Sex Panic! And No, I Will Not Think of the Children! LOP061

The expression of human sexuality, and the freedom to have sex with whomever we desire, was a defining quality in the early gay-rights movement, pre-AIDS. How things have changed, and yet, how some things have become worse.

Where did this fear of sex start and what is “Sex Panic”?

In the queer community, Sex Panic!, was a sexual activism group founded in New York City in 1997:

The group characterized itself as a "pro-queer, pro-feminist, anti-racist direct action group" campaigning for sexual freedom in the age of AIDS. It was founded to oppose both mainstream political measures to control sex, and elements within the gay community who advocated same-sex marriage and the restriction of public sexual culture as solutions to the HIV crisis. The group has been depicted as a faction in a gay "culture war" of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.Source

As long as we’ve had dogmatic religions there has been sex panic for the simple reasons that sex is fun, liberating, and basic human behaviour. Sex is a form of creative physical expression that frees the mind, body, and soul to see beauty in the moment. Sex, when fully realized, is a sensual experience, one that involves all of our senses and something that scares the bejesus (pun intended) out of Fundamentalists and Evangelicals.

Come to Jesus…

I’ve often wondered why people scream during sex, “Oh GOD! OH MY GOD I’m cumming…!” Doesn’t it seem that sex would bring us closer to god, rather than push us away?

The problem is not having or feeling a connection with “spirt” or your higher self in the moment of sexual ecstasy. Rather, religious doctrines (taken too literally, and religious texts that have been too secularized) seek to control and suppress sensuality; the innate connection with nature we are all born with.

Many religions demonize sex

Why? Because sexual freedom fosters creativity and free thinking.

“It should come as no surprise that religious and cultural conservatives view joy, celebration, ecstasy, and exuberance as degenerate. For in their view, they are right: gay spirit undermines patriarchal power structures.” Raymond L. Rigolisoso, Gay Men and The New Way Forward

Sex Panic is an ideologically-based suppression of our basic human need for touch, intimacy, and sex – an absolute denial of that which makes us human. As queers we can invite humanity to let go of ego and ideologies and experience the sensuality of beauty, to recognize that beauty is natural, that beauty is found in the natural world, and that we as humans come from nature.

Somebody Think of the Children

The logical fallacy, "Think of the children”, can be seen in the misguided actions of the Ontario PC Party’s move to repeal the Ontario sex-ed curriculum back to the dark ages.

Concerned parents, limited by dogma and ideological thinking, tell you they are only concerned with protecting their children. But from what, exactly? The debate about sex-ed should not be one based on the manipulation of emotions and the worthlessness of a logical fallacy. Of course, we should care about the children, BUT we should care about ALL children:

“The existence of gay and lesbian parents is a fact, not ideology. Proponents of anti-gay laws may be trying to 'save the children,' but the ultimate effect of such laws is to harm the physical and psychological well-being of millions of children currently raised by loving GLBT parents.” Source

Fuck it! In the meantime, don’t panic, just have sex.

Read the original post on TheGayGuideNetwork: Society : Sex Panic! Somebody, ​Please Think of the Children!

Further Listening & Reading

• How Gay Men Imbue Culture With Beauty and Creativity – LOP042
• How to Fight Doug Ford and the Ontario PC Party as LGBTQ+
• The Hateful Prejudice and Elitism that is Jordan Peterson – LOP056

Living OUT theme music: “Summer” by Bensound.com ~ Image: “Don’t Panic” by Nick Normal