#puritanism

This is actually a useful thing to understand how to spell out. What exactly is wrong with puritanical attitudes towards sexuality? TW: Discusses body image issues, suicide, STIs, sexual assault etc

1. It fosters fear, disgust and loathing of our bodies. By hiding the human body as soon as we are born, and treating it as an object of inherent shame: THAT creates trauma. Shame is one of the primary sources of trauma, its the fuel and lets trauma burn. Those raised in nudist societies, and children raised in households where nudity is treated in a neutral and non-sexual tend to have a much more positive relationship with their bodies as adults. This makes complete sense when you think about it. Going through puberty not knowing if your body is "normal" terrifies children in ways that stick with them for life. In fact, most cultures outside of the Unites States aren't as strange about non-sexual nudity actually...and are healthier for it. We can't have body positivity as long as we are literally criminalized for having an uncovered body. 2. It creates fear, shame and disgust about sex. Most people have sex at some point in their lives. No one would be here at all without it. Most people have sexual desires which lie outside their control. When people are ashamed of those desires, it leads to self hatred, and depression and anxiety. This shame is just as traumatic as bodily shame. When sex is normalized, and treated with the same candor as any other hobby: it becomes less apt to traumatize people.

3. Puritanical attitudes towards sex limit sex education. When people are too ashamed to talk about sex, people don't learn about pregnancy, stis, or consent. All of these things can and do kill people when they aren't addressed with an open dialogue.

Sexual shame leads to people too ashamed to buy condoms, to talk to their doctor about birth control, to ask their partner to use protection, to get tested...the negative health impacts of sexual puritanism have a massive negative effect on society.

4. Sexual shame leads to poorer communication in relationships. Ohh if I had a dime for every person i knew who ruined their relationship because they felt too guilty to talk to their partner about their sexual feelings...Not just that, but the general body shame that comes with puritanism blocks people from connecting to one another too. Have you ever avoided getting close to someone because you were ashamed of your body? If not, I guarantee you know someone who has.

5. Misogyny! Puritanical sexual believes hold that women are not capable of sexual agency. That only men should initiate sex. That women should only ever want babies and not pleasure from sex. All of this rolls right into the next one:

6. Victim blaming in sexual assault. When women are the gatekeepers of sex, its easy to blame them when they 'fail' to protect their chastity when someone violates their trust. This isn't something that just effects women: as the same attitudes hold that men are not capable of experiencing sexual assault. The lack of education and discussion about sex in a sex-negative world inherently prevent the open dialogues necessary for creating and maintaining consent culture.

7. Suppression and marginalization of the queer community. If we're too ashamed to talk about sex, we'll be too ashamed to talk about sexuality. Puritans can't accept any deviation from gender norms either. Anything other than sex between a cis man and a cis woman for the purpose of making a baby is a deviant kink, a mental illness, and needs to be wiped out. Its important to point out that many queer people hold puritanical values about sex: believing that they can achieve sex negativity and queer liberation at the same time. However, sex negative movements always rise with censorship and discrimination of queer people...because queer people are inherently considered deviant by the vast majority of sex negative "allies". It's very dangerous to forget this.

8. Censorship of art. Who decides what is sexual and what is not? Its easy to agree that sex needs to be hidden...but it never takes long before the definition of what is "sexual" expands. Even women's breasts are considered sexual in the United States. Its so normal for Americans to think of them that way that women can't feed their children in public. Drag queens face violence for reading at libraries. Books get taken off the shelves. Artists are bullied offline.

i watched in real time as age regression began to become more widespread, and people began to use ageplay communities as their scapegoat towards normalcy. “i’m an age regressor, but i’m not like one of those FREAKS who sexualizes it” or “age regression and abdl are Completely different things with absolutely no overlap at all.” going so far as to make the default age regression flag specifically the “sfw age regression flag” (in what way is being age regressed Safe For Work? think about the terms you are using for two seconds) half of the age regression communities saying not to interact if you even Sometimes participate in kink, or if you’re even supportive of people who do. demanding people keep it “child friendly” completely avoiding any conversation about how loaded of a term that is to be using with no elaboration.

i’ve seen people who are into completely nonsexual age regression get ostracized for wearing diapers while regressed. because it’s “too kink-adjacent.” call out posts are written about them. there are blocklists for regressors who are too weird, too kinky, too “adult,” and so many of the people being called out are perma-regressors! people who are always regressed in some way, completely ostracized from their own community for the crime of having an adult body and adult body needs.

i’ve seen almost every resource on age regression refer to overlap between age regression and kink be described as “inherently traumatizing,” completely ignoring the wide variety of ways people can experience age regression, and especially, even if you Do believe it was “inherently traumatizing” for someone in littlespace to have sex, i don’t think i have ever seen any manor of exception made for middle regressors, probably because i frankly have never seen anyone ever acknowledge middle regressors in any sort of meaningful way. (this one’s for you middle regressors, i see you!)

it is totally fine to experience age regression in whatever way you experience it. i’m not saying you Have to get sexual about it. you don’t even have to be ok with seeing it. but you do have to be okay with the knowledge that there are kinky age regressors and they aren’t doing anything wrong. you do not get to excuse your puritanical worldview with your age regression. frankly, some of you need to be really unpacking what you think it means to be a child.

The evils of the dance. 1850.