casual sex and consumerism

I met someone last weekend—someone who is smart (or well educated, at least), sexy, and … well, that’s all I know for now. She definitely perked my interests, but if she were to call me up right now and ask me to go to bed with her, I’d say no in a heartbeat. I might change my mind in the next few weeks or so, but for the time being I seem to have lost my interest in casual sex. In fact, I haven’t been interested in casual sex for about four years. For that matter, I’ve been less interested in sex overall. I’m sure that has something to do with the aging process (on the back side of thirty now) but I also think it involves my self-imposed exile from society—my deliberate withdrawal from the workforce and from popular culture and popular uses of power and appearances (to the degree that I’m able).

For one thing, my diet has changed. I’m no longer eating as much meat and I’m eating almost exclusively organic foods (but still tons of refined sugar). I’ve also decreased my work hours, my TV consumption, and sworn off pornography. In addition, I’ve made efforts to be more emotionally accessible, both to myself and to the people I care about, and to keep fewer secrets. I go hiking more often, I exercise, I meditate, I’m more politically active, and, in general, I take more risks. By that, I mean I try to act more on the things I believe in (or think I believe in), even when doing so might result in public shame or ridicule. All in all, these changes have made my life more fulfilling. Where my life hasn’t been enriched, though, is in the area of romance. Where that’s concerned, the last two years have probably been the worst of my life. I’ve dated maybe three women and I’ve only had one brief—and long distance—relationship.

Every one tells me that I’ll meet someone when I no longer care about meeting someone. But if that were true, I would never have been in a romantic relationship in my life. In fact, the ONLY times I get romantically involved are when I’m actively seeking a romantic relationship—when I go looking. Lately, though, I haven’t been looking at all. I’m “on the look”, you might say, but certainly not actively looking. The reason, I think, is that I’m happier—I’m less needy. And that might also explain why I haven’t been as interested in sex of late.

I’m also less interested in certain types of food since changing my diet, less interested in sports since I stopped watching ESPN, less concerned with making money since I decreased my work hours. The point I’m trying to make is that my decreased interest in casual sex isn’t a weakness; it isn’t a choice made for me and it isn’t a sign of my lack of manly virility or my fear of the opposite sex. It’s a healthy adaptation to circumstances. It may not be ‘normal’, but it isn’t unnatural, either. It’s a rational, positive, and willed response to consumer culture. Indeed, the only feasible way to affectively resist consumerism—to avoid being smothered by its dull perfunctory embrace—is to learn to do without—to do without excess food, excess energy, excess work, excess money, excess drugs, and excess sex. That’s what dropping out of our culture means—not participating in its consumption. And make no mistake about it, casual sex is an element of our culture, not a threat. Promiscuity may exist as an ideological prohibition, but as a practice it has never been scorned or seriously devalued, leastwise not for men, and especially not for men in positions of power. To characterize promiscuity as an act of liberation or revolt is no more than a bourgeoisie appeasement—a means of turning revolution into style.

Recently I read about a case of schizophrenia involving a Vietnamese man who had immigrated to the U.S. in the late sixties. The diagnosis was attributed to severe culture shock. Being ill at ease with American language and custom, the patient found himself reduced to a utility—“a mere category in another person’s system”. His relations with the opposite sex were particularly bewildering, because women, if accessible at all, didn’t treat him with the respect of a real man but as an exotic diversion. They didn’t take him seriously because he hadn’t been able to adapt to the environment he and they coexisted in—and he wasn’t thereby integrated into the same social reality. As a result, sex for the patient became a “segregated, obsessive, detached and, in both reality and fantasy, autistic activity”.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that the precise definition of casual sex? Detached? Obsessive? Segregated? Autistic? Isn’t the unfamiliarity and anonymity of the casual sex act what distinguishes it from sex within a loving relationship? And if so, isn’t our whole society schizophrenic when it comes to sexual relations (even within most marriages)? I don’t know. I suppose you could argue that both forms of sexuality can co-exist, but to say that desire for more than intimate sex is unhealthy or abnormal seems a little like arguing that some measure of schizophrenia is a requirement for normalcy. And, in a certain very real and frightening sense, I suppose it is—in the same sense that consuming more McDonald’s cheeseburgers—or any food beyond what’s needed for survival or that’s detrimental to health—is a normal response to increased advertising. But it isn’t a requirement for happiness or masculinity. Being apart from society might make you lonely from time to time, but it doesn’t have to make you feel unhappy or inadequate.

Being unwilling, or maybe even unable, to indulge in casual sex doesn’t make me less satisfied with life. Nor do I think my declining interest in sex is related solely to the aging process. If I were in a loving relationship (which is not to be confused with a monogamous relationship), I’m sure the ‘quality’ of my sex life would rival any twenty year olds. For now, though, it’s possible that being a eunuch is the only way to preserve my sexual health and sanity within an insane world. One thing I’m certain of is that artificially altering my libido to conform to social expectations, while it might make me more popular and more desirable and more sexual, won’t make me any happier—too preoccupied and obsessed to realize my misery, maybe—but not any happier—nor any manlier, either.

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**Incidentally, I’m not condemning casual sex (I said I’m less interested not uninterested)—in the same sense that I wouldn’t condemn myself for eating a cookie made entirely of refined sugar and preservatives—like I just did. I’m merely challenging the societal attitude that equates casual sex and conquest—and which implies that quantity of sexual experience, irrespective of meaning and intimacy, determines your sexual value and degree of manliness. I’m not being a prude.

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There is a crisis facing sexuality. The signs are everywhere, from the saturation of public space by sexual imagery to the proliferation of Viagra. Quantity has replaced quality. The number of sexual experiences is now the criteria by which sexual fulfillment is judged, and casual sex invitations are everywhere. You can’t shop, eat, ride a bus, or see a movie without being exposed to it; as each day you are inundated with it to encourage your consumption of other products and services. Like the replacement of essential nutriment by junk food, casual sex lovers are expected to surrender real feeling and consume the phony McSex that can be more effectively controlled and used for profit than the genuine article.
A paraphrase of an article by Pete Seeger on music. (I replaced the allusions to music with sex to get this.)

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The competition for economized love changes us. We lose our spontaneity, our free and playful self-expression. It doesn't do to act as we truly feel. We must make ourselves desirable. If we are good-looking by cultural standards, we have a big advantage, for appearance is a major part of what makes a desirable sexual commodity. But there are other useful traits--strength, sexual prowess, "good taste," intelligence, sparkling wit. And, of course, knowledge of how to play the social-sexual games. The better actor wins at these games. Knowing how to put across the right image, knowing just what role to play in what situation--this will buy you economized love. But at the expense of losing yourself.
--Feral Faun