The Shocker VS. Sex
Webster’s defines sex as “good, but weird, dude, really weird.” I don’t usually agree with dictionaries (and why should I?) but they’re right on the money here. The good is good, the bad is bad, the weird is omnipresent. Sensory overload, man! Lot of stuff to delegate, lot of moving pieces, lot of ins, outs, and what-have-yous. Consider this: Ted Cruz has sex. I don’t want to be part of any club that allows Ted Cruz to be a member. There are such wild contradictions tethered to getting down! You transcend the mortal plane, yet you also become a person of the dirt. You are creating something beautiful, but sometimes for ugly reasons. You bumble, stumble, lose your boner to dark thoughts. It’s a holy act designed by a trickster.
Some advice regarding sex was offered to me in High School that was immensely helpful. Actually, it wasn’t exactly advice. It was more a declaration of fact, but its impact on my psyche was outsized. It might as well have been etched on one of those concrete slabs Moses showed his friends from the big mountain. I was sad, naturally, about something very stupid. The girl I was dating and I had broken up and she was now sleeping with a gangly stoner that played the saxophone. He had droopy eyes, and a very laconic style when it came to wearing a backpack. Me and that particular girl had not consummated our relationship with actual sex, just the usual opening acts that went on too long. She wanted to, but I was terrified. The idea of having sex scared the shit out of me. When I was fourteen I heard the phrase “and then he slipped it in me” and that was such an awful, awful string of words. In first grade, knowing nothing of the particulars, humping seemed interesting and cool, something so extremely far down the broken path towards being an adult or whatever, that it wasn’t of much concern. I had toys and movies and shit like that to keep me occupied. I was a child. In retrospect, being a child was not bad.
Anyway, what my friend said to me in High School, in an attempt to talk me off the ledge when I found out my girlfriend was sleeping with the saxophone man, was this: “People have sex. It’s just what they do. It doesn’t have to be important.”
I don’t know how 17 year-old kids can be so wise, but that was exactly the sobering slap in the face that was required. People have sex. It’s just what they do. Eventually, the gangly man and the girl cruised to an unceremonious stop. And then I had sex for the first time, in a field, wearing a Bad Religion shirt. I got down and dirty because she wanted to, and because I was tired of saying no to something that was just something that people did. I was old enough to know that sex was something that was not supposed to be perfect, but it still seemed that it ought to be special. And it was special, I guess, by virtue of it happening. I was sixteen, and it was fine. I mostly remember the field and the shirt. And shaking afterwards. Trembling, but relieved. I joined a new club. The International League of Gentleman who have Done It. This club had many terrible members.
It’s nice (sometimes, maybe even usually), but it’s weird, man.
The details of one’s accumulation of sex-having are lurid but boring, specific yet universal, unpredictable yet rote. I’ve had lots of sex (literally) but also not much of it (spiritually?). The Dark Act itself, usually, requires things that make me uncomfortable. Simultaneously the abdication of control and the assertion of it. Smashing can be a thing of beauty! It’s a life affirming covenant. It also can be clumsy. And sometimes a bummer. And if you fuck too hard on a couch at a weird angle, you can break your dick. That doesn’t sound good.
Beware people who have songs they like to get rutty to. “Talk Show Host” by Radiohead is not your friend. It is a Trojan Horse. If you must listen to music during sex, consider something tasteful, like “Birthday Sex” or “The Rite of Spring” by Stravinsky. Boning is such a strange dance, not kabuki per se, but certainly not ballet. Competence is required, mastery is suspect. The margin for error is both small and vast. Stop apologizing over and over again! This is a rookie mistake! Perhaps you are bad at sex, but keep it to yourself. Be the best version of the weirdest, most private yet performative version of yourself.
It feels nice. Things are simple when you are allowed to lose yourself in some tasteful boomshakalaka. There’s something very precious about taking a break from worrying about shit and just going for it. No wars for oil. No way they’ll fuck up the Deadwood movie. Only the thing and the other thing and putting it together as seamlessly as possible. The bizarre symphony. The raunch that lurks within the meek timing its escape. Crass thoughts transformed into dopey words. Very subtly hinting at threesomes. Meat and potatoes missionary, non-creepy eye contact. Doggystyle on the first date, but in a sweet way. Never mentioning it ever! Neanderthal bedroom talk. Shame. Little bits of horror. Hands touching hands, reaching out. A real mixed bag. A secret meritocracy in which you will never truly know where you stand. And then the uncontaminated laughter of things going wrong in a perfect way. Sex. People have it. It’s just what we do.
Sex: 7.8/10.
Further reading:
I recommend “A Sport and a Pastime” by James Salter. Even if you are relatively Low T, this book will get your loins ravenous for some mysterious horizontal intimacy. Very, very horny book!
