There is a certain disturbing truth about casual sex that is being
kept very quiet. I want to introduce myself to this web site, and to
you, by making that truth public immediately.
It is this: Casual sex is as near to 'authentic' and 'real' as sex can get. All other forms of sex are imitations of casual sex.
This, of course, is contrary to popular belief. The conventional feeling
seems to be that 'real sex' is that which takes place between partners
who are familiar with each other, committed to each other, who have had
lots of practice having sex with each other.
People who uphold this view have, however, to deal with a couple of
problems. If this kind of sex is the 'real thing', why the prevalence of
masturbation and casual sex as practices? These practices, when played
out by people who are in apparently happy, stable relationships, are the
source of a good deal of distress to proponents of the conventional
view, who feel 'cheated on' and are ardent in their failure to
understand how something so 'cold' and 'arbitrary' could be 'better'
than what is being offered at home.
There are not many explanations offered by adulterers and other infidels
for the appeal of these practices. The most that is said is something
about 'variety' and 'novelty' being a desirable and even necessary
feature of a 'live' sex life. And, moreover, the infidel has to deal
with a problem posed by the aggrieved partner: if married sex is
'boring' and 'samey', how is it possible for those hurt partners to
maintain their own interest in marital sex? How do they manage to stay
enthusiastic about it? This may often be a complete mystery to the
infidel.
A possible answer suggests itself through theories of desire as a
'lack'. Taking the second question first, the reason that aggrieved
husbands and wives manage to stay interested in marital sex is precisely
because the infidel has lost interest in them. The possibility of
wholehearted sexual union has evaporated, and so the conditions are
created for the faithful partner to ongoing experience desire - in the
form of sexual hunger, an absence - for their infidelitous partner.
However, for the infidelitous partner, what started out as desire, in
the early stages of the sexual relationship when the couple were still
strangers to one another, was long ago fulfilled. Hunger satiated is
hunger no more. In giving themselves to their partner, the faithful
partners inadvertently extinguish the infidelitous partners' desire. The
infidelitous partner, once satisfied, withdraws, and so desire is
re-stimulated and maintained in the faithful. For the faithful partner,
then, marital sex IS casual sex, in the sense that they are doing it
with someone who is (once again) unknown to them, i.e. absent.
The answer to the first question now becomes apparent. Since the
possibility of desire for the faithful partner has been extinguished,
the sexually interested man or woman must look outside that relationship
for new partners who are relatively unknown to them. These infidelitous
relationships, because they typically feature people who do not know
each other well and who are not committed to each other through
emotional or domestic bonds, are both absent to each other and hence may
experience desire for each other simultaneously - at least for a short
while. This is what makes extramarital sex so exciting, particularly
when both infidels are married.
The long-term prognosis for an extramarital relationship will also
depend on each party's marital status. For example, a happy outlook may
particularly characterize those extramarital relationships in which
both parties are married. This is because when they are both married
the fact of their dual married status makes them perpetually unavailable
(absent) to each other, and so mutual desire can be sustained over
time, even past the obstacles of knowing each other well, sheer
repetition of the sexual act, etc, that can seem to destroy the pleasure
of marital sex. When the third party is single, a different outcome may
prevail. On the one hand, it may be the case that the married status of
the infidel is sufficient to keep them both perpetually absent.
However, on the other hand, a 'problem' for the infidel of relationships
with an unmarried third party is the possibility that the single person
will fall in love with them. The married status of the infidel creates
ideal circumstances for this to happen to the single third party.
However, for the infidel, the fact of his or her own unavailability or
absence may not be sufficient to keep them from feeling that the
extramarital relationship has turned into another marriage. The single
third party who has fallen in love with his married lover has (against
the 'rules' of infidelity) made himself over-available and 'present' and
the opportunity for desire on the part of the infidel is once again
extinguished.
Perhaps the most favorable prognosis for an infidel and a single third
party is when the third party loses interest in the infidel (not through
the simple satiation of desire but for some other reason - eg through
the suppression of sexual appetite with drugs, through an apparently
better offer from someone else, or whatever). The third party then
becomes absent to the infidel in the same way that the infidel is absent
to the faithful partner, and so desire - at least on the part of the
infidel - can be sustained.
Infidels who experience great desire for their lovers - especially
the 'absent' single lover - will know that masturbation and marital sex
become imitations of the 'casual' sex experienced in the extramarital
relationship.
Casual sex and 'serious' (marital) sex may share many of the same
conventions in terms of actual sexual practices - words uttered,
gestures performed. These words and gestures are assumed to have
something to do with 'love' and so when they are performed in the
context of casual sex, they look like a masquerade - an attempt to
recreate the 'authentic' experience of 'real' sex. But the notion that
these words and gestures have to do with love is a political notion,
emergent from a system of political thought about relationships that
dictates (eg) that affection arises from mutual knowledge and
familiarity, that sex is somehow the 'deepest' and 'closest' act that
can take place between two people who already have affiliative and
economic investments in one another. However, there is another
possibility (which is, of course, also political, but in a different
way). This possibility is that the words and gestures of sexual practice
have to do with desire - with searching, hungering, needing - in short,
with the pursuit of something that is not there (whether not yet there,
or withdrawn). If this is the case - if conventional sexual
practices have to do with desire and not love, then when they are
performed in the context of a marriage or other 'stable, loving'
relationship, they look like a masquerade - an attempt to recreate the
more authentic experience of 'casual' sex.
There is some corroboration for this thesis in the observation that, on
the whole, people's sexual fantasies do not seem to be fantasies about
familiarity and emotional commitment. They do not involve the words 'I
love you' and they do not feature people running hand in hand through
fields of wild flowers. More often (if the psychological literature is
to be believed), they involve rape and other kinds of abuse, masked
strangers, animals, and all manner of characters and scenes that violate
conventional understandings of what real love (and real loving sex)
ought to look like. When it comes to fantasies used not in masturbation
but in marital sex, even the most faithful partners will admit to fantasizing about someone else - usually someone paradigmatically
unknown to them, such as celebrities - and the infidels will, of course, fantasize about their lovers.
Further support for the thesis that casual sex is the 'real thing' is
found in the techniques that married couples use to try and 'put the
romance back' into a routine sex life. Faced with the satiation of
desire on both sides, they begin to play outlandish games, adopt
different sexual roles, dress up in costumes that make them look like
children or prostitutes. This is entirely recognizable in terms of a
theory of desire - what they are doing is trying to make themselves
strangers - absences - to each other once again. However, in terms of a
traditional theory of love, these very usual practices are problematic.
According to the conventional wisdom about loving sex, there should be
no need to 'spice up your sex life' in the first place, and certainly no
need to do it in such a way that actively alienates the partners from
one another.
This problem may be dealt with and rationalized in terms of a loving
married couple becoming 'adventurous' together. A progressive,
up-the-mountain account may be produced in which the married couple is
depicted as going on a journey of discovery into the depths of each
other's sexuality, doing and learning things that are positively enabled
by their enduring familiarity with each other and the longevity of
their relationship and mutual commitment. This may be a comforting
thought to those anxious to hold on to traditional notions of love, but
it is not very plausible, given what I have already said about the
tendency of these practices to resemble and recreate alienating,
anonymous and even abusive sexual situations. What they are actually
doing is trying to re-stimulate desire by imitating casual sex. It is, of
course, no substitute for the real thing.
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