It feels weird turning up to work when fascism is on the rise. It certainly does for me, anyway. Why am I still posting porn? Who wants to wank when we’re scared about the people we love? Erik’s guest blog pitch couldn’t have come at a better time, when I’ve been wrestling with this question and feeling monstrously silly for continuing to do this horny little job even as I’m shaking with rage at the news. He’s here to talk about the power of horny feelings, and joy, and why we shouldn’t abandon sex in the time of fascism. I’m so very grateful to him for sharing this incredible post.
Sex in the time of fascism
I’ve lived in the UK most of my adult life, but I grew up in Minnesota. It’s just me here: all my family and lots of friends are back there.
Last week, Girl on the Net mused about how odd it felt to keep sex blogging amidst all the horrors and among other good points (showing up to work has value!), pointed out that she can be distracting if people want distractions.
I want distractions.
And not only is sex a distraction, it is in some ways the best one.
For me, it’s the best because it works most reliably. I’ve been thinking of horniness as intrusive thought. Indeed a special kind that can banish the other ones. Over the past few years I’ve developed tactics of originally welcoming and now even trying to induce horniness in myself to chase away intrusive/racing thoughts. It’s the one that works when nothing else does.
I think I learned this because orgasms are my last line of defence when my insomnia is really bad: if I don’t fall asleep immediately after a wank, I basically can just give up on sleeping that night at all.
I have an anxiety disorder that I have to manage with “lifestyle,” which means I have a weighted blanket and I need to go to the gym regularly or I get sullen and listless and miserable. But these things can sometimes feel like a poor substitute for better ways to lie on my bed with a comforting and soothing weight atop me, or to raise my heart rate and make me sweaty.
Counselling today was all about trying to make my body feel safer amidst all the horrors. My wise and lovely counsellor suggested things like getting people to spend time with me, gentle conversations about not-stressful things, and sensory stuff like scents or textures. She’s so wise. And, I’m such a horndog: it was not long at all before I thought ‘you know what’s a good way to spend time with people and feel loved and enjoy sensory textures and scents…?’
I still think about something I blogged almost 15 years ago, that happened at a vigil I attended:
“What do you think,” I saw a guy I recognize from local radio ask a nearby attendee, “about those people just over there having fun, while you’re here for this sombre event?”
The park is near busy streets, traffic, cafés and bars. It was a weekend afternoon, people were talking and laughing. Phones rang and buses zoomed by.
I couldn’t hear the response of the person being interviewed, but I immediately knew what mine would have been. We mourn death because life is so wonderful. Everybody should get the chance to talk and laugh like these people in the bars were doing. They don’t ruin our memorial but illustrate why we make it: we cherish life, normal everyday life that so many of us take for granted. If all this weren’t so sweet, we wouldn’t mourn those we can no longer share it with, who helped make it so good.
Of course it matters that people are suffering and dying, in Minneapolis and all over the world. Of course we shouldn’t be selfish or helpless in the face of that. But once I’ve donated a little more cash and disseminated today’s useful information and connected with my friends who are learning what all the different kinds of tear gas taste like… there are still hours left in the day.
I spend them than doing the kinds of things I wish everyone could do: I listen to the radio, walk a dog, eat pizza… and stuff like kissing and sexting and fucking should get to be on that list too.
Charles Dickens apparently said “Trifles make the sum of life” and I think he’s right. How we get through this thing called life is just one little thing after another: music, books, friends, sharing, food… But as well as these wholesome things others feel just as necessary to me: the warm heft of a body pressed against yours, the practiced fingers of a lover who knows just how to get you off, the fizzing excitement of the first time your skin touches a new person’s, someone who wants you as much as you want them…
There’s something about how consuming horniness can be, how it brushes away everything else in my brain and my body for a little bit and envelopes me in good brain chemicals.
The more difficult it is to find those moments, the more important they feel to me, and the gladder I am when they arrive.
