Generally LGBT Left
So is it all about sex or not?Last week in my writing critique group I read a friend’s story called “An Atheist Girl Marries Outside the Faith.” The premise, as the title suggests, is that a young woman from an atheist family is engaged to a young Mormon man. Apart from her father’s other objections to her marrying a Mormon, the primary conflict is over whether to have sex before marriage. She has slept with previous boyfriends and feels it’s important to test out sexual compatibility before making a lifelong commitment, but while her fiance is fairly open-minded, he holds firmly to his belief that sex comes only after marriage. Ingrid asks:
So what happens when we, me and you, have been married six months and I finally got you trained but we’ve realized we’re dead in the sack? There’s no magic. What happens then? We’re either stuck together, us and our lousy sex, or we go back on our promises. Those are bad options, Orson.
She argues that he’s being selfish to withhold this one thing from her, and he argues that sex is meant to be this wonderful, spiritual experience and can only be so after two souls are unified in marriage.
I’m sure we could have an interesting discussion about the merits and drawbacks of premarital sex here, but I’d rather save that for another time. What I’m interested in is the importance of sex. Although my friend does a great job of presenting both characters’ arguments convincingly, I was left wondering afterward what the big deal was. Is sex really the magical, life-changing thing that Orson sees it as? Is it rational for Ingrid to insist on it being a deal-breaker in an otherwise great relationship? I realized, though, as I asked these questions, that they reflect more about me than about the story or the characters. I won’t blame my issues with sex on my Mormon upbringing because my wife was raised Mormon and taught that sex is a fantastic, spiritual, fun, and often funny part of marriage. I, on the other hand, grew up believing that sex is a good thing, yes, but much less important than other, less body-oriented things. I suspect this attitude comes from my mom’s attitude toward sex, but acknowledging that doesn’t change the fact that I have a strong tendency to downplay the importance of sex and even to see any inclination that values sex as something to be ashamed of.
I think this is a particularly interesting question in the context of the LGBT community. On the one hand I see a desire to downplay the importance of sex so as not to be seen as perverts–to counteract the accusations that gay rights all boil down to validating “pig sex“–but on the other I see a desire to distance ourselves from the Puritanical prudishness of our opponents by celebrating sex. How can we argue the importance of sexuality, after all, without first acknowledging the importance of sex?
So I’m curious to hear your thoughts, Isocrat readers. How important is sex? Would bad sex be a relationship deal-breaker? If you removed sexual intercourse from the equation would sexual orientation still matter to you? What aspects of a relationship are more important to you than sex? Which are less important?
2 responses so far ↓
1 Scot // May 12, 2009 at 9:17 am
I do usually try to be shy on this topic :-), but I agree it’s an interesting and important one for the GLB and T’s. Whgat follows, I want to stress, is how I experience it and I’m sure others do differently and I do not mean to generalize into the lives of others… too much :-).
“How important is sex?”
I think that all depends on who you ask. There are people with zero sex drive, and yet some of them still have a desire to couple with a man or a woman. As I often say, to me, sex is the penny in the currency of a relationship: the shiny copper catches the eye, but each instance of it is tiny compared to other aspects of pair bonding and orientation. It’s nothing compared to, say, wedding vows or the joint work of building a home together.
“Would bad sex be a relationship deal-breaker?”
Bad sex? Hey, a penny saved is a penny earned ;-).
Again, I’m sure this is so very subjective, but to me, like currency, sex is a tool, a means to an end, and I think trouble happens on both sides of the gay debate when it’s seen as an end.
It’s one of the tools used to strengthen human pair bonding, and research is putting together even the way it chemically works to that end in our minds. As long as you can get from point A to point… um… O with your partner, and you feel that rush of signals through the brain, then that benefit of sex should follow.
As a means to an end, there is no bad sex, just more or less effective sex as a tool of building a union.
I think a lot of people experience that rush as an aim, though, gay and straight, and the pleasure of it makes that understandable. In the past particularly, many gays would just take what they could get, even if it were only pennies. Many couldn’t afford the more valuable aspects of their orientation because it would be too conspicuous in a culture that might even arrest them.
“If you removed sexual intercourse from the equation would sexual orientation still matter to you?”
Personally, yes. I came out at 15 and didn’t have sex until after I met Rob, at 18 or 19, but was gay the whole time :-). Again, it’s something used to build the relationship, but the aim of who you best pair bond with is decided by orientation. Orientation, for me, is a way to direct a person to that kind of love. Orientation decides that sense of rightness and purpose when you imagine all the aspects of pair bonding with someone for the rest of your life.
The same goes for the various aversion aspects to orientation. Dating girls, for me, felt wrong to the core, even before I knew what people did when they had sex, but it doesn’t for some men, even those who do prefer and end up with a same-sex partner.
Eh, I think I may have explained my view of it better here.
“What aspects of a relationship are more important to you than sex? Which are less important?”
Good Father > Good Husband > Good Lover > Good Cook > Good Speller
I figure, with age, we’ll all lose the ability to have sex some day, but that day we’ll want our spouse by our side more than ever.
2 Ben // May 12, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Yeah, I already knew that you’re even more of a sexual prude than I am, Scot.
You make an excellent point about sex being a means rather than an end. Looking at the question from that perspective is really helpful. Thanks for your thoughts.
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