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The History of Love and Sex

Where does man stand today relative to love and sex? Where is he going? The answers to these questions come into clearer focus if one knows where man has been and the direction he is now moving. By objectively analyzing and studying the fascinating and sometimes startling history of love and sex, one can learn where man has been personally and sexually. Examining this history reveals the gradual but definite progress man has made toward identifying and developing rational and objective views of himself and of interhuman love and sexual relationships. The progress over the past 3200 years is outlined in Table H-1. This table indicates that concepts such as love within marriage, the equality of women with men, and the mutual enjoyment of sex were unknown throughout most of recorded history. In fact, the concept of romantic love as the basis of sex and marriage has fully evolved only within the past century.

Although the course of progress zigzags dramatically over the centuries, progress of man toward fulfilling his physical, psychological and sexual needs has generally held an upward course throughout history. This progress closely follows his degree of freedom from the oppressive forces of government, the church and mysticism. Each major decline in human progress (such as the Dark Ages) occurred during periods when mysticism and religion dominated man's thought and crippled his rationality, which in turn allowed the government or church to oppress and diminish individual freedom and happiness.

Why is the history of love and sex important? Why should one be aware of where man has been and how his views on love and sex developed? This historical knowledge provides a helpful perspective for the objective validation or rejection of current views of love and sex. In addition, a person gains a clearer reflection of his own views when his position can be compared and contrasted to the undeveloped and erroneous views and positions of past history. Similarly, to fully know and understand what is right and good, one must know and understand what is wrong and evil. With a voyage through history, one can view the transformation of various undeveloped, erroneous, irrational, and invalid views on love and sex to the currently unfolding valid, rational and healthy views.

From a knowledge of history, a person can look optimistically into the future and predict that man will continue his climb toward more rational and healthier views about freedom, love and sex. Someday, in perhaps the not too distant future, most people will be sufficiently free from political, mystical and religious oppression to discover and apply the Advanced Concepts of Romantic Love. All people will then be free to exploit their potential for happiness through their own productivity and sexuality. This goal is not some distant, impractical Utopia. Quite to the contrary, this goal is now approaching as man, for the first time in history, has both the knowledge and the opportunity to break forever the dark grip of religious and political oppression and their destructive ethics of human sacrifice and altruism. Of more immediate importance, this goal, this freedom, this happiness can be experienced today by any productive individual in the Free World by applying the Advanced Concepts of Romantic Love .

Only by breaking the hoax of mysticism and altruism can men and women function in accordance with their own nature and objective reality. When the frauds of mysticism and altruism are exposed and rejected, the individual is then free to pursue psychuous pleasures, romantic love and long-range happiness.

Reviewing the history of love and sex in context with today's new and unfolding knowledge will help diminish the destructive influence of mysticism and altruism. Two well-researched and well-written books provide enlightening and fascinating reviews of love, sex and marriage from the Greco-Roman period to the present. One book is The Natural History of Love, written by Morton M.Hunt, an astute journalist who combines objective scholarship and in-depth research with an engaging style. Morton Hunt's book provides knowledge and insight into the evolution and development of the man-woman relationship in the Western world over the past 2500 years. Hunt's book is supplemented by Sex in History, written by G. Rattray Taylor. This book traces man's attitude toward love and sex from Grecian times to the present. Both Hunt's and Taylor's books vividly demonstrate the disastrous roles that mysticism, government and especially religion have played throughout the course of history in undermining man's means to his own well-being and happiness. Hunt's book, The Natural History of Love, and Taylor's book, Sex in History, are reviewed in Book Analyses 64 and 86, respectively.

The following Table H-1 provides a summarized history of Western love and sex from 1300 B.C. to the present day.

TABLE H-1

THE HISTORY OF WESTERN LOVE AND SEX

FROM 1300 B.C. TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

HISTORY TABLE

Ancient Greece

(1300 B.C.-450 B.C.)

Golden Age of Greece

(450 B.C.- 27 B.C.)

Roman Empire

(27 B.C.-385 A.D.)

Decline of the Roman Empire

(100 A.D.-385 A.D.)

Rise of Christianity and the Dark Ages

(385 A.D.-1000 A.D.)

Pre-Renaissance Rise of Courtly

Love

(1000-1300)

The Church vs. the Renaissance

(1300-1500)

The Puritans

(1500-1700)

The Age of Reason

(1700-1800)

Victorianism

(1800-1900)

Decline of Victorianism, the Rise of Capitalism, and the Emancipation of Women

(1850-1900)

Emergence of Twentieth Century Romantic Love

(1900-1930)

Modern Romantic Love

(1930-Present)

Future Romantic Love

(1980-2080)


COMMON CONCEPTS AND 62 FALLACIES ABOUT SEX AND LOVE

With a few notable exceptions, most books about sex and love pass on to their readers too many careless or unthoughtout assertions, cliched concepts, myths and fallacies that distort or undermine the objective concepts needed to achieve romantic love, psychuous pleasures and long-range happiness. The first step toward eliminating the harmful effects of myths and fallacies is to explicitly identify them. This Section identifies and classifies many of these fallacious myths.

Two major types of sexual myths exist:

Sources of Sexual Myths

1. Old Myths 
Errors 
Superstitions 
Church and religion 
Altruistic ethics 
Victorian ethics 
Government oppression 
2. New Myths 
Misinterpretations of Freud 
Existentialism and modern altruism 
"Playboy" philosophy 
Erroneous and rigid sex manuals 

Tables F-1 to F-6 also compare each fallacy to the corresponding objectively correct concept. Most of these objectively correct concepts are based on the Advanced Concepts of Romantic Love and are identified as such with the corresponding Advanced Concept number.The fallacious concepts that block psychuous sex, romantic love and happiness fall into the six basic, interrelated categories listed below:

Common Concepts or Fallacies

Category  Table  Number Identified  % 
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
Sexual&Love
Psychological
Philosophical
Physiological
Political
Aesthetic
TOTAL
F-1
F-2
F-3
F-4
F-5
F-6 
19
11
16
5
6
5
62 
30.6
17.7
25.8
8.1
9.7
8.1
100.0 

Tables F-1 to F-6 identify a total of 62 fallacious concepts. Each fallacy is contrasted with the objectively correct concept (accompanied by a reference to the corresponding Advanced Concept of Romantic Love). These Tables provide an additional tool for evaluating the various thinking, communication, literature and books about sex and love. These identifications of false vs. valid concepts can help a person separate objective sexual values from the sexual myths.

TABLE F-1 I SEXUAL AND LOVE

Common or Fallacious Concepts

Objective Concept
Refer to Concept
1. The religious procreation view of sex versus the casual "Playboy" (fun) view of sex represent two opposite views. The religious and the "Playboy" (fun) view of sex are fundamentally the same. They are both contrary to man's nature and undercut one's capacity to enjoy sex. The opposite view is represented by the Advanced Concepts of Romantic Love, which can deliver psychuous sex by integrating the mind and body with love and sex. 37
2. Satisfactory sex is a primary cause. Sexual satisfaction can lead to good love relationships and happiness. Satisfactory sex is a primary effect. While sex can be the most intense form of human pleasure, this pleasure is an effect or a result of one's past choices and actions. The most intense and valuable form of human pleasure arises from psychuous sex, which in turn results from achieving the conditions required for long-range happiness as identified in the Advanced Concepts of Romantic Love. 17
3. Casual sex, orgy sex, and swinging lead to sexual freedom. Casual sex, orgy sex and swinging can lead to eventual impotence and the loss of sexual pleasures. The Advanced Concepts of Romantic Love lead to a rational and objective radicalization of sexual and philosophical thought and a breaking free from destructive and erroneous traditions. This breaking free in turn can lead to genuine sexual freedom, psychuous pleasures and long-range happiness. 61
62
4. Sex should be spontaneous with no thought, effort, or goals. Growth in sexual and psychuous pleasures requires rational thought, demanding effort, and pursuit of challenging long-range goals. 8
5. The Open Marriage concept leads to increasing promiscuity, extramarital affairs and deteriorating relationships.  Contrary to popular opinion, the Open Marriage concept eliminates promiscuity and casual sex. While freely and permanently leaving open the opportunity to guiltlessly experience any beneficial and rational relationship in any form with any person (including sexual) open marriages probably result in fewer extramarital sexual relationships than normally occur in traditional closed marriages.  63 
6. Children can benefit or add to a love relationship.  Children almost always diminish the quality and growth potential of a romantic love relationship. Also, children have no way to offer values to the sexual and romantic aspects of a man-woman relationship  102 
7. By nature, sexual quality and pleasure diminish with age.  By nature, sexual quality grows as the development of psychuous pleasure increases with age. With the Advanced Concepts of Romantic Love, the quality and overall pleasures derived from sex continualy increase with age.  78 
8. Love is an automatic reaction that requires no thinking.  Value-oriented romantic love is the result of rational thought and earned values. 
9. Mysticism plays an important role in romantic love.  Mysticism in any form works against romantic love, psychuous pleasures, and long-range happiness.  38
41 
10. Psychologically, men and women are sexually equivalent.  Psychologically, men and women are sexually different. (Men and women are equivalent only from their intellectual and character development capacities.) Psychologically, women must sexually surrender as the penetrated partner as opposed to the man, who must be psychologically (and physiologically) dominant as the penetrator.  47
100 
11. Sex is fundamental to human life, love, and happiness.  Productive self-sufficiency (not sex) is fundamental to human life love and happiness. 
12. Sadomasochism (S-M) is always a destructive and neurotic form of sex.  Certain forms of noninjurious, mutually desired sadomasochistic sexual behavior (e.g., tension-creating or tormenting-suspense type sex can reflect love, tenderness, self-confidence and can be healthy and beneficial to each partner as well as to the relationship.  112 
13. A person can be fundamentally changed by another through love.  A person fundamentally changes only through his own volitional character development. Love, understanding and support may help but cannot cause basic changes in others.  96
97 
14. Selfishness is destructive to love.  Rational selfishness is essential for developing mutual romantic love, psychuous sexual pleasures, and long-range happiness.  52 
15. Women do not experience "wet" dreams.  Women can experience orgasm during dreams. A woman, however does not ejaculate during orgasm as a man does.  none 
16. No difference exists between vaginal and clitoral orgasms. In fact, all female orgasms are basically clitoral in nature.  This is a myth that has gone in a full circle. The facts are: most female orgasms are clitoral-based regardless if the stimulation is in the clitoral area or in the vaginal area. A distinctly separate vaginal-based orgasm is, however, possible. But the vaginal orgasm requires the action of developed vaginal muscle. Since few women have developed this muscle, few women have experienced vaginal-based orgasm. Neither the clitoral nor vaginal orgasm is superior to the other . . . they are just different  48 
17. Occasionally a man's penis gets "hung up" or locked in a woman's vagina.  Although many "amusing" stories evolve around men getting hung-up in women to create embarrassing situations, no medically verified cases of this phenomenon occurring in human beings are on record.  none 
l8.Penis size makes no difference to the woman in sexual intercourse.  A larger penis can enhance both the physical and psychological stimulation in some females. In romantic love and psychuous sex, however one's character and actions are variables that override the erotic variable of penis size.  50 
19. Castration renders men impotent.  Castration in a man is analogous to a hysterectomy in a woman. But castrated men usually undergo a much greater psychological shock that serves to unnecessarily diminish or eliminate potency. Medically, however, castration in men or women need not result in any loss of sexual potency or performance. Hormonal treatment can diminish or eliminate side effects due to castration.  none 

 

TABLE F-2
II PSYCHOLOGICAL

Common or Fallacious
Concepts 
Objective
Concepts 
Refer to
Concept 
1. Mental health and psychological well-being are functions of how well one adjusts to the views, opinion and beliefs of others, the majority and society. This concept place conformity as the standard for mental health.  Mental health and psychological well-being are functions of how loyal one remains to seeking undistorted truth in dealing with objective reality, regardless of the views. opinions or beliefs of others. 
2. Psychological and mental well being have little to do with love which is blind and based solely on emotions.  Psychological well-being and mental health are necessary for achieving value-generating romantic love, which is based on clear rational thinking and objective reality as well as emotions. 
3. The mind and body are separate and conflicting entities.  The human mind and body are interrelated entities that can, by nature, function harmoniously and beneficially together. 
4. Reason and emotions are conflicting entities. Emotions need to be repressed in favor of reason.  Reason and emotions can and should function harmoniously together. One's emotions (either rational or irrational) are a very real and valuable part of everyone and should never be repressed or denied. No one ever has to act on irrational emotions and, therefore, no one needs to hold any guilt for any unacted-upon emotions, no matter how irrational  54 
5. Abstract symbols are not real and should he avoided.  Symbols that are contextually accurate abstractions of reality (hard or real symbols) can concentrate, intensify and enhance love, sex and happiness. Abstract symbols that are based on mysticism or nothing objectively real or that are misrepresentations of reality (soft or unreal symbols) can be destructive and should be rejected.  137 
6. Taboos such as suicide, infanticide, and incest are by nature immoral and are categorically nonviable human options.  Suicide, infanticide, and incest are not by nature immoral and cannot be categorically dismissed as nonviable options. [In addition to injurious sadism and forcible rape, the only other sexual act that is immoral by nature is the adult-child sexual relationship involving a direct or indirect initiation of force or coercion against the child, who is unable to make knowledgeable or objective sexual decisions.]  110
121 

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