We live in changing times. Previous generations used sex as a tool for rebellion. Bodily freedom has been championed in literature and art as the pinnacle of modernism. But, if you didn’t notice, modernism caught up to itself, and the pride of ecstatic proclamations has been supplemented. Sex is no longer an adventure or freedom, it is just another layer of artificial social concrete.

When sex became dialogue on The View, when it became content for Disney on Desperate Housewives, when it became a sitcom on Sex and the City, the act gave up any claim it once held as a disruptive force in the ordered world. Today, sex is like mowing your yard or like washing dishes, things that the culture tricks us into thinking are mandatory. Nothing worthwhile is mandatory. The counter-culture of my generation withholds their sex. TV shows are no models for behavior. Hunter Thompson, Jack Kerouc and William Burroughs rebelled against Leave it to Beaver. What did you expect this generation to do, having had frontpage sex shoved down our throats from birth.

Sex is a biological invention, but it has been confused by culture. To summarize human evolution: we've been in existence for about 500,000 years. Most of that time was spent trying to continue to exist. Slow mutations in genes and nature produced the electric current skyscrapers we enjoy for brunch. Gene mutation occurs within geologic timeframes. About five hundred years ago, cultural evolution began hiking up an exponential growth curve. Our genes cannot keep up with our culture. We’ve been confused ever since.

If we were still just the dumb animals that God intended us to be, this discussion wouldn't exist. Change accelerates. The exponential growth that has propelled modernity has had numerous side effects. All the obvious ecological concerns that we hear so much about, etc. Best not to preach about this stuff because every time someone mentions global warming it becomes more boring and, hence, less believable. But, along with these proposed catastrophes, high-speed change has burdened us with an unreconcilable social confusion. Too many neurons are firing in our overstimulated brains to remember our own biology. Since survival is so easy these days, evolution has been rendered useless.

So, sex has become an afterthought, an atavistic relic of tabloid fixes. The revolutionaries that are incubating in the dawn of the 21st century are celibate. This generation is not prude or conservative, the polar opposite, in fact. Sex is just so unoriginal. We want to continue pushing the boundaries of novelty, and sex has been drained of all novelty.

The text message exemplifies the new modernity. Abstract, invisible communication has replaced tangible affection. I’m not saying it’s a great way of life or even better than the steel romance of the 17th century, but these are the times. We are living in a communicationscape devoid of tactility. The sense of touch is an ancient folkmyth to anyone with a MySpace account.