Feb 21, 2011

Peeling back the Skin on Sex

Today I feel like lashing out. Be out there, broad and brutally honest. Plaster a smirk on my face and talk about the favorite topic of all times: Sex. Not like there isn't much left for discussion in the topic, nor like I would think I've such an important or ground breaking position to reveal that would mark a milestone in the history of sex as we know it. I'm sure, however, that everybody has at least one story or topic to develop that would raise eyebrows, halt breaths or tint cheeks. Those who don't, well, I'd advise them to live a little bit more.

Now, the topic of the day is not whether sex and love and love and sex are one or separate. If we take the overly stressed and not for it true stance that no real sex is possible without love, or whether we take the stance of sex and love are separate and you can have either of them with or without the others. Won't go into the social manifestation about sex, and how it is or is not proper, taboo or an act that should or shouldn't brand people who do it. You wanna read about that, learn Spanish, or practice it, and go read Carepicha's Blog. He certainly has much more patience to delve into the subject than I do.

So certainly the topic isn't where or when or with whom, but basically what and who. Place on the mask, focus while I take the scalpel and proceed with the live autopsy of the matter.

Most people would agree that one of the few, purest pleasures in life is sex. It's not like eating or drinking, where though it can be pleasurable, you often do it to avoid something unpleasant, such as hunger or thirst. Though indeed the lack of sex or sexual release could make you really uncomfortable - urban legends talk about men with blue balls and women who develop hysteria :-) - no one has really ever died for lack of sex. In this sense, sex is something people go for - extracting here any socially imposed idea or duty - out of the sheer want for it. You take sex for the pleasure of sex, not to avoid a certain type of discomfort or pain. From this point on, if we all agree on this, it should be clear that sex should be about the pursue of pleasure, of a sort of physical gratification that could bring also pleasure to other senses, to other levels, such as the emotional. I say could for it not necessarily needs to bring that type of satisfaction. However, as a thing pursued for the pleasure of it, it becomes contradictory if by the pursue of it one experiences any discomfort or suffering. Here I take out the suffering willingly experienced for the pleasure of it, a.k.a. masochist sex. In other words, though the emotional gratification isn't necessarily a byproduct of sex, if the act itself generates emotional suffering, where the fuck is the point of it?

Sex makes sense when people having it enjoy it, feel good about it and experience no suffering related with it. Due to the way we are all "wired up", this can't always be attained for several reasons, many of which can be traced back to socially imposed dogmas and criteria that  can effectively obstruct the capability of individuals to enjoy something that was mean exactly for that: to be enjoyed. Rationally approaching the subject, it amazes how much a thing is often regarded with shame. How many people can openly describe what they really like without blushing? It's as if the inner source of desire were some damp, murky place you don't want to go, nor should you invite anyone else. Well, you normally don't, but then if you step into the realm of one-nightstands, veils and masks fall and strangers request from one another the most basic favors. Touch, lick, put it in there, stand against the wall, hold it up, raise it, tie it down, show it, make it, let it see, look at it, feel it up.

The scope of it goes into a wider range than one would guess from porn tapes and daring R-rated movies and  series. Interestingly several things are not "hard core" all related to orgies, beatings, exhibitionism, voyeurism, and ass-fucking - as the popular imaginary loves to think - but to the most amazing, simple yet unthought matters. Then again, I guess there wouldn't be anything kinky enough about a guy who likes to lick the ankles of his partner while this gives him a blowjob, or a chick who likes a blowjob that includes fingers inside her pussy and her mouth. Desires are wide, and like any other need considered by social scientists - economists among them -  are unlimited. Theoretically, as long as you enjoy sex, and you get your desired fulfilled, and well fulfilled by a willing partner, there's no reason to fall into a rutine. Say you voice your desire to... get a handjob with a belt wrapped thightly around one of your thighs. Your partner is confident and tells you their desire to have sex with a vibrating ring. You might feel liberated to the think about something new, something simple, not necessarily something that outdoes the previous.

It doesn't now you'll come up with something new for every time, it means you can come up with something new whenever and you can get your desire fulfilled. It means that there's nothing wrong with a good old missionary position if you enjoy it. However the matter of enjoying sex isn't just about the position you choose, the foreplay - if any -  you engage into, or where your hands, mouth and other bodyparts land, but it's a matter of the people that take part of it. Whether alone, with someone else, or more than one other person. Whether younger or older, opposite sex or same sex - only, really, make it always HLLC: Human, Live, Legal and Consensual! - and in the end it doesn't really matter what you normally claim yourself to be, it's a matter of what provokes you. More often than not, people has been puzzled, if not downright attracted towards a given trait. It isn't unheard the case of friends who decide to experiment among each other - and this doesn't happen only in porn movies and x-rated books. It isn't unheard either the case of people attracted to someone way out of their "type" or usual range. 

Moral implications about the attraction or the actions are quite out of place. Unless harm is dealt, the attention being non consented - openly or not - there isn't a real reason to enjoy a given experience. It must be clear that not all sexual attraction case develops into a relationship, nor all of them reach actual "consumation" so to call it that way, but as long as it's enjoyable, as long as it renders pleasure, why should it be denied?

Sex remains as a murky, dark, shameful thing, provider of pleasure you don't really have to buy or compromise or give something in return for. Sex is one of those few things in life you can actually pull from the social grid, extrincate from the economical planes and just enjoy it when you find someone to enjoy it with, or more than one, or why the fuck not? something you can enjoy with the unconditional aid of your hand... or hands :-).

It's somewhat rough to talk about these things in this society... in any human society, but at the same time, lets rip away from those tangles and think about the fuck we are doing about fucking. It's just fucking, not the splitting of the atom. So the next time you've the perspective of getting some nookie, fuck society, fuck complexes, shame, prejudices and go for it.

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