{"id":3375,"date":"2016-06-07T12:47:06","date_gmt":"2016-06-07T11:47:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2016\/06\/07\/accepteer-de-duistere-kant-van-seks\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:22:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:22:12","slug":"accepteer-de-duistere-kant-van-seks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2016\/06\/07\/accepteer-de-duistere-kant-van-seks\/","title":{"rendered":"‘We have to accept the dark side of sex’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFlickr<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Teachers at De Paradijsvogel, a primary school in The Hague, send children home if they come to school in crop tops or spaghetti straps. This has resulted in a lot of fuss all over the Netherlands. What\u2019s your opinion?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cFirst of all, I\u2019d say that children\u2019s clothes\u00a0are the parents\u2019 business. But of course, there are\u00a0limits. And schools have the right to implement\u00a0rules for this. Society has to be regulated in all respects,\u00a0including sexuality and eroticism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics said that this was sexualising girls aged about 10, despite the fact that they themselves have no idea of their sexuality at that age.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBut this sexuality\u00a0actually exists. Here in the Netherlands, we\u2019d\u00a0rather deny it and say that there\u2019s something wrong\u00a0with teachers who are distracted by underage pupils.\u00a0But it isn\u2019t as simple as that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBecause this conscious or subconscious tension\u00a0actually exists. Sexuality can be very beautiful\u00a0but it can also be very dangerous, as anyone who\u2019s\u00a0read Bataille knows. Sexual attraction makes people\u00a0feel they want to have sex with each other all\u00a0the time, even under unsuitable circumstances.\u00a0We\u2019ve learnt that we have to keep these feelings\u00a0under control to a certain extent. Using violence or\u00a0having sex with children or in public isn\u2019t socially\u00a0acceptable. That kind of social taboo has an important\u00a0function, but it can\u2019t eliminate our sexual urges.\u00a0There are two sides to reality: what we actually\u00a0do \u2013 which is generally acceptable \u2013 and what our\u00a0libido might want us to do at times. The problem\u00a0with today\u2019s shift towards prudishness is that we\u2019re\u00a0desperately trying to align this duality. The suppression\u00a0of our natural urges has been moralised in line\u00a0with the idea that moral people in a moral society\u00a0can co-exist in complete harmony. But I don\u2019t think\u00a0this is possible. And it\u2019s not a good idea to pretend\u00a0it is either.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nowadays, teachers are more or less accused of paedophile inclinations if they object to their pupils being scantily clad. Are you saying that children can be sexually interesting at a young age, to adults as well as to each other?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cYes, of course they can. And\u00a0we can\u2019t eliminate this by saying that there\u2019s something\u00a0wrong with certain teachers. There\u2019s only\u00a0something wrong with them if they\u2019re unable to\u00a0control their urges. But this doesn\u2019t mean we don\u2019t\u00a0need constraint to stop that kind of situation from\u00a0arising. You can\u2019t keep offering someone provocation\u00a0time and again and then turn around and tell\u00a0him that he is the only guilty party if he gives way\u00a0to his feelings.\u00a0All this can be described as the backlash from the\u00a01970s, which was the era of more or less complete\u00a0sexual freedom. Anything and everything was acceptable\u00a0and even paedophilia was considered a\u00a0form of liberation. But after a while, people realised\u00a0that sexuality had much more of a dark side\u00a0than they thought. They got in a sort of panic and\u00a0imposed restraints all over the place. Nowadays,\u00a0it\u2019s the perpetrator\u2019s fault if anything goes wrong.\u00a0Sexuality isn\u2019t to blame any more.\u00a0The reality is that the \u2018dangerous\u2019 aspect is an irrevocable\u00a0part of sexuality. We love doing things that\u00a0aren\u2019t really allowed. And we can try and banish\u00a0orgies, prostitution, adultery and even paedophilia\u00a0to the fringes of society, but immorality will always\u00a0remain part of sexuality. The French have a good\u00a0word for this: inavouable, which means anything\u00a0that can\u2019t be admitted, that requires secrecy, deceit\u00a0and hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is an extremely underestimated\u00a0part of sexuality.\u201d<\/p>\n

What does that mean?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOur bodies and our desires\u00a0know no morality. Take adultery, for instance. It\u2019s\u00a0always existed and it always will. But you can\u2019t talk\u00a0about it. You can\u2019t tell your wife at the tea-table that\u00a0you\u2019ve just had the most incredible sex with your\u00a0secretary. But that\u2019s the idea behind the happy sexuality\u00a0that started back in the 1970s: that we can\u00a0combine our natural urges with social standards in\u00a0a morally responsible manner.\u00a0The problem with today\u2019s prudish attitude is that\u00a0people have moralised human lasciviousness in its\u00a0entirety, and they think they\u2019ve got it under control.\u00a0But this attitude merely ignores the duality of\u00a0human nature and the fact that rational behaviour\u00a0and self control alone can never dominate. Vice\u00a0may have gone underground but it\u2019s still the driving\u00a0force. And sensible public morals acknowledge\u00a0this fact. In other words, we can and we must impose\u00a0standards on people by force. But we also have\u00a0to realise that our natural urges will always remain\u00a0stronger in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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\n\t\t\u2018School uniforms avoid the problem instead of eliminating it\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t–<\/span>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGer Groot\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption>\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

To go back to the dress code at primary school: wouldn\u2019t it be better if children simply wore school uniforms?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a fairly frequent phenomenon in\u00a0Belgium, especially at private schools. The reason\u00a0for this is to remove social inequality rather than\u00a0eliminate sexuality. But school uniforms avoid the\u00a0problem instead of eliminating it. If youngsters go\u00a0out in the evenings, it will be just as much in evidence\u00a0if not more so.\u201d<\/p>\n

But surely each individual has the right to do whatever he likes with his sexuality? That seems to have been forgotten in today\u2019s multicultural society.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cEach individual has the right to do what he likes in\u00a0private life. But society has an equal right to be protected\u00a0from continual and excessive provocation.\u00a0Society demands that limits be set. We call this \u2018civilisation\u2019.\u00a0Setting these limits is always a question\u00a0of pushing and pulling that really has nothing to do\u00a0with our multicultural society. One remarkable fact\u00a0is that progressive citizens and conservative migrant\u00a0citizens sometimes protest in the same way\u00a0against what they regard as undesirable elements,\u00a0even though their respective motives are completely\u00a0different.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the past 10 years, we\u2019ve been hearing increasingly often that society has been sexualised. Do you agree with this view?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I notice\u00a0the most about that kind of statement is that the\u00a0fight against \u2018moral degeneration\u2019 is often given a\u00a0completely different name. Take prostitution, for\u00a0instance. Today\u2019s campaign against this is carried\u00a0out under the name of human rights. Campaigners\u00a0claim that it\u2019s degrading for people \u2013 male as well as\u00a0female \u2013 to sell their bodies for money. Their idea is\u00a0that nobody does it voluntarily. But in actual fact,\u00a0you can see the return of various bourgeois ideas\u00a0on decency and indecency. It\u2019s like those 17th-century\u00a0paintings where charitable institutions are\u00a0pointing an accusing finger. Only nowadays it\u2019s the\u00a0bourgeoisie that\u2019s trying to impose its views on the\u00a0fringes of society.\u00a0The fight against human trafficking was officially at\u00a0issue in the closing down of the Zandpad, Utrecht\u2019s\u00a0red-light district. Mind you, this fight was essential.\u00a0But in fact, the people who were actually involved\u00a0\u2013 the women who worked there and who didn\u2019t benefit\u00a0at all from closure \u2013 weren\u2019t asked to give their\u00a0views. This kind of \u2018liberation\u2019 was no use to them\u00a0whatsoever. It was imposed on them in the name of\u00a0some abstract morality, and it completely ignored\u00a0the social consequences that these women were often\u00a0worse off than before after the place was closed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Has prudishness in our society gone over the top?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not at all happy with the total moralisation of\u00a0society. We have to learn to live with the fact that\u00a0our ideals can never entirely become reality, that\u00a0each type of society has a dark side and each individual\u00a0person has less positive characteristics.\u00a0We northern Europeans like to believe that we\u2019re\u00a0fully moralisable, but this doesn\u2019t eliminate our\u00a0dark side. What\u2019s more, if we try and do this, it\u00a0only makes matters worse. Look at that notorious\u00a0sex scandal in Valkenburg in 2015, where a young\u00a0girl of 16 was forced to work as a prostitute. And\u00a0the Public Prosecutions Service took unprecedentedly\u00a0tough action. The men in question were hunted\u00a0down mercilessly \u2013 which actually resulted in a\u00a0number of suicides \u2013 even before the start of any\u00a0legal proceedings. Of course it was a very serious\u00a0affair, but narrow-minded public morals only served\u00a0to make matters worse. Morality is useful, but you\u00a0can\u2019t expect us to live up to it all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

It sounds as if you had a good Catholic upbringing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m an atheist with a Catholic background, which\u00a0has enabled me to realise that a healthy ability to\u00a0put everything into perspective is essential to the\u00a0well-being of any society. Let\u2019s be honest, we\u2019ll never\u00a0be saints no matter how hard we try.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ger Groot (1954) is a senior university\u00a0lecturer in Philosophy at the\u00a0Philosophy Faculty. He obtained his\u00a0doctorate on the works of the philosophers\u00a0Nietzsche, Cioran, Bataille\u00a0and Derrida. His academic\u00a0and popular work both focus on all\u00a0aspects of the human condition,\u00a0from a bourgeois attitude to a sense\u00a0of shame and from religion to\u00a0politics. He also writes columns for\u00a0Trouw<\/em> daily newspaper.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n

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