Thinking About Sex

Okay, most of us think about sex all the time.  But how often do we think about sex? 

Our culture "protects" us as children from finding out much about sex, and then when we turn eighteen we’re supposed to figure everything out for ourselves politely, without talking about it.  If we used the same approach to reading, we'd be a society of illiterates. 

Many of us have gotten the message all our lives that sex is wrong, wicked, sinful and dangerous.  More than once, I’ve heard mothers in a video store ask anxiously in front of their children, "It doesn’t show any nudity, does it?"  Never mind cruelty, bloodshed, or scary monsters — Mom clearly finds a naked breast much more dangerous! This key piece of information often slips right into the unexamined assumptions that her children will carry into adulthood.  Such programming reinforces the fear and embarrassment that we feel naturally around sex (more on this in the section on fear).

As a result, sex is still a secret subject, especially in the details.  Sexual discourse outside of bed is considered at best naughty, and more often rude or even perverted.  We get used to keeping quiet about sex even to ourselves — the only time we tend to contemplate it is when we’re in the middle of strong sexual feelings, which is not a time conducive to analysis.  Otherwise, we seldom think seriously about the subject at all. 

For many people, sex becomes disjoint from the rest of life, a place where different rules apply.  A proper, respectable woman may be very raunchy with her husband after a few glasses of wine, but then revert to prudish attitudes the next morning without further thought.  A man who is scrupulously fair and honest in business and public dealings may deceive his wife for years about other lovers, telling himself it's best that way. 

This is not just an individual pattern — the common intellectual frameworks used in our culture for understanding sexual experience are still crude, grossly incomplete and not particularly helpful.  The lack is scarcely noticed because so few people really try to understand their own sexual experience much at all. 

So let's work to change that!  Why not?  There's so much good information available, if you look.  We've already gathered a smattering of it here, in sections about how our biology, psychology, history and culture affect our sex lives, along with bibliography and links that will lead you to tons more fascinating stuff. 

Please, though, help us out!  Tell us all the wonderful things we've missed — send us book titles and/or URLs with your own evaluation of the contents.  Help make this site a really excellent resource for anyone who wants to think seriously about sex.