Sexuality and the Society

In the society there are many who are married but have affairs and there are many who are not married who have multiple partners. Today they are with one partner, tomorrow they are with another partner. In this culture in the United States, in European culture and elsewhere, this approach is becoming common. All the old-fashioned norms have been broken down. All of the roots of Puritanism and the influence of the Catholic Church and different Christian church standards have been fairly well breached at this point. So they are not governing the society. There is no Puritan ethic or moral standard. Most people are not afraid to be ostracized from the church or labeled with the Scarlet "A."

This kind of external pressure has diminished and there has been all-around rebellion from the crumbling religious institutions that have dominated the western world, but in the wake of science have lost their grip on the people. So the western society in general is in a crumbled state, and it is a mixed blessing. On the one hand there has been liberation from many of the dogmas that religions impose. On the other hand, spiritual passion has become lost to the people. A fundamental understanding of ethics and morality has become lost to many. So with the move away from organized religion in the West, many people have found themselves floundering in terms of personal moral values and in terms of personal relationship to something greater than themselves. There has been a widespread movement throughout the western world to turn to eastern esoteric traditions where the teachings have been kept alive. Some have turned to the more esoteric traditions within Christianity, where some of this has been kept alive as well. But generally, those growing up in more recent generations in the West have lost a basic fundamental sense of morality and with this even the family associations have been impacted. There has been a breakdown of the extended family and even of the nuclear family. The divorce rate in the United States is higher than the marriage rate.

So you see that there has been degeneration within family structures and with this there has also been great pain and suffering in the human beings. This is because they don't know where they stand and they don't know who they can trust. If they are young, if they are old, or if they are sick, who is going to care for them? It is so precarious. If there are only two people in the family, what if one becomes disabled? It is devastation to all, or else they dump the person, isn't it? There is no extended family to care for the ill and the weak and perhaps the slow. There is no one to care for them, so they are thrown into institutions.

It is a disease like one of those computer viruses, a social disease and it is spreading to the eastern countries where social structures have become highly stagnant. Their family systems have become rigid so the people are feeling a lack of vitality. They see all the vitality and energy in the West and they are excited. They like it, so they adopt it. But the only trouble is, with the good comes the virus that is hidden within it. It spreads and the family structures are shattered.

It is good to break dogmas. It is good to break bondage and stagnation. In the eastern family systems there is order that is very fixed among the people. Only the elder brother, the elder sister, has the say and it goes down like that. The youngest can say nothing. There is stagnation in this, suppression. The youngest may be the brightest in the family but if they can say nothing because they are the youngest, their entire life they are at the bottom. Then there is suppression of talent and capacity. This is not good.

But, worse still is when no one has a family. No one has anyone to turn to and all their life they have to be so afraid they will get old, they will break their leg, what will happen? They will be in the institution. It creates a kind of fear complex in people and they have to strive extra hard to stay on top of the barrel. If they have to step over a few people to get on top, well, it is a matter of survival, isn't it? Because if you are not secured, what happens if you get sick? What happens if something goes wrong? You have to get the good job, and the good health benefits, and have so many compensations because you don't have a family. You don't have an extended family. You don't have anyone to be there for you. Many times because of this lack of extended family, people are also lonely and they don't have a proper place in the society.

So when a society has lost prama, it has lost balance, then what to do? The problem is global. It isn't with the individual. The individual is in a problematic position due to the society. Global solutions are required so that the society may regain balance and human beings may regain a sense of dharma, a sense of ethics in their lives, and understanding in their human relationships so that they may re-knit their families and re-knit their extended families. For this purpose the theories of Prout and Neo-humanism have been given, because the society is in such a difficult position right now.

That difficulty goes into the life of each and every man and woman. It isn't impersonal. It is personal. In the average family today there is just the mother and father with maybe one or two siblings, or maybe there is no family, or maybe the mother or father is gone. Half the time the child may live in one house, half the time they may live 300 miles away. So half of the week the child is in one place, half of their wardrobe is in one place and half the week they are in another home. If it is all the child knows, of course it is fine. And it is fine. But it is not fine, because there is a lack of stability. There is a lack of focus within the society and the relationships of people. If the individual tries to remedy this on their own they will find there are mighty forces around them.

In this situation the child grows up not even knowing that there could be a clan or an extended family, not knowing what is bothering them. They feel lonely, displaced, and insecure. They do not know why. What do they want? They discover at perhaps the age of thirteen to seventeen years that they are sexual. In their lonely lives, with parents very busy at their work, no aunts and uncles, no people around them, no spiritual vision in their life, they discover their bodies. And they discover that other people like their bodies and for this they can be appreciated and loved.

Then there is someone there for them, who will notice them, who will care about them. For these reasons, the child may become sexual at a very young age. Because there is no standard and little feeling of home, many of the young people of today in the western world are in trouble. So they take guns and have sex and get AIDS. They are in pain because their fundamental human needs are not being met; their fundamental needs for appreciation, love, a place they can call home, a family, a set of values to live their life by and a feeling of mysticism.

These components are not fully present in their lives. The young feel at a very early age, perhaps 13, 14, or 15, that they are on their own and they want to find some love in their lives. They don't have any set of standards to go by, so naturally they do what they want. They have no respect for their elders. What they have is each other and together they decide, "Ah, those parents, those guys, we don't like them. We have each other. We make our own way." They have no respect because they have not been handed something to guide them.

Those of you who are parents who recognize some of this in your own children should not feel any guilt complex. It is not a personal issue. It is a societal issue and I am sure each of you has done your very best, given the circumstances of your life. There are those whose circumstances are very extreme and they really cannot meet the needs of their children. They are busy with a job or their husband or wife has left them. They have children but have to work sixty hours a week at their business. Their husband or wife isn't there and there is no extended family. They love their children, but what to do? It is quite a burden, isn't it? God forbid their mother or father should grow old and need help too and what if they, themselves, became disabled? This human society is in trouble. So this question of sexuality cannot be spoken of without understanding the context of sexuality within the society.

The young person grows a little older and they cling to partner, a mate. They get married and they have a child. Five years later they get divorced. Then they try to find someone else to be with. It is tough, being single and supporting a child. They may find someone else but after some time they may again get divorced. It is a big mess. What is that single person to do? It isn't just young people but people of all ages. Divorce has left so many alone and the numbers of men and women are not proportionate. So there will be many lonely women in this society today. Feeling they are alone, getting old.

Naturally people grow a little wiser with age and in the main, sexuality is not quite as free because they think first and then act. But there is no standard. You do what you like, what you can get away with without getting sick. But as people get a little older, the realization comes, “I can get AIDS, I can get very sick. I better be a little careful.” So naturally people think first but sexuality is still the way to find intimacy and love in a lonely world in which you are not surrounded by people who love you, people who are your family and people who are committed to you. Who is committed to you? So many are lonely men, lonely women. There is no one committed to them, so if they can find a little love, why not? This is the condition of the society and it is impossible to blame anyone.

So it is not a matter of blame, but I think you can see, it is not the optimum situation. It is a society, which is unhealthy. It is sick, ailing. It has a virus, a social virus. Do you think AIDS exists for no reason? It is a social virus. It is an epidemic. But the epidemic of AIDS is only a physical expression of the ailment in the society, you see? It is an ailing society. It has an epidemic and it is tragic. Many want to bring others to the path of spiritual unfolding, to give passion and light and reason and hope to others in a society that is suffering an epidemic illness. For this the theories of social justice, proper political solutions and economic solutions have been given (Proutist Economics and Neohumanism), because the society is floundering so and is on the brink of self-destruction. Let your heart be filled with compassion for human suffering.

These problems in the society set a background. It was necessary to say some small amount about the social patterns in order to discuss the relationship of sexuality and human relations, because relationship cannot be seen outside of the imposed samskaras, or context of the society. In a society where arranged marriage is the norm, then the injustices, difficulties and barriers are imposed due to that approach. In the matriarchal society where the children were the sole property of the mother and marriage was not even an institution, where patriarchy was not considered a relevant concept, the imposed samskara, or context of that system affected the people. So the imposed samskaras of culture and society affect the minds and lives of the individual and how they function in terms of relationship, their sexuality, and their relationship to each other.

In this society a monogamous relationship has been the norm. At the present time, relationships seem to come and go, though the idea of life-long relationship remains. People are a bit confused. They hold one idea in their minds; that they will get married and have a life-long relationship, because this ideal is held in the society. But, the fact is that it is rarely met in this day and age. People often have multiple marriages and besides multiple marriages, they have multiple affairs and many sexual partners. However there are some of the ill effects of this and some serious dangers.

Some of the effects may not be so apparent on the surface. When multiple partners are taken and sexuality is engaged in without commitment, then what happens? Emotional attachment occurs and when there is no commitment, there is great pain and suffering if one individual leaves the situation and the other is wounded. Because having opened sexually, certain emotional attachments and instinctual emotional responses are present. One can intellectualize about this and say, "I am a responsible adult, and I am responsible for my own feelings, this and that," but the fact is you are all children emotionally. Some who think they are very intelligent and have it all under control are the emotional pre-schoolers.

So they don't have a good handle on the situation. The mind cannot always comprehend emotions. It wants to analyze and control but feelings are not so easily controlled. The mind and body are in association. The portions of the mind related to the body, to survival, reproduction and instinctual responses such as the maternal responses or the paternal responses, cannot always be intellectually controlled. There are instinctual factors in sexuality and emotional attachment and there is a natural instinct for preservation of the species, which is very strong, far stronger than most people realize. In the face of this, all of one’s fine intellect becomes fluff; it is irrelevant when these instincts for survival of the species or the emotions for protection of the young are triggered. They dominate the mind when they are triggered. They are instinctual. They are for survival of the species.

For a woman to be able to trust her partner in a sexual relationship is very important. Because there is the potential for pregnancy for a woman, there is also an instinctual tendency to form emotional attachment and dependency. This is a survival instinct of the species. The young must be protected and the female must be able to hold on to the protection of others and the male to assist with the birthing and rearing the young. So the females tend to have greater emphasis upon interpersonal relationship and social development. It is an instinctual survival tendency but it brings emotional vulnerability with sexuality, based on a need for protection and support that evolves from the instinctual desire to make a nest, a safe environment for having children.

Prior to the institution of marriage there was the clan which revolved around the clan mothers. The children had no sense of paternity. They belonged to the mother; they were the property of the mother and the women who had the greatest number of healthy children became very powerful in the clan. The men and boys stayed within the circle, the entire clan stayed together as a whole, as a type of extended family. A type of family system that worked very nicely was developed in this way without the institution of marriage but it was a small group. Status within the group was attained by the number of children one had and, for the males, status was attained by being associated with the strongest female who could bear the most children. So if a man was the son of the strongest leader, he would have the greatest status and would gain status among the males. In this way a social structure developed in the clans and in those days it worked very nicely without the institution of marriage. Being small hunter-gatherer societies, they maintained themselves as a group. It was somewhat like a group marriage so that all of the human needs were met within that group. This was because there was a stable group and people had their place in the group. So there was no institution of monogamous marriage, but yet there was stability within the society.

With the development of the institution of marriage and the concept of patronage, patriarchy emerged and grew. This too provided a stable base for human relationships, because in monogamous marriage and extended family with aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers, children, and grandchildren all living in the same town, the same community; there was a set social structure. The young people came together but often their parents arranged the marriages. If not, there might be love relation, but there were usually traditions and manners in which to meet someone. Then when the couple was together, they had a place in the context of the extended family and social system and it was assumed that they would remain in that place. Now naturally some foraging about, particularly by the males, was accepted in most societies, but still there was the obligation to maintain the family structure and the family stability.

But in today's family in the West, there is very little stability. It is common to go out, meet someone and have a sexual relationship with no commitment at all. This type of situation leads to emotional difficulty because of the instinctual drives for stability, security, to know who you are and where you stand; all of these fundamental human needs have to be suppressed. When the basic human needs have to be suppressed in order to meet the standards set by the society, it leads to neurosis. It leads to mental instability in the human beings and mental suffering.

People want to feel they have freedom. They want to feel they can make their own choices. They want to have creativity and individuality. Individuality is a very big thing in the West, is it not? Individuality is very popular but when individuality is so extreme there are no collective sentiments. People are encouraged to pursue their individual creativity, but not everyone is sufficiently bright or has sufficient emotional intelligence to figure out the damage they are doing to others or to themselves by excessive self-absorption. There are many broken hearts and many wounded feelings and many emotionally unhappy people who go through one relationship after another until they begin to think, "Well, this is just how life is." It isn't just how life is. It is a miserable situation and those who have to end up in such situations know how miserable it is.

It is important to be aware of the imposed samskaras, beliefs and cultural mores from this society, which has lost its balance. It has lost balance due to the influence of materialism. The society has social values which are incongruent with basic human needs. Can you see how this would create imbalance in a society and result in human suffering? On a physical level there are people who are starving or homeless, despite the fact that in the West there is plenty of food and nice housing. But there is imbalance in the society and thus human suffering due to a social system which does not recognize and meet human needs.

You must emphasize material success, advanced technologies, travel, emphasis upon job, material gain because what have you? If you don't have a family to take care of you, your mother, father, aunts and uncles and so on are not available. You best learn how to take care of yourself. You need to know how to take care of yourself or else you will be a loser; a bum, out on the street, a homeless person. Who wants to be a homeless person? So you have to work very hard, many long hours. You don't have time for the kids. And so many people work so many long hours behind their computers, they learn to live at their jobs, don't they? They learn to live in the workplace. It is their home and the family learns to live without them. But under these circumstances relationship is very tenuous.

In partner relationships, it is best if there is a firm intent of commitment before there is so much physical involvement. Then the physical involvement becomes sweet, safe for everyone. It becomes safe. Have you observed this in your own life? Have you observed how unsafe it is when there is not an agreed-upon base of commitment? It can be very unsafe ground and terrible tragedies can occur; in particular for women who become pregnant. Then a real dilemma is there, for there is the life of another coming into the world.