Speculating About What Completely Rational Sexuality Would Be Like For Humans

Earlier speculating on this topic, including the article A Rational Theory of Sexuality, has been useful. Co-Counselors attempting to re-evaluate their way through the huge amounts of confusing distress that the oppressive society has placed on the subjects of sex and sexuality have reported being reassured and assisted in discharging by these conjectures. We have come closer to general agreement as to what is rational in these areas. It is noticeable that the huge preoccupation with sexuality-related topics which has been placed on most people in our cultures has been observably reduced for most Co-Counselors.

There has come to be at least general agreement that almost all of the "guidelines" offered to us by the various cultures in the oppressive society have been distorted by various patterned biases. Partly as a result of this, a kind of a "tolerance" toward distressed sexuality has developed even in the wide world. This has had its good side. A great shift away from the past persecution of people for their "differences" is noticeable among the general public, although the old attitudes of oppression and mistreatment are still too dominant. Unfortunately, the improved tolerance is often accompanied by an "anything goes" attitude which is sometimes used as an apology and an excuse for sexist oppression and the sexual abuse of children. In the name of such tolerance, distressed behavior is not only accepted, it is treated as if it were the only choice for the person with the distress.

Cultural conditioning has been geared to leaving most males, at least in Western cultures, with a compulsive drive towards, and preoccupation with, sex. On the other hand, women have been classically conditioned with fears, warnings, shame, ridicule, and embarrassment to be inhibited in the area of sex. Attempts have been made, by sections of the women's movement, to correct this obviously disadvantaging position, but they have often been geared to attempted imitation of the male patterns rather than toward revealing and discovering the actual inherent nature of human females in the area.

I have counseled a large number of individuals of both genders during all stages of the "sexual revolution," from 1950 to the present. In the process I think I have had some opportunity to glimpse what rational sexual functioning would be like if we could all become free from patterns in this area.

It seems clear to me that rational sexual initiative and responsibility lies inherently with human females. I think a rational population of both genders would quickly come to agreement on this. The basic motivation for sex is reproduction, for producing new human individuals, for guaranteeing the survival of the human race. Undistressed women inherently are deeply aware of this responsibility. Womenís bodies furnish the ambience, the care, and the nourishment which make it possible for a fertilized ovum to become a human. Women are thoroughly committed to and in charge of the process as much as anyone except the fetus itself can be. Women naturally nurse the newborn child, provide an overwhelmingly large share of the crucial early care, and are set up to become a mentor, nurturer, counselor, and emotional supporter for the child most of the way to his or her adulthood.

Without any false information or distress patterns about sex, I think a well-informed woman would be free from any pulls, patterned or otherwise, to participate in sex except when the natural functioning of her body would signal her of the opportunity for reproduction. I suspect that a male human, free of patterns and conditioning, would, in a similar way, be uninterested in sex except upon receiving a signal from his female partner. (This seems to be true for other mammals and indeed for many other forms of life.)

My guess is that a rational woman free of patterns would be taking delight and pleasure in a great range of activities that have nothing to do with sex until the actual time of ovulation. Then the internal hormone shift would trigger an ancient inherited set of feelings of desiring sex. I think at such a moment the rational woman of the future would enjoy such a shift in feelings, feel reassured that her beautiful, complex body is working well, and would: (a) enjoy the feelings accompanying the change of hormonal state but not let that interfere in any way with the high priority activities in which she is engaged; or (b) decide, based on past thinking and re-evaluation at the present moment, that it is time to prepare for pregnancy by having uncontracepted sex; or (c) decide to carefully employ contraception to enjoy the recreational experience of helping and being helped to take pleasure in the feelings of sex and climax with someone whom she loves.

I think such a rational woman, having decided then or previously on who is the sexual partner of her choice, will inform such a partner of her desire, and that this, coming as the unprovoked choice of his female partner, will in itself be the stimulus that "turns on" his interest, in either sex which leads to a pregnancy, or to recreational sex.

I suspect that once ovulation has finished, whether it has led to conception or not, the resulting hormone shift would return the attention of the woman to other affairs, whether these affairs are her usual adventures and preoccupations alone, or whether they now include these and the preparation for a thoroughly successful pregnancy.

In this happy kind of environment the present caliber of most advertising would look completely ridiculous. It would be ineffective in selling people the goods they don't want in the hope for meeting frozen needs that can never be met.

I think children would know all about sex and could talk about it in simple language as soon as they bothered to ask questions.

I think that in the rational future there will be a great deal of touching and closeness between adults but only rarely, under the circumstances described above, will it lead to any sexual feelings or activity.

I think it will be very easy to arrange for zero population growth for our crowded world. This will be especially true when permission to have children will require graduation from courses involving the review and discharge of the distress from one's own childhood. I think commitments will be required of adults (who are seeking permission to become parents) that their planned one or two children have the prospect of being members of an organized group of close and friendly buddies with whom they play and learn all day. We have seen glimpses of the possibility of such arrangements in the kibbutzim of Israel, the progressive "creches" begun in the early years of the Soviet republics, and in the happy preschools and primary grades of China in the early years following the Chinese liberation of 1949.

Harvey Jackins
Seattle, Washington, USA


Last modified: 2015-07-21 16:51:37+00