Sex: still naughty after all these years
1. Initial Reflection
I’ve noticed, in the small amount of contact I’ve had and the things I’ve read in this context, that there is a certain kind of hysteria that takes people over. They seem to direct every possible kind of imputation from all angles of social and political correctness ever created, to decide you are the embodiment of all evil. I think it can only be that way if people have a tenuous — perhaps even fraught — understanding or connection with the subject at hand.
Sex, then, is still a taboo — an evil to be rid of. It’s a strange kind of puritanism on steroids… at least it seems that way.
2. Psychological Analysis of Social Reactions to Women’s Boundaries
1. Hysteria and Moral Panic
What the writer calls “hysteria” fits into the psychological phenomenon known as moral panic.
Moral panics occur when a group becomes convinced that a person or phenomenon represents a profound threat to societal values or safety — often exaggerated or even fabricated beyond rational evidence.
In these cases, the target (your friend) becomes a symbolic scapegoat — standing in for a much larger, often unconscious fear or anxiety about social change.
Relevant psychological concept:Group projection — communities can project their unacknowledged fears, confusions, or even guilt onto an individual.
2. Totalizing Imputation (“You are the embodiment of all evil”)
When someone is seen as the embodiment of all evil, that’s a sign of splitting — a primitive psychological defence mechanism.
Splitting is when people cannot tolerate ambiguity, so they divide the world into pure good and pure evil, rather than accepting complex realities.
It’s very common in high-conflict social issues, where nuance is emotionally unbearable for many.
Relevant psychological concept:Splitting (commonly seen in environments of unresolved trauma or ideological rigidity).
3. Zero Understanding and Cognitive Dissonance
The observation that people act this way “only if they have zero understanding” is insightful.
When people lack real understanding but feel socially pressured to adopt a position, they experience cognitive dissonance — the uncomfortable mental tension between what they know internally (confusion or doubt) and what they are performing externally (certainty and aggression).
One way people unconsciously resolve cognitive dissonance is to double down and attack anyone who threatens to expose that internal inconsistency.
Relevant psychological concept:Cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957).
4. Sexuality as Taboo: Neo-Puritanism
The comment that “sex is still taboo, an evil to be rid of” touches on a deeper truth: that despite superficial claims of sexual liberation, much of modern society is still extremely anxious about sex and embodiment.
In some progressive circles, that anxiety has morphed into a puritanism on steroids — where the body, biological reality, and sex itself are treated as dangerous, embarrassing, or oppressive forces to be denied or sanitized away.
Rather than integrating sex and bodily reality into a mature understanding of life, there’s a reflex to disassociate from it — especially when it challenges ideological frameworks.
Relevant psychological concept:Cultural puritanism evolving into secular moralism.
Also touches on body dissociation (a psychological response to discomfort with physical realities).
5. Authoritarian Emotional Logic from Below
The writer’s insight that people react in this way “only if they have zero understanding” can be unpacked by considering how authoritarian behaviours sometimes emerge from below — not just from governments or institutions, but from the collective emotional state of a population.
When people feel unable to reconcile the messiness of being embodied — especially in relation to sex, difference, and mortality — they often reach for rigid ideologies. These ideologies provide a sense of safety and moral clarity, but at the cost of nuance, tolerance, and truth.
The reaction becomes one of enforced moral purity, where dissent is seen as dangerous and physical realities are treated as hateful. The deeper the unresolved tension, the harsher the social response. This isn’t top-down authoritarianism — it’s the kind that brews in everyday minds, under pressure.
Relevant psychological concept:Collective emotional authoritarianism — where fear and repression within communities generate demands for moral conformity and suppression of complexity.