[1] the ramblings of a not-so-single girl before Valentine’s Day [1]**
But in all that casual sex, there was one moment I learnt to dread more than any other. I dreaded it not out of fear that the sex would be bad, but out of fear that it would be good. If the sex was good, then, even if I knew in my heart that the relationship wouldn’t work, I would still feel as though the act had bonded me with my sex partner in a deeper way than we had been bonded before. It’s in the nature of sex to awaken deep emotions within us, emotions that are unwelcome when one is trying to keep it light. On such nights the worst moment was when it was all over. Suddenly I was jarred back to earth. Then I’d lie back and feel bereft. He would still be there, and if I was really lucky, he’d lie down next to me. Yet, I couldn’t help feeling like the spell had been broken. We could nuzzle or giggle or we could fall asleep in each other’s arms but I knew it was play acting and so did he. We weren’t really intimate — it had just been a game. The circus had left town.
Whatever Greer and her ilk might say I’ve tried their philosophy — that a woman can shag like a man — and it doesn’t work. We’re not built like that. Women are built for bonding. We are vessels and we seek to be filled. For that reason, however much we try and convince ourselves that it isn’t so, sex will always leave us feeling empty unless we are certain that we are loved, that the act is part of a bigger picture that we are loved for our whole selves not just our bodies.
...
Our culture — both in the media via programmes such as Sex and the City and in everyday interactions — relentlessly puts forth the idea that lust is a way station on the road to love. It isn’t. It left me with a brittle facade incapable of real intimacy. Occasionally a man would tell me I appeared hard, which surprised me as I thought I was so vulnerable. In truth, underneath my attempts to appear bubbly, I was hard — it was the only way I could cope with what I was doing to my self and my body.
...
The misguided, hedonistic philosophy which urges young women into this kind of behaviour harms both men and women; but it is particularly damaging to women, as it pressures them to subvert their deepest emotional desires. The champions of the sexual revolution are cynical. They know in their tin hearts that casual sex doesn’t make women happy. That’s why they feel the need continually to promote it.
*please see the simulated experience of sex which in retrospect should probably have been called the simulated experience of love....
**to see last year's version of this, please go here and press 'previous' to scroll through the whole series. (there are four total)
*** please read the comments to this post. i've been informed that dawn eden is a scam :P
3 comments:
hmm that's interesting-- I didn't know that...thanks for letting me know!
I guess I can't really use her writing as evidence of my point if it's just a marketing ploy. It probably explains why her writing matches so closely with exemplifying a Christian worldview of sex.
...that probably also explains her gendered understanding of sex and intimacy (which i disagree with... not in the sense that men and women are not different, but i am opposed to attempts to generalize and so the title of her book does tend to make me cringe. i also don't think men are exempt from the emotional attachments present in sex, i just think it is easier for them to ignore it or not notice it).
Well, there's a book that sounds similar that came out a few years ago. It's by Wendy Shalit and it's called Return to Modesty. Shalit was and is Jewish and was definitely bucking the trend when she wrote the book.
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