Apology For Bad Sex
By Anonymous
Dear _____________,
This is a letter of apology for the terrible sexual intercourse we’re about to have. I just wanted to take a moment to accept full responsibility and provide several philosophical justifications for a night that you and your friends will undoubtedly laugh about for years to come.
Let’s begin with the ontological aspect of it all. As an atheist, I’ve lived my life firmly committed to the belief that, if I can’t see it, it’s not there. Naturally, vaginas present quite the metaphysical quandary, because there’s lots of stuff I can’t find that I’m pretty sure is still there. Like this mythical clitoris everybody keeps going on about.
I’m not saying that I’m bad at sex because I don’t believe in God. I’m simply explaining that questions directly pertaining to sex (Where does my penis go? How can I tell if she’s actually having an orgasm? What does it mean if she’s yelling someone else’s name?) tend to get subsumed by larger metaphysical questions related to the very nature of being.
Even if I were able to subsume these ontological hurdles, there’s still the pragmatic aspect to consider. Frankly, I lack sufficient empirical evidence to verify the existence of the female orgasm. We’ll need to have sex four or five times before I can start mapping quantifiable trends.
I’m pretty sure that the politically correct term for sexually inept pragmatists is Nietzscheians, but I’ve never been attached to labels. I prefer to think of myself as a sexual athlete. Like many of history’s greatest sprinters, I have a tendency to finish first. What can I say? The female body is significantly more complicated than my left hand. How can I be expected to know what to do when I can’t even work the buttons on my new touch-screen phone?
It’s almost enough to make me want to give up on pragmatism completely. That’s why I’ve been reading a lot of Marxist literature lately. Did you know that the quality of our sexual intercourse has been predetermined by capitalist relationships of exploitation? It’s true. Everything is predetermined by capital.
You see, I am a passive consumer of commodified images. I’ve been trained my entire life by mega-corporations like Anheuser-Busch and Johnnie Walker to believe that, if I drink alcohol, women will think I am clever and funny. Alas, the insidious truth of late-stage capitalism — that women only think I’m clever and funny when they’re drunk — escapes me whenever my id overtakes my ego.
Can I help it if capitalism decided to oppress me by making me bad at sex? Absolutely not. The only way to fight capitalism is to let me Occupy your vagina until I stop being bad at sex 99% of the time. It’s probably going to be pretty unsatisfying sex, I’ve already admitted that — but at some point this has to stop being about us. We’re doing it for the rev, babe.
Just because I’m all about the class struggle doesn’t mean I can’t take time to try to understand my failings as a man from a feminist perspective. There are a lot of men out there who can’t be bothered to take the time to read feminist literature. Not me. I’m all about those bitches. I just re-read “The Sexual Politics of Meat” by Carol Adams. She writes about the ways that women are devalued via metaphors that implicitly compare them to animals. That’s why I never do it doggy-style. It’s disrespectful.
Respect is important. That’s why, if we have sex tonight, I’m just going to lie there, completely motionless. It won’t be because I’m not enjoying our time together. I’m simply trying to respect your sexual autonomy by letting you do all the work. I’m not lazy. I’m just not comfortable being assertive or dominant if there’s a chance it’ll render you a passive subject. So get ready for the least phallocentric sex you’ve ever had. It’ll be like my penis isn’t even there.
Sincerely,
AR