The Friday Sex Blog [Sex Lies]

Hola mi Gente,

I’m looking to rent a room or studio apartment. If anyone has any leads please send them my way.

Have a great weekend!

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Sex Lies

Men aren’t looking for true intimacy and liberation; they’re just looking to get laid.

-- Popular sex myth

The myth that men aren’t looking for intimacy and just want to get laid is one of my pet peeves. I hear it all the time and it’s up there with the lie that women don’t like to fuck. Yean I said fuck, not “make love.” Shoot me, but you know we all like to get fucked every once in a while.

::blank stare::

The fact of the matter is not many people of either sex are actually looking for sexual liberation or self-actualization, at least not until a very long and weary trail of life-long disappointments. And many people declaring a need for intimacy have a funny definition for the word because intimacy requires surrender and trust and how many people have you met that are truly willing to surrender and be vulnerable and not merely pay lip service to what amounts to a vague notion of intimacy?

Liberation and intimacy is not something that’s really at the top of people’s list of things to do, at least not up there with finding that job, or the ever elusive -- “The One.” Perhaps this is an indication of warped priorities or the lack of concern for substance, but genuine personal growth is not a top priority and that’s certainly not an attitude limited to men.

Of course, men are expected to be horny all the time. God forbid if a man would tell his mate he has a headache. LOL! We’re supposed to be at the ready, magic wand in hand, at a moment’s notice. We’re perceived as animalistic and natural for lusting for sex, but that desire is also viewed as weak because the “little head” will eventually lead the “big head” astray, as if our fantasies were our vulnerable spot -- our inherent weakness. Cultural ambiguity is such that society grants men sexual feeling as if it were inevitable, but then ridicule us for what it believes is our unavoidable undoing.

But what is this desire after all? I’ll tell you what it is: it’s the wish to feel sexual ecstasy with another person, to feel as one completely inside another person’s body; to feel your own body open and wanting. As far as I’m concerned, that’s an intense experience to yearn for and it deserves respect.

But Eddie, you might say, it’s not always like that! Some men are totally removed and distant when they’re having sex; it’s all about ego, a notch on the belt.

And?!

Sure, there are some cold-assed ma’fuccas out there, whipping in and out and walking away. The true irony is that even their stunted efforts are a search for connection -- for that fleeting moment when ego defenses disappear and we become something bigger and more complete than our petty idiosyncrasies.

Shit! If we men can’t express, openly and without fear of being stigmatized, that longing to our lovers it’s not because there’s something twisted about sexual desire that serves to get in the way; it’s societal tendency toward shaming and sexual censorship that shuts all of us down. And yes, every time we get laid, that’s another opportunity for opening up, for a chance to discover true intimacy.

Face it: a man who wants to get laid, is a man who wants to stay in the human race. Instead of ridiculing or marginalizing that, why can’t we treat it as a positive sign and look more carefully at the nature of his sexual motivations?

It often seems like a miracle when you first cross that erotic bridge and discover that someone wants you. This discovery is especially salient if you’re convinced that you will be forever alone and unloved in this cold and cruel world.

And you get laid – again and again – and the confidence acquired leads to you to new questions and new answers about the value of sex, about a lover’s needs, and companionship in our lives, about this sense of adventure and mystery in our bodies.

And you know what? At any point, we’re experiencing some measure of sexual liberation, whether we’re giving it a name or not. Some men will begin to question normative male sexual roles and will no doubt find many things oppressive and unnecessary. Most men don’t want to sacrifice their emotions and sexual expression to outdated and harmful notions of masculinity. This is the first stage of the sexual revolution: many of us are not buying into the outmoded models of manhood and masculinity. Refusing to buy into the bullshit is a revolution in itself.

You should be happy to meet such a man: he still harbors a hope that there’s something better out there. And you know what? He might be right.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…