I’ve often thought that sex and emotion do not have to co-exist. They can be mutually exclusive. We’ve all heard people say “having sex like a man”, meaning to be able to keep sex and emotion from colliding.
Let’s take the character Samantha in the show Sex and the City. She prided herself on being able to have sex like a man, and didn’t understand why her friends were always falling in love.
Later in the series we find that Samantha did have feelings about her lifestyle. In fact, she accused her friend Carrie of judging her when, in fact, she was judging herself. Her emotions may not have been those of love, but emotions did exist, not towards the men she dated, but towards herself.
Hmmm….
True, you can have really good sex with someone you don’t love, or even like for that matter, but does that mean that there are no feelings OF ANY KIND there?
Recently, I asked myself, “Can sex and emotion be separated?”. I started to go through some scenarios in my mind:
The player: Although he/she may not have feelings towards the person with whom they are having sex, there must be feelings there, right? Feelings about themselves or someone in their past (perhaps an emotionally absent parent or former lover). Maybe there are even feelings about the act afterwards.
The “down-low” man: If you ask him if he is gay, he would probably say, “hell no”. Okay, I can accept that he doesn’t have the ability to love a man romantically or have an emotionally intimate relationship with a man, but to be void of any feelings either upon entering into the act or afterwards, I find that hard to believe. In fact, he may even hate the GLBT community (and hate is an extremely strong emotion).
The person who just got out of a relationship and is looking to have some fun: The recipient of this person’s advances may not be getting any love, but the person on the rebound definitely has some feelings about the past relationship. Which is why he/she is just looking for fun.
The prostitute: Perhaps it is just a job, but can we really believe that there is no emotion under the surface? Maybe they hate the men/women they have to service. Maybe they hate themselves.
The rapist: The act of rape is FILLED with emotion, either towards the person being raped, or what that person represents in the rapist’s mind. Anger, powerlessness, helplessness…they all play a big role in rape.
The “drunk chick”: Ahh, we’ve all known one, that woman who has too much to drink and does whoever shows her some attention. I would bet money that there are emotions within, emotions which cause her to drink so much to begin with, coupled with feelings about what she’s done afterwards.
Ask yourself these questions:
- Do you think that sex and emotion can be truly separate?
- What role does love play in sex? Is the sex better with someone you have deep feelings for? Why or Why not?
- Why do we have sex? To perpetuate the population, express emotion, or because it feels physically good? Are the reason different today than earlier in our evolution?
Originally published in the September/October 2010 Issue of Black Twin Cities Magazine.
