Why We Should Shut the Hell Up About Sexuality

We talk about sexuality far too much these days. Not sex, funnily enough. In that regard, we’re unquestionably living through somewhat of a puritanical epoch. Contemporary Leftism is closer in complexion to Calvin than Marx, in many ways. A reported breakout of smut in lunchrooms, or around the watercooler demands the same urgency as an asbestos find. But sexuality - that terminally reductive invention that turns private urges into public-political messages is as hard to avoid as that 3 am car alarm. We’ve taken the most anarchic of human instincts and transformed it into a tidy, bureaucratic categorization. But, as earnest as it is made to appear, does sexuality really mean anything? Or should it? Really?

I write this after recently viewing a reel of a young man on a video call, visibly aroused by a plump, young, and flirtatious Miss Piggy-like siren. This soft creature was no Sophia Loren but had the boy under a spell, floating inches off the ground in a hormonal trance.

And then Miss Piggy spoke.

And the voice was unmistakably that of a Mr Piggy.

Instantly the poor kid freezes. You can almost hear the mental gears grind to a halt as fantasy was forced to give way to some urgent moral computation. He had been ready to do it, but was now forced to consider new, potentially life-altering consequences: should he undertake a journey to a destination from whence no soul may return? He would always thereafter be one of those, wearing the Mark of Cain, and no matter how many fair maidens he was to deflower post this specific act of coitus, they would forever be a meaningless charade. This sorry boy was so pained by it all, so wishing it could be easy. Because what was clear by his anguished expression was that he still really wanted to go there…

And here’s Dane Giraud, on the shitter, fist raised, yelling at this young stranger to “Go for it, son!” as if he were a Warrior forward in extra time, inches away from the tryline. Which probably tells you that I would’ve gone there myself, given the chance. And that is correct. I don’t ever look for this type of stuff – my Tinder account is fixed on female, but I – like a lot of men - like most men – can shift tastes based on supply and demand and depending on what is standing directly in front of me.

Should that mean I reclassify? Shuffle across to the right or left side of the goalposts and align with the blue or green team? The cynic in me sees merit in this – after all, I could tick additional boxes on funding application forms. I could literally monetise my sexual urges. And yet I never do. Why? Because that would be dishonest. For me, it is not about identity. It’s about getting off.

A noted feminist, or a philosopher, or some sort of respected social commentator whose name currently escapes me, once said that men can have intercourse with inanimate objects. Oh, now I remember who it was - me. But we’d never refer to such a man as a vacuum-cleaner or toiletrollosexual. In this case, we’d be sane about it, and wouldn’t mistake an event for an identity.

And we have research on this that has been screaming at us to shut up about this crap for decades: desire is not stable, not linear, not easily placed in a box. Lisa Diamond’s long-term work on sexual fluidity makes it embarrassingly clear that tastes shift, sometimes dramatically, over time. Attraction changes, behaviour changes, and the stories we tell about ourselves change. Human sexuality is that city where it never, ever rains, except for that time that it rained for 3 days in a row.

And then there’s Baumeister’s “erotic plasticity,” showing how much lust can be shaped by circumstance, opportunity, availability, and mood. The pagan gods of sex do not politely refer to your professed identity before they mount an assault.

Yet here we are, insisting everyone declare their sexuality like it were a blood type, and then defend it like a border.

To me, it appears the modern world has fused two incredibly bad ideas to arrive at this miserable place: the Christian obsession with the soul’s eternal essence, and the activist obsession with identity as political armour. We’ve signed up for a sexual Calvinism where every fleeting desire is a referendum on who you really are. And ironically, it’s the modern gay rights movement – or at least its more doctrinal wing - that has re-imposed the same rigidity early activists fought to dismantle. “Born this way” was a political necessity (rather than a scientific reality) once. But politicisation means that sexuality is no longer personal – your deviation may send the wrong message about your community (and that goes for heterosexuals as well). But my penis doesn’t belong to a community. After such a spotted history (I’m speaking figuratively and literally when I say that), I can’t even claim it truly belongs to me!

I mean, we’re living in a world where bisexuals are treated as double agents - the Mossad of the boudoir - by all sides, for no other reason than they seem to defy category. But they don’t defy any category, really. They are people who enjoy sex. Like the rest of us. Shouldn’t that be category enough?

But, of course, how do you monetise that? How do you bully others with that? How do you stand out from the crowd with that? How do you justify standing on the back of a flatbed truck, your paunch pouring over too-tight silver underpants, if you’re really no different from anyone else?

Which brings us back to the tragic, confused boy in the reel. He thought he had learned something unspeakable about himself, but all he really learned was that he was human. And who had traumatised him? Religious extremists and gay activists alike, who sort of meet in a horseshoe on this now. But the whole thing was a big fat who gives a fuck, wasn’t it? None of our business. To quote comedian Redd Foxx, “Can’t a man relax!”