Although sexual sharing clearly need not flow from love—indeed, it can just as easily be motivated by hatred or the desire to feel powerful or attractive—it is only through an act of deadening oneself to one’s feelings to some degree that one can fail to experience any emotional consequence of a sexual encounter. The payoff of deadening one’s feelings, of course, is immediate gratification of a powerful, instinctive urge with no further thought needed. The cost of deadening one’s feelings is a diminished capacity to feel anything and a consequent difficulty initiating and maintaining intimate relationships that require one to be in touch with one’s own and one’s partner’s feelings. This fact should give pause to those who indicate in their dating profiles that they are seeking a long-term relationship but are willing to hook up or play around in the meantime. When you habitually deaden your feelings to treat the intimate sex act as something casual, you create an emotional habit that in time becomes a personality style that may be impossible to turn on or off at will. Those who claim they are not interested in long-term relationships often have been so damaged emotionally already by loveless, “casual” encounters and disappointments in love, that they simply stop trying and convince themselves that they don’t really need anyone special. Being unwilling or unable to love certainly is a curse in my book, and Freud considered this a key symptom of mental illness. (“Zu lieben und zu arbeiten,” “To love and to work,” was Freud’s definition of mental health.) In a culture that glorifies casual sex, as popular gay culture does, it should not surprise us to find some form(s) of mental illness normative.I would say this was one of those, "Barry, you're sleeping around too much these days!" emails I occasionally get from friends/acquaintances that I ignore, but it came from someone that... well, let's just say they don't come from a place to judge me nor my behaviors. :-) Regardless, it's worth a thought, and I am, as always, curious as to your thoughts.
A lot rings personally true in this article, but I'm not sure how much I wish to disclose, so I'll just let y'all talk.
