Feel free to delete this: What do you think Adam and Eve were doing?

By: James Mollison

Posted: 10/8/07

There’s nothing quite like young adolescent lovers, drunk with naiveté, underneath soft, freshly cleaned sheets on a cool summer night. The brief, silver flash of light behind a molten gaze brought to climax, like a shooting star trapped in the back of your lover’s eyes. Nothing like lying, sweaty, with your lover in bliss: your hearts palpitate and pulse, and you desperately try to catch your breath just so you can lie still and try to overlap one another.

Now, I know some sexual conservatives on campus are waiting until marriage before ‘cashing in.’ I’m not trying to persuade you to have sex; whenever you decide to “do it,” you’ll understand my point.

As for the rest of you, who make up a large portion of the student body, I am sincerely disappointed. Sexuality is one of our most innate drives, one which receives additional attention given our age, and even though everyone desires someone, most still act confused, perplexed, unconfident and even ashamed about their sexuality.

As a consequence, people tend to be hesitant about letting their attraction to that “special someone” be known. So they hide it, triggering the dizzying process of courtship, where no one ever really means what they say, much less say what they mean.

Well isn’t this a massive waste of time and energy? Simply being forward and direct would streamline this sticky process. Be bold; what do you have to lose? Let’s assume the worst, where you tell someone you’re attracted to them and they don’t reciprocate; it’s not as though this really strikes a blow to your dignity or integrity. If it does, you probably didn’t think that highly of yourself in the first place, so way to go. Your consolation prize is knowing you had enough confidence to be honest and not having to waste more time trying to impress the person in question.

In response to this advocacy of direct sexuality, prudes will make two foreseeable arguments. The first being: this logic promotes nothing short of sexual harassment. However, the repression of sexuality is more likely to produce the need for verbal, sexual outlets, as sexual harassment derives not from a reasonable self assuredness, but from such a deep insecurity that one needs to make others aware of their sexuality by publicly and explicitly expressing it. If it is harassment, such behavior would simply upset whoever you are attracted to.

Moreover, innuendo makes it impossible to determine what is and isn’t sexual harassment anyway. But this last point is most important: it is also impossible to make a distinction between elevating someone to the object of your affection and objectifying them all together. This can be proven if we think of a situation where one colleague genuinely loves another, confesses such love and is then fired for sexual harassment. The act of declaring your affection for someone else is always partially violent, as they were presumably unaware they held such a position in the first place and would feel uncomfortable when they find out, since it redefines the preexisting relationship without their consent. All of this suggests that we should redefine sexual harassment on a strictly physical basis - and strict should be emphasized - instead of on a verbal one. But I digress.

The other response prudes will have is that this strategy degrades the value of sex. For non-prudes, this is the threat of losing “the chase.” Firstly, “the chase” is defined as any and all signs pointing to yes: if someone says “yes,” you can hook up with them; if they say “no,” they’re playing hard to get. This most dangerous logic makes things infinitely more complicated and produces atrocities like date rape. Both of these problems can at least partially be alleviated by simply being upfront and forward in your affection, or lack thereof.

The excitement isn’t going anywhere. Even when you and the object of your desire both ache for one another, there is still plenty of tension and unpredictability. You could just as easily stop liking each other as soon as tomorrow. This fickle threat ensures the continuation of the fun, vulnerable sensation you have at the beginning stages of dating.

I don’t think I need to write more; you and I both know sex is great. Stop acting scared of it.

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