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May 30, 2004
Why Food Is Better Than Sex
Or, more accurately, why talking about sex on Orkut is usually boring. A continuation of something that started on Karl's Moronosphere.
I've seen this band. One of the greatest bands I've ever seen in my life. They played a handful of live shows in the 80's, in Houston. Never recorded anything. Just played a few brilliant shows, then broke up, and the guys all went back to college.
You have no chance of ever hearing this band. You'll only ever hear second-hand reports from people who were there. And they'll talk about how "they rocked" or how they were "kind of like Sonic Youth meets Samul-Nori with a little Shonen Knife thrown in" or how they "deconstructed pre-grunge". But you will never hear the music. You will never really have any idea what these people are talking about.
My guess is that after a brief discussion, your desire to hear anything else about this band will be practically nil. Because words can only convey so much about the subject, and after that, without any shared musical frame of reference, without actually at some point hearing the music, further discussion is redundant, it's boring, it provides nothing new of interest, and so you'll either change the subject or you'll walk away.
If talking about music is like dancing about architecture, then talking about sex is like jogging about calculus, or something equally ludicrous. Taking something that's very complex, very powerful, and very diffucult to understand without actually doing it, and translating it into a form that's so redundant and so unlike the real thing that it can't help but be boring.
Without some shared frame of reference, discussion about any topic gets boring very quickly. And with sex, that shared frame of reference is almost impossible to obtain.
We can talk about music, and chances are we've heard the same bands, which gives us a basis for discussion. You might talk about a band I've never heard, but I can go out and buy their CD. And if I can't, I'm not really going to want to hear too much more about them.
We can talk about food, and chances are we've eaten some of the same foods. And we can share recipes. It's even possible we can cook for each other. And if I say "my wife puts nutmeg in her crab & corn quiche", you've probably had quiche, maybe even crab & corn quiche, you know what nutmeg tastes like, and you can probably say "wow" or "ick" based on that description alone. And if not, you can go and make a quiche with nutmeg in it and find out.
But when talking about, oh, blowjobs, for instance, the whole thing breaks down. Somebody can talk about their favorite blowjob techniques, I can talk about what I like in a blowjob, but without actually doing it, there's no way I can tell if they really have any clue how its done. And I think everybody agrees, when it comes to blowjobs, either you get it or you don't.
And so any further knowledge stops there. Because it's pretty bloody unlikely that that person will ever be giving me a blowjob in this lifetime. The conversation very quickly comes up short because of a lack of shared reality in which to ground it. Words just do not convey what needs to be conveyed when it comes to sex.
I'm not talking about erotica. Erotica is different. Erotica is not about conveying the writer's ideas, it's about stimulating the reader's imagination. My imagination can supply the details, and they may be different than the writer's details, but as long as the writer is skilled in stimulating my imagination, they'll be a great erotic writer.
But the gratuitous flirting on Orkut? Doesn't do that. It's just flirting. From people who may or may not have any clue what makes a good blowjob. People who I will never have sex with, and so will probably never have even a minimal shared frame of reference with. So all this talk by necessity goes from fun to redundant to boring to actively irritating very quickly. The medium just isn't rich enough. Video of somebody giving a blowjob? Bring it on. Come to my house and give me a blowjob? Well, I'll have to clear it with the wife, but in principal, I'm for it, of course. But talking about how your boyfriend once took your picture with his dick in your mouth? Big fucking deal. You and ten million other girls. I'd rather hear about your last traffic ticket.
Or I'd rather talk about food. Not because I'm a prude, or because I don't like sex. But because talking about sex is almost completely unrelated to actually doing it, and unlike with food, talking about sex doesn't contribute anything to actually doing it later.
Posted by ray at May 30, 2004 11:39 AM | Permalink
Categories: [sex ]
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