Sunday 1 July 2001

Pic of the day: Zero degrees of separation?

Sex and the law

I don't respect human laws. This does not mean I go out of my way to break them: On the contrary, I try to stay within the law as much as I reasonably can. Most laws don't pose a problem for me, because I have few inclinations that are regulated by law and not by my conscience, which usually set much stricter bounds on me than human laws.

But I am aware that the laws are made by people who repeatedly prove themselves to be inferior in intellect and integrity to many of those who they want to rule over. They are certainly dumber than I am, and lack a sense of logic as well as understanding of how a society works, not to mention the human mind. And even at that, I am convinced that they sometimes act against better judgement - to spite rivals, or to appeal to the lowest common denominator of the electorate.

So, I don't respect human laws or those who give them. Today laws come and go at a whim. The sheer number of laws means that few of us can go through our day without breaking some law or some regulating given by the bureaucracy with mandate in some law. Unless we are full time lawyers, how would we even know? Are you sure you are allowed to drive faster than the designated speed limit while you pass another car? Are you sure you are allowed to wear the uniform of your football team? Can you install that program on your new computer when the old has stopped working, without physically destroying the old hard disk?

***

Given my attitude, you'd think I would want the government to stay out of people's bedrooms, and say so less than politely. After all, what two (or three) grown-ups agree to do privately, cannot possibly be a matter for lawmakers. Dirty-minded meddlers, they shouldn't put their noses where they don't belong, right?

And yet there has been no time in known history where people's sex life has not have a profound impact on society as a whole. I shall explain this in moderate detail in two different areas.

The first is the matter of sexually transmittable diseases. We don't know how long each of them have been with us, but most probably arrived after the agricultural revolution around 10 000 years ago, when modern human society took form. For one thing, some bacteria show a disquieting similarity to bacteria living in domesticated animals. And also populations became so large and so dense that epidemies could go round and round without burning out. Eventually people adjusted to pathogens, and these again toned down their agression to become endemic, living in society without exterminating it.

When population groups met and merged, they did not have resistance to each other's diseases, and horrible outbreaks could decimate entire tribes. There are descriptions in the Old Testament that indicate that this may indeed have happened there. From more recent history, we know that syphilitis showed up right around the discovery of America. Whether it came from there or not, it ravaged Europe for generations, before it became less agressive. (It is still a force to be reckoned with if not treated in time, but it kills in decades rather than weeks now.)

Some STD's (incuding the modern AIDS) spreads more easily by certain less standard sexual behaviors. By limiting these, and by reducing the number of sex partners overall, a society would have a much better chance at surviving the onslaught of an epidemic. As you can see from a quick peek at South Africa today, losing a quarter of a generation is not a "private" affair by any means. It means disaster for the whole society.

***

The second aspect is the matter of children. Today we are more than 6,000,000,000 people. Having more children is largely a sentimental question. And we have DNA tests, blood type tests, not to mention that the mailman often has a different skin color altogether. But in the past, children were quite possibly your single most important contribution to society. Making children, and making sure you knew which children were yours, was essential.

It has been indicated that classical iron age religions such as Asatru and old Judaism were sexually restrictive, while their bronse age predecessors such as Vanatru and the Canaanite goddess worship were more liberal. This may tie directly into the more warlike and masculine nature of the younger religions. For a man, it was essential to know that he fought for his own children and not some communal gene pool. The importance of this to fighting morale can hardly be exaggerated, especially on the defense. The worst possible combination, from a morale viewpoint, would be where a few men had harems while many other never got any. (A quick look at American inner cities indicates that it is still not good for morale to have loose males drifting around with no connection to a family.)

Whatever the specific details, experience showed that sexuality had to be regulated to some extent for society to prosper. The freedom of the individual had to give way for the benefit of the community. In light of the famous twins, STDs and pregnancies, a lot of sexual legislation makes complete sense. How much of it that is still valid in today's society is another question, but probably some.

***

The real problem with legislating sexual behavior is the control. As long as only two people at a time are involved, there is little the police can do to enforce such laws. In the past, when no contraceptives were available, they could sometimes find the woman guilty after a while. Today this has changed.

It may make more sense to bring legislation against STDs in line with other violent crimes. A person who has random sexual encounters while he or she has (or might have) a dangerous disease, should be treated in the same way as someone firing a repeat weapon at random into a crowd. Most notably, the weapon should be removed. (How this is applied to females is left as an exercise for the surgeons. For males it is rather obvious.)

Now you may think that I am joking, or at least hope that I do. And to some extent I am. But there are special cases: It seems that a tiny part of the world's population has an unimaginable number of sex partners. A study referred to in New Scientist for June 23 shows that in a group of 2810 people, most were separated by only two or three degrees of amorous separation - they had had a partner who had also slept with the other's partner. Now in all honesty these 2810 people were all Swedes, but still ... it is a known fact that some people are completely addicted to sex and will copulate several times a day for much of their adults life. And I don't even think about those who have it as a job.

While you have been reading this, chances are someone has been infected with a deadly STD. Most probably it is just some poor teen girl in Namibia or Thailand, but it could be your neighbor, your friend, a member of your family. Do you think I would hesitate to snip or sew as necessary to save a whole crowd of people, most of them women? Think again.

But while waiting for reason to prevail, we shall just have to act responsibly ourselves. (Or not at all.) OK?