Tune In, Turn On, Hook Up

Christopher Ryan's piece below on hooking up begs the question, "why can't we have sex without intimacy"? Oh please! The word "intimacy" is so over used by therapists, authors and the society at large with no real under standing of what the word means. What is wrong with a sexual friendship? It sure as hell beats a committed monogamous marriage where the couple struggles to get it up for sex until they finally give up altogether. I'm so tired of all the cheap moralizing from people who's own sex lives are lived in shades of gray.

I played the commitment game until after I got divorced from a fairly sexless marriage. From the age of 36 on I indulged in delightful casual sex of America's Sexual Revolution. Today I look back on that period with love in my heart and gratitude for all the wonderful folks who shared sex with me. Those days were filled with some of the finest moments of intimacy I've every experienced.  Thank you Steve Otero for the link:

NPR (National Public Radio) recently joined the ever-growing list of media outlets and authors expressing confusion and poorly-veiled condemnation of what they call the "culture of hooking up" a.k.a. "sex without intimacy." According to these no-doubt middle-aged sources, intimacy-free sex is sweeping the nation.

Reminds me of someone's line (can't remember who said it): "Sluts are just people who have more sex than you do."

I think we betray our biases by concluding that this is necessarily sadder, more lonely, or in any way inferior to what it replaces.

First off, it's the journalists who claim there is no intimacy. The people they interview, by and large, simply describe these relationships as being sexual friendships. These are not glory holes in a wall somewhere.

Secondly, there is nothing inherently contradictory between having a period of life marked by casual sex with various people followed later by a more settled sexual pattern dominated by just one or a few partners. In fact, this progression is common in most societies and is likely to result in more satisfying, stable marriages later on.

It seems to me that the major difference being described is the lack of "courtship" and "dating" which are, in essence, negotiations toward marriage. But if neither party is interested in marriage in the near future, why bother with the negotiations?

And if they're not negotiating a soon-to-be-consummated deal, what are they supposed to do, not have sex til their late twenties or early thirties? Hello?

Technorati Tags: Lifestyle hooking up monogamy Relationships sex without intimacy