At a Humanist
discussion I recently attended I heard someone ask why there is no Humanist
stance on sexuality, which I found really compelling. Why isn't there a
secular perspective on human sexuality?
I
think most of the problem is that in the U.S., sexuality is so demonized
and marginalized that a serious, rigorous look at human
sexuality that is pro-sex seems oxymoronic. I have not heard any attempt at
building a new paradigm about human sexuality. And as a big philosophy of
science fan, I like me a good paradigm.
Historically,
as I understand it, the anglo-american tradition of sexual attitudes basically
boils down to sex is bad, but we'll tolerate it within the bounds of
marriage for the purposes of procreation. And as we have become an increasingly
liberal culture what we have done is keep the idea that sex is bad, but expand
the list of sanctioned acts. So sex remains prohibited unless you are doing it
in an allowed way.
Well
fuck all that.
Sex
is: fun, necessary for the survival of the species, good for your
health, builds relationships, cheap, creates mutual trust, a stress
reliever, among many many other things.
I
would like to think about sex in the same way that we think about almost all
other areas of human behavior, using the standard tools of evaluation that
we use for those activities. Sex is not a special case of human behavior, and
to say otherwise is implicitly take on board the theological
importance that it has been given. So let’s see what happens when you start
with that as a premise and reason logically for a while.
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