More Sex!

Gotcha again!  This post is actually going to be about rug hooking and not the other kind of hooking.  Hello?  Still there?

But seriously folks.  This post was inspired by a man of African heritage whom I saw today trying to flirt with a woman of apparent Latino descent.  He gave her a soft and very sultry "hello" which she ignored while passing him on the sidewalk.  I thought I noticed a slight stiffening of her shoulders and likely a sense of fear and threat.  I paused for a second, in case her self-appointed Romeo should try to pursue her further, in which case I would consider whether or not to intervene.  To my relief, and I'm sure hers, he left her alone.

I have seen this before though it doesn't happen often in Vancouver where women tend to be respected, as elsewhere in Canada, which is more than I can say for some parts of the world.  Still, from time to time there will appear out of the ground the occasional male who still appears to have more in common with pigs than with human beings (I know, not a kind thing to say about pigs), for example, the incident of the four young South Asian males sexually harassing a young woman in Yaletown (pretentious neighbourhood in downtown Vancouver)  from the safety of their four wheel drive.  I confronted them and lectured them about their bad behaviour and chastised them while the girl had time to get away and they drove off.

I am not anti-sex.  This is what keeps the species going and besides it is so deeply and indelibly wired into our human natures, even us asexuals, that there really is no escaping from it.  But we also have the responsibility to steward and control our sexual appetites, especially considering that outside of auto gratification sex is almost always about two or more, but preferably two, people.

What I really wonder is this: if sex were treated in a more pragmatic, more matter of fact fashion, I wonder how that would influence our own self-perception as sexual beings?  If it were basically ignored, not denied and not covered up with a sense of shame but simply not given a lot of attention, which is to say, if we became more neutral, more disinterested towards sex, I wonder how that would change us?  If sex was banned from advertising, for the simple reason that it exploits and degrades the consumer, I wonder if people's glands would be quite so over-charged and overloaded as they appear to be these days.  If boys and girls from infancy were brought up to respect their bodies and respect the bodies of others, if boys and girls were equally carefully guided and stewarded through meaningful rights of passage through puberty and into full adult man and womanhood, how would this change society?  How would it change us?

It might well take just a few enlightened adults to help make this a reality.  Turn off the TV, ignore internet advertising and constantly teach and encourage our children to question gender stereotypes and to reject sexualisation.  There are many variables at stake.  There would need to be a steady presence of trusted and trustworthy adults, more than just parents since it does indeed take a village to raise a child.

If we can convince our governments; if we can reform and form new governments that do not allow for a market place economy that keeps workers in a state of perpetual paid slavery, making it all the more difficult for parents to be present for and raise their children, and for real cohesive communities to take shape where we can learn and grow together and enter into a reformed and enlarged sense of our humanity.

Unfortunately in our word money not only talks, it screams and it carries with it a very nasty looking truncheon.