The marriage of love and sex

There has been a great divorce. The break-up is messier than any of our generation's parents, for far more are affected. The divorce is between human essentials: Love and sex are estranged, and the orphaning effects have been seen in the pages of the Daily all last semester. What has happened? Why does a friend of mine admit he's unable to even describe what 'love' and 'sex' have to do with each other? What have we forgotten? What, in all our sex education, have we missed?

Daily columnist Amber Madison has made it her mission that our campus "knows more about [sex] than what is just in movies and advertisements." ("Private Parts: Why do I write about sex" 10/30/02) She is absolutely right to do so. We need to know much more. Madison has already given ample attention to neglected bodily facts. But what of our hearts? We would do well to consider what else most of our media ignores: love.

What is love? Those who are in it are usually unable to describe it. And how can one outside of it truly capture it? But I will make an attempt all the same, and remain open to correction. If we look at our best love stories, at any rate, one image towers above all others in proclaiming the truth of the bond of love. All great acts of love stream from this: laying down one's life. Love is putting the well being of another above your own. Love is not conditional; it does not depend on what the other does but who they are. Love is not concerned with having its own needs met, but in giving to the beloved, even at the cost one's own happiness (or one's life). Love requires two people, each with only the other in sight.

How are we then to look at sex? Madison implies that the best sex is sex with yourself. Is this true? If it is, then really, what does love have to do with it? Much of what Madison wrote has become controversial, but her most significant suggestion seems to have slipped by the commentators. No one seems to have questioned her definition of sex as a 'skill'. Now before we say or do anything more about sex, we should know quite well what it is. So is she right? Is sex simply the performance of some physical "moves"? Is it a test we must pass, and therefore, (you'll excuse the expression) cram for? Perhaps there's another way to look at sex. And maybe we'll see it more clearly if we're honest about what it is.

Sex can be immensely pleasurable. It's not clear why that is. Some suggest it is a needed incentive for the propagation and survival of the species. This isn't very convincing _ breathing, for example, is equally necessary but by no means can we call it particularly pleasurable. Sex, to "work" in the biological sense, didn't need to feel good. But, for whatever reason, it does.

Sex is also extraordinarily powerful. Few can deny that, for we've seen first-hand, in our lives or those of our friends, how strongly it can drive our thoughts and actions. It has the profoundest effect on the two people who share it. Some of us are used to referring to the couples we know by a combined name _ we may not be too far from the truth. Sex seems to create a powerful bonding between two people, so much so that they appear to become a single person. Sexual intimacy, of all types, acts like an adhesive, like glue applied to two pieces of paper, joined to make one.

We could have almost predicted this. From the love we defined earlier, sex seems to be the natural result. It is almost as if sex was designed for two people willing to live for each other. Now, this does not negate the very true claim that "if he loves you, he won't demand sex from you." Clearly, force is contrary to the definition of a lover. Yet for two people who give their whole lives to each other, what could be more natural than to desire to become like a single person?

Now here the consequences of our definitions become extremely important. If sex is just a skill, then the more you practiced, the better you'd get. But if sex is intended to reinforce a bond, to make one identity out of two, practicing is the very worst thing you could do. When you move on from a partner, you are amputating that bond. You are ripping two souls apart. When two glued papers are ripped apart, strips of the other paper remain on each. So too when you break up with a lover you leave chunks of your own heart behind. The true bond we are all looking for is lost. The more this happens, the weaker the adhesive becomes. The more partners you have, the less you are able to even enjoy the sex, and the less likely you will even be able to bond with anyone at all. Our advice columns make it appear that the biggest danger of sex is disease. How can this be? How can any casual sex be safe, if there is no condom for the heart?

We must not fool ourselves. Sex is not simply an act of intercourse. It is the whole experience of physical intimacy with another person, for it is the intimacy that affects your heart. 'If we are honest with ourselves, it is the intimate bond we really desire, not the empty act. To the "Lonely" writer to Ask Angie ("How to buy the right gift for your girlfriend" 12/3/02): there is a reason why you feel gross for sleeping with a different guy every weekend. Of course your actions are pleasurable, the physical acts were intended to be. And of course you feel gross. You are destroying your heart. It can be healed, but not by any person. Stop sleeping with men who don't love you, and take time alone to think. I invite you to look for the God that does love you; no doubt He's been looking for you, and with Him you'll never be alone. [Some may be offended at this sidenote. I hope 'Lonely' is not. I cannot think of many things more insensitive or intolerant than presenting a dire problem with no hope of a solution.]

What then does it take to make love well? If we are right about love and sex, then it is not hip gyrations. It takes integrity, the ability to look your partner deeply in the eyes and say, "I love you. I want to give you so much that I give you myself. I trust you with my life." This itself requires calm. But the more partners you and your partner have had, the more anxious you will be to measure up. The calmest couple ought to be the least experienced, who know they are learning together. For what then do they have to prove? And what do they have to fear, if there is also security. Where is our security? She knows that he will not abandon her in the morning, or any morning. He knows she will never give such trust to someone else. Each stays with the other.

We may have found what we were missing, what caused our divorce. What makes great sex is not practice, but a promise. To forsake all other partners, in good times and bad, whether I feel like it or not _ until death takes me away. What the world needs is not a good lay, but a good lover.

Jack Grimes in a junior majoring in Peace and Justice Studies and Philosophy.