So this arose out of a conversation with one of my friends, and I figure a bunch of strangers on a drug forum are as qualified as anyone to posit opinions on it, so here we go: Get ready for an abstract, meta type discussion on sexuality, inter-personal relationships, society and some of the language around sexuality,
(Bounce it to P&S if you see fit, but it will probably get more replies here)
So, me and her are chilling together, railing lines of blow, talking, and enjoying each others company. I'm fingering her a bit as we discuss
fourier transform mid infrared absorption photospectroscopy anyways, she interrupts my rambling verbal run on sentence about
Planck equivalence that describes the energy of the photons of a given frequency and the off-topic aspect of how mathematically beautiful it is. and asks something on the lines "Why is it that society would call what we are doing to be immoral/wrong/dirty, and would call me a slut because we are engaging in sexual activity without being 'together' + that we open and sexual with more then one person, despite this being simply friends sharing affection, love and closeness, while making each other feel good, yet it endorses us in the capacity that your job, at the bottom line is to kill/maim total strangers(I'm in the forces) and that mine is to design more capable ways of delivering materials to incinerate people at supersonic speeds (she's an aerospace engineer and her work frequently involves missiles) They call you a hero for it, they call me an upstanding and productive member of society for it and they pay me a lot of money to do it. But they call us negative things for sharing affection."
I thought she had a good point on both counts, but I'm only addressing why is it not kosher for "friends" to be sexual intimate with each other, generally speaking? Why is looked down upon to not be sexual with exclusively one person across a given time measure? It is not hurting anyone (and even if it was, as she pointed out, it seems hurting people is a
good thing according to society) Yet to make someone feel nice, to give them that tingly electrical but deliciously pleasant feeling is naughty? How in the fuck does that make any sense?! Why is sexuality seen as so taboo with oh so many little rules and requirements as to when it is acceptable? As long as it's consensual, it should be acceptable and seen as a positive thing imo. Think of the pejorative labels applied to women (men too, but not so much) who are open with their sexuality. Sluts, ho's, whores, easy, skanks, etc. Why is it a pejorative thing?
Lets look a bit more at terms and language related to friendship, sexuality and relationships:
"Oh, we're
just friends" or "I like you as a friend" I am not even sure what that statement means. To me, it is meaningless. But generally, it seems to imply that a) Romantic partners are not friends... I myself NEED anyone I say "I love you" to to be my friend. b) It is often used in context to imply that friends do not have sex/should not have sex/ it is wrong to do so. Why is that? Why is this one particular form of otherwise amicable and positive form of human interaction restricted from being something friends do together? I enjoy it! It's a great way to spend time with a friend! It's free! It's fun! It makes both of you happy/feel nice! Sounds like a good activity to me.
Next up "she/he is boyfriend/girlfriend." This just seems sexist, why must it be the case that a friend who's gender is specified and opposite of yours (That is, if I'm a guy and I say 'my girlfriend', it somehow a different meaning then 'my friend who is a girl'. Lets look at this as 'I have a black car' is now somehow different from 'my car is black' and of course, it is implied if I say "My friend" that this friend is a male) is a special class of friend, of which you can either exactly 0 or 1 of, and with which you are sexual with, and is the only one permissible to be sexual with. Why do we need to make this distinction? Can't I just say "My friend" and NOT have you assume their gender, or if I do or do not engage in a certain aspect of human interaction with them?
Last up: "Friends with benefits" First off, ALL my friends have benefits. If a person provided me nothing positive (That is, if they gave me no benefits) I don't consider them a friend.They have to give me something positive, someone to talk to, someone to play video games with, someone to go drinking with, something, no? Following from that, why is sexual interaction seen as some sort of privileged frame of reference by which "benefits" is defined? I like doing sexual things with some people. For example, the girl in talk of in the start of this post. I like doing sexual things with her, its fun! Yup, it's a benefit of being her friend. But so is talking about FTIR spectroscopy! That's fun too, it's also a benefit of being her friend. But why would no assume I mean I mean discussing shining a multichromatic beam of light though a material and measuring how much of what wavelengths are absorbed by that material and inferring what the material is made from/it's structure is from those results, as being the benefit if I said "She's a friend with benefits" they'd instead assume I meant the sex part.
It's also a loaded term, it carries an implication that ALL we do is meet up for sex and then go our seperate ways. Why don't you think that I actually am FRIENDS with her, that we chill, go drinking and talk science together, and sometimes we have sex too, when I say shes a F.W.B.
"I'm in a relationship" means: "I'm in a certain type of exclusive sexual relationship." Remember kids, A friend is also relationship, so is Boss/employee for that matter. All "relationship" means is that two or more things/concepts are somehow related/connected to/ a function of each other. Everyone is in several relationships at all times. The term is so vague as to be nearly meaningless. i.e. To say "That the
fine-structure constant describes the RELATIONSHIP between the elementary charge and the Planck charge as the square of it's ratio" is just as accurate as to say "Me and that girl are in a relationship defined by me sticking my penor in her vagoo" Why is there again some special super duper power attached to that action that makes it the DEFINITION of a "relationship"
Seriously, all in all, sexuality with more then one partner, and with partners who don't meet some arbitrary and abstract category is frowned upon and seems to be a pejoratively understood concept. Why is this. It is harmless, it is between consenting adults, it is simply another way to interact with a fellow human being, and at the end of it, IT DOES NOT AFFECT YOU, A THIRD PARTY if someone and their friend have sex, or if they have sex with 3 people in the course of a day, so why is it so heavily and negatively judged and discouraged. Sex is awesome. The world needs more people making each other feel nice, less of the incineration, and less of the judgement for making each other feel nice.
