Wedding ceremony abstracts away the concrete reality of the sexual act

Evidence

There is an obscene paradox in the superimposing of a pompous ceremony on a brutally real animal function. The wedding presents its universal and abstract meaning: a man and a woman are united publicly according to symbolic rites; but in the secrecy of the bed it is concrete and singular individuals who confront each other face-to-face, and all gazes turn away from their embraces. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1162

Categorization

• CANDY: The obscene-paradox observation about weddings is a compact, shareable insight about a universal ritual.
• XREF: connects to: Even informed brides experience defloration as a form of rape