Electricity

Last summer, through a series of lucky  accidents, I  hosted an old-school bluegrass band overnight at my house, following their local debut.

They were from South Carolina, had never been to California before, and only had a dim idea of what I do for a living.  The drummer was particularly interested in what I had in my library, and before he left, I had given them a suitcase of all my books on sexual politics, covering everything from anal intercourse to Clarence Thomas. 

I didn't know if I'd hear from them again, but the drummer wrote me a month later when he landed back home. "I really liked reading your books on the road," he said, "and there's so many things I'd like to talk about. But let me just ask you this for now--- have you ever  experienced electricity during sex?" 

For a moment I flashed on the sensory memory of  a burning smell between my sheets the time my vibrator shorted out under my bed covers. But I knew that he wasn't talking about that, a truly rarefied experience. No, I think he meant something that happened while making love, a current between him and his lover. 

I was curious that my bluegrass friend  didn't define his question. He didn't say, "Have you ever been really in love?  Have you ever felt another presence?"  When people feel an unexpected or extrasensory jolt during sex, they usually chalk it up to true love, or a sign from their god. 

It is usually interpreted as a romantic signal that you are with the "right" person doing just the "right" thing—although a few people who have been around the block will admit that sparks are capable of flying even with people they know they couldn't spend eight hours with, let alone the rest of their lives.

The other curiosity about sexual "electricity" is that it makes such a powerful impression that many people who report the sensation will describe with awe that they weren't even touching genitals, stoking the conventional orgasm. 

I first became interested in this sort of  electricity when I was learning about the  sexual re-education of lovers who had spinal cord injuries, or paralysis that made their genital area numb.

One of the most erotic films I have ever seen was a documentary for couples where one lover has a spinal cord disability.  On camera, these couples had undeniably  powerful and expressive sex.  The last thing I expected to feel, watching a documentary about sex for the disabled, was envy, but that's exactly what I was left with. The camera didn't show any white lightning , the screen didn't crackle; but with one couple in particular, I felt like their every touch was completely off the ground.

I know people seek this kinetic experience, avidly, by studying books and applying themselves to meditation, prayer, or exhaustive  searches for the complete and perfect partner. However, some of the most  impressive stories I've heard about "electricity" were in situations that were anything but high-minded or spiritually-considered. Why do some people get their first jolt at a billiard parlor, when others are in a temple?  If you feel it once with someone, why not forever, why not every time?

I cannot describe for you the chemistry of sexual electricity, though I have certainly had open ears to all  scientific, paranormal, and spiritual explanations. The one thing I am convinced of is that these bolts of body thunder are neither  romantic halos nor  fortune-telling advisories. They do, however, convey a sense of possibility and invention where there was nothing before, a seamless cloth.  This electricity is not something one only feels looking into the eyes of a lover, it's a catalyst that can happen when you are alone— maybe a song that deeply moves  you, or even  a spell of strong weather that brings out something in you you can't explain. It can touch you in a crowd—in chaos, for that matter.

I read a recent newspaper editorial against teenage sexuality, in which  a pregnancy prevention counselor explained with great gravity that the reason sexual activity was so seductive to young people, the reason it was so hard to break them from that desire, is because sex gives them such "high self-esteem". She delivered this verdict grimly.

Yes, sexual success does give you high self-esteem. It's so electric that it could probably make your hair stand on end if you found enough people feeling it simultaneously. In a world where self-esteem has become such a cheap cliché, sex is one place where people feel, if only for a short while,  that they are powerful, that they are  desired and desiring. No wonder it's such an aphrodisiac to teenagers, who typically feel their power thwarted at every turn. A different consciousness rules the air when you feel sexually confident— and it feels like magic.

What's magical is not a rabbit in a hat, or true love in the personal ads. It's our ability to be creative in a world where we feel generous even though our institutions are tight and unforgiving, where we see beauty and pain without the benefit of pointers and price tags.

Does this mean  that  all these electric lovers, who have had excellent sex and top-drawer climaxes, are smarter and smell better  and have whiter teeth? 

No, it means they have a powerful creative capacity that can be ignited by sexual excitement.  More touching and more love-making will doubtless feel good to the source of that current, but that's only the tip of the wing. 

When someone tells me their electric sex story, I don't think, "Oh, you hot wench" — I think, "What does it feel like to know you could do anything?"

Sexual electricity isn't the living end, it's a side effect of what it's like to live with an endless imagination; it's the burn of a memory that just won't quit. 

I've had every sort of supernatural sensation in my dreams, my magnificent night life; but I have not experienced a live-wire jolt in my waking moments. I've felt metaphorically on fire when the power of sexual attraction was upon me, but I haven't actually seen any lightning come out of my fingertips. 

Well, maybe one time: When I was a young woman, about a year into my adult sex life, I had a married lover who I was mad for. I thought about making love with him night and day. One morning, a few months into it, he told me that our affair was over, as of that minute. He announced it like an military briefing— one statement, no questions. 

We were alone preparing a room for a meeting, and  I was unfolding chairs. I kept unfolding them, one row after the next. He was up in front fiddling with the podium.   

"Plug in that lamp," he said, pointing to a loose cord on the floor near my foot.

I picked up the prong end and pressed it into the wall outlet, only to get the shock of my life. Blue sparks, smoke, and a jolt that went  from my fingertips to my jaw. 

I cried out;  tears poured out of me and burned my face almost as badly as the electric shock had scorched my arm. 

My tormentor flew to my side and picked me up off the floor. "I'm sorry, baby, please, I'm so sorry." I couldn't see his eyes. He held me in his arms, he pushed aside a button of my shirt, and buried his head in my chest. My arm was still shaking. I could feel his erection through my jeans, I could feel him pressing against me.

"This is so fucked up," I thought.  I was so turned on.  The affair did not end after that minute. 

In my dreams afterward, I was in the same place again, and the current spiraled from my palms, to my nipples, to my cunt, to the wall. That's the closest I've ever come to electricity and sex. You never forget the it, do you?

From Full Exposure. Photo by Man Ray.