I Left My Morals In El Segundo...
Virginia
Id like to hear your thoughts on this quote:
The downside is weve raised a generation of young women -- and men -- who dont understand sexual ethics like: Dont sleep with a married man; dont sleep with a married woman; dont embarrass people with whom you had a consensual sexual relationship. They dont see sex as sacred or even very important anymore. Thats been lost. Sex has been commodified and drained of its deeper meaning.
I think there's a difference between misunderstanding ethics and disregarding them. Every generation - even if you were born in the '60s where free love reigned supreme - has been raised to know what's right and wrong. When someone goes out and sleeps with a married person, they do it 'cause they want to, not because they don't know it's wrong.
But I'm sure many of us have been in situations - maybe not with married folks - but with folks that were otherwise forbidden. Ye that has never cheated, or smooched someone else's significant other cast the first stone. LOL.
Now regarding the whole commodification of sex: We've talked about the whole numbers thing before. I don't think the numbers matter if you had a deep connection with the people you've slept with. Some people will say that you can't have been deep with soooo many people, but who am I to define what's "deep" for someone else? But I think some people - especially younger males - focus more on quantity than on quality.
Personally, I'm very discerning about who I sleep with (which I think is half the reason I'm still single, but that's another blog for another day). And I'm not into dating a dude who's had a lot of conquests or who can't remember how many chicks he's slept with because I think that's kinda a reflection of his standards and how he sees himself. If he's just concerned with getting his rocks off, then chances are, I'm not the chick for him. But not all women feel this way. Some chicks dig a guy with high numbers because they think he'll be more experienced. What can I say? Different strokes...
At the same time, I wouldn't disqualify a dude just because of his past - assuming that it was indeed his past. And I'm not talking "past" as in yesterday or last week...more like a few years.
I think that saying sex has lost its "deeper meaning" is a little presumptuous, considering that people have sex for different reasons and the concept of sex is also different in other cultures. Isn't it possible for someone who's had many partners to still value sex and consider it sacred and very important (hence them wanting to share such a precious gift with as many people as possible)? Y'know what they say: "spread the love"...LOL.
Leave your 2 cents (sorry, no change for a 5)...
posted by SimplEnigma @ 12:20 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
I agree with the quote. Our parents relied on their parents for sexual education. Even if that wasn't available and they had to rely on their own trial and error, there was so much apprehension associated with the act that it held some importance, if even out of fear of the unknown. Our generation and the one after ours are desensitized by the bombardment of sexual images in all facets of today's media (the convenient scapegoat, but it's true). Parents would have to start talking to their kids about sex at age 3 in order to combat the forementioned desensitization. That bird and bees talk, or just the development of some form of apprehension for the act, is often preempted by all kinds of sexual images that breeds inquisitiveness rather than apprehension or respect for the act.
I heard a poet/teacher talking about catching his female teenage students giving blow jobs to their fellow classmates in school corridors. I'm not that old, and I can't even remember anything remotely close happening in my highschool and A LOT of ish happened in my school.
BUT, this shouldn't be surprising. At the risk of sounding overly grandiose, this is just another one of the many ways that we'll progress from bad to worse. We can't stop it, we can only stem the tide. In fact, what should surprise us is if our kids are less promiscuous than we are. Each generation is simply formulating their own standards, it just happen that they'll ALMOST ALWAYS be a little broader than that of the generation before.
So the author is right. This generation doesn't understand HIS generation's sexual ethics. It's like all those aging hip-hoppers trying to bury hip-hop because what was relevant isn't anymore.
ok,I'll stop now. :)
Did I mention that I don't have change for 10 cents either? LOL.
I disagree with you to some extent...I think blow jobs (ironically, I also have a friend who mentioned that she'd caught students giving blow jobs in the corridor as well) in schools has been happening for generations - this generation is just a little more brazen. That's all, but the devaluing of sex has been happening for decades.
In the 60's lots of people were having free sex, anonymous sex and multiple partners and it was no big deal. That was my parents' generation. In the 80's there was a also a big resurgence of group, anonymous and recreational sex as well.
I think past generations were just more concerned with what other people thought, so they kept their sexual practices under wraps, but the disregard for sex was still there.
I know I know.
Did u just say blow jobs have been on the highschool menus for generations?
I definitely went to the wrong schools. I put my hands in principal Ruddock's daughter's panties in first grade. I got beaten so badly I had a stutter for almost 2 years.
Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhaaaaaaaa
I almost peed my pants on that one. That's hysterically funny. But y'know I did say high school, right?
Nevertheless, I remember being in 6th grade in JA (most kids are 11/12 at that time) and hearing about one girl's vivid escapades after school with Stephen, one of the hottest guys in school at the time. And this was in Jamaica. In 1989. When we weren't supposed to know about sex, let alone be having it.
Still laughing at you, BTW...
That's bogus. Uhm, what about porn stars. I know from personal experience (meaning "interviewing") that porn stars and sex workers spread the love so much that now it's just a vapor. Too much of anything loses value and desensitizes you. Masturbation everyday versus once a week is all I gots to say.
"we've raised a generation of young women -- and men -- who dont understand sexual ethics like..."
I agree...no longer is sex kept between the deed doers....it is plastered all over the airwaves, radiowaves, school bathrooms, international news, etc for everyone to see/hear..a rite of passage into the sexual realm for many uninitiated(so to speak) is hearing of so and so's freaky escapade with so and so...or seeing images of Brit's buff *gag-spew-gag*
Sex has been commodified and drained of its deeper meaning...
whither thou goest, I am with thee...sorry, Lord..but it fits. Sex has always been commodified and drained of its deeper meaning...it's not like brothels, whorehouses, and sex slave trades just cropped up. And as you said, SE, who are we to tell another what's deep enough (lol) for him or her.
Ultimately, you hope "youngins" realize that doing the dirty should also come with some sort of feeling for the partner...
idealistic, given these days and times; but we can always hope that they have, in fact, talked meaningfully about sex with some responsible adult who's tried to impart the importance of a seemingly devalued/demoralized act
**albeit, uncomfortably, cause they've got bones upon bones locked up in a closet, with their porn, snuff, S&M, fetish
'nalia...lol, I'm just saying, though**
i agree with all of 16% 10 cents....sex is nothing to these young uns..we were so afraid of what our parents would say if we got caught, that alone would keep our legs together..lol
In 1989 when i was in high school, there was no sex in the corridors...but then i went to an all girls high school..lol, there were one and two girls rumoured to be promiscuous but they were the exception, not the rule....now i fear this has completely turned around and what u find is one or two 'good' girls.
With all that is out there, how can one not be discerning?
I think many of you are in denial, just like our parents were.
Kara, I too went to an all girls high school. We had key club meetings one day a week where boys would come in from other schools. I know of 2 girls who had sex during those meetings in various places on the campus. I'm sure there were more.
I think many of us like to paint our (and our parents') generation as the flower-children for abstinence and sacred sex, and we weren't.
Fear doesn't = sacred/important. Because we were scared of the repercussions IMO doesn't mean that it made sex more important, it just meant that many of us found creative ways to get around it.
The only difference I see between our and this generation is that it's more out there...but in the 20's you'd have never seen 2 people kiss on TV; I grew up seeing that. Things evolve; I don't think that this generation is any different than ours or the one before it. Painting a whole generation with the same brush is why there is such a chasm between them.
This comment has been removed by the author.
I’m enjoying the conversation.
This all started from a blog I posted, where I just cut some snippets of the story out and highlighted them on my sparsely updated Blog. I didn't add much commentary to it all (except in my e-mails to SimplEnigma) although and argument could be made that my selected quotes could give a hint to my feelings on the subject matter.
But here are the links to the story for your own enlightenment.
The Story in a nutshell
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16366256/?GT1=8816
The Post Commentary from which the quoted text originated.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54736-2004Aug10.html
The actual controversial Blog
http://www.wonkette.com/archives/the-lost-washingtonienne-wonkette-exclusive-etc-etc-004162.php
I think Kanye summed up my thoughts in this verse from -“We Major”
“Feeling better then some head on a Sunday afternoon
Better than a chic that say yes too soon
Until you have a daughter now/ that’s what you call Karma/And you pray to God she don’t grow breast too soon…”
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