In college, I found that classes would sometimes coincide in wonderful ways. For instance, a professor might discuss bildungsroman and Jacques Lacan in one class, and then in a different class later on the same day, those two strange subjects would come up again, totally independently. This happened in subtler and thematic ways as well, and while it is not at all surprising - the same topics are bound to be repeated if you study a subject for long enough - it was always gratifying. The world made better sense: my classes had clearly been picked wisely, and not merely because they fit my work schedule.
This coincidental subject convergence happened to me again yesterday. I was in a bookstore in Park Slope, killing time before I had to be somewhere, and I happened to pick up The Best American Essays of 2007, and found myself reading about Lolita. More specifically, I read Afternoon of the Sex Children by Mark Greif. The essay addresses Lolita as a cultural critique on the growing fascination with the sexuality of children. A relatively new phenomenon when Nabokov was writing, Greif argues that the nearly complete sexual freedom of children, and their status as the most highly desired sexual objects, is a sign of serious cultural decay. ("Child" is used broadly; everyone from 12 to 22ish years old can be one.) Instead of venerating experience or wisdom, the trend is to desire only what is new, fresh, and ultimately, bland. Basically, for Greif, Gossip Girls represents the end of civilization. Furthermore, he argues that sexual liberation has not equaled sexual freedom; the subject has merely gone from absolutely taboo to completely pervasive. Sex has been liberated, but no one has been liberated from sex.
I was at a party on Friday and someone there had made a documentary film in college about the loss of virginity - he basically interviewed a bunch of his friends about their first time. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested in seeing the video; from what I heard, it sounds hilarious. Would Greif say that by enjoying and displaying these stories we were all participating in a culture of sexual obsession? Probably. But how can you possibly free culture from sex? Whether it is totally unmentionable or constantly talked about, it will still be on everyone's mind. Sex is a natural imperative, we can't be free of it. In the same way, it's inevitable that young people will be more sexual, and more desired, than older people; biologically our prime reproductive years are between the ages of 12 and 22. Even if people wanted to be liberated from sex, or the desire for youth, it's impossible; both are irresistible, for the obvious reasons. If Greif is right, and the public obsession with youth and sex is culturally destructive, what's the alternative, other than reverting back to 19th century sexual norms? Isn't it better, if we are going to be obsessed with sex anyway, not to deny it?
Greif makes a persuasive case, though, and highly public nature of intensely private subjects, including sex, is a feature of life in the 21st century I find numbing, if also sometimes entertaining. What's private, if everything is reported publicly? (I do realize, btw, the hypocrisy of writing that on my blog.) Even the shock of Lolita and the strangely sympathetic Humbert has sort of worn off. Enjoying a 12 year-old as a sexual object is disturbing, but not unheard of. And if, like me, you read Dan Savage, nothing sexual is shocking. Even when it probably should be.
3 comments:
What would be bad about returning to an understanding of sexuality from a previous time, if it was a better understanding? You say it's "reverting" as though substantive progress has been made in the elapsed time, or as though our understanding of sex is headed towards ever greater clarity. But you sound kind of ambivalent about that. So why not look back? I think the Greeks had an understanding of eros that didn't deny sex, but neither did it subject it to scientific categorization. They might be worth consideration, and perhaps emulation. If we're going to emulate somebody, Socrates might be better than pop stars, at the very least.
I think it's unquestionable that there are aspects of love and sex must be kept private in order for men to be anything more than fornicating monkeys. The danger of publicizing them is not the erosion of novelty, but the loss of something else--meaning, understanding, individuality?
Also, as far as I remember, peak reproductive age is the mid to late twenties. It takes some time after menarche before the equipment is reliable, I guess.
Somehow, Rita, I knew you would bring up the Greeks. I agree with you, though, in the sense that I don't think our understanding of sex has made any substantive progress. And I do think that improvements are needed, and perhaps looking to Ancient Greece for answers is one solution. I just don't think that any civilization has ever been sexually liberated in the sense that Greif wants us to be. I'm not sure it's possible. But I'll have to read the Symposium and get back to you.
I also agree with you that it isn't just the erosion of novelty that's going on. When I say the publication of private issues makes me numb, I didn't mean that the excitement of shock had gone out of my life. Individuality, morality and the idea of self-respect are all eroded. The idea of what is right and what isn't gets harder to figure out when everything is permissible.
Finally, I got my facts on peak reproductive years from the essay. Apparently, for women at least, reproductive potential declines after 20 years of age. But maybe it was wrong. The point pretty much still stands, though: younger people are better baby-makers.
Ah, I did not get that Grief wanted us to be liberated from sex; I thought he was just commenting that the effort to become liberated from sex has only succeeded in liberating sex, but not us. It seems quite impossible to liberate people from sex, except in some Brave New World test tube baby way. Plato certainly did not intend to liberate man from sex.
If you look up "peak reproductive age women" in Google, the first result will say it's 20-25. Other results say 25-30. I only harp in this b/c we make substantial distinctions between the maturity of a 16 yo and a 26 yo, and the creeping sexuality of younger and younger women might not be best described as the manifestation of some sort of natural or evolutionary urge to procreate.
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