I tackle three topics on my podcast this week: a ban on sex for the fertile, a taboo on sex for the grieving, and maybe— just a little sex with Santa. I hope he's up for the challenge!
In Bed with Susie Bright 272: Grieving and Sex
Listen to an excerpt.
First, I want to chime in about the federal zillion-dollar abstinence program for 29-year-olds— yeah, I know, 50 million just doesn't go as far as it used to. You have to keep those unmarried fertile girls locked up somehow.
We all knew that persecuting gay lovers was just the beginning... the White House mission won't be over until dancing is banned on Sundays, and every 30-year-old-virgin has a Homeland Security-cleared chaperone.
But enough of the fundie-hair-pulling— there's more to life than reporting on these lunatics! I've been wanting to talk for some time about sex and bereavement— and my father's recent death, coupled with my mom's passing not too long ago, provoked me to tackle the subject again.
Losing my parents changed my libido— just as it affected my appetite, my sleep, everything. It also drew together the two unmentionables. I can't think of anything culturally positive I've seen about about sex and death since Harold and Maude.
Psychiatrist: That's very interesting, Harold, and I think, very illuminating. There seems to be a definite pattern emerging. And, of course, this pattern, once isolated, can be coped with. Recognize the problem, and you are halfway on the road to its, uh, its solution. Uh, tell me, Harold, what do you do for fun? What activity gives you a different sense of enjoyment from the others? Uh, what do you find fulfilling? What gives you that... special satisfaction?
[pause]
Harold: I go to funerals.
Before Harold meets Maude in their legendary love story, he seems to be a virgin. But I think a realistic funeral tale would show otherwise. People behave "inappropriately" in death scenes all the time.
With dying, if you're the one left behind, you don't feel like yourself. Promiscuous or celibate— neither description seems relevant. Nothing feels "normal." We might feel empty, horny, hopeless, kinky, tearful, too touchy to even talk, let alone make love... I'd bet all these things are common.
There's no research to turn to for answers. God forbid science get involved with sex. When I wrote my pregnancy primer, "Egg Sex," there was nothing published about sexuality in pregnancy. We face the same situation today with the deathbed. You aren't supposed to talk about it. You're supposed to sit in black and feel nothing— until you feel something— and nobody can tell you what that is, or when it will happen.
"Suffering is the fire that burns away desire..." There's no ritual, no prayer, or comfort for what you might be sexually going through, because it's considered an aberration to even be aware of yourself in that way. Only the passage of time offers respite, but that can seem like an infinite labor. And of course, one's odd intimate feelings aren't separate from everything else you're going through— even normal compartmentalization becomes difficult in bereavement. You just aren't supposed to mention that part.
It's not only the lovers of the dearly departed who are affected. They're the ones facing the bed where two used to sleep— the most cruel absence of all. But everyone involved feels it— be they children, close friends, parents— the survivors.
The reality is... surreal. Your intimate relationships are turned upsidedown. Your erotic response is like a watch that's been reset, just like in pregnancy. What time is it? You gave no idea! I wish I could do hormone studies on the bereaved, because I bet I'd discover all sorts of things.
Whenever I hear about people who "suddenly" make a big change in the midst of their grief, I think about how their sexual feelings are influencing them. For me, in the past weeks, I've noticed that when I've had sex, I cry. I go from 'O' to Orphan. It's not because I'm reaching for it either— in fact, I long to escape from my tears— but something about my physical reactions break the dam.
The other day it crossed my mind— "I can't do it now because I'll just bawl and then I won't be able to pull it together afterward." I had "fear of afterglow," because I don't have a glow, I have a monsoon. I hate being plunged into such sadness. It's all very well to say, "breathe through it," or "this too shall pass," but in the moment, it's agony.
Would I have these feelings with an unfamiliar lover? Is it because I'm intimate with my partner that I can expect a flood? Where's the hope between strange and famliar? I certainly have been obsessed— I'm telling you, OBSESSED—with Daniel Craig, the new James Bond. In my recent Craig fantasies, no one's died, no one cares— it's just his eyes, his cock, and little else. I don't even see me.
Still, they're idle daydreams. I haven't dared to masturbate about 007, because there can't be tears in Her Majesty's Service on top of everything else!
So far, all I can do is observe these things. If you feel like commenting— anonymously, if you like— about what you've learned about sex and grieving, I'd like to hear your experiences. I think the one thing I appreciate at this point is my patience and even sense of humor about what will happen next. It's out of my control, it seems, so I might as well just take notes!
In my last portion of this week's show, after my death and sex report, I offer my best holiday sex-toy tips for those of you who've been wondering how to crawl into St. Nick's lap with style. Shopping SHOULD make me cry, but it doesn't! All those pretty baubles and squishy slippery things are quite distracting.
Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions, feedback about the show, and requests for Susie's free-show girly cards to [email protected]. (Episode 272, December 8, 2006) By the way, do you recognize where Harold and Maude are, in the above photo? That's their idyll in what once were the Emeryville mud flats, the swamp next to the freeway where anarchists and lovers would build their own monuments out of junk. I built a huge floating sculpture with a dozen of my friends there on my 25th birthday. One of these days I'll scan some of those photos and put them up!
