Sex, Love, & Whether They Ought To Be Connected Or Not
My eyes droop and my temples throb as I write this. I really ought to go to bed, but I've been meaning to write about this for a while and I need to stop putting it off. But how to write about it? Just honestly, I guess.
Before returning to Birmingham for the holidays, I lost what I guess one could call my 'virginity'. Virginity is a strange concept because it connotes pureness, having been untouched, but I've had sexual experience before December 2013, just never successful penetrative experience. In any case, I had 'proper' (the scare quotes are shouted, if such a thing is possible) sex in the closing month of 2013. It was with a girl who here I'll call Flowertwig to protect her identity. It's such a curious thing, the fact that I had sex with Flowertwig, because I've seen her in that way for quite a while now and privately decided that I would if I got the chance. Now I'm not entirely sure whether it was by small, quasi-subconscious acts that, with my own hand, I steered this into reality or whether the signs were minuscule but detectable and, in reality, she seduced me by degrees, or whether it truly was just spontaneous. I lean towards believing it was a mixture of the first two, though, and it makes one wonder how many small signs with other people you're letting slip right beneath you and subsequently not acting to everybody's advantage.
But there's more reason that it's curious for Flowertwig to be my first: namely, I'm not in love with her. I'm past the young age of early adolescent exploration where one might have sex with an early partner, more out of curiosity than true love, and I haven't quite yet reached the age of old desperation, where a lack of luck results in buying sex to satisfy those urges and curiosities. I'm in the late winter of my teenhood, so it's not particularly late for this to be only happening now, but it's not particularly early either. How does any of this bear on why it's weird that I'm not in love with her? Well, I'm at the age where I've been reliably battered by societal propaganda that sex is connected to love and the separation of the two is deviant. Our society is progressive enough to allow for it on occasion, but it must be kept secret because it deviates from the idea that sex is for lovers, boyfriends and girlfriends, or whatever mix you wish, as long as you're loving and consenting.
But I don't love Flowertwig. I've even told her I have a crush on a different girl (this is a whole other story -- I won't write about it here unless it doesn't die down and grows remarkable). And yet we had sex again, a second time. And I suspect (and, to be honest, hope) it won't be the last. We like each other as friends and we think sex is enjoyable, so we do it. Romantic feelings don't come into it. The only feelings that do are either sensual or guilty if we're overheard by a flatmate, say. For me, it is a bit strange to do something that you've been indoctrinated into believing should only be done in certain circumstances, without those circumstances present, but the both of us are progressive and rational enough not to be overly phased by that.
I feel like I've fallen into good luck. Sex without the trouble of love is a pretty good deal. Sex with somebody who understands it equally as primal and doesn't levitate it to something celestial or transcendent is liberating. She has a few boundaries which are to be respected, naturally, but for the most part, I'm exploring another body, a female body, in a way I've never been able to before.
Now, having said that, I don't wish to imply that I think sex without love is always better than sex with love. In fact, if I find love, I would readily cease this behaviour in favour of monogamy because I think exclusivity is an important element of romance. (As far as I understand it, if you remove exclusivity from romance, you essentially just have friendship with sex, as Flowertwig and I have now). However, if you're not (happily) bound by a relationship, then I would recommend primal sex with as many people as you want and are willing.
Anyway, I can cross two things off the life-list now. Both my first sober kiss and the loss of my (penetrative) virginity happened at 19 years old, at university, with different people. With just over 2 months left of them, I guess that isn't such a bad way to see off my teen years.
Before returning to Birmingham for the holidays, I lost what I guess one could call my 'virginity'. Virginity is a strange concept because it connotes pureness, having been untouched, but I've had sexual experience before December 2013, just never successful penetrative experience. In any case, I had 'proper' (the scare quotes are shouted, if such a thing is possible) sex in the closing month of 2013. It was with a girl who here I'll call Flowertwig to protect her identity. It's such a curious thing, the fact that I had sex with Flowertwig, because I've seen her in that way for quite a while now and privately decided that I would if I got the chance. Now I'm not entirely sure whether it was by small, quasi-subconscious acts that, with my own hand, I steered this into reality or whether the signs were minuscule but detectable and, in reality, she seduced me by degrees, or whether it truly was just spontaneous. I lean towards believing it was a mixture of the first two, though, and it makes one wonder how many small signs with other people you're letting slip right beneath you and subsequently not acting to everybody's advantage.
But there's more reason that it's curious for Flowertwig to be my first: namely, I'm not in love with her. I'm past the young age of early adolescent exploration where one might have sex with an early partner, more out of curiosity than true love, and I haven't quite yet reached the age of old desperation, where a lack of luck results in buying sex to satisfy those urges and curiosities. I'm in the late winter of my teenhood, so it's not particularly late for this to be only happening now, but it's not particularly early either. How does any of this bear on why it's weird that I'm not in love with her? Well, I'm at the age where I've been reliably battered by societal propaganda that sex is connected to love and the separation of the two is deviant. Our society is progressive enough to allow for it on occasion, but it must be kept secret because it deviates from the idea that sex is for lovers, boyfriends and girlfriends, or whatever mix you wish, as long as you're loving and consenting.
But I don't love Flowertwig. I've even told her I have a crush on a different girl (this is a whole other story -- I won't write about it here unless it doesn't die down and grows remarkable). And yet we had sex again, a second time. And I suspect (and, to be honest, hope) it won't be the last. We like each other as friends and we think sex is enjoyable, so we do it. Romantic feelings don't come into it. The only feelings that do are either sensual or guilty if we're overheard by a flatmate, say. For me, it is a bit strange to do something that you've been indoctrinated into believing should only be done in certain circumstances, without those circumstances present, but the both of us are progressive and rational enough not to be overly phased by that.
I feel like I've fallen into good luck. Sex without the trouble of love is a pretty good deal. Sex with somebody who understands it equally as primal and doesn't levitate it to something celestial or transcendent is liberating. She has a few boundaries which are to be respected, naturally, but for the most part, I'm exploring another body, a female body, in a way I've never been able to before.
Now, having said that, I don't wish to imply that I think sex without love is always better than sex with love. In fact, if I find love, I would readily cease this behaviour in favour of monogamy because I think exclusivity is an important element of romance. (As far as I understand it, if you remove exclusivity from romance, you essentially just have friendship with sex, as Flowertwig and I have now). However, if you're not (happily) bound by a relationship, then I would recommend primal sex with as many people as you want and are willing.
Anyway, I can cross two things off the life-list now. Both my first sober kiss and the loss of my (penetrative) virginity happened at 19 years old, at university, with different people. With just over 2 months left of them, I guess that isn't such a bad way to see off my teen years.
Comments
Post a Comment