Sex and Violence?

One of my Fasebook friends recently wondered why violence is so prevalent in our society. My answer was that we don't have enough sex.

That's a pretty glib statement at first and sounds a bit like a joke. It is a joke, sort of , but that doesn't mean I don't think it's true. I didn't have enough space in the Facebook comments box to qualify my statement properly, so that's what this essay is about. I'm thinking of adding pictures too. (Why not - I like pictures!)

Just as an aside - does anybody else find Facebook to be the world's most amazing consumer of time? I'm beginning to think it may be evil.

Boys and Girls, Chimps and Bonobos

Have you ever noticed the different ways very young children play. At a really young age (crawling into toddling) they tend to play individual games next to each other, but as they learn to communicate boys and girls start to fall into different styles of playing. Boys become competitive and girls become co-operative.

This is an appalling generalisation because on an individual level it doesn't actually work, but the subject is so big I've got to use averages. I'm assuming - and with good reason - that my readers have the intelligence to see the difference between, for instance, "male" and "a boy".

So why should this be? The nature/nurture debate rages on; personally I think it's a little bit of both. The fact remains, though, that by the time they start infant school (3-4) girls play together and boys play against each other.

Let's apply this to our own societies which have been highly patriarchal in character across a vast history of thousands of years. Obviously competition becomes the norm and violence, which could be considered the ultimate form of competition, is widespread.

We could wonder how much different our societies would be if we'd been matriarchal from the start. Actually, we don't have to wonder because we've got a perfect comparative example right in front of us: chimps and bonobos.

I'm assuming that everyone knows what a chimpanzee is. Well, a bonobo - which is endangered and only lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo - is a smaller, slimmer species of chimp with longer legs, more individualistic facial features and a greater tendency to stand upright. Physically they're very similar. Socially they could hardly be more different.

Chimp society is male-dominated and competitive. Extreme violence to males outside the group is normal and violence as a conflict-resolution is common within the group. Bonobos are female-dominated, co-operative and egalitarian as well as very family oriented. They also have conflicts but deal with them in a completely different way: they have sex.

Bonobos have sex for any and every reason they, or we, can think of. They use sex as a greeting, as reconciliation, as conflict-resolution and tension-relief and, frankly, because it's fun. They don't discriminate in terms of age or gender, group sex is normal and permanent pairings are non-existent. You can usually spot a female bonobo by the huge, swollen vulva.

An example (which I think I'm plagiarising from Rev. Ivan Stang) would give a good demonstration of the differences between chimp and bonobo societies:

Imagine a small tribe of chimpanzees at rest. Now throw a large bunch of bananas into their midst. Immediately there's tension. The browbeaten females cower; the braver males make a grab for them. The dominant male beats the daylights out of everyone else until they give in and the bananas are all his. He eats what he wants, leaving the rest to the others to fight over. The females are lucky if they get the skins.

Okay - Imagine a small tribe of bonobos at rest. Now throw a large bunch of bananas into their midst. Immediately there's tension. Suddenly everyone turns to their nearest neighbour(s) and start having frantic, orgasmic sex. In a little while everyone feels much better at which point the dominant female takes all the bananas and shares them out evenly amongst the tribe. It seems that if violence is uncivilised then sex must be the world's greatest civilizer.

The chimps probably developed violent competition due to a lack of resources, the bonobos never needed to. They have all they need and more. Sounds idyllic doesn't it? It sort of is.

Human Bonobos

I'm going to state right now that there is absolutely no archaeological evidence for the existence of matriarchal human societies in our distant past. This doesn't actually mean that they didn't exist (and I believe they probably did), just that we can't prove it. So, I'm going to postulate one.

Imagine living in a place where all your immediate needs are completely taken care of and always have been. There is no need to compete for resources so competitiveness in society is unnecessary. Female-domination would be highly likely. Co-operation and leisure are, therefore, the norms and what could be more co-operative and leisure-based than sex? Lots and lots of sex.

Frankly, such societies would be rare. Should a highly competitive tribe from a neighbouring, but less well-resourced land decide they want all the food, then it's goodbye to our feminist utopia. But they wouldn't be completely forgotten. They would live on in memory and folklore.

They are certainly remembered in the ancient Greek and Celtic legends of the Fortunate Isles away to the West. Tir na nÓg and Tir na mBan in Celtic mythology are perfect examples. These are places where there is no hunger or thirst, where all are healthy and need not struggle, where sex has no shame attached and which are ruled by a Queen.

Patriarchal Religion

The supreme sexual power of women was still recognised (albeit in a somewhat lessened form) in the Middle East in the shape of the Temple Prostitute. This carried on right up to the 4th Century AD and was a form of worship for Astarte (Ishtar). The word "prostitute" has connotations nowadays which cannot be applied to the Qedeshah (local Semitic word). She was a sacred female, a minor queen in her own right and not the servant of the men who came to her. She was a servant of her Goddess.

Patriarchal Judaism didn't like it at all. In order to hold position and gain strength in a world quite hostile to its harsh and ascetic ways the Hebrews had to be competitive, they had to fight - like men!

The suppression of women is Patriarchy's most successful policy when it comes to gaining political power. The suppression of women is also the suppression of sex - remember that woman's sex-drive is far more powerful than a man's - and the suppression of sex leads to an immense build-up of energy. Nothing has suppressed sex like Patriarchal Monotheism.

The human sex-drive is incredibly powerful - it's next on the list immediately after food, warmth, shelter. When suppressed that energy has to go somewhere and a skillful propagandist can sublimate and redirect it in anyway he chooses. Fundamentalist Islam (which treats women slightly worse than cattle) is particularly good at this nowadays.

Back to the Present

So that's the history - but how does it apply to the present day?

Well, we're in a kind of flux position. The position of women in modern Western society has improved immensely in recent years, although true equality is still a long way off. Most of us also have all our immediate needs pretty much sorted and secure. A franker and more accepting attitude to sexuality has also become more prominent, although nowhere near enough.

On the other hand we have several thousand years of ingrained Monotheistic history and cultural propaganda which isn't going to go away.

Even though it's no longer necessary for survival, competition is still encouraged and lauded in ordinary society and on the sports field. Violence is less common than it was, but still prominent.

What we need to do now - and in many ways it's just following a trend that's already begun - is to promote two things: Firstly, the feminine (anarchist) virtues of mutual trust and co-operation and secondly sex - lots and lots (of lots of different types) of sex.

Taoist Bonking

According to the ancient Taoist sages in China, the teachers of wisdom are female. The Tao is female, and in sexual (ie. civilised) terms women are superior to men. The sooner both men and women realise this, the better. Sex needs to be learned and taught and practised a lot and, contrary to our society's norms, the teachers need to be women. This doesn't preclude homosexuality because in a truly civilised society all forms of consensual sex become normal - just like the bonobos.

There are violent people in our society, mostly poor and uneducated young men. There are less than the papers would have us believe, but they do exist. They are brought up to be competitive, suspicious of sex and fearful of difference, just like the boys who killed Michael Causer in Liverpool recently. Had they been brought up in a feminised society, would they have considered a gay person as a threat, or a target? Or would they be too busy with their own sexual experiments to want to go hurting anybody?

It's a huge subject and I've waffled for long enough, so here's a little question to finish:

You and you belovèd(s) have just had a fantastic, multi-orgasmic session - do you really want to listen to somebody telling you to get up and fight? No? Neither would I.

Love,

Seán

Scary Sexuality?

I'm afraid things have been a little busy here at Dionysian Towers, so please accept my heartfelt apologies for this little hiatus. Normal service will be resumed as soon as I've worked out what normal actually is.
Some of my more eagle-eyed friends may have also noticed that this blog now has an "adult" setting. Basically this is because I don't want Google to wag its virtual finger in my direction when I post nude pictures or, as I'm about to do now, write about SEX!

YES! I SAID SEX!
Really, I mean sexuality rather than actual sex. Sex is a lot more fun to do than to write about. Sexuality, on the other hand, should be thought, spoken and written about as often as possible.

The inspiration for this came from my number-one son who, upon hearing that I could sew better than my wife, said, "How gay are you?". Okay, he was just making a joke but there's a very obvious implication there - that sewing is "gay". I recently found out that my late uncle's father worked as a jobbing tailor in the East End of London in the 1930's. He was a happily married, respectable Jewish man and any unlikely questions about his sexuality would hardly have had anything to do with his ability to sew.

We are coming back here to a particular bugbear of mine, the categorisation of human beings. Stereotypes make us less than what we really are - human.

Gay?
We tend to define a person by their sexuality. In truth we define people in many ways, one of the biggest being by their job, but sexuality is seen as a somehow important one. There are precedents, of course, which allow for certain positive generalisations: the lumping of people into "gay" and "straight" gave the world an identifiable group who managed to successfully campaign for the legalisation of homosexual sex. How much, though, of this definition can be said to be true?

I have a friend - let's call him P - who is definitely and obviously GAY (the capital letters are deliberate). He comes across as thoroughly camp - he works as a hairdresser, has perfect nails and calls everybody "darling". He even used to do a drag act many years ago. His boyfriend (and also his ex-) is quite definitely not obviously gay. You would have to ask if you saw them together.

The question is, therefore, how can we define any person as gay in any other way than by the fact that their preferred sexual pleasures are taken with someone of the same gender? There's no correlation to lifestyle apart from sexuality. If P slept with a woman, would that make him a better or worse hairdresser? Would another gay friend, S, be a better or worse prison guard if he was straight? Indeed, can he sew?

Straight?
At a recent Pagan camp a talk was to be given by Mr RH. My friend T asked his girlfriend who this was because he couldn't remember. She described RH thusly: "You know. The one you fancy!"
The thing is, T is "straight". As far as I know he has only ever has had sexual relations with women. But does it make him a better or worse driver, electrician, boyfriend because he considers another man as good-looking and charismatic? Interestingly, RH is generally rather popular with women, but very masculine men seem to hate him on sight!

Some people have described me as bisexual because I consider myself open-minded. I'm affectionate with my close friends regardless of gender and choose not to use a sexual label for myself ("Human, Pagan, Seán. Those are all the categories I need, thanks!"). Yet, I am very obviously happily married to a woman - and we have three children. What, then, would be the difference should I indulge in a bisexual act? Would my vegetables grow any faster? Could I play my flute any better? I doubt it.

I also have two female friends who are both very happily in heterosexual relationships. They don't normally find other women attractive - although they appreciate good looks when they see them just like anybody else. Yet they are strongly attracted to each other, especially when alcohol has knocked a few barriers out of the way. Does this make them lesbians? It might, but who cares? Does it make them better or worse parents?

Queer?
Human sexuality is as rich, diverse and complex as any other human trait - there is no such thing as normal with which to compare. Homo-, hetero-, bi-, are all labels for acts, not people. Some people love the opposite gender, others their own. Some people love being tied up and whipped, some people love multiple partners, some people love enormously fat people. It's even possible for one's tastes to change over the years. In the end we're all queer, because there are none of us who are normal. Is it scary to be queer?

What is scary is the deliberate definition of "normal" into a very strict and limited group of behaviours. The monotheistic religions are particularly responsible for this as a form of social control. Sadly, they have given us groups who believe that they can "cure" homosexuality. Don't believe me? Read this.
In certain cultures different types of sexuality have been considered "normal", consider Classical Greece as a pretty obvious example.

Being Different is Necessary!
The human race evolves not just physically, but also culturally. Sexuality is one of our strongest driving forces after the needs for food, shelter and the security of the tribe. A friend of mine (who may write about this himself yet) considers homo- and other non-breeding sexualities as natural results of over-population. I think they are natural results of our tendencies towards civilisation and social interaction. The Shaman/Witchdoctor/Priest of the tribe is the strange one, and quite rightly so.
There's a rather wonderful book by Stan Gooch called The Dream Culture of the Neanderthals. Yes - I too thought it would be hilarious, but it's actually pretty good. Here's what he says about homosexuality:

. . the priesthood has always been a refuge for types of homosexual and lesbian, as also for other kinds of sexual "deviance" - ie. sexual, presexual, or asexual behaviours whose aim is not the production of children. . . the homosexual/lesbian and androgynous human being has made a significant contribution to the evolution of religion. . .

I would suggest that non-breeding sexualities - which would normally die out as a behaviour pattern amongst most evolving creatures - are necessary to the evolution of both the individual human and human culture as a whole. Therefore (assuming the rule of An it harm none. . .) they should be encouraged. Those who stand for "normality" and simple categorisation are actually standing against the natural evolution of the human race. From this point of view, we need more queers!

Can we be define sewing as "gay" then? I suppose it depends whose trousers they are!

Love (in all its forms),
Seán