My Friends Will Know

I wanted to call this piece "Scenes about sex, connection and life", but decieded that it was giving too much away and was too straightforward. Also, most of my fiends are not surprised if I talk about these topics, some even expect it. So here you have it - random scenes in random order from my life about sex, connection and life.

*

It was about 7 or so years ago when I had to check a work thing while visiting a friend and asked to use his computer for it. He gladly helped me out. However I was surprised (even shoked) to notice that he had several porn sites stored in the browser bookmarks toolbar. Well in a way it made sense. You bookmark the sites that you visit and he was single man with a libido of Austin Powers.

I was not shoked because he watched porn. I was shoked because he had stored his visits and made it more easy, more at hand (pun intended).

Let me clarify. At that time sex for me was something that happened mostly in the dark and so did watching porn, both were something to hide (all men should know how to delete browser history). I had had a few partners, but I had not yet found the beast within - to be honest I even thought I was not really so sexual (and I also thought I was an introvert, boy are we wrong sometimes).

Last summer I had a coffee with the same friend and we talked about how the quality of porn had gone down or that maybe we had just grown up. 

That's life and friendship for you.

*

Finding your passion is a journey (goes with all kinds of passion). 

Mine started with a failed one night stand (if you need to drink 5 hours to get into the mood, then are you sure you really want this?). I still remember the feeling I had in the morning after. My life was a total mess. I had tried to find some comfort in passion and shared physical experience, but as it turned out: drinking might work well for the mood, but it does not go well with your bodily functions. 

Now I was mentally even in worse place than before. Everything was just merde (pardon my french).

So I went into a bookstore, to find something to read - to find something to escape into. I tried to numb my feelings, my deep dissapointment in the world and life itself.

I came out with a book called "Why is sex fun?". I deep dived into the book and the more I read, the more I understood how messed up we humans actually are compared to other spieces when it comes to the 'Oh, so natural and biologically programmed' thing called sex. 

Like it or not, lads and lasses, but we all are kinky as hell. Intercourse while preventing getting children? Only bonobos might understand it, maybe ... and they are using sex for allmost everything. Most animals would find our sexual habits just disgusting.

[On a sidenote: there is a theory that the big size of the human male genitalia  - gorillas have way smaller ones and get the job done just as well - is like a biologically designed disability. Like some male birds have tall tail feathers to attract females, so tall that they cannot fly properly. So the idea behind it is: "Check this out ladies! I have this huge disability! It gets on my way all the time, but as you see I am still alive. So I must be really great it staying alive as my disability does not make it easy. Lets make some offspring together!"]

*

A friend recently told me that according to Freud the two biggest topics in a persons life are death and sex and that I am a perfect example of that. True, these are the two topics I am really curious about (never mix them together!). The third topic I am really curious about is humor - it fits in well. These are also the topics that connect us all as humans.

I have some friends who can find an alternate (sexual) meaning in almost everything I say. True, I have cracked a lot of sex related jokes and some thoughts still come to me automatically. However it seems that I even do not have to put an effort into it (if you know what I mean) and lets be honest, the best jokes are the ones that come unintentionally (thats what she said).

*

I opened my eyes only to see how the spring sun gently played in the room and on the tender curves of the person sleeping next to me. We had slept only a few hours, max, however I did not feel tired. I felt the endorphins running through my body. There was sense of connection and gratitude. True, I was seeing several intimate friends (I do not like the term fuckbuddies) at that time - there was a date set up with another one for the next evening - but what we all were looking for was connection. Pure human connection, mainly physical, but if there was some mental connection aswell, there was nothing wrong with it. There were no strings attached, that was what we did and boy we were good at it. I woke her up gently and we had another round in the morning sun, before going to work.

[before you judge me, I did not play dirty. All intimate friends knew how many others I was seeing, protection was always used and there was full respect from all sides.]

*

Last year I read several books about sexuality, written by sex therapists. While the theory goes that sex is there to connect us, it seems that it also dissconnects us.

We have messed it up (like so many other things. All hail the human creativity of messing things up!). 

It is not a rule, but a lot of relationship problems are caused by sex. 

Classically men need pysical connection before they can share their thoughts and feelings, to realy open up, to talk with the partner. Women need the talking, sharing, being open etc so they would be interested in sex at all. You see the problem? I don't know if this is caused by the nature or nurture (there are different theories on that), but according to my humble opinion this is just pure evil. 

Not only are we humans, we are also animals. We have physical needs and mental needs and if there is deficiency in one of them, it will affect other areas. So just imagine being in a relationship while you cannot connect properly to your partner (she) as you are sexually frustrated. The only cure to it is to connect with partner so she would be interested in having sex as you need sex to be able to connect. Conspiracy theorists, is this something you can crack?

*

I felt how all my opinions about myself started to crumble.

True, I was seeing many girls. Not dating as such, but ... well. By the standards of many men I should have felt lucky and I did. I felt lucky that several girls saw something in me that I did not see. I felt as if they wanted my company out of pity for me and it was my job to make their time worthwhile. Why me? There was nothing special about me. While I did enjoy the company I also felt kind of a duty: duty to be in shape, duty to perform, duty to bring my guest as high as I could. To give something back for choosing me.

I am sure most of these girls would slap me after reading this and so would the person I am right now. Fortunatelly some of them slapped me then. Not so much pysically, but mentally. 

I remeber being awake and thinking about what had been said.

I had beaten (mostly) depression just some time ago, but my self image was still the same - I felt basically still a worthless piece of merde (pardon my french) wasting valuable space on the planet.

It was hard to digest but I started to see myself from another angle. 

From the angle of freedom, playfullness and sexuality.

*

I sometimes like to read bogs and there is also a sex blog I like to keep an eye on (never on a work computer). While there is so much nonsence around us, it talks about reality. I just like the honesty of it all. It is about relationships and intimancy without any make up - real and naked.

A few years ago I gave a lecture in Tartu and missed the last "normal" bus coming back to Tallinn. As I still had to work the next day I took the small night bus with highly overpriced tickets and small amount of seats. I sat down and as I did not want to fell asleep yet, I started reading the mentioned sex blog on my mobile. Someone sat next to me - it was only expected, the bus was small and fully filled up. 

After a few minutes of reading about sex, relationships and overall kinkyness I raised my eyes. Well, thats nice, the person sitting next to me was a nun.

*

I was home alone and crying - something that was really hard to do (and still is), but it was just a difficult topic to handle.

I had beaten depression (hopefully) and I had opened myself up for being really intimate and honest. However this meant that I had to accept what had been previously. I had worked on my thougths and thinking patterns in therapy several times, but I had not re-evaluated my memories from the new viewpoint. I had new experiences that changed everything.

I was doing the re-evaluation now, and it was hard to accept.

I had a really good female friend when I was a depressed teenager. A fried who was ready to listen, who was there, who was free and creative. During a year or so we had long discussions about meaning of life and pain. Only now did I understand that she had had a crush on me and all I did was talk about death. I just did not see it then. I did not see her like that. I was in deep darkness. And darkness was all I could share with her.

I understood it all now. It was about 10 years too late. 

There are no words to describe this feeling. 

"I am so sorry," does not even get close.

*

It was just good timing. I would not have believed it a few years ago, but now my life was different and I had had more experience in that topic. 

We had lecture about Gestalt therapy and were discussing the main emotions humans have. Playfullness and sexuality were put in the same box. I fully agreed.

*

I read the sex blog and discovered a site that was a thin line between art and porn.  It was called Beautiful Agony. It was a interesting concept.

"Beautiful Agony began as a multimedia experiment, to test a hypothesis that eroticism in human imagery rests not in naked flesh and sexual illustration, but engagement with the face. We wondered whether film of a genuine, unscripted, natural orgasm - showing only the face - could succeed where the most visceral mainstream pornography fails, and that is, to actually turn us on."

I read their idea, checked the free videos they had available and had to admit - it was the first sex related site ever where I felt I would be willing to pay for it. 

How silly it sounds in a way - just a video clip of someones face while they are having a real orgasm. All homemade. 

However there was so much intimacy, vulnerability and connection there. Just in the face. No need for nakedness or explicit close-ups of perfectly trimmed and coloured genitalia.

Later I showed the page to my girlfried and we watched a video together. 

She did not share my enthusiasm.

*

We were sitting in a small tavern, drinking coffee and talking about sex. We had been friends since I was eleven or so - I once even had a crush on her older sister - however this was the first time we touched these topics. True, we were doing it in our native language, hoping that no-one around us understands it. And if they did understand it, well maybe they could learn from it at least. 

It gave a new human connection to this long term friendship we had. It was about sharing.

*

We had been together only a few days. She had a sense of humor, the teasing and playfullness, her arms were experienced with touching. 

I had no idea where this was going, but it was fun. However I felt that something was still missing. I had not seen her true kinkyness yet (there had been verbal kinkyness, but not physical) - I was sure that everyone had one. Maybe it was hidden, but it was there.

Well you cannot force it, but you can lead the way.

Why go on a date if you can go to a sexshop together?

She did not protest, that was a good sign at least.

*

"And there is no gender or future in our language," I explain to an actor from France. 

He seems surprised.

"If I listen to you talk in Estonian, I do hear a lot of 'sex' and 'cock's' all the time," he remarks. 

Strangely enough I have to agree with it. Though, it is a funny thought that the language that inspired Tolkien to create the Elven language can sometimes sound so dirty.

*

And this is the unexpected ending (pun intended).