Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Sex is dirty. Save it for someone you love.

Ah, the science of sex. Love it. Lust it. Whatever. Birds Do It. Bees Do It. People Seek the Keys to It. I swear I just said this in class yesterday:

An understanding (of sexual desire) could hardly come too soon. In an era when the rates of sexually transmitted diseases continue to climb; when schools and parent groups spar bitterly over curriculums for sex education classes; when the Food and Drug Administration angers both religious conservatives and women’s groups by approving the sale of the morning-after pill over the counter but then limiting those sales to women 18 years or older; and when deviations from the putative norm of monogamous heterosexuality are presented as threats to the social fabric — at such a time, scientists argue that the clear-eyed study of sexual desire and its consequences is vital to public health, public sanity, public comity.

'Course, we scientists start with defining our terms. More difficult than it appears:

“We throw around the term ‘sexual desire’ as though we’re all sure we’re talking about the same thing...But it’s clear from the research that people have very different operational definitions about what desire is.”

Overall, a great article reviewing the current status of sexology. What a word. Sexology.

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