Welcome to Sex and the State, a newsletter about power. I’m a writer working on decriminalizing and destigmatizing all things sex. I synthesize empirical evidence, stories, and personal experience to interrogate existing power structures to propose new, hopefully better, ways of relating.
My unsolicited advice from a middle-aged woman with 15 years more of life/love/loss experience: real love doesn’t need to be ‘bounded.’ It doesn’t have to look like what your parents had or the soccer moms that you worked with in your retail job. You can be your non-monogamous, kinky, messy self and be as loving as you want without “bounds”. When I stopped looking for this ideal person, it turned out to be someone in front of me waving their arms for years as my friend (and my former client when I was an escort!) They didn’t fit the look of who I believed I was compatible with, but over several years of friendship I grew to trust and took the leap. When you let go of notions of who you’re supposed to be and be with, they will fall into your lap.
This statement is the saddest thing that I have read in a very long time..."I sit here brokenhearted, without a partner (or any real prospects for primary or life partnership) and I wonder why I haven’t been able to make anything romantic work long-term."...Without giving any advice as to how to change it, I would just like to rail on the fact that society places a premium on monogamy that nature seems to shun at every turn...I had a lovely conversation with my acquired nephew recently about this. He is starting his first relationship with his partner...first sex (and she is a bit kinky)..First time away from home at college situation. He has been so wrapped up in the Judeo-Christian/Societal ethic of the sacredness of sex, and the sacrament of marriage, along with the damn near requirement of jealousy with in a relationship, that when I told him there was a different world...where cheating meant that you lied or dissembled to your partner, and it didn't precisely mean putting his wiener into someone else, that you could be in a relationship where everyone involved got to have multiple partners together or separately that DID NOT detract from the love that you felt to one another (or others). That sex was not a sacred act between only 2 people and could take any flavor you chose, without fear of condemnation. I hope I opened his mind just a bit...But I would love to see a world where this view of nonsacred Sex, lack of jealousy, and the idea of marriage between 2 people (and specifically between a man and a woman) being NOT the only way forward..Where some level of polyamory and loving without label were just as centered as the current paradigm was accepted and celebrated...
Well said, much food for thought; reminds me of some lyrics from Grateful Dead's Truckin:
"You're sick of hangin around and you'd like to travel;
Get tired of travelin and you want to settle down.
...
Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip its been". [Amen to that]
Likewise Nietzsche though Wikipedia says it's from Kipling:
“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”
Grass is greener, "different strokes" and all that. 🙂
Fortunately, or not, we're not all as identical as peas in a pod - some people are more suited to keeping the hearth fires burning, and some more suited for standing on the barricades; both are necessary. Though it helps to challenge ourselves now and again. Somewhat apropos of the latter, you might enjoy or derive some encouragement from my Medium essay on Wikipedia's Lysenkoism:
My unsolicited advice from a middle-aged woman with 15 years more of life/love/loss experience: real love doesn’t need to be ‘bounded.’ It doesn’t have to look like what your parents had or the soccer moms that you worked with in your retail job. You can be your non-monogamous, kinky, messy self and be as loving as you want without “bounds”. When I stopped looking for this ideal person, it turned out to be someone in front of me waving their arms for years as my friend (and my former client when I was an escort!) They didn’t fit the look of who I believed I was compatible with, but over several years of friendship I grew to trust and took the leap. When you let go of notions of who you’re supposed to be and be with, they will fall into your lap.
This statement is the saddest thing that I have read in a very long time..."I sit here brokenhearted, without a partner (or any real prospects for primary or life partnership) and I wonder why I haven’t been able to make anything romantic work long-term."...Without giving any advice as to how to change it, I would just like to rail on the fact that society places a premium on monogamy that nature seems to shun at every turn...I had a lovely conversation with my acquired nephew recently about this. He is starting his first relationship with his partner...first sex (and she is a bit kinky)..First time away from home at college situation. He has been so wrapped up in the Judeo-Christian/Societal ethic of the sacredness of sex, and the sacrament of marriage, along with the damn near requirement of jealousy with in a relationship, that when I told him there was a different world...where cheating meant that you lied or dissembled to your partner, and it didn't precisely mean putting his wiener into someone else, that you could be in a relationship where everyone involved got to have multiple partners together or separately that DID NOT detract from the love that you felt to one another (or others). That sex was not a sacred act between only 2 people and could take any flavor you chose, without fear of condemnation. I hope I opened his mind just a bit...But I would love to see a world where this view of nonsacred Sex, lack of jealousy, and the idea of marriage between 2 people (and specifically between a man and a woman) being NOT the only way forward..Where some level of polyamory and loving without label were just as centered as the current paradigm was accepted and celebrated...
Well said, much food for thought; reminds me of some lyrics from Grateful Dead's Truckin:
"You're sick of hangin around and you'd like to travel;
Get tired of travelin and you want to settle down.
...
Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip its been". [Amen to that]
Likewise Nietzsche though Wikipedia says it's from Kipling:
“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”
Grass is greener, "different strokes" and all that. 🙂
Fortunately, or not, we're not all as identical as peas in a pod - some people are more suited to keeping the hearth fires burning, and some more suited for standing on the barricades; both are necessary. Though it helps to challenge ourselves now and again. Somewhat apropos of the latter, you might enjoy or derive some encouragement from my Medium essay on Wikipedia's Lysenkoism:
https://medium.com/@steersmann/wikipedias-lysenkoism-410901a22da2