That's the top-rated comment at a NYT "Modern Love" column by a young woman named Ali Rachel Pearl who's trying to understand why she hasn't had sex in 2 years:
Maybe my secondary abstinence...Secondary abstinence is abstinence by someone who has been sexually active in the past.
... isn’t in allegiance to God but to my own broken heart and the fear that seems to produce a kind of magnetic repellant [sic] whenever I come close to someone I desire.
My friends don’t seem to understand my secondary abstinence. They ask if I’ve had sex yet. “How can you go so long?” they ask. “I can’t imagine.” They say: “You have to lower your standards.” “Go to the bar more.” “Join a dating website.” “Make really good eye contact.” “Get rid of your hang-ups.” “Be more open.” “Stop being afraid.” “It’s just sex,” they say. “You have to stop refusing to sleep with people just because you don’t immediately want to marry them.”...
Every night that I go to a concert or a party, every day that I walk around the neighborhood, I find my secondary abstinence trailing me like a sad ghost or an unwanted dog.
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56 comments:
Having sex just makes a mess unless there's something intended to be permanent about it.
Otherwise the guy regrets it right and the woman isn't showing the guy she's satisfied with him. There's no dynamic to it.
Put yourself back in there by having a Bukkake Party.
One of those ejaculating men just might be your Soul Mate.
I am Laslo.
There used to be one word for this condition.
Sounds like she needs a new group of friends. Maybe while finding them she will find her partner.
Wisdom in a NY Times comment section, who would have thought.
"...seems to produce a kind of magnetic repellant [sic] whenever I come close to someone I desire."
High-Strung, Needy and Desperate can provoke that response.
I am Laslo.
She doesn't want sex. Why are her friends all pushing it on her? Let her be.
"She doesn't want sex. Why are her friends all pushing it on her? Let her be."
Her Fish needs a Bicycle.
I am Laslo.
"Maybe my secondary abstinence isn’t in allegiance to God but to my own broken heart..."
Maybe following your broken heart rather than God might be leading you down the wrong path; just thinking aloud, here.
In the meantime, wear sweatpants, put on some Morrissey records and wallow.
I am Laslo.
Alcoholics don't know how to cope without alcohol.
The drunks are offended when someone is sober.
"...isn’t in allegiance to God but to my own broken heart..."
Or maybe the only reason God suggested allegiance to His way was because he wanted to steer you clear of having a broken heart.
And just maybe God really doesn't care if you outwardly declare allegiance to Him or not, as long as you avoided the pain of the broken heart, which was His most fervent desire in the first place, and His only reason for putting forth his "laws" - His suggested way of loving - in the first place.
Don't want sex? Don't have it! Geeze, why do people have to overthink everything? And write about it all?
I had a friend, a co-worker at the late lamented Borders, a devout Catholic, who ordered books on voluntary chastity. It's a thing that honestly calls to some people. But the assumption in these times is that you'd have to be sick to want that, because, hey, absolutely everybody wants sex.
Well, no, "everybody" doesn't.
"Don't want sex? Don't have it! Geeze, why do people have to overthink everything? And write about it all?"
This.
Finding a good man must be as hard as finding a good woman these days. Why not try a PCUSA Church Singles ministry.
She does want sex. She just isn't finding any that's good enough for her. I think that's very common, that the commenter I quoted is basically correct and the friends are saying something quite misguided.
"I met the most amazing guy the other night."
"Really? It's about time. Tell me about him."
"He is tall, dark-haired and has the most wonderful sensitive eyes."
"Sounds great!"
"Yeah! When he came in my hair our eyes locked, and we had a moment. I could feel it, deep down."
"Wait: what?"
"Our eyes locked."
"No, no: the other part."
"Oh. Yeah, he came in my hair. It was a Bukkake Party."
"Wow."
"Yeah, he really stood out. So many of the other men just wanted to ejaculate for themselves. Some even came on my face, making my eyes sting."
"Yeah, that's gotta hurt some."
"But him: he was ejaculating for me, I could tell. And he was the only one afterward to bring me a roll of toilet paper so I could clean up."
"You think you'll see him again?"
"Oh yeah. We have a connection. I just don't know what to do if he wants sex right away..."
"But he's already jerked off into your hair."
"Yeah, but that's different. Sex with someone you care about is a lot more intimate than twelve strangers coming on your face and hair. Some even try to push their cock in your mouth."
"I would think there would be protocols about that."
"There are, but there are always insensitive men who want to push past the boundaries. Like: my tits are off-limits."
"But this guy is sensitive."
"Yeah, and he dressed so well. Even with his pants at his knees he looked sharp."
"I hope this all works out for you..."
"Oh, it will, it will. This all had to happen for a Higher Reason."
"Yeah."
"It was spiritual, you know? I mean, not the short guy who tried to put his cock in my mouth, but My Guy: Spiritual..."
I am Laslo.
Making out with people I hardly know or like
I can't believe what I do, late at night.
Maybe having sex with casual acquaintances is actually weird for a lot of people.
"in a culture that is not."
Now why might that be? I invite you to think deeply about that.
who seemed to view me as some kind of morally reformed or seriously disturbed woman in my mid-20s.
I'm putting my money on seriously disturbed. I mean....you know...Who in the hell would complain about their sex life in the New York Times!?!?
althouse wrote:
She does want sex. She just isn't finding any that's good enough for her.
Maybe she needs to lower her standards. Maybe her potential partners don't feel she's shag worhty because shes a grumpy gus.
I've just solved this ladies dilemna with some quick reading. I'm a real Encyclopedia Brown:
"I’m “secondary” in a lot of things these days: secondary vegetarian, secondary sober, secondary nonsmoker. But here is how my secondary abstaining departs from my secondary everything else."
Followed by:
"I bought a bottle of Larceny bourbon the night before in preparation and had consumed half before he arrived. I had never had sober sex with a new partner, and I wasn’t about to start with a guy I barely knew."
See why she's not having sex? Because she never does it unless she's drunk. And she's not drinking anymore. That will be 125 dollars for describing the problem.
As to the solution. Well, start drinking again? Or, learn how to have sex without getting drunk.
"They say: “You have to lower your standards.”
There is the answer. No man is up to her "standards."
"Who in the hell would complain about their sex life in the New York Times!?!?"
Another good insight. Where do they get these people ?
She does want sex. She just isn't finding any that's good enough for her.
She doesn't want sex. She wants a good relationship. Maybe once she's in a relationship, she'll want sex.
If it was sex that she wanted, she'd be having it.
Perhaps at a later point in her life she will figure how to have physical pleasure without having to involve other people. Yeah I know the whole relationship thing but waiting, and feeling bad about waiting, takes a lot of time that could be spent doing something else.
"who seemed to view me as some kind of morally reformed or seriously disturbed woman in my mid-20s." No, he's merely assigning a word to the condition you presented lady. Any negative connotation is coming from your own feelings on being essentially asexual. He's judging me! No, he merely describes what you are. You are judging you.
She's describing a bunch of people who bought into the liberal mindset that sex is meaningless and fun only. Its also then disposable and banal. Its just fulfilling an urge, like eating when you're hungry. If you engage in it that way, do you wonder why people might not view it as special? How special is the chinese food you ate three weeks ago? It's routine.
The left just killed the specialness of sex. And now punk rockers say they don't do sex or love. Well why would you?
This lady doesn't know what she wants. She wants love ultimately and not meaningless sex, but she cant wrap her mind around fact that she's been engaged in meaningless sex and relationships for her whole life. and those are unfullfilling.
When you deconstruct something you are left with nothing but its parts. Love is just a chemical process. So, there is no real love. Choice is not real. Serioulsy, why bother living then? Modern love and life of the secularists leads to ennui and existentialism and nihilism. Not exactly healthy.
But that's the life she chose for herself. Now its time to lie in her bed.
and note I don't mean all secularists, are this way. But lefty secularists seem to be.
"If it was sex that she wanted, she'd be having it."
A good measure of what a person doesn't want is what they're not doing.
She doesn't want sex, she wants meaningful sex. And either she hasn't learned how to get there, or doesn't want to acknowledge that her lifestyle to this point has cost her a lot.
"She does want sex. She just isn't finding any that's good enough for her."
Same problem I have with patty melts. Can't imagine writing at length about it, though.
"So I went to this Bukkake Party the other night..."
"I've always wanted to go to one of those. The girl: was she good-looking?"
"Fair. But she had a neediness about her, you could see it in her eyes."
"I hate that."
"Me too. She kept trying to make eye content, and I just wanted to blow my load on her hair."
"That's what a Bukkake Party is for."
"I know. And she kept staring at me, even while the other guys were coming all over her. It was kinda freaky."
"I can imagine."
"I mean, I'm just there to splooge on a chick and I'm thinking she wants me to take her to dinner or something."
"Would you?"
"Would you take her to dinner? Sounds like she'd be pretty easy: after all, you've already ejaculated in her hair."
"Nah, that neediness vibe is too strong."
"What about if she did anal."
"Hmmm. Maybe one date."
"That's what I was thinking..."
I am Laslo.
"I went to a Bukkake Party the other night..."
"How was it?"
"It was alright, I guess."
"The chick was ugly, right?"
""No,no: I thought she was pretty. Like, 'the kind of girl you'd like to take to dinner' pretty."
"Really? So what was the problem?"
"I thought I was making a real connection with her, but it ends up she only had eyes for this tall, handsome guy in a suit."
"A suit? Who wears a suit to a Bukkake Party?
"I know. Us short guys, the girls never seem to pay any attention to us. It's like they've already decided we're not good enough for them, just because of our height."
"I know the feeling."
"I mean, I pushed my cock in her mouth, came on her face -- anything to get her to pay attention to me, you know? -- but she just sat and stared all starry-eyed at Mr. Tall Guy."
"That's gotta be disappointing."
"Yeah. I mean, it's a Bukkake Party, but I wanted to be more than just another cock."
"You know the worst part?"
"What's that?"
"I bet she'd have anal with that guy, right out of the gate."
I am Laslo.
"Oh God, you should've seen Room 433 that I had to clean up."
"I heard rumors..."
"They obviously had a Bukkake Party in there."
"And of course they leave it to us maids to clean up the mess."
"Ain't that how it always is? There was semen everywhere, the walls were wet. My skin is still crawling, and I had to throw away my shoes."
"Can't these people at least lay down some towels?"
""You'd think. The only thing they used a towel for is one guy who obviously wiped his ass with it."
"Ewwww. Shit Towel People. Those are the worst."
"Yeah. And the chick used toilet paper to wipe herself up, and then just left it on the floor. Like she can't be bothered to even throw it in the trash."
"That's just rude."
"And the smell..."
"It's never pretty."
"The best you can hope for is to get the ammonia and air freshener to be stronger than the spunk."
"Some days you feel like you should've never come into work in the first place."
"Amen. And some jackass broke the toilet, trying to flush a pair of underpants."
"Probably married. Can't have the Wife see Jizz-shorts."
"Men can be pretty fucked up."
"Yeah. And I hope she gets an eye infection."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Bukkake Girls always get an eye infection..."
I am Laslo.
Ali's Bio from her blog:
"Ali Rachel Pearl is currently a PhD student in the Department of English at the University of Southern California where she works in the fields of contemporary literature, electronic literature, and media arts. Her prose, book reviews, photos, and other work is forthcoming from or appears in DIAGRAM, The New York Times, Pilot Light, The Fiddleback, LIES/ISLE, The Journal, Quarterly West, and elsewhere. Most of the year she lives and teaches in Los Angeles where she also pursues her obsessions with street art, amateur photography, architecture, psychogeography, modern & contemporary art, the desert, the desert, the desert, and repetition.
Ali is currently interested in exploring how digital media can disrupt power structures, how street art can intervene in city spaces, how objects translate across the digital/analog divide (or linger in that divide), and how digital manipulations, inventions, and interventions can alter both received narratives and narratives we produce in creative and academic arenas.
Materialism (e.g. sex, money) vs faith (e.g. love, trust). Even undeclared, unacknowledged, the latter takes precedence.
"Where do they get these people ?"
In graduate programs in English and Creative Writing.
Of course, no guy in his right mind would now have sex with this person, since he must assume that he will be written about, one way or another.
Tinder Mercies.
I'll bet Lazlo doesn't have a PhD in English, and Ms. Pearl will never be a creative writer.
The part about the dog was sad.
"I find my secondary abstinence trailing me like a sad ghost or an unwanted dog."
If she can't decide between two similes, how can she decide who to have sex with?
Photos of her are on the net too. Seemingly ones she has selected herself. She's good looking, in a slightly menacing way. She isn't chosing to exhibit any warmth or invitation. Interesting how we choose to present ourselves, isn't it?
Maybe an emoji tattoo of a vulva would help....
Laslo -
Jesus Christ man, that is some funny shit.
A tip 'o the cap to your talents - past, present and future!
Laslo pretty much sums up democrat and republican voters these days.
I don't understand why people think it weird that people choose not to sleep with someone just because they can...or why they think there's something wrong or that it's their business to comment if friends or acquaintances of theirs make choices for their sex lives that differ from their own.
As Woody Allen pointed out, being bisexual doubles your chance of a date. But twice nothing is still nothing.
...I find my secondary abstinence trailing me like a sad ghost or an unwanted dog.
Well, sometimes you're trailed by the unwanted dog, and sometimes you are the unwanted dog.
"It's just sex...", and that is exactly what's wrong with it.
She has to write about something, I guess this is it.
Althouse:
"She does want sex. She just isn't finding any that's good enough for her."
Althouse:
"The best test of what you actually want is what you are actually doing."
Advantage:
Any reader who puts these sentences side by side.
Cardinal Richelieu epigramatically remarked that any woman could be bedded, if one was willing to listen to her talk for three hours first.
A corollary to that historical truth is that there are women who use sex to maintain a guy's interest when the women run out of things to talk about.
Neither of these has anything to do with the linked article, but are great to discuss with one's teen-aged daughter before she starts dating.
As to the woman in the article, she sounds like she's been married for a while.
From her Twitter account:
"The nice thing about the print version of Modern Love is there's no comments section."
I think I'll refrain from pointing her to this post.
Mikee, not Proust?
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