Geeks in the Basement
This rant behind a cut in deference to my underage readers. If you're underage, continue only if you're willing to learn that abstinence isn't going to kill you dead.


I'm sure by now you've heard at least one person say, "hey, geek, get out of your mother's basement and get laid," and its many variants (get a real girlfriend, touch an actual woman, etc, etc). This has bothered me for a while. I have no argument with advising people to experience life more fully... what strikes me as ugly is the assumption that having sex is equivalent to developing an intimate, human relationship. Yet again, people are conflating sex with intimacy.

Haven't we been down this road before?

I guess not. Here's news, then: sex doesn't necessarily have anything to do with love. I've had friendships more intimate than some people's sexual relationships. And if there isn't already love, trust and commitment in a relationship, it's not going to magically bring those things to the table. Don't misinterpret me: sex can add genuine intimacy to a relationship. But it can also be a complete emotional null, a perfunctory act... and it can also be shattering, an emotional and personal land mine, destructive and abusive.

More and more when I look at the popular culture advanced by the media, I see casual sexual activity billed as the norm. It used to be that going solo would make you blind...nowadays the media seems determined to convince you that abstinence is the real killer. If you haven't had sex lately (or at all), you're a sub-human freak who couldn't get any if you tried. Because, you know, it's better to have bad or meaningless sex than no sex at all.

Um, no.

So, for the record:

If you haven't had sex yet, you're not sub-human. No one should be pitying you or condescending to you.

If you haven't had sex lately, you're not going to die from some stress-induced aneurism, and anyone who makes you feel that way should be publically shamed.

If you've chosen not to have sex for some reason, you are a freaking counter-cultural revolutionary. Last time I checked, that gives you the right to wear the 'I'm cooler than all you people who are swimming with the current' badge.

I like to write a lot of abstinent characters. It didn't occur to me until recently that these characters were radicals. When did that happen? Well, whenever it happened, I'm arguing with it. You can have intimate and enriching human relationships without sex. There's absolutely nothing wrong with not being sexually active. It's not going to make or break you as a human being, unless you let everyone around you convince you otherwise. So if those people start getting to you, just come hang out with me, okay?



There you go. I'm done now. I think.

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