Why do we teach girls that they lose something with sex and men that they gain something?

[Tumbulu]

15. I think that this message to girls

comes from the biological fact that sex produces babies. And it is the female who bears the child and up until 100 years ago 1 in 100 women died in childbirth.

And the women cared for all of the children and did all the household work- which was not the easy stuff of today with washing machines and running water- hot water no less. All water had to be collected and carried and clothes washed by hand and ironed with irons fed by fire- that wood to heat water and the iron and cook with also had to be collected. And all this with small babies and children and toddlers in tow. And most women sewed the clothes for the family and knit all the sweaters (many still do) and so becoming an adult woman and taking all this on was not the stuff of the casual encounter. The risk of having sex with someone who was not going to be there to help with this "whole catastrophe" as Zorba the Greek called it creates the narrative of making sure that at least the girl was not going to be so easily seduced......

So, the disconnection between sex and "the whole catastrophe" is new for us humans. Only a few generations have gone by and in much of the world there still is no viable birth control. So, in many parts of the world sex still does equal becoming a mother for the women. And becoming a mother is one huge life changing event. And in our current capitalistic society it is equivalent to committing financial suicide.

While our current western capitalist society encourages men and women to think of sex as a sport, I have found that for me sex has been an outrageously big emotional deal (for all involved) and all this superficializing of it serves no one but the marketing and sales departments of various industries.

Trivializing it into a sport has not served the real people that I know who have emotions and hopes and dreams.