Sex Attitudes Then and Now

A couple of things happened last week in Asheville that caused me amazement. Remember Reverend Fred Phelps of the gay-bashing, military funeral protesting, Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, KS? He brought a troupe to Asheville to protest Billy Graham’s liberal tolerance of gays. Say what? The other thing was when we took our daughter’s family to the Western NC Nature center and witnessed a ridiculous scene at the men’s room. A woman in charge of children on a YMCA outing was blocking a man from taking his small son, who badly had to pee pee, into the men’s room. It was because there were boys in the men’s room and the little tyke’s father was a man. Say what again??

This all set me thinking about the changes in sex attitudes from before I graduated from high school 50 years ago until now. (Yow! Was it over 50 years?) First of all, I never witnessed or heard of gay bashing. In fact I was in college before I learned that some people were homosexuals by choice or nature. I think most people figured it was just a rare practice that low class prison inmates, extremely ugly dudes, and desperate sailors stuck at sea for months indulged in due to prolonged isolation from wives or prostitutes. It was a time of major “Don’t ask; don’t tell; never enters your mind.”

Homosexual issues or politics were so far off the radar screen in the 50’s that people never talked about it in polite (or impolite) society. The hot issue was how to keep young women virgins until marriage…or (depending upon one’s perspective) how to erase that pesky virginity. If people went on a business trip, unrelated people of the same sex were expected to share a hotel room. In family or personal visits, you might even get stuck in a double bed with a friend or relative of the same sex. Nobody thought that was encouraging of anything contrary to Leviticus.

How about pedophilia then versus now? We knew about what we called “child molesters” in those olden days. People figured they were just rare ridiculous perverts deserving of scorn. People didn’t seem to worry that the child (particularly a same sex child) would suffer lifetime psychological damage in situations short of actual forced rape. They certainly didn’t perceive any problem with a child merely seeing or being seen naked for innocent reasons by an adult member of the same sex. The YMCA was actually males-only at the time. You didn’t have separate dressing rooms for adult men and youths like they do now here in Asheville. In the Columbia, SC YMCA, males of all ages used to swim nude in the Y pool because there were no females allowed. I’m not kidding on this. Most people would have never dreamed that one of their own friends or family members (or a school teacher) might be a child molester.

Now, fast forward to 2012. Virginity after age 18 is almost unheard of and most people are somewhere between tolerant and totally accepting of adult heterosexual cohabitation. But, we’ve become obsessed and polarized over the issues of homosexuality and pedophilia. At the same time you have some states passing laws to grant marriage and other rights to same sex couples, you have a berserk reaction from Fred Phelps and many conservative politicians. They fear we are on the verge of all turning into pillars of salt or getting eaten by a locust plague because we are becoming more tolerant of sexual behavior between same sex consenting adults. Lord knows…if the locusts don’t get us we may still end up depopulating the earth because everyone is going homo.

Pedofiliaphobia! Today we are discovering numerous Catholic priests and Jerry Sandusky types popping up like toadstools after an autumn rain. Amazingly, these characters seemed to have been operating vigorously for years with plenty of witnesses and victims who kept mum. Obviously we have been way under-vigilant on this issue in the past. Fortunately this may be changing. The ultra conservatives who hate sin and sex are united with the ultra liberals who are obsessed with child welfare, health, and safety on this one issue. Politics makes for strange bedfellows, eh?! Don’t get me wrong. Serious sex predators deserve to have their private parts twisted off and fed to the hogs except that would be unconstitutional, so I don’t support it. On the other hand the new pedophiliaphobia seems to have gone way over the top, like some of those mis-aimed strategies combating illegal immigration or in the war on drugs.

Let’s move to a lighter subject and talk about swimsuits. At the same time women’s swimsuits have been getting skimpier and skimpier (thumbs up on that) men’s swimsuits have been getting bigger and baggier. They must come down to a man’s knees or he will be suspected of being a homosexual, foreigner, or a nerd, whichever the observer chooses to find most disgusting. Ironically, although the legs are down to the knees with enough loose fabric to entangle and drown you, they are worn with the waist about nine inches below the belly button, barely clinging to the pubic bone. When I walk into the surf for an ocean swim, so much air gets under my baggy swimsuit that the first wave buoys me up with a giant wedgy and tries to flip me ass over teakettle. It’s an amusing reversal of the men’s swimsuits of the 40’s. Those were snug Homer Simpson-style briefs with no leg coverage, but with a little white canvas belt that kept them secured well above the belly button.

Do I like today’s attitudes better than those of yesteryear? Generally yes, but the devil is in the details. As far as swimsuits are concerned, generally less is better for both genders and I’d be fine with none at all. Adults should be able to make whoopee or marry mutually consenting partners regardless of gender or any other attributes. And… at my age, if I have to make pee pee, there better be an available facility real nearby that satisfies the public’s apparently intense desire to NOT see me do it.