There is a populist notion in many quarters that consenting adults can define their own sexual relationships as they see fit and the matters are completley private and the State has no business in any part of it. Generally, it might be summarized as 'live and let live'.
It's alluring, no doubt. Free your psyche, whatever goes in private, and assume only those responsibilities that seem relevant. How hard can that be? What can't it be achieved?
Why? Well, one reason among many, we're all still high schoolers.
Statistics aren't even out a week, now, and someone has already turned them into a normative bit of cheek. Check it out on full display, here, complete with assessment of what is going to be "sexually mainstream" and why.
That means no free psyche, but rather one that is pressured; not 'live and let live', but something like, 'if you haven't tried it, you are inexperienced'; not what you do in private, but an external measuring stick. As we might have expected theoretically, pure freedom, one way or another, turns into a tyranny.
Freedom exists only within a structure. And tolerance flourishes only when that structure isn't threatened, feels secure, relishes its delicate, frothy balance.
Monday, October 18, 2010
We're all still high schoolers
