 No Sex Please - We're American
By JB on 26 Aug 2005
By JB at SB
We Brits are used to our global image of being uptight about sex. As anyone who's taken a package holiday on the Costa del Sol will tell you, this isn't necessarily the whole story: a large vodka and Red Bull, and we're anyone's! Meanwhile, Hollywood has done a great job in presenting America as the world centre of cool. How could the country that produced Denzel Washington and Marilyn Monroe be anything but sexy? Yet scratch the surface, and you'll find that the US of A is actually the Western world's capital of prudery.
The USA was first founded by puritans who found 1620s England just a little risque' for their liking. Having wiped out the natives and put a few million Africans to work building the economy, they set about making America a place for God-fearing, sex-hating people to be proud of.
Fast-forward to the present day, and we find sex under attack by the powerful religious right, all the way up to the President himself. Here are a few of the ways
they're trying to stop Americans from having, watching, or thinking about sex. Which probably explains why they spend so much time shooting each other...
Nashville, Tennessee: a ministry known as Music for the Soul has released an album of anti-pornography songs called “Somebody's Daughter”. Designed to trigger guilt in young men for watching porn, the CD is being pushed by puritanical groups across America. Songs include “Is It Me?”, sung by a young woman who we can presume has just caught her geezer having a quick hand shandy to his favourite porn DVD. Naturally, she concludes that only God can save them, and you get the impression that he's got a LOT of praying to do before he's forgiven that one. If you want to buy the CD, you're probably in the wrong place, but you can find it here: www.musicforthesoul.org
Pennsylvania: an organisation known as Silver Ring Thing is encouraging young people to declare a vow of chastity until they're married. Guilt, of course, is the trigger here; having taken the vow, and found an “Accountability Partner” (a friend who is recruited to ensure you don't succumb to your natural urges), teenagers are blocked from having sex. This group seems to target girls especially, since boys tend to be harder to convince that chastity is a good thing. What do these kids do with all the surplus energy? Silver Ring Thing recently tried a UK launch, which turned out to be a bit of a flop. If you feel the need to avoid shagging until you've married a nice decent boy or girl, you can find details here: www.silverringthing.com
Holland, Michigan: the religious right are at it again; this time, the Family Research Council are lobbying the government to oppose a new Internet domain name, .xxx, dedicated to adult content. The aim of the new domain is to create a dedicated name space for adult sites. An outraged spokesman said: "Pornographers will be given even more opportunities to flood our homes, libraries and society with pornography through the .xxx domain. The .xxx domain will increase, not decrease, porn on the Internet”. Tut tut, what a terrible thing.
Texas: It may surprise many people to know that gay sex is still illegal in George W. Bush's home state, and in some other Southern states. As ex-Governor of Texas, Bush had direct involvement in keeping these laws in place. Luckily, the somewhat more enlightened US Supreme Court has effectively ensured that these states can't prosecute people who break these laws. Still, for a country that has a lot to say about freedom in places like Iran, it seems America still has some work to do in encouraging freedom at home!
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