Sex and Happiness

I was listening to Susie Bright’s audio show from Audible.com and she raised the question of how sex relates to happiness. This seemed like a particularly apropos topic for the Orgy – how do sex and happiness relate in the American Orgy.

A recent study showed that Utah is possibly the happiest state in the Union. (Insert polygamy joke here.) Big Love aside, the definition of happiness seems to be a critical element in determining how sex and happiness interact. "Happiness is a Warm Puppy" takes on a very warped meaning if you equate sex and happiness too closely.

Lack of sex is easier to equate with unhappiness than it is to equate sex with happiness. No causal link exists between sex and happiness.

The problem is with the term, happiness. A lot of lip service is given to its pursuit, but do we really want it? We actually want conflict, tension, excitement and after that we want rest, safety and contentment. A sense of general contentment is what we desire, not the painted smile of happy, happy, joy, joy.   Sex is a mode of communication that contains the entire gambit of emotions from conflict to contentment, so it has the ability to fulfill a wide variety of desires, not just happiness.

Sex is also sublime for connecting to the moment. In the podcast, Susie quoted Henry Miller that "The greatest cure is to give up, to relinquish, to surrender, so that our little hearts may beat in unison with the great heart of the world."  I was a little surprised that she did not tie the quote back into sex.  I've always read Miller's sexuality as a mystical effort.  Give up in your love making.  Relinquish and surrender so boundaries disolve and all the hearts beat in unison -- mystic sexuality.

Attentive, focused love making takes the moment and prolongs it. Most happiness research commentaries ends up talking about Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s research on flow. Humans are apparently more content when we can lose ourselves, not just in the moment, but in a long drawn out series of moments. Existential angst disappears when you are in flow and when you are in the middle of a long session of glorious fucking. This is what I crave fucking flow or flow fucking – either one.

Mostly, life can be a pretty dark fucking place and sex gives me a respite and at least a metaphoric nod to the continuation of the species and the whole fucking mess that is the world and at the point of thrusting into my lover’s moist cunt, continuing this experiment in existence sounds like a pretty good fucking idea.