Sexuality is usually defined as physical love. Obviously there are a number of forms of sexuality that are questionable in their inspiration, but generally I think sexuality is born out of affection, admiration, the desire for closeness and connection, reproductive impulses and motivations, and love. I'm guessing most of the human race considers those things good.
On the other side, violence is born out of anger, greed, miscommunication, misunderstanding, xenophobia, harboring of vengeful feelings, and a general malevolence toward another human being (could be toward other things, but this is my main concern). I'm guessing most of the human race considers those things bad.
I realize a lot of this is somewhat subjective, but it is hard to believe that these assumptions aren't accurate for most (like 90% of the human population at least) people.
Sexuality versus violence. Love versus hate. Seems like good versus evil. Seems like common sense which one we would support and which one we would oppose as a general rule.
So why, then, are we all hypocritical jerks (I'm only including myself in this out of courtesy ;) ).
Our entire society thrives on the display of violence. It is probably the most prevalent theme in every aspect of our media. I realize it is a very prevalent aspect of the human experience and our past, but WHY do we insist on building everything around it? And to further make things insanely hypocritical, why do we treat sexuality like it is the scourge of everything that is good? I mean, it's the only reason we are here... despite violence doing its best to wipe us out. I would say sexuality is the core drive and purpose for survival of human beings, although I'm sure that could be debated.
I am just consistently fascinated with our culture's desire to label sexuality as evil while fully embracing 6000 murders a night on television. I realize there is a decent bit of sexuality in the media as well, but we will generally let our kids watch hundreds of people be killed on television before letting them watch a sex scene.
I tend to blame it on Christianity in the U.S. society, but I think that falls short of explaining it. I definitely think the religion (along with others) has a pretty unrealistic view of healthy human behavior when it comes to sexuality... mainly because it tries to force a very unrealistic behavior pattern on people that I think generally leads to self-loathing and self-incrimination. That is not a good way to make healthy people. However, it also speaks very highly against violence... at least in the new testament.
I guess you could make the argument that most of our media employs some sort of judgement or justice for those who are violent in the end, therefore reinforcing the 'morality', but this is a sad excuse for its existence. We seldom actually show the resulting impact of the violence we see in the media... you never even hear about the 50 families that had their lives torn apart by the random car chase that terrorized a town in an action movie.
The violence in our media feeds a very basic human hunger, and in my opinion builds up an amazing level of justification for the behavior. It is candy for what I believe is the most outdated and harmful part of the human psyche. Just to be clear, I don't believe any of it is likely to cause a person to be violent. The real crime is that it causes us to accept violence in our society. It also probably leads to violence being chosen as an option when looking for solutions to problems more often than it should though... a.k.a. war instead of diplomacy.
On the other hand, we treat sexuality like it is the most horrific secret of human kind when raising our kids. We say to them, when they are 'old enough', that it is something to do in a married stable relationship. We say that even though almost none of our society actually practices that behavior. If people do manage to 'wait until marriage,' they still often end up being 'unfaithful'... probably because they weren't actually prepared for the reality of never having a sexual relationship with another person because they didn't experience what it even meant until they were married (duh). Don't get me wrong -- I am an obsessively monogamist person when in a relationship, but I spent the first 25 years of my life 'waiting' (technically), just to realize that I was essentially handicapping my level of intimacy with my partners based on some abstract rule.
What we should be doing is teaching our kids how to be sexually intelligent and mature. We should be educating them on how to be caring people, how to express their emotions, how to appreciate physical contact and how to be responsible with their sexual endeavors. But we can't, because we are all insanely awkward about it due to the fact that we have turned it into the dirty secret of the human race. Even the concept of discussing sexuality with anyone younger than 18 sounds like something taboo to most of our society.
And of course, this is all self perpetuating, because we all end up with an unhealthy and unrealistic concept of sexuality, further embedding the problems. Most people in this country are even terrified by nudity, which is not even innately sexuality (although I think most people can't understand the difference).
I am generalizing a lot. There are probably a lot of people that have grown up in more 'progressive' environments, but this is the way I see the public opinion in our country, and I think anyone would be hard-pressed to argue otherwise.
Anyway... I really just add this to the laundry list of wool-being-pulled-over-our-eyes issues. Thousands of years of actively trying to strip the masses of their self-worth, empowerment and humanity so they are more useful as tools for the chess masters. That's not intended to imply conspiracy, just the natural tendencies of things.
It would be glorious to see people actually start reversing these trends though... at least in my opinion.
