As humans, we have an awful habit of getting quite hung up about sex. There it is, one of the most natural acts ever created, the main thing that will ensure the survival of our species, and we have created a whole host of hang-ups and worries about it. Do I look fat? Would whatever deity I believe in approve? Is it appropriate?
The thing we seem to have forgotten, somewhere in all of our self-obsession and over-analysing, is that it is never a good idea to take oneself too seriously. Taking sex too seriously, therefore, is just going to make those hang-ups get worse.
Don’t get me wrong. Sex can be an amazingly special act. It can bring people closer together, and it can also ruin lives. However, normal everyday kind of sex with someone who turns you on is also just a bit of potentially functional good fun, and isn’t something that you should put on a pedestal and admire from a distant theoretical perspective. We all know what happens if you over-analyse a book in GCSE English – it starts to lose its charm. The same happens, I think, for sex.
Instead, I propose that we need to start seeing sex as funny. Great fun and highly enjoyable too, but generally the sort of behaviour that when you stop and think about it is rather amusing. I mean, look at our clumsy seduction attempts, the inevitable head butt or misplaced kiss that is, I am afraid, guaranteed to happen at some point or other.
Think about how funny what seems to us as passionate lovemaking must look to others. I think I can speak for most of us when I say it doesn’t really unfold anything like a porn film – it is a gangly and slightly unattractive collection of grunts and moans that for many makes us uncomfortably close to animalistic behaviour. The whole in-out-in-out side of it too is quite peculiar when you think about it, and much more funny than romantic.
I am not, by any means, trying to ruin sex for anyone. However, if we remembered our sense of humour and our commonsense, I think we would be freed up to worry about it less, and start enjoying it more. Just a suggestion!
Image via Cdrummbks's Flickr