Questions and Answers

Today, I thought I'd respond here to some questions a reader asked me by email in regards to my last blog entry. Thanks to C for posing them.

so how does one sort this out.....i mean..there is the need to be with someone. or the desire. so is it just sex?

To be perfectly blunt, yes, sometimes it is indeed just sex. But even though love is not at all necessary for me to desire a particular person, not just anyone will do. I have my preferences, just like anyone else, but it is usually based more on a nebelous, undefinable biological "chemistry" rather than any kind of emotional attachment. I couldn't even begin to define just what the chemistry is that I respond to, but I always recognize it when I experience it.

A few times, many years ago, I did have sex with partners with whom I had no chemistry and each time, the sex was mechanical and unsatisfying. So, even though I might not have any emotional desires for a particular partner, the chemistry must be present for it to be worth pursuing.

or is companionship just as critical? how does love fit into all this?

It depends on the situation. Love doesn't always fit into it, nor is it always necessary. Love and sex are two different things and both are good, either separately or together. The desire to mate is a basic human instinct, like eating, and I've always gone about meeting this need in a matter of fact manner. I recognize and accept that I'm going to get horny quite a bit more often than I'm going to be in love, and I've acted accordingly.

And it is far easier for me to share my body with others than my innermost thoughts and feelings. I've not been "in love" but a handful of times in my life, and when it occurs, it is all the more precious simply because of its rarity.

a distinction between love and lust. but then take that relationship out into a future of getting older and more dependent....how would that work with something more superficially based on sex?

Well, it wouldn't work with something which was strictly based on sex alone. But it's not always an either/or thing for me; either purely sexual encounters or a committed monogamous relationship. A few of the lovers I've had over the years have fallen somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. I've had some rather satisfying "sexual friendships"; that is, relationships that include all the ordinary activities of most friendships, with sex added into the mix, but without the typical romantic exclusivity.

i dunno....does a libertine face a future of growing old alone? don't you have to make some kind of commitments to a someone to insure they will be there for you? and isn't that simpler if that is based in love?

I suppose that is always a possibility. But there are no guarantees of anything in this life, not even for those of us who have chosen to conform to the straight and narrow of monogamous marriage. Death and divorce are ever-possible realities even for those who always follow the rules.

"To thine own self be true", then let the chips fall where they may.