"Sex Without Love"

"Sex Without Love"

How do they do it, the ones who make love
 without love? Beautiful as dancers,
 Gliding over each other like ice-skaters
 over the ice, fingers hooked
 inside each other's bodies, faces
 red as steak, wine, wet as the
 children at birth, whose mothers are going to
 give them away. How do they come to the
 come to the come to the God come to the
 still waters, and not love
 the one who came there with them, light
 rising slowly as steam off their joined
 skin? These are the true religious,
 the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
 accept a false Messiah, love the
 priest instead of the God. They do not
 mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
 they are like great runners: they know they are alone
 with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
 the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio
 vascular health--just factors, like the partner
 in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
 single body alone in the universe
 against its own best time.

-- Sharon Olds
"Sex without Love." One of my all-time favorite poems. Never in my life had I read a poem that made me so uncomfortable. I didn't know what it was about at first, but reading it again- I see. The eerie thing is, a lot of the message resonates with my experience.
So many poignant words. "Beautiful as dancers, gliding over each other like ice-skaters over the ice..." Deceiving imagery. Ice-skating is a beautiful performance of grace. But what comes to mind is not the grace of an ice-skater at face-value, but the blades, cutting into the ice; just like the lovers cut into each other as they glide up and down each others landscape. Viscously slicing, competing to out-show the other. Bodies, not engaged in a tender expression of love, but a grand-standing of showmanship, skill and most of all, tenacity. 
"Fingers hooked into each other's bodies," a couple, not embracing, but literally digging their fingers into each other's bodies. Orifices. Is there any love hooking your fingers inside one's body? Like a fish caught on a hook, struggling for breath as you reel them in, hungrily. 
"Faces red as steak." One of my favorite lines in the poem. Brings vivid imagery to mind. Why compare flushes of passion to steak? Blood. They look at each other and see not only a red face, red as blood-soaked steak, but meat. Preying upon one another. There is no human connection when you look at the other as a literal piece of meat. A dead piece of meat- no longer living, sopping with blood. 
"How do they come to the come to the come to the God come to the still waters, and not love the one who came there with them, light rising slowly as steam off their joined skin?" Love the allusion of the narrator speaking from the point of view of being in the moment of climax. "Come to the come to the come to the GOD..." Sounds like words uttered in the throes of heated passion. But truly, how do these lovers come to the still waters, and not love the person who came with them? Very good question. How is it that people; sentient, emotive beings put themselves in a mental frame of mind to share something so vulnerable with someone they don't love? Someone they may not even like?
Olds mentions how the parters are like runners, feeling the road surface, feeling their heart's beat. Alone. Yet they are entwined in the most carnal of fashions. It's a great comparison. They are exercising- like a runner would, and like a runner, they view their sex as a solitary sport. There are sounds that come to mind, a rhythm when a runner is setting their pace on the pavement. Thud. Thud. Thud. A hypnotic, heart-racing sound to keep the pace going like a metronome- like lovers with or without love in bed. "They do not mistake the lover for their own pleasure." They don't look at the person as a partner, but rather as being integral on their solitary pursuit of pleasure- the fact that they happen to be involved in the process is necessary and just another instrument for their pleasure. "Just factors, like the partner in bed."

"The truth, which is the single body alone in the universe against its own best time." Referencing running again. As in life, we are all trying to beat our personal records. In terms of mortality, this would be to outlive, live as long as possible or avoid death all together. The truth of this whole piece, and most unnerving message I found was that we are alone. Any illusion of partnership, with or without love doesn't change that when you die, there will not be anybody holding your hand afterwards. We are all single bodies, single souls, individuals who are all in the game of survival. In the universe there is no such thing as 'friends' or 'lovers' or 'family' there is just emptiness and solitude. This being the truth, it's every man for himself, everyone "against its best time."

You may have a perfect love. A picturesque family. But are all experiencing your own separate realities. We will never know how anybody sees the world. Perception is so starkly different from person to person.

In a nutshell, Olds is brilliant. The poem still makes me uncomfortable to the point of having existential crises and second guessing all that I hold sacred. Especially the end. Maybe it's because I know it's true to a degree. I just am afraid that if I fully accept this truth that it will be even more difficult for me to connect with people. To have friends. And most of all, TO TRUST. It seems so futile. I love people though. I love romance, my lovely boyfriend who I would never trade for the world. I can't even handle my shit when we are apart. 

Maybe there is a new spin to take away from Olds. If I have the ability to feel so deeply, truly one with a few people, it only seems to indicate that we are not individuals, but all the same. I'm getting new-age on you now, but if we were of the same energy and while on Earth in flesh-form had ego, personality and individuality to keep us occupied with the illusion of structure and boundaries- but after, were rejoined as a large plasmatic, undulating intangible mass, I would be at peace. Not heaven. Not God. Energy can't be created or destroyed, so its just a reorganization. We're like cups of water in glasses. After we pass away we rejoin the ocean again.

I love how this poem pushes me to places I don't always like to explore in my head. It started with carnal, animalistic sex and has now evolved into something much more.

With Love and Dissent,

Jewell