The Blowfish Blog

[Greta Christina] Sex, Spontaneity, and the “Swept Away” Myth

So why is the myth of sexual spontaneity so damaging?

I know. I’ve written about this before. Buy why else?

I’ve written before about the myth of sexual spontaneity: the myth that, for sex to be good and meaningful, the desire has to strike both partners out of the blue and be acted on immediately. I’ve written about how unrealistic the myth is, how poorly it fits into the reality of many people’s sex lives; I’ve written about the narrow and limiting definition of sexual desire it creates.

But I’ve been thinking lately about another — and in many ways more serious — problem with the myth of sexual spontaneity.

And that’s that it contributes to the idea that sex is dirty and bad… and thus makes people feel like sex is only okay if they don’t take responsibility for it.

A lot of other feminists have talked about this: the myth of being “swept away.” It’s the myth that sexual desire should overpower you with blinding passion — and that if it doesn’t, if you plan for it, that’s somehow cold and calculating and missing the point. And it’s a myth that fucks up sex lives from beginning to end. It keeps teenagers from using birth control. It keeps people from talking with their partners about what they like and don’t like in bed. It keeps people from educating themselves about sex, on the grounds that it should be “natural.” It keeps long-term couples from making dates for sex.

And I would argue — as many feminists have argued before me — that the “swept away” myth essentially comes from the idea that sex is bad.

Let’s look at another primal animal desire, one that we don’t have as much negative baggage about. Let’s take the desire to eat. We don’t think that eating a meal is somehow diminished by planning for it; that eating is only true and beautiful if the desire strikes us out of the blue and we act on it at once. Sure, we’ll stop and buy funnel cake if we smell it at a street fair… but we also buy groceries a week in advance, and make reservations for busy restaurants, and think in the morning or afternoon about what we might want for dinner, and make careful plans for special, festive meals.

Why?

Because we basically think that eating is okay. We have some complicated and messed-up feelings about food in our culture, sure; but most of us accept that food is a necessary and valuable part of life. We don’t think there’s anything wrong with planning a meal… because we don’t think there’s anything wrong with eating one.

But that’s patently not the case with sex. Our culture tends to see sex, either as a sin that we must resist, or as a selfish luxury we can do without. We don’t see it as a necessity, and we definitely don’t see it as a central and valuable part of the human experience.

And yet — obviously — we still want it.

Which is where the “swept away” myth comes in. The “swept away” myth lets us have sex, while pretending to ourselves and everybody else that we didn’t really want it, and didn’t consciously choose it, and can’t be blamed for it.

It’s essentially a way of abdicating responsibility for sex. It’s a way of convincing yourself that you didn’t really choose this. You were overwhelmed by passion, by an animal urge or emotional flood that couldn’t be controlled. You couldn’t help it. It wasn’t your fault.

It’s like fantasies about bondage or rape: fantasies that, for many folks, let them enjoy sex, or enjoy thinking about sex, while still feeling like it’s against their will and they’re not responsible for it. Now, there’s not a damn thing wrong with these fantasies. There’s not even anything wrong with acting these fantasies out. But it’s no way to live your entire sex life. (Unless you’re into the 24/7 dom/sub thing… and even that takes a lot of thought and conscious choice, more even than most sex lives.) It’s not grownup. It’s not responsible.

And ultimately, it’s not even that much fun. The “swept away” myth of spontaneity seriously limits your opportunities to learn about sex; to learn more about your partners desires and your own; to expand your sexual repertoire. It limits the kinds of sex you can have: if planning for sex ruins it, that pretty much rules out the acquisition of sex toys. Not to mention sex education materials, or smut, or birth control. And — especially if your life is stressful and overbooked, or you’re getting older and the spontaneous urge to boff is diminishing — it limits your sex life in the most blunt and obvious way… namely, how often you have it.

And maybe more importantly, the “swept away” myth feeds the monster of sex-negativity. It feeds the monster in our culture and in all of us that says that sex is a sin, and that while letting yourself be overcome with lust might be forgivable, consciously choosing to make room for it in your life makes you guilty of first- degree sex. With premeditation and passion aforethought.

I actually have nothing against spontaneous sex. I love spontaneous sex. Being overwhelmed with lust, blowing off your dinner reservations because your lover’s ass has suddenly become way more important… that’s lovely. It’s like an adventure, like riding a rollercoaster. It lets you feel like your entire life isn’t being measured out in coffee spoons; like you still have the capacity to surprise yourself, and to be surprised.

My problem isn’t with spontaneous sex. It’s with the myth of spontaneous sex. It’s with the idea that spontaneous sex is the best sex, the sex we should all be having all the time, the only sex that counts. As one kind of sex among many, spontaneous sex is great. But as The One True Sex, it severely limits your sexual options. And it feeds into the monstrous idea that making sex a priority makes you a bad person.

So buy a vibrator. Make a sex date. Have a conversation with your partner about sexual things you might like to do. Call San Francisco Sex Information, and ask them a question you have about sex. Read a book about a kind of sex you’re curious about. Do something that says, “Sex is a priority for me, and I am making a conscious choice that will shape what my sex life looks like.”

And let’s starve the monster together.

Greta Christina, copyright © 2009. Be sure to check out Greta’s blog.

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This entry was posted on Friday, 24 April 2009 at 2:26 pm and is filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.