Sex and Deception

My father is a member of the clergy, and so despite his and my mother's exacting wishes, I developed an idea that sex was something to which guilt must be attached as a condition for its possibility. Sex was something hidden. The fact that my parents tried to be open and to explain it to us (myself and my sibling) and to correct the idea that it was something hidden, inappropriate, made it all the more so the opposite, in that this was a private conversation about which there was something artificial and uncomfortable.

So yes, I blame Christianity for these views. I suppose I am advancing the Victorian, repressive hypothesis. SO be it. The Protestants have no confessions. Or at least not the helpful spoken kind.

That my father betrayed the marital contract and wrote about it in his diary confirmed this idea. That he kept books of erotic photography in his closet, on a shelf, again convinced me that I was right.

In fact, sex increased its allure for me, all the more it was prohibited. Yes, the law produces desire! That my dear cousin was the only girl with whom I'd kissed and touched, and the clear need for discretion that surrounded those encounters, from the age of 5 until high school--again, my desire grew and my conviction became more concrete.

Given these cues, is it surprising that I came to find sex identified with a subterranean, secret violence? Although the ass love of a man may not appeal to me, I loved reading Genet because I too felt those identifications between sex and violence. Not physical violence, admittedly, which, except for fulfilling the request of a girlfriend who wished I would slap her during the act, I can't say I've indulged within. Instead, the violence of deception. Exciting moments sneaking a kiss or a grope.

Such that, the sex sanctioned by law and community, I admit, holds less excitement for me. I enjoy the act, certainly, but the emotional rush leading to it is missing, which I think I might only find in the aforementioned subterranean, non-contractual, or rather anti-contractual, encounters of bodies whose meeting is forbidden.