I for one have never experienced anything worse,
Then you've led a truly, truly, truly charmed life.
To pick up on that, Opebo may be on one extreme but you should always, when critiquing his stance take into careful consideration that you are on the other. To someone who sits happily in the middle both seem very bizarre to me
Opebo is also more candid when describing his fetishes and you are more guarded in what you reveal about yourself. And that’s okay. However as a person who enjoys sex (though in a very different context) then somewhat frustratingly I can ‘connect’ more with Opebo on that issue. Sexual pleasure is, for most people, something innate within them. When expressed an act it is intimate but it also exposes you and exposes a part of you that’s not often accessible to anyone but the person you are having sex with. So people want safety when having sex whether that safety is a literal privacy for it or and whether that safety is within a relationship/marriage or found through having sex with no commitment whatsoever. Some people are constrained by relationships and freed by casual encounters. There is nothing wrong in that in itself. Am I personally a little put off by what he does? Sure thing, but I’m also aware that far more men would find what I do personally more uncomfortable that what Opebo gets up to. Which is very sad but there we go.
Looking at the question, there is no such thing as ‘normal’ sexuality. There’s normative sexuality (usually heteronormative) in which certain cultural conditions impact upon sexual mores and these constantly vary. However as long as sex is consensual (and that is the most difficult thing to define) you cannot say that the person who is having sex within say a monogamous relationship is more ‘correct’ in their expression of sexuality (or strives towards a greater ideal) than someone who is sleeping with a different person every second night. That leads to all sorts of unhelpful moralistic pronouncements. Nor should monogamous sex within a single coupling be taken as the standard to which all other congress is measured or validated against. Yes, casual sex can be psychologically destructive but so to can sex within marriage. Selfless love for another person, as opposed to simple sexual drive is a very different animal and flits between these extremes.
I can only really talk about this from my own experience and I think discussions like this benefit from a certain frankness that, again, only Opebo has brought to the table so far and I’d rather that didn’t stand. I first had sex when I was 17 (part of me wants to say 16 but I can’t quite be sure) at a point at which I was physically and mentally prepared as I thought I could be. I’ve probably had about maybe eighty or so sexual partners. I’m not out to claim bragging rights or anything; I’m a married man so it’s a moot point for me now but I was always a considerate lover. I was always safe. I was always ‘me’; I was never anything but myself when having sex. Was hooking up with a guy for sex promiscuous by someone else’s standards? Perhaps. For me I was just having sex; I was making a brief but energising connection with another man. I met my first boyfriend at 20 and was with him until I was 26 and in those six years I only ever had sex with him. It’s like a ‘button’ that switches when you love someone. When that relationship broke down, it took me a little while to pick myself up not when it came to sex because I could
do that. And that’s important. Some people can do sex easily and if they are lucky, well. For some that’s the only attractive feature about them or for them is a hundred times easier than falling in love. Sex is easy; it doesn’t require thinking.
After Chris called it quits did I have sex? Yes. Did I have a few failed attempts at relationships with sex as part of them? Yes. I met Michael at 27 and have been with him for two and a half years and we are monogamous.
So I couldn’t really take seriously someone who would critique my 80 sexual partners in a four year window as somehow being a ‘problem’ because I’ve spent nearly a decade in one of two monogamous relationships. Given that the only real heartache I have suffered is the result of being
in a monogamous relationship when it comes to ‘damage’ I could say that technically it has caused more. I enjoy having sex. I also enjoy being in love and those things go very well together for me.
