Sex is an overrated waste of time
| February 17th, 2003Remember the movie Forty Days and Forty Nights? I didn’t see it, but the premise was that there was something extraordinary about voluntarily going six weeks without having sex. I thought that was completely nuts, but apparently that’s normal thinking among some Americans. It’s certainly the norm on some TV shows I watch, like Friends and Sex and the City and Buffy and Scrubs and - and, well, virtually all of them except for Smallville. Feeling incredibly deprived if you’re not having frequent sex is normal.
So I was reading (via Eve Tushnet) this interview with David Biano, a once-gay writer who has recently decided that he can’t have sex with men anymore, because it contradicts “traditional Jewish observance.” He plans on starting a family with some nice (and apparently yet-to-be-met) Jewish woman, but despite that isn’t signing up with the “ex-gay” movement, thank goodness.
Anyhow, this exchange between Biano and his interviewer struck me:
Q: But what makes you think that this fundamental, core piece of who you are, regardless of how it got there, can be put away and sort of just ignored or not acted on? It’s not like you’re deciding not to eat Big Macs because you know that they’re bad for you. This is something much more central to who we are… This is sex.
A: And I believe that American culture and the gay community have overly glorified sex to the point that it’s expected to be the most important piece of our lives. And historically that never happened before the last couple hundred years. And I don’t accept that it’s natural for us or that it’s what God wants for us. I think it is Western culture that is out of whack, not me.
Although I’m not religious, I think Biano is on to something here. But then again, I’m pretty weird about sex. I mean, I like it. A good orgasm with another human being is astounding; the only experience I’ve had that rivals orgasm with another person for pure intensity is trippits (inhaling nitrous oxide while tripping on LSD).
I love trippits. But y’know, if I never have a trippit again, that’ll be okay by me. (It’s been years since my last one). It’s not the end of the world. It’s not even a big deal. There are better things in life than seeking intense momentary pleasure.
Folks who organize their lives around arranging their next drug trip, or making sure they have a steady supply of drugs, are seen as ludicrous or pathetic. But folks who organize their lives around arranging their next sexual encounter, or securing a steady supply of sexual encounters, are seen as normal. What’s the difference?
There’s a sort of fascism of desire in American society. In much the same way lesbians and gays are told they’re not normal, people who don’t want to have sex all the time - who don’t think sex is a “fundamental, core piece of who you are” - are understood to be weirdos, deviants, freakishly far from the norm. If someone goes to clubs five nights a week hoping to find a sex partner for the night, that’s normal; if someone completely throws over their friends and their goals in order to be more attractive to a steady sex partner, that’s normal; if someone sends letters to strangers who want to get married and said so in a classified ad, that’ s normal; but if someone doesn’t feel any particular need for sex, get them to a psychiatrist!
Not that I’ve got anything against people who want to have sex a lot. Hell, go for it. Have fun.(Although please don’t pretend that you’re being a rebel; nothing in the world is more mainstream and conventional than being interested in sex). I’ve also think personal ads are a good idea (some close friends have vastly improved their lives using the personals), and I’ve got nothing against heavy drug use, or going to clubs five nights a week. I still think that anti-gay groups like the Republican party are, for all their excuses, little more than exercises in legitimizing hatred.
But speaking for myself, I’ll be perfectly happy if I never have sex again. It’s simply not a vital issue in my life. Why should that be weird?
Update: Read as well this excellent post by Blueheron - he’s a much more conventional and ordinary thinker than I am on sexuality (I just said that to get his goat), but he and I think in very similar ways about the value - and devaluation - of deep friendships. “It’s very odd and deeply sad that partnerships (being defined here as close and lasting relationships based on serious friendship and shared common interests) have become so marginal in our society.”
May 12th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Well done
This comment was written by ugk.What we now need is more and more people changing their mindset to one like yours. This may actually happen on its own as many people are not filling satisfied no matter how many orgasms they have. They are disillusioned.
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May 12th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
this is a fine point– I often feel this way when reading Dan Savage or other sex advice columnists who seem to think that sexual compatability is the most important thing in relationships– personally, I think money compatibility and politics are more important.a
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
May 12th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
I felt that way until it had been 2 years since the last time the hubby and I (then in a LD relationship) had had sex.
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May 14th, 2007 at 11:06 am
Then there’s the flip side, where everyone assumes that if two people of opposite sex (remember, we’re talking a conventional assumption) have a close friendship, it must actually be sexual and they are either hiding it or sublimating it.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
May 14th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Why did people start posting to this thread after four years?
I think there’s much to be said for comparing sex to other ways of affecting brain chemistry, including drugs and music. It is not coincidence that one generation praises wine, women and song, and the next prizes sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll.
That said, sex can be more than just intense momentary pleasure. Please forgive the quaint observation that monogamous sex may play a different role than other means of altering brain chemistry. My wife’s habits can grate on me, and I have no reason to doubt that the feelings are reciprocated. All kinds of petty slights and grievances accrue over time. Thankfully, lust and an occasional mutual orgasm helps reset our attitudes to a more generous perspective. I feel affirmed and validated (and, ok, sleepy). And because my wife is the only person with whom I have sex these days, orgasms provide a very practical bond to this relationship, distinct from any other relationships we have.
Now perhaps I’d achieve a similarly bonding effect by regularly sharing mind-altering stimuli with a stable group of friends. I suspect this happens in a number of religious rituals: music, incense, wine, a peace pipe, a ritual tea, etc. I suspect similar emotional bonds can be created by people who experience a common traumatic experience, whether a hazing ritual, a natural disaster, or military training/combat. Yet I don’t have any such stable cabal of friends, or such ritual with which to bond them, so I don’t know about this. And who knows whether it would promote deep sleep.
But I do have a wife, so I do know something about that. If an individual does not feel the need for sex, that’s her business. If a couple does not feel the need for sex, that’s the couple’s business. But the consequences for the individual may be different than the consequences for the couple; generally an individual in not in danger of breaking up. An orgasm may be short-lived, but the consequences of mutual sex may be much longer lasting. Sex relieves a lot of tensions, not just sexual ones.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
May 14th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
The only reason people started posting all of a sudden was because of my first post. People have the cow’s herd mentality, soon as they see one post they all jump in. ‘Nobody really’ is correct when he says the consequences of sex are long lasting. Yes sex not only brings diseases, it also weakens the body and mind by draining the body’s vital energy (prana, chi or whatever). This is why boxers and other athletes avoid sex for a long time before a major event. Fighting dogs, bulls, cocks etc are also not allowed to mate for the same reason.
This comment was written by ugk.Report this comment to the moderators
May 14th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
if by herd mentality, you mean ” a comment appeared in the sidebar and people thought-huh? wonder what that previously invisible bost says” then ok.
On the other hand, the “sapping vital energy” bit, it needs hardly be said, is pretty much a load of misogynistic horse hocky.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
May 14th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
Man what?
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
May 15th, 2007 at 6:27 am
ugk:
This is why boxers and other athletes avoid sex for a long time before a major event.
IIRC, the advantages of this practice are what used to be called an old wives’ tale (I suppose the PC equivalent would be an urban myth, but it’s not limited to cities). Surveys have shown that having had sex the evening before an athletic event has no effect on an athlete’s performance. Of course, if what’s actually going on is that the athlete is staying up until 4:00 AM drinking and f**king, then I can see where there’d be a problem.
And I’ll be happy to accept an alternative phrase to “old wives’ tale”; my imagination is failing me this morning.
curiousgyrl:
On the other hand, the “sapping vital energy” bit, it needs hardly be said, is pretty much a load of misogynistic horse hocky.
Hm? Misogyny, eh? I wonder; does the same attitude exist towards female athletes having sex prior to competition? The concept came up when there were very few female athletes, but I’m wondering what the current attitudes are.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
May 15th, 2007 at 7:12 am
Ron F-
before i posted I searched the internet for any informatino encouraging women to abstain from sex to preserve their “chi” or “vital energy” for any reason, athletics included. I didnt find anything. I did find thousands of pages which addressed men’s chi and vital energy, and potential sapping of it due to women/thinking about women/looking at women, etc.
if any such admonition to women exists, the field is so unbalanced in the other . direction that such an exception to the rule would be nearly irrelevant. As you say, the myth developed in a particularly gendered way. Its not, like, a coincidence that female atheletes appear to us to be a recent invention!
Myths of this kind have a long history in many cultural traditions. the common theme is women sap men’s strength, sometimes maliciously, sometimes not, but it is an inherent part of what we do! Semen in many many instances is symbolic of mens strength, though sometimes its other things (eg Samson and Delilah).
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
May 15th, 2007 at 7:56 am
“The concept came up when there were very few female athletes, but I’m wondering what the current attitudes are.”
I think the historical roots have to do with a concept of your vitality = your sperm. Eject your sperm, lose your vitality. That’s how the Victorians conceived of it, I think?
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
May 15th, 2007 at 9:00 am
I don’t know that I would agree all of the above are “normal.” In fact, I think a lot of people (probably mostly women) would see the above as somewhat disgusting. But I don’t have anything other than annecdotal evidence to back me up.
I will say that I agree that sex isn’t the end all be all of everything. Though I will say I don’t think I’d be ok if I never had sex again (if you include masturbation as sex). I don’t know that I’d go stark raving mad or anything, but I don’t think I’d be happy either.
I think I agree with nobody really here - there are long lasting relational benefits to a monogamous sexual relationship. I don’t know that it’s NECESSARY to have a good relationship, but I do think it can provide a unique boost.
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May 16th, 2007 at 7:07 am
RonF: they don’t call women “succubus” for the hell of it. Well, actually, they do. But they like to think it’s because our twats have the ability to deplete men of their vitality. Of course, when one stops to ponder the correlation between sperm and a man’s current vitality, you get quite the peek into patriarchal male ego. One would naturally expect top performing, vital males to be discouraged from masturbating if losing/releasing sperm is such a risk.
One wonders, too, just how sapping, depleting, and harmful porn is to men’s wholeness. If orgasming inside a woman (or with a woman’s help) is depleting, one must naturally assume that wanking in front of the computer screen would make men downright soulless.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
May 16th, 2007 at 11:21 am
One would naturally expect top performing, vital males to be discouraged from masturbating if losing/releasing sperm is such a risk.
In fact, some Googling suggests that many people do seem to have the same concerns about masturbation.
If you try hard enough, you can explain just about anything in terms of misogyny, or misandry, or anti-black racism, or anti-white racism, or anti-semitism, or pro-semitism (anti-semites do this all the time), or whatever your favorite form of bigotry is. That doesn’t mean that you should, or that it’s going to lead you to reasonable conclusions.
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
May 16th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Brandon: do a little homework of your own on what a succubus is. Lots of women burned because of that line of thinking. But no woman hating there, eh? It’s all just in my head.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
May 16th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Well, if we’re talking about the Victorian concept of sperm-release-as-drain-of-vitality, then certainly they were concerned about self-abuse. They had lots of fun ways of trying to prevent “self-abuse,” like blistering agents applied to the penis and clitorodectomy.
I don’t think it’s very hard to come up with reasons why the sexphobia of the Victorians was patriarchal in nature, and I’m sure that more talented feminists have done so than I.
*
I really appreciate this post, though I don’t feel like I have anything too coherent to say about it. I agree with curiousgyrl about being dubious when matchmakers or advice columnists discuss sexual compatibility as the number one priority in a realtionship.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
May 16th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
I agree with curiousgyrl about being dubious when matchmakers or advice columnists discuss sexual compatibility as the number one priority in a relationship.
Any time we name any one attribute as “the number one priority,” it suggests that we’re willing to sacrifice all other attributes to get it. I have a few Catholic and ex-Catholic friends who regularly bemoan the fact that priests are picked on the basis of gender and abstinence – and not, say, on leadership skills, counseling skills, speaking skills or even personal hygiene. Apparently, it shows.
That said…..
It certainly seems crazy to pick a life partner solely on the basis of sex EXCEPT if you believe in monogamy. After all, cultural and legal norms permit a broad range of behaviors in marriage. She ain’t my soulmate? There’s no prohibition on spending time with other people. Not a great dancer? No prohibition on dancing with other people. Not a great conversationalist? No prohibition on talking with other people. Doesn’t like bowling? No prohibition on bowling with other people. Infertile? No prohibition on adoption, and declining prohibitions on surrogate parenting.
Hates sex? Uh oh.
At least four marriages of my acquaintances have broken up/are breaking up because the guy stopped having sex with his wife and/or start having sex with other guys. Now, who knows whether these marriages would have stayed together anyway, but the stories I hear are about a lack of sexual compatibility. It’s not a small matter to them.
If you don’t need your marriage to be your sole source of companionship or finances or food or children, but you DO expect it to be your sole source of interpersonal sex, then I can’t fault you for focusing on that aspect of the relationship when picking a mate.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
May 16th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
I didn’t say it shouldn’t be a factor, just that it flags me as dubious when it’s the first priority. *shrug*
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May 16th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
yes, I agree its a factor– i was thinking more about the Dan Savage “if your partner isn’t ggg about your every latest kink, DTMFA” than “oops, honey I didnt realize I dont enjoy having sex with women.” Alot of things sex-wise seem negotiable, but I suppose it all comes down to whats on the table.
As for conversationalist and all the rest, I may be able to talk to whomever I want, but I kind of have to talk to my partner. If that didnt work, we’d be sunk. Also, just speaking for myself, here, not getting exactly what I want in bed everytime would grate much less than running into constant streams of dirty socks/dishes/carpets or constantly finding my bank account overdrawn would.
Sex can only take up so much of your time, while dishes happen 3-4 times a day!:)
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May 17th, 2007 at 12:48 am
Q Grrl:
The succubus has a male analogue, called an incubus (which gets 8 times as many Google hits as “succubus”). But even if we ignore incubi, the idea of succubi can be construed as misandrous just as easily as it can be construed as misogynistic. What does it say about men, if they can be weakened and controlled through sex? I would be accused of misogyny for making similar claims about women, would I not?
All of which is beside the point, because the belief in question is that ejaculation, whether a woman is involved or not, drains energy. This, also, I think can be construed as misandrous if we lower the bar to the level needed to provoke the use of the word “misogyny” here; consider what the response would be if I were to claim that orgasms are bad for women.
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
May 17th, 2007 at 1:02 am
Well, it has to do with the construction of various mythologies. The Victorians did believe that orgasms were bad for women — see: medical use of clitorodectomy. Of course, they also believed that orgasms were curative and had masturbation therapy, so chalk one up for sex-obsessed sexphobic ambivalence.
The idea that a man has to conserve his energy, by contrast, was about the build-up of sperm being awesome and manly. Sperm = manly, right? So more sperm must = more manly! It’s a definite case of PHMT.
Re: google hits, incubus does pull up more hits than succubus, but for the top ten, most of the incubus hits are about things like films and bands, whereas most of the succubus hits are about succubi. Plus the succubus search provides one with some non-requested images as a bonus, one showing a woman about to sexily remove the life-force from a prone man.
Image of succubus from one of the top ten google sites - http://www.occultopedia.com/s/succubus.htm
Image of incubus from google image search, after scrolling past a couple pages of band member photos - http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/gothicnightmares/images/works/incubus_large.jpg
Note the sexified women in both pictures.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
May 17th, 2007 at 1:23 am
So now that this thread has been successfully derailed over nitpicking, I guess I’ll try to back up my assertion that making sex the number one priority makes me dubious.
I agree with curiousgyrl: sex is only so many hours in the day. I’d rather have a partner I agreed with about things like how to spend money and how to have a good time, who was also a good-but-not-great sex match, than a partner who was the bestest ever in the sack and who I couldn’t get through an evening without a shouting fight with.
Now: people can and should demand both, if they want to.
I think people just have pretty varying ideas of how much they want sex to be primary in their lives. I have a writer friend who is a couple generations older than I, and she and I were having a conversation about polyamory last summer, and she said, “I used to be polyamorous, but it just felt like too much work for too little reward.”
And this is more or less how I feel about it, too. I’m a happy, lazy monogamist. I feel no particular stirring toward accumulating more sex partners, although I have no philosophical objection to such. The work of maintaining multiple relationships just isn’t worth the reward of more, and more varied, sex — for me.
So, since sex is something I like, but that I don’t like more than going on a hike on the cliffs in Monterey, or going to an aquarium to point out neat-looking fish, or reading a fucking great novel — well, sometimes I like sex a lot more, if it’s the right time and place, but you get what I mean — sex isn’t going to be the central part of a relationship search for me. It’s going to be a factor, but not the main one.
So, maybe Dan Savage is right when he suggests that sex should be the main factor — for some set of people who aren’t me. There seems to be a sort of tone to his letters (which I’ve only read when they’re repeated in feminist blogs, to be honest) wihch seems to suggest that he thinks sex should be central to everyone, and I’d like to respectfully submit that it should only be central to people who want it to be central.
Which leads me back to asexuality (I think Amp has described himself as asexual elsewhere?), because it’s about the pathologization of the other. I should have been clearer in my initial post that I don’t mean to pathologize people who do look at sex as being of primary importance; it’s cool for them, I just don’t like the one-size-fits-all-ness. So, some people who think sex is central pathologize all of us who think its not. Some people of moderate apetite pathologize people with extreme apetites (”nymphomania”) and no appetites (asexuality)… and, well, I don’t think asexuals are in much of a position to get to pathologize anyone, culturally, although ugk sure made a swing at it with his chi bullshit. (And, I suppose, some religious constructions where a celibate priest class condemns all sexual behavior as sinful.)
That’s what I like about the title of this post, though. Amp’s actual text doesn’t seem to support the extremity of all “sex is a waste of time,” though he’s wary of it as a central preoccupation. But the suggestion in the title, sans the qualifications and actual explanation of it in the text, gives those of us who reflexively pathologize asexuality a bit of a slap on the nose because it pathologizes our behavior. We’re the ones wasting our time on the noisy exchange of a few, squishy bodily fluids.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
May 17th, 2007 at 5:40 am
I don’t think it’s as accurate to say “sex is the number one priority in keeping a marriage together” as it is to say “lack of sex is the #1 priority in making a marriage go sour.”
That’s not because sex is the be all and end all. It’s because, as nobody.really notes, we are not generally “permitted” to fulfill that need anywhere else than marriage.
It’s the restrictions that make it seem important. If it was socially unacceptable and in some cases illegal to eat food cooked by someone other than your spouse, then whether or not your spouse could cook would suddenly become pretty important.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
May 17th, 2007 at 6:33 am
Considering that the majority of heterosexual women do not orgasm during penis-in-vagina sex, women’s orgasm is irrelevant. Or only slightly relevant, as it points to the deeper misogyny of normative heterosexual practices.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
May 17th, 2007 at 9:59 am
“I don’t think it’s as accurate to say ’sex is the number one priority in keeping a marriage together’ as it is to say ‘lack of sex is the #1 priority in making a marriage go sour.’”
I don’t think that’s accurate, either. Lack of sex within a marriage is usually a symptom of one or several other factors. If anything, this supports Amp’s point: the sexual behaviour (or absence of it) is really the end result yet so many people assume it’s the cause because sex is held up as the end-all-and-be-all.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
May 17th, 2007 at 10:19 am
I dunno, crys. I don’t think sex is the ultimate importance. But there’s a big overlap between “not being of the ultimate importance” and “not being something I am willing to live my life without.”
There are a lot of things in that category. Sex is just one of them. I’d marry a vegan, and I’d avoid eating stuff in front of her, but all thing being equal I’d rather marry someone else that give up eating nonvegan stuff entirely, for the rest of my life.
The mental difference between “rare” and “never” is pretty huge, even if they’re functionally similar.
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May 17th, 2007 at 10:28 am
But Sailorman, my point was that if there’s no sex in your marriage, that’s a sign of something else being off. And if you want that marriage to continue, that something is what you have to fix, not the sex or lack of sex. Even if the problem is that you’ve never liked the sex you’ve had as a couple, the real problem is your unwillingness or inability to communicate that.
No one goes into a relationship initially desiring it to be a sexual one and then just not wanting sex anymore. It may seem that way and that’s what we’re taught to focus on, but there’s always an underlying cause. That cause may be physical, it may be that the attraction is gone (again, it’s the lack of attraction that’s the trigger TO the lack of sex, not the other way around), there may a history of abuse, whatever. But if there once was sex and now there’s not, it’s due to something else.
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June 30th, 2008 at 6:19 am
[…] post of Barry’s (aka Ampersand, aka Keeper of the Old Church, aka the Wedding Co-coordinator) about sex and its apparent importance as a measure of success and normalcy has got me thinking about certain things, including, yes, sex. […]
This comment was written by Triple Overdrive at Jenn Manley Lee.Report this comment to the moderators
July 1st, 2008 at 11:22 am
is this David Bianco? Because if so, which I think it is, he is a homophobic ex-gay writing against gay marriage etc.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/25/EDNR11F0AU.DTL
I have some sympathy for the point of the post, but it is worth pointing out that “sex/sexulity is overrated” is also an argument used to closet and shame queer people and identities. As it seems to be in Biano/Bianco’s case.
I hope his wife agrees with him that sex is a waste of time, otherwise hes going to find he has some duties under orthodox law that he is likely to find unpleasantly frequent.
This comment was written by aoundthebend213.Report this comment to the moderators
July 1st, 2008 at 11:38 am
Aoundthebend, I didn’t intend for my post to be at all a subscription to Bianco’s anti-gay views. Sorry if that was unclear.
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July 1st, 2008 at 11:41 am
Also, reading my old comments on this thread under a different handle cracked me up; the relationship i was then in tanked over sex AND dishes, and the bit about “you can only spend so much time having sex” I lifted off my partner who used it to argue that sex and sexuality aren’t that important.
As it turns out we disagreed about that. And some other stuff.
This comment was written by aoundthebend213.Report this comment to the moderators
July 1st, 2008 at 11:49 am
Yes, I didn’t think you subscribed to his views, but I had recently seen him around mouthing off about gay marriage etc, and wanted to correct your assertion that he’s not part of the Ex-Gay movement.
I think he’s classic Ex-gay, and that while I think that supporting the rights and identities of asexual people and people who legitimately place a low priority on sex and sexuality, the same arguments, though fine in themselves, are often used by homophobes against sex-crazed decadent gays.
This comment was written by aoundthebend213.Report this comment to the moderators
July 1st, 2008 at 11:05 pm
escellent post. And the only thing I’d like to fuck is sex. Kill it.
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