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July 19, 2005
In response to my post Recalibrating my sexuality a few days ago, I got some interesting responses – interesting because many of you have been echoing questions I have been asking myself. I’ll start with a big one, from sinboy:
I’m interested in finding out (if you want to share) what sex, being sexual, and having a sexuality means to you, where you see yourself now, and where you want to be, in terms of sex life, sexuality, and so on.
The answer to these questions is to be found by reading between the lines in the 360 plus posts on my blog. But I’m sure you don’t want to do that much work, so I’ll try to directly address what these things mean to and for me in my personal, not my professional sex life (that’s a slightly different story in some ways). At the moment I’m struggling with what exactly sex is and why it is compelling for me, and pondering the importance of partnered sex in my life. About a month ago I wrote a post called Sexual autonomy, about my struggles with my need/desire for partnered sex and my conscious work to prioritize my sexual needs by taking care of them myself. I’m not really sure what role I want partnered sex to take in my future – well, actually I do know what I want, but I think I have to start preparing myself for plan B and what happens if I don’t get what I want. This means that at my current impasse, I’m not entirely sure what being sexual means for me – being sexual for the last few years has been part of a quest for no-holds-barred fucking. I’m trying to rethink what that looks like at the moment and for the future. So that’s kind of where I’m seeing myself now: at a kind of crossroads, but not just any crossroads, an Amsterdam one, with six streets intersecting, bikes and cars and buses and trams and pedestrians coming from every angle. I have to look before I cross, pick a path because it looks interesting and has too many consonants and double a’s (oh wait, this isn’t a metaphor anymore). The point is, when I know what the hell I’m doing, I’ll let you know. And then I’ll change my mind again, and I’ll write about that too.
To me, having a sexuality is something that is really core to who I am. It’s not an entirely biologically determined or socially constructed thing. It’s fluid, it has different names, it will ebb and flow and change over my lifetime – it has already morphed many times. My sexuality, unlike the things I have, the people who stimulate me and even the useful body parts I have, is with me for always. It’s more mine than I think anything else can be; it’s a site for the exploration of who I am and what it means for me to be a person and exist in this world.
It sounds like you’re burned out on too much carnality and not enough love in your sex. For me, sex with people I’m not all that close with happens from time to time, but it’s the loving, or even just friendly sex that grounds me, and gives the fun, kinky, wild orgy sex a context. (another piece of sinboy’s comment)
The problem is that I don’t know that I can count on having loving sex any time soon – and I think it’s dangerous (or at least problematic) for me to be on the lookout for that. I’d love to have love in my sex, but I also want to be wary of imaging loving sex when that’s not what’s happening in reality. Also, the sex I was having at Jefferson’s orgies was friendly and grounding in many ways – I had multiple, months-long sexual relationships with people within the framework of the parties; I wasn’t even frequently fucking strangers there (for instance, I’ve been fucking Todd since November, and I would say that we are friends). Jefferson has created a small community of people who generally care for each other – but there are also somewhat harsh limits to the realities of those friendships. For instance, the awful sex accident Todd and I had – Todd is my friend, not my boyfriend, so in the moment and aftermath of the injury, he was free to do whatever, which included going to Jefferson’s orgy the night after I was injured. That didn’t entirely feel like a moment of betrayal – but it did sharply remind me of the limits of casual sex friendships.
This and the other things I mentioned in my post two days ago have led me to feel very conservative about my sexuality at the moment – conservative in that I’m being somewhat reticent with it, conserving my sexual energy, and resisting the pull of passions that may put me in a worse headspace (though I’m not all controlling of my passions, as it seems that my libido has withered to a great extent). I’m also feeling like I only want to share sexual energy with someone who isn’t going to sap it all up like a leech; I want some symbiosis. And furthermore, I’m not feeling like bestowing my awesomeness on most people right now. I don’t want to sound like I think I’m just the bee’s knees, but I do know a thing or two and I don’t want to share the power with just anyone. Have I fucked and smarted myself out of viable partners? Stay tuned for the answer… you might be waiting for a while.
At the risk of becoming a goddamned hippie, I think I need to separate sex and intimacy. I know it sounds like I’ve been doing that all along, and I have in some ways – but I think what I need to explore is the realm of non-genital contact. This means I could be on my way to becoming a bondage enthusiast, an erotic hypnotist or a cuddle party attendee! Well, maybe not, but we’ll see.
I’m stepping away from fucking partly because of the fear that I’ll never really get what I want on any ongoing basis. Perhaps I’m learning to compromise or settle or something – and that doesn’t feel great. When I think about it too hard, I still fiercely crave fucking and the essence of carnality, but I crave it within a larger context of varied sexual experiences and relationship structures. I “just” have to deconstruct that desire a bit (or a lot) and then put it all back together.
Posted by Dacia at July 19, 2005 04:50 PM
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