Sexuality in America

[Person Man]

So, there's basically two schools of thought I see kind of emerging in this discussion about how people in the last 50 years became more sexually confident. One is that somehow it was a way of gluing society together through controlling not what people thought but how they felt, sort of the way psychoactive drugs are used as a disciplinary device in school...you know a "chemical straightjacket"...or in this case a "psychosocial straight jacket". The other school of thought is that taboo is simply created because taboos are simply sexual acts that are either non-productive or counter productive.

I have heard opebo mope about how sexual liberalization is sort of the same as creating a free market in sex...there are winners and losers unless there is some sort of guarantee of sexual contact through allowing the market of sex to be part of the general free market instead of keeping them seperate through state force.

In a way, maybe not what taboo is hasn't changed but how we define taboo has. In classical society, taboo was defined by what harmed the individual and in post-classical society, it was defined by what harmed the community. In modern times, it appears to be that the taboo system has just become part of the libertarian meme of "the man needs to get off our backs for us to succeed".

Maybe "sexual liberation" isn't good because it erases taboo, maybe its good because it opens a "free market" of lifestyles where those that are more successful will be continued and that those lifestyles that inevitably, on their own create poverty, crime and poor health will be the next "taboo"...and perhaps sexuality should be thought in ways of how to keep free markets free- predatory behaviors that create market failures and distortions should be regulated by the state- just like the way monopolists, "hostage markets", cartels, frauds and sources of "imperfect information" should be regulated today.

Its basically a synthesis of Liberal, Euroclassical and Euroabramiac ideals of sexuality and that synthesis is that we can make goals and through inductive reasoning figure out what people should and shouldn't be doing...or at least expose people to the natural consequences of their behavior so that they will have more desirable behavior in the future. 

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The state adopting a market-based attitude towards regulating sexuality strikes me as the most terrible way possible to go about it, honestly.

[Person Man]

How so? That would be the most narrowly tailored way to advance a compelling state and social interest. And, no pun intended, but I want the most bang for my buck.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It may be convenient, but treating sexuality as a market commodity I think is intrinsically morally suspect.

[Person Man]

Not sexuality, but the morality behind. Morality is formed against what harms the moral unit to be protected. With Medivals, that unit was the community. With Classicals, it was the individual. In modern times, the unit is defined on what is best for the standard of living for the most people possible.