All across Jamaica (Cornwall, Middlesex and Surrey), sexual attitudes have become carnal, muddled-sex and sordid. Everything is about promoting sex, sexiness and sexuality. Tiny tots in make-up and bikinis parade onstage in 'beauty contests'. Scantily clad grannies expose their unmentionables in public. Advertisements about everything from studying for the Caribbean Examinations Council exams to others about safe banking are laced with sexual innuendoes.

Most modern religions put the kibosh on sex before some kind of marriage. From a religious perspective, fornication (consenting sex between two unmarried people) is considered a serious infraction of the rules. However, in spite of the scary warnings from Bible-thumping, hell-threatening preachers, most people fornicate anyway. They don't really believe that the Creator of everything, our heavenly Father, our omnipotent, omniscient and omni-benevolent God will banish the unrepentant fornicator to eternal damnation along with murderers, rapists and others that have knowingly done serious (physical and/or emotional) harm to others by their selfish and wicked deeds.

What can be so horribly wrong about two people sharing an intimate act? I heard it put best by a rabbi when he explained that the real trouble with the wrong kind of sex (in uncommitted or love-less relationships) is the possible negative consequences of the act and not the physical act itself. Anyway, every Jamaican knows that sex between unmarried, willing adults of the opposite gender is legal and that any product of such a union is no longer 'illegitimate'. So, all is well, right? Wrong!

Having sex for the wrong reasons

Here's the problem, most people are having sex for the wrong reasons. As Rev Dr Devon Dick put it some time ago in one of his columns, sex has become a cartoon. I interpret that to mean that, for many, it has become a one-dimensional, matter-of-fact, feeling-less, mechanical, lustful act solely for the appeasement of base cravings without care for the physical and emotional cost of such a powerful physiological function.

However, sex is multidimensional and should be treated as such. The largest sexual organ is the brain - where the mix of physical sensations and emotional desires takes place. Rape often involves sex but it is a cruel, inhumane invasion of someone's body and a brutal demonstration of power. It's not pleasurable for the victim - it is a painful, soul-scarring nightmare. That same act (sex) under the right conditions and with the right person is a far different experience - it becomes enjoyable and memorable.

When teenagers crumble under peer pressure, submit to curiosity, succumb to the disingenuous lyrics of 'love' from the opposite gender, or give in to their hormonal surges - they deny themselves the real beauty that true intimacy brings to a relationship that is ready for it. For those youngsters, the sex act becomes just that - a physical act for the alleviating of an urge but devoid of any real love.

Sexual intercourse, having lost its special quality in the psyche of many precocious teenagers, is often used later on in life as a tool to subjugate others, to gain favours, to earn money (directly or indirectly), to secure a relationship, to prove fertility, to manipulate a partner or to gain a reputation as a sexual contortionist and/or athlete.

Degradation

Instead of demystifying and cleaning up 'sex', society has facilitated its degradation by misrepresenting, exploiting and devaluing it. We constantly align it to products and activities. Robbed of its innate potential for purity and beauty, 'sex' has become a dirty word and a means to an end. No wonder our society is so 'screwed' up.

Garth A. Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practice. Feedback may be sent to garthrattray@gmail.com or columns@gleanerjm.com.