Thursday, 02 July 2009

• "They Don't Wanna Define It" - The Implications of Hooking Up

  Whoa, whoa, I do hook up.
  
  I guess that means, Miss Clarkson, that I do come cheap...if only in the sense that what I give of myself, I give freely, asking nothing of the other.
  
  In the eyes of some, in the eyes of many, it seems (including my most recent hookup [the one who began with the offer of a fun two weeks before I graduated and ended, coincidentally enough, with the promise of seeing me the next day, for those of you keeping track at home], but only until I did hook up with him), that makes me less of a "lady". Lady, a title of nobility. A title denoting, conventionally, grace, tact and respectability, moral character. Often enough, my mother has pointed out that her grandmother (the Countess) would be rolling over in her grave if she heard any of this talk of birth control and sleeping with anyone but my pillow.
  
  Why? Because I am honest in recognizing my own desires and the desires of someone I find attractive? Because I won't demand of the people for whom I care that they make choices contrary to those they would make for themselves? That's the conflict, isn't it? The assumption is always that a hookup is indiscriminate, that he's there and I have legs to spread (Countess rolling at these words, right now). No, no, no. I hook up with people I want to be close to, people I would like in my life.  If those people choose not to be in my life, it certainly isn't because I did or didn't have sex, or anything else. It's because he has priorities to which I am not matched. That's okay, though. We all have lives to live. There is no loss in time spent in the enjoyment of one another. There is no pretense, there.
  
  We're a little too concerned with appearances. We're a little too concerned with the primacy of the experience. I can tell you with all honesty that the sex I've had with a man I did not care about (the man to whom I lost my virginity and dated for eight months, with whom I had a very caring, comfortable relationship) was a completely different experience from the sex I had with the man I loved (who promised he'd call me after finals a little over a year ago), even though he did not really love me. So, what is the value of my virginity? Would my first time have actually been "special?" No, absolutely not, because every single moment spent in the arms of the person I loved was the most special moment of my life, the happiest, the most intensely gratifying.
  
  Nobility, "lady"-hood/ness, is not a function of your ability to avoid indelicacies. It's a function of your moral character as defined by your ability to uphold what you believe in, to respect the people around you. There is no respect in pretending you don't know what you want. The greatest respect is founded on sincerity and on the recognition that each person will be responsible for his and her actions.
  
  So, yes, I do hook up, because I want to. And, well, if all that is wanted of me is the conquest of my body, that's a consequence I have to face. I won't deny myself the proximity of the direction of my passions. I won't pretend I don't have any. If my honesty is distasteful, maybe your own lies need to be ventilated a bit. More importantly, though, maybe you should just be honest with me. The only people I've ever felt disgust for are the ones who have put more effort into lying and avoiding the truth when their end could have been achieved with greater ease and long-term comfort with a few honest words.
  

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