Let’s Be Inappropriate

It’s a given that US culture is deeply sex-negative, filled with dysfunctional messages about sexuality and full of fear-inducing beliefs. It’s also true that while supposedly individualism is a key value, the reality is that mass conformity is strongly enforced.

One of the ways conformity with prevailing norms is enforced is through the use of everyday censorship by ordinary people.

The most commonly used strategy to censor other people is to deploy the word appropriate. This seemingly innocuous word is used to shut down any viewpoint that is not consonant with current Politically Correct nostrums. If you utter something “inappropriate” you must cease talking forthwith. You have committed the ultimate social solecism. “That’s not appropriate” is the way one person shuts another person down. And it all sounds so innocuous.

One of the many sexually dysfunctional ideas prevalent in the USA is “age appropriateness.” This is, as far as I can tell, merely the standard way of enforcing an arbitrary notion about who should be permitted to love whom based entirely on a single criterion: the number of years of age separating each party.

Yes folks, we can forget about emotional attraction, happiness, shared interests, intellectual compatibility, mutual kindness and regard, and everything else that goes into a romantic relationship. The…