Sex? Yes, sex. But which kind? Wild sex. Strange sex. College sex. Hook-up sex. Monogamous sex.
There is a whole galaxy of stars’ worth of different versions of copulation, and in each star’s core a unique gravity of meaning. It can be lascivious and sexy. Wrapped sweetly in that aroma of exercise-induced body odor, singularly pleasant in the context of sexual exertion. Musk and pheromones. Sweat and tears. Soft linen crumpled in an outstretched, manicured hand, clenched in orgasm. The stuff of well-written erotica: Anaïs Nin’s lewd dreams of sensuous, dionysian coupling. Y’know—diary fodder, fuel for reminiscent wet dreams.
Sometimes it can be fumbling and awkward, fingers struggling terribly with the bra’s clasps or chins knocked together painfully in a rushed kiss. Sometimes their breath can reek of ketones, but you’ve noticed it too late. Bloodstreams can be so saturated with the presence of cheap, grocery-store liquor that impotence is unavoidable. Still, you’re left with that pesky self-effacing worry that it was you who thwarted the arrival of erection and not, as they insist, the “whiskey dick.” You block their number, in shame—or the expectation of shame—before this stranger’s shoes have even lumbered out the door.
Sex can be wet; sex can be—god forbid—dry. In my humble experience, sex is usually gratifying. If at no other level, then at least physically. Euphoric fireworks bursting in showers of tinselly wonder behind your shut eyelids, gratifying. Tongue lolled salivating, whites of the eyes flashing, and incoherent mumbles vaguely attempting blasphemy if only your tongue were reattached. This is the sex we want, the sex we crave, reaching out clumsily into the world of sexual connection.
Then vs. now
It used to look like loading up on drinks and stealing a barstool next to someone blurrily attractive, hoping to hit it off and traipse back to one of your places. Strangers in a broad sense, but still bonded in the spontaneity of that sneaky, sulty night. If hooking up were an art, this would be its Baroque period; things took time, and beauty was the result of a detailed, laborious work. The kiss of a stranger was gilded with genuineness, the ornate surprise of dedicated craftsmanship.
Not that this doesn’t exist anymore, but this scenario is becoming increasingly antiquated as Generation Z discovers shortcuts: the advent of dating apps has largely circumvented young people’s approach to getting their rocks off. If this nascent form could be defined as art, I’d label it as “Splatter Painting” (no offense to Pollock). Throwing your fluids out onto the internet canvas, hoping it sticks. That whole barstool conversation—wondering if they like you and slamming shots until you’re convinced they might—has been replaced by virtual, impersonal messaging. At this point, why not just stick your dick in your iPad’s charging port, given the amount of human connection you’re actually interested in?
Most of the curious risk is totally evaded now by the fact that they’ve already matched with you, at least digitally. Wondering is obliterated, and the chase is executed. The sex is no longer the natural, kismet prize of a chance love, but rushed and artificial. Planned and orchestrated like a bad production of theatrical pornography.
Dating apps produce bad sex.
A Vignette of My Own Strange Sex
Tinder was where we made our humble acquaintance. The modern love story: I swiped right, miles away, huddled under my comforter. She swiped right, somewhere probably equally dark and secluded. Both of our profiles were self-categorized as “Looking for fun,” and one assumes that “fun” is polite for casual sex. Carefully, we probed each other via DM, bubbles with dots resembling the time it takes someone to think: sex chess.
I like to imagine she was also prostrate and kicking her feet, as I was. Compared to an actual conversation, one takes a noticeably longer amount of time to formulate a response via text. The luxury of distance allows us to prune our idiosyncrasies. We both liked Chet Baker. She began each of her sentences uncapitalized, and for whatever reason, this was a turn on: irreverent, aloof, hard-to-get. It made me feel small in a good way. My therapist, if we were still seeing each other, might turn up her nose at this reaction.
Instead of a laughing emoji, I used the cat laughing emoji. Hearts were returned. It is a truth of the dating app world that the correct selection of emoji will get you laid. These affinities established a sense of compatibility and safety between us, even warranted a meeting. She asked me, “wyd tn?” I bit my pillow and replied: “Not much, hbu?” An arrangement was made for her to come over. The ETA was thirty minutes. A mad dash was made for the shower, razor in hand.
The liminality of the doorstep
It never occurred to me that she could be a serial killer. She wasn’t, but for the amount of precaution we took to verify that, she very well could have been. Thinking back now, I could’ve been, too. But I’m not. Beyond the gore and psychotic bloodthirst, the lifestyle does not befit me. It seems to be very chore-heavy.
We met at my front door, which is an uncanny place to meet someone. For a second, you forget that you’ve technically met them already, and see them as what they are: a beautiful stranger approaching. I feel nervous, off guard. The context is barely more established than that of a solicitor. Or are we still just that—solicitors of our own desire? Her steps are nearing the proximity of verbal interaction. My heartbeat feels as loud as her boots on the pavement.
Immediate course of action is unclear: to let them in right away or to break the ice on the welcome mat. I have a disturbing fear that my first words will decide tonight’s success. “Hey!” we shout at each other. Jinx, we’re both awkward. At the speed of light, initial assessments are made: are we both true to the appearance of our online images? Does she notice that I’ve gained some weight since they were taken? Do we seem confident in the arrangement we’ve made? Is either one of us a serial killer?
Breaking the ice
I try to read her facial expressions for any sort of answer or a glaring sign of regret. She smiles casually. Our perfume and cologne collide in an embrace, so the charade continues. I don’t know what I am in this scene besides seedy. An internal board meeting commences. My hormone monster is presenting a cardboard graph detailing, in skyrocketing arrows, that my sex drive has been unsatisfied by unmet monthly quotas. He pounds the oval table and implores my superego to rise up to the occasion, or else face punitive measures from the disciplinary board. A rolodex of my faux-personalities is internally swiped through to address what should happen next. Perhaps politeness is the safest choice.
With a sweeping gesture, I assume the air of a butler chauffeuring her to some expected destination within. We make small talk about the interior decorations as we walk towards my room. Small talk is the only option while mobile. Painful and stuttering, but it’s not like we’ve sat down and gotten to know each other. This has the detached energy of some stroll stolen from the dark hallways of a red-light district, though the role of courtesan is shared.
Once we do take the opportunity to sit down on my couch and try our hand at humanity, the “vibes” are clear. Neither of us seems significantly interested in getting to know the other deeper than a “wyd tn” text implies. This is simply thawing to reach the temperature of sex. Sentences trail off without any follow-up clarification, eyes linger on lips, laughs ring out loudly at nothing particularly funny, and limbs fall on each other. As blood rushes away from my frontal lobe, my skepticism loses its ardor.
And diving headfirst
She initiates the first move. I eagerly accept. Any barriers of civility are knocked down in the deluge of saliva. Finally, the small talk is tossed away, and we no longer have to dance around the amorous elephant in the room. It seems we’re both eager to consume the other’s face; our kissing is inordinately hungry and deep. The display of passion feels like what one would expect between two long-time lovers at the height of their honeymoon, not acquaintances nimbly propped up by passing aesthetic attraction. Nothing of brain or soul in common, just the shared interest in flesh.
Clothes are shed.
Stumbling to the bed, throwing back the covers, we explore our terrain with more freedom. One’s body has several long hollows, places the hand might stop to solve in the dark, tempo-slowing places. We venture. My ancestors wag their bearded chins ruefully.
Maybe this is enough for other people to reach those peaks of sexual ecstasy, the sensation, the contact alone. Being allowed into the dungeon of one’s perverse desires, even if the portcullis was wide open. A tourist exploring a stranger’s body, head swiveling at the sheer foreignness of it. Personally, without an explicit understanding of my partner—unearthed during the legwork of time and familiarity—I tend to dissociate.
Call me mercurial, indecisive, a horned-up puritan. I’m ejected above as an apathetic viewer, a seething ghost of austerity, whilst my depraved nerve endings are screaming in pleasure. I’m lonely during the most unifying act in humankind. But I keep coming back, an addict for flesh. The guilt and self-hate don’t even wait for ejaculation to pour over me in waves. Sex with a stranger: I love it; I hate it.
Climax and its aftermath
We both reached climax, so I’m told. The mission is complete, the banner has been sprinted through. Some complimentary aftercare was performed, though more for appearances than for any actual inclination. We hope to disguise the blind hunger and transactional nature in soft, panting kisses. Hardly. The post-coital moments with an online hook-up are some of the saddest moments to exist in a bedroom. Words feel gauche. As our heartbeats settle down to their baseline and the itch is decidedly scratched, there is nothing to bind us anymore. If we could immediately melt back into those text bubbles, miles away and alone, we would.
If this is the experience you enjoy, please continue. Swipe away and fuck and be happy. I, however, am a hypocrite. Knowingly ignorant of what is good for me, perpetually discarding my qualms against
With these strangers, I crave more—something much deeper—but am too lazy and impatient to seek it out. I want to be seen and understood, and I mistake virtually arranged sex for a shortcut to those things. In the aftermath, when neither has been attained, the loneliness hurts doubly for having briefly masqueraded as connection. Aren’t I the fool? I find myself pinned in great pain within this schism between body and heart. My short-term urges always seem to forget what the rest of me remembers.
The virtual bypass
To bring it back around in a rudimentary fashion, let’s call this sex “No-strings-attached sex.” My big perverted thesis is that sex is better with a couple of those strings developed—relational harnesses, let’s say. This relies on the supposition that sex, the pinnacle of romantic intimacy, has a quality-dependent relationship to emotional compatibility. Strangers can’t fuck each other as well as friends or partners can. When you moan, I want to be able to knowingly contrast its crescendoing notes to the way you blandly describe doing laundry. And dating app sex amplifies this problem.
My next clause is that the way people meet each other on dating apps—more specifically in the context of “hooking up”—doesn’t allow for any of these relational harnesses to develop. At least from the scene of a bar, sex is premeditated by an in-person conversation that requires one to unveil a portion of themselves that isn’t already shaded by the nonchalance of the consumerist expectation. Online, we are inherently unattached to the other’s identity, homing in on the floating junk. This is because the anxiety of finding sex has been removed. The route itself has been expedited artificially. A beautiful stranger is turned into one of a million options, pixels of people marketed as goods.
Chuck the hone
Tinder curates sex for the consumer and serves it on a buffet conveyor belt. When two people “looking for fun” match with each other, sex becomes the given expectation rather than the reward of a naturally built structure raised in the exciting ambiguity of not knowing. This form works well with the sense of impulsivity that often accompanies sexual desire. One wants it when they want it, as quickly as possible. Sex is arranged as easily as a pizza delivery. But, as true as it is with other facets of life, quality benefits from effort.
This is the part where I advise a call to action bolstered by my own. If it’s any consolation, I’ve deleted the apps and have reverted to the palaeolithic ways of meeting someone beyond the confines of a 6″x6″ glass screen; “Hello there, my name is…”
It’s wondrous. Talking, wondering, butterflies doing pirouettes in the stomach—cute stuff. I think I’ve even started to blush again. First dates and reaching for her hand as the sun sets, sharing a laugh about whose palm is sweatier. Holding in your flatulence until you know her mother’s maiden name. Allow your heart to race, face the fear of rejection. Then give it a kiss. Sex will be so much sweeter if it comes in the form of an answered prayer. It will take some easing into. A word to the wise: do not swipe on someone’s face in real life. Run amok and find something you can sink the teeth of your soul into.
