Thursday, September 16, 2010
You may disagree with me, but I feel strongly that masturbation is sex.
It seems ludicrous to me that anyone would think otherwise, but I know we like to parse words and find ways of telling our stories so that we can continue to do what we want to do.
When a man fucks a woman without a condom, it is sex. There’s little argument there, but there are some who think it is not sex as soon as you put on a condom. You can see where this kind of thinking leads…
Well, if you can’t, it leads to disease pregnancy and Catholics. Three things the world could definitely benefit from less of.
The problem is, it’s massively dishonest. I suspect we make such distinctions because of our primordial drive to procreate, and the natural inclination to not let anything get in the way, but a lot of it is to justify any kind of sex that’s not conventional. You know, the fun stuff.
Guys on the DL justify gay sex by telling themselves that it’s not “sex.” As I’ve said before, this is like the Christian sorority girls who swallow cum and take it up the ass but justify it because they’re still “virgins” when it comes to “real sex.”
The denial is what makes us sick, and makes our sex sick. When we’re open to sexual possibility and honest with ourselves and our loved ones, we actually get the sex we desire and those cravings don’t come out in malignant ways (like abusing thousands of children all over the world…)
A.C. Grayling said, “Imprisoning sexual feelings is an invariable recipe for potentiating them.” In other words, suppressing our sexual needs doesn’t make them go away… it makes them stronger.
Now, I saw a Canadian sex survey a few years ago that had one question that received a 100% affirmative response. The question was, essentially, “Would you like more intensity in your sex life?” I think this is part of why we find taboo so erotic, the idea that being bad or naughty is more fun than sanctioned, vanilla sex. I would as,“Do we have any idea what sex feels like really free from any trace of taboo?”
I think that the individual sex acts we participate in, from bareback fucking to conceive to cocksucking, pussy licking, every conceivable kink and every individual alone, making love with their own cock or clit, is all sex, all equally valid, all part of being sexual animals.
The intimacy I experience jacking off with a man while surrounded by dozens of other men, is just as intimate as any sex I have, as long as my mind and heart are there in the act, and I’m not distracted by the pointless babble of the inner critic, the inner moralist. It’s all about what I bring to the moment that makes it intimate, but it’s all sex. Sex is a general term and I don’t like to over-parse it.
I don’t have to argue about a muffin being food in comparison to a hamburger or an apple or a dish of peas… They are all food.
The sooner we accept that the sex we have is sex, the sooner we can take ownership of our pleasure and start experiencing genuine sexual health. Even if it’s a very basic step in that direction. So let’s start there: That quick wank you had in the shower this morning? That was sex. That blow job you accepted from a gay guy? That was sex. You had sex with him, even if you did not reciprocate. Wake up and stop parsing the word. You’re having sex. Enjoy it!
