As I'm preparing my piece about the quantum elements of love, I got to thinking about an article I read in Direct Matin last fall by Mélina Gazsi called “Faire souvent l’amour, c’est vivre plus longtemps” which I would translate as “Making love often lengthens life expectancy”.
To give you the gist of the article, French cardiologist and nutritionist Frédéric Saldmann explains, “Having sex 12 times per month can lengthen life by 10 years,” in part because, “it slows many illnesses such as prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women, as well as cardio-vascular illnesses.” Sex also helps burn calories, exercise the heart, oxygenate the bloodstream, reduce stress, insomnia, and migraines, etc. The information is corroborated by other specialists and partly based on the study led by English neuro-psychologist David Weeks in 2007.
Well, it’s good news to know officially that having sex is physically and mentally beneficial, even if it isn’t much news since sexual liberation in the 70s.
But the article got me thinking about other aspects coloring our idea of sexual activity and norms these days.
1. Sex vs. Fulfilling Sex. In recent years, many PhD’s in various fields and countries have been making a point about Western society’s current sexual mores: they are increasingly modeled on pop culture representations in which girls grow up on boy-conditioned sexual pleasure. Meaning: most girls (and by extension young women) are seeking and learning to do what will please the boy or man they’re with rather than cultivating her own preference in terms of sexual pleasure and fulfillment (Check out The Lolita Effect by G. Durham or G. Marier's work on hypersexuality)
This boy-conditioned sexual pleasure is, in turn, not so much his own, but is increasingly sculpted by porn movies which, often part of their sexual initiation, put in play sexual acts effectuated by actors and actresses who are not undergoing pleasure but rather dramatizing and caricaturizing certain fantasies. There’s a great Ted Talk from Cindy Gallop called “Make Love, Not Porn” and who points out the great confusion that has been created (Cindy Gallop: Make love, not porn (Adult content) - YouTube, website, http://makelovenotporn.com/) but I’ve also heard the concern expressed in such books as Ariel Levy’s Raunch Culture or movies such as Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation with Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson in which there are some great scenes following porn actors on the set.
This boy-conditioned sexual pleasure is, in turn, not so much his own, but is increasingly sculpted by porn movies which, often part of their sexual initiation, put in play sexual acts effectuated by actors and actresses who are not undergoing pleasure but rather dramatizing and caricaturizing certain fantasies. There’s a great Ted Talk from Cindy Gallop called “Make Love, Not Porn” and who points out the great confusion that has been created (Cindy Gallop: Make love, not porn (Adult content) - YouTube, website, http://makelovenotporn.com/) but I’ve also heard the concern expressed in such books as Ariel Levy’s Raunch Culture or movies such as Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation with Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson in which there are some great scenes following porn actors on the set.
Boy-conditioned sexual pleasure is also sculpted by music videos. Of course men’s hip-hop and rap videos are particularly guilty, in which a vast majority depict scantily-clad beauties shaking their booty around fully-clad, oftentimes homely, men who deliberately mix sex and violence themes. But there are plenty more examples to be found, including the same themes that have been voluntarily taken on by women. Rihanna sings, “sticks and stones may break my bones but chains and whips excite me. I like it, come on!” and has the final image of her video a kind of cartoonish picture of her beat up. Another, more innocent example, would be Shakira, a beautiful talented woman and singer, can’t avoid pretending to be caged and naked because she’s in heat. And there are many, many more.
2. sex, another performance trap? This is our private life, people! Must we really quantify such an intimate pastime? Ha! Maybe there isn’t a god who will judge you for your good and bad behavior but you may be rewarded… depending on how often you have sex! So buy more Viagra if you’re too exhausted or stressed to deliver. Start another diet and get your breasts enlarged if you want a better choice of man in your bed. But just a “quicky” won’t cut it – it’s like exercising, you need to keep it going before you start burning calories… what? You’re too tired and busy? Nonsense! Dynamic go-getters don’t need sleep, they just need a recharge…
What a farce!
What I find troubling is certainly not sex or sensuality. But I can’t help but wonder: is pleasure pleasurable when it’s borrowed? Forced? Required? used as medication and/or therapy to avoid growing old? When we’re simply trying to reproduce someone else’s pleasure? Can play-acting durably procure the advantages of real living?
Or, is anyone paying attention to actually doing what they want to do rather than giving into the societal spiral like exhibitionism à la Girls Gone Wild? Is that empowering? Or is it normalizing women’s total availability for boy’s or men’s wet-dreams?
The point is that many don’t even know what constitutes their personal pleasure. How can we help both boys and girls, men and women discover their own sense of sensuality and intimacy independent of societal diktats? Is role playing and performance and domination the clearest path to self-discovery, knowledge, joy? Without even mentioning love, does it seem probable that such games and performativity, which require a certain amount of control to carry through pretending allow for the space of vulnerability and exchange that make sex delicious?
And if it isn’t exquisite, does it still lengthen life any more than other sports?
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