The Changing Nature of Sex

I've been thinking alot about sex recently. Yes, I am a male. And no to your next question. More specifically, I've been thinking about how sex has changed for me over the years. It's been many things: a joke, a curiousity, a mystery, a goal, a game, a toy, a chore, a carrot, a stick, recreation, procreation, something wished for, something regretted.

I had been imparted with the standard sex education curriculum. I knew what all of the parts were called. I had a vague understanding of the mechanics of the activity. I knew about contraception and abstinence. And I had watched some R-rated movies and read dirty joke books. So I had all of the basic knowledge that would enable me to become sexually active, but sex itself remained a mystery. To give you an glimpse of how far off I was in my understanding, I didn't know that the female urethra and vagina weren't the same thing (after all a penis is a penis is a penis). Somehow, I thought that the vagina was located on the front of the pelvis rather than between the legs. Yup, I was the youngest of three brothers.

So up until I got to high school, my social skills and my appearance left something to be desired. But a combination of puberty, participation in sports, and some level of maturity turned me from an ugly duckling into a mildly repellant duckling. Then I met A and we started dating. A and I were the first boyfriend/girlfriend the other had had. At that point sex became less of a mystery and more of an achievable goal. Over a course of months, we progressed from first date to first kiss to ... first intercourse. The sort of steady progression of our physical relationship made sex seem like a goal - something we were working towards if you will. The emotional side of our relationship deepened as the physical side progressed, but I'd be hard pressed to call one chicken and the other egg.

But something odd happened once we got there. There wasn't anything to work toward really. There were other activities and other positions, but not really a sort of defining goal. At that point sex turned into a kind of game (See previous statement on gender). We enjoyed it. It was something that we did together. But the only real urgency came from mutual teenage lust. Eventually we broke up and then the game began anew. For the rest of high school and my college years, sex was more recreation than anything else. I had solid relationships, but none of them turned into a love connection.

I met my wife at work. She and I were assigned on a project together. I would go over to talk to her about various facets of the project and inevitably I would lose my train of thought while looking into her beautiful blue eyes. I'm sure (because she's since told me) that she thought I was sort of an idiot (now confirmed). But I was in deep smit. Eventually I asked her out on a real date instead of a group thing or a pseudo-date and we hit it off. Goal, game, recreation, check check check. But then we got married and suddenly it turned into procreation. I have to tell you that the first time we had sex when it might actually be productive was the oddest, coolest, most indescribably special sexual experience I can remember. The closest thing that I use to describe it would be the first time you sailed down the street on our bike without training wheels.

But as readers of this site would be aware, we looked behind us, realized that we were doing it on our own, and crashed. Infertility was not a fun experience. Sex on a schedule sounds great, but like the Baskin-robbins employees find out all the free ice cream you can eat loses its appeal after a while. I can only imagine what it was like for her. Sex was a chore that we needed to do together every night for a week once a month like clockwork. Then there came the hoping followed by the monthly flow. Rinse. Repeat.

Sex as a carrot and a stick is something that I'm becoming more familiar with now that I'm in a committed relationship. It's the carrot of romance. The carrot of flowers. The carrot of a loving relationship. It's the stick of "Don't pour water on me if you ever want to have sex again" comments. The stick of curbing your irritating habits.

Sex has been the source of some of my biggest regrets. Some of it has been buyer's remorse (for lack of a better term) over relationships and hook-ups that were at best ill-advised. Some of it has been for the emotional turmoil that has surrounded it. But in the end sex is the source of two of my greatest joys - one recently almost forgotten when it turned three years old, the other turned four months old yesterday. Both make me very happy.