It's good to see the History Channel lighten up a little. All this week, they're running a new little mini-series, The History of Sex. Wow, I thought, they must be all out of World War II footage. Of course, they found ways to work World War II footage in anyway, but they can hardly be blamed for using what's available.
Regardless, what a fascinating subject, if only to inform people who might be holding delusions on the matter that yes, people have always been sex-obsessed maniacs. Times of economic plenty bring with them lots of foolin' around, and times of war and hardship bring Puritanical repression. Gosh, I didn't already know this. The forces of so-called morality ever seek to squelch the righteous libido of humanity, but generally they aren't allowed to get away with it.
Generally.
Among the amusing factoids was - in World War I, the government, realizing that sending lots of young American men over to (as a digression, of COURSE they focus on America; this IS a Turner Network channel, after all. I wonder what they'll do when they get to points in time before America existed.) Europe was just asking for trouble. Namely because no force on Earth can restrain the libido of the human male. But instead of admitting this and working with it, the military tried scare tactics to induce abstinence, which worked about as well as a completely non-functional thing, with the result that scads of soldiers came down with interesting diseases. Oh, European soldiers, too. Yeah, there were other people fighting in World War I than Americans. But this is a Turner channel so we don't discuss such things here. Regardless, some figure was quoted which indicated more soldiers had gotten naughty diseases than had been felled by any other means, which sounds a bit bogus, but then, it's entirely possible.
Which just goes to show that even the military can't change human nature too much. At least by World War II they'd gotten a collective clue and started doing what they should have done all along, which was give out condoms a-plenty to everyone. You gotta work with what you've got, I guess.
I wonder if there was a point to all this? Probably not. Regardless, it's The History of Sex, all this week at 10 eastern on the History Channel. Finally, something on a Turner station that's worth watching! Well, besides Crusade. Which, tonight, comes on at the same time. Ooo, decisions, decisions...
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