Low Voltage Playtime
One of the greatest tragedies of sexuality is that none of us ever get a truly consequence-free environment in which to explore, experiment, and make mistakes. Our earliest partnered experiences are always tied to some kind of relationship, or to a community. The entire 5th grade class could well hear about what happened between Billy and Suzie, or a burgeoning high school romance could crumble as a result of a misstep. How can anyone be expected to learn, innovate, or grow in such an environment?
If you were studying to be an electrician, you'd need to practice on circuitry mock-ups and make mistakes without getting 120 volts shot through your body. But with sex, we're all thrown right into the belly of the machine and any blunder could spell instant death. Sure, there's masturbation, but most of those skills are not applicable to partnered sex and won't help you learn about another person's body, desires, or sexuality.
On top of this, be sure to pile on any additional psychological trauma that may come from one's upbringing, along with the inherent dangers of pregnancy and disease, and it's little wonder that so many of our minds end up compartmentalizing sexuality in exactly the same category as taking a shit: go do that unhygienic thing in a closet away from everyone else, and then flush it down and don't talk about it unless there's something very wrong going on. And this is the best-case scenario, with a relatively well-adjusted family and peers by your side.
Sometimes I think it's a miracle that any of us are functioning at all in this realm given how much is stacked against us from the start. What is it that keeps us going in spite of it all? Of course, the reproductive urge is among the strongest in existence. It can, and has, survived any harsh conditions thrown upon it. But I wonder if there isn't something else at work here; a deeper desire to reclaim a gift that was, in a sense, stolen from us: the gift of play.
Swingers and kinksters refer to their sexy fun times as “play”, and for good reason. You're just trying something out, testing the waters, seeing how it feels. You're more than welcome to turn that play into a full-contact sport if all parties wish, but you also have the option of backing off. Work demands specific actions and rigid timing, while play is more free-flowing and exploratory.
Maybe we have to go way back to rediscover this sense of play. Waaaaay back. Before any corruption of our natural instincts occurred.
Most of us set upon this particular journey in much the same way: in our youngest days, we explore our own bodies and, in the natural course of this exploration, happen upon a choice spot that elicits a peculiar but intriguing sensation. Maybe it was an intentional expedition, or perhaps an accidental brush from a pool jet or a bathtub faucet. However it happened, you learn early on that these feelings, these sensations, this power lies within you; coiled and waiting to be unleashed. Like an archaeological happenstance, you managed to stumble upon the one delicious arcanum that our bodies came preinstalled with from the factory.
Of course, there are some unfortunate ones among us who were taught early on that this gift doesn't originate from within. Instead, this power is attributed to someone or something outside of yourself. This is the true danger and sadness associated with sexual abuse. It not only steals away the concept of play, it robs an innocent of the personal magic of this discovery. It is imposed rather than unearthed, and thus ultimately sets the stage for this gift to take on more of the characteristics of work rather than play.
But sooner or later, so many of us seem to drift away from the concept of play regardless of how we first uncovered it. Yet play can be reclaimed. In one of my previous essays, “The Endangered Slut”, I opined that a liberating aspect of promiscuity is that sex doesn't have to mean anything: it isn't done in support of a relationship, or for procreation, or for any reason other than the sheer joy of that moment. So it is with play. Play doesn't require a purpose. Sex therapists have observed that making sex less goal-oriented might be a key to blazing a new trail in your neural pathways; to thinking about it in a whole different way. The sensate focus exercises developed by Masters and Johnson are in service of this same concept. By going back to the drawing board and beginning anew, we may have a chance at finding our way back to the garden.
Though truly instilling a new sense of play requires responsibility as well. We need to express benevolence toward everyone's sexuality. Blunders will happen even to experienced adults but, barring violation of consent or overt violence, we should always try to speak of the sexuality of others with empathy. Tearing down a person's technique, anatomy, and any other aspect of their erotic identity is cruel and unnecessary, yet it happens all the time. The only comment one can ever really say about another person's sexuality is that it isn't for you.
With these tools at our disposal, it is possible to make our play low voltage and mostly consequence-free once again. Call me an idealist, but I don't think this is something necessarily relegated to the distant past; whether your personal past or the past times of our culture. It could, if you wish it, be the 1970s at Plato's Retreat again. You could, if you open yourself to the possibility, discover a brand new sensation in the arms and lips of another. Play may have been stolen from us, but it’s just sitting there on the shelf of a pawn shop waiting to be rediscovered. Take back what’s rightfully yours, and tell that schmuck at the counter that to err is human, and to play is divine.