I’m sure to have a couple of replies showing that this entry has been completely misunderstood. Oh well…
Many people I know, apparently, believe that sex is something that “reduces” or “lowers” people, that by sleeping with someone you are in some way “diminished”, and that the only way to compensate for that is by having sex be a part of something “greater”, like love or a relationship.
Note: I’m not referring to people who really only have sex as part of a relationship. Read on…
While such people are perfectly capable of having sex with someone because of physical attraction, they feel betrayed and “used” if the sex doesn’t turn into “something more”. It’s almost as if they had sex as a “bet” or as an “investment” - weird idea, I know -, and by having the sex remain “just sex”, it’s as if the bet was lost, as if the investment didn’t work out.
There’s a lot that could be said here, but my main questions are:
1- why do people really believe (even if they don’t put it in these terms) that sex diminishes people? I believe that sex between two consenting, mature adults, without being based on lies and deceit (“yeah, yeah, I love you, let’s do it now”), is nothing to be ashamed of, nothing “dirty”, nothing “immoral”. The people in question even seem to agree with me on this - I’m not talking about highly religious people who “want to save themselves for the wedding night” or who go around saying that “sex is immoral out of marriage”. They’re people who say that they don’t think “sex is bad”… but, still, they act like it was.
2- why do they feel “used” if the sex, which began as “just sex”, turns out, in the end, to be “just sex”?
3- if they really, truly, want sex only as part of “something more”, why do they have it without that “something more”?
Related posts:
Subscribe to this blog
Dumb (but appropriate) comparison: it’s like going to a store, buying an opaque box which says “bananas”. Then you go home, open it, it really contains bananas. “Damn, I was sure it had apples… I’ve been swindled! I’ll go to the store and complain!”
The question here is not that simplistic.
But since I don’t agree with you on the sex topic I’ll keep my thoughts to myself.
I’m such a person… I don’t know why it is…
It never annoyed me. I seek those who think the same, if i have sex with a woman it’s likely to be a woman who wants the relationship to be “something more” too.
Many people are like this. Because sex is something intimate… You only do it with someone you trust to some extent, etc… Nope? I think it’s normal to feel “used”(?) if in the end it turns out to have been just sex and nothing more…
I think YOU are a weirdo!
And people like you… You are missing a lot. The intimacy, hope. The feeling that it’s something special; important. That it can become a relationship for life…
You are just a machine.
Thanks for the comment. But aren’t you assuming a lot?
Did I talk about me at all? Or did I defend sex as ‘just sex’ as being better than sex as part of ’something more’?
Nope.
What I said was that sex by itself, IMO, is not ‘dirty’, and doesn’t make one a worse person. And I think it’s weird to be OK with ‘just sex’ at first, and when the other person doesn’t fall head over heels for you, you feel used and hate him or her.
But maybe it’s me who is the weird one…
You are entitled to our opinions, oh most glorious anonymous one. I’d like to have name to pray to, but you’re just ->above
(bloody hell! my reply was bigger than that, damn that BBcode!!)
I guess a lot depends on how you develop - the association we’re taught between sex and attachment. Whether you’re the kind of person who can keep them well apart or the kind who can’t, your only responsibility is to make sure the other party understands that. If you don’t, then you’re basically taking something under false pretences - and you’re no better than any other kind of confidence trickster; whether you’re promising eternal love to get a one-night stand, or offering a one-stand with a view to acquiring eternal love.
If you go against your own core belief, however, you shouldn’t be too surprised to find yourself feeling “diminished”, “lowered” or “reduced”. After all: you’ve just gone against one of your own principles, so they seems a pretty appropriate responses, doesn’t it?
I have always believed that sex was more than just ameaningless act. that if you decided to have sex with someone, it should be with someone you loved. I believed in a certain level of trust that cold only be achieved between two people who truly loved each other.
People wind up feeling used when they try but don’t really believe that sex is just physical, as pop culture would have one believe. If two people who engage in casual sex truly understand and accept it as casual, then they wouldn’t feel diminished. One might then conclude that under those circumstances promiscuity is healthy. But I fear believing sex to be something so superficial may lead to a more superficial identity in general.
You make a very good point!
There is an inherent flaw in leyna’s analysis. Basically, leyna is saying that if you don’t value property A, and treat property A superficially, then you have a superficial identity. How someone values property A is subjective and it is self-righteous to claim someone else’s subjective view/value as superficial just because they don’t also hold the same value as you do.
Leyna places a high value on sex, therefore leyna should seek like minded folks. However, for those who don’t value sex the same as leyna do not imply that they have a superficial identity or that they would develop one.
Humans don’t function on a linear trajectory. A thoughtful analysis/observation of humans reveals the paradoxical and non-linear paths that humans follow.
Most people still hold onto the values of marriage and sex is so intimate an act that especially women want it to lead to something more. Duh!