-*--*FZGNeil Bryan DC.

Ramos February 6, 2020

2APL Prof. Talento

Sex and Culture

The study of Unwin and Sorokin’s provides an insightful and eye-opening reminder of how sex
and culture hugely affect society. From the perspectives of Unwin, he argued that sexual freedom
can be harmful to human beings because it causes us to be procrastinators, Unwin compares the
behaviors of an animal and a human being what he found was that animals have no reasoning
mind. If they are hungry, they will hunt. If they are thirsty, they will drink because animals will
always act based on impulses. While on human beings we can reject these impulses because we
have a reasoning and sound mind, but most of the time, humans do not reject these impulses thus
they succumbed to worldly pleasures. When a human being succumbed to these behaviors other
communities will follow to these worldly pleasures which will likely lead to a lack of progress in
the community. J.D Unwin notices that these behavioral patterns are present in 80 different
societies where he concluded the more limited and constraint the sexual freedom is, the more likely
that society will be flourished. In a different study, Sorokin argues that the radical change in the
sexual norms and practices has inflicted the aspects of American life, he emphasized that the
Americans have become sexual animals, where the excessive portrayal of sexual conduct is
considered as acceptable behavior. For Sorokin, this type of sexual obsessions may cause an
incapability to sustained efforts for innovative works. He also acknowledges the works of different
philosophers and great thinkers as the product of creative personalities rather than of sexual
deviances. In the explanation of Sorokin, a culture that glorified sexual behavior tends to have a
decrease in family stability, increasing domestic unhappiness, diminishing of creativity, and a
decline in the economic and cultural spectrum. Sorokin also wrote that in a sex-obsessed society
people may or may not marry, but if some instances they do get married it will be childless thus
making the possibility that there will be a decline in the population if this certain behavior
continues to persist.

The study of Unwin and Sorokin has a pervasive implication on feminist discourse, specifically,
in second-wave feminism where the focus is centered around women’s cultural and political
inequalities which also coincided with the sexual revolution. In the perspectives of Unwin, he
makes a point that sex is an unrestrainable productive social energy that creates social laziness,
and with the rise of second-wave feminism clearly shows that sexual liberation has detrimental
consequences on culture and civilization. In the book entitled The American sexual revolution,
Sorokin argues that sexual liberation is dominated by lust and sexual desires that leads to
alienation, depression, unwanted pregnancies, and low birth-rates. Data and facts show that sexual
liberation is not benefitting the society, yet second-wave feminism continues to prosper, for
Sorokin the reason of why such movement is prevalent is because of the reflection that it generates
an opportunity for more morally right action in the pursuit of bodily pleasures. Both Unwin and
Sorokin disprove the idea of a society that is impaired with the culture of being sexually active as
an appropriate behavior, and their study proves that this is not the utopia we must fight for and we
must not be fooled by the notion of having sexual freedom because it produces a negative chain of
reactions that could affect the economy, society, and culture.

In the context of the Philippines, there are a lot of movements that support women's
empowerment throughout the country’s history, and these movements does not constitute to sexual
revolution because they tend to fight for suffrage, liberation, equality, development, and peace.
One notable movement is the Malayang Kilusan ng Bagong Kababaihan (MAKABAKA) which
focuses on women liberation against class oppression and foreign domination, another prominent
women’s movement in the Philippines is the Katipunan ng Kalayaan para sa Kababaihan
(KALAYAAN) which campaign against gender inequalities, portrayal of sexism on the media,
and the violation of women’s reproductive health. Sexual revolution is not present in the
Philippines because of Christianity, this was noted by Sorokin where he argued that moral and
spiritual values are more likely to lead an orderly life which involves a loving marriage and
dedication to spouse and children since the Philippines is not a sex-saturated culture, Filipino’s
tend to recognized sex as a sensitive topic. And because of Christianity we are morally and
spiritually confine with the teachings of the Catholic church that we recognized sex as sacred.

In conclusion, Unwin and Sorokin’s study on sex and culture clearly shows the discrepancies of
event resulting from sexual liberation, both studies have facts and data’s that backs up the
consequences of having sexual freedom. The findings of J.D Unwin proves that sexual pleasures
is a unrestrainable productive social energy that may affect cognitive and creative functions of the
human mind, while Sorokin expresses the problems of a sexual liberation as it may decline
birthrates, diminished the welfare of children, a vast increased on erotic contents, and so on and
so forth. And if we put in the Philippine context, sexual liberation is not prevalent because of moral
and spiritual confinements of the Catholic church. And women’s movements that is centered
around empowerment and not on sexual desires.