When is "just sex", just enough, or is ending it a must?
In 2015, there is a mass of people who continue to romanticize the institution of marriage and believe that "love" has the mystical powers they need to complete the purpose for their lives. Of course, this is a predominantly Western notion. All around the world, this marker in life is part of an innate caste system ingrained in cultures which possess one another, trade for one another, pay for one another. And not in the Western sense of traditional prostitution.
These cultures provide women with a limited number of options. Marry, usually as part of some sort of preplanned familial bartering; defiance, leading to what we know as traditional prostitution, which comes with a whole array of violent benefits, up to, and including death; spinsterhood, ahh, the assumed lesbian, my personal favorite, a woman who has shown enough smarts to both gain an education and know to use it only in women's work and keep herself quiet; and the lucky ones, those birthed to progressive fathers allowing their daughters to gain a non-traditional education that they may use, though they are still expected to marry.
Now, why did I feel the need to point any of this out? Because SEX HAS NEVER BEEN AN OPTION FOR WOMEN!!! An expectation, an act of violence, a source of intimidation and control, but never something a woman would choose as a source of pleasure that would fit into her lifestyle. Oh it is exciting times in which we live!
So what has changed? For the past 30-40+ years, women have fought hard to make this very idea a reality. Women have always been fighting for something, but the sexual revolution is close to our generation's heart more than any other. Based on the unrest of women who fought and worked in men's work during the war, women created an independent reality for us, that we may be our own person! One who is depending solely upon ourselves. We no longer had to have fathers pay another family to take us off his hands in order to breed heirs for their business partner. We no longer had to prostitute ourselves if we chose a life without a traditional family. We no longer had to be assumed closeted lesbians because we chose to work! (Though I can assure you, with witnesses, this still happens)!
And sex fits into this where? Basically, the concepts of traditional Western relationships we have grown to know and follow, no longer have a place in our neo-progressive society. Women work full time. Women work full time and pay their own bills. Women work full time, pay their own bills and raise children. Women work full time, pay their own bills, raise children, and have lives outside of the home, (essentially they're called hobbies and men have had them from the dawn of time)! But, at the end of the day (sometimes) it is hard to deny that a connection, an intimate connection, to another person, is something we often want.
Then if we take traditionalism off the table, what do we require of one another? Respect? Always. Honesty? Was that a real question? Integrity? There it is...this is where the water muddies and people start losing their grasp on a successful sexual arrangement. If you have chosen to have a non-traditional arrangement with someone, integrity is of the utmost importance. A sexual relationship assumes the notion that deeply personal aspects of our lives are offlimits. We don't talk past. We don't talk numbers. We don't talk money. And we don't ask, "where were you last night." But, for the sake of integrity (FYI, Google has a free dictionary service for those of you struggling with this particular term), Honor, with a capital H, your sexual counterpart with a sense of purity, oneness, awe, and even magic. Don't be dishonest. If it isn't magical on some level, then bail. If you are not in awe of something about her, then peace out. If, when you two are together, you are not in the moment, your mind is somewhere else, you can't devote yourself to her solely, then, well, you found your way in, you can find your way out. And most importantly, if you cannot purely, honestly, openly, respectfully, ONLY arrange yourself sexually for her, then get your condom on and go knock on the door of the side chick for whom you can. It's that simple.
You don't have to say, I won't find someone else one day. You don't have to stop looking. This isn't a protest for commitment. This is a declaration, a demand, for respecting a woman down to the choices to which you are subjecting her physical, living body. These are life and death choices in 2015. We all know that. Make them count.
Having declared my personal affinity for the non traditional, let me say that I understand the names you call me in your head. Hell I've been called them to my face. But I speak my beliefs and I know my truths. I've been called a bitch, man-hater, closeted lesbian, and heaven forbid a feminist. I take no offense. Sex can be fantastic. And people are immensely busy. Depriving oneself of something pleasantly natural becomes an absurdity.
It's just not that hard to manage. If you listen with an open mind, you will see my truths as well. Be aware of what you want. Ask for it. Find a dynamic that works for you. Pay attention to the ways the world tries to maintain its balance of power in the favor of others. But above all else, and this is the easy part, Never, in marriage, dating, prostitution, lesbianism, feminism, nontraditional sexual arrangements, Ever, Ever, allow yourself to be disrespected, dishonored, or the subject of a lack of integrity on the part of another person.
As I finalize my thoughts today, the utterly fantastic remake by Grace, "You Don't Own Me," plays over my earbuds. How quaint. We are no longer our fathers' currency. We are whomever we wish to become, on whatever day of the week. And yes, this is largely geared toward women, because, well I am a woman, and men have only been subjected to similar relationship inequalities on the minority front. Regardless, the concept is equal for everyone. Be honest and open about what you want, respect the person you are establishing a connection with, and provide integrity during the course of your arrangement. If not, then, peace out.
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