Let’s Talk About Sex…
Since the miracle of Cana, the three rings of dating and mating—engagement ring, wedding ring, and suffering—held steady. That is until the 1960s and the advent of the Pill. That's when everything changed. Tweet
Highlights
Things have changed as a result of the Pill on the mating front.
Sex has, in a sense, become unsexed from its consequences.
The joys of sex—without its consequences—was not a hard sale for the Feminist Revolution to make.
You had us at no-strings sex.
As those great philosophers, Salt-n-Pepa, wrote, “Let’s talk about sex, baby, let’s talk about you and me, let’s talk about all the good things, and bad things that may be. Let’s talk about it…”
Where do we begin? Let’s start with the shared, in-the-beginning pass-through for us all into this world:
“Man is born a screaming bundle of flesh, the outcome of mating.” This much we all know.
Since the miracle of Cana, the three rings of dating and mating—engagement ring, wedding ring, and suffering—have held true.
What is being said here?
Mating has obvious consequences. Little screaming bundles of flesh are the consequence of male and female bumping. And unlike those infantile School House Rocks morality plays, the outcome of sex is not the quiet bag of flour you forget on the top of your car as you drive away from soccer practice. In the words of ELO, it’s a living thing, a magical, innocent bundle of flesh that eats and shits, pisses and screams, from morning until night. A child, like Coppola’s Godfather, insists upon itself.
At the most individual level, every child knows who mama is. The paternity of the father has until recently been something to know with certainty. Thank you, Maury Povich, for your ever-entertaining “Who’s Your Daddy”? segments. It turns out that even baby-mamas don’t always know who the daddy is.
In short, for much of human history when man meets a woman, society could expect a screaming bundle of flesh to follow. From this fact, the segregation of the sexes until they collided on the marital bed made perfect sense.
If you want to understand and separate the pre-modern world from the post-modern world, it starts and ends with the Pill. Since the miracle of Cana, the three rings of dating and mating—engagement ring, wedding ring, and suffering—have held true. That is until the 1960s. That’s when everything changed.
For the past 60 years, the consequences of mating are no longer the problems of mankind. We have new opportunities—Tinder and OnlyFans—and new problems—OnlyFans and Tinder. Things have changed as a result of the Pill on the mating front.
What has not caught up is our shared public understanding of how 21st-Century Adam and Eve are dating, mating and marrying—or not.
What’s new?
First, it’s a lot easier out there for those looking to have sex just to have it.
Both men and women live and lust in a low judgement sexual economy. And if that wasn’t awesome enough, society feels your pain and exists to mitigate the consequence of whatever nature intends for boys and girls just wanting to have fun.
A women—not her biology—is now running the show. Educationally, professionally, and physically, the Pill is a boon for women.
It’s also a boon for letting the lid off men’s id as well. On behalf of all men, thank you.
Once upon a time—both men and women—had to make early, life-long, until-death-do-us-part choices, just to have the luxury of having as much unprotected sex and its consequences as they wanted. That is no longer the case today.
Men and Women have been made sexual equals. It’s OK for women to think sexually like men.
Sex has, in a sense, become unsexed from its consequences. Oops! still happens, but they are a fraction of what nature would intend.
What does all this mean about the future of the species? In short, a lot.
The first and most obvious observation is that men and women have been made sexual equals. It’s OK for women to think sexually like men.
What men have always wanted—and used to jump through through all the sexual, qualifying hoops for is no longer required. The joys of sex—without its consequences—was not a hard sale for the Feminist Revolution to make. You had us at no-strings sex.
But if this is true, then it comes with some consequences for dating, mating and procreating that presently are not being openly discussed.
At a a certain point—which is be extended with science—women, if they desire to procreate, need to pivot to get a more traditional love-marriage-baby-carriage grove on.
Once a man can get the joys of sex without the burdens, it’s hard to move men from such a good state of sexual play to something like marriage, which is an institution decidedly opposed to his pleasure principle. Men, unlike women don’t have a biological clock. It’s always play time for men. Men are neither biologically nor socially conditioned to rise to the desired occasion when a modern women wants and requires more than a sexual partner.
At that point, it turns out that men in your age cohort are “just not that into you.” We have some thoughts on that, too.
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