If You're Not Fucking You're Not Feeling

I spoke with my uncle last night for the first time in many years. I haven't seen him since I was about 12 years old. I think he is a telemarketer and has a pizza shop in Missouri. It was so great talking to him. He said, "I'm glad I'm a Christian. You know why? Because I know Bush is going to hell." I laughed and said, "I say the same thing about my ex-boyfriend."

He was surprised I could ever have dated someone that would merit such condemnation. I told him the story about Shane and the pressure to shave my legs and have sex. He said that was terrible and described to me his current relationship and how they've only had sex once in 9 months. I thought at first he was telling this story to give an example of a successful, loving relationship where sex was not a priority. Wrong. He told me he gave his girlfriend an ultimatum: that even though they love each other and have never been happier, she needs to put out or move out and just be friends.

You'd think living alone and ruminating on this very subject for nights on end would have prepared me to say something, anything. Well, it didn't.

What do you say when you realize your loved ones abide by the very same philosophy of intimacy that almost got you caught in a crossfire of hormones and desperate hopes to be cared for the most, horizontalism be damned?

And yet, here was the possibility to intervene on behalf of this woman I will never meet, to help lay a foundation of understanding that could potentially save their relationship or at least alleviate the pressure on her to conform to traditional notions of what is necessary for "success" (sucsex).

Without an adequate response, the conversation eventually got turned over on me and he began to lecture me as though it were his duty as my elder to make me understand that penetration is essential. "You might not agree with me but you have to admit that it's not a real relationship without having sex." He continued to insist for a half an hour that I will never really become close to anyone without having sex with them.

The two things that interested me most in what he had to say were first, the notion of "realness" and second, his need to have his position affirmed ("you have to admit"). If something were inherently real, why would I need to admit it? Wouldn't it's realness persist in spite of me?

You know what's really real? Thirty-three percent of American women have low libidos and fifteen percent of men lack interest in sex all together. If we take this statistic at face value, that would translate to 1/3 of women and almost 1/6 of men. What exactly qualifies as the normal level of sexual desire against which we are to measure ourselves? Sandra Pertot writes in her article, "Perfectly Normal: Living and Loving with Low Libido," about the need to challenge "the illusion of sexual individuality." She says, "It's difficult to believe that such a large proportion of our population is sexually inadequate," and I have to agree. Perhaps what is most revealing about the study is that the participants rated their own levels of desire instead of being clinically evaluated. When couples undergo counseling because of discrepancies in libido levels, the partner less desiring of sex is the one pressured to measure up because they have been construed as the half of the equation that isn't adding up. In light of this, Pertot argues that those in the "self-selected group aren't dysfunctional at all but are either variations on the norm or comparing themselves unrealistically with an ideal."

So, what is real? We need to stop thinking of low libido or disinterest in the act of sex as an individual problem; it is part of our libidinal economy, no less valuable. How to can we begin to connect ourselves to a spectrum of sexual desire that is able to appreciate the many ways that people desire and experience love? Perhaps it requires that we rethink the entire landscape of sexual desire all together. We've done it before with Kinsey. I'm sure we can do it again.

"The emergence of sex therapy in the 1970s encouraged the view that everyone has the same sexual potential. Behavioral programs to teach women to be orgasmic and men to delay ejaculation assumed that with the right strategies, everyone could achieve these goals. If these programs didn't work for some people, the usual conclusion was that they were suffering from some form of sexual pathology that was loosely labeled sexual inhibition. The logical conclusion that perhaps the particular goals or techniques weren't right for those people wasn't even discussed. Although sex therapy has undergone many shifts in recent times, the idea that there may be many definitions of a successful sexual relationship is still not usually addressed by either therapists or clients. Instead, we have spent a lot of energy trying to identify the factors associated with sexual "failure"." --(Petrot, Sandra. "Sexual Potential: Not Created Equal.")

After speaking with my uncle I felt the possibilities for abolishing the sex-progression narrative to be even bleaker. I'm tired of being talked down to about how be fully conscious of the human mission or more fully experienced. Who knows me well enough to tell me that fucking is the way to cement my spiritual foundations and teach me how to care about the nooks and crannies of the most fallible of God's creatures? Fuck that. What depths have they plumbed and in whose name? I'm sick of being told how to live my life and how to love the people in it. Remembering the woman in my uncle's story the next day reminded me that I am not alone and that my writing and reflection is important for someone out there. Even some twenty-four percent of Americans, perhaps.

In the mean time, I am beaming out this message into the universe hoping it reaches her: sister stay strong.