This is part 2 (continued from
here) of my wacky theories about why some people oppose gay marriage. Today's half leans far more into the realm of armchair speculation, so don't feel pressured to agree with me on this one just because you agreed with my previous post. ;-)
Today's question is the following: "Why worry about gay people's love lives? As opposed to, say, minding your own business about what goes on in other people's bedrooms?"
I think this question is related to the question of "Why do humans mate in private?"
Lots of other animals (dogs, chimpanzees, pigeons, rabbits, etc.,) have no problem at all with mating in full view of others of their same species. Not people though. Some people like group sex or acts that involve watching and being watched, but in such cases part of the draw is breaking the privacy taboo.
The "Garden of Eden" story explains this need for privacy as an obvious natural consequence of self-awareness: Since humans can think, they know they need to cover up -- animals don't because they don't know any better.
This explanation isn't terribly convincing to me. Just because you know what you're doing, it doesn't obviously follow that you should be ashamed of what you're doing and hide it.
I got a different explanation from reading Jared Diamond's
Why Is Sex Fun?I know, I know, all the rest of the exmos read Diamond's
Guns, Germs, and Steel, but I go straight for
Why Is Sex Fun? I gotta be me!!! ;-)
The idea I gleaned is that a species that is at once highly social and highly monogamous (like ours!) would naturally prefer to mate in private.
It makes sense if you think about it. If a committed couple of people want to reproduce just with each other, they don't benefit by mating in view of other random individuals who may become interested and want to join in.
(That's the part I got from Diamond -- the rest of this crazy theory can be blamed on me.)
The way human society works, sexually mature adults are constantly interacting in a non-sexual way with other sexually mature adults. (Think of your colleagues, people you pass on the street, shop-keeps, etc.)
Very little reproduction would get done without sexual desire. However, if people felt only positive feelings towards sexuality, it would be a lot more difficult to stay faithful to one's partner. Therefore humans have strong natural
inhibitions regarding sexuality -- often to the point of revulsion -- that counterbalance their feelings of sexual attraction and sexual desire.
Picture some person you see every day. Not your S.O., and not the hottie you have a secret crush on, but just some random person you interact with at work or something. Now picture that person having sex with his/her S.O. (Or worse -- picture your parents.) Yuck, right? I'm sure if you try you can think of someone where your reaction is "yuck," or at least "I'd rather not think about it." Yet you can picture the same person eating a sandwich and you feel total indifference, not revulsion.
Why?
Because of your natural aversion to other people's sexuality and sexual expression.
Even people who enjoy erotica typically have a limit; a point where an erotic image is "too graphic" and hence seems gross or vulgar (although exactly what constitutes "too graphic" varies widely from one person to the next).
For everyone -- even lusty people who like sex a lot -- there are sex acts that they don't find erotic, appealing, or arousing at all. When imagining such acts, one feels the usual aversion/repulsion
without feeling the counterbalancing feelings of attraction and arousal. And so the unappealing sexual scenario seems nothing but distasteful and possibly disgusting.
Some potentially distasteful sex acts being performed by other people right now might include two men in bed together, a man masturbating while viewing consensually-produced pictures of naked people, very old people having sex, various fetishes, unusual uses of inanimate objects, etc.
The typical irrational response is to deliberately imagine the sex acts you don't like, to feel grossed-out by the image, and to say "This is horribly repugnant
to me, therefore it is
wrong and evil on principle -- for everyone -- and must be suppressed!!!"
A rational response is to say "Private sexual expression between other consenting adults does not concern me and is none of my business."
Keep in mind, people, that many gay people find straight sex disgusting. For every sexual expression that one person finds arousing, I can guarantee you 100% that there exists another human that finds the same exact scene repulsive and disgusting. The only reason the current debate is about straight people trying to repress gay sexuality rather than gay people trying to repress straight sexuality is just the fact of who is in the majority.
In closing, I'd like to wish each and every one of you a pleasurable and satisfying sex life according to your own tastes!!! I don't necessarily want to hear about all the graphic details, however you may rest assured that as long as it involves consenting adults only and appropriate safety precautions are followed, I'm rooting for you in spirit!!! :D
And that includes people who choose celibacy. My bias is to favor an attitude of "Sex is natural, sex is good!!! Not everybody does it, but everybody should!!!" ;-) However, I don't want to impose my personal sexual tastes on others, so to those of you whose pleasure is
not to have sex, I wish you all happiness in that as well!!! :D