Enough Sex Talk, Let’s Get Serious

I find that when we talk about sex, especially at college, we focus solely on the physical. What you did, how long it lasted, how many times you did it, and whether your partner, or partners, if you are feeling especially freaky, was up to the task. It feels like a sport. There are all of these metrics against which we measure ourselves and our partners, and, in my mind, that is not what sex, or more generally intimacy, is supposed to be about.

Who knows? Maybe I am being a prude; we are in college, after all. Isn’t it time to explore and be free? Yes, I know the argument, and I agree with parts of it: college is a time to explore and find out what you like, what you don’t like, and everything in between. I am not here to judge anyone’s body count or insist that you have to be in love with the person you have sex with, but along the way I think we have confused exploring with competing.

In writing this, I keep returning to a song by Leith Ross called “We’ll Never Have Sex.” Many of you may have inadvertently engaged with this song through sad edits on “TikTok” over the past couple of years, but beyond being a trendy tune, the lyrics touch on something very real.

“If I said you could never touch me/You’d come over and say I looked lovely/Oh, you kissed me just to kiss me/Not to make me cry/It was simple, you are sweetness/Let’s just sit a while.”

What gets me about these lines, in particular, is their premise. Ross takes the prospect of sex off the table from the outset, and the lover is undeterred. The singer calls the lover “sweetness,” and that is what a relationship is supposed to be. The kiss just to kiss is not the precursor to more action, nor is it done in service of a potential future reward; it is the whole point.

It is a strange cultural phenomenon that we describe physical intimacy in terms of bases. First, second, third, and the coveted home run. We have been treating it like a sport for a long time, and through that framework, everything that is not sex becomes the warm-up. When the end goal is all we can see, it’s easy to forget the person right in front of you. Instead of being present, we start performing. We are thinking all the wrong things, like what to say in the group chat the next day or how this time stacked up against the last. Our bodies may be in the room, but our minds are elsewhere.

To be clear, I am NOT suggesting we swear off sex and switch to side hugs and handshakes as our primary form of intimacy, but I implore you to think about this. Take sex away and see what is left. Do you genuinely enjoy the other person’s company? Do they make you feel safe? Do they make you laugh? Do they hold you when you cry? Those are the questions whose answers are worth knowing, and that truly define a relationship.

To me, that is the dividing line between competition and exploring. Exploring is driven by curiosity and teaches you things about yourself, and in the end, you find something that feels right. Competition is driven by comparison and, often, the audience isn’t even in the room with you. So, let us stop asking how many, how good, or how long and start asking questions like: Did you actually enjoy it? Did you want to stay afterward? Real questions that take sex from just an act to something meaningful, more akin to intimacy than a purely carnal act of passion.

Perhaps this is brushed aside; for many, it just isn’t their style, and that is completely fine. Casual hookups can be fun and freeing, exactly what is needed at a given time, and I am all for it. Nobody needs my permission, that is for certain, or should feel guilty for enjoying sex with no strings attached. If that is what works for you, keep doing your thing.

Furthermore, a lot of people just do not want relationships. Sex provides an escape from the everyday for many people, and that is a valid reason to seek it out. There is no space for the outside world between the sheets and shallow breaths of two lovers doing what lovers do, but when all is said and done, it is gone. The pillow on the floor and messed-up sheets stand as evidence of passion. Eventually, the bed gets made, and the memory fades, as with all things that are temporary. Some find enjoyment living in the temporary; however, I do not think that is the preferred human condition.

I think humans strive for two things. One is freedom; the second is meaningful, life-sustaining relationships. For a long time, I thought those two things were at odds; to have one, you would have to give up part of the other. I now see that view as misguided; you can have both and thrive within both. My principal mistake was viewing freedom as the absence of attachment when, in reality, the best relationships give you more room to grow into yourself, not less. The people we feel the most free around are usually the ones we never have to perform for.

And when I say “life-sustaining relationships,” I don’t mean only romantic or sexual ones. Connections with family, lifelong friends, and institutions, to name a few, can fill that same desire I speak of, but in this article I focus on romantic bonds because … it is the Sex Issue after all!

The main point I find in Ross’s song is this. Take away the sex, though obviously an important part of a romantic relationship, and what is left is the stuff that actually holds two people together. It is the late-night talks, the inside jokes, and everything in between that make a relationship. That is the foundation. Sex is the spark, but the everyday closeness keeps the fire going. Without it, all you have are flashes, moments that burn bright and then go dark.

Noah Basden ’29 (nhbasden@college.harvard.edu) doesn’t like writing for the Sex Issue … his parents read this!