The distinction between the natural and unnatural is beset with paradox.  We are neither natural nor unnatural. Instead we should overcome the opposition and find a new place to be, writes Hilary Lawson

Problematic and depraved, dark and threatening, these are the characteristics traditionally associated with the unnatural. Morally offensive, even devilish, undermining what it is to be properly human. The natural in contrast has typically had the moral high ground. To behave naturally has been to act in accordance with our true instinct, to be at one with our nature.

Yet this distinction, between the natural and unnatural, so prevalent in our vocabulary, is beset by paradox. To be at one with our nature is also to be at one with our animal spirit, one might even say the bestial. And is it not there that many have claimed to find not the natural but the profoundly unnatural?

Moreover, the contemporary zeitgeist is sceptical of the moral assumptions to be found in the opposition of natural and unnatural. Acts formerly described as unnatural, homosexuality, transvestism, sadomasochism are now widely regarded as part of the diversity of human sexuality, and the claim that these are unnatural acts itself a malign prejudice. Far from holding the moral high ground those who once made such claims are castigated as blinkered bigots.