Columnist Karen Krizanovich, writing for the Daily Mail, opines that “sex isn’t sexy any more.” According to Krizanovich, a former sex advice columnist, the overexposure and politicization of sex has rendered the act dull and uninspiring.
I suspect that this may be partly a personal/hormonal issue for Krizanovich, as she is well into middle age by now, but she does hit upon certain truths. The seizure of sex as a political tool by feminists has rendered discussions of sex banal, and even repugnant at times. The frequent televised displays of sexual aggression on the part of crass young women are far from a turn-on. The tabloid reports of the trashy love lives of athletes or famous people expose a side of sexuality many of us would prefer remained hidden under some rock.
Those things that many men and women alike find alluring have been declared politically incorrect. Witness the obsession over Mad Men displayed by millions of women – including feminists – who find the fictional chauvinism of 1960s corporate America highly erotic. Do these women really desire an equalist relationship where sex is discussed in the clinical detail of a research paper out of a Swedish gender studies class?
For men, the loss of the mystery surrounding women must be taking a toll as well. The aggressive displays of female sexuality are anything but demure; even a female chimpanzee in the darkest jungle would be put to shame by the behavior of some women on popular TV shows. In fact, it seems that the message young women have internalized is that the harder they throw themselves at a man the more likely they are to end up in bed with him. Perhaps they are correct; I imagine many a man would give in simply from the sheer force of the assault.
But this does not awaken those passions that in past days were kept under cover, subtly stirring beneath the veneer of civility. No, today there is nothing subtle about sexuality: no drama, no tension, no longing made all the more keen by restraint. It is all out in the open, like meat at the butcher shop, dressed and trussed for tonight’s consumption.
