Rotten fruit

A younger friend of mine introduced me to a bizarre tautology in conversation about her romantic life, complaining that her male friend did not enjoy ‘PIV sex’.

I’m going to regret asking this, I thought to myself as I asked her the inevitable question, imagining all kinds of peculiar practices involving animals, vegetables and minerals. It transpired that PIV is merely an acronym, for normal heterosexual intercourse, namely taking the first letters of the male and female sex organs and their relation to each other in the act of lovemaking.

It struck me how distorted cultural notions of sexuality have become that straightforward common or garden sex between a man and a woman needs to be explicitly defined as though it is some kind of niche practice with its own specialist term. While it would be absurd to portray myself as some sort of wide-eyed innocent ingenue, I’m obviously aware of other acts of a sexual nature, to me the term ‘sex’ in the context of a relationship between a man and a woman referred to ‘PIV’ intercourse. If someone tells me that they are having sex with someone else, perhaps naively, a situation involving ‘PIV’ (urgh still sounds awful, horribly clinical in its stark description) would be what I would imagine, hence the tautology, the term PIV being superfluous.

It turns out the phrase is in common parlance which is concrete evidence of the damage that pornography has inflicted on the sexual psyche of the nation, when you have self-identifying heterosexual males expressing a distaste for sex in the natural order of things, something that is designed to be pleasurable in order to secure the continuation of the species. It brought to mind shades of Prufrock, will this be the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper as our minds get turned away from good old-fashioned traditional sexual intimacy, in favour of clinical, sterilised, empty self-pleasure that we can only administer to ourselves or on our own, unable to experience the sexual joy of the other and requiring specific external stimuli as essential to sexual fulfilment?

Quite understandably, my young friend wondered whether or not her male squeeze may have homosexual inclinations. In the course of advising her and guiding her (i.e. do a runner and find a man who values you for who you are rather than what niche  and frankly stomach-churning sexual services you can perform for him, sex should never feel like hard work or a performance) it turned out that the guy had a prediliction for pornography which he believed to be ‘harmless’ and that his entire peer group seemed to share his preferences. Good taste and charity prevents me from outlining what they were in explicit detail, but they certainly wouldn’t figure in the repertoire of most men and woman I know and I can hardly claim to have led a sheltered existence – years as long haul cabin crew, not indulging in, but  witnessing some sexually louche lifestyles, certainly opened my eyes! My advice was that this group behaviour of individuals, who were admittedly all perfectly well mannered,  charming, respectable, professionally successful and well-educated people, should not be considered the norm and that they were all reinforcing each other in their deviancy.

The spread of internet pornography has enabled people not only to seek out material pertaining to acts and practices that would previously be considered taboo and removed the resulting stigma or shame as people have realised that they are not alone in fancying next door’s pet cat, or wanting to dress up like a Roman centurion to use deliberately surreal examples and thus their behaviour or inclinations have been validated and online communities formed, defining themselves purely by their sexual interests. Not only does the internet reinforce unusual inclinations, but it also provides suggestions of new potentially exciting and exotic ways of seeking out sexual stimulation and like a narcotic, research demonstrates that online sex surfers eventually seek out stronger and stronger stimuli, as the old images dull and lose their power to excite. Yourbrainonporn is an excellent resource for further scientific research, articles and  information on this phenomenon.

The ethic of personal autonomy doesn’t cut it morally: when men and women are eschewing traditional sexual activity in favour of a manufactured sexual hit at the expense of the other and potentially the procreation of the species, this is clearly contrary to human flourishing. We should not be aiming for a scenario of sexual pleasure like the one depicted in the popular science fiction film Demolition Man and this increasing phenomenon is an inevitable consequence of what happens when you divorce sex from procreational purposes.

Married couples should be enjoying penetrative sex with each other on a regular basis, rather than treating it as a duty or obligation for the purposes of procreation. As those of us in healthy relationships will testify, when we go through periods of abstinence for one reason or another, it is a privation, one of spiritual and physical benefit, but a privation nonetheless! Anything which leads to a lessening of natural God-given sexual intimacy between man and woman should be decried as a tragedy. I wanted to bang the aforementioned gentleman’s head against a wall, as indeed I do with many people and say “look, when you avoid PIV with your long-term committed (i.e married) partner you really don’t know what you are missing”. Sex is a God-given gift and as your relationship deepens and strengthens with your spouse over the course of a shared lifetime, it really does get better and better!

To put the cherry on the cake, I chanced across this piece, currently trending on the internet, so much so that the author has had to close comments, in which she, a radical feminist, claims that regardless of consent “PIV” sex is always rape. Sadly it is not a parody and one can only surmise that the writer has experienced some trauma which has led to various neuroses – this is an unhealthy and harmful way of thinking about sex and from a female point of view, I strongly object to many of the offensive assertions made, not least the audaciously unscientific “Penetration of the penis into the vagina is completely unnecessary for conception.” 

Thought like this demonstrates the theory that the feminism which is rapidly being adopted as the new cultural religion of the  media is becoming the New Puritanism in spirit that seeks to banish sex as a repugnant act. Feminism should be about encouraging female flourishing, it is difficult to see how rallying women to see a mutually enjoyable sexual act that enhances relationships, strengthens intimacy and pair-bonding as an act of violence, is conducive to happiness.

While ever wary of CS Lewis’ famous admonishment about the equal and opposite errors in thinking about the devil, one cannot help to see diabolical fingerprints all over contemporary thinking and ideas such as these about sex. God has given us something that is infinitely good and wants us to enjoy his gifts with thanks for our pleasure, for human success and His Glory. Who else would want us to convince ourselves that this fruit is thoroughly spoiled, rotten and harmful and we should instead search elsewhere for a replacement?