Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Book club: Human sexuality around the world

Let's have a little book club where we read and discuss: Werner, D. (1986). Human sexuality around the world. Freely accessible at:

http://humanbehaviors.free.fr/telechargement/human_sexuality_around_the_world.pdf

Because there is nothing like ethnography to highlight the astonishing sexual intolerance of our own culture. This work is a treasure trove of other perspectives. Open our minds a little and take in the freshness of different practices than our culture's hateful intolerance which leads to atrocities like locking up women for 20 years for victimless sex while men get even worse. In light of the anthropological evidence, our culture is without question the most sex-hostile that ever existed. It is fascinating to read about how tolerant humans can be in comparison.

Contrast our reality to, for example:

"In some groups prepubescent sex is considered so normal, that people actually believe puberty comes about because of the earlier sexual activities, especially sexual activities with adults."

I don't know which is funnier, that our our trauma myth. Taboos can be taken to either extreme, complete with supporting superstitions. In some cultures it is considered abnormal to not be what we would consider molested, even in ways I'm inclined to agree with:

"In New Guinea, several societies, like the Etoro, require pre-pubescent boys to engage in homosexual relationships with older men in order for them to grow up. People believe that without ingesting semen, boys will simply not mature physically."

I would not want that, but neither can I tolerate our extreme intolerance. Some middle ground is clearly desirable.

One thing is sure: our way is not the only way nor the "right" way. Our essentialist definitions of abuse are a stinking pile of lies. We know our sexual norms and laws are not only arbitrary, but immoral because they lead to needless suffering on the basis of construed "abuse" that other cultures do fine with just ignoring if not outright celebrating.

As I keep saying, one thing we should definitely ignore is women "sexually abusing" boys. It has always been my claim that this is a 20th-century feminist invention, and now is a chance to put that to the test. Is there something resembling the female sex offender charade in this extensive sample of other cultures? Not really, but in the most sex-hostile ones we find this:

"On Polynesian Tikopia, young boys were warned not to accept the invitations of adult women to have sex, often performed while hidden under a blanket. If a boy succumbed, he was considered dirty. But it is not clear if the adult woman received any punishment. On the Melanesian Trobriand Islands, a boy felt ashamed if he had accepted one of the sexual invitations from a repulsive high-ranking woman, but little was done about it."

This is nothing more than a realization that older women can sometimes be unattractive to some boys, which I never denied. Aside from a little gratuitous "dirtiness," there is no suggestion that the boys are harmed beyond a light shaming, and no one bothers to punish the women. Our culture alone, as far as I can still tell, constructs the charade that women can downright sexually abuse males, do so to the extent of being criminally culpable, and even pretty women at that! This is so beyond the pale that I can't stop emphasizing it until we have a real movement going against it.

While a great variety of sexual norms must be considered normal, our insane delusion that women can "sexually abuse" most assuredly is not. Whenever women's sexuality is violently controlled, as opposed to frowned upon at worst, it is always because female sexuality is understood as valuable rather than damaging. Our female sex offender charade is but a comical veneer for that same excuse dressed up in feminist rhetoric. So let us either be honest and admit that we want to treat women as property, or as I prefer, ditch the violent control of female sexuality altogether, along with instituting more reasonable abuse definitions applied to males as well. As this book shows, all those sensible norms already exist in some culture or another. All we need to do is pick and chose the best ones, then stand behind them as male sexualists.

There is even supposedly a culture with no concept of rape, lending credence to Tom Grauer's suggestion that we should do away with the sex laws altogether. Incest is the toughest taboo to ditch, but considerable cultural wiggle room exists for that as well. And I find support for nofap in the frightening account of "Cagaba men from Colombia [who] admit that they cannot achieve orgasm through heterosexual sex, but only through masturbation"! All told, anthropology is on our side and makes an even bigger mockery of feminist antisex bigotry than we can by just observing our own culture.

No comments: