In many spaces, conversations about sexuality are, more often than not, either discouraged or unwelcome. Some people not only shut down educational discussions about sexuality, but also discourage others from expressing or exploring their unique sexualities. Having learned and experienced this myself, I always wondered: why? What is it about a healthy sexuality discourse that makes some folks go absolutely ballistic? And why do people make active attempts to stop others from engaging in it?
The Capitalist-Conservative Combo
To understand the “why,” we first need to comprehend the motivations of certain groups who shut down sexuality conversations and understand what they’re trying to gain from it. Many groups that center capitalist and conservative values often approach profit-driven trajectories that see others more as valuable assets and less as individual persons in their commercial ventures. As we see capitalism becoming a threat to sexual and reproductive health in our societies, we can also find the inverse happening: sexuality can be seen as threatening capitalism insofar promoting healthy sexuality is equivalent to promoting individual autonomy and liberation—which the capitalistic ideology doesn’t outright support. It is established on an exploitative strategy of making people feel the need to work the 9-to-5 (at least!) to survive in today’s world.
As the capitalist-conservative combo infuses with an overall sex-negative culture, liberating views of sexuality that don’t simply revolve around a cis-hetero-monogamist-reproductive track become threatening and are thus shut down. When we look at sexual and reproductive health from a panoramic lens, we learn that it is not an issue detached from social and political contexts. Capitalistic ventures often favor the rich and hamper the lives of the folks living in poverty. This further results in their willingness for sexual self-care becoming less of a priority over finding basic necessities to survive. To put it in simple words, sexual health takes the backseat as people try to find their place in capitalism. Thus, as talking about sexual health will bring up concerns over deep-rooted systematic issues, many who wield capitalist control prefer locking down the conversation altogether.
Silencing Tactics
With all of that in mind, it becomes easier to learn why the rightist status quo—one which that encourages authority and reverence of traditions—would not want people to have any kind of liberal discussions. These groups further receive financial and political benefits from people and corporations that similarly preach notions of abstinence, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, mandatory monogamy, and heterosexuality. There are also some examples of corporations that wave the pride flag in their stores but fund anti-queer legislators including Home Depot and AT&T. Through such endeavors, many conservative politicians make profits by campaigning and promoting sex-negative cultures and anti-queer stances.
As we dive further into this, we know that conversations about sexuality also frequently involve dialogues about LGBTQIA+ communities and identities, which are not well-received by many conservative groups. As queer folks still face damaging negativity daily, homophobes and transphobes utilize the blocking of healthy discussions about the community as one of their many tactics of oppression.
Interestingly, though, have you ever noticed how when it is in the favour of white, cis-hetero male individuals, these conversations are unapologetically shared? (Think of so-called “locker-room talk".”) Thus, sometimes it also becomes less about shutting down sexuality conversations and more about silencing specific marginalized groups.
Fear and Control
Beyond question, most of the anti-sex content is heavily based on sexual misinformation that more or less births from abstinence-only education. This type of education focuses on fear-based teaching that commands teenagers to avoid sexual engagements until marriage. Moreover, many people who want to shut down discussions about healthy and pleasure-based sexuality will use this abstinence-only stance to spread exaggerated lies about STIs and unwanted pregnancy risks. Instead of helping people engage in safer and more satisfying sexual experiences, they prefer removing sexuality altogether from our vocabularies. Having been conditioned with this inaccurate information about sexuality, these people find themselves inside a closed box, not willing to open up to more fact-based knowledge.
Shutting down sexuality conversations becomes a way to shut down acts of liberation that run against political, economic, and social structures like capitalist conservatives. Those of us who want to have more open conversations about sexuality need to start looking at the topic as part of system of larger issues, rather than a stand-alone cause.
Written by Shreya Tomar.
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