Taboos (And Why They're Stupid)

I'm going to admit it. Even though I am was doing a law degree, I am not the best at complying with rules. In fact, sometimes if I'm explicitly told not to do something, my inner annoying teenage rebel will rear her spotty head and start screaming for me to do it anyway, because fuck you, I do what I want! You can't control me! Rules are just a societal construct, man!

I'M NOT A PART OF YOUR SYSTEM. 

That obnoxiousness aside, realistically, our society couldn't function without something there to stop us stripping naked and fucking whatever we see. Sadly, there are far too many terrible people in the world to survive in a world without consequences. However, there's a bit of a difference between the law and social niceties. They correspond in some ways- don't get me wrong, some things like murder are not only illegal, but highly frowned upon in a social setting (you can't just murder whoever takes your favorite character in Mariokart, however much they deserve it), but other things just seem plain confusing and dare I say it, borderline archaic.

Because I'm feeling lazy and also really don't have the time to write this.... er, I mean, I'd like to experiment with actually structuring my thoughts rather than progressing on my usual incomprehensible stream of tangents, I'm going to write this up in a fun little list. Yes, that even means proper subheadings. Obviously going to university has at least taught me about the importance of structure, if not anything else... I kid, a little public service announcement to teenagers everywhere: tertiary education is fantastic and a great way to avoid being unemployed (in the future, I mean, if you're like me and do a double degree, you end up very unemployed). All that being said, here are some of my favorite taboos and why they're absolutely fucking ridiculous.

Taboo 1: Sex

You knew this was coming (haha, coming). If there's one point of consistency in this blog, it's that I write a lot about copulation. Fornication. A bit of the old slap and tickle. Knocking boots. Bumping uglies. The horizontal monster mish-mash. Saying howdy-doody to your neighbor. The old mambo-jambo pineapple squash, jubbly-lubby funtimes and banana-rama-ding-dong.

I made at least three of those up and I'm not telling you which ones.

Society's attitude towards sexual activity is something I find utterly perplexing. I mean, really, look at us. With 7 billion people on the planet, odds are that quite a few of us and our ancestors did a fair bit of shagging along the line (ew, not WITH their ancestors, gross). Touching our genitals to other people's genitals is something most people enjoy. We have whole, billion dollar industries dedicated to catering to the sexual fantasies of any and all bizarre niche fetishes, millions of websites simply created to provide us with sexual content, self help books, workshops, even rallies... and yet, it's still socially acceptable to judge someone over how many sexual partners they have? We're all still okay with shaming women who not only acknowledge that they like sex, but that they have a healthy interest in it? It's totally acceptable for a woman to buy a vibrator, but if a guy gets a fleshlight, we act like it's the most weird and perverted thing on earth?

Trust me, I'm from the internet, there are weirder things out there.

I don't know if I'm being a bit of a radical thinker here, but my perspective on sex has always been that as long as no one's getting hurt (unless they're into that), it's pretty much all good. And more importantly, it's no one else's goddamn business anyway. Some people aren't comfortable with having sex outside of monogamous relationships. Some people aren't comfortable with being in monogamous relationships full stop, but are human and desire some sexual contact. Some people (gasp) are a mix of both at any given time, because hey, we're human and our needs change all the fucking time. Ditto with sex toys. Some people would never dream of using them, some have one or two and others have whole dungeons devoted to taking your average sexy time to a whole new level.

Bruce Willis knows what I'm talking about. "Bring out the gimp" indeed.

Like with everything, sex is something we all approach differently. There is no "magic number" of sexual partners. There is also no perfect, universal sex toy because, you guessed it, people have different ways of getting off. There also shouldn't be a stringent set of sexual standards applied to different genders and cultural backgrounds, because honestly, it really limits a person's ability to seek out what they like/want/need and express it. If you don't agree with how someone else expresses their sexuality, there's a simple solution. Don't ask them about it, and better yet, don't have sex with them. The minute you start applying your own standards to other people, you completely ignore their right to be comfortable with their sexuality as an individual. In a nutshell, we're all different, and no one should be punished for that unless what they're doing actively harms themselves or others.

Taboo 2: Drugs

Drugs are always a bit of an edgy subject to bring up in polite conversation. While marijuana is becoming socially acceptable due to Hollywood and massive reforms in the US, mentioning anything harder than that to your average person will probably result in them being more than a little uncomfortable, because, well... drugs are illegal and most people of my generation were brought up to believe they're extremely dangerous. To be honest, that's probably a good thing, because if you want to use any mind-altering substance without a higher risk of really fucking up (including alcohol), it's wise to have a bit of maturity behind that decision.

However, to be brutally honest, I've always thought that the war on drugs is kind of dumb. Don't get me wrong, some illicit drugs are fucking dangerous, not just because of what they do, but the kind of culture it can entrench you into. But to some extent, that's less the problem of the drugs themselves and more due to the fact that they are so heavily illegal. A lot of drug related violence stems from distribution methods (dealers, gangs, come on guys, you've all seen Breaking Bad), and arguably if there was a better and safer way to get them, not as many people would be at risk of being decapitated by a big friendly biker called Cunt Puncher.

Pictured here: not some biker called Cunt Puncher.

The fact of the matter is, because human beings are curious things by nature, they are going to want to put weird substances into their bodies to see what happens. A lot of modern medicine happened this way. If someone hadn't decided that chewing on tree bark seemed like a dandy way to get some pain relief, we wouldn't all be reaching for a packet of aspirin every time our head hurts. However, being harshly punished for this is not something I agree with. There are a lot worse things in the world than turning up at McDonalds at 3AM with red eyes and smelling like the backstage of Woodstock '69. As for the more dangerous stuff... well, isn't it just common sense that something like that should be, oh, I don't know, regulated? Alcohol's arguably extremely dangerous, and not only is it not outlawed, we encourage people to drink it! Having your first (legal) drink is basically celebrated as a right of passage. While I'm not suggesting we start chucking tabs of acid at people on their 18th birthday, it still boggles the mind that something that causes 13% of all deaths of 14-17 year olds is available on store shelves whereas marijuana, a drug that strictly speaking cannot physically kill anyone, is illegal.

Much like sex, drug use is a personal thing. People have different ideas of what is okay and not okay to put into their bodies. Again, I'm going to maintain that everyone is allowed their own opinion on this. However, I don't think anyone that has a strong negative opinion drugs should be allowed to make legislation about them. It's biased, it's unfair and has already made a complete mess on how we handle crime syndicates and addiction. And in the immortal words of Forrest Gump, that's all I have to say about that.

This movie did NOT deserve the critical acclaim it recieved.

Taboo 3: Love

So we've gone through the most generic societal taboos, and you've probably scrolled down to this one, made a face and gone "huh? Sex, drugs... love? Isn't she going to go onto something a bit more edgy, like, I don't know, bestiality, necrophilia or experimental jazz?"

I couldn't find a good enough gif for necrophilia.

My controversial love for wailing saxaphones and off-beat bongos aside, yes, love is something I find to be a massive taboo. Of course, you're probably already dismissed this as ridiculous because in in our society, we're surrounded by reminders of love all the time. The greatest commandment in the world's largest mainstream religion is to love thy neighbor. Most chart-topping hits are spawned from either falling in love or swiftly falling out of it. The entire greeting card industry is based on days specifically allocated to tell someone you love them, whether it's in the "I want to sip wine with you while listening to classical music and then rip your pants off" way or the "you're my mother and you spent 19 years of my life washing my underwear, so the least you deserve is a well-meaning piece of cardboard and some flowers" way. All the movies we watch and the books we read are usually based on someone's love for something. And yet, as a society, we're still not comfortable enough to show people how we really feel.

It's a little weird, isn't it? We celebrate love in the most ostentatious of ways- huge birthday celebrations, spending thousands of dollars on a wedding, diamond studded condoms... and yet usually, we struggle to remind each other of this love on a daily basis. We're not okay with letting the people in our life know that they mean the world to us, and we'd be so devestated to lose them. Most of all, we're terrified of letting new people reach that same level of importance. People percieve the outside world as full of strangers and hostility. That's why we don't make eye contact when we catch the bus, and keep our earphones in on the train. It's why we rarely say thank you to the people serving us, because hey, it's just their job. We are so scared of being hurt by other people that we pre-emptively shut our little lives off from one another like a bed of frightened clams. It's more than a little disheartening, and if anything, makes us more likely to be hurt in the long run. It is far easier to justify doing something shitty to someone else if you feel like you barely know them.

So yes, as a species, we celebrate love, but not where it counts. I don't think letting people know once a year that they're an important fixture in your life is enough. I think love should be a more constant entity, something that is like the tide; although at times it withdraws along the shore, it always comes back. We shouldn't have to trip over words and constantly feel entangled in our emotions. We should just be able to treat those around us with warmth and kindness, no matter what tentative bonds exist between you.