During the past few decades, the world has been driven into what some people call “a veritable era of sex insanity”. And although there have been attempts to romanticize sexual promiscuity, there is evidence that physiological sex could be abnormal today.
“The ways in which pleasure is sought vary also with the age of the souls who seek it. Child-men, those who stand upon the lower reaches of the long road of human attainment, try vainly to find happiness in coarse pleasures and indulgences—revels and orgies of sense and passion, while the more advanced seek by other means to gain the same prize.” (Cooper, 2010).
What we experience with other people to quench our desires clearly does not complement our real life goals then because the mere instinctual desire to have sex reflects our own inadequacies as immature and naïve creatures of passion. And, by far, we continue to delude ourselves by seeking physical happiness, “though our ideas how it may be gained are as varied as the characters of the people we have sex with”.
The Two-Dimensional Sex Revolution
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One of the major addictions in our culture is to romanticize everything. This works because our culture has made sex and love artificially abundant commodities through movies, television commercials, online dating, and even fairy tales; thus, leading people to spend endless hours trying to manipulate the world so they could get enough.
First, studies show movies and television programs produce deep-rooted social effects that seem to define how society should play its part in shaping the world. Meanwhile, the social system that accords unequal values and opportunities based on sex, skin color, and prejudice, diminishes us, as commercials or advertisements further blur the roles we play in society.
Next, sex is overtly used in advertisements to sell everything from cars to power tools, either by subliminal means or by having scantily clad women or men standing by the object being sold. For some, it seems rather illogical and even abnormal we become possessed by our repressed sexuality because of those objects.
Furthermore, commercials also present a distorted reality of society as it promotes gender polarization between men and women. Although advertisers recognize the diversity of cultures in their audiences, there is proof ads could portray more sex differentiation than is actually present in men’s and women’s real life roles. Pornography, in this sense, speaks to the reality of our culture’s obsession to sexual promiscuity, as do the more subtle but even more pervasive sexual relationships in which one or both parties is objectified. Because media pervades our lives, the ways they misrepresent genders may distort how we see ourselves and what we perceive as normal.
Lastly, as we are taught that we need to conform to certain images of feminine and masculine behavior to be loved and to be thought of as sexually appealing, fairy tales could play an important role in helping the vulnerable and impressionable minds of children to develop certain social roles and behavior traits. Because incorporating favorable social and behavioral traits is such a Herculean feat to undertake, fairy tales have become a convenient medium to convey such behaviors to children.
This, however, is problematic because while fairy tales may be pleasurable for some to watch and could transmit positive or negative messages to generations of young people, some of them may contain colonizing messages; and the affirmation they provide may have varying ends because the (re)presentation of a person as a dashing prince or a damsel in distress and their utterances could positively or negatively activate underlying sexual emotions towards society (McGinn, 2002, cited in Sianghio, 2004).
As we continue to equate literary or media fantasy with real life, however, we never feel real love for ourselves and we never experience the power of a truly intimate sexual connection. Thus, we may have many lovers but still feel empty, needy, and wanting something more (Pearson, 1986).
We are taught to work hard so we can have things that will make us loved and respected. This includes buying nice clothes and cars, finding attractive places to live, having the money to purchase good things, and perhaps even joining a gym or health clubs—all these to attract a mate without getting a kiss from Prince Charming or Sleeping Beauty.
Ultimately, those who succumb to these fantastical and mundane addictions do not have the time or the inclination to develop a sense of self. Instead, they settle for stylish pseudo-independence, buying monogrammed towels, briefcases, designer clothes, and products that are pitched to appeal to their urge to be different and fashionably iconoclastic and desirable. And as result, because their sense of identity eventually comes from capturing that fling or one-night-stand, they require that person to be a certain way, to be their ideal sex partner—fetishistically speaking.
Where does the abnormality come from?
Our own genders dictate this phenomenon. The gender liberalization and equality, which happened decades ago, moreover, set the tone for all things “abnormal” today.
“as a sign of victory in battle, the opening of a door to equal "rights and privileges," the acquiring of the right to adopt the vices and frailties of men, to compete with them on the low material plane of commercial life by their own tooth-and-claw methods -- all that meant something different entirely.” The Theosophical Movement
According to The Movement, women pluralize aloneness, accentuated by the cultural notion that to be alone and female, meant failure. Men, on the other hand, are so enamored of independence that because it is practically a synonym for masculinity; gay or not. But this independence has an undercurrent of sadness to it, especially if they have sacrificed their need for love and seriousness to their desire to be promiscuous or sexually active.
As we understand that our senses are guided by desire and because human activity is driven by desire, whatever pleasure or happiness is derived from these are origins of distress or morbidity. Hedonistic sexual enjoyment, in this case, becomes evanescent and temporary—and desire becomes the root of sorrow.
Buddhists understand human desire is limitless, and is never satiated. They believe desire, when satisfied, only gives rise to more because the mind is as fickle as the wind. Thus, most people are dragged along whatever desirous current they find themselves in.
Even well behaved and modest persons are known to succumb to this 'current' upon realization of their own desires over others. That, as this desire expands, various modes of sexual intimacy could be deployed—one night stands, Bondage Domination Sadomasochism or BDSM, and other bizarre fetishes could be a result of such expansion. Inner integrity, our true nature, as a result is dragged down by these forces from every side (Burnier, 2010).
Therefore, in order to achieve authentic contentment, one must moderate, but not completely eliminate his or her desires. This becomes a strong foundation for peace and happiness.
"and as we continue to deal with the shadow of our own sexuality, which often manifests itself in perverse yet extremely powerful forms, amid slavery to matter, amid social and biological dislocations and perversions without name or limit, our humanity must follow in reverse the road of defeat. Man is a slave to sex because of the things he has done to the matter into which he is inevitably born, the matter upon which he has to draw for his body and his breath of life."
The Theosophical Movement
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