You've Probably Been Wondering When I Would Write About Sex...

I wonder what it would be like if sex and power weren't all mixed up together.

In the wake of #metoo and Harvey Weinstein, and also - my life - I've been thinking about the relationship, as it exists, between these two things, and I've been wondering what it would be like if we would or could unmix them.

Before you go on...if you listen to This American Life on NPR, you will hear Ira Glass, the host, sometimes say something like this, "This podcast will acknowledge that human beings have sex, so if you are listening with children, you may want to know that beforehand."  Now this is my warning for my readers (who could include some of my clients, not to mention my parents, and their friends - oh boy!):  "This blogpost will acknowledge that I have had sex, so if you are a sensitive reader who would rather not know that, stop reading now and put all of this out of your mind."

All right here we go.  Sex.  Power.  Sex. Mystery.  Death.  Can I bring it all together?  Read on:

1)  From time immemorial, bodies have been bought and sold as commodities.  This happens blatantly in prostitution and slavery, this happens in pornography, this happens, basically, in Hollywood, and it happens in our personal lives.  It happens in blatant ways, and more subtle.

2)  What leads human beings to look at other human beings as commodities to be bought and sold?  Objectification.  Which means "Degrading someone to the status of mere object."  Human beings have the capacity to take away the humanity of any one they see as less than.  This happens on the individual level, but it also happens at the level of group and society.  For example, a spoon is an object that is very useful to me.  I own a spoon. I like having a spoon to eat my soup.  If I get frustrated for whatever reason, I can throw my spoon against the wall and not really feel too bad.  I can easily get another spoon if that one breaks.  It would be too bad that I got angry, but whatever.  If I see women as a tool and women are useful to me, I feel the same way if I throw a woman against the wall or rape her or grab her in the crotch or whatever.  It's like, 'oh, well.  Get another.'  And not to mention that I would not imagine that the object/woman would have feelings about being thrown/grabbed/raped.

Overall, when we think of people as objects and treat them as objects -  whether for sex, for love, for money, for power, for labor - we dehumanize other people and if there is such a thing as evil, I think that's it.

Now, here's where things start to get confusing:  Though I don't believe bodies should be a commodity, in some ways, sex can be a commodity in ways that are realistic to our human experience.  Kind of like, we are not all 'making love' all the time, sometimes we are engaging in a recreational activity, sometimes we meeting a physiological desire, sometimes it's all a little animalistic.  Sometimes, there can be a supply and demand quality to it, that may or may not be unethical.

For example, what if Jane and Bert are married and Jane knows Bert might be more likely to vacuum the house if they played ping pong first.  She might play some ping pong to increase the chances that he vacuums.

Or, what if two people both like to play ping pong.  And Joe says to Sally - 'hey, if you play ping pong with me, I think I can introduce you to some people who can help you advance in your career.'

There are a couple elephants in the room when it comes to sex as a commodity:

Power.  In the scenarios above one has a clear power dynamic and one, maybe, has a more subtle power dynamic.  Joe has access to some things that are good for people in general, not just Sally.  Mostly career/financial improvement.  Sally has access to something he wants, too.  There are some Sally's in the world who might think - 'hey...he uses me for ping pong.  I use him for access to power/money/success.  Cool.  Good trade.'  There are more Sally's in the world who are like, 'shit.  I don't want to play ping pong with him, but I'm afraid to say no.  What if I he talks bad about me?  What if he uses his influence to make it so I can't get a job?' 

If and only if Sally sees ping pong as a commodity in the SAME WAY Joe does, I guess it's no harm no foul??  Only Sally can say for sure.

Here is an interesting article from the Harvard Business Review on this whole Weinstein deal, but also about how power seems to diminish the human capacity for empathy.  https://hbr.org/2017/10/sex-power-and-the-systems-that-enable-men-like-harvey-weinstein Sex, Power, and the Systems that Enable Men Like Harvey Weinstein

But in the scenario of Jane and Bert...well, who has power?  We don't know unless we are in that marriage.  There may be power dynamics at work, but I also think there is an issue of...

Consent.  In the scenarios above Jane is manipulating Bert - it would be a better relationship if Jane would own her shit - 'hey, if I play ping pong, will you vacuum?'   Bert could say, 'I'll just vacuum.  Ping pong should be about fun and not bartering.'  Or, he could say, 'Great idea.  Isn't it fun that we figured out a win/win?'

A friend and colleague of mine, Heather Raznick, is a sex and relationship therapist in St. Louis and she says that any kind of sex between consenting adults is fine as long as it's SAFE, SANE, and CONSENSUAL.

But all of the above really takes away something from the conversation that I think we all feel at the gut level, but it's hard to put into words.  Most of us find sexual abuse, assault, harassment, egregious on a deeper level than some other crimes, like theft, or perhaps even plain, old physical assault.

There are powerful, vulnerable aspects of all that goes along with sex.  In fact, I kind of think it's one of the few things that normal people do that seem like magic.  The other one is death. 

From working around death and dying for a number of years, I've come to believe, and more so FEEL than believe, that there is something bigger and more powerful than biology going on when we are dying.  Inexplicable, strange things happen and I was and am often filled with a sense of awe.  A sense of how I don't know anything, but I feel connected to bigger things and I wish I knew more about them.  I wish I knew the mystery more fully.

I think the same happens - sometimes - during sex.  To me, whether we want it to be or not, whether we consciously think about it or not, when we have sex, we are in some way working with a mysterious force, more powerful than we are. 

A friend's aunt recently died in hospice care at Evelyn's House, the new hospice house that BJC built. (My alma mater...just a little plug).  She said that the aunt and all the family felt enveloped in love and care during the aunt's final days and hours.  It is easy to see how vulnerable a person's body is when it's dying.  It's easy to understand how much love and care a person's body might need at such a vulnerable time.

I think I'd like to make the case that this is one part of why we recoil and are so heart-broken to hear about so many women we know and so many we don't whose bodies have not been cared for and loved.  And when we think about our own experiences of being mistreated, abused, and disrespected, how we know this is an abuse of not only our bodies, but our spirits. 

Maybe sex and power really are inextricably interwoven in our human experience, but not because of the reasons that seem apparent on the outside - like socialized patterns of desire or arousal.   Maybe sex and power are connected because something about sex, sometimes, reaches for something mysterious.  Poets have written about this for centuries - an orgasm, in old poetry was called, 'the little death.'

Well, before I get to far from earth, here's what I know for sure.   Human bodies are precious.  Think of your child when he was a baby or toddler, think about the joy you have in watching him grow.  Think about wheeling your grandmother to dinner and shimmying her wheelchair up to the Thanksgiving table.  These bodies are amazing.  Love and take care of yours.  Love and take care of other people's bodies, too.