Sex
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the Authors own, defined by her own personal sexual experiences as a straight woman. Not all men are dirtbags (most of my buddies are boys, I love boys, just not when they’re being assholes), and not all women feel bracketed in extremes. The CFPDiary is a space for personal compartmentalisation and growth. If your opinion differs, that’s OK.
GET IN, GET OFF, GET OUT
Handed out and throw around, my discontentment with contemporary sex is nothing new. Today, sex is forced down our throats like an aggressive dick-face-fucking which we don’t enjoy, but pretend to, because we want to appease and appeal. Sex is strewn everywhere - like period blood on a service station cubical wall. Aggressive, unapologetic, somewhat intentional and all-round rude, there’s no avoiding it.
BOYS
Sat in limbo between an “oh well” lost cause mentality, and the legitimisation of its normalisation, why does it feel like the ‘boys be boys’ deal was made so long ago that it won’t (maybe can’t) be undone? Metaphorically wondering around salivating, with gaunt eyes, rye smiles and their dicks and tongues half-out, it’s almost as if we’ve given up on the positive side of masculine agency altogether.
GIRLS
On the flip-side, the female-sex-complex is just that:
We are expected to play nymphos that can’t wait to have dirty fingernails stuffed down our pants, then show sultry wide-eyed enjoyment at some slimebags sweaty-knuckle validation.
We’re also supposed to emulate a weak baby animal. A different kind of wide-eyed, curled up all scared and small, we placidly wait for the strong forearm of masculinity to stroke us. Only to be replaced by the next cute fluffy thing that comes along.
Either we’re mouth-wide-open gagging for it dirtbags that can’t get enough of your cum. Or we’re some sort of sensitive innocent soul that’s going to get fucked around and made to think we deserve it?
Where’s the middle ground? And what would that look like if there was one?
ME
I like sex, who doesn’t? Turns out I’m also quite good at it too (high praise, positive feedback) - this is because I fuck the people I actually want to fuck. Which means, when I’m into it, I’m INTO it. But I also like snuggling and feeling emotional. It’s not all hard hard core core. But why does it feel like it has to be?
Contemporary sex got me feeling like a grumpy Sim. I’m dancing around with a speech bubble full of punctuation marks bobbing above my head. Except I’m not happy-dancing. Like the Sim, I’m actually fucking upset.
!?#$ ETYMOLOGY
! = Fuck you. Anger. Aggression.
? = Just me? Am I the only person on this planet who isn’t into sex-for-sex-sake?
# = Hashtag #WTF? How have we come this ‘far’? Or have we actually not gone anywhere at all?
$ = It adds up, sex sells.
Discontented isn’t powerful enough. I’m experiencing full-blow disillusionment towards how we see sex.
Medias also promote the devaluation of sex. Take the TV show (and related spin-offs) putting a group of gym bunnies on an island on the proviso they’re there to fuck. Only to find out, they aren’t allowed to fuck. The real game is “don’t fuck, win money”. Obviously they’re all shit at it, because none of them place any value whatsoever in sex at all. Also, why is it a fucking game? In what sad melty mess of a planet housing brain-dead monkeys (we’ve devolved), does that constitute entertainment? More entrainment. Fuck me (or don’t, please).
The internet too - take the bogus concept of OnlyFans ‘empowering' women. In my eyes, OnlyFans is a vapid black hole in cyberspace enabling men to monetarily endorse the male gaze, and brand themselves as supporting the women who choose to flaunt their private-parts on it. Women are sold a platform of self-empowerment, but really, what’s empowering about showing off your gorgeous femininity to a lonely slimy man, even if he’s paying? (I won’t go there, it’s an article in it’s own right). In short, I’m totally and entirely over the sexualisation of sex itself. But that’s just me. Or is it?
OTHERS
I was happy to read a letter from the late Sinéad O'Connor to Miley Cyrus which highlighted some of my feels with respect to the music industry:
“This is a dangerous world. We don’t encourage our daughters to walk around naked in it because it makes them prey for animals and less than animals...
You are worth more than your body or your sexual appeal...
None of the men ogling you give a shit about you either, do not be fooled. Many woman mistook lust for love. If they want you sexually that doesn’t mean they give a fuck about you...”
From a biological perspective it makes depressingly perfect sense that men are often only out to ‘spread their seed’ AKA get their dicks wet and cum inside as many females as possible, despite rarely having intentions of procreation. Biologically women do need to think differently compared to good ol’ dick-slinging men. As the potential aftermath of a fling is to accidentally pop out a little person, we are naturally more inclined (or maybe it is just me) to think more long term, life partner, future forecast.
LUST & LOVE
Sex sells. Why? Because we all like it. There’s no getting away from it: We were all made by it, we’re all subject to it, we all do it, and sexual appeal is at the core of human nature. We’ve all experienced lust - that feeling that springs up inside us unexpectedly, getting us hot in the head and between the legs. Lust is about DNA survival, although even this reasoning Re: Contemporary Sex has gone out the window. “Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater” in lust-terms has become - wear a condom, or pull out, just don’t have a baby.
Lust and love are very different emotions. Lust is all about ego and only considers ME: “How can I get off?” While love is a slow-burn feeling which takes a while to grow and isn’t all about ‘me me me’ but actually, for fucking once, considers the other.
STRENGTH & AGGRESSION VERSUS
WEAKNESS & VULNERABILITY
Psychotherapist Emmy van Deurzen hit the nail on the head with something I’ve been thinking about for a while:
“You start out weak and vulnerable, and you see others being strong and aggressive (but they aren’t really, that’s just a different way of being weak and vulnerable). And you ask yourself, should I learn to be strong and aggressive? Or should I remain weak and vulnerable?”
I’ve had this internal tug of war for years, often when it comes to how I present myself to men I want to fuck. Do I embody my ‘give a fuck?’ big dick female energy which lacks emotional attachment? Or do I show up as my emotionally vulnerable counterpart that feels all the feels and risks getting figuratively ass-fucked? Emmy says -
“Dialectically speaking, you do both. It’s never a compromise. You just make yourself bigger and feel some of that courage in yourself, as well as being weak and vulnerable, and you realise that gradually you’re becoming sensitive and resilient.”
Emmy’s right. Why should I (or we) choose between them? I am vulnerable. Fuck, we all are. When we show this vulnerable side, we begin to normalise it. Doing so also births resilience - a learned strength with a side of personal growth, tuning into our inherent power and agency. For me, it’s not about shagging for the shigs, sex is about connection. In order to connect, you need to be vulnerable, and when you are -
“You begin to transcend, and you’ll begin to see elements of that all around you. You’re no longer isolated because you start to recognise that your own process is shared in all these other human bodies and in all these other human lives, and that we’re all on the same bloody trajectory.”
Because at our cores, even the strongest meat-head body builders are vulnerable people. Even those guys give fucks (and not just physically).
“We make our lives so difficult by making enemies of each other. What we need to recover is that dialectical movement…”
”Dialectics matter because they enable us to go beyond our troubles, not just by ignoring them or leaving them behind, but by transcending them”
By all means continue jumping in and out of each others beds, bodies and lives, just stay mindful that you’re equally vulnerable beings. There’s no avoiding it, it’s the human condition. Remember, despite an initial peacocking facade of strength and aggression, at the end of the day, sex is the physical embodiment of a deep emotional connection. And to me, that’s worth preserving.
