Café Philos: an internet café

How old, on average, is a person in the West before they first have sex?

Well, according to Julien O. Teitler, the median age for first sex among people living in Western industrial nations dropped steadily from 1960 to 1995, before stabilizing at around age 17.

(Damn! If I'd only known that sooner, I wouldn't have held out until 50.)

Although the median age for first sex has declined, the median age for marriage has risen in those same countries. Clearly, it is now normative in Western industrialized countries to have sex before marriage. In America, for instance, fully nine out of ten people have sex before marriage.

(Damn! If I'd only known that sooner, I would never have promised my latex love doll a wedding ring after our first night together.)

The problem is our ideals have not kept pace with our actual morals. So many people in the West still act as if it is reasonable to expect kids to hold out until marriage, even when they themselves failed to do it! Instead of merely expecting kids to hold out until marriage -- something only one in ten of them will do -- we should be teaching kids how to deal with premarital sex.

Teaching kids how to deal with premarital sex involves much more than merely teaching them to use a condom. Among other things, it involves teaching them a whole morality, a whole sexual ethics, and even a sexual etiquette.

A few years ago, when I was hanging out with dozens of kids here in town, I was often asked questions about ending relationships. Naturally, if you are going to start having sex years before you get married, you are almost certainly going to face the prospect of ending one or a few relationships. But when and how is it best to break up? Kids need to be taught a practical morality that addresses those issues.

That's only one example. There are many more moral, ethical, and etiquette issues that are not being adequately addressed in part because we still hold to the ideal of waiting for marriage to have sex.

Our failure to adequately address those issues goes beyond idle interest. Morality, ethics, and etiquette are ideally ways in which generations pass down what they've learned of life. When all we pass down are failed ideals, we are relinquishing our responsibility to the next generation to share what real wisdom and learning we have to share.

I've heard models described as vacuous airheads, but that doesn't describe Suzanne unless someone can be both a vacuous airhead and an intelligent, creative, buoyant, and artistic woman.

I believe she was all of 14 years old when she first modeled lingerie for Victoria's Secrets, the catalog and store company. She couldn't have been much older because I met her when she was 16 and she was no longer modeling by then.

Over the years, Suzanne has revealed a persistent talent for getting fired from employments, so I strongly suspect she was no longer modeling by the time we met because Secrets had refused anything more to do with her. She's not a vacuous airhead, but she is dysfunctional.

The story I'm prepared to tell you today concerns Suzanne, Victoria's Secrets, and her abusive boyfriend. I've already introduced Suzanne and Victoria's Secrets, so I'll turn now to the boyfriend.

Meet Jeff.

He's one of those males who prey on women much younger than themselves. Jeff is 20 years older than Suzanne, and very few women his own age have ever sustained an interest in him. Jeff can be charming. He can be witty. He can be exciting. He can sweep a naive and inexperienced girl off her feet. Yet, most women see the looser in him. So Jeff has learned to specialize in the young, naive and inexperienced women he has some chance of getting.

Once he gets them, he doesn't know what to do with them. He turns the affair into a drama, the drama into a tragedy, the tragedy into a nightmare. When you take some fish out of the water, their colors at first fascinate, then fade. Latter, the fish begin to stink. Any girl who lands Jeff sooner or later learns that in a relationship, he's a fish out of water.

Young people almost invariably overestimate the odds in their favor of significantly changing someone, and especially they overestimate their odds of changing a lover. Maybe that's because they are always being told by their parents, preachers, and teachers to change themselves, and so they assume it actually works when you tell people to change themselves.

In truth, the only person likely to change someone is the person themselves. And even then, seldom, if ever, is a person capable of a fundamental change: It's not in the nature of water to become stone, nor of stone to become air.

In the few years Jeff and Suzanne were together, Suzanne wanted two things, both absurd. She wanted to change Jeff against his nature. And she wanted her own nature to bloom. The latter was absurd because Jeff had her under his thumb and was abusing her emotionally, psychologically, and physically. No one blooms under those conditions. At best, they merely endure.

If you yourself have seen a few abusive relationships, you know they are all alike, except for the details. The only detail of the relationship between Jeff and Suzanne that surprised me was that Jeff apparently never tried to keep Suzanne from seeing me.

I'm clueless why he didn't. It's a classic pattern of abuse that the abuser tries to prevent his victim from having any friends who are outside of his influence or control. But through out the time she was with Jeff, Suzanne saw me almost daily. It's true she seldom associated with me in Jeff's presence, but we spent hours together while he was at work or off somewhere else. That sort of thing normally doesn't happen in an abusive relationship.

Suzanne would look me up almost every day. We'd then go to a coffee shop, a movie, the mall, "The Well" -- which was her favorite nudist resort -- or we'd go hiking, or drive around Colorado for a few hours. Whatever amused us.

Once, we even went to Victoria's Secrets. That was three or so years into Suzanne's relationship with Jeff. That day, we'd gone to the mall.

When we were passing the Victoria's Secrets store, Suzanne wanted to go in. The racks, of course, were full of lingerie, and Suzanne excitedly asked me to choose three sets for her to try on. She then took me back to a dressing room where she stripped and modeled the sets for me.

Christmas was a month off, so I asked her a lot of questions about each of the three sets, including which one felt the most comfortable -- if I'm going to give lingerie to a woman, it damn well better be comfortable, especially at Victoria's prices.

Looking at a young nude woman is at least as fascinating to me as watching a beautiful sunrise. Yet, I'm not attracted to most young women's sexuality, and especially not to Suzanne's. Their sexuality is more likely to depress me than to stimulate me, although I'm not quite sure why. At any rate, I certainly do not make a point of telling young women they aren't sexy -- I have my life to protect! So that day I told Suzanne, "This is a lot of fun for me -- watching you model that sexy lingerie. If I'm having so much fun, think of how much fun it would be for Jeff! Why don't you bring him out here?"

Suzanne didn't answer immediately. When she did answer, her voice had gone strange. There was a tone in it I'd never heard before. In a way, it was a little girl's voice. But perhaps it only sounded like a little girl's voice because she was having difficulty controlling it. She said, "Jeff wouldn't like it. If I did this with him, he'd call me a slut."

We fell into silence. Then she began taking off the last set of lingerie in order to get back into her own clothes, but she was trembling.

When you abuse a woman, you prevent her from being true to herself. At it's core, that's what abuse really is -- it's preventing someone from being true to themselves.

Sometimes it comes out in ways that are large enough and important enough to easily describe. Like the woman whose husband prevents her from developing her musical genius so that the world looses a classical pianist. But much more often, abuse comes out in ways that are harder to see, such as when a woman trembles in a dressing room because her lover will not, or cannot, accept her sexuality whole and complete, just as it is, without condemning it.

Those harder to see ways are as criminal as the other. You don't need to beat a woman to abuse her. You can just as well kill a person's sense of themselves, their self-esteem, their self direction -- by a thousand tiny cuts.

By the time I met Suzanne I was too old and had seen too much wickedness to harbor any fantasy that I could reason with her into leaving Jeff. I knew she was confused beyond reason, frightened into uncertainty, blinded by her feelings, and emotionally dependent on him. So, I did the only things I thought I could do, which were never that great nor enough.

For the most part, that amounted to just accepting her for herself.

I think of erotic art and porn as being two different but similar things.

To me, porn is something that reduces its subject to no more than his or her sexuality. In doing that it degrades the person in much the same way that reducing anyone to just one thing degrades them.

For instance: If you reduce a person to no more than the fact they are Black, Jewish, Mormon, a particular nationality, or a member of this or that political party, then in some sense you are degrading them. Likewise, if you reduce a person to no more than his or her sexuality you are degrading them.

Yet, I think erotic art is distinct from porn in the sense that erotic art, as I use the term, reveals someone's sexuality without entirely reducing them to their sexuality, just as you can acknowledge someone's race without entirely reducing them to their race.

It interests me that those who would reduce people to just one thing also -- perhaps almost invariably -- distort that one aspect of them. So, for instance, when the Nazis reduced Jews to "just Jews" they also characterized Jews in unrealistic and lying ways. Again, when the KKK reduces Blacks to "just Blacks" they also lie about what it means to be Black. And when the porn industry reduces a man or woman to just their sexuality, it almost invariably ascribes to them an unrealistic sexuality.

Those two things so often go hand in hand: First, reducing someone to just one aspect of themselves, and second distorting what that aspect means.

I don't think it can be denied that the human tendency to reduce others to no more than one thing and then distort that thing is a cause of much misery in this world.

Having said all that, I would much rather put up with porn -- or even racism, etc. -- than with censorship. I think the proper way to take on such evils is through debate in the free market of ideas, rather than through government censorship.

Am I onto something here, or should I drink some more coffee this morning, wake up, and try again?


See also Chanson's essay on porn -- which inspired this one.

According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy:

Despite a one-third decline since the early 1990s, the United States still has the highest rates of teen pregnancy and birth among comparable countries. In 2004, the U.S. teen birth rate was 41.1 births per 1,000 teens aged 15-19. By way of comparison, the U.S. teen birth rate is one and a half times higher than the teen birth rate in the United Kingdom (26.8 per 1,000) which has the highest teen birth rate in Europe, more than twice as high as the teen birth rate in Canada (14.5 per 1,000), seven times higher than the teen birth rate in Japan (5.6 per 1,000), Denmark (5.7 per 1,000) and Sweden (5.9 per 1,000).

Why does America lead the industrialized world in teen pregnancies? Let me suggest the reason might have something to do with the willful stupidity of American policy makers.

The nonpartisan National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy (NCPTUP) released on Wednesday a comprehensive review of research into teen sexual behavior. The review utterly damns America's cherished "abstinence only" sex education programs. Abstinence only sex education programs are programs that teach kids only one way to deal with their sexual feelings -- and that's by abstaining from sex.

The NCPTUP review failed to find even a single abstinence only program anywhere in the country that works -- despite that they looked at a total of 115 studies. They couldn't find one program that delays the initiation of sex. They couldn't find one program that hastens the return to abstinence. And they couldn't find one program that reduces the number of sexual partners. In any sane country, policy makers would study the NCPTUP report and abandon all support for abstinence only sex education.

This not a sane country.

Instead of abandoning abstinence only sex education, the Federal Government is about to increase the funding for it. Just a few days ago, the Democrat controlled Congress agreed to Bush's demand for an additional $28 million to fund abstinence only sex ed. That brings the annual funding for the Federal CBAE program to $141 million -- more than enough to wreck a few teens' lives. Can anything be more willfully stupid than that?

The CBAE program even requires those it funds to lie to kids about their sexuality. "For example, any program that receives CBAE funds has to teach [kids] that 'sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.'" Yet, if a kid is so young or fragile they are going to experience "harmful psychological and physical effects" from sex, marriage isn't going to make much difference.

In stark contrast to abstinence only sexuality education, the NCPTUP report found that, "Two-thirds of the 48 comprehensive programs that supported both abstinence and the use of condoms and contraceptives for sexually active teens had positive behavior effect." Comprehensive sex ed programs do not fail to teach abstinence. Instead, they teach abstinence as the preferred behavior and the use of condoms and contraceptives as the second, fall back behavior. The "positive behavior effect" of comprehensive programs included delaying the initiation of sex, reducing the frequency of sex, reducing the number of sexual partners and increasing condom or contraceptive use.

Opponents of comprehensive sex ed have often promoted myths about it. One thing that makes this NCPTUP report especially interesting is that it confronts the lies told about comprehensive sex ed by its opponents:

The study, conducted by Douglas Kirby, a senior research scientist at ETR Associates, also sought to debunk what the report called "myths propagated by abstinence-only advocates" including: that comprehensive sex education promotes promiscuity, hastens the initiative of sex or increases its frequency, and sends a confusing message to adolescents.

None of these was found to be accurate, Kirby wrote.

Instead, he wrote, such programs improved teens' knowledge about the risks and consequences of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and gave them greater "confidence in their ability to say 'no' to unwanted sex."

So, there you have it. Not only does abstinence only sex ed utterly fail, but comprehensive sex ed succeeds more times than not. Yet, abstinence only sex ed is Federally funded while comprehensive sex ed receives not a penny in Federal funds. Small wonder the US leads the industrial nations in teen pregnancies.


References:

Emerging Answers 2007: Report of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy

Report: Abstinence Programs Don't Work

One More Time: Abstinence Only Programs Don't Work, Comprehensive Programs Do

Just Say No To Increases In Abstinence Funds

At first glance, this public service video from India is insufferably cute. But that's only at first glance. It's actually quite informative -- packing a huge amount of information into a cheesy but fun format. I only wish there were equally informative condom ads in the States.

By the way, that light-hearted tune is now stuck in my head and will probably be there all day -- evidence of how effective it is.

Is it just my imagination or has anyone else noticed that when teenage girls talk about having "spiritual yearnings" it means they're horny?

I don't mean to put down teenage girls here. They face a lot of challenges and don't need to be dumped on. Yet, at the same time, I believe I've noticed on many occasions how the word "spiritual" can seem almost synonymous with the word "horny" as it's used by teenage girls. Not always, but often enough to be noticeable.

I even have a theory about it (why, of course I do!). My theory is that most of us, when we enter puberty, don't make an instant connection between the new feelings we experience and horniness. In both boys and girls, feelings of horniness are created by the hormone testosterone. But those feelings don't come labeled "horniness". Instead, we must learn to interpret them as horniness. And while we are learning to properly interpret them as horniness, we often interpret them as something else, such as a "spiritual yearning".

What are the feelings produced by testosterone? Well, one of the most common feelings is sometimes described as "a desire or longing to hit the road". You can see how easily that feeling could be interpreted as spiritual if you listen to Led Zeppelin's famous "Stairway to Heaven" while Plant sings, "There's a feeling I get when I look to the west and my spirit is crying for leaving."

Testosterone also produces a feeling very akin to "emptiness" -- and I've long noticed that when adolescent girls talk about their spirituality, they often talk about it in terms of feelings of longing and emptiness.

I speculate it might be a little harder for girls to make the connection between the feelings produced by testosterone and sexual yearning because girls don't come equipped with an appendage that frequently rises up and points out the connection to them. Boys do. But perhaps a bigger reason it might be more difficult for girls to make the connection is that society expects and accepts that boys will get horny, while at the same time, society more or less still frowns on girls getting horny. Therefore, there might be some pressure on girls to find a more socially acceptable label for their testosterone induced feelings than "horniness". What could be more socially acceptable than a "spiritual yearning"?

None of this is meant to discount the genuine spiritual needs of adolescent girls. I merely wish to point out my impression that girls (more often than boys) sometimes confuse horniness with "spiritual yearning". Adolescence is usually the first time in our lives that we become intensely concerned with spiritual matters. It is also usually the first time in our lives that we become intensely concerned with sexual matters. Since both concerns are in many ways new and unfamiliar to us, it seems possible that we might at times confuse the two.

If so, I wonder how often an exceptionally fervent teenage interest in religion is due to good, old fashioned horniness?

I suppose the short answer is: Evolution. That is, the short answer to the question, "Why is understanding human sexuality so important to understanding human nature?"

From the theory of evolution, we know that reproductive success determines which species will hang around. Then when you combine that with the simple fact we reproduce sexually, you get the short answer. It's not sexual desire that makes understanding our sexuality so important to understanding human nature. It's evolution.

That understanding human sexuality is crucial to understanding human nature is so obvious even some of our politicians know it. That's why they seldom speak of the future in abstract terms -- instead, they speak of "the world we will leave to our children". The distant future is just a fantasy to most people -- until you link it to their reproductive success. Then, of a sudden, it becomes something to be taken seriously.

Sex, of course, is not everything. Human nature is not synonymous with human sexuality, and all efforts to reduce human nature to human sexuality have failed. Yet, our sexuality so pervades us that it is impossible in many ways to understand people without understanding their sexuality. The affair Bill Clinton had with Monica Lewinsky told us at least as much about Bill Clinton the man as his decision to bomb Serbia.

I have always wondered why Clinton chose Lewinsky. A president can pick from a host of women. Why didn't he pick an extraordinarily gifted, talented, sophisticated, and intelligent woman? Put differently, why didn't he pick someone who challenged him, inspired him, made him want to be the best he could be?

"I am sure no other civilization, not even the Romans, has showed such a vast proportion of ignominious and degraded nudity, and ugly, squalid dirty sex. Because no other civilization has driven sex into the underworld, and nudity to the W.C."

- D.H. Lawrence

Last night and this morning, I have been engaged in arguing about premarital sex with a friend on an internet forum. My friend is: (1) idealistic, (2) idealistic, and (3) idealistic. Apart from those three things, she's idealistic. But it's not entirely her doing, for she has been raised to be idealistic.

She's a bright, articulate, and humanely decent young person who has had the misfortune of having been sheltered from many of the realities of life by her parents.

Her parents even went so far as to home school her -- both in order to give her a superior education in some things and an indoctrination in other things. For instance: They did not think it was advantageous to her to know too much about the theory of evolution, other than why they considered it wrong. So now she's well educated about certain things and poorly educated about others.

I suspect her parents did a very good job indoctrinating her on the subject of sex and relationships. Added to that, she has never had a boyfriend. That is, she has had insufficient experience to contradict her ideals. She believes in Prince Charming. She really does! He is as real to her as the theory of evolution is wrong and she is holding out for him in more ways than one. Most obviously, she is holding out for him sexually. She wants to be a virgin on her wedding day. But more subtly, she is holding out for him emotionally. She does not want to date anyone who she thinks is not the Prince.

It has never really occurred to her that everything has a learning curve, and even love is no exception to that. In a vital way, we must learn how to love. And we can only learn so much about love from words, just as we can only learn so much about playing tennis from listening to words. At some point, if we are going to love well, then we must practice loving, just as we must practice tennis to play tennis well.

Ideally, in tennis, you hit the ball over the net, return each volley, and all goes well. But unless you have actually practiced doing that -- and practiced it and practiced it and practiced it -- you will be unable to do it well.

Of course, she would say she only wants to practice love with one special person, her Prince Charming. I think that's fine, if that's the way she wants to do it. I am not actually opposed to anyone holding out for their prince or princess. But I do object that she doesn't truly realize there will be a learning curve when she finally meets the Prince.

How do you keep your ideals when life smashes them down? In some cases, you simply don't. During the Korean War, the Americans attempted at first to conquer North Korea. Then the Chinese entered the war and the Americans had to change their goal or ideal from the conquest of North Korea to the defense of South Korea. They managed to accomplish this second goal or ideal, but had they not in time changed from the attack of the North to the defense of the South, they would have lost both goals, rather than just one. To accomplish anything in life you must sometimes be flexible about your ideals. And, somehow, I don't think my friend is flexible about her sexual and relationship ideals. She may very well end up loosing everything.

I wrestle with what to think about idealism. That's to say, I don't feel I understand it. And I don't feel I understand it because, for the most part, all I see are its follies and excesses. If you really understand something, then you tend to have a balanced view of it. But I do not have a balanced view of idealism: I see it's weaknesses, but not its strengths. So there is a large part of me that hopes she will find exactly what she wants in life. Even though I doubt that will be the likely outcome of her stubborn idealism.

When I think of dating, I think of courtship. Every few years, one or another of the big magazines is sure to run a cover story asking, "Is Courtship Dead?". The magazine will claim that's a serious question and to prove it's a serious question, they will point to some recent poll in which 67% of the respondents between the ages of 18 and 24 adamantly declare courtship means nothing to them. It's something their grandparents might have done in their day, but today's hip 18 - 24 year old has no use for it, etc. etc. etc.

You might recall from your studies of social history that "radical thinkers" in every generation within the last 150 years have declared courtship dead. Courtship is always being declared dead by people. Yet, every generation courts. Why is that?

"Why is that?" would have been a hard question to answer accurately back in the good old days. In this case, the good old days are the 1970's when everyone in academia seemed to believe that humans were born with a "blank slate". That is, the predominant paradigm in nearly every field back then was that humans were born with no innate behaviors -- nor even any predispositions to behaviors -- and that all significant human behavior could be explained as learned behavior.

On the other hand, today, it's very well known that humans are genetically predisposed to some behaviors. Contra the old 1970's paradigm, not everything humans do is entirely learned (although learning does play a role in most everything). Most likely, courtship has never died out -- despite all its obituaries -- primarily because we humans are genetically predisposed to court.

More specifically, it seems courtships follow a certain general pattern, and that pattern is what we're genetically predisposed to follow. For instance, a graduate student in anthropology discovered that women are more likely than men to initiate successful courtships -- at least in bars. One of his methods was to attend campus town bars where he could record the exchanges between mostly undergraduate men and women. He found that women initiate courtships nonverbally, with their eyes. In other words, they offer "come on looks" to men who interest them. The grad student noticed that courtships initiated by women were more successful than those initiated by men. Success in this case was measured by whether the people engaged in the courtship left the bar in each other's company. What the graduate student discovered was part of the general pattern of human courtship.

A while back, I read of two psychologists who had concluded that dysfunctional courtships -- courtships that do not follow, or that slight, the general pattern of human courting -- almost invariably result in dysfunctional relationships and marriages. If that's true, the importance of courtship in humans is clear.

I have a strong hunch, but based only on anecdotal evidence, that when dysfunctional courtships result in sex, one, the other, or both partners is very apt to feel exploited, abused and even humiliated by the sex. From what I've seen, it seems courtships prepare us emotionally and psychologically for sexual intimacy. Without a good courtship, we are not prepared for that level of intimacy, and our feelings afterwards often show it.

So far as I know, there is nothing in our genes that prescribe we must be married to have a healthy sex life. But if the anthropologists, biologists and psychologists are right, then our genes might indeed prescribe we must have a healthy courtship to have a healthy sex life.

Last, I think courses taught in the public schools on human sexuality should include a section on courtship. If dysfunctional courtships lead to dysfunctional relationships and marriages, it might be wise to teach kids what the value of courting is and something about how to go about it.

A new poll of young people (ages 13 to 24) jointly conducted by MTV and the Associated Press finds that "being sexually active leads to less happiness among 13 - 17 year olds" but more happiness in the moment for 18 - 24 year olds.

Of course, by "leads to", the folks at MTV and the Associated Press meant "it correlates with". So, the press release should have read, "being sexually active correlates with less happiness among 13 - 17 year olds, but correlates with more happiness in the moment among 18 - 24 year olds." The difference is important.

"Leads to" implies that sexual activity causes less happiness among 13 - 17 year olds.

However, there could be all sorts of other reasons why sexually active 13 - 17 year olds are less happy than their non-sexually active peers. For instance, it could be that unhappy kids start having sex earlier than happy kids (Perhaps unhappy kids are using sex to escape their unhappiness). If knowing why sexually active 13 - 17 year olds are less happy is important, then it is important to be straight about the difference between "leads to" and "correlates with".

Having said all that, I might add that if any kid were to ask me when they should start having sex, I would most likely tell them, "sometime between 18 and 24". That is, unless I knew the kid well enough to sense that he or she would be happier starting sex earlier or later than that age range. Yet, for most people, it seems a pretty good bet that sometime between 18 and 24 they will be emotionally and mentally mature enough for sex.

I do not know at what age someone will be emotionally and mentally mature enough for sex, but I do know that it's very difficult to be happy having sex if you are not emotionally and mentally mature enough for it.

Although many Americans approach sex in the spirit of moderation, American popular culture does not. In the popular culture, it's all or nothing. Addict or prude. Both extremes are merely obsessive.

"Sex. In America an obsession. In other parts of the world a fact."

- Marlene Dietrich

A recent Federal survey reported that men had a median seven sex partners while women had a median four sex partners. Mathematicians quickly responded to the survey, pointing out the gap between men and women was too great for the survey results to be creditable. If there's that much of a gap between men's and women's median partners, then someone is lying. But who? And why?

The Federal survey is by no means alone in reporting an implausible gap between men and women: "In study after study and in country after country, men report more, often many more, sexual partners than women." So it's pretty common worldwide for folks to lie on sex surveys when asked how many partners they've had. But exactly who is lying and why are they lying? Are men doing most of the lying? Are women? Or, are both men and women lying about their number of sex partners?

Perhaps the answer to those questions was discovered four years ago. In 2003, Terri Fisher at Ohio State University and Michele Alexander at the University of Maine performed a perfectly ingenious experiment that found when men and women are told they have been hooked up to a lie detector, and are then asked how many sex partners they've had, the women report having had substantially more sex partners than they would otherwise report. On the other hand, the men who have been told they are hooked up to a lie detector pretty much report the same number of sex partners as they reported before. In other words, the women are the ones who are lying on these sex surveys, and they are lying by under-reporting how many sex partners they've had.

But why are the women lying? Well, Fisher and Alexander speculate that women under-report the actual number of sex partners they've had because they do not want to appear to be sexually promiscuous.

I came across this photo over at The Primate Diaries and was floored. On a scale of 1 to 10, the model flat out achieves an 11 for sexy looks. She's either a very good actress, or she's about to jump the photographer.

I should be clear: What strikes me about this model is not her obvious physical beauty, but her expression. Even an "ugly" woman indulging in an expression like that would be powerfully sexy -- a force of nature. And it's that fact which most fascinates me about the photo.

At any rate, I'm struggling mightily this morning to deny my natural impulse to heap cash, jewels and expensive electronic toys at that woman's feet. Have you ever wondered how a mere look can have such an effect? That is, why does that expression affect me even though it's neither meant for me, nor am I otherwise attracted to that woman? Any comprehensive answer to those questions would need to deal, on a very fundamental level, with the power of art to move us.

When I was in my late 30s, a chain of events unexpectedly led to dozens of high school kids befriending me, about half of whom were girls. Some of the girls became surprisingly close to me, visiting every day, and so forth. I didn't have sex with any of them, but I did learn how dizzying it is to have an attractive girl make a pass at you, irregardless of the fact she's much younger than you.

Those experiences taught me -- I'm not a very moral man. For I sure didn't turn down any of those dizzying opportunities for moral reasons. My moral sense simply isn't strong enough to resist such things. In every case, the only thing that kept me from statutory rape were various practical considerations. Considerations such as: The gulf between her expectations and mine; and that any relationship was likely to lead to major disappointments for the both of us.

Sometime towards the end of that period in my life, I met three men who turned out to be a pastor and his two sons -- both of the sons were pastors, too. Although we met only briefly, the three men stuck in my mind because they had behaved as if they were hiding something. A few days later, I picked up the newspaper and discovered the oldest son was on trial for having sex with a 13 year old choir girl. Later that summer, he was convicted.

I've wondered about that man ever since. I know some people will say, "His morals weren't strong enough". But, to me, that doesn't begin to explain it. I know my own morals aren't strong enough to resist such temptations, yet I've never committed statutory rape. So, I've wondered: Did he give into temptation because all he had to hold him back was a mere moral code? Are mere morals ever strong enough?

Lately, I've come across a string of blogs written mostly by women in their twenties which focus on the author's sex lives. These authors write very openly about everything from how to give excellent oral sex to whether foursomes are more rewarding than threesomes. Judging from their blogrolls, there are quite a few such blogs, although I've only managed to read a half dozen or so. Still, that's enough blogs to get me wondering how such blogs could change our attitudes towards female sexuality if increasing numbers of women choose to blog honestly and openly about their sex lives.

It wasn't too many decades ago that women were widely assumed to have little or no real interest in sex. The prevailing notion was they participated in sex only to please their spouses. Either that, or they suffered from a psychological illness: nymphomania. Although some of that old view lingers with us, most folks today seem at least willing to admit women have sexual desires and needs.

When you get down to it, that's not much of an admission.

Yes, we admit women have sexual desires and needs, but we still largely think of those desires and needs as rather tame -- at least for "normal" women. Doesn't every woman, for instance, deeply want to convert her every sexual encounter into a long term meaningful relationship? Aren't women more timid and less experimental than men? Isn't there something profoundly wrong with any woman who can -- even at times -- find satisfaction in sex alone?

If more women start blogging about their sex lives, then we might seem some of those notions overturned. For the truth might well be that women have richer, more complex sexualities than men.

A short while ago, Decrepit Old Fool laid out a few principles on which to base a sexual morality. I think they're pretty good principles and will paraphrase them here with a bit of elaboration:

1) Meaningful Consent. Sex should not occur without meaningful consent. A person can give meaningful consent only if they (a) mentally and emotionally mature enough to give consent, (b) in possession of their senses, and (c) significantly aware of, or informed about, the possible consequences of their actions.

2) Meaningful Honesty. Closely related to the above, partners should be frank and honest with each other about their expectations. For instance, if one partner expects sex to lead to a long term relationship, and abhors casual sex, then that partner needs to inform the other of his or her expectations.

3) Diversity. A sound sexual ethic must allow for diversity in sexual practices, relationships, and orientations. The notion that only my preferred sexual practices, chosen relationships, and sexual orientation are valid ones is simply untenable.

4) Autonomy. Those not affected don’t get to decide what's ethical. This principle does not rule out intervening to prevent abuse -- since the abuse the abuse of one person in the community affects others in the community -- but it certainly rules out such nonsense as telling people they cannot use birth control or must always use the missionary position.

What do you make of those four principles? Could a decent sexual ethic be based on them? Are other principles needed too?

I think a good part of the American problem with sexuality is caused by good ol' envy.

Some people who aren't completely content with their own sex lives envy others theirs. And of those who envy, some seek to assuage their envy by attempting to put restrictions on the people they envy.

I think that might be why so many "moral" people eventually break down and have affairs with their secretaries, prostitutes, or the occasional goat. That is, their moral aversion to sex is not based on anything that's wrong with sex, but on envy -- so when they get a chance to grab some, they take it.

I don't think envy is the only factor that causes the American hysteria with all things sexual, but I think it plays into it in a big way. And I think it's a weak foundation on which to build one's sexual morality.

I'm not sure I thoroughly care at what age women are typically the sexiest, but the question still amuses me enough to pose it this morning. Especially since silly American culture seems to insist that real women are not sexy -- rather, mere teens are. Fashion is driven by 16 year olds. So, at what age are women typically the sexiest?

My hunch is most of us will think first of the age at which women look the sexiest. Nothing wrong with that. The women who are held up to us as sexy are almost always women we know through the media, and the media emphasizes not only youth but looks too. So it's almost natural for us to think, "sexy = pimping good looks". But can we think outside that box?

In real life, isn't sexy, like charisma, most often associated with behavior rather than merely with appearances? And if that is true, shouldn't we take into account such things as the sexual confidence of women when asking the momentous question?

I've read psychologists who assert that around age 35 most women undergo a sea change in their attitudes towards sex. They gain vast sexual confidence. Let's suppose that's true. If so, would that explain why -- in real life -- a 30-something woman can often create in men more sexual excitement than her younger sisters? I don't know, but I'm tossing it out as a definite possibility, and my nomination for the typical age at which women are sexiest.

Of course, I don't mean to imply by any of this that women older or younger than 30-something cannot be drop dead sexy. Instead, I'm merely suggesting that women in their 30's tend to reach a sexual peak. There are exceptions to every rule. Besides, the real point of this exercise has been to question the common American notion that female sexiness belongs almost exclusively to teenagers. That's just silly.