Does Sex Make Us Happy?

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The scientia sexualis, an "achievement" of the western Enlightenment as Foucault acknowledges, finds its satirical end-point in the "orgasmatron"--a machine that delivers instant orgasms--in Woody Allen's film Sleeper. This scientific spirit pervades modern sex. Viagra conquers natural sexual waning. Absence of sexual desire is pathologized for the benefit of pharmaceutical firms. Books, coaches and courses by psychologists help us get in touch with our "sexuality". (We used to just have sex.)

The quasi-science of sex has meanwhile reinforced and legitimized the outpouring of sexual material. As a result, our sexual consciousness has been raised, but in a way that runs counter to the spirit of sex itself. Men have long made women feel insecure--now they are returning the compliment. The increase in the number of men seeking cosmetic surgery or penis "augmentation" may be welcomed as signs of patriarchy on the wane, but it is not clear that it otherwise constitutes any sort of progress.

And then we talk about it. Endlessly. Foucault argues that the need to share has become a cornerstone of western discourse. "The confession became one of the west's most highly valued techniques for producing truth," he writes. "And we have become a singularly confessing society." That was in 1976, long before live TV programmes such as Fool Around with My Girlfriend. Hundreds of TV programmes, frequently of a confessional nature, focus on sexual matters, and the agony aunt pages of newspapers and teen magazines are peppered with sexual anxieties and issues. "Let's talk about sex" has become less a request than a command.

The purveyors of this material portray it as casting off outdated repressions. As Foucault wrote: "If sex is repressed, that is, condemned to prohibition, non-existence, and silence, then the mere fact one is speaking about it has the appearance of a transgression. Something that smacks of revolt, of promised freedom, of the coming age of a different law, slips easily into this discourse on sexual oppression. Some of the ancient functions of prophecy are reactivated therein. Tomorrow sex will be good again." So anybody who complains about page three (does anybody, any more?), lap-dancing clubs or the pornonet--sorry, internet--can be dismissed as reactionary, as wanting to keep us all in a repressed, asexual bondage. But the history of sex is more complex. As Matthew Sweet argues in his Inventing the Victorians, the denizens of that era were far from straight-laced. As he points out: "The Cremorne Gardens--a pleasure park near Battersea Bridge--were more of a meat market than the sleaziest 21st-century club." And while the sheer volume of sexual self-help books today is unprecedented, many of the messages are not new. The French "Newlyweds' Bedside Bible", published in 1885, encouraged the couple to aim for simultaneous orgasm.

If the revolution has been overplayed, the problem--for advertisers at least--is that we are becoming indifferent to its rhetoric. There is some evidence, cited by David Cox (New Statesman, 1 January 2005), that sexual imagery is losing its impact as consumers begin to "tune out" the torrent of flesh on billboards and TV. At the same time, the publication of sex causes heightened anxiety and body-consciousness among teenagers. Too much sex in the media has made adults immune and adolescents insecure.

The pressure on girls to look sexy, act sexy and indeed have sex has intensified significantly. One result is the terrible teen paranoia about body shape and the resulting eating disorders. Another is earlier sexual activity--one in three 15-year-olds has had sex. Of these, a third did not use a condom the last time they had sex, and a fifth used no contraception at all. Among boys aged 13 to 19, cases of gonorrhoea tripled between 1995 and 2002. Cases of chlamydia--which the Health Secretary John Reid has said is the single biggest health concern for the future--quadrupled in the same period. Sex education in the UK is too little, too late.

Most adults, according to the British Social Attitudes Survey, think that the main cause of teenage pregnancy is "lack of morals among the young". This is hypocrisy writ large. Where do we think young adults get their moral signals from? What is society saying to them about sex? If the moral architecture of sex is crumbling for adults, small wonder that adolescents struggle to equip themselves with an approach to sex that will protect them from its potential side-effects.

According to a survey by NetDoctor, an online medical advice service, a fifth of adults have "cybered" (had sex to orgasm with someone online). And pornography is almost certainly the internet's biggest business. With growing numbers of adults and teenagers suffering from internet sex addiction ("your next hit only a click away"), what will this mean for the next generation as it achieves sexual discovery? There's nothing new in 14-year-old boys looking at porn. What is different is the range, volume and accessibility of sexual material that technology allows.

For political policy-makers, sex features only as a health problem. "Sexual health" is one of those Orwellian terms that means sexual disease. STIs are a growing issue. Michael Howard has called for a "clear, bold and very public" campaign along the lines of the Aids campaigns of the 1980s--which, he seems to forget, were mostly ineffective. Labour is, as ever, preparing a strategy. Only the Liberal Democrats have suggested earlier, better-quality sex education. The latest recommendation of the health select committee on this issue is that personal, health and social education be made compulsory--so that sex education is placed in the framework of a conversation about relationships, well-being and life-choices. But given their fear of the Daily Mail, don't expect ministers to act on this idea.

Howard was on to something when he talked about helping teenagers resist peer pressure to have sex at a young age--he just didn't go far enough. The pressure does not come only from peers--it comes from every ad, every TV programme. We need not only to encourage safe sex, but also to examine the broader social context. As a public health policy, it is the equivalent of combating TB without reference to the water supply.

For all Tony Blair's recent attempts to reclaim the moral high ground--not least by bringing his faith to the fore--it seems unlikely that much will be done either to restrain the public tide of sex or to equip young people to deal with it. Trevor Beattie, the man responsible for turning boring old French Connection into fcuk, now runs Labour's ad campaign. The fcuk branding perfectly exemplifies the coarse, shallow sexualisation of public life, to the detriment of us all--turning off adults and freaking out kids. The saturation of consumer life, fashion, technology, music, films, magazines and literature with sex has reached the point where it is no longer liberating our sexuality but cheapening it.

Even for adults, Foucault's "glittering array" of sex does not represent liberation. The freedom to fancy and make love with the people of our choosing is central to human autonomy. All attempts to restrict this liberty should be resisted. But these freedoms should not be confused with a constant, commercially funded, sexual publicity drive. Sexual liberty is not synonymous with market libertarianism.

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There is a risk that, in taking such a position, one sounds prudish or moralising. So be it. It is perhaps the most savage irony of all that sex is used to sell the consumer products which we spend so much time and energy pursuing that we leave too little space in our lives for the genuine article.

By confusing sexual and commercial freedom, and private liberties with public litanies, we have done ourselves a disservice. Good sex is part of the good life. Our happiness hinges on the quality of our sexual lives. But our satisfaction is not rising in relation to the public obsession with sex--indeed the opposite. Liberalization has run its course. Amid all the whips and toys and aids and advice, we are in danger of turning sex itself into a mere fetish.

by Richard Reeves

Written in 3/05 Last reviewed: 10/05

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