35-million HIV-AIDS caused by it against the ‘gains’ of the sexual revolution, my computer breaks down. What mess of porridge did we sell our being human for? To cavort in the baths with fists up each other’s asses? To see Deep Throat’s gonorrheal pharyngitis? Who has gained from the sexual revolution except the sybarites? Is a man or woman happier today because he or she can be masturbated mentally by telephone sex? I do not ask to return to the male sexism, or sexual shaming and lack of human rights of old, bad days. I do not deride a need for safe hedonic intervals in the healthy aging life. Let us be free of received opinion about good or bad sex and let us make our judgments based on what is best for our healthy longevity, free from political correctness.

   My advice is not new; our mothers and grandmothers knew it well but they have been ignored lately and we have suffered because of that ignorance. If you are a man and you put your penis in the wrong hole (or if a woman and let someone put his in your wrong place) you’ll have a bigger chance of getting sick and dying badly than if you refrain from that. If you are sexually loose, chances are higher you will become sick and die prematurely. The model of good health in sexuality is, first, hetero-sex monogamy with good sexual hygiene before and after each contact. Coitus should be considered the central act and all other acts preliminary or less-than-best alternative reserved for those who for one reason or other are deprived of the best.

   These judgments ought to be separated from the idea of sinfulness. Just as the cigarette smoker is misguided but not immoral so we should consider another person similarly misguided when he or she does dangerous sex. 
Final comment. Looking back over my years I want to say that the so-called "joy of sexuality" has been overrated. Yes, it is a joy but not better than good food or good achievement in life. Worse than these, it carries grave dangers, so again I say to a man, if you are about to make a stupid sexual decision, before you do that, masturbate to orgasm and then see what you think about your decision, after the orgasm. And to women (or homosexuals talking about a partner) always remember that the guy or partner you thought was the love of your life in almost all cases ends up being either a passing fancy or a fancy pass.  

Treatment of Sexual Problems: If you will follow the above philosophy: to educate self, to free self from traditional religious constraints, to rely on masturbation as a basic source of sexual pleasure, and to always respect your partner’s needs and the welfare of our society, you should do OK.  I am unimpressed by sex therapy ala Masters & Johnson. Just have insight, humility and do not take your sex needs too seriously and you can solve your own problems.

As a final word, spoken by an 88-y-o man who still enjoys sexual orgasms, the so-called “joy of sexuality” has been a bit over-rated. Yes, it is one of the enjoyments but not a leading one compared, over a lifetime to enjoyments of good food and drink and to intellectual enjoyments. And it is fraught with risk. So enjoy but be careful; and do not not take your enjoyment so seriously that you harm or discomfort others or endanger society.
 END OF CHAPTER. To read on next now, click 8.(16-18) Sex Disease: Syph,Gono, NSU,Herpes,Wart...