Ich schon wieder.
Two xangans, http://roxics.xanga.com/ and http://serenadante.xanga.com/, write about sex all the time. Their posts are generally well written, and I find them fascinating because they couldn't be more different from what I think about the subject.
To put it bluntly, I often feel revolted by sex. Simply disgusted. What is it, when you really think about it?
Sex is semen, saliva, and sweat. Sex is moaning, awkward apologizing, and cheap come-ons. All your insecurities come rushing out and you see people for what they really are: vain, horny little rabbits more desperate to impress themselves than the person they're sleeping with. It's nothing pure, nothing beautiful. Mixed in with all the vaunted "passion" is the the desire to rip, thrust, and hurt. A woman pulls her nails against a man's back until it bleeds, and a man fucks a woman against her cervix, bringing her to cry out...and what?
They. Do. Not. Care. Lots of us even LOVE it.
I hate the fact that nature and evolution make me have this instinct. I hate how people glorify something that's essentially bestial, crude, and senseless. Sex reveals just how hollow the human conceit of being something more than an animal actually is. S&M? That's just a way for people to act out their deepest fears, to strike back at all the guilt laid into their hearts by society since the day they were born. It's pathetic, sad, and alluring all at the same time. I think it's ridiculous how our vapid and stultified culture keeps obsessing over something as old and insipid as sex.
Truly, I wish sex didn't exist at all. It'd be nice to live in a world without rape, where people loved each other for who they were and not just what they want below the belt. But that's fantasy, Dulcinea's territory. You'd be better off jousting with a windmill than looking for that sort of world.
Love can make sex beautiful, sure. Love makes everything beautiful. In my opinion, it's the only thing that can justify human life. It's a sense of peace, devotion, and ideal reverence powerful enough to blot out every petty worry and fear. It's a blessed connection, a unity with something perfect and sublime. But it's enough on its own; it doesn't need sex. It's possible to have sex with someone a million times and never love them, just like it's possible to love someone enough to die for them and never have sex with them. They're two different things.
My worry is that contemporary culture has become so exuberantly immature that you can scarcely find a young person from my generation who understands the difference. I've met so many people my age with no faith in marriage and even less in the opposite sex. This goes for men and women; I have a rather bitter, chauvanistic friend who can't seem to ever be honest with women, and a female friend who's so guarded that any guy she dates usually gives up out of frustration. All the while the desire for sex is still there, lingering like a hungry ghost in their heads. There's nothing uglier than the look of lust mixed with tired apathy that you see on most people my age. Deep down, we know it's pointless, but our attention is fixed on it just the same.
This has been a rather odd post of mine. I don't think I've ever blogged about sex before, especially in such a negative light. Could it be I'm getting a bit more conservative in my old age? I might favor liberal politics and think old-fashioned prudery is pointless, but you'll never convince me that sex is anything good in and of itself.
I'm still not sold on celibacy either. But that's neither here nor there.
I hope nobody takes this as a personal critique against them.
