Context

Property of Stormberry.

 LITTLE ANNOUNCEMENT: only after I posted I realized I had already written about this "making love" vs "fucking" exchange. I'm not rewriting the post, but consider this an extention on my thoughts on the matter. A little bit more... processed thanks to the weeks that have passed since. Clearly, it made an impression on me.

For a few weeks now my life has gone back to the usual - or sort of the usual - way, at least regarding my sexual life. My friend has gone now, and by being far away, the chance to exchage a few texts and reserve a room at our signature hotel spend the night together having sex is gone as well. Of course I'm going through those days where I miss our encounters, and my friend in general, and the bits and pieces of our interactions pop up in my head and linger for a while.

One of the thoughts that came to my head was about the words and expressions used to refer to sex.

The first time we had sex, my friend refered to the activity as "making love", which I found strange, since we had agreed that this was a no-strings-attached kind of liaison. From then on, my friend used a small sort of euphemisms, but the direct words they used was "fuck". I didn't make any mention on their new word selection, but it gave me food for thought.

When I reference having sex, I call it "having sex", which for me it's a rather neutral, unemotional expression for an activity that should be about pleasure, and which I have practiced for many years now for that exact reason. I seek pleasure in sex, both mine and that of my partner. However, I am aware of the fact that sex tends to be heavily tinted with all sorts of emotions and expectations that may not have anything to do with sex itself. In our society, sex is not "for pleasure" plainly, but it carries a whole bundle of heavy tags and expectations. Sex can soil you if it fails to tie you down. It can brand you if you exercise it with the wrong people and it may even taint you if you practice it in unapproved ways, if you make or demand certain concessions. Depending on your gender, it can cheapen you or increase your value.

As such, sex is heavy with context, and this is the context I discovered in the words chosen by my friend. If it wasn't a delicate, elevating, "respectful", romantic act - such as making love -, it had to be a dirty, degrading, basic act, such as fuck. Are those the only ways most people see sex as? And it's not like fucking is bad - well done is really pleasurable ;) - nor does it mean that my friend thinks this way - they may not feel like using the expression "have sex" or maybe are not even giving a negative subtext to "fuck". However, as you insert the words in the social context, neither "making love" nor "fucking" are free of subtext. Not yet, in anyway. And though we may not think of the words we are using, and we speak those we hear around us, without delving into the origins and the social connotation of them, they are there, and deep down they carry on a lot of weight.

We say more with our words than we imagine we do. Our words carry not only our message, but also the thoughts and the context printed on them by the culture we are immersed in.