The Sex Myth: Why Everything We're Told Is Wrong
Read The Sex Myth: Why Everything We're Told Is Wrong Online
Authors: Brooke Magnanti
Tags: #Psychology, #Human Sexuality
Myth:
When it comes to sexual attraction, men are visually stimulated and always interested in sex – and women aren’t.
Myth:
Sex addiction is a real psychological disorder, and it’s on the increase.
Myth:
Modern culture encourages early sexualisation of children, leads to more sexual activity among teens, and promotes violence against women.
Myth:
When adult businesses move into a city, the occurrence of rape and sexual assault goes up.
Myth:
Pornography objectifies women, and the industry that produces it abuses them.
Myth:
The availability of adult content on the internet is materially different from that of any other media, and more dangerous.
Myth:
Tens of thousands of women are trafficked into Britain as sex slaves.
Myth:
Restricting and banning prostitution stops people from exchanging sex for money.
Myth:
The people who oppose sex work, pornography, and similar issues are motivated only by what they think is best for society.
Introduction
Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.
Charles Mackay,
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
S
ex is virtually a human universal. It’s something most of us can claim, if not expertise, at least an enthusiastic amateur interest.
Plenty of people have opinions about sex, sex work, and sexuality, and why not? When it comes to something of which we have (ahem) hands-on experience, we can all be experts. But sex is a broad
topic, the inner workings of which are still somewhat of a mystery to us, no matter how much we practise. Once out of the comfort zone of what we know first hand, all kinds of strange rumours can
take hold. And once a rumour starts to spread it can be very hard to stop.
Relying on others for our information about sex and sexuality starts young. I had an early personal lesson in how curiosity and lack of information mix.
When I was eight years old, kids in my year spent a lot of time trying to catch a glimpse of the opposite sex in the nude. The boys may have started it, but we girls were good at outsmarting
them.
By the time the summer break came the challenge was at fever pitch. We lived in a small town by the beach and most of us went to the same
places together, chaperoned by
parents and relatives. A lucky few had older brothers and sisters with cars. The beach turned out to be the perfect place to spy. For one thing the doors of the changing rooms ended a crucial
several inches above the ground. In the minds of the girls it was therefore theoretically possible, if we were quiet enough, to win this little war.
Because I was the youngest and smallest in the group (a good three years younger than those in the same class at school, and shorter than average with it), the job of official eye was given to
me. What I quickly discovered was that the couple of inches between the floor and the bottom of the changing-room doors didn’t allow me to see anything of interest. The angles were all wrong.
At most I might glimpse a part of someone’s foot, but only if they were standing close to the gap. Otherwise all I could see was the tiled floor of the boys’ changing area.
Weeks passed and the speculation about what the boys were hiding grew more elaborate. Clearly we were just as motivated as they were to find out what the opposite sex was up to, but who knew how
it would end?
One morning a girl called Tanya finished the war for good. She said there was a hole in the door of the boys’ changing room and she had seen what they looked like naked. We gathered round,
ready to receive all the gory details. But as for secondary sources, well, those didn’t exist. We would have to take her word for it.
According to Tanya, the male member was long, with a spiral ridge running down it – a lot like a screw, in fact. Curiously satisfied by this explanation, we forgot about the challenge and
went back to enjoying the beach for the rest of the summer. We could now all say with confidence what boys looked like naked without having to actually, you know, see one. No one gave the details
of the story a second thought even though they didn’t make much sense. After all, if there was a hole in the door of the changing room, why did no one else know about it? Wouldn’t the
boys have realised someone was spying on them? Wasn’t it odd that the shape she described – a screw – just happened to coincide with a popular euphemism for having sex?
As the teenage years progressed, similar gossip fires raged through
school every year. The stories passed between girls became more sophisticated and corrected a lot of the
faults in Tanya’s information. But we weren’t only interested in naked people any more. The gossip was more often about who was doing what with whom. And, of course, the juicy parts
always happened at times and in places where no one could prove otherwise. There was a notebook reserved especially for recording our gossip and speculations. It was passed around during French and
RE. We didn’t question the authority of the notebook. If it was written, it was true, no matter how unlikely the event – or whose reputation was smashed because of it. We were at the
age when we couldn’t get enough of thinking and talking about sex.
From the first rumours in the schoolyard to the first fumblings in the dark, has there ever been a topic more talked about, thought about, and argued about? We begin to learn about sex and
sexuality from the things we tell each other, and later from our own experiences.
As we get older and gain more insight, our gaze widens: from
when will I have sex? What will it be like? How are other people doing it?
to broader questions of sexual orientation,
relationships, and gender issues. We’re fascinated with the periphery of sex as well as the nuts and bolts of it. Stories about prostitution, porn, and sex crimes are guaranteed to get news
coverage, magazine features, and column inches in the papers. Memoirs, exposés, and kiss-and-tells fly off the shelves. We get our expertise however we can.
But the less direct experience we have, the more we turn back to gathering knowledge the old-fashioned way. The schoolyard way. ‘I know someone who knows someone . . .’ once again
becomes a believable source of information.
For example, it was once easy for people to believe second-hand stories and rumours about homosexuality, because most people didn’t know anyone who was out. As homosexuality became more
open and more visible, and therefore more people knew that they knew gay people, the malicious rumours and hatred began to wane. According to polls by the
Washington Post
and ABC News, the
percentage of people supporting equal marriage rights for gay couples has risen
in direct proportion with the acceptance and visibility of gay people. Nasty prejudices and
damaging assumptions have been vanquished by the plain light of day.
Other groups, however, who are not yet as accepted can still experience the full brunt of the rumour mill’s attacks. Because a lot of us don’t personally know anyone in sex work, old
stereotypes continue to hold sway in that area. Without direct knowledge, who’s to say otherwise? Who dares put their hand up first to challenge what most people believe to be true?
What is clear is that we need some way of telling what is real from what is myth.
Luckily, there is just such an approach that can help sort the truth from the fiction. The methods of scientific inquiry, which describe researchers’ discoveries about the physical world,
are a useful template for finding out what is true and what is false in the realm of human society and sexuality.
While sexual manuals like the
Kama Sutra
have existed for centuries, the systematic study of human sexuality really started in the late nineteenth century with Krafft-Ebing’s
Psychopathia Sexualis
and has only been a cohesive academic discipline since the mid-twentieth century.
Many early works in what is sometimes called ‘sexology’ reflected not only the fruits of scientific inquiry, but also the morality of their time. For instance, Krafft-Ebing believed
procreation to be the only legitimate purpose for sex, so any sex activity not resulting in pregnancy was a ‘perversion’. He considered rape to be ‘aberrant’ but not a
perversion – since it is possible for rape to result in pregnancy. It’s an interpretation that would be absolutely scandalous for a scientist to hold now.
Just as our attitudes change, so too do the tools of research and analysis. These changes can complement each other in unexpected and beneficial ways. Now the focus on what is testable and
verifiable has taken root in the study of sex and gender, there is less acceptance of personal opinion as the only source of evidence.
This, by the way, is a good thing. The results of the new generation of studies can be controversial, because they have the power to contradict our assumptions. But challenges are good: being
able to
re-examine what we think to be the truth is one of the hallmarks of good science and of human achievement.
In recent years a large number of researchers have looked into areas of human experience previously assumed to be untestable. Questions such as whether porn is harmful, or how childhood is
affected by sexuality, can now be examined in a way that is consistent with evidence-based reasoning. Not only that, people who study different disciplines are starting to realise the advantages of
interdisciplinary study, with social science enriching the finds of quantitative methods and vice versa.
Researchers also share the methods and results of their research, which allows others around the world to test the theories to see if they hold true there too. With the entire research community
looking on, it becomes harder and harder to pass off opinion and unverifiable stories as proof. With everyone from governments to parents concerned about sex and sexuality, a solid base should
emerge on which to build public policy and law.
Using these approaches, we can now begin to know the truth about humans, gender, and sex. Some of the findings have been consistent with things that we already thought were true but, as with
Galileo’s rejection of the flat Earth, sometimes the evidence shows a completely different reality. Sometimes challenging the status quo attracts controversy.
Why? Partly because so much of our lives depends not on studies, but on conforming to the mores and opinions of our social group. Media plays a role in this, with everything from news to sitcoms
reinforcing stereotypes about sex and relationships. With so much in vested in a particular way of seeing the world it can be easy to write off the truth as something we don’t, or
can’t, know.
And there is a lot of energy invested in maintaining the status quo. For every study demonstrating that our preconceived ideas about sex might be wrong, there is someone ready to derail the
logical argument by claiming they know better. For every statistic that is produced by intellectually honest researchers, there is a manipulated or exaggerated guess being promoted by someone with
a hidden agenda.
Back in the fifth century
BC
, ancient Greek philosophy was
surrounded by similar controversy. On one side were the sophists, among them Gorgias, who
persuaded the public to ignore experts and listen to him instead, and Protagoras, who advocated making the worst case in an argument appear stronger. For a while, they were influential and
successful. Their techniques were sought out by noblemen going after public office. Whether they knew about a topic or not, the sophists were very good at using language to impress an audience.
They formed their arguments regardless of the relevant facts. The sophists charged high fees to their students, while other teachers such as Socrates charged nothing. The sophists attacked Socrates
and Plato for questioning them and their methods of misinformation. In the end, truth won out over the sophists’ quest for money and power. But it’s a battle that is fought
endlessly.
AIDS denialism and anti-evolution movements are just a couple of examples where emotional arguments sometimes gain the upper hand over evidence and reason. The MMR debate was problematic as
well. The viewpoints promoted by these arguments may seem laughable to some, but their proponents have been skilled at introducing doubt, and therefore influencing the general public.
Aristotle said that truths have ‘a natural tendency to prevail over their opposites’, but with so much misinformation saturating the media, it takes time and effort. Researchers are
often deeply buried in their disciplines. They do not always have the resources to ensure their work is being represented accurately. This leaves the door open to those with other agendas who can
then twist and manipulate the facts. In situations where logic should rule, it is catchphrases, high emotions, and prejudice that take control.