the state of sex & love
Sexual continence—chastity—outside of celibacy looks like a relationship to sex that doesn’t idolize it, doesn’t let it define us, doesn’t let it become a hunger that eats us alive. In other words, the gift of chastity is that it trains us not to need; it grants us an integrity and independence and agency in the face of various drives and hungers.
James K. A. Smith • On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts
We seek intimacy to protect ourselves from feeling alone; and yet creating the distance essential to eroticism means stepping back from the comfort of our partner and feeling more alone.
Esther Perel • Mating in Captivity
“It’s not singlehood, dear friend, that hurts; it’s not casual sex, the fluidity of our bonds, nor their ephemeral nature that causes pain.” Rather, it’s the way that power operates in relationships. Desire isn’t a spontaneous, apolitical passion; it’s shaped by the world around us, and by what we’ve been taught to value. Romance operates like a ma... See more
Hannah Giorgis • Why Does Romance Now Feel Like Work?
Modern relationships are cauldrons of contradictory longings: safety and excitement, grounding and transcendence, the comfort of love and the heat of passion. We want it all, and we want it with one person. Reconciling the domestic and the erotic is a delicate balancing act that we achieve intermittently at best. It requires knowing your partner wh... See more
Esther Perel • Mating in Captivity
"Marriage was an economic institution in which you were given a partnership for life in terms of children and social status and succession and companionship. But now we want our partner to still give us all these things, but in addition I want you to be my best friend and my trusted confidant and my passionate lover to boot, and we live twice as lo... See more
Aziz Ansari • Modern Romance
WHAT DO WE want when we want to have sex? More starkly: what are we hoping for when we imagine happiness looks like having as much sex as possible?
James K. A. Smith • On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts
Sex is that paradoxical combination of vulnerability and assertion, giving ourselves up and wanting all the more.
James K. A. Smith • On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts
Joyless is the operative word, one that links bimbos and tradwives in their pursuit of pleasure, no matter how much reality it requires you to ignore, or how much oppression, disrespect, and dehumanization it requires you to endure. Feminism becomes a scapegoat for capitalism’s ills, while marriage starts to look like a safe haven. But that romanti... See more
