Within a society that has pushed copulation and lewd intent to the forefront of human connection, it is difficult to set aside the hots in pursuit of more tender play. Flippant winks, gentle pets, hand holding, and whispering warm nothings into left ears and curly kitchens of an absolute 10 out of 10 cannot suffice or seem to compare to the raw act they foreshadow, accompany, and become.

D.H. Lawrence mentions a concept called “the masterbating consciousness” when discussing the person and art of Paul Cézanne (Lawrence). This concept encompasses the reiteration of creation and the prostitution of omitted factors such as knowledge, genuine experience, truth, etc. The masturbating consciousness denies the whole for a more familiar and profitable outcome. In the context of modern society, the masturbating consciousness has taken advantage of the diminished novelty turned cliché of sexuality and the naked body, not only for '“empowerment” but for anticipated profit. Revenue is gained through the promotion of perceived physical satiation, where the repetition of novelty inevitably transforms it into something ordinary or shallow. Sex itself becomes ordinary or shallow. Nothing new or exciting presents itself under the sun from this perspective. Even different partners don’t reveal innovation simply because we are all viewing the same types of sex advertisement and the mind loves familiarity. The wrapping may be different, but that other guy said my name in a similar tone upon entrance into my home. In fact, he’s know for bringing nuts to the housewarmings. Though it is known that nuts are nutritious, they can be hard to crack and often leave your mouth dry and flecked with remnants you’d much rather spit than swallow.

The embodiment of influence into experience. My grievance is not solely on capital exchange. The provocative exploitation of sex hits right here, in bed. It has removed the soul, the love, the passion and intensity, and most of all, the anticipation of an activity with avenues for probing its splendid essence. Fun, sure. Pleasurable, I guess? Exciting, I can see that. Profitable, duh. Rarely impressive? Absolutely! You’d think that its advertisement would cause people to indulge in it not just physically or promiscuously, but emotionally, mentally, and as deeply as he tries to go. Instead, it has turned it into yet annother commodity. Hard and soft, with gutted innards. A mouthful of brown balloons, a fistful of hollow rods that fall slowly, hitting the ground with an ear-splitting clang clank tink clang tink cling vibrating hum. Something I should’ve used instead. Might as well a bath and body works spray bottle. That would suffice for the night, or feel more gratifying than performing a physical act with various emotional underpinnings, only to barely receive corporeal recompense for the sweaty muscles of a man’s cravings.

Short-lived “passion” joined with the illusion of intimacy, all for a bust I’ve yet to familiarize myself with. Beat sex into a pulp until the fiscal juice runs clear. Turn the once sacred, intimate and passionate act of love and fuck into a general cliche of “ugh that feels good” provocation. He’ll definitely call once I take a pic in these. Squeezing substance and ass cheeks between pleasure and profit. Who gives a fuck, as long as there’s still room to fit. Even though I cannot possibly guess how because you’re soooo big, bigger than all the space in my figure to fill. Bigger than desire, much less anything material. Matter, maybe, and its envelopments. Some meat with real meaning, perhaps.

I’ve always been an advocate for the significance of girth. Why have a studio with no dancers? No weight for influence and stuffing? A husk should surely have its corn within. Let me peel back the layers of foreskin like my morning banana, like the yellow onions I use for soup. Come swim in the velvet bath of me stew, simmering only with the whites of my eyes and rows of my teeth, still smiling at you from the bubbles between boil, hoping you’re one who bites down bone and sucks out marrow.

On the contrary, this cliche era of putting sex on display, the constant exposure to its acts, positions, moods, and imagined expressions has made them so ordinary that they contribute to the “masturbating consciousness,” where “the mind prostitutes the sensitive responsive body, and just forces reactions” (Lawrence).

So when the act actually happens to occur for a person who has had sex on display in their regular lives, the mind vanishes or maybe chooses to then remember what the sex is “supposed” to feel like. The body does what it is “supposed” to do based on the myriad of expressions that sex has been forced down your throat. It removes the raw, innate and primal urges, reactions, and sometimes unusual needs and elicitation in order to comply with the societal ideal of what sex “should” be, feel, do, and have.

These are the echoes of societal narratives repeated so relentlessly that we mistake them for truth. They feel natural, as though they are our own beliefs.

This is no different from juvenile males who take porn as a personal pastime and resort to viewing sex as performance rather than connection, prioritizing male pleasure, expecting constant orgasms or exaggerated reactions, expecting women to always be sexually available or enthusiastic, assuming women are comfortable with objectification or degradation, expecting specific grooming or appearance standards, and believing sex should always be effortless.

The same frustration women feel from men who hold unrealistic beliefs based on consistencies displayed throughout a wide range of pornography is the same frustration I am making clear here.

This process of understanding for the juvenile is no different from how all are being influenced today by the sexual imagery that is pervasive in advertising, entertainment, social media, and popular culture:

Sex should look effortless and perfect.
Physical appearance determines romantic success.
Validation comes from being desired.
Men should always initiate and pursue sex.
You should always be sexually active.
Sex sells because it reflects what everyone wants.
Desire is constant.
More sexual experience equals greater status (for men, at least).
Sex is essential to personal fulfillment.

While sex may be essential, this watered-down, aesthetic-farming, optics-led, egodystonic, freak contest version of it that has been adopted is simply not enough for me.

It does not couple well with my own consistent and varying urges, needs, and drives for what I know sex can/should be, feel, do, have, taste, touch, like, and love. Even with diminished expectations for fulfillment, I am left dissatisfied at the distaste of it all. If I had to sum up what sex has become in a single word, it would be that: distasteful.

Through little fault of our own, our natural and primal tendencies have been pushed so far into the unconscious that what society continually portrays comes to prevail, disenfranchising our true instincts, desires, and emotional nature.

Much like Cézanne, I wish for a shift away from our “present mode of mental-visual consciousness, the consciousness of mental concepts,” toward a mode of consciousness that is predominantly intuitive: an awareness of touch (Lawrence). Throughout history, mankind has often found ways to mistrust intuitive consciousness. Examples include the witch trials, where women with knowledge of healing, herbalism, or spiritual practices were frequently viewed with suspicion rather than respected as sources of wisdom; religious mystics who claimed direct experiences with the divine were silenced or punished; and traditional healers, whose practices were built on generations of observation and experience, were often dismissed by formal medical institutions. Dreams have also been interpreted as meaningless fantasies or symptoms of illness rather than possible sources of insight. Indigenous ceremonies, such as the Sun Dance, Ghost Dance, Potlatch, and Tamanawas dances, as well as healing traditions practiced by kahuna healers, have at various times been restricted, criminalized, or dismissed as superstition or “devil worship” by colonial and institutional authorities.

It’s no secret that human societies have usually shaped sexual behavior through customs, religion, laws, social expectations, etc. The main difference today is digital media. It exposes people to tens of thousands of sexual images before they have even developed mature emotional/mental foundations for interpreting them. This isn’t new, I’m just the one experiencing it now. Modern marketing has taken basic human instinct, intuition, drive, attraction, status, belonging, beauty, pleasure, etc. and turned them into products to be bought. A facilitation towards disconnection from self. Desires become shaped by external images and incentives rather than natural preference. And if you can’t already tell this doesn’t just happen around topics of sex. Media platforms reward attention, encouraging people to perform version of sexuality and identity that will receive validation. Real relationships get overlooked and criticized due to highly edited or dramatized versions of intimacy. Genuine feelings are pushed aside and away for emotional reactions that usually get publicly rewarded.

To make matters worse, it’s not even sexy. It’s like, fine, if you insist on shoving phalluses and puss and nipples and tongues and innuendos and ass and titties, omg, so much ass and titties, in my face, at least make that shit sexy. Don’t sell the horn without the dog, you know what I mean.

These body parts are not inherently sexual or sexy (ask some men, and they’ll tell you a different tale, but I digress). You cannot show me a cut pomegranate and expect me to want a finger up the ass simply because it’s juicy. No. There must be eroticism, arousal, stimulation, context, personality, desire, life, passion, meaning, and vitality, and it cannot, no it must not come simply from the nudity of a body. Sexiness involves the unknown: look, but don’t touch (yet); the unveiling, longing, desire. Sex and lust are easy, easy to have, easy to execute, but sexy? Sexy is inconvenience. It evokes necessity without convenience or ubiquitous fulfillment. Sexy is pressure without force, payment without withdrawal. It’s tasting and then being deprived a full plate, a missing piece to a completed puzzle. Sexy gives a lot while doing little. Sexy is sex (with contingencies).

Lol, now I just sound like the sex sheriff, the pussy police, the cum commissioner, the intention inspector, Executive Eros, a gigolo judge, Chief Cheeks, if you will, but I’m so deadass. It’s appealing, but I will now digress to avoid all of the “eye of the beholder” bullshit.

In all, the human body is a biological system primarily organized around maintaining function, regulation, and survival. As a functional and efficient body, nudity alone can only serve as shock factor. A spectacle. I mean, think about it: how would you feel if you saw a naked man lying on a bed in Mattress Firm with only bananas and whipped cream covering his penis? Not very sexy, huh? No, you’d probably call the police, curse him, or run as far away as you could in the opposite direction. So why is that any different from that same man with bananas and cream on a billboard telling you to go to Sam’s for the best organic fruit? Ahhh, he can’t get ya. “Let’s bring sexy back,” or whatever the fuck that white chick said. Do not assume I am a prude, conservative, or modest in any sort of way. All I’m saying is: if you’re going to sell sex, at least make it sexy. But even when sexiness enters the conversation, we cannot let advertisements and manufactured images become the blueprint for how we desire, connect, or experience intimacy. Bring into it innovation, passion, instinct, intuition, personhood, and everything else that keeps sex from becoming a performance.

P.S.

Or maybe I’m just a weird demi, sapio freak longing for a love, sex, and romance that feels unique and fulfilling to me. Maybe I’m speaking to the wrong people (most likely). Maybe I’m just so fed up with watered-down versions of what someone else has decided is sexy and lust-worthy that I’m taking it out on poor capitalism.

Aww, there, there, capitalism. Surely you’ll find new ways to thoughtfully rob us of our minimum wage by taking advantage of the natural wills and whimsies of humanity.

Where’s the dick to hold when the lingering wears into longing? And whose dick is it anyway?

Whatever.

xoxo, stay sexy.

Work Cited

Lawrence, D. H. “Introduction to These Paintings.” Poets on Painters: Essays on the Art of Painting by Twentieth-Century Poets, edited by J. D. McClatchy, University of California Press, 1989.