Posted by anovagrrl on September 10, 2003 at 08:34:27
While reading through the thread started by Alan on The Girl who Wouldn’t, I was struck by the fact that various people (MG, porceleindoll, Laura, Lydia) each had a slightly different perspective based on their experience of TF’s sexual culture. Some lived within a very strict behavioral code with little awareness of how Berg’s letters were influencing behavior in other parts of the world; others were aware of the letters’ influence on leaders’ behavior, but were in a position where they could evade the implications; still others were exploited and victimized by behavior that Berg’s sex teachings promoted. If you read what second gen folks say about their experience of TF’s sexual culture, it’s very similar—they report a wide range of exposure to abuse and abusive teachings.
This observation (and correct me you think it is an inaccurate characterization of the thread) reminded me of a point made by the cultural anthropologist Donald Tuzin (University of California San Diego) in an article called Discourse, Intercourse, and the Excluded Middle: Anthropology and the Problem of Sexual Experience (1985) in P.R. Abramson & S.D. Pinkerton (Eds), Sexual Nature, Sexual Culture (257-275). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
While doing field work on sexual behavior and attitudes among adult members of a large New Guinea tribe, he asked natives about the heterosexual practice of oral sex. Some informants said, Oh yes, we all do that—it’s quite common. Others said, Oh no, that is taboo. That is not accepted in our society.
Tuzin drew the following conclusions:
Because sexual behavior is essentially a private activity with a few exceptions noted, the vast majority of human sexual experience takes place away from public observation) scientists can never know for a fact what actually occurs. (It’s the basic dilemma of “she said/he said.”) Tuzin also notes that there is quite a lot incongruence between the public attitudes people express about what is socially acceptable behavior versus what human beings actually do in private.
There appears to be wide variation between individual human beings regarding the types of sexual behavior in which they will engage. There is also wide variation between individual human beings regarding the types of sexual behavior to which they will admit to having had experience.
The final point Tuzin makes is that it is extremely difficult—probably impossible—to generalize very much about the sexual experience of individuals within a given culture, whether that be a cultic group like TF or socially isolated New Guinea tribesmen or soccer moms in the midwestern United States.