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Why would a culture require a puritanical religions to have an aversion to discussion of sex? And do you consider an aversion to discussion of sex to be default

Why would a culture require a puritanical religions to have an aversion to discussion of sex? And do you consider an aversion to discussion of sex to be default lacking or present in a population?

wizofaus 4y ago
Because why else would such an aversion arise? I don't think there are any sensible "defaults" for human cultures. But I wouldn't expect aversion to talking any sex to arise spontaneously among a population that hadn't had it imposed by prior generations or from outside. We're naturally curious beings and have lots of sex (compared to other species).
- yorwba 4y ago
  If it's not the default state, it must have arisen spontaneously among the founders of puritanical religions.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    Not necessarily, it likely happened incrementally. And it can still be rare for it to arise, it's just that once it did, something happened to make it stick.
    - yorwba 4y ago
      I don't think "spontaneously" and "incrementally" are mutually exclusive, but anyways, you can apply your "it happened incrementally and then something happened to make it stick" theory to China as well.
- alldayeveryday 4y ago
  > Because why else would such an aversion arise? > I don't think there are any sensible "defaults" for human cultures. But, you seem to think a lack of aversion to talking about sex to be a default? To your question, I've known many people whom are not practicing any religion and yet have an aversion to sexual discussion, within a population that has a lack thereof. There are many such topics that some feel are not keeping with decorum to be discussed openly and widely - and without religion being involved. Let's say in China there is a general aversion to sexual discussion. What will be your explanation given lack of puritanical religion? > But I wouldn't expect aversion to talking any sex to arise spontaneously among a population I don't see spontaneity to be relevant here.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    > Let's say in China there is a general aversion to sexual discussion. What will be your explanation given lack of puritanical religion? I genuinely don't know, that's why I asked. Presumably it's served some sort of purpose at some point. Or maybe, as another poster suggested, it was an trait borrowed from other cultures where puritanical religion did have an influence.
    - wizofaus 4y ago
      If I did have to put forward a hypothesis it's that men in power are insecure about their sexual abilities and have been worried about discussion of their exploits under the covers undercutting their status! Seems just as plausible as alternative suggestions put forth.
    - afiori 4y ago
      According to fan-made English translations of Chinese manhua targeted to teenage boys avoiding sexual activities is seen very similar to avoiding use of drugs, gambling, and/or alcohol. My guess is that it is a result of valuing austerity and stoicism and resisting temptations, which I suspect are quite important in confucianism.
- moonchrome 4y ago
  >Because why else would such an aversion arise? Because it promotes social stability ? As much as I dislike defending religion - those values produced the most stable societies through history
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    Why would not even talking about sex promote social stability? Arguably the most stable societies are those that existed for 10s of 1000s of years before the agricultural revolution etc. Did they generally have taboos around discussion of sex?
    - moonchrome 4y ago
      >Arguably the most stable societies are those that existed for 10s of 1000s of years before the agricultural revolution etc. Societies of n>100s. By tabooing sex you reduce promiscuous behaviour - which stabilises society. I don't really see how this would be controversial. Modern social values have unambiguously shown that they lead to a population decline. Huge difference being that technology makes us less reliant on population count for stability (hopefully).
      - wizofaus 4y ago
        Is there evidence at all that tabooing discussion of sex reduces promiscuity? I'd expect the exact opposite is just as likely.
    - discreteevent 4y ago
      I wouldn't think it surprising if they had at least customs around sex (whatever about taboos). Without contraception sex can cause a lot of trouble. People, even animals, will kill for mating rights.
      - wizofaus 4y ago
        Exactly - which you'd think would it make it all the more important to talk about it!
- mananaysiempre 4y ago
  Totalitarian governments seem to be naturally disposed towards controlling people’s sexual behaviours, sometimes with downright absurd results. (The early Soviet Union moved from abolishing marriage in favour of cohabitation to actively promoting it; the official stance on abortion, IIRC, flipped several times; and while the equilibrium was extremely prudish—“there is no sex in the USSR”—the adult literacy campaign of the first decade was not above commissioning and printing a literal porn ABC if it got the job done.) I mean, they are totalitarian governments, they are defined by asserting control over the totality of people’s lives. But the fixation on sex, in particular, seems to go beyond that, and yet it’s fairly universal among them. (If you have read Orwell and Zamjatin [which, let’s be honest, are nearly the same book] but not Moscow 2042, I highly recommend picking that up as well—the bizarre sexual Zeitgeist of the ripe Soviet state is much more vivid there than in the “serious” dystopian works. Though I don’t really know if it’s readable without at least an extensive set of footnotes, and given that it’s supposed to be bitterly funny that might be missing the point.)
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    > But the fixation on sex, in particular, seems to go beyond that, and yet it’s fairly universal among them. Sex is how workers create workers, a means of production. So of course they try to seize control of it.
    - mananaysiempre 4y ago
      Meh. Even setting aside non-(nominally-)Communist totalitarian regimes, the USSR experience seems to be that after the Party collectively becomes God-Emperor, any philosophy that was supposed to motivate that status is set aside like so much trash (possibly next to shot corpses of its authors). Ever noticed how the state in 1984 was supposed to be all ideological, yet had little actual ideology aside from the state being supreme and eternal? Orwell was not wrong on that one. Sure, you’re supposed to read the foundational documents, think the old state was evil, say the dictatorship of the proletariat is coming, etc., but more often than not you’re paying lip service to the person who is apathetically droning out a butchered retelling of the whole thing. Occasionally they are actual starry-eyed devotees of the idea, but just what that idea is is somehow less important than uttering The Idea in hushed and reverent tones. (I promise I was not going for this Arendtian twist, it just came out.) More often than not, though, a position of ideological enforcer is more indicative of skill in navigating a slime pit of backstabbing bureaucrats than anything else. (There’s a reason why career man is one of the vilest late-Soviet curses—now extinct, funnily enough.) Hell, the very name of the state is a sad joke—the eponymous sovjets (literally, councils [of workers and farmers], but supposed to be local governments rather than advisory councils) were all but neutered by the end of the first decade if not earlier. So, no. I don’t expect that the proclaimed ideology has much to do with it. (None of this is to be taken as a defense of 19th-century German political philosophy as a viable economic strategy, mind you.)
- nineplay 4y ago
  Talking about sex is taboo because having sex is taboo. Having sex is taboo because if women have sex with more than one man, none of men can be sure whose child she is carrying. Men, in general, really like having their genes carried on. Men, in general, really hate wondering if a child is theirs or not.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    That women having sex with multiple men is taboo has a rationale behind it, sure (even if it's not a very good one). But not talking about sex would surely make the issue of uncertain fatherhood even worse...
  - the_af 4y ago
    > Talking about sex is taboo because having sex is taboo. I don't see one being necessarily linked to the other. Murder and violence are "taboos" yet adults talk about them all the time. Especially in TV shows. > Having sex is taboo because if women have sex with more than one man I don't see the link. If having sex with multiple men was taboo, then discussing or having sex with a single man would not necessarily be taboo. Your argument also seems to be about unprotected sex, the kind which can lead to kids. So is protected sex not taboo, then?
    - thegrimmest 4y ago
      Universal, cross-cultural taboos haven't generally adjusted to the last 60 or so years of innovation in birth control. The realities that gave rise to them are ever present in an agrarian, low-tech economy. (not just human) Males need to be sure of paternity. Males who don't mind whose children they are raising aren't well selected for. This should be apparent to anyone who has ever watched a nature documentary. Humans are simply not that different.
      - the_af 4y ago
        I tend to disregard this "common sense" pop culture knowledge, because it's one of those things people say without evidence, and which often tend to be wrong. I would love to see someone explain the link between taboos about sex and male paternity claims, but so far I see not a single (even dubious) reference from subject matter experts, so I will continue being skeptical about this claim. "It's obvious!" doesn't convince me.
- tjs8rj 4y ago
  Is there any culture in the world without significant taboos or social rules around sex? I can totally see why that’d be the default, simply because sex is such a charged act in any culture. Purely biologically: it’s a very vulnerable act and has tons of “political/social implications” in a social species. Who you have sex with and be that vulnerable with signals your “allegiance” in a sense. Even chimps have taboos and social rules around sex for this reason. Who you have sex (or don’t have sex) with decides who’s in charge, who you support, what your clique is, and so on. A chimp caught having sex with the wrong chimp might be attacked.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    Chimps, as far as I'm aware, don't talk about sex. I suppose my naive view is that the more society is prepared to talk about their behaviours, the less likely it is we'll indulge in the worse aspects of such behaviour. Hence taboos over discussing particular subjects have become ingrained despite being most likely counterproductive, at least for society at large, even if they serve the interests of some.
    - tjs8rj 4y ago
      I was primarily responding to your suggestion that strict social rules around sex were an intrinsically Christian take (or religious in nature). Beyond that though, Chimps have social hierarchies around sex. It’s hard to imagine why something you believe to be so counterproductive would exist so persistently across cultures and times unless it had serious value.
      - wizofaus 4y ago
        I don't even necessarily believe it's counterproductive, it just seems intuitively expected that closing off a topic for broader discussion is a way to breed unhealthy attitudes and abusive behaviours involving sex. But doing so seems to have benefited some people I suppose. Or maybe it really is due to an innate desire to maintain an aura of mystery around it. I don't think anyone really knows.
- thegrimmest 4y ago
  > I don't think there are any sensible "defaults" for human cultures There are loads of sensible "defaults" for human cultures. Aversion and disgust at the practices of unfamiliar out-groups is one - keeps us from getting their diseases. Practices assuring paternity are another - males that are indifferent to who's children they raise aren't very well selected for. Risk aversion in, and preference for protection of, child-bearing females by the group is a third - harm to these females disproportionately affects the ability of the group to reproduce and pass its genes. There are many, many others, and we have many of them in common with our animal relatives.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    I'd agree with those (I just don't necessarily think of them as "defaults", which implies there's no real disadvantage to adopting alternative shared cultural understandings). And I'd suggest that an aversion to talking about sex is surely the opposite of a practice assuring paternity?
    - thegrimmest 4y ago
      Well, it's complicated, but I'd agree with a below poster that it seems like the "implementation" of these practices tends towards limiting opportunities for females to mate outside of their designated partners. This includes: 1. Physically isolating females from males. 2. Conditioning females so they won't seek these opportunities. In combination, these factors seem to taboo any discussion of sex at all in mixed male/female company. It seems our standards for what is "family friendly" grows out of these taboos. You'll notice that in exclusively male company discussing sex is generally much less taboo. With the obviously problematic morality aside, this does seem like the most effective approach to assuring paternity, particularly in small, low-tech, tribal groups. Edit: There's also the need to limit sexual violence, which also seems to be a factor in tabooing discussion of sex in mixed company.
    - alldayeveryday 4y ago
      Why would something being a default imply that there is no real disadvantage to adopting the alternative position? Taking other examples, if the default is for women to have sex with only a single man, why is it implied that there are no disadvantages to women having sex with many men? At least in the way I think of defaults, the value of the default vs the alternative is an entirely different variable.
- standardUser 4y ago
  The default is humans are naked or mostly-naked and have sex in the same small dwelling where their children sleep. Everything from there has been downhill.

Why would a culture require a puritanical religions to have an aversion to discussion of sex? And do you consider an aversion to discussion of sex to be default lacking or present in a population?

wizofaus 4y ago

Because why else would such an aversion arise? I don't think there are any sensible "defaults" for human cultures. But I wouldn't expect aversion to talking any sex to arise spontaneously among a population that hadn't had it imposed by prior generations or from outside. We're naturally curious beings and have lots of sex (compared to other species).

yorwba 4y ago
If it's not the default state, it must have arisen spontaneously among the founders of puritanical religions.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  Not necessarily, it likely happened incrementally. And it can still be rare for it to arise, it's just that once it did, something happened to make it stick.
  - yorwba 4y ago
    I don't think "spontaneously" and "incrementally" are mutually exclusive, but anyways, you can apply your "it happened incrementally and then something happened to make it stick" theory to China as well.
alldayeveryday 4y ago
> Because why else would such an aversion arise? > I don't think there are any sensible "defaults" for human cultures. But, you seem to think a lack of aversion to talking about sex to be a default? To your question, I've known many people whom are not practicing any religion and yet have an aversion to sexual discussion, within a population that has a lack thereof. There are many such topics that some feel are not keeping with decorum to be discussed openly and widely - and without religion being involved. Let's say in China there is a general aversion to sexual discussion. What will be your explanation given lack of puritanical religion? > But I wouldn't expect aversion to talking any sex to arise spontaneously among a population I don't see spontaneity to be relevant here.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  > Let's say in China there is a general aversion to sexual discussion. What will be your explanation given lack of puritanical religion? I genuinely don't know, that's why I asked. Presumably it's served some sort of purpose at some point. Or maybe, as another poster suggested, it was an trait borrowed from other cultures where puritanical religion did have an influence.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    If I did have to put forward a hypothesis it's that men in power are insecure about their sexual abilities and have been worried about discussion of their exploits under the covers undercutting their status! Seems just as plausible as alternative suggestions put forth.
  - afiori 4y ago
    According to fan-made English translations of Chinese manhua targeted to teenage boys avoiding sexual activities is seen very similar to avoiding use of drugs, gambling, and/or alcohol. My guess is that it is a result of valuing austerity and stoicism and resisting temptations, which I suspect are quite important in confucianism.
moonchrome 4y ago
>Because why else would such an aversion arise? Because it promotes social stability ? As much as I dislike defending religion - those values produced the most stable societies through history
- wizofaus 4y ago
  Why would not even talking about sex promote social stability? Arguably the most stable societies are those that existed for 10s of 1000s of years before the agricultural revolution etc. Did they generally have taboos around discussion of sex?
  - moonchrome 4y ago
    >Arguably the most stable societies are those that existed for 10s of 1000s of years before the agricultural revolution etc. Societies of n>100s. By tabooing sex you reduce promiscuous behaviour - which stabilises society. I don't really see how this would be controversial. Modern social values have unambiguously shown that they lead to a population decline. Huge difference being that technology makes us less reliant on population count for stability (hopefully).
    - wizofaus 4y ago
      Is there evidence at all that tabooing discussion of sex reduces promiscuity? I'd expect the exact opposite is just as likely.
  - discreteevent 4y ago
    I wouldn't think it surprising if they had at least customs around sex (whatever about taboos). Without contraception sex can cause a lot of trouble. People, even animals, will kill for mating rights.
    - wizofaus 4y ago
      Exactly - which you'd think would it make it all the more important to talk about it!
mananaysiempre 4y ago
Totalitarian governments seem to be naturally disposed towards controlling people’s sexual behaviours, sometimes with downright absurd results. (The early Soviet Union moved from abolishing marriage in favour of cohabitation to actively promoting it; the official stance on abortion, IIRC, flipped several times; and while the equilibrium was extremely prudish—“there is no sex in the USSR”—the adult literacy campaign of the first decade was not above commissioning and printing a literal porn ABC if it got the job done.) I mean, they are totalitarian governments, they are defined by asserting control over the totality of people’s lives. But the fixation on sex, in particular, seems to go beyond that, and yet it’s fairly universal among them. (If you have read Orwell and Zamjatin [which, let’s be honest, are nearly the same book] but not Moscow 2042, I highly recommend picking that up as well—the bizarre sexual Zeitgeist of the ripe Soviet state is much more vivid there than in the “serious” dystopian works. Though I don’t really know if it’s readable without at least an extensive set of footnotes, and given that it’s supposed to be bitterly funny that might be missing the point.)
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  > But the fixation on sex, in particular, seems to go beyond that, and yet it’s fairly universal among them. Sex is how workers create workers, a means of production. So of course they try to seize control of it.
  - mananaysiempre 4y ago
    Meh. Even setting aside non-(nominally-)Communist totalitarian regimes, the USSR experience seems to be that after the Party collectively becomes God-Emperor, any philosophy that was supposed to motivate that status is set aside like so much trash (possibly next to shot corpses of its authors). Ever noticed how the state in 1984 was supposed to be all ideological, yet had little actual ideology aside from the state being supreme and eternal? Orwell was not wrong on that one. Sure, you’re supposed to read the foundational documents, think the old state was evil, say the dictatorship of the proletariat is coming, etc., but more often than not you’re paying lip service to the person who is apathetically droning out a butchered retelling of the whole thing. Occasionally they are actual starry-eyed devotees of the idea, but just what that idea is is somehow less important than uttering The Idea in hushed and reverent tones. (I promise I was not going for this Arendtian twist, it just came out.) More often than not, though, a position of ideological enforcer is more indicative of skill in navigating a slime pit of backstabbing bureaucrats than anything else. (There’s a reason why career man is one of the vilest late-Soviet curses—now extinct, funnily enough.) Hell, the very name of the state is a sad joke—the eponymous sovjets (literally, councils [of workers and farmers], but supposed to be local governments rather than advisory councils) were all but neutered by the end of the first decade if not earlier. So, no. I don’t expect that the proclaimed ideology has much to do with it. (None of this is to be taken as a defense of 19th-century German political philosophy as a viable economic strategy, mind you.)
nineplay 4y ago
Talking about sex is taboo because having sex is taboo. Having sex is taboo because if women have sex with more than one man, none of men can be sure whose child she is carrying. Men, in general, really like having their genes carried on. Men, in general, really hate wondering if a child is theirs or not.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  That women having sex with multiple men is taboo has a rationale behind it, sure (even if it's not a very good one). But not talking about sex would surely make the issue of uncertain fatherhood even worse...
- the_af 4y ago
  > Talking about sex is taboo because having sex is taboo. I don't see one being necessarily linked to the other. Murder and violence are "taboos" yet adults talk about them all the time. Especially in TV shows. > Having sex is taboo because if women have sex with more than one man I don't see the link. If having sex with multiple men was taboo, then discussing or having sex with a single man would not necessarily be taboo. Your argument also seems to be about unprotected sex, the kind which can lead to kids. So is protected sex not taboo, then?
  - thegrimmest 4y ago
    Universal, cross-cultural taboos haven't generally adjusted to the last 60 or so years of innovation in birth control. The realities that gave rise to them are ever present in an agrarian, low-tech economy. (not just human) Males need to be sure of paternity. Males who don't mind whose children they are raising aren't well selected for. This should be apparent to anyone who has ever watched a nature documentary. Humans are simply not that different.
    - the_af 4y ago
      I tend to disregard this "common sense" pop culture knowledge, because it's one of those things people say without evidence, and which often tend to be wrong. I would love to see someone explain the link between taboos about sex and male paternity claims, but so far I see not a single (even dubious) reference from subject matter experts, so I will continue being skeptical about this claim. "It's obvious!" doesn't convince me.
tjs8rj 4y ago
Is there any culture in the world without significant taboos or social rules around sex? I can totally see why that’d be the default, simply because sex is such a charged act in any culture. Purely biologically: it’s a very vulnerable act and has tons of “political/social implications” in a social species. Who you have sex with and be that vulnerable with signals your “allegiance” in a sense. Even chimps have taboos and social rules around sex for this reason. Who you have sex (or don’t have sex) with decides who’s in charge, who you support, what your clique is, and so on. A chimp caught having sex with the wrong chimp might be attacked.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  Chimps, as far as I'm aware, don't talk about sex. I suppose my naive view is that the more society is prepared to talk about their behaviours, the less likely it is we'll indulge in the worse aspects of such behaviour. Hence taboos over discussing particular subjects have become ingrained despite being most likely counterproductive, at least for society at large, even if they serve the interests of some.
  - tjs8rj 4y ago
    I was primarily responding to your suggestion that strict social rules around sex were an intrinsically Christian take (or religious in nature). Beyond that though, Chimps have social hierarchies around sex. It’s hard to imagine why something you believe to be so counterproductive would exist so persistently across cultures and times unless it had serious value.
    - wizofaus 4y ago
      I don't even necessarily believe it's counterproductive, it just seems intuitively expected that closing off a topic for broader discussion is a way to breed unhealthy attitudes and abusive behaviours involving sex. But doing so seems to have benefited some people I suppose. Or maybe it really is due to an innate desire to maintain an aura of mystery around it. I don't think anyone really knows.
thegrimmest 4y ago
> I don't think there are any sensible "defaults" for human cultures There are loads of sensible "defaults" for human cultures. Aversion and disgust at the practices of unfamiliar out-groups is one - keeps us from getting their diseases. Practices assuring paternity are another - males that are indifferent to who's children they raise aren't very well selected for. Risk aversion in, and preference for protection of, child-bearing females by the group is a third - harm to these females disproportionately affects the ability of the group to reproduce and pass its genes. There are many, many others, and we have many of them in common with our animal relatives.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  I'd agree with those (I just don't necessarily think of them as "defaults", which implies there's no real disadvantage to adopting alternative shared cultural understandings). And I'd suggest that an aversion to talking about sex is surely the opposite of a practice assuring paternity?
  - thegrimmest 4y ago
    Well, it's complicated, but I'd agree with a below poster that it seems like the "implementation" of these practices tends towards limiting opportunities for females to mate outside of their designated partners. This includes: 1. Physically isolating females from males. 2. Conditioning females so they won't seek these opportunities. In combination, these factors seem to taboo any discussion of sex at all in mixed male/female company. It seems our standards for what is "family friendly" grows out of these taboos. You'll notice that in exclusively male company discussing sex is generally much less taboo. With the obviously problematic morality aside, this does seem like the most effective approach to assuring paternity, particularly in small, low-tech, tribal groups. Edit: There's also the need to limit sexual violence, which also seems to be a factor in tabooing discussion of sex in mixed company.
  - alldayeveryday 4y ago
    Why would something being a default imply that there is no real disadvantage to adopting the alternative position? Taking other examples, if the default is for women to have sex with only a single man, why is it implied that there are no disadvantages to women having sex with many men? At least in the way I think of defaults, the value of the default vs the alternative is an entirely different variable.
standardUser 4y ago
The default is humans are naked or mostly-naked and have sex in the same small dwelling where their children sleep. Everything from there has been downhill.