Do I make you horny?

Toe,
I read your's and jersn's comments about sex and religion. Religions are all fucked up when it comes to sex, even beyond the Judeo-Christian realm, even. I think the issue is that sexual attraction is just so powerful that people really have trouble putting it into the context of the rest of their lives. It is especially problematic during adolescence and into your 20s, when your sex drive is so strong and your judgement is so weak. I think problems with sex rise up again later, during mid-life, as the sex-drive begins to wane, yet your sense of what can and can't be done is so strong that you feel you can manipulate reality and rationalize whatever acts your heart really desires.

I'm speaking really abstractly here. Honestly, my sex drive was strong in my adolescence, but I was so scared of hell and damnation that the most I could ever manage was to masturbate regularly. Even that invoked regular, post-orgasmic waves of abject guilt.

In my 20s I wasn't much better about sex. Although I had systematically purged myself of religious guilt, it lurked in the background, like that dorky kid that you half-knew in high school who shows up at your New Years party every year (bad metaphor--I was that dorky kid). Anyway, what really ruined my sex-life in my 20s was my lack of sexual experience, which kept me from actually having sexual experiences, as I tried to play cool and hide the fact that I really didn't understand sex, primarily because I had had so little of it.

Now, in mid-life (yes, I am admitting to the fact that I am entering mid-life--this is a huge moment), after some years of marriage, I understand sex a lot better. I am devoted to my wife, and have no interest in fucking up my relationship with her. However, in the abstract, I can understand how middle-aged men get involved with other women, or have one-off daliances while on business travel, or whatever: You reach a point where you understand the limits of your sexual power, what you can and cannot do, and you have enough confidence and believe you have the knowledge to know how to get laid.

As I write this, I am having visions of pathetic, married, middle-aged men trying to cheat on their wives and get laid with young women. Men like that may have some kind of power they did not have in their youth, but it is sort of an unbalanced power, one based on delusion: The sense that, just because you want someone and that you think you know what will get them off and make them happy, you can make love happen.

I guess ultimately sex is not about skill or knowledge or being comfortable with yourself. It is what it always was, even when you were young and fumbling about with your girlfriend: Two people who find each other attractive and want to be together. It is simple, powerful, and as difficult for religion to harness as it is for balding men who think they can still charm the pants of the young and the beautiful.

God, I went way off track in this post. Anyway.

Love,
E-Word