First desire as a betrayal

(written by lawrence krubner, however indented passages are often quotes). You can contact lawrence at: lawrence@krubner.com, or follow me on Twitter.

Dan Savage, talking about our first desires. Interesting:

I think that a certain sex negativity is hard-wired into the human experience. When you’re told about sex before puberty you’re just appalled: Why would anyone do such a thing? And along comes puberty and the thing that you swore when you were 7 years old you would never do, ’cause that’s so gross, and before long, you’re drafted into this army that you never wanted to serve in. And I think that there’s always a bit of discomfort and alienation from your own body that goes on because in a way you experience it as a betrayal.

One of the things I like to say is that we’re told this lie when we’re children that one day we’re gonna grow up and have sex, when in reality one day we grow up and sex has us.

It can make it hard to talk about, because we’re all implicated and we’re all powerless in the face of our sexual desires and interests. Not in acting on them, we all have the ability to make our own choices and be sure that we’re acting consensually. But powerlessness in the face of desires existing within us. Our sexual interests, whether we’re talking about genders that people are attracted to, or even our kinks and what turns us on, in a way those are all assigned to us whether we like it or not. And that experience is always going to be a little alienating. It makes sex a little difficult for everyone to talk about.

Post external references

  1. 1
    https://www.vox.com/conversations/2017/8/3/16078980/dan-savage-trump-pence-abstinence-sex-education
Source