What if Sex were a Relationship?
What love’s got to do with it
Call your broker. Right now. Tell him, sell your whole portfolio. Wall Street’s going to go into a tailspin when it gets the news. They need to find a new can’t-miss commodity, because sex isn’t trending anymore.
Japan, faced with aging and declining population numbers, is begging people to get frisky, but instead their men (a few of them, at least) are marrying computer programs and anime dolls, neither of which is likely to complain about the hours they put in at the office or the gym. Celibacy is a valid option for anyone, of course, but who’d have thought it would become a favored lifestyle?
Sex is still popular in the United States, of course. The average person in most of the key demographics still rates sex among their favorite things to do. But they aren’t doing it as much, and it isn’t just because of the pandemic. Many millennials will say, all things considered, they get just about as much of a kick from games and social media.
Gen Z? No one know what rings their bell, but ads with images of half-nude bodies don’t sell soap the way they used to. Some might argue, that’s a healthy development. Maybe the rising generation will be the one that gets past our old unnatural fetish for bare flesh, as if no one ever shed their clothes for anything but sex.
On the other hand, they might be the first generation that takes sex for granted, reaching for their phones when horny but otherwise preferring to do something more engaging or more . . . meaningful?
Aye, there’s the rub (or lack thereof). If sex is just an itch to scratch when you can spare the time from pressing matters, why get all worked up about it? The urge is, after all, as transitory as the satisfaction. Basically, it’s just another app.
Basically, it’s just another app.
Oddly enough, the way we boomers used to feel about discussing sex — eager but unsure, embarrassed to display our ignorance, afraid of who might be offended — that’s how Gen Z is regarding love. No one wants to bring it up lest they be seen by others as a lonely loser. You might spoil a date, even chase off an eager partner for the night or FWB, by mentioning such feelings or revealing that you wish for something closer to the heart. Or worse yet, by implying you don’t know the difference between love and sex.
Kygo, Tina Turner — What’s Love Got to Do with It — YouTube
But we all want to be loved, even Generation Z. Nearly all of us would love to be in love, to feel the flutters, see the way your special person’s presence puts the sparkle in the sunlight. Those who’ve been there know the way a deep connection takes the sex beyond biology.
This is what gets lost when we get used to seeing sex as casual. My generation had no patience for our parents’ rule of “only when you’re married,” since we knew “in love” was close enough. Generations since have taken sex away from feelings altogether. Sex is good, full stop. If you have the opportunity — a willing partner and a place — why wait for love? Love may never happen. It may come and go and leave you miserable as well as frustrated. Unlike pleasure, love cannot be trusted.
I’m not hating on the hook-up culture. I don’t think I understand it, and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t work for me, but that’s okay. All I want is to suggest — for those who find that lifestyle unfulfilling —that there’s another way to look at sex, another way to think about the possibilities.
What is sex? Is it just the joining of the bodies, the excitement of nerve endings stimulated, the contractions of the climax? When does it begin? With penetration or with foreplay? With the kiss before undressing, the decision to go home together, or the moment when you both were notified the other had swiped right?
Is it just the joining of the bodies . . . ?
I want to suggest that sex can be considered a relationship, a mental process that begins when we accept each other into partnership, when we decide to trust each other — however tentatively, however temporarily — with our bodies and their hungers.
And that relationship persists, endures as long as we remain in contact and within that state of mutual trust. In other words, sex isn’t just what happens in the bed. For a relationship is a conversation — a conversation that is carried on in multiple modalities, not only words but actions, attitudes, and touch — and the in-bed and the out-of-bed components are connected and related. Tenderness and generosity, good-humored patience, desperate need, distraction and disdain — the way we treat each other in the one arena is likely to reflect the quality of interactions in the other.
The point is, sex IS a relationship. Or else it’s just an act. It’s up to you.
Sex IS a relationship. Or else it’s just an act.
The name for that relationship is “lovers.” Even if it’s only for an evening, we can be that to each other.
And if it doesn’t end as soon as one of us goes home or leaves for work, if the trust remains in place and we look forward to the next time we can be together and engage in all our favorite touching play, then we live with the awareness of the other’s presence in our mental space. The awareness that “I have a lover” changes who I am. In fact, it changes everything.
The quaint old-fashioned euphemism “making love” may be more apt than most of us assume. I believe that a relationship of caring sex creates an energy that wasn’t present in the world before. The people sharing that connection benefit from being nurtured and cherished; their existential loneliness is for a while dispelled, and they are healthier, both physically and emotionally. Yes, love does all that for us.
And no, love doesn’t have to be forever to be real. In fact, it shares a lot with sex: the way it keeps on getting better with continued practice, the way enthusiasm matters just as much as skill, the way it ages like fine wine into joys that teens and twentysomethings can’t imagine. Yes, I’m saying — aging bodies notwithstanding — sex keeps getting better if the attitude is right. And so does loving.
It doesn’t have to be forever.
Stephen Stills, whom some of us have not forgotten, borrowed a line from Billy Preston and built a song around it back in 1970: “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.”
Stephen Stills — Love The One You’re With — YouTube
That’s the key, I think. To recognize, in every sexual encounter, an opportunity to share some love. To see the person you are with as one deserving something more than just a friendly tumble. To let them be important in your world, not just as a body offered for your pleasure, but as a person much like you with feelings much like yours. Someone lonely and in need of kindness. Just like you.
I understand why many people these days are afraid of love. Afraid to care, because the one who cares more, risks more. I know how it feels to fall in love and then discover that you took that fall alone.
But I also know the world’s a lonely place, and while sex definitely helps, it takes a little more than swiping right to make it less that way. To touch and be touched by another human being satisfies the instinctual hunger that comes of being social animals. But to share that touching with somebody special goes much deeper, satisfies our longing to be seen for who we are in our own eyes.
So why not let the person that you’re with tonight be special? They are already, just because we all are, but why not make the effort to experience their specialness and let them know you cherish it? Why not honor and respect them, treating them like you would treat someone you really, really like? Why not let them see that you are thrilled and grateful for the chance to share this special time with them?
You don’t have to say those scary words, but you can still let them be true, even if it’s only for a little while.
If you like this article, you might also enjoy:
What Kind of Man Turns Down a Willing Woman? | by Edward Robson, PhD | ILLUMINATION-Curated | Medium
