What’s it all about Auntie?
Everyone now and then sexual relationships confuse the shit out of me and I’m reminded of the awesome movie “Alfie” that was released over 50 years ago. So what’s it all about? Why do men and women continually lie to each other when it comes to sex? Insecurity? Bravado? Lust? Fear? The reasons are endless but the results are the same. We all get hurt in the end. Not all the time. Not by everybody we fuck. But at some point in all of our lives we’ll get hurt by a person who won’t reciprocate our feelings. Unrequited love or unrequited lust – doesn’t really matter. It’s unrequited and we’re left with our dick or clit in our hands. And as painful as it is, there’s something strangely beautiful to me about this human experience that we all share – love and heartbreak.
A couple of events in the past few weeks has got me started on this trip down the hole on a rabbit could love. A woman on Tinder asked us what sex positive means. Thankfully Maestro provided a polite and somewhat accurate response because mine would’ve most likely resulted in us being un-liked. I hate the term sex positive. I think it’s a bunch of bullshit. I know there’s a book “The Ethical Slut” that’s often referred to in the same context, and a lot of women who are willing to play with couples swear by it. It’s apparently considered the Poly-Bible. But what does it mean, really?
The term sex positive was coined by Wilhelm Reich in the 1920s and basically means having an open and tolerant outlook on human sexuality. And I’m all in favour of that – you can fuck who/what you want as long as you’re not harming others. Just to be clear – I’m not an Aleister Crowley “do what thou wilt” kind of person because I think his views involve putting oneself above others in the metaphorical totem pole as a way to justify harming other people. (I may love David Bowie’s music but I think his association with Crowley’s views is deplorable.)
But like a lot of vague concepts, sex positive is now often associated with polyamory or the now-favoured term “ethical non-monogamy”. I think it’s basically a made-up academic term for “I’m not monogamous but I’ll tell you that before I fuck you and that’s what makes it ethical.” I swear some gender studies/cultural studies/feminist grad student wrote a PhD about it and got it published. And now we’re stuck with this godawful concept that’s not new. It’s as old as time but has been rebranded so someone could sell a bunch of books. It implies that having a positive attitude about sex means multiple sexual partners. So does that make the logically opposite term “sex negative” mean monogamy? Or celibacy? In which case it doesn’t make sense. One can be sexually-liberated and tolerant to all sort of kinks and fetishes but choose to be monogamous. Or one can have multiple sex partners who all know about each other (and therefore it’s ethical!) but actually have an unhealthy attitude toward sex – using sex as a weapon to hurt others, to hurt oneself – which kind of brings me back to the title character of the movie Alfie. Alfie most definitely isn’t sex positive. He wants to fuck as many women as possible and he’s all for sexual liberation, but misses the ethical part of it. Until it all kind of kicks him in the face, hence the “what’s it all about” part of the story. Alfie’s just a player. A shameless, heartless player. A female Alfie would be considered a slut. A shameless, heartless slut. They don’t really care about their partners, their partners are just numbers. Notches in the bed post (those older than 40 may get that reference). I guess that makes his behaviour sex-negative non-ethical non-monogamy. I don’t think there’s anything positive about using sex to hurt others. And this is where all the definitions, it seems to me, get twisted. Any why people should avoid stupid definitions and just talk about human behaviour.
The other event that got me thinking about sex and deceit is a text that Maestro received from Chelsea. She exited his life a couple of months ago when she chose monogamy. A guy she was dating wanted to be monogamous and she said, hey, I can’t see you anymore because this guy with whom I’m in love/falling in love wants to be with me exclusively. So there was a couple of months when she cut Maestro out of her life – even just to have a drink and a chat with no pussy licking involved. (Which brings up a totally different issue about why people will cut their opposite-sex friends/exes out of their lives when they think they’ve met “the one”.) But unfortunately for Chelsea “the one” broke up with her after a few months. It wasn’t the serious monogamous relationship that she was hoping for even though the guy insisted that she be monogamous with him. The request for monogamy doesn’t always mean the person is serious about you. It could just mean an easier path to your bed. And this isn’t some new phenomenon – it’s as old as time. Guess what – people will lie to get laid.
Now this isn’t the first time we’ve heard from a woman that she’s getting off the ethical non-monogamy ship. In fact, she’s about the 5th woman we’ve met (which makes it about half the women we’ve met) who has jumped overboard for the promise of monogamy (2 with an ex, 2 with a new Tinder match, 1 re-evaluating her life choices). And at least three of them quoted “The Ethical Slut” as part of their inspiration for their lifestyle choice.
Which makes me think that for all the talk about wanting a stable of men to fuck instead of a monogamous relationship; wanting to find sexual satisfaction in a range of people and not just one; wanting the freedom to explore multiple partners without getting tied to a traditional relationship – what people want is, in fact, a monogamous relationship (without the threat of heartbreak). Or at least those five women. So is all the sex positive talk just a way of dealing with the unhappiness about not finding a serious monogamous relationship? I’ll never get my heart broken again if I’m not committed to one person? I’ll take a good fuck and tell you that’s all I want, but in reality I’m just killing time until the right person comes along? I want to seem cool and liberated but in reality my attitudes about sex and relationships are more Ozzie and Harriet than Sex in the City? Some combination of all of the above? I don’t know. I don’t really have a strong opinion about whether humans are hardwired to be monogamous or not.
Maybe you need to experiment with both before you figure out which one suits you. Which is where I’m at. Or at least where I think I’m at. At the moment I’m happy playing with Maestro but there are times I miss being in a monogamous relationship. I can’t erase 20 years of my life when a lot of those years were very good. I dislike online dating and flirting with women is a pain. I like being a woman and having men flirt with me. So this is why I won’t align myself with definitions like sex positive or ethical non-monogamy. As soon as I put myself into a box with a label I feel confined and pressured to behave according to that label’s current definition. That’s just my thing.
Let’s be clear – I have no answers when it comes to all these questions I have. Which is why they end up long blog posts instead of short snappy ones. And why the question of monogamy or not is as old as time with no clear answers for anyone. It’s the most awful answer to a question – it depends.
