What sexual identity is the US trying to have really?

I disagree that if yu have not had sex by Date 3 the relationship is on life support. Where are the facts to back that up?

We still have traces of our Puritan beginnings. That is why we are confused sexually.

The US isn’t a conscious living organism that can point to and articulate goals. It is, like all nations, an amalgamation of the various viewpoints within. To us, perhaps European or Asian sexuality seems straightforward – but I doubt it seems that way to them. To them, it probably seems as confusing and full of contradictions as ours seems to us. The US isn’t “trying” to have any sexual identity, because that’s not how national views on sexuality work.

Once again, you start with an imporoper premise. The U.S. is not a single consciousness with a collective view of sexuality. Besides, the term “sexual identity” has to do with one’s view of oneself as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual, or anywhere else on the spectrum.

But the U.S. is too diverse to have a single direction on sexuality, and I think it is fruitless to try and pigeonhole it.

@marinelife I disagree that if yu have not had sex by Date 3 the relationship is on life support. Where are the facts to back that up? Short of taking days to glean the Internet of all references to it I got a small taste. Not everyone will believe or do they follow it 100%, as nothing is, but it is out there and known by enough people that many adhere to it. You can check out here, here, and here.

I agree with you, @Hypocrisy_Central, that sexuality is a very confused and nuanced topic here. I also agree with @marinelife that much of that confusion is due to traces of Puritanism.

Christianity plays a big role, I think. Though we are not supposed to mix religion with politics, many refer to us as a “Christian nation.” And anyone who wants to get elected president has to be Christian or they’re just unacceptable to too many voters.

I hope not to offend anyone by saying this, but this is what I think. Humans are sexual beings, that is just a fact. But I think many (not all) Christians feel guilty about being innately sexual. Their religion tells them that modesty is virtuous, yet they have urges and that disturbs them and they feel they must repress them. I think this is the main reason for the confused sexual identity here in the US; it’s taboo, it’s something to feel guilty about, but it’s still there, everywhere. Again, I hope I haven’t offended any Christians. Not all of them are like this; our own dear @Facade is a great example of a Christian who is not afraid of her sexuality, and I love her for that!

If I’m not mistaken, Christianity is a lot less prevalent in Europe or Asia, so I think that can explain many of the differences.

I like this question a lot, and am very interested in what people will say. I have no idea what America wants her sexual identity to be, but I know what I want it to be. I want America to be a place where anything concerning health for any parts of our bodies, including our sex organs, is freely discussed without embarrassment or judgement. People die because these topics are not discussed. HPV is not only a concern for a woman’s cerix, but for her tongue and anus too, and for men too for that matter. Even down to the AMA and government they neglect standard testing for what is a known cause of cancer. Farrah Faucet died basically from cancer caused by HPV and pretty much no one realizes it, unless they really followed the discussions about her cancer. Very few people knew you catch cervical cancer from your boyfriend until Merck made a vaccine and wanted to sell a lot of it. Why isn’t our government, schools, educating the populationnabout things like this? AIDS finally got real focus and information out to the public when movie stars made a big deal about it, and made it acceptible to talk about.

I dislike the extremes when it comes to sex, no sex until marriage, or one night stands, both rub me the wrong way. I think the conversation should be sex is normal between consenting aduts, as long as both people willingly want to engage in it.

On another Q I mentioned that my gym does not allow bear middrifs. These same people are critical of Muslims repressing their women and requiring being dressed head to toe, and I cannot show my belly button in my gym, not even in the swimming pool.

I guess the truth is there is not one mindset or message in America about sex, we are such a huge country afterall with a varied population.

I can only answer this from my point of view, but I think my outlook on sex is pretty in line with America as a whole. I’m not a prude, but I don’t advertise and I don’t want to see it everywhere I go. Lingerie models, okay; nudity, not so much. I do think there is a lot to be said for public modesty and even some modesty within relationships. Leaving something to the imagination is sexy in its own way.

Sex can be fun or sensual or exciting, affectionate, wild, intimate or, really, any combination of things. It doesn’t have to be within marriage, I don’t care about one night stands or number of partners as long as safe sex is practiced. I’m just more private when it comes to anything much beyond making out (or whatever the grown up word for that is.)

There are communities (not exactly the word I’m looking for) that feel very differently and are wide open. I’m okay with that. I don’t judge that. I have absolutely no problem with people doing whatever they want. Go for it. Though I do get a bit squeamish when it comes to some extreme fetishes. I don’t necessarily want to be around it because I know very well it would make me, personally, uncomfortable.

Just to be clear, I am not talking about homosexuality. I’m as comfortable seeing two men or two women together as I am any heterosexual couple.

Interesting question.
Thomas Nast presented Liberty, Freedom, and Columbia as women.
The Statue of Liberty is definitely womanly.
Therefore, I would say the US is definitly Male.
The US is Big Pimp Daddy, with his harem of women working for him.
Sure, sometimes he has to smack around Liberty. Sometimes that bitch gets too uppity, and forgets her place is here, and doesn’t apply to foreigners. Human Rights only applies to American Humans.
I have hopes that the Nation may one day get more in touch with its female side, but at the moment, there is far too much testosterone poisoning at that level.

The US has 50 country-sized states, and many generations of people from many different countries, and get weird messages from an insane corporate media trying to sell them impossible ideas about beauty and youth and sexuality and consumption and fashion and politics. So there is no one US identity that is trying to settle on one set of sexual standards. There are 300 million opinions, most of which are confused and poorly informed.

“nation just too large with too many people from too many places”
We have all kinds here. And I think there is far from one answer for the US.
And I like it that way!

@Mariah Most of Europe is Christian. But they are not at all like Evangelicals. Europeans seem to have reached a detente between their sex and their religion.

They seem to have shipped most of their sexually repressive nut jobs to the U.S.

I think one of the reasons is because of history and culture. Many other regions, such as Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, have been around for thousands of years. They have had time to adopt a certain culture which brought with it traits and ideas. Now, since the US is a very new country that was formed on the basis of immigration, all of these differing worldviews have been brought in.

Almost every single person I know are confused about sex and sexuality. What can you expect from a country? And why should you expect something from a country?

Uh, what am I missing here?

As long as one is comfortable with their own sexuality what difference does it make?

I don’t follow.

Well, here’s the problem. America is made up of… oh gosh, I don’t even know any more… 330 million people? The kicker is that they all have their own idea about appropriate sexuality. So there’s no way we can make any generalization about the country. It is also fairly useless to compare us to other nations, again, because of the variation of views. Finally, the US isn’t trying to have any sexual identity. It isn’t a person.

Perhaps you are talking about cultural trends, or the different cultural threads that play a role in the various different notions of sexual propriety. Even there, anyone who tries to say anything with any authority probably has little to stand on. Ruth Westheimer. Xaviera Hollander. That gay guy in San Fransisco. And doezens or hundreds of other sex experts. They are all part of the sexual landscape.

There are all the fetishes and the sex rooms and whatever—that for the most part slide by under the radar. There is cheating and fidelity and depending on which study you believe, as many as 75% of men and 60% of women cheat. Or as few as 15% of men and 12% of women.

No one knows. That’s because for all the talk about sex that we talk, it’s barely the tip of the iceberg on sexual practice and thought and morality. I think America’s sexual identity is a lot like the rest of it’s identity. We’re a melting pot. You’re going to find a bit of everything here.

@wundayatta

Well said.

The U.S. is as sexually diverse as is every singular human being. Period.

The U.S. has no right to dictate sexual identity. That is up to human beings all across the world. The majority have spoken and accept diversity. Change your system to accommodate same.

I would agree that there seems be a lot of hypocrisy (hehe) in our society with respect to sexuality.

One particular area that I find irritating is the notion that a person cannot be viewed as a sexual being until they reach the age of 18, yet puberty generally occurs at what, 11 or 12? Why am I a pervert for simply noticing a female has a sexually attractive physique, but happens to be under 18? I’m sorry, but biology trumps whatever our culture presently dictates. I’m not saying I would want to have sex with someone that young, but please don’t consider me a deviant for noticing the high school girl with an awesome rack that just walked by.

@zenvelo Once again, you start with an imporoper premise. The U.S. is not a single consciousness with a collective view of sexuality. The US does have de facto positions it takes. In many other areas it does not seem to keep pace with the rest of the planet, or a good deal of it. IMO Yankees can be counted on, at least 75%, to be repugnant against inbreeding even if it is 2nd or 3rd cousins, also if by marriage too. Just say siblings, and by blood, or by marriage it is a no-no. Anyone under 18 coupling up with anyone older than 18, they older person is just using the younger for sex or harboring some twisted fetish, and the younger member of the couple is just plain stupid and inexperienced to know what they are doing, as with Doug Hutchison, and Courtney Stodden. You can count on Yankees getting the heebie jeebies over polygamous marriages when it is more traditional over the centuries and nations second to one-man-one-woman unions. The US has set itself up to represent that near universal. It is just the rest of the stuff they get squirrelly on.

@Mariah But I think many (not all) Christians feel guilty about being innately sexual. Their religion tells them that modesty is virtuous, yet they have urges and that disturbs them and they feel they must repress them. To try and pin it on religion or people of faith is going for the low hanging fruit. Christians are told to be modest in public, but the Bible commands and instructs that one be passionate in the bedroom. The only difference is it is with a partner you plan on being with for life, not just renting emotionally for the night, the week, several months or years until things get stale, then like a car you no longer want, traded for another model. There are a lot of non-faith people that are not onboard with sexuality they should be OK with because there is nothing prohibiting them from it less their own mind.

I think this is the main reason for the confused sexual identity here in the US; it’s taboo, it’s something to feel guilty about, but it’s still there, everywhere. There are really only certain sexual activity, etc that is really taboo. Many I have spoken with or know don’t have no compunction of having sexual partners in one month, one week, or even daily, if they could find them. They are more put off by nudity than boinking with whomever, whenever. Almost as if sex was the litmus test to proving who was cool and desirable and who was some unattractive geek, cretin, or mud duck.

Most of Europe was chalk deep in Catholicism for centuries, if not still to this day.

@Coloma As long as one is comfortable with their own sexuality what difference does it make?
I don’t follow.

Because what 15 feel is OK, another 3,100 feels is repugnant. If many people from the same family and the same nation immigrated here to the US and cobbled in the same area, because they enjoy the sense of belonging and shared culture, and they thought nothing to having children preteenish swimming naked together mixed genders, and with adults too at time. Many other people wound be having a cow and slipping a tie rod. It is not about just being ok in your own skin. There was a thread about a week and a half ago about a mother being arrested, because her son was running about on a hot day naked when the hydrant was open. The mother might have been comfortable with it, her son surely was comfortable with it, but her neighbors wasn’t.

@FutureMemory One particular area that I find irritating is the notion that a person cannot be viewed as a sexual being until they reach the age of 18, yet puberty generally occurs at what, 11 or 12? Why am I a pervert for simply noticing a female has a sexually attractive physique, but happens to be under 18? I’m sorry, but biology trumps whatever our culture presently dictates. Yankees have a hard time going with biology, it has been a cultural identity to keep young adults as kids as log as possible. I do not know how this came about, maybe people would feel too old too fast if their offspring was considered grown and was able to fly the nest after 13–16yrs. If you took the age of consent worldwide and averaged it out, it would be around 15yr and change. Between 12 to 16 most normal growing males and females become women and men, young and inexperienced but still women and men. If you imagine civilization was young and in more of a clan and tribal setting, around 13ish there would be a ritual or ceremony taking the person from child to adult. Because they are new adults, the elder people of the clan, tribe, etc. would mentor them letting them know where they fit, what was expected of them, teaching them to grow into wise mature adults. That is too cognizant for most Yankees to grasp. People often want to use and refer to biology only when it suits their needs and dismiss it at all other times.

Maybe our slogan is Look Don’t Touch. LOL. All those ads with sexy men and women, coupled with all the conversation on abstinence.

I don’t see how you can ignore Christianity as part of the reason? Great they are all for passionate sex during marriage, but people get married later now, unless they marry at 19 so they can finally have some sex.

@Hypocrisy_Central If my view is offensive to you or other Christians, please let me know I will stop offering it on this question. I really don’t mean to offend.

“Christians are told to be modest in public, but the Bible commands and instructs that one be passionate in the bedroom.”

Perhaps this could explain why America “does…[not] want to be like Europe where you have topless women on beaches” yet “the underlying goal to coupling up is to do the horizontal mambo.” Modest, almost guilty feeling, about sexuality in public, yet eager to couple up to release all that repressed energy in a way that’s considered acceptable.

It’s only a guess at answering your question. The situation is surely more nuanced than I give it credit for.

@JLeslie I don’t see how you can ignore Christianity as part of the reason? Back at some time, I would say religion had a big part in it. Women use to have to wear scarlet letters for boinking before marriage. Marriage now, is more of a commodity. Many do not wait to have sex before hitting the sheet. Many actually use it as a litmus test to how the relationship is going. Most of those today that are hitting the sheets before cutting a wedding cake are not religious or people of faith, or at least strong faith. Christians today do not direct or steer media and things as much as you might think, if so things would be more like your gym where hardly no flesh was shown, if not under a burka, an extreme example.

@Mariah If my view is offensive to you or other Christians, please let me know I will stop offering it on this question. I really don’t mean to offend. Your comments don’t offend me, I can’t speak for the others. Some parts seem slightly off, but then if you were not in the faith looking in from outside would not give the fullest picture. I was mainly trying to point out most people view religion as the low hanging fruit when it comes to blame, then they miss the likely or real reason further up near the tree tops because once they see religion they look no further.

By all means, please keep commenting, I find them useful. :-)

@Hypocrisy_Central I did not mean to imply all Christians are puritanical prudes. But, there is a very loud Christian voice out there who certainly preaches abstinence until marriage. Even if it is not being done. When I think identity, I think in terms of what we want to believe we are, even if we do not meet the criteria. Plenty of people call themselves Christian, but others looking at them say they are not. So when you ask what sexual identity does the country have I think there are a lot of people out there who want our country to identify as a conservative country when it comes to sex.

@JLeslie So when you ask what sexual identity does the country have I think there are a lot of people out there who want our country to identify as a conservative country when it comes to sex. I can concur with that. One of the biggest reasons why trying to define what the US is sexually is one big sloppy, nebulous mess. Like a man before the mirror, who forgets what he looks like, the moment he turns from it. How and what is seen as ”good sex” is more to societies personal ”ick factor”. I think many are unbeknown that a lot of social morals are rooted in Judea/Christian belief, to the bane of most who learn that. That is why they still try to use science to dispel incestuous unions. When, there is no definitive proof that inbreeding over two generations that is not exclusively direct blood relations but cousins, etc will produce or accentuate negative traits or illness as if it were done exclusively over four or more generations. The Judea/Christian influence gives it a certain ”ick factor”, to those who are not of faith

@Hypocrisy_Central As far as incest, what I have read is children of first cousins have a 2–3% higher chance of undesireable genetic traits/disease. So, it is a very small increase. Siblings I am not sure the stat but it is higher.

As far as the majority of Jews in America, they certainly don’t go around talking about abstinence, and of course they want sexual education and knowledge in general taught to our children and information to get out to adults also. Religious/Orthodox Jews still hold to waiting for marriage, but not sure how many of them actually practice that ideal. But, Jews, even the orthodox, generally are not worried about what anyone else does, they worry about what they themselves do, and their family, community. If you are not Jewish then you have your own set of rules, no problem, your own relationship with God,or not with God whatever. Remember Jews are not known for trying to convert anyone or influence them in their religious beliefs (although of course there are a few Jews out there who are outspoken, but very very few) so I take issue with Judeo Christian, and go back to Christian when we speak of present day.

@JLeslie As far as the majority of Jews in America, they certainly don’t go around talking about abstinence, and of course they want sexual education and knowledge in general taught to our children and information to get out to adults also. Religious/Orthodox Jews still hold to waiting for marriage, but not sure how many of them actually Not focusing on American Jews so much but more the laws and such that germinated from the Bible and Jesus, who was Jewish. Most religions I know of have a doctrine of waiting until marriage before knocking the boots. There are a lot who talk the talk, but do not walk the walk. For their own well feeling or because they really do not know.

You mention abstinence, as many do not believe it would work or even should be tried they also do not believe in a sexual free for all for everyone, especially minors, even when they are boinking like bunnies among themselves. Which leave s mess where no one wants to come out and say young adults and those prepubescent should be out boinking like mad but there is nothing officially preventing them from doing so, if there was no force involved by either partner.

Remember Jews are not known for trying to convert anyone or influence them in their religious beliefs (although of course there are a few Jews out there who are outspoken, but very very few) so I take issue with Judeo Christian, and go back to Christian when we speak of present day. The fact that some Christians are overly aggressive trying to get people to accept God, is not the reason for the current nebulous debacle surrounding the US sexual climate. People of faith have the Bible, which clearly spells out the dos and the don’ts. The current debacle comes from how regular people want to see it, or not.

@Hypocrisy_Central Don’t get me wrong I am fine with people who want to abstain. I have no problem promoting waiting until adulthood and emphasizing being in a caring committed relationship. But, until marriage seems extremely unrealistic, especially for the college educated. I don’t mean college educated are smarter, I simply mean being married while in college is not usually what is done, so their age of marriage is usually older.

I disagree that the bible and Christianity has nothing to do with sex and sexual identity in the US. Sure Jesus was a Jew, and Christianity builds on Judaism, but I think it is not accurate to imply Jews care about sex the way Evangelicals do. Jews are never taught guilt about sex. We get guilt about a lot, but not about that. Look at it this way, something like 40% of Jews are atheists, so the biblical stuffis out the window. So there are about 4 million Jews at most in American who even believe in God, let alone actually being observant or religious. 4 million is pretty small to be influencing anything, maybe just barely over 1% of our population. The orthodox are not the ones generally in the media. But, since you believe Christians and Christianty has little to do with how the US identifies regarding sex, then the point is moot I guess. We can agree to disagree.

On average I think the US is not so different from the European average. Perhaps like with wealth and poverty there’s more distance between the two extremes. Few people over here take issue with breastfeeding on a bus for example. And I have the impression that a lot of American find nudity on television to be more problematic than violence and people using guns. In Europe it seems to be the other way round. There’s more concern about violence on tv. In the US buying a gun on main street is not much different from buying a shirt on main street.

So, there seems to be no sexual identity to me.