{"id":4184,"date":"2012-02-11T12:49:56","date_gmt":"2012-02-11T17:49:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/?p=4184"},"modified":"2012-02-11T12:49:56","modified_gmt":"2012-02-11T17:49:56","slug":"the-american-war-on-sex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/2012\/02\/the-american-war-on-sex.html","title":{"rendered":"The American War on Sex"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NoSex\"<\/a>Our culture has a curious relationship with sex.\u00a0 Judging by our television programming, Internet habits, and even news coverage, it would seem we are obsessed with it.\u00a0 Yet judging by our politics, we are terrified anyone is actually doing it.<\/p>\n

Reruns of Two and a Half Men<\/em> run almost constantly, and the content is almost entirely sexual.\u00a0 ABC’s The Secret Life of the American Teenager<\/em><\/a> was wildly popular amongst teen girls, and dealt almost non-stop with teen girls having sex.\u00a0 The E! network is awash in pixelated boobs.\u00a0 And what self-respecting primetime crime drama wouldn’t feature sexual depravity and violence as a major theme?<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Janet Jackson’s “accidental” exposure of a nipple for 8 seconds on TV warranted the attention of the Supreme Court<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The hot-button issues emerging in the 2012 election are turning out to be topics like contraception, gay marriage, and defunding Planned Parenthood.\u00a0 In the 21st century, we are still committed to teaching abstinence to kids.\u00a0 The same kids to whom we market an unending stream of sexualized clothing, music, and media are then being told by politicians that sex is just for making babies within the context of a marriage.\u00a0 Is it any wonder kids think politicians are out of touch?<\/p>\n

Ironically, the Muslim countries have this right.\u00a0 If you’re really committed as a culture to sexual repression, then drape your women in burkas, censor the Internet, and restrict TV broadcasts to G-rated content.\u00a0 At least it’s a consistent policy<\/p>\n

Alternatively, maybe it’s time to embrace sex as a natural human function rather than some weird necessary ritual that must be performed 2.2 times in order to produce the requisite number of children.\u00a0 Maslow’s hierarchy of needs<\/a> places sex at the same level as breathing, food, water, and sleep.\u00a0 We are hard-wired for sex at very fundamental and physiological level.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating for hedonism.\u00a0 Just because you enjoy eating doesn’t mean you’re into gluttony or dumpster diving. And just as the government plays a role in the food you eat, it has a role to play in sex as well.\u00a0 The government works to make sure the food supply is safe.\u00a0 It even encourages good nutritional habits.\u00a0 But there is very little support for the government regulating what you can eat and when.\u00a0 Maybe a similar approach should be taken with sex.\u00a0 The government can work to ensure that sex is safe.\u00a0 That might include disease prevention and control, sexual product testing, and access to sexually related health care.<\/p>\n

But maybe people should be as resistant to the government regulating when, where, and whom you can have sex with as they are to the notion that the government will take away their soda-pop and Twinkies.<\/p>\n

Government regulation of morality rarely goes well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People should be as resistant to the government regulating when, where, and whom you can have sex with as they are to the notion that the government will take away their soda-pop and Twinkies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,9],"tags":[118,21,151,150,85],"class_list":["post-4184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-religion","category-xx-xy","tag-2012-elections","tag-conservatives","tag-gender-issues","tag-religious-freedom","tag-religious-right"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4184"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4210,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4184\/revisions\/4210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}