Human Sexual Behavior: A Tautology of Unreasonableness - By Norton Nowlin

Recently, there was a popular radio talkshow host who stated over the national airwaves that there are about 5,000 eligible bachelors seeking continual sexual companionship in the greater Chicago area. In response to his demographic remark, a Chicago woman called in immmediately saying that she had dated most of those 5,000 men during the previous three years. The host's prompt question in reply to the women was, "did you sleep with all of them?" I was surprised when she answered the question affirmatively. She was actually proud of her libidinal exploits.

Then the brief dialogue between the caller and host ended. Had I been the host, the question would have been summarily posed as to whether or not she was equally sure that none of the men she bedded were HIV positive.

Of course, such a question about AIDs might not have seemed appropriate to ask on live radio, but the caller's confession of sleeping with over 5,000 men in a period of three years was outrageously candid, and certainly opened the door to a further exploration. There was no doubt that the probability of her contracting the HIV virus was greater than 85 percent if she actually had consensual sex with 5,000 men who were total strangers to her. And the probable influence that she had on other women listening to the talkshow was certainly more negative than positive. For there's no way of telling how many other female appetites for promiscuous sexual abandon were aroused by this person's capricious and unrestrained libido.

Since there's no cure for the AIDs virus, as one is far from being developed, the awful thought of contracting HIV from indiscriminate sexual contact should pervade most people's minds when placed in a position of choice, whether or not to engage in consensual sex with someone they don't know. In the beginning of the AID's crisis, even before the disease had been properly named, there were the homosexual bath houses in San Francisco and other such cities with large gay populations, where male and female orgies took place indiscriminately. When a causal link between the passage of the virus from one homosexual male to another, by the exchange of body fluids, was first proven, the gay community openly declared rebellion against the discovery, refuting the scientific findings and continuing the practice of indiscriminate sex between people of the same gender. Then the horrid dying abruptly commenced, and members of both the gay and straight communities were terrified of the eventual consequences of even the most prudent and deliberate sexual encounter. But the sexual activities continued unabated, despite the apparent fear.

Now, in the 21st Century, there seems to exist an atmosphere of abject resignation concerning the AIDs virus and a pervasive attitude among the sexually active in large American cities of "what the hell? If I get AIDs, so what?" The consensus seems to be averse to the logic of the truistic platitude, "play now, pay later." How ludicrous it is. Millions of people are expected to die from HIV within the next 20 years, and we have a woman who is proud of her 5,000 indiscriminate sexual conquests in three years time. Carl Jung spoke of the human condition when he wrote that the bestial nature of the human mammalian is exhibited more in the sex act than at any other time. "This is where man and animal are both basically the same, unless, per chance, the human intellect interdicts the hormonal process through cognitive reason."

Jung and other astute observers of human behavior have insisted that the capacity of the human brain to cognitively produce reasons for "not" behaving self-destructively, for the sake of temporary and episodic animal pleasure, is what elevates man above the apes. But I fear that the sensational effect of television sit-coms, motion pictures, and magazine pornography, which flagrantly advertise capricious and harmful sexual indiscretions, will only proliferate in a society where instant gratification has become a rule of thumb. This type of reasoning does not emanate from a religious or moral base, but, rather, from one philosophical and Kantian in origin. For there is no real purpose in doing anything that will eventually produce a sadly bad end, especially if the detrimental effect is realized, but ignored.

Norton R. Nowlin holds M.A. and B.A. degrees in psychology and political science from the University of Texas at Tyler, has one year of law school from Thomas Jefferson School of Law, in San Diego, California, and holds an ABA-approved advanced paralegal certification, with honors, from Edmonds Community College, in Lynnwood, Washington. Mr. Nowlin has been published numerous times as an op-ed columnist in "The Times of Snohomish County," published by Seattle Times, Inc., and in various other newspapers and periodicals. Mr. Nowlin resides in northern Virginia with his wife, Diane, and their two very intelligent cats.

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