"That makes sense," Zac shrugged. "I have been called a sex god before."
"I'm sure women worship at the altar of your groin," I smirked.
"Indeed, they do. I offer them the body of Christ, and they gladly drink from my chalice."
"Ugh." I scrunched up my face in disgust. "Can you not put that imagery in my head?"
"Technically, the algorithm put that imagery in your head," he winked. "God approves of this message."
"Touché. So, how much do you have to pay these women to join your parish?"
"Too much," he frowned. "They charge more for gingers. No one wants to venture into the burning fires of hell for pennies. You know what they say — gingers have no souls."
"You're joking, right?"
"Of course I'm joking. If gingers have Markov blankets, then they have souls-"
"No, I mean, about paying for sex. Have you ever done that?"
"Look, Nikki," Zac said. "I'm very open-minded. I believe people should be able to do whatever the fuck they want, as long as it doesn't infringe on someone else's ability to do whatever they fuck they want. We should all be able to play this game called 'life' however we choose, without some central authority telling us who we're allowed to be, and what we're allowed to do."
"So is prostitution wrong in your moral code?" I asked.
"I've never paid for sex. It's not my thing. I know I put on this 'man whore' persona, and say disgusting things, but it's only because it makes you laugh."
"I know," I smiled. "You're very entertaining."
"I actually prefer a very traditional courting process, and I have no need to pay for play. I can see why others might value it, though. It's kind of like this: you can cook a meal at home, but when you go to a Michelin star restaurant, you're paying for a professional. I don't see what's so morally wrong about applying the same logic to sex, as long as it's done consensually. If a woman is performing sex work because she can't afford to eat otherwise, that's not true consent. But if she just loves sex, why shouldn't she get paid for what she loves and is good at? She's a professional sex artist, just like a chef is a professional food artist. Both are connoisseurs of pleasure, but our society is so judgemental about what pleasure is morally acceptable and what is not. Just because religion tells us sex is bad and wrong outside of marriage, doesn't mean it is. Why should everyone have to abide by their arbitrary moral code? What do you think?"
"I agree," I said. "I don't like it when people tell me what is right and wrong, and how to live my life. Regarding sex work, if women genuinely want to do it, what right should I have to tell them otherwise? There is a question about this theme in Conversations With God…"
Is sex okay? C’mon — what is the real story behind this human experience? Is sex purely for procreation, as some religions say? Is true holiness and enlightenment achieved through denial — or transmutation — of the sexual energy? Is it okay to have sex without love? Is just the physical sensation of it okay enough as a reason?
Of course sex is “okay.” Again, if I didn’t want you to play certain games, I wouldn’t have given you the toys. Do you give your children things you don’t want them to play with?
Play with sex. Play with it! It’s wonderful fun. Why, it’s just about the most fun you can have with your body, if you’re talking of strictly physical experiences alone.
But for goodness sake, don’t destroy sexual innocence and pleasure and the purity of the fun, the joy, by misusing sex. Don’t use it for power, or hidden purpose; for ego gratification or domination; for any purpose other than the purest joy and the highest ecstasy, given and shared — which is love, and love recreated — which is new life! Have I not chosen a delicious way to make more of you?
With regard to denial, I have dealt with that before. Nothing holy has ever been achieved through denial. Yet desires change as even larger realities are glimpsed. It is not unusual, therefore, for people to simply desire less, or even no, sexual activity — or, for that matter, any of a number of activities of the body. For some, the activities of the soul become foremost — and by far the more pleasurable.
Each to his own, without judgment — that is the motto.
The end of your question is answered this way: You don’t need to have a reason for anything. Just be cause.
Be the cause of your experience.
Remember, experience produces concept of Self, conception produces creation, creation produces experience.
You want to experience yourself as a person who has sex without love?
Go ahead! You’ll do that until you don’t want to anymore. And the only thing that will — that could ever — cause you to stop this, or any, behavior, is your newly emerging thought about Who You Are.
It’s as simple — and as complex — as that.
Neale Donald Walsch
"It's interesting to think about how this applies to women," I said. "As a man, if you embrace and enjoy your sexuality while not in a monogamous relationship, you're a sex god. If you're a woman who does the same thing, you're a slut. And yet, in order for heterosexual men to enjoy sex purely as a physical act, they need a woman to do it with — presumably, a woman who also enjoys sex, purely as a physical act. It takes two to tango.
I mean, if you look at this double standard, it's rooted in a deeply misogynistic belief that men are the gatekeepers of women's sexual pleasure. Men are freely allowed to want and enjoy sex, but women aren't allowed to want and enjoy sex. For women, wanting and enjoying sex is bad — unless, of course, she is in a committed relationship with a man. In which case, she better love sex just as much as him, because he is going to want a lot of it, and his male ego is deeply tied to his ability to please his woman. So basically, women have been told their whole life that enjoying sex is wrong and bad, but men then expect her to suddenly do a 180-degree turn when he strides into her life, as if his particular penis is imbued with magical powers, and is the only one that could ever please her. And then suddenly she is supposed to want sex from him morning, noon and night because he is a almighty sex god — the gatekeeper of women's pleasure.
The core issue here is pretty apparent when you examine this saying: 'A key that opens every lock is a master key, but a lock that is opened by every key is just a bad lock.' Of course, men think of themselves as the key in this metaphor. If their 'key' can open every lock, they are a master key. But if a woman's 'lock' is opened by every key, she is worthless and doesn't serve her purpose — her purpose being, to make the man feel like a master key. A man can't think of himself as a master key if the lock he just opened could be opened by the 'keys' of other men. Imagine if the roles were reversed, and men were told to deny and suppress their sexuality, just so women could get an ego boost and feel like master keys. It's so fucked up."
"Wait a minute," Zac said. "That is not a fair comparison. It's really hard for men to get sex. Women are, in general, very hypergamous. Therefore, it's perfectly natural for men to earn a high status if they're capable of sleeping with many women. It's a signal that they're the alpha, so this is all just biology, not misogyny. All women have to do to get sex is exist in the vicinity of a man, and offer it."
"Ah, but here's the problem with that. Notice how you said that women just have to exist within the vicinity of a man to get sex. The underlying assumption there is that men, in general, love having sex, and will take it if it's on offer. If it's a choice between using a woman or using their hand, they'll choose the woman."
"I think that's a fair statement," Zac said.
"Well, here's a radical idea. What if women also love sex, and will take it if it's on offer? And in that situation, it's on offer. It doesn't matter if it was hard for her to get. The fact is, she had an itch to scratch and allowed you to scratch it for her. She also chose to use a man instead of using her hand. It was a mutually beneficial transaction that you engaged in, and then you turn around and call her a slut."
"I didn't call her a slut-"
"But I've heard you casually throw that word around, whether or not you meant it about a specific woman. I hear men say it all the time. And not all men, obviously. But there is definitely a culture of shaming women for their sexuality. And that culture is rooted in a misogynistic belief that men are entitled to control women's pleasure; that women are not allowed autonomy over their own body and sexuality. When a man is in a relationship with a woman, he wants her to enjoy sex and have a lot of it with him. But when she isn't in a relationship with him, she is not allowed to enjoy sex, lest she be labelled a slut.
You see, this is just one example of how our culture has evolved to stroke and coddle fragile male egos. When a man calls a woman a slut, he is assigning a value to her based on her love of sex. When he has sex with a woman who embraces her sexuality with other men, his ego doesn't feel good about it because he suddenly becomes aware that his penis is not magical, he is not special to her, and there are other men out there who can also please her. He doesn't feel like he has won a rare prize, and he wants to feel like he is the alpha who can get the woman that no one else can. So, to protect his ego, he labels her a slut — a low-value, broken lock. If she's 'just a slut' who 'doesn't respect her body' then he doesn't have to acknowledge the painful reality that she just doesn't respect him. She is using him, and he is using her — but he wants to feel like it's just the latter. His ego wants to feel powerful, and chosen, and respected.
And the hilarious thing about this is that many men are completely oblivious to how their feelings and ego construct cultural norms that are used to control women. I laugh so hard when I hear men say that all women are irrational and incapable of making decisions based on logic — as if a) that's actually true and b) men don't make decisions based on how the want to feel. By assigning a value to a woman based on her sexual 'purity,' men are essentially using shame to control and manipulate women's sexual behavior in a way that benefits their ego. Men cannot feel like master keys unless there are locks that aren't easily opened, so our culture runs a campaign to shame women into becoming those locks.
The word 'slut' actually has nothing to do with women, and everything to do with a man's insecurity over his own masculinity. It was a label designed to make men feel better about themselves, at the expense of women — just like men call women in the workplace a 'bitch' for simply stating correct facts that emasculate them. Women are not 'bitches' — your ego is just bruised because a woman proved you to be wrong, so you're assigning her a derogatory label to shame her, control her, shut her up, and feel better about yourself. Women don't want to be called bitches, just like women don't want to be called sluts. They are engaging in exactly the same behavior as men, yet men don't get those labels. God talks about this dynamic here..."
I still don't understand how we ever got the idea that suffering was good.
You are wise to be insistent in questioning that. The original wisdom surrounding suffering in silence has become so perverted that now many believe (and several religions actually teach) that suffering is good, and joy is bad. Therefore, you have decided that if someone has cancer, but keeps it to himself, he is a saint, whereas if someone has (to pick a dynamite topic) robust sexuality, and celebrates it openly, she is a sinner.
Boy, You did pick a dynamite topic. And You cleverly changed the pronoun, too, from male to female. Was that to make a point?
It was to show you your prejudices. You don't like to think of women having robust sexuality, much less celebrating it openly. You would rather see a man dying without a whimper on the battlefield than a woman making love with a whimper in the street.
Neale Donald Walsch
"Now," I continued, "I'm not saying you can't have dating preferences that include someone's sexual habits. Like, I wouldn't date a man who'd slept with hundreds of women, for several reasons — but mainly because its a symptom of misaligned values. He is perfectly entitled to enjoy his sexuality in that way, and I'm perfectly entitled to not be attracted to him because of it. So if you want to judge a woman based on her sexual 'purity,' that's fine — but you better hold yourself, and other men, to the same moral standard. And I'm not talking about saying 'well, I don't have much sex so I'll judge her if she does', because many single men would have a lot of sex if it was on offer. I mean, if I were to parade very attractive women past you all day long, and all of them were offering sex to you, and you kept it in your pants — well, then you're not engaging in a misogynistic double standard. But until then, I will call you out if I ever hear you call a woman a slut — in the same way that I expect you to call me out if I ever engage in a misandristic double standard like that. And God knows, dating in the age of modern feminism is a minefield of double standards."
"So, does that mean you think casual sex is a good thing?" Zac asked. "Modern hookup culture is pretty slutty these days — and I'm talking about the women and the men, so don't jump down my throat about it."
"Well, 'good' is a subjective statement," I replied. "If your aim is to live a happy life, and being in a loving, committed relationship contributes to that goal, then having a lot of sexual partners is probably sub-optimal, relative to that goal. It reduces your ability to pair-bond.
So I'm not, in any way, suggesting that promiscuity is absolutely good, but neither am I suggesting that it's absolutely bad — it totally depends on who you are, and how you want to live your life. I just believe that what a woman chooses to do with her body is her choice, just like what a man chooses to do with his body is his choice — and those choices should never originate from fear and shame. If a woman wants to be a virgin until marriage, that's great — as long as it's a choice that she's made based on her personal value system, rather than being shamed into it by men who aren't holding themselves to the same standard.
And speaking of promiscuity, I personally find American dating to be very strange. I don't understand how they date so many people at once, and play so many games. Dating really isn't that complicated. I like you, you like me, let's see each other exclusively until we don't want to anymore. And if there is no immediate mutual desire to see each other exclusively, then the connection isn't strong enough for me to waste my time on. If it's not a fuck yes, it's a no. That principle has always worked for me.
But I do respect everyone's right to live their life as they wish, and experience the consequences of those choices. And the intention behind the actions makes a big difference. Some millennials engage in casual hookup culture because they genuinely love sex — and yes, the ability to divorce emotion from sex is not an exclusively male thing. Like I said — just because a woman lets a man scratch her itch, doesn't mean she wants to have his babies. Which is why I find it funny when men get butt-hurt and call women sluts for trading their bodies on the same commodified sexual marketplace that they are actively participating in. I mean, c'mon. Have a little self-awareness. If you want to buy and sell stock on a hedonistic market, at least understand the rules of the game and keep your pants on if you can't emotionally handle the idea of being used by a woman.
But, on the other hand, many millennials also day-trade their stock on the sexual marketplace for attention and validation, which is an unhealthy symptom of a much deeper problem. Insecure women sleep with a lot of men to feel desired and worthy, but men do exactly the same thing — they want to feel like 'The Man.' In that scenario, the men are just as insecure as the women, but by calling women 'sluts' and themselves 'sex gods,' they abdicate responsibility for their own insecurity and project it all on her. But you can't fuck your way to self-worth. They'll figure that out eventually. As God said, 'Each to his own, without judgment — that is the motto.'"
