Atheism and Ignorance

Last night someone I love told me that they had decided to marry someone they had first met about two weeks earlier and asked me to wish them luck. (Yes, this has happened to me before at least once). We've been friends for almost 18 months now and I've found her to be very thoughtful and intelligent on every topic... except romantic relationships. When a child talks about love at first sight and Disney-like fairy tales of meeting the handsome, dashing and perfect man it's cute. When someone with a post graduate degree talks about these things to me I quickly find myself pondering if maybe virginity is something that ought to be lost at the earliest convenient time in ones life.

She asked me to wish her luck... I couldn't think of a better way to describe the situation.

See this is where sexually knowledgeable and sexually ignorant cultures diverge.

A sexually ignorant culture prefers arranged marriages and people never talking about sex. Why? Because if you don't know anything about boys/girls and having sexual relationships with them then making a choice is very scary - thus having that choice made for you is something of a relief... especially since the people making the decision are sexually experienced (aka the parents). The next 'advantage' is that if one only has one sexual partner and one type of sexual experience then one will assume that that's all sex is. So when people talk about sex non-descriptively, that's what one will imagine it to be.

But what if you hear friends talking about their sex lives and they seem more interesting and exciting than your own? Once knowledge of other people's sex lives becomes known to you the tendancy is that one will start to compare ones sex life to theirs and start to wonder, "Do I have the best sex life I could have?"

How does a sexually ignorant culture deal with this? Demanding better sex? Demanding the right to explore their sexuality? Demanding to know what this sex thing is all about?

No. They simply don't talk about it. That's why we don't talk about sex with our friends over dinner. Because if we lose the protective shield of our ignorance about sex then we are going to be assaulted by our insecurities. We are going to start asking ourselves uncomfortable questions like:

I am a good lover?
Is my partner a good lover?
Is our sex life the best it could be?
Would I enjoy sex more with that person than my spouse?

People say that arranged marriages are more successful because they don't have as high a divorce rate.

I am aware that this is a ridiculous statement for many reasons but just for now I'm going to ignore most of them and focus only on one problem with it.

If you've only had sex with one other person, who's only had sex with one other person then your sexual experiences with that person define what sex is. If the sex is great, then you think sex is a beautiful positive thing you want your children to discover and explore. If the sex is bad then sex is a disgusting, horrible thing that you want to protect your children from. Hold onto this thought and keep in mind who decides arranged marriages.

Ok, the sex is great, great. But if the sex is bad, which is quite likely because while sex does come naturally, great sex requires practice, learning, dedication and knowledge... which is hard to get if no one talks or writes books about it (I'm so glad to live in a country full of magazines and books about sex, even though we don't often talk about it openly, because this means even two virgin lovers can potentially have great sex too) then we have a problem... but the marriage is fine.

Firstly, why is the marriage fine? Well, they're ignorant to how much better their sex life could be so they don't have any sexual problems in their marriage to worry about. So that's one less pressure for a marriage to end up in divorce.

Secondly, why is this a problem? People who think sex is bad tend to project that viewpoint into every aspect of their lives. I'm talking about people we all know: those who hate/despise sex workers, sluts, women, men, homosexuals, bisexuals, people who enjoy or are relaxed their sexuality etc...

These people are everywhere: doctors, teachers, priests, friends, etc...

These people are ignorant about sex, and sure, part of sex is uncomfortable, bad and harmful... but if it didn't have any good aspects we wouldn't care about it so much either. These people only know a small part about sex but the danger here is that because people don't talk about sex in detail there is a perception that this is all there is to know. Therefore these people feel that they actually know all there is to know about sex. That reassurance can give them the confidence to say and do harmful things to many people... not because they are mean people, but because they sincerely think they are helping them.

Ignorance is what enables good people to do and say bad things.

If you don't want to hurt someone, then you need to get informed.

But the death of ignorance comes at a price, just like in my earlier post describing my personal lost of religious faith.

If you're married to the only sexual partner you've ever had... and you somehow get a hint that something else is happening in the world of sex... maybe you heard the neighbours fucking next door. Maybe you heard to girls gossiping at the bus stop about penises. Maybe you heard a boy describing to his friends what happens when his girlfriend orgasms. Maybe your partner has had sex with someone else. Maybe you just have an intuitive feeling... what if there is more to sex than this?

Then each night, you might lie awake for awhile after sex and wonder. Is this all? Am I lucky? Am I even satified? Am I miserable because I'm not fully reaching climax? Is it normal the way I feel when I'm inside/penetrating them? Am I moody because I don't enjoy sex?

Such anxiety can be dealt with one of two ways:

1. Pathologically: fear, loathing, disgust, misery and hatred.
2. Growth: curiousity, exploration, courage to challenge the habits and the personal dogma of ones sexuality.

As an atheist, I feel that am committed to option 2. I will only live once and I will not let myself spend it hating myself and my fellow human beings. Why hate someone for simply being who they are? As if they had a choice in the matter!

It is now time to go back to why it was so apt for my friend to be wished luck.

When one makes a decision where one knows the situation, one does not ask for luck.
But when one is embarking on a dangerous and uncertain journey that one is helpless to influence the outcome of then one is left with nothing they can do but to wish, pray and hope for good luck.

This is the difference between ignorance and knowledge.

It is so simple. Ignorance is just intellectual laziness. If you take a stand on a topic or a decision without first considering all of the other possibilities and alternative within reach. Then you deserve the consequences of your decision... and even if you somehow stumble blindly onto a good fortune... do you honestly deserve to take the credit for something you didn't work for?