Sunday, June 21, 2015

IS SEX WITHOUT ANOTHER HUMAN SUPPLEMENT, SURROGATE, OR IS IT JUST SEX?


ANTIQUE CHINESE OPIUM PIPE

AT WHAT POINT (IF ANY) IS SEX
NO LONGER SEX?

ANTIQUE CHINESE OPIUM BURNER

When we speak of sex, classical sex, most people mean a positive physical sexual interaction between two or more human beings.  It seems that the pervading definition falls along traditional lines, “within a sexual act at any given time one person is the giver of pleasure and the other is the recipient”, so let it be temporarily defined.  Life is about nothing if it is not about both defining and redefining reality and what we perceive reality to be. Physicality, the human touch, appears to be central in our classical understanding of sex.  But the use of sexual accessories, inanimate objects incapable of any real psychical connection to a human being seem to break the flow of erotic energy, interceding a new and perhaps questionable dynamic into our concept of physical sex.  If sex certainly exists between two human beings can it also exist between a human being and an inanimate object?

ANTIQUE OPIUM BURNER


During sex a person administering artificial stimuli  via a sex object does not themselves feel anything.  But there may be some emotional, erotic connection that somehow replaces the negative physicality.  How can this phenomenon be measured and more important should it be?  Is it an altogether superfluous concept?  By pondering the possibility that sex between a human and an object may be somehow aberrant are we delving into the realm of sexual bias and prejudice based on what we perceive as traditional sex between two people? Can we ask at what point, if any, does human sexual desire begin to replace the human element such that it no longer really qualifies as sex? At what point do we enter a sexual realm that closely approaches that of the Stepford Wives?

PHOTOGRAPH OF A PRIVATE OPIUM DEN


For as long as I have been having sex its intensity, its vivacity, its explosiveness was always been directly proportional to the person with which I was having sex.  It was their physicality, their touch, voice, olfaction anything and everything else was purely incidental.  But my sexual understanding is certainly not the benchmark of human sexual experience.  Who am I to attempt to define the threshold of human sexuality and its theoretical opposite?  Obviously I find it fascinating that some people can experience fulfilling sex without any human interaction whatsoever relying totally on a myriad of visual and technical/mechanical aids.  

ANTIQUE OPIUM TRAY


I do realize that in some instances due to circumstances that we cannot specifically isolate here many people must rely on artificial means in order to achieve sexual stimulation.  Certainly it cannot be wrong for them to be able to enjoy sex as those of us who can do with another human being.  As I remember it was while conversing with a gentleman friend the thought occurred to me that at some point a person who enjoyed artificial stimuli might begin to disassociate themselves from all human interaction but still be able to achieve sexual fulfillment.  The burning question that hovered over my consciousness thereafter and to this day has been whether or not a 100% deviation from mutual human stimulation is sex?  Again, I put myself into check mate realizing that there is a population of humans who through some physical impairment or other cannot have what we call “Normal” sex and have to rely on some artificial means for fulfillment.  It would be inhumane to disqualify their experience as nonsexual!  And how on earth should you or I know anyway?  It is not our place to judge this phenomenon with such absolution.

THE STYLISED BOWL OF AN ANTIQUE OPIUM PIPE


Certainly a person who is able to achieve fulfilling sexual pleasure and/or orgasm completely without any human interaction is not a model of classical sex, so is what they are having actually sex?  Are there qualifiers?  A person who never, ever desires sex with another person, a person who desires human interaction 50% of the time, 25% of the time… what is the threshold of classical sex?  Hell, what is classical sex anyway?  Why would I even venture to ponder such machinations when it is clear that sex is just sex? Perhaps it is my natural curiosity about human sexuality that causes me to explore what appears to be the opposite or alternate of what I envisage human sexuality to be.  The reality is while I see sex as a simple equation of flesh to flesh that is just not the way many other human beings see it. The adjustment to reality is all mine to make!  Now, that alone forces me to realize that while I might ponder this phenomenon with a great imagination and openness it might remain a virtue I can never truly understand.  So I accept the possibility that I might be biting off more than I can chew or that I might be barking up the wrong tree and that I should perhaps leave this subject alone, but I won’t!  I will not be satisfied until I feel it has been thoroughly explicated.

ANTIQUE OPIUM PIPE


You see there is no right or wrong here… definitions can be applied but at the end of the day sex is always going to be sex!  If I have learnt anything in my brief life about sex it is that it cannot be contained or fully defined, it is as unique and diverse as humanity itself.  It is none of my business if someone chooses to achieve sexual pleasure in the absence of any human presence.  Yes, there are certainly moral and ethical concerns that would immediately make sci-fi scenarios like the Stepford Wives absolutely inappropriate.  But after we have giggled the last scene away we realize that the Stepford Wives did have a sexual agenda, it was selling the concept of traditional sex over what it judged to be artificial sex.  It dictated to us that sex between two human beings is always going to be better than sex between a human being and an inanimate object.  For the most part I agree but tell that to someone who swears to the joys and virtues of artificial sex.  

ANTIQUE OPIUM PIPE


We don’t have to enslave our spouses and modify them turning them into cyborgs in order to achieve sexual bliss but we should not discount the possibility that we may be able to appreciate sexuality with a partner other than a human being.  In the future this possibility may present itself and we as humans must be able to rise to the challenge.  Mark your calendars, it has been discussed here.  Yes there is a distinct deviation from the classical sense of human sexuality when men have sex with machines but sex has always been about deviations from the norm.  So my conclusion is that there is not a certain point at which sex is no longer sex, even if it no longer involves two or more human beings working together to provide one another with physical pleasure and emotional feedback. In the classical sense it is most desirable because that is the way humans have principally had sex for the past 100, 000 years as a species.  It really comes down to ones man’s preference being the deciding card.  So if you take the human element out of the equation, there will be no word of protest from me, I wish you all the best for when it comes to understanding what most brings  you pleasure I must leave that determination to you…  “NOBODY KNOWS  BETTER WHAT TURNS YOU ON BUT YOU”!

FIN


BIGDADDY BLUES

A COMPLETE OPIUM TRAY WITH BURNER AND ACCOUTERMENTS



ANTIQUE ORIENTAL OPIUM PIPE