I am appalled by the attacks on sexuality and the fear of sex our society seems to have despite the blatant expansion of the pornographic industry. I have heard from several sex educators that there is a trend for many sexual conservatives to talk about how society is losing its “traditional” sexualities and is being replaced by a new more mixed, bizarre, and blatant sense of sexuality. Is the new societal sense of sex more diverse than it used to be? Yes, Is it more blatant, open, and public than it used to be? Yes, More bizarre? No, to call someones sense of sexuality bizarre is condescending and hurtful. To me the only bizarre sexuality is bestiality and pedophilia, and those are sexualities that have no sense of consent in one of the parties. The only bizarre or wrong sexuality is one where any individual in the sex act has no consent. This brings me back to my original point. The idea of this sense of sexuality being bizarre or new.
The sex we see today is not new, it is just finally being treated with the progressive attitude it deserves to finally allow people true sexual expression. Things like polyamorous sex, gay sex, bi sexual sex, are things that have always existed but because of societal inclinations were repressed. We are still recovering from the reactionary attitudes of Queen Victoria and Freudian/Jungian Sexuality that dictated the 1950s onward. These acts of sex, these “bizarre” and fluid sexualities have always existed. Its only because we now realize that we should no longer be ashamed of our loves and lusts that these forms of “non traditional” sex are becoming more public.
In an earlier blog post I talked about how online pornography has allowed people with previously repressed sexualities to explore and examine different types of sex for themselves. This goes hand in hand with what I am talking about now. There are issues with the pornography industry that must be reconciled, such as those who exploit ignorant people in order to use them as performers, the sexism of Revenge Porn, and the issues with body image that many types of pornography perpetuate. Although I am convinced all human beings enjoy pornography in some way and to some form or degree, I can understand the problems that pornography can raise.
There are your cliche perverts with bad mustaches tricking young girls into “modeling” jobs who are making bad names for people who bring in consenting adults to perform and enjoy themselves. There are groups of petty men who exploit there girlfriends emotions, tricking them into sending sexy pictures and videos, then immediately sharing these with the world as some petty form of retribution. To the so called men and women who find it obligatory to humiliate your ex lovers, stop it, you are giving porn a very bad name.
What is more important is the impact porn can have on body image. Women can feel that their bodies are not of measure with some of these actresses who are either trim and healthy or intensely voluptuous. Men can feel inadequate compared to several of the male performers that get to have sex with these beautiful women and get paid for it, a double whammy for most men. The problem here is duel, it is not a matter of favoring one side over the other. The pornographers of today should be more sensitive to the implications their comfort with sex has on other people, and at the same these people finding their inadequacies through porn should not compare themselves to any one but themselves and they must seek out the porn with body types that do make them feel more comfortable. Because of the more blatant sense of sexuality we see publicly today, their is more diversity in porn. There is porn for all sexualities and all body types and the individual must seek them out, at the same time the industry must begin to be more diverse with the body types they bring in mass to the public that they exemplify.
That being said I feel this is where this idea of the new sex being “ bizarre” and “non traditional” is coming from. Because of the massive availability of all the different types of pornography, all displaying different types of sex acts, people increasingly are coming to terms with the fact this sex has always been there but their desire has been unfulfilled. We sexually repressed ourselves for too long because of societal implications, and now we are seeing our true sexualities come out because of the widespread public availability of a diverse world of porn and sex. These sex acts we see and engage in are not new, they are not bizarre, they are inherently human.
Sex is sex, period, sexuality is not a product of society it is a product of our species evolution. Sex cannot be dictated socially and this is what we are discovering more and more as a society. The more conservatives attack a woman’s right of choice the more of a backlash there is. The more government tries to dictate our sex lives the more sexual revolution becomes imminent. The more laws are passed about gay marriage the more people are expressing their own sexuality more and more, be it gay, straight or something you do not feel can or should be labeled. If one persons sexuality is attacked then all our sexualities are attacked, if it is “not right” that two men or two woman can love each other, marry each other, AND make love to each other because it is “wrong” we are then ALL forced to conform our own sexualities to what is “right,” or “normal.” This prevents women and men from embracing their sexual fantasies because of social backlash, which is just not fair.
A woman is not sexually broken because she enjoys multiple partners at once. A man is not more or less of a man because he loses his virginity later in life. A person is not a pervert for being attracted to she-males because they like the sex appeal of blurred gender lines. Gay men or women making love is not an abomination so long as it is consensual. Sexual conservatives need to get over this fear of the new sex and must begin looking inward to embrace their own sexualities so that they may stop attacking other sexualities simply for being different than their own.
So start listening to Susie Bright and reading Nancy Friday. Enjoy the instructional pornography of Nina Hartley. Embrace your turn ons and offs because they are one of the few things that are truly and completely your own. Be public and fearless about your loves and lusts. Welcome to the New Sex ladies and gentlemen and every one outside and in between. Welcome to the sex that is finally your own, and not your society’s.
James J Jackson 
cool