While it’s perfectly possible to have rapturous and rapturously contented relations with any number of sexual partners, one at a time or in large groups, if you find yourself wondering why the partner or partners you have are never enough, here’s one of the clues that altered the way I thought about potential partners… which had till then meant pretty much anybody with two X chromosomes.
You can never get enough of what you don’t need.
Source: Not at all sure, actually.
The point being that if you use sex as a proxy for validation then you can never have enough.
There are, of course, countless other applications of that little aphorism, but in terms of sex, of the“pornification” of everything short of hemorrhoid cream advertisements, and, say, of the disaffection of men having (for instance) a “midlife crisis,” it explains mounds.
It’s not to say we don’t need sex and certainly doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it immensely. Exactly the opposite, actually.
The preceding has been a reflection on one of the consequences of men being indoctrinated to perceive themselves as the “sex class” inside the dominant paradigm that also assigns women to the “no-sex” class
Update: Terminology update: I’ve started referring to the two gender issues of worthiness and beauty as traps rather than myths, because I think it’s more descriptive and it puts the emphasis on what happens when we get stuck in them.
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Submitted by 1847 (not verified) on Mon, 2007-12-31 19:29.
You can never get enough of what you don't need....That reminds me of Seneca, in 40 AD or so, saying "nature's demands are limited, society's demands are boundless". I always thought that was a very perceptive observation.
[That is pretty similar, Ily. And in a way it's more to the point since, after all, where do we usually get the idea that we should try to get so much of what we don't need? Thanks! --fl]
Submitted by 1847 (not verified) on Mon, 2007-12-31 07:38.
This is a good point.
If I understand it correctly, it also follows from the nature of a manufactured desire.
If I am hungry, then I eat until I no longer feel hungry and then I have had "enough", and can stop. But if instead I eat for other reasons, then reaching "enough" will be dependent upon something unrelated to the fact of consuming food. By analogy to the "sex class" situation, this would be "Society tells me I am an eater, therefore to be good at being me, I must eat". As a comfort-eater myself, I am familiar with the concept of food standing in for something else, such as self-worth and self-value; and I'm familiar with the fact that it doesn't work (and is incredibly unhealthy).
The manufactured desire for sex is not created from any genuine need that men have, so there is no signal that will say "I am sated". Indeed, the "sex class" paradigm is so perverse that it instead impresses upon us that if a man ever does feel sated (e.g. the "cool man"), there must be something wrong with him (by my analogy to food, as though a man who ever said "I am not hungry", was regarded as a freak).
Another example from my personal psyche: I like shiny gadgets and electronic toys. But none of them really serves any need. I can never reach "enough" shiny fun gadgets because I already had "enough" to start with. I can only have "more". Thankfully, with this example there is no sense of urgency about acquiring more gadgets, otherwise it would be very expensive indeed. But it shows how the manufactured desire can operate.
["...if instead I eat for other reasons..." Exactly! The problem being that sometimes, if you're seeking sex for affirmation or status or some other something like that, then you can wind up in a sort of "well, if she said ok to me there must be something wrong with her..." cycle or, worse, decide that since having sex with person X was pleasurable but didn't actually increase your status then the problem is that you really need Y, or X and Y at the same time, or X and Y and Z. And the weird thing is that one could enjoy those pairings *if* one wasn't *using* those partners for something instead of, well, being *partners with them!* Thanks, SE! --fl]
Submitted by 1847 (not verified) on Mon, 2007-12-31 09:52.
This idea is really thought provoking. My dad had an affair when I was a teenager and this helps me understand it in a different way.
[Thanks, Mag! --fl]
Submitted by 1847 (not verified) on Sat, 2008-01-05 13:12.
I am convinced that your server troubles were just a convenient way to make me go meditate on the no-sex class paradigm for a few days rather than allow me to shoot my mouth (keyboard?) off. Validation-chasing has been addressed within the context of the SC by Style's famous essay "Are You a Social Robot?". If any others come to mind, I'll follow up on that. Style himself (to judge by his latest oeuvre, _Rules of the Game_) has a very high-running libido, but states pretty explicitly that many men's efforts (including his) outran any conceivable physical hunger and instead fed (rather than filled) psychosocial needs.
I don't much like Snowdrop's analogy, because I think it clouds categories of hunger/drives/needs. Except for Bunuel's _Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie_, in which a man retires to a WC-sized dining room alone, eating does not carry as many charged libidinal/ moral associations as sex. Also, as a person with a chronic illness affecting libido AND appetite, I find myself in a bizarre conjunction of factors: there are days when I have no desire for food or sex, desire for food but not sex, desire for sex but not food, and (oh happy day) desire for both. And society's pressures are different--passing up food is a personal decision, often linked to religious practices. There is a LOT to unpack here, and my categories are really scrambled.
I think "wanting to be wanted" is a factor in the social compulsiveness of the SC, although there very well may be bona-fide sex addicts among the Community. Normally, the discourse addresses those who get no validation and no sex because their approaches are marred by shivering nervousness and social pathology, a bit in the way some men preserve a sense of agency by street harassment. There's a lot to unpack there too.
[I know this is going to sound odd but I think the trick is to learn to separate raw libido from sex. As the SC guy says, one's *hunger* for sex can outstrip one's *need* for it and, for that matter, vice versa! In the latter case if one separates the two then one can fill in the gaps with masturbation (leaving him or herself less frantic for sex and thus more able to enjoy it.) In the former case if one separates the two then one can fill in the gaps with *other kinds of social affirmation* (leaving him or herself less frantic for sex and... once again more able to enjoy it!) But yeah, absolutely, while I'm actually completely sympathetic to the SC goals of increasing self-confidence, learning not to put potential partners off, and finding true love or something like it, I'm just not at all crazy that they chose to *use other people* as points, markers, goal-lines, or stepping stones in the pursuit of those things. I'm glad the time away worked for you, ES. Thanks! --fl]