on love and sexuality
Jul. 29th, 2002 03:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kespernorthIf you've ever been curious about my attitudes about sex and love, read on. If this is TMI for you, don't -- but don't be shy, nothing specific or graphic is discussed here.
In my recent ponderings, I've figured out a few interesting things about my attitudes towards sexuality. I've noticed that in my mind, there is a wide and specific gulf between sex and making love.
Sex, to me, is a friendly and enjoyable form of recreation vastly superior to but not much more meaningful than a tennis match with one of your best friends. I seem to be able to keep emotions entirely separate from the experience. If I'm going to have recreational sex, I greatly to do it with people I am already familliar and emotionally comfortable with -- namely, friends. If a stunningly gorgeous total stranger walked up to me and asked me to go home with her, well, I'd have to give it some serious consideration, but we all know how often that sort of thing happens, and anyway, I greatly prefer to keep it among friends.... Weird as that may sound, considering how messy such entanglements can become. But it's actually worked out quite well for me.
See -- I don't automatically form a romantic attatchment to someone just because I've slept with them, or just because I want to. I tend to form much deeper and longer-lasting friendships with those I've slept with, but romantic love, jealousy and posessiveness never seem to enter my mind.
This doesn't mean that I'm incapable of forming a romantic attatchment to someone I've had recreational sex with; far from it. It just means that I form the attatchment independently of the sex. It's either there or it's not.
"But wait!", you say. "Bjorn, you have a reputation for being a romantic fool. Where's the romance in all this? It sounds pleasant enough, but what about love? And what's all this talk about you not getting jealous? I KNOW that's not true..."
See, that's the thing.
If I'm in love, it's a totally different story.
Making love -- that is, sex with someone to whom I have a strong romantic attatchment, rather than a friendly one -- is a spiritual experience, a joining of mind, body heart and soul. It is obviously vastly superior to ordinary sex in every way, and if I'm strongly romantically involved I lose interest in recreational sex (because I want to make love to the person that I'm with!), and tend to be both monogamous and possessive.
This is how when I'm not in love I can bounce in and out of beds without undue concern -- not that I do so terribly often, mind you -- but when I'm in love, the situation changes completely, and sex becomes... much, much, much more. I've tried to have an open relationship while I'm in love... and it doesn't work for me.
I've been thinking about all this lately, found it philosophically interesting, and thought I'd share. You were warned. :)
In my recent ponderings, I've figured out a few interesting things about my attitudes towards sexuality. I've noticed that in my mind, there is a wide and specific gulf between sex and making love.
Sex, to me, is a friendly and enjoyable form of recreation vastly superior to but not much more meaningful than a tennis match with one of your best friends. I seem to be able to keep emotions entirely separate from the experience. If I'm going to have recreational sex, I greatly to do it with people I am already familliar and emotionally comfortable with -- namely, friends. If a stunningly gorgeous total stranger walked up to me and asked me to go home with her, well, I'd have to give it some serious consideration, but we all know how often that sort of thing happens, and anyway, I greatly prefer to keep it among friends.... Weird as that may sound, considering how messy such entanglements can become. But it's actually worked out quite well for me.
See -- I don't automatically form a romantic attatchment to someone just because I've slept with them, or just because I want to. I tend to form much deeper and longer-lasting friendships with those I've slept with, but romantic love, jealousy and posessiveness never seem to enter my mind.
This doesn't mean that I'm incapable of forming a romantic attatchment to someone I've had recreational sex with; far from it. It just means that I form the attatchment independently of the sex. It's either there or it's not.
"But wait!", you say. "Bjorn, you have a reputation for being a romantic fool. Where's the romance in all this? It sounds pleasant enough, but what about love? And what's all this talk about you not getting jealous? I KNOW that's not true..."
See, that's the thing.
If I'm in love, it's a totally different story.
Making love -- that is, sex with someone to whom I have a strong romantic attatchment, rather than a friendly one -- is a spiritual experience, a joining of mind, body heart and soul. It is obviously vastly superior to ordinary sex in every way, and if I'm strongly romantically involved I lose interest in recreational sex (because I want to make love to the person that I'm with!), and tend to be both monogamous and possessive.
This is how when I'm not in love I can bounce in and out of beds without undue concern -- not that I do so terribly often, mind you -- but when I'm in love, the situation changes completely, and sex becomes... much, much, much more. I've tried to have an open relationship while I'm in love... and it doesn't work for me.
I've been thinking about all this lately, found it philosophically interesting, and thought I'd share. You were warned. :)