Zoe Strimpel

If only multiple partners were this easy.

At the Union this week I opined on the whys and wherefores of the “loss” of sexual meaning in today’s world. What I wrote was, in the end, a relatively conservative speech. It came down to a plea for intimacy unmediated by video clips of humping strangers. Porn=ruinous, hypersexuality=bad. I went deep into anti porn arguments, the proof of how porn seeps into our everyday psyches, numbing us and forcing performativity into our bedrooms when we yearn, or I believe somewhere inside of our lizard brains, yearn for some kind of naked authenticity.

I lambasted hypersexuality – as Ariel Levy puts it, the “hypersexual thumping” of our society. I lambasted sex without “meaning”.

But I didn’t define what the right amount of sexuality is, and thus what the right amount of sex might be, when or with whom, nor what the relationship between that right amount and meaning and finally, happiness, might be.

That’s because I honestly don’t know, though I wish I did. Clearly the answer would not be the same for everyone, though what’s right for everyone is never the stuff of personal conviction. And nothing is right for everyone.

So, what I want to know is: would “we” be happier if we only had sex in relationships? Some people do just that, after all. Is casual sex a male-priveliging construct masquerading as liberatory action for women, or is it really a happy outcome of the “sexual revolution” that women can take a quantitative as well as a qualitative approach, or an impulsive one at any rate?

The problem as I see it is on the level of the psyche and the way feelings of guilt, allegiance and desire for devotion (which we feel ought to be reciprocal) have been built into our psyches. Rationally, “each to their own” should be just fine. You should be able to see, date, flirt with, kiss, maybe even sleep with whoever you want. Nobody owns you. And you can do all of that (though modern sexual etiquette tells you all the partners need to know they’re not the only ones). So why the rub, the angst here? Well, we have this terminology – “I’m seeing other people”/”I’m sleeping with other people”/”I am dating other people” as if these are isolated, detachable activities, like rock-climbing or going to the movies. They aren’t, though. To me, the casual simultaneity of the modern dating system seems like a false friend, a fake sell. Because unlike a spot of chess playing in the park with a stranger, each of these flirtations/encounters goes somewhere. They become either wastes of time, disappointments or real attachments. Wastes of time and disappointments are easier to deal with in a way- they’re the (occasionally destructive) detritus of sexual freedom. But when more than one of these things becomes a real, or a potentially real attachment as surely they must, that simultaneity begins to feel evil. The true modern at ease in their skin is meant to pick the favourite and ditch the less promising contender. For those less at ease, that pesky psyche kicks in and begins mewling. Feelings of guilt, fear of disappointing the “loser” or of being disappointed/making the wrong choice, creep in. Put in rational terms, you’ve done nothing wrong. You haven’t explicitly lied and I repeat, you don’t belong to anyone. You have no duty. And yet your mewling psyche is suggesting you might have a sense of duty and so in creep the the feelings of guilt, confusion and fun-spoiling nonetheless. This jarring, between stern psyche and liberal cultural framework, is extremely uncomfortable.  Now, if I was using “liberal” here in an ironic or sarcastic way, the case would be closed: ignore the evil credos of modernity, hark back to pre-feminist ideals and off you go with your virtue and moral purity in tact. But that’s not what I’m saying. For I believe that this sexually liberal society is a rational, clever structure, far preferable to what came before in the death-by-childbirth, dowry-wrangling and virginity-for-sale days. It pushes for individualism, self-ownership and not answering to anyone. This is “freedom”, of course. So, by participating in, or working towards, a modern feminist society, one feels rather like one ought to be enacting these manifestations of freedom. 

But what precisely do I mean by the “freedom dictates” of our sexually liberal society? (NB these seem applicable mostly to a certain socio-economic class for whim marriage and more traditional structures are not necessary for getting by either socially or economically). I mean the confidence to have non-exclusive relationships, having multiple partners at once on whim and without guilt, being open about this state, ie that one is “seeing other people“, not muddling sex with “signs” of intimacy, that is, being able to do both without one necessarily impinging on or ruining the other, calling one’s constellation of partners ”lovers” and thus evoking some old bohemian notion of free love unfettered by even older notions of guilt and the religious horrors this suggests.

Now here are a few of the inconvenient and contradictory feelings that may arise for people living among these sorts of discourses: a consumer attitude towards men alongside a questing for “the one” who gets it all, ticks all boxes, gets me totally, loves me totally; greedy; stressed; deceitful, dissatisfied, critical, annoyed at potential wastage of opportunities, exploitative, demanding, numb, worried.

Capitalism is another system I basically respect (sorry ’bout that, Marxist friends). Consumerism is its handmaiden. Indeed, much has been written about the relationship between capitalism, consumerism and romance. But what has not been satisfactorily resolved to my knowledge is our society’s elision of consumption/gain/accrual of resources with the consumption/gain/accrual of bed post notches/relationships/dates. At this point I volunteer myself as your classic greedy person. I am full of appetites. I want more. I want everything – the problem is that “everything” is, literally, everything. It’s chocolate, it’s fun, it’s holidays, it’s romance, it’s experience, it’s this kind of night out and that kind of night out; it’s conversations, ideas-sharing, and I want more youth. But sticking with economic capitalism, if I have enough money, I can buy the goods I want. All of them. Affluence brings the luxury not of choice but of *not* having to choose. In fact, the particular form of satedness that comes from having lots of everything, that is, the satedness of gluttony.

So what happens when gluttony – the fair and just desserts (as it were) of capitalist enterprise – seeps into emotions, sex, love, and the trappings of all three? When men become pawns in a game (as women for centuries have been for men) of power and validation? When you want more of them, when you get more of them (as nobody’s stopping you), and on and on? Utter confusion. Dark stirrings. A sense of wrong-ness. If you are entirely unfettered, or “monogamish” as America’s GGG (Good, Giving, Game) community of modern relationship-havers calls it, then how can you not feel that the main event, the partner figure, is holding you back from other opportunities? That the other opportunities, since you’re permitting yourself to have them, don’t ruin your time with your main event? And what if it’s true – that you ARE being held back?

I don’t know the answer to these questions. I suspect wisdom is the field in which the answer lies. It does seem to me, though, that if our  Puritanical (or is it our Marxist) psyches moan loudly enough, we will be forced to consider that more is not always more. At least when it comes to what we want the most: more.

Porny? Yes. Erotic? Not really.

So this is the speech I gave last night at the Cambridge union in support of this proposition. I will warn you now that there is some STRONG LANGUAGE in here- part for the topic, really. What did I realise in writing this speech? I really am a second-waver (feminism). I know. Old school. Also: please remember it’s a little exaggerated- I can’t possibly think sex has lost all meaning for everyone all the time etc etc – this was something people in the chamber quibbled over. But oh well – you can’t take things too literally in life. Look forward to your views…

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A year or so ago I interviewed a group of women for my book about being a single female in the West today. In particular, I was interested in the effects of strings-free sex on women. My interviewees’ responses were instructive. Let’s start with Susan, 28. Sex – having lots of it – was her MO. As she told me, in terms of Sex and the City, she wishes she was Carrie but she’s more Samantha. To fulfil this persona, she doesn’t “personalise things”. “I am sensitive,” she clarified, “but I have a thicker skin when it comes to guys, because nothing has ever happened like I want it to and I learned that sex doesn’t make a guy like you. So I just keep going anyway, I have a slim figure and long brown hair so it’s easy to get them to sleep with me – I guess I’m not sure why I do it,” she added. I was curious about what this thicker skin “when it comes to guys” meant exactly. Susan clarified. “With sex, I don’t need to see their face. I don’t really want to see their face. It’s too…much.” I asked Millie, 24, if she could enjoy sex with someone she doesn’t like. “Depends on the sex,” she said. Then there was Mona, 29. Mona – beautifully groomed, intelligent, highly flirtatious – also fulfilled her duty as a modern single woman by giving sex the old college try. It wasn’t the numbers of men she slept with that caught my attention, but the anxiety and pleasurelessness with which she discussed her sex life. In the first place, Mona could not begin to rate the experience as a success if she failed to make the man come. In fact, his orgasm was to be obtained in any way possible – blow jobs that made her skull ache, enthusiastic performances and positioning, studied submissiveness – anything to, in her words, “get the job done”. When the job was done, did she then enjoy herself? “Sometimes,” she said. “But not really. It’s hard for it not to be a performance.” Did it help when the sex was “meaningful”? I asked. She sniggered. “I wouldn’t remember at this point!”

My argument tonight hinges on my conviction that sex is better when it involves intimacy beyond the thrusting of polished genitals and the expert use of luxe toys – and meaningless, and thus pointless, when it lacks that intimacy. I will argue that sex has been denatured, denuded, sanitised and commodified into a series of exchanges that are motivated more by the grim acquisitiveness of the umpteenth metallic orgasm than by anything like proper chemistry between two people. The engorgement of the global sex industry and the more general flood of sexual imperative flowing around us has turned copulation into a never-ending performance – a performance that’s all about short-term consumer satisfaction and display, rather than emotional or even intellectual eroticism. When Mona told me she couldn’t not perform, she spoke for the hordes of women today trying but failing to assume the powerful role in the sexual landscape of booty calls, fuckbuddy relationships and strings-free hook-ups. So much sex, so many tiring calculations, so little proper pleasure – and no, I don’t think a stash of Coco de Mer’s most expensive wooden cock rings or jade-engraved dildos in the bedside table is the missing ingredient, here.

I’m going to take my argument up a notch. Sex has not just lost its meaning. That would make it a neutral act. Sex has become something else, something with a negative energy. It has mutated into the plaything of strip club impresarios and online editors, who commission a grateful band of young women to go out, shag, and write about it in detail. Sex has morphed into a brand where sterile libidinousness and the agility of fake seduction pays big bucks. In other words, sex has become porn’s Mini Me. Thanks to porn, with its brutish nihilism, a dark energy has oozed into the libidos of millions – even as it helps them come more often. It oozes off popular sites like Gag Factor, Anal Suffering (advertising a new “suffering slut” in “agonizing anal pain every week”), and Fuck the Babysitter. It oozes off gonzo porn, off the spanking, open-handed slapping, and gagging that happen in 88 per cent of hetero-porn scenes. [source: Wosnitzer and Bridges, Aggression and Sexual Behaviour in Best-Selling Pornography, 2007]

I’m aware that any person speaking negatively of porn these days has to face accusations of being sex negative, some kind of hideous out of date fun-ruiner,  and hairy in all the wrong places. And, when she identifies as a feminist, she is seen to be letting down the side by viewing all women as helpless romantics unable to orgasm without a diamond on her finger and a house in the ‘burbs.  I’ll take that risk. Because porn is massive – worth around $96bn, 13,000 properly produced films released each year, 450m internet pages and a fast rising number of people reporting for porn addiction therapy – women as well as men. With such a tsunami of distended groins throbbing in the ether, it’s no wonder sex has become de-sensitised not just for us, but for the next generation too. How can it not? Boys are commencing their life’s sexual journey with lashings of gonzo on their iphones under the desks at school.  And even if you, or they, don’t tune into Gag the Babysitter daily, porn’s message is clear everywhere, in everything from the strip clubs both men and women frequent, to car ads to Superbowl half-time shows. The mainstream displays of perfected female sexual readiness and hot bulging men on billboards, TV ads and elsewhere are merely porn’s more tasteful backdrop.

Perhaps I’m being dramatic, you say. After all, people can compartmentalise – can separate real life sex from porn. But I would have to disagree. Because porn is in our brains and in our bodies – not just on our screens. I don’t know if anyone here remembers Duke University student Karen Owen, a prime example of how pornographic norms can be internalised to the detriment of sexual meaning, not to mention mental and physical wellbeing. In 2010 her “fuck list” went viral – this was a powerpoint presentation that ranked every member of the Duke lacrosse team that she slept with. What was notable about the fuck list was how awful the sex sounded – on every level. Mostly the guys would take her home when she was too wasted to resist, often she’d pass out. But when she didn’t, her analysis of their body parts was razor-sharp. It’s as if she carried a protractor and ruler with her to get accurate readings of their penises. Sex seemed partly about dimensions for Karen. The other part was about roughness. She described liking the bruises she often had the next day, of being barely able to walk – hard and fast was her watchword. The rougher they were with her, the more she felt it was a success. There was no mention of pleasure in any of her powerpoint slides, however – scorn for her ravagers was the main point. People loved it – Owen was hailed as a true woman of her era.

Another example of porn’s reach into “real life”. I was at a party the other month – a wedding party, in fact. A lawyer, a guy I remember from a few years ago being clear-eyed and upbeat, cornered me drunkenly. He wanted to tell me how he broke up with his long-term girlfriend and several after her because he stopped feeling anything. In particular, the sex. “I got bored of her pussy,” he told me. “And the next one’s”. I asked him why he thought that had happened. “Porn,” he said. “Porn has ruined sex for me,” he said, nearly in tears, his beer sloshing dangerously. This sorry encounter brought to my mind a bit of wisdom the feminist Naomi Wolf wrote in a New York Magazine article a little while back. It was a write-up of various interviews she had conducted with young men and women on college campuses about what porn had done for their relationships. “Mostly, when I ask about loneliness, a deep, sad silence descends on audiences of young men and young women alike,” wrote Wolf. “They know they are lonely together, even when conjoined, and that this imagery is a big part of that loneliness. What they don’t know is how to get out, how to find each other again erotically, face-to-face.” And that is because it is unbelievably hard to undo porn’s work.  As one woman I know put it: “I had to spend years undoing the work of the video clips my partner’s had in his head for a decade.”

Now, a debate about sexual meaninglessness would not be complete without some mention of pubic hair. And here I offer you this tidbit from porn scholar Gail Dines’s book Pornland. Dines is reporting on a lecture she gave to some students at “a large West Coast university” in spring 2008. The female students spoke openly about how they preferred a totally hairless pubic area because it made them feel “clean”, “well groomed” and “hot”. Fine. But when the conversation turned to their boyfriends’ preferences, things got distinctly less hot. Dines recalls that “the excitement in the room gave way to a subdued discussion of how some boyfriends had even refused to have sex with non-waxed girlfriends, saying they ‘looked gross’.” That’s right – gross. One student gave his girlfriend a waxing kit for Valentine’s Day (I hope none of you have done this) while another was overheard sneering to a friend about his girlfriend’s “hairy beaver”. When sexual appeal is about waxed vaginas above all else, I think it starts to become pretty clear that sex has lost a good deal, if not all, of its meaning.

To conclude, the hypersexuality of modern culture does not mean we’ve been sexually liberated. On the contrary, it is creating an ever-bigger void where the real thing, the human exchange of something other than just fluids, is meant to be. Without doubt, I’d rather be numbly hypersexual than stigmatised or restricted in my choices. I wouldn’t undo the sexual revolution. But we can do better. We should be carving out a sexual landscape in which it is considered neither uncool, regressive, anti-feminist nor Tory to value meaningful sex and to NOT value meaningless sex. Otherwise, we can look forward to a world of Karen Owen-style shagging with its bruises and its faceless brutes. Which is just such a waste.