Some Thoughts on Partnership and Extra-Marital Sex; Monogamy VS Sexual Exclusivity

First of all, I need to clarify a very important point, that many people seem to get wrong more often than not.

The suffix "-gamy" means "marriage".
It does NOT refer to sex.  It refers to romantic commitment - and more specifically, a religious and/or government sanctioned commitment (because two people can be entirely committed to each other without ever getting married).
The alternatives to monogamy are being single, or being polygamous, which means being married to more than one person.

The term for not having sex with anyone other than your spouse (or other committed romantic partner) is sexual exclusivity.


This is not just semantics.  It is in fact a crucial distinction, and without proper and consistent terminology, it is completely impossible to talk about the topic in any meaningful way.
So, for example, in a culture where polygamy is legal and culturally accepted, a man could have two or three wives.  If he never has sex with anyone other than those several wives, he is maintaining sexual exclusivity, even though he is not monogamous.  On the other hand, a married couple who are into swinging are monogamous, even though they are not practicing sexual exclusivity.
And both of them are practicing sexual fidelity - the word fidelity means "faithful" or "loyal", and none of the people in these examples are cheating.  It is only cheating if it is against the rules, and everyone involved in both the polygamous relationship and the swinger's relationship is agreeing to the same set of rules.
When people talk about "open" relationships, or polyamory, they can mean either having multiple committed romantic relationships (which might not, but probably will, involve sex), or they can be talking about having only one committed romantic relationship, but one or more other non-romantic sexual partners.


I am only going to be talking about the second option.




Human beings are complicated creatures.  We don't really have emotions and thoughts of our own, they are intrinsically entangled with the people and culture around us.  There may be many other social animals, but none else has communication detailed and complex enough to have a culture that modifies individual preference, opinion, and experience.  So, if we want to try to separate out which parts of those things we take for granted are fundamental to who we are, and which are handed to us externally, its often helpful to look at other species besides ourselves.  In some ways studying chimpanzee politics can tell us things about ourselves that studying human politics doesn't.
Lets try it!
Of course the vast majority of all animal life is not monogamous to begin with.  In mating season its either a free-for-all, or its winner-take-all for the strongest male around.  But 90% of all birds and a small but significant number of rodents and primates are monogamous.  And it turns out that with extremely few exceptions, all of these monogamous species are using the term literally  - once they have picked a mate, they tend to stay with that one partner for years, if not for a lifetime.    Yet among all of those creatures sharing a life with one partner, 90% of those species do not maintain strict sexual exclusivity.  DNA testing of bird families find anywhere from 20 to 70% of the chicks are not technically sired by the father that raises them.  But ultimately, DNA makes less of a difference than family, and the mother's partner is the baby bird's father by default, and invests parental resources in the chick.
Both sexes are observed to have extra-marital affairs, and this generally has little to no effect on the permanence of the primary partnership.  To say these animals are "cheating" is to anthropomorphize them. The idea of monogamy implying sexual exclusivity appears to be almost entirely a human cultural invention. 

Which, if you step back from the assumptions most of us have always taken for granted, sort of begs the question of why we do that.
There may be some part of it that is rooted in biological based jealousy - on some level a person fears that if their partner has children with another person, they may divert resources they would have spent on your shared off-spring on the affair partner's instead.  In an age of cheap, effective and readily available birth control this concern is far less valid, but of course our emotions evolved millions of years before modern technology, and evolution progresses far slower than science.  But the cultural demands of fidelity are much stronger and more consistent than any individual feeling of relationship insecurity.  Many cultures designate adultery to be an offense - in some even a capital offense - even if it is consensual by all parties involved.  When something is considered unethical even if no one is hurt in anyway, chances are there is a more insidious root to it.  Religious and political leaders have used controlling sexuality as a means to control the populous in general for as long as there has been such a thing as religion and politics.  Centralized power is the original reason for almost all sexual morays, from outlawing prostitution, banning non-reproductive sexual activity, to the concept of sanctioned marriage.  The moray against adultery is no exception.  Having someone else decide how, when, and with whom you may have sex train you to be cede independence and be obedient in general.  It also allows much more certainty of paternity, which ensures that males can be forced to help raise their biological offspring, which is good for women and helps make society more stable.  At the same time, it allows keeping track of paternal lines, which is essential for patriarchy to function.  In particular, it facilitates the concept of inheritance, particularly of land, so it is a vital component of any caste, serfdom or capitalist system whose aim is to keep the genetic line of those who are already wealthy, wealthy in to the future.
As with many other concepts of "morality" which began as a means of top down control (like loyalty to country being a basic virtue), or "traditions" which were invented by marketers (like a diamond ring representing marriage) it was almost completely successful. It has been entirely internalized by the vast majority of people, in almost every culture, so that very few even question whether it is actually an automatic and natural feeling, and not something imposed externally. 

I have always known, from as young as I can remember (and probably earlier), that I wanted a life partner.  What that means to me is not universal, but I don't think it is particularly rare either.

In my mind, the point of having a life partner is not reproduction, it isn't for social cohesion or political strategy, it isn't about the convenience of division of labor.  Some or all of these things may be nice side benefits, but they all make for very poor reasons to commit your life to someone.  Furthermore, if any or all of those were the primary reason, then all people (of the opposite sex, for the first one), in the world would be equally eligible for the position.  If it it didn't matter who the person is, that makes it all pretty meaningless.

The point of having a life partner is to have a companion.  A person you share a special and intimate connection with, that goes beyond any other connection with any other human being.

A spouse, or life partner, should be your best friend, and your primary playmate.

One's partner should be their closest confidant. You should feel as comfortable around them as you are when you are alone, and more comfortable than around any other person.  You should trust them - and they should be able to trust you - more than any one else.
You would generally live with your partner, and if you choose raise children, you would do that together.  If one of you moves, both of you moves.  This is not always true of roommates, even if the roommates are best friends.
To me, a partner should be the person you spend the most discretionary time with.  Not only the most, but probably more than everyone else put together.

There are those who have a spouse or a partner or a boyfriend or girlfriend, and then they have a different person who is their "best friend".

I have never understood that.  If the BFF is a better friend than the spouse, then why wouldn't you be partners with BFF instead?
If only difference between friend and partner is whether or not you have sex, then that means the relationship is based on sex. 
Which seems pretty superficial and meaningless.

If the sole defining feature of a romantic relationship is that you have sex together, then it shouldn't matter what her/his religion, politics, culture, values, hobbies, preferences, intelligence, humor, or education are; or even whether they speak the same language.  One's only criteria should be to find the most physically attractive partner that reciprocates your interest.

 In fact, outside of humans, since there is no language, that is exactly how it is done (although, as noted above, that very rarely implies sexual exclusivity).  Non-human animals have no religion, no politics, no education, and no culture, values or hobbies (or so we assume!)

Almost all of us want at least a little more than that though.  Why then do most of us insist that sex is the single defining feature of a meaningful romantic relationship?

To me, having my partner consider someone other than me her best friend, choosing to spend more time around someone other than me, feeling they could trust or relax around someone else more than around me, or enjoying their time with someone else more than with me, all of these things would feel far more threatening to my relationship than her occasionally having casual sex with someone else.  Because those are the things that make a relationship special.  A person can have sex with anyone.
If "cheating" refers specifically and exclusively to sexual activity - then that is saying in no uncertain terms that sex is the one thing that defines the relationship.
To me, making the relationship about sex - by implying it is the only thing the differentiating it from a good friendship - cheapens the relationship.  Certainly, if someone else was your primary sex partner, that might raise legitimate questions - just like if someone else was your primary play partner, or your primary secret sharing partner.  
Even if one specific person was a secondary sex partner, but it was both regular and frequent, that might be legitimate grounds for concern. 
That could be treading dangerously close to affair territory, especially since sex has the potential to stir up romantic feelings. 
But barring that situation to prevent one's partner from straying need not automatically bar the occasional indulgence in a one time random circumstance with a (otherwise platonic) friend or coworker or new acquaintance. 

Perhaps you get invited on a trip to some natural hotsprings on a warm summer night, everyone jumps in naked, and the algae is making the cave walls glow, and some more people come along, so to try to make space your friend moves a little closer to you... and a little closer to you... and before you know it - well, you know... and its crazy and random and fun, and its not exactly meaningless since it was an actual friend and not a random stranger one-night-stand, but there is exactly zero romantic feeling or interest between you in either direction. 

If someone I cared about ended up in a situation like that, I would want them to go ahead with it, to enjoy the night to the fullest, because, if I care about them, I want them to be happy, and I want them to experience pleasure.  Would I feel a sharp twinge of jealousy if my partner came home and shared all the details with me?  Of course I would!  Its only human.  This is why I'd ask her not to tell me all the details (especially not anytime soon after it happened).  But overall, my desire for her to enjoy life would outweigh my own selfish desire to never have to experience sharp twinges of jealousy.  For it not to would be terribly selfish (not to mention possessive).  Frankly, as long as she avoids any pathogens that she could pass on to me, I don't really see how its even any of my business, any more than who her friends are or what she does with family when they visit.

There seems to be - in the part of the world I live in, at least - a growing number of people who get this, but even among those who haven't bought into the "sex and love are interchangeable" non-sense, a lot still get the ideas of monogamy vs polygamy and sexual exclusivity vs sexual freedom confused or at least muddled.

I feel like I was a much better writer when I did it more often.

I can't remember any more how to write a decent closing sentence.

The Oldest Profession

First of all, let’s make one thing clear.  A prostitute does not sell their body.  The only circumstance in which any person actually sells a body part is when someone sells a kidney.  When you sell something, the buyer takes permanent possession of it, and the seller can not get it back.  The new owner can do anything they want with their purchase, because it is now their property.  This does not describe the prostitute / client transaction at all.  Even when people accepted indentured servitude arrangements they were only offering themselves on a long-term lease, not actually selling themselves.  A prostitute normally only allows her (or his) clients limited use of a portion of their body for a short, usually designated time period, an hour perhaps, maybe a few. 

This is not just semantics.  It’s a very important distinction.   

Really, what the transaction consists of is a person agreeing to engage in a specific activity for a specified time period which they otherwise might not do, to the benefit of another person who offers compensation for the time and labor involved.

Which, if you think about it, kind of describes every job.

Why is sex a special case? 

Post- effective contraception, women’s liberation, and sexual liberation, (and beyond that to a modern world heading towards equality for homosexuals and acceptance of transsexuals), most people (at least people whose opinion is worth considering) have normalized sexuality, accepted it as a natural part of life and, frankly, not really such a big deal as people used to make of it (and some still do). 
It’s how we – and all multicellular life – reproduce, and it also happens to be enjoyable (except, not “happens to” – it is enjoyable specifically in order to get us to do it, because otherwise we wouldn’t). 

Non-reproductive sex is basically like chocolate cake with ice cream, or roller-coasters, or movies.
They are all examples of ways we have learned how to deliberately activate our own pleasure sensors - originally designed with some evolutionary function or other - but we can skip past all that survival of the specie nonsense and use our intellect to make life more pleasant for ourselves.  Sometimes there end up being negative side-effects, but plenty of times there aren’t.  When there aren’t any negative side-effects, there is no good reason why we shouldn’t.

EDIT:
My first two comments on this were both very similar.  They both addressed some commonly held ideas about the real world working conditions of prostitutes - specifically "street walkers" - currently, in the United States.  This is not an essay about what "is".  It is about what "could be" - perhaps even should be.  I believe that the REASON conditions are so bad for those women, and the reason many of them have backgrounds of addiction and/or childhood abuse is BECAUSE of both the illegality and the social stigma.  The same degree of correlation does not exist, for example, in the porn industry, which is a legal version where a person has sex in exchange for money. Some correlation still exists, but then again, the social stigma is there even if the criminality isn't.

However, given that this is what probably many people will be thinking about upon seeing the topic, I should address it early on.

Many people simply accept it as a given that the majority of prostitutes are being exploited by pimps, that they were abused as children, or that they began working as prostitutes as children. 
As is often the case, common knowledge does not fully match up to even current reality in the first place:

"a Miami study found that only 7 percent had pimps"
"studies that compare matched samples of street prostitutes and non-prostitutes [regarding childhood abuse] show mixed results; some find a statistically significant difference in experience of family
abuse, while others find no difference."
"victimization is apparently not nearly as prevalent, even among street prostitutes, as the oppression model asserts."
"An estimated 20 percent of all prostitutes work on the streets in the United States."
"indoor sex workers are less likely to experience violence from customers than those who work on the streets. For example, Church found that few call girls and sauna workers had experienced violence (only 1 percent had ever been beaten, 2 percent raped"
"compared to streetwalkers, indoor workers have lower rates of childhood abuse, enter prostitution at an older age, and have more education. They are less drug dependent...Sexually transmitted diseases are fairly rare among call girls, escorts, and women who work in brothels"
"Research finds that many indoor workers made conscious decisions to enter the trade; they do not see themselves as oppressed victims and do not feel that their work is degrading. Consequently, they
express greater job satisfaction than their street level counterparts. And they may differ little from nonprostitutes: A study by psychologist Sarah Romans and colleagues comparing indoor workers
and an age-matched sample of nonprostitute women found no differences between the two groups in physical health, self-esteem, mental health, or the quality of their social networks."
 
http://www.umsl.edu/~marinap/DOCUMENTS/problemsurbancomm/mail/Prostitution-%20Facts%20and%20Fictions.pdf

Street walking is the most visible form to most people, and the form that critics always point to, but there is absolutely zero reason to assume that it represents anything inherent about prostitution.  Understand that all through-out this essay, I am referring to prostitution philosophically, removed from the social elements in day to day practice in the United States which are largely a result of both it being illegal, and the social stigmas which are a direct result of the sort of collective beliefs we hold about sexuality that I am addressing in this essay.

Back to the question at hand.  Why is sex a special case, when really all employment involves renting yourself out?  What does it say about our assumptions about sexuality, our own lingering hang-ups and inappropriate moralizing if using ones hands to stimulate another’s back for money is ok, but using ones hands to stimulate another in certain other places is not?  Are we still going to claim that a woman’s sex parts are what make her valuable?  If not, why is it any more or less demeaning for her to use those parts to stimulate her client than it would be to use her hands?  What does it say about our own beliefs about female sexuality if any act of sex is somehow inherently degrading?

Man provides money, woman provides sex.  This describes a large part of the traditional model of home life.  If a live-in prostitute also cooks and cleans, does that somehow make it less scandalous?  How about if a man has sex with his live-in maid? What separates her from a housewife? What if the two feel a genuine affection for each other? At this point the lines get very blurry between a sugar daddy / sugar baby relationship – which is technically legal – and straight prostitution.  (link to playboy article, if available).  What separates this  arrangement from any other childless couple consisting of a breadwinner and a housewife?  One could answer that a wife need not submit on demand, but remember that for most of history, she generally was expected to.

A masseuse makes their client’s body feel good, using their own body.  The only thing differentiating massage from prostitution is sex part contact (though, of course, that is not always a difference.  It seems the two go together quite naturally.  Yet neither always implies the other). But masseuse is just most obvious analogy, how about a chiropractor?  Or any doctor for that matter. How about a model? They are renting out their body as well. Or a construction worker, who is paid to do particular things with their hands all day, which they wouldn’t be doing on their own?  Moreover, any one who does any work with their hands, is renting their body to whoever employs them.  Professional thinkers are not off the hook.  They are being paid to think about some particular topic, no matter what they might prefer to have on their minds.  They are renting out their brains to their employers or clients.  And the brain is an organ of the body, just like every other.  The temporary use of your body is what you get paid for.  If you weren’t using your body in some way that someone else wanted, no one would give you any money.  Unless you are unemployed, you rent out your body.  Most people spend the majority of their waking hours renting out their bodies to someone else.  And while there are a few fringe anarchists who think that is always immoral, most people see no problem with it, so long as it is a voluntary arrangement.

The one exception we have is for children (and perhaps people with the mental capacity of a child).
But in the case of sex, an awful lot of people don’t feel its ok even if the professional prostitute is an adult, and choose that line of work voluntarily.  What does this say about our hidden beliefs about female agency?  Can we assume that no one would ever voluntarily make that choice, therefore they must be a victim?  No other profession carries with it an assumption that the worker must be being forced or manipulated into taking the job.  I would never voluntarily work in a sewage plant, a landfill, a slaughterhouse, a coal mine, or wearing a giant advertising character suit.  Yet I don’t assume that anyone who does those jobs was traumatized in their past, is on drugs, or is being manipulated or threatened by their manager.  I just see that for the right price, different people choose to rent themselves out in different types of employment.  For unskilled or semi-skilled labor, the most unpleasant jobs tend to pay pretty well. 

As was established earlier, due to obvious evolutionary reasons, sex feels pleasurable.  It does for both genders, for the same reason.  On average males tend to have a stronger sex drive than women, but it is none-the-less pleasurable for females – if it wasn’t, they would never agree to it, and the specie would have died out millions of years ago.  Contrary to what much of society has claimed for centuries at least, women even have sexual desire of their own, independent of their partners, and most of them have orgasms at least occasionally.  So, unlike being a sanitation worker or a coal miner, the day to day (or night to night) business of being a prostitute is at least potentially pleasurable, and at the same time, the pay can be competitive with the crappiest of jobs. 

I propose that the real reason for the cultural stigma of prostitution may have actually originated from somewhere quite different – nearly opposite – than the purported reasons of today (protecting women), and it ties in with the housewife analogy I made earlier.

Our species is slightly sexually dimorphic – that is, males and females have slightly different characteristics aside from those which directly affect reproduction.  For example, males have furry faces, females do not. Males also tend to be slightly larger in stature and stronger physically than females.  Whatever the reasons this dimorphism originally evolved, as humans formed ever larger and more complex social groups, we tended to set up arrangements where males used their strength for hunting and protection.  This gave them a social advantage, since they had something to offer that females need - protein - while males were capable of gathering plant food as well if need be (and frequently did, during the long periods of waiting that hunting involves). 

Meanwhile, the long human gestation period and even longer time to parental independence means a female has reason to be much more selective in mates than other species, while for a non-monogamous prehistoric male there is still the same biological incentive towards promiscuity that there is for any creature (of either sex) which doesn’t have to take the time and resources to care for offspring.  This tends to leads to a situation in which the male human’s sex drive is much stronger than the human females – not just in terms of frequency, but, more importantly, in terms of the sensation of urgency.

And there lies the equalizer to the power dynamic caused by our sexual dimorphism.  For females sex is pleasurable, but for males sex is (or at least feels like) a necessity. 

As obsessed as our particular society is with rape, in practical terms, barring the use of weapons, bondage, or drugs (none of which had been invented yet) to force submission, it’s simply challenging to do successfully.  Imagine trying to get a key into a doorknob while someone on the inside keeps turning the handle.  Now imagine instead of just turning the knob, the other person has the knob out of the door, and they are spinning it and waving it all around, and also punching you in the face and kicking you in the crotch at the same time you try to get the key in the keyhole.  The difficulty in practical terms is reflected in how rarely rape is successful by total strangers who don’t use any sort of weapons, drugs, or other means to force submission.

This is reflected by real life statistics.  Depending which study you look at, 70-90% of rape victims knew the attacker personally, and the vast majority of these happen inside the home of one of them.  In these cases there are a myriad of social and psychological factors that affect power dynamics, so in order to determine any inherent gender based power imbalance, we have to focus on only those rapes committed by strangers.
Among all rapes, in 54% the victim was intoxicated, and while many of these coincide with the cases of known assailants, at least one study suggests that women raped by strangers are more likely to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of attack.  Of rapes committed by strangers, 20% brandish or use weapons, and 20% have more than one assailant.  These 3 factors will no doubt have some overlap, but it means somewhere between 60% and 90% of the time there is something other than just physical strength differences involved.  Of what remains, a very significant number of victims do not resist.  This is likely from a mistaken belief (one which has been actively promoted by well meaning but misinformed professionals) that resistance will increase the violence used against them, when in fact "resisting victims are less frequently and less seriously injured after taking some kind of protective action than non-resisting victims"
When a potential victim offers physical resistance before rape has occurred, it is effective 85% of the time.
Another study found violent physical resistance prevents rape up to 86% of the time it is attempted and simply running away is effective up to 85% of the time.
Apply that 85% of the time an attacker is unable to overcome resistance to the up to 90% of the time when physical strength is the only advantage the attacker has, and the reality matches up with the thought experiment - outside of modern social and technological factors, the physical power imbalance between the genders is much smaller than we commonly assume.

So that leaves female choice as the deciding factor in when, or if, a male gets to have the sex which he (feels he) needs.  This balances out the power dynamic, as females have almost total control over something males need; something that they are not realistically able to do without.

Once agriculture is invented, though, women are less dependent on men for sustenance, and the power balance shifts in their favor.  To try to compensate, men formed strict social roles that attempted to keep women dependent, all the way to the fairly recent era of housewives and breadwinners – a female may be just as capable physically and mentally as doing whatever job her husband does, but if she is capable of supporting herself, what incentive does she have to stay with him and continue providing him sex?  (Incidentally, this is perhaps reflected in that, since female employment has become normal and wide-spread, the majority of divorces are initiated by women).

Then, perhaps largely to that end, at some point in our history, cultures all over the world invented marriage. 

This is good in a way for females, as it mandates males to stay put and provide half of the time and/or resources necessary to sustain the helpless human offspring they helped to create. 
But it also takes away the one source of power that they had, as (up until about 19??), the deal also mandated that a wife satisfy her husband sexually anytime he wanted.  It allowed females themselves to be commoditized, a possession originally owned by her father, later transferred to her husband in a match the father arranged. 
Most important of all, it was good for social cohesion and society as a whole, and allowed a mechanism by which one group could form alliances with others nearby.

Prostitution bypasses that mechanism.  Societies’ leaders don’t like it, because having authority over sexual acts gives them power over individuals, and because illegitimate children are hard to fit into organized social structures. Illegitimate children confuse issues of inheritance, dowries, and kinship. 

Males don’t like it because it gives females power.  Sex is again commoditized, which means the female can demand a fair market price for it, rather than being forced to provide an unlimited amount.  She can also turn down a client she isn’t interested in. 

Non-prostitute females don’t like it because their promise of sexual availability to their male partner was supposed to be the trade off for sexual exclusivity from their partners, guarantying the male isn’t tempted to spend resources on offspring produced with some other female (like the prostitute).

Yet, despite all of the various social arrangements prostitution circumvents, it remains a worthwhile transaction for the parties involved.  What can the leaders of society – those creating the fundamental beginnings of culture, that which would continue to affect our collective consciousness for the rest of foreseeable time – do to prevent two consenting individuals from engaging in what they determine to be a mutually beneficial transaction?
Before there was any such thing as law, there was only one thing societies leaders could do.  Invoke a religious based morality, one which needs no justification or explanation, because it is claimed to come directly from the mouth of “god(s)”.  Prostitution, along with all non-procreative sex, gets condemned universally.  In a world with no technology and no law enforcement, where individuals may live any distance from anyone else, and where the majority of families are responsible for their own sustenance, there isn’t much leverage a society’s leader has over the people.  If individuals can be convinced that there is something fundamentally bad about the pleasure of sex, that it is permissible only in the context of an officially sanctioned marriage, then those who control marriage control an important aspect of individuals lives – and of course marriage is universally controlled by religious or government officials, those same entities which have attempted to maintain control over people for as long as people have lived in groups.  Every expression of sexuality outside of it then becomes expressly forbidden – per-marital, adultery (even if its consensual, including the consent and/or participation of the spouses), incest, prostitution, and even masturbation – by way of the false “morality” of religious decree. 

Of course any sane person, told that, for example, enjoying the sunshine on your face on a sunny day, or enjoying a delicious orange, or enjoying music, or laughing with friends was actually immoral and angered “god(s)”, not for any particular reason, but just because (S)He says so, would immediately disregard such utter non-sense, and probably disregard pretty much everything else the priest who made that claim said as well.  It has to go beyond just a decree.  It has to be a universal condemnation of any pleasurable aspect of sexuality which is drilled into every single individual from the moment they learn to speak, if not sooner.  Herein lies the birth of the concept of nudity and its inseparable concepts of indecent exposure, modesty, and shame.  Never allowing any person to see one’s sex parts outside of the family unit creates a subtle anti-sex message to a new human trying to make sense of the world even before they are old enough to speak. 

In a society where women are property, a young girl’s value is inherently tied up with her virginity.  No family wants to arrange a marriage for their son with a girl who is already pregnant with someone else’s child, nor does a man want to spend his resources raising a child that doesn’t have his genes.  But hundreds of thousands of years before modern technology, the only way to be absolutely sure a woman or girl isn’t already pregnant is if she is a virgin.  Therefore, from the point of view of her parents, who have her to trade, her virginity is valuable.  However, from her own point of view, any child she may get pregnant with has her genes, and more immediately relevant, any sex she has is potentially enjoyable to her.  So there is a conflict between her acting in her own interests, and what her parents want her to do.  Much like with the leaders of societies desire to control all of society by limiting who has sex with who, individual parents have incentive to prevent their daughters from having sex with anyone other than who they designate, and they have the same problem of how to actually enforce that.  The solution is the same: make sure that she feels guilty about her own sexuality from as young an age as possible, and constantly reinforce the idea that her value as a person is intrinsically tied up with who she has sex with.  Make her feel that refraining from sex makes her a virtuous person, and slander the words “slut” and “whore” as the two worst possible insult that can be given to a female.  Tie up her self-esteem with her sexuality (or rather lack-thereof), and reinforce that so persistently that she completely and fully internalizes it.  Eventually everyone is so affected and it gets reinforced by social pressure so thoroughly that many thousands of years later people still assume that if a female chooses to have sex with several different people, she must have a low sense of self-worth, and similarly sex-workers of any kind – not just prostitutes, but also escorts, porn actresses, strippers, and even nude models, are all often assumed to be victims of abuse, drugs, or desperation.

Even though, in the years between then and now, quite a few totally game-changing events have happened.  Women have regained recognition by males as people.  Women have ceased to be legally property.  Rape is no longer a crime against a woman’s father or husband, as it was in the Bible, but instead a crime against her.  Women have been included in democracy, allowed to vote and hold office. 
Another sea-change in human culture is region lost its strangle-hold on society.  It still has plenty of adamant followers, and even among non-believers its influence on world-view can be rather dramatic, but it is no longer a serious rival to secular government in making Laws which must be obeyed by all.  That leaves open for questioning all of the “moral” rules handed down by it which have no actual basis in the fundamental ethics of harming or helping sentient beings which real morality is based on, and nearly all of them have indeed been questioned by secular liberals, and occasionally even secular conservatives and religious liberals.  In dramatic contrast to the religious past, homosexuality is widely tolerated, if not accepted outright, gambling is a problem only if it leads to addiction or crime, blasphemy is just a figure of speech, and Family Guy is aired nightly on broadcast television with nothing more than a brief message of parental advisory.
The third gigantic change – one which may actually have had significant affect in helping the other two occur – was the invention of forms of contraception which actually worked.  People have been using methods to try to enjoy the pleasure of sex without the inconvenience of reproduction since before anyone thought up the wheel, but “actually worked” are the key words.  That invention completely dissolved most of the original reasons for centralized authoritarian control over individual sexuality – managing fertility and kinship in order to manipulate social relationships.  The main reason left for anyone to want to control an individual female’s sexuality is the power imbalance caused by sex being a necessity for men but a nicety for women.  Now that she can have sex without the risk of having to raise a child without paternal support, she has substantially more power.  Couple that with women’s substantially increased rights, and women, by gaining control over their own sexuality from both men and from biology, and in doing so gained a huge amount of power over men.  As religion lost strength and contraception became cheaper, easier to access, and more effective, many of the sexual morays which pretended to be morality but were really about controlling fertility and maintaining power structures began to melt away.  While it’s not exactly dinner conversation, it’s pretty much understood that most normal healthy people masturbate at least at some point in their lives.  Swinging or open relationships are seen as choices a couple makes.  Premarital sex has become the norm – who in modern society would marry someone they had never had sex with?  Homosexuality, once seen as the gravest of sins, is no longer a capital offense, no longer a mental illness, and in many places, nothing to be ashamed of at all.  All of these things which we take for granted were once considered capital offenses.  Regardless of the consent of all parties involved, the punishment for any sex outside of marriage was death.

But with all these changes, certain things – particularly those with significantly less universal appeal – have kept their status as inherently “immoral” even if they don’t actually hurt anyone.  Incest between two consenting adults is still seen as inherently immoral even by otherwise secular progressives.  There is likely a biological component to this aversion, as there are a lot of regressive genes which lead to various genetic illnesses which are only expressed if a person has the same version from both parents, and statistically speaking the more closely related the parents, the higher the chance of them both having the same problematic recessive gene. However, even siblings only have about 50% of their variable DNA in common (that which can vary and still leave a being human) and all the members of a given population (especially prior to the advent of mechanized long-distance travel) are likely to have very similar genomes.  In other words, incest is not at all a guarantee of offspring with problems, nor is avoiding it a guarantee against them.  By the logic of the recessive gene argument, people should seek partners as foreign to themselves as possible, yet people (especially females) tend to seek partners of their own race (that, or seek out white partners, regardless of their own race).  In any event, the invention of effective contraception renders the entire deformed offspring argument entirely moot.  There is no objective reason for any objection for sex between two consenting adults, who are using contraception, who happen to be siblings.  And yet this persists even in the most progressive of societies as being seen as despicable, and that speaks to just how strongly the affects of past religious based “morality” continues to have indirect influence over current culture, no matter how far removed from it any particular non-believer is.

You can still hear post-sexual-liberation women use the term “slut” and “whore” as an insult against other women.  A “slut” is just a female who chooses to have sex with multiple partners without forming relationships with them first.  A “whore” is a derogatory word for prostitute, or, anyone who receives compensation from a partner for engaging in sex.  Why should these things continue to offend women?  Certainly a part of it is the same lingering religious morays that condemn incest, but there may be another factor as well.  As previously noted, much of the reason for the original subjugation of women may have been men’s attempt at undoing the power unbalance, and with women’s liberation, the power imbalance returned, and with the advent of contraception and abortion, that influence over males could be exercised with no risk of unintended offspring.  But the power shift to the entire gender is only available to any individual to the extent that she controls the only access to sex for a given partner.  Although any given couple is unlikely to make every sexual contact a squid row quo, generally both partners are expected to contribute to the relationship, and sex is frequently seen as a negotiating point in the females favor since, as since ancient times, no matter how much she may desire and enjoy it, she can do without it, while a male can no more go without then he can without food (which is why there are so many cases of celibate priests in sexual scandals, but it is essentially unheard of among nuns). 
However, if a prostitute comes along, it diminishes that negotiating power, as her partner now has another avenue for that resource, one that comes without the explicit long-term contract of marriage or even the implicit long-term contract of a relationship.  And of course a promiscuous female is even worse, since they don’t require any form of compensation.  Obviously few if any women actually consciously think all this through when looking down on another women for their sexual choices, but I propose it may be a subconscious mechanism that explains why some people who take per-marital sex for granted and are totally ok with homosexuality still have a distaste for prostitutes and promiscuous women.

All of this history and politics, to try to look into why sex is considered a special case, any different from any other temporary renting out of ones body, why it should have any more or less to do with self-respect than any other form of labor.  The primary reasons are obsolete.  Many of our sexual morays are relics from before birth control existed, and gradually – very gradually – societies in many parts of the world are finally changing to catch up to modern technology.  Things which have been ingrained into our collective psyche for thousands of generations often have a tendency to take on an existence of their own, independent of the original reasons they developed.  But as logical intelligent individuals, we can each think about our own true core values and separate that which we believe from that which everyone around us has always told us to believe.  If we accept that there is absolutely nothing dirty or sinful about enjoying sex in any form so long as it is by the consent of everyone involved, then all of the old “goes-without-saying” type of morays should be questioned.  Not just the ones we personally would like to violate, but also the ones we have no interest in.  There is no such thing as a perversion.  There is just differing tastes. 
And once you have removed the “non-reproductive-sex is evil” non-sense from the equation, all that is left is prostitution is a job.  A job in which you temporarily rent your body to someone, and do something you wouldn’t otherwise be doing in that particular moment.  Just like every other job that exists or could possibly exist.  If you are employed, in any fashion, if you get compensated by anyone for doing or thinking anything, that makes you, essentially, a whore.  And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

A year later

• May 26, 2009

A year later

I am so sick of dating.

I can't say it hasn't been fun.
Its been really fun.  Many first experiences.

I have been asked out.  I have gathered the courage to ask out. 
Some time later I replaced courage with confidence.

I have learned an awful lot of things (and confirmed a few I suspected all along).
I learned just how different I am compared to so many of my peers in this area.
I learned that finding what I am looking for is really hard.
I learned that all the common stereotypes about gender and dating are totally false.
I learned that people really do have sex on first dates (and not just desperate people, drunks, or players, but ordinary healthy well-adjusted people)
I learned that women are just as superficial as men (just with height instead of weight)
I learned that (at least for those whose standards start at 5'6" or less) I am much more attractive than I had thought I was.
I learned that there is very little correlation between stated views on sex and actual comfort and enthusiasm in practice; and little correlation between visual sexiness and actual quality of performance.
I learned that the single most important variable is that she is truly comfortable with her own sexuality.
I was shocked to learn how many people think that the actions of the female partner have little bearing on the overall quality of sex, or that being "good" can consist solely of how much she is willing to have done to her.  I learned that not everyone can match my stamina.
I learned that people are much more forgiving of me for my infidelity than I am of myself (I decided against ever making that story a blog, but I have nothing to hide, so if you ask me I'll tell you about it)
I learned that I can easily fall in love with someone I am totally incompatible with - in fact, I'm starting to suspect that I have a tendency to do just that.
I have learned a lot about emotional responses and how rare it is to just be told, directly, when something I do is upsetting or annoying or offensive.
I learned just how guarded and polite people are, and how it breeds a sort of inadvertent falseness which I honestly never noticed before.

I have had sex with a number of beautiful intelligent compassionate women of various shapes and sizes and colors. People involved in social justice and environmental protection and education, younger than me, older, people who want to get married someday and others who think monogamy is an artificial social construct. More women in just this past year than I expected to be with in my entire life.
(I've also had my first ever STD test, and got the equivalent of an 'A' on it.) 
I've shared both physical and emotional intimacy with women who I could have conversations with and find myself questioning beliefs I've refined over a lifetime of thought and debate and felt totally confident about. 
I've even fallen in love.  It may have been with someone totally incompatible with me, but it was still nice to know for sure I still can.



It turns out that sex with someone who isn't my best-friend-and-long-term-partner is just as unfulfilling as I always assumed it would be.  They were everyone of them someone I could consider a friend, a whole world of difference from one-night-stand or purely-physical affairs (the thought of which makes me feel a little sick inside).  That just isn't enough. 

I have not had a history of following through on this sort of thing in the past; perhaps a public pronouncement will aid my meager willpower - or at least discourage the women in my life from taking advantage of it:
No more sex on first dates, no matter how good that date is.  Or second.  Or third.  No sex unless I've known you at least a couple months and had some combination of plenty of dates, long conversations, and exchanged emails.  And not unless you are looking, and feel ready, for a serious long term partner.  That isn't to say I want to be celibate until after my next wedding, but I would like that level of intimacy be reserved for when working towards something serious is at least the intention.
My old rule was I didn't want to have sex with anyone I wouldn't want to be friends with.
The new one is not with anyone I wouldn't want to have a child with.

I found my old list which I had written on the suggestion of one of my first dates, one of the people I had been most excited about at one time.  I wrote down a list of exactly what I am hoping to find in someone.
I figured after a year of dating, meeting many new people, romance and relationships and sex and new friends that I might be able to refine the list with new found perspective about what is most important to me.
Turns out I had it the first time.  There is nothing I can remove, and only one small addition.
(Its just that I haven't been actually following it.  I keep giving people chances, even though its a list of "non-negotiables".)

Really, it doesn't seem like so much to ask for.
Just three basic things.

Someone who shares my outlook on life.
Someone who challenges me intellectually.
Someone who wants the same type of life-partnership that I do.

That's it.
Its easy enough to find all of those things.
Just not all three in the same person.

One of my new friends pointed out there is a conflict in what I want:  I want a relationship that builds over at least a year, but I also want to be in that relationship already. 
She made a good point.
So its on me to keep meeting new people, but avoiding all the romantic and intimacy which sucks me in but leaves me discouraged and unfulfilled when I return to reality a few days or weeks or months later.

Perhaps my readers can help me out.
Here is the list:   EXTRA BONUS SUPER FUN PACK

If you know anyone like that, direct her my way.

Flamboyant introvert

• Feb 23, 2009

Flamboyant introvert

I feel like I want to write, but I don't have a topic.

Actually, that's not true. I have several: adoption, consciousness, short-term dating/serial monogamy, and I doubt I'll ever be satiated of ranting about the injustice of a system that allows unrestricted accumulation of wealth across generations.

But as much as I feel like writing, I even more don't feel like writing about any of that stuff.

So I guess this will be more diary entry than essay.



I talked to a customer a couple days ago, a slightly crazy guy who I've worked with many times, get into heated debates with on the way to his storage space. He was shocked to learn that I make personal stuff public this way - (that reminds me, that's another topic I've been meaning to write about for about 1/4 of forever). He also questioned why I might think anyone would care.
I learned yesterday that someone I had never met or heard of found my website after I drove by in the truck, somehow came across the blog, had even commented once. A friend of a friend. There are 5 times as many views of the blog as my actual business website (even though the business site counter counts every refresh as a new view, but the blog counter doesn't).
I really don't know why. Why are you reading this right now?

Anyway...

I have been mentioning periodically for a while now how overwhelming it all is.
I feel tired, but I am still just as much in awe. I don't feel like I am ever going to be able to take all of this for granted.
I mean ALL of it.
That water falls from the sky periodically. That sex works the way it does. That music can affect me so much. How many people there are. That we are apparently on this giant liquid filled rock hurtling through the vast expansive of nothingness around a giant burning fireball of hydrogen and heavy elements it creates by being, basically, a constantly exploding nuclear bomb held together by the sheer weight of itself. The very fact that matter exists seems unbelievable to me.
I am running a business? What the hell is that? I never had a girlfriend throughout grade school, high school, college. I was not exactly an outcast, but I was far from popular. All my life I was the little skinny guy, the weird guy. Invited to parties for sheer entertainment value. And now I look back on a couple recent experiences and wonder if maybe she was in it as much out of lust as anything, and given how I felt, its like I was used for my body. Me? WTF? Mind you, I'm not complaining. It just seems so unrealistic.

This has been fun. No question. Some of my favorite people I met through the dating process. I have no regrets. I have learned a whole lot about life, people, relationships, even myself. I feel almost no connection to my life from as little as a year ago.
But there was something I really liked about having only ever had sex with two people. Something I liked about only having had one partner and planning to keep it that way. I liked being settled. It wasn't an ideal relationship, but my feeling of loyalty made up the difference, and there was also a lot of genuine good. I'm happy to have been released from that responsibility, but I would like for my next serious relationship to be my last.
Obviously I don't think there is anything immoral or unhealthy about promiscuity, but it just doesn't feel natural to me. Before I had experienced it I never understood the appeal. And honestly, now that I have, I still don't.

I wonder if I will end up abandoning my principal. (I will forgive myself if I do, because I don't really believe in principal. Any principal that doesn't make specific individuals happier in the real life is an invalid principal).
I am not much interested in chemistry. I am not much interested in looks or sexual compatibility. True, I didn't know what I was missing, and finding it was incredibly intense, overwhelming as I have not felt since... well, actually, ever.
And I still say I want - no, I need - a best friend first. I need someone I respect and admire. Someone who can point out the errors in my arguments, who makes me think of things in a brand new way. I need someone I have fun with, and who I feel safe with.
If, having found those in someone who also wants something stable and lasting, if she happens to be hot or we happen to like the same things in the bedroom (or living room and kitchen and occasionally outside), that's gravy. Mind-Bogglingly Delicious Gravy, but gravy all-the-same, and totally unnecessary.

The thing is, I don't know that my intellect, no matter how consistent or insistent, is capable of over-ruling my heart.
I can guide in-love, but I can't control it. I'm a surfer, or maybe a tobogganer, mostly at the mercy of gravity, but I can go a little to the left, a little to the right. And, if I so choose, I can resist - the only possible outcome of which is a dramatic crash.
I know how to make it more intense if I want to. I can focus on one person to keep someone else from getting too entrenched in my heart. But in the end, whatever I do, with certain people, certain circumstances, it's gonna happen.
And mind you, I'm fine with that. Its a big part of what makes life worth living.
The thing is that once I get in, it blinds me. I know that its going to. I even know its happening in real time. And yet I fully believe.
So if it happens and its reciprocal - that's when the problem could come in. Because I won't be able to be objective about it. I won't have any conscious choice at that point. I am bent to the will of in-love.

On my side, however, is that those same things which are important to me in principal, intellectual compatibility, friendship, shared values, enjoying each other, are actually what makes me fall hardest.
On my side too is that the passion can develop with the right person even if it isn't there from the beginning. I think this is something too few people realize in our tissue-paper-significant-other society of ours. This isn't to say I think it could develop for anyone, arranged marriage style, but if the core elements of compatibility are there it can be just as intense, just as real, even if there wasn't that initial attraction. Everyone I say this too looks at me as though I were crazy. Why would you get involved with someone in the first place if you weren't initially attracted? I suppose it figures, since in the end it all stems from the reproduction drive. Somehow actually liking a person for who they are seems a lot more romantic and meaningful to me.

I started writing before work. I just came home. Stopped at my ex-wife's place on the way home. It was our first time alone together for anything besides legal paperwork since the divorce. I caught her up on my experiences dating. She seemed genuinely interested, and it didn't feel in the slightest awkward. It was almost as if she were my friend, instead of my "ex". I feel really happy about that, really encouraged. It has felt like she was very uncomfortable with me until today, and I got the impression she was sure I was uncomfortable despite my assurances that I wasn't. Of course I know - I knew all along - that what had to change for us to ever have a friendship was that I had to let go of the "possibility", let go of any romantic thought or desires. This happened for me a long time ago, but given how strongly I felt before, and for how long, given how dramatic and sudden the shift was, it seems pretty reasonable for her to have been suspicious of it.
I am happy that we might someday be comfortable with being in regular contact because, even though I would never want to be in the sort of relationship with her that we once had, there were a lot of legitimate reasons I got involved with her in the first place, it is hard for me to find people who I feel as compatible with, and it is a lot of my life to give up entirely. I want to keep the baby, though it was really good to drain the dirty bathwater. This may not be meant to be, who knows, but at least the experience opened up a part of me that allowed me to miss her, and even though its an unpleasant feeling, it feels right that I would.

I went for 28 years never feeling more than the most superficial type of connection to anyone aside from whoever I was in-love with at the time. I don't even know what "connection" is supposed to mean exactly. It doesn't seem to have to be mutual. It isn't correlated with lust. Sometimes I can feel it quite strongly even while knowing it will be fleeting. I don't understand it, can't articulate it. But something has been opened up inside me, something stemming from the divorce, learning about attachment disorders, dating for the first time and all of the specific experiences I've had, something has opened and I feel these connections, people feel so special and important to me and I feel I want to get to know a few certain people better, I want to share with them, and I want to feel close - even if there's little or no chance of a romantic relationship building from it. My favorite part of dating, I think, is the friendships that began that way.

Still, a part of me is very tired. I want to be settled. I want to be thinking about planning for the future, for children. I don't want to actually be planning yet, but to be able to be thinking about it with somebody.
I realize that I am a-typical, but I just can't understand how people prioritize anything else over love. What point is there in success with no one to share it with? This is a rhetorical question. I know I will never understand the answer, no matter how thoroughly or eloquently it is described.
The trick is in finding someone who feels the same way as I do. Not an impossible task, but that person also has to challenge me - I don't mean to sound arrogant (and I know I do anyway, and I apologize) - but I don't find that often. There is SO MUCH for me to learn. I just need the right sort of stimulus.
I always thought I had been extremely lucky in finding someone with whom things worked - not always perfectly, but well enough that it lasted longer than anyone else I know of my generation - so young. It was suggested that maybe it wasn't so rare, but just that I hadn't been looking once I found it.
Now that I have been looking, I can say the same thing with more confidence.
A great many people are wary of using the internet as a tool to meet people.
I can't imagine wanting to date someone you meet at a bar, a party, the market, where you mainly just know what they look like. I suspect it goes back to the chemistry/compatibility thing again. You can only gauge the spark in person, with expressions and tone and touch. I can read the words written by hundreds of women and narrow it down, people I might very well have been attracted to in real life (and would therefor have been more willing to overlook certain differences). Narrow down from hundreds and hundreds of people down to a dozen dates. People I knew I had some fundamentals in common with, who sparked interest enough to actually meet. And then only a few that really felt significant in one sense or another. And then none that really worked out as potential LTRs for one reason or another. There are just so many factors working against it, so many ways for it to not work.

I have decided to embrace dependence. I think the idea of independence being something desirable goes hand in hand with the value of freedom. Our economic structure is dependent on a populous which believes that freedom is inherently valuable.
As a customer who has lived in a very different culture pointed out, you don't have freedom if you are connected to other people. If you live with an extended family, know your neighbors, and everyone is directly dependent on everyone else, you have to consider the consequences of your every decision for everyone around you.
Freedom is contrary to community. Independence is contrary to human connection.
What he was talking about was the same as what I was talking about, only applied to family and community instead of romantic relationships.
Besides, no one is independent. We are a social specie. We are only able to survive because we are able to work together. We have made comfortable lives for ourselves using technology which requires specialization which makes us ever more dependent on one another. I said this wouldn't be another social discourse essay - but this is all very personal. Relationships with other people are more than ways to get food and shelter, more than a security net or means of reproduction. I feel, always have felt, like I am supposed to be one-half of a couple. A lot of people seem to believe there is something wrong with that. Of course I am dependent. I think its normal and healthy. In the absence of a life partner I have developed friendships that feel more meaningful than I have had in a long time. I am still not happy being single. I strongly doubt I ever would be.

I remain, as always, optimistic. I have no evidence on my side, but it has been my experience that life works out ok in the end. (I suppose in the end we die, so...)
When you are most desperately out of money, with no idea what you are going to do, that's when you win a new car. It couldn't happen any other way. Malomar is obnoxious sometimes, but he takes care of us. Or of me at least. So I will find what I'm looking for. There may be many more trials ahead, more experiences to have first, and it won't be easy. Fortunately I live in the Bay Area, and there are a lot of amazing people here. This has gotten much longer than I intended. I'm gonna stop writing, and go check on my online dating account.

Te Quiero

• Jan 13, 2009

Te Quiero

In Spanish the term for "I love you" is the same as "I want you"

Contrary to what English speakers might assume, this isn't meant to imply lust.
Te quiero is just as applicable to love for family or friends (with te amo reserved for romantic love - though te quiero is appropriate for a spouse or lover as well)

This is perhaps no more than an idiosyncrasy of language and translation, but it strikes me as the dominate view of love in our own culture.

We might say "I love ice cream" or "I love that movie", meaning that you really really enjoy it.  When something brings us great pleasure, we love it.
Certainly our friends and family and lovers ought to bring us great pleasure.

This type of love, possessive and self-centered, can certainly be applied to people.  I love you because you make me happy, I enjoy your company, I want you around.

It is perhaps unfortunate that we have one word that should cover such a broad range of emotional experience.


Love can also mean "I want you to be happy".  For objects it never means this, but hopefully for people it often does.  While in the 1st meaning it is dependent on my own happiness to exist, in the 2nd I am willing to deliberately sacrifice my own happiness for the benefit of the object of my love. Ideally a good relationship (any type, not just lovers) will have both types, but really they are two different things.

We feel real care and concern for others, we want to make them happy as they do us, but in a culture obsessed with the self it can be all too easy to get caught up in prioritizing selfish love.

There have been a number of studies out there which confirm in scientific terms what we have known from folk wisdom forever: it is better to give than to receive.  It turns out this isn't just a way of conning the populace into desirable social behavior, its an innate truth of human nature.  Spending money on a gift does more to raise subjective well-being than spending an equal amount on ones self (http://tierneylab.blogs...nytimes.com/2008/03/20/yes-..money-can-buy-happiness/). 

It seems that love as a feeling of care for others as opposed to a feeling of enjoyment of others, particularly within romantic relationships, is strongly de-emphasized in our culture.
We each spend our time focusing on our own needs being met, giving little time left over to question how much we are meeting theirs.

I see people being quick to point out that it would be unhealthy to prioritize another over ones self - but see, as long as its mutual, it balances out.  Its just like in society: everyone does better when everyone does better. 

Imagine a game of tug-of-rope.  Two equally matched opponents face off.  They pull and struggle and sweat and the knot in the middle stays more or less right in the middle.
If either lets go, they lose, and the consequences may be miserable.  But say they both agreed to stop pulling.  The knot still stays in the middle.  But they don't have to fight anymore.  Things are still the same as they were, but both are better off.  This is what happens when you focus on being good to your partner instead of just on them being good to you.  In the end, instead of a sacrifice, you are both better off than when you started, which is how a good relationship should be.

Perhaps a part of our high divorce rate and the increasing age in which, on average, our generation spends serial dating, is somehow tied to our culture's intense focus on self (as opposed to community or family, for example - the rise of both consumerism and the list of terms that begin with "self-" that have entered our collective consciousness) as detailed in the documentary "The Century of the Self"(the entire movie is embedded in my December 17, 2007 blog entitled "Just in time for Christmas").

We question "is this person doing enough for me?" and when the answer is no, we move on, without ever having considered the possibility that maybe they weren't doing enough as a result of us not doing enough ourselves.  If their needs are unmet, it will be hard for them to focus on ours.  I've never lived in any other time or place, so it would be presumptuous to assume that if the expectation were long-term or permanent relationships that we would be any more prone to view relationships as real partnerships, as "we are in this together, lets make it work for us both".

Part of it may also be our focus on romance, on being "in-love".  We grow up hearing fairy tales and seeing romantic comedies and it becomes our model of what "love" is "supposed" to be like.  Who wouldn't want that wonderful giddy feeling of total infatuation to exist forever, for the passion and excitement of a brand new relationship to carry you happily ever after?

Only problem is, it doesn't.  Not for anyone.  On average it seems to last about a year, maybe 2 or 3 for some. (http://articles.latimes.com/..2007/jul/30/health/he-..attraction30) After the honeymoon period is over, once real life sets in and mundane day to day life conflicts crop up, once the other person relaxes off of their best behavior that was meant to win you over, sooner or later the passion, no matter how strong it started out, wears off.  After all, a lot of the excitement stems from the novelty itself, and from the fantasy of a person's potential.  At that point, traditionally, so called "companionate love" is supposed to take over - essentially a strong friendship, and/or feelings of loyalty, commitment, and of course care for the other; these things can give a relationship value and meaning.  But they are severely undervalued in our culture, or at least ignored, in favor of romance and passion. (http://www.utne.com/Science-Technology/Romantic-Comedies-Are-Making-Kids-Miserable.aspx?blogid=36)
The end result: 50% divorce rate (and the accompanying single parent households), generations of people who have endless strings of brief semi-committed relationships, and even an entire sub-culture which insists that polyamory is not just acceptable, but an ideal that everyone should strive for, and the suggestion that a desire for a monogamous relationship is in itself a sign of conformity or repression.

This cultural shift was perhaps inevitable with the nexus of several unrelated social and technological advances.  The invention of a safe, effective, reliable, accessible form of birth control decoupled sex from reproduction (http://www.medicinenet.com/..script/main/art.asp?..articlekey=51170). Without that causal dating and not getting married until well into ones 30s is pretty impractical and something few would be interested in. Like all of our sexual morays, waiting until marriage developed before there was an effective method of birth control, and our collective conscious is relatively slow to adapt to technology. 
At the same time the inventions of the washing machine, microwave, fast food, and other household labor saving devices meant it actually became possible to take care of one's own house while having a full time job. Without those things washing clothes is a major undertaking, cooking a meal needs to be begun hours in advance, and taking care of a household is a full time job in itself.  These changes made it unnecessary to have a spouse for practical reasons, and made the concept of being "independent" available to nearly everyone.
Feminism made what birth-control and labor-saving devices allowed on the practical level also socially acceptable, and then end result is that, while people still enjoy having partners, we don't really need them any more.
Each of these things taken by themselves are obviously positive steps which improve the lives of everybody.  That they happened to all develop in the same time span of time perhaps encouraged the shift in how we view relationships, to the devaluing of commitment and the focus on passion and chemistry as the most vital parts of partnerships.

If for what ever reason (needing two people to run a household, having children in common, or it being socially unacceptable to divorce) a couple doesn't see splitting up as an option, it is more clearly in both individuals' self interest to deal with problems.  Then, assuming an egalitarian outlook (and I acknowledge that in the time I am describing that was definitely not the norm) it makes sense to view a conflict as "we have a problem, and we need to figure out a way to solve it".  If there is no incentive, the outlook by default is often "this person is making me unhappy, and I don't like it". 
Similarly, we don't see any inherent value in commitment, largely preferring to see partners as "the best I've found so far", always leaving the option open to upgrade.

There seems to be a lot of people who believe that things like monogamy, marriage, perhaps even heterosexuality are purely social constructs, are outdated and repressive, and that not being comfortable with sex without love implies someone is less free, open, and comfortable with themselves.
But religion didn't invent the connection between sex and emotion.  Religion tries to make it a moral issue, which of course it isn't, but nature linked the two.
Ultimately, sex is about reproduction.  Obviously it plays a social role as well, and like chocolate cake and rollercoasters we have been clever enough to harness technology to manipulate the pleasure centers of our own brains outside of the ways nature intended. 
Even so, when framing what is "natural" or even "healthy", it is probably helpful to look at it in its most basic, at its evolutionary function.
In a specie where both genders put substantial resources and time into caring for each generation of offspring, its no wonder that we would also tend to develop emotions that favored a single long term-partner, that we would become jealous of infidelities, and even that a double standard might exist between men and women (if he cheats, his partner isn't stuck raising a child that isn't hers).  This doesn't make these things good or ideal, any more than anything which is "natural" is ideal (Being eaten by a mountain lion is natural.  Doesn't make it a good thing.)  But it does make it understandable.

I think our generation may have gone just a little bit too far in rebelling against the old standard in this case.  It is a good thing that everyone has freedom and options and that no one is ostracized or punished for their choices which don't hurt anyone else.  But when in our zeal to allow freedom we try to force ourselves to fit an unnatural standard, or we ignore the valuable parts of things like commitment, in the end everybody loses.

New Year's

• Jan 2, 2009

I still do not put any real stake in sexual compatibility.
What I want is a partnership. 
What matters most to me is being able to fully respect my partner, admire her.
I want us to enjoy each other, have fun together, teach each other, challenge each other, support each other.
I want intellectual and emotional compatibility.
I want shared values and priorities.
What matters to me is who she is as a person, not just what I get from contact with her.

It is very early, we have a lot to learn about each other; I can't say anything with any confidence.  We haven't had a chance to talk about these things.  I don't even know what she is looking for in terms of a relationship.  I have always had a tendency to idealize people, to emphasize the good and overlook the bad, and especially now I am not in a proper emotional state to judge - that being said, I have not felt so positively about a new person so quickly since... well, actually, I don't think I ever have.  


I am learning more and more exactly what it is that I want, raising my standards by having contact with various people who were each wonderful in their own way, and seeing those things which I might have thought I wanted, but turned out not to work for me.
As I become more selective, it has become harder and harder to find someone who held my interest.  I tried not to even think about concepts like "settle"; a slippery slope atop depression.
When I was young the focus of my infatuations were completely random and baseless.  It had more to do with accessibility, proximity, than it did on personality.  I remember in junior high intelligence became a prerequisite.  Then independent thinking.
Kathy, in the first year of high school was the first where looking back, I know exactly what I saw in her.  Aside from my crush, she was also my best friend. 
But then, she was my friend first.  It was based on who she was, not just what she looked like or that she happened to be in my class.  But my interest developed slowly, bit by bit.
And so it was with my ex-wife, Aileen.  We became friends first, and for years after our first conversation I had not the slightest romantic interest in her.  We had sex before we kissed.  We still both considered our relationship to be friendship after we were sleeping together regularly.  I felt that I loved her before I felt in-love.  That was definitely a first.  The feeling of love, not romantic, not passion, but caring deeply for a person, caring as much about another human being as you do about yourself, that does not come easily for me.  I have felt it only very rarely, and usually transiently.  She earned my love by being the wonderful person she is.  We became partners, and romantic feeling developed with time.  That made it no less real, no less strong.  I felt as deeply in love with my wife as I did in any obsession before her.  Combining the feeling of "love" with "in-love" produced an attachment so strong it is a wonder to me that I was actually able to function in the real world day-to-day.  (It is actually a good thing that she didn't feel as strongly as I did, because we may very well have never left each others sides, and would in fact have not been able to function in the real world).

All this to say I don't especially value what most people today consider a prerequisite for a new relationship, a chemistry or passion or attraction.  I know these things can build with time, and just as well that feeling them can be totally meaningless when they happen right away.

My interest this time was very quick, and gathered in strength even quicker.  I started to feel hints of "in-love" from the first day.  I can't remember that ever having happened before.  Ever.  Each contact since then has made it stronger.  There are always a few little things here and there which are less than ideal, but which I may decide are worth it, are minor.  This time there haven't been any.  I am slightly apprehensive about our age difference (though its only 1 year more than it was with my ex, and Valerie is more experienced.  I don't think this is a valid concern; it hasn't shown up in her personality as a problem).  Her being my height makes me slightly insecure, but it doesn't seem to bother her in the least, so I think I need to stop being stupid.  Again, in no way a reflection on her.  More a reflection of myself, my assumptions and prejudices in both cases.
Granted, being in-love makes it difficult to see the bad in someone.  And granted we've only spent a total of about 29 hours together (over 3 days.  And about 2 of those hours were spent sleeping, so they don't really count).

I have never had the chance to develop a relationship with someone I had a crush on.  The combination is intense.  Like it hasn't been since high school - when I first realized what I had been feeling was obsession, not love, and that it was neither normal nor healthy; and taught myself to at least direct it and control it if I couldn't stop it from happening at all.

Believe it or not, all of this has been just to explain that I felt positively about her already, and that it was not the least bit necessary for anything else to be added in.
I feel guilty sometimes for my good fortune; the way I feel that people born into the upper class should feel guilty.  I mean, ok, people win cars.  That merely balanced out the bad fortune that had been happening at the time.
This though...
Too much.
Unreal.

I don't feel that sexual compatibility is important.  You can teach each other what you like.  It is unreasonable to expect you shouldn't have to ask for what you want.  A relationship is about communication.  When you prioritize what is ultimately superficial stuff like that, you end up overlooking the really important compatibility issues, the ones that differentiate a potential life partner from an exciting love affair.


I didn't really expect her to ask me to stay, and I thought it would be rather obtrusive of me to suggest it myself.  But it seemed likely, and I wanted to, so I wasn't in a rush to leave.  I waited patiently on the pretense of waiting for her to settle her other guests on the couch with blankets so I could say goodbye properly.  She didn't say a word to me. As she passed by she took my hand, led me upstairs, left me in her room as she went to say goodnight to them, left me nervous with anticipation.

A part of me is worried about letting things go too quickly.  There is a lot of overlap between the physical and the emotional for me, just like there is between the intellectual and the emotional.  The night had been fun.  Not ideal, for sure, but not bad.  I got to see another side of her, her interacting with others, we more playful with each other, feeling familiar as if we had known each other much more than just the 12 hours we actually had so far.
Willpower is only barely able to hold back the part of me which wants to run and dive head-first off the cliff above "love" and fall in damn the consequences.
The consequences.  Its not getting hurt that I'm afraid of.  Its the trust I'll lose in myself.  Its the ability to fall again if this starts and fails, or worse yet, doesn't start at all.  Its realizing how deeply attached I could get this time, how much better it could get than anything I have experienced before and how, if it ends, how much that will raise my standards.  I don't need higher standards.  Its hard enough to find someone interesting to me as it is.

I made the decision a day or two before to give in.  I have her picture as my computer background. Literally every time I minimize a window it makes me smile involuntarily. I listen to her music on Pandora, mixed in with my own.  I began reciprocating affection (I told her previously that I had been holding back, and why).  I look at her eyes, and she locks my gaze, and its like some cheesy movie, its unbelievable, its something I have never in my life experienced before, but I feel like as much communication is held in that shared gaze, unspoken, as in our conversations.  The first few times I would look away.  It was too much for me.  It scared me.  What if it isn't mutual?  I stopped looking away.

She came back into the room, came up to me, kissed me.  "Do you want me to stay?"
"Will you?"
I told her I would stay if she would agree not to seduce me.  We hadn't talked about what we want yet, our expectations, our feeling toward each other.  We had been out only 3 times, we were only casually dating.  I longed to cuddle her fucking brains out, but I didn't feel lust.
Besides, it was 2am, I had had a couple drinks, she has roommates, and I haven't had much opportunity to practice lately.  Not the best conditions for optimal performance.
I know that I am very short on will power when it comes to lying in bed next to women who make clear that they want me, but I figured as long as she didn't try to entice me and we stayed dressed, it was realistic.
When I came out of the bathroom she was in bed already.  She had a sweatshirt on over her shirt, as her room gets very cold, and so it seemed things would go smoothly, and I could get some good sleep finally, with the comfort of someone special to me in my arms.
As I climbed in beside her she began to kiss me almost immediately.  A kiss I expected.  And I know some people (especially girls, it seems) are content to make out without progressing to anything sexual.  It was nice, but didn't make it any easier to resist the desire to be inside of her. She is really into it, but keeps her agreement not to escalate things.  Next I discover that, while her top half is well bundled, she is wearing these loose "boy-shorts" underwear which offer no more resistance to feeling her thoroughly than wearing nothing at all.  Still, I keep my hands off the juicy center, and I still think we can be passionate and sexy for a little without taking that final step. When she takes off her shirt, inside myself I say "nuts to taking things slow". 
She has a way off moving seamlessly between the passionate and the affectionate, playful and sexual, which makes it all one sensual continuum, which feels at once equal parts an expression of emotion and pure hedonism.  When I do something that feels good to her she has this subtle giggle which was disconcerting at first, but quickly became endearing once I understood what it meant.  All the while, as we enjoyed each others bodies, enjoyed that it was with each other that we were doing this, she honored her agreement not to seduce me, but quickly adapted to the new limits whenever I pushed things a little farther.
I would have liked it slightly better if she were more proactive, but that is of course my own fool fault for asking her to agree to something which I ended up violating myself.
I told her that I wasn't still expecting her to stick to that.
We were lying on our sides, me behind her, against each other, and she presses herself back against me and over, so that she is partially twisted, her legs tangled with mine and just above them, as if shes trying to lay atop me, but not trying very hard.  It is cute.  It has both a seductive quality, and a gentle innocence, a playfulness, which makes me forget that anyone anywhere has ever thought sex could be "dirty" or "wrong". 
I stopped to ask about STDs and birth control.  She's been tested since her last partner (as have I).  She thinks she has condoms, she isn't using hormonals. 

She does, all on her own, exactly those things that I like best.
When she is on top she puts her hands on me, feels my chest and stomach.  She sits upright above me, looking down at me and smiling, like a sex goddess.  She presses herself up against me and rocks and slides to get clitoral stimulation without using our hands.  She lays down on me, and we hug sweetly, no less so for the fact that I am still inside her.  She puts my hand on her breast and squeezes my hand to tell me to squeeze her.  Which is of course exactly what I want to do.  She responds to the things I do just for my own pleasure.  What I want to do is also what she wants me to do.
When she got up to find a condom, as she was still looking I came to her, held her from behind, she told me not to touch her as it was too distracting, I entered her again, encouraged her to keep looking, which she couldn't.  She touched herself, and she came in that position, on the floor kneeling, me holding her back against my chest.
I lay her down on her back on the floor.  I put my hand near her mouth to remind her about her roommates, that she was getting a little loud, and she bit me, her voice still audible.
On the floor still, her on top, me behind, oral for her, missionary, sideways.  I lost it for a while a little bit after I came the first time, and I wasn't in her when she came her second time.  The difficulties were short lived.  I asked her for oral, to help me going again. She wasn't reluctant, but seemed slightly awkward, like she didn't have much experience with it; but it felt better than average just the same.  As soon as she got me ready again, I stood her up, put her on the edge of the bed where I could reach her from the floor.  Her comments about the intensity seemed almost like a complaint, but she didn't object.  I usually don't have much left when I come twice in a row; I had plenty enough to spread around onto her belly and breasts, felt like more than the first time.  This time I kept going without a break.  She wraps her legs around mine, tangling us.  She holds me, and looks into my eyes with that same deep focus that I turned away from the first times it happened.  She gives in to me when I am assertive, and she doesn't hesitate to ask for what she wants or to direct me.  This give and take occurs without any explicit communication, and at no point did I feel she was just doing something for my sake, and yet at no point did it feel she was even remotely selfish.  Instead of two people using each other to get off, for the first time ever it felt like a totally joint venture, a two person team activity. 
Her third was on top of me facing up, the position which tends to be most intense for me.
Her fourth she was lying on her front, I was on top behind her.  It was the first one where I was the one stimulating her with my hands.  That was my favorite.
She seemed to think that was the end, it was a confusing bit of limbs shuffling about before I ended up in her again, her on her side, one leg straight, between mine, the other bent, me sitting upright.  In that position was my 3rd.
Then we lay for a while, talked a bit. We held each other, calmed down. Only for a little bit.  She mentioned feeling satisfied, but still aroused.  My last time I finished off by hand.  I need that pressure at the base in order to feel satiated.  She seemed to get almost physical pleasure from my reaction. 
By now it was quite bright outside. She has a stamina to match her personality.  Somehow I felt no more tired than I had when we had started.  Somehow, even with so much enthusiasm and intensity, aerobic capacity was never a limiting factor.  (I need to do this more often.  I would get into excellent condition.)
We each showered in turn, and after just a bit of talking, (Every part of my insides screamed at me to tell her that I love her, but I used the will power I hadn't used on sex to keep from giving into that premature ejaculation of words) and a bit of snuggling, we got a little bit of actual sleep.
She helped me to tear myself away in the morning; she wanted to sleep more and I had work. 
We haven't yet had a chance to talk.

Hopefully having written this down will be enough to at least get it out of the front of my conscious, and allow me stay present until we do.
Hopefully...