Hump Day

Recently, the Badger Herald e-mailed me (and 30,000 of my closest friends) that the Herald Sex Columnist job was available for next year.

The idea of a Confessional Lutheran Sex Columnist was just inherently funny to me, so I wrote a submission, reproduced with critical feedback below. It managed to be geeky, prudish, slightly passive-aggressive, and clumsily written. Just like the story of my life! (Ba-dum ching!)

Dear Badger Herald,

I was originally going to title this e-mail, "Sex Opening", or "Sex Position", but both of those sounded too taboo. Here is my submission:

I love my ex. We can't ever seem to really break up. The sex is so great! We fight, but then makeup.... I can't seem to leave him. What should I do?

—Distressed and Horny


Dear DAH,

When you think of your ex-boyfriend, what do you think about? Do you think of the stupid things, the mood rings, the bracelets and the beads? Do you think of how he is an emotional freezer, a soulless robotic automaton devoid of genuine human love? Or do you think of the sex?

You are staying together, not because he challenges you, or because you intimately understand each other, or any of those vague, touchy-feely bullshit reasons. You are staying together because the sex is great. And that makes you a lizard-brained sheep. Or a sheep-brained lizard. Your entire relationship with another human being is being sustained by the sex, which is biochemically no different from eating large quantities of chocolate.

Here is a little thought experiment. Imagine that there was an advance in medicine. You could have an electrode implanted in your head connected to a button that would release endorphins in the pleasure centers of your brain. You wouldn't have to work hard to achieve your goals, or find deep satisfaction in the sublime grace of music, or anything mundane like that. Would such an operation be worth it? Would the pleasure you received be real? Would it be good for you?

I would answer that the operation would not be worth it. Love is more than a feeling, and pleasure more than the release of Dopamine. Love should inspire you to help, protect, and be willing to sacrifice yourself for your partner, not just smile dumbly. Unearned pleasure is ultimately unsatisfying; has The Matrix taught us nothing?

In the same way, sex is more than a physical act and brain chemicals. It brings couples together emotionally. It leads to the creation of another human life. It is a way for two people to become one flesh. If you are only on board for the physical pleasure side of things, stop: you're doing it wrong.

Sex is a great and wonderful gift. But its place is within the stabilizing sphere of marriage, where its emotional, spiritual, and biological aspects can best be appreciated.

This is the response of Alexander Garens, web associate of the Badger Herald, out-going sex columnist, and recent graduate in legal studies, Spanish, and Japanese:

I was slightly on board until the "no sex til marriage" mantra. I agree intercourse should generally be accompanied by sincere feelings, but reserved absolutely and exclusively for marriages? Don't be silly. You yourself referenced our lizard-brains-- that's exactly what our sex drive dilutes down to. This person should not stay with their ex when the only connection is the great sex, he/she should go find someone he/she feels passionately for AND can have great, intimate fun with, not wait til there's a wedding band on their finger.

So...embrace your lizard-brain? Anyway, this was a lot of fun, and I encourage everyone to write in with even more advice.