SEXUAL RE-ORIENTATION AND SOCIETY

To elaborate the impact of ‘ Sexual Re-Orientation on Society’ and see the extent of change, I have endeavoured to peep into the future, but from a different angle – that is, to see it as a phenomena of Natural Evolution.

In evolution the change of pattern occurs slowly and gradually. Evolution is a natural phenomenon that can neither be avoided nor denied. If everything has evolved over a period of time to the present level, there seems no reason why it will not continue to do so in the future too. Now, if this premise is accepted then 'to what’ and 'how’ humanity evolves, becomes a subject of educated guesstimate and speculation. One region to study would be the impact of ‘human sexual evolution’.

Morality and religion aside, the primary outcome of human sexual exploits is a natural process of multiplication of the species. Were there no pleasure in sex, there would neither be the explicit desire nor the basic need for it. That there is extreme joy and satisfaction makes it a primary pursuit of human beings and also one of their coveted goals, of course after the satisfaction of other basic needs of survival like nourishment, shelter etc.

The sexual act is a normal and natural phenomenon with the animals and comes instinctively to them. The performance of the act of mating is a rather personal affair and is usually performed in the private. This again is the way nature works. Hate has the desire to expose and spread openly; the tendency of love, however, is to seek cover, peace and privacy. This is due to its nature of self-fulfilment in an atmosphere of serenity and tranquility. What one is seeking here is beauty of nature and that beauty is enhanced if it seeps in quietly and in a peaceful and tranquil manner.


Love becomes a vulgar and a repulsive act if performed on the public platform. A certain amount of secrecy enhances its charm and aesthetic value and a little imaginative admiration is an addition to its beauty. It is nature’s design to keep the sexual organs under cover and when over exposed their ugliness becomes pronounced and they tend to lose their inherent integral beauty. Humans are both physical and spiritual beings. They have to try and maintain a balance in these two sides of their nature. A one sided physical pleasure in the sexual act, without keeping in mind the spiritual aspect of it, disturbs this balance and leads to perversion and abusive tendencies. And perversion has no limits. This is seen in the modern trends of the material tilt of the human beings present lustful exploits, where the spiritual or the metaphysical aspect of their natures is being pushed in the background. To validate this contention one has just to see the present rise of pornographic activities, both in adult and child sex. Further, as sex is a natural desire and tendency of the life cycle of the animal, human practice and promotion of unnatural designs of Celibacy and Puritanism is not a durable design either. It is bound to break down sooner or later. This is becoming clearly visible in some religions, where the unwarranted abuses of the helpless and the week among them, due to restraints on the otherwise normal sexual needs, is now coming out in the open. Another phenomenon that is being openly discussed these days is the abuse of the blood relations by their own siblings and parents. This is perhaps a purely lustful or a psychologically distorted behaviour and needs be handled at that level. It may be true that in the olden days, both in history and mythology, marriages between brothers and sisters and even fathers and daughters have been recorded, specially in the ruling classes; but those were then justified to be the necessity to keep the lineage and the wealth and power secure in the family. The same practice seen in the animal kingdom may be condonable, but certainly not in humans. Incest in human relations cannot be justified at the stage of a developed and evolved race. The practice in the past too seems to have ended when it was seen that it did not well serve the purpose it was intended to.

Seeing the advancement of knowledge and its affect on human lives and their behaviour it is worth noting that the sexual endeavours have also undergone a radical change, and are bound to get free of the past impediments of religious and social morality. From the primary source of reproduction, sex has now taken on a more explicit and glamorous secondary role of exploitation, entertainment and motivation in many different ways. It is these secondary uses that have diversified and changed its position in priority, practise, and thus its very inherent nature. The approach to sex also differs between the genders, mainly due to their physiological make up and hence their natural demands and predispositions towards it. The male, by virtue of the fact that he does not play a major role in the incubation, birth, and the initial nurture of the offspring, does not attach as deep a value to the very act of sex or its repercussions, and so usually gives more importance to the fetching, implementing and forgetting the relationship after its conclusion. The female on the other hand, being imbedded by nature for a longer duration of attachment to the outcome of the act, is naturally more intent upon longer term relationships and more sentimental involvement in the whole affair. Yet again, the gender distinction incorporates in each of them a difference in their roles of the enticer and the enticed, with the ‘tender and more alluring’ role usually shown by the female and the more aggressive and a ‘ matter of fact’ attitude by the male.

What was primarily the function in the ‘Foraging’ and ‘Agrarian’ societies is seen to have radically changed in the ‘Industrial’ and then the ‘Information’ age. Heterosexuality was the naturally accepted mode of sex in the first two, as there was the inherent need to increase the ‘pair of hands’ needed to accomplish different tasks. This has changed in the Industrial age due to the promised advantage of machine over the sheer strength and numbers of manual labour. The Information society of the present times, with all its re-evaluation, in addition to experimentation and readjustment in every field, has changed even the male female equality role in society. This has led to the innovation and diversification of sexual pursuits. Coupled with the modern techniques of birth control and the means to the aversion of unwanted pregnancies, has changed the natural power over its consequences. This has thus altered the postponing of the inevitability of marriage itself. Call it a perversion or a need for change of taste, sex is now seen more of an exploit for pleasure than reproduction. Its need as a sole means of reproduction of the species too, is decreasing with the rapid developments in bio-physics, and with the explosion in the knowledge of genetics and pharmacology. Now, it is not pure speculation or scientific fiction to think that man may be able to replicate himself through artificial methods over and above the natural way of reproduction. Animals of various types have been successfully cloned and even human cloning has been reasonably well experimented. What is there to stop man from walking side by side with Nature and replicating his own species?

Seeing all this and with a possibility for much more, what is the need for dependence on Mother Nature for generating and keeping the sanctity or the purity of the descendents through the act of mating alone. Once the natural recipe has been decoded and understood it can also be manipulated at will to suit the desire and need of the individual. Made to order babies is now a conceivable possibility. The scenario becomes more and more interesting with the possibility of self- imposition and adjustment according to the wish and whims of humans. Since the need for reproduction and propagation of the human race is now becoming manageable by man himself, there is apparently no need for the then naturally imposed, and now, the apparently artificial binding relationship between a male and female. This is evidently seen in the progress of homosexuality and same - gender attachments. Time is very conducive to take up our destiny in our own hands and see how many combinations besides heterosexuality can be promoted. The need to encourage and establish homosexuality, both gay and lesbianism, are thus the natural outcome of the above scene. Added to the fact of rapid scientific advancement in making possible ‘made to order babies’, heterosexuality somehow now, seems over extended as the only viable means of a reproductively meaningful relationship between the sexes. There remains little reason for debate of whether homosexuality is a natural or acquired desire for sex, because as just seen, its primary need for human reproduction is well on the way of being satisfied by other means. So shouldn’t the way of looking at sex itself be modified? It seems a natural progression in the evolution and readjustment of human thought and behaviour that, this change of gender relationship be started and well established, by the time the capability of ‘ marketable child production’ becomes a reality, and child production may not be restricted to male and female copulation. Now, is this not ample reason to justify the diversification of the sexual relationship and its methods? When the natural need of reproduction can be satisfied by other means, does it really matter who weds whom? The very question of marriage becomes questionable. Yet the natural affinity for relationships will some how keep the institution alive in one form or another.

The need to hold on to the traditional nuclear family structure with all its ramifications is also changing and evolving according to evolution in the means of production and reproduction. The very concept of the old ‘nuclear family’ is under scrutiny and debate, leading to a new vista in relationship of the sexes. Now there is need to look at other various limitations and the resulting readjustment of the total human psyche, based more on the changed idea of a family and its meaning in society. The traditional family structure was a necessity of the earlier mentioned Foraging and Agrarian cultures, where the division of work was on certain distinct lines. With both men and women participating and contributing equally in the present day societies there is hardly need for the closed ended family of the past. Also as a result of the change of the nature of work itself, there is the inevitable necessity for the softer gender to excel at the work place, and establish themselves as equals and perhaps even superior in some fields. This is a result of the female’s liberation and entrenchment in every mode of life’s functions and the increase in their competitive capabilities. The complexion of the society is bound to readjust. What will be the impact of the rupture of the traditional family set-up is difficult to pin point, but that it will shake up the very foundations of society are none the less being felt even now. Imagine the full establishment of women equality and undoubted excellence in some fields that are at present primarily male dominated. This is bound to make the male look and rethink his position and standing on the world stage. His male chauvinistic attitude which had kept him in a superior position of strength is bound to be shaped in some way. The females, by virtue of their cooler and perhaps more sublime temperament, show a longer enduring tendency to better withstand the changing challenges of the modern pressures of life.

The resulting change cannot be analysed in isolation because the very fabric of human society will be drastically affected. If however, the change is basic in nature, as it is bound to be, it will not easily be digested by the entire species in one go, but only bit by bit and in digestible portions. This change can only be sustained if it is evolutionary. As we have seen that since evolution itself is inevitable, the present scene is in for a change, though it may not all be possible to predict. It may take just a generation or two to see the world a very different place to live, one that may be on a completely different standard from today.