What are we afraid of?

So a brief bit of backstory: I’ve been spending some time reading MLIA, or a site called “My Life is Average” for those not familiar with it. It’s just a place where people share (hopefully) amusing stories. There are a lot of recurring trends on the site though, and one I’ve noticed a fair bit is one that follows this formula: “My young [relative] asked me about [awkward sexual topic] and to preserve their innocence I told them it was [something else]. They then went and asked [adult] about [awkward sexual topic] thinking it was a [something else].”

Let’s think about this a moment. “To preserve their innocence.” At what point did our society determine that ignorance and naivety are virtues to be preserved? Why do we struggle so hard to shield our youth from things that, frankly, they need to know? We lie to our children and tell them “You heard about STDs from someone at school? Oh, it’s, uh a kind of candy. It’s bad though!” and then we wonder why STD rates are so high. We refuse to teach our children about contraception and then wonder why we have teen pregnancy. Why are we so opposed to knowledge?

That was a rhetorical question. The answer is not that hidden. Our society is afraid of it’s own sexuality, and there’s really no good reason why. It’s not just when talking to kids, grown men and women are afraid of talking about it to each other as well. Why do we try to cover up and hide this perfectly natural facet of who we are? What’s so scary about sex? (That one’s not rhetorical, though I do have some theories, most of them, as usual, related to older social traditions that outlived their usefulness.)

Edit: A friend's mother recently posted this on Facebook, and it is disturbingly relevant: http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/menifee-schools-ban-dictionary-pull-book-shelves