[Greta Christina] Sex and the Off-Label Use of Our Bodies
What are our bodies meant for?
One of the most common condemnations of non-standard sex — from homosexuality to masturbation — is “that’s not what those body parts were meant for.” Genitals and sexual desire were supposedly designed for reproduction, and reproduction alone: by God (as the argument most commonly goes), or by evolution (as the argument occasionally gets made). To use these parts/ desires for any other purpose is dangerous at best and sinful at worst.
Okay. Let’s set aside for a moment the question of whether there even is a God, much less one who purposely designed the human body to fulfill his divine plan. The most common counter to this accusation is that it doesn’t get applied consistently. Not even by people who do believe in a God who created our bodies. As Dan Savage once pointed out: Our noses weren’t “designed” for us to rest our glasses on — and nobody gets their knickers in a twist over that. Off-label uses of our bodies are ridiculously common. I could come up with them all day. Our feet weren’t “meant” for us to operate the pedals of a car. Our mouths weren’t “meant” for us to play the harmonica. Our heads weren’t “meant” for us to display giant novelty foam-rubber cheese wedges and other oversized signals of allegiance to sports teams. Our hands weren’t “meant” for us to type on computer keyboards. (Boy howdy, were they ever not. My recent tendinitis flare-up is evidence enough of that.) And that doesn’t stop anyone from doing these things.
So why should sex be an exception? No, our mouths and assholes weren’t “designed” for sex, by God or by evolution. So what? We use our bodies in lots of ways and for lots of purposes that they weren’t “designed” for . . . and nobody considers that immoral. Computers and harmonicas and giant novelty cheese wedges are seen as acceptable and even positively neat. Why is anal sex somehow a perversion of the natural order?
A good argument. And one I frequently make myself.
But today, I’m going to take it a step further.
Off-label uses of body parts and biological functions aren’t just acceptable and morally neutral. They are some of the most beautiful, honorable, and deeply treasured parts of the human experience.
Human beings took our animal need for palatable food . . . and turned it into chocolate souffles with salted caramel cream. We took our ability to co-operate as a social species . . . and turned it into craft circles and bowling leagues and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We took our capacity to make and use tools . . . and turned it into the Apollo moon landing. We took our uniquely precise ability to communicate through language . . . and turned it into King Lear.
None of these things are necessary for survival and reproduction. That is exactly what makes them so splendid. When we take our basic evolutionary wiring and transform it into something far beyond any prosaic matters of survival and reproduction . . . that’s when humanity is at its best. That’s when we show ourselves to be capable of creating meaning and joy, for ourselves and for one another. That’s when we’re most uniquely human.
And the same is true for sex. Human beings have a deep, hard-wired urge to replicate our DNA, instilled in us by millions of years of evolution. And we’ve turned it into an intense and delightful form of communication, intimacy, creativity, community, personal expression, transcendence, joy, pleasure, and love. Regardless of whether any DNA gets replicated in the process.
Why should we see this as sinful?
What makes this any different from chocolate souffles and King Lear?
Rigid moralists — of the “don’t use your asshole for sex, that’s not what it’s meant for” variety — are often fond of talking about “what separates us from the animals.” Our self-restraint, our ability to delay gratification, our ethical judgment . . . these things supposedly make us finer and more noble than the animals, those base creatures who live only to eat and avoid predators and produce the next generation.
I, for one, don’t think anything separates us from the animals. We are animals. We tend to forget that. And in fact, recent research is showing that many non-human animals also have ethics and the ability to delay gratification and whatnot. We’re not as unique as we like to think.
But I do think we’re special animals. I do think we have abilities that make us different from other animals. And at the top of that list is our ability to take our animal instincts, and transform them into pursuits and achievements that have nothing whatsoever to do with their original functions of survival and reproduction — pursuits and achievements that serve no purpose but to create meaning, and connection, and knowledge, and joy.
Sex is most definitely one of those pursuits.
It deserves as much respect as any other.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, 10 February 2010 at 5:47 pm and is filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
on Wednesday, 10 February 2010 at 8:21 pm Steve wrote:
Nicely put
on Thursday, 11 February 2010 at 11:39 am Joel Monka wrote:
Not all religions worry about “misusing” body parts- one of the most revered texts of my faith says, “Let My worship be in the heart that rejoices, for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are My rituals.”
on Thursday, 11 February 2010 at 2:15 pm Greta Christina on “off-label uses of the body” « YASHWATA wrote:
[…] leave a comment » Wonderful perspective on the bogus arguments used to support things like Prop. 8. Human beings took our animal need for palatable food . . . and turned it into chocolate souffles with salted caramel cream. We took our ability to co-operate as a social species . . . and turned it into craft circles and bowling leagues and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We took our capacity to make and use tools . . . and turned it into the Apollo moon landing. We took our uniquely precise ability to communicate through language . . . and turned it into King Lear. […]
on Thursday, 11 February 2010 at 7:31 pm Ebonmuse wrote:
Heh. I just love the idea of “off-label” use of the human body.
I had a fellow on my blog once making this argument - an atheist, no less. I asked him, if he had been around in the Devonian period, would he have said that those weird, fish-looking creatures using their fin-like limbs to awkwardly flop up onto shore were acting “unnaturally”?
on Friday, 12 February 2010 at 3:41 am NickBMorgan wrote:
So, exactly where does one find these labels. I know my anus doesn’t come with a pre-printed exit only sign.
And if you go allllllll the way back to the Devonian period, when we were all fish, we used to do it by squirting the egg and sperm onto the bottom of the ocean, no penetration required. Does that mean that the first male reptile that fertilized the first female reptile internally was using his body unnaturally?
on Friday, 12 February 2010 at 8:12 am Penny wrote:
I love this article! You make a really good point about how those who get all riled up about humans using sex for “unnatural” purposes never do the same about dancing (and oh how human feet are not meant to stand en pointe!), skiing, etc. We are definitely NOT meant to strap boards to our feet and go frolicking about in the snow. That is probably farther off-label than oral sex.
Although the thing that you keep mentioning in your articles that I keep coming back to is this idea that sex is not special… or rather that sex shouldn’t be given this special category where we have food, music, theatre, and then sex is this big other thing. That’s something I’ve been arguing with those around me, and it’s one of the things that people push back on the most.
on Friday, 12 February 2010 at 10:44 am ToppHogg wrote:
Your article points out a wonderful refutation of the religious contentions regarding evolution, for if no creature ever had to do something “unnatural” then no adaptive changes would ever be possible, maybe leading to the demise of the species.
I’ve been pondering of late how people are going to balance personal sexual needs with planetary reproductive needs. This is to say that if we are to avoid reproducing ourselves into extinction from using up Earth’s resources like the religious-based paleocons are bent on doing, we are going to have to accept certain practices that are now frowned upon by the holier-than-thou crowd.
An example of this, I once read, had to do with the Middle Ages, when uncontrolled reproduction could mean disaster for a family. Some heeded the religious authorities and abstained, but others adopted oral and anal sex practices as a suitable alternative. I would suspect that, like many of today’s self-appointed saints, most claimed the former while doing the latter when out of sight.
We need sex on so many levels that it isn’t wise to do without completely. Thus, situational ethics may again become the bugaboo of the religious authorities who want to take us over both temporally as well as spiritually as we find ways to take care of our needs whether or not they are approved by the holy.
on Saturday, 13 February 2010 at 4:06 am Zazoom wrote:
Ah, but you are using your mind to think. It wasn’t meant to be used that way you know.
on Saturday, 13 February 2010 at 3:34 pm Katie Dawdy wrote:
Greta Christina, you are one of my new favorite bloggers. =P
on Sunday, 14 February 2010 at 2:53 pm Interesting posts, weekend of 2/14/10 « Feminists with Female Sexual Dysfunction wrote:
[…] [Greta Christina] Sex and the Off-Label Use of Our Bodies – a nice counter to authority figures who try to tell you what your body is really meant to do and it only serves that one purpose. No you can use the body in different, creative ways. […]
on Monday, 15 February 2010 at 4:02 pm J. Bo wrote:
Hear, hear!
on Wednesday, 17 February 2010 at 2:53 pm absent sway wrote:
What a thought-provoking piece; thanks for sharing.
on Wednesday, 17 February 2010 at 6:22 pm D. wrote:
Freakin’ brilliant. Well done!
on Saturday, 20 February 2010 at 5:51 pm Amber wrote:
Great post! We are all capable of masturbation and the ensuing orgasm. If we can do that with our body then, damn it, that’s another thing we were made for. It seems pretty basic to me. It’s the closet masturbaters (you know who you are) who get all high and mighty!
on Monday, 22 February 2010 at 3:22 pm Monday Motivation - today’s theme is apparently the press | Solelyfictional wrote:
[…] InsPiration: Sex and the off-label use of our bodies. For people who obsess about non-procreational sex, there are myriad arguments to defeat them. Mouths are made for eating - how dare we use them to sing? Feet are made for walking - by their argument dancing is sinful. […]
on Monday, 22 February 2010 at 6:43 pm Mary Moon wrote:
Oh girl. I think I am in love. We so agree. I am your choir.
on Monday, 1 March 2010 at 6:50 pm Anonymous wrote:
Lovely essay.
on Wednesday, 10 March 2010 at 11:02 am Link roundup « the book of right-on wrote:
[…] ♥ Sex and the Off-Label Use of Our Bodies @ The Blowfish Blog. As Dan Savage once pointed out: Our noses weren’t “designed” for us to rest our glasses on — and nobody gets their knickers in a twist over that. […]
on Thursday, 15 July 2010 at 8:58 am Sadie Smythe wrote:
This is one of the most powerful essay about sexuality and free will that I have ever read. I think this should be referenced in sex education classes for adolescents. Bookmarking now for much future use!
Thank you!
~Sadie