By Kath Tucker
There are few arenas as publicly and hotly contested as that of human sexuality. It provokes outrage and outrageous behaviour, denunciation and obsession.
On the one hand, we have come a long way. People in the industrialised countries experience a greater degree of freedom of choice in their sexuality than used to be the case, largely as a result of campaigns by the women's and gay and lesbian movements. (In the Third World, however, choices remain much more limited.)
On the other hand, projects as diverse as relationship counselling services, how-to sex books, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, safe sex education and anti-violence projects are all addressing inadequacies in the forms within which we are expected to express or explore our sexuality.
Limitations include stereotypical media images or invisibility of alternatives, and the use of a range of methods — from scorn and social isolation to psychotherapy and outright violence — against those who challenge restrictive stereotypes. The mixture of images results in confusion between issues such as desire, self-esteem, violence, body image and identity. This is reflected in debates around the control of erotica or pornography, or in notions of "politically correct" sex or sexuality.
Both the second wave of feminism and the lesbian and gay movements have challenged notions of normative, prescriptive sexuality. Demands to accept a range of non-coercive sexual relationships threaten traditional morality. Greater economic independence, a wider range of job opportunities and greater access to child-care meant people were able to explore their sexuality in ways which previously had not been possible.
Yet we still live in a society in which sexuality is prescribed, limited and distorted. Sexuality is used in a myriad of ways which do nothing to promote individual choice or freedom, but which perpetuate intolerance, discrimination, bigotry and repression.
Perhaps the most obvious function of a deliberately limited and limiting sexuality is the use of sex to sell. Sex is used to sell everything from cars to food, from alcohol to drainpipes. It works.
Feminist campaigns against abuses by the advertising industry have popularised graffiti such as the headless Warner lingerie advertisements altered to declare, "If you wear nothing else, wear your head" and stickers on shop windows that announce, "This product is degrading to women".
In January 1993 Sydney magistrate Pat O'Shane allowed two women to go free after they were charged for defacing a sexist Berlei underwear advertisement. O'Shane commented: "The real crime in this matter was the erection of these extremely offensive advertisements". Progressive decisions such as this are rare, however.
Through the commercialising of sexuality, a particular version of sexuality is appropriated and sold back to us. This commodity promises may things: beauty, wealth, happiness, self-esteem, sex appeal, luck, success and control of one's own life.
For the majority of us, what we buy back is far from perfect. We don't get eternal happiness, love, devotion, independence, strangers throwing flowers out of airplanes or the adoration of all who see us walking down the street. Many of us see no-one we can identify with. Instead we find dissatisfaction and discontent.
This discontent arises from the limitations involved in what we are presented with as acceptable. For huge numbers of people, sexuality becomes a source of guilt, anxiety and misery.
The morality sold with sexuality presents us with two choices — the good girl (or boy)/bad girl syndrome. Bad girls pursue sexual pleasure; good girls abide by the dictates of Fred and Elaine Nile — sex only within heterosexual marriage, and only for the purpose of procreation.
Susan Faludi points out that in the '80s journalist trend stories in the US centred on "bad girls" who had failed to find a husband, or get pregnant, or properly bond with their children. A return to "traditional values" was called for, meaning that women should return to the roles of wife and mother. Unstated, but of course included in the agenda, was the lack of ability for women to explore their sexuality that this entailed.
The moral conservative push back to the family continues. Bad girls such as Madonna, a role model for many young women, are alternately condemned for their moral looseness and commodified for their profitability. This good/bad dichotomy serves the same purpose as the selling of sex — it limits choice.
The family has long been promoted not only as the natural unit of society, but also in ideological terms as a place of rest, support and love. But the family is also an institution which can place women and children at huge risk.
One third of homicides committed between 1976 and 1984 in the US were women killed by their husbands or boyfriends. As many as 50% of women report being abused in a domestic situation at some point in their lives. Tens of thousands of women apply to refuges in Australia each year to escape domestic violence.
The moral double standard within the traditional family also places restrictions on women. Whereas monogamy has been expected and demanded of women within the family, it has always been more or less acceptable, and certainly more possible, for a man to have multiple partners.
The ideological cloak of the family suggests that heterosexual couples are necessarily happy, contented and fulfilled. This propaganda again restricts people's lifestyle choices, as one alternative is elevated above others.
Alternative forms of family have been promoted, with some success, particularly in the industrialised countries. The theme for this year's month-long Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras festival is "We are family". Activities include billboards depicting lesbian mothers, and the broadening out of the concept of family to include community solidarity in the face of discrimination.
It's not a question of imposing a new concept of normality or preference for any particular expression of sexuality. The campaign that needs to be continued is to make the concrete gains that will enable us to make choices about our sexuality, free from physical, economic or moral coercion — to create a society in which the exercise of real free choice in human relations is possible.