"While human sexuality is a delicate subject, I deeply believe it should be discussed (vide my Dating for Nerds series) rather than shunned as a taboo topic. Some discussion about ethics and implications of using such data were covered in What I learned from building an AI that generates porn by David Mack."
Until it becomes socially acceptable to talk openly about, we need more people going out on a limb and being open in this way.
Well you see, I would hate to live in a world where it became socially acceptable to talk about human sexuality
I think it is good to be able to talk about it to your close friends / family
But I'm already disgusted when I hear coworkers talk about porn or their (most of the time imaginary) sexual life.
I think it is a very personal subject, and maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like you'd get less freedom in your sexual life if everybody was talking openly about it. Part of why I think that way is: people have weird fetishes for example, you could think in a society where you can talk openly about sex and you sexual life you could talk about your weird fetish, but I don't think that's the case, only "popular" fetishes / sexual preferences would be discussed, and "weird" fetishes / sexual preferences would be seen as degenerate.
Again this is my opinion, maybe I'm wrong, but I would definitely not want to talk openly about sex with random people.
Likely exactly the other way around: people would hear other people having weird fetishes, and they would understand that most people have this weird side to them, and they would be more ok with their own weirdness.
I don't like porn being mainstream, and I don't want to know how is a fury or not at my office. I don't think you need approval or random people to feel better. Find someone you love, find good friends, if you're lucky have a family. These are the people you want to talk these subjects, not some random coworker or someone you've met 2min ago.
Sometimes random people are the best folks to talk to about this stuff. Just like other things, they might mention something you simply never considered before. Besides, you really have no way of knowing how much the coworkers speak, and most aren't talking about this in the first hour of work.
Porn being mainstream means that folks don't have to hide the behavior as much and no one will be surprised when they find out their lover, sibling, friend, or so on watches porn.
I truly don't want to have a family - I do not want children. I'm female and 40, and I hate folks pushing this stuff on me. There is much more to life than this sort of thing. The goal of life isn't to find love either. I'm OK being by myself, thank you. (I happen to be married, to one of my few friends, and that's OK too).
If you don't like these conversations, ask the people not to have them in earshot of you. I don't see what the big deal is with that.
I can't think of a time in recent history when any weird sex fetish was openly discuss the weirder fetishes.
A time that comes to mind is Fifty Shades of Grey bringing sadomasochism into popular culture and discussion.
I wouldn't discuss my sex life with random people either.
But my wife and I have some close friends who are obviously having serious issues because the woman involved always ends up crying about it when we've all had one too many to drink. Unfortunately she won't discuss it at all when sober, which is a real shame as they're such a fantastic couple otherwise and we do desperately want them to work it out.
At the very least there could be something very normal going on that we could reassure them about and help them get over any anxiety that might be caused as a result.
Unfortunately these things aren't really discussed between friends and so she has to suffer in silence or use alcohol to deal with her problems.
[Posting under a throwaway as IRL friends know my username and could find this.]
If everybody kept their sexual lives to themselves there would be no talk about what fetishes are degenerate simply because nobody would know what your fetishes are.
I feel most people think like that:
No talking openly about sex = being shy / narrow minded
Christianity had caused a millenia-lasting trauma on western civilization due to its views on sexuality as something sinful and necessary evil, and those views are unfortunately still part of our society to large extent. It will still take a few more generations to undo what has been done, if we keep the current course.
By no mean I do advocate for some extroverty discussion about everything with everybody, I don't get why people immediately get this knee-jerk reactions and think only in extremes, but some healthy middle ground would benefit us all. Actually I get it, it comes from our messed-up legacy from religions.
Discussion about healthy sex life, what it means to live good life, about death etc. should be definitely part of upbringing. There wouldn't be these clueless masses of teenagers/young adults most of us were part of sometime in our lives.
Equating having sex with what is a completely normal bodily function we have to do once a day was indeed a bad choice of words.
So according to your way of seeing things we should be openly talking about how we fuck, how I'd like to fuck you, how I got fucked by that guy the other day. No thank you. Keep it to yourself. There's no middle ground. What would the middle ground look like? I want to put my pee pee in your poo poo?
There is a healthy reason to find feces and defecation disgusting - feces carry diseases and are a waste product. Sexuality is not.
If we want to encourage more openly talking about sex, perhaps it's only fair that we also support people openly talking about what they find disgusting.
There is some healthy biological basis behind a disgust reaction to either, as genital contact carries diseases too, depending on how it's done and the history. In that regard, handling faeces is quite similar to close encounters with gentalia - either can be safer or unsafe depending how it's done, and both are a natural part of life which is healthy in moderation.
The point being made in this discussion is that it is a problem that you think sex is uncouth or disgusting.
Just curious: What's your take on non-Christian cultures? They seem to have had a variety of views on the acceptability of homosexual sex, polygamy, age of consent, the line between endogamy and incest, acceptability of eunuchs/"third sexes", bride price v. dowery, etc. etc. but none of them really come close a modern Western sexual ethic of consent. Why not, in your view?
Take away any of those and it doesn't work.
I judge only society I live(d) in, which is western, and chilling effects of christianity-based teachings are all over the place, everywhere, in some form in everybody. Sexuality is still mostly tabu, although it doesn't make any sense since we all lose because of this. As somebody deeply within this society and surrounded by christianity, and in the same time outside of christianity since birth it is very obvious for me.
Its also not about bad-people-taken-good-words-and-twisted-them-in-the-past topic, which can be applied on many things in past and present.
Look how desperately unprepared teenagers are for sexual life. It takes a lot of time for many people to discover who they really are, what they want, need, can't stand etc. This is part of growing up, but society should help as much as it can, and I don't see this happening on scale appropriate to importance of this.
This can be part of much broader topic where I see our education systems (aka the process that should prepare us to be full active members of society) fail us to teach basic things - sexuality, communication, team work, understanding and developing yourself into best version of you possible, or even how freakin' taxes (or loans) work.
In Chuck Rhoades words: "... At best, maybe on the way you tell someone who you really are. And maybe they like it. And maybe you feel just a little bit more comfortable in your own skin, as I finally do in mine!"
I support sex-positivity. It does not require one to like it (I know asexual sex-positive feminists), but to believe that all consensual, in-good-faith practices are fine. We may not be interested in them at all, or personally find them repealing, but it shouldn't be different from not liking a particular food.
Vide "10 things sex-positivity is not" (https://everydayfeminism.com/2016/08/10-things-sex-positivit...). Among other points:
"7. Making Other People Listen to Your Sex Stories."
(Which goes both ways, so you don't need to like hearing others' sexual life details.)
In terms of health outcomes talking about your bowels movement, preferably with photographic evidence, would mean that many types of cancers of the digestive tract would be caught early enough to be treatable. As opposed to the current system where you will more than likely not notice the trace amount of bleeding that are symptomatic to most of them.
I have yet to see anyone seriously propose tackling this, even though in terms of death rate all sexually transmitted diseases taken together are only half as deadly as stomach cancer alone.
I've heard one person who migrated to Germany as an adult say it's because German cuisine features all kinds of sausages which can give you stomach parasites. But I might be paraphrasing this story to the point it's inaccurate.
I am still not convinced that I enjoy the gentle splashback as the stool hits the vastly over-generous lake of water in most public toilets :-/
Are you familiar with the paper napkins rolled up so tight they look like a peppermint, and when they get wet they unfurl? Maybe American toilets should have a jar of those things next to it on a shelf so you can quickly drop one in and go on with your business :)
For extra vintage meme, they should be shaped like sea shells.
I hope your source was joking with you.
Reality: there is a porcelain shelf with a permanent poop stain on it because no current is strong enough to remove the smear
I think this highligh the problem: in our society, sex is something special. It should not be.
Sex is like eating. It's a normal, regular part of life. There is nothing special about it. It's nice, it's fun, it's good for you.
The fact most people see it differently is a big blocker, and creates so many issues in humanity.
So go ahead and talk about it like its just tennis or something. I talk about stopping at McD's too. Not very interesting, nothing special.
It's not cynical, to call it cynical is just comming from the point of view of jugement. I would not juge breathing, why the hell would I juge sex ?
Seen a thing for a simple, enjoyable part of life is the very opposite of cynical. It's inclusive. It's embracing existance. It's also sane to not take things too seriously. Life has enough challenge to not had artificial difficulties.
But go ahead, continue sipping from the cup of life! That's all it will be for some folks I guess.
The link between all of them is how much they over sell their experience and pretend they have access to something unique other people just don't get.
Hell, for a long time, things like tattoos, breast feeding, and psychoanalysis were taboo.
In some culture, women have to hide behind religious clothing because their body is taboo.
A taboo is just a symptom of a society being sick. Taboo get people frustrated, violent, judgemental, unhappy.
It's in the same category as a dogma, as a basic "bad" or "good" label, as a blindness faith or a never criticized tradition. It's inertia. It's simplistic.
But the funny thing is... taboo is nothing special either. Just human nature.
This is not unique to sexual preferences. Anything at all has an overton window and even permissive societies shun views that fall outside that.
There's this whole pop culture theme of 'be brave and be yourself' going around, and it's bullshit, because what it really means is 'be yourself as long as you're typical'. People who dare to be themselves and expose uncommon views or preferences are shunned every day.
As a United States citizen, I feel like the moment political preferences are brought up I have to duck out of the conversation or risk being judged very harshly. I've been in situations where I've made my leanings known to a group made up of liberals and conservatives arguing with one another who then immediately band together and try to bash me on how stupid I am for believing in a pipe dream. It's ridiculous.
That said, I have definitely met more tolerant people who are actually willing to have legitimate discussions on the topic. In the U.S., Socialism is a dirty word; just like sex.
I think it really does come down to normalization. If society becomes more open to talking about sex, the effect should start compounding to where it eventually becomes not only something that's OK to discuss, but something that people are expected to discuss. I don't think it will ever really be "elevator conversation", but I think it will be something you can talk about in the open with your friends and acquaintances.
This is false, when put it in the big picture - which is necessary. As they say, "Poor people are crazy; rich people are eccentric."; it's not about money; it's about having personality.
In this sense, eccentricity ("uncommon views", etc.) is a multiplier. If a person is perceived as a "loser", and is eccentric, they're going to be even more, and ultimately an outcast. If they're instead perceived as a "winner", they're going to be even more winner, and ultimately an icon.
Of course part of the big picture is complicated by the surrounding culture, the "taste" in the eccentricity ("gross eccentric" and "racist eccentric" are certainly not good in any case, for example), and so on, but the general principle stands.
Note that I'm using the terms loser/winner quite liberally; it's not easy to capture this human aspect.
* Researching and learning about human sexuality is good.
* Not everyone has the same ideas about sex-positivity, and, in general, that's the individual's personal business.
* At least in the US (I don't know about other places), we have a long history of sex/gender being involved in unfairness and in making environments unwelcoming/hostile to some, including in the workplace, and we haven't fully fixed that. For that reason, in some environments, such as in the workplace, I think most sex-related stuff should be off-limits for mention. Given the history and unresolved problems, it's too easy to inadvertently be unwelcoming.
* Also regarding the workplace, a company doesn't want to be sued, and so probably doesn't want any unsanctioned mentions of sex/gender at all. (For example, HR might flip out, were the URL to which this HN post links being passed around in company email accounts.)
* This post seems accidentally juxtaposed with yesterday's (?) comments insensitivity, on a top post about a female computer scientist who was instrumental in the historic scientific first of black hole imagery. HN is not a single coherent identity, but HN coming right off that comments poo-show, with a taxonomy of reddit porn, doesn't seem like the best timing for having the work perceived as the author did.
Again, sex-positivity is not about talking about sex everywhere (posted in this thread "10 things sex-positivity isn't" from Everyday Feminism). And, in most circumstances, a workplace is not a place for discussions about sex (unless we know that everyone is comfortable with that topic, which is rarely the case; and you can be sex-positive yet not interested in talking publicly).
HN is not a workplace. If you open it in the workplace, you do it at your own responsibility. Also, I provided a content warning to make sure if someone can stop before it's too late for them.