Do You Feel Lucky?

(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Fucking Women? Yeah, I Guess

You know what? I'm just not that interested in fucking women. I mean in general. I am very much so specifically! But in general? It's just not that big a priority to me - in comparison with all the baggage that most women put on it? Like it's a big deal? Flesh prong D into Flesh pocket C, big whoop. Most aliens, I think, would be a little fucking puzzled over the baggage we attach to a routine fluid transfer and protein-coded information exchange.

You know what I am interested in, though? Love. Big ol' sloppy romantic love. Yeah, there's some sex involved there, in fact, a whole lot of it if you're not being unconscionably derelict - but that's only natural. Believe it or not, a nigh-unconquerable amount of zing zoom is natural, between two people. Chemistry is very heavily selected for, natural-selectionwise. So in the scheme of life and love, it's a cheat and a betrayal to be with and commit to someone with whom you've got no chemistry. Sex is and can be righteous, and rule! And a gift like that, an amazing gift like that from big ol' What'sHisName upstairs? To forsake that from out of your love equation, it's like getting spit on, basically. You are (or should be) the greatest gift of all time, that you give to your mate. And to just leave that whole part out and say it's okay? Well shit.

You just got spit on.

By yourself. I'm sure it's fine for you, I guess. But fucking selfish to drag someone else down with you, when you know your priorities are that lax. If you are not lovers, then it is not love.

So yeah. In the context of its proper role, it's super-important and indeed, indispensable! Let no supposed couple dispense with it except at their mutually agreed-upon up front woe. It is an indefeasible part of the bargain: to be one flesh. That's what it means to mate.

So sure: sex is important - again, as I said, in its proper role. But to just go around fucking women?

I'll pass. I'm not that kind of girl.*

15 comments:

JMH said...

This would be a fine spoken word poem. I'd make each paragraph a line and I'd indent all except the first lines. I would wear a beret and speak from the heart.

dogimo said...

Thanks man! But I can't help but ask -

Might not the idiosyncratic formatting detract from the heartfelt sincerity of the sentiment?

Anonymous said...

>If you are not lovers, then it is not love.

I propose:

Petrarch & Laura
Heathcliff & Cathy
Werther & Charlotte
Edward & Nancy
Vermeer & Griet
Nathan & Jamie
Oscar & Lucinda
Dominique & Madeleine

Not to be contentious, merely accurate.

dogimo said...

The motion is on the floor: an exemption for grand romantic epic lovers whose mad and consuming passion for each other is thwarted and remains unconsummated due to cruel fate and/or circumstance (including "honor prohibits").

In favor: 1.
Opposed: 0.

MOTION THUS CARRIED.

Yeah, nobody's going to vote against that one. It's clear in such cases that the "nigh-unconquerable amount of zing zoom" is indeed present! It's just that cruel fate put the nigh into practice, and conquered what could have been.

That's common sense, really. Hardly a comparable situation to two people sitting at opposite ends of a couch for decades with never a sizzle between them. Which was rather more what I'm talking about.

I want to be clear that not making fun of such people. What I am saying is that it's a shame and a torture, and a tragic way to live. And not in the epic way, either.

Anonymous said...

Yet some would choose celibacy just to see her smile light up her eyes and to hear her laughter fill his heart. Is that not love? To choose to love what is broken? Tragic, yes, but still love.

dogimo said...

I apologize for the confusion here. In many posts, I pick an ideal and advocate very strongly for it. If anyone needs to interpret this as a criticism of all competing ideals, be they higher ideals, be they lower ideals, well that's no goal of mine but I don't welch on the stance. It is a criticism. And if another person's ideal is truly better for them, if the bitter taste of what they've chosen doesn't stick in their craw but is rather a joy to them - then they will already be living quite immune to my poor criticism.

My goal is not to dump on people in a bad situation, but to be open about what the problem is with such situations. There is a problem. It would be a better world for many, if it were openly acknowledged. There would be fewer tragedies down the road, if people were more open about the cost. A person should not be forced to forsake all. A person should only be forced to forsake all others.

In the above post, I disparage those who seek fuck and disdain love, and I reprove those who neglect what I consider to be a very important - and potentially glorious - aspect of love. By love I mean love for your mate, which is a far deeper involvement than love thy neighbor: for the two are meant to become one flesh. That is the entire distinction. Without that, two in the same house are merely as neighbors.

The ideal I am advocating for is what I believe love can be - and in most cases, what it ought to be. This ideal has wide applicability and is useful and meaningful and achievable for most people. There are in this world, cases where horrors and injuries and disease do not intervene. Believe it or not, that covers most people. When tragedy strikes, then sacrifice follows. OK. But it is neither kind nor wise to deliberately bind oneself and another together in tragedy and sacrifice.

Sex can be and should be a positive aspect of a love relationship - a binding and sustaining and energizing and deepening aspect. Sex can be the food of love - this does not mean we should be gluttons prizing only hedonism. It means we have been given a gift, and we should not reject it lightly. We should not lightly condemn ourselves and one other - who we say we love - to a lifelong fasting and emaciation.

If others' ideals are higher and better than mine, may they be blessed by embracing them. I say that sex is a gift from God to make love even more a celebration. I advocate for that. Others are free to settle for what I'd call less. For them, maybe less is more.

Thanks for your comment!

JMH said...

Why are you not widely published in newspapers? You seem to be very solid in understanding, even me. I want that skill too, and I can work for it.

dogimo said...

Ah, but can it work for you?

Huh. That is a very sweet and complimentary thing to say. Thanks, man!

Our nation's newspapers. Hey, I'm not going to lie and say I wouldn't investigate the possibility, if the Uniglobal Trib-Ledger Corp approached me saying "how about a fat stipend to keep doing whatever you're doing now, only for us instead?"

But I don't think they want that. And I'm not sure I have the instinct for what they do or would want. Like I said, I'd sure investigate the possibility! But I don't know.

I guess if I'm honest, I'm not sure I could defend or explain why I, how I express myself in the way I do, if I had to do it professionally. Like in the above original post: I have a strong tendency towards things like, taking a really awesome sentiment and expressing it in the most offensive way possible. Does the paper want that?

And in other posts, other problems commonly crop up. Would anybody want to read a recurring column by a guy prone to things like apropos of very little, boasting over how beating people up is easy, about how he could probably beat up a good 40% of his readership?

In a way that gives you to understand that he means: simultaneously?

See, right now, I feel perfectly comfortable about coming out with things like that. If I were picked up by a major syndicate I would have to ask myself, "can I still even say that?"

Once I started accepting a paycheck for it, all sorts of diligence filters would click in. I can't sign on to take pay and not give my absolute best daily crack at the job I'm being hired to do! I'm not sure I could disengage that need, even if they asked me to just "keep everything exactly as is, yeh, that's the ticket,"

But who knows, perhaps I'd come through in diamonds and spades. Perhaps I'd thrive under whatever new elements and variables the given arrangement imposed. I'd at least want to give it a try, if approached.

Anonymous said...

Been thinking on this one. You are absolutely right, you know. But the conundrum is, of course, what to do. To stay is selfish. To leave is to forswear your vows. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

For you to mull over:

What of the woman who is raped and experiences an orgasm?

What of the child whose first taste of intimacy is at the hands of her father?

What of the person who has so disassociated sex and love that safety and sanity are all they equate with intimacy?

I'm not trying to belabor the point; I think you're correct. But you offer no thoughts beyond criticism. Passing judgment is easy. Finding solutions is a little more difficult.

Sorry if you didn't want feedback. Thought provoking post.

dogimo said...

Say, are you one of those people who believes a generalization cannot be valid?

Feedback is fine, and appreciated. But how useful is it to pass judgment on an otherwise-valid generalization on the grounds that it fails to provide solutions to individual extreme examples? That's not what generalities are for.

There is at least a simple majority of people out there for whom the horrific extremes do not apply. Yet too many of these nevertheless walk eyes-open into what is quite commonly called a "loveless marriage" (not my term). They do that because - I don't know why. Because it doesn't occur to them how bad a move that is probably going to be for both partners, in the long term? Because they think they just don't like sex (until they meet the person that makes them realize they could, and everything turns all tragical and agonized)? Because they think they are being self-sacrificing? But it is not a self-sacrifice, simple and clean – because the sacrificer is not only sacrificing self. They are sacrificing and short-changing their partner.

It is these people, the majority of people, for whom I generalize. Even if it is not as extreme as your examples, the problem I address directly is a real one. Our nation's prudish dismissal of the importance of sex to a long-lasting love relationship is poisonous and destructive. The depth to which its importance is dismissed leads people into bad decisions - even leads them into believing bad decisions to be virtuous. When there's nothing wrong with sex! Raising the awareness on how natural the enjoyment of sex is, how important it can be to making a lifelong love work, and how it is something that most people are capable of appreciating, would in itself be a solution to a very big problem. Raising that awareness would help people avoid the problem of horrific mundanes, if not those of horrific extremes.

I'm sorry that it cannot also be a solution to rape, incest and alienation, but I think that's a bit much to expect from even the most valid generality.

I'm not saying and have never said that a largely sexless marriage cannot be valid. But it seems to me that a great many of them proceed in increasing dissatisfaction and angst, and many end in heartbreak and regret. It is a very common component of the end that one or the other partner finds someone with whom there is an undeniable chemistry. As if that ought to be a surprise! As I said above – sexual attraction is very strongly built into us. Even if one believes that one will never find a better partner than the one we have no sexual spark with, does one really believe that the one we love has no better shot at happiness, with someone more compatible? Shall we talk of sacrifice? Shall we sacrifice each other to the belief that neither of us is going to be able to do any better?

Even if that ended up to be true, is that really the kind of sacrifice that love calls for?

dogimo said...

A couple overs & unders:

1.A. All of the points made above are made to address a broad flaw in the way society looks at sex & marriage. As sex-obsessed as our culture is, the segments of society that most value and extol marriage often do their level best to shush the sex right out of it, to denigrate and minimize the important contribution that sex can make, to a love that lasts. And why? For what?

1.B. That's quite enough a point to tackle, I hope. Again I stress, none of the points made above are made to address the specific situation of any individual. It would be ridiculously fatuous and simplistic of me to think I could address the complex lives of anyone out there in such a shotgun-blast fashion. That's not my goal. No matter how good social criticm is, it is not advice and doesn't even intend to be. Even the most perceptive and on-target social critic (which I'm assuredly not) is hardly thereby qualified to be personal therapist.

2. "to do any better" - this "better" doesn't mean a better person. Just a better fit. If we truly love someone, we want them to be with someone with whom they have a chance of happiness. Two people who are both wonderful and good people can still be a bad fit, together - and for any number of reasons, not just sex. Love doesn't call us to ignore all common sense and compatibility, and bind ourselves recklessly each to each other in a heroic pledge of endurance, a surge of sheer self-will set against the mutual misery such togetherness will reap.

Anonymous said...

That is ALL well and good but...I missed your answer.

What would you suggest? Either way leads to hurt. No win. Two wrongs don't make a right. But...I agree with you. :)

dogimo said...

My advice would be to be honest about your mistakes, honest about what you want, and to listen to the advice of those near and dear to you - consider their advice with an open mind and heart, and be willing to let it challenge your conclusions (otherwise, why ask for advice?). But in the final crunch, don't prefer the advice of others to what your heart tells you.

I'm sorry, but I'm not able to give more specific advice than that to you. The extreme difficulty of these situations, and the impossibility of advising or divining the right way to manage them once they are underway, is one BIG reason why I'm advocating more up-front awareness of the problem.

That's not much help to you, I know.

Anonymous said...

Actually, you've been a good sport about the whole thing. Especially since these are just one offs for you.

And, I've known what I'm doing for a while now. I'm not settling. You're right; it's a cheat & betrayal.

Like I said, thought provoking.

Thanks, for everything. :)

dogimo said...

You're welcome. I do my best in the comments section to answer any questions raised by the post.

That is, unless the question is just goofy! Some people like to goof around, and that's perfectly apropos.