Sidney McGill - HEALTHY SEX 101 Love is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. Thus I hear the Song of Songs. It speaks from lover to lover with whispers of intimacy, shouts of ecstasy and silences of consummation
- Phyllis Trible.
I FELT I had committed the unpardonable sin when I played the role of MC at a dinner where a prominent member of society and several well-known professionals were in attendance.
I gave a sex joke, one that I would have given a 'G' rating, that even my pastor would have been amused. The guests suddenly became uncomfortable yet they chuckled under their breaths. For them it was embarrassing talking about sex in public even in an intellectual way. It just wasn't the proper cultural thing to do.
Sex among social mammals however is public domain. It is carried out in the open before the gazes of their members. Dogs that will congregate in your back yard during mating season readily come to mind. It is a communal celebration of the act of procreation. Offspring will be added in a few months that will affect the dynamics of the community by competing for limited food resources and social status while adding strong genes for the continued survival of the species, to the adoration or envy of other less-endowed males. Sex for them is competitive: only the best is good enough.
Sexual intercourse between Homo sapiens on the other hand is a private and public matter. "This movement between the private and public invites all companions to enter a garden of delight," says Phyllis Trible. If love is 'flesh of my flesh' then it must not move into the public arena to protect the exclusivity of the committed union since inclusion of others in the love/sex relationship cheapens and violates the bonding, exposing it to STI's including HIV, jealousy, anger and distrust, and deep psyche problems that profoundly affect our character and ultimate destiny (the body, soul, spirit connection of sexuality). If sex is seen as only a body or physical phenomenon then it is casual, recreational sex, holding no obligations and open to public scrutiny as in the case of the mating season scenario.
Then there are the extremes: when human sex becomes too private, the whispers of intimacy are silenced and talking about sex with one's partner before or during intercourse is uncomfortable and neither partner knows what the other prefers. In some cases a sex partner could be touching uncomfortable erogenous areas for years or are unsure of when their partner has an orgasm during the sex act. They never would be caught dead talking during sex, it's just too embarrassing! Instead they deprive themselves of discovering heightened pleasure.
There are those too who are not only uncomfortable talking about the subject of sex but are afraid of their own sex fluids and treat it as excreta, washing or wiping their genitals with antiseptics.
But there are some who only talk about sex; it is the daily diet of those who do seek affirmation and respect from their peers for work well done, for the same reasons that many social animals do in non-verbal language. I remember while in 10th grade of high school I revered a classmate who often spoke about his weekend sexual exploits under a favourite almond tree. I was a virgin then and depended on my finely-tuned imagination to conjure up the scenes that Everton vividly created.
Years later, I reminded him about the fantastic stores he told and got the shock of my life. Most of his accounts were fictitious, the product of an overly-imaginative mind that gained admirers on the school grounds without working for it.
So much of what we feel and say or don't say about sex is controlled by what we believe from early childhood about ourselves and intimacy in our primary and significant relationships. Do women talk about their sexual experiences to together women or to their male friends? Yes, they do, but are more inclined to have 'silences of consummation'. Perhaps they are more human than us men!
Dr. Sidney McGill is a Marriage and Family Therapist.
