Why it is that sex is being promoted

[Captain_America]

Sex is being promoted as the greatest thing in life because:

’
(a) it’s cheap; the promoters don’t have to provide anything. No manufacturing costs.

(b) “cheap advertising”: it doesn’t take much to get people interested.

(c) it creates a clientele for Planned Parenthood and the Democratic Party

(d) it furthers the creation of more individualism in society

(e) it breaks apart various social organizations, social forms, and churches

(f) it infantilizes us, and keeps us from demanding social justice, jobs, social respect, good families and those many positive goods that come from long-term investment

 

[catholictiger]

all you have to do is look at the 70s and you explain why this culture has such a care free view towards sex, unlike the Catholic Church who seems to be the one voice who is speaking against what many Christians use to always speak against. AKA contraceptives and some practices of sex. But the hippy generation who believed in sex drugs and rock and roll and completely lived that life style, drastically changed our culture.

Sex is being promoted because ever since the 70s our culture believes that everyone should be “free” (i put qoutes around it because they don’t understand freedom) they think because we are a free country the Catholic Church or the Government should be “in our bed rooms” as they like to say. Sex is promoted not because its some conspiracy by Planned Parenthood to have more abortions. Sex is promoted because in this culture it is seen as something that anyone can do and everyone should do, simply because one part of our culture rebelled against the culture of their time which radically changed our culture.

 

[Luna_Lovecraft]

Sex is being promoted as the greatest thing in life because:

’
(a) it’s cheap; the promoters don’t have to provide anything. No manufacturing costs.

(b) “cheap advertising”: it doesn’t take much to get people interested.

(c) it creates a clientele for Planned Parenthood and the Democratic Party

(d) it furthers the creation of more individualism in society

(e) it breaks apart various social organizations, social forms, and churches

(f) it infantilizes us, and keeps us from demanding social justice, jobs, social respect, good families and those many positive goods that come from long-term investment

Has there ever been a time when sex wasn’t promoted?

 

[Scoobyshme]

Has there ever been a time when sex wasn’t promoted?

Absolutely! The current problem actually started in 1930. Before that time, the Catholic Church and ALL major Protestant denominations taught that artificial contraception was immoral. Then, in 1930, at the Lambeth Conference, the Anglicans said that, well, sometimes it might be okay. Today, only the Catholic Church has continued to teach that artificial contraception is immoral.

So, you might ask, what’s the big deal? How does that affect the problem? It changes the nature of sex in the minds of the public, from being about having children, to being solely about “my pleasure.”

Pope Paul VI warned, in 1968, of four results if the widespread use of contraceptives was accepted:

• General lowering of moral standards
• A rise in infidelity, and illegitimacy
• The reduction of women to objects used to satisfy men.
• Government coercion in reproductive matters.

Does that sound familiar?

Because it sure sounds like what’s been happening for the past several decades!

 

[Luna_Lovecraft]

Absolutely! The current problem actually started in 1930. Before that time, the Catholic Church and ALL major Protestant denominations taught that artificial contraception was immoral. Then, in 1930, at the Lambeth Conference, the Anglicans said that, well, sometimes it might be okay. Today, only the Catholic Church has continued to teach that artificial contraception is immoral.

So, you might ask, what’s the big deal? How does that affect the problem? It changes the nature of sex in the minds of the public, from being about having children, to being solely about “my pleasure.”

Pope Paul VI warned, in 1968, of four results if the widespread use of contraceptives was accepted:

• General lowering of moral standards
• A rise in infidelity, and illegitimacy
• The reduction of women to objects used to satisfy men.
• Government coercion in reproductive matters.

Does that sound familiar?

Because it sure sounds like what’s been happening for the past several decades!

Five thousand years ago the first proto-literature alphabet, Sumerian cuneiform, used a character that roughly looks like \I/ to represent “woman”.

We’ve had sex on the brains for a lot longer than the past several decades.

Luna

 

[Captain_America]

Oh, Luna’s making a point that is reasonable. But the QUANTITY and the PERVASIVENESS is vastly different in 2012 than it was in 1812 or 612.

The obvious thing is pornography. 20 years ago you had to go to a porn shop to buy it; now it can leap out at you if you’re doing a web search.

The second obvious thing is television. Consider standard fare for 1965 with what’s available today.

It’s the QUANTITY and PERVASIVENESS. Consider the ongoing lowering of FCC family hour regulations.

Heck, everybody and his brother likes sex. That’s obvious enough. But there is more to human psychology than this; we’re more than cows, is the point I’m making. Our happiness is more, or can be much much more, than a few quick orgasms.

And the view that all we want is sex, tends to steer public discussion away from more important things. I think our politics is very much affected by a public concept of human psychology, and in this case, it is the view that people’s chief concern is sex.

Sad to see the Democratic Party hijacked in this effort: as if the highest good for all is to ensure plentiful, consequences, meaningless sex for everybody, including children.

I’m not at all coming at this from a right-wing perspective. I just want more than sex.

 

[Tenofovir]

Has there ever been a time when sex wasn’t promoted?

Er yes the traditional view in the West and even in the East and Far East was that you got married first and then had children. Premarital sex was a taboo. Sure people went to brothels, but it was a dis-respectable thing to do.

 

[Tenofovir]

Five thousand years ago the first proto-literature alphabet, Sumerian cuneiform, used a character that roughly looks like \I/ to represent “woman”.

We’ve had sex on the brains for a lot longer than the past several decades.

Luna

Having sex on the brain and promoting sexual promiscuity in culture are two different things.

 

[105lynne]

Absolutely! The current problem actually started in 1930. Before that time, the Catholic Church and ALL major Protestant denominations taught that artificial contraception was immoral. Then, in 1930, at the Lambeth Conference, the Anglicans said that, well, sometimes it might be okay. Today, only the Catholic Church has continued to teach that artificial contraception is immoral.

So, you might ask, what’s the big deal? How does that affect the problem? It changes the nature of sex in the minds of the public, from being about having children, to being solely about “my pleasure.”

Pope Paul VI warned, in 1968, of four results if the widespread use of contraceptives was accepted:

• General lowering of moral standards
• A rise in infidelity, and illegitimacy
• The reduction of women to objects used to satisfy men.
• Government coercion in reproductive matters.

Does that sound familiar?

Because it sure sounds like what’s been happening for the past several decades!

Pope Paul VI was right on…right on, indeed.

 

[Luna_Lovecraft]

Sex has always been central to our psyches. It’s the only way we’ve got to ensure we survive as a species after all. In that sense it’s biologically imperative that we think about it and think about it a lot.

For this reason, sex has been a central theme in our art, our laws, and writings for millennia, and before we were literate I’m positive it was a big part of our oral traditions passed down as we sat around campfires in caves, hiding out from wolves and bears.

Last year I attended a showing of three-thousand-year-old Japanese pottery and sculpture. Along side the ancient cups and pots were human figures with exaggerated breasts and genitalia. When I was in Indonesia I visited Hindu temples where UNESCO archaeologists were working to save multi-thousands of years old murals featuring bare-breasted temple dancers. Nothing unusual with that, but these women had amazingly perfect, perky breasts considering they lived thousands of years prior to the development of surgical breast augmentation. And I’m sure that if Babbage had invented the Internet instead of the difference engine, we’d be stuck with a lot more images of naked Victorian ladies and gentlemen than have survived to present times.

The biggest reason sexual images are as pervasive as they are is simply because of the electronic age we live in. And to be sure marketers are exploiting this to the hilt. It’s everywhere if you consciously look for it. But it’s not going to go away, no matter how much we disapprove, and it’s crazy making to try to change something that won’t. So filter what you can and pray for those involved in what slips through your filters.

The OP mentioned the cost of sex. It’s not free. It’s never been free. It’s the most expensive commodity humans have or have ever had. The beauty industry in the US alone - which is almost completely predicated on sex - has an annual payroll of more than four billion dollars and an annual revenue of more than 10 billion dollars. And that’s just creams, cleansers, and the like. When you add the adult entertainment, cosmetic surgery, fashion, and pharmaceutical industries, you’re talking tens of billions more.

As far as the ultimate cost… How many legions of people have lost their lives because of sex? Not just people who died of because they put their bibs and bobs where they shouldn’t have, but in childbirth? in lover’s quarrels? duels between potential suitors? suicides over rejections? When the first proto-human male thwacked another male over the head with a rock, it was either over access to his food or - just as likely - access to his mate.

Luna

 

[edwest2]

Sex is being promoted as the greatest thing in life because:

’
(a) it’s cheap; the promoters don’t have to provide anything. No manufacturing costs.

(b) “cheap advertising”: it doesn’t take much to get people interested.

(c) it creates a clientele for Planned Parenthood and the Democratic Party

(d) it furthers the creation of more individualism in society

(e) it breaks apart various social organizations, social forms, and churches

(f) it infantilizes us, and keeps us from demanding social justice, jobs, social respect, good families and those many positive goods that come from long-term investment

After living through it since the beginning of the Sexual Revolution:

A) It is not cheap. In the beginning (1970s), someone had to buy or rent buildings to sell porn, called Adult Bookstores. The same with strip clubs and topless bars who also had to pay the young women involved. Someone also had to pay photographers, filmmakers and the young women and men involved. Someone had to pay for printing and film duplication, then VHS tapes and then DVDs.

B) In the beginning, print advertising was expensive in porn magazines, and it also cost money to place ads in non-porn publications offering racy films and photos, to be followed by ads in non-porn magazines for “adult” getaways, followed by ads like “are you bi-curious?”

C) It cost money to send pornographic materials and advertisements through the mail.

D) It caused shame and embarrassment, and broken relationships in the early days of No-Fault Divorce, not just between family members but with your buddies. How do you explain your wife divorcing you to your bowling buddies? How are the relationships between kids and their friends who are wounded by divorce change? It generally caused confusion, pain and a feeling of others won’t understand what I’m going through.

E) Abortion, especially in the 1970s, meant committed Catholics felt estranged, in some cases, from God. Today, some women are actually publicly carrying signs that read: “I regret my abortion.” That, in the midst of a constant media approval of abortion under many labels, including pro-woman, pro-choice and reproductive rights. In the early days, women were led to believe it was “only a blob of tissue.” Later, some realized they were lied to.

And for those who need to confess their sin, the priest is ready to hear your confession, even if you’ve been away from the Church for a long time.

Separating sex from love has always been the goal.

By the late 1970’s, musicians like Foghat were advertising the message:

stlyrics.com/lyrics/halloween2/ijustwanttomakelovetoyou.htm

F) Marriage should not be viewed as an investment, like a financial transaction. Sadly, some are more committed and attentive to their jobs than their spouses.

G) For the sake of our souls, this constant., 24/7, everywhere you look, immodesty and lack of shame must stop or at least be avoided. Don’t look at it and don’t buy it.

H) We must face the fact that we are seeing soft porn - partially nudity and simulated sex - on Spartacus and Game of Thrones. And comedians are talking about graphic, raunchy sex a lot, not to mention the additional profanity.

Peace,
Ed