Death vs. Sex in America
Parenting in an age where a child's death is less objectionable than them being taught about their bodies
One of the things that irritated me most when I worked as a librarian was that if there was an outcry about a book, it invariably had something to do with sex or just the existence of certain bodies — usually trans or queer. The books people objected to were often comics, as text-based books have to be read in order to object to them, whereas comics require only a glance.
This irritated me because my comics shelf was absolutely drenched in blood and gore. Sometimes it was stylistically drawn, sometimes realistically, but it had torsos that have been ripped apart, it had bodies that had been grotesquely disfigured, it had limbs being comically severed, faces disintegrating as they got hit with a bullet. Not a single objection that I heard from anywhere in the country at a library for graphic violence. Most of the time, it was about sex1.
I have written before about the mid-life realization that I do not have a body, I am a body, and the way this realization has changed my life (see below) but in the midst of the current national debate, I think it’s worth discussing what we as a country seem to value more — death or life.
Freudian psychoanalysts often distinguished between two drives that humans seem to have, the “death drive,” and the “life drive.” The death drive is essentially any act we commit that is self-destructive, that moves us closer to death. This is any act of aggression or violence, any act of self-harm or self-obliteration. If you’ve ever gotten into a dumb fight, or if you’ve ever drank yourself in a stupor to numb your feelings, that’s the death drive, and it’s often referred to as “Thanatos,” which is the name of the Greek God of Death.
The life drive is anything that is fundamentally life-affirming — it is the act of surviving, of procreating, of creating. Every time you’ve eaten healthy food, exercised, had sex, gone on a date, built something, or created a work of art, you’ve been engaging in the life drive, which is often referred to as “Eros,” after the Greek God of Love.
It is telling to me that as a country, we’re more scared of our kids seeing drag queens than we are of them getting murdered in their classrooms. State legislatures are unleashing a flurry of laws criminalizing the existence of LGBTQ bodies, and predictably, will lift nary a finger to curb gun violence.
I grew up Catholic, so I too was taught to hate my body, I too was shown a gory corpse every Sunday and told that the violence was God’s true love, and that the vehicle of God’s true love was created with absolutely zero sex involved. When I was a teenager, I was — as is the teenager’s right! — just astonishingly horny2. I was told that sex was a sin, that abstinence was the right way, and also that masturbation wasn’t okay either. I was made to watch the first scene of Saving Private Ryan, where everyone is getting blown to bits (because it was important for patriotism reasons) but it was not okay to look at sexy ladies on the internet or in magazines.
It was bad enough to be a young man in turn-of-the-century Ohio: boys that live in Florida now are being told that Michelangelo’s David is pornographic. Even having a penis is considered pornography in this country. There are even people in the psychotic corner of the internet known as the “Manosphere” who are telling kids that they’ll be healthier, more manly men, if they practice “semen retention,” a practice that has no scientific basis whatsoever.
Is it any wonder that this noxious cocktail turns so many young men into angry psychopaths? That so many of them fantasize about war and murder? And that so many of them have such a violent attitude towards sex?
What if, instead of telling kids that sex is evil, we admitted that sex is the absolute most fun we get to have? That it’s the thing that helps us connect with partners, that gives us our children? That taking care of our bodies makes us feel better and therefore makes it easier to feel happiness and joy? And that part of taking care of your body includes masturbating, which is a fun and healthy activity that allows you to relieve stress, sleep better, and improve your focus?
What if we treated violence and aggression, the things that bring our lives nothing but pain and misery, as the drive we should try to quell, and that instead there is no shame in enjoying your body, no matter what type of body it is?
My wife and I have discussed this from a parenting perspective, and it means learning to basically do the opposite of what our parents did, which includes telling our kids sex is okay when they are ready for it. It also means teaching them about their bodies, even though we have learned to be ashamed of ours. It means teaching them to trust and listen to their bodies, even though we are still learning to trust and listen to ours. It means teaching them the correct words for their parts, even if their own doctors and school nurses insist on calling it “privates” or “pee-pees.”3
This has been a chore of a project, but I’ve become convinced that the only way you can hate another person’s body and sexuality so intensely is only if you hate your own. And I’ve become convinced that you have to see your body, your life, as precious if you wish to stand up to all the people who think it’s worth nothing, and that its death deserves no more than thoughts and prayers.
Otherwise, it was usually about race, particularly when the book was critical of police.
If you want to know what this experience was like, might I suggest the show Sex Education on Netflix? There’s a scene in the opening episode of Season 2 that has a main character just constantly masturbating that is maybe the hardest I’ve laughed at a TV show ever.
I also recommend, for parents, checking out Instagram accounts like “Giving the Talk” or “Sex Positive Families.”