Blog 118 – 9.17.15

To prove to my readers that I consider no subject off limits or sacrosanct I would like to write what I hope will be some encouraging words about sex. This subject is a potential mind field with lots of booby traps, pun intended. For an explanation of that remark see my blog entitled The Part, The Piece I Like Best.

One of my favorite jokes about sex is a play on words about the term vice versa that says, “Most people like there vice versus.” And yes most people think of sex as at least a two person sport, the French with their ménage à trois, and the Romans with their orgies see sex as more of a team sport. But, actually there is a solo version practiced by way more people than many would like to admit. I have heard the joke many times, “There are two kinds of men. Those who masturbate and those who lie about it.”

The conservative Christians and other folks with Victorian ideas about sex have long opposed sex education in the public schools saying it was a subject that should be taught at home. Well, it think most honest people would agree that parents do a poor job in this department as did their parents before them all the way back to Adam and Eve. I recently quoted the Teen Rock Anthem from some time back called Night Moves that spoke of a teenaged couple in the back of the young man’s sixty Chevy “Working on mysteries without any clues, working on those night moves.” Children listen and watch intently but learn some pretty confusing and just plain wrong things about sex. They learn it is dirty, only to be engaged in to make babies, only for married people, only for a man and a woman, that it is sinful and nasty to think about, and that it is a sin or a sign of mental problems to “play with yourself.” All arguably misinformation that warps many people’s minds and cheats them out of experiencing fully one of the greatest gift God ever gave the human race and animal kingdom. To paraphrase an old joke, “If God made anything better than sex he kept that for himself.”

The “urge to merge” is one of the greatest most powerful dives in the human experience. Wrong or harmful thinking regarding sex is responsible for much of the misery and the trouble in this world. Something that can give so much pleasure can also if not properly understood cause so much pain.

It is natural that young people should be curious and want to experiment with sex. We do them a great disservice laying on them our guilt trips, our foolishly narrow uneducated ideas about sex or perhaps worse our just avoiding the subject all together and letting them just stumble through, “working on mysteries without any clues.”

Teenaged pregnancies are always blamed on the young girls but most times the fathers of the babies are older and the girls are pretty ignorant. I think every ten year old girl and boy should be taught how babies are made and the measures that should be taken to prevent conception till people are old enough to care for and provide for a child and truly want a child. No child should be conceived that is not wanted. That is dealing with the issue of unwanted babies at the proper time. People who believe abstinence is the best form of birth control are like the ostrich with its head in the sand as far as I am concerned. People have sex, young and old, it is fun, it is a basic human drive like eating, breathing, and sleeping. To me it would be just as stupid to tell a person afraid of being or becoming over weight to stop eating. Oh, yeah, we do that and man look at the results – a diet plan, diet pill, and diet food industry that takes in more annually that the gross national product of many nations while in the end producing few lasting weight loss solutions.

More enlightened societies than ours have always been more open and instructive about sex. Past cultures in the tropics where clothing was optional had far fewer problems with sexual misbehavior than we do and may I say far fewer psychological problems. They even had “hands on” instructions in sex. All I got was a long confusing, and even comical at times, talk from my dad at aged seventeen, at least six years too late in my case. Actually dad spent a lot of time in his talk dealing with dire warnings about sexually active thirteen year old girls. I often wondered if dad was speaking theoretically or from experience. Dad was not big on theoretical thinking.

A woman or a man who does not know how to stimulate their on body to achieve a sexual orgasm has a real lack of education in my book. And if you are completely dependent on a partner to help you experience that wonderful release you are most likely going to experience a lot of frustration and disappointment in your life. You are solely responsible for your own happiness, sexual and otherwise. Don’t try to lay that burden on someone else they will never be able to do it, and you and they will be miserable for it. Only you can make you happy. Happy people can share their happiness and yes people can enjoy sharing this great gift we call sex. Warning, it can be good for your skin, your step, and even brighten your outlook on life so be careful overindulging. Nonsense, have all you like. It is low in calories and high in endorphins, nature’s natural mood enhancer. You don’t even need a prescription, but here is one from ole Doctor Dave, Dr. Feel Good, “Relax, get to it, let your body do it.”

Please don’t misunderstand me, consensual sex between two individuals mature enough and sound enough in mind and body for sex is wonderful indeed and hard to beat. But don’t underestimate the individual’s ability to know and do what pleases him or her self to a degree that someone else might take years to master if ever. For a host of reasons there are many times when a helping hand other that your own is not available. At the risk of sounding crass (all together now, “Too late for that.”) In the immortal words of a sixties love ballad, “If you can’t be with one you love, Honey, love the one you’re with.” If you haven’t figured out how to “make love” to and with yourself how do you expect anyone else to figure it out to your satisfaction. I mean really if you don’t know where you are going how will you know how to get there let alone direct anyone else there. Your partner in sex if you are fortunate enough to have one will thank you for any clues or poInters. Be encouraged it is never too late to learn.

A fellow worker asked me a couple of years ago, “David, why are you so happy all the time?” I thought a moment and then mostly to get his goat (And believe me I did) I said, “Well, I masturbate a lot.” I was only half joking. The bigger answer would be more inclusive, “I do not believe in self abuse. I love myself a lot.”

These are just my opinions and I could be wrong but that is not the problem for me It might be for some for I have learned to discard any belief that is no longer serving me.

Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White