Between men and women there is no friendship
possible. There is passion,
enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.
- Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)
Strange, I believe, for someone whose sexuality
went against the norm to express an opinion about
relationships between the sexes with such
conviction.
Wilde's opinion certainly went with the flow of
society on this subject, though on many others it
didn't. He lived during the Victorian period of
England, the glory days of the great British Empire.
These days the Victorian period is best known in
some circles for its severe restrictions and
limitations about what was acceptable and what was
not in human relationships, especially between the
sexes.
What it preferred to express no opinion about was
homosexuality, which made Victorian nobility so
aghast that the subject dare not be mentioned in
proper company. Not, at least, until Wilde flaunted
his homosexuality and was charged by the police. The
social darling that so many loved became a social
outcast when his homosexuality became public
knowledge.
The inhibitions of Victorian England were so
strong that people became convinced that nearly
everyone was a closet sex maniac waiting to be outed
and exposed given the opportunity to have unapproved
sex. Similar thinking today forces women in some
Muslim countries to wear burqas that cover every
possible part of skin that could be exposed.
Not that sexuality wasn't exploited in some parts
of England. Paper flyers of the day show drawings of
women bare to the waist inviting men to visit
entertainment parlours in certain parts of London
and other cities to see dancing, acting and supposed
other eventualities.
Today's relaxed attitude toward sexuality,
relationships and sexual preferences has shown that
once sex is removed from the restricted zone of
topics able to be discussed between men and women
friendship is indeed possible.
In the Netherlands, where prostitution and
exposure of bare skin in public is the least
restrictive in the western world, not only is
friendship between men and women more common and
widely accepted, rape is much lower than in most
western countries.
The problem or question of friendship between men
and women, it seems, was not that it wasn't
possible, but that society raised the risk factor to
the highest level, thus making unapproved sex
between unmarried men and women more exciting and
more of a challenge. Sex, it was thought, was on
everyone's mind if not on their lips.
Given the opportunity to engage in friend
relationships where sex or the "dangerous" potential
of it is not a high priotity, men and women can
become the best of friends. In many marriages where
sexual tension is not a factor husband and wife can
be best friends, something which was not considered
likely by Victorian Brits.
The attitude promoting sexual inhibition that
carried on from Victorian times surely has done far
more harm than good. Today sex crimes are more
common and often more violent in places where sex is
a public issue of morality.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for
Today's Epidemic Social Problems,
striving to put today's values into perspective with
history.
