In some respects, could we not say that the obsession with sex in our culture is in some measure an obsession with tension, and with the need to release it? Could we not say sex, at root, is about relaxation? About a release from tension, more specifically (as opposed to a deepening of a preexisting tendency for calm and rest)?
I was reading Salma Hayek’s story today, and it occurred to me that the life of Harvey Weinstein has been a continual pendulum between tension, rage and anger, and their temporary cessation through sex, and through the abuse of power to get that sex.
As I have said before, we ask far too much of sex. We ask far too much of single partners–of husbands, of wives, of lovers. We ask that they “complete us”. We have visions of a single person who will resolve all these tensions, all these confusions, all these inchoate rages (for many of us). We ask that they make the world right, when in reality, how can they? Confusion about the future is inherent in our time. Far too much is going on, far too balls are bouncing around, for anyone to have any good guess about anything.
And to ask someone else to provide you the calm you need is to petition them to allow you to suck them dry. And some people will allow this. This is clearly true. Most forms of this we call codependence.
I like looking at naked women. It calms me down. I have some old Playboys I will take out and look at from time to time. And I do watch porn from time to time as well, although most of it I find gross. I even hit a strip club once a year or so.
But I find if I don’t allow my mind to confuse me about what my body truly needs, then listening deeply to great music is vastly better than using my wiles to seduce women I don’t truly plan to love or cherish. I used to be good at it, then I just stopped. I can’t justify it. And it never got me what I really needed. It was, in important respects, not just abusive, but stupid. Dumb, dumb, dumb. So many of us adopt behavior patterns that do nothing for us, but which we continue for lack of imagination, and lack of the courage to see the truth.
I have seen several commentators note the vast difference in sexual energy in India versus the United States. I have not been to India, but most Indians I know are pretty relaxed people. They invented yoga. They invented many forms of meditation. In the United States, on the other hand, we might not have invented obsessive work, but we certainly learned how to mass produce it.
Work and sex: could we not call those the idols of our present moment? Tension, and release, and nary a whiff of wisdom or genuine insight in the middle.