Let’s talk about prudery, shall we? Or as I prefer to call it, erotophobia.
First, let me state at the outset that sex is not and has never been dirty. Or immoral, or shameful, or wrong.
Sex is, in fact, wonderful. The fact that our bodies can produce such intense feelings of joy, pleasure, and intimacy from such simple acts is a gift and a joy and a wonder, and to profane it with unworthy thoughs of shame and guilt is tantamount to sacrilege.
There is but one rule for sex : consent. Nothing without it, anything with it. ANYTHING. Anything you can think of, and many things you can’t. are perfectly fine and in fact good and healthy things to do.
Yet the world is rife with erotophobic strife. Senseless guilt and pointless shame infect the souls of men and women all over the globe and it breaks my heart.
And the worst part is that we inflict this disease on children. That is, in fact, its only transmission vector. Once we are parents, we feel compelled by our shock and horror at seeing sexual behaviour in our “innocent” children that we shame them in ways that will haunt them for the rest of their lives and eventually be transmitted to their children.
Well guess what? Children are not “innocent” in that way. We are born sexual beings, capable of the same sorts of sexual joy and pleasure as adults. There is no pre-sexual phase of life. Puberty does not make us sexual, it merely makes us ready to reproduce.
Babies have been observed masturbating in the womb. Kids do what feels good, and rubbing their genitals feels good. Both their bodies and their minds tell them that it is a good thing to do.
So to shame them for it only confuses them. Parents say one thing, nature says another. This sets the poor child up for a lifetime of conflict and confusion.
If we want to raise healthy, happy children, we have to accept anything they do sexually, up to and including masturbation to completion and even full sexual intercourse with other children their age.
The only things parents need to teach kids about sex is how to be safe and how to be discreet. Safe as in knowing they always have the right to say no to anyone at any time and how to avoid dangerous partners. Discretion as in where it is and is not acceptable to perform sexual acts and the definition of “private”.
Other than that, and of course the parental duty to protect them from evil persons, the parents have no say on what their children so with their genitals. As long as they are safe and doing it in private, it’s all good.
This means that parents will have to deal with a lot of guilt, shame, and alarm. The urge to make a child stop doing something we find offensive is strong.
But that’s all it is – the desire to save OURSELVES from suffering. It has nothing to with what is good for the child and even less to do with ethics and morality.
We could be at the dawn of the true liberation of all from the senseless chains of mindless and destructive taboos/
It will take a great deal of courage and forbearance to achieve as the forces of the dread taboos will attack us relentlessly, but we must prevail.
In one generation, we could put this curse to rest forever.
We owe it to our children to at least try.
More after the break.
I’m not very smart
I’m just your average everyday household genius.
Confused? Me too. Let’s figure it out together.
What I am talking about is different kinds of intelligence. Academically, creatively, and philosophically, I am a crazy mad genius. I can see more, understand more. calculate more, and just plain do more with this mind of mind than two average people combined. I have a flashing wit, a penetratingly incisive mind, a deep and thoughtful soul, and a level of creativity so high it is visionary.
And that’s one kind of intelligence. That one, I’ve got in spades.
But another kind of intelligence is the kind that leads to good life decisions, and on that scale, I am a fucking idiot.
If smart is as smart does then I does not do smart. That’s today’s big epiphany.
And it’s high time I admit my life dumbness to myself and to the world. I, Michael John Bertrand, Super Genius, am pretty dumb about life.
And we all know why. I am mentally ill. And one of the most consistent symptoms of all mental illness is impaired cognition leading to poor decision making.
Which is a problem in a modern individualistic democratic society, because there is no context in which an adult is officially allowed to let other people make their decisions for them, especially if you’re a man.
And I am. Mostly.
The only exemption is if you are sick enough and deranged enough to be declared non compis mentis and put into institutional care, and for the most part, that is only an option for the rich and the seriously crazy types who are a threat to themselves and others.
Definitely not for well-behaved loonies like me who stay out of everybody’s way and never even draw attention to themselves by attempting suicide.
So I am at the mercy of my own quiet derangement. I sit here at the bottom of the deep dark well of my mental illness keeping myself entertained while my body slowly falls apart and my life force drains away and my adult life not only failed to launch, but exploded on the launch pad during testing.
Nobody can rescue me from me. And were I a stronger saner type of person, that would be enough to make me get up off my ass and take control of my life and go out there to take on that big bad world and probably become an asshole in the process.
But I’m not that kind of person, and where those energizing circuits should be, I have only sadness the bitter cold and the turning away.
And there’s not much I can do about that.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.