That we belong to a liberated age and therefore the implication is that we

ought by now, to be finding sex a straightforward and un-troubling matter

we're not after all Victorians or prudes. The standard narrative of our release

from past inhibitions go something like this. For thousands of years

right across the globe due to a devilish combination of religious bigotry and

pedantic social customs people were afflicted by a ridiculous sense of

confusion and guilt around sex.

They thought their hands would fall off if they masturbated.

They believed they might be burned in a vat of oil because they ogle [look at] someone's ankle.

They had no clue about erections or clitorises. They will see that

sometime between the first World War and the launch of Sputnik 1,

things change for the better. Finally people started wearing bikinis, admitted

to masturbating, grew able to mention cunnilingus in social context, started to

watch porn films, and became deeply comfortable with a topic which had

almost unaccountably been a source of needless carotid frustration

for most of human history.

It seems almost inconceivable now how hung up our ancestors had been.

Sex came to be perceived as a useful, refreshing,

and physically reviving pass time: a bit like tennis.

The one that could sit perfectly well within the context of

bourgeois [middle class] family life once the kids were in bed.

This narrative of enlightenment and progress, however flattering

it may be to the modern age, conveniently skirts an unbutching fact.

We remain hugely conflicted, embarrassed, ashamed, and ought about sex.

Sex refuses to match up simply with love

and remains as difficult to subject as ever, with

one added complication: it's meant to be so simple.

In reality, none of us approaches sex

as we meant to: with a cheerful, sporting, non-obsessive, clean, loyal

well-adjusted outlook that we convinced ourselves is the norm.

We are universally odd around sex, but only in relation to

some highly and cruelly distorted ideals of normality.

Most of what we are sexually remains very frightening to communicate to

anyone whom we would want to think well of us.

People in love constantly, instinctively, hold back from

sharing more than a fraction of their desires and tastes out of a fear,

not without foundation, of generating intolerable disgust in their partners.

In the choice between being loved and being honest, most of us choose the former.

But we are then burdened by sexuality, which refuses to stop haunting us.

We suffer, and yet may find it easier to die without having had certain conversations.

The priority seems evident: to find a way to talk

to ourselves and our partners about who we really are, to tell one another

without setting off catastrophic panic, offense, or fear

what sex really makes us want. It may be someone else or them in a uniform.

At the heart of the dilemma is how simultaneously to appear normal

and yet achieve honesty about our sexual appetites.

Our commitment to feeling normal is important and touching.

It means being, or at least trying very hard to be: patient, gentle,

considerate, Democratic, intelligent, and devoted to treating people with

respect and loyalty, and yet, our sexual imaginations simply refuse

to bow to any normative parameters.

To start the list, here are just some of the unpalatable truths

that stir in our sexual imaginations.

It's very rare to maintain sexual interest in only

one person, however much one loves them, beyond more than a few years.

It's entirely possible to love one's partner and regularly want to have sex

with complete strangers. One can be a kind, respectable, and democratic person

and at the same time want to flog, hurt, and humiliate a sexual partner

who'll be on the receiving end of a very rough treatment.

It may be easier to be excited by someone one dislikes

or thinks nothing of, then by someone one loves and respects.

Though we may try to tame them, our sexual desires remain

often an absurd, irreconcilable conflict with many of our highest commitments and

values. We need to admit to ourselves that whatever the self congratulation,

sexual liberation has never, in fact, happened.

This is about more than the ability to wear a bikini. We remain imprisoned,

fearful, and ashamed, sometimes with few options but to life for the sake of love

true liberation is a challenge that remains before us as we patiently build

up the courage to admit to the nature of our desires and learn to talk to our

loved ones with pioneering honesty about the contents of our own minds.

[LIGHT SWITCH CLICKS]