I’m amazed at what people will tell
me they do or don’t understand when I explain something. Well, they
never actually grant me their understanding; that seems to be
reserved for after they’ve broken up or when they’re alone at the
end of the night wondering how I can just be so backward and weird.
Without much surprise, I’ve found sex to be one of the most hot
button and contentious issues, and I’m positively dumbfounded as to
why.
First of all, I’m a big believer in
relationships. I don’t think that word gets to be hijacked by
monogamy. It is logically sound to say I have a relationship with
each and every one of my friends. For a relationship to matter for
me, it involves two individuals. They need to be people, with
perspectives and reasoning skills and personal feelings about things.
No shit 101. You’re not exactly like anyone else, your history is
your own, your thoughts and decisions are yours to make. I try to
respect that, foster that, and be an example of that.
Sex is a game. Sex is serious. Sex is
potentially dangerous. Sex can be emotional or not. It can come easy
or be one of the biggest issues in someone’s life. Sex is fun,
fairly simple, and enjoyed by practically everything that’s ever
lived. I don’t know why some people have a hard time believing that
it can be all of these things or that I somehow don’t grasp all the
things it can mean.
When I talk about sex, it’s usually
in jest because it tends to err on the positive side of things I
think about. It isn’t to belittle it or demean the different
circumstances in which people are having it. In the same vein, I’m
usually met with people who say “I just don’t understand you!”
or “I don’t agree” or “How can you do this or that, doesn’t
it mean all these things I’ve just put into your mouth?!” I
secretly hope someone ever tells that last one word for word.
Classically, I hear one of two things;
sex is important because it denotes someone you love or that fact of
your love or, it’s just “different” or “special” than
anything else you do. It’s used as a separating device apparently.
Here’s where I take issue. Sex
fundamentally is a reward system developed in order for things to
propagate. Any moral or emotional flavor that your sex life has is
injected by you. If you want it to be dramatic, you can make
either/or statements about its significance. You can equate it with
love. You attach the feelings you get from it to the flurry of
memories and interactions you’ve had with the person you’re
having sex with. I don’t regard this as a bad thing, necessarily.
What bugs me is when the opposite of this process is regarded as
“bad” “naïve” “reckless” “empty” and assumed about
people who don’t describe their sex lives in romance novel terms.
I’m one of those people. I think sex
can be important, I understand it’s like a pinnacle for some
peoples’ relationships. I know how it’s been used to fuck over
and manipulate a number of my friends. Yet, I somehow persist in my
venture to be turned on and sexed out. I don’t play with people’s
emotions. I don’t lie about where I’m coming from. I don’t base
my relationships or regard them in the amount of sex I’m having or
not with someone. I don’t really understand how anyone could.
“But Nick, you’re an emotionally
crippled and cynical bastard, how could you possibly have soul enough
to truly empathize with the plight of my feelings for the one I love
and choose to make my only sex partner?” This frankly is
horrendously condescending and mean. When I’m mean to someone I
identify something they care about and try to reduce it to something
that I actively try to make them feel bad over. I genuinely care
about my relationships and when depicted as the kind of person above,
it’s more than a bit annoying.
Your feelings exist in the vault
that is your mind and body, but that doesn’t mean feeling is
somehow reserved for when you are experiencing it the most. I would
love the chance to defend my friendships or relationships or fuck
buddies or whatever the fuck else that I’ve worked on creating in
my life. It’s because I base those things on principles and ideas
that come before sex; honesty, happiness, comfort, intellectual
stimulation, fun, trust. You know, things that healthy relationships
and friendships are based on. Whether sex comes into the equation or
not, if you don’t have those things, you’re doing it wrong.
“But Nick, sex is still ‘special’
and ‘different’ with the person you love.” Then explain to me
how! I get that you get a rush or are more emotionally involved with
that person at that time, but explain to me how there is this edict
about life that “special and different” make any sense beyond
your personal attachment. When I hear this it’s like someone
telling me that animal rights are more important than gun control.
When asked why they think this, they simply respond, “Animals are
special!” “I think about them differently!”
I’d rather not have sex with someone
who thinks it can only be about getting off or being a one night
stand. When asked the point of one night stands, if your answer is
anything more than “to get off,” you’re doing it wrong. And if
you don’t understand getting off, what is this ever growing queer
(not gay) nature of the loving sex you’re allegedly having? If you
can’t have fun with it, regard it as spending time with someone
you’re attracted to, or respect it as something you don’t engage
in with “just anyone at any time” then I don’t want you having
sex with me. That’s fucking weird. Try masturbating to a paper
towel roll, randomly, not even when you’re horny where it might
work. That’s basically how I feel about trying to engage in sex for
the sake of sex alone.
People are attractive for any number of
reasons, not all of which solely reside in them. If you can call two
people hot or funny or whatever then you have to understand what I
mean. For the laundry list of cool things I can say about me, I know
other people are funny, cute, relatively not fat, and potentially
intellectually stimulating. This doesn’t invalidate or diminish who
I am or how we relate to each other. I can think of nothing worse
than thinking of our friendship sacrificed because there wasn’t
room for you to figure out why you find two people cool or
attractive. Jealousy in a scenario like this serves a purpose. It
means you give a damn! It doesn’t mean you hate or are willing to
hurt someone, it just means you recognize what you have matters. It
should help you protect it and prompt you to raise any concerns you
might have, not send you spiraling out of control.
I have been, can be, and will probably
go on having emotions. They’ve been, could be, and probably will
continue to jump in a fairly familiar realm that yours can dwell in
as well. I don’t enslave myself to them, which doesn’t make me
cold, it makes me an adult. I don’t make excuses for them, and I
don’t like to pretend that my experience with them hasn’t given
me at least a modicum of helpful or useful advice when it comes to
sex or relationships. Yes, some shit you have to go through by
yourself, some people will remain ever interred by their first or
parent’s notion of sex, and some people will continue to use it in
all sorts of odd or manipulative ways, but stop pretending the
conversation is between two extremes. And stop pretending you don’t
understand me or my position when I so clearly lay it out like I laid
your mom, who “loved” it.
