A young friend confides in me about his sex life, often going into considerable detail. Maybe he’s seeing if I will be shocked, but I think he’s just trying to figure the whole thing out. He wants to be free, senses his parents were rigid and role-driven. So he and his partners have experimented with toys, watched porn, talked dirty, and so on.
After a while, he confides, no matter how great the sex, he begins to feel trapped, lonely, and soon is looking for a new partner; he grumbles that he's “not good at this relationship thing.”
It's as though sex can’t be looked “straight in the eye.” I mean, sex blossoms when I focus on other things, like my partner’s pleasure, or our skin sensations, or that adventurous attitude that lets us have fun, visiting overlooked parts of ourselves, then connecting with them, “hanging out” with some aspect of personality we'd forgotten about, like a day‑trip to a little place we’ve both been curious about.
But if I look directly at the sexual act, focusing on my (or my partner’s) outward performance, the results are usually disappointing. Of my friends who have tried sexual enhancements, the only one who had a positive report really didn’t need it in the first place; he and his partner were playing, not solving problems. Those who had a “problem” are still trying to solve it. Maybe they would profit from psychotherapy, separately, as a couple, or both, but toys don’t really seem to enhance their lives (sexual or otherwise). They need to look away from the sex act, let it be as ordinary (and as sacred) as going to the grocery store together.
But wait; I forgot; they never go to the grocery store together.
Your body needs to be held and to hold,
to be touched and to touch.
Its deeper need is the need for genuine love. Every time you are able to go beyond the body’s need to be touched,
you are bringing your body home.
Henri Nouwen
The Inner Voice of Love
A sex symbol becomes a thing.
I hate being a thing.
(in An Uncommon Scold, by Abby Adams, 1989.)
An Uncommon Scold
