Sex as the field work of my life

A scene for intelligence gathering: to mirror life, with pleasure.

In my recently published “Some of My Parts,” I wrote a poem about how, in the mood of Jennifer Doyle (2006) I see my sex life as a scene of intelligence gathering. Sex as the field work of my life, my life’s best work: a way to mirror life, with pleasure (as per Reich, (1983) a guy more obsessed with orgasms than even me, and probably you).

Jennifer Doyle actually writes about promiscuity being the scene for intelligence gathering. So not just sex, but sex that demonstrates an “unselective or transient approach” (OED, 2022).

Now first of all, safe, enthusiastic, consensual sex has to be the baseline, the bare minimum. I have had sex that was not safe, not enthusiastic, and the lines between consent were certainly blurred. These experiences gathered me intelligence, but intelligence I could have done without, intelligence I would have been much happier gaining in second hand accounts through screens and pages. To be clear, this is not some bullshit “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, everything has a lesson worth learning,” self help nausea inducing quackery. That’s not what I’m advocating for here.

I’m advocating for my agency. My agency to choose how, and where I lay myself down and what I gain from it. It doesn’t matter how sex-positive I have deemed myself to be over the years, the overarching societal notion of promiscuity being bad, but sex being good has kept me in a moral mind fuckery bind of enjoying my sex life and still feeling guilt for some parts of it. Though I do not regret any of the people who loved, nor fucked me into my now. I do not regret those I have fucked, but not loved.