Sex is a way of being with another human being, which involves pleasurable physical contact. I suppose at higher levels, you BE sexually.
Sex is not a thing, but all of our language tends to reduce it to a process of possessing and consumption. I suppose much blame there must accrue to men, who do tend naturally to think of possessing women.
But you “have” sex, “get” laid, “get” lucky, you chase “sex”, you want “sex”. Even the phrase “sexual intercourse” is better than the expressions we tend to use. What men are describing is finding a woman sufficiently horny and/or trusting and/or loving that she will get naked with them and allow them into her body; knowing full well, I might add, that the man is most likely not going to make her feel emotionally well, even if he can contribute pleasurable physical feelings.
For many women, I think attention itself is almost as good as love. We live in a world where almost no one is fully present any more, any where. I was talking with a woman some years ago who had read and reread “Fifty Shades of Gray”–as many women seemingly did–and although I forget her exact words, the impression I had was that what attracted her was not particularly the weird stuff he did with her, but the fact that she was his sole-what?–object of attention. He was THERE, in the room with her. He was THINKING about her. She was, for a time, his world.
So many women feel unseen by the men in their lives. I guarantee my wife felt unseen by me. I didn’t know any better. Even though I am writing this, I am not completely sure I know better–which is to say would do better–NOW. They make up for it, mostly, of course, with their female friends. Still, they wish there were something they could do or say to bring him back to her, more often, and better.
And is not consuming porn really a much more efficient way of getting sex in a world infested with a Consumeristic mythos? I suppose it would be better if Amazon offered sex on demand (that’s not a suggestion Jeff, even where legal) from a Consumeristic standpoint, but logically that sort of thing is not far off. Sex robots are the logical apotheosis of getting and having sex. They actually ARE objects, who will do whatever you tell them to do, within their limits.
The day is coming, and most likely already here, when you can get your sex robot, program any porn you want, and have more or less literally bought “sex” from an object.
But when you love a woman deeply–I suppose–you are moving towards the spirit in her, and she to you, ideally. At its highest level, it is an almost intrinsically spiritual act.
When you own an object ardently, you are moving, yourself, towards being an object, are you not? To stasis? To a world where nothing changes as long as nothing breaks?
So many of us want to be puddles, when our destiny is and always has been to join the river. And I suppose in that metaphor it is not a question of forgetting who you are, but remembering.