The Food Issue: February 2006 Archives
In the most important book I ever read about sex, Murray S. Davis's Smut: Erotic reality/obscene ideology, the author defines "lust" as an altered state of consciousness distinct from our everyday senses.
The book is about quite a lot more than that and if I can ever find my copy I'll write extensively about the other stuff, but for now let's say after reading the book I got a whole new perspective on what sex means in the social sense, and a whole new set of questions to ask whenever I notice one of my assumptions about sex bubbling up from my upbringing.
Yesterday was Valentine's Day. Today's a good day to talk about this because we've got 364 days before the next one. Anyway, I was thinking about how when Valentine's is working for you it's (traditionally) about three things.
1) By yourself: you select cards, presents, treats, what you're going to wear, what you want to do, what you want to say, where you're going to go. Often you'll be pushing a little load of hopes, fears, dreams, resentments, expectations, lessons learned, and so on. But you'll do almost all of this on your own. Any plans you make with someone else will be superficial to your inner dialog and your thoughts of the one you look forward (or at least hope) to being with.
2) Together: You get together, almost always just you together. People almost always eat together, just the two of you. My experience waiting tables years ago, and sitting at tables listening to people around me, says a lot gets said on Valentine's day that usually isn't said other times. This is often when we bring together and share the thoughts, the gifts, the dreams, the plans, the expectations, the hopes and fears we've collected all day. This is when we have our heart-to-hearts. (I'll get back to this in a moment, but first I want to add the final element of a traditional Valentine's Day...)
3) Together, but not exactly "together:" Often, though not by any means always, you may get together after dinner and fuck the living stuffing out of each other. When I say "not exactly 'together'" though I mean that while we're as physically close as two people can be during sex, we're also maddened with lust, fucking with abandon, star struck, articulating our feelings not with words but cries and murmers and with the urgent gestures of our bodies. In other words, we're in an altered state of consciousness distinct from our everyday senses.
(Depending on verve, libido, and other factors you may repeat #2 and #3 over the course of the evening.)
Now, romantic convention has it that sex is one of the most intimate acts between two people. I'm gonna say maybe it's the most vulnerable thing we can do, and maybe the most physical. But intimate? I say it's when you're head to head at a table for two. Sure, not just on Valentine's Day, and not even especially so. Breakfast the morning after is a good time too. Dates when you've gotten past the are-we-gonna-do-it stage too.
There are other genuinely intimate moments, of course. Long walks work wonders. Long drives together provide lots of opportunity of course. Murmering into the night after sex, or after sleeping in can be great too.
I don't want to sound like I'm confusing talking with intimacy, by the way. My insight years ago in restaurants wasn't just about that. It was about a presence, expression, and contact without the loss of clarity that comes (wonderfully! sweetly! But generally-inexpressibly!) with sex.
Fortunately (as I like to say) we don't have to choose one over the other. You can have a perfectly lovely life with one or the other. Having both however (even for a single evening, even if you part forever only hours later) just rocks.
Update: By the way, feel free to disagree completely. We might just disagree on the meaning of "intimacy" and there's never a problem with getting clarity on the big words we use all the time.
