(This is an unedited post, a compilation of controversial thoughts)
I saw a movie some time ago and it revolved around how a woman was willing to give up her marriage for good sex with her ex. It was a lot of questions that ran through my mind when at the end of the movie, she left everything behind, her child, her Marriage of about 6/7years, her husband, and advice from her friends, and ran back to this ex to begin a life built on sex.
I started to wonder “what is it that is worth losing everything you have worked so hard for?”.
These things would never give the justification I need them to give.
I’ve heard my friends get dumped after so much sexual encounter with a partner and then you start to realize that majority of relationships aren’t built on sex.
But then why do we say we need sex to fuel a romantic relationship??
I have a lot of questions I probably have no answers to because they are more rhetorical than interrogative.
I know someone would be prompted to recommend to me the Netflix series, “the anatomy of pleasure”. I have glazed through the series and I was left with answers that are a bit ambiguous.
The first rule of love and sex that I learned from my brother is, “sex does not validate love”. I was probably in my second year in senior school when he said this to me and I couldn’t understand what it meant at the time.
One year later, the person I was mad in love with impregnated someone and he said it was supposed to be just pleasure.
I was not going to validate whatever I had going with him at a time I wasn’t even able to consent to sexual relations with sex. Then my brother's words made more sense after this.
Maybe ten percent because then I entered university and the clarity was evident. I didn’t need anyone to even tell me again. Because I watched myself lose people I would have been willing to build a very healthy relationship with just because I wouldn’t have sex with them.
From this point onwards, till the moment I write this piece, I am yet to meet someone who wants to be platonic friends and would not sprinkle in sexual jokes or sexual desires after a while.
I mean, I just want an opposite-gender friend, is that difficult?
I know this might be my personal experience and I am not debunking that people have opposite-gender friends who are not trying to touch them where they pee.
Maybe I should blame this on not making friends so much or maybe the right friends at that, maybe this set of people might be different. But I know sex is at the top of the menu every day for us, young adults.
But then sex does not equate love.
Neither is it a validation of anything.
The majority of people reading this should be able to attest to it that after their first sexual experience, one of the things that came to their head would be, “Is this it?”
The way sex is forcefully portrayed in our everyday lives, either in the songs we listen to, the movies we watch, or even random posts on the internet. It gives me a strong impression that we’re getting it wrong.
The right things never get the emphasis we need.
This post is not to give answers to questions you have. It is just to randomly express how I have quickly learned that as enjoyable and fun as sex might be for everyone who indulges in it, it’s not a point of view you can see love from.
At this moment, I hate that I’m not ignorant and I can tell you that the hormones released during sex can give you the euphoric feeling of love. Reasons why it was clearly stated to be done in marriages, I mean after exchanging vows in front of family and friends that you truly love each other. Hormones that follow after sex would only accentuate the words contained in your vows.
But then how do I explain transactional sex, sex between friends, sex as an act in a movie, and sex for the main purpose of “just doing it”?
I guess we would never be able to give the right answers to these things. I guess the sex education series on Netflix was trying to give answers to these questions but then I’m African Nigerian, the easy conversations and rules that play out in the movie barely work for me, or in this sense us.
I won’t do justice to this post without addressing how 99.2% of us learned about sex and its entire act from porn. That’s hilarious whenever I think about it. It’s like learning how to drive from fast and furious or more like the old cartoon turbo dogs.
I paused writing this and yesterday, I devoted myself to watching a movie that was recommended to me by Netflix, and yet again, I spent almost an hour watching a movie without a plot, just sex scenes, and good music. What irked me the most was the unrealistic depiction of sex by the movie.
Living in a society with such a biased view of sex and each other as sex objects, I begin to question my ideas.
These ideas are:Sex is beautiful, and could even depict romance especially when you do it with someone you’re willing to.
It’s not the basis of anything either.
Not love, not care, not affection. It’s just sex.
Biblically, it is a sin of immorality to engage in this activity outside of marriage. Maybe these guideline is not about God but us as humans because when you look at the world today, the second most wrongly driven vice is sex, leaving money as first.
I have so many things in my head about this act. But I have been forced overtime to learn and unlearn everything I know about it.
Because today I’m figuring out that love got brewed based on sex and the next, love built on sex comes crashing at the feet of those involved.
I think I’ve made the point I want to make, seeing how many times I have repeated the point.
“LOVE IS NOT SEX, SEX IS NOT LOVE”
And at the end of the day, whatever your ideology is, I strongly respect it and I wish to learn from your point of view but until then, I will stick with this that I know.
The only words of mine that I will say is, “Do not do it because everyone else is doing it. If you ever have to, let it be because you’re willing to”
If sex brings you pleasure and relaxation, why not?
Just remember never to forcefully have sex with anyone.
CONSENT is more important than the act!
CONSENT is more important than the act!
very well written. sex is not love and love isn’t sex. not at all
i laughed at the “is that it” part because it’s nothing but the truth. going into why God hates sexual immorality, it’s a whole bigger ball game. an eye opener when delineated. conversation for another day.
awesome read, cheers