The American view on sex and violence was once quite eloquently expressed by a dear friend of mine in a tequila-fueled stupor while discussing sex, violence and politics: “It’s ok to kill ‘em all… but for God’s sake, don’t fuck anyone.”
Is it the fact that we are a country founded by Puritans, and then reborn in blood through a Revolution that makes us the way we are? The first permanent settlers to the United States were the Puritans; however, it is not without a little bit of tongue-in-cheek humor that we look back now at the diaries of 17th century Maine midwife Laurel Ulrich, who’s diaries show us that 38% of the deliveries she attended were of children conceived before the marriage. In The Hypocrisy of Puritanism, Dana Ward reminds us that “Puritans are often credited as the first American individualists, and at the same time the Puritan predilection to control others and how they live has been identified with an American social cultural tendency to oppose things such as alcohol and open sexuality.” It is somewhat telling that the Puritans had strict rules regarding the disciplining of spouses if they did not perform their sexual marital duties, in accordance with 1 Corinthians 7 and other biblical passages- and what were these methods of discipline? The stocks, the pillory, the ducking stool, whipping, the public wearing of letters representing your crime- or, in some cases, having the letter branded on your forehead; a hot awl through the tongue for speaking against the church, and of course, the old standby- execution. So if you didn’t fuck ‘em right, they killed you.
Consider that some of the most popular video games of our time base entire advertising campaigns, or even take pride in, being name “the bloodiest game ever”, or “your mom will hate this”, but Mass Effect having an optional romantic subplot lead to rumors that the game “…can be customised to sodomise whatever, whomever, however, the game player wishes," and "with its ‘over the net’ capabilities virtual orgasmic rape is just the push of a button away." Really? In the midst of blowing up a world, developing a relationship was the worst thing a player could do? The violence is ok… but a tender moment the night before what could be their deaths is just too much.
American sociologist Steven Seidman states, “We are born with bodies, but it is society that determines which parts of the body and which pleasures are sexual. Also, the classification of sex acts into good and bad or acceptable and illicit is today understood as a product of social power; the dominant sexual norms express the beliefs of the dominant sexual groups.
Picture a naked female breast. Is this in and of itself a dirty thing? To some it is, but if you are a baby- its food. To the four year old, the penis is for peeing- and panic ensues when he is trying to figure out how mommy pees without one- or where her penis went (I am not even going to TRY and deal with all the Freudian aspects here, that is a totally different class). Somewhere along the way parts are no longer parts but become anthropomorphized things with minds of their own- men blame their penis for bad decisions while women have the old standby of “I was drunk.”
As funny as the anecdotal evidence can be to discuss when it comes to sex, violence, and the differences between cultures, why is there such a disparity between European countries and the United States? Is it because it has been so long since there has been a truly violent conflict on American soil? America reeled at the Oklahoma City bombing , and the attacks on September 11; however, culturally, we have not been subject to the horrors of war on our soil since 1865. However, most of Europe spent the years between 1914 and 1918 and then again from 1939 to 1935 dealing with the ravages of war- food rations, destroyed buildings, bodies, bombs, blood spatters on infrastructure and front steps; neighbors going missing in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again. When you have generations which live day in and day out through the horrors and hell of war in their back yards, when you have a history of war as long as most of the countries in Europe, it loses its glamour and appeal. Since the days of the city states, when the men of Sparta trained their sons to be soldiers first and foremost, young men have dreamt of honor and glory on the field of battle; in our modern times, the gladiatorial fields of combat tend to come with screaming fans, cheerleaders, and most importantly, safety equipment. In Europe, the glamour and glory and taste for war is gone- this is not the case in the United States.
According to "Where We Stand, while the United States leads the world with 203 murders per 200,000 15-23 year olds, most European countries barely break the 150 mark. We lead the world in premature deaths due to obesity, cardiac arrest, and cancers, and 60% of Americans believe we need a fundamental change in our health care system. But life and death? What does this have to do with sex? In Sweden, 46.4% of all children are born out of wedlock, while in the US that number is only 21.5%. However, even with all these little bastard children running around, only 8% of American families are headed by a single parent as opposed to only 4% of families in the United Kingdom. Sex education is more customary in Europe than America, where conservatives oppose more than just abstinence based sex education on the grounds that it encourages increased sexual behavior. The statistics prove the consequences of this policy among American teens; 65% of American teens admit to being sexually active, with 12% of males and 16% of females have not engaged in intercourse by the age of 20- but only 56% of them are using birth control. Compare this to France, which is traditionally viewed as a hotbed of unbridled sexuality, where only 34% of teens are sexually active, and 9% of males and 25% of females have not had intercourse by the age of 20 with higher rates of use of birth control.
So what is the bottom line? The bottom line is that while Americans are still Puritanical in our approach to sex, perhaps there is hope for us yet. As we continue to develop as a global community in our current age of "sexual discovery", where everything is available for review, perusal and experimenting with through the wonders of the internet. When wars and battles are fought by young men thousands of miles from the battlefield sitting at computer screens in dark rooms with air conditioning, Red Bull, and who go home to their own couches at the end of a day in battle. We need to ask our,selves when we as a culture, as a society, and as Americans determined that it really was all right to kill everything in sight and have the profile of weapons as a part of the popular culture, but to still run away from the though of sexual health education, sexual identity, and in general... sex.
Posted by Franki Simms 
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