Can someone just not have a sex drive because they're not built that way? Is the sexual urge so natural as to be indisputable? That's the subject of my 211th episode of In Bed with Susie Bright this week.
We started talking about "amoebas,"
here a few weeks ago, with the longest debate ensuing since I ran that obit about Andrea Dworkin!
Amoebas are the self-declared nickname of a group of folks who've been very public that they don't have any sex drive and don't want to apologize for it. On my audio show, I read aloud some of the comments you made here on the blog, and get into some of the issues I didn't have a chance to address at the time.
It was clear from our discussions, that putting aside the notion of whether everyone has a god-given rocket in their pocket or not, there is a tremendous shift in one's sex life when illness, aging, and hormonal rollercoasters come into play. Another issue is that you can also be militantly sex-positive while having very little sex, or appetite, per se. There's also the question of whether this is a glad new addition to "identity politics," or whether such banner-type movements are going to corner people in the end.Here's the real trick: The American hype and consumer-driven hysteria about SEX! SEX! SEX! is in inverse proportion to the actual sex in our personal lives.We have less sex now than ever. America is a sex-starved culture, looking in all the wrong places for satisfaction, confusing sexuality with materialism and status-freaking.
I'm not just making sweeping statements for the hell of it. Look at fertility rates. Look at how much older people are before they start to have a lover. Marriages, which traditionally promote more quantitative sexual behavior, are breaking up faster, and becoming sexless faster, than you can say "I DON'T." AIDS and STD's have people in a perpetual cloud of caution, despite all the tales you hear of crazed meth-fueled disco orgies. The people at those orgies are in a real slim minority. We talk about the "sex maniacs" ENDLESSLY in our media, those naughty, naughty pervs having sex— we watch fashion and showbiz promote the Endless Slut— but this Ravenous Whore is an icon who, statistically, barely exists in American life!
Those girls in short skirts are anorexic prudes. Those boys with the James Dean sneer are stoned and scared shitless. Those gleeful couples at the altar stop fucking after three months. If I get one more letter to my Audible show saying, "My spouse hasn't fucked me in 20 years and I can't take it anymore," my only response will be, "Well, what does that say about your sexual appetite?"
People moan and groan, but how many are actually doing anything that would bring sexual creativity into their lives, rather than suppress it, ignore it, despise it, and most of all, put it on the shelf. I'm not talking about rabbit-like activity... I'm talking about the inner sexual life, one's erotic imagination and creativity, however that may express itself.
Oh shit. I'm ranting again. But I'm not kidding... we're in a drought. Arizona ain't the only place that's killing people from lack of juice.
Also, in this episode of In Bed, in my mailbag, a married man who loves sex can't understand his
wife's extremely low sex drive. You can just imagine how I reacted to that!
You can listen to an audio clip of my show here— I'm sorry I can't load it onto my blog, but my regular computer is in the shop, and the one I'm using is vexing me at every turn!