As it turns out, I have been going out with this woman. Shes just a year younger than me, but, bear with me, she is pleasant, feminine, and has a tightly kept, VHS-home routine body. Yet, I cant say we are “dating”, as we haven’t had sex together. To me, thats the divider between someone you talk to, and someone you share something intimate with. Because, sex is intimate.
Even casual, reckless, random sex with strangers is intimate. Sex gets you naked, not necessarily in the bodily sense, for those quick office rendez-vous, but in every other sense, you are naked, exposed. Your truest, most hidden desires, are revealed. Your secret motivations, what you really like, what you really want, how you really wanted. Things you wouldn’t even show your closest friend get out. Theres no hiding in sex. If you hold something back, you reveal your fears, if you jump forth, your kinks are pointed out. Sex is honest. Deep. Intimate.
We’ve talked about it, as one should, and she tells me that she WANTS to have sex. Its something shes been dreaming of. Thing is, she doesn’t knows me well enough yet.
Her actual words. So, you’ve known this man for months, hang out with him for a couple weeks, yet you feel you don’t know him?
I wrote this prompted by a tweet from @GoldmundUnleash, you should follow him there. Click here to read Goldmunds “What Makes a Modern Girl Say, “No, Thats Too Intimate”?“
Lets contrast her with a different, much younger woman I met last year. So, In my hometown I hold an apartment thats pretty much across the street from a college campus. So I’ve gotten into a habit of crashing college parties, finding out that its way easier to hook up there than even in the wildest spring-break beach party.
This party. I walk in, find someone I know, have a few beers, talk to some girls, party is dying down, we step out into the balcony to have a smoke, and in walks this 19 y.o. pixie.
“-Hey, I’m David.” -I say.
“-Hey back to you. I live in this same building.
-Party is dying down.
-I know. Are you coming with me?
-Sure. Let me finish my beer.”
And that was it. We ride the elevator up 2 floors, hang out for a full 3 minutes with her roomates who where watching cartoons and smoking bud, got us fresh beers, she takes my hand, and into her bedroom we go.
Chicks a freak, very flexible neck muscles, and a screamer, like she wanted the whole building to know. In the morning we exchange numbers1 and I walk home.
Next Tuesday, I shoot her a message. Would she care to stay after dinner tonight?
-What, like at your place?
-Thats right.
-I cant stay at your place.
-Why not?
-I don’t know you.
To her, the act of “hanging out” with someone else is “intimate”, something shes not ready to share. Yet. She needs to feel close and comfortable before showing who she really is inside during the intimate act of “spending time together.
Thats the difference between the Modern Woman and the, how shall we call them? “Traditional Women”.
Nothing wrong with either. As a man you learn to adapt to the ebbs and flows of cooch. Different times call for different strategies. For women of today, sex is a common, everyday, easy to find thing. Sex is abundant and public, as everywhere you look, theres sex. Intimacy, as defined by them, the act of sharing something personal and private, is rare. Trust, caring, kindness, these are not common, everyday acts. To most women of my time, sex is personal, private, something you share with only your closest confidantes. Yet, intimacy to them is common. You “know” people around you. You talk to strangers, actual conversation with regular individuals. You bond.
One shares what one has in abundance. But what we have in reserve, we keep for those closest to us.
Its only natural. Women of my time had plenty of close relations, talking to someone, sharing, being “intimate” was something that happened everyday. You would strike a conversation with your next seat neighbour on the bus and by the time you came by your stop, you said good bye to a friend. I couldn’t recall all of their names, but I would recognize all 4000 of my high-school class. Kids today have their noses glued to their phones. By the time they turn 18 they are lucky to have spent some face-to-face time with a living human being.2
Back in my cooch-formative-years, sex was scarce. Yes, we had pop-culture and pornography and lustful teenage-thoughts and our previous generations thought us degenerates. But sex wasn’t easy to come by. Even casual encounters would require a certain level of “getting to know each other” to lead to sex. Sex was a dangerous, rebellious act. Then, since intimacy and honesty where commonplace, we kept our intimate, sexual selves private, know only to a few. Modern sex is out there, public, exposed. Between sex-tapes and nipple-slips and leaked nudes, sex becomes a strategy, orchestrated, a front. In the selfie generation, since everything is know to everyone, since everything is broadcast, the only sensible strategy is to show what you can afford to show, and since sex is cheap, they keep to themselves what is valuable, their true selves. The intimate side.
Back then, women offered intimacy freely as an strategy to delay sex long enough, at least long enough for them to feel comfortable enough to share sex. As sex was the ultimate goal. they had to be sure that your supply matched their demand. She wanted a relationship or just sex for tonight? What about you? Are you a horndog that would, and probably has, fucked anything?3 Or are you actually, really, truly after me? Are you going to run off the moment you come, or are you sticking around after Ive given you my true all?
Women now know sex is cheap, common and easy to find. Sex then is freely given away, but their true self, the one not updated 3 times a day on Instagram, is something not for anyone. Intimacy is scarce. You can see everything about everyone, except that which they kept private. Intimacy thus becomes the ultimate act of trust. After Ive given you my private me, theres nothing else to give, nothing more to show. Are you someone I want close to me? Am I going to feel vulnerable? Am I afraid? What about you? Are you like me, cold and lonely deep inside, or are you actually as cool and successful as your Facebook wall? Are you going to stick around after I show you who I really am?
Would you?
- Funny how we first exchanged fluids and then numbers, isn’t it? ↩
- Funny and relevant anecdote: a friend of mine is one of those outdoors-adventure types, and took us one day for a hike trough some canyons. There where around 10 of us and his girl was with him. His buddies would wait for us at the bottom of the trail with our packs and a couple of trucks for the ride back. We change our clothes and huddle in the back. I notice that his girl stares at me, terrified. She whispers something to his ear, he bursts out laughing. She sulks and backs into a corner.“-She wanted to know if you had asked for a ride…
-What do you mean?
-She wouldn’t recognize you with those clothes on and thought you where some random dude who just hopped in on the truck…”Then it dawned me: she had never looked at me, or anyone besides his boyfriend, to the face. Not once in the 6 hours we walked. ↩ - And remember, back in the 90s if your dick so much as pointed to a woman without a condom on, well, y’all dun dead. Or so the media had us believe. ↩