MYSELF

When I wake up in the morning, I am myself. I am free from all restraints, all preconditions. I am the thing that a “society” should be engineered to protect. And I am all that I am. Specifically, I am awash in my sexuality, and the sexuality is not a factor to consider but a part of my identity. And I see no contradiction in writing about it.

When I first wake up, anything is possible. There is no fixity; everything is contingent. Then I remember where I am in history, and the sadness covers me. I cannot be the only one to see who I am, but I am not like most of you. I am different for a number of reasons.

I perceive a genuine break between me and the women I meet every day, every week (now it is not the “new day” but the “work week” that constructs my time spent). It is possible to have a lot of good fun and shared experience with someone who isn’t a lot like oneself, I can state from experience. But my personal growth has cost me a lot, including compromising my “career” badly. The most unforeseen consequence is that I AM NOT LIKE MOST OF YOU. I do not mean in a sense of differing opinions on topics of mutual interest. I mean that I went a different path coming out of school, and what I have come to understand has made me unlike the monoadult that this “society” seeks to produce.

I awake in the morning with something conceptual to share with all of you, perhaps not original but largely forgotten. (If it is derivative, I suggest, on a personal note, that understanding it at all has its merit.) But I am of the notion that there may be no one left capable of understanding my thoughts. If so, that means trouble for all of you as well, in a form you may not have suspected; read on.

I’ve carried this knowledge in me for some time. I’ve endured quite a few attacks, but the knowledge is sustained. It is what I would prefer to be discussing. But the necessities of life in “society” have forced me to concentrate my attention elsewhere. It has been an attrition war.

I don’t know what induces people to believe that a “sex advisor” should confine himself to discussions of gymnastics. Technique is key, but the real element of interest lies in the path to the bedroom and to what is constructed therein. The bedroom is itself a social milieu, and we spend our time there with different people over the course of our lives. We all transmit information in more ways than one while there, and we sometimes go back for a revisit with a previous confidant and draw upon what we have encountered since last checking in.

But that is only the beginning of what can be said to understand the matters at hand. Any number of epistemologies can be employed to approach this “rich data” (excuse me if I suppress a chuckle at this point: there’s no sexuality likek adolescent sexuality). Clinical psychology alone is not enough. Allopathic medicine is not enough. Making shit up isn’t enough. Most of all, the notion that there could be a “central authority,” a dispenser of canonical sex discourse, is untenable.

Foucault said that turning sexuality into a discourse was an attempt to suppress and control it. But I think he must have meant a canonical one. Certainly there had always been discusssion of the matter prior to his time (with the possible exceptions of the Victorian Age and the 1950’s). It is just that the discussion was decentralized and required no stamp of officiality. I want to suggest that he and I are on the same page in this respect.

There was writing about sex and sexuality as well. The writing was popular, it did sell, and it did not require a “governing body,” whether academic or legal in its scope, to hold forth on its merits. Books are pleasant in that they concede by their presence that they are not coercive: you can find them, finger them, and forget them, one after the other and without feeling the need to understand every one of them fully to feel you have benefitted from and enjoyed them. Intimacy with them is held always to a degree and not necessarily for more than a moment in every case, and one does not know going in how long the association will last. I hope my writing can be as satisfying to the reader in the future, and in the same way. You can, and will (if only implicitly), decide which books to remember and how well, and regardless of your decision, it is noted that a splendid time will have been had by all. I hope the analogy is not too heavy-handed.